Mad Wet Max - Jet Skis

 Its been a while since I did anything new for "Mad Wet Max", but last weekend some kind soul posted a set of 3d files for boats and jetskis in the Facebook "Gaslands" group. Jetskis are something I've been wanting to add for a while so the files were downloaded and a set printed off over the weekend. Painting is just done. Now all I need is to work up some rules for them :)

Mad Wet Max - The Details

A few people have asked for more details about the changes to Dave Schueler's "Thunder Boats" rules that led to the creation of MWM. It is a simple story. Last year Dave sent me a copy of "Thunder Boats" and I got together a collection of Hot Wheels hydroplane boats to use with the rules. I ran the game at the Naval Wargames Show in Gosport, and also at the Berkeley Vale club here in Gloucestershire.  Each time the game went well, players had a blast and a good time was had by all.

But there was an interesting conversation at the end of one of the Berkeley Vale club games.

"Lovely game, good fun, but not enough peril", says BV Wargamer

"And by peril you mean?......"

"Shooting at things"

Of course. And in that moment MWM was born.

The Thunder Boat rules are retained pretty much in their entirety, but are overlaid with rules for a variety of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, rockets, mortars and mines. The rules are quick and simple (generally a d6 roll against range, or 2x range for short ranged weapons). Mortars have a more complex rule that allows for fall of shot, so shooting at a congested area may see you hitting a different boat to the one you intended, whilst shots that miss will land in the water and form mines. Speaking of which, mines can be dropped during movement and may detonate when boats pass over or near them.

If a hit is scored then a simple d6 roll on the damage table determines effect - this can cause engine or hull damage as in the standard rules, but can also damage weapons or injure crewmen. two wounds and you are dead. Some locations may be armoured which grants a saving throw.  Ammunition is strictly limited so it pays to save your ammo for a choice shot

There are a few additional bits of "colour" - for example some of the boats can deploy a parascender who "flies" behind the boat and can drop grenades on boats below, one of the boats features a guy in Ancient British garb with spears - these of course become explosive tipped spears that he can lob at boats as they pass, whilst spectators can camp out around the course and take potshots at the competitors (think Sandpeople during the SW Ep1 Pod Race).

A race comprises two laps - we did originally set the race at three but it was rare for more than a couple of craft to make it to the end of the second lap. There are three gates around the course which must be passed in order (although the direction doesn't matter that much, which often leads to interesting routes being taken through the islands that form the infield. To allow some tactical thinking at the start there is no firing allowed until the first boat passes through the first gate - then its open season! And in this game it often doesn't pay to be in the lead, as you tend to become a bullet magnet!

So, some simple rules in keeping with the originals. The combat element does increase the time needed to play but its still a fast and furious game :)

Mad Wet Max Wins Thornbury IPMS Best Parti Game, 2017

Today was the 5th IPMS modelling show at Thornbury that has included wargaming, and I'm back with the "Best Participation Game" award for the 5th year in a row! This year's game was "Mad Wet Max", my combative post apocalyptic variant of Dave Schueler's popular "Thunderboats" powerboat racing game. The game has been under development since Christmas and today saw all the elements together for the first time in public. 

So, we had the parascender take to the air for  the first time (although he didn't last long as his boat took an engine hit which caused the boat to lose speed and caused him to be dumped him in the sea - where the following boat promptly ran him over! And for the first time the "spectators" made their presence felt, shooting up boats that came a bit too close (they killed two boats out of the eight racers in game #3!)

Everyone that played it seeemd to have a good time, and I had a succession of visitors telling me they liked the game and especially the models. I guess they must have been right as the game won :)

I'm probably not going to run one of my own games next year - I guess it will be a "Wings of Glory" day instead - August 5th is the provisional date for anyone who is interested in coming along.

Fun at the Beach

My "Mad Wet Max" project continues to develop. Over the last week I've made some much larger rooster tail markers and explosion plumes, using damp kitchen towel moulded into shape. Cheap but effective, IMHO. I've also made a dozen mine markers which should help avoid the confusion that we faced at the BV club when we used dice and then forgot which were mines and which ones we were using for play! However, the best development I think has been the parascender who is a "weapon option" for three of the craft in the game. In the post game chat at the club my chums threw in some ideas for various things that one might see associated with motorboating and powerboating that could make an appearance, and some bloke on a parachute towed behind a boat was on the list. The idea is that he can be deployed during the ame and can drop grenades onto boats below (whilst of course attracting incoming fire). I had originally intended to use a surrendering Airfix figure but a look at a model railway catalogue showed that the German firm Noch made a decent set, so a quick email to my brother's local model railway shop had one winging its way to True Cambridge. Three of the boats have now been drilled to accept the brass rod "tow line" - admittedly way out of scale but robust enough to stand the rigours of the game. I may decorate the parawing a bit more, and give the chappie a machine gun but for now he is in a good enough state for the inaugural public game at the Naval Wargames Weekend in July.

