Isn't the Yellow Jacket, built by the FedSuns company Michaelson Heavy Industries, the only 6/9 VTOL?
so far. When it was rolled out the authors didn't think that was a bad speed, until players started explaining to them what going that slow actually
meant on the tabletop.
The adoption of rotor damage reduction (From Munchtek, er, "Maxtech") came in with Total Warfare and at least made it marginally viable against opponents like solo Urbanmechs in open swampy areas, and stationary, unguarded buildings. (thus, moving it from "extreme Liability" to "still a liability, but not as obviously one") it's still a unit that, to work well, needs a team built around it, and that team built around it will work even
better if you don't bring the Yellowjacket with.
It's just that it'll take a couple more rounds to kill it at long range than before, so it might get to fire as many as three shots with that gauss rifle before it's salvage, where before TW a Yellowjacket would get maybe one shot before something can bring it down. (because the only weapons that couldn't drop it immediately before, were AC/2's, machine guns, small lasers, or single hits from SRM's. Rotor damage reduction meant that anything that could play long range short of an AC/2 would instakill on sixty percent of the hit chart.)
thing is, as I said, it's only marginally better now. The Hawk Moth genuinely benefitted from the adoption of the rotor hits rule, because it has enough movement at cruise to present some difficulty to hit for anything lacking a bonus against jumpers and flying things, and has enough range that unless you're playing on a postage stamp map, it can force a condition where it only has to worry about HAG and artillery shell flak (everything else that can reach, is only gonna do one damage point to the rotor if it hits.)
Note that neither of those, is a scout element, and the Yellowjacket at least, is an example of bad engineering that we kind of need to have, since not all military hardware adopted by any nation is going to be genuinely good or even mildly useful (See: Blackburn Roc, Boulton-Paul Defiance, Cromwell tank...) There have to be actual dogs out there to demonstrate that just because the rules/physics allow you to design something, doesn't mean it's going to be worth anything more than as salvage to feed your recycling industry (or as a demonstration of why some concepts simply don't work in the world of the user, or as cautionary tales about accepting kickbacks from the lowest bidder...)
SCOUT elements should, ideally, be trying to AVOID getting into fights. Their job is to find the enemy so the guys you have that are designed to GET into fights, can win them.
Ferret works,
Mantis works,
Marten works...
There are a few nippy designs from MWDA that work (and a lot of them that don't).
I think the key suggestion is that if you're spending 50% of your mass on a gun, it's not going to be a good scout. 50% of your mass (or more) on an ENGINE might be, but not if you're loading down with massive weapons packs. (though to be fair, the Mantis works as both a scout, and as something to eliminate the other guy's heavily armed gunship. It's hilarious taking down someone's Donar or Yellowjacket with a fifteen ton chopper that carries small lasers...)
movement wise, if you're screening behind terrain (the usual announced "trick" to make a Yellowjacket allegedly work?) you need a high
Cruise speed, because flanking can not only screw up your gunnery, it can make you one with the environment very quickly at nap-of-the-earth (parallel to the trees or hilltops) distances. IOW if you want to canyon-carve with a VTOL, you need a lot of speed, so you can make those direction changes that keep the hillside between you and the other guy's LBX-whatever, HAG, and so on while you're closing on your target.
SLOW VTOLs need to be at ALTITUDE-so they can flank in straight lines to avoid being first on the cluster-with-bonuses buffet.
which in turn makes them not very good for scouting OR much of anything else beyond drawing fire for a turn or two as opposing units get within range and they can't get away.
which goes again; a unit that is built to keep a Yellowjacket or Yasha alive, is generally going to be more effective and useful without said Yellowjacket or Yasha in the first place, in the case of either, that unit will be better off with that spot left open or unfilled, than including either one.
OTOH, if you bother to use scouts for scouting, (say, in double blind play or on a big map)? a Ferret is damned useful, as is a Mantis, or Marten, or anything fast and zippy enough to still be challenging for an average gunner with an LBX firing cluster.
I think my favorite custom from years ago, was a five ton VTOL with a fusion engine so it could carry a TAG for my FWL unit whom were packing semiguided LRMs.
My ideal would be around ten to fifteen tons, very fast, with a narc, or Inarc, TAG, and C3 slave ahead of a unit with compatible hardware-find the enemy, mark 'em, the team delivers the pain, zip away, find more enemy.
the UGLY version would be paired with an Arrow IV Catapult or Urbie (or Chaparral artillery vehicle) for xtra-carnage. This is using "Force Multipliers" instead of trying to brute it out duellist style and the counter is obvious, but how many people really BOTHER with LBX's when they can pack another Clan LPL?
Recent Posts
