If you liked that LEGO Striker from Frank Duarte, check out his website where he has instructions for it along with many other mechs, tanks, and Sci-Fi goodies. medium.com/@metastablemachine/lego-build-48-striker-tank-5725620be3ed
Honestly so true for my campaign I love just blitzing enemy armies and blowing out mech spines with medium lasers and srms so when I got a striker that was fast and had medium lasers and arms it made sense to sic it on damaged enemy mechs to finish them off while my mechs to focus on fresh ones.
When I was much younger, I never took the Striker seriously. A wheeled platform tied to ammunition just sounded like an explosion waiting to happen. As I grew older, I realized that the power of these cheap units was to be used in force - several Striker teams working together to overwhelm a much larger foe. That was a hard lesson to learn, and it was never forgotten. Given its low C-Bill and BV cost, the Striker is a bargain for what it can provide.
i always enjoy teaching people the hard less on the tabletop that mixed unit tactics are important. When a lance of exclusively mechs get stomped by a lance of mostly vehicles and 1 or 2 mechs they support the lesson gets learned. Striker works great in concert with Urbanmechs or Panthers it is supporting tossing a couple of tanks like Tigers and you got a nasty lance
Surprisingly, the TRO that introduces the Striker _predates_ the drawing board concepts of the real life US Stryker that strongly resembles it. (TRO 3026 - Published in 1987. The Interim Armored Vehicle which would become the Stryker - Conceptualized in 1999, Stryker then entered service in 2002)
When I see these pop up in groups of 3 in HBS Battletech, they are immediately focused down. I didn't care who you are, having 18 SRM tubes aimed at you and 30 LRM tubes raining fire really can't be ignored, especially not when you usually first encounter these! Great lil tank. Definitely feels like it should've been the Bradley of the Battletech universe.
It looks like my old Stryker fighting vehicle. It was fun to drive (managed to get all 8 wheels off the ground a few times), but I'm convinced it was assembled on a Thursday before a 4 day weekend. The hydraulic power steering line was routed through the path the engine fan blades swept through so every time the engine started it would ever the power steering line and spray hydraulic fluid like an artery. Hopefully this Striker vehicle has a better maintenance record.
@@walt_man Of course, we get to watch the various reaction videos to "Airplane", and laugh because they are only getting half of the jokes and sight gags!
"Kerfuffle" will never get old now that I have it as a text ringtone :D Also: An intriguing and different MF variant. Not my cup of tea, but it's nice to see something different.
When you mentioned doing the Striker, I actually expected to see the somewhat obscure Battlemech, which I have a soft spot for. This is very much acceptable too though; the Striker is one of those fundamental building blocks of a military force or mercenary unit on a budget, and should only be underestimated if you like living dangerously.
@@krissteel4074 You gonna take your Locust/Wasp/Stinger in Close against a Half Dozen of these? 60 LRMS, 36 SRMs, its gonna be hard unless you can get the Movement Mods High enough..
Probably one of the cheapest, yet most effective urban defense vehicles developed during the 3rd Succession War. Decent speed, good armor (for it's size), good damage output and all for the low cost of 563,315 C-bills or a BV of 342. The Striker had only two major flaws. The low amount of reloads for it's LRMs and the fact that being a vehicle, it was easier to take out than a mech. Still, considering you could get two Strikers for the cost of an Urbanmech, it was a great value for urban defense forces. Our BT group would trade the LRM 10 for two LRM 5s and add a ton of ammo. Pair three of these with a rapid spotter (say, a Savannah Master) and rain holy hell down on an opponent for a fraction of the cost that a fire support lance of mechs would cost you.
I always pick up one in the early game in BTA to fill my vehicle slot. Great cheap fire support for a new unit of Lights and Mediums. (Also cheap to replace, when the Enemy inevitably decides to focus fires on it).
The Striker in Alpha Strike combined with a missile boat mech and a recon element is a huge force multiplier on the cheap. Ive used it very effectively against heavier units!
Great video! Thanks to HBS battletech, the Striker is on my "Vehicles to Respect" list. Which is saying something, because it get's to rub shoulders with vehicles like Demoishers and the Missile Carriers. The Striker is there to be support, and goes all in on that job. I like how it has a bit of a underdog feel in lore. It feels like if you ignore a striker(s) for too long, it'll find some way to take you down. Which is probably why it's often mentioned that it's getting shot to bits; you gotta be sure it won't come back to bite your main character. Also, I have to say I love the WET Striker. It's just so goofy and I love it, thanks for bringing it to my attention! I also enjoyed the Striker MF, in particular how it shows the T-bolt 10 some love. I feel like some people give the T-bolt 10 a hard time. I feel it's best used in cases like this, when your vehicle (or mech) can't afford the investments of a AC 10 or a PPC.
The Striker is very efficient vehicle design and and vey common between my vehicle units. The combined missile system makes it a great support unit for heavier direct fire units. The LRM helps to soften up a target and the SRM-6 is great finisher and a deterent to flankers (light Mechs and fast vehicles). This nice missile package is based on a dirt cheap yet very functional chassis. Strikers can perform many different missions as long as the terrain isn´t too rough.
The striker is (as I learned by playing HBS Battletech) the vehicle cannon fodder of the Inner Sphere. They are not scary, nobody likes them and they rarely make an impression on the battlefield. But they are cheap and therefore plentiful, and if you ignore them they will quickly make you regret your lack of tactical thinking. Thanks, Mech Frog for yet another great video!
Sounds like you just described the Scorpion. Strikers are pretty fantastic for what they are and they make excellent skirmisher/scout/fire support/harasser vehicles for the price.
