Structure

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Revision as of 20:00, 30 January 2013 by Quantumsurfer (talk | contribs) (Environmental Structures)
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In BrikWars, there is probably nothing more satisfying than witnessing the complete and utter annihilation of a city block. Watching buildings get torn apart by artillery and having snipers fight each other from the rooftops probably has more awesome than anything else. With that in mind the Minifigs often construct houses, office buildings, bunkers, and restaurants from which to do battle and to destroy. In addition to the obvious, structures can also be used as objectives or they may house objectives in a tactical battle and may even serve to modify the Battlescape in some manner. As such, structures are often the players' most versatile terrain.


Famous Buildings

Famous Buildings are influential elements of the BrikWars Canon. They help to define the setting and are well known to its players.


Hospital 555

Yellow Castle


Atmospheric and Tactical Buildings

Atmospheric Buildings are table dressing, meant to provide very basic wargaming needs such as cover and obstruction while simultaneously enhancing the play experience by providing a visual aesthetic pleasing to the players. Tactical Buildings serve the same purpose, except they usually have some greater game based function.


Airports

Airports are locations that vary from a huge, crowded, self-contained community to a dirt streak in a pasture with a lifeguard chair for a control tower. It is here where planes take off after being loaded with passengers, snakes, bombs or whatever mayhem the Humans see fit. Planes, however, tend not to actually land at airports since they usually explode, crash, or make good use of Kamikaze tactiks.

Possible Uses:

  • Access to aviation vehicles.
  • The large number of civilians could serve as allies or neutral parties.
  • Planes could serve as explosive caches or deathtraps.
  • Planes could deploy reinforcements.

Tactical Considerations:

  • Airports contain lots of open space with very little real cover, even inside the terminals. If there are a lot of civilians, however, soft cover can be obtained by using the crowd to one's advantage.
  • High ground advantage exists from the tower and arriving or departing planes. Since the planes are temporary affairs, the tower is sure to be an objective of contention.


Armories and Supply Depots

A staple for any self-respecting fortress, SHIP, outpost, or fast-food joint. It is here, shelved in gleaming chrome or hanging on slabs of stone, that the tools of mass destruction and hilarity sought after by all in the BrikVerse rest. Usually at an intersection or other easy-to-reach location, the armory is a fighting man's best friend. It is this room where men give their lives to hold back the zombie/barbarian/alien horde and save civilization, and is immortalized for the best place for a pre-battle montage of soldiers arming to the teeth while the beginning credits appear.

Possible Uses:

  • Supply and Resupply.
  • Obtain specialized equipment or objectives.

Tactical Considerations:

  • An armory may have limited access, so watch your exits.
  • Supply dumps serve as primary targets for your enemies. An army without weapons is a bunch of figs with shoves. Consider doing the same.
  • Remember to protect your supplies but be prepared to burn them as well; other tactical options may present themselves if you buy yourself some time.


Bunkers

Bunkers are heavily fortified buildings where you can put gun emplacements and hold out from apoc-zombies, nukes, and invaders. They are usually underground and have limited access. Smaller versions are called pill boxes.

Possible Uses:

  • Provide stationary cover.
  • Protect a mobile objective.
  • Fallback point, take and hold, or survival objectives work well here.

Tactical Considerations:

  • Provides for heavy cover but minimal mobility. Heavier weaponry may be better deployed here.
  • Bunkers are obvious and noticeable, making for common targets. Prepare accordingly.


Castles and Defensive Installations

Castles and other such installations are large scale buildings generally built with defense in mind. Due to their massive size, however, they also serve as containment units, housing small to large residential areas and other functionable structures. They can also mount large scale ordinance. They might serve as cities in their own right, military installations, or imposing wards.

Possible Uses:

  • Siege Warfare.
  • Castles and other such installations, if they are large enough, could literally serve as the entire setting for a battle or story.

Tactical Considerations:

  • Concerning Castles in particular: The keep is at the very heart of castle strategy. Usually situated at the back of or in the middle of the fortress, well away from structural weaknesses such as gates, drawbridges, large windows and doggie-doors. The keep is where the most important people in any kingdom will hide, generally while wishing that they had sprung for the more expensive castle with the hidden escape tunnels. The walls are what set a true castle apart from a stand-alone keep, or an unprotected garrison. they are strong, thick and generally monochromatic. Tactically, they provide an ideal defense against ground-based troops. Many castle walls are topped with a rampart and crenelations, the rampart being the pathway around the inside of the walls, provide the perfect place from which to insult invading armies, and/or fart in their general directions. And the crenelations being the intermittent blocks which partially obscure the ramparts, providing cover from most missiles. The Moat is the outermost of the perimeter defenses, it consists of a deep trough cut around the bottom of the castle, usually this is filled in with water, as it is a widely known fact that hordes cannot swim. This feature may be lacking in some castles, but others make up for it by having mega-awesome pits filled spikes and venomous creatures. These strategies may be adopted for other large scale defensive installations.


