INTRODUCTION Chapter Zero: Introduction --------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.1 A Brief Introduction ------------------------ This game is the product of many hours of playing with plastic building bricks. As such, it is designed to be pretty building-intensive. We can't force you to build space fighters and fortresses and catapults and pirate ships, and if you just want to gather a couple dozen minifigs and send them out on an empty battlefield to butcher each other with their bare hands, the rules will support it. If you do so, you will be missing the point completely, and real BrikWars players (and PBB maniacs in general) will be disgusted and refuse to have anything to do with you. You should hang your head in shame and give your PBB's to someone more deserving. Don't feel bad; you can find plenty of other wargames out there that are more your style. Checkers, for instance. The rest of you (dear friends!) have the correct priorities. You came here because you've already built your giant robots and your castles and your assault helicopters and you want to test them in battle. To you, the threat of war is nothing more than a continuing excuse to build a bunch of really cool stuff. In order to prove your PBB superiority, you're willing to risk having your most prized constructions blown to smithereens. You are true PBB maniacs, and we salute you. It's only going to take a very cursory inspection for you to notice that there are an awful lot of rules in this manual - you may feel that this runs contrary to the spirit of playing with PBB's. Well, don't worry, we heartily encourage you to ignore ninety-nine percent of the rules ninety-nine percent of the time. The BrikWars rules are designed to be as fast and straightforward as you want them to be, whether you're the most anal-retentive nitpicker or the flakiest most free-spirited flower child. The large majority of the rules are included only to solve arguments; only one rule is absolute: fudge everything your opponents will let you get away with. For example, if you have a minifig throw a baseball to another minifig, you could go as far as to calculate all the modifiers for range, movement of target, movement of thrower, etc., and make success rolls against the skills of the thrower and the catcher, but why bother? Unless your opponents raise some objection, just toss the ball from one minifig to the other and move on to something more important. If you have an argument over something we haven't made a rule for, make up a new rule yourself and roll some dice. If you come up with some new rules you're especially proud of, be sure and tell us about them and we'll be glad to steal your ideas. BrikWars is designed to accommodate many levels of depth. The rules are divided into a series of 'books,' each book adding a new layer of depth and complexity. While BrikWars, in its characteristic freewheeling style, encourages you to change, ignore, and make up rules however you like, it can be a lot of work to wade through pages and pages of information, deciding exactly which rules to keep and which to toss. The book divisions make it very easy: each book represents an incremental jump in complexity, so by choosing a depth level, you can find your comfort zone very quickly. The first book, Skirmish (Chapters One and Two), introduces you to basic combat and the basic selection of infantry weapons and equipment. This gives you enough room to set up a landscape and toss a few squads of Troops at each other. The second book, Battle (Chapters Three through Seven), gives rules to let the Troops interact more fully with their environment. It also includes guidelines for vehicles and buildings, and the siege weapons you can use to arm them. The third book, War (Chapters Eight and Nine), gives guidelines for including many types of specialized combatants besides the generic Troop. The fourth book, Conquest (Chapter Ten), introduces sample Civilizations. Each Civilization brings distinct abilities, restrictions, and philosophies to the battlefield. This opens possibilities for some great scenarios. This is probably as far as any reasonable person would want to take the BrikWars system. The fifth book, Campaign (Chapter Eleven), gives some ideas for running campaigns with continuing characters and plotlines, for those of you who want to get some role-playing in. 0.2 Some Assembly Required -------------------------- Unfortunately, you will need more than just this rulebook to play BrikWars. Fortunately, everything else you do need is something you ought to have anyway. If you don't have some of these things, go out and get them. The Things You Will Need List Dice - You will need some dice. Specifically, d6's, d10's, and d20's. Some of the units in Chapter Eight will also require some d4's, d8's, and d12's. If you are any kind of a wargamer, you will have no problem coming up with these. If you are a normal human being, you only have d6's. We should have made everything d6-compatible, but we didn't, and now you're just going to have to find some way to deal with it. (If you are confused by 'd6': In BrikWars, as in most wargames and role-playing games, dice are referred to by their number of sides. 