Kobold Battle Armor - Technical Readout 3075 page 19
The only Battle Armor developed specifically for the Free Rasalhague Republic, the Kobold is a Light design that is best suited for reconnaissance, although the KungsArmé apparently field it in such large numbers that it is effectively their main battlefield suit. The brainchild of a single KungsArmé officer, and the second Inner Sphere design that eventually found itself fielded in a Clan Touman, the Kobold's background is arguably more interesting than its performance, but sadly for the KungsArmé it's another of those suits that struggles to find game time with many players.
When the Kobold was first introduced in the Combat Equipment sourcebook, we were technically seeing the prototype design, although unlike later Battle Armor prototypes published in the Experimental Technical Readouts, the production version is identical to that first exposure, The origin of the Kobold goes back to the reluctance of the Draconis Combine to share the Kage Light Battle Armor with their one time subjects, forcing the Republic to look for another solution, namely developing their own design. Överste Jack Koslow, the infantry commander of the Second Kavalleri and the driving force behind the project, realized that the Republic would be unable to proceed alone and so he successfully lobbied to allow an approach to be made to the Com Guards and SLDF to join together to develop the new suit. The two new partners brought the technical expertise that the Republic lacked, although politics eventually forced the SLDF to drop out, leaving the remaining duo to soldier on.
The first prototypes were ready by May 3065, having undergone nearly three years of development, but technical faults slowed the already lethargic progress even more and it wasn't until 3069 that the design was cleared for full production, by which date the Jihad was in full swing. Although the Kobold's appearance is very different, the suit can be considered little more than a Kage with just one change: swapping the Partial Wing for a second weapon mount and payload. Technical Readout 3075 does make the claim that the Kobold is more heavily armored than the Kage, but this is not true, even when using the old Mechwarrior 3ed RPG stats the armor values were identical, so I can only assume that the Readout writer was having a bad day.
Despite the use of Basic Stealth composites to help reduce the accuracy of enemy fire, the Kobold is never going to win any awards for durability. With five points of armor, the suit does at least possess the ability to survive a strike by a full-strength LRM cluster or Inner Sphere Medium Laser, but the Clan variety of the latter is just going to leave a smoldering, melted wreck. However, like the Kage, the Kobold isn't really meant for going toe to toe with heavyweight enemy forces, instead using its stealth to sneak around, dodging enemy units until it pounces from the shadows or calls in the rain via its trusty TAG module.
Thanks to the lack of the Partial Wing found on the Kage, the Kobold possesses only the defacto standard mobility for Light and Medium Battle Armor. Without any enhancements to its myomer systems, the ground speed is the typical unimpressive 1 Movement Point, the same as good old fashioned foot infantry going back to the time of Sargon the Great, while the jump capability is the equally average 3 Movement Points. Combined with the Basic Stealth armor and decent cover - if the troopers have even a lick of sense - the Kobold can be a tricky target for an opponent to hit, especially at long range where the modifiers can quickly stack up, making the shot impossible for all but the most skillful gunners or the most accurate weapon systems.
The Kobold's armament is perhaps the most interesting feature, with the design possessing an anti-personnel capability thanks to its twin Armored Gloves, plus a combination unique to the design: a primary weapon provided by its Modular Weapon Mount, and a Squad Support Weapon Mount, the same as installed on the Kage. Addressing the last of those first, the artwork for the Kobold gives us a good glimpse how the squad mount works, with heavy-duty straps supporting the main barrel assembly of a Small Pulse Laser balanced on the trooper's left hip. When deployed to fire, the squad would quickly converge, snapping together the various modules that they each carry to produce a single weapon, ready to fire until the unit needs to move again. Perhaps the singularly most problematic piece of Battle Armor equipment, and perhaps in the entirety of BattleTech, the rules somewhat hand wave away the time that assembly and disassembly would require, and the practicality of such procedures while the squad is moving rapidly. We should at least be thankful that the Kobold isn't a VTOL design, which would present the bizarre spectacle of a squad assembling its weapon in mid air.
