How to build a terror weapon in five easy steps
©Aldis Industries 2803
- Get a really big wok.
- Put a double-barreled shotgun in the wok.
- Put the wok on tracks.
- FRONT TOWARD ENEMY
- Make it bigger
Frankly, it's a recipe so easy even Quikscell couldn't screw it up. (Being proven wrong in 5...4...3...*) The Demolisher series is one of those simple, brutally effective concepts like the Awesome or the Hunchback. Built around the simple concept of strutting onto the field with the biggest, baddest gun in the game, the Demolisher then put on a velvet pimp-hat and brought the gun's twin sister along with it. This review is going to cover both the Demolisher and the Demolisher's follow-on fat nephew, arranged as you get them by timeframe. It makes an interesting look at how technology progresses and what was likely to face each other in the brutal, smoke-choked, blood-soaked killing grounds of 3rd Street and Cameron Ave.
The stats on the basic model are simple. Eighty tons places it into the assault class, and a dirt-cheap ICE engine trundles you along at a whopping 54km/h. It's nothing special in the maneuver department, but it's good enough to tool around cities at a 4/6 (remember your road bonus!) movement rate - plenty to skitter between alleys and parking garages and pop in and out of firing positions. Expect little, use it all anyway - a +1 TMM is still a +1 TMM and all your weapons are in the turret. Armoring a Demolisher is simple - enough protection to take a full volley from its own guns on the front and the turret, with three-fourths that protection on the sides and half on the rear. That leads us to the weapons - the twin AC/20s, with ten rounds each per gun. Turret mounted, your firepower can point in any direction - but it's limited in that it can only point in one direction at a time. It's also painfully short-ranged, though in 3025 so are half the other weapons on the list. Using it is simple, though best requires hidden unit rules. Get in range, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, double-tap, Winchester. Maneuver as-needed to keep up the process. You're vulnerable to movement crits since you only have three MP, but most situations shouldn't see you using more than one to pop out of an alley or pop back in. It's an eighty ton jack in the box, not a main battle tank.
The first real variation (not counting the track count change which has no effect on game play) is the fusion-powered Devastator. The big change is the engine, though the mobility remains the same. A minor reduction in armor brings you down to nine tons, though protection is still pretty solid. The tonnage saved is invested with mixed gains - three Small Lasers are a little bit pointless even in a city; a max range of three puts you at infantry pea-shooter range and you're not doing much with them. A flamer keeps you at pea-shooter range, however it's going to do a hell (badump tish) of a lot more, giving the renown city-fighter an offensive punch against its biggest in-city danger. The very good side of the addition is an SRM-6 pack. You don't get a lot of options with only one ton of ammo, but it can do everything from follow-up critseeking to infernos and other specialty rounds. Definitely the superior ride, though coming in at a 192% markup.
There's mention of a "Defensive" variant in the MUL, but the record sheet for it doesn't exist yet that I'm aware of. Other variants don't show up for a while, but when they do they're a doozy. 3053 sees a painfully obvious Gauss-equipped version appear, 3058 gives a Clan response with the tank, the hundred-ton Demolisher II makes its appearance a year later while an MRM variant shows up in 3060. 3062 sees the appearance of the Arrow-IV equipped version, which is the biggest headslapper of them all - Arrow had returned in 3044; what took so long?! The Jihad saw three more variants, the Thunderbolt Missile-equipped Demolisher II version appearing in 3074. 3076 saw the instant obsolescence of older missile carriers with the MML variant, and by 3077 the hundred-ton version got its super-exotic variant by (guess who) the L?AF.
The first on the list is the Gauss variant. Another straight fusion engine swap adds spare tonnage, a little of which goes to gun-power. Twin Gauss Rifles, with 32 rounds each, adds a hell of a lot of range and endurance while still being a beast in firepower. Backing them up is a pair of medium lasers; I would have preferred an SPL perhaps or a flamer but noone ever asks me when it comes to atrocity potential. The big benefit goes into Ferro Fibrous armor - ten more points on the nose and rear, six on each side, and five on the turret than the original Demolisher make it a near-bunker. This one is a much more open-field machine, though it's still painfully slow and best used as the core of an assault force. Don't stop, ♪ just keep tanking ♪ just keep tanking ♪ and using those Gauss Rifles to their fullest extent - as well as all that armor. Don't expect to make it, either; you're still stuck with the base 3 MP cruising.
