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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Raylah
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Raylah

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Do we even have any 'normal' colonies?


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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Timemaster
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@Raylah What are the Rejected in your nation?
Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by ClocktowerEchos
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@MetalWeight@Tortoise Thanks, I'm glad people enjoy these shitposts from me

Bretonnia also definitely had an influence on my writing. "Blessing of Colonia" is basically "Blessing of the Lady" which gave a ward save against ranged attacks instead of all attacks. The King's "Beloved Son of Augustilia" is literally just Louen's "Beloved Son of Bretonnia". The massed "send in the next wave" thing came from a 40k 7e character ability from the Tempestus Scions of all places and the thought was that on like whenever a unit was killed, on a 6+ they'd come back as a "new unit" the following turn and Red Army improved it to a 5+ while allowing them to run further. Honestly, Augustilla would be perfect for square bases because of their Formation Fighting rule. I considered giving them something like the Estalian "Tactical Supremacy" and "Tercio Formation" from Warhammer Armies Project, but I figured that "tactical" and "Augustilian leadership" probably didn't mix.

The quote about bravery is taken from Italians of WW2. I remember a quote saying that "they lacked everything except for bravery". And given the shitty equipment they were sent to fight with against much more well armed foes (F to the guy who had to use a tankette in 1944 with only two crappy bredda machine guns), I'd say it fits.

EDIT: I just realized I confused the ECU with Augustilia and "Oligarch" with "Noble/Duke". Fuck.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by ClocktowerEchos
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@Tortoise Think that as GM, you ought to get one now

Codex - Earth Cultural Union

Lights! Camera! Action! New Hollywood demands a show and the ECU's army will give a performance worthy of Old Earth. Through the power of showbiz and literal movie magic, the ECU military will dazzle, woo and wow both the viewers at home and the divergent, degenerate abhumans before them. The ECU alone are the true heirs of Mother Terra and the paragons of humanity. With the lessons of the Savants to guide them, victory is all but assured!
Special Rules

  • Hardlight Hologram - Units with this rule are unbreakable and have a 4+ Ward save against all attacks. EMP attacks however automatically wound if hit.
  • Purity of Form - Units with this rule gain Hatred against any non-baseline human unit, allowing them to reroll attacks and wounds. This rule does not apply to alien or non-human units.
  • Student of the Savants - Units with this rule may take a Savant's Lessons upgrade.
  • Star of the Show - At the start of the game, designate one character as the "Protagonist". Reroll a failed saves on this character and any unit within 12" can use the character's leadership instead of their own. However, killing the Protagonist nets the opponent double the amount of points normally they'd normally gain.

Play Style

PURGE THE UNCLEAN The ECU is an army with mediocre units boosted by some excellent rules and synergies. Which is good since unlike most other factions, you're stuck with unaugment humans. You don't even have near-unbreakable troops like Augustilia. But unlike Augustila, the ECU excels at weakening the enemy to the point they can fight them, especially with their Purity of Form special rule.

Before we get into units, we need to talk about the cornerstone of the ECU: the Lessons of the Savants. There's both selfish, self buffing ones and AOE aura buffs. These can dramatically change how a unit behaves from giving new abilities to simple stat improvements. However, only Oligarchs can take them (you can take them on Oligarch Heirguards and Enforcer Captains but Heirguards prefer self-buffing ones and Captains require you to also buy a Script of Wisdom for them). Thus keeping your Oligarchs protected and safe is very important to get the most out of your boring, unaltered troops. Also always refuse Challenges, you can take the Leadership hit and discretion is the better part of valor; its not cowardice, its survival. Good luck getting an Oligarch to 1v1 a Vampire or Enhanced Hierarch.

Holograms make for incredible tarpit units, on par with the Midnight Technocracy; they won't kill a lot but they can hold for an insane amount of time given that they're unbreakable and have a 50/50 chance of straight up saying "no u" and not taking a wound. Lessons of Savant Gabor makes them even more sticky by increasing their ward save to a 3+ and letting you resummon 1 hologram per turn on a 5+. Not exactly the vampire's undying horde but Holograms are arguable stronger than them anyways. Once your enemy is bashing their head against a hardlight wall, feel free to either flank around and destroy them or go grab objectives. EMPs though are your enemy and you have no easy way of stopping it.

