VKG-** Viking/Viking IIC90-ton Inner Sphere BattleMech/90-ton Clan BattleMechSource: Technical Readout 3060/Source: Technical Readout: 3145 Lyran Commonwealth"I need someone to sign for...uh, six hundred gallons of war paint?"
This week we're talking about the various flavors of
Viking.
What's a Viking? I assume you're not referring to crazy axe-wielding Norsemen. No, it's a 'Mech. This isn't a CAWNotW article. Axes only do like .07 damage, anyway. Says so right in Tech Manual.
Back in the late 3050s, Comstar was going through a rough breakup and its ex got the house, so it was crashing at the Free Rasalhague Republic's place. For its part, the FRR was happy for the company, because it had really just started living on its own and then the neighborhood had gone completely to hell. So, they hit it off and started working on some stuff together. In particular, they worked on a new assault BattleMech, the
Viking.
Now, the word is that they wanted a replacement for the
Bombardier. They certainly managed to get the missiles right, but either someone mistook the walking speed for the
top speed when they were working up the requirements, or they decided that they just wanted missiles and they could get there whenever. So, the
Viking is huge and slow. Ninety tons and a 270 standard fusion engine won't get you anywhere fast, but it leaves a lot of space and mass for other stuff.
Other stuff?Plenty of it. Defensively, "other stuff" means fifteen and a half tons of standard armor, which isn't maxed out but is still a lot of armor, especially with no XL engine. It's a little more than the max for an eighty-tonner, which is still pretty good. Yeah, there's a lot of ammo, but it's got CASE as well, so there's no real magic bullet that'll kill a
Viking outright. You want it dead, you'll need to work a little for it. Or get behind it, since 7/10/7 rear armor isn't especially impressive.
But how does it make things explode?Missiles. So, so many missiles. Not
Kraken 3 levels, but about as many as you can get on an IS design. Seventy LRM tubes, two 20s and two 15s, all with Artemis IV. Seven tons of ammo gives them twelve full salvos, which is probably enough for a short engagement but a little light for a long one. It's also got a couple of small lasers in the torso and four machine guns in the legs. I rather suspect the machine guns are there to make
Viking pilots think twice about trying to kick something. "Are you sure you want to do that? Really? I mean, sure, if you connect it'll do some damage, but if you screw it up and keel over, you'll be
forever getting up again, and who
knows what'll happen in the meantime, and you've got these perfectly good machine guns right here...yes, good choice. Machine guns all the way."
Other than that...well, it's a good thing the LRM battery is so good. Sure, it's just five-point hits, but it's also quite a
lot of five-point hits. Enough that some are bound to land on the same spot, and then you've got a
ten-point hit, which is really something. Only ten double heat sinks means you'll heat up a little if you fire all the missiles, and a little more if you move as well, but drop a launcher every few salvos and you'll be fine.
That sounds pretty cool. Any advice on its use or abuse? The main thing is that you really shouldn't use your basic
Viking unsupported. Yeah, it's an assault 'Mech, King of the Battlefield, blah, blah, blah, but if something gets within its minimum range it's effectively helpless. Also, it only existed for a decade or so before the Age of ECM really got into full swing, so it can really use plenty of ECCM support. Also, be very wary of external heat sources. There's a fair amount of ammo to go boom, and even if you don't explode or shut down, infernos and plasmas can wipe out up to three quarters of your dissipation capacity, which silences your launchers just about as effectively as an ammo explosion.
Okay, I guess that about covers it! Wait, why is this article so long? Are there variants or something?Strap. In.
See, the thing about the
Viking is that they pretty much got it right the first time, but there are still variants. All those variants use the same chassis, but bear little to no similarity to the original design.
They started this trend at the very beginning with the VKG-2G. This thing is a pretty capable assault 'Mech in its own right, but it looks like it was built to bodyguard other
Vikings. All the weapons were stripped out for a nice gauss rifle/LB-10x combo, as well as one large and three medium pulse lasers. The ballistics can open up holes for the LRMs, and the pulse lasers (not normally a good choice) are pretty good at covering the minimum range on the VKG-2Fs. The stuff that can get close without being horribly savaged by LRM fire is the sort of thing that really doesn't enjoy an MPL battery. It's also got extra armor, a couple extra heat sinks to help with the lasers and a Guardian ECM suite, which can be useful for helping Artemis systems get through, at least until Angel starts showing up later on.
Are the other variants also that different?Yes and no. There were two Jihad-era
Vikings, and they at least have the courtesy to still be missile boats, but they still have very different uses than the VKG-2F.
