S5 HI is old tech, but plenty of factions take the frames and update them with cutting edge gear because it's cheaper and more cost effective to them. Notably, PanO doesn't do this, who are the equivalent of "the west," so it's sort of like how nobody designs 3rd and 4th gen level capability attack jets any more, but a lot of nations have 3rd/4th gen attack jets with better missiles, radar etc stuck in. Serious, military dominant powers with force projection do not however. (The Yan Huo is big purely so it can mount TAG sized weapons, and this new troop was more a conceptual prototype needing more work that was rushed out with dated stopgaps to its design problems).
Very likely, yeah. BTW Achilles V2 is mimetic S2 ARM 6... and I'd bet several other Aleph units reach ARM 5+ (the Mk4 proxy does)
We're the StateEmpire. Saving kittens is what we do. The booklet in the new box is, obviously, the story of Yu Jing struggling to save a kidnapped kitten from that Kuge Delegate before she can deliver it to the Kempeitai.
ARM is really not a thing to base the discussion on. IMHO discussion should be based on other S5 statline. ariadna: Blackjacks are S5 Arm 5 Bts 3 (should be archaic tech) YJ: Yan Huo are S5 Arm 5 Bts 3 (should be cutting edge tech) they also have Hac Tao which has S5 statline on a S2 chassis. Haqqislam: Al Fasid are S5 Arm 5 Bts 6 (should be old tech, maybe upgraded?) Azra-il are S5 Arm 5 Bts 3 (should be old tech) Panoceania: Various S2 HI with statline comparable to other's faction S5 HI Nomads: Kriza borac are S5 Arm 5 Bts 6 (should be upgraded old tech) Taskmaster are S5 Arm 5 Bts 6 (should be upgraded old tech) EI/CA: Sogarat are S5 Arm 6 Bts 3 (should be cutting edge tech- for human standards) Charontid are S5 Arm 6 Bts 6 (should be vodoo tech) Aleph: Ajax is S5 Arm 5 Bts 6 (ok, it's a synt, but it's fairly close) A couple of other S2 HI with uber-stats. There seems to be a couple of "strange points" for S5 HI Mainly: Yan Huo is described as a "top tier S5 HI" made with latest tech, by the "HI faction". yet it has BTS 3 as a far older Azra-il Blackjacks are BTS 3, as the far newer Azra-il. now, i can understand ARM 5 on the BlackJack since teseum is used, but i really can't understand BTS 3 on a thing that should be in a museum. Apart from that, the scale issue is really a thing. I played against a Blackjack with my Gecko and the blackjack is really bigger than a S6 Tag silhouette. How can that go prone?! Sogarat are BTS 3? really? it's a value that IMHO is a bit low, considering that the Morat tech, while not vodoo tech, should be at least comparable to cutting edge tech.
Not even 9am and I have already read my most mind boggling statement of the day. Abnett is an utter hack, and Gaunt's Ghosts are ripoffs of better war writers given a thin veneer of a unimaginative setting seen as unique by angsty teens. Any of his original work falls absolutely flat in terms of structure, as well as his prose being stilted and trite. There are better black library writers, but none of them can hold a candle to the story in Outrage in terms of pacing and insight.
Infinity fluff cannot stand up against Ciaphus cain books, until we get the comic series of fusilier angus
Got brought up elsewhere but does anyone else spot "ariadna vs combined army" Could just be CB didnt update the overlays
Debating whether BL fluff or Infinity fluff is better is like debating the merits of Tang vs. Koolaid. Lots of people enjoy both, but it doesn't make either good.
Oops. Shas earlier than expected then? The sneaky camo 2-player starter? Seems more likely it's just left over from the Dire Foes though.
Outrage, the manga that copies part of the middle/end of Takeshi Kovacs #3 (Woken Furies)? You should be more careful when throwing darts ;) As for Dan Abnett... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Abnett_bibliography But if you want others, I welcome you to read Charles Stross (who, btw, spawned a Call of Cthulhu-derived RPG from his The Laundry series), David Weber's Honor Harrington (for a Mary Sue that you don't hate, and books interesting to read up the latest three or four which are just doorstoppers with little interest; even if it was an Horatio Hornblower homage), or Timothy Zhan (for example with his Thrawn trilogy, so good Disney saved Thrawn from the Expanded Universe Dissolution), or Kim Butcher (Dresden Files, also with a Fate-based RPG game, or Codex Alera, a saga spawned after a dare on how he could write a successful story from two bad ideas: lost roman legion, ...and Pokemon)... Should I keep going? And yeah, I have read all of those.
Black Library is on the rise, in my opinion. There's some great writers there now. Obviously there's some duds, but they also do some cracking books.
Oh man if that's all you remember about Watson novels you need to go and give them a re-read. He actually made space marines interesting by portraying them as homicidal and schizophrenic lunatics rather than pages and pages of "Yes, brother, I shall pray on it while I oil my bolter". Also, yes, GW used to have a sense of humour before everything became GRIMDARK [tm] to appeal to non-UK and younger audiences, who wanted their fictional space super monks to be more realistic goddammit.
Stross actually has a history with RPGs as he created the Githzerai, Githyanki, and Death Knights back in the day. John Scalzi also does some great military Sci-fi, Old Man's War was a great read and an interesting premise
