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Mors Rattus posted:The lands of Ghur are full of amber and ochre tints, often marked by the blood of predator and prey. Draconic monsters, giant insects, horrible parasitic worms - pretty much all animal life in Ghur has evolved to hunt each other in some way. Meat is more common than any other food, but there's few places of safety, even inside city walls. Even the plants tend to be carnivorous, and many predators have learned to blend with the landscape. Not that the land itself is much safer - the rivers tear into the rocks, the mountains try to crush the forests, the canyons shift and move to funnel travelers to dangerous locations. Even the landmasses of Ghur hunger, and the indigenous civilizations hold that Ghur's land is alive, slow-moving but ever hungry, and that the continents are slowly shifting to try and consume each other. They are correct. This belief is especially strong among the Bonesplitterz, who believe that each continent actually has a skeleton, and that within the continental bones, the rawest and most primal Amber magic waits to be tapped. I enjoy how much AoS is leaning into 'no, none of this is normal reality, everything's full of weird magic' aspect - but I can't tell if there's any like, plot hook/system suggestions for how to keep up with descriptions like this. Is there a good body of examples of how players could interact with predatory landscapes? Or is it more meant to be 'in the background there's a mountain gnawing on a forest, you can hear its teeth grinding when everything's quiet'? The concern is mostly that it's one of those high concepts that I really like, but would love to see have a support structure (either a good body of examples to pull from or a general conceptual description of what kind of mechanics should result from this). Not that most games do that, to be clear, but it would be nice for AoS to recognize a need for it.
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Oct 1, 2021 02:55
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In game terms, Soulbound has a short pdf on terrain hazards and features which could be used for it. A predatory mountain would be a useful set piece for, say, occasional rockslides through a battle or triggering a sudden chasm opening to create a new zone by finding a way to trigger the mountain attacking. You can see in the event timeline that Gordrakk makes use of a predator chasm to help trap a godbeast. E: In the wargame, the predatory landscape comes into play by letting one of the players remove an objective marker halfway through a game set in Ghur because the battlefield eats it.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:08
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Back in 2e Ghur's primary unique feature was wondering monsters that could attack either side. I also assume Ghur will get more stuff in Soulbound when Era of the Beast comes. As it seems like it's going to go over Ghur like the Core book went over the Aqshy. I assume it will come with a fancier version of this map which contains most of the locations and landmarks mentioned in Mors read through.  I was also a fan of how Broken Realms Kragnos showed the path Kragnos and the Waaghs! took to Excelsis. 
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Oct 1, 2021 04:27
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 II. The Alice This is going to be real short, because it’s a class! For LotFP! It’s bad, in obvious ways that make you wonder why anybody would play this! So the Alice is y’know, Alice. The One who’s in Wonderland. A lot of this won’t make sense unless you’re familiar with B/X D&D terminology so I’ll condense and try to explain. Let’s hit the highlights of the boring stuff first: Race: Human or Halfling only, this a Race-As-Class if you go with that methodology. Stats: Has the HP of a Magic-User, the attacks of a Thief, Is half as good at Thief at doing any thiefy things however your system of choice handles that. Saves are one worse than a Thief. This all means that the Alice as base is a lovely Thief (an already famously awful class in B/X D&D) who dies like a Magic-User (who already are a famously squishy class in… you get the idea). They have one special class feature, Exasperation! Once every REAL TIME GAME HOUR the Alice can trigger this by expressing their exasperation with the current situation and then a Thing Happens. What thing? Roll on a random chart!  So, let’s see… One is of questionable use. 2 and 3 are basically useless. 4 is maybe useful? Five depends entirely on being in combat honestly. Six is… also situational, and worthless when inside. Like a dungeon. Or a building. Seven through twelve are actually useful! But less useful than just being a regular rear end Magic-User with Actual loving Spells. These are awful on their own, but the fact they’re random makes it pointless. You can’t use these proactively and just gotta hope whatever happens can actually help. That’s not the worst part of the Alice though: the worst part is they level Randomly. When you level up instead of regular progression, you roll on a big rear end d100 table and see what you get. 20% of the time you get a +1 to a save. 50% of the time, you get skill increases… equal to half what a Thief would per level. So 70% of the time you get a bonus save or Worse Thief Abilities. The other 30% are split into various overly complex and weird bonuses. They all scale up with repeat acquisition, but most are only 1% chance to get. Here’s a sampling! -Every round you watch a target while doing nothing else including not being attacked, you get a +d4 to hit. When you do an attack damage is multiplied by 2. This is for a single attack. This is once per fight, and only works on living things with organs.This is a 1% chance to get this. -Add your level to any attempt to find… Food. -You can trip an enemy once per fight. -+2 to recognize aristocrats. - You get to pick a magic item or other reward: The GM now has to let you try to get it within the next 4 sessions. At least you can re-roll if you give up, but still just “Give me an adventure” as a class feature! -You get up to 5000 money worth of mundane objects willed to you. You choose by just saying Stuff for ten seconds in real time. -+1 reaction and charisma checks when dealing with non magical ordinary animals. - You’re immune to insanity and confusion, whatever that means. Yep that’s it. Moving on!
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Oct 1, 2021 04:38
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Age of Sigmar: Orruk Warclans One Mean Son of a Gun Few realize how widespread the Kruleboyz actually are, mostly because their conquests have been relatively subtle for orruks and their homes are generally in places no one else actually wants. They have held back their inborn aggression in preparation from a coming Waaagh!, and they feel that time is almost here. Few things make them happy as much as making the shiny and beautiful things of the world dirty and muck-covered, taking down the mighty and arrogant, and destroying grand things to prove their creators aren't so hot. It hasn't been long since the Dawnrbinger Crusades started, but the city-building forces have learned to fear the Kruleboyz more than any other orruk, because the Kruleboyz excel at taking prisoners. Other orruk cultures tend to focus on just killing everyone as fast as they can, but the Kruleboyz far prefer keeping enemies alive to show off their strength and ability. They've also made something of a hobby of tormenting their prisoners, either for entertainment or to gain useful information. For the former, they often take captives out to the unexplored parts of their swamps and use them to identify dangerous quicksand or spots full of killing gas, laughing at them as they flail about in the muck. Others are herded through spider-infested woods to help identify safe passages or used as bait to distract predators. Some are traded to the Kruleboyz' hobgrot friends, who sell them off to the Hashut-worshipping Chaos duardin in return for good iron and other supplies. The orruks don't really care what happens to the captives, though they do know the duardin seem to kill them pretty quickly and always want more. The Kruleboyz are not invincible - they, like any force, are quite capable of losing battles. For all their cunning, sometimes they simply run into a foe that's too strong. They've learned that it's usually a fool's errand to try frontal assault on a Stormcast fortress or a marching Lumineth column. They have, until recently, gritted their teeth and left these foes alone - while they love a fight, they decided not to pursue fights they couldn't win. In the Age of Chaos they'd learned that attacking Chaos dreadholds was often sure death - better to meet those forces in the field, where a proper scrap could happen. Likewise, they've made a point of avoiding Ossiarch strongholds and Free Cities - the walls and artillery made them not worth going after. No proper fights. Recently, however, the orruks have found two solutions. They call the first 'da waitin' game,' and it mostly means lurking in the shadows until a new city becomes prosperous enough to start sending out caravans to start new villages and towns. These Dawnbringer Crusades are the perfect targets, easy picking for raids that would otherwise never get past their walls either while traveling or while still setting up their defenses. After all, no matter how well made the pre-constructed fortifications the Dawnbringers use are, there's always a period of vulnerability while the travelers are tired from their journeys and transitioning to new tasks. That's when the orruks strike, usually under cover of darkness or magically conjured fog, and massacre the settlers. Then, they drag off the bodies and anything that seems valuable, drawing out forces to investigate the disappearances and facing them in the field. The second solution is an idea they came upon based on the methods of Ghurish scavengers. They find some other, bigger enemy of the fortress they want to crack and start ingratiating themselves to that force, pretending to be subservient to them until their presence is simply taken for granted. Then, they get their new friend to crack open the outer defenses of their target and head in after, fighting the juicy forces contained within. This is the primary tactic favored by those Kruleboyz who have taken up with Kragnos. Thousands of Kruleboyz have flocked to his banner, relying on his overwhelming force to distract their foes and break open the hard walls so they can cunningly ambush and entrap the rest. Unlike the Ironjawz, the Kruleboyz prefer to target their foes at their weak points, tipping the odds in their favor wherever possible, because for them, a battle is as much about mind versus mind as force versus force. At this point, mind, the alliance of convenience with Kragnos has changed - Gobsprakk has been spreading the faith of Kragnos as a true god of destruction, second only to Gorkamorka, and quite a few Kruleboyz have begun actually worshipping the Earthquake God openly, making shields in what they assume is his likeness. Kruleboyz warclans are led not just by a Killaboss but also by a number of Swampcallas, shamanic geomancers who serve as advisors to the Killaboss