BrikWars - Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Buildings

When a Civilization sends out its Troopers to secure an area, whether that area be an acre of land, a few leagues of ocean, or an arm of a galaxy, the first order of business is to build a base of operations. In small operations, the Troopers might use their captain's BattleJeep as a mobile command center. In more prolonged operations and in far-ranging theaters of battle, the bases are huge sprawling fortresses, several levels high with further levels underground. Depending on the era, these bases might be enormous caverns, mighty castles, wooden fortresses, concrete bunkers, domed underwater cities, or StarBases in geo-synchronous orbit. Within the base walls are facilities for vehicle maintenance, weapon repairs, and dorms for the Troopers. The walls themselves are usually dotted with heavy weapon emplacements and built from the strongest materials available to the Civilization, capable of standing up to an incredible amount of punishment from those who would do it ill.

5.1 Building the Building

If you don't want to go to all the trouble of designing and constructing a building, you can throw up some walls and fortifications. These can hamper enemy movement and give cover to troops and weapon mounts. For every five inches of length and three Brix of height, a wall's base cost is one CP.

Computing the base cost of an actual building is not as easy. First, you must figure out which two corners of the building foundation are furthest apart - if you have a ruler or a string handy, this shouldn't take long. Measure the distance in inches between the two furthest corners of the building (round up). Multiply the number of inches by 2 and you have the base CP cost of the building. The larger and more nearly circular your building is, the more floorspace you'll get for each CP spent.

For a building with multiple stories, compute the base cost of each story separately. Note that catwalks, battlements, and roofs don't count as additional stories.

(It may be difficult to move units around inside buildings if the buildings are complex and have multiple stories. If this is the case, build the ground floor and place it wherever it goes on the battlefield. For additional stories, build each story separately and place it somewhere off the side of the battlefield, and just 'pretend' that it is somewhere on top of the ground story. Remember to build stairs, ladders, entrances and exits between stories - even though you set them all in different places, as far as the game is concerned they are all stacked on top of one another!

Alternatively, you may choose to build a building with 'virtual' walls and roofs. While the walls and roofs exist within the game, in actuality they have been omitted so players can get their hands into the building to move units around. Make sure all players are aware of where the virtual obstacles are, or they may try to make their units walk through the walls or drop bombs through the roofs!)

Optional Rule: Underground Stories

If you would like your buildings to have stories underground, buy each underground story as usual and place it off the side of the battlefield somewhere. This story will cost three times as much as an equivalent above-ground story. Make sure you have stairs and ladders leading from the underground stories to the aboveground stories.

Buildings, walls, and fortifications have five possible AV Ratings, summarized on this chart:

Building Armor Value

Class AV CP Cost TL Power Equivalent to

I 1d10 x1 1 2 wooden shacks, huts

II 2d10 x2 1 4 plastic, unmortared stone, log walls, sandbags

III 3d10 x4 2 8 concrete, mortared stone

IV 4d10 x8 4 12 steel, reinforced concrete

V 5d10 x12 5 16 strongcrete

Once you have chosen which AV Rating you want, multiply the base cost of the wall or building by the multiplier in the CP Cost column. (In this chart, TL lists the minimum TekLevel at which you can build walls of this strength; Power lists how much Power a building of this strength would normally have at its disposal.)

Next, you will want to furnish your base. Interior walls, stairs, ladders, and regular doors are all free, put them wherever you like. All parts of a base besides the defensive exterior wall have an AV Rating two levels below the base itself (minimum AV 1d10). This includes exterior doors, so you either want to avoid making very many of them or you'll want to beef them up a little. If you want to strengthen an object, multiply its cost by the multiplier in the PointX column in the chart above, just like walls. For this purpose, consider doors to have a cost of two CP, and interior walls and stairs to have a cost of two CP per five inches.

Vehicles may be housed in the bases. Hopefully, there will be doors big enough so that the vehicles can get in and out; otherwise they may only drive around inside. Flyers will require landing pads or runways; these do not cost any points, they only require that some Slaves be sent out to clear some land near the base.

