New Forerunner Leader: "2401 Penitent Tangent"

Hello there,
New to the forums and I really enjoy halo wars 2, and hope they keep adding content. One thing I wish for is more leaders and I have a few concepts for more Leaders I’d personally like to see in use. This is my 2nd and it will take 2 posts because this is my attempt to make a Forerunner Leader in the game using one my favorite but forgotten characters from Halo 2. Since its a new race I have to add a lot of detail, but I’m ignoring troop cost and and damage/hp values since it’s unlikely it will be added, but it was fun to put together and I like to see what you guys think since this will be the most enjoyment I get outta trying to give this Monitor new life. If you like it check out my Jackal leader posted earlier, "Mik’Kali"

Forerunner army

Leader: 2401 Penitent Tangent

Leader Bio: The once former Monitor of Installation 05, was a hostage of the Gravemind that took over his installation. When Installation 08 detonated over the Ark the Monitor was still trapped inside the blast. However he is not organic and thus survived, but, was trapped inside High Charity with no means to connect to outside once quarantine kicked in, a fate he now experienced a 2nd time, unaware even of his location besides High Charity. Before Pavium and Voiridus managed to seal back up High Charity, he successfully made his escape from his Flood captors distracted by their shared freedom. Surprised to be on the Ark he was thrilled to know he could carry out protocol and have a new armed installation replace 05 which was sabotaged and is disarmed. To his dismay however, the spare ring in construction has already been launched as well as disarmed! Breaking quarantine, stealing from the Ark, disabling more rings… this must not be allowed to continue! 2401 Penitent Tangent has decided these lifeforms must be removed from the Ark and has activated all security measures to their highest levels.

STRENGTHS

  • Air Dominance - Overwhelming numbers and troop reinforcements. - High map control.WEAKNESSES

  • Weak to Anti-Air and AOE Burst Damage - High Resource Dependency with disposable mediocre troops. - Easily Countered Troop Deployment, You must build around your enemy.____________
    STRUCTURES
    ____________

1. Stronghold (new base): Substructure Entrance

> “Small crevice that allows the passage of sentinels.”

lvl 1 Base: Sentinel Launcher

> "Large crevice connected to several important stations throughout the Installation.

lvl 2 Base: Manufacturing Facility

> “A large floating facility that said to be able to create a new sentinel every 6 seconds.”

lvl 3 Base: Line Installation

> “Large guarded facilities used to defend forerunner installations from orbital threat. Even capable of fire through slipstreams.”

2. Mineral gain: Collection Chute

> “A small express passage for moving around raw materials.”

3. Power Gain: Purification Plant

> “Takes volatile energy and stabilizes it for use on the Ark”

4. Tech 1 unit structure: Restoration Center (support troops)

> “A simple facility used for producing small utility craft”

5. Tech 2 unit structure: Sentinel Shop (advanced troops)

> “Manufactures more advance Combat Sentinels for Ark defense.”

6. Tech****1 unit structure: Control Panel (hero troops)

> “Provides direct access to the Ark most crucial systems.”

**7.**Turret Structure: Forerunner turret
Offensive Upgrade: Adds a second beam to the turret
Defensive Upgrade: Adds a shield and can detect clocked units.

> “Common annoyance on the Ark it’s sole purpose is to target anything hostile in range.”

8. Turret Structure: Shield Beacon

> “Provides a shield around a base’s main structures until all surrounding Beacons are destroyed.”


UNITS

  • "Base" Units
  • Core Unit*: Crawlers (pack of 5)
    Tech 1 Upgrade - ABILITY Charge Boltshot: Unleash a spread of pellets at a target.
    Tech 2 Upgrade - Pack Leader: Adds an Alpha Crawler to the squad. (gains bonus from natural instinct)

> “Small automatons with anti-personnel boltshots, built in.”

