Jeffro’s Car Wars Blog

Looking over the rules from the original pocket box, I noticed that Amateur Night wasn’t quite presented as it was in later Car Wars products.

In the first place, duelists are not restricted to driving identical cheapo “Killer Karts.”  The original rules suggest picking a car off the original stock vehicles list and allowing the players to choose from among any of the standard options.  This is great because you can get a lot of the variety that comes from letting everyone design their own cars– but without the overhead of actually having to make sure everyone got it right. 

Another thing about these rules is that they do not limit the price of the vehicles used in the event.  Conceivably, everyone could be entering the arena in a Hot Shot or Joseph Special Variant.  This means that the players have a much better chance of coming out of the arena with a fair amount of salvage.  (I think 5th edition just gave a simple cash prize to the winner, but I think the flavor provided from tallying up the salvage is worth the effort.  It gives an index from which to judge exactly how well the winner did in the event.) 

Another interesting wrinkle was that the winner was determined by whoever scored the most prestige.  A little creativity here can make for some interesting victory conditions.  It may be a good idea to customize the prestige scoring somewhat depending on the arena.

Going forward with this, I may play it that the initial duel for a series of Amateur night events might be played with Stingers.  People that have survived an event earn a chance to deul in more expensive cars.  The second duel might be run with Joseph Specials… and the third might be run with Hot Shots.  I think it would be a good idea to do a little homework and make sure there is an interesting set of contrasting options for each vehicle class. 

In the old days, I couldn’t imagine getting by with a fresh 30-point character that entered the world with whatever he could scrape together from 3 Amateur Night duels run with Killer Karts.  This new take on an old dueling tradition gives me a lot more hope for any additional continuing characters I might start on the rags to riches route.

Hi everyone!  Welcome to Jeffro’s Gaming Blog.

I’m into the sci-fi tactical wargames of the 80’s, and here you’ll find a record of my gaming experiences in addition to my miscellaneous ramblings.

My number one pet peeve about gaming is that many games get read or talked about a whole lot more than they actually get played.  I think this is the hobby’s dirtiest secret… signifying in too many cases a failure on the part of the designers or a just plain bizarre trend in the industry. 

Anyways, this blog is about working against that trend as far as I’m able.  Instead of criticising games from some sort of theoretical standpoint, I just play them and try to describe the overall experience.  You’ll find out about the total playing times for the typical game session.  You’ll hear about any rules arguments that come up.  You’ll hear about the steady fumbling process of me and my friends as we master the strategies and tactics of the games we play.  In short, you’ll hear about how we overcame the obstacles that prevented so many other people from actually playing these things!  You’ll hear in detail what’s so enjoyable (or frustrating!) about these things and what it’s really like. 

In case you’re just picking up on reading this blog, let me give you a brief summary of my discoveries.

1) Steve Jackson’s Ogre is one of the greatest wargames ever made.  It is easy to learn, quick to set up and play, and there’s a great deal of tactical variety that’s packed into this elegant little package.  This is a great game… and a perfect “first wargame.”  Playing time… usually less than an hour.  Sometimes less than a half hour.

2) Car Wars 5th edition is an attempt to make the Original Car Wars into something as quick and as playable as Ogre was.  It is fairly successful and a lot of fun, but there is no design system available for it– and that was half the fun of the original.  The big “turning keys” that come with it are great for playing at Hot Wheels scales, but playing at that size is a little more cumbersome to me.  Depending on your table, your arena may be a little cramped and road dueling may be impossible.  Playing time… usually between 1 and 2 hours.

3) I’ve recently found someone to play the classic Car Wars Compendium (second edition) game.  We’ve had a few ‘monster’ sessions so far.  The game is so flexible and well supported, you can do something completely different every time you play.  The game is of course optimized for cars and trucks… and the realism/playablity/fun seems to break down when you try to bring the focus down to the pedestrian level a little more or up to the larger military vehicles.  If you have a friend that’s really “into it”, Car Wars can be an incredible amount of fun.  Playing time… generally 2 or 3 hours.  A good monster game of several vehicles to a side can take between 6 and 10 hours and is well worth the investment.  Crazy things happen in this game… it’s always entertaining.

