A Bullet by Any Other Name
A
bit of backstory.
Ever
since Thunder Alley (the first title
in the series) came out, I’ve been teaching the game to a wide variety of
players, in personal gaming events and at conventions. I even ran a year-long
season at work! And while everyone enjoyed themselves, at least one person—it
never failed—asked me at the end of the race, “Is there a version of this game
with guns?” People just wanted to zoom around the track while shooting up the
competition. And now they can.
The third entry in the ever-growing Thunderverse (after Thunder Alley and Grand Prix), Apocalypse Road is played on a large racetrack that can accommodate up to 10 players. Each track features tight curves, bottlenecks, a rough section through which no lane change is allowed, and an even rougher Jump area where cars risk getting more damaged than usual.
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| Britain's very own Andover Autodrome |
Players
control a stable of 10 cars each, four or five of which are active on the track
at any given time, depending on the number of players involved. Each car sports
its own speed rating (between 4 and 8) and one weapon type (out of three)
facing forward, backward, or mounted on a turret. On his turn, a player gets to
play a Race card and drive one of his hitherto unmoved cars: the number of
spaces moved is arrived at by adding the automobile’s speed to the card’s
value.
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| A sample of Race cards |
Movement cards come in five types, most of them simulating the effects of drafting. Lead movement pulls the column of vehicles behind the active car; both Solo movement and Pursuit movement push the column of vehicles ahead of the active car (with subtle differences between the two); Line movement takes vehicles in front of and behind the active car along for the ride; Overtake movement allows the active car to switch places with vehicles it encounters; and Ramming movement causes a collision when the active car catches up with a juicy target.
Combat is fast and simple, and an active car can shoot at an opponent before or after its move. The player declares an adjacent target in the active vehicle’s arc of fire and flips the top card of the Combat deck. If the targeting number shown there is equal to or greater than the car’s defense number, the target is hit and incurs as many damage markers as displayed above the weapon that just fired.
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| A smattering of Combat cards |
Any automobile that accrues six damage markers is removed from the race and replaced with a fresh car from the same team. No more cars available? That player finishes the race with whatever vehicles remain on the track. (No worries: when that happens, the race is almost over anyway.)
Once all cars have been activated—they’re flipped over to signal they have moved—the round is over. Players are left with one or two movement cards, which they can either retain or discard, according to what they perceive might be useful to them once the action starts up again. Everyone then draws back up to six cards, the 1st Player marker goes to the player with the most damaged cars (give the kid a break), and a new round gets underway.
Vehicles
keep going around the track with no specific number of laps to complete. A
player scores one point for each of his cars that completes a lap, and
one point for each enemy car he destroys, taking them from a pool of point
markers in the color of his team. As soon as one player reaches 15 points, the
game ends immediately and that player wins.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Twelve pages of rule are all that’s needed to fire up Apocalypse Road, and that’s even counting the page about Thunder Alley and Grand Prix integration: you can play either of the three games on any track in the whole system, with minimal adjustments.
The game mechanics are straightforward and effective, and can easily be taught in about 10 minutes. (Five, if your pupils have already played one of the previous games in the series.) Movement represents the biggest chunk of rules to chew, with combat a short-and-sweet dessert. Maybe too much so for some people—keep in mind this is no Car Wars clone, but rather an exciting racing game with a layer of weaponry thrown on top.
Some of the rules are not all that clear (do you need a targeting check for a collision attack?) and one or two others are missing (how do you handle the dotted spaces on the Essendarium track?), but overall you’ll find what you need in there, with plenty of examples to drive the points home.
The
Countdown Clock rule is the only one that feels out of place. It requires every
round to end with the removal of one VP marker from each team’s pool of
yet-to-be-won VPs (to speed up the game), and it’s stuck to the back of the
rulebook, under Winning, instead of being part of the End-of-Turn Sequence on
page 4. It’s also missing from the turn sequence printed on the tracks
themselves, and is sure to become Apocalypse
Road’s most easily forgotten rule.
