’Mech of the Week: Ryoken II (Repost and Update)

[chanman]

Mech of the Week: Ryoken II 2013 UPDATE

Originally posted November 14, 2007

The Welcome
Let me start off by saying how much of a pleasure it is to be here.  I’ve been filing –otW’s for a while now (over two and a half years, actually), but I’ve never actually written one before.  While the AT2, BA, and Protomech articles have essentially concluded, and the VotW is starting to close in on that mark, the MotW still has a long way to go.  Thanks, no doubt, to the central role that Battlemechs play in Classic Battle Tech’s hierarchy of shooty machines of death and destruction.  And so it is that the MotW series has undergone the widest variation in authors, articles, and debates, with pieces ranging from short briefs on obscure and lackluster machines, to massive dissertations on the colourful history and extensive extended family of more prolific mechs.

That out of the way, I would like to take this opportunity to return this article to one of CoyoteWarDog’s original stated goals – to give relatively unknown mechs some much needed exposure and evaluate whether they are underappreciated classics, solid designs eclipsed by fan favourites, or flaming pieces of monkey poop that deserve to be relegated to the dustbin of history, mentioned only as a particularly vile threat to disobedient mechwarriors.

I don’t recall if this was about the time when MotW started getting a stable of writers, but once upon a time, MotW was actually mostly a single-poster effort with the odd guest appearances by other JHB and other invitees. They also used to be a lot shorter and less comprehensive. At some point the articles stopped being quick excerpts and became full on analytical documents. Hellbie, I blame you! (Yes, really. I seem to remember the biggest stylistic jump coming from your articles filling in for CWD)

The Warning
I now draw your attention to one of the first mechs to be revealed in the Mechwarrior: Dark Age setting (now Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction) – the Ryoken II.  Let me make this clear right now, before going any further.  This thread is not a valid place to discuss the nature of the Mechwarrior timeline or your opinion of the game system.  You may discuss the usage of the mech in either game system, you may discuss the mech’s background story.  You may NOT expound on your undying love for the genius of the click base system, NOR may you spout your limitless hate for how Mechwarrior ruined Battletech.  There is a Report to Moderator button underneath each and every post, and I promise I will not be shy in using it.  No –otW thread has ever been locked, and I would like it to remain that way.

Well, now that we’ve passed the 11 year anniversary of the release of MWDA (Son of a… has it been that long since my freshman year?), I think the warning is no longer really necessary, but ignore it at your own risk.

The Story So Far…
As far as mechs go, this one just didn’t make its mark.  There are just two figures, near as I can tell – Caden Senn of the Highlanders (I have this fig and some pictures will appear later), and Diane Jameson of the Swordsworn.  Both are of the same configuration, although a third notable pilot exists – Tassa Kay, who makes her debut as a fetching redhead on the cover of the second DA novel, A Call To Arms.  While I’m not fully informed over her convoluted shenanigans, I *do* know that she originates from Clan Wolf-in-Exile, whereas I am unsure whether the Steel Wolves faction are the descendents of the Exiles, the Crusaders, or both.  Ms. Kay pilots a heavily customized Ryoken II, which we will get to in just a moment.

The history of the Ryoken II is… unusual, but not altogether implausible.  For those who like to read it for themselves, you can pick up the RS:DA record sheets from heavymetal website for Heavy Metal Pro, or for those without, you can get it for free from the dossiers posted on the Wiz Kids Mechwarrior website in the fiction section, under the Dark Ages Dossiers link.  Or you can click these links: Lt. Diane Jameson and Col. Caden Senn

I’ve replaced the defunct WizKids links with ones going to Sarna.

First off, we learn from Raul, the protagonist in A Call to Arms, that the design is rare in Prefecture IV in the Republic of the Sphere. (Feel free to call it the New Republic if you wish)  This prefecture, like all the others, radiates out from Prefecture X, which consists of a blob of worlds around Terra.  Prefecture IV Acherner, where the novel takes place, extends all the way to Tikonov, which is the Prefecture capitol.  The Prefecture borders the Federated Suns according to the map in the novel, but it’s not too far from the Capellans either.  It is, however, a fair distance from the Ghost Bear Dominion, which perhaps explains its local rarity.

