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Chapter Six Minifig Heroes
 Looking fancy outweighs all other considerations, even if it means wearing your slain enemies as a hat.
From "Path to the Grail" Elements shown: LEGO, BrickWarriors own photo Uploaded, final
The Immortal War, culminating in Warhead's Zombie (Zulu) Dawn, was the first truly epic BrikWars Forum campaign, and its Heroes became the standards against which all subsequent Heroes were judged. Manly Santa, Lord Warhead, and the forces of Zombie Abraham Lincoln battled all comers in a space-age zombie apocalypse guest starring the Almighty Benny, a meddling janitor, and BrikThulhu himself. They all went on to take cameos and starring roles in the battles of Human players around the world for years to follow. Characters by Jim "Warhead" Lang
From "Zombie (Zulu) Dawn" own illustration Uploaded, final
Some minifigs are simply better than others. Sharp-eyed Humans recognize them as soon as they open the box. Their innate superiority has nothing to do with talent, training, or genetics; the defining feature that separates the Hero from lesser minifigs is the cool outfit. With the blingiest armor and flamboyantest drapery, looking cool makes the Hero fight harder, live longer, and succeed where others fail. 
Hero: own illustration Uploaded, final
change stat card design? change gender?  Six-sided dice may be good enough for regular minifigs, but Heroes demand a higher standard. Preferably forged from solid gold.
Element shown:  own photo Uploaded, final
A Hero's standard attributes are significantly higher than those of a regular minifig. Heroes Move seven inches per turn and have an Armor rating of 2
The difference between a warrior who's merely phenomenally skilled and a true Hero is a matter of ego. No matter how high a regular minifig's attribute numbers may be, he recognizes that some rules can't be broken, and that one day he'll eventually die. In contrast, aHero recognizes no such things. Heroes are above the concerns of lesser minifigs. Mortality, logic, and the laws of physics are beneath them. Heroes are the rock stars and prima donnas of the battlefield, and each one insists on being more important than any other unit. In the Core Rules, players can only field one Hero in a battle. A Hero asked to share the stage with other Heroes becomes cranky and refuses to come out of his dressing room. In the advanced Heroic Escapade rules, players can field more than one Hero, but the Heroes still aren't happy about it (S.6: Elite Units). Heroes forced to share the spotlight are much less effective than Heroes working alone.
 Attacked by an evil clone at a publicity appearance, Blue Space Hero is saved by the intervention of a leaping red-shirted passerby. From photos taken at the scene, it's unclear whether the bystander's leap was intentional, or if the Hero picked him up and threw him in the way of the attack. Either way, the RedShirt instantly became the posthumous envy of Blue Space Hero fanboys across the galaxy.
Elements shown: LEGO, Mega Bloks own photo Uploaded, final
Because a Hero is more important than regular minifigs, it's only right that lesser troops sacrifice themselves to shield him from inconvenience. Whether out of love, duty, fear, or the Hero grabbing them by the head and using them as meat shields, a Hero can rely on nearby allies to leap into harm's way to protect him from incoming damage. These self-sacrificing troops are called RedShirts in remembrance of their propensity for turning themselves into red splatter decorations on a Hero's chest. When a Hero is about to take damage, he has one chance to inspire a nearby RedShirt to take the fall instead. Before the damage is rolled, the Hero rolls his Action Die in a RedShirt Roll. If an eligible RedShirt is within this many inches of the Hero, the sacrificial unit leaps in and takes the damage intended for the Hero. If the roll is too low or is a Critical Failure, the Hero fails to inspire the unit to RedShirt, and he is forced to take the damage himself like a common peasant minifig. RedShirts can only protect Heroes from external sources of damage. For internal damage, like poison, coronary disease, or the side effects of ingesting a live grenade, jumping in the way in the nick of time doesn't help.
