Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

i still have the card board square cars, trucks and bikes , and i play it once a month still... trying too find a group to play with me.

From the Steve Jackson Games Site....

June 23, 2010: Origins!
I also have it on good authority that the awesome Car Wars setup will be back, so if you like Matchbox cars with guns glued on, it's worth your time to stop in the Open Gaming area. Sorry, no idea where it'll be this year.

I've played it twice. Never finished a game. It was fun, but took forever to play.

No no it doesnt. Flip yer bus. I had the origional plastic boxed packaged mini-game with the cut-out cards for vehicles, but it was so complicated with all the speed phases and the turning key and just too much for my 9 year old head to process... SO MUCH STUFF to know we never really played it much because my friends just weren't into it for complexity reasons. We had 'car wars', 'sunday driver'(later rereleased as 'crash city'), and 'truck stop'. Truck Stop was by far the most interesting rules additions, Sunday Driver added pedestrians and non-car non-arena combat in some podunk middle of nowhere town. Biker gang versus cops, with armed civilian pedestrians running around everywhere. Definitely the coolest scenario.

My big brother had the Uncle Al's Christmas special that featured weapons like the 'black hole dropper' and other wierdness. It came in Calendar format so you would get a new absurdist weapon every month.

Steve Jackson is a dedicated POEE discordian pope, which is probably where all the combined anal rules freakishness and absurdity comes from. He also makes 'illuminati', 'nuclear war', and reprinted the origional 'Principia Discordia' (HAIL ERIS!) I would love to game with that wierdo some day if I get the chance... we'd probably end up playing a Cthulu verion of SORRY or something equally goofy.

Guitardian wrote:I would love to game with that wierdo some day if I get the chance... we'd probably end up playing a Cthulu verion of SORRY or something equally goofy.

Yoy should definately check out this bit of weirdness then.... Watch the youtube vids for game play examples.. they also have a flash demo on the site.
http://www.sjgames.com/dice/cthulhudice/

I think the original version had 10 impulses per turn, rather than the 5 or so it later had. (I haven't looked at my stuff in years, so forgive me if I'm off)

I remember restarting the game in the early 90s. My friend and I each took one killer kart. Flying around the corner at 70 mph, mine immedially cartwheeled.

The rules were detailed, but were pretty much common sense for cause and effect.

Anyone remember the armored beer fridge? (i.e. hit sink)

ZF-

for those of you that still play, Stan Johansen Miniatures has some nice bits to dress-up Matchbox and 3x cars. They even have motorcycles.....

http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/Road.htm

Dragon

I might be getting a steady game going at Hot Wheels scale, which I'm psyched about. Plus then I finally have a use for my growing collection of toy cars, haha. Buying new ones is rather tempting when they're $1 each.

My biggest recent Car Wars addition were some custom handmade road sections that I'm very happy with. I also got in a race around a canyon which pulled from my 40k terrain.

Anyways, heck of a game, regardless of the rules complexity. For simulating cars with guns, nothing else comes close.

I love Car Wars....I have the whole Steve Jackson collection in my game shelf.....loads of stuff....have not pulled it out in a few yrs...

I'll have you know that I've been to Muskogee and there is definitely no mayhem happening there.....how unfortunate.

Car Wars was the game that got me into the whole table top gaming thing. I loved it as a kid and still have the game stashed in the loft.
I played dark future to death and had pretty much everything they made for it from the infantry models to the novels but it was a lot simpler than Car Wars by a long shot.

We got a bored game called 'thunder road' back in the 80s and it quickly took over from car wars because it was just a simple bored game, rather than one of the most complicated, slow moving, and meticulous rules sets ever made.

I love the theme of car wars, I appreciate its attention to detail, but it was too hard for a bunch of 9 year olds.

Speaking of which, they made a GURPS supplement called 'Autoduel'... great, take one of the most complicated slow moving board games ever devised and piggy-back it onto the definitively most complicated RPG ever devised... "come back tomorrow night and we'll finish round 3!"

I would love to play that again, for the feel and the style it had, but I would love some overhauled, simpler rules to make playing it as fun as reading it.

---anyone want to brainstorm some more 'fun' rules for matchbox car battles?

Have been away for quite some time, but I'm sat here painting a Gryphon and managed to catch up on this thread.

Managed to find a local aquaintance who still has the stuff for the game so at some point we're going to give it a try I think.

Guitardian wrote:
...
I would love to play that again, for the feel and the style it had, but I would love some overhauled, simpler rules to make playing it as fun as reading it.

---anyone want to brainstorm some more 'fun' rules for matchbox car battles?

Lots of people had the same thought as you, so plenty of alternative rulesets might meet your needs.

For official Car Wars there was the semi-recent Car Wars 5th edition that streamlines the original "slow moving, meticulous" rules set and aims it at the Hot Wheels scale. That's the perfect mix for me. Just yesterday I played 3 games in 3 hours (with a break for dinner and a scene of the new Death Race movie!). Maybe I just use it as an excuse to buy piles and PILES of Hot Wheels, haha.

Otherwise there are good fan made options like:

Axles and Alloys (original)
Axles and Alloys 2 (new)
Road Rage V8 (direct PDF link)
Project Death Race

I've tried out both Axles and Alloys and Road Rage V8 and had fun with those, so maybe give them a shot.