BOW Rules Book
Version 1.3

by Alban NANTY


You can download a printable version of this rules book in pdf format (800 Kb).

Aussi disponible en français (810 Ko).


Disclaimer

BOW (Bricks Only Wargame) is a game invented by Alban NANTY in the late 2006. This Rule book was written by Alban NANTY, and edited by Marcin Guzik in 2010/2011.
All the content of this book is copyrighted Alban NANTY. You can print and make copies of this Rule Book for your personal use but commercial use of this Rule Book is not allowed.

Please contact Alban NANTY () if you want to reproduce a part or the whole content of this Rule Book in a publication (web site, printed book, or any kind of publication past, present and future) to have written authorization.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO® Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this book.


Table of Contents
Foreword

BOW is a wargame designed for play with LEGO® bricks. Of course it is not the only brick wargame that you can find on internet, so I encourage you to read the rules of different brick wargames and choose the one you prefer.

My main concern when I wrote this rule book was to keep the rules as simple as possible, so even the youngest can play a BOW game. This means I wanted to create a wargame that you can play with and enjoy immediately after reading the rules without the learning process that is usually necessary for other wargames.

Of course simplification leads to less realism, but also leads to faster play and that's what I wanted to privilege. For example you will need only one dice roll to determine the result of an attack, whereas most of the other wargames use two dice rolls (one to check if the attack succeed, and another one to evaluate the damage).

Normally, after reading this book, you will be able to remember all the basic rules and start to play without having to look at this book for reference. Moreover, you won't need any statistic tables when playing (except the description sheets of your army), and the few statistics tables that you will find in this book are only useful during the creation of your army. Also you won't need any paper or a pen. You won't even need any dice! All you need is LEGO® bricks.

A last remark: BOW is better suit for small tactical battles centered on characters and heroes, rather than large strategic battles involving big vehicles and ships.

1.Preparation

 1.1 Brief Glossary


 1.2 Material

Here's what you need to play BOW:

 1.3 Battle Field

Because BOW is not just a wargame but a brick wargame, a big part of the enjoyment should come from building the battle field and your army from LEGO® bricks! The battle field can be whatever you want, the only condition is to have studs covering the whole surface, because these studs are used to move the minifigs during the fight. So don't put tile bricks on the ground and don't use baseplates with smooth roads (even if it looks better).

The rest is up to your imagination or maybe depends on the scenario you want to play. For example if you decide to play a game where the goal of one player is to deliver a princess locked up in a castle, you will probably build a castle with a jail and a princess in it... but if you prefer to play a big simple confrontation, maybe you will build some mountains, rivers and forests...

 1.4 Army

  1.4.1 Minifig Description Sheet

Basically, an army is made of minifigs (i.e. units) and vehicles. Each type of minifig and vehicle should have different characteristics (if not it would be like playing chess with only pawns). These characteristics or stats are grouped together on a Description Sheet. Here is the list of all the characteristics required for a minifig:

You can write down all these characteristics on a piece of paper, but I suggest you use your bricks to build your Description Sheets. Because the characteristics are reduced to minimum in BOW, all the characteristics of a minifig can be put on a 6x8 plate. You just have to count 1 stud per Ability point, for example if the Attack/Damage Ability of the minifig is 2, just put a 1x2 plate with 2 studs on the description sheet.

The 6 unused light gray studs will receive a copy of the minifig. The 6 white studs are used to store the Action Budget.
The 12 green studs are used
to store the Move Ability.
The 6 black studs on the left are used to store the Dodge/Armor Ability. The 6 black studs on the right are used to store the Attack/Damage Ability.
The 6 red or yellow studs on the left are used to store the Health Points. The 6 red or yellow studs on the right are used to store the Treat/Repair Ability.

For example, here is the Description
Sheet of a basic trooper.
(Action Budget=2, Move=5, Dodge/Armor=3,
Attack/Damage=2, HP=1, Treat/Repair=0)

When you build your army, you have to build also a Description Sheet for each different type of minifig you want to enroll in your army. Typically, each Hero will have his specific sheet whereas the troopers of a same kind will share the same sheet. An easy way to make the link between a minifig on the battle field and his description sheet is to put a clone of the minifig on the top left corner of the sheet.

You will be able to find examples of Minifig Description Sheets on the BOW web site, but of course you can create your own Description Sheet according to the minifig you want to use in your army. See the Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet.


  1.4.2 Vehicle Description sheet

As for the minifig, you need a Description Sheet for each type of vehicle in your army. Once it's impossible to put a clone of the vehicle on the Description Sheet, you have to use a distinctive sign or a Marking Brick (MB) instead. There are fewer characteristics on the description sheet of a vehicle.