  • Scout Unit*: Alpha Crawlers (pack of 2)
    Tech 2 Upgrade - Natural Instinct: Increases line of sight and allows alpha crawlers to detect clocked units.
    Tech 3 Upgrade - Binary Configuration: Alpha Crawler Units become outfitted with Binary Rifles instead, increasing attack range and damage vs infantry and light armor.
  • ABILITY* Rush: Alpha Crawlers can leap at enemy ground units for high impact damage

> “More ferocious then their smaller versions.”

  • "Restoration Center" Units

Heal Unit: Constructor Sentinel
Tech 2 Upgrade - Assistance requested: When a constructor loses its shield an Aggressor will spawn next to the constructor till its shields are fully recharged.

> “Primary function is to maintain facilities and repair damaged components.”

Support Unit: Watcher
ABILITY Hardlight Shield: Latches onto a unit or structure and provides invulnerability until the watcher is destroyed. Watchers can not fire in this state nor protect other watchers.

> “A guardian of other units in the sentinel network.”

Core Air unit: Aggressor Sentinel
Tech 2 Upgrade - Defensive measures: Adds a light shield to the aggressor sentinel.
Tech 3 Upgrade - Infinite Numbers: Adds a 2nd Aggressor to the unit.

> “The most common of sentinels, often sent on mediocre tasks and light patrols, although deadly in swarms.”

  • "Sentinel Shop" Units

Anti-Vehicle: Enforcer Sentinel
Tech 2 Upgrade - Vicegrip: Increases rate vehicles are crushed drastically
Tech 3 Upgrade - Emergency Protocol: Adds a missile barrage to weapons system and increases strength of shield.
ABILITY Crush: Can lift vehicle off the ground disabling them and dismantling them.

> “A heavily armed sentinel made to deal with major threats to the facility.”

Anti-Building: Gatherer Sentinel (considered a ground troop)
Tech 2 Upgrade - Cause peril: When the Gatherer latches onto a building that buildings output will be reduced by 50% instead of 25%
ABILITY Latches onto buildings dismantling them, reducing that building output by 25% (damage, production, etc.) [does not stack}

> “It searches for intelligent bio-organisms for study using it’s appendages that are equipped with small beams to remove obstacles in its way”

Heavy Unit: Controller
Tech 3 Upgrade - Sterilize: The controller pours more energy into its downward beam and unleashes a devastating blast underneath.

> “slow moving aerial tank that’s well defended from the front. Anything caught underneath it’s shell is quickly evaporated by a powerful particle beam”

  • "Control Panel****" Units

Super Unit: Retreiver Sentinel
SEE PROF ANDERS Increase each resource cost except unit population cost by 20%

Hero Troop: 2401 Penitent tangent
Tech 1 Upgrade - ABILITY Firewall: Creates an Invulnerability shield around the monitor temporarily. Damage is lessened while shield is active.
Tech 1 Upgrade - Authority Figure: Increases damage and health, as well as duration of shield.
Tech 2 Upgrade - Protocol Dictates: Increases damage and health, as well as removes damage penalty using shield.
Tech 3 Upgrade - Final Directive: Increases damage and health, as well as reduces the cooldown for ability shield.

> “The former Monitor of Installation 05, and new self-appointed guardian of installation 00. Simply following Protocol.”

1/2

2/2

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LEADER POWERS
-------------------------

**1.**I believe that’s mine:
ACTIVE - Instantly takes over a target power node. PASSIVE: Neutral Sentinels will ignore your troops, faster capture rate.
lvl 2 - Aggressor sentinels will spawn over the newly captured nodes and protect it. (Aggressors share your armies upgrades)

> “With a direct line to the Ark’s systems, the Monitor can access control points remotely”

**2.**Ark Defence:
ACTIVE - SEE PROF ANDERS
lvl 2 - SEE PROF ANDERS
lvl 3 - SEE PROF ANDERS

**3.**Defense Network:
ACTIVE - Temporarily deploys 2 Small Forerunner Turrets at target locations.

> “2401 Penitent Tangent has activated all systems, including all suppression turrets.”

