We tend to take fast heavies for granted these days, in this era of wild technology and capability. We got a taste of that tech with TRO:2750, but it really was the Clan invasion era that gave us our first giant leap forward in that regard- and showed us that a fast heavy really was a viable combat unit, not just a curiosity. Mad Cats, Thors, etc. were a revelation- Mechs with the firepower we had previously associated with assault Mechs that were moving at speeds a medium Mech would find comfortable. That's no small feat, people- it wasn't just an expansion of capabilities, it was a whole new genre of Mech that came about.
But even prior to this, there were older fast heavy designs, that had slipped under the radar a little. The Ostroc and Ostsol were both rare but quick chassis, the SLDF fielded the oddball Lancelot in reasonable numbers, and of course the famed DCMS Dragon became synonymous with House Kurita over the centuries. Hidden amongst these choices (and others, of course) was a strange SLDF machine intended to be a quick-moving close-combat menace, looking for all the world like a half-converted LAM, yet not having jump jets . Of all the Battlemechs fielded by the Star League, the CHP-series Champion was certainly... one of them. Let's give a closer look to this strange duck with its standard model (and first seen in real-world time), the CHP-1N, brought to you by the good folks at Bergan Industries.
Champions are, as noted before, fairly quick for their size- a 300-series engine propels the 60-ton machine at a respectable 86kph (5/8 in our parlance), but as noted before as well, a Mech that looks like it's a jet fighter with legs- even with big jet exhaust ports on its back- lacks jump jets. This has bothered the author for the better part of thirty years, and isn't likely to stop any time soon. Even without jumping, however, this ground speed allows the swift-footed Champion to quickly close on opponents to unleash its weaponry, for all the positive and negative that comes with that plan of action. note that this is a standard engine, not XL (a new tech in the same book that the CHP debuted in, TRO:2750), which means it is HEAVY- a Champion pours a good third of its weight into that powerplant, which... it's not a great design choice, but the only options were to go with an XL engine (and the inherent flaws within), or slow to 4/6 and be just another standard-speed heavy. The engine makes the Champion what it is, good or bad, but it definitely uses up an eye-popping amount of mass. Contained within the engine as well are ten standard heat sinks- no new freezer tech to be found here. This can result in a bit of a problem, though not as bad as many competitors.
We find more standard materials in the internal structure of the Champion, but the new ferro-fibrous armor makes one of its first appearances in real-world time on the machine, That means we get more armor coverage per ton compared to standard plating, and that's good! The problem is that with the engine and primary weapon eating up so much of the Champion's mass, we had to skimp somewhere, and that newfangled plating is it- a fairly paltry eight tons isn't going to win a lot of awards, and in fact isn't a great deal better than the famously-thin Rifleman and Jagermech. Those famous machines have the advantage of being able to hang back from the fighting at least, limiting the amount of return fire- not here. A Mech that mounts mostly short-ranged weaponry is being asked to dash into the thick of the fighting with a surprisingly thin shell, and it's a wonder anyone survived those death-rides. Being that the SLDF was deploying things like this in company-sized groups, I suppose the plan was to lose five and run the enemy off the field with the remaining seven, but in later eras it's a concerning layout.
We used an enormous amount of weight- nineteen tons- on that massive engine, and the smart thing to do at this point is to use lower-weight but powerful weapons like medium lasers and SRMs to make for a powerful punch, while not using up too much weight on a big, clumsy weapon like an autocannon. And the Champion is, in this regard, a product of the same military that produced the Magi, Sentinel, and other 'hits', going with the big dumb option. However, we do at least make a passing effort at being interesting, with the Champion being one of the first units to deploy the new Lubalin LB-10X autocannon (parked in the right torso). For those who may not be as familiar with this marvel as veteran players, this gives a Champion pilot the ability to fire slug rounds (10 points to a location) like a normal AC/10, or fire a barrage of shotgun-like pellets (ten 1-point hits on the cluster table) to pepper a target with, giving excellent flexibility to the Mech. It would be a great choice... if not for the engine already eating up so much weight. Between the gun and engine we used 40 tons of a 60-ton machine- no wonder the armor sucks! A two-ton ammo bay allows for carriage of both ammo types, and is plenty for most combat operations.
Backing the autocannon come the weapons the machine should have focused on in the first place- a pair of medium lasers are parked in the left torso, opposite the autocannon. There's no reason to go into detail here- you know them and love them, and they make an excellent short-range option to boost your damage output, though the single heat sinks do mean you'll need to be mindful of the heat gauge. Two small lasers are parked under the cockpit in the center torso, giving a little added boost at knife-fighting ranges where the Mech may struggle to brawl (more on that shortly). One can't help but wish for a third medium in place of these, but we don't always get what we want in life. Finally, a handy SRM-6 with an Artemis computer gives a powerful shotgun blast from the left torso with the lasers, with a ton of ammo feeding it- another classic that needs no introduction, but which oddly does mirror the autocannon's capability to pepper a target with small hits to find weak spots... reinforcing that perhaps the LB-10X, despite being such a great weapon, wasn't really needed here.
