#nrfaw spoilers

[skiavona]

Don't let anyone else ruin your day. Be proactive. Ruin your own damn day. Ruin everyone else's day while you're at it for maximum efficiency. With enough drugs in your system, anything is possible. (x)

[swishysword]

after that last lancer post that reminds me I haven't talked about my campaigns in a hot minute, nrfaw mission 4/5 spoilers below

Party's back together post mountainfall, and on the counter attack against the Machine! Thanks to some paracasual shenanigans, they're also aware now that BEGGAR_ONE is just a small part of the greater threat looming over Hercynia, and already it has nearly wiped out the combined forces of the taskforce and HUC.

However they have a daring plan to take the CRT's corvette and hit the Cassander before it can fire again, but before THAT they want to take out one of the Machine's Lieutenants in order to prevent it from hindering their objectives.

See, I've set up a bit of an additional minigame where the Machine's Horde is still operating while it fortifies Evergreen, pursuing tasks to increase its power and hinder the players. In turn they can hunt down those lieutenants to remove the ability for the Machine to act, and reduce the named enemies they'll have to face when going to confront B1 in Evergreen.

So they went to find [THE HUNTER] who is a custom lieutenant who has been tasked with specifically hunting them down, and has until now been a looming threat that can and has jumped them on other missions. Now they're turning the tables, and along with the HUC have set up an ambush.

Mission deets:

—————

Mission // #005

Evergreen has been claimed by Beggar_One, Hivehome and Daylight have fallen, and refugees stream into Mycol Fields daily. Your goals are to destroy Beggar_One's casket, currently located in Evergreen, and cut the head off the Machine Horde.

You may take as many Full Repairs as you wish, so long as you are not in the midst of an encounter or scene. For every Full Repair your party takes, you may take 1 full set of Downtime Actions. Then, any Interstitial Scenes or Encounters happen. Afterwards, the Machine Horde will take their own set of Downtime Actions and increase the Consumption (and then Ascension once it is filled) clock by 1.

Goals:

At any time, the players may choose to attack Evergreen and begin Operation: SPLIT-KNUCKLE HAYMAKER. This mission involves assaulting Evergreen in an attempt to find and destroy Beggar_One's casket, and will consist of multiple encounters that cannot be rested between unless the players full retreat.

Players may make the operation easier by engaging in Side Goals.

Side Goals:

Liberate the Prison Camp: 20,000 colonists and militia are currently held by the Horde in a prison camp. Rescuing them may provide useful intel, and deny the Horde the ability to use them for information.

Deal with the Cassander: While Beggar_One holds the platform, any assault must contend with simply being blasted from orbit.

Hunt Lieutenants: The Horde's activities have lessened, except for those under the direct command of its lieutenants. Hunting them down means denying the Horde actions, and prevents you from having to face them elsewhere.

The Machine Horde:

receives 1 Downtime Action per lieutenant currently active

10 Unit Points per Machine Horde slice

10 Tactical Points per Machine Armament slice

acts to both increase its own resources, and hinder players at the end of every Downtime cycle

automatically succeeds on their actions, unless opposed directly, most often filling a clock by 2

The HUC Rangers:

represented by the clock HUC Mobilization

may be spent by the players to oppose Horde actions, or to assist them in their own Downtime actions

if used to oppose Horde actions, must roll once per Lieutenant involved. Failure = reduce Horde action effect by 1 but spend an additional Mobilization, Partial = reduce Horde action effect by 1, Full = reduce Horde action effect by 2

The Lieutenants

[ THE HUNTER ]

[ THE ACCUMULATION ]

[ THE FALL ]

[ THE CRIME ] & [ THE PUNISHMENT ]

[ THE END ]

[ THE WEAPON ]

M5 - Ambush Hunter

Objectives

Primary Objective: Defeat [ THE HUNTER ] by the end of Round 6.

Risk: At the end of Round 6, [ THE HUNTER ] will figure out an escape route and immediately leave the scene, allowing it to fully recover.