Hello Frog. Once again, a fine video on an often disregarded vehicle. Recently I was able to field four of the 'wet' versions in a battle with a friend. But, I filled the cargo area with four Battle Armor suits each. This gave me 16 suits that were able to infiltrate the foe's offshore base and cause havoc while his primary force was off, attempting to deal with my 'invasion' group on the mainland. My opponent's Mechs rapidly ran out of missiles and other ammunition and were reduced to beam weapons only. Which, left them pretty well 'meat' for my own forces, who had plenty of missiles, and shared them lavishly. By striking at his base, I was able to do enough damage to prevent his forces from just falling back and rearming to continue the fight later. Kind of hard to do that when your ammo stockpiles are burning and exploding, further damaging your base. Between the Strikers and Battle Armor, I did a lot of good damage and made sure that the field force had no resupply, making them vulnerable to my own force's long ranged attacks. All four Strikers exited the battle with little damage, even though they were attacked by Infantry. Between the Strikers and the Battle Armor, the Infantry soon became a 'non-issue', and the base was practically leveled. So, yes, I do like the Striker.
I've always liked the LRM-15 variant of the Striker. 4 tons for one launcher may seem excessive but in games/eras where alternative ammo is available they can be quite valuable. If you can't hit a target-mine obvious movement routes with Thunder LRMs. Infantry becoming a problem? Fragmentation. Are smoke rules in play? Pop smoke to cover the approach of friendlys while taking away the range advantage of the clanners. Feel like that building looked at you funny? Light it up with incendiary LRMs. Tired of light mechs harassing you? Deadfire LRMs. In later eras with alternative ammo it can be a cheap problem solver. In earlier eras you take every possible shot even if the only available shots are at the OPFor's cover. I still don't understand why these weren't included in the Merc kickstarter.
I was going to say there's also the issue of specialty ammo often weighing twice as much, halving your shot count per ton, that really doesn't seem to be a problem for LRM ammo based on what I'm reading on Sarna, with only thunder augmented having that problem listed. Also found out that for swarm and thunder ammo, LRM 5's are required and superior respectively.
(Thank you so much for all the effort you put into this video and posting it! It’s deeply appreciated and I love that the vehicles are getting attention!) “Lovely, we’re finally rocking up on the Striker which is a vehicle I know very well. Out in the Periphery we often have to do more with less both in terms of money and resources so vehicles get used a lot more in battle especially the Magistracy influence in our training and doctrine. So Strikers are easy to maintain, cheap to buy, an incredibly common which makes them very useful. Their only real downsides are that are ammo dependent which causes problems especially with stretched out supply chains and they have wheels which don’t handle every kind of terrain well. But if you need a bit of speed and firepower on a budget then they work great. I should know, my families Merc unit started off as an armored cavalry regiment with a recon lance of mechs supporting it before eventually building up to a slightly under strength mech regiment. One of our favorite tactics was to dig armoured vehicles in usually in easily camouflaged positions then lure over eager mech pilots who think they out mass our light and medium mechs. They find out the hard way the meaning of the word killbox. It works really well against poorly disciplined pirates, quarter trained bandits, and jumped up goons in mechs you find as the hired enforcers of tin pot despots in the wilder parts of the Pediphery. They think because they’re in a mech they are a god of war stomping around the battlefield. A lance of srms suddenly aiming for your cockpit begs to differ. I’m genuinely shocked that their arnt official versions that have tried to cram as many SRMs or Rocket Launchers as they can onto one of these things. Like a cheap SRM carrier on wheels.
18:22 That... art... I busted out laughing immediately when I saw that :D (and to think 8-year-old me thinking a lego legs and a standard 2 barrels makes a Yamato Turret #1)
Clad is 6.5 tons of Ferro-Plastic armour, the Striker (Lego) is an ambush predator which hides in the carpet and waits for unsuspecting infantry to come along and step on it.
The new artwork looks much better and more believable with two axles under the turret, i really like what they did there. By itself, the Striker is pretty much one of the most realistic vehicles in BT, though i would swap one tone of SRMs for another ton of LRMs. An LRM15 with Artemis IV and 3 tons of ammo seems like the most reasonable variant to me, though i do consider such a vehicle more of a supporter than the near-omnipresent SRM suggests.
I whipped up a variant with a Fuel Cell engine 6/9 movement, pair of MML7s, three tons of ammo, and Seven and a half tons of HFF for just under 1m Cbills. Seems pretty decent?
The striker is a good little workhorse, it's viable to buy in bulk, and it can do it's job well specially as support for battlemechs who can spot things for all that delicious indirect fire support.
The original art for the Striker was a silhouette for its stats in Mechwarrior 1.0. It was nothing much, implying a long armored truck body with top-mounted missile launch tubes. It was generic & unassuming. The 3026 illustration was a big step up! But that original look & the revision gave it an identity for the game. The Striker was cheap, utilitarian firepower. It was the sort of thing that planetary garrisons, pirate bases, and budget-conscious mercenary companies would use as vehicular auxiliaries for their mech companies. The Catalyst revision looks very much in the same way.
Usually don't like vehicle with too much ammo, but the Striker hits the sweet spot by knowing what you'll be carrying (std lrm/srm+infernos). The Striker isn't fire support so much as a _striker_ role unit, and as such it's never a question of *if* but *when* it'll close to give someone a bad day. Good speed with a wheeled chassis means that when working in a built-up area it's capable of redeploying around a battlefield easily. It's an excellent vehicle for what it provides, and it's surprising it took until the 3000s for it to become a thing.
