Tim Mossman
United States
Montgomery County
Maryland
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Expansion Set #4 to the Car Wars game introduced the Armadillo Autoduel Arena – a brand new sandbox in which to craft scenarios.
What the expansion added (Playability): The Armadillo Autoduel Arena brought Car Wars players off the roads into the post-apocalyptic world’s version of demolition derby. Virtually any scenario that one could dream up could be played out in the arena format.
The spacious confines of the arena were plenty sufficient to hold a “Battle Royale” style auto-duel. Now, the temptation to add all these vehicles into play was too great to simply settle for a mono-e-mono contest in the Armadillo Autoduel Arena, so the many-vehicle extravaganza was almost always the norm. We typically hosted games with “oversized” vehicles (courtesy the Truck Stop expansion) and pitted them against a fleet of regular-sized vehicles without any maneuvering problems. These contests were great fun, but also took quite a while to play out. It helped to be high-school aged and have the free time required to design all the vehicles and demolish them through game play.
What the expansion added (Technical Detail): No new rules or vehicle equipment came with this “small” expansion. The essential element that is added to the game is the square meter+ of maps containing the Armadillo Autoduel Arena. A big sheet of plexiglass to place it under would have been ideal (since the map sheets came folded up in a tiny plastic sleeve), but back in the day, I vaguely remember taping the edges of the maps to a massive sheet of cardboard to keep them flat.
The “instructions” that came with the supplement gave a decent overview of the Arena, most of which would have been irrelevant to gameplay, but did set a nice backdrop. “Local rules” regarding the pathways in, around and under the Arena are provided, as well as rules for weapons fire that hit various structural pieces of the Arena. [The arena description proudly proclaims the venue’s excellent spectator safety record – only 11 deaths and 6 injuries in 9 years of providing high quality entertainment.]
A typical weekly schedule at the Arena is given, upon which players could build any number of game scenarios:
- Monday: Amateur night – entry level drivers in “stock” cars
- Tuesday: AADA Divisionals – seasoned local professional drivers in different classes of vehicles, segregated by vehicle cost
- Wednesday: Team events – similarly built teams (e.g., same total team cost)
- Thursday: Cycles – many variants of motorcycle competition
- Friday: Challenge night – anything goes, including grudge matches
- Saturday: Special events – could be anything ranging from Ladies’ night, national-level professional event, State or national championship event or a free-for-all, team-based extravaganza (which is what we typically simulated)
- Sunday: Training and Arena clean-up
No special character development rules are provided, but for folks who kept the same drivers from game to game, the Arena provided a venue for them to keep coming back to.
Summary: The Armadillo Autoduel Arena provided a brand new dueling venue for fans of the original Car Wars game. Dueling on roads (provided in the original game and earlier supplements) was fun, but could be limiting as to how many vehicles could practically be involved. This expansion took away any notion of that restriction. I still regard playing with this expansion as one of our better gaming experiences when I was growing up.
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Charles Picard
United States
Washington
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Good memory simulating stuff!
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