Tortoise II Battle Armor - Experimental Technical Readout Republic II page 17
Brent Evan's original concept art used for MF Germany's Tortoise
A zombie from Walking Dead or a damaged Tortoise II, you be the judge!
The
Tortoise II from Experimental Technical Readout Republic II is without a doubt the weirdest and creepiest looking battle armor in the game. The first art available was merely odd, but Plog has produced an outstandingly disturbing design that matches the equally disturbing stats.
The Tortoise II was actually one of the last designs to be added to the original Republic II layout, and remained there after the restructuring that led to Republic III being added to the lineup. The suggested theme for the Tortoise II was simple: the most disgustingly munchy mixed tech assault quad possible - the actual words used when pitched. jymset added the request that the design matched artwork originally produced by Brent Evans that he'd graciously allowed to be used for the Tortoise, a Mechforce Germany design produced by jymset. That resulted in the original suggestions for the Tortoise II being tweaked, which was probably a good thing as they were described as broken, and not in the dysfunctional way. The outcome was the Tortoise II.
First off, I'd like to make very clear that the Tortoise II is purely a quad battlesuit, its rear wheels notwithstanding. Unique among battle armor, the wheels are nothing more than a cosmetic feature inspired by Brent's original art. It isn't a foreshadowing of a new unit type of non-legged "battle armor", nor does the suit enjoy any advantages or suffer any penalties in the standard rules. Technically the Hard to Pilot and Prototype negative quirks represent the problems integrating the rear wheels into the design, but those were voluntarily chosen and weren't mandated. Rounding out the negative quirks, the Difficult to Maintain represents the outré design and the cutting edge mix of technology.
Now that the issue of the wheels are out of the way, let's move on to the actual stats themselves. Although toned down from the first suggestions, the Tortoise II is still truly broken in my opinion, possessing what I believe to be the worst aspects of mixed technology. Although the issue has been discussed before, and will undoubtedly be discussed again, I'll briefly cover the salient points here. Clan battlesuit technology on the whole is either superior for the same mass, or possesses the same capability for less mass. The key exception is the Clan chassis, which masses 27% to 62% heavier than its Inner Sphere equivalent due to the inclusion of a Harjel system, which only provides advantages in niche optional rules. Suits with a Clan chassis are also superior missile platforms, but even this provides no advantage for some designs. This situation was fine when mixed tech designs were rare, but in the 3145 era mixed tech is no longer experimental and we've already had the first canon, production mixed tech units, ranging from battle suits to ’Mechs.
Mixed tech battlesuits until now have still been somewhat conservative, with most either combining Inner Sphere armor and chassis with good Clan weapons, or Clan armor and Inner Sphere chassis and weaponry with a smattering of poor Clan Weapons. The Tortoise II smashes those self-imposed limits. Sure, it might not handle a suit breach in a toxic environment as well as a Golem, but seriously just how often are rules like that actually used?
Exploiting an Inner Sphere chassis saves the Tortoise II a hefty 150kg, which is almost half the suit's armor mass. Using a Clan chassis, the Tortoise II would have just been a sluggish Clan Fenrir instead of the scary monster we see apparently crawling out of a grave to eat our brains. What armor the suit does possess might not be that strong by assault standards, but it's enough to eat an AC/10 hit and keep ticking, plus the superb stealthiness may prevent many shots from landing in the first place.
That stealthiness is needed, because the Tortoise II isn't going to win any prizes for speed and agility. Not a single gram was spent to enhance the mobility and thanks to the use of a detached weapon pack, what ground speed the suit does possess is reduced to the level of mere foot infantry.
So the Tortoise II has serviceable armor and no mobility, which means that the mass went into the third side of the triangle: firepower. Even after installing a good sized modular turret to allow multiple armament options, we still have 1000 kg devoted to making things go ouch and boom. As noted above, the Tortoise II also uses a detached weapon pack for what is its heaviest weapon system, so the suit actual carries what is effectively 1200 kg of armament. And that includes a lot of the top quality Clan goodies, with none of the Bearhunter nonsense seen on the Oni.
At the core of the suit's firepower is an ER Medium Pulse Laser, the same weapon used on the Cuchulainn and obtained on license from the Arc-Royal MechWorks. This alone is enough to establish the Tortoise II as a serious threat, with a squad able to inflict an average of twenty-one points of damage per turn before even considering the modular armament. MechWarriors take note: you do not want to be the focus of a Tortoise II squad at close range!