'd6' refers to a normal cube-shaped six-sided die. 3d6 means roll three six-sided dice; 3d6+4 means roll three six- sided dice and add four to the result. You get the picture.) Paper and Pencils - We've done everything we could to make BrikWars a 'paperless' wargame, but these are still handy to have around if you need to do some quick math, pass secret notes, or draw mean pictures of the opposing general. A Table - or some other playing surface, like a floor. If you play on a table, don't use more soldiers than you're willing to stand back up every time somebody bumps the table. If you play on the floor, remember that shag carpeting is not the best surface on which to play BrikWars. If you don't have a table or a floor, you can build one out of plastic bricks. Terrain - Terrain provides cover and scenery for the battle. Sometimes you'll want to build this out of plastic bricks, because it makes it a lot easier for your minifigs to stand up. But seriously, you're always going to want more room than you can conveniently build with plastic bricks. Fortunately, you can use almost anything for terrain. A pile of books makes a good mountain, a blue sheet makes a good ocean, a bookshelf makes a great bombed-out skyscraper, and your dog makes a good 30-story Dogzilla monster. Set up pockets of PBB forests and PBB buildings and you're good to go. Charts - Depending on how complex a battle you're staging, and how long you've been playing BrikWars, you may have memorized all the statistics you'll need. Even then, to settle arguments, you'll want the charts printed out in hardcopy somewhere handy. A Measuring Device - You can measure distance by counting dots on the plastic bricks. In general, three dots is about one inch. When you're checking to see if an enemy soldier is within range of your ICBM, it can get tedious counting all those dots - see if you can't get a tape measure out of your sewing kit, or a string marked off in inches. It's much better to have a flexible measuring device that you can bend around obstacles than, for instance, a wooden ruler. Another Player - You will need at least one opponent, unless you are really bored and want to play by yourself. If you do not have another player, you can construct one out of plastic bricks. Some Free Time - You should not play this game at work because you are supposed to be working. Plastic Bricks - Somehow we forgot to mention this in previous editions of the rulebook, and it seems that some of the less imaginative readers may have gotten confused. The truth is, it's very difficult to play BrikWars without some kind of plastic bricks. If your supply of plastic bricks is limited, you can supplement them with soldiers, vehicles, and bases built out of paper, cardboard, clay, or any number of other materials. You can even use non-constructible units like green army men. However, none of these work quite as well as a really good set of plastic bricks. 0.3 A BrikWars Glossary ----------------------- 0.3.1 PBB Terms If you have been playing with plastic bricks for awhile, you know what a pain it can be sometimes to try and describe a specific piece to someone else. You've probably made up all kinds of weird names for different kinds of pieces. To avoid confusion later, we'll define some of the ones we'll be using throughout the rulebook: PBB or Plastic Building Brick - a name for any kind of piece. We have to use this term to avoid using the copyrighted name of any specific company's plastic building brick; we wouldn't want to make the lawyers angry. Minifig - a minifig is one of those little people with the yellow, smiling faces. Don't let their small size and cheery disposition fool you - they'll cut your heart out and eat it if you let them. Dot - A dot (some people call them 'pegs' or 'studs') is one of those little circular studs on top of most bricks. A minifig has one dot on the top of his head. Dots are often used to measure