Firestarter
A futuristic lighter
Hear what Firestarter pilots probably say while fighting here. In the beginning, a creature that would be an ancestor to the Man, discovered fire. And it discovered it liked fire. Fast forward hundreds of thousands of years into future, and the Man came up with the ultimate expression of pyromania: the
Firestarter.
Debuting in 2550, the original Firestarter
FS9-A (Argile?) was manufactured by Argile Technologies of Skye. At 35 tons, the Firestarter is at the heavy end of light 'Mechs, and does not use any advanced technology. Well armored for its size with 6.5 tons of Livingston Ceramics armor plate, about 87% coverage, enabling it to withstand common heavy weapons like PPCs in basically all locations. With the typical mobility for an Inner Sphere light 'Mech, the Firestarter's maximum speed is 96 KPH and has 180 meter jump capacity. While perhaps not quite enough for a scout or a striker (especially later on), it is reasonable for an incendiary specialist. Armament is simple and focused: total of four flamers in center torso (one rear-mounted) and arms, allowing for 360 degrees of roasting, and a couple of medium and small lasers for some anti-armor punch. The original Firestarter can run a bit hot but at time, that wasn't uncommon and in its specialist role this isn't a big issue. The FS9-A was mostly used by the Lyran Commonwealth and Terran Hegemony, later the Star League.
At this time, the sole variant was the
FS9-K, used by Capellans judging by the Master Unit List despite the designation. This one trades a ton of armor and all but the center torso flamers for twin small lasers in the left arm and a large laser in the right arm. Given that this is used by the Capellans and knowing they like fire along with other dirty tricks, i'm mildly surprised at the reduction in flamers, but then again the Capellans have the Firebee for their pyromaniac tendencies. I'm not terribly impressed by this variant, though the large laser offers good punch for a light 'Mech, the loss of armor and poor secondary armament leaves me cold.
For the next 150 years the Firestarter would be unchanged, until the
FS9-H (Hegemony?) debuted in 2703. Still using common technology, the FS9-H trades the small lasers and a ton of armor for twin machine guns with a ton of ammo. I have to ask, why? The original already roasts infantry utterly dead, the machine guns add nothing to this. Sure, they allow avoiding collaterral damage, but if that's a goal, you're not using the Firestarter in the first place! And the loss of armor is especially bitter, with only 74% coverage the limbs are especially weak against common large lasers. Regardless of my feelings on the matter, this would become the standard Firestarter across the Inner Sphere and beyond for the several next centuries.
In 2893, Argile Technologies came up with a scout variant, the
FS9-M, nicknamed
Mirage, presumably to emphasize it wasn't intended to be an incendiary 'Mech. This variant builds upon the FS9-H and trades away all the flamers for maxed out armor, two small lasers, and an additional heat sink. While not the most powerful light 'Mech, it is one of the toughest there is. Losing all the flamers is a bit disappointing since setting fires to cover a retreat is useful for a scout, but this is a minor issue. Definitively an asset to anyone having one. Unfortunately for Argile, this one did get produced only for a short while before their factory got destroyed. Argile opted not to rebuild the factory, leading to Coventry Metal Works picking up the design, though it would be nearly 60 years before they debuted another variant.
After the Succession Wars waned, the Helm Memory Core was found, triggering a technological renaissance, and it became evident the Man hadn't lost appetite for fire. In 3049, Coventry introduced first advanced technology variant of the Firestarter, the
FS9-S. The biggest change from FS9-H is inclusion of endo-steel skeleton. The weight freed allowed addition of a Beagle Active Probe, enhancing the Firestarter as a scout design, and making life even more miserable for hiding infantry. The machine guns were exchanged for an anti-missile system and a small laser. There is a sub-variant,
FS9-S1, that trades the Beagle for a Guardian ECM suite. I have to wonder why not drop the AMS and just have both electronic systems but i suppose advanced electronics were expensive at that time. Though a Lyran product, they evidently sold upgrade kits to everyone in the Inner Sphere and beyond.
