’Mech of the Week: BRZ-*3 Berserker

[William J. Pennington]

Kicking may be hazardous. Miss your kick and consequently your PSR roll - and and you will be lying at your enemy's feet.

Meh. No guarantees in Battletech. Though the worst piloting skill I'll take on a 'Mech with TSM is 3, so I'm not terribly worried.

[Moonsword]

Of course, trying to hit a target with both HGRs and then kick it in the same turn kind of necessitates eating that +4 minimum range penalty on each shot first...

Bingo.  That's a stunt for a King Crab or a Bane 4.  The damage isn't quite as high but they're far more likely to connect with it.

[Kotetsu]

Actually the Bane 4 might do more damage. Two Class-20 Ultras going Ultra... 40 points... And then throw in the kick.

[Moonsword]

Assuming you're willing to eat the heat, true, although even if you go Ultra on both, there's (very, very) slightly better than a 1-in-3 chance they'll both only connect with one shot.

[garhkal]

Perhaps if the rules for hatchets made them as easy to connect with as kicks, then the tonnage paid may make them more worth wile.

[Scrollreader]

Hatchets also make sense if they take you over a threshold.  Not particularly relevant to the Berserker, but it makes a big difference to the TSM Scarabus, or other smaller Mechs.

[RyuWanderfalke]

40 points of damage take out a Mad Cat's side torso and thus also the connected arm. Period.
That's just something an arm can't do.

[UnLimiTeD]

Taking out a Leg on most things up to 70 tons is equally devastating to me, and may result in fall damage.
What really irks me is that kicking applies to self damage; A Mechs feet are clearly not designed for smashing into an armoured steel construct with high horizontal velocity, not much more than the target should be build for taking it.
So with the damage being as high as it is, that should hurt your mechs legs as well.

[A. Lurker]

What really irks me is that kicking applies to self damage; A Mechs feet are clearly not designed for smashing into an armoured steel construct with high horizontal velocity, not much more than the target should be build for taking it.
So with the damage being as high as it is, that should hurt your mechs legs as well.

You could say much the same for punches, especially for 'Mechs that don't have proper hand actuators in the first place and just flail around with their actual weapon barrels.

Really, the fix to kicks would be to get rid of their -2 to-hit modifier, and I could even see reasons to go up as high as +1 instead -- a punch with a fully modelled arm, proper hand and all, is already at +0, and if anything kicks should be arguably less accurate than that. (Yes, a punch has an increased chance of a head hit and you can throw two of them if you didn't fire any arm-mounted weapons at all that turn, but a kick always forces a PSR and concentrated damage to a single leg is nothing to sneeze at either.)

We may be starting to range a bit far afield from the Berserker proper here, though.

[dragonkid11]

To me,Berserker(especially the C3 variant)is like Chryssalid in Xcom,a rape machine,if it can reach it,which unfortunately,is most of the time(ALL the time if you are stuck with a small map).

Still like it in my assault lance though,anything that get too close get chopped up in pieces immediately.

[Scrollreader]

Oh, I love the C3, I just find it has a reputation out of proportion to it's actual threat.  But I do so enjoy melee Mechs, and it is an epitome of the breed. 

[RyuWanderfalke]

Taking out a Leg on most things up to 70 tons is equally devastating to me, and may result in fall damage.
What really irks me is that kicking applies to self damage; A Mechs feet are clearly not designed for smashing into an armoured steel construct with high horizontal velocity, not much more than the target should be build for taking it.
So with the damage being as high as it is, that should hurt your mechs legs as well.

Well, taking out a IS machines side torso mounting an XL engine instead of the Mad Cat example equals an insta-kill.
Doesn't get much better than killing off heavy mechs with a single stroke.

[Jimmyray73]

Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

[StCptMara]

Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

This. 100% THIS!

[Moonsword]

Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

That's pretty much it exactly.

[misterpants]

Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

 O0

[dragonkid11]

Sure it isn't the most practical 'mech ever designed, but it's a hundred ton axe-murderer. If loving that is wrong I don't wanna be right.

I'm going to sig this,just for the hell of it.

[Kotetsu]

Well, taking out a IS machines side torso mounting an XL engine instead of the Mad Cat example equals an insta-kill.
Doesn't get much better than killing off heavy mechs with a single stroke.

