(Because it's Friday somewhere!)
Come one, come all for what is the first in what I'm sure will be a very, very long running series. I can't say I'll make every week, but I'll damn well try. These articles will be slightly truncated from a normal 'Mech of the week article, on account of I'll only be tackling the Alpha Strike characteristics of a given 'Mech. So, without further ado, let's get on to the main event. This week, we'll be taking a look at the Mackie. I've decided to start with the very first 'Mech ever introduced, and work from there chronologically in the setting. Each 'Mech will bring its full complement of variants with it, so this article should still be pretty hefty! It just won't be a full overview of every weapon and point of armor on every variant or configuration.
Every single one of these unit cards is on the Master Unit List for free, and I'll be linking them just before the respective variants. That may render my analysis slightly redundant, but if you're really thinking that I doubt you'd be reading this article in the first place! Anyway, onward:
We begin our journey in the ancient time of the Terran Hegemony and the very first BattleMech ever conceived or produced. The Mackie MSK-6S trudged into action for the first time on February 5, 2439. It was followed (or developed concurrently) by four additional variants and one unique example. Taking a look at the card shown above, there are a number of things immediately apparent. First, size 4 makes this an Assault 'Mech. That's a good bit of physical attack power, outshining the weapons load at any range. You do have to close to within one inch in order to make a physical attack, however, which brings us to our second observation. This is not a fast 'Mech. Six inches of movement is
sloooooow, barely qualifying for a movement modifier at all and having serious trouble getting anywhere fast. Combat in Alpha Strike is sped up by a factor of three, for all intents and purposes, but the movements remained the same. Slow speed is felt comparatively more here than in regular BattleTech. This also translates into a TMM of 1. It's better than nothing, but that's about all. That said, it's also pretty par for the course for the next 300 years, and then again for another 300 years after that where XL engines bring the movement curve up significantly.
Damage values of 3/3/1 are respectable for all time periods, and pretty damn impressive for the time it was introduced, when compared with some other things contemporary to the -6S. One point of Long range damage may not seem like much, but the ability to respond at maximum range is never to be underestimated, and it means that your waddling terror will never be in a position that it can't respond to something shooting at it that's not artillery or indirect. Lastly, the armor and structure are honestly pretty good. As a 100 ton 'mech with a standard engine, the Mackie comes with eight points of structure. This is a good amount, but in terms of absolute protection armor is worth more than structure, point for point, due to those nasty critical hit checks. Seven points of armor suffers a bit for being primitive, not quite matching the structure in terms of protection. This adds up to a total of 15 points A/S. Combined with a +1 TMM, the Mackie is a sturdy, hard to put down lumbering Juggernaut – which is incidentally the AS role it's been assigned. Juggernauts are essential to forming Assault Lances and Command Lances, which are where you're going to want your Mackies to end up. They'll be able to outmaneuver most fortifications, but that's about it.
There's just one more thing noteworthy about this particular brand of the Mackie. It has exactly zero specials. This is actually pretty unusual. Most things have
something in that box, even if it's just ENE or CASE. The Mackie enjoys no such advantages. What you see is what you get. At 37 points, you get a fair deal for what you pay for. It's durable, it hits hard, it won't be hopelessly outgunned by something that can dictate the range at will, and it's definitely not the most expensive way to accomplish that.
The Mackie -6S was joined concurrently by the -5S. Besides having much better TRO art, the -5S is very, very similar to the -6S. They are effectively identical save for exactly three points of difference. The Short and Long range damage values trade one point each. The -5S's short is reduced to 2, and it's long range damage is increased to 2. Due to the way points are calculated in Alpha Strike for raw damage dealt (short + [2*medium] +long), exactly nothing changes here, either. Same medium range damage, but a much improved long range punch. This is arguably something that the Mackie needed very badly. A point of long range damage is good, but two points means it can effectively engage
and outgun a good deal of its contemporaries in the long range game. Long range “starts” at 18 hexes for all intents and purposes, which means several traditional main guns, such as AC/10s and Large Lasers, don't reach the distance required to do damage that far out. More on how that works exactly later. The third and last change on this variant of the Mackie is the role. With the improved long range damage, the -5S becomes a Sniper. Snipers are useful in Fire Lances and Command Lances – both good places to end up. Mobility is hardly a major requirement for units of those types. Due to the aforementioned damage swap, the PV for this model is also 37 – and you're arguably getting a better deal for what you pay for. Long range damage counts for a lot. Losing the Juggernaut type hurts, though, if you're trying to make an Assault Lance, so this is actually a case of which you want more.
