Escape Velocity 2018

Back for its second year! Play Steve Jackson’s classic game of science fiction warfare on a scale map of Washington DC.

In the 22nd century, the world is at war.

Jet-pack-equipped, battlesuit-armored infantry launch shoulder-fired nukes, combat hovercraft skim the ground at 150 kph, while semi-autonomous tanks loose tac-nuke smartshells from electromagnetic cannons.

And the most powerful weapon of all has no human crew – the battlefield is ruled by gigantic sentient cybertanks called ‘Ogres’.

The year is now 2115. The world’s great empires are destroyed. After a twenty-year war with the Paneuropean Federation, the North American Combine has shattered into a thousand competing factions – The Factory States, ruled not by humans, but by Artificial Intelligences, some benevolent, some not.

Now, the last of the emergency power reactors has failed, and the automated defenses surrounding the former Combine Eastern Regional Capitol are clear. The long-abandoned city lies ripe for plunder. Six competing Factory States now send their forces to loot and burn Washington, D.C.

Order your tanks to roll up Route 66! Nuke the Wilson Bridge! Reduce your office building to radioactive rubble!

No rules familiarity required; all materials provided.