The Chimera

The Chimera

In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a monster, depicted as an animal with the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat, and the tail of a dragon. In MechWarrior 4, the Chimera is an Inner Sphere Medium Class battlemech weighing in at 40 tons.

While it may have a lion’s spirit and it seems to have lost its tail, this battlemech leaves me wanting. It is obviously an older design with a only a minor touch-up change from MekTek’s MekPak 3.

Over the years, I have tried very hard to like this mech and to make good use of it, but it or me have always come up short when paired together. Maybe after taking a closer look, I can give you a good reason. Ready? Ok then. Lets go look at the Chimera.

As I mentioned, the Chimera is a 40 tonner. This is good weight for league play where often the weight is limited. The stock config has jump jets and a speed set at 102kph. Fast and jump capable, both are things I like. The pre-loaded weapons consist of a standard Inner Sphere machine gun, a MRM20, a Medium Laser and a Large Laser. The Endo Steel frame is loaded with 10.5 tons of reflective armour.

The Speed range is from 82 to 112kph. Pre-set is 102 and this is a good speed for the Chimera. 92 or 97kph are still ok if you need the extra tonnage for that one weapon you just have to have but cant get it installed without the tonnage. LAMs are an option as well as Advanced Gyro. Ol’ Vettie suggests the LAMs especially if ol’ Lion Head is heading into missile friendly ground.

If you max out the armour, the Chimera holds 12 tons of Reflective or Reactive Armour or 8.1 tons of Ferro. Here is part of the problem, at least for me. The Chimera has proven to be a rather weak mech. Using Spec Armour improves the durability and life span but reduces the amount of free tonnage available for weapons. If you load Ferro, you have 16.9 tons and if you max either of the Spec Armours you are left with only 13 tons for weapons. There are folks that do well in a Chimera and if you are one of those, Ferro Armour is probably fine for you. For me? Well, I have to use the spec amour and hope I pick the correct one.

Let’s go with a Ferro version and a speed setting of 102kph with jump jets for now. The Chimera can make a very good jump sniper if you load a CapPPC and a Mini Gauss Rifle. You would need to shave .1 ton of armour from somewhere, but this gives a good punch from 850 meters. Whats that? You say you like the close up game better? Ok, then drop the jumpies and lower the speed to 82kph. Install a Heavy Gauss Rifle and 3 Light Machine Guns. Nasticus. Or, if prefer, load an Assault Laser and an AC20 or LBX20. Ouchies. Then there is the 4 Medium Laser, 3 Heavy Machine Gun (double ammo) SRM6 version I call the lil’ stripper. If want a little more range, you can load up 2 LAC2s and 2 Large Lasers with jump jets.

The Chimera looks to me to be an old design. When I say old design, I mean that all the weapons types are/were separated distinctly to different parts of the mech. One arm had 1 type of weapon, the torso had 1 type, but different for the arm and the other arm had yet a different type. Up until MP3, it had a 3-slot ballistic arm, a 3-slot missile rack in the center torso and a 4-slot beam rack in the other arm. After MP3, the only change to the slots was that the 4-slot beam rack was changed to a ‘D-Slot’ or direct fire slot that could hold either beam weapons or ballistic weapons. I think this was a good change in that allowed the Chimmy to carry ballistics on either or both sides of the mech.

The Chimera is a fairly agile mech. Considering it has jump jets, it climbs well even if you leave the jumpies off. The turn radius is good and relatively fast. The decel / reverse speed is very responsive. The accel rate leaves a bit to be desired, especially for a 40 ton mech. Otherwise the Chimera handles good and is easy to drive.

The problem is the body of the mech. The Arms hold the majority of the punch in most configs and they are very weak. A mere 18 points of damage takes then away. The CT and side torsos aren’t much stronger. In fact, if you don’t run spec armour, this mech dies very fast unless you completely avoid enemy fire. The Chimera is easy to strip and easy to leg. Running passive in lots of cover is its best friend. It doesn’t hold up well against its own weight class. Heavier Class mechs use the Chimera for target practice and don’t even heat up.

For me at least, the best use is as a door stop or paper weight, uh, I mean as a jump sniper. Stay away from the enemy and peck away at them choosing your shots and targets with care, Be very patient and run passive. Remember, BAP capable mechs can pick you up passive at 600 meters so stay outside of that range and zap your opponents, get closer and, well, it may be a short battle for you, it almost always is for me.

You can probably tell that Ol’ Vettie is not a big fan of the Chimera. There are players that like them and that is great. There are some folks that play well in a Chimmy and that is great too. Whether or not I like a mech ahs nothing to do with how I arrive at the rating. Remember, this is my ‘view’ on a mech. I give it a good run and I put it through lots of paces and lots of different types of fighting. I even try some of them (most) against live opponents to see how they perform and what I can do with it. This is one mech I cant do much with. Jump Sniping seemed to be the best thing I could do with it.

Rating time. As mentioned, I am not a big fan of the slots or the slot layout for the Chimmy. The best weapons would be loaded in the arms and the arms are very, very weak. If you cant protect them then you wont have any offensive firepower outbound. I don’t like this one as a missile mech because it doesn’t have BAP and it really only has 1 3-slot rack. Up close, you can put some smack on it but it cant take the return fire. Its too easy to strip and the profile, although not very tall is too wide. I rate the Chimera at 2 minutes. Poor for any mech.

The Rifleman

I have been wanting to do this review for some time. I have liked this mech since way back in the MW2 days. If I recall, back then, you could put on jump jets? I also seem to remember being able to load 4 ERPPCs. Maybe not, its been a long time since MW2, and a lot of water has passed under my bridge.

Let me start by saying that I am not one to knock the work of another, especially if I am not able to do better (and prove that I can do so). I do not have the knowledge (yet) on how to ‘draw’ or model mechs in a way similar to what we will use in our game. The artist of MekTek and others are very talented folks and they do a damn good job. Each generation of mekpaks brings us more details and beautifully ‘done’ models.

When I first saw the MW4 incarnation of todays mech, I had some mixed feelings. My apologies up front, but Ol’ Vettie simply shoot straight and lets you know his thoughts on the topic. You don’t have to agree and I don’t expect anyone to, I am just giving you ‘Vettie’s Views’ on things. Now where was I? Oh yeah, when I first saw the MW4 version of the Rifleman I thought it looked stupid. The Artist that created it did a damn good job and the details on this mech are spectacular, but I just thought it looked dumb. I did not care for the way the radar array was tilted overhead, nor did I care for the look of the array. I thought the arms stuck out to far from the body and that the weapons barrels on each arm were way too long. I also didn’t care for the animation. When the mech walks or runs, it looks like it is leaning back, way back, almost to the point of falling backward. Again, this is just Ol Vettie’s opinion on the ‘looks’ of the mech. It has nothing much to do with the performance.

