So the wife has just completed her first ever raid.
Of course, if there is anything that looks like a shop
window display, you can be sure she’s going to be coming out of it with more
shopping bags than can be carried by such legendary cargo haulers as, say, soldier
ants or Small Peruvian Grandmothers.
And since our son (her usual tactical advisor) was not
present, I had to answer the string of resultant questions. Yes, you can think
of adding equipment as being just like “accessorising”. No, it’s not usually
the best thing to add equipment purely on the grounds of colour co-ordination.
No, Imechs only come in white… yes, just like Japanese cars.
I did however get a chance to look through her swag, and
there was a fair bit of it that I would normally gloss over in my own
formations, but down at the late teens/early twenties in level, they could well
be far more pertinent.
The FourBanger was what caught my eye, mainly because it’s a
name that’s just begging to have double-entendres associated with it.
What you actually get is a engine built to fit all bar the
heaviest of medium weight mechs, costing 35 crystal, 400 Ferrite and 1169
Bioptics. Speed rating of only 17 though, which is 3 lower than the cheaper
Wankel Rotary (another name that’s howling for some added smuttiness, but I
digress). All you get for the decrease in speed, which let’s face it is pretty
vital at low levels when everyone is weak enough that one shot can kill, is a
point of slow.
So the question is, why would you?
And in searching for an answer, I was glancing around at the
wife’s mechs. Imechs and Nifthels, both with intrinsic slow at 4 and 3
respectively. The only other medium mechs with this ability can’t even be
bought for niodes, let alone crystal, as the Nephilax and Vizi are both mechs
that can only be won as prizes.
Apart from crit kill, slow is the only damage type that can’t
be thrown off or repaired. The medium weight bracket is strewn with mechs that
have such a high throw weight of firepower that crystal mechs can’t keep up
with them… unless, perhaps, you hobble them with slow, grinding them down with
stacked slow shots.
The Nifthel has engine slots in spades for its size, and it
uses those lovely, slowing, freezing ice weapons.
I’m trying to convince the wife that ice white is the
fashionable colour this season.
Submitted by David McCallum #701548