Thunder Road: Ignition - Discussion
Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked and today I'm doing a discussion over Thunder Road Ignition. I actually don't know if I've covered Thunder Road Vendetta on the channel. I should probably do that if I haven't um because it is one of my favorite games um to play in large groups because it is just pure fun and chaos. And whenever they announced Thunder Road Ignition, I thought initially it was an expansion to Vendetta and it kind of is, but ultimately Ignition is a standalone game that is incredibly more affordable and still packs the exact same kind of punch. Now, these kinds of expansions, not sorry, not expansions. These kinds of games are always weird for me to kind of um do a video over because really what this is, it's an entry point into the Thunder Road uh kind of IP.
If you're not familiar, Thunder Road is basically Mad Max the game where you have control a set of cars that are in this game just trying to make it to the exit. Uh in Thunder Road Vendetta, it's also trying to make it to the exit, but mainly it's about being the last car last car alive. Uh at least the way uh like we play it. But Ignition is definitely cheaper. It is I mean the box, it doesn't come with that much content uh and it's also way faster to play, which is actually kind of a like a benefit to it because in this in this one it well, sorry, in Vendetta, the tracks are linear and as you are about to make it to the end, the furthest back piece of cardboard, the furthest back track, will get removed and then you kind of add a new one to the end. So, it's it's this endless loop of of cars or of a tracks.
That is not the case here. Uh the track is built in really any order that you want. Uh it has some curves, which don't really add a whole lot in my opinion, but you can kind of make it a a more unique shape, but there is a finite end. The whole goal is to get two of your cars to the finish line before someone else and that's how you win. And that's why it makes it shorter. I And that's pretty much it. I mean, it it has the exact same kind of appeal as Thunder Road Vendetta. You still roll your four dice. You still assign one of them to a uh to an effect, although in this case, you don't need a specific die result.
It's just put a die there and then these four things uh will do something. And in this case, it's slipstream. You pick you uh one of your furthest back cars and you roll the green die and move that car that many spaces. You have something called jump start. That's in relation to these pit stops that I'll talk about in a sec. You have one that lets you kind of drift past a car, uh which I believe is in the uh uh Thunder Road Vendetta. And then uh in this one, which is kind of nicer, is that you just shoot a missile at someone. You roll the the hit die. You roll if you hit them, it deals a damage. That's that's it. You don't have It it replaces the helicopter in that you just pick a spot and shoot them.
Um So, everything about Ignition is designed to be quicker and faster in terms of setup, in terms of teardown, and in terms of play. Because again, you don't need a specific die result, so it's just roll your dice, assign them, and move. You don't need to really worry about the whole lot except just trying to get to the end. And in that case, it's kind of more chaotic because again, it's just way faster to just zip around. And because you're trying to get to the end, and the end is already in sight, everyone is just gunning out for you if you're in the lead. So, if you're playing a multiplayer game of this, uh you know, with more than I guess that there's no solo. Um if you're playing a three- or four-player game, if your car is in the lead, you have two or three people automatically just shooting missiles at you. Which, for this kind of game, is way more fun uh because there's just more chaos going on. More people are ramming into each other. More people are, you know, taking risks with the hazard tiles.
And I do kind of like how in this game it seems that the the map tiles are a little bit more populated with random stuff. There's no innate hazards uh like a ramp or a minefield or anything like that. But there seems to be a lot more janky yellow like yellow-bordered uh spots. Like this tile right in front of me has a bunch of what looks to be slides, and it cuts across the entire map. So, by lining it up, you have a lot of choke points, which make this game just way more fun. And the fact is that your cars can only take one damage before uh they would blow up. So, it's one damage tile and unlike the two in the other one.
Um but also in this game, your cars don't just die in that, and that's where these pit stops come in. And these pit stops, I actually think is the best improvement of this game, because when your car would blow up, you know, it by you know, hitting a ramp and flying off the edge, slamming into a car and careening off the side, uh, taking a second point of damage, they would go to the furthest back pit stop that they have passed. And so, the pit stop is on the starting tile, then on the third, and on the fifth, and then if you play if you want a longer game, I think it's on the sixth or seventh, I can't remember. Um, but so, let's say you've passed the third the third spot, the third, uh, pit stop. When your car would blow up, on your next the next time you activate them, they actually just come back out onto the map from that pit stop, uh, starting areas, and that just keeps you in the game. I think that that's an addition that I think I wish would be able to be implemented in the Vendetta one, because I mean, yes, while player elimination can be can be fun, and you can actually utilize destroyed cars, um, and that's one way you can kind of be out of the game, and it's also one way the game ends.
Uh, I really like the addition of the pit stops here. Um, because one of the abilities that you have is called, uh, jump start, meaning that when you put a die here, and a car is coming, you activate a car that's coming out of the pit stop area, you get to activate them like normal. So, again, everything about Ignition is designed to just be, uh, you know, go go go. So, oh, I put the die here, activated my four, so boom, going to move, that's one, two, three, four, and you just move them move them out like normal, and they can shoot, and they can do whatever as they come out. It's uh It's a really nice addition. I kind of like it quite a bit. Um but that's really the biggest difference between the two uh in terms of mechanisms. Everything else is still pretty much the same. I'm actually a little bit surprised at you know, how little content there is in this. I mean, it's not an expensive game by any means, but I guess I was just so used to the cuz I have the Maximum Chrome of Vendetta, which obviously has a ton of expansions into it, and it was a Kickstarter and all that. But, so I guess I never owned original Thunder Road, and so now I now I think about it, it's probably yeah, just tiles and a few uh cardboard pieces for the the damage ones.