Reward: [ THE HUNTER ] will be destroyed, removing a segment from the Lieutenant clock and meaning they will no longer show up in future missions.

Environment

Hercynian Fall: The environment is no longer hyper-flammable, as plant life loses its hydrophobic coating in preparation for winter.

Devastated Surface: After the Cassander's strike, tunnels across Hercynia collapsed in the after-shock. These freshly opened pits and sinkholes are now hazards. 1/turn any unit that enters, or starts a turn over a pit loses all movement, takes 3 AP Kinetic damage, and is moved to the nearest non-pit space.

Special Notes

While fighting on the surface of Hercynia, the HUC will provide as much support as they can. A special "HUC Support" unit will be added to the tracker, and may 1/round take an activation at the end of any turn. This activation does not count as a player or enemy activation. Actions they may take are listed in the HUC folder under the NPC folder in the Actor's tab.

—————

Also between Mission 3 and now, B1 has had "raid actions" where he could drop artillery, call in reinforcements, etc, as a thing off round, and the HUC Support here is basically the players getting their own version of that turn to against him as a reward for having allied with and preserved much of the HUC.

[voidsovereign]

41.9873° N, 72.5448° W [oc] (rework and repost from my old art account, @verminfuneral)

[taulupis]

Yes, I can

side eyes a certain player of mine who killed and ate Beggar One before the end of round two

[OOC] DPS Swallowtail build for supports who want to ball

The other day I was pondering how to make the most of Death's Head Main/Aux + Heavy mounts, and thought "I't such a shame I have to get to at least LL4 before I can get the Oracle LMG-1 so all my weapons have at least range 15"

And then it hit me: forget the Death's Head. Just get Swallowtail.

Have Crack Shot and Gunslinger at LL0. For the first two levels, advance Gunslinger. By the time you unlick the Swallowtail and the OLMG-1 you'll have Gunslinger 3.

Mount 4 LMGs so you can charge your Gunslinger Die faster by Barraging. 4d3 damage isn't a lot, but thanks to Arcing and Accurate from the LMGs and the further accuracy from Crack Shot, you can pump it consistently every turn even if your enemies are behind walls; and every 2-3 turns you get to do 4d3+2d6 damage (min 6 - avg 15 - max 24) half of which is AP and ignores cover. if you invested in Systems once or twice, you'll still have enought SP for +2 HP from Modifications as well as Scout Drone, which helps your team without requiring a lot of actions from you; which is good because you want to be shooting as much as possible.

At LL3, get Integrated Mount and another LMG so you can charge the Gunslinger die even faster, potentially even using it EVERY TURN if all your shots hit. Also Crack Shot 2 for another 1d6 damage on a crit. Get the Siege Stabilizers from Barbarossa to bring your machineguns to a crisp 20 range.

At LL4, Crack Shot 3 so you can harass as well as damage like a Swallowtail is "supposed" to do.

At LL6 get Overpowered Caliber and Brutal. Do up to 4d6+5d3 damage when all your bonuses come together (min 9 - avg 24 - max 39), potentially even every round, which on a Nat20 becomes just a straight 39.

The only real weaknesses I see are:

If you want to be a good support as well as a good sniper you'll need to invest heavily in systems for not as much return as a dedicated hacker, but honestly I think being able to both support decently and shoot pretty damn well is a winning strategy.

Armor can make most of your attack ineffective since you rely on many weak weapons instead of one strong one. However, both Prophetic Scanners and Gunslinger 3 can bypass armor.

Might make this into an in-character post later

[mimicmerchant]

Oops I didn’t post any art this year. Anyway here’s some of my Lancer brain rot in chronological order

[faxmachine0210]

Lancer NRFAW SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edena, exhausted after days of conflict, and fearful for her life, must give a speech. Broadcast on a wide area, a signal comes through. Desperate, tired, she gives up. Mountain Fall. With Beggar-One's takeover of Evergreen complete, he unleashes his ultimate weapon. Silent Night.