In 3075 the FS9-S and FS9-S1 got upgrades, dubbed
FS9-S2 and
FS9-S3, respectively, that upgrade to double heat sinks, ER medium lasers, and light ferro-fibrous armor. These seem to have been initially Lyran exclusives, with limited spread after the Jihad.
Chronologically, the next Firestarter is the OmniMech version,
FS9-O, covered in separate article, to be linked here later on.
In 3064 during the FedCom Civil War, Coventry Metal Works, presumably having moved primarily to the OmniMech version, tried to offer a simple variant of the normal Firestarter to the Periphery though without much success as the Firestarter was quite common in the Periphery already, with initially the Circinus Federation being the only buyer. The
FS9-C (Circinus? Coventry?) uses double heat sinks and ferro-fibrous armor that is almost as good as the very first Firestarter's armor, and drops the torso flamers to add a battery of rocket launcher 10s and 15s. Powerful alpha striker (if only one time), it retains reasonable anti-armor and anti-infantry capabilities, making it quite well rounded design. Useful and flavorful for Periphery forces.
Around the same time, Circinus Federation debuted their own version, the
FS9-P (Periphery), built on endo-steel skeleton and using double heat sinks, and seemingly manufactured in the small realm! I do wonder if the Blakists had a hand in this... The FS9-P retains the traditional arm weaponry but moves torso flamers to side torsos, and each side torso also has a small laser and SRM-2! The SRMs are fed by a ton of ammo in the center torso. Unfortunately, this cost the design half a ton of armor, leaving it with just 5 tons, just under 70% armor coverage, especially weak in the limbs. While interesting variant, with inferno SRMs being a natural fit, i'm not sure this is especially good one, though i suppose against lower tech Periphery enemies (read: single heat sink users), bunch of flamers and infernos is quite effective, and vehicles don't like this either.
Then, the Second Star League got disbanded and the weird second phone company of the Inner Sphere decided they needed to share their love of fire with everyone in the Inner Sphere, and to do that, they conquered Coventry and created their own incendiary monster in 3070. Or, well, a monster in insulting sense. The
FS9-B (Blake?) is weird and inefficient. The Blakists really loved tweaking designs quite a lot, and the FS9-B is no exception. The 'Mech got a new light fusion engine, endo-steel skeleton, 5.5 tons of light ferro-fibrous armor, C3i system, lost its hands, and got its armament reduced. The center flamers are still there, as is the left arm flamer, while the right arm sports a single ER medium laser. Yeah, that's all, and now you will be wondering where did the rest of the mass go. The answer is: 8 improved jump jets. The FS9-B spends nearly a quarter of its mass for impressive if incredibly inefficient jump range. I say inefficient because bumping top speed a bit and using 7 standard jump jets would've left 2.5 tons for additional weapons or armor or whatever. The only "bright spot" here is that the jump jets don't generate much heat since the FS9-B uses single heat sinks.
Few years later, Defiance Industries had obtained few Capellan plasma rifles and decided to try to refit the Firestarter to better fight battle armor that was increasingly proliferating across the Inner Sphere, resulting in
FS9-81X, based on old FS9-H chassis. A good idea to be sure, majority of battle armor weapons are dangerous at short range and the Firestarter can't exactly afford to trade fire with armored infantry. Unfortunately, corporate minds decided a prototype should do more than just use the new weapon and crammed in two medium x-pulse lasers in addition to the plasma rifle. To free weight for this, DI replaced the engine with an XXL model. I don't mind using XXL engines when the result allows for good or interesting results, but this is anything but. Even with double heat sinks, this thing runs really hot if jumping or using more than one or two weapons at once. Expensive engine on a chassis with mediocre armor and mobility for its era is a bad idea, and evidently everyone agreed as the design didn't get a production version in TRO Prototypes. Kinda disappointing though, a plasma rifle armed Firestarter has good potential.
