Lancer: What makes this such a damned good mech RPG? 🤖 RPG Review & Mechanics
Vložit
- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- ▶️ Get Lancer in PDF at itch.io ▶️
massif-press.itch.io/corebook...
Lancer is a mech fighting TTRPG published in 2019 by Massif Press following a Kickstarter. It features a fully realized distant future setting and dozens of wildly imaginative mech designs and battlefield mechanics.
📦My Amazon Shop📦
(purchases help the channel!)
www.amazon.com/shop/davethaum...
0:00 - Cold Intro
1:21 - Introduction
1:56 - Character Creation
3:20 - Mech Creation: The Lancer Mech
4:17 - Mech Creation: Make Your Mech
5:53 - Comp/Con
6:55 - NHP
7:44 - Game Mechanics: Narrative Mode
8:58 - Game Mechanics: Mech Combat Mode
11:00 - Is this a wargame + RPG?
11:49 - NPCs
12:18 - Setting
13:31 - My Thoughts
15:21 - Conclusion
------------------------------------------------------------
Get the FREE Lancer rules!
massif-press.itch.io/corebook...
Lancer Discord:
/ discord
------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to the @UkawaStation for use of the awesome battlemaps. Find them on Twitter!
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------ .
Support the channel
Patreon: / thaumavore
.
Thaumavore Community
Newsletter sign-up: bit.ly/ThaumavoreNewsletter
.
Dave’s Publications
Fluxfall Horizon, a parallel Earths RPG bit.ly/Fluxfall
Age of Snakes, an Index Card RPG expansion bit.ly/AgeOfSnakes
The Turnip Knights, a D&D 5e and Index Card RPG one-shot bit.ly/TurnipKnights
A Book of Witches, a rules-agnostic guide to all things witches bit.ly/ABookOfWitches - Hry
Having run Lancer for about 6 months, we just had our second session in a row without combat. While I tried to keep it to 1 combat per session, it slipped to at least 1 combat every other session. Now I am recognizing my lancers are having a lot of fun in the narrative play, so it allows me to create much more meaningful combats that help punctuate the story at points where the success or failure of the players can work to really tell a deep and complex story.
as an aside to anyone reading this, this entirely depends on your group. Having a fun story that the players engage in has nothing to do with the rules. The rules and structure for narrative play in the core book don't really allow much flexibility or ability to achieve much. Either a thing you roll for happens, or it doesn't. The Field Guide to the Karrakin Trade Baronies improves this significantly though, and makes your pilot actually be able to do cool stuff during narrative, introducing burdens and bonds which you can invoke for extra effects.
I always enjoyed the actual role play more than combat most of the time, so it sounds like a great campaign if the players are enjoying the narrative!!
Due to how minimal the non-mech combat portions of the game are, it's actually very viable to hybridize the game with DnD or Pathfinder (or your personal favorite person-to-person scale system) for that portion of gameplay. I have read elsewhere of some particularly committed GMs and groups scaling their play across three levels of play, using human, mech, capital ship, and fleet+economy scale systems to play out an galactic scale conflict. Obviously not a realistic expectation for most groups, but a fascinating idea to consider.
@@MonochromaticPrismship play using what system?
that sounds incredible
Will say Everest is the one frame they had to nerf because it was that powerful. It still is a wonderful starter frame that lets you make mistakes and learn how to play your role. Besides that the lore is something I wish I could get more of along with just how free it is. You're a player? You can get everything for free. I also love how even the Homebrews stick to a theme like the mainline corpos do.
In what regard did you nerf the Everest? Inquiring minds want to know.
@@GeekOfArabia so I didn't play before but basically, you got to take two full turns a round.
@@grim566 it’s core is still pretty strong! An advantage on all attacks, skills, and checks isn’t to be trifled with. Especially with its decent frame stats.
Boy am I late to this party, but 11dragonkid (basically the de facto Lancer CZcams channel) ran a test combat with his friends at LL12 (max level.) One of them went into the battle with an Everest...and it wound up being the MVP in the battle dealing both most enemy kills and most damage per round!
Yeah, the Everest is busted. And it's the starter mech!
Is there any place where I can read more of the lore? I recall that first ed. free book didn't had that much of it.
