Verification Photo
Hello again MiniSwap!
I am looking to sell ONE of my TWO beautifully painted AOS armies becasue I don't have as much gaming/painting time these days since becoming a father. Both armies are fully painted and based and full of great detail. I hate to throw around the word "professionally painted" but these definitely meet that standard. I have been painting a long time and you can check my post history if you want to see my work and commets on the models. I think my prices are very resonable if you do research and compare. I paint purely for the joy of it and to see the models fully realized on the tabletop. It is not a business for me and I am not trying to gouge anyone with the prices.
Check out all the photos below!
Sylvaneth Photos
Stormcast Eternals Photos
My Sylvaneth Army is painted in the traditional color scheme and has thematic forest/medow basing. Very large force with several options for army lists and beautiful centerpiece models like Alarielle and the Lady of Vines.
---ASKING $1,600---
My Stormcast Eternals Army is painted in a custom oxidzed bronze paint scheme and is based in a desert dunes style. Similarly, this army has a wide variety of units to use and plenty of centerpiece models like Krondys and the Stardrake.
---ASKING $1,600---
I know this is a big ball of cash to drop at once but I gurantee you will be impressed with the models' quality and don't underestimate the 100's of hours that have gone into assembling, painting, and basing these guys.
If you have any questions at all please let me know! I can provide painting schemes/guides, army lists, anything you need.
PLEASE I am not looking to part these models out at this time so don't ask. Shipping can be discussed in a DM.
All Models Below:
SYLVANETH
Battletome: Sylvaneth
Alarielle, the Everqueen
The Lady of Vines
Warsong Revenant
Druanti, the Arch-Revenant
Drycha Hamadreth
Spirit of Durthu
Treelord Ancient
Branchwych
Treelord
32x Dryads
15x Tree-Revenants
5x Gossamid Archers
3x Kurnoth Hunters w/Greatswords
3x Kurnoth Hunters w/Greatbows
6x Kurnoth Hunters w/Scythes
Endless Spells: Sylvaneth
3x Wyldwoods (Sets of 3)
STORMCAST ETERNALS
Battletome: Stormcast Eternals
Krondys, Son of Dracothion
Stardrake
Knight-Draconis
Stormdrake Guard
Celestant Prime
Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear
Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger
Bastian Carthalos
Knight-Judicator
Lord Imperatant
Knight-Vexillor
Knight-Arcanum
Knight Incantor
5x Evocators
10x Vigilors
15x Vindictors
3x Praetors
3x Annihilators
3x Annihilators w/Grandhammers

73 Yards confused the hell out of me on Saturday. I think me watching it at midnight was partly to blame, but it was certainly an episode that forced me to dust off and use my brain. Upon my rewatch, I kept some notes on my phone to help me analyse it. I called the notes “unWTFing 73 Yards” and wrote the following as the analysis. I decided to expand on it, format it a bit, and force it onto you lot.
Couple disclaimers first. As I wanted to try to analyse the episode without outside aid, I’ve avoided reading too much into what other people have said. That said, I can’t say I fully succeeded. RTD’s explanation played a big part in this, and I did read a bit into the post-episode discussion. Finally, I’m aware that this episode based itself on Fae magic. I know nothing of Fae magic, nothing at all, and I decided against doing any research in my analysis. I felt that the episode should stand on its own feet and was best analysed without any understanding the context of its inspiration. Chances are, I may have missed something, maybe even something big, because of that. Time will tell when I read up on Fae magic.
So, to summarise, everything except the following is my own interpretation: RTD explaining the Doctor and Ruby being punished, Ruby’s fear of abandonment playing a major role thematically (I did pick up on this in my first viewing, but it’s safer to just say it here anyway), and the involvement of Fae magic. Also, the fact there were no opening titles… Not quite sure how I missed that! I've purposely avoided reading any posts, so as many of the ideas written here are my own, but I expect most, if not all, has been said by other people. Anyway, onto my interpretation.
The episode acts as a character piece for Ruby Sunday. Given that I’ve felt Ruby to be under-characterised thus far, this is a much needed, and wholeheartedly welcomed, episode for her. The episode’s plot utilises the series’ novel, openly fantastical direction, that RTD set up in Wild Blue Yonder, through presenting the narrative in the form of “nightmare logic”. In my opinion, RTD has managed to utilise the fantasy approach brilliantly here. Space Babies and Devil’s Chord didn’t sell it for me, and Church on Ruby Road slightly did. Here, however, RTD really lets the storytelling potential show. I don’t know if I consider 73 Yards to be the greatest thing he’s ever written (like he himself stated, apparently) given that Midnight, Turn Left, and Children of Earth exist. But I can certainly respect anyone who does agree with him.
The episode is Doctor-lite, Gatwa’s presence in the story is minimised. This absence, coupled with the absence of opening titles, might be a technique in which RTD (or perhaps director, Dylan Holmes Williams, who deserves credit too) hints at the episode’s fantastical nature. The episode’s plot abandons the science-fiction approach, which (albeit often loosely) follows a form of traditional logic, even when telling stories with a fantasy element. The absence of the Doctor and titles might be a way of connoting the episode’s unconventional premise; that it does not follow Doctor Who’s traditional approach in storytelling. It’s withholding the safe and familiar, thrusting viewers alongside Ruby, into this unfamiliar territory where something’s not quite right. It’s a way of telling the viewer not to interpret this episode like any other; there is no “logical” plot-thread, so trying to apply traditional logic here is futile.
The Doctor’s disappearance, and Ruby being haunted by the woman, is explained by RTD as punishment for breaking the circle. As stated, the episode’s narrative doesn’t follow a “traditional” thread of logic. Instead, it follows the logic of a nightmare. As the one who broke the fairy circle, the Doctor’s punishment is to be erased from the universe. As an accomplice, Ruby’s punishment is to live her life with her greatest fear realised. She is perpetually abandoned.
The woman is an analogy for Ruby’s fear of abandonment. It makes her adoptive mother abandon her, including taking out an injunction against her. It makes Kate Steward and UNIT soldiers, all of whom are trained in anti-brainwashing, also abandon her. Kate’s abandoning especially is done to bring the audience into Ruby’s position. No way would the Kate we know fall for it, we know Ruby is safe with her. We know UNIT will step up, solve this mystery, and bring the Doctor back! We know that… until she isn’t, and they don’t. Abandoning Ruby is wildly out of character for both Carla and Kate, there’s no logical reason for them to do so, and that’s the point. Nightmares and fears aren’t logical; these out-of-character behaviours thematically illustrate the illogical nature of anxiety. There is no way in hell that Carla would brutally exclaim that even Ruby’s birth mother didn’t want her. Ruby’s relationships falling through due to her preoccupation with the woman is an analogy for Ruby’s fear of abandonment interfering with her ability to form meaningful relationships. the woman remains at a distance, never approaching Ruby but always staying near, "semper distans". The woman never interferes with Ruby's life unless Ruby does something to prompt the woman to speak to someone, be it as someone to talk to her or get the woman to scare a politician; an analogy for Ruby's fear being self-destructive, people abandoning her due to self-fulfilling prophecy. Not matter how hard she tries to ignore the woman, like her fears, it never goes away. Semper distans, never approaching, never straying, like fear itself. It all leads to the natural question of what exactly does the woman tell them? What could make then respond with such fear and disgust? One answer is simply nothing, that the audience never knows is part of the illustration of anxiety. There really is nothing that would lead to them having that response. It's also possible that the woman informed of the Doctor and Ruby breaking the fairy circle. Kate's look of absolute disgust, refusing to investigate a potential extraterrestrial or supernatural threat; Carla wanting nothing to do with Ruby, to the extent of getting an injunction; an ap Gwilliam, a newly elected, extremist prime minister, dropping everything and resigning. What could make Ruby scare and disgust them? An interesting line comes from ap Gwilliam upon being asked why he resigned, "ask her". If we consider RTD's words that the narrative follows Ruby being punished for something, then the idea that the woman told them of the Doctor and Ruby breaking the circle fits. It's not something that would lead any of them to react like that, which is where the nightmare logic kicks in. It's as if Ruby is being told she's done something wrong, but not what it is. It realises her fear, being abandoned but not knowing why, leading to her feeling it's because nobody wants to know her, but it's also telling her to work out what she did herself.
The role of Roger ap Gwilliam, and his connection to the circle, is unclear. My interpretation is that he is not intrinsically connected to it. It would be logical to consider "Mad Jack" as some kind of demon that had been entrapped in the circle before the Doctor inadvertently released him. RTD pre-emptively defuses this notion early by building it up through the Welsh pub’s occupants, before subverting it and revealing them as a merely joking, literally laughing off the idea. Furthermore, this subversion is foreshadowed by Ruby’s asking if she can pay via her phone. The landlady’s confusion implies Ruby is in the past, however this too is revealed as a joke at Ruby’s expense, subverting the notion that this episode is a “creepy, rural historical”. It's RTD subtly rejecting the "typical" Doctor Who story in this instance. In a sense, it is RTD picking up on a writing technique often used by Moffat; utilising a subversion to make a statement on what something isn't.
If Roger “Mad Jack” ap Gwilliam is not an escaped demon, the question remains: what is he? The Doctor mentions him when he breaks the circle, and Ruby reads the name “Mad Jack” on the circle — which ap Gwilliam later identifies as an old nickname used for him. Perhaps it is the Doctor mentioning him that made ap Gwilliam relevant, as if the circle picked up those words. Ruby takes the name as an indicator that by “defeating him”, the curse on her is lifted. Perhaps that is why “Mad Jack” is written in the circle. A message for Ruby, a task provided to give her the opportunity of redemption in the force’s eyes.
RTD stated that doing so, using the curse for good, saving millions of lives, led to Ruby and the Doctor being forgiven for breaking the circle. However, as Ruby was not immediately rewarded for stopping ap Gwilliam, there is perhaps more to it than that. Ruby stopped him and lived for four decades longer. She dies having not become bitter by the loneliness caused by the curse, she even toasts the woman a few times. This is not without hardship, obviously she struggles. She breaks down when Carla rejects her, lashes out in public when Kate does the same. It pulls her down but never breaks her. The woman in the party she volunteers for is a mirror of Ruby. Living in a nightmare, but relenting to it unlike Ruby, who takes action for as long as it takes. She tells the TARDIS that she never found her birth mother, yet she retains hope at the end. She describes having hope as very much like the Doctor. I believe it is this moment that might just cement Ruby’s redemption in the eyes of the circle’s forces. To stop ap Gwilliam for the sake of ending the curse could perhaps be seen as selfish in nature, an act done for self-gain, not of repentance or altruism. It’s both stopping ap Gwilliam and Ruby’s words to the TARDIS that grants Ruby a second chance.
The Doctor describes the circle as “charms and spells, hopes and dreams”. The word, “hopes” here is notable. If the fairy circle represents hope, then Ruby’s words of hope, her lack of bitterness, to the TARDIS could’ve been taken in by the circle’s forces as a reflection of both her and the Doctor. An understanding that Ruby stopping ap Gwilliam was not done solely for Ruby’s self-gain. In that, the forces behind the fairy circle deemed her as sufficiently repentant, or perhaps that she and the Doctor did not break the circle out of maliciousness, and rewarded her with a second chance. Furthermore, it is also possible that part of the “test” was that Ruby wouldn’t allow the disappointment of stopping ap Gwilliam leading to nothing making her bitter. Ultimately, if one considers the circle’s forces as evaluating Ruby, it’s plausible that the events of the episode are them observing if Ruby is worthy or being spared, or something to that effect. It is also plausible that Ruby being taken back to the moment the circle was broken was another, final test. To see if Ruby now understood why all that happened did, and if she would do anything to make amends and prevent the circle being broken.
While the episode strongly implies an elder Ruby is the woman following her, this implication leads to the notion the episode exists within a time-loop. As far as I see it, there are two possibilities here.
The first possibility is that the woman is Ruby, having failed to prevent the circle breaking when returned to the moment. It’s possible that the woman is a version of Ruby who grew bitter and continued the cycle, leading people to abandon her, due to that bitterness. When one considers Ruby using the woman, her curse, to save the world, the episode presents a moral: to use the hardship you’ve endured to better others. With that in mind, the woman could be the inverse of that. Allowing hardship to consume you, leading to you inflicting suffering in others, especially yourself. The episode would then present itself as a time-loop, testing Ruby over and over again, in a sort of purgatory, until she got it right.
The second possibility is that the old woman took the form of an elderly Ruby, but isn’t Ruby herself. Ruby as the woman at the episode’s climax is the only time Ruby is the woman. In this scenario, why the woman took Ruby’s form is perhaps done so as a warning to Ruby. The woman is dressed in black. A colour associated with death, mystery, fear, authority, and the occult, all relevant here. The warning could be implying Ruby’s potential of dying alone, her face unknowable to suggest Ruby as forgotten, abandoned by the world — like someone nobody notices, as supported by mention of the TARDIS’ perception filter. The woman realising Ruby’s fear of abandonment is a warning of the kind of person she could become if she let that fear consume her. A self-fulfilling prophecy that only Ruby herself would lead to her being abandoned. In this instance, the episode would not be a time-loop, meaning Ruby gets it right the first time round (perhaps, she wouldn’t be given another chance if she didn’t).
Whichever you prefer is up to you. It could even be a mix of both. Personally, I like the ambiguity of not knowing which one is the case. Adds to the mysterious nature of the woman and the circle’s forces. The ability to erase the Doctor from the universe suggests a god-like force, one that’s perhaps unknowable. Both the Doctor and the woman in the pub suggest the cliffs are a boundary between land and sea, where all is possible. This echoes the edge of the universe in Wild Blue Yonder. RTD hints once more at the episode’s fantastical nature by calling back to an episode where the antagonists were of a nature beyond understanding. With this in mind, it is perhaps futile to ponder on the intentions, reasoning, or even nature of this mystical force. As he did in Midnight, RTD fails to provide answers on purpose. The narrative does not require these explanations, nor would it benefit from them. Like the Midnight entity, it is better to leave the mystery as a mystery. The Doctor implies so at the end, suggesting they “give them their respect” and “let them rest in peace.”
I've already stated that RTD utilises a Moffat subversion trick, and this episode is one I would describe as a 'Moffat episode penned by RTD'. A common theme we saw in Moffat's era, though not unique to him, is the companion becoming the Doctor. RTD himself did this too, however his approach is more Moffat-esque than it was in his first tenure as showrunner. RTD tended to punish those that became too much like the Doctor: Rose risked death, had the Doctor not saved her, upon becoming the Bad Wolf; and Donna, like Rose, risked death had her memory not been wiped of the Doctor after she became too much like him. Cristina was a potential companion who paralleled the Doctor to an extent and was outright refused the opportunity to travel with him (she was, however, given the given the consolation prize of a replacement flying bus service). Moffat took a more optimistic approach best observed with Clara, who became like the Doctor and was rewarded with technical immortality, her own TARDIS, and a companion. Here, we see Ruby become like the Doctor and be rewarded for it. Ruby states she has hope, much like the Doctor would. She saves the world using a tactic that the Doctor would. Note the orange top she wears, the colour that has come to define Fifteen, highlighting that he has had an effect on her. Two key aspects of Moffat's era are the notion that anybody could be the Doctor, and that it didn't matter that the Doctor was fictional, they could impact anybody, even the viewer. RTD echoes these themes in Ruby. Becoming like the Doctor, in his absence, led her to besting her fear, which in turn serves the episode's moral. The Doctor is technically the first one to "abandon" Ruby this episode, and she returns to the TARDIS to "talk" to him of the hope she has at the end. She's conquered her fear of being abandoned.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Russell T. Davies script without a good ol’ political statement, and 73 Yards is no exception. Upon my first viewing, I was somewhat critical towards ap Gwilliam as a character. I believed he and his politics were shallowly defined, and somewhat extreme. Too extreme to be believable, in my opinion (yes, even for a 2024 audience — then again, with how bad the 2020s are, God knows what the 2040s will be like). Upon reflection, it‘s better to have not done so. For one, ap Gwilliam and his politics are given as much explanation that the narrative required. Further elaboration would be a waste of screentime. Secondly, I feel that ap Gwilliam isn’t the political figure in this episode; Ruby is. It’s not an episode about politicians like ap Gwilliam, it’s an episode about their followers. Ruby volunteers for ap Gwilliam’s party. Her reasoning for doing so is owed to her curse, her fear of abandonment. My read is that RTD is making a statement that those who turn to extremist politics do so because they have unresolved, personal issues. They turn to extremist politics because they blame the world around them, projecting their issues outwardly rather than attending to them inwardly. Ruby’s decision to volunteer comes off the back of a break-up, an analogy for this being the response to grief and hurt for many people. Ap Gwilliam’s politics are irrelevant, only that he is extreme. Granted, Ruby volunteers with an ulterior, altruistic motive, but I feel the point stands regardless. It works to the themes I’ve discussed in this post; one can use their hardship to help others and make the world a better place, or let it consume them and spread further suffering until things spiral out of control. It’s entirely possible that this is why the fairy circle made “Mad Jack” the target of Ruby’s redemption. Perhaps to teach her that value. There is also a lesson here in respecting the cultures of others. RTD stated that the Doctor's uncharacteristic disrespect led to the episode's events.
But one last question that I have is this: if the fairy circle was intending to teach Ruby a lesson, what good is that if she can’t remember? Well, perhaps she does. Deep down, without knowing so, Ruby does remember. When the episode begins, Ruby mentions having visited Wales twice. At the end, she says she visited three times. When the Doctor asks her the third time, she dons a confused expression before suggesting, “now”. This could indicate that Ruby has, though means beyond our logical understanding, retained something of her “purgatory” life. She says “three” times, not four or five, leading me to think she only “remembers” being the old woman at that moment. She doesn’t remember the “purgatory” life, but perhaps she remembers the lessons learned if not the events surrounding them.
Annnnnd that’s all I got. Just a couple notes, of course, nothing too elaborate. I did write them without a format so I’m hoping I’ve formatted it in a way that’s more readable. Overall, I think that was a fantastic episode. Space Babies was a rough start for me, and I enjoyed Devil’s Chord but not as much as others. Now we have Boom and 73 Yards, I’m glad to say that we. Are. So. BACK!

