MECH OF THE WEEK: VTR-** VICTOR
IntroductionFirst of all, my apologies for this late MOTW. As the old Victor is lost to history and a few variants have emerged since, we shall take a look again at this old grand-daddy of a Mech. The Master Unit List entry for the Panther is
here.
The Victor has been around for what feels like all of Battletech history, inside and outside the game. It is 1 of only 4 original 80-ton Assaults (if one discounts the Hatamoto-Chi), and 1 of that 4 is the Charger (sigh). The regular SLDF and House militaries used the Victor extensively, at least a few went on the Exodus, and 3 surviving factories lived to see the Fourth Succession War; Styk and St. Ives for the Liaos, and Quentin for the Davions. (Make a note.)
(Variant flowchart pending)
VariantsVTR-9B – the quintessential Victor, the 9B moves 4/6/4, carries 15 single heat sinks and mounts 11.5 tons of armour (74%) arranged 9, 23/34/23, 10/15/10, 18/18 and 20/20. As a proud member of the ‘Maximum Armour’ school of Mech design, to me this is personally disappointing, beating only the Cyclops and tying with the Zeus in the 3025 lineup of Assault Mechs. (No, the Charger does NOT count!) Weapons comprise 2 medium lasers, SRM-4 with 25 shots, and the Victor’s
raison d’etre, AC-20 with 15 shots.
From a design perspective the Victor is actually outside the 75-ton “sweet spot” for 4/6/4 movement on all-standard tech. It is an oversized heavy and should be considered as such. The “natural order” of Mech technology in Level 1 play makes 80 and 85 tonners like the Victor the “assault troopers” and they should be designed and used as such. The Victor’s approach hearkens somewhat back to the Roman legions of old; get in close with those short swords and stab, stab, STAB.
Using the VTR-9B therefore is brute simplicity. You have nothing that hits beyond 9 hexes. You use the jump jets to get up close, put the muzzle against the opponent’s body, and pull the trigger. The AC-20 is not the most efficient of weapons, but you’re in this to make big holes. In 3025, 2 shots to any single location will cripple all but the heaviest of Mechs, so keep firing and pray they strike true. The jumpers will help in broken terrain and to get those juicy back-shots, lasers and SRMs to crit seek or worry off those last few bits of armour.
How does the 9B compare against the other 80-tonners of its time? Not well. Against the LCAF’s equally thin-skinned ZEU-6S Zeus, those jumpjets might offer a certain evasive advantage, but the Victor will still have to suffer from those long guns before it closes in. A close-range slugfest though will see the 9B prevail. The DCMS’s HTM-26T Hatamoto-Chi however has 25% more armour and only a little less firepower; again those PPCs will inflict significant damage and continue to do so at close range. The FWL AWS-8Q Awesome is (surprisingly) the slowest of the four and more of a direct-fire support “turret”. Again the outcome will bank on the Victor getting up close and personal without suffering too much from those PPCs.
Shortly before the 9B were two prior protoyvariants. Frankly I don’t much like to talk about them, but here they are for completeness. Nearly any fiddling that drops armour on a Mech already this thin and short-ranged is a Bad Idea™.
VTR-9A – trades 3 tons of armour for a machine gun and two flamers.
VTR-9A1 – trades 1.5 tons of armour for 2 machine guns. Because they couldn’t even lessen the pain by giving this guy a flamer at the very least. Blah.
VTR-9S – this variant arrived near the turn of the millennium in the LCAF. 1 ton of armour is shaved off to add 2 tubes to the SRM-6. Again, the loss of armour is saddening, but I’ll venture to “explain” this: if you already think of it as a 60-ton lite-Heavy, having Moar Dakka™ is a plus point. And that’s about the best spin I can put on that.
VTR-9D, 9K – the rediscovery of the Helm Memory Core and the introduction of the VTR-9D upgrade coincided with the takeover of the Victor plant on Quentin by the Kuritas. At the same time the Davions bit off another chunk of the Capellan Confederation with the formation of
Hong K Taiw the St Ives Compact, so the Capellans got the short end of the stick there. In any case – the Kuritas proceeded to call their version the 9K and the Davions the 9D, and everyone else got confused.