As someone who used to proudly DM D&D 4e, I guarantee you can have an intricate narrative that puts you through an amazing story and simultaneously have complex tactical combat in the same campaign
D&D 4E? We don't talk about Bruno, no, no, no. 😁
One of my best friends is an artist on this book!
Are they the artist for Kill Six Billion Demons?
You mean Tom Parkinson-Morgan?
tell him thank you for me i love all the art for this rpg its all just as amazing as the worldbuilding
I will prob never play this game, but I got the source book just for the art. So thumbs up to your friend!
After the dnd ogl drama, my friends and I looked to new RPGs. Lancer is so amazing in how much customization you can have, how flexible it’s rules for roleplay are, the depth of mech combat, and the flavour is amazing.
My friends started lancer around the same time for the same reason and we're all loving it. I may have gone a little theory craft craft and made a dozen insane builds, but the rp is just nice and refreshing on the other side of the coin.
My friends and I recently started playing Lancer, it's been lots of fun! We're all super into roleplay so it's a lot more RP-heavy than the average Lancer game might be, but we're all having a ton of fun playing around in such a Sci-Fi setting!
This is a very good breakdown! You managed to succinctly describe the gist of most mechanics and even get a good, short snapshot of the setting. I’ve tried that, it’s hard.
Side note, I’d give a hard recommend of “No Room for a Wallflower” for new Lancer game masters. Even if you don’t run the module, it has very good examples for how to build combat encounters and structure narrative play elements
Thanks! Yeah, Wallflower has a lot of important advice. It dropped right after I finished wrapping up this video.
Furthermore Long Rim is amazing
Caliban FTW
There's even a new one called solstice rain
I actually downloaded the PDF for No Room for a Wallflower. And read from it.
Nothing has made me feel more powerful than shredding all layers of structure and one shotting a boss with a death's head cycling pulse cannon... so good
I won't call Lancer's setting a radiant era coming to its end. It is a universe where part of it is an utopia, which its governator, Union, wants to expand. According to the rulebook, ThirdCom might end if several present problems will wildly escalate, but a war is not close.
Lancer is my favorite d20 RPG. One of the things that makes its combat so fun is that every option makes you feel so powerful and cool (shooting a gun which doesn't exist, using flaming plazma blades and more) while still keeping the game balanced. Furthermore, unlike most games, even at the lowest power rank you have battlefield control options, and at the next rank these options become much wilder. Heat adds an interesting risk and reward mechanic, and the actions system provides a vast variety of combinations.
I love the artist they used, who's comic is called KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS.
Fantastic! I can finally have an excuse to use my massive amounts of gunpla models.
This is a great video about one of my favorite things right now, though i think you characterized narrative play as only part of downtime when its definitely possible to have narrative play outside of mech combat during missions (often it can be as tense as the mech combat with the right mechanics, clocks were introduced into the game officially with the supplement no room for a wallflower and are a very natural fit for the game). Keep up the good work, i love seeing you highlight more indie RPGs that get passed over so often!
I love the artwork for sure. I haven’t read the entire ruleset for Lancer, but I got a little overwhelmed by the rules. I became a little discouraged and I was really hoping for a more stylized Battletech. Ha ha. I love Battletech for its relative simplicity-but I really like the look and atmospheric feel of Lancer. I wish for a way to combine the two-easy war-game mech rules with that bizarre anime-feel world setting.
Same. I went with Battle Century G instead for that reason.
@@richmcgee434, thanks for information. I will have to look it up!
Mekton falls in line with a more stylized battletech, I’d say. It’s got that C R U N C H
Ever looked into Heavy Gear? That is probably one of the best mech rpg ever created
Whoa! Trans-dimensional mechs...count me in! Nice job, Dave...Imma gonna try this battle suit on for size
It’ll fit like a glove, I think.
One day while reading Tom Parkinson Morgan's webcomic, I randomly saw him advertising how he was doing art to a new mech RPG game.
So happy for him that its apparently great
Good video, I agree about wanting to play a simplified battle system for a campaign to focus in on lore and the worldbuilding. If I had a group to play with, I'd strongly consider running a campaign using Lancer's world in the Forged in the Dark mech game, Beam Saber. A small nitpick, while the setting is mostly human, there are a few aliens in RA and Metat Aun, the NHPs (which aren't really AI, they function like AI, but they exist naturally in Blinkspace), and the relatively recently extinct Hercynians who are the focus of the first official campaign which takes place on their former homeworld.