0 0 Fallout4.esm
1 1 DLCRobot.esm
2 2 DLCworkshop01.esm
3 3 DLCCoast.esm
4 4 DLCworkshop02.esm
5 5 DLCworkshop03.esm
6 6 DLCNukaWorld.esm
254 FE 0 ccBGSFO4044-HellfirePowerArmor.esl
254 FE 1 ccfsvfo4001-modularmilitarybackpack.esl
254 FE 2 ccawnfo4001-brandedattire.esl
254 FE 3 cctosfo4001-neosky.esm
254 FE 4 ccBGSFO4115-X02.esl
254 FE 5 ccBGSFO4116-HeavyFlamer.esl
254 FE 6 ccBGSFO4110-WS_Enclave.esl
254 FE 7 ccBGSFO4096-AS_Enclave.esl
254 FE 8 ccacxfo4001-vsuit.esl
254 FE 9 ccFSVFO4007-Halloween.esl
7 7 cctosfo4002_neonflats.esm
254 FE a ccBGSFO4046-TesCan.esl
254 FE b ccSBJFO4003-Grenade.esl
254 FE c ccOTMFO4001-Remnants.esl
8 8 Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch.esp
9 9 ArmorKeywords.esm
10 a WorkshopFramework.esm
254 FE d XDI.esm
254 FE e PPF.esm
11 b SS2.esm
12 c SS2_XPAC_Chapter2.esm
13 d SS2_XPAC_Chapter3.esm
14 e AmericaRising2.esm
254 FE f Arbitration - Resources.esm
254 FE 10 Automatron Special Defense Assembly.esl
254 FE 11 Munitions - An Ammo Expansion.esl
15 f InstituteTechnologyOverhaul.esm
16 10 CWPointLookoutFO4.esm
254 FE 12 JamaicaPlainPathing.esm
254 FE 13 Skb_MachinegunsRebirth.esl
254 FE 14 Zapgun.esl
254 FE 15 SSTRagsPirates.esl
254 FE 16 SSTTomsBruisers.esl
254 FE 17 SelectRevolver.esl
254 FE 18 CWPointLookoutFO4Patch.esl
254 FE 19 Balisong.esl
254 FE 1a CROSS_VertibirdFlightsuit.esl
254 FE 1b DanseHelmet.esl
254 FE 1c F4MS.esl
254 FE 1d FOLON_ChinesePistol.esl
254 FE 1e FOLON_Lewis.esl
254 FE 1f SelectAssaultRifle.esl
254 FE 20 SelectPowerArmor.esl
17 11 Games.esm
18 12 BarstoolGames.esm
19 13 Homemaker.esm
254 FE 21 IDEKsLogisticsStation2.esl
254 FE 22 ImmersiveTeleportation.esl
254 FE 23 Munitions - Vanilla Ammo Addon.esl
254 FE 24 NPSShopping.esl
254 FE 25 PickaxeWeapon.esl
20 14 Retro_Style.esm
21 15 Robot Home Defence.esm
254 FE 26 RunningWithHandsAnim.esl
254 FE 27 SelectBlaster.esl
22 16 SettlementKeywords.esm
254 FE 28 SwimmingAnims.esl
23 17 TacticalReload.esm
24 18 EthreonMasterPlan.esm
254 FE 29 Tenpines Buff A fortified village.esl
254 FE 2a The Mechanist's lair - Robco's rebirth.esl
254 FE 2b TheCircleSS2.esl
254 FE 2c ThrowMoneyAtSS2.esl
254 FE 2d UNDRCVR_SimplySettledMechanistLair.esl
254 FE 2e WarwickHomesteadContestBuildTake2FGen.esl
254 FE 2f WG Point Lookout Stlmts Pack ESL.esl
254 FE 30 ZJ PerfPlan - Sanctuary.esl
254 FE 31 PPF-NeonFlats-CR.esm
254 FE 32 PPF-HeavyFlamer-CR.esm
254 FE 33 SS2 Fortress Commonwealth - Croup Manor Lvl3 ESL .esl
254 FE 34 sanctuaryWG.esl
254 FE 35 Reina_Vault88-SS2.esl
254 FE 36 Reina_Starlight2022Masters.esl
254 FE 37 RedRocketFoundry.esl
254 FE 38 MurkFactory.esl.esl
254 FE 39 MechaTown_CityPlan_MechanistLair.esl
254 FE 3a Marina.esl.esl
254 FE 3b Home plate.esl
254 FE 3c Holy Sanctuary.esl
254 FE 3d HangmansvaultSS2.esl
254 FE 3e Gris- Hangmans Alley Outpost (Fort Halley).esl
254 FE 3f GavMan_Zimonja_Cityplan.esl
254 FE 40 GavMan_Vault88_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 41 GavMan_RedRocket_Outpost_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 42 Gavman_MurkTreesMAY21_Cityplan.esl
254 FE 43 GavMan_LongfellowsJun21_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 44 GavMan_Egret_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 45 GavMan_CroupMar21_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 46 GavMan_CastleMar22_CityPlan.esl
254 FE 47 FortSomerville.esl
254 FE 48 FortifiedCroupManorHub.esl
254 FE 49 Fort Starlight V1.0.esl
254 FE 4a CSC_NoirPenthouse_Base.esl
254 FE 4b CSC_NeonFlats_Base.esl
254 FE 4c Castle Restoration Project.esl
254 FE 4d BunkerHillbyWG.esl
254 FE 4e Bunker Hill Mega City.esl
254 FE 4f Abernathy Stronghold.esl
254 FE 50 Dank_ArmorOverrides.esp
25 19 BeastWhisperer.esp
26 1a Phase4DLC.esp
27 1b SS2Extended.esp
254 FE 51 IHO - Immersive Hunting Overhaul.esp
28 1c RED.esp
29 1d SuperMutantRedux.esp
30 1e OutcastsAndRemnants.esp
31 1f virgil.esp
32 20 Depravity.esp
254 FE 52 CombinedExpansion4.1.esp
33 21 Stm_DiamondCityExpansion.esp
34 22 0BVB_OLD_V1.esp
35 23 Eli_MarlboroughHouse.esp
36 24 AA FusionCityRising.esp
254 FE 53 WCLI_North_Point_Park.esp
254 FE 54 StoryWealth-SS2-DEP-Patch.esp
37 25 AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp
38 26 An Office Fit For A Mayor.esp
39 27 Relic Space Marine.esp
40 28 The Space Marine.esp
41 29 Vertibird Faction Paint Schemes.esp
42 2a PhaserLaserGun.esp
43 2b CombinedArmsNV.esp
44 2c CombinedArmsEXPack.esp
254 FE 55 Dank_LEO.esp
45 2d Flashy_CrimeAndPunishment.esp
46 2e g2m_Workshop_Nexus.esp
47 2f InstituteSettlements2.esp
48 30 RD_Technologies.esp
49 31 Flashy_CrimeAndPunishment_GunForHire_Addon.esp
254 FE 56 GunForHire-eXoPatch.esp
50 32 MilitarizedMinutemen.esp
51 33 Snappy_HouseK.esp
52 34 Backpacks of the Commonwealth.esp
53 35 functionalobjects_vanilla.esp
54 36 M2_Flamethrower_2.2.esp
55 37 tdow_lc.esp
254 FE 57 BuildingGroundFix.esp
254 FE 58 Dank_ECO.esp
254 FE 59 Fallout 4 AI Overhaul.esp
56 38 SKKSynthVision.esp
57 39 InstituteTechnologyOverhaul - FULL.esp
58 3a SS2_FDK_TinyLiving.esp
59 3b Eli_Armour_Compendium.esp
254 FE 5a CROSS_InstituteExpeditionarySuit.esp
60 3c MW1Mike4.esp
61 3d 1CAS_ServiceRifle.esp
62 3e AEWS.esp
63 3f Fleshsmith.esp
64 40 battletech.esp
65 41 ProjectValkyrie.esp
254 FE 5b GrayGardenIdles.esp
254 FE 5c FPVertibird.esp
254 FE 5d FPV_Armored.esp
254 FE 5e MechLairPathfindingFix.esp
66 42 0006___SkyLight_Bunker - PV2.esp
254 FE 5f 3dscopes-wmsr.esp
67 43 3dscopes.esp
68 44 [BFV]Kar98k.esp
69 45 AttachPack.esp
254 FE 60 CROSS_MojaveManhunter.esp
70 46 CROSS_PlasRail.esp
71 47 M1918nv.esp
72 48 SPR300.esp
73 49 MK18.esp
74 4a SS2-Jampads2.esp
75 4b PoliceWeaponPack.esp
76 4c M1Garand.esp
77 4d SS2WastelandVenturers.esp
78 4e UniquePAFrames.esp
79 4f [SS2 Addon] SimSettlements SuperStructures.esp
80 50 BerettaM9FS.esp
81 51 LeeEnfieldNo4MkI.esp
82 52 GtN_SettlersatPlay.esp
83 53 Cho1_SS2_Encv_Plots.esp
84 54 DakVintageRepeater.esp
85 55 DakGrenadeAPW.esp
86 56 DakSwedishK.esp
254 FE 61 Firelance1.0.1.esp
87 57 DakBAR.esp
88 58 DakWin1907.esp
89 59 InstituteArsenalOverhaul.esp
90 5a RU556.esp
91 5b MTs255.esp
92 5c DT_MercOutfitPack.esp
254 FE 62 Mercenary Outfit Extreme Overhaul.esp
93 5d ALSID.esp
94 5e DakPoliceShotgun.esp
95 5f F4NVSingleActionArmy.esp
96 60 DakFAL.esp
254 FE 63 Castle Helipad.esp
254 FE 64 SS2-Ch2-CR-NeonFlats.esp
97 61 DakRugerRifles.esp
98 62 DakFR2.esp
99 63 DakSW59.esp
100 64 WestTek.esp
101 65 DakHomemadeVityaz.esp
102 66 PigAAMDeag.esp
103 67 PigAAMBeretta.esp
104 68 DakDeagle.esp
105 69 DakM202.esp
106 6a AranLaserCarbine.esp
254 FE 65 CROSS_BreakActionLaser.esp
107 6b Dak20mm.esp
108 6c InfiltratorSMG.esp
109 6d Disruptor.esp
110 6e DakBowieKnife.esp
111 6f SS2_Addon_NWE.esp
112 70 SelectRapidMG.esp
113 71 SS2_STRA_Support_Buildings.esp
114 72 SS2_STRA_Buildings_and_Skins.esp
115 73 SS2_ruined_simsettlement_addonpack.esp
116 74 SS2_Addon_R2R.esp
117 75 Cho1_ss2_Barmod_Conversion.esp
254 FE 66 SS2_Addon_Favelabulous.esp
118 76 GavM_SS2Addon_Buildings.esp
254 FE 67 DownTime2_SS2_Addon_Des.esp
254 FE 68 SS2_ruined_plotapalooza_messhall.esp
119 77 SS2_Addon_PSC_Plots.esp
120 78 SS2_Addon_FHE.esp
121 79 BMW_ALA.esp
122 7a JunkTownTwo.esp
123 7b GarageHomesAndSensibleSecurity.esp
124 7c DZK_1x1_Pack.esp
125 7d SS2-PraRandomAddon.esp
126 7e Schotel22.esp
127 7f tumba_CaravanSecurityArmor.esp
128 80 tumba_bountyhunter.esp
254 FE 69 tumba_SynthCourserArmor.esp
254 FE 6a Sten.esp
129 81 Kar98k.esp
254 FE 6b Springfield M1903.esp
130 82 AX50.esp
131 83 DaksCombatRifle.esp
254 FE 6c ODW - Winchester Model 1873.esp
132 84 WWII - SOV Nagant Revolver.esp
133 85 G43.esp
134 86 IFC Complete.esp
254 FE 6d TacticalReloadVanilla.esp
135 87 P90.esp
136 88 Cyberpunk 2077 Malorian Arms 3516.esp
254 FE 6e [BFV]P08.esp
254 FE 6f AdvBubbleTurretSet.esp
254 FE 70 AdvBubbleTurretSet-RHDSKPatch.esp
254 FE 71 AdvSettleTurretSet.esp
137 89 AEAR01.esp
254 FE 72 AEWS_NukaWorldPatch.esp
254 FE 73 AFT_Allow_Piper_Face_Presets.esp
138 8a MilitarisedMinutemen_PatchesAddon.esp
254 FE 74 AFT_Allow_Preston_Face_Presets.esp
254 FE 75 AFT_Allow_X688_Face_Presets.esp
254 FE 76 AFT_Alt_Names_Pack1.esp
254 FE 77 AFT_Use_Original_Spouse.esp
254 FE 78 AFTSpouseTweaks.esp
254 FE 79 AlexSleevePatcher.esp
254 FE 7a AmazingFollowerTweaks_XDI_FIX.esp
254 FE 7b AnotherMoleratDiseaseCure.esp
139 8b AR2 Attachment Pack Patch.esp
254 FE 7c Bullet in the Chamber.esp
254 FE 7d Arbitration - Button Lowered Weapons.esp
140 8c AssaultPhaser.esp
141 8d Archimedes-II.esp
254 FE 7e Attach Pack Mod Description Fixes.esp
254 FE 7f RemoteExplosives.esp
142 8e AutoMines.esp
143 8f autoweapons.esp
254 FE 80 AWKCR - Mod Power Armor Engine Glitch Fix.esp
144 90 AzarPonytailHairstyles.esp
145 91 BarstoolGames_FH.esp
146 92 BarstoolGames_NW.esp
254 FE 81 Bastion.esp
147 93 battletechfootstep.esp
254 FE 82 BeastWhispererTreats.esp
148 94 BetterSettlers.esp
254 FE 83 Live Dismemberment - BrutalNoHeadshots.esp
254 FE 84 Live Dismemberment - LiebermodeNoHeadshots.esp
254 FE 85 Live Dismemberment - RegularNoHeadshots.esp
254 FE 86 Below-the-belt.esp
254 FE 87 Better_Notes.esp
254 FE 88 BetterSettlersCleanFacePack.esp
254 FE 89 Lots More Facial Hair.esp
254 FE 8a Lots More Female Hairstyles.esp
254 FE 8b Lots More Male Hairstyles.esp
254 FE 8c BS NS BFS Merged Patch - Mortal.esp
254 FE 8d BetterSettlersMortalPack.esp
254 FE 8e BetterSettlersNoLollygagging.esp
149 95 BogartNick - Hazel Stubble.esp
254 FE 8f CBBE.esp
150 96 CF_AtomicWarlord.esp
151 97 Reverb and Ambiance Overhaul.esp
254 FE 90 CGOsoundsplugin.esp
152 98 SKKFastMinutemen.esp
153 99 Colt1911.esp
154 9a Companion - Chris Fathom.esp
254 FE 91 CovenantCitadelLayoutV1.6.esp
254 FE 92 CROSS_BrotherhoodRecon.esp
254 FE 93 CROSS_CoA.esp
254 FE 94 CROSS_CourserStrigidae.esp
155 9b CROSS_GoreCrits.esp
254 FE 95 CROSS_GoreCrits_FarHarborPatch.esp
254 FE 96 CROSS_ReducedLaserSmoke.esp
254 FE 97 D13SynthSpyDetectionElimination.esp
254 FE 98 DakFR2-TR.esp
254 FE 99 Dank_ArmorOverrides_DLCCoast.esp
254 FE 9a Dank_ArmorOverrides_DLCNukaWorld.esp
254 FE 9b Dank_ArmorOverrides_DLCRobot.esp
254 FE 9c Dank_ECO-INNR.esp
254 FE 9d Dank_ECO_DLCCoast.esp
254 FE 9e Dank_ECO_DLCNukaWorld.esp
254 FE 9f Dank_ECO_DLCRobot.esp
254 FE a0 Dank_INNRoverride.esp
254 FE a1 Dank_LEO-Automatron.esp
254 FE a2 Dank_LEO_ChipCraft_Free_ECO.esp
254 FE a3 Dank_LEO_DLCCoast.esp
254 FE a4 Dank_LEO_DLCNukaWorld.esp
254 FE a5 Dank_ECO-LEO.esp
156 9c DarkestHourRemastered.esp
157 9d Deeper Male Protagonist Voice - Type A3 - DLC1-Automatron.esp
158 9e Deeper Male Protagonist Voice - Type A3.esp
159 9f Deeper Thoughts - Expressive Curie.esp
254 FE a6 Edit_Hancock.esp
254 FE a7 BetterSettlersCCAPack2.0.esp
160 a0 ESPExplorerFO4.esp
254 FE a8 F4NVSingleActionArmy_TR.esp
161 a1 Family Mauser.esp
162 a2 FineZoom.esp
163 a3 Flashy_CommonwealthFishing.esp
164 a4 Flashy_CommonwealthFishingFarHarborAddon.esp
254 FE a9 Flashy_CrimeAndPunishment_CrossMM_Patch.esp
254 FE aa Flashy_GunForHire_NamesPatch.esp
254 FE ab FPVCorrectMinigunAmmo.esp
254 FE ac FPVBoSPilot.esp
254 FE ad FPV-Paintjobs.esp
254 FE ae FPVTrackingModule.esp
254 FE af FPVPilotCommands.esp
254 FE b0 FunctionalDisplays-Collectibles.esp
165 a5 FunctionalDisplays.esp
254 FE b1 FunctionalDisplays-Patch-DLC-ALL.esp
254 FE b2 FunctionalDisplays-MISC-Vanilla.esp
254 FE b3 GammaGunRedux.esp
166 a6 Gammaremesh_AttPackPatch.esp
254 FE b4 GhastlyHancock.esp
254 FE b5 GunForHire-AmericaRising2.esp
254 FE b6 Homemaker - Streetlights Use Passive Power.esp
254 FE b7 Homemaker - Unlocked Institute Objects.esp
254 FE b8 FPV_IHO_Loot_Patch.esp
254 FE b9 Dank_ECO-IHO.esp
254 FE ba ImmersiveAnimationFramework.esp
254 FE bb IAF - Far Harbor & Nuka World.esp
254 FE bc ImmersiveTeleportation_lessPower.esp
254 FE bd ImmersiveTeleportation_lessRads.esp
254 FE be ImmersiveTeleportation_quickstart.esp
254 FE bf Infiltrator - Lockpicking Overhaul.esp
167 a7 KSHairdos.esp
168 a8 KSHairsFemsheppingRadbeetle.esp
254 FE c0 3dscopes-leeenfield.esp
254 FE c1 lewismunitions.esp
254 FE c2 LongerPowerLinesInf.esp
169 a9 WeaponDisarm.esp
170 aa PIP-Pad.esp
171 ab LooksMenu Customization Compendium.esp
254 FE c3 LooneyLongfellow.esp
172 ac M1 Carbine.esp
254 FE c4 M14.esp
254 FE c5 3dscopes-m14.esp
254 FE c6 M1Garand-2xDMG.esp
173 ad M1Garand - AWKCR.esp
174 ae ManufacturingExtended.esp
175 af ManufacturingExtendedFH.esp
176 b0 MG69.esp
254 FE c7 MilitarisedMinutemen_ScarvesFix.esp
254 FE c8 MMSREP.esp
254 FE c9 MMSREP_PatchesAddonCompatibilePatch.esp
254 FE ca MilitarizedMinutemenImmersionFix.esp
254 FE cb MinutemenEnforcer.esp
254 FE cc EnforcerCrafting.esp
254 FE cd MiscHairstyle.esp
177 b1 Modern Military Pack.esp
178 b2 Mosin.esp
254 FE ce 3dscopes-mosin.esp
254 FE cf Munitions Manufacturing.esp
254 FE d0 Munitions-Additional Ammo.esp
254 FE d1 Munitions Manufacturing - Additional Ammo Expansion.esp
254 FE d2 Nability - IAF Fusion City Rising Patch.esp
254 FE d3 no_pipboy_light.esp
179 b3 OCDecorator.esp
254 FE d4 OMEGA - CommonwealthFishing IAF Patch.esp
254 FE d5 OMEGA - IAF CoA Overhaul Patch.esp
254 FE d6 OMEGA - IHO IAF Patch.esp
254 FE d7 Nability - IAF Outcasts And Remnants Patch.esp
254 FE d8 Flashy_CrimeAndPunishment_OAR_Depravity_Patch.esp
180 b4 Ozzys_MCPR-300.esp
254 FE d9 Ozzys_MCPR300_TRPatch.esp
254 FE da P90NPC.esp
254 FE db PAUP_TargetingHUD.esp
254 FE dc PAVertibirdDockFix.esp
254 FE dd Backpacks of the Commonwealth - FPV Patch.esp
254 FE de personalvertibird.esp
181 b5 PhotonDisruptor.esp
254 FE df PIP-Pad_LMCC.esp
254 FE e0 PlatinumCurieV2.1.esp
182 b6 PWR.esp
254 FE e1 PWR_SKE.esp
183 b7 RED-CAP.esp
184 b8 Relic Space Marine - Raven Guard.esp
254 FE e2 40K_Relic_Space_Marine_Craftable_Armor.esp
254 FE e3 40k RSM Carcharadons Paint.esp
185 b9 Remote Explosives CTD fix in Workshop.esp
186 ba Retro_Style_World_Distribution.esp
254 FE e4 3dscopes-ru556.esp
187 bb SelectMarksman.esp
254 FE e5 SelectPhoton_ITOinjectPatch.esp
188 bc SettlementMenuManager.esp
189 bd HomemakerMenuFixer.esp
254 FE e6 SexyHancockEveryHancockDepravity.esp
190 be CabinInTheWoods.esp
254 FE e7 SimpleAttackReactions.esp
254 FE e8 SimpleCombatGrabs.esp
254 FE e9 SimpleFinishersRE.esp
191 bf SimpleSmokes.esp
192 c0 Skitarii.esp
193 c1 SKKRESystemManager.esp
194 c2 SKKSettlementAttackSystem.esp
254 FE ea SpotlightFix-300-Shadow.esp
254 FE eb SPR300_LvlList.esp
254 FE ec SPR300_TacticalReload.esp
195 c3 TacticalMods.esp
254 FE ed TacticalModsDLC.esp
254 FE ee TacticalReloadDLC.esp
196 c4 The Eyes of Beauty Looking Stranger.esp
197 c5 The Eyes Of Beauty.esp
254 FE ef HCFB_Maccready_smooth.esp
254 FE f0 The Ultimate Piper - nexus release.esp
198 c6 TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
254 FE f1 TheKite_Railroad_Handmaiden.esp
254 FE f2 TheKite Handmaiden - Triggermen.esp
199 c7 Thematic and Practical.esp
200 c8 Thematic and Practical - DLC.esp
254 FE f3 There It Is x Perfectionist.esp
201 c9 tumba_SynthCombatArmor.esp
202 ca tumba_EnclaveCombatArmor.esp
254 FE f4 tumba_mysterious_stranger.esp
254 FE f5 Ultimate Cait.esp
203 cb United Security Contractor.esp
204 cc Vault-Tec Workshop Overhaul.esp
205 cd VertiBirdRetextureProject.esp
254 FE f6 WCLINPP_FastTravelFix.esp
254 FE f7 WeaponDisarm - Dismemberment+Groin.esp
254 FE f8 Dank_ECO-WestTek.esp
206 ce WestTekTacticalOptics.esp
254 FE f9 Wireless Workshop Items.esp
207 cf WorkshopPointLookout.esp
254 FE fa TheRedoubt.esp
208 d0 SS2WastelandReconstructionKit.esp
254 FE fb SS2CityPlanGunForHireModOfficeofRelaxation.esp
209 d1 SS2CaravanSnatex.esp
254 FE fc SS2C2PoliceWeaponsPatch.esp
254 FE fd SS2AOP_VaultTecTools.esp
254 FE fe SS2Addon_MS_BareEssentials.esp
254 FE ff SS2_XDI Patch.esp
254 FE 100 SS2_WestTek.esp
210 d2 SS2_WastelandDefense.esp
211 d3 SS2_SIMPDDDD.esp
212 d4 SS2_MsB_PlainPlans.esp
213 d5 SS2_CityPlanPack_RiseOfTheCommonwealth.esp
254 FE 101 ss2_caravanshipment.esp
254 FE 102 SS2_AFT.esp
254 FE 103 SS2_Addon_ShazbotsCots.esp
214 d6 SS2_Addon_BrickNClay.esp
254 FE 104 SS2-AUR-HangmansAlleyCityPlan.esp
215 d7 SS2 Settlement Management Terminal.esp
254 FE 105 SS2 Sanctuary Green Hills.esp
254 FE 106 SS2 Junk Storage Capacity.esp
216 d8 SS2 Excess Resource Manager.esp
254 FE 107 SS2 Better Outfits.esp
254 FE 108 SimSettlements2_AddOnPack_ApocalypticAdditions_SirLach.esp
254 FE 109 SimHomestead2.esp
254 FE 10a Sim Settlers 2 Go Shopping.esp
254 FE 10b Reina_SS2_Plotapalooza_SigTrg.esp
254 FE 10c ProjectValkyrie-SS2-Patch.esp
254 FE 10d PrasPlotapaloozaEntry.esp
217 d9 ohSIM_Sim2_Settlements_Scrappers_Addon.esp
254 FE 10e Murkwater Manor.esp
254 FE 10f MS SS2 Camera Takes Screenshots.esp
254 FE 110 Lyudw_NorthPointPark_CityPlan.esp
254 FE 111 JunkTown2 - EXTREME.esp
254 FE 112 JunkTown-FENCES2.esp
254 FE 113 IT_SS2.esp
254 FE 114 IDEKsLogisticsStation2_SS2_Patch.esp
218 da GtN_SettlersatWar.esp
254 FE 115 CountryCrossing.esp
219 db Cho1SS2FlagsMod.esp
254 FE 116 [SS2] BBVault 88.esp
254 FE 117 [SS2] Ad Vic.esp
254 FE 118 WW2SmockEN.esp
254 FE 119 WWII - German Smock - v1.0.esp
254 FE 11a WWII - USA Paratrooper Uniform.esp
254 FE 11b WWII - USSR Coat Uniform - v1.0.esp
220 dc WWM Gear Pack.esp
254 FE 11c zz_Automatron_Robots.esp
254 FE 11d Crafting Ammunition.esp
254 FE 11e Crafting Components.esp
254 FE 11f Crafting vanilla chems and drinks.esp
254 FE 120 Crafting vanilla grenade and syringe batch sizes.esp
254 FE 121 Crafting vanilla signal.esp
254 FE 122 Grenades - No sort and weightless.esp
254 FE 123 New Chems - No sort and weightless.esp
254 FE 124 New Devices - No sorting.esp
254 FE 125 Syringer Ammunition - DI - No sort and weightless.esp
254 FE 126 Syringer Rifles and Pistol.esp
221 dd SKKFastStartNewGame.esp
222 de WorkshopRearranged.esp
223 df Vault-Tec Workshop Overhaul Redux.esp
254 FE 127 PRP.esp
254 FE 128 Thuggysmurf_Optimization.esp
254 FE 129 OCsV81TradeCamp.esp
254 FE 12a OCsV81TradeCampGrassReduced.esp
254 FE 12b WCLINPP_Previs.esp
254 FE 12c OCsv81TradeCampInstantUnlock.esp
254 FE 12d PRP-SS2.esp
254 FE 12e GavMan_V81TC_CityPlan.esp
224 e0 Eli_Faction Housing Overhaul - AiO.esp
225 e1 Scrap Everything - Ultimate Edition.esp
226 e2 Mechanist Lair Overhaul SEC.esp
254 FE 12f Pip-Boy Flashlight.esp
254 FE 130 PIP-Pad_Pip-BoyFlashlight.esp

I'm a fairly new player, about 9 months, and have been collecting Orks mainly amassing over 3000 Points. I started collecting at the end of 9th edition when there were no specific detachment rules.
Now, with the new Detachment rules, I feel stuck into playing Orks a specific way. I can play Green Tide but need 100 Boyz, Bully Boyz and play only Nobs and Meganobz or play Dread Mob and focus on Meks. I don't like the Speed Freak or Beast Snaggaz aesthetic to I'm not even gonna try to build around Kult of Speed or Da Big Hunt. I feel like I'm forced to play Orks a special way rather than throw all your favorite units into an army and play. For example, Squighog Boyz are one of my favorite models, the only way to get good use out of them is in Da Big Hunt, so okay now I need to get 30 Beast Snaggaz and their respective Characters just to play, kinda ridiculous. Same with Bully Boyz, okay now I need 18 Meganobz and 20 Nobz that won't really be useful if I want to play Green Tide or Dread Mob. I feel like I'm stuck building models just for the detachment rather than rule of cool. I'll still get the models I like the best but now they don't play well together. Why even bother painting up Mozrog Skragbad when I can't even use him properly!
I love the variety of Detachments and how they make Orks stronger and allow their lists to be more thematic, I'm just feeling forced into buying more Boyz, Nobz or Meks just to play one specific detachment. Is anyone else feeling this way?