4) Star Fleet Battles has a higher learning curve… but one-on-one duels have a lot more tactical variety.  The price, of course, is more rules to learn and longer playing times.  I’ve wanted to master the basic tactics of this game, but just don’t get it, yet.  The Tactics manual is helpful– as is the descriptions of the Origins tournaments in Captain’s Log– but I can’t seem to find anyone that’s willing to blow my ships away until I get the hang of it.  Currently I’ve decided to put on hold my desires of mastering the Klingon, Kzinti, Gorn, and Romulan tactics… and will play the Federation from now on until I figure things out.  Playing time… at least 2 hours.  (And I dare not try the fleet battles yet!)

5) I played some Battletech when I was a kid and have considered trying it if I couldn’t find any Car Wars or SFB players in my neighborhood.  It is supported by some excellent software that lets you design your forces and print out the record sheets for them quickly.  If I never get around to playing this game more, it won’t be because I fear the possibility of any excessive preparation time. 

I went down to see an old gaming buddy yesterday and we managed to play 5 Ogre scenarios in a single afternoon.

Lately, I’ve been playing 5 Heavy Tanks placed on the forward end of the map just out of missile range from the Ogre’s first move.  If an opponent attempts to dive in straight through, then the combined firepower of the Heavies strips him down in time to really increase the survivability of the weaker GEVs and Missile Tanks.  The forces can then knock him down to Move 2 just as he’s crossing the fold– and then the infantry can surround the Ogre and help deliver the coup de grace.  The double whammy of an Heavy Tank blitz with an infantry swarm seems to be an unstoppably defence aganst an opponent that charges straight in.

I tried this approach against an Ogre Mark III a few weeks ago.  All of my attacks missed completely for the first two rounds!  My opponent disabled or killed the heavies and continued his charge.  Instead of taking out the disabled heavies, he went after my GEVs and Missile tanks.  In spite of my bad luck in my first two attacks, the surviving Heavies and swarming infantry helped to take the Ogre down a good many hexes away from the command post.  Because of my bad luck, this was the first and only game in which the Ogre got to fire his Main Battery 4 or 5 times!!

Most Ogre players think of infantry as insignificant.  They also think they are much tougher than a wing of Heavy Tanks.  This just isn’t the case.  You have to take out the Heavy Tanks for the same reason that the Defense always takes out the Ogre’s Main Battery on the first shot.  You just can let yourself think you can slip on down the board in spite of them!  And Ogres have to treat infantry as if they are real units.  Anything that can take out your last secondary batteries and knock you down a Movement point has to be treated seriously!

The first game we played yesterday was a reiteration of the above lessons.  The Ogre always moved straight in regardless of the cost, leaving Heavy Tanks behind and getting surrounded by infantry and got blown away disheartneningly fast.  It didn’t help that my opponent was using some dodgy dice that made consistently bad rolls.

In our second game, I got a chance to play the Ogre.  The last time I did this I got eaten alive.  Knowing the Defense’s strategy is not enough– you’ve got to have a good plan for the Ogre, too!  As I made my approach, I pointed out each possible hex that my Ogre might move to.  Often times these were hexes that allowed the Ogre to “fork” two enemy units so that he could focus his fire on just two or three enemies.  I would then choose the hex that allowed me to concentrate my firepower on a small number of units while minimizing the amount of return fire that I would take on the subsequent turn.  This resulted in a “fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee” type of dance as I gradually moved down the board. 

I consistently gave better than I got and took out the forces piecemeal.  The dance was over when my opponent’s Missile Tanks got to the scene.  Even though they are slow, they are hard to “sting.”  And if you go in for the kill, the infantry will surely swarm you.  This leads to some tougher choices, but if you’ve played well, you can endure the fire you take as you drive on to the CP and then attempt your escape.  My Ogre pulled it off with only five or six tread units left while two Missile Tanks and a GEV harried his retreat.

