Vehicle of the Week: Harasser Missile PlatformSome units show up and never seem to wander back off the publishing schedule. There's so many Unseen variants running around they're a book by themselves (literally - the core Reseen got their own TRO and not one but two Record Sheet volumes) and other old units like the
Atlas and
Highlander have been published plenty of times themselves. This article isn't about one of those. Instead, we're looking at a vehicle some of you may not have heard of and Marik light tank formations have been operating (or watching explode and burn merrily, as the case may be) for decades: the Harasser. Introduced when the FWLM went looking for a companion to the Galleons they “inherited” from the SLDF, the Harasser is built by Brooks Incorporated with factories on Suzano, Irian, and Andurien as of the War of 3039. Instead of doing anything conventional, the designers went for something different: a fast-moving, hard-hitting hovercraft that lives up to its name. (It also lives up to the nicknames “skeet”, “deathtrap”, and “Oh god where did the Infernos come from?!”) Originally deployed very widely with planetary militias, the Harasser finally got to work with its intended partner in the Third Succession War. The first tactic, using the Harasser to draw attention and fire while Galleons attempted encirclement, fell by the wayside when someone looked at the casualty totals and realized that maybe the slower, tougher units should play bait while the fast-moving hovercraft should be used as flankers and ambushers, an idea that worked a lot better. Although the basic model is very widespread, in use by just about all the Spheroid factions including mercs, the primary operator has always been House Marik.
At 25 tons, the Harasser is larger than a heavy APC but not by a lot, and has two crew members who are probably recruited by showing them ludicrously good retirement bonuses and getting them to sign on the dotted line before they read the fine print that you have to survive to collect your pension. (Rumors report that Lyran recruiters have borrowed their techniques for staffing Fenrir formations.) While hovercraft need to keep at least 20% of their tonnage for the engines, Brooks' engineers went ahead and paid out another three tons, leaving the Harasser with a 120-rated GM Classic II combustion engine that gives it a 162 kph flank speed. The armament is pretty impressive for a vehicle this size, too. Two SureShot Mk. VI SRM 6s are mounted in the turret, giving you a lot of crit-seeking power for use when the speed gets you into range. Okay, it all sounds good and not terribly suicidal, so why the deathtrap cracks? The catch is that there's only 1.5 tons of armor wrapped around all of this speed and firepower, a measly 24 points arranged 5/5/4/5. I'm reminded of a Ralph Nader book title. Fortunately, because of the small size and low cost, replacing Harasssers doesn't take that much out of the LCCC's budget. One nasty trick you may want to consider is switching a ton of ammunition out for a ton of Infernos to deal with infantry, vehicles, and 'Mechs you think aren't generating enough heat on their own. It leaves you short on standard explosive rounds but, honestly, are you really going to get to fire off 15 rounds of standard SRMs in something this thin-skinned?
Several variations of the Harasser have shown up over the years. The simplest to deal with just replace the weapons. One of them, added to increase the combat endurance of the platform and ostentatiously called the Harasser Laser Platform, swaps the missiles for a pair of medium lasers and the heat sinks to fire them, frequently weapons salvaged from damaged or destroyed Galleons. The fact that you had more ammo than tons of armor to begin with suggests to me that ammo endurance wasn't really the problem but I wasn't asked. The flamer model trades down to SRM 4s for a vehicle flamer and, mercifully, another ton of armor arranged 8/8/8/8. An LRM-armed variant only packs on another half-ton of armor distributed 7/6/7/6, but an LRM 10 with three tons of ammo gives you all sorts of options for annoying someone with alternate munitions. You know the stuff, that Capellan “imported” ammo the Quartermaster doesn't know about.
The last two variants are a little more out there. The “Mini-Peggy” is more normal, opting for a remote sensor dispenser with 30 sensors to spread around, offering you a reconnaissance option that's fast and doesn't have to stick around to get eyes on the target. It also has two SRM 4s, still offering a respectable punch, and the same armor as the flamer variant. The other one takes the prize for the Harasser Most Likely To Go Up In Flames And Take Its Crew With it because it's already done exactly that. Inspired by a run-in with a few Kangas, an enterprising group decided to try making their own by fitting jump jets to create the Leaping Lisa. A reduction to SRM 4s fed by a single ton of ammunition provided the tonnage to fit seven jump jets. The first attempt at using them botched horribly, landing the Lisa on its rear for (in game terms) a critical hit to the ammunition, killing the crew and inspiring the League to ban any more experiments like that. If it had worked, it might have been an interesting unit, with a lot of mobility in terrain you don't normally expect to see hovers, but the automatic mobility hit roll on every landing means any Leaping Lisa would sooner or later immobilize itself.
The name “Harasser” isn't just a catchy marketing moniker, it's a suggestion on how you should use the vehicle. Even for a 25 ton vehicle, Harassers are poorly armored deathtraps under any sort of heavy fire, with IS large lasers easily punching a crew's tickets for a ride on the Good Ship Dead. Despite that, they have plenty of utility and can really ruin someone's day when you use them with the combination of aggression, discretion, and feral cunning that marks successful light lance commanders everywhere. Screen yourself on approach or just keep your distance and keep moving at speeds that make the combination of targeting modifiers unattractive, then suddenly turn and sprint in to pepper someone with fire after your other units (such as the League's plethora of LGR-armed snipers) have managed to wear down the enemy. Or keep them in reserve, encircle an opponent, and make them deal with either letting a lance of Harassers play around in their rear arc or quit handling whatever heavy 'Mech lance is front and center.
The usual round of accurate weapons - pulse lasers, cluster rounds out of LB-Xs, targeting computers, or precision ammo - are all going to do quite well at killing a Harasser. There's simply not that much armor on here, even on the models that are relatively tough. Snubbies, with their terrifyingly expansive short range bracket, are also going to be a special terror for the various short-ranged variants. A large laser of any type can also at least keep them honest. If you can stick to terrain hovers don't like (hilly, forested, etc.), the Harassers will either steer clear or be forced to slow down enough that they're going to be easy to kill. The more important problem isn't bringing the tools in a lot of cases, it's paying enough attention to the battlefield that you don't end up with Harassers swarming you while you're busy with something else, possibly getting behind you. A lot of people latch onto a single target and fixate on it, losing situational awareness. To some degree, focusing on a single target is good for bringing it down, but you still need to be paying attention to what else is going on and moving around.
References: The
Master Unit List should be your first stop, especially now that they also have BattleForce stats on display, but you'll need to look
here for the Harasser Laser Platform.
The BattleTech Wiki has some additional artwork while
CamoSpecs has two miniatures. Oddly, neither one is from the FWLM but they're still worth looking at.