I don’t play a ton of shatterpoint, but really enjoy the game. The big thing keeping both my wife and I away from it is our current unit balance. I only have the starter set, dookus box and plo koons box. We really like staying in clone wars, and keeping units alignment mostly the same (so good guys vs. bad guys) the issue is that maul dooku and jango kinda kick our other units to the curb (we are very casual and not looking for an insane how to play/unit breakdown). Anyways, was just wondering if there are any more boxes for republic units that can really help balance the sides a little bit more and still feel thematic and cool. Thanks in advance!

It would be so cool if the hobgoblin steppes would be redesigned, so they are actual and at least a little bit bigger steppes. In there, I’d like to see a greenskin lord. Why greenskins?
I don’t think it’s realistic to bring the hobgoblin into the game as a new fraction. So make them a subtraction: They’ll get the hobgoblins the chaos dwarfs have plus some additions. But nothing above tier 3. they can’t recruit Orks/goblins, instead, they need to go and subjugate the greenskin tribes. There need to be a mechanic for that, but by doing so, they’ll get access to build the normal (and advanced) greenskin units too.
I think it would make the area north of Cathay more interesting. If you play inside Cathay, the ai won’t be smart enough to use the mechanic anyway, but at least you’d fight hobgoblins to hold the wall, feels more thematic to me. As a player however, you would have an incentive NOT to rush the wall right away, but give Cathay time and reunite the tribes - with cool hobgoblins.

The fact that it's totally random and that even with an Orni above your army you may have less than 5 seconds to react before losing like 6 units is stupid. You can't realistically have a decoy ready at all time and especially not in early game and even then in x2 speed there are times where you have litteraly 3 seconds to use it before it's too late. I don't see what good it does to the game beside being thematic, it incentivizes you to camp on your ground or take the risk to lose your whole army to a dice roll which is insane.
I wish they at least would make it so the timer when you get the alert is always the same, it'd still be a shitty mechanic but it would be manageable.

First Previous Next
Patreon Official Subreddit Series Wiki Royal Road
We were running.
And I had no idea why.
“Hurry up, newrealmer! We haven’t much time!”
All I wanted from Ilunor was a straightforward explanation, a reason for this sudden and abrupt cessation in calm, all amidst the backdrop of a student body that stared at us with growing worry and suspicion.
“What’s with the rush, Ilunor-”
“Your manaless disposition and mana-resilient armor has cost me the lead! I am now at a terrible disadvantage and you must rectify these circumstances at once by offering me your services as a makeshift steed!”
He suddenly halted mid-stride, his chest heaving from all the running and backtracking we did in order to arrive back at where we started. All because his little shortcut proved incompatible with the mana-resistant nature of the suit.
In short, the shortcut spat me right out, prompting us to rethink our strategies as we decided to take the usual route upwards, which put us right at the base of the dynamically-shifting staircase.
Though none of the so-called ‘setbacks’ really explained Ilunor’s rush to get to the lounge.
“EARTHREALMER, YOU MUST COMPLY!” He reiterated, stomping his booted feet-paws as he held both of his little arms by his side in a show of stern frustration.
“Fine. Whatever.” I acknowledged with an exasperated breath, picking him up by the underarms, and then placing him atop of my shoulders. “Let’s go.” I shot back to both Thacea and Thalmin, who promptly began climbing up the stairs, reaching speeds otherwise impossible for the Vunerian. “So, care to explain why I’m-”
“Your insistence on accompanying me has ruined both my lead, and the context by which my speech is to be given! I must now draft an entirely new speech as we approach our destination! So hush! And remain silent and swift!” He all but yipped out, his little foot miming a jockey’s kick, prompting me to cling onto every ounce of my self control so as to not hurl the blue thing off and down the seemingly endless flights of stairs. “Onwards!”
To say that we were the center of attention by this point, would’ve been the understatement of the week as we passed by faculty and student alike, all stopping to stare at the ludicrous display of a kobold riding atop of a power armored behemoth, with both legs locked beneath its chin for stability, and both hands preoccupied with writing a speech of all things in the midst of a hurried jog.
To the general public’s credit, they moved on from the strange sight almost as quickly as we passed them, with only the barest of whispers being made in reference to the ungainly sight.
“Is that the newrealmer?”
“It is.”
“And was that… a Vunerian riding it?”
“Hmm… He must have tamed it. Perhaps we’ll see the Vunerians claiming stewardship over its realms.”
“A symbolic gesture of dominance, and one quite fitting of a fellow-of-the-realm, no?”
“This isn’t just any newrealmer though. I heard that it managed to procure a library card-”
“And I once heard Professor Belnor once held an illicit party boasting nothing but stocks of her ‘special brew’. A rumor does not make an outlandish claim an objective fact.”
“To each their own, and to themselves, the spoils of truth.”
I ignored the words of the pair of elven twins, as we eventually found ourselves higher and higher up the steps, and amongst fewer and fewer members of the public as a result.
Arriving at the top floor, it was clear none of us showed signs of fatigue.
Moreover, it shocked me as to just how nonchalant both Thacea and Thalmin were amidst the exertion that would’ve otherwise caused even a seasoned parkour master to become somewhat winded.
The armor, for the most part, had fulfilled its power prefix; leaving me barely tired and holding my own just as well as the tireless pair.
“Are you guys usually this used to walking or-”
“There’s no time for conversation, earthrealmer, now hurry!” The Vunerian interjected before I could even get a thought out, leaping off of my shoulders and scampering back onto the floor with a solid thud.
We eventually made our way down the hall, which unlike the night of the warehouse explosion, lacked the open entryway into the common area. Instead, what we were faced with was a solid wall of stone, hidden behind a painting of a cozy lounge nestled within a Victorian conservatory.
No sooner did confusion take hold however, did even more questions arise, as the painting covering the dead-end morphed into something else at the behest of a few hand motions made by the Vunerian.
These random actions caused the painting to, for lack of a better term, melt. As the seemingly dry colors suddenly became wet, thick, and almost soupy. This soupy mess of colors that now more resembled a work of impressionist art, continued to morph and contort, until it finally looked animated. It looked as if the room and the subjects within were now moving about, as if we were now staring at a portal into an animated dimension through a really smudged-up pair of lenses.
I’d made the mistake of being so entranced by the surreality of it all that I got lulled into a false sense of security, and eventually paid the price for it.
"Good afternoon." A voice erupted from a harlequin mask that’d materialized within the painting.
I immediately reeled back, whilst Ilunor remained unfazed, treating this as if it were a regular occurrence. The mask looked too lifelike to have been bound within the painting, staring at me from every angle, no matter which way I moved; giving off an eerily stereoscopic effect for its foreground subject.
“And how would the young master prefer their Earlshot Gretin today?”
“Stirred, not shaken.” Ilunor responded with a sharp tone, prompting the disquieting figure to eventually melt away, shattering into a million pieces in a dramatic display of undeserved victory.
This prompted even more changes in the painting, this time increasing in clarity to the point where it looked less like a painting, and more like a literal portal into some hyper-realistic animated world; the scene within now resembling the common area I’d entered on the night of the warehouse explosion.
Without warning, Ilunor stepped through that threshold, causing himself to become one with the animated reality.
Thacea soon followed, then Thalmin, and eventually, I did as well; braving the fears that I would become stuck in a painting for life.
Instead, it felt as if I’d just… stepped through an open door frame and into just another room.
It was about as anticlimactic as that portal trip from the IAS to the Academy.
Turning around, I watched as the painting behind me began to dry and set, soon becoming a painted depiction of the hallway beyond its threshold.
I was greeted soon after to a scene that was pulled directly from a period piece, as students walked and stood regally, amidst a buffet of canapes and appetizers, with three food-fountains providing free flow chocolate, wine, and what appeared to be champagne.
Yet much to my surprise, it wasn’t the food that Ilunor was worried about.
Nor was it the free-flow drinks or seemingly endless distractions that dotted the room.
Instead, he was headed deep into a crowd, seemingly gathered for no apparent reason at the far corner of the room.
At which point, more than a few eyes within the room, and most certainly amongst the crowd, turned to address the Vunerian with a series of cadences that ranged from well-meaning, to ambivalent, to outright hostile.
“Oh, Chairman! Welcome back!”
“Chairman… maybe you should reconsider today’s regaling.”
“Hmph. So much for Nexian punctuality, Chairman.”
The already-cramped space was made almost impassable with the sheer number of bodies present here. Indeed, many seemed to only part way the moment they observed the little thing approaching as fast as his legs could carry him.
So as the final layer of students began parting ways, it quickly became clear to me what the Vunerian’s final destination was.
A chair.
A big, bright red, overly ostentatious chair that was probably better described as a throne.
But one that, to the wide-eyed shock and horror of the Vunerian, was occupied.
Though occupied was probably being generous given who sat atop of it.
ENTITY IFF CONFIRMED: A14 Prince Rostario Rostarion - Critarealm [NEUTRAL]
“Ah! Lord Rularia! Welcome, welcome! You are just about in time for this late afternoon’s post-lecture mixer!” The hamster spoke warmly through a polite and cordial smile.
Ilunor’s reactions were… quite mixed. Though one emotion that rang true above all else — annoyance.
This was only increased the longer the chubby hamster smiled down at him, as he dangled his little legs to and fro from a chair three sizes too large for him.
“We were just about to start! Or rather, I was just about to start.” The little thing chuckled politely, placing a hand on his lips as he did so. “I take it you wished to participate? I will only need a few hours to regale the class with my tales of untempered chivalry! And my pursuits of Nexian altruism. Surely you, Lord Rularia, a fine specimen of Nexian excellence, will oblige? Oh we do need a Nexian perspective for the daily regalings!”
“I am afraid I will have to politely decline, Prince Rostarion.” Ilunor replied curtly, though it was clear even amidst the public, his untempered rage still simmered. Except instead of screams, yells, and yaps, he instead used passive aggressive clips, and sharp enunciated breaths.
“Oh?” The hamster reeled back, placing his two little hands close to his chest, miming a look of emotional hurt. “Well that is quite unfortunate. We all so very much enjoy your participation in the Regale of Tales… but if I may be so brazen, might I ask why you wish to decline?”
“You do not ask a Nexian why they wish to do anything, Prince Rostarion.” Ilunor shot back sharply.
“Is that so?” The hamster mimed the motions of deep thought. “Well, perhaps that is the case.” He shrugged in defeat, before just as quickly striking back with an attack of his own. “In which case, I will have to ask that you leave, Lord Rularia.” He spoke with a calm, collected, matter-of-fact tone of voice.
There was no hint of venom to it.
In fact, the squeakiness and flightiness of his voice made it seem like a simple request.
But the effects of it on Ilunor were obvious, if his shocked and incredulous eyes were of any indication.
“Are you speaking as the Sitter of the Chair?” Ilunor clarified, as if posing an ultimatum.
The entire drama of the situation, whilst cranked up to 11, still didn’t detract from how ridiculous it was.
“Indeed.” Rostarion acknowledged. “And as the current Sitter of the Chair, the Prime Sitter, the Chairman… I ask that you respect the sanctity of its authority, on behalf of all prior sitters, and all future sitters to come.”
A staredown soon ensued, one accompanied by whispers and murmurs, soon resulting in a sharp SWOOSH of the Vunerian’s cape.
“Then I express my desire to protest. Nay, I express my desire to challenge this day’s Prime Sitter of the chair” Ilunor announced with great fanfare, his voice carrying with it a resonance enhanced through a burst of mana radiation. “To these ends, I challenge you, Prince Rostario Rostarion, to a chairman’s duel.”
“Hmm.” The hamster pondered, once again lazily kicking his feet to and fro. “Then as the current Sitter of the chair, and Prime Sitter for today… I have no choice but to accept this challenge.”
Rostarion promptly hopped off of the chair, landing feet first, meeting Ilunor eye-to-eye, being almost exactly the same height.
“Let us begin.” Ilunor announced, his hand darting off to the right, as if poised to draw a sword… only to conjure a piece of paper with a burst of mana radiation.
“Let’s.” The hamster reciprocated by performing the same motions. At which point, it was very much clear what was going down, and exactly what was happening.
“So… this is what he was rushing here for?” I turned to Thacea and Thalmin. “For the privilege of having first-dibs on a chair that’ll grant him first-rights on telling stories to an awaiting crowd?”
“The Storyteller’s Chair is a powerful instrument in the currying of favors, and the ability for one to direct the flow of a social mixer, Emma.” Thacea responded.
“I’ve never been one for these sorts of things.” Thalmin quickly added, glaring at what I could only describe as a mix between a musical duet, slam poetry, and a rap battle.
“Because such things are perhaps beyond the capacity for a lupinor to grapple with, no doubt.” A voice emerged from the crowd, one belonging to a lion man.
“It might be wise to simply leave, Emma.” Thacea urged. “At least, away from the Storyteller’s nook.”
“I concur.” Thalmin quickly added, glancing sharply at the lion man, before turning back to us. “There’s nothing for us here, because unless we ascribe ourselves to the hierarchy of the Storyteller’s Nook, we will gain nothing by being here, nor lose anything by leaving.”
“Your loss, lupinor.” Another voice from the crowd announced loudly, just as we left to the tune of Ilunor’s rendition of some Shakespearean soliloquy on the virtues of the Nexus.
It was only after moving out of that crowd and back into the middle of the lounge did I finally have time to take stock of everything.
The room was more or less exactly the same as it was on that fateful night; a star shaped design that had five distinct nooks, with a main ‘observation area’ in the middle of it all.
The EVI detected no dimensional tomfoolery going on.
But what it did detect was a disproportionate abundance of other mana-fueled shenanigans happening all around us.
Though I really didn’t need it to tell me that.
Not when the magic-fueled nature of the activities around me were laid bare.
From fleets of animated paper cranes duking it out in the second nook, to the erection of tiny miniature castles, spires, and towns in the third, to a genuinely unnerving group gathered around a circle emanating a dark and eerie black-fire in the fourth, to an ensemble of instruments being assembled in the fifth, magic seemed to permeate everywhere in lieu of the inventions powered by science and technology.
And for a moment, if I blocked out the Nexian propaganda spewing from Ilunor and Rostario in the first nook, everything just felt… eerily normal; functionally similar to what college common areas were like back home.
For a moment, everyone just seemed like… college kids, doing their own thing in their own little niches after class.
That moment only continued, as both Thacea and Thalmin were naturally subsumed by the flow of the conversation around them, ushered into groups that seemed to find some distinct interest in them.
The perpetrators were obvious for the latter, as ‘Cynthis’ and her all-girl group who’d shown interest in Thalmin’s recent escapades from before, gathered around him.
“Why if it isn’t the Roguish mercenary prince.” Cynthis announced to her clique, prompting a series of off-handed comments both good and bad to erupt, and eliciting the attention of a few more peer groups to enter the fray; more or less sweeping Thalmin up in a wave of congratulations both sincere and facetious. “I’m sure your peers won’t mind if we borrow you for a moment!” Cynthis capped off the assault with a question packaged as an imperative, more or less ushering Thalmin off towards one corner of the banquet table.
The poor prince didn’t even have a chance to protest.
Thacea, on the other hand, seemed to have been swept up by an all too familiar face… or lack thereof. As the faceless apprentice she’d spent hours talking to prior back in the medical wing approached her, showering her in senseless conversation, and thus locking her in that perpetual cycle of Nexian dialogue trees.
This left me alone, and very much the subject of increasing interest amongst the student body who weren’t already preoccupied with an activity or conversation.
“To approach or to refrain, that is the question.” A few crocodillians whispered amongst themselves.
“Will it be wise to approach a pariah?” Came another hushed question.
“A ‘pariah’ with a library card?”
“It is an object of living antithesis, mired in drama, wrapped in an enigma.”
“...The newrealmer or the card?-”
“The newrealmer, you imbecile!”
More and more groups began debating their approach, as dialogue sprawled across my HUD, organized into groups; keeping me equally distracted from approaching any of them first.
“So what’s with its armor?”
“No, what’s with its tinted lenses?”
“Perhaps a more prudent question should be what meaning can be derived from its foreign seals and unconventional heraldry.”
“It unnerves me with its void-filled emptiness!”
“But can a void truly be described as ‘filled’, Lord Gracion?”
“You know what I mean!”
“I’ll go first.”
“No, you most certainly shall not.”
“Why?”
“Because I shall go first.”
Eventually, that deadlock between indecision and distraction was broken. But not with the efforts of any of the bickering students, as instead, a familiar face emerged from an entirely different crowd.
“Hmm, and why if it isn’t the talk of the town.”
ENTITY IFF CONFIRMED: A98 Navine Ladona - Anurarealm [NEUTRAL]
The butterfly-like biped, with features that seemed almost forcibly tailored towards a humanoid audience, parted the crowd with an unfurling of her two back-mounted wings, creating an open path and causing the smaller amongst the crowd to flop to the ground in an attempt to avoid collision.
Poor Etholin was once again part of the casualty-count.
The whispers subsided for a moment, her presence creating an almost commanding aura amidst the small crowd. “Tell me, what exactly are you, hmm?” She began, her antenna swaying with a head tilt.
“I think it would be more appropriate, and perhaps a bit more polite, if we started off with who I was?” I offered politely.
“Hmm…” Ladona feigned a moment of thought, sinking her chin into an open fist.. “I think not.” She answered bluntly, almost condescendingly so. “You carry yourself as if you were an open book, Cadet Emma Booker. And yet…” The woman paused, lifting a finger following the ensuing silence, before using it to bridge the gap; trailing a manicured nail across my chestplate.
“... you conceal yourself in plain sight.” The trailing finger paused, as it evolved into an outright open palm pressed assertively across my chestplate.
“The people are curious, Cadet Emma Booker. They are curious if this is a handicap for your people’s immature manafields. Are your kind so emotionally immature that they would rather see your manafield hidden beneath layers of enchanted metals? Perhaps your manafield so barely registers, that you require protection from the Nexian elements, sealed within a walking prison? Or perhaps… you are a child of taint, a pariah of disease akin to your Avinor-fellow?”
“Judging by all of these questions, it’s clear curiosity will be a commonality we all share.” I beamed out brightly. “I’m glad to see we at least have something in common, as there seems to be so many other differences which may otherwise act as walls rather than bridges.” I continued calmly, benignly, garnering a snide look of dismissiveness from the haughty noble. “However…” I continued, my voice darkening.
It was at that point that I struck back.
My hand moved quickly to clasp Ladona’s offending wrist, her magically-attuned reaction woefully under-equipped to deal with the suit’s superhuman speed.
“I do not take kindly to blatant insults and condescending remarks to those I call my peers, or to myself for that matter. Nor do I take kindly to myself, or my armor and belongings, being touched without permission.”
I stood still, unflinching, testing Ladona’s resolve as she too refused to pull back after a few fitful tugs. None of us were willing to back down. Which prompted me to release her wrist after a few moments of silence. “I merely reciprocate the actions I’m faced with, tit for tat.” I offered, before shifting just as seamlessly back into that bright and beaming persona. “But regardless, I thank you for bringing these questions and concerns forward. Though… perhaps it would be best if I answered the crowd directly.” I paused, turning towards the crowd in question, before placing down my gambit.
“Or am I to believe that the gathered lords, ladies, princes, and princesses amongst us have relinquished their voices to Lady Navine Ladona so that she may speak on all of their behalf?”
This almost immediately split the crowd. As whispers either turned into outright open conversations disputing this fact, whilst a good chunk of the crowd suddenly ignored the back and forth entirely, moving off and going about their own separate ways.
“We have questions we wish to pose, newrealmer.” The group of four crocodiles from earlier spoke in unison, pushing forward past Ladona, and all but demonstrating their rejection of her authority.
“As do we.” Came the tortle-like-turtle from earlier and his group of rag-tag peers.
The rest of the crowd, including a particularly silent Etholin, remained silently accepting of this change in dynamics; as the silent coup of Ladona’s authority was completed in mere moments.
This trend continued, until my little corner of the common room became just as loud as any corner, and I’d somehow found myself finally part of the year group’s active conversation.
Ladona, to my surprise, remained within the crowd.
Though it was clear she was moreso there for the impromptu Q and A, as the questions began piling in.
The first of which, I was not expecting. Not because it was particularly difficult to answer, but simply because it seemed extremely superficial to start off with.
“Allow me to start. What do those runes on your armor mean, newrealmer?” The crocodilian student inquired, pointing at the E-ARRS Mk.1 decal on the upper right side of the armor’s arm-piece.
“Oh, that’s just my armor’s designation and model number.” I answered simply.
“A superficial label, with no enchantments ascribed to it?” He shot back questioningly.
“Correct.” I nodded, prompting the crocodile’s fellows to circle me, eying and picking apart every angle of my armor.
“A shame.” Came one of the crocodiles, a shorter one, practically Ilunor’s height.
“Enough of the overanalysis of these pointless runes. I expected more from your peerage, Viscount Gumigo. Enchanted or not, I am more interested in that.” Ladona yanked the reins of the conversation away from its lazy start, pointing at the flag emblazoned prominently on my chestpiece.
“Your heraldry, I imagine?” The crocodile surmised.
“Not quite. It’s a flag, composed of a collection of symbols added gradually over time through compromises for representation and union; each symbol representing the constituent geo and astro-political regions of my nation.” I answered a-matter-of-factly.
“It’s rather… bland for something you self-report as grand.” The tortle-like-turtle spoke. “Two colors, and rather weak and benign colors at that.” He snickered.
“It’s almost as if your realm is readying itself to be overpowered by the Nexian canton.” Ladona spoke dismissively. “Weak colors, and even weaker symbolism, befitting of a realm with weak manafield constitution.”
“Perhaps it might be best if we allow the newrealmer to speak to the symbolism first?” Etholin offered, peeking through the crowds with a curious wiggle of his nose.
“No explanation given can excuse the lack of artistry.” Ladona sighed. “But fine, go right ahead newrealmer. Endow us with your grand tirades on these flat and uninspiring symbols.”
“Well to address your points—” I made the effort of turning directly towards Ladona and the turtle. “—my kind finds meaning in brevity, and significance through simplicity. I understand that the understatedness of our symbols may seem quite foreign, but from the experience forged in our formative development, we have come to believe that the strength in a flag is derived as much from its design as it is from the ideals it upholds through the actions of its bearers. Moreover, we arrived at this point through centuries of well-intentioned compromises; attempting to unite all through shared commonalities. The greatest commonality of course, being the sovereign territory we inhabit.” I pointed at the Earth. “My world, or realm as you might call it; complete with its landmasses and continents.”
“Then what is that below your realm?” One of the smaller crocodiles shot out, pointing at the smaller circular body tucked beneath the Earth.
“That’s Luna, our moon.” I answered.
“So a realm and its moon…” Ladona chuckled dismissively. “How original. I’m going to assume then that the seven stars on either side surrounding your realm is a rough and vague visual representation of the stars upon the tapestry?”
“They are in fact simplified illustrative representations of stars.” I nodded. “However—” I paused, and for a moment, considered the next expository line carefully.
Fundamental systemic incongruency was, after all, very much present. Whilst Thacea, Thalmin and even Ilunor had begun moving towards accepting this reality-shattering truth, there was something to be said about the rest of the student body that hadn’t yet gone through the ringer.
It was… tempting, even encouraged through some chapters of SIOP to be forthright with explanations pertaining to the flag and the UN as a whole.
However, given the circumstances and the ultimate discretion I had as mission commander… this just wasn’t the time for it.
We had to establish a foundation, just like I did with the gang, before moving forward with something this monumental; to overcome the barrier that was FSI.
I could potentially simply say it without addressing it outright. However, that would inevitably result in a flurry of questions that couldn’t be addressed, at least, not at this junction. One had to walk, before running, let alone blasting off into space. Just like I planned to do with the gang now that things planet-side had been revealed to them in the holo-projector…
“—there are other symbolic meanings ascribed to the stars. Of which I think would be better kept for another time.” I concluded succinctly, prompting more than one curious gaze to form amongst the gathered crowd.
“Layers upon layers.” Viscount Gumigo spoke in a huff.
“The newrealmer certainly does have a penchant for showmanship, I’ll give her that much!” One of the smaller crocodiles spoke up just as quickly, crossing his arms as he did so.
“In any case…” Ladona sighed with a pinch of her ‘nose’. “We are getting absolutely nowhere with these trivial discussions. Let us broach the drake in the room and be done with these pointless sojourns into the inane ramblings of a newrealmer.” She raised a finger, pointing it dangerously close to my armor, as if tempting the same reaction from before. “Why exactly do you wear that armor, hmm? I believe that should be a simple enough question to answer?”
This seemed to cause some disquieting murmurs in the group, primarily as a result of the impromptu leader of it having once more retaken her reins. However, I recognized it for what it was, or rather for the opportunity it presented — an off-ramp from one tense conversation, into what was definitely going to be another controversial one.
Though it was one that needed to be addressed as the most fundamental disruption in their worldviews, if I am to build anything atop of it at all. The mana-less issue, was after all, the first matter I broached with the gang. And perhaps the process in which I did so, could be used as a pilot model and applied elsewhere too.
So with a subsequent sigh, and a few large steps back away from Ladona’s attempt at poking my armor again, I finally spoke.
“I’m assuming you’ve all heard rumors of the first Earthrealmer who crossed the threshold?” I began, garnering quite a few head bobs from the crowd.
“Well then, I guess we’ll start there. What do you know about it?”
“That your first candidate was thoroughly harmonized.” The tortle-like-turtle responded bluntly.
“Either due to a sickness of the soul, or an inability of the soul to render the difference in the purity of Nexian manastreams.” One of the crocodiles chimed in.
“That’s all somewhat correct.” I nodded. “However, it’s more in the ballpark than on the point. So to keep things concise, let me put things simply — my people come from a manaless realm, and as a result, all life in my realm, humans included, lacks a manafield. The reason why the first candidate was harmonized as you say, and the reason why I need this armor, is because of the dangers posed by mana on a living being lacking in a manafield.”
The reactions to this revelation, one that I knew had to be addressed one way or another, was understandably one of disbelief.
“A bold faced lie.” Came the tortle-like-tortoise.
“Incredibly bold, and incredibly stupid.” Came Ladona.
“But not out of line.” Came one of the crocodiles, who placed a palm underneath his ‘chin’, as the entire group turned towards him.
“It’s quite simple really. Even you of all people touched upon it, Lady Ladona.” Viscount Gumigo snickered dismissively at the butterfly. “The newrealmer simply doesn’t know her realm has mana. Moreover, her kind must be so weak-fielded, that they mistake themselves to be manaless. It’s merely an extension of your existing conjecture. Perhaps you should’ve thought of that yourself.” He grinned cockily. “There is always truth in one’s beliefs. It’s just that the more primitive you are, the more that truth is often obscured by gross misunderstandings.” He quickly turned towards me, now with a face of pride, as if he’d unlocked a hidden truth. “Am I correct, Cadet Emma Booker?”
“No.” I responded bluntly. “So let’s start from the top.” I paused for a moment, palming the device that would more or less force the crowd to face the facts, as it’d done to Ilunor just a week prior — the tablet. “Tell me, you understand that there exists manaless methods for processes expedited by magic, yes?”
“Such as in fields like smithing and record-keeping?” The crocodile offered.
“Correct.” I nodded.
“What could you possibly be getting at here, newrealmer?” Ladona remarked with a frustrated sigh.
“Well, you would assume that without magic, and without the presence of mana, that advanced metallurgical processes wouldn’t have been possible, correct? The same goes for advanced means of recordkeeping such as sight-seers and memory-shards?”
The crowd, for once, nodded silently.
“Well then, you wouldn’t expect there to be a manaless means of storing information in a similar capacity to your-”
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 450% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
Another mana radiation warning hit me. This one plunged me into complete darkness.
ALERT: Critical reduction in light levels. Compensating…
“Not now, Cadet Emma Booker.” A voice boomed through the dark.
A dark that the rest of my sensors immediately pierced through, revealing that I was simply covered by an anomalous light-dampening field, hampering some of my visual sensors; but not the rest of my sensor suite. This revealed that I was standing at the exact same spot as before, though with the addition of a certain shadowy-faced apprentice.
“What-?”
“I apologize for breaching Expectant Decorum by disrupting your points of personal privilege. However, your current aim-to-disrupt has triggered this outcome. I suggest you avoid broaching this particular talking point, Cadet Emma Booker.”
“...And what if I don’t?” I shot back defiantly.
“I am not at liberty, nor am I of the authority to elaborate further. This is a matter that will be addressed in due time. Or rather, much sooner than you expect. But until then, I believe it’s best that you do not let loose this particular dragon. The party is almost over, after all.”
First Previous Next
​
(Author’s Note: The gang make their way towards the student lounge, a place that Emma has been to only once after hours, right after the warehouse explosion! However now she finally gets a chance to see it in all of its glory! I wanted this chapter to sort of act as a snapshot of life here at the Academy outside of the classes, activities, and intense drama haha. I sort of wanted to show a slice of the world that hopefully makes everything feel a bit more alive and lived in, and perhaps even a bit more magical! I wanted to demonstrate another side of the Academy and its students, by showing the rest of the student body and their perceptions of Emma, and also by showing all of the other activities they get up to on their off time! And while there of course is some silly Nexian politics going on, especially in the first nook with the chair, it's at least optional here as there's plenty more things to do than just that! I hope you guys enjoy! :D Also! The official art for Thalmin is now on the Jcb Writing Corner subreddit if you want to check it out! The next Two Chapters are already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 82 and Chapter 83 of this story is already out on there!)]

