Chariots Season 4

I started up a new season of chariot racing a few weeks ago and have been running race sporadically since then. I still don't have the chariots painted so I did the games virtually.

This time, I decided to do a full-fledged campaign with one of the chariots representing my team. The other chariots would be run randomly. Because I like the color, and I want to improve their lifetime standings (they are currently last), I decided to run the Green team.

Rather than assign permanent bonuses or penalties, I assigned re-rolls (which I am calling "bennies" a la Savage Worlds) to represent the charioteer / horse team quality. Every race, each team gets D3 bennies. This represents the different charioteers / horses in the stable of each team. The winner of the previous race also gets a bonus bennie.

I wanted to give myself a little more decision points, so I rolled up a pool of 7 D3 bennies. I can assign a roll to each race. For example, I rolled two 1s, three 2s, and two 3s. I decided to spend one of the 3s in the first race.

Here are the results:

Race 1

I named the charioteers on my Green team. Maximus is in the first race. He took an early lead, with Yellow on his tail. Blue lagged the pack.

Here we are going into the home stretch. Maximus has a narrow lead. Blue has caught up and is trying to pass on the outside.

The teams make their Movement Tests. Red fails while the rest pass. This means that Red falls back to 4th place.

But the race is not over yet. Yellow, Blue, and Green each have 1 bennie left. While bennies can be used to reroll dice, they can also be used to test for extra movement. This represents a surge by the chariot. With this, Yellow and Blue could catch Green!

Yellow fails. He won't catch Green.

Blue passes. He pulls up alongside.

But Green also passes. Maximus sees Blue moving up and urges his team to a final effort. They surge ahead for the victory!

Final standings - Green, Blue, Yellow, Red. An auspicious start for my team!

Race 2

This time, Green is racing its weakest charioteer, Claudius (1 bennie). Fortunately, Green's win in the first race gives him a second bennie.

Surprisingly, he takes the early lead. Here we have a tight race as we go into the home stretch.

Yellow would pull ahead for 3rd. Blue would use a bennie to pull even with Claudius.

Neck and neck as they near the finish line. Who will win? (I rolled off to break the tie)

Blue!

Darn, this was a tough one. Blue nipped my team at the very end. Still, Green is tied for the season lead with 30 denarii earned.

Race 3

A new charioteer, Tiberius, is driving for Green. He is average (2 bennies) but none of the other teams have excellent charioteers.

Again, Green takes the early lead and holds it through the final turn. Blue manages to bash Red, forcing him to fall back.

Here are the teams in the final stretch.

As they near the finish line, Blue whips his horses for a final push. But Tiberius gets more from his steeds, and the Green chariot pulls away for the win.

Season standings are now Green, Blue, Yellow, and Red.

Race 4

Now that my Green team has the season lead, I decide to use up my lowest charioteer, Claudius. However, he gets an extra bennie because Green won the last race.

As expected, Claudius falls behind as Blue surges ahead. However, Claudius manages some adroit driving to gain the lead in the final turn. As they head into the home stretch, Claudius finds himself with a precarious lead.

In desperation, he whips his horses into a final, valiant effort. They pull ahead for the win! Yellow pulls away for second and Blue drops back into last. This is a very disappointing outing for Blue; they're first time out of the top 2 this season. But is a boon for my Green team. We now have a 30 denarii lead for first.

Race 5

My Green team is racing a new charioteer, Quintus. He is average (2 bennies).

Initially fell behind Blue. In the final turn, however, he whipped his horses into a powerful effort that saw him pull aside Blue.

Here we go into the home stretch.

Yellow momentarily pulls even with Red, but Red surges ahead and pulls even with Green and Blue.

Red used a bennie in the final stage to tie Green and Blue.

And as they approach the finish line, it's. . .  There was a tie so I did a roll-off. High roll wins.

Green, then Blue, and Red! Yellow is last.

Wow, what an exciting finish. With this race, Green is now comfortably in first with 90 denarii. We can clinch the season victory with a 3rd place finish or better in either of the final races.

Race 6

Once again, Green's best charioteer, Maximus, takes to the circus. This time, however, he falls behind the pack. He manages to make up ground and finds himself behind the leader, Yellow, going into the first turn. But Yellow wipes out! Maximus has to make a fancy move to avoid a crash, causing him to fall behind.

In the back straightaway, he manages to catch up with Red. But Red bashes him, and Maximus again falls behind.

In the final turn, Maximus surges into the lead.

But Blue and Red manage to pull even. At the finish it is . . .

Red, Blue, the Green.

