#lancer build

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-- SSC Monarch @ LL6 --

[ LICENSES ]

SSC Monarch 3, HORUS Goblin 3

[ CORE BONUSES ]

The Lesson of Shaping, Overpower Caliber

[ TALENTS ]

Iconoclast 3, Black Thumb 2, Stormbringer 2, Spaceborn 2

[ STATS ]

HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:4 ENGI:0

STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:1

STRESS:4 HEATCAP:6 REPAIR:5

TECH ATK:+5 LIMITED:+0

SPD:5 EVA:8 EDEF:12 SENSE:15 SAVE:13

[ WEAPONS ]

FLEX MOUNT: Sharanga Missiles

MAIN MOUNT: Autopod // Overpower Caliber

HEAVY MOUNT: Gandiva Missiles

[ SYSTEMS ]

H0R_OS System Upgrade I, TLALOC-Class NHP, OSIRIS-Class NHP

You know what, I had my reservations about this build at first, but then I remembered that TLALOC is a protocol and OSIRIS is a quick action. This is actually pretty solid - you're not too overloaded on actions, and you can tick up your OSIRIS clock every turn if you want.

However, Iconoclast is entirely superfluous on this build, because the Monarch is a long-range fighter and its ideal engagement distance puts you well out of range to use any of Iconoclast's abilities. Black Thumb is also a complete nonbo with Iconoclast since you can't use Iconoclast abilities during a rodeo unless you also have Technophile 3 (and there is absolutely no reason you should be running Iconoclast without Technophile to back it up).

Having no Agility or Engineering at LL6 is going to fuck you extremely hard. You don't need Tech Attack +5.

Put OPCal on your Gandiva. I know what you're thinking with the Autopod, but the Autopod attack is in response to a different attack having consumed Lock On, and is not considered to have consumed Lock On itself, so the damage reduction bypass on Seeker Payloads won't trigger. In fact, you can honestly just lose Autopod altogether - as a Monarch, you're the one who wants to be consuming Lock On the most. Whack some Missile Pods in there instead so you have an AoE option.

I would cut Spaceborn from this as well. It's an underpowered talent that has niche utility at best.

// You poor, poor bitch // Stay a while and listen.

// You do not know the horror you have just wrought. // RA have mercy on you.

if you get the level 2 crackshot talent you can Crit with your smartgun dealing 1D6 bonus damage which is still gonna be accurate because smartgun is accurate, which basically gives u a ~45% Crit chance on average if you are at max level as long as you don’t move.

Now if you take the overpower calibre Core Bonus you get another 1D6 bonus damage once per turn, if you Crit or don’t.

Then there’s hunter lock which just gives you a +3 bonus damage.

Sooooo, the Pegasus can just take the average for its bonus damage dice, meaning 2D6 = 7 bonus damage, +3 from Hunters lock resulting in 10 bonus damage (or just 7 if you don’t Crit).

You’ve heard about walking armoury tho right? With hellfire at level 2 this bonus damage becomes BURN, yes 10 burn on a Crit, and guess what u get at walking armoury level 3, if you Crit it’s FOR FREE. You also still deal 4 energy damage with smartgun this way but who cares because 10 BURN!!!!!

Then my good good friend, our medic character's player, defended from the heavens with a note that said "I'm running Lancaster" and freed me from my worries so I could focus on being a big painful bee-ful lump of awful. Thank space mech God for Lancasters and the permanent umbilical cord that is the winch system. I point on the map and say "mother I wish to play with them over there" and she says "buckle up baby bee boy" AND LAUNCHES ME 7-8 HEXES ACROSS THE MAP YIPPEE.

My current build has Personalizations. The +2 health is very nice, but I had another idea. I'm piloting a giant swarm of nanites. There is no reason for the nanites to remain strictly in a 20ft by 20ft by 20ft hex/cube every second of every day because they are nanites! Take personalizations to temporarily manipulate your nanite mass.

Want to stealth but you can't because you're 3,847,370,155 nanites occupying 3 hexes vertically and horizontally? Slide into good vibes and become the flattest fuck to ever fuck. 1 hex tall, 6 hexes wide!

Can't get through a gap because it's 1 hex wide and very very tall? Well now you're 6 hexes tall, congratulations Lancer!

Is there a little enemy little bastard little bitch baby 1/2 mech in a big room at the end of a idk 5 hex hall? Make them reassess the validity of their position (you'd have to boost probably though).

Do you want to make your friends jealous at the sight of your absurd Action Economy without even overcharging?

Do you want to be everywhere all at once without teleporting?

As a "Tank"???

I’ll tell you about my Orchis / Nelson build which is really fun probably idk my level isn’t high enough yet.

