Flying Circus: Chariots of Steel

Flying Circus: Chariots of Steel is a 314 page super-heavy expansion book for Flying Circus, both massively expanding the rules and options for fighting on the ground for crashed pilots, as well as adding an alternate mode of play as landsknecht, mercenary army companies operating in Himmilgard's least-stable regions.

The core of Chariots is a completely overhauled set of mechanics for battling on the ground, making your crashes in the Wild and gunfights in hostile towns more engaging, exciting, and interactive. Plan your route through the Wild with a more engaging mechanic for traversing the dangerous wilderness of Himmilgard. Pin your opponents down with suppressive fire, lead NPCs in squads, draw a bead on distant targets, and keep your head down when grenades go flying!

Accompanying this is a set of rules for exciting, high-octane chases and battles in cars, trucks, tanks, and stranger vehicles. Take your convoy on dangerous trips through the Wild and find out exactly why aeroplanes are so popular. Using a new Dashboard sheet for ground vehicles, crank start your engines, accelerate and make hard turns, get in thrilling tank battles, and escape burning vehicles before it's too late! Circle ongoing battlefields in your plane with new detailed strafing rules!

While compatible with any Flying Circus campaign when pilots fall to earth, Chariots of Steel can also be used to play entire campaigns as tankers and infantry. Playbook adjustments allow you to turn the ten pilot playbooks of the core game into squad leaders and tank commanders, leading companies into battle. Take on new jobs, seize loot and ransom prisoners, and remember to pay all those people with guns working for you!

Chariots of Steel also contains, quite simply, too much new equipment and customization rules...

• 6 new Masteries for ground warfare; 2 for infantry, 2 for tanks, and 2 that can be used for either.
• 30 guns, 12 hand grenades, 11 artillery pieces, 3 land mines, 5 working and riding animals, and 10 new pieces of utility equipment.
• 20 bespoke tanks, with illustrations, lore, and variants.
• A brand-new Vehicle Builder, with 16 premade example vehicles.
• 17 vehicle modifications.

Finally, finally, there's GM guidance and moves for all of this, as well as a variety of new and returning threats for fighting on the ground, complete with new Ace moves. Battle autonomous vehicles, strange new Clockwerk constructs, the formations of local Warlords, imperialists of the Sopwith Expeditionary Force, and enough different branches of the Goth Armies to spend a whole campaign battling them!

It’s also packed with lore and art, exploring the frontier regions of Himmilgard and diving into the events of the Great War. There are illustrations throughout, but also 26 pages of uniforms and tank colour schemes from both pre and post-war. It is, from an objective medical standpoint, too much art; I have a doctor’s note.

Content Warning

This game touches on mature themes regarding violence, sexuality, and drug use. There is a degree of illustrated nudity.