I know I’m 2yrs late, but I just came to say that tomorrow’s our second lancer session and I am super hyped
Where did you get the electronic voice? I'd love to have that as a sound effect for structure and heat when I DM my Lancer game again.
Did you find an answer? I'm interested in this
Lancer is mainly a tactical battle game about mech combat.
It's an interesting one, with a really large number of options and choices for player mech and opponent creation.
mech combat system is finally similar in complexity as the D&D4th combat system, a game which has been considered as more a skirmish tabletop game than a rpg.
As a RPG, it's has a setting, and it has some OVER simplified mechanics to let people incarnate characters.
Going to the simplest rule is not a bad way to make a rpg, it's here very simple to create a character and understand the system, there's just one origin, a couple of traits and you are fine. mechanics? don't search too far it's just rolling a d20 against a base 10 difficulty.
Okay, THAT is how you sell me on the combat system in a game. D&D4e had a solid combat and chargen system that was brutally let down by item, encounter design and math screw ups. (Along with a total void outside of those things sadly.)
Love this video, definitely recommending this to my players, also love the use of Ukuwa Station Battlemaps!!!
This feels like Battletech, in that it is a wargame/RPG hybrid, except Lancer leaned into the roleplay side of things rather than BTs wargame feel. Sounds interesting!
Absolutely excellent breakdown. Was curious about this game and now I really want to dig into it. The world sounds so interesting!
Love you videos! The way you put the soundtrack keeps it so dynamic!
Thanks!
Thank you for the exploration. It's a really good summary 😊
This is a really good video. Well done. Awesome work on the voice work from mr. Mech guy and the editing.
Excellent review as always Dave!
Sure seems like a wargame with RP to me, but genre discussions are an endless argument that nobody can win.
Can I request a review? Liminal is a great rpg and I'd love to hear your take.
Hey, Larian. When you're done with Baldur's Gate come take a crack at this one
That would make a lot of money.
Damn dude you went all out on this one! I love it!
Planning on running a campaign this coming Wednesday on discord.
The way I got here is funny, first I watch a video about d&d changing races to species (even though ancestry seems cooler for a fantasy setting ) then the same guy talked about a past video of why culture should be in the background I believe or there should be some culture tab on character sheets, then in that video he talked about a game called icon for a bit so I looked up what that game was (it seems cool as hell) and in that video the person mentioned this game lancer ! Iv never played any of these games by the way I just love TTRPG content and videos so much, maybe one day
lol, just discovered Lancer and it's amazing !! :) thank you !!!
Thanks for the review! I wish there was more to the pilots themselves, but the game seems cool nevertheless.
Great video! Only thing I will say is that NHPs are specifically not AIs - they're actually digital life forms that originate in blinkspace. Calling an NHP an AI in-setting would be considered, at minimum, inaccurate, and possibly extremely rude. More importantly, the reason an NHP needs to be shackled isn't so much because they are extremely powerful in their base states (though that is also true), but because their basic ability to perceive reality is so alien to our own that reasoning with them is all but impossible. A key part of shackling is giving them a level of social conditioning that makes them think and act like human beings do.
Also, there was another sapient extraterrestrial species that humanity encountered in the setting. Was...
The setting and focus of Lancer strongly reminds me of Eclipse Phase, which is another excellent - if overly-complicated - far-future sci-fi setting. However unlike Eclipse Phase, which focuses on the philosophical, moral, and psychological implications of becoming “transhuman” and the technologies that spring from such an advancement, Lancer instead focuses on the very regular human capability for widespread destruction and ever-present desire for more power at any cost, mixed with borderline magitech.
Letting Lancer bleed into Battletech would be fun - would like to see para-tech on a heavy mech lance
I already thought you were one of the best rpg reviews out there, but your recent editing and content quality overall is just amazing!
Thanks for the kind words!
It sounds like something I would have had fun with when I had access to a Tabletop group. I think it would be more interesting though if they added ship and fighter combat to the game. We know there are military fleets so there has to be warships of some kind.
Support the channel by joining my Patreon! www.patreon.com/thaumavore
Newsletter sign-up: bit.ly/ThaumavoreNewsletter
Awesome review, so ripe for a software company to use as source material for a video game.
