Review: Block Tech US101-1335 Everlasting Rose Romantic Red

Keeping up with Brickcraft, Block Tech also has some seasonal releases for Valentine's Day.  Then again, Block Tech has been at this longer than Brickcraft has.  Although, I haven't seen many of these in the 5 Below stores I've been to.  So either they under-produced them or they are selling really well.

Box.  MSRP is $5.00, for a $0.05 Price per Piece. 

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Axle, Inverted Tiles, Plate, Quarter Circle Plates, Clip Claws,

Translucent Plate, Translucent Octagonal Bar Plates, Translucent

Double Sided Studless Slopes, Round Plates, Translucent Tiles, Translucent

Wedge Plates, Ball Joint Plate, Axle/Pin Connector, Translucent

Round Plates, Translucent Brackets, and Translucent Travis Brick.

Parts 2.  Translucent Quarter Circle Slopes, Translucent Wedge Plates, Round Tile

w/Pinhole, Translucent Round Large Jumpers, Translucent Studless Slopes,

 Wedge Studless Slopes, Pin/Ball Joint, Translucent Plates, Translucent Large

Cheese Slopes w/Studs, Translucent Tooth Plates, and Translucent Clip Plates.

Build.  Station and Frame (2W).

The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  Below.  (+5)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  This set is exactly the same as Wednesday's review, just with Translucent Red instead of Blue.

Review: Block Tech US101-1336 Everlasting Rose Piercing Blue

Keeping up with Brickcraft, Block Tech also has some seasonal releases for Valentine's Day.  Then again, Block Tech has been at this longer than Brickcraft has.  Although, I haven't seen many of these in the 5 Below stores I've been to.  So either they under-produced them or they are selling really well.

Box.  MSRP is $5.00, for a $0.05 Price per Piece. 

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Axle, Translucent Wedge Plates, Plate, Quarter Circle Plates,

Translucent Round Plates, Translucent Plate, Translucent Octagonal Bar

Plates, Translucent Inverted Tiles, Ball Joint Plate, Round Plates, Axle/

Pin Connector, Translucent Double Studless Slopes, Clip Claws,

Translucent Tiles, Translucent Brackets, and Translucent Travis Brick.

Parts 2.  Round Tile w/Pinhole, Translucent Round Large Jumpers, Translucent

 Plates, Translucent Wedge Plates, Translucent Quarter Circle Slopes, Translucent

Studless Slopes, Wedge Studless Slopes, Pin/Ball Joint, Translucent Large

Cheese Slopes w/Studs, Translucent Clip Plates, and Translucent Tooth Plates.

Build.  Two Frames (2W), and a Station.

The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  Below.  (+5)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  Translucent Octagonal Bar Plates are the big selling point to me.  All the Translucent Blue pieces should be good for color-tagging Defensive systems too.

Review: Block Tech US24-2297 Mount Up! Swift-Sting Scorpion 1

This is from the second release of Block Tech's "Mount Up!" line dating back to 2022  They could be found at 5Below stores.  The boxes are smaller than they were for the first batch.  And, once again, I'm reviewing this because I need some of the parts.

Box.  MSRP was $4.99, for a $0.03 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Minifig.

Parts 1.  Minifig Weapons Sprue.

  

Parts 2.  Plates, Studless Slopes, Corner Wedges, Axle

Plate, Wedges, Slopes, Tail, and Ball Joint Plates.

Parts 3.  Plates, Tiles, Inverted Tiles, Clip Bar Holders, Half Pin, Clip Plates, Inverted Studless Slopes, Barbs/Claws, Apollo Studs, and Minifig Weapons (I mistakenly included these in a second picture.  There's only one of each in this set.).

Parts 4.  Inverted Tiles, Wedge Plates, Ball Joint Plates, Exo-

Force Arms, Large Cheese Slopes, Padlocks, and Bracket.

 

Build.  Two Frames (2W), and a Station.

 The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  Below.  (+5)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  I managed slightly different looking Frames this time around but still the same amount of stuff.  There are plenty of leftover pieces as well.

Rule Mod: Boss/Kaiju Fights Version 0.1

Back when people were talking about the whole Combiner vs. Kaiju game idea I was initially resistant because it's a straight up slugfest but, then I realized two player games of MFZ are like that anyway.  So let's look at how we can tweak the rules to make this happen.

