The 3145 series of Technical Readouts tripled the number of unique heavy battle armor designs produced by the Inner Sphere, not counting the now-extinct Tengu. The Clans only added two new unique suits to their existing four, giving us a total of eight new heavies to play with. Along with new variants of existing designs, 3145 was a great series for heavy battle armor fans. With players being players and BattleTech being BattleTech, it was only inevitable that the question would be asked: which new suit was the best?
Warning: the following post is long. Now you know why I removed even the cutdown version of this from the Taranis article.
Before we delve into that question, first I just want to talk a little about why heavies? Battle armor can be broken down into three categories, irrespective of their origin, mobility, firepower or any other stats. There are suits that can potentially perform Anti-Mech attacks and be Mechanized Battle Armor capable; suits that can only do the latter; and suits that can do neither. Barring quads, that all fall into the last category, the determining factor is weight. Medium and lighter suits can be designed to perform both actions, while heavies can be built to undertake Mechanized Battle Armor operations, and assaults join quads with their inability to do either no matter how they're designed. Obviously, heavier suits can be fitted with more armor and weaponry, so you have to balance which feature you desire most when choosing a weight class. Mediums are without question your go-to class if you want to perform Anti-Mech attacks and aren't concerned by cost, but if you want a battlesuit that emphasizes weaponry and/or armor, you really want to pick either heavies or assaults.
Before the Capellans developed the Magnetic Clamp, battle armor were limited to hitching rides on Omnis or being carried inside APCs like conventional infantry. Even after Clamps were introduced, it took a long time before they spread beyond the Fa Shih. Given that the Clans had a head start on the Omni front, it's perhaps of little surprise that if they were going to field a larger battlesuit incapable of Anti-Mech attacks, then they favored heavies over assaults, reversing the Inner Sphere trend pre-3145. The superior and lighter Clan technology no doubt also had a part to play, as it can sometimes allow Clan suits to achieve similar or superior performance to a heavier Inner Sphere suit. Now that the Inner Sphere Omnis are almost old hat, and perhaps more importantly OmniVehicles are becoming widespread as well, Spheroid militaries perhaps feel less restrained when it comes to deciding between heavy and assault designs.
Out of the 3145 suits, I'm not going to consider the Centaur, as that is an ultra specialist, leaving the Shen Long, Zou, Ogre, Cuchulainn, Marauder, Taranis and Black Wolf to compare among the new suits. I'm also going to focus on the main version when multiple variants exist, although I will briefly reference the alternative versions that already exist for these brand new battlesuits. I appreciate that some might protest my criteria for comparing designs, but obviously there isn't a single one-size fits all method of comparing two units, with not even BV being perfect, so this does represent a personal opinion based upon a gaming experience that may differ from yours.
First, I'm going to consider the simplest yardstick, and one that may have little influence beyond the initial stages of a fight: Mechanized Battle Armor capability. It should go without saying that the quad Shen Long fails completely in this category, forcing it to rely upon its own feet or to be carried inside a regular APC. At the other end of the scale, the Marauder is the sole 3145 heavy being considered that is fitted with Magnetic Clamps, allowing it to be carried externally by non-Omnis. The other five suits are all equally capable of Mechanized Battle Armor operations when working with Omnis. So a clear win for the Marauder, but in a category that is arguably the least significant during actual combat.
Next, there's the inherent mobility of the designs. This has two effects: how quickly a unit can move around the battlefield and whether it's swift enough to dodge any shots. The winner for pure speed is the Shen Long, which is also capable of generating a +1 Target Movement Modifier. The Black Wolf can also generate a +1 modifier due to its token 30m jump capability, which is why I consider it second in this category, even though the Zou and Ogre can potentially cover ground more quickly. There are going to be circumstances, such as inside buildings, where that second Movement Point will be more useful, but outside of those situations the extra hex is just not significant enough in my opinion. The Cuchulainn, Marauder and Taranis are obviously all non-contenders in this category, although the latter doesn't really want to move much anyway, as will be discussed next.
Armor not only consists of raw protection in terms of how many points of damage can be absorbed, but also any special abilities that the armor may possess. The strongest armor is possessed by the Ogre, with the Cuchulainn second, and then the main pack consisting of the Shen Long, Zou and Black Wolf. The worst suit is undoubtedly the Marauder, with just nine points of Standard armor, which means that it's vulnerable to PPCs and doesn't even have any special ability to compensate. With foot infantry speed and relatively weak armor compared to its 3145 peers, the Marauder is already standing out, but for the wrong reasons.