Stepping into the wayback machine for a moment, I believe the Rifleman was created to counter air strikes and turrets mounted very high on buildings or mountain sides or even on the plateaus of mesas. Out of the wayback and back into current day, MekTek did a great job of recreating this ability. The Rifleman can shoot almost straight up and it has a 360 degree torso twist. Very nice.

Lets take a quit walk over to the Mech Lab. I think the techs have a Rifleman in there right now and they would be willing to show us what one of these is made of. Careful, watch your step, those crates contain live ammo, we don’t want any accidents in the lab. Ok, here we are, come on in, don’t by shy. You can learn a lot in the mech alb and these techs? Well they are professionals.

Wow, standing beside of one of these things really gives you a feel for how big they are. Maybe we should go into the control room where the configurations are laid out on the computer. These parts are big and I would hate if one fell of and ewww, I don’t even want to think about what would happen if a piece fell on you. It would take the clean up crew quite a while to get the stain off the floor, so follow me.

All right, here we are in the comfort and safety of the control room. You can still see the mech from here and you can customize the load out and equipment all from here. I’ll show you how all that works in a moment, but first lets see what a Rifleman comes with. Here, click that tab on the screen and it brings up a picture of the mech and tells you some info. See how easy that was? Ok then, well it shows here that the Rifleman is an Inner Sphere Heavy Class Battlemech weighing in at 60 tons. From the factory, the standard equipment includes ECM and LAMs, with 2 heat sinks and top speed of 79kph. If you click that center tab, the one called weapons, it shows you the current weapons load. This one has a Large Laser in each arm as well as an AC5 in each. The Chin Rack is pre-loaded with 2 Medium Pulse Lasers. Finally, by clicking on the Armor (they spelled it wrong) Tab you can see that the Rifleman is loaded with 10 tons of Ferro Fibrous Armour on an Endo Steel Frame.

Lets strip the weapons (its simple to do, just click the ‘strip’ button) and lets max out the armour (also simple, just click the mis-spelled max armor button). This gives us 11.9 tons of armour. The Rifleman is capable of carrying one of the best suite of electronics in the game. ECM, BAP, LAMs and IFF are all offered. Excellent. Maxing the armour and taking all the electronics offered, gives you 28.1 tons to use on weapons without any engine upgrades. The speed ranges are from 64kph to 104kph. Pretty nice overall.

Moving on to the weapons load out, I was somewhat disappointed in the last set of changes MekTek made to this mech. Looking at the slots available in todays Rifleman, we can see each arm has a 3-slot beam rack and a 2-slot Direct Fire rack. The D-Racks house either ballistics or energy weapons only. The Chin Rack has 2 single beam racks. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the arm slots being different prior to MP302b.

Seeing these slots, the 1^st thought that comes to mind is that the Rifleman is set up to be an energy based platform. In our puretech world, this mech can hold 2 PPCs and 2 Large Lasers with 4 heat sinks. Problem is that the Rifleman is not the most heat efficient mech. With a heat capacity rating of only 42, it just doesn’t do well with lots of heat weapons. Those PPCs generate 11 pts of heat (in a spike) each every time you fire one. It doesn’t take long for the Rifleman to shut down from heat problems if you don’t choose your shots carefully and your coolant flushes too.

A nice config is to load up 4 Large lasers, 4 heat sinks (or 2 and use the other 2 tons for a speed upgrade) and to load up 2 small coolant pods. This gives you a nice blast and the 2 coolant pods can be used to remove 10pts of heat each time you use 1 of them. They take a bit to recycle, so if you heat up before recycle use the mechs coolant flush or just slow down on your alphas.

IF you slow it down a little, you can load up 2 PPCs and 2 Mini Gauss Rifles. With all the electronics, this mech makes for a very nice sniper. 2 Light Gauss and a PPC is another good one but it does require very slow speed or careful shaving of armour. Another one I like is 2 HVAC 5s with double ammo and 2 large lasers. If you like to experiment, 3 Large X-Pulse lasers and a coolant pod with a crap load of heat sinks is also a nasty that can apply some pain to your enemy. IF you don’t mind getting a little closer to your opponents, 4 LAC5s and 2 medium lasers will keep them rocking. IF you like to ping them from long distances, then drop the LAC5s and load up 4 HVAC2s. Keep the 2 medium lasers in case somebody gets close to you. The HVAC2s have a 1200 meter range and the BAP will allow you to ‘see’ some targets at that range. The Rifleman can also carry 4 Large Continuous Beam Lasers to chew through some armour. There are lots of offensive options for this mech and they all don’t have to be centered around beam weapons.

The Rifleman is a very mobile mech. It climbs very well, not as good as some, but it will get you where you need to go. I already mentioned that you can fire straight up and the 360 torso twist, both big pluses when it comes to combat. What I didn’t mention was that this battlemech had one of, if not THE fastest torso twist in the game. For me this is a plus and a minus. The mouse I use to play this game is very sensitive and if I give it a slight twist either way the mech responds and the torso twists quickly to the where ever I am pointing. This is also bad when fighting an opponent that has weapons with heavy knock as your torso gets knocked to the side easily.

The accel and decel rates for the Rifleman are also good. It hill humps with ease. The most important par of this is the decel rate. This allows you to reverse direction quickly. You can move up to a hill or the edge of a cliff and fire and back off with out taking return fire (if you are fast enough). For me, using a Nostromo, its just the push of a button, and I am going forward or backward, push it again and I am going the opposite. The Rifleman handles this smoothly.

Defensively the Rifleman is surprisingly tough for a 60 ton mech. It is fairly small in stature and the electronics package including IFF make it a hard target to pick up on radar or through any type of fog or ground cover. The “head” or radar array on the top of the mech tend to get blown of quickly and I personally would just prefer that ‘box’ not be up there, but I understand the reasoning and the function. I mentioned earlier that the arms ‘stuck’ out a bit far making the Rifleman a wide target. The arms are obvious targets because of this and the fact that they hold the weapons load out. The arms hold up surprisingly well considering that they only hold 1.4 tons of Ferro Armour.

While in the control room of the mech lab, I mentioned to you that the Rifleman was built on an Endo Steel frame. Over the years of playing this game and slapping some vicious alphas on enemy mechs I have learned at least one thing. Let me give you a bit of insight to what I do know about the frames types before I go on here.

As we know it, there are basically 2 types of frames used in MW4 Mercs. Standard and Endo Steel. There are some significant differences between them and it DOES matter. I may be way off on this but I will tell you what I THINK. Standard chassis have standard internals and they are much ‘tougher’ to blow out once the outer shell of armour has been destroyed. The Standard internals are also easier to allow for engine upgrades (lower tonnage cost to speed up your mech). The Endo Steel Chassis types take more room inside and they spread damage much faster inside the mech once a panel or arm is blown out. It also cost more tonnage to upgrade the engine (go faster) overall. At least, that is what I think. I hope that if this is wrong that someone will post a comment and correct me.

