Temple of Templates - Grunt

 

Art by Retrograde Minis

Before we begin, today we'll be doing something a little different. As you might have noticed in my NPC Overview series, i've only mentioned Templates a handful of times. That's not because there's not much to talk about with regard to Templates on those NPCS. On the contrary, there's actually far too much to go into while keeping it from being a bloated mess of word count. However, not talking about Templates at all does Lancer a great disservice on the GM's side, as they are an immensely useful tool that adds a great deal of added customization to any NPC you add them to. That said, they can be tricky to use effectively. This series will document my own experiences and thoughts, and likely touch on some community opinions you might find useful, even if I don't personally agree with them. As well, unlike in my other series which don't provide any narrative focus, we'll touch on that a bit in case you struggle to justify use of these templates narratively!

Template

Grunt - A template that strips the NPC of its health and heat in exchange with the expectation you will field multiple to replace a single NPC.

Added Complexity

Low

Threat 

Low (Usually)

Overview 

The lowly Grunt seems quite pointless until you realize they're intended to be used en masse, replacing a single non-Grunt NPC with up to 4 bodies. They die to almost any outside sources of heat or damage, excluding damage they might take on a successful save, and can't be somehow upgraded with the Ultra, Elite, or Veteran Templates or be applied to Squads. Simple enough, right? Spam them out with hordes of Assaults, that'll be fun!

Except don't do that. Or at least, it needs more consideration before you do consider doing that. There's a small problem that might be overlooked and that's the fact that Grunts still do full damage on any attack. And in order to 'replace' the worth of a non-Grunt NPC, you need more of them to do the job as presumably they're going to die in droves. And the last problem is that more bodies can actually escalate the threat or effectiveness of certain abilities on certain mechs, especially because they're not restricted to taking the Optionals inherent to their NPC type nor Optionals or abilities from other Templates, like Spacer or Pirate. Let's talk about these potential problems.

So, Grunts still hit just as hard as though they were an ordinary mech sitting at 1 HP. Under many circumstances, that's really not a problem. However, if you say have Grunts that are in a position that the Party cannot easily get to them to deal damage or heat to enough of them then you might encounter your Party suddenly taking double, triple, quadruple the damage from what should be a single NPC in effectiveness. This can happen in a few different ways, so i'll list a few here. The first might be that your group simply lacks AoE or multi-target means of applying damage or heat, focusing instead on dealing lots of damage to single targets. Next, the Grunts might simply be out of range, typically as the result of your group being short-range in general and facing off against a bunch of Artillery Grunts. Or the NPCs might have the ability to become Invisible or Hidden whenever they'd like, vastly reducing the opportunities to even try to kill them and making it a 50/50 before any other factors like the passive defenses or accuracy/difficulty get involved. These probably aren't the only circumstances but I think you get the idea. Now, this isn't limited to damage dealing NPCs of the Striker/Artillery variety but it is primarily a concern for these kinds of mechs.

Now, Grunts tend to appear in droves. Unlike normal NPCs which tend to have a rough 'cap' on how many should be facing the party at once Grunts break this ideal due to the need for having multiple on the field to be effective under normal circumstances. Besides the previously stated problem of there being too many for a party to deal with at once this opens up problems of balance in regards to Recharge 6 and Limited abilities, Loading weapons, and the complexity and mental tax of keeping track of all of these new additions. The latter is a simple fix, don't use Grunts on NPCs that are already inherently complex to run, like Mirages. The former is more of a concern for abilities and weapons that just feel terrible to get spammed against, like the Witch's Petrify Optional, or Support's Latch Drone Optional, or even just the Sniper's Anti-Material Rifle. Some are worse than others, but careful consideration of having multiple chances for these abilities to not only go off in a round but potentially refresh and be used even more might mean the difference between a fun encounter and a horrid slog.

Now, i've gone on a lot about the potential risks to using Grunts. But I don't want you to think that doesn't mean they're not useful. On the contrary, they can be a great addition to flavor an encounter and let your party feel really good about gunning down a horde of weaker mechs leaving a path of destruction in their wake. They also allow you to pull some shenanigans with certain abilities that aren't typically as effective on normal mechs, or allow you to field an enormous amount of mechs in a relatively balanced manner you can't do without the Template. Just take some caution, particularly with damage dealing mechs and powerful tools that are intended to be limited in usage. As a good rule of thumb, any mech that's a grunt should be within range for a party to deal with it shortly after it shows up, allowing the party to dispatch of it and thus curb any potential issues.