How does this channel not have more subscribers???
If you like the art, the artist is better known for the webcomic "Kill Six Billion Demons".
Great review!
Hey is it possible to get access to the announcer voice clips you have throughout the video? They're really cool and I would like to be able to play them during my sessions. like at 16:05
The sounds are not readily available. Shoot me an email at thaumavore@gmail.com if you want an array of custom soundbites. Maybe we can work something out.
That ending made me panic, I’m gonna go find some sound effects like those for when I eventually (hopefully) run Lancer
Well, In Lancer I learned there is one rule: Flavor is free. Those pics and token creators are cool BUT they don't mean this is how your mech looks like. Heck, I love Sherman frame, but how I represent him is completely different( Lasor canon stowed on a shoulder and the hull structure having this WW2 Heavy bomber style glass canopy). Flavours free, and this is YOUR mech first and foremost. Have fun and shatter the sky lancer, or as it is custom in some of more airborne fighting cycles: Fly Low, Full Trothle, Breaks Off, and pray to every god you know!
Top video review, mate!
Thank you!
Lol, I want to play the Wargame version of the game! With cool mini's and magnetized weapon options!!!
had a friend run a lancer campaign, the dm stated session 1 "shoulda known YOU would have pulled some Horus BS," ROFL. i loved playing that drone based mech. set up shield drones, then set up attack drones... any opposition became pinball and made my DM laugh and facepalm.
This channel is amazing
this video was badass thank you so much. are you doing any more lancer content?
Thanks! I really should do Wallflower, since that is a major expansion.
Great video, I'm in.
What do the colors mean in the rule book?
It's kind of like battletech. In that universe, where there are no aliens, just hot humans in human action, also not super high tech, and no weird A.I.s, well, if you don't count the Black Marauder, that thing is weird
Oh, there were aliens, but then Second Comm, the previous government, committed genocide on them, and Union hasn't found any other alien races. The AI thing is wrong, weird AIs are a big thing in the setting. Look up NHPs and RA in Lancer lore.
Aweeeeesome!
I'll give it a shot
Honestly, my least favourite part of lancer is the narrative play. Trying so hard to deliberstely mechanicalize narrative play and downtime just feels weird. It makes sense to me why people use another system like Stars Without Number to supplement the narrative or out of mech side of a campaign
Giving the 800th like to this video was oddly satisfying! 😋
If you can play 1st level 5th Edition DnD you can play Lancer. It's not as complex as people make it out to be.
A mech production company called Horus, nice :-)
How do you make Tokens on Retrograde Minis?
There is no other sentient life in Union space.
And there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
What's the music used, it fits so well!
Question: If say people wanted to play Lancer physically on the table what would you recommend players/gms use as models for mechs?
Also what other ruleset would you use next to Lancer for the non-mech narrative sections?
I wouldn’t sweat the models too much because in-game, your mech is constantly changing. There’s no practical way to keep up with that in the physical world. Just use a model that is distinctive enough to be recognized as a particular player’s.
Second question is a tough one. Depends on how involved you want to get. Any fully fledged sci-fi RPG would be better than what’s in Lancer for downtime, but which one would depend on your taste and tolerance for complexity.
I was looking inspiration for a homebrew Power Rangers, this came close by stripping the desicions.
Hmmm 🤔
I will probably use the core mechanic for combat and give them a Megazord with my options.
Or maybe ask them what type of mech they want before the game.
Or depending what type of configuration they have (blue torso, or red torso) they can be close combat, ranged, controller and so on.
Hmmm 🤔
Either way it will be interesting.
Wow, that's a cool concept!
Check out The Mecha Hack, based on The Black Hack, for a simplified mech game. I intend to run it using illustration and lore from Lancer.
I reviewed it. Good choice of rules + illustrations combo.
Doing this currently in PbP format... works fabulously!
Forgot to say that the PDF is f r e e
A shorter version of the book is free and it's linked in the video description.
@@DaveThaumavore Missed that! My bad lol
Completely agree with Dave here, wish there was a simplified, narrative focused rule-set for this :/
This game would benefit immensely from a "starter kit." I'm talking, simplified rules, simplified options, pre-made characters, and a simple ready-to-go short module to play through. I know I'm not the only one who can never get their gaming group to read more than 2 pages--let alone 400--yet, I'm sure that there are droves of more casual gamers that would love the world, art, aesthetic, and overall kickass-ery of Lancer.
