A list of characters, manufacturers, and mechs from Lancer.

There are five major fabricators of goods and tech in Union, and those five also provide licenses to their mech patterns.

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General Massive Systems (GMS)

General Massive Systems (GMS) is the galactic-baseline for quality, and the bar isn't as low as that makes it sound. GMS is one of the oldest fabricators in the galaxy and have lasted that long for good reason. Everything that can be manufactured is from GMS, or uses their parts.

In General

Boring, but Practical: Most GMS core bonuses are very simple and workhorse, but they are still incredibly useful, such as adding an integrated weapon, more damage to a single weapon, or more accuracy to all the weapons of a single mount.
Disc-One Nuke:
- The Cyclone Pulse Rifle is one of the most powerful single-target weapons in the entire game, is accurate at long ranges, and only suffers from needing to reload. Every starting character has access to it. That said, as a Superheavy Weapon, it requires a Heavy mount and an additional weapon mount in order to equip it, and firing it requires a full Barrage action. For most mechs, that's a very significant investment in both build resources and action economy.
- More practically, the Heavy Machine Gun, which is also equally accessible, and deals the highest damage of any weapon that does not have a major limiting tag such as Ordnance, Loading, or... well, Limited. Its only drawback is Inaccurate, which has a variety of different ways it can be played around that make it even more viable at higher license-levels.
IKEA Weaponry: IKEA mecha, in a sense. GMS sells licenses to all kinds of weapons, from simple knives to gigantic rifles, explosives, self-propelled smart drones, and more, and printing technology allows a pilot to create a mech equipped with precisely what they need for a mission immediately before launching on said mission. Even pilots that favor frames licensed from other manufacturers, like IPS-Northstar or Smith-Shimano Corpro, will often incorporate GMS weapons and systems to fill gaps in their repertoire.
Jack of All Stats: All the GMS Frame options have fairly nonpolarizing stats and general, but useful traits that let pilots take more actions and last longer over the course of a mission. They generally won't have a game mechanic they can purposefully design themselves around, but it also means they won't be out of their depth against any specific NPC types, either.
Starter Equipment: Every license level 0 pilot begins with nothing but what's available in the GMS catalog. Furthermore, GMS gear is always available to equip on a mech, regardless of the pilot's licenses.
Theme Naming: GMS mechs have nicknames based on a mountain. Not mountains in general, but a particular one with its name from multiple languages.
We Sell Everything: It is admittedly easier to sell all kinds of things when most of the galaxy can simply print weapons and systems.

Everest

Those who climb the highest all start from the bottom

Role: None/Balanced

Size: 1

GMS's flagship mech, the Everest, isn't the fanciest nor the best, but being incredibly modular and reliable has allowed the Everest to become ubiquitous in the galaxy.

Everest provides examples of the following tropes

Ascended Fan Nickname: An in-universe example. When it was originally developed it was designated as the rather plain General Massive Systems Standard Pattern 1, or GMS SP-1. At some point far in the past, someone named their personal mech Everest, and the name stuck. It proved so popular over the centuries that GMS eventually made it the official name.
The Ghost: Unlike all other player mechs, the Everest has no defined art for its frame in the core rulebook, so as to allow players complete freedom to imagine what it can look like. Official artwork for one specific variety of Everest — the Union Pattern [G] Type, pictured here — was eventually provided in the supplement Solstice Rain.
Jack of All Stats: The Everest is straightforwardly decent at everything, possessing entirely average stats that make it resilient and balanced. This does of course mean that the Everest doesn't specialize at anything in particular, and moreover doesn't have any particularly interesting gimmicks on its own.
Overdrive: Fittingly for the 'average' frame, the Everest's core system gives it increased accuracy to all attacks, checks and saves for the rest of a scene, as well as allows it to Boost (take an additional move action) for free every round.
Magikarp Power: At low levels, the Everest is a decent but unremarkable all-rounder. At high levels, backed by systems from other licenses and maximum-rank Talents, the Everest is capable of absolutely insane levels of burst damage through sheer action economy, to the point that several otherwise-capable frames are considered "low tier" simply because there's nothing they can do that a well-built Everest can't do just as well if not better.
Shout-Out: Its long-awaited art depiction bears more than a passing resemblance to the various general infantry Mobile Suits, such as the ECOAS Jegan "Four Eyes". In addition, the specific naming convention for that variant, the [G] type, mirrors the Gundam [G]round type which served as a general purpose high-durability mobile suit that has a wide variety of compatibility with standardized parts...much like the Everest.
Starter Equipment: The Everest is every lancer's first mech, and it'll carry them for a good while until they have enough license points to pilot something else. Even then, the Everest is always an available fallback option if the lancer is tapped for a mission that's a poor fit for their usual ride.

Sagarmatha

Role: Defender

Size: 2

An old mainstay of the GMS lineup, having since been phased out for more modern frames like the Everest. It can still be found on the frontier and with the Albatross, however, and isn't to be underestimated. Introduced in No Room for a Wallflower.

Sagarmatha provides examples of the following:

The Ghost: Carries on the GMS tradition of not having official artwork.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Sagarmatha's Core Power, Raise The Banner, is designed to operate in this way - it benefits the defenses of all allies within direct line of sight, until the end of your next turn. Note that it both does nothing for your own defenses, and because of its duration, incentivizes going as long as possible without taking your turn to maximize the benefits for your friends.
Mighty Glacier: Slower than the Everest^note, it also comes with an increased size and heavier armor. It even has the same ability to be used as hard cover that the other defender frames from IPS-N and HA have, and can use its Heroism to No-Sell incoming damage once per battle.
Starter Equipment: Just like the Everest, you don't need to have any licenses to build it.

Chomolungma

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1

A younger and more lightweight GMS frame, the Chomolungma was designed by GMS to adapt to evolving battlefield conditions in the face of technological advances, and differs from its predecessors in its angle towards E-Warfare and manipulation through tech actions rather than outright firepower. Introduced in Operation Solstice Rain.

Chomolungma provides examples of the following:

Enemy Scan: Perhaps Chomolungma's most unique trait: Data Siphon, which allows it to Scan enemies for free while Hacking them (getting around the inefficient cost of using one of your precious quick-actions just to figure out what your enemy is, and allowing newer players to learn what various NPC types do.)
The Ghost: It, too, carries on the tradition of not having any official artwork.
Magic Knight: Generally fits this gameplay style; with fair defenses, and improved Tech-Attack, Sensors, Save Target, and System Points, Chomolungma can fulfill a wide variety of roles and still take hits with the best of them. Its only drawback is that it lacks a Heavy Mount, limiting how hard it can hit with its weapons.
Squishy Wizard: Subverted. The Chomolungma's defensive stats are no worse than the Everest's, it retains the Replaceable Parts trait, and it actually benefits from having a higher E-Defense than other GMS frames. Its repair cap is a bit worse than the Everest's - which is to say it's only average.

IPS-Northstar (IPS-N)

IPS-Northstar is the biggest name in interstellar shipping in Union, with a history inextricably tied to that of interstellar piracy, and their mech lineup reflects that. IPS-N offers a range of versatile and durable mechs with a focus on toughness and close-quarters combat.

In General

Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: The balance faction. While GMS holds the true title of "jack of all trades, master of none", IPS-N is the most straightforward of the four major manufacturers. IPS-N frames tend to be reasonably tough and practical, with fairly mundane gimmicks and a lean towards short-range combat.
Close-Range Combatant: Due to their historic focus on boarding actions and other short-range engagements, IPS-N mechs as a whole tend to favor melee and close quarters combat. Notably, while every other non-GMS manufacturer has at least one representative for each of the five mech roles, there is no officially-published IPS-N frame with the Artillery role.
Cyber Cyclops: One of IPS-N's design signatures is a single optical sensor placed asymmetrically on the mech's face.
Implacable Man: Several of IPS-N's core bonuses make their mechs just that much harder to destroy, but the Briareos Reinforcement Frame epitomizes this by giving the mech resistance to all damage as long as it has only 1 Structure remaining, and when reduced to 0 Structure it still will keep going as long as it succeeds at Structure Damage checks.
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: IPS-N certainly seems to think so. Most of the corp’s catalog comes equipped with kinetic weapons, with the few exceptions being fairly underwhelming by comparison.
Pragmatic Villainy: Being a shipping business, they have a vested interest in making sure Space Pirates are kept in check and spend a lot of time fighting them, which is beneficial to any worlds they happen to threaten as well.
Space Romans: They operate very similarly to the East India Company, including the hardline anti-piracy stance.
Theme Naming: IPS-N names its mech lineup for famous naval commanders, keeping in line with its history in Interstellar shipping and anti-piracy.
Walking Arsenal: As a rule, IPS-N has one of the widest selections of weapons out of all of the corporations. Going down more than one license track will likely leave you with more weapon options than you can feasibly field at the same time.

Blackbeard

Damnation seize my soul, if I give any quarter or take any in return

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The Blackbeard is focused on close-ranged fighting, and especially grappling its foes and tearing them to shreds.

Blackbeard provides examples of the following tropes

Absurdly Sharp Blade: Asides from its Chain Axe, License II unlocks a heavy Nanocarbon Sword whose molecular composition can change in real-time for maximum damage. In game terms, both weapons have the Reliable tag, making them deal a certain minimum damage, even if the attacks would normally miss.
Achilles' Heel: The Blackbeard frame's "Exposed Reactor" trait gives it disadvantage on Engineering skill checks, which makes it vulnerable to burn damage. It also has a Heat Cap of 4, among the lowest in the game, making it suceptible to overheating and reactor meltdowns.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot/The Berserker: Its highest license level grants the SEKHMET-class NHP, which when activated enhances all melee critical hits, as well as allows the user to Skirmish (have an extra attack with a single weapon) once a round as a free action. Unfortunately, SEKHMET takes over the mech while doing so, and will not distinguish from friend or foe.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: SEKHMET will force the Blackbeard to pursue and attack whichever target is closest to it at the time, regardless of whether they’re friend or foe. If that target dies, it moves on to the next one, and so on until the pilot successfully turns SEKHMET off, or there’s no one left to kill.
Building Swing/Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Reinforced Cabling system at License III allows mechs to 'fly' in straight lines or hang from walls and ceilings.
Close-Range Combatant: Its entire theme is to fight up close and personal.
Flechette Storm: Its sole 'ranged' offering is the Bristlecrown Flechette Launcher, an auxilary weapon designed to hurt grappled enemies or biological infantry in a radius around it.
Grapple Move: The undisputed master of it, the Blackbeard can grapple enemies from a decent distance, Grapple or Ram enemies bigger than itself, and while grappling, can still boost around and take reactions.
Harpoon Gun: Its core power, Omni-Harpoon, is to launch any number of grapple hooks to nearby targets, damaging them and pulling them all closer to it, immobilizing them.
Lightning Bruiser: It is agile, strong, has high HP and some armor.
- Magically Inept Fighter: However, with a Tech Attack modifier of -2, E-Defense of 6 and short Sensors range of 5, the Blackbeard frame is not suited to electronic warfare.
Muscles Are Meaningful: Synthetic Muscle Netting allows mechs to Grapple, Ram, and otherwise push around targets larger than themselves, and doubles how much weight they can lift and drag.
You Will Not Evade Me: Reinforced Cabling can drag down an enemy in range, knocking them Prone and giving Blackbeard the chance to catch up. Its core power, Omni-Harpoon, is even worse, dragging any number of mechs within range to its feet, Prone, Immobilized, and just itching for a Coup de Grâce.

Caliban

Rip and Tear, until it is Done

Role: Striker/Controller

Size: 1/2

A complete departure from IPS-N standards, the Caliban was designed as a weapons platform first and foremost. Focusing on close-ranged fighting and using knockback to move both enemies and itself, the Caliban was designed to sit in the uncomfortable space between long range and melee combat with a plethora of shotguns. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Caliban provides examples of the following tropes

BFG: Its ultimate weapon, the HHS-155 'Cannibal', likely qualifies for this, as the 155 likely refers to its bore diameter in milimeters, making the Cannibal a double-barrel shotgun version of a modern artillery piece. The fact that the core equipment is called the Heavy Howitzer Shotgun-075 would make it this to a lesser extent, 75mm being as big as a WWII tank gun.
Blown Across the Room: All of the Caliban's weapons deal knockback, and one of its systems allows it to mod a weapon to deal even more knockback. This synergizes well with its Pursue Prey trait, which can turn the suit from a Mighty Glacier to a Lightning Bruiser provided it continues to chase the target it's knocking back.
Boring Yet Practical: The Caliban really only does one thing well: shooting shotguns. But it’s very good at shooting shotguns.
Leave No Survivors: IPS-N methodology (and the armor's design philosophy) is such that if they send a Caliban into a vessel, killing literally everyone inside is part of the mission statement. The pilot is expected to clean house within five minutes and deliver the vessel with nothing left of the crew but the stains on the walls.
Odd Name Out: Named after a character from The Tempest, rather than anything associated with naval history.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The Caliban is tiny by this game's standards, closer to a suit of Powered Armor than a proper mech, yet is capable of knocking around opponents much larger than itself thanks to its traits and systems.
Pistol-Whipping: Whenever the Caliban fires its Flayer Shotgun, it can butt-stroke an adjacent enemy as part of the same attack. Yes, this also causes knockback.
Shotguns Are Just Better: The Caliban's core system is a powerful shotgun that gets even more powerful when the mech's core power is activated. At license level 3, it can equip an even bigger shotgun.
Shout-Out: A fully-licensed Caliban pilot is a Space Marine wielding a shotgun, a super shotgun, and sticky bombs, equipped with a jump booster and an overshield, that's able to take down much larger opponents so long as they keep moving and keep hammering them with attacks. They will rip and tear, until it is done.
Space Marine: The Caliban was originally designed to serve as an anti-capital ship weapon, by virtue of being a one-man boarding party. It is also worth noting that the systems provided by the Caliban license map fairly closely to a set of Standard FPS Guns and power-ups.
Unorthodox Reload: The HHS-155 Cannibal, the aforementioned bigger shotgun, can use the ejected shells themselves as a surprisingly effective attack method whenever it reloads.
When All You Have Is a Hammer…: The Caliban's integrated Flayer Shotgun and only a single heavy mount limit how much you can customize the Caliban's playstyle without just optimally going with CQB Vanguard talents.
You Will Not Evade Me: A more proactive version than most — whenever the Caliban deals knockback to an enemy mech, it has the option to keep it in range by the simple expedient of running after it.

