The ShadowCat

The Clan Shadowcat. A very popular medium class mech weighing in at 45tons. This battlemech represents an excellent design and weapons lay out. The Shadowcat is an all-purpose mech that can fill many roles. Its fast, it jumps, it can carry a deadly weapon load, it can brawl and it can be a missile boat. What more do you want?

Vengeance gave me a 1st look at this mech and I used them a lot in the open servers days of respawn battles back then. MechCommander 2 gave me another look at this battle mech. It was a no-brainer to be part of Mercs.

This Clan design offers BAP, Jump Jets, LAMs and Enhanced Optics. The Shadowcat has good slots capable of a wide variety of weapons. The right arm has a 2-slot energy while the left arm holds a 3-slot omni. The right torso has another 2-slot energy and a 2-slot ballistic while the left torso holds a 3-slot missile. All that packed on an endo steel frame of almost full ferro armour at 9tons.

The “Scat’ doesn’t act much like a mech built on endo steel. It is very tough. The Scat spreads damage well too. The arms may be the weak points, holding less than a ton of armour each.

The Shadowcat is small. The body is compact, almost wedge shaped. This is probably why it does spread dame so well. It handles heat fairly well too.

Because of the varied weapons slots, a Shadowcat can be fitted to many roles. The 3 ERLL config is very popular on this mech. Having jump jets installed it becomes a deadly pop sniper slamming those green waves of energy in from 800 meters. But you can replace a laser or two with some tweaking and add a gauss rifle. Now you have a sniper with some instant punch. Prefer energy weapons? Drop the gauss and lasers replace them with an ERPPC and Lt PPCs. Ouch from beyond 800. For brawling load up a couple LBX10s and HML or 2. Need missiles? The omni slot and missile rack can hold up to 6 LRM10s, chain those at your friends…

The design team for the Clanners got this one right. They needed a do all mech that weighed in under 50tons. They needed it to be tough but carry a weapons load of a heavy class mech. They needed speed and jump jets. The Shadowcat was the result of their efforts and a damn fine result it is.

Vettie’s View? I rate this mech at 3 ½ to 4 minutes. Very good for any class, excellent for a 45ton mech. The Shadowcat is a general all purpose mech, it can be used for almost any situation and whatever role you put it in, it does the job very nicely. Did I mention I just think it looks cool on top of all the other stuff? No? Well, I think it looks cool, too.

Shadow Cat MP3


My first review of the Shadow Cat gave it pretty good marks for a mech of its size but I feel like I didn’t go into much depth. Maybe today, I can fix that and give you all the juice on this feisty feline.

Vengeance is where I first saw the mech in a video game. It may have been part of MW3, but I don’t know for sure since I never actually played it. I do know it was in Mech Commander 2 and even though it was a 45 ton mech, it looked bigger.

In Vengeance, you are given one to start with in the campaign. I often used them in online open servers. It was small enough and quick enough that I could get lots of hits on bigger mechs like the Daishis, Masakaris and Atlas that dominated the open servers. I would run around them blasting away with ermedium pulse lasers and just rip away at their (usually) weak rear armour until someone else killed them or, if I was lucky, I did.

I remember playing on Frostbite, with the snow falling and team only radar. I think there was some fog but it may have been set to default visibility but either way the sight distance was limited. I mounted an erlarge pulse laser and 2 standard erlarge lasers. I joined the blue team. When we launched I headed off to the right of our spawn. The other team was loaded with Daishis and Thors and an Awesome or two. In those days, while in the lobby awaiting launch, the lobby showed you what mechs everyone had chosen. My team mates had Cauldron Borns, Daisys, Thors and my Scat. IT was a respawn game and it was mixed tech. Anyway, after I went right I tried to get up on some of those hills and catch some of those big guys as they came off the hill from their drop zone. I could shoot , using the pulse I could manage several blasts, and fade back beyond the hill (now we call it hill humping) before they could figure out where the hits were coming from. I managed to get in a few kills before a couple guys from the other team wised up in their Thors and came in from behind me and blasted me right off the hill. Because my mech was smaller, I racked up a lot of points smacking those Daisies even managing a few kills. I would go from side to side on the map doing more or les the same thing.

The Shadow Cat is small enough and fast enough to evade the big guys for awhile. Not much about the mech ahs really changed since then. Even the slots are about the same, just the weapons are a bit different, oh yeah, the opponents are a little different too.

Lets look at the Shadow Cat and see whats it is made of then we can discuss it uses. With the speed set at 102kph it is obviously built for speed. The range goes from 77kph to 112kph. The cost increments from 102 to 112 a relatively cheap as there are only 2 steps costing 1.5 tons and then an additional 1.75tons. Dropping from 102 to 97 gets you back 1.25 tons and 97 is still very fast.