and who draw out the power of the land. They aren't caretakers of nature or tamers of it by any means, but rather prefer to weaponize nature, turning solid ground into a goopy, oozing mass of sludge and swarmp that no other peoples like to live in. Where they go, the land melts into muck and sucks at the feet of their foes, slowing them and infecting their wounds. The most powerful Swampcallas can make the land so angry that it becomes thick with fluid, stopping movement entirely and filling the air with killing fog that seeks out the lungs of enemies or draws out their vomit. The Killabosses and Swampcallas command the individual tribes of Kruleboyz, and most warclans contain a number of different archetypal tribes within their shared traditions. Badstabbaz tribes are the plurality of Kruleboyz tribes, serving as the main infantry forces who hold the enemy in place when the fights start. Despite holding a relatively unglamorous position, the Badstabbaz are usually holders of at least moderate rank, producing many Murknobz and Killabosses to serve as military leaders for the warclans and folk heroes of the Kruleboyz as a whole. The majority of the tribe are, however, simple infantry - Gutrippaz, in the dialect of the Kruleboyz. The Gutrippaz often think of themselves as the most orruky and traditional of their kind, because they may lack the more technical weapons of other Kruleboyz but are unafraid to get up in faces and pick a fight. Despite this, most would quickly swap to fancier, longer-ranged gear if they could - they envy the prestige of the archery-focused Deffspikerz tribes that control the killbows and man-skewers. Gitsnatchaz tribes, meanwhile, are focused on ingenuity and creativity over either tough fighting like the Badstabbaz or skilled shooting like the Deffspikerz. They aren't smiths like their Hashut-worshipping business partners, either. Instead, they are specialized in the care and clever use of prisoners as weapons and alchemical materials. They are the meanest, nastiest and most vicious of the Kruleboyz - which says something. Those prisoners left in their tender care rarely last more than a few weeks at most - and the lucky ones only a few days. They make these deaths count for as much as they can in various purposes to aid the warclan - tracking safe routes, finding danger areas, trapping beasts. Once their victims die, they quickly carve up the bodies for useful materials to feed the warclan's pets (and, often, the warriors themselves), fuel their rituals, string their bows and so on. Whatever bits the Gitsnatchaz can't figure out are left to the Beast-Breakaz tribes. These orruks are monster tamers, specialists in handling, taming and breaking the many beasts of the swamps and bogs. They excel both at keeping their beloved pets docile between battles and riling them up to a killing frenzy just before they head out. The Beast-Breakaz are always the smallest tribe in the warclan, but also one of the most respected. Their monstrous charges have often been the key to cracking open enemy forces that refused to respond to scare tactics, taunts or clever traps. While most grots integrate easily into one of the tribes, the Hobgrots usually stand separate from the Kruleboy tribes. They see themselves not as members but as employees, forming their own tribes for survival rather than trusting the orruks. They keep themselves safe from bullying by understanding unity - to target one hobgrot draws the wrath of all of them. Thus, while a bored Kruleboy might decide to torment the local pot-grot, they're likely to ignore the hobgrots so as not to end up starting a small war. Unless they have no other targets around, anyway. The hobgrots serve as the mercantile class for the warclans, bartering, hustling and conning their way to power. They have proven key to many useful deals - alliance with gargants and Moonclan grots, in some cases, and in others, trade deals with the Hashut-worshippers. The Chaos duardin refuse to deal directly with the Kruleboyz ever since the Wars of Broken Promise, so they have to rely on the hobgrots as intermediaries, trading captives and monsters for weapons, armor and explosives. The hobgrots tend to keep the best of these for themselves - or what they see as the best, the slitta-knives and bangstikks. They often brag about the skill required to make these weapons, though in truth most are the worst pieces of Chaos duardin craftsmanship and unfit for use by proper warriors in the eyes of their makers. A fair trade, really, since the Kruleboyz only trade the most sickly and wounded of their prisoners for them. Each side believes it's hoodwinking the other in their surprisingly robust alliance.  The Grinnin' Blades are the largest and most vicious of the major Kruleboy warclans. They hail from the eastern swamps of the Ghurish Heartlands, having spent many centuries watching their more civilized neighbors for weakness. Any who invaded their lands were misdirected by cunning tricks, captured or killed. The Swampcallas of the Blades are famous for their prophetic ability, reading the future in the swirling smoke of their alchemical creations with a mix of Waaagh! magic and geomantic knowledge. (They also make frequent use of stolen glimmerings from Excelsis, robbed or bartered from caravans along the Coast of Tusks.) These seers have long foreseen a time when the forces of Destruction would emerge at the top of existence, overwhelming even the Necroquake in their more recent visions. With the emergence of Kragnos, they have decided this is that time. In battle, the Grinnin' Blades turn the environment itself into their weapon. They are masters of ambush and stealth, having spread far further into so-called "civilized" lands than even the most intimidating Ironjawz by taking advantage of bog spread, weaknesses of terrain and conjured weather. Fog, miasma and darkness flow at the command of their shamans, and it's said that if they didn't use bright red shields, cloth coverings and warpaint, they'd be invisible. (Their red is chosen to resemble blood, to strike fear in foes.) They hide these colors under the fog and the shadows of hillsides as they advance, getting as close to the enemy as possible before striking. Their coming is heralded by thin miists, which grow thicker over time until it becomes a strong, bitter smog that burns the throats of enemies. Often, the fog is laced with psychoactive smoke formed by burning various alchemically active plants and animal chemicals, such as squigbite ferns or slicknewt secretions. These drugs cause vivid paranoid hallucinations in non-greenskins in even the smallest quantity, which enhances the scare tactics the Kruleboyz favor. The use of scare-mist was first pioneered by Borgukk da Sly, a Killaboss of renown with a powerful Great Gnashtoof named Da Pale Deff, who was said to be able to step from the shadows of those who gossiped behind his back, beating them down for their temerity. His rule came to an end when the shaman Gobsprakk appeared in his lands. Borgukk recognized the power of Mork in Gobsprakk and immediately knelt to serve him rather than challenge him for leadership when Gobsprakk began to act as if he was in charge - a very good decision, it turned out, because Kragnos came by hours later to claim the local orruks as his own. Ever since, the Grinnin' Blades have been the most dedicated worshippers of Kragnos in the Realms, spreading what they understand as his main teaching: no city should stand when the Drogrukh's own remain toppled. They use Kragnos as something of a battering ram, smashing open the walls and then rushing in after him.  The Big Yellers are far less subtle than other warclans. They forgo stealth in favor of shouting loudly and dressing in bright, distracting colors. They know that hiding is pointless - they are the best and brightest orruks, so everyone would notice them straight away anyway! They believe a true predator should be proud, decisive and obvious, allowing the prey to see them and flee in terror. They aren't necessarily wrong, either - their mastery of ranged combat and machinery speaks for itself. The Big Yellers originate in the Ayadah region within Chamon and have a close alliance with the grots of Skrappa Spill. They have far more Deffspiker tribes than any other warclan, and their mastery of the crossbow is unrivalled. They're quick to say so, as well, claiming they're even able to outshoot the Kharadron ("sky-stunties"). That one's probably not true. As well as being braggarts, the Big Yellers are generally quite lazy. They take a very casual approach to life and prefer to avoid work whenever possible. This is one of the biggest reasons their weaponsmiths keep coming up with new improvements to their crossbows, actually - it makes fighting easier for them. They also excel as trackers, as they are quick to identify the path of least resistance, and they've become masters of boating, from small rafts to large skiffs. They are some of the finest river sailors in the Realms, because they prefer relying on the rivers to walking. It's easier and less work. They've developed a number of useful industrial tools to make their produection easier, too - winches, drawbridges and waterwheels are frequents sights in their camps. (They are stolen as often as not, but the Yellers do know how to make them.) Pretty much any camp site will be home to a crossbow range with an ingenious pulley system to strip ammunition from the target corpses and reset them without needing anyone to walk back and forth. Some of the richest Big Yeller tribes have actually captured Sigmarite cogforts and refit them to make them look properly orruky. They use these as mobile bases, driving around the wilds in style. (The refits typically invovle placing firing gantries all over the cogforts, covering them in massive killbows and sometimes even machine-controlled mega-choppas for smashing down walls and big enemies too slow to get out of the way. The Big Yellers love these things...though there are times when they will actually exert themselves without absolutely needing to. This is when the Waaagh! grows strong in them and drives them to fight. At these times, they're even willing to run, as long as they don't have to do it too long.  Last, we have the Skulbugz, the warclan that the other Kruleboyz think is weird and morbid and gross. They are poison specialists - but their poisons are usually not used to disable their foes or anything like that. Instead, they specialize in poisons that drive beasts into a killing frenzy. Their origins lie in Shyish, in the mangrove forests of Chitinia, an underworld once home to those who honored insects as symbols of strength and industry. The massive megapedes, morkskeeters and rhinox beetles there were very familiar to the Kruleboyz that moved in from Ghur, and they decided it'd be their new home, adopting the skull-shape markings of the local insects as their own. Even now, it's a symbol they tattoo into their own skin. They've been the dominant force in Chitinia since shortly before the Age of Chaos, and their Swampcallas have long since driven out the indigenous shades. While the Skulbugz excel at taming beasts of all kinds, they like insects the best. They're most at home sleeping in beds full of bugs, and it is a rite of passage for yoofz of the Skulbugz to bite down on deadly deathcrawler beetles, sucking out their venom and spitting it into a clay bowl to become full orruks by undergoing a multi-day shuddering coma due to the effects of even this brief exposure. The Spiderfang grot clans are their steadfast allies, seeing many cultural similarities, though the Skulbugz seem to barely notice them and are of the firm belief that spiders are not proper bugs. The other Kruleboyz tend to make fun of Skulbugz for being obsessed with insects, but it's often a way to hide the fact that even they find the Shyishan orruks creepy. It is considered extremely bad luck for an orruk to actually piss off the Skulbugz, and there are many superstitions among their fellows about them. Some say that if you punch a Skulbug hard enough, they vomit beetles, and others say they have black ichor instead of blood. They rarely come into conflict with other orruks in general, though, and are quite happy to spend their time fighting undead, humans and other "civilized" beings. Next time: Iron Teeth
