My Fire Support Lance wasn't exactly cheap at 152 points, but I know my Recon Lance will be much cheaper, so I can afford to splurge a bit for my next lance. Fire support and recon are all well and good, but at the end of the day, you'll always need someone to wade into the enemy's fire, and beat them down the hard way. I need things that can fight in any circumstance, but most importantly, they need to be able to FIGHT. As such, I started off my Command Lance with a Black Knight. Fluffed as being popular as a command ride, it combines heavy direct firepower with the kind of durability that's still envied in modern armies. You're going to want this guy dead, but headhunt all you want, you're going to have to WORK for this kill. The ENE special makes the Black Knight even more durable, while an Active Probe bestows the PRB and RCN specials. You're not going to ambush this lance easily, and like my actual Recon Lance, the Black Knight can be an excellent spotter if the company is fielded as part of a larger force equipped with artillery. Every force needs a Brute Squad, and for my own personal Fezzick, I decided to go old-school. As far as 'mechs go, you literally can't get any older than the Mackie. This walking keg may be slow, but it still packs some serious firepower, and is tough enough to even make the Black Knight feel wimpy. CASE only adds to the zombie-like stature, an AC special gives some flexibility, and the same PRB and RCN as the Black Knight adds yet more arty-spotty goodness and makes ambushes even easier to spoil. A Guillotine may not have any flashy specials, but it does add still more firepower and toughness to the group, and does so with a very maneuverable chassis. Finally, a diminutive Falcon rounds out the lance. The Falcon is totally outclassed in terms of firepower or armor by its lancemantes, but does provide this lance with an integral flanker, ensuring that any attackers will have to devote at least some resources to watch their back, lest the Falcon jump in for the backstab like a demented fairy wielding a prison shiv.
BL-6-KNT Black Knight (39 pv)
MSK-9H Mackie (51 pv)
GLT-3N Guillotine (37 pv)
FLC-4N Falcon (18 pv)
With a Brawler, Juggernaught, Skirmisher, and Scout, I easily have the wide range of roles required to create a Command Lance. As such, my unit CO gets the Tactical Genius ability(because winning initiative is always good), and two of my other pilots get their choice of Antagonizer, Blood Stalker, Combat Intuition, Eagle Eyes, Marksman, or Multi-Tasker. I'll discuss Blood Stalker and Eagle Eyes in the writeup for my Recon Lance, as they can be much more prevalent there. Antagonizer can be hard to use, but very useful for drawing fire away from one guy and towards another. In any game I use this, I'll probably assign it to the Mackie. Between Antagonizer, the Mackie's fame as the First Battlemech, some truly hilarious design aeshthetics, and people's tendency to gravitate towards the biggest hunk of metal on the table, it is most suited to drawing fire away from its lancemates, especially the commander in the Black Knight. Combat Intuition isn't near as scary as it sounds when you first hear about it, though the ability to act first in a turn and finish off a damaged unit before it can fire can be game-changing at the right moment. I'm not a very big fan of Marksman, both because it requires the shooter to stand still, and also to hit by a wide margin. On the other hand, that free critical hit roll can be very effective, especially given how nasty most critical hits are in Alpha Strike. Multi-Tasker is another that is very situational, because while it does let you shoot at multiple units, your actual damage delivered to each tends to be very low. Can be useful late in a fight to finish off multiple badly damaged 'mechs, or early on to whittle down a swarm of tiny units before they can surround and overwhelm you. This plethora of choices means that even if I only deploy this as a Command Lance, my options aer wide and varied. As things stand, they also qualify to be a Battle Lance. No real special abilities, though the lance-wide Lucky (6) SPA means the lance as a whole gets six free rerolls to share between them. If you can't use these to try and make that one critical shot, or overturn some truly bad luck, then your dice REALLY suck. (Hi, Hellbie!)