Vehicle of the Week: Chalchiuhtotolin Support TankThe Chalchiuhtotolin Support Tank was one of the new offerings in TRO3085 Supplemental, designed and operated by Clan Jade Falcon. Those of you looking at the name and boggling, it's pronounced "Chall-Chee-OoK-TOE-Toe-Lin" according to Wackrabbit and has been dubbed the Chalupa in the Inner Sphere and, judging from a few of their comments, possibly among CGL's own staff, but it's a name I can't quite bring myself to use. Fortunately, copy/paste exists, so I don't have to keep typing "Chalchiuhtotolin" out by hand. We've been informed by the guilty parties themselves that Jymset and Kit_deSummersville are behind the name, which kind of repays the English language for all the grand theft verbiage it's done over the years, though the artwork is very nice in my opinion, making up for the name. Nonetheless, the reference is awesomely appropriate and more than worth it, as
Chalchiuhtotolin literally means Jade Turkey, a name that people in and out of character have used to refer to the Jade Falcons for literally years, something the TRO quietly owns up to, one of two displays of big brass ones by the Falcon leadership in relation to this tank. As with any Clan vehicle the name is also a mythological reference, in this case to an Aztec (yeah, the spelling probably tipped you off) god of disease and plague, things that follow wars as surely as the crows that feast on the dead, and possibly an aspect or alias of another god,
Tezcatlipoca, associated with a ride range of concepts including the jaguar, enmity, discord, hurricanes, the north, and, of course, war. The Chalchiuhtotolin was designed by the Eagle Craft Group, the same team that developed TRO3075's
Jupiter assault 'Mech, in response to a perceived need for a short-range defensive tank to maintain order and face the challenge of urban combat on captured Lyran worlds. Given that they're talking about combat with a faction whose best known urban combat unit is the brutally powerful Demolisher II, I can see why the Falcons were concerned, although frankly, the Demolisher C (or orbital bombardment) is a better answer to
that monster.
Once the design was completed, the Falcons selected Quikscell of Pandora to handle production, the
other decision I suggested required particular testicular fortitude on their part. Go back and read the fluff for the Scorpion and Hetzer or certain tidbits in the Marik and Davion house books on the company if you're wondering why I'm kind of looking askance at the decision to allow "Quikscam" to build an advanced, fairly sophisticated combat vehicle, although I suppose the Falcons may have employed rather... Darwinian methods to ensure proper quality control on the Chalchiuhtotolin builds. Spotted in the hands of Clan Wolf as well as the Falcons themselves, the electronics are similar to those of the Carnivore assault tank, leading Republic analysts to suggest that the two have been trading the vehicles; we know that the Falcons operate at least an export version of the Carnivore from that tank's entry in TRO3085, lending credence to the notion. The only notable combat to date involved a few Chalchiuhtotolins operating in defense of a DropPort from a dozen marauding Lyran or Lyran-affiliated hovercraft on the planet of Erewhon. With half of their force destroyed in exchange for two disabled but not destroyed Chalchiuhtotolin tanks, the raiders beat a hasty retreat.
