It really does. It has 3 brackets: 2 LRMs, 2 LRMs 1 LL, 2 LLs and 1 LRM, and then swap to close range once you hit 6. 12 SRMs and 4 medlas is scary lol.
What I like about the Stalker is you have abit of weapon redundancy. When you loose one of those “arms” you can shoot a LL instead of the MLs you lost. And you don’t need those LRMs anymore anyway 😅 Having said that I liked the LRM20 version. Would pelt the enemy with missles on the way in and they would perfectly run out of ammo ready for the real hurt to come to bear!
The Stalker is such a classic. One of those mechs where the visual design of the mech tells you exactly what you should do with it. Pure battering ram with clown shoes to kick with.
The Stalker is a great mech. It took me a long time to realize that because I've always thought its appearance was lame. No arms, just kind of an egg sitting between a couple of match books on legs. Still it's got a well balanced weapons load out and a pile armor. It's an assault mech that's good at being an assault mech.
Ah, the Stalker. Also known as the marital aid, the zombie death chicken, the death blimp. My favorite mech in MWO, HBS BT, and even tabletop. Always found a use for it. Still haven't tried the 9F much, but it looks to be interesting.
@@Ripulintuoja It does look interesting. Clan weapons package let it stack hardened armor. 2 CLGPLs linked with a targeting computer are pretty brutal and can make games kinda unfun tho. It's one of those mechs I would feel uncomfortable running at the LGS.
In MWO this thing is a MONSTER. Perfect Peaking Profile, amazing hitboxes, excellent durability, and the mass to cool anything you throw in it. Probably my best mech in that game.
I guess it's a stalker story that this pairing, with a Phoenix Hawk PHX-1BC and some friends to fill BV, has won every city fight I have brought them to. Getting a narc down in a city when there isn't an ecm bubble is devastating
ah the Lead Zeppelin. My read on the mech is that there are few enemies capable of significantly beating a Stalker's damage output even if they have full control of range on you, so my positioning and movement is all about objective management.
Back in the days I would put Stalkers into fire support lances. There they would be used to deter anyone from closing with Awesomes, Archers, Trebuchets, Griffins, etc. Twin large LASERs and twin LRM10's means it can still do decent in a Fire support lance as long as it stays within Large LASER range. With only 20 heatsinks you can't fire both ranges so you are bracketing or trying to exploit water to dissipate your excess heat. The only time I ever put them into assault lances was in city battles where Stalkers made great ambushers or suprise mechs. At least for early battletech players, the Stalker was introduced in CityTech along with the Battlemaster, another mech excellent at city fighting and ambushes. We would often hide our Stalkers in buildings, or if it came to field battles, hide them behind a hill or some other form of terrain. With it's low profile and stubby arms, lack of an extruding head, it wasn't too difficult for a Stalker to duck down (lowering its height from the standard two levels to one) and hide behind a small hill, staying out of line-of-sight until the enemy is close enough. Then pop-up in the movement phase, and unload on some unwitting foe with all your weapons but the two Large LASERs.
The Stalker is, by far, my favorite mech. You know many custom variants ive made over the years? 17, and thats just counting Inner sphere designs. Some are 'just for fun' kinda designs, like the one that mounts every kind of missile. Others are 'unpure' designs. Like the ones that mount improved jump-jets and play more like a fat catapult with heavy armor. Or the 'what would the Stalker be if you made it 100 tons?' Heres one variant of that last catagory. Armament is all missile baby, SEVEN MML 7s. Ones in the CT, since it moubts a compact gyro. Seven tons of ammo for your laubchers, with one ton in the head. Its designed to be tough as nails and keep fighting no matter what you do to it. Angel ECM. Anti-missile system. CASE II. 14 DHS and structure is Endo-Composite. How much BV do you pay for this hundred ton missile machine with all that defensive bling? 2006.
The mech that has a better than 1:3 chance of exploding if the pilot hits the "Fire Everything" button. Preferably done with a screaming headbutt, like Coop would do in Megas XLR.
its great because you can really push the heat and shoot both LRMs and Large Lasers at the same time, or dumpster all your Short Range weapons onto one target.