In our third game, my opponent seemed to catch on to a better Ogre strategy.  He dove down the board towards the pair of neighboring crater hexes.  He rammed three of four Heavy Tanks and shot up the rest and then kept coming in.  My forces could not position themselves well in the area surrounding the pair of craters, so he avoided some extra fire because of that.  (Good tactic!)  It was a bloody fight, but he died only three hexes away from the command post.  My opponent didn’t think that taking six tread hits from raming early on was such a good idea after this.

My opponent then decided to try something new.  He called up the web article on the four howitzer defense and set that up.  He took four Heavy Tanks and let them hang out near the infantry and howitzers.

My Ogre charged in on the opposite side of the board from the command post.  I got into position so that I could dive three hexes into the furthest Howitzer’s field of fire.  I was able to attack infantry and tanks with all of my weapons and decimated them.  I took light damage in return and took out two Howitzers on the following turn.

My opponent really wanted to master the Defense tactics with this, so we set it up again.  This time he sent two Heavies, two GEV’s, and some infantry out to meet me.  These forces attacked me outside of the Howitzer Umbrella, and I was able to outmaneuver them and eliminate them all.

At this point, my opponent was rather disgusted with the game.  If he left the Heavies alive, he died quickly.  If he rammed my Heavies to death, then he dies a few tantalyzing hexes away from the command post.  If he held his defense back under the Howitzer defense, his forces were crushed by a fully operation Ogre… and if he sent his forces out, they were destroyed piecemeal!  Argh!

My opponent found the whole idea of counting hexes to be rather distasteful, so he probably wasn’t going to compare his movement options very well.  Still, it seems that coordinating a defense is much harder for new players to learn than maneuvering the Ogre.  Ogre is a very chess like game in spite of its random elements, and it seems that calculating the costs of various exchanges is essential to top notch play.  I felt bad at the end, though– my opponent really needed a “win” to perk up his interest in the game there and I felt a little bit cruel at that point….

We didn’t have a lot of time to play this past Sunday, but we went for it anyway.  We played an Amateur Night scenario with 4 stock Stingers on the board.  Each one had linked MG’s firing forward, but we could all arrange the armor however we wanted.  There was only two of us, so we each played our new characters and each played an “NPC.”  We decided to have all four cars go in at once, but they’d pair off and duel seperately until each of the initial individual duels had been resolved– but we’d keep secret which cars contained our ‘real’ characters.

I opted to put most of my armor to the front.  My character rolled a 6 for reflexes, so he had an HC of 6.  We all entered the arena at 20 mph and accelerated up to 50 as soon as we could.  I closed with my opponent who was just pulling around a TV bunker.  We traded fire, and as he turned off, I T-boned him.  The ram ate up a lot of my front armor… but he had put most of his armor to the side, so I didn’t get much out of the exchange.  My car slowed to 25 mph or so.  I used my low speed to turn around quickly, then accelerated to tailgate him.  He couldn’t shake me.  I built up a fair continuous fire bonus and damaged the side I’d rammed some more.  He pulled around the TV bunker again to break up my fire bonus, but I stayed on him.  We then sped across the arena toward another bunker.  Firing at his rear spared me most of the speed modifiers and I discovered that he was lightly armored there.  He broke my continuous fire bonus again by going around the bunker, but I managed to hit him with a single MG anyway.  The driver died, but I could not salvage the wreck because there was nothing left after his car rammed the wall.

On the other side of the arena, my NPC car sped around another bunker as his opponent beared down on him.  We traded fire and not much happened.  We passed each other, and my opponent skidded as he tried to turn around to tail me.  This did 2 points of damage to each of his 6 DP tires, much to his chagrin.  I circled the bunker again and as I came out, I still failed to get into a good firing position.  He probably nicked my armor a little and I continued to accelerate in order to get towards the opposite side of the arena.  My HC for this car was only a 4, so it was much harder to position my car.  I turned to come back toward my opponent.  I was going 90 while he was only going 50 or so.  We closed for our head on point blank pass and I made a fatal mistake.

