The Arctic Wolf

Weighing in at 40Tons from the Clan Technology Group the Artic Wolf is presented for you today. A little missile-firing demon that runs at 97kph from the Clan factory. Fresh off the drop ship, this medium class battlemech is equipped with 4 C-Streak6s and a speed of 97kph. Fast and hard hitting, a major pain in the cockpit. From the factory it has no electronics, offering only BAP and LAMS. C-Streaks do not need BAP as they have some sort of auto lock built in. The Artic Wolf is capable of closing on an enemy quickly and circling larger mechs while rapid firing those missiles the whole time. It has 8tons of ferro armour (99% full) so it can take some return fire while it dishes out the damage. The Artic Wolf is primarily a missile platform in the medium class. It has a couple of 3-slot missile racks that are referred to as ‘ears’. The arms house a 2-slot omni in each. A pilot can pack other weapons such as a ERLL in each arm as well as some missiles to make this a range support mech, or change the C-Streaks to LRMS and have a long range missile boat that is small and hard to find, using its speed to move around from a long way off. As a brawler, a pilot can pack in a couple of LBX10s, or keep the stock config. On the other hand, this mech is generally weak, having a large CT slot. The ‘ears’ and arms get blown off relatively quickly reducing the firepower by 25% for each on blown away until there is nothing left but a torso running around. The Artic Wolf would be a good candidate for High Explosives carrier if that weapon was still around. Don’t get me wrong, this is a useful mech, providing missile fire or long-range support as other close on the target forcing the enemy to spread out or take cover. With it speed, it can close quickly to add support. You don’t see that many on the battlefield, I would guess because it is fairly weak or because it is so specialized. Personally, I think on team radar only battles with low tonnage, this little thing can be a big help on a drop in the right terrain. Load up a couple of ERLLs in the arms and some missiles and from 800 meters you have a deadly support mech. Shoot, run, hide, come out, and shoot again. On colder maps, use the ERLPL instead of ERLL. It is my opinion that the artic Wolf needs Jump Jets. That would add a great deal to the ability of this mech and possibly add to the longevity during battle. As it is right now, if spotted, this mech doesn’t take many hits before being stripped of weapons or killed outright. If not Jump Jets, then possibly ECM. Two or more of these things in the background, do make for great cover fire mechs as the team close in on enemy positions. Concentrated missile fire form two of these on an enemy not only does lots of damage, but forces them to stay in cover as your team mates close in for the kill, reducing the amount of return fire. Best use? Long-range support fire, or when loaded with streaks a harasser of larger slow turning mechs. Vettie’s View on the Artic Wolf? I rate this mech at 2 minutes. Sustained fire on an artic Wolf will bring down quickly or strip it of weapons rendering it useless. The arms and ears are weak. It has a big CT. Weak for a medium class mech.

Arctic Wolf MP3 I visited the Mech Lab on the way to the tech writing desk today. The purpose of this visit was to look closely at the Arctic Wolf. The name Arctic Wolf conjures up images of a frozen tundra with a few trees poking their leafless trunks up thru tons of snow scattered amongst a few bushes that are also lifeless but standing defiant to the weather. As you scan the horizon you see a gray-white figure with eyes as brown as mud tensing his muscular frame about to pounce on the next poor jack rabbit that comes running by on his quest for food. When I look in the mech lab, I don’t see that. I see and under powered, squatty little mech that is outclassed by nearly every mech in its class and by some (several) in the light class. The Arctic Wolf is a very specialized mech and not known for ability to absorb much punishment. Its specialty is missiles. It comes from the factory in probably one of the best configs for this mech, 4 Cstreak 6s. From the factory floor, its job is to swarm other mechs with missiles, fade in, circle about missile the crap out of any enemy and get back in cover. It has enough speed for this, 97Kph, if there is enough cover or if you are fighting in a city. Hilly terrain also helps this little mech in that it climbs very well and can scoot around rocks or rock formations, unload an alpha or chain its load and keep running away. In addition to the ability to carry missiles, and it doesn’t have to be a short range missile mech, it can take any 2 slot missiles, it has in each arm a 2-slot Omni and it also has a 1-slot Omni in the torso. It has the ability to be a ballistic boat or a laser boat or a mixture of the two as well as an all purpose mech that carries ballistics, lasers and missiles. The