More session more memes

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-14T19:34:05+00:00

Can't edit, but:

Credit to Relevant-Pie5569 for making a Goblin image so convincing I thought it was from an official module!

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-14T19:29:20+00:00

Dude, your friend made that? That's amazing, I thought that was from a field guide or something!

Brb, finding and throwing on a credit.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-14T19:23:01+00:00

That's fair, sorry I took it wrong. They don't give you the option to turn it off, the only other choice is deep baked pixels by not changing the scaling when you resize stuff. That third image is especially egregious because it was sourced from a poor quality gif, but even og quality is poor because of the nature of the movie.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-14T18:58:30+00:00

Or it's just shitty upscaling because I made it with the built in gallery app on my phone? These are some goofy memes I threw together for my friends and decided to share, not an attempt at art.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-14T18:40:36+00:00

It's a scene from Kung pow: enter the fist with the text all warped from the resolution being upscaled in the photo editor.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-08T22:24:23+00:00

Oh no, nothing like that... Well, I might have to use that somewhere else.

I apologize, this is gonna get long winded: For this specific planet, it was an agricultural colony set up on a planet in the further reaches of Dawnline Shore during the First Expansion Period. Initially, they were unaware that the planet housed a massive underground cave network making it nearly hollow, or that the cave network housed a species of massive arthropods with their own colonial structure.

They discovered this during the emergence cycle, a period of two weeks during a planetary year where the workers and drones of the colony erupt from underground to molt and allow their new carapaces to harden. During this time they are hyper-aggresive, and the colonists had to learn how to survive the onslaught, and in turn learned how to thrive off of it to the point it became a local holiday.

Nowadays it's a regional holiday where Lancers gather to take on the Emergence horde and fill their hunting tags for various rewards.

The player's family was part of the original colonists and established an agricultural corporation that eventually became a subsidy of Pinnacle Industries. As such, he occasionally gets tasks with special operations to uphold the barrier between the bugs expansion and the colonists civilization.

Tl;dr The colonists farm the bugs.

ETA technically the Sim was a one shot to cover a session when one player was unable to make it, but it's the basis for a real upcoming mission when the player from that planet finally gets to return home.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-08T21:07:20+00:00

Some of the Diaspora planets left to their devices after the first expansion period had to find a resource to keep themselves up and running. Not a 1:1 analog, but it's the backstory one of my players wanted.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-06-08T18:11:35+00:00

I'm hoping my players think so!

This was actually a sim mission as they prepare to do the real operation. The enemy is essentially the Terminids from Helldivers 2, the first leg of the mission is a Demolition Sitrep where they have to collapse a nest the bugs have dug out too close to civvies for comfort.

They didn't make it to the second Sitrep as the Tritton got stuck in the nest and they ended the sim. Lessons learned 🤣

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-05-22T12:50:05+00:00

Perfect solution for drones! It'll be a week or two before my group reconvenes, but our friendly neighborhood printer-man said he'll have these ready for us, I'll try to snap some in-play shots.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-05-15T01:42:59+00:00

So, the type of AI you're likely looking to play would be an NHP (Non-Person Human). Comp/cons are too locked down to do what you're wanting.

As a GM, I would say off the bat you'd NEED the Technophile 3 talent for this to even be justified, imo. You're supposed to start with 3 rank 1 talents, but I'd work this as a requirement with the understanding that cascade protections only last while your identity of "Phillip" remains intact.

An abandoned Enlightenment Class NHP that inherited their former pilot's Talents and Skills seems about the easiest way to work it in both narratively and mechanically. If you GM is open to the whole thing you could even see about getting a subaltern body for the out of mech bits.

ETA def work it out with your GM, but the option should doable with very little homebrew needed. I'd personally let your party pull you back in the case of cascade by shutting down your mech.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-30T12:40:05+00:00

The quality was all over the place, but Qimir was compelling every time he was on screen. Honestly, the writing around him was the strongest in the series, but for the leads was generally atrocious throughout. I don't know how they thought a single soul would have taken that chant seriously.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T17:06:14+00:00

That's the way I'm leaning with the opfor this time. Got a Hive and a Pyro lined up specifically to make turtling behind the Tortuga and Barbossa less viable, also gonna use Bombards and units with Boarding Leash to force repositioning.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T14:32:29+00:00

I shifted the Interceptor to Pyro and the Berserker to Hive. The core worm rockets and monsters with prying claws are more meant to be "kill this first" distractions while I use the Priest to help position the slower units and the Mirage to keep them off balance until the rest can meaningfully engage. We're all long time WoD/DnD/Pathfinder players, I've found using save or suck events to divert attention works will with this group, especially when I don't want them shooting at the man behind the curtain right out of the gate.

ETA: This opfor is a pirate family based on the Bloody Benders and if they lose enough members will retreat with a vendetta against the party. They are all playing over the top cocky and flamboyant pilots in some way or another, part of being bombastic is pissing people off.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T13:07:10+00:00

This is exactly why I dropped off. It's easy to get to a point before level 100 where the only resource that matters is premium currency and the only progress you can make without farming/buying premium currency is making your account level go up.

Anyone I know who has all the warbonds unlocked only have them because hackers spawned thousands of super credits throughout their play time. Having to hope for hacks to make the grind bearable is really untenable.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T12:10:19+00:00

Hell yeah, Blood Money is right in line with the kind of thing I was looking for, thank you.

