Blueprints Turn 4

[Apollyon]

Recommended listening: http://youtu.be/GfbLWHT7vUU
(since i spent two beautiful and sunny afternoons inside the house playing this turn)
Don't forget to grab some

Briktopians played by Kalvinator



"Fuck it!", says the Avenger's pilot and puts the pedal to the metal. The machine guns swivels
towards the DSM hiding in the red building but the shot is too difficult.



Firing the main gun the small vehicle is missed as well and the tank is now only moments from chrashing into
the AC contruction tower.



And in yet another display of my abysmal dice rolling skills the other Avenger fails to hit the second floor wall of the town hall.
(note to self: targeting computers need to be installed in all Avengers asap!)



Things get better from now on as the Ocelot pilot moves up and miniguns the KKKK tank driver to death!



The troopers disembark. This one fails to shoot the teen girl.



The troopers on foot also move up and shoot at the girl as well.



They overkill her a few times over. Bloody pulp is all that's left of her.



Rollerderby girl shrugs off all shots directed at her. That helmet seems to be a bloody good damn piece of armor!



Inside the townhall two troopers position at the entrance and shoot at the DSM hiding in the red building.



It's a difficult shot but one is killed.



Raszack grabs the staircase...



...swings it around effortlessly sending the clerks that were on it flying. They survive but they are now disrupted.



Through a window another trooper takes a shot at the DSM turned Sailor Moon but misses.



The Briktopians under Raszack's command have conquered the town hall. But what now?

[Apollyon]

Briktopian Ghost Division played by Scratch



Apollyon rises high above the town hall.



Then divebombs back towards the roof in a circling motion.



He cut a hole in the roof.



He and his soldiers descend into the mayor's office. The elite soldiers immedeately take positions.



Sailor Moon DSM and another red one on the street get killed by the two guys shooting from the large window.



Then they take cover again. The mayor's office is kinda cramped with all these guys, their armor and weaponry.

[Apollyon]

KKKK Reinforcements played by Theblackdog



Strafing the townhall all possible targets for the flyer are already gone. But it is ready to shoot anything that decides to reappear on the roof.



The trike moves towards the base's right flank.



The Roboraptor has quite a lot of firepower which it shows off by hitting the Avenger mulitple times dealing one point of size damage.



The infantry moves forward with the close combat troops moving towards the town hall.



Together with their Futuron Commander those armed with ranged weapons advanced in an orderly manner.



They now form a firing line right in front of the space supply base. No targets are in range yet.

[Apollyon]

Dr. Braghardt and the KKKK played by Piltogg



With his master dead the Sailor Moon familiar decides to adopt the shady guy: "TONIGHT WE DINE ON FLESH!!!"



Seeing what happened to his fellow blue picks up the other wand but nothing extraordinay happens to him.



Taking cover behing the remains of the bridge the DSM shoot at the Jaguar but despite their combined effort
cannot overcome its armor.



Dr. Braghardt climbs one of the guard tower and takes a well aimed shot at the town hall.



It would have killed Apollyon but he gets redshirted.



Some blue DSM leave the building and try to shoot off the Avenger's machine gun. Tough luck tough.



One remains in the house and tinkers with the spying device... success! He rigged it up as an explosive.



The spaceship drops two DSM it had picked up earlier on the town hall.



Then it turns and fires all it has, including both missiles, on the Avenger which suffers another point of size damage (4 remain).



Black and Yellow decide the computer containing the AC construction plans is probably not safe here anymore.



They head for Braghardt's lab.

[Apollyon]

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USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST

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Civilians played by Silverdream



The shady guy takes control of the KKKK tank...



...and successfully shoots the Jaguar! It is now seriously crippled with only one point of size damage left.



Nat... err Rollerderby Girl musters up her maytricks powers to summon a weapon - but only receives a fishing rod.



Subsequently she gets arrested by the police woman. Allegedly for being a woman.



Seeing the error of his colleague's ways the police officer tries to shoot her in turn but misses. Failure all around.



Goth girl realized she still has to read the Nekronomikon before it needs to be returned to the public library.



The woman attaches her OTC to the motorcycle.



Then the biker races towards the Avenger.



Despite the OTC the Avenger's armor shrugs away the impact. The biker gets killed by the tank's POP damage.



Pissed off at the poor service the peach guy leaves the McDonalds.



He heads home...



...where he takes a rather precious looking ring from a chest.



Then sits down to enjoy some coffee.



Using the debris of the destroyed helicopter the Britannian spy climbs on the red building's roof. He cannot decide with which faction to side with yet.



Last but not least the angry town clerk punches a wall. That will teach it!

[Apollyon]

Secret faction



Yellow Luke and Oldschool Ben arrive in a landspeeder. Their mission: find and claim The One Ring.

Zuponn claimed them.


Overviews:











You can send turn 5 orders now.

[Kalvinator]

Epic turn man! Orders sent!

[Apollyon]

Man, those orders are coming in fast!

Also, thanks. But the best thing is standing next to the battlefield. It looks rather epic.

[piltogg]

as the interesingness level of a battle increases, the speed of getting orders in also increases, as people check it more often.

This is probably the most interesting battle going on right now.

Not sure who is wining yet.


It does bring up interesting rules questions in my mind though,

As I typically have never used a "structure points" system to keep track of vehicles, as that would require paperwork for most of my battles. For mine, I have always just used component damage. The difference in how vehicles are treated in the field when compared with what rules you use for them is pretty astounding actually.

In my battles, using component damage rules, Vehicles are not all that different from foot soldiers that can move faster.  Sure, there's a bit more armor involved and they can carry bigger guns, but nothing like this, where a vehicle can take sustained fire for multiple turns without suffering any reduction in functionality.