RedShirts move unusually quickly and have no problem intercepting gunshots, explosions, laser blasts, or lightning bolts. No matter how fast the incoming damage might be, RedShirts always have time to yell "Nooooo!" mid-leap. They're unconcerned with whatever damage this might do to the laws of physics or to the Humans' suspension of disbelief. If incoming damage is too great to be blocked by a single RedShirt, the Hero is knocked away the minimum distance required to avoid being hit (even if the distance required is truly ridiculous, like getting RedShirted out of a nuclear explosion or a supernova). This results in the Hero being Disrupted wherever he lands, unless he uses an Over the Top Benny from the RedShirt Roll or a Heroic Feat to stick an Ossum landing. Inspiring a RedShirt doesn't cost the Hero's Action. While a Hero can only inspire one RedShirt for each incoming source of damage, there's no limit to the total number of RedShirts he can burn through over the course of a turn. Inspired units must be on the Hero's team, they must not be Disrupted or otherwise incapacitated, and they must be capable of leaping (minifigs, robots, or animals rather than tanks, jet fighters, or walls). RedShirts don't need to have an unspent Action to leap to the rescue. If they survive the damage, they're Disrupted for the turn. RedShirts moving at Half Speed can only leap half as far as the Hero's RedShirt roll would indicate.  Major Natalya launches herself over the chaos of the battlefield, guns blazing
photo rights: Uploaded, final
A Hero's amazing abilities stem from a mixture of stunning bravado and pig-headed obliviousness, and his greatest powers are drawn from a tradition handed down through generations of action movie reruns. To realize their full potential, all Heroes must take an Action-Hero Cliché, drawn from movies, video games, comic books, or Saturday morning cartoons. If you're too young to remember Saturday morning cartoons, ask your parents. They won't be able to explain them either, but you can enjoy watching the looks on their faces as they feel another part of their childhoods die.
It is mandatory that Heroes develop an exaggerated accent in support of their role. In a pinch, an Austrian accent almost always works. If a role hasn't been played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, it probably doesn't count as a real Action Cliché.  Which action personality best fits this hard-hitting space maroon Hero? Characters from Futurama are proposed, and a nomination for a pre-"Forever" Duke Nukem is met with popular acclaim.
But love for Samuel L. Jackson wins out in the end, with the suggestion of "Mace Windu, as played by Jules Winnfield." Attitude firmly in place, Commander "Bad" Moe Faux is born. Elements shown: LEGO, Mega Bloks, Little Armory own photo Uploaded, final
For Heroes based on specific characters, picking the Action-Hero Cliché is easiest of all: a Robin Hood Hero performs Robin Hood Feats; a Hercules Hero has Herculean Feats, and a Davy Crockett Hero has King of the Wild Frontier Feats.  photo rights: Kommander Ken uploaded
All Heroes are Action Heroes except the servants of Pacifass. Pacifass's blasphemous Inaction Heroes rely on de-escalation, delay, and powerful naps in their quest to prevent all forms of violence.
For an action-movie hero in the thick of battle, accomplishing the impossible isn't an everyday event - it's an every-couple-of-seconds event. Any such stupendous or wildly improbable act, pushing fictional license to its limits for the sake of spectacle, is a Heroic Feat. Heroes are limited to the Feats appropriate to their Action-Hero Cliché. A ProWrestler Hero can't modulate phasers to bypass energy-shield frequencies off the top of his head the way a ScienceOfficer Hero might, but he can try picking up a motorcycle and swinging it like a baseball bat through a group of opponents. To attempt a Heroic Feat, the player describes the Feat their Hero is about to attempt, and rolls a
If both players roll a one in the Heroic Feat Roll, it's a special case - the Hero has failed to accomplish his Feat, but the opponent has simultaneously failed to oppose him. Rather than try to unravel this Heroic Paradox, the Heroic Feat is cancelled. The Hero suffers a moment of uncharacteristic sanity and realizes that whatever he was about to attempt could never work. The Heroic Feat is spent for the turn, but play continues as if the Hero had never attempted it in the first place.
If multiple Heroes are combining their powers to attempt a Feat together, their players roll a separate Regardless of how many Heroic Feats a player has available, they can only attempt one Feat per turn. Like a regular minifig's Action, if a player doesn't use their Feat during their own turn, it can be used as a response during another player's turn at no penalty. Feats can't be "saved up" between turns - at the beginning of the player's next turn, they will once again have a maximum of one Feat to spend. The range of possible Feats for each type of Action-Hero Cliché is wide, and it's up to the players to agree on whether any specific Feat is appropriate to its Cliché, and what the effects of success and the consequences of failure would be. The consequences of a failed Feat will depend on the seriousness of the battle and the attitudes of the players. As a rule of thumb, the more stupendous the Feat attempted, the more dire the effects should be if it fails. A Hero failing an attempt to eat a dozen doughnuts in a single bite might suffer an upset stomach. Choking to death might be a more realistic result, but would seem severe compared to the uninspiring Feat. A Hero failing to lift an automobile over his head, on the other hand, would be subject to much stronger consequences on failure: he might get it into the air but then drop it on himself, or he might strain so hard to lift it that he rips his own arms off. If all else fails, imagine what would happen to Homer Simpson, Wile E. Coyote, or the Three Stooges if they were to make similar attempts.
