Perhaps an unusual article to include in a series that effectively promotes Battle Armor, but in my discussions with jymset we felt it would be an interesting area to explore. Obviously the question of "How to kill Battle Armor?" can be viewed as only needing the answer of "Duh, hit them with big guns. Duh!" However, that's a rather simple response, with some weapons - or munitions - being much better than others, plus there are some non-weapon options that can be used in certain circumstances, either destroying the Battle Armor or making it easier for them to be defeated.
Big Guns: We'll discuss the most obvious and simplest method first. All you have to do is shoot the Battle Armor with a weapon that can destroy a suit with a single hit, so that you don't have to worry about the damage being spread across the Battle Armor squad without actually destroying anything. For example, if targeting an undamaged Inner Sphere Standard, which can withstand a total of 10 points of damage, you can use a PPC, AC10, AC20, Gauss Rifle, etc. When combined with lighter weapons, always use those that can one-shot kill first, with the order of other weapons governed by the methods detailed below. Ideally, you want to use as accurate an attack as possible to overcome any Target Movement Modifiers, stealth capabilities or cover that the Battle Armor may be exploiting, so C3 with a nearby spotter, Pulse Weapons, Targeting Computers, etc can all be of great assistance here. Equally, if at all possible, you want to try to attack at a range that leaves the Battle Armor unable to respond, or greatly reduces the accuracy of their return fire.
Scattershot: This approach is used when you don't have weaponry that can kill Battle Armor with a single hit, or lack the numbers to destroy the entire squad in a single Turn, but still have other weapons available. Generally, you first want to use weapons that will destroy the Battle Armor with the fewest hits, since that greatly increases the chance of a kill in a single Turn, instead of just spreading the damage around. For example, consider two squads of IS Standards, one attacked with two Medium Lasers and the other with four Small Lasers, the minimum number of each weapon to destroy a pristine suit. Assuming trooper #1 in the four-man squad is struck with the first laser hit, then in the case of the Medium Lasers there is a 25% chance of striking the same suit with the second hit and thus destroying it, but in the case of the Small Lasers, there is only about a 1.5% chance that all three additional laser hits will strike trooper #1. As the squad gets smaller, there is a greater chance that all hits will randomly strike the same suit. If the above squads had already been reduced to three Battle Armor each, the two Medium Lasers would have a 33% chance of killing another suit in one Turn, while the four Small Lasers would have just over a 3.6% chance of a kill, and so on as the squad suffers even more losses. As per the Big Guns method, you ideally want to use accuracy enhancements and exploit any range advantages, but typically lighter weapons are shorter ranged and so the latter may be harder to achieve.
Buck And Ball: This is the exception to the Scattershot method. If you have weapons that are just a point or two short of one-shot kill capability, and you also have weaponry that can inflict those few points, it is more worthwhile to first apply your lighter weaponry, thereby reducing as many suits as possible below this fatal threshold. This way you minimize the amount of wasted damage. For example, an Inner Sphere Standard squad is hit by a Streak 4 and a pair of Large Lasers. If the guidelines of the Scattershot method are used, with the lasers hitting first, this can potentially waste 6 points of damage if both happened to strike the same suit, while the missiles will have zero chance of destroying a second suit. If the missiles are instead applied first, hopefully resulting in 2 damage to every suit, it is likely than one or two kills will be achieved once the laser damage is applied, with little or no wasted damage. Yet again, you ideally want to use accuracy enhancements and exploit any range advantages.
Special Delivery: There are a couple of specialist munitions that can change the function of certain weapons. One is the Experimental Follow-The-Leader missile that can allow LRM launchers to act as a non-Cluster weapon, hitting one suit with the entire salvo at the expense of reduced accuracy. How you use this weapon and ammunition combination depends upon the average damage compared to the durability of the target. An LRM5 salvo would still likely need to apply the Scattershot or Buck And Ball guidelines, while a LRM20 salvo can substitute as a Big Gun against many Battle Armor designs. Another Experimental missile option, the Tandem-Charge SRM, has a 1 in 6 change of killing a Battle Armor trooper with every hit. This one-shot potential means that the missile salvo should also be treated as a Big Gun.
