The Sanctioned Operative: Dark Future in the Gaslands.

Gaslands is a recent Osprey ‘blue book’ about autovehicular combat. There is more to be said of it at a later date, but for now here is the first car to be completed (after a fashion) of this particular Warrior of Text-Tarmac: The ‘Nola Gay, vehicle of choice of the Sanctioned Operative Redd Harvest, from the GW board-game of Road Combat, Dark Future, rolling straight out of  1995 via 1988.

Shiny and (sort of) Chrome, the ‘Nola Gay, ready to roll, so long as Redd wears goggles.

The original specs from White Dwarf 104

The studio version, absent it’s chaingun, but with a windshield, from White Dwarf 105

Edit: After some consultation on the Gaslands Facebook page, fellow driver Jon Sprow suggested the following:

‘Gaslands, instead of assigning hardpoints and such, gives each vehicle an allotment of “build slots” to fit weapons into. The problem is that a performance car, and a regular car for that matter, are given 2 build slots; you don’t see 3 slots until you get into pickup trucks and the like. This is compounded by the fact that rockets, in Gaslands, take up 2 build slots all by themselves, due to being extremely powerful.

So, even if you were to consolidate the two rocket pods into one, 3-4 ammo Rocket Launcher on the statblock, you still wouldn’t have room for the chaingun, which I would say translates to a Heavy Machine Gun in Gaslands terms (bigger than a machine gun, smaller than a minigun).

While you could sub in another, slightly lighter weapon to represent the rocket pods, like mortars, and have room for the chaingun/HMG, what you also run into is a lack of gunners. In GL, you assign a crew member to a weapon in order to fire it, and in a one-crew performance car, having two weapons means picking which one to shoot each turn. It might be more economic to simply arm the performance car with rockets, which do more damage than either of those two, and say the chaingun in the front is just for show.’

He goes on to offer up a couple of potential Sanctioned Operative-style ‘bounty hunter’ builds:

LOADOUT 1:

Sponsored by Rutherford (military styled sponsor)

Performance Car – 15pts

Rockets – 6pts

Perk: Headshot – 4pts (6’s/crits deal 3 hits instead of 2)

25 cans total

‘Built with offense in mind, it drives fast and hits hard. The effectiveness of rockets cannot be overstated: if the damage doesn’t kill em, the hazard tokens from the damage, and the resulting wipeouts or flips, just might. Rutherford cars get audience votes for causing 6 or more hits in one volley, which is tough with only one weapon, but Headshot helps even the odds.’ 

LOADOUT 2:

Sponsored by Idris (speed-freak sponsor)

Performance Car – 15pts

Minigun – 6pts

Nitro Booster – 3pts

Perk: Hot Start

25 cans total

‘This one is built for speed. Hot Start means you come off the starting line in a random gear (1-6), while everyone else is in first, and the nitro just about ensures you leave the pack in the dust before the first checkpoint. And if someone does manage to pull in front of you, well, turns out the Dark Future chaingun was what this game considers a minigun. Hose ’em off and overtake!’

NO, YOU HAVE A LONGER PROBLEM

If anyone knows where to source a windshield, please make contact.

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