Gaslands at Hereward 2026

We knew from watching the various online Gaslands communities, that most players don’t use all of the rules available n the core game. Many players don’t use factions and perks for example. With this in mind I wanted to create a simple gaming experience that would showcase all of the features in the game system in one taster.

The scenario

The plan was to create a really simple scenario where players entered a small arena with the sole objective of scoring a single audience vote using their factions special ability and then exiting the arena. This would allow platers to ‘complete’ the objective and play with the games core features (skid dice, movement templates, perks, weapons) in about 30 minutes and then either move on or try another faction.

The only rules we modified from the base game were:

1. 1. 1. We decided to run the gear phases 2,3 and 4 on a loop, skipping phases 1, 5 and 6, so that we didn’t have players with cars like heavy trucks sitting around while players with performance cars continue to play the game. This sort of dead time could be really tiresome for players wanting to demo a game.

      2. We implemented the modified Wipeout rules from Mike’s blog, meaning that Wiped out vehicles can change to gear 1,2 or 3 as they want, for the same reason to avoid players getting stuck in a dead zone while they wait to get back into the demo.

We planned a small 2 foot diameter circular play space with an entry and exit gate and an obstruction in the centre, so that players would need to manoeuvre around it using the various movement templates within the game.

Building and painting the arena from transport containers was an easy and quick solution which gave us time to focus on the cars.

The lists

Rather ambitiously, we decided to create single car lists for every faction in Gaslands Refuelled to showcase the factions fully.

The first step was creating Team rosters. We theory crafted various ideas and settled on a template of 36 cans to build the rosters from. These car builds only had one purpose, score an Audience vote using your factions special ability as quickly as possible. For some teams, e.g. Maxxine, this is not possible with a single vehicle so for those we stretched the 36 cans over two or more vehicles.

The cars

With the lists created we then had to create the cars. David and I got together over about 4 or 5 evenings to scratch build and paint a great little selection of cars to fit our rosters. This was an incredibly satisfying and fun process.

One thing worth mentioning is how useful paint pens were in this project. David bought some AK paint pens locally and they were really useful on both the cars and the mdf templates. The broad tips were perfect for quickly painting car bodies, tires and other large details. Worth a try if you have vehicles to paint.

The show

The show went really well and engagement was great. My concerns that our premise was too simple was unfounded as it is surprising how much time is spent coaching new players on the basics.

A few things that didn’t work as well were:

1. 1. 1. The feedback I got was that the font I used for the rosters were difficult to read for some people.

      2. I should have highlighted the Audience Vote scoring mechanic on each roster more clearly, either placing it at the top of the roster or using a highlight colour.

I was really pleased with our team rosters and how they worked and for those who want to see under the bonnet I have pictures of the rosters and cars below.

We tried to pimp the experience out as much as possible for participants by creating templates for the event.

The Gaslands movement templates were created for me by a guy at my local club with an mdf laser cutter,

David and I printed and painted 3d templates for the weapon systems like smoke, mines etc from various free online creators.

I used laser decal paper and blank dice to create skid dice for participants which worked really well.

I cannot overemphasise how grateful I was to David (cookiesk8r) for his collaboration on this project and I could not have achieved half of what was done without his help.

If you haven’t done so yet, I would recommend trying this game as it has an incredible amount to explore in what is essentially a single rulebook purchase.