Now back to what I was getting at. Maybe its just me, but in playing this game as often as I do I have noticed that mechs with endo steel frames seem to be harder to register initial damage. Once you actually blow out a panel or destroy an arm, if you keep hitting that spot you see the mech begin to take damage elsewhere pretty quickly, but it seems to take forever to get that initial damage on them (unless of course you hit them with an outrageous alpha). I have noticed this on the Shadow Cat, the Canis, the Rifleman and others. Compare them to same weight mechs that have standard frames and you will see what I mean.

Back to the Rifleman and apologies for the ramble. It just seemed applicable. The Rifleman can take some punishment. The right and left torsos seem to be the weak spots, but more or less that is ok as those spots contain no armaments.

This concludes our visit of the Mech Lab and the control room. Did you notice how neat and clean everything was? I told you, those techs are pros and they do a good job. I forgot to mention, if you have decide on a config, in the control room, on the chassis tab, click that little button on the lower right that is named ‘Save’. That sends a printout to the techs and they will configure your mech to order. Nice huh? Follow me folks.

Here we are in my office. This is where I review all the mechs. This is also where I play a few games online. Yes, there are many computers in this room. That one? Yes it is running Microsoft Vista (trouble free I might add) and yes it is the server where The Blood Pearls practice their trade. This one? Well, this one is my gamer and review machine. The others? One of them is used by my kids to do homework (yeah right) and the other is one I am working on and trying to decide whether to make it a Windows 98 machine so I can play around with all the MW2 stuff and get the MW3 stuff or whether to rebuild it as my next gamer. Oh don’t touch that, that’s the wifeys laptop. She left it down here for me to run the weekly upgrades / updates and defrag / virus checks on it for her.

Ok, well this is the part of the review where I actually rate the mech. I like the Rifleman. It has some really nice features and it holds up well under fire. There are a couple of things I don’t like. The Rifleman doesn’t do heat well (kinda tough for an energy based mech) and its hard to get a big alpha on it. The Rifleman is one of those mechs that you need some patience to drive it and to do a good job offensively. IT doesn’t need spec armour and if you did fill it with spec armour, you would be even more pressed to get a good weapons load on it. The mech holds up well and maybe that is because it is not the obvious target because of the electronics or because of the lack of devastating alpha. The Rifleman CAN hurt you. Patience is the key. Vettie’s View of the Rifleman? I rate this mech a 4. Its solid and it can get the job done. As with all mechs, learn to use it. Find a load you are comfortable with and practice with it. It’s a nice ride.

The Cauldron-Born

The Cauldron-Born

Today’s review comes to me with mixed feelings concerning this battlemech. It can carry one of the most devastating load outs in the puretech game. It can be one of the most brutal missile boats and it can be an excellent range fighter or support mech. It has speed and slots and decent electronics all contained in a low profile. The best part is that it only weighs in at 65 tons, very useful to drop commanders in league play. Crap, I forgot to tell you what mech. The Clan Cauldron-Born.

Well, I sort of gave away the theme of this review, but what the heck, I will give you the review anyway. The Clan Cauldron-Born weighs in at 65 ton from the Clan Factory carrying only Enhanced Optics (EO), pre-set with a top speed of 86kph and having 2 heat sinks. The armour for the Cauldy is Ferro Fibrous (FF or just Ferro) and is nearly completely full with 12.5 tons. The weapons load out leads you to believe that this mech is an infighter with long range support. It has twin LBX10s, dual ERMLs and two LRM15s (all Clan weaponry, of course).

The Cauldron-Born offers BAP, LAMs, EO and Advanced Gyro and a standard frame that holds 13 tons of Ferro Armour. The speed ranges from 68kph to 104kph. It is pre-set (as mentioned) to 86kph and this seems to be a very speed for the Cauldy. Drop down to 80kph buys you another 1.5 tons or speed up to 92kph for 2 tons. These three speeds are all decent and still allow for good handling.

The slots on the CB allow for many varied load outs. I will discuss some of them in a bit, but first lets look at the slots. Each arm is a 3-slot omni. The right torso is a 2-slot energy and the left torso has a 2-slot ballistic. There are twin 2-slot missile racks on top of this mech as well.

Just sitting in the mech and studying the slots, one of the first configurations that comes to mind is to make this puppy a brawler, a brawler truly from the cauldron. I have this image from one of Shakespeare’s writings where the witches are stirring their cauldron and saying something like “…toil and trouble…”. I see them stirring and hauntingly laughing as a Cauldron-Born crawls out of the boiling pot… Oh well, sorry.

As a brawling machine, the Cauldron-Born can carry one of the most devastating load outs in the game. Put a LBX 20 in each arm, a LBX 10 in the left torso and a Heavy Medium laser in the right torso. If you lower the speed to 80kph and shave 1.1 ton or armour you can add LAMs and AG. Of course, you can skip the LAMs (for in close fighting) and fill the armour and keep the Advanced Gyro. AG will keep the Cauldy from being knocked over (except for the most extreme alphas) and reduce the amount of incoming knock a little. This particular weapons load give the Cauldy a 76point alpha every 6 seconds. The LBX 10 and HML both recycle at 4 seconds, so they make a 20 point follow on shot to the original alpha, pretty nasty. At 65 tons there are not many mechs in the game that can carry that kind of load making it very useful if you think think things are gonna be tight, especially useful in a city setting. (There are mechs that can carry bigger alphas, the same or even more of a brawling load, but not too many at 65 to 70 tons.)

We all know a brawling Cauldron-Born is nasty and that it can even chase down some mechs and smack the crap out of them., but what is this talk about missiles? Well, keeping the armour full, lowering the speed to 80kph, a pilot can put 4 ATM12Es on board with double ammo. OR, if you prefer being a little closer, change the ATM12Es to ATM12Ms and add BAP (for long or short range fire). Prefer standard CLRMS? Good news for you. The Cauldy can take 4 CLRM20 (with double ammo) and 2 CLRM10s. Ouch. You like MRMs you say? OK, the Cauldron-Born can be loaded with 2 CMRM40s (double ammo) and 2 CMRM10s with BAP at 80kph and full armour. Still want to get closer? Fine. Load this beast with CStreak4s and CStreak6s and add a couple of machine guns for fun. 2 CStreak5s and 6 CStreak4s fit nicely and will knock down a lot of mechs in a knife fight. The machine guns will strip away bits of armour as the missiles ‘streak’ across the battlefield into your opponent. CStreaks and CMRMs have this auto lock thing, kinda like a wire guided shot. No need to wait for the missile lock sound, just aim and shoot and shoot and shoot. I almost forgot, the CB can take Arrows and Clusters too…

I heard some talk about using the Cauldron-Born in a long range support role with no missiles. Of course you can do that. Bump the speed up to 92, select BAP, LAMs and AG, shave tiny bits of armour and load up with 2 Clan Gauss Rifles and an ERLL. Now the Cauldy has the same load as the infamous Thor with more speed, with the exception of ECM and jumpies. It is faster and using Bap can locate the enemy on radar faster. Lower the speed to 80kph, remove the AG (keep the BAP and LAMs) and shave a little more armour and the Cauldy can carry 6 CUAC2s. This makes for a very nice 1000 meter machine gun with more umph. Need to go on a cold map? How about 2 ERPPCs, 1 LtPPC, 92kph with all the electronics goodies offered? Sure, we can do that and have a 75% heat efficiency rating using 11 heat sinks. Lasers are better for you? Then I say load up 3 ERLLs and 2 CUAC2s with 6 heat sinks at 86kph and all the toys. Or drop the CUAC2s and add 2 CLRM15s and a few more heat sinks and you still have a very good range support mech.

