The Caerleon is a small craft built in the Free World’s League since 3093 sharing the Arthurian theming of their other small craft. As seems common for the League’s heavy aerospace the Caerleon is widely available in the mercenary market.
With a twenty ton battle armour compartment the Caerleon is clearly intended for boarding operations and battlefield support. Thrust is barely adequate for atmospheric operations while armour is middling for a small craft. While the armament of twin light gauss rifles and LRM 15s seems weak it should be noted that a small craft this size does not come with free heat sinks. This means that the long range armament is hard to match using energy based systems. The cargo bay is expansive. While the battle armour compartment can’t support troops for an extended period it is capable of transporting a full FWL platoon. That is more than enough for any other faction. It is also a plus for those who chose to use battle armour’s actual weight, allowing two squads of assault suits to be transported without difficulty. An extra 4.5 tons is available for supporting equipment. The ship is noted to be easy to maintain and reload which is good. It also suffers atmospheric flight instability, which combined with its low thrust will lead to some exciting landings. Being an aerodyne has to be of some assistance here.
As a troop transport the Caerleon demands comparison to the NL-42 “Battle Taxi” and Oo-Suzumebachi. Compared to the smaller Oo-Suzumebachi the Caerleon has similar armour. It carries five tons more fuel and has a lot more cargo capacity. The Caerleon has better firepower, but the presence of AMS and much higher thrust makes the Oo-Suzumebachi much more capable of offensive boarding operations. It is also more atmospherically stable. In contrast as a spheroid a NL-42 is not what you want to be riding in atmosphere in. Despite being spheroid and bigger the NL-42 has less fuel and a cargo bay even smaller than the Oo-Suzumebachi, suggesting a review of crew facilities if TRO3057 is ever looked at. The NL-42’s armour is the heaviest, though weak side arcs mean a similar level of protection. It also shares a thrust rating with the Oo-Suzumebachi. Firepower appears heavy but is dominated by short ranged lasers leaving the Caerleon as the best armed.
The Caerleon stacks up remarkably well amongst its peers, mainly because it sacrifices thrust for payload. It is clearly the heavy lift option of the three. The Oo-Suzumebachi is the new assault platform, able to weather combat conditions best. The NL-42 is showing its age and dated rule set.
So, how should one use a Caerleon? Start by not getting into a fight. Long range sniping using vectored thrust might be practical in space, but the Caerleon doesn’t have the thrust to survive a fur ball or the guns to end one. Though the thrust is low, there is plenty of fuel so feel free to spend thrust points to get out of trouble. We get into some sticky rule questions about how quickly that single door can allow twenty suits to disembark, so potentially the Caerleon might have to sit still under fire for quite a few turns. It is also not combat-drop capable so don’t expect to be able to avoid the atmosphere in the battlefield support role.
In atmosphere killing a Caerleon seems as simple as forcing a control roll and watching it fail miserably. Mind you the armour may well keep the troops alive when it lawn darts. For aerospace it’s a big slow fighter. Abuse the initiative rules to get behind it and chop it down. Ground troops are unlikely ever to get a shot at one as many of the requirements for unloading are uncomfortably similar to strafing runs requiring low altitude passes. With that in mind they are unlikely to be unloading anywhere a ground-pounder can shoot them.
