

We'll go into artillery in a different article. Probes can be used to detect hidden units that get in range, and also have the added bonus of making artillery they spot for more accurate. Eighteen inches for the standard version, and 'only' 12 inches for the light version. PRB, unlike ECM, has a pretty substantial range. I realize, going over the older article, that I neglected to mention several of the capabilities and differences – I got caught up on RCN. I went over PRB and RCN on the Mackie article, and LRPB does the exact same thing except at a shorter range. LPRB and RCN manage to slightly redeem this travesty of an EWAR platform. It also costs a half point while the other specials on this 'Mech cost whole point(s) each, so this is why the -1X is 20 points instead of 19. You literally have to be within face-cleaving distance in order for this to be useful. Your EWAR equipment is matched in effective range by melee weapons. That Hatchetman I mentioned in one of those really early parentheticals? It can (and will) happily cut your face off with a hatchet at the exact same range your ECM will start to affect anything. Wait, what was that? Two inches of range? ECM? Aw, hell yeah! Get the dial-up tones and obnoxious music pumping loud and confuse the hell out of everyone with decent electronics. The first entry in the Special box is LECM. We see that there's something in there, but I don't know if “potential” is the right word for it just yet. arguably still missing the core of its capabilities in this variant, but we still see a glimmer of the potential begging to be realized. How else do we know that? Well, keep reading. It's clearly not designed to go toe to toe with dedicated combat units. With a TMM of 2 from the 10” of movement, the Raven is fragile and fairly anemic. Two points of armor and three points of internal structure put this little birdy firmly within easy range of being outright one-shot by several versions of the 'Mechs we've already gone over. Clearly, this 'Mech is not designed to go toe to toe with other designated combat units. Against other Lights, a 'Mech this slow is a sitting duck, and against lots of heavier things it can't keep the range open well enough or capitalize on any range it may have. The Mad Cat Mk IV from last week matches it forty tons and two sizes heavier. Ten inches isn't fast for a 'Mech this size. Now, the part of this particular Raven that's not usual is the speed. I'll leave it up to you whether those cancel each other out. No overheat means both that you're not paying points for it, and that you're also not getting it. The Raven's damage is worth a whopping total of 6 points out of its 20 total points cost. You'll hear me say this week in and week out, but you get what you pay for. Usually (and I do say usually) on a Light that's not a huge problem. It's also the first 'Mech to be unable to respond in the long range bracket. With a damage profile of 2/2/0, the Raven -1X is far and away the least painful thing we've seen. But as BattleTech players the tonnage and size of a unit is hard-coded into our brains as significant, and it's a good way to determine what to generally expect, if not everything you can get. Size doesn't play a big role in Alpha Strike aside from those two things clear until you get to engine explosions. Much like in standard BattleTech, lighter 'Mechs have a better time jumping to and from buildings and crossing bridges. What does that mean, in Alpha Strike terms? It means that if you're in melee range and arc you have made some poor life choices.
#Battletech raven series#
We are looking at a Light 'Mech for the first time in this series of articles. In that fashion, we notice the first major difference between the Raven and the two previous 'Mechs. Now, let's get started the same way we always do. The Raven isn't the first new 'Mech in the Inner Sphere in hundreds of years (that'd be the Merlin, senior by 14 years), or even the second (that'd be the Marauder II, if we're counting Wolf's Dragoons units, or the Hatchetman, if they don't count as Inner Sphere enough), but it does have the first instance of newly produced electronics warfare equipment in over two hundred years. Today, we'll be going back a little bit, but in several ways we're staying on the bleeding edge of 'Mech development.īy that, of course, I mean the very first stirrings of rediscovering the advancements of the Star League after two hundred and fifty years of Succession Wars. We continued with one of the newest OmniMechs in existence. We started with the very first BattleMech ever conceived.
