#tmm parallels

[wotcherangie]

Parallels | Zakuro noticing Retasu's feeling and being supportive ♡ [Tokyo Mew Mew 1x45 - Tokyo Mew Mew New 2x04]

>> other parallels <<

[nocandnc]

Pie: Sorry I went a little crazy for a minute. Lettuce: That's okay, everyone goes a little crazy sometimes! I tried to kill my friends before too. Pie: Lettuce:

[ribbonstrawberrysurprise]

TMM Weapon and Attack Descriptions

Small followup to the character bios post, featuring the information about each Mew Mew's weapon and attack from the 2002 Fanbook vs the TMM New Artbook (both the 2002 insert and the main section).

See the comparison chart here.

First, one BIG thing to notice right off:

The '02 Fanbook actually spells the attacks as リボン/ribon instead of リボーン/riboon. This is big because there's always been debate on whether they should be transcribed as "Ribbon" (usually spelled リボン, with a shorter o) or "Reborn" (usually spelled as リボーン, with a longer o).

Basically, does the stretched out o sound mean it's meant to be understood as "Reborn"? Or is it meant to be understood as each girl stretching out the first word dramatically ("Ribboooon,") before moving on to the personalized ending section. This is definitely the way they enunciate it in the anime and parallels the way other magical girl shows structure attacks (e.g., Mars... Flame Sniper, Precure... Blue Forte Wave, Hirogaru... Sky Punch). I've weighed in on this here.

So, does this settle it once and for all?

Well… not in my opinion. Like, I do still think "Ribbon" is the correct transliteration! But I don't think the Fanbook is reliable for a few reasons:

1) The editing on the Fanbook is a little spotty, so there are multiple spots of inconsistent formatting/spelling. For instance, in the charts, all items in lists are separated by interpuncts (・) except for Buling's special skills, which is separated with a comma (、). There's also a missing interpunct in the list of Retasu's favorite foods (the other girls' lists do put an interpunct on the end of a line, so it's not a purposeful choice), and Shirogane's name has a space between the kanji of his surname and given name, something done for no other names*

*(Okay.... so it's also done for Buling's, but this is a real thing sometimes done for Chinese names to indicate that the surname is only one kanji instead of the 2-3 you'd expect of a Japanese surname...... But this is also changed/corrected in the New version, though, so???)

In my non-professional opinion, some of the phrasing also feels a little weird, and there's not much care put into text spacing and especially where lines break, but I'm not confident enough in my Japanese skills to state this for certain or put specific examples...

2) There is no other place where the attacks are written as リボン/ribon across the MANY places they are spelled out (e.g., the original manga, a La Mode, ReTurn, the PS game guide, character profile stickers). See above for examples!

3) Even though the TMM '02 insert in the TMM New Fanbook reuses a lot of text from the '02 Fanbook, it does NOT maintain this spelling, which suggests it was another error that was corrected.

So it's net zero information imo 🤷‍♀️

More small things under the cut:

I translated 必殺技/hissatsu waza as "finishing move". It literally means something like "certain kill technique" and is commonly translated as stuff like "special move" or "special attack" as well. 

The '02 Fanbook describes the attacks in terms of what they do in universe, whereas the New Artbook describes what happens in the stock footage. 

The '02 Fanbook also makes a big deal out of Ichigo's attack being the strongest and claims it's the only one that can purify a Chimera Anima and release the Parapara. It's generally true that they have to play her stock footage she has to finish off the big Chimera Anima, but the other girls consistently finish off smaller Chimera Anima, plus instances like Zakuro instantly defeating the big crow in episode 10 and all of the girls (including Pudding, somehow???) managing to defeat a bunch of big Chimera Anima at once when Pie releases them en masse as a distraction in episode 49. The '02 insert keeps the note on Ichigo's attack being able to finish off Chimera Anima but drops the "not that strong" part from the descriptions of the non-Ichigo girls and even adds that Zakuro's attack is "strong enough to surprise/frighten Quiche". The New artbook has no mention of any one girl's attack being more powerful.