Needless to say, the Cauldron-Born is a very useful Omni mech. It can be used in many different roles, from knife fighting to precision range strikes, or anywhere in between. The tonnage is big enough to take on any Heavy Class mech and many assault class mechs and walk away the winner. At 65 tons, the CB is often called into use on limited tonnage drops, especially in league play. Offense is not a problem with the Cauldy. What then?

The problem I see with the Cauldron-Born is the chassis. The Cauldy is built on a standard frame, but it is very weak. The center torso and the arms take the majority of any fire. You would expect that in a good fire fight for the CT to take the most hits because most pilots will aim for the CT to get to the core quickly and put the mech down. The Cauldy’s CT holds 2.10 tons of FF armour and can take 63pts of damage before exposing the internals to fire. Each arm houses 1.2 tons of armour (FF) and can take up to 36pts of damage. Many times, the weapon is destroyed in the arm before the arm is completely removed. I cant reveal the amount of internal armour for the arms or the CT but if you strip all the armour from the mech the lab will reveal the amount of armour left (you also need to remove the weapons, electronics and lower the speed). This gives you a rough idea of the internals but you need to account for the special slots.

The Cauldron-Born just seems to be weak when taking incoming fire. It really wants to die to fast. Now there are some players that are very good at spreading damage and even avoiding damage and making a mech seemingly last forever, but overall, the CB goes down fast.

The Cauldy does handle well. The turning radius is a bit small, but the accel and decel rates are very good. This mech is one of the few that can hill hump with little effort. The CB has a bit of a bounce to it when it walks, almost a cocky strut. The visibility from the cockpit is excellent looking forward or to either side. I guess the key to a good CB, no matter what the load out, is to kill first and be quick about it.

During our days in NBT, we stole several Cauldron-Borns and we used them in many street fights and as missile boats. They seem to be a popular mech in MechCombat League. It is easy to see why, they fit many roles and the weight is not so much that you cant get another heavy (or 2) into the line up depending on the ladder.

Back in NBT, Hacksaw and Buddha were our CB specialist. In MCL, Buddha and Wilson seem to be the CB lovers and both have been very effective. In our first match in MCL against a team named 1FSAC, they used a pair of CBs against us. I believe that Hogsback was the map. We started in relatively close drop zones. When ‘go’ was called and confirmed, we started out for their drop zone in hopes of catching them trying to climb some hills and taking them down one at a time. 1FSAC apparently had other ideas and went a different way than we expected. We chased each other around the map for about 27 minutes only making contact a couple of times. With less than 3 minutes to go, we topped a hill to find the enemy set up in a very good defensive position around a small lake or stream. They had 2 Cauldron-Borns and a couple of other mechs. The CBs were loaded with ATM12Ms or CMRMs and they hit Cow and I as soon as we popped the hill. I spent about 2 minutes of the last 3 under water. Cow died pretty quick as did one of our other pilots. We discussed it before deciding to go in. We both knew we should have just backed off, waited the clock out and gone on to the 3^rd map. We had won the 1^st map. We knew better but decided to go in because we were set up for brawling and felt like we could take them down. We also thought they were set for a ranged fight. We knew better. We really did. We went in anyway. When the clock expired, they had killed 2 of our guys (not me, lol) and we had only killed 1 of theirs. I was working on the 2^nd CB and had him cored and blinking in every critical slot. I wasn’t in much better shape. The clock ran down and 1FSAC won the round, 2 to 1. It was brutal, fast and furious. The Cauldies they had played a big part in their win of that map. I should mention here that they also won the 3^rd map, Avalon Pro, giving them a match win at 2 maps to 1. 1FSAC played a good game and won the match.

I will say that if you are in a 55ton medium mech set to brawl without LAMs (what was I thinking?) that cresting a hill to see 2 Cauldron-Borns pointing their noses right at you is not a pleasant sight. Oh well. We gave them a hell of a fight and they knew they had been in a close one. I didn’t die, but 2 of my team mates went down to missile fire (and supporting fire) before we took out one of the CBs. Maybe if we had gone for the smaller mechs, who knows. Any way, the story is written. The CBs were king for the moment.

If you haven’t tried a Cauldron-Born there are only a few reasons why not. You don’t have the Microsoft Clan Expansion Pack, you don’t like the way a CB looks, you had rather drive assaults or you don’t have the Microsoft Clan Expansion Pack. Did I mention that you may not have the Microsoft Clan Expansion Pack? For those of you that don’t have the expansion pack, you are missing out on a real sweet ride in the Cauldy. It packs a lot of whoop ass and handles itself very well.

It is a shame that the CB (and some others) are only available in the Microsoft Expansion Pack. Actually, these mechs are included in your copy of Mercs, the pack merely unlocks some codes and allows you to use them. I cant tell you how to do this without them packs (even if I knew), but I would suggest running down a copy of the packs to get the extra mechs. I do not suggest paying 50$ or more (US Dollars), but the packs are fun to have. I just did a quick search and they are still available. The Clan seems to be more expensive than the Inner Sphere.

I cant believe the prices on EBAY for these things. I have 3 separate copies of these things. The most I paid was 14.99$ retail while vacationing in New Orleans some years back. As little as 2 years ago, I bought my 3^rd set (both discs) for a total of 15.98$ including shipping charges. Wow, who would have thought that they would be 50 to 80$ for only 1 of the 2 packs now? Used at that! Unbelievable. Maybe, if I decide to retire in the next year or so, I can just sell my copies and use that as my retirement fund, lol.

Sorry, I was distracted at the Microsoft Packs prices. Hopefully, XPlosive Brand or someone will pick up the rights to sell these things and get the prices back to where they need to be, 8 to 10$ each.

Back to the Cauldron-Born. If you can play with on, try it. The CB is a fun mech with lots of options. Protect yourself or die quick. The weak CT and Arms keep the rating down. Vettie’s View? A solid 3 ½ minutes. Very versatile mech and dangerous in the right hands.

The Ryoken

Before I get into the normal review of my choice for this week, I want to say a little about the pic I have chosen as a visual for this edition. My friend Mechnut, a mechwarrior from the great state of North Carolina 'makes' mechs, or I should say, he makes 'mech models' from game screen shots. I cant give you the details, but you can see the finished product here. I have my very own Victor! It st stands about 14 to 15 inches tall and looks like you reached inside your monitor and pulled it out. I keep my near my monitor at all times. Mechnut is very detailed right down to the exhaust for the jump jets!
IF you live in the U.S. and you are interested, make a post on here of what mech you want and I will pass it on to him, or you can send the details to him via email.
Mechnut@earthlink.net
They are very nice. His price is very reasonable considering each model is hand made and takes 2 to 3 weeks to complete.
Anyway, on with the review!


