Chapter Six: Siege Weapons
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Chapter Sections:
Mounting Siege Weapons
Vehicles are nice if you want to move your troops in a hurry, and bases
are nice because they give your troops a strong point of defense.
But let's not kid ourselves - the real reason you want to have these things
around is because the weapons your soldiers are carrying around just aren't
big enough to really satisfy your appetite for destruction. The whole
point of keeping a bunch of bases and vehicles around is that they carry
those really big guns.
Any troop-level weapon can be built into a weapon mount for 1 point,
plus 1 point for every inch of MovePenalty the weapon incurs, plus the
cost of buying the weapon. But who wants to buy troop-level weapons
when there are Siege Weapons to be had? This is no time to wuss out.
Take a look at the different sets of weapons in the charts throughout this
chapter and you'll see what I'm talking about. These weapons are
designed to be mounted, so the listed cost for buying the weapon is the
cost of mounting it.
Whatever direction a mounted weapon is pointing is pretty much the
direction it fires. A mounted weapon has a 45 degree arc of fire
on either side and above and below the direction it is pointing.
If you want to shoot at something that is not in that arc of fire, you're
going to have to turn the weapon somehow. If it's on a vehicle, just
turn the vehicle to point in the desired direction. If it's on a
building, you're not usually going to have much luck trying to rotate the
building. Also, if you're in a gun emplacement on the top of a wall,
and your enemies are camping out at the base of the wall, you're going
to wish there were a way to point your guns downward.
Good
thing there are hinges and turrets! For 5 points, you can buy a turret
to rotate a mounted weapon (or 10 pts. for a group of mounted weapons),
or 5 points for a hinge to change the elevation of a mounted weapon (or
10 points for a group). Ballistic, Missile, and Mass Driver weapons
automatically come with hinges, because you have to elevate them before
they'll be of any use.
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Using Siege Weapons
Siege weapons are described in charts similar to the charts used for troop
weapons. For an explanation of the column headings, see the Weapons
and Equipment section of Chapter 2: The Fabulous
Troopers' Aresenal. The one new addition is the Size column.
This describes the minimum length, in dots, of the weapon or weapon barrel.
This is the most generic way to differentiate between the Mk levels of
each weapon type, and I only include it on the off chance you don't like
the more elegant solutions that are included in the supporting text.
Siege weapons can only be fired by minifigs. With all those futuristic
ComputerViruses, it's too dangerous to let the computers fire weapons.
A minifig can either use Manual or RemoteControl to operate a mounted weapon.
In ManualControl, the minifig must actually be sitting or standing next
to the weapon (or group). RemoteControl is usually used by a SpacePilot
to fire the weapons on his vehicle. RemoteControl can also be used
by a minifig at the ComputerBank in his base, to control his base weapons
that are equipped with ComputerConsoles.
A minifig cannot control weapons both manually and remotely in the same
turn. However, whichever one of the two control methods he chooses
to employ, he can control however many weapons that type of control gives
him access to. He can only shoot at one target per turn. If
you have two mounted weapons and you want to fire at two targets, you'll
have to have a separate minifig for each. Siege weapons are affected
by the same Ranged Attack Modifiers
as troop weapons.
If a mounted weapon is not being used by the side that owns it, enemies
can come in and use it for their own ends. For weapon emplacements
just sitting out in the wilderness, all he has to do is show up and he
can use it right away. For weapons mounted on bases, he can't use
them unless he has control of the computer that controls the weapon.
See the Creating Buildings section
to see how to take control of computer systems. For weapons mounted
on vehicles, he has to get into the gunner's seat for the weapon (if there
is one), or (more usually) eliminate the driver and commandeer the vehicle.
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Big Guns
Guns are the most common types of siege weapons, because with guns
you never really have to worry about ammunition.
| The Big Guns |
|
| Weapon |
Pts. |
Range |
UR |
-MP |
Damage |
Size |
| Lasers |
| MkI |
14 |
20" |
2 |
-1" |
1d10+4 |
4 |
| MkII |
20 |
20" |
3 |
-1" |
2d10+4 |
6 |
| MkIII |
26 |
20" |
4 |
-1" |
3d10+4 |
10 |
| Ballistix |
| MkI |
20 |
20" |
4 |
-2" |
1d20 |
6 |
| MkII |
24 |
24" |
5 |
-3" |
1d20+1d6 |
12 |
| MkIII |
28 |
28" |
6 |
-4" |
2d20 |
18 |
| MkIV |
32 |
32" |
7 |
-5" |
2d20+1d6 |
24 |
They are divided into two groups: Lasers, which cover all types of energy
weapons, and Ballistix, which cover things like slugthrowers, mortars,
and battleship deck guns. Lasers only fire in straight lines.
Ballistik weapons can fire in parabolic arcs over the tops of obstacles.
They can hit distant targets outside their range of sight if they have
a SpaceScout target it for them. Both Lasers and Ballistix cause
Explosion Damage wherever they hit,
and Ballistik weapons will use NearMiss Rules
when they miss.