Drake

I am Your Shield. I am Your Sword.

Role: Defender

Size: 2

The Drake is a large, very heavily armored powerhouse designed to defend its allies while still providing considerable firepower.

Drake provides examples of the following tropes

Barrier Warrior: Its Aegis Shield Generator creates a fairly standard forcefield that reduces damage to allies within.
BFG: Its Leviathan Heavy Assault Cannon is classified as a Superheavy weapon within the game, and can appropriately provide an impressive amount of damage.
Chainsaw-Grip BFG: The art depicts it using its Leviathan Heavy Assault Cannon as such.
Deployable Cover: Its very name-indicative Portable Bunker allows it to create a large area that essentially counts as a fortified emplacement, providing immense defense to all characters within.
Gatling Good: Its iconic Assault Cannon (and its upgraded version) can spin its barrels to provide a great increase in damage and reliability at the cost of becoming Slowed.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Its Argonaut Shield can provide Resistance to all damage to a nearby ally, at the cost of taking some of that damage itself.
Mighty Glacier: The Drake is one of the slowest, most armored mechs in the entire game, cannot be pushed, pulled, knocked back or knocked prone by smaller characters, passively allows allied characters to treat it as hard cover, and has Resistance from all regular, burn and heat damage from any area attacks (anything that doesn't target a single character). It's so tough and bulky that its teammates can duck behind it as hard cover! Its core power, Fortress Protocol, causes the Drake to dig its heels in and become completely immobile, unfolding additional sections of hard cover for teammates to use. It's also equipped with a generous 3 weapon mounts, one of which is Heavy. Not only can it take the hits, but it also can return them in full.
More Dakka: Despite being more focused on being a tank, it still provides a respectable amount of heavy guns and ammunition.
Shout-Out: It bears more than a passing resemblance in color scheme and shape to the iconic Zaku from Gundam. In role and weaponry, it's more-or-less Titanfall 2's Legion, except the shield isn't an energy one.

Empakaai

Jeeze what an ugly mech. Not that you'll have to worry about that anymore, since I'm about to make your face even Uglier

Role: Striker

Size: 1

An alternative frame of the Blackbeard designed in collaberation with SSC with overwhelming force in mind. Introduced in Siren's Song: A Mountain's Remorse.

Empakaai contains examples of the following tropes

Awesome, but Impractical: It is currently the only mech capable of equipping two Superheavy weapons, thanks to having the Colossus Termo-Unguis, which is just as awesome as it sounds. However, you can only use one Superheavy at a time, and you can't Skirmish with them either (barring a couple of exceptions), thus greatly limiting the Empakaai's offensive capabilities.
Early-Installment Weirdness: To put it plainly, the central gimmick of the Empakaai went through several revisions before settling on its current identity - mostly in the form of nerfs of narrowing what it was capable of. The final release of Siren's Song keeps it as a sturdy melee mech that excels at dragging masses of enemies into grapples, but older versions also tied this into using Bracing mechanics to automatically attack using its Colossus Termo-Unguis. Its Untenable Power trait also used to be constant rather than only 1/round, meaning you could use it with a Gravity Gun to control crowds even better, or with a Rifle and Crackshot 3 to land called shots.
Evil Hand: Its massive arm is independently controlled by its own AI, according to its lore. Some of this explains how and why it could be used in such flexible ways in older versions.
Fashionable Asymmetry: Has three arms, each of which is a different size and equipped with different weapons
The Left Hand of Doom: Its left arm is massive, easily as large as the entire frame itself again.
Mighty Glacier: Notably slower and less evasive than the Blackbeard it shares licenses with - in exchange, its main draw isn't in getting into the fight fast - it's getting the fight to itself fast, and it otherwise benefits from having higher armor and heat capacities as well.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has three arms, none of which are matching.
Power Fist: The Empakaai's extremely strongly based around its Colossus Termo-Unguis - the massive arm it wields as a superheavy melee weapon, and its ability to apply a Grapple Move to multiple targets at the same time.

Kidd

Yo Ho! All Hands! Hoist the Colours High!

Role: Support

Size: 1

Smaller, heavier armored, and just as fast, the Kidd was made as a sidegrade to the Lancaster's support capabilities, focusing on frontline and rapid support. Introduced in No Room for a Wallflower.

Kidd provides examples of the following tropes

Action Bomb: The Kidd can use its drones as these for some unavoidable damage (or to shield allies).
Drone Deployer: As opposed to regular drones, the Kidd carries bipedal robots that can do all sorts of things, including making themselves a slapdash armor plating, set up snare foam that's hard to move through, and deploy a little station that helps fix up burn damage.
Explosive Overclocking: The Field Approved, Brass Ignorant Modifications allow a Kidd to target an ally and make their weapon fire so hard that not only are they knocked by the force of the shot, they also can knock the enemy target on their ass as well as pierce any armor and resistances. Yes, even energy weapons. Also, once overloaded, the Smokestack Heatsink will explode. Yes, this is also by design.
Kill Sat: One literally comes included with the license; the Jolly Roger is a floating support satellite that charges as the Kidd uses its abilities. Depending on the level of charge, the Kidd’s pilot can use the Jolly Roger to Scan and Lock-On to a group of enemies, hack them into oblivion, or straight up blast them off the face of the planet. And that’s just the passive core power- the active core power just makes all of these functions even deadlier than they already are.
Mundane Solution: Need to fix a mech that suffering from half a dozen HORUS viruses, being locked down by a weapons jam, and an NHP running rampant on the computer? Just use the PEBCAC and force the mech to hard reset.

Lancaster

You're gonna need a lot of red paint for this doggie

Role: Support

Size: 2

The Lancaster is a deceptively fast support frame, made for keeping allies on the field on their feet with field repairs and support drones.

Lancaster provides examples of the following tropes

Canine Companion: Strongly evokes this with both its quadrupedal design and its emphasis on aiding its allies.
Combat Medic: While designed to provide battlefield repairs and upgrades to its teammates, its unlockable plasma torch and sealant spray can also be turned on enemies in a pinch.
Fragile Speedster: The Lancaster is tied with several other, smaller frames for fastest base speed, and is an impressive Size 2, making it quite a good battering ram. It also is tied for having the 3rd lowest possible HP, so while it's quick and has a bit of armor, you probably don't want to take too many hits with it (not that it's anything that the Lancaster can't just fix once it starts resting though.)
Mechanical Horse: Four-legged and can be ridden, though its artwork resembles the Boston Dynamics BigDog.
Mr. Fixit: The Lancaster frame comes with a hefty repair cap of 10, can allow adjacent allies to use those repairs as their own, and can spend 4 repairs as a full action to revive a wrecked mech with bare-minimum functionality (returning it to 1 structure, 1 stress and 1 HP).
Battering Ram: Its aforementioned speed and bulk make it a surprisingly good ram.
Support Party Member: Readily doles out repairs and buffs to friendly mechs in battle, but don't expect it to kill anything by itself.
Technically a Transport: The MULE harness upgrade allows a mech to function as a transport for infantry and smaller mechs (particularly when combined with the size-increasing FOMORIAN Frame Reinforcement core bonus). Stick a decent weapon in its sole main/aux mount, and the humble Lancaster turns into a passable IFV.

Nelson

I will be the Tip of your Spear!

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The Nelson is an IPS-N collaberative effort with the Albatross, a group of Knight Errant Space Cowboy vigilantes that roam the farthest reaches of known space at relativistic speeds. Made for rapid approach and unleashing a flurry of attacks.

Nelson provides examples of the following tropes

Alpha Strike: Thermal Charges and the Nelson's Momentum trait, providing bonus damage on the first attack after Boosting, means that the Nelson can deliver an incredibly powerful first hit, followed by auxiliary weapons that pepper in a bit of extra damage while granting it additional movement.
Close-Range Combatant: Even more so than the Blackbeard — the Nelson's license provides no additional ranged options whatsoever. It's meant for use in combat situations where the use of firearms is dangerous or logistically impractical.
Fragile Speedster: The Nelson is lightly-armored by IPS-N standards^noteIPS-N's only frame with 0 armor., with systems geared towards zipping around the battlefield conducting hit-and-run warfare.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: The Nelson's Skirmisher trait (which is separate from, and can stack with, the Skirmisher talent) allows it to move a short distance every time it attacks, ignoring engagement and reactions. Its Momentum trait lets it deal more damage with a melee attack after Boosting to gain extra movement. Taken together, these traits encourage the Nelson pilot to dart in, land a powerful melee strike, and then fall back to repeat the process.
Knight in Shining Armor: The Nelson is built to resemble a giant, lance-wielding knight, and its strong association with the Albatross organization helps sell the association.

Raleigh

It's High Noon

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The Raleigh is a tough gun platform with a focus on powerful, reloading weapons.

Raleigh provides examples of the following tropes

All-or-Nothing Reloads: Its two ranged weapons both have the Loading tag, meaning they need to be reloaded after each attack. Fluff-wise, though, making an attack can be either shooting a single bullet or a whole magazine, depending on the player’s whim.
Benevolent A.I.: Downplayed. It possesses an UNCLE-class Comp/Con, which allows it to take control of a single weapon to shoot automatically for you during your turn. As a Comp/Con, it does not have actual sapience, but at the same time, that means it cannot become unstable and undergo cascade, making it by far the safest non-base AI system.
BFG: Its Bolt Thrower, a giant cannon that deals kinetic and explosive damage, originally designed to be a mining tool.
Chest Blaster: The frame has an integrated weapon, the M35 Mjolnir, a six chambered revolving chest cannon which can freely shoot each round you reload a weapon.
Charged Attack: The Mjolnir can be charged via its Thunder God protocol, loading up two chambers each turn it isn’t used. Once fired, the Mjolnir deals devastating damage proportional to the rounds loaded — if enough rounds are fired, the attack pierces armor and leaves the target vulnerable until the end of their next turn.
The Gunslinger: Its appearance and weapon set bring the trope to mind.
Hand Cannon: The aptly named Hand Cannon, which is ironically its smallest weapon.
Improbable Aiming Skills: The frame is allowed to shoot even under the Jamming condition, which would normally prevent it from doing so.
More Dakka: Its frame and licenses allows for it to mount a large amount of weapons
Scratch Damage: All of its standard weapons have the Reliable tag, meaning they deal a minimum amount of damage even if they miss or roll low.
Shout-Out: One of its core traits is called Full Metal Jacket. Meanwhile, its "Roland" Chamber clearly references The Dark Tower and its protagonist, Roland Deschain.
Throw Down the Bomblet: Downplayed. The Raleigh only has one system that grants explosives, its BB Breach/Blast Charges, which allow it to deal decent damage with either grenades or mines. However, they are designed with the objective of destroying obstacles first and foremost.
Trick Bullet: After reloading, its "Roland" Chamber allows it to boost one attack from a Loading weapon to deal explosive damage, and potentially knocking down the target.
Unorthodox Reload: One of the frame’s core traits allows it to reload all its Loading weapons if it hasn’t made any attacks or forced any saves that turn.

Störtebeker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stormbird.JPG

A Hunter Must Hunt

Role:

Size: 1

An alt-frame for the Raleigh. Introduced in Dustgrave.

Störtebeker provides examples of the following tropes

Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: It wields a crossbow in the official art.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: Whereas the Raleigh it shares its license with can spend off-turns to automatically reload its weapons, the Störtebeker automatically reloads weapons by landing critical hits with different ones. Its integrated Hopkins Doctrine system embodies the kind of playstyle it favors - either landing critical hits and unleashing repeat skirmishes, or falling back to quickly reload if it didn't.
Critical Hit Class: Störtebeker needs critical hits to keep up pressure, because each one lets it Dynamically Reload other Loading weapons it didn't use.
Dressed to Plunder: Downplayed but present. The Tricorner hat, artificial extra limbs, emphasis on pistols, cutlass-style blades, and crossbows, and the trademark IPS-N mono eye give it a distinctly piratical appearance.
Fragile Speedster: Comparatively to most IPS-N frames - even while having the same base speed and HP as the Nelson, it's still comparatively tough owing to still having armor. This aspect of the Störtebeker can be played up even further if utilizing Skirmisher talents.
Mix-and-Match Weapon: Its other two weapons in official art appear to be revolvers with integrated swords running the length of the barrel
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has four arms in contrast to the Raleigh's two.
Shout-Out: Per Word of God, the Störtebeker was designed to evoke Bloodborne in both its aesthetic and its playstyle.
Sword and Gun: Given how its Dynamic Reload operates, the Störtebeker naturally falls into a playstyle that favors frequently switching between ranged and melee weapons.
Unorthodox Reload: Dynamic Reload allows just about any weapon it uses to reload other ones, adding On Critical effects to them that reload weapons of the opposite type - so landing a critical hit with a melee weapon reloads your ranged ones, and landing a critical hit with a ranged weapon reloads melee ones.

Tortuga

Get Behind Me!

Role: Defender/Striker

Size: 2

Made for capital ship defense and boarding actions, the Tortuga is a frontline mech made for taking extreme amounts of abuse and dishing it back at close range with a shockingly powerful computer system that allows for a small but powerful zone of control around it.