Not too hard to enjoy a missile-based fire support vehicle, imo. Just stay put behind a building and yeet some missiles. Plus, if its introtech, plenty of directions to take it in.
I love the Striker! Par 12 Strikers with a Raven with two iNARC Beacon with Nemesis Pods >) I wiped out an entire 4 lances of medium and heavy mechs trying to take my oil field basin. My poor lances of Riflemans, and Blackjacks never got to shoot a round in anger. To be honest the mech pilot's gunnery was a pitiful 2
Striker looks like the off-road exploration & combat vehicle in mass effect with the front end of a jeep, while looking like it came straight from robotech/macross due to the Anime style appearance in the vid and thumbnail
The Striker is a solid platform. The SRM is better served being broken up for srm-2's and the LRM upgraded to a 15. Id much rather have 9 shots of lrm-15 than 2 tons kf SRM ammo. Its just going to be inferno in case of infantry in any case.
I kind of love this thing because the basic variants of them normally revolve around the idea of fighting tanks or infantry. Like, for your average backwater garrison that has very little of strategic value there's no reason why people would be willing to risk the multi-ton bipedal war machines that are mechs, so one of your main units that you have is something just not exactly built to deal with them. Really sends the point home that the mechwarriors or mercenaries in the setting are the equivalent of the 1% fighting for emperor palpatine himself so that they can make obscene amounts of money (to the point that no one really blinks at the idea of undergoing an entire deployment in one of these things because "what are the chances, it's just four years.").
The Striker is a very good support platform, its cheap, its fast, it has enough throw weight to make itself useful without suffering from kitfoxitus when you're small and have more than enough throw weight to make someone sit up and make it their duty to end you. Great vid about a wonderful little tank :)
How i hated these in HBSs battletech.. *cough* I mean, this is one of the original combat vehicles initially released along tanks like the hunter support tank or scorpion, so it has been around for a while. It is affordable fire support that can fire back at close range thanks to its SRM6 in order to shoo off light vehicles or infantry formations. A favourite of militia commanders no doubt since you can order these guys in bulk without blowing out the budget. Its an okay vehicle for lance support but merc commanders should keep in mind that its just that: support. The striker wont hold on for long at all if it gets into the enemies focus. It has an extensive amount of versions from 3000s to current day so you will allways find them either on the market, or on the opfor. For a merc unit starting out a striker can be a cheap alternative to a hunter or lrm carrier if you want some fire support, it is also fast enough to serve as a convoy escort. All in all not a bad choice.
An excellent vid. I recognised it immediately from a TRO a friend lent me…which got me into BT originally…so many years ago. I hope we get some plastic Strikers soon, though the IWM ones are still nice. And that Lego one is excellent!👏👏👏
9:00 goddamn i love the two. Warriors after my own heart! im so glad they made it. i hope in some future game or novel they appear, even if its just a statue or memorial commerating the atlas sized ferrofibrous balls they had. as a scout/skirmisher mech lover, i tip my hat to them. cant top that
My Striker ISM uses Clan tech. It has an XL engine, Ferro fibrous armor, and is fully amphibious. Its XL engine is a 155 rating, giving it a 5/8 movement. For weapons it carries a pair of MML-7 launchers and 2 tons of LRM ammo and 3 tons of SRM ammo.
@@MechanicalFrog Yea me too. But their timeline thing didn't have em on there so I hope we get something. Still need Hunter Sculpts along with some Falcons/Harriers.
In my RP campaign has become one of my favorite tanks. Its cheap and it does have decent throw weight especially if you deploy 2 to 4 of them. Quite literally saved my characters Phoenix Hawk when the Gunslinger I was fighting knocked down the building I was on due to not being able to hit me. It got tagged by our Fulcrum tank then came in the semi guided LRMs from our pair of strikers narc enhanced and it ran for cover before finishing me off. Thank you ECCM mode too to make sure the narc worked.
Something important to know about the early SRM variants is that originally only SRM-2s could use Infernos, with SSRM-2 being able to do so as well. The rules for what could use them and what exactly they did were changed between the Battletech Compendium and BattleTech Master Rules editions, which makes prior usage of them make a lot less sense. EDIT: The change was made in 1998, so more several years after TRO 3058 was released. Explains a lot of the now silly(ier) SSRM-2 spam in in the early foundtech 'upgrades'.
The dual SSRM2 build makes sense just in general. It's a pretty good drop-in replacement for SRM6s: you lose special ammo (or gain inferno in case of old rules) but gain 2 to-hit rolls as well as guaranteed 2 missile hits per successful roll. That's 2 or 4 dmg vs an SRM6's 3-4 damage average. The SRM variant (4xSRM2s) is probably the one you're thinking of, although I still think it's a pretty decent design as most Strikers won't last in combat too long. Having 12.5 salvos is more than enough for most games, you just need to specialize on Infernos or damage.
A Thunderbolt-10? Very nice, MF! My Striker build: 155 Fusion w/ Supercharger 8.5 tons of Ferro-Fibrous (152 pts.) CASE 1 MML-7 with 4 tons of ammo* 2 ER Medium Lasers *I personally recommend: 1 ton of standard SRMs 1 ton of Infernos 1 ton of Smoke LRMs 1 ton of whatever damaging LRMs you desire
Ah yes, my old foe the Striker. Laughable when alone, but let's be honest, when did we ever find this little guy hanging around by himself? A properly coordinated group of them is no joke.