How would you play this list ? This is my lance thematic Crusade army for late summer. A techpriest conclave with their mighty escort. How would you guys play it ?
++ Army Roster (Imperium - Adeptus Mechanicus) [1,995pts] ++

• Configuration +

Battle Size: 1. Incursion (1000 Point limit)
Detachment: Data-psalm Conclave

• Character +

Tech-Priest Dominus [75pts]: Macrostubber, Volkite blaster
Tech-Priest Enginseer [45pts]
Tech-Priest Enginseer [45pts]
Tech-Priest Manipulus [80pts]: Magnarail lance, Temporcopia
Technoarcheologist [45pts]

• Infantry +

Pteraxii Sterylizors [65pts] . 4x Pteraxii Sterylizors: 4x Phosphor torch, 4x Pteraxii talons
Secutarii Hoplites [Legends] [130pts] . 8x Secutarii Hoplite: 8x Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite Alpha: Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite w/ omnispex
Secutarii Hoplites [Legends] [130pts] . 8x Secutarii Hoplite: 8x Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite Alpha: Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite w/ omnispex
Secutarii Hoplites [Legends] [130pts] . 8x Secutarii Hoplite: 8x Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite Alpha: Arc lance . Secutarii Hoplite w/ omnispex

• Vehicle +

Archaeopter Stratoraptor [170pts]: Command Uplink
Sydonian Dragoons (Taser Lance) [180pts] . 3x Sydonian Dragoon (Taser lance & phosphor serpenta): 3x Phosphor serpenta, 3x Taser lance
Sydonian Dragoons (Taser Lance) [180pts] . 3x Sydonian Dragoon (Taser lance & phosphor serpenta): 3x Phosphor serpenta, 3x Taser lance
Sydonian Dragoons (Taser Lance) [180pts] . 3x Sydonian Dragoon (Taser lance & phosphor serpenta): 3x Phosphor serpenta, 3x Taser lance

• Allied Units +

Cerastus Knight Lancer [465pts]
Eversor Assassin [75pts]
++ Total: [1,995pts] ++
Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

Hello everyone, this will be a long one. First, I wanted to discuss Pantheon's thematic concept and thematic playstyle. Both of these terms are subjective. Then, I wanted to analyze his current state and kit to get a better understanding and highlight his strengths and weaknesses. Then I made some small, large, and redesigning suggestions for the champion. This document is about 13 pages single space. I hope you enjoy.

Thematic Concept

Thematic concept refers to his out of game concept, clearly being a mix of a spartan warrior and partially a vessel of a god of war. What stands out in the character is the combination of spear and shield. As a vessel of the god of war, there is an expectation that his fighting is flexible to be both offensive and defensive as well as dueling and large combat prowess. This works well with the spear and shield combat as both Spartans and gladiators often used this combination of weapons. Spartans could create a protective front line and pierce enemies from behind the shield wall. In formation, they could use their shields to push enemies back and stab when opponents were knocked off balance. Gladiators with spears and shields are very defensive and it only takes a few pokes and some endurance to whittle away at your opponent until you go in for the kill (or they surrender). As a vessel of a god of war, we want to embody these two characters as well as being a durable fighter. He should be bulky, someone on the front line who's not afraid to get into the thick of it while maintain this offensive and defensive balance.

Thematic Playstyle

The thematic playstyle should flow from the thematic concept. These two concepts should match to the best of their abilities. Obviously the game has to have some balance and a space dragon and guy with a shotgun should be able fight on a more or less even playing field. Pantheon currently has two distinct playstyles: fighter, and glass cannon.
If above the curve, his glass cannon builds can 100-0 most isolated squishy targets, and if not can leave them very low on health (or kill them if they are below 100%). Usually the playstyle looked like this: ult onto target or surprise from a bush or flank >> empowered w (+3 quick autos) >> q >> auto >> e >> empowered q. There's not a lot of mechanical skill in this playstyle, the skill comes from your ability to set up the kills (map awareness, timing, understanding current vision control, know when to push and then duck into cover). The main reason I didn't call this an assassin build is because assassins are usually defined by their slipperiness. Assassins are meant to get a kill and then slip out. However, they usually can slip out of ganks easily with their dashes or other mobility spells. Pantheon is meant to be a frontline/diver in his thematic concept and playstyle and so he doesn't have this ability to slip out of a gank (unless you want to use your 3 (down to 2:30 minute ultimate cooldown which can easily be cancelled if the enemy is in range). Pantheon does have his empowered e, which does help him escape these ganks if near a turret (or allies), but with it's long cd as well being the only defensive tool, pantheon becomes a sitting duck if ganked in a long lane (particularly in the mid/late game). What this playstyle means a lot of the time is that you're clearing waves and clearing waves, running away at the sight of an opponent (even if it's just one), then clearing some more waves, and then try to find a good ult when objectives are spawning. This glass cannon build plays super scared, does not want to be in a fight, but can often be more successful since getting a pick in the early/middle game puts the enemy carries behind; and getting picks in the middle/late game leads to objective control as well as top laners being less valuable than carries. Let's also be clear that if you cannot get a kill on a carry (usually because the support protects them), then you will die 95% of the time with no recompense. There is a thematic mismatch between this playstyle and his concept. It's not a mechanical playstyle, since you're just landing all of your abilities while a target is stunned for half of the time and running away; it's not a tactical playstyle, because you're not baiting out abilities, spacing the opponent, or waiting for your cd's; but it is strategic in the general sense that you have to be a strong macro player to play pantheon well, however I would argue that this is not part of Pantheon's thematic concept (although in general I don't think many champions fall under a "strategic" concept, with maybe the exception of Swain and Teemo). More importantly, with his glass cannon build, there is no balance between spear and shield (offense and defense), it's all spear. There's no front line soldier who gets into the thick of it, only a coward that runs away. There's no culmination of small victories (winning small trades) until your opponent dies or has to surrender, it's just a one-shot from a surprise angle. I like Pantheon's glass cannon build solely because I win more with this build.
Pantheon's fighter build is closer to matching his thematic concept. His trading patterns are a longer, he can last longer in combat, and he is threatening enough that he can dissuade kills. His major strengths come from his point-and-click stun which counters pretty much all assassins in team fights as well as gets picks for your allies. Pantheon's kit is indeed strong and so his bruiser build functions well on low economy. All he really needs is a black cleaver and another defensive fighter item (DD or Maw depending on matchup, which you end up getting first) and he's off to the races (this is Keegun's - NA challenger pantheon main - current build suggestion for pantheon). It's almost always better to gives your teammates the gold in team fights because they are more gold efficient than Pantheon. Similarly, it's also better to give your jungler the kill when they gank your lane (top lane) because they can use the gold and affect the map better. This is also partially how jungle and support Pantheon function, they become a stun bot so that their teammates can collect the goal. Pantheon's fighter build still suffers from similar issues as his glass cannon build where he can be run down in the long lane. If even, most (if not all) duelists and tanks will win the 1v1 at 3 items+ if both Pantheon and his opponent are at 100% hp. In many cases where Pantheon goes even in the trade, Pantheon will find his enemy life stealing against the wave. Even if Pantheon went a life steal build, he will find himself running out of mana quickly and so it is better to give his opponent the push, which impairs his ability to move to a team fight, ultimately taking away one of his major strengths. Regarding the flow from thematic concept to thematic playstyle, Pantheon's bruiser build gets closer to mending the two with his ability to be in the thick of a fight for a little bit, but even this aspect doesn't stand out amongst the other bruisers in the game; he becomes as tanky as camille or fiora, but without their late game upside. He doesn't balance offense and defense; or spear and shield; burst and endurance. With this build, he's not a vessel of the god of war, he's a sidekick who helps feed his teammates.

Pantheon's Current State

Pantheon's glass cannon build seems to be his best performing build, but this is partially because this build becomes more effective when he's played mid lane. As mentioned earlier, he can one-shot squishy targets with this build and so it makes sense that playing in a lane that typical plays squishy champions (mages, assassins) pantheon is able to excel. Riot Phreak said in his recent patch notes rundown video that they have to be careful when buffing Pantheon because his win rate is strong in the mid lane, which comes from the common matchups that he plays against. Based on the previous section, it's likely that the best changes for Pantheon would be to diminish his strength as a glass cannon. I'm going to largely talk about top lane (I'm most familiar with this role for Pantheon) because this is where the fighter class general thrives, but also because his role in other positions is more one-dimensional (as explained in the glass-cannon section).
Early Game/Lane Phase
In top lane and mid lane, pantheon's lane phase is largely similar. Usually the difference between playstyle is based less on lane and more on the range of the opponent. Pantheon has clear mana problems (I will get into this in my section on each of his abilities). In lane, he can usually use his full kit twice (essentially 2 e's, 3 w's before fully oom, not including q's). Other than his e, which drains him of mana, he has no defensive mechanics in his kit. He technically has his w to stun someone and walk away, but this doesn't negate damage nor does it sustain him - it also drains him of mana. So Pantheon relies on his Q in lane to poke to a point where his full combo is enough to get the enemy low. This is a strong strategy early game, but if you don't get his poke off, the enemy can easily all-in you from levels 3-5. So usually Pantheon succeeds on hard pushing the first wave to hit level 2 first - if the enemy doesn't respect the level 2, then they will lose the trade pretty hard. However, depending on the matchup, Pantheon can lose the level 1 and if the other player is aware of the matchup, then Pantheon is playing on the backfoot for a while. If the opponent respects the level 2, then they back up and usually nothing happens and you can get a cheater recall off (if perfect success, you have 450g which goes to boots + refillable). After first back, Pantheon excels at his poke trade patterns, and it's important that he is either freezing or crashing waves against his opponent. He's very good at not letting opponents freeze a wave assuming both Pantheon and his opponent are equal. However, if he's behind and frozen on, he will struggle greatly because he loses pretty much every all-in (from 100%) after level 3. As mentioned earlier, one of his strengths is to whittle the opponent down, but as long as they respect his range; Pantheon can't do much about it. This is where the jungler plays a crucial role for Pantheon top. Pantheon is great for setting up dives for most junglers and so he works very well with carry/damage oriented junglers. If Pantheon gets ahead, as long as his opponents don't give him a freeze and they respect Pantheon, Pantheon is very bad at pushing his lead in lane. If Pantheon keeps receiving help for the dives, it's likely his other lanes will start losing. This is why it's best for jungler teammates to gank early to get themselves ahead and transition their lead to winning the rest of the map. At this point, Pantheon's goals change to winning the lane through farm, not dying to ganks, and finding opportune moments to roam (particularly mid lane).
Mid Game
As the data suggests (I use lolalytics), Pantheon's win rate falls off a cliff in the mid game (and then comes back up a bit in the end game). The main reason, I believe, that Pantheon loses a lot of his win rate in the mid game is because he loses his poke-trade pattern. When tier-1 turrets fall, the lanes become longer and so enemies either give him the push, they all-in him in the long lane, or he gives them the push. Since his ultimate is 3 minutes long from levels 6-10 (and 2:30 from 11-15), he basically only has an ultimate once every 5 minutes for when dragon spawns. If Pantheon doesn't save his ultimate for objective spawn, he will find it very difficult to be effective in the team fight. It will require running to the fight early (or pushing strong, which means your mid laner (who is running tp) needs to cover weak side, which means you're fighting for position around the objective without your mid lane carry, which puts you at a disadvantage), and finding a good flank. Because he loses his poke trade pattern, he cannot 100-0 bruisers, he's often just farming up and waiting for fights. This is a fairly underwhelming trade pattern and can lead to Pantheon mains likely getting bored and starting unideal fights. Overall, his play pattern changes the most after the early game when the enemy opponent is not required to interact with Pantheon in a shorter lane.
Late Game
Late game has similar problems to early game, but his win rate stabilizes to 50% likely because of the confounding variable where a team that cannot beat Pantheon's team by 30 minutes, it could be because Pantheon's teammates are farther ahead and scale better. This is not to say Pantheon scales poorly. Pantheon's scaling is difficult to define. If Pantheon can stun or kill an enemy carry late game, his team will likely win the game. With Black cleaver and BotRK, Pantheon can also hold off most split pushers. However, he's not a win condition and is not great at applying pressure. He's good at taking one tower at a time if his team plays safe and enemy top laner doesn't have TP up, but since he cannot dive or all-in well, he cannot pressure an enemy in the 1v1.