[zejha]

Here's Gif! I'm so proud of them. (This is my new Lancer Pilot, Gif. No Room for a Wallflower spoilers under the cut).

Last game, my DM ran a heavily homebrewed NRfaW where I ran Zejha, a heavily-modded furry who was really big into aliens, NHPs, and mechs. They ended up dating and marrying an Egregorian, and this is their child who should not exist. The two woke up one day and just discovered an egg, which eventually hatched into something resembling the two of them.

In the NRfaW game my DM ran, Zejha went off to become a renowned writer, researcher, pilot, and even won a Grand Prix with their Lance. Gif, their kid has struggled, living in their parent's shadow, but vows to make a name for themself.

[swishysword]

Today on Lancer, No Room for a Wallflower:

The Hivehome team finished rescuing the squad in Death Valley from the strike force sent by St. Tellus. The Tellisians fought unreasonably hard, choosing to die rather than retreat when taking heavy casualties, and when the cockpits of the destroyed mechs were opened up afterwards the lancers found their bodies were literally grafted into their machines.

Evergreen's team meanwhile returned home after a long mission with the grateful Chaus in tow along with Opportunity. Unfortunately they returned to bad and then worse news: the militia they had sent to handle the drones and explosives had succeeded in escorting the bomb to the Horde, but at the cost of three of their members. Bolt Fitzgerald, Daniel "Yesman" Erickson, and Eli "Beeble" Benetton all perish, slain by [ THE CRIME ] and [ THE PUNISHMENT ].

Only to return to Evergreen and see the refugee situation has grown worse... and with nothing left to lose the Machine unleashes all its remaining prisoners, before engaging in a pincer maneuver by firing artillery at them while having its infiltrators in the militia open fire on the refugees. The lancers are forced to try and hunt down the infiltrator before all discipline in the ranks breaks, while trying to save the refugees from artillery fire—Major Torque going as far as to shield them with his own body.

And little do the players know, this is all a prelude to Operation: Mountainfall...

[swishysword]

still on combat in wallflower, our tragedy is being able to play only for 2.5 hours every other tuesday for that game, good progress though

technically mission 5 spoilers below the cut

only technically since the whole "hunting down B1's lieutenants" bit is very much a homebrew situation

we've had a good mix of tension, and some stellar damage rolls when they managed to exposed and then hit [THE HUNTER] for something like 40 damage over 2 shots. if not for those Ultra structure rolls, it'd be nearly dead!

B1 also got to Assumed Direct Control over some minions to complicate things, along with opening boreholes to bypass their support running interference, at the cost of using precious resources...

also to save people having to ask:

starlight furnace for the tiles,

retrograde minis for the tokens,

foundry vtt as the vtt

[swishysword]

Today on Lancer, Mountainfall. NRfaW spoilers below cut.

BEGGAR_ONE has arrived. Surprisingly the party didn't try to shoot him the moment he took the podium. Instead, they listened to him speechify, before he blew up Mt. Copper.

Contingency White sacrificed themselves to give the party and the civilians a chance to flee, with John punching a hole through the wall via Absolute Meat. They then summoned their mechs via Cosma's weird psychic resonance with Regret (it bodily carried the other two), and proceeded to...

Immediately destroy the printers. It was a really smart move! They've denied BEGGAR a vital tool! They then gathered their stuff and had a long debate about if they should storm the farm and destroy Patience's Casket, before deciding the risk was so great that they'd rather flee and figure it out later.

On the escape, they ran into [ THE FALL ] who is a combat added in to help parallel with what the Hivehome team will be going through.

[swishysword]

It's been a bit since I posted anything of my games, so here's a quick catch up on No Room for a Wallflower. Spoilers for Mission 5 below the cut:

M5 - Hitchhikers and Strays

Objectives

Primary Objective: Last until the end of Round 6.

Risk: If all players are defeated before Round 6, the squad is forced to withdraw and the Cassander remains operational.