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Oct 1, 2021 18:18
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Wapole Languray posted:II. The Alice given LotFP players tend to be more on the munchkin side by sheer necessity I can't imagine any of them going 'ah yes I want to be dead weight' as that's what Alice will amount to. and let's talk about the name, If you really must have a class based around being an outsider completely out of their element, there's better names for it.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:09
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Okay, I have no clue if anybody is going to read this but here goes nothing. Cover by Mike Rayhawk. Any illustrations that aren't explicity noted as such are done by him. BrikWars: RagnaBlok Edition Brikwars is part of my adolescence, for better or worse. For those new to Brikwars, it’s a Lego wargame penned by Illustrator Mike Rayhawk. There’s games that do this already - Mobile Frame Zero is probably the one you’ve heard about the most. But Brikwars is minifigure scale. That means minifigs running around, blowing each other up, punching each other, and generally having a bloody good time. It also dances around copyrights a little by referring to “blox” and “brix” and being as not-Lego as possible, which is kind of funny considering Mike now works for Lego! Looks like all those years of drawing not-Lego paid off. I had a ton of Lego when I was a kid. It was partly old sets, like Rock Raiders and Insectoids. It was partly an old castle and pirate ship my grandparents had. There were way too many Bionicles to be considered healthy. I spent a lot of time making things with them, and I also spent a lot of time playing with them. I have memories of having the Chamber of Secrets set and trying to recreate the scenes from the book, complete with giant-snake-eye-gouging action. Lego was kickass. Brikwars was probably my first taste of wargaming. It seemed to offer structured chaos - a reason to smash things and have Lego all over the floor, to pull apart minifigures and do death screams. It threw around a lot of red lego blood and rhetoric about rules and chaos. In retrospect, I didn’t need any reason to do any of that. I could have blown up my creations and simulated horrible minifig death at any time. But rolling dice and measuring and having rules seemed grown up somehow. It’s weird, because Brikwars has always tried to cultivate this image of being the wargame for “non-nerds,” making fun of traditional wargames. It maintains that creativity and “fun” are more important than following rules. One the one hand, it’s Lego, so of course that should be the attitude, right? But then you made it into a wargame, the nerdiest possible pastime besides model trains. And what’s with all these rules? Because there’s a shitload of rules. Also, as someone who witnessed the corporate suicide known as Age of Sigmar's first edition, I’m very sceptical of any game that claims that fun is better than solid rules. Let’s go and see how Brikwars does it. I've had this review bouncing around in my head for a while now, and I'm keen to give it a go at last. I’m going to have a look at the current 2021 "Ragnablok" edition of the game. We’ll see if the dream of organised plastic mayhem is real or not. If you’re interested in reading along, or peering at this tiny community dedicated to turning a family friendly toy into a plastic splatterfest (clatterfest?), then you can check it out at the website. The rules are free, so feel free to follow along with this review. I'm going to do its best to heavily abridge everything, point out what I like and what I don't... you know, a review! Let’s dive right in and get all the philosophy and what-you-needs and all of that out of the way first.  Brikwars 2020 Part 1 - Philosophy of the Brik The book is split into four sections - an Introduction, basic Core Rules, more complicated creation and combat rules for MOCs (My Own Creation, for those not up with the lingo), and a campaign system. Each section essentially adds onto the core rules, adding more rules and edge cases. Additionally, any non-numbered chapter is an optional set of rules that can be eliminated as you see fit. I'll admit I've cheated here and skipped to the chapter that actually explains this, because this isn't explained until we get into the actual gameplay, but it's worth talking about in case you're following along. This first part is going to get all of the introduction stuff out of the way. We're going to get a handle on the ethos of this game and what you should expect when playing Brikwars. There is, right up at the top, a disclaimer that says that BrikWars is NOT endorsed or acknowledged by the LEGO Group of companies. BrikWars is based on the much older Lego Wars, which was struck down for using the word Lego in the name. This disclaimer is needed, because the next page that isn't the table of contents introduces the Deadly Spaceman.  ...yeah. If you've seen the Lego Movie, you know what this guy is. Lego is the default brand used for both the aesthetic and any photos in the rulebook, and thus that legal disclaimer is absolutely necessary. The rulebook has TONS of photos of fan-made creations, by the way. If nothing else, you can browse through and see some sick as hell creations. The book goes into the weird story/canon that BrikWars has, which is maintained by the fanbase. It's too tedious to repeat in detail here, partly because there's a lot of it and partly because it's written by the kind of people who loving love Lego and do not like any other brand. The long and short of it is that BrikWars' "kanon", such as it is, is a deliberately messy universe that destroys and rebuilds itself over and over in perpetuity, with universal instances named after the numbering of notable Lego sets. This multiversal mess is threatened by the existence of dubious clones and forces that threaten to render all existence boring. It's the kind of story a heavily online community tends to create. I would also like to point out that this rulebook has, at this point, a weird image of a Megablocks-styled woman warrior with pigtails and high heels, and a reference to "Jaw-Jaws" and "Dimmies". There are going to be some, uh... jokes. For a given value of joke. Like, if your joke value is zero. This game's humor is trapped in the mid-2000's and has not escaped. It makes some jokes about gender that it is absolutely not equipped to make. And if you can't tell what "Jaw-Jaw" is a reference to, then you have lived a blessed life and I want your existance. At least the art is good? Mike got hired by Lego so they must have liked it. Anyway I don't think this book is very funny and we haven't even got into gameplay yet. Thankfully, we get out of that interminable poo poo and more into the point of the game itself in the next chapter. To summarize, BrikWars is about mayhem. The general feel of playing the game should tend towards an action movie or superhero comics. Attempting to play this as a serious wargame with serious tactics is missing the point. You play BrikWars to watch your Arnold Schwarzenegger minifig fail to lift a car and rip his own arms off, or a chef brain a pirate with a frying pan. There is also an expectation that the rules here will often be overturned or ignored if people agree or can't be bothered. Mike has admitted, in the 2005 version of the rules, that past versions of the game were deliberately written to be rules-heavy - to the point that it would be impossible to play. That's... not exactly great, in my opinion! Just write rules people wanna use! Also the game insists on spelling everything as if it's Mortal Kombat. Then there's a big legal block and a "Special Tanks" section, which is a thanks section with pictures of tanks in it. Really cool Lego tanks. It's worth going through just to look at those. There's also this which I found kind of amusing: Special Tanks posted:BrikWars' dice fetishism was greatly inspired by Lumpley Games' Mechaton (2006), later reworked as Mobile Frame Zero 001: Rapid Attack (2012) by Joshua A.C. Newman at the glyphpress. The Mobile Frame Zero community is morally and ethically superior to the BrikWars community, and their periodic callouts over the years when our satire misses the mark (or worse, hits marks it shouldn't have been aiming at in the first place) have been a source of unending mortification. They rightly approve of nothing we do here. This bodes well for future entries. Next Time: The Core Game aka "how many dice, exactly?"
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Oct 1, 2021 22:57
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BrikWars! I remember reading an earlier incarnation as a kid (well, teenager at least) and being completely befuddled by how many drat rules there were for a game about smashing Legos together.
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Oct 1, 2021 23:15
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I remember checking out the BrikWars and the Mobile Frame Zero rules at one point in time. The concept of the latter is pretty neat.
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Oct 1, 2021 23:22
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Loved Brikwars back in... middle school, I think. I remember the 2001 rules having GURPS vehicles levels of physics simulation, and a later edition (2005?) being slimmer and more in line with what you'd expect from a Lego based wargame. The main advantage of Brikwars over Mobile Frame Zero is that you can play it with whatever Legos and Lego creations you already have, rather than needing to assemble little miniature robots specifically for the game. I didn't know there was a 2021 version of the rules. Interested to see how they stack up.
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Oct 1, 2021 23:52
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Yeah, I'm actually really interested in this one. I used to be into the game and loved reading fan battle reports. My desktop background for a long time was one of the author's splash pages he'd illustrated for the site. Or maybe it was provided specifically as a desktop background. It's been a long time. I had totally forgotten Dimmies and Jaw-Jaws. drat, that aged like hot garbage. I can't believe I used to think that was funny. 