The next variant appears 25 years later, right after the turn of the century, in 3101. Coventry opted to make a cheap, export-oriented Firestarter. For some reason, the designation is
FS9-M2 even though this has no relation to the
Mirage variant, perhaps it stands for "modernized"? Anyway, this is built with endo-steel skeleton, while retaining the standard engine and mobility as its predecessors but has 7 tons armor (nice!), with new looks. Armament is familiar if modified: each arm has a trio of flamers and the head has an ER medium laser. Additional double heat sink is included, allowing for jumping and roasting things or roasting and lazing things without worrying heat build-up. Simple and effective, this design spread across to the Inner Sphere to everywhere.
Few years later, in 3104 the
FS9-M3 appeared. It trades half the flamers and a heat sink for half a ton of armor, an ER small laser, a TAG, and MASC. I'm not sure what to think. A trio of flamers is good enough for incendiary work to be sure, and the TAG is useful, but spending weight on MASC on a jumping design is dubious. It is flexible to be sure and far from the worst variant in BattleTech, better than that Blakist boondoggle to be sure!
Final variant debuts in 3109. The
FS9-M4 "trades the laser and half the flamers of the -M2 for a rotary AC/2 with a ton of ammo" but TRO3145LC glosses over the fact the AC weights a bit more than that. Indeed, this is the first Firestarter variant to use an XL engine. A half ton of armor is also added. Like all -M2-series Firestarters, this one originates from MWDA where this appeared as "Firestarter MOD". Someone at WizKids really loved dakka and i can't say i blame them but the RAC/2 is a bit weird on a Firestarter. The FS9-M4 does pull interesting double duty as an incendiary specialist, anti-infantry and crit-seeker/anti-vehicle 'Mech, and is not out of place in the combined arms battlefields of the Dark Age. Unfortunately the short range of standard flamers and merely average mobility does make responding to different threats difficult. It certainly can be of use depending on unit composition, i kinda like it but ultimately it is just something one has to try and decide for themselves.
I am disappointed there is no ER flamer and/or heavy flamer variants, or even vehicle flamers, ammo based flamers have fun ammo options, inferno fuel for example would be very effective against most battle armor. And style-wise fluid guns would be awesome option as they have even more interesting "ammo" options. Other things that would be nice to see are MMLs for incendiary LRMs and inferno SRMs at once, and heat-dissipating armor, for when you set ablaze everything and need to survive the external heat. Perhaps the next time we get new variants...
So, how does one use the Firestarter? Play its strengths. That does apply, of course, to everything, but is especially true here. In combined arms games, the Firestarter crisps infantry quickly, and otherwise no 'Mech likes getting heated by three to six flamers depending on the variant, but don't bother tasking the Firestarter with killing 'Mechs or anything that isn't really bothered by fire. In introductory level games, additional heat is extremely dangerous, but is far from useless even during the era of double heat sinks. Of course, ideally a game with Firestarters could use fire rules (BattleMech Manual has simplified version) and the Firestarter would be running around setting fires and smoke screens, and flamer optional rules for dealing both damage and heat at once would be useful whether or not fire rules are in play.
Having something to draw most enemies attention helps the Firestarter do what it does best. Otherwise Firestarters need to be careful, with merely typical mobility for their weight class regardless of armor the Firestarters aren't too hard targets, especially once accuracy-enhancing weapons and equipment is around. Ideal unit for dealing with a Firestarter is faster than it and equipped with pulse lasers and/or targeting computer, the Firestarter's armor will quickly crumble under fire or at least it gets driven away momentarily. I also suggest fighting fire with fire, as ironically the Firestarters themselves are quite vulnerable to fire, many having only single heat sinks, and the most common type having even ammo on board.
Not much else to say, except that i reckon the Firestarter pilots' motto is "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".
The Firestarter is featured in TROs 3025, 3039, 3050, and SW, and XTRO Corporations.
The Firestarter at...
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MUL...
CamoSpecs...
Sarna.net
