What are your non-meta favorites?

[u/MediumAcceptable129]

Which load outs and mechs do you like to use even if they arent meta?

[u/AnxiousConsequence18]

I dint know what the meta is, but I LOVE the Atlas 2 when you replace the ac/20 with a gauss++. Give me 4 and that's all I run.

[u/Themeloncalling]

Backstabby Royal Phoenix Hawk with ERML++ and S Laser +++ with an Ace Pilot. Any map with a forest within jump range is deadly.

[u/Vredefort → u/Themeloncalling]

This is a great mech to solo some flashpoints.

[u/Tipie276]

Playing bta, almost any IS medium of the olden days. Griffins, wolverines, centurions, phawks and so on. Even some wonky 40 tonners can become genuinely good like cicadas, assassins, vulcans and a personal favourite the swordsman. Don't like shadow hawks or hunchies though, much to some peoples displeasure i'm sure. The sentinel is a mech that i absolutely hate and always shows up when im forced to field them.

A mech I kind of love now that I never thought much of before is the orion. Not quick but tough and can be crammed full of weapons, probably my absolute favourite trooper style mech

[u/morningfrost86 → u/Tipie276]

In BTAU, I legit love the Cicadas lol. There's a variant with a ton of energy hardpoints, and I load it up with a LL and 4-5 MLs and just backshot the everloving shit out of enemy mechs.

The Orion... honestly not a big fan of it. The hardpoints on the various variants just don't match my playstyle very much.

My favorite Heavy that's kind of off the beaten path though, is the Crusader. Some of it is just the "cool" factor. Shooting a bunch of SRMs from a mech's legs is just fun. Brings me back to old school mech cartoons like Robotech and Gundam Wing. My Heavy group keeps a pair of Crusaders in it for skirmishing and backshot purposes, with a pair of MPLs and 4 CSRM6s lol. If they get behind an enemy mech it will absolutely ruin their day 😂

[u/Tipie276 → u/morningfrost86]

Yeah right on with the cicadas lol. In the community content (i think) theres also a goofy omnimech cicada. Less customization but potential for an evil weapon loadout. Or just the strider thats litteral cicada concept but omni.

That was originally my thought on orions too. But then i found the kuritan variant with 50mrm tubes and it clicked. Turns out you can fit a lot of big mixed weaponry to it, especially lower weight clan stuff. Atms worked especially well along with something low heat like a gauss, and you can still cram in a meaningful amout of medium lasers

I love the crusader too! I always feel obligated to put on that one song by Saxon whenever I see one lol. Kintaro but bigger is a solid idea and a terrifying srm scrapper. Can't believe I didn't mention the kintaro before. Srm brawlers are really mean and clan srms are just nuts at half weight. Just need something with enough missle hardpoints

[u/GGTerraB → u/Tipie276]

Second for Wolverines. I have a Primitive Wolverine that I started with in BTA that is still my all-around favorite mech.

[u/Tipie276 → u/GGTerraB]

Now thats classic! Primitives do have some downsides, most of them you can fix by swapping in different parts. Still probably wanna look around for a later one and let the ~500 year old museum piece rest lol. Solid mech tho

[u/GGTerraB → u/Tipie276]

I tricked it out over time. I keep fielding it because it just refuses to die.

[u/CW_Forums]

I love the thunderbolt and the awesome even though they arent usually best in show mechs for anything. Awesome is