The StormCrow as it was known in MW2 days, is a 55 ton, medium class, Clan Tech, semi-omni mech. This piece of machinery is one of the Clan’s most potent weapons. It offers many pluses for the drop commander or star commander when choosing his load out for the impending battle. I want to take a close look at the Ryo as we know it today and maybe even give you a story or two about how these things became a feared weapon in league play.

Lets start by giving you the vitals and then move on to what the Stormcrow / Ryoken can do for you. From the Clan Laboratories, this mech comes loaded with BAP, 11 heat sinks and a pre-set speed rating to 84kph. Loaded with 8.5 tons of Ferro Armour, the Ryoken has a pretty nasty load for a medium mech. Each arm is loaded with an ERLarge Laser and an ERMedium Laser, while the torsos are each loaded with a CLRM15 missile pack.

Removing the heat sinks, weapons and all the armour yields some 37.6 tons of free weight to build your nasty config. Maxing out the armour (using Ferro) shows us that the Ryoken will hold 11.1 tons. I suggest that you go ahead and strip away .1 ton leaving you with 27.5 tons of free weight for speed and weapons.

The Ryoken offers Jump Jets and Enhanced Optics along with the BAP. I like the Jump Jets (for 3 tons) but the EO is a personal preference. I don’t use zoom very often so the extra ton for me is better spent on a heat sink or speed upgrade, but Enhanced Optics are great for you snipers or missile heads out there, allowing you to pin point a certain spot on your enemy and hit it over and over from a good distance.

The speed of the Ryoken varies from 64kph to 105kph. The speed increases are relatively cheap and this is due to the fact that the Ryo is built on an endo steel frame. This makes the body of the mech very tough and it seems to take a lot of damage before breaking, but once it breaks, the damage spreads internally very quickly like gas spilled and lit on hardwood floors.

During the NBT days, the Ryoken came to fame as a (jump or pop) sniper mech for the Clans. This little puppy could hold four ERLarge lasers with jump jets and enough heat sinks to keep it cool. At 800 meters, it was a tough bird to bring down and it was fast enough to stay at range and never let an IS unit close enough to fire at it. You never saw just one. There were always 2 or more. One would jump and fire and as it started coming down another would jump up and fire at the same target. This would go on and on until the target was dead.

I stole my favourite Ryo config from a team known as Red Legion. Some of you may remember those guys. They were good, damn good. The config I used from their armoury was pretty basic and simple. Four ERLarge lasers with jumpies and BAP, 7 heat sinks, all set to a 91kph speed. This config works and it works well. Keep yourself hidden using favourable terrain and jump snipe the crap out of anyone that you pick up on radar using your BAP. The speed is fast enough that if an ECM equipped enemy closes, the BAP will pick them up around 600 meters (I think) and you can quickly move away while still hitting them with a full alpha.

The Ryo climbs very well and moves very well. The torso twist is great for jump sniping back away from you while you continue to put range between yourself and the target. But, jump sniping is not all this mech can do. If we look at the slots, we see that each arm holds a 2-slot energy rack and a 2-slot omni rack. The right and left torsos each hold a 2-slot missile rack. This mech, loaded with BAP makes a great medium missile platform capable of carrying four of the Clans most deadly missile system, the ATM12Es. Im not going to give you the specifics for this load out because we all ‘shave’ our armour a little differently depending on our own style of play, but, this mech will hold 4 ATM12Es with decent speed and BAP. If you don’t like the ATMs, but you still want range, The Ryo can hold four CLRM15s and two ERLarge Lasers while maintaining (almost) full armour, jumpies and BAP all at a good speed.

The missile abilities for the Ryo is outstanding for a medium class mech. The Ryo can be used in a support role as a jump sniper as we touched on or as a jumping missile mech. This mech can also do other things. Load in a couple of CLBX10s, two Heavy Medium Lasers and a pair of CStreak 4’s and you having a jump capable brawler that can knock you around pretty good.

I am sure many of you (if not all of you) have played the single player campaign a time or two. Solaris is where the Ryoken meets you (if I recall correctly). Some name player has a Ryo loaded with CStreaks and so much ammo he never seems to run out. I also believe he has reactive armour, but I could be wrong. All I know is, he does die, but he is tough to kill. Again, I haven’t played the single player in sometime, but it seems like if you continue to play the Solaris medium matches, you run into a few more Ryos and one of them is a brawler loaded with CUAC10s as well as a couple of ERMedium lasers. Again, another nasty that does die but is hard to bring down.

During our (The Blood Pearls) time on NBT, we faced many teams using Ryos. Red Legion was probably the best (not to knock any one, but to give credit where credit is due). The Clans seemed to know how to use the Ryos probably better than anyone. That four ERLarge version is simply a great config. I know that on some of the colder maps, the Clans would switch their armour from Ferro to Reflective making the Ryo even tougher to returning fire from our lasers and PPCs. Being pirates, we did manage to steal a few of these and even salvage some. One of our own pilots, AC, became very adept at using the Ryo as a jump sniper and I would have to say that he was just about as good as any of the Clansmen we faced.

I personally was never as that good with a Ryo, but I have always like the mech for the way it handles and the performance. When the Lt.PPC came out, it actually gave some new life to the mech allowing the pilot the splooge effect as well as an extra 75 meters of range. I can pilot one and I can do alright with one but there are many who can do better.

Back in the MW2 days, it took me awhile to take to the Stormcrow. I simply didn’t like the way it looked. The load out ability was great and I could pack a lot of weapons on it with really good speed. It seemed to handle well enough, but it just looked funny to me. OF course, I was a Nova fan in those days. The Nova, the Summoner and the Timberwolf were my favourites. After I played a few mission using the Stormcrow, I began to really like it. I think the MW4 version looks a lot better but I don’t think I can pack as much on one as I could in MW2.

The weaknesses of the Ryoken are obvious. The Arms hold the majority of the weapons for this mech and if you don’t protect them, they get blown off right away. People know that’s where the power is and they target those arms. The secondary weakness is the legs. The Ryo has long legs and they are very easy to hit. Even when fully armoured, the legs will come off easy enough slowing the Ryo down to where it can be killed much more easily.

I like to see battles with weight restrictions for the team. Not per pilot, but for the entire team. What I mean is, to see a map come up with a 400 ton limit for the team. This forces the use of smaller mechs and if done correctly, most will be in mediums or heavies. Yes, you will see some lights and even some assaults, but they wont dominate the drop dec. This does a couple of things. It makes assaults more like assaults, something big and powerful and hard to bring down. It also makes the regular fighting last a bit longer because you don’t have 200pt alphas blazing across the battlefield. You take damage and you maneuver to inflict damage, it takes more than 3 shots to kill something. IT brings out the strategy in the game. To me, that is fun. You don’t see that on Sunder because everyone likes to take the biggies, and those that don’t, end up taking bigger mechs more so to stay alive than because they want to. Don’t get me wrong, Sunder is a blast and mission play is its own style of play that I certainly enjoy as much as anyone, but I do miss the weight leveled battles of league play.