As far as Raul knows (which given his status as a reservist mechwarrior, is hopefully more than the average hole-digging denizen of the Republic), the design is only found in lance-strength with the Northwind Highlander Regiments.  (If you were one of those folks hoping for the radioactive eradication of this particular band of interstellar kilt-wearers, your prayers were not answered by Herb, Lord of Nukes.) Presumably, the unspoken caveat is ‘inside the Republic’ but we don’t know and real Clanners have better toys anyway.

Removed a comma for clarity and added a link to the explanation of the ‘hole’ reference. Also, Northwind-haters, Herb has somehow seen fit to let the Highlanders survive his entire atomic reign.

Now, going by the dossiers, the Ryoken II debuted in 3075 at the height of the Jihad, developed by the Ghost Bears in an attempt to, and I quote, “achieve the same success that Clan Diamond Shark had with its Mad Cat II design, which increased the tonnage and lethality of the original Mad Cat.”  (Now there’s a loaded statement.)

Let’s take a look at this for a second.  The Ghost Bears decide to build a bigger, badder Stormcrow to do what the Sharks did with the Mad Cat II.  The Sharks designed the Mad Cat II to simultaneously (a) clear their caches of old equipment, (b) impress ignorant Spheroids, (c) sell their mediocre creation by branding it as a ‘New and Improved!’ version of a superlative classic and (d) make them scads of sweet, filthy lucre by selling the IS a twin-gauss assault mech, something that isn’t exactly hard to find between the Cerberus, Pillager, Devestator, Nightstar, King Crab, Fafnir, and many, many, many more.  Those Sharks are marketing geniuses.

Did the Bears succeed?  Let’s see

(a)  LB-2x autocannon – four of them per mech.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that only exceptionally deviant clan pilots are going to voluntarily load such low-firepower weapons, let alone four of the damn things.

(b) Raul seemed  suitably impressed, and the Republic seems to be keeping them in service, and likely buying new ones if they exist in ‘lance strength’ (assuming this means lances of the things, and not a total of one lance)

(c) The original Ryoken II is more expensive than the original, is slower, and hits nowhere near as hard.  Mission Accomplished, lads!

(d) Nearly 19 million C-bills before inevitable mark-ups to put four class two autocannon and a pair of LRM-15’s on the field.  The background on Lt. Diane Jameson’s machine says that it was the first to be directly sold to the RotS.  Looks like the Bears hit three for three.

Perhaps the silliest part of the fluff is in the background for Caden Senn’s machine.  Piloted by a CGB mechwarriors alongside Combine forces to retake Dieron in 3077, “Its profile tricked the defenders into believing it was a standard Ryoken, which quickly proved their undoing.”  I’m not too sure what this could possibly imply except maybe that they devoted far too much effort to taking it down, and leaving themselves open to more heavily armed attackers, something supported by the dossier’s description of the mech as so heavily damaged, it was abandoned and eventually salvaged by the Second Kearny Highlanders when they passed through Dieron on a mop-up.

With TRO3075, we find that the Ryoken II was created in part because the Wolves-in-Exile had apparently looted all of the USB factories that Da Bears had brought into the IS, impairing the ability of the Dominion to produce OmniMechs. As suspected, the Dominion was inspired by Diamond Shark efforts. Da Bears apparently chose the name Ryoken II in an effort to embrace their Spheroid populace by giving their new mech the same codename as the Spheroids had bequeathed upon the machines of their terrifying violent invaders just a quarter century ago. (They’re still working on this ‘hearts-and-minds’ thing).

And here, we have some pictures of my Mr. Senn's Ryoken II in circa-3132 Highlander colours.  As you can see, it makes for excellent camouflage against my desk, but stands out against the arctic whiteness of my envelope.



