Rallyman: DIRT

I bought another racing boardgame!

Rallyman: DIRT is the latest version of a series that's been around for a few years. As the name suggests, it's about Rally. Although there are modes in an expansion for head-to-head racing, this game is about hurling your car around a gravel-covered course as fast as you possibly can, with players competing for the fastest time. You string several courses together - the designer reckons you could have four players get through a three-stage rally in around two hours. 

What's nice is that, like Flamme Rouge, the courses are modular. The game comes with 32 double-sided hexagonal tiles allowing you to build a whole range of tracks. Tracks are usually 10-14 hexes long. Obviously you have curves of varying difficulty, as well as shortcuts, bumps (if you want to get into the air) and water. An expansion (which sadly ay be out of print) introduces snow and asphalt surfaces, different tyres and two different types of cars.

The mechanism is simple and rather interesting. You have a hand of dice - black gear dice, numbered 1-6, two white or orange dice called coast dice and a red brake dice. On your turn you plot the dice onto the course according to two simple rules. Firstly each dice can only be used once per turn. And, secondly, any dice you place must be the same value, one higher or one lower than the preceding dice. Coast dice count as the same value as the previous dice, whilst a brake dice can accompany another dice and allow you to drop by two speed instead of one. Here's the dice placed for a move. The red car starts at 4, brakes to 2, coasts at 2 to get around a curve then accelerates to 5. This sets me up for the next curve which has a safe speed of 4 or 5. 

But then what? Well, each dice has one or two faces marked with a hazard symbol. After placement you have to roll the dice you placed, and if you get three or more hazards then you crash. You can opt to roll the dice one at a time, in sequence, in which case you can stop rolling at any point and simply end you move wherever you get to. Or you can go all out, and roll the dice together. In this case you are rewarded with time tokens, which can be used to shave time off your final time score, or spent to 'fix' dice when rolling one at a time, allowing you to treat them as an automatic success roll. So rolling one at a time is a safe option, but going all out from time to time allows you more options and rewards.

At the end of your move you take a card based on the gear you ended in. Each card has a time in seconds on it - 50 seconds for Gear 1 down to 10 seconds for Gear 6. Your accumulated cards are your total time (minus your retained time tokens as well). So, as you can see, your aim is to complete the course in the least cards whilst ending each move in the highest speed you can. 

Obviously it plays well solo - you can set up courses then see how fast you can run through them. There are a few rules online for bot/NPC racers too, if you want to 'compete' against someone. 

I have a nice collection of race games now. My favourite is still Flamme Rouge, which has a perfect balance of elegance, simplicity and replayability:

Its child-friendly offspring Flamme Rouge: BMX is fun, but with less replay value due to the limited track configurations. I'm working on that:

A sleeper hit in our house is Snow Tails, which covers sled-dog racing. Again, the modular tracks keep it interesting, and it has a novel and frustrating movement system based around having to run your dogs at different speeds in order to go around corners:

Then there's Heat: Pedal To The Metal. We've played this less than I'd have liked. It shares some DNA with Flamme Rouge, but is a very different game:

Somewhere down in the garage we have Waddington's Formula One, which we haven't played for many, many years, but which actually holds up fairly well with 'modern' games in terms of mechanisms. 

Then, of course, if you want to race on water there's Spinnaker:

And, finally, if absurd roll-and-move games are your thing, there's Magical Athlete. There's an expansion due out for it in the next few months, and I have been lucky enough to have made a small contribution to it. 

Do you have a favourite racing-themed boardgame? 

Remember The Maine

Once again I find myself apologising for the lack of posts here. With one thing and another I've not been gaming as much, nor pondering projects. However yesterday I did dig out this old boardgame that I bought more than 30 years ago. In fact I bought it, and hadn't looked at it since. 

'Remember The Maine' covers the Spanish-American War in the Caribbean and Atlantic, with a campaign game allowing squadrons and individual ships to cruise around and seek each other out, whilst trying to resupply with coal where possible. The Americans are looking to blockade Cuban ports and land an invasion force, whilst the Spaniards are looking to break the blockade by running merchant ships to Cuba. Both side also get points for bombarding or raiding the opposing coat. Victory points seem to be set up to allow the Spanish (who are massively outclassed) to still 'win' by making an American victory costly. 

