Chapter One: The BrikWars Quickstart Guide

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Chapter Sections:

The Grand Overview
Our Hero, the SpaceMan
Basic Combat

The Grand Overview

Regardless of the size and scope of the battle you're staging, every BrikWars game follows the same basic steps.

Pre-Game

Step 1 - You and your opponent need to clear off a table or suitable flat surface on which to play the game. Ping-pong tables or large sheets of plywood make good playing surfaces. For particularly huge battles you'll need to clear up some floor space.
Step 2 - Next you have to set up some sort of terrain for the game to be played on. This can range from fancy modelled trees and mountains, to a couple of PBB trees and a couple of stacks of books for hills. You can build a huge city out of plastic bricks if you like. Of course, don't expect us to give you any respect unless you surround your city with forests, mountains, gorges, seaports, launchpads, and of course scattered villages with quaint little PBB coffeeshops.
Step 3 - Now it's time to amass armies. Each team gets a certain number of points with which to purchase soldiers, weapons, equipment, vehicles, emplacements, bases, and whatever else they might want. Usually, all teams will get the same amount of points to spend. If you've built a really large battlefield, you should set high point limits so you can field really large armies. If you have an especially tiny battlefield, you should set low point limits so your battlefield doesn't get too crowded.
Step 4 - Finally, you have to place your troops and equipment. You can do this in any way that seems reasonable, as long as each side's units' initial placement is out of its enemies' weapon ranges. One way that works well is to have all players roll 1d6; the player with the highest roll can choose either to have the first turn, or choose which edge of the battlefield he wants to play from. The players then set up their units on opposite edges of the battlefield, within a certain distance of their edge (6" is usually a good limit). Once both players are satisfied with each other's setup, the battle can begin.

Sometimes the battle you're staging will require you to do these things a little differently. For instance, if one player has a base and the other player is assaulting it, the first player will obviously place his troops in the general area of the base, and the other player will put his troops in the surrounding countryside. If there is some kind of ambush situation, troops might start out in each other's weapon ranges. If one side has the advantage of surprise, they will get the first turn. If one side has superior advance intelligence, the other side has to set up its troops first. Most of the time these changes will be pretty obvious, just use your head.

Game Cycle

These steps comprise one player turn. Players alternate taking turns for the duration of the game (pretty much like you'd expect). Repeat these simple steps until one side is wiped out, one side retreats or concedes, or the players decide they can't live any longer if they don't have some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and make a mad dash to the grocery store.

Movement - Using the movement rates of the models, the player whose turn it is moves all his troops and vehicles their allotted distances. Non-combat actions, such as operating computers, eating pizzas, and mailing letters are also handled during the Movement phase. Except for occasional Opportunity Fire and bomb drops by Flyers, no attacks are made during this phase.
Combat - Next, all the troops and vehicles that want to fire their weapons may do so, checking to make sure their target is in range. For each attack, the player makes a ToHit roll. First, he rolls the Skill dice of the attacking unit. If the roll is equal to or higher than the Usage Rating of the weapon being used, he hits; otherwise, he misses. If he hits, he rolls the Damage dice of the weapon; if he rolls higher than the Armor of the enemy unit, the enemy is destroyed (or in some cases, just damaged).
Destruction - Destruction occurs as soon as a vehicle or unit is destroyed, so it's not really a separate phase. Destroyed vehicles are ripped apart, and the pieces are scattered around the area it was destroyed. Remove half the pieces from the playing field, leaving realistic debris behind. If a trooper is destroyed, leave his dead body wherever it falls.

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Our Hero, the SpaceMan

SpaceMan. The name itself instills a feeling of terror in all who hear it uttered. The most proficient warriors the galaxy has ever seen, they are trained from birth to be machines of terror and destruction. When they are born, they are immediately fused to a suit of bio-mechanical machinery which alters their physiology to accept the rigors of SpaceMan Training Camp. After being born, they are taken to the SpaceMan Nursery, where nurses constantly monitor their growth, and feed them special gene-altering formula from a bottle.
At the age of three, the SpaceMan recruit enters the SpaceMan Daycare School. It is in this school that the SpaceMan forges his first friendships, and draws his first picture. The mornings are spent in the "PlayRoom", where the SpaceKids play with blocks, role-play mother/father relationships, and learn what it is to share. In the afternoon, the SpaceKids take to the shooting range or combat chambers in order to hone their budding combat abilities.
At age 5, the SpaceKid becomes a Trainee, enters the SpaceTrooper Training Camp of his Civilization, and spends the next fifteen years in training. At the age of twenty, in a grand ceremony, the freshly initiated SpaceMan is given his first suit of SpaceArmor, which will support him in practically any environment. The SpaceMan is now a full recruit and is eligible for SpaceMen's pensions and the like, when he retires at the age of 150 years (SpaceMen usually live about 200 years, due to their altered physiology).