The descriptions of the attacks kind of back up my claim that none of the girls except Lettuce have an elemental attack and are instead all light-based and separated by range:

Ichigo: balls of light; final blow on Chimera Anima Mint: arrow of light; ranged attack Lettuce: stream of water; attacks multiple enemies at once Pudding: wave of light that turns into "pudding"; captures enemy Zakuro: whip of light; can be used close or far away, can bind enemies, can cut into pocket dimensions somehow

...Zakuro is clearly way too OP, since she can essentially copy the effects of Mint, Lettuce, AND Pudding's attacks plus having dimensional powers. I mean, the "cutting through dimensions" thing is way outside the range of the other Mews' powers??? And it shows up so little...

Speaking of Zakuro, the New version eliminates the space-cutting power but also describes her weapon as a cross with a ribbon attached to the end instead of as a whip! (It does say she uses it like a whip in the attack description...) She does move it like a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon a little even in her original attack footage, but it's kind of funny to insist the ZaCross Whip isn't a whip!

They sure are caught up on how Lettuce can use her attack even when tied up since she only has to move her fingers. A situation which only happens once.

I find it a little funny that they never really acknowledge how all of the weapons are based on musical instruments. The LettuceTanets are obviously called castanets, and the StrawBell Bell is noted to have a bell attached, but only the the New fanbook calls Mint's weapon "lyre-shaped" instead of "bow and arrow-shaped". Not once are the PuRing Rings compared to a tambourine (although New does mention the bell) or the ZaCross Whip to a flute.

Confirmed that in the anime Buling's attack is not literal pudding but rather something that looks like it. (The manga is still a toss up considering we see it being eaten...)

The difference in phrasing between the '02 Fanbook and the New insert is pretty funny. プリンのようなもの / purin no youna mono, "a thing/object/substance that's like pudding" vs プリン状の物体 / purin-jou no buttai, "a solid object in the form/appearance of pudding". Puddingy thing vs physical object in the form of pudding.

[ritualcaster]

I'm bored so heres parallel universe acronyms

idkyp - i don't know, you pick.

ip - in public

ayw - as you were

iaw - in a way

igiyg - im good if you're good

wdth - when did this happen

wyo - whats your opinion

hgwu - hey guys whats up

hy - hell yeah

pmp - practice makes perfect

tmm - tell me more

ltl - lets talk later

jdi - just do it

wdyn - what do you need

www - wait what why

ssa - slight swearing ahead

titl - thin ice tread lightly

nbn - no brain needed (for a very easy task)

nfe - no fucking excuses

ids - imma/i'll do something

taff - try again fuckface (used in fps games)

wwd - where we dropping (where to hang out)

siasc - seen it already, still cool.

iwtl - I want to leave

ghoa - get (your) head out (of your) ass

isl - im still loading

phm - please help me

waya - when are you available

oti - ok thats it

...

oti

[pinkbowsandprettyprose]

Okay so, we can infer something major about the Deep Blue reveal from the latest HIDIVE trailer that I’ve been wondering about literally since last year. I am SO excited to see this detail but since it is a major TMMN spoiler I’m gonna throw it under a break in this post.

TMMN S2 spoilers under the cut!

So it’s pretty obvious that these two shots are from the scene in the manga where Quiche shows up to their picnic date and tries to egg both Ichigo and Masaya into transforming.

So is this one, where her bell slips off, but note that in the manga is just falls off without this direct parallel of Quiche watching it fall —

SO, in the setting of this scene, we know that this is where the Blue Knight absolutely tears Quiche to shreds. He goes in to stab Quiche, and in the manga, it’s heavily implied that this is the moment Quiche connects the dots that this is Deep Blue.

TMMN appears to be following the same pattern.

In a backlit light as he’s looking up at the Blue Knight, he sees Deep Blue in the Blue Knight’s shadow and makes the connection.

This scene did not exist in the original TMM anime. I am THRILLED that TMMN is letting the reveal play out the same way as the manga.

It brings such an interesting dynamic to the series when the one villain who has wavering intent is the only one who understands a key bit of information crucial to both sides.

[austinramsaygames]

This is a repost as I've decided to separate my Battletech tournament musings into separate posts rather than one big thread.

Prev / Next

I won another Alpha Strike tournament! This one was 350PV and Clan Invasion again.