The 12 unused light gray studs will receive
a MB that identify the vehicle.
The 12 green studs are used
to store the Speed characteristic.
The 12 black studs are used
to store the Dodge/Armor characteristic.
The 12 yellow studs are used
to store the Health Points.

For example, here is the Description Sheet
of an ordinary vehicle marked on the battlefield
with an Erling's blue brick.
(Speed=4, Dodge/Armor=5, HP=2)

  1.4.3 Balanced armies

BOW should be played in a friendly atmosphere where fair-play is the primary rule. If all the players are coming in this state of mind, each player can just pick up a set of minifigs and vehicles and start the battle. But if you want to make sure that someone doesn't build a super powerful army, you can count the number of minifigs and the number of vehicles for each player and check if the different armies are balanced.

Now if you want to be more precise about the balance of the armies, BOW provides a classical system of cost point (CP) like in most other wargames. Each unit and vehicle that composes your army has a CP value. Simply add all the CP of all the units and vehicles of your army to know the global CP value of your army. Then compare the global CP of the different armies to know if they have the same power. See the Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet for more details on how to compute the CP of a unit or vehicle.


2.Main Rules

For the moment we haven't seen any rules, we just had a look to the Description Sheets of the units, so I hope you are not already puzzled by what you read so far. Now we will talk about how to play BOW and what you can do during your turn.

 2.1 Brick Roll

To introduce some random in BOW we sometimes have to do Brick Rolls (BR). A Brick Roll is like a dice roll except that instead of throwing dices, we throw 2x2 common LEGO® bricks. Then just count the number of bricks that stop on its edge to know the result of the throw.


Don't count bricks that stop like that.

Count one point for each brick that stops like that.

 2.2 Round and Turn

Choose the starting player as you wish (for example each player can do a BR with 6 bricks and the higher result starts).

A game of BOW is divided in Rounds and Turns. A Round is the period when all the players play all their units. A Turn is a much smaller period when a player plays only one of his units. So during a Round, there are as many Turns as units on the battle field.

During his Turn, the player chooses one and only one minifig of his army to play. Then the player has a look at the Action Budget (white studs) on the Description Sheet of the chosen minifig. The Action Budget is the number of actions that the minifig can do during its Turn. The minifig can do as many actions or less as his Action Budget, in whichever order the player wants (which means a minifig can do no action, that is to say the player passes his Turn but mark the minifig as played). Usually the actions take effect immediately. See the description of each action below for more details.

When you have finished performing all the actions of your minifig, you must add a Marking Brick (MB) near the minifig to mark it as played during this Round. Of course you won't be allowed to play this minifig again until the end of this Round. Then begin the Turn of the next player.


The two minifigs on the right are marked with a white MB

Of course the player who has less minifigs than the other players on the battle field will have finished all his Turns before the other players. It's not a problem since at the end of the Round the player who still has some minifigs to play can do his Turns one after the other. When all the minifigs on the battle field have been played, the Round is over. The player who finished his Turns first (i.e. the one who has less minifigs) starts the next Round!

At the beginning of the second Round, all the minifigs on the battle field have a MB. It will be a waste of time to remove all these MB before starting the new Round, so instead, during the second round you will now remove the MB to mark a minifig as played. Then at the end of the second Round all the MB will be removed and you will be able to start the third Round as the first one. In fact during an odd Round you add the MB to mark a played minifig, and during an even Round you remove the MB to mark a played minifig. To remember in which kind of Round you are (an adding MB one or a removing MB one), you can build a little "Round Marker" with bricks. Put it studs up to indicate that you are in an adding MB Round, and studs down if you are in a removing MB Round. Flip your "Round Marker" at the end of each Round.



An example of Round Marker
(on the left we add MB, on the right we remove MB)

 2.3 Actions Without a Brick Roll

Because some actions are so easy to do than even the clumsier of us would be unlucky if he would have failed, for these actions you don't need to do a BR to check the result, they always succeed. But, as easy as these actions are, they nevertheless take time to perform. That's why, even if you don't need a BR, each action described in this chapter counts as a normal action in the Action Budget.


  2.3.1 Move Action

Moving a minifig is an action that doesn't need a BR because this action can never fail. To move a minifig just look to the Move Ability (green studs) written on his Description Sheet. This Ability is the maximum number of studs that can move the minifig from his original place for one move action. It's a maximum value, so, of course, the minifig is not obliged to cover all the studs distance (if he wants to reach a door for example).

A minifig can reorient himself for free during his move action and exclusively during a move action. That implies a minifig is obliged to do a move action when he wants to reorient even if he stays at the same place!

