Car Wars Sixth Edition by Steve Jackson Games

Video - Many Car Wars Minis
about 3 years ago – Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 07:14:23 PM

Everything is still in manufacturing and expected to move into assembly next month. We'll share when we have more news, but for now here's a video that was sent to us showing all of the final test shots* of the minis as the factory moves these into final manufacturing. Reportedly, lots of paper, chipboard, and cardboard have already been turning into Car Wars boxes, rules, etc. Things are racing along!

- Phil Reed

* Not surprisingly, the factory wanted to ask once more "Everything good to go?" before pulling the trigger on 100,000+ plastic car minis.

New Factory Pics
about 3 years ago – Tue, Apr 06, 2021 at 09:36:37 PM

We've got some new pics from the factory this morning, this time showing how the three box sets in the core game look with many of their goodies. We're not yet at the finish line, but things are starting to come together as the factory works through manufacturing all of the necessary components.

- Phil Reed

Manufacturing In Progress
about 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 04:36:59 AM

Now that the new year is behind us and we're in the manufacturing stage, we have a little more info on when everything is expected to complete production. By mid-May, we should be in the assembly stage of the project. This is when all of the plastics, paper, chipboard, and cardstock components are complete and the factory puts together the finished games and expansions.

Between now and then, we'll receive very little in the way of new information.  During manufacturing, the factory (multiple factories, if we want to get technical) makes all of the stuff. If it were a normal year, I would join a few of our partners at GPI for a trip to the primary assembly factory for a look at everything. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year.

When will the finished games and expansions ship? We don't have that information at this time. With container issues as they are, we're forced to be a little more patient than we would like. It's no longer possible to nail down shipping dates as early as we did in the past.

We have asked the factory to share pics as they can during the manufacturing stage. When we get something new, we'll post an update with whatever fun pics happen to land in our mail.

As always, please email [email protected] if you have any questions. The team will answer questions as best they can. Thank you for your patience as the project continues to work its way to the finish line: your table.

- Phil Reed

Multiple PDFs Released as BackerKit Digital Downloads
about 3 years ago – Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 10:10:52 PM

By now, you should have received email notification from BackerKit about new digital downloads. We've released PDFs of the rules for the Car Wars Sixth Edition game . . . as well as the rules/credit sheets associated with many of the expansions. 

Enjoy the PDFs! We look forward to the day when all of us can hold the printed rules -- and finished games and expansions! -- in our hands and get the completed game on the table.

NOTE: Your BackerKit account will only have those files associated with your rewards. If your rewards package does not include a specific title, then you will not have the PDF for that title. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.

- Phil Reed

Car Wars Sixth Edition Tooling Update. Good News!
about 3 years ago – Mon, Feb 08, 2021 at 10:36:16 PM

Thanks to a last-minute push by the team at GPI, we completed the tooling stage before the factory closed down for Chinese New Year. There are a few minor issues, but nothing that we cannot address during the manufacturing process.

Once the factory opens, we'll officially shift the project into the production stage. There will still be a number of checks (photos and video, so we can confirm that those minor issues are handled). We will not skip steps during this process or sign off on "meh, that kinda works" components. We get one chance to do this right, and we are going to do what it takes to make the game (and all of the expansions) the best we can manage. This means that although we are moving into production, we may find an item or two that requires another round of tweaks during manufacturing.

We know the one question everyone is asking comes down to: When will I get my game? We cannot answer that question until the factory opens and together we can nail down a final production schedule. One of the biggest risks of a Kickstarter campaign -- especially one of this size -- is that everyone gets to see the behind-the-scenes delays and issues that can plague a project. We don't assign a release date for many of our games until everything is at print (and often not until we have the tooling complete). This makes it easier to hit release dates, but even that has been a major challenge over the last year as the global pandemic disrupts everything.

We'll be back with a new update in early March after the factory opens and we work out a tentative production timeline. Once we have a production schedule, then we can start to plan a shipping schedule, but even that will be subject to the issues that are delaying shipping containers. (As an example, we had a 40' container canceled by the freight company last month. That tore a giant hole in our plans and was completely outside of our control.)

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to push hard at wrapping up the Car Wars Sixth Edition game, accessories, and expansions.

- Phil Reed