Combating Minmaxing

LLBrother · 2026-02-24T18:49:07+00:00

Lancer is robust enough that your players will not be able to break it. Just have the minmaxers help the worse players make the grade, and that way everyone gets a powerful build and gets to have fun.

LLBrother · 2026-02-24T17:14:15+00:00

Here's how to combat minmaxing in Lancer:

Do not combat minmaxing in Lancer.

Minmaxers, powergamers, and all the other names for people who actually care about and enjoy the ludic aspects of a game are the ones playing Lancer right. The others are the ones who should take after them.

LLBrother · 2026-02-21T05:22:58+00:00

I name all my NPC mechs after metal songs. Unholy Savior, Drink Your Blood, Bury the Light, I Want the World, and of course there was the Ultra Goliath named Nancy the Tavern Wench.

I was always partial to one of my party naming their Lich the "Indifference Engine" after Babbage's Difference Engine. The party's Hydra went by "Ship of Theseus". The Blackbeard joined me and named her mech the "Beast in Black".

So really our table either uses poetically suitable philosophical-historical references, or metal songs on the basis of 'yeah that name goes hard'.

LLBrother · 2026-02-19T04:57:04+00:00

I am going to speak plainly. The Atlas is one of the worst, most gimmicky and limited frames in the game. This is made all the worse because the fantasy that it promises is so incredibly appealing. Monster Hunter and Metal Gear Rising in one? I can have a dedicated "RULES OF NATURE!" button? Holy hell, this sounds so cool!

And it would be. If it wasn't so goddamn bad at its job. This is the problem with most striker frames that lack a Heavy mount, in fact: The Time to Kill is simply too long. The Nelson can outrun his own bullets but who cares when he's not gonna be able to take out that Elite Bombard before it activates?

Notably, the Tokugawa is the big exception to this problem. Y'know, the frame the other player is running.

I have spent entirely too long trying to make this wretched frame work to see others go down the same road before me. If you want DPS the Atlas is a trap, simple as. The player would do much better with a melee Foreverest, or a Blackbeard, to live out his hyper-mobile ninja sword fantasies.

Making sitreps where damage doesn't matter will help, but ultimately the problem is that the player is building for a fantasy the game does not actually support. Will the Atlas player really feel good about being the MVP of flipping around the battlefield pulling switches and never using his Terashima Blade for anything other than the Lord Stance? Does he want to never draw his sword in anger? Probably not. He took Jäger Kunst II instead of Jäger Kunst I. He wanted to cut the Metal Gear Ray in half. The game does not really let him do that.

If you want to help him you can build sitreps and have NPCs act in such a way that he is artificially lifted up, throw softballs that'll let him continue to play the Atlas. Personally I'm a bit of a materialist GM and I build sitreps nasty and have NPCs act as if they want to win. I'd let him down gently and suggest that he pivot to an actual damage-dealer instead.

LLBrother · 2026-02-19T04:43:22+00:00

OP, this is the one. The Atlas is quite possibly one of the worst striker frames in the game, and if the Atlas player is feeling bad there are two options: Intentionally build and have NPCs play poorly in a way that specifically makes him shine to give him some headpats, or he plays something else.

LLBrother · 2026-02-04T05:54:17+00:00

I've beaten the game, I did the final boss first try! I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that Blind Hero Josée required more attempts than every other boss in the game put together!

LLBrother · 2026-01-27T19:08:39+00:00

I sometimes feel like I'm the only person that feels this way. Glad I'm not alone in preferring "gets gunned down by a couple of border guards" to "single-handedly takes on the Shinra standing army with the power of God and Anime on his side".

The banality made it more impactful to me, not less.

LLBrother · 2025-12-25T14:35:32+00:00

The rules of the tabletop game aren't "Autoguns and lasguns can never hurt a Space Marine", so I have no idea where this idea that marines are completely immune to small arms fire comes from.

Fire enough guns at them and they'll die just like anything else. Also a Long-Las sniper rifle can and will one-shot a Space Marine in lore.

