The Newcomers

The Newcomers is a lcp containing all of the homebrew mechs that I've done. It imagines what comes next in Lancer lore: the IPS-N's latest projects unveiled, the newest of HORUS's horror shows, SSC's next step in their Firmament manipulation undertakings, the first results of HA's forays into the Dawnline Shore.   It seeks to even out and fill in the gaps in each manufacturer's ensembles, in mech size and combat roles. Additionally, it includes two homebrew manufacturers, the Royal Karrakin Foundries and Endsea Interstellar, both designed with the intention of keeping to vanilla balance and flavour as closely as possible.

The Newcomers also attempts to make further use of, formalise, and put a name to a mechanic that occasionally pops up in Lancer official and homebrew content: Blind. Blinded characters may only draw line of sight to adjacent spaces. The Newcomers treats Blind as a condition that can be cleared by means such as Stabilize or a Support's Empowered Cloud.

Placeholder artworks sourced from RetroGradeMinis (https://retrogrademinis.com/) with permission. Lancer RPG is owned by Massif Press and Miguel Lopez and Tom Bloom. Please don't sue me.

POLL: Please follow this link to vote for which frames you would like to see art for next! You can pick as many as you like. https://strawpoll.com/Q0Zp7pzXAgM

DISCORD SERVER: If you wish to chat with me, give feedback, or find a place to connect with other players using the Newcomers, i've set up a Discord server now. https://discord.gg/9GWAEqH2DV

As of the most recent update, the currently available mechs are:

FULL LICENSES:

IPS-N:
The Queen Mary: A huge artillery platform made to hold ground and support allies. Equipped with tools for withering long-range bombardment and a devastating close-range broadside. Like a Lancaster, if it was designed by someone who really liked Blastoise.
The Grey Ghost: A stealth sniper that takes advantage of Hidden to get places, land its shots, and evade the enemy. Able to shoot at theoretically any range. Like a Call of Duty spawn camper.
The Osedax: A terrain-eating support that uses what it consumes to shield allies and place cover in advantageous positions. Not usually that harmful, but can turn nasty when threatened. Its licence makes it more durable and dangerous to engage up close. Like a hangry, armored giant centipede.
The Calypso: A counter-hack specialist that makes use of Bolster and creates a storm of electromagnetic interference. Like Thor if he was really nice and wanted to make his friends happy instead of hitting things with a hammer.

SSC:
The Jezebel: A mischievous close-range hacker that lives life on the edge and focuses on disrupting the enemy. Uses the Firmament, also known as voidspace, for its high-risk plays. Like that kid on the playground who made up rules to get their way.
The Comet: A race mech turned combat asset that wants nothing more than to zoom. Speeds up its allies, hinders its enemies, launches ten ton rods of tungsten towards targets at mach fuck. Like Lightning McQueen if he did crack.
The Luna: A self-sacrificing, slow-moving, song-singing support that applies various buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies to turn the balance of power. Can share health and remove debuffs through spooky Voladores tech. Like a Cleric from DnD.
The Argus: A precision striker that uses blinkspace to attack from behind the safety of cover, ignoring the need for line of sight. Wants to sit in its little safe corner and murder people undisturbed. Like the quiet kid in an American school.

HORUS: 
The Revenant: A lifestealing tank that wants a continuous train of enemies to slay in melee and keep itself alive with. Resistant to tech attacks and dying. Like a Death Knight from World of Warcraft, but as a mech.
The Cambion: A javelin-throwing fire demon that specialises in Thrown weapons and Burn damage. Is comfortable in close range or melee, and feeds off of enemies with high Burn stacks. Like Heimskr from Skyrim if he turned into a batshit insane pyromaniac.
The Rakshasa: A shapeshifting creature that uses Blinded and Shredded to take an enemy hostage, steal their identity, and tear their friends apart. Thrives in chaos. Just don't get it near fire. Like the Thing if -- who am I kidding, it's almost exactly The Thing. Its whole lore/flavour is based off The Thing. It's The Thing.
The Tarrasque: A hulking monster of a mech that uses artificial gravity generation to pull foes in and devastate them. A loner that works best when allies stay away and enemies come in close.  Like difficult terrain if it was a mech.

HA:
The Odysseus: A rescue mech that makes the most out of cover and elevated terrain. Good at finding targets, supporting its allies with Lock On and dealing steady damage at mid-range, while being annoyingly hard to pin down. Like every FPS game protagonist ever.
The Zhukov: A sturdy, dependable defender that protects its allies from the front and melts away enemies with its shield. Works on constantly building up and expending heat to do so, whilst continuously marching forward. Like if the Saladin and Genghis had a lovechild.
The Caesar: A battlefield-controlling megalomaniac that would make the OG Caesar proud. Creates advantageous ground for allies and gives enemies nowhere to go. Breaks the action economy and doesn't apologise for it. Like if the actual Julius Caesar became a Lancer mech.
The Jeanne: A fast-moving, fearless melee devastator that lunges in and doesn't want to leave until the enemy has been carved to pieces. Has an Achilles heel in tech attack vulnerability, but don't tell the GM that. I may or may not have reworked this after playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Like Guts from Berserk, or any other anime protagonist that likes big swords.

