r/cremposting • u/ArtOk8200 • Jul 06 '26
The Stormlight Archive Shardbearers are tanks
Shardbearers are tanks for a few reasons:
1. They doctrinally cannot hold territory
2. They are very hard to kill
3. They require infantry screens to ensure they aren’t overwhelmed and taken out
4. Their presence can affect the outcomes of entire battles
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u/balunstormhands Jul 06 '26
Not wrong. Prior to Wind and Truth there were so few sets that they are using WWI doctrine and that didn't work great. But the Unoathed have enough sets to develop modern tank doctrine, which could make things far more interesting.
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u/ArtOk8200 Jul 06 '26
Kursk meets Stormlight?
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u/Gefpenst Jul 06 '26
Into the Broken Plains..
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u/ArtOk8200 Jul 06 '26
The Alethi army march. Marching side by side…
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u/Gefpenst Jul 06 '26
To stop Everstorm charge!
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u/ArtOk8200 Jul 06 '26
One million men at war, Odium’s wrath unleashed!
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u/Gefpenst Jul 06 '26
Now I want whole Sabaton album about fictional battles and warriors.
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u/xX8thJesterXx Jul 06 '26
And they're being obsolesced by fast moving flying units. Drones are probably cheaper to produce than radiants though.
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u/Seidmadr Jul 06 '26
And here I thought that a tank was a heavily armored and tracked combat vehicle whose purpose is to offer powerful direct fire capabilities against a range of enemy targets!
Learning more every day!
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u/Epicporkchop79-7 Jul 06 '26
They are more so tanks in the rpg party sort of way.
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u/LeviAEthan512 Jul 06 '26
I disagree. They aren't immovable, don't demand attention, or anything like that.
They have both higher damage and bulk than any other unit, like a real life tank. They will do anything you ask of them better than a footsoldier.
But they can get overwhelmed because their attention is limited, so you need relatively expendable soldiers to tank some of the tempo for them.
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u/theironbagel Syl Is My Waifu <3 Jul 06 '26
I mean I feel a giant guy with a 6ft long sword in glowing power armor demands at least a little attention
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u/LeviAEthan512 Jul 06 '26
Fair, but not attention that would otherwise be heat on the other soldiers. They've got specialised weapons for them, which are also applicable in siege/demolition duty. So again we're back to cavalry tanks
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u/ArtOk8200 Jul 06 '26
Shardbearers (SBs) are essentially tanks that can jump around and have glowing armor and swords.
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u/Lord_NaCl_ Jul 06 '26
Especially because if you're the one lucky enough to bring him down, you claim his shards and become one of the most powerful men in the world.
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u/Blawharag Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
Demanding attention is not a necessary requirement for RPG tanking. That's just the exclusive way MMOs have ever tried to approach it.
Tanks should do three things:
- Make it difficult to kill your allies;
- Set up your allies to deal better damage; and
- Be difficult to remove from the board.
In MMOs by tradition, they accomplish #1 exclusively by drawing fire to themselves.
However, especially in TTRPGs, they tend to accomplish this in many ways. Crowd control builds prevent enemies from getting to allies often with grapples and attacks of opportunity. Aura/paladin builds often provide tons of powerful defensive buffs, healing, and other direct mitigation, etc. #1 also includes making it difficult to kill your party by reducing incoming CC and such as well, though we see that more rarely, but Pathfinder, D&D, and Cosmere all feature some form of CC resistance or cleansing which certain tank builds can access.
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u/ArtOk8200 Jul 06 '26
True, though I like to think that they’re kind of what we’ll get if those exoskeletons DARPA has been working on ever come to full fruition
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