Mick floored the accelerator. The engine howled, and he was pressed back in his seat further as the turbo kicked in. Once he was alongside the red car, he spotted a blown-off car wheel ahead on the track. He twisted the steering wheel savagely to the left, forcing the red car over the obstacle, and caught a glimpse of the other driver's eyes wide with shock before the man hit the obstacle, lost it and skidded out. Mick smiled a twisted smile.
Just in time he switched his attention back to the forward view, to see the gleam of the ball rocketing rowards him. He flipped on the electromagnet inside his ramplate, simultaneously braking as hard as he dared. In a flash the ball was upon him, the jarring impact shaking his grip on the wheel.
"Green three loaded!" he whispered urgently into the headset. Mick kept his foot on the brake as Dirk and Lee matched speeds, then accelerated past him towards the enemy goal. Lee drove straight at the enemy goalkeeper and rammed him, as Dirk, with his weakened front armor, drove past and blasted the red car with his flamethrower.
Mick stepped on the gas, slamming the wheel over as he entered the goalmouth to avoid another defender, who put a heavy rocket into his side. Mick skidded over some debris, lost it and rolled the car, the ball still clinging to the ramplate. His teeth rattled as the car turned over repeatedly. It ended sideways up, resting against the enemy goal plate. He watched helplessly as the referee switched o his car's electromagnet. The ball dropped to the track, then rolled idly inwards to be picked up by the red defender who'd nailed him. The man turned, smiled from behind his aviator sunglasses and waved before accelerating away.
Mick's last memory before he blacked out was of struggling with the safety harness, then noticing the pont of the sweeper truck coming straight at him, to clear his car away from the goal.
The game is a cross between arena and road duel, but a new dimension
is added as the tactics used between the cars in a team – to first grab
the ball, then support the player carrying it – will decide the victory.
The track and goal areas are sloped, and the normal rules for maneuvers apply: bends inwards and drifts outwards are at -D1, and bends outwards and drifts inwards are at + D l. In addition, if the car is facing toward or away from the pits area during the acceleration phase, it will have its acceleration increased or decreased by 5 mph. This is a useful way to pick up speed.
The goal at each end consists of three, 3-foot-high indestructible steel plates – a center plate ~ " wide, and two outer plates each 1" wide. Hitting the center plate with the ball scores three points, but the goalkeepercar will normally be parked in front of this plate. The outer plates score one point. To prevent goalhanging, no more attackers than defenders are allowed within the free-fire semicircle where each goal is situated.
Cars must at all times move counterclockwise, and cannot turn around or stop, with the following two exceptions:
1. Within the circle at either end of the track, defending vehicles can move as they like. This benefit applies as long as any part of the car is within the circle.
2. If a car hits the wall or a goal plate, once the driver has recovered
he is allowed to reverse if necessary to give himself room to maneuver.
If the ball goes out of play, either by a goal being scored or by the ball rolling down to the inside of the track, then an electrical circuit is completed and another ball is fired automatically at the start of the next phase.
The referee can also decide to fire another ball if the last ball embeds itself in a wreck, or is other- wise put out of play. The ball will be fired at the start of the next turn in this case.
If the ball hits a wreck, it has a 50% chance of embedding itself. Otherwise, the wreck slows the ball 10-60 mph.
If the ball hits an obstacle, it will be slowed by 1d x 5 mph. (If this stops it, the ball is dead and the referee will fire a new ball at the start of the next turn.) In addition, the ball will have its direction of travel altered according to the following table:
Die Roll Effect
1 30 degrees to the left
2,3 15 degrees to the left
3,4 15 degrees to the right
6 30 degrees to the rightNote that if the ball was going around the outside of the track when it hit the obstacle, a roll of 1-3 will have no effect.
Debris has no effect on the ball.
While the ball is not going around the outside of the track, it will
undergo the normal 5 mph acceleration toward the center, so it will not
be moving in a straight line. When it hits the opposite wall, it will continue
round the outside if the angle it makes with the wall is less than 15.