Tortuga provides examples of the following tropes

Benevolent A.I.: The Watchdog Co-Pilot core system, which helps the pilot react to rapidly-changing battlefield conditions (read as "makes their overwatch better").
Close-Range Combatant: A ranged variety, Tortuga's entire kit plays around getting into close quarters.
Disc-One Nuke: The Deck-Sweeper Automatic Shotgun from the first level of the Tortuga license is the gold standard for shotguns in the Lancer armory. It's a Main-class weapon that deals Heavy-class damage, with the ostensible downsides being inherent inaccuracy and a maximum range comparable with the reach of some melee weapons. However, the first rank of the CQB-focused Vanguard talent line counters the accuracy penalty, and the effects of the talent in general synergize perfectly with the gun's short range; this means that for anyone who's serious about using shotguns in the first place, the DSAS is an amazing weapon with effectively no downside, and it's available at License Level 1.
Gun Kata: Hyper-Reflex Mode grants the Tortuga an extra Overwatch and Immobilizes anyone hit by its Overwatch attacks.
"Instant Death" Radius: Avoid getting within three spaces of Tortuga while Hyper-Reflex Mode is active.
Magic Knight: Nearly as armored as the Drake and just as bulky, the Tortuga has added benefits when it comes to its Sensor Range and Tech Attacks.
Not the Intended Use: Despite its focus on close combat and damage absorbtion, the Tortuga has a shockingly powerful sensor and tech setup installed, allowing for players with more support or hacker based skillsets to use it as an alternative to other, longer range mechs.
Pile Bunker: The Catalytic Hammer is a melee weapon that uses an explosive charge to drive a massive metal spike into its target, and requires reloading to use again.
Shotguns Are Just Better: Tortuga has two: the Deck-Sweeper Automatic Shotgun and the Daisy Cutter.
Stone Wall: The HyperDense Armor system grants resistance to damage and heat from all attacks outside range 3, but also slows the mech down and halves any damage or heat it deals to targets beyond range 3. Note that this provides no protection either from or to any opponents inside the Tortuga's "Instant Death" Radius.
Super-Reflexes: Hyper-Reflex Mode.
There Was a Door: Siege Ram allows Tortuga to use the Ram Action to plow through anything it wants, terrain and enemies alike.

Vlad

These Stakes are my Strength, my Attack, My Defense, My Power, My Nation

Role: Controller/Striker

Size: 1

The latest in a line of mechs originating from asteroid miners, the Vlad is a heavily armored vanguard made for immobilizing enemies. Violently.

Vlad provides examples of the following tropes

Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Vlad's entire kit revolves around punching holes in other mechs. With a name like "Vlad," what did you expect?
Odd Name Out: Unlike the rest of IPS-N's lineup, the Vlad doesn't appear to be named for any famous naval commander or pirate of note. This is because the Vlad is a successor to the lPS-N's legacy model, the Yi Sun-Shin, named for the 16th Century Korean Admiral who fended off the Japanese invasion with his Turtle Ships.
Spikes of Villainy: It's covered in nasty spikes and named Vlad.
The Spiny: Vlad's Shrike Armor trait damages any enemy that attacks it from too close. This damage can be increased further with its Tormentor Spines, which not only increase the damage it deals, but allow it to completely ignore any damage from the attack.
This Is a Drill: The simply-named Combat Drill, a massive melee weapon designed to tear through enemy armor, the enemy, and whatever happened to be on the other side of that enemy.

Zheng

Allow me to show you why Hokuto Shinken is the ultimate martial art in the world!

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Originally a heavily modified Raleigh, the Zheng is a tenacious melee fighter designed to use the surrounding environment itself as a weapon. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Zheng provides examples of the following tropes

Ace Custom: The original Zheng was a stock-standard Raleigh that was nearly destroyed in a pirate attack and then cobbled back together using whatever spare parts the pilot was able to find. Think of it as the Gundam Ez8 to the Raleigh's Gundam Ground Type.
Awesome, but Impractical: The D/D 288 is a giant metal fist that, when used in its charged state, deals the highest unmodified single-attack damage in the game. Unfortunately, to get to that point, the user has to first spend a Quick Action to charge the D/D 288, and then a Full Action on a subsequent turn to attack with it, becoming Slowed and taking 2 heat per round while the weapon is charged. Furthermore, unlike its nearest Superheavy equivalent (the Drake's Leviathan Heavy Assault Cannon), the D/D 288 loses its charge after a successful attack, forcing the user to repeat the process if they want to make another charged attack. This makes the D/D 288 even more cumbersome to use than most other Superheavy weapons, and its effective damage-per-round is surprisingly low as a result. It's also a relatively poor fit for the Zheng frame itself, as the Zheng wants to use the free movement from its Xiaoli's Tenacity passive core ability to compensate for its low base Speed, and the D/D 288's self-Slow is antisynergistic with that.
Bare-Fisted Monk: The Zheng's kit is geared towards wrecking other mechs and the surrounding terrain using its fists, whether by punching or grappling.
Bruce Lee Clone: The Frame's Core Power turns the mech into this, allowing it to launch around the battlefield at high speed delivering punishing blows that can shatter mountains
Famed In-Story: The original Zheng pilot, Xiong Xiaoli, is renowned throughout the Long Rim for single-handedly killing more than 45 Space Pirates with nothing but a kit-bashed junkheap of a mech and a rapidly-diminishing supply of food and clean air, culminating in a Dying Moment of Awesome where she punched a hole through an entire starship (and even then, the security patrol that recovered her chassis Never Found the Body).
Improvised Weapon: Rank 1 of the Zheng license grants access to the Total Strength Suite I system, which allows a mech to pick up a mech-sized object or rip a mech-sized chunk out of the local scenery and hurl it at an enemy.
No-Sell: Total Strength Suite III is one of the few ways to break a grapple without any sort of dice roll, though that's more of a side benefit to being to throw the opposing grappler like a mech-sized bowling ball.
Power Fist: The D/D 288 is an oversized, reinforced metal fist that's capable of charging up to deal truly absurd levels of damage to a single target and send anything that survives flying.
Violation of Common Sense: One quirk of the D/D 288 is that it deals a high level of Reliable damage — its charged state in particular is capable of one-shotting some of the game's more fragile NPCs through Reliable damage alone, even at the highest tier of play. Furthermore, while successful attacks with a charged D/D 288 cause it to become uncharged, failed attacks do not. This has led to the creation of builds designed around intentionally missing one target with a charged D/D 288 attack, dealing heavy Reliable damage, and then using the Executioner talent's third rank to redirect that attack into a second, more desirable target; either the second target is hit and suffers the full effects of a D/D 288 to the face, or the attack misses, the second target still takes Reliable damage, and the D/D 288 remains charged to try again next round. This maximizes the weapon's damage and helps to counteract its otherwise-poor action economy.

Smith-Shimano Corpro (SSC)

Elegant and stylish, SSC was an early leader in developing sublight and EVA vehicles before expanding and diversifying into other technologies. Mechas created by SSC emphasize maneuverability, speed and accuracy over firepower.

In General

Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: The skill faction. SSC mechs are fragile compared to most, but are extremely fast and evasive, with special abilities to help them avoid or neutralize damage rather than tank it. Their weapons also tend to favor accuracy over attack speed.
Fragile Speedster: Most of the SSC mechs aren’t very durable, but good luck hitting any of them.
- Achilles' Heel: SSC's focus on high Evasion has some pitfalls; Reliable attacks that miss will still damage targets, and does nothing to deal with Smart weapons that target E-defense instead.
Humanlike Foot Anatomy: A non-cartoon, non-animal example. Many humanoid SSC mechs possess human-like feet with four articulated toes, compared to the boot-like feet of IPS-Northstar and Harrison Armory mechs or the animalistic designs of HORUS.
Theme Naming: Their mechs are named for various butterflies and moths.

Atlas

My Sword is a tool of ''Vengeance''!

Role: Striker

Size: 1/2

Closer to a cybernetic ninja suit than a mech, the Atlas is a melee specialist with unconventional movement options and weapons made specifically to punch above its weight. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Atlas provides examples of the following tropes

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Terashima Blade’s Troll Stance allows it to hit harder and ignore armor, in exchange for less accuracy.
Coup de Grâce: The Atlas trait Finishing Blow allows it to deal more damage to prone targets.
Cyber Ninja: A core power that boosts its movement speed and stealth abilities, a zipline system, the ability to wall run, ninja stars, a katana... yep, the Atlas qualifies.
David Versus Goliath: The Atlas has a number of abilities designed to help it take down opponents larger than itself — which, since it's only size 1/2, amounts to most of the mechs in the game.
Fragile Speedster: The Atlas is very fast, tied with a few other mechs for the highest base Speed and Evasion scores in the game; however, the rest of its base stats are all extremely poor, so it's highly vulnerable to hacking and overheating, and any attack that manages to actually connect with it will make it crumple.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: In-universe, each Terashima Blade is a unique creation: conventionally forged, hand-delivered to its user, and effectively irreplaceable. Mechanically, a damaged or destroyed Terashima Blade is no harder to repair or replace than any other weapon or system a mech might possess.
Ironic Name: It is named for the Atlas moth, one of the largest lepidopterans in the world, yet is of the smallest possible size category and the smallest mech in SSC's roster.
Magically Inept Fighter: Has, by far, some of the worst tech stats out of the entire SSC lineup.
Master Swordsman: The Terashima Blade turns the wielder into one of these. On its own, it's a mediocre melee weapon with a high SP cost; however, it also grants the ability to enter one of four stances, which provide either improved single-target damage, crowd control, enhanced mobility, or the ability to parry bullets.
Shout-Out: A cybernetic ninja capable of parrying bullets and winning sword fights with giant robots, you say? Hmm... where have I seen that before?
- Using a zipline to battle gigantic humanoid monsters? Hmm...
- A martial art with a German name intended for mechanized combat? Hmm hmm...
Weak, but Skilled: Attempts to invoke this. The Atlas has, bar none, the lowest stats overall across all Lancer frames, with only two Mechanically Unusual Class examples that have lower HP or Heat (Lich and Emperor) - to the point that the similarly-flighty Dusk Wing either matches or exceeds every single stat the Atlas has ^note. In turn, it compensates with beneficial traits that while directly augment its damage output and defenses, are still very situational - the Atlas does great, so long as it can knock its target Prone, if that target's only Size 1, it isn't grappled so that it can actually use its Jager Dodge, and if nothing in the vicinity specializes in dealing Reliable Damage or Burn - the former of which Evasion does not help with and the latter of which requires an Engineering check, the thing Atlas gets +1 Difficulty in.

Black Witch

Mistress of Magnetism

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1

A frame specialized in the utilization of electromagnetism to protect itself and its allies from physical weapons fire.

Black Witch provides examples of the following tropes

Achilles' Heel: Thanks to its various systems, the Black Witch is highly resistant to kinetic damage, explosions, and tech attacks. However, it has no native defense against energy damage.
Anti-Magic: The ICEOUT Drone provides a technological equivalent, generating an aura in which tech actions fail to function.
Barrier Warrior: The Black Witch's Mag Field core power and Magnetic Shield system both generate force fields with varying effects.
Bullet Dodges You: A number of the Black Witch's systems revolve around stopping kinetic attacks dead in their tracks.
Deflector Shield: The Black Witch has two: an internal Repulsor Field, which grants resistance to kinetic damage, and a deployable Magnetic Shield, which grants anyone resistance to kinetic and explosive damage originating from the other side of the shield.
Immune to Bullets: The Black Witch's basic traits cause any kinetic-based attack to deal half damage against it, assuming the pilot doesn't simply negate the attack outright with Mag Parry. Those are merely the first in a long list of tricks the Black Witch can use to shut down incoming kinetics.
Magnetic Weapons: The Magnetic Cannon, which does a relatively small amount of energy damage while also pulling closer any targets caught in its area of effect.
Magnetism Manipulation: Aside from two electronic countermeasure systems, everything the Black Witch does revolves around creative applications of magnetism.
Parrying Bullets: The Black Witch's Mag Parry ability gives it a 33% chance of deflecting any kinetic attack that strikes it or an adjacent ally.
Selective Magnetism: In a sense, as not all of the Black Witch's magnetic systems explicitly require their targets to be made of metal.
Squishy Wizard: Subverted, as while the Black Witch has a low health pool, between its high evasion and its abilities, it is capable of taking much less damage than it ought to — at least until someone shoots it with a laser or sets it on fire.
You Will Not Evade Me: The Magnetic Cannon can pull targets directly towards the firer, while the Ferrous Lash and Perimeter Command Plate systems and the Mag Field core power can affect opponent's (and allies') movement in other ways.

Death's Head

Dodge This

Role: Artillery

Size: 1

SSC’s answer for a long-range attacker, Death’s Head is a precision sniper mech designed to take targets out at long range.

Death's Head provides examples of the following tropes:

Achilles' Heel: Death’s Head’s core power and even some weapons can’t be used on adjacent targets. So don’t let enemies get too close.
Cold Sniper: The Mech.
Improbable Aiming Skills: Enforced. With a trait that allows Death’s Head to reroll botched attack rolls, as well as bonus accuracy to ranged attacks, even if it does miss, systems like Kinetic Compensator will ensure the next attack won’t.
Long-Range Fighter: The Death's Head is built from the ground up as a sniper, with no answer for any opponent who manages to close distance with it.
Meaningful Name: Named after the Death's Head Spider, it's a spider tank and its accuracy concentration coupled with its powerful weapon means it will quickly spell death for anything it can target.
One-Hit Kill: The Death’s Head license encourages this strategy. Its core power, Mark For Death, allows you to focus all your might and attention on one target, dealing significant bonus damage. Core Siphon gives you bonus Accuracy on your first shot each turn (but Difficulty on each subsequent shot). And the Railgun, being an Ordnance weapon, has to be the first action you take on your turn (barring Protocols). In other words, the Death’s Head may only be firing one bullet per turn, but that bullet’s gonna hurt.
Railgun: The, uh... Railgun. Also an Armor-Piercing Attack, and depending on positioning, a One-Hit Polykill.
Spider Tank: The Death's Head is one of the few mechs in the game with more than four legs — six, in this case — and its upper body looks more like a turret than a humanoid torso. The example in the official art is even equipped with human-scale manipulator arms that resemble pedipalps.
Wall Crawl: High-Stress Mag Clamps allows you to treat walls and even ceilings as flat ground, which lets you set up some pretty interesting angles to attack from. Just make sure no one knocks you Prone while you’re doing it, or you’re gonna regret it.
You Will Not Evade Me: Tracking Bug is a unique example. Tagging an enemy with this reveals their HP, Structure, and Speed as long as the bug is attached, as well as preventing them from hiding or benefiting from Invisibility. The Death’s Head’s range and weapons provide the rest.