FUN FACTOR
I’ve
been expecting Apocalypse Road for a
long time: my fellow racers and I started wishing for a mounted-weapon version
of Thunder Alley back in 2014, when
that first game was published.
And I must say that Apocalypse Road did not disappoint in the slightest.
The game is still very much a racing game, in that the surest and fastest way to score points is to have your vehicles complete a lap as fast (and as often) as you can. But the addition of gunplay gives rise to some interesting side tactics and epic twists, especially since you never know how much damage you’ll deal the car you’re attacking. Will you barely dent a fender, blast the car to smoking bits, or else miss entirely? I was once robbed of a victory—one space away from claiming my last point!—when my daughter Héloïse rear-ended another car in a Hail Mary collision attack… which destroyed the target and gave her the last point she needed to win.
Some of the fastest Race cards sport a burst icon that requires flipping the top card of the Movement Event deck to see what manner of misfortune has been unleashed. Most of the time it will affect the active card: after all, you know you’re pushing your vehicle to its limits when you race it that fast. But some events will target other cars—or even give you an unexpected boost! It’s great fun and adds just the right amount of tension to a crazy move that drags a dozen roaring cars clear across half the track.
The Jump section of each racetrack adds another fun wrinkle. It’s a really rough patch of road where you don’t want to leave your cars for too long, because many of the Movement Events target vehicles specifically in that chunk of spaces. The last thing you want is for your star racer to end up with a busted transmission.
There’s
also a crossover in the center of the figure-8 track called the Essendarium,
and while it looks super exciting, it turns out to be somewhat of a letdown.
The only thing that happens when cars meet at the crossing is that they each
get one damage marker. That’s it. No spectacular collision, no special rule for
pushing cars back in the loop they just came out of, nothing of the sort. It’s
not a big deal, but it feels like a missed opportunity. House rules will abound
here, no doubt about it.
WAR
PRODUCTION
Apocalypse Road ships with four large, mounted racetracks. Whereas the tracks in the series’ two preceding titles were fine but a little drab, the new tracks look exciting, dangerous and strangely inviting. The game is also equipped with three card decks (Race, Combat and Movement Events), 10 teams of 10 cars, players boards for everyone and an assortment of markers to track points, damage, and a few unfortunate situations vehicles will encounter throughout the race (such as spinning out or running out of ammo).
Now
as much as I love Apocalypse Road, I
have to point out a few production shortcomings that I feel might curtail the
game’s mass appeal. Some of those problems might stop casual players from
giving Apocalypse Road a shot, and
that would be a real shame.
- Car tokens flip the wrong way, on the short edge
instead of the long one. Flipping cars on the long edge is how it’s done
in both Thunder Alley and Grand Prix, and it is indeed the
natural way every new player will flip cars.
- Some of the teams have their car colors too close
to each other. Especially the two green teams, where confusion on the
track becomes inevitable.
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| Number 67 belongs to the green team on the right |
- The car fronts have a light background, while the car backs have a dark background: that’s how you can tell which cars have moved and which have yet to act. In Thunder Alley, the two sides were very distinct. In Grand Prix, unfortunately, the dark side was just a somewhat darker shade of tan; anything less than ideal lighting made identifying the flipped cars a daunting proposition. Unfortunately, GMT went back to that same shade for Apocalypse Road, and it’s making things more difficult than they need to be. The really strange thing is that the 1st Player marker, which you flip back and forth between turns to indicate what side of the cars will stand for “not yet moved,” has a truly dark side, which is not at all like the dark color selected for the cars.
