Mech of the Week - Shrike

[Colt Ward]

Luckily, no Jade Falcon players have that problem.

OK, I want to give a few thoughts on the Shrike, but I have a meeting in a few, so I'll have to just put my one main gripe here and come back to the rest later. I love the 1 and 2, but the 3... let's talk problems. The issue is clear- heat. Why would you build a Mech with that much long-range energy power, then not give it the heat sinks to use more than half of it? We know the Clans can do better than that when it comes to long-range energy boat assaults- the Warhawk C dates back to before the invasion, after all, and look at the Hellstar being built right next door! So what's the deal here?

My personal opinion (and that's ALL this is): It's due to an error.

I believe that while the Shrike 3 we have is based on stripping the autocannons from a Shrike 1 and putting on PPCs, the actual intent when Malvina's variant was described in the novels was that it's a Shrike 2 that was the basis- in which case, the lasers in the torso are ER Mediums, NOT ER Large. That drops your heat output- and weight- by an enormous amount, as well as the size of the computer to boot. What to do with that weight depends on your opinion, but even reading Flight of the Falcon I was under the impression that it was a pair of medium lasers as her backup weaponry- so the Shrike 3 was a huge (and unpleasant) surprise.

I'm known to be wrong, of course, but that's been my standpoint since the novel came out at least. As it is, it makes the Shrike 3 a paper tiger- looks scary, but total wimp in the end compared to similar-sized Mechs, including the other two Shrikes. Also, it is absolutely BEGGING to get slapped with plasma weapons.

Yeah, since IIRC Black Rose went through all 3 versions . . . so 1 to 2 . . . 2 to 3 . . I want to say a forum version or five ago we were speculating on the 3 being just that, 2 ERPPCs, 2 ERMLs, TC . . . I would have to re-read to see if she had MASC but I think so for the speed.  ACs and large energy weapons both pull the design down since it increases the weight of the TC (4t on the 3) and the requirement for DHS . . . The problem with our book recalled Black Rose is that it still had that LRM10- those extra tons should be funneled into missile weapons to keep that TC weight down as well as increasing the damage thrown.

But on the basic design . . . its a standard version of a Blood Asp or Executioner, pick your flavor.  With average speed for a Clan design that weight, its only superior when it jumps . . . as long as that wing holds up in combat.

How does it perform against their neighbors?
Lyran- Hauptman, Atlas, Zeus, Thunderhawk, Nightstar, Fafnir, Sunder, Mad Cat Mk II, Warhammer IICs
Warden Wolves-  Dire Wolves, Hellstars, Cygnus, Gargoyle, Warhammer IICs, Viking IIC
Crusader Wolves-  Gargoyle, Night Wolf, Mad Cat Mk IIs, Warhammer IICs, Marauder IICs
Hell's Horses-  Cygnus, Hellstars, Thunder Stallions, Mad Cat Mk IIs, Warhammer IIC, Blood Asp, Turkina, Gargoyle

Honestly, I think it is getting a lot of the complaints the Gargoyle does- it performs like a weight class lighter- and its hard to see it beating something its weight in a neighbor without being piloted by a warrior who is superior to his opponent.

And IMO, it speed is really 'average' for its firepower so it does not even have the Gargoyle excuse.

[JadeHellbringer]

I think of it more along the lines of a nu-tech Executioner. (And in fact, dropping those Ultras for a Gauss like the old Exe makes for some pretty fun times!). You've got the same ground speed, same jumping capabilities that made that Mech so scary (with that little boost from the wing), enough heat issues to make life entertaining without being crippling... you're losing the anti-infantry capabilities (oh noes) and gaining an LRM rack of dubious value instead, you're losing the silly side torso issues... it feels familiar in that regard, one of the reasons I've grown to enjoy the Shrike 1.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Hmm, all you'd really need to to to capture the Gladiator Prime feel is drop the TC in favor of a ridiculous number of heatsinks.

[Weirdo]

Absolutely not! There might be infrared telescopes in the next star system. It would be dishonorable to hide from them!

[mbear]

Absolutely not! There might be infrared telescopes in the next star system. It would be dishonorable to hide from them!

If they have infrared telescopes, they'll have optical telescopes and the laser heatsinks will provide more than enough light to signal them.

Seriously though, I would like to see a version with pulse lasers and talons. I'll have to work on that.

[marauder648]

Absolutely not! There might be infrared telescopes in the next star system. It would be dishonorable to hide from them!

Swine! I snorted tea out of my nose when I read this :D

[grimlock1]

How does it perform against their neighbors?
Lyran- Hauptman, Atlas, Zeus, Thunderhawk, Nightstar, Fafnir, Sunder, Mad Cat Mk II, Warhammer IICs

Fafnir would suffer at long range because of the Heavy Gauss AND would have to reduce their own mobility to avoid PSRs, so they won't do so hot.  The Fafnir -5B would do better.  The lasers would still out range the gauss but they wouldn't loose damage potential like the heavy gauss.

Sunders and Hauptmans don't have much in the way of "long range beatstick" options, and don't have the speed to force a confrontation. 


