BrikWars Rules; A Serious Version?

[Flapapancakes]

First off, as a disclaimer, I have only played one game of Brikwars. Most fun I've had in a long time. Huge fan, thank you Rayhawk. I did use the full ruleset however, not the Quik version, in case that makes a difference.




I was curious if anyone out there had either already made a more serious version of Brikwars, or was interested in helping me do so. I presume that I won't get my pants sued off by angry Brikwar founders! Don't worry, I'll come up with an original title. BlokWars, perfect! But, I feel that will a little work, Brikwars can be made much better (not that it's a slack now!).



The issues as I see them:

-Heroes: While hilarious, seem fairly underwhelming in terms of ability to make your Hero any different that another player's. I love the Feats system, and combat in general, don't get me wrong. But I also think it could be improved. The difference between Undead Abe Lincoln and Manly Santa should not just be looks, in other words. I should mention, my Hero was the literal first-to-fall in my game, and my enemy's Hero was fairly underwhelming, killing a few dozen troops but nothing special, so I may not understand them very well at this point.

-Vehicles: Speed caps are no fun, and I'm surprised to see them in a game that encourages open-ended battles. Even with 56 jet engines slapped to every conceivable surface, the star-fighter can still only move as fast as the viking longboat with 6 oarmen, the 15". I may have completely misunderstood the rules, but I did read it through twice before posting this, just to be sure; that seems to be what they are saying. I feel there could be a easy system put in place here, I will certainly be thinking more on it.

-Melee Weapons: These should have (slightly) different characteristics. Thrusting (bonus against mini with shield), Slashing (bonus against polearm), Heavy (bonus against armor), Light (bonus against unarmored) are the first things that come to mind. The reach system is awesome, the overall combat is great, I just think there should be an in-game difference between a horde of aliens with spears and a horde of undead zombies with swords.



-Ranged weapons was probably the only major issue I found. It felt... super lazy, like they had written that portion last. Barely two paragraphs lumps everything into one category. Everything is 10", really? So machine guns, snipers, lasers, muskets, bows.... these are all exactly the same? It almost takes away the fun of creating a new army. Almost I have seen in some campaigns custom weapons like gatling cannons and steam-powered monstrosities; is this perhaps a new addition to the game? I am uncertain if there is a new version of the rulebook out either, I should probably check that...




Frankly for such an easy-to-use system, I'm surprised I could only find 1 major issue. I will definitely be playing more as soon as I find my other Lego boxes, deep in the Vault (garage).



By the by, looking for Legos online I came across a company called Lepin. Obviously not real Legos, but I've never been huge on brand names. Are Lepins comparable in quality? Some reviews, very old, say they're garbage. Some reviews, relatively new, say they're basically exactly the same. I'm talking about material here, and print quality (faces, shirts, etc).


I remember Mega-Bloks and COGO from my childhood with.... distaste. Crappy thin plastic that even child me could break; not a thing like a real LEGO. The difference was so bad that I saved my allowance to buy more expensive LEGOS rather than go with the cheaper stuff; I remember throwing away a COGO battleship kit at some point because the bricks simply did not stay together. Have they improved in the last 20 years?

[TastySkippy123]

I agree on the range on weapons, I play a different minifig combat game and all weapons have different range. Frankly, I havent even brought my self to read the whole brikwars rulebook...

Have they improved in the last 20 years?

Mega bloks has, but I don't know about COGO, I didnt even know such a brand existed.

[RedRover]

A lot of these changes fall more under house rules than needing a whole new game system.

[Silverdream]

Yeah, you just need to modify what you don't like.


You want your heroes to be more powerful? Buff their armour or make a special ability for them. There's a good thread in bonus material for special abilities. Also, what differentiates Zombie Lincoln from Manly Santa is not just looks, but also stereotype. Zombie Lincoln falls under Undead President, so he can pull AK-47s out of his hat, use necromancy, etc, while Manly Santa is a macho guy with everything he would ever need in his big sack.

The reason why bows, muskets, rifles, etc all have the same range is to balance things out. That way a battle between a medieval army and a futuristic one can be evenly matched.

