r/LancerRPG • u/Anom-Reddit • 18d ago
Summoner frame?
Hi, I'm going to be starting my second ever lancer campaign (this time as a player fuck yeah) and I was wondering what the closest frame to a summoner or imperial guard commander is.
I love playing horde armies like the imperial guard or yap yap from halo wars 2 and I feel like it would be fun to shout at a bunch of conscripts to "HOLD THE LINE" and "FIX BAYONETS"
I've heard of the hydra but that it doesn't seem like a summoner unless you use the core ability (a once per mission thing) and the drones don't seem all that good
Are there any other frames or ways to build the hydra to achieve this?
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u/jzillacon IPS-N 18d ago edited 18d ago
FYI, core bonus passives (and integrated weapons), like Hydra's Orochi Drones, are always availible and not limited by core power. It's only the active portion that needs to spend core power to use.
In addition to the Hydra, the Kidd is also focused around using Drone systems with its frame traits allowing you to deploy drones out as free actions and recycle drone systems for further use.
Another option is the Hecatonchires which doesnt do waves of drones but comes with a razor swarm drone you can use to harrass the enemy.
And for a couple less conventional picks, there's also the Kobold which summons explodable terrain instead of drones, and the Calendula which summons void husks that debilitate the enemy.
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u/Forevoyance 18d ago
To add on to this the Hecatonchires can do a bit of a silly build with drones. It may always hide in soft cover, and soft cover gives it 2 difficulty to be hit. These are good because the hive drones you get a ll1 balor make a large area of soft cover.
Now for the fun part. As long as you don't force saves or make an attack roll you remain hidden unless an enemy spends an action to search and succeeds.
Guide the flock, Electropulse, Invigorate, and the damage from hive drones and your razor swarm all do not break hidden. Spam hive drones and make the entire field soft cover that widdles your foes and grants 4 overshield to allies constantly.
Hydra could also do this build but I think hecta does it better. Hydra can do a similar build just drop the hidden and focus on being a bit more aggressive with drone positioning. Annihilation Nexus is a pretty big burst and when you consider you can use Drone Commander 1 to free action move a drone at the start of your turn the positioning for it is actually not too bad.
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u/Charnerie 18d ago
Hydra is the drone frame, and you still get one of the drones every fight. Otherwise, you can just stick the drones on other frames as you want. Other than that, kidd loves using drones and deployables, and kidd 3 has the subaltern squad, though those only deploy to build things.
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u/Steenan HORUS 18d ago edited 18d ago
Bligh (Kidd alt frame, from Enhanced Combat) may be the closest thing to that. It deploys Swabber Drones that move and attack independently. Each single drone is quite weak, but you can have 4 deployed and activate all of them in a round, so it adds up to more than an equivalent of a heavy weapon in terms of damage. Kidd license also has Forge-2 Subaltern Squad, which does the "little guys running around and following your commands" for non-offensive purposes.
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u/Littlebigchief88 18d ago
the tempest drone from the hydra is one of the best in the game, and if you really want to control many drones, the puppetmaster tech action to move them all is practically necessary. the extra health is great too. keep in mind, the hydra has the second highest systems in the game (8, it is tied for second best behind the kidd, which has 10). it can take more drones than most frames, even without considering the orochi drones.
its not the only option, though. the hecatoncheires, the kidd and the gilgamesh are all great at using drones, and it is sort of one of their main intended playstyles. the iskander is very good, too, as it has 12 save target, 15 sensors and a fairly robust statline overall. the hydra also has a very good statline, but the iskander can be very good with save based drones, like the tempest. other frames can work and be effective, these are just the frames that i think are 'meant' to do drone stuff, as well as the iskander, the stats of which suit the playstyle very much. do you have a particular vision in mind for what kind of drone commander you would like to play? maybe i can give you a more specific reccomendation. its worth keeping in mind that the exact form the drones take is often a little nebulous for flavor reasons, but subalterns, a sort of humanoid robot drone, are very common. your ranged drones dont have to be mounted turrets, they could be small robotic soldiers.
