Brute
Alert
Destroy
Control
Type
Power to Rampage
Chooses Enemy Casualties
As a leader, after winning a combat where your opponent suffers casualties, use this power to “rampage”. Choose any of your opponent’s ships to be lost as casualties, equal to the number of their committed ships.
Legacy: Actors must choose uncommitted ships to be casualties instead of their committed ships.
The brutish Brutes fail to understand the purpose of etiquette in war. They aren’t content with merely destroying the enemy in front of them. They want to seek out what their enemy loves most and rip it to shreds. Most aliens do not appreciate them going the extra mile.
Leader: Encounter
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As a leader, after contact, if your opponent sent an envoy, you may discharge this flare to snipe two of your opponent’s ships unless they surrender.
Leader: Contact
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to intimidate the enemy fleet.
Leader: Encounter
Modifications
- Originally the power of Bully. Swapped with Brute for thematic reasons.
- Originally the power to Intimidate.
- No mechanical change between my Brute and the original Bully. Used my terminology to cut down on how much needs to be explained.
- Brute’s legacy makes it so all casualties are chosen from uncommitted ships instead of losing committed ones. It gives aliens more freedom in losing their ships, but it can be very dangerous when an alien has few ships remaining. If they have 7 ships left and send 4, a loss will eliminate them. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- As Brute , strive to target enemy planets with as many ships as possible, to maximize the destruction. When destroying an enemy with 4 ships, Brute can usually wipe out any enemy base, sometimes two.
- Brute is effectively a sniper potentially even a stronger one than Assassin. When opposing Brute, send few ships and reinforce your foreign bases to keep them safe. Weak bases are soft targets for Brute. Losing one encounter against them can be devastating if you have many bases with 1 ship each.
- If Brute wishes to use its power to the fullest, it has an opportunity cost. The ships it destroys will be destroyed in place of the ones that would have been lost in the encounter. This means that you may not lose a home base when losing to Brute on defense. On the other hand, if you have two home bases with 2 ships each and one with 4, Brute can wipe out two home bases with one invasion.
- Brute doesn’t have to worry as much about its own ship count, provided it can maintain its authority. Be wary of Brute regardless of how many ships it loses, especially when invading them.
- Earning compensation from Brute is ill-advised, even if Brute’s got a strong cache. A few pods are rarely worth a base. As a trade-off, Brute’s reputation makes it harder for it to negotiate with others.
Development Notes
- Brute’s power is simple to understand but difficult to explain. It’s easy to confuse people into thinking you have to target non-committed ships or the ships don’t count as casualties when using Brute’s power. It’s important that the ships still count as casualties for the purpose of naturally blending with other aspects that affect casualties, such as Super Void.
- I considered if Brute’s power should refer to “sniping” casualties as ships, but I decided against it. For one, it clashes with the theme, as if Brute is literally sniping the ships, it isn’t intimidating its opponent into destroying them. It’s also difficult to phrase the power to state that Brute is sniping the casualties and can still snipe ships in the encounter, at least without making it too wordy. Since sniping is my mechanic, there aren’t any aspects that specifically trigger it, so it shouldn’t get in the way of power blending.