Don't buy automatic card shufflers

[crashwg]

Just a little tip for anyone who considered getting one of these things.  They work awesome and speed up the shuffling process 10 fold.  But, and it's a pritty big but, they damage the cards!  This is not so much of a big deal if you are using dollar store decks of cards because you can always go and spend another dollar for another pack, but in my case I'm going to be shuffling over $100 worth of Munchkin cards.  

For info on Munchkin go here - http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/game/  It's an awesome game and worth every penny.  I'd reccomend it to anyone.

Well, I guess I'm off to spencers to return the shuffler...  

[Buddabing]

Just a little tip for anyone who considered getting one of these things.  They work awesome and speed up the shuffling process 10 fold.  But, and it's a pritty big but, they damage the cards!  This is not so much of a big deal if you are using dollar store decks of cards because you can always go and spend another dollar for another pack, but in my case I'm going to be shuffling over $100 worth of Munchkin cards.  

For info on Munchkin go here - http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/game/  It's an awesome game and worth every penny.  I'd reccomend it to anyone.

Well, I guess I'm off to spencers to return the shuffler...  

I was familiar with Steve Jackson Games, having played Raid on Iran waaay back then. I didn't know he was a fellow Rice alumnus. How about that!

I'll have to check out the game!

[abrannan]

A lot of Steve Jackson games are very good.  Munchkin (and it's expansions/spinoffs), Ninja Burger, Chez Geek, Illuminati, and the Awful Green Things from Outer Space rank among my favorite non-video games.

[hulkster]

just curious....abrannan....is your icon the little mole guy from Danger Mouse? i loved that cartoon.

[Daniel270]

I watched Dangermouse a LLLLOOOOONGGGG time ago.. lol...  The sidekick's name is Penfold.. and yes, that's him.

[DougHillman]

Illuminati rocked.  

I've been waiting 20 years for someone to make a good computer version of "Car Wars."  My favorite pen & paper game of all time.

[Dartful Dodger]

Illuminati rocked.  

I've been waiting 20 years for someone to make a good computer version of "Car Wars."  My favorite pen & paper game of all time.

I hate you!

Now I have to go over to my parents this weekend and dig through the attic and crawl space looking for all my "Car Wars" stuff.  And I know I wont find it, because it's been thrown away 20 years ago.

I was suprised to see the same people made this great game into a card game.  
I guess they needed a version for the attention deficit kids of today.

To bad.

[DougHillman]

Illuminati rocked.  

I've been waiting 20 years for someone to make a good computer version of "Car Wars."  My favorite pen & paper game of all time.

I hate you!

Now I have to go over to my parents this weekend and dig through the attic and crawl space looking for all my "Car Wars" stuff.  And I know I wont find it, because it's been thrown away 20 years ago.

I was suprised to see the same people made this great game into a card game.  
I guess they needed a version for the attention deficit kids of today.

To bad.

Hahah.  I posted that from my girlfriends house.  As soon as I got home a few hours ago, I went and got all my stuff outta the cabinet where I keep it.  The very original small plastic boxed set, coupla small boxed expansions, the military sourcebook, AeroDuel boxed set.  Even the 10th Anniversary issue of AutoDuel Quarterly that I was converting to HTML for the archives.  (Never did finish that.  I should check and see if they ever got it done by anyone else.)

I LOVE THIS GAME!   Haven't been to a Gen-Con in a while, but I know they still have Car Wars tourneys occasionally.  The scaled up games using Matchbox cars were awesome.

I glanced at the card game last time I was in a hobby shop, but it looked like a pretty weak substitute for the original.

Now, i mentioned that i've been waiting 20 years for a good computer version.  There actually WAS a computer game based on Car Wars.  Think it was called Auto Duel.  Early PC game.  I know I've probably still got it around here somewhere.  Was good for its time.

[abrannan]

Illuminati rocked.  

I've been waiting 20 years for someone to make a good computer version of "Car Wars."  My favorite pen & paper game of all time.

I hate you!

Now I have to go over to my parents this weekend and dig through the attic and crawl space looking for all my "Car Wars" stuff.  And I know I wont find it, because it's been thrown away 20 years ago.

