Pod Racing Night

This weekend saw MacSver and myself joined by sons (Macspud and Arabiansquire) and friend (Meerkatsoldier) to play a game of Star Wars Pod Racing. It's been quite a while since our last game, but every game had been a hoot and we were looking forward to this one.

The congestion at the gates gave the body repair shop
potentially a busy week ahead.

With so many younger players it was down to the Dads to demonstrate the game rules at the start of the race. I started by disabling my rev limiters to zooming down the opening straight into the lead also my engines cut out. MacSver went one better by surging off whilst playing a card on his son's pod to cut out it's engines on the starting line! But the game is simple so by the end of the first straight everyone has a grasp of how to play.

The pods streak through the forest.

MacSpud and Meerkatsoldier announced that they were playing as an unofficial team. But, as expected of a couple of teen-age boys, their idea of working in a team was more Sebastian Vettel than Tony Lewis as the cards started to flow.

The Leaders pick their route through the giant tree section.

With 5 players, the initial emphasis of speed and shenanigans soon moves to damage repair and numerous bumps and prangs occur on the way round. Things can start to get tense when the "hull points" fall from the initial 20 to 6, as a single bump causes d6 damage.

Meekcatsoldier was the first racer to fall by the wayside, thanks to a fuel leak card played on him. He was dealt a glimmer of hope as he had a card that allowed him to eject and potentially pick up a reserve pod. Unfortunaelty his ejector seat landed in a group of rival fans who beat him up! MacSver was next to go with his battered pod unable to take any more.

MacSver moves in front of my pod, but with only
1 point of damge left and leaving me not room to
maneuver things were looking grim. 

During this time Arabiansquire had managed to stay out of trouble and moved through the traffic to become take up a commanding lead with no damage taken. But his race was ended with only half a lap to go as MacSpud played a fuel leak card on the front runner and a catastrophic dice roll meant that the fuel ignited and the pod blew up.

With Arabiansquire's  wrecked pod in view,
Macspud fires up his engines and heads for his
remaining opponent.

MacSpud then strayed off the race line and with wheat he considered a killer card combo in his hand (you can tell he plays Magic the Gathering) shut down his engines and sat in the final straight for my damaged pod to limp round, like a Wild West gunfighter waiting for the clock to hit High Noon. With my pod in sight he played his engine start card, flicked of the engine limiters and hit the throttle. As he bumped off me he played a "good nudge" card with doubled the potential damage to my pod rolling a double "6" on his dice shattered my pod into small pieces. but in his enthusiasm his pod rebounded off the arena wall, with the extra damage being enough to destroy his pod as well.

So for the first time there were no winners!

But amid the universal guffawing Nobody cared!