Today's article is a request. Jealous? You should put in a request as well- you never know, your vee of choice could be next week's discussion!
The FedCom Civil War brought about a lot of changes for the two nations at war- worlds torn apart by fighting, entire RCTs wiped out, countless death and loss... but as with so many wars throughout history, it also brought about technological breakthroughs and new ideas in war. While it was designed pre-war, it wasn't until the FCCW broke out that the hovertank known as the Minion was put into production, part of a joint effort between GM (Kathil) and Ceres (Tikonov). Those familiar with the war will know that last one means that House Liao now owns one of the two assembly sites- we'll look at that later. For now though, we'll look at the original version of a vehicle that may look a little funny, and probably hasn't shown up on your battlefields often, but ends up being a hidden gem.
Minions are intended as spotters and harassers- you know the idea. Move fast, pick at a target with a couple of modest hits, zip away to continue fighting later. The Federated Suns' investment into C3 technology in the late 3050s created an extra bit of a job to do- provide telemetry for more distant units in your network. Combined with the Morningstar HQ vehicle, a Minion can be a very handy tool to have around in a network indeed- so long as you're careful about it.
As usual, we start by cracking the bonnet to see the engine. A Nissan fusion engine propels the 20-ton Minion to 9/14, a very handy speed for a vehicle in this role. It also includes heat sinks, which we'll need for weapons. At this point, fusion engines were becoming more common on a vehicle, but the massive investment of an XL engine wasn't justified quite yet by the corporations involved in this- since it would only save a couple of tons, that's probably okay. The result here is that the Minion has the speed it needs to rapidly redeploy to a position for its C3 spotting job- or away from a danger spot- with ease, and can even afford a couple of dings to the motive system and still get away if things really go pear-shaped.
Five and a half tons of Durallex armor give the Minion a surprisingly tough skin for a 20-ton vehicle- our Kali Yama test is usually an insta-kill on the test vehicle, but here it holds up nicely. 28 points cover the front, important since that's the end pointed at the enemy generally. Another 22 points cover each side, enough to withstand the cannon- if only barely. A 'mere' sixteen points give the rear protection against a stray Gauss slug as the Minion runs for cover. It's no Alacorn, but Minions for their size are tough to kill- and remember, that armor is boosted by high movement modifiers (because a slow-moving Minion is a bad idea). You'll have to work to drop a Minion.
Coming back from the plucky little shoe-shaped tank are a pair of Defiance medium pulse las- wait, did that say Defiance? During the civil war? Well that's interesting, isn't it? Anyway, yes, those are two medium pulse lasers in the nose, normally weapons the author is not a fan of. Here though, you're likely sneaking into their range for C3 spotting anyway, so it's not the worst idea. The engine's heat sinks are used nicely by the lasers, which provide a pretty solid punch at a target to help with whatever the rest of the network pasted the target with, and prove handy for scout-hunting in case you need your Minion to hunt down a pesky Stinger or something along those lines. Obviously, the main 'weapon' is the C3 slave module in the body. Note that without a turret, the lasers are forced to fire forward- perhaps not an optimal situation in the kind of swirling bar-brawl fighting that the Civil War brought about so often.
So, it's time to talk about variants. We start with a postwar design from Ceres- with the Tikonov production site in Capellan hands, and Liao not being a big user of C3, the design had the module swapped out for a TAG spotting laser. Simple change, but makes for a really nasty little spotter for the Capellan Catapults in the rear areas. It also makes for a handy battle taxi for Fa Shih suits, able to dash in, drop the suits, and zip away with ease- and maybe help drop Arrow rounds on the way. The author found this to be a really handy unit to play with.
Not nearly as handy was the Kathil post-war version that dropped the C3 for a targeting computer. While that means a -3 to-hit number between the lasers' abilities and the computer, the lack of range was a problem in testing- while it's still able to hunt down scouts with ease, it wasn't as handy as the other two models were. Nifty little raider, and unlike the others it doesn't rely on working with a team. But this one just wasn't as useful.
Those familiar with my canonized designs know that I'm an anti-infantry war criminal at heart. So the Gauss version of the Minion caused some chuckling. The C3 and both lasers are removed this time, in favor of EIGHT Magshot rifles sharing a ton of ammo. Yeeeeow. Enemy infantry and battle armor suits, beware! This also gives a bit more range to the weapons, which is nice. Ammo runs a bit short though between eight rifles- so using this away from supply lines is a bad idea. But if you're dealing with enemy battle armor pushing at an LZ/important site, or perhaps angry rioters, this is a handy ride indeed.
One more variant exists, courtesy of XTRO: Gladiators. The 'Silver Bullet' is, of all things, a racing vehicle brought to us by the Outworlds Alliance. Seriously. shoves an XL engine into the beast, bumping it to 11/17. The armor weight remains the same, but becomes nifty reflective armor- pretty nice on a battlefield featuring an increasing number of pulse lasers to zap fast-moving vehicles. (Of note, it appears there's two points of phantom armor added to the rear). The weapon loadout keeps one of the original pulse lasers, but adds a Clan-made targeting computer to it, courtesy of Clan Snow Raven. A laser AMS gets tossed in as well to keep missiles away from that new shiny armor. While this is a one-off unit, it's intriguing for sure- hard to kill, for sure, but not much beyond that in terms of usefulness overall. No word on whether it ever won any races.
So, Minions tend to be quick, tough, and depending on the model have varied usefulness. Ever used one? Got ideas for their use? Any ideas how you'd modify these things for your own use? Get to it, people.