When you get down to brass tacks, the Chalchiuhtotolin is a bit like a bigger, toothier, somewhat slower Chevalier. At 50 tons, this wheeled tank is on the large side for a medium vehicle, as large as a Maxim, and the largest tank that's able to be loaded into a light vehicle bay. A 230-rated Gorvachs fusion engine allows a 5/8 MP allowance that in turn gives the tank a solid 86 kph flank speed in open terrain, or up to 97 kph on the roads. The "brand" name Gorvachs only previously appears with the
Jupiter, built on the same world where the Chalchiuhtotolin was designed, suggesting that the Falcons may have set up a new fusion engine factory somewhere, possibly Erewhon. The sheer size of the 16 ton engine, though, probably has something to do with why the armor is definitely on the thin side at only 6.5 tons of ferro-fibrous arranged 37/25/15/22. For something intended to fight in urban areas, the AC/20 test is
vital, and the Chalchiuhtotolin just failed it on the rear. That said, the armor is consistent with, if lighter than, the armor on the Ku or Hachiman and heavier than that of the Oro, all of which are around this size. The heavy forward armor indicates an obvious need to keep the front pointed at the enemy as well. In any case, on to the fun stuff, the guns! The main gun is a Kolibri Delta series large pulse laser, a fine choice for the inaccurate Clan gunnery crews. If you manage to get regulars or better, the LPL turns into a deadly accurate weapon, especially against lighter raiders - two Savannah Masters were blown apart outright during the ill-fated raid on Erewhon, while most Lyran battle armor is subject to outright destruction from a ten point hit including their famous Fenrir and Rotweiller suits. Two four tube Pattern J4 Streak SRM launchers fed by a ton of ammunition ride in the turret, giving the main weapons fit a very similar feel to the main weapons of the Horses' Enyo, making me wonder if this is a poor bird's model. There's also some similarity to the famous Bulldog's classic large laser/twin SRM 4 combo. Also in the turret, rather annoyingly bumping the turret mass up for its entire half-ton bulk, is a vehicle flamer that has two tons of ammo. Another odd weapons choice is the pair of micro pulse lasers up front. Very light weapons suitable mainly for knife-fighting and killing infantry, each one requires its own heat sink. Finally, one Series 34NC light machine gun pokes out from every direction (not including the turret), getting a full ton of ammo. Clearly, someone at either the Eagle Craft Group or the Falcon leadership is worried about infantry, a reasonable concern in an urban area. In addition, I wonder if there's some intention of producing a cheaper mass counter to things like the Enyo and Manteuffel in here, meeting the larger tanks with numbers rather than individual quality for garrison work.
The variants of the Chalchiuhtotolin are rather weirder than the pragmatic baseline model and both are basically prototypes and mixed-tech designs to boot. TRO3085 Supplemental notes that there appears to be little intention of deploying either one in combat. Both of them strip off the micro pulse lasers, the flamer, and the large pulse laser, then toss a half-ton into armor arranged 39/27/16/25, and are named for the replacement primary weapon on the chassis. The first one uses a Lyran bombast laser - not one of my favorite weapons due to the inaccuracy, although someone stuck a targeting computer on here, continuing the recent trend of competent Clan vehicle design. It doesn't fix the problem, really, but it does cut maximum power shots to only a +2 modifier total. The other one is more interesting, using one of the Horses' large chemical lasers with 20 rounds of ammo, then backing it with a pair of extended-range medium lasers for a punishing fusillade of coherent light at 15 hexes. In addition, they added a pair of chaff pods to the turret - one shot items that give you light smoke for LOS purposes, a 1 hex ECM effect (great for shutting Narc down), and an antimissile effect against anything other than MRMs or rocket launchers fired at you that turn.
The Chalchiuhtotolin, in use, is more or less a medium line tank. It's basically a faster, wheeled version of the Bulldog with some additional weapons and a different armor layout. Operate them in points, pick your best target, and then burn them down with massed fire. None of this namby-pamby
zellbrigen nonsense - that's for real, honorable warriors, not garrison-grade trash like your vehicle crews. I imagine that the Wolf drivers who are getting the opportunity to trade up from the Ares are pretty happy. Those of you who have played with Bulldogs will be right at home here. The bombast laser model doesn't impress me that much but the chaff and laser array on the other prototype are much more interesting.
Now we turn to the other side of the coin, killing a Chalchiuhtotolin. It's not that difficult - unlike certain Clan vehicles lately, it's not a carved brick of ferro-aluminum - so you've got two choices. Either cripple it with crit-seekers (as ever, the LB 10-X is an excellent go-to weapon) or just flat out drop a hammer on it. Hammers work better from the stern, of course. Battle armor and infantry may want to give this one a pass, though - the supporting weapons will hurt a lot of unarmored units fairly badly and between the Streaks and various pulse lasers, a lot of BA is likely to get chewed up, none of which even mentions the difficulty in catching the unit to try swarming it.
Image References: The
MUL database provides its usual mix of BV, availability, and image data for your perusal. At the time of this edit, no miniature is known to the author.