Wow, what a crazy race, and a disappointing finish for Green. Yet the 3rd place finish seals the season victory for the Green Team.

Race 7

In the final race, Green puts forth Tiberius, winner of the third race. Red takes the early lead. Yellow manages to catch up. In the final turn, Blue crashes. Tiberius trails the leaders.

In the homestretch, Yellow pulls away. Green manages to catch up to Red, but the surge is temporary, and at the finish line, Red manages to nab second place. After four victories in the first five races, Green now has to settle for a second straight third place finish.

Season Recap

My team, Green, manages to secure its first season victory and tied a record with 100 denarii in prize money. Final standings (with prize money in parentheses) are:

1. Green (100)
2. Blue (60)
3. Red (45)
4. Yellow (40)

Green has now moved into third place in all-time earnings (240 denarii), 10 ahead of Yellow and trailing Blue (245) and Red (260).

And the Winner Is . . . !

 I managed to complete the third season of my "chariot" races. I'm still using scratch-built sci-fi rocket cars.

For these final races, I added a reroll option. I rolled randomly (D3) to determine the number of rerolls for each car. I made a board (right) that allows me to track rerolls (represented by a penny).

Finale of the fourth race. Red pulls ahead for the win.

But in the next race, Red wipes out.

Here is a successful bash. Green knocks into White, causing him to lose ground. White would come back to win this race.

I don't have a picture of the final race. Onyx the cat discovered that I had miniatures out so he tried to play with them. I put them away and finished the last race on my virtual board. Going into the final, Blue had a 20 denarii lead over Red. A Red victory coupled with a last-place Blue finish would tie up the season rankings. At first, it appeared that fate would favor Red. He was in the lead with Blue last. Alas, White passed Red and ran away with the race while Green crashed, giving Blue a third-place finish. Final season standings were Blue, White, Red, and Green.

This may be the last races using my rocket cars. I have received my chariots from Irregular. I need to paint them, but I look forward to getting them on the board. They fit perfectly into my 1 inch squares.

Just a note - I may not be posting much over the next few weeks. I am heavily involved in LARP preparations. I am forming a Byzantine-themed LARP unit. However, some may be interested in my posts on my LARP blog. During this month, I have been doing a series about Byzantine arms and armor.

The Third Season Begins

 I have already run 2 racing seasons (some virtual). I am now doing an all-miniature season using my scratch-built rocket cars.

In race 1, White wipes out in the first turn.

Green had taken the lead, but at the finish line Blue surges ahead.

In the second race, Blue takes the early lead. He swerves in the turn.

But comes out alright in the end. Red manages to pass White for second place.

Third race. The pack is spread out.

But things tighten up. Still, blue wins. This time, White steals second place from Red.

And They're Off!

I've tried gladiator games in my new "arena" but now let's try some chariot racing. Except I don't have any chariots yet. Instead, I whipped up some quick and easy rocket cars for some sci-fi racing instead.

Here they are at the starting line. The arena shows the cars' relative positions while the track (left) shows where the pack is located.

They're off! As they near the first turn, Green has pulled out into the lead.

First turn. Green and Blue failed their control tests so they were disadvantaged when rolling for movement. Green failed while Blue succeeded. Blue could have moved up, but he is blocked by Red. He tried to bash Red out of the way, but he failed.

Here Red and White engage in some unsuccessful bashing.

And some more, which caused White to swerve.

Blue starts falling behind.

And into the home stretch. Red gives it all he has and manages to slip past Green!

I've only been doing single laps, but I'm still enjoying the races.

I've been running another campaign, with a combination of virtual and miniature races. This was race 6 (out of 7). With his win, Red has a commanding 30 point lead (a victory nets 20 points). If Blue wins the last race, he could tie White for second.

The Excel Hippodrome

Sometimes I feel like experimenting with a game but don't want to dig out my stuff. In some such cases, I go virtual, as I did last week on my chariot racing kick.

Here is my virtual board in Excel. The board is on the left with the track on the lower right. I added a virtual dice roller (upper right). The colored D's are disadvantage markers. I got the chariot markers from Junior General.

Above is a shot of a race I ran. Blue and Green had already wrecked. Yellow and Red were neck-and-neck as they rounded the last corner. Yellow lost control and crashed, giving Red the win.

The race was part of a mini-campaign. I ran 7 races (all just 1 lap as I'm still working on the system). The teams earned denarii based on their standing in the race - 20 for first, 10 for second, and 5 for third. No denarii for last or for wrecking!

