Its definatly a very 'modern' unit in terms of its design, especaly its configurations. Its basic models incourperate the advances of the post 3058 era, and it even boasts a few post TW veriants, though they're more of the new-toy type than the really optomal type. It does have moderatly week armor, notably in its 24 point side torsos, but the rest of the locations are fairly solid, its generaly well stocked with crit sinks, and its got enough power to just take things down before they can breach the armor, so it tends not to be an insurmountable problem, even in high intensity fighting. You just have to lean on that extra speed it has over many high end assualts to keep yourself well positioned and drive the pace of battle.
The Prime's a brawler at heart. The GRs mean it can do a really good impressing of being a ranged fighter, but the fact that they've got no heat means they can stay on line as all the powerful medium lasers and SSRMs come into play, rather than being traded out like PPCs would be, and that makes the infighting potental really very high. There's a bit of a sweet spot at 3 hexes, after the HMLs are in short range but before the GRs hit their minimums, which is tricky to hit, but going a bit either way still leaves you in a pretty good position.
The A is one I really love a lot, though its quite poor in actuality, since it runs fabuliously hot. But jumping PPCs with a TC is never bad, and one usable HLL as a secondary is hardly something to laugh at. The E is in many ways an improvement on this, since its also twin jumping TCed PPCs (I tend to think of the A as a take on the Dire Wolf H and the E as a take on the Dire Wolf C) but with more usable pulse lasers and ATMs as secondaries, making the E perhaps the most potent veriant to my mind.
The B is really good, though the style bugs me. The GR and LRMs offer a fairly solid one two punch at range, with a good crit seeking/hole punching ballance, but the real work is done up close with the MPLs comming on line, and again like the prime the 'long ranged' weapons continue to shine in close, so you can still lead with that GR and seek some crits with the LRMs.
The C and D are actualy pretty solid, but overly ACy for my taste. Their best atributes are rock bottem BV, which makes them good value.
The F is a crazy infighter, though it reminds me a lot of one of my better personal veriants and so I like it quite nicely. With its PPCs, its actualy a bracket fire model more than the Prime and B, though if your TNs are high you can always just fire it all and just sort of see how many SSRMs hit, given their streak nature.
The G is a brutal sniper with that big TCed HAG and the ER LLs, but like every single veriant it can put up a really stiff fight in close quarters, and with the way the HAG works its really tempting to get in there and let it do its thing.