If
you don't want to sit around counting the dots in the Size column,
an easier way to build guns is to invent GunPieces. The image to
the left shows two example LaserPieces that we've used. For a MkI
laser, use one of these. For a MkII laser, put two of these together.
For a MkIII, use three. You see how it works. You can invent
your own BallistikPieces and do the same thing. If you have a lot
of mast pieces from your pirate sets, you can make nice-looking Ballistik
guns very quickly. We use the stumpy mast base is a MkI Ballistik,
the longer top mast piece as a MkII, the bottom two mast pieces together
as a MkIII, and the top two together as a MkIV.
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Missiles and Bombs
You'll notice the first half of this chart looks just like the Explosives
chart from Chapter 2: The Fabulous Troopers' Arsenal.
This is, in fact, the same set of weapons, extended a little further.
It is very common for a player to want to buy a whole bank of sixteen MkI
Missiles rather than three MkVI's.
| Missiles and Bombs |
| Weapon |
Pt.s |
Range |
UR |
-MP |
Damage |
Size |
| Cannonball |
3 |
16"** |
6** |
-3" |
1d10+3** |
1* |
| MkI Explosive |
4 (6) |
(20") |
3(6) |
- |
1d10+3 |
1* |
| MkII Explosive |
8 (10) |
(22") |
3(7) |
-1" |
1d10+6 |
2* |
| MkIII Explosive |
12 (14) |
(24") |
3(8) |
-2" |
2d10+3 |
3* |
| MkIV Explosive |
16(18) |
(26") |
3(7) |
-3" |
3d10 |
6* |
| MkV Explosive |
20(24) |
(28") |
4(6) |
-4" |
4d10 |
10* |
| MkVI Explosive |
24(32) |
(30") |
5(5) |
-5" |
5d10 |
16* |
Numbers in parentheses indicate the stats for missiles, as opposed to bombs.
* The Size of an explosive is its height in Brix, not its length in dots.
** Cannonballs can only be fired from cannons. |
Pictures
of explosives up through MkIII are in the Explosives
section of Chapter 2: The Fabulous Troopers' Arsenal.
They are built with the smaller one-dot missile pieces (like you see on
the tip of the white missile pictured here). Explosives of MkIV and
higher are made with the larger four-dot missile pieces. The little
black bomb imaged here is a MkIV Bomb, and the white missile is a MkVI
Missile. Put antennas on the ends of your missiles if you're having
a hard time telling them apart from your bombs.
You'll see that as the explosives get bigger, they get harder to aim
(except that the higher end missiles start to get easier as targetting
circuits are built in). You're going to be using the NearMiss
Rules a lot. Also, explosives do Explosion
Damage, of course.
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Mass Drivers
Mass drivers are tremendously entertaining weapons. Normally these
are huge rail guns or other magnetic accelerators, but these stats also
work for catapults, trebuchets, mangonels, and other low-tech versions.
They are expensive, huge, slow (you'll have to have a minifig spend a full
turn resetting them before they can be reloaded on the following turn),
and extremely inaccurate (you'll want to refer to the NearMiss
Rules frequently). On the other hand, they do amazing amounts
of damage at a very long range.
|
Mass Drivers |
| Weapon |
Pts. |
Range |
UR |
-MP |
Maximum Payload |
Damage |
Size |
| MkI |
40 |
20" |
7 |
-12" |
1 Blok / One-Piece |
1d10xAV |
10 |
| MkII |
50 |
30" |
8 |
-16" |
2 Blox / One-Piece |
(1d10+3)xAV |
15 |
| MkIII |
60 |
40" |
9 |
-20" |
3 Blox / Small |
2d10xAV |
20 |
| MkIV |
70 |
50" |
10 |
-24" |
4 Blox / Small |
(2d10+3)xAV |
25 |
| Vehicles must be at least Medium in size to carry a Mass Driver. |
Every Mass Driver has a Maximum Payload rating. There are a million
things you might want to fire out of a Mass Driver. Normal payloads
like boulders, flaming coals, and bombs; military units, like SpaceParatroopers
and Death Gliders; or more exotic things like plague-infested rats, the
dismembered corpses of your enemies, anti-inflammatory foam, or Awful Green
Things from Outer Space. For regular objects, check to see if their
weight is lower than the maximum number of Blox. Sometimes you will
have to roll an object's AV to see if it is less than the maximum number
of Blox (weight = AV = Blox times five; see the Brik
Physix rules.). If it ends up heavier than the maximum, you've
just burned out the Mass Driver engine and it won't work again until a
Mechanik or a Technik has worked on it for a full turn. You can also
use it to launch Flyers without runways; MkI and MkII Mass Drivers can
only launch One-Piece Flyers, but MkIII and MkIV can launch Small Flyers
as well. You can also launch One-Piece and Small Ground Vehicles
in the same manner, if you really want to. An AntiGrav Parachute
is strong enough to protect a One-Piece Ground Vehicle if its driver happens
to be wearing one, but a Small Ground Vehicle is too heavy. The only
reason you would ever want to launch a Small Ground Vehicle is if you are
tired of it and want to see it smashed into tiny pieces.
