BattleTech: Anti-Mech Infantry Hammers
Yes. We’re talking BattleTech: Beyond Electrodrome here.
Yes, I have a hardon for infantry, squishyboiz, the True Kings of the Battlefield, the unsung heroes of the future of combat. Everyone loves an underdog, amirite?
Today, I offer the microscopic Champions of Thor their own little slice of Mjolnir: the Mauler H.E.A.T. Hammer.
Whats a H.E.A.T. Hammer?
Lets turn to our correspondent in one of the last places on Earth where they take the fact that FUN is a moral imperative seriously…
<take it away, Mexico!>
Mauler H.E.A.T. Hammers
Below are the rules for maulers (or Überfallhammer), which are what you get when you bolt scaled-down tandem-charge warheads to sledge-hammers and then give them to anti-mech infantry in hopes they’ll do more damage to the ‘Mechs than to themselves.
V.3 - clarified construction rules
You’re Fucking High, Right?
Nope.
In a high-tech world where everything is polished, coherent, and sexed-up, no, maulers don’t make much sense. Why arm infantry with shaped-charge hammers when a Mauser IIC with non-inferno grenades does almost the same damage and has nine times the range?
Two reasons: texture and fun.
Texture
In BattleTech, infantry are “heavily abstracted”. They are represented by a single pixel. Perhaps four pixels in a 2x2 array. And that’s evident in their armaments, which all do, more or less the same things: have range, have damage, and thats about it.
Maulers add a few layers to that. Situational application and special rules.
Yeah. I know. Melee weapons versus walking tanks is a terrible idea. On the battlefield, you’re just gonna get ripped to pieces. Laser rifles are universal: just point and shoot, whether you’re behind a buncha trees of across the street or standing on their armored head.
Maulers…well…they only work in one of those situations. And even then, you’re literally and figuratively rolling the dice, banking on volatile special rules to give you a jaw-unhinging-roar-of-a-12 on a head hit.
Texturally speaking, raidhammers give BattleTech infantry hints of oak and notes of lime in their aroma. It makes them more nuanced. Interesting. It reeks of the desperation that would truly be present when swarming a goddamned BattleMech and trying to take it down by any means possible.
Fun
Maulers are copy-and-pasted straight from page one of the Mexican Exploding Hammer Festival’s rule book.
No, the HEAT hammer will not win you a tournament. They won’t guarantee you a slow-cooked pulled-pork-and-‘Mech buffet. They won’t guarantee a long and glorious military career. But they will guarantee you a “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy” shot at screaming your guts out in a jubilant spray as you, against all odds, dismantle your chum’s Mighty ‘Mech with…<retching sounds>…melee infantry.
If your only goal in the game is to win, then I highly recommend not using maulers. Sit back and tear your enemy to pieces with min-maxed infantry platoons. Obviously that’s the wise choice.
But wisdom would’ve dictated Alex Honnold never lay his hands upon the pale, naked granite of El Capitan. Wisdom would have told the Wright Brothers that flight wasn’t worth the risk.
Fuckin’ WISDOM would’ve told Kurt Russell that a career in baseball was enough, and Hollywood was for the birds. And then where would we be? No Big Trouble in Little China. No Captain Ron. No Bone Tomahawk. No Hateful Eight. No Escape from New York.
NO THE THING.
The world would be a hollow, cold, mirthless place.
Let not wisdom be your only guiding light.
For at the end of the day, when we come to the gaming table, we’re not there for a long time. We’re there for a good time.
Ciao, baby.
-R
