Subclasses: Combat or Defense Specialist (CS/DS)

Background: Centuries of conflict have brought this military construct into being, and their fighting forces by necessity are divided nearly equally into offensive and defensive roles. Any points gained in the ‘Armor’ skill prior to your career are put automatically into the ‘Battle Dress’ skill.

As a Combat Specialist you start with a heavy weapon of your choice, either an auto-cannon (Ball) or Laser-cannon (EW) with Strength being the primary ability for each. You must be wearing a battle-frame in order to dual wield heavy weapons and until you eventually are able to use pair-modding your off-hand heavy weaponry does not gain any benefits from skill points or master ranks. The The off-hand weapon must be stated in advance and cannot be changed mid-battle, although if only firing one weapon each round the user is not penalized. For the combat specialist this rule does not apply for melee weapons and pistols as they are more adept with weapon changes and have fast-swap attachments that they modify to fit any suit of armor they are equipped with. You are advised to purchase armor before adventuring.

As a Defense Specialist you start with the Imperial Navies ‘Battle Frame’, a suit of extremely versatile, modular and adaptable armor which increases in strength as your citizen levels (as long as you spend rank points towards the levelling process, max 1 per level). When it reaches level 10 it is then considered to be full ‘Battle Dress’ and you may now may spend 4 Rank Points for each further upgrade on this armor. This has an upgrade limit of once every four levels, as with the Scouts armor. Weaponry restrictions and off-hand usage are similar to that of the combat specialist apart from the benefits specific to the combat specialist subclass. You are advised to purchase a ranged weapon before adventuring.

Unsurprisingly, the Battle-Frame is usually purchased early on by a CS who is aiming to wield two heavy weapons and gain this advantage as quickly as possible. Virtually everyone in the Imperium has seen the famous IN recruitment holo of Jeremiah Rainer single-handedly mowing down hordes of fictional Zeriglans with his dual autocannons; it is highly likely that most who chose this role were directly influenced by this recruitment tactic, his famous quippy one-liners traded amongst the youth to prove their ‘cool cred’.

As an IN recruit, non class-specific perks are commonly chosen first such as toughness, sureshot & voidkin or alternatively saved until the Battle-frame has been fully upgraded and the first Battle-Dress upgrade purchased. Most all IN ships are joint owned by two or more members that have collaborated on such a large purchase, more often than not members of their old squad who have decided to carry on the fight to new frontiers.

A quick note aimed at those gun-happy recruits: please note that a Heavy Weapon should (almost) never be your main weapon as its primary use is for compound breaching and initial combat openers and has very limited ammunition. In larger engagements, anti-vehicle/structure or linked with other colleagues in stand-off roles is a common strategy; the standard individual tactic being to open with a heavy weapon starter, retracting the unit after your first shot and then switching to rifle, then dual pistols and finally to battleclaws as the combat range shortens. If you have progressed enough to have access to pair-modding with rifles, you may be instead ordered to stay at maximum range and focus on a particular target or cycle through a given target list. In your distant future you may be able to dual-wield two pair-modded heavy weapons but as they usually all have AOE effects, slow fire rates and minimum range penalties they are not considered to be particularly useful in melee combat (possibly apart from the autocannon and even less likely the gatling laser), but are of course unmatched in traditional ground-assault roles. They are NOT suitable for shipboard fighting! (Ref: Battle over Z-World prime, JR quote.: “Well done, recruit, you killed all the zeriglans onboard. And our ship. I’m using you as a heat shield as soon as we hit air.” And of course we all know how that turned out!)

The classic Infiltrator/Combat Specialist synergy combination has taken down many a facility from the inside and it is recommended that you refer to the ‘Fallen Fortress Archives’ and peruse some of the IN’s better known historical successes and failures in order to avoid some of the more common pitfalls and assumptions of both subclass roles. The frame itself protects the user from melee critical hits, and also comes equipped with dual hyper-alloy claws that do 2d6 dmg each and do not incur any dual-wielding penalties. All IN troops can operate Ground Vehicles at half their Battledress skill points and at one Master Rank less, even without having any skill points in Ground Vehicles; if they do then the skills stack, up to the maximum amount of 12 skill points and 3 master ranks. Due to installed safety protocols Battleframe users are immune to Melee Misfortune effects. Level 10 stats are Full battledress stats and Claw damage rises to 3-18 as they are replaced with hyper-alloy blades that also bypass Dred.