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In the Eastern Imperial Officer Corps, where "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!!!" is a recognised assault tactic, many owe their continued service to the distraction provided by their ostentatious helmet-plumage.

So I thought this up in an attempt to prevent wimps from keeping their well dressed heroes from single-handedly cutting through swathes of figs, and emerging on the other side covered in ABS gore, for fear of them getting killed. It's possible that this is actually completely unnecessary (although I quite like it), so don't be afraid to call me up on anything, but I'd hope it's too simple to have any hidden game-breaking consequences.

"Plumage"
In an effort to demonstrate that all minifigs are equal, but some are more equal than others, "special" figures, such as officers or heroes may try to reinforce their assumed authority by adorning themselves with "Plumage" - such hat ornaments are not only a way to prove that they're better than everyone else; they also provide a distraction to the unit's attacker, often facilitating otherwise impossible feats of bravado. Non-"special" minifigs who (falsely) deem themselves worthy of some fancy headgear are obliged to act as human minifig shields for their disgruntled superiors, to show all the other figs how pretentious they were being when they finally get mown down.

The "plumage" skill modifier:
-x to all attack (skill) rolls made against the plume wearing unit, where x= the number of "plumes" (normally no more than 6ish). Note that this does not affect heroes when they make an attack.

"What classifies as plumage?" I hear you ask; behold! A whole 1.5-minute-consuming-life-wasting plumage classification spoiler!

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For the rule lawyers and anoraks...
Plumage includes:

Pretty much anything that is a separate piece attached to a unit's headgear which has an ornamental function. (e.g: Samurai horns; they may be used to headbut-gore unsuspecting opponents, but their main purpose is to look badass, so they still count.) The exception to this rule is visors/goggles, and some helmets may be considered to have plumage already attached, fudge as you will.

Plumage does not include:

Items which are worn around the neck (including epaulettes), items which are items of headgear by themselves (including prissy hair-pieces), and goggles and visors; see above.

After having the obvious pointed out, new classification notes:
Suitably ornamental items worn around the minifig's neck (i.e epaulettes, capes or necklaces made of shrunken heads) which are primarily for awesomeness also count as plumage. (Any body-armour is not to be considered as plumage, unless it's simply so epic that it would be ridiculous for it not to incur a massive distraction to attacking units.)

C&C welcome, bear in mind that I'm new to making bonus rules...

Why not epaulets?

Traditionally, epaulets granted minifigs +1 skill in the 2001 rules. I like it better than improved AC just because I feel it's a better representation of "this dude is awesome," but flat bonuses to skill are always tricky to balance.

Either way, epaulets, plumage, and all other "fancies" a minifig wears should all be classified as the same thing. Pretty much anything can be a fancy if a player so demands it, but make sure you have the hammer of discipline ready in case someone wants to get cheeky.

Capes.

IVhorseman wrote:Why not epaulettes?

Zupponn wrote:Capes.

I'm sure when I first took the pictures and decided that epaulettes, capes and all that weren't to be classified as "Plumage" I probably had some reason for it. However, upon further analysis I've decided that whatever reason I had it was probably bollocks, so without further ado:

Suitably ornamental items worn around the minifig's neck (i.e epaulettes, capes or necklaces made of shrunken heads) which are primarily for awesomeness also count as plumage. (Any body-armour is not to be considered as plumage, unless it's simply so epic that it would be ridiculous for it not to incur a massive distraction to attacking units.)

Do dem wings below count as plumage to you?

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It fills the criteria of:
6. Does it make the wearer look awesome? Yes, very much yes.
7. Is it actually just a piece of body armour? Well not really, the wings would count as an "attachable ornamental piece" or whatever, so that's okay.
8. Does it make the wearer look awesome? Yes, really damn awesome.

So yes, it does, because if anyone needs to be able to smash through enemy ranks laughing hysterically as everyone misses them from point blank range; it's these guys.

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When you get these guys charging, they deserve to have some kind of skill modifier anyway against standard minifigs, to emphasise how shit-scared anyone standing in the way would be.

EDIT: I wanted to touch on a topic I missed earlier that IVHoarsemen mentioned; that flat skill modifiers (without any random dice-rolling) are a bit boring and far too consistent for brikwars. I'd instead suggest that if you're willing to put up with spending time rolling dice to determine the effectiveness of someone's feathers/epaulettes (because a brikwar doesn't last long enough as it is) then you do a skill roll for the unit with the plumage bonus, and the result determines how many skill points are dducted from the attacker's skill roll, with the deduction capped by the amount of "plumes" the unit has (e.g Dave the hero rolls a 5 for his plumage roll, he has 3 pieces of plumage, so he gets to deduct a full 3 skill points from his enemy's attack roll).

Now, that you say it, I'm even more excited to finally field them on the battlefield.

Don't they need saddles, or are too badass for that? I'm beginning to wonder if there would be a possibility for animals and machines (i.e horses and tanks) to have "Plumage", perhaps in the form of giant flags?
This guy's banner comes to mind:

ikensall wrote:Don't they need saddles, or are too badass for that?

Wish I'd have saddles to give them.

ikensall wrote:I'm beginning to wonder if there would be a possibility for animals and machines (i.e horses and tanks) to have "Plumage", perhaps in the form of giant flags?
This guy's banner comes to mind:

Unless there aren't already rules for banners and standards, that would be also a good idea.

IVhorseman wrote:Traditionally, epaulets granted minifigs +1 skill in the 2001 rules. I like it better than improved AC just because I feel it's a better representation of "this dude is awesome," but flat bonuses to skill are always tricky to balance.

Nah, they're easy. But not +1 Skill ; instead, +1 Die Size to Skill.