First up, the VKG-3A. Comstar took a -2F, gave it a compact engine and another heatsink, maxed out the armor, then gave it a pair of MML-7s (still with Artemis IV), some pulse lasers, and an Arrow IV system. So, still a missile boat, but way bigger missiles. Three tons of MMLs and four tons of Arrow IV give it plenty of endurance, too. I'm not generally a huge fan of artillery on BattleMechs, but this does it pretty well. It's got good armor, good close-in firepower to discourage harassers, and it goes well with the TAG on the FRR's
Beowulf 'Mechs and (potentially) Kobold BA, but I feel like vehicles just do artillery better. Plus, the standard fusion engine makes it tough and fairly cheap. I imagine that appealed to the beleaguered Com Guards, and the AE damage probably ended up being fairly useful against the Word's crazy infantry.
Speaking of the Word of Blake, they
also got in on the
Viking game, probably due to the, um, on-again, off-again relationship that some parts of Comstar...no, this metaphor is beyond saving. Traitors. They had traitors and spies in Comstar and presumably they passed on the
Viking plans. The VKG-3W has four MML-9s, two Streak SRM-2s, and a pair of LAC-2s. It's
also got maximum armor for its tonnage, and, of course, C3i. The MMLs I get. They compromised on the long-range stuff so they could make it something other than helpless up close, and MMLs with a good C3i spotter can be especially scary since they can fine-tune their ammo choice that much better. It's the rest of the arsenal that gets a raised eyebrow. Streaks when it's already got 36 potential SRM tubes? LAC-2s...ever? Yeah, they can use special ammo, but they're still AC-2s, and there's only one ton to go around. 11 shots each with special ammo, which is, I think, pushing it.
That sounds pretty underwhelming. Maybe they were just making fun of Comstar?That's one theory, but I actually think that the VKG-3W would be less useful if it was better. I've only used it a couple times, so I can't be sure, but I think that it's one of those designs that can use obvious inefficiency as additional protection while still being good enough to be dangerous. Are you going to shoot at the
Viking with the fusion engine, seventeen tons of armor, and LAC-2s, or are you going to shoot at the
Deva with less armor, a more vulnerable engine, and a gauss rifle? I suspect that a lot of the time, people won't even bother trying to kill it for a while, and it will end up doing more damage overall than if it was more threatening. Plus, 40 SRM tubes is a lot of tubes, and if you've got a C3i spotter that gives it a nine-hex bubble of Critseeking Hell. Even without a spotter, it's got seven tons of MML ammo, more than enough to fit some amusing special ammo.
That sounds like a lot of excuses to me.Hey, I'm not defending the design choices. I just think that it's probably perfectly useable in spite of them.
Yeah, okay. That it?Not quite. One more, but it's a doozy.
So, you may have noticed a pattern with all the variants. Specifically, that they all increase the armor. Well, in 3095, the FRR and its new friends the Ghost Bears took another look at the
Viking, and they turned that principle up to eleven. Then twelve. Then
thirty-one (their dial pretty much looks like an egg timer). Thirty-one tons of hardened armor. That is a completely absurd amount of armor. They took a reasonably well-armored assault 'Mech and then
doubled the protection.
While that has very obvious benefits in the form of a nearly impervious hide, and less obvious benefits in the case of less risk of a through-armor critical on your eight ammo slots, there are significant drawbacks. First and foremost is movement speed. The
Viking was already pretty slow, and so the
Viking IIC won't outrun anything except most infantry, a handful of conventional vehicles, and all the swiftest fixed fortifications. Possibly even worse is the penalty to piloting rolls. People may not be able to breach your armor, but they can still buy themselves some respite from the LRM fire by knocking you over, especially since the aforementioned slowness means that even if you manage you get up, you're not going much of anywhere afterwards. The
Viking IIC is definitely not the sort of fire support design where you can skimp on piloting skill.
That's not the only change they made, of course. LRMs and machine guns became Clan-spec. Artemis IV became Artemis V. CASE became CASE II. Small lasers became ER micros. All those changes mean that, while they appear to be quite similar, the
Viking IIC is a very different animal than its predecessor. The Clan LRMs mean that getting in close just doesn't get you anything except easier to hit. The Artemis V means that winning the ECM/ECCM war is even more important, since it takes an average salvo from 42 hits to 56
and makes it easier to hit. The backup arsenal is basically the same, although it is now even
more important not to miss a kick.
The
Viking IIC also has some quirks the bear consideration. No/Minimal Arms is the really important one, because it means that if your hardened armor gets you knocked over, you will have
even more trouble getting up. The
Viking IIC's theme song is the first four words of "Tubthumping". The other battlefield-relevant quirks are good long-range targeting and poor short-range. If the Artemis V isn't being blocked, this amounts to something akin to the opposite of stealth armor, with no net penalty at short range, +1 at medium, and +2 at long. Since they can't really move much anyway, most
Viking IICs will be walking or stationary, so they tend to deliver very accurate salvos. Interestingly, the original
Viking is listed as having the same targeting and tracking system, so you could make a good argument for it having the same quirks. Since IS LRMs are very rarely at short range and not in
minimum range, it doesn't even hurt as much. Of course, if you make that argument, prepare for your opponent to insist on you using No/Minimal Arms as well. It...may not be worth it.
