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This a specific question about a specific scenario which arose in a recent glorious battle against That Guy.

As follows: That Guy's spear squad (average minifigs with spears in a medieval/fantasy game) is charged by my pointy-stick brigade. Combat is indecisive; a dude or two dies on each side, nothing to write home about.

"Well," I think to myself, "That Guy's squad has spent ALL it's counter's this turn, and my Raptor Knight has a three inch blade and is in range to swipe at them in a pass-by and keep going to hopefully kill something else next turn."

Well, Raptor knight makes his attack with the tip of his long 3" sword (some kind of giant decorative blade thing both sides' cavalry used for lack of other swords), misses, and keeps on going (raptor got stats like a horse, so it had about 5 or 6 inches left to go).

Next thing I know That Guy declares a 'free' counter on the passing knight, getting an angry inch and everything, and to make a long story short a dumbass argument ensues over the legality and common-sense believability of the maneuver, ultimately ending in a what-I-say-goes initiated by frustrated me, which I lost. Raptor knight dies, steed is untouched. This was much to the joy of That Guy, as it distracted him from the spectacle of his force being roflstomped in the larger battle. Insistence by That Guy that the riderless raptor then goes on to attack MY troops (despite it belonging to MY faction and HIS troops being MUCH closer) is only halted on threat of the Nukear Option.

But come on! That didn't even make sense! Those men's attention was focused on something else (enemy squad in front of them attacking them) and they'd spent all of their counters and actions until That Guy's next turn. Looking through 2010's Chapter 5, I can't find jack about getting "free" counter against withdrawing targets, nevermind that making a passing swipe with a fucking long sword while on horseback hardly seems like counting as "locked in close combat."

In retrospect I wish I'd just counter-dick-moved and insisted his angry inch move against raptor knight ALSO counted as withdrawing, and that my pointy stick brigade got a bucket of "free" counter dice to throw at him.

AZKAMAT wrote:In retrospect I wish I'd just counter-dick-moved and insisted his angry inch move against raptor knight ALSO counted as withdrawing, and that my pointy stick brigade got a bucket of "free" counter dice to throw at him.

This would have been the wrong way to react. It would just make the game shittier and the fun disappear and then you guys would be just sitting there awkwardly annoyed at each other.
The right thing to do IMO was to just let him get away with it but be clear that you thought it was a very lame ass thing to do from him.
You as the game host need to set the example of good brikwarrior spirit. Set examples by doing awesomely suicidal things like crashing your expensive fighter jet into your opponents units or doing dumb as things with your hero which end up killing him.
This way you show him that it's not about winning or performing well, but that it's about making fun stuff happen. Usually they will relax a little bit more and they'll stop being booty bothered about their dudes getting slaughtered.

Now apart from that, That Guy was totally wrong and being an ass hat about the rules.
First of all you can always 'get carried away' while on horse back which means that you can leave close combat freely as you please with out drawing counter's from the enemy.
And as far as I understood it you are right about the fact that he can't counter if he already used all his counter's in close combat for that turn.

But it also sounds a little bit like you exchanged blows with him in CC and then afterwards decided to run your raptor knight in to join the combat. This is also bad sportsmanship as you should first decide what all your unit's are going to do that turn so your opponent can decide to react appropriately.
Otherwise you get gameplay where I decide to shoot at your hero and when he doesn't die I decide to dedicate another shot to your hero etc etc until I finally rack up enough damage to kill him. That sucks. You should decide how many guys are going to shoot at him and leave it at that. You can't decide to commit more units to kill him afterwards.

I hope next time you have a little bit more fun.

So you made a WISG roll and got salty about it. Sorry to say it buddy, but any rule decided after a WISG roll takes far more precedence over what's actually written in the book.

However, staying consistent and giving all your dudes free counter-attacks would have totally been the right call.

Even if someone is being a dickass about the rules, WISG rolls exist to remedy the situation immediately. One of the best examples in a Brikwars game I had in a 5 player free-for-all was when i tried to deflect an opposing heroic feat and have it hit one of the other players' forces instead. The third player got super upset and insisted that his forces couldn't be targeted by the fallout of a failed heroic feat, which I said was, in short, totally bullshit. Once i realized we were having an argument, I suggested a WISG roll to solve it. Recognizing the possibility of failure, he absolutely refused, and ended up ragequitting the game. The guy was also my roommate at the time, and later we had to kick him out for refusing to pay bills or rent.

Ultimately, that WISG roll taught me one valuable lesson: never play Brikwars with that guy again. I'm not saying this is the solution to your dilemma of course, but following through with a WISG roll and not worrying about whether it's actually the rules as written will lead to fun 9 times out of 10.

*CRAZYHORSE* wrote:First of all you can always 'get carried away' while on horse back which means that you can leave close combat freely as you please with out drawing counter's from the enemy.

That's correct. If you're moved out of Close Combat by external forces (like being Carried Away by a steed or vehicle) rather than by specifically Withdrawing, then it doesn't count as a Withdrawal action, and so there's nothing to Counter.

*CRAZYHORSE* wrote:And as far as I understood it you are right about the fact that he can't counter if he already used all his counter's in close combat for that turn.