Something I'm surprised to see is there was no MRM variant as standard, it feels like the sort of platform that weapon system was built for, especially with the DCMS having their C3 versions
Cause it looks great now and then. Cause its Mech Frogs fault I've became a tanker at heart in a Mech driven game. Cause it very relaxing to paint a small tank. Its so easy compared to bigger models of mechs and characters. Cheers
Missile truck good, cause at the end of the day the giant walking robot is just a expensive way to carry more missiles. Missiles improve everything, got some clanners trying to tell you whats what? Missiles. Space pirates want that booty? Missiles. Your sundae didn't come with hot fudge? yes even then Missiles will save the day.
600k c-bills for a LRM15 on the field really does teach the economy of the machine. Mounted on a mech, the cost would probably be getting close to 3-5x that (e.g. fire support Javelin). Granted, you'd rather be the Javelin pilot, but having 4 sets of LRM15s really could ruin someone's day. Assuming you can get them in the right position and don't just get stomped.
was surprised there was no MRM variant. While it is not a DC unit it would still have benefited from combining the two launchers possible to one heavier one. But then all or nothing hitting with one launcher is why i dislike the Hunter.
I just need a dedicated version with 3 SRM6's in the turret and 2 tons of ammo. That would be such a sweet succession wars era ambusher. Then give me a bombardment version, with 4 turreted LRM5's and 3 tons of ammo. A fast support skirmisher, with more than enough firepower to be a threat.
Again a vehicle that should have produced more variants. The 3026 variant has 11to to play with of you drop the weapons. So options are + Command Striker with a rear compartment similar to an M557 and a small turret with twin MG, a SRM/2 and one ton of ammo each + MASH unit + Light AA unit with an AC/5, 2to ammo and a MG/half ton ammo + Heavy APC with a turret carrying a M-Laser + heat sinks, SRM/2 and dual MG and 3to Infantry + Combat Engineer unit So basically the BT version of LAV-25/Stryker/Boxer
@@MechanicalFrog try two of each in a hidden mech setting with 1g/4p . After you rain LRM on them watch their faces melt with the SRM and disco ball treatment.
If you liked that LEGO Striker from Frank Duarte, check out his website where he has instructions for it along with many other mechs, tanks, and Sci-Fi goodies.
medium.com/@metastablemachine/lego-build-48-striker-tank-5725620be3ed
* Stryker
I would also like to submit that the Striker truly shines in HBS Battletech. This little guy has ruined more plans than I can count.
Whenever I start a new campaign, I smile a little inside if I see the random battletech gods have gifted me a striker. Or a Pegasus.
nothing more infuriating than full striker srm salvo into back of your light mech in earlygame.
Honestly so true for my campaign I love just blitzing enemy armies and blowing out mech spines with medium lasers and srms so when I got a striker that was fast and had medium lasers and arms it made sense to sic it on damaged enemy mechs to finish them off while my mechs to focus on fresh ones.
I was just going to say I'm happy whenever one shows up in my starting list in RT. The little guy does work.
When I was much younger, I never took the Striker seriously. A wheeled platform tied to ammunition just sounded like an explosion waiting to happen. As I grew older, I realized that the power of these cheap units was to be used in force - several Striker teams working together to overwhelm a much larger foe. That was a hard lesson to learn, and it was never forgotten.
Given its low C-Bill and BV cost, the Striker is a bargain for what it can provide.
i always enjoy teaching people the hard less on the tabletop that mixed unit tactics are important. When a lance of exclusively mechs get stomped by a lance of mostly vehicles and 1 or 2 mechs they support the lesson gets learned. Striker works great in concert with Urbanmechs or Panthers it is supporting tossing a couple of tanks like Tigers and you got a nasty lance
Yes. Light, cheap, decently fast and very useful.
Quantity has a quality of its own.
Fast Mech formations combined with cheap long range vehicle fire support. Be it Schrecks or Strikers, is my favorite tactic.
Surprisingly, the TRO that introduces the Striker _predates_ the drawing board concepts of the real life US Stryker that strongly resembles it. (TRO 3026 - Published in 1987. The Interim Armored Vehicle which would become the Stryker - Conceptualized in 1999, Stryker then entered service in 2002)
Very interesting info.
Maybe somebody played Battletech growing up?
A Striker launching Deadfire LRMs from a hill or down some urban alley is as iconic as it gets.
When I see these pop up in groups of 3 in HBS Battletech, they are immediately focused down. I didn't care who you are, having 18 SRM tubes aimed at you and 30 LRM tubes raining fire really can't be ignored, especially not when you usually first encounter these!
Great lil tank. Definitely feels like it should've been the Bradley of the Battletech universe.
It looks like my old Stryker fighting vehicle. It was fun to drive (managed to get all 8 wheels off the ground a few times), but I'm convinced it was assembled on a Thursday before a 4 day weekend. The hydraulic power steering line was routed through the path the engine fan blades swept through so every time the engine started it would ever the power steering line and spray hydraulic fluid like an artery. Hopefully this Striker vehicle has a better maintenance record.
Striker? Striker, striker, striker? STRIKER!
Airplane was such a great film
Surely...
@@MechanicalFrog Don't.
@@stuartwald2395 I feel old. lol
@@walt_man Of course, we get to watch the various reaction videos to "Airplane", and laugh because they are only getting half of the jokes and sight gags!
The Striker and the Pegasus were scarier than Schreck and Von Luckner because we played so much open territory in the long ago time.
They can be mean.
When an LRM Carrier and SRM Carrier love eachother very much...
The love story of the 31st Century.
"Kerfuffle" will never get old now that I have it as a text ringtone :D
Also: An intriguing and different MF variant. Not my cup of tea, but it's nice to see something different.
Fair enough!
