(Photo credit to Restoration Games)
Written by Ed Carter, Staff Writer
Thunder Road: Vendetta
2-4 players
Dice rolling, racing, shooting, dice placement
3,2,1, SURVIVE!!!
It’s NASCAR from the wasteland! A race in the world of Mad Max, in the desert remains of civilization, where the winner is the crew who survives! In Thunder Road, players have a crew of armored vehicles with speed and weapons ready to wreak havoc on one another, where you smash, shoot, and reign death from above to be the first across the finish line and live to race another day.
GET YOUR CREW AND GET READY TO RACE: GAME SET UP
To play, take out the 2-sided road tiles, and randomly select 3 for the lead, middle, and end of the track. Give each player their command board and dashboards for their light, medium, and heavy cars, their chopper, and 4 dice in their chosen color. Place the hazard and damage tokens in face-down piles, placing hazard markers where indicated. On the end tile, only place hazards on the spaces based on the player count. Set the road, stunt, slam, and combat dice aside. Each player starts the race at the edge of the end tile. And you are ready to hit the gas.
LIGHT THE FIRES AND KICK THE TIRES: PLAYING THE GAME
The game is played in rounds, consisting of 3 turns per round. There are 4 phases to a player’s turn; Assign, command, move, shoot. Each round starts with all players rolling their dice. The player with the lowest total is the first player and is given the road die. The first player rolls the road die and that is the road bonus (1,2 or 3) for that round. In the Assign phase, each player, starting with the first player, assigns a die to one of their three cars. That die is how many spaces that car moves.
After the die is assigned, move that car the total number of spaces indicated. When a car moves, it may encounter hazards, wrecks, and other cars on the track If their movement passes over a hazard token, flip it over and resolve the condition. All the conditions and their effects are detailed in the rulebook. The tiles consist, of road, mud, oil, wrecks, and impassible objects. A car spends one move on a road tile and can move the additional bonus from the road die if it starts and ends its movement on a road tile. It takes two moves to enter mud and a car can still enter mud with one move left. Oil will cause your car to drift; roll the direction die to see what direction you slide. A car can only move in the three spaces of its front arc; see the rulebook for what spaces make up its front arc.
Once per turn, a player can issue one command by assigning a die to their command board. There are 4 actions on the command board, and each one has a cost indicated to do that action. Repair lets you repair a damaged car or remove one damage token from your car. Drift lets you drift to avoid the first obstacle or hazard during your move. Airstrike lets you send your chopper in to attack a vehicle, and Nitro gives you an additional amount of movement indicated on the die.
Finally, if you have an opponent in your front arc, you can shoot at them. When shooting, roll the attack die and if the indicated car size is rolled, that car takes a damage token. If a car receives two damages, it is damaged and cannot move or take any actions until it is repaired with a repair command.
If a car ever moves into the space of another car, it performs a slam. Roll the slam and the direction die to see who is slammed and in what direction the car goes. If the player has extra die than cars, they can assign a die to a car to coast, and move one space ahead in its front arc. If a car is ever slammed and moves off the edge or into an impassible object, that car is destroyed and eliminated from the race. After each player takes 3 turns, the round ends and a new one begins, with each rolling their dice and the race goes on!
CROSSING THE FINISH LINE! HOW TO WIN
Whenever a player enters the lead tile, place the finish at the end or continue until a player gets to the edge of the lead tile. Once a player makes it to the edge of the lead tile, remove the end tile and remove any cars on that tile, those are eliminated from the race. Slide the middle and the lead tile back and place a new tile as the lead tile.
The first player that either crosses the finish line or has one car remaining when everyone else is eliminated or destroyed is the winner. A player loses when all of their cars are eliminated or they fail to cross the finish line first.
RUNNING AND GUNNING: SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
The first game with this kind of theme from what I can remember is from the 80’s; it was Car Wars. I played that for a while, but found it to be clunky and hard to work with, Thunder Road is streamlined, with some clever mechanics, to make it very accessible. This is a remake of an earlier version and Restoration Games has made a name for themselves in resurrecting older games with a new spin to modernize them for today’s gamer. This one is no exception, with customized dice to control movement, direction, and damage, it makes this just a fun adrenaline-fueled experience. More time is spent on strategy than mechanics, The turns are fast and short to keep all of the players engaged.
Like any race game, there is only going to be one winner, and if a player loses all of their cars, they are out completely. I like that you can repair your cars, and you have 3 of them giving you a good chance to cross that line. Components in the game are really well made, functional, and fit the aesthetic well. They look like car dashboards, and the models of the cars are painted plastic as opposed to cardboard chits.
I can see this as another great entry-level game to more complex gaming, yet it will have enough of a challenge to entice experienced gamers as well. With movies like Death Race 2000, and Mad Max, and most recently the TV series, Twisted Metal, it’s a great game that encapsulates that post-apocalyptic world right on your tabletop.
Until next time, keep moving those meeples, and see you soon!
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