Arctic Cheetah/Hankyu/Short Bow
BackgroundThe Clans had some odd ideas on light Mech’s, they produced blisteringly fast ones with armour based on wishes and thinking happy thoughts, over gunned slow ones that could rip an Inner Sphere Medium apart whilst merrily overheating or average speed jack of all trades. One they produced was the Koshi/Mist Lynx, a machine introduced way back in 2926 that served a wide variety of roles but by the time of Operation REVIVAL it was starting to show its age and often found itself outgunned by Inner Sphere light Mech’s.
Realising that the Mist Lynx was getting long in the tooth Clan Speedsters on Meth Aka Ice Hellion began designing a new and slightly larger machine to replace the Lynx. Unfortunately, they lost their primary production facility of the new Mech to Clan Chaotic Stupid/Chaotic Evil aka Clan Smoke Jaguar in 3037 shortly after it started production, the Jaguars saw the small Mech and found it to be good and kept production going enough to replace all their older Mist Lynxes as the Cheetah was meant to do. Entering service in the Jaguar Tourman it became a popular and quite common design and was first seen on Luthien and by the time of Tukayyid, the Jaguars had at least one Cheetah in their light stars, if not more.
Other Clans also made grabby hands and either captured the Mech or traded with the Jaguars for them with the Cheetah being used by Clan Steel Viper and Nova Cat with whom it would later become synonymous. Clan Diamond Shark also got their hands on the Mech and with the death of the Jaguars the Hellions recaptured the Artic Cheetah’s manufacturing plant, but found that the more modern and more heavily armed Hellion had replaced the slightly older design in the eyes of many Warriors.
The Arctic Cheetah became a popular Mech in Clan Nova Cat service who went on to produce it. What this means for the future of the Mech now though is up in the air. The status of the production facilities in the Homeworld’s are ̶u̶n̶k̶n̶o̶w̶n̶
JUST FINE and following the Nova Cat’s revolt and destruction as well as the damage caused by the Dominion in their undeclared Trial of Annihilation bode ill for the production facilities of the Arctic Cheetah. It might still be in production with the Seafoxes but again, this is unknown.
DesignLike many Clan lights the Cheetah uses all weight saving options available to them, built on an Endo-steel skeleton whilst a 240 rated XL engine acts as the Mech’s beating heart, whilst 4 tonnes of Ferro-fibrous plate give rather mediocre protection.
The Arctic Cheetah is a rather crunchy design, lightly built like the animal it’s named after and built for speed. The Arctic Cheetah’s armour is not its strong point, but then again it’s a 30 tonne machine, this should be expected. It’s speed however is. At 129kph flat out the Cheetah lives up to its name. It also has enough jump jets to throw it into 180-meter-long leaps (8/12/6 in game terms) This gives it the Cheetah a higher top speed than the Lynx/Koshi as well as the same jumping capacity but on a 5 tonne heavier chassis.
As mentioned the Cheetah has a mere 4 tonnes of Ferro-fibrous plate protecting it and somewhat worryingly the most heavily protected area is the head.
The chest and legs can take a large laser hit before going internal whilst the arms can take a Clan ER Medium, so don’t expect to be feeling pretty after being slapped by anything larger.
The Cheetah also has no fixed equipment save its jump jets, yet for some reason, every config mounts a flamer at least somewhere on its person. This is not a fixed weapon, just one that always appears aboard the Mech for some reason (Surplus Diamond Shark flamers sold off in bulk perhaps?)
VariantsPrime – The standard unit of the Artic Cheetah family the Prime is actually a potent Mech and when it was introduced a bit of an oddity amongst Clan Mech’s. The Clans tended to spread out their EW assets amongst variants one might have an ECM whilst another would have an active probe and so on. Not so the Prime, it’s an EW powerhouse that shows off the best qualities of Clan electronic engineering. Its fitted with an ECM, a TAG and Active probe, giving it the EW capabilities of the Inner Sphere Raven, something the Clan’s generally lacked on a single chassis.
For firepower a pair of LRM-5’s one in each arm (mounted in the shoulders, not on the forearms as one might expect) and drawing from a separate tonne of ammo allow it to reach out and harass a hostile Mech whilst relying on its high speed to avoid counter battery fire. For direct fire a pair of redoubtable ER Mediums, also one mounted in each arm give the Mech a rather fearsome bite. With its impressive EW outfit and long ranged weapons, the Prime is a good harasser and vital force multiplier for Clan forces. Its ECM is wonderfully useful against the threat of C3 networks, but this often means that it attracts a lot of hate, so keep moving. Oh and the Flamer (let’s call him Dwayne) is mounted in the right torso.
Alfa – Built for a more up close and personal approach, the A has a heavy if short ranged punch in the form of a pair of Streak SRM-6’s, one mounted in each arm and drawing from a 1 tonne ammo bin in each adjacent torso. The Alfa can also turn infantry into smears thanks to its Small Pulse laser and flamer, now mounted in the left and right arm respectively. The short (ish) range of the Streaks means this machine must be driven aggressively, a pair of Streak 6’s makes it a formidable backstabber but this is a high risk machine for its pilot as it can’t take anything like a good solid hit. An Alfa pilot must love danger and have a carefree attitude towards living.
Bravo – Going away from close quarters dash and bravery the Bravo is an extreme range harasser. A LB-2X autocannon gives it the capacity to reach out and door ding at ranges that most weapons simply can't reach. Whilst I think an Ultra-2 would be better you take what you’re given. The Bravo does give its star-mates a long ranged flak gun though and that could be what this is for. Or for an extremely patient pilot who waits to wear a foe down or hope for a lucky crit.
