Mech of the Week: Flea
The Flea is a
much-loved...er,
well-respected...um, mech with a history almost as old as BattleMech technology itself. It began life in the Free Worlds League and spent centuries in service to House Marik, yet it is its 31st-century career as one of the primary recon mechs for the mercenary Wolf's Dragoons that defines the Flea in many people's minds.
TP-1RThe Flea began life under another name, the TP-1R Trooper. One of the first generation of mechs designed in the Free Worlds League, the Trooper is a boxy, utilitarian machine seemingly built to compete with other early scout mechs such as the WSP-1 Wasp and COM-1A Commando. Folks used to less-ancient machines will find this mech unimpressive at first glance(and second, and third).
Twenty tons of mass matches the Wasp and comes in twenty percent lower than the Commando. The Commando would put this extra mass to devastating use, but that's a story for another MotW. The base ten heat sinks from the engine are more than sufficient for this machine, which is completely unable to heat up without disabling heat sinks or outside influence(read: external heat or damage).
3 tons of armor is the lightest found on the early scout trio, with only two locations able to resist a medium laser without penetration and a large laser completely vaporizing any location save the center torso. This is MUCH lower than the Commando, and while only marginally less than the Wasp, mechs this size live and die by their margins. It is however interesting to note that a Medium Rifle will not penetrate any of the forward armor locations, and while Heavy-class Rifle Cannons will breach any location they can only remove an arm with a single hit, any other spot requiring a second hit to destroy. I'll let readers decide for themselves what this says about what Trooper pilots were expected to engage and from what they would flee.
Fun fact: Despite having extremely little to actually put in the crit slots, the Trooper's lone ammo bin shows one of the earliest examples of crit padding, with the single heat sink in there just as likely to eat a critical hit as the MG ammo. Given how tiny the mech is, opponents really aren't all that likely to get multiple chances to score crits in that location before it falls off entirely. A good thing, because Troopers don't have ejection seats. Eeep.
The Trooper's weapons load is a similarly mixed bag. The minimalist arm pods mount a single machine gun on the right, two small lasers on the left, with a single flamer under the 'chin' to round things out. In terms of absolute numbers the ten damage this adds up to beats out the Wasp's medium laser and even the Commando's large laser, though this array lacks the concentration of either competitor and only functions at extremely close range. The Trooper is notable as being one of the few mechs(and only scout) to actually mount antipersonnel weapons. They were likely nightmare fuel for infantry formations of the day, especially for the early experiments in anti-mech infantry formations. A Trooper that is actually forced to fight other mechs needs to be extremely aggressive, and also use every maneuver or trick the pilot can think of to either hit rear armor or convince the guns to concentrate on one location. For what it's worth, the Trooper is also one of the only mechs of this era that can actually flip its arms to fire into the rear arc, though any pilot that actually ends up with enemies behind them has far more important problems to worry about than getting guns on target - such as their mech's probable demise.
Where the Trooper actually stands out is its speed. 6/9 ground speed may be considered average for a light mech during the Succession Wars, verging on slow once the Clans show up, but in the late 25th century this little machine was actually the fastest thing on two legs. Commandos and Wasps aren't that much slower at 5/8, but I'm sure we've all had moments when that one last movement point was all that allowed us to get into that last woods hex, up that last hill, or around that last corner that lay between us and survival. That speed is your only real edge. USE IT.
This speed, coupled with the long lead time for Battlemech designs in this period of history, are the most probable reasons why the LCCC decided to stick with the Trooper for over twenty-five years before a redesign reached service, one with changes so extensive that the mech was given an entirely new name that it would bear for another five hundred years: Flea.
(As an aside, the Trooper's point value makes it an absolute STEAL in BV-balanced games. 236 makes this one of the cheapest mechs in existence, 75% the cost of a Wasp and almost exactly half the cost of a Commando. If you're not imagining entire lances of Troopers using pack tactics to quickly grind down enemy scout mechs or picking apart larger units, you're doing it wrong.)
FLE-4Appearing 26 years after the Trooper and marking the debut of 'standard' combat technologies(read: non-primitive) within the FWLM, the FLE-4 is a very different machine from its ancestor despite numerous similarities. The speed and armor are identical to the primitive model(Yay! and Boo! respectively), and the machine gun is removed while the flamer is moved to a rear mount. The mass saved between the machine gun and the use of modern components allowed the right arm mount to be drastically upgraded to carry a large laser.
