Rivet Wars is a 2014 tabletop wargame created by Ted Terranova and published by Cool Mini Or Not via Kickstarter. The series is set in a future where technology never significantly advanced beyond the first world war, leading to impossible Diesel Punk weapons of war like monowheels, crab tanks, and miniature mecha. Players use adorable chibi miniatures to build their armies, deploying onto the field to battle it out.
One major difference Rivet Wars has over its competitors is that it borrows from Real-Time Strategy games in allowing the player to continually requisition new units to add to the field each turn based on an allotment of "Deployment Points". These can be spent on reinforcing existing grunts, or calling in the aid of special hero units, such as Atomic Robo.
Victory is determined by victory points, usually obtained by capturing objectives, with the winner being the first to reach the victory point total fo rthe given match.
A second edition, subtitled Reloaded, was crowdfunded by Steamforged Games.
Rivet Wars contains examples of:
- A Commander Is You: the game currently has 7 different factions, each based off a WWI era nation
- Action Girl: Several. To name a few:
- Edwina Brasseldun, who pilots a gigantic tunneling device
- Rosie the Riveter, who doubles as a Combat Medic
- Elsa Frost, the Ice Queen mixed with Commisar
- Dora Rollen, who rides into battle on pneumatic roller skates
- Attack Drone: the R100 series available to the Blight faction. Downplayed as the R100 is Awesome, but Impractical due to its expensive materials needed for construction. Also ambiguous with respect to the M2 Wolverine, which appears to be a robot (and is named like hardware) but is listed with he/him pronouns instead of the R100's It pronouns. Finally the Allies have mass production Clockwork Soldiers, who are extremely limited in their faculties (limiting them to melee only) but are outright immune to gas and poison weapons.
- Drill Tank: Edwina Brasseldun pilots one.
- Humongous Mecha: Blight and Allies both have their own versions, the Landkreiger and the M7 B.O.S.S. respectively
- Mighty Glacier: in keeping with the WWI allusions, most of the armor in the game (especially the infantry armor) is ludicrously slow, but is only threatened by dedicated anti-tank weapons
- Plug 'n' Play Technology: Both in and out of universe. The game uses a "Plug" system, whereby a standard port can accept any option of the same diameter. This includes Hero units, Turrets, cannons, and various other upgrades, allowing real-time improvement of your forces
- Sentry Gun: Ubiquitous, every faction has their own option. Notably extremely limited in utility due to the finite range of turret options and the stationary nature of their mounts, meaning they're only really viable as a counter-attack if you're getting pushed into your deployment zone.
- Shout-Out: several, usually in the form of Hero Units
- Atomic Robo
- Baby Girl
- Dr Vorne
- Treasure Hunter
- The Man In Charge
- Nikola Tesla
- The Jetpacker
- Rosie The Riveter
- Spider Tank: the Ostrich, the Tesla Bot, and the Sturmpanzer
- Tank Goodness: Armor is a critical part of the battlefield, with infantry struggling to counter it without dedicated anti-tank weapons
