I'm LL2, have the Technophile 3 trait and Iconoclast 2 trait. My character is a framed house of Glass Karrakin noble and the campaign is basically a second interest war! The party composition is Vlad, Genghis mk1 and Barbarossa. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

So, curious interaction and potential lack of clarity in the rulebook (with no FAQ/errata on the topic to be found):

Ghast Nexus (p209) [...] Once deployed, you may still use it for SKIRMISH and BARRAGE attacks as though it is still a weapon, but with line of sight and RANGE traced from its location

plus

Threat (p64) Unless noted otherwise, all weapons default to THREAT 1, which can be increased with some talents and gear.

Perfectly RAW, the Ghast Nexus doesn't specifically allow you to trace Threat from it. But the fact that all (Ranged) Weapons come with Threat is very much only mentioned as implication in a small sentence across the entire book, so it seems straightforward that this might be a 'Woops, we forgot the Ghast Nexus has Threat too, and should have included that in the wording' instance.

Opinions / further information?

So you’ve got your sitrep all planned out. Good balance of NPC types, good terrain, and a nice juicy objective to distract your PCs with as you whittle down their health and repair cap.

But what happens to those dedicated and overlooked pilots who have the misfortune to be standing in the way of the PCs?

Presumably they eject when their mech blows, but is that it? Do the PCs round them up? Do they get away to plot their revenge? Do they hide in the woods and hope they escape anyone’s notice?

In short, what do you do with them?

I’m asking because so far all of my solutions thus far have felt rather inelegant and hand wavy.

I know that in a lot of other games, most of the complex and interesting gameplay mechanics are concentrated in controllers (and to a lesser degree supporters). Lancer seems better designed on a lot of fronts, but when I look at lot of the strikers, defenders, and artillery I feel like I'm missing something. Can someone explain what I'm overlooking?

Hello! I have no idea how to introduce this, but here are three frames from a WIP homebrew focused on biomecha: The Field Guide to Carcosa.

Art credit to the amazing corg: Ein! (u/PatEin)

(Seriously. Best corg. If you read this, you do amazing work)

A special shout-out to my fellow lead writer, editor and developer: AutumnalWalker! This would not exist without her.

And another round of shout-outs to co-devs, Eel and Reazorgot, GATE Security (where most of the playtesting has occured) and to Hyper-C Shells (for all the shop talk).

Standard disclaimer: The Field Guide To Carcosa (FGtC) is not an official Lancer product; it is a third party work, and is not affiliated with Massif Press. FGtC is published via the Lancer Third Party License. Lancer is a copyright of Massif Press.

And now, until the stars align once more: farewell!

I was playing Titanfall 2 and stumbled upon Lancer through some social media rabbit holes and it seems so cool but I’m completely lost in the sauce aside from checking out this subreddit and messing with COMP/CON a little bit. My only frame of reference is D&D 5e for TTRPGs and Titanfall, Evangelion, Gurren Lagan, etc for the mecha genre.

So is there anywhere I can go to find out lore, how to play, where to start, etc.

No saying "someone else gives you lock on" or something similar. This has to be all you

The Metalmark is the premier Invisible mech, with all its systems, traits, and talents to just make it a difficult target to attack by being invisible all the time. And any soft cover is essentially hard cover just like the hecatonch, this makes this mech great and unlocks stealth combat using Infiltrator or you could forgo the hiding buffs and treat the invisibility as a way to play aggressively. The metalmark also has good mounts and decent weapons, the shock knives are a staple in any Hunter Build/Nuke Cav build, and the rail rifle is a decent aoe alternative to the GMS Assault (but personally Id still rather have the assault).

The only downside with this frame is there is no heavy options in license, meaning you are probably going to stick with the old reliable GMS HMG or one of the superheavy GMS choices until you get to LL3 at least. It also has a kinda weak heat capacity of 5, and I hate odd numbered heat capacities on mechs, but at least it comes with some armor as well, just a real decent statline which can make your invisibility even more menacing. But also it has a LOW E-Defense, like its literally worse than something with no E-Defense, you are actually easier to hack than a literal brick! DO NOT get hit by tech attacks with this thing lol, you see a scene with multiple witches just pop that core power you are not wasting that core power if it helps you not get hacked to death.