I'll do another deep dive into how it went but for now here's 3 big moments.

First game was in an extremely dense city:

And I had the city side. For anything without jumpjets or VTOL movement the only way past the wall was the highway or a tunnel in the centre and my opponent only had two with JJs. The highlight here was taking out first a Marauder and then a Marauder IIC as they came over the wall on via the highway with a horrendous amount of Indirect Fire. This was what really clued me in to how good the massed IF was.

2. Second match was on a more open board but there was still lots of Line Of Sight blocking terrain:

This angle is actually pretty much what my side of the board was. I split my 3 biggest direct fire damage dealers (2 SRM Carriers and a Stalker) between the two firing lanes on either side of the centre mountain. While the side on the left with the SRM Carrier and Stalker was a bit too much firepower and deterred my opponent from taking that lane (useful in its own right), The lone SRM carrier on the right sat behind a tree and helped take out 2 Von Luckner tanks, an Atlas C (the variant I ran last tournament), and a Shadowhawk.

3. Last highlight is also from the second match. My two Cavalry VTOLs spent most of the match in the back lines of my opponent. At effectively TMM5 with a movement of 20" they easily broke LOS with most units they wanted to, and even when they didn't most attacks were hitting at around Target Number 9. So hits were rare and since they have *some* armor they could take a bit of scuffing.

Nothing in match 3 was of particular highlight, mostly because it was a bloody, knock down, drag out fight from the start.

The opponent destroyed 5 of my 12 while the two prior opponents only destroyed 2. I even lost both my SRM carriers in the first turn. This happened because the deployment of the scenario had us split our forces between opposite corners and place them within 12" of the corner, so there was only 24" between our forces from the jump.

Deep dive time!

SUCCESSES

Identify fire lanes and then control them with heavy direct fire units. It is my opinion that even the most terrain dense boards have firing lanes, it's just a matter of finding them. My goal was to set up my SRM Carriers along those and have the Stalker in one or the other. I had two of them every match, but the effectiveness varied greatly based on scenario and map layout. If they weren't actively firing at targets, they were at least denying those avenues of travel which broke up supporting fire and allowed my faster units to stay out of firing arcs.

The first match in the city had three firing lanes: one across my back line, and two on either side of my half of the board. I held the two side ones but due to the entrances into the city only being on my left because of the wall, that was the one firing lane that saw good use.

The second map was a pair of valleys that formed two lovely firing lanes that ran diagonally in parallel AND had tree cover at my end of them. I plopped the SRM Carriers behind the trees and bombarded anything that showed its face.

The third match was a dense jungle with the least obvious firing lanes, but they did exist along the board edges. I tried to take advantage of them but both SRM Carriers got destroyed in the first turn.

Doing the obvious thing first. I used the LRM Carriers and Heavy LRM Carriers as initiative sinks because a lot of the time it made the most sense to have the missile boats sit still since they didn't need Line Of Sight and didn't lose much TMM. This let me save my more reactive units for later.

I picked a strategy and leaned in. My initial goal with the list was to pack in at least 8 vehicles using what I had available to me. Turns out that a lot of those had missiles, so I made sure EVERYTHING had missiles and then packed in as many NARC beacons as I could. 19.5 Indirect Fire damage BEFORE NARCs is very useful!

Redundancy. While I had 5 pairs of identical units, they weren't run as pairs but as groups of 5. This meant that the tools my opponent needed to deal with them were usually on one side of the board, leaving the other set of 5 to operate with less concern. Additionally if one NARC beacon failed to hit, I usually had a back up to try again, and the same went for my Indirect Fire.

Winning Initiative. Obviously this was in no way a result of my skill, but taking advantage of it was. This is always really useful and luck was on my side for a good chunk of the tournament. It let me hold my VTOLs until the very end to break LOS with them but still have eyes on the enemy.

Using the Stiletto as a spotter. I brought the Stiletto to counter ECM with its own so that my NARCs didn't get suppressed, however, none of my opponents brought ECM so I needed another use for it. With its 16" speed and skill 5 it ended up being an excellent spotter that I didn't need to shoot with. Its TMM3, 4 armor, and taking advantage of cover also meant that I didn't have to worry too much about it if it was within an enemy's firing arc.

