'Mech of the Week: MN-* SarissaThe
Sarissa is part of the generation of primitive BattleMechs that's been introduced in the last few years, although the story is a little more complicated than usual since we don't actually have the stats for the original primitive variant yet. Instead, the
Sarissa was introduced in XTRO: Marik as a stopgap measure of desperation by the Regulans. (You know, the guys who took over the Word's role as the foremost proponents of nuclear bombardment as a problem solving technique now that they've used it to solve the problem of the Word of Blake's continued existence. Those Regulans.) The original model was built by Corean Enterprises on Stewart during the Age of War. The name has a bit of interesting history attached, too: Sarissas are a type of long spear invented by Philip II of Macedon, and after he trained his phalanxes in their use, they went on to dominate Greece and Thrace, providing the springboard for his legendary son Alexander the Great. Durable and reliable but without an especially impressive armament, the original
Sarissa eventually faded from history. This time around, Corean opted to partner with General Motors to use the IndustrialMech plant on Futuna, adapted for producing primitive-grade military hardware. Although the new MN1-D
Sarissa prototypes are technically Jihad-era units, the project started in 3080, over a year after Terra was seized from the Word of Blake. A few prototypes were running around by mid-November of that year according to the Irian Technologies report that's the in-universe framing device for the XTRO. The MN1-D was only in production for a very short period before Corean withdrew it; officially this was an economic measure focused on reconstruction but the reality according to the Republic's Department of Military Intelligence in TRO: Prototypes is that the design simply wasn't popular with the Marik militias, a problem that XTRO: Marik touched on. The MN2-A is something of a compromise, a modern, armed IndustrialMech derived from the original primitive BatteMech. A minor variant that reduces the cooling for more armor isn't being marketed but Corean is “quietly offering advice” on how to carry out the conversion.
We don't have stats for the original MN1-K, so I'll start with the MN1-D and describe what we know so far afterward. The MN1-D, like the original, is built off of a primitive BattleMech frame. At 50 tons, it's in the upper half of the medium category, and the 240-rated primitive fusion engine is powerful enough to give it a flank speed to pace later designs like the
Hunchback,
Enforcer, or
Centurion. (No, that's not a typo - primitives use a rating 20% higher than an equivalent modern engine.) At the time, that made the
Sarissa a little faster than your typical heavy and allowed it to keep up with the early
Icarus on the ground. 14 single heat sinks run hot when you use your main armament, reminding me a little of the PNT-10K but with a much better excuse considering the technology Corean and GM were working with. The design's single greatest weakness is the mere 10 tons of primitive armor. 10 tons doesn't sound that bad - the
Hunchback's gotten by for centuries with 10 tons of armor going exactly the same speed - but the primitive part shows with only 107 points, one of the Regulan militias' sticking points on the design, since primitive armor only gets 2/3 as many points per ton as standard plate. What's there isn't badly distributed, though. Each forward torso has 15 points, the limbs pack 10, and there's a 4/5/4 spread on the back plates. Given the limitations they had to work with, that represents a solid compromise, and it's really not that much worse than the armor on your typical
Trebuchet. The point of all of this is to keep the guns firing, though, and there, the
Sarissa scores pretty solidly. The right arm has a powerful new blazer cannon, a laser powerful enough to blow the cockpit right off a 'Mech and a weapon the Regulans experimented with all the way back in the 3040s on the MAD-4X. The left arm mounts a mere medium laser, the workhorse of the Inner Sphere, and the center torso has a small laser and a machine gun fed from a half-ton of ammo to suppress unarmored opponents, including rioters. The MN1-K's armament is described as having a large laser and several mediums backing it up and lacking the machine gun.
The MN2-A is very similar overall. Being built off of an IndustrialMech skeleton means the frame is actually heavier but a modern 200-rated engine from GM is three tons lighter. The cockpit's lighter but the need to include an ejection seat leaves you with only 1.5 tons of weight saved. A lighter gyro thanks to using a smaller engine also scrunches up a little tonnage. Okay, fine by me. The ringer in here is the fact that Corean chose to use heavy industrial armor - functionally identical to combat-grade standard plate - and saved 3.5 tons in the bargain by removing three points of armor. The redistribution bumped the rear to 5/6/5 while the front torso is now 12/16/12. I think I'm with the militia pilots when they're a little leery of the decision to use those four tons on more heat sinks. Yeah, sure, cooling it off is nice. As TRO: Prototypes points out, this isn't anything anyone used to Succession Wars hardware doesn't know how to deal with. Exactly how much armor gets piled on by the armored variant Corean is supporting is still unknown. Personally, I'd be happy with 8.5 tons - matching the CN9-A
Centurion - but since we don't have an RS: Prototypes Unabridged yet, it's going to be a while until we know what the final decision was.
Overall, I've been fairly impressed. Yeah, the armor's no great shakes, but especially on the MN1-D, it's workable. And these aren't front-line units, either, just support and militia fighters. Considering the limitations the designers accepted, they certainly could have done worse even if we all probably have our own ideas on how to make them better. Historically, the sarissa wasn't a solitary weapon. Philip II and Alexander the Great screened their phalanxes with supporting elements and used the weapons en masse. You should follow their example. Think of them sort of like bipedal Bulldogs or Goblins.
Sarissas benefit from being used in groups, where the weight of fire can bear an enemy down before their armor fails, and the provision of flankers and long range shooters to keep the enemy honest will help, even if they're “just” vehicles.
Unlike the last armed IndustrialMech I covered in here,
Sarissas deserve to be treated with a little respect even by their modern BattleMech cousins. They're a little myopic by modern standards, maybe, but while I might be willing to dismiss an
Arbiter as mostly harmless under normal conditions, a lone
Sarissa actually isn't that far behind a CN9-A
Centurion or ENF-4R
Enforcer for straight-up firepower. The MN1-K wasn't too shabby, either, considering the limitations of the technology it was built from. Fortunately, their armor is more suitable for a 'Mech 15 tons lighter, so punching one out isn't a huge problem. If you can, stay out of range, or at least at 11 hexes or more to keep from straying into medium range on the blazer. It might not be quite as good as a heavy PPC for a lot of things but 12 points delivered in one clump hurts.
References: Because of the vagaries of the MUL's naming system, the
BattleMech and
IndustrialMech branches of the family are listed separately.