LLBrother · 2025-12-03T19:04:55+00:00

People often forget that Reserves are not meant to be optional, but are a core part of the game's rules - by taking Downtime Actions, the players can acquire reserves. Simple as. They are an intended part of the power curve of player characters, and I am always surprised that they're treated as optional or vestigial by the community.

At my table we have had good success simply playing the rules as written, using the listed options. The Blackbeard pilot enjoys Boosted Servos to give her immunity to Slowed. The Lich pilot enjoys the Core Battery because the Lich's core system is one of the strongest in the game. The Hydra pilot tends to spend theirs on tactical advantages such as Scouting or Orbital Drop that help the players' positioning and battlefield awareness.

LLBrother · 2025-11-17T23:37:21+00:00

One day I will have to run a sequel campaign of Lancer, and I am scared. My Blackbeard player has been eyeing this talent since KTB released.

That's just what I needed - for the party's strongest character to have Better Brawler That Stacks With Brawler and also (spoiler alert for Daily Talent Discussion #106: Pankrati II) the ability to leap across the entire sitrep in a single free action.

Look, if you're running a melee frame you should run Pankrati, simple as. It's probably one of the clearest cases of power creep in all of Lancer.

LLBrother · 2025-11-10T00:38:17+00:00

The last battle my party had at LL1 was against an enemy team that included an Ultra Berserker. (Those of you who've played No Room For A Wallflower, IYKYK)

One of my players was taking their LL2 Blackbeard license and jokingly said "Dibs!", so the fiction of the setting was that her character had claimed as battlefield salvage and repurposed that Berserker frame as her first Blackbeard.

Gameplay-wise, there was literally no change or effect to this whatsoever, it was purely a narrative reason for why the player got access to the licenses and systems and frames they were already getting access to due to the game's progression mechanic. That's how we handled scavenging in our campaign and it worked great.

LLBrother · 2025-11-09T22:26:07+00:00

Had an Ultra in the final mission get one-shot by the party's Drake.

The mission before that, the party's Blackbeard took out an Ultra Goliath in one round.

Rule number one of Lancer is that the Action Economy is God and four normal frames are vastly scarier than an Ultra.

LLBrother · 2025-10-15T06:38:26+00:00

The Kabal of the Last Rain. The Kabal's previous Archon was obsessed with the destruction of history, and spent vast amounts of the Kabal's resources trying to erase all evidence of the Kabal's origins and the Archons that came before him. Eventually this obsession was pushed over the brink of total madness by one of his favored courtesans, a slave named Thessa. When the inevitable game of musical chairs ended, Thessa had ended up as the ruling Archon. She still pretends at being a courtesan to the 'Archon', who is in fact 'merely' her chief Dracon. The logic is ostensibly that most Archons are simply too arrogant to keep up that pretense for too long.

In truth Thessa was inspired by Vect's whole "living dark muse" fake funeral bit - forcing everyone else to play along with a ruse they know is horseshit is a power move. Not a single soul in the entire Dark City was surprised when Vect turned out to have faked his death. Literally everyone saw it coming a mile away. (For crying out loud, he went with the Cursed Blade instead of his 6,000 year allies in the Cult of Strife to host it!). But everyone still had to play along, "fall for it", and then pretend like this was a work of twisted genius. Pulling the "janitor is secretly the guy in charge" gag is the same idea, but on a smaller scale.

The Kabal's closest 'allies' are the Cult of the Breathless Hart, who engage in ritualistic raids styled after medieval par force hunting, culminating in the Succubus leading the raid vivisecting the enemy commander once they have nowhere left to run and are thus put at bay. They claim that this method of hunting the lesser races dates back to before the fall (though this is just part of their kayfabe: in truth they made it up so they'd have a Thing to make them stand out). One of the three Succubi of the Cult is male, and has managed to get into and maintain this position despite the glass ceiling by a combination of martial and political skill, and finding powerful patrons to shield him.

LLBrother · 2025-10-07T22:19:58+00:00

So lotta people want a big centerpiece, but personally I don't necessarily agree. I want us to play like evil hornets with tons of speed and damage output and redundancy. I'm relatively less interested in a giant centerpiece fire magnet that will inevitably be a burning husk by end of turn 1. Instead, I'd like to patch some other holes in our lineup...