Pantheon's Kit and Stats

In this section, I will be looking at Pantheon's current kit to analyze the strengths and weaknesses. I will cover both their numbers, relative to other champions in his class as well as his former kit, and their concept. I will then discuss some of his base statistics. To save a bit of time reading, I will not be displaying the full text of each ability.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon's passive is likely the most problematic part about his kit. Conceptually, it's generic. Pantheon's current passive requires him to have 5 stacks, which can be stacked from either autos or abilities, which can then empower one of his basic abilities. Previously, pantheon needed 4 stacks, which would cause the next basic attack to be blocked. Additionally, Pantheon's old W (same ability more or less) would give him his passive immediately and keep the stack counter the same. This means at 3 stacks, Pantheon could W a target, that target's auto would be blocked, then pantheon would auto, and the target's next auto would be blocked again. The old passive gave him a unique defensive tool which matched his thematic concept with his thematic playstyle. It also gave him tactical depth because he could W an opponent before their empowered auto to negate the damage. His current passive does not give him the same tactical depth, and actually limits his depth because of how reliant he is on empowered W as part of his trade pattern. It does offer you the choice though if you would like to kill your opponent immediately with empowered Q or chase them down a bit if you need a few more autos with empowered E (or just run away). But even if you did believe that his passive adds some depth, it still has two other major issues. The first is that it encourages Pantheon to be more auto-based. None of his kit except this part encourages auto attacks, nor does thematic concept or playstyle revolve around an auto-based kit. He's a midrange ad spell casting fighter, akin to Jayce, but instead of a melee/range form he should have a offensive/defensive balance. The second major issue with his passive is that it frontloads too much of his power into his basic abilities, which creates balance issues.
Q - Comet Spear
This is Pantheon's bread and butter, but it still has problems. To start with empowered Q, this may be one of the most satisfying abilities, but it's just too strong. His regular Q deals about half damage. While his poke in lane is good, it's not as good as it used to be. Pantheon used to have a Q that dealt 75/115/155/195/235 (+140 bonus AD), with a 4s CD, point and click and is 600 range. Pantheon's current regular Q deals 70/100/130/160/190 (+115% bonus AD) with a 4.4-3.2s CD, aoe skill shot, and 560 range. Old Pantheon used to fall off heavily after level 9 because his old Q was so weak, and it's a similar story now. In lane, this is a great ability; however, base weak is just very weak in all-ins. The other frustrating thing about his Q is its thrown version. Since this ability is his bread and butter, if you use the thrown version, it becomes an 11-second CD rather than 4.4s. This means you basically have to back off after using thrown Q. Therefore, the only time you should be using it is when you've clearly won the fight and you're looking for chip-damage or you're trying to execute. In the first case, it's pretty meaningless because they'll just back at this point. In the second case, it's great! However my point is that thrown Q is a fake part of the spell, it does more harm than good when using it. It gets worse though, since if you try to use thrown Q through a minion wave, it gets reduced by 50% if thrown through a minion wave. It has its fringe uses, but I think it has room for improvement. In general, I think this is a great ability, but it must be remembered when looking at solutions for this champion.
W - Shield Vault
This is Pantheon's best ability, for the reasons listed above. A point-and-click stun is just strong. I think everything about this ability is fair; however, it may even be too strong, and changing the ability so that it's not point-and-click should be considered. The big issue with his W is it's empowered version. There are two problems and a big consideration with this ability. The first problem The first problem is that the three auto attacks are just so strong with on-hit. I considered BotRK to be Pantheon's best item by far last patch because the 3 auto's at 12% current health was the only thing winning him 1v1s. Similarly, Pantheon is able to stack conqueror, black cleaver, and PTA well with this combo. While this may sound like a benefit to him, it moves away from a preferred thematic concept. This leads into my second point, the three autos feel small with the quick animation and high pitch audio. They're three little stabs, and when you don't go BotRK, they really don't deal much damage. Thematically, this just feels bad, it feels like an ability that xin zhao, fiora, gwen, irelia, kat, shaco, or talon would have. When it comes to playstyle, there's no skill expression with this second part either, it's just the same W and since their stunned and your auto attack timer is up, it's basically just a free "combo". The consideration that needs to be made is how it stacks Pantheon's passive. While it did fully stack the old passive, his old passive was... passive, it wasn't part of his offensive trade pattern. Pantheon's current trade pattern almost always starts with empowered W because it becomes a free empowered Q (or E sometimes). His W being a passive stacking mechanic is what brings down the depth of his trade pattern.
E - Aegis Assault
Pantheon's E is pragmatically his most problematic ability. It's pragmatically problematic (rather than thematically) because the base ability is so strong (there's a theme here if you can't tell). Because it's so strong, the CD is super high, the damage is low, the empowered E got heavily nerfed a few seasons ago, and the mana cost is also high. To compare his current E to his old E: Current E has a CD from 22-18, costs 80 mana, and deals 55-255 (+150 bonus AD). Old E used to have a 10-6 CD, cost 45-65 mana, and dealt 100-300 (+300% bonus AD). Yes, you're reading that right. 300 + 300% bonus ad on a 6s CD with only 65 mana, which you would get at level 9 if maxed first. Talon R total physical damage (hits both parts) deals 360 (+200% bonus AD) at level 16. I'm not suggesting to return Pantheon's current E to similar damage, I am just trying to highlight how much damage was lost in Pantheon's kit. If I recall correctly, Pantheon was around 54% wr top consistently prior to being reworked; nowadays he sits below 50% as a "simple" champion (he's currently ranked 65/95 champions according to lolalytics over the last 30 days in emerald+). The two main issues with this ability are it's cooldown as well as its mana cost. Pantheon has 1 defensive ability and it feels like you only get to use this as a last resort. It feels like you don't get to play with the shield as a spear and shield guy. And when you do use it, you're severely punished mana-wise. Lastly, his empowered E just feels bad. Rarely do I use empowered E offensively, and it's much more likely that I use it to run away after. Although since the movement speed is small and only lasts 1.5s, you're likely to get caught afterwards in a long lane, which is why he has to play so scared in the long lane. However, even if you do escape, he's not (nor feels like) the champion that tanks in a fight and stays, he tanks a bit and runs away. Again, playing with a cowardly playstyle.
I want to compare his defensive ability to that of other champions in the same class. On top of Camille's mobility and healing, her passive shields every 14-10s (lvl 1-13). Fiora W costs 50 mana and CD is 24-16s. Gangplank W costs 60-100 mana (usually 60 since maxed last) and CD is 22-14. Riven E is manaless and the cd is 10-6s. Gwen W is 60 mana and CD is 22-18s. Irelia W is 70-90 mana and CD is 20-12s. Jax E is 50-90 mana and 15-9 CD. Olaf W is 50 mana and is 16-12 CD. Sett W is manaless and 18-12 cs. Volibear E is 60 mana and CD is 12s. Assuming Pantheon can even survive in the 1v1 after a full use of spells, all of these champions will have big defensive spells up like 4-8s sooner than Pantheon. During the early game, his ability is more mana hungry and his E loses in often 3 different ways compared to his fighting counterparts. What's most important though is that Pantheon's shield should be defining in his playstyle, but since you can't use it often, you feel like you're just the spear guy.
R - Grand Starfall
Pantheon's R has remained the same the most compared to all of his abilities through the rework. One thing to note is that his ult used to be 2:30-2:00 CD while his current ult is 3:00-2:30, which feels a bit bad. But all global abilities in League have been strong and so they need to be gated behind a long cooldown. I think this is more or less okay, and his ultimate does play into his thematic concept and playstyle well. I think his old ultimate had a bit more oomf to it but both of them are betteworse in minor ways. I think there is a way to reimagine this ability in a following section, but for now I think this is a great ability that needs to be changed the least. However, the 30% armor penetration that was added to his kit a few seasons ago is a band aid solution. In fact, it what makes his glass cannon build so much stronger because lethality becomes more gold effective on him.
Base Statistics
Mana - Pantheon has a starting mana of 317, which puts him the bottom 3rd of base starting mana as a spell-casting (rather than auto based) melee fighter (let's also remember that much of top lane are manaless champions). Pantheon is in the bottom 15% of champions for mana mana growth per level (31/lvl). In the list of champions with a worse growth coefficient are all mages; the next 3 are auto-based fringe top laners (ww, nocturne, quinn), while Poppy - a champion with 2 possible mana items that they are able to purchase in their class - is the next closest (40/lvl). Camille and Jax are the next comparable champions (52/lvl).
For Pantheon's other stats, he usually is in the realm of the fighter class (which has higher base stats on average) but is usually near the bottom in his class. However, it should be noted that his base health regen and health regen coefficient are both low for his class, and without any healing or cheap shielding in his kit, he will often get out endured in a lane where he doesn't have good opportunities to back. For a champion who's playstyle should be partially about sustained fighting, he is bad at it from a base statistics perspective.

Small Changes

These are my band aid solutions. These are direction suggestions and the exact numbers shouldn't be taken literally. Also, since I'm including multiple suggestions, I know that adding all or even multiple of them will make Pantheon overpowered. These are just the directions I suggest the balance team should take.
Q: Have the base Q scale harder off of bonus AD (remember old Pantheon Q had +140%). Compensate by nerfing Q5 base damage by a bit or nerfing empowered Q base scaling.
Q: Either make thrown Q able to deal full damage through minions, or reduce cool down of thrown Q. If cool down is reduced, nerf tap Q cool down refund respectively.
W: Remove the effectiveness of the on-hit portion of his W.
E: Buff this ability overall. Reduce mana cost to something like 60-90. Reduce cooldown from 22-18 to 16-12; however, nerf W cool down to 16-12 in response. It would make sense that these two abilities are up at similar times (similar to alistar Q and W) so that there's more choice between spell usage.
E: This damage can be buffed. This ability basically deals 3 auto attacks worth of damage over a 1.5s duration.
R: Remove the armor pen.
Increase base mana, base mana regen, and base health regen.

Larger Changes

These larger changes are more unrealistic.
Tap Q: Slows enemy by 5/10/15/20/25% for 1s. Serylda's grudge got massively nerfed for Pantheon because he can no longer go Black Cleaver + Serylda's, and also the slow was nerfed to below 50%. If a champion is below 50% while Pantheon is on them, they're basically dead (assuming he hasn't used his abilities yet). A slow on his Q, while incredibly strong - and should perhaps be tuned by champion level rather than skill rank - gives him the ability to space opponents and play that endurance fight more effectively. He keeps them at bay slowing them and so they can't chase him down as easily in the long lane.
E: Do the E small changes (regarding mana and CD) but also make the channel a smaller window. A 0.75-1s channel window makes the ability more skillful and allows room for buffs.
Empowered E: Refund cool down on E. Something like 50% allows his 22s cd to come back up in 11s can be big as a defensive option.

Redesigning Pantheon

To reiterate, here's what I would want from Pantheon's kit: balance of offensive and defensive, spell-based mid range melee fighter (mid range similar to ryze, cass), mostly endurance fighter but some opportunity for burst, and someone who can be a front line or duelist. With this in mind, we need to set up some weaknesses. He can't be a burst champion, he has too many tools that we need to give his enemies time to outplay him. Since he's mid range, he will be weak to champions that out-range him. With this combination, it should be hard for him to jump on an enemy, but if he does, there should be time for them to react. This means he will be weak to mages and supports which should shift him out of mid lane and support.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon generates a stack of Mortal Will whenever he lands an ability on an enemy champion or large monster, stacking up to 3 times. At 3 stacks, Pantheon's next basic ability consumes the stacks to become empowered. Pantheon gains maximum stacks of Mortal Will upon starting the game, completing a Recall channel, and respawning.
Note - The purpose of changing this ability to 3 stacks means that he has to be more skillful with his abilities. He can't just rely on autoing minions or Q-ing the air to get himself to full stacks. This will also nudge him away from being an auto-based champion. With 3 stacks it will will take longer to get multiple passive procs, but this allows for the passive to be strong. If you can extend the fight, Pantheon will shine.
Q - Comet Spear
Cost: 45 (20 mana nerf) Cooldown: 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 Range: -40 - 560 / 1100 Cast time, width, speed: same. For the rest of the ability, I would keep the text and numbers largely the same. Added: Tapping Comet Spear refunds 55% of the mana cost (~25 mana total). Comet Spear impales his target causing them to bleed for 3s and take 5/10/15/20/25 (+ 25% bonus AD) total physical damage over the duration. Empowered Q will cause the bleed to deal double damage.
Note - This needs to be his major damage source. As mentioned above, tap Q has a 4.4-3.2s CD with 0 ability haste, so this would technically be a minor nerf early game, however this gives him his thrown ability back. Thrown Q is harder to hit because you need to channel the ability for 0.55s to throw as well as the speed, while fast, is slower than an instant tap Q. It will still take reduced damage through the minions which means that it shouldn't be great for harassing range opponents, but it will give him some ability to play into the matchup after his loss of engage and burst (as you will see). To also mitigate this buff to thrown Q, the mana cost is nerfed to old Pantheon's Q cost, however the mana is refunded if used for tap Q. The bleed damage backloads the damage a bit which gives time for enemies to react. The bleed does not stack, but does get refreshed upon further Comet Spear hits. Bleed should be added to Pantheon's kit because it brings out the endurance side of his thematic playstyle. Bleed will keep conqueror, grasp, black cleaver and other similar effects up which highlights that he's still in the fight. Additionally, this damage will mitigate the damage that is lost from being an auto-based champion, as well as mitigate effects from passive/active health regen and items/runes such as doran's shield and second wind (old Pantheon had this problem where he lost every matchup into players who took doran's shield + second wind). The empowered Comet Spear getting double bleed damage is to mirror that this ability practically does double damage. Lastly, the numbers for the bleed were chosen to mimic Darius' Hemorrhage (passive) which does 13-30 (based on level) (+30% bonus AD), but stacks up to 5 times. 3 seconds was chosen as a timeframe for the bleed for Pantheon because he can make full use of it early game, but once it's rank 5 and with ability haste, he won't be benefitting from a spam Q playstyle and will be slightly rewarded for playing it slower. Lastly, the bleed damage can be used to balance his Jungle clear since he won't be getting his passive up as easily without the auto-based passive.
W - Shield Bash (New Spell)
Active: Pantheon bashes his shield in front of him. Enemies near Pantheon are also stunned for 0.5s and knocked back up to 300 units based on their proximity to him. Damage is the same as what's on PBE right now (5-7% max HP + ap scaling). Effect Radius: 300 Cast time: 0.35s Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 (1s nerf). Empowered W will be the current Shield Vault. The damage will be the same, but it will be a skill shot similar to Malphite ultimate, although smaller radius, slower travel speed, stuns rather than knocks up, and Pantheon will have a 0.25s animation lock upon landing.
Note - Shield bash is pretty much a copy of Maokai's inner Bramble Smash (Q) which knocks back enemies. It doesn't have the extended range, slow or damage though. The point of this ability on Pantheon is that it gives him a defensive tool that gets melee champions off of him, which helps his midrange play style. The reliable stun which comes up every 6 seconds in the mid/late game going away takes away his current identity of being a stun-bot. Additionally, he takes away his burst and dive potential since it's harder for him to get onto targets. He will have to either use empowered W to get onto target or his ultimate. Shield Bash also gives more out play potential because you can time melee champs out of their attack (if you're familiar with Maokai, you know how strong this can be). Ultimately, this makes Pantheon become a disengage-poke champion which plays into that midrange thematic playstyle. As for the empowered W, this will give him the flexibility to engage, and with it being an AOE spell, it allows him to be a strong team fighter. However, because it's a skill shot rather than point-and-click, it gives his opponents potential to outplay. Often carries would flash Pantheon's Shield Vault but would still get hit by the stun which is unfair to them. The purpose of the 0.25s animation lock after casting gives him the heavier and slower rolling feel that you get in dark souls games but also it's meant to be clearly weaker than Malphite ultimate. Also this ability helps Pantheon run away from enemies which is important for a side laner, but also the animation lock gives them a little room to hit a skill shot on you. Also, if you are using this ability to run away, you will find that your passive is down and since you have to hit enemy champions (or large jungle monsters), you will often find yourself at a disadvantage for the next find or if they try to pursue you.
E - Aegis Assault
Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Cool down: 22/20/18/16/14 Duration: 1s Effect radius, angle, and everything else is the same. Due to less duration, Aegis Assault deals damage 8 times (every 0.125s to enemies hit). Empowered E inflicts armor reduction for 5% each time an enemy takes damage from Aegis Assault up to 40% armor reduction for 5 seconds.
Note - The cost is lowered early so you're not as heavily punished for using it. The cool down remains the same early to be in line with other early game defensive abilities. However, as a spear and shield champion, he should have this ability up more often in the mid and late game. Because of this, the duration should go down and mana up slightly to compensate. The damage is being nerfed slightly also since it doesn't last 1.5s. The empowered E getting armor reduction helps his team fighting prowess and will likely only give him the armor reduction against front liners. This greatly takes away his power to burst squishy targets and also means that he won't be using his empowered W to stun opponents (carries). Here there are significant trade offs to using his abilities for offensive vs defense in a more satisfying way. Additionally, if enemies don't take the full channel of armor shred, they're not getting their armor reduced which should be slightly weaker against mobile enemies in the 1v1 but stronger against tanks.
R - Grand Starfall
Remove the armor penetration from ultimate rank up. New passive: Hitting an enemy with an ability slows affected units by 10/20/30% for 1s.
Note - The slow will give him his true duelist potential in the mid/late parts of the game because it allows him to space appropriately against the mobility creep. Without Serylda's Grude Pantheon doesn't have the ability to stick on targets well over a duration of time which is partially why he needed to be burst-oriented. The slow should alleviate this issue and allow his mid-range thematic playstyle to shine. It's important to note that this only works on abilities that hit enemies and therefore doesn't work on the bleed that was added to his kit. Taking away the armor penetration also goes away from his glass-cannon build.

Conclusion

Pantheon's current kit misses the mark for what should be his thematic concept and thematic playstyle. He should be a warrior that can go into battle or a duel with a balance of offense and defense, outplay his opponent through a fight of attrition while having his moments for heavy damage. He should not be a pseudo-assassin who can't 1v1 in the side lane and is scared to walk up. I have highlighted his issues above which come from being mana hungry while also being too auto-dependent when he should be ability dependent. The "Small Changes" section shows reasonable band-aid fixes to his kit. The "Larger Changes" section are some fixes that drastically change a few of his abilities but are what's needed to make his playstyle feel better. The "Redesigning Pantheon" is how I would go about reimagining this champion to fit the thematic playstyle and concept that he deserves. It is largely a rework, and the numbers are not exact, but this gives a lot of complexity to a champion that currently plays more generically than he seems.
This took me a long time to write and I'm happy to hear all questions and comments about any part of this document or Pantheon in general. Pantheon is my highest mastery champion (however I'm far from a one-trick) and I've hit Masters in multiple roles if that's something that's important to the discussion. Thank you for reading.
Edit: Formatting. Also thank you for everyone who responded. I also just wanted to added that I'm not married to any of the numbers that I've listed, I just wanted to give suggestions for the direction I believe Pantheon changes should go.

Some killer duos sound equally epic and terrifying. Imagine these duos:

• Huntress & Trickster: projectile madness
• Singularity & Skull Merchant: cameras everywhere
• Trapper & Hag: watch your step
• Oni & Spirit: family night out
• Ghost Face & Pig: you won't see it coming
• Hillbilly & Cannibal: chainsaw insanity
• Cenobite & Deathslinger: chains of hate indeed
• Nightmare & Shape: horror icons
• Nurse & Blight: RIP to everyone
• Executioner & Onryo: everyone gets a mori!
• Good Guy & Twins: kiddos running around
• Mastermind & Nemesis: RE homies unite
• Demogorgon & Xenomorph: alien doggos

What other thematic duos can you think of?

Hello everyone, this will be a long one. First, I wanted to discuss Pantheon's thematic concept and thematic playstyle. Both of these terms are subjective. Then, I wanted to analyze his current state and kit to get a better understanding and highlight his strengths and weaknesses. Then I made some small, large, and redesigning suggestions for the champion. This document is about 13 pages single space. I hope you enjoy.

Thematic Concept

Thematic concept refers to his out of game concept, clearly being a mix of a spartan warrior and partially a vessel of a god of war. What stands out in the character is the combination of spear and shield. As a vessel of the god of war, there is an expectation that his fighting is flexible to be both offensive and defensive as well as dueling and large combat prowess. This works well with the spear and shield combat as both Spartans and gladiators often used this combination of weapons. Spartans could create a protective front line and pierce enemies from behind the shield wall. In formation, they could use their shields to push enemies back and stab when opponents were knocked off balance. Gladiators with spears and shields are very defensive and it only takes a few pokes and some endurance to whittle away at your opponent until you go in for the kill (or they surrender). As a vessel of a god of war, we want to embody these two characters as well as being a durable fighter. He should be bulky, someone on the front line who's not afraid to get into the thick of it while maintain this offensive and defensive balance.

Thematic Playstyle

The thematic playstyle should flow from the thematic concept. These two concepts should match to the best of their abilities. Obviously the game has to have some balance and a space dragon and guy with a shotgun should be able fight on a more or less even playing field. Pantheon currently has two distinct playstyles: fighter, and glass cannon.
If above the curve, his glass cannon builds can 100-0 most isolated squishy targets, and if not can leave them very low on health (or kill them if they are below 100%). Usually the playstyle looked like this: ult onto target or surprise from a bush or flank >> empowered w (+3 quick autos) >> q >> auto >> e >> empowered q. There's not a lot of mechanical skill in this playstyle, the skill comes from your ability to set up the kills (map awareness, timing, understanding current vision control, know when to push and then duck into cover). The main reason I didn't call this an assassin build is because assassins are usually defined by their slipperiness. Assassins are meant to get a kill and then slip out. However, they usually can slip out of ganks easily with their dashes or other mobility spells. Pantheon is meant to be a frontline/diver in his thematic concept and playstyle and so he doesn't have this ability to slip out of a gank (unless you want to use your 3 (down to 2:30 minute ultimate cooldown which can easily be cancelled if the enemy is in range). Pantheon does have his empowered e, which does help him escape these ganks if near a turret (or allies), but with it's long cd as well being the only defensive tool, pantheon becomes a sitting duck if ganked in a long lane (particularly in the mid/late game). What this playstyle means a lot of the time is that you're clearing waves and clearing waves, running away at the sight of an opponent (even if it's just one), then clearing some more waves, and then try to find a good ult when objectives are spawning. This glass cannon build plays super scared, does not want to be in a fight, but can often be more successful since getting a pick in the early/middle game puts the enemy carries behind; and getting picks in the middle/late game leads to objective control as well as top laners being less valuable than carries. Let's also be clear that if you cannot get a kill on a carry (usually because the support protects them), then you will die 95% of the time with no recompense. There is a thematic mismatch between this playstyle and his concept. It's not a mechanical playstyle, since you're just landing all of your abilities while a target is stunned for half of the time and running away; it's not a tactical playstyle, because you're not baiting out abilities, spacing the opponent, or waiting for your cd's; but it is strategic in the general sense that you have to be a strong macro player to play pantheon well, however I would argue that this is not part of Pantheon's thematic concept (although in general I don't think many champions fall under a "strategic" concept, with maybe the exception of Swain and Teemo). More importantly, with his glass cannon build, there is no balance between spear and shield (offense and defense), it's all spear. There's no front line soldier who gets into the thick of it, only a coward that runs away. There's no culmination of small victories (winning small trades) until your opponent dies or has to surrender, it's just a one-shot from a surprise angle. I like Pantheon's glass cannon build solely because I win more with this build.
Pantheon's fighter build is closer to matching his thematic concept. His trading patterns are a longer, he can last longer in combat, and he is threatening enough that he can dissuade kills. His major strengths come from his point-and-click stun which counters pretty much all assassins in team fights as well as gets picks for your allies. Pantheon's kit is indeed strong and so his bruiser build functions well on low economy. All he really needs is a black cleaver and another defensive fighter item (DD or Maw depending on matchup, which you end up getting first) and he's off to the races (this is Keegun's - NA challenger pantheon main - current build suggestion for pantheon). It's almost always better to gives your teammates the gold in team fights because they are more gold efficient than Pantheon. Similarly, it's also better to give your jungler the kill when they gank your lane (top lane) because they can use the gold and affect the map better. This is also partially how jungle and support Pantheon function, they become a stun bot so that their teammates can collect the goal. Pantheon's fighter build still suffers from similar issues as his glass cannon build where he can be run down in the long lane. If even, most (if not all) duelists and tanks will win the 1v1 at 3 items+ if both Pantheon and his opponent are at 100% hp. In many cases where Pantheon goes even in the trade, Pantheon will find his enemy life stealing against the wave. Even if Pantheon went a life steal build, he will find himself running out of mana quickly and so it is better to give his opponent the push, which impairs his ability to move to a team fight, ultimately taking away one of his major strengths. Regarding the flow from thematic concept to thematic playstyle, Pantheon's bruiser build gets closer to mending the two with his ability to be in the thick of a fight for a little bit, but even this aspect doesn't stand out amongst the other bruisers in the game; he becomes as tanky as camille or fiora, but without their late game upside. He doesn't balance offense and defense; or spear and shield; burst and endurance. With this build, he's not a vessel of the god of war, he's a sidekick who helps feed his teammates.

