Battletech Mech Tactics: Rifleman
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
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I look at the RFL-3N as a close support machine that works best when it works in conjunction with units that can put the pressure on up close. I like it planted in the center of the table, about 1/3rd the way up on your side, working in conjunction with no less than two short range specialists, typically stout trooper mids like the Hunchback, or fast heavies like the Ostroc. It needs some units the foe has to prioritize up close, as it only has 7.5 tons of armor. The Rifleman cannot afford to take a lot of hits (but it can take some).
The autocannons are the primary weapons on this chassis. You can fire them at anything, and you don't risk much by doing so. You actually reduce your risk (of ammo explosion) by firing them, so fire both of them every turn at the best target you have. You've got ten turns of dual AC fire, and don't stop laying down the dakka until the mags run dry. Throw in one large laser; it's free, so long as you plant (which you'll have to do to get the most out of this mech).
When the AC/5 ammo is gone, the RFL-3N becomes a short range specialist, and can join in the scrum that's happening in the center. At this point (assuming all goes well), everyone is pretty hot and banged up in there, so the lack of armor and heatsinks in the Rifleman won't matter as much.
The Rifleman's greatest threat is against a fast flanking unit, like a Jenner, that can tie it up. It's best to screen it from these threats with bugmech or two.
Some players can get that short range to work. Good to know.
The Helm Memory Core and Clan Invasion were the greatest things that ever happened to the Rifleman. Literally all you need to make it a beast is Double Heat Sinks and Ferro-Fibrous. Now you can fire every turn, you've got a bit more protection, and you doubled your AC ammo and added CASE to keep from blowing yourself up.
The stock Rifleman's second large laser is actually almost a "spare." I find it only useful if you are in a situation where you can shoot both AC and Large Lasers, then spend an entire turn cooling off (behind cover, or waiting for attacking aircraft to turn around and come back, or when you have a chance to knock out a damaged enemy mech with that one heavy strike).
I did make a variant that could support the four heavy weapons by dropping the speed to 3/5 and dumping the medium lasers. This gets you 7 more heat sinks and a little more armor. Would make the unit better for defending but the speed loss limits the strategic usefulness.
If it was a few more tons, people would head for it instead due to the "Oh sh-t, it's a big heavy/assault mech" factor.
Your variant idea of dropping to 3/5 with 4 heavy guns reminds me of what the Clans did with the Rifleman IIC. And what an absolute monster that 'Mech is if you are going up against it with an Inner Sphere tech army.
Well spar is right on. One covers the left side shoots left the other covers the right side shoots right. If your focusing on what side is out the dice will role in the middle range normal. Twisting your mech to the other side you may get some more life out of it.
Most folks here already mentioned what to do with the 3N. Like many of the Macross/Robotech inspired Heavies, it has comparatively light leg armor and unbalanced armament/heatsinks to match the anime source vs what's actually optimal for a Battletech design. Easiest tactic is to ignore that second laser ever existed (unless the Rifleman is isolated and can afford to alpha strike at a passing aircraft, any hit is a good hit for a control roll check) and just blast away with twin AC/5 and Large Laser at long range and rotate the ACs for medium lasers once things get to minimums. Overheating to 8+ at close range is usually a point of no return for the Rifleman since you can no longer escape that fast moving 55-ton fast 'Mech which will be gunning for a leg critical after giving a kick to leave it with 1 armor.
The armor is among the lightest for a Heavy/Assault with only the Jagermech and the Liao 1L Charger being worse but at least the Jager is heat neutral at range and cheaper in BV. In short, don't treat it as a Heavy but treat it as a lightly armored fire support Medium (it's BV price is in that range as well) with extended reach.
As many others have stated, there's just so many easy ways to fix this up even with Level One tech. Drop one Large Laser, stick 4 tons armor and one medium laser and problem solved with no performance loss in typical scenarios. Or you can go with the crazy solution and build yourself the infamous Samual Sneede's Frankenmech Rifleman of Snord's Irregulars.