Back to the Ryoken. This Clan beast is a very good mech. IT has weaknesses and it has it strengths. It doesn’t take very long to learn to use a Ryo, but it does take a bit to learn to be effective. I suggest you try one out, maybe ol’ Prawnie it make it mech of the month soon. They are a hoot to use and they can be deadly. I give the Ryoken a 3 to 3 ½ minutes rating. Very good for a medium mech. This thing is powerful and deadly when used correctly. Try one today.

The Catapult

A Mad Cat without arms. That’s the way I used to describe today’s choice of battlemech. It always looked to me that the Inner Sphere salvaged a Mad Cat and put enough “stuff” into to get it running. I figured the scientist and engineers of the Inner Sphere were ‘reverse engineering’ the Maddy to see what made it tick. I figure they got it running and left the arms off simply because they forgot them, or the unit they salvaged already had the arms blown off. Somewhere in there, the research teams decided that if they put jump jets on this thing, it would be a ‘killer’ design.

That’s my impression of how the I. S. ended up with what we know as the Catapult. At first appearance, it does look like an armless Mad Cat. Weighing 65tons with 18.5tons of reactive armour on an endo steel frame, The Catapult is any interesting battlemech with a purpose.

This machine offers BAP, Jump Jets, LAMs and Advanced Gyro, a very good selection of electronics. The slots are straightforward and simple. Each ‘ear’ has a 4-slot missile rack. There are no arms but the torsos, right, left and center house a 2-slot energy.

This mech was designed to be a long-range support mech. Its main purpose is to be a missile boat. In the early days, reactive armour worked better against missiles than did the other options, so, similar to the Vulture, I suspect that is why the Catapult comes stock with reactive armour. The Catapult can hold two Arrow Thunderbolts or just about any combination of missiles. An interesting change of battle configs brings us 2 or 3 Large X-Pulse lasers. With plenty of heatsinks strapped on, the LXP Cat is a very deadly machine.

The Catapult is a very tough battlemech. Maybe it’s the reactive armour, Im not sure, but the Cat seems to absorb a large amount of damage before dying. The problem with this one is that it is on an endo steel frame. Once an area of the mech is blown out, the damage rapidly spreads to the CT. I am not completely sure, but I think the ‘ears’ or missile racks are actually special sections. These do tend to get blown off faster than any other part of the mech. The legs are probably the next weakest section.

Interestingly enough, when people see a Catapult, the initial instinct is to blow off the missile racks. That is why I think the LXP Cat is such a deadly config. If the ears are special sections, there is a good chance that the damage does not transfer to the torso once they have been blown out.

Jump Jets and BAP are essential electronics for this mech, especially if you want to use it as a missile boat. The Catapult does not climb very well. This is where the jump jets come in, giving the Cat that extra little boost in hilly terrain. You can also use the jets to make this a jump sniper. A couple of arrows, hiding behind some terrain feature, a little juice on the jets, up you go and the BAP allows rapid target lock. Fire those arrows and float gently back to safety.

The Catapult does not seem to handle as easily as other mechs. The turn radius just doesn’t seem small enough or fast enough. It’s really not a good idea to get into a brawl with the Catapult, stay outside the fur ball and peg away at stuff in brawl.

Vettie’s View? I like the Catapult. It’s not one of my favourite mechs, but it is a tough mech. Pilots that enjoy missile boats will love this mech. It holds up well and does its job. At 65tons, it is a bargain for the drop dec. I rate the mech at 3 ½ minutes. Good for a Heavy mech.


MP3s Catapult


I had a hard time coming up with a review of the Catapult. The reason is pretty simple, the Catapult is not one of my favourite mechs. I have never been very effective in one and I have had team mates get whacked relatively quickly in them. On the other hand, I have seen Catapults that seemed to take an extraordinary amount of damage before blowing or even managing somehow to survive the entire wave.

That fact that I don’t care for Catapult doesn’t mean that is not a decent or even good battlemech. As I mentioned, I have seen the Catapult used very effectively and I have seen them do lots of damage. So, I will do my best to give you an objective review solely based on the facts about this mech. I invite your comments as I am sure there are Catapult fans out there.

Weighing in at 65 tons, the Catapult comes from the factory with a nice set of weapons and a decent set up. The Speed is pre-set to 75kph and the mech is packed with Reactive armour. I don’t know if the reactive armour load traces its roots back to ‘battletech’ but I suspect it just goes back to Vengeance (the early days prior to Microsoft updates) when reactive armour was the armour to use against missiles. Loaded in each missile rack is an Artemis LRM20 (ALRM20). A Large Laser is packed in the center as well a medium laser in each side torso. The package is rounded out with BAP, Jump Jets and 2 heat sinks.

Additional electronics are offered for the Catapult in the form of LAMs and Advanced Gyro. The Missile racks are actually 4-slot racks that are capable of holding any missile currently in the game. Each torso holds a 2-slot energy or beam rack and the center torso holds 2 of these dual slot beam racks. The speed ranges from 61kph to 103kph. 75kph up to 89kph seem to be the most suited for this mech making it ‘handle’ a bit better.

Although the Catapult was designed to be jumping missile platform there are other uses for it. Because it is known to launch a salvo or two, the ‘ears’ or racks are generally the 1st thing enemies shoot for, so even if you cant kill it, you can disarm it. When used in other roles, this works in the Catapult’s Pilot’s favour. Loading 4 large lasers or 3 Large X-Pulse or 3 Large Pulse or any combo of these, the mech can absorb lots of punishment to the missile racks while burning away at whatever is trying to shave the ears away. The 82 to 89kph speed is deceptively fast allowing the Pult to take evasive action quickly. The ability to jump adds an additional mobility element for attack or defense, allowing the pilot to jump over obstacles or hills or to use as a pop-snipe tactic.

As a missile platform, the Catapult can take a wide variety of missiles or pack in a couple of any two missiles in the game. Dual Arrows or Dual Clusters packed on a jumping platform make for a very devastating impact. BAP allows this mech to ‘see’ up to 1200 meters out and gives a quicker lock time on any missiles it packs. The Jumpies give it an added dimension. Hide passively behind a building or hill, hit the jump gas and switch on radar long enough to get a lock, fire and go passive as you float back down behind cover.