electronics package includes the ability to take BAP (useful for the missiles), LAMs and Advanced Gyro. A decent package for this mech. The speed ranges from 73Kph to 121Kph and a full load of ferro armour is just over 8 tons. The mech is agile and swift with a decent turn ability. With all of this going for it, why then does the Wolf seem more like a puppy? The mech is weak. The hit boxes are standard fare, almost square in layout and easily hit from many directions. Other than the head, almost any part of this mech can be hit from range. It is easy to leg, to arm or even to remove the ‘ears’. From the front, even tho the head is a very small hit box, it is easily hit and often this mech is hudded quickly. Without the use of Advanced Gyro, it gets knocked down a lot, too. As we all know, usually, if you get knocked down, the second shot from whatever knocked you down will kill you. From a distance this mech is easily sighted and targeted. The body is short and squatty, but it is almost square. As mentioned above, body parts are targeted with ease. IF you bump the speed up where it is fast enough to avoid fire or incoming missiles, then you loose the ability to pack on what little weapons you can already take. If an assault mech happens to stumble on one of these loaded with Cstreaks, the little Wolf can run around and leg the bigger foe very quickly, but if the larger ever gets a hit on it, the damage comes at a heavy price. The ears and arms represent 25% of the fire power (stock version, 4xCStreak 6s) and they get blown off fast. Im not saying that an Arctic Wolf cant take down an assault, Im saying I would rather be in something else fighting that assault. The torsos are the toughest part of this mech. As mentioned, the ears, arms and legs get blown off quickly. Even the torsos seem weak. It could be the simple geometry of the mech. I mean look at it. The torsos are almost flat with little or no curvature to them to help deflect incoming rounds or blasts. Of the 40 ton mechs, this one is surely the weakest. The Reaver offers more speed AND spec armour standard from the factory. The Chimera does the same, speed and spec armour. Both these mechs have at least a 3-slot non missile rack so they can carry a weapon of punch. The Strider offers a harder to hit profile as well as better speed. The Blood Pearls used the Arctic Wolf on a few drops. This little mech was something we ended up with as a result of several raids on a few Clans. If they knew we were coming and they knew we were looking to steal their valuable Clan chassis, they would load their planets with these things in the event we won. In NBT, I would safely say the medium class mechs saw the most usage. To a pirate team, or Inner Sphere house, Clan Tech was a prized possession. If you won a recon match, or if you bought intel, you could discover that a planet may have a Clan Medium Factory. IF you attacked and won certain types of battles, you could steal some of those mechs, or disrupt the output of a factory so that you got a portion of the output. Clan mediums. Ummmm. Images of Shadow cats, Lanners and Ryos danced in the heads of pirates as we descended to their planets in hopes of filling our drops ships with Clan Tech. One particular drop I remember was played against NBT Ghost Bear on the map Tetsuhara. Many of you know this map to be very hot and mostly barren. We had a plan to run to a pre-decided (on our part) ambush zone and shut our mechs down. Smaga was to be in an Arctic Wolf loaded with ERLLs and entice the Clanners to chase him to us. When they got in range we were to start up and ambush them. The Arctic Wolf worked out as an excellent choice for this because it had BAP and some speed. Smaga could run all over the map pinging away with BAP trying to locate the Ghost Bears, and once he found them, he could zap them with a pair of ERLLs and run like hell away from them. Worked like a charm. The Clanners got with 400 meters of us and we started up and mowed them down. We won the match losing only 1 or 2 mechs to their 8. We got salvage and because we won we got to steal some mechs from their inventory on planet. Guess what? We stole a bunch of Arctic Wolves, lol. The Arctic Wolf is not on my top 20 list of favourites, but I can see that it could be a useful mech. In Sunder, with radar on, it just wont last long. In leagues drops, it could be very useful actually be a good mech where the weights on the drop were limited. Other wise I see it as a target. For those out there that like to se their kill numbers range high on Sunder I suggest you target one of these every time you see one, especially if you are in a Wildcat or any assault. Two minutes is what I gave this mech in my original review. One and half to two is what I give it now. Sure some of you will disagree, many of you are much better pilots than I am and maybe you can make this mech last a long time. I am an average pilot and it dies quick for me.