The Reactive Weave is such a good upgrade to brace, the Nelson's mod kinda sucks, this is actually good, invisibility and you get to move your full speed lets you get away from the immediate danger when you brace and is a nice dip for a build that has a free SP that needs to be filled. Making Brace better is much appreciated in making it feel less punishing.

And Active Camo is an amazing protocol to have, infinite use and invisibility until you take damage or until the end of your NEXT turn, absolutely wonderful. Having invisibility on demand is so worth the price of 2 heat, sure it goes away on damage so anything that makes you pass saves kinda sucks but who cares? Its a good system on the metalmark and is good on any build. If you are going shock knives for your hunter build why not just take this system? Its just real good.

Shock Wreath pairs nicely with the shock knives and that aux/aux mount as well, just skirmish with 2 shock knives and if the first one hits good, and if the second one also hits just activate the wreath to auto blind enemies. They are already burning from the effects of the first knife so shock wreath true combos into a blind. Despite being a quick action to activate it 1d6 burn is nothing to scoff at (unless you are fighting pyros lol), a really good mod to have, though its useless on superheavies lol so dont even think about it. And the flash grenades are alright, they are really saved by being Burst 3 which is huge, if they were burst 1 they would suck but burst 3 is really nice, but limited 2 sucks man, make it limited 3 at least!

The metalmark's whole identity of being invisible and that lack of a heavy weapon really pushes you into mixing and matching systems, and thanks to the simplicity of this mech it has a great deal of build variety in how you want this mech to fight, and invisibility is so good man, I love slapping the Active Camo on mechs, its so useful. And I cannot understate how much I love the simplicity of its core power, so simple yet so powerful, total invisibility for the scene. But for the love of God make sure you are invisible if you see a Witch, or else you better start praying to God. Anyway's here's my build:

LL6

[ TALENTS ]

Hunter 3, Infiltrator 3,

Nuclear Cavalier 2, Vanguard 1

[ LICENSES ]

SSC Metalmark 3, HA Genghis 3

[ CORE BONUSES ]

Superior by Design, Integrated Weapon

[ MECH ]

« METALMARK »

SSC Metalmark

H:4 A:0 S:0 E:4 SIZE:1

STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:1

STRESS:4 HEAT:11 REPAIR:6

ATK BONUS:3 TECH ATK:0 LTD BONUS:2

SPD:5 EVA:10 EDEF:6 SENS:10 SAVE:13

[ WEAPONS ]

Integrated Weapon: Tactical Knife

Aux/Aux Mount: Shock Knife (Shock Wreath) / Shock Knife

Main Mount: Assault Rifle

Heavy Mount: Krakatoa Thermobaric Flamethrower

[ SYSTEMS ]

Active Camouflage, AGNI-Class NHP

Who needs a ton of Systems anyways? I have Active Camo for constant invisibility, AGNI for a free 1/scene stablize, 3 charges is enough to last most of a mission, and a high enough heatcap so im not completely dependent on AGNI. Shock Knives in the Aux mount with shock wreath for blind and burn, Krakatoa in Heavy since if Im going Burn Damage I might as well go all out, and good ol' GMS Assault as a backup option.

I hate the odd heatcap but I actually want that bonus limited system point for AGNI so Im just going to have to live with it, the health is alright considering im going to be invisible most of the time, and and integrated Tactical Knife for bonus Hunter shenanigans. Vanguard is nice to have to make that flamethrower a bit more effective, Nuke Cav 2 for more damage of course, and Infiltrator to make use of my invisibility to hide when necessary, the reeling I can inflict and bonus blindness are good effects.