Definitely my favorite mech in MWO. The lack of PPC really holds it back on tabletop tho. I wish the Stalker STK-8S had an IHGR upgrade. Now to watch your video on your thoughts...
@@TrailblazerBT and a targeting computer and a c3 slave! It is quite nice. I generally play Fed Suns for faction because they get most of my favorite toys.
@@TrailblazerBT I feel it is important to note that the STK-9F is one of those mechs with Clan LPLs and a TC. I haven't tried it in a game yet tho. It is funny for Alphastrike because it's a recon mech with a 4" move. Yay hardened armor.
@imasspeons much better then not that bad ok assume is a bad match up so is the king crab but most other assault mechs of 3025 the odds are in your favor not alweas by a lot granted the battlemaster is a surprisingly close match for it but the ever popular atlas is food for a stalker granted it would take forever to beat that atlas but you have the speed to stay out of ac20 range and pound on it till you win. The only problem with facing the atlas is it is counter intuitive how you have to face as in you can not close because doing so loses you the fight badly the awnswer come in to range 15 and begin to try and maintain that range take your lumps from his lrm return with yours and lasers as appropriate unless one of you gets lucky at this point it will be a long slow fight but you will win if some how you end up at range 9 do not panic continue to keep range open force him to run to maintain ac20 range and use the youvwalking backwards and med range with palaver versus him running at long tangebwith ac20 and play the math it is not as good as being outside ac20 range but not all is lost under no circumstance close to 6 or closer against anything with an ac20 that is how you lose fights.
The Atlas may get all the spotlight as "the" assault mech, but for my money the Stalker is the quintessential example of what an assault mech (and to an extent battlemechs in general) should be: slow, not particularly elegant, but built like a brick and covered in guns.
Look at the Stalker production date compare to existing mechs of the time. I wonder if slow and heavy armoured was the norm. Did LRM mechs and vehicles make for faster mechs? And the add a LRM to every mech fad?
I remember young dumb me playing Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries as a kid you start with your Commando (i always sold that one to then buy a Panther in turn :P) ... and pretty early, while you still have only light and maybe a medium 'Mechs, there was this one morally quite dubious mission where you would get a Stalker as a "rental" ... thats when i learned as a kid a) assault mechs are fun, b) PPCs are cool, but that amount of Zap Zap Whoosh Whoosh is cooler and c) ... heat management and ammo detonations
Awesome mech...i like to empty the lrm bins whilst the enemy closes range for me and then rush them to brawler range to finish the fight....emptying those bins is necessary as it is a victim to the odd ammo explosion :-)
A Narc is only 30 BV, same as a Streak 2. Not a big price for throwing it on there. And on a heavily armored mech you'll get plenty of chances to land a Narc. I don't think it's usually a good idea to design a list around running your fast units up to the enemy far ahead of your slow ones anyway, it's a recipe for getting picked off one by one with focused fire. If you send up a Tessen or something ahead of your brawlers it's likely to get killed pretty fast. So I like Narcs on close-range battleline mechs, even slow ones.
I love the stalker too but you're going to have to justify GS4. That never works out for me. I feel like GS3 has to be a minimum or you going to end up miss 80% of the shot you try and take.
@TrailblazerBT you must be rolling like a craps cheat lol. I don't play any mech with GS4. Games with GS4 mechs are awful slugs to play. The games last 17 hours, and you can only hit a target if it is in your face. No thanks, I'll pay the extra BV. Even if I lose, at least I had fun, and the game was faster, lol. My Battletech game group set GS3 as the standard because we got sick of those awful, awful GS4 games. One of the best decisions we made. 😀
@@readwatchlisten2863 Hahaha I do support the Gunnery 3 on everything convention as a way of speeding up games. As a strategy though I think it loses to a "more/bigger mechs at skill 4" strategy. You see this play out in MRC tournaments, where gunnery 4 lists do better. I do think you want skill 3 on sniper units that will be fighting at medium range most of the game, but not on units like a Stalker that want to fight at short range. I have a video on this: th-cam.com/video/AGXNmZBAqk0/w-d-xo.html Also, in terms of BV efficiency, pulse and targeting computers get you more bang for your buck than veteran gunners. This is more viable for Clans than IS though.