Dusk Wing

There is no greater armor than illusion. Have you ever defeated an enemy you didn't know existed?

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1/2

A highly-mobile, flight-capable mech that supports allies and disorients enemies with light-based weapons and systems.

Dusk Wing provides examples of the following tropes

Action Bomb: Not the Dusk Wing, but its core power, Hall of Mirrors, which leaves behind a hologram each time Dusk Wing moves or boosts. Said holograms explode when enemies get too close, and if Dusk Wing decides to teleport to one of them as a tactical retreat, every other hologram on the field explodes at once.
Barrier Warrior: A bit. Shooting allies with the Veil Rifle gives them soft cover, and OASIS Wall leaves behind a holographic wall that not only provides allies with hard cover, but also energy resistance.
Blinded by the Light: Two things; Burst Launcher hits an enemy with a light grenade that can impair them upon a critical hit, and StunCrown — which does not actually Stun people — releases a burst of light that can leave opponents who look at it Jammed and Impaired.
Confusion Fu: As a Controller/Support, Dusk Wing is absolutely loaded with options to trick and disorient the enemy, from tech attacks that alter perception, to flashbangs on steroids, to explosive holograms that the Dusk Wing can even teleport to for a quick retreat. Trying to predict what the Dusk Wing will do next is often an exercise in futility.
Damage Over Time: None of the weapons on the license hit very hard, but all of them come with some nasty side effect or another, leaving the enemy disoriented and confused as the Dusk Wing whittles them down to nothing.
Flight: The best flier in the game, thanks to Integrated Hover Flight. It doesn’t have to move in straight lines while it flies, even while boosting, and can stay in the air, even while not moving.
Fragile Speedster: Not only does it have an actual trait called Fragile, its HP is pretty below-average. Its Evasion, however, is some of the highest in the game, and that’s without factoring in its other traits and systems. As a result, good luck hitting it.
Invisibility: The license has multiple systems that can either grant the Dusk Wing Invisibility (Flicker Field Projector), or cause enemies to perceive them as invisible (Neurospike).
Light 'em Up: Just about anything you can do with light, Dusk Wing is capable of. Holograms, invisibility, barriers, flashbangs, lasers, and so on.
Overclocking Attack: Shrike Code works this way, causing the target to deal Heat damage to themselves whenever they attack.
Support Party Member: Dusk Wing isn’t designed to make the kill, but rather keep the enemy so bogged down in status ailments and perception-altering attacks that the rest of your team can clean up with ease.

Emperor

O Great Bodhisattva of Arms, I beseech thee, deliver my arrow unto its target!

Role: Support/Artillery

Size: 1

A mixture of offensive and defensive long-range support, the Emperor helps its allies and itself survive the battlefield by applying Overshields through various means and with various effects. Introduced in The Karrakin Trade Baronies.

Emperor provides examples of the following tropes

Armored But Frail: An interesting variation, since its “armor” comes from its Overshield-generating systems.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Almost all of the Emperor’s weapons and systems deal AP Energy damage under the right circumstances.
Barrier Warrior: Almost its entire license line, as well as its own subsystems, focus on applying Overshields to allies and by extension itself. It even has several different flavors to choose from, from the Action Bomb type to one that turns a melee teammate into an Implacable Man. Even its integrated Marathon Arc Bow applies Overshield to allies.
Combat Medic: An unique variation. While it can’t restore hull or repair friendly mechs, the Emperor hands out Overshield (essentially bonus HP) like candy and gains a stacking Overshield itself (up to a certain maximum) every time it provides Overshield to an ally, meaning it can heap quite a lot of damage mitigation on its allies and itself. This, on top of an armor-piercing bow that can be deadly with the right systems/talents.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: One of its Core Traits allows it to “condemn” an enemy it hits, increasing all damage dealt to it by 1 per source. Not that impressive on its own, but combined with its systems and Core Power, it can easily lead to a Death of a Thousand Cuts.
Friendly Fireproof: Unlike most Line weapons, the Marathon Arc can fire through allies with impunity. Well, more than impunity - firing through allies "heals" them through giving them overshield while allowing the shot to continue on its way.
Glass Cannon: Its default health is lower than an unarmored human.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Aside from the Marathon Arc, several of the Emperor’s systems create damaging AoE bursts of energy when activated, all of which of which can be stacked on top of each other. This is taken up a notch by also activating its core power.
Lightning Can Do Anything: Xerxes Apex, the Emperor’s core power, releases a bolt of lightning from every enemy it strikes. This lightning can do yet more damage, or Overshield an ally.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Despite having less actual hull than a human has skin and muscle, the Emperor is still on the upper end of average durability thanks to the rest of its durability going straight into Overshields, which it can restore throughout the fight.
One-Hit Polykill: The Emperor's integrated Marathon Arc Bow fires in a line, allowing it to hit multiple characters simultaneously; activating its core power causes the damage to increase for each character in the area of effect, emphasizing the "polykill" part. However, friendly characters hit by the bow actually gain health in the form of an overshield instead of losing it, making this a One Hit Poly-Buff for them instead.
Synchronization: Any Overshield that the Emperor grants an ally, it also gets. Any additional effects that come with the Overshield are also granted.
When All You Have Is a Hammer…: You could probably tell by now that the Emperor is tied into its bow by a lot. It only has one weapon mount aside from it natively, and no other weapon really interacts with its overshield mechanic - which is good if the Marathon Arc is all you need, but bad if you run into something that just has a LOT of health since the bow just does average damage at best.

Metalmark

You'll never see me coming

Role: Striker

Size: 1

A remnant of SSC's design philosophy under SecComm, the Metalmark is a mobile and vexing frontline combat mech that specializes in never giving the enemy a clean shot, whether through speed, invisibility, or old fashioned flashbangs.

Metalmark provides examples of the following tropes

Achilles' Heel: While the Metalmark is quite well-suited to avoiding just about every normal attack - a layer of armor, decent evasion, and invisibility - it has terrible E-defense and a moderate heat cap, giving it a fairly notable gap in its defenses for hacking. It also means that it doesn't have a great budget for using Heat(self) weapons and systems. Both the weapons in the Metalmark's license have a heat cost, as well as the Active Camouflage system.
Blinded by the Light: Flash Charges are essentially mech-sized flashbangs that significantly reduce the line-of-sight for any character caught in the effect.
Chameleon Camouflage: Implied by the Carapace Adaptation trait, which makes the Metalmark even harder to hit than usual when benefiting from soft cover (which most commonly takes the form of obscurement).
Hot Blade: The Shock Wreath weapon mod adds thermal conductive filaments to a melee weapon, which can be activated to add a nasty amount of burn damage to a normal hit.
Invisibility: Two systems, a core power, and an inherent trait all provide the Metalmark with some form of invisibility.
Invisibility Cloak: The Tactical Cloak core system, and to a lesser extent the Reactive Weave system, are both fabric-based systems that provide invisibilty when activated.
Invisibility Flicker: The Flash Cloak trait and the Reactive Weave and Active Camouflage systems all provide the Metalmark with short-duration bouts of invisibility; combined together, these result in the Metalmark flickering in and out of sight as it darts around the battlefield.
Lightning Bruiser: Carrying three different weapon mounts, native armor, the highest speed out of any mech with native armor, and a plethora of systems that give enemies a hard time when targetting it, the Metalmark can be downright frustrating to do serious damage to without specific setups.

Monarch

''FIRE EVERYTHING!''

Role: Artillery

Size: 2

SSC's specialized self-propelled ordnance platform, specializing in fire support and medium-to-long range bombardment with the speed to keep the distance.

Monarch provides examples of the following tropes

Lightning Bruiser: One of the few SSC frames with Armor, paired with high speed and decent HP, and plentiful weapon mounts. If it keeps its distance, it has more than enough time to lay down long-ranged hurt.
Macross Missile Massacre: The Monarch includes a built-in missile system as part of its core traits, and pretty much every system the license provides either gives the mech more missiles or makes those missiles more effective at killing things.
- Its (usually) once-per-mission core system Divine Punishment allows the Monarch to attack everyone (if the pilot chooses so) within 50 space as long as it's physically possible for the self-guiding missile to reach them. This is in a system where map size is assumed to be no more than 40 spaces on its longest side.
Missile Lock-On: The Monarch's Seeking Payload trait enhances this, allowing any missile it launches to consume a target's Lock On status to become a Super-Persistent Missile.
Multi-Directional Barrage: The TLALOC-class NHP granted at Monarch license level 3 allows this, cycling and re-targeting the mech's weapon systems at a much faster rate than the pilot normally could.
Not the Intended Use: Similar to the Tortuga, the Monarch is a similarly E-warfare-competent frame despite also being a powerful artillery piece.
Super-Persistent Missile: The Seeking Payload trait grants this ability to any launcher attack from the Monarch that consumes a target's Lock On status. The Gandiva missile system benefits from this natively.

Mourning Cloak

Morning Cloak

We move through the warp, as it moves through us

Role: Striker

Size: 1

A melee specialist frame designed to use and abuse its short range blinkspace jump capabilities to catch out-of-position enemies and punish them before getting out of range just as fast.

Mourning Cloak provides examples of the following tropes

Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Variable Sword is a length of monomolecular wire affixed to a handle and held within a magnetic field. It's capable of dealing a lot of damage on a Critical Hit.
Flash Step: The Mourning Cloak frame and license grant a lot of ways to perform short-range teleportation, resulting in this trope.
Fragile Speedster: The Mourning Cloak is quite agile, but if you're in for a bad time if you take a hit.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Invokes bits of this when it comes to its license and frame - the Mourning Cloak has a large sensor range, and it gains access to the Hunter Logic Suite to manipulate enemy behavior.
Perception Filter: The Hunter Logic system allows a Mourning Cloak pilot to inflict this on a target via the Stalk Prey invasion option.

Orchis

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Role: Controller/Defender

Size: 1

The Orchis is a Karrakin Trade Baronies-affiliated model that is packaged with the Black Witch's license. Equipped with its Scuta shield, the Orchis pairs its trademark SSC agility with effective armoring. Introduced in The Karrakin Trade Baronies.

Orchis provides examples of the following tropes

Action Duo: Can enforce this trope thanks to its Royal Guard trait, allowing it to move alongside allies during their turns.
Blown Across the Room: The Orchis' main Modus Operandi - to effectively do damage with its narrow choice of weapons, it needs to knock enemies into obstructions, after which point it can use its Hunting Eagle free action to cause additional damage and prevent reactions.
No-Sell: The Orchis' Perfect Parry trait allows it to ignore damage and effects from any attack that misses, which notably includes the Reliable trait.
Odd Name Out: Since it is technically not an actual SSC frame, the Orchis falls under a different Theme Naming scheme - that of genera of flowers.
Stone Wall: Its high speed and balanced defenses are counteracted by its single weapon mount.
Trap Master: Given its very high amount of System Points, its associated systems offered with the Black Witch license, and it being one of the only frames with a Save Target of 12, the Orchis makes for a shockingly competent user of deployables and mines.
Throwing Your Shield Always Works: The Orchis' Core Active, Helion, allows it to hurl its shield for an Always Accurate Attack. If you have sources of Bonus Damage that apply to your next attack on hit, this option can be a guaranteed way to leverage it.
- Required Secondary Powers: Helion's attack counts as a Ram, which by its definition cannot be used on any targets larger than you - and the Orchis is not a large frame. If you want to be able to target any enemy, you're going to need Synthetic Muscle Netting.

Swallowtail

They won't know what hit 'em!

Role: Support

Size: 1

The dedicated, and very fragile, sensor scan support frame, turning a simple Lock-On action into a hugely valuable combat asset against strong, single, or hidden opponents. Has one of the fastest base ground speeds of all frames, and can stay invisible for the entire battle... so long as it stays still. Also has a Ranger variant commonly found on Hercynia.

