Mech of the Week: Vindicator
Introduced in the second round of mech designs, in the wake of the unseen, the Vindicator was one of the mechs aimed at giving the various factions specific mechs, and it succeeded wildly. No mech is more associated with the Cappellan Confederation than the Vindicator, the plucky little medium from the old days. In the spirit of relative balance that pervaded before the Fourth Succession War, it was well balanced against mediums of the other states, with an eye towards the Enforcer, and remains one of the premier medium mechs of any era, despite being one of the slow mediums that came out in its era, largely rendered obsolete with the coming of the Clans and the XL engine.
That slow medium nature in many ways defines the Vindicator to this day. Unlike the famed 55 ton trio at 5/8/x, or the comparable weight Phoenix Hawk at 6/9/6, the 45 ton Vindicator plods along at 4/6/4. While the jump jets make it flexible over rough terrain and a trick to out maneuver in close, it can be easily distanced by mechs more fleet of foot, and has trouble dictating range to mechs other than its slow medium contemporaries or heavies. Thankfully, that is less of a problem than it may seem; a full nine tons of armor was brick like in the day, and compared well to many heavies, giving up only a ton to the Dragon and Catapult, and nothing to the Enforcer.
The Vindicator 1R also carried a solid long ranged arsenal, and despite fluff notes about being sort of lack luster, the guns taken with the armor make the Vindicator a mech to be feared. A PPC, the most devastating weapon readily available, gave it a strong bite, matching or beating most other mechs. A LRM 5 allowed it to match any weapon beyond an AC2 for range, meaning it could at least take a shot, how ever week, at any enemy. Best of all, sixteen double heatsinks allowed both weapons to work overtime, even while jumping, a great perk in an era of heat hog mechs. This was helped by the naturally deep magazines on the LRM 5, alleviating the mech of most ammo woes, save for the ever present explosions. In close, when the PPC and LRM ran into trouble, a medium laser and a small laser came on line; while not great, they gave the mech a means to shoot accurately at point blank range.
The Vindicator was, and still is, the classic trooper. Cheap, common, and potent. The though armor means it can stand in the line, and the low speed means it will not be making any crazy flanking maneuvers. A steady advance, pounding with the PPCs, is the way to work; few mediums can stand against the combination of heavy armor and constant PPC fire. Singly, it can anchor lines of lighter faster mechs, and its range allows it to support heavier Cataphracts and other short ranged mechs.
An odd variant also came from the early period, as near as I can tell. The 1AA was the speed variant, and managed a 5/8/5 movement curve at a hefty price; the mech mounts only 4.5 tons of armor. Much like the Shadow Hawk D, this is just a death trap, and should be used only when things are really desperate.
Sadly, most of the 1AAs are likely gone; things got really, really desperate. The Fourth Succession War came, and the Confederation went. The superior quality of the Vindicator could not make up for the inferior numbers.
It was then that the Confederation rebuilt. With the Vindicator plant safe on Cappella, it was one of the chief mechs of the new CCAF, and what a mech it was.
Remaining were the heavy armor and low speed, the former augmented by CASE for the LRMs. Also there was the PPC, upgraded to an ER model. As before, the Vindicator could stand at range with any mech at range, with no need to close to fight. Further, in close it could continue to use the PPC thanks to a lack of minimum range and one other addition: double heatsinks. Unfortunately, the minimalist upgrade that stood other great old mechs in such good stead failed the Vindicator. Perfectly sinked in the past, the removal of only a single heat sink rendered the mech vastly over sinked, able to fire all its weapons and jump after having taken an inferno hit. The switch to an MPL from the ML and the loss of the SL are of mixed virtue; the SL was mainly useful to cover the short ranged blind spot in any event, which is gone now.
In the end, however inefficient, the Vindicator 3L was a fine machine in combat, with no particular weakness, and formed the core of the CCAF, and made a fine base to work with until the introduction of more specialized machines. Those came in the form of the Firestarter O, which filled the same weight slot and could take on Vindicator like armaments with much more speed. This led the Vindicator team to make variants that could play in the new age.