Giving the LRM Carriers and Heavy LRM Carriers skill 3. This let them effectively negate the penalty for Indirect Fire and since they sat still so often they were basically skill 2 for most of the tournament. So they were often hitting on 6s or 7sat medium range, and *only* 9s at long.

MISPLAYS

If there are no useful fire lanes, I needed to be more aggressive with the direct fire units. In the first match one of my SRM Carriers was watching a lane that didn't get much traffic due to the city board layout. I should have moved it up to the same lane as the other SRM Carrier but I was worried about needing it to defend my objective (the scenario was capture the flag with some twists). When something finally came for the objective, it was a fire moth that immediately went outside of its firing arc and the nearby Heavy LRM Carrier, which has a turret, had to deal with it.

Not having a good plan for enemies that rushed me. In match 1 there was a Fire Moth carrying a unit of Battle Armor and the pair basically wrecked one of my Ravens. I tried to deal with them using one of my VTOLs but their high TMM made them hard to hit and their speed meant they were often outside of anything else's firing.

In match 3 the scenario gave us deployment zones that made us split our forces between opposite corners with 12" deployment zones, so it was bloody from the first turn as even the relatively slow Kodiak of my opponent was already in medium range. All of his forces pushed in on me from 2 sides, so I largely stayed concealed using terrain and fairing arcs, and anything that he saw almost always got deleted under the withering Clan firepower. I managed to win the match but only in the last turn and by a single Victory Point.

In the prior tournament my Lyran force had two body guard units, an Axman and a Hatchetman (though mostly just the Axman), specifically for these kind of situations and this list didn't have an equivalent.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM LAST TOURNAMENT

Splitting up my heavy hitters. I had 5 units that did 5 or more damage at medium range: 2 SRM Carriers, 2 Heavy LRM Carriers, and a Stalker. I split the pairs across either side of my deployment zone to give me better coverage and it worked! It was especially effective if I took the time to advance the very slow (MV 4") Heavy LRM Carriers up enough so that they they had medium range for most of the board.

SURPRISES

No real MVPs. The foundation of my list was "take as many vehicles as is feasible" and, after looking at the minis I have, "take as many missile units as possible." This combined arms nature meant that there was generally a lot of redundancy in action so the workload got spread around. Everything was useful but not a star.

Relying on Indirect Fire forced me to focus fire. I generally aim to focus fire each turn, ideally on the same target as the previous turn, but IF really drives it home. Needing a spotter, preferably one that doesn't shoot, means I was dedicating points to a unit that wasn't doing any damage on their own but would facilitate the 16 IF damage from the 4 LRM Carriers. The Ravens and VTOLs also made decent back up spotters if I needed a second target, but I preferred to add their NARCs and damage respectively.

When my opponents played defensively it was to my advantage. When my opponents used LOS breaking cover, that gave me opportunities to isolate enemies with spotters outside of their firing arcs who were also cut off from their own supporting fire, but still vulnerable to my IF. Additionally, moving slowly meant that I was able to take more shots on these targets than if they had rushed me.

It was a great time and I'm super excited for the next tournament! Hopefully I'll get a chance to put the lessons from this tournament to use, though I don't know what I'll run to do that as I base my lists on whims. Last time it was mechs with MEL, this time it was vehicles with missiles, maybe I'll do C3 list next!

[phopollo]

Self indulgent moment of drawing my TMM OCs with the Canon characters

It wasn't supposed to turn into this, I was just starting to try figuring out my OCs weapons, but then my brain went "............. wolf girl parallels???"

And I couldn't not

[littleraeofsunshineda]

the state of the NHS after fourteen years of Tories is a terrifying and miserable capitalist hellscape

case in point, me, the last week or so:

have uti, picked up from a partner's infection. Very simple easy thing to treat. This one is a nasty little bugger, I feel like shit.

call gp. Ask for appointment.

No appointments.

At length told a pharmacy can prescribe 3 days of antibiotics without you seeing gp. Excellent!

Receive antibiotics. At this point we are ~3-4 days in. That's also how long it's been since I had a proper night's sleep because I HAVE TO GET UP TO PEE FOUR TIMES.