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Oct 2, 2021 01:40
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I've never heard of BrikWars but this looks like something that would've devoured my entire life if I'd run into it at the right time. Very excited to learn more.
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Oct 2, 2021 01:40
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When I was a kid who played a ton of Age of Empires and Lego, I got really into the idea of some kind of single player Lego game where the Lego armies I built would fight each other (single player because I didn't have many friends). Then I discovered Warhammer which did exactly that. Really interested in this, it's a cool idea.
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Oct 2, 2021 07:46
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The Deleter posted:
Sorry, I would love to read this review, but these two sentences have caused me to spontaneously decay into dust and dry bones.
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Oct 2, 2021 17:44
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I just wanna know how you got a credit card to reg in 2010 if '99 was "old sets"
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Oct 2, 2021 18:15
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:I just wanna know how you got a credit card to reg in 2010 if '99 was "old sets" The first LEGO Pirates theme was released in 1989, which easily predates the LEGO-playing-age of someone registering at 18 in 2010 with their first credit card.
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Oct 2, 2021 18:22
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LatwPIAT posted:The first LEGO Pirates theme was released in 1989, which easily predates the LEGO-playing-age of someone registering at 18 in 2010 with their first credit card. Castle Lego is even older, I remember a friend having some before 1987
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Oct 2, 2021 19:02
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GimpInBlack posted:Sorry, I would love to read this review, but these two sentences have caused me to spontaneously decay into dust and dry bones. Same, I would usually love to take part in this but I have to sit in a rocking chair and reminisce about the "good old days"
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Oct 2, 2021 19:27
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Age of Sigmar: Orruk Warclans KRUMP KRUMP KRUMP Ironjawz tend to be the orruks most people picture when the word is said, because they're the loudest ones. Where orruks fight, you're almost certain to find them right a the front, getting into the thick of it. They represent the bestial violence of Gork in the same way the Kruleboyz represent the savage cunning of Mork. Indeed, some Azyrite scholars actually attempted to claim that the orruks were two species - the cunning morruks and the vicious gorruks. They're not, but the Ironjawz certainly favorite brute force and tenacity over any kind of clever planning or complicated ideas. This can make them vulnerable to being outwitted or tricked, but they should never be underestimated. Ironjawz may not like to think very hard, but they're not stupid. They are still able to lay basic traps, hide their strength and bully smaller greenskins into helping them - they just don't excel at these things, much as the Kruleboyz rarely excel at direct, bloodyminded confrontation compartively but can still do it. And worse for the enemy - if all else fails, the Ironjawz will absolutely hurl themselves to their deaths in order to win a fight, meaning that even if they lose, casualties to their reckless attacks are often much higher than their foes expect. The Ironjawz don't tend to care about how many of their own die - the strongest survive and get vengeance, and that's what matters. Ironjawz warclans tend to be smaller and less numerous thanks to their near suicidal bravery, but they are definitely the biggest and most physically intimidating orruks around. Even a lowly Ardboy is armed to the teeth, strong enough to wear a full suit of crude armor at all times without much care and willing to fight at the drop of a hat. When the Ironjawz go to war, they commit completely and do not stop until one side is completely destroyed, regardless of how long it may take. After all, it's exercise! An orruk that fights and loses still gets bigger and stronger from trying than one who sits around and does nothing. Ironjawz warclans rarely know peace. They are always on the lookout for new conflicts to blindly charge into, and they're willing to go into all kinds of danger or fight through any obstacle to get to a new battle. They especially love to get involved in the fights of other orruks, so they can show off by being bigger and stronger. If they show up late and miss the war, they'll just start a new one aimed at the nearest possible target. Like the orruks themselves, their gear is crude but effective - simple iron or steel for the most part, with little enchantment or craftsmanship going into them. They receive little care except to be made as heavy, jagged or otherwise deadly as they can manage. What they lack in finesse and grace they make up for in raw power, sending these blades through armor far more sophisticated and potent as their Warchanters spur them onwards with the power of the Waaagh!. The shapes of these weapons vary wildly, from swords or axes to more innovative designs such as blade-breakers, saw-tooth choppas or massive hooked claws. The most significant visual signifier of the Ironjawz is their armor, though. This is often put together from the scrap metal they collect from whoever they've beaten most recently. They don't have proper blacksmiths, per se, but instead smash and punch the metal into rough shape with their fists and elbows, essentially forging it around their own bodies into crude but thick armor that is custom-fitted to each wearer. It can take days to do, but since it's basically a fight against the metal, the orruks tend to enjoy it. Their armor is usually corroded and poorly maintained but almost never taken off, and its thick overlapping plates make it pretty practical while allowing for a decent range of movement. It is rare among Ghurish Ironjawz to wear helmets, to better track foes by scent, and those who do wear them usually have grilles in the faceplate to help keep their noses open to the air. The edges of their armor plates are usually sharp and spiky, the better to cut foes that get in close. That they also cut the orruk wearing them sometimes is considered an acceptable cost. The beasts the Ironjawz ride into battle also get armor hammered onto their bodies. Generally, their master will beat them into unconsciousess, then bind them with leather straps and iron rings, whcih then have as much jagged metal hammer onto them as they are able to physically carry. It's a dangerous process, as it often injures the beasts and may drive them mad with pain, causing them to gore their master to death. Therefore, any Ironjaw who has a mount is considered higher status than the footslogging orruks of the clan, because they've proven their ability to dominate it. Most commonly, these mounts are gruntas, large and bad-tempered pig-monsters who can run for days without tiring. They accelerate when they get close to their foes, biting and trampling with wild abandon. They're like very angry boars in the same way ogors are like very angry humans, and each grunta weighs almost a ton even before it has its armor applied. The strongest Megabosses favor a different beast, however: the Maw-krusha. These are huge crocodilian monsters with exceptionally violent tempers. They are bigger and heavier even than a Stormcast Stardrake, and they love violence for the sake of violence. They smash foes with the same wild glee as the orruks around them, using their massive bulk itself as a weapon as much as their vicious teeth and claws. The Megaboss atop them is just as dangerous once foes are in reach, and few can stand against their concerted efforts. The Megabosses are the power that holds the Ironjawz together, their strength keeping the clans from fracturing into mass brawls. The bellowing of a Megaboss will get the entire clan pointed in the right direction, and they keep order by use of carefully timed acts of violence on their own followers. Despite their rugged refusal to serve anyone else, many Megabosses respect Kragnos for his sheer power and are willing to follow him into battle...though they refuse to admit that he's stronger than Gordrakk, who is something of a culture hero for all Ironjawz. Admitting that something could be stronger than the strongest Ironjaw is unacceptable to the culture. For the most part, the fact that Gordrakk has fought alongside Kragnos has prevented them from grumbling too hard - he can't be all that bad if the Fist of Gork likes him! Besides, anyone that can headbutt their way through a castle wall is pretty orruky, even if they've got too many legs. The Ironjawz rule over many of the wild places of Ghur, raising ramshackle shrines to Gorkamorka and smashing various bits of scenery into rubble. They live nomadically, wandering through their territory in search of fights and stopping in one place only long enough to loot it when they can't find any. They occasionally will raise temporary forts in areas redolent in the Waaagh!'s power, often out of giant monster bone or other materials they find at hand, though. They'll camp out in these places for a while, keeping themselves entertained with low-grade internecine combat until the biggest of their Megabosses decides to move on and forces everyone else to come with him. These mob-like clans generally form instinctively rather than out of any real organization. They just know that more orruks means bigger fights. Usually you don't see more than five mobs gathered together, and these larger groups are known as fists. (Ironjaw leaders tend not to like to have to count higher than five, and like punching things.) There's a few different variets of fist. A Weirdfist, for example, will be led by a Weirdnob Shaman in charge of a bunch of magic-drunk orruks, while an Ardfist is usually a bunch of Ardboyz led by a Warchanter's drumming to a somewhat more orderly and militarized state. A group of five fists teaming up under one leader is referred to as a brawl, and a particularly powerful megaboss may command a number of brawls. These groups usually belong to a specific warclan, a subculture within the Ironjawz that uses specific colors and symbols painted onto their armor to show their allegiance. (Usually this is done by the orruks bullying local grots into doing the detail work.) They like their foes to know who's beaten them down. Warclans vary wildly in size, with some led by a single Megaboss, Warchanter or Weirdnob and consisting of only a few brawls, while others are huge groups that outsiders think of as empires, with hundreds of thousands of members spread over entire continents. Their names are usually chosen by their lead Megaboss to be short, punchy and intimidating. The Bloodgrinz, for example, use the name because they paint their mouths and tusks with the blood of their fallen victims and leave bloody handprints on their own armor. The Stoneskullz paint their armor the color of bone in reference to the vast hordes of undead they've slain through Shyish. (They're having trouble these days thanks to the Necroquake making them wildly outnumbered by their favorite enemies.) Others take their names from their area of origin, like the Asheater Boys from Aqshy's Soot Peaks or the green-armred Treebitaz of Verdia in Ghyran. The Skybashaz are especially infamous, having somehow salvaged the wrecks of a number of Kharadron mining hulks and turned them into a precarious but actually successful skyfleet to raid the duardin supply lines. The more arrogant leaders name their clan after themself, like Brokkjaw's Bitaz, Zedek's Weirdladz or the Hooktoof Scrappas. However a name is reached, the clan's chief purpose in life is to make it easier to gather orruks in one place so they can smash up everyone else as much as possible. They will raise idols and effigies to honor Gorkamorka, attack cities and perform acts of highly destructive vandalism whenever possible, serving almost as mobile natural disasters for any civilization nearby.  