[dilanski]

When it comes to heroes, it is all down to their heroic feats and ego's. If the participants are willing, perhaps it would be a good idea to bash out slightly more extensive ego's than the usual cliche/accent combo. Perhaps have a few feats already fleshed out, and perhaps include a heroes 'achilles heel', For Zombie Lincoln, that would likely be taking bonus damage when shot from behind, for Manly Santa, it would likely be alcoholism. For Warhead it would be the insatiable need to bang mothers.

Vehicle speeds exist as a balance mechanic, remember that brikwars is designed from the perspective that a viking dragon rider could fight a starfighter on equal terms. If you are wanting to increase the speed limits, perhaps consider giving every unit the ability to use the sprint action, and set it at 1/2 full speed. A fighter jet could light its afterburners, or a sports tank could floor it, but they would suffer from losing their actions on attacking.

Adding complexity with melee weapons is seemingly unnecessary. It can become a pain to track exactly what is going on. If you want a particular heroic unit to have a special melee weapon, then there are rules for it, but creating stats for the menagerie of melee weapons out there is just going to create unnecessary detail for a game that in its full fat form, can still beat out the more long winded wargames in length.

Rules for weapons such as flamethrowers, shotguns and machine guns are included in the 2010 rules, and can be found in Chapter 8 of MOC combat. Again though, you won't find specifics for lasers or snipers, mostly as it adds unnecessary details. Put it this way, if you insisted that lasers do extra damage because they are more powerful weapons compared to a bow, the other guy would never bring a bow, so you might as well just play with the normal rules anyway.

[stubby]

I was curious if anyone out there had either already made a more serious version of Brikwars, or was interested in helping me do so.

Now this is always an interesting question because "more serious" means different things to different people. Phoenix Command and Burning Wheel and Dogs in the Vineyard are all more "serious" but in completely different directions. So it depends what you're looking for.

If what you mean is more detailed, then look at BrikWars 2001. (But not for too long, you'll go crazy.) http://brikwars.com/rules/2001/2001-brikwars.pdf

Valiant's working on some modern warfare rules, but they haven't all been gathered together in one place yet as far as I remember.

-Heroes: While hilarious, seem fairly underwhelming in terms of ability to make your Hero any different that another player's. I love the Feats system, and combat in general, don't get me wrong. But I also think it could be improved. The difference between Undead Abe Lincoln and Manly Santa should not just be looks, in other words.

This is mostly handled in the Heroic Cliche, but making heroes unique is really up to how much extra work the player puts in. The one thing I don't want to do is make GW-style hero sheets locking players down to pre-designed characters.

-Vehicles: Speed caps are no fun, and I'm surprised to see them in a game that encourages open-ended battles. Even with 56 jet engines slapped to every conceivable surface, the star-fighter can still only move as fast as the viking longboat with 6 oarmen, the 15".

Standard propulsion tops out early, but 56 jet engines would add 280" of Thrust, and the only limit on Thrust is your vehicle's power level. So starfighters can move very fast indeed, as long as you don't need them to turn much.

A lot of the movement rates and ranges are kept purposefully short to keep minifigs relevant. Once you start getting ranges and movement rates up above 20" or so, minifig combatants just stop mattering; you're playing a vehicles game instead. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. For the most basic version of the rules I made the choice to prioritize minifig-focused combat over vehicle-focused combat, but if you have something more specific in mind then you should absolutely feel free to tweak the numbers to fit.

-Melee Weapons: These should have (slightly) different characteristics. Thrusting (bonus against mini with shield), Slashing (bonus against polearm), Heavy (bonus against armor), Light (bonus against unarmored) are the first things that come to mind. The reach system is awesome, the overall combat is great, I just think there should be an in-game difference between a horde of aliens with spears and a horde of undead zombies with swords.

You can look in BrikWars 2001 for how we've done this in the past. I have plans for an expanded minifig weapons section later in BW2010, but I don't want to introduce them too early in the book where people are still learning the system. I haven't decided whether they're getting added in a new section to chapter 8 or sprinkled into chapter 11 along with associated units yet. Off the top of my head, I'm adding Armor Piercing Weapons (picks, spears; ignores Heavy Armor), Grabbing Weapons (teeth, flails, grappling hooks, guisarmes; can Grab on a successful hit), Sniper Rifles (automatic hits with proper setup).

