Autoduelling Stories

[Piecemaker]

One of my funnest memories was a game in colorado.

The ruleset was longer than my arm, and was convoluted and involved. It was a Death Race, with all sorts of wacky rules.

Anyway, it was Division 30. So I had to decide between a racecar, or a duelcar.

I picked a gunboat. (Is anyone surprised? Hmm. Speed, or Death-dealing? Hard decision!)

MANY years ago, I had my arse thoroughly kicked (burned actually) by Mr. Ben Ellinger, who simply hit me repeatedly with a flamethrower until I was aflame. It was a good strategy, so I copied it.

I built a lux with two HDFT's out one side. IIRC, I used blow through concealment (the BEST element in Car Wars!) The rest of the design is irrelevant.

Turn one, everyone starts out in a figure eight pattern. I am one of the slowest cars on the map, and people start passing me. One does so, quite close. I fire. And hit with both flamethrowers. Being the clever guy I am, one was loaded with HT fuel, and the other with standard. IIRC, this meant he had to roll higher than a ten to avoid a fire.

Well, my opponent had metal armor, and stated that it was fireproof. I noted that I had punctured through his metal with both FT's (Why anyone would put six points of metal in Div 30 and expect it to be effective is beyond me!) and asked if the plastic underneath was Fireproof. It was not.

We then had a ten minute argument over the fact that although metal armor "is inherently fireproof" any other components can and WILL burn.

He lost, when everyone at the table agreed with my assessment of the rules.

So next turn he rolls: And explodes.

It was great- the rest of the game was a blur, but this guy whined and squealed the entire time. It was my first game back into Car Wars in like ten years, and I had a kill three turns in. Reminded me why I loved it, and listening to a forty year old whine like a four year cemented why I'd left it.

All said, it was easily one of my finest moments in Car Wars. I loved the random nature of the game, and how not bringing a fire extinguisher could wreck your day, even if you did accelarate 20 miles an hour.