Attached to the main campaign game are two sub-games. Each main Cuban port, and the whole island of Puerto Rico, has a little hex map, and once troops are landed there's a whole set of land combat rules for playing out the individual invasion campaigns. Included in them are a couple of self-contained scenarios. I set up one covering the final attack on Santiago, including the attack on San Juan Hill. 

The US have six turns in which to take Santiago. In each turn each side gets two action phases. In the first action phase US troops took San Juan Hill, and forced the Spanish defenders into the entrenchments around the city. In their phase the Spanish started moving up reinforcements.

In the second action phase of the first turn the US took the city and the Spanish surrendered. 

So not a very exciting game as a standalone exercise. The US forces are overwhelmingly large, and I can't see how the game wouldn't always play out the same. But in a campaign the system would work well. There's a nice mechanism for yellow fever, which is more dangerous to teh US forces than the Spanish are. 

The second sub-game is for the naval actions. It's a simple system involving putting both opposing fleets int lines and shooting at each other until ships sink, closing up the lines. Manuever is covered by each side being allowed to set the range - Short, Long or Sight (no combat). A force at Sight can try to disengage. 

Again there's a small scenario to try out, so I played it. It covers the Spanish breakout from Santiago. Here's teh two fleets in their opposing lines. The Spanish have to escape with at least one cruiser, but cannot escape until they have spent at least one turn at close range.

They immediately moved to close range. There was firing.

Amazingly the Spanish scored hits and, generally, the US didn't. For US battleships got pasted whilst only two Spanish cruisers suffered any hits. 

I misunderstood teh range rules at this point, thinking you could only change by one band (you can, in fact, go to any range from any other range). So instead of going to Sight, the Spanish went to Long first. Their squadron is faster than the US one (their slowest ship is faster than the US squadron's slowest ship), so they Spanish have an edge in changing range. They went to Long and teh US couldn't close. 

There was more firing, although mostly from the US as the Spanish ships can mostly only fire at Close. Again the US navy failed to inflict much damage on the Spanish. 

The Spanish then disengaged and won a convincing victory.

It's a pretty simplistic system, but obviously it's designed for quick actions in the context of the main game.

I then tried setting up the campaign game, but it's basically impossible to play solo. It's also long. It took me an hour to set it up, and whilst the play time is given as 4 hours that assumes around ten minutes per turn, which is highly unlikely. It's a game to play over several days. And it has a lot of bookkeeping too. It was published in 1986 and is very much of its time.

So, a great subject, but after 30 years I've found out that it's a game I'm unlikely to play.

In other news I have been board-gaming. My wife and I have continued the 2026 Tour De France Femmes, and have now played six of the nine stages. I have a small lead, but it's gradually being eroded. In addition I have been reading a book about Stnewall Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign. There are a couple of scenarios for battles from it in 'Battle Cry', so as I read each one I set it up and played it through a few times. It's a surprisingly interesting way to cement what happened, despite the game being semi-abstract. 

So that's what I've been up to for the past week or so. 

Tour De France 1903 - Part 4

This is the final part of this short Flamme Rouge tour based around the stages of the 1903 Tour De France. 

The final two stages are mostly sprints, although there are a few small terrain challenges to keep the riders on their toes.

Catherine's Blue team is looking very strong in terms of current tour points, but if things get close then the overall winning team could go down to the bonus points for the sprint and mountain challenges, as well as fastest riders and teams. But, at the end of the day, winning races and winning them well will always put a team on top. My Blue team needs to press Catherine hard.

The fifth stage runs from Bordeaux to Nantes. There's a moderate ascent near the start but after that it should just be a sprint to the finish. Not a race where you want to get left behind.

Riders ready for the off. White and Pink are up front whilst the better-scoring Blue and Black teams sit behind them. 

Everyone stays close together as the riders deal with the ascent.

However the White team made a break for it and my Pink sprinteur followed. A gap opened up.

The White rouleur and Pink sprinteur led the way, chased by the pack.