The rest of the weaponry is installed in the modular turret, allowing the Tortoise II to tailor the pain it will inflict. A number of other configurations were suggested in addition to those that appeared in Republic II, but they had to be cut due to space issues and other concerns. One of the earliest suggestions that didn't make it to publication was a LB-X configuration, while another mounted twin APGRs. Alternative SRM setups were also discussed and disgarded, mostly due to the desire to match the original 3-tube artwork.
jymset: Even though we were happily celebrating a broken monster, in the end, it was my guilty conscience that got the better of me. In addition, I didn't want to impeach upon the LB-X armament of the Thunderbird II, which was already in the XTRO line up. I already felt dirty about duplicating the BA C3, which was meant to be the Tbird II's unique selling point. Three of the four canon configurations exploit the awesome potential of Clan missile systems, which are much lighter than their Inner Sphere counterparts, thus allowing extra tubes and/or more ammunition. The first configuration was intended to match the three-tube launcher seen in the original concept art, and given the mass and slots available this dictated the use of an Advanced SRM launcher. Although unable to fire alternative munitions, the extra range and deep magazine are decent compensation, with a suit potentially likely to be destroyed before it runs out of missiles. Able to add an average of sixteen points of damage per turn scattered across eight hits, this provides the Tortoise II with a useful crit seeking capability, plus the ammo capacity to freely take shots without worrying too much about misses.
The real beast configuration doubles the number of missile tubes while downgrading to standard SRMs. This does allow the use of Infernos, but the low number of shots might be a deterrent to mixing and matching the load out. While the missiles last, the Tortoise II can inflict a stupidly high amount of damage, with an average of no less than fifteen SRM hits for a full squad. That means that if a squad splits its fire it could potentially force two Mechs to make a piloting check, or it could curb stomp a single target with more than a half century of damage! Oh my. If Infernos are used and launched against infantry, an average salvo could fry an entire Point of battle armor or forty-five PBIs, if such a large platoon were permissible.
As we'd already used two of the three available Clantech missile types, it would be a shame not to use the third and we wouldn't want to disappoint. A quad array of LRM tubes almost matches the long-range firepower of the Hauberk, with marginally greater ammunition endurance and no minimum range arguably making the Tortoise II a superior fire support machine. As noted in the fluff, the standard SRM and LRM configurations share the Clantech technology with the Lyran's Fenrir II, but just where the Republic sourced the Advanced SRMs is currently not revealed.
The last configuration is entirely Inner Sphere, although the damage-dealing parts were originally inspired by Clan developments. A pair of LMGs is hardly inspiring when compared to the previous weapon options, but in combination they do provide token mid-ranged anti-personnel firepower, enough to potentially kill a platoon in two turns. The LMGs are only secondary to the main feature of this configuration: a C3 module. As I discussed in the Thunderbird II article, I'm not really convinced by battle armor with C3, although gun-heavy suits like the Tortoise II and Thunderbird II are better implementations than abominations like the Kage C. At least the Tortoise II's ER Medium Pulse Laser has a decent range, making it easier to exploit targeting data supplied by other members of the C3 network.
Overall, the Tortoise II is best suited for killing other armored targets. Killing PBIs can be left to supporting units, freeing the Tortoise II to do what it does so well thanks to its incredible amount of firepower. That firepower combined with the freakish appearance gave the suit the Distracting quirk, which inflicts morale penalties on opponents if you use both the morale and quirk optional rules. As positive quirks go it's not much of one, but does the Tortoise II really need a boost I have to ask.
The current status of the Tortoise II is unknown. At the time of the Remnant's report, the suit was still a prototype that had only just passed its first field trial, with the design suffering from unresolved flaws. I find myself torn between what fate I'd prefer: on the one hand, I love its looks so much that I want it to stick around as a regular unit of the RAF, but on the other hand, I dislike that purely Clan suits can be outperformed by mixed tech suits and would prefer that designs like the Tortoise II remain prototypes or otherwise unique. Pandora's Box has been opened and mixed technology escaped out into the world, so it may be a case of having to endure the inevitable.