The Kaiju being Defender -- all they get is one "Frame" -- has parallels to Kaiju fiction because the opponents are always responding after the Kaiju has entered the battlefield.  I also think the Boss being the Defender works mechanically and thematically. Those kind of fights are always set piece battles with the players coming up to the Boss, which means the Boss is the one who has picked the place where the fight is going to occur a.k.a. the Defender.

That being settled, how do you build a Boss/Kaiju?  I think the easiest way to look at this is to break things down to how many White Dice equivalents in Systems a Boss/Kaiju would have if they were to field the minimum force of Frames for a specific size game i.e. Skirmish versus Battle.  If we're keeping it at two players then the Boss/Kaiju Frame should be worth eight White Dice for a Skirmish -- four Frames equivalent -- and ten White Dice for a Battle -- five Frames equivalent.  You can trade some of these White Dice for Systems but you must always have two White Dice when you are done with this process.  You may exceed the "Only two of any System type" limitation as well.

Normally the Defender would be limited to one action, only having one Frame.  So to even out the action economy a little we're going to allow the Kaiju/Boss to have more than two Weapon Systems at one Range.  Three weapons split into as 2d6+d8 and 2d6 and these can be fired at two different targets.  Four is 2d6+d8 and 2d6+d8 and these can be fired at two different targets.  Or, if you prefer, three Weapon Systems can be a Superweapon that rolls 2d6+2d8 but can only be fired at one target.  Four weapons can be combined into a Megaweapon that does 4d6+d10 but also only fires at one target.  This could be used to simulate something like Godzilla's Atomic Breath.

Looking at the Points per Asset math a Kaiju/Boss player would have (1 Frame + 3 Stations) * 7 = 28 points to start.  This means that the opposing player is going to be limited to four to six Frames for a Skirmish and five to six Frames for a Battle.  (See math below.)  If you went any higher the points totals would change so that the Kaiju/Boss player would be the Attacker and that's not how we structured things.  Also, if you look at Sentai fiction -- which is where some of the elements of combiner mechs come from -- a lot of the teams generally have only five members.  So four to six Frames for the Attacker team makes sense.

(4 Frames + 3 Stations)*3= 21 points.

(5 Frames + 3 Stations)*3= 24 points.

(6 Frames + 3 Stations)*3= 27 points.

Just keep in mind that none of these ideas have been playtested.  So take the suggestions posted here with a grain of salt.  I just hope they're useful and people get some fun from them.

A Discussion of Cover

The two weeks ago we had someone on the Discord ask about the disconnect between the minimum height for Cover and the height of Frames.  I've talked about this before.  The minimum height for Cover is 3 Bricks -- that's the minimum.  In 6P scale -- the one I use the most -- that's nine feet tall.  Nine feet is roughly the height of a small building.  My house is three stories tall -- well two stories and an attic -- which is roughly 30 feet tall.  There are nearby trees which are just as tall if not taller.

The Chub -- which is still the median height reference in MFZ: Rapid Attack despite ongoing size creep since its introduction -- is roughly 20 Plates tall.  That's 20 feet tall in 6P.  Which means it's shorter than my house.  Also a lot of other buildings, trees, etc.  So if you keep your builds to roughly the same size as the Chub, terrain height shouldn't be that hard to deal with.  That being said, I have a number of terrain designs that are fairly tall and can be made taller than the ubiquitous Chub.  If you scan back through my Terrain Workshop posts you can see things like Twisting Trees, Windmill, and Archway Trees.  These are all taller than a Chub and don't involve a lot of parts.  Although, honestly, if you look at my Battle Reports the height of Frames versus the height of Cover isn't really an issue.  It's the height of Frames versus Frames that's often more pronounced.

I guess one last thing to keep in mind is that people in 6P scale are considered to be two Bricks tall (6 Plates).  Cover starts at three Bricks.  Which means that people can never be used as Cover.  So there's little to no chance that War Crimes could be an element of game play.  Make of that what you will.

Player Count 6.1

After the game we just played using the new Player/Frames formula, I'm revisiting Player Count 6 with a small comparison.  Let's take a Generic Starter Squad -- quite literally -- and compare the amount of Frames in that set to all of the levels and amounts in the player count formula.  This should give us an idea of how our modifications have effected the formula.

Original

                                Frames

Players  Stations Skirmish Battle

    2           3         4 to 6 5 to 8

    3           2         3 to 5 4 to 7

    4           2         3 to 4 4 to 6

    5           1         3 to 4 3 to 5

There are 24 "spaces" that a squad can fit into depending on how many Frames are in that squad.  My Generic Starter Squad can fit in to 17 of them.  That's roughly 71% of potential games people might play.  Which is pretty good for getting people started.