Pantheon's Current State

Pantheon's glass cannon build seems to be his best performing build, but this is partially because this build becomes more effective when he's played mid lane. As mentioned earlier, he can one-shot squishy targets with this build and so it makes sense that playing in a lane that typical plays squishy champions (mages, assassins) pantheon is able to excel. Riot Phreak said in his recent patch notes rundown video that they have to be careful when buffing Pantheon because his win rate is strong in the mid lane, which comes from the common matchups that he plays against. Based on the previous section, it's likely that the best changes for Pantheon would be to diminish his strength as a glass cannon. I'm going to largely talk about top lane (I'm most familiar with this role for Pantheon) because this is where the fighter class general thrives, but also because his role in other positions is more one-dimensional (as explained in the glass-cannon section).
Early Game/Lane Phase
In top lane and mid lane, pantheon's lane phase is largely similar. Usually the difference between playstyle is based less on lane and more on the range of the opponent. Pantheon has clear mana problems (I will get into this in my section on each of his abilities). In lane, he can usually use his full kit twice (essentially 2 e's, 3 w's before fully oom, not including q's). Other than his e, which drains him of mana, he has no defensive mechanics in his kit. He technically has his w to stun someone and walk away, but this doesn't negate damage nor does it sustain him - it also drains him of mana. So Pantheon relies on his Q in lane to poke to a point where his full combo is enough to get the enemy low. This is a strong strategy early game, but if you don't get his poke off, the enemy can easily all-in you from levels 3-5. So usually Pantheon succeeds on hard pushing the first wave to hit level 2 first - if the enemy doesn't respect the level 2, then they will lose the trade pretty hard. However, depending on the matchup, Pantheon can lose the level 1 and if the other player is aware of the matchup, then Pantheon is playing on the backfoot for a while. If the opponent respects the level 2, then they back up and usually nothing happens and you can get a cheater recall off (if perfect success, you have 450g which goes to boots + refillable). After first back, Pantheon excels at his poke trade patterns, and it's important that he is either freezing or crashing waves against his opponent. He's very good at not letting opponents freeze a wave assuming both Pantheon and his opponent are equal. However, if he's behind and frozen on, he will struggle greatly because he loses pretty much every all-in (from 100%) after level 3. As mentioned earlier, one of his strengths is to whittle the opponent down, but as long as they respect his range; Pantheon can't do much about it. This is where the jungler plays a crucial role for Pantheon top. Pantheon is great for setting up dives for most junglers and so he works very well with carry/damage oriented junglers. If Pantheon gets ahead, as long as his opponents don't give him a freeze and they respect Pantheon, Pantheon is very bad at pushing his lead in lane. If Pantheon keeps receiving help for the dives, it's likely his other lanes will start losing. This is why it's best for jungler teammates to gank early to get themselves ahead and transition their lead to winning the rest of the map. At this point, Pantheon's goals change to winning the lane through farm, not dying to ganks, and finding opportune moments to roam (particularly mid lane).
Mid Game
As the data suggests (I use lolalytics), Pantheon's win rate falls off a cliff in the mid game (and then comes back up a bit in the end game). The main reason, I believe, that Pantheon loses a lot of his win rate in the mid game is because he loses his poke-trade pattern. When tier-1 turrets fall, the lanes become longer and so enemies either give him the push, they all-in him in the long lane, or he gives them the push. Since his ultimate is 3 minutes long from levels 6-10 (and 2:30 from 11-15), he basically only has an ultimate once every 5 minutes for when dragon spawns. If Pantheon doesn't save his ultimate for objective spawn, he will find it very difficult to be effective in the team fight. It will require running to the fight early (or pushing strong, which means your mid laner (who is running tp) needs to cover weak side, which means you're fighting for position around the objective without your mid lane carry, which puts you at a disadvantage), and finding a good flank. Because he loses his poke trade pattern, he cannot 100-0 bruisers, he's often just farming up and waiting for fights. This is a fairly underwhelming trade pattern and can lead to Pantheon mains likely getting bored and starting unideal fights. Overall, his play pattern changes the most after the early game when the enemy opponent is not required to interact with Pantheon in a shorter lane.
Late Game
Late game has similar problems to early game, but his win rate stabilizes to 50% likely because of the confounding variable where a team that cannot beat Pantheon's team by 30 minutes, it could be because Pantheon's teammates are farther ahead and scale better. This is not to say Pantheon scales poorly. Pantheon's scaling is difficult to define. If Pantheon can stun or kill an enemy carry late game, his team will likely win the game. With Black cleaver and BotRK, Pantheon can also hold off most split pushers. However, he's not a win condition and is not great at applying pressure. He's good at taking one tower at a time if his team plays safe and enemy top laner doesn't have TP up, but since he cannot dive or all-in well, he cannot pressure an enemy in the 1v1.

Pantheon's Kit and Stats

In this section, I will be looking at Pantheon's current kit to analyze the strengths and weaknesses. I will cover both their numbers, relative to other champions in his class as well as his former kit, and their concept. I will then discuss some of his base statistics. To save a bit of time reading, I will not be displaying the full text of each ability.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon's passive is likely the most problematic part about his kit. Conceptually, it's generic. Pantheon's current passive requires him to have 5 stacks, which can be stacked from either autos or abilities, which can then empower one of his basic abilities. Previously, pantheon needed 4 stacks, which would cause the next basic attack to be blocked. Additionally, Pantheon's old W (same ability more or less) would give him his passive immediately and keep the stack counter the same. This means at 3 stacks, Pantheon could W a target, that target's auto would be blocked, then pantheon would auto, and the target's next auto would be blocked again. The old passive gave him a unique defensive tool which matched his thematic concept with his thematic playstyle. It also gave him tactical depth because he could W an opponent before their empowered auto to negate the damage. His current passive does not give him the same tactical depth, and actually limits his depth because of how reliant he is on empowered W as part of his trade pattern. It does offer you the choice though if you would like to kill your opponent immediately with empowered Q or chase them down a bit if you need a few more autos with empowered E (or just run away). But even if you did believe that his passive adds some depth, it still has two other major issues. The first is that it encourages Pantheon to be more auto-based. None of his kit except this part encourages auto attacks, nor does thematic concept or playstyle revolve around an auto-based kit. He's a midrange ad spell casting fighter, akin to Jayce, but instead of a melee/range form he should have a offensive/defensive balance. The second major issue with his passive is that it frontloads too much of his power into his basic abilities, which creates balance issues.
Q - Comet Spear
This is Pantheon's bread and butter, but it still has problems. To start with empowered Q, this may be one of the most satisfying abilities, but it's just too strong. His regular Q deals about half damage. While his poke in lane is good, it's not as good as it used to be. Pantheon used to have a Q that dealt 75/115/155/195/235 (+140 bonus AD), with a 4s CD, point and click and is 600 range. Pantheon's current regular Q deals 70/100/130/160/190 (+115% bonus AD) with a 4.4-3.2s CD, aoe skill shot, and 560 range. Old Pantheon used to fall off heavily after level 9 because his old Q was so weak, and it's a similar story now. In lane, this is a great ability; however, base weak is just very weak in all-ins. The other frustrating thing about his Q is its thrown version. Since this ability is his bread and butter, if you use the thrown version, it becomes an 11-second CD rather than 4.4s. This means you basically have to back off after using thrown Q. Therefore, the only time you should be using it is when you've clearly won the fight and you're looking for chip-damage or you're trying to execute. In the first case, it's pretty meaningless because they'll just back at this point. In the second case, it's great! However my point is that thrown Q is a fake part of the spell, it does more harm than good when using it. It gets worse though, since if you try to use thrown Q through a minion wave, it gets reduced by 50% if thrown through a minion wave. It has its fringe uses, but I think it has room for improvement. In general, I think this is a great ability, but it must be remembered when looking at solutions for this champion.
W - Shield Vault
This is Pantheon's best ability, for the reasons listed above. A point-and-click stun is just strong. I think everything about this ability is fair; however, it may even be too strong, and changing the ability so that it's not point-and-click should be considered. The big issue with his W is it's empowered version. There are two problems and a big consideration with this ability. The first problem The first problem is that the three auto attacks are just so strong with on-hit. I considered BotRK to be Pantheon's best item by far last patch because the 3 auto's at 12% current health was the only thing winning him 1v1s. Similarly, Pantheon is able to stack conqueror, black cleaver, and PTA well with this combo. While this may sound like a benefit to him, it moves away from a preferred thematic concept. This leads into my second point, the three autos feel small with the quick animation and high pitch audio. They're three little stabs, and when you don't go BotRK, they really don't deal much damage. Thematically, this just feels bad, it feels like an ability that xin zhao, fiora, gwen, irelia, kat, shaco, or talon would have. When it comes to playstyle, there's no skill expression with this second part either, it's just the same W and since their stunned and your auto attack timer is up, it's basically just a free "combo". The consideration that needs to be made is how it stacks Pantheon's passive. While it did fully stack the old passive, his old passive was... passive, it wasn't part of his offensive trade pattern. Pantheon's current trade pattern almost always starts with empowered W because it becomes a free empowered Q (or E sometimes). His W being a passive stacking mechanic is what brings down the depth of his trade pattern.
E - Aegis Assault
Pantheon's E is pragmatically his most problematic ability. It's pragmatically problematic (rather than thematically) because the base ability is so strong (there's a theme here if you can't tell). Because it's so strong, the CD is super high, the damage is low, the empowered E got heavily nerfed a few seasons ago, and the mana cost is also high. To compare his current E to his old E: Current E has a CD from 22-18, costs 80 mana, and deals 55-255 (+150 bonus AD). Old E used to have a 10-6 CD, cost 45-65 mana, and dealt 100-300 (+300% bonus AD). Yes, you're reading that right. 300 + 300% bonus ad on a 6s CD with only 65 mana, which you would get at level 9 if maxed first. Talon R total physical damage (hits both parts) deals 360 (+200% bonus AD) at level 16. I'm not suggesting to return Pantheon's current E to similar damage, I am just trying to highlight how much damage was lost in Pantheon's kit. If I recall correctly, Pantheon was around 54% wr top consistently prior to being reworked; nowadays he sits below 50% as a "simple" champion (he's currently ranked 65/95 champions according to lolalytics over the last 30 days in emerald+). The two main issues with this ability are it's cooldown as well as its mana cost. Pantheon has 1 defensive ability and it feels like you only get to use this as a last resort. It feels like you don't get to play with the shield as a spear and shield guy. And when you do use it, you're severely punished mana-wise. Lastly, his empowered E just feels bad. Rarely do I use empowered E offensively, and it's much more likely that I use it to run away after. Although since the movement speed is small and only lasts 1.5s, you're likely to get caught afterwards in a long lane, which is why he has to play so scared in the long lane. However, even if you do escape, he's not (nor feels like) the champion that tanks in a fight and stays, he tanks a bit and runs away. Again, playing with a cowardly playstyle.
I want to compare his defensive ability to that of other champions in the same class. On top of Camille's mobility and healing, her passive shields every 14-10s (lvl 1-13). Fiora W costs 50 mana and CD is 24-16s. Gangplank W costs 60-100 mana (usually 60 since maxed last) and CD is 22-14. Riven E is manaless and the cd is 10-6s. Gwen W is 60 mana and CD is 22-18s. Irelia W is 70-90 mana and CD is 20-12s. Jax E is 50-90 mana and 15-9 CD. Olaf W is 50 mana and is 16-12 CD. Sett W is manaless and 18-12 cs. Volibear E is 60 mana and CD is 12s. Assuming Pantheon can even survive in the 1v1 after a full use of spells, all of these champions will have big defensive spells up like 4-8s sooner than Pantheon. During the early game, his ability is more mana hungry and his E loses in often 3 different ways compared to his fighting counterparts. What's most important though is that Pantheon's shield should be defining in his playstyle, but since you can't use it often, you feel like you're just the spear guy.
R - Grand Starfall
Pantheon's R has remained the same the most compared to all of his abilities through the rework. One thing to note is that his ult used to be 2:30-2:00 CD while his current ult is 3:00-2:30, which feels a bit bad. But all global abilities in League have been strong and so they need to be gated behind a long cooldown. I think this is more or less okay, and his ultimate does play into his thematic concept and playstyle well. I think his old ultimate had a bit more oomf to it but both of them are betteworse in minor ways. I think there is a way to reimagine this ability in a following section, but for now I think this is a great ability that needs to be changed the least. However, the 30% armor penetration that was added to his kit a few seasons ago is a band aid solution. In fact, it what makes his glass cannon build so much stronger because lethality becomes more gold effective on him.
Base Statistics
Mana - Pantheon has a starting mana of 317, which puts him the bottom 3rd of base starting mana as a spell-casting (rather than auto based) melee fighter (let's also remember that much of top lane are manaless champions). Pantheon is in the bottom 15% of champions for mana mana growth per level (31/lvl). In the list of champions with a worse growth coefficient are all mages; the next 3 are auto-based fringe top laners (ww, nocturne, quinn), while Poppy - a champion with 2 possible mana items that they are able to purchase in their class - is the next closest (40/lvl). Camille and Jax are the next comparable champions (52/lvl).
For Pantheon's other stats, he usually is in the realm of the fighter class (which has higher base stats on average) but is usually near the bottom in his class. However, it should be noted that his base health regen and health regen coefficient are both low for his class, and without any healing or cheap shielding in his kit, he will often get out endured in a lane where he doesn't have good opportunities to back. For a champion who's playstyle should be partially about sustained fighting, he is bad at it from a base statistics perspective.

Small Changes

These are my band aid solutions. These are direction suggestions and the exact numbers shouldn't be taken literally. Also, since I'm including multiple suggestions, I know that adding all or even multiple of them will make Pantheon overpowered. These are just the directions I suggest the balance team should take.
Q: Have the base Q scale harder off of bonus AD (remember old Pantheon Q had +140%). Compensate by nerfing Q5 base damage by a bit or nerfing empowered Q base scaling.
Q: Either make thrown Q able to deal full damage through minions, or reduce cool down of thrown Q. If cool down is reduced, nerf tap Q cool down refund respectively.
W: Remove the effectiveness of the on-hit portion of his W.
E: Buff this ability overall. Reduce mana cost to something like 60-90. Reduce cooldown from 22-18 to 16-12; however, nerf W cool down to 16-12 in response. It would make sense that these two abilities are up at similar times (similar to alistar Q and W) so that there's more choice between spell usage.
E: This damage can be buffed. This ability basically deals 3 auto attacks worth of damage over a 1.5s duration.
R: Remove the armor pen.
Increase base mana, base mana regen, and base health regen.

Larger Changes

These larger changes are more unrealistic.
Tap Q: Slows enemy by 5/10/15/20/25% for 1s. Serylda's grudge got massively nerfed for Pantheon because he can no longer go Black Cleaver + Serylda's, and also the slow was nerfed to below 50%. If a champion is below 50% while Pantheon is on them, they're basically dead (assuming he hasn't used his abilities yet). A slow on his Q, while incredibly strong - and should perhaps be tuned by champion level rather than skill rank - gives him the ability to space opponents and play that endurance fight more effectively. He keeps them at bay slowing them and so they can't chase him down as easily in the long lane.
E: Do the E small changes (regarding mana and CD) but also make the channel a smaller window. A 0.75-1s channel window makes the ability more skillful and allows room for buffs.
Empowered E: Refund cool down on E. Something like 50% allows his 22s cd to come back up in 11s can be big as a defensive option.

Redesigning Pantheon

To reiterate, here's what I would want from Pantheon's kit: balance of offensive and defensive, spell-based mid range melee fighter (mid range similar to ryze, cass), mostly endurance fighter but some opportunity for burst, and someone who can be a front line or duelist. With this in mind, we need to set up some weaknesses. He can't be a burst champion, he has too many tools that we need to give his enemies time to outplay him. Since he's mid range, he will be weak to champions that out-range him. With this combination, it should be hard for him to jump on an enemy, but if he does, there should be time for them to react. This means he will be weak to mages and supports which should shift him out of mid lane and support.
Passive - Mortal Will
Pantheon generates a stack of Mortal Will whenever he lands an ability on an enemy champion or large monster, stacking up to 3 times. At 3 stacks, Pantheon's next basic ability consumes the stacks to become empowered. Pantheon gains maximum stacks of Mortal Will upon starting the game, completing a Recall channel, and respawning.
Note - The purpose of changing this ability to 3 stacks means that he has to be more skillful with his abilities. He can't just rely on autoing minions or Q-ing the air to get himself to full stacks. This will also nudge him away from being an auto-based champion. With 3 stacks it will will take longer to get multiple passive procs, but this allows for the passive to be strong. If you can extend the fight, Pantheon will shine.
Q - Comet Spear
Cost: 45 (20 mana nerf) Cooldown: 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 Range: -40 - 560 / 1100 Cast time, width, speed: same. For the rest of the ability, I would keep the text and numbers largely the same. Added: Tapping Comet Spear refunds 55% of the mana cost (~25 mana total). Comet Spear impales his target causing them to bleed for 3s and take 5/10/15/20/25 (+ 25% bonus AD) total physical damage over the duration. Empowered Q will cause the bleed to deal double damage.
Note - This needs to be his major damage source. As mentioned above, tap Q has a 4.4-3.2s CD with 0 ability haste, so this would technically be a minor nerf early game, however this gives him his thrown ability back. Thrown Q is harder to hit because you need to channel the ability for 0.55s to throw as well as the speed, while fast, is slower than an instant tap Q. It will still take reduced damage through the minions which means that it shouldn't be great for harassing range opponents, but it will give him some ability to play into the matchup after his loss of engage and burst (as you will see). To also mitigate this buff to thrown Q, the mana cost is nerfed to old Pantheon's Q cost, however the mana is refunded if used for tap Q. The bleed damage backloads the damage a bit which gives time for enemies to react. The bleed does not stack, but does get refreshed upon further Comet Spear hits. Bleed should be added to Pantheon's kit because it brings out the endurance side of his thematic playstyle. Bleed will keep conqueror, grasp, black cleaver and other similar effects up which highlights that he's still in the fight. Additionally, this damage will mitigate the damage that is lost from being an auto-based champion, as well as mitigate effects from passive/active health regen and items/runes such as doran's shield and second wind (old Pantheon had this problem where he lost every matchup into players who took doran's shield + second wind). The empowered Comet Spear getting double bleed damage is to mirror that this ability practically does double damage. Lastly, the numbers for the bleed were chosen to mimic Darius' Hemorrhage (passive) which does 13-30 (based on level) (+30% bonus AD), but stacks up to 5 times. 3 seconds was chosen as a timeframe for the bleed for Pantheon because he can make full use of it early game, but once it's rank 5 and with ability haste, he won't be benefitting from a spam Q playstyle and will be slightly rewarded for playing it slower. Lastly, the bleed damage can be used to balance his Jungle clear since he won't be getting his passive up as easily without the auto-based passive.
W - Shield Bash (New Spell)
Active: Pantheon bashes his shield in front of him. Enemies near Pantheon are also stunned for 0.5s and knocked back up to 300 units based on their proximity to him. Damage is the same as what's on PBE right now (5-7% max HP + ap scaling). Effect Radius: 300 Cast time: 0.35s Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 (1s nerf). Empowered W will be the current Shield Vault. The damage will be the same, but it will be a skill shot similar to Malphite ultimate, although smaller radius, slower travel speed, stuns rather than knocks up, and Pantheon will have a 0.25s animation lock upon landing.
Note - Shield bash is pretty much a copy of Maokai's inner Bramble Smash (Q) which knocks back enemies. It doesn't have the extended range, slow or damage though. The point of this ability on Pantheon is that it gives him a defensive tool that gets melee champions off of him, which helps his midrange play style. The reliable stun which comes up every 6 seconds in the mid/late game going away takes away his current identity of being a stun-bot. Additionally, he takes away his burst and dive potential since it's harder for him to get onto targets. He will have to either use empowered W to get onto target or his ultimate. Shield Bash also gives more out play potential because you can time melee champs out of their attack (if you're familiar with Maokai, you know how strong this can be). Ultimately, this makes Pantheon become a disengage-poke champion which plays into that midrange thematic playstyle. As for the empowered W, this will give him the flexibility to engage, and with it being an AOE spell, it allows him to be a strong team fighter. However, because it's a skill shot rather than point-and-click, it gives his opponents potential to outplay. Often carries would flash Pantheon's Shield Vault but would still get hit by the stun which is unfair to them. The purpose of the 0.25s animation lock after casting gives him the heavier and slower rolling feel that you get in dark souls games but also it's meant to be clearly weaker than Malphite ultimate. Also this ability helps Pantheon run away from enemies which is important for a side laner, but also the animation lock gives them a little room to hit a skill shot on you. Also, if you are using this ability to run away, you will find that your passive is down and since you have to hit enemy champions (or large jungle monsters), you will often find yourself at a disadvantage for the next find or if they try to pursue you.
E - Aegis Assault
Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Cool down: 22/20/18/16/14 Duration: 1s Effect radius, angle, and everything else is the same. Due to less duration, Aegis Assault deals damage 8 times (every 0.125s to enemies hit). Empowered E inflicts armor reduction for 5% each time an enemy takes damage from Aegis Assault up to 40% armor reduction for 5 seconds.
Note - The cost is lowered early so you're not as heavily punished for using it. The cool down remains the same early to be in line with other early game defensive abilities. However, as a spear and shield champion, he should have this ability up more often in the mid and late game. Because of this, the duration should go down and mana up slightly to compensate. The damage is being nerfed slightly also since it doesn't last 1.5s. The empowered E getting armor reduction helps his team fighting prowess and will likely only give him the armor reduction against front liners. This greatly takes away his power to burst squishy targets and also means that he won't be using his empowered W to stun opponents (carries). Here there are significant trade offs to using his abilities for offensive vs defense in a more satisfying way. Additionally, if enemies don't take the full channel of armor shred, they're not getting their armor reduced which should be slightly weaker against mobile enemies in the 1v1 but stronger against tanks.
R - Grand Starfall
Remove the armor penetration from ultimate rank up. New passive: Hitting an enemy with an ability slows affected units by 10/20/30% for 1s.
Note - The slow will give him his true duelist potential in the mid/late parts of the game because it allows him to space appropriately against the mobility creep. Without Serylda's Grude Pantheon doesn't have the ability to stick on targets well over a duration of time which is partially why he needed to be burst-oriented. The slow should alleviate this issue and allow his mid-range thematic playstyle to shine. It's important to note that this only works on abilities that hit enemies and therefore doesn't work on the bleed that was added to his kit. Taking away the armor penetration also goes away from his glass-cannon build.