My sprinteur slipped back and Catherine pushed her Blue team forward to try and catch the White rouleur.

The Blue sprinteur put in a burst and ran for the line, neck and neck with White.

But Blue had shot their bolt and exhaustion got the better of them. My Pink sprinteur put in an epic run to the line and finished first!

This increased my tour standings and gave me some much-needed sprint points. However my rouleur didn't finish so well and lost his yellow jersey to the Black rouleur. White picked up mountain points off the first ascent.

Going into the final race, these were the positions:

Tour Points

Blue - 11
Pink - 9
Black - 7

White - 6

Individual Times (m:ss)

Black Rouleur - 3:50
White Rouleur - 4:00
Pink Rouleur - 4:20
Blue Rouleur - 4:20
Pink Sprinteur - 4:40
Blue Sprinteur - 11:50

White Sprinteur - 13:20
Black Sprinteur - 15:00

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 9:00
Blue - 16:10

White - 17:20
Black - 18:50

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 13
Pink Rouleur - 11

White Rouleur - 7

Pink Sprinteur - 5
Black Rouleur - 4

White Sprinter - 2

Mountain Points

White Rouleur - 8

Black Rouleur - 7
Blue Rouleur - 5
Black Sprinteur - 2
Pink Rouleur - 2

Stage 6. The final run from Nantes to Ville d'Auray, near Paris. A small ascent halfway through was the main challenge, but two small sections of cobbles early on could cause problems too.

I needed to finish well to stand a chance of pushing up towards Catherine's score. 

The current leader makes their first selections. It's a serious business. 

As predicted the cobbles did cause a small break. Both bot teams were in the front pack, whilst Catherine and I, who are more cautious, were at the back.

I got the drop on Catherine, pushing both my riders forward  and leaving her trying to catch up at the rear.

Things got more mixed before the second ascent. But I was still feeling confident.

Catherine's sprinteur made a break for it. A couple of good cards would see him win. Could I catch him?

The Blue sprinteur started to struggle on the final run to the finish, and we caught up.

Both of Catherine's rider now looked to be struggling, whilst I still had fast cards left in my deck.

A shame then that on the critical turn BOTH of my riders drew a hand of '2' value cards! I dropped right back and, whilst White won, Catherine's rouleur wasn't far behind. I failed to place.

One bad draw had cost me dear. The near-final points were:

Tour Points

Blue - 13

White - 9

Pink - 9

Black - 8

Individual Times (m:ss)

White Rouleur - 4:10

Black Rouleur - 4:50

Blue Rouleur - 5:00

Pink Rouleur - 5:20

Pink Sprinteur - 5:40

Blue Sprinteur - 12:50

White Sprinteur - 16:20

Black Sprinteur - 17:20

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 11:00

Blue - 17:50

White - 20:30

Black - 22:10

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 16

White Rouleur - 12

Pink Rouleur - 11

Black Rouleur - 5

Pink Sprinteur - 5

White Sprinteur - 2

Mountain Points

White Rouleur - 9

Black Rouleur - 7

Blue Rouleur - 5

Black Sprinteur - 2

Pink Rouleur - 2

White Sprinteur - 2

Bonus Tour Points are awarded for the fastest rider, fastest team, sprint champion and King of the Mountain

Catherine's Blue rouleur won the sprint challenge, with the White rouleur second. 

The White rouleur won the King of the Mountain with the Black rouleur second

The General Classification (fastest riders) was won by the  White rouleur, followed by the Black rouleur and then Catherine's Blue rouleur. That final draw cost me points here.

However I'd done a good job at keeping my riders together in each race. So my team had the fastest total time, to pick up the team award.

Adding in the bonus points for the various classifications gave these final scores:

Blue (Catherine) - 16
White (Bot) - 15
Black (Bot) - 11
Pink (Me) - 10

The results were close enough that the final race decided it; a couple of changes in final position would have seen White with a win, and even Black in with a chance. So it was closer than it looked.

The tour sheets in the game are a little fiddly to use, but not too hard. And they make each race an interesting challenge beyond just Win The Race.

Catherine's keen to do another tour, and I have one all ready. I might not bore you all with it here though.