Although the Ogre has the strongest armor, both it and the Marauder use Standard plating, so neither have added extras to keep its operator alive and kicking. Both suits, and most of the other 3145 heavies, also lack the ability to generate a Target Movement Modifier, so the Ogre's fourteen points of armor is no longer looking quite as good. Comparing the other suits is all situational, as they all use armor types that work well in some circumstances and/or against certain foes, but not others.
The Zou's Reflective armor gives it the greatest resistance to energy weapon hits, but has no benefit versus ballistic, missile and area effect attacks, and also lacks the ability to reduce the number of hits by degrading accuracy. Knowing that an enemy is likely to field Zous, it's easy to favor designs with enough non-energy armament to counter them. Similarly, the Black Wolf's Reactive armor works best against missile, mortar and artillery attacks, but again does nothing to reduce the accuracy of incoming fire. Against artillery and some mortar attacks the accuracy issue is somewhat moot, as those attacks target the hex not the battlesuit. That does mean that Reactive armor is the best against the very weapons best tasked to killing battle armor, particularly stealthy battle armor. However, Reactive is no better than Standard armor against ballistic and energy weapons, and it should be noted that the various models of medium lasers in particular are undoubtedly going to be faced on the battlefield.
The various forms of stealthy armor are great at avoiding non-area effect attacks in the first place, which arguably makes them more effective against a greater variety of attacks. A suit with Improved Stealth, for example, doesn't care if it's being shot with a Gauss Rifle, ER PPC or LRM20, they'll all suffer the same accuracy penalty. For most stealthy armor, there is another weakness in addition to area effect weapons, and that's conventional infantry. Only Mimetic armor reduces the accuracy of conventional infantry attacks, and that's a useful advantage as the humble PBI can actually be a brutal battlesuit killer given the plethora of advanced infantry weaponry now available. A final advantage for stealthy armor that's worth mentioning is that it enables hidden battle armor to escape detection by an Active Probe, which can be very useful for sneaky players with a fondness for ambushes.
Comparing the effects of the specialty armor types is going to be the most controversial judgment, as we all have our own preferences and experiences. For a time, in my playing experience, pre-nerf Mine Clearance Missiles were a defacto standard for every force composition, meaning that Reactive would be the ideal choice. Post-nerf, ’Mech Mortars have taken up a lot of the slack and even Artillery Cannon are more common nowadays, but both are still a hefty investment which perhaps limits their popularity compared to MCMs. The two most viable area effect weapons might be relatively uncommon, but if they do exist then their effect can be devastating for battle armor due to their ability to kill squads, not just individual suits. All that said, the huge availability of ballistic and energy weapons does eat into the Reactive advantage, and it also has no effect against Infernos, which still leaves SRM-armed foes with a viable option to counter Reactive armored suits.
Here's where the controversy and arguments will start: I feel that Reflective is the weakest specialty armor used by the 3145 heavy battlesuits. It doesn't effect all direct attacks and is unable to counter area effect attacks, a problem admittedly shared by every armor type apart from Reactive. As noted above, the various forms of stealthy armor effect all types of direct attack, and while Reflective might be able to turn that Clan ER PPC hit into seven damage, it does nothing to the fifteen point Gauss Rifle shot, whereas stealthy armor could potentially turn both into zero damage. Between the Cuchulainn's Improved Stealth, and the Mimetic on the Taranis and Shen Long, I favor the Mimetic, particular on the slow Taranis, where it is always effective, whereas the Shen Long can sometimes move so fast that its Mimetic armor is non functional. While Stealth armor gets less effective as the range closes, Mimetic remains the same from point blank to long range, effecting both PBIs and armored attackers. Unlike Reactive and Reflective, Mimetic and Stealth can also potentially prevent Infernos from hitting, thus negating a very efficient method of killing non-fire resistant battle armor with more than five armor.
I'm going to judge the Taranis, Shen Long and Black Wolf as equally well protected. It's true that the Taranis' armor is the weakest of the trio, but apart from area attacks it never encounters a situation where its Mimetic is non-effective, nor does it miss out on a critical protective threshold. The ability to counter area effect weapons raises the Reactive armor of the Black Wolf enough that it compensates its weaknesses in my opinion. The Cuchulainn is a very close second, followed by the Zou, then Ogre and finally the poor Marauder. As stated above, your mileage may vary.
