Alpha Strike 'Mech of the Week: Mad Cat Mk IV
Six down, 2968 to go. Let's add another six to the pile with a review of the Mad Cat Mk IV OmniMech and its two non-Omni PR variants. Whereas the Mackie was the very first in a long line of walking weapons of war, the Mad Cat Mk IV is a relative infant on the field of battle. Very nearly
seven hundred years separate the two. The two are further separated by the technological base that each is built under. The Mad Cat Mk IV (also known as the Savage Wolf) is of Clan construction. Featuring nearly across the board improvements in all areas, Clan equipment is simply better.
Whereas the Mackie was a lumbering behemoth, an Assault 'Mech in every sense and definition, the Mad Cat Mk IV is an entirely different animal. Let's do like we did last week and break down the important bits of information on this card. Size three corresponds to a Heavy 'Mech. This means your physicals are generally less effective, but not a whole lot else. Very, very unlike the Mackie, the Mad Cat Mk IV has no reason to resort to physical attacks at all unless forced into it. At the sort of ranges where physicals are able to occur, the damage it puts out fully doubles the maximum physical damage. Moving on to speed, we see a (comparatively) blistering 10”. That's exactly fast enough to hit +2 on the TMM. The way a 2d6 bell curve works, each and every point is a significant difference in the probability of a hit. With normal pilots at medium range (typical engagement range) and no intervening terrain, you're generally looking at a 7+ to hit something with a +1 TMM, and an 8+ to hit something with a +2 TMM. That's a difference of fully 1/6 of the possible results on 2d6 no longer hitting, and a greater than 15% increase in effective longevity of armor in those conditions. In other conditions, the bonus gets comparatively better or worse; at long range, the relative chance to take damage is almost cut in half. The attack that doesn't hit will never kill you.
That brings us to the unmodified survivability of the design. The Mackie, if you recall
from last week, had a total of 10 points of armor and 8 points of structure. That is the toughest it is physically possible to make a 'Mech in the Inner Sphere from the introduction of the Mackie clear until the advent of the Compact Fusion Engine clear in the 3060s – over six hundred years later. The Mackie outmasses the Mad Cat Mk IV by fully 25 tons. It would then stand to reason that the maximum amount of armor that the 'Mech in question may mount is substantially lower. Normally, this is in fact the case. In the Mk IV's case, it is sadly mistaken. Nine, count them, nine points of armor shield the tender, delicate two points of structure. The result is a combined total of 11 points of protection. That's still fairly low on the whole for a high end Heavy, but the distribution is important. Armor is better than structure, period. Hitting the armor does not force a critical hit check. That means that even well below 30% total health, a Mad Cat Mk IV has yet to take a single critical hit. That can be the difference in a fight between otherwise similarly matched opponents.
Next, the armament. Compared to this thing, the Mackie has a handgun to the Mk IV Prime's high powered rifle. Six points each at short and medium range, and three points at long is
fantastic damage for just about anything, at any point along the Sphere's long history. With no overheat value, it can't pour on the heat in order to pump up the damage, but with values that high you don't really ever need to. Six points is more than enough to outright kill most Light 'Mechs, and burn through all the armor on a high end medium in one shot. Three points at long range is enough to make anyone stand up and take notice, while allowing the Prime to respond against any opponent that can shoot at it regardless of range involved, and for good damage. This 'Mech gets a solid A in the firepower department.
Finally, we get to see the specials. There's a bunch of stuff there we haven't seen before. CASE we saw on the Mackie. It's of... dubious utility on a 'Mech where the first damage to internal structure is fairly likely to kill it anyway, and if it suffers an ammunition hit even the CASE won't save it, because ammunition hits against units with CASE still do an additional point of damage. Fortunately, Clan 'Mechs get CASE for free, so at least no one wasted any tonnage on it. ARM, however, is something totally new. ARM indicates the presence of armored components. The Alpha Strike effect is that the first time this unit receives damage to the structure, or otherwise would take a critical hit (there area few infrequent exceptions that can get through armor) it simply doesn't. The critical hit doesn't happen, no roll is made, do not pass go do not collect $200. Pretty sweet in concept, but much like CASE it's fairly wasted on the Mk IV. On the other hand, it makes the Mk IV 100% immune to critical hits inflicted normally – the second crit check will always kill the 'Mech anyway. That's pretty sweet, actually, and means that the structure on the Mk IV functions identically to armor on another 'Mech. Moving on we also see CR, which stands for critical-resistant. We're rapidly approaching the point of redundancy. Every time the Mk IV receives a critical hit, whether against the structure, or from some kind of weapon effect, CR reduces the critical result by two points, with anything below a 2 considered to be no critical hit. Considering that ARM makes critical hits all but impossible, CR is 99% useless on this 'Mech.
