Thunder Alley: Crew Chief Expansion Now on Kickstarter

Apr 1, 2016

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One of the best racing board games to arrive in the past decade or so (check out my review here), Thunder Alley, is about to receive an expansion later this year. The Thunder Alley: Crew Chief Expansion is currently up for funding and promises to provide more strategic options for your stock car teams. Add to this the fact the expansion is designed by the legendary Richard Lanius and we should see fans of the core game racing over to Kickstarter at 200 mph to reserve a copy. You can grab the crew chief expansion at the $15 pledge level.

From Nothing Now Games:

We are raising funds to print an expansion to Thunder Alley! The funds will go towards final art and graphic design, printing, shipping from the printer to the distribution center, and shipping to our supporters.

The Thunder Alley Crew Chief expansion was designed by Richard Launius (Of Arkham Horror, and many others fame) and will be published by Nothing Now Games, LLC., provides a new way to play Thunder Alley by adding strategic options which offset the luck of the draw and allow for more control over your team. The expansion contains 148 cards and is broken down into several sets –

Crew Chief Cards (96 Cards, 12 Per Player)
Lap Cards (4 Cards)
Race to the Finish Cards (24 Cards, 4 Per Player)
Track Cards (24 Cards)

CREW CHIEF CARDS (96 Cards) The expansion includes a set of 12 Crew Chief cards per player that are used each turn to tweak your strategy and take advantage of the cards in your hand. The eight Crew Chief decks consist of 12 cards and are the same for each player. Each turn players have three of those cards in front of them to choose from to make a strategy for the upcoming turn. Cards may provide ways to avoid wear or damage altogether. They may provide extra speed or strategies for pitting and restarts. Efficient use of these abilities in conjunction with your Race Cards can put your team in a very good position.

LAP CARDS (4 Cards) In addition 4 Lap Cards are included with the Crew Chief Cards which will allow for additional laps to be run and tracked. This is important for longer races on the existing tracks in conjunction with the new Track Cards listed below.

RACE TO THE FINISH CARDS (24 Cards) The race to the finish cards are a deck of 24 cards that replace the Point Tokens from Thunder Alley. They now provide larger cards that allow for easier visual identification of positions and points for each player. In addition, these cards enable you to add the “Lucky Dog” rule module to your games as each card has a method of elimination on it. So if your car was eliminated due to wear it goes on the “Eliminated” portion of the card. However if it was lapped it goes on the “Lapped” section of the card. On any future yellow flag, the car that was lapped and has the best position among those already lapped is put back into the race at the end of the line.

TRACK CARDS (24 Cards) The Track Cards are intended to help make each game of Thunder Alley unique. Have you raced St. Adriana’s enough times to memorize the pot holes? Now instead of just racing on the St. Adriana Speedway, you can race in the Crackersmacks 500 for example, a race designed by other fans set on the familiar speedway but with unique twists and turns. The Track Cards are custom races designed by our supporters that choose the Track Card Rewards Package. You have the option to name the race, determine which track it is run on, how many laps to run, and any special rules and scoring to utilize for the race.

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Jeff McAleer

Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...