@TrailblazerBT I'm going to take your word when it comes to playing MRC tournaments. I have never played a tournament and never will. I have house ruled the crap out of the classic rules so much, I'm not sure if I even remember how to play classic! Lol.
![[TH] 2024 PMGC League | Survival Stage วันที่ 1 | PUBG MOBILE Global Championship](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FVFT-PFwU80/mqdefault.jpg)
This is the mech that teaches you bracket fire.
It really does. It has 3 brackets: 2 LRMs, 2 LRMs 1 LL, 2 LLs and 1 LRM, and then swap to close range once you hit 6. 12 SRMs and 4 medlas is scary lol.
What I like about the Stalker is you have abit of weapon redundancy.
When you loose one of those “arms” you can shoot a LL instead of the MLs you lost. And you don’t need those LRMs anymore anyway 😅
Having said that I liked the LRM20 version. Would pelt the enemy with missles on the way in and they would perfectly run out of ammo ready for the real hurt to come to bear!
Yeah the 3H is awesome
The Stalker is such a classic. One of those mechs where the visual design of the mech tells you exactly what you should do with it. Pure battering ram with clown shoes to kick with.
It's the mobile gun emplacement that the rest of your lance operates around, tempo-wise. 😊
This things old art made it look like a football with legs, love it
I've loved the Stalker since the first battletech book I picked up as a kid (4th Succession War). Thank you for the excellent analysis.
@@Miranda_Ghost I remember it from the cover of the second crescent hawks game
I'm a stalker! Wait, I love stalkers! Wait, that also sounds bad... Uhh, I love to pilot stalker 'mechs! There we go!
The Stalker is a great mech. It took me a long time to realize that because I've always thought its appearance was lame. No arms, just kind of an egg sitting between a couple of match books on legs.
Still it's got a well balanced weapons load out and a pile armor. It's an assault mech that's good at being an assault mech.
Ah, the Stalker. Also known as the marital aid, the zombie death chicken, the death blimp. My favorite mech in MWO, HBS BT, and even tabletop. Always found a use for it. Still haven't tried the 9F much, but it looks to be interesting.
@@Ripulintuoja It does look interesting. Clan weapons package let it stack hardened armor.
2 CLGPLs linked with a targeting computer are pretty brutal and can make games kinda unfun tho. It's one of those mechs I would feel uncomfortable running at the LGS.
In MWO this thing is a MONSTER. Perfect Peaking Profile, amazing hitboxes, excellent durability, and the mass to cool anything you throw in it. Probably my best mech in that game.
In MWO I liked making it into an MRM80+snub PPC monster
The stalker is the king of assault mechs in the succession wars in my opinion it's just so genuinely well made
Stalker STK 9M and Archer ARC-5S make a fun pairing for building a NARC squad lance.
I guess it's a stalker story that this pairing, with a Phoenix Hawk PHX-1BC and some friends to fill BV, has won every city fight I have brought them to. Getting a narc down in a city when there isn't an ecm bubble is devastating
@@ObiwanNekody Stalkers in cities are awesome in general!
I enjoy all of Trailblazer videos 🎉🎉😊
Stalker with a couple of Hollanders is always a good combo. That or some Shreck PPC carriers.
Gonna have to try that.
@@ObiwanNekodygive it a shot. Hollanders are low BV so they make good flankers for big brawler mechs.
ah the Lead Zeppelin.
My read on the mech is that there are few enemies capable of significantly beating a Stalker's damage output even if they have full control of range on you, so my positioning and movement is all about objective management.
Back in the days I would put Stalkers into fire support lances. There they would be used to deter anyone from closing with Awesomes, Archers, Trebuchets, Griffins, etc. Twin large LASERs and twin LRM10's means it can still do decent in a Fire support lance as long as it stays within Large LASER range. With only 20 heatsinks you can't fire both ranges so you are bracketing or trying to exploit water to dissipate your excess heat. The only time I ever put them into assault lances was in city battles where Stalkers made great ambushers or suprise mechs. At least for early battletech players, the Stalker was introduced in CityTech along with the Battlemaster, another mech excellent at city fighting and ambushes. We would often hide our Stalkers in buildings, or if it came to field battles, hide them behind a hill or some other form of terrain. With it's low profile and stubby arms, lack of an extruding head, it wasn't too difficult for a Stalker to duck down (lowering its height from the standard two levels to one) and hide behind a small hill, staying out of line-of-sight until the enemy is close enough. Then pop-up in the movement phase, and unload on some unwitting foe with all your weapons but the two Large LASERs.
