ARMY
Reaper
Thunderbolt Light Frame
Reapers light frame, sent in packs of nine. Its right arm is a Thunderbolt cannon: a guide laser bores a channel through the air, and a burst of three plasma rings follows it down at 4,000 km/s, a sustainer beam keeping them hot all the way. The first ring sweeps the channel clear; the other two strike the same hole.
01 · Speed
On foot, in the air, on its thrusters
Its thrusters push 971 kN, 8.2 times its weight: flat out at sea level it reaches Mach 0.89.
02 · Combat
One frame, and the squad of 9
One frame at base rank, from the battle sheet; ranks strengthen hull, shield and damage.
03 · Weapon
Thunderbolt plasma-ring cannon
Thunderbolt plasma-ring cannon
Right-arm cannon · three-ring burst down a laser-bored channel
A guide laser bores a channel 15 cm across through 7 km of air, heating it 2700 K; three rings of plasma (3.6 MJ, 7.2 MJ, 14 MJ) follow it at 4,000 km/s inside a sustainer beam that keeps them hot. The first sweeps the channel clear; the other two land 22 MJ in one hole, 16 cm into steel. It draws 750 MW: 1.1 GJ a shot, 1.9% of it on the mark, most into the air it bores through. A ring holds together for 1 ms, 4 km; past that it spreads into the air, twice as wide by 7 km, where it lands 25% as a 30 cm scar 4 cm deep.
Fire cycle · one frame over 9 s
126 an attack every 1.5s: 84 a second. Six attacks land 756 from one frame, 6,804 from the squad of 9.
What lands · by distance through air
Sea-level air. In vacuum, nothing takes from it: it lands whole at any range.
Reach against the other units
04 · Available tech
What a commander can fit
Bought mid-battle with supply, for the squad of 9. Each one gives something and costs something.
Core upgrades · 4
Adds a +50% outer targeting band. Attacks, repairs, and boarding channels operate at 55% output beyond native range, and armed squads hold that safer line.
Converts the squad into a breacher: it closes to 45% range and deals +60% damage there, but deals 15% less outside the breach band.
No single hit can strip more than 30% of maximum hull after shields. Mobile units lose 12% thrust; static emplacements lose 18% maximum integrity. Strong into alpha strikes, weak into rapid fire.
Burns at +65% speed while marching or closing on its chosen standoff, then disengages in combat; turn authority is halved during the burn.
Reaper signature tech · 8
The Forge leaves no trace of who is inside a Reaper, and these shells carry none of what a sensor reads: the pack walks in unseen and cannot be targeted until it fires. A running shield is the loudest thing a frame carries, so it is run low: a fifth less shield.
Reaper guide lasers bore the channel the Thunderbolt was drawn for, 8 km of it: the rings reach that far, on a 1.7 s cycle while a longer channel is bored, and its optics, focused far out, cannot bore one inside 1 km.
Reaper rings are wound tight for heavy plate, from a bank filled over a 2 s cycle: 230 a shot against a heavy, assault or titan frame, melting 28 cm into its plate where the plain rings melt 16.
Reaper banks are split between two bursts of rings an attack, each down a channel of its own: 82 a burst, on a 1.8 s cycle. More in all, and neither a killing shot.
A contract on the Black Ledger names one mark, and the Reaper pack is paid for that one: all nine lay their Thunderbolts on it, and it falls in a ninth of the time. Everything else waits its turn.
Shells from the fence yards fill out the Reaper pack: twelve frames where there were nine, each with three tenths less plate and shield, and 107 a shot where it was 126. Reapers are cheap, and are spent so.
Reaper frames raise grave plate on the fist arm across themselves as they fire. It takes 110 points of return fire across the forward 72°. Fire from the flank goes past it.
Reaper skulls read a frame by its heat, through any cloak: cloaks within 7 km are stripped, and what is revealed is marked for allied fire at 8% more damage.