Special Rule: Airborne Acrobatics

[DarkWolf]

Ok, basically, this is my attempt to breath life into Brik dogfighting (no, not the stuff Michael Vick was doing (he deserves to be executed by firing squad for it though) the airplanes with machine guns blowing each other out of the sky kind) I only came up with this because A) I've got a ton of fighters in my army, and B) I'm bored out of my mind right now. And, please, use common sense as to what defines a 'fighter'

Special Rule: Airborne Acrobatics

During the an opponents turn, if an attack is declared on a fighter, the defending unit can choose to make one of the following acrobatic maneuvers to try and avoid the incoming fire. Weather or not it succeeds is determined by rolling the pilot’s skill against the UR of the stunt. Failure results in what a little common sense will describe, but I have stated here just for the hell of it.


Snap Roll (UR;2): Plane spins in place: +1 the UR of the attacker’s weapon.
Failure: Plane spins out of control, losing 2 stories of altitude every turn until it hits the ground or the pilot rolls a 5 or better on a 1d6 (if the pilot fails the Snap Roll die roll he deserves to die anyway for being a disgrace to fighter pilots everywhere)

Zimmermen (UR; 5): Plane spins and pulls a tight corner, turning the plane around to face back the way it came 5” to the side of where it was before the maneuver. +3 to UR of the attacker’s weapon.
Failure: Plane will either spin out of control, with the results of a failed Snap Roll, or will crash into an object capable of destroying the plane that is within 15” (a tower, a bridge, another fighter, ect. ect.)

Up and over (UR;3): Plane pulls up and flips over to engage the attacking plane, placing it two stories higher then where it started from: +2 to UR of attacker’s weapon.
Failure: Plane keeps going and ends up pointing towards the ground, and crashes.

Climb for it (UR;2): Plane angles straight up and flies at top speed for the clouds, ending up 3 stories higher than where it started from: +1 to UR of attacker’s weapon.
Failure: plane stalls, and will fall 3 stories every turn until it hits the ground. Pilot can recover on a 5 or better on a 1d6 (once again, the pilot deserves to die for failing so simple a stunt)

Dive for it (UR;4): Plane shoots for the ground, leveling off mere feet off the nearest surface. Ends up at 1 story of height and 5” forward of where it started: +2 to UR of attacker’s weapon.
Failure: the plane crashes into the ground.

Wild-ass stunt: Pilot comes up with the stupidest idea he can think of then executes it. Appropriate UR for stunt, bonuses and whatnot are decided by players and “What I say Goes” rolls.


I've yet to play test this, mostly because I thought of it half an hour ago, but I do intend to test it once I rip myself away from Warhawk long enough to play a quick game of BrikWars.

[IVhorseman]

sounds confusing. alas i too have wished a good way for dogfighting though.

what about the equivalent of a heroic feat for a plane? basically, turning EVERYTHING into a "wild-ass stunt". Basically, treat it like a heroic feat. players agree before rolling what will happen in the case of what will happen upon success or failure. usually success would just be "miss the shot, plane is now facing [this] direction", while failure would be "you effing crash.", or the like. like heroic feats, massive improbability/winningness results in massive failure.

this way makes it both very easy to determine a winner, and dosen't require a whole chart of maneuvers and proper URs.

speaking of confusing charts, do people still use stories as a measurement of altitude? i mean in the sense of a dogfight-only battle it makes kindof sense, but otherwise seems too... rulsy. i prefer just measuring altitude in inches, just like distance. and as for the "plus certain number of inches per story to range" thing, i just add the altitude above a target to range.

[King of Brix]

Interesting idea here... Impractical for me, because my idea of air-born fighting is catapulting a minifig at another similarly catapulted minifig, and having them duke it out with swords/guns/small mammals while plummeting to their amusing deaths. And like IVhorseman said, complicated...

[DarkWolf]

sounds confusing. alas i too have wished a good way for dogfighting though.

what about the equivalent of a heroic feat for a plane? basically, turning EVERYTHING into a "wild-ass stunt". Basically, treat it like a heroic feat. players agree before rolling what will happen in the case of what will happen upon success or failure. usually success would just be "miss the shot, plane is now facing [this] direction", while failure would be "you effing crash.", or the like. like heroic feats, massive improbability/winningness results in massive failure.

this way makes it both very easy to determine a winner, and dosen't require a whole chart of maneuvers and proper URs.

speaking of confusing charts, do people still use stories as a measurement of altitude? i mean in the sense of a dogfight-only battle it makes kindof sense, but otherwise seems too... rulsy. i prefer just measuring altitude in inches, just like distance. and as for the "plus certain number of inches per story to range" thing, i just add the altitude above a target to range.