Next, let's look at how the Grunt applies to the various types of NPC and go into detail about them! Keep in mind the following assessments are assuming a set of 4 grunts of the same kind with no or minimal Optionals, so mix and matching may provide radically different results than what i've described!

Strikers

Strikers and Artillery are where many are inclined to use Grunts, intending them to be weak cannon fodder. Just remember that they still hit just as hard, and still have access to many of their tools to cause problems or keep themselves alive. Melee Grunts don't work well against a party that has a lot of Threat on their weapons, keep that in mind! They'll just die before they do anything, trying to get to their target.

Ace - The Ace plays pretty normally and honestly feels pretty good as a pesky swarmer type of Grunt. Ace Grunts with Bombing Bay can be a downright menace as they simply fly around the map, and their weapons in general really punish tightly grouped formations. Barrel Roll helps them ignore an attack that might otherwise kill them, but my biggest concern is pairing them with the Chaff Launchers Optional. The ability to just outright ignore a single attack isn't often a complete waste of a turn, but ignoring an Invade can absolutely be. Keep them fairly low to the ground, too. Many weapons can't reach the lofty range of 10 and the Ace grunts could hover there, especially with Chaff Launchers, allowing them to just not be reached by a lot of potential weapons. Don't be an asshole, in short. Grunts are supposed to die.

Assassin - An okay Grunt choice, best used if they all pick the same target for Assassin's Mark. This will quickly become a game of focus firing the Assassins before they reach their target, because when they arrive that poor man is gonna die. If you spread out the targets I think it's likely they'll be picked off quite easily, Assassins are reliant on a feature that basically doesn't work as a Grunt to defend themselves.

Assault - Fine. Nothing much to say here, a good Grunt choice.

Berserker - Another fine choice, wanting to rush in to do some damage before they die. If they can't cover the distance then they're pretty awful, though, so only use them on maps where they can reasonably do that without getting picked off.

Breacher - Too slow and too short ranged to be a meaningful threat. I'd pass as a Grunt choice.

Cataphract - Like the Assassin they're quite reliant on a feature that grants Resistance to keep them alive against the target they're in close range with. Best used as a disruption tool, if you just want them for their damage I think there's better choices.

Engineer - A mechanically fine but narratively weird Grunt, it's strange that something will be making Turrets that are functionally more resilient than it in every possible way. Can be mentally taxing because even 'just' 4 Engineers means there's a lot of individuals to keep track of and when they fire. If that doesn't both you, maybe ensure they're somewhere the group can deal with them instead of just making some turrets and running away so they can't die. Like a regular Engineer, the turrets stop being a problem once the Engineer is gone.

Ronin - Plays a lot like the Berserker, with the added flair of slapping someone's shot back at their face as they die (sometimes). Hilarious.

Specter - Damned scary as Grunts. With Invisibility being their primary defense from being blown up, makes it very hit or miss if you can actually deal with these guys and that's before they become Hidden as a result of being invisible. And for the love of god don't give Grunt Specters Fortress on top of it! Not a simple addition, I would look elsewhere for a 'simple' Grunt that doesn't require consideration as to keep a combat fun.

Scourer - These guys work best when they have multiple turns to lay into a specific target. That's not something a Grunt can count on. Still a useful ranged damage dealer Grunt that really punishes you if you leave it alone. A bunch of these guys with the Melt Optional will mean that they can reshape the battleground very, very quickly.

Avenger - Their abilities don't interact with Grunts themselves, but a bunch of Grunt Avengers can make a difficult fight into an absolute slaughter. Be careful, especially if using more than 4. As long as your party is aware of how their ability works I think they're fair game, though. It just forces target priority in an interesting way!

Lurker - Interesting, has some of the concerns of Specter but at least you can shut their ability off with a hack that doesn't have a 50/50 to fluff it. Still, any Grunt that can just choose not to be hit on demand via Hidden or uses Invisibility can be frustrating to deal with. Especially with multiple ones, because any Lurker can use any other Lurker's Shroud Zones. Same as the Specter, pass if you just want a simple Grunt.

Artillery

Artillery are the more problematic of the Strikers/Artillery for Grunts, given their penchant for being at a distance and potentially not being available to be hit while raining down terribly damaging fire from that safe distance. If your party can't deal with long range attacker in the round that they enter the map with any regularity, I'd actually just skip anything marked Artillery as a grunt candidate. Too much potential for the party to be devastated before they can do anything about it.