Reward: Temporary access to the Cassander, a Short Rest. Secondary Objective: Defeat both the Squadron Nexus and [ BIRD HUNTER ]. (0/2)

Reward: x1 CORE battery

Environment

Upper Atmosphere: Treated as a Zero-G environment, characters without EVA Modules are permanently Slowed. Systems such as Flight and Jump Jet System may temporarily ignore Slowed while in use. Characters "forced to land" due to effects instead lose all of their current movement, but are otherwise unaffected.

Asteroids: At the start of every Round, players may place one Asteroid size 1 or size 2 of their choice in the Asteroid Lane along the bottom right border. Then the GM may place one Asteroid of size 1 or 2 in the Asteroid Lane along the same border. Asteroids move according to their size at the end of the round (10 space for size 1, 4 spaces for size 2). If they collide with a character or object while moving, they deal 10 Kinetic damage (Hull or Eng check for half, character's choice) and are then destroyed. Otherwise, they act as hard cover.

Contingency White's Support: 1/Round, Contingency White may Lock On to any target within 20 of the Sunset, and then may fire their Point Defense Cannon (Heavy Cannon, Inaccurate, +1 Attack, Range 8, 2d6+4 Kinetic Damage)

Cassander's Support: At the end of each Round, the Cassander may place a Blast 3 No Fly Zone, which lasts until the end of the next Round. Characters that move through the No Fly Zone are 1/Round targeted by a free reaction Overwatch with a Flak Cannon attack (Main Cannon, +2 Attack, +1 Accuracy, 5 Kinetic damage, On Critical Hit: A flying character must succeed on an Agility save or immediately land.)

The party freed several prisoners from Evergreen, but were forced to leave behind all they couldn't fight onto their transport behind.

The party has a heart-to-heart, before climbing about Contingency White's corvette and heading to Quiet Night, where they acquired and learned of SSC's involvement on Hercynia... and something involving Operation EMPEROR.

Before they could reach the Cassander, they hear a distress beacon from a Union ship... their ship, that brought them here. Upon investigating, they found the carrier gutted by an anti-cap ship weapon, and all signs of life gone. Save for the Captain's pet krait hound, still alive and unaware of its owner's death. The party brought the hound and captain's body aboard, intending to adopt the pet and put the captain to rest.

And then... on their way to the Cassander, they encountered the very force that killed the UNS Dandelion, and now brace themselves for combat.

Art assets: https://starlight-furnace.itch.io/ & https://www.retrogrademinis.com/

Virtual TableTop: https://foundryvtt.com/

[swishysword]

my no room for a wallflower campaign mission 5 stuff below the cut, spoilers ahead

so they defeated [The Hunter] in a fun way, having realized they could drop a smoke bomb from their support to prevent it from having line of sight to the party and then grappling it to keep it from leaving, before simply curbstomping it

fun mission, players got to use all of their support's abilities, and then also got to show off all their cool new abilities

post mission had a fun bit in camp as people came off of combat high and considered their next actions, psalm (still alive in this timeline) almost slipped off to abandon the fight but a successful romance action from Gerald kept them around

our monarch player added their nhp option so I got to surprise them with the new nhp popping up in their mech, and now they've met WE ARE helpful which got screams from the one player who understood the reference.

they then snuck over to evergreen, saw the massive army camped outside it, tried to access the crt's ship only to get rebuffed by connie who demanded they bring her her crew if they wanted access

we went over some of the potential other options (she has the reactor and has threatened to blow it which has kept B1 from taking the ship but also a problem if the players wanted to take hostile action too) but they eventually decided to move up the prison camp break in order to rescue the crt

overall good session

[swishysword]

it's been a bit since I posted lancer stuff so enjoy some recapping under the read more

in wallflower, we've had the party descend into an old seccom bunker in search of answers about cosma's clone line, only to discover the space is paracasual and actually far deeper and more disturbing than they thought.

there they encountered ghosts, flesh monstrosities, remnants of seccom's experiments with the local xenofauna (including one that managed to survive, starved for hundreds of years, and still managed to rip it's way out of its containment and tried to kill them. the creature that would later go on to be the inspiration for the enkidu.)