I'm going to take a brief break and explain how critical hits work, and by extension how CR works
normally, and why it's an interesting special that simultaneously protects and somehow further endangers your 'Mech. In Alpha Strike, critical hits are resolved by a single table that has every critical hit result on it. Every result from 2 to 12 has a particular effect assigned to it, even if that space is simply “No critical”. Unless modified by specials, every single hit to the structure of a 'Mech prompts a critical hit roll. The table is fairly simple, and the effects can actually be seen on the table just under the 'Mech's picture on the Alpha Strike card.
2 Ammunition Hit
3 Engine Hit
4 Fire Control Hit
5 No Critical
6 Weapon Hit
7 Movement Hit
8 Weapon Hit
9 No Critical
10 Fire Control Hit
11 Engine Hit
12 Unit DestroyedAmmunition hits automatically destroy any 'Mech without CASE, CASEII or ENE (all inert weapons, no explosive components on the 'Mech) outright. Against 'Mechs with CASE, the 'Mech suffers an additional point of damage, which prompts a second critical hit check. Against 'Mechs with CASEII and ENE, absolutely nothing happens. Engine hits are nasty, because damaged engines automatically force a unit to generate a point of heat every turn it fires. A unit must declare not firing in order to sink this heat, which means that a 'Mech whose engine has been hit is operating between 2/3 and 1/2 combat effectiveness
at best, and only if you can keep the heat imposed target penalties in check. Fire Control hits are equally nasty for different reasons. These hits impose a +2 to hit to all weapon attacks made by the unit. Two points on a 2d6 bell curve is... significant. You lose a lot of damage and threat potential with those crits. Five and nine result in absolutely nothing happening. In this author's experience, these are the single two most frequent results that ever come up when attacking, and the single two least frequent results when defending. Weapon hits reduce all damage done by weapons by one point, down to a minimum of zero. Inconvenient, but unless you're running something with less than stellar offense to begin with it's not a death sentence. Movement hits, on the other hand, are a death sentence to
everything. Half movement, period. 10” becomes 5”, and the TMM is recalculated with it. If the Mk IV took a movement hit, the TMM drops straight from +2 to 0, just like that. Fortunately, such a hit ranks up there in improbability with an offensive PAT safety conversion in American Football. The rest of the table repeats on the way back up, culminating in the result at 12, “Unit destroyed”. No arguing, no complaining, it's just gone. The “golden BB” effect.
Now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at CR again. It reduces all rolls by two, and treats rolls lower than 2 as no critical hit. That automatically turns 1/12 of the possible results on 2d6 into additional no hit results. It also drops the most common single result, 7, down into a no hit slot. A result of 11 also becomes no hit. The total increase of the chance of no hit moves from 8 incidences on 2d6 up to a respectable 11 incidences. It also makes it so that the unit destroyed result is wholly impossible, and the number of possible engine hit results is cut in half.
Those are the benefits. They're not all good news. CR also makes the ammunition hit critical occur on a result of four, up from one chance in 36 to a worrying three. In effect, CR makes a no hit result just more than 27% more likely, and in exchange makes ammunition hits 200% more likely. Engine hits, interestingly, stay the same likelihood, with four potential chances in 36 to get one. Overall, CR gives the unit that has it a fairly significant increase in the chances of not taking a critical hit at all, in exchange for a significant increase in the chance of a critical hit that
does land to be more devastating. Jury's out on whether this is worth it or not on a 'Mech that isn't the Mad Cat Mk IV. ARM and CR together increase the value of the unit by at least one full point (0.5 points for ARM, and 0.25 points for CR, rounding normally), and in this case that point is... questionably spent.
That covers it for critical hits, CR, and ARM. Fortunately, that'll be the only time I really need to explain anything really out of the ordinary this article, because of a little thing that brings us to the next special: OMNI. That designates the Mk IV here as an OmniMech. In Alpha Strike terms, switching between configs is totally irrelevant to the game and takes longer than the game will go. The real utility is in the ability of units with OMNI to provide free transport to units with MEC (exclusively BattleArmor, as far as I'm aware). This is the core of any mechanized armored infantry force. I'll leave the particular implications and uses of that for another article. This one is bloated enough already (we're still on the first config, guys).
Finally, we have another brand new one. REAR2/2/-. This is an interesting one. Units with the REAR#/#/# special can make a secondary weapon attack in addition to the primary weapon attack, but only against targets in the rear firing arc. The normal firing arc is an straight line drawn along the rear hexside of the 'Mech, so REAR is actually a pretty damn wide arc to be shooting into! It's also totally inaccessible to normal attacks because there is no torso twist in Alpha Strike. The catch is, if you declare a rear attack, you subtract the REAR damage from your normal attack value for your weapon attack. It's one of very few ways to have more than one attack in a turn, but you can't get any free damage out of it. The maximum a Mad Cat Mk IV Prime can do in one turn is still six points, except you have the option of splitting it 4/2 between front and rear. Interestingly, when converting from regular BattleTech to Alpha Strike, rear mounted weapons do not contribute their heat for damage reduction from heat calculations.
