Battle Armor of the Week - Clan Edition - Elemental Battle Armor

[LastChanceCav]

In contrast, it's an almost trivial task to improve upon the IS Standard, what can be viewed as the counterpart to the Elemental in the Inner Sphere's ranks, and without breaking its simplicity of design. A simple switch to Advanced composites, up the armor to maximum and you're done, with the added benefit that the MRR can now be your main weapon.

Like this? O0

Cheers,
LCC

[Dragon Cat]

Agreed, and I strongly suspect that we'll never see a canon suit that is clearly superior to the Elemental in every way. As I noted in the article, every attempt so far has been in one way or another a compromise, boosting one feature at the expense of something else, so that the Elemental can never truly be said to be obsolete.

One of the reasons I can't fathom why any of the Clans (Nova Cats I'm looking at you) would allow themselves to lose the capabilities to produce it.  I would move heaven and earth to maintain the ability to manufacture it or to trade for the capabilities.

It's not as though their replacements use much different, both use Clan built armour, HarJel, weapons.  Instead of spending so much on the Clan Standard and Thunderbird I'd have traded with either the sharks or the Exiles for a mobile factory or resources to help build one.

[Istal_Devalis]

I think 'allow' is the key word here. If we could keep producing it or get a steady import in enough numbers we wouldn't have developed our own replacements.

[thefiddler]

What I don't understand is why anyone (in universe or out) would take something as beautiful as an Elemental and turn it into something as fat-samurai-hideous as Clan Medium Battle Armor...

[Jaim Magnus]

What I don't understand is why anyone (in universe or out) would take something as beautiful as an Elemental and turn it into something as fat-samurai-hideous as Clan Medium Battle Armor...

Lack of options.

[jklantern]

Can the Ravens still produce Elementals or do we not have that info yet?

[Jaim Magnus]

I haven't seen that info yet... the Ravens are definitely making the "Enhanced" Sylph... which lost most of the capabilities of the original.

[jklantern]

I haven't seen that info yet... the Ravens are definitely making the "Enhanced" Sylph... which lost most of the capabilities of the original.

I just looked it up.  It is definitely a thing.  But that's a discussion for another article.

[thefiddler]

Lack of options.

I understand fielding and producing them, just not the aesthetic design. They look terrible to me like a lot of MWDA stuff, though some Dark Age designs look pretty awesome.

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Ahh... the Elemental. The classic BA, nothing more to be said.

For me, the APGR is a winner of sorts; there's no reason not to take it over any of the other weapons, save for era availibility. The only possible exception would be the Flamer, and only if you think that setting things on fire is going to help. (Ironically, of the orignal MG/Small Laser/Flamer options, the SL has gone form best to worst with rules changes over time). Its range beats them all, and it's peansant-potting damage is a bonus.

For my money, the loss of the reload and the AP mount is worth it on the Fire version, especially if you take an APGR as the arm gun (Notice a pattern forming here?). As pay-of for what it gains, it works.

Actually there is a very good reason to keep the Small (Support) Laser is service.  Logistics.  On a long ranging Nova a Laser's powerpack can charge back up with just plugging into a mech, APGRs require extra supply drops.  Remember the lessons of Tukayyid.

[Nebfer]

Actually there is a very good reason to keep the Small (Support) Laser is service.  Logistics.  On a long ranging Nova a Laser's powerpack can charge back up with just plugging into a mech, APGRs require extra supply drops.  Remember the lessons of Tukayyid.

This is true though you could replace them with micro pulse or ER micros.

[sillybrit]

Agreed. As the article notes, the mPL makes the SL, MG and HMG obsolete (barring weight issues for non-Elemental designs, of course) and for me makes the optimum weapon for circumstances where resupply might be in question. The ERmL is slightly longer ranged, but not enough for me to be comfortable exchanging that for the loss in damage, accuracy and anti-infantry capability. Although it is overshadowed by the APGR, the mPL is without a doubt one of the outstanding Battle Armor weapons.

[Jellico]

RPG ranges?

[Martius]

The µ Pulse Lasers are great. The APG and Flamer are the only weapons that can compete IMHO, someting the JFs got right on their Elemental(Flamer).

[sillybrit]

RPG ranges?

That's one area where I've only dabbled with the current rules, but my understanding is that Battle Armor weapons simply multiply their TW range bands by 30 to get the appropriate AToW range in meters, with Extreme range being double that of Medium. That does make Battle Armor weapons rather short ranged compared to infantry weapons, but the same is also true for vehicular and 'Mech weapons.

The HMG can cover more hexes per burst than the mPL under the RPG rules, which does give it a similar anti-infantry advantage to the one it possesses under TW (3d6 vs infantry as opposed to 2d6), but given the accuracy and range advantage of the mPL, plus the likelyhood that a Point armed with mPLs will still kill an entire unarmored platoon on average, I still don't rate the HMG that highly.