I'm a simple girl
All I want is to play some severely psychologically damaged teenagers and to Get In The Robot
I love the sound of this but my friends stay away from scifi because it's either too complicated or hard to visualize.
The art. That is all.
How you get started playing?
Yes
I really want to explore a narrative of this game.
I disagree. I really hope they make an Xeno-Tech book that would include some Octopods, Turtles, Shrooms, Ai, & Avian species and their Mechs.
It would help the Gurren Lagann game I'm making run a lil smoother.
Dang no print version
damn it... another game i'm gonna get lost in and never play because my players wanna wear skins and cast fireball!
@@richmcgee434 the word "new" would trigger them :)
Time for a Titanfall game baby!
What a good group!
I'm trying this game and I agree, for beginners this game is brutal, and I worry this will push newbies away. They NEED to make a starter kit or something. Otherwise, I don't know if I want to push myself to try it because I felt paralyzed when I tried to play it. Deeply confusing and way too much to know.
The COMP/CON thing helps, but yeah I know what you mean.
COMP/CON has starter builds that it can auto-recommended for newer players, and the scenario Operation: Solstice Rain is intended for new GMs and new players. It was just released a few weeks ago.
@@DaveThaumavore The site does help a bit but even that has its own problems. The biggest miss is tool tips. When I pick things, it doesn't really explain much in a way that would make sense to a newbie. Like medium and heavy weapons with kinetic energy or some other damage type, okay what does that mean what's better than the other and so on? I'm a full believer in dumb your stuff down for beginners (the "keep it simple stupid" idea). I'm also someone who works a ton and I don't have as much time to play a game this complicated. I may bow out from playing it.
@@feral_orc Thats weird, because I didn't see that at all when I played recently. Maybe the DM doesn't know it exists. I'll let them know. Thank you!
I'm not sure how to feel about Lancer. It's interesting and definitely worth picking up, but I found the ruleset for Battle Century G lent itself better for the kind of mecha action I wanted to run and play.
After playing Lancer, I have to say that the obsession with only the mech portion of combat was... dissapointing. The system involved actually has all the structure to make out-of-mech play easily just as rewarding and impactful as giant robot fights. There are a plethora of equipment options that can make combat effective and varied, as well as utility options that can sway encounters in the party's favor. Mag boots, grappling hooks, drones, and cloaking suits for espionage missions in a rural setting, guns, melee, explosives and STIMS for combat, and all the talents for everything in between. For anyone who is used to RPGs like 5e and pathfinder, this is more than enough to make entire quests that might not require a giant mech suit.
I imagine you could be in a city, then something happens that makes you and the party surrounded by hostiles that don't have mechs (because mechs are at least somewhat rare and skill dependent) and just have regular weapons. Now you and the party have to escape to get to the mechs so you can clean house in the local area. Or a rescue mission that is too heavily guarded to charge in with mechs or maybe in too small confines to make it effective. Not all structures would feasibly have room for a walking mech, but there are also mechs that are almost person size, and those pilots could actually feel OP for once in those situations. Looking at you Goblin. The fact that people treat these options was profoundly disappointing, but I'm also finding more and more people who see the potential in this games as well.
One of the things I've loved about Lancer over DnD is that the narrative is secondary, or built by, the gameplay. At least in the games that I've played.
It depends on your GM of course, as well as your own takes, but Lancer has been a great system for someone like me that really doesn't care too much about the story element vs the actual mechanics.
To be honest, i am like Dave. I enjoy playing only the narrative mode of LANCER. It is cool for a sci-fi espionage game. It is kinda like a PbtA game on its own.
I've been trying to form a table to play a mech-themed mystery game (not thaaaat focused into mech battles, but with a good enough mechanical ruleset), however I haven't been so lucky with finding a good system.
Right now I'm looking up the Savage Worlds science fiction companion and their mech rules.
@@nairocamilo How about using Stars Without Number Nairo? I believe there're rules for mech in the Full Version of SWN.
I recently finally tried Savage Worlds. The adventure is cool, the GM and the other players are amazing and wonderful people.. but Savage Worlds system itself is a bit too swingy for my taste.
