Mysterious Bandits Heist Armadillo, Hijack Hearse

** CAR WARS 2029 campaign game 22 (July 10, 2010 in Wilmington, NC) **

This was our first time playing CAR WARS in a game store. Cape Fear Games was jam-packed with players for a huge Magic tournament, but we ended up with the really nice miniatures table that is normally taken up with Warhammer stuff. Many old-school gamers dropped by for a few minutes to let us know how they used to play CAR WARS back in the day. One budding gaming geekess exclaimed, “CAR WARS… that’s new!” as she came over to talk to us. Later on, a twelve year old boy was somewhat intrigued with our set-up. When he saw us pushing little Denis Loubet painted cardboard car counters he said, “oh… this is like Warhammer.” Earlburt responded in a dry monotone, “yes, but our miniatures are better.” “No they’re not!” the kid exclaimed in an outraged tone.

I had a couple of remaining duelists that had washed out during the Hot Shot round of our Team Amateur Night series of games. Two characters, Tanaka Idishima and Fernando Rodriguez could each only scrounge together a fully repaired Stinger with a targeting computer. Another character, Rodney Fisher had done pretty well in a three player amateur night event at the Octagon when we played at the Gamers of Winter con in February of last year, so he could field a similar car.

CAR WARS City Blocks... now available on e23!

The first part of the adventure took place at the Armadillo Autoduel Arena. My three characters would be fighting against three stock Pisces in three identical 42’s. Here are the stats:

42: Mid-sized, standard chassis, medium power plant, heavy suspension, 4 PR tires, driver only, VFRP front, MFR right, MFR left, FCD back. Armor: F 22, R 20, L 20, B 18, T 10, U 10. Accel 5, HC 3, 4185 lbs., $9,750.

During the opening part of the duel, there were high speed passes executed by competing Pisces and 42’s. In both cases, this left the Pisces with little or no front armor… but my 42’s were running dangerously low on ammo. The two Pisces fired off some heavy rockets and fortunately missed. Rodney Fisher’s 42 had opted out of the high speed pass and attempted to tail a Pisces that was facing off against Fernando Rodriguez. Rodney never managed to hit for any at such a long range and his target was able to cut past the mall and break the sustained fire bonus. Rodney found himself peppered with hits from MG fire from the Pisces that was on his tail. On the other side of the arena, a heavily damaged Tanaka fired his remaining VFRP rockets in order to take out a mildly insane Pisces driver. It was then that smoke began to billow out of gate 3. Then… a mysterious black Texan pick-up came barreling into the arena! Then… two Tomcat cycles came in behind him! Adding to the chaos, Killer Karts then entered each of the other gates!

A Texan, two Tomcat cycles, and 6 Killer Karts crash our duel.

This was all quite a lot to take in. Even though the game is played second by second and you have all the time in the world to make decisions… it all seemed to happen so fast. In retrospect, there wasn’t much my 42’s could do. We were mostly out of ammo and we were on the wrong end of the arena to intercept them. They left out of the opposite side of the arena from where the Texan had entered. I was certain that the Killer Karts were duelists from a follow-up event, so I had let them go. They ended up leaving with the Texan and the surviving Tomcat.

This turned out to be a big embarrassment. Evidently there was a major heist that went down… and the money was stashed in one of the Killer Karts! At least, that is what our best theory is at the moment. Suffice it to say, my duellist characters are going to attack and hound to the death any vehicle that dares to bust in on any future official AADA event.

Ah well… here are the stats for event:

Tanaka’s salvaged a Pisces: no front armor, no MG’s, rear HR’s fired, tires all with one point of damage, left armor minus two points. He also got gunner skill +2 and prestige +6.

Fernando Rodriguez made several control rolls when he turned his car around in order to take on an oncoming Pisces. He got driver skill +1, gunner skill +1, and prestige +3.

Rodney Fisher didn’t do too much except drive around taking long range pot shots. He got gunner skill +1 and prestige +3.

The Yahoo McScandles funeral procession is attacked by bandits!

A few days later, Tanaka, Fernando, and Rodney drove their Stingers as part of Yahoo McScandles’ funeral procession. Suddenly… out of nowhere an Iron Horse and two Taurus cycles attack! They destroy the lead police cruiser while a bomb explodes on a building. Before the duellists can react, the bad guys hijack the hearse!

My characters do their best to chase them down this time, but with spikes and mines laid by the Taurus cycles, we lost valuable time going around. Here Earlburt called for a contest of driving to see if we could catch up. We didn’t catch them, but we did know they were heading South on the interstate. (Note: the vintage CAR WARS City Blocks you see in the pictures are now available on e23 in PDF format!)

The hijacked hearse is escorted by an Iron Horse while two Taurus cycles cover its escape.

From there, my characters put the pedal to the metal. Using the rules from the compendium, we calculated they had barely enough power units to make it to San Antonio while going 90 miles per hour. We somehow tracked them down about twenty miles north of town, not far from the Retama Duel Center. There was the hearse, the Iron Horse… and (gasp!) the Texan that had crashed our arena event!

We focused our firepower on the obnoxious black Texan pick-up. In our pass, we managed to destroy its power plant. We damaged whatever cargo was on board it, but dropped the bandits down to just two vehicles. Tanaka (in the lead) had lost most of his front armor in return fire dished out by the Iron Horse. The hearse’s weapons came online right then, so we blew on past . Strangely, the bandits called for a truce. We ignored it because we felt we were so outgunned it had to be a joke.

Three Stingers travel from Austin to San Antonio at 90 mph in hot pursuit of bandits. Just barely enough power units to make it!

From there, we pulled into the truck stop on the north side of town. While we were getting our power plants recharged, Rodney saw the two Taurus cycles go by. The AADA posse that was behind us came upon the scene of our roadside battle and found the disabled Texan pick-up. Yahoo McScandles body was abandoned there in the grass.

Once again, I failed to act decisively under pressure. If I had driven outside of weapons range, I might had shadowed them for a while. They were right to offer a truce– there might not have been much they could do if we had done that. Alternately, we should have loaded up on grenades, did T-stops right into their faces, and then lobbed exploding death at their tires. My characters were still alive, at least….

For our travails, we got mild thanks from the Austin AADA offices. (So far, my mediocre autoduelists are turning out to be mediocre adventurers…. Oh well. Maybe next time!)

From the rulebook: "This is not just a combat game, but a role-playing adventure."

Tanaka scored the killing blow on the Texan, so it is technically his. It was an off-road Texan with the MD option and a ramplate. (The MD and MG were fully loaded and operational! Yeah!) The power plant is destroyed, left armor is gone, four points a damage were done to the top, and twelve points of damage to the right. Tanaka gets gunner skill +2, 2 general skill points, and +1 to prestige.

Rodney and Fernando both get gunner skill +1, 2 general skill points, and +1 to prestige for their efforts.

Good game! But next time… I just might have to try driving offensively!