I kind of feel bad about this level of seal-clubbing

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Try running the campaign by going to every priotity mission as it comes up (though with clearing the current planet of contracts before leaving.

My lance at the end of the main campaign that I'm about to take in to the Heavy Metal mini campaign:


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This is more fun as you end up fighting with what you can get your hands on, and anything that means you need to run a second string 'mech means a more interesting fight until your primary lance is back at full strength.

Primary Lance ready for battle:

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You end up with a by no means all 10s company, and this lance is a seemingly light 280 tons. It's nothing short of lethal though. Now to see how the Heavy Metal campaign evolves this lance.

So this lance took on a 5 skull mission, straight battle against 2 lances. Both lances were 80ton assault, 3 heavies. Terrain was favourable so I could largely kill the first lance before the second got nearer than LRM range. The Phoenix Hawk is worth more than twice it's weight in terms of the shots wasted firing at it. Only took one lucky headshot against Dekker (of course) in the Pheonix Hawk, and no structural damage in the lance. This lance would struggle more (but still win I think) in a straight up standing fight with more assaults in the enemy lances, but would still be fine against a single full assault lance.
 
So this lance took on a 5 skull mission, straight battle against 2 lances. Both lances were 80ton assault, 3 heavies. Terrain was favourable so I could largely kill the first lance before the second got nearer than LRM range. The Phoenix Hawk is worth more than twice it's weight in terms of the shots wasted firing at it. Only took one lucky headshot against Dekker (of course) in the Pheonix Hawk, and no structural damage in the lance. This lance would struggle more (but still win I think) in a straight up standing fight with more assaults in the enemy lances, but would still be fine against a single full assault lance.

I'm curious as to why you went with what appears to be no weapons other than the PPC in the Phoenix Hawk -- the gyro tooltip hides the other side, but it looks like you dumped everything into armour. I guess it can headchop, and that's not nothing, but I like to have my Hawks operate up close for backstab purposes, which means you can get more damage for way less tonnage out of medium and small lasers, and even if you want the specific combo of stability damage and sensor debuff, there's Snubs, which can more than double the damage for less heat and slots, and the same tonnage.

The 3R Marauder... I dunno. I was running those for a good long while (the first version of the lance I started this thread with was three of them and a Firestarter), and I found I preferred to go with massed ML++ (dmg) and SL++/+++s in the support slots, alongside a UAC/5++. It runs hot without access to DHSes, so you need to be careful with jumping (or simply not put jumpjets on it, to pack on more sinks) and firing, but it doesn't need weapons that are that hard to acquire and it's pretty vicious at disassembling stuff. The ability to functionally guarantee a core on anything short of a sturdy assault is pretty useful, and twin PPCs don't really manage it.

I mean, if it's what you have with the parameters you've laid out, well, you go to war with the 'mechs you've got, not the 'mechs you want, but that's where I tend to aim my builds and purchases :v
 
I mean, if it's what you have with the parameters you've laid out, well, you go to war with the 'mechs you've got, not the 'mechs you want, but that's where I tend to aim my builds and purchases

It was exactly this, I'm fighting with what I have. I ran the campaign as fast as possible, hitting every priority target as it came up. I kept needing an extra nudge to knock down unstable 'mechs, and this provided it.

Dekker is my Pheonix Hawk pilot, so draws a lot of fire for me. He's a ghost in that thing, drawing fire from an average of 1-2 mechs per turn, and many times even more. Full frontal armour really helps in that situation.

I'll swap out for a 1B variant when I find one, and load up ERML++ when I find them too. I think I'll aim to run a full SLDF lance when I can, just not sure which mechs to go with. Probably an SLDF maraurder when I find one, just not sure what to replace the Archer with.

Now I aim to complete the mini campaign as each flashpoint comes up too, so fighting with what I have will become even more interesting.
 
It was exactly this, I'm fighting with what I have. I ran the campaign as fast as possible, hitting every priority target as it came up. I kept needing an extra nudge to knock down unstable 'mechs, and this provided it.

Dekker is my Pheonix Hawk pilot, so draws a lot of fire for me. He's a ghost in that thing, drawing fire from an average of 1-2 mechs per turn, and many times even more. Full frontal armour really helps in that situation.

I'll swap out for a 1B variant when I find one, and load up ERML++ when I find them too. I think I'll aim to run a full SLDF lance when I can, just not sure which mechs to go with. Probably an SLDF maraurder when I find one, just not sure what to replace the Archer with.

Now I aim to complete the mini campaign as each flashpoint comes up too, so fighting with what I have will become even more interesting.

I mean, you get a Bull Shark MAZ partway through, and even though it burns ten tons and a pile of slots on the Thumper it is still a beast of a machine. Plus there's the various Flashpoint rewards, which, if you're lucky, can flat out gift you another Highlander.

You should also have an Atlas II kicking around in your inventory from completing the main campaign, which can be turned into a monster of a machine. I prefer it to the Highlander, to be honest. The real trick would be finding the thermal management tools; short of buying SLDF 'mechs, DHSes are rare finds, which means you're stuck trying to stack TEXes instead, and they're a lot less efficient when you're using them to replace SHSes :(

The SLDF Marauders are actually one of the 'mechs that benefits the least from being a SLDF 'mech IMO. The only difference in loadout between my 3R and 2R machines, once I had all the pieces, is that I run six ERMLs instead of four ERMLs and two ERSLs (and both varieties had a UAC/5). The 3Rs ran somewhat hotter (my 2R build is effectively neutral in a neutral biome) but it was still manageable, and you could make a case that the ERSLs are situationally superior to the ERMLs. Alternatively, if you like cheese, you can stack three UAC/2s on the thing instead, but I try to keep my designs at least roughly in-line with the lore. :v
 
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