You can actually cut a Timber Wolf in half with the -C3's hatchet. You have to hit him Center Torso rear, but it is possible...

[StCptMara]

You can actually cut a Timber Wolf in half with the -C3's hatchet. You have to hit him Center Torso rear, but it is possible...

*shifty eyes* I have done it. Of course, I have also hit something with a TSM Thug retrofit wielding a mace....with TSM active..

[garhkal]

I have had one of my home made 100 ton hatchet wielders hit a stalker, two awesomes and a sunder all with TSM active..  man that 40 point whack did some massive damage.  In another session, i hit a centurion's left arm, cleaved it off, AND almost all the left torso.  That was after 3 rounds of fire stripped the LT (and ct) almost bare.

[Baldur Mekorig]

That makes me remember the first time i used a Ti Ts'ang...

[dragonkid11]

That makes me remember the first time i used a Ti Ts'ang...

TSM and melee weapon in one mech will always cause beautiful scenery of torn ablative armor,ripped metal innards,broken endoskeleton and death of man-made sun.

[RyuWanderfalke]

TSM and melee weapon in one mech will always cause beautiful scenery of torn ablative armor,ripped metal innards,broken endoskeleton and death of man-made sun.

Beautifully said!

[William J. Pennington]

TSM and melee weapon in one mech will always cause beautiful scenery of torn ablative armor,ripped metal innards,broken endoskeleton and death of man-made sun.

It also makes the twin plasma rifle/ plasma cannon armed opponents smile. 24 heat is not a fun place to be.

[A. Lurker]

It also makes the twin plasma rifle/ plasma cannon armed opponents smile. 24 heat is not a fun place to be.

Meh, it's only a shutdown roll and a fairly passable ammo explosion check (and who wants to live forever, anyway?). Now if I wasn't in a TSM 'Mech and 24 heat meant I was also a complete sitting duck next turn, then I'd be in trouble.

[William J. Pennington]

Having the god ranged heat adding weapons is sort of fun to make those who love the knife edge of perfect 9 heat worry.

Ah No Dachi's.....Cruelst fate I saw was a declaration of an Alpha Strike..then the opponents completely ignored it to fire at and damage another mech because, sure enough, he blew up from his own ammo.

[SCC]

Meh, it's only a shutdown roll and a fairly passable ammo explosion check (and who wants to live forever, anyway?). Now if I wasn't in a TSM 'Mech and 24 heat meant I was also a complete sitting duck next turn, then I'd be in trouble.

Yes but next turn when your hit with the heat beat stick again you will hit autoshutdown levels and it's hard to avoid because you'll have shutdown so many heatsniks and you might not able to bring enough on line, and if you weren't at Heat Level 9 but actually higher you're in an even worse postion

[A. Lurker]

Yes but next turn when your hit with the heat beat stick again you will hit autoshutdown levels and it's hard to avoid because you'll have shutdown so many heatsniks and you might not able to bring enough on line, and if you weren't at Heat Level 9 but actually higher you're in an even worse postion

It's nice to know that you're so omniscient that you already know what exact mistakes I'll make before I've even thought about them.

...of course, (a) I don't normally play the whole "shutting down heat sinks on purpose" game, (b) if I did, there'd be nothing whatsoever to stop me from turning them back on right in the end phase of the turn I hit 24 in the first place, (c) at those levels I'll probably simply hold my fire for a turn because at +4 to hit I'd likely not connect with anything anyway -- meaning that my heat's going to drop no matter what comes in from outside...

Oh, and I'm not necessarily that firm a believer in the Magic 9 Always, either. If the TSM shuts off for a turn, well, then it shuts off. I can always get my heat back up in the next, and if I overshoot a bit then in and of itself that's not a major issue either. After all, at 10-12 the only penalty I'm looking at in a TSM 'Mech is still that +1 to hit with weapons fire; the myomers handily compensate for the "-2 MP" part and I still have the same enhanced physicals.

[Savage Coyote]

There's very few 'mechs you have to turn off heatsinks for to toy with TSM... most are built so you can manage them with weapons fire.  The 9T Scarabus and Shin's Hatamoto are notable exceptions that come to my mind but... anyway.

[Scrollreader]

And even the Scarabus only needs to kill them for one round to get to 9.  It can maintain with weapons fire.