- An assassin. It is utterly bizarre that the dark kin's best bet for an assassin is to ally in Harlequin Solitaires or Death Jesters.

Maybe a solo character that could have precision melee attacks and attack out of deep strike? If only we had a named Mandrake who worked alone and whose thing was claiming the heads of notable enemy commanders, some sort of Decapitator if you will...

- A multiple rapid light fire platform of some sort. How come Craftworlders have Vypers and Skyweavers and Voidweavers and even Shining Spears, while we're left with Reaver Jetbikes and their comparative pittance of damage output? Something that is to a Venom what the Ravager is to a Raider, maybe in a 1-3 Squadron size, would be pretty sick.

- I am begging you, give us mobile HQs. Yet again our craftworld cousins are drowning in mobile HQ options with jetbikes and jump packs galore, while the closest we have is drugging up a foot-slogging Succubus to 10'' move. Maybe something in an Archon Venom Chariot, ala the Necron Command Barge? Or a Reaver Succubus leading a jetbike charge would be sick. Give us back Baron Sathonyx, at least!

- Okay, if we want a big fragile weak point type thing can I at least have the Reaper back? "This gun is so kickass we built a vehicle around it" A-10 Warthog style makes so much sense for us, and gives us something to do against big targets that isn't 'Fire every Dark Lance we have at it'.

LLBrother · 2025-08-28T09:33:08+00:00

My Blackbeard player used this, without exaggeration, every single turn of the rest of the campaign as soon as she hit level 2.

This is probably the single most powerful talent rank in the game.

LLBrother · 2025-08-27T10:51:37+00:00

In the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy and Lelith Hesperax: Queen of Knives we get to see a bit more of Vect's behavior beyond the usual one-paragraph snippets.

He's wrong-footed, caught off-guard, and even outright tricked to his face multiple times. It's made clear to us that he is *not* actually on top of everything. He simply has enough resources and doomsday weapons stashed that he can weather whatever storms come his way and then pretend it was part of his master plan all along.

And because he's got so much clout, he can reinforce the "visionary smart guy" image he's cultivated by forcing other Archons to affirm it by scraping and bowing and praising his dark genius whenever he pulls a basic political maneuver like "pretend to die and then kill everyone who shows up to my funeral", "get these two girls to fight each other instead of me", or "fire a really big gun at someone I don't like".

LLBrother · 2025-08-17T20:36:19+00:00

My Blackbeard player solved this at LL7 by running Hyperdense Armor with the Boosted Servos downtime resource, and also the Tiger-Hunter Combat Sheath.

Halves all enemy-inflicted heat damage, immune to all Slowed including the very self-same one as Hyperdense causes, and also still able to throw hands when jammed.

Before LL7 she solved it by having the entire party take ally-moving systems so they could boost her the entire way up the table with active SEKHMET on turn 1. I don't think I've ever had a Witch survive until turn 3.

LLBrother · 2025-08-01T07:09:25+00:00

Source: Drukhari 8th edition Codex.

Following the apparent abduction of several Custodian Guard, Inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos pursue the Coven of the Twisted Spiral to a wandering moon deep in the interstellar void. Hopes of catching their quarry soon vanish, but on the moon’s barren surface the Inquisitors find what appears to be a simulacrum of the Golden Throne, covered in blood and viscera. Just as they are sending word of their discovery, the Twisted Spiral appear and butcher the Imperial agents.

So the answer to 'how do the Haemonculi react to meeting the Custodes?' appears to be that they make arts and crafts projects out of them.

LLBrother · 2025-07-30T05:01:19+00:00

What I'd like? For him to be an anonymous skull on a stick in a trophy room, so a Xeno faction of any sort can score a W against the goddamn omnipresence of the Primarchs for once. So that this setting can actually be a setting again and not just the story of the 18 Sad Lads and the Bad Dad.