Fortunately the short ranged firepower isn’t quite so lacking, a ER Medium, Medium Pulse laser and Dwayne round out the shorter ranged firepower and give the Bravo a bite when it moves in to finish off a foe.
Charlie – A battle armour hunter and long distance raider supreme the Charlie is a laser rave and is the only variant of the Arctic Cheetah that has any real issue with heat. All the others you can leave a cinder block on the big red ALPHA STRIKE button and it won’t notice anything on the heat scale, less so with this one.
A quartet of ER Mediums, two in each arm give the Charlie a VERY potent bite for its size, the ‘pocket large laser’ can strip open an assault Mech’s back in short order whilst a pair of Medium Pulse Lasers, one in each side torso round of the main punch. Our flamer friend Dwayne of course makes his appearance in the left torso whilst interestingly an Active probe is also fitted. This is what makes it tie into my raider/battle armour hunter theory. There’s not many BA’s in service that want to be repeatedly hit by Clan ER Mediums and the probe lets it find any hiding nearby. A full alpha strike will start causing heat woes but the firepower of that will also cause woes for anyone you can hit with it, especially if you can use the Cheetah’s speed to get round behind them before letting rip.
Delta – A missile support boat pure and simple and one with deep ammo bins for a Clan Mech. Armed with a pair of LRM-10’s, one in each arm the launchers draw from their own 2 tonne ammo bin for considerable battlefield endurance. The Mech’s high speed allows it to move from position to position whilst any of the usual answer to a missile boat can expect a cloud of LRM’s if they try to get close. Its simple but is VERY effective and if you know what you’re doing its darn hard to pin down due to the combination of speed and the decent jumping distance. Having one or two of these harassing can be most irritating as its hard to avoid all their firepower.
The two tonne ammo bins also allow for special ammo to be loaded, thunder and smoke LRM’s spring to mind. Why not both (although this may cause your opponent to want to punch you.)
Hotel – H for Heavy Lasers and unlike many Hotel variants the Arctic Cheetah Hotel does not immediately reach for the Heavy Large laser with a crazed look In its eye before sprinting off to insert high energy laser death into an opposing Mech’s backside.
Instead it avoids the strong stuff and goes for a more measured approach with a degree of rationality. At long range an ER Large provides plenty of reach out and slap and is a dangerous weapon by any regard, yet the Hotel unsurprisingly shines at short ranges. Here it can bring its Heavy Medium and a pair of Heavy Small lasers to bare whilst Dwayne can also get stuck in at the ranges of the Heavy Small’s.
This produces a rather considerable heat surge but a trio of extra heatsinks are fitted to mitigate the worst of the heat surges. Indeed, a full alpha strike won’t actually make you suffer the huge heat woes that many Hotel variants suffer. Most of them when they slap the big red ‘go away’ button do a fine impression of a sun going nova, melting what they shoot at as well as igniting the atmosphere around them. Not so the Arctic Cheetah Hotel.
ThoughtsI don’t like the Koshi, the later variants saved it but most of the REVIVAL era ones are quite simply stupid with a punch that would be best visualized by showing a pair of OAP’s having a slap fight or this gif -
http://imgur.com/gallery/HQYr5lc The Arctic Cheetah goes a LONG way to correcting the flaws of the Koshi without going into silly grounds or insanity (see the Hellion). Its rather limited number of variants seem to indicate that the Cheetah died out shortly after the Jaguars died, there’s no ATM’s and nothing after the Hotel. Still it does not really need them, the Configs are decent, even the Bravo makes sense and I really don’t like LB/UAC-2’s but on this config it makes sense.
The Cheetah is a good Clan Mech, sure it’s not got the raw firepower of a Puma, Fire Falcon or Hellion but it’s a solid Mech that finally closes the gap that Clan Lights had suffered from with the over gunned and fragile Kit Fox or the fast but under gunned Koshi and blisteringly fast but woefully fragile Fire Moth.
It makes best use of Clan Tech and can be a bitey opponent in most variants. Some do require finesse to use. The Prime is a good general purpose machine, it can run down and swat a fair few IS lights and has enough firepower to threaten more than a few mediums, but the Alpha is a real death or glory machine. It’s all about waiting for that moment when you can go WITNESS ME!!!!!!!!! And sprint on in to unload the Streaks into someone’s back. The Charlie packs one HELL of a punch for a light and seems to be more like a proto-Hellion in my mind (another exceptionally well-armed light) and its simple to use. The Delta rewards a good pilot who can just harass and ping away with its LRM-10’s whilst using speed and jump-jet mobility to keep avoiding hostile fire and driving an opponent spare with frustration.
The Hotel despite being a heavy laser boat isn’t limited to point blank engagements but it naturally performs best there.
Fighting one is really a case of hitting the damn thing. The Cheetah is not well protected, and its very crunchy. One or two good hits will open up its sections to internal damage, its just hitting them that’s the problem, so go with Pulse lasers and actively hunt the Cheetah instead of letting it dictate the engagement. But with its speed it can do that quite well. Be prepared for a frustrating fight, but all you need is one good solid hit.
As always thoughts and comments are most welcome!
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/1/1f/Hankyu_3058U.png - The original art.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b5/65/3d/b5653d8306cdd01bcfe07f4670e293bc.jpg - As seen in MWO
http://i.imgur.com/3UeSFph.gif An Arctic Cheetah Alfa driver - Probably. (Or just your average Hellion).