The Catapult climbs fairly well for a jump jet based mech. As I mentioned earlier, at 75 to 89kph, it handles decently. It doesn’t have a very good turn ratio or torso twist, but it wasn’t made for ‘in fighting’. The basis of the design suggests this mech was created to be a support mech, selecting a target from afar and splattering it with missiles while lancemates moved under cover to finish off whatever was left of an enemy. I am not saying that a Catapult cant brawl, in fact, loaded with MRMs or SRMs or even Artys and some medium pulse or medium X-Pulse lasers this thing can really do a lot of damage up close. What I am saying is that it wasn’t designed for close up fighting and it doesn’t handle well when the fighting gets tight.

The lack of ballistic slots hold this mech back a bit, in my opinion. Having to use only missiles or lasers or combinations of both let the enemy know right away what kind of platform they are facing. The addition of Artemis Missiles has helped this mech, again, in my opinion. Loaded with Beagle Active Probe, an Artemis Missile system is an almost insta-lock platform. However, Artemis Systems weigh a bit more, especially when you consider the fact that you almost always have to pack on extra ammo.

I personally believe that the Catapult works best if used in pairs. I don’t mean pairs of missiles, I mean pairs of mechs, 2 Catapults. One should wing for the other. Once a target has been selected the pair of Catapults should alternate firing on the target with about a 1 second break between salvos (assuming a missile load out). Two of these rascals reigning missiles on pretty much anything is almost guaranteed to ruin its (the target) day. I envision two Catapults both load with dual ALRM20s and plenty of ammo sitting just behind the peak of a hill. The 1st jumps up, goes radar active and fires a complete salvo on some poor Gladiator or Deimos some 900 meters away. As the missiles leave the 1st Catapult goes radar Passive and descends back to its hiding spot while the other goes active and jump repeating the actions of number 1. It doesn’t take many of these to do away with the (any) target and soon the search is on for another.

One thing I do like to do with a Catapult is to make sure that it has a secondary weapon. I like to load on a large laser or large X-Pulse laser (usually in the CT) along with whatever missiles are need for its role for that mission. This always allows the Catapult a way to defend itself in the event missile racks (the ears) are blown off. It also allows for a decent weapon should a smaller (medium class or light class) mech somehow make it close enough to begin to work on the missiling menace.

I don’t know how many of you played Mech Commander or Mech Commander 2. I played MC2 a lot. That game was loaded with Catapults and they always seemed pretty tough whether up close or from far away. You would shoot them, hit them, knock them down but they would just keep coming at you and flailing away at you with missiles. You always seemed to salvage some of them if they were used against in a mission. I didn’t like ‘em much, but they brought good C-Bills that you could use to buy other things.

In NBT, we faced these things on a few occasions but none were better at them than a team called CC (Cappellan Confederation). They (CC) had a guy known as Krazy A who was a pretty good pilot in whatever he drove. I remember a match we had against CC on a team only radar, light fog filled map of River Canyon. Krazy and another pilot (sorry I cant remember the name of the rest of their pilots) were in Catapults. Krazy’s mech was loaded with 2 or 3 Large X-Pulse Lasers while the other pilot had twin Arrows. They set up a pretty good ambush for us. The 2 Catapults had backed themselves a bit up a ridgeline, both covers by the big pipes sticking out of the mountainside. Depending on which way you entered the area where they were, one of the 2 Catapults would be hidden unless you came for over the top of the mountain.

CC had some other mechs, I remember a couple of Uziels and a couple of Wolfhounds. We had a mixed bag of mechs including a Thor and a BK. I was driving a Hunchback. We had done away with most of their mechs and I was chasing a Wolfhound. The battle had been going on for some 15 minutes. CC had 3 mechs left, the Wolfie I was chasing and 2 we had not seen yet. We were down to four, my hunchie, Buddha in a Bushwacker, Cow in a Thor and Smaga in a BK.

I was chasing this Wolfie in my Hunchie and blazing away with medium X Pulse lasers and a HVAC20. He made it over a rise and made right turn as I fired on him. I followed over the rise just in time to see a Catapult locking in on me. At 500 meters, he was out of the reach of my lasers but not of my HVAC20 which was in process of reloading. I heard the beep, beep beep signal of missiles achieving lock. I fired just as I was hit by 2 Arrows. The impact was enough to blow out my HVAC20 and knock my mech down.

I screamed over comms that I had found them and that I needed help. As with most times in a league game, once you get knocked over within range of an enemy you are pretty much dead and this time was no exception. Before my Hunchie could back to its feet, the sting of blue lasers lit me up. BOOoooom! Buddha had been following behind managed to take out the Wolfie that I did leg before the Catapults got me. But they got him too.

From where I died, I could see both the Catapults. That’s when I realized one had lasers and the other had Arrows (in most league games, the camera ship is turned off for dead mechs, once you are dead (in no respawn games) you are dead and can only see out in front of where your mech died). I got on comms giving the best intel I could to Cow and Smaga. Cow’s Thor was a ‘standard’ load out, 2 Clan Gauss rifles and an ERLarge Laser while Smaga had opted to load his BK with PPCs. I suggested that on come to the front of the ‘v’ area and keep the laser mech busy while staying low enough to avoid the arrows while the other went over the mountain to hit them from behind.

Cow went in from the front and began pegging away at the ‘ears’ of the Arrow Pult. Smaga made his way around behind the mountain and started climbing over. I remember watching those Catapults take round after round from those gauss rifles. Cow lost an arm somewhere in the fray but did manage to take out both of the Arrows. He started to close on that damaged mech when the other started firing away with those LXPs. Just as Cow’ second gauss was stripped, Smaga began firing on the XPulse Catapult from above. The combination of PPC fire and heat build up from LXPs shut the Laser Pult down. Cow turned to fire his remaining ERLarge at the Arrow Mech who was now charging him in hopes of taking him out with a suicide maneuver. The Arrow Mech blew up in front of Cow but did not kill him.

The XPulse Pult had recovered from shut down by now and began firing on a shut down Cow driven Thor. It was enough. Cow exploded right in front of my dead mech. It was also enough to shut the Catapult down that had done the killing. Smaga laid into him with round after round of PPC, chain firing on him until he died. When the smoke settled, we had won the fight but only by 1 mech. I had gained a new respect for the Catapult as Krazy and the CC team used them very effectively.

I am still not a big fan of the Catapult, but they are a decent mech. When used correctly, they can be very effective. I originally rated this mech at 3 ½ minutes. I have no change to that rating.

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.

The Stalker

I really don’t know where to start with the battlemech up for review today. It has the potential to be the baddest mech in the game, but it never lives up to the potential. It weighs 85tons. It is an IS Assault Class mech. The name? Stalker.

If any of you ever watched wrestling in your younger days, even though you knew it was fake, you watched it anyway. If you did you may recall a wrestler named Dick Murdock. This guy was portrayed to be a big, mean, ugly SOB that really didn’t give a crap about anything but winning the match. Whatever it took to win, Murdock would do it.