Swallowtail provides examples of the following tropes

Armor Is Useless / Armor-Piercing Attack: The Swallowtail can facilitate these, either for itself or- more likely- for its teammates by way of its Prophetic Scanners trait, allowing it to once per round inflict the shredded condition on enemies when it locks onto them. Meaning any armor or resistances the poor sap had have suddenly become useless.
Big Brother Is Watching: What makes the Swallowtail shine- and an absolute terror for enemies in the field- is its capacity for this, bordering on Sinister Surveillance. With a sensor range rivaling that of the Goblin, the Swallowtail can detect, track, identify, and lock onto enemies from beyond most mechs' capacity to retaliate. With its Lotus Projector and Athena-Class NHP the Swallowtail can know the exact location of enemies, negate any of their stealth capabilities, and identify most- or with the Athena NHP active, all- of their statistics. Information it can share with its allies, making it child's play to track down and eliminate any enemies within the Swallowtail's downright ridiculous range. When someone has a Swallowtail in their ranks you can run or you can fight, but you cannot hide.
Boring, but Practical: What most of Swallowtail's equipment amounts to. Most of its equipment, setting aside naming flavor, amount to a spotting light, an unarmed scout drone, and the ability to curl up and hide. None of its equipment will garner glory or gore, but it gives the Swallowtail capacities for targeting, information-gathering, and enemy detection that no other mech in the entire system can match. All the while keeping itself secured and hidden away from prying eyes.
Fragile Speedster: The Swallowtail is not by any stretch of the imagination brimming with firepower (its default license only coming with one weapon that does 1d3 damage) while its armor and HP are both laughable. However it's tied for first place among the fastest mechs in the entire game to date and its evasion is no joke either; combined with its various methods of invisibility, this makes the Swallowtail a very difficult mech to pin down, hit, or even target in the first place. Played With though, in the sense that many of its traits and systems require that the Swallowtail limit its movement or give it a self-inflicted slowed condition.
Invisibility: Though by no means the first mech in Lancer to make use of it, nor even the one to make the most extensive use of it in combat (compared to fellow SSC mech Metalmark), Swallowtail is noticeable because it's the only mech in the game capable of giving multiple members of its team invisibility, by way of its LB/OC Cloaking Field system. Whereas other mechs can make themselves invisible, or hack into single enemies to make allies appear invisible to them, only Swallowtail's license offers any means of making the entire team invisible to all enemies. However they have to be within two spaces of you- forcing allies to clump up and be vulnerable to AoE weapons- and you're slowed while using it. The Swallowtail can also passively become invisible, but only if it hasn't moved and only until the start of its next turn.
Long-Range Fighter: "Fighter" is a bit of a stretch with its lackluster armaments, but while they don't do much damage its Oracle LMG-I are nonetheless tied as one of the longest-ranged weapons in the game- while being Auxiliary, whereas most other long-ranged weapons are Main, Heavy, or even Superheavy- and between "Accurate" and "Arcing" they're much more likely to hit than other weapons. They won't hit for a lot of damage, but they'll hit consistently and they'll hit from outside the range of most other mechs.
Spider Tank: The Swallowtail has a tetrapod leg design, a turret-like upper body, and — like the Death's Head — the example in the official art is equipped with a set of pedipalp-like manipulator arms.
Support Party Member: The Swallowtail has a lot of means to identify and hone in on enemies, removing their stealth and defensive capabilities to make them not only easier to hit, but guaranteeing they'll feel the hurt when they do get hit. However, its weapons have downright pitiful damage and in order to be at its best the Swallowtail has to be as far from the fighting- and the enemy's weaponry that can chew through its fragile frame like paper- as possible. This all means that it's designed to use its targeting systems to set up its allies, making it more likely they'll land devastating hits while knowing exactly where- and who- to aim at.

Viceroy

JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE

Role: Striker

Size: 1

An alt-frame for the Monarch. Introduced in Dustgrave.

Viceroy contains examples of the following tropes

Bling of War: Despite being a robot its depicted with a massive cape, multiple medals, and various ribbons and ropes giving it the appearance of an officer's uniform
Close-Range Combatant: especially when compared to Monarch - given every Launcher it uses can double as a CQB Weapon, it can utilize reaction-based attacks if enemies try to move through its Threat-zone, and most of its traits, and its core system, are essentially concentrated versions of the Monarch's ones: higher damage, but much shorter ranged.
Death from Above: Its core active, Heaven's Downpour, allows it to unleash an explosive bombing around yourself - before or after flying your speed to either make an explosive entrance or escape.
Lightning Bruiser: Much like its larger sibling, the Viceroy features similar defenses and speed - but in turn, trades off some of its extreme-range in Sensors and Trait usage for additional Close-Range Combatant capabilities, including added Explosive resistances.
Macross Missile Massacre: takes the Monarch's abilities and cranks them up even higher.
Revolvers Are Just Better: is designed to mount the Hammer U-RPL, a Universal Revolving Projectile Launcher
Recursive Ammo: the other primary function. In contrast to the Monarch's emphasis on long range artillery the Viceroy intends for up close massive sprays of explosives, firing missiles that split into more missiles that split into more missiles that split into more missiles.

White Witch

"It ain't about how hard ya can hit! It's about how hard ya can ''get'' hit, and keep movin forward!"

Role: Defender

Size: 2

Cousin to the Black Witch, the White Witch uses the same basic premise of powerful electromagnetism to defend itself and punish its attackers, occasionally combining the two by turning its attackers into reinforcements for its chassis. Introduced in The Karrakin Trade Baronies.

White Witch provides examples of the following tropes

Achilles' Heel: The White Witch's insane durability relies on its abilities to gain Resistance to Kinetic damage and to build up a truly massive Armor rating over time. As such, any opponent capable of inflicting the Shredded condition (which nullifies both Armor and Resistance) is anathema to the White Witch. Its low E-Defense and Heat Cap also make it a prime target for enemy tech attackers.
Draw Aggro: One of its abilities focuses on forcing enemies to attack it instead of its team mates.
Gathering Steam: The longer a fight goes on and the more hits the White Witch takes, the higher its armor gets.
Lightning Bruiser: The White Witch is tied for the highest base Speed among player mechs, possesses a Heavy mount, and can eventually gain the highest Armor value in the game; in other words, it moves fast, hits hard, and takes return fire like a champ. Its main weaknesses are its sub-par E-Defense and Heat Cap, which make it vulnerable to hacking.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Has an enormous ferrofluid shield it uses as part of its core powers.

HORUS

Horus isn't so much a company as it is a philosophical cult. Spreading in tandem with the Omninet and operating via black market printers, hacker communes and esoteric collectives, HORUS's mechs specialize in crowd control, unit management and electronic warfare.

In General

Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: The gimmick faction. While no slouches in combat, HORUS licenses provide many options for tech attacks, and their frames are notorious for having bizarre abilities even by the standards of the setting.
Hollywood Hacking: All of HORUS’ mechs are at least adept at tech attacks, in addition to core bonuses, unlockables and individual mech traits that make tech attacks stronger or provide superior options.
Mechanical Abomination: Horus' earlier mech patterns, like the Goblin, are recognizably technological if somewhat eerie to look at. However, as their technology advanced further, HORUS started to publish mechs that steadily crawl into this trope, with several frames being Evangelion-esque freaks capable of warping reality and driving their victims to madness.
Reporting Names: Given its decentralized and secretive nature, the true names for most HORUS mechs are unknown, assuming they even have one in the first place. The names given to HORUS frames in the rulebook instead come from the Union's Universal Threat Assessment Manual, and are used to identify semi-coherent "pattern groups" of mechs that share technology and battlefield roles.
Theme Naming: HORUS mechs are named after mythological creatures and monsters — or, more specifically, after entries in the D&D Monster Manual. (Amusingly, this does imply that whoever is in charge of assigning UTAM designations to HORUS mechs is a massive D&D nerd.)

Balor

Nanomachines, son

Role: Striker/Defender

Size: 2

A grappler mech that pins down and grinds its prey into a slurry using clouds of hostile nanomachines.

Balor provides examples of the following tropes

Area of Effect: Most of the Balor's offensive abilities and unlockable systems are based around applying Damage Over Time to nearby enemies.
Close-Range Combatant: The Balor thrives in a tightly-packed melee, where its nanomachine swarms can chew up adjacent opponents. Of its unlockable weapons at License III, one is a nexus with a middling range of five, while the other is a threat 3 melee weapon intended to yank stragglers into adjacency.
Damage Over Time: Scouring Swarm, Hive Frenzy, Hive Drone and Swarm Body all deal turn-by-turn kinetic damage to all enemies in their radius.
Grey Goo: One of its traits is a cloud of nanomachines that deals Damage Over Time to enemies adjacent to or grappled by it. Swarm Body and Balor’s core power make it worse, and Hive Drone allows you to do the same thing at a distance.
It looks, at first, like a roiling cloud of gray fog, churning and fizzing – smoking soda water spilled across concrete. It advances with curious motion, stretching and snapping back. A confusion of snakes, writhing forward with speed that betrays intent. Color flashes across the gray cloud, a swarm-luminescence – the light created by millions of nanites glowing with heat as they consume whatever they cross. This is greywash, and it is never sated.
Healing Factor: Not only does it regain 1/4 of its health per turn on its own, but taking a Rest during Downtime allows it to regain full HP without having to spend repairs. Activating Hive Frenzy boosts this regeneration to 1/2 HP per turn, and gives the Balor a one-in-six chance to resist structure damage by Pulling Themselves Together.
Magikarp Power: The Balor struggles a bit at low levels because it requires investment in at least three mech skills to truly be effective at its intended role as a melee combatant: Hull to maximize the effects of its Regeneration trait, Agility to counteract its low base speed and Evasion, and Engineering to shore up its awful Heat Cap. If the player wants to do any hacking (which, with the frame's native Tech Attack bonus and the license's Scanner Swarm system, isn't exactly discouraged), it will probably need some Systems investment as well. At high levels, when it has the points available to invest in those mech skills, a well-built Balor can become an unstoppable, inescapable monster.
Mighty Glacier: With 3 speed and 6 evasion, Balor is pretty sluggish, but it’s a strong frame and quite hard to kill. One system, Swarm Body, actually requires the user to remain stationary for multiple turns to maximize damage.
Nanomachines: Balor is made of nanomachines, has weapons made of nanomachines, and has clouds of nanomachines to do its bidding.
Not the Intended Use: The Balor's limited speed and impressive regeneration, as well as the inclusion of its Nanocomposite Adaptation Mods means that it can be played as a powerful, regenerating Artillery piece, arguably even more effectively than its intended melee role.
The Swarm: Hive Drone, Swarm Body, the Scouring Swarm trait, its core power, and Swarm/Hive Nanites. Enough for you?
You Will Not Evade Me: Landing a critical hit with the Nanobot Whip drags the target to a space adjacent to you.
The Worm That Walks: The Balor is implied to be made entirely of its nanomachines, or at least be so reliant on them to function that the difference is academic. An in-universe after-action report describes fighting a Balor as "like shooting angry water". Notably, when Hive Frenzy is active, the Balor suffers the Shredded condition for the rest of the scene, as its form becomes too insubstantial to benefit from physical armor.

Calendula

Now you see me, now you don't.

Role: Controller

Size: 1

Utilized by the Karrakin Trade Baronies primarily, the Calendula is an ethereal hacking frame that is associated with the Minotaur, coming alongside it within the same license. Its systems enable it to cut between Tangible and Intangible phases of existence - while also dragging either allies or enemies along for the ride. Introduced in The Karrakin Trade Baronies.

Calendula provides examples of the following tropes

Achilles' Heel: Unless it can utilize its Sculptor of Fate trait and get Void Husks on the field, it will be fighting an uphill battle, and will be fairly restricted in how it can use its other traits.
Armor Is Useless: Grammaton's Law causes any slowed enemies within Range 3 of itself to be Shredded.
Difficult, but Awesome: The HA Sunzi can eat its heart out - Calendula's approach to combat is so unorthodox the rulebook that introduced it had to codify Intangible as a status. Intangibility raises a lot of questions that both GMs and Players will need to answer (i.e. do your mines and deployables remain Tangible if the Calendula goes Intangible?^note) but with a good grasp of how to balance the status on the Calendula, its allies, and its enemies, it can play a surprisingly tight control game, with a bit of support to help on the side.
Heavily Armored Mook: Has below-average health paired with excellent armor. Is further played with by the fact it can become Intangible on command, making for a great way to spend a safe turn repairing itself.
Intangibility: Calendula can enter this state using Grammaton Mantle. Meanwhile, it can cause this on other characters by using Execrate.
Interesting Situation Duel: Calendula can enforce these if it manages to get an enemy Intangible, then following suit with Grammaton Law. More immediately, it can use its Core Active to do this to throw an ally and enemy into intangibility until the end of its next turn.
Magic Knight: Played with - the Calendula's weapon mounts are light, and its traits and action economy, such as Execrate, indelibly require it to use Tech Attacks to trigger its effects. However, it also has a short Sensor range, high armor, and Grammaton Law mean that it will usually need to get quite close if it wants to contribute to the battle.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Since this is a mech built all around the idea of inflicting a condition nothing else in the game can inflict, it goes without saying.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The full name of its Core System is "Execration of the Names of the Unworthy Dead" - which is both intimidating, esoteric and serves as a reminder that this came from the same people that made the Manticore.
Not the Intended Use: Grammaton's Law says nothing about how the Slowed condition needs to be applied - so instead of playing into its Void Husks being a source of Slow, you can take more straightforward approaches such as basic Fragment Signal, just Ramming your target, or basically using any other attack or system to diversify how the status gets applied.
Odd Name Out: Similar to the Orchis, the Calendula's status as a KTB frame means it falls under a different Theme Naming scheme than HORUS frames - that of genera of flowers.

Goblin

Size Matters Not

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1/2

The Goblin is a small but deadly and feared hacking platform.

