Car Wars

Vehicle Guide, Expansion No. 6

Review by Aaron Allston

The AADA Vehicle Guide: A Car Wars Supplement Car Wars Expansion Set #6: The AADA Vehicle Guide Counters
Written by Scott Haring andfirn Gould Edited by Steve Jackson
Steve Jackson Games Inc. PO. Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760
Released: August, 1984
Catalog No.: 7113
Price: $5.00, $3.00
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: Fair

Last August, after a long slump of official Car Wars material, Steve Jackson Games Inc. came out with what is probably the most impressive Car Wars supplement to date.

The AADA Vehicle Guide consists of an 8 1/2" x 51/2" booklet full of vehicle writeups, 129 individual vehicles with perhaps that number again in vehicle options, and some rules for new vehicle types. That's it--no scenarios, no characters-just vehicles after vehicle, page after page. it purports to be the official vehicle recognition guide (i.e. the Jane's) of the year 2033, the setting of the Car Wars universe.

The Vehicle Guide is an impressivelooking product. It has the best cover of a Car Wars product to date. A black field, with the supplement's name; the logo of the American Autoduelling Association; and several vehicle silhouettes in striking silver. inside, each page contains three vehicle write-ups each featuring a four- way view of the vehicle in question: top, right, front and back (in the case of helicopters, top, right, front, and bottom). The art is by a variety of Car Wars vehicle artists, but remains surprisingly consistent throughout the book.

I was favorably impressed with the Vehicle Guide. Its greatest virtue is that it contains an example of just about every variety and function of vehicle you could want from the Car Wars rules: duelling vehicles, courier vehicles, bulk-transportation vehicles, specialty combat vehicles, subcompacts through tractor-trailer rigs, helicopters, and more. A new vehicle type is detailed, the Tricycle--not a threewheeled bike, but rather a three-wheeled fighting automobile.

All in all, this is a useful package. A Car Wars player, caught without his normal gaming gear at a convention, can reach into the Vehicle Guide and find an example of any type of vehicle he wants. New players can see numerous examples of designs by experienced players. And this isn't a product which will be discarded after a few plays, any more than you'd discard your Jane's after recognizing a few warships. It's a durable release which will stay useful practically forever.

The Vehicle Guide is divided into sections by body-style, design and combat rules, off-road duelling rules, vehicle customization rules, and an index on the origins of special equipment. Each vehicle has its own historical notes describing its fictitious maker in the Cars Wars campaign universe-, the vehicles sales history; its intended function with its historical success in that function, in addition to the necessary vehicle-component breakdown and list of options.

I would like to have seen an additional index-the cars, by maker-just to see the design trends of the individual automakers of the year 2033. However, that would be of use only to Car Wars roleplayers, a minority compared to the vast number of die-hard Car Wars war gamers.

In all fairness, the Vehicle Guide, while enormously useful, isn't that original of a product. But I like it, and I'll use it.

Car Wars Expansion Set 6 is, believe it or not, a supplement to the AADA Vehicle Guide. lt~ a package of black and white counters, color them yourself, showing all the basic vehicles from the Vehicle Guide, plus a few of the options. It consists of four 4" x 7" cardstock cards, a sheet detailing the body style and Vehicle Guide page number for each counter represented, and the omnipresent ziplock bag.

The counter sheets aren't die-cut. As with all SJ Games counters, you have to cut them apart by hand. The normal view of the car is printed on one side, a "crashed" or wrecked version is shown on the other.

Once again, we have a pretty sharp product. I don't know what the market will be for color-'em-yourself counters for Car Wars. I certainly won't go to the trouble of coloring my set. But, I suspect quite a few plavers will. The pristine vehicle views were taken directly from Vehicle Guide, which makes recognition from one product to the other quite simple. Both sides of the counters seem to take my Pedigree color pencils with aplomb, though they looked better on the matte side. The matte side had problems with felt-tip watercolors, as it tended to absorb the colors which became virtually opaque. I'd stick to colored pencils or pastel felt-tip watercolors when coloring these counters.

Front-to-back registration of the counters is virtually perfect. This is surprising, considering the very tight space constraints involved.

All in all, I'd recommend the Vehicle Guide to any owner of Car Wars and the Expansion Set to anyone who wants to customize his counters or who is in need of great quantities of vehicle counters. Together, they're an attractive package.

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© Copyright 1999 by Dana Lombardy.
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