None the less, what we have here looks vaguely like a Stormcrow, but in no way excels like its illustrious forbearer.  No steps forward, but still the one step back.

Here’s the official TRO artwork:

The Facts and Figures
So, on to the statline.

The Good:
-A 75 ton Clan mech moving at 5/8 is always an excellent place to start.
-Endo, XL-engine – Just what the doctor ordered on a cavalry mech.
-It has a decent coat of armour at 216 points, just a little shy of the maximum.

The Bad:
-Standard Battlemech – I know the Bears are iffy on omnis, but as BA lovers, there’s a lot to be said for having every possible design able to act as a taxi.
-All torso weapons – BA would have blocked the weapons, but since that’s not an issue, the main problem is the restricted fire arcs that result.
-All ammo weapons – only eight shots for each LRM launcher, although it would take over twenty turns to run the autocannon dry
-No short ranged weapons – Clan ER Medium lasers are excellent weapons, and at one ton each, there’s no reason for all but the lightest designs bit to pack on a couple as Shit-Hits-The-Fan backups

The Ugly:
-Look, I know that a battery of autocannon looks and sounds cool.  I’ll even concede that the quartet of UAC/5’s on the standard Jupiter makes a lot of sense as a low-heat addition to a PPC/LRM array.  But people… FOUR LB-2x’s on a design that 31 tons to spend on guns in the first place?  This isn’t the Ryoken II, it’s the Super Rifleman or the Mini-Bane.  Stormcrow lovers, feel free to recoil in horror.

Crit placement is… interesting.  Endo steel crits are in the legs, the head, and the CT.  Side torsos each contain half the weapons and half the ammo.  Hand actuators are mounted.

Only change here is that RS:3075 show that the Endo steel crits are only in the legs, CT, and head.

What do I do with this thing?
What is there to say here? Treat it like a faster JM6-S or a BJ-1 that doesn’t jump or a fast Mauler without the lasers or the heat problems.  It’s good for plinking, forcing helos to keep their distance, and maybe forcing lawn dart checks on fast movers.  30 hexes of range and the submunition bonus vs. aircraft make for good light flak.  The LRM-15’s can deal damage, but only for eight turns.  With no minimum range and only eight shots, they’re more useful as short-ranged weapons, but heat won’t be an issue.  Unless you alpha strike after an engine hit, you can’t generate heat anyway.  On the upside, you too can field a clan heavy mech for just over 1600 BV! (under BV1)

Under BV 2.0’s higher ranking for protection, the Ryoken II comes in at 1801 BV2. VTOLs rotors are now less vulnerable, but ASFs are still partial to lawn-dart rolls. The TW rules also make vehicles much more vulnerable to motive crits. Hovers are especially affected, but all ground vehicles are more susceptible when exposed to flanking fire. The Ryoken 2’s good ground speed, long range, and LBx modifiers can be a real asset when fighting a vehicle-heavy force on a battlefield with open lines of sight.

The Mutations
The first variant introduced in RSDA doesn’t give any official users or pilots, but presumably is used by pilots who want to smash big gaping holes in their enemies rather than endlessly antagonize them with pinpricks from outside retaliation range.  In the same vein as the MAL-3R’s attempt to salvage something useful from the trainwreck of the Daboku/Mauler, the Ryoken II (2) (imaginative naming there, guys), drops all four LB-2x guns (Thank the Founder!) and replaces them with… paired UAC/10’s with two tons of ammo per gun, still one in each side torso.  Now, those of you keeping track will notice that the swap is not weight neutral – the Ryoken II drops two tons of armour to stuff in the boomsticks, losing a full 32 points of protection in the process, and not beefing up the LRM’s ammo endurance in the process.  This one will attract more fire, and die faster, but honestly, as long as it kills faster, I’m fairly certain most Clanners won’t care.  Each AC/10 shell does 25% more damage than if the full battery of class 2’s had hit.  There’s no contest here at all.

