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I just finished writing the first draft of "Red Asphalt" a ruleset for combat between cars using repainted/touched-up Matchbox and Hot Wheels.

I read alot of Car combat rulesets, and while I don't claim this to be any better, it hopefully will be a good representation of my goals for a car combat game.

1) Easy to learn rules
2) No chits or counters needed on game board
3) 60-90 minute play time
4) Each player being able to control a whole gang of 3-8 cars or more, rather than the 1-4 favored by most rulesets.
5) Just cars and trucks. No infantry.

Anywho, if anyone would like to look over the rules and playtest or just make comments I've attached it below as a Word Doc. I've got several members of my game club going over it, but an extra set of eyes never hurt.

Will take a look. Thanks for the up!

Thanks for taking a look. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments.

Here are some Record sheets/Cards for the various vehicles that a club member was nice enough to make.

Every vehicle has 30 blocks for hits for each side, though as noted on the card they have less. Just black out the extraneious hit points, print them, cut them and insert in a card sleeve and you're ready to go!

Read it, loved it. What a great set of rules. Obviously the battles would only last max 30 mins but it would still be fun to play. It is currently lacking flavour and perhaps a bit more fun in the rules but the barebones are great!

Thanks for the read through. I agree that it needs some Flavor and perhaps some whimsy as well. If I can get the rules to a place where the club enjoys them, I'm going to try and get a club members to make a few pieces of art also.

I'm just about finished with some more polished looking Status Cards as well as a few basic rules for off road cars. They are going to have a lower HaSta, but it won't be degraded when going off road. Regular vehicles will see thier Max and HaSta decrease when off road. Look for these changes in a day or two.

If you've got any suggestions for improvement, please share, even if they're harsh.

New and Improved Status cards! I spent some time with a drawing program and came up with these.

As well as being better laid out and 8 per page, the stats are blank so you can print a page and fill in the details from the any car in the list in the rules. There's also room for special rules. At first I only plan to introduce special rules for terrain, but if the game developement goes well, I plan to add more.

Interesting choice to restrict vehicles to hand weapons only instead of the standard mounted guns so often seen in vehicular combat games. The prevalence of impacts kind of gives the game a demoltion-derby-with-desert-eagles feel or good old Road Warrior. I do think some variety between the weapons is needed instead of the blanket 7+ to hit and 1D4 damage.

And I might be missing something, but in terms of simplicity I don't see this being any less complex than Car Wars 5th. Status marking chits aren't needing in either, the same basic Handling Status mechanic exists, except they have a bunch of bonus depth for little added complexity (tire shots, different manuevers besides turns and lane changes, etc.)

I'll be interested to see how this develops though.

Thanks for your commnets

bosky wrote:Interesting choice to restrict vehicles to hand weapons only instead of the standard mounted guns so often seen in vehicular combat games. The prevalence of impacts kind of gives the game a demoltion-derby-with-desert-eagles feel or good old Road Warrior. I do think some variety between the weapons is needed instead of the blanket 7+ to hit and 1D4 damage.

Actually, Mad Max is exactly the feeling that I'm going for. I wanted it to be very focused on maneuvering for the right hit rather than shooting. I'm going to expand on shooting in a suplement, though I have a feeling that once front and turret mounted guns are added, it will end up being an almost completely different game in terms of how combat plays out.

Still, I'll consider adding some variation to shooting.

bosky wrote:And I might be missing something, but in terms of simplicity I don't see this being any less complex than Car Wars 5th. Status marking chits aren't needing in either, the same basic Handling Status mechanic exists, except they have a bunch of bonus depth for little added complexity (tire shots, different manuevers besides turns and lane changes, etc.)

Any similarities are mostly accidental. I did borrow from alot of games (auto based and not), but my only exposure to Car Wars was reviews and comments I read on TMP. Most of the games I read were from "Free Wargames Rules" though I did buy one or two from WargamesVault. As to the simplicity, leaving out specific types of hits (tires, etc) or depth of damage (a pre-version had profiles like Mech Attack, but decided against it) is intentional slides toward less complexity rather than more.

bosky wrote:
I'll be interested to see how this develops though.

I hope you like the direction it takes. I'm working on some simple rules for terrain right now.

The hand weapon approach and side-only firing arcs will certainly give the game a unique feel. That and the higher recommended cars per side.

Aside from Mad Max what it also reminded me of was Mexican Motor Mafia, an old indie game where you drive around with a customizable gun out of each window (so you can have a shotgun pointed left and a pistol pointed right). They have a demo that you should check out as it might remind you of Red Asphalt but in computer form.

In my experience front mounted guns in vehicle games tend to give the feel of a WW1 dogfighting game, where any manuevering is done to line up shots, and after getting the shot the cars have to circle again. I imagine side arcs would be kind of similar, just with different lines of approach. As soon as 360 degree turrets are added manuevering basically is pointless, but some people like being able to shoot every turn without hassling with moving.

And yeah variety in guns seems like a pretty standard item to have in games. The usual classics of "short range but powerful" (shotgun), "jack of all trades" (pistol), "high chance to hit but low damage" (machine gun), etc.

Looking forward to any battle report or pictures of rad Hot Wheel conversions you do