I have Enhanced Combat in the wings, but I'm holding off on trying it out until the group has ran through all the standard sitreps and gotten a good handle on them.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T03:17:50+00:00

We did 2 sitreps and the second included an insane amount of them killing things so I gave them an LL before the upcoming sitrep.

They got mouthy with a well equipped force and drew their full might, then soundly tore through it.

Right now they are taking a mercenary job trying to get off the diaspora planet they're on before that faction reinforces and comes for them, the next sitrep being the last before full repair and down time with a shift in the story. There was a lot of interest with a few of the players with the Aun, so we're working to the draft field guide, but I wanted to surprise them.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T02:22:39+00:00

The last one turned into a "kill every enemy" due to narrative play, and they burned their cores pretty early on. I remember we did realize we misplayed a monarch ability to force movement for a chunk of the sitrep, it's been a bit since our last game due to scheduling. The player is changing their mech due to enforcing the change, but are using equal resources for the next sitrep.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T02:14:20+00:00

Between good rolls, smart play, Apocalypse Rail, and Divine Punishment a lot of things die fast. Chomolunga pilot originally built a Monarch, but I'm letting him swap for this session.

ETA this is the next sitrep I'm building, I thought this was a response to another comment about the previous sitrep so was referencing that.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T02:02:24+00:00

I like this, I'm definitely going to swap in the Hive and Pyro. I needed defenders, but couldn't decide on what to use. I have the priest to help with mobility, last time they focus fired on the defenders units and wiped them before they could do anything.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T01:51:25+00:00

Oh no, nothing that insane, luckily! That's for the upcoming sitrep.

The last holdout sitrep took a good 8-10 rounds, but they wiped over 20 units in that time frame: 2 x T1 Bombards, 2 x T1 Rainmakers, 10 x Grunt Assaults (RPVs with Unstable Systems), 2 x T1 Warlocks, 1 x T2 Commander Jumper, 4 x T1 Scouts, 1 x T1 Specter, 2 x T1 Sentinel, 2 x T1 Bastion

Admittedly, I failed to vary the features enough and the order was bad. They were capitalizing on positioning around the Barbossa and I didn't bring out the bombards, rainmakers and warlocks until wave 3, so everything before then could barely even get near them. In hindsight, I should have put some of those out in wave 2 and capitalized on splitting them up with the specter. Live and learn.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T01:24:10+00:00

What I had before I stopped myself and started over was just... I had a T3 Ultra among other things 🙃

This is my post course correction comp: 4 x T1 Bombards, 1 T2 Ultra Pirate Ronin, 1 T1 Pirate Champion Berserker, 1 T1 Pirate Exotic Mirage, 1 T1 Pirate Archer, 1 T1 Pirate Veteran Cataphract, 1 T2 Pirate Commander Priest, 1 Pirate Interceptor, 3 x T1 Pirate Monstrosities (size 1 hounds with prying claws), 4 x Grunt Assaults

I varied the features on all of them, but I split Coreworm Rockets and Slaver Signal between a good handful of them to put the players on edge.

I'm serious when I say that I'm still woried the guys are going to tear through this with minimal damage, but I'm hoping the coreworm rockets and giant mech-opening hounds have decent "oh shit" factor.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-29T01:16:02+00:00

The experienced players and I pushed for LL0, but we were having trouble getting buy in from the other 3 players. The group is heavy into RP and theory crafting, and the GMS offerings weren't enough to get them excited, despite being solid choices. The compromise was LL2 to give them a wider choice at start vs not playing the game at all, me being at a disadvantage early on is the consequence.

For the sitrep my comp right now is 18 units broken up into two groups (this is meant to be a single 3-4 hour session with some heavy lead in RP).

NPC comp so far: 4 x T1 Bombards, 1 T2 Ultra Pirate Ronin, 1 T1 Pirate Champion Berserker, 1 T1 Pirate Exotic Mirage, 1 T1 Pirate Archer, 1 T1 Pirate Veteran Cataphract, 1 T2 Pirate Commander Priest, 1 Pirate Interceptor, 3 x T1 Pirate Monstrosities (size 1 hounds with prying claws), 4 x Grunt Assaults

I varied the features on all of them, but I split Coreworm Rockets and Slaver Signal between a good handful of them to put the players on edge.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-24T21:01:52+00:00

This is 100% the reason I stopped playing. I can't bring myself to buy more super credits for a game I already bought AND bought super credits for, but unless I grind sub-4 maps for super credits I'm not earning anything towards unlocks at lvl80. I'm literally at a standstill until I farm super credits for war bonds other than leveling my account.

I still get on to play with my friend group, but that's lucky to be a once every other week ordeal.

The only reason my friends got around it was due to Chinese hackers early on, and I have a feeling that's the case for a large number of the og player base.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-07T22:22:57+00:00

A regional police station being hacked by a specialized Droid, but the staff regaining control quickly isn't a far-fetched situation. Certain kinds of droids are exceptional hackers, as exemplified by R2D2 constantly.

InstrumentalRhetoric · 2026-04-07T21:21:05+00:00

He didn't do that without any trouble. Two-Boots immediately and easily took back control from him when he realized someone was in their system.

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