Antibiotics produce great improvement, but (surprise) perhaps not 100% by the time I finish the course. Nevrthless, am told by pharmacy I can't get any more from them. I must go to gp.

Call gp. Come down at 8am physically to surgery next day.

Arrive at 7.47. 12th in the queue. Total queue reaches >20 by 8am. For a cool parallel, they run out of appointments at person 8. The poor receptionist looks like if she has to tell one more person there's nothing she can do, she'll cry.

Receptionist tells me I can try again tmm (arrive at 7.30? I wonder thoughtfully) or try submitting a request through The App. Someone will call me today. I thank her and submit it in the car before I leave.

3.55 (GPs generally close at 4pm). No call. I squish down the fear that I am Karen-ing and call in. "I'm so sorry," I say, "do you know if I WILL be called today?"

She says I might get one up to 6pm, but that will only be a receptionist who will be booking an appointment in the next couple of weeks. "This can't wait two weeks," I say. "Your own guidance says so."

"There's nothing I can do," she says, and: "You shouldn't be using the online system for things that are urgent, anyway." "I tried to get an emergency appointment and there was nothing: I was TOLD to use this," I say, helplessly. "...Well anyway," she says, "the receptionist might call you by six."

AHA! I think. I am immensely lucky and have some small health insurance through work - including virtual gp. Maybe they can help! I book an appointment through that platform, relieved.

The appointment is over the phone within an hour - phenomenal. She tells me that she is not allowed to prescribe me anything: the uti not fully clearing up in 3 days of antibiotics means I need specialist urine testing as there is likely resistance. It needs to happen immediately, today, tonight, because I am at risk of a kidney infection. She can only refer me back to the NHS.

I say "but they don't have anything, and I can't argue - the poor receptionist can't do anything about not having appointments."

"You have to fight," she says. "You have to be seen. Go to urgent care if you have to."

It is now 6.05pm. The receptionist has not called.

Guess I'm spending the evening in a&e.

This is the struggle to get basic healthcare in the UK right now, and there is very often NO OPTION other than A&E. I HAVE some level of "private healthcare", and they could not do anything. Imagine what it's like for most people who don't even have the tiny level of access for a virtual GP to tell them that they ARE right, and they DO need to make a fuss.

I have been crying on and off all day. This is just not having healthcare. I wish I had any confidence at all that we'll change how we vote as a country.

[ackarcue]

Screw it, imma stay on this accursed app. School be big oof and I need my emotional support fandoms.

Crossover headcanon time. Tmbs and Tmm

The misfits and the society met at a science expo. Mr. Larsen was preparing something but just happened to run into Mr. Benedict. At first, both blorbo groups paid no mind to the other, but it all started when they understood the Morse code.

Reynie and Carter like to read books quietly together. It’s a good thing they have similar tastes in literature.

Sticky is rather impressed with Ridley’s wheelchair, if a bit intimidated by the tigress herself.

Kate’s immediate action was to compare height with Theo. Height dominance is necessary.

The Golden Twins found Constance to be adorable, until she started speaking.

In fact the only one capable of matching Constance is Ridley, the stare down was legendary.

Kate jokingly proclaimed Carter as her long lost brother, which was ironic since Carter was falling for her pretty hard. In fact, when Leila was teaching Kate a few tricks with her rope, Carter could barely hide his jealousy. Everyone else saw through him, but he was adorable and he wasn’t trying anything sneaky about it.

Constance began to soften up towards the stranger blorbos quite fast when it came to her, abilities. Sad pasts and all.

Sticky always tries to find out how each of the misfits do their tricks, but Theo’s levitation is still a mystery. Constance would and could say something, but seeing Sticky confused is well worth a secret.

Kate can’t visit the Stein-Meyers. Falcon + Doves equals disaster. She also gotta be careful around Top Hat.

The society was slightly spooked by Dante’s appearance, much to the misfits’ curiosity. Something about well-dressed men apparently.

Ridley wanted Kate’s microscope telescope. Insert arm wrestling. Also insert 10 minute tie.