The Ironsunz are the proudest warclan, who love to show off how good they are. Since the rise of Megaboss Dakkbad, they've only gotten cockier and somehow more aggressive than normal. They're Ghurish in origin but are quick to go anywhere they see a chance for a good scrap, and they're easily one of the biggest warclans in all of the Realms. They paint their armor a rather eye-searing yellow to make themselves easy to spot, since they want to be noticed at all times. If there's any warlord among the Ironjawz who can threaten Gordrakk's position as biggest boss, it's Dakkbad Grotkicker. He began life as a simple Brute in the Ghurish clans, hunting dinosaurs on the Gnashka Plateau. He made a name for himself by being cunning in his brutality - picking fights carefully, making sure his buddies hit the sharp teeth while he attacked from the flank, that kind of thing. This meant he survived all his battles, while his rivals ended up dead to the saurian monsters they faced, possibly because he shoved them into a mouth or claw. It wasn't all that long before the massive orruk ended up in consideration for the Megaboss of the clan. Not all of the Ironsunz were happy about that, though, particularly the current Megaboss, Guttdrukk Fourfist. Guttdrukk hatched a plot with the other bosses of the clan, having noticed in the clan's battle against a mega-gargant, Dakkbadd had hung back until the guy was toppled over, then swooped in to killsteal. Guttdrukk accused Dakkbad of cowardice over the feast that night and challenged him to lead the next hunt - and further to race headlong at the prey. Dakkbad shrugged and said he was too busy eating to fight right now, but he'd take that challenge. He already had a plan. Next morning, Dakkbad gathered the clan to chase the fallen mega-gargant's pet Maw-krusha into a chasm. He did as he'd been challenged, and Guttdrukk couldn't stand to be shown up, so he and his friends headed right in after Dakkbad. However, they weren't ready for the beast's bellow, which addled their minds, and Dakkbad was, having stuffed his ears with the gargant's own earwax. Dakkbad used his rival as a literal stepping stone to climb onto the Maw-krusha's back, hanging on while it fought him and everyone nearby. All of Guttdrukk's gang, himself included, ended up dead under the creature's stomps, while Dakkbad hung on until it gave up and fell asleep, having stuffed itself on the other orruks. He declared himself Megaboss to the survivors, threatening to feed them to his new mount, Bossbiter, if they complained. Ever since, the two have run the Ironsunz with little competition. The clan has earned itself a reputation for being big finkers by Ironjaw standards and for being extremely arrogant bossy when dealing with other clans. They've got plenty of Megabosses to back up their claims of superiority, because Dakkbad likes to be surrounded by orruks almost as cunning as himself, able to think one or even two days in advance. The clan also uses things that at least passingly resemble military formations, forming solid walls of armor against the enemy to stop counterattacks.  The Bloodtoofs are pretty infamous among the Ironjawz for being weirdos. They wear bright red armor and absolutely refuse to settle down, even more than most Ironjawz. They're ready to pack up and hop through the nearest realmgate at a moment's notice, charging across multiple realms with wild abandon. Their leader is Megaboss Braka Skulhorn, and he leads them in pursuit of realmgates almost constantly. They jump in regardless of where they lead, often confusing the local people living near them. After all, since the Age of Chaos, many realmgates have fallen into disrepair, been corrupted, been defiled or otherwise been rendered dangerous or unpredictable. The Bloodtoofs don't seem to care...and somehow, they usually manage to survive whatever they end up jumping into, showing up in mostly stable locations and continuing their wild rampages. Their shamans claim they are led by the will of Gorkamorka. Whatever it is, though, their love of diving into realmgates began when they started looking for Gordrakk, on the basis that he always knows the best places to fight. They eventually got lost on the journey, discovering instead that it was more fun to just take joyrides through random portals rather than pursue some kind of goal. They're the thrill riders of the Ironjawz, and if they happen to run into Gordrakk, well, that'll be fine! Mostly, though, they just keep ending up landing on the doorsteps of kingdoms that seem ripe for a fight. More than most clans, the Bloodtoofs value speed and mobility. They have more gruntas than other clans so they can keep on the move whenever possible, and their beasts have the most endurance of any known. They also usually have a better understanding of terrain than their fellow orruks, since they end up traveling so widely. Many enemies have been shocked by the ability of the Bloodtoofs to take advantage of hillsides and gullies to launch sudden flanking attacks at speeds most don't associate with the plodding, heavily armored Ironjawz.  Da Choppas, on the other hand, are extremely dedicated to a specific goal. That goal is vandalism. They love nothing more than defacing statues, ruining art, painting graffiti on walls and smashing up quiet places while making tons of noise. Their chief weapons in doing this are massed numbers and extremely cheerful aggressiveness. They have far more Ardboyz than more skilled Brutes or Gore-gruntas, but what they lack in raw strength they make up for in total commitment to the cause. They believe it is their divine purpose to tear down, mock and deface all cultures in the Mortal Realms that believe themselves refined or civilized, to reveal the true nature beneath the mask. In fact, Da Choppas are so dedicated to their beliefs that they will proselytize their ways to other orruks and even target them for vandalism if they think the other clans in the area aren't causing enough trouble. Even an orruk can be, in their words, criminally boring. Da Choppas are led not by a Megaboss but a Weirdnob shaman, though he does have a Megaboss's head on a stick. He's the source of their religious dedication to raising hell, and he used to work for the guy whose head he carries - Doggrok, a mighty warlord up until his inexplicable spontaneous combustion. His advisor, the Weirdnob Ka-rokk, took Doggrok's skull as a reminder not to argue with him, and probably is the cause of that mysterious fire. Ever since, Ka-rokk has led Da Choppas, keeping order by making Doggrok's eyes burn with green fire and channeling bellows through his bony jaws. Even the least obedient of the clan are terrified of Doggrok, living or dead. Ka-rokk has informed them that Doggrok wants them to paint white checkerboards on their blue armor, and while this required a lot of intricate detail work for the orruks, they did it without question and took special care to get it all right, even the fiddly parts. Clan leadership figures wear more checkerboard patterns than the others, and it's considered a sign of importance in the clan to be in close agreement with Doggork and the teachings of messing up anything that hasn't already been messed up. Next time: the bone zone
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Oct 2, 2021 20:11
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Angrymog posted:Castle Lego is even older, I remember a friend having some before 1987 In the most ancient of days (AKA the late 1970s) I would basic building blocks to put together (extremely crappy-looking) X-Wings, TIEs, Colonial Vipers and Cylon fighters so my 10 year old rear end could have wars with them.
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Oct 2, 2021 21:20
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Angrymog posted:Castle Lego is even older, I remember a friend having some before 1987 Right. Sure, Grandparents, though?!
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Oct 2, 2021 23:51
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feedmegin posted:Right. Sure, Grandparents, though?! Grandparents sometimes buy and keep toys at their house for the grandkids to use when they come visit.
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Oct 3, 2021 00:32
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Midjack posted:Grandparents sometimes buy and keep toys at their house for the grandkids to use when they come visit. That said, LEGO bricks/etc. have been a thing since 1947.
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Oct 3, 2021 00:48
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LatwPIAT posted:The first LEGO Pirates theme was released in 1989, which easily predates the LEGO-playing-age of someone registering at 18 in 2010 with their first credit card. The rock raiders and insectoids called out as 'old sets' were from '99.
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Oct 3, 2021 00:57
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:The rock raiders and insectoids called out as 'old sets' were from '99. In 2001, 22 years ago was 1979.
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Oct 3, 2021 01:18
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Tibalt posted:That was 22 years ago. Yes, but their post is in the context of their childhood. Unless you regularly go around calling everything in the past old even when only talking about past events. It ain't like they were playing with sets that are now new in 'whenever they were a kid'.