-Ranged weapons was probably the only major issue I found. It felt... super lazy, like they had written that portion last. Barely two paragraphs lumps everything into one category. Everything is 10", really? So machine guns, snipers, lasers, muskets, bows.... these are all exactly the same?

There's a little more variety if you look at the Minifig Bastard Weapons in 8.1. In addition to the Short and Long-Ranged Weapons, you also get a ShotGun, AutoGun, FlameGun, and Bazooka: http://brikwars.com/rules/2010/8.htm#1

[Kommander Ken]

[Flapapancakes]

Replied to in reverse order:


Stubby:

-What I meant by "more serious" is a rule set that makes the differences between units a little more clear. Halberdsmen and knife-weilding psychos should not be differentiated only by their weapon's reach, for example. The rules state, pretty explicitly, that the rules are almost meant to be broken. So what I mean by "serious" is, the founders take it more seriously as a wargame, rather than attempt to make it as silly as possible.


-I certainly agree; I don't want anyone 'locked' into a pre-set Hero, I did not mean to imply that. But I do think that a GW-style Hero sheet that starts blank (as in you pick your own abilities, powers, etc) would be a nice addition. Perhaps separate powers into Major and Minor; for each power-up, you must also take a corresponding disadvantage. Berserker Rage gives you +3 attacks, +1 armor, and the ability to ignore your first wound every turn, but, the down-side to that is that the Hero MUST charge the nearest enemy in sight, regardless of the player's orders. That's just off the top of my head, I will certainly be posting more as I come up with them.


-Looks like I completely misunderstood the movement system for vehicles! In regards to your concern about the game switching to vehicles, I don't think it would necessarily. If you rush your fighter off far ahead of your minis, they won't be able to save it from getting it's arse handed to it, as the enemy team will focus all fire on the nearest target, your shiny new star-fighter. I think it would open the door for bigger battles; while it may downplay the mini slightly, I feel like vehicles never last long enough to be game-changers, based on the campaigns I've been reading. Every battle I've seen, no matter the house rules, has always devolved into a good ol' fashioned mini melee brawl, when the vehicles of both teams inevitably bite the dust.


-I think those basic suggestions are great. It does not need to be complex to work; it could be a simple as separating them into four categories; heavy polearm, light polearm, heavy hand weapon, light hand weapon. Even that would drastically alter the gameplay, and force players to make more tactical decisions rather than both sides just throwing minis as each other. That portion definitely reminds me of playing Imperial Guard; none of my guys are anything approaching special or unique, so I hope they can just overwhelm you!


-That's awesome stubby, thank you. I think I'm going to look through every version, and combine it all into one.



Dilanski:


-I'm in 100% agreement of your proposed system; I think Feat+Feat+Flaw would be a good system to use. If you make sure to word the rules correctly, you could even use that method to make different-tier Heroes. Lvl 1 Heroes have 1 feat, 1 flaw, Lvl 2 have 2 feats, 1 flaw, etc.


-While I don't think the dragon rider should automatically lose, I also think that someone who spent a lot of time creating a huge Star Wars army should have a slight advantage over the guy who just brought his 200 minis, all armed with whatever was available. That second guy should either get creative with his vehicles and Heroes to balance it out, or buy a few kits. After all, this game isn't supposed to be fair, right?

I like the sprint idea. I will work on fleshing that out.


-I wasn't necessarily suggesting a complex system. Even just adding some basic parameters would vastly improve the game. For example; make a difference between spears and halberds(spears +1 to unarmored, halberds +1 to armored). It need not be a massive difference, but there should be some noticeable variation. I say this as a weapon's collector and trainee, so it may be that this bothers me, and me alone. I don't believe this would be hard to track; whatever weapon the mini is holding is the weapon he has.


-I agree with you about the tech difference. However, in your example, I would argue that a high-powered blaster like that, first, is capable of firing more than once a turn, and is a devastating weapon to anything it hits, be that flesh or wall, but second, is worth no less than 4 bows. So it's not so much making the game "all about lasers" as it is making sure that numbers is not the only thing that will allow you to win. It seemed in my game that I only barely eeked out a win, because I had a few more minis to start.

