Race Day/Tamsk

Have an order in to Boulder Games, my first time with them. What inspired this purchase was a little game called: Race Day.

Wizkids (the makers of several "collectable card games" and some boardgames), knowing that something like 1/2 the country calls themselves Nascar fans, built a neat little car racing game that is quite fun. The cards are made of a foam-board, and are popped out of baseball-card sized holders and constructed into attractive Nascar cars.

Each car has a special ability, and they race around a short track or superspeedway. A starter pack for $10 gets you 5 cards, and the Daytona speedway on two large foldable sheets. Sixteen cards can be lined up on the track, but we've raced it with 4-8 and it seems the more the merrier.

Decisons revolve around choice of speed, two dice being rolled to determine it. Cars move along a track the number rolled, with a bonus for "high speed" of 2, and subtaction of 2 for a car at lower speed, used when forced to by engine damage or heavy traffic.

Cards have 10 damage points, 4 in tires, 4 in bodywork, and 2 for the engine. There is risk in moving next to other cars or in overheating the engine. A player rolls dice against the driver's skill points, which are modified by time out on the track - each lap a player takes one point of tire damage which is used to modify other die rolls.

I used spare pieces from another game to mark damage during a race on the player card, but the game includes damage markers which can be slipped over tires or popped into the top of the cars.

The track has natural choke points on the track which cause players to have to make difficult decisions - should the draft a lead car, negating overtaking possibilities, but insuring forward progress? Or take a chance and try to roll a high number a pass, risking a crash? Play it safe a slow early in the race, and attempt to overtake cars entering an early pit-stop? Or use a special ability bonus to push the car into dangerous situations that others might avoid, so as to create a shorter path to the finish line?

Cars can spin out if agressive driving forces difficult "collision check" die rolls, especially as tire wear makes them harder to manuever. But a quick pit stop can repair damage and get a player back in the race and in "clean air".

A game with 8 cars took Grayson and I probably about 40 minutes, each playing 4 cars each.

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The second game I ordered was Tamsk, part of the Gipf project. More on this one later.