Pouncer aka Puma on Springs!Thinking that not enough Clan Mech’s could jump (somehow forgetting the Koshi, Dragonfly, Summoner and some variants of other Mechs as well as almost every IIC design) Khan Ulric Kerensky decided he wanted another one.
Turning his eyes to a testbed chassis that had been used purely as a platform for testing weapons and other systems he ordered it be completed as a proper Mech and part of his order was that five jump jets be fitted to it as standard. These are hard wired into the Mech’s chassis and can’t be removed.
The testbed is seemingly a cousin of the Puma that wasn’t quite so light on its feet, at 40 tons the new Mech was heavier than its smaller cousin but looked similar as well as possessing the same speed characteristics as the lighter Mech and the smaller Kit Fox, topping out at 97kph at full speed.
For a Clan Medium this is ‘slow’ but this saved weight and went well with the usual Clan combination of an Endo-Steel skeleton, Ferro-Fibrous armour and an XL engine, all of which saved yet more weight. The hull is wrapped in an adequate 6 tons of Ferro-fibrous plate giving it good protection for a machine its weight and its well laid out too.
9/11/12/11 (7/8/7)
12/12/13/13
Allowing it to take some abuse from hostile forces, but it still relies on its speed and jumping to provide its real protection.
The Scientists also slapped an extra two fixed heatsinks onto the 240 rated XL engine, giving it an improved cooling system compared to its smaller Puma cousin and with 15 tons of pod space to spend on weapons and supporting systems this extra cooling does come in handy.
VariantsPrime – The TLDR is that this is a fat, jumping Puma Prime. Dual ER PPCs and a targeting computer with an ER Small laser for point defence. This will be VERY familiar to anyone who’s driven a Puma before. But unlike its lighter cousin the extra ER PPC isn’t always a purely decorative attachment. The Puma had fierce heat issues relegating the extra ER PPC to a backup weapon if one was disabled or a panic button if you had someone come close that you wanted to un-exist. Sure it was a great gun, but you could only realistically fire one safely without slow cooking your Clan Pilot over the course of a mission (BBQ sauce optional).
With the Pouncer it still overheats but not quite so much and you can pattern fire in it with the ‘ol 2-1-2 pattern without flash boiling your pilot. The ER small’s there more to take up space and if you’re using that, something’s gone horribly wrong. But still this little thing packs a wallop, and is fast enough to run down most IS Mediums it would encounter, and those that out ran it, tended to be outgunned by the Pouncer Prime.
Alfa – Continuing the long range theme the Alfa is a missile boat and it does its job with yeoman efficiency. A pair of LRM-15’s, one in each arm form the main punch and unlike some earlier REVIVAL designs who’s Scientists designers seemed to think that 1 ton of ammo for a launcher was perfectly fine (and gauss rifles and autocannons and…) the Alfa has two tons of ammo per launcher, giving good endurance, for a Clan missile boat. It can outlast the Mad Dog or Timberwolf whilst using its speed to dance around. And if someone does come close its got one hell of a slap. A quartet of, reliable and fearsome ER Medium lasers provide enough incentive to keep most light Mech’s clear and more than a few Medium’s won’t like being tickled by them either. All-in-all the Alfa is boring, but dependable, it’s not flashy or in any way, shape or form quirky but instead its very effective at what it does. Which is kick the other guy in the ribs.
Bravo – The Bravo is the redheaded stepchild of the Prime and Alfa, all be it a rather indecisive one. With an ER large laser and LRM-10 the Bravo can engage at range quite happily, all be it with less of a wallop than either Prime or Alfa. And for in close work it’s got a pair of SRM-4’s each fed by their own ton of ammo for a pleasant amount of battlefield endurance. The Bravo is a Mech that can’t really decide what it’s doing. The SRM’s are nice, but not overwhelming, and its long range firepower is good, but not great. Its big plus is its far more heat efficient than the Alfa or Prime and you can pretty much leave a house brick on the alpha strike button once you get in range and it won’t even think about overheating. But with a Mech that’s this lightly built, that’s probably not a good idea. One thing it would be good at though is hunting down tanks, disabling them with its missiles or swapping out a ton of ammo for inferno’s to cook tanks and infantry alive.
Charlie – The start of a family of three Pouncer variants that change out long range firepower for mid to short range crunch the Charlie features an Ultra AC-10 as its main gun. Fortunately, the gun has two tons of ammo giving it adequate endurance, or great endurance by Clan standards. Supporting the big cannon are a pair of ER Medium lasers and finally a trio of ER Small lasers. What we’ve basically got here is a smaller, faster Enforcer or even an Enforcer III. The Ultra delivers a good solid wallop whilst the ER Mediums can reach out to standard large laser range and make a mess. And whilst its fragile the Charlie hits above its weight. Team one up with an Alfa or Prime for some nasty synergy.
Delta – This design has the look of something that was influenced by Natasha Kerensky who also had a hand in the larger Linebacker’s configs. Built for mid to short range murder the Delta features six ER Mediums, three per arm as its primary wallop. Supporting the lasers is a pair of SSRM-6’s who share a ton of ammo between them, and finally a rear facing (for some reason) ER small. And the spicy tabasco sauce of this one is the targeting computer linking the lasers together, making it accurate and evil. The Delta is brutal but its also got a rather brutal heat curve and a full alpha strike (assuming both streaks hit) will overheat you badly. But anyone on the receiving end will know that they’ve just had someone reach out and touch them from such a salvo. Because the Delta has no ‘true’ long ranged weapons, you’re going to have to get in closer, and this Mech encourages a live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse mind-set that Is just fine in Clan society.
