January 4 Brikwar @ Susquehanna: Casters and Catapults

[Scribonius]

did you also factor in the increased UR from all those supernatural dice? Woulda made shots miss even further.

To further justify the you-get-one-i-get-one thing on wizards, I think you might want to further that to be for supernatural dice in general, and not just for wizards. Meaning, if my opponent has a team with a wizard who has 3d6 2d10 and 2d8, I would be fielding commandos with 3 supernatural 1d6 lazer rifles, and maybe put the rest of the dice on my own wizard. Remember that supernatural dice can also be granted to weapons, machinery, and monsters as well to create terrifying shows of force.

See, now this is one of the reasons I love this forum, and Rev's battle reports specifically. They're entertaining, fun to read, and usually teach you some interesting tactics/techniques/lessons/things. Well, that and Rev's MOCs are fun to look at.

[Rev. Sylvanus]

did you also factor in the increased UR from all those supernatural dice? Woulda made shots miss even further.

I did not. I was under the impression that this feature was scrapped; this impression was reinforced when I couldn't find anything in the currently "visible" 2010 Ch. 10 about increasing UR. If I still should have been doing that, it would have been awesome, hitting my own guys for sure  .

Behind enemy lines bennies are the only kind of benny I have trouble defining. Picking an arbitrary point as the middle and rewarding players for crossing it does encourage frontal assaults, but would getting a unit literally BEHIND the enemy lines be more appropriate?

Or perhaps while within an enemies deployment zone, assuming one uses such things in the game. It's probably situational how easy or difficult this type of benny is to define. For instance, McLovin would have clearly gotten them every turn in this game since his was the only army to cross the battlefield. In battles like sieges or where both armies are clearly making pushes to-and-through the center, this type of benny might be less meaningful.

See, now this is one of the reasons I love this forum, and Rev's battle reports specifically. They're entertaining, fun to read, and usually teach you some interesting tactics/techniques/lessons/things. Well, that and Rev's MOCs are fun to look at.

Flattered, sir. Hold on to your hats, though. I just got a massive order of baseplates and odds-and-ends from bricklink. McLovin and I will be starting a campaign of battles as early as next week  

[stubby]

Gotta agree with stubby: turtling is for powergamer munchkin cowards.

Why thank you  

Turtling is fine as long as it's not the dominant strategy. If everyone turtles, it sucks, but if only one guy turtles, then you can still have an exciting assault game.  I have eight ideas for how to do this:

6.  Set up the scenario objectives so that players have to cross the battlefield to achieve them - they can't win by sitting still. But in an open-ended system like this one, I'm not quite willing to tell players what kinds of scenarios they can and can't play, so this one is mostly out.
7. Reward people who don't turtle, which is what I'm doing now with the Behind Enemy Lines bennies. This took me a long time to fine-tune to where I wanted it (some of you may remember), but part of the trick was to reward advancing rather than punishing turtling.  The way it's set up now, there doesn't even have to be a turtling player - all players in the game can be getting these bennies at the same time, if they all have units in enemy areas.  Everybody wins.
8. Design in tactical disadvantages for staying put.  For instance, set up cover so that it only works in one direction, and a mobile opponent can simply outflank it if you stay there too long.  That particular solution depends on limiting the types of fortifications the players can set up, so it's another thing I can't easily enforce in an open-ended system.

did you also factor in the increased UR from all those supernatural dice? Woulda made shots miss even further.

It's not increased UR anymore, it's decreased Skill, and for the caster only.  If he's casting buffs on other dudes or weapons, the Skill penalty affects the caster, not the beneficiaries.

Behind enemy lines bennies are the only kind of benny I have trouble defining. Picking an arbitrary point as the middle and rewarding players for crossing it does encourage frontal assaults, but would getting a unit literally BEHIND the enemy lines be more appropriate?

Or perhaps while within an enemies deployment zone, assuming one uses such things in the game. It's probably situational how easy or difficult this type of benny is to define. For instance, McLovin would have clearly gotten them every turn in this game since his was the only army to cross the battlefield. In battles like sieges or where both armies are clearly making pushes to-and-through the center, this type of benny might be less meaningful.

Maybe there could be some kind of extra super bonus if you're literally behind enemy lines.

I know it's a misleading name, and I planned to scrap it as soon as I thought of a better one.  (Kind of like how I need to go through and change all the "Armoreds" to "Shieldeds.") You don't have to be behind enemy lines, you just have to have claimed positional initiative. In this game, it would have been any units who were able to cross past that ruined tower in the middle, so yeah - as soon as McLovin got past the kill zone, his forward troops could have had a Benny every turn.

[IVhorseman]

Okay, I was under the impression that anyone involved in the SN dicepool would take the penalty. Maybe uh... maybe they should be? We'd need more playtesting to get a solid answer.

Brikwars is open-ended enough to where I THINK players would realize that if everyone just turtled nothing would happen. The game would never get finished because it'd be 6 hours in and 90% of the units are all still alive and everyone would be tired and want to go home. Of course there would be the players who would blatantly ignore this and keep attempting to turtle, but they'd probably find some other less good wargame anyway if that's what they're trying to do. I say let dumb players be dumb.

[stubby]

I say let dumb players be dumb.

Normally, yes, but aggression bennies are rad, especially when all the players are getting them.  It's like every turn you get to choose one guy on the front lines who goes the extra mile.

[IVhorseman]

Yeah, that's completely true. It's easy to forget about it in the heat of battle, but if you're kicking enough ass to forget you qualify for a benny, you probably don't need it.

[Pwnerade]

but if you're kicking enough ass to forget you qualify for a benny, you probably don't need it.

Wisdom

[*CRAZYHORSE*]

First of all I would like to say that IMO only severe turteling is a problem. When a player is being rushed and decides to hold position and go on the defensive that's fine. It's only a problem if a player takes a defensive position and waits for the other players to come at him.

My idea:
When your opponent turtles (this would be hard to define) for long enough you can declare 'Siege' on them granting you certain bonuses until your opponent starts being offensive (moving units in your direction/trying to deal damage to other player's units) again.
Fro example, bonuses could be:
-Getting a benny every turn as long as your opponent is under siege.
-Being allowed to build anything you can (using any bricks not in play) and field it as long as your opponent is still under siege.
-Some how being granted to move units out side of the map (To combat people camping the corner of the map).
-Opponents hero gets cranky due to lack of action.

I know this is a pretty shitty idea as this would probably get over complicated and slow donw the game tremedously.So just some food for thought.

[IX_Legion]

Awesome battle report. My medieval battles want to be like yours when they grow up.  

As to the positional bennies, a few thoughts:

I can actually see them as quite useful in siege scenarios, or especially in a WWI-style trench warfare situation (something I have incidentally not seen on these forums). The player besieging the castle gets a benny every turn he has guys on top of/inside the castle wall, starting with the first turn at least one of those is not in close combat (either because the defender was a moron and didn't contest the attack or because the guys who did are dead). On the flip side, the defender could get one for opening the gates and attacking outside the walls. In either case, you get a reward for having momentum, and this also encourages risky forays outside a fortress wall. WWI is even easier--if you are uncontested in a trench the enemy started with, you get a benny. You'd forfeit it if you didn't advance on his next position.

It all depends on who you're fighting. I play 99% of my battles by myself, so if I think a side deserves a benny I can just give it to them. When you have actual opponents, it depends on how laid back they are. I think this is one area where the rulebook can offer suggestions, but it really depends on the player(s) involved.