We’ve been playing that each phase, movement is resolved first.  The faster car goes first, then the slower car.  After movement is done for the phase, there is a fire phase that’s technically secret and simultaneous.  We play that any maneuvers done in the phase make a penalty to-hit equal to the ‘D’ value for all shots made in the subsequent fire phase.  Any hazards incured due to weapons fire apply their penalty to the next phase’s fire phase.  In most of our duels, there seems to be little need for ’secret’ fire because the moment fire is exchanged is usually simultaneous anyway.  Also, weapons fire hazards have yet to inflict their penalties, though the maneuver penalty forces a lot of hard decisions to be made.

Anyway, my car moved its two inches of movement and then my opponent moved his one inch.  He could get a point blank shot while I couldn’t fire at all!  DOH!  He insisted that I not be allowed to take back the move, so I swallowed hard and waited to see what would happen.  He shot at my side armor, and barely damaged my power plant.  He then rolled a two on a single die– my car was on fire!  I had no fire extinguisher and I’d never even gotten a good shot off at my opponent.  Grrrr.

I braked as much as I dared and bailed out.  The rules seemed to indicate that I would have taken little or no damage… so I was alive with full body armor and only one hit of fire damage on my pedestrian.  I fired at my opponents weak tires uselessly as he sped off to face my ‘real’ car.

As the two ‘finalist’ vehicles made their pass, they exchanged fire.  My opponent needed 10’s to hit.  He rolled a 10 and an 11.  I still had 7 points of armor there even after the ram I’d done previously… but he rolled a 12 for damage!  This took out one MG and left the other with only a single DP.  (!)  We sped past each other, circled the bunker for a second pass.  I decided to gamble on a tire shot.  I think I needed 9’s or 10’s or something.  “The gods of luck seem to be with you today, ” I said– and then missed.  His damaged destroyed my remaining MG and damaged my power plant slightly with a single hit… but I at least didn’t catch fire.

As we passed each other, I opted for a sideswipe.  The damage nearly took out my power plant, but I was still hanging on.  My opponent soaked it up easily as again, this vehicle’s best armor was on the side.  Nineteen seconds of game time had passed at this point, and I headed for the wall to guard my weak side.  I accelerated to 100, hoping that I could last another ten seconds so that I could at least escape when the gates opened again at the thirty second mark.

My opponent killed the pedestrian that had been shooting at him and closed in for his last chance at a second kill.  My speed was too much… and his insane luck was no longer with him.

My character ended up with 3 skill points in Driver, 2 skill points in Gunner, and 1 skill point in Handgunner.  I had my first kill and three prestige points.  My Stinger as barely driveable, but the MG’s were destroyed, the Power Plant had take 4 hits, and the armor had taken 26 hits (20 to the front and 6 to the right with armor normally being F20 L6 R6 B6.)  I also had an SMG with 7 shots left. 

My opponent’s character ended up with 2 skill points in Driver, 6 in Gunner, and 1 in Handgunner.  He had one kill and 5 prestige points.  His Stinger was in nearly mint condition.  The MG’s had 12 shots left and the armor had taken only 17 points of damage (5 to the front and 12 to the right with armor normally being F9 L13 R13 B5.)  He also had an SMG with 4 shots, an SMG with 9 shots, and a set of Body Armor.

It had taken three hours to play out the duel.  Our characters didn’t earn all that much in this duel.  Maybe they’ll have more to show for it if they play a more expensive set of cars next time… IF they live through it, anyway….

This past Sunday we had another round of mass Car Wars destruction. We played the “Midville II” mini-scenario from ADQ 4/4. Basically, 12 cycles try to bust through a road block. It features a stock Flash (from AADA vehicle guide), 4 Shogun 100’s, 4 Shogun 200’s, and 3 Outlanders (2 which have sidecars.) The peds get 10 shotgun totin’ MONDOs (useless!), 10 police with SMG’s, and 8 national guardsmen with various weapons.