The third variant of Mackie didn't appear for another 31 years. Those 31 years were well spent. The MSK-7A is a head and shoulders improvement in every way over the -6S. The transition from primitive to what we know as standard tech certainly helped. Starting off, the movement stays the same. Six inches, +1 TMM. I mentioned that's pretty standard, and it's going to stay that way. The armor is where we see the first real improvement. The older Mackies featured 7 points of armor and 15 points of total A/S. The -7A ups the ante, and brings three more points of armor – in BT terms that's between 80 and 90 points of additional protection. This brings the armor total to an even 10, and the A/S combined total to 18. At this point the MSK-7A fully matches the AS7-D Atlas for total protection.
The weapons suite is also improved. Compared to the -6S, the -7A gains a point in the medium range damage category, and also gains the first instance of the ability to overheat we've seen. With an OV of 1, the -7A is capable of gaining a point of heat in order to add a point of damage at either short or medium range. That's a pretty powerful ability. In Alpha Strike, distinct from BT, removing a unit from the field is immensely important. Critical hits and lost body parts don't accumulate to nearly the same extent, and lost combat capability racks up slowly. Taking a unit out instead of leaving it with one point left is another turn of shooting you don't have to spend on it, and another turn of shooting it doesn't get back at you. That's a pretty big deal.
Also of note, the -7A gains the first example of a Special so far. With AC1/1/-, this version of the Mackie can choose, instead of firing a normal attack, to use alternate ammunition. That can be important, with Flak and Precision ammo coming at basically no cost to use. Flak ammo is particularly useful against VTOLs, ASFs, and WiGEs, making any attack made against them much easier to hit. Precision ammo also makes shots against faster targets more damaging – a departure from BT, where they influence the to-hit roll. That's true pretty much across the board. Weapons that increase accuracy translate directly to doing more damage in Alpha Strike, but the accuracy remains unchanged. It's an interesting way of handling it, but I think Alpha Strike is stronger for it.
The MSK-7A also returns to the Juggernaut role. At 47 points, it's an expensive taker, but it does the damage to justify the points cost, especially for the era. With the improved armor it's also as sturdy as
anything that came out in the next 600 years. Use it to your heart's content as the anchor of a line that needs to not go anywhere, either from maneuver or from enemy fire, for a good long while.
The MSK-8B is more of the same. More than most other 'Mechs, the Mackie sees nothing but improvement in Alpha Strike as you go down the timeline. The -8B gains single points of damage at short and long range, leaving medium at a healthy four. This accounts for the entire points increase up to 49. The only other notable thing about the -8B that differentiates it from the -7A is the presence of CASE in the specials. This marks the first appearance of that particular special, and raises another interesting idiosyncrasy of the Alpha Strike conversion system. The points cost increase from the -7A is already made up from the damage increases. The armor stays the same, the AC1/1/- stays the same. Movement doesn't change. The only remaining conclusion is that CASE is not valued in the Alpha Strike system
at all. The in-game effect is so insignificant that it's not even a single point. Chalk up another major difference from the base game. The funnier thing is that this bears out in gameplay. Ammunition critical hits happen exactly 1/36 times on a critical hit roll against the internal structure. Against most variants of Mackie, over half the time there will be no check during damage at all, and the other less than half of the time you're looking at a fairly insignificant (but still present) chance to lose the unit to an ammunition explosion. I play a good deal of Alpha Strike with a wide variety of units, and so far through easily a dozen and a half games I've seen an ammo crit come up exactly twice. Both times it was prevented from destroying the 'Mech by CASE, but since there's otherwise very little benefit to it in the scale, when designing a 'Mech yourself for use, CASE can be pretty safely ignored for that little bit of extra equipment you might need.
As a final verdict on the -8B, it's a pretty damn good 'Mech. You get what you pay for, and 4/4/2 with 18 points of A/S is pretty hefty all around. An OV of 1 lets you pump up the damage when you absolutely need it or the 'Mech is going down in a blaze of glory anyway (more on how that works in another article). You're still pretty light on the specials for a 100 tonner, and just as slow as every other Mackie ever made. It's termed a Juggernaut for a reason. Use it like one.
