Regulans and you, Volume 2.
Welcome to Volume 2! What's this you say, you didn't read through Volume 1? Quick review of Volume 1, don't do anything that might tempt your Regulan opponent to disengage the safety on those Davy Crocketts that you know they have in their rear areas. Now that you are all caught up and obviously didn't make yourself a large enough target we are going to learn a bit today about their home grown omnimech the Sarath.
The Sarath is a 50 ton medium Omni-mech deployed by the Regulan Fiefs. Unlike other Omni-mechs of the line deployed by its rivals, the mech is four-legged. This allows the Sarath to perform a lateral shift, something only the most experienced and skilled pilot could pull in a bipedal mech without having to let back on the throttle. The manufacturer of the design, Ronin Inc., also included a turret as part of the basic design allowing the mech to accurately track targets in a 360 degree arc of fire. Despite all of these advantages though the weapons load out of the configurations are hampered by the lack of space inherent in all quads.
Capabilities:
When not in the heat of battle, the Sarath will pace the Shockwave and Black Hawk found commonly among the rival armies of the Dark Ages. When combat is joined and the myomers are appropriately aggravated the Sarath’s speed exceeds those other machines and becomes quite lethal in melee combat that Regulan machines tend to specialize in. Lighter machines that make the mistake to close in on the Sarath to get under minimum range of one configuration’s PPCs could easily see itself without a leg if they get to close and the Sarath engages in melee.
An XL engine machine provides all the horses for this machine and TSM gives it that extra speed boost and potency when things break into a melee. Armor is maxed out with a noticeable weakness to the rear of the machine. While able to withstand a shot from anything smaller than the Lyran’s Improved Heavy Gauss rifle to the front of the machine, the rear armor surface area is spread out and unlikely to survive an encounter with something as small as a medium laser. Heat sinks are also limited in most cases to the 10 found that come with the engine.
All the aforementioned items make for a solid medium mech that one should get out of a line unit. The design however goes one step further. The chassis is smaller in stature because of its 4 legged construction. Subsequently one could fit 2 Saraths into a standard mech bay. While, by no means considered something safe, being able to transport twice as many Saraths into battle offers a numbers advantage to the Regulans.
Its aesthetics are somewhat disturbing and could easily be confused for a design of Word of Blake origin had it been designed during the Jihad. Whether designed that way intentionally or by accident, battle-ROM from the short-lived invasion of Aitutaki in 3134 by the 4th Regulan Hussars clearly show the planetary militia giving the Sarath a wider berth than other designs.
Ultimately the Elite First Free Worlds Guards ejected the 4th from the planet and the defeat, despite meeting up at all its expectations, was blamed on the Sarath. Just as the Battle Hawk from a century earlier was used as a scapegoat goat for an operation gone wrong, the Sarath has developed a bad reputation that it has yet to overcome years later. Despite this fact, the Sarath has never been authorized to sell to friendly states or mercenaries.
Configurations:
The Sarath has 3 standard configurations with 19 tons of pad space and a built in IS ER Small laser. Because the turret is built into the machine’s right torso all configurations find the bulk of their weapons located here. Even if you wanted to spread out the weapons load you would have difficulty in putting weapons anywhere as else other than the legs. 75% of the Left side of the machine is taken up in the extra bulky XL engine and TSM. The turret however was built with this in mind and can effectively mount 15 tons of weaponry.
Prime- The prime caries the punch of a Heavy PPC , a Light PPC, and ER Medium laser within its turret with an extra ER Medium laser mounted centerline in case of the destruction of the turret. A Beagle Probe is mounted in the left torso to snuff out any hidden units that might try and ambush the design. The design’s weapons payload allow for the pilot to get the TSM ‘sweet spot’ and exploit it. The First Free World Guard experienced firsthand how effective the Prime is when a Guard Locust attempted to flank the Sarath only to be obliterated by PPC fire.
Of somewhat nebulous value is the inclusion of Spikes along the torso and front legs of the mech. One could argue that it is a token effort to provide a defense against opposing melee attacks that the Sarath is likely to experience when it goes into a brawl. The spikes also provide additional damage in the case that the Sarath pilot throws all caution to the wind and charge their enemy. However the damage increase is rather insignificant. Jump Jet in place of the spikes here is a clear benefit in more situations and would have made for a better inclusion.
A-By obtaining Clan model LRM-15s from Clan Sea Fox, the Regulans made this the fire support version of the mech. The A includes the Jump Jets that the Prime did not. The A really doesn’t need them as much where fire support is the intended role. Still dropping them probably would allow for a bit better weapon arraignment. The pair of LRM-15s each has its own supply of 2 tons of ammunition.
The choice auxiliary weaponry is where this design shows its flaws. An additional Clan ER Small Laser is fine and the 2 MML-3s with 2 tons of ammo give the mech access to more special munitions, but that is hardly ideal. Taking all those secondary weapons off and adding a 3rd LRM-15 would have made a lot more sense. The LRMs, because of their Clan origin have no minimums and offer more firepower than the MML-3.
The other issue with this configuration is that since the interior is cramped, there is next to no way to provide CASE to protect the ammo efficiently. Thus a freak ammo explosion in a limb will likely destroy the whole mech.
B-The B configuration is the Regulan mobile terror platform. All the ranged weapons are located in the turret providing a full 360 degree field of fire. This consists of a Plasma Rifle, 2 Medium Lasers, and 4 ER Flamers. Each leg also has mounted on it a set of Talons which when the B is running warm has the ability to cause significant structural damage to anything of the same size as the Sarath or smaller. It really doesn’t matter whether it is fighting other mechs, infantry, battle armor, or tanks the design is good at what it does and that is sew terror.
Closing thoughts:
The Regulan combat mind set emphasizes melee and close quarters and with that in mind, TSM inclusion would seem a natural inclusion into the design of the Sarath. While the configurations are decent by most Inner Sphere standards they miss the mark in what makes an ideal or complete melee focused mech. Pulse Lasers of any make or model, especially with advantage of a turret, are absent and missed. An ATM launcher, assuming the Sea Fox would make it available, also would have been a welcome addition to the A configuration. Overall the design has plenty of promises, but has yet to have a configuration that is pound for pound better than another.
