Axles and Alloys 2

Axles and Alloys II is a game of stupid automotive combat using Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars converted into post-apocalyptic, crudely armoured, gun-toting wagons. Which then proceed to chase each other around a radioactive desert landscape attempting to destroy each other for absolutely no bloody good reason whatsoever. Its main influence is the toy car conversion scene that sprang up around Games Workshop's Dark Future in the 1980s along with my feelings that Dark Future was never a very good game in the first place and that the Car Wars ruleset was too large and cumbersome to be worth playing, while the Car Wars counters were too small and fiddly to be worth playing.

The original Axles and Alloys, way before it ever got written up for web distribution back around 2001 or so was little more than a homebrew adaptation of Full Thrust with Hot Wheels cars rather than Spacecraft. Axles and Alloys was the form the game took when dragged around the wargames convention scene in the English Midlands. It turned out to be surprisingly popular when released onto the intertubes for reasons I can't really grok but I suspect that it was a hit because it didn't take itself very seriously, offered a great outlet for the sort of creative urges that enjoy converting Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars into post-apocalyptic, crudely armoured gun-toting wagons etc. and that previous attempts at this sort of thing (like the aforementioned commercial games) weren't actually very playable.

So this is 2010's version (now tweaked in 2014 – we are getting old..) and it's called Axles and Alloys II. As is the modern fashion it also has a subtitle – Dork Future. It's still fundamentally the same game, but with new, better movement rules and a load of stuff written down for your convenience that wasn't actually written down before. It's also still completely free. It's important

– Axles and Alloys II introduction

Designer: Owen Cooper
Year Published: 2001
Status: In Print
Contents: Online (28-page PDF)

Back to RULES DIRECTORY