Otherwise, it will rebound at the same angle but with its speed halved.
If the car carrying the ball is involved in a collision with its ramplate, the referee will switch the electromagnet off at the end of the turn. This is to allow the defenders to tackle.
If the ramplate armor is destroyed, the electromagnet can no longer
function and the ball is dropped.
Ramming the goal while holding the ball does not count – the ball must roll free into the goal. In such a case the referee would switch the carrying car's electromagnet off, and the ball would roll down the track to be picked up by any other passing car.
If a killed car has at least three wheels left, it will roll in towards the center under 5 mph acceleration, then stop when it hits the inner wall.
1. Ram damage is worked out using the Ram column on the speed chart, doubled and halved for ramplates if these are involved. Weight modifiers can usually be disregarded, as all cars will be in the 4,000-8,000 lbs. range (unless one team foolishly decides to use light trikes). Sideswipes do no damage.
2. All collisions are a D4 hazard.
3. Average the two speeds for head-on rams and rear-ends. A T-bone halves the attacking vehicle's speed, and puts the rammed car's speed to 0 (which will conform to the ramming car's movement). Sideswipes do not affect speed. Instead, bisect the angle the cars make, and turn both cars to point in the new direction.
4. Apply concussion effects. As in the advanced rules, you must roll two dice against a count of one for each 5 mph change in speed, and if you don't make the roll, you are stunned (no maneuvering or shooting) for the number of seconds you missed the roll by. The roll is one easier if you have a safety seat.
If the advanced rules aren't being used, the following table may be used to make high-speed ramming deadlier, thus discouraging 100 mph-plus driving except when absolutely necessary.
Missed roll by Effect
1-3 Stunned for 1-3 seconds
4-6 Stunned for 4-6 seconds and injured
6-9 Unconscious (ambulance comes out)
10+ Dead (0 DP – ambulance comes out)Sideswiping the arena wall is a D2 hazard for each inch of movement along the wall. Each inch also scrapes off one point of armor and slows the car by 5 mph.
If a car is rammed into the wall, the armor on the wall side takes ram damage as if it were rammed at half the speed of the original ram.
1. On the n in circle of the track, firing is only allowed at the car carrying the ball. This car can shoot at any other car. However, the semi-circular goalmouth area at either end is a free-fire zone, where no restrictions apply. Normal firing is allowed as long as both firer and target are at least partly within this semicircle.
2. Track cars are only allowed one-space weapons, except that a standard flamethrower is allowed. The goalkeeper is allowed two-space weapons, plus the heavy-duty flamethrower. So that teams don't resort to passengers carrying bazookas, only hand weapons of 10 lbs. weight or less are allowed.
3. No links, except linking a targeting laser to rockets (which can only be fired one at a time).
4. No shooting at tires.
5. No offensive dropped vehicular weapons. Non-offensive dropped weapons (i.e. smoke and paint) are allowed. Smoke might obscure the game for the cameras, so air vents are set into the arena floor which disperse smoke clouds after two seconds.
6. No grenades. These slow the game excessively.
7. Metal armor is banned. It creates too much mess on the track, as
an obstacle is created whenever a point of metal armor is lost.
In order to have the best chance of picking the ball up, all the cars in a team should be spread out around the outside of the track and going at high speed. This will allow them to cover the maximum amount of track each turn. Unfortunately, the driver who does pick the ball up needs to slow down to minimize the damage from the impact. Once he has the ball, he needs his teammates to cluster round him to prevent rams and block the opposition's line of sight.
The trickiest part of the game for both sides is putting the ball into a defended goalmouth. The attackers should send in an advance squad to disorganize the defenders, so that the driver with the ball can sneak in and score. The defenders will need to roll with the punches, and have a car at high speed on the track trying to ram the driver with the ball from behind.