To move the minifig you can just move it one stud forward after another, and count the number of studs. The minifig can move diagonally and backward. As he can reorient for free, it's like he can move inside a square centered on his original position. But in practical there are a lot of obstacles to circumvent (trees, walls, other units...).


The pirate who has a Move Ability of 5 studs can move inside the white square. On his right, the house limits his move to 2 studs.

If his Action Budget allows him, a minifig can do several move actions during his Turn. So for example if the minifig has a Move Ability of 5, and has 2 actions in his Action Budget, he can do 2 move actions and so move to a distance of 10 studs.

The move actions can be done in the order you want and not necessarily in a row. For example if a minifig has 3 actions in his Action Budget, he can do a move action, open a door and do another move action. Or he can do an attack action, then a move action, then another attack action, etc...

See the Advanced Rules Book if you want more rules about movement (such as swimming, terrain difficulties, and so on...).


  2.3.2 Object and Weapon handling

In BOW a general rules to handle the objects and weapons is to use the actual ability of the minifig to carry the object. If you can clip the weapon in the hand or on the back of the minifig, then the action is possible. It just has to be close for the minifig, meaning that the minifig can touch the thing with one of his hands. Here are some actions that a unit can perform with objects:

As explained above a minifig can carry more than one weapon but only if you can physically clip this weapon somewhere on the minifig. There are several ways to add a weapon in the back of a minifig. Here are some examples, but I sure you can find some others:


Some examples of back clipping.

Changing the weapon or armor worn by a minifig can have an impact on its Description Sheet. If you switch its weapon with another one of the same power (for example replacing a bow by a sword) it won't affect his Attack/Damage Ability. But if you add or remove a shield, a helmet, a weapon, or give it a more or less powerful weapon, you will have to modify the Description Sheet as explained in the Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet. It will not be a problem if it's a Hero, but you may need to create a separate Description Sheet for a trooper that becomes different from his fellow troopers.

  2.3.3 Other Trivial Actions

Here are some other actions that count in the Action Budget but don't require BR:


 2.4 Actions with Brick Roll

  2.4.1 General consideration

In BOW, actions that need a BR are made against another BR, i.e you won't make a BR against a fixed value. There are some reasons for this rule:

If you want to perform an action that needs a BR, you can put the Description Sheets of the two concerned units side by side, the one who performs the action on the left, the one who resists to the action on the right. Then you can see the two values to use for the BR, side by side and with the same color (black/dark grey, red or yellow in the Basic Rules).

Minifig who does
the action
Minifig who resists
to the action

  2.4.2 Attack Actions

In BOW there's one general attack action whatever weapon you use (melee weapon, long-range weapon, etc...). The Attack/Damage Ability on the Description Sheet is a mix between the attack skill of the minifig and the power of the weapon he uses. So a skillfull minifig with a weak weapon will have the same Attack/Damage Ability that a clumsy minifig with a big gun. Likewise the Dodge/Armor Ability is a mix between the skill of a minifig to dodge the attack and his ability to resist to the damage. See the Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet for more details.

However there are different conditions to be able to do an Attack action depending on the weapon used by the minifig. The real LEGO® weapon held by the minifig should be a good representation so you know which rule applies. Read after for the description of these conditions.

Once you have checked that all the conditions are possible to do the Attack action, the player must do a BR with as many bricks as the Attack/Damage Ability of his minifig (eventually modified as explained later). The player who owns the target unit must do a BR with as many bricks as its Dodge/Armor Ability. Now depending on the two BR results, there are two possibilities:

If the attack succeeded, add immediately the Damage to the targeted unit or remove it from the battle field if it is dead or destroyed.

Conditions for Melee Weapon
(such as knife, sword, spear, mace, light saber, etc...)

To perform an Attack action with this kind of weapon, the targeted unit must be in front of the attacker (180 degrees). Moreover, the targeted unit must be reachable by the weapon of the attacker, which means the weapon (in the hand of the attacker) must be able to touch the targeted unit.

See the image beside for some examples of different attack distances according to the weapon used (the blue minifig is the target, and three attackers with three different weapons can reach him).
Conditions for Long-Range Weapon
(such as bow, crossbow, gun, blaster, rocket launcher, flame thrower, etc...)

To perform an Attack action with this kind of weapon:
  • The targeted unit must be visible, i.e. not hidden behind something from the firer's point of view (if the players disagree on the visibility of the target you can let the fate decide by doing a 5 bricks BR for each player, but this situation should be exceptional).
  • The targeted unit must be in front of the firer (180 degrees).
  • The targeted unit must not be too far (depending on the Attack/Damage Ability). Remove 1 brick from the Attack/Damage Ability per 15 studs of distance of the target (see the image below). If the resulting value falls to 0 or less then the firer cannot attack this targeted unit.