As noted above, Battle Armor squads can be a difficult target. Wise players will try to keep their squads in cover, while generating as high a Target Movement Modifier as possible. In addition, all Battle Armor get an extra +1 hit penalty as a bonus against attacks by non-infantry, plus many designs incorporate Stealth or Mimetic technology to make them harder to hit. There's one type of attack that can get around those problems, the Area Attack. Not only do some Area Attacks gain the immobile target accuracy bonus, they also inflict damage to every suit in the squad, so that a single hit can be enough to destroy the entire unit.
Bombs Away!: The only Area Attack available for Tournament games prior to 3080, this can be a powerful tool to remove Battle Armor, even if it also typically results in the loss of the bomber. The near suicidal nature of air-to-ground attacks means that many players prefer to assign cheap, disposable aircraft for this role, such as the Boeing Jump Bomber. The ordnance most commonly used are the High Explosive and Cluster bombs, although Laser Guided munitions are also available, and Tactical Operations added an Inferno option, which will be discussed below. HE bombs offer the most damage, but the wider area of effect of Cluster bombs can make up for their lower impact, not only allowing for a near miss to still inflict damage, but also potentially harming far more targets. A single HE bomb, or two Cluster bombs, can destroy an entire squad of Inner Sphere Standards, or two squads if they happen to be sharing the effected hex, and a pair of HE bomb hits are guaranteed to kill any Battle Armor squad.
Kings Of The Battlefield: Artillery and Artillery Cannon are non-Tournament weapons that inflict an Area Attack with every round. Off-board Artillery can be somewhat hit and miss (sorry!) due to the delay before the round impacts, which could result in the target moving away, plus the possibility of scatter. It's not unknown for a round to scatter straight onto some poor unfortunate that wasn't even the target and I've even lost my own Battle Armor due to such a friendly fire incident, which can be a little annoying when it happens. Direct-fire Artillery is a terrifying prospect for Battle Armor; there's no delay before impact and accuracy is much improved, with less scatter if the shot does miss. Like direct-fire Artillery, Artillery Cannon do not scatter as much and so are typically more predictable, and they're becoming more popular in the post-3079 battlefield, when they become Advanced instead of Experimental, as per Technical Readout: Prototypes (page 206). The big killers with these two classes of weapon are of course the Long Tom versions, due to their ability to automatically destroy even the most heavily armor Assault suits, but even Snipers and Sniper Cannon will one-shot kill many Battle Armor squads, although the lowly Thumper will require a couple of hits. Although lacking a "Cannon" variant, the Arrow-IV can be just as lethal as the Long Tom, whether using explosive rounds, or the new Inferno-IV, which will be covered below.
Missiles Causing Mayhem: My personal favorite for hunting Battle Armor is LRM20-armed units loaded with Mine Clearance Munitions. Although intended for clearing minefields as their name suggests, MCMs are also useful to deal with fast moving targets or hard-to-hit, dispersed targets such as Battle Armor. Like other Area Effect weapons, MCMs attack the whole hex and not just the target, inflicting one quarter the hits of the launching missile system, rounded down on every unit in the targeted hex. This means that a LRM20 will strike each unit in the impact hex with 5 missiles, while a SRM4 or SRM6 will get a single hit, resulting in 5 and 2 damage per target respectively. As per other Area Effect attacks, this damage is applied to every suit, so just two LRM20 launchers can destroy an entire Inner Sphere Standard squad at ranges up to 21 hexes, with excellent accuracy that far exceeds direct fire weapons at such ranges.
