Pimp my dragon! Am I doing special creations right?

[pancakeonions]

So I'm new to the game, played once, and it's heaps of fun. My friend has a dragon and a troll (big troll, not the little orky guys) and I thought I'd try my hand at custom creations. It's quite involved... So I thought I'd turn to you, the experienced Brikwars players, and ask: Am I doing this right?

Big ol' dragon:
1. Size 3 and Structure 2 gives a base cost of 6 CP and a 2d10 armor.
2. I'm giving him 8" of flight, so that's 8 more CP (up to 14CP now)
3. He gets nasty claws, a size 2 close combat attack, for 4 more CP (now we're up to 18 CP)
4. I'm also giving him a ranged weapon (bad breath or something), size 2, which adds 6 CP to his cost (total 24 CP)
5. He has a mind, so that's 3 CP, one for each point of size (total 27 CP)
6. And a skill upgrade from d6 to d8, so 1 more CP (28 CPs total)

Since that's so freakin' expensive, I gave him the special ability of being able to use his bad breath in the same turn as his melee attack at no additional CP cost. Whaddya think?

And wait, don't go away just yet. I also put together this big nasty troll guy. If you wouldn't mind, could you offer your comments and critiques on this dude, and whether I have followed the rules to their exactitude, since it's clear from my close reading of the rulebook that the author is a fanatical rules lawyer. Or not.

Very unpleasant big troll fellow:
1. Size 2 and structure 1 give a base CP of 2 and armor of d10
2. This guy only gets 6" of walkin' so that's just +3Cp (total 5 so far)
3. With size two fists, he gets 2d6 damage and +4CP (total 9)
4. This poor fellow only has half a mind, and I'm sayin' he's subjugated (and would love to just attack anything nearby, if his handlers perish) so that's only +1 more CP, for a final cost of 10 CP

Did I miss anything? Any advice?

[IVhorseman]

Since that's so freakin' expensive due to being a flying, breath-weaponed dragon, I made him even more stupidly powerful.

The point of expensive things in CP is that they're ALREADY good. that's why we pay CP.

[pancakeonions]

Hmmm. That's just it. I wasn't convinced. Having played lots of minis games in my day, I realized you gotta get your bang if you're gonna lay out your buck. I don't think I could get convinced to pay that many CPs for some big nasty beast that could only do one attack a turn. The poor thing gets ganged up on by a pack of minifigs, and there's little he can do but get chewed up.

Or am I missing something here? Having only played this game once, I'm not even sure I'm doing this right...

How much do you pay for your stoopidly powerful flying breathweaponed dragons?

[Arkbrik]

I don't use CP. Too much like 40k. I also don't tend to work out the unit stats until the need for them arises in a game.

[stubby]

Since that's so freakin' expensive, I gave him the special ability of being able to use his bad breath in the same turn as his melee attack at no additional CP cost. Whaddya think?

Well the best thing is to stage a couple of mock battles between your 28 point dragon and an enemy army of 28 points worth of minifigs and weapons, and then decide whether he's underpowered. I think if the minifigs beat him they're either getting unusually lucky rolls or you're doing something wrong. (When I read through these stats, the dragon should actually be a little more expensive - the Skill boost to 1d8 costs 3 points, not 1.)

With 8" flight, 1d8 Skill, and a size 2 gun, he should be able to line up multiple enemies in a single shot (if they're grouping together enough to have any significant hope of piercing your 2d10 armor three times), while keeping out of range of most counterattacks (since a size 2 gun has a much greater range than anything the minifigs can carry). If you were feeling extra cheap you could just hang in the sky above the range of their bows and drop fire on them with impunity, which has always been a weakness of including dragons in these types of games.

[OneEye589]

Also, the CP calculated for flying isn't enough.

Flying is more expensive: every two inches of Move cost 2CP plus the creation’s Structure Level. For instance, an armored space transport with Structure Level 2 (for 2d10 Armor Rating) would pay 4CP for each 2" of Flight movement.

And I'm pretty sure you have to pay the full cost for every level of Skill that you want. The chart in 7.4 is for size 1 creations, so you'd have to pay 2CP to have him be a 1d6 mind, and ANOTHER 2CP to have him get a 1d8 mind.

For a CP cost (minimum 1CP) equal to the Creation's Size, it develops a Mind, becoming a full-fledged Creature with a Skill of 1d6. Additional Skill boosts of +1 Skill level (or +1 die size, if players have the appropriate dice) can be purchased for the same price.

[pancakeonions]

OK, so I *did* miss a bunch of things... Thanks for the advice, guys, I appreciate your helping out with my first go at this. So for the dragon, I now have:

Big dragon:
1. Size 3 and Structure 2 gives a base cost of 6 CP and a 2d10 armor.
2. I'm giving him 8" of flight, so that's 16 more CP (up to 22CP now)
3. He has a size 2 claws close combat attack, for 4 more CP (now we're up to 26 CP)
4. I'm also giving him a second attack, tail or teeth or something, for another size 2 close combat attack of 4 more CP. (total 30 CP)
5. He has a mind, so that's 3 CP, one for each point of size (total 33 CP)

The "flying over folks and breathing on them with impunity" just ain't sporting, so I took out the breath weapon. Even taking out the ranged breath and the skill die upgrade, that is *expensive*, but I'll give it a go and see how it turns out!

[Magic Soap]

Since that's so freakin' expensive due to being a flying, breath-weaponed dragon, I made him even more stupidly powerful.

The point of expensive things in CP is that they're ALREADY good. that's why we pay CP.

Wait, we are talking about Creation Points here?

[stubby]

The point of expensive things in CP is that they're ALREADY good. that's why we pay CP.

Wait, we are talking about Creation Points here?

[Bragallot]

Err, I haven't used my dragons yet but I have 2 green ones... I don't really follow the rules to the letter when it comes to these things, I just vaguely do what I remember from them and add my common sense to the kettle of thoughts.

I'm probably going to give them a ranged attack that's a little better than a long ranged weapon and a choice between a weaker but less difficult claw attack and a stronger tail attack with a higher use rating. Move would probably be like a horse, 10'', with the main difference being that he can fly, and perhaps do swooping melee attacks but also at a higher UR.

Also, a dragon would logically have higher physical strength and opposition... but also be easier to hit. I'm not too sure about a skill modifier. As for armour, I think 7 should be common sense, but he shouldn't have more than 2 HP. I might increase the strength of the dragon accordingly to army size. Basically I'm just making this up out of the top of my head right now though. I'm pretty much the same as Arkbrik when it comes to stats.

[Magic Soap]

The point of expensive things in CP is that they're ALREADY good. that's why we pay CP.

Wait, we are talking about Creation Points here?

CP: cerebral palsy

[Ross_Varn]

BURNIATE-

*ahrem*

Stubby is the rule lawyer that you were just talking about, so careful... Most brikwarriors don't use CP. They will just field their creations and go about playing the game. It's not essential to rack up your stats and make it over-complicated.

[Sloopofwar]

In my solo battles I just make the stats up as I need them. Fudge for the win.