Writers note: the delay and a lack of editing was due to an illness on my part
Hello my friends, to the trainwreck that never ends, come inside, come inside...
Today I continue my preference for reviewing ‘Mechs that aren’t overly awesome. For the readers who are wondering why I did the Flamberge, I assure you that was a momentary lack of clarity and I am once again in full control of my insanity.
Staring at us today is the Mangonel, one of the myraid “beauties†from TRO3085. While not an “awful†‘Mech (The winner of that honor is one page before the Mangonel actually) the Mangonel isn’t great. It falls under tolerable at best...maybe. Heck, even the very definition of the word doesn't help out its case, as a Mangonel is a Greco-Roman siege engine.
So, with my verdict out of the way so early, you the masses want to know...why.
Starting off with the fluff, Khan Kell commissioned several prototypes so he could get Sphere gear working with his Wolves to allow them a simpler logistics train. One of the children of this project was the Mangonel, first produced in 3078 and as of 3085 was produced in brief runs on occasion for Wolf ‘MechWarriors, and presumably spare parts as well. I can thus only assume it is now probably out of production, which is possibly one of the shortest runs in the history of the universe. It was conceived as a heavy cavalry unit taking cues from the Excalibur or the Arctic Wolf, where speed and firepower are primary concerns, with armor and endurance taking a secondary role. The TRO entry indicates that this is being used to replace Linebackers and Hellbringers. I can understand the Hellbringer, but not the Linebacker. I have to assume the WiE have lost their ability to manufacture the red-headed stepchild of the Heavy Omnimech Family in the Linebacker, and were tired of having people die in Hellbringers.
Well then, let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts. Right away, we do have some good news in that there is some weight savings from an endo steel skeleton, so points in its favor...a light fusion engine with a 5/8 movement curve, nice. The light engine will keep it alive when the explodey bits go off or you get a torso chopped off, which will allow you to run like a little girl when you need to. will inevitably be doing.
The cooling array is your bog standard 10 doubles, so they all fit inside the engine when you’re at this size. Nothing much more to write about there.
The armor plating on this machine is light. Almost Hellbringer levels of insanity horrifically enough. Eight tons of ferro plating give us this layout, legs packing 16, arms 11, side torsos a 20/7 split, center 20/6 and the head carrying the near ubiquitous 9. For those playing the percentages game at home, about 66% armor coverage.
The armament is even more, shall we say inspiring. The arms each carry paired ER Mediums, courtesy of Diverse Optics. Supply the main firepower is a pair of Corean Light Gauss systems, being fed by a ton of ammo. That’s not a ton of ammo per rifle mind you, but a ton of ammo TOTAL, giving you 8 shots per rifle. As an added bonus, I will describe for you the critical hit chart of the side torsos. On the left we have three locations that are able to be nailed by crits. Locations 1 and 2 are engine, while number three is the ammo bin. The right torso is 1 and 2 for engine with 3 through 12 filled with light gauss rifle based explodium. And that armor is a tad on the thin side as we mentioned earlier...Recall there is no CASE, so its very possible to have a situation where a rifle gets critted, pops, the internal damage pops the other rifle, leaving you with 4 immediate pilot hits, 2 engine crits and possibly CT checks if you get unlucky with preexisting damage as well.
The fluff says the frame was designed for MechWarriors to dance around their target at range using their superior speed and range to destroy their target. However, being they have a total of 8 volleys at 8 points a shot with their weapons....yeah not so much, so you either spend time husbanding your shots while you get pounded to bits in a But you have the medium lasers to help destroy your target...which requires you to get into medium rangeish for most of the 10 point hole punchers and several cluster weapons that can really hork up your day. These fun weapons will easily ruin this poor machines day. Your best bet is to ignore Zell and help lay fire support into what someone else is already working on, and use those mediums on your arms for when something presents itself or you need to defend yourself (You poor soul) When you run out of ammo, either retire from the field or find a reload truck. Personally, with your ammo load so low, I wouldn’t fire at anything under 8 (So, 7s or better) and hope no one finds you threatening enough to end your life.
There is a variant mentioned in TRO3085, the MNL-3W, which really should just be called the Mangonel IIC, because that's what the damned thing is. Utilizing Clanspec components top to bottom, including structure, armor, engine and weaponry, this model ups the armor by significant margins, ups the heat sinks to drop 24 heat per turn. The IS ER Mediums are replaced by their Clantech twins and the dual light gauss rifles in the one side torso have been split off into a full spec Clan gauss in each torso with two tons of ammo each. Thats right, this machine has the same amount of ammo per rifle than the original has total. That is an incredible endurance boost, combined with the additional armor and damage from the lasers make this a rude, if not exactly the most creative combatant. And as this is a Clanspec frame, CASE is automatically included. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to playtest it, but in many ways it reminds me of a slower Linebacker, and probably could be played as such...but to be honest. Its so good, its boring. Its not imaginative, but it’ll serve you well.
Normally I don’t do a “How to improve this†section, but today I will. Looking at those LGR’s and its associate ton of ammo we have a staggering 25 tons to play with. For those of you playing at home, that's a hair more than a third of the total tonnage on this machine. The design itself calls for long range direct fire support, so our options are standard gauss rifles, which may work if we swap for an XL engine, AC2’s or 5’s, which really won’t work well here, or energy weapons. As I want to keep the LFE of the original, it really just leaves us with energy weapons...strip the gauss rifles off, slap on a pair of ER PPCs where the LGR’s lived, go to 17 doubles, max armor done. But that’s boring. But I can’t think of anything more unique...using Thunderbolts makes the machine even more suicidal as one side torso turns into a massive bomb
So, the original, I give it a 5/10. The art is while solid just doesn't inspire me (granted, this being a design “imported†for lack of a better word from the old Clix game) , the design itself is pretty terribad to borrow one of those phrases the kids are using these days and doesn't lend itself to be used outside of scenario play. It can do well in a limited anti aircraft role due to the sheer range of the LGR’s, but they have such little endurance and so much explodium its hard to endure it.
