Well, you have to hand it to old Beardy McPudding-Face, he certainly knows how to turn a perfectly brilliant mech into a turkey.
I mean, look at it!
What are those antlers for? Is somebody trying to compensate for the fact that he has to use a mirror to see his.... boots?
Sum total of antler usefulness, zero. Unless you want to hang your washing on them or try and disguise yourself as a tree.
There must be a good 5 ton of useless metal there. Ten minutes with a hacksaw would give me a usable cruiser mech, but oh no, he'd rather have somewhere to perch a parrot on than listen to me.
Sigh.
But instead of pining over what could have been, lets look at what we actually have.
Now its at this point I would normally list out the sale price. If, however, like me you were sensible, you would have procured one by gathering up some large lumps of the coal that appears to by lying around all over the place these days, popping them into a stocking then applying it vigorously to the skull of the original pilot while he was bent over puking up the eggnog that these clowns seem to use instead of Hatorade.
Suffice to say that you are now the proud owner of a 75 ton Niode mech.
Primarily a fire mech, you do get a bit of missile and laser thrown in, but not enough to be worth it. It should be noted it has a higher damage bonus to fire than both the Inferno and the Gigus, but that could well change when those models eventually get their long overdue upgrade package.
A bit of built in shieldiness, especially for Fork, Trample and Ice makes it a good choice off the bat for rear rank duties. Once you've got it decently upgraded there's also 5 extra hard-points to mount on what you want, and being at that crux point you have access to decent Delta shielding.
Speaking of mounting extra gear it tops out at 6 cockpit and 4 each of chassis and engine.
All in all, I suppose its not the worst mech I've seen. The problem it has is that in the 75 ton arena you already have some of the best mechs in production.
Ammonite, solid as a rock with extra rocks on top.
Sever, nasty icey beasty.
Rook on missiles and Dilophus and Bishop on laser.
Well, at least it fills a gap. And if you are of the level of expertise where you are still using Cindrons and Poryphorus in you line as a matter of necessity to get the best out of your fire weapons and you managed to snag one of these, it's a nice upgrade.
And there's a few choice bits of equipment that are directly transferable... just saying.
Submitted by David McCallum : #701548