When you mentioned doing the Striker, I actually expected to see the somewhat obscure Battlemech, which I have a soft spot for. This is very much acceptable too though; the Striker is one of those fundamental building blocks of a military force or mercenary unit on a budget, and should only be underestimated if you like living dangerously.
The Striker (mech) is interesting but is in dire need of a CGL art re-imagining.
It's definitely one of the remaining mechs I'm eager to see get an IlClan era update.
He's a plucky little guy!
Just don't get too attached to him when the big hits come its way
IF you let someone get within 10 hexes of you, in this thing, you have probably sone something wrong.
@@snewsom2997 Yes, enemy light mechs are going to be one of your main concerns
@@krissteel4074 You gonna take your Locust/Wasp/Stinger in Close against a Half Dozen of these? 60 LRMS, 36 SRMs, its gonna be hard unless you can get the Movement Mods High enough..
Probably one of the cheapest, yet most effective urban defense vehicles developed during the 3rd Succession War. Decent speed, good armor (for it's size), good damage output and all for the low cost of 563,315 C-bills or a BV of 342. The Striker had only two major flaws. The low amount of reloads for it's LRMs and the fact that being a vehicle, it was easier to take out than a mech. Still, considering you could get two Strikers for the cost of an Urbanmech, it was a great value for urban defense forces. Our BT group would trade the LRM 10 for two LRM 5s and add a ton of ammo. Pair three of these with a rapid spotter (say, a Savannah Master) and rain holy hell down on an opponent for a fraction of the cost that a fire support lance of mechs would cost you.
A solid pick
Outstanding as always Mr Frog. Just one thing... more LEGO renders!!!!!!
Check out the pinned tweet for lots more. Frank is a friend of the channel and I'm honored that he helped out this week with the video.
I always pick up one in the early game in BTA to fill my vehicle slot. Great cheap fire support for a new unit of Lights and Mediums. (Also cheap to replace, when the Enemy inevitably decides to focus fires on it).
Right from one of the old cover:) Love this little guy:)
Yeah it's not too shabby.
The Striker in Alpha Strike combined with a missile boat mech and a recon element is a huge force multiplier on the cheap. Ive used it very effectively against heavier units!
The Stealth and Laser variants are just so good for a merc company on a budget.
Great video! Thanks to HBS battletech, the Striker is on my "Vehicles to Respect" list. Which is saying something, because it get's to rub shoulders with vehicles like Demoishers and the Missile Carriers.
The Striker is there to be support, and goes all in on that job. I like how it has a bit of a underdog feel in lore. It feels like if you ignore a striker(s) for too long, it'll find some way to take you down. Which is probably why it's often mentioned that it's getting shot to bits; you gotta be sure it won't come back to bite your main character.
Also, I have to say I love the WET Striker. It's just so goofy and I love it, thanks for bringing it to my attention!
I also enjoyed the Striker MF, in particular how it shows the T-bolt 10 some love. I feel like some people give the T-bolt 10 a hard time. I feel it's best used in cases like this, when your vehicle (or mech) can't afford the investments of a AC 10 or a PPC.
The Lego version was a nice touch!
So cute!
Frank is a great friend of the channel and I love his LEGO creations.
@@MechanicalFrogWhats the channel name for Frank? I'd love to see more Mech or vehicles made using legos
The Striker is very efficient vehicle design and and vey common between my vehicle units.
The combined missile system makes it a great support unit for heavier direct fire units. The LRM helps to soften up a target and the SRM-6 is great finisher and a deterent to flankers (light Mechs and fast vehicles). This nice missile package is based on a dirt cheap yet very functional chassis. Strikers can perform many different missions as long as the terrain isn´t too rough.
The striker is (as I learned by playing HBS Battletech) the vehicle cannon fodder of the Inner Sphere. They are not scary, nobody likes them and they rarely make an impression on the battlefield.
But they are cheap and therefore plentiful, and if you ignore them they will quickly make you regret your lack of tactical thinking.
Thanks, Mech Frog for yet another great video!
Thanks for watching.
If you really want cheap fodder, the Savannah Master is a nasty swarm unit.
Sounds like you just described the Scorpion. Strikers are pretty fantastic for what they are and they make excellent skirmisher/scout/fire support/harasser vehicles for the price.
The striker to me is memories of being new to battletech, playing the Harbrained game and being harassed by them until I angrily stomped them
Thanks for the video! i love when you cover Combat Vehicles
Glad you like them!
Hello Frog.
Once again, a fine video on an often disregarded vehicle. Recently I was able to field four of the 'wet' versions in a battle with a friend. But, I filled the cargo area with four Battle Armor suits each. This gave me 16 suits that were able to infiltrate the foe's offshore base and cause havoc while his primary force was off, attempting to deal with my 'invasion' group on the mainland. My opponent's Mechs rapidly ran out of missiles and other ammunition and were reduced to beam weapons only. Which, left them pretty well 'meat' for my own forces, who had plenty of missiles, and shared them lavishly. By striking at his base, I was able to do enough damage to prevent his forces from just falling back and rearming to continue the fight later. Kind of hard to do that when your ammo stockpiles are burning and exploding, further damaging your base. Between the Strikers and Battle Armor, I did a lot of good damage and made sure that the field force had no resupply, making them vulnerable to my own force's long ranged attacks. All four Strikers exited the battle with little damage, even though they were attacked by Infantry. Between the Strikers and the Battle Armor, the Infantry soon became a 'non-issue', and the base was practically leveled.
So, yes, I do like the Striker.
As a Stryker driver I approve of the striker.
It needs four more wheels though.
The Striker is just an awesome support vehicle, not as fear inspiring as a weapons carrier with lrms/srms/ac20's, but still, you give it respect.