I was suprised to see the same people made this great game into a card game.  
I guess they needed a version for the attention deficit kids of today.

To bad.

If you want classic Car Wars stuff, I can arrange to get mine back out of storage at my parents and sell it to you.  My faves were the Uncle Al's weapon catalogs.

[Stingray]

Penfold is a hampster, not a mole.   Dangermouse rules!

-S

[abrannan]

Crash, did you see this?
http://www.sjgames.com/munchkin/blender/

[ErikRuud]

My friends and I used to play a lot of those games.
Before the Steve Jackson games, there were Metagames!  Metagames was the first company to market microgames as they called them.  My friends and I used to go to Sutler's Dugout in Chicago to buy them.

I still have most of mine!

Metagames I had: OGRE, GEV, Melee, Blackhole, Annihalator/OneWorld, Hot Spot, & Rivets (OGRE & GEV were games by Steve Jackson designed while working for Metagames, they were later sold under the Steve Jackson line.)

Taskforce I had: Starfire, Intruder, Starfleet Battles, & Robots

Steve Jackson Games that I had: Illuminati

Here is a great reference site for these games: http://maverick.brainiac.com/cmm/cmm_index.html

[xar256]

Hey hey...Starfleet Battles...I wasted spent a lot of hours on that one years back.  That and Talisman of course.  Ahh the good ol' days

Xar256

[SirPoonga]

yep, car shufflers = bad for cards that are worth something.  One of my friends who can't shuffle wanted one for his Magic cards.  I told him no....  nothing like a $20 card getting damaged by one of those.


Edit:  I was looking at sjgames.com.  WTF is carwars?  I can;t find any description of it on their site or how to play or anything that tells me what the game is so I know if I'd want to buy it.

[ErikRuud]

SirPoonga,

I don't think it is in print anymore.

http://maverick.brainiac.com/cmm/carw.html

CarWars was a game where took various vehicles, added weapons and armor and then did battle. There was PC version called AutoDuel that was ported to a few other platforms as well.

[ErikRuud]

Whoops!!!!

Correction: Look here: http://www.sjgames.com/carwars/

[SirPoonga]

As I said I looked there, sjgames doesn;t explain it, just news and FAQs.  And hte FAQs don't even answer "What is CarWars".

[abrannan]

In a nutshell, Car wars was a post apocalyptic future "wargame" would be the best description.  People outfitted their cars with all sorts of armor and weapons and duelled in arenas and the like.  There were all sorts of tie-ins to the GURPS roleplaying system (Giving you AAA style guides to various regions of the US and world).  The original sets were very high-tech with lasers and such, but there was an expansion that allowed for Mad Max style cars with crossbows and good old-fashioned strapped on steel plates.  

I see what you mean about the SJgames site, though.  That's just plain wrong to not have any description of the game on there.

[SirPoonga]

How do you play it though?  I see sites where the cars are on a grid.  I don't quite get that.

I finally found autoduel for the c64.  I will have to get a c64 emu and see what that is all about.

[abrannan]

It's been a loooong time since I've actually played a game of Car Wars or read a rulebook, so I may be wrong on some of this.  Movement for the cards was on a 1/4"x1/4" grid, and there were large arena maps marked out on 1/4" graph paper.  Based upon your speed, you'd move forward a number of 1/4"s.  Your average sedan was 1/2" x 1", motorcycles were 1/4"x1/2", trucks and buses were longer.  There was a special "turning key" that would help you determine the difficulty of a turn based on speed and how much you were turning.  Firing weapons was a skill check (Drivers had two skills, driving and shooting) with modifiers for distance, speed, etc. etc. etc.  Each vehicle had a record sheet, similar to those in classic battletech that you recorded damage to armor, tirs, engine, etc. on.  The original edition's rules got to the point where it was more like StarFleet Battles in their complexity and time to play.  Each turn was one second of game time, divided into 10 phases.  It could take 10 minutes of real time to play one phase (or .1 seconds of game time).  It was rare for a battle to last more than 10 seconds of game time.

