Rabid Coyote – Trials of Grievance, Trials of Grievance everywhere!BackgroundClan Coyote’s Khans knew that their Clan’s star was fading and had been doing so for a long time, once the great innovators of the Clans, the developers of the OmniMech and many associated systems, they were no longer the power they had been.
To offset this the Coyotes had recently introduced a series of new Assault Mechs that filled out their front-line and second line Clusters, these Mechs, the Canis and Savage Coyote were powerful but also slow, being no faster than an Atlas or Dire Wolf, thus slow for Mechs their size. Whilst powerful anchoring units they could be outflanked by quicker units that could get behind them and cause no end of trouble. The resources consumed by the Canis and Savage Coyote also made them exceptionally expensive to produce and field and their loss in battle could be felt with every destroyed Mech.
Recognising this weakness the Coyote Khans ordered their Scientists to produce a rather controversial unit. In the Clans, there’s MANY ways of getting a Trial of Grievance thrown at you, promptly followed by a fist. One of them is to assign a Warrior to that most hated of roles, of being a support unit, something like artillery for example, where the chance of personal honour is low, as all you’re doing is sitting 20+ KM away, lobbing missiles at targets designated by someone else. Plus, its boring! I doubt the Warriors have things like a Rubix cube or something in their cockpit to keep them occupied whilst doing artillery support roles.
The Rabid Coyote does not fall quite into that role but instead it’s a nearly as despised one, that of being an escort for bigger machines, to ward off those fast flankers or Mech’s that jump out of nowhere, or contribute towards a long-range barrage. In short, it’s expected to act as a point man for something like a Savage Coyote, sitting and plodding along with the assault Mech and protecting it against anything smaller and less deserving of the Savage Coyote’s firepower.
And as you can imagine, Clan Warriors do NOT want to do this, whilst tactically it makes sense, the Clans at times are often not ones for tactics outside of ‘Line up, yell challenge, dakka, ????? Profit!’
And being assigned to a Rabid Coyote was a sure-fire way for a Star Captain to get a Trial of Grievance thrown at him/her by the Warrior assigned to the Mech.
DesignStill despite its intended role being in essence that of a bodyguard, the Coyote’s built a surprisingly good bodyguard, and its certainly no donkey of a design.
To save costs the 55 ton Rabid Coyote is powered by a standard 275 rated engine, this will let it thump along at 86kph which whilst not overly fast, is as fast as the typical Clan heavy Mech line-up and faster than most Inner Sphere Heavies of the time and as fast as any IS Medium that might be a threat (IE another 55 tonner).
The engine is heavy but weight is saved with an endo-steel skeleton and 8.5 tons of ferro-fibrous armour giving the Mech a solid level of protection, enough for it to go and engage its preferred targets, fast flankers and their ilk. And the standard engine makes the Mech irritatingly hard to put down.
The armour gives the Mech the following layout;
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Two extra heatsinks were fitted as standard but no jump jets were mounted, I would guess to stop a bored Warrior from getting ideas in his/her head to go galivanting off to look for trouble instead of waiting for it to come to them.
VariantsRabid Coyote – Unpopular but potent the Rabid Coyote makes a mean bodyguard and general trooper. To deal with any fast Mechs which tend to be hard targets to hit the Rabid Coyote is armed with a quartet of Medium Pulse lasers, two in each arm for the best possible firing arcs. Accurate, powerful and long ranged for a pulse weapon, these can cripple a Light in a few hits or maul a Medium in very quick order as you’re going to be landing most of your shots on target.
The Rabid’s big party trick though is the ATM-12 sitting in the Mech’s left torso. Fed by 4 tons of ammo to take full use of the ATM’s flexibility the ATM-12 can reach out and hit at any ranges and the risk of HE ammo from the big launcher can’t be understated as there’s a potentially hard hit there. Whilst the Rabid Coyote lacks a single knock down punch, it can chip away with its missiles at closing ranges and at mid-range the pulse laser and standard ammo from the ATM will wear down a heavier attacker. A light Mech trying to close is outgunned and whilst the Rabid’s lack of a single big wallop could be a drawback, it can happily rip a light Mech to bits if one’s suicidal enough to try getting into a close-range gunfight with a Rabid Coyote. And as a final marker for its ‘escorting’ role the Rabid Coyote has a ECM suite buried in its canine like head, allowing it to protect its larger charges from hostile C3 and fire control systems.
Rabid Coyote 2 – A complete tonal shift for the Rabid Coyote, and actually a considerable rebuild. The 275-standard engine is replaced with a 275 rated XL engine whilst the ferro-fibrous plate is removed and replaced with 12 tons of standard plate giving it more protection than the original machine and indeed, it carries as much as its skeleton can take, making a well-protected prospect to face.
Less an escort the Rabid 2 is a bit more general purpose but it keeps the general flavour of the standard Rabid Coyote. The weapons are stripped out, in the pulse laser’s place, now there is a quartet of ER Medium lasers, two in each arm. So, you gain considerable range but at the loss of accuracy. The ATM-12 is gone too, and in its place, is a six-pack of ATM-3’s with three in each side torso. This is an odd mix. Whilst there’s six tons of ammo, the launchers will still go through that at a fearsome rate. And like the standard version, it does not deliver a single knock down punch, just lots of sandblasting hits that winnow away a hostile Mech’s armour
Finally an ECM and active probe are added, whilst three extra double heatsinks are also added to give it 15 to control the higher heat of the ER lasers. The Rabid 2 is less an escort and more a general-purpose Medium, it’s a Wolverine, it’s a Phoenix Hawk, that is, a bog standard Medium with a good chunk of firepower behind it. All be it, one that lacks a single knock down punch and instead relies on grinding an opponent down instead.
ThoughtsFluff aside, the Rabid Coyote’s not bad. A quartet of medium pulse lasers is never something to sniff at and the Rabid Coyote’s got the speed it needs to close the range against most Mechs and it can tickle, slap and then punch with the ATM as the range drops. Put a Clan pilot in this (not a PGC level one, perhaps he pissed his commander off or something and then lost the ensuing Trial of Grievance or something) and you’ll be rewarded with a rather mean Mech that hits hard despite its lack of a rock-solid knock down punch.
This trend continues with the Rabid 2, which is a different twist on the same idea, more a cover band’s version or a DJ’s mix of the original rather than anything overwhelmingly new. Sure, the six ATM-3’s can spew out a lot of missiles but you’re going to go through their ammo at a serious rate or knots. Still if you can get to close to mid-range on either design what you’re facing will know about it.
Fighting one depends on what variant, the standard has a normal engine so you need to leg it or crush its torsos, the big ATM ammo bin is a very vulnerable bomb, and this bomb is shared with the 2, which splits its ammo into two 3 ton stacks in each side torso and is more vulnerable due to its XL engine.
Hit It hard and it will go away, but if you’re a few light Mech’s and you’re tasked with taking down a Canis that’s been sniping at you all day and there’s one of these nearby, prepare for some pain.
As always, thoughs and comments are most welcome!
