In this series of guest articles, Gaslands developer Glenn Ford provides some list-building and tactical advice for getting the most out of each sponsor in the Death Race scenario. This week: Slime.
Example Team:
- Car with Side-mounted Ram, Smoke and the Overload perk (19 Cans)
- Car with Side-mounted Ram, Smoke and the Overload perk (19 Cans)
- Buggy with Armour Plating, Smoke and the Overload perk (12 Cans)
Playing a Slime team can be a strange experience for a veteran Gaslands player. Every player has a start-line pile-up on game one, until they learn to avoid it and race like a pro. Slime says: pile-up, but pile-up my way.
If you can engineer a pile-up in gear phase one, such that you have more hazards than hull points, you can use the Audience Vote gained from “Live Fast” to shift up before you activate in gear phase two, and you’ll likely be the only one moving.
Slime never avoids a cluster and never avoids the crowded line. So long as everyone has a healthy serving of hazard tokens and no-one gets too smooth a ride, you’ll ultimately come out on top.
“Pinball” is the Slime skill shot. “Overload” gives you the skids dice you need to shoot for it, since a side-swipe is pretty much impossible without a spin or a slide. “Pinball” is side-swipe only, (a T-Bone doesn’t trigger it), so if a front corner of a car is involved then “Pinball” doesn’t trigger (thanks to the Rule Of Carnage).
When attempting to pull off “Pinball”, remember that you pivot about the centre point of your vehicle in a spin, effectively throwing out your back-end. A slide is a spectacular way to pinball, but very tricky to pull off. It’s much easier to pull level or just ahead of a vehicle, spin, clip it with the truck of your car and pop-off ahead with your bonus movement step. Although, keep in mind that you are safest in a pack, one you break away you are racing basic, so be sure to do it when you can leave them wiping-out behind you, and then drop the smoke to cover your getaway!
The Side Ram allow you to do damage and avoid hazards when pinballing. You may wonder why you’d want to be avoiding hazards, given “Live Fast”. The answer is that you need to slide or spin AND shift-up on a “Pinball”, probably Pushing It for a re-roll, for about three hazard, plus the two you’re going to get for the side-swipe collision. If you want to “Pinball” twice in an activation (and why would you not) without wiping out, the side ram means that with some skill and a chunk of luck you can sustain five hazards, four hull and ricochet your way to some spectacular mosh play.
Lastly, without the armour plating on the buggy it will tend to get wrecked somewhere between its hull going down and its hazards coming up enough to “Live Fast”.
I hope this gives you a taste of how to maximise Slime’s madcap and head-banging racing style. Check back next week for another Sponsor Spotlight, and in the meantime: buy official Gaslands accessories!