Early last Fall, Thunder Alley designer Jeff Horger contacted me and indicated that there was a third-party-designed expansion set for Thunder Alley that he and Carla would like to publish through their new game company. Tony and I considered that for a bit, decided that a) we like Jeff and Carla a lot and would like to support them in their new venture, and b) having them print the expansion through their company would probably get the expansion to players sooner than if we did it ourselves, based on the size and quality of games that would be ahead of it in our P500 print queue. So, lest anyone wonder why we’re not printing this expansion ourselves, that’s basically the story – they asked, and we said “no problem.” For those of you who want more options in your Thunder Alley experience, I encourage you to support Jeff, Carla, and Nothing Now Games in their Kickstarter project. We have plenty more details below, in this article from Jeff. Enjoy! – Gene

When a game like Thunder Alley gets made, it invariably has endured numerous edits, revisions and cuts all of which hopefully create a much stronger game. A topic that is at once rich and layered like stock car racing provides voluminous background work and history from which to build. In addition everyone has their own insight, preferences, prejudices, and ideas on the topic. After all it’s not like an historic battle or 18^th century politics where only a few have any real knowledge or interest in the topic. Anyone can turn on their television on most Sundays and find the good ole boys going at it. Some love it with a rabid fervor; others hate it with equal passion, and most run the range from mildly interested to totally ambivalent. Personally, I fall into place below obsessive fan but more interested in it than a casual observer. I have watched racing since the 70’s and a love of cars is the one interest I shared with my late father, Verghn Horger. But that love was not just stock cars, it encompassed Formula 1, Indy Cars back when the sport mattered, drag racing and most of all, hot rods & show cars. Dad loved car shows and classic cars and so do I. So while I don’t bleed for a particular driver or put stock car racing on a pedestal, I do respect and understand the sport and see more than “cars turning left” followed by a crash.

When Carla & I started working on Thunder Alley, we knew that we wanted to be respectful of the sport on the one hand but also to make a smooth and fast-flowing game that felt like racing without getting bogged down in the minutiae. Every decision we made was an effort to minimize play time, keep the flow of the race moving forward and provide the feel of being at the track. That meant that we were constantly at odds with the massive amount of detail that you could get lost in surrounding stock car racing. Pit strategies alone kept me up at night for weeks as we debated a real pit row versus the abstract pit system we ended up with. At one point we had specific crews with rated skills for each car. There were rules for fuel capacity and usage and how long did it take to put 12 gallons of fuel into a car. Realistically, we looked at almost every aspect of racing to see how we could be true to the sport while keeping the game fun for all. We like to think we hit a happy medium. Yes, it is still about cars turning (mostly) left. No, it does not make racing fanatics forget that there are adaptations to their beloved sport. But we got exactly what we wanted, a fast fun race game where not everything is in your control at all times. It reminds players of racing without bogging them down in information. We were pleased and it tickled us pink when so many of you agreed with us and purchased the game. We were even more thrilled when the reviews came in. And then the greatest thing anyone can expect with their game happened, people started a cottage industry of creating cool extra bits and parts and events and such for the game. Done, drop the mic, done.

Then something unbidden and beyond our wildest dreams happened. Another designer that we have tremendous respect for and who happens to be one of those passionate race fans dropped an expansion for the game into our lap. Richard Launius (Arkham Horror, Defenders of the Realm, Legends of the American Frontier and many others) had decided to create an expansion to Thunder Alley that blew us away. For him the game was good but it lacked some of what he wanted from a racing game. So he spent some of his valuable time tweaking the game and creating what we consider to be a great expansion. It is not only for those that want more racing details and challenges but it also is good for those that want the rules smoothed out for everyone. It is truly an inspired creation and in my opinion not only has something for everyone but is a must have for anyone that already owns the game.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nothingnowgames/thunder-alley-crew-chief-expansion-by-richard-laun

What does the expansion include? The main component is the Crew Chief Strategy Decks. These cards allow you to exert more control over the race and the cards in your hand. They require proper timing to use and require that you plan your turns a bit more carefully. Race to the Finish Cards allow for occurrences like the “Lucky Dog” pass on a caution to get a car that was previously lapped back in the race. More laps are added to various tracks with the inclusion of Lap Cards. These Lap Cards range from 3-6 and can be used to lengthen any track for more pit strategies. Setup cards allow you more control over your hand of cards. Conditional Cards increase the choices in the basic Crew Chief decks.