Duh sorry if i sound a bit ranting in your video comment section, Dave.
Just seems like Mechwarrior but without the cool setting or half dozen eras to play in.
Explosive, Energy, Kinetic, Burn? -- ripping off EVE-Onlines Damage Systems, are we?!!! ;-)
“Borrowing”
So, in short Lancer is like EVE online mixed with battletech that was hit with Japanaizing Beam
Does anybody have experience with combining it with for example DnD stats/rules for roleplay?
How is a mech stealthy
Magic.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is the ability to hand-wave.
@@DaveThaumavore noice
if only this could be a REAL pc game.... insted of just an table rpg like any other table rpg
If this was a PC game, then it's potential would be limited to just what was programmed into it. While with TTRPGs you are only limited by your imagination.
Actually from what I've read in the core rulebook there are technically sentient extraterrestrial races that humans have encountered they're just not as advanced as humans technology wise.
Humanity obliterated one of them, and the others are offshoots of an actual god. NHPs are funky
Extraterrestrials: None
Not anymore...
Not sure about this one. My group is very story driven. The options and the tactical bits might not be to their taste.
I excitedly bought this book, only to find out the narrative play skill checks, as simple as they are, had a very obvious flaw, made me question whether I could trust the more complicated mech combat mechanics, and thus never found the time to read more.
I dub this game. Zoomertech.
I find this interesting, however it feels like it literally is only about mechs and combat.
Wich is Boring
Uh... yea, Ill stick with Battletech.
Great cram of info, maybe space it a bit more? Also, that robotic female voice speaking over you as you described key rules has to go! It's utterly confusing and bothersome. Otherwise, great revue.
This setting makes no sense. When the Empire exists, Han Solo is an interesting character. In this setting he is an impediment to Utopia that actually exists. He is evil. Every interesting character can only be evil accept 'true believer', who uses exclusively the 'correct' language. Boring
I'm so confused
Am I the only one bothered by the "post-capitalist" society that y us based on a weapons oligarchy?
I believe that is a central tension in the politics within the lore. The core centrists of the third committee have no use for these tools of destruction but don't bother to destabilize the status quo by holding the manufacturers accountable for their actions / impact. Meanwhile the anticolonial diaspora of frontiersman and Albatross society are either directly opposed to the manufacturers or picking up after their messes. It also implied that the great war is going to be between The hypercapitalist noblility of the trade baronies and the manufacturers / whomever they are supplying in opposition to the barons economic prominence, but it's up to the GM to set up the major conflict as they see fit.
I wanted to like this game, but I think it is too much of a wargame. The system is too complicated, the setting is so-so (not very inspired) and I just don't like the whimsical mech design. The companion app is one of the best "extras" I've ever had the pleasure to use. The elements supporting roleplaying in this game are very weak.
The game is OK but the setting is cringe garbage.
can you elaborate on what you don't like about the setting? I'm interested in it but I can't find much about the specifics
Oh, very much agree on the setting. Like we could've had something like a badass dystopian future (maybe like a combination of Blade Runner with a considerably more high-tech VOTOMS) that could actually given something resembling a compelling conflict to resolve or survive. Instead, what we got was a virtue signal fest that just so happened to have mechs (most of which are far better designed than what the setting deserves btw) run by pronoun cultists and hipster jagoffs who know NOTHING (and care not to) of what made mecha anime so fucking awesome in the fuck first place.
If you read the setting background in the rulebook the "post-scarcity" area of human space only really happens at the centre of controlled space. The vast majority of Union space has different factions, economies, cultures and driving motives. When the game takes place Union is literally at war and, not too recently but not that long ago, a super entity turned up and planet-napped Mars (could be a different planet, I can't quite remember).
Like there's a lot going on and the setting is far from peaceful. I'd say it's far less "virtue-signalling" than even early Star Trek.
Currently running a campaign and my group are working for a far-right (by Union standards) faction, The New Humanity Front. They've just been sent to an Imperial system to squash an uprising (mostly through murder) so that the Royal Family will throw their votes behind the NHF allowing them to gain better control sway in ThirdComm, Union's government. The only thing I've homebrewed for that is the Royal family and the system it takes place in, the factions are all part of the game and explained in the rulebook. I'm hoping, once they're a little more accustomed to the rules, to send them closer to the front lines.