Now lets look at the new formula I devised.

New 1.3

        Frames

Players Stations Skirmish Battle War

      2       3 5 to 7  6 to 8 7 to 9

      3       2 4 to 6  5 to 7 6 to 8

      4       2 3 to 5  4 to 6 5 to 7

      5       1 3 to 4  3 to 5  4 to 6

      6       1  N/A          3 to 4 3 to 5

N/A = Not Applicable.

The Starter Kit fits into 22 of 40 spaces, this time around, which brings the average down to 55%.  The average has come down but the overall number of spaces has nearly doubled and the number of spaces that the Starter Kit can fit into has increased.  If we ignore the "War" column -- which is one of the reasons why this formula is set up the way it is -- that reduces the number of possible spaces to 25.  Which changes it to 16 of 25 possibilities, which is 64%.

If I was to expand the Generic Starter Squad to six Frames that would increase the number of spaces fit to 88/75/84% depending on which version of the formula you use.  But that will be a question for another time depending on how things shake out for the 2nd Edition of Rapid Attack.  In the meantime I will continue testing this version of the formula.

Battle Report: Asian Antenna Farm 3

This is our first game for 2025 after taking the last two months of 2024 off.  This was a War.

Occam's Spork (7 Frames & 24 Systems) = (6 Points per Asset) * (9 assets) = 54 points.
   #2 Oso Oro Recon by Fire -- 2Ra+d8/2Y/2W.

   #5 Oso Oro Recon by Fire -- 2Ra+d8/2Y/2W.

   Orange Recon by Fire -- 2Ra+d8/2Y/2W.

   Blue Scout Bodyguard -- 2Rd/2Rh/1B/1Y/2W.

   White Scout Bodyguard -- 2Rd/2Rh/1B/1Y/2W.

   Grey Scout Bodyguard -- 2Rd/2Rh/1B/1Y/2W.

   #6 Oso Oro Missile Monkey -- 2W + SSR(x3).

Tom (7 Frames & 27 Systems) = (5 Points per Asset) * (9 assets) = 45 points.
   Green Armored Swarmer -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/1Y/2W + SSR.
   Blue Armored Swarmer -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/1Y/2W + SSR.

   Grey Armored Swarmer -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/1Y/2W + SSR.

   White Light Brawler -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/2W.

   Red Anvil -- 2Rd/2B/1Y/2W

   Orange Anvil -- 2Rd/2B/1Y/2W

   Yellow Recon by Fire -- 2Ra+d8/2Y/2W.

Me (7 Frames & 28 Systems) = (4 Points per Asset) * (9 assets) = 36 points.  (Goldbugs)

   Green Soldier -- 2Rd/1B/1G/1Y/2W +SSR.

   Yellow Soldier -- 2Rd/1B/1G/1Y/2W + SSR.

   Blue Soldier -- 2Rd/1B/1G/1Y/2W + SSR.

   Red Heavy Assault -- 2Rd+d8/1B/1G/2W.

   Orange Heavy Assault -- 2Rd+d8/1B/1G/2W.

   White Recon by Fire -- 2Ra+d8/2Y/2W.

   Pink Brawler -- 2Rh+d8/2B/1Gd8/2W.

Phungkyjams (7 Frames & 28 Systems) = (4 Points per Asset) * (5 assets) = 20 points.  (Rebricked Chevrons)
   Purple Bodyguard -- 2Rh/2Rd/2B/2W + SSR.

   Pink Swarmer -- 2Rd+d8/1B/1Gd8/1Y/2W.

   Red Swarmer -- 2Rd+d8/1B/1Gd8/1Y/2W.

   Blue Armored Swarmer -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/1Y/2W + SSR.

   Light Blue Armored Swarmer -- 2Rh/2B/1Gd8/1Y/2W.

   Green Scout Stalker -- 2Ra+d8/1G/1Y/2W.
   Lime Scout Stalker -- 2Ra+d8/1G/1Y/2W.

This is what the table looked like at the start of the game.