You can use a ruler made of bricks to measure the distance between the firer and the target. For example in the image above we used a 1x15 Technic Liftarm. Put the first stud of the ruler over the firer's head and check if the target's head is inside the 15 stud length. In the image above the blue target on the left is just at the limit of the first 15 studs, so the firer will use a normal Attack/Damage Ability, but for the blue target on the right, the firer will have to remove 2 bricks from his Attack/Damage Ability. If the target is too far, be fair and let the firer choose another action.

Moreover, the targeted unit can add 1 brick to its Dodge/Armor Ability if it is covered (the target can be covered by a decor element or by another unit or vehicle).

Example:


  2.4.3 Damage Points

Most of the basic units have only one Health Point on its Description Sheet, which means they immediately die when they receive damage. However Heroic characters may usually have more Health Points which means they can handle more damage.

When a unit receives as much Damage as its Health Point Ability written on its Description Sheet, then the unit is dead or destroyed. The unit must be removed immediately from the battle field. There are different ways to mark Damage Points on the units:

Heroes: since these units have their own personal Description Sheet and since they have often a lot a HP, you can mark the Damage by adding a MB over the Health Points on their Description Sheet.


Vehicles: if the vehicle is unique on the battle field, you can mark the Damage on its Description Sheet as for a Hero. Or you may choose to always mark the Damage directly on the vehicle, by adding some yellow MBs on it.

Troopers: unfortunately we can't add MB on the Description Sheet of the troopers because they share their Description Sheet. So we are obliged to add the MB directly on the minifig. There are several places where you can stack MB on a minifig : on his head if he is bald, on his hand if he has a free hand, or on the back of his legs.


  2.4.4 Treat/Repair Actions

In the basic rules of BOW, medics can treat wounded minifigs, and mechanics can repair damaged devices. But most of the minifigs has a null Treat/Repair Ability, and only few powerfull heroes (like a Jedi, or Prof. Dumbledore) could have both Treat and Repair skills. Of course the color of the Treat/Repair Ability and the color of the Health Points must match on the two Description Sheets when performing this action. That means only the minifigs that have the Treat skill (red) can treat a life form (red HP), and only the minifigs that have the Repair skill (yellow) can repair a mechanical device (yellow HP).


Leia can treat Han who can repair R2 and R2 can repair a ship.

A unit cannot Treat/Repair itself (even a Jedi or Magician can't). The unit that wants to do the Treat/Repair action must be in contact with the wounded or damaged unit (i.e. the medic/mechanic must be able to touch the wounded/damaged unit with one of its hands). Or if it's a magician that has the ability to cast a treating spell around him, we expect that the cast spell has a maximum range.

To do a Treat/Repair action the player must do a BR with as many bricks as the Treat/Repair Ability of his minifig. An opponent player must do a BR with as many bricks as the actual number of Damage Point of the wounded/damaged unit. There are two important things here: first it is one of your opponent players who does the BR even if it is your minifig that you are trying to treat/repair (which is generally the case). Actually your opponent may have no interest that you succeed to treat/repair your units, that's why he does the resisting BR for you. Secondly the resisting BR is made with the number of Damage points, and not the Health Point Ability written on the Description Sheet, which means it is easier to treat/repair a lightly wounded/damaged unit (with little damage) than a seriously wounded/damaged one (with more damage).

Now depending on the two BR results, there are two possibilities:

Optional Rule: If you want to be exactly symmetrical with the Attack action, you may prefer to remove as many Damage Points as the difference between the two BR results (i.e. Treat/Repair BR - Damage BR).


3.Vehicles

If you are playing BOW for the first time, maybe you should avoid using vehicles in order to simplify the rules, but if you are ready to learn some more rules, this section will tell you how to manage vehicles.

Here is a list of examples of vehicles that you can use in this game:

If the vehicle is flying, you can use transparent bricks to support it and pretend that the vehicle is actually in the air.


 3.1 Vehicle Occupants

In BOW the vehicles are not considered as a unit, because a vehicle can't move or act by itself, it's like a tool; it must be used by a minifig. If there are several minifigs in a vehicle, each minifig must be played on different Turns, but of course you can choose the order in which play the minifigs.

So, when you build your vehicles with bricks, don't forget to add a cockpit where a minifig pilot or driver can take place. You can also add several other places for minifigs (i.e. a gunner). Or your vehicle can be a truck to transport troopers. You can design your vehicle as you want but to be fair, don't forget to explain to the other players how it should be controlled (where the pilot sits, which weapon can be used by the pilot, which gunner controls which weapon, how many minifigs can get on, etc...).

