Seriously, it looks like one of those weird tropical fish grew a rugby players' legs.I've done a lot of older units over the last couple of years- both in terms of in-game production and real-world timeline. Vulcans, Hermes II, the Osts recently, the Trebuchet... and I wanted to write up something about a personal favorite Mech of mine from more recent times. A silly-looking oddball with a surprisingly-effective repertoire behind it, the kind of Mech most people look at and shrug, but ends up being a diamond in the coal mine. And you know what? I'm oen of those players. I never would have given this a second thought if not for having ended up with one in a grinder game a few years ago. I was impressed- and by coincidence ended up with the miniature in an eBay lot around the same time, which prompted even more research into it. It's been a favorite since, and so today let's give some love to the Bloodhound. (A prior article exists from 2005, I'm safely saying that two decades is enough time for me not to be stepping on toes here.)
Born as a counter-insurgency machine, but proving to be a very capable scout-hunter (and scout itself!), the FWL commissioned the Bloodhound as an answer to the rise in House Liao's fortunes, combined with the frosting-over of relations with that nation. Not only had the Confederation reabsorbed St. Ives, not only were the effects of the Xing Sheng movement creating ripples across Capellan society, not only were the new focus on irregular warfare proving effective and very difficult to deal with... the planned marriage between Isis Marik and Sun-Tzu Liao ended. This looked to the League like a possible step towards war, or at the very least opened the possibility that Sun-Tzu might look to drown his 'sorrow' in a few raids along the Andurien border. An answer was needed for dealing with these irregulars, and Earthwerks- as they often did- stepped up with a new idea, the well-named Bloodhound. Stepping into service in the mid-3060s, it was a much-welcomed addition to the FWLM- and, of course, to the Word of Blake, who by this point had worked their way into the League's military and industrial complex to the point that they might as well have been running the show. More than a few of the new Mech, then, ended up in white (or fading-grey) livery within a few years of the debut.
So what makes a standard-model Bloodhound, the
B1-HND, work? For starters, we don't need a lumbering assault Mech- that doesn't really do much good against irregular forces. You need speed, flexibility, and weapons to deal with the threat- which tend to be lighter-fare, no need for giant Gauss rifles and the like. So we need a low-weight, simple chassis, and we need it on the quick- the sooner this goes into service, the better. Earthwerks met this in a unique way- if you look carefully, the endo-steel structure is actually that of a Phoenix Hawk, despite not looking much like it. (Hey, if the Falconer can use the Orion's chassis, why the hell not?). The 45-ton size of the stalwart medium didn't change, giving us a Mech that can pack armor and engine rather than a smaller, more fragile unit could. The... interesting... shape includes satyr-style compound legs, an odd flat-sided torso, and a cockpit jutting out from the front- which makes the Mech, in-universe, a bit more vulnerable to infantry shots from the ground, but would give better visibility than the Phoenix Hawk's vantage on top of a humanoid torso.
We need to move fast- a slow unit might not be able to deploy quickly to deal with hit-and-fade tactics so common to insurgents, and so ground speed was extremely important to the design team. An XL engine gives the machine a 7/11 that makes it perfect for the job. No jump jets are installed, which is a pity- particularly since an insurgency might like to hide out in places like canyons, forests, or the urban sprawl- but the speed means that a Bloodhound can rapidly move around the field to deal with threats as they reveal themselves- or escape an ambush before the trap can fully close. Fourteen double-heat sinks allow the Mech to stay cool under fire from shoulder-launched inferno missiles (always a threat in this environment), even while using its weaponry.
We need a Mech that can take a beating, because the best Mech isn't doing you any good if it's mangled and has to return to base before the threat is neutralized. In the case of irregular forces that might be camped out waiting for their opportunity to hit a target for weeks, their patience is plenty enough already that they'll be happy to not spring their ambush until the local Locust driver has to withdraw for repairs. With durabliity and ability to survive and remain in the field being important, we find a very surprising 9.5 tons of armor in place. This is standard plate, so we don't get the bonus points afforded by ferro-fibrous, but we also have plating that can be rapidly replaced from older stockpiles of parts- making repairs cheaper and faster, getting the machine back in the field quickly. The protection might not allow it to survive a rampaging Ti Tsang, but shoulder-launched missiles and the like, no problem. The legs and center can each hold out an AC/20 round, while the side torsos and arms are a little thinner, but fine for the job at hand. The rear is reasonable, able to hold a medium laser without breaching, and since insurgent movements likely will resort to ambushes and other dirty tricks, that's important- you may not be able to predict when the back shot comes at you. In case the armor does get breached, CASE in the right torso helps keep the destruction of the missile bin from obliterating the entire Bloodhound.