Goblin provides examples of the following tropes

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Goblin’s highest license grants it access to an OSIRIS-class NHP. OSIRIS Prime, the original upon which the others are based, if left alone, would have become able to delete what humans perceive as reality. Users of OSIRIS clones are suggested to be careful with them.
- A God Am I: The OSIRIS clones usually seeks out admiration, awe, and approval, and if left alone become aware of their true potential, and start thinking of themselves as ruler or deity analogs.
- Delirious Misidentification: The system associated with the OSIRIS, Hurl Into The Duat, slowly manipulates enemy machines, inflicts conditions, and ultimately confuses the target into thinking their enemies are allies and allies are enemies until the end of their next turn, or until they get hurt by enemies.
- Tsundere: OSIRIS clones are reported to frequently display "both disdain and marked desperation for approval, adulation, or awe" for their pilots.
Always Accurate Attack: Its sole standard weapon, the Autopod, can only attack when an ally attacks a target within your range and consumes the Lock On condition. However, it always hits, and as a Seeking weapon can ignore cover and line of sight, as long as it can draw a path to the target.
Chicken Walker: Depicted in the art as having digitigrade legs.
Dueling Hackers: If the Goblin frame suffers a tech attack, it can immediately take any Quick Tech action against the attacker, essentially simulating this trope.
Master of Illusion: An expert in perception warfare, capable of creating holographic objects, whether for cover or for use as decoys. These holograms are essentially real as far as any system can tell - mechs cannot walk into them voluntarily. Decoys, meanwhile, are actively treated as the real thing by targeting systems, even if the pilot knows they’re false. Either way, both require a Systems check to destroy.
Mini-Mecha: Easily the smallest mech in the entire game. The art portrays it as so small that some bits of the pilot can be seen between gaps in armor.
People Puppets: To a very limited degree, the Goblin’s hacking can cause this, forcing enemies to move involuntarily in certain directions, eject their cooling rods, or empty out their ammo cases.
Powered Armor: Halfway between this and Mini-Mecha (see above). Mechanically, its size of 1/2 is identical to a normal human and puts it at about 10 feet tall. Compare this to the the rest of the roster, most of whom are at least twice its size if not bigger.
Squishy Wizard: One of the most fragile mechs in the entire game, very unsuited to actively making physical attacks or Hull checks and saves. However, it is easily the most powerful frame in terms of making and defending against tech attacks.
The Symbiote: Its core ability, Symbiosis, allows it to latch onto another mech. In an example of mutualism, the Goblin obtains hard cover, while the host mech is allowed the use of the Goblin’s impressive electronic offense and defense, as well as Systems rating.
Synchronization: Its Metahook system allows it to use the Sensors of an allied mech within range of its own Sensors and in line of sight, meaning that it can make hacking attacks from extremely long distances without needing to put itself in the way of danger, while the ally can use the user’s Systems to make checks or saves. However, both characters suffer Heat damage and conditions when the other does, making it a double-edged blade.

Gorgon

I see you, and am the last thing you'll ever see

Role: Defender

Size: 2

A frame made to lock down an entire area, either through retaliatory weapon systems or a dangerous memetic pattern of light that can shut down cognitive functions in humans and frames.

Gorgon provides examples of the following tropes

Attack! Attack! Attack!: Despite its role as a "defender", this is what the Gorgon's kit is entirely built around. Depending on what the enemy does, it can get a lot of attacks going in a round.
Brown Note: The Gorgon's BASILISK core system is a visual example of this — an anticognition hyperfractal that can induce paralysis, psychological effects, and even adverse physical reactions in anyone that sees it.
Counter-Attack: Rather than actively shielding allies (beyond acting as Hard Cover), the Gorgon's "defense" consists of waiting for the enemy to try anything at all with a close ally and then absolutely mauling them with its many, many reactive options, usually leaving them thoroughly impaired afterwards.
Pay Evil unto Evil: This is essentially the Gorgon's modus operandi. Practically every system in the license is devoted to unleashing brutal punishment against anyone that dares to attack one of the Gorgon pilot's allies.
Meaningful Name: The Gorgon Sisters of Classical Mythology were monsters capable of turning anyone who beheld them to stone. An appropriate namesake for a mech armed with a visual Brown Note weapon.
Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Once Gorgon engages BASILISK, NPCs will be hard-pressed for good actions to take if you and your allies are in even a vaguely clustered formation. Even aside from its core bonus, Metastatic Paralysis means that attackers straight-up have a 10% chance of being shut down for up to 2 rounds.

Hydra

I Am The Swarm

Role: Striker/Controller

Size: 1

Less of a single contiguous frame and more of a colony of drones atop a skeleton, the Hydra specializes in both drones and nexus weaponry.

Hydra provides examples of the following tropes

Attack Drone: Lots, to the point that every single offensive option available in the Hydra license comes from some form of drone.
Detachment Combat: The Hydra is less a mech than it is a mech-shaped collection of drones that are capable of flying off to attack targets independently.
Drone Deployer: Exaggerated. Every aspect of the Hydra — its abilities, its core system and core power, and every system granted by its license levels — either gives it more drones to launch or makes it better at using those drones.
The Swarm: The Hydra is effectively wntirely composed of drones, or is otherwise close enough that the difference is semantic. As a result it unsurprisingly revolves around deploying fragments of itself as hordes of small critters to defeat foes
Shout-Out: To Mobile Suit Gundam's AMX-004 Qubeley. The Hydra has a similar aesthetic (it looks like a Qubeley re-imagined by Hideaki Anno) and a similar combat style (Drones, all the drones.)
Wave-Motion Gun: The only member of the Horus lineup that has access to a Super-Heavy Weapon through its license
Zerg Rush: One of the more common tactics is to deploy as many drones as possible and have them overwhelm the enemy

Kobold

Tucker's Kobolds

have nothing on me

Role: Controller

Size: 1/2

Originally a mining suit turned into a resistance combat frame, the Kobold is a guerilla fighter with the ability to change the field to suit their needs. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Kobold provides examples of the following tropes

Chameleon Camouflage: The Kobold's Mimic Carapace ability allows it to become invisible so long as it remains adjacent to a sufficiently-large piece of terrain or hard cover.
Explosive Overclocking: The software viruses that turn standard mining machinery into a Kobold do plenty of limiter removal and general overclocking, and is known to go wrong and turn them into a heap of slag mid-printing. Modified versions of these can be used by the Kobold pilot against others in turn: Depending on what the pilot's got available, upon a successful intrusion they can cause selective, catastrophic overclocking and chose to make the enemy's reactor pop a leak, start venting molten metal everywhere, or just straight-up explode if they don't approach/avoid anything and anyone present right now.
Geo Effects: Kobold's shtick revolves around manipulating the battlefield, generating piles of slag and extruded polymer that can serve as cover for its allies and obstacles for its enemies. And if it's packing a Seismic Ripper, the Kobold can also straight-up remove both its own piles and preexisting objects, so the enemy doesn't get to benefit from terrain either.
Improvised Weapon: The entire mech, to an extent. The "typical" Kobold (inasmuch as the term can be applied to anything HORUS makes) is a standard mining frame, equipped with standard mining tools, modified by viral HORUS code to remove safety limiters and add in a few other tricks. The resulting mech is simple to learn, easy to hide, and very effective, making it a favorite of guerrillas and insurgents.
Stone Wall: A rather more literal variant: most of its frame abilities revolve around taking cover, not for the benefits of the cover itself, but rather because having cover allows the suit's secondary abilities to kick in and turn it into a nigh-unkillable stationary mech.
Kung-Shui: The Seismic Ripper system unleashes a pulse of seismic energy in a line from the mech, knocking over characters and dealing significant damage to objects in its path. Any object destroyed by this system will violently explode, damaging any characters nearby.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Independent of using Seismic Ripper, players will be hard-pressed to find value in Slag Spray's ability to create a Size 1 blockade (compared to Zheng's TSSI that has basically the same effect while also doing damage). Terraform has similarly questionable value for something you need to spend your entire turn doing...
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: If the goal of a scene is to hold out, though, and has an enclosed tunnel that takes up a total of 10 spaces, then this could potentially be the key to victory.

Lich

That Which is Dead Cannot Die

Role: Support

Size: 1

The Lich is a strange, paradoxical frame that guarantees its continued existed through time loops and temporal resets. Naturally, this makes it remarkably hard to kill. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Lich provides examples of the following tropes

Armored But Frail: The Lich is capable of mounting some highly impressive systems and a pretty nasty gun. It also has a whopping four base HP per point of Structure; as a point of comparison, an ordinary human has six HP. Its base heat cap is also utterly abysmal. However, clever use of the Lich's frame traits can actually turn it into one of the most durable frames in the game, as it can simply hit the "undo" button on many effects that would damage or destroy it.
Nothing Is Scarier: The flavour text for the Lich and its gear is comprised entirely of recovered audio segments (some dated several thousand years in the future), chatlogs and an after-action report from a combat in the Dawnline Shore where something happened, with almost no explanation of where the Lich came from, what it is or what its systems do.
Not the Intended Use: The Lich is billed as a Support frame, with systems and a core power that work well for buffing allies, debuffing enemies, and taking debuffs from allies that the Lich can then clear with little consequence. However, its core traits make the Lich an effective DPS platform, as it can abuse damage-dealing strategies that would be highly risky or straight-up suicidal for other frames (due to high heat cost, risky positioning, or whatever else) and then use its Soul Vessel ability to mitigate or outright ignore the negative aspects of those strategies.
Resurrective Immortality: Once per scene, when the Lich is destroyed, it can pop back into existence at its soul vessel marker with a single point each of Structure and Stress. Notably, if the pilot was killed in the process of Lich's destruction, they are also resurrected when the Lich reappears.
Time Master: The Lich has a... flexible relationship with linear time, and its kit revolves around applications of this: speeding up and slowing down time, creating chronal duplicates of people, rewinding time to avoid undesirable outcomes, and teleporting around by virtue of mucking about with the timestream. It's a bit like Tracer from Overwatch, if Tracer was an incredibly creepy robot from the distant future.

Manticore

Action Bomb meet Lightning Gun

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The Manticore is an unstable system that heavily uses electromagnetics, with a distinct theme of divine punishment.

Manticore provides examples of the following tropes

Action Bomb: One of the frame's core traits causes it explode as per a reactor meltdown the turn after it is destroyed.
- Dead Man's Switch: Optionally, during a Full Repair, the pilot can switch the frame into or out of Castigation Mode, causing it to explode immediately upon destruction/reactor meltdown, causing it to kill the pilot and anyone else inside with it, while dealing a large amount of damage to surrounding units.
Cast from Hit Points: Most of its powers carry this sort of drawback to them.
- Its passive core power allows it to deal energy damage to nearby foes once per round when it takes Heat damage… and both of its standard weapons deal self-inflicted Heat damage as recoil.
- Three of its four Invade options are powerful enough that they carry the drawback of causing some energy damage to itself.
- Its Lightning Generator protocol allows it to deal small energy damage to nearby foes each round at the cost of taking some Heat damage, but it is used automatically, with its power doubled, if the mech is already in the Danger Zone (halfway to Overheating).
Charged Attack: Its active core power gives it a Charged Die that increases in number each time it takes on energy or Heat damage, from 1 to 6. Once it reaches 6, it deals a devastating burst of power to everything around it.
Lightning Gun: Both its standard weapons, Catalyst Pistol and Arc Projector, are this.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: The Catalyst Pistol deals a small amount of damage, but deals damage in a wide cone.
- Chain Lightning: The Arc Projector attacks any number of secondary targets once, but without dealing extra damage.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The exact name of its Dead Man's Switch power is Castigate The Enemies of the Godhead, and its Charged Attack's name is Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of RA.
Overclocking Attack: Its "Sear" Invade option is essentially this, allowing it to deal great Heat damage to an enemy proportional to the number of other characters adjacent to them.
Shock and Awe: Its entire theme is electricity - it has passive resistance from energy and burn damage, and all of its standard forms of attack deal energy damage. Ironically, the only time its licenses don’t deal energy damage is when it explodes as part of Castigation Mode (which is naturally explosion damage).
Status Effects: Its "Smite" Invade option forces an enemy to make a save or be stunned until the end of their next turn.
- EMP: It can also stun all non-biological targets in a burst around it, at the cost of stunning itself as well.
Taking You with Me: It automatically suffers a reactor meltdown when destroyed. In its Castigation State, it explodes even faster and with more power. This requires the pilot to be in the mech.
Weaponized Teleportation: Its "Summon" Invade option allows it to pull all nearby characters to a target of their choice, perfect for using its area of effect attacks; meanwhile, its Beckon Invade option lets it switch positions with a target, as long as both can stand or move on those positions.

Minotaur

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space!

Role: Controller

Size: 1

The Minotaur is a dimension-bending mech that excels at inflicting negative conditions upon enemies.

Minotaur provides examples of the following tropes

Achilles' Heel: The Minotaur has nothing to offer in the way of standard weapons, relying almost entirely on technological warfare and inflicting negative status. Thus, Biological targets are easily its greatest weakness.
- Despite being billed as a Controller and Tech Attacker, it also has a confusingly short Sensor Range of 8.
Bigger on the Inside: Noted to have more components on the inside than should be possible. Space is also distorted outside of it, making it impossible for foes to move past it, even if they're far bigger than it.
Logic Bomb: One of its Invade options unleashes one of these to characters of your choice in a burst, forcing them to make a Systems save or be Slowed as they grapple with whatever it is you showed them.
Mechanically Unusual Class: The Minotaur frame allows the pilot to dismount or mount the mech very quickly, and while inside, characters will never be hurt, even if the mech is destroyed or suffers a reactor meltdown. The benefits of this are very niche in comparison to other mechs.
The Paralyzer: Has multiple means of stopping enemies dead or incentivizing standing still. Its "Banish" Invade option in particular causes Heat damage to foes for each space they move, for instance.
- Inverted, as well. Its Aggressive System Sync can deal Heat damage to enemies if they’re adjacent close to their allies (forcing them to stay away from them) or if they’re too far away from the Minotaur itself (forcing them to chase it even when it's tactically unwise).
- Its Metafold Maze allows it to Slow down enemies after a successful technological attack. If they’re already Slowed, they become Immobilized, and if they’re already Immobilized, they become Stunned. It can make this more deadly by activating its Core System, Maze, which automatically Stuns the target and forces them to do nothing but attempt to escape every turn until they succeed.
People Puppets: Its Law of Blades system allows a powerful hacking attempt that grants fine control over an enemy's actions (usually, an attack or movement, but more complicated or unusual actions are allowed).
Quirky Bard: It is somewhat gimmicky, and excels at causing the Status Effects of Slowed, Immobilized and Stunned.
Support Party Member: Alone, the Minotaur cannot do much. On a good team, it is extremely effective.
Teleport Interdiction: Its Interdiction Field generates a large area around it that, in addition to stopping teleportation from people you don’t allow, slows down hostiles that aren’t able to make a Systems save. Unfortunately, it also slows down the user while it’s active.
Weaponized Teleportation: Using its Metafold Carver, it can teleport enemies closer to itself, or make them outright disappear from the field of battle until the start of their next turn.