The first, coming in the Stealth Armor revolution, was the 4L. Taking a cue from the 1AA, it upped the engine to 5/8/5, but with the help of an XL it was able to actually improve the armor levels, mounting only a point less than the maximum, and of stealth armor. With good speed, stealth tech, and more armor, 4L pilots may not care about their vulnerable XL engine.
The new mech also adds weapons, incorporating an ER medium laser into the mix. The heat balance is also cut much closer, with 13 doubles allowing stealthed use of the PPC, with the LRMs mixed in from time to time, or a full use of the lasers with combat gets close and the stealth can be dropped. A solid mech, the Vindicator quickly grew into its roll as a stealth mech, continuing to be the standard bearer for the Confederation in sporting its best tech.
The other option is the 5L, which mounts a sward and TSM to be a deadly infighter. Two ER medium lasers, two pulse mediums, a pulse small and a standard small complement the PPC to help balance the TSM heat, though the absence of heatsinks beyond the base 10 makes full use of the weapons problematic. As an infighter, the 5L returns to the durable standard engine, using TSM for the boost in speed to 4(5)/6(8 )/4.
While a fine mech, the TSM is more useful for speed than it is for swinging the sward. It is just a bit underpowered, and often a kick will do better, but that is a debate for another time. As is, the mech has a solid complement of lasers that allow the user to chouse how they will fight. Much more specialized than the generalist Vindicators of the past, the 5L must be used with care.
Finaly, there is a new version that came out in the newest TRO. The 6L, the Super Vindicator, mounts all the newest tech to great effect. Mounting stealth armor along with the TSM and sward, it is a bit of a new toy mech, but can be killer in ambushes, as a guard for other stealth mechs, in closing operations, and the sward just sort of looks cool. It is the first non-PPC Vindicator, using instead a Plasma Rifle and a pair of ER mediums. For added bonus, they are guided by a Targeting Computer. While the Confederation can not produce the tech themselves, their success in battle has yielded quite a stockpile of the toys, it seems, and the Vindicator joins such units as the Regulator in mounting the captured computers.
As mentioned, the Super Vindicator is over generalized, and tries to do too much, resulting in it excelling at few dedicated roles. It can not snipe as a stealth mech, as the 4L did. It can mix things up in close as well or better than the old 5L, which is probably the best use of it. The stealth armor is used to ensure that it takes few hits in closing, evening the odds against longer ranged mechs, preventing them from using their full long range. It can also guard other valuable mechs, preferably stealth ones, and for hunting isolated units it can work well, able to counter many tactics with its versatility. Plus, as it will have experienced pilots in all cases, it can make deadly aimed shots and directed sward attacks.
The Vindicator has gone from a generalist mech to a more specialized one, but it will still be the face of the Confederation for years to come, and the older models continue to hold up well. The 1R can still compete in the modern era, a feat few can claim.
Next week, look for a special guest appearance with the Viking, and I’ll be back the week after with the Battle Cobra. I hope you enjoy!
2017 Update:
In the last ten years, things have changed and things have stayed the same. I’ve left my original thoughts from 2007 untouched, a snapshot in time as to my thoughts and feelings (editing mistakes and all) and I’m going to try and use this update to bring both the Vindicator and my thoughts on it into the present.
There are a few new variants, though I don’t have all the relevant literature so if I miss some background I apologize.
There are some succession wars era variants that I didn’t cover earlier first. One is the prototype with a machine gun, which isn’t memorable. Another is the St Ives model, which is interesting. It switches the PPC to a large laser and doubles the LRMs to a 10 pack. It reminds me of the Griffin L, but I always liked that mech so its not such a bad comparison. This is based on a personal Vindicator of a St Ives warrior, who must have had a bit of clout.
There are also Jihad era variants.
