Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

Weapon       To-Hit Penetration Sweep Bonus
——       —— ———– ———–
Laser        + 1      0         - 1
Pulse Laser    0    + 1           0
Missile        0    + 6         + 2
Proximity A  + 1    + 3         + 1
Proximity B  + 2    + 0         + 0
Roll Damage/Critical
—- ————————————–
1    NONE
2    1 Hull
3    1 Hull
4    2 Hull
5    1 Turret
6    M-Drive (Weapon Penetration Value + 1 hits)
7    Cargo/Stateroom/Fuel
8    J-Drive (Weapon Penetration Value)
9    3 Hull
10   Power Plant (Weapon Penetration Value + 1 hits)
11   5 Hull
12   Computer (Weapon Penetration Value - 1)
13   10 Hull
14+  Auto Kill
Ship     Scout   Sweep
——– ——- —–
Hull     4       3
C/S/F    3/4/40  3
Power    A       2
M-Drive  2       3
J-Drive  2       3
Computer 1/bis   3      
Weapon   3L      Never
Armor    0       Never
Ship     Patrol Cruiser   Sweep
——– ————–   —–
Hull     4        4       4
C/S/F    25/6/60  25/6/60 4
Power    HCFE     DCB     3
M-Drive  4332     211     4
J-Drive   3 2     211     4
Computer    3     21      4
Weapon   3L 3M    3L 3M   Never
Armor    1        0       Never 
Ship     Merc Cruiser                    Sweep
——– ————————–      —–
Hull     4       4       4       4       3
C/S/F    10/6/91 10/6/92 10/6/91 10/7/92 3
Power    MLK     JH      GF      ED      2
M-Drive  322     22      11      11      3
J-Drive  322     22      11      11      3
Computer 5 4     3       2       1       3
Weapon   3L 3M   3L 3S   3L 3M   3L 3S   Never
Armor    3       2       1       0       Never

Armor:  Armor is subtracted from all damage rolls against the ship.
Penetration:  Penetration value is added to the damage roll for each weapon hit.
Sweep Rules:  If Critical hits eliminate all the items in a location, then roll for sweep.  If 1d6 plus the weapon’s sweep bonus is greater than or equal to the sweep number for that row of the ship’s record sheet then the item on the next row down is also destroyed.  Repeat the process for each row destroyed in this manner.

Example: A Proximity-A missile hits the jump drive of a Patrol Cruiser for 3 hits of damage reducing the jump rating to 1.  (The ‘3′, the ‘2′, and the first ‘1′ are crossed off.)  One complete block on the first column has been destroyed, so the ship is subject to the sweep ‘chain-reaction’ effect.  The sweep target number is 4.  The attacker rolls 2 on 1d6 and adds his weapon’s sweep value of 1 to the result.  3 is not enough, to get the sweep, but if he had rolled more than 2, the computer would have dropped from 3 to 2 and there would have been a chance that the ship would lose weapons after that!
Ship design notes:  The number of columns on a ship’s record sheet is dependent on the number of tons displacement.  Ships that are compartmentailized will have higher sweep values.  Ships with heavy frames will have more hull hits protecting their columns.

Small Craft:  Small craft will not have record sheets, but will use a counter to track their status.  A small craft will either be at 100%, disabled, or killed (similar to Ogre armor units.)

Got a game of Car Wars and a game of Ogre in last Saturday.

We played in the Dumbarton Slalom (from Expansion Set #5 Double Arena) with a couple of souped up hotrods.  We traded a few shots and ended up both flipping over and rolling into the wall during the same second.  It seems that going over 100 mph is dangerous in this environment….  Ah well the game served as a chance to brush up on the classic Compendium 2.0 rules.  And we still had time for a game of Ogre after that.

I played two games with my opponent on a previous evening.  When I played the Ogre, he sent his defenders at me in two waves out from under their howitzer umbrella.  I gobbled ‘em up and then ‘forked’ two howitzers with a double missile attack.  (I’d given him an extra howitzer, too, because it was his first game.)  Then I took a turn as the defense and showed him what 5 heavy tanks could do.  I think he hung back and fought me when he needed a bit more forward momentum and I ate him up.

At this point I was afraid he’d never play again after losing twice.  It turns out he got his revenge.  He found my blog and then read up on my tactics!

In our third game, he showed me what 5 heavy tanks could do.  Things were going well at first.  I still had 3 mp’s even after getting over the crease in the middle of the map.  I dove on down the map to take out his GEV’s.  He had nothing left except 4 heavies, a missile tank, and infantry.  I figured I could make it to the cp before he stopped me, so I didn’t hang back to take out some of his teeth.  His infantry and tanks turned out to have withering firepower.  I made it to range 2 before he crushed me.  If I could have survived one more turn my AP guns could have taken the cp out….

It was rough seeing my own tactics turned against me– but at least I will learn some new things if this guy gets a few more games in with me.

Crashed and burned two times in one night….  Maybe next time…