Vehicle of the Week Update: Regulator HovertankDeciding on a whim this Sunday afternoon to do a double header article this week to make up for the fact that one of them was a short one on the Phalanx, I reached into the file and pulled out the Regulator. We've had a new variant, the original, while highly amusingly written by Rage, is more than a little long in the tooth and it's actually fallen out of the archives. Those of you interested, skip down to the next post for his original. If you asked me, the Regulator is probably the CCAF's favorite hovertank. Coming to us out of the recently reprinted TRO3058U, the Regulator was designed in response to the major loss of BattleMech production after the Fourth Succession War, not unlike the Po. That and the fact that the CCAF has a serious love-on for them and uses them very widely, several lances per front-line
and reserve unit, is where the resemblance ends. They first fought in the Marik-Liao offensive in 3057, with a lance absolutely shattering a lance of FedCom 'Mechs, and have continued to fight in every conflict the Capellans have fought in since. Along the way, either exports or salvage have left them in the hands of the FWL (what there is of it these days...), the other two members of the Trinity Alliance, the Republic of the Sphere, and Clan Diamond Shark. (Exactly why the Federated Suns didn't get in on the salvage bonanza when they've made their own variant of the
Raven I don't know, but unlike the minor lapse on the Republic's availability, I don't have fluff clearly stating they're supposed to be using it, so I'll leave that one alone.) Equally impressed, the Word of Blake decided
imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, making their improved knock-off version, but the original is still in production by Aldis Industries on Betelgeuse and later Terra.
The original Regulator is a fast, deadly hovertank that commands respect. Aldis got the party started with a 45 ton hover chassis - you've got some terrain restrictions, especially woods, but the speed from the fusion engine is hard to argue with. That's right, a GM 170 standard fusion engine driving this thing at 151 kph, lightning fast compared to a lot of units. If someone in the Federated Commonwealth actually approved that one, I really hope they had to face these things in combat to demonstrate exactly why that was a bad idea. Only 6 tons of Hellespont Lite Ferro-Fibrous (this is FF, not LFF, and predates the latter by a while) is kind of thin but the 30/16/16/29 layout makes good use of what's there. None of that's what really what makes this thing so respected, though. It's nice, sure, but so far we're not doing anything the Zephyr hasn't been doing for centuries. No, it's the Gauss rifle in the turret that makes the girls stop and stare as it screams through town. Two tons of ammunition provides the standard 16 shots. Just about every 'Mech ever made will give you quite a bit of respect, offering tithes of ballistic lead, high-energy particles, and the occasional magnetically accelerated iron shot. Those that don't may not have pilots left when you get done. As Rage pointed out, it may not be able to force a PSR on its own but honestly, who really cares?
The first variant to turn up was a manifestation of the perverse sexual lust between the Capellan procurement office and the Arrow IV. Instead of being a straight yank-and-replace in the turret, someone also pared a ton of armor off to get another ton of ammo, leaving you with 5 tons arranged 25/14/14/22 and a lot of encouragement to use the fact that this is probably the fastest artillery unit in the game to not be sitting around waiting for the counter-battery fire to arrive. As artillery goes, this is lightning fast, and is able to keep up with even rapid hovercraft advances or be used as a mobile battery to support a broader front than usual with short flight time tactical fire, an artillery tank for all seasons as it were. Your days of accidentally outrunning your artillery support are over, gentlemen, and the ways these things can be used in more strategic games is enough to sell entire semi-trailers full of Maalox. The number of cruel and unusual punishments that can be put in the ammo bins starts with homing rounds and ends with a Crockett for those of you who don't mind a bit of radioactive redecorating. Unlike the widely spread standard model, this one is only seen with the Capellans and the Canopians. Not even the Taurians are using it.
The second variant, also found in RS3058 Unabridged, is theoretically a field refit and inspired a Republic variant of the Regulator II. The turret is downsized a bit since it only hosts a RAC/5. A targeting computer was added to increase accuracy with said Touhou-esque spray of bullets while four tons of ammo are available, so unlike a lot of RAC units, the ammunition supply is generous even at high fire rates. The half-ton from the turret downgrade was applied to CASE - a worthy upgrade, certainly, but it means this is a factory model (or at least being done at a depot with the ability to assemble them if provided with the parts), not something you can do in a transport bay. As with the Arrow IV model, this is a Capellan and Canopian special. Even more pointedly than usual, you need to keep fire rate selection appropriate to your targeting numbers. Murphy is always there, always waiting. He's like some sort of twisted, demonic Santa Claus who doesn't bother to wait for Christmas.
A mercenary group seen on Pozzan appear to be the sole operators of the latest variant to pop up. This one is similar to the original in some ways but since it's in XTRO: Liao, you know some sort of weird, experimental hardware is going to be here somewhere, and it doesn't disappoint. A lot of us have posited in our own private thoughts how awesome it would be to have a stealth armored Regulator. The armor is now only 4.5 tons of stealth plate arranged 20/11/10/20, which means that not getting shot had
better be at the top of your priority list, but a Gauss rifle isn't a single-hit kill anywhere but the stern, so it could certainly be worse. ECM is naturally present to power the stealth armor. The real surprise here to both me and the Maskirovka, though, was the use of a Silver Bullet Gauss rifle that was estimated to be hijacked from a Word of Blake storage facility somewhere. Think LB 10-X cluster rounds and you'll get the idea of what it does. I can't say I find the armor pleasant to think about but with the stealth upgrade, it's certainly not nearly as bad as it could be, and detecting them is going to be... interesting until they get down to tactical ranges.
There are some apocryphal variants out there - reports of experimental CCAF stealth testbeds in XTRO: Liao, rumors of C3-equipped models showing up at Origins one year - but that's it for the things I can actually put my hands on record sheets for and the ones in the MUL. The stealth testbeds probably look a lot like the Regulator Alan except using regular Gauss rifles but GWA, when mentioning the C3 models, was uncertain as to the armament.
So, you've got this hovertank. What in the world do you do once you've turned the key? First of all, it's a hovertank, not a tank or even a wheeled tank. This means that you're more vulnerable to side hits taking out your motive system than usual. Those of you who actually read the armor levels earlier are probably aware that you don't want to expose the sides anyway, especially on the Regulator Alan. Since turning during your ridiculously fast sprints involves a PSR (AKA an opportunity to let the crews sample the fine, fine wares of the local turf provider), this is also something to avoid when you can. Rage suggested either hanging back and slinging fire in or quick slashing attacks at high speed to jack the TMM as far as it'll go. RACs will want to emphasize those given their lower range but they can certainly snipe at medium ranges with their targeting computers.
If you want to stop them, I suggest breaking out the LB-Xs and inflicting motive damage to get them to stop zooming around first. If you can't get those, pulse lasers, precision ammo, and certain options in TacOps (including the Regulator Alan's SB Gauss) can all be useful. Up close, SRMs (including Infernos) can certainly do the job but the accuracy is going to leave something to be desired against a unit that can frequently sprint around with a +3 TMM. Once you've got the speed down a bit, grab a hammer and smash it flat. None of them are armed with anything you want pointed at you and the RAC model is probably going to toss caution to the wind at this point.
Image Reference: The MUL database has information on BV and availability along with the artwork. Ironically, neither of the miniatures on
are Capellan.