I know what your talking about. Your dead on the Rifleman is a medium mech. You could rip out the LL and then it's weight would be 50 tons of fun.
Against its intended aerospace targets the 3025 RFL is actually pretty good, rules-wise. Two AC-5s to inflict lawn-dart checks (or load with flak ammo to give Karnovs something to worry about) and two lasers that can threshold-crit most fighter's hit locations. Sure, you gotta cool off for a turn, but the enemy ASF has to spend a turn or two maneuvering "off map" before it can make another pass anyway, so it's all the same to the RFL pilot.
Against ground targets though? Well, as others have said, find a relatively safe place to park with a good vantage and go full-metal DAKKA, with one large for good measure (the other LL is a spare unless I'm swatting bombers). Your medium lasers are there for when the enemy gets close and you need to move and fire without worrying about heat (I can dakka & medlas that flanking Jenner for 20 damage and run to a new position without worrying about what it's gonna cost me next turn...not bad for 3025).
Not my favorite mech, but I could inherit a lot worse.
After reading this I feel that the 3050 upgrade would have just done better with the DHS and more ammo and case. Good to see someone has had better with AAA. So the bigger the target the better results with this walking laser equipped Gep'perd.
@@Magermh Not gonna lie here, but your comment gave me an unexpected epiphany; the PPC Rifleman (a mech I ordinarily wouldn't touch with a ten hex pole) makes a little more sense now. Those PPCs can give even the venerable Stuka a (threshold-crit) boop on its snoot, and have time to cool off (fairly well) before the Stuka got to line up again. And really, when you're dealing with ASF range tables who gives a damn about a 3-hex minimum range?
That being said though, I'd gladly give up the 3050 upgrade's bling and ultra-5s for (as you mentioned) CASE, DHS, maybe an added ton of ammo (for options),...and whatever armor I can add. Cause AAA or no AAA, strikes still hurt like a bitch!
@@Apollo-js8rn After reading what you are talking about. I may give the -4D a chance as pure AAA. On the off hand it over heats shuts down and powers back up before the next strafe.
Is left arm right arm torso twisting arm flipping the reason for two ac5 and two large lasers in the arms? That most turns you will need to be swiveling to split fire at mobile units? Thus not going to alpha strike often. But hitting at long range with one arm and suppressing fire ac5 with the other arm.
Think about it this way, if it loses the left or right arm, it still has some of the same weapons to work with. It gives er even when its crippled.
Simple answer, load up on precision and armor piercing ammo. Long answer upgrade it to the variant with 2 RACs and armor.
Just for reference for other players: The Dual RAC/5 version is the 8D and it is a real fun design to run for maximum DAKKA. Just think of it has being capable of landing up to 12 medium laser hits at Large Laser ranges at 1 heat each per shot and with jump jets to boot.
@@TheDaNuker I've used it to great effect in grinder and arena matches. If you can avoid rolling 4 to hit or lower that is
Love the RAC variant. Over kill is OK.
So I used it for AAA support. Targeting computer with -1 to hit aircraft. Swapped out to LBX 5. And ER lg. If I remember it right the first 10 sinks are in the engine, so its easy to just swap to double sinks and would be fine.
Minor correction but it has 9 engine integrated heat sinks. You will need to shift that last single heat sink out of the leg into a torso but it is incredibly roomy anyway so that's overall a net positive.
LB 5-X's? Never thought of it. They get a -4 to air targets. Hum...
I've tried to remind players that the Rifleman is not a front line Mech. It is direct fire support. Unless you're playing as Shorty Sneed of Snord's Irregulars and he's in his Frankenmech/Hybrid Rifleman, stay away from the enemy and attack from a distance where you can hit them fairly easy, but they can't hit you very well.
Unfortunately there is always that one player who thinks it looks cool, or played the Robotech RPG and puts it into close combat...and gets its arms blown off.
I'd always try to park my Rifleman in trees or behind a level-1 while keeping my big weapons at medium range.
how to get the most out of this machine? use it as a recruiting tool to recruit dispossessed pilots. offer it to them as a starter (restarter?) mech. after they inherit a better mech upgrade, rinse and repeat (assuming it survives lol).