Ok we got:

H: 6 if you want

A: 6 the only one that you should max

S: 2 maybe

E: whatever

Talents:

Duelist 3 - gives us accuracy on our first main melee attack, blademaster die to feint which will come in handy as we will be the speed racers of the battlefield, and ofc unstoppable to ram an enemy after hitting them with an attack

House guard 3 - gives us 1 More "Range" for adjacent Effects and when you intercept on attacks you can knock the enemy prone, also you will have Guardian as a Nelson

Hunter 3 - to fly towards the enemy before an aux attack, throw aux weapons and make all weapons return to you, and throw aux weapons as free actions !

Juggernaut 2 - we will be boosting and zooming around so accuracy on a ram (which we can do for free sometimes) is amazing plus the additional knockback will help us to do damage with level 2, knocking enemies into walls deals damage now!

Skirmisher 3 - gives us softcover if we don’t attack, helps us move even more, and makes us dodge the first attack aimed at us as a reaction, cool!

Brutal 1 - for fun :-) - And also if you roll a Nat 20 as the Nelson with these talents and systems you can deal 24 damage at once and I always imagine a cool Anime song playing when that happens and me drilling through the enemy like that time Asuka got pierced with that cool spear in NGE

Systems:

We got 14 system points as the Orchis at level 12, we could go with some systems to get more but basically we can pick: (system points in brackets)

Synthetic muscle netting (2) - makes us knock back bigger enemies, knock 'em all

GMS armament redundancy (1) - if - IF - we lose a structure and a mount gets destroyed the Orchis is fucked

Thermal charge (2) - for damage!

Mimic mesh / scorpion V70.1 (2/2) - pick one, one helps us move even more while the other one has amazing synergy with the following system

Black ice module (3) - so much Defense against Teck attacks….

Magnetic shield (2) - resistance against kinetic damage in a line 4 area - awesome for your low evasion friends

Siege ram (2) - 2 damage on a ram is 2 damage per ram :-)

Other systems I like:

Bulwark mods (1) - if you expect difficult terrain or really don’t like difficult terrain this is great!

Armor lock plating (1) - if you get grappled your gameplan is basically over

Custom paintjob (1) - amazing little system

Core bonuses (in no particular order):

Overpower calibre - for damage

Full subjectivity sync - evasion stacking

Titanomachy mesh - another ram if u ram and +1 knockback for attacks with one knockback

The last one could be anything really I’d go with bigger robot, more HP / armor or Kai bioplating

Weapons:

Good old war pike and any melee aux weapon you like

So what does this do?

Ok so you move / boost towards an enemy, attack them with main and move even more if you want to, knock them back 2 spaces, lunge after them, hit them with aux, ram them for 3 knockback, ram them again or ram someone else, they must be knocked prone but who cares, throw your aux weapon and/or your shield at them while you’re at it! That’s like 6 attacks lol. Potentially it might deal 3D6 (main) , +1D3 (aux) +1D3(thrown aux) + 1D6+2 (ram) +2 (another ram) +3 (thrown shield).

Movement wise u got 8 movement, another 8 when u boost, 2 for skirmishing, 3 for having a melee aux weapon, 3 with mimic mesh and up to 9 when it’s not even your turn just because you’re close to an ally. Wow.

All this combined with the utility the Orchis provides to mobile and fragile allies is so amazing. You can also let your allies position you and just run off and return.

So you get the void zones when you hit an enemy with a tech attack and slowed enemies within range 3 of you become shredded.

But tech attacks can feel a little slow in my opinion so having a tool to get towards the enemy would be amazing, especially since the calendula isn’t the fastest frame. How fitting that the absolutely goated talent for calendula is Pankrati which is also from KTB (I think).

Pankrati level 1 gives you accuracy on slowed targets, perfect, and level 2 gives you a free charge for twice your Movement which is coincidentally your sensor range (8 spaces) as a free action once per scene, totally enough to run towards a tank. At level 3 your friends can even charge with you as a reaction, even better when the whole gang is around to absolutely murder that tank. Maybe ask your friends to be the first in turn order if you play like that.

For me the best weapon in this scenario is the vlads impact Lance because it has 3 threat and allows you to make an additional attack for 1 heat to all enemies between you and your target, so you could attack 3 enemies - which are all going to be shredded - for 1D6. Awesome. You also get some aux weapon but who cares lol.

Given that this playstyle gives us a some heat, why not always overcharge and invest in some Engineering, take the nuclear cavalier talent while you’re at it, suddenly you also deal heat on an attack, 1D6 extra energy damage (on one target 😪 only) and you get the fuel rod integrated weapon so yayyyy another weapon on a frame with only one mount + it reduces your heat when you use it and guess what it’s threat 3 :-)

Also Nelsons thermal charge is a thing and if u invested in engineering you can use it even more, even on your multi target attacks.