Taskmaster Slavermech
Mass: 30 tons
Chassis: AMW Bunyan
Power Plant: AMW 110 ICE
Cruising Speed: 32.4 kph
Maximum Speed: 54 kph
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Commercial Sheet Steel
Armament:
6 Prototype Rocket Launcher 10
2 Machine Gun
Manufacturer: Ashhaven Machine Works
Primary Factory: Gibson's Folly
Communication System: Civilian Radio
Targeting & Tracking System: None
Introduction Year: 3025
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-X-X-X
Cost: 927,510 C-bills
Pirates and other tyrants are certainly not above using mechs as a way to maintain a hold over their enslaved populations, but you wouldn't really call the machines they use Slavermechs. Even if a mech gained particular infamy for its use by pirates, it's very rare that such machines would have actually been built and designed to keep the boot on the neck of the teeming masses.
The Taskmaster is an unfortunate exception, though it didn't have to be. The mech has its origin with the Bunyan, an exceedingly crude but functional industrialmech first manufactured on the world of Gibson's Folly in the coreward periphery. Originally designed for logging in the dense forests of on the northern end of the planet's single small continent, these simple, rugged machines were intended to endure the harsh volcanic environment that dominated most of the planet's dry land while harvesting the massive hardwood trees and fending off the aggresive wildlife that was able to thrive in that same environment. The work of these hardy mechs and the hardy men and women that piloted them helped the settlements on Gibson's Folly flourish, and exports of the virtually indestructible Folly Hardwood brought much needed trade and outside income into the planet, allowing Gibson's Folly to become the leading world in a small three system confederation.
Then the bandits came to Gibson's Folly. In 3017, a small collection of bandits led by Maxwell Kruger (late of the Oberon Confederation), invaded Gibson's Folly and the two other worlds in its loose alliance, crushing all organized resistance and claiming the small periphery state as their personal bandit kingdom. Facing continued passive and active resistance, particularly on Gibson's Folly itself, Kruger's bandits relied on increasingly harsh repression to maintain their hold, and very quickly began refitting captured Bunyan industrialmechs with weapons to augment their own forces, creating the Taskmaster. Not long after that, the Ashhaven Machine Works was being forced to produce all new Taskmasters to supplement these mechs, effectively rendering the Bunyan they were based on nearly extinct.
While the Taskmaster appears fairly intimidating (though undeniably crude) at first glance, it rapidly becomes clear in battle that the mech isn't much of a threat to a serious opponent. Its primary working armament in normal operations are the machine guns mounted to each arm, suitable to violently disperse (or massacre) a resisting mob. These weapons are by design very much a bolt on accessory rather than a traditional fixed weapon mount, which has its positives and its negatives. A damaged gun can be easily removed and replaced if needs be, but at the same time these weapons are also prone to incidental damage due to their exposed mountings. For more robust threats, the Taskmaster also mounts sixty launch tubes for unguided rockets, sufficient to at least briefly threaten armored opponents, as well as overawe groups of resisting slaves. These weapons are hindered however by the complete lack of any sort of dedicated fire control systems. Basic systems provide at least provide indicators of where the machine guns are pointing, and a simple gunsight indicates where the fixed rocket launchers can roughly be expected to go when fired, but beyond that, the mech lacks any sort of targeting systems, making weapons fire extremely inaccurate. To protect itself, the Taskmaster also has to rely on three tons of basic civilian grade sheet steel rather than actual armor grade materials. This is adequate against angry mobs, and even surprisingly robust against light battlemech weapons, but against heavier weapons this material struggles to hold up. Propulsion comes from a low efficiency ethanol engine, giving the mech limited ground speed. Though this powerplant is extremely reliable assuming the mech receives proper maintenance, bandit pilots on Gibson's Folly would regularly suffer breakdowns due to their unfamiliarity with operating the air breathing engine in the world's volcanic environment, and their tendency to rely on slave labor to handle maintenance and cleaning of their machines.
The bandits of Gibson's Folly would convert or build several dozen Taskmasters during their time in control of Gibson's Folly, and a number of these mechs would be handed over to the Oberon Confederation as part of their tribute to that larger bandit kingdom. Well over a dozen would take part in the brutal street fighting during the Ashhaven Revolt, and each of the factions that formed following the death of Maxwell Kruger in 3025 would recruit Taskmaster pilots for the power struggle that followed. By the time Heinrich Kruger had defeated his rivals for power, fully half of the Taskmasters once operated by the bandits had been destroyed, and the Ashhaven Machine Works had been reduced to rubble. The younger Kruger's attempts to move away from the unsustainable practice of banditry would only see more Taskmasters either destroyed or carried off as other bandit kingdoms moved in to loot the weakened bandits of Gibson's Folly, and the last Taskmasters on world were believed destroyed sometime during Redjack Ryan's brief reign over the system in the early 3040s.
Taskmasters, either those originally tributed to the Oberon Confederation or captured later on by other bandit groups, would linger on in the hands of other pirate bands and would, in some extreme cases, even show up in raids against poorly defended Inner Sphere Worlds, but the vast majority would find themselves victims of the clan invasion as it swept through the coreward periphery. The examples that survive today having only done so by having found their way outside of the path of the Clans.
Variants:
The original Bunyan loggermech carried no offensive weapons, mounting instead a chainsaw and a lift hoist for felling the monstrously huge Folly Hardwood trees and hauling them back for processing. This didn't stop Bunyan pilots from attempting to resist the bandit invasion, relying on the dense woods and heavy ashfalls of the northern continent to catch unwary bandits by surprise. Ultimately, a lack of fuel would force these partisans to abandon their mechs and fight on foot, and even today the Sea Fox garrison will still find isolated bands descended from these partisans, or even an intact and long abandoned Bunyan mech.
Possessing the largest number of Taskmasters outside of Gibson's Folly itself, the Oberon Confederation would outfit the majority of their machines with an actual fire control system. Redesignated a Securitymech (to maintain the thin veneer of legitimacy the Oberon Confederation maintained), these mechs were used primarily for internal policing, which is to say essentially the same job they had been doing on Gibson's Folly. The clan invasion of the Oberon Confederation would see these mechs slaughtered wholesale, as even the benefits of computer aided fire direction was not going to let these machines stand up to clan omnimechs.
Type: Taskmaster Slavermech
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Experimental)
Tonnage: 30
Battle Value: 254
Equipment Mass
Internal Structure Industrial 6
Engine 110 ICE 7
Walking MP: 3
Running MP: 5
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sink 2 2
Gyro 2
Primitive Industrial Cockpit 5
Armor Factor (Commercial) 72 3
Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head 3 9
Center Torso 10 10
Center Torso (rear) 3
R/L Torso 7 8
R/L Torso (rear) 2
R/L Arm 5 7
R/L Leg 7 8
Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
Weapons
and Ammo Location Critical Heat Tonnage
3 Prototype Rocket Launcher 10 RT 3 3 1.5
Machine Gun LA 1 0 0.5
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100) LA 1 - 0.5
3 Prototype Rocket Launcher 10 LT 3 3 1.5
Machine Gun RA 1 0 0.5
Half Machine Gun Ammo (100) RA 1 - 0.5
Features the following design quirks: Rugged (2 points) Bad Reputation (Inner Sphere), Bad Reputation (Clan), Poor Workmanship, Modular Weapon (Machine Guns), Exposed Weapon Linkage (Machine Guns)
Record sheets can be found through the link in this thread:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=84454.msg1999191#new