Events of Round 1 (DDC @ 11): Occam's Spork's #6 frame moves Northwest and hits Phungkyjams' Light Blue frame for 1 with a SSR barrage.  Phungkyjams' Purple frame jumps over the Sunflowers and hits Occam's Spork's Blue frame for 4.  Tom's Lime frame hits my Blue frame for 1.  My Blue frame hits Tom's Blue frame for 4 with a SSR.  Tom's Blue frame hits my Green frame for 4.  My Green frame hits the Red antenna in front of Tom's Red frame for 1.  My Red frame hits Occam's Spork's #6 frame for 6, destroying it.  Phungkyjams' Lime frame hits Occam's Spork's #5 frame for 2, Station Dance.  Occam's Spork's #5 frame hits the Red antenna remains for 1, destroying it, and Tom's Red frame for 2, Station Dance.  Tom's Red frame hits my Yellow frame for 1.  My Yellow frame hits Tom's Grey frame for 3.  Tom's Grey frame hits my Green frame for 1.  Occam's Spork's White frame hits Phungkyjams' Light Blue frame for 1.  Occam's Spork's Grey frame hits Phungkyjams' Purple frame for 1.  Tom's Orange frame hits Phungkyjams' Pink frame for 1.  Phungkyjams' Pink frame hits my Orange frame for 1.  My Orange frame hits Phungkyjams' Blue frame for 2.  Tom's Yellow frame hits my Pink frame for 4.  My Pink frame moves Northeast and captures Phungkyjams' Flame station and Occam's Spork's (Phungkyjams') Grey station.  Tom's White frame hits my Blue frame for 2.  Phungkyjams' Red frame hits Tom's Blue frame for 8, destroying it.  My White frame hits Tom's Red frame for 3 and the Yellow antenna it was using for Cover for 2, destroying the antenna.

Occam's Spork: 48 points.

Me: 44 Points.

Tom: 40 points.

Phungkyjams: 28 points.

Events of Round 2 (DDC @ 7): Phungkyjams' Blue frame hits Occam's Spork's Blue frame for 2, destroying it.    Occam's Spork's #5 frame hits my Blue frame for 1.  Tom's Grey frame hits my Yellow frame for 4.  Tom's Orange frame hits my Green frame for 1, destroying it.  Tom's White frame hits my Blue frame for 2.  My White frame hits a Grey antenna for 2.  Phungkyjams' Green frame hits the other Grey antenna for 2.  Phungkyjams' Red frame hits Tom's Yellow frame for 6, Station Dance.  Tom's Lime frame hits my Yellow frame for 1, destroying it, and the bamboo it was using for cover for 2.

Occam's Spork: 42 points.

Tom: 40 points.

Me: 36 Points.

Phungkyjams: 28 points.

Events of Round 3 (DDC @ 3): Occam's Sporks' #2 frame moves South and captures my Pink station.  Occam's Spork's White frame hits a Yellow antenna for 2, destroying it, and Phungkyjams' Purple frame for 1.  My Red frame hits Phungkyjams' Pink frame for 1.  My ?? frame hits Phungkyjams' Purple frame for 1.  My White frame hits Occam's Sporks's #2 frame for 1.  Phungkyjams' Light Blue hits my Red frame for 3.  Occam's Spork's Grey frame captures my Lavender station.  Phungkyjams' Pink frame hits my Red frame for 4, destroying it, and recapturing his Grey station.  Tom's Lime frame hits my Blue frame for 2, destroying it.  Tom's Orange frame hits Phungkyjams' Red frame for 1.  Phungkyjams' Red frame then hits Tom's Yellow frame for 9, destroying it.  (Which is now the highest damage hit we've seen in a Rapid Attack game.)  Tom's Grey frame hits Phungkyjams' Red frame for 2.  My Orange frame hits Phungkyjams' Blue frame for 1 and Phungkyjams' Blue frame recaptures his Flame station.  The Doomsday Clock is ticked to zero.

Occam's Spork: 54 points.

Phungkyjams: 36 points.

Tom: 35 points.

Me: 12 Points.

Here are several during and aftermath pictures.

Round 2.

Round 2.

Round 3.

Round 2.

Round 2.

Round 3.

Round 3.

Round 3.

Round 3.

Round 3.

Thoughts & Observations:

• This was a War.
• We didn't use the Neutral Station rule.
• Phungkyjams was Point Attacker which was decided by a die roll.
• Frame counts are taken from this post.
• This was an experiment as we'd never played a game with this many Frames on the table before.
• It was pretty claustrophobic at the start and basically devolved into a couple of different scrums.
• This game reminds me of a game from several years ago, Missile Base Omega.
• Once again, I feel like I made my move too soon in the game.
• This game has the highest Damage total of any game so far.
• Which isn't surprising considering how many Frames were on the table.
• Although I did miss a couple of interactions in my notes.
• There isn't a Compass Rose on the table, I really need to make one for this table-setting, but I
  decided that West is the direction the radio antennas are facing.
• Flickr page.