Eliminating Die Roll Tables and Hit Point Trackers

I have been thinking some more on my chariot racing game in regards to two principle attacks each player can engage in: ramming and whipping an opposing player.

Usually with any type of game where one player tries to injure or disable another, there is usually a notion of a player having hit points or damage points. When a "hit" occurs the amount of hit points a player has is reduced. This is usually kept track of be having some kind of meter on a board or card where a chip keeps track of the current hit points that are reduced when a hit occurs. More specifically, with my chariot racing game, it seems sensible to have some form of hit points or damage points at least for the chariot, so when it is reduced to a certain point the chariot falls apart.

For the sake of simplicity, I don't like a whole lot of record keeping mechanisms or components. To avoid this, I came up with this idea. With most chariots, you will have the three strikes your out rule. Each player's play mat will have three cards placed on the appropriately labeled squares: chariot, horses and charioteer. When a chariot has been hit, one of the player's cards is turned sideways. When you have a total of two turned cards, and another hit is scored the chariot is destroyed. The advantage of this is I do not have to have a counter with a chip telling a player how many hit points he or she has. The card method also avoids the possibility of the mat getting bumped a bit and the chip going on a different square. Does anyone think this is a bad idea, any suggestions?

Another thing I would also like to avoid, again for the sake of simplicity, is the avoidance of any reference die roll tables. This is typically a table where you roll a die or dice and consult it to find out the outcome of such a roll. To replace these tables, I thought of coming up with a meta rule that can be applied to many different situations. The rule is this: in any random event a '6' on one die roll is always a success and a '1' always a failure regardless of any modifiers. So to apply this rule, for example, when one chariot attempts to ram another (any time the chariots get close to each other (in order to ram or whip a player), there can be damage to the chariot for both the attacker and defender (the wheels grinding together). To represent this, each player rolls one die, on a 6 a chariot sustains one point of damage -- in this particular case the "success" in the meta rule is incurring damage. For a more flimsier wooden chariot, for example, there would be a +2 modifier to the roll (easier to damage) and hence the person would need to roll a 4 or more (it could be written on the chariot card itself) to incur damage. To apply the meta rule again, after the potential damage rolls have been rolled, the defender can get the chance to stop a ram moving him to an outer of inner square (depending whether the chariot is being rammed from the right or left side). To prevent this the player being rammed must roll a '6' to prevent the ram. If the player who is being rammed has stronger horses (maybe indicated by the max average movement) then there may be a modifier here so it is easier to nullify a ram. What do you guys think?

Another aspect of my game I am having a hard time dealing with is how to whip attacks. This is a type of attack where one chariot is besides the other chariot, and the attacker opts to whip the other chariot's person or horse. If this attack was successful (a roll of a '6' plus modifiers) then the opponent would go ahead and randomly take one of the defeated player's hidden cards (such cards have movement and any special charioteer cards to help avoid situations). The reason I came up with this is to avoid having to have hit points for the charioteer (and possibly the horses). If the player does not have any cards, then that player goes into a random skidding loosing control situation which would normally occur when trying to go around the turn too fast. What do you think?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

DarkDream