Absolutely.
That early 4 wheel version art looks the the answer to the question, "what if DeLorean made an MMLS?"
I've always liked the LRM-15 variant of the Striker.
4 tons for one launcher may seem excessive but in games/eras where alternative
ammo is available they can be quite valuable.
If you can't hit a target-mine obvious movement routes with Thunder LRMs.
Infantry becoming a problem? Fragmentation.
Are smoke rules in play? Pop smoke to cover the approach of friendlys
while taking away the range advantage of the clanners.
Feel like that building looked at you funny? Light it up with incendiary LRMs.
Tired of light mechs harassing you? Deadfire LRMs.
In later eras with alternative ammo it can be a cheap problem solver.
In earlier eras you take every possible shot even if the only available
shots are at the OPFor's cover.
I still don't understand why these weren't included in the Merc kickstarter.
I was going to say there's also the issue of specialty ammo often weighing twice as much, halving your shot count per ton, that really doesn't seem to be a problem for LRM ammo based on what I'm reading on Sarna, with only thunder augmented having that problem listed.
Also found out that for swarm and thunder ammo, LRM 5's are required and superior respectively.
I've had my eye on these for a while. They sound great & inexpensive. Been thinking of adding several of these to my growing Merc Battalion.
They have the MechFrog seal of approval.
(Thank you so much for all the effort you put into this video and posting it! It’s deeply appreciated and I love that the vehicles are getting attention!)
“Lovely, we’re finally rocking up on the Striker which is a vehicle I know very well. Out in the Periphery we often have to do more with less both in terms of money and resources so vehicles get used a lot more in battle especially the Magistracy influence in our training and doctrine. So Strikers are easy to maintain, cheap to buy, an incredibly common which makes them very useful. Their only real downsides are that are ammo dependent which causes problems especially with stretched out supply chains and they have wheels which don’t handle every kind of terrain well. But if you need a bit of speed and firepower on a budget then they work great. I should know, my families Merc unit started off as an armored cavalry regiment with a recon lance of mechs supporting it before eventually building up to a slightly under strength mech regiment.
One of our favorite tactics was to dig armoured vehicles in usually in easily camouflaged positions then lure over eager mech pilots who think they out mass our light and medium mechs. They find out the hard way the meaning of the word killbox. It works really well against poorly disciplined pirates, quarter trained bandits, and jumped up goons in mechs you find as the hired enforcers of tin pot despots in the wilder parts of the Pediphery. They think because they’re in a mech they are a god of war stomping around the battlefield. A lance of srms suddenly aiming for your cockpit begs to differ.
I’m genuinely shocked that their arnt official versions that have tried to cram as many SRMs or Rocket Launchers as they can onto one of these things. Like a cheap SRM carrier on wheels.
Thanks for watching! Sneaky Strikers are the best.
18:22 That... art... I busted out laughing immediately when I saw that :D (and to think 8-year-old me thinking a lego legs and a standard 2 barrels makes a Yamato Turret #1)
Frank is a good friend of the channel and I love his LEGO block creations.
Clad is 6.5 tons of Ferro-Plastic armour, the Striker (Lego) is an ambush predator which hides in the carpet and waits for unsuspecting infantry to come along and step on it.
Honestly a dozen of these is better than an Archer/Longbow/Catapult any day of the week.
Unless it's Funday in the mountains. I'll take some jumpjets on Funday.
@@topcatcoast2coast579 Every Funday is ambush and partial cover day.
Only so much space and tonnage on a dropship though
The new artwork looks much better and more believable with two axles under the turret, i really like what they did there.
By itself, the Striker is pretty much one of the most realistic vehicles in BT, though i would swap one tone of SRMs for another ton of LRMs.
An LRM15 with Artemis IV and 3 tons of ammo seems like the most reasonable variant to me, though i do consider such a vehicle more of a supporter than the near-omnipresent SRM suggests.
Love me a Striker
It understands the assignment
You would think a straight MML build would be the most logical upgrade from the original, yet bells and whistles were always added...
But we like bells and whistles... *toot*
I whipped up a variant with a Fuel Cell engine 6/9 movement, pair of MML7s, three tons of ammo, and Seven and a half tons of HFF for just under 1m Cbills. Seems pretty decent?
The striker is a good little workhorse, it's viable to buy in bulk, and it can do it's job well specially as support for battlemechs who can spot things for all that delicious indirect fire support.
MechCommander taught me to respect those things. Especially en masse.
Absolutely.
The original art for the Striker was a silhouette for its stats in Mechwarrior 1.0. It was nothing much, implying a long armored truck body with top-mounted missile launch tubes. It was generic & unassuming. The 3026 illustration was a big step up! But that original look & the revision gave it an identity for the game. The Striker was cheap, utilitarian firepower. It was the sort of thing that planetary garrisons, pirate bases, and budget-conscious mercenary companies would use as vehicular auxiliaries for their mech companies. The Catalyst revision looks very much in the same way.
I believe I wrote a fanfiction chapter where some Strikers had the sole purpose of getting blown up by Jade Falcon mechs
That's an odd way to self-actualize.
Usually don't like vehicle with too much ammo, but the Striker hits the sweet spot by knowing what you'll be carrying (std lrm/srm+infernos). The Striker isn't fire support so much as a _striker_ role unit, and as such it's never a question of *if* but *when* it'll close to give someone a bad day. Good speed with a wheeled chassis means that when working in a built-up area it's capable of redeploying around a battlefield easily. It's an excellent vehicle for what it provides, and it's surprising it took until the 3000s for it to become a thing.