I must admit that I half suspect that this variation, much like the -3R Mauler and certain Jagermechs are desperate attempts by the mech creators to give steaming piles of doo-doo some redeeming quality.  Leave it, guys.  That's Flavour.  If that happens to be a steaming pile of flaming monkey poo, well, that's a perfectly valid flavour, and an exceptionally strong one to boot.

What do you do with it?  Look, it’s an 5/8 heavy mech with a pair of big guns and a pair of big honkin’ missile launchers.  Do that cavalry mech thang’; float like a butterfly, sting like a bee; punch holes with boomsticks and fill them holes with missiles.  You know the drill.

TRO3075 reveals that the Ultra-10s were acquired in a trade from the Hell’s Horses, and that the Ryoken II 2 was merely on the drawing board circa 3075. The similar Ryoken II 3 does a straight swap of UACs for HAG20s, the extra bulk of the HAGs displacing the LRM ammunition to the arms. The HAG20s are fluffed as requiring further cooperation from the Horses. The result is more of an opportunistic team player, able to chip in 5-point clusters of damage from long range and force enemy flyboys to back off.

And now for Miss "I’m not the Black Widow’s evil clone"…
And now, the one you’ve all been waiting for… Tassa Kay’s very own mean machine.  As befits a mysterious, wandering femme fatale, her ride is tweaked to the hilt and back.  It’s so changed that about the only thing it has in common with the stock Ryoken II(s) when you get down to the stat line is that all the weapons are located in the torsos.

So where to start?  Ah yes… twin Clan ERPPC’s… AKA infinite-ammo gauss rifles, and the start of good things like the Puma Prime, Pouncer Prime, Nova A, Linebacker Prime, Timber Wolf A, Timber Wolf D, and many other modern classics.  Truly an excellent choice for a main armament.  Now what’s this for back up weapons?  A pair of Streak SRM-6 boxes with a ton of ammo each?  Now, that is a treat!  Looks like a fast Thug – punch holes, fill with SRMs, a true classic.  And finally we have that aforementioned pair of backup ER medium lasers, for a truly excellent weapons suite.

Unfortunately, someone took it a step too far… for one thing, the mech now sports Ferro-Fibrous armour… 12.5 tons of it, which means it adds a half-ton for all of one point.  Some of the endo-steel crits have also been shifted – ES in the arms, CT, and Head, FF in the arms and side torsos.  The leg-mounted crits make way for jump jets, of which Tassa’s mech sports five of, for a movement curve of 5/8/5

The end result is a mech that runs hot like a Clanner should.  Fifteen DHS are mounted in the engine, which must have made for an interesting overhaul if that is indeed a stock unit, and not a Timber Wolf unit shoved into a Ryoken II chassis.  This gives it somewhat warm heat handling characteristics.  At long range, using both PPCs will make you overheat by movement, while in close, one eye should be kept on the heat gauge at all times, especially with the Streak racks in play.  I suspect that you would use one PPC and all the short range weapons in close, which gives you 25 heat if neither streak locks, 29 if one hits, and 33 if both hit in addition to movement.  Dropping the PPC the next turn will quickly rein in the heat, but the mech is a good re-introduction to proper heat management techniques.

I’m fairly certain I don’t need to tell you how to use Tassa’s mech.  It’s a highly mobile, hard-hitting cavalry mech with excellent weapons further out and in close.  If I had to change one thing, I would drop either a medium laser or a ton of ammo (streaks are miserly with their missiles) for another DHS so that the mech can run and fire both PPCs while remaining heat neutral.

There’s nothing really bad about Tassa Kay’s mech, except that it would have been more iconic and fitting for her to use a modified Timber Wolf than to hack up a Bear support design to create her custom mech.

