Alright, so maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe the cool guys at the Creative Assembly just happened to realize how amazingly awesome a name is when you add “Eclipse” to the end of it. Or maybe it was the product of a night of too much caffeine, long hours, and a random visit to the SEGA Blogs.

In case you haven’t been up with Stormrise lately, a quick recap on the two warring factions in the game: The Echelon, which we’re showcasing this week, are tech-heavy and use technology as their best ally.  These were the higher ranking members of society and the better-off who were able to sleep for thousands of years underground when the environment took a nosedive.

The Sai, who we’ll be taking a close look at next week, are the descendants of the poor saps who got stuck on the planet’s surface and had to face the harsh environment head-on: because of this, the many years and generations have caused them to adapt, resulting in a race that is certainly still human in origin, but far from what anyone could have predicted. On the plus side, they boast some pretty awesome psychic powers, and can talk to beasts and animals clearer than anyone you’ll see on the Discovery Channel.

Stormrise is a blend of RTS meets a bit of an FPS feel – a unique experience that could very well reshape the way that RTS games are done on consoles.

Today, the first of two community exclusive Stormrise units has arrived! This week we’ve got a special look at a number of new units from the Echelon – to keep it simple I’ve added in pictures and bullet points about the pros and cons of each unit, and you can also check out full text here on the PR doc. If you see any units you’re excited about, just click on the image and you can download a super high-res version on our Flickr page!

Technology is the Echelon’s bread and butter, and the Echelon ship above certainly reflects it. This transport ship does what all transport ships do in RTS games: They move units around. But you can’t win a war with just transport ships – which is where the big guns come into play,  like the Echelon Stalkers:

Echelon Stalker:

• Great against air units, can fire surface-to-air Missiles
• Can pull an Optimus Prime and transform into a massive anti-armor laser. (Transformers theme not included.)

If blasting your enemies from above is your thing, the Echelon Eclipse (An excellent name, I might add) will do the job quite nicely:

Echelon Eclipse:

• Biggest ship in the entire world (Sorry, Titanic)
• Can fire the Polaris Rift. (Think ‘big explosion!’, then multiply that by 100.)
  
• Can switch between Air and Ground modes
• Has a really awesome name.*
  

*: Exact levels of awesomeness may be subject to partial bias from Ruby Eclipse due to name similarity.

Echelon Seeker:

• The undisputed eyes of the Echelon. Spread these units around to gain a tactical advantage.
• Fights 1v1 about as well as your grandmother. (In short: they don’t.)
• Also a support unit: Can boost accuracy of nearby troops.

In many ways, Stormrise is also a neat representation of an age-old question:  Technology (Echelon) or Brute strength (Sai) – Which is more important? If you had to choose between the two, which do you think would be more useful in everyday life?