Ladies and Gentlemen! Load your guns and start your engines! The Apocalypse Road Beckons!

You´ve seen your Thunder Alley buddies link up with the other lane, and thereby leaving your car alone, activated and ultimately lapped in turn 1 on Saint Adriana. Your words “…but we had a deal…” seemingly lost to your buddies.

You´ve seen your Grand Prix buddies move the entire field past you with NPCs and conditional linking and thereby ending all your hopes of a podium on Vasal Towers. Your words “…but why go after me, I wasn´t even leading…” seemingly lost to your buddies.

What can you do?

Well, you can dust off your finest machine gun, mount it on a turret, oil the old V8 and with that shiny chrome bullbar securely attached to your car, and take it all out on your Apocalypse Road buddies. Their words “..but why shoot me, I wasn´t…” seemingly lost to you as your grudge is satisfied.

Welcome to the racetracks of the post-apocalyptic Thunderverse. Where engines roar, bullets fly and women, men, and machines go KABOOM! And a lone burning wheel will roll into the ditch as a stark reminder of the destruction.

This report will tell the story of the “7.62 MM Full Metal Jacket Derby” held at Black Widow Hollow where 4 teams met to race, shoot, hopefully survive and then win.

Apocalypse Road allows you to chose 5 out of the 8 cars available to you on your team. All teams have the same cars, because of reasons Jeff has explained earlier, but there are choices to make when deciding which cars to start with.

Speed? Weapons? Defense? What will you choose?

The Deadbeats (Purple)

Defensive capabilities take precedence here. They go with the “2” and “3” defense cars, because if we can stay alive, we can score points. The downside is 4 out of 5 cars can only fire forward.

Hazelton Mountaineers (Blue)

Two cars with “3”defense and two cars with high movement points and the last car with a Targeting computer. Some to cross the finishline and some to fight.

Gelato Division (Black)

Three cars with high MP’s and two with few MP’s. Ad79 is amongst the starting cars by default. The Gelato Division will slide out of harms way and onto the top step of the podium.

Baguette Bakers (Red)

Speed is king, all else is secondary. The slow cars with high defense are kept in reserve. This team will go all out with the NOS engaged form the start it seems.

The Grid

“The sun is up and scorching the sand here at Black Widow Hollow. You can even see the glare in the ground itself! SPT have taken pole position and the Baguette Bakers will be first to activate. Will they shoot or put the pedal to the medal?”

Tori Murdock(TOR) flicks her machine gun turret to the side and let loose in the general direction of Gelato Divisions 3 car, but the bullets whizz by overhead as the wheels of TOR starts spinning and the race is on. She pushes the line in front of her clear of the grid before breaking of diagonally to bring her teammate with her into the lead.  As the Baguette Bakers motto for this race is “Speed is king” this is exactly as predicted. Can the other teams put an end to the whirlwind speeds of the Bakers?

The Fearless Jarl (444) of The Deadbeats charges his Turreted Auto Cannon, lines it up perfectly and peppers the Black 79 car and deals the first two Damage of the race to that car. First blood has been drawn, and the Gelato Division seems to be the preferred target today. Line Movement takes The Fearless Jarl forward after his shot.

Jean Luc “Frankenstein” Sinard of the Hazelton Moutaineers revs his car from the second spot on the grid and takes a lot of cars into the dirt and with a +6 Lead movement card his 8 in basespeed takes him far. At that speed his is unable to aim properly and misses his hot.

Ad79, still the only car with damage, nurtures his two teammates following behind into the dirt section and discovers that his scope is probably part of what received the damage because his gun seems to be out of position and unavailable for firing this turn. Those blasted bad move events.

After every team has done one activation, the Black 79 car is still the only one to pick up damage and the Deadbeats will have to play catchup with two cars left adrift. They said they were here to stay alive and have chosen cars with low movement and high defense. Was that a good choice? Only time will tell.

Baguette Bakers car number 15 (which you can name in your honor by contacting Jeff) moves next and takes most of the Baguette team clear of the Dirt and jump section and leaves The Deadbeats further behind. Will Speed beat defense, and will the Mountaineers and the Gelatos even be a factor?

Darrell Janzen, also known as “The Migraine” has been nurturing that at the starting line so far and as the backmarker does a good job of putting the Deadbeats in contact with the other racers. As he follows in the draft of his teammates, he wisely opts out of firing his machine gun.

Little damage has been dealt so far and the Hazelton Moutaineers  with their incognito car 78 decides to do something about it. 78 arms his missile launcher, inches 5 MP’s forward and let loose a rocket aimed squarely at Deadbeats car 811. This rocket ain’t gonna help with “The Migraine” already felt by Darrel.

The “2” on the attack card is enough to get past the defense of “2” and as such 4 damage will have to be shouldered by “The Migraine”. With only 2 left before he is dead, the 811 car will now be a marked target, an elimination point ready for harvesting. Luckily for him, he is almost at the back of the field and as such isn’t an easy target, but Soonsin Lee(J96) will surely be looking for him when his activation comes up.

Dasher Carsten, the swift German of The Gelato Division deals a lone damage in the direction of the Mountaineers, before a clever sideways move and then a floored pedal shatters the field and puts the entire Gelato Division out in front and close to the finishline. The Gelato Division is looking strong as of this moment.

No points have been scored yet, no car has been destroyed, the field has been split, the race is very much on and the Baguette Bakers needs to decide what to do next.

Articles in this Series: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4

Author: Stig Morten Breiland