‘Mech of the Week (May 20, 2016): Quasit MilitiaMech
So, it’s 2517, and you live on some backwater planet in Nowhere, Middle Of in the Periphery. For years, you’ve been hearing about how the Terrans made some crazy breakthrough, transforming the humble IndustrialMech into the fearsome BattleMech, and these new weapons of war have been transforming the Inner Sphere. You know that one of these days, they’re going to head your way, and while even the big Periphery governments started their own crash programs to build BattleMechs, they don’t have the time, or BattleMechs, for you.
Don’t worry, though. Have I got a
Quasit for you.
The
Quasit started out as a scam. The Newton brothers, knowing that their potential customers had pretty much never seen a real BattleMech, decided to build an IndustrialMech that could play one on tri-Dee, giving all the general appearance and capability of a BattleMech…mostly. To be fair, the reason they got away with their scam for as long as they did was that they did a damn good job. While the
Quasit is not a BattleMech, it’s perhaps one of the best MilitiaMechs we’ve seen so far.
Starting things off, the 45-ton
Quasit uses a standard, rather than primitive, tech base. It’s fusion engine gives it an 86 kph top speed, ten single heat sinks and, when combined with it’s environmental sealing, the ability to operate in the same conditions as a BattleMech, though it sacrifices an ejector seat to accomplish this. Armor protection is also impressive, at 7.5 tons of heavy industrial armor, which is functionally equivalent to BattleMech standard armor, and trailing the PXH-1
Phoenix Hawk by only eight point. In fact, while its front torso is slightly weaker, its limbs have the same protection, snd its head actual picks up two points compared to the PXH.
That armor protection is important, as we reach the first major drawback of the
Quasit: because it’s an IndustrialMech, it’s far more vulnerable to critical hits, suffering a +2 when attackers roll for number of criticals. Worse, any time an IndustrialMech suffers a physical attack, the attacker earns a free critical hit roll. Ouch.
So, given you don’t want to get into mêlée range if you can help it, what does the
Quasit pack for guns? In its original QUA-51T config, you have a medium laser in the right arm and SRM-4 in the left to handle close-combat duties, with both arms keeping their hand actuators, allowing your
Quasit to both get into a boxing match of last resort, or double as a combat engineer. Handy.
In addition to its arm weapons, the
Quasit packs a center torso mounted LRM-5, and a machine gun for antipersonnel use in the right torso. This is where things start to go wrong. Your half-ton of machine gun ammo co-occupies the right torso, along with the environmental sealing, giving you a one-in-three chance of getting hit in the ammo due to critical hits there. The left torso, meanwhile, has LRM ammo, SRM ammo, and an environmental sealing crit, giving critical hits here a good chance of blowing you up. Heat sink #10, which could have padded this out, is in the right leg.
So, once again, more fragile than a true BattleMech, you at least have a versatile armament that allows you to alpha strike while running. My suggestion is to take advantage of that with the -51T, and keep moving. Forcing a piloting skill roll takes an act of Cthulhu, thanks to range bands and two missile cluster rolls, though it is theoretically possible. More likely, you’ll find yourself averaging around 12-14 points at 6 or so hexes, assuming the three “big” guns hit.
The
Quasit didn’t vanish after the Newton brothers met their fates at the hands of the law and/or angry mobs, but had it production taken over by Concordat Telecom & TransStellar (what), who are happy to customize the
Quasit weapons load to your cold black heart’s content. That said, we only have two published Jihad-era variants from the old-school QUA-51T
First up for 3073 is the QUA-51M
Quasit. Dropping both missile racks, the -51M instead mounts a second medium laser in the right arm, with an MML-5 in the left arm. The left torso bomb remains unchanged, and you lose the slight crit soaking in the center torso the LRM rack gave you. Yes, your short range damage improves, but you actually end up more vulnerable due to weapons placement: it may not seem like much, but once on the board, it does seem to make a difference.
The QUA-51P of 3074, meanwhile, is a
Quasit of a different color. Retaining only the machine gun from the earlier versions, the -51P instead mounts a plasma rifle in the right arm, with ten shots of ammo in the left torso. While the lowest damage
Quasit yet, the plasma rifle gives you a solid 10-point punch in one spot, and secondary effects that can ruin your enemy’s whole day. For extra hilarity, take this up against other armed IndustrialMechs, like the
Arbiter.
So, the first question you should ask yourself isn’t how you could use a
Quasit. The question is,
should you use a
Quasit. To help you with this, I’ve come up with the following handy checklist:
1. Do you live in the Periphery? If the answer is “Yes” then you may want to use a
Quasit. Proceed with the checklist. If you don’t live in the Periphery, then, no, you don’t want to use a
Quasit. According to the MUL, it’s not on your availability list, probably because the Taurians don’t like you.
2. Are better, more capable BattleMechs than the
Quasit unavailable to me? If you answered “Yes”, then you may want to use the
Quasit: keep going through my checklist. If the answer is “No, I’ve got access to <insert superior BattleMech here>”, then no, the
Quasit probably isn’t for you.
3. Can you afford the
Quasit? Because they’re IndustrialMechs, the
Quasit family is pretty cheap, coming in at under 3 million C-Bills (per MegaMek). The -51T and -51M are 627 and 636 BV respectively, and the -51P comes up at 779 BV, per the MUL. That’s not bad: you can get three
Quasits for around the price (BV or C-Bill) of two SHD-2H
Shadow Hawks, each of your
Quasits will have comparable firepower, and while individually more fragile, they help make up for it in numbers. Of course, TRO3075 lists the BV at 737 for the QUA-51T, so your mileage may vary.
4. Are you the Niops Association post-Jihad? If not, well, maybe you’ll be able to find something better. If you are, well, it’s a better option than anything you’re building these days, which is jack diddly squat. See if you can get a license from CT&T to build them locally. Should be easier than trying to rebuild the infrastructure for those old Star League designs your fratboy Marian neighbors and unruly Word of Blake rendered you unable to build.
How do you use a
Quasit? Setting aside the QUA-51P, whose plasma rifle goodness makes it more of a pseudo-sniper that makes infantry cringe, the
Quasit is your typical tries-to-do-everything trooper, with a weapons load that allows it to fit nearly any given situation. If you’ve used the SHD-2H, you pretty much know how to use the
Quasit.
How do you kill a
Quasit? Brawling works really well, thanks to their vulnerability to critical hits. Other than that, shooting it will always work well, and its side torso ammo bins and lack of CASE make these especially good targets.
“Gio,” you say, “didn’t you say CT&T will happily customize the weapons load of your
Quasit for you?” Yes, yes I did. Sounds like a good time for a build thread, doesn’t it? I’ve already got an idea in mind, in fact.
So, the
Quasit. Yes, it started out as a scam, but, in the end, it became a kind of combat ‘Mech of last resort for plenty of worlds. The
Quasit may not be a real BattleMech, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than many of the other armed IndustrialMechs we’ve seen produced, and can certainly do the job of one, even if it’s not as good at doing so most true BattleMechs.
Need more convincing? Just ask Supreme Emperor Greg Kijas, ruler of the planet Gorgon, and proud pilot of a
Quasit, protecting the quarter-million people of his world from pirates, and ensuring that the Dragon’s Breath spice continues to flow.
And there you have it. Anyone else had the privilege to try the
Quasit on your tabletop, and come to enjoy it as much as I have? Look at it and wonder, once again, what the heck Gio’s on, and can you have some? Leave a comment below!
References:
Sarna entryMUL for QUA-51T