Lancer: 1:35 Swallowtail Scratchbuild

Back in the day, I suggested that the best mech system is a mechanics-heavy RPG system, but scaled up. D&D 4E seemed like a good candidate. Mech systems are hard. The system needs to be crunchy, balanced (to survive online criticism), and sufficiently complex while being possible to run without a team of assistants and a graphing calculator. Lancer meets all these requirements and more.

Lancer is a triumph of flavour text over mechanical complexity. This is a compliment. There are a lot of effects in Lancer that are mechanically simple but feel cool because of the flavour text, the worldbuilding, or the presentation. 

As a game, it's pretty fun. The possible complexity is filtered down by build limitations and the action economy to a manageable set of choices. If anything, the books oversell how complicated the game is. Building optimal (or just plain weird) mechs is fun. The setting provides plenty of plot hooks and modes of play. As with any crunchy system, balancing encounters without punishing players is tricky. The cutting-age free app makes it easier. It's not a system I'd be happy to run (I don't have a lot of time for high-prep carefully balanced games), but it is one I'll happily play.

The Manticore, a mech that puts the "bomb" in "bombastic prose."

The non-mech combat/social interaction system in Lancer is a modern Apocalypse World / BiTD hack. This seems to be a theme for mech games. It's got clocks and moves, but none of the GM-facing tools that made Apocalypse World compelling. It might as well be a d20 skill list. But it's irrelevant; nobody's playing a mech game for the emergency backup human-scale downtime system.  Replace it with Traveller or any other sci-fi system, or no system at all.

The Swallowtail

The Swallowtail is a support mech. It doesn't have a big gun or teleport across the map or tank damage. It makes cool things possible for allies, shuts down enemies, and, critically, solves Lancer scenarios when the rest of your teammates forget the objectives.

Vex/Andreus

The Meta

Lancer, very cunningly, makes the first level 0 mech every player starts with the best mech in the game. The Everest frame is extremely good. You don't start out in some busted old VOTOMS relic and upgrade to invincible god-tier supermechs. You deliberately choose to come down off the mountain and climb some other, more specialized peak. All mech frames are measured against the Everest. 

Here's the Everest. Don't worry about the numbers. You can look up the rules if you want to. But even amateur game designer can see "Once per scene, take a quick action as a free action" and think "Oooh, that could lead to shenanigans." And indeed it does. You don't even need to know what quick actions are. "Do X for free" is almost always good.

Compared to the Everest, the Swallowtail has less HP, but a doubled sensor range (pretty much the whole battlefield) and better speed. Combined with various evasion-type abilities, this makes it the ideal "Oh shoot, we need to be on the objective on turn 6 and we've spent 4 turns screwing around" mech. The "We need to do X but none of us are set up to do X" mech. The fire extinguisher. The parachute. The knife, folded bill, and lockpick tucked into the boot.

Since Lancer is about pilot+mech builds (rather than purely organic character growth), the pilot build should lean into that. Other PCs can have all the interpersonal drama and factional chaos and bright colours. Someone has to keep the machinery running. The boring grey brain cell of the group. The operator operating. Insert a standard tragic backstory and blurry allegiances and you're good to go.

Paul von Oberstein, Legend of the Galactic Heroes

The Scratchbuild

Lancer works well with 1" hexes, so I decided to work at a completely impractical scale. I wanted to do a scratchbuild using spare parts from other kits... and one custom-ordered 1:24 Tachikoma kit. It's not a "use up your bitz box" project unless you end up with more bits than you started with.

The legs are mostly sprues, with some Tatchikoma bits and Leman Russ cannons from Warhammer 40k. The body is plasticard and putty, with storage bins from a Jagdpanther (the same kit used in my Scheider FA build). The turret is from the depth of the bits box. It must have belonged to an M60 Patton at some point.

The Tatchikoma wheel-hands represent the Swallowtail's speed and possibly the Kai Biolpating all-terrain upgrade. 

The pilot is based on a 1:35 figure from an unknown kit (possibly the siege mortar kit I used to create a 40k-scale artillery piece). I tried to create a suitably dull figure. The stealth hardsuit and rocket launcher are from the 40k bits box. Everyone expects the stealthy character to polite little daggers and pistols. Nobody expects a dismounted pilot to keep fighting. Hand over the reigns to the Athena-class NHP and double up on the action economy.

I magnetized the turret for extra build options. I'm not sure what some of the options are supposed to represent, but that's part of the fun. Build aesthetically pleasing items, decide what rules apply later.

A multi-gun option, in case I need to switch to a frontline damage-dealing build.

The autogun turret is from this kit. I think it represents the Autogun or Smartgun from the Horus Pegasus fairly well. 

And finally, an all-missile build, because sometimes you've run out of points for fancy weapons.

The next step is to build a diorama base and get painting.