jymset: Here's where I disagree with sillybrit. As he acknowledges, his armor preference is based upon his gaming experience, which favors reactive over reflective thanks to an abundant use of area effect weapons by his opponents. I feel that in most casual games then clusters of medium lasers (of all types) will be the #1 BA killer. Missiles simply aren't that scary next to laser clusters, and artillery cannon and mech mortars can be few and far between, so I would say in all fairness that he does underrate reflective quite severely. I also know that on the flip-side of the coin, I would rate mimetic lower, but that's based on my experience, which is based in large part on the tired, old 6-pt Purifier that is very good at canceling out its own protection.
sillybrit: As I always do when I discuss the BAotW articles before we publish them, I place a lot of weight on jymset's comments and opinions, even though he's often so self-effacing. As I said above, my judgment is based upon my gaming experience, which obviously can slew the outcome away from others' opinions, so in all honesty I can't change my evaluation, otherwise it'd no longer be completely based upon my experience. That said, I wanted to address jymset's point, so I decided to add a rare counter-commentary. Regarding medium lasers, in a Mech centric scenario they are indeed likely to be common, but for combined arms forces then they'll be less common, even among fusion vehicles. I'm not claiming that they're uncommon, just pointing to situations where there will be fewer than might be expected. While scenarios might tend to be Mech centric, it should always be remembered that within the BattleTech universe, they're a minority compared to vehicles and infantry. Also, to a degree I'm evaluating the use of Reflective on the Zou in particular. Against its energy-armed competitors, they come with other advantages that I feel outweigh what the Zou might gain from its choice of armor.
Other than the aforementioned Magnetic Clamps on the Marauder, none of standard variants of the 3145 heavies come with any fixed special equipment to concern us, so that leaves weaponry as the last category. The Zou's C3 variant is one of the best implementations of Battle Armor C3, although it's a system that I find can be very hit and miss. While shorter ranged and inflicting less damage than the standard version's Medium Laser, it's worth noting that the C3's Medium Recoilless Rifle is a good weapon. The Ogre Interdictor's ECM can equally be useful, and the suit does also get Mimetic, which works well with the speed and armor of the design.
While it's an obvious temptation to just judge designs head-to-head, personally I also like to gauge a suit's effectiveness against armored targets and conventional infantry as well. It's worth emphasizing that when fighting ’Mechs and tanks, it's a given that battle armor will often only be capable of attacking them at relatively close range by ’Mech/tank standards, and even some PBIs can outrange some battlesuits. For units as relatively slow as battle armor, that makes range perhaps even more important than the actual damage inflicted.
Another factor to bear in mind is flexibility. This doesn't just mean modular weapon mounts as some weapons are effectively multi-role, able to engage both armored targets and conventional infantry, or have a heat effect, or some other bonus. Obviously even suits with modular capability can find themselves struggling against certain foes due to a lack of appropriate configurations or simply having the wrong configuration. Only the Shen Long and Black Wolf come with a modular armament, which does give them a potential advantage against their competitors, but I do have concerns about both sets of canon configurations.
The Shen Long suffers from some problem setups in my opinion, as its canon configurations either lack endurance, range and/or damage. There's also the issue that no configuration is multi-role by itself, so you can be in trouble if you bring along the wrong weapons to the fight. Both the MG and Flamer options will savage enemy infantry, but there are many platoon setups that will outrange the Shen Long. Of course, the suit is swift enough to rapidly close the range, but by then catastrophic losses might have been suffered and that movement doesn't synergize well with Mimetic. The ECM on the Flamer configuration can provide extra defense via the Ghost Target mode, as well as the benefit of other modes, but Ghost Targets are no longer as effective as they used to be, and the ECM eats up 25% of the payload.
The Shen Longs' Davids are relatively long ranged by battle armor standards, but inflict little damage, although the four combined do sort of equate to a LB-X, which is pretty sweet. I've never been a fan on MRMs on battle armor, and both missile configurations have limited ammunition. The SRM setup can be brutal against battle armor and infantry if loaded with Infernos, but those can be risky for the shooter too, and there's still the issue of having few shots. MRMs are a poor substitute for both SRMs and LRMs in my opinion, and the Grenade Launcher configuration is effectively a flavor piece, the optional ammunition choices notwithstanding.
To be fair to the Shen Long, there aren't many decent alternatives given the mass and space available, with a Medium Recoilless Rifle forming the bedrock of some decent possibilities. If the Capellans could get hold of Clantech, in particular arming the Shen Long with twin AP Gauss Rifles, I'd have a much better opinion of the suit.
jymset: I won't dignify anyone's suggestion of twin AP Gauss with any quotable reply.
sillybrit: Too late! Quoted! LOL.