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| Light/dark sides in Apocalypse Road and in Thunder Alley |
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| Cars and 1st Player marker in Apocalypse Road |
- The player mats themselves are designed in such a way that two of the three vital bits of information—weapon type and firing arc—don’t jump out at you the way they should. You have to read the words “machine gun front” or “auto cannon turret” when icons would do a better job. That’s actually what they did on the Combat cards: you have a big image of a machine gun accompanied by the words “machine gun.” So why not also use those weapon images on the team mats, along with something like a triangle to indicate front and rear firing arcs, and a circle for a turret? This becomes especially troublesome when you’re trying to read team mats on the other side of the table, because you want some information about firing arcs for cars you’re getting close to.
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| Original car layout |
- The game setup requires piles of victory point
markers to be stacked next to each other at the bottom of the racetrack:
you’re supposed to take one marker from your pile each time you score a
point, and everyone can easily see the number of points everyone has left
to claim. With 10 opponents, that’s 150 markers, and the piles quickly
become a mess. So why not use that space instead for a score track, and
give one marker to each team? The
Countdown Clock rule, which requires every round to end with the removal
of one VP marker from each team’s pool, could be an End Game marker that
starts at 15 and moves down the score track. Whichever team reaches the
End Game marker wins.
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| Stacks of VP markers, ripe for the picking |
PARTING SHOTS
What surprised me the most about Apocalypse Road is its simplicity. It’s easier to play than either of the other games in the series, even with the added combat system. The biggest hurdle lies in learning how the different movement types work—exactly like in Thunder Alley or Grand Prix. Beyond that? Just take a shot whenever you think is best, either before or after you move each car.
The game plays well at any player count, and that’s saying something. Naturally, the more, the merrier! With only two or three players, 10 to 15 cars end up on the track and combat becomes less frequent. The sweet spot seems to be around 4 to 8 players, with a nice mix of vehicular mayhem and room to breathe. Gather nine or 10 opponents around the table, and the starting grid gets loaded with 40 (!) automobiles armed to the gills; yet, somehow, it still works. Just be prepared for a little more chaos and a plethora of targets to choose from.
The rules suggest playing to 12 points for a shorter game, which I never found necessary. Even the Countdown Clock rule was discarded after just one play, because when cars start moving around in unison, teams rack up points really fast. The game time indicated on the box (60-90 minutes) is spot on, and a race typically ends with players feeling they could have gone for another half hour of vengeance and reprisals.
Apocalypse Road stands as the
best entry point in the series, and if GMT clarifies the graphic design for an
eventual second printing, the game will go on to become a staple in many gaming
groups. I know I made sure to sleeve the cards in my copy.
ADDENDUM:
COMPARISON TO THUNDER ALLEY
This
is for veterans who’d like a compact, bullet-point (ha!) list of differences
between Apocalypse Road and Thunder Alley.
- Each team is comprised of eight cars.
- Each car sports its own weapon type and firing
arc, as well as speed rating.
- Movement types: AR adds Overtake (similar to Working the Pack in TA) and Ram (for collision
attacks).
- Cars displaced laterally into a lane that doesn’t
exist move one space forward and not back (à la Grand Prix).
- Number of spaces moved is determined by adding
the active car’s speed rating to the value of the Race card played.
- High-value Race cards trigger a Movement Event,
which is likely to affect the active car.
- Pushing cars ahead always costs 1 movement point
and is termed “conditional linking.” Because of that, Solo movement is
more powerful in AR: it allows
the active vehicle to push an entire column of cars for 1 MP per space,
while leaving it free to veer away at any time.
- No “colored” damage from movement.
- Combat! Shoot your active car’s weapon at an
adjacent vehicle, before or after movement. Alternatively, ram the
bastards.
- No pit stops.
- Each track features a Jump section, a sort of
“danger zone” where cars are more susceptible to Movement Events.
- No fixed number of laps: the game is won on points. Score one
point for each of your cars that completes a lap, and each of your
opponent’s cars that you blow off the racetrack.
- AR
seats up to 10 players, or 40 cars on the track at once.
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Concordo pienamente con l'analisi fatta.
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