BrikWars: P.A.R.V.



Saturday we finally got to the PARV game. This one was a long time coming. I came up with the initial scenario around the same time as the original !Zombie! game (2002? 2003?). But when I finally posted it to the forums DaveE just about fell in love with it from the word go. Here's my original write up of the PARV rules.

He took and ran with it and produced a kick-ass game and The Brikington Manor of Lego Sci-Fi vehicles.

This game was, like most NELUG games, a rockin' good time. The post-apocalypse/Mad-Max setting was just fantastic, and led to all kinds of swanky creations for it.

DaveE's PARV itself is just mind-boggling. I've never seen so much tan in one place. Just about all my tan went into the Liberty Head, which was one of many obsticles we created for the game.



As in the rules, the Blood Warriors started out behind the PARV. We were a motley bunch including mutant dinosaurs and an bus that fired Flying Indian Bombs (FIBs) at the Omic Villagers. Jonathan's FIBs were a freakin' howl. They were fired and took a turn or two to land. So they would be in an arc for a the duration, exploding when they finally made contact (which was usually a miss). I have to say, when he was describing what he was building beforehand, I rolled my eyes. But it gets my vote for funnest units.



The Omics, who started with control of the PARV actually did more damage to the PARV itself than the Blood Warriors. In an attempt to get up, the shot remote cannons and missiles that blew apart the treads and other mayhem. Overall, they were more destructive than the apparently peace-loving Blood Warriors.

My own troops were bunched up in a single truck. Which of course, took a bad hit. Luckily, only the engine was taken out, so the vehicle was slowly falling back.



Although, one unit got a good shot with the grappling gun and sand-surfed her way onto the PARV.



As my truck fell behind, I managed to get all my guys onto Jonathan's passing bus, which he drove right up to the PARV. From there, I got all my guys onto the monster in a turn or two.



Even the driver, whom I left in the truck to guide it safely away (less we have some kind of chain reaction crash), was able to abandon the vehicle and catch a suped-up rider mower that Jonathan was able to drop.



I think, by then, I was the only one with a complete crew left. Everyone else had taken some damage.

But that was about to change, as my guys started dropping. In the end, the Omics controlled too much of the PARV. They had remote sentry bots gunning for us and our attempts to take out the engine room were not successful.



This was probably one of the more cinematic games to me. Every action I saw as a movie. From the PARV tearing across the desert, the obsticle appearing on the horizon and zipping backwards¹, to Jamie's raptor leaping onto the back and tearing up the landing until being pushed off and killed. It had the feel of an action movie.

In fact, I hope that we get a rematch someday. There's probably a dozen other ways this scenario can go too.

Another thing, besides using the new camera to take over 400 pics of the event (which chewed me through 4 sets of batteries over 11 hours) we set up a pair of microphones and recorded just about the entire event.

I've got 10 hours of BrikWar audio that I'm currently trying to cut into ~1 chunks. It's a mind-numbing, ear-bleeding amount of chat that's sometimes very chaotic. But, hopefully, I'll have something either later this week or early next for anyone interested to download.

For now, there's tons of pics.

My Pics
Alfred's Pics
Shaun's Pics

1. The Monastery was my favorite for this. I saw the scene shifting from the running battle quickly to a monk near the top dusting off the antennas. He looks out and sees a black dot with a giant dust plume behind it. He turns to his brother and points. They both look and within seconds, the PARV and it's pursuers come roaring bay as the camera swings around the top of the monastery to watch it go.

Excellent mini-write up!

I'm reading this and hitting myself with one of the thickest books I have: "UNIX The Complete Reference" because I was unable to make it to the game. st00pid work.

I saw Shaun's and Alfred's pictures yesterday and I was wondering about that "flying indian", only BrikWars can give you such a joy.

Rock on!

By  Jorge, at Tue Sep 20, 03:25:00 PM 2005  

Cool! But then we failed NELUG by providing a write up that Mike can use. Remember, we're supposed to keep him guessing for months!

Also, you picked a great picture of me, where it looks like I am taking a crap. I guess its better than the mic shot of Shaun!

-Alfred

By  Alfred-jr, at Tue Sep 20, 06:34:00 PM 2005  

Yeah, it really was too bad you couldn't make it. At least once, the entire Omic team was preoccupied with something other than the game. JoeC left, DanB was working, and Alfred was placating his wife on the phone with tales of being at my carpooling mercy.

You were missed Jorge. With a lot of luck there'll be another NELUG game before the year closes (and we have that big Year of BrikWars Awards Dinner 2005).

By  Evil Wayne, at Tue Sep 20, 08:05:00 PM 2005  

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