I'm amazed by the lack of good material for Car Wars on the net.  It would seem that a game a popular as it was would have some better online sites.  

[Dartful Dodger]

It's been a loooong time since I've actually played a game of Car Wars or read a rulebook, so I may be wrong on some of this.  Movement for the cards was on a 1/4"x1/4" grid, and there were large arena maps marked out on 1/4" graph paper.  Based upon your speed, you'd move forward a number of 1/4"s.  Your average sedan was 1/2" x 1", motorcycles were 1/4"x1/2", trucks and buses were longer.  There was a special "turning key" that would help you determine the difficulty of a turn based on speed and how much you were turning.  Firing weapons was a skill check (Drivers had two skills, driving and shooting) with modifiers for distance, speed, etc. etc. etc.  Each vehicle had a record sheet, similar to those in classic battletech that you recorded damage to armor, tirs, engine, etc. on.  The original edition's rules got to the point where it was more like StarFleet Battles in their complexity and time to play.  Each turn was one second of game time, divided into 10 phases.  It could take 10 minutes of real time to play one phase (or .1 seconds of game time).  It was rare for a battle to last more than 10 seconds of game time.

I'm amazed by the lack of good material for Car Wars on the net.  It would seem that a game a popular as it was would have some better online sites.  

that's the REAL car wars. I think the new Car Wars (ADD Car Wars) is a faster pase game.  I don't own it, but I was searching around to see if it would be worth getting, but I don't have the time for another hobby/game that I wont play.  

The cars are now the size of playing cards, and It doesn't use a grid/map, you use a ruler and measure the distance the cars go and you just play on any surface, and you use any obeject as barriors, like beer cans and styrofoam cups.  I don't even think you have to spend 2 hours before the game designing a car, all the cars are premade.  Each set comes with two cars and rules.

Again I don't own or play it, this was just my impression of it, if I'm wrong (and I hope I am) the game might be worth owning.

[abrannan]

that's the REAL car wars. I think the new Car Wars (ADD Car Wars) is a faster pase game.  

There is no Car Wars but the original minibox game, and Uncle Al is his prophet. New Car Wars is like new Star Wars, somewhat familiar, but nowhere near as cool as the originals.

[DougHillman]

Abrannan's description of the basic gameplay is a good one.   Really did play out alot like StarFleet Battles.  

There were many scenario options available.  The idea was that in this sorta post-apocolyptic world (Think Mel Gibson's Road Warrior sorta) people armed their vehicles to defend against maurading gangs and just everyday road rage filled drivers.  This carried over to the sport of Demolition Derby when (I forget his name and don't have my sourcebooks here) a guy mounted a surplus .50 caliber machine gun to his car.  The sport of AutoDuelling was born.   Typical scenario setups were either an AutoDuel layout in a large arena, or an on-the-road setup.  

You'd typically be given vehicle requirements and an amount of money to spend on your vehicle.  Say you were competing in an Arena Duel.  You may be limited to mid-sized cars and under with $35,000 to spend.  I always felt that designing the car was the most fun part.  You had an almost limitless amount of decisions to make.   Body style, frame, suspension, engine, accessories, tires, offensive weaponery, defensive weaponery, targeting & driving aids, personal body armor, the list goes on and on.

If you wanted to get really in-depth there were some RPG elements put forth so that you could play a continuing character.   A group I gamed with did that for a while.  I had a Smokey and the Bandit type pair that included a long-haul trucker with an escort in a sports car.  We'd fight on long stretches of straight & curved highway with scattered debris and oncoming traffic and whatnot.  Fending off hijackers and such.  


While there doesn't seem to be much in the way of the original source material available on the net, many of the issues of AutoDuel Quarterly have been HTMLized.  (Looks like the issue that I was doing never got finished by anyone else either.  Guess I should get it done.  )    This was the quartely magazine which included rules updates, scenarios, car designs, fiction, etc.  A good place to get a feel for the game.  http://www.sjgames.com/car-wars/adq/

I may hafta see if there's gonna be a big game going on at Gen-Con this year.