The author would like to note ahead of time due to illness, there was no time for editing. He apologizes in advance and will clear the article up as people note it:
Normally I try to write an article in a humorous, somewhat snarky tone. This works best when covering unfortunate tragedies such as the Targe, the Garm and the like. This attitude does not work well when covering one of the deadliest Omnimechs ever designed in this game. Quite frankly, more of a factual analysis should be used here and sprinkled with hushed reverent tones. It deserves no less.
Starting with the fluff on this ride, we learn of its slightly convoluted history. The name Dire Wolf would indicate that it initally was a Wolf design, but deployment in Operation REVIVAL would indicate that the Jaguars were the most prolific user. 3050U bears out the story behind this. The initial design was the brain-child of the Wolf scientist caste, which trialed for and successfully won the design. The TRO entry states that the Trial, not shockingly, may not have been the most honorably conducted out there. Ulric, thinking somewhat quickly, performed a Trial of Posession for rights to at least produce what really still is the crown jewl of Clan Battlemech warfare. (We shall not discuss the Hellstar..) All Dire Wolf manufacturing has been done on either Strana Mechty by the Wolves, Huntress by the Jaguars, or by the Dragoons on Outreach. With Outreach doing a reasonable impersonation of a glowstick, the Jaguars dead and their line presumably along with it, that leaves the manufacturing center on Strana Mechty, and well.....we know that the Wolves don’t have access to that anymore. If it is still intact, no one at my pay grade really knows. I can see the argument for it being purified for having Spheroid taint. (Ben, Herb...wanna throw us a bone here?) Any Dire Wolves in the Inner Sphere are what’s left, hard stop. I’m honestly not sure we will ever see these made again, but I, as a fan of the aesethic of the design, and of OmniMechs in general, I hope to see it again.
Right then.
Off to the crunchy bits.
The structure is something of a rarity for Clans, which to be totally honest is for the best in this case. Standard issue steel, dating back to the days of Ye Olden Mackie. The armor is the same thing, bog standard, 16 points per ton variety, saving yet more critical slots. While these may not be laid out . The only weight saver comes via the Satrfire 300XL under the hood. Fixed equipment gets a little on the head scratchy side. The only equipment that should fixed are in theory the maximum number of heat sinks that can fit in the engine. Usually jump jets are the biggest bits of fixed equipment that tends to cause consternation. The bits that are fixed on this frame are five extra heat sinks, which results in 30 base points of sinkage. Twelve of them fit into the engine itself, with three hanging out in the frame. One is placed into each side torso and a third in the left leg, oddly enough.
Protecting all of this is xx tons with xxx points total. This is spread out with 34 on the arms, 41 on the legs, side torsos in a 32/10 split and centerline a 47/14. Guess the head armor. Outside putting a 12 pointer to the head, killing it will require a fair amount of effort. Okay. A lot of effort, lets be honest here. The back armor being so high dosen’t bother me, as fast movers will have good chances at getting back there and chewing on your hind quarters - it’ll buy you a moment before flipping arms and removing the irritant.
If there is anything I could change about the base frame, it would be to drop three fixed heat sinks, but its honestly a small quibble considering the crimes of other other 3050 Omnimechs. As a rule, most of the fire power is concentrated in the arms on all of the configurations, with torso’s holding an ancillary crit seaking weapon if anything.
The prime configuration starts off with twin ER Large lasers, twin medium pulses and a UAC5, with its own ton of ammo.. Now mirror that on the other arm. The ancillary torso weapon is an LRM 10 with one ton of ammo. The base 30 heat sinks are supplemented by six more added into the side torsos for a total of 44 points of sinking. This weapon loadout will handidly overwhelm the heat seating capability, but it has so many options I’m not too worried. There’s a few obvious firing patterns regarding the UAC’s and the ERL’s, but the level of options you have, its not too much of an issue. Choose your weapons as your heat load and target numbers dictate. Play it like a 3025 era Rifleman or Stallker. Ride the heat curve, and you will be rewarded. If I were to improve it, I would drop the LRM 10 and ammo and use it to add more heat sinks. It likely dosen’t need the crit seeking. It can be a brute when used by unskilled players, but in the right hands, can be a devastating scalpel, always putting down the best possible firepower.
Alpha configuration, made famous as being used by Victor Davion in most of the novels is more focused on a long range fight and also plays much cooler than the Prime. The right arm has three large pulse lasers and the left carries a gauss rifle with three tons of ammo, which is plenty for most table top scenarios. The left torso holds a pair of Streaking SRM6’s each being fed by its own ton of ammo. The right torso holds an AMS with a massive amount of ammo (72 rounds of fire) The amount of ammo for the system makes more sense when you consider the older rules (1D6 ammo usage). As it stands, the bottom third of the right torso is a large bomb. Carrying 44 points of heat sinkage, assuming no extra heat sources or damaged engines, can perfectly sink its warload and run every turn (assuming both Streaks lock and the AMS fires). Nasty, but boring to drive.
Beta configuration is bizzare. That's all there is to it. Only mounting the base 30 heat sinks, the left arm mounts two PPCs, 2 pulse lasers of the medium variety, the Right arm mounting an LBX10. The torso guns are a quad set of UAC2’s in paired sets on the side torsos. Each pair shares a ton of ammo. And a superfluous ER Small Laser in the CT. Its safe to say that the cooling array is lacking, but not terribly so, but man....the heat sink juggling is not fun. I’m not quite sure what I’d change on here, but that UAC mess needs to go.
