You Can’t Be a Warrior Vagrant Forever

Every few months, we release a new promotional card for AEGIS, be it for conventions, holidays or other occasions. These promos are all alternate versions of robots in the AEGIS Core Box, using existing pieces, but giving the robots new abilities and artwork.

So far, only our two convention promos have been made widely available in print, available for free on our shop with the purchase of anything. Be sure to follow James R. Millar, who did some wonderful work on these illustrations!

Both of these robots were designed to make high-level, four and five letter robots, more accessible. ELL-GEL-ION Awakening’s Scrap Awakening ability lets you combine into the robot using destroyed allies, while AROZ-ELL-GEL-ION-SOL’s Sol Inheritor lets it be created from any component robots, but rewards you for matching the Makes in its name.

Meanwhile, Holiday Promos are available to play with on Tabletop Simulator only and feature some more off-beat abilities. We’ve released two of these so far, GOBL-7000 for Thanksgiving, and ELL-000 Cupid Mode for Valentine’s Day (with art also by James R. Millar). The latter is a variant of Poppet’s normal ELL-000 that plays up her explosive style. GOBL-7000 is the only promo robot that doesn’t have a piece in the box to use, but it’s intended to be an upgrade of Etwal’s EXCEL-GAN.

And then we have the rare Cross-over Promo, which feature elements from another game on an AEGIS card. The only one so far is ARK-150 Painted Version, a crossover with Copper Frog Games’ entry-level worker placement game, Pigment. This version of Ainer gets special bonuses revolving around the different colors (Classes) of robots on your team. It’s usually available at conventions where we share booth presence with Copper Frog.

Lastly are the Championship Promos. These are where winners of tournaments get to submit their thematic and mechanical ideas to us, and we make a new card. Moving forward, these cards will be distributed to people who take part in our organized play events, like the Summer League and Fall Tournament.

Our only previous Championship Promo so far is an alternate art of Iris Runaway Kal, illustrated by Emily Hancock. This new idol singer variant of the character was designed by Kal’s original creator, Brifox, for winning our first tournament. Excitingly, we’ll be revisiting this promo to be mechanically new rather than just an alt-art, in the future.

But now, we have a new promo to announce, prompted by EpicImpulse winning our Spring 2019 Tournament. Introducing… Rouge Agent Diane!

First of all, artist Noahpatchi did great work, illustrating both the new rendition of Diane, plus her robot and the background. Go give him a follow. Now let’s talk about the character: Diane is AEGIS’ resident wandering badass, defending border towns and picking fights with the Empyreal Realm along its northern warfront. Once an Empyre marksman under the great Etwal, she defected after nearly being destroyed by her own commanding officer. She would later join forces with Ainer and face off with Etwal in a climactic battle where she pulled much of the weight.

With Etwal defeated and the Empyreal Realm’s advances quelled for now, Diane had a chance to regroup and reevaluate her life. She picked up some new duds and some new robots, all funded by a certain beneficiary from the Sector Authority who noticed her deeds during the war. Introducing… Rouge Agent Diane!

Let’s unpack this:

This is an alternate version of ARM-777, and uses that game piece. Her main attack is mostly unchanged, this time getting a boost from the addition of Aimed. Though it can no longer be buffed by ally robots, her attack now shreds through enemy defenses and evasion abilities. Her passive abilities have changed the most. She no longer has and grants Retaliate, and instead has the normally Iris Dominion-centric ability, Cloaking. This allows her to grant extra movement and defense to robot which don’t normally have those features, including your teammates’ robots when playing 2v2, 3v3 etc. Rather than being a stand-alone damage powerhouse, Diane is now more of stealthy team player who plays optimally when ally robots are still functioning. You can’t Cloak your entire team! To prevent stalling the game, Diane’s ability prevents you from Cloaking herself and an ally if those are your last two bots.

This robot is now available to play on Tabletop Simulator, and physical cards will be distributed to tournament and league participants! If you missed out on these events, fret not, the card will be made available at a later date.

For the next seasonal league, we will announce the promo early on, rather than months afterwards. Exciting!