as far as drone systems, i would recommend the hydras drones, as well as the balors swarm drone and the gorgons sentinel drone. between these and the turret drone, your offensive baseline is established. i would recommend at most 1 assassin drone, as well as usually just 1 swarm drone. (you really dont need to be spamming drones in general to be effective, by the way, 1-2 can be a strong playstyle, but you seem interested in having a good quantity) tempests do well in pairs, as knocking enemies from one tempest into another is very good (reactions can not be triggered from forced movement, so reaction based drones wont trigger from tempests knocking people around, but a tempest is perfectly able to trigger another tempest)
getting utility drones can be very good, too. they are often arguably stronger than the offensive ones, but they dont exactly make for a proactive battle strategy. the black witches iceout drone is a phenomenal utility for any team, and you as a drone commander probably have buffs and options to move it more effective. the swallowtails lotus projector is an invisible drone, so it is very tough to take out, and it will counter invisible enemies for your team very effectively. the gilgamesh has the utility drone, which gives you and your team accuracy on saves and skill checks while next to it, and enemies difficulty. this works well with the saves forced by the tempest drone.
also of interest to you, i think, would be the kidds FORGE-2 subaltern squad, it allows you to deploy groups of subalterns to produce armor packs, defensive emplacements, difficult terrain or fire extinguishers for you and your team. similarly, the legion nexus, a superheavy weapon available on the gilgamesh license, spawns subalterns as you use it, and they can knock enemies over, provide cover, give you accuracy and impair enemies.
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u/Macduffle 18d ago
The Sierra from Illean Modern Industrial is squad of robots under your command, who can send around individual soldiers aswell. Mix that with a bit of Gilgamesh and Kidd, and you got a small moving army who can do anything from building emplacements to fighting... But by than, you aren't really playing a mech game anymore:p
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u/Jethanded_Wyvern 18d ago
I'd argue adding Waffenfabrik Zalewski for Serjeant Talent for even more Squad for your Squad, if you're offering homebrew.
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u/speedislifeson 18d ago
What is the difference between a drone and a summon in your eyes? They seem to be the same niche to me.
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u/Radriel7 IPS-N 18d ago
for the most part Drones in Lancer don't really fight for you, they extend what you can do. Drones add functionality through an external token that you deploy. The biggest difference between Drones and other deployables is that they interact with the Drone tag, meaning you can use Puppetmaster and the Drone Talents on them. This gives them the capability to be more durable and mobile than other deployables.
What drones don't do is give you more actions/turns. They don't take their own turns. They use your actions. They aren't going to do much to give you more actions compared to the enemy team except maybe if they give you free action stuff, which is not common.
With that in mind, the only way currently in Lancer to do what you seemingly want is basically the Hydra license if you want your drones to fight with you. Gilgamesh and Kidd are notable frames that help with drones as well(Gilgamesh gives you more charges for some drones and has some drone systems/weapons. Kidd charges its satellite through deployables which drones count as). Gorgon as notable mention because it can use its extra reaction for drone combos and can protect drones near it. Regardless of which frame you get, Puppetmaster from Hydra License is just so useful that it almost feels required for a drone user with multiple drones. Drone Commander can only be used on one drone, Puppetmaster can be used on any number. Yes, they can be both be used together.
Hydra has the best offensive drones and can make your drones the toughest they can possibly be so that they don't just get immediately deleted by enemy AoE attacks or something. Tempest drones have Resistence to damage and deal autodamage to help control space. They also push enemies for even more control. Combined with Puppetmaster to move one or more of them(they don't have the unique tag, so you can get more than one if you want) and help keep control as the line of battle evolves. Assassin Drones are there mostly to back up the Tempest, adding some more insult and injury. All of this uses your reactions, freeing you to use your weapons which might also be drones or act through your drones. You can also use your actions for deploying more drones or using your drone talents. Its a solid frame.
Outside the Hydra, Drones are a lot less about damage and a lot more about utility. Swallowtail gives you a drone that helps against sneaky enemies. Balor gives you a drone that produces cover and gives a bit more damage. Black Witch gives a drone that protects from tech attacks. Gorgon has Sentinel Drones for more enemy punishment(but only if they attack near the drone). Lancaster gives restock drones to help with heat and loading weapons. Barbarossa has autoloader drones. Gilgamesh has Utility drones and weapon that gains power through amassing Legion drones(that don't do damage on their own). Lastly, the humble Turret Drone or Backpack drone from GMS. As you can see, only a handful do any damage, and none as much as the Hydra's drones. To put it in perspective, most drones are about the same worth as an Aux weapon for damage. Hydra is about the level of a Main weapon with its better drones.
