Love me these little things. Small mechs have the greatest potential for what they bring. A good couple of pilots in two small mechs can absolutely overcome a larger, more armored, and armed opponent.
@@androssthered1157 They really are, as long as the pilots have the skill! As a Steiner player, I know how devastating a fast, light 'mech can be when it runs around and shoots my big boys in the back!
Remember, MechCommanders, if you're playing with the advanced rules, the Locust has the Compact Mech quirk, meaning you can fit two of them into a singke dropship bay. And since two Locusts are both cheaper and objectively better than one Cicada, take the Locusts. Side note: It also has the Narrow/Low Profile quirk, making it tankier than it looks at first glance. Highly recommend.
@@WolfHreda Absolutely! In a 2d6 system, that -1 from Narrow/Low profile is devastating to anyone shooting! Not to mention the narrative implications of being able to drop a locust swarm instead of a traditional lance! Playing with Quirks active is my preferred way to go on the table.
The Locust is one of those mechs that gets miscast in a battle game, as you sort of pointed out. (I'd argue that there are plenty of people who'd be perfectly content with largely a recon role in piloting, though.) A lot of mechs were designed with a storyline purpose in mind that puts them in a bad way when thrown into a straight-up fight of the sort that most scenarios are built around. The Locust is a recon speeder, if it's engaging anything it's engaging other Locusts. Another example would be the Hussar, a dedicated skirmishing platform built to zip up, take a quick shot or two in passing with its ER Large and then zoom away before too much return fire shows up. But that kind of hit and run harassment isn't fun to play out on the tabletop, so when you see a Hussar in a game it's often just being used as a suicide charger. The trick for getting the most out of these kind of mechs is to build scenarios that utilize their abilities. For my campaign, I devised a mission where the main purpose was for one force to draw the defense out by appearing to menace an HVT, while the real mission involved slipping an Ostscout through the lines to call artillery down on fixed position targets (a radar array that was the actual objective.) So the main force is running around like crazy puffing up and drawing fire and the Ost is just zooming around designating targets that the artillery is then flattening. The HVT was a secondary target but by the time the main objectives were down things had heated up too much, so the Ost bailed. Artillery switched to tossing smoke rounds and the bulk of the force disengaged, mission accomplished. That's how you can get some utility and fun out of lights and bugs- it's not the damage they do, but by spotting and designating and locating targets, it's the damage that's done with other assets like indirect fire and air strikes.
I completely agree! Too many people think that it's all abour direct engagement, but there are plenty of mission types, scenarios, and the like, where a fast, lightly armed and cunning mech can make all the difference!
the original city drift mech. This mech taught me the dangers of city fighting at speed. dump your only real scout into a building and crippling it 1 turn in. ... some lessons are learned in the hardest ways. Nostalgia for when there were not so many speedsters...
Love me these little things. Small mechs have the greatest potential for what they bring. A good couple of pilots in two small mechs can absolutely overcome a larger, more armored, and armed opponent.
@@androssthered1157 They really are, as long as the pilots have the skill! As a Steiner player, I know how devastating a fast, light 'mech can be when it runs around and shoots my big boys in the back!
Remember, MechCommanders, if you're playing with the advanced rules, the Locust has the Compact Mech quirk, meaning you can fit two of them into a singke dropship bay. And since two Locusts are both cheaper and objectively better than one Cicada, take the Locusts.
Side note: It also has the Narrow/Low Profile quirk, making it tankier than it looks at first glance. Highly recommend.
@@WolfHreda Absolutely! In a 2d6 system, that -1 from Narrow/Low profile is devastating to anyone shooting! Not to mention the narrative implications of being able to drop a locust swarm instead of a traditional lance! Playing with Quirks active is my preferred way to go on the table.
The Locust is one of those mechs that gets miscast in a battle game, as you sort of pointed out. (I'd argue that there are plenty of people who'd be perfectly content with largely a recon role in piloting, though.)
A lot of mechs were designed with a storyline purpose in mind that puts them in a bad way when thrown into a straight-up fight of the sort that most scenarios are built around. The Locust is a recon speeder, if it's engaging anything it's engaging other Locusts. Another example would be the Hussar, a dedicated skirmishing platform built to zip up, take a quick shot or two in passing with its ER Large and then zoom away before too much return fire shows up. But that kind of hit and run harassment isn't fun to play out on the tabletop, so when you see a Hussar in a game it's often just being used as a suicide charger.
The trick for getting the most out of these kind of mechs is to build scenarios that utilize their abilities. For my campaign, I devised a mission where the main purpose was for one force to draw the defense out by appearing to menace an HVT, while the real mission involved slipping an Ostscout through the lines to call artillery down on fixed position targets (a radar array that was the actual objective.)
So the main force is running around like crazy puffing up and drawing fire and the Ost is just zooming around designating targets that the artillery is then flattening. The HVT was a secondary target but by the time the main objectives were down things had heated up too much, so the Ost bailed.
Artillery switched to tossing smoke rounds and the bulk of the force disengaged, mission accomplished.
That's how you can get some utility and fun out of lights and bugs- it's not the damage they do, but by spotting and designating and locating targets, it's the damage that's done with other assets like indirect fire and air strikes.
I completely agree! Too many people think that it's all abour direct engagement, but there are plenty of mission types, scenarios, and the like, where a fast, lightly armed and cunning mech can make all the difference!
the original city drift mech. This mech taught me the dangers of city fighting at speed. dump your only real scout into a building and crippling it 1 turn in. ... some lessons are learned in the hardest ways. Nostalgia for when there were not so many speedsters...
@catboxvideo Oh yeah, when I was new to tabletop I made the mistake of running on Roads... I learned quick.
Ah, yes, the mech you get when you don't want to get a few hovercraft.
@@ObiwanNekody XD fair enough.
Nice, I painted my locust almost exactly the same.
@@apatheticrabbit Nice! STEINER STRONG!