And now straight from the set of Springtime for Kerensky comes what is in my personal opinion the nastiest one - the Clan technology variant. Hello fusion, hello armor. Decent bump, though the turret lacks the protection I'd have expected - that went to the sides, which I guess works in the idea of trying to keep the tracks alive. Not that it helps as far as the game goes, but I digress. The primary role is right back into the Demolisher's home field; two short range prescription-strength beatsticks made of LB 20-Xs are your core firepower. The 33% range bump over standard AC20s is pretty sweet, as is the slug/shot combo; you don't need alternate weapons to critseek anymore and if you do pop both cluster rounds, well...get the Box O Doom. What really makes this version beautiful is that eight-ton ammo bin - that's more than enough to have plenty of shells on tap for anything you've got going. Hell, that's more shotgun ammo than
I have; I'll need to go order some more when I'm finished writing. A pair of medium pulse lasers make the perfect backup; they get the -2 THM which make them perfect against fast targets and match your range bands perfectly. On the topic of city fighting, the Clan Demolisher fights cities very well; six machine guns spread around the front and sides should do more than enough against unarmed mobs at the amusement park. In a strange consideration to the crews, CASE is provided - doubly weird as it's a Succession Wars design, not one that the Clans took with them. But hey, if I'm in it, I'm not complaining!
Following this up was the Lyran variant, which was created by adding lots of...steroids, yeah, steroids that's it. The weight was upped to one hundred tons so that it could at least keep pace with the belly-flop contests against Kuritan Behemoth tanks; a fusion engine at the same speed means the Driver's Ed class is the same (just with higher parking fees). What it does with the tonnage isn't all that much in the end, in my opinion. Okay, there's the screaming truckload of armor coming down the pike, 259 points spread where the weakest armor is the 40 points on the REAR while the nose covers 60 points and the sides 50. This thing did a fine job of setting the bar for tracked bunkers, though it'd get blown out by its own follow-on soon enough. Gunwise, honestly...nothing to really shake a stick at, in the end. There's the IS tech LB-20, which has the same range bump and utility as its Clan counter part, but the alternative gun is the Ultra-20. It's brutal of course, although it just seems something lacking - all that tonnage, and it's just a gun swap and armor. How Lyran. Anyway, getting back on track, the ammo supply is okay - twenty rounds for each, so you get enough to use the LB 20 properly and enough to spray-and-pray with the Ultra. Other than that, a pair of front mounted MGs give you protection from meatsacks, while CASE gives you protection from anything that somehow gets through all that freaking armor.
Now we start getting to the more interesting variants, namely the MRM equipped version. We are a 3/5 fusion engine, please move along. Armor got bumped pretty nicely, 40 points across the turret and sides with 48 points on the nose, and only 20 on the rear. Definitely something that can fight a bit more in the middle of things, though you're still stuck with the movement crits. Weaponwise is where it gets interesting, as you have three MRM launchers giving you 90 missiles ready to fly. That's a tremendous amount of throw weight for anything, and even with the inherent inaccuracy of MRMs it's still a brutal blow. What makes it truly nasty is the 48 full reloads, giving you 16 turns of fire, combined with a C3 slave in the body - this defeats the rather unpleasant range bands of the MRM, and lets you sit back as far as 450 meters from a target and lob Four Score And Seven Missiles And Then Three More all day. Between the armor and the C3, it's got some potential even if the MRMs have that +1 modifier...
And now we come to the darling daughter of the CCAF artillery corps and not-so-secret mistress of MadCapellan, the Demolisher (Arrow). Armor is almost exactly the same as the Devastator version, though it's nowhere near as necessary under proper circumstances. Whoever's making 240-series fusion engines in the 3050s and 3060s is making a freaking mint by this point, by the way. The fusion engine also matches the Devastator family, while the trio of small lasers and other secondary weapons were replaced with a pair of medium lasers as backup flyswatters. Where this version shines is its twin (yup!) Arrow IV launchers combined with a massive seven-ton ammo bay. Plenty of room for homing and standard rounds, or antiair rounds, or smoke rounds, or Inferno-IV for all you Aligheri fans, or or or...Tac Ops really gives the big ammo bins something to do and two launchers lets you do LOTS of it. It should be noted here that among the CCAF, Augmented Lances of two tanks and four 'Mechs are rapidly becoming the norm, which means a pair of these hooked up with a cavalry or assault lance packing TAG is going to add four Arrow IV missiles each turn, for a lot of turns. And since it's artillery, you can just put these in your lance, put four units on the field, and call it offboard - yeah, good luck. Not much to do against it; I'd add Aerospace Fighters and pray he's not carrying AAArrow or else Long Tom counterbattery fire. I hear white flags are popular choices to deal with lances with these as well...
