So, i saw that your request are open. First time requesting here, so sorry if i didn't respect the rules.
Can i ask Harumasa and any character you want with a reader who fight with grenades. People usuamy avoid the reader a bit because they think they are a moving grenades, but they mainly have snack outside the battle field. But inside the reader is in a corner of the battle field and with a grenade launcher: "Oh, *character's name* its not just a big weapon. Its a grenades launcher", in the most calm way possible
English is not my first language and if i break any rules i' sorry. Bye
Dessert and Detonation
Summary: You’re Section 6’s newest recruit, notorious for wielding grenades—both feared and misunderstood by your teammates. Paired with the lazy yet brilliant Asaba Harumasa, you discover that your explosive skills and his precise efficiency make you an unstoppable team. Outside the battlefield, you mostly snack and avoid attention, but when cornered, you calmly reveal the true power of your weapon: a grenade launcher. Amidst chaos and fire, a quiet bond forms between the walking grenade and the lazy genius.
Warnings: Violence/ Explosions/Combat Scenes, Mild Blood/Injury (Hollows and battlefield casualties), Dark Undertones (Ether Aptitude Regression Syndrome, limited lifespan), Mild Language, Depiction of strategic destruction (grenade use, property damage).
The briefing room was unusually quiet that morning. Section 6 of H.A.N.D.’s Hollow Special Operations wasn’t known for silence—especially not when Harumasa was there, reclining lazily against a chair with his arms folded, eyes half-lidded in his usual half-asleep, half-amused way.
But today was different.
Because today, you were there.
The new recruit.
The “walking grenade.”
No one said it out loud, but everyone thought it.
You sat a few seats away from Harumasa, chewing on a rice cracker while scrolling through the mission data on your holo-tablet. Crumbs dotted your uniform like flecks of ash. When you looked up, a few teammates quickly looked away—like you’d pull a pin if they stared too long.
Harumasa watched this in silence, head tilted slightly, a faint smirk ghosting over his lips.
He’d seen this kind of reaction before.
People feared what they didn’t understand.
Still, the idea of someone using grenades as their main weapon was... unconventional. Even for Section 6.
He decided he liked that.
The mission briefing wrapped up. Another Hollow infestation. Urban sector, minimal civilian presence. Standard containment protocol.
Harumasa stretched and yawned. “So,” he murmured, glancing at you as the others left the room, “you gonna snack your way through the mission too, or do you save that for after the explosions?”
You looked at him, unimpressed, popping another cracker into your mouth. “Snacking is fuel. Explosions are dessert.”
He chuckled softly. “That so? I’ll keep my distance, then. Don’t wanna get caught in the blast radius of your appetite.”
You shrugged. “People already avoid me. You might as well join them.”
Harumasa’s eyes—bright, intelligent, and quietly tired—studied you. “Maybe I’m lazy, but I don’t like doing what everyone else does.”
You blinked. “So you’re saying you’re too lazy to avoid me?”
He grinned. “Exactly.”
The mission began at dusk.
Ether winds rippled through the ruined streets as the team split into pairs. You were, unsurprisingly, assigned to Harumasa.
“Guess I’m your handler today,” he said, checking the tension on his compound bow, Dormant Tide. The twin blades shimmered faintly with restrained Ether light. “Don’t blow me up, yeah?”
“No promises,” you replied with a small smile, flipping a grenade in your hand. It hummed softly with compressed Ether—beautiful, deadly, perfectly stable. For now.
He raised a brow. “You handle that thing like it’s a snack.”
“Maybe that’s why people think I’m dangerous,” you said lightly.
He laughed under his breath. “Or maybe they’re just not used to someone so calm holding death in their hand.”
You looked at him. “That’s rich coming from the guy who uses a weapon that can split into two swords mid-air.”
He gave a lazy shrug. “Efficiency.”
You smirked. “Explosions are efficient too.”
Hours passed. The mission went smoothly at first—clean kills, coordinated movements, minimal Ether expenditure.
Harumasa fought with elegance, every shot from Dormant Tide precise and economical. You fought with rhythm—grenades tossed with uncanny timing, detonations echoing like a percussion symphony.
But then, everything changed.
A tremor.
An Ether surge.
And suddenly, the city block beneath you groaned and split apart.
Hollows poured from the fissures like shadows come alive.
Your comm crackled. “Section 6, regroup at sector D—!”
Static.
Cut off.