Endnote
This article is a one-off exercise for me, and future articles may occasionally show up in the future, but at this point, I’m quite happy to leave you folks to the currently active MotW writers.  As I noted in the introduction, one of the idiosyncrasies of the MotW is that as both the original –otW, and the one that has seen the largest variation in writers since CoyoteWarDog became a mod, it’s rather ‘open source’.  Most other –otW’s have only one, or two, or three main writers to see them through (and MotW was this way a long, long time ago when CoyoteWarDog and JadeHellBringer wrote most of them), giving them a uniform, consistent quality. While I love the clockwork regularity and high quality of every VotW that GreyWolfActual has written every Saturday, or the FotW from Trace_Coburn that I eagerly awaited every mid-week (before it ran out of fighters), I find it appropriate that the ‘Mech, perhaps the defining feature of CBT, for better or for worse, has seen the greatest number of posters try their hand at writing.  Writing in order to express their love and disdain for these fictional avatars of death, expose their glaring weaknesses and reveal the subtleties of their use, speculate on their origins and possible permutations, and not least of all, to dust off old war stories and amusing anecdotes.  We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Diablo48]

I must say I strongly disagree with your assessment of the original.  Sure is is not a 'Mech-killer, but there are plenty of other threats on the modern battlefield which it does a great job dealing with from a staggeringly long range, and it has the mobility to keep the range open while it works.  Not only does it outrange just about everything short of artillery, but it can get into its medium range while keeping many IS units completely out of range, and it does all this with a free -1 to hit on top of the benefits of a Clan pilot.  I would take the original over the UAC variant any day, and the HAG variant trades away a lot for the extra punch of the big guns so I am not entirely sold on that either.

[Wrangler]

Snazy flashback, chanman.  I hope you reconsider writing up more like this, i like your style of reviewing Ryoken II.

As for the 'Mech itself, it has more potential. I was originally introduced to it via A Call to Arms, with Tassa Kay being owner of the modified Jump Jetting customer version. 

I'm little dissappointed that MWDA Record Book 1's entry for Tassa's 'Mech didn't get into Record Sheets: 3075 Unabridge The Cutting Edge section.  Hopefully it will pop up somewhere as a update canon variant.  Its too bad that we didn't get another variant via the RS:3145's New Tech, New Upgrades, i dare say it could used a new wringle in its family tree.

[Deadborder]

Given that Anastasia Kerensky was immediately out of favour with WiE's leadership for a) getting the legendary "four kills in a trial of position" and b) espousing strong Crusader views, I suspect that her piloting a Ryoken II was not entirely by choice. (That or WiE's supplies of Omnis were allready that low in the early 3130s)

[Nahuris]

While not a great design on an all mech battlefield... this is not a bad design in the mixed force era of the Dark Ages.

It's really a mobile vehicle hunter, and you honestly should be saving the LRM's for either times you have a great shot, need to sand down the armor on a heavy tank... or to use as a "Back Off" button for something trying to rush you.

As for the rest of the time, you should be using it to turn all those Nova Cat SM1's that the Dracs have, into pill boxes.

Nahuris

[JadeHellbringer]

I'll take blame for the change in the articles mentioned- I've always been a little long-winded when it comes to typing, so what were intended often to be brief looks at odd designs often became far more extensive than the TRO entries themselves! That was often the case in the Vehicle articles, and when I'd fill in on MotW it came through here as well. I admit I miss working on those articles sometimes, almost as much as I miss CWD being around.

Anyway. Ryoken II. Yeah... at a glance, this looks awful. Twin LRM-15s are never a bad way to start the show, and 5/8 is pretty much par for the course on a Clan heavy (though looking at the artwork and miniatures, can you imagine something shaped like that moving that fast?). And then... LB-2Xs. One is a strange thing to pick for a weapon- four seems almost criminal. And then... Then you start really considering the machine's role. Is this a Mech fighter? No. No, this isn't going to win against another Mech often. But against just about anything else? Meet the Rasalhague Murder Machine. If it flies, it's going to cease doing so very quickly after meeting a Ryoken II. Ground vehicles had better set their parking brakes, because they're going to be immobilized in no time flat. And few units will even be able to reply while under fire from those chattering cannons. As a support unit, this thing shines. And what do you know, it seems vehicle and infantry forces are much more prevalent than Mech forces in the early portion of the Dark Ages... how convenient for Ryoken II drivers!