Damage is also a little different for Mass Drivers. Heavier payloads
deliver more damage. So, the damage delivered is multiplied by the
weight of the payload. Consequently, the Mass Driver has the potential
to deliver some truly stupendous amounts of damage! When the payload
hits the target, both payload and target take this amount of damage, so
be careful. Launching your own troops around without AntiGrav Parachutes
is not a good idea unless you are fond of large-scale splatter painting.
Tying up enemy troops and using them as ammunition is both economical and
entertaining.
When the payloads hit, they hit hard enough to cause Explosion
Damage. Be careful, though, when you calculate AreaEffect - you
subtract 1d10's before you multiply by AV, not after. For
example, if you launch a 3-Blok boulder out of a MkIII Mass Driver, it
does 2d10x15 damage to its target. Two inches away, it does 1d10x15
damage, and four inches away it does no damage. If you multiplied
the 2d10x15 before you started subtracting 1d10s, you'd do 30d10 to the
target, 29d10 two inches away, and so on, destroying everything within
five feet of ground zero!
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Siege Close Combat
We were pretty proud of ourselves with our rules for big Siege lasers,
towering missiles, and all our other ranged weapons of mass annihilation.
We sat around patting each other on the back every time we blew up a big
section of the enemy base, thinking we had achieved the end-all in visceral
destructive pleasure. Then Truckasaurus came to town, and didn't
we feel dumb! He showed us a whole world of vehicular mayhem that
we had totally overlooked - the Jaws of Death! The Giant Buzzsaw
Hand! Oxy-Acetylene Claws! The Spiked Wrecking Ball, the Battering
Ram, the Constricto-Noose, the Auto-Grinder, the Enormous Blender, the
Whirling Blades of Death, the Electrified Scorpion Tail, the Gigantic Spiked
Cleats - this was more than a minor oversight. We have come to realize
that these are the weapons that are absolutely essential to a satisfactory
battlefield experience. We apologize for not having understood this
earlier.
As the list of example Siege Close Combat Weapons shows, it would be
foolish to try and categorize them into a neat and tidy chart. If
you want to build Close Combat capability into a vehicles, it's going to
have to be a custom job. We've included a reasonably complete set
of guidelines below for computing the point cost of any given vehicle weapon,
but it's still going to take you an extra minute or two of pre-game calculations
for every Siege Close Combat weapon you build. It usually works better
if you build the weapon first and then figure out how many points it's
going to cost, than to plan out how you're going to juggle the points and
then try to build the weapon to meet the specs. You'll spend a lot
less time pinching points and changing pieces around. Remember that
you want a weapon's stats to reasonably reflect the weapon you've built,
rather than the budget you have to stick to.
The first consideration is the weapon's delivery system. If it's
immobile and mounted on the front grill, so you have to crash your vehicle
into the target to use the weapon, it's going to cost less than the same
weapon mounted on the end of a 20" fully articulated prehensile arm.
To put a weapon on a turret, hinge, or other joint costs 5 points.
If you use multiple turrets, hinges, and joints to give your weapon full
freedom of motion within a flat plane (or a curved plane, in the case of
a wrecking ball), it costs 10 points. If the weapon has full freedom
of motion in three dimensions, it costs 15 points. For every 4" of
range, it costs one additional point.
The second consideration is the weapon's Damage Rating. The Damage
Rating costs 1 point for every +1, 3 points. for every d6, 5 points for
every d10, 9 points for every d20, 5 points for every d6 of Fire
Damage, and 8 points for every d10 of Explosion
Damage. If your custom weapon is something that you're going
to use as a gripping tool, like a giant claw or mechanical hand, you have
to pay for its lifting capability also. For every 10 points of RoboStrength,
you pay 4 points. The vehicle can now use this arm to lift, throw,
drag, and push things as if it were a SpaceMan with Skill and AV equal
to the arm's RoboStrength. For more information about moving things
in this manner, see the Brik Physix
section of Chapter Three: Advanced Combat.
If this arm is strong enough, the vehicle could use it to pull itself over
obstacles, or to drag itself along if its wheels got blown off.
The third consideration is ease of use. Subtract one from the
cost of the weapon for every Usage Rating point over 2, and for every inch
of Movement Penalty it incurs. (If you're mounting the weapon on
a building, don't bother giving the weapon a Movement Penalty.) The
Usage Rating cannot be less than two. If the weapon is such (like
the dreaded Giant MouseTrap) that a SpaceMan has to come out and spend
a whole turn resetting it after it goes off before it can be used again,
then the weapon's total point cost is halved.
The final consideration is that there are a lot of possibilities we
don't have the room to consider. If your weapon has special powers
or aspects beyond those of normal weapons, you and the other players are
going to have to come to an agreement on how that is going to affect the
point cost.
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