ALT: Instead of just using them as tarpits, Holograms can be used in a supporting role as well. Holographic Horrors already give an 9" AOE fear to everything around it and the Rod of Romero gives any unit Fear for a turn. A blob of 30 Holograms suddenly turning into a blob of shimmering monsters can fear a lot of units if they're in base contact. Throw a Holo-Controller into your list to give your Holograms some more toys to play with. "Spectral Dazzle" forces enemies to reroll 6's to hit which gimps a lot of powerful exploding 6's abilities and "Iron Curtain" projects a wall that either gives a -1 to hit from range or force enemies to reroll charges and take the lowest. "Illusionary Support" isn't as good as it used to be as its not capped at 10 temporary holograms who can't even cap points. For even more troll-tastic fuckery, give your non-Hologram units Spotlights and/or Firework Cannons to blind and slow enemies even more.

The biggest downside to Holograms is that they don't have Purity of Form but that is where you Protectors and Enforcers come in. Free Hatred on most of your army is good, but Lessons of Savant Byrne makes it even better. Having an Oligarch list of Byrne's ramblings give you exploding 6's to hit, giving you a free attack for every 6 to hit. The ECU also has access to one of the strongest single items in the game: Relic of Old Earth. Usable once per game, it basically gives any unit Killing Blow, letting them completely ignore any armor, ward or invul save. An Oligarch with a Lessons of Savant Byrne and Relic of Old Earth can make a fully kitted out Augustilian Duke or Vampire sweat nervously hilariously enough. Even a unit of Stagehands with the same buffs can grind through Chosen Enhance Hierarch Guard or Augustilian Grenadiers with good rolls.

Special mention to Savant James Herald. This silver fox stands alone among all named characters and he's the only motherfucker who lives up to the title of "Savant". He can take up to three (yes, THREE!) Lessons on himself for an easy deathstar build. While his combat stats are just barely better than a normal Oligarch, his Neo-Matrix Training ability and Bullet Timer Watch item makes him insanely hard to kill or snipe out without the need for Star of the Show. Note: Herald must be the general of any army he is a part of but SotS doesn't have to be. You can make a pretty cheap meatsheild Oligarch with SotS, Lessons of Savant Irons and Hardlight Defense Field to "dramatically and heroically sacrifice themselves" by tying down the enemy and taking challenges for Herald.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Sigma
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Nice work with the Codex entries :)
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by ClocktowerEchos
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@Sigma Thanks I'm glad people are enjoying them
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by datadogie
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Yeah, they're pretty awesome!
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by ClocktowerEchos
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@datadogie Because I'm on a roll and am shit at doing actually important things, here's one for you.

Codex: Zelrio Corporation

For some colonists, living on a hostile world despite constant dangers and threats is a mark of skill and bravery. For the wise its a sign of stubborn stupidity that's likely to get you killed. The Zelrio Corporation has spent lifetimes among the stars, becoming masters of rapid deployment and precision orbital attacks. Their resources are vast and their forges never tire. Hardened by the void and taught by the lessons learned at the hands of the Vacuarians, Zelrio is about striking fast and striking hard for prolonged wars are costly and wasteful. For Director and Company!

Special Rules

  • Feet First into Hell - At the start of a game, up to half of your army can be put in Deep Strike reserve to land from orbit starting from Turn 2. When a unit lands, they reroll failed hit and wound rolls for the rest of the turn.
  • Drone - Units with this rule are Unbreakable and Vulnerable to EMP. In addition they may benefit from Combat Protocols.
  • Drone Controller - Units with this rule can change the Combat Protocols of Drone units.
  • Orbital Strike - Once per game, for every full 1000 points of units you have, you can make d3 artillery strikes per 1000 points to represent a orbital bombardment.
  • Strategic Redeployment - Units with this rule automatically gain an additional 3" of movement when they are within 6" of an enemy but are not in melee with them.


Play Style

Zelrio is practically SAS but in spaaaaace. And with robots. They're all about lighting warfare and hitting hard on the turn they drop and praying they don't get into melee. It turns out spending most of your life in 0G isn't great for muscle density. Its very easy to annoy and frustrate your enemy with your movement gimmicks and your deep striking. With half your army in reserve, when turn 2 comes you could easily have soldiers in every free bit of board there is.