The 9D/9K is (are?) built on endo-steel bones, allowing it to carry 1 more ton of armour (hallelujah!), “upgrade” the medium lasers to medium PULSE lasers (sigh…), and the AC/20 to a Gauss Rifle. This variant is obviously born of a desire to make the Victor a more general-purpose fighter, but only succeeds in pulling the resulting model in 2 separate directions – do you want to stand off and make use of the Gauss’s long-range-headcapping terror? Or do you want to close in to the VTR-9B’s usual gut-stabbing short range, and capitalise on those pulsers? Make up your mind!
Victor C (Clan) – the Clans refitted their Star League surplus for the use of solahma troops. Like the 9D/9K they went the Gauss rifle route, and added Streak and ER upgrades to the secondary armament. This leaves the design both under-armoured AND under-weight by 2 tons, but washed-up solahma and freebirth second-line “warriors” take what they can get, and LIKE IT by Kerensky!
VTR-C – not to be confused with the “Victor C” above, the VTR-C was a (probably Kurita) upgrade to the 9K, taking off 1 heat sink from a somewhat over-sinked design to add a C3 Slave. Of course this is all good, increasing the effectiveness of all onboard firepower.
VTR-10S – in the face of all this and the Fed Com Civil War, naturally the Lyrans began to realise their Victors weren’t cutting the mustard. And this time they were going to make an ASSAULT Mech. Using endo-steel, 10 double heat sinks, an XLFE and deleting those pansy jumpjets maximised payload in best Lyran fashion, and all in aid of one overriding objective: if the 9D put a Gauss on their Victors the Lyrans were going to put TWO, and make one of them BIGGER as well!
In addition to the Gauss Rifle, SRM4, 2 ER Medium lasers and an Anti-Missile System a Heavy Gauss Rifle and 12 rounds give the -10S the ability to Drop Thor’s Hammer from most any range with epic fragging consequences, though best at 3 to 13 hexes. In the hands of a good Lyran Mechwarrior the 10S is a killer, and the motto as with almost everything mounting multiple Gauss rifles is Stand and Deliver. But the lack of CASE for any of its very explodey crits also means the 10S is relatively fragile, despite mounting 13 tons of standard armour, and critting it to death is eminently doable.
VTR-10D – very obviously based on the 9B, but borrowing the armour layout of the Lyran 10S, the 10D is produced by Fed Suns conglomerate GM on New Valencia. One would not be wrong to call this a “baseline” upgrade of the VTR-9B to 3060 standards, retaining all the original armament but upgrading them to their advanced versions – 2 ER Medium lasers, a Streak SRM-4, and an Ultra AC/20 with a staggering 6-ton ammo bin in a CASE-d right torso. 12 double heat sinks make the 10D a de facto alpha baby.
Much like the original 9B, the 10D is unimaginative but brutally simplistic – get into range and tape down that Ultra’s triggers. You have the ammo, use it up. A standard engine and that CASE makes this guy more survivable than a 10S, though in practice this only means that it will probably survive a catastrophic ammo hit long enough to withdraw off the field.
VTR-11D – shortly on the heels of the 10D, the Davions decided to get fancy. Armed with the Light Fusion Engine plans they created a more obviously Davion version, probably as much to thumb their noses at the Lyran 10S as anything else – remember, this was at the height of the Fed Com Civil War. 14.5 tons of armour makes me very very happy. The Streak SRM-4 remains as-is, but the ER Medium lasers are now ER Large lasers and replacing the Victor autocannon with that classic Davion weapon, the RAC-5. 3 tons of RAC ammo, 15 double heat sinks and a C3 Slave lay the mascarpone frosting on this alpha-baby Cheesecake… which is about the only negative thing one can really have against it.
VTR-10L – over 3 decades after the Capellan Confederation suffered the indignity of losing BOTH their Victor factories to
Hong K Taiw the St Ives Compact, House Liao got its own back while the Federated Commonwealth was distracted by the acrimonious divorce proceedings then ongoing. The result is Liao’s own take on an upgraded Victor, a very capable machine designed according to the new sneaky-beaky doctrine of the CCAF.
Based off the VTR-9B but with obvious influence from the 9D, the 10L keeps the Gauss Rifle, adds a third ER Medium Laser and two more tubes to the SRM launcher, and as much newfangled stealth armour as the Victor can carry. With all-standard structural components and no more than 10 double heat sinks, its obvious that the watchword here is efficiency and simplicity, and IMHO, the Liaos do deliver.