“Figures,” Harumasa muttered, firing an arrow that split mid-flight, slicing through two Hollow forms. “They never make these things easy.”
You reloaded your launcher with mechanical precision, eyes scanning the battlefield. “Left flank’s collapsing. We’re surrounded.”
He clicked his tongue. “Tch. Hate when that happens.”
“You sound very concerned,” you said dryly.
“I’d be more concerned if it meant I had to run.”
You smirked faintly, stepping forward as the creatures closed in. “Then let’s not run.”
The first wave came fast—twisting, shrieking shapes lunging through smoke. You fired a volley, the concussive blasts illuminating the dusk.
Grenade pins clinked. Ether detonations painted the street in gold and crimson.
You moved fluidly, almost lazily, as if every explosion was just a breath in your rhythm. Harumasa covered your blind spots, arrows flying like streaks of lightning.
“Not bad,” he called out. “You’ve got good aim for someone everyone’s afraid of.”
“Maybe they’re afraid because I have good aim,” you shot back, tossing another grenade behind you without even looking. It detonated mid-air, obliterating a Hollow creeping up behind him.
He blinked. “...Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Too late,” you teased.
But even prodigies tire.
Your grenades were running low. The Hollows didn’t stop coming. The air shimmered with Ether distortion.
Harumasa’s breathing grew uneven; his fingers trembled briefly as he notched another arrow. You noticed—the faint pallor on his face, the sweat at his temple. You’d read his file. Ether Aptitude Regression Syndrome.
He noticed your stare. “Don’t,” he muttered.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that. I know my limits.”
You exhaled slowly. “Then save your strength. I’ll handle this.”
He frowned. “You’re out of grenades.”
“Who said I was?”
You reached for the last device at your hip—not a standard grenade, but something heavier, longer. You clicked it into the modified tube slung over your shoulder. The mechanism whirred to life.
Harumasa blinked. “Wait—when did you have a—”
You gave a small smile, calm even as the Hollows closed in from all sides.
“Oh, it’s not just a big weapon,” you said, lowering the launcher and taking aim.
“It’s a grenade launcher.”
The next moment was thunder.
A single shot.
A heartbeat of silence.
Then the entire street erupted into a controlled inferno.
The blast wave rolled out in a perfect arc, annihilating the encroaching Hollows but leaving the two of you untouched within the eye of the explosion.
When the smoke cleared, the ground was scorched black.
Harumasa let out a low whistle. “Efficient.”
You smirked. “Told you. Dessert.”
He stared at you for a long moment before breaking into a laugh—quiet at first, then genuine. “You’re insane. I like that.”
Later, when the team regrouped and the extraction drones began their sweep, Harumasa leaned against a ruined wall, his bow folded and strapped to his back. You sat beside him, munching on a packet of sweet biscuits, completely unbothered by the soot and chaos around you.
He eyed the snacks. “You ever stop eating?”
You offered him one. “You ever stop pretending you’re not exhausted?”
He hesitated before taking it. “Touché.”
Silence lingered between you for a while—comfortable, for once. The others gave you both a wide berth, but you didn’t care.
“You know,” Harumasa said eventually, “people think I’m lazy because I avoid effort. But really, I just hate wasting energy on things that don’t matter.”
You glanced at him. “And I’m guessing I matter enough that you didn’t avoid being my partner today?”
He smiled faintly, eyes reflecting the dim light of the setting sun. “You’re efficient. I respect that. You don’t waste your energy either—you just make sure it explodes in the right place.”
You laughed softly. “That’s... oddly poetic.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s the Ether talking. Or the sugar.”
The quiet stretched again, broken only by the distant hum of drones and your continued munching.
After a while, he spoke again, voice softer. “When I was younger, I used to think the only way to live was to burn bright and fast. Like a spark in a storm. Now I think... maybe it’s enough to burn just long enough to see the fireworks.”
You looked at him, and for a fleeting moment, saw past the smirk and lazy drawl—the fatigue in his eyes, the awareness of his own limited time.
“Then,” you said, tossing another biscuit his way, “I’ll make sure the fireworks are worth it.”
He caught it with an easy smile. “Deal.”
And as the night fell over the ruined city, you both sat in companionable silence—two anomalies in Section 6: the lazy genius and the walking grenade, quietly sharing snacks under the distant crackle of fading stars.
