Race, crash and shoot your way to the finish with Thunder Road: Vendetta

How many racing games is too many? I'll let you know when I find out, but so far I don't seem to have reached my limit.

Restoration Games has carved a sub-niche within the hobby gaming world by refreshing classic board games with updated game mechanics, components, and graphic design. They worked wonders transforming Star Wars: Epic Duels into Unmatched, and now they've given their restoration treatment to Thunder Road, a fairly obscure post-apocalyptic racing game that was originally published in 1986.

I never played the original Thunder Road, so I can't tell you what has changed with the new Thunder Road: Vendetta, but the game play in the restored version is very smooth and simple. Each player gets three cars, one helicopter, and four dice. The board is made up of three randomly chosen tiles laid out in a row, with spaces laid out in a hexagonal pattern. Cars can move straight ahead or forward to the right or left -- never backward, this is a race after all. The road is littered with hidden hazard tiles as well as visible obstacles such as mud puddles and rock formations that can slow your car down or destroy it all together.

Each turn, players roll their four dice and take turns assigning them to their cars. The number on the die determines how far the car moves -- it must move the full amount, this is a race after all. The fourth die can be assigned to one of a few extra options, such as nitro boost to make the car go faster, repair to remove damage, drift to allow it to glide past other cars without crashing, or the dreaded helicopter.

Helicopters are able to appear anywhere on the board and shoot at your opponents' vehicles, or even your own if they are in the way -- this is a race, after all. What's more, if a car ends a move in the same space as a helicopter, it is immediately destroyed and removed from play.

After moving, if there is another car in front of yours, you can try shooting at it. Each player has 3 different sizes of cars, with the smallest being the hardest to hit but the easiest to push out of the way by crashing into them. Damage is dealt via a stack of tiles that will generally have a one-time effect and then linger as damage counters. If a car takes two damage it is immobilized until repaired.

Crashes are probably the most fun part of the game. When a car enters another car's space, it is placed on top of the other car and then two dice are rolled: one determines which of the two cars (top or bottom) is moved, and the other indicates what direction. In this way, cars can get knocked into other cars, causing a chain reaction of crashes. They can also get knocked into rock walls or off the board entirely, either of which results in elimination.

The aforementioned hazard tiles add even more chaos to the game. They're hidden until a car moves into one, and they can be anything from clear patches of road to land mines. Often a player will be faced with a choice of either moving into a hazard that could be harmless or even helpful, or taking a safer, more predictable path around. Just as often, there's no choice at all, leading to all manner of hilarity with mud puddles that slow your car down, oil slicks that send it careening off in a random direction, or wreckage that triggers more crashes.

As soon as a car reaches the edge of the third tile, a new tile is drawn and added to the track. Then, any cars that are still on the first tile are eliminated from the race, and that tile is removed from play. This continues until one player has had all of their cars eliminated. At that point, the edge of the third tile is the finish line, and the first player whose car crosses it is the winner. It's a great way to take the sting out of player elimination as a game-ender, since the eliminated player will normally only have to wait one round (often less) for the game to be over.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) Thunder Road: Vendetta is a little on the egregious and random side, but nonetheless it is a lot of fun, and makes for an excellent, low-entry-point alternative to more complicated games like Car Wars or Gaslands.

Note: I highly recommend the Carnage at Devil's Run expansion if you can find it, it adds new hazards and road tiles that push this game from good to great.

• Thunder Road: Vendetta official website
• Thunder Road: Vendetta on BoardGameGeek

Race to the finish with Heat: Pedal to the Metal

I'm a few years late to the party with regards to Heat: Pedal to the Metal, which is ironic given the game's subject matter. I've never been particularly interested in race cars or racing, but recently a few things have happened that may be changing my mind. One was Lacorsa, a beautifully designed racing game that lured me in with its deluxe components and simple but elegant game play. Another was Michael Mann's excellent film Ferrari, which is about the Italian car magnate and features a plot that revolves around a high stakes race.

It may be just as well -- Heat was extremely popular right out of the gate when it was released towards the end of 2022, so much so that stores around the world were having a hard time meeting demand. By the time I got to it, there wasn't any problem finding a copy as it has become a ubiquitous fixture at most local game stores. After I got a chance to get it to the table and play a few games, I could see why it was such a phenomenon.