Everything on the Prime adds up to a total of 49 points. Pretty expensive. There's definitely heftier, but at the armor and structure you're getting those points are obviously tied up in guns. The guns on the Prime alone, before adding
anything else, cost 21 points. Damn. Still, in Alpha Strike you definitely get what you pay for. The Prime also gets the Skirmisher role, which is arguably the most flexible role in the game. Skirmishers are capable of filling the required roles in Battle, Striker, and Command Lances, while the Mk IV also fits the requirements for a Probe Lance (Pursuit Lance subtype). It's a versatile machine that goes well just about anywhere.
Whew. One down, three (technically five) more to go. Everything should get a lot quicker and simpler to explain past this point. I'm going to start out by stating what is already an implicit assumption with OmniMechs: most everything stays the same, except the guns and equipment. All of the base chassis, armor, structure, movement stay the exact same. With that in mind, imagine I just retyped the entire first three paragraphs of the last config, and we'll get going again.
Where the A differs from the Prime is entirely in the weapons suite. With a damage profile of six short, five medium, four long, we immediately see that the A is more balanced in its approach than the Prime. Four long range damage
hurts, and the Mk IV's mobility is pretty good for getting to and staying at range against anything that wants to get close to it. This also, if you've been paying attention, nets one point on the PV (one point from medium, one point to long). The A also gains OV2, meaning it can add two heat to the scale in order to do two additional damage during an attack. This makes its short range attack while overheating an absolutely
monstrous eight points of damage. That's enough to one-shot a good portion of the XL engine toting mediums in the game. And Jagermechs. Seriously. Seven points out to medium isn't slouching either, but the overheat penalty is pretty steep. If you're not absolutely murdering your target, you better make sure you're not going to need to shoot next turn, because you probably won't hit anyway.
An interesting quirk of the AS conversion rules comes up here again. Remember the ARM and CR points I mentioned earlier? They cost, between them, 0.75 points. OV costs 1 point for the first point of OV, and then half a point for each OV point after that. Points round normally in Alpha Strike, which means that the 0.75 plus 1.5 points here ends up being 2.25 points, which rounds down to 2 points (ignoring a couple other things here, but the 0.25 fraction is the significant part). This is the exact same result as if the A had OV1, at 1.75 points. So, you're effectively getting OV2 for free! I guess that CR is actually worth something after all. And that's why the A costs the same as the Prime, despite having the potential to do significantly more damage at short and medium range. The A has no specials that the Prime does not, so our job is done here. It's still a Skirmisher, so it'll fit all the same places the Prime will.
Here's where things get slightly more interesting again. This is the second alternate configuration, the B, and everything that held true for the Prime and A in the base chassis holds true here, too. It's the guns that are primarily different. And they're actually pretty different this time around, in function if not in damage. While just barely falling short of the A's damage, at 6/5/3 the B trades the OV capability for FLK2/2/2. Having that much FLK is honestly pretty impressive, because everything that grants FLK is a big honking ballistic weapon, and getting to 2 in all range bands is pretty punishing in terms of tonnage requirements. It's three full LB-10Xs worth, or a HAG-30. When a unit with FLK takes a shot against an airborne target (ASFs, VTOLs, WiGEs), if the shot misses by two points or less, defender takes damage equal to the FLK value. Given that VTOLs and other flying targets are a pain in the ass to hit, this is a very good thing. What's more interesting, FLK is free, and does not cost points because of the relative scarcity of flying targets on the field. Of course, given that self-same relative scarcity, you won't be using it much, but as the saying goes: Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
The B also has a piece of equipment that the Prime and A do not, in the form of CASEII. CASEII is really easy. It's similar to CASE, except ammunition hits are treated as no critical, rather than causing an additional point of damage. This has the effect, on a normal 'Mech, of adding on additional no crit result. On a 'Mech with CR, it adds four no crit results, which is pretty respectable! On the Mk IV, it's totally useless, because a Mk IV will never take that kind of damage anyway. Fortunately, it's also free, it just means a half ton on the unit in the traditional tabletop that you don't get to use. The Mk IV B comes in at 47 points, a couple points cheaper than the first couple. The lack of OV and the lowered damage compared to the other configs account for the loss in points, and which one you use is largely a matter of taste.
