Clarification: Armour

[pkbrennan]

I see in the Armour section there is no entry for helmet, just shield and armour. What if your minifig has a helmet but no body armour - what then?

Do you:

6. Give a helmet the same stats and cost as a shield, only, it just protects the minifig's bonce all around or
7. Halve the cost of Armour for just a Helmet, and it does as listed above or
8. Mention that a separate Helmet entry might be useful in the 2010 rules?

[IVhorseman]

Helmets look cool, and when minifigs look cool, minifigs feel cool. Otherwise, they serve no bonus.

If you REALLY REALLY feel cheated by that, houserule that helmets add +1 to their armor (at best). Helmets also serve as a handy reference for telling apart minifigs who are wearing light armor, and minifigs who are supposed to be in full-blown plate mail.

[stubby]

Helmets and torso-printed armor used to give bonuses, but I ended up dropping them. They were just extra details to keep track of that didn't add any particular fun to gameplay.

Helmets will have a role to play in the future if I decide to split Body Armor up into Light Armor and Heavy Armor. Light Armor will be an armor piece with a non-visored or missing helmet, giving you SL:1 / Ar:1d10. Heavy Armor will be an armor piece with a visored helmet, giving you SL:1 / Ar:1d10, Half Speed, and the Armored bonus.

[IVhorseman]

Does Heavy Armor mean the minifig HAS to have a 1d10 armor rating? Do minifigs with just 4 armor, Half Speed and Armored exist at all, or do they get auto-upgraded as soon as they put on the suit?

[stubby]

The important thing in my mind is upgrading them from SL:0.5 to SL:1, so that they go from marshmallowy flesh to something solid enough to do damage in Collisions and all that other good stuff. I don't care as much about the specific Armor rating, although SL:1 / Ar:4 is a little inconsistent with other SL:1 / Ar:1d10 creations.

[Colette]

The important thing in my mind is upgrading them from SL:0.5 to SL:1, so that they go from marshmallowy flesh to something solid enough to do damage in Collisions and all that other good stuff. I don't care as much about the specific Armor rating, although SL:1 / Ar:4 is a little inconsistent with other SL:1 / Ar:1d10 creations.

Just when I was starting to warm up to the 2010 armor rules...

[IVhorseman]

1d10 rolls under 4 three times out of ten (trufax).

For most things that are attacking armored figs, they're also usually doing enough damage to overcome 1d10 pretty easily. Usually, that is. If a whole squadron of riflemen were firing at an armored space-marine without any crits, it's very possible for 7 shots to hit and still not get the kill. Same with a lot of critical hits: dealing 1d6+2 damage vs. the 1d10 defenses of a fully armored knight even after a crit would feel like I was getting jipped. Of course on the other hand, it's always totally possible for 1d10 to roll really really shittily.

I'm not saying these units shouldn't exist, but they should definitely be considered wearing both light AND heavy armor if they want the full bonus. If you were playing with CP, I'd say to pay for both.

[Rev. Sylvanus]

I sort of like the way this is panning out.

Regular Dude: 4 CP with 4 (1d6) armor.
Dude in Light Armor: 5 CP with 1d10 armor (light armor effectively costing 1 CP).
Dude in Heavy Armor: 6 CP with 4 (1d6) armor, armored, and half move (heavy armor costing 2 CP).
Dude in Full Armor: 7 CP with 1d10 armor, armored, and half move (full armor costing 3 CP)

I put the cost of light armor as 1 CP with no drawback because you can make a creation with the following stats for only 5 CP using creation rules (1d6 skill / 6" move / 1d10 armor). Therefore, a minifig who buys light armor is still less cost efficient 0.5 CP.

Visually distinguishing between these 4 variations of armor would be more tricky:

Regular Dude: Whatever
Light Armor: Pauldron-type pieces like from Brick Forge or Prince of Persia sets or just a really fancy helmet (visored, great-helm, or otherwise)
Heavy Armor: Chest piece with no or an open-face helmet
Full Armor: Chest piece and a fancy helmet (visored, great-helm, or otherwise)

[Quantumsurfer]

That looks neat, clean.

It would be desirable to differentiate and I like what you have there, Rev. My opponents and I use the honor system though, because we're dirt poor and lucky to have the minifigs.

[lorbaat]

4:1d6::6:1d10

if you want to save time on rolling.

[IVhorseman]

Differentiating between what's light and what's heavy armor would be a bit hard.

[Colette]

Differentiating between what's light and what's heavy armor would be a bit hard.

I just write it down somewhere before the game and would let all my opponents know about any special stats beforehand. For example, my Trattorians wear full armor and helmet pieces but I plan on only giving them light armor so as not to incur crippling movement penalties (minifigs can't get anywhere already) and because of my objections to the Armored rules.

[IVhorseman]

That's all fine and dandy, but ideally, you should be able to look at the battlefield four to six shots of tequila in and be able to say what units are wearing which armors. Part of me wants to say it'd be pretty obvious since 1d10 (armored) on a minifig would probably look like some huge hulking monstrosity compared to the others (I'd limit it to the heaviest of the heavy armors, like a size 1 hardsuit), but with FOUR different armor types and only 3 different combinations of torso/head options, shit don't add up. I dunno, maybe it does.

Can lightly-armored units still sprint?

[Quantumsurfer]

you should be able to look at the battlefield four to six shots of tequila in and be able to say what units are wearing which armors.

Pfft. If your biggest concern six shots in is which units are wearing what specific armors...WYSIWYG...it is not the start to a promising evening. Put the bottle down and go watch paint dry.

FOUR different armor types and only 3 different combinations of torso/head options, shit don't add up. I dunno, maybe it does.

Yeah, its weird. Should be fine as long as you discuss with your opponent beforehand, though, whichever combinations you're using.

[IVhorseman]

Drunk Brikwars is actually a pretty good evening. After that sixth shot, I don't care which units are wearing what kinds of armor, because I'm probably not even rolling for any of it anyway at that point. Or actually playing on my own turn.