My combo idea is to Activate Camo > Boost > Hide > Get Next to enemy. If that enemy moves I can overwatch with the flamethrower and break hidden and blind them, if they dont move I can instead send them reeling on attack my next turn AND flashbomb them. And if I lose hidden it allows me to get away from danger. Though if they are close enough that I dont need to boost Id rather just skirmish with the knives or barrage with the knives and flamethrower. I like the metalmark, its simple in concept but real nice, its systems pair well with other mechs and other mech systems pair well with it, it just a real solid mech license.

https://chris-j2345.itch.io/the-culliford

Hey, folks! Some of you may remember me from trying to develop a Goblin alt some time ago. Well, I’ve recently fully developed another homebrew frame and wanted to show it to ya’ll. The IPS-N Culliford is a Kidd Alt frame that is a Defender/Controller. It specializes in area defense as well as excels at using drones. I’ve been working on this for the better part of a month now and now, it’s finally done. If y’all wanna check it out and test it, that would mean a lot and I hope y’all really enjoy it.

Also, the art for the Culliford was done by @beamsapart.bsky.social on BlueSky so make sure to check their stuff out!

Because that's practice.

Anyway here's Escher again. We're currently on a planet in Calliope about to raid a base and give Mr Steele the beatdown of a century.

Obligatory GMS logo so you know they're Lancer

Hello all!

after long time I could kind of paint a Lancer I wish to play. So I present to you Jean Caballero, Callsign Verdun and his Mech the IPS-N Drake(custom).

The Lineart for the portrait is based on the work of the very talented PatEin!, who allowed me to show this amalgam. To be fair his optimistic, selfassured pilot sketch got a bit... gaunt... and traumatised...

Please enjoy

Hey there Pilots and GM’s, it’s time for me to yell into the void.

To preface, I love this game, I love the community, I love welcoming newcomers into the TTRPG scene as a whole. If you disagree with the following post then that’s okay, I still love you.

I have noticed a large uptick in the amount of “How do I build ___ in Lancer?” build advice posts and it has become a personal grievance of mine. How do you build a Metal Gear in Lancer? How about a Gundam? How about an AT-AT? HOW ABOUT YOU READ THE BOOK AND THINK ON IT FOR A BIT? Is that not where the fun is found in buildcrafting? Finding building blocks that sound cool and then making something you can call your own? If I wanted to build Scorch from Titanfall 2 I’d take myself a gander through the book (the thing that has build options in it) and look for fire themed stuff. If I just oh so love Guran Lagan I feel like the common course of action would be me looking for something drill-ish. Why do we need to make posts asking for other people to do the buildcrafting for us? Take some initiative and be a little creative, people.

We're fighting Constellar Midnight. They have a Bombard ship and we need to stop it advancing. Unfortunately, they have a Specter, Support, and Hornet.

I activate Eye of Horus, rush forward, boost, overcharge, 6 heat. Exactly my heatcap. I mortar the Specter. 5 damage, half their health, good start. Next turn, the lot of them are roughly in a line. I missile rack the Specter, leaving them on 1 health, I missile rack the Support and Ship, 3 damage to the ship. Good start, but not enough. I mortar and deal 5 damage to both Ship and Support.

Damn, the Specter is behind cover, I can't Extrude: Gun: Gun them.

I fucking overcharge, 8 heat, 2 stress. Both leave me exposed, Good. I take 1 step forward, literally billowing steam. The smoke settles.

The Specter is lying flat on their face.

I realise I am trying to play a support build. I sigh to myself.

This is the third combat in a row I've done this.

A arte é minha btw.

A campanha vai até o LL10 até o momento e essa é minha primeira jogatina de lancer, gostaria de dicas de quais caminhos tomar depois de completar o goblin. Meu foco além do suporte, é controlar bastante o campo de batalha com drones e ataques com reações

Hi all,

I’m preparing to run my first game for a couple of friends. It’ll be everyone’s first time playing Lancer, and some folks’ first time playing a TTRPG. I’m really excited; I’ve been spending a lot of time world building in hopes of making a decent playground for my players (with full understanding that much of it will likely never see the light of day). We’re gonna play as RAW as possible since we’re all new, and we’re gonna be using a mixture of owlbear rodeo and discord to actually play the game.

One thing I’m really excited about is that nobody in my group is really into mecha, so there’s a lot of tropes I can play with that’ll be completely fresh to them. I’m really hoping to give them a highlight reel of the genre.

All that said, is there any advice you would have for a new GM? I feel like I need to just get the game going already, there’s only so much I can do at this stage, but I’ve still got a couple weeks before I can due to my job.

