The
Cave Lion made its debut in MechWarrior: Age of Destruction as the personal ride of Spirit Cat founder and personality cult focal point Galaxy Commander Kev Rosse. At the time players speculated that it was of Nova Cat origin though nothing was ever official stated. The construction stats from a Solaris combatant released later were a bit of a head scratcher as well.
Era Digest: Dark Age would part the veil regarding the machine’s source and the design specs. Though how Rosse got his paws on his
Anima is apparently a mystery for the ages.
With an in universe birthdate sometime in 3122 the
Cave Lion isn’t the last new Nova Cat ‘Mech to be produced – that honor goes to the
Wendigo OmniMech – it is, however, the last to receive its official stats. *Sniff* …. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this …. Sorry …. Please feel free to discuss the merits of XL fusion engines versus armored XXL engines while I compose myself.
Ok, I’m back.
Khan Jacali Nostra had envisioned the new ‘Mech to represent the Clan’s fierce feline nature complete with claws and a penchant for tuna. She also hoped to have it produced completely independently of the Draconis Combine. Once they had the Coordinator’s permission of course. Reality often doesn’t play well with visions though. The Nova Cat’s industrial base was still in sorry shape from the Second Dominion Combine War. Thankfully the Tiburon Khanate of Clan Sea Fox was more than happy to assist once all the standard contractual agreements regarding production runs and “design input” were settled on.
The
Cave Lion is tucked neatly into the very crowded 75 ton weight bracket. Home of the benchmark
Timber Wolf as well as the Cat’s own
Sphinx. Endo steel bones with an XL engine to reach a flanking speed of 86 kph doesn’t go far toward setting the design apart from the crowd. Enter reflective armor. Thanks to the Sea Foxes, the intended ferro-fibrous would be replaced by this less common mode of protection. Fortunately scientist involved had the common sense to replace the proposed, cat-like claws with purely decorative versions. Twelve tons of shiny shielding parsed across the ‘Mech can sound really impressive if framed in terms of just energy weapons. The center torso can take four Clan ER PPC hits without breaching! Woot. The actual numbers aren’t awful, just a bit thin by modern standards. Two Gauss rounds will strip the 29 points clean off the center torso and take a bit of the internal structure with it. The arms and legs have just 75% of the maximum possible coverage with just 18 and 24 points of armor respectively. The side torsos a just a hair better off at 25 points.
So now that those eleven-points-o’-damage-each claws are but a wistful memory for Jacali, what ferocity remains in this cat? Two ER PPCs sitting on either side of the cockpit like lightning spewing boom boxes is a respectable start. Each arm sports a medium pulse laser as does each of the side torsos in a frighteningly nippleular fashion. The final offensive touch is another bit of Sea Fox input, the Khanate wanted to use the
Cave Lion as a showcase for their ATM 3 system. It also happens to be included as a nod to the stats presented on Brick Commander. With only two bins, I would usually opt for one ton each of ER and HE munitions. That crunchy armor coating does make me second guess getting close enough for the HE rounds to have a decent chance of hitting. The write up notes that the second bin exists to give the launcher staying power for extended trips away from base; the implication being that forty flights of the same missile type was intended. That’s … excessive. During my test matches I used extended range missiles with the dual PPCs and standard missiles once the pulse lasers came into the mix with no regrets.
The Nova Cats were at least able to fit one of their Angel ECM suite into the
Cave Lion. While blocking hostile C3 networks is a bit less critical in Late Republic era reducing the efficacy of Streak and Artemis launchers never hurts. Especially when you remember that slightly too thin armor. The final touch are the seventeen double heat sinks. At longer ranges, that’s more than adequate to fire the ER PPCS and the ATM (just ‘cause you can) while staying cool. Once inside twelve hexes, the quartet of pulse lasers can take the place of one of the ER PPC with no heat worries.
A quick note of quirks. Difficult to Maintain really doesn’t come into play outside of campaigns and Distracting’s affects don’t rear their ugly head unless Moral rules are in effect. Battlefist on the other hand are a curious choice. Likely chosen to represent the
Cave Lion’s sculpted claws, the bonus for punches would normally be welcomed. But the reflective armor actively discourages getting into close combat range. So unless you’re in position to sucker punch an opponent, looking for style points, or you never really liked having armor anyway this final quirk may not see much use.
I’m not usually one to mention battle value, but it’s worth noting on the
Cave Lion. 3,044 points. (GAH!) There I said it. For anyone who notes these things, that’s a wee 40 points off a standard
Hellstar. When I was running MegaMek tests for this article I found the
Cave Lion is well suited to take on pricey energy boats like the
Hellstar,
Sphinx, etc. Not exactly a surprise since it’s practically custom built to fight PPC/laser spamming ‘Mechs but it is nice to have the confirmation. Trying to play the
Lion against ‘Mechs with a more rounded armament didn’t necessarily end as well, especially for the equivalent BV.
Fighting with or against a
Cave Lion boils down to playing to the strengths and weaknesses of the reflective armor. You’re more than likely going to be on the winning side of a war of attrition against other energy boats especially once you’re out of reach of ER medium laser spammers. Hanging back at the long range of the ER PPCs bracket leaves low caliber autocannons, Gauss rifles, and LRM/ER ATMs as the primary concerns. Unfortunately there’s not much more to recommend than good use of terrain and piloting to win that battle. Just keep plugging away with the PPCs and wee littl’ plinks from the three ER ATMs until your opponent is ground down enough to go for the kill by adding in the pulse lasers.
Sadly, just knocking the ‘Mech over will go a long way to neutralizing it. Every failed PSR will strip 16 points of armor. And remember that the 20 point damage threshold for the PSR takes into account unmodified damage. Physical attacks are notoriously effective. A kick from a 60 ton ‘Mech will strip the otherwise pristine armor off a leg for example. Of course if you’re a MechWarrior piloting a
Cave Lion and allowed something that large to get close enough to land a kick something has gone horribly wrong. The area affect damage of artillery, both standard and cannon variety, is best avoided as well.
Era Report: Dark Age notes that the
Cave Lion quickly became popular with the Nova Cat touman and it’s not difficult to see why. If you’re a Nova Cat warrior primarily running trials against other Nova Cat warriors piloting various
Sphinxes and
Nova Cat OmniMechs the
Lion is the king of beasts. Against others it can hold its own and it’s at least not a suicide machine on par with the
Hellbringer. On the whole I enjoy the
Cave Lion, but my prejudices against the armor that makes it stand out from the crowd keep me from fully embracing it.
As always, the
MUL is the source for more information including those all-important Alpha Strike stats. Currently there’s no mini available from Iron Wind Metals so I unfortunately can’t post any glorious Camo Specs Online links.
