Personally i prefer the -9T. The -9S2 is a nice supporter, but as combat unit during early 3050s i would prefer the -5T all the day over that damn pulse laser -9S. I never understood why this mech was shown with RS 3039. It has all the goodies that were shown later and works even better than the later series.
I expressed the same opinion in the thread about Steiner 'Mechs.
In fact, in early 3050s when everyone was putting some Star League prototypes from the late 28
th Century (such as the
Nightstar,
Dragon Fire or the
Maelstrom) into production, it would had made sense to revive the similar ZEU-5T
Zeus. Well, it didn't happen.
The Zeus -6Y is a lame joke. A 80-ton-mech with 3 weapons and usually less than 20 points of damage. The blazer is even more garbage than the AC 5, and the kept that crap and dropped the additional medium lasers. Sorry, this was a try to bash Steiner once more.
As you may see, both 'Mech can get over PSR threshold. The problem is the huge heat-inefficiency ot the Binary Laser Cannon, with which you pay for the headcapping opportunity:
ZEU-6S
- damage 5+9+8=22 (as average damage of LRM-15 is 9 points)
ZEU-6Y
- damage 5+6+12=23 (as average damage of LRM-10 is 6 points)
But you can still take ZEU-6Y onto the field "just for fun", as it is easy to use even without
StratOps Quirks - even in simple 3025 game, although technically the Blazer is listed as the Experimental Tech. No special or complicated rules are really needed.
If you think it was the attempt to bash House Steiner, what should Marik players say? Their MAD-4X
Marauder is hardly usable without real Advanced Rules and Quirks, and you can forget to take it into simple "Bier and Pretzels" game. So it's virtually incomparable with the ZEU-6Y.
