Alright you screw jobs, this is your last briefing on the Toaster Heads and their Celestial series machines covering the Malak. Corporal, hit the lights and queue the holo. *starts reading from a holo pad* Malak was a male who reigned as Dark Lord of the Sith during the Jedi Civil War. Before becoming a Sith Lord....* What a second, who *%$ with my presentation? Seriously, who the hell, screwed my holo? Was that you Jonesy? Ah hell with it, I'll shoot this one from the hip.
The name Malak is name common to a few tongues and considered another name for an Angel or messenger. Our Toaster worshipers love their naming conventions. For a light and speedy mech the name is apt. It possesses decent speed when compared to its contemporaries such as the Razorback, Anubis, and the Word of Blake’s own Gurkha.
The Malak has 9.5 tons of pod space for weapons and equipment. That is comparable to most of those other designs, but somewhat lacking when compared to the Kell Hound’s Arctic Fox or the Clan’s Kit Fox. Unlike these other designs, the weight savings measures in this mech lead to a very cramped interior arraignment and in some cases some questionable weapon’s placement.
The Clan equivalent would most likely be the Arctic Cheetah. However, the more advanced construction materials of the Clans mean that the in order to achieve a similar allowance for weapons and equipment had to be made up elsewhere. The Malak, like other Celestials, uses a Light engine to achieve the same measure of serviceability as a Clan mech. However the increased bulk of Inner Sphere Endo Steel, less effective Light Ferro armor, and XL gyro substantially offset this benefit. The ability to pod mount jump jets is difficult because of how little pod space is left available in the torso. Despite the lack of space, the Malak manages to make a decent, but not ideal, use of its woefully small space in most cases.
*holo sputters back on*
Ah good, it looks like someone managed to get things working again which is good for all of you. That means you won't be spit shining the barracks for the whole weekend. Let's take a look at the configurations the Blakists came up with for this thing.
Configurations:
Invictus (Prime)- This weapon configuration leaves a bit to be desired. The choice of a Light PPC for long range firepower is sound and a flamer gives the design a solid weapon when conventional infantry will be encountered. The SRM-2 and retractable blade take up close to half of the tonnage when you count in the CASE for protection of the ammo. Alternate munitions improve the value of the SRM launcher however the size of the launcher makes for a large waste of tonnage best use for something else.
Dominus (A)- Featuring 2 Light Machine Gun Arrays, this is a dedicated infantry slayer. The Arrays are backed up by 2 ER Medium Lasers, and 2 Flamers. CASE protects the ammo from the MGs from outright destroying the mech and killing our VDNI equipped toaster worshiper outright from an explosion.
Our first case of obvious ‘space waste’ is evident here. When you have a small cockpit you should utilize that space and fill the critical space up. The only justification for this seems to be to keep one of the ER Mediums in the arm to allow the design to flip into the rear firing arc. Things are probably pretty bad at this point if you have to worry about flipping arms to hit something your rear!
Infernus (B)- The Infernus features a Snub Nose PPC, 2 ER Medium Lasers, and an ECM suite. It checks off pretty much all the high points you would want in a light mech with the exception of jump jets. The Snub is in the head so you are unlikely to be robbed of your most effective weapon by a fluke lucky hit.
Comminus (C)- Sporting TAG for Arrow IV and Semi Guided LRM spotting, this configuration also has an ECM suite, 2 ER medium lasers, and 3 ER small lasers slaved into a targeting computer. An Active Probe and B-pod round out this configuration as a slightly larger version of the Mongoose and hence forth this configuration will be known as the Celestial Mongoose.
The head wastes an additional slot like the
Dominus from earlier. The inclusion of a B-Pod on this design is an extremely questionable use of tonnage and space. Certainly battle armor is more of a concern and more prolific than at any other earlier point in history, but as an offensive or defensive option for a battle mech that should be carrying battle armor itself this comes off as a giant waste. The extra ton would have probably been better spent upgrading one or more of those weapons mentioned earlier to a pulse laser which is lacking from all but one Malak configuration.