Now, I don't have experience firsthand with the 2 or 3 models, so I'll reserve judgement, but it appears that adding heftier guns was only a mixed success, tempered by a pretty major loss of armor plating. Not a fan of those changes, though at least the 3 remains a killer of all flying units.

Now, Tassa... I'll politely disagree with the author here, in his belief that she should have had a more iconic unit. Part of this, of course, is that the early Dark Age sets didn't feature the Mad Cat- they had the Mad Cat III early on, and the Mad Cat II (which oddly used the old  Mad Cat look) eventually, but early on this is what we had for a Clan heavy- this and the Tundra Wolf. Well, we already had a character in the first novel using one of those beasts, so.... something different for the second novel made sense to me. And at that point, we didn't know this was a Ghost Bear machine- just that it was Clan tech. And what a Mech she built out of it. Hard to argue with twin ER PPCs backed by Streak racks. The lasers do feel like an afterthought though- replacing them with another ton of ammo, as suggested above, is a good move. With the Dark Age being heavy on infantry forces, I'd look at swapping the other for a couple of flamers as well, but I've always been a bit infantry-paranoid (as my canonized designs tend to show). Otherwise, hard to argue with this thing's layout- it feels like a Thor configuration in a lot of ways, and with my love of that machine it should come as now surprise that I'm a big Ryoken II (Tassa) fan.

It's hard to improve on these... leaving the 2 and 3 alone, the 1 might get a boost from switching out two of the cannons for ER large lasers, allowing heavier punch and similar range without a huge increase in heat (especially since it clears weight for heat sinks), but it means less cluster-flak per turn. It's at least worth considering. As for Tassa... other than my suggestion for more ammo and flamers in place of the lasers, it's hard to come up with much that improves that monster.

All in all, a machine that is dog-ugly, but if you use it for the jobs it's built for this can be a true terror on the modern battlefield to non-Mech forces.

[Diablo48]

...I've always been a little long-winded when it comes to typing...

You don't say. :D

It's hard to improve on these... leaving the 2 and 3 alone, the 1 might get a boost from switching out two of the cannons for ER large lasers, allowing heavier punch and similar range without a huge increase in heat (especially since it clears weight for heat sinks), but it means less cluster-flak per turn. It's at least worth considering....

I would be more inclined to go after the LRMs.  The cannons are what make this design so strong, and the LRM racks do not have enough ammo to really shine anyways.  A quick check of the numbers says that pulling both would free up 9 tons which is easily enough to fill out the arsenal with some energy weapons.  You cannot really manage two ERLLs on that, but a single ERPPC and a few short range weapons like a pair of HMLs and a pair of Flamers or Micro Pulse Lasers would work wonders.

[Scotty]

By my math nine tons is enough for a pair of ERLLs and a heat sink?  I'd swap out the LRMs for that in a heartbeat.

[chanman]

As a secondary battery though, I think there are better choices than a pair of LRM-15s with only 8 shots apiece, but I am biased towards Clan medium lasers as a utility weapon.

Tassa Kay's custom is actually reminiscent of a Timby A or a Warhammer in terms of weapons and armour, but jumping (and faster than the Warhammer)

[Diablo48]

By my math nine tons is enough for a pair of ERLLs and a heat sink?  I'd swap out the LRMs for that in a heartbeat.

That results in 28 weapon heat on 22 dissipation which will force you to drop a laser every other turn for an average of 15 damage per turn and no room for movement heat and a movement penalty every other turn which is why it does not really work.  The ERPPC has the same average damage, but concentrates it into a single headcapping cluster and runs cooler with 19 weapon heat on 20 dissipation so you can afford to walk with no heat buildup.  It also leaves another 3 tons for close quarters weapons or other equipment which further shifts things in favor of the ERPPC configuration.

