Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

But maybe you’re only just now introducing Car Wars to some friends…. And none of them are into starting some involved time consuming campaign yet.

No problem!

You can begin the campaign even without convincing anyone to try to launch a continuing character. Just introduce your friends to the game with a simple one-on-one Division 5 match. Let them pick any car they want. You should pick a mediocre design that wouldn’t otherwise get played– that way you can play hard while the new guy will still have a good chance a winning.

After the game, surreptitiously stash the record sheet of the winning vehicle for later use. If you play several games like this, when someone comes along that does want to start a continuing character, you’ll only have to play 4 rounds with him: the initial one-on-one duel with him, the two second-round events between the damaged vehicles, and the final duel. Just use your introductory duels for the initial rounds!

Maybe you’re in a new state and all of your old gaming buddies are far away. Maybe you’re completely new to Car Wars having picked up just a Starter Set or two. You’ve played a few games and you have dreams of huge campaigns… but you can’t seem to get 6 or 8 duelists together for the half-dozen “Amateur Night” scenarios that it would take to get it going. Or maybe you could, but you’re just not quite ready to referee that level of mayhem all at once. Where do you begin??

I recommend the Brewer’s Cellar from the old L’Outrance supplement. You don’t need any special map sheets for this one. Play will work fine on any average sized table thanks to the Cellar’s special gate/round system.

The Amateur Night is played in 7 rounds. 8 cars pair off and duel each other one on one. That will leave 4 survivors each with one kill under their belt and a moderate amount of damage to their cars. The survivors pair off into two separate duels– and the two winners limp on to face off in the final round.

If you have only one friend available to play, you can get together and go through through all 7 rounds in a single evening. Take turns playing the other contenders. The first four duels may take 45 minutes or so a piece, but the last three should be quick, deadly, and decisive.

One of you stands a decent chance of coming out with 4 kills, 4 wrecks to salvage, and one really beat up (though driveable) vehicle. If neither of you win, you can save back the winning duelist to use as a continuing non-player character for the campaign.

I celebrated the New Year by taking on an Ogre Mark V.

I chose 4 Howitzers, 4 GEVs, 4 Heavies, and 4 Missile Tanks.

The first turns of full on combat, I targeted his main batteries. At 3-1 odds, I was looking for anything but ones and twos on my die rolls. I took ‘em both out.

The next turn I targeted two secondary batteries at the same odds and put the rest of the attack vs. treads. Again my luck held and I rolled above two both times. (Meanwhile the Ogre is rolling “No Effects” and “Disabled”.)

At this point, I decided to switch all fire against the treads. Other Howitzer players say that you should take out the missile racks in so that you can keep pounding him as long as possible. In my game, the fact that he still had missiles encouraged him to drive on straight up the middle so that he could use them. This meant that for several turns, all of my forces surrounded him and chewed him up.

When he was down to a single hex move per turn, I had only one Howitzer, one Missile Tank, one GEV, and one Infantry unit left. It turned out to be plenty of firepower for the job. The command post survived without a scratch.

I would have had a much harder time if my die rolls hadn’t been so lucky. I’ve never been a serious Ogre player, so this was my first win with the defense. Woo-hoo!

Happy New Year!!