Even a lowly Archer ARc-2R can be a fearsome opponent for Battle Armor on the battlefields of the Jihad or later, although many players prefer to use the even cheaper LRM Carrier. Although the LRM20 is the most efficient LRM launcher with respect to damage per tube when using MCMs, due to the lack of damage lost due to rounding, some players prefer to use the same mass to install five LRM5s instead. This allows a degree of dial-a-yield, to avoid overkill, such as in the case of an Infiltrator Mk II squad, which would need 2 LRM20 salvos, using 40 missiles to inflict 10 damage, whereas 6 LRM5s could use 30 missiles to inflict 6 damage. As an aside, while not Battle Armor related, the LRM5 option does mean more chances for criticals when using MCMs to bring down the otherwise hard-to-hit high-speed 'Mechs and vehicles, like Fire Moths and Savannah Masters.
Death From Above: No, not some clumsy great lump of 'Mech falling from the sky in a barely controlled crash, but the humble 'Mech Mortar. When firing Airburst, these inflict an Area Effect attack that causes one point of damage per shell, with up to 8 points for the largest model. For the Clans, this is the only way to get a weapon with an effect similar to Mine Clearance Missiles, and their lightweight Mortars allow for multiple weapons to be installed even in 'Mechs and vehicles with limited weapon payloads. The Anti-Personnel mortar shell lacks the Area Effect of the Airburst, but it does attack the hex, and thus gets the accuracy boost for attacking an immobile target. This odd situation may possibly be subject to errata at some point, and players may disagree on its use, so for anti-Battle Armor attacks you may wish to stick to Airbursts.
Bombing is not the only way that aerospace units can devastate ground troops, although as discussed under the Bombs Away! method above, these attacks can be just as fatal for the attacking aircraft. Unfortunately, infantry are particularly vulnerable to aircraft, and that allows many designs the luxury of repeated Strafing and Strike attacks.
Puff The Magic Dragon: The majority of infantry are incapable of defending themselves from air attack. Only those units equipped with one of the two AA Weapons available as infantry Support weapons allow infantry to attack airborne aerospace units, and of those two only the weaker version is available to Battle Armor equipped with Armored Gloves. Furthermore, this is only available if using the optional rules that allow Battle Armor to base their Anti-Personnel attacks on the actual weapon used rather than the default Auto-Rifle. As if all that isn't bad enough, the Mk 1 Light AA only inflicts 0.11 damage, so the player would have to roll high on the Cluster Hits Table to deal any damage when using the weapon to attack aircraft, with anything less than five hits being ineffective, which means that there's no hope for the standard Inner Sphere squad of four. Unless friendly units that can defend against aircraft are available and in range, enemy aerospace forces are free to attack until they run out of targets. The Battle Armor can make life as difficult as possible for the attacking pilots by generating high hit penalties, but this can sometimes trap them in a limited area if there is too much clear terrain to cross before they can once more reach cover.
Incendiary attacks have always been feared by troops, but especially all forms of infantry, including Battle Armor. Note that Clan suits that are equipped with Fire Resistant armor, such as the infamous Salamander, are immune to this form of attack. In addition, numerous heat inducing weapons, such as Plasma Rifles and Cannon, Flamers, infantry Flamers and Incendiary LRMs do not have the same effect as noted below.
Burn Baby Burn: There is a horribly efficient way to destroy Battle Armor instead of simply inflicting enough damage points and that's the Inferno SRM and similar attacks, such as ammo-using Flamers and Fluid Guns using Inferno Fuel Ammo, Inferno Mines (including Thunder LRM-delivered minefields), Inferno Bombs, Incendiary Grenades and Inferno-IV missiles. All but the Inferno SRM, Flamers and Fluid Guns are actually Area Effect attacks, and depending upon the exact weapon used, they might not be as effective when used alone. When a Battle Armor squad is attacked with Inferno SRMs, the hits are accumulated, and then for every three Infernos that struck you destroy one randomly determined suit. This makes Infernos particularly powerful against Battle Armor, since it eliminates the worry about random allocation of individual hits and it enables missiles that would only otherwise inflict just 6 points of damage if using non-Inferno warheads to kill Battle Armor with up to 18 points of armor.