Not too hard to enjoy a missile-based fire support vehicle, imo. Just stay put behind a building and yeet some missiles. Plus, if its introtech, plenty of directions to take it in.
Always love playing with a Stryker or two in the game. you can't go wrong with this general purpose vehicle. it can do a little bit of everything.
awww yeah, the classic wheeliboi
I love it because it helps ground the battletech universe. So the gains stompy mechs don't feel to weird.
I love the Striker! Par 12 Strikers with a Raven with two iNARC Beacon with Nemesis Pods >) I wiped out an entire 4 lances of medium and heavy mechs trying to take my oil field basin. My poor lances of Riflemans, and Blackjacks never got to shoot a round in anger. To be honest the mech pilot's gunnery was a pitiful 2
for some reason i just love my intro tech vehicles. Give me strikers, hetzers, condors all day long.
I like that MF variant.
The MML can soak up AMS ammo too.
Striker looks like the off-road exploration & combat vehicle in mass effect with the front end of a jeep, while looking like it came straight from robotech/macross due to the Anime style appearance in the vid and thumbnail
It’s a lovely design, and I’m stoked to see thunderbolts on the -MF. That’s definitely a design I’ll want to try on the battlefield
Ah the memories and nightmares of ultra cheap striker criticals both given and taken.
The Striker is a solid platform. The SRM is better served being broken up for srm-2's and the LRM upgraded to a 15. Id much rather have 9 shots of lrm-15 than 2 tons kf SRM ammo. Its just going to be inferno in case of infantry in any case.
I kind of love this thing because the basic variants of them normally revolve around the idea of fighting tanks or infantry. Like, for your average backwater garrison that has very little of strategic value there's no reason why people would be willing to risk the multi-ton bipedal war machines that are mechs, so one of your main units that you have is something just not exactly built to deal with them.
Really sends the point home that the mechwarriors or mercenaries in the setting are the equivalent of the 1% fighting for emperor palpatine himself so that they can make obscene amounts of money (to the point that no one really blinks at the idea of undergoing an entire deployment in one of these things because "what are the chances, it's just four years.").
The Lego Striker made me spit my Mt. Dew!
I love Frank's LEGO creations.
The Striker is a very good support platform, its cheap, its fast, it has enough throw weight to make itself useful without suffering from kitfoxitus when you're small and have more than enough throw weight to make someone sit up and make it their duty to end you. Great vid about a wonderful little tank :)
How i hated these in HBSs battletech..
*cough*
I mean, this is one of the original combat vehicles initially released along tanks like the hunter support tank or scorpion, so it has been around for a while. It is affordable fire support that can fire back at close range thanks to its SRM6 in order to shoo off light vehicles or infantry formations. A favourite of militia commanders no doubt since you can order these guys in bulk without blowing out the budget.
Its an okay vehicle for lance support but merc commanders should keep in mind that its just that: support. The striker wont hold on for long at all if it gets into the enemies focus. It has an extensive amount of versions from 3000s to current day so you will allways find them either on the market, or on the opfor.
For a merc unit starting out a striker can be a cheap alternative to a hunter or lrm carrier if you want some fire support, it is also fast enough to serve as a convoy escort. All in all not a bad choice.
An excellent vid. I recognised it immediately from a TRO a friend lent me…which got me into BT originally…so many years ago.
I hope we get some plastic Strikers soon, though the IWM ones are still nice.
And that Lego one is excellent!👏👏👏
The 3026 TRO is top notch.
9:00 goddamn i love the two. Warriors after my own heart! im so glad they made it. i hope in some future game or novel they appear, even if its just a statue or memorial commerating the atlas sized ferrofibrous balls they had.
as a scout/skirmisher mech lover, i tip my hat to them. cant top that
Striking the like button immediately, Sir Frog!
Thank you. Hope you enjoyed the vid.
@@MechanicalFrog Always.
That Lego Striker is freaking awesome! Put more of those one here!
I love stepping on tanks with my mechs, if that’s what you mean….
My Striker ISM uses Clan tech. It has an XL engine, Ferro fibrous armor, and is fully amphibious. Its XL engine is a 155 rating, giving it a 5/8 movement. For weapons it carries a pair of MML-7 launchers and 2 tons of LRM ammo and 3 tons of SRM ammo.
I have the technical readoutbook for the little dude. Fantastic book
3026 is one of the best TROs.
I have several strikers come into possession recently. I can’t wait to paint them up.
I'm hoping to see the CGL sculpts in the near future.
@@MechanicalFrog Yea me too. But their timeline thing didn't have em on there so I hope we get something. Still need Hunter Sculpts along with some Falcons/Harriers.
Petition to have the Blakest war called the "Big Blake Boogaloo"
Request denied.
The Temper Tantrum War
The B word is probably even more demonetizablebthen thr Ji one.
I have always loved the Striker. My merc company always had 3 or 4 in their armor company.
I found a 3026 copy a bit back. I recognize that art! It always looked off-balance to me, turret too far rear.
The Striker: The "Fine! you can have ONE realistic looking missile tank. Stop asking." tank. Thanks for the video.
In my RP campaign has become one of my favorite tanks. Its cheap and it does have decent throw weight especially if you deploy 2 to 4 of them. Quite literally saved my characters Phoenix Hawk when the Gunslinger I was fighting knocked down the building I was on due to not being able to hit me. It got tagged by our Fulcrum tank then came in the semi guided LRMs from our pair of strikers narc enhanced and it ran for cover before finishing me off. Thank you ECCM mode too to make sure the narc worked.