Green jumped out to an early lead in the campaign, with two victories in the first two races. Yellow then went on a hot streak followed by a Blue victory. Meanwhile, Red was slowly building up his earnings with a series of second place finishes. After five races, he and Green were tied, with Yellow only 5 denarii behind and Blue only 10 behind Yellow.

From then on, it was all Red. He handily won the last two races for a dominating season victory.

Chariot Racing Project

 My little experiment in a chariot racing game has now become a full-fledged (albeit small) project.

I originally thought of getting some 3mm chariots from Magister Militum but they did not really have racing chariots. So I went with Irregular's 6mm.

Picture from Irregular's website

They are listed on Irregular's 6mm civilian line.

I ordered 4 so that I can have red, white, blue, and green teams. I also ordered a wrecked chariot.

I'm not sure how big they are. We'll see if they fit on the gridded mat. I am toying with the idea of making a race course. I have some cork board that should work. Maybe I'll even make a turn?

In the meantime, expect to see some more races using tokens.

Forget the Arena - Let's Go to the Circus

The Circus Maximus, that is. Actually, the Hippodrome may be more appropriate, given that I've been on a Byzantine kick.

Time for a long winded intro. Scroll down if you want to see some ugly pictures.

Anyway, I've been dragging my feet about digging out my minis and experimenting with gladiator games. Instead (as a result of my Byzantine kick), my thoughts have turned to chariot races. I'm normally not a fan of racing games. I previously tried Machinas for post-apocalyptic Mad Max auto mayhem, but it did not really work for me (I wanted less racing and more combat). But Machinas had some interesting ideas, which inspired me to check out its (I believe) forerunner:

Charioteers was originally released by Two Hour Wargames but is now distributed by Rebel Miniatures. It is also available at Wargame Vault.

I'm not going to get into details about Charioteer. If you follow this blog, you'll know that I have a love/hate relationship with Two Hour Wargames (THW). I think their games have many excellent ideas, but I just hate the base resolution system that they use in all their games. Thus, when I buy their rules, I tend to strip out the ideas I like and bolt those onto a different resolution system. My chariot experiment is no different.

The innovative aspect of Charioteer is that chariots don't physically go around a track. Instead, each turn they maneuver in relation to each other. This allows play in a very small space, a key for my games. I adopted that part and then added my MicroBattle Resolution Test mechanic. That's basically all I had sorted out when I decided to play around. Let's see what happened.

The Race

I don't have chariots so I used some tokens.

Four teams, red, white, blue, and green, line up at the start.

I rolled a D6 each and then placed them in order from high to low. I assumed the chariots were equal, but I imagine including bonuses or penalties depending on quality.

Blue and Green ended up next to each other. They tried to bash each other. I used MicroBattle's Combat system to determine the results. Both bashes failed.

The chariots moved into the first turn. I decided to add a control test. Red failed, giving him a Disadvantage when jockeying for position.

Jockeying involves a Res Test. Red still succeeded and was able to maintain his lead. Green failed so he dropped back in the pack.

No change in the straightaway. Now on to the second turn. All the chariots lost control and dropped back. Blue, however, failed really badly. He had one last chance to regain control, but blew it and wrecked!

This leaves three chariots in the running. Red pulls ahead for an easy win!

Aside - I don't know why, but I seem to have the most luck with red. Even in my battles, my red armies win more often than not.

Analysis

Anyway, not a bad first start. I like the THW mechanic of moving the chariots relative to one another. But substituting my Res Test system sped up the process. I was able to resolve movement for a turn in one roll of four dice.

I shortened the track a bit - a straight, turn, straight, turn, and then home stretch. I only did one lap for this experiment, but for multi-lap races I will only do the home stretch on the final lap.

One issue I see is that it is hard to make up ground. I thought about it for a moment, but then realized that Charioteer has the answer - bonus dice. I can allocate bonus dice to the chariots to gain extra movement. For example:

• White finds himself behind Red. 
• Both pass their movement Res Test for the turn, so White does not catch up. 
• White decides to expend a bonus die. He passes, allowing him to move up. Now he is neck-to-neck with Red.

I'll try it out next time.

By the way, here is the turn sequence I used:

• Determine Positions (1st game turn) - place chariots in D6 roll order, high to low. Ties = adjacent
• Control Test (on turns) - If fail, roll to determine what happened:
• 4-6 = Disadvantaged in Jockey Test
• 2-3 = Fall back
• 1 = Possible wreck! Pass Res Test to Fall Back instead
• Jockey Test - Move up if successful
• Combat Phase - Adjacent chariots may whip or bash each other
• Make a Res Test to attack
• If successful, Target may make a Defend Test
• If Defend fails, . . . (haven't really worked that out yet)