In an age when other light mechs were showing up that could match the Flea's speed(or exceed it in the case of the newly introduced Locust), the range and punch of the big laser are vital to keeping the Flea relevant on an evolving battlefield. A BV of 432 almost matches the Locust and actually exceeds the current models of Stinger and Wasp, so players can't deploy piranha-like swarms quite as easily as before. Instead, Fleas must use the range of their big gun to keep faster targets within engagement range long enough to deliver crippling blows before they can escape. FLE-4s retain the Trooper's ability to flip arms, essentially giving that big laser a 360-degree firing arc that is your greatest weapon against nimble jumpers like Stingers and Wasps. The combination of flippable arms and existing rear-mounted guns marks the FLE-4(and many descendants) as oddities in the Battletech universe - they can actually put out more ranged firepower into a target behind them than one in front. The paper-thin rear armor common to most 20-ton machines(and even more of an issue with this Flea) means that this is almost never recommended as an intentional tactic, however.
FLE-14Never passing up a chance to mess with, uh, success(sure, we'll call it that), the FLE-14 Flea is a memorable attempt to push the envelope of mech design, albeit in the opposite direction from most other attempts. In an effort to cut costs, Earthwerks-FWL took the Flea's 20-ton chassis and cut the mass
down to a paltry 15 tons, giving us one of the few ultralight battlemechs to ever exist. Not only that, but they scaled the engine
up and added jump jets, taking the old 6/9 movement curve and souping it up to an amazing(and still impressive in modern times) 9/14/4. For those who dislike short jumping profiles, I've got bad news for you - it is mathematically impossible to give this thing a full nine-hex jump range. Even removing 100% of the armor and weaponry doesn't free up enough mass for that.
That being said, armor and weaponry were indeed stripped down to their bare minimums. A single ton of armor means the center torso is now the only location that won't be completely destroyed by a medium laser hit, and there are multiple
forward armor facings that will be penetrated and suffer internal damage from a single SRM. I said earlier that weapons were similarly pared down, now consisting of a lone medium laser. Frankly, I'm both amazed they were actually able to cram that laser into this tiny chassis, and also curious as to why they bothered. When your armor is this thin, tactics are extremely simple: DON'T. GET. SHOT. Seriously, an infantry squad can potentially cripple your mech in a single spray of rifle bullets. Find the enemy,
get out of Dodge, and because shit happens, make sure you've got a nice letter in your cockpit on fancy stationery explaining just how valuable you are in ransom. Lies are perfectly acceptable here, even your foes will understand.
Unsurprisingly, BV goes back way down with this model, down to 270. That being said, I don't think I'll advise pack deployments here. When a single Long Tom shell can easily wipe out an entire scout company without caring one bit about your speed, the odds of someone deploying exactly that become pretty good.
FLE-15The early 26th century was a busy time for Flea engineers. The FLE-14 was a flop that was quickly retired and wouldn't return until the desperate circumstances of the Succession Wars called for it. While the FLE-4 was still serviceable, League command clearly wanted something more suited to the direct combat that scouts usually took pains to avoid, but still found themselves in all too often. A mere four years after the FLE-14 skittered off the production line, the FLE-15 entered service.
Starting once again with the FLE-4 as a base, Earthwerks engineers first removed the large laser, and then they did something that past models implied was unthinkable;
they increased the armor. :o A single ton of armor may not sound like much for most mechs, but we are talking about a 20-tonner here. That ton increases the total protection by fifty percent, and now every location can survive at least one hit from a medium laser or AC/5, and the center can even take a PPC(once). Possibly most important is the fact that individual 2-point hits will no longer breach the rear torsos. This is vital for a scout that can reasonably expect to be ambushed from behind by infantry or light units with SRM racks. If you survive that first salvo, the odds of your surviving the entire engagement so you can escape and report back have gone up immensely.
So that's just one ton out of the five freed up by the big laser, what did they do with the rest?
Gun. Each arm now sports a medium laser and a machine gun, a very healthy and versatile weapons load as any introtech 20-tonner must respect. FLE-15s outgun base model Wasps, Stingers, and Locusts both at medium range and up close, and can match the more heavily armed low-tech variants point for point. Except that that's not all the firepower, because the flamer and small lasers were retained, with the flamer back in a forward centerline mount(creating a truly devastating antipersonnel attack), and the small lasers moved to torso mounts...pointing backwards. Weird. I'm certain most of us would prefer those be flipped forward for some actually scary levels of concentrated firepower, but c'est la Flea. I suppose there's something to be said for being able to react instantly to threats in all directions, especially given that the guerilla hell of the Reunification War was only a few decades into the future when this mech debuted. Looking at things a bit more closely...not only can this Flea inflict more damage to targets behind than in front, but it is actually capable of putting out 20 damage in that direction, something I didn't know *any* published 20-ton mech was able to do, much less one without an iota of advanced technology. We talked about escaping an ambush while on patrol? A Flea pilot that survives a mech suddenly showing up on their six can potentially knock their assailant down, at which point living to fight another day seems like an increasingly likely outcome.
If it sounds like I'm waxing poetic about this little guy, it's probably because every time I look at the record sheet I find more to like about it. It's fairly cool running, with a fore-and-aft alpha strike only putting you at +3 heat at a run, so that ambush-breaking salvo won't impede your ability to run away. Even the critical slots are well done. The lone ammo bin is buried deep in the center torso. Unlike many tiny mechs, both side torsos have multiple items in them to prevent any crits from transferring to the center. Hell, even the legs have a heat sink each that can absorb a crit that would otherwise take out a vital actuator. There's pretty severe limits to how tough a 20-ton mech that carries ammo and less than max armor can be, but within that category, this Flea is about as tough and scrappy as they come. Even better, the BV only comes in at a measly 430, a tiny hair
less than the FLE-4.
FLE-16After that little jewel, engineers decided to call things good enough, and FLE-15s and FLE-4s soldiered on for another few centuries. They apparently were part of the Star League's inventory as well as that of the Free Worlds League, because enough of them were in Clan stockpiles for them to give many examples to the Wolf's Dragoons reconnaissance mission. We don't know how many is "many", except that maintaining and replacing them created enough demand for Earthwerks to restart production of a machine they had steadily neglected in the five hundred years since the last variant's debut. This new production invariably included the debut of a new variant, initially produced exclusively for the Dragoons but later spreading to forces across the Inner Sphere and Periphery.
The FLE-16 is a very no-nonsense design, seeking to blend together the best qualities of the -14 and -15. The medium lasers, flamer, and armor of the -15 are retained, while all other weapons are dropped in favor of upgrading the engine to the point that this new model easily matches the ground speed of the ultralight FLE-14. The end result is a machine that strongly resembles the Locust in both appearance and performance, essentially being a Locust that trades a bit of armor for increased speed and firepower. There's really not that much to say about this variant due to its high-performance simplicity. Get in really fast. Shoot something once or twice. Get out really fast before said shooting is visited upon you. Go home. Repeat. Intersperse with beer as needed.
At 506 BV, the FLE-16 is more expensive than previous models, but still a pretty decent bargain given the capabilities it brings to the board.
FLE-17The spread of rediscovered technologies before and during the Clan Invasion led to upgrades for many Battlemech designs, and the Flea was no exception. FLE-15s were upgraded to the new FLE-17 model with mostly incremental changes rather than a ground-up redesign.
I say that, and then the very next thing I'm going to tell you is that they replaced the bones of the mech, upgrading the standard structure to Endo Steel and using the weight saved to install a MASC system for bursts of improved speed. The weapons load was consolidated, with the machine guns removed in order to upgrade the medium lasers to pulse models. This costs the Flea a bit in terms of range and absolute damage potential, but the accuracy boost is a huge help in engaging other light mechs. This is especially nice when coupled with the aforementioned MASC, which allows the Flea short bursts of the kinds of speed that is increasingly regarded as essential for light mechs, as opposed to merely nice to have. Once again, this Flea is built for scouting or hit-and-run attacks, finding and/or shooting the objective, then getting away before an effective response can be mounted.
As to be expected of any machine mounting advanced technologies, this iteration of Flea sees the BV tick up to 510, making it the second-most expensive Flea in the entire family tree.
Fire AntWhile most iterations of the Flea are aimed at improving the mech's performance vs other mechs, a mysterious model that plagued worlds of the Chaos March for a short time in the early 3060s went the other way. With no known model number, the so-called "Fire Ant" focuses exclusively on anti-infantry weaponry, ripping out all the weapons except the flamer in order to mount an atrocilicious
six machine guns split between the arms AND two more flamers, forward-mounted in each side torso. This is going to give any armored unit that gets too close a good chewing, but 24D6 is an absolutely ludicrous amount of damage to try and pump into any single infantry platoon. With "only" 100 turns of ammunition to feed those six guns, this mech is one of the few that can actually exhaust its machine gun ammo during an actual game. This assumes you actually trust any 20-ton mech to survive sixteen turns within machine gun range of anything more heavily armed than an angry mob of civili-hey, I think we figured out what the Fire Ant is built for! Atrocilicious, indeed. The origin of the Fire Ant is unknown, as Earthwerks executives denied any involvement in its development or construction. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge on Jardine you might be interested in. It's there, trust me. Right next to the supervolcano.
FLE-19Regardless of who built it, it's clear that Earthwerks engineers were paying attention to the Fire Ant, because only a few years later, they unveiled the FLE-19 Flea. Like the Fire Ant, this model drops all the gear except the chin flamer(this one loses the MASC as well) for a machine gun-focused warload, though in this case each arm sports four light machine guns tied together with a machine gun array for better shot grouping. As a nod to the need for at least a bit of firepower outside of pointblank range, a single-shot rocket launcher-10 sits in the right torso. Take note, this is the first Flea ever to actually mount an anti-armor weapon in a forward torso mount. Much like the Fire Ant this is very clearly meant to engage people rather than machines, but the improved range of the guns makes it better able to engage infantry platoons scattered across an actual battlefield, and the arrays plus the rocket pack allow it to deliver at least token anti-mech firepower. Even with an extremely low BV of 381, I'm not sure if the loss of the lasers or MASC is worth it.
Finally, it should be noted that even outside the cockpit, one should be wary around pilots of this machine. A statistically significant sampling of FLE-19 pilots reveals tendencies towards megalomania far in excess of what little power they might have scraped together, along with amazing luck. This writer should point out that he did not say amazing
good luck.
FLE-20And we've finally reached the end of the road! Seemingly mirroring the FLE-4/FLE-15 pairing, the FLE-20 is another machine dedicated solely to anti-mech operations. That, however, is where the similarities end. The FLE-20 has a number of firsts. It's the first Flea to mount double heat sinks, as well as the first one to actually need them. It's the first Flea to mount anything other than basic armor plate, in this case Stealth armor, along with an ECM suite to power it. It's the first Flea to lack any flamers at all. It's the first Flea to mount its main gun in the torso, in the form of a Light PPC(also the first Flea to mount a PPC of any kind). This is a whole new beast. The PPC coupled with an extended-range medium laser in each arm mark it as much more of a ranged fighter, meant to hang back and snipe at targets while the Stealth armor confounds attempts at return fire. Care must be taken because in another first, this Flea actually has heat issues, as firing all three weapons while stealthed will drive you up to 5-7 heat, immediately inflicting movement penalties you cannot easily shrug off. You might be best off using only the PPC at longer ranges, and switching to just the lasers when things get closer. All this advanced gear does come at a price, as the FLE-20 is the most expensive Flea of them all, coming in at 710 BV. But all told, that’s still in the very bottom tier of price points, so don’t feel like it’s a major expenditure.
How to use a FleaWith only a few exceptions, Fleas all follow very similar patterns. You’re a bit lacking in speed or maneuverability for a mech your size, but tend to make up for it with above-average firepower and the ability to project that firepower in almost any direction. If your enemies try to run away, chase them for as long as you can and hope you can put some heavy hits into them before they get away. If they decide to turn and fight, then oblige them, knowing full well that you outgun them no matter what direction they come at you from. Of course, all this only applies to mechs and vehicles your own size. Against anything bigger, you need to get some shots in while you can, and then GET. OUT. No Flea in existence has the durability to survive tangling with anything packing serious firepower, so don’t even try.
How to fight a Flea
Okay, okay...
It may seem like a cliché at this point, but just shoot the damned thing. Fleas might be tough for 20-tonners, but they’re still 20-tonners, and repeated solid hits will make them crumple like any other Bug Mech. If you’re in a Bug of your own, things get dicey. Your best bet is probably to keep your speed up to minimize the hits it can score on you, and try to keep outside 3 hexes, as that prevents it from turning all those light guns on you.
Finally, an action shot of a heavily modified Flea attempting to suppress local insurgents:
