Thunder Road Vendetta Maximum Chrome Board Game Review
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately, I hear that saying all the time, I even tell people that, and yet I’ve been passing on Thunder Road Vendetta for years now because, “I don’t like racing games.” Frustratingly, outside of knowing there was a bit of edginess you don’t find in something like Heat: Pedal to the Metal, I just assumed this was a game about racing from A to B, and whoever did it fastest, won. That’s not the case, and after a few plays of this game, I’m absolutely hooked.
Our gaming group isn’t really big into playing party games, but everything about Thunder Road Vendetta makes it feel like a party. You will be laughing constantly as you play, and even when tragedy hits and you lose a car or two, you can’t help but smile and enjoy the ride. Like a party game, it’s easy to teach and simple to play, even when you mix in a ton of the additional content included in the Maximum Chrome edition.
This is not a party game, let me be clear. With the new Carnival of Chaos release (review soon), you can now play Thunder Road Vendetta with up to 5-Players; that’s hardly “party” game player counts. But yet, it’s a great game to bust out when a bunch of friends have come over.
In Thunder Road Vendetta, players are racing from A to B, but how long that race will be is determined by how long people can stay in the game without getting eliminated. The game is equal parts racing and equal parts destruction, both of which can earn you a spot at the top of the podium when it is all said and done.
Players will continuously move forward along a track with three different cars. There are additional, expansion vehicles that operate differently, but we will touch on those later. Each round, players will roll their 4 dice, and then one at a time, they will assign a single die to a single vehicle, or to their dashboard (once per round) that will allow them to deploy their helicopter, move extra spaces, or even repair a car.
When a die is assigned, the vehicle must move that many spaces in a forward direction. Hitting other players will cause wrecks which will need to be resolved using dice, and landing on hazards will require players to stop and see what lies beneath the tile they landed on.
Players can also choose to shoot other cars after completing their turn, which is a good (although not the best way) to deal damage to opponents. Each car can withstand two damage tokens prior to becoming inoperable – they can be repaired in the future. Cars bumped off the road or into impassable terrain are considered eliminated, and are done racing altogether.
That is a very high-level and basic overview of what Thunder Road Vendetta is all about, and with loads of expansions in the box that will provide new hazards, new concepts, weapons cards, player powers, and more, I could write a couple thousand words on just how to play. But what’s most important here is that it is a game you can quickly set up, and quickly get started on.
On my second time teaching the game to new players, I had my pre-game teach down to 5-8 minutes, going over what people needed to know before playing the game. Other aspects of the game – what all the hazards were, for example – didn’t really matter until we flipped the tiles; and since they were hidden to start, it was something that didn’t require pre-game explaining. All they needed to know was that hazard tiles, for the most part, are bad!
With the right group, a game of Thunder Road Vendetta can be incredibly snappy, and while adding in player powers and special weapon cards that you’ll draft before the game add some extra options, and therefore more decisions, it’s still a pretty quick process of teaching and playing. The amount of games you get here for the amount of teaching / learning you’ll have to do is outstanding, and because of that fact, I can easily see Thunder Road Vendetta being one of my most played games within a year or so. It’s too much fun not to play, and the concepts are simple enough to appeal to a wide audience.
That being said, this game still requires the right group of people. There’s a chance you’ll be down a vehicle a few turns into the game, especially at higher player counts, and if you know members of your group aren’t going to react well to that, this probably isn’t for them.
There is also a lot of hostility in Thunder Road Vendetta – you cannot play nice in this game, you will attack the game and attack hard. That means you’ll smash your way to the front, throwing cars off the board and into walls turn after turn. You’ll need a group who is A) ok with that happening; and B) willing to take as much as they are willing to give. If you have friends in your group who don’t like being picked on, this won’t be their style game.
Get creative with your cars if you want!
If it wasn’t clear at this point, I absolutely LOVE this game, and everything it offers. I have almost nothing negative to say about it – all my “negative” opinions are directly related to the group you play this with. There is nothing worse than someone whining all night because things aren’t going their way. There is a decent amount of randomness here, so it’s obviously not an experience for everyone. That said, another reason I love this game so much is the value packed into this box.
First and foremost, base Thunder Road Vendetta offers enough content to keep you and your gaming group happy for quite a long time, so if finances are a high priority when purchasing games, or if you aren’t sure whether this will work for you, I’d suggest finding a copy of the base game and adding to it overtime with various expansions. If this does sound like a game you’d enjoy, and you want to go all in, the Maximum Chrome edition is what you’ll want to buy. Ontop of the base game, you will also get:
- A Big Rig truck and chopper that you can use instead of the regular 3 car setup;
- A motorcycle group and chopper that you can use instead of a regular 3 car setup;
- Special player powers by adding drivers to your dashboards;
- Special weapons cards that will give you more options when shooting other players;
- More hazard tokens with a (large) variety of different outcomes;
- More road tiles to use with varying terrain and hazards;
… and so much more. All of it just adds more stuff, while not over complicating the base experience. When adding in any of this content, the base gameplay almost always stays the same, with slight tweaks here and there. Even when adding new content, I never felt the additional teaching requirements made anything more difficult, and we were still setup and playing almost as fast as if we had chosen to just play the base game.
Let’s come full circle – do NOT judge a book by it’s cover. Thunder Road Vendetta is so much more than a basic A to B racing experience. It’s full of crazy situations, random encounters, and with the right group, a ton of laughs. I’m honestly itching to finish writing this review so I can turn around and play yet another game. And I’m very excited to say we have more chaos to review soon when we look at Thunder Road Vendetta: Carnival of Chaos shortly!
Article By Adam Roffel
