Convoy

Car Wars

Review by Kerry Lloyd

written by Steve Jackson and David Ladyman
Steve Jackson Games Inc.
PO. Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760
Release: December, 1984
Catalog No. 7401
Price: $5.95
Complexity: Intermediate
Solitaire Suitability: High

Convoy is a module designed for use with the Car Wars game system. It is programmed so it can be used not only in referee-less fashion with one to six players, but also as a base for a referee to run the adventure for a normal Car Wars playing group. The basic Car Wars rules are required, and Truck Stop, the eighteenwheeler supplement for Car Wars, is a helpful additional item.

Convoy itself is a 64-page book with a nicely illustrated ambush scene by Daniel E. Carroll on the cover; CarrolB illustrations are found throughout the book as well. Statistics for all necessary vehicles except the convoy teams personal vehicles are listed within the pages of the adventure and maps of the appropriate areas as well as the layout sheet for the convoy's truck (delivery of which is the main purpose of the volume) are set in a four-page center pullout.

All of the basic information particular to running this adventure is provided in the first eight pages of text, and a team of sample characters is listed, both for those who don't want to design their own and as an example of the kind of team necessary to make this an interesting session of play and a viable attempt at completion of the quest. of course, the players will have to design the smaller vehicles for the team, and the financial limit placed on the assets of the team preclude designing any of the more unusual items like helicopters; a set of three or four smaller vehicles appears to work best in any case.

The adventure uses a numbered paragraph format with play directed from paragraph to paragraph by the players' choice of options. Paragraph numbers are set in a very large type-size and are easy to locate. Dan CarroM drawings help tremendously in maintaining the atmosphere of an excellent auto-duelling adventure.

The quest involved in the game is to deliver a trailer-load of badly needed algae from Lexington, KY to Memphis, TN, a mere 400-mile jaunt involving 8-10 hours of driving. However, this afternoon's jaunt is over highways that are cracked and overgrown with nearly 40 years of misuse and neglect, littered with the shattered results of numerous auto-duelling engagements and fraught with assorted bands of unfriendlies who would like to possess the teams' nice new truck and their personal vehicles. And they aren't choosy about how they get them. It's literally a life-and-death situation, both for the members of the convoy team in their attempt to get the tanker into Memphis and for the citizens of Memphis if they don't get through!

I have enjoyed the Car Wars system since its inception, and this is the first opportunity I have had to play a Car Wars session in one of my most used formats, the solo game. The adventure played very well and was good enough to keep me going until 4:00 am, even though I lost two of the four smaller vehicles I had designed in the first ambush. The team members were rescued, however.

This first Car Wars special adventure, Convoy , is a good example of the usually excellent production values and ideas from Steve Jackson Games. It is a nicely plotted work which can be played refereeless, either solo or with partners, or which can be used by a referee (providing his own little touches, of course) to harry a group of Car Wars players. If one is a Car Wars fan at all this item is not one to miss.

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