Because we are getting into Clan invasion I am going to write about RFL-5M and RFL-5D. The first has ultra ACs instead of the regular ones and double heat sinks, so it does not suffer from overheating. The sencod removes the ACs and adds ER PPCs and five extra double heat sinks. On paper the 5M is better but it only has one ton of ammo for both ACs wich means it will end quickly without ammunition if fired at double rate, . If you are playing a campaing remove one double heat sink and add another ammo slot. it will greatly improve the mech. The 5D version even with17 double HS suffers from overheating but the trick is that you can fire both arms then spend the next turn firing one arm and cooling down then the next turn firing both arms again. Both variants have slightly more armor and XL engines so don't expose your rifleman too much
Rule of thumb don't fire the 2nd large laser if you have to go some where, which we all know. Mainly I play over watch with it. I'll send out a wolverine, thunderbolt or hunchback and just let it assist and if something does try to sneak up on it generally they don't like that arm flip double large laser (one of the few times you want to do it). You kind of have to accept she's going to be playing hot and generally a little slow doesn't bother me if I've got it holed up some where in a heavy woods or something. The newer 8D with the Twin RAC's is just a thing of beauty sand blasted the armor right off mediums with it before in one volley and provided you don't jam can put a serious hurt on just about anything.
The Rifleman is ruined by the AC-5. Imagine if instead of those AC-5s it had AC-2s. They'd lawndart just as well and at longer ranges. They'd be no less useful against tanks since you're really only crit fishing there if you're stuck with flak rounds for your primary AA role, but you'd have 22.5 shots instead of 10 so you could actually afford to use them. And you've just freed up 4 tons. And if you had a few heatsinks so you could actually use the LLs you wouldn't need the MLs. There are two directions you can take this: keep the current heat budget but add 64 points of armor, or only add 32 points of armor and be able to fire both LLs for +2 heat, which even running gets you a 2-1 pattern for 12 average damage per round.
The Jaegermech is probably more to your liking
@@moapchan1905 The Jaegermech is also ruined by it's AC-5s. They're really bad AA guns ever since flak was changed to deal cluster damage to all targets instead of full damage to aerospace targets and half to non-aerospace.
My favorite IS support mech, I find with the base version you use the auto cannons at the start and then once their empty you have both large lasers and 2 mediums for when you absolutely need to kill the target (king crab getting into AC-20 range) yes you’ll overheat and shut down but that tripling of your damage might be the difference between a kill on their big assault and leaving Alice another turn.
The later versions reinforce heat management but very mechs can match it at long range at that tonnage. I’m tempted to say gauss rifle but a thru armor critical on a gauss rifle generally removes the arm and maybe even the torso.
Another thing to keep in mind that the BV is not unreasonable so maybe instead of a bigger badder mech you can take three of these and use the numbers to your advantage.
Also if you play with quirks...you’ll struggle to find a more cost efficient way of keeping enemy vtol and aerospace off your AO.
This is one of my favorites.
As far as the heat goes I normally spend the games from 9 to 11 points of Heat. The only Modifications I ever do is move the Medium Lasers to Rear Facing to act as my 'Rear Armor', so far no one has never said no to me doing this.
That is not a bad move. Jenners love from the back. Your able to arm flip.
@@Magermh Yes,, it is fun to fire more weapons out the back than the front. Just like a Klingon D7 in Star Fleet Battles =0o0=
Even two rear lasers would not stop me from sending a light Mech to harrass the paper thin rear armor of a Rifleman.
A single ML will penetrate any of the rear torsos. I would dump the MLs and get an additional heat sink and some more rear, head and leg armor.
@@Magermh That is correct but flipping the arms means that the ACs can´t fire in the front arc and are in minimum range and firing two LL will cause a heat spike.
True, but it is not a pair of Medium Lasers, it is 2 ML, 2, LL, and 2 AC/5s. This configuration gives me more Weapons pointing rear than forward. I admit that a lot of heat, but once it all goes off the first time most light Mechs start to just come at me from the front after my tin foil armor rather than my Paper Tissue rear.
