The BrikWars Forums

These are additions/changes my group has made to the rules in 3+ years of Brikwaring. I'm not fully satisfied with all/any of them so feel free to comment on or dispute.

Movement Cost
Probably the biggest change we made was the movement cost system. The official system makes no distinction between different sizes and armor levels, and while this works well enough when everything is under 8 inches or so, when the vehicle size ranges from 3-50 inches it completely breaks down. I know some of you don't use CP at all so you can just ignore this, and I know some of you have adverse reactions to computation, but this system does not have all that much once you get used to it, and all the computation is pre-game so the game itself is not slowed down at all.

Size Air 1 Air 2 Land 1 Land 2 Sea 1 Sea 2

1-3"____2___SLx .2___1_________SLx .1___.75_____ SLx .075

4-9”____4___SLx .4____2________SLx .2____1.5_____SLx .15

10-25___6___SLx .6____3________SLx .3____2.5_____SLx .25

26-40”__8___SLx .8____5________SLx .5____4_______SLx .4

41”+___10___SLx 1____7________SLx .7____5.5______SLx .55

*SL refers to the vehicle’s structure level. Underwater movement uses air table.
To determine propulsion cost per inch of movement, select a medium for movement and add column 1 with the result of column 2. For example, a size 7 vehicle with a structure level of 3 that moves 10 inches on land would cost 2 + (3x .2) or 2.6 CP per inch of movement and thus 26 CP for the 10”.

We have been using this system for about 2 years and it has held up fairly well. Since when the results of each table are graphed they approximate a ln(x) curve, I've been playing around lately with converting the tables into a simple equation, thus getting rid of the need for size categories, but I haven't spent enough time on it yet to get the equation to fit right.

Weapons/Abilities
Phaser: Cost-WS *5 Use-WS +2 Damage-WS d6 Range WS *6 These are essentially long-range guns my friend came up with so his weapons could fire past the front of his vehicle when placed at realistic/cool positions.

When launchers changed to payload size=WS from payload size=1/2 WS (a good decision in my opinion; it made launchers a viable option) we decided we needed to make rockets a little better also to keep things balanced so we changed rocket range to WS *8.

Shields: We came up with these a long time ago and I noticed recently that they are similar to the shields under field hazards in the new rules. Cost-WS Removes WS d6 damage over WS inch area. Every 2 inches of shield use up 1 inch of weapons space. Shields are generally worn down over time. When a shield takes damage, remove the highest dice of the shield until all the damage has been absorbed. The shield size is reduced by that many dice.

Factory: Cost: WS *10 Creates WS CP per turn. Every 2 inches of Factory use up 1 inch of weapons space. This is generally used to create ammo for launchers or replacement rockets, although it is also used to add flexibility to your force.

Hero Team: Cost 2 CP per hero. This is an ability that negates the ego penalties. The stipulation is that the heroes need to have some uniting element, e.g. the Avengers, Jet-eye, a team of mercs, an order of knights, etc.

Engineer: Engineering Ability-5 CP? (We haven't quite settled on the cost yet) An Engineer can use his action to repair size damage to vehicles. He must be at least on or next to the vehicle he is repairing, preferably in an engine room or some other important mechanical area. After declaring that he will use his action to attempt to repair the vehicle he is in, roll 1d8. On a roll of 5, 6, 7 or 8 the damage is repaired and one point of size damage is removed. On a roll of 1, the Engineer damages the vehicle and one point of size damage is added. The engineer can also do other engineering type activities such as salvaging weapons and other parts from destroyed vehicles.

Hardening: Hardening gives components one more damage point before they are destroyed (there armor needs to be overcome again) and costs 1/2 x (structure level of component x size of component). In other words, half of what the base cost would be if components had base cost. Small components can be hardened up to one time, 2" or larger components can be hardened up to two times. Nothing can be hardened more than twice. (We added this primarily to not penalize people for making cooler vehicles that had weak points (such as mechs) instead of less cool vehicles without weak points.)