Just for the record... if you think that a weapon's difference is going to stop me from ordering my undead clones to take crossbow pot-shots at star-fighters passing overhead, while loudly jeering about your ancestral homeland and its various afflictions, you don't know my army



Silverdream:


-Either I'm reading the entirely wrong book, or I am blind. Do you guys make up these special abilities like necromancy?

-I would argue that it shouldn't necessarily be balanced. The medieval army should have to be bigger to stand a chance against those lasers. However, who is to say what alien armor stops? Perhaps, like modern body armor, it's a beauty against bullets, and does nothing against a knife in the belly. So the medieval army will actually win almost automatically, if it can corner the aliens and force a melee. But if it can't close the gap, then the alien's ranged weaponry will start to tell the day. This sounds logical to me.


Redrover:

-Oh indeed, I never meant to suggest Brikwars should be put to death (I won't be able to stop it from committing suicide in protest). It's a plenty fun game (even if my Pirate King fell on his face the first turn... some Hero), I just think it needs adjustment, and a few new rule additions.


TastySkippy123:

-Man, I can't even remember how many rulebooks I've read. I'm actually in the middle of designing a Warhammer-esque tabletop game (but better, because I'm not GW); sitting not 5 feet from about 300 pages of notations, rules, etc that I've typed up over the last 10 years, pulled from every wargame I could think of, and find. I'm certainly a rulebook-junkie. I have not read the Brikwars clean through in all variations, that will certainly be this week's project.


-That's good to know at least one company has improved. Yea, from my experience, avoid COGO like the bloody plague. The bricks are almost comical in their refusal to work together(Brikwars, sentient briks anyone? Maybe the briks are the most psychotic of them all...). I remember as a kid I couldn't even keep my COGO battleship together long enough to show my parents; it literally fell apart when I tried to pick it up from the table.

[stubby]

-What I meant by "more serious" is a rule set that makes the differences between units a little more clear. Halberdsmen and knife-weilding psychos should not be differentiated only by their weapon's reach, for example. The rules state, pretty explicitly, that the rules are almost meant to be broken. So what I mean by "serious" is, the founders take it more seriously as a wargame, rather than attempt to make it as silly as possible.

Given the amount of work put in and the barely-camouflaged anger behind some of the satire, I suspect they take the game plenty seriously. But that wasn't really what I meant. Does "serious" mean more detailed? More realistic? Psychologically accurate? Do we track morale? Do we keep a political meter? Is the game about modeling shrapnel sprays? PTSD? Are we examining sociopolitical issues? How does it handle genderqueer units? Is there fog of war? How closely does it reflect Catch-22? How closely does it reflect Apocalypse Now? Are there rules for spinning events in the media to push propaganda angles for different bonuses and penalties?

Serious can mean a hundred different things. It's a word that means nothing unless you're specific about what aspect of war and wargaming you want to be serious about.

On that note, I've played a lot of wargames but I've never seen a single one that I would describe as "serious." Every one of them is about treating human beings like disposable toys for the kindergarten-level entertainment of the generals and politicians. Just like real life.

-Looks like I completely misunderstood the movement system for vehicles! In regards to your concern about the game switching to vehicles, I don't think it would necessarily. If you rush your fighter off far ahead of your minis, they won't be able to save it from getting it's arse handed to it, as the enemy team will focus all fire on the nearest target, your shiny new star-fighter.

In playtests this hasn't been the case. A starfighter with 20" move and 20" weapons outmaneuvers minifig formations, shoots them from out of minifig range, and reliably mops them up without the minifigs ever coming in range for response fire. Minifigs are helpless against those stats. It was one of the most difficult bits of the game to figure out how to balance.

-I think those basic suggestions are great. It does not need to be complex to work; it could be a simple as separating them into four categories; heavy polearm, light polearm, heavy hand weapon, light hand weapon.

That's the division we already have. Two-Handed Weapon, 2" Melee Weapon (chapter 8), Heavy Weapon, and Hand Weapon. Some of your objections make me wonder if you've read the QuikWars rules, and thought they were the main rulebook? I need to add a bigger disclaimer to that page, or maybe just remove it.

Dilanski:
-I'm in 100% agreement of your proposed system; I think Feat+Feat+Flaw would be a good system to use. If you make sure to word the rules correctly, you could even use that method to make different-tier Heroes. Lvl 1 Heroes have 1 feat, 1 flaw, Lvl 2 have 2 feats, 1 flaw, etc.