Conclusion

Pantheon's current kit misses the mark for what should be his thematic concept and thematic playstyle. He should be a warrior that can go into battle or a duel with a balance of offense and defense, outplay his opponent through a fight of attrition while having his moments for heavy damage. He should not be a pseudo-assassin who can't 1v1 in the side lane and is scared to walk up. I have highlighted his issues above which come from being mana hungry while also being too auto-dependent when he should be ability dependent. The "Small Changes" section shows reasonable band-aid fixes to his kit. The "Larger Changes" section are some fixes that drastically change a few of his abilities but are what's needed to make his playstyle feel better. The "Redesigning Pantheon" is how I would go about reimagining this champion to fit the thematic playstyle and concept that he deserves. It is largely a rework, and the numbers are not exact, but this gives a lot of complexity to a champion that currently plays more generically than he seems.
This took me a long time to write and I'm happy to hear all questions and comments about any part of this document or Pantheon in general. Pantheon is my highest mastery champion (however I'm far from a one-trick) and I've hit Masters in multiple roles if that's something that's important to the discussion. Thank you for reading.
EDIT: I forgot to give a conclusion for my champion redesign, so I’ll do it here:
Pantheon is gaining a small bleed on his Q which should bring his current Q up to old Q values. Thrown Q is buffed for its cool down dramatically, but nerfed in its mana cost. W is changed to be a disengage ability, but this is a mostly a nerf because he can’t be aggressive as reliably and his utility is therefore hurt. He loses the burst and trade pattern from empowered W, but in return gets a skill shot of his current W. His e is greatly buffed in terms of mana and cool down, but the duration window is 33% smaller. Pantheon’s armor shred goes from a champion stat to an ability that affects enemies (Empowered E). R gains a slow for abilities. Lastly, his passive changes to spell-focused rather than auto focused which should make it harder for these abilities to be up and for there to be skill when determining which empowered ability to use.

Lycan with the new facet is the old WK, and some people are complaining that the wolves are purely visual and serve no purpose. Also, since Q is just a buff with a similar duration and cooldown, you're spamming it off CD brainlessly, making his 4 spells literally buff > debuff > buff > buff. Even his Aghs is a just another buff for an ally. How about we change that up a bit?

1. Make the wolves permanent, roaming constantly around Lycan. Passively, the wolves don't give any bonuses
2. The ability now has two charges called Wolf Lunge, one for each of the wolves (so it doubles to 4 with the level 25 talent). Casting it on an enemy unit makes one of the wolves lunge forward at the target, dealing an auto attack in magic damage and healing Lycan for the same amount (this basically replaces the +damage and +health, by dealing damage and healing you instead)
3. The Lunge may or may not slow the enemy for a very short duration, depending on balance decisions
4. The +damage and +health talents can be increased with double the lunge damage and lifesteal

Why?

1. Thematically, the wolves serve a purpose
2. You have an active now (though it's very simple to use), making the hero less braindead
3. It's not just another brainless buff
4. The hero has 0 impact if the enemy can kite him or become ethereal. This at least allows him to hit an enemy 2/4 times from a distance to counterplay a little bit
5. The wolf lunge may or may not apply attack modifiers, depending on balance decisions

Hey all,
Notwithstanding the debate whether it is good/useful or not, I decided to complete the 32 Decks Challenge. I think it's a good exercise to get acquainted with different decks and especially colour combinations (I thought I'd hate Naya, but I now have 3 Naya decks!). I didn't want to go too wild, so I tried to do it on a budget (usually they'll hover around the 100-125$ mark). Many of these decks are upgraded precons, something I really love to do, but there are a few builds from scratch. Anyways, I'd love to show my lists to everyone and get some general feedback on any/all lists, cards you think should be cut, cards to add etc.
However, something I'm really curious is your perception of these decks power level. I know it's another thorny subject, but I feel like most of these decks are 6-8, but I'd hate to go to an LGS saying that and then feeling completely stomped or like I'm the one stomping other 'legit 7s'. For that, I added a few lines describing what the deck is about and how it wins - a mini primer, if you will.
As you will notice, I haven't finished - still missing the 4+ colour decks, which I'm not at all excited for. This is a work in progress, so if you have suggestions for these 4+ colour decks, let me know! Also important to notice that I haven't actually played with most of these decks in pods, so another reason to get some feedback!
Here we go:
1) Mono White - [[Gandalf the White]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6791657/)
I love LOTR and I have all the precons. [[Elesh Horn, Mother of Machines]] is better IMO, but I like the flash + being Gandalf. This deck is focused on artifacts. It's a value train, doubling ETBs and LTBs, drawing cards, ramping etc. It wins via [[Approach of the Second Sun]] or just creating many artifact tokens (such as the gnomes created by the backside of [[Thousand Moons Smithy]] and beating down.
2) Mono Blue - [[Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6548244)
It's a spellslingestormy deck. The idea is to cast as many instants and sorceries (mostly drawing cards), rebounding them and so on. It wins via [[Laboratory Maniac]] and drawing my entire deck with stuff like [[Enter the Infinite]]. I can even cast Lab Maniac at flash speed with [[Emergence Zone]]. Otherwise, I can pray and try to beat people down with some tokens, especially the 2/2 flying drakes from [[Talrand, Sky Summoner]]. There's also a [[Mind's Desire]] there for the chaos lords to help me. Star of this deck is [[Invasion of Segovia]].
3) Mono Black - [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6523609)
Black tokens deck. The goal is to create as many black creature tokens as possible to trigger Ayara and drain the table. Pretty straightforward. There's a [[Plague of Vermin]] there for a quick wincon. Kinda boring, but effective and very much on theme.
4) Mono Red - [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6445616)
Pretty unique commander here. It's a token-maker deck. As soon as I have like 10 creature tokens, I can win out of nowhere, either by drawing 10 for 1 mana with [[Crimson Wisps]] or [[Expedite]], make a lot of mana to fuel more spells with [[Sudden Breakthrough]] and then, to win, I can pump all my creatures with many cheap pump spells, and then win through combat or with something like [[Soul's Fire]]. There's also a [[Daring Discovery]] which, in this deck, it's kinda like Mind's Desire in Mono Red with a storm count of 10+. One of cheapest (if not the cheapest) decks, but one that I think can win pretty fast.
5) - Mono Green - [[Yeva, Nature's Herald]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6770117)
Speaking of fast wins, this is one of my pet decks. It's not a cEDH list, but it does win pretty consistently by turn 6 and it wins on the stack. I'm not familiar with cEDH, but I suppose the game plan is the same for this deck. It's a creatures deck, so just ramp and cast creatures at flash speed. The combo is with [[Quirion Ranger]] or similar + [[Ashaya, Soul of the Wild]] + any creature producing 2+ mana, generating infinite mana, infinite storm count and if you have something like [[Beast Whisperer]], you draw your entire deck. As soon as you assemble that, you can either win with [[Shaman of Forgotten Ways]] by wiping your opponents' boards through fighting, thanks to [[Ulvenwald Tracker]], or you can be meaner and very extra and destroy all your opponents' creatures AND lands with [[Kamahl, Fist of Krosa]]. No [[Sol Ring]] - though it's one of the more expensive decks.
6) Azorius - [[Millicent, Restless Revenant]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6801345)
Upgraded precon. Even though this is one of the cheapest precons out there, I think it's pretty much ok with a few tweaks. The strategy is the same: generate a shit ton of tokens, draw many cards with stuff like [[Bident of Thassa]] and that's pretty much it. Wins via combat with the tokens, basically.
7) Orzhov - [[Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6558351)
One of the decks I'm most proud of. The point of this deck is to always keep the board clean of creatures through edict effects (which can be recycled through Carmen's ability every turn) all while growing your commander, so it basically wins via commander damage and a clean board. I stuffed all of the [[Fleshbag Marauder]] type cards in there, even the bad ones. Also added many of the board wipes that only leave one creature per player. Most of the mana rocks can be sac'd for card draw, and then I can recur them with Carmen too - even lands!
8) Boros - [[Nelly, Impulsive Accuser]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7147529)
Upgraded precon. I had another deck for the Boros place, a [[Winota, Joiner of Forces]], but I hardly play that deck because even though it's the cheapest deck here by far, it's one of the strongest and people don't really like it. I'll add, at the end, a list of the other decks I have that are not part of the 32 Decks Challenge. Anyways, this deck tries to streamline the goal of the precon, which is to accrue value through a sort of goad mechanic. Honestly, not sure how it wins, I just want to create chaotic scenarios. I wanted to add [[Baeloth, Barrityl Entertainer]] and [[Bothersome Quasit]], but they're scarce and expensive where I live. Maybe in the future.
9) Selesnya - [[Leinore, Autumn Sovereign]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7149576)
Upgraded precon. This is the cheapest precon, I think, but I loved the art of the commander and decided to buy and upgrade it. It's a pretty fun deck, not gonna lie. Not the strongest, but it can hold its own, with a few tweaks. I wanted to keep Leinore and not [[Kyler, Sigardian Emissary]] as the commander - for the art mostly, because Kyler is much better, also it would be another deck - so it relies on the terrible coven mechanic. It wins via combat with some stuff like [[Wild Beastmaster]] and a flashy surprise [[Sigarda's Vanguard]]. This deck is bad, but because of it I love it. It's like when you see an ugly dog and you feel sorry for it, so you love it even more.
10) Dimir - [[Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6828902)
I don't think it's an upgraded precon. Never bought the precon, but it turns out a lot of the cards I have added were in the precon. Anyways, this is one of the more expensive decks. Very combo-y. Funny thing is I played this before and it should be one of the strongest because it combos almost on accident, but I never managed to have it pop off and it wasn't even because people were stopping me. Idk if it was bad luck, bad draws or what, but it never did its thing, even though it was supposed to do it very easily. Goal is to combo with zombies, so [[Phyrexian Altar]] + [[Gravecrawler]] + any drain effect, like [[Diregraf Captain]]. Or even [[Poppet Stitcher]] with Wilhelt. So many ways. Idk what happens with this deck tbh.
11) Izzet - [[Stella Lee, Wild Card]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7396968)
Upgraded precon. Honestly this precon almost didn't need upgrades, the shell is great as is. But I wanted to be a little bit faster, so I cut on the more mana-intensive cards for some cantrips and also added all the combo cards, like [[Cerulean Wisps]], [[Refocus]] and [[Twisted Fealty]]. It wins pretty fast and I even added the [[Dualcaster Mage]] + [[Twinflame]] combo there as a backup.
12) Simic - [[Tatyova, Benthic Druid]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/4320688)
Just ramp. A lot. And draw cards while doing it. I honestly think I run too few basics because it happened more than once having a ramp spell in hand and no more basics to get in the deck. It generates a shit ton of mana. And then what? Problem is it has a very specific combo with [[Retreat to Coralhelm]] + something like [[Sakura-Tribe Scout]] + a bounce land like [[Simic Growth Chamber]]. You draw your whole deck and then what? I don't know, please tell me. There are a few landfall payoffs like [[Rampaging Baloths]], but idk what to do with my whole deck in hand and all my lands in play. Send help. Neat little combo with [[Tidal Bore]] + [[Mystic Sanctuary]] + Sakure-Tribe Scout, where you generate infinite mana and infinite landfall triggers.. Another one with [[Greater Good]] + [[Ominous Seas]]. Cool stuff. No focused wincon. Just here for the ride.
13) Rakdos - [[Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6638501)
I got hated real bad for playing one of my favourite decks in [[Tergrid, God of Fright]]. I get it. But also, I'mma play the same shit. Kroxa lets me do similar things but without the whole Tergrid stigma - even though she's in there and when everyone is hellbent and I cast her, I feel like I have won morally (and also literally, because at this point people will concede and slash my tires. Anyways, Kroxa is all about denying my opponents cards and when I hit that [[Geth's Grimoire]], only I get cards. Then I beat people down or they just concede because "I'm unpleasant".
14) Golgari - [[Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker]] + [[Cloakwood Hermit]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6798228)
Honestly I also love this deck. It's quite simple. It's all about milling and getting value or draining everyone. Sort of villainous choice before Dr. Who UB. The is filled with draining cards, like [[Dreadhound]] and [[Syr Konrad, the Grim]], as well as reanimating cards. Lots of death triggers too. They usually start off by losing the 3 life (unless it's a land card, which means I'll almost never miss land drops), but as soon as their life start to dwindle, they'll just give you the card, and by this point you out value them. You can also untap Sivriss multiple times with stuff like [[Patriar's Seal]], so multiple activations, especially with the many token makers.
15) Gruul - [[Halana and Alena, Partners]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6632694)
+1/+1 counters deck. Pretty straightforward, but it does get out of hand if not dealt with fast. Stick an [[Arwen, Weaver of Hope]] or a [[Defiler of Vigor]] on the board, it gets intense. By turn 5 you're swinging with a few 10/10s and math is for blockers.
16) Esper - [[Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7313973)
Upgraded precon. This precon is pretty good as is, so minimal upgrades. I did cut the useless or expensive cards and then I just added some more value and a neat little combo enabler in [[Intruder Alarm]], which combos with [[Xerex Strobe-Knight]]. Wins via combat, either with this combo with infinite 2/2s or draining them with [[Curry Favor]], which is [[Smitten Swordmaster]] instant part.
17) Jeskai - [[Hinata, Dawn-Crowned]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7229529)
Control deck at its best. I think this is one of the most interesting and unique commanders out there and it makes use of some pretty budget cards that are awesome in this deck. The idea for this deck is to control the board with an iron fist, protecting the commander and then when the coast is clear, if my opponents still have a will to live, I Dualcaster + Twinflame for the win. There's also another convoluted combo with [[Reality Spasm]] and [[Soulfire Grand Master]] that I forgot rn how it works but my stupid ass can probably figure it out if I'm in a game.
18) Bant - [[Morska, Undersea Sleuth]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7284339)
Upgraded precon. Also pretty neat precon. Bant is by far the colour combo I enjoy the least and none of the band commanders spoke to me, but I bought the 4 MKM decks, so I just thought I'd upgrade this one. I think it's the strongest out of the box - even though the best reprints were cut (like [[Koma, Cosmos Serpent]] and [[Chulane, Teller of Tales]]. The deck is focused on clues, which is very thematic for the set. It weaponises these clues by turning them into creatures with things like [[Rise and Shine]]. It also does some simic shenanigans with [[Esix, Fractal Bloom]] and [[Adrix and Nev, Twincasters]].
19) Mardu - [[Olivia, Opulent Outlaw]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7423077)
Surprise surprise, I fucking love precons. I also bought all 4 OTJ precons. I really wanted to make [[Kaalia of the Vast]] my Mardu precon. One of my favourite decks and the first one I built from scratch. However, my Kaalia deck is pretty high-powered and expensive, so it doesn't fit the theme. Anyways, I really liked this precon. I love treasures and with a few tweaks, it becomes menacing. [[Grim Hireling]] alone makes a huge difference, and I had one lying around. The game wins via combat, buffing all creatures. It also wins with the backup commander [[Vihaan, Goldwaker]], which is a fantastic design. [[Crime Novelist]] also does work in this deck.
20) Abzan - [[Myrkul, Lord of Bones]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7339317)
I always thought this commander was interesting, even though very costly. I have the [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] precon, but decided to choose this, as I find it a little bit more unique - even if I find it weaker. The plan is to put a lot of creatures on the board and sac them to 'eternalise' them as enchantments. Lots of enchantment payoffs but also some combos with [[Devoted Druid]], [[Barrenton Medic]], and [[Cinderhaze Wretch]]. Infinite (green) mana, no damage taken, and no cards for my opponents. I win via my opponents conceding after that or by a swarm of tokens created by putting enchantments on the field.
21) Naya - [[Voja, Jaws of the Conclave]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6517279)
I said before I ended up with 3 Naya decks, but two of those were upgraded precons ([[Yuma, Proud Protector]] and [[Kaust, Eyes of the Glade]]). But Voja is one of my favourite decks and one I didn't stick with the budget. I just love him so much, almost as much people generally hate him. It gets out of hand REAL fast, especially with [[Maskwood Nexus]] and [[Roaming Throne]]. I actually decked myself with this deck, which is impressive to me outside of Blue AND Black. He also reminds of my dog, so I love him even more. He's my baby.
22) Grixis - [[Mishra, Eminent One]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7541826)
All my Grixis decks are pretty off the budget, I really like this colour combo. Anyways, I had a Mishra precon lying around and decided to upgrade it with old-frame cards only. It misses out on the [[Gonti's Aether Heart]] combo, but it's still pretty good. Wincon is beating people with artifacts and maybe some [[Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer]] shenanigans.
23) Sultai - [[Gonti, Canny Acquisitor]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7430921/)
You guessed it, upgraded precon. I think this precon is pretty well-built too out of the box. I just added some ramp and, basically. This deck is focused on accruing value from other peoples' decks. It's good because it's as strong as my opponents' decks then. I had tried to make [[Tasha, the Witch Queen]] worked as a commander and failed. She really shines in the 99 here. Wincon is whatever my opponent's can give me, Forrest Gump their asses. Especially that [[Villainous Wealth]] where X is a fuckton.
24) Temur - [[Yasova Dragonclaw]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7290589)
Different kind of theft here. I don't cast my opponents' stuff, I just steal them and sac them. Bit of a chaos deck, I don't have a plan, just in for the ride. I guess the plan is just react to what my opponents are doing, steal their best creatures, use them, sac them for some value. Some ways to permanently steal them, such as [[Cold Storage]] and [[Synod Sanctum]]. However, to streamline a win if I want to, I can pod towards [[Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker]] + [[Zealous Conscript]] lines. I can also win via commander damage, since there are some things that increase Yasova's power.
25) Jund - [[Disa, the Restless]]
Big surprise, I preordered all MH3 commander decks. The Jund one will be upgraded, but for now, I have no idea what to expect, except... Tarmogoyf? This is so weird. I hope it doesn't suck.
--I haven't actually built any of the 4C decks yet, so from here on out, just ideas. If you have suggestions tho, let me know--
26) Idk what the 4C are called... so, WUBR? - [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]]
I built lots of Breya decks in the past, not one with this budget, I don't think. Anyways, no deck yet, I wanted to try new commanders, but I don't super love the partner mechanic. Breya is obviously artifacts (an archetype I already have a few decks focusing on here) and she's a combo machine. Pretty cool, but a bit overused
27) WUBG - [[Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker]] & [[Reyhan, Last of the Abzan]]
I didn't want it to be [[Atraxa, Praetor's Voice]] and I have a pretty good (but expensive) [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] deck. Maybe I'll just build a budget super friends Atraxa deck, fuck it. I don't even know what these dudes do exactly. One gets bigger and the other is like a poor man's [[Ozolith]]. Sounds good, but I already some 'creatures become huge, go brrrrr' decks. I'll look into super friends later.
28) WURG - [[Aragorn, the Uniter]]
I think this commander is cooler on paper than in reality. Anyway, not many options, so I think it's the best out there. I built a [[Hargilde, Kindly Runechanter]] + [[Elmar, Ulvenwald Informant]] deck once and it was cool, but again, its artifacts. Also it has no wincon, it's just 'let me do some useless shit each turn, at least I feel I'm doing something'.
29) WBRG - [[Saskia, the Unyielding]]
This commander seems interesting on paper - even though I think it's gonna be bad in reality, just like Aragorn. Maybe some infect stuff? Is that too mean? Idk. I find that these effects are usually bad, like with [[Sower of Discord]]. Maybe if I stick lots of effects like these.
30) UBRG - [[Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder]]
I love cascade. My femur deck almost was a [[Maelstrom Wanderer]] deck. I preferred to spend my 'cascade' deck here though. More chaos shit. Who knows what I'm gonna get? I have a [[Jodah, the Unifier]] deck that is pretty much focused on that and it gets out of hand fast and I love it.
31) - Colourless - [[Zhulodok, Void Gorger]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7696443)
Eldrazi go brr. I thought about [[Karn, Living Legacy]], but artifacts again? Meh. [[Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter]]? Same thing. Maybe with the new degenerate Eldrazi from MH3, I might choose a different commander, though I think they'll be expensive af. Zhulodok, since it's just the commander, I can buy the display commander ones and be fine with it. Anyways, it's cascade again! But this time with a shit ton of mana rocks and some infinite combos with [[Forsaken Monument]] + [[Basalt Monolith]] or Basalt Monolith + [[Rings of Brighthearth]]. The cheap eldrazis like [[Artisan of Kozilek]], [[Pathrazer of Ulamog]] should be just fine.
32) WUBRG - [[Ulalek, Fused Atrocity]]
Surprise motherfucker, it's eldrazi again. AND precons again. My beloved Jodah deck is too expensive to fit here, so I'll just upgrade whatever atrocity this precon is. I barely understand the commander and I'll 100% be too stupid to play it, but it'll be fun - for no one.
Honorable mentions aka other decks I have lying around other than some preserved precons
33) Orzhov - [[Teysa Karlov]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6923518)
One of the favourite decks and also one of my first. All your aristocratic shenanigans. Feels great sac'ing one creature with [[Skullclamp]] having Teysa, [[Drivnod, Carnage Dominus]], [[Dark Prophecy]], [[Midnight Reaper]], and [[Grim Haruspex]] in play. Sac 1, draw 9. Teysa is the aristocrat queen and I love her. It's all the original aristocrat pieces, even the flavourful [[Debt to the Deathless]] wincon.
34) Boros - [[Winota, Joiner of Forces]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/3693706)
My cheapest deck and one of my strongest/most menacing/fastest. It wasn't even designed to be like that. It was designed to see how far I could go on a very tight budget. I had a [[Mother of Runes]] lying around and [[Rionya, Fire Dancer]] was way cheaper when I bought it. This deck SLAPS. I hardly play it because seeing it beat a 1500$ slivers deck is too much for some people to take it. If Winota lives two turns, it's gg. The turn it comes down, it triggers 2-3 times, then you have like 10 non-humans on the board. Second time it triggers, suddenly you have 90 power on the board, indestructible, tapped and attacking.
35) Dimir - [[Mirko, Obsessive Theorist]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7021224)
Yep, precon time isn't over. This deck has many great tools for the reanimation package. I mean, [[Necromancy]] in a precon? With [[Reanimate]] AND [[Animate Dead]]? Seriously? Also some other black staples, like [[Toxic Deluge]] Holy shit that's value. I just added some better reanimating targets and bam, this deck is really good! Also, I love an excuse to play [[Rise of the Dark Realms]] (which came in the precon!!!) as my main wincon.
36) Izzet - [[Niv-Mizzet, Parun]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/6270632)
I wanted to build a super fast Niv deck while on a budget. That's pretty much it, you know what it does. If you don't, [[Curiosity]], [[Ophidian Eye]] and shit combo and basically you kill people out of nowhere and you hold the entire table for ransom. Doesn't see much play because, well, Niv is one of THOSE commanders.
37) Simic - [[Omo, Queen of Vesuva]]
Pre-ordered precon. Don't know what to expect. Simic will simic, meaning degeneracy. I saw the spoilers, looks good. Generic simic value, good enough.
38) Jeskai - [[Satya, Aetherflux Genius]]
Same as above. I don't like energy counters, I have the Fallout precons too and [[Dr. Maddison Li]] didn't convince me. Same colours too. Not too excited about this deck, but I saw some leaks and there are some pretty good energy pay offs now. Also the commander's ability is cool.
39) Naya - [[Yuma, Proud Protector]] (https://www.archidekt.com/decks/7447228)
I thought this precon would be shit, but it's actually super fun. I guess I like land decks. You generate aa ton of value sac'ing lands, bringing them back... The precon needed a few tweaks, including more deserts. But this is a really cool deck and I also love deck that sort of dodge commander tax too. This deck wins by value and landfall triggers. Also creating lots of 4/2 plant warriors by milling myself. If you have [[Pylath, World Sculptor]], these plants get much more menacing. I reached 52/50 once. Super cool.
40) Naya - [[Kaust, Eyes of the Glade]] (https://archidekt.com/decks/7284206)
I don't even know, I think this deck got downgraded, not even upgraded. I got some of the best cards (like [[Jeska's Will]]) and put it in other decks. The deck is cool and all, but my least favourite of the MKM cycle, and since I already have other Naya decks, it's very low in the pecking order. I added some cool cards to it, like [[Dream Chisel]] and it is capable of some surprises, like suddenly you're not taking 2, but 12. Great candidate for those decks that seem harmless but end up stealing games.
Holy shit I have more than 40 decks someone help me.

