Let's talk: Post-apocalyptic automobile combat

I threadjacked the Star Wars Miniatures thread with a question: What if there were a version of Car Wars that was collectible and as fun as Star Wars miniatures?

Superfly Pete and others provided some excellent responses:

SuperflyTNT wrote:

craniac wrote: I wish someone would come up with a Car Wars game with the playability and collectability of the Star Wars mini game. You could have weapons you could pop onto the little cars. Burning wreckage markers. And rules that didn't bloat up like a dead cow in the desert sun.

This exists, sort of, but without the collectible aspect because you need to build them out of the box, or buy them from certain vendors and spruce them up yourself. Seriously, though, there's a LOT of post-apoc car games out there, some of which rock and some of which suck, like anything else. I love Wastelands 3: Meltdown myself...I think it's actually the best miniatures game ever made: s1.zetaboards.com/Post_Apoc_Wargames/topic/4759552/1/
The car rules begin on page 30. I actually had this printed and bound.

Warlands is OK. Well, to be fair, better than OK, but just a little on the tedious side but not too bad. They sell their own car line:

Nuclear Renaissance is really great with a strong focus on car combat. Still not the best, but good. They also sell some cars (or bikes, rather):

Axles and Alloys is a decent, simple, fast, pretty good car game. Played it once with hot wheels. Worked pretty well, and it's SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE.
www.wolfegames.com/AxlesAndAlloys/AxlesAndAlloys.htm

Two Hour game out with Machinas, which I've never played, but it's 100% car battle shit. Supposed to be fast.
www.twohourwargames.com/maderainwa.html

And of course, OUTRIDER, which I reviewed. No cars for sale, but the rules are tight and it's absolutely the simplest/but/effective-est car game I've played:
superflycircus.com/2014/11/outrider-ks-p...nd-johnny-lightning/

If you lived closer, or wanted to pay for shipping, I'd send you Outrider for free. I think I still have it..?

Another choice is Combat Zone. It's a very clean, simple system, but again, you're making your own shit:
www.combatzonechronicles.net/cozo2/xcars.htm (Rules for cars)
combatzonechronicles.net/cozo8/auto.htm (Simplified version from above)

Road Rage exists, haven't played, only read about it.
www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/Road%20Rage%20Rules.htm
(Stan sells bad ass cars, which is how I know about it)

charlest wrote: I was actually working on a car combat game inspired by X-Wing last year but gave up as the prospects of getting such a game published seems impossible.

Used maneuver templates but you set your speed and movement direction (left/right/straight) as opposed to a dial with all of the maneuvers. You could only increase speed by 1 each turn but you could drop it as much as you'd like.

Instead of specific upgrade slots cars had a number of generic hard points which allowed them to mount auxiliary weapons. All cars had default weapons (MGs) firing out front arc.

Each car also had a specific crew value as well, which allowed you to buy a certain number of crew upgrades too.

So you could buy an auxiliary mine layer which took up 1 hard point. Or a mounted .30-Cal on the roof that took up 1 hard point and 1 crew. Also could buy a passenger that could fire out the window for cheap and take up 1 crew slot. Even had a guy who could throw Molotov cocktails/explosives from the backseat.

You could perform one action before or after you move instead of just after. Instead of stress you basically had to perform a handling test if you took a risky maneuver. You could give up your action to automatically pass the test.

Defense was based on the speed and size of the car so it incentivized you to drive fast to avoid taking hits. Armor of course helps absorb damage.

Didn't have the damage system all the way worked out because I was trying to differentiate it from X-Wing. Definitely need a deck with named effects but wanted to interact with it slightly differently than just generating some critical hits.

I am eagerly awaiting for the new Car Wars edition because it's a mechanically tight, thematic game burdened with all the usual jank games had in the late 80s. You know the drill: Lots of poorly tested variant rules, dumb expansions that you are not going to play, ten different variations of the same weapon and even RPG support, because a game of this lethality is apparently a great choice for a roleplaying campaign.

Really, the big problem I have with Car Wars is not how it plays, but simply the huge amount of editing effort I have to put in just to be able to play it.

So you're hoping the new Car Wars isn't as bloated? Me too.

The miniatures line that SuperMcFly Pete McCircus linked to above also has Jihad Iraqi miniatures.

www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/



I'm not sure how I feel about recreating Middle East conflicts using cartoonish miniatures, just because half the boys I'm teaching are from Syria and they seem like real people to me, albeit a little overly obsessed with street racing and they tend to drop the N-bomb inappropriately.

