All the lore is propaganda though. All of Steel phalanx stuff is written by Thamyris, who is a story teller designed to make the Phalanx look good for the human sphere. Think about the number of units in their descriptions who are described as “the best in the human sphere” only to look at the profile and realize they’re just another bs11 mook. I am also significantly bummed that Achilles lost his burst bonus. Forcing six armor saves on targets with multiple wounds was always awesome. Plus, Achilles without frenzy doesn’t even make sense. The whole reason Patroclus and Penthesilea exist are because Achilles keeps loosing his shit and going on a murder rampage.
I think the Hoplite version is the Paradiso commander, still young and hotheaded, while the pajama version is a more veteran and mature version, like Phoenix. Which doesn't make Patroclus or Penny useless, but more critical, since when the blondie needs extraction will be in much more hairier situations now.
Well, after recording last night's episode I'm more excited than ever to play some more Steel Phalanx! I think I'm going to convert myself an updated Pat, I really want to put that profile to use. Just a bit of a head swap, chopping off the collar, and giving him Steel Phalanx style shoulder pads, should be pretty straight forward.
I sympathize with the mediocre state of our golden boy, but I think it's a lost cause at this point. He's not in the good graces of Aleph anymore, and she can be a bit whimsical at times. I always imagined Aleph sending brief requests for new recreations (in all caps) to an increasingly bewildered team of Deva developers: Joan of Arc I'VE BEEN PLAYING FATE STAY NIGHT AND THERE'S THIS GIRL CALLED SABER THAT... Ajax (Project Boyfriend Mk. I) BEEFCAKE! Saladin GUYS, I JUST SAW THIS FILM WHERE ORLANDO BLOOM IS A TEMPLAR AND... Achilles (Project Boyfriend Mk. II) JAIME LANNISTER IS COOL NOW! Patroclus BF WANTS AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP KIND OF DEAL SO... William Wallace JUST UNFREEZE MEL GIBSON AND SLIGNSHOT HIM INTO DAWN Penthesilea SHE'LL BREAK HIS HEART AND WHEN HE COMES BACK CRAWLING I'LL... Hector (Project Boyfriend Mk. III) I THINK I'M READY TO SETTLE DOWN AND I NEED A SMART GUY, BLUE EYES... You get the point. The A-Man is not the new hotness and Aleph is all about her new toys. Given time, maybe she'll pick up our boy again once he's been humbled enough. Just remember: Andromeda got buffed time and again to see if we got the damn message and bought her figurine already. Just wait for the v1 resculpt.
That definitely makes my “watch a movie while painting” list every time I get excited about Steel Phalanx.
Since Joan, Wallace and Saladin led their campaigns in Age of Empires 2, my headcanon has always been that Aleph is really into old RTSs
Hey, it's completely plausible. Her robot bunny form is max Strategos, so I guess she's big into RTS and can do a fast-castle while laying down suppresive fire in Paradiso. I always pictured Aleph as a vastly intelligent AI that has developed strange quirks thanks to the Internet she's been gathering info from (and that is the sanitized Internet. Let her learn from the Nomad network and she'll grow out to be Furry Skynet). Also a lowkey weeb, because some concepts hace certain similarities. Also some other people under her are also suspect, even if they're not directly commissioned to the Deva dev. team.
All the quirks are what makes people relate to their benevolent AI manager. She may be a superintelligent artificial intelligence, but she's also just one of the people. Gods i love how the different factions use propaganda in this game.
At this rate we should make it a series. Anyhow, I have a small tournament next week and I'm expecting to see many a link with an ARO sniper with some sort of visor (Kamau, Grenzer, Frontovik... everyone and their mother has one of those nowadays). I was thinking about bringing our gorilla fighter in chief Draikos to deal with those pieces, but I have my doubts about his profile: - He can close the distance with his albedo, but he doesn't have good odds at beating a linked Grezner or Bolt even at optimal distance, so he needs to get within flamethrower range... -...at which point one has to wonder if he's durable or nimble enough to get there and... -...is there any other tool that fulfills more or less the same role but better? Things like him having a shock CC weapon instead of a AP or DA or his mediocre stats (for a greek hero) kinda rubs me the wrong way, but I know I can get some mileage out of him in scenarios like Panic Room or against Imperial Service. So, folks: Thoughts? Alternatives?
It's tough. Pat can do surprise shot HMG shoots, but they've got 6th sense from their link. Using Scylla to give Marksmanship to a Zayin is an option. My personal favorite tool to take a sniper out, though, is an Ekdromos. 20pt guy jumps down behind the building and then super-jumps up to double template him. It's map dependent, but has worked well for me. If you've got 5 extra points to spend, then making him a hacker is great value. It's easy to forget the profile is WP14. We also have Diomedes as who can parachute in and shoot the sniper with great rangebands from the side, but he's a bit expensive.
I've only tried the Ekdromos once, but having failed the 2/3s chance to get him into position that time I'm wary of something that needs to pass that roll to do so, or do you take Scylla/probot with Evo?
I grab Scylla as an EVO and like to bring 2 Ekdromoi for the sheer value they produce. It's also nice to have fairy dust for Ajax, Hector and/or Pat. A Zayin with Assisted Fire is never bad either.
I'd like to use ekdromoi, but sadly the tournament is mostly scenarios with rules like confused deployment (i.e: a dismal solution to try to fix balance issues between factions by increasing the random element in a mission that was horrible in design to begin with) or exclusion zone (same as before, but thankfully less random), so I'm more or less forced to leave the more exotic options at home and do the classic greek blitz. Phoenix will have a grand time, I'm sure.
Oh geez, that sucks. Punishing a whole aspect of the game like that doesn't sound like a great tournament decision. Then I guess the only decent solutions are trying to win by high burst with a linked spitfire Myrm/HMG Thora or outsnipe with Atalanta, though those are risky gambles. A Zayin with EVO support can shoot with decent numbers as well. Drakios or Pat don't really work as a counter due to 6th sense. I look forward to the fireteam changes we've been promised so I can hopefully use these good boys more. Depending on the map, could also just try to avoid engaging the sniper with Eclipse grenades from Machaeon/Eudoros/Officer/Hippo