VARIANT FRAMES:

IPS-N:
The Vane: Tortuga variant. A mech that fills a size gap between the Tortuga and Caliban, excelling in using CQB weapons while finding its own niche in demolition and breaching cover. If the enemy has walls, the Vane is there to tear them down. Like Sledge from Rainbow Six Siege.
The Bellamy: Nelson variant. A scrapper that feels like almost a complete opposite of its counterpart. Excels in using Repairs and Braces to weather heavy damage and come back almost unaffected, despite the fact that it looks like it came out of a dumpster. Like Atom from Real Steel.
The Naglfar: Vlad variant. A ghost ship come straight out of Davy Jones's Locker, doing its very best to out-impale the mech whose licence it is attached to. Trades some frontline tankiness for tech attack capability, but is still nasty in close-range combat. Like Messmer the Impaler from Elden Ring.
The Sycorax: Caliban variant. A deep-sea creature arriving from the edge of known space to wreak havoc on skirmishers and melee mechs and anything else that likes running past your frontline. Makes sure that hostiles only have eyes for it and not the allies it's protecting. Like a pissed-off robot kraken.

SSC:
The Harlequin: Dusk Wing variant. A mech co-piloted by a memelord NHP that plays fun pranks (read: inflicts Impaired as much as possible) on hostile characters and Jams them when they try to protest. Focuses less on evasive action and more on close-up mayhem. Like Loki if he became a mech, but the mythological one, not the lame Marvel one (pre-TV-show).
The Atala: Mourning Cloak variant. A venomous mech that tears away enemy armour and becomes a giantkiller when it has its core power active. Small, stealthy, and speedy. Total rogue archetype. Like a robot ninja with poisoned knives.
The Hercules: Atlas variant. A scrappy size 1/2 brawler built to find some poor sucker, grapple them, and simply tear them apart with its bare hands. Made for DnD Halfling Barbarian enjoyers and MMA enthusiasts alike. Like the Zheng's angrier little cousin.
The Sallow: Emperor variant. A fallen member of SSC's royalty corrupted into something new. Messes with allied/hostile character targeting. It's very giving, or very selfish, depending on how you build it. I'll be honest, this thing could be very busted or very weak and I have no idea which it is. Like a tragic fairy tale villain.

HORUS:
The Demogorgon: Gorgon variant. A similarly creepy stalker-y mech that is about twice as neurotic as its predecessor. Instead of being geared toward protecting allies, it seeks to find a single target and rip it to shreds before moving onto the next one. Might need to be lead around by allies sometimes. Like an Alien from Predator tripping on mushrooms.
The Remorhaz: Hydra variant. A snakelike monster that, instead of fielding a ton of drones that give the DM a headache, focuses on protecting one that moves with it and has amplified range. Has increased Threat range on melee and Nexus weapons, and some slight body horror in its flavour. Like a walking, angry blender.
The Imp: Goblin variant. A lesser hacker that makes several trade-offs in return for a single-minded focus on melting down enemies as quickly as possible, at great cost to itself. Good for taking down enemies with high evasion but low heat cap. Like a kamikaze pilot, sort of.
The Beholder: Pegasus variant. The result of an intelligent, reckless, and slightly high HORUS operative fucking around with an omnigun and finding out. My attempt at making a mech with multiple heavy mounts work. Don't mind the whispers about snakes, they're not important. Exactly like a Pegasus, just inside-out.

HA:
The Knox: Barbarossa variant. A largely-immobile gun platform centred around being ultra adaptable. Able to make use of just about any ranged weapon and do something awesome with it. Capable of getting around Ordnance. Like a mobile artillery piece with a dozen different skins.
The Sobieski: Sunzi variant. A cheeky in-and-out skirmisher that is incredibly squishy but incredibly potent at the same time. Wants to get close to enemies and annoy them before popping back into a safe area. Keep it away from snipers. Like a mole in a whack-a-mole machine.
The Mannerheim: Iskander variant. A more frontline-oriented bomber that does away with subtlety and simply blows shit up. Can alter usually-non-damaging explosives so that they do deal damage. The best part? It doesn't take damage from its own explosives. Chuck them at your feet all you want. Like that little bomb guy from League of Legends (eugh) or Nashu from Final Fantasy XIV (not eugh).
The Hannibal: Gilgamesh variant. A sort of all-rounder like the Gilg except with a slight lean towards control. Benefits a little from everything on the licence (I hope). Its core power gives an excellent area denial tool and lets you shut off an entire section of the map from hostiles. Like, um... that one anime thing that I'm forgetting right now. I'll get back to this later when I remember it lol

Artist credits:
Alex Wyvern on the Discord server for the Argus and Rakshasa placeholders
Joseph Cooper https://je_cooper943.artstation.com/ for his (incoming) work on the Caesar and Luna's sketches and the Endsea Interstellar logo
Moony on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/user/RevolutionaryEast358 who hasn't contributed to the LCP per se but did a fuckin cool Queen Mary 3D model lol

Please note that this LCP is a WIP, and all content is subject to change, and some features may not function automatically in VTTs due to my LCP editing skill issue, and you might have to manually track their effects.

Thanks for reading. Have fun, and please give feedback if you end up using The Newcomers in your games!