Chariots of Steel (Part 1)

The tanker that smelled good

Chariots of Steel and Flying Circus are games by Erika Chappell. Game material and content is reproduced here for review purposes and is owned by Newstand Press.

1. Every Individual Component Is The Best

In our analysis, we consider every individual artistic element of a game the best; we don’t find bad or good useful. So, the Split/Party framework assumes it is the best art, best layout, best writing, best design. This is an acknowledgment that nobody makes “bad” art on purpose; any given element is the best art that could have been produced at that point, restricted by its material conditions and constraints of time and effort. This is also because saying something is good/bad art is the most useless criticism that can be given. In practical terms, this section is for things we will not touch on the review but merit acknowledgment.

Lucrécia

That’s right, we are breaking the rules again, because we kinda did this for Ironsworn’s expansion of a stand-alone expansion because we wanted to talk about Ironsworn on Split/Party. Now we breaking a rule about an expansion to Flying Circus because we want to talk about Chariots of Steel.

Chariots of Steel is more than an expansion, more like a way to expand combat rules while including a whole new game alongside it. The game is not as quite fully stand-alone, still needs the base game, but does not need familiarity with the game, having rules overhauls and new rules and subsystems. Still, you can use Flying Circus for cross-reference and jump straight into the tanks and platoons of Chariots of Steel.

Books like Chariots of Steel should not exist. The labor needed to make Flying Circus goes against all established incentives. A 300 pages, art-bursting (quasi) standalone expansion to a game that should not exist definitely goes against any expectations. It is with humbled gratitude that I thank that I am allowed to still witness art such as this in the current day.

And of course, the personal, lovely art style of Flying Circus makes a glorious return. The dedication and attention to detail make this one of the few games in the artform with a strong sense of art direction and bursting with personality.

We are so fucking back

Brad

I dreamt of flight long enough before I finally found a game good enough to reach it. When Chariots of Steel was announced as a little expansion that was coming I was excited and ready for it.

Now it’s a several hundred-page supplement that could be used to run a whole ass campaign on the ground and excited no longer covers it.

2. Meet The Game At The Level It Is At

Each game comes with certain expectations and tone. To properly break it down, we have to meet the game at the level it is: not lament its choice of premise and wish it was something else, nor resent for not conforming with our politics, not letting “missed opportunities” stand in our way of applying the critical framework relentlessly. It also includes not working with the game as marketed or how it exists in our desires, but as it is.

Ludo

All the same attention to subject matter that was true for Flying Circus remains true for Chariots of Steel: post-apocalytica, war, scarcity, class warfare, business, war-machines, violence, nationalism, fascism and the struggle against it, etc. With a “in the mud” perspective, this game means many of these aspects and themes are magnified, more personal, and less abstract. It is a war game, at higher resolution. Not easy to be head in the clouds about these things — these harsh realities are all around you.

While Chariots of Steel is pretty clear that is war game-ier than Flying Circus, it is also more like a wargame in other aspects: Gameplay has drastically shifted from the very-normal-for-PbTA asymmetrical play from Flying Circus to almost-symmetrical play for all sides of the table. Squads, tanks and characters will be equipped and stated on the same way for all players, with greater parity with what a PC and a NPC looks like, as well as the tools available to game master and other players. Combat sometimes feels like each side bringing their little guys and jamming them against each other, something that is not that common in Flying Circus, and this substantial changes to the style of game running Chariots of Steel asks for must be considered when bring the game to the table.

The game is also more deadly than sky-based Flying Circus. Where in the airplane game, even the atrocious injuries can be survived— aka, characters only die on their terms, — there is a hard cut-out for when troops and tankers die. Player characters still get to die on their terms, however, this is further facilitated with equipment that will require the ultimate sacrifice.

The layout of Chariots of Steel is pushing its limits, tearing at the seems with all the new added content. It is still tied to Flying Circus’, and in many aspects, what four years of improvement over that shell look like, and it is easier to peruse than the original book — so, compared strictly with Flying Circus, it is an excellent take on it. However, the sheer amount of content really pushes it to its limits, and can make perusing the book during play a bottleneck. More approachable, but pretty much as good as one can accomplish without an utterly new layout while not cutting any of its extensive content¹; one is advised to create your own cheat sheets of relevant pages.

Brad

Chariots of Steel is jam packed with game, but unashamed of its connection to it’s glorious predecessor. This game is an expansion to Flying Circus and that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t attempt to be its own thing and that is a brave move in this industry of ours.

Chariots of Steel is much more brutal. The symmetry of more ‘balanced’ combats doesn’t mean that characters won’t die in a thousand horrible ways. The weapons are the same hazardous things they have always been, but now you no longer have a vehicle to suck that up for you.

If you are familiar with Flying Circus, which I kind of expect² you know what to expect here, and honestly, lets snap into that.

3. Identify What The Game Says It Is About

Games are about things. Usually. Mostly. That is often the same thing they market themselves as. This often means to establish the relationship of the game with systems, mechanical frameworks, genre, etc. This is how games establish exceptions about the nature of play and establish a common space for creation.

Lucrécia

It is Flying Circus! But with tanks instead of planes! The modest premise of this extensive expansion is, at face-value, to expand human-scale and ground combat to more than a single move. Oh it does that, but also adds a whole new game on top of it.

4. Uncover What The Game Is REALLY About

What the game says it is about is not always what the game is about. This is where we look at all the weird interactions, examining the system that game creates, how the way mechanics interact with the text and art, how it exists in a given context, how well parts flow together or get in the way. This creates a much richer environment that the original design could ever imagine once a game hits the table.