Heavy weapon emplacements can be built in the wilderness as if they were tiny Bases. Weapons may be mounted on buildings or weapon emplacements the same way they are mounted on vehicles (6.1: Mounting Siege Weapons). Each weapon must be manually or remotely controlled by a Trooper.

5.1.1 ComputerBanx

If Computers are available at your TekLevel (mid-TL4 and higher), a ComputerBank should be located somewhere in the base. The first ComputerBank in a base is free; backup ComputerBanx cost 5 CP apiece. All ComputerBanx must be placed in such a way that minifigs can access them somehow. If you have no ComputerBanx, then your base cannot have any automatic devices or motorized weapon emplacements - everything must be done by hand.

ComputerBank security is very loose, since Troopers aren't particularly bright and often get killed faster than they can learn new passwords. It only takes one turn for an enemy Trooper to take control of a ComputerBank he has gained access to. If enemy troops gain control of all of your base's ComputerBanx, the base belongs to them. If they miss even one, you still have full control.

It is important to maintain control of a base! Only the side with computer control can use powered base features like automatic doors, motorized weapon emplacements, and Outstanding Architectural Features (OAFs). If all of a base's ComputerBanx have been destroyed, then all of the base's powered weapons fire at -3 Skill, all the powered doors open, and none of the OAFs function. The lights all go out, the TVs are stuck on the Weather Channel, and the showers only run cold water.

If you want, you can build an independent ComputerConsole into any door, mounted weapon, or OAF for one CP. That object can now be remotely controlled from any ComputerBank by the side that controls it. If enemies destroy or gain control of the base ComputerBank, the object still functions for its original owners. However, if enemies gain access to the ComputerConsole, they can take control of it even if they don't control the ComputerBanx.

5.1.2 Power Supplies

Any base that has more than 2 Power must have a generator somewhere in the base (2 Power is supplied to all buildings of TL4 and above by underground power lines that cannot be cut). The first generator is free, and generates as much power as is appropriate to the base's Class number (see Building Armor Value chart, above). Additional power generators can be bought for 1 CP per point of Power produced, and can be much larger or much smaller than the building's default power generator. Power generation is not cumulative; a building's maximum power output is equal to the output of its largest functioning generator.

Base power generators must be at least 1 Blok in size per point of Power produced, and have an Armor Value of 1d10. If enemy attacks do more Damage to the power generator than its armor, then the power generator produces one less point of Power. All weapons and devices in the base that require more Power than the generator's diminished output shut down. If the generator is reduced to zero power output, it explodes, doing 2d10 Explosion Damage plus 2d10 Fire Damage.

5.1.3 Outstanding Architectural Features

Anything else you might want to put on a base is an Outstanding Architectural Feature (OAF). OAFs are things such as drawbridges, portcullises, elevators, cranes, extensible walkways, trapdoors, and other things along the same lines. Players should argue amongst themselves to agree on whether or not a feature should be counted as an OAF, and how much it should cost. In general, OAFs should cost a minimum of 10 CP.

5.2 Destroying Buildings

Buildings can be extremely tough to penetrate - often, units will find it easier to make their way in through subterfuge than by bashing their way in through the walls. If you're determined to use brute force to smash your way into a building, you're going to have to do it one Brik at a time.

Units attacking a building must select the specific PBB they are attempting to destroy. Because PBBs in the walls of a building can be extremely well armored, units will often have to team up and do Cumulative or Permanent Damage to chip PBBs out of base walls (3.3.1: Cumulative Damage).

When a building is penetrated by an attack, it's entirely up to you to decide how big a hunk of the building to break off. Depending on the type and strength of the attack, you might chop a little crack in the wall, knock down a big section of the wall, collapse a portion of a building, or flatten a building completely. Normally, however, you will just tear the targeted PBB out of the wall and set it on the ground next to the base of the wall.

Remember that if a section of a building is destroyed, the troops and objects in that section are probably going to take some damage. If the building section was destroyed by a missile or energy weapon, for instance, there's going to be an explosion that does the building's AV in Explosion Damage. If a Trooper is standing on top of a wall or tower that collapses, he'll take damage from the fall and from whatever rubble lands on him.