"Only" 20 HS.
Make a list with the amount of HS on 3025 mechs....
The Stalker is, by far, my favorite mech. You know many custom variants ive made over the years? 17, and thats just counting Inner sphere designs.
Some are 'just for fun' kinda designs, like the one that mounts every kind of missile. Others are 'unpure' designs. Like the ones that mount improved jump-jets and play more like a fat catapult with heavy armor. Or the 'what would the Stalker be if you made it 100 tons?'
Heres one variant of that last catagory. Armament is all missile baby, SEVEN MML 7s. Ones in the CT, since it moubts a compact gyro. Seven tons of ammo for your laubchers, with one ton in the head. Its designed to be tough as nails and keep fighting no matter what you do to it. Angel ECM. Anti-missile system. CASE II. 14 DHS and structure is Endo-Composite.
How much BV do you pay for this hundred ton missile machine with all that defensive bling? 2006.
The mech that has a better than 1:3 chance of exploding if the pilot hits the "Fire Everything" button. Preferably done with a screaming headbutt, like Coop would do in Megas XLR.
Сталкер просто великолепен. Цена, броня и арсенал - все идеально.
its great because you can really push the heat and shoot both LRMs and Large Lasers at the same time, or dumpster all your Short Range weapons onto one target.
Personally prefer the -3H; more likely to use all the LRM ammo before kickboxing begins at the middle so less ammo bomb
I just finished painting up mine and will hope to have a story to tell soon.
@@DDVargas1983 The newer mini is great!
Dude loving the content. I need to give the Stalker another try
Definitely my favorite mech in MWO. The lack of PPC really holds it back on tabletop tho.
I wish the Stalker STK-8S had an IHGR upgrade.
Now to watch your video on your thoughts...
@@ObiwanNekody There's a Davion one with ERPPCs!
In 3025 it's not that bad if you're effective at bracket firing to manage the heat. Not my favourite assault but I usually wouldn't say no to one.
@@TrailblazerBT and a targeting computer and a c3 slave! It is quite nice.
I generally play Fed Suns for faction because they get most of my favorite toys.
@@TrailblazerBT I feel it is important to note that the STK-9F is one of those mechs with Clan LPLs and a TC. I haven't tried it in a game yet tho.
It is funny for Alphastrike because it's a recon mech with a 4" move. Yay hardened armor.
@imasspeons much better then not that bad ok assume is a bad match up so is the king crab but most other assault mechs of 3025 the odds are in your favor not alweas by a lot granted the battlemaster is a surprisingly close match for it but the ever popular atlas is food for a stalker granted it would take forever to beat that atlas but you have the speed to stay out of ac20 range and pound on it till you win. The only problem with facing the atlas is it is counter intuitive how you have to face as in you can not close because doing so loses you the fight badly the awnswer come in to range 15 and begin to try and maintain that range take your lumps from his lrm return with yours and lasers as appropriate unless one of you gets lucky at this point it will be a long slow fight but you will win if some how you end up at range 9 do not panic continue to keep range open force him to run to maintain ac20 range and use the youvwalking backwards and med range with palaver versus him running at long tangebwith ac20 and play the math it is not as good as being outside ac20 range but not all is lost under no circumstance close to 6 or closer against anything with an ac20 that is how you lose fights.
If you're like me, and I know I am, you're excited for this tactics video.
The Stalker was my first Assault in MechWarrior, and it has stuck with me as "ole reliable" to stick on a point and just hold it.
Very helpful!! Espcially deployment!
The Atlas may get all the spotlight as "the" assault mech, but for my money the Stalker is the quintessential example of what an assault mech (and to an extent battlemechs in general) should be: slow, not particularly elegant, but built like a brick and covered in guns.
Fits with the fluff too... the most common assault according to TRO '25!