With the Area Effect weapons, they will inflict one or more Inferno hits to each individual suit. Inferno-IV missiles and Inferno Bombs are the most powerful, with every unit effectively struck by five Infernos, which will kill every suit immediately. Inferno minefields inflict the effect of a single Inferno on each suit for every 2 points of minefield strength, so even a mere six point minefield can destroy an entire squad. Incendiary Grenades inflict only a single Inferno hit on each squad, but when combined with an Inferno SRM attack, it does mean that only two missiles need to be allocated to each suit to finish the kill. Note that Vehicular Grenade Launchers become Tournament legal in 3080, as per Technical Readout: Prototypes page 207, whereas the other Area Effect options all remain Advanced. Given the characteristics of Inferno attacks, you should treat them as Big Guns when combined with lighter weaponry.
Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending upon your point of view - Battle Armor cannot be the target for many physical attacks, although I have played in games that house ruled the ability of vehicles to Charge infantry.
Tossing The Dwarf: Tactical Operations (page 97-98) introduced the wonderful advanced rules that allow 'Mechs to pick up and even throw enemy Battle Armor. Whenever a hostile Battle Armor squad is subjected to a successful attempt to pick up a suit, this results in the squad being split into two separate squads, with the victim suit being counted as a squad of one, while the parent squad is reduced by one. Splitting up the Battle Armor this way makes them more vulnerable to weapons that cannot one-shot kill, since there is a greater likelihood that multiple hits will randomly concentrate on a single suit. Note that a 'Mech with two working hands could attempt to pick up two suits, splitting the targeted squad into three individual squads. An even more enjoyable potential exists for the Mechwarrior, since the picked up suit can then be thrown, even adding insult to injury by throwing the Battle Armor at its original squad. Fun!
Stomp The Yard: Okay, so you're a Mechwarrior who gets into the unfortunately situation of suffering a Leg Attack without any nearby friendly troops to gun them down before they manage to hamstring your 'Mech. Most units lack B-Pods and M-Pods to give their intended attackers a little loving before the Battle Claws dig in, so the only option is to get some payback courtesy of putting your foot down. It's not particularly accurate and like any Kick attack it risks a fall if you miss, but if you do connect then most 'Mechs will destroy one of the Battle Armor.
Although there's not much that can be done about Leg Attacks once the Battle Armor gets in range to conduct such an assault, other than getting nearby friendly troops to shoot at the suits or for the intended victim to attempt a stomp, there are a number of options to defeat or at least interfere with Swarming Battle Armor.
Get Them Off Me!: I won't repeat most of the details of the Total War rules (pages 221-222), but for this section it's worth briefly mentioning the most common methods to defeat Swarming Battle Armor, at least to put the following ideas into context. Jump-capable units, both 'Mechs and vehicles, have the easiest time, being able to attempt to shake off the Battle Armor just by jumping. 'Mechs with working arms can try to brush off their attackers, but they risk harming themselves and there are limits whether this can be done based upon what attacks the 'Mech has made. Another option for 'Mechs is to drop to the ground, whether falling or intentionally going prone, but this again risks damaging the 'Mech itself, and can even injure the pilot. Vehicles can drive erratically in an attempt to dislodge the suits, with no risk of damage unless it skids or sideslips into danger. Friendly Battle Armor can also climb aboard a 'Mech or vehicle being Swarmed to fight off the attackers, but unless they have Magnetic Clamps, they can only assist Omni-units in this manner.
Bathtime!: Although the effect of water on Swarming Battle Armor is mentioned in the rules, it's such an effective method that it bears discussion here. If you're running a 'Mech that gets Swarmed and you have a body of Depth 2+ water nearby, you actually have a quick and simple way of removing your unwanted parasites before they can harm you. The Turn after the Battle Armor first Swarm your 'Mech, just move into the Depth 2+ water, which will instantly destroy them before they get a chance to damage you. In areas where you only have Depth 1 water, you'll have to fall prone after entering the water to ensure you dunk the Battle Armor below the waterline. Obviously, entering water does risk falls and/or flooding a compartment, so this is very much a situational method rather than one that you should always exploit.