Next to make - wrecked boats, plus "spectators". Anyone know of a decent Matchbox-style winnebago model??

Mad Max and the Thunder Boats From Hell (2)

The lack of blog posts for the last few weeks would give you the impression that I've not been up to much. On the contrary, I've dashed off another 40 Renaissance galleys and terrain, a load of 15mm WW2 stuff and a few other projects (of which more in a future post). I've also painted up my "Thunder Boats from Hell" models and started on the rules. These will be based on Dave Schueler's original "Thunder Boats" but will add such niceties as mortars, mines, rockets, machine guns and other fun. The plan is to debut the game at the Naval Wargames Weekend in July and then to take it to the IPMS modelling and wargames show at Thornbury in August. Should be fun :)

Mad Max and the Thunder Boats From Hell

After thinking about this idea for a few months I decided today to crack on with my "Mad Max-esque variant on Dave Schueler's "ThunderBoats" hydroplane racing game. I've played the original for a while now and its a lovely game, but some of the locals at the BV club wanted something with more "risk" in it - by which of course they mean shooting.

So I'm working on an overlaying set of rules for various weapons such as rockets, mines, mortars and personal weapons with which boat drivers can do combat as they navigate around a course (I'm thinking "Death Race on Water" here), with a view to running this at the Naval Wargames Weekend in July, and maybe at Thornbury in August. And this morning saw me in the man cave knocking up the first batch of prototype boats. Still some way to go but I think thy are shaping up nicely....

Boats of Thunder

I took Dave Schueler's "Thunder Boats" to the BV club last night for a bit of light hearted water based racing mayhem. A minor crisis meant I had to dip out at the start for nearly an hour, when I came back the chaps had read the rules and played through a short race with three boats. They picked it up with no problems but thought it would be more challenging - and fun - with more boats, so we each played two boats and put eight on the table.

This proved to be great fun, although we were perhaps a bit cautious in that not many "pushes" were attempted until lap 2, upon which more fun and incident occurred and things seemed rather more satisfying. We ended up with two dead boats at the end, both crippled by engine damage. Modesty prevents me from saying who won :)

There was an observation that the leading boat soon finds themselves with an advantage and it becomes hard to catch them, but I guess that's not entirely unrealistic and I guess it drives the following boats to push their engines to catch up - and hence the lad boat needs to push to stay in the lead. As it was I'd built up such a good lead by the start of the last lap that I didn't need to push at all (my second boat went from 4th to 6th as it was caught up in traffic, then suffered an engine blow out as I pushed to make up lost time).

Of course being wargamers the chaps wanted to blow stuff up and shoot things, which got us thinking about a variant with mines, flaming oil slicks, harpoon guns etc. And the system does seem to lend itself to a variety of racing games (pod racers, Mad Max), so watch this space.....

Thunder Boats!

A short post today after  a long break with some pics of a new (to me at least) game, "Thunder Boats". Its  a lovely set of rules for powerboat racing written by Dave Schueler in the US. Dave sent me a copy recently and I've spent the last few days printing up the rules, laminating the boat and event cards and making the few markers needed (course marker buoys and "rooster tails")

As far as models are concerned I haven't been able to get hold of any of the hydroplane boats similar to the ones Dave and his friend Kevin Smyth but I have been able to get hold of some modern "Hot Wheels" model boats which do the job nicely. The only issue here is that they are larger than the hexes on my hex mat, but to counter that I just have the boats filling two hexes instead of one and after plying it through a few times that works perfectly well.

The game uses a dice based movement system with the type of dice thrown depending on the throttle setting of the boat. It uses unconventionally numbered dice, the same that are used in the "Formula De" tabletop motor racing game.. I've colour marked the boat control sheets to make it easier to tell which dice to use for each setting.

So this joins my (short) list of naval non-wargames, and I'll be looking to try this on the chaps at the BV club sometime. But it has got me wondering about a "death race" version, and some of the ideas would work very, very well for a Star Wars pod race variant.......