I picked Maharlika up last year at EGX (or what used to be EGX, having now been swallowed up by Comic Con) - I’d never heard of it before, but I’d gone determined to come back with a new TTRPG, and was it more exciting to buy a book that is a known quantity, or something I didn’t know existed before I saw it? Especially when it had mechs! I’ve always been a sucker for mechs. Honestly, I think my first exposure was Earthsiege 2 on the PC. Equipping different weapons on each arm, adding shoulder-mounted rockets, managing heat etc, amazing! In my late teens a friend introduced me to Gundam Wing, then Macross Plus. Somehow I fell off then, and have always wanted to really get into Gundam but never managed it. This year though, I watched Iron-Blooded Oprhans (great) and finally started to watch 0079 Gundam, listening along to the Great Gundam Project podcast. I’m halfway through Zeta now and am loving it. Needless to say, this all had me properly in the mood for reading Maharlika.
As a quick introduction, this is “a technomystic Science Fantasy mecha RPG inspired by Filipino Mythology, centered around Mekanized Weapons or Meka, and their pilots: the eponymous Maharlika.” If that sounds like a lot, it is. If that sounds awesome, yes it’s that too. It’s heavily based on Lancer, as I understand it (I own Lancer but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet), so it’s rules-light for the narrative beats and has crunchy tactical combat, which is its main focus. It’s a decent size at 220 pages, but much closer to regular book proportions than some hefty D&D tome.
Where it differs is obviously in the setting, with the designer bringing an incredible world to life by introducing the Filipino mythology. The pilots, or Maharlika, are generally teenagers (of course) who have established a connection with a divine being that becomes, in the books own phrasing, kind of like an onboard AI that allows the pilot to control these mechs that otherwise a human mind and body would be unable to. The writing really impresses on you the power of these beings, and the extent to which humans are playing with forces they don’t understand. Hey, it’s definitely anime mecha. This is just scratching the surface, as the game is far future, and very cyberpunk. Aside from the divine beings from another plane, there are aliens (including one previously invading force that humanity barely fought off), and a system of megacorps that are each as awful as the last in their own special way. These corps are the guys you’ll largely be doing missions for, and will not hesitate to come after you if you fail. All of this setting is fully realised, there are unique terms for everything, like your pilot being a Maharlika, connected to their Diwata, using their Gahum Reactor-powered mechs to do missions for the Lakanate. It definitely gave me a headache trying to keep track of everything, and honestly I’d be anxious about trying to run it, but it a cool enough world that I’d want to give it my best shot regardless.
Happily, the art is fantastic and helps to visualise the maximalist setting. A significant chunk of the book is dedicated to running through each of the five megacorps and a selection of their mech designs. Every corp has some unique approach, like the militaristic SD-SK or the theocratic KLL, and their mechs are very stylised to match. The art for each is gorgeous, I can’t show you all of my favourites or I’d be sharing half of the book, but check out the shot from the itch page below.
Really, this is what I’m here for with this book - it’s such an inspiring read, visually speaking, both in terms of the actual art, and the world described in the prose. There are some formatting issues in the book, like headings at the end of a column when the text starts in the next column, as well as a few typos. I also don’t fully love the layout and book design, with white text on a black background, using two columns on a fairly small page, and justified text which looks neat at a distance but makes the spacing really inconsistent, especially with a lot of long words that can throw off the alignment.
I already mentioned that the lore is quite daunting, and the same goes for the mechanics. As I said I’m not familiar with Lancer, and to be really clear, I am not built for tactical combat in the slightest. I wish I was, I always tried to play RTS, 4X, and tactical games of various stripes, and I’ve always been a complete plonker in every single one. I zone out in every D&D combat and really dread levelling up, because it means I need to pay attention to a bunch of stupid upgrades again. All that to say, the tactical combat here could be awesome, it could be awful, I have no idea and I’d be terrified of attempting to run it either way. There does seem to be good advice for setting up and balancing encounters, but I’d say that you and your players need to be comfortable with this kind of game, or up to the task of putting in the work to understand it sufficiently.
Regardless, whether I ever manage to run or play Maharlika or not, it’s a very cool book that I’m glad I picked up. I don’t think Filipino anime-mecha-cyberpunk-science-fantasy TTRPG is an oversaturated genre, to be honest, so this is a standout game whose world and aesthetics will stay in my head.