We chose this scenario because there’d be no design element– all the forces are completely specified by the scenario. The key to victory in this scenario is to convince your opponent to accept a variety of rules interpretations in your favor. We aren’t teenaged rules lawyers anymore , but still… enough “gentlemanly agreements” in the wrong direction can totally kill your game.

Here’s a sample of some of the big ones: 1) How exactly do you handle a cycle ramming the barrier? What if he’s shot up the place he’s driving through? How do you handle a “wipeout”? 2) What’s the penalty for driving on the field? Is the debris enough penalty, or do cycles get the full -2 to HC for going off road? (We took the full penalty in our game… which meant I wasn’t going to risk leaving the road.) 3) How do you handle burst effect weapons? Is shooting the ground to carch peds/cyclists legit? If so, how do you run that? (We opted not to use this rule. This really reduced the effectiveness of my RR’s and RL’s… and my opponent didn’t bother firing his LAWs and VLAWs because of this ruling.) 4) For grenades and burst effects, when is a cyclist considered exposed? Especially in the case of concussion grenades…? 5) What happens to shots that ‘miss’– especially burst effect weapons!? My cycles crept towards the road block at about 30 mph. I got 5 RL shots and 5 RR shots at each tripod weapon. I’d hoped to score a hit or three and to take out some peds with the burst effects, but rolled less than 9 for all 20 rolls. (ARGH!) SMG fire whittled away my 2 lead MG totin’ Shogun 200’s. My wussy Outlanders got partially chewed up, but MG and Laser fire managed to take out one Mondo and one Policeman. In return, four concussion grenades took out three of my 4 “heavy weapons” cycles…. and I conceded the game.

Given the outcome (and given a new set of clear rules interpretations) I’d probably roar through the road block single file at as high a speed as I could stand. My lead cycles would probably keep their fire on automatic so they could toss their own concussion grenades when they get closs to the road block! The way we played it, staying to fight was suicide. My opponent seemed to enjoy his victory immensely, so hopefully it wasn’t a complete waste of time. (We started preping at 1:30, started playing at 3, and we’d finished around 5.)

Still, concussion grenades should not be so much more effective than RR’s, RL’s, LAWs, and VLAWs. Something was really out of wack there. (Not to take away too much from my opponent’s victory. He definitely out played me this time!) Rules I’d like to see are faster playing rules for “stands” of infantry. Three or four peds would be a single unit… they get one attack roll per turn… and they are attacked as a group. This could speed up the game tremendously… and also give us the chance to come up with a simplified “Car Wars”-ish rules for morale and leadership. I’m curious to know if GDW’s Striker (or some other miniatures rules) could have handled this scenario any more realistically….

We played a marathon 10 hour CAR WARS session this past Sunday.  We started at 1:30.  We finished prepping our designs for an hour, reviewed the trickier rules for half an hour or so, and then started the event.  We played nonstop until 10:30 with the exception of a short snack break and then followed up with the final book keeping and skill point awards.

We played a criss-cross slalom event at Dumbarton.  Each side had six cars of varing price values: one division 5, one division 10, one division 15, one division 20, one division 25, and one division 30.  Special rules were no dropped weapons of any kind and no ramplates.  Any piece of equipment from Compendium 2e was fine.  Flamethrowers could fire foward in this game, but did not produce smoke screens.  Each side could have as many 30 point characters as they wanted to make for up to two occupants for each vehicle.

The standard rules for Dumbarton allowed for a stalemate, so we changed the cash awards system.  Winning duelist still scored 25% of the pot for his team, but the remaining money would be split up by percentage based on the total points scored in the duel.  Points are scored 10 for first place, 9 for second, 8 for third, etc….  Divide your team’s points by the total of both teams’ points to determine your share of the remaining 75% of the prize money.  These rules allow a team the chance to completely shut out another if they can prevent them all from finishing.  They also award more money to the loser in closer events.  The prize money awarded to the team is the teams final score.  It is possible for a team to not have the winning driver, but still win the match.

