alternative 10mm post-apoc cars

[Too Bo Coo]

with car wars 2nd ed start with 10 to 15k

1st edition deluxe which had all the pocket books in one big book. Apart from the 10 phase movement (which was not that bad) and grenades being screwed up (which was bloody awful) and different collision rules (not that bad) it was the best version in terms of a complete package.

once you get to 2nd ed and add the catalogue from hell to that its an insanely complex game of layered counter measures and defence beating combos. It's far too complex for kids and goes from cars with machine guns shooting each other to laser guided rockets being beaten by a laser reactive web linked to flame cloud gas streamers. It aint mad max.

The car wars holy grail is the dueltrack supplement which had race cars and racing (boring) but also had a set of alternative rules called chassis and crossbow which were pure mad max tech and feel. (and give really good games which are better than the original having played dozens of both.)

If your going to use second edition then you really need to have a massive cull of the gear and about 1/3 of the weapons and stick to cars bikes and trikes with the odd truck thrown in. Boats hovercraft helos autogyros aircraft jetskis tanks and all the rest broke the game. Airships are just a joke have a look at the envelope sizes and then have a look at a standard size car wars map. Tanks fell to bits because suddenly you had to have things capable of taking out a sedan with more firepower than most APC's and not getting hurt in return. It got rather stupid.

thats why they simplified everything in 3rd. They just made it so simple they didnt put a design system in which sadly is the one thing you MUST have in a auto war game. Otherwise its the most kid friendly and all the counters are already at hotwheels scale.

THere have been alot of other auto games but nothing I think gives the same sort of accurate feel of cars moving like wars does. The movement physics in wars works really well, especially when its a 5 or 3 phase system as its the best balance of speed of play and accuracy of simulation.

add the C&C supp and its dynamite fun. It puts more of a focus on driving and due to the weapons being hand weapons like mad max its much more close range and vicious. It's all well and good fun to run up along side the other car at 100mph and put a crossbow bolt through their drivers head but when that car then loses control and stars to roll it gets really interesting. In fact about 70% of the 'kills' are due to crashes.

As for postage its the same here in Oz. Buying from the US is a joke but the UK postage is much better. try evilbay.uk   

Just a word, while I agree with nearly everything Scurv wrote here, he is not exactly correct about the edition labels.

1st ed is the black plastic box game, he is right, the best place to start.  SJG also has a yellow set of tourney rules, I think for free.  Head over to their store site.

2nd-4th's are everything else he described up to '3rd' edition.

The 3rd edition is actually the 5th edition of the game in game books where you get two cars to fight with each other.  They released about 10-12 books.  I have them all, not bad.

The only reason I wanted to post was that if you start asking for the 3rd edition, you'll get the compendium, not the matchbox scale game.

Again, other than this small correct, I agree with everything else Scruv wrote.  More importantly, SJG seems not to be able to stop tinkering to the level of Munchkiness...oh the irony.

I'm not holding my breath for CW 6th ed, due in 2015....

[ink the troll]

@ink the troll
thx for the tips. How easy to learn is Krash? I liked the accessories be cool to find some of those as my Bitz box is not looking really sad.

If I remember things right, it wasn't overly complicated (it can't have been, as I'm generally not overtly good with remembering or following rules).

It's round based, each player/ car has three actions per round. D6 used to determine if a vehicle was successfully hit and how badly it was damaged. Measuring distances is done in cm.

Had a quick browse through the rule booklet, as I played the game sometime in the late 90s and not very often:

At the beginning each car has 30 lifepoints. The cars are placed at opposite sides, at least 60cm apart (one of the rules we didn't really follow). Each player writes down the starting speed of the car, which had to be somewhere between 3 and 16.

Possible actions are: accelerating, braking, steering, firing, cutting other cars off, using equipment (firing a gun, placing a puddle of oil on the road etc).

In game, speed ranges from 0 (car stands still) to 24 (maximum speed), everything from 16 onwards is deemed as fast. You can drive forwards/ backwards, turn up to 45° angles on easy terrain without a manoeuvre test (up to 90° would require a test if you lose control over the car), slow down/accelerate/brake and jump over e.g. rifts/ ditches or from higher level terrain to lower level terrain (this does cause damage though).

Collisions either with other cars or scenery mean you lose all your remaining actions, damage depends on speed at the moment of the collision.

Unlike other car combat rule sets it doesn't feature pedestrians/doesn't take the drivers into account, though there's an (inofficial) expansion where drivers could fight on after their vehicle got wrecked (http://hem.spray.se/dby/krashrules/rules.htm )

I only own the German version of the rules, else I'd send you one of the booklets.

And the comparison shot with one of the Jada Battle Machines, bit chunkier than most of the nominally 1:64 cars:

[Lord GreyWolf]

thx guys I think will have to go through rules and see how I can make the kids their cars.

The amount of guns is no big deal I gave them enough smaller weapons to make it easier to play and then upgrade them to their full range once the kids have gotten the hang of it.

they are all about blowing up each others cars up. I'll be working it all and they just roll the dice. Only thing is I am not allowed to blow them up but they can blow me up...go figure.

LGW

[CptJake]

Had to laugh at the reasoning behind the $25 'leader cars' given in the kickstarter comments.   It seems they are priced like a GW Special Character and therefore are a great bargain.


Only uncouth silly sorts would attempt to use ugly nasty Hot Wheels cars with ugly nasty bits glued to them.

 

Assuming GW prices are decent (which I will not concede to), I still have trouble comparing a 30+mm special character sculpt with a car not much bigger than a D6 and considering them equal.   Frankly that is just silly in my opinion.