Remember, just because you can fit something in does not mean you should shove it in there, although that has never stopped us from doing truly stupid things like shoving a HGR into an Urbie. ;D

[Scotty]

At the same token, just because you overheat a little bit doesn't make it a bad design, and I very much like the Rifleman-esque ability to pump out more damage if you really need it in a pinch.  With ER LLs, the design becomes all about playing the range game, and if you close enough to use secondary weapons you're probably doing it wrong.

Remember, when the shortest range weapon on the 'Mech reaches to 25 hexes?  You don't need secondary weapons.

[Diablo48]

At the same token, just because you overheat a little bit doesn't make it a bad design, and I very much like the Rifleman-esque ability to pump out more damage if you really need it in a pinch.  With ER LLs, the design becomes all about playing the range game, and if you close enough to use secondary weapons you're probably doing it wrong.

Remember, when the shortest range weapon on the 'Mech reaches to 25 hexes?  You don't need secondary weapons.

If you want to go that way you are better off with one ERLL and one more 2-X, but I think a more flexible configuration is a better bet.  Enemies will get the drop on you from time to time so it is good to have something else to throw at them so long as you remember that you always want to avoid the need to use it, and infantry are especially bad about this so having anti-infantry weapons is a very good thing.  Also, Flamers let you artificially break line of sight to ground forces with smokescreens while you focus on your anti-aircraft duties which is probably far more useful on a design like this than a bit of extra burst.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Is it just me or does the Ryoken II seem like a really expensive JaegerMech?

[Scotty]

Of course we're entitled to our separate opinions.  I still think I'd prefer two ER Larges over any of the other proposed changes.

And yes, it seems a lot like a Jagermech.  There's a reason I likened it to a Rifleman.

[chanman]

Is it just me or does the Ryoken II seem like a really expensive JaegerMech?

It's a faster, better armoured JM6-A with a second pair of autocannon.

[JadeHellbringer]

You know, the more I think about it, yeah, replacing the LRM racks on the standard Ryoken II with ER larges instead of the LBs makes more sense. I keep thinking of them as being the power-weapons on the Mech since the cannons sure don't do much to armor, but twin large lasers would provide plenty enough firepower to compensate, with no ammo issues and only a little heat to watch every so often- and still keeping the quartet of doom-flak cannons. I approve.

[marauder648]

This Mech made me nearly spit tea when I saw it. Four..LB2.  Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....why would you do that to anything.  Yeah its a JaegerIIc but still What a waste of a mech.

[JadeHellbringer]

This Mech made me nearly spit tea when I saw it. Four..LB2.  Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....why would you do that to anything.  Yeah its a JaegerIIc but still What a waste of a mech.

Again, only if you're thinking of using it alone against another Mech. For many other uses, it's actually a pretty nasty customer.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Yeah, but is a 75-ton, 5/8 XL Clan 'Mech really the best platform for that?

[JadeHellbringer]

Yeah, but is a 75-ton, 5/8 XL Clan 'Mech really the best platform for that?

Oh it's an oddball, no question- not only unusual by Clan heavy standards, but by Dominion standards-this doesn't feel like something they'd build. But... here we are.

[UnLimiTeD]

So, if we convert to FF, what do we drop to get enough tonnage for that Radical Heatsink?  >:D

That aside, it's a nifty mech for a variety of purposes. Just straight combat against it's peers might seem questionable.

[Colt Ward]

For the Ryoken II . . . one of the recent conversations about the Gargoyle Prime brought up aimed shot for Clan warriors vs Mechs . . . and if the two LB-5X on the Garg Prime works for that, the four LB-2X do as well . . . huge medium range for increased chances of head hits.  I do think it is a ideal support machine with those four guns.

With that said, I hate the art but like Tassa's configuration

[UnLimiTeD]

Don't aimed shots require stationary targets? ???

[Moonsword]

Don't aimed shots require stationary targets? ???

Not just stationary targets but immobile ones.  Even if you're using the Standing Still movement mode rules in TO, the unit still isn't considered immobile.  Either that or a targeting computer, which can't make aimed shots with cluster rounds and the Ryoken II doesn't have anyway.

He may be referring to called shots on page 78 of TO, though.