Down With The Sinking Ship: If you're running a hovercraft or amphibious vehicle that you know has little or no chance of surviving the attack, then when Swarmed you can again just enter or move over water, in this case even Depth 1+ will do. In the somewhat unusual circumstances where you're actually running a naval vessel that gets Swarmed - perhaps you got too close to the shore and an enemy Battle Armor squad jumped aboard - then obviously you can just move into the middle of the body of water to best utilize this method. If or when the Swarming Battle Armor succeed in their attack and destroy the vehicle, that will result in it sinking, thus potentially drowning the Battle Armor. In the games that I've played, the Naval Carrier rules for infantry (Total War page 224) were used to determine whether Jumping or VTOL Battle Armor get a chance to escape before being taken down with the wreck, but some may prefer to simply declare the Battle Armor dead.
Barbecuing: A less common variation of the vehicular version of drowning Swarming Battle Armor, this one also applies to 'Mechs as well. If you have a situation where you know that the Swarm attack is likely to destroy the unit, then you simply enter any available lava hexes. This obviously does sacrifice the Swarmed unit and for this reason it's considered by some to be a questionable tactic given that troops shouldn't generally be willing to suicide this way. Again, in the games I've played where this has occurred, the Naval Carrier rules for infantry were adapted to possibly allow the Battle Armor a chance to avoid the fate of their intended victim. Lava hexes aren't common - in truth, it'd probably be fairer to say that they're rarely available - but it's worthwhile keeping this option in mind on the rare occasion the opportunity presents itself.
Kidnapping: Another variation of the vehicle version of drowning Swarming Battle Armor, albeit one that's more commonly used and that doesn't necessarily destroy the suits, even if it may result in what could be considered a mission kill. In this case, it doesn't matter whether you expect the Swarmed unit to be destroyed or not, what you're doing is moving the Battle Armor to a location that will leave them compromised or vulnerable in some way after they destroy their victim or chose to jump off. This can be simply getting close enough to friendly Battle Armor so that they can more easily assist in the removal of the attackers, or close enough to other friendly units that they can easily destroy the Swarming Battle Armor afterwards. Alternatively, it can be a way to remove the Swarming unit from the battle, preventing them from having little or any effect on the remainder of the fight. I've used 'Mechs and vehicles to dump Battle Armor in an isolated part of the map, that will take them many Turns to travel back to the battle, sometimes even trapping them entirely, such as leaving ground-only suits on the far side of rivers or other terrain they cannot cross. Even jump-capable suits can be trapped in this way with certain terrain, such as being stuck behind a line of steep hills that're taller than the suits' jump capability.
Battle Armor can also be neatly countered by other infantry, both conventional and Battle Armor troops. At the very least, using infantry removes the +1 hit penalty suffered by all non-infantry forces when attacking Battle Armor.
David And Goliath: Although Battle Armor was intended to replace conventional infantry, at least in the ranks of the Clans, the lowly PBI can actually be a dangerous hunter of its armored brethren. Uniquely, conventional infantry are unaffected by Stealth armor, potentially offering the most accurate direct-fire attacks against Stealth-equipped Battle Armor. Basing the main firepower upon hard hitting rifles such as the M42B and Mauser IIC, ideal secondary weapon options are SRM Launchers firing Infernos, which allow even Jump Infantry Platoons to kill an entire four-suit squad in one hit, and the heavier Support weapons that can outrange all but LRM-equipped Battle Armor. I also favor Jump Infantry armed with sniper rifles as their secondary weapon, providing a 9 hex range attack and no reduction in mobility, unlike the Support weapon options. Combining these offensive capability with the Stealth effect of IR Sneak Suits from Tactical Operations, which does affect Battle Armor, and you have a unit that can badly hurt most Battle Armor designs. Tactical Operations also introduced Field Guns and Field Artillery, presenting the possibility of Mechanized Platoons armed with Long Tom Artillery or Cannon, or even fourteen Magshot Gauss Rifles, while a Clan Mechanized Star could replace the latter with a dozen AP Gauss Rifles.