In addition to the extra cards, the expansion also includes a number of new rules for the game. Some of them add missing details and others open up new avenues for play. And others just make the game better. The best part of the expansion is that it is completely modular. Nothing relies on you adding more than the parts you want to work with. If you like the new rule on card drawing, use it, no need to add anything else. Maybe you like the Set-up cards and the Star Drivers but not the extra laps, that works fine. We have spent the last 5 months making sure that not only do all of the new rules and components work by themselves, but they work without relying on each other.

I would like to bend your ear for a few minutes on each of the additional parts of the expansion and offering my point of view on each of them.

Let’s start with the Crew Chief Cards themselves. I am not going to lie; I never gave a set of cards like this a thought during the design stage. We always tried to keep things simple and I know that if we thought to something like this at the time, we quickly assumed it would be too much and too time consuming to carry through. So when I first saw them and how simply Richard integrated them into the flow of the game, I was pleasantly surprised. The rules are quick and simple; they don’t require much more time and reward players with a feeling of more strategy and control. By only having three at a time to choose from and with their abilities tied to very specific instances they do not drag and do not require deep thought on when to play them. Score one for Richard and his detail on this one.

The second module is Star Drivers. We had all sorts of driver rules integrated into the game and of course some of the driver abilities were better than others. We removed them from play because I honestly do not like a myriad of special abilities that players need to navigate to understand and play a game. I prefer for the player’s skill to lead to game knowledge which transforms into something akin to driver skills. However, the ease and simplicity in how this one driver per team skill fits is remarkable. Star drivers have a passive ability of being able to avoid damage while also getting benefits from the Crew Chief cards. It was an inspired and simple decision. Score another one for Richard.

Module three is the Race to the Finish Cards. They are a deck of cards that replaces the position tokens in the base game. Like me, you may wonder why that would be necessary. Well for the most part it’s not. What it does allow is for more detailed methods of tracking how a car was removed from the race. Something that Carla & I never deemed important. But Richard also tweaked some rules and added some rules that now make this important in multiple ways in the expansion. Do you want to include the “Lucky Dog” rule? better have the Race to the Finish Cards. Want to run a race that awards bonus points for not having a car eliminated? better use the Race to the Finish Cards. So while this module is nice but completely unnecessary on its own, it becomes very important when paired with other modules from the expansion.

The next module is Lap Cards. This is a place where Richard and I part ways a little. I like shorter games and maybe wear and pitting doesn’t always come into play. Richard is perfectly fine with a longer game and a need to time that trip into the pits just right. The Lap cards allow you to make any race longer and therefore introduce more pitting strategy. I am perfectly happy with players that want longer races and more pitting and have always encouraged players to race to their heart’s content. The Lap Cards now allow players to do that. They are perfectly functional on their own but really take on more importance with the Track Card module.

Speaking of the Track Cards, let me discuss that for a moment. It was very important to Carla & I that we went with just the official Sprint Cup scoring in the game. We wanted authenticity and it is a really good system for team racing. What we did not introduce was special scoring rules. With the track cards, each race can have extra scoring possibilities for players making each race unique and different from the last. It is a big increase in re-playability. In addition the Track cards are wonderful because they provide possibilities for track specific special rules. Again this highlights re-playability at a very small cost. Honestly if I used nothing else from this expansion I would have to have these cards and I might complain that 24 is too few. (Developers note, Please don’t complain that 24 is too few).

The last module Richard included was a set of very interesting and useful rules modifications. Racing out of the pits, racing for position, pit variables… a good bit of chrome. Honestly these are not Carla’s and my favorites. We prefer these items the way we finished up with them, but I can see how they would be attractive to players wanting more of a realistic feel to the game. I don’t begrudge them these rules but I doubt if I use many of them at my table either.

The last two modules are ones that I added from my playing experience over the years. The Setup cards and the Conditional cards are my own inventions. The Setup cards allow you to have a card up your sleeve for use all game long. If you feel that the luck of the draw is against you, having a card you can count on is always helpful. The Conditional cards allow a bit more variety in the Crew Chief Deck.

Carla & I spent a lot of time making Thunder Alley exactly what we wanted. In addition our choices were influenced by what we thought and saw through play testing that most people wanted. There were some things that didn’t make the cut and some things we just never pursued. Thunder Alley Crew Chiefs adds back in some of our late cuts and some flavor that is meaningful to fans of the sport. All of it was done from a perspective outside of our own and for us that makes it exciting. We can’t wait to do even more customizing of our race experience.

Right now the Thunder Alley Crew Chief expansion is running a campaign on Kickstarter. The campaign runs to the end of April 2016. All of the support we can get will be greatly appreciated.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nothingnowgames/thunder-alley-crew-chief-expansion-by-richard-laun

Author: Jeff Horger