Pegasus

Somebody order a Wave-Motion Gun?

Role: Artillery

Size: 1

The HORUS equivalent of a sniper, the Pegasus uses what could only be generously described as a "gun" to deal consistent damage to enemies in range, on top of other weapons it can mount.

Always Accurate Attack: The Pegasus's core system, the Ushabti omnigun, is a paracausal weapon so advanced that it doesn't qualify as any of the standard ranged weapon types in the game. It only does Scratch Damage, but if the target is within range and line of sight, it will take that damage — the omnigun hits automatically, and no ability, effect, or rule in the game can make it miss or reduce its damage.
Boring, but Practical: For all of its esoteric weirdness, in practice the Pegasus is a remarkably straightforward gun platform that delivers consistent, reliable ranged damage, and is best used by pointing it at a target, holding down the trigger until that target dies, and repeating until there's no targets left. Even its core power simply gives the Ushabti Omnigun the ability to fire three times per turn, instead of just once.
Enemy Scan: On top of providing True Sight, the Eye of Horus system also provides readings on HP, Evasion, E-Defense and current Heat for you to read. This is very useful for a mech that has plenty of access to Fixed Damage Attacks, ensuring not a single shot is wasted.
Fixed Damage Attack:
- The Pegasus's main trait, By The Way, I Know Everything, gives any weapon the Pegasus fires the option to deal the average of the dice as damage instead of rolling. For example, an attack that would roll 2d6 can instead opt to deal exactly 7 damage.
- The Ushabti Omnigun deals a single point of armor-piercing kinetic damage that cannot be avoided or resisted in any way.
Glass Cannon: The Pegasus' plentiful weapon mounts and extremely reliable attacks are balanced out by its unimpressive evasion, HP, repair cap, and a complete lack of armor.
Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The SISYPHUS-Class NHP is capable of bending probability. In game terms, it allows the player to roll two d20s as a full tech action, and then substitute those numbers for any two d20 rolls made by itself, allies, or enemies within their sensor range as a reaction until their next turn.
More Dakka: The Pegasus carries a full three weapon mounts (two Flex and one Heavy), plus the omnigun, and one of the weapons granted by the license is an autogun that can be fired as a free action. If the Pegasus makes a Barrage action with its core power activated, while loaded with as many guns as possible^*, it can make the equivalent of nine weapon attacks in a single turn at License Level 3 without overcharging, when most mechs are only able to pull off somewhere between two and five attacks under those conditions.
Painting the Medium: The Pegasus is so weird that even its profile is glitched out. It technically has two traits, but only one of them actually has an in-game effect; the other is a string of computer code-like gibberish that vaguely implies the Pegasus can extrude weapons from its own body. The weapon typing of the Ushabti Omnigun is also listed as [ERROR].
Randomized Damage Attack: The Mimic Gun's base stats are randomly generated — at the start of combat the player rolls three twenty-sided dice, and the number on each die determines the Mimic Gun's range and damage, cycling through the dice at the start of every turn. If the player doesn't like the numbers, they can "provoke" the mimic gun as a full action and roll a new set.
Smart Gun: The name of a main rifle provided at License I. Smartguns come loaded with companion software and are compatible with targeting systems and NHPs, making them a popular choice for HORUS mechs. Mechanically, the smartgun has the Accurate, Seeking and Smart traits.
Swiss-Army Weapon: The Mimic Gun is a shapeshifting weapon that cycles through its various forms so quickly that it counts as every single type of ranged weapon available, simultaneously.
True Sight: When triggered with a quick action, the Eye of HORUS system allows the mech to observe and target enemies within sensor range that are otherwise Hidden or Invisible, and provides an Enemy Scan for good measure.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The Ushabti Omnigun. The only thing anyone is sure about is that it is, in fact, a weapon - other than that, little is certain, even the thing's existence, and no one even attempts to describe it. A helpful pointer: That physics-defying black orb you see in the Pegasus' image? That's not the Omnigun. That's the containment for the Omnigun.

Harrison Armory (HA)

Once an arms and munitions manufacturer, the end of the Union's Second Committee has allowed HA to expand into a full-blown imperialist corpro-state which now fields its own line of heavy-duty combat mecha. HA mechs tend to be very durable and often field massive, state-of-the-art weaponry.

In General

Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: The power faction. Most Harrison mechs are tough as nails, built to crush their enemies with overwhelming force. With high heat caps, lots of energy weapons, and some special abilities tied to heat, their mechs have a high risk, high reward playstyle. Fittingly, their mechs have the lowest movement speeds among all manufacturers, with none of them having a listed base speed above 4.
Energy Weapons: HA has the most energy weapons in its lineup out of all the Big Five.
Mana Meter: Harrison Armory's frames are unified in that they work off of resource management. While all Lancer frames need to worry about managing Heat alongside their HP, this is something that's built into the playstyle of any HA mech, with just about every weapon and system from HA imposing either a self-heat cost or having the Limited tag. Their core bonuses also play closely with this.
The Remnant: Was founded by Seccom Loyalists who fled to the edge of Union space after Seccom was ousted. They still adhere to many of its old political beliefs.
Space Romans: They have a lot of parallels with the Roman Empire, such as being controlled by a single ruler, holding heavily expansionist and militarist policies, and even going so far as to call their private corporate armies "Legions".
Theme Naming: HA names its mechs for famous generals.

Barbarossa

To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own

Role: Artillery

Size: 3

An incredibly massive frame, the Barbarossa is more akin to a gigantic siege weapon around which a mech has been built.

Achilles' Heel: As mentioned below, it is very slow, and particularly vulnerable to effects that force Agility checks.
Anti-Air: Its Flak Launcher forces hit flying characters to make a save or become Slowed and immediately land, preventing them from taking flight on the next turn. Its Bouncing Mine has a similar effect.
Awesome, but Impractical: The Apocalypse Rail requires three turns to charge up for maximum damage, the windup resets if the mech moves at all (even involuntarily), and if it fires it cannot take any other action that turn. But if it does fire...
- In-universe, the Barbarossa is considered to be this even by some of the Armory's own citizens; the flavour text specifically mentions that essayists use it as a metaphor for the Armory's enemies.
BFG: It has two of them: the Apocalypse Rail and Siege Cannon. The latter is a Superheavy Cannon, so it says a lot that the former is a far more destructive weapon.
Long-Range Fighter: Its Siege Stabilizers allow it to plant itself into the ground and give its ranged weapons an extended range, at the cost of being unable to fire within close range, or use melee weapons. Its Apocalypse Rail also cannot fire within close range of itself.
Mighty Glacier: The Barbarossa is thus far the single largest unmodified mech in the game, and incredibly hard to push, pull, or knock over. It also possesses resistance to explosive damage, and can be used by friendly characters as heavy cover. Unfortunately, it's also the slowest mech in the entire game and not very good at dodging things.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Apocalypse Rail.
Shoulder Cannon: Its Apocalypse Rail is depicted as such in the artwork.
Siege Engines: It effectively is one, and its multiple licenses further enhance its capacity as such.
Trick Bomb: Its "Roller" Grenades can move past obstructions and obstacles to explode when they reach a hostile target.
Unorthodox Reload: Its Autoloader Drone and External Ammo Feed allow it or its allies to more easily reload weapons with the Loading tag.
Wave-Motion Gun: If the Barbarossa can overcome the above mentioned drawbacks, its Apocalypse Rail can lay waste to anything within its targeting reticle.

Enkidu

He's like a bear! He's like a big shaved bear that hates people!

Role: Striker/Defender

Size: 2

A variant frame offered under the Tokugawa license - the Tokugawa's Prototype, in fact, the Enkidu is a ferocious, sturdy mech that specializes in melee combat, and indiscriminate area-denial with its Plasma Talons.

Achilles' Heel: Its greatest strength can become its team's biggest nightmare under the wrong circumstances. With only an average E-defense, a skilled hacker can force it into the Danger Zone too early, causing its Plasma Talons to threaten nearby allies. Conversely, a hacker can force a rampaging Enkidu to overheat and fall out of the Danger Zone to remove its buffs.
The Berserker: The Enkidu is at its strongest when in the Danger Zone - while like this, the frame becomes twice as fast, and extends its integrated Plasma Talons, which it has to use for a special attack reaction whenever possible. To get to that point, though, it has to take heat.
The Brute: Literally has a trait called Brute Strength that gives it Hull accuracy - on top of being large and equipped with melee weapons, it is extremely good at maintaining control of grapples.
Finishing Move: The Enkidu's Core Power, Crush Limiter, gives it access to the Bifurcate Action - any enemy next to it that has less than 7 HP, only a single structure, and isn't invulnerable is guaranteed to be destroyed by this action. - But if they don't meet this criteria, they only take 1 Kinetic Damage.
- Combo: To make matters sweeter, a successful destruction with Bifurcate will basically allow the Enkidu to essentially take another turn and boost - which they can use to initiate Another Bifurcate if anything is within its movement range.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Certain builds can approach this - its base speed is quite slow until it enters the danger zone, so it can be tempting to mount a ranged weapon to it, which it cannot use after it hits Danger Zone, but that becomes a minor detail after its base speed doubles.
Not the Intended Use: There are creative ways to bypass the Enkidu's friendly-fire issues: entering a grapple will prevent it from taking any reactions, and because its Plasma Talons are technically Auxiliary Melee Weapons, they can be Thrown by using Hunter 2, which will also prevent the automatic use of the Talons until the end of your next turn.
Odd Name Out: Rather than being named after a general, it's named after the Mesopotamian Legend. That said, it's still a fitting name all things considered.
Stone Wall: Its base stats fit this pattern - good health and heat, average defenses, and armor - but small mounts, low base speed, and an unusable integrated weapon.
- Lightning Bruiser: Once it hits the Danger Zone though...
Turns Red: It is at its fastest, strongest, and most dangerous when pushed into the Danger Zone.
You Will Not Evade Me: Enemies hit by the Enkidu's Plasma Talons are immediately immobilized - and unless the Enkidu is currently unable to react, it will use them on anything that moves within their range.

Genghis

If you can't stand the heat, get off the battlefield

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The Genghis is a terrifying frame that uses flame-based warfare; notably, it was the first mech to be used in a military context, popularizing it for such purposes.

Genghis provides examples of the following tropes:

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Downplayed. The highest license level grants an AGNI-class NHP, which are noted to be cold and efficient, and of which a small percentage act erratically and illogically. Gameplay-wise, however, it is as stable as the rest of the game's NHPs.
Armored But Frail: The Genghis is tied with the Drake for the highest unmodified armor in the game, and tied with the Dusk Wing, Swallowtail, and Goblin for the lowest base health in the core rulebook (with only the Lich from Long Rim having less).
Backpack Cannon: It is depicted on its art as having a smaller flamethrower held up in this manner.
Battle Amongst the Flames: Its Plasma Thrower inflicts such damage that it leaves behind patches of fire on the battlefield, which naturally cause damage to people who start their turn in them, or who move into them.
Cast From Hitpoints: The Plasma Thrower deals an incredible amount of damage in a wide range, but it deals a large amount of Heat to the user from each of its attacks.
Fire-Breathing Weapon: Its two standard weapons are powerful flamethrowers - the Krakatoa Thermobaric Flamethrower, and the Plasma Thrower. Notably, both are BFGs - the former is a Heavy weapon while the latter is Superheavy.
Herd-Hitting Attack: All its attacks and weapons are designed to hit as bursts, cones, or lines of damage, making it exceedingly good at fighting large groups.
Instant Cooldown: One of its core traits, its Auto-Cooler protocol, and its AGNI Protocol all grant it different ways to vent heat and keep it safe. See also Weaponized Exhaust.
Kill It with Fire: Its entire theme is fire. It is immune to any Burn damage (which deals Damage Over Time), it excels at dishing it out itself, and it has multiple ways of dealing with (or benefiting from) Overheating.
Molotov Cocktail: Its HAVOK Charges allow it to use grenades or mines that essentially behave as such.
Nothing Is Scarier: The Genghis Mk I was designed to host a weapon only cryptically referred to in the corebook as a TBK, and it is noted that the Genghis Mk II, which does not have it, has been brought in line with Union's Utopic Pillars. In other words, use of the TBK was deemed a crime against humanity.
- To further put this in perspective, the Genghis' core system is exposing the power cells of the TBK Sustain Suite - not itself a weapon, but the framework designed to support the TBK.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The No Room For a Wallflower supplement does not clarify in any way how exactly the TBK worked or what it involved beyond its scope, but it helpfully clarifies that it stands for Total Biome Kill.
Shout-Out: Shares the same aesthetic, role, and, of course, flame-based weaponry as Titanfall 2's Scorch.
Weaponized Exhaust: A non-ship example. It has several ways of venting out heat in a burst of Heat and Burn damage around itself - its Explosive Vents, core system and AGNI protocol.
- Steam Vent Obstacle: A rare non-videogame example. When either its core system or AGNI Protocol vent heat, the ensuing steam cloud grants soft cover, and in the case of the core system, invisibility.

Iskander

I don't think you understand the Gravity of the situation.

Role: Controller

Size: 2

The Iskander is a sophisticated mech that controls the battlefield via manipulation of gravity.