Example: If you play BOW in the Starwars universe and want to use a snowspeeder, you will put two minifigs in the vehicle: the pilot in the front and the harpoon gunner in the back. You must play these two minifigs on two different Turns. You can play the pilot or the gunner first, as you want. The pilot can do a Piloting action and an Attack action (because the pilot controls the front blasters), whereas the gunner can't make a Piloting action or a Move action (he is stuck in his seat), but he can do an Attack action to fire his harpoon.
Another example, the catapult: If your catapult can move during the game that probably means that this catapult is pulled by horses (the catapult + the horses is what we call the "vehicle"). So you need a minifig that drives the horses in the good direction. This minifig is called the driver of the catapult. You can put this minifig on one horse, somewhere on the catapult or leave it next to the horses. During its Turn, this minifig will do some "Piloting" actions to move the catapult with the horses and itself. Maybe you will also have a minifig that will operate the mechanism of the catapult, so this minifig is the "gunner". The ammunition of the catapult should be infinite like the arrows of a bow or the bullets of a gun, but the catapult should have a firing rate (for example no more than one cannonball per Turn, or for tougher games, you must reload it with another minifig before you can fire again).
 3.2 Vehicle Speed

Usually a vehicle can move a lot during a Turn (a distance of tens of studs), so there's not enough space on the Description Sheet to put for example 30 studs of green plates. That's why we changed the scale: each green stud on the Vehicle Description Sheet represents a "move ability" of 5 studs on the field. It also represents a speed step for the vehicle.

Example: If a vehicle has 3 green studs on its Description Sheet, that means this vehicle would be able to move at three different speeds 1, 2 or 3 which represent a moving distance of 5, 10 and 15 studs on the field.

To keep a track of the speed of the vehicle, we put a MB on the corresponding green stud (read the studs from left to right and from top to bottom as if reading a book). Or you can put as many MB as the speed directly on the vehicle if the Description Sheet is shared by several identical vehicles. Of course if the speed falls to zero then we simply remove the MB.

Some vehicles like planes must have a minimum speed. In that case the first green studs on the Description Sheet will be replaced by green tile bricks. Since you cannot stack a MB on a tile, it means the vehicle cannot move at these slow speeds.

For such a vehicle, you just need to increase the speed above the minimum one to take off; and if you decrease the speed to 0 that means you make it land.



The image above represents the Description Sheet of a flying vehicle. Its minimum speed is 4, its maximum speed is 8 and its current speed is 6.

 3.3 Moving with a vehicle

During his Turn the pilot/driver can do one or several Piloting action(s) (according to its Action Budget of course) to change the speed or the direction of the vehicle. But if the driver doesn't do any Piloting action during his Turn, the vehicle moves anyway during the pilot's Turn in straight line and at its current speed. This is called a Compulsory Move.


Compulsory move

  • If the vehicle is not stopped (i.e. its current speed is not zero), the vehicle will move necessarily during the Turn of the pilot/driver in a straight line and a distance depending on its current speed.
  • Moving the vehicle doesn't count as an action for the pilot/driver, it is done for free by the vehicle itself. So if the pilot/driver doesn't do any Piloting action during his Turn, don't forget to move the vehicle anyway.
  • However the pilot/driver can do one or several Piloting actions before or after the compulsory move of the vehicle.
  • Special uncommon case: If the pilot/driver is dead and the speed of the vehicle is not null, then the player must move the vehicle during the Turn of another minifig. The player can choose which minifig Turn (the Turn of another vehicle occupant could be a good choice), or he can move the vehicle at the end of the Round if he forgot to choose a minifig Turn. The vehicle will move in straight line until it crashes or it moves out of the battle field.

Since the vehicles have a big "move ability" and are several studs wide, it becomes tedious to count the studs on the battlefield to move them. Instead you can use a ruler made of bricks of the corresponding length to measure the move distance (there are many ways to build a ruler with LEGO® bricks, see the BOW web site for some examples).



If the speed of the landspeeder is 4, it will move to 20 studs measured here with a ruler made of 2 plates 1x10 of different colors.

Changing speed

  • The pilot/driver can decide to change the speed by increasing or decreasing the current speed to the value he wants. If the vehicle was stopped (i.e. the speed was null) increasing speed makes it start to move. If it was moving (i.e. the speed was not null) decreasing speed to zero makes it stop.
  • You can do several changing speed actions during the Turn of your pilot (according to his Action Budget of course), for example you can start the vehicle (changing speed from 0 to 2 for example, this is the first Piloting action) then do the compulsory move of the vehicle (in that case of 10 studs) then stop it again (changing speed from 2 to 0, this is the second Piloting action).
  • When you change the speed of the vehicle don't forget to move the MB on the Description Sheet or on the vehicle itself.