also because of the paracasual space they had a high risk of their nhps dying, resulting in the player nhp sealing themselves in their machine like a tomb and being guided by hand through things. which was a better fate than ping who Saw Nothing and perished as a result.

and then one of them drank some ghost coffee that made them relieve their trauma of their home being the latest cold war front between the KTB and HA's pawns. this is a surprise tool for later.

anyways they leave in a panic, having learned about some of what happened but choosing to withdraw due to everyone being high stress after dealing with the doppleganger (wait did i mention. the doppleganger situation? the one spawned from messing with cynosure? that came to a head earlier this same downtime and resulted in cosma losing her hands, an apartment being burned down, and the revelation that at least two of the militia have been dead and replaced for perhaps months).

they get back, agree they need to get their huc prisoner out, get a call from cosma's sister (who is incidentally a character in solstice rain on the rio grande, crossover!), chat, exchange contact details, go to visit patience who is excited to share satellite feeds of borea terra.

and then has a fucking breakdown when its shown that the continent is very much inhabited and realizes his whole life has been a lie.

and THEN things hit the fan when the party realizes that Contingency White has taken the prisoner out and are transporting him somewhere, so the party raced to confront them. had a conversational boss battle. using the Ultimatum bond power multiple times on Mauler who, in true fashion, choose the "escalate" option. stabbed ayla while she was on foot, then gerald still in a trauma haze from the coffee escalated further by shooting him while the rest of the party tried to wrestle the gun out of his hands and now.

fight time.

[swishysword]

skip if you don't want spoilers for mission 4 of nrfaw

So my players split up to have half go to Hivehome, half stay with Evergreen. The plot's kinda interesting because they've actually managed to subvert Patience and Edna against Landmark and have their support in getting refugees in, and even have most of the CRT on their side... but BEGGAR_ONE's shifted to using infiltrators patterned after [THE END] and Cynosure to wreck havoc and paranoia in Evergreen.

They also used the militia to tackle one of the missions they couldn't handle, and suffered casualties on that so we had a funeral for the dead. Hivehome team worked out plans on how they're going to get the HUC to join forces with Evergreen, Gerald got laid, and Terror shared a bit of history.

And Ayla learned that her past self may have been involved in some fashion with St. Tellus aka Apollo.

The worst thing though is we ended right before Mountainfall...

Flip side, we're going to have an fun opening next session on that then.

[swishysword]

recent lancer stuff has been mostly downtime so minimal pictures, but we hit the route split and boy was it fun juxtaposing the 3 who went to Hivehome, seeing a wondrous city, meeting the Egregorians having a near-religious experience with Endeavor

with going back to Evergreen, streets potmarked with sniper shot craters, dead bodies in the streets being dragged out of ditches, mortar shells dropping outside the city to force the defenders to stay awake, paranoia over the cynosure-dopplegangers running rampant, refugee crisis...

best line came from john saying "I bet they're moving as fast as they can to bring those reinforcements" and then hard-cutting to the hivehome group having some tea with Mirth

[swishysword]

So, today's lancer was fun. Got to really make Mauler a maximum tool.

This really went pear-shaped as they tried to pull off a distraction-heist against Contingency White so Ayla could cover her tracks... the distraction went the wrong direction, their hacker got bluescreened by Connie (the CRT's NHP), and Ayla bumped into the doppelganger and ended up in a running firefight with the team's subalterns.

The only thing that really salvaged it was shoving blame off onto the doppelganger, but even so, the CRT has info on some of the more suspect activities of the crew.

Which made it even worse when they discovered Mauler roughing up their HUC prisoner, after having changed the guard rotations to the people who have suffered in their attacks and thus also have a grudge. And then he threatened them with a "You try to fuck with me, it's not you you'll end up with a cast."

Lots of good moments, solidified the party's hatred of this asshole, but they did have a win in sneaking in about 80% of the Grey Towners to Evergreen (with Patience's secret approval).