Iskander provides examples of the following tropes

Gravity Master: The main source of its power.
- No Gravity for You: Its Tesseract technology option allows it to either generate a field of zero-g, allowing everyone in a zone to fly while being slowed, or to immobilize a single target and force them to float several spaces up.
- Trick Bomb: Its Grounding Mine forces a nearby target to make a save or be pulled as close to the mine and then knocked prone, potentially forcing aerial foes to land. Its Gravity Grenade, meanwhile, slows down a target until they make no voluntary movements for a full turn.
- Utility Weapon: Its Gravity Gun forces all targets in the area it hits to make a save or be forced as close to the center of that area. This effect deals a bit of Energy damage, but the intent is to clearly pair it with Iskander’s other Area of Effect powers.
- You Will Not Evade Me: Inverted, its Repulser Field knocks away nearby foes and further weaponizes it by detonating all nearby mines.
Made of Explodium: Iskender's core ability releases a Death Cloud, filling effectively the entire battlefield with micromines, including the air.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Death Cloud, though ironically it's a name you literally cannot run really fast from, because anything other than a regular move action, including flight results in you taking explosive damage.
Revolvers Are Just Better/Punch-Packing Pistol: Its Stub Cannon is a small Auxiliary Cannon that only has six shots, deals a small amount of fixed explosive damage, and deals Knockback - ideal for blasting enemies into mines.
Throw Down the Bomblet: It possesses a large number of grenades.
- Grenade Launcher: A core trait of the frame allows it, once per round, to launch grenades or plant mines from a very long distance.
- Grenade Spam: Averted - almost all of its weapons are Limited and can run out if spammed too much.
- Sticky Bomb: Its Clamp Bombs stick to an enemy and explode, also dealing Splash Damage to surrounding characters unless the enemy manages to detach and disarm it.
Trap Master: It is an expert on planting mines.
- Required Secondary Powers: Unless it chooses to, it will not trigger any mines it moves near.
- Trap Is the Only Option: Death Cloud forces all enemies to contend with the fact that the entire battlefield is rigged with mines.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Almost said word for word in the Gravity Gun’s description.
"We’ve weaponized the force that holds all things in its embrace. What could go wrong?"

Napoleon

Reality is what I make of it.

Role: Defender/Controller

Size: 1/2

The Napoleon is a small and tenacious combat unit with a unique suite of abilities based around its ability to bend and abuse blinkspace to defend itself and its allies.

Napoleon provides examples of the following tropes

Heavily Armored Mook: Napoleon's base traits and core power grant it a number of ways to reduce incoming attacks to nothing more than Scratch Damage.
Invincibility Power-Up: The Napoleon license grants a number of systems that temporarily render the user or others completely immune to all damage, albeit at the cost of reducing their battlefield effectiveness.
Stone Wall: The Napoleon license doesn't grant any actual weapons at all until the third license level (although the gun it does finally give you is admittedly a doozy), but the frame and its systems are crammed full of ways to mitigate incoming damage.
Subspace or Hyperspace: A number of the Napoleon's systems make use of blinkspace technology. The Trueblack Aegis core system and the Blinkshield system use it for defensive purposes, while the Displacer weaponizes it.
Teleport Gun: The one weapon granted by the Napoleon license is the Displacer, which removes threats from the battlefield by teleporting everything in its blast radius into blinkspace. It's slow to fire and generates a truly ridiculous amount of self-inflicted heat^*, but the effects are suitably devastating.

Saladin

Hit me with your best shot!

Role: Defender

Size: 2

The Saladin is a combat support frame with a specialty in wide-area combat shielding. Excellent for combat escorts and protecting other soft targets.

Saladin provides examples of the following tropes

Attack Reflector: The Tachyon Shield core power and the Diluvian Ark provided by the NOAH-Class NHP system are both capable of bouncing an attack back against its user (or, in the case of the Tachyon Shield, against anyone else within the attack's range or area of effect).
Barrier Warrior: A fully-licensed Saladin frame has four different options for generating Deflector Shields, three of which can be used offensively with a bit of cleverness.
Boring, but Practical: The Shatterhead Colony Missiles. For very low damage (and one of your precious System Points) the launcher that the Saladin gets at Rank 1 comes equipped with Arcing and is immune to the Difficulty debuff, making it a reliable weapon in most cases.
Deflector Shield: The Saladin can generate multiple different types of force fields to protect itself and its allies, each with slightly different effects.
Hard Light: The Hardlight Defense System is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — a barrier made of solidified light that stops all attacks and effects from passing through. Characters can force their way through if necessary, although they'll take some burn if they try.
Stone Wall: Extremely high HP/Heat pools, armor, and an immunity to the condition that turns that armor off, means that the Saladin is extremely resilient. With only a single weapon mount, though, it doesn't really pose that much of a threat to enemies. As a result it's reliant on buffing teammates to fight on its behalf.

Sherman

You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about.

Role: Striker/Artillery

Size: 1

The workhorse of the Harrison Armory line, and the second-most deployed mech aside from the Everest. The Sherman is designed to be useful in almost any theater, and on almost any battlefield, thanks to its versatile systems, reliable reactor, and lots and lots of lasers.

Sherman provides examples of the following tropes:

BFG: The ANDROMEDA-Pattern, the Tachyon Lance, and the ZF4 SOLIDCORE all qualify.
Cast from Hit Points: Every energy weapon on the license deals Heat damage to the user when fired. Downplayed due to the systems on the license designed to mitigate said cost.
Charged Attack: The ZF4 SOLIDCORE Laser starts at 1 charge, and gets another charge every time the Sherman uses a Stabilize action, to a cap of 4. Each charge spent when the weapon fires increases the damage and the range of the attack, and returns the SOLIDCORE back to 1 charge upon firing. Its core power drastically speeds up the process, fully charging the SOLIDCORE upon use, and doubling its charge speed for the rest of the scene.
Combat Medic: Downplayed. The Sherman can’t heal others like, say, the Lancaster, but it is equipped with systems that allow it to keep itself in top fighting condition.
Determinator: The Sherman is designed to keep fighting, no matter what. Redundant Systems Upgrade allows it to turn a Stabilize action from a Full to a Quick Action, and the Reactor Stabilizer allows it to reroll overheating checks, making it a very reliable mech when it comes to Engineering needs.
Energy Weapon: The Sherman License is stuffed to the brim with laser weapons, from the Main-mounted SOL-Pattern Laser Rifle, to the ANDROMEDA-Pattern Heavy Laser Rifle, to its core system, the ZF4 SOLIDCORE.
Mighty Glacier: The Sherman suffers from low Speed and Evasion, but it’s also quite durable, and can bring the hurt right back with its battery of laser and energy weapons.
More Dakka: The ASURA-Class NHP grants the Sherman either an extra two Quick Actions, or one extra Full Action. While you’re not allowed to repeat actions like Skirmishes, the advantage of being able to, say, Skirmish and Barrage in the same turn cannot be overstated. Throw in an overcharge, and you can fill your foe with holes before they even realize what happened.
One-Hit Polykill: The SOLIDCORE’s firing solution is a Line, which means it hits everything in its range from 1 to 20. A well-aimed shot can fry several mechs at once.
Playing with Fire: Kinda. Aside from its core system, all of the Sherman’s energy weapons deal Burn damage.
Shoulder Cannon: Equipped with one in the official art, possibly the Tachyon Lance.
Simple, yet Awesome: The premise of the Sherman is very uncomplicated: keep yourself functional, and fire back at the enemy when able. The “awesome“ comes in because you’re firing back lasers and Wave Motion Guns.
The Engineer: Gains Accuracy on Engineering checks from one of its traits, and is armed with systems to amplify its ability even further than that.
Wave-Motion Gun: Two for the price of one mech! First, the Sherman’s core system, the SOLIDCORE Laser, which charges as the pilot uses Stabilize actions, and the Superheavy Tachyon Lance, which fires weaponized faster-than-light tachyon particles at the enemy. Both of them are sufficiently devastating under the right circumstances.
Weaponized Exhaust: Well, sort of. Firing the Tachyon Lance while in the Danger Zone causes it to fire a backblast of plasma in the opposite direction, damaging anyone who might be trying to sneak up on you.

Sunzi

I'm everywhere you want to be

Role: Support/Controller

Size: 1

Cousin to the Napoleon, the Sunzi is another experiment into blinkspace manipulation, specializing in moving allies and enemies across the field like giant chess pieces. Introduced in The Long Rim.

Sunzi provides examples of the following tropes

Difficult, but Awesome: Without beating around the bush, the Sunzi is hard to play. Wrapping your head around the 4D chess you need to pull off to even make use of the basic LL1 systems in any meaningful way is daunting. But with some coordination with your team and some real combat experience, you can cause your enemies to almost never be in a comfortable position.
Space Master: Mastery of blinkspace is what most of the Sunzi's abilities are derived from. It can breach realspace to allow teleportation and even extend the range of attacks that pass through it.
Teleport Spam: Oh yes. It can blip a short distance away every round, it can use its core power to teleport itself or anyone else if it so chooses, it can throw grenades that teleport everyone in its blast radius to anywhere else in its blast radius, teleport enemies or allies directly to it using a subspace tunnel, teleport enemies every time they take damage after being hit with a particular tech invade... If you want someone, somewhere else, this is the mech for you. It even has a gun that teleports enemies on hit!

Tokugawa

He is known as Hidokiri Batousai, "The Manslayer"

Role: Striker

Size: 1

The high-risk, high-reward mech. Tokugawa is an energy-based melee striker that thrives on riding the line between success and failure with its overclocking abilities.

Tokugawa provides examples of the following tropes:

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Annihilator does minimal damage on its own, but pierces armor and inflicts Burn. Also counts as a Herd-Hitting Attack.
Armored But Frail: Zig-zagged. On the one hand, it only has 1 Armor, and its base HP is average. However, overclocking causes the Tokugawa to take double damage from all sources except Heat and Burn, so it does have its moments.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Two systems that can qualify: the first is the LUCIFER-Class NHP, which deals a significant amount of Heat damage to the user, but grants them bonus damage on their next attack equal to their current Heat. A better example is the Plasma Gauntlet, which deals a truly abhorrent amount of damage... but also half of that damage to yourself as Heat, in addition to leaving you Stunned. And since you can’t even use it unless you’re in Danger Zone, you’re pretty much guaranteed to cook yourself in your mech upon activation, as well as being a sitting duck for any retaliation, regardless. Use wisely.
Explosive Overclocking: The trademark of the Tokugawa; push all systems into the red for the power to kill everything in front of you. Proper positioning and Heat management is a requirement for using the Tokugawa effectively. Failure to do so will have disastrous results.
Glass Cannon: The main thrust of its core ability: Tokugawa can give itself the Exposed status at will, taking double damage from kinetic, energy, and explosive damage. The benefit is that all its weapons get increased range and bonus energy damage. Its active core power can double or triple its range.
Herd-Hitting Attack: Unless it whiffs, the Annihilator not only deals damage to the target, but all targets surrounding it.
Hot-Blooded: Encouraged if you want to use a LUCIFER-Class NHP, which itself is an example; sources say the LUCIFER-Class prefers reckless tactics that can potentially leave its pilot exposed to danger, and even gets frustrated with cautious or unambitious pilots, meaning its ideal partner is someone just as reckless and/or decisive as it is. This behavior is even kind of encouraged by the frame itself, as the Tokugawa is more dangerous the greater the danger it’s in.
Jack of All Stats: Aside from its core traits, weak Tech Attack score, and superior Heat Cap, Tokugawa is fairly balanced in stats, even lacking any HASE weaknesses. It also lacks any Heavy weapon mounts, but makes up for it by having three. So, while it won’t excel at anything in particular without taking advantage of its quirks, it doesn’t do anything too poorly, either.
Kill It with Fire: Part of Tokugawa’s schtick; not only does it have a higher-than-average Heat Cap, but it even has a variety of systems and traits that get stronger when the user is in the Danger Zone. The Plasma Sheath trait, for example, turns all of Tokugawa’s bonus energy damage into Burn damage while it’s in the Danger Zone.
Laser Sword: The Torch, which is basically a lightsaber.
Long-Range Fighter: Downplayed. Tokugawa can be built to take advantage of Limit Break’s range and threat increase, cutting or shooting down enemies before they can get close, thus keeping themselves out of the line of fire. Just watch out for anyone with a longer range than you...
Overclocking Attack: Self-inflicted and exploited; Tokugawa willingly pushes its systems to the limit in order to increase its own performance. Just make sure nothing’s left alive to get revenge on you afterward...

Characters / Lancer

Edit Locked

General Massive Systems (GMS)

Everest

Role: None/Balanced

Size: 1

Everest provides examples of the following tropes

Sagarmatha

Role: Defender

Size: 2

Sagarmatha provides examples of the following:

Chomolungma

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1

Chomolungma provides examples of the following:

IPS-Northstar (IPS-N)

Blackbeard

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Blackbeard provides examples of the following tropes

Caliban

Role: Striker/Controller

Size: 1/2

Caliban provides examples of the following tropes

Drake

Role: Defender

Size: 2

Drake provides examples of the following tropes

Empakaai

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Empakaai contains examples of the following tropes

Kidd

Role: Support

Size: 1

Kidd provides examples of the following tropes

Lancaster

Role: Support

Size: 2

Lancaster provides examples of the following tropes

Nelson

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Nelson provides examples of the following tropes

Raleigh

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Raleigh provides examples of the following tropes

Störtebeker

Role:

Size: 1

Störtebeker provides examples of the following tropes

Tortuga

Role: Defender/Striker

Size: 2

Tortuga provides examples of the following tropes

Vlad

Role: Controller/Striker

Size: 1

Vlad provides examples of the following tropes

Zheng

Role: Striker

Size: 1

Zheng provides examples of the following tropes

Smith-Shimano Corpro (SSC)

Atlas

Role: Striker

Size: 1/2

Atlas provides examples of the following tropes

Black Witch

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1

Black Witch provides examples of the following tropes

Death's Head

Role: Artillery

Size: 1

Death's Head provides examples of the following tropes:

Dusk Wing

Role: Controller/Support

Size: 1/2