Bombard - A fun grunt, assuming your party can actually reach the things before they dumped multiple rounds worth of damage into you before you've reached them. That said, they do prefer clustered targets so they can teach the important lesson of spacing with careful use!

Operator - These guys become really annoying assholes as a Grunt. Take that for what you will. I would not recommend giving their either Fade Generators or Fortress as Optionals as those both greatly improve their survival rate and allow them to put down a hail of extremely precise and extremely deadly ranged fire. Oh, and Telefragging Grunt Operators is a hilarious move and I fully recommend you putting them on the map just to use them for that.

Rainmaker - So. Many. Rockets. These guys as Grunts can put a damned lot of hurt into multiple targets if left unchecked, and with Javelin Rockets on all of them can make the map downright impossible to cross. If you're going to use Rainmaker Grunts I would have no more than 2 or 3 of this type of Grunt on the field, and don't give them Endless Rain as an Optional as otherwise the group's going to have no choice in whether their hit by the Javelin Rockets, just how many. Atlas Missile is a fun choice, though, so long as they aren't making it impossible to avoid with sheer volume of usage.

Sniper - A strong 'don't' from me, boss. Snipers just do too much damage. Their main disadvantage, Loading on their Anti-Material Rifle, just doesn't mean much of anything when you have an Alpha Strike from 4 of them. You're welcome to go against my advice, but my honest recommendation is don't use these guys as Grunts.

Strider - To be honest, they've just got a lot going on for me to recommend these as Grunts. Maybe stick them to a single Loadout and don't let them switch to keep the headache to a minimum about what Strider has what loadout at what time. Or better yet, just use something else! Balance-wise fine, just a mental load problem.

Supports

Supports, on the whole, make for interesting Grunts but not in a cannon-fodder sense. They often lack offensive potential, doing little to no damage, and focus entirely on providing bonuses to the mechs around them. As a result they often become very short lived buff providers that provide a clear weakness that the party can deal with fairly easily in exchange for the buffs they've providing being much for effective if they don't. They're a solid, easy recommendation from me for Grunt-ness!

Aegis - This guy is the exception to the idea that a Grunt Support is easy to take out, as they operate a lot like a Defender in their role. Providing a massive defensive buff to themselves and others, Grunt Aegis are great for re-enacting that one scene in Star Wars with the Gungans fighting the Droids. They're quite resilient to Reliable damage from most sources with 2 armor as well, meaning that actually hitting them is still going to be the best means of dealing with them, though often much harder with weapons. They also come with a pretty nasty attack themselves, but overall I think they're one of the better candidates for being a Grunt amongst the NPC roster.

Mirage - A fun idea, but I can't recommend it. They have a lot of moving parts and tend to specialize in annoying the hell out of your players with even just their core abilities. Having multiple of these guys on the field, especially given they're naturally Invisible with all the issues i've brought up before, can be headache inducing for both sides. I'd pass.

Priest - Basically represent the core idea I have as Support Grunts. A great choice, powerful buffs that with multiple Priests can affect the rest of the enemy composition but easy to take out on the damage side, though a bit more resilient towards hacking. A fantastic Grunt.

Scout - Kill them before they paint your whole party as targets for the damage dealers! Another fantastic Grunt. A special mention goes to their Optional, Orbital Strike. Scouts normally aren't damage dealers, but a swarm of them painting various areas as being killzones means you can make quite an interesting encounter, forcing the group to prioritize the Scouts! Another great choice.

Support - Generally a fantastic choice just like most of the Support lineup, but I would just take caution with using the Latch Drone Optional. It may very likely outlast the Support itself and is an incredibly powerful tool, especially when you're essentially upgrading the entire enemy team with these! It not only doubles the amount of targets they need to get rid of to rid themselves of the threat (the Drone itself, and the Supports who have a good chance of Recharging with so many around if left unchecked), but it drastically increases the threat of the enemy team beyond what I think a set of 4 Grunts should be able to do. Beyond that though, they're another good choice.

Leech - Used as a Support tool and not offensively, the Leech is a fantastic Grunt choice. But many of the control tools they have just aren't as effective when any damage can remove them as a threat. Keep them attached to friendly mechs and they'll do just fine!

