Regarding Hayate having awesome melee:
Yes, she is a Mage-Knight. However, note that she is the
only Belkan mage to specialise in bombardments. Her role and purpose is that of long-range artillery. IMO, and this has been discussed more than once, instead of trying to get her to level up her melee faster - and let's not forget that she was bedridded and paralysed for much of her childhood and has been stated to be physically weaker than the rest of the cast (also, note her stunted height) - what we should be doing is playing to her strenghts. Melee users are great at close range, right?
She's got magic. Light the afterburners and dodge - she's flying in the sky, afterall.
Hayate has all sorts of options for dealing with melee users. Trips. Binds. Long-range fire. I agree that she will need some melee, but IMO that'd be more for blocks and getting out of an opponent's reach, just enough to let her disengage and run back to range.
To use a somewhat reaching analogy, in this case, rather than thinking of Hayate as a bomber, I'm thinking of her as an F-14. The Tomcat is badass, win, and pwnage, but it is not as manuverable at close range and low speed compared to the F-16 or MiG-29 or Su-27. What Tomcat pilots do is they train to shake the enemy pilot, disengage, light burners and get the reach for a missile shot, at a range where they'll do better; you
can dogfight a Tomcat, but Tomcat jockeys will always attempt to open up the range where it favors them. (Especially since Tomcats - even the D never upgraded to the AIM-120 AMRAAM and were stuck with the AIM-7 Sparrow.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Comartemis
Ah, one of the details I haven't mentioned; Iris is a Knight of the Saint Church, representing the interests of Carim and company. She has a fairly high level in the command structure, to the point where she reports directly to Carim every so often. Usually she's involved in the recovery of Lost Logia that are of interest to the Church, such as holy relics and demonic artifacts (what exactly demons are in Comacanon still needs to be resolved) in need of disposal or sealing. For this series, she's involved in the Relic case at Carim's request under Hayate's command, so between her and Carim, it's not all that unlikely that a cadre of Church Knights will get involved in the HQ attack.
|
Just say that she's part of Carim's security detail then
That's her official cover as to why she's there.
Quote:
|
As for the fliers, considering that the battle was fairly high-altitude most of the way through, I'd say that that's the domain of the Air Forces, not the ground forces.
|
Nope, you can see they're wearing a colored patch somewhere; that's the marker for GF air fliers.
Besides, if they were AF, they wouldn't have accepted Hayate's battle management.
Quote:
|
You wouldn't mind if I borrow the OFM then, would you Goose? I'd need your help writing Ivanovich and the rest unless they only make a token background appearance, since I'm pretty sure I couldn't do Johnson's badassness the proper justice it deserves.
|
Sure, no problem.
Lemme know what you need.
And the OFM aren't useless without their guns; they may be mostly B-ranks, but they've got skills and experience, and a good number of combat vets who cut their teeth on killing other mages. Check the Liberation of Belzac.