After a while, both groups opened up to why their group was a thing. They all had a slight chuckle with twins being an issue, much to the Goldens’ dramatic dismay.

Presto loves to annoy Madge

Moocho and The Other Mr. Vernon are a cooking duo for the ages.

The misfits find the Ten Men to be rather goofy. In return, the society is rather skeptical about Frown Clowns. Out of everything these two have been through, the irony is hilariously lost.

Bad guy headcanons

Mr. Curtain and Kalagan would team up, if only to backstab the other. Curtain finds Kalagan to be obsessed with revenge, while Kalagan finds Curtain to be a sniveling coward who could never get his hands dirty.

The Ten Men terrify most of the Frown Clowns. McCraig finds them kind of funny. Even Kalagan was disturbed to find out that the Ten Men don’t really care about their secrets.

Kalagan could sneak a few gadgets from Crawlings, but the other Ten Men are too clever for it.

Milligan could take on Kilroy, but the latter would use every trick he has. The blade wand is quite lethal.

Curtain finds a parallel with him and Ridley, something he could use to his manipulative advantage

McCracken has already made a list of targets of the citizens of Mineral Wells. Hertz and Crawlings are already on standby.

Dante would not find himself winning against McCracken. His illusions would most certainly buy valuable time, but he does not have Kalagan’s ruthlessness. Pray that he does not have to fight more than one.

[wotcherangie]

Parallels | Other fandoms ♡

If I had a nickel for every time my fav ship was made by a gentle girl falling for a mysterious boy and their color palette is composed by greens and yellows (glasses optional but not required), I'd have two four nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice four times

[Tokyo Mew Mew - Magic Knight Rayearth - Yes Pretty Cure 5 - Ojamajo Doremi]

>>other parallels<<

[prezaki]

As someone who was really active in the TMM fandom a decade ago and only came back to activity now, all the Ichigo/Masaya posts and even the tone of the anti-Ichigo/Masaya posts feel like they're raining down on me from a parallel universe

HAS TIME REALLY CHANGED SO MUCH THAT THIS IS THE MOST POPULAR ICHIGO SHIP NOW?? WHICH PLANET AM I ON??

[unironicallycringe]

skull kid in TMM?? 👀 blorbo from my parallel dimension?? 👁👁

I hadn't actually considered my friendly neighborhood Skull Kid!

There is a Lost Woods/Woods of Mystery because of Woodfall, tho. In this early era, I've currently been calling it Elsegrove and I plan to have our protags encounter it.

Soooo it's possible, but it depends on if I have any narrative reason to plop him in! If not, please feel free to assume he is indeed over there off-screen just doing Skull Kid things, such as singing and dancing and mugging travelers of their belongings!

[incorrectmmpppquotes]

Honestly if nakayoshi wanted to get the nostalgia train going and cash grab, they should of gone with the TMM route for MMPPP as well! Rebooting the anime in newer quality, tying up some plotholes.. following the manga a bit more accurately AND we could got a 7 membered idol group with each seiyuu representing a mermaid princess which would of brought in money ANYWAY thru album sales or whatnot. instead they decided to butcher everything ppp ever was for what?? a manga doomed to fail bc of its inconsistencies?

i honestly don't know why they went this route. i would say it's maybe because they wanted to do a parallel to the little mermaid 2 because michiko yokote said that the little mermaid was an inspiration,,, but aqua is entirely hanamori's doing. so truly idk what to think of this whole disaster. i would have killed for a reboot with an idol group & coco and noel finally getting songs though.

[mahou-furbies]

If the madoka magica cast were in a parallel world thats like a tokyo mewmew crossover; what endangered animal species do you think each one would embody? Sorry if this is a bit random haha

I'm afraid I've never paid much attention to the "endangered species" aspect of TMM and for me it's always been just about the aesthetic, as in catgirl, doggirl, birdgirl etc. And the part of having to search the internet for a canine that's endangered would be more like an afterthought. But if I had to think of theme animals for the main 5 girls, maybe...

Madoka: cat

Sayaka: some kind marine animal

Homura: wolf

Mami: bear

Kyouko: maybe fox?