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Oct 3, 2021 01:21
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Please stop trying to calculate my age based on a throwaway line in my review, you weirdos. Metagaming turns deadly as two heroes settle their differences in Nanobrikwars. Brikwars 2020 Part 2 - Core Rules So how do you manage to get your minifigs to brutally murder each other? With the core rules, of course! This leg of the review will cover, in brief, most of the first book of the Ragnablok edition rules. This is designed to get you up and running with the game. I'll be real - I've had to walk away from the screen and come back a few times whilst writing this. This first book presents some of BrikWars' best features but also its biggest flaws. I don't want to be too harsh on this game. It's in no way as awful as some of the things we've reviewed in this thread and it's clearly more functional as a game. The many many games played on the official forums are testament to that. But this game is deeply flawed, and its cleverest parts are not brought to the front. I'm going to do my best to point out where and when this game is good, and be honest about its failings.  Mike's art owns. Chapter 1 is an overview of the gameplay. Along with the list of stuff you’d need (dice, minifigs, etc), it also defines some of the abstract numbers, goes over setup and objectives and turn taking. The lowdown is:
A couple of extra things to note here - “victory” is an abstract and sides tend not to win so much as do more damage. “Rocks fall and everyone dies” is a valid way to end a game and has, in fact, been the way a substantial number of games have ended. There’s also a note that certain attributes are color coded - movement in green, damage in red, actions in yellow, and defenses in blue. We’ll get to those in a sec! The first real mechanical rule of note happens here - a roll of 1 is a Critical Failure and always fails, and a roll of the maximum on a die adds an additional d6 to the roll. Critical Failures can be used as an opportunity for slapstick if you want. Then we get into a section called Proper Observance of Rules, where Mike goes off on one. Mike, going off on one posted:Rules are for the small-minded and weak. Let some first-graders loose with a collection of bricks and watch the way they play. All the drama, death, and explosions anyone could want, and they won't have to crack open a rulebook even once. If you manage to get through this, you get the three most important rules of the game:
Anyway, let's loop back around. You may be wondering a) how do you use your turns and b) what on earth the color coding of dice earlier relates to. Well, let’s introduce our main actor - the mighty Minifig!  As you can see from this handy reference card, a Minifig has a movement and an armor stat, and an action die. Those first two are self-explanatory. The Action rating is part of a minifig’s aptitude - in this case, they roll a six-sided die to do things. It’s intrinsic to them, and different levels of specialist and hero roll bigger or smaller dice. I actually like this - it can get pretty swingy but that seems to be the nature of BrikWars anyway, and it easily defines how capable a unit is at tasks. Thankfully, this card also references the most basic way actions, movement and damage work, so I don’t have to reference those again in this review! Notably, in the chapter that defines a minifig, it also gives very basic versions of moving and the attack action, which is the action people actually care about. This also showcases how weapons work - they have a Use rating that the minifig needs to match or beat on their action die, and then they have a range and a damage die they roll. These are pretty functional and are the core of attacking, so it’s kind of nice that you theoretically could just play the game with the first two chapters of this book, but those basic rules should probably be in the actual section that governs them. Also, a note on army building here - you field equal amounts of minifigs, with “horses” counting as minifigs, and equal amounts of Heroes. We’ll get to Heroes and Horses next time. I think that the basic stats of a Minifig being simple is a good aspect of this game. There's no overhead or remembering what stats or effects are unique to a minifig. They are pretty much entirely defined by what weapons and items they are holding. This distinction becomes weaker when we get into the various specialists, but for the most part, this holds.  Speaking of weapons, Chapter 3 is just a huge list of weapons and armor. I think the game does a good job of condensing the many varied different plastic accessories into a broad list of weapons and armor, but it's difficult to say anything interesting about it. Melee weapons use the minifig’s action die for their damage and range weapons have a fixed damage die, to represent the difference between putting some effort into a swing and a bullet. Explosives do d10 damage (the first d10 in the game!) and an inch of knockback to whatever they hit. Armor and shields grants layers of Deflection, which subtract damage dice from the incoming attack. A note here - when attacking with a melee weapon, you’re actually hitting with the actual physical part of the tiny plastic sword that represents the blade. This means, when we get to the melee combat rules, it's possible to duck inside the reach of your foe and stab him. Also, you can’t hit with bare hands, only shove or grab. Minifigs are only worth what they’re holding! Chapter 4 describes the Player Turn. And look. This is kind of where Brikwars breaks down. Because there’s a LOT of rules. When we just get to how movement works, we are IMMEDIATELY met with...  BrikWars' main failing, to me, is that it hasn't considered which of its many rules it wants to keep, and what it wants you to ignore. It's incredibly simulationist due to its reliance on the physical nature of the medium (posable and buildable toys), which means it is a lot fiddlier, when played as written, than it has any right to be. Of course, the game expects you to ignore anything you don't like, but at that point, why even write the rule? I’m not going to go over every single possible action here. There’s too many, and I would be typing “there’s a table” over and over. I don’t have the patience. So here’s a summary - during their turn, each minifig can move up to 5”, and they get one action die to spend on actions. Actions have ratings like an rpg and there’s a table of difficulties like we’re playing D&D, but for the most part you won't reference this because attacks are the main way to do things. If a minifig rolls their maximum on their Action Die, they don’t do critical successes like damage, but can add 1d6 to any of the action’s associated stats (damage, range, sprint distance). If a minifig hasn’t spent their action on their turn, they can use it to react to events they can see (as in, measuring from the actual eyes of the minifig). If they can reasonably react to it in time, they can roll their action die to do an action in response or “bail” a number of inches to get out of the way. Aside from the crazy detail, this is basically... every wargame ever? It's very hard to summon enthusiasm for this engine. It just works. There's no real flair here, though I appreciate that keeping it simple when dealing with the humble minifig is probably for the best.  Now we hit combat! The fun bit! That minifig card above describes attacks and what happens when they take damage, so I'm not repeating it here. All seems well and good, huh? Well, for ranged weapons, it sure is. Rooty tooty etc etc. But for melee weapons, it’s a different story. Oh, at this point, the game pulls out dice modifiers for how much of the target you can see, or are aiming at. I'd drop these entirely. However, I'd keep combined attacks, where you have a group of minifigs attack at once and combine their damage results. A bunch of skeletons with spears can overwhelm a tank! So if minifigs get up close and start hitting each other, they leave the basic cycle of the turn and enter close combat. Their movement drops to 1 inch, and they trade blows with whoever has the active turn deciding the flow of combat. They can strike, shove, grab or try and disengage by just moving their full speed (which earns their foe a free attack on them). In response, an opponent can try and parry - they need a shield to parry attacks, but can parry grabs and shoves with their hands or any object. This basically turns into a weird simulationist duelling mechanic where minifigs with spears or long weapons have to dance around to keep minifigs with knives or shortswords within reach. This does seem kinda fun. Simulating that kind of duelling dance would be interesting to see in a tabletop wargame. I think it's a little much for every single instance of close combat, but depending on what your minifigs are armed with and how many you field, this may or may not be a problem. Additionally, the need to have a shield to parry deadly attacks does prevent things becoming too bogged down. Also, there are rules for charging where if a minifig moves four inches or more directly towards a target, they get a Momentum die, or a MOM, to add to damage or anything they think would benefit from the momentum. The rules writing then contorts itself to make as many references to “rolling your mom” or a minifig's mom as possible. All in all, the rules are… serviceable, in their basic form, but they could do with trimming. I don't think serving up a bevy of overcomplications and tables to ignore is good rules writing, but so far, the idea of simple stats and being defined by weapons works well with minifigures and how Lego physically works. Reviewing this has sort of put me off buying a few minifigs and trying it myself, which I was hoping to do for the review - but I think the issue is that BrikWars' best feature isn't showcased in this first book, and you're left with a very basic wargame to start with. I don't hate it, but we're not setting the world in fire here. Next time: Heroes and Horses, or “The game gets whacky!” The Deleter fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Oct 3, 2021 |
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Oct 3, 2021 09:25
