Road Rage - a game of Automotive Combat

[Hawkeye]

OK, so the game doesn't exist, as yet, except in its various incarnations as Car Wars, Dark Future, and so on. My idea is to make use of my growing lead mountain of near future and sci-fi models by developing a system which uses automotive combat at its core, and allows for pedestrians (particularly drivers whose cars have been disabled) to continue to take part in the game. I used to play Battle Cars as a teenager (and loved it!), so what this means is that I'm thinking of a game in 28mm which will use both cars and models on foot fighting it out - usually in gangs - on a desert landscape littered with the detritus of a a dead civilization - our civilization, needless to say. So, terrain will be bought and scratchbuilt and will feature one-story buildings, remote farmsteads, mining works, chemical plants, and so on.

My dilemma arises when it comes to scale - as always. I have a selection of modern 1:43 cars, and while they would work, I worry that they would still look too recognizable, even laden down with armour and weapons. The other downside, of course, is that while I'm pretty happy to use 1:43 cars with most models, once you start putting armour plates, turrets, and weapons on them, they start to look far too big.

My solution, of course, is to look for other scales. I picked up a Jada Battle Machines car today (the '57 Chevy Bel Air taxi), and while it looks great, and has a very, very nice factory paint job, and even comes with a weapon, it's just too small for what I'm looking for. I had a look through eBay, and found a few 1:50 models that would fit the bill. One of the ranges is the Disney Pixar "Cars" range, and some of them would be perfect for what I'm looking for (Doc Hudson's car in particular, but also a few others). I found a couple of others ranges on eBay that would work too, including some Hot Wheels cars in 1:50 (I think they're called G Machines), the Batman die-casts that came about a couple of years ago, and ERTL seem to produce vehicles in 1:50 as well. There are also the Ramshackle dune-buggy type vehicles, which look fantastic and which I've been looking for an excuse to buy for months now! The advantate of 1:50 is that a lot of spares from the bits box would work really well for armour, weapons, and gubbins to convert the models. Also, 1:48 kits wouldn't look unsual alongside them.

But there's my questions - what scales do/would others LAFers use? My idea would be 6 foot by 6 foot board, a lot of speeding about with dangerous turns, and, of course, a lot of shooting and dropping of mines.

If anyboody has any thoughts about scale for this, or any ideas as regards possible rules sets, any input would be greatly apprecioated. Plus, I can't wait to get some converted and painted models up on a thread on the forum!

Thanks in advance!

[dexter]

hi
i used to and still play KRASH (  hopefully link to some pics here http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=10046.0)
The cars are all hotwheels/matchbox scale. The smaller scale made screaming around a 6x6 table with guns blazing much easier.
The game doesnt have pedestrians in it. We tried a few times but never got them to work ,the problem is that compared to cars people move way too slow ,and the equipment they carry generally only scratches a cars armour. Most of our attempts ended up looking like Deathrace 2000

The Hotwheels size vehicles are easy to get,and there are some strange designs for cars out there.  Equipment for them is easy to come by as 1/72nd or 20mm stuff works fine ,even larger scale items 28mm for example  can be used easily. Also if you do want to use pedestrians  there are plenty of figures to chose from.

[Lordblackwing]

Please keep us up to date on this. I have played Car Wars, Dark Future, and Battlecars and always wanted a way to balance the peds and cars. Have you looked at Autoduel GURPS? It's probably out of print by now, but it offered a more ped-centric version with vehicle rules. I have a 6'x6' table here and would be happy to help playtest. As for scale, if all the vehicles are the same scale it shouldn't look to bad. I guess it depends on the "look" you want. Just like with GW's rhinos, no way 10 guys fit in there, but if it was to proper scale, then it would take up too much table.

[Hawkeye]

Thanks for the advice on this, Dexter. I remember in Battlecars that pedestrians (once their cars were destroyed and they ended up on foot), were pretty much toast. My idea for Road Rage, however, is to make certain that there are a number of higher vantage points that only pedestrians can get to (rooves of buildings, antenna towers, that sort of thing), or places that would take some work for cars to reach (on top of damaged bridges, for example), that might give the pedestrians more of a chance. I was also thinking that storing some weapons caches around the board - rocket launchers, mini-guns, etc. - might  even the field a bit too. Thanks also, by the way, for pointing me towards Krash. I'll check it out as soon as I've finished with this post! I was looking at Axles and Alloys, and while I like the simplicity of the rules, pedestrians get no real representation.

