Star Wars Pod Racing

"Drivers, start your engines"

With the RPGing in temporary hiatus at the moment, it was time to break out some sort of light pickup game - a perfect excuse to test out my pod racers that have been waiting to go since the winter . The rules used were still the free Spin Out set, the guniea-pigs for the game were MacSver and Azhdeen.

The course is set out

The game uses an ordinary pack of cards to bring in an element of strategy. Face cards have special effects such as negating spinouts, avoiding damage or being nasty to your opponents with fuel leaks, bombs, etc. Movement in the game is easy. On their turn the player specifies if their pod is moving between 1 - 12 inches. This movement can be added to using number cards from the card pack, or by temporarily bypassing the engine rev limiters (which risks of engine shutdown). Two turning manouvers can be done each player activation before the risk of spinning out comes into play. The pods also have a limited damage counter to keep track of scratches, bumps, explosions, etc. The game is easy to learn (with the odd reference lookup for special card effects) and we rattled through a couple of games on less than two hours. 

The pods blast down the opening straight.

These games were meant to be 3 lap races, but in each case two pods exploded due to accumulated damage or burst fuel lines. With only three pods racing this time there was quite a bit of room for maneuver, but I imagine that with 5 or 6 racers that trying to maneuver round or through the pack will have a greater bearing on the race, rather than just relying on the cards. Great fun all round, and one that will be repeated.



Worried glances are exchanged as Azhdeen
tactically takes a wide corner



MacSver's pod runs over some terrain after a Spinout.