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Age of Sigmar: Orruk Warclans In Which Mors Grows Frustrated With Bad Models The Bonesplitterz are unlike the Kruleboyz and Ironjawz in that an orruk rarely starts out joining them. Typically, they instead join the Bonesplitterz after a particularly vicious fight. Other orruks say it's from getting hit on the head too hard, but they claim it's that they got the sense knocked into them and saw the truth. As far as they're concerned, the other orruks are far too obsessed with only pursuing half of what it means to be properly orruky, rather than seizing the magical power of the Waaagh!. It's definitely true that when the Waaagh! energy descends, orruks can channel it into supernatural strength and power, though often at the cost of becoming berzerkers unable to tell their surroundings apart. Sometimes, the energy doesn't leave after the fight, but instead remains within the orruk. In these cases, they often lose all considerations of greed, power or other things like that, seeking only to express the primal Waaagh! by causing as much chaos as possible. These orruks leave their Kruleboy or Ironjaw friends and wander into the wilds, erratically following a sort of innate sense given to them by the Waaagh! energy. This leads them to the Bonesplitter tribes, who have all felt the same. They typically toss aside material possessions as they go, allowing them rot or discarding them as useless. They follow the beat of the Waaagh! drums, echoing in their heads and souls, until they find their new family. Once they have truly become a Bonesplitter, they almost never want to go back to how they used to be - there is little more joyful to them than the endless conflict that their new people will help them find. They reject the thick armor of the Ironjawz and the vicious machines of the Kruleboyz - both distractions that slow you down from true violence and the emulation of Gorkamorka, who fought unencumbered by weapons and tools.0 Metal, in general, is something the Bonesplitterz distrust. Metal armor is heavy and slow, keeping you out of the fight. Metal weapons are breakable and they give away your position when the light hits them. Better to rely on your green skin to hide you from enemies until you get close, as it was made tough by Gorkamorka to withstand all danger already. The Bonesplitterz rely on their shamans to painy them with woad and other war paints using a mix of mystic ingredients, relying on this magic to protect them from harm. It works, though few among the orruks can explain quite why - the paint doesn't seem to be easily replicated even by other orruk cultures, and certainly lacks the power to stop stormbolts, swords and spells alike in their tracks. The reason is that the Bonesplitterz maintain not just strong connection to their god but also to the land of the Mortal Realms itself. Their shamans are skilled geomancers, able to feel the thrumming of ley lines in their very bones. They claim that monsters have the same geomantic energies inside their skeletons, and so great power can be harnessed by hunting them down and killing them for their marrow. By devouring the marrow, you can steal their power. And this is what drives the Bonesplitterz to their most common activity - hunting great beasts. They will chase massive monsters across entire continents, ignoring the dangers and celebrating their fallen comrades by taking down the beast that slew them and devouring it. By consuming its marrow, they will ingest its power into their souls and gain its vicious focus. Their leaders, the Wurrgog Prophets, Maniak Weirdnobs and Morboys, tell them that the land itself has bones - a belief reinforced by the discovery of fossilized godbeasts. That said, it's likely that the mystics instead refer to the leylines and geomantic networks that flow between realmgates, and they urge their followers to hunt these 'world spirits' and discover their hidden bones, for to consume that marrow would grant power rivaling Gorkamorka themself. They are the ones who most firmly insist that the realms are alive - and Ghur more alive than any. A common legend among the Bonesplitterz is that the realm of Ghur itself once grew hungry and tore out a crater from one of its moons, which they name Gnorl Half-Eaten. Some suggest that Ghur seeks to devour the other realms as its prey, though this has never been confirmed by anyone else. GW attempts to use this to justify the use of the name "savage orruks" for the Bonesplitterz. They shouldn't! The fluff is fine here - all that stuff above? It's no worse than the baseline of 'probably somewhat insensitive, but not moreso than most fantasy in general' that is the background radiation of Warhammer. The models and the whole savage orcs thing? Suck. I'm sorry, I just have to rant about this. I hate the Savage Orcs line of models so much. They're the most racist models Games Workshop sells still, built on stereotypes about African tribes and spear-throwing and ugh it's so bad, potentially rivaled only by the Spiderclan grots (whose models are extremely Native American-coded). Anyway, back to the writing, which would be fine if the models weren't all that and were something better, like maybe leather-clad orcs using bone weapons and bone-and-scale armor similar to Monster Hunter or whatever. Bonesplitterz gathered in great numbers find their Waaagh! energy manifests physically in strange and powerful ways. The local animals are often driven into maddened frenzies of violence, attacking each other and hunting even more voraciously than most Ghurish wildlife. Troggoths and gargants grow restless in the region and will start smashing things without understanding why. As the Bonesplitterz drive themselves into a frenzy, the aura of magic grows ever stronger, and most Bonesplitter songs and dancers are designed to evoke this response. As their shouting rises to a fever pitch, they find the Waaagh! flows back into them, and they seek out an enemy to vent it on. They are led in this by the Wurrgog Prophets, who serve as both spiritual and temporal leaders of the Bonesplitter clans. It's rare but not impossible for a clan to fight without a Wurrgog leading them, but most would never dream of it - the Wurrgog are, after all, the closest to Gorkamorka. They split the clan into various mobs based on what aspect of Gorkamorka the prophet sees in them - cunning, brutality, or sheer mad violence without consideration for either. The Wurrgog are guided in their decisions by the flow of Waaagh! energy, and they know that this same flow will cause mobs to form up into larger groups on the battlefield. These groups are known as Rukks, instinctive packs of likeminded orruks who work together to bring down prey that none could alone. When a large numnber of Rukks comes together, they are called a Big Rukk, and the Wurrgog see these as living organisms made of many orruks - massive superpredators formed by the Waaagh! itself. They can be formed by special rituals performed in times of great spiritual significance, such as when the moons of Ghur align to form a beast-eye eclipse. At these times, the prophets lead their followers in the rite of the Rukkin' Beast, using the bones of giant monsters as tools to represent the united predator they will become. One mob carries a skull, another a sharp jaw, another a spine, a tusk, a claw. Together, the warclan creates a colossal skeleton, visible in total only from the air, to represent their combined might in the Big Rukk. The force that represents the thick forehead and armored skull is known as a Kop Rukk. Their size is highly variable - sometimes just a few mobs, sometimes hundreds of orruks. They are led by the Wardokks and Morboys, who form the core of a Kop Rukk and enforce its purpose: surrounding the Wurrgog Prophet and protecting them with an armored barrier made of living orruks, ensuring that the great mind that directs the beast of the Rukk does not fall and can continue to summon the magical might of the Waaagh!. They work alongside the Teef Rukks, who carry giant hunting spears known as Gorkteef, often made from the monster tusks that symbolize the great fangs of the Rukk. Teef Rukks are the most aggressive and fearsome of the Bonesplitterz, pursuing violence over all things and often with no sense of self preservation. They charge into the thickest parts of the enemy lines and try to do as much damage as possible. Behind them are the Gob Rukks, who represent the jaws that provide the force of the killing teef. Gob Rukks are divided into two different groups - the Brutal Rukks who focus on melee combat, and the Kunnin' Rukks that use bows at range. These two groups are considered to both be part of the Gob Rukks because they work together on a fundamental level, using the Brutal Rukk to distract foes and hold them still while the Kunnin' Rukk picks them off at range or ambushes from behind. Where the Ironjawz see ranged weapons as useless to a proper orruk, the Bonesplitterz align with the Kruleboyz on this one: bows are useful and powerful. They lack the technical expertise to design or wield crossbows with much skill, but several Bonesplitter clans rely on massive hordes of Arrowboyz - they may not be very accurate, but you don't need accuracy if you have enough arrows. The last main component of the Big Rukk is the Snaga Rukks, who represent the horns. These are the mobile forces of the Bonesplliterz, boar-riding Maniaks led by Maniak Weirdnobz. Their high speed lets them attack from unexpected angles, striking at the flanks of enemies distracted by the teeth and claws of the Big Rukk. They are often able to gore massive holes into the enemy lines, opening them up for the larger parts of the warclan to finish off.  No Bonesplitter warclan is as large or as famous as the Bonegrinz. They seem to have endless numbers, dominating their lands by a mix of extreme aggression and just having endless numbers of fighters. They cover their forms in blue warpaint, as they believe that blue is the color that attracts the most ferocious beasts, with the strongest spirits. Their leader is the Wurrgog Prophet Gurkrak Weirdteef. He's an old and wrinkly orruk who wears all kinds of bones all over his body, and he has a habit of talking to them as if they were his advisors. Gurkrak claims they tell him the future, once he's gotten himself properly prepared with bokkweed smoke. Once he's done listening, he will declare the new direction of the Bonegrinz, following the visions he has been granted. No one complains because Gurkrak's visions are quite accurate - he's led the Bonegrinz to many monsters, feeding them well and providing great trophies. Under his leadership, the clan has hunted the giant beast Glacierhorn, the Shadow Drake of Lost Narkath, the Nihilith of Vond and even drove the Blueflame Magmadroths to extinction. Their pursuit of such massive creatures has made the clan rich in amberbone, and they often use the realmstone to tip their arrowheads, channeling the nature of Ghur through their shots. These arrows induce fury in those they hit on top of doing quite nasty damage, and this has helped with their frequent success in hunts - their prey abandons all thought of fleeing. Of course, this does mean a lot of Bonegrinz tend to die, but the survivors never go home empty-handed. Amberbone-tipped weapons have also proven useful in fighting less bestial foes - it has a tendency to ruin unit cohesion and formation, destroying enemy tactics as the warriors involved become too enraged to remember their orders and reveal weaknesses. Again, a lot of the front line of the Bonegrinz dies, but they win the battle. Gurkrak has made a habit of hand-selecting the boldest and most aggressive of his followers to serve in the Big Stabba teams, tipping their gigantic weapons in amberbone as well. Their special Gorkteef are made exclusively from the fangs and tusks of monsters the clan has hunted successfully, and Gurkrak teaches that each weapon is actually the embodiment of one of Gorkamorka's own fangs. He believes that if he can collect all of the fallen fangs of the Greenskin God, he will be able to use them to bite out the bedrock of Ghur, revealing the spirit-marrow of the land for his clan to feast on. He and his followers are extremely proud of their hunting skills, and most of the leaders in the clan wear trophies made from their most memorable kills. Their Rukks each seek to emulate specific beasts that they admire most, often wearing the skin and bones of those creatures to gain its power. Most notably, the Maniak Weirdnob Ukka-Tuk leads a Snaga Rukk that emulates the hammerhead gnu, a particularly bad-tempered grazing beast that is able to kill an orruk in a single headbutt. Ukka-Tuk wields a staff made from a hammerhead gnu shinbone, which he uses to channel the earthshaking strength of the gnu stampede into his boars.  