I've recently come to appreciate the Bulldog Medium Tank's LRM variant as a way to get some LRMs on the field in a Succession Wars-era force. It's a bit faster, a bit sturdier, and a bit more self-defensible than an LRM Carrier, not to mention a bit cheaper, which I'd say generally makes up for cutting the LRM-age by a third. More importantly, it has, of course, almost perfect parts commonality with the stock Bulldog, which to my mind is the perfect trooper tank and deserves a spot in any sizeable force—particularly a force on a budget. That in mind, I couldn't help but notice that the new ERLL variant of the Bulldog only has direct-fire variants based on it. I've decided to solve this myself, taking a cue from the recent Manticore update.
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Upsides: ERLL Bulldogs can now be effectively supported by a missile boat that clusters better and is more effective at close range than its predecessor. While the LRM Bulldog already had enough bite for a couple of them to effectively scare off flanking bug 'Mechs, a lance of these boys, spread out a little bit, is exceptionally difficult for just about any light 'Mech and quite a few lower-medium 'Mechs to safely approach.
Downsides: BV-wise, this is the most expensive Bulldog variant to date, just over 10% more expensive than the Kuritan Chemical variant, and nearly 50% more expensive than its predecessor. The NLRM, Artemis, and heavier turret don't do any favors for the C-Bill cost either, pushing it nearly 600,000 C-Bills past the ERLL variant.