[pinkbowsandprettyprose]

I don't know if you've been asked/talked about this before but: When it comes to after TMMN season 2 what are you looking forward to in the hopeful future?? Personally, I'm hoping for them to maybe continue with Return or maybe an A La Mode OVA. I love talking about Mew Beri, but some of my friends only watch the anime. Any thoughts or predictions?

I’m actually glad you asked this now, anon, bc I would have answered this question differently if you’d ask me this same thing this time last week. Since the HIDIVE trailer has aired in all its spoiler-y wonder, my answer has changed.

TMMN S2 spoiler warning for the below.

These scenes from the HIDIVE trailer are, in my opinion, clearly from the early parts of the final battle with Deep Blue. Some of these shots have direct parallels with the manga, as some other folks on Tumblr have already pointed out.

If you would have asked what I hope for the future of TMMN a week ago, I would have said “Stretch the original canon into a season 3. Let the story play out for longer and give it space to breathe over more episodes.” But after seeing that we clearly have final battle scenes in HIDIVE’s S2 trailer, I think the original TMM canon from the manga is coming to an end in S2.

So, what after that?

I think it would be interesting to do another full season with Mew Berry / a la Mode since her story has never been animated before. But I think the most likely scenario is an OVA (or two) either of a la Mode or Re-Turn. I would personally love if we saw an animated version of Re-Turn and its bonus stories.

My DREAM scenario would be a full season of Re-Turn shenanigans exploring the sleeping power inside Masaya, the lingering chimeras still left to defeat, and the aliens continuing to work at the café (obviously, considering I wrote an entire 220k-word fanfic series on this premise lol) but that’s a total fever dream considering Re-Turn is essentially a 2-chapter oneshot story.

[austinramsaygames]

Deep dive time!

SUCCESSES

Identify fire lanes and then control them with heavy direct fire units. It is my opinion that even the most terrain dense boards have firing lanes, it's just a matter of finding them. My goal was to set up my SRM Carriers along those and have the Stalker in one or the other. I had two of them every match, but the effectiveness varied greatly based on scenario and map layout. If they weren't actively firing at targets, they were at least denying those avenues of travel which broke up supporting fire and allowed my faster units to stay out of firing arcs.

The first match in the city had three firing lanes: one across my back line, and two on either side of my half of the board. I held the two side ones but due to the entrances into the city only being on my left because of the wall, that was the one firing lane that saw good use.

The second map was a pair of valleys that formed two lovely firing lanes that ran diagonally in parallel AND had tree cover at my end of them. I plopped the SRM Carriers behind the trees and bombarded anything that showed its face.

The third match was a dense jungle with the least obvious firing lanes, but they did exist along the board edges. I tried to take advantage of them but both SRM Carriers got destroyed in the first turn.

Doing the obvious thing first. I used the LRM Carriers and Heavy LRM Carriers as initiative sinks because a lot of the time it made the most sense to have the missile boats sit still since they didn't need Line Of Sight and didn't lose much TMM. This let me save my more reactive units for later.

I picked a strategy and leaned in. My initial goal with the list was to pack in at least 8 vehicles using what I had available to me. Turns out that a lot of those had missiles, so I made sure EVERYTHING had missiles and then packed in as many NARC beacons as I could. 19.5 Indirect Fire damage BEFORE NARCs is very useful!

Redundancy. While I had 5 pairs of identical units, they weren't run as pairs but as groups of 5. This meant that the tools my opponent needed to deal with them were usually on one side of the board, leaving the other set of 5 to operate with less concern. Additionally if one NARC beacon failed to hit, I usually had a back up to try again, and the same went for my Indirect Fire.

Winning Initiative. Obviously this was in no way a result of my skill, but taking advantage of it was. This is always really useful and luck was on my side for a good chunk of the tournament. It let me hold my VTOLs until the very end to break LOS with them but still have eyes on the enemy.

Using the Stiletto as a spotter. I brought the Stiletto to counter ECM with its own so that my NARCs didn't get suppressed, however, none of my opponents brought ECM so I needed another use for it. With its 16" speed and skill 5 it ended up being an excellent spotter that I didn't need to shoot with. Its TMM3, 4 armor, and taking advantage of cover also meant that I didn't have to worry too much about it if it was within an enemy's firing arc.

