North America, A.D. 2070. It’s a new American frontier. The collapse of the U.S. government plunged the country back into the good old days — days of wilderness lawlessness, banditry, regional dictators, and of the men and women who combat them. Modern-day knights and gunslingers are in demand; but the automobile has replaced the horse, and the machine-gun and recoilless rifle have made the sword and Winchester obsolete.
I saw that Steve Jackson Games were going to “release” a revised sixth edition of Car Wars, using 1/64th scale models though Kickstarter. Back in November 2019 I took the plunge and ordered Car Wars 6th Edition on Kickstarter. Here we are in June 2022 and it has arrived.
Car Wars is the game of autoduelling; futuristic vehicular combat where the right of way goes to the biggest guns. Players design their cars — complete with weapons, accessories, and crew — and then take them into the arena where one emerges victorious . . . and the others are annihilated.
Back in the 1980s I played a lot of Car Wars and has bought most of the rules back then, but I have no idea where they are now. I had most of the supplements and lots of the ADQ (AutoDuel Quarterly) magazine. I did subscribe to the magazine and it always use to confuse the Royal Mail as Steve Jackson Games sent the magazine from the USA, as is, no envelope, no plastic bag. At least one got damaged I think in the post, but most arrived okay.
I like the fact, that though the rules are out of print Steve Jackson Games have made them into PDFs you can buy.
I was also really pleased to see on an official Steve Jackson Games web site there is a link to a free PDF of the original Car Wars rules.
Skimming through the rules was like a blast from the past, bringing back happy memories of many games of Car Wars from over thirty years ago.
I think though I might splash out on some of the PDFs of ADQ and Uncle Albert’s Catalog.
Car Wars Workbench
My Car Wars Workbench where I am painting the 1/64th scale models that came with the 6th Edition.