Repost: 'Mech of the Week: MEB-X Ebony

[Kit deSummersville]

Have you ever gotten your Dart behind the enemy formation and wish you had some ECM to drop on their C3 Company Master? Ever had your Fireball in the rear of something juicy with great TNs only to realize three two-point hits wasn’t going to really matter? Working together, Hellspont Mechworks and Majesty Metals and Manufacturing have heard your cries and bring you the answer: the Ebony.

Zipping around at 162 kph, the Ebony is fast enough to elude most pursuers. It can outfight most of those who can catch it. Only mounting one weapon, the Snub-Nose PPC has a potent 270m bubble of doom, short range and 10 points of damage. Outside of an assault ‘Mech, that will rip into someone’s back and even tear up some of the Ebony’s contemporaries. With ten double heat sinks and five tons of stealth armor it only builds up weapon heat when it moves. Oh yeah, when it gets to 9 heat it gets faster as the TSM activates. Plus it can then unleash a ten point kick. Well, not everything is impressive. The ‘Mech can be worth it for the ECM alone, depending on what your enemy is packing.

Never content with a wonderfully simple design, the designers just had to ‘upgrade’ it with a small cockpit. Now the first has an ER Large Laser, giving it more sniping power for more heat and less damage for the most part. An extra ton of armor never hurts but the sword is less than impressive on such a small ‘Mech. The other adds a handy-dandy Plasma Rifle. A rather good weapon, but with only 10 shots on a ‘Mech that will be focusing on not getting hit, instead of getting hits, is a bit limited.

What do you do with your Ebony? Screw with the other guy’s head. Get that ECM moving around behind them along with the snubby. Keep him on edge and unable to use that optimized formation. And if he has any old 3025 bugs around, hunt them down and kill them. Just make sure not to get hit, 80 tons doesn’t go very far, especially in the rear. Use that stealth to stay away from their guns and the snubby’s short range to keep hitting them.

How do you kill that annoying thing? Think like a Capellan! Throw some T-Aug out there to channel it. The legs are kind of weak, with only 9 points of armor. Good idea when people are using their Large Pulses to hunt you. But not if they get off a lucky 10 point shot. Another Ebony would be problematic, able to escape that stealth modifier with a Snubby of its own. The arms have 8 armor and 4 IS, another point to the legs would be more helpful than worrying about the occasional large laser hit. The side torsos can barely suck up a Gauss hit from the front but a 20 point hit anywhere but an arm is going to end the Ebony’s day. Another unusual armor feature is 7 points on the head, expanding the head-capping ability of the enemy.

Packed to the gills with TSM, Stealth Armor, Endo Steel, an XL engine and an XL gyro doesn’t leave much room to tinker much. It could survive slowing down to Dart-esque speeds, but as handy as a little more armor would be nice, speed is more useful.

[Moonsword]

I said what I had to say last time around, so let's see what the magic of Google can do for us today!

The Ebony is one of the worst-looking 'mechs in 3085. It's ironic, given the name, that its head assembly makes it look like nothing so much as a Klan Imperial Grand Wizard.

There will be a companion 'Mech coming out soon, the Anvil to it's Hammer, called the Ivory.

My, that thing's better armored than I thought.

Good read.  The thing is a fine network-killer and scout-killer.  Most other things it will hunt are going to be at +6 versus +0 just from range and stealth mods, looking at the typical SRM/ML barrage one finds on a lot of light 'Mechs.  At range 7 you're still dancing on a 0 range mod, though you still need to worry about the target movement.

My only complaint is that tuning your heat is going to be darn hard without turning off heat sinks. You don't quite have enough to move, stealth, and shoot (thank god, this would be a nightmare otherwise) but you can get to 9 easily enough if you juggle your HS right.  Staying there's the tricksy spot, having to plan your heat burden and not use everything as much as you'd like.  "Do I go for stealth and take the heat penalty, or do I drop it and stay at 9 for the extra speed."