The Stalker reminds me of Dick Murdock. It’s big, it’s mean, and it’s slow and methodical. The Stalker just doesn’t stop hitting you until either you die or it does. Stock has 13tons of ferro armour but when full it holds 17tons. The stock weapons load is impossible to use for more than one or two alphas before shutting down even with the 24 heatsinks packed on. It has 2 Heavy Rocket Launchers, 2 Rocket Launchers and 2 assault lasers. Could we pack on anymore heat generators than that? Doubtful…

Load up the Stalker with ECM, LAMS and Advanced Gyro (all the electronics offered) and bump the stock speed 2 notches putting you at 63kph (still slow) and now you have 42.5tons left for weapons.

What can this walking dildo take for weapons? Well if you like missile boats, this mech is for you. The Stalker has 2 3-slot missile racks plus the side torsos also have a 2-slot missile on each. The Center torso holds a 4-slot ballistic, man that’s a hell of a chin rack, huh? Oh, I almost forgot the arms. They each have a 4-slot energy and a 2-slot ballistic.

Just looking at the slots, you could pack on 4-RAC2s and 2 PPCs with all the goodies. Another config is 1 HVAC20, 2 HVAC5s and 2 Large Lasers. 4 LLs and a HVAC20 is another config that will slap you around. For a Long Range config, the Stalker easily holds 3 Lt. Gauss rifles or 4 HVAC5s or 6 HVAC2s.

Brawler you ask? Well, sure why not? Load up 4 LBX102 or AC10s. The stock config makes a fine brawler as well, if you control the heat. Those Heavy Rocket Launchers are one of the nastiest weapons in the game. The knock is unbelievable. Couple 2 HRLs with 2 Assault lasers and somebody is gonna get hurt, hell, they may even disco from the server.

All right, we know the Stalker can dish out a pounding at any range. But, can the Stalker take a beating? The short answer is yes. The Stalker can absorb lots of punishment. I have seen some in open servers that I thought would never die.

So what’s the problem with the Stalker? The problem is its speed. This thing is very big and has a huge profile. It’s slow. Very Slow. It’s a big slow walking dick in the open and will take a lot of fire before it ever makes it to the battlefield. It is tough and can taking lots of hits, but it can’t protect itself if caught in open terrain. It drives like a school bus. It doesn’t turn well and it is slow to react. The CT is big, the chin rack is big and from the side, the profile is HUGE. It is a bullet magnet. Maybe its penis envy but opponents like to shoot the Stalker.

I have said in many reviews that each mech takes awhile to learn how to use it. This is one you have to spend some time with to be effective. Everyone knows it’s a missile boat that can put you away from afar, but it has very good slots and can take a powerful load out other than missiles.

Vettie’s View? Tough one to call, but I rate the Stalker at 3 ½ minutes. It’s hard to kill but it draws attention to itself even with the ECM package. If smaller mechs get close enough, the Stalker can’t turn fast enough to fight back. It can be a killer in the right hands, otherwise it’s just somebody’s dildo that got screwed.


The MP3 Stalker

This battlemech has a big following in MWL. Almost no one uses it in NBT. I don’t really see the attraction. Its big, its slow and it dies easy. It should be big and bad and tough to kill, but its really not. Lets look closer and see whats up with the Stalker.

When I see the stock load out I wonder what this mech was set up for. Its slow at 52kph and the heat efficiency is set at only 34. This would mean you have to be REAL careful when you fire the weapons or you have to be on a very cold map to use it. It does have ECM but the LAMs option and Advanced Gyro are not taken. 12 Heat sinks are installed but it is still in the red on the heat scale.

If we look at the stock weapons we see why the 34 rating on the heat scales. 1 HV20 with double ammo, 4 medium lasers, 2 standard rocket launchers and 2 heavy rocket launchers installed from the factory. All the heat comes from those 2 heavy rocket launchers. This is all packed on a standard structure frame with 13 tons of ferro armour.

The speed range on this assault class mech is set at 52kph. This is the lowest speed available. The range is from 52 to 98kph. A mere 3 tons gets the speed up to 63kph but it will cost you 6 tons (total) to get you to 68kph. Load up the ECM and LAMs packages (in my book the advanced Gyro is optional) and fill the armour so the it tops out at 17 tons. This leaves you 44 and ½ tons for weapons.

The weapons slots are interesting on this mech. The CT has a 4-slot ballistic while the side torsos have a 2-slot ballistic/missile only rack. Each arm houses a 4-slot beam rack. On top of each arm is a 3-slot missile rack. At first glance, before and even after stripping away the stock load out, this mech seems primed for missiles. Yes, it can take several missiles, but I have found that there are plenty of other ‘power configs’ that work better depending on what you want to do with the Stalker.

The Stalker can be loaded with 4 LtGauss Rifles although this takes lowering of the speed and shaving of armour. With minimal shaving or armour 5 mini gauss can be installed. A favourite config of mine is to set the speed at 68kph and install 2 CapPPCs and a Heavy Gauss with double ammo. IF you prefer range, load up the 2 CapPPCs and 2 Lt Gauss rifles. For medium range, I like the Heavy Gauss (double ammo) and 4 Large Laser version.

As a missile mech, the Longbow is a better option in my opinion. The weight is the same and the longbow is faster with a better missile payload. The Stalker can hold 2 ALRM20s and 2 ALRM10s as well as a LtGauss (or some other ballistic) or a beam weapon or two. IF you like a mixed bag of weapons how about 2 ALRM20s, 2 Large Laser and a Heavy Gauss Rifle? Another choice is 2 RACs2s, a HV5 and 2 PPCs.

The Stalker can pack some firepower, the CapPPC / Hvy Gauss Rifle version is one that sees some action but the problem is not one of firepower. The problem is incoming firepower. Even with full armour the Stalker appears to have big slots. The legs are big and easy targets because the mech moves relatively slow if it is loaded with a decent alpha factor. The CT and Side Torsos are also easy targets because of the ‘stubby’ arms and missile racks. All shots are naturally guided to either the legs or the CT. I have also noticed that the Stalker seems to fall more than other assault mechs. Maybe AG is an option that should be taken to prevent this. To hill hump, other than the missiles, the entire body of the mech has to be exposed. The cockpit is not set high on the CT, but rather lower and right in front just above the nose cannon. So, to be able to ‘see’ the mech must rise above the obstacle thus exposing the entire body of the mech.

Although it has plenty of missile slots, I see the Longbow or even the Archer (some 15 tons lighter) as better options for missiles. Perhaps its best use is a ground based long ranged sniper. It needs BAP to improve it. For no radar or team only it is a decent mid range mech offering some good fire power. I haven’t seen many used as brawlers and that may be because of the slow torso turn and limited torso turn. The accel and decel rates aren’t spectactular either.

The entire time The Blood Pearls were in NBT I never saw a Stalker grace the battlefield. In fact, I only saw 2 in our stay in MWL. I have seen them in the opens but not very often. Maybe others share my feelings about this mech. At 85 tons, there are better options.

My original rating of the Stalker was 3 and ½ minutes. I don’t like to downgrade mechs but in this case I have to. 3 Minutes for the MP3 Stalker. I appreciate your comments and I am sure many of you have configs that work well. Post them and lets discuss it.