Giving the LRM Carriers and Heavy LRM Carriers skill 3. This let them effectively negate the penalty for Indirect Fire and since they sat still so often they were basically skill 2 for most of the tournament. So they were often hitting on 6s or 7sat medium range, and *only* 9s at long.

MISPLAYS

If there are no useful fire lanes, I needed to be more aggressive with the direct fire units. In the first match one of my SRM Carriers was watching a lane that didn't get much traffic due to the city board layout. I should have moved it up to the same lane as the other SRM Carrier but I was worried about needing it to defend my objective (the scenario was capture the flag with some twists). When something finally came for the objective, it was a fire moth that immediately went outside of its firing arc and the nearby Heavy LRM Carrier, which has a turret, had to deal with it.

Not having a good plan for enemies that rushed me. In match 1 there was a Fire Moth carrying a unit of Battle Armor and the pair basically wrecked one of my Ravens. I tried to deal with them using one of my VTOLs but their high TMM made them hard to hit and their speed meant they were often outside of anything else's firing.

In match 3 the scenario gave us deployment zones that made us split our forces between opposite corners with 12" deployment zones, so it was bloody from the first turn as even the relatively slow Kodiak of my opponent was already in medium range. All of his forces pushed in on me from 2 sides, so I largely stayed concealed using terrain and fairing arcs, and anything that he saw almost always got deleted under the withering Clan firepower. I managed to win the match but only in the last turn and by a single Victory Point.

In the prior tournament my Lyran force had two body guard units, an Axman and a Hatchetman (though mostly just the Axman), specifically for these kind of situations and this list didn't have an equivalent.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM LAST TOURNAMENT

Splitting up my heavy hitters. I had 5 units that did 5 or more damage at medium range: 2 SRM Carriers, 2 Heavy LRM Carriers, and a Stalker. I split the pairs across either side of my deployment zone to give me better coverage and it worked! It was especially effective if I took the time to advance the very slow (MV 4") Heavy LRM Carriers up enough so that they they had medium range for most of the board.

SURPRISES

No real MVPs. The foundation of my list was "take as many vehicles as is feasible" and, after looking at the minis I have, "take as many missile units as possible." This combined arms nature meant that there was generally a lot of redundancy in action so the workload got spread around. Everything was useful but not a star.

Relying on Indirect Fire forced me to focus fire. I generally aim to focus fire each turn, ideally on the same target as the previous turn, but IF really drives it home. Needing a spotter, preferably one that doesn't shoot, means I was dedicating points to a unit that wasn't doing any damage on their own but would facilitate the 16 IF damage from the 4 LRM Carriers. The Ravens and VTOLs also made decent back up spotters if I needed a second target, but I preferred to add their NARCs and damage respectively.

When my opponents played defensively it was to my advantage. When my opponents used LOS breaking cover, that gave me opportunities to isolate enemies with spotters outside of their firing arcs who were also cut off from their own supporting fire, but still vulnerable to my IF. Additionally, moving slowly meant that I was able to take more shots on these targets than if they had rushed me.

It was a great time and I'm super excited for the next tournament! Hopefully I'll get a chance to put the lessons from this tournament to use, though I don't know what I'll run to do that as I base my lists on whims. Last time it was mechs with MEL, this time it was vehicles with missiles, maybe I'll do C3 list next!

I won a 300PV Clan Invasion era Alpha Strike tournament!

The three biggest moments, two from the second game and one from the third/final:

1) Commando and Wolfhound defeating a Black Knight and Grasshopper by playing the firing arcs and LOS blocking terrain (plus a LOT of luck for the Commando)

2) Berserker meleeing a Demolisher tank for an ammo Crit kill and then doing the same to an SRM carrier the next turn.

3) With its dying breath the Warhammer split fire at short range, overheating for 7 damage, and destroyed a Flashman AND Guillotine.

Hard to judge what I would change. The only unit that underperformed was the Hatchetman but I *expect* that. Its jump capability, inexpensiveness, and relatively high armor still made it useful as area denial and drawing aggro from more useful units.

EDIT: just found out that the guy who came in second had 9 Victory points from the 3 rounds. I had *28*.