Big engine, tough armor, we probably went light on weapons, then. We didn't do so bad here, really- it's a reasonable punch for a Mech this size. However... well, remember what we're expecting to fight here. Groups of infantry hiding in the jungle, or moving between buildings, etc.- not a lot in the way of armored units or Mechs. It's important, then to mount the kind of weapons that infantry dread, like machine guns and SRMs. So... we didn't do any of that. Three ER medium lasers are a pretty handy battery against light armor, but not of great use in the intended role. These are mounted in each arm and in the head, allowing the Mech to lose a limb without a huge reduction in power. A single ER small laser in the left arm supports these weapons, though the wish for an MG instead is very strong. The hefty punch though comes from a Streak SRM-6, in a fun pod on the right torso that looks like it came straight off of a modern-day attack helicopter. While the muscle of the missile rack is very handy against light armor, it's worth remembering that Streak systems can't use alternate ammo types like flechette or inferno- the kind of thing that kills infantry off. Crud. But, we DID do one smart thing, and brought a Beagle probe, allowing us to detect hidden units- the kind of thing an irregular unit relies on as a tactic, so while we might struggle to deal with the threat, we at least know it's there!
As such, we end up with a Mech that is quick, tough, well-armed for a job it wasn't supposed to do, but not particularly good at its intended job. What it DOES do well is detect units for the rest of its team, deal with light vehicles and light Mechs... it's a premier scout hunter, people. Seriously, it eats bug Mechs alive, even upgraded ones, and handily matches up against units like Jenners with ease thanks to its armor and efficient weapons. It can stay in the field for ages- the only weapon needing ammo is the Streak, and it famously doesn't fire unless it gets a lock, so we can hunt down enemy Mechs for days if we need to. It's tough enough to take a beating if it needs to defend itself against its prey when cornered, and it's fast enough to pace most smaller Mechs. So while Earthwerks didn't achieve what they wanted to, they built a fantastic Mech for a job they didn't mean to fill. Worth noting- with high speed, the probe, tough armor, and good long-term weaponry, the Bloodhound also makes a good scout itself- or, if you get your hands on one, an excellent strike-and-flee machine for your own insurgency.
Marik had a hit on their hands, if not quite the way they planned, and it was only natural to make a few small changes to make the Bloodhound even better. So as the FedCom Civil War came to its close, and the Word surprised everyone with their little tantrum, we got a new version. The
B2-HND is a simple change to a few systems to give the Bloodhound a Gaurdian ECM system added on with the existing Beagle, a great combo for the kind of work the Bloodhound is intended to perform. Losing two heat sinks is a little tough to stomach, though reasonable, but the remaining half-ton from their removal is used for a second ER small laser, in the right arm this time to mirror its twin. The opportunity to drop the existing small and use the resulting ton for a flamer was missed here, and it would have been a much better move for the designed job- as it is, it's a little more muscle against light armored targets, and while that's nice, it's not all that helpful.
OK, so we made a Mech that was great at hunting light armor and scouts, but not so great at dealing with infantry and the like. Well... back to the drawing board. Debuting just after the end of the Jihad, and into a universe that saw both a drawdown in heavily-armored Mechs and a hot spot to end all hot spots in the remains of the FWL, as they turned guns on each other, the new B3-HND looked at the original plan and said 'let's try that again'. Keeping the speed, but slightly less armroed, the Mech now leans heavily into dealing with infantry, both armored and squishy, with a pair of medium pulse lasers leading the show, one in each arm. These are backed by handy ER flamers (finally!)... two in EACH arm, allowing you to roast large numbers of rebels and dissidents at once. The Beagle remains to help find targets for these weapons, but interestingly we also add a fluid gun to the right arm. If you've never used one, you have all sorts of dirty tricks to use from one of these oddball weapons, and it's a far better idea here than you might expect. Two tons of 'ammunition' (?) are stored in the right torso, allowing one to switch between a couple of ways to utilize it. The author suggests a combination of oil slicks and marshmallow creme. (You brought four flamers, what else are you going to do?). A drop to eleven double-heat sinks is reasonable so long as you don't push too hard, and as a final treat battle armor attempting to swarm a Bloodhound now get a face full of the B-pod mounted in the center torso, presumably on the underside of the odd-shaped torso.
So, there you have it. A unit that few players will be able to claim to really love using, but which deserves far more respect than it gets. It looks weird, and it's not all that great at the job it got built for, but if you get past the former and just rethink how to use it, you have one of the best scout/scout hunter units in the Inner Sphere. It's THAT good, far more than the sum of its parts. I've said before that this is overall Marik's most useful asset in the late-Civil War era and leading into the Jihad, and I stand by that bold statement- and it's easy to see why FWL units likely used their Bloodhounds to the point of exhaustion dealing with Word infantry forces as that war heated up. It's also easy to imagine why, with hordes of hostile and sometimes cybernetically-augmented troops in mind, the B3-HND was brewed up. Anyone with one of those in the heavily combined-arms oriented Dark Age has a true king of the battlefield in their posession.
Thoughts? Stories of use? (Probably not a ton of those, sadly). Changes? Bring 'em on.