Ludo

Strange as it may be compared to the “industry common sense” that ropes this artform, with its twisted incentives and precarity, Chariots of Steel is exactly what you would expect Chariots of Steel to be. ³This odd creature is what a peak/perfect expansion to Flying Circus would look like. PbtA is often taken as easy to expand: just throw some more moves, more Playbooks, done. That is something Flying Circus resists doing, and for good reason: with such an elegant and interwoven engine and subsystems, a subtle change to a move is going to have drastic changes. Adding something as substantial as a new move or more Playbooks would have dramatic effects, and needs careful design — and so aircraft catalogues are what takes the place of such expansions, offering more customization options withing the existing framework and engine. Since anything that would be a minor change in another PbtA requires dismantling and rebuilding the engine, there is no way to escape gamey and meaty and mathy parts of game design. So, Chariots of Steel and other expansions embrace this fact, and are reimagining’s of the existing game as much as they expand its original scope; the same individual elements, the same engine, refitted to a new purpose. So, Horrors of the Heights expands the game by reimagining what Flying Circus is at high altitudes, Chariots of Steel does that at Altitude zero.

Thing is, there is so much going on at Altitude zero. And doing justice to the design of Flying Circus while reimagining ends up producing this radical new game.

Many of what I said about Flying Circus stays true to what Chariots of the Steel is about. However, there is a substantial change in flavour and touch, and enrichment that I can just describe as “Super-Heavy”. Everything the game was about feels thicker, denser, more material, more concrete, closer. Everything increase weight.

We knew from Flying Circus the world was wild, large and dangerous, dominated by terrifying wildlife and capricious fey, so humanity grew winds; the canvas and wood of planes feel safer than even the thickest steel when you have to actually be there, going through shifting hostile terrain, observed by godlike beings, venturing the wilds while hoping your engine does not die and leave you at the mercy of their whims. We knew that even the clear skies of Flying Circus could soon be filled with dangerous weather and shifting temperatures; on the ground, you are fully at the mercy of the elements, battered by weather, mud, crumbling ruins, trenches, dense woodlands and obstacles, minefields and ambushes. Every hit has a weight to it — it is not the spray of bullets, the ceremonious bombing runs, the measuring of hits in failing systems and burning planes; death is everywhere, bullets are laden with fear, the weight of every piece of ordinance is paid in fuel on transport and pink mist on deliverance. In Flying Circus, aeroplanes are vehicles that are extension of the personality of your pilot, its engine your heart and its guns your fists; in Chariots of Steel, tanks feel as vehicles only on the outside — inside, they feel like a hostile environment, an alien world applying pressures that force you and your squad to constantly adapt with no support from the distant Earth. Squads and tanks are expensive things to do compared to the abundant planes of Flying Circus; one does not just get a tank or a small private army, and you are much more tied to the material needs of those, as well as the whims of the kind of people that have the means to field one — or that would have the means to hire one, — and what can only be solved with an army. Nationalism and fascism are the ur-enemy of Flying Circus, the one thing that must be faced unquestionably, an encroaching menace upon the free skies of the post-apocalypse rebirth; nationalism and fascism are everywhere in Chariots of Steel; you are closer to them, not only on the battlefield and actually seeing the human husks eaten by hate, but never move too far away — how many of the fascists you fight also hide within the towns you stay, and how much can you trust that employees and other powers that be are not collaborators? The diverse regions and cultures are a vague blur from bird-eyes, with you concerned only on a town-by-town basis; groundpounders are stuck to a single region, which deeply shapes through culture and geography each campaign of Chariots of Steel into a distinct flavor — a characterization of the world like you’ve never seen before.

It is a masterwork piece of design to make something feel this heavy expansion, while avoiding traps of overdesign — or not comitting to design at all. Even solo mode has Officer Mode, a better supported and improved take on the original solo rules for Flying Circus.

Brad

Chariots of Steel is about bitter work. You don’t get all the glory and beauty of the sky-killers dance, this is the ground-killers slog. You are going to march across ruined landscapes and slaughter enemies, some of whom are just like you, and others are evil to the bone, but you are equally likely to kill or die to either of them.

You get a closer look at the way these people inflict harm on the world, no longer a view over a polluted lake that some deranged Futurusti weapons factory is dumping toxic waste into. Instead, you get to walk into the nearby town and see the peoples sickness, see animals transformed into horrors.

Your troops feel fear, they might want to break and run from the horrors unleashed on them, you cannot allow that. If you fail, you will see the ugliness that will take place, or even worse you’ll be executed at the hands of the would-be tyrants who will rule the new world and strangle any hopes at a brighter future with their bare hands. Someone must do these things, this dangerous bitter work.

The trench-maker, grave-digger, and gardener all share a common tool, and if the goddesses will it you’ll use it for all three jobs.

We really enjoy making these critics, and we hope you enjoy reading them as well. It is through the support of our collective, CyCo. You can find more of our work by backing our Patreon, and support us by sharing these posts with friends. You can also get reminders of new content and further support us by subscribing to our newsletter.

1. And this is not a game where the maxim “the best version of this game is edited 33-66% shorter and/or 15 pages long” applies. Chariots of Steel needs this and uses every millimeter of the page.

2. Go read our critique, buy the game, play it and then come back here.

3. All that I said here for Chariots of Steel also applies to Horrors of the Heights.