Poacher Turned Gamekeeper: Although using Battle Armor to confront Battle Armor can easily result in a zero-sum game, certain designs can be far more effective, whether against most other designs or specific types. In general, the hunter needs speed so that it can catch its target and dictate the range once it does; long-range weaponry that can inflict as much damage as possible, with deep magazines if primarily missile armed; and good defenses, that can be a combination of high armor rating, Stealth or Mimetic armor, and/or ECM if using the Ghost Targets capability from Tactical Operations. There are situational exceptions to those guidelines, such as a fast suit confronting a slow suit can afford to use short range armament due to its ability to rapidly close the range in an attempt to overwhelm the target before the attackers suffer fatal damage.
To show some examples, many designs can be equipped with Inferno missiles, and even a four-suit squad of the heavily armored Ravager can potentially be taken down for no losses by an Achileus squad equipped with a mere SRM1 launcher, although it'd take four Turns to do it, while the Grenadier Hunter-Killer has the capability to kill an entire squad in just one Turn. The Infiltrator MK II's combination of Stealth, ECM, 90m jump capability and Magshot can be a particular dangerous foe for many Battle Armor designs, and once the Elemental gets the option of the AP Gauss Rifle, that venerable suit can be brutal. In the right circumstances, the Corona is also incredibly effective due to its range, accuracy and damage, although its speed typically makes it a defensive suit and its armor puts it in just as much danger against some units. Likewise, a Sylph point can wipe out many Battle Armor units in a single Turn using its one bomb attack, although this typically requires them to catch the target unawares or to be able to attack before they suffer too many losses themselves.
Rounding out the discussion, there are some miscellaneous techniques that can help defeat Battle Armor, even though they don't inflict any damage.
Baiting The Trap: This is a somewhat risky technique used by 'Mechs that have suffered a Leg Attack or otherwise have enemy Battle Armor nearby. It can be a good option for 'Mechs that cannot outrun the Battle Armor for some reason, but have nearby friendly troops that can come to their assistance. Instead of attempting to run, the 'Mech just stands still and accepts the risk, or - if the 'Mech is fast enough and you feel like taking the gamble - run in a circle so that you still achieve a high Target Movement Modifier while ending back where you started. For many Battle Armor designs, this presents them with two options, both with downsides. First, they could move away to generate a Target Movement Modifier of their own and perhaps go for cover, but this will still generally leave them at short range for the 'Mech they'd just attacked and of course means that they lose the opportunity for another Anti-'Mech attack. second, they could stay in the same hex as the 'Mech to allow for an Anti-'Mech attack or hide from the subject 'Mech's guns, but they lose out on cover and Target Movement Modifiers, making them vulnerable to any units supporting the 'Mech. Battle Armor with 3+ ground movement can partially counter this by also running in a circle, thus generating a Target Movement Modifier, and suits equipped with Mimetic armor will no doubt welcome the chance to stand still and maximize their stealth capability.
You Shall Not Pass: When fighting a force with large numbers of Battle Armor that only have ground MPs, while on a map with terrain features that cannot be crossed without jumping, flying or even the use of UMUs, try to drag the fight over to the other side of the terrain feature. This can either isolate the Battle Armor from the Schwerpunkt or force them to go through a predictable choke point. Examples are battlefields split by a river, whether bridged or not, or areas with extreme changes in elevation levels, such as a cliff face. Even if the enemy force has APCs or can use Mechanized Battle Armor tactics to transport the suits across the problem terrain, you're forcing the opponent to divert their attention and possibly disrupting their plans. This is a part of the Kidnapping method noted above, although that only works on individual Battle Armor units and requires their assistance in the form of a Swarm attack. Even without any blocking terrain, a fast force can keep the fight rapid and mobile, forcing the Battle Armor to continuously struggle to keep up, either delaying their entry into combat or allowing the possibility of catching them in the open away from cover.
