643 - 'Maximillian 1934: Pulp-Action Road rage Rules'

Well then.

A couple of weeks ago I got to try a sample game of 'Maximillian 1934' (also known as 'Mad Max 1934'; published by Mana Press) and I had enormous fun! Here's the skinny...

In essence, it's a stripped-down road fighting game in a pulp mid-30s post-Crash, worst-case-scenario setting, with very basic rules and not an awful lot of justification: scrappy roadsters fight each other...in a high-pulp stylee...with cool moustaches and silk scarves.

The table, pre-game.

I've never had any interest at all in cars or road fighting games, but this was really good fun. Guy got four of us playing, with two vehicles each (from quite an assortment!) and ostensibly we were fighting over these vans o' moonshine in the centre spot... 

...but really it was just 'last man standing'.

My two vehicles were a jalopy (armed with an utterly gorgeous twin-MG turret and two fixed forward MGs) and the faster, more manouvrable 2-up Messerschmidt-style trike, armed with pintle-mounted front MGs and a rear flamethrower:

The vehicle in the highest gear (fastest) moves first, and this was Steve. He zoomed his motorcyle-mounted nun at top speed into the open centre ground and then - not yet fully understanding the movement template - zoomed Maximillian's ridiculous beast straight off the table, suffering a missed turn as a consequence!

Mal, in his corner, also fell foul of the manoeuvring rules in his opening turn, and rolled his whacking great truck into a cornfield:

Definitely a 'red' turn

Oops.

By the end of the second turn, the nun had been gunned to buggery by - well, by everyone, really - and I had run her off the road...by which I mean I'd machine-gunned then crunched into her bike, sending her out of the game. Mal had righted his truck, but it was taking more hits, and there was a scrap emerging in the middle:

Chasing the nun...

...Still chasing the nun...

...and ramming the nun from the rear. Ooh-er.

At this point, some of us started experimenting a little more - my trike, for example, did a 180 skid-turn-thingy:

Also around this point, Guy reminded us of the potency of our secondary weapons, by dropping an oil slick:

...And I took this to an extreme by my trike turning-tail again and flamethrowing his, after duking it out with MGs had proven just too slow:

Guy's trike (left) did not survive.

...and Maximillian himself roard back on again, only to be dogged by poor shooting and a LOT of MG fire before getting stuck in Guy's oil slick:

Toward the end-game, Mal's battered jalopy limped along until we battered it into submission - here' it'd finally overturned beside Maximillian's machine:

By this point, Guy was down to one vehicle, I still had two (just!) and the others were deader than spinning wheel hubs, so I was declared the winner. But boy, what a giggle we'd had!

Here are a few last pics to show the scene:

The template:
It can be bought or made from a...uh... template.

Main Street

The 4Ground Chicago Way house that I constructed for Guy.
Jeez - what a kit!

...and to finish, fittingly, a rather beautiful ghost-town caboose,
courtesy of Sarissa.

If you can - for the sake of a cheap rulebook and matching up a cheap-ass old toy car with your bitz-box - I'd heartily recommend giving Mad Max '34 a go: it's a real blast!

Pip-pip and tally ho!

- Mad Drax.