Charlie configuration is one that gets floated out as “Among the best ever” when it is in fact, fairly lackluster. Good, but not great. Notably, the damned thing flies. Three jump jets sit in the torsos, giving it a little bit of extra maneuverability. The warload is built around paired ERPPCs and ATM6’s, but the missiles have only two tons of ammo total. Choose your warload carefully on this one. When in close, it adds 4 medium pulses to the mix, and a single shot SSRM4. Adding to the mix is a 4 ton TarComp sitting in right torso, so those shots are just going to hurt that much more. An added bonus is the ECM suite, giving you some defensive assistance. 46 total heat points spread all over, and a weapon generation of 50 means that for perfect heat dissipation means you leave an ATM or MPL out every turn to just keep movement heat. This is a nasty little infighter though, and very good for munching through cities.
The Delta configuration is, to my knownledge the first weapons platform to mount a pair of the Clan’s largest weapon, the HAG 40, with 10 tons of ammo sitting in the side torsos. The backup weapons are a pair of medium pulses sitting centerline, and a SSRM6 in the left torso. And an ER Small in the head, but it seems to be there mostly to kill a half ton and soak a head crit. This thing has only one purpose in life. Close, and unload. And it has enough ammo to do so. It could probably be improved, but I like the “All or nothing” approach it takes.
The Hotel Configuration (Authors note: At this point I stopped and wondered how many there were left to do and was dismayed) moves to use paired heavy large lasers and gauss rifles, one per arm. The rifles are fed by 4 tons of ammo. Backup weapons consist of an ER Small and a medium pulse. The heavy larges and gauss rifles are boosted by a massive 7 ton Tarcomp in the right torso. It can fire the primary battery and run every turn and be heat neutral. Not seeing any obvious candidates for improvement, maybe adding some more guass ammo via removing the pulse laser.
The Sierra is the “Urban Combat/close quarters” variant of this machine. Of note, it jumps..yes its a lot of tonnage, but that maneuverability in tight spots is quite rude. The left arm is a boatload of heat sinks and a Large Pulse. Backing this largepulse up is 5 medium pulses to really make fast movers think twice about getting close. A Streak 4 in the CT is fed by a ton of ammo in the left side of the chest. Now for the “Urban combat” aspect. Two machine guns and an LBX20, each supplied generously are very handy for killing any vees or pesky footsloggers hanging around your feet. A pair of A-pods in the right leg, assisting with that “OH GOD GET THEM OFF ME” thing infantry do well. Of note for dropping it, the right torso is a bit of a bomb so when that gets opened up start throwing any crit seeking you have on it. Heat load is covered well enough, you can walk and alpha all day with 40 points of heat dissipation. No matter what, this thing is Scary.
Whiskey is a design that harks back to the Delta thought process of “Two big barrels, some secondary guns and plenty of ammo” The arm mounted gauss rifle is fed with a generous dollop of 4 tons of ammo. The torso mounted UAC20 gets two. I really wish the numbers were reversed, but the gauss will get more use as a whole, so eh. The right arm is nothing but a massive heat sink array and a Large Laser. An LRM20 helps the gauss rifle at range fed by two tons of ammo. Two medium pulses round out the arsenal in the center torso and an ER Small in the head. With 40 heat points of disspation, you can run and gun most of the day, but with so little UAC20 ammo, you are actually seriously oversinked.
The X chassis was introduced to us in Total Warfare, and has one of every weapon system out there as far outside of the HAG as far as I can determine...with a weapons array so scatterbrained that the Albatross feels unfortunate in the same hangar...armed with an SSRM2, 2 ER Micros, am ATM6 with three tons of ammo, LRM15 with Artemis, SRM4 with Artemis (each having their own ton of ammo) LBX5 with two tons of ammo, a UAC10 with two tons of ammo, a large pulse laser, and a medium heavy laser. Oh, and a targeting computer for good measure. Needless to say, the cooling array is woefully overtaxed with things to do as it only has the default 30 points of sinkage. That said, you can never complain about not having options on this monster...
Going into the Hohiro podset, we see what the Coordinator himself determined was the best way to utilize his tonnage. The primary long ranged arsenal is a PPC and a gauss rifle, which is fed by two tons of ammo. “Mid-range” power is supplied by a triplicate of Large Pulses and a streak 6 with its own ton round out the show. With 46 points of heat sink, you can fire the main battery and suffer only movement heat. Clearly, this thing is meant to fire often and with the range brackets it has, from cover. Its a NASTY ride and one of the best ones out there.
The Prometheus, designed by Lord Midget, First Prince, Precentor Martial, Paladin Victor Davion replaces the gauss rifle with a UAC20, and the PPC with two ER Larges. The large pulse laser stack stays in place (Guess they had them on sale during that period of time on Outreach) The Streak rack becomes a regular SRM6 for today. The same 46 points of heat dissipation are here, so it will be overtaxed a bit, but I don’t mind as much here as its clearly designed to get in close and tear things up.
The Widowmaker. Natasha Kerensky. This machine is often spoke of in hushed tones and brings on Gregorian chants. This machine is the queen of mean. Each arm sports an ER PPC and a Large Pulse laser. Sitting in the right torso you have an Ultra AC 20, fed by two tons of ammo coming off the corrresponding arm (Yeah, no clue there). Two mediums in the center torso and a small laser for good measure in the head. Cooled by a whopping 25DHS, it can fire the primary energy battery all day and not care. If I could improve it without changing anything, it would be from moving a heat sink from the left torso into the right arm and shifting the ammo over.
In short, one of the nastiest, most lethal war machines to ever grace the universe and should be respected as much. Seyla.