HAWK’s members Buck Surdu and Chris Palmer ran a fantastic “GASLIGHT Undersea Extravaganza” on Saturday night. The game was imaginative, beautiful and most importantly…fun! These two guys wrote the rules, and it’s always special to play in game run by the authors! Here is a description of the game:

Sunken treasure, Victorian adventurers in hard diving suits, small submersibles, undersea creatures, and mystery come together in this wild and wooly game. Using the popular “G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T” rules, this game is suitable for younger gamers accompanied by a playing adult, as well as experienced ones. It’s going to be more fun than a barrel of sea monkeys! Presented in 28mm by HAWK’s members Buck Surdu and Chris Palmer.

I played in this game and it lived up to and exceeded the game description. The undersea terrain was excellent and quite creative and definitely evocative of “10,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. The game even featured a crashed Nautilus at the center of the table. You could tell that Buck and Chris had put a lot of time and energy into building, collecting and painting all of the vehicles, terrain and figures in the game.

This was my first time playing the rules and I was impressed how “GASLIGHT” and the “Gaslight Compendium” encouraged gamers to build vehicles and equipment from scratch using only their imaginations and everyday items. What a great resource! The rules were everything that I look for in late night convention game …… simple, fast and furious. I thought the game would be fun for my kids, so we all played and it is a testament to the rules that three boys, 12, 8, and 6 (with some help from Dad) played in the game and had a blast. It was definitely the highlight of the convention for them. I applaud Buck and Chris for running a kid friendly game and helping to slow down the “graying of the hobby”.

Some of my “hard core historical” friends that played in the game and were really impressed with the rules… of course they want to use them for the Boer War, but that’s another story! We liked them so much that I know 2-3 of us are looking to purchase the rules and start panting some troops and playing!

The scenario played as a skirmish style game  with several factions competing for resources and conflicting victory conditions. It was fast moving, with each unit represented by a card. Buck would flip over the cards fairly rapidly and call out the unit to move. It kept everybody engaged and moving their troops. Things only slowed down momentarily for shooting and melee, but the game uses simple and quick mechanics, so it kept things moving along pretty well. We played from 8pm to about 11pm when Buck and Chris called the game and reviewed the victory conditions for each faction. My faction didn’t win but it was a glorious, and fun defeat!

Thanks for running the game guys! It was definitely a  highlight of Nashcon 2014. We hope the HAWK’s will be back soon!

Here is a link to the game on Chris Palmer’s blog: http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/2014/05/gaslight-undersea-extravaganza-game.html

Good Gaming – Cory

Chris (left) and Buck with their CigarBoxBattle Nashcon Award for Superior Game Presentation. Congrats guys!

The battle – total chaos!

Lots of custom made subs, a destroyed walker and bubble city off in the right corner.

Young and old had a blast in this game!

The fishmen being pursued by the pygmies! The fishmen were trying to move the treasure from the sunken ship.

A custom made sea-walker, with an aquarium temple in the background.

An Atlantean hero riding a giant ray!

Subs made from old computer parts!

My command – the grey divers, octo-diver and a sub made from an old mouse.

The walker was destroyed by the giant octopus….it was horrific!

A bloody melee for control of the looted treasure.

Victorian Coolness!

Moving out!