You can also use SuperNatural Dice to modify the heroes' abilities in a more generic but immediate way, with their built-in flaw of Fumbles.

-I wasn't necessarily suggesting a complex system. Even just adding some basic parameters would vastly improve the game. For example; make a difference between spears and halberds(spears +1 to unarmored, halberds +1 to armored). It need not be a massive difference, but there should be some noticeable variation.

The big difference between spears and halberds is that spears get the big +1die bonus from charging attacks.

In playtests, +1s and -1s are not a noticeable variation, unfortunately, and the big push right now is on removing as many of them from the game as possible. If it's not x2 or x1/2, or plus or minus a whole die, then it mostly ends up slowing down the game for no appreciable difference.

That's for Damage and Movement though. For Skill rolls, the +/-1 modifiers still make a significant difference since I've made sure to hard clamp the Skill levels to single unmodified dice.

-I would argue that it shouldn't necessarily be balanced. The medieval army should have to be bigger to stand a chance against those lasers. However, who is to say what alien armor stops? Perhaps, like modern body armor, it's a beauty against bullets, and does nothing against a knife in the belly. So the medieval army will actually win almost automatically, if it can corner the aliens and force a melee. But if it can't close the gap, then the alien's ranged weaponry will start to tell the day. This sounds logical to me.

For this, look in the 2001 edition for the TekLevel rules. Higher-TL units were automatically more expensive but also more sturdy, and had access to equipment that was more expensive but also more effective.

[dilanski]

-I'm in 100% agreement of your proposed system; I think Feat+Feat+Flaw would be a good system to use. If you make sure to word the rules correctly, you could even use that method to make different-tier Heroes. Lvl 1 Heroes have 1 feat, 1 flaw, Lvl 2 have 2 feats, 1 flaw, etc.


-While I don't think the dragon rider should automatically lose, I also think that someone who spent a lot of time creating a huge Star Wars army should have a slight advantage over the guy who just brought his 200 minis, all armed with whatever was available. That second guy should either get creative with his vehicles and Heroes to balance it out, or buy a few kits. After all, this game isn't supposed to be fair, right?

Champions used to be a thing, which I guess you could say were higher level heroes. I believe they were removed as they made heroes less special. You could in theory just add multitasking to your hero, allowing them multiple actions.

Also, the idea of one army being better because it had more time and money put into it is pure Brikwars kryptonite, it is the path of the Asscheerios. Throwing together a random assortment of toys and having them battle it out is the pinnacle of Brikwars. Also of course brikwars is meant to be fair, balanced, no, but fair yes. Everyone has access to the same toolbox with which to assemble their armies, and everything is theme neutral. A single feat can flip a losing game onto its head, but that is something an equally creative opponent has access to as well.

Put it like this, If all I have is 20 minifigs that I can only fit out with bows, swords and muskets, due to collecting mostly medieval and wild west lego, while my opponent has a 80 man army of Exo-Force and starwars. If he suggested that we get together and pit the entirety of our collections against each other, I wouldn't even bother replying to his request. If he suggested going 20v20, but insisted that lightsabers do +4 damage, and that blasters get bonus range, I'd still tell him to get lost. Maybe he would spend forever coming up with modified CP costs for these weapons so that they could still fit his banal need for 'realism', but still be balanced, then I'd still tell him to get lost, as we'd end up playing 20v5, and I'd much rather play 20v20 with both sides using the same basic stats for the sake of fun and convenience.

[TastySkippy123]

I remember as a kid I couldn't even keep my COGO battleship together long enough to show my parents; it literally fell apart when I tried to pick it up from the table.

Thats ridiculous! Why bother making rubbish brands. I don't get those companies.

[Flapapancakes]

In reverse order once more:


TastySkippy123:


Tell me about it. I was livid; that junker was purchased instead of the LEGO submarine set I wanted; it took 7 year old me over an hour to assemble it correctly. It only took me a few seconds to chuck it across the room as it disintegrated in my hands, and go back to my Fort Legorado to fight off some space pirates Which by the way, I should have bought more of, because I truly love having Civil War soldiers. I am a student of history though, so that was bound to attract my attention.



