70-ton Claymore--Front Towards Enemy

[DevianID]

Simple concept.  I was fooling around with off tonnage designs, and liked how a 70 ton 5/8 with standard engine was workable with all the new tonnage saving equipment like heavy ferro and XL gyro.  Paired ER large lasers with full heat dissipation give a good heavy skirmisher profile with the max armor.  And the real kicker, with every weight saving trick and pretty much all critical slots used you still fit 8 m-pods.  The 1-2 punch of skirmishing large lasers combined with a one time cavalry charge of 120 damage in -1 to-hit 1 point clusters when you win initiative make for one of the most munchkin mechs I can think of that still looks like it could exist, especially considering the standard engine.

Claymore

Mass: 70 tons
Chassis: Endo Steel Biped
Power Plant: 350 Fusion
Cruising Speed: 54 kph
Maximum Speed: 86.4 kph
Jump Jets: None
     Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Heavy Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
     8 M-Pod
     2 ER Large Laser
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3145
Tech Rating/Availability: E/X-X-X-D
Cost: 7,898,767 C-bills

Type: Claymore
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Tonnage: 70
Battle Value: 1,544

Equipment                                          Mass
Internal Structure            Endo Steel            3.5
Engine                        350 Fusion           29.5
   Walking MP: 5
   Running MP: 8
   Jumping MP: 0
Double Heat Sink              13 [26]                 3
XL Gyro                                               2
Cockpit                                               3
Armor Factor (Heavy Ferro)    217                    11

                          Internal   Armor   
                          Structure  Value   
     Head                    3         9     
     Center Torso            22        33   
     Center Torso (rear)               11   
     R/L Torso               15        23   
     R/L Torso (rear)                  7     
     R/L Arm                 11        22   
     R/L Leg                 15        30   


Right Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm
Left Arm Actuators: Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm

Weapons
and Ammo              Location  Critical   Heat    Tonnage   
4 M-Pod                  RT        4        0       4.0   
ER Large Laser           LA        2        12      5.0   
4 M-Pod                  LT        4        0       4.0   
ER Large Laser           RA        2        12      5.0   
   

[Sabelkatten]

XL gyro means any CT critical is about 50/50 to be a mission kill... I'd rather have a lighter chassis with a standard (or even better, a compact) gyro.

[Lagrange]

That's an impressive amount of rolling---about an expected 2 criticals just from the number of unique location rolls.  It's not quite overwhelming, but certainly pretty scary. 

FL armor would nerf it although few designs use FL armor.

[DevianID]

Sabelkatten, it still takes 2 engine or gyro hits to be under forced withdrawal right?  How is 1 XL gyro hit a mission kill?  Critical hits to XL gyros are treated the same as regular gyros aren't they?  Yes, if you dont mind reducing your maximum armor you can switch to a regular gyro, but the 70 ton 5/8 SFE with max armor/XL gyro probably is better 95% of the time than a 60 ton 5/8 with heavy gyro/less armor.

Lagrange, honestly im fine with FerroLam armor nerfing the KO punch from this design.  Im fine with ANYTHING that discourages 120 location rolls LOL.  But usually there is going to be something on the field you can 'Claymore'.

[Joe Ego]

2 gyro hits means an unmoving (though not technically immobile) mech. 1 gyro hit triggers forced withdrawal and significantly impacts mobility unless you've got a confident and/or skilled pilot who isn't too afraid of a +3 modifier.

[DevianID]

It takes 1 gyro AND 1 engine for a mech to be in forced withdrawal.  So you are still good with 1 gyro hit.
An XL gyro increases the chance that a single CT critical will be a gyro from 40% to 50%.  So its only a +10% difference--you will notice it 1 game in 10 when your mech receives just a single critical hit to the center torso where the normal gyro would also not have been crit.  2 crits to the CT always put you in forced withdrawal, no matter what they are.  You have a 13% chance of 2 crits destroying a gyro normally.  You have a 22.7% chance with the XL, so less than 10% difference, thus again only a difference of 1 game in 10 will the XL gyro get destroyed on 2 crits but the normal gyro wont.

[Lagrange]

But usually there is going to be something on the field you can 'Claymore'.

Including a Claymore, somewhat ironically.  Still, this seems like a design best used against heavier designs.

The defenses here seem to be Ferro-Lamellor armor (which negates damage), the floating critical rule (which gets the criticals out of the CT where they are bad news), Hardened armor (which reduces expected critical hits from .61 on a '2' to .19), armored components, not being nearby (altitude? range+speed to maintain distance?).  None of these are that common.

The actual expected number of rolls is apparently 76 if all the M-pods hit at once which makes the expected number of criticals just 76/36*.61 = 1.3 with an additional 2.1 head hits. 

But, it may be better to go with a called shot[high] (TO page 78, +2 cumulative modifier to hit) where just having 4 of the M-pods hit implies the mechwarrior takes >6 expected hits.  Even 2 M-pods hitting is likely to cause the mechwarrior to become unconscious and fall.  This is harder to defend against (FL armor, torso cockpit, not being nearby, dermal armor), and makes the Claymore into an exceptional mech-capture mech.

[DevianID]

Can you do an aimed shot with a cluster weapon?  That would make the m-pod even scarier.

[Dakkath]

This reminds me of my "fit as many machine guns onto a frame as you can to try to eat through the ridiculous number of shots in the ammo bin before it gets crit" design, but with much smoother execution.

[Lagrange]

Can you do an aimed shot with a cluster weapon?  That would make the m-pod even scarier.

I think 'no', because it's a cluster weapon according to the errata.  Aimed shots are lame though because you can only do them on a shutdown unit (or with a targeting computer, which an M-pod can't use).   

But, you can make a called shot with an M-pod, which has no restriction on weapon type.  It's a +3 penalty (total penalty +2 with the -1 bonus) to have the M-pod use the shot-from-above table.

[Dave Talley]

I once did an archer with 8SRM 6s and a sword, so was  a walking  claymore mine and carried a claymore sword