Hi all!
Very new to the game so this might be an easy to clarify misunderstanding!
I was reading the rules around wound allocation and it said that if a model in a unit has taken damage you have to allocate damage to it first. This makes sense so if my Space Marine squad takes 10 wounds, I have to lose five models rather than spread the damage out and lose none.
Precision allows you to bypass this rule and deal damage directly to a character in a unit. Makes sense thematically for snipers.
But put this together and it seems to have the following effect: (1) First I fire with my precision units (Eliminators for me, but any precision unit) and put even just one point of damage into character leading a bodyguard unit. The aim is not, per se, to kill the character, just to give them a scratch. (2) I then fire at the unit with whatever - Something high damage but not precision. (3) By the wound allocation rule, my opponent has to allocate wounds to the character first, because they have to allocate wounds to wounded models before full-health models.
Thematically, this seems off... It would make sense that my snipers can try and assassinate the Character, but it doesn't make sense that just from one wound from them, my regular troops can then bypass the Character's bodyguard. It would also kinda make bodyguards useless?
Have I understood the rules correctly? :) Maybe there's a special rule somewhere that clarifies this?

We have so much cool lore. We are a cybernetic body-horror Imperial faction that hails from Mars and prays to machines… and that’s the coolest name they can come up with for our faction ability?
Call it “Blessings of the Machine God” and rename lesser individual abilities to something else if they are too similar.
While you’re at it, make it apply to every unit in the army. If that’s too busted, provide an alternative buff to all units not affected by it that is just as thematic and easy to remember. Call it “Certainty of Steel” or something.
“Doctrina Imperatives” sounds boring as hell. It sounds like paint drying compared to what the army is actually about.

I think I hate this arc. I don't know why, but I couldn't help but cringe throughout this arc. This was probably the moment where every problem in this arc is cranked to 11. The arc goes by too fast, old characters are essentially useless, new characters add nothing, copying more shit from 0079, and adding ridiculous shit to the AG. Everyone who has seen this anime, universally hates this arc for many reasons. This was when AGE began showing its cracks. Now let's see how much this arc butchers this arc.

• Story:
  • After his son Kio was born, Asemu ends up MIA after a mission gone wrong. 13 yrs later, the Vagans begin their invasion with a new weapon and remnants on Earth. Now Kio must carry on the legacy of the Asunos and pilot the AGE-3 to save everyone on Earth, with the help of Flint. However, Kio’s perspective on the Vagans begins to challenge Flint's.
  • I'll say this, I like the idea of the setting being Earth this time. We've spent so much time in space that we begin to wonder how things are on Earth during the AG era. I also thought the idea of seeing the Vagan homeworld could've been cool, because we haven't seen the perception of the Vagans who weren't fighting in the front lines.
  • One problem, this anime isn't paced well enough to justify these ideas since this whole arc is only 10 episodes. For comparison, the 1st arc is 15 episodes & 2nd one is 12. Each of them may have some issues with pacing too, but for the most part, they used the time they have effectively. THIS ARC shoves everything into 10 episodes and just rolls with it. There's no down time as the arc goes from set piece to set piece, . Characters who aren't important to the plot are either forgotten about or get killed off immediately. These arcs should've had their own dedicated seasons to flesh out this shit. At least it doesn't copy the ZZ verbatim, that's for sure. But it does copy a scene I'll get to later. So the pacing sucks, and I haven't gotten to the characters yet.
• Characters:
  • If you thought the last 2 arcs had forgettable characters, this arc went “hold my beer”. There're so many forgettable characters in this anime, that I wonder why they even bother adding them to the anime. What's worse is that I can count the amount of returning characters from previous arcs has been reduced significantly, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
  • Let's talk about our boy of the hour, Kio Asuno. I thought he was ok, at first. I like that he gains his grandfather's desire to fight Vagans as a young kid, due to his upbringing. Also like the idea that he's the 1st one to sympathize with the Vagans. But all of these came crashing down when he made the stupidest mistake in the anime. When he meets this Vagan girl with space cancer, he makes a deal with Ezelcant to give him the data to his Gundam, in exchange for meds. Even when he full on said that it wouldn't cure it, HE STILL GOES THROUGH WITH IT. This stupid ass decision instantly loses him a bunch of brain cells. It doesn't help in the later arcs, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
  • But for now, let's get to the other Feddies. We might as well get to the returning characters, since it ain't much. Starting with Flint, and if you thought his methods were questionable, it's especially true here. He gave Kio a training simulator disguised as an arcade cabinet, which is pretty messed up since he's essentially gaslighting him at a young age. I can only imagine Romary & Emily's reaction to this. Too bad we'll never know since those 2 straight up don't matter shit in this arc. Flint gets worse in the last arc, but I'll get to that eventually.
  • The only characters left to discuss are Obright, Fredrick, & Rody. I do like that Obright still treats the Diva like his own home, even cleaning it himself like what Remi once did, showing his sentimental side. It nice that Fredrick is still one of the only ones in the Federation who takes Flint seriously, despite him retiring and not being in the Federation anymore. Rody ain't half bad here, he's still a chill mechanic who keeps the machines up & running. And I gotta admit, seeing his mom again really got me as it was funny seeing her getting pissed off and giving Flint shit for treating his son like crap.
  • Unfortunately, that's all the returning characters, except Unoa who’s the captain’s nurse I guess. That's literally all of them (except for the Vagans of course and one I'll get to later). Now I wouldn't mind this if the new characters were interesting in the slightest. I can count the amount of interesting characters in a single hand, and I don't even need that many fingers to count them. Natora Einus (again, these fucking names) is the new ship captain of the Diva, and I do like that she fresh of the gills when it came to commanding a ship. She starts off as this clumsy with a tight ship to crew, but given time she grows into the role. I also do like that she’s given advice from Flint, showing us how understanding he is to his soldiers. Seric is a level headed pilot who knows how to lead his pilots. I also do like this small romance he has with Natora, pretty reminiscent of Mu & Murue’s romance.
  • However, those are the only characters worth discussing, as everyone else is pretty fucking forgettable. Wendy Hearts only fucking exists to be Kio’s love interest and help Unoa, Wootbit Gunhale is Arisa’s son with Dique’s ugliness curse (Man, being a male in the Gunhale family must suck with genes like that) with a one off rivalry with Kio, and Shanarua Mullen was….. Honestly could’ve been a good character. I’m not joking, she showed promise in the episodes she was in. I did like that she was like a mentor to Kio, teaching him that war is nothing like the games his grandpa made him play. I also did like that unlike other Feddie defectors, her reasoning is to save her ill little sister. This adds a lot of tension and could’ve made her a 3-Dimensional character. But no women are allowed to be complex characters in this anime, so they killed her off immediately. When I said the new characters add nothing, I wasn’t joking.
  • And it doesn’t get better, the Vegans are just as bad if not worse. Zeheart is just a fucking cartoon villian who barely shows up in this arc and has this tensionless rivalry with Kio. And Ezelcant is just straight up stupid now. Towards the middle of the arc he kidnaps Kio and treats him like royalty. Why you may ask? Because he looks like his son who he lost to space cancer. What are the odds that the son of your mortal enemy looks exactly like your son? I can only imagine what would’ve happened with fucking Flint. This script I fucking swear.
  • And those are the only 2 returning Vagans, so how are the newcomers? We got a trio that try to mimic the Black Tri Stars, Godom, Deymon, & Glat. 3 people with no personalities themselves. We got Fram Nara who serves as Zeheart’s right hand (wo)man, and you know what, sure. Give Zeheart someone to have a back and forth with. But you’re probably wondering what her personality is, no you won’t. You’ll never know, as she only exists to be a sexy girlfriend for Zeheart. Ezelcan has a goth wife named Dorene, okay sure. And a maid named Marie, who’s a sweet lady sure.
  • Now let's get to the Vagan homeworld on the Second Moon of Mars. On this rock we meet Deen & Lu Anon, 2 Vagan kids that Kio immediately becomes friends with. Deen is just a chill dude taking care of his sister, with Lu being a sweet tart who wants to be with Kio, isn’t that cute. But unfortunately, she has space cancer too. Okay, I do like the idea of having civilian Vagans who aren’t involved with the war. But with this coming from THE LAST HALF of the anime and with the other Vagans being hellbent on killing humans for existing, yeah this feels forced at best & manipulative at worst. Lu thinks she’s Yuuki Konno, LMAO (How easily you were shown up by Mother’s Rosario). So the Vagans are still murderous Mormons with some civilian Vagans we can feel bad for. I could stop here, but there’s one last faction to talk about.
  • And I’m not talking about the Macdonna’s crew. There’s a pirate faction called Bisidian, owned by a character who’s mostly good, Captain Ash, who’s actually Asemu. And honestly, he saved the whole arc for me. He’s still a badass who tests his son to see if he’s worthy of the AGE system and saves him when he was captured from Vagans. And honestly that last part is easily the best part of the anime. Asemu busts into the 2nd moon, saves his son while fighting the Vagans’ new MS, and then tricks him with some dummy asteroids. Any moment with Asemu in both of these arcs are easily the best ones. However, before going to save his son, when he had to stop by McDonld’s for a happy meal for his kid, he had to ask Flint for permission to save him. Asemu my boy, I don’t think you need permission to save your own son. There’s more stuff that drags his character down, but I’ll get to those in the later arcs.
  • As for the rest of his crew of Bisidian, they don’t have personalities themselves either. You can spend time with the cancer girl & the Diva’s ZZ antics, but not give a crew of pirates personalities. Again this anime should’ve been split into 3 seasons. That would’ve given all the characters with more leg room to breathe so you can develop them as characters with arcs of their own. But as is, I can’t say too much about this arc’s characters. Flint & Asemu are the only ones I have any genuine investment over. Kio could’ve been a good character, if it weren’t for the rushed pacing & bad decisions. But everyone else is just forgettable, and I’m putting that lightly.
• World building:
  • Remember that little Coup d'etat Flint committed against the Federation to get their shit together & to take down the Vagans. That basically gets shoved under the carpet and is immediately made meaningless when the Vagan’s invade Earth. There’s been Vagan’s on Earth since AG 141, and yet in AG 164 (23 FUCKING YEARS LATER), they showed up across the world. WTF were the Feddies been doing for that fucking long? If the feddies took their jobs seriously, then they could’ve prevented the amount of casualties in the invasion. WHAT WERE THEY DOING DURING THAT TIME? And did you know that they have a secret military facility in South America that the Vagans tried blowing up? All of this seems familiar, huh? Would’ve been helpful if that facility helped sooner.
  • So we got ripping off Jaburo over with, so what do we have with the Vegans? Well, as stated earlier, we finally get to see their home on the 2nd Moon of Mars. We see how the civilians fare during the following decades of war. But not only we don’t spend enough time to care, we also see them massacring so many people in the colonies for us not to care.
  • As for the Bisidian pirates, They serve the middle ground as they keep both sides equal and each side to maintain the balance. So like Celestial Being, but as not cool and have the opposite effect. They also know about the real secret of the Federation and about a classified Database called, EXA-DB. This is where all of the tech banned by the Silver Chalice treaty is stored, on some asteroid guarded by this CG mobile armor. And that’s where the Vagans got all their tech from. Apparently, Asemu saw EXA-DB once, but forgot where it was stored. My boy should’ve got a pen & paper and wrote that shit down. I was honestly curious about where they stored that tech after that stupid ass treaty was signed, so it makes sense that they hide it somewhere. But the way the Vagans of all people used that tech, lets just say they sorta over exaggerated. I’ll get to what I mean in the last arc, but just know that over half of their problems would’ve been solved if they used that tech for something else.
  • If you thought the world building couldn’t get any worse, nonsense. From Flint’s plan not working after over 2 decades to the Vagans growing more & more stupid, it’s safe to say that the world of the Advanced Generation has completely gone off the rails. This leads to some plot holes; like what happened to Vagans on Earth after the Diva crew left Earth, or did Flint know about the Vagans on Earth to begin with after that attack on AG 141? What’s worse is that we didn’t even see the impact the Vagan war had on the Earth at all. So overall, this arc has bad world building too
• Mobile Suits:
  • Ok, now we can talk about mobile suits, the one thing that keeps us distracted from this anime’s bad writing. And while there are still some good designs (especially from Bisidian), They’re not as good as the ones from the previous arcs in terms of designs & weaponry. But credit where credit is due, Kanetake, Yanase, & Ishigeki really are trying with these designs.
  • Starting with the AGE-3, its easily the worst Gundam out of the 3 AGE suits. With the AGE-1 being inspired by the RX-78 & AGE-2 being inspired by the Zeta, it’s only natural that the AGE-3 is a copy of the ZZ. except now its bad. For one, it doesn’t have chest vents, making the fucking thing look flat. One of my mecha pet peeves is no chest vents, and this Gundam sure doesn’t help things. It also has a stupid transforming combining gimmick where a tiny little core fighter & a thick ship called the G-Cepter combine. I also have a pet peeve for meaningless combining machines, so this also doesn’t help matters either. But how about its weapons, it must have some good weapons, right?. All it has it a beam saber on the left arm that can also be pulled out and become a handheld beam saber and a big ass beam rifle called the SigMaxiss Rifle. At least SigMaxiss Rifle can turn into a Blustia Cannon until getting destroyed after firing one shot. Alright, sure. Next we got its Wear equipment, which is a little better admittedly;
    • the Fortress takes a page out of Virtue’s book and slaps 4x SigMaxiss Cannons on its arms & shoulders for “more dakka”
    • And there’s Orbital, which is a high mobility armor with the SigMaxiss Long Cannon
  • Similar to the 1st AGE gundam, these are made to adapt to any situation, but with ranged combat in mind. Speaking of which, the AGE-1 Flat also shows up again with the same load out as the last arc, DODS Rifle, beam sabers, & Zefund launcher.
  • As for the other machines from the Federation side, they’re just upgraded versions of their existing machines. All except the Clanche, which is a mass produced version of the AGE-2. It just has the basic stuff; beam sabers, DODS Rifle, beam vulcans, & shield. There’s also the Clanche Custom, which is a mass produced version of the AGE-2 Double Bullet, except its DODS Cannons are only usable in its fighter mode. Both of their flight forms are pretty cool though.
  • The Genoace O-Custom is Obright’s custom unit that’s essentially an upgraded Genoace II, with about the same weapons. But mad respect to Obright for sticking with this machine. There are better machines to use than the Genoace, and yet he uses the MS he’s more used to using, so I gotta respect that.
  • And the Adele MK II is basically tactical green painted Adele, but with roller skates & a DODS rifle with a triple barrel. Not a whole lot, but the Feddies still have enough brain cells to make good mobile suits.
  • As for the Vagans, despite being able to use EXA-DB for LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN GENOCIDE, their designs aren’t half bad. However, they still have some rehashes like the Feddies. For starters the Danazine, which is just the Baqto (including the same weapons), but with a sharp tail & chest beam cannon. The Reganner are the descents of the Defurse and just as ugly too, but now it has shoulder cannons now. Same thing for the Xamdrag, but without those stupid long legs & now with a tail. The Ghiraraga is an upgraded version of the Zeydra, and but now it has a tail, a spear, and some bits, which are just some fucking light bugs or some shit. This machine is honestly the best upgraded out of all of them as it's still a cool looking machine made for close combat. Now the rest of these designs are completely new machines, sorta. The Gomel is just a Vagan’s version of the Hygoog, but with a chest beam cannon, some sexy sharp nails, & some missiles. Same thing with the Wrozzo with about the same loadout, with the Wrozzo R being painted red (of course it’s painted red). But the best one has to be the Gundam Legilis. Thanks to Kio’s stupid decision to give Ezelcant the data to the AGE, we got this thing now. At first it rubbed me the wrong way, but over time I thought it was a cool machine. It takes a design we’re all familiar with and warps it into an uncanny form that feels unnatural. Makes thematic sense, since now the AGE Gundams must fight against their own tech. It still has the usually Vagan weapons (hand vulcans/sabers, chest beam cannon, and a tail beam cannon), but now it has weapons more befitting of a gundam; head beam vulcans, a handheld rifle, and a shield with the same bits as the Ghiraraga.
  • So the Vagans still have some cool looking mobile suits, but we still have the Bisidian’s mobile suits. And let me tell ya, these swashbucklers got some cool ass mobile suits. Starting with the AGE-2 Dark Hound, easily the best variant of the AGE-2. The 1st on screen pirate-themed gundam, this thing makes a really good impression. Plus it’s load is really good as well, the DODS Lance with a physical lance & machine gun like beam guns, beam vulcans (only usable in G-Strider mode), 2x beam sabers, and some Anchor shots that can also serve as a shield. I also do like that there’s an added piece of equipment in the chest where the AGE system would’ve been in (unlike the Flat). While not lethal, the Flash Eye does serve as a distraction. And its G-Strider mode looks good as usual. So of course the best character has the best mobile suit. And Bishidian’s other suits are just as cool. The Shaldoll Rogue has its right arm turned into a DODS arm, has some beam vulcans, & can wield either a beam saber or a beam axe. And finally, there’s the G-Exes Jackedge with about the same loadout, but it's DODS Rifle now has a bayonet for good measure. Bisidian may have showed up at the last minute, but they still have cool looking machines. A pirate’s life for me indeed.
  • This arc at least still has some good action and some decent mechanical designs. But as I usually point out in these reviews, good mechanical designs =/= a good mecha anime. It may make for a good HG gunpla to buy, but it doesn’t save the anime at all.
• Vertic:
  • Everyone universally agrees this is the worst arc in AGE and it's not hard to see why. Bad pacing, characters who are barely expanded upon, and world building with plot holes, these issues plague AGE as a whole and kinda ruin its reputation. Despite having good mobile suits, some decent action, and Asemu, it’s sad that I’m relying on these aspects to find any redeemable factors of this arc. There’s so many ideas that could’ve been expanded upon, like how do the people of Earth repel the Vagans? What have they been doing this whole time? Are there any Vagans who disagrees with Ezelcant’s plan of genocide? All of these questions would’ve made the arc more interesting. But the blitz pacing just didn’t allow for any of these concepts to be explored. So this arc sucks, I don’t like it, and I’ll never watch it again. So I’ll give a bad/10, lets see if things can get any worse?