So we have a Mech that wants to run up in your face, spraying autocannon shells as it rapidly advances, then in close switches the lasers and missiles to full blast. But we don't have armor for that job, and we have the odd layout of the Mech coming into play as well- there's no hands or lower-arm actuators here (nor anything in those arms anyway), so punching isn't particularly easy despite the arms being free to do exactly that- a Champion sould fire every gun it has and still throw two punches, if it weren't so lousy at the attempt. It feels like there's an idea here, and it got lost in a series of bad ideas- the engine, again, is a necessary evil, but losing that cannon would have allowed for a much more focused design, and even allowed for better heat dissipation via more heat sinks- or better ones, if one desired.
Well, they did desire. Our list of variants starts with simple field upgrade, the CHP-1N2. Nothing changes here other than swapping out the heat sinks for double-strength models, and instantly the Mech is vastly improved- not good, but much better. We don't have any heat woes at all anymore- we can even take some inferno gel and be okay. Bergan never actually authorized this upgrade, but if you have the chance to field one over a standard Champion, you do it. It still isn't a great Mech, but it's a hell of a lot better.
The author's opinion on the 'Royal' variants is one of irritation- special variants for the elite of the elite, while the standard SLDF gets issued what was oftentimes hot garbage designs, and often the Royal model doesn't bear any resemblance to the standard model to begin with. Perhaps no unit exemplifies this sour mindset more than the CHP-1Nb2, which is all but unrecognizable from the 1N we talked about before. This thing strips out all of the Champion's weaponry, crams on the double heat sinks of the 1N2, then crams on a PPC and a Gauss rifle, turning the close-combat Champion into a quick sniper. To the surprise of the author, this was accomplished without a switch to an XL engine (I had to actually look up the record sheet again to confirm, and even then do some math to see if I was missing something). It's a good Mech, don't get me wrong- the thin armor remains, but as a sniper no one really cares, and it hits HARD at long ranges- but it has so little in common with its original design that I struggle to see why the SLDF would even do this.
Along the same lines, the 1Nb was a later version (never mind that it came after the 1Nb2?) that swapped the PPC for an ER PPC when that weapon came available. Not much really changes other than the increased range, it still is heat-reasonable despite the new gun, fights at long ranges, etc.- all the things you love and hate are back. Again, the author acknowledges that this is a pretty good Mech if used carefully, but just can't fathom why Champions were modified in this way- or at the very least, so few of them.
The fall of the League and start of the Succession Wars weren't kind to top-tier tech, and dumb' versions of many SLDF stalwarts were eventually fielded in varying numbers. The Champion's thin skin meant not many were around as the Succession Wars dragged on, but we see Champions struggle on with lower-grade tech in the CHP-2N. The SRM loses its computer, the autocannon has to become a standard model- luckily those changes cancel each other out, the heavier gun using the extra weight left over by the Artemis leaving. Losing the LB isn't fun, but this is reasonable so far. The drop from ferro to standard plate though makes an already-fragile heavy even more worrying in protection, and still forces it to get into shorter ranges to use its weapons. There's better options for your Mechwarrior out there, even if it means dropping a few tons- there's no excuse to field this in favor of, say, a bog-standard Wolverine.
The Champion was rare enough in the armies of the Great Houses to have missed the first round of upgrades as the Helm core technologies made its way out into the field- presumably some 2Ns got upgraded, either back to 1N standard or one-off field kits- but it was Comstar that gave us our next step forward as they prepared to fight the Clans on Tukayyid. The 'Clanbuster' upgrades were a mixed bag, with some working pretty well (Black Knight) and others being all kinds of baffling (King Crab). The Champion 3N is a case of good news and bad news. For the first time, an XL engine makes an appearance (with these being fast upgrades to get ready for the fight, swapping this in must have been quite the endeavor!). The enormous drop in weight though gave the Mech gobs of new space to play with, and new vulnerabilities that it didn't need. The armor is... not upgraded despite the vulnerable new engine, so that's great, thanks for that. We did however switch to double heat sinks, and added two standard large lasers to the Champion, out in the previously-empty arms. This is... well, a thing. We now have two large lasers and an LB-10X at reasonable ranges, with heat sinks to handle that salvo on the run for no heat, and in past years that might have looked pretty great, but against Clan opponents it's just not enough- that thin armor is glaring here. it's a neat idea, and dropping some of the short-range stuff to boost the plating might have really helped make this thing work (hi, small lasers), but as it is it's a very easily-killed machine that is intended to go into a fight against Mad Cats and Ryokens.
