Dude, Bastions are so amazing, that ability for them to do fearless defender moves them adjacent so they can move to any adjacent space of an allied character. Also, you could put death counter on them but unfortunately by the book death counter doesn’t work with fearless defender but I make it work because I’m evil.
@@WinWithDice fearless defender works off an allied character taking damage, and death counter works off the Bastion being hit by an attack and damage is rolled after an attack so It can’t use death counter because it’s not the target of the attack when it uses fearless defender. It’s wack so I make it work
I personally love the bombard. A cute play is to have a bombard in the back with flare drone ready and an engineer NPC or two at the front. This way, it can stack the +2 bonus damages for each of the active drone from the engineer, and create a fun (nasty) surprise for the PCs. That, or simply surround the players with grunts and then kill everyone in that spot. Every bombards I've fired has done at least 10+ damage to each of the PCs.
I feel like assaults are the perfect class to introduce intelligent NPC pilots. They are one of the few NPCs that can naturally Barrage with their ranged and melee attack combo, they can skirmish>take cover>hide to become very tough enemies to return fire on without flanking, and they are threatening to pretty much every PC archetype. I've used them in the past to show players what their options are during combat in an organic way.
Great episode! I really hope you do more like this! Even though I used “Assault” mechs from mission 1-12, I always made sure to mix up the enemies my players encountered. Barricade + Stalker was a fun combo, as you could isolate players from each other, so the Stalker could get its bonus damage. Snipers are always fun and make for fun encounters. Ace are another great enemy just because of their sheer mobility. lol I even used the dreaded Elite Operator. lol THAT made my players sweat a little 😝 Bosses are always fun to build as you can Frankenstein together any combination of abilities.
@@WinWithDice 1) they teleport when they move, so that can make them difficult to control. 2) they can attack twice on their turn, and elite gives them two activations, meaning they can deal large amounts of damage quickly! 3) they explode when they die. It came up once 😝
Speaking about the random encounters tip of the week: I've been playing around with 2d6 encounter tables combined with factions. For example one faction will have Archers and Assaults on 7-9, Bastions and Mirages above and below that and at the end a Commander/Veteran upgrade and an environment hazard or batch upgrade. I also give my factions flavors like everyone has a threat 2 melee weapon (knight flavor), or everyone has attack drone deployables. This way I have flavorful random encounters that still let players know what to expect (oh s*, another Mirage Bastion squad. We're never going to hit).
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I usually have 6 NCPs types for a faction with a few templates, but I usually only deploy like 4 types of the 6 again to them. I think the really cool thing about Map crow's design is the state that you NPCs are in when they beet the PCs. Loke how prepared they are for them.
Dude, Bastions are so amazing, that ability for them to do fearless defender moves them adjacent so they can move to any adjacent space of an allied character. Also, you could put death counter on them but unfortunately by the book death counter doesn’t work with fearless defender but I make it work because I’m evil.
I am surprised that death counter and fearless defender doesn't work together by the book. I that's how I read it??!
@@WinWithDice fearless defender works off an allied character taking damage, and death counter works off the Bastion being hit by an attack and damage is rolled after an attack so It can’t use death counter because it’s not the target of the attack when it uses fearless defender. It’s wack so I make it work
Since Deathcounter is once per round I think it's fine if it works that way too. Gives the players something to sweat about XD @@ukuwastation7384
Ooo good idea about the flare drone hazard
It's got me wanting to run a stealth encounter in Lancer. Sneaking in mechs somehow XD
I personally love the bombard.
A cute play is to have a bombard in the back with flare drone ready and an engineer NPC or two at the front. This way, it can stack the +2 bonus damages for each of the active drone from the engineer, and create a fun (nasty) surprise for the PCs.
That, or simply surround the players with grunts and then kill everyone in that spot.
Every bombards I've fired has done at least 10+ damage to each of the PCs.
I feel like assaults are the perfect class to introduce intelligent NPC pilots. They are one of the few NPCs that can naturally Barrage with their ranged and melee attack combo, they can skirmish>take cover>hide to become very tough enemies to return fire on without flanking, and they are threatening to pretty much every PC archetype. I've used them in the past to show players what their options are during combat in an organic way.
Great episode! I really hope you do more like this!
Even though I used “Assault” mechs from mission 1-12, I always made sure to mix up the enemies my players encountered. Barricade + Stalker was a fun combo, as you could isolate players from each other, so the Stalker could get its bonus damage. Snipers are always fun and make for fun encounters. Ace are another great enemy just because of their sheer mobility. lol I even used the dreaded Elite Operator. lol THAT made my players sweat a little 😝
Bosses are always fun to build as you can Frankenstein together any combination of abilities.
Are operators that bad?? I don't think I have run one and other people I have talked says it's a menace lol
@@WinWithDice 1) they teleport when they move, so that can make them difficult to control. 2) they can attack twice on their turn, and elite gives them two activations, meaning they can deal large amounts of damage quickly! 3) they explode when they die. It came up once 😝
Ahhh i see. I think I will use 4 in the next game i run hahaha!
Speaking about the random encounters tip of the week:
I've been playing around with 2d6 encounter tables combined with factions. For example one faction will have Archers and Assaults on 7-9, Bastions and Mirages above and below that and at the end a Commander/Veteran upgrade and an environment hazard or batch upgrade.
I also give my factions flavors like everyone has a threat 2 melee weapon (knight flavor), or everyone has attack drone deployables.
This way I have flavorful random encounters that still let players know what to expect (oh s*, another Mirage Bastion squad. We're never going to hit).
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I usually have 6 NCPs types for a faction with a few templates, but I usually only deploy like 4 types of the 6 again to them. I think the really cool thing about Map crow's design is the state that you NPCs are in when they beet the PCs. Loke how prepared they are for them.
LANCER!!!!!