Please tell us a little about yourself.
You can find me at the crossroads of two worlds: A world of science, logic, and technology with a clearly defined order and behavior to things, where every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and for a given input, there’s a known, expected, and repeatable output; And a world of deep faith and spirituality, where few things can be “proven” and many things designated as “truths” can only be experienced before they can be accepted, but even then only on a very personal level. I am a passionate & creative technologist, looking for ways to embrace technology to make peoples’ lives better. Academically, I am a Computer Scientist who has spent most of the last two decades in the field of Information Security. By most accounts, I am ancient in this field. These days, I manage a team of about 30 engineers, across 16 cities globally, building software to help secure the networks of my employer. I have been married for longer than some of our younger members (points at VENOM) have been alive and have a young child half that age. Overall, I‘d say I have a pretty good life for which I’m very thankful.
What sort of hobbies do you have?
Outside of War Robots, I have a core group of tabletop role-playing gamers with whom I meet every week. I started playing D&D (red box) in 1982, and caught the gaming bug. My “crew” has known each other for the last 25 years. We’ve played a ton of different games over the years; classics like WEG Star War (D6), TORG, Champions, Hero, Palladium, Shadowrun, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, and more recently Midnight, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Fate Core, GenLab Alpha, and many more. An introvert by nature, my hobbies have oft trended toward things I can do alone: video games, digital photography (more recently with drones), hiking, playing guitar, or designing a new software program. I love to learn new things. This interest in learning has shown up in some of the strangest of outliers in my life, that you’d probably never guess: I was a protestant preacher for six years. I taught martial arts. I’ve been a bartender, owned a company, ran a marathon, flown an airplane, and raced on a cycling team. But above all else, I am first a foremost a husband and a father.
What brought you to WR and when did you start playing
My son got into WR in 2018. Being a HUGE fan of the Mechwarrior PC game and the Robotech genre of giant robots overall, I managed to stay away from WR for a bit, but the allure was just too great. I started playing in late 2018 and immediately fell in love with the game.
What do you think attracts you to a game like WR?
Massive robots, machine guns, lasers, explosions, tactical team play. 10 minute commitments so you can get in, play, and get out.
What platform and device do you play on?
I run the game on an iPad Pro (iOS).
What level are you at at the moment?
I broke into champs around the 2nd quarter of 2019 and have every intent to stay there as long as I can.
What’s your hangar like?
My bread and butter is to run in a support role. Healing, lockdown, suppression, QR, deathmark, and shieldbreaker are all things that help me have a variety of options to respond to the current game situation. Presently, I’m running two brawler/healers (BBQ Mender, Popsicle Tyr), two mid range bots (Corroding Ao Jun & Shocking Cerberus), and one long range bot (iterated from a Molot T Spectre to a Molot Ares, and recently swapped to a Molot T Ravanna).(edited)
What are your favourite bots?
Since I first met the little Mender, I was totally sold on the idea of a healer bot. He’s got a small profile, and a respectable speed. I feel like it’s one of the most underrated bots in the game. When in healing mode, he gets bonus resistance and a speed boost, which can be extremely helpful when duking it out for center beacon. After Mender, Tyr takes the second spot. His ability to flip back & forth between healing and damage fits really well with my play-style. I find myself frantically striving to maintain battlefield awareness of my surrounding allies as I fight, to determine if I should keep doing damage, or burst out a heal. Third and finally, I have to say I really want to like the Cerberus. I haven’t yet mastered it, and I’m still not 100% confident it has a place in my hangar, but I’ve been pouring silver & gold into it trying to find a way to make it viable (for me). I’m think I’m getting closer, but it’s a very different beast from anything else I’ve played in the game.
What are your favourite weapons?
I really don’t have a favorite weapon. I like the shredder, for its quick unload, rapid reload, and lock down, but it’s not in my main hangar right now.
Do you have a favourite map and tactic?
No favorite map, but I love to drop my Mender first, rush to the closest beacon, and then try to make my way to center, where my fellow blues are duking it out and ready for some much needed healing.
How often do you play?
Only days that end in “y”.
Do you squad?
Absolutely, though real life doesn’t let me squad anywhere near as much as I’d like. It’s hard enough to carve out 30 minutes uninterrupted, but I do try.
Any thoughts about squadding?
It’s so much fun getting to know others in the clan, talking tactics & strategies, joking around and laughing with a group of folks who just want to have fun.
What would you change in the game if you could?
Presently, the aiming algorithms are the bane of my existence. Whether trying to target an Ao Ming in the air, or trying to target from an Ao Ming to the ground, the target reticle jumps all over the place. So I can be in the middle of firing, and suddenly my target switches. It’s incredibly infuriating. Beyond that, a better system for connecting with other folks besides FB, and a way to tell when someone is in a game would go a long way to making it easier to squad.
Why did you join our discord server?
To plug in with others and learn more about how to get better at the game.
What do you like/dislike about our discord community?
I love the cross-clan collaboration across the Aurora Nova family of clans. There aren’t any big egos and people are just generally chill.
Why do you play War Robots ?
For fun, camaraderie, and competition.