The Raven

The Raven

Often over looked, especially for use in Sunder, but even in many league games, is the Raven. A Light Class Inner Sphere battlemech weighing in at 35tons, just doesn’t see much use. Personally, I like the Raven. It offers a lot of features with the possible exception being firepower. Just take a closer look and you can decide for yourself.

When we go look at a stock Raven, we see that it has ECM, BAP, IFF, AG and a max speed of 100kph. LAMs are also offered rounding out an excellent Electronics package. More on this later. The Raven has 7 tons of Ferro Fibrous armour (.1 ton from being fully armoured) on a standard frame. The weapons include a Small Laser, 2 Small Pulse Lasers, a LRM15 with double ammo and a NARC Beacon. The weapons slots are decent for a Light Class, the Right arm has 2 single slot beam racks and the Left Arm has a single slot missile rack. The Right Torso houses a 2 slot missile rack while the Left torso houses a 2 slot beam rack. The max speed ranges from 90kph to 120kph. Adding LAMs and leaving the speed and armour settings gives you 12tons for weapons. This must be the problem. Only 12 tons to work with. Well if you drop the LAMs, you have 13.5 tons, so you make the call.

I would like to talk about the NARC Beacon for a minute before we move on to possible load outs for the Raven. I have tried NARCs and they do work. A common misconception is that IS NARCs do not work with CLAN Missiles and vice versa. Let me say that as far as I know, NARCs are TEAM based weapons. That is, whatever missile types are being used by your TEAM, will work with A (singular) NARC Beacon.

Another thing about NARCs is that the mechs using missiles MUST be in range of the Narced target. IF you are using 1200 meter missiles and the Narced target is 1500 meters away, your missiles will not work with the NARC. You have to be with your normal missile range.

IF you are piloting a missile boat, or any mech that contains missiles, you CAN NOT obtain a lock on one target and expect that your missiles go to the NARCED target. They wont. They will go to your locked target.

NARCs work best for teams with good team work and comms. IF you load NARCs on a mech, say a RAVEN for example, then any mech using missiles should go passive and stay within support range of the Raven. When the Raven pilot ‘hits’ a target with a NARC, he should say NARC ON or something like that. A beeping noise will then start in PASSIVE mechs. They can then fire their missiles and the NARC will call the missiles to it.

An IS NARC has a 700 meter range while the Clan Version has an 800 meter range. This is the flight range of the NARC, NOT the effect range of the beacon. Remember that NARCs, once placed have a limited time of operation and if they get knocked off or destroyed (from the hail of incoming missiles) that they will cease to work and another must be placed. DO NOT CONFUSE the missiles by placing more than 1 NARC in play at any given time of they will simply be ineffective as the missiles being fired will simply go to the closest beacon. IF you MISS when trying to place a NARC, the NARC is still active if it hits another object like a tree or a building or the ground. Either destroy it by stepping on it or wait 10 to 15 seconds for the beacon to expire, otherwise all the missiles will fly to that beacon and hit the building or the ground. Also remember that a NARC Beacon is not magic, it will not alter normal missile behaviour. Missiles will still fly their normal abilities, but they wont avoid objects or hills that they normally would not avoid.

Ok, back to the Raven. The reason I went over that is because the Raven is the 1^st mech I have reviewed that has a NARC as standard equipment to the best of my memory. The NARC is a good option for the Raven as the Raven is small and stealthy and reasonably fast. NARCs do take a little practice to be able to place them in critical locations, so keep that in mind. A good missile option is to load an ALRM10 plus an extra ton of ammo. Using BAP and the Artemis option missiles, a pilot can achieve near insta-lock on a target. Just for fun add a Large Laser, a Large BEAM Laser or a Large X-Pulse on the Raven and have some fun. You can bump the speed to 105kph, load up an ALRM10, a Large Laser and 2 Medium Lasers and you are all set. The ALRM10s will annoy targets a long range or even kill a ‘cored’ target, while the large laser will add a bit of punch at 650 in. The mediums offer solid protection when the bad guys get close.

The best defense weapon of this mech is its stealth, speed and handling. The Raven ‘bobs’ from side to side when it runs and it has a 360 torso allowing the pilot to keep fighting while adding distance to the (usually) unequal equation. More so, the Raven turns very easily and climbs hills almost like it has jump jets. A good pilot can drive this thing around like a spider on LSD and never take a solid hit. The torso has the same shape (albeit much smaller) as the Ares and Bushwacker, that long curved, sloping nose. The arms do tend to be destroyed, but the main slots are in the torsos and they are much harder to take out. Drive a Raven like a woman shopping and you will last a long time.

A raven is not going to rack up major amounts of kills, especially in Sunder and you don’t want to be surprised by any mech, especially an assault, but it is a decent mech. They are hard to target and they offer a great electronics package. IF you get legged, you are toast so keep moving. Shoot at targets, don’t be the target.

The Raven makes for a very good scout mech. The speed ability of up to 120kph, ECM, BAP and IFF make it near invisible except to other BAP equipped mechs but by the time they see you, you have seen the, too. In FOG situations, the Raven is even better using the electronics package I already listed. The thing is small enough that even if picked up on radar, with IFF , it may not actually be SEEN.

Well, the Raven is not a offensive powerhouse by any means, but it offers a different type of offense, the I found them first type. That is a big advantage in fighting battlemechs, especially in league play. A good Raven pilot can move in, find the enemy, report the location and heading and even keep them distracted while your team moves into position to put them away. The Raven is tough enough and fast enough to keep them busy or even finish off a few. You just gotta stay out of direct fire range of any heavy weapons.

In our NBT days, we were privateers for a major house team. We had a decent arrangement that allowed us a lot of passage throughout the inner sphere as well as jump station usage without too much fear of being discovered or attacked. In exchange, we would often help our hosts with battles or even fight some for them. During that time, one of the neighboring teams launched a Planetary assault on our allies.

A Planetary Assault, in NBT, COULD go on for weeks and weeks depending on how many mechs were loaded on whatever number of drop ships the attacker brought to bear and depending on what was on planet of the defending team.

After several weeks o f battling, Cap Con had made major strides against a garrison planet of the Federated Suns. A Garrison was like a mech holding area, except it was a planet loaded with mechs. Mostly 2^nd tier mechs, but lots of them. FS had asked us to take over the fight as Cap Con had worn them pretty thin.

We when took over the fight, most of the larger, heavy duty mechs were either already destroyed or captured. We lost 2 very heavy tonnage rounds (650 tons limit per team for 8 players) and we struggled to make weight. On the third round, again a very heavy round of 500 tons, we ended up using 4 Ravens, 2 Uziels and 2 Chimeras. As you can see we were not where close to drop weight but we fought on. We did kill 4 of the attackers including a Blood Asp and a Marauder. The Next round we could only field 6 Ravens against 8 of the Cap Con attackers. We lost that match and the Planet. Cap Con made a post that they had gained a new respect for the Blood Pearls who were willing to fight to the last mech against such weight differences. The 6 little Ravens again racked up 3 or 4 kills but still fell to the odds. I gained respect for the Raven.

I like the Raven and I would like to see them used more. Against the big boys, they just don’t last long. If used correctly and by a good pilot who understands the mech, a Raven will last awhile.

Time for a rating. The Raven is basically unchanged since those Cap Con days. Yes maybe some minor changes, but overall it is the same mech. Its quick, its agile, its stealthy, but it lacks serious punch. I give the Raven 3 minutes. Decent for a light.