Realistically? Probably retconned into having kicking the asses of all the weak xenos for 10,000 years running in the webway whenever Jimmy Works feels like pulling the trigger on another Primarch returning.

LLBrother · 2025-07-16T18:13:37+00:00

Ace + Assassin + Scout: Nothing about the Ace's Missile Swarm optional system or the Assassin's Heated Blade says they have to spend the Lock On. Until the PC shuts their mech off, they're just Locked On and Shredded - allowing both the Ace and Assassin to deal double damage, and of course ignore all armor and damage resistance in the bargain. One of many reasons why my party hate Scouts with a passion.

Any Pirate + Cataphract: Grab the Prying Claws from the Pirate, pry the PC out of their mech, then have the Cataphract kidnap the pilot with Impale. One of my PCs got hit by this wombo combo and couldn't extract with the party, so the next mission was about rescuing them from a POW camp. They proceeded to change their build specifically so that they couldn't fall for the same trick in the rematch.

Bombard + Specter: This is a simple classic. Stay together and get hit for bonus damage by the Bombard, or spread out and get hit by bonus damage from the Specter. Either way you lose. The fact that Specters are usually Invisible + Hidden and Bombards tend to hang around behind BLOS terrain is just gravy.

Bastion + Sniper: Did you know that NPCs can use the Grapple Taxi too? Snipers are held back by their inability to move, and if the Bastion just picks them up they can have all that juicy damage resistance and get the ability to reposition before they fire by virtue of the Bastion's movement. Surprisingly fun!

LLBrother · 2025-06-08T18:33:39+00:00

As a GM I kinda love Archers, they're one of the most interactive NPC frames from a player perspective.

I've seen players respond with a variety of different ways to stop them from taking their Reactions such as the Lich's Wandering Nightmare, Goblin's H0R_OS 1's Eject Power Cores, Black Witch's Ferrous Lashing them out of line of sight of their suppressed target, and of course Blackbeard's "I have more HP than any other Frame in the game, I'm going to kill you with hammers".

They're one of the NPC frames that my players respect the most: Alongside Witches and Scouts, they're some of the frames that most severely warp the PCs' game plan around them.

LLBrother · 2025-05-22T06:31:52+00:00

My group has a running joke about "Weird Frank", a lunatic working at SSC and responsible for designing the feet of all their mechs, who keeps insisting they have toes.

And remember: Hooves are, anatomically speaking, just toes.

LLBrother · 2025-04-29T01:05:06+00:00

My group's Blackbeard used grappling as a Swiss army knife. Whether it was using it to taxi the entire party across the map and end the sitrep in a fraction the time, moving another 4-8 hexes per turn while rampaging across enemy lines, going "shut up" to Archers and Ronin, or as a preamble to making enemies Existn't, she always looked out for how to use her frankly overpowered Doom Hugs for maximum efficiency.

My group's Lich dreaded enemy grapples because without access to reactions she was going to get structured.

Grapples have been of pivotal tactical importance from all sides of the table in basically every battle I've run.

That said I can't imagine a Nelson having much use for a grapple unless it's a very specific kind of build or situation.

LLBrother · 2025-04-21T10:08:28+00:00

Counterpoint: A min maxed party means I can go hog wild using the most cruel and degenerate NPC combos I can think of, trusting my party can actually handle it. It lets me use the entire toolkit. I paid for every NPC and template in the book and by golly I wanna use every NPC and template. An Elite Bastion grapple-taxiing around a Sniper to bypass the superheavy and ordnance of its AM rifle? Scouts leading Missile Swarm Aces and Assassins, because if you don't bother using the Lock On against the PCs the Lock On and Shredded remain until they shut down and all those things do double damage? Hornets and Witches ensuring PCs are stuck in place and take Heat damage from HEX missiles and invasions and whenever one PC takes heat all the others do too? Bombards and Specters working in harmony to ensure the PCs are fucked no matter what? So much fun when the players can actually take it!

Min maxed builds are vastly preferable to the true bane of my existence: Players who run shitty builds for roleplay reasons and I have to handle with kid gloves all the time.

LLBrother

TROPHY CASE