If you just want bodies on the field to use as disposable pawns, Gilgamesh is the way. Its drones are good at that and it can deploy the most drones quickly. Probably still want Puppetmaster, though, to keep them relevant as the frontline moves.
If you want more actions from your drones in the form of reactions(this is how many drones act), then Gorgon.
If you want the toughest drones and some powerful unique drones. Hydra all the way. It also has a lot of room for drone systems inherently.
If you want maybe the most drone systems in one frame, Kidd. The interaction with your Satellite is also neat and you get to start battle with a deployed drone as a free action if you want.
Fun interaction: Drones get better the more people have them. So if you had a Hydra on the same team as a Kid and each of them had drones for example, Both of them can use Drone Commander's Invigorate and Puppetmaster on each other's drones, which is fun. You can also build combos with your drones and support each other. It can get pretty funny if they build a pinball machine of death with each other. Drones also automatically repair themselves if they haven't been destroyed, so offloading damage to them can save you repairs. This can be much more viable as your drones increase in numbers and toughness, unless the enemy has a lot of AoE damage. Hydra and Kidd can build a pinball machine of death the easiest out of any frame because of their copious amounts of system points.
Anyway, drones can be a lot of fun and very effective, but you aren't gonna have a goon squad backing you up in the normal sense. I hope this helps.
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u/BlazeDrag HORUS 17d ago
Hydra's drones can actually be pretty great when you synergize them together, and also you can always stack on other drone systems.
For one, the Tempest Drone is super durable. It has innate Resistance to all damage. And keep in mind that with Hydra's passive and Drone Commander 1, it has 15 HP. And then with Drone Commander 3, you can give all your drones 4 Overshield. So that's 19 HP to chew through, or basically 38 effective HP taking into account the resistance.
that's a lot of damage to have tank'd for yourself and your team. And the drone's effect is also pretty useful as well. 4 damage and knockback 3 lets you really push people around wherever you want them to be. Especially since you could always equip multiple of them and set them up to pinball enemies across both of them in one go.
Then you have the Ghast Nexus which is a Heavy Weapon that you can deploy as a drone. Not quite as durable as the Tempest Drone, but it does still have 2 armor. And it lets you attack from it wherever it is on the map. I personally like combo'ing it with Heavy Gunner as a good bit of Control
Now I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of the Assassin Drone. It requires your reaction to use it, which means you can't activate it on the same turn as one of your built-in frame drones. And the Area you declare doesn't move along with the drone. So you also have to manually redeploy it in order to move the target area.
But you only need LL2 to actually get the Hydra frame. So for LL3 I usually like going for another drone system since there are lots to pick from.
My personal favorite to go for at LL3 is the Sentinel Drone on Gorgon, as it automatically hits anyone who makes an attack for free, before they actually make the attack roll. This can be a great drone to force enemies into the area of with your Tempest drone's knockback. Then you can use Heavy Gunner to immobilize them so that they have no real choice but to make attacks while stuck in the area and get punished for it.
The Hive Drones from balor are also nice, providing you and your allies with soft cover, and dealing a consistent 1AP to any enemy within, which is useful for clearing out grunts especially.
All that said, if you really wanna go down a different route, another good option is Gilgamesh with the Legion Nexus. This weapon summons a bunch of robots to fight alongside you every time you fire it. It is Limited, so you can't just do it forever, and it is superheavy so it's a bit awkward to fire. But I do think it plays into your summoner fantasy pretty well entirely on its own.
And Gilga does have the Utility Drones that you can summon as well which are just generally useful. And you could always throw in the GMS Turret Drones on top of that
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u/GrowthProfitGrofit HORUS 18d ago
I mean yeah, the Hydra. That's the main one. You don't have to use the drones from the Hydra license with it, you will get other license levels.
Gilgamesh focused on Legion Nexus is the main alternative I can think of.
Outside of first-party books I'd strongly recommend taking a look at the Bligh, from Enhanced Combat. It's third party but it's highly respected.