This is also correct as long as all of this occured on Azkamat's same turn. If TG used up all his attacks/counters on his own turn, then he would have gotten to use them again on Azkamat's turn - sometimes there's confusion about that; a unit's counters "reset" on each player's turn, not just the turn of the player controlling that unit. But if he already used them on Azkamat's turn, then no, there are no "free counters."

Depending on which Close Combat maneuver the Active minifig chooses, the Reactive minifigs have several options to Counter it. On each player's turn, a minifig may Counter once for each held CC weapon or empty hand.

*CRAZYHORSE* wrote:But it also sounds a little bit like you exchanged blows with him in CC and then afterwards decided to run your raptor knight in to join the combat. This is also bad sportsmanship as you should first decide what all your unit's are going to do that turn so your opponent can decide to react appropriately.

Otherwise you get gameplay where I decide to shoot at your hero and when he doesn't die I decide to dedicate another shot to your hero etc etc until I finally rack up enough damage to kill him. That sucks. You should decide how many guys are going to shoot at him and leave it at that. You can't decide to commit more units to kill him afterwards.

Nope, this is fine - the caveat is that if you add more guys afterwards then the damage isn't cumulative. If I shoot at your hero and he doesn't die, I can dedicate another guy to shoot at your hero, but that second guy starts at zero. His damage doesn't add to the first guy's damage, because they didn't attack at the same time.

The main lesson from all of this though is that the reason WISG rolls are consciously and deliberately game-breaking is that almost nothing in BrikWars is worth getting all that worked up over. If you lose a little plastic guy over what's essentially a coin toss, you've lost a little plastic guy. After the game you look up the rules and find out what you "should have" done, and next time you have a better idea of how things work, and all it cost you in the meantime was a little plastic guy.

IVhorseman wrote:So you made a WISG roll and got salty about it.

Nope. This is what I got "salty" about:
6) TG saying his parrying with a flintlock pistol grants the shielding bonus, then wanting to take it back later and say only a shield grants it when my men start to parry his attacks using hand weapons.
7) TG believing his men's counters get reset every time they are attacked in CC. Even on the same turn. He insists his hero gets to attack everyone in a ten man squad (no feat of ossum required).
Telling me a damage roll where you roll a critical success and then a 1 on the bonus die counts as a critical failure, and therefore whatever trooper of his it was doesn't die.
9) All this in addition to to the scenario in the OP, on top of him having a smug attitude like he was a veteran master of medieval CC Brikwars (I confess to barely playing that setting; I have only a few figs for it or weapons.)

Crazyhorse, the attack by the raptor knight as he was passing by and swung his two-handed sword. It was a "Why Not" move instead of an "Arrrgh! Die already!" one.

Stubby, I feel like that's what I did (initiating the WISG knowing the chance of failure, instead f booting up the PC to find Brikwars 2010 and showing the absence of anything about "Free" counter attacks).

One question though: does damage from CC attacks stay constant during a player's turn? As in different from how damage from separate RANGED attacks is handled?

If there's this much smug drama involved, this may be someone you don't want to play Brikwars with. Otherwise, having a WISG roll instead of an argument in all of those listed situations would have (most likely of course) solved the problem.

AZKAMAT wrote:This is what I got "salty" about:

This all sounds very fishy. You should make him come in here and account for himself.

AZKAMAT wrote:One question though: does damage from CC attacks stay constant during a player's turn? As in different from how damage from separate RANGED attacks is handled?

Only Grinding damage is constant. All other damage is instantaneous.

If a bunch of CC guys and ranged guys all declare their attacks at the same time, then their damage is added together.

Otherwise, if a bunch of CC guys attack and then a bunch of ranged guys declare their attacks afterwards, even on the same turn, then their damage doesn't add together. Unless the attacks are declared at the same time, each set of damage is handled separately and immediately forgotten.

For this purpose though, all CC attacks within a single CC are counted as being "declared at the same time." If you have a guy with two swords attacking me, the damage from both swords adds together even though you swing one then the other; they're considered part of the same attack.

I was playing with this guy once... at band camp.
He said that when I rolled a one I had to remove an article of clothing.
He showed me where it was in the rules he had printed, it was even in red bold full caps.

But then later I rolled a six then a one and he still wanted me to remove something.
That just seems wrong.

Tzan wrote:I was playing with this guy once... at band camp.
He said that when I rolled a one I had to remove an article of clothing.
He showed me where it was in the rules he had printed, it was even in red bold full caps.

But then later I rolled a six then a one and he still wanted me to remove something.
That just seems wrong.

Strip Brikwars... Wha...Wha...
WHY?????

Why not?

Been there, done that.

stubby wrote: If a bunch of CC guys and ranged guys all declare their attacks at the same time, then their damage is added together.

Otherwise, if a bunch of CC guys attack and then a bunch of ranged guys declare their attacks afterwards, even on the same turn, then their damage doesn't add together. Unless the attacks are declared at the same time, each set of damage is handled separately and immediately forgotten.

Ah I see, I always thought you got accumulated damage in one turn and then it all reset the next. But what you said made total sense though.
I do feel like you could emphasize that a little better in the book.

IVhorseman wrote:Been there, done that.

StripWars.

It's all fun and games until people realize the full power of What I Say Goes.