Thunder Alley Published

Sounds like you had a very different experience. I was on the oval with the bend in one side -- Saint Somebody. It may have just been a shorter track, and only calls for two laps.

S.

We raced the Pyramid one (I forget the name, but it starts with P).

Saint Somebody = Talledega or Daytona

Pyramid = Pocono

The road course = Watkins Glen

The last one is Bristol I think.

I finished the game and both red and green establishing two conga lines of five each, though green dropped off a car late in lap 2. Four turns total to get around Saint Somebody with room to spare, though the cars were plenty torn up.

Once red managed to crack open some space green just could catch up to break up the set. It didn't hurt that red got sets of cards showing three drafts, one pursuit, and one lead on each of two consecutive turns. That more or less meant 20-25 spaces each turn. Green wasn't quite as lucky but didn't do too bad. They couldn't catch that red set though, and in spite of limping across the finish line only two cards pitted, only one of which was by choice.

Definitely euroesque in spite of the theme. Good game on first play, I'd much rather see how it works with four or five players where I think it would be far more interesting. You'll need to work yourself into positions where someone else is more or less required to take you along for the ride.

S.

Got a second game in tonight. Interesting. My one son got pissed at the yellow flag. I think that's one of the more interesting parts.

All luck-then-decision in this one. May not go the distance. Seems very good, but not my kind of thing.

S.

Didn't seem that luck-driven to me, outside of the you need to work with the cards you draw. I think you could pare down the event deck if you wanted. We pulled one of the Rain cards out because a red flag ending isn't very interesting when people are learning.

How does this compare to McGartlin's Stock Car Championship Racing Card Game? Anyone played both care to comment? (

(Speaking of which, I'm tired of Stock Car Championship being on my "un-@#$@#$-played in nearly a decade" list, so I'll be bringing it and some micromachines to WBC this year. I'll also be bringing beer, which will be used to sucker some of you to the table and convince you to play... Prior to consuming beer, I will re-learn how to play the game and, possibly prior to consuming beer, I shall endeavor to teach any suckers still stuck at the table...)

I'm in

Just wanted to update my take on the game with another session in. This one's going to be in the keeper pile, in spite of its heft. Seriously, carrying this on game night requires a commitment. It's the size and weight of C&C Ancients. I was on the fence on this one after two plays, but I'm coming around on it.

What I'm taking away from it is that the game moves. Turns roll by and if you work your positioning correctly you can catch rides from your opponents that make a big difference in your position even when it's not your turn. The result is that there's the metagame going on all the time where you're making recommendations to opponents that help you, and maybe even cutting deals with them that benefit you both. One group of cars will get out ahead and break open space and you'll figure you're toast, but teaming up four cars to catch three is remarkably effective, and palatable to all involved save the guy commanding the front pack.

To a large extent I think this game is a great example of "coopetition", a bullshit word that I generally hate to use but I think that's because it generally isn't used correctly. There's nothing about this game that is cooperative on its face, but the rules allow you to build temporary alliances to work for a common cause. If anyone's ever read up on Dale Earnhart's driving philosophy you'll recognize how similar it is to real life NASCAR.

It also allows the lead player to mess your stuff up with a carefully used Lead card, breaking a cooperating line into two or even three pieces to screw up the draft. At first this looked troublesome, but now I'm seeing how doggone useful that can be when you use it right.

S.

This sounds a bit like bicycle racing, with the temporary alliances and emerging packs chasing down leaders. I saw Carla Horger as the designer on CSI and wondered for a minute if another designer had decided to quit playing El Grande.