That changes game dynamics pretty considerably. So I'll have to try playing a few games that way sometime.

The way you play it, does a vehicle just die once it reaches 0 structure points, or does it explode at that point?

[Apollyon]

I have always just used component damage. The difference in how vehicles are treated in the field when compared with what rules you use for them is pretty astounding actually.
In my battles, using component damage rules, Vehicles are not all that different from foot soldiers that can move faster.

I use component damage when players specifically give orders to do so. In fact if you check "Operation Blau" that proved to be quite effective.
Since i am using size damage unless otherwise stated and 2010 armor rules for me gameplay is quite contrary to what you experience. Heavily armored vehicles like the Avengers or the Armored Car are almost invulnerable to infantry attacks. With a structure level of 4, hence a 4d10 armor roll you really need to hit hard in the first place. And you cannot do that with infantry. That's also quite realistik and i like it that way. Tanks are and should be intimidating. Component damage is the smart way of stopping such a vehicle. Components are not "armored" and the structure level is lowered by one point thus it becomes effective to use infantry. Still, Avengers and Armored Cars will get a formidable 3d10 armor roll. During this turn only one of you DSM hit the machine gun doing 4 or 5 damage. So the odds were really against you here. You also wanted to use component damage on the turret when shooting the tank with the spaceship but for me neither the visuals nor the actual contruction justify the turret to be considered a component and i used size damage instead.
Taking away two points of size damage from the Avenger in just one turn though is not bad at all considering its armor roll of 4d10 and one damage die taken away from each successful attack due to it being "armored". One more hit like that and it cannot use the main gun anymore.

On the other hand playing with these tanks for a couple of times i realized that playing large and armored vehicles requires competent players that know how Brikwars works. With the big guns (size 3 and up) it is very difficult hitting anything that is minifig sized. At least if you play fair with just a pilot and one or two gunners and without a dozen targeting computers. The Avenger's main gun is size 4 and  without modifiers it has a use rating of 69 while the pilot only has 1d6 skill. Try hitting anything smaller than 2"-4"! You can run over infantry but you cannot shoot them (payload launchers with explosives are a different story).

So it boils down to the fact that players need to know what infantry and (vehicles) can do effectively within the ruleset. Most do not obviously. That much i learned.

The way you play it, does a vehicle just die once it reaches 0 structure points, or does it explode at that point?

Unless there is a good reason for a large explosion they just die. Including the pilot most of the time.

[piltogg]

Interesting.

I now feel the need to re-read through the rules. As my comprehension of them is lacking after like three years of playing with the same people who were all to lazy to read the rules so they just went with "whatever piltogg says the rules are, those are what the rules are".

Naturally, CP would also become a bigger consideration with "legit rules".

All things taken into consideration though, I'd say that a "hitpoints" system is probably the better of the two; as infantry really shouldn't be able to do much against a tank unless there's a light part stuck onto it somewhere: the machinegun for example.

OF course, this would change if it was infantry armed with explosives or RPGs or somesuch other equipment.


My grandpa plays a WWII miniatures wargame that is pretty similar to Brikwars and most other miniature wargames, and I think the system in that case divides weapons into "superior" and "inferior" categories.   A tiger tank then, takes 3 hits from a superior weapon to kill. Each time you hit one with a superior weapon, you place a yellow poker chip next to it. And once it has three poker chips, it dies.  In his game, ammo is also kept track of, and every vehicle has a sheet to keep track of ammo, each "ammo crate" being worth  5 shots. Inferior weapons don't have to keep track of ammo. This increases the dynamics of the game considerably. However in my case, it would never work due to players being generally disinterested.

[Zupponn]

My grandpa plays a WWII miniatures wargame

[Kalvinator]

I now feel the need to re-read through the rules. As my comprehension of them is lacking after like three years of playing with the same people who were all to lazy to read the rules so they just went with "whatever piltogg says the rules are, those are what the rules are".

I actually have not read through the entire 2010 rules...I should really get on it. I just haven't had a need too, as my little bro only has the patience to play Quikwars.

[stubby]

As I typically have never used a "structure points" system to keep track of vehicles, as that would require paperwork for most of my battles.

Structure points don't take any paperwork if you just keep track of the damage on the vehicle itself. Attach a little red 1x1 cone for each point of structure damage, problem solved.

nothing like this, where a vehicle can take sustained fire for multiple turns without suffering any reduction in functionality.

Every point of structure damage reduces overall functionality.

When a Creation takes a point of Size Damage, it remains the same physical size, but it receives disadvantages as if its effective Size were reduced by one inch. (Any potential advantages that would result from a smaller Size, such as a decreased targeting bonus for attackers, are ignored.) The weapons and devices the Creation can activate during a turn, as well as the Creation's maximum Momentum in a Charge attack, are decreased as if it were one inch smaller. Additionally, its Move is decreased by 1" (to a minimum of 1"). As the Creation takes further points of Size Damage, all of these penalties are cumulative.

Most importantly, if a Creation's effective Size is decreased below the minimum requirement for its Structure Level, its Structure Level is decreased to match, making badly damaged Creations even more vulnerable. Surface Elements and moving parts whose Structure Level is relative to that of the main Creation are also weakened accordingly, to a minimum Structure Level of ½ and Armor of 1d6.

[piltogg]

I see.

Thank you for the clarification, that seems much more balanced.

My grandpa plays a WWII miniatures wargame

It gets better; he and his friends (I game with them whenever I'm home) comprise 50% of the original DnD party. Like... the box set that they played with is now in a museum.