LANCER: An Armored Core Fan's Best Friend
From a Lancer to all the Ravens and Hounds, welcome.
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Because Armored Core 6 is coming out right around the time of this article's release, I thought I’d make one detailing the connections between the two, and how with a few tweaks you can run an Armored Core style Lancer campaign of your own. If you want to continue the story of Armored Core, or write a completely new one in the setting, Lancer is the system to do it in. I won’t go into the details of writing out a campaign plot, but I can give considerations as to how one can approach the atmosphere, mission structure, and overall feel of the game.
Customization
Armored Core and Lancer are extremely alike in one key way: Customization. While in Armored Core you can swap out just about any part of your mech, in Lancer you can swap out the functional weapons and systems, and then dictate what your mech looks like. Either way, you get a lot of control over how your mech operates.
That said, Armored Core generally has some restrictions in its world. It’s much more grounded as a setting. However, Lancer is great for reflavouring things because so few item and ability descriptions are set in stone: For instance, paracausality isn’t as much of a thing in Armored Core, so for example the Hydra splitting itself apart to make drones may be reflavoured as a large array of drone deployment hardpoints. Things like NHPs might be sufficiently advanced computers and hardware to achieve things similar to what NHPs might do in Lancer. The TLALOC-Class comes to mind as being a hyper fast targeting system, which draws power from movement systems. Different talents can simply be different small scale modifications a pilot has made to their mech.
Additionally, more or less every mech has some sort of flight system, so if you want the true AC experience, your players may want to at least consider a Rapid Burst Jump Jet system.
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Manna
One of the key aspects of mercenaries is they get paid to fight. Lancer abstracts away a lot of the resource management of a money system, which can become a bit of a hassle to manage. However, it can make running a game about mercenaries trying to manage credits and buy gear without going too far into debt a little… flat.
Enter the Manna system from the Long Rim expansion for Lancer. It is a more granular system that requires you to purchase upgrades for your character. You earn Manna by completing objectives. Objectives can vary from 50 to 700 Manna in worth. It takes about 1000 Manna to level up under the base system, or if you want to do the full system you can have each type of upgrade (license, talent, skill trigger) have an individual cost suggested in the book. The end result at LL12 is still the same, as you cannot take each option more than 12 times, but it does afford some more flexibility in character customization, a feeling of resource management, and a feeling closer to that true AC income-versus-expenses feeling.
Objectives
With the Manna system comes the need for a rework of how you think about objectives. In short, you’ll want your missions to have some combination of primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives. Primary objectives are the things the mission is based on, the main goal of what the Lancers need to accomplish. Failing the primary objective is basically failing the mission. Taking out a pirate base might be a primary objective.
Secondary objectives are smaller but still significant to the mission, though more aiding its completion than determining it. Snatching a specific piece of data related to a research facility or rescuing an HVI (high value individual) might be secondary objectives.
Tertiary objectives are fairly easy to complete but not a huge deal. These might be “challenge” objectives like sticking to non-lethal operations or taking a certain NPC alive.
Difficulty
It goes without saying that Armored Core, being a FromSoft title, is a challenging game, though not quite in the way of Soulsborne games where every enemy can feasibly kill you if you’re not careful. In Armored Core, at least the more modern era on which I’m basing this comparison, the bosses are often the main point of difficulty in a level, but this is also partly due to attrition of resources. During an Armored Core level, you often wind up expending some resources fighting minions before your confrontation with the boss, making the encounter more challenging.
This is actually reflected in Lancer almost one-to-one. Over the course of a mission, your players will expend resources like Overcharge (yes, that is technically a resource, closest to Energy), Repair Caps (Repair patches in Armored Core 6), and Limited systems (which is the closest thing to ammunition expenditure you’re going to get). The only thing that Armored Core doesn’t have that Lancer does is the loss of weapons and systems through structure damage, but this isn’t a big issue.
Additionally, a lot of the times bosses have much more health and action economy than a typical mook. Guess what Lancer also has? Ultras are your best friend, with plenty of health and activations to keep your players busy. Though, don’t make the mistake of pitting Ultras against players alone: your “super tough” boss will get murdered by action economy. It has 2 turns where the players have 3-4, and 3 turns where the players have 5. Not a winnable fight, and I simply do not care how many overpowered systems you put on there, it’s not going to last. Throw in reinforcements. While you’re at it, throw on some extra templates on the Ultra too, like Veteran or Commander. Or both if you wanna get real feisty. If you want to make a “single target” boss, you can hack this by having multiple enemies be specific targets on a larger entity.
Just keep one thing in mind: Lancer is generally balanced around two to four combats. Throwing everything at the players in a single combat is not the way to go.
Atmosphere and Vibes
If you’ve played Armored Core, you know the vibes of the game. Cold, hard mercenaries fighting for cold, hard credits. No rules of engagement aside from what Legal says is kosher. Mercs are beyond disposable, but the mechs sure as hell aren’t.
If you’ve played Lancer, that basically describes Mirrorsmoke Mercenary Company, barring the disposable mercs and priceless mechs bit. But you’re already tweaking the universe more than a little to achieve this anyway.
Either way, the Armored Core universe also dials in on the debt and transhumanist aspects of mecha, so be sure to focus on those. An ideal setting for this is the Long Rim or the outer lines of Union space, where Union’s Utopia hasn’t quite come to pass. This is the perfect opportunity for some less than legal action, snagging resources from rival mercenary companies and taking contracts from corprostates without asking too many questions.
Conclusion
Armored Core and Lancer are practically a match made in heaven. The gritty nature of both settings lends well to a conversion between the two with some adjustments for tone and lore. The systems of Lancer and its Long Rim expansion also mimic Armored Core in terms of attrition, progression, and, to some extent, difficulty.
Happy Lancing, Ravens and Hounds!
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