Echo – New toy time and you know what that means. Yep it’s not a H so its ATMs! A pair of ATM-9’s, one in each arm give this Mech its primary punch whilst its supporting weapons are somewhat limited, two ER micro lasers for when you want to cook field rations, and a single ER Medium don’t really do much. But of course you’ve got the flexible missile types for the ATMs right? Shame it can’t fully use them without limiting your ammo load. The Echo carries two tons of ammo per launcher and even if you put a single ton of one type in there, you’re going to go through that rather fast. Ideally you’d probably go for two tons of standard and two tons of HE (or one of HE and one of ER), but the choice is fully up to the pilot. The Echo’s a nice sandblaster and if you can get behind someone and are in range, then HE ammo will ruin anyone’s day, even the biggest of Assault Mechs would feel a cold shiver of dread as the hatches opened on the ATM’s if it was at short range and behind it.
Foxtrot - Oh my god everything is on fire. This thing looks at a Firestarter and goes "WEAK!" in an arrogant and Imperious way. The Foxtrot takes anti-infantry and tank messing up to a new level and it does so through the medium of flamers or heat based weaponry. Two ER Flamers and two heavy flamers as well as a Plasma Cannon provide the main melting ability of this Mech whilst an ER Medium tops out the weapons. Three tons of ammo for the heavy flamers and two tons for the Plasmas provide battlefield endurance and give it enough ammo for most engagements.
To seek out Squishies prior to BBQing them the Foxtrot also has an Active Probe whilst a Remote Sensor Dispenser lets it seed a built up area whilst on patrol making it a formidable threat against tanks and infantry trying to get past. But other than the minimal damage the flamers cause you've only got the ER Medium to do damage. This makes this thing even more specialised than the Firestarter and a Mech that MUST act as part of a Star and support them and get support from them. Against anything other than infantry, and Battle armour its in trouble and because you're a 40 ton Mech you can't really go after a big tank to mess them up with Plasma without care and caution. Its probable that the Foxtrot came into existence because of the Wolves (both flavours) facing the fearsome Tau Zombies of the Word as well as their other equally fanatical troops.
Hotel – You knew this was coming, its time to break out the heavy lasers and start raising the ambient temperature of the air around you until your Starmates can cook eggs, steak or set up a fondue thingy on your Mech. But it’s NOT what you think. The Scientists who designed this didn’t just slap on a pair of Heavy Larges and be done with it, oh no no. Instead they looked at the Delta and went “We want that. But more.”
The Hotel is built for close range knife fights and does so with a quartet of heavy medium lasers and a single heavy small, all pleasingly tied into a targeting computer. And like the Delta they also retained the SSRM-6’s to fill holes made by the short ranged PPC’s lashed to this things arms. Like many Hotel variants, heatsinks were also added with an extra three tons of cooling making this thing rather cool running for a heavy laser boat. You can fire all the medium Heavies and not even overheat when running, and you’ll only start getting heat if you add the Streaks to the mix or add the heavy small to the barrage. Whilst less hard hitting than the Delta the Hotel is a damn sight cheaper in terms of BV cost. So if you’re pushed for points but want a close range killer the Pouncer H won’t do you too wrong.
ThoughtsThe Pouncer is a rather well rounded package. Whilst you can treat it like a fat Puma with springs in its legs, the configs are more varied than different flavours of ‘slap them at long range’ or ‘Hey I’m a bigger Kit Fox!’ that the Puma mostly does. It’s the three close quarter variants that really stick out. Whilst the Charlie and technically the Delta can dance around at mid-range thanks to their weapons ranges, the Hotel runs in, and then screams “I’LL CUT YA!” before head-butting an opposing Mech in the crotch. All three of them punch well above their weight and could probably bring down a heavy Mech providing that Admiral Awesome, Lady Luck and General Kerensky are all smiling down upon you.
Of course that rapidly falls apart if you get hit. These things are, like many 40 ton Mechs, glass cannons. And whilst other Mech’s in the same weight class tend to have speed on their side the Pouncer’s not really THAT fast by comparison. So make judicious use of cover and stamping on the jump jet peddles to keep you alive. If anything this little bruiser suffers from Kit Foxitus. If it didn’t hit so hard, it could be ignored in favour of a bigger Mech, but due to its punch (in pretty much any config except the Bravo) the Pouncer can find itself higher up on the targeting priority list than any of its pilots would really like.
As for the fate of the Pouncer, I don’t really know if it’s in production nowadays. Its factories were all in Clan space and following the
brutal conflict that wracked the Clan Homeworlds ONGOING COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS we don’t know if they are still built there. The Wolf Empire seems to have a distaste for anything designed by Ulrik Kerensky and may only use the Pouncer out of necessity. So who knows if the Pouncer is still being made, or is slowly going extinct. With a lack of any variants following the H, I fear this is more than likely.
As always, thoughts, comments, insults, cheese and even, ham are welcome.
