June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

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Flamer Shaftglutton
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June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Flamer Shaftglutton » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:06 pm

Six schools of magic prank each other every year for rush week. The pranks are epic, and the death toll high. This year feels boring, though, and magic gems seem like a great burst of power. Each school arrives at a gem refinery only to find the other schools had the same idea! Every school has their rivals, who have their own rivals, etc:
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You just have to defeat your two enemies (that the arrows point to) to win the game.


Overwatch:
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12 large baseplates (the two center plates aren't in the shot) were built modularly so I could work on a little at a time and it'd be easy to store.

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Ready to be connected. It turns out friction pins are tough to line up at this scale. Connecting two together was usually easy enough, but connecting sets was a nightmare. Axles would be easier, but wouldn't have the same "all or nothing" hold.

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General Overwatch after assembling and adding a few details.

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The "tubes" in the tower are just 1000 purple round studs connected together.

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I put more time in the office building than I should have. I like the details on this plate, though.

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I wanted to put a bunch of small cars and pickups in here, but didn't have time to make them.

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Didn't have time to put many workers on the map, so I had the new player help out by building random bystanders and putting them wherever.

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A decent amount of detail here, but not nearly as much as I wanted.


Factions:
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A blurry pic of the School of Electricity Magic. Nikola Tesla leads an army of robots, including a couple mechanical spiders. Their big unit was a thunderbird. The laziest team build; I reused the spiders from the Disneyworld battle and swiped my wife's Fantastic Beasts thunderbird model.

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The School of Water Magic. Led by Ursula. A team I was actually mostly pleased with. Lots of variety of units with pirates, Illithids, sharks, ice girls, and reverse-divers. The tank on the right is piloted by a large fish, making it a fish tank. Not included in the picture for some reason is a dolphin in a small exosuit I slapped together.

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The Grass faction. Led by Gregor Mendel. Banana bois, Corn men, elves, rangers, and Cactikazis. I reused the Beholder from the Hell battle and from D&D. The ent turned out cute, although the arms were not nearly posable enough and the whole thing was very fragile. He appears dead in many pictures, but actually was just nearly impossible to keep in one piece. The team is joined by their god, Bananazoth. I'm pretty proud of that build, although the arms and legs were lazy.

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The Dark Magic team. Led by a Death Priest. Inspired by Aztec mythology and Necrons from 40k. Some cultists, deathlings, acolytes, and demons. The bird heads as ceremonial headgear is from somebody on the Brikwars forums, but I don't remember who. There are a couple Tomb Blades as well and a giant pyramid with skull turrets. I reused the demons from the scrapped Fire team, but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with this team.

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The School of Rock. Led by King Arthur because I couldn't think of anything better. Lots of small golems and cavemen, plus some flying gargoyles. Also a trebuchet and a spike golem. The big unit is Zardoz, which turned out very solid and satisfying. The spike golem is a laughable caricature of Bolicob's build, but it looks okay considering how little time I put into it.

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Continuing with the base elements theme, the School of Lisa Frank magic. Led by Lisa Frank's purple crayon. Lots of tough girls, a pug-mech, and a rabbit-mech. The pug-mech is a bit clunky but I like it. The rabbit-mech needed a second pass that I never had time to give it. Their large unit was a giant tiger that is halfway in the shot. It was easily the ugliest thing I've ever created, so I'm glad it got cut from the shot.

The Battle:
Everybody started with their hero and three units. You could unlock another unit by finding a gem. This wasn't really a balance thing, it was just to make the turns go faster, so you could start with your biggest units if you wanted.

No cohesive play-by-play here; I took pictures when I could, but otherwise we just enjoyed ourselves.

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The Electric team went first, busting through the fence. The new player was a bit surprised when the Electric team player literally punched the fence to show it was damaged.

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The Lisa Frank team unsurprisingly also smashed down the wall.

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I tried to have the Dark team blast their portion of the fence as well, but failed miserablly. I gave the Tomb Blade pilots a D6 of skill, which meant they missed basically every single shot with their 2" guns. That started early, and the fence remained intact in my area.

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The water team didn't have much more luck, but did manage to bust down a small portion of the fence. Here you can see the backside of the dolphin mech that wasn't in the faction picture for some reason.

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Most of us started small so that our big bois wouldn't be destroyed early. The Grass player went the opposite route and started with their literal God, Bananazoth. He easily destroyed the corporate office in a single swipe.

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Jumping forward a bit. The stone team had extra armor, but only 4" of movement. A new player got the Stone team, and came up with a creative solution to gain more ground. His slow golems climbed onto the gate, then the gargoyles killed the guard and pushed the button, raising the gate and flinging the golems into a better position.

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All of my (Dark) units were bunched up to the left of the large tower. The Electric team threw barrels at the base of the tower, but they landed harmlessly since he rolled so poorly. His other spider (his hero had been mechanically augmenting them) fired its laser at the barrels as a backup plan, but failed that too. The tower remained intact.

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Despite constantly appearing dead, the ent was wrecking everything it touched and Bananazoth was trying to as well. The Water and Dark teams tried so many times, but never did any damage to either one.