Going at everything at 80 mph will be spectacular, but will rarely be
a winning tactic. There is little point in being two points up if you've
only got two cars left against the other team's four. Try to take things
at a moderate speed, avoiding rams at more than 60 mph. Allow the opposition
to score a goal if you will lose a car trying to prevent it.
The goalkeeper car can have any number of two-space weapons, but these cannot be linked. You should have both a driver and gunner, with an effective two-space weapon for each.
Since rams are just as important a tactic in this game as shooting,
you should buy at least a roll cage, and possibly a safety seat. Even if
one side of your armor has gone, if you're alive and mobile then you're
still in the game.
The referee has a switch to control each player's electromagnet. If the car is made undrivable, or the driver is rendered unconscious or is killed, the referee will switch the electromagnet off at the end of the turn, and the ball will roll down the track to be picked up by any passing car.
The referee also controls the sweeper truck and the ambulance, if they are used.
The sweeper truck is a 10-wheeler fitted with large brushes, which keeps the track clear by driving over debris or obstacles at 30 mph or less, and sweeping them up. Any debris or obstacle within 1/4" of the front of the truck is removed from the track, so in effect the truck sweeps a 1" wide path clear. The truck also has a ramplate for moving wrecks out of the way, if (for example) a car gets killed in front of a goal and does not roll down to the center of the track. The truck starts the game going round the track at 40 mph.
The ambulance will move out from the pits if a character is injured
outside his car, or unconscious or at 0 DP inside it. The paramedic will
help the character into the back of the ambulance and ferry him to the
pits, but he will not be allowed to rejoin the game.
2. Don't allow any substitutes. This makes for a faster game, as both teams are rapidly reduced to one or two cars.
3. Certain rules are there to speed the game up. They can be ignored in order to add more detail, but you should be aware that the game will move more slowly. The rules in question are – Simplified ramming rules – No grenades allowed – All track cars being the same design
4. Add peds on roller skates. All cars have grab handles to hang on
to, and burst weapons have to be outlawed if the men are to last more than
a couple of seconds. Since they cannot pick up the 1-foot diameter steel
ball, they have their own 3-inch ball, made of aluminum so that the cars
can't pick it up. The balls are fired simultaneously from opposite guns,
and a goal with the smaller ball (scored by throwing or rolling it into
the goal plates) counts as much as a standard goal. Control rules for roller
skaters are left as an exercise for the referee.
Goalkeeper – Luxury, x-hvy. chassis, large power plant w/superconductors, light suspension, 4 HD tires, driver, gunner, turreted RL w/incendiary rockets, RL w/incendiary rockets front, electromagnet, airdam, improved fire extinguisher, roll cage, 2 safety seats, 2 SWC. Armor: F50 (ramplate), R25, L25, B10, T25, UO, normal CA around each of plant, driver and gunner (together), FPCA around each RL. Accel 5, top speed 90, HC 1; 6,600 1bs. $19,170.
Ambulance – Van, x-hvy. chassis, 300 cid blueprinted engine with tubular headers, VP turbocharger and supercharger, hvy. suspension, 1 gallon dueling tank, 6 PR radial tires, driver and paramedic (both with impact armor), improved fire extinguisher, medical equipment, 2 stretchers, roll cage, HD brakes, HD shocks, antilock brakes. Armor: F46, R40, L40, B45, T0, U0, FPCA around each of driver, paramedic, plant, 2 stretchers, medical equipment. Accel 25, top speed 82.5, HC 3; 7,200 1bs., $45,050.
Sweeper Truck – 10-wheel cabover, standard chassis, small power plant
with truck turbo, 5 gallon dueling tank, 10 PR tires, driver (impact armor),
improved fire extinguisher, roll cage, HD brakes, HD shocks, sweeping equipment,
safety seat. Cab armor: F20/0 (ramplate), R45, L45, B6, TO, UO, FPCA around
each of driver and plant. 15' tanker carrier. Carrier armor: 10 each side.
14,999 1bs., $57,105.