How common are they? Who uses them?The Rasalhague Dominion came up with the design, then licensed it to the Lyrans, and they both sold it to the Republic of the Sphere. The Bears eventually shut down their factory, but they still have plenty. So, only three major factions have them, but they're so spread out that unless you're wearing a sword and sunburst, or live on the Periphery, you need to worry about
Viking IICs.
The Capellans might have the best answers to the
Viking IIC. Stealth armor helps to mitigate the various accuracy bonuses, and they have all kinds of ECM and Angel ECM to block Artemis V. They also probably have the best selection of external heat sources, which do awful things to any
Viking. The CCAF is rife with plasma rifles, and they also seem to have a penchant for MMLs, which are good at infernos. They also seem to like their artillery, and
Viking IICs don't do a lot of moving around.
The Wolves also have good options. The
Night Wolf and the
Lobos with plasma cannons can make life very warm and difficult, and Clan stuff in general tends towards range and power, so you can force them to keep making the dreaded PSRs. Additionally, the
Wulfen pretty much gets to decide for itself whether or not it feels like getting hit, and the
Warwolf is
hilariously resistant to LRM fire. I tested it out with a stationary
Warwolf and a
Viking IIC that needed 2s to hit, and the
Viking expended over half its ammo load before it finally took out the
Warwolf. By
pilot death. Be careful, though, since a lot of the Wolves' other units will get eaten alive. An original recipe
Mad Cat, subjected to the same test, was reduced to a pair of feet after
four salvos, and to be honest it was pretty much done after three.
The Draconis Combine is in much the same situation, although it lacks as many good heat delivery options. Their new Ballistic-Reinforced armor will do awful things to LRM damage, though, and they have a fair number of good units that are fast enough to avoid LRM fire at least a little bit. Or, instead, just being fast enough to quickly go where the
Viking IIC is
not. They also have a handful of designs with Re-Engineered lasers, and probably some more salvaged from the Federated Suns. They might as well use those on the
Viking IIC, since killing hardened armor is kind of their thing. The Ballistic-Reinforced
Spiders with the large ReLs would be especially useful.
The FWLM is not well suited to deal with
Viking IICs, although the formation of the Wolf Empire and their relative lack of beef with the Republic has probably reduced their likelihood of fighting them. The sorts of mid-size, mid-speed trooper designs that are their stock-in-trade will get trashed by
Viking IICs, but, fortunately, they have plenty of ways to fight dirty. Extended LRMs will take a while, but they'll get the job done eventually. You may have to bring an ammo train or two, but the
Viking's not really going anywhere. Also, they're rather fond of their Silver Bullet gauss rifles and LB-X ACs, and Streak SRMs, which are pretty good at fishing for head hits, which is the
other good way to take out units with a lot of hardened armor. Makes for easy salvage, too.
Clan Hell's Horses is in a similarly middling position, although they are similarly unlikely to face many
Viking IICs, as apparently the Dominion has not actually been all that big on the design. Many of their units lack the speed to be truly unhittable or the armor to weather a salvo with no issues, but
Vikings are very much averse to battle armor and the Horses have a healthy array of plasma and cluster-hit weapons (LRMs, HAGs, Streaks, and the like). Oh, and their conventional vehicle units will probably hate the cluster-hit nature of the LRM salvos, so I would advise keeping them away from the
Vikings or just accepting the losses.
Cersei Clannister and her Fine Feathered Friends are probably in the most danger from
Viking IICs, which is a real problem for them since all of their neighbors have the damn thing. Modern Falcon units tend to rely on maneuverability, but not necessarily speed, so the
Viking IIC will often hit with at least a portion of each salvo, enough to cause some hurt. Additionally, units like the
Eyrie tend to enjoy it when opponents try to get away, so they can hit them with the talons and then jump after the enemy and talon them again while still racking up a decent defensive movement modifier. Kicking the
Viking IIC is actually a pretty good idea, but even if you don't knock it down, it really can't move very far, even if it wanted to. The
Eyrie has to choose between sitting still (a fantastic way to get a dead
Eyrie) or go find a different target. Either way, the
Viking IIC's problems are over.
Gyrfalcons have it a little easier, and they can be a reliable way to force PSRs at range, but they've only got a narrow band where they aren't taking return fire, and their hit probability isn't great. Also, the reflective armor on the basic model won't help.
Shrikes,
Jade Hawks, and the new heavy Omnis also have it pretty bad. Not fast enough to dodge reliably, not enough armor to shrug it off, and not enough firepower to quickly make a difference (in that they aren't units with, like, a CIC). Best thing the Falcons can do is airdrop a bunch of Elementals or Arrow IV. Or a
Nightlord.
Man. How'd they get all the way to Tharkad?We may never know. Blood magic and sleeping chaos gods, most likely.
Anything else on the Viking?Nah, I'm done here. Of course, given that this is a forum and not a blog, I expect people will have plenty to say about the various
Vikings and how best to utilize and/or eradicate them. Ready, GO.