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The Water team brings out the literal big guns with their fish tank. It proved to be remarkably ineffective the first couple turns.

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Everybody spreading towards the middle of the board.

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The Death Priest succeeds at a heroic feat. He grabs a nearby bystander, lights her on fire, and throws her into the explosive barrels. They blow, knocking the tower over onto the electric team and the Lisa Frank pug mech.

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The entire Dark team and Water team attack Bananazoth at once. The flying whale drops a couple bombs first, then everybody fires.

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He's barely killed. The new player was again surprised how much literal punching was involved in the game.

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The Stone and Electric teams make short work of the Dark team, so the Monolith is brought out as a last resort. The gunners are pretty good, sniping heros and forcing a lot of redshirts.

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At some point King Arthur acquired a bike and wrecked it into a fence. The Lisa Frank team shoots him while he's down.

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Three large units face off in a Rock-Paper-Scissors battle.

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The ent got a protective codpiece early on, and very late in the game realized there was a gem inside it the entire time.

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Absolute carnage as the monolith (and Zardoz) are launched onto the Thunderbird, killing it. That eliminated the Electricity team, and the Dark team's Monolith had plenty of health left but nobody to pilot it, so I was considered defeated. With both enemies killed, the Stone team won the game!


Aftermath:
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Final thoughts:
This was a really fun game to play, but I was very disappointed in the build and the factions. I could have done a much better job, but I just didn't have the time. Some of the baseplates had a level of detail I was happy with, but most didn't. I left out a lot of things I had planned, reused old models and stock models, and slapped a lot together.

I really should have taken better pictures, but I didn't think I would post this since I'm unhappy with the build quality. But I figured bad Brikwars is better than no Brikwars at all, so you get this write-up.

Getting the baseplates to snap together was a nightmare, and I don't think I'll be trying that again. I connected them together in sets of 3 plates, but then trying to line up 6 pins into the next set was nearly impossible. Maybe I'll go with axles in the future, or a combination. Regardless, this might be my last large battle for a long time. I might try my hand at 1-4 baseplate forum battles again, which should be easier to run while holding the baby.
motorhead fan wrote:I hope for more butt stuff in the future!
Duerer wrote:Jump onto the locust demon ahead of me and eat its ass for more power.

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ninja_bait
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by ninja_bait » Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:39 pm

Good job zardoz
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Duerer
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Duerer » Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:07 pm

Really hoping satanic hot dog school will be a thing next battle.
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Bookwyrm
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Bookwyrm » Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:00 pm

This is hella dope, especially some of the big monsters, I like the flying shark/whale thing

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Kaplan
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Kaplan » Tue Jun 25, 2019 1:30 pm

This battle looks awesome! The terrain looks amazing with lots of details!

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Bolicob12
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Bolicob12 » Tue Jun 25, 2019 3:36 pm

Yo Dude, this was cool. I liked the idea of asymetrical "teams".

(also, that spike golem turned out p good if you ask me 8) )

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Flamer Shaftglutton
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Flamer Shaftglutton » Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:13 am

I need to come up with a better way to balance the teams. Mike was right about CP not being great for it. All the teams sat around 250 CP, but they ended up being enormously imbalanced.

Grass Team: High skill + melee weapons on a couple big bois is cheap and lethal. Armor is cheap too.
Stone Team: Extra armor on most of the units was surprisingly cheap. Reducing their movement barely mattered.
Electric Team: Extra skill + ranged weapons to most units was hugely expensive, but not that effective in the end.

Next time I'll try Unit Inches and the Improvement/Impairment system.
motorhead fan wrote:I hope for more butt stuff in the future!
Duerer wrote:Jump onto the locust demon ahead of me and eat its ass for more power.

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ninja_bait
I can make this man. I can let him touch the butt. I cannot promise his safety
I can make this man. I can let him touch the butt. I cannot promise his safety
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by ninja_bait » Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:19 pm

I think the action economy is everything in balancing brikwars and unit inches is a better way to measure your available actions vs CP. Hope it works better!
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sahasrahla
that is a fantastic question to which no satisfactory answer will be forthcoming
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by sahasrahla » Fri Jun 28, 2019 3:31 pm

dude the giant whale is one of my new favorite builds of yours

i really appreciate how all of your unit builds manage to embody some sort of hilarious pun or off-the-wall building principle, regardless of how well the execution turned out. the fish tank was another highlight

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ninja_bait
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by ninja_bait » Mon Aug 26, 2019 8:47 am

:necro:

I was just rereading this and realized you missed a huge opportunity to make Jack Black the hero of the School of Rock
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Flamer Shaftglutton
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Re: June 2019: Attack on the Gem Refinery

Post by Flamer Shaftglutton » Mon Sep 30, 2019 4:11 pm

That would have been so much better. I even tossed around the idea of a 'band' as a squad, playing various instruments. Somehow I never took the next step to Jack Black.
motorhead fan wrote:I hope for more butt stuff in the future!
Duerer wrote:Jump onto the locust demon ahead of me and eat its ass for more power.

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