@@hermes7587
God that riffle man X you have on the table is not a riffle man. The jump jet brawler rifleman.... Not a riffleman, may use the chassie not a riffleman.
rifleman tactics; trade it in on a shadowhawk.
Slap a xl engine in it , add double heat sinks,, drop conventional load out, add guass rifles and reach out and touch things.
Ok the Glass Spider. Yep I am going to do this with out upgrading to XL engine and adding C3. Armor is over rated sometimes.
...this is just a Nightstar at that point.
You can go hit and run. Shoot trying to avoid having 10 heat that turn (that will reduce your speed too much) then run next turn to cool down behind a lvl 2 building or terrain. Ideally you can go to a depth 2 hex to cool down or depth 1 and go prone
I have just gone prone with this mech without damage using the other arm to keep you up. Why am I thinking Enders Game. That was a good book but I tried that to get portal cover.
Still a decent mech, for what/when it was made. Clearly, power creep and more designs make it harder to play without upgrades or discipline.
That combined with the rules of battletech having very little tweak space" for any power creep not becoming a HUGE spike is a real issue.
How do I play the Rifleman. The Rifleman was one of those mechs that just toke me forever to learn to play. I would claim that I still know nothing. It really is one of those mechs that snipes. As a Direct fire support. The Riflemen RFL-3N is HOT! The 3025 model does a great job at boiling roman noodles is the cockpit.
What I have learned is run to cover or concealment. I am firing one arm side when walking. When I get to cover, ripple fire the AC and one Large Laser. Do that for four turns and just fire the ACs to cool down. I have run out of ammo in 12 turns. Just fire the LL mono for the risky shots. My issues with the Riflemen your over heating at 7-8 that’s a -1. To ripple fire the AC-5 until ammo is out will keep the mech from becoming a pair of legs. Hope you have a 2/3 pilot as that is ideal. I fallow the rule of thumb. The less weapons fired the greater the need for better gunnery. When you lose a LL there are two medium lasers as backup. If your medium lasers are at short range your too close for this mechs optimum range of 4 - 5 hexs. Dealing with Multiple targets is about what this mechs does well. AC’s for them and LL for the other. Understand well how the rules work on overheating. Your able to cool down by never firing a shot and just running.
The Riflemen sits in the back moving along the sides of the target mech. Trying to focus the damage to one side. Getting behind some light woods to jig easy. It is like the Jagermech. Considering the Jagermech was to replace the Rifleman. I believe the Jager better at AAA. I normally rip out the LLs as they get damaged and drop in ML. I improve the mobility by adding heat sinks and Jump jets. The 3n has the weapons of an assault mech the armor and mobility of a light medium mech. In 3025 it’s a hard find for something as medium ranged focused as the Rifleman.
The variants. The 4D is trash. The 3C on the other hand is good. That one has a good rep.
A friend changed out all the guns for AC-2s. It was bad. Any mech with LRMs or SRM's do well paired with a Rifleman. Classic lance Archer, Rifleman, Warhammer, and Crusader.
Its an after thought of that one time I went prone. It would have bin better if I had done that behind the light woods.
I love this mech, but its legs are paper. I'd love to know ppls tactics for this thing.
My first thought was to put it in Depth 1 water, if you were willing to risk the piloting rolls, since that would provide cover for the legs and also boost any heat sinks in them... but then I checked the record sheet and saw the stock Rifleman has only one, so I guess that doesn't help much. Using water would actually be a better choice for many of the better-balanced variants.
Aside from that, parking it behind a low hill could work - you probably won't need to move it around to build up TMM, since it's not really threatening enough for most opponents to prioritize it. But watch out for mechs that run up onto your cover hill for melee, since it puts them in perfect position to throw kicks at your head (as I found out the hard way).
Partial cover and the woods LOS tricks. Jigging it behind light woods is ok. You get a too hit of +2 and a +2 to hit. If you got a good gunner this is just as good as a cinnamon bun.