Dilanski:

-Champions sound interesting; I have been considering adding some sort of minor Hero (lieutenant) that doesn't get Cranky when sharing the field with other lieutenants, but is also very underwhelming as a Hero. A solid middle ground between mini and Hero classes.

-Yes, that is a prime example of an unfair fight. Again though, there are ways to balance it, even at that stage. For example; your 20 medieval men are defending, and so have the advantage of a castle, and the height it gives. You could easily claim that the star wars guys count as unarmored against any pointy weapons; body armor is meant to stop blasters, not knives, and arrows go through it like you were wearing cheese. I don't think it's as unfair as you make it, but I do get your point. I don't think it should be about "who's collected the most Lego"; it even says explicitly in the book "bring enough to share", and I almost live by that rule, as the sole owner of LEGOs any longer in my friend circle. And while people may have themed armies, for myself at least, I love the randomness of it all. I have blaster-wielding skeletons riding alongside civilians with machine guns. So facing me, at least, would never yield something as unfair and boring as "all 30 of my minis have blasters, power armor, grenades, and are well-trained. They are backed up by six advanced star-fighters. I'm going to mess your castle up". Yawn, count me out. You might as well have just gone and played Space Marines. At least then my Orks could stomp you


I'm not necessarily here to re-enact the 2nd siege of Carthage, down to the individual minutes. But, I do want something more satisfying than bowmen and blasters exchanging fire with the exact same stats. Which the 2005 seems to solve neatly. Long and short range, beautiful, you don't need anything else. It was really the "everything is 10 inches" that was bothering me. Why did I even bother assembling the elite snipers then, if they're no more threatening than the enemy musketmen?



Stubby:

-I apologize, I suppose that was rather vague. By "serious" I did not mean setting; I love the idea that the minis are fearless psychotic killers; I took that idea and ran with it, I'm never giving it up. In fact I have a few ideas that will make it more entertaining. And I didn't mean ultra-realistic rules for every drop of blood, to make sure it lands on target. I also love the rather arbitrary decision-making regarding blood and corpses; it's precisely what I do with my 40k Orks anyway. No, serious meant "more work than a few weeks was put into it", which was the impression I got initially, that this was someone's side hobby, and that I was going to have to go through myself and make a 'proper' rulebook (as I have done with a few other games, I'm nothing if not a dedicated wargamer). And with you mentioning it lower, yes, I do believe I've been reading the Quikwar versions; the rulebook is vastly more complex, takes away most of my objections, and I'm loving the 2005 edition so far, almost through the Hero section.

-If you're looking for a 'serious' game, the more historically-demanding the better. I can't remember what it was called, but there was an Iron Age wargame that I played years ago, that had rules for every conceivable possibility. It took several centuries to actually finish, but it was one of the more entertaining games I've played, if only because I could expect my troops to carry on realistically. Coming from Warhammer, I'm certainly used to rules that make no real-life sense (a tiny explosion on the 1st floor of a concrete bunker interrupts your super-soldier on the 3rd. Sure GW, I guess we'll roll with that concept.). I will see if I still have the old rulebook for it. And yes, you are correct, that is the point of wargaming. Don't worry, I'm not here to change the slaughter of minis for our own personal amusement; in fact I don't think I'm capable of stopping the wholesale murder of my Guardsmen I just want the slaughter to feel like a slaughter, and not like I'm just fighting, to put it in a Warhammer metaphor, infantry-heavy Guard, vs infantry-heavy Guard. Same stats, same everything, and everything coming down to pure luck is a quick way for me to lose interest. However, again, with the real rulebooks I'm now reading, a lot of these objections no longer exist, or are otherwise moot. I am especially excited to try out Heroes properly, I believe we were playing with them completely wrong.



-Yup. I did read the Quikwars. I'm going to be a great Lego commander lol.

"Sir the map is upside down"
YOU'RE upside down trooper! Now enough of your sass, take this satchel of explos-.... cake. It's cake. Run to that wall and throw the cake against it!
"Sir? Cake? I don't under-"
JUST DO IT!