Defenders

Defenders are a really mixed bag when it comes to the Grunt Template. Many of them are slow moving, large, and/or reliant on being able to take hits to perform their role. As you might expect, none of these go well when you only get 1 HP. There's some tricks that otherwise bad Grunt mechs can perform, and a couple of standouts but generally the Defender role doesn't want to be a Grunt and by making them a Grunt you're changing their role from 'Defender' to 'Weak Striker'.

Bastion - The Bastion can work but I think it really needs its Optionals. The high armor is nice, but doesn't save a Bastion whenever its being targeted by anything remotely damaging. Along with a very limited and quite weak offensive toolkit, the Bastion isn't looking so good. However, the Optionals of Deathcounter, alllowing it to survive a single hit, or Fearless Defender, allowing it to 'get down Mr. President' an ally, can make them an interesting Grunt choice. But without that? Nah, pass.

Demolisher - I think this might be the worst Grunt in the game from strictly a perspective of being able to do something. Extremely slow with no range to speak of to influence the battlefield. I guess they have their Sensors at 10 which means they can hack but... just use something else, for the love of god.

Goliath - ...at least this one has a gun this time? Another terrible choice. Their wreck will have more influence on the battlefield than they will. At least the Demolisher had armor, jesus... In all seriousness, the Goliath relies on having a massive HP to perform its role. Obviously, the Grunt template removes that. Hard pass.

Pyro - Okay, here we go. Pyros have some function as a threat as Grunts, especially using their Firebreak Shield to give themselves a chance at getting in range or just to help their allies out. And if the group needs to rush or the Pyros can deploy later in the sitrep close to objectives, they can be a pretty nasty threat! Still, not the best.

Sentinel - The Sentinel doesn't look great, but it lacks a lot of the major weaknesses the other Defenders have. It does have a short range, which can be a problem, but with its size and ability to use Overwatch better than other NPCs it can be a fantastic off-Striker Grunt choice. They're probably the best choice for a feeling of a 'horde' of mechs you can throw at your players with the least risk of overwhelming them. A great choice!

Spite - An interesting choice for a Grunt, and one of the better Defenders. Their core trait Imprison is a lot less impactful given they'll die if anything hits them and they're fairly easy to hack, but use of Enthrone + Seize can force the party to engage with them via hacking while still outputting some pretty nasty effects. Crush Targeting forces attention onto them in order to deal with their allies, letting them still fulfill their Defender role, while Feedback Shield allows them to defend their allies even after they fall. A decent choice!

Controllers

Controllers are another mixed bag, but for reasons different than Defenders. While many Defenders struggle to perform their role with the Grunt template, Controllers can often become too good as a result of many shutdown or condition afflicting abilities. They're already often Target Number 1 in many players books, so Grunts can really push that over the edge. Still, there's a couple of good options here.

Archer - Grunt Archers are a nasty bunch of Strikers. They're still Controllers, but they Control through sheer volume of fire on a good day and that compounds quickly when you make four of them run around the map, Supressing everyone on the battlefield. Don't use them with Blinding Shells unless you have a heavy melee/CQB focused party as otherwise they can singlehandedly shut down the party's ability to do anything to counter them. A really dangerous Grunt, for sure, but if you really need something that like then they can work. Just be careful, they're basically Strikers with that damage output, and can quickly inflict Impaired on the entire team!

Barricade - Big, slow, but capable of making their own cover and have a decently offensive weapon. Unfortunately their Mobile Printer is a Protocol, meaning that the Barricade needs to actually survive a turn, likely without cover, before it can use that tool. One of the few Grunts I would recommend really looking at for their Optionals over their base kit, the weapon is fine but doesn't save it from otherwise being a mediocre choice. Use its Optionals for it to fulfill its Controller duty, or slap Extrudite on each of them because hopefully one of them will at least get a turn to make a lot of cover before it dies.

Hive - This is another NPC that is balance-wise pretty fine and quite interesting as a Grunt, but you need to be prepared for the mental load of having multiple Hives creating Razor Swarms and subsequently keeping track of which Hive 'owns' which Razor Swarms. That can be a lot to keep track of! Otherwise they're fairly competent at their role of Controller while also being able to stack a lot of Burn on targets at moderate ranges, especially with multiple Hives able to use their gun on targets to really stack it up. Another decent choice, just be careful if your party can't deal with great amounts of Burn stacking up on them all the time.