Blackwing - I'll definitely keep you up to date. I'm planning a bit of a thread for this project, ideally one which will cross over with my Star Mogul thread when I get that started. I really want to develop a system that balances peds and cars, so any playtesting you can do would be greatly appreciated! I teach classes until May 10th or so, and after that, the world is my oyster (well, the summer is, at least), so I'm hoping to crank out at least a working version of the rules, as well as some painted cars and minis! And you're right about the scale thing. If they're all the same scale, it isn't really an issue, and 1:64 is much more common than 1:50. I'll see if I can find Autoduel GURPS too - thanks for the heads up. I had been toying with the idea of using Necromumnda rules and incorporating vehicles and driving into them, so we'll see how that pans out.

Thanks both of you for your ideas and input! I appreciate it!

[Grimmnar]

Sounds like a plan to me Stan. Keep her up and going.

Also, keep in mind that there is already a set of automotive combat rules like this called Road Rage.   :-)

Grimm

[Doc Twilight]

There is also Warlands, which is pretty decent, and constantly improving.

-Doc

[Froggy the Great]

I haven't played it, but the readthrough I did of Axles&Alloys seemed pretty good too.

[Hawkeye]

@Froggy - yes, I read through Axles and Alloys the other day, and they really do have a lot of what I want, in particular a board that isn't divided into squares/hexes/etc. I want to use the same board for this game that I'll use for my Legends of the Old West game: flat, barren desert without a single hex in sight!

@Grimmnar - I didn't realize that there was a game called Road Rage out there already (although it's not a surprise that there is!) - any idea how it plays? The name for the game I want to put together isn't important at the moment, though, just the concept. Something will come to me, I hope.

@Doc Twilight - I've had a quick look at the Warlands site, and while I'm not keen on doing the game at that scale (it's more or less Matchbox or Hot Wheels scale, isnt' it?), one of the things putting me off is the lack of models on foot. Warlands seem to have have them, though. In general, though, 28mm is what I'm comfortable painting, and since a lot of my terrain collection (in other words, all of it) is 28mm, it makes more sense to me to make the crossover using the same scale.

@dexter - checked out that link - the games looks very cool! Nice!

Oh, while I think of it, I had a thought about scaling. Normally I don't like basing vehicles, but when I put the 1:64 Battle Machines car on top of a base the same height as the slotta bases I use for my near-future and sci-fi models, it looked about right. Might that be the way to go, do you think? Any suggestions/help regarding this scale issue would really be appreciated. Cookies, anyone?

[Comsquare]

Hei,

it's a while since I played some MadMax-Style games, but I used as Rulesystem a game called "Crushing".
It was a fun to play and I used the ordinary Matchboxcars, pimped up a little.
The rules are for free and you find a link to it on freewargamerules.
Meanwhile they also have rules for pedestrians, so maybe it would be of interest for you.

After they released the Pedestrian rules, I reanimated my Crushingproject, but this time by using Hot Wheels 1:50 and Schuco 1:43, which fit well together and are fitting optically better with the minis.

[Hawkeye]

Aha! Thank you, Comsquare. That's sort of what I'm looking for. Those Hot Wheels 1:50 look just about perfect for based 28mm minis, and I'll definitely be checking out some Schuco 1:43, particularly if they're as good a match as you say they are. I don't mind a little discrepancy between the cars - what I want is for the 28mm minis to fit well with them. Thanks again!

[Bungle]

The battlemachines are just about right if based the same as true 28mm figures eg hasslefree.... Lots of jada stuff is about 1/55 when you scale it up.

1/50 will go quite well with large or heroic 28mm figures.

1/43.... go with 35mm or 40mm figures

Most cars are less wide than a person is tall. If you lay down across the back seat your feet dangle outside.... use that as a guide.

Alternatively..... Musclemachines cars.... wider than scale look slightly cartoon like, and go really well with 25mm figures like GZG

[Comsquare]

Just to give you the idea how they look, before you buy something you don't need

From left: Schuco, Em4, Hot Wheels

Hope it helps

[Hawkeye]

Thanks for the scaling references, Bungle. I like the rule of thumb about a car being narrower than a person is tall. That's a very useful scale of reference.

Comsquare - thanks for the pics. I have to say, those look perfect to me. Absolutely perfect. So the Hot Wheels is one of their 1:50 ones, and the Schuco is 1:43. They look good together, and they both look great with the mini (particularly since I'll be using EM4 for quite a few of my peds). I think this is the way I'm going to go. Thanks for all your input, everybody, I appreciate it!

[abhorsen950]

Cant help sorry, but ide love to see the results and wish you all the best with the project

Steve

[Hawkeye]

Thanks, Steve. I always have a lot of projects on the go (Legends of the Old West, Star Mogul, a Pulp Project) but what I like about this project is that it should be pretty quick, and it's the sort of game that's going to grab the attention of the gamers at the local gaming club/store. Hot rods loaded down with armour and weapons tearing around a post-apocalyptic desert landscape trying to blow each other to bits? What's not to like!