On the other hand, there are insurgents in Iraq killing people. Maybe he should rename the line, "ISIS insurgents" which would sort of bulletproof him from criticism--not that he cares, or should, really.

Then I saw the Toyota Hilux with a gun mount.



So many Hilux's out here. At first it looked like it was for one of the road warrior games, and I got all excited, then I realized it was from the Iraqi collection and felt the sweet embrace of my liberal, Mormon guilt.

tl;dr : 1) it's cool to play games with mutants in armed vehicles that blow each other up, 2) It's probably really fun to play the exact same game with insurgent minis, but would make me feel queasy, and 3) I am a huge hypocrite, almost all the time.

I am approaching my 50th birthday. I hope that's not too old to play with armed hot wheel cars.

I am approaching my 50th birthday. I hope that's not too old to play with armed hot wheel cars.

I hope not since I'm past the 5 oh mark already

If you want I can email the rules file for Axle Tribes which is a game system my buddy and I slapped together over the course of a few weekends that earned me designer credits on BGG.

The whole goal of the game was to make a cheap miniatures game so if you have a miniatures bitz box and Hot Wheels (or Matchbox if that's your brand of choice) and a printer you had a cheap miniatures game.

Well, you ass hats are creating desires in my that I didn't know I had. I was talking with the good Doc the other day about getting some kind of kick ass racing game with combat in it... he said he'd been trying to get a copy of rush n crush which sounds cool enough. Car Wars sounds cool too though (I LOVE those Jihad Iraqi mini's... that's right up my alley... no queasiness for me). I don't much care if it's post apocalyptic or pre or during or whatever... I just want cool vehicles with guns racing around shooting each other. The bloat would be irritating but I'm getting really good at cutting myself off once I have what I want. I have't touched an X-Wing expansion since the Hwk-290 (one and only non movie mini I bought) and I know I could just pick what I want and walk away. That collectors mentality doesn't seem to effect me - luckily.

I am watching this thread but can't contribute good content... but I definitely want a good vehicular racing/combat game.

Rush 'n Crush is solid, and usually cheap as hell at Miniature Market.

There was a neat variant rule set and scenario for Car Wars in an early issue of Autoduel Quarterly: Chassis & Crossbows.

zenseeker.net/BoardGames/CarWars-Chassis+Crossbow.htm

There is a "new" Car Wars being developed beyond the Classic Car Wars that was just Kickstarted. Give a listen. Scott Haring talks about it for a good 30 minutes.

I'm excited. I can't stand Car Wars.

I haven't played a lot of car combat games but the concept appeals to me. I have question though, are there other scenario possibilities other than one group tries to out run or eliminate the other?I can't think of anything other than variations of the final sequence from the end of Mad Max or the Road Warrior, which seems like it would get limiting fast.

Just to be clear, I'm not being sarcastic or rhetorical. I am genuinely curious if there is something I haven't thought of.

None of these games are anywhere near as good as Thunder Road at capturing the Road Warrior setting...and its themes. Because let's face it, it's not so much "car combat" we want as a concept as it is Road Warrior.

Here's the thing. The "switch and link" thing is brilliant because it captures that element of George Miller's action choreography direction, which is really kind of an amazing feat for a board game to pull off. Thunder Road is all about FORWARD velocity. You don't turn right, pull a U-turn and all that. You just rush forward, trying to smash/shoot the other vehicles in this endless race to nowhere. That totally captures what I want out of this concept much more than Car Wars or anything like that.

Whoever designed that game saw the movie and totally got what its best elements were.

Perhaps, Hasbro/MB will release a licensed version for the upcoming movie: Mad Max: Fury Road?

What about GorkaMorka or Necromunda Ash Waste rules?

edulis wrote: What about GorkaMorka or Necromunda Ash Waste rules?

It's 4:30 in the morning and I accidentally Googled "Gorkamunda" and found this:

gorkamorka.co.uk/uploads/gorka-munda.pdf

eekamouse wrote: There is a "new" Car Wars being developed beyond the Classic Car Wars that was just Kickstarted. Give a listen. Scott Haring talks about it for a good 30 minutes.

I'm excited. I can't stand Car Wars.

The Car Wars discussion is around 6:00 (that's hours, not minutes). Also, I am 90 percent certain that young lady who is hosting is an actual elf princess.

You can actually email Scott Haring and beg for 1/64 (Hot Wheels) scale here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Here's another interview with Scott Haring: