Thunder Road Ignition: Chaotic Board Game Review

11 minutes ago

4 min read

Not a Board Game Review of Thunder Road Vendetta

In 1986 Thunder Road was released for the first time one year after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Capturing the excitement that Mel Gibson and Tina Turner bought to the silver screen to the tabletop. Fast forward to 2022 seven years after Furry Road came out and a two years before the Furiosa movie came out, Restoration Games brought us Thunder Road Vendetta. Then at GenCon in 2026 the follow up came a lighter version of Thunder Road called Thunder Road Ignition designed by Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, and Justin Kemppainen. So strap in for another action packed board game review.

What is in the Box?

This being the lighter weight and cost version of Thunder Road it has all the parts that come in the more expensive Thunder Road Vendetta but they are lower quality. The player boards are basically thick paper and the cars are light weigh plastic. This all helps keep the cost down so that it can come in at $35USD.

Cars go back to the last pit stop where they can respawn next turn. This makes the game more ...family friendly?

So what does it come with? 8 double sided road boards, these road boards are different that the Vendetta boards as they have 4 boards that are turns. Vendetta is comprised of straight boards only. Now if you have Vendetta you can use these in that version if you want to spice it up. There are also 4 movement dice and 3 cars for each player. Then there are 45 tokens for damage, hazards, pit stops and first player. There are 4 FX dice that will be used under special circumstances. All and all there are a lot of components in this box for it being scaled down. I bought this game at Gencon and there was a promo turn board that was included you will see that show up in some of the pictures.

Setup

Setup is pretty easy everything is color coded. Each player has a color so the get the player board, cars, and the movement dice in their color. Then the starting board is placed and 5 more boards this will create the road for the game. You can always add more boards to make the game longer. The first time I played we went nuts and played with all the boards and the promo board. The Boards have hazard symbols on them and that is where the random face down hazards go. The pit stop tokens go next to the first, third and fifth tiles. Shuffle up the damage tokens and make a face down pile and your ready to start up Thunder Road Ignition!

Play

Playing Thunder Road Ignition is easy, players roll 4 dice they have in their color and then assign one to each car and one to the special move. The dice players assign to their cars is how much each of them moves. The last die is used to select the special move for the players turn. Players then preform a command action, then move all three of their cars and finally they can shoot after they have moved.

The die that is placed on the command die slot is for the special move. The value of this die doesn't matter, the player will choose from one of the four command special moves. The four moves are slipstrem, jumpstart, drift, and missile. These add movement like slipstream and jumpstart or allow players to ignore a collision like drift and then the newest action on the block is missile. Missile lets a player shoot at another player anywhere on the board.

You want an easy going quick knock around game then Ignition is your gal.

As you would expect for a game like this there are rules for slamming into other cars and rules for hitting hazards or sweet jumps. And shooting there is lots of shooting. Unlike the Vendetta version of this game players do not get eliminated from play they merely have their cars go back to the last pit stop where they can respawn next turn. This makes the game more ...family friendly? It actually just keeps people in the game and saves them from sitting and watching the other players have so much fun while pondering where they went wrong in life to bring them to this. For the record I like this not very cinematic but it works here for this version of the game.

What's the damage? Well players can take up to two hits on their car before exploding back to the pit stop. The damage markers are random and one of 5 different effects on them causing a little more mayhem for the player as they careen down the Thunder Road. This makes the game flow fast and makes getting hit a little more fun, especially if you are able to damage another car or get wildly in the way of everyone else.

Thoughts Thunder Road Ignition

Having played both Thunder Road Ignition and the larger sister Thunder Road Vendetta. I love the price point and ease of play of Thunder Road Ignition. Both games give the feels of a Mad Max themed game. Both give the carnage that you would expect out of a Thunder Road game. Ignition delivers it a much easier price point and learn. If you are looking for a large format longer game with a lot more meat on the rulebook then Vendetta should be the path you choose. You want an easy going quick knock around game then Ignition is your gal.

I love that players do not get eliminated in Ignition and that your cars respawn. That combined with some of the command actions players never really feel like they are completely out of contention. The price is great but that comes with a couple sacrifices the player boards are very thin and the cars are light weight. The tokens and the road boards are all good quality. All in all this is a tight game that plays fast and keeps all the players in the mix the entire time making for some great moments that you will talk about until the next game night.