It's a simple enough game, and mostly what you would expect. The board represents a race track (there are several to choose from) and the goal is to be the first to get your little plastic race car across the finish line after a set number of laps, usually two or three. Each player gets their own deck of cards that govern how fast and far their car can move. The faster your car is going (represented by what gear it is in), the more cards you play each turn. It seems simple, right?

The trick is that you need to slow down to get around corners, and this is where the real game lies. You have to look at your cards, and at your car's position on the track relative to the next sharp curve, and figure out how to slow down without falling behind the other cars in the race. Your deck consists mainly of cards numbered zero through five, and these are what you use to move. Each turn you have to play a number of cards equal to the gear your car is in -- no more and no less. Normally you can only shift up or down one gear at the start of each turn, but you can shift an extra gear by adding heat cards to your deck.

Heat cards are the primary currency of the game. Each player starts with six in their "engine," a separate pile next to their deck, and one already shuffled in with their other cards. Heat cards in your hand can't be used for anything, so they clutter up your hand and limit your options each turn. The only way to get rid of them is to cool down, which usually means spending a turn in first or second gear. The most important thing you do in the game is manage the back and forth of using heat, because...

Each corner on the track has a speed limit number attached to it, depending on how sharp the curve is. If your speed (the total of all the cards you've played at the start of the turn) is higher than the corner's speed limit, you have to take on heat cards equal to the difference. If you don't have enough heat, you spin out, which means your car stops at the beinning of the curve and is reduced to first gear. Plus, you have to take on stress cards, which make your speed unpredictable by generating a random number when played. The more stress you take on, the harder it gets to control your car.

The game is thrilling, in a way that not many board games are. The feeling of trying to decide how fast you can take an upcoming corner, or of knowing that you can't slow down enough, can't be a million miles away from what it's like to actually drive a race car. It's very easy for me to see why this game is so popular and well reviewed. It hits that sweet spot of being simple to play but extremely engaging.

Additional modules allow the game to be played with customized cars, weather conditions, and a multi-race tournament series. Additionally, the game has a simple but effective way to add non-player cars in order to fill out the track when you have a smaller player count. A recently published expansion adds new tracks, components for a seventh player, and rules for driving in the rain.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A phenomenally well-designed game that brings all the excitement of racing whether you are a fan of the sport or not.

• Heat: Pedal to the Metal official website
• Heat: Pedal to the Metal on BoardGameGeek

Lacorsa: a racing game that's elegant in its simplicity

When I was a kid I was always fascinated by the cribbage board that seemed to be a fixture in suburban homes of the 1970s. To this day I have no idea how to play cribbage, but I think it was the tactile nature of the cribbage board and its little pegs that intrigued me. Plus it was made out of wood, not the ubiquitous plastic that it seems like everything was made of.

Marketing photos of Lacorsa, a small publisher racing game that advertised heavily on social media after a successful 2018 Kickstarter, gave me a similar feeling. I'm not overly interested in race cars or racing, but the elegant wooden track and simple silhouetted 1960s-style race car miniatures looked great and the game play sounded really interesting.

A game of Lacorsa starts with a row of cars on a straight wooden track. The goal is not to move to the end of the track à la Snakes and Ladders or any number of back-of-the-cereal-box games, but rather more simply to move to the head of the line. The idea is that a race isn't so much about who gets to the end first as it is about who is in front when the race is over. With this in mind, players challenge each other with numbered cards from their hands, with the winner of each challenge moving ahead of the loser and then challenging the next car in line. Or, if there is an empty space ahead, the player can use an extend card to put some distance between their car and the one behind.

In actuality, the game starts a bit before the simple but elegant cars line up on the simple but elegant track. The game comes with six suits of 13 cards numbered one through twelve, plus a special redline card (more on that later). The deck is made up of one suit per car in the race; the cards are then shuffled and dealt out, 13 to each player. The game then starts with a qualifying round where each player chooses one card to play face down. All are revealed simultaneously, and the player with the lowest card starts their car at the end of the track, then the next lowest, and so on until everyone's car is on the track. Then the race starts.