Changing direction

If you want to change the direction of a vehicle, the pilot/driver can do one or several Changing Direction action during his Turn (according to his Action Budget of course). Doing this action allow you to rotate the vehicle on itself (before or after it moves) to a maximum of 45 degrees per action. So to do a half turn, you will need to do 4 Changing direction actions (4 x 45° = 180°).

Example:

In the example above the pilot decided to do two Changing direction actions during his Turn, one before the compulsory move and the other after the move. The picture 1 shows the vehicle at the beginning of the Turn of the pilot. In picture 2, the pilot does a Changing direction action, and rotate the vehicle on itself from around 20 degrees. In picture 3 the vehicle is moved in straight line according to its current speed which is 4 in that case (so the vehicle moves to a distance of 20 studs). Finally in picture 4 the pilot does another Changing direction action, this time the player rotate the vehicle on itself from almost 45 degrees.
 3.4 Attacking with a vehicle

A driver/pilot can do an Attack action only if the vehicle has a weapon that can be controlled by the driver/pilot. Of course a gunner that controls another weapon can also do one or several Attack actions during his Turn according to his Action budget.

The weapons of the vehicles should have an angle of fire, just like a hand weapon. If you want to keep things simple, just use a 180 degrees angle centered on the axis of the weapon like for the hand guns, but it can be a 360 degrees angle if the weapon is mounted on a turret. Of course this information should be explained to your opponents before starting the play.

As explained in the Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet, you should have modified the Attack/Damage Ability of the driver/pilot and the gunners according to the weapon they control (by adding some points depending on the power of the weapon controlled). The weapons of a vehicle should be considered just like a handgun. So don't forget to adjust the Attack/Damage Ability of the pilot/driver and gunners when they leave the vehicle, or when the vehicle is destroyed.

 3.5 Damage

A vehicle also has Health Point and all the attack actions damage in priority the vehicle. However if an occupant is visible from outside the vehicle (for example a rider on a horse, a pilot in an opened cockpit...) a unit can decide to directly attack the occupant (usually with a long-range attack). But of course the attacker can choose to attack the vehicle, if he prefers.

A damaged vehicle can be repaired from outside or inside by a mechanic. When the vehicle has lost all its Health Point, the vehicle is permanently destroyed and can no longer be repaired. Remove the vehicle from the battle field and put the occupants at its former place. If, during the last attack action that destroyed the vehicle, there was more Damage Points than Health Points then the remaining Damage Points are shared fairly between all the occupants (the attacker player can choose the minifigs that will receive 1 more point if the count is not fair).

Example: A vehicle with one driver and two gunners is blown up during an attack action that makes a damage of 6 Damage Points. The vehicle has only one remaining Health Point. On the 6 Damage Points, one point is used to destroy the vehicle, and the 5 remaining Damage Points are divided in 3 (because there are three occupants). So two minifigs will receive 2 Damage Points and one minifig will receive 1 Damage Point. The attacker player chooses to remove 2 HP from the pilot, 2 HP from one gunner and 1 HP from the last gunner.
 3.6 Collision and Crash

  3.6.1 Collision with units

If a moving vehicle hit a minifig or a unit, then the hit minifig may receive damage according to the Speed of the vehicle. The owner of the minifig must do a Dodge/Armor BR whereas the opponent player does the opposition BR with as many bricks as the Speed of the vehicle.



The horse speed is 2, during his compulsory move he will collide with the peasant who then must resist a 2 brick BR.

Of course if several minifigs are hit by the same vehicle, each minifig involved must do a Dodge/Armor BR against the Speed BR. Then the damage is resolved normally for the minifigs. If the minifig is not dead, put it beside the vehicle, near the place it was.

  3.6.2 Collision with the decor (crash)

If the vehicle hit a wall, a fixed decor element or the ground (for a flying vehicle) during its compulsory move, then the vehicle may receive some damage according to its Speed. The player of the vehicle does a Dodge/Armor BR (with the Dodge/Armor characteristic of the vehicle), and the opponent player do the opposition BR with as many bricks as the Speed of the vehicle.

Then resolve the damage as explain in the previous section (3.5 Damage). Of course the crash can destroy the vehicle and may hurt the occupant if there are some exceeding Damage Points. If the vehicle is not destroyed (i.e. the vehicle still have some Health Point) then the vehicle is stopped, that means its current Speed falls to zero, and the MB for the Speed is removed from the Description Sheet. If the vehicle is a flying one, then the vehicle is landed.