We ignore the rule that payloads traveling over 12" take 2 turns to arrive. This might make sense in some situations, but for our scale of battles it's crazy

We standardized armor and parry roles of large squads to 4. This saves a lot of rolling where it doesn't matter.


I think that that is about everything. I might add more later when I remember them.

A lot of these look really cool, though the formatting is making some of them a little hard to read (the chart for the movement rules is particularly rough). I particularly like the Hero Team and Factory rules, and the Hardening rule is also very interesting. I'll definitely be using the Hero Team rule (or the similar rule that Voin came up with) for my special forces team, and I think I can find a use for the factory rule too.

While I'm at it, I'll post a few house rules of my own.

Heroes and (sufficiently badass) officers are exempt from any rules limiting what weapons they can use (such as duel wielding heavy CC weapons or pairing a longsword with a rifle). This rule doesn't apply to characters who attempt to duel wield Katanas.

Heavies can move and fire their oversized weapons on the same turn, provided they receive a skill boost of some kind (SN dice, Benny, etc).

Any unit making a surprise attack or ambush (such as a ninja leaping out of the shadows, or a stealth tank decloaking) receives a 1d6 bonus die. That die must be used on the turn that its earned, otherwise the bonus is lost. The unit can only earn one bonus die per battle (after the masked slasher jumps out of the bushes and slays one promiscuous teenager, all the other teens will know he's out there and won't if he emerges again).

Cumulative Fear: After seeing an enemy do something scary to one of the witness's allies, (such as grabbing someone and pulling them into a ventilation duct, appearing behind them and dragging them off into the darkness, or doing the old "Mirror Scare" routine) the witness gains a fear token. Each fear token reduces their use rolls by 1. They will continue to accumulate tokens until they either reduce their use roll to -6 (at which point they are too terrified to try fighting back), or until they successfully injury the enemy (note: this means they must inflict damage, not merely hit them. Watching the knifing wielding killer take a bullet to the chest and keep coming doesn't make you less scared of him. It might actually make things worse). If the scared minifig manages to injury their attacker, all their tokens are removed, and they cannot receive any additional tokens. In addition, all minifigs who witness their success lose one fear token.

Sorry, I had put in spaces to make the columns straight but apparently it did not accept them.

I remembered another rule change: Weapons can only damage vehicles or components that have a structure level 2 higher than the weapon size or lower. (e.g. size 1 weapons can only damage structure levels 1-3, size 2 weapons can only damage structure levels 1-4, and size 3 and larger weapons can damage all structure levels.)

This removes the logic-leap of squads of pistoleers destroying tanks by general damage, but they can still damage sufficiently weak components.

The cumulative fear idea is cool, but it seems like a pain to keep track of. It would probably be best to restrict it to the actions of particularly terrifying heroes.

Coriolanus wrote:
The cumulative fear idea is cool, but it seems like a pain to keep track of. It would probably be best to restrict it to the actions of particularly terrifying heroes.

It is a lot to monitor, but I only use that rule when the battle has some kind of horror element, and don't use more than a handful of minifigs in those battles. Horror generally doesn't work on a large scale anyway (or at least, not the crippling psychological horror that I like), so you really only need to monitor a dozen or so minifigs at most. I'm actually planning to run a small horror-themed battle in the next week or so, once the various parts come in.

For larger battles you could apply it to squads, or even to entire factions if desired.

IVhorseman wrote:For larger battles you could apply it to squads, or even to entire factions if desired.

You could, but it loses a lot of its impact if you try to scale it up (how do you 'scarily' wipe out a squad with rifle fire?). I've seen a few heroes who could have benefited from it, like the horror sergeant from Zauru's early battle report, but even then it would only add up to a -2 on a handful of troopers, at best. Not really worth the hassle of keeping track of all those token and trying check line of sight for everyone, at least not IMO.