You have a good point, but I was thinking of this as more of cards instead of a table, kind of what GamesWorkshop has done for the Apocalypse expansion to Warhammer 40K. And the reason I use the stories (six briks high) is because inches and stacked Legos just don't work togeather. Since you need to make a stand for the plane, you kinda need it. Besides, inches just opens up all sorts of hell for Anoraks to use against us.
But as for the number of maneuvers, well, those are the basics you see in any online dogfight (Star Wars Battlefront 2, Battlefield 2, Warhawk, Flight Simulator (insert year of your choice here) yada yada yada) Wild-ass stunt is for more interesting stuff, like say, urban enviroment, low overpass, pilot decides to fly under the bridge while rush hour is in full effect on the road below the bridge. Let's put that at UR 6. Pilot rolls a 6, blasts past, the shots chasing after him hit the vehicles he just flew over. But if he rolled, say, a 4, then he crashes into a oil tanker truck halfway under the bridge, causing a massive explosion that wipes out the bridge and half of the rush hour traffic.

[IVhorseman]

since when do standardized measurements lead to anoraks? i will admit though, that stories are probably a lot more effective than inches in battles that occur entirely in the sky. (you know, post apocalyptic airship battles, WWII dogfights and protoss carrier rush kekekekeke, as opposed to, say bombing and strafing runs).

actually, in the matches combining ground and air, does the altitude ever really matter? to me it's just one more thing to keep track of, and the less you have to think about leads to greater destruction.

uhhh back to the topic though. yeah, i play alot of those games too, but doing them usually involves just tapping B, B, -> to do a barrel roll as opposed to looking up the exact card and UR changes and everything for it. aerial feats cover everything from tiny barrel roll to directing guided missiles into their own targets, with scaling rewards and punishment, at a fraction of the work.

[DarkWolf]

Hm, true. That's why I post this stuff here, so it can be stripped down, blown up, rebuilt, blown up again, and then finally deemed usable by the public.

[Waltah]

DO A BARREL ROLL! DO A BARREL ROLL! DO A BARREL ROLL!

[IVhorseman]

Hm, true. That's why I post this stuff here, so it can be stripped down, blown up, rebuilt, blown up again, and then finally deemed usable by the public.

EXACTLY. jesus, it's amazing how confusing my first ideas for something are until it gets whittled down to something like "if this happens, this happens" and that's IT.

and i cannot do a barrel roll as my Z and R buttons are both broken.

[DarkWolf]

Hm, true. That's why I post this stuff here, so it can be stripped down, blown up, rebuilt, blown up again, and then finally deemed usable by the public.

EXACTLY. jesus, it's amazing how confusing my first ideas for something are until it gets whittled down to something like "if this happens, this happens" and that's IT.

and i cannot do a barrel roll as my Z and R buttons are both broken.

Buy a joystick with all those giftcards you got for Saturnalia. That's what I did, (well, I got the joystick two years ago) and now I'm one of the top five international dogfighters on Star Wars Battlefront 2, and one of the top twenty in Battlefield 2 (not on official ladders, but I've gone head-to-head with the leaders on both ladders and either held my own or completely decimated them. And not just once, but several times each)

[Waltah]

Simplicity is far better, because that way people will want to use the rules. Its no good if they're just like: dice? rolling? more than once? let's play starcraft instead! That's also why no one ever grapples. anyway, about flight combat rules: I usually just fight about it when it comes up. so far, having a standardized system hasn't been an issue, as we mostly do ground level big fights. However, when it occurs we use a system essentialy what IVhorseman suggested.

[IVhorseman]

did battlefront 2 have all that much dogfighting strategy in it? i play it (not online), but even against my good friends i usually end up grabbing the fastest thing and the marine class and going to town.

[Waltah]

I don't remember anything like that, but then i haven't done enough battlefront lately.

[DarkWolf]

Well, from the sounds of things, you weren't dogfighting, you were boarding the enemy ship. And yes, some of the dogfights I've been in have been about a brutal as the Battle for Britian (the final mass raid where the Brit's had no planes in reserve, everything was airborne shooting down Piltogg's) and trust me, it's been a living hell trying to blow the transports out of the air, keep the bombers off of the critical systems, and avoid getting shot down all at the same time. Seriously, play online sometime, I promise you it won't be pretty if you find a big dogfighting server. It'll be even less pretty if I manage to get my idiot friend and my friend in the Navy to get their butts on so we can do our squad thing (In all honesty, just me and the Navy guy were the single best dogfighting pair in the entire game, period. I'm not bragging, I'm dead serious)

[IVhorseman]

i tried playing online once. first i ended up just getting my ass handed to me in regular battles, and nobody wanted to dogfight. then my internet died, so i said forget it.

[DarkWolf]

The answer: practice. alot. Same thing happened to me. My first month, my average Kill/Death ratio was 0.23. Now, over a year later, it's about 5.69. Dogfighting is hard to find opponates for, mostly because the majority of the community can't fly to save their lives, so they grab the landing craft and board like crazy. They're lucky to reach my hanger if I spot the landing craft.