-I have not come across super-natural dice, I will look into that. I absolutely LOVE the Fumbles system. By the way... is the Brikwars logo copyrighted? I actually have contacts all over the world for manufacturing, and the mention of solid gold dice for Heroes got me thinking of making a few out of actual gold, and I wanted to make the 1 the Brikwar skull instead (Fumbles are often going to equal death for my Heroes. If it's not a Feat that can get you killed, it's not a Feat worth doing!). Yes, I do actually have connections with a gold foundry in India So if anyone else is interested in this, I would be proud to represent the community in some sort of crowdfunding campaign. Not sure what you'd call it, frankly, just an idea worth mentioning.


-Huh, I would think they would be. Certainly not game changers, but a +1 to hit modifier on my Imperial Guardsmen, and I'm dancing around the table with glee. And a -1 modifier to enemy power armor? Are you KIDDING?! I'm popping champagne in celebration, my Guardsmen are dancing and kissing girls like the war's already won; we might actually KILL a Space Marine this turn! That's like, 60 Guardsmen worth of murder. The half-dice concept is interesting, what would cause you to lose half a dice? More importantly, I assume you just ignore half-dice in game, unless they make one complete dice?


-I'm certainly noticing a lot of changes, book to book, so I'm going to go through each version and cherry-pick the things I like into a new full ruleset. Should I name it 2016?








An apology to all Founders for the implied insult, I promise it wasn't. Silly is not a bad goal. Please don't invade my Brikkish Castle Warhead/Manly Santa/Undead Lincoln. Or do! My minis are psychotic killers who've spent years in storage, and they're starting to look at me with the same glint in their eyes as when they look at an unarmed horse (the look says 'mmmm fresh meat'). For my own safety, we should do battle as soon as possible. Thank the universe it's a Legendary Use Rating to kill a human. I don't think any of my minis are up to that.


On that note; is anyone interested in a campaign? I've seen more than one remote campaign go on, and I'm curious how it works. Do you just use the DM's massive collection of LEGO? Does everyone mail in their armies for the duration of the campaign? I'd like to mention that I don't mind that at all; I'd even be comfortable playing as the DM, once I stop reading Quikwars thinking it's the full game

-I would define warhammer as a relatively serious wargame. A fantasy setting it might be, but it doesn't allow a whole lot of leeway for players to make up ridiculous settings. Again, not that ridiculous is bad. But it does lend itself to unfair fights, which in Warhammer translates to "you're going to spend the next 5 hours absolutely hating the game". That's normal for wargaming right? The bubbling rage in your gut?




Thank you for the replies everyone. I'm sure I would have gotten around to the full rules eventually on my own, but this certainly is faster!

[CaptainZebra]

In a forum battle, I set up some bricks in my house and post pictures. Then all the participants send orders and I roll the dice and move the minifigs. Then everyone repeats until the last turn

[Red_SPAMbot]

No, serious meant "more work than a few weeks was put into it", which was the impression I got initially, that this was someone's side hobby, and that I was going to have to go through myself and make a 'proper' rulebook (as I have done with a few other games, I'm nothing if not a dedicated wargamer).

*COUGHCOUGHStubbyIsRayhawkCOUGH*

When Stubby mentioned Phoenix Command I actually guffawed. Now that game was . We played that game where we were trying to take out some armed insurgents, and finally squeezed off a three round burst. An hour later, we figured out where the first bullet hit the guy. In the pinky finger. That was the first bullet. After it took us all night to figure out how 5 seconds of combat turned out, we politely threw that game in the shitcan. Ahhh, good times.

[stubby]

And with you mentioning it lower, yes, I do believe I've been reading the Quikwar versions; the rulebook is vastly more complex, takes away most of my objections, and I'm loving the 2005 edition so far, almost through the Hero section.

Okay! Now this conversation makes a whole lot more sense. I was genuinely confused for awhile there.

The current edition is 2010. Although it's still being updated, it's more complete than 2005. 2005 is the most simplified and least "realistic" of all of the editions (apart from QuikWars, that is), intended as a contrast to the 2001 edition.

http://brikwars.com/rules/2010/cover.htm

back to my Fort Legorado to fight off some space pirates Which by the way, I should have bought more of, because I truly love having Civil War soldiers. I am a student of history though, so that was bound to attract my attention.