Oh well, at least they have thought through their pricing paradigm.

Jake

[Too Bo Coo]

Here's some good info on Car Wars.  Since you're playing with your kids, I might suggest the 5th edition of the game.  The books are between 3 - 7 bucks each....

http://jeffro.wordpress.com/category/car-wars-5e/

[Too Bo Coo]

thx guys I think will have to go through rules and see how I can make the kids their cars.

The amount of guns is no big deal I gave them enough smaller weapons to make it easier to play and then upgrade them to their full range once the kids have gotten the hang of it.

they are all about blowing up each others cars up. I'll be working it all and they just roll the dice. Only thing is I am not allowed to blow them up but they can blow me up...go figure.

LGW

Do you have Dropbox?  If you PM me your email address I'll upload my 5th editon rules on PDF with the vehicle design rules Scurv mentioned.  This is nice and easy, and free   You can then print and mount the matchbox sized counters and you're set to play with, in my opinion, a good set of rules for you to learn and teach children.  If they like it, you can always move to 1st edition, which I share Scruv's opinion, was the best to play. 

[Lord GreyWolf]

@CaptJake I know what you mean...

I just read in the comments, Some one was asking where we got the price of $10CAD per car. Which is from the Car Packs at $60CAD for 6 cars. Then it was pointed out that the $100CAD pack would have the cars a lot cheaper and also with the Car Pack you got weapon load outs so the cars wouldn't be $10CAD each...

But still even if they are $6CAD each which would be around $7.40NZD  then I still could get
two packs of Hot wheel cars for my kids.

and $25CAD for a one leader car is $30NZD I could get 10 Hot wheels cars for that one car.

@Too Bo Coo Will check what books I was given and see if I can find the 5t Edition and give it a read.

@Scurv the more I get into this the more its looking like the Lab doors will be opening and Frankfurter will be released to work his magic on a simple Car Wars version for kids of all ages.
thanks for your insight it is helping me alot get my head around the complexity that the 80's era churned out.

@Too Bo Coo yes I do have Dropbox and Google Drive. use them both for gaming files.  thx would love them.

LGW  

[CptJake]

All of the above makes me ask the question...

What other auto dueling rule sets are out there?  Are any of them decent?  Anyone try the set Stan Johansen puts out called Road Rage?   How about the old set GW put out (can't remember the name, maybe Dark Future?)

Jake

[Lord GreyWolf]

I am a complete Car battle noob.

My mates played Dark Future Alot and loved it I was more interested in space marines and Goblins back then..

But now I'd be keen for any rule set that enabled me to make what ever car I wanted and the rules were simple to play.

LGW

[CptJake]

Just found a link to a PDF for the Dark Future rules:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1340008_Dark_Future.pdf

Seems to have the expansions as well.

[Too Bo Coo]

I have a few of the rulesets.  Dark Future (GW) was ok, but only really suited to the 'Md Max' style road fight.  Since those were my favorites...  I have a few sets of the game myself.

I've never played Stan's game, but it's not cheap from what I remember.  There are a bunch of free rule sets, check in the post-apoc page for the list.  Many use the Wings of War plotted move system, which I dont care for.  It feels too abstracted for my tastes.

There is also the GW game, Battlecars (and Battlebikes) which is fun because you get a playsheet of your car with tons of counters for ammo and damage.  Very simple system with nice minis.  I have a bunch of them myself...

[Lord GreyWolf]

I got a copy of the Dark future rule set, but any know where I can get the components for the game? counters/tokens/templates etc

And as for battlecars no go finding rules for that one and from what Wiki mentions not sure I actually want to...

LGW

[Lord GreyWolf]

In my spare time I might have a crack at making a kids version taking aspect as you outlined and combining them into one type.

Chassis: light medium car, heavy car,bike body type/frame & a big 18 wheeler truck.
Weapons and Gear: 1st Edition [Grey Cover]
Targeting: 1st Edition
Movement: 4th Edition
Grenades: REMOVED
Pickup Trucks and Vans: Accessory not a body type.
Bikes and Trike's: Increase HC by +2
Armour: Replace all armour types with just one ARMOUR.
Light Debris: REMOVED [except wheels]
Tyres: Use SOLID tyres only.REMOVE wheel guards/hubs, [added to tyre armour]
Jumping & Falling rules: REMOVED

have I missed anything?

LGW

[Lord GreyWolf]

yup I'll sort through the 1st Edition rule book and get it streamed lined then add in the stuff from the 4th edition.

See how that flies with the kids. I will also knock down some of the weapons off the cars to stream line them. But my Son won't let me reduce one of his side mounted tank guns..

my bad for letting them go nutz on weapon load outs.

LGW

[Lord GreyWolf]

found the 1st edition rules and goig through the weapons to check if I can match up with everything I have placed onto the cars funny thing it wad one of my cars I have to alter as it had two flame throwers facing the front which won't work... aarrgghh
So Will modify my car to make it fit better into the list of guns available for the 1st Edition.

Oversized vehicles that would be the Heavy type chassis?

Finally read through the weapon rules and realised certain weapons could be mounted to the smaller cars. and the Tank gun can not be in a turret [WTF]

based off 1st Edition:
Can I have an Anti-tank gun in a turret?
Can light medium cars have autocannons? 
Can light medium cars have heavy lasers?
Are Trucks based off the Heavy chassis?
Can Trucks then use Anti-tank and tank guns? [or do I use the recoilless gun instead]

having to swap out quite a few weapons to simplify the cars but then forgot to check what can be used and what can't... big Fubar..

LGW