Steve Jackson Games Teases Car Wars 6th Edition

October 2, 2019 by avernos

Supported by (Turn Off)

Steve Jackson Games have been teasing some test prints and designs for Car Wars 6th edition. The showed off a preview at Gencon this year but now they have received the test prints from their sculptor Motion in poetry who has worked previously for Mantic on the Walking Dead and Kings of War. As you can see from this test print shot the cars are designed to fit around the Matchbox/Hotwheels scale.

SJG - Comparison 2

If you are new to Car Wars it is set 50 years in the future, natural resources are severely depleted and the United States government nationalised oil production. This eventually led to a second American civil war, ending with the secession of the "Free Oil States", Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Following famine in various parts of the world, there are limited nuclear exchanges between the USSR and the US, but anti-missile systems limit the resulting damage.

After these wars, there are years of worldwide economic crisis, and related global unrest, during which "death sports" become a popular form of entertainment (why does death offer the best entertainment?). In this future, technology has allowed for new vehicle designs, miniaturized weapon systems, and replacements for internal combustion engines. Furthermore, human cloning (together with techniques for storing memories), has made death only a minor setback for autoduelists who can afford the procedure. Car Wars is a game designed for simulating these autoduels between competing players.

The last edition came out back in the early 2000s and it's nice to see this classic car (game) getting the restoration job it deserves. The cars seem to come with integral clear acrylic bases to help with the game mechanics, deciding on arcs of fire for outgoing and incoming damage.

SJG - Preview Car 2

Armed with only a pair of twin machine guns to the front and a rocket launcher on the rear spoiler this beauty is considered to be a "light" vehicle!

SJG - Preview Car 1

The prototypes are showing pen marks for the tooling to produce these beauties in plastic, no word yet how they will come in the set but I would expect prebuilt in a variety of glorious techicolours. (can you spot the car within a car in the bottom image?)

SJG Preview with tooling

The fifth edition removed a lot of the bloat that had built up over two decades of new editions and expansions bringing it back to its purest beginnings of cars, weapons and death. The deliberate choice to continue to scale to Matchbox and Hotwheels cars opens up interesting possibilities, will they allow AADA expansions again as you build your own death machines, or are they merely content to make a good product that they know people will use and reuse in other games like Gaslands, rather than reinventing the wheel.

I'm looking forward to seeing Car Wars roaring back onto tables in the near future and seeing what Steve Jackson Games do with it.

What car would be the basis for your dueling death machine?

"The last edition came out back in the early 2000s and it's nice to see this classic car (game) getting the restoration job it deserves..."

Supported by (Turn Off)

Supported by (Turn Off)

Supported by (Turn Off)

Related Games

Related Companies