My design strategy was to make sure all my vehicles had acceleration 10.  My division 5 car had no weapons.  10 and 15 were sloped compacts with point defense  grenades.  20, 25, and 30 mounted turreted RL’s smart linked to front firing RL’s.  I equiped my cars with HD Shocks wherever I could and put spoilers and airdams on all of them.  I also had guards and hubs… and got steelbelted solids wherever I could afford them.  My 25 and 30 had gunners so that I could specialize my skill purchases.

My opponent opted for acceleration 5 ‘tanks’ with heavy firepower and heavier armor.  (Eeep!)

My vehicles sped into the arena quickly moving up to 80 mph.  My opponents tanks lumbered into the second drum of the arena a half inch appart while mine sped in at an inch apart.  My lead car (Div 30) T-boned his second-to-last car.  (If I had come in at 60 mph, I might have avoided that… that was a major mistake I think.)  My front armor was gone and I was going at half speed now.  My opponent’s lead car maneuvered wildly to get off an a good shot or two and lost control.  One of my opponent’s cars launched laser guided heavy rockets which missed completely.  My smallest car (bringing up the rear) caught fire and rolled out the “safety” doors just barely in time to rescue the driver’s life.  (He’ll suffer from major burns all over his body and will take weeks to recover.)

My Div 30 car braked to 30 mph to stay out of my following vehicles.  After the dust settled, I had 4 of my cars completing a lap near my opponent’s starting gates while he had 4 vehicles crossing the center of the map.  (We were both shocked at what a difference acceleration 10 made!)  One of my opponent’s cars was struggling to accelerate up from zero, while another tailed my Division 30 car looking for trouble!  All in all, I came out better than I expected after the first pass.  I felt I had the game in the bag at this point– especially if I could concentrate my firepower on two of my opponent’s vehicles taking them 4 to 1 in succession.

Amazingly, my opponent rolled snake eyes TWICE while shooting his HD ammo autocannon.  My cars took out one of his tires and did enough armor damage that he ended up leaving the field.  My four cars sped back into the second drum where my opponents car had turned and waited to snipe at me.  He fired another pair of laser guided HR’s at me… one of which missed!  We in turn took out his two front tires and sped on past the center of the map.  My Div 30 car had taken so much damage, he could not expect to survive a second pass and so parked and awaited a chance to snipe at any enemy cars.

My opponent’s 4 cars then turned an split into two groups of two cars– blocking BOTH choke points!  They slowed to speed zero and awaited my 4 remaining cars.  I was shocked by this move, and fully expected to lose the game to his concentrated firepower.

My lead car took a withering spread of firepower, reducing his handling status so much he could not hope to make the turn into the final choke point and leaving obstacles to irritate my following vehicles.  He continued towards the enemy to get one last shot off before diving into the safe zone.  His wingman barreled into the enemy at 90 mph hoping for a devasting ram.  The combined firepower of my two lead cars took out two tires on one of my opponent’s cars.  The ram barely dented the paint my opponent’s heavily armored car.  My car was so damaged, he could not hope to survive another pass, so he left the arena– probably on fire….

This left my opponent with three driveable cars to my two.  My two sloped compacts (Div 10 and Div 15) both had rolled well on their reflex rolls and blew in at 80 mph with handling stats of 6 each.  I thought at first that all was lost, but when I noted the speed modifiers and how well armored my cars were, I had hope for making winning driver with at least one of my cars.

My lead compact zipped around the obstacles for an 80 mph ram against my oppenent’s Div 5 car– this splatted the enemy driver and made way for my Division 10 car to barrel through.  The enemy fired everything he had at the tires of my two compacts and everything missed.  (Thank you speed mods!!)

They zipped around the final bend and crossed the finish line just as 30 seconds of game time had elapsed.  (Whew!)  My cars took first and second place… while my opponent took third and forth.  That gave me 19 team points to his 15.

Unbelievable!  I had just barely eeked out a victory after being positive I had lost it.  My nerves were frayed, but I was very satisfied with how everything had turned out.  My opponent and I left the game with a new respect for fire extinguishers, metal armor, and speed modifiers.