Your human forces are pretty good all things considered. Marines and Combat Controllers are good fighters with a number of upgrades although they can only take one per unit. Flashsmoke Bombs let them withdraw from melee combat when they are charged but BEFORE the enemy does damage rolls that can be combined with Strategic Redeployment. Targeting Beacons is basically an unkillable high altitude drone strike good at taking out heavy armor. Drone Command Nexus lets your guys give a Combat Protocol to 1 Drone unit within 6" of them. Vacuarian Veterans are interesting as they replace the bonuses you'd normally get the turn you jump out of a drop pod with flat stat boosts; you'd basically trading the upfront damage Zelrio normally relies on for more consistent performance after they land. Reinforced Drop Pods is just and expensive meme: instead of taking something actually useful you can opt to have your troops land on an enemy target as basically a kamikaze as once they get out, they're stuck in melee with no way out and you have to roll a d6 for every model inside and on a 1, they take a Mortal Wound. Security Forces are your worse performers but their special rule of having each model count as two for purposes of Objective Secured makes them great at camping contested points. Give them Vacuarian Veterans so they can actually do something in a fight and have them sit on objectives.

Drones make up the much cheaper bulk of your army and where most of your consistent heavy firepower comes from. Combat Drones are cheap chaff that just spew bullets but take to what few buffs your army has quite well (seriously, they're super cheap. A full unit is only little more than half the cost of a Marine unit). Sniper Drones are long ranged high AP snipers who can take Hyperkinetic Coilguns to let them snipe enemy characters, ignoring cover, Line of Sight (as long as another unit can see them) and Look Out Sir. Breacher Drones are your most heavily armored unit, coming with a pistol and an alloy shield. ALWAYS give the the shotguns they can take, their pistols are literally more effective as melee weapons than ranged weapons due to the Breacher's high strength and lower ballistic skill. Suppression Drones are basically walking fire support that can take either a heavy machine gun or a flamethrower. The flamethrower is more directly lethal but their machine guns literally cut any charge roll against them in half so you can put them in front of your other units to stop zealous units from charging them head on.

Drone Walkers, Howitzers and Conveyors are the only ground vehicles you can use. Drone Walkers are just shit. They're too expensive and don't do enough although you can pull off some cheese with them put sticking a Sniper Drone on top for instant high ground combined with some defensive abilities like Guardian Protocol. Howitzers are your horde breaking units unless you want to kamikaze units with a Reinforced Drop Pod. And Conveyors are glorified APCs that your guys can come in on instead of dropping in. Looks bad on paper but Commander Heperd lets you gain the bonuses from Feet First into Hell when disembarking out of a Conveyer. And you can get back into Conveyers as well. Refreshing combat buffs anyone?

The most important part about Drones however is their Combat Protocols. Each Drone unit can be assigned on Protocols at a time and have to be changed by someone else with the Drone Controller special rule. If they aren't given a new Protocol, they will stick with their original Protocol unless destroyed or changed. Guardian Protocol grants a 6+ Ward save to all units in a 6" bubble. Assault Protocol grants additional movement and additional attacks in melee. Firefight Protocol lets Drones reroll 1's to hit. And Distraction Protocol decreases enemy hit rolls by -1 in a 6" bubble around the Drone.

Note: Due to how the rules are stated, you can have a force entirely made up of Drones if you feel like LARPing as the CIS from the Clone Wars. If you do this, BRING A DRONE EXPIDITIONARY MANAGER. He lets you bring back fully destroyed Drone units as deep striking units the next turn. Its rainin' men drones! Hallelujah!

Zeliro also comes with a host of solid characters but rather specialized in what they can do. Drone Network Specialists let up to 3 Drone units within 18" get Combat Protocols while Orbital Engineers are poor in combat but can repair vehicles, bring drones back from the dead on a 5+ and destroy terrain or lay powerful mines with Mining Explosives. Named characters like Captain Pryce give even more buffs to Combat Controllers when they jump out with FFIH and even the Corporate Representative has a use as a super cheap item bearer. Take the Vacuarian Remains for the leadership bubble, Laser Designator marks a target and gives any unit +1 to hit against it and Shield Drone Escort grants a 6+ Ward bubble that stacks with Guardian Protocol. Hazard Pay is useless though, don't use it, it rewards you for getting closer to melee which is something you do not want to do. The Bombardment Spotter is a noob trap, unless you have a huge list with a ton of shots, he's just too expensive and can't do anything besides giving you the maximium possible number of Orbital Strikes, doesn't even increase their power.
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Crusader Lord
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...The premise is making me curious about this place. Also see a few familiar faces. XD

o/
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Tortoise
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@Raylah
Yowza, that's a tough cookie. It's approved, with some fear of the chaos that military could release on the Galaxy