Look around to see if you can find any of the recent Lone Ranger sets on clearance. Great army-builders for Civil War forces, and nobody bought any so they all went on massive sales.

I have been considering adding some sort of minor Hero (lieutenant) that doesn't get Cranky when sharing the field with other lieutenants, but is also very underwhelming as a Hero. A solid middle ground between mini and Hero classes.

We have a couple of specialist units that are more than minifigs and less than Heroes - I'm thinking of Officers and Heavies specifically, although there are others still in the works for chapter 11. How would you position the Lieutenant? As a hero with an not-quite-as-heroic Feat and less impressive basic stats, or would he have something else to set him apart?

serious meant "more work than a few weeks was put into it", which was the impression I got initially, that this was someone's side hobby, and that I was going to have to go through myself and make a 'proper' rulebook (as I have done with a few other games, I'm nothing if not a dedicated wargamer).

This is all technically true. I do have a real job and career, so this really has been a kind of long-term side hobby. I have put at least a couple of weeks into it; 1,092 and counting, by my current estimate. I kind of sound like a nut when I think about it.

By the way... is the Brikwars logo copyrighted? I actually have contacts all over the world for manufacturing, and the mention of solid gold dice for Heroes got me thinking of making a few out of actual gold, and I wanted to make the 1 the Brikwar skull instead (Fumbles are often going to equal death for my Heroes. If it's not a Feat that can get you killed, it's not a Feat worth doing!).

I generally get too picky about stuff like that as long as nobody's trying to make a business out of it. (Because then they can go to court and claim that they're making more of a commercial venture than I am, and then they can take all my trademarks away from me. Trade laws are screwy.)

But failed Feats are why god invented RedShirts. A Feat that can get you killed most often turns out to be a Feat that can get your buddies killed while you walk off to sign autographs afterwards.

-Huh, I would think they would be. Certainly not game changers, but a +1 to hit modifier on my Imperial Guardsmen, and I'm dancing around the table with glee. And a -1 modifier to enemy power armor? Are you KIDDING?! I'm popping champagne in celebration, my Guardsmen are dancing and kissing girls like the war's already won; we might actually KILL a Space Marine this turn! That's like, 60 Guardsmen worth of murder.

Well the +1s and -1s to hit are still important, because those fall under Skill rolls, and whether you're rolling 1d6 against a 3 or a 4 still matters. Damage rolls tend to be piles of dice against other piles of dice, and then you want to have all the results self-contained on the table without any extra +1s and -1s you have to keep in your head because complicated stuff is happening with secondary damage effects and so forth.

The half-dice concept is interesting, what would cause you to lose half a dice? More importantly, I assume you just ignore half-dice in game, unless they make one complete dice?

Nah, the half stuff is a rule for complex game design in general. In order to justify its existence, a modifier should make something at least twice as effective, or cut its effectiveness by at least half. Otherwise they're not worth the overhead. By way of example, this month I'm currently going through the rulebook and eliminating every -1" and -2" Movement Penalty and only keeping the modifiers that reduce a unit all the way to Half Speed or Stopped.

On that note; is anyone interested in a campaign? I've seen more than one remote campaign go on, and I'm curious how it works. Do you just use the DM's massive collection of LEGO?

That's usually how it works. If a campaign passes between players then they build their own versions of the forces out of their own collections and explain away any inconsistencies with vague hand-waving.

-I would define warhammer as a relatively serious wargame. A fantasy setting it might be, but it doesn't allow a whole lot of leeway for players to make up ridiculous settings.

Which is sad, because when Warhammer started out it was more ridiculous even than BrikWars, and it was great. Back in the beginning all that grimdark stuff was intentionally satire on the same level as Judge Dredd. It's only as GW developed a more and more money-grubbing and colonial attitude towards its player base that all the hilarious stuff that used to be jokes turned into SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Again, not that ridiculous is bad. But it does lend itself to unfair fights, which in Warhammer translates to "you're going to spend the next 5 hours absolutely hating the game". That's normal for wargaming right? The bubbling rage in your gut?

Another part of this month's push is that I'm replacing the Humanity section with an Endgames section, with rules for what to do when you start hating the game. Being obligated to sit there for hours for the express purpose of not having fun seems like the one big part of wargaming that most needs fixing.