Between the two heavy mounts, the Kobold has 290kg to split between them, although the Technical Readout stats do not make this very clear, and I've had to explain to a couple of players that the stat block didn't mean they could field squads armed with both a Small Laser on the Modular Weapon Mount and a Small Pulse Laser on the Squad Support Weapon Mount. The Readout also contributes to another ongoing problem, one more commonly encountered, which is the belief that the squad mount provides all the troopers apart from the lead trooper with the equivalent to an Anti-Personnel Weapon Mount. First mentioned in the write-up of the Kage back in Field Manual: Draconis Combine and continued into the Kobold's entry, this does not appear in any rule, and its longevity is probably mostly due to the Heavy Metal Battle Armor program that unfortunately used the fluff rather than the rules to determine the ability of the Squad Support Weapon Mount.
The standard configurations for the Kobold can be split into two series, what I like to call the light and the heavy combat series. The light series mounts one of the most inoffensive weapons available to Battle Armor on the Modular Weapon Mount, the positively puny Micro Grenade Launcher. Weighing in at just 75kg, it does at least free enough mass that the squad mount can be configured with a Small Pulse Laser. Unfortunately, that's not quite as impressive as it sounds, with the laser having the same range and damage as the standard Small Laser of only half the mass, with the only benefits being the Pulse accuracy bonus and anti-infantry capability. Other canon configurations for the squad mount consist of a Flamer or the potentially far more dangerous TAG. Able to target for guided munitions attacks by air strikes, artillery or Semi-Guided LRMs, a Kobold squad with a TAG can be a useful force multiplier, with their contribution far outweighing any damage that the suits might inflict directly, although at least they do have a viable self=defense capability, unlike the Kage.
What I call the heavy series armament instead mounts a Small Laser on the primary mount, leaving just 90kg free for the Squad Support Weapon Mount, thus allowing only the Flamer or TAG options. Technically that 90kg would be enough for a Light Recoilless Rifle, but here's where we have another problem with the Kobold's armament. Light Battle Armor chassis have relatively few equipment slots, most importantly having just two per arm, and with each mounting system taking up one of those slots, that means that the mounts can only be equipped with weapons and equipment that also require a single slot. Sadly, that means that bulkier weapons like Recoilless Rifles will be forever unavailable to the Kobold, even though they possess the payload mass required.
A variant of the Kobold has finally appeared in the just published Experimental Technical Readout: ComStar, turning the suit into a C3I spotter, one that is definitely not ready for combat, in my opinion. With the possibility of a redesign if the variant is ever adopted by the Republic, the armor should hopefully receive a boost due to a switch to C3, making the design more suitable for frontline service. Further details of the design cannot be discussed right now, but in my experience Light Battle Armor generally makes for a poor C3/C3I spotter, due to their relatively low maximum armor capacity. In Com Guards service, this weakness can be partially compensated by their squad-level organization, with each Level I having six suits instead of the four-suit squads used by other Inner Sphere factions. Although the extra suits don't help when targeted by weapons that can kill in one shot, for lesser weapons the random hit allocation will spread the damage around, keeping individual suits alive for longer.
As of yet, not a single variant of the Kobold has ever been produced by the KungsArmé, despite their association wih the Ghost Bears bringing them a new understanding of Battle Armor technology. Although the Ghost Bear's opinion of the Kobold may have some bearing, it's more likely to be down to the Rasalhagians simply not having the resources or time to develop a new version, and for the time being the Kobolds in Republic service remain as they were when they first stepped onto the proving grounds in May 3065.
