It’s a long weekend here in Canada (Victoria Day) and we’ve
been very busy with… well… lots of stuff. Amanda was away for almost two
weeks and was busy on a couple other weekends before and after she was away and so this
is the first time in a while that we were all around and didn’t have
anything scheduled – so I was hoping we’d get in a bit of GAMING! Unfortunately
it doesn’t look like we’re going to get QUITE as much gaming in over the
weekend as I’d originally anticipated… and I’m not sure we’re going to get to
play all (or even ANY) of the games I’d originally hoped to play (
Pax
Renaissance or
Neanderthal
and/or
Agricola
and/or
Nations).
But when it looked like we were running out of afternoon and no one was
interested in playing a heavier game – I did manage to convince them to play a
quick game of
Faustus
Furious.
For those not aware
Faustus
Furious is a fun, fast-playing game of ancient chariot racing by Nic
Wright (author of
Song
of Shadows and Dust - my favourite iteration of the SOBH game engine - and other games), which I have adapted for JET BIKE
racing and dubbed Faustus Furius: 3000 (or FF3K). Finnegan and I played a game
a few months back with motor bikes (we called it
Faustus
Furius MMLIII).
I backed the
Ramshackle
Games Jet
Bike Construction Kit Kickstarter specifically to play with using this game. I’m
planning on running a big demonstration game at
ToonCon in the fall (15 weeks to go… 15 jet bikes
to build… and some new terrain!). Ever since I finished off the
First
Jet Bike from the Kickstarter construction kits completed I’ve been
itching to play a game!
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
The Course I set up for them.
The Course from the other end.
End of Turn One – almost - they
all shot forward. The Girl’s bike (in the middle) was the last to go, and she
had a spare action so she attacked Amanda’s bike – and succeeded….
but the Out of Control result was
a panicked burst of speed, which shot Amanda’s bike further ahead!
Turn Two – Finnegan going last.
This time Finnegan attacked
Amanda’s bike
And again she shot forward in a
panicked burst of speed!
Turn Three – looking a little
tight as they try to take that first bend!
Miraculously Amanda maneuvered
and didn’t crash into The Girl’s bike!
ZWAAARRRrrrrrrooooooowm!
(I have no idea if that’s an
appropriate Jet Bike sound effect – there lots of Jet Bike sound effects used
during the game – and some that sounded like screeching tires in the
corners…!?)
Finnegan’s bike coming into that
first corner.
The Girl’s were kind of pulling
away from him at this point.
He has a terrible bit of bad luck
on the next turn and rolled THREE FAILURES! This angered the crowd and some
hooligans spilled out into the street to hurl insults… and bricks… and
generally get in the way!
Luckily the turn before he’d
maneuvered into a position that allowed him to do his mandatory straight ahead
move and NOT CRASH – which was tricky in this tight turn at the far end of the
course!
The Girl peels away from the
pack!
ZzzzzzOOOM! She got quite a bit
of a lead there for a bit.
Amanda got up close enough to
attack The Girl’s bike sending her careening off to the left! Things looked
dire at this point!
But The Girl rolled a pile of
successes the next turn and managed to maneuver out of it!?
Just about the end of the first
lap (I’d lost track of how many turns this was) and The Girl was in a pretty
commanding lead!!
Just another shot of that
incredible lead she had….
…before her bike crashed into a
building just as she finished her first lap!?
This gave Amanda and Finnegan a
bit of a chance to catch up!
Amanda got around the bend, but
then rolled three failures and another crowd of Hooligans poured into the
street!
She rolled not-so-many dice the
next turn – but that lead to no successes/action and she crashed into a wall!
Amanda was not entirely
enthusiastic about this turn of luck.
(There might have been a dollar
added to the swear jar at this point)
Finnegan’s jet bike sailing past
the wrecks of the two girls’ bikes!
The Girl had about four turns of
only rolling one success (two are needed to get a crashed bike up and going
again!) - but finally got her bike sorted out and back in the race!
Finnegan now had a pretty
commanding lead – but he was having to round this corner – now with two fatigue
dice and a group of angry hooligans blocking the way. Then Keira rolled Three
Failures – at this point Finnegan had the option of having ANOTHER group of
Hooligans surge onto the streets within 1 Medium range stick of The Girls bike
OR move one group already on the streets! He chose the latter!
But he still didn’t get enough
actions to take the corner… and crashed!
The Girls catching up!
Getting closer!
Finnegan’s rider was a bit
quicker at getting his bike righted however, and got it up and shot off down
the street before either of the others passed him!
ZWAAArrrrrrrmmmm!
(It looks like Amanda’s caught
up to him… but Finnegan hadn’t moved that turn…)
SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!!
(It looks like they’re neck and
neck, screaming down the final stretch, but again, Finngean had yet to move
that turn)
The Girl still trying to catch
up, but taking the corner a little too slow.
Into the final stretch!
Finnegan shot ahead – just shy
of the finish line.
On the next turn he just slid
across and there was no way Amanda or The Girl could catch him – He didn’t even
need to roll – his single mandatory forward move would have carried him across
– but he rolled anyway and I think he actually rolled THREE SUCCESSES!
I think we played it out in
about an hour – fast game – lots of fun – can’t wait to try it with MORE bikes!
There was lots of excitement and a pretty huge upet – The Girl looked like she
has an unstoppable lead… and then crashed because she couldn’t quite make a
turn – Finnegan went from dead last to in the lead – then crashed himself – but
got going again just before the others caught up to him and kept that lead for
the rest of the final lap!!
It’ll be interesting to try it
with different bikes. Not sure if I will allow different bikes in the
ToonCon game – might just
keep them all the same for simplicity’s sake.
Looking forward to a lot more
practice/play-testing over the summer!
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
After that…?
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