The Black Wolf shares the same 400kg payload of the Shen Long, but unlike the Capellan quad it can only mount one weapon or equipment at a time. It does have some nice options courtesy of being Clantech, plus also getting to use the Inner Sphere's Plasma Rifle, which can be an effective anti-battlesuit choice at short-mid ranges. The BA LB-X is also a solid choice, with usable range and wonderful capability against ’Mechs, tanks and even lighter battlesuits. If you're using the optional battle armor critical hit rules from ATOWC, then it's an even more useful weapon against other suits. Still, having to rely upon an optional rule being used isn't ideal and overall I feel the Black Wolf suffers from a relatively poor selection of alternative configurations, in particular lacking a good, long-range multirole weapon. In the right situation it can be powerful, but the questionable reach of all but one configuration makes it easier to find yourself outside that situation. Although an AP Gauss Rifle is Clantech like the rest of the suit, installing one of those would waste half the payload.
Among the fixed weaponry designs, the Cuchulainn is simply superb, suffering only one flaw. Its laser combines range, accuracy, endurance and great damage for a battlesuit. All it lacks is anti-personnel performance, but at least it can snipe at greater range than most conventional infantry. The reach of the ER Medium Pulse Laser makes it more likely that foes will also have to engage at longer range, benefiting the Improved Stealth armor. If the enemy comes closer to reduce the effect of the armor, then they're just increasing the odds of being hit by the laser. With a Point able to inflict 21 damage per salvo, even when reduced to just four suits, that makes the Cuchulainn a fearsome foe for armored targets, capable of inflicting a Piloting check on ’Mechs.
jymset: I'd like to make a point of stating just how good the ERMPL is as a BA weapon. On a Mech, it's arguably the worst Clan medium laser, simply on account of heat (and crit) parameters, but on BA it's probably the best.
The Taranis is both better and worse than the Cuchulainn. Its weaponry can engage all types of foes, albeit at shorter range than the Clan suit, and while the Taranis' armament doesn't get a pulse accuracy bonus, it can inflict more damage if both hit. The use of Mimetic armor synergizes strongly with both the movement and weaponry, forcing foes closer and, for battle armor and infantry, generally into reach of the Taranis' own firepower. The paired weapons potentially allow more critical hit checks than the Cuchulainn and the different types means that the suit has a counter to Reflective.
The Zou is sort of like the Cuchulainn's younger brother when it comes to armament. Its solitary Medium Laser lacks the same reach, punch and accuracy, and is obviously matched by the Taranis' own laser. The Zou's Reflective might appear to offer an advantage when head-to-head at eight to nine hexes when it's just laser vs laser, but, assuming average skills, the Taranis' Mimetic armor actually makes its Medium Laser twice as effective as the Zou's. If the range closes, then the Taranis' Recoilless Rifle only increases its superiority. Sorry, DCMS, but you bet on the wrong horse.
The Ogre has one of the most unusual armament choices ever seen in battle armor. Unfortunately that's not a good thing. It's true that it could be loaded with Infernos, but that brings risks for the Ogre and the salvo size isn't the best. At least it has deep magazines, allowing it to shoot as if it were firing a non-missile weapon, being quite likely to suffer destruction before running out of ammunition. Overall, even though the Ogre can sometimes pull off some surprise wins with just a little luck on the dice rolls, I have to judge it as having the weakest armament due to its limited flexibility. The Ogre Interdictor shares the same armament, albeit with fewer shots, although still a respectable number. The addition of Mimetic and ECM does add flexibility to the design, if not the firepower, making the Interdictor better suited to ambushes and jamming enemy electronics, never mind simply keeping the suit alive for longer so that it has a greater chance of emptying its truncated magazine.
On the face of it, the Marauder is much better armed than the Ogre, but all three main weapons lack range compared to SRMs. With its slow speed, the Marauder is easier to keep at arms length, and its weak armor means it dies quickly, giving it less time to actually use its weaponry. The Light TAG can compensate for this, and arguably gives the Marauder the strongest armament, as a single suit could TAG for multiple Arrow IV batteries, for example. Of course, any suit can act as a spotter for any other type of indirect fire, so that does reduce the TAG's advantage. The Marauder does at least have an anti-infantry weapon than can shoot beyond three hexes, although the damage isn't that great. I feel that the Marauder did just enough to edge out the standard Ogre, but an Interdictor would be another matter. The upgrades made to the Ogre Interdictor at the expense of just some of the overabundant missile magazine greatly improve the variant over the standard model, a point worth making.