One is the 3Ld, the drone edition, from 3071. It features two ER MLs in place of the LRMs, seemingly fewer jump jets, and of course a drone cockpit. This isn’t really the right place to get too into drone tactics, but it is intresting that the Vindicator was chosen, and as a modification of the 3L and not some more advanced model, hinting that my 2007 predictions that the Vindicator would remain a common sight in the Confederation proved at least a bit true. As a modern fighter, I do miss the LRMs to a degree since their range matches the LRMs a bit better, but the 3L always had an over abundance of heat dissipation so it can handle the ER lasers with no real trouble.
We also have the 3Lr from 3077, which uses a snub-nose PPC, MML5 and an ER ML. I’m not sure what the “r” stands for; its ironic perhaps that LR usually means long ranged, yet the snub nose turns this model into a very short ranged fighter. The SNPPC isn’t a weapon I really care for, and I don’t know if a modified Vindicator is the right platform. At least the MML is a good pairing, since it can plink itself into range and then switch to SRMs in close, and the old tech engine and CASE do make the mech tough enough to be a slow infighter in the Jihad era. I don’t really like it, but half of that is just my dislike of the main weapon and half is that it really turns the 3L it is based on upside down in a problematic way.
The most modern variant is seemingly a one off for some bounty hunter in 3078, briming with Clan tech, starting with the armor and chassis, on to a Clan ER PPC. It also features a mech taser (seemingly a good choice for a bounty hunter) with a supercharger and an actuator enhancement system to get up close and personal. Its more spcalized than I like, but it does well what it sets out to do.
What does that leave as missing? Anything from the post Jihad era. This is something I probably should have seen coming ten years ago, when I concluded that the mech would continue to be “the face of the Confederation for years to come.” The greatest obstacle to this was the Confederation itself, and Xin Shang. The Vindicator is a cheap and cheerful mech, a tough trooper that can stand up to larger mechs, with good range, that can hold a line; it’s a symbol of the Confederation in the succession wars. But, since the 3060s, the Confederation had been in many ways the polar opposition of its Succession Wars self in one key way: they’re winning so much, they’re getting tired of winning.
That winning has come on the back of more and more mechs with Chinese names and styling, starting from the 3060s and going on into the Dark Ages. Some of these Clickytech mechs were out in 2007, and perhaps I should have taken that glimpse of the future and seen the writing on the wall. The future would not be a future of Cataphracts and Vindicators and Ravens. No, the future belongs to the Yao Lien, the Yinghouchoung, the Tian-zong, the Shen Yi, the Gun (I can’t do the mark on the u, but its there), the Lu Wei Bing, and so on. Many of these are good, quality mechs. Fully modern mechs that are designed from the out to take advantage of new tech. Some of them are problematic, sure, and a modern Vindy might be competitive, perhaps, but that seems not to be the case. The Vindicator was once the pride mech of the Confederation. Candace Liao piloted a Vindicator (how Justin wounded her in a Blackjack is beyond me; he must have really been just that good). Her great grand niece pilots a Centurion (granted, her husband’s mech, but he was a FedRat). The Vindicator was once THE Cappellan medium mech; now it seems to have almost totally fallen off the master unit list (probably an error, since its still on the RATs from 3145, though not prominently). While even in the Xin Shang era there were senior warrior who remembered Capellan Vindicators holding the line bravely against Andurian, the new generation was raised on tales from the Jihad, from the wars against the Republic.
So how does one use the Vindy in the modern era? The quick answer is that one doesn’t. Sure, if you’re using the RATs you could pull up a stealth 6L (on a roll of 11) or 4L (on a 7), good mechs, but designed before nearly anyone in the CCAF was born. The key problem is simply a lack of really good modern variants. The 6 and 4 are competent, but I really don’t care for the 3Lr. There just isn’t anything from the 3100s, an no real evidence that anyone is still trying to put old 1R and 3Ls out in the field any longer. They’re both good mechs, and would have some value; they’re tough, they have acceptable or good range, they can get around the field just well enough to keep up.
The Vindicator then is something of a legacy mech, to be used in era specific games, to be fondly remembered, but it is not something that is a big part of the face of the modern Confederation. It makes me sad. But things aren’t what they were ten years ago, and just as the Confederation seems to have adapted very successfully to being the big dog, so must its players.