And finally, the C config. This is the last of the configurations for the Mad Cat Mk IV OmniMech. Everything of the chassis, movement, and armor remains the same. The primary change is the armament, which evens out into flat 5/5/5 damage across the board. This comes at effectively null points, due to how damage PV is calculated. It also comes with OV3, allowing the C to supercharge the damage back up to A config levels of carnage, and can even outgun the A at medium range in a good situation. That's also what the points go into. OV3 counts for another 2 points (bringing the total to +1 compared to the Prime and A). CASEII costs no points, but is also present. The remainder comes from the newfangled IF2. At a total of 52 points, the Mk IV C is the most expensive of the baseline Mk IV configs.
IF# is Indirect Fire, and represents the capability of a unit to fire over cover and from out of line of sight (but still within range), as long as they have a spotter with clear line of sight. It's not a particularly
efficient way to engage, in terms of damage per unit per turn, but it's a great way to respond if you otherwise wouldn't be able to, or if you want to avoid your fire support taking damage. In order to take the shot, you take the firing unit's skill, the range from the firing unit, the terrain from the spotter, movement modifiers from both (in case of jumping, or remaining stationary), and then add one to top it all off. Like I said, not particularly efficient, but one or two points of damage salvoed at an enemy 'Mech four or five times in a turn on 9s or 10s to hit will get you
some damage without exposing the bulk of your group to fire. It's a handy trick if you have a dedicated Indirect Fire Lance.
Speaking of Indirect Fire Lances, the C config is a Missile Boat role. That means it fits into the Fire Lance, its subtype the Indirect Fire Lance, and the Command Lance without skipping a beat. Definitely a different animal than the others. Now, just because it's not a Skirmisher doesn't mean it
can't be in one of those lances, or most other lances, it just means that it won't fulful the necessary requirements for building that lance. Lance and formation construction will figure into a future article in greater depth.
That takes care of all the configurations of the Mad Cat Mk IV OmniMech. However, there are still two variants left! The Mad Cat Mk IV PR (Standard) and 2 are non-Omni modifications of the base Mk IV pacakage. We'll also go into those in depth as a bonus.
This time, something changes about the base chassis. This is why it's a different variant, rather than a different configuration. The size, movement, and TMM all don't change, but right off the bat we see a different portrait in the armor and structure. Eight armor points is one fewer than the Omni version, because of a switch to a simpler, slightly less effective armor. It's still very good for the size. The bigger change is four points of structure. Switching from an XXL to an XL engine made it twice as durable under the armor, giving the PR (Standard) a total of 12 points of A/S. Slightly better overall than the Omni version, but the distribution is far poorer, especially if you're using forced withdrawal rules.
Damage values of 5/5/3 are workable, but compared to the Omni version pretty substandard to work with. You get spoiled with ClanTech really quick. OV1 mitigates this somewhat, and brings the total potential damage up to Mk IV Prime standards, but it's not a steady or consistent thing. The biggest difference on the 'Mech comes from the specials. ARM and CR are both gone, as is OMNI. CASE is still here, and REAR2/2/- from the Prime is still here. We're back to Skirmisher for the role, so apply it the same way you'd apply the Prime, A, or B in Lance composition. At 46 points it's cheaper than every Mk IV config, too. Like I said before, and will keep saying until I get bored of it, you get what you pay for. Fortunately, nothing new to explain here, so we'll move on to the PR 2.
This is the last variant we'll touch on today. Thank God. I love writing these, but 4,000 words is too much. With the Mad Cat Mk IV PR 2, we keep the same base chassis as the PR (Standard). Armor and structure is still 8/4, movement still 10”, the works. Damage has gone way up, though, sitting comfortably at 6/5/4, with an OV of 1. That's respectable, even if it's not up to the blistering potential of some of the other Mk IVs. Rounding out the 'Mech are specials of CASE (no reason to be surprised there) and REAR2/1/0*. Now there's something we haven't seen before. A damage rating of 0* indicates weapons that aren't quite capable of doing even half a point of damage reliably (0.5 rounds up to 1 point) at that range. When firing at a range in which you do 0* damage, if the attack hits, roll a d6. On a result of 4, 5, or 6, the attack does a single point of damage. On a 1, 2, or 3, it does absolutely nothing. I'm not a huge fan of having to gamble twice on a single roll to do a point of damage, but it's better than nothing. I'll have to do some research and ask some questions to see if 0* fired out of the rear arc takes damage away from the 4 points forward. Interesting question.
Okay, that covers the last of it! At 48 points and with a Skirmisher role, the Mad Cat Mk IV PR 2 closely mirrors the A config in terms of how you should use it and expect to see it perform.
The Mad Cat Mk IV is actually in
two different places on the
Master Unit List, and also on
CamoSpecs.
*dies*