Hornet - Absolute bastards. Able to shut down player's ability to deal with them via their Impale Systems which is normally a Recharge ability and using their extremely pesky Stinger Pistol to inflict even more Conditions on people. A Grunt swarm of Hornets can be extremely frustrating to deal with, especially when they have other pressing matters to attend to. Can they work? Sure. But they're one of the Controllers I would be cautious adding as they can really overload the group with stacking Conditions, and their Optionals only compound that fact.

Seeder - One of the best Controllers to use as a Grunt, in my books. Now, I do keep the Mines hidden which can add to your mental load if you're not using a VTT and have the ability to just place hidden tokens on the map. But if you can or otherwise have a simple means of keeping track of a lot of hidden mines, oooh boy. Definitely one of the Controllers that becomes a priority target when you have so many of them running around, gleefully showering the map with hidden pockets of 'get fucked' that are hard to find. Use as an occasional treat, but one that will be the appropriate amount of 'oh god these guys' for your entertainment.

Witch - I'm going to be honest, I think a bunch of Witch Grunts are too punishing against most parties to use. They're already priority targets on a good day, and they suddenly become a lot scarier when they can en masse force your most damaging PCs to blow the shit out of each other, multiple times a turn. Or shut down their vision, disallowing them from seeing anything. Their Optionals make this even worse. I really cannot recommend these as Grunts, they're just too much. If you are going to ignore this and use them anyways, I cannot stress enough how Petrify if used over and over again is such an unfun and debilitating tactic to deal with.

Special Classes

This is just for the other the three other classes you might use Templates on! Now, the Grunt doesn't work well for anything but the Monstrosity in this category, but hey I might as well make the format for the other Templates in the future. And maybe we'll get more down the pipeline of Lancer's lifetime!

Humans - They're already grunts. Not literally, obviously, but Humans are generally such a non-factor that spending the time to apply most templates on them just doesn't make sense. Grunt makes them go from a probably one or two shot to a definitely oneshot. If you want a horde of dudes, just use a Squad.

Squad - Can't apply the Grunt template to a squad!

Monstrosity - Works well to represent weaker monsters that can affect a mech. Monstrosities tend to be a bit of rarity, but i'd recommend them to supplement a Monstrosity Ultra or Elite! Otherwise they operate a lot like a melee Striker would with all the pitfalls they have. The Optionals, which are a bit too varied for me to go fully into, do add a lot of flavor and interesting mechanics that can make these guys satisfying to use, however!

Narrative

Grunt Mechs are best described and justified in the narrative through things like budget cuts, scavenged mechs, or previously damaged mechs that are barely operating. Mechs that are more of an exoskeleton with the most basic of plating around the pilot and vital features, mechs that are clearly unfinished but being forced to engage with you in a desperate move, and mechs that some crazy Horus tinkerer welded together in his basement. All of these ideas work best to describe why a mech goes down to any significant hit. I don't personally like the idea of using them as a 'fodder' that anyone deploys, because it feels wierd you'd invest the time and energy into the training of a pilot and design of a mech that can be put down by Pilot hitting it too hard with his sword, even outside of a Mech or Exosuit!

Grunt Monstrosities, on the other hand, make a lot more sense. A lot of creatures hit harder than they take hits, and maybe they're more ambush predators or underdeveloped forms of wildlife in the area that have adapted to mech presence. They might even be more of a environmental setpiece like massive trees that smack anyone who gets too close. It might be more of a defensive tactic that goes 'i'm not worth fighting' rather than an actual desire to stand up and fight mechs toe to toe!

Other Considerations  

All in all, Grunts are an interesting choice if used appropriately and can introduce some tactics to NPCs that you otherwise can't utilize with them effectively outside of using them en masse. But some NPCs definitely don't work as Grunts and others work too well. And making an entire encounter of Grunts can be taxing and tedious moreso than fun and engaging, so maybe shy away from that. As a rule of thumb, stick to replacing one NPC of an encounter with 4 Grunts. And don't forget you can mix and match! Though, maybe stick to NPC types you already have. Mental overload is a real problem, and keeping track of too much can hurt your game!

Final Thoughts

Honestly I don't use Grunts very often and I don't like the narrative idea of a mech going down to a single pistol shot. I tend to shy away from them unless using them in a very specific way, like as part of a 'boss' Ultra encounter or as some sort of narrative fodder that actually makes sense to me, like unfinished mechs or baby monsters. I much prefer the other Templates, so look forward to when I talk about those!