TRASH, CULTURE & VIOLENCE - Car Wars: The Card Game

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Looks like something that would be good for Trashfest NW. I'll have to look for a copy for next year.

There's still 24 hours to go. You just gonna give up like that?

Doesn't look like Starlit has it. That, and I have zero dollars in my gaming budget.

For nearly a decade, my gaming group played a lot of Car Wars. The game eventually collapsed under the weight of its own success, with too many ill-considered additions to the game. I still remember getting eliminated on the second round of multi-player duel, because somebody used a flame-cloud ejector on my car with a gas engine, causing my car to catch fire and explode. And yet that was otherwise a great session. It was a "steal the bacon" scenario using a relatively small map consisting of concentric rings of octagons with occasional gaps in the walls. One guy nearly escaped for the win, but an opponent got him with a flash grenade, forcing the target player to turn out the following turn and call out his moves without being able to look at the map. He misjudged his blind turn towards an exit and hit the wall hard.

Vehicle design was time-consuming, and I bet there were undetected mistakes and even cheating at times. We often had arguments about proper use of the turn key, or how the vehicles would move upon collision. And yet, I would much rather play some classic Car Wars then a take-that card game with the same setting. Take-that card games tend to fall prey to the usual multi-player game problems: attack the leader, kingmaking, unfair advantage to extroverts, etc. Classic Car Wars could have these issues at well, but a good map tended to make them less of an issue, by restricting player options to targets within ramming range or weapon fire arcs. And even the cumbersome movement phase system was made tolerable because it helped the game really match the concept, making the duels look like real action played out in slow motion. Maybe this particular take-that card game is better than usual, but it still probably has more in common with Munchkin than Car Wars.

If this is the original Car Wars The Card Game, yeah it's a completely basic Take That game. I know there were remaking it but once they said they weren't changing any mechanics, it dropped off my radar. It dishonors the memory of real Car Wars for me.
We played the hell out of the first three plastic boxes back in the 80s whenI was around 13. We'd put on ZZ Top and play for 12 hours at a stretch. Great memories and I'd love to see someone capture that feel in a modern board game design. But I can't take a game seriously today if it breaks down turns into tenths of a second.

Just as I can't take a game seriously today like The Card Game. Zero strategy other than table politics of whom to attack. You play your best attack card and hope you draw a defense card. Every turn. Until it's over.