Car Wars is a board game based in a post-crisis world 50 years in the future. In the world of Car Wars, vehicular weaponary is legal in most of the 48 United States, as well as Texas, Louisiana, Canada, and the Republic of Quebec. Gladiator-like "autoduels" pit competitors in armed and armored vehicles against one another in televised matches. The national highway system is variably maintained, and highway duels and armed bandits are problems on some roads.
| CONDITION | POINTS | Explanation |
| A Kill (full kill) | 5 | A Kill is the complete elimination of another vehicle by any means other than surrender -- the vehicle must be unable to fight or escape. A Full Kill is the same as a Maneuverability Kill plus a Firepower Kill. The judges determine who gets credit for any kill, and whether it is exclusive or shared. Only Kills against vehicles (as opposed to crewmembers, passengers, or pedestrians) earn any points. |
| Maneuverability Kill | 2 | A Maneuverability Kill eliminates a vehicle's ability to move and/or maneuver, but not its ability to defend itself. |
| Firepower Kill | 3 | A Firepower Kill renders a vehicle unable to attack with weapons, although it may still be able to ram, attack with hand weapons, or escape. |
| Hand weapon Kill | x2 | This is a bonus for any Kill scored with a hand weapon instead of a vehicle weapon. |
| Internal Hit | 1/2 | This is an award for a shot that penetrates the armor of a vehicle and damages the interior but does not achieve a Kill. Internal Hits reduce the points awarded for any successive Full Kill of that vehicle. |
| Accepting a Surrender | 5 | In AAV scoring, a surrender is scored like a Full Kill for whoever accepts a surrender. Note that this may need to be split if there is more than one potential adversary for the surrendering vehicle. |
| Ram Kill | +1 | Because of their greater difficulty and crowd appeal, Kills scored using rams earn bonus points. |
| Loss of Maneuverability | -1 | This is having a Maneuverability Kill scored against you, or losing your maneuverability yourself (in which case you do NOT get credit for a Maneuverability Kill). |
| Loss of Firepower | -1 | This is having a Firepower Kill scored against you, or incapacitating your own weapons (in which case you do NOT get credit for a Firepower Kill). This only covers premature loss of weapons, and not using up all of your ammunition. |
| Surrendering | -1 | Surrendering costs less than having a Kill scored against you, but you must get all your adversaries to agree to accept your surrender. There is also a loss of prestige for characters who surrender, although but it isn't as bad as the prestige usually lost from dying. |
| Use of an Illegal Item | -2 each time in use | This covers the use of any weapon forbidden by a tournament rule. More severe violations, like exceeding tournament class limits, may result in disqualification. |
| Targeting a non-combatant | -1 | The same penalty also applies for firing in no-fire zones or during designated no-fire times. More severe violations, like targeting the judges' area, may be grounds for disqualification. |
| Leaving the Arena | -1 | This is the penalty for escaping before the time limit of an event. It results in a loss of prestige, but it may get more victory points than having a Kill scored against the vehicle. |
| AWARDS | POINTS | Explanation |
| Finishing alive | 1 | This is the basic bonus for having a driver finish an event alive, conscious or not. You always get money for earning this point, even if your point total would otherwise be negative. |
| Highest average speed | 1 | The average used is the average over the entire event or until the vehicle stops moving, whichever came first. |
| Best maneuver (majority vote) | 2 | This award covers skillful maneuvers, successful tricks, lucky shots, survival against bad odds, and anything similar a player wants to nominate. |
| Passing a checkpoint (if applicable) | 2 | This award only applies in tournaments with designated checkpoint areas. The award is usually made only once per vehicle per checkpoint. |
| Destroying a target (if applicable) | varies | This award only applies in tournaments with designated targets. The award is usually made to the vehicle that destroys the target, although in some tournaments it may be given to any vehicle that hits a target area. |
The total prize money awarded (apart from salvage, which in tournaments with "claiming" goes to the driver or gunner credited with a vehicle kill) is divided proportionately to positive points earned. Award points are always given, so there is a minimum of 1 point worth of prize money awarded to any contestant who survives.
Character generation rules. This document describes how to generate Car Wars characters using variant rules. The random skill tables list all the available skills, but you may want to ask for help if you don't know what the various skills do. [source: local]
Personal equipment list. This lists all the various personal (non-vehicular) items you might want to buy for your characters. Each character can carry a maximum of 6 GE ("grenade equivalents") of items. Some items can't be carried in vehicles unless cargo space is available for them, and some may require holsters or other holders if there are more items than the character could hold at once. Carrying a lot of items reduces a character's maximum running speed. [source: SJG, with additions]
Vehicle sheets. Like the character sheet, these are optional (I personally prefer using blank paper). There are sheets for ordinary cars, 6-wheeled cars, buses, cycles, trikes, and reversed trikes. [source: Jeff Barrett's Car Wars Page]
Stock vehicles list. These are standard cars from the Car Wars rulebook. [source: Car Wars rulebook]
Additional vehicle list. This is a list of stock vehicles not in the Car Wars rulebook. [source: local]
A critical hit/miss table for Car Wars. Note that this is somewhat experimental... [source: local]
A list of house rules for our Car Wars games. [source: mostly local]