Luminos (D)- 2 Light PPCs, 2 ER medium lasers, and 3 ER small lasers make for a balanced light mech capable of fighting at multiple ranges and decent light raider to boot. The extra space from the Small cockpit is again wasted. It isn’t a critical flaw in this configuration, but does highlight the issues with the cramped space present in the left torso of the design. Had the C3i been pod mounted, rather than built in, you could feasibly place it into the head instead.
Eminus (E)- The
Eminus features a Light PPC, 2 ER medium lasers, and a Thunderbolt-5. I suppose there isn’t many ways this variant could go in another direction with a Thunderbolt. If you remove the Thunderbolt in favor of something else there are only a handful of options to go to and other configurations have touched on them already.
Adding another Light PPC instead of the Thunderbolt and you have a
Luminos. Replacing additional weapons to mount a Light AC-5 with a ton of ammo is underwhelming. Adding another Thunderbolt in place of the Light PPC would give it a Hammer like flavor but with very little endurance due to the smaller amount of shots per ton provided when compared to a standard LRM launcher.
Caelestis (S)- taking the Razorback 9T a step further, this variant goes with an ER PPC with a capacitor attached. Secondary weaponry is limited to 3 ER small lasers. The threat of a long range head cap makes this version something that can’t be taken lightly.
Mi- this configuration is the personal ride of Mi Tomitaki of the Opacus Venatori. It features a pair of Medium VSPs, an ER Small Laser, and a supercharger for extra speed. While the range of the VSP is limited, the punch and respect it will command at medium and knife fighting ranges against other light mechs and even light end mediums is impressive. It is a shame this is a one off design rather than a common configuration.
Conclusions:
There are so many things you can say about this design. To be succinct it is a design that is too busy for its own good. First and foremost, this is the Celestial that makes the case for C3i to be pod mounted. And while there is nothing in the rules that state you must have a uniform mounting of jump jets across different torsos, opening up space in the left torso would definitely give more flexibility in designing other configurations. That includes freeing up the arms to include hand actuators for melee. That is probably a personal bias, but punching someone in the cockpit is just as much of a terror tactic as spearing them with a retractable blade.
Like the Grigori I believe it would also benefit from an XL engine, but for an entirely different reason. If you make the move to a pod mounted C3I you can free up space, ditch the XL Gyro, and still pick up a ton in pod space. One additional ton in this case nets you a host of options for most configurations. It gets you to 10 tons and means you can carry a Heavy PPC which the Osiris and Razorback can already do. That one extra ton on most configurations could nab you a PPC capacitor, a Targeting computer, or a larger missile launcher. I consider those benefits worth it in almost every configuration.
My other chief complaint is there is not a large variety in the different configurations from one another. You have configurations that feature different varieties or numbers of PPCs or ER Medium Lasers. You could have a decent light fire support platform by restructuring the
Eminus. The
Caelestis would probably be a better design without the capacitor and/or better secondary weaponry. The capacitor(s) could rightly go on the Luminous instead of some of the existing auxiliary weaponry to allow for alternating augmented damage from the Light PPCs.
The configurations are spot on for the
Infernus,
Luminos, and the
Mi. The other configurations though need improvement to be as good as or better than the non-Omnimechs that the WoB possess. The only real asset that the Malak possesses over a conventional battlemech is the ability to transport battle armor. Even then, a few of these configurations are robbed of their principle weaponry until they drop off their hitch hikers.
Previous articles on the MD and their tech:
Sarna overview of the Manei Domini
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Manei_DominiAdditional information about implants
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=20507.msg1164613#msg1164613The other Celestials:
Deva: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=21376.msg478084#msg478084Archangel: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=18562.0Seraph: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=19192.msg431950#msg431950Grigori: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=57805.0Preta: http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=58509.0*used with respect to original author
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Malak