[Colt Ward]

Lol, yeah . . . that distinction came up in the other thread and I thought I had it right.  IIRC from the other thread, you take a TH penalty to be able to hit on the punch table . . . which with LB-2Xs at medium range of 20 hexes and a Clan pilot could be considered acceptable.

[Diablo48]

Yeah, but is a 75-ton, 5/8 XL Clan 'Mech really the best platform for that?

Absolutely.  The guns weigh 20 tons on their own and you need at least two tons of ammo for them, so anything smaller than a heavy will either have to move slower or sacrifice any form of backup weapons.

Oh it's an oddball, no question- not only unusual by Clan heavy standards, but by Dominion standards-this doesn't feel like something they'd build. But... here we are.

Do remember it is built for spheroid pilots, probably including the personnel absorbed from the KungsArmé.  They would be much more willing to pilot a support design like this than Clan pilots, and it is possible that someone in leadership wanted to exploit this.  It is also built for export to some extent, so making it less capable of fighting the 'Mech-heavy Clan forces is also a plus.

[Kitsune413]

The Clan Jagermech?  ;D

Anastasia's Warhammer variant Ryoken II wasn't terrible.

[Dragon Cat]

Anastasia/Tassa had the problem of being introduced early into the DA the Mad Cat III, Tundra Wolf and Jupiter had been handed out to the Republic so she got what was left...

Was it a bad choice I'd say no I loved her machine when I first saw it the LBX looks horrible but looking at the early DA it fit in nicely fighting vehicles which were your main opponent.

Tassa's custom machine which is by large a Timber Wolf in new clothes is a Mech killer which fit with her character nicely

[chanman]

Absolutely.  The guns weigh 20 tons on their own and you need at least two tons of ammo for them, so anything smaller than a heavy will either have to move slower or sacrifice any form of backup weapons.

It's a support weapons platform. Put it on a tank. Like oh, I don't know.... a Partisan?

[Colt Ward]

The cost of it being on a mech is the trade off over armor in tactical mobility, strategic mobility (HALO/Orbital Drop), durability and height/range over the armor.  Besides, you are not going to get that Partisan up to 5/8 afaik.

[Diablo48]

It's a support weapons platform. Put it on a tank. Like oh, I don't know.... a Partisan?

Basically this:

The cost of it being on a mech is the trade off over armor in tactical mobility, strategic mobility (HALO/Orbital Drop), durability and height/range over the armor.  Besides, you are not going to get that Partisan up to 5/8 afaik.

Although it would have been better with Jump Jets.  Hm...that would be a mean mod.  Replace the LRMs with a single ERLL and five Jump Jets to make it even more all-terrain and open up some really nice positioning options for your stupid long range support guns.

[Lord Cameron]

I'm little dissappointed that MWDA Record Book 1's entry for Tassa's 'Mech didn't get into Record Sheets: 3075 Unabridge The Cutting Edge section.  Hopefully it will pop up somewhere as a update canon variant.  Its too bad that we didn't get another variant via the RS:3145's New Tech, New Upgrades, i dare say it could used a new wringle in its family tree.

Yeah, it's a little tough to find the sheet.  :-\

Are the ERPPC's on the arms like the Warhammer, Marauder etc, or are all the weapons in the torso like the other Ryoken II variants?

[Colt Ward]

Didn't she have a dossier?  I know the variant was in MM at one point.

[JadeHellbringer]

Didn't she have a dossier?  I know the variant was in MM at one point.

Tassa's Ryoken II was never made as a figure (only a Swordsworn and Highlander version were made of that giant chunk of plastic), so she had no dossier. The sheet in the RS:MWDA book is based (near as I can tell) on the descriptions given in the novels-and is, if we're honest, a pretty good machine, if a little boring. By the time we got a pilot card for Kerensky (after the AoD rules change) she had moved on to her Savage Wolf.

(All weapons, as I recall, are torso-mounted still, as with the original model.)

[cavingjan]

Mangonel. Then we got the Savage Wolf later.