Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

I introduced the game to a new player last night. We played two rounds. He liked flamethrowers so he grabbed the Napalm. I took a Stinger– the fast recoiless totin’ car.

It was his first game and I didn’t want to be mean– and I wanted to go ever every major rules section in the game. This was accomplished by my maneuvering into point blank range. I shot him up– then he returned fire and rammed me. Game over for me! Two seconds of game time and less than ten minutes of real time and we’d gone over most of the rules.

I explained that we were playing in a eight vehicle single elimination event with no repairs between rounds. In the second round I played the Bumblebee that won the last game I refereed.

Our two slightly damaged vehicles faced off. After the first pass he asks me, “What’s a Light Ramplate??” Doh!! The ramplate isn’t marked with an icon on the vehicle sheet, so I’d forgotten he had it!! (ARGH!) That did a lot to increase the front armor of his vehicle….

He scored fire markers on my poor Bumblebee a couple times. I was breached, so that was really bad. I kicked up the speed and pulled 2 d3’s a turn to try to get rid of them. He got to see me spin out– while he skidded really bad a couple of times. (The new Crash Table is very well done, I have to say. Very cinematic, playable, and fun.)

It took a few passes, but he finally scored a hit with his flame throwers through my breached armor. That was it for me!

That gave him a total of 2 kills on his first night: and 3 skill points in each of Driver and Gunner. I see that instead of salvage, the new rules for Amateur Night offer cash prizes. That sure cuts back on the math for the referee!

After the game he asked if Car Wars was still available. I take that as a good sign. He was irked when I told him there were no design rules for the new edition… (”designing stuff is half the fun!”) but he did seem to like how fast the game plays and also how all you need for a game board is a table top….