VTR-Cr – with an introduction date of 3069 this variant might well be the very first Mech to carry a C3 Boosted Slave… unless it is a typo for
3079, which is quite likely as all other C3 Boosted Mechs I can find date no earlier than the late 3070s. Then again, with its dearth of useful equipment it might be that this is THE designation for the prototype machines used to trial the C3 Boosted system – with a High Velocity AC/10, standard medium lasers, a Streak SRM-4 and 14 standard heat sinks, one can imagine that this was nothing more than a test model perhaps pressed desperately into service when the Word of Blake attacked New Avalon.
VTR-9Ka – chronologically the last Victor variant, the 9Ka too smacks of the desperation of the Jihad. Using the 9B as the baseline model, it strips all weaponry to mount 5 Improved Jump Jets, a single medium laser, and double the AC/20’s ammunition bin to enable carrying alternate munitions such as Precision and Armour-Piercing ammo. Players who want all the flavour of monkey models and the ravages of the Jihad are welcome to take this one out against the C3i-equipped cybernetic hordes of the Master, and I mean that in the best possible way – this model is I imagine something like what a Ghost or Night Stalkers regiment might have thrown together in the face of Toaster-worshippers and Black Dragon traitors, and now you know the 9Ka’s gone all the way out through Yucks to So Bad It’s Good territory in my review book.
There are no further models of Victor. A 3145 Victor, to be frank, is called a Lu Wei Bing, and there’s a MOTW article for that
here.
Custom ModelsVTR-9B (Shoji) – the closest we’ll get to a Royal Victor, this custom of a Benjamin Regulars regiment commander maxes out armour (seyla!), carries an AC/10 with 20 shots, 3 medium pulse lasers, leaves the SRM-4 untouched, and mounts 10 double heat sinks. Perfectly serviceable through to the Jihad, where the availability of alternate ammo for the AC and SRM both further increases its potential.
VTR-9B (Li) – another DCMS regimental CO’s custom, this model takes a standard 9B and mounts an LRM-15, TEN medium lasers in place of the AC/20, and an absolutely inadequate 19 heat sinks. I have no words for this, other than that if hot-shot there wants to ride the
lightning volcano, then by all means.
VTR-9K2 (James) – the story behind this variant is right out of a
Hollywood Holovid. Fitted out with a Supercharger to hit speeds of 4/6(8)/0, 2 medium X-pulse lasers and a sawn-off Long Tom Cannon (that is, not the howitzer artillery version), this Victor is the heavily-modded vehicle for one retired colonel’s Roaring Rampage of Revenge™. Its painted a cool matte-black. All its really missing is a white skull on the chest, maybe a cool motto, like
“I am Benedict St. James, Colonel of the Syrtis Fusiliers, loyal servant of the Federated Suns, father of a murdered son, and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.” Except with its use as a civilian-killing murder machine, this story is more of a Tarantino than a Russell Crowe vehicle, so perhaps we’ll find Samuel L. Jackson as its Chief Tech, and Christoph Waltz lurking somewhere…
Notable PilotsAs a mobile heavy with the biggest, most badass gun in 3025, the VTR-9B Victor saw plenty of page time as the chosen Assault Mech of Grayson Carlyle, Patrick Kell, and yes Victor Steiner-Davion – the man had no shame, or taste.
Lori Kalmar-Carlyle had her late husband’s ride upgraded to the VTR-9K/9D standard, and the machine was destroyed at the end of The Dying Time, and she was killed while on foot shortly after.
General Belle Lee, Devlin Stones right-hand woman and CO of Stone’s Lament piloted a Victor, probably a 10D or 11D, but it might be fun to imagine how it might have been tricked out if one is so inclined. Given the enemy, ECM is almost a must IMHO.
Final ThoughtsIn 3025, and Level 1 play, technology was sufficiently ‘low’ to force compromises, and so where the 9B might be mediocre, there is instead latitude for a little risky play. The pant-crapping, jaw-dropping firepower of that AC/20 coupled with the jump jets gave it an excitement sufficient to turn it into a Hero Mech more palatable than the plodding Awesome and Atlas.
The 3060s-era models too are decent enough, but bland, downgrading the Victor to a filler mook for an Assault lance, though they serve well enough in this role. Hence oddly enough, my favourite upgraded variants are the flavourful Improved Jump Jet-equipped 9Ka, and the brutal double-tapping 10D which basically replicates the 9B in the modern era.
What do you think?