 Commander Horowitz parries the Assyrian Captain's attack with the blade of the powerful Nova Sword.
photo rights: Uploaded, final
An ordinary minifig treats Close Combat much the same as Ranged combat. Each turn, he has one active Close Combat maneuver, whether Striking or some other less cool maneuver that could have been Striking but wasn't. The minifig makes an Action Roll, he resolves the effects, his job is done. For a Hero, Dueling is a fine art, falling somewhere between interpretive dance and industrial food processing. He's still limited to using each hand or held object once on each player's turn, but his options for employing them are much more cinematic.
A minifig or Hero doesn't need an unspent
 Action to Parry or Counterstrike, but his Action is considered spent afterward.On his own turn, as the active combatant, the Hero can perform a different Close Combat maneuver with each hand or held object against a single target. He might Grab an opponent with one hand before Striking him with a sword in the other, or use a Shield to Shove a minifig to the ground before Striking him in half with an axe. As a defender, the Hero can use any held object as if it were a Shield to Parry a Close Combat attack or Thrown Weapon, making an Action Roll against the Use rating of the object he's Parrying with. More importantly, he can Counterstrike after every Close Combat maneuver an opponent makes against him, as if he were responding to the opponent Disengaging (5.2: Close Combat).  Emperor Piltogg preserves the bodies of defeated enemy Heroes for experimentation in the Akkadian Resurrection Chambers - but one has gone missing.
From "Path to the Grail" Elements shown: LEGO, BrickForge own photo Uploaded, final
If a Hero dies in spite of the best efforts of his loyal RedShirts, then he's dead - at least for the rest of the battle. But thanks to Everyone's the Boss of Their Own Toys (1.3: Proper Observance of Rules), Heroes have a way of always popping back up, no matter how many times their enemies think they've killed them. By the time the next battle begins, the plot will have inevitably twisted in the Hero's favor. In place of death, he will have only been captured in preparation for a daring escape, or left for dead in anticipation of a daring recovery, or swapped out with a convincing android duplicate in a daring deception. No matter how gruesome the fatality, the Hero is somehow revived by magic, or science, or the will of the gods, or even as part of an enemy plot, and almost always with new improvements tacked on as a result. If a Hero's death was so dramatically Heroic that it could never be taken back or plausibly denied, then the Hero may discover himself well and truly dead - and then proceed to slaughter his way out of Minifig Hades and back into the land of the living. His ego will allow nothing less. There is no number of deaths or defeats that can prevent the best characters from finding a way to return. Unless they're boring, in which case no force can save them.
 The appearance of the divine janitor Stubby, wielding the legendary Banhammer and the Broom of Doom, drastically changed the course of battle for these Proto-Spacemen.
photo rights: Uploaded, final
Long after Heroes have decomposed into component plastic parts, their legendary accessories live on, inspiring new generations to homicide. Many such Artifakts are powerful enough to give a regular minifig Heroic abilities all by themselves. If a minifig isn't an elite unit already, a magical sword, enchanted armor, deific grail, zero-point blaster cannon, or unusually well-stocked gift bag can let him fake it. Heroic weapons are the most common type of Heroic Artifakt, but legends are also told of Heroic Vehicles, Heroic armor, Heroic fortifications, and even Heroic furniture. These objects retain all the regular stats and uses of an object of their type, but also grant one Heroic Feat per turn to whomever possesses or operates them. Whoever takes possession of a Heroic Artifakt can use it in a Heroic Feat as part of any Action taken with the Artifakt, making it dangerous to leave Artifakts lying around unclaimed or in the hands of easily-defeated amateurs. A Heroic Artifakt is limited to Feats that satisfy its Cliché, similar to that of a regular Hero, but Artifakt Clichés tend to be tautologies. Excalibur's Cliché, for example, is that it's Excalibur. Heroic Artifakts suffer no penalties from crankiness themselves, since anyone can use them, but they may inspire jealousy in minifig Heroes. In the Core Rules, if a player has a living Hero, then only the Hero can use the Heroic Artifakt's Heroic Feat. No matter how many Heroic units and Artifakts a player controls, they can only attempt one Heroic Feat per turn.
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Unlike regular minifigs, a Hero's Armor rating is described in dice rather than as a static number. A unit with Armor dice rolls them each time it takes damage. Comparing the amount of damage to this Armor Roll determines whether the unit survives unharmed, is killed, or has Something Bad happen.
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