But yeah, I mean, the biggest reason I own this and why I bought it is because it is able to be cross-compatible with Vendetta. You can actually take What was it? I It says It's a very small section on the back of the rule book. Thunder Road Smash Up. So, all right, if you're using Ignition content, so the Jump Start command has no effect cuz you can't put the pit stops in there. And any effect that would send your car to the pit eliminates it instead. So, like I said, unfortunately, you can't implement the pit stop effect into uh into Thunder Road Vendetta, which I think would still be kind of a cool way to just keep people in the game, but I know that game's designed again around having someone be eliminated so that the the finish line shows up. And then the other one is if you're using Vendetta content, so if you own Vendetta, you can actually put it into here.
Anything that eliminates a car or makes it inoperable sends it to the pit instead. And two, anything that lets you use the road die just gives you the road bonus instead. Oh, yeah, there's no road die in this one. It is literally cuz in Vendetta you would roll a road die and that had a different values on it. And if you only stayed on the road, you got that bonus. In this, again, everything is streamlined, you just get a plus one to your movement. That's it. Uh so, in this case, you would just get the get to move the one space. There are There are a few crew leaders upgrades and ongoing damage effects that really won't work in Ignition and no big rig, don't even try it. So, I mean, ultimately, it definitely feels like Ignition is meant to be implemented into Vendetta and not really the other way around. I guess I personally haven't tried it, but the real reason I I bought Ignition is to kind of just take what this was going to have and put it into that.
Which, I mean, isn't really that much. Honestly, it is the tiles and the damage markers and the hazards are pretty much it. Which is still always nice. I mean, it's still a little extra variety. I don't necessarily know I mean, I guess you could take the tiles, the curved ones would be kind of cool to throw them in. Um but yeah, I don't really know how that would work either. I guess if it's the if it's the back back one cuz these are also smaller, uh the tiles specifically are significantly smaller than the other ones. The other ones are probably double this length.
Uh so, I mean, you would just have a shorter window, but yeah, I mean, it I I it has different I it's it's there, it's just extra content. So, I mean, I don't know. Thunder Road Vendetta, especially if if you do own the Maximum Chrome, then it already has so much content. I don't even know if I'd bother. I mean, the easiest one would be just to take the hazards and the damage markers, and those could just be shuffled in like normal. Cuz these tiles here, they're they're paper. So, you wouldn't need to use these. You wouldn't need to use the dice. You don't need the cars. The cars are significantly worse. They don't The other ones stack a little bit better. You don't need the dice, you know, these dice.
So, if you're like me and you're wondering if you should get ignition, I guess the biggest reason you would you would buy it is either A, to get a little bit more content into it, or B, you don't want to haul the big box around to a random game day. You could just take this and still get the exact same feel. I think this is a very solid stand-alone kind of game that still gives you the exact same feel without really sacrificing anything. There's a lot of these games that come out that whenever you play them, you're like, "This is just great value." This. And this is not great value Thunder Road Vendetta, I I don't think. You know, it still has all the chaos and stuff, and it has enough variety that you would be able to play this and find out whether or not you like it. I think that's another benefit to to this is Thunder Road is such a chaotic, lucky game, beer and pretzel style game that you may not know if you like it or not.
So, this is a very cheap entry point that if you do think this is a lot of fun, then you can look into getting Vendetta, and you're not really going to have to sacrifice anything. If you play this and you don't like it, then there's no point in spending two, three hundred dollars on the Vendetta one, because it's just it's more of what you already don't like. So, yeah, that's kind of it's kind of up to you. I honestly can't remember how much this ended up being. I want to say like was it like 30 bucks off their website? Thunder Thunder Road Ignition. It was, yep, $35.
So, that is you know, a pretty sexy price point off their website, 35 schmeckles. Uh but that's it. That's that's pretty much it. On a I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10 like if Thunder Road Let's see. Let's see how much of my what it cuz Thunder Road, man, I used to know how to type on these things. Now, I'm just old and in the way. Thunder Road Vendetta has a Do I only have the Maximum Chrome Edition ranked? Uh yes. So, Thunder Road Vendetta gets a nine from me. Uh I am going to give this one just a point lower. I'm going to give it an eight just because this isn't necessarily for me.
Uh but it's still a lot of fun and does a lot of things right. It'd be cool. I mean, the box is very thin, so I don't imagine they're going to support it like they did with Vendetta. But but yeah, I mean, it's still I still like I don't want to see myself playing this one, but I can still utilize most of the content into my other version, which is really cool. So, that's it, everyone. That's my thoughts on Thunder Road Ignition. Let me know what you think of the game in the comments below. Other than that, like, comment, share, and subscribe, and have a wonderful with every time I date this for you.