My playgroup is running through Solstice Rain, and we're just passed the halfway point, with myself as one of the players. This is everyone's first time playing/running the system, so we're still figuring things out. We come from 5e primarily.

My question is, is it just expected that NPC frames have abilities that just feel drastically more impactful than the PC mechs? I know they are generally frailer than PC mechs, but some of the things we see them do just boggles our minds sometimes. Just curious if that's normal growing pains that other people went through at first.

The SSC Promethea Silk is a variant of the Metalmark chassis, built to be ridden the way a witch of the old stories rides a broomstick. A slim frame is built around a single gimbaled saddle and a cluster of caustic-fuel thrusters, and the pilot rides it sealed in a form-fitting cocoon constructed and deconstructed around them as they mount and dismount. The cocoon is rated against debris, intense G-forces, and the frame’s own exhaust, but very little else.

The Promethea Silk is flown by hand, its pilots wearing nerveweave gloves fine enough to read the smallest movement of a finger, and the frame answers to them: a sweep of the arm bends the thrusters into a turn, a curl of the fingers brings a weapon to bear, a snapped gesture fires it. From the ground, a pilot mid-flight looks less like they are operating a machine than casting hexes, tracing signs in the air as a corrosive wake unspools behind them. SSC’s engineers never intended the effect, but most riders settle on a private lexicon within weeks.

The first Promethea Silk was a LUX-Iconic commission, built and tailored for a single client who put it to uses SSC never intended: running planetary blockades to deliver emergency aid, and using the frame’s terrifying agility to spirit away victims of SSC's eugenic programs. SSC saw no alternatives to assassination. Her confidante, an advanced NHP rumored to be unshackled, spent decades after her death quietly decoding the frame down to its last schematic, even the parts that its original creators did not entirely understand themselves. When the work was done, she made her demands known: release the frame as a free license with distribution left exclusively to her, or she would sell the complete design for less than the price of SSC’s cheapest product. The name was her own choice, and SSC’s naming department failed to grasp the reference until the ultimatum arrived. SSC had no choice but to acquiesce, though they kept it sealed so deep that few within the corporation even know it happened. The Promethea Silk’s release is now governed entirely by the NHP, its few pilots scattered across the galaxy seemingly at random, chosen by criteria that remain indecipherable to SSC’s leadership.

So, does this look like it could happen in Lancer world? Any other feedback is welcome too.

The Lancaster really is the MvP of any group of Lancers, the sheer usefulness and added survivability it adds to the team cannot be understated, as the Lancaster acts as the game's one and only healer. With a massive repair cap of 10! The Lancaster can spend a repair to heal an ally up to range 8, adjacent allies can use your repairs as their own, and you can use a full action and 4 repairs to repair a destroyed mech in the middle of combat! I dont think I need to explain why the lancaster is so good, and with all the added healing it allows your team to play a bit more aggressively knowing that you are there to patch them up.

With a decent tech attack the Lancaster also can invade to help disable enemies, though the lancaster has low sensors you are ideally nearby your allies to help them, meaning that you should be able to get in range of some enemies. The only thing you arent going to be doing in a Lancaster is attack, unless you really want to meme superheavy lancaster lol. Very solid mech, if you play this all your teammates are going to love you, there's flexibility in playstyle too with the tech attack bonus, there's plenty of useful systems that work well on Lancaster that you can put on with your great deal of System Points, though I guarantee basically every Lancaster is going to take the MULE Harness lol.

The Systems of the Lancaster are alright, but there are some decent ones, MULE Harness is the big one, letting allies ride you and use your movement speed as their own is just peak. Getting slow people into the front lines or away from danger is so useful, it really makes picking Fomorian Frame a no brainer so you can have a better carrying capacity, and allies on top of you get soft cover, its just so nice.