The battle is going badly because your opponent has air superiority- but your wizard just arrived on the field! In your opinion, how should they turn the tide?
vicious downdrafts to force the fliers to ground
summon a thunderstorm (or just fire off some chain lightning)
rip the wing off the fliers
alter local physics so the flight mechanism stops working
grow your soldiers big enough to engage at height
pew pew laser beams
summon clouds to blind the fliers
drag the fliers to ground with chains or vines
freeze the fliers in place so ranged attacks can pick them off
polymorph all the fliers into something that can't fly
Here it is, the cover for my next game: a tactical combat and war drama RPG set in a Precolonial Philippine Fantasy setting, named KITATAK! Playtesting is underway, if anyone is interested my asks/dms are open!
one of my favorite things about video games that use "tactical combat" is that they call pausing a "tactical pause"
aside from the fact that it is no different than regular pausing, I’m like no, I'm not pausing because I'm a strategic genius
I'm pausing because I'm backed into a corner and about to wet my pants
but sure, thanks for throwing me a bone with "tactical pause"
Blacken Slash tactical turn based combat gets and early release
Blacken Slash gets an Early Access release for Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Due to the ongoing work and efforts of developer ehmprah. Which you can play now on itch, ahead of the Steam launch.
After a short delay Mario "ehmprah" Kaiser is proud to announce the Early Access release. Letting players get access to the game of Blacken Slash via itch.io and Google Play. Which is the solo indie developer's third game. And also a nostalgic blast of tactical hash and slash action. Fight, loot, upgrade, die ... repeat!
Blacken Slash fuses tactical turn-based combat and fast-paced hack and slash, and loot gameplay. While offering up a bit of roguelite elements. Finishing that off with enticing progression mechanics.
Blacken Slash Early Access Trailer
Explore the story, play on your own and perfect your gear across dozens of runs, and see which difficulty you can master – or compete with other Blacken Slash players in an online ladder where you start from scratch each week.
Features:
Minimalist – easy to learn
Difficult – hard to master
Short levels – short play sessions
Various playstyles and builds
Challenging achievements
Weekly online ladder
If you're still unsure about Blacken Slash, you can play the Demo on Steam or Itch. Both have builds for Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. This way you can get a better taste of the gameplay, before purchasing. Personally, I appreciate the simplicity mixed with tactical awareness. Since gameplay can get you addicted for any length of time.
Tackle evermore challenging turn-based combat, let it rain tons of loot, and refine your builds. While you explore this deep and difficult retro-minimalist roguelite. While including a great soundtrack with high replay value.
Blacken Slash will get a full release on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Not only on itch, but also Steam, and Google Play as well as App Store on July 22nd, 2022. Priced at only $4.99 USD / £3.99 / 3,99€.
Iron Danger First Impressions - Before You Buy
After live-streaming Iron Danger on Twitch, I decided it was best to provide a raw reaction | response to this game. I hope you enjoy and it helps you with your decision making on whether to dive into Iron Danger or not.
About the game: Iron Danger is a tactical combat game with a unique time manipulation mechanic. A never before seen combination that combines the tactical depth of turn-based games with the exciting action of real-time games.
Broken Lines tactical strategy has new Trailer and Q1 2020 release for Linux and Windows PC. Thanks to developer PortaPlay and publisher SUPER.COM. We now have more information for the forthcoming release on Steam.
Broken Lines has a new gameplay trailer. A head of the upcoming tactical RPG release in Q1 2020. While this new video focuses on the game’s narrative elements. Highlighting character interactions and their effects. Which takes place in both the game world and the characters themselves.
A squad of British soldiers crash land behind enemy lines in Broken Lines. So this is very much an alternate history of WWII. So you will need to make the hard choices for these brave souls. While they battle both the enemies in front of them. And also the enemies within themselves. Whether they are battle hardened veterans or green recruits. Each soldier certainly brings their own attitudes, beliefs, and personal baggage to the battlefield. Sort of similar to Darkest Dungeon. Where must deal with this aspect, and make the most of their combat skills. While you fight to bring them home.
Broken Lines Story Trailer 2020
Broken Lines is a tactical strategy combat game. Butt there is also a heavy focus on character and story. This offers a fresh, accessible, and innovative approach to unit control. In game, you will manage a squad of soldiers fighting through Eastern European battlefields. Above all, they are on a desperate mission to get back home. As the soldiers make their way through the war-torn landscape. Their experiences will certainly shape their personalities and their relationships with each other. Building a story that reveals the true impact of the horrors of war. And maybe even something more.
Broken Lines will be available on Linux and Windows PC in Q1 2020. So be sure to Wishlist the game on Steam. Keep up to date by following the tactical strategy on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
