Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ips northstar

Giving some new life to old models, this is a commission i made some time ago, a IPS-Northstar Empakaai, i really like this one and is by far one of the most complex i ever done! what you think about this big boy? SOUND ON!

Commissions now have SOUND so your characters cann feel more alive than ever! i have slots open for commisions so send me DM for more info!

Follow me and share to see more of these!

okay, let me sell you on the Raleigh

Before I actually played a Raleigh, I thought it looked pretty mediocre. The down-turns seemed like a huge hindrance, you're spending half your time doing nothing!

Then I ended up picking one, because the team had issues with ranged damage-dealing, so I decided to switch to a sniper with a Cyclone Pulse Rifle to go for hard targets. I slotted 2x hand cannons in my remaining mount because why not I guess, cool vibes, I'll never use them they're just there to give me some redundancy if the CPR gets shot off.

Almost immediately I realised I had been completely full of shit. Because it's not GOOD TURN --> BAD TURN --> GOOD TURN --> BAD TURN, it's SHOOTING TURN --> REACTIONS --> SHOOTING TURN --> REACTIONS --> TACTICAL TURN (RELOAD) WHERE YOU ALSO SHOOT THE MJOLNIR.

The Raleigh completely breaks the game's action economy over its goddam knee. Okay let's break this down:

At the end of its turn, if the Raleigh hasn’t made any attacks or forced any saves, it can reload all Loading weapons as a free action.

This means that if you have multiple Loading weapons, you can spread your fire out across multiple turns and then all reload them at once. This instantly improves the maths around damage, you're not losing half, you're losing 1/3 maybe 1/4 and when it gets down to it not even that (see mjolnir content below) and since you're doing this with Loading weapons – which are overtuned on a per-hit basis by design – it works out in your favour. Okay we can take this further, let's look at that first sentence again:

At the end of its turn

So, if you don't make any attacks on your turn, you get the reload. Be real cool if there was a were ways to make attacks that weren't on your tu–

Once you realise reaction fire isn't on your turn, the gates of heaven will truly open to you.

Okay but you still get those shitty reload turns where you sit around doing nothing right? Booooring. What do you do, just full tech and scan/lock on? I wanna shoot my guns!

Hey guess what you can shoot guns on the turn where you don't shoot guns. Specifically, the mjolnir, because when multiple actions in Lancer occur at the same time you can choose the order in which they occur, so you can end your turn, get a free reload, then immediately fire the mjolnir.

Are you starting to see just how many shots this goddam mech fires? I realised quickly that it's a mediocre sniper, it wants to be in range 5 to maximise its pew pew, and you can't use Heavy Gunner with superheavies like the CPR anyway. It would be wild if the Raleigh had the perfect solution in its kit, huh?

and hey, now that I've freed up a mount I can add two more hand cannons, which significantly extends how long it's gonna take before I reload it.

And oh, the reload turns, setting aside for a second that scan and lock-on are both tremendously impactful abilities you know you can just ... give yourself more things to do right. Lancer is a tremendously modular game and you can just slot gear that gives you more abilities. I combo'd Raleigh with the Pegasus and gave it me a huge toolkit of additional things to do on my reload turns.

It's not just gear, talents can help your reload turns into powerhouses of their own right:

Raleigh turned my character into a field officer. She charged into the frontline, bellowing orders, calling out enemies, calling shots. The loop I'd thought was DO COOL STUFF --> DO NOTHING turned into DO DAMAGE --> LEAD THE MEN, and more often than not DAMAGE --> REACTION DAMAGE --> DAMAGE --> LEAD (+MJOLNIR DAMAGE).

We must pause for a moment to bring up the unsung hero of the kit:

And you're probably thinking (like I was) that +1d6 on your big sniper shot is neat and will help take some hits over the line into confirmed structures.

What you're missing is that if you're playing a frontline officer, having a gun that says Bye Miss Laura to enemies who try to rush you down is huge. We are in this for the Prone. I ended up using it on the Hand Cannons more than almost anything else because it's a tremendously powerful disincentive for enemies to try to close on you (and who else can get 2D6 damage from an aux?). Remember your reaction fire – Roland Chamber doesn't need to trigger on your turn, it's just the next shot, so overwatch and heavy gunner are completely fair game. If they try to get you into melee, knock them on their ass.

But anyway, shout out to my man Roland, moving on, what looks like a mech with godawful action economy actually has some of the best in the game, even when it's not shooting, it's shooting. You're hollering orders and popping off shots, ruining anybody who dares to get close, then unleashing a full assault with the victorious cries of your fellow lancers at your side.

Or, in short:

What I thought I was getting:

What I got:

in even shorter: PLAY RALEIGH

#Lancer rpg #Lancer #Lancer Raleigh #IPS NORTHSTAR