SpaceMen are assigned to a number of missions. These missions are usually objectives such as ground attacks, boarding parties, sabotage, Flyer strikes, and base protection. A SpaceMan is always loyal to his original civilization, and will never retreat or be routed. Even if he is the only soldier left on the field, he will still fight until he is dead, unless he falls back for tactical reasons, such as protecting a vital vehicle or installment. Any SpaceMan who retreated would have himself shot on sight.

The SpaceMan
Move:	5"
Armor:	5
Skill:	1d6
Cost:	5 pts.

The system we use for the description of units and vehicles is simple enough for even a SpaceMan to comprehend. First of all, we give the name of the model, in this case "The SpaceMan."

The "Move" statistic refers to how far this unit can move during a given turn, in this case five inches. (If you don't have a tape measure, an inch is about three dots, so five inches is about fifteen dots.) Under special circumstances, such as when a unit is carrying heavy equipment or when swimming, the unit may have MovePenalties that subtract from this rating.

The "Armor" statistic, or "AV" for Armor Value, tells how much damage a unit can take in one turn. In this case, the SpaceMan's AV is 5. Some units have a random AV (like 2d6+2), and rolls using this AV are called Armor Rolls.

The "Skill" rating determines how skilled a unit is. A unit must make a Skill Roll whenever he fires a weapon or attempts a difficult action. In this case, the SpaceMan rolls 1d6.

The final rating, "Cost", refers to the point cost for one SpaceMan. In this case, five points. Usually, each side in a battle is given a certain number of points with which to "buy" troops, vehicles, equipment, and buildings. The cost of one trooper does not include the cost of his weapons, which are covered in Chapter Two: The Fabulous Troopers' Arsenal.

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Basic Combat

There are two types of combat in BrikWars: ranged combat and close combat. Ranged combat, obviously, takes place over long distances, using guns, missiles, rocks, decapitated heads, or whatever else comes immediately to hand. Close combat is when things get personal, and troopers take it upon themselves to engage each other one-on-one with hand weapons, fists, teeth, head-butting, elbowing, kneeing, kicking, and sitting on the enemy for extended periods of time.

Both types of combat occur during the Combat phase of the attacker's turn. The attacker chooses the weapon he wants to use and the target he wants to attack. An attacker may attack with one ranged weapon, with two hand weapons, or with any number of vehicle weapons, but he can only focus on one target. For each weapon he is using, he makes sure the target is within range of the weapon (in the case of Close Combat weapons, the attacker has to be able to touch the target with the weapon) and make a ToHit Roll. He does this by making a Skill Roll (e.g., a SpaceMan would roll 1d6). If his skill roll is equal to or greater than the Usage Rating (UR) of the weapon, he hits his target. Sometimes there is no need to make a ToHit Roll. For instance, if a SpaceMan is standing an inch away from a Base wall and wants to shoot it, it's pretty much a given that he's going to hit it. Basically, any time the defender is willing to admit that there is no way the attacker could miss, you can skip the ToHit Roll.

If the shot is successful, the attacker rolls the Damage dice of the weapon, while the defender rolls the Armor dice of the targetted unit. If the Damage Roll is higher than the defender's Armor Roll, the target is destroyed (or damaged, in the case of vehicles and bases). If the Armor Roll is equal, or if the rolls are tied, the target survives unscathed.

Furthermore, if a player rolls a Skill Roll, a Damage Roll, or an Armor Roll, and the die ends up (or all dice end up) on a one, the Roll is an Automatic Failure, no matter how easy the task he was attempting. Contrariwise, if the all the dice in such a roll end on the dice's highest numbers (i.e., a six on a d6, a ten on a d10, etc.), the Roll is an Automatic Success, no matter how difficult the task was. If there is a contest between two rolls, and both sides roll Automatic Successes or Failures, ignore the Automatic Success/Failure rules and just resolve the rolls normally.

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