Each "lap" of the race starts with the player whose car is in last place. That player challenges the car directly in front of theirs: both players choose a card and then place all their cards face down in front of them, with the chosen card on top. Cards are revealed simultaneously and if the challenger's card is higher, their car changes place with the loser, moving closer to the front.

The redline is a special card that adds +2 to the value of another card, and is the reason cards are played the way they are, in a face down stack. If a player reveals a redline card, they then also reveal the next card in the stack (also chosen by that player). Playing the cards from the stack hides the fact that a second card will also be played.

After a successful challenge, that player then challenges the next car in front of theirs, or, if there is an empty space, they play an extend card (if they have one) to move forward. One of the three extend cards in each suit is a special draft extend that can't be played by the car in the front, cleverly reflecting the technique of using the slipstream from the car in front of you to reduce drag on your car (something I had never heard of until playing this game, who says gaming isn't educational?).

After two challenges or an extend, that player's turn is over and the next player in line does the same. The lap is complete once the car in front has had a turn to either extend or discard a card if they cannot. The game ends when one player runs out of cards.

Lacorsa is exactly what a racing game should be: fast paced and exciting. The only time it slows down is if you need an extend card to move forward and you don't have one -- this can be a little frustrating, especially if your car is in the lead, but is mitigated by the optional going wide rule that allows you to risk moving backward for a chance at an extend by rolling a die. There are a few other interesting variant rules that can be introduced into the game gradually. Some, like the going wide rule, are pretty essential, but others risk taking away some of the game's simple elegance.

If you want to make it even more portable than it already is, Lacorsa comes with an extra set of cards as an alternate way to represent the race cars. This would allow the game to be played strictly using cards, placing them in a row with spaces in between to mark their positions.

All in all Lacorsa is a wonderful little game that plays quickly and is easy to understand and teach. If it were more widely available it might make a good gateway game; as it is it's a great filler to play in between longer games on game night, or even a good way to get non-gamer friends and relatives to sit down for a game.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A fantastic game that looks great and doesn't take long but is very satisfying to play.

• Lacorsa official website
• Lacorsa on BoardGameGeek

Toy soldiers, part 2: Gaslands

Gaslands is another in Osprey Publishing's line of miniatures rule books that exist on their own, without a particular line of miniatures or accessories to go with them. In this case, the game is about post-apocalyptic vehicle combat, so naturally it is designed to be played with Matchbox cars.

The game uses a template-based system for movement (similar to X-Wing) and a rather ingenious way to simulate speed, with cars in higher gear getting to move more often in a turn. The rules are simple and straightforward, aided by an over-arching "rule of carnage" that states that if any rule is unclear or open to multiple interpretations, always go with the option that does the most damage.

The simple rules make it a fast-paced game, which is what you want from a game about speeding cars. Each round is split up into "gear phases" in which cars moving at that gear or higher get to move and then attack (either by ramming or shooting). Going faster gets your vehicle more chances to act, but it also reduces your choice of movement template, which could see your car unexpectedly careening into a bit of terrain, or even off the board all together.

Players are presented with a number of options for creating their cars, including different types of vehicles such as buggies, motorcycles, performance cars, pickup trucks, and even the dreaded War Rig. Cars are then festooned with armaments ranging from basic machine guns to land mines and oil slick sprayers. There is even one faction armed with mad science lighning projectors and EMP pulses, and another that uses jury-rigged catapults to lob bits of junk at their enemies.

While the game is undoubtedly a lot of fun to play, the real joy for most players is in customizing their toy cars, adding machine guns and rams along with dents, scratches, rust and weathering. An entire community has popped up on places like Etsy, providing accessories for players to stick to their toy cars, and in most Gaslands forums there is a lot more discussion about modeling the cars than there is about actually playing the game.

One of my criticisms of Ronin was the lack of accessories such as stat cards, but that's less of an issue with Gaslands, mainly because the game is a lot more popular and there are numerous online resources providing everything from plastic movement templates and custom engraved dice to reusable blank vehicle cards.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A terrific high-octane vehicle combat game. It may take a bit of prep time if you want to create custom cars to play with, but that really is half the fun (at least).

• Gaslands official website
• Gaslands on BoardGameGeek
• Gaslands Facebook group (very active)