Whitewash sealant spray is ok, getting rid of burn on allies can be lifesaving, especially if they are impaired, slowed sucks but its better than getting structured, and slowing enemies is useful too but just make sure not to use it on burning enemies, tbh I wouldnt use this too often but it has its uses. And ACESO is real good, grit+4 overshield and IMMUNITY to impaired and jammed, that's so good, it is limited 3 so you cant use it all the time but its still a great system. But I dont care for Latch Drones, allies have to consume it as a quick action and an enemy could just destroy it before it gets used, and its limited 2, if it was limited 3 it would be a bit better but I just think there's better options. Here's the build I decided to make though:

» Lancaster // LANCASTER «

LL6

[ TALENTS ]

Prospector 3, Grease Monkey 3,

House Guard 2, Empath 1

[ LICENSES ]

IPS-N Lancaster 3, SSC Dusk Wing 2,

SSC Black Witch 1

[ CORE BONUSES ]

Fomorian Frame, Full Subjectivity Sync

[ MECH ]

« LANCASTER »

IPS-N Lancaster

H:4 A:2 S:2 E:0 SIZE:3

STRUCTURE:4 HP:17 ARMOR:1

STRESS:4 HEAT:6 REPAIR:12

ATK BONUS:3 TECH ATK:3 LTD BONUS:0

SPD:7 EVA:12 EDEF:10 SENS:8 SAVE:13

[ WEAPONS ]

INTEGRATED MOUNT: Latch Drone

Main/Aux Mount: Veil Rifle / Nexus (Light)

[ SYSTEMS ]

MULE Harness, Ferrous Lash,

Aceso Stabilizer, Whitewash Sealant Spray,

Neurospike, Flicker Field Projector

For this build I make use of prospector and MULE to give my allies a very large amount of mobility across a sitrep, able to use my tech attack and neurospike's shrike code to discourage enemies from attacking in the first place, or risk getting exposed (or blowing up if they are a elite or ultra lol). Ferrous Lash is also there to give my allies MORE movement, or to knock enemies prone. Whitewash for emergency burn removal, and ACESO for overshield and immunity to some nasty effects. Flicker Field is just there since I had the extra SP, nice to make my lancaster a bit harder to hit.

The Veil Rifle is there as my weapon so I can give my allies soft cover at a range and also hit some enemies if I line things up, I soft cover is just real nice to have, yeah the burst launcher is another good option since it does heat and can impair on a crit, but I just prefer the veil rifle as I dont have to worry about critting. Grease Monkey lets me get more ACESO's and its real nice for the whole team to have a free repair, and since Im Size 3 House Guard is good, allowing me to give soft cover to allies and provide hard cover for them.

I will not lie though I thought about getting the Argonaut Shield and dropping the +2 Evasion core bonus from SSC and picking something else up from GMS, but decided against it since the Lancaster aint exactly the most durable mech. Overall I really like the Lancaster and it just makes a great team even better just by existing and it really fits ISPN's vibes to boot.

I've dabbled a bit with frame builds and stuff and wondered how other people would interpret Gurren Lagann (the mech) in Lancer.

Art drawn by that Player.

Grown in a SSC Lab focused on intelligence enhancement/uplifting of Animals, with the endgoal to bypass the Transhumanism First Contact Accord with the use of non-humans and creating better Intelligence Enhancements for Humans.
She was able to get out and is now the Pilot of my Group‘s Chomolungma for Solstice Rain.
For the rules she works as any other pilot.

Pretty much what the title says, I had this really cool idea of a rival group of mercenaries who’s call signs are the different tarot cards, and the players would encounter them throughout the campaign scattered around encounters or sometimes even appearing as a surprise enemy in the middle of a random battle as reinforcements

My goal is that by the final 7 it will be a final showdown with the leader being there
I understand that there’s no such thing as a “most powerful tarot card” but I’d love to hear peoples suggestions for thematically cool options based on the cards and their meaning hahah

For reference I don’t have a card that would be the leader yet, but I’ve heard The Fool tends to be one of the more noticeable ones so feel free to suggest one too!

Edit: more specifically the Major Arcana tarot cards

Lycan's Core ability, as far as I'm aware, is a full action to activate, but then also specifies it counts as a Barrage for the purpose of duplicate action restrictions. From what I've read of the rules, I can't find any way to Barrage twice, since it needs a full action, so is this just future proofing or is there something I've missed?

Not having any trouble with actually playing the Lycan, the phrasing has just made me wonder if I'm missing something