Look at the Stalker production date compare to existing mechs of the time. I wonder if slow and heavy armoured was the norm. Did LRM mechs and vehicles make for faster mechs? And the add a LRM to every mech fad?
Wouldn't the warhammer keep backing away cooling push foward to dual ppc then pull back? Granted LRMs from the stalker would do a lot of damage.
Even in videogames it relies on killing things and armor. No pillar humping here.
I remember young dumb me playing Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries as a kid
you start with your Commando (i always sold that one to then buy a Panther in turn :P) ... and pretty early, while you still have only light and maybe a medium 'Mechs, there was this one morally quite dubious mission where you would get a Stalker as a "rental"
...
thats when i learned as a kid a) assault mechs are fun, b) PPCs are cool, but that amount of Zap Zap Whoosh Whoosh is cooler and c) ... heat management and ammo detonations
You can change ammo for NARC beacon from standart to explosive.You will get extra gun with extra damage,without lrm carriers)
Good idea, not sure if it's worth the extra leg explosion risk though... will have to try it!
The first time I saw the Stalker I thought it's just a big Catapult and should stay behind like a missile boat :)
Awesome mech...i like to empty the lrm bins whilst the enemy closes range for me and then rush them to brawler range to finish the fight....emptying those bins is necessary as it is a victim to the odd ammo explosion :-)
Love the Stalker. And the best part? You can flip the arms.
@@WolfHreda I really should have mentioned the arm flipping!
@TrailblazerBT the one that surprises me (since I don't play them often) is that a lot of Clan 'mechs can arm flip due to their construction rules.
@@WolfHreda Omnis with flippable arms and yet with elbows on the miniature get me so often!
@TrailblazerBT exactly! 🤣 Just give the Warhawk derpy JagerMech style arms! It's cool enough to survive.
How did I never realize that the Stalker is two Thunderbots in a trenchcoat?!
I only thought of it myself after I started making the vid
YES! My Favorite IS mech!
badass thumbnail
Good old assault 'mech that actually fill the role of an assault 'mech. A dying breed these days.
Plus 1 excite.
I do not like the 5M it'd be better if it lost the NARC and ammo and got the second large laser back a mech that goes 3/5 has no business carrying one
A Narc is only 30 BV, same as a Streak 2. Not a big price for throwing it on there. And on a heavily armored mech you'll get plenty of chances to land a Narc.
I don't think it's usually a good idea to design a list around running your fast units up to the enemy far ahead of your slow ones anyway, it's a recipe for getting picked off one by one with focused fire. If you send up a Tessen or something ahead of your brawlers it's likely to get killed pretty fast. So I like Narcs on close-range battleline mechs, even slow ones.
I love the stalker too but you're going to have to justify GS4. That never works out for me. I feel like GS3 has to be a minimum or you going to end up miss 80% of the shot you try and take.
You pay so much BV for gunnery 3 though. But it's easy for me to say because my dice luck in BT is consistently good.
@TrailblazerBT you must be rolling like a craps cheat lol. I don't play any mech with GS4. Games with GS4 mechs are awful slugs to play. The games last 17 hours, and you can only hit a target if it is in your face. No thanks, I'll pay the extra BV. Even if I lose, at least I had fun, and the game was faster, lol. My Battletech game group set GS3 as the standard because we got sick of those awful, awful GS4 games. One of the best decisions we made. 😀
@@readwatchlisten2863 Hahaha I do support the Gunnery 3 on everything convention as a way of speeding up games. As a strategy though I think it loses to a "more/bigger mechs at skill 4" strategy. You see this play out in MRC tournaments, where gunnery 4 lists do better.
I do think you want skill 3 on sniper units that will be fighting at medium range most of the game, but not on units like a Stalker that want to fight at short range. I have a video on this: th-cam.com/video/AGXNmZBAqk0/w-d-xo.html
Also, in terms of BV efficiency, pulse and targeting computers get you more bang for your buck than veteran gunners. This is more viable for Clans than IS though.
@TrailblazerBT I'm going to take your word when it comes to playing MRC tournaments. I have never played a tournament and never will. I have house ruled the crap out of the classic rules so much, I'm not sure if I even remember how to play classic! Lol.
Yeh needs stay away from hills