Nightstar, and Thunderhawk  can throw  enough big hits down range to make a Shrike driver worry.

I almost put my foot in my mouth but double checked.  I could have sworn that most Whammy IICs were moving 5/8. Whammy and the Mad Cat MKII would be close trailers to the Nightstar/Thunder Hawk assessment.

Zeus and Atlas will be nibbled to death.
 

Warden Wolves-  Dire Wolves, Hellstars, Cygnus, Gargoyle, Warhammer IICs, Viking IIC

Dire Wolves have enough big hitting options to just stand and deliver at long range, and they have plenty of armor to tank the return fire.

The Cygnus could be in trouble because it gives up a fair bit of range.  Not enough to give the Shrike a range band advantage, but that bird still has 3-4 hexes of reach the Cygnus doesn't

Gargoyle A, D, or Conal should make a Shrike pilot unhappy to say the least.  5/8 means it haul ass, at least by assault standards, and those big hole punchers have plenty of reach.

Hellstar is just a nasty bit of business for anything.

Not loving the Viking IIC's odds. You will just have to try nibbling the Shrike to death.

Crusader Wolves-  Gargoyle, Night Wolf, Mad Cat Mk IIs, Warhammer IICs, Marauder IICs

Don't know much about the Night Wolf

Marauders are a mixed bag.  Some have plenty of long range smack, other's less so.

Hell's Horses-  Cygnus, Hellstars, Thunder Stallions, Mad Cat Mk IIs, Warhammer IIC, Blood Asp, Turkina, Gargoyle

Blood Asp and Turkina look like they are in good shape.  Plenty of long range hate and discontent.

Thunder Stallion is in for a bad day.  It has plenty of long range fire in most versions but it's mostly 5 point clusters.  That doesn't fill me with confidence.

[Scotty]

Anything 3/5 with Gauss as a primary armament is going to get wrecked by a Shrike unless you're playing on 1-4 mapsheets.  Any kind of big arena/rolling maps situation the Shrike just stays at 23+ hexes.

On a small map it'd be a race to see if the gauss can force enough hits through at long range before the ammo runs out against a high TMM opponent.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Sure, that works if you're playing o a salt pan.  Trying to exploit the difference in range between a Clan ER Large Laser and a Gauss Rifle is decidedly harder if there's any amount of terrain that can block LOS.  It's also something that's a lot easier to do with a 1v1 fight, but using huge maps for those is rarer.

[Colt Ward]

Love how most folks who shrug off the 3 hex range difference between cERLL and Gauss Rifles suddenly notice it.

Sunders have the same speed as the Shrike, and with it & the Hauptman being Omnis they are not bound by the canon configs but I will grant they will have a easier time against the 2 can the 1 or the 3 but that holds true across the board for the IS.  The Warhammer IIC 8, a Fox creation, does hit 5/8 but its the 4 that seemed to spread the most so comparable speeds and ATMs let it pepper away.  Atlas & definitely Zeus will struggle depending on model- 9S2 will do better than others IMO, just like Atlas with 2 ERLL, LRM20 and Gauss Rifle is going to be better than the regular 7-D.

Plus against the IS, its not going to fight in a vacuum.

I just do not think its as good at facing its neighbors peers as other Falcon assaults like the Jupiter, Turkina and a few others.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Love how most folks who shrug off the 3 hex range difference between cERLL and Gauss Rifles suddenly notice it.

I'm not shrugging it off, I'm just saying that in practice it's often a lot harder to exploit than people tend to assume.

As for the difference between it and most Lyran assault mechs, well, it also beats most of them on BV by at least 1000 points, so I'd certainly hope that it could outperform one.

[Kidd]

Jupiter, Wham IIC et al are 3/5 movers. The Shriek will usually always compare negatively against those.

I think the one to beat would be the Mad Cat Mk II, similar movement profile, available to both IS and Clan opponents; very good damage potential. In particular, the Mad Cat Mk II 4 is an era contemporary also armed with ERLLs.

If there are any still around, there's the spectacular Nova Cat A...

[Colt Ward]

I'm not shrugging it off, I'm just saying that in practice it's often a lot harder to exploit than people tend to assume.

As for the difference between it and most Lyran assault mechs, well, it also beats most of them on BV by at least 1000 points, so I'd certainly hope that it could outperform one.

No, we are coming at it from the same side . . . whenever I talk about how a 5/8 Clan design with ERLLs can play games against 4/6 IS heavies with Gauss Rifles and ERPPCs- or even LRMs- I get told the difference does not matter.  Suddenly lots of comments about how a 4/6 with ERLL can dictate to 3/5s is a significant difference.

Kidd-  Most Warhammer IICs, and the Foxes are selling 4s onwards, are 4/6 . . . with at least one 5/8.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Ah, gotcha.

[Scotty]

It's less "3/5 vs 4/6" and more "3/5 vs X/Y/5".  The jump movement means perfect efficiency in determining range that a regular 4/6 just doesn't get.

[Kidd]

Kidd-  Most Warhammer IICs, and the Foxes are selling 4s onwards, are 4/6 . . . with at least one 5/8.

d'oh!

