The Big Meetup (at least in my mind)

On my trip to Austin I stopped in North Carolina and gamed with possibly the two biggest Car Wars fans in the world. I don't exactly like using the word fan in this situation as they are now contributing to Car Wars and the Car Wars world as much as anyone has in the past. I feel they have taken up where Steve Jackson has left off, and hopefully they are keeping it warm for him.

I have found that Jeffro is the scribe for his and Earlburts Car Wars gaming, or should I stay study. As much as these two love tailing someone and firing off an Anti Tank Gun round, they equally love putting in the missing pieces of the Car Wars world that all the rulebooks and supplements and Autoduel magazines missed. They have completed countless auto duels using stock cars and amatuer drivers to collect data on how difficult it would be to move up the ranks as an Autoduelist, they have tested and retested certain stock vehicles for performance and have written their findings about them, through research they have come up with possible percentages of what mass produced cars you would find if you happened to be driving down a street in the Car Wars world. All that and much much more. You have to read it to appreciate it, so here is Jeffros blog:
http://jeffro.wordpress.com/

Also in his blog he covers our gaming day better than I could, so I'll brush over it. If you want a blow by blow and analysis, check out his blog.

As for the meetup. Jeffro and I met up the day before the Car Wars event. He had OGRE and G.E.V., so we got one game of each in. Both games I liked quite a bit and will probably hunt down and purchase G.E.V at some point. It's one of those simple to play games where the tactics can get quite complex. Just the kind of game I like.
We also tried "Battlesuit", another Steve Jackson Games product which is the skirmish infantry game for OGRE and G.E.V. As much as this game has for problems, I found myself thinking about it even more than OGRE and G.E.V. after playing it. When you are finished rolling all the dice and calculating all the mods and figuring out all the line of sights, the game leaves you with a good story for a battle.
Both of these games and also Jeffro's enthusiasm for everything Steve Jackson really makes me want to investigate more SJG products. I don't think I have played any other than Car Wars, but I am starting to think I may have been missing something.

The next day was the Car Wars day. We had a four player and a five player game. Both were exciting down to the wire events. Both of which I got blasted to all heck, but I did get my licks in too. Jeff and Earlburt brought along their collections and I had a field day going over the stuff I hadn't seen. We had a huge room to ourselves so Earlburt laid out quite a few arena maps, it was real fun to see that. I especially liked checking out the Portland, Maine arena.

All in all it was a great weekend of gaming and one I won't forget.

Next up on my gaming "to do" list is to start a Car Wars club in Austin Texas.