BRIKWARS FANS
August 2nd, 2003 - GameLUG goes to Gencon

GameLUG has returned from a successful tour at Gencon, hosting games of BrikWars, Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, and Pirate Wars.

image: Pirates recognize the supremacy of booty in the list of life priorities.

	James Seibert's BrikWars "Ice Station Zero" photos
	James Seibert's Evil Stevie's Pirate Game photos
	James Seibert's Dread Stephen's Pirate Wars photos

Lots and lots of battle reports to add today from a variety of sources - the first being a remarkable NELUG game, which is especially noteworthy for not having included Shaun as a participant.  Mythic armies, cunning wizards, horrifying monsters, and Trogdor all vied for control of the ancient and powerful Sword of Agot.

Pictures from NELUG's Superheroes game in January are also up, although we've yet to see a write-up or hear any details about this mysterious battle.

image: A fleet composed of dozens of breeds of dragons joins together in brotherhood and racial harmony to advance their mutual goal of benevolent genocide against all humans.

	Joe Comeau's illustrated write-up for The Sword of Agot
	Joe Comeau's Superheroes site
	Joe Comeau's photo gallery for the Superheroes game
	more NELUG games on the BrikWars Fans page

Next up, three reports from the ISS Glacier, in an ongoing saga of Ice Planet rebels vs. the evil Spyrius Empire.  A simple abduction of a major political figure turns into a bloodbath as four opposing forces try to take violent advantage of the situation and end up disrupting the space-time continuum.

image: in a scene strangely reminiscent of college dorm life, desperate men attempt to claw their way through narrow and winding corridors choked with debris and piles of bloody dismembered corpse-chunks.

	Uj's illustrated write-up for The Battle of ISS Glacier
	Uj's illustrated write-up for The ISS Glacier Strikes Back
	Uj's illustrated write-up for The Return of the Crystals

Third, we have Markham Carroll's report on the Battle for Stupid Hill.  This is about what it sounds like, a battle tossed together with the most random elements available, with cowboys and chefs going up against battlemechs and fortified bases.

image: clearly recognizing the true masters of their fate, these minifigs bow down in worship towards a tower of dice.

Markham Carroll's illustrated write-up

BRIKWARS NEWS
May 18th, 2003 - Web Resources Updated

Lots of shiny new links on our Bricks on the Web page, along with minor graphical updates throughout the site.

Bricks on the Web

BRIKWARS NEWS
May 12th, 2003 - Updates to Supernatural Powers Supplement

After a good deal of discussion, it's been concluded that the 2001 SP Supplement needed some further balancing.  So we've made the following changes:

1. All Supernatural Effects now require a Skill Roll against the number of SP being used.  Skill Rolls that fail cause a Fizzle, Misfire, or Fumble according to the rules in the new Section SP.1.3: When Supernatural Effects Fail.

2. Influence Thought effects (SP.2.10: Influence Thought) are now costed differently.  +1SP buys +1d6 Influence, and victims now resist Influence with multiples to Skill rather than straight bonuses.

Supernatural Powers Supplement 2001

BRIKWARS NEWS
May 11th, 2003 - New Brick Gaming Forums

Brick gaming has gotten a lot easier to talk about lately, it seems, with a handful of newsgroups opening up to support the growing community.  Lugnet.fun.gaming has graduated to Lugnet.gaming, with separate subgroups for BrikWars and the rapidly expanding Starship RPG.

Meanwhile, Ståle Tevik has started a Yahoo!® Group for discussion of all kinds of LEGO® Warfare, for anyone uncomfortable with the restrictions of Lugnet discussions.  It's hard to say yet how this group will evolve; now's your chance to get in on the ground floor.

	Lugnet's Gaming newsgroup
	Lugnet's BrikWars newsgroup
	Lugnet's Starship RPG newsgroup
	Ståle Tevik's LEGO Warfare Yahoo! Group

Marc Bruyere's VLC battle reports are back online with two new battle reports.  As always, the latest chapters in the VLC's ongoing campaigns of mutual destruction feature a cast of varied and unlikely characters; consider the following from the "North vs. South" write-up:

"Dean's APC team continued its attack on the A-Team Van, launching its missiles and firing its blasters, but nothing seemed to be able to stop the van. "I pity the fool!" could be heard everytime a hit was registered."

What further endorsement could I give?

image: This tank proved to be no match for a kamikaze owl.

	VLC Minifig Death Reports
	Marc Bruyere's "North vs. South" illustrated write-up
	Marc Bruyere's "Capture the Flag" illustrated write-up
	more VLC games on the BrikWars Fans page

BRIKWARS NEWS
March 17th, 2003 - Back From Billund

I'm finally home from Billund, but still hard at work - it's hard to take time off when they drive huge dump trucks full of money right to your house. There's been a lot going on while I was away!  Most notably, GLUG, the Gaming Lego Users' Group, was formed in the beginning of March by James Brown and Chris Weeks.  Originally inspired by the need for an official group name to run LEGO-themed events at GenCon '03, it looks like GLUG is expanding its mandate to include all aspects of LEGO gaming. This could be a real godsend, let's hope it takes off.

And speaking of LEGO-themed events at GenCon, it looks like there's going to be a whole track of them.  From Chris Weeks in lugnet.fun.gaming:

"The inaugural meeting of GLUG will take place in Indianapolis, Indiana from 24-27 July, 2003 at Gen Con. This year's Gen Con will see the first ever track of LEGO-related games which will include at least: Brik Wars, Evil Stevie's Pirate Game, LEGO Wars: The Short Version, and Mechaton. Details of the events are still being crafted (and we'd love to have more)."

	Chris Weeks' announcement of the debut of GLUG and the track of games at GenCon '03
	The GLUG newsgroup on LUGNET™
	GenCon 2003

BRIKWARS NEWS
February 8th, 2003 - Routine Delays

A couple people have been complaining that I've been slow to update the site and answer e-mails lately.  My first excuse is that I got picked up for an awesome new job in December and I've been spending every free minute on it.  I'd say more about it here but the company is one who would quite expressly not like to be associated with BrikWars in any way.

So my new employers, who shall remain anonymous, are flying me out to the corporate headquarters in Billund, Denmark for the rest of the month.  Apologies to everyone who was hoping to meet up with me at BricksWest 2003!

As it stands, I won't be back in the States until March at the earliest, so you can expect everything to be pretty static around here for awhile - I won't be able to do any significant updates from Europe. Fortunately the 2001 Rules have held up real well; we don't expect to have to make any big changes rules-wise for the next year or two.  Our plans for the meantime are to finish the updates to the website, assemble the HTML version of the 2001 rules, and start pumping out some supplements we've been developing in the background for the last couple of years.

My second excuse, if you're still curious, is that all my web-dev time has been going into my brand new site at mikerayhawk.com.  If any of you have been curious about how I make the money to support the BrikWars habit, you can take a quick look through my freelance-illustration portfolio over there.

MikeRayhawk.com