4. Goodbye:
ACTIVE - Warp ally and enemy units in target area to another spot on the map.
lvl 2 - Increases area of effect and no longer requires line of sight for 2nd destination.

> “Initial scans showed the teleportation network was malfunctioning, this has been fixed.”

5. Access Denied:
ACTIVE - Places 1 Permanent Turret down at target location. This turret may not be upgraded.

> “No more crucial assets must be damage. you are not allowed here.”

6. Network Detour:
ACTIVE - Player opens up a hole in the ground through which various troops can temporarily be trained from.
lvl 2 - Increases duration and unit production rate by half

> “Attention all nearby sentinels, please assist.”

7. Unstable Terrain:
ACTIVE - Causes vicious tremors in the ground at target location dealing heavy damage to ground forces and structures.
lvl 2 - Increases duration, and damage.

> “With the Ark being entirely artificial, even the dirt beneath one’s feet is weapon.”

8. Urgent Attention:
ACTIVE - Various sentinels arrive on scene to deal with current situation equal to 15 unit cost.
lvl 2 - Adds a lvl 1 “ark defense” at spawn site increased unit deployment to 18 cost.
lvl 3 - Adds a lvl 2 “ark defense” at spawn site increased unit deployment to 21 cost.

> “2401 Penitent Tangent has learned what negligence can do to an installation, and has hundreds of Sentinels on standby to perform even simple tasks.”

9. Sentinel Storm:
ACTIVE - Hundreds of small sentinels converge at a target location at ramming speed and collide into any enemy units or structures to tear them apart.

> “Even unarmed Sentinels have entered combat mode, typically only enabled when an immediate threat is causing massive damage to the installation.”

10. Line Installation Barrage:
ACTIVE - Line Installations set up throughout the ark fire on a single concentrated point. (number of shots equals your current number of “Line Installations”)

> “2401 Penitent Tangent has concluded new defenses must be made to ensure the Arks safety, and prevent further escape attempts from the flood now Quarantined on the Ark.”

Closing thoughts

Yeah Forerunner is tricky I tried not to dip into the Prometheans to much which is why you see watchers and crawlers and nothing else. Both are automatons, unlike Knights which are former humans. Yeah he’s a Swarm guy but I loved Penitent Tagent, he only had 2 minutes of fame, but he was still a likeable little bot. Personally I think he be a good way to move the story along, The flood are coming back, so the monitors should too. I was gonna use 343 Guilty Spark but in lore he was already at the Ark 2 year prior and hijacked the UNSC Rubicon and presumably is the one responsible for creating the spare ring prof Anders rode out on because the original spare was installation 08 which exploded over the ark in Halo 3. The Halos only kills living material so 2401 penitent tangent could have survived the blast if the Gravmind hadn’t finished him off early before being wiped out himself. It’s a grey area in the lore and I think one that should be capitalized

This seems cool but the controller sentinel would be pretty op unless they don’t get the shield that protects their front sides I wonder how this will work out

Very creative! Makes me wish 343 had given us the promethean faction to play as!

> 2535408720103530;3:
> This seems cool but the controller sentinel would be pretty op unless they don’t get the shield that protects their front sides I wonder how this will work out

Yeah, it was hard thinking of units and I pretty much nit picked everything out of lore I could for forerunner units. They definitely need more ground troops instead of air but the controller is the slowest moving sentinel I think exist, besides enforcer which has the in-game ability to crush tanks making sense that should be the anti-vehicle. So Controller won for “core Tank” spot. I figure a lot of the game edits units. Controllers for instance have invincible front shields and at time full shield until you destroy a structure (which inspired the turret slot “Shield Beacon”) So in multiplayer I giure it would either just be a heavy plain shield or go the extra mile and make it very strong in the front but still drainable, but allow flanking to be the better option. Could be good for ending the boring firefights where all people do is back peddle till they finish you off…

I have to edmit this would be very cool in design and in play if we got this leader but I would honestly prefer CPO Mendez or a grave mind as a character to play as.