During his Turn the driver didn't steer the car, preferring using his actions to shoot at the rocket launcher. The jeep then collides with the wall at a speed of 2, so the jeep must resist to a 2 bricks BR and then its speed is reduced to 0.

  3.6.3 Collision between vehicles

If a vehicle hit another vehicle during its Turn, both vehicles may receive damage. First we have to determine the relative speed between the two vehicles. It depends on which side of the hit vehicle, the moving vehicle comes from. Look at the following image to know which situation you are in.

It is the blue vehicle's Turn which is moving in the direction of the white arrow. The hit vehicle is the red one. You can define three sectors around the red vehicle according its direction.
  • Sector 1, the front sector: If the moving vehicle comes from this sector, then the relative Speed is the sum of the speeds of the two vehicles (Speed of the blue vehicle + Speed of the red vehicle)
  • Sectors 2, the side sectors: If the moving vehicle comes from this sector, then the relative Speed is only the Speed of the moving vehicle (the blue one)
  • Sector 3, the back sector: If the moving vehicle comes from this sector, then the relative Speed is the difference of the Speed of the two vehicles (Speed of the faster vehicle - Speed of the slower vehicle)

Once you know the relative Speed, each owner of the vehicles does a Dodge/Armor BR against a BR with as many bricks as the relative Speed. So the owner of the moving vehicle does a Dodge/Armor BR against a relative Speed BR done by the opponent player, then the owner of the hit vehicle does a Dodge/Armor BR against another relative Speed BR done by the opponent player. Of course the damage is resolved normally.

If one or both vehicles are not destroyed then they are stopped as explained in the crash section (3.6.2 Collision with the decor (crash)).


4.Summary

That's all! You have finished reading the basic rules of BOW. I hope you find them understandable and easy to remember. Just to fix the ideas, here's a brief summary of all the rules:

Now you can start to play BOW! I hope you will have FUN!


Annex A: Creating a new Description Sheet

 A.1 Basic Trooper Description Sheet

Some examples of Description Sheets are available on the BOW web site, but of course you can also create your own troopers and heroes. To have a reference, here is the Description Sheet of a basic trooper.

Ability Value
Action Budget 2
Move 5
Dodge (without the Armor value) 1
Attack (without the Damage value) 1
Health Point 1
Treat/Repair 0

To the Attack and Dodge values, you have to add the values corresponding to the equipment of your unit. In most case, the units don't have the opportunity to change their equipment during the game. But to make easier to change the equipment during the game, the rules recommend you to mark the Attack value and the Damage value with bricks of two different colors: dark gray and black (same thing for Dodge and Armor values). The Ability value that you use to make your Brick Roll is, of course, the total value. Have a look to the next chapter to have an idea of the value you should use for the equipments.


 A.2 Damage and Armor

The Attack/Damage Ability is the sum of the Attack skill (marked on the Description Sheet with DARK GRAY bricks) and the Damage of the weapon carried by the unit (marked with BLACK bricks). Usually the units have only one weapon and keep it from the beginning to the end of the game. But if a unit changes his weapon during the game, adjust on his Description Sheet the black bricks with the value corresponding to his new weapon. Do the same thing if a unit gets on a vehicle and take the control of one of the weapons of the vehicle.

This is the same thing for the Dodge/Armor Ability. The Dodge Skill is marked with DARK GREY bricks and the Armor and shield and other physical protections are marked with BLACK bricks. As for the Attack/Damage Ability, if a unit changes his armor (by leaving his shield for example) during the game, then modify the black bricks according to the new armor value.

As we saw in the previous chapter, a basic trooper has 1 point of Attack and 1 point of Dodge. Now use the following tables to know the value of his Damage and Armor according to his equipment.

Weapon Damage
value
Knife, little Hammer, Spear, Stick... 1
Mace, Sword, Bow, Crossbow, Gun, Blaster... 2
Submachine gun, Flamethrower,
Grenade, Little vehicle weapon...
3
Rocket launcher, Bomb, Dynamite,
Light Saber, Big vehicle weapon...
4
Armor Armor
value
Helmet, Shield, Coat of mail,
Body armor, Bulletproof vest...
1
Suit of armor... 2
Of course, add the values if a minifig
has several armor pieces.
For example if a minifig has a Shield and
a Helmet, its global Armor value is 2.

If a minifig doesn't hold something like a shield in its left hand, it can use two weapons on the same time, but of course the two weapons must be able to be used together. For example a minifig can have two little swords or two guns like Lara Croft, but a minifig can't have two bows or two rocket launchers because these weapons require two hands to be used. So if your minifig has two weapons, just add the damage of the two weapons on the Description Sheet and consider these two weapons as it is only one.



