What is BrikWars, exactly?

BrikWars is a miniatures wargame, which means that players pit miniature models of military units in simulated combat against each other.  Much like chess, except funnier.

Unlike more serious wargames, BrikWars is intended for battles between toys, and especially plastic building bricks and other construction toys.  The BrikWars rules let players take turns moving toy troops and toy vehicles through toy terrain to attack one another with toy weapons and die horrifying toy deaths. 

The game places no limits on what kinds of units and terrain can be constructed, or on what types of toys can be used, although the brick construction toys produced by The LEGO® Company are an overwhelming favorite.

To see the kinds of things that happen in a BrikWars game, the best place to look is on one of the many web pages put up by BrikWars fans where they show off their greatest battles.  We've put up links to many of these pages on our BrikWars Fan Sites page.

BrikWars Fan Sites

Is BrikWars connected in some way with The LEGO® Company?

Not in the the slightest.  Our constant promotion of LEGO® products is simply a reflection of our personal opinions that they are the greatest creation ever to grace human civilization.  BrikWars was designed to work just as well with any other type or construction toy you might prefer.  And when we say you might prefer some other type of toy, what we really mean is "in case you are lacking in even the slightest modicum of taste or common decency."

For a further description of the many ways in which BrikWars is not in any way connected with LEGO®, you are invited to read our lengthy legal disclaimer.

BrikWars Legal Disclaimer

What's a good way to find other people to play with?

There are several ways, depending on what kind of gaming experience you're looking for.  First, you should understand that not all BrikWars games are the massive and overwhelming affairs that the BrikWars Fan Sites would tend to indicate - those are just the ones that are most likely to get a web page or two written about them.

One of the biggest apparent impediments to playing BrikWars is that it's difficult to find willing combatants with their own supply of bricks.  This is not actually an obstacle at all - only one player needs to have a brick collection, he just needs to be willing to share with his opponents.  It's not uncommon for the player with all the bricks to build all of the armies and terrain himself, and then invite the other players to choose which sides they want to play.  As long as you can supply the bricks, then anyone with internet access and a little free time can learn the basic rules and join your game.

If you want to play the more impressive games, you'll need to find a club that's taking new members, or start one of your own.  The best place to start is to check out the LUGNET™ newsgroups, which are a public forum for LEGO® fans of all stripes.  You can check to see whether there is an active LEGO® User's Group in your area, or you can post to forums specific to your geographic location to see if there are any like-minded fans nearby.  The majority of LUGs are wide-open to new members and the interested public, but a few have age requirements or other eccentric regulations.  If you're interested in attending one of their meetings, a quick post to their newsgroup should give you a good idea of how welcome you'll be and clear up any potential misunderstandings.

How many bricks / hours / supplies / square feet do I need to play BrikWars?

It really depends on the size of the battle you want to stage.  Theoretically, you could stage a very small battle in which you and one other player had one soldier each, fistfighting on a bare tabletop.  A game like that would require only a few minutes.  On the other hand, very ambitious players have staged battles that involved tens of thousands of bricks and a series of full days to complete.  Your games will naturally fall somewhere between these extremes.

The thing to remember is that BrikWars games always take longer and could usually use more space than you think, especially when you're still learning the rules.  The best way to start is by playing a series of very small, quick games to get a feel for how much time and space different army sizes require.  And you should also note that many BrikWars players place no special emphasis on playing a game to its conclusion; often they will play through four or five rounds of combat, have a few laughs, and pack it in without worrying too much about who would have eventually won.

Other than whatever toys you plan to use as your armies, the only supplies you'll really need are a couple of dice and some kind of measuring implement (a tape measure works better than a ruler, but either will do).  There's plenty of other stuff that, while not necessarily required, can still come in handy; a complete list of items described at length can be found in BrikWars' "Introduction" chapter under the section entitled "Some Assembly Required."

I don't see any ads or billing information.  How do you plan to make any profit from this monstrosity?

We don't.  No one involved with BrikWars receives any income from it.  In fact, it costs us a fair chunk to maintain and host all this material.  However, we believe that trying to apply some kind of profit model would introduce unavoidable conflicts of priorities between making the game fun and making the game profitable.  It would also vastly increase our potential legal liabilities.

Steve Jackson expresses a similar attitude on the site for his Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, but he allows for fans who are unusually interested in showing appreciation to, at their discretion, send him small pirate-related LEGO® gifts.  That seems like a great idea, and we've considered issuing a similar invitation, with a special emphasis on old Timmy and Jar-Jar minifigs that no one wants anyway.  But we're moving around enough in the next couple of months that it's just impractical to give out any kind of mailing address right now.

I have a great big image or file that is tangentially related to BrikWars at best!  Aren't you happy that I surprised you by sending it to you as an e-mail attachment?

No!  You bastards!

Please do not send large file attachments without warning us first.  Our e-mail servers are under enough stress from BrikWars mail already, and large attachments, even a couple of hundred K, tend to knock the server out of commission for several days at a time.  Occasionally, when we finally do manage to download the offensive attachment, it turns out to be worth the suffering it caused, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it's straight to the trash bin.

If you have an image or file you'd like to show us, our response will be a lot more positive if you post it on a web page or ftp somewhere for us to download conveniently without knocking out our ability to check mail for half a week.