And last but not least on this wild first foray into Alpha Strike units, the Mackie MSK-9H. Here we get our very first taste of something worth serious points that's not immediately evident on the card why. Compared to the -8B, the -9H
looks to be nearly identical in every way – except for one point of short range damage removed. But the points went up! A quick look into the special list tells us exactly why. Next to the AC1/1/- and CASE from the -9B, we also have brand new entries PRB and RCN. These are very valuable specials to anyone who intends to do more than march at the enemy and shoot until one side falls over. PRB represents an active probe
somewhere on the 'Mech, and RCN generally comes with it. Sometimes you can find RCN on a unit without PRB, but they're few and far between. PRB allows you to spot hidden units. Sorta useful, but with the Mackie's slow speed coupled with the relatively short range of the PRB effect (six inches), it's pretty situational. What shines, though, is RCN.
Hold on a second, this will take a good deal of explaining, and delving into some optional rules while we're at it. The centerpiece of why RCN is so good (and so expensive; two points by itself, one point for the PRB that brings it along) is Battlefield Intelligence. This optional set of rules allows opposing units to compete with initiative bonuses representing knowledge of terrain, enemy forces, and also command and control or communications equipment on the field. It is, in the abstract, the ability of a force to respond and react to another force more efficiently than that opposing force can do the same. RCN is a huge part of that. There are exactly three ways to earn initiative bonuses under Battlefield Intelligence. Two of these deal with the MHQ# ability, which we'll eventually get to see mostly with C3, but sometimes with communications equipment. The other way involves RCN pretty directly. Each side gets a Battlefield Intelligence (hereafter referred to as BI) score based on the composition of units in play. MHQ# will
usually make up the lion's share of this score, contributing one point per MHQ point on the field. Aerospace assets, typically with tons upon tons of communications equipment, make up a big portion of the rest (if you use them in your games). RCN contributes two points for each unit that has it, and that adds up quickly.
The group that has the highest BI at the start of the match gets quite a few good bonuses. They begin the game able to deploy hidden units, and can pre-plot artillery strike zones (if you use those in your games). That's pretty significant in and of itself, but RCN can also give you a direct bonus to your initiative roll. If you have one RCN for every four units in your force, your force will get a +1 to each initiative roll (with some exceptions, but I've already made this article long enough).
Now, back to the MSK-9H. It's a Mackie. With RCN. This is the kind of unit you stick in a Command Lance, where its Juggernaut role lets you fill out the lance properly, and also gives you a leg up on the enemy initiative roll. Due to the way mobility stays roughly the same but
maneuverability goes waaaay up in Alpha Strike, initiative is arguably as important, if not moreso than in the classic game. Being able to bring along a massive anvil that also gives your units an initiative bonus is huge, and well worth the three points it costs to bring to the field. Even with RCN and PRB aside, the -9H still operates like a prototypical assault 'Mech. It smashes things and doesn't afraid of anything. It's too slow to be the hammer, but it's a damn fine anvil.
Fighting any one of these variants is a pretty similar experience. They're slow, they're easy to hit, but they can also reach out to long range pretty well and the armor means that anything you have shooting at them
will take fire in return, even if it doesn't connect. Use the fact that they're slow against them, and bring some things with mid-high TMMs that can trade fire at long range and expect to come out on the better side of the deal. A Mackie doesn't get to choose the engagement range ever, so choose it to benefit your unit more than theirs. Concentrating fire is always, always (always [
always]) a good idea. If your group uses forced withdrawal rules, the Mackie quickly runs into the problem most high end assaults have of requiring significantly less firepower to force into withdrawal than it takes to kill them – many light 'Mechs don't have four points of armor and structure between them, but getting down to four points left on a 100 tonner with a standard engine will spook them and get them pulling back. Otherwise, just pour fire into it until it stops pouring fire back.
All of the cards linked in this post can be found on the
Master Unit List. Examples of the miniature can be found on
CamoSpecs.Please, if you liked the format of the article (or didn't), take some time to leave feedback. I adore Alpha Strike, and I want to be able to explore some of the tips and tricks while I go, but I also don't want to flood the page with absolutely inane non-sense. I get the sense that a good portion of this article is required exposition for basic Alpha Strike concepts that are non-obvious (or at least necessary to understand the uses of the 'Mech). I just also want to make sure they're accessible!