We have to move forward a decade before we get our next Champion, as the fight against the Smoke Jaguars comes to a close and the FedCom halves start really eyeballing each other for the inevitable. While we don't have a great deal of info on the background, it's clearly a Comstar/Word of Blake machine, and strips out everything from the 3N again to start over. And you know what? They got it right on this one. Each arm boasts a pair of ER medium lasers, giving a respectable punch at reasonable ranges to start with, while utilizing low weight (as the author wanted to do in the first place, you'll recall!). The LBX is gone, replaced to the author's dismay with an Ultra AC/10, a weapon that provides a hefty punch, but loses the scattershot utility that makes the LBX so handy- a disappointing choice on an otherwise good Battlemech. Replacing the SRM is an iNarc launcher, giving the Champion all kinds of dirty tricks to play with in the right hands (Haywire pods are a personal favorite), and a C3i computer ties it into a network, allowing the machine to provide spotting and targeting info to its mates. As Champions go, this is a beast- still a little thin-skinned, but far more capable than ever before.
We take a quick programming note at this point to note that we do not have any Jihad or later variants of the Champion, which suggests (in the author's opinion and nothing more) that the losses by the Word and Comstar in the Jihad may have wiped out the Champion as a design- a couple of oddballs may still exist, but the Jihad firestorms and the scrapping of Mechs as the Republic era dawned may finally have ended this thing. But... we have a couple more things to discuss.
The first is a simple upgrade from Force Commander Pasi Irin of the 1st Free World Legionnairies, which appears to be a simple change to a 1N. The SRM-6 and Artemis go away in favor of two Streak SRM-2s (for on-average the same firepower per-turn), and another ton of armor spread out on the Mech. It's... honestly a simple swap that makes the Mech much better, and I'll salute Irin for making lemonade here- there's more to wish to see done, but this worked better than one would have expected.
And then we have the Clans. As they often did with the SLDF gear they brought on the Exodus, the Champion was the recipient of an extensive upgrade to Clan specs, to be used in sohlama and other second-line units (or, if you're the Blood Spirits, wherever you can cram one in, we're not picky). A Clan XL engine was a must, freeing up weight like Comstar did, but without being quite as eye-poppingly vulnerable to losing a side torso. With the newfound weight savings, the Clans (we don't really know which one was behind it) bumped the laser battery to two medium pulse lasers in place of the old mediums, an ER medium added to each arm, small pulse lasers replacing the old small lasers, the SRM becoming a Clan model (keeping the Artemis but dropping weight), the LBX getting a similar Clan swap, double heat sinks... we're missing something here. Where's the rest of the weight gone to? Did they... could it be... do we finally have JUMP JETS on a Mech that looks like a fighter jet? Leave it to the Clans to fix everything! 5/8/5 is your new Champion-C speed curve. It's also got better armor, thanks to a little added tonnage and more efficient Clan ferro. This is.... still flawed, but not nearly as much as before, and honestly is a great option for a Clan garrison force to rely on. If an Inner Sphere force gets their hands on one, it's going to be a godsend for them.
So. Champion. It's overall not a great Mech, but it- wait, there's what?
You have to be ****** kidding me. Seriously?
OK. Well, sooooo... there's an LAM. It's more of a joke than anything really, but it deserves mention briefly. The CHP-1X1 was an experimental program to produce a Champion LAM, despite being larger than rules really allow. Dropping weaponry down to three medium lasers and the SRM (keeping the Artemis), the Mech becomes a 5/8/5 mover, but with the ability to transform into an AirMech (15/23). The prototype suffered major structural problems due to its weight, and was decidedly sluggish in the air, neither of which were considered positive, and after a number of tests the machine was cancelled. The TRO entry notes that the prototypes were stored on New Dallas, and one can only hope that they've been buried under rubble and never see the light of day.
So... that's the Champion all set. Underwhelming overall, but an interesting idea- one that just doesn't quite work due to some poor design choices. It's not useless- they work well as part of a team with other Mechs of its speed, particularly if it has long-range cover. The author found that they pair surprisingly well with the Dragon, which if one ignores the art looks like what you'd get if you wanted to make a long-range oriented Champion, really. What do YOU think, though? How would you use them, modify them, etc.?
]NOTE: Minor edits to spelling and such made- whole article was done on a bluetooth keyboard, so errors due to signal and author eating paint chips as a child are inevitable.]
