Mechs That I Love And Hate

So I'm going to do something a bit different this time.  I'm going to talk about my few favorite mechs and then a few I can't stand.  Because the potential for mechs to hate goes up astronomically from the Clan Invasion onward and in keeping with the theme of 3025, all these mechs will be available in some variant in 3025.

First up is the mech that made me fall in love with the Battletech universe, the Wolverine.  When I was flipping through the CamoSpecs book, this is the mech that caught my eye.  I loved the look of it and have been a fan of the mech ever since.  That said, I'm not a fan of the look of the -8 versions that they released to get around the whole Unseen mechs debacle.  The newest sculpt in the new box set is a lot closer to the original but I'll always love that first version best.  It's a hearty designed medium mech with decent speed and maneuverability while still having pretty decent firepower.  The -6M and -6R are the versions I'm most likely to be fielding when I get this mech on the tabletop.

Second is going to be the Griffin.  Again that unseen aesthetic that really just clicks with me, and it was lucky enough that it's redesign to get it back as a Seen mech still came out nicely.  Again, another work horse medium mech with a bit more long range firepower this time.  It's an interesting mech that has the bonus of getting one of the coolest arctic color schemes I've seen in the CamoSpecs book (enough so that I actually commissioned a few mechs to be done in it that will appear down the road on the blog).  It also gets plenty of interesting fluff around it with the way it's used in the Lyran Commonwealth on Tharkad as guard mechs inside the throne room.

Last for the mechs that I love, we're going to look at the Hatchetman.  A light mech this time with a very unique look to it and a fluff that reads like it belongs in a sci-fi version of The Warriors movie.  It doesn't do quite as well on the table top, for me at least, but it's a fun mech with a great look and a great aesthetic.  Going into production in 3023 though has had me keep it just in my Donegal Guard unit as 2 years didn't seem reasonable enough to have it available as captured salvage in my Eridani Light Horse or Davion units.

And now moving on to the mechs I can't stand.  I will admit that this list is almost primarily driven by how they look and appeal to me.  I don't care how useful it might be on the table top, if I can't stand the look of it or at least be neutral toward it, I'm not going to get the mech.

First up is going to be the Crab.  I just can never get past the fact that it looks like it came out of a really bad low budget 1930's space fiction.  The design choices just do nothing for me and I just never got past that with this mech.  It's weapon load looks like it'd be a good table top brawler, but man, is it an ugly mech.

Second is going to be the Charger.  This one is not only an unappealing mech visually to me, it's also pretty useless as a mech as well with a horrendous weapons load out (seriously, an Assault Mech armed only with 5 small lasers?  How did this even get produced) that would make punching seem more effective than shooting..  That these things remained in production should be considered a war crime in the Inner Sphere.

And rounding out at number three we have the Goliath.  This one never made sense to me with it's let's take a slow assault mech and make it even slower and harder to use by giving it more legs, or taking an assault tank and giving it really long legs instead of tracks so everyone can see it now to target it.  It has the fire power of a heavy mech, the speed of an assault mech, and the maneuverability of a tired snail.  That any of these survived is a testament to the size of the Inner Sphere as it proves some of these can get deployed to a planet where they'll never see meaningful combat.

So there is my list of favorite and least favorite mechs in the 2025 part of the time frame.  Feel free to toss in agreements or disagreements in the comments.  Also, honorable mentions that just didn't make the cute for favorite mechs include the Valkyrie, Urbanmech, Stalker, Phoenix Hawk, and the Warhammer.  I look forward to seeing how my list matches up to those of you out there and I'll see you all next time.