The Icebone are a warclan who tattoo white markings along their bodies. They hail from Ghur's Skyblind Tundras, where blizzards and storms are common. They specialize in boar-raising, and it's said that there are no tougher and more stubborn boars in all of Ghur than their mounts. The Icebone do not consider their boars to be mere pets, either. Rather, they are sacred descendants of the godbeast Shattatusk, a snow-colored behemoth that they say Gorkamorka once rode into battle. Shattatusk is considered a divinity nearly equal to Gorkamorka themself, and pale-furred boars are particularly valued by the tribe as being direct descendants of the godbeast. It's possible this belief is actually correct, given how tough and fierce the white boars of the Icebone tend to be - it's not rare for an Icebone rider to lose an arm or foot to their own mount and keep riding it anyway. The legends of the Icebone say that Gorkamorka wrestled Shattatusk into submission and tore out one of its great frozen horns. As the horn struck ther earth, it shattered into hundreds of shards, which formed the spirit-glaciers that fill the landscape of the Icebone homelands. These glaciers are holy sites to the clan, filled with the power of the Waaagh! and echoing with the roars of animal ghosts trapped within the ice. Icebone weapons are made from the unmelting ice and frozen stone of their cavern homes, using blue ice arrowheads and choppas that shimmer with the icy Waaagh! energy the clan channels. When an Icebone weapon cuts flesh, it unleashes bursts of killing cold - a trait the Icebone use to paralyze the limbs of the monsters they hunt, such as the snow griffons and kattanaks. This keeps them from being able to escape the war boars, who trap the prey and take it down in many fast, joyful charges until the target is little more than a frozen slab of meat and bone. The Icebone are deep admirers of the Beastclaw ogors, and they can often be found riding on the edges of Beastclaw mawpaths, trailing the storms of the Everwinter. Occasionally, they get a little too enthused about their friends' icy power and charge into the magical snowstorms themselves. This usually ends poorly, with the orruks frozen on the spot in solid and unmelting ice. The other Icebone collect these frozen former friends and turn them into holy symbols and statues...or makeshift clubs, since there's not a lot better to swing at someone than a frozen orruk.  The Drakkfoot clan are considered to be strange even by the standards of the Bonesplitterz. They are constantly surrounded by thick clouds of Waaagh! energy, and they've produced far more Wardokks and Weirdnobs than most other clans. They do not hunt beasts of flesh and bone, either. Rather, whan a Drakkfoot hunt begins, their targets are daemons, ghosts and other spiritual beings. There is nothing the Drakkfoot hate as much as "spookz," and they've developed potent beast-spirit weapons to blast their foes to bits in the same way a normal orruk would smash skulls. The Drakkfoot are devoted to Gorkamorka with an intensity that outpaces even most of their fellow Bonesplitterz. They are mages of immense skill, and their leaders' eyes blaze green with Waaagh! power. They are extremely aggressive even towards other orruks, pushing the devout worship of the Greenskin God and clobbering anyone they think isn't showing their deity sufficient respect. This, however, is kind and patient compared to their disgust and rage for beings that lack proper flesh and bone. Their homeland, the Ashland Gorelakes, has been plaged by Khornate daemons since the early Age of Chaos, and the Necroquake has unleashed swarms of ghosts on the region as well. And yet, neither foe has the respect to leave bones behind for the orruks to crack the marrow of, and they've even dared to disturb the hunting grounds where the Drakkfoot make offerings to Gorkamorka. This cannot be forgiven. Now, hunting ghosts and daemons has become a holy act for the Drakkfoot, and they have taken it on themselves to begin a war on all such beings in all of the Mortal Realms, so that orruks can eventually get back to the proper work: hunting big monsters. This would be a difficult task for most, but the magical skill of the Drakkfoots and their fearless faith in Gorkamorka have made them quite good at their self-proclaimed task. The Wardokks lead their boyz in manic dancers that disrupt the binding magic of daemons, and the red tattoos the Drakkfoot favor are made using the boiling blood of the Gorelakes to ward off daemonic magic. Their weapons are infused with the trapped spirits of drakk-beasts, granting them the power to turn ghosts corporeal just long enough to be torn to tiny pieces, as well. Next time: Who Is Kragnos
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Oct 3, 2021 16:38
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The Deleter posted:Brikwars 2020 Part 2 - Core Rules. This "I'm not part of your system, maaaan" is the sort of thing I most commonly encounter with people who didn't finish college, had to take a break before going back to complete their degree, or never went in the first place, and someone they respect gave them a hard time about it.
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Oct 3, 2021 18:17
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I cracked open the same chapter in the 2005 rules and this table of movement modifiers isn't in there. I think the 2020 rules are an attempt to synthesize the slickness of the 2005 game with some of the complexity of the 2001 rules, to varying degrees of success. I took a walk through the 2001 game again, and the GURPS comparison I made earlier is actually stronger than I remember. The original game had GURPS style tech levels, ranging from cavemen to inter-dimensional empires, used to calculate allowable weapons and point costs.
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Oct 3, 2021 20:13
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Robindaybird posted:given LotFP players tend to be more on the munchkin side by sheer necessity I can't imagine any of them going 'ah yes I want to be dead weight' as that's what Alice will amount to. I think it's sorta the opposite problem, really. A frequent tenet of OSR games tends to be that the PCs aren't special, they're kinda more competent than a 0-level dirt farmer but they have to earn their survival and heroicness, don't get attached to them until they've got a few levels that sort of thing. The Alice is a "special" character by definition, though she is mechanically not very useful. You play an Alice, you're saying "my character is different from everyone else". It's a weird attempt at storygame stuff in OSR, like here's a character whose thing, in theory, is being able to roll for a Plot Device that will move things forward without the predefined effects of magic or whatever. But it's not worth it.
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Oct 3, 2021 21:30
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Oh poo poo, Tek levels! What a wild concept. Getting rid of that was a good move because it enables pirates and knights to hang with spacemen like they should do. That version also had different spacemen factions in, Iike the yellow guys getting cheap hoverboards and red guys getting giant robots. I was reconsidering doing the demo game for the Brikwars review and went looking for good ways to buy a handful of minifigs to fight with. And, uh, wow, Lego really doesn't want to give you minifigs. You can buy a replica of the café from Friends, or a tiny Tokyo skyline, but woe betide you if you want a guy with a sword without him coming with some massive construction for £90 or a tiny pile of useless accessories. It also barely tolerates you getting parts for Mobile Frame Zero but at least Pick A Brick exists. At this rate, I'm gonna bastardise some Lego City stuff and make a firefighter crew that sets fires. That'll be the gimmick. Or just Mad Max the poo poo out of it.
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Oct 3, 2021 23:41
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The Deleter posted:It also barely tolerates you getting parts for Mobile Frame Zero but at least Pick A Brick exists. Lego used to have a really good custom design and parts ordering system, also covering generic minifigs. They shut it down around 2011, citing complexity issues. Lego fan rumour muttered that Lego was really wary of anything that might be used to order a set piecemeal instead of in a box.
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Oct 4, 2021 00:06
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I mean there's still Bricklink and a couple of other brick vendors you can use for it. Not to mention there's still Pick a Brick.
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Oct 4, 2021 00:17
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I like the orcs who hunt demons and ghosts through the power of being pissed off
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Oct 4, 2021 01:01
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The Deleter posted:Oh poo poo, Tek levels! What a wild concept. Getting rid of that was a good move because it enables pirates and knights to hang with spacemen like they should do. That version also had different spacemen factions in, Iike the yellow guys getting cheap hoverboards and red guys getting giant robots. Having played 1 game of BrikWars ever (in college, which turned into a giant mess of Imperial Stormtroopers, Pirates, Martians, Soccer Players, Tanks...though I believe Jar Jar Binks got killed) I can't imagine a world where you can't put a band of pirates and ninjas in an orbital drop pod.
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Oct 4, 2021 01:31
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Benagain posted:I like the orcs who hunt demons and ghosts through the power of being pissed off I would play the poo poo out of an orruk ghostbuster of Rage. "Proton packs? I don't need no stinkin' proton packs!"
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Oct 4, 2021 19:56
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JcDent posted:I'll just leave my one mention that Kruleboiz now also read as un-orcy in the fluff as well as looking* closer to an upscaled goblin than an orc. Disagree on the looks, they look closer to actual Oldhammer 80s GW orcs than anything produced since the 90s. I was there for when the proto-Warcraft aesthetic took over the range and I could never really embrace it
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Oct 4, 2021 20:19
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Now I'm imaging a brikwars tournament using MTG sealed draft rules and those $6 minifig blind bags.
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Oct 4, 2021 20:20
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The Skeep posted:Now I'm imaging a brikwars tournament using MTG sealed draft rules and those $6 minifig blind bags. I know they basically sell those in supermarkets now so I might try this lol
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Oct 4, 2021 20:53
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