Though as a bugstomper, it's par excellence.  I haven't used it yet, but there's not a 20 tonner made that can take a ten point shot without going internal on anything but the CT - it's a limitation of the 5 point IS in the side torsos; you have to split armor or else you've got literally nothing on the backside.  A scary accurate 10 point shot that only gets a +2 THM for movement, and can generate a potential +4 TMM and a +6 range+stealth mod, which means...well, unless you're a legendary pilot or using a pulse-TC boat then you're pooched.

Bless the Magistracy, making 'Mechs into baby seals.

The Ebony is one of the worst-looking 'mechs in 3085. It's ironic, given the name, that its head assembly makes it look like nothing so much as a Klan Imperial Grand Wizard.

It doesn't look so bad to me, but yeah, the faceplate does sort of have that look to it, doesn't it?

Honestly, the 'Mech's fast and surprisingly punchy for its size.  For a 25 tonner, I don't ask too much, and the Ebony delivers a lot.  Two other things that are going to make an Ebony's life hard - cluster shot (including Silver Bullet Gauss rifles) and precision ammo on mobile platforms.  There's a lot of crits an Ebony just doesn't want to eat and precision will at least help cut the movement bonus back down.  If you can manage to TAG one, a dose of semi-guided LRMs wouldn't go amiss, either.

I guess the best use for an Ebony - other than zapping a random Manei Domini in the RPG - is as a dislocator. The equivalent of a fire team with an antitank rocket or two that keeps popping up on your flanks, not letting your enemy get settled in to a good position.  Even losing initiative with it means it can dictate a lot of field positions - people WILL maneuver to respond to an accurate 10 point zap in the butt, and that means you can save your later moving units to be your primary battleforce as well.  Not that you should - but if this thing stakes out ground before your opponent moves, he's reacting to it.  Tempo and position, as well as confidence, are all victims of good tactics.

An interesting `Mech, and nice to see that its so different from the other high tech, light weight MAF offering, the WSP-7MAF. Its going to suffer the same problems as any light `Mech, but there's not much you can do about it. A nice 10 point hit is going to ruin lots of people's days, and should be especially effective against the pirates that I'm sure the post-Jihad era will spawn.

I think the only real drawback is the 7 armor points protecting the head. The number of headcappers just went up. Unfortunately, about all you can do to protect yourself is either slow it down, or drop in a small cockpit. The small cockpit could work (We see it in the 10 and 11 variants) but I'm sort of glad they didn't. The MAF already has several small cockpit options, its nice to see a standard cockpit.

The sword variant...Not completely sold on it. I can see how it works, and I understand the theory, I'm just not sold on it. Its similar in scope to the Mjolnir, and probably could terrify light `Mechs as it runs up to them.

The Plasma rifle variant...well...I'm glad its only in the CapCon

The sword variant's heat problems are worse, too, which makes me pretty wary of using it.

Although now that I think about it, I'd like to see what an experimental Ebony mounting an Angel ECM would look like.

Considering that the Ebony's really good counters are generally mass-intensive enough to give other small lights some problems mounting them and the way a snubby lets it even manage to force range games down their throats in ways an ERLL can't, I'm not sure the sword variant isn't a step back.

Yeah..I'm kind of on the line about it. I'm sure it could be effective, I'm just not sure I'd really want to take it over the Snub-nose version.

The sword variant's heat problems are worse, too, which makes me pretty wary of using it.

On the other hand, its fast enough that it might be able to absorb the loss of MP if/when it overheats for a turn or two without being too hampered. Angel ECM might be nice, and might be worth the small cockpit. Stealth and ECM ghosts? (is that even possible?)

Stealth Armor: A unit with active Stealth Armor and an Angel ECM Suite may generate Ghost Targets. However, this Ghost ECM field is considered hostile to all units, including the Stealth Armor unit generating them.