In the late 3050s, omnimechs were the hot new thing in the Inner Sphere and everybody was trying to build their own. As the Free Worlds League was on the opposite side of the Sphere from the Invasion Corridor, they had no first-hand experience with omnimechs and no stockpiles of salvage to draw upon for reverse engineering so it took them a bit longer to get into the game than everyone but the Capellans. And in 3058, the first natively-built omnimech in the Free Worlds League marched off the assembly line, the P1
Perseus.
Original Field Manual: Free Worlds League art
TRO 3067 Art
Debuting in Field Manual: Free Worlds League and then getting reprinted in TRO 3067, the
Perseus is a 75 ton design based on the longtime flagship mech of the FWL, the
Orion. Since I don't have access to Field Manual: Free Worlds League I don't know if there were any variants added in 3067 but as shown above the art was changed (for the better, IMO).
To power the mech, a 300XL engine was used, the same one used in the upgraded
Orion and many other mechs across the Inner Sphere. This gives the mech the average Inner Sphere heavy mech's movement profile: 4/6. In order to give the design additional tonnage for weaponry, an Endo Steel chassis was also used to save weight. While these choices did result in the
Perseus having a staggering 39.5 tons of pod space (the most of any Inner Sphere omnimech until the
Hauptmann appeared two years later), they also meant that its interior was already rather cramped before any of that pod space was utilized, especially in the side torsos. Fourteen tons of standard armor plating give the mech near-maximum protection, only falling one point short on the center torso and three points below on the arms. A pair of double heatsinks were hard-mounted in the engine, giving it a base dissipation of 24. If quirks are in play, the
Perseus has Good Reputation (not relevant outside of a campaign) and Anti-Aircraft Targeting.
And that leaves us with firepower.
The Prime is a very odd duck. It's clearly influenced by the
Orion, with a class 10 autocannon and both Long and Short-Range Missiles backed by medium lasers, but that's where the resemblance ends. The FWL's then-new Ultra 10 autocannon occupies the right arm, fed by a two ton ammo bin in the right torso. The left arm features an LRM 20 with Artemis IV and a Medium Pulse Laser, with the missile pod also fed by a two ton bin in the right torso. An SRM 4, also with Artemis, occupies the Center Torso and is fed by a one ton bin in the Left Torso. Both side torsos are protected by CASE, so in the event of an ammo explosion you'll have a mostly-intact mech delivered to your enemies as salvage. And then for the weird part: four ER Medium Lasers mounted in the legs. You'll see that a lot, because this mech uses leg-mounted weaponry often. An ER Small Laser balances out the last half ton. This configuration can run quite hot if you let it. If you ever found yourself in a position where you performed an alpha strike, you'd be at 19+movement heat. Fortunately, however, this heat is from a large number of fairly low heat weapons, so it's quite easy to tune your heat output each round in order to keep things manageable. Just watch out for close-range fighting since your leg-mounted weapons have a limited firing arc and you'll need to pay attention to which lasers you fire if you want to kick in the same round.
The A configuration takes a less generalist approach and focuses on fire support with twin Artemis-equipped LRM 20s, one in each arm, fed by a four ton ammo bin in the left torso. For backup weaponry, it possesses two Medium Pulse Lasers in the center torso and one Artemis-enhanced SRM 6 in the right torso, fed by two ammo bins, one in the right torso with it and the other in the right leg. CASE again protects both side torsos and the leg-mounted ammo bin is joined by a TAG while a Guardian ECM sits in the other leg. Significantly cooler-running than the Prime, this variant will only generate movement heat on an alpha strike. The TAG is kind of a weird feature, given that this is primarily a long-range fire support mech. Rather than making use of it regularly, it seems more like something defensive that's used to discourage enemies from trying to get in close less they find themselves targeted by semi-guided LRMs from the Percy's allies.
Now we get to the B variant, and it's a doozy. It's armed with a Gauss Rifle in the right arm, two Large Pulse Lasers in the left, an ER Large Laser in the left torso, and a head-mounted AMS for defense. Two extra double heatsinks are not adequate to help with this mech's heat burden, generating 6+movement on an alpha strike if the AMS activates. That's not huge, but it's also not a great amount of firepower for all that heat. What's worse, this configuration shows the FASA-era AMS rules in its loadout, with two tons of AMS ammo stored in the left leg, while the Gauss Rifle possesses only a single ton of ammo. This time around, there's no CASE for protection. Hard to say what the point of this variant is, the weapon load doesn't really work well together and the Gauss Rifle just doesn't have enough ammo. If possible, drop the superfluous ton of AMS ammo to give the GR more.