Now we return once more to the Demolisher II, and some experimental tech - Thunderbolt missiles. Discussion of those belongs elsewhere, however the Demolisher II certainly gets a lot of use out of them. Two class-20 launchers, each with the firepower of the original AC20 and twice the range, fill most of the turret with 30 missiles kept onboard. Backing it up is a Devastator-flavored laser battery and SRM6, however in this case it's a pair of ER Mediums and a Streak. Indirect fire is a plus with this one, since your missiles are hitting in single locations; I might almost be tempted to use this as a short-ranged artillery variant if it weren't for what it has oh-dear-god levels of. The armor on this variant is insane; an extra-light engine gives it tonnage enough for 367 points. This slathers the thing in levels the likes of which would not be seen again until the legendary Gurteltier. One of these tanks has more armor than a typical Clan vehicle star, and uses it well - it'll die to crits long before it dies to penetration, and CASE means one of those crit types isn't all that destructive after all. Frankly, there's even less finesse to this unit than there is the others - drive it like a DropShip and pretend it's a honey badger.
Once more the Demolisher II returns to the list, back to the standard fusion engine and movement we all know and love. Armor is back to standard "sane" levels, while the tonnage is well invested in an ECM suite for various secondary work, primarily protection, along with a pair of front mounted machine guns with a huge amount of ammo to scrape infantry off. There's not much else on the thing besides the turret with 36 Artemis-equipped MML tubes, seven tons of ammunition giving you plenty to do with your missiles. They're only MML9s, so the Artemis isn't too big of a bonus, but it's certainly better than any other option and removing the targeting laser wouldn't buy you enough tonnage back to mount a fifth launcher. As it is, you've got enough movement to get yourself in deep trouble, enough armor to survive most of it, and the LRM and SRM volleys to really ruin someone's day at any range.
And now to prove that Thomas Hogarth isn't the only screwball in the Lyran military, we turn the floor over to my good friend XTRO Steiner to speak on the Demolisher II-X. Well, I would if PDFs could talk, so I'll just fill in a bit. An LFE makes a curious departure on this tank, keeping the costs from going psychotic while still getting at least a little tonnage back. Armor's downgraded slightly but is virtually identical in all directions - 55 on the front, 53 on the sides, 52 on the rear, and 54 on the turret. Clearly this is a tank that is designed to play straight man to anyone that wants to pop up on the battlefield and say boo; to return the favor there's a pair of ultra-ten ACs in the turret with 30 rounds. Considering you're sending 4 downrange each time (what, you're not going to use a UAC to its fullest on a tank?) I find the ammo supply a little disconcertingly low. Should you get anyone who wants to play straight man to YOU, however, then you might get a little use out of that giant honking thing sticking out of your front like a pissed off triceratops horn. The Improved Heavy Gauss Rifle is a 19-hex-ranged 22-point beatstick and the sixteen rounds you have can really do a lot to change a battle. Unfortunately you can't do much about the placement, since those guns are banned from turrets like said triceratops are from pool parties.
Frankly, the things are universally slow, generally heavily to sickeningly armored, and wield brutal but short- to medium-ranged firepower. They're assault tanks of the purest definition, and there isn't much to do about them but either outmaneuver them if you can (usually possible) or else just pound them into immobility and then outmaneuver them. Failing that, well...they're going to absorb a LOT of firepower, just by existing. They're big, they're bad, they're very well named, and can be very tricky to deal with. At least you don't need to worry about TMMs, which means you can try longer-range shots and keep out of their death-zone. Driving one...well, see above, DropShips and honey badgers indeed. Fortunately the tank is physically massive; that gives you plenty of room to paint the dozens of kill markers you'll get in whatever scale you want...
It's a shame noone's taken the Victor -9Ka and gone back to the classic AC-20s with a massive ammo bin for specialty rounds - perhaps a Devastator with the SRMs removed; that's four more tons of precision ammo...
*(2...1...) And a check of the intro dates shows the Hetzer appeared decades after the Demolisher; way to go Quikscell! Ah well, what's a little wallet envy between wartime competitors.