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The Warhammer IIC 8, 9, and 12 variants are all 5/8.  Of those three, the 8 has two Plasma Cannons but only two tons of ammo for for them, so it had better hope it can cause enough heat problems to deal with the Shrike before it runs out.  The 9 has a pair of CRAC 5s, but is also limited on ammo (4 tons for two guns).  The 12 has ERPPCs and is therefore the best suited to trading shots at long range.  The 9 and 12 also both use XXL engines so they're less durable than most Clan assault mechs.

[grimlock1]

The Warhammer IIC 8, 9, and 12 variants are all 5/8.  Of those three, the 8 has two Plasma Cannons but only two tons of ammo for for them, so it had better hope it can cause enough heat problems to deal with the Shrike before it runs out.  The 9 has a pair of CRAC 5s, but is also limited on ammo (4 tons for two guns).  The 12 has ERPPCs and is therefore the best suited to trading shots at long range.  The 9 and 12 also both use XXL engines so they're less durable than most Clan assault mechs.

 If you can land enough hits with the plasma to suppress the Shrike's return fire, the 8 could try to charge into heavy laser territory.  You would probably have to get inside 10 hexes to account for the Shrike's jumpiness and the heavy laser's built in +1.   

I'm not a fan of the RAC's for the same reason I don't love missiles or HAGs as the primary weapon for brawlers and troopers. You rolled 12 To Hit,  :thumbsup:!  Then you roll snake eyes on the cluster table. That might MRM-40 salvo is the equivalent of 2 medium lasers and a small. :-(   Good for crit seeking, unless you are doing LB-X spam or flat out Macross Missile Massacre, you need to make a soft spot in the target first.

The 12 looks like a dangerous, albiet potentially squishy customer...

[Scotty]

Maximum external heat generated makes the Shrike drop one ER Large, that's it.  It can handle heat penalties very well thanks to the long jump range and TC.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

And the Warhammer doesn't have the heat dissipation to keep pushing out shots with the plasma cannons and heavy lasers at the same time.

[misterpants]

With several mentions of assigning a veteran or bettee pilot to get the most out of a Shrike, I can't help but wonder if there should be an Apollo's law correlary but for pilots.

[Scotty]

Nah.  There are some machines that are inherently improved by becoming more accurate, and there are some machines that the particular accuracy just doesn't matter one iota.  'Mechs designed to jump frequently are far more likely to be of the former than the latter category (unless they're jam-packed full of pulse lasers).

[Orin J.]

Not really a clantech user, but I like the Shrike in concept. a skirmisher with just enough firepower you can't afford to ignore it, but enough speed and armor that you're probably going to have to overcommit to kill or drive it off. it's something only clantech can really pull off, and i think most of the loadouts pull it off pretty well. nothing that big has any business moving around like that, anyways.

visually, i can imagine it has a lot of detractors. i agree with them sort of, but i can at least articulate why. the Shrike's design is filled with sweeping, aggressive lines that call a predatory bird to mind- except the torso, which is weirdly flat. the torso ends up disrupting the lines of the rest of the 'mech and leaving it looking awkward- a flaw made much worse by the chest panels seemingly partially blocking the head and laser barrels.

it looks a bit like Kilroy peeking over the huge armor plate on the chest, but it's so disruptive to the overall lines of the 'mech it's kinda hard to like. the autocannon assembly in the left arm being weirdly slim doesn't help it either. overall, it's not really enough to hold against a good 'mech, but a 95-ton harassment specialist is already a bit of a hard sell to people most of the time.

With several mentions of assigning a veteran or bettee pilot to get the most out of a Shrike, I can't help but wonder if there should be an Apollo's law correlary but for pilots.

in this case it's an assault-weight clan 'mech, there's pretty safe odds they'll put a good pilot in there regardless. it's just in this case it's not overkill so much as smart use of resources.

[wantec]

With several mentions of assigning a veteran or bettee pilot to get the most out of a Shrike, I can't help but wonder if there should be an Apollo's law correlary but for pilots.

Like others mentioned there is a difference. With a 2d6 roll to determine success where that increase in to-hit comes can make a big difference or a small one. Like going from a 9 to an 8 is a bigger change in the likelihood of success than a 6 to a 5.

It's a difference that allows a better pilot to take those long range jumping shots with a decent chance for success.

[grimlock1]

Blood Asp and Turkina look like they are in good shape.  Plenty of long range hate and discontent.

A caveat to the Turkina, is the Z, if it ever makes its way to the IS.  Load up on ER iATMs, and 2 or 3 bins of HE to keep the other birdy honest, put a rubber band on the triggers, and just keep the crosshairs pointed down range. Heck, maybe even push in to 16-18 hexes.  iATM ER will have +2 range mod, but the Shrike will have +4's. Or try to keep it at 26-27 hexes where you are just on the edge for ER iATMs but out of range for everything on the Shrike. 

The trouble comes from the missmatch of 3/5/3 versus 4/6/5.

[Scotty]

The Turkina Z has a BV almost a thousand points higher than the Shrike (Standard).  I would say that all other things equal it should win that fight in uncontroversial fashion.