Tip: If you don't want to manage too many Description Sheets for very similar trooper, or for troopers that carry two types of weapons, here is a tip to merge two Description Sheets into one: You can use rounded 1x1 plates stack on top of the squared 1x1 plates to describe the damage value of the second weapon that equip the minifig. In the example below the black square plates represent the 4 damage points of the rocket launcher whereas the 2 black round plates represent the damage points of the rifle.
 A.3 Vehicle

It's impossible to give a Description Sheet of a standard vehicle because there are many different vehicles. Some are slow but very robust (like a tank), some other can fly very quickly but are fragile (like a fighter), some other ones are unarmed (like a horse), etc... Look in the BOW web site for examples of vehicle Description Sheets.

Usually a vehicle moves faster than a basic trooper on foot, and the Move Ability of a trooper is 5 (which represents a Speed characteristic of 1). So you can imagine how many times faster your vehicle should move to choose the Speed characteristic of your vehicle. But beware not to give a too high value, because your vehicle could cross the whole battlefield in one Turn! And that would be really unfair...

To estimate the Armor value of your vehicle, refer to the Damage table of the weapons. For example a bomb or a rocket has a Damage value of 4; if this weapon is held by a basic trooper, the Attack/Damage value is 5. If you think your vehicle should be damaged by such a weapon, you should give 5 to its Armor value. Another example: a horse can be easily wounded by a gun/sword/etc..., so its Armor value should probably be 3.

Finally to estimate the Health Point value of your vehicle, try to imagine how many times the vehicle can be damaged before being completely destroyed? For example, if your tank can only resist to 2 rockets before being destroyed, then you should give 2 Health Point to your tank.


 A.4 Cost Points

Once you have finished the Description Sheet of your unit or vehicle, you can compute its cost points from the ability values. The more skilled and robust (more HP) your unit is, the more expensive it is.

To compute the CP of a home-made minifig you can use the following formula:


If the minifig has a melee weapon:
CP = (Action Budget + Move + Dodge/Armor + Attack/Damage + Treat/Repair) x Health Point

If the minifig has a long-range weapon:
CP = (Action Budget + Move + Dodge/Armor + Attack/Damage + Treat/Repair) x Health Point x Damage

To compute the CP of a home-made vehicle you can use the following formula:


CP = [(Speed x 5) + Dodge/Armor + all Weapons Damage] x Health Point

Annex B: How to extend the rules

 B.1 The foundations of BOW

The basic rules of BOW form a simple framework of a quick to learn and fun brick wargame. Only the minimal rules have been added in the Basic Rules Book (move, fight, repair), and a lot of other rules can be plugged into the system. In fact the Advanced Rule Book already proposes a set of new rules that you can choose to add or not.

You can of course invent your own rules, but if you do so, I recommend you to follow some basic principles on which BOW was designed:

 B.2 Creating new trivial actions without BR

If, during a play of BOW, you want your minifig to do a trivial action not listed in the basic rules, feel free to invent a logical rule to perform it, and just count it in your Action Budget when performing it. Though, you shouldn't invent a rule for actions that have no interest for the battle or that can be done while doing another action, such as speaking, sniffing, and so on...

The basic idea of creating a trivial action is just to reduce the Action Budget during the Turn of the player. These actions are typically important actions from the game point of view, so you don't want them to be free, but you don't want to waste your time or reduce the pace of the game with BR.


 B.3 Creating new actions with BR

If you want to create some actions with BR, here are few hints to stay coherent with the global system of rules:

  1. Remember that in BOW we don't do a BR against a certain fixed value, but we always do a BR against another BR made by an other player. That way, all the players are always active and don't have the time to be bored. So if you invent a new action, you must also invent the corresponding resisting action. For example if you want to add a "magic" action to allow magicians to throw spells on units, you must also add the "protection against magic" action. Maybe a trooper will have 0 for protection against magic, but a magician will probably have a non null Ability so that he can resist a magic attack from another magician.
  2. Choose a new color to mark the number of brick needed for the BR on the Description Sheet. The BLUE is an unused common color for example, but there are also LIGHT GREY, BROWN, etc...
  3. Action and resisting action should use the same color and be on the same line on the Description Sheet.
  4. To determine the average Ability value for your new action, think of the Ability that you would give to a basic trooper. It's perfect if you can give 0 or 1 to a basic trooper (unless you want to have some units less skilled than a basic trooper for the action you have invented).
  5. Finally add some rules specific to the action (condition for use, effects, etc...), for example for the magic action you can specify a maximum range around the magician.