horizontal distance in BrikWars. Three dots are approximately equal to one inch. Brik - A Brik is the fundamental plastic building brick. Any rectangular PBB of 'normal' height (the majority of PBB's are all this uniform height) is a Brik. Brix are often used to measure vertical distance in BrikWars. A Brik is equal to three eighths of an inch in height. Blok - A Blok is the classic 2x4 Brik. Because it is the most stereotypical PBB, it is used as the standard for weight measurement. One Blok weighs as much as an average minifig. Blox are often dragged around the battlefield to create staircases and walls. They are also useful to lob from catapults and drop from great heights on enemy encampments. Cylinder - A cylinder is like a one-dot Brik except that it's round. Antenna - An antenna is four Brix high, and consists of a long pole with a one-dot base. The pole can be gripped by minifigs, and the base can be stuck to things. 0.3.2 Game Terms Many of these terms will be explained again (in greater length and specificity) in the chapters in which they appear, so don't worry too much about memorizing any of them right off the bat. Turn - A period of time in which one player moves all his units and resolves all his attacks. (1.2: Game Cycle) Round - A period of time in which all players in the game have each completed one turn. (1.2: Game Cycle) Inch - Although most of the distances in this rulebook are written in inches, any other standard unit of measurement will do. You may choose to convert the numbers in inches to some number of centimeters (three being the usual number, although any number will do). You might decide that the distance between the tips of your thumb and forefinger is six inches, and make estimates based on that measuring tool (thus giving the advantage to players with bigger hands). You can even change the length of your inches depending on the gravity of whatever planet you're from - things go farther in low gravity. Unit - Any person, machine, or installation that has the power to perform actions in the game. A soldier, a robotic tank, a computer-controlled machine gun emplacement, and a monkey are all units. A tree, a coffee mug, an assault rifle, and a dismembered corpse are not units. Skill - The number of dice in a unit's Skill rating determines the chances of success in any endeavor the unit is able to attempt. Non-trivial actions are given a Difficulty number or a Usage Rating (UR), and a unit must roll this number or higher on his Skill dice, or suffer ignominious failure. This roll is called a Skill Roll. Different situations or considerations might add bonuses or subtract penalties from the unit's Skill in a given attempt; these bonuses or penalties are called Skill Modifiers. The Skill Roll that you make when attacking an opponent can also be called an Attack Roll. Armor (or AV for Armor Value) - This number, often a number of dice, tells how much damage a unit can take before being injured or destroyed. Every attack causes a certain number of dice of Damage. When struck by an attack, if the defending unit's Armor Roll is as much or higher than the attacking unit's Damage Roll, then the defending unit suffers no harm. Move - This number describes the maximum number of inches a unit can travel in a single turn. Certain kinds of actions decrease the number of inches a unit can travel in the turn they are performed, and a unit's Move might be impaired by encumbrance from carrying heavy or clumsy objects. Any effect that decreases a unit's Move, whether for a single turn or on a continuing basis, is called a Movement Penalty (-MP"). Cost (or CP) - Every unit, object, ability, or advantage in BrikWars is assigned a point cost, measured in Construction Points or CPs. By comparing CP values, you can see the relative value of different types and groups of units. (1.3: The Trooper) Critical Roll - Any time a player makes a Skill Roll, an Armor Roll, or a Damage Roll, if all the dice end up on a one then the roll is an Automatic Failure. If all dice end up on their highest-numbered face (all sixes when rolling d6es, all tens when rolling d10s), then the roll is an Automatic Success. These are called Critical Rolls. (1.4: Basic Combat) TekLevel (TL) - TekLevel is a number that refers to an army's technological sophistication. An army can effectively use equipment and weapons from its own TekLevel or earlier at no penalty. One TekLevel higher and they can use the equipment at a -2 Skill Penalty. Anything more high-tech than that is useless to them. TekLevels in BrikWars are as follows: TL0: CaveMen (Cave Men) TL4: ModernMen (World War II, TL1: TribalMen (Islanders, S.W.A.T., Native Americans) Desert Storm) TL2: IronAgeMen (Romans, Greeks) TL5: SpaceMen (Space Opera) MedievalMen (Castles, Ninjas) TL6: StarMen (Star Fleets, TL3: RenaissanceMen (Pirates) Battle Mechs) ColonialMen (Civil War) TL7: InterdimensionalMen (Time Travel) NearMiss - An attack that misses its target tends to strike in the neighborhood of the missed target. NearMiss calculations are used to determine where a missed attack hits. (3.1.1: NearMiss Rules) Explosion Damage - Any damage roll measured in d10s or d20s causes Explosion Damage. Explosions damage everything within their blast radius, and tend to set things on fire. (3.3.2: Explosions) Burn Level - When an object is on fire, the Burn Level tells exactly how hot the fire is burning. You can tell that an object is on fire because fire-colored Brix will be piled all around it. Normal objects can have a Burn Level of 1d6 (yellow flames), 2d6 (yellow and red), or 3d6 (yellow, white, and red). Different types of fuel can burn even hotter, at 4d6 (white), 5d6 (white and blue), and 6d6 (blue). (3.3.5: Fire!) Story - A Story is a measure of height equal to six Brix (or 2 and 2/8 inches), and is used to measure larger vertical distances like the altitude of planes, the height of buildings, and the length of a drop when your minifig falls off of a cliff. Blok-Inch (or b") - The unit of torque in BrikWars. One Blok-Inch is the amount of force required to accelerate an object weighing one Blok by one inch per turn, per round. (3.6.2: Moving Objects Around) Power - The measure of a unit's strength. One point of Power is equal to five Blok-Inches (5b") of torque. All minifigs, except where otherwise noted, have 1 point of Power. Siege Weapons - Weapons that are too big to be troop-portable, Siege Weapons are designed to be mounted on vehicles or buildings, in order to blow up other vehicles and buildings. (Chapter Six: Siege Weapons) Civilization - Most armies in BrikWars are fielded by Civilizations that are fairly generic. Some Civilizations have a lot more flavor, with specific attitudes, strategies, and technological advantages and disadvantages. (Chapter Nine: Civilizations) Character - Most units in BrikWars are of a certain generic type. A Character is a unit with personality, with unique stats and abilities, who would be able to advance and improve over the course of several battles if it weren't for the fact that the mortality rate in BrikWars is extremely unforgiving. (Chapter Ten: Campaigning) 0.3.3 Some Notes About Points and Pips In later chapters, you will sometimes be given the option to buy 'points' of certain unit properties, for instance Armor Value, Damage, or Skill. Sometimes these properties will not be measured by a simple integer, but will also include a number of dice. If you want to know how many 'points' a die is worth, divide the number of faces on the die by two and add 1/2. This will give you the average roll on that die. For instance, 1d6 is worth 31/2 points, 1d10 is worth 51/2 points, 1d20 is worth 101/2 points, and 1d3 is worth 2 points. Example: Suppose you are buying Armor for a MedievalTrooper at a rate of 1 CP (Construction Point) per point of Armor. If you want to add 1d6 of Armor, it would cost you 4 CP (31/2 points of Armor, rounded up). If you bought another 1d6 of Armor later in the game, it would cost you another 4 CP. However, if you buy both at the same time, 2d6 of Armor costs you only 7 CP (31/2 + 31/2 = 7, no need to round up). In order to avoid having to write things down, you should make a habit of using 'Pips' to keep track of things as often as possible. We use 1x1 Brix for Pips, since we have a lot of them in every color, and they're easy to stack next to affected objects. However, you can use anything you feel is appropriate. Some of the Pip colors we use include: - Blue Pips stacked next to a Flyer to indicate its altitude in Stories - Red Pips stacked next to building walls that have suffered Permanent Damage, or a single red Pip on a Vehicle or Building component that has suffered 50% damage - A black Pip on a Vehicle or Building component that has been disabled, or two black Pips on a component that has been destroyed - White Pips to indicate time limits, such as a bomb that will go off or a spell effect that will run out in a certain number of turns - Grey Pips next to a unit that has been Stunned, to indicate Stun Points - Sometimes when we're too lazy to deal with all the different colors of fire, we use yellow Pips to indicate Burn Level