Anonymous Guest asked: Thoughts on conventional vehicles in mecha media? I'm a big of them myself, which I confess may just be due to Gundam 0079 and its charmingly impractical tanks/planes/submarines/land battleships/whatever this thing would be classified as.
(Also I sent an ask about grunt design yesterday but my internet connection was spotty and it might've gotten eaten by a WiFi outage. If it did send but you don't care to answer it, do let me know but if it didn't I'll resend it...)
Now this is much easier to answer. I love combined arms in mecha. Mecha being the end all be all of military technological development makes some degree of metanarrative sense in mecha media since those are ostensibly the product you're trying to sell. But I think it's cool when you see regular vehicles in mecha too, especially if they aren't completely outmoded.
It doesn't play as big a role in the illustration as I would have liked, but one of the Winter Scar illustrations mandated the inclusion of a tank to represent the existence of a new enemy npc template introduced in the supplement. The MBT isn't just a run of the mill enemy type, it's a legitimate miniboss encounter. I very much like this thematically. A tank should be able to fuck your shit up if you're not paying attention. I don't think it's any coincidence that the first boss encounter in AC6 is a giant helicopter. Find me someone who thinks swordfighting a helicopter would be easy.
I wish combined arms was explored more in mecha. I feel like only the most real of real robot material really explores it to any capacity. I kind of get it. Mecha is already fairly niche, it takes a Gurren Lagann or Gundam sized cultural event to bring enough mecha fans together to fill a room. I suspect the number of people who would want to watch a well produced real robot mecha anime with a heavy emphasis on logistics, chain of command, and the utilization of a combined arms military doctrine would fill maybe one basement.
Anyway shoutouts to the HBS Battletech game where tanks were immensely fragile (stepping on them was usually a one-hit kill) but could also be mounted with the same weapon as mechs. This led to situations where you're running up to punt a tank off a cliff only to find out it's packing an AC20 that puts a mech sized shotgun slug right through your cockpit.
I suspect the number of people who would want to watch a well produced real robot mecha anime with a heavy emphasis on logistics, chain of command, and the utilization of a combined arms military doctrine would fill maybe one basement.
And that basement will probably be quickly hosting a BattleTech tournament