Solitaire
Baby Shark WITH FREAKING LASER BEAMS DOO DOO DOO!!
Greetings fellow Mechheads,
Today we are going to have a quick sit down and talk about the Solitaire. When the mech first appeared Inner Sphere observers noted that it was full of new tech and higher end engines, skeleton, and armor composition. While that’s all quite common to many Clan Toumans these traits were considered, at the time, somewhat of an anomaly for Clan Diamond Shark who designed the machine.
The Diamond Sharks are quite commonly referred to as the Merchant Clan due to the fact their merchants are always looking at the bottom line and profit that can be made from their product. Whether that’s weapons of war or that ancient brew that aged well in the store rooms of a Castles Brain that was just won the other day that someone else will buy for substantial mark-up. The design came into being in part because of the social upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of the clan’s defeat at the Battle of Tukayyid.
During Operations Revival and beyond the clan was led by Crusader-bent Khan Ian Hawker. During his tenure he aimed to restructure the Clan more to focus on military conquest with everything else being a by-product (
not very Shark like). The Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars were the top of the Crusader food chain and Hawker wanted the Sharks to be a Clan worthy of the Shark totem's name-sake. While those other Clans were experts at pulling off large victories, Hawker was more of little victories type of guy. Eventually Hawker became so good at victories we don't talk about (
surviving a massacre at Tukayyid, the Great Refusal and subsequent lose of exclusivity to the Hawker bloodname) that he stepped down from the Khanship (
committed suicide). Ian Hawker believed that with the Clan invasion repudiated that an era of peace would be ushered in and he felt he was unable to lead capably through this new period. This allowed for greater sweeping reforms to be undertaken under now Khan Sennent and SaKhan Angus Labov previously Merchant Factor.
Capabilities:
While there were other designs that featured Heavy Lasers that came before its release in 3064, the Solitaire’s is the only designed from the ground up that would get pumped out in modest numbers up until the War of Reaving would bring that to a screeching halt. Mechs are usually going to have the benefit of 2 traits consisting of speed, firepower, or armor. Given the 25 tons of mass doesn’t allow for a filthy amount of armor, speed and the superior damage dealing weapons of the Clans give this mech the ability to wreck other units well above its weight class.
Heavy lasers were largely available to all Clans by 3064, most were deployed to units with OmniMechs and those were only made available to frontline Galaxies or officers in second line Galaxies. The only other design that used Heavy lasers from the ground up was the Hellfire. Even then the Hellfire was more of a factory refit of a Golden Century design that Clan Star Adder had in abundance to test out the weapon. With Heavy lasers having a significantly reduced range the lack of speed the Hellfire possessed would make it nearly impossible to use in offensive action.
The Solitaire’s speed is what makes this design work. Rather than be tied to some sort of static defense or clean up behind the main line force, the Solitaire is meant to use its speed to exploit weaknesses in the enemy line and sew chaos. Topping out at 162kph, the mech was initially posted to Spina Galaxies for trials. Spina Galaxies, while considered second line units, tend to be a bit better equipped and function as a jack of all trades/ready response force. So it was then the Ice Hellions decided to test the Rho Spina and underestimated the abilities of the light mech until a Star of them shredded an elite Trinary.
There are 2 versions of the Solitaire the main weapon of a Large Heavy Laser backed up smaller Heavy Medium and Heavy Small Lasers. The original design carries 2 Heavy Mediums and 1 Heavy Small Laser. The Solitaire 2 developed later on simply drops one of the Heavy Mediums to install a MASC system for burst of speed. 10 Freezers allow the mech to either fire the Large laser or a combination of smaller weapons, however an alpha strike is very likely to induce a shut down of the engine.
The weakness of the mech is it only carries 4.5 tons of armor. That’s really not any different though from any other 25 ton mech. The main critique of the design’s armor placement is the left and right torso does not have sufficient armor on the front to take a Clan Large Laser hit without punching through the armor to the internals. A lucky hit with a Pulse laser could destroy the biggest weapon in one shot. Shifting a point of armor to the front from the back would fix this issue.
Post Jihad there are no further offshoots or unique refits of the design. The Diamond Sharks and Ghost Bears are the only Clans or factions that possess the Solitaire in any large quantity with the gross share of the Bear mechs received as part of their bartered agreements in exchange for territory or other concessions prior to the Wars of Reaving.
The Solitaire was primarily produced at Auxiliary Production Site 4. APS4 is both a production site in the Inner Sphere on Itabaiana and in Clan Space on Strato Domingo. The Solitaire was built at the later and thus the sole line of production, should it still exist, would be in the possession of either Clan Star Adder or Clan Stone Lion. Baring a future renewed Homeworld Clan invasion we are unlikely to see any new mass produced Solitaires with more advanced Improved Lasers or advanced armor that would make the design bigger monster than it already is.