Death Walls

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


GasStations and TruckStops

GasStations and TruckStops house massive repositories of various fuels, from gasolines and diesels to breakfast burritos and SodaPops. Usually filled with civilians on their way to and fro, these important structures are epitome of culture. They fulfill every minifig need, at sneakily exorbitant cost, from refuelling vehicles and bodies to exploding barrels of flammable fuels.

Possible Uses:

  • Explosive fuel dump.
  • Source of vehicles.
  • Civilian population can serve as allies or neutral parties.

Tactical Considerations:

  • Fuel repositories, as in action movies, explode a lot. Use this to your advantage.
  • While the buildings are often small and the lots are open, the abundance of vehicles still provides a lot of cover, some of it perhaps mobile.


Large and Small Business Offices

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


PoliceStations

Many countries and empires maintain a strong police force to deal with the inevitable crimes that occur in a society where everyone aspires to become a mass murderer. Unlike in the Human world, such feats of violence are glorified parts of a minifig's everyday life, police forces don't exist to prevent or punish homicidal rampages, but merely to regulate them at a government-prescribed level and to otherwise maintain their governments' executive monopoly on mass slaughter. During periods of low homicide rates, police forces really have no good reason to exist other than to annoy and ticket speeding drivers, consume copious amounts of ABS donuts and coffee, and engage in the occasional shootout or awesome high-speed chase; these have the effects of disgruntling the local citizens and increasing their propensity to go on wild murder sprees. These cops are housed at police stations, of which there is usually at least one in every town or city. Police stations are quite large, but only have room to hold 1 or 2 kriminals at a time. This tiny inmate capacity is rarely an issue because every cell has at least one breakable or missing wall, a design innovation which has been found to be an effective means of preventing prison overcrowding.

Possible Uses:

  • A Station could serve as an impromptu weapons cache.
  • Officers could serve as allies or a neutral party that attacks and arrests interlopers.
  • Criminals could serve as allies if broken out or a neutral party that attacks nearby minifigs.
  • Stations could serve as a "doomsday clock," limiting the number of available turns before an Officer calls in government reinforcement to "contain" the situation.

Tactical Considerations:

  • Reinforced walls and cells make for excellent cover. Conversely, action-breakable walls make for enhanced mobility and possible deceptive movement.
  • Trained allies may turn the tide of battle or, at least, give one time to deploy a new tactik.


Residential Areas

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


Restaurants and Other Food Service Businesses

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


Environmental Structures

Environmental Structures can serve aesthetic or tactical designs, of course, but the primary reason for their inclusion is as a basic modification to the Battlescape. They alter the entire battle in some way, usually related to the environment detailed in the battle's narrative.


Astral Constructs

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


Moon, Asteroidal, or Space Facilities

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


UnderWater Installations

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:

Specialized and Utility Structures

Specialized Structures are pieces that represent a singular function, depending on player taste and the narrative of their battle. This may be purely aesthetic or it may serve some very specific game-related function like an objective that does only one thing when captured. Utility Structures are structures that facilitate an alteration to the basic ruleset instead of Battlescape, such as racing or roleplaying.


Arenas

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


Dungeons

Dungeons are often, in the eyes of many BrikVerse minifigures, the most important (or at least coolest) room in a large space ship or fortress. This room is a combination of torture gallery, transplant-surgery theatre, and over-all prison. It should come with a torture table, some kind of execution chamber, (usually electric or gas, but a firing range is good too) some surgical apparatus for the transfer of POW figs' parts onto wounded soldiers', and a few holding cages. More insane dungeon designers come up with more insane ways of executing minifigs though, so in the ships or bases of especially demented minifgs you might find things like snake pits or lava pools which minifigs are lowered in to their deaths.

Possible Uses:

  • House and interrogate prisoners to obtain tactical information.
  • Stage rescue attempts.

Tactical Considerations:

  • There's a whole lot of really deadly stuff in a dungeon. Most of it takes some time and effort to use, however, and a whole lot of it is designed for pain, not death. As an attacker, consider moving quickly and ignoring most of what you find unless its small, light, or easily usable.
  • As a defender, consider the worth of the possible information. If it will help you achieve victory, defend the chamber with all you've got. If not, abandon it at the earliest opportunity and use the time gained to set up a counterstrike.


Mazes, Labyrinths, and ObstacleCourses

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations:


RaceCourses

Possible Uses:

Tactical Considerations: