It's been a while, but I'm finally back with the continuation of the Recognition Guide IlClan record sheet reviews. Without further ado, Volume 26:
Condor Heavy Hover Tank (Ultra): I honestly don't remember what I said about vehicles in volume 25 and I'm not going back to look. This thing is fast at 9/14, and decently well armored in the front and only the front (30/18/16/22). Don't get shot in the side, it will end poorly for you. Tricking you into exposing your side-armor for better shots is a Turret with a Clan Ultra AC/10 (very good) and two Medium Chemical Lasers (pretty good), with 30 shots for the lasers and 20 for the ultra. If I had a choice I'd reverse those, I think. There's also an AMS in the front, and TAG hanging out in the turret on the off-chance you decide to make your already expensive tank even more expensive with SG ammo in the rest of your force. At 1252 this is a really hard sell for me even with one of my favorite guns in the turret. The speed helps, but I have visions flashing through my head of using one of these, then taking a gauss to the side and eating shit in an impressively short amount of time. B-
Condor Heavy Hover Tank (Fusion): Sometimes, less is more. This version slows down a bit (no change in maximum TMM) to 8/12. The armor is better (36/24/16/20), and the guns are now a regular AC/10 with 20 shots and three Medium Lasers in the turret, plus a Machine Gun in the front with a full ton of ammo. This is less catastrophically bad than it is in a 'Mech, but it's still not great. There's not enough ammo to comfortably use alternate types, but there is enough that you can take fliers on any bad shot that is still technically possible. The big draw here, compared to the Ultra, is the BV, at 939. You get 90% of the offense and 110% of the armor for 80% the cost. Winning numbers there, folks. B+
Condor Heavy Hover Tank (Laser): And sometimes less is weird. The armor and speed match the Fusion, but the guns are wholly replaced with four ER Medium Lasers and three SRM 2s. Why? Someone knows, somewhere, but it isn't me. Aside from the tonnage used on heat sinks, the package isn't bad. It splits the difference on range with the Fusion, and slightly outguns it in the process, but there's no big hole puncher. This and the Fusion honestly work fairly well together as a 1-2 punch, and at 977 BV it's a decent harasser. On its own I'm less impressed. In a vacuum I'd take the Ultra over this, but I'd take the Fusion and Laser in a pair over two Ultras. This is more commentary on the Fusion being better than it is on the Laser. At least none of them have been bad yet. B-
Condor Heavy Hover Tank (LAC): And they will continue that trend. The LAC puts on more armor (36/28/23/28) and reworks the turret weapons completely, going with a Light AC/5 with two tons of ammo, two Medium Re-Engineered Lasers, and a Targeting Computer. There's also an AMS in the front, so it's more directly comparable to the Ultra, and in my estimation is significantly better. There's enough ammo to put in some Precision for actually effective anti-raider shots, or armor piercing to really double down on ruining some poor Hardened Armored unit's day. Between the three guns it's not enough to force a PSR, which is unfortunate, but at 960 BV we're not quite to where I'd like that before giving something a good grade. What you have here is a decently speedy, wickedly accurate harasser that truly does not give a shit what it's target is, the target will know it has been touched. I like it. B+
Condor Heavy Hover Tank C: And here's the lemon, despite its own best efforts. Armor is back down to the Ultra's level, but now our guns are a Protomech AC/2 in the front (ugh), a Protomech AC/8 in the turret (ugh), and three Medium Chemical Lasers. The PACs have 40 and 20 shots, respectively, and the lasers have 90. The sooner that PACs stop showing up on units other than Protomechs the sooner I'll be less irritated at seeing them. BV at 804 is as low as you're going to get, for a reason. The speed is enough to bring the PAC/8 to bear but I'd rather have any of the other variants, including the one that's just an bunch of inefficiently mounted medium lasers. C-
Maxim Heavy Hover Transport (Escort): This variant of the Maxim is deeply confused about its purpose in life, because it is certainly not Transport. Nor is it mounting consistently good weapons. Some of that isn't its fault, but there's a lot of ammo on this boat for a lot of different kinds of weapons and at a certain point you start to hit diminishing returns. Armor is 'enough' for a hover tank that doesn't expect to be the thing being shot at (25/23/16/20), and it moves 8/12 which is fast enough for a big hover that it doesn't get complained about. The guns are where things start to get a bit goofy. We have: two MML 5s front, one MML 5 rear, one Improved One-Shot SRM 2 on each side, three Machine Guns in an array in the turret, and a Streak SRM 6 in the turret. The Machine Guns have a full ton of ammo, for some reason, while the MMLs have two tons total and the Streak has a ton to itself. It's going to shoot a lot of things in a lot of directions and do very little for it. Genuinely good for laying down smoke or being an annoying harasser at a distance, but not particularly my cup of tea. The BV at 835 keeps it from being put entirely on my 'pass' list, because it's still cheapish, and it's a variant that you can use if you don't actually want to use your Heavy Hover Transport as a transport in any shape of the word. C-
Flea FLE-21: Now here's a fast little bugger with some utility. At 20 tons the armor is never going to be anything other than “suspect” and this guy doubles down on that with barely as much armor as it has structure, but it moves 9/14[18] and brings two ER Medium Lasers, an ER Flamer, and a Guardian ECM to the table. The guns I could take or leave, they're nice but not world-shaking, but the ECM makes it very good at disrupting C3 nets or Artemis bonuses, or protecting your own. It also has Stealth armor, which most of the time I use it is going to be to make sure that nobody takes it out at long range on a low odds lucky shot, because once you get close (and you have to get close) the Stealth becomes less useful and your ability to shut things off becomes significantly more worth it. The BV at 823 is high for something this fragile but low enough that it's an excellent pick for objective play, or for ****** with whoever brings C3 on your tables. There's a Light Engine so you'll at least still (probably) be there if you get hit, but don't bet on it too hard. B-
Hermes II HER-7A: Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Starting at 40 tons and 6/9 isn't impressive, but there's enough armor here to not have to worry about the first stray hit. The Light Engine and XL Gyro aren't super ideal but don't write any checks the chassis can't cash. Where I love this guy is the guns, starting with a Clan Ultra AC/10 with three tons of ammo, and tacking on a Medium X-Pulse Laser and a Flamer. The Flamer I'm going to effectively forget exists, but the other two guns I'm a big fan of and I like seeing them here. The UAC/10 is basically a walking PSR on the turns you get a good cluster hit, and that punches its ticket by itself for the cost of 1121 BV. A low end Medium that hovers around 6 hexes, is just unimportant enough to avoid fire, just cheap enough to not take a huge chunk out of your list, and just capable enough to knock your opponent on their ass at the worst possible time? I love it. A-
Starslayer STY-4C: I... eurgh. This might as well be subtitled “how not to manage your heat” because “manage” is a very strong word for what's going to happen on this guy. We'll start with the good parts, a 5/8/5 50 tonner with armor a single point shy of max. Then we'll get to the rest of the 'Mech. I'm going to start by saying there are 13 doubles, and I'll let you do the initial calculations on heat as I go through the guns: not one, but two Improved Heavy Large Lasers, two Clan ER Medium Lasers, a Clan ER Small Laser to the rear, and an Improved One-Shot SRM 4. The 'Mech has TSM to take advantage of the high heat you're going to be at at all times. Firing both iHLLs at a standstill will take you instantly and immediately to +10 heat, making this a textbook example of Too Much Gun. You can get to +9 more gradually by firing an iHLL, both ER Mediums, and the ER Small (+6 running) or by doing that and jumping, then an iHLL, both ER Mediums, and walking (+3) if you ran the previous turn, but after that it gets complicated and there's really not a good set of weapons to fire to maintain heat at a run. The closest I can get to neutral is an iHLL and one ER Medium (+1 running). Jumping while already taking targeting penalties is not my idea of an effective unit, and we hit even more of a problem when we look at the BV, which is a stratospheric 2218 for what is effectively a 'Mech and a half of guns on a single 'Mech of heat sinks. The TSM has some mobility benefits but the physical attacks are hampered by how there's only one free arm with a hand for punching and the damage is only 10. Kicking is better, naturally, but any attempt at making it possible to fire both iHLLs would have accomplished basically the same thing without spiking the BV into the upper atmosphere. I'm really not a fan of it, which is a shame since it's all standard internals mean it's a real trooper. It's just not going to fire most of its guns and not hit with the ones it does, and you pay for it like it's a Stormcrow. EDIT: on a hunch I went back and checked to see if I missed a Coolant Pod. I did. My estimation of this 'Mech does not change. Triggering the Coolant Pod results in 39 dissipation for a turn, which will get you to +9 with both iHLLs and both ER Mediums at a run. After that the math still sucks. D D+
Merlin MLN-1D: This thing seems entirely serviceable and I can find no major flaws with it. It's a 4/6/4 60 tonner with standard everything, armor that's good but not maximum, and a decent assortment of guns that it can consistently fire at all times. We have a PPC, two Light PPCs, an LRM 5, Flamer, and Heavy Machine Gun. The HMG I can take or leave but it has the appropriate half ton of ammo and otherwise is unremarkable. Running heat with all ranged weapons is exactly neutral, jumping heat is +2. A bit on the conservative side, and the loadout feels pretty obviously Periphery given it's a post-Jihad design, but it's cheap, effective, and unflashy. Solid. BV is 1370 and it feels a little like an old-school Thunderbolt for it. Solid B
Merlin MLN-1E: Exactly the same movement and armor, and the same standard construction all around. The only difference is the guns and heat sinks, where we've lost the HMG and a heat sink and replaced the LRM 5 with a MML 5. Honestly this is right up my alley, giving it more short range punch, not compromising the long range punch at all, and using more of the 'Mech's natural ability to heat up to get better performance out of the same tonnage. Running and all long range guns is now +2, jumping is +4. Dropping a single LPPC at range will help keep the overall heat down as needed. The ammo, which was CASE protected on the 1D, is now CASE II protected on the 1E, even better. The BV has, amusingly, dropped exactly one point to 1369. Gee, it sure is hard to pick which one of these I'd rather have, but maybe I'll have a use for that one point somewhere else.. B
Merlin MLN-1P: And now for something completely different. The PPCs are gone, replaced by one Large and two Medium Variable Speed Pulse Lasers. This is my jam, but it does force a re-evaluation of how to use it. The LRM 5 and Flamer are retained. This is no longer a long range skirmisher, now it has to get up close and personal. When it does, it will tear its PPC-toting counterparts to pieces in short order. The armor has been upgraded to Heavy Ferro-Fibrous, somehow coming out to the exact same point total. Thirteen doubles is enough to keep the main event firing indefinitely while running (neutral for all three lasers), or +2 while jumping. Jumping with this is effectively net-zero modifiers at close range, so it can afford to be very aggressive. The BV has somehow dropped to 1182, and at that point I'd take this any day of the week. If the Large and one Medium connect at short range, that's a PSR, and it has a classic heavy's durability. The one downside is the one ton of LRM ammo with no CASE, which is a potential very bad time but at this cheap I'd take the risk. B+
Merlin C: It feels like there are a lot more Merlins in here than there are. This one is the Clan version, featuring an ER PPC, two Improved Heavy Medium Lasers, a Streak LRM 5, a Flamer, and a Heavy Machine Gun. The HMG is back as the “why?” gun, but everything else here is punishing and dangerous. Eighteen doubles runs ice cold at range (-17 running), and... ice cold at point blank, too (neutral with all guns at a run, -3 with the Flamer; +1 while jumping with everything but the Flamer). If you get to three hexes go nuts, but I'd have liked some extra... anything, really. The easy to miss piece de resistance, however, is the Ferro-Lamellor armor. This thing is a tank at 60 tons even without really being close to maxing armor, thanks to still having all standard internals. At 1870 and stuffed full of Clan gear, this is a solid bruiser even if it's not going to win any races. For raw efficiency I'm still taking the 1P, but this is a solid choice for being a 'Mech you just take five of and expect to go into any enemy. B+
Quickdraw QKD-9G: There's a lot going on here. First, we have a 60 tonner with a really weird movement profile (5/8[13]/5). Shades of the Thresher Mk II. If you remember what I said about that, you're going to hear a good amount of it here, too, though (and I say this without a hint of irony) somehow the Quickdraw is more coherently designed than that one was. The armor is good but not max, right around 80%. The engine is a Light Fusion, meaning it's not going to fall over to a stiff breeze. The guns are... odd. We have two ER Medium Lasers, two rear-facing Medium Lasers (because of course we do), and then, uh, a total of 14 tubes of Clan Streak SRMs, split 4/4/6. Both sizes have a single ton of ammo to pull from. There's also a Targeting Computer, which is fortunately only a single ton on account of being linked to four tons of Medium Lasers and nothing else. Twelve doubles don't 'struggle' to handle heat so much as forget that it exists. Most turns you're going to generate 10 + 2 + some combination of 10 more heat from the Streaks and end up ice cold (-2) even if everything hits. If something gets behind you, you still don't overheat. Jumping can blip the scale a bit but only by +1 with guns forward and then only if all Streaks lock which seems relatively unlikely. What a world we live in, where a Quickdraw is a 'Mech of singular purpose and is hardly even capable of overheating. Oh, and it costs 2224 BV. The Succession Wars are well and truly over, kids. The one constant is that it's still not really worth taking over something else that costs that much (except the Starslayer from earlier). C-
Caesar CES-5R: This 'Mech very nearly bored me to tears until I saw it had Hardened Armor, then it got hilarious. For 2192 (32 points fewer than the Quickdraw we just saw), you get a Gauss Rifle, Snub-Nose PPC, and four ER Medium Lasers (two forward, two back), powered by an XL Engine and XL Gyro, and coated in 26 tons of Hardened armor. Ten doubles is enough to handle all guns forward and running at +3, perfectly respectable. Even with the XL (the Gauss is CASE II protected), this thing is a brick shithouse that you will not successfully take down quickly, and it's dangerous enough to make itself noticed. I love it. A-
Naga II Prime: This one... does not spark joy. We have what is essentially the Assault class Hellbringer, an 80 tonner than moves 5/8 and has more structure than armor in several places including the center torso. It trues to make up for this crippling vulnerability with gun and it... really doesn't. The Prime has an LB-10X, Ultra AC/10, LRM 20, and ER Small Laser. Everything has two tons of ammo, meaning you run out of LRM 20 much faster than the Ultra, and the Ultra much faster than the LBX if you're holding your shots for decent numbers. Not that you should, mind you, your armor will not last that long. The one good thing about it is that it's cheap as dirt at 1840, but I'd genuinely rather just take most Gargoyle configs than this. It looks very cool, though, if that sways you one way or another. It doesn't sway me. D
Naga II A: This time instead of going with mostly long range guns, we split the difference. Two ER Large Lasers, one LB-20X (three tons ammo), a Streak SRM 6, and an ER Small Laser. You should not want to close to LB-20X range while piloting this 'Mech. There are 16 doubles here that handle the laser heat very well (-6 running) and tries very hard to encourage you to get closer. There are very few 'Mechs in the game that I think are actively trying to get their pilots killed. This is one of them. The BV at 2160 is also trying to get me killed, of a coronary, for a loadout that wouldn't be far out of place on a high-end Clan Medium.. D
Naga II B: The only config so far that is actually trying to keep its pilot alive and not merely not-dead, this 'Mech has four LRM 20s with six tons of ammo. There's also a Narc that you should never, ever be close enough to use, and an AMS. The BV is still too-high at 2347. Spend the extra couple hundred BV and take a Vulture Mk III Prime at 20 tons lighter for the extra armor with the same primary weapons. Despite its shortcomings, this is the best config so far. C-
Naga II C: And now the second config that is actually trying to get its pilot killed. We have a Large Pulse Laser (good), an Ultra AC/5 (good), an LRM 15 (good; maybe I was slightly too harsh), and then a Streak SRM 6 (oh no), two Medium Pulse Lasers, and four Machine Guns (I'm sorry, what?). The ammo is spread to the four winds (those being left arm, right arm, left torso, and right torso), making sure you're capable of smearing your pilot on the sidewalk without the 'Mech ever being rendered non-functional. This arrangement of weapons will also cause some heat issues if fired all at the same time, but quite frankly this 'Mech will be dead before I finish figuring out the best way to do it, so I'm not going to waste my time. The BV at 2177 is better, it's not good. D+
Naga II H: I will give this 'Mech the bare-minimum kudos for going with regular Heavy lasers and not the Improved kind that will blow up. The armament includes one Large, two Medium, and one Small, and then tacks on a Gauss Rifle and LRM 20 with two tons of ammo each. Use the ammo before you get close, it's your only long range damage and also conveniently the only explosive stuff on the config. I would still not describe it as beneficial for one's longevity. The BV has climbed back up to 2284 and that's still too high, but it's less too high than it could be. D+
Naga II W: The other config that isn't trying to kill its pilots. A Rotary AC/5 with three tons of ammo, a Streak LRM 15 with two, an ER PPC, ER Medium Laser, and ER Small Laser. The ammo is protected by CASE II, and combined with the range makes this the least vulnerable config. Unfortunately it's also the most expensive at 2655. Heat is essentially a non-issue thanks to the Streaks unless you're locking multiple turns in a row, and then it merely blips (+1 on a run and ROF 5 on the RAC), but it can start to go up if you stay in ER Medium range. I don't recommend it, which feels very bad for a nearly 2700 BV Clan Assault 'Mech. This is the best config in real terms, but it's hard to overcome the great 'Mech-design albatross of having so little armor that your guns are more footnotes than selling points. C-
'Mechs by rating:
F: 0 (somehow, despite the Naga II, there was nothing so bad it deserved an F)
D: 5
C: 5
B: 9
A: 2
S: none
Cumulative 'Mechs by rating (Including bonus content):
F: 42
D: 95
C: 205
B: 221
A: 115
S: 18