Something important to know about the early SRM variants is that originally only SRM-2s could use Infernos, with SSRM-2 being able to do so as well. The rules for what could use them and what exactly they did were changed between the Battletech Compendium and BattleTech Master Rules editions, which makes prior usage of them make a lot less sense.
EDIT: The change was made in 1998, so more several years after TRO 3058 was released. Explains a lot of the now silly(ier) SSRM-2 spam in in the early foundtech 'upgrades'.
The dual SSRM2 build makes sense just in general. It's a pretty good drop-in replacement for SRM6s: you lose special ammo (or gain inferno in case of old rules) but gain 2 to-hit rolls as well as guaranteed 2 missile hits per successful roll. That's 2 or 4 dmg vs an SRM6's 3-4 damage average.
The SRM variant (4xSRM2s) is probably the one you're thinking of, although I still think it's a pretty decent design as most Strikers won't last in combat too long. Having 12.5 salvos is more than enough for most games, you just need to specialize on Infernos or damage.
@@TheInsomniaddict It was more about all the SSRM-2s on 3050 'upgrades'. Like the Awesome. Great idea that one.
I was playing battletech the PC game and I had an allied Striker they dusted like 3 turrets and a MECH before making it to evac with me.
Striker is, indeed, a beloved and economical choice
My head canon is that there is a version mike sparks in the Battletech universe, and he is convinced there is a way to turn this into a land-air mech
Another fun watch :-) i love the combined arms in classic and this is a vehicle ive used a little...did ok but got pasted by a couple of locusts :,/
A Thunderbolt-10? Very nice, MF!
My Striker build:
155 Fusion w/ Supercharger
8.5 tons of Ferro-Fibrous (152 pts.)
CASE
1 MML-7 with 4 tons of ammo*
2 ER Medium Lasers
*I personally recommend:
1 ton of standard SRMs
1 ton of Infernos
1 ton of Smoke LRMs
1 ton of whatever damaging LRMs you desire
Ok, hold on, I might borrow that MF variant to surprise my players some time. XD
You should!
It's a fun little tank.
Solid one.
Perfect vehicle to go on a beer run.
Kinda surprised you didn't go for a big MML-9 launcher and play both long range support and horrible rolling BBQ.
It's a great, fast, cheap little LRM support tank that can also defend itself against other light vehicles. What's not to love?
I think we found Frog's alter ego in the form of Wild Bill the Stryker driver 🙂.
Weee...
Ah yes, my old foe the Striker. Laughable when alone, but let's be honest, when did we ever find this little guy hanging around by himself? A properly coordinated group of them is no joke.
8:49 Getting episode 1 Anakin vibes here.
Probably less wholesome.
@@MechanicalFrog well yes, but that's what happens when the crew of the transport you shot the internals of are people and not unfeeling battle droids
Something I'm surprised to see is there was no MRM variant as standard, it feels like the sort of platform that weapon system was built for, especially with the DCMS having their C3 versions
Thanks for the video.
You bet
Cause it looks great now and then. Cause its Mech Frogs fault I've became a tanker at heart in a Mech driven game. Cause it very relaxing to paint a small tank. Its so easy compared to bigger models of mechs and characters. Cheers
As my friend in the military said omce he found out that battletech had a striker "as long as it protects from 155mm fragmentation its fine.
Missile truck good, cause at the end of the day the giant walking robot is just a expensive way to carry more missiles. Missiles improve everything, got some clanners trying to tell you whats what? Missiles. Space pirates want that booty? Missiles. Your sundae didn't come with hot fudge? yes even then Missiles will save the day.
600k c-bills for a LRM15 on the field really does teach the economy of the machine. Mounted on a mech, the cost would probably be getting close to 3-5x that (e.g. fire support Javelin).
Granted, you'd rather be the Javelin pilot, but having 4 sets of LRM15s really could ruin someone's day. Assuming you can get them in the right position and don't just get stomped.
was surprised there was no MRM variant. While it is not a DC unit it would still have benefited from combining the two launchers possible to one heavier one. But then all or nothing hitting with one launcher is why i dislike the Hunter.
Great video! Thanks
Glad you liked it!
I just need a dedicated version with 3 SRM6's in the turret and 2 tons of ammo. That would be such a sweet succession wars era ambusher. Then give me a bombardment version, with 4 turreted LRM5's and 3 tons of ammo. A fast support skirmisher, with more than enough firepower to be a threat.
Again a vehicle that should have produced more variants. The 3026 variant has 11to to play with of you drop the weapons. So options are
+ Command Striker with a rear compartment similar to an M557 and a small turret with twin MG, a SRM/2 and one ton of ammo each
+ MASH unit
+ Light AA unit with an AC/5, 2to ammo and a MG/half ton ammo
+ Heavy APC with a turret carrying a M-Laser + heat sinks, SRM/2 and dual MG and 3to Infantry
+ Combat Engineer unit
So basically the BT version of LAV-25/Stryker/Boxer
It's a good cause Effective Vehicle and of course a cheap alternative LRM Gun boat if you asked me.
I used to love the Striker, but his drinking problem got in the way of our relationship.
Love these vids...covering all things bt!
I desire a King Crab vid from you.
"Soon"
@@MechanicalFrog CARCINIZATION MARCHES ON
Ah yes. Hated vehicle style. Mix this slinger with ontos and people stop playing table top with you.
The friendship tester.
@@MechanicalFrog try two of each in a hidden mech setting with 1g/4p . After you rain LRM on them watch their faces melt with the SRM and disco ball treatment.
And he put infernos on the MF variant 🥰.
Better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them.
@@MechanicalFrog 🔥🔥🔥