The mech comes equipped with 5 heat sinks, jump jets and LAMs. BAP and Enhanced Optics are also offered. I Like the BAP option, the EO depends on the usage of the mech. IF you are going to build a missile mech or a sniper or ranged fighter, then EO may be a good choice.

The weapons load out leads you to believe the mech was set up for in fighting. It is pre-loaded with 3 ermedium lasers, a Clan machine gun, a CSTRK6 and an erlarge laser for that bigger punch or to hit something at a distance. If you remove all the weapons you get to the slots. The right arm is a 2 slot beam rack and the left arm is a 3 slot omni rack. The right torso houses a 2 slot beam rack and a 2 slot ballistic rack while the left torso holds a 3 slot missile rack. I always thought it funny that the depiction of the mech showed missile racks on either side of the cock pit but the slots only have missiles on the left torso. My thinking was that the there should be either a 2 slot missile rack or maybe a 2 slot omni rack in place of the ballistic rack. Another option would be to change the depiction.

The Shadow Cat is loaded with 9 tons of Ferro Fibrous armour, .1 ton away from being completely full. All this is mounted on an Endo Steel Frame. Ferro is a good option for this mech providing good all around protection. The mech is fast enough and agile enough to avoid or spread damage in most situations. The Arms are the weak points holding only .8 tons of ferro when full. This is important to remember when loading those slot with weapons, the arms usually are the first things lost in battle, especially if you put a ‘big’ weapon in the left arm.

I like to strip the heat sinks and the weapons and add BAP. This gives you 17 tons to load up weapons before any armour shaving or speed reductions. One of the more popular configs is to load 3 erlarge lasers and the 5 heat sinks. This provides potential pilots with and excellent sniper mech in a small, fast platform. For those that like them, 3 Lt PPCs and 2 heat sinks also make a fine sniper with a bit more range (875 meters for the LtPPC as opposed to 800 meters with the erlarge option). For those that don’t like armour shaving, lower the speed and remove some of your electronics (leave the jets on) you can load 2 erlarge and a Clan gauss rifle giving you some nasty punch at 800 meters. Using 4 heat sinks and BAP @ 97kph allows you to pack an erPPC and 2 LtPPCs. This is a very effective sniper machine that is fast enough to avoid the enemy and still pack a smack.

Of course Snipers aren’t the only use for this mech. IT can brawl with the best of them. Strip away the electronics and lower the speed and you can pack a LBX20, a LBX10 and 2 heavy medium lasers. If you like, pack on a heavy medium laser, 2 Clan machine guns and 5 CSTRK4’s. Make it a missile mech, with 2 ATM12Es and an erlarge laser or an arrow T-Bolt with an erlarge. It will hold 2 CLRM15s and a couple of erlarge lasers also. The BAP options allows for quicker lock times. A erlarge pulse laser coupled with a CUAC5 with double ammo keeps enemy mechs rocking while eating away their armour very quickly. For this config, drop the 2 heat sinks and lower the speed a little and you can add on a ATM6E (or M) or a CLRM15 and you have a well rounded mech. IF you don’t like the erlarge pulse, swap it for an erlarge laser and very minimal shaving gets you back to 102kph. This is an all purpose load out. As you can see from the varied load outs, the Shadow Cat is an all purpose mech.

When The Blood Pearls were a part of NBT, the Scat (as it is called by many) was a staple mech for the Clans. On those smaller tonnage battles (400 and under), we saw lots of these things. We tried to steal many of them too (*makes pirate sounds, arrrr*). They are powerful, fast, and very useful. We used many of them with the 3 erlarge laser config.

The Scat is smallish and squatty to the ground making it a tough target. The body of the mech ahs that wedge shape with no flat surfaces on the front, everything is angled. Everything, that is except the arms. They are square and boxy even where they connect to the body, making them actually easier to hit and take damage than the body (torsos) itself.

The legs are big and tall making them prime targets. The legs are well armoured (if you put armour in there!) but enemies will target the legs to slow this mech down. Protect your legs, armour them up!

Obviously, in Sunder, you don’t see that many Shadow Cats in use. Every now and then you do, but not that often. In league play you see them often and in limited weight servers / team battle servers. They are a good, tough mech that make a tough target but they don’t hold up under heavy fire from assault mechs. Certain configs CAN take them out in one shot (technically its not one shot because of the weapon travel time, maybe I should have said one alpha) but overall they hold their own.

I like the Scat and over all I think it is a good design suited for many things. They are very agile and can be very fast. They can pack some decent weapons loads and thee is not too many places on a map they cant get to. On limited radar maps (team only or no radar) they can be deadly with the ability to get real close to an assault with enough firepower to kill it quickly and never take return fire. This may be one of the best medium mechs in the game. The original review rating stands at 3 ½ to 4 minutes. Use them but be careful. Take time to learn the mech.