Sadly, neither the KungsArmé nor the Com Guards ever saw fit to examine other weapons configurations for the standard Kobold, at least as far as we know judging by current publications, although with Technical Readout 3075 due for an upgrade and with the Battle Armor Record Sheets yet to be produced in PDF form, there is some hope on this front. Other scouting equipment would make for obvious choices, whether Improved Sensors or Remote Sensor Dispensers, or even turning the Kobold into an interdiction unit with the addition of an ECM module. A variety of weapons would also make good options, including some that would have been unavailable when the Kobold began testing, such as the Clan developed Light Machine Gun. Given that the KungsArmé is now merging into the Ghost Bear Touman, it's even possible that actual Clan weaponry might find its way onto the Kobold, although if so I doubt it'll be until long after the Jihad is over, when Mixed Tech designs are less extraordinary.
For Clan technology to be used with the Kobold, the Ghost Bears are also going to have to get over the reluctance about Inner Sphere units, and stealthy Battle Armor in particular. While I recognize that this issue is intended as a game balance - Clan Battle Armor is scary enough as it is without making stealth armor a common feature - it does seem odd to me that the Clans avoid a technology that makes a unit hard to hit, while allowing various technologies that make it easier to hit a target, when both artificially modify a Warrior's skill. Of course, with the Kobolds now found in RAF service, there is still the possibility of Clantech configurations appearing, perhaps even moreso, since the Republic doesn't share the Bears' prejudices.
Setting aside that speculation, the Kobold's combat potential is rounded out with the ability to wield infantry weapons and to conduct Anti-'Mech attacks. The best infantry weapon choice would be the Man-Portable Plasma Rifle, although that might not be readily available for the KungsArmé given its origin on the opposite side of the Inner Sphere, so it may be more likely to see Portable Machine Guns and other such weapons. The Kobold's Anti-'Mech capability is pretty much the same as all current mid-sized or smaller Battle Armor designs, however the possibility of the Flamer or Small Pulse Laser on the squad mount does allow for a little extra Swarm damage than an IS Standard squad, for example.
Like other Light Battle Armor that find themselves in direct combat, the Kobold really wants to get out of it as quickly as possible. Five points of armor is simply too light to be spending too much time competing with the big boys, especially Clan opponents, and the best tactics for use are going to be those where Kobold squads can hit and fade before the enemy has much time to react, or even to only attack those targets that can be overwhelmed in a single Turn or two. This all changes in RPG usage, where the Kobold becomes one of the top dogs, with its Armored Gloves allowing the operator to handle equipment just like an unarmored person, however it's probably not the first such suit that would spring to mind for this environment, such is the impact of the much older Kage. Even though the Kobold is perfectly capable of competing with the Combine's primary covert ops suit in RPG scenarios, many players in my experience see it as tailored more for green ops.
The KungsArmé's deployment certainly supports that viewpoint, with five of their 'Mech regiments having no less than a battalion of Battle Armor assigned to them, including Överste Jack Koslow's Second Kavalleri, who fathered the whole Kobold project. Described as the basis for those units, the Kobold definitely appears to be fielded more on the frontline than the Kage, with only the Battle Armor regiment attached to the First Tyr equipped mostly with heavier designs. The Com Guards went a different route, apparently using the Kobold as would be expected, as a recon unit, deploying only single Level Is in larger formations, although company-sized Level IIs have used Kobolds with light OmniMechs, presumably to produce rapid, multi-facet scouting and screening units.
Somewhat marginalized due to its faction, looked down upon by its new Clan masters, outfought by larger suits, and lacking the mystique of the Kage that inspired its development, the Kobold is something of an also-ran of the Battle Armor world. The sole known variant is only experimental is and far from ready for the battlefield, and overall the suit suffers from the problem shared by all Light Battle Armor in the BattleTech tactical game, namely that they're simply outperformed by Medium designs. The Kobold can't really be blamed for that shakey foundation and it does well with what it has, and it should be remembered that the standard design still has a lot of unexplored potential, that hopefully will one day be revealed.
Next up:
- Afreet
- Rottweiler
- Nighthawk
- Tornado
