The most important thing that Carla & I tackled in Apocalypse Road was the car to car combat.

Shooting had to be integrated seamlessly with the racing. A slow system for shooting would quickly bog down the entire race. The system could not be highly repetitive since it would be used on almost every turn and what is worse than waiting endlessly for your turn? That’s right, performing monotonous actions over and over on each and every turn. We needed variety, but not so much that it couldn’t be remembered easily. Cars needed defenses but not so much that they would make attacks feel pointless. So many needs. We started with dice, but the monotony of rolling over and over again got to us (and we love dice)! So we moved to some card options. Eventually with some trial and error we settled on a slick single-card system that determines hits but also inflicts damage.

For the greatest ease of play we established firing range early on to be adjacent spaces only. Counting multiple spaces and the necessary line-of-sight rules for corners and intervening cars was completely unacceptable at the game’s desired break-neck speed.

Shooting is not the only method for solving personal disputes in this game. There is also flat out car-vs-car contact. Ramming and Sideswiping can also render an opponent’s cars into a heap of twisted metal, of course at a cost. The same deck that regulates combat also regulates physical attacks.

So how do these magical cards work? As with all things, it’s simple to look back at now. The path to simplicity is paved with potholes and hand grenades however.

The large number at the top, ranging from 0-3 is the hit value of the card. If your target’s defense is equal or less than the card, the target is hit. Step two is to look at the weapon type from your car and inflict the damage associated with that type.  You can look at it and honestly not see much that is special about these numbers, but truthfully that is fine with me. All the math work is lurking down that grungy alley over there and hidden in the shadows. Here, let me shine my light down there so you can see…

The true beauty is that the damages are reflective of the big number at the top. Cards with a 3, which are required to hit a tank-like armored car, inflict smaller amounts of damage. (We’ll discuss the various weapons and why they occasionally break those rules in a bit.) This means that when you finally do hit that 3-value beast you are only causing superficial damage. Your heavies can generally take a beating and still last quite a while. The lower the card’s value, the more damage it inflicts thus keeping in mind the armor value of the cars being targeted, which is 1-3. Wait, 1 to 3? I thought the cards went from 0 to 3? They do, but some cars have targeting computers that give them a +1 to hit (or a -1 to the target car’s defenses, however you want to look at it).

The three weapons in the game that you don’t steer are machine guns, auto cannons, and missiles. Some of you that have tested the game may be asking, “what happened to the EMP gun?” Well truthfully you are probably more glad to see it gone than you are questioning where it went. It was so universally disliked in its current incarnation that it was removed last week. The EMP gun may come back in some form if there is a demand for a more detailed combat system. But for now, just pretend you never heard of anything resembling EMP gun.

Machine Guns cause light damage but can spray multiple cars or pin the driver of the target car down so that driver can’t shoot back. Machine Guns are also light and don’t slow cars down like the other weapons. The auto-cannon is medium valued and gets better the lower the number of card drawn, but it can still lay a kick into heavy opponent on some cards. Missiles are big show weapons — they can destroy a car in one shot or ricochet away causing only light damage. The trade off with the AC’s and the Missiles are their weight which reduces the base movement of a car.

Most cars have their weapons fixed forward or backwards, but some cars will take on a turret and the additional associated weight penalty to be able to shoot in all directions. Currently cars only have machine guns and auto-cannons deployed on turrets. There are no 360-degree missiles.

Defenses in the game are defined only by armor. The more armor a car has, the slower it goes. The armor values range from 1-3 and reflect the numbers on the cards.

But wait, there’s more! Not only can you shoot, you can ram and bump. As you can see above, those attacks are reflected on the cards as well. The higher the number on the card, the less average damage you do to the target and the more potential damage you do to your car. Yep, ramming another giant pile of steel with your pile of steel will do some damage to yours. It seems obvious to Carla and I but we would much rather ram the speedy light car than the slow steel-plated behemoth.

I know some of you may be reading this and saying, “is that all there is to combat?” Well, yes. It’s surprisingly gripping and takes on a drama every time a card is drawn. Did it hit!? How much damage!? D’oh!

We are well aware of dozens of other weapon systems and interactions. Mines, mortars, the aforementioned EMP Gun, Flamethrowers, detailed ammunition, ranges, smoke, oil, caltrops, stealth. All of those had at least some small amount of testing in the game. I can see a more detailed game for those that want it being developed at some point in the future, but that kind of detail is what we wanted to stay away from in the base game. This game is designed to draw people in, not scare them away. In truth it is also still at its heart a race, and not at all supposed to recall tank combat on the Eastern Front.

Author: Jeff Horger