Feel like the ECU would love these guys, tho.
✓ Pure humans
✓ Dominates aliens
✓ Military gov't basically functions as an oligarchy

But then, just to crush all the nice synergy I had started to imagine:
Art is not forbidden, but it is considered to be entertainment for the losers and unworthy - anyone who wants to climb through the ranks cannot be seen watching a theatrical play or painting a picture.

Guess they wouldn't like Holographic Suite entertainment, huh?



@ClocktowerEchos

Oh, very well done.

Honestly, "Good luck getting an Oligarch to 1v1 a Vampire or Enhanced" could probably just be straight copy-pasted into my NS and it wouldn't be wrong.
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@datadogie Because I'm on a roll and am shit at doing actually important things, here's one for you.


Oh my god, that's fantastic! You're absolutely amazing <3
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by ClocktowerEchos
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@Tortoise I feel like the Vampire Technocrats is what the Oligarchs wish they were/think they are. I'd love to see some mildly racist Oligarch try to grandstand a Vampire with trivia or knowledge only to get absolutely verbally slammed in response. 100 years of studying and personal research seems more productive than a few decades of partying.

@datadogie Glad you like, I'm always a little worried about the liberties I take with theses lol
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Raylah
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@Raylah What are the Rejected in your nation?


They are all humans, the Rejected are just those who werent able to pass the tests to become troops. It can be for multiple reasons - they might have some physical disabilities or just be weaker than the rest, trying to rebel against the society or any other reason that comes to mind. I imagined the babies that were thrown off a cliff in Sparta, but the scope will be a bit broader here.

@Tortoise
Thanks. They arent primarly set on dominating other planets or fighting other fellow humans, mostly just set on surviving at all costs.
And as for the ECU - there is certainly some room for diplomacy, although the Undefeated would oficially see ECU as weak and degenerate and not worthy of an alliance (unless there is a large scale war). There is a lot of room for trade and some unofficial dealings as well. The Holographic Suite is a nice idea, officially it would be great for training simulations, and unoficially, well... throw in a Saving private Ryan tape and some pretty girls and boys simulations and you got yourself a deal!
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Hidden 3 yrs ago 3 yrs ago Post by Tortoise
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Here. We. Go.

@datadogie
Just to make it clear: the ECU is headed to you first. I had to pick somebody, and you know what, space station people sound pretty cool. We'll see how this works out.

(But anyone else can visit the ECU, of course! Heralds will be there to greet you )
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Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Sigma
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Need to hurry up and finish my own sheet. Want to get in the action :)
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Timemaster
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@Raylah My troops are called The Rejected as well, hence why I'm asking :)
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Tortoise
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I feel like the Vampire Technocrats is what the Oligarchs wish they were/think they are. I'd love to see some mildly racist Oligarch try to grandstand a Vampire with trivia or knowledge only to get absolutely verbally slammed in response. 100 years of studying and personal research seems more productive than a few decades of partying.


Yeah, the Noocracy is corrupt through and through. Once upon a time the Oligarchs really were legit geniuses, raised out of a society of scientists, but now it's all about social-climbing and keeping the populace docile. Knowing how to manipulate other Oligarchs with your speech, and the populace with the Holographic Suite programs that get made, is now more important to them than any kind of science or research.

Likely course of action: the Oligarchs act diplomatic face-to-face, but behind the scenes they pump out a ton of holo-programs about heroic vampire-slayers and get their people all riled up against the undead just in case
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Raylah
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@Timemaster Oh sorry, I didnt really read all the nation sheets in detail before making mine. I can change that if you want, it is not a problem. And they arent really using it as a name, it is more of a description of a group of people than an official label.
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by Timemaster
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@Raylah It shouldn't be a big issue, just that I'll refer to some of my people as The Rejected and not to cause confusion.
Hidden 3 yrs ago Post by MetalWeight
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