The C variant returns the Ultra 10 to the right arm and this time it's accompanied by that other Marik ballistic weapon from the late 50s/early 60s, the Light Gauss Rifle, which sits in the left arm. Backing these guns up are a trio of ER Medium Lasers in the legs (two in the right, one in the left), a Streak SRM 2 in the head, and a rear-mounted Medium Pulse Laser in the center torso. The two extra heatsinks used on the B are retained here. The autocannon has three tons of ammo with two in the right and one in the left, the latter sitting next to the Streak 2's ammo, while the LGR is fed by a two ton bin in the left arm with it. This variant lacks CASE, which is a very bad thing if you're carrying a single Streak 2 launcher. This variant does have good heat management, with a running alpha strike of all the forward-mounted weaponry leaving it heat neutral. You'll have to start shooting that rear MPL if you want to see the needle start pushing up.
The D variant feels like a slight remix of the Prime, with an LB 10-X AC in the right arm, an LRM 20 with Artemis in the left arm, and an ER Small Laser in the head, but then things get changed around. There's an ER Medium Laser in the right arm with the AC, an SRM 6 with Artemis in the right torso, and two more ER Medium Lasers in the left torso. A Beagle Active Probe and a Guardian ECM occupy the right and left legs, respectively. And then things get frightening, because this mech has two tons of LB 10 ammo in the right torso, three tons of LRM ammo in the left, and two tons of SRM ammo in the center, and there's absolutely no CASE to be had anywhere. Heat management is doable, you'll only gain 5+movement if you alpha strike and as with the Prime there's a lot of low-heat weapons to allow you to tweak things.
That's it for the variants that showed up in TRO 3067, but Record Sheets 3067 Unabridged added three new variants during the Jihad to show off new tech from that time.
First up is the E. A Gauss Rifle sits in the right arm again like the B, but thankfully this time it's got an appropriately-sized two ton ammo bin. The left arm has a Large and Medium Variable Speed Pulse Laser. Firepower is rounded out by an ER Small Laser in the head, an Improved One Shot SRM 6 in the center torso, and a rear-mounted ER Medium laser in the left torso. And oh yeah, it's also got a pair of Vehicular Grenade Launchers taking up space there. I might be wrong, but I think this could be the first and only canon mech to mount VGLs. At least they give you a few options, depending on what kind of grenades you choose to load in them. A Beagle also sits in the left torso while the remaining three tons are devoted to Communication Equipment to let it function as a command mech. This is another variant without CASE but the GR's the only part that explodes so it's not that big a deal. Heat's pretty reasonable. Ignoring the three one-shot weapons, you're looking at 1+movement heat if you fire the rear-mounted ER Medium.
Next comes the P, which for those of you keeping track makes it the P1P. That's more P than I really like in my battlemechs. This variant is geared for short-to-medium range combat, something of an oddity among
Perseus variants. A RAC 5 sits in the right arm with a standard Medium Laser, while a standard PPC and an MRM 20 sit in the left. A TAG sits in the head, a Streak SRM 4 in the center torso, and a Guardian ECM in the left. Four ER Small Lasers mimic the mediums from the Prime by sitting in the legs. Three tons of RAC ammo sit along the one ton of Streak ammo in the right torso while two tons of MRM ammo sit in the left. This time, CASE protects both torsos again. Heat also returns, with an alpha strike boosting you up to 12+movement if you fire the RAC at full, but yada yada lots of little guns to manage your heat with. Just drop the PPC if you're close enough to use the ER Smalls and you're fine.
The final variant is the W, which undoubtedly stands for Word of Blake as it packs a C3i in the Center Torso. Making use of that C3i is a Gauss Rifle in the left arm, an ER Medium Laser in the head and two more in the left torso, and an LB 20-X AC that's split between the right arm and right torso. The autocannon is fed by three tons of ammo, one in the right torso and two in the right leg, while the GR has two tons of ammo in the left torso. There's no CASE, but this mech is heat neutral on a running alpha strike.
And that's it for the configurations. Unique among omnimechs found in the Inner Sphere, this machine did not get any new post-Jihad variants at all. And there are definitely some questions about what's happening with it, since Kali Yama Weapons Industries built it on Kalidasa, which joined the Blakist Protectorate during the Jihad, got liberated, ended up in the Republic of the Sphere, went independent during the Blackout, joined the reborn Free Worlds League, was conquered by the Lyrans, was then conquered by the Wolf Empire, and last I heard the Sea Foxes were doing something with it. And what all that adds up to is that by the IlClan Era, I haven't got the slightest idea whether or not this mech is still in production. The time during which the planet was under control of the Wolves in particular would have been dicey for this mech- given their reverence for the Great Father's mech, would they have seen the
Perseus as something to be similarly respected, or as an inadequate successor that needed to be erased? Beats me, and if there's any canon information about that it's not in a book I own.
All in all, the
Perseus is a good mech. As I said at the beginning of the article it had the most pod space of any Inner Sphere omnimech when it debute, and it also had the second-most armor, beaten only by the
Sunder. It's got some wonkiness due to having only five slots free in each side torso, and some of the variants, the B in particular, are just kind of WTF. But for the most part the configs range from "not bad" to "pretty good" even if there are none that really jump out as spectacular.
