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Making Hills

RoboRally

by Avian

RoboRally by Avalon Hill is one of my favourite games and has not too long ago come in a nice, new updated version that solves a lot of the problems and annoyances with the old set and is highly recommended. It does not, however, solve all the problems and it also seems that Avalon Hill do not intend to reprint the old expansions for the new edition (not that all of them were all that good anyway). What I have done is to collect a selection of house rules and clarifications, for the benefit of other players of this excellent and hilarious game.

 

Option cards in the 2nd edition set

Below are some suggestions for clarifications and house rules for the 2nd edition option cards. In particular, it suggests a procedure to determine which option cards trumps which other option cards ("If I am radio-controlled, can I still use my conditional program?"), which the new rulebook should have had. The order is decided semi-arbitrarily and it is felt that the most important thing is to have an order.

 

The 1st edition Radioactive expansion

What follows are some suggested house rules for using this expansion with the 2nd edition of RoboRally. Radioactive is one of the better expansions, though it has a tendency to leave players with a sackful of option cards if some house rules are not used.

 

Optional house rules

Following are some generic house rules intended to improve the gameplay.

 

Life tokens

It appears that not everybody likes this mechanism, because it is quite easy to suddenly die a couple of times after each other, which leaves a player, through no fault of his or her own, clinging onto their last life token and having to play very carefully (which is boring) for the rest of the game. On the other hand, not using life tokens opens up for the possibility of tactical dying (i.e. deliberately committing suicide in cases where this would be beneficial, something that is also boring). The following house rule seeks to limit these problems somewhat.

 

Destruction

Being destroyed when you have no option cards left really isn't that bad. This house rule adds a few more choices and can make death a little less trivial.

Note that strangely enough the rule that said that destroyed bots start with two points of damage in 2nd edition as well is only mentioned indirectly through the Superior Archive Copy option card. Sloppy...

 

New courses

Tried and tested home-designed courses. Under "boards used", abbreviations are as follows:
B1 - First edition basic set
B2 - Second edition basic set
A&D - Armed & Dangerous
R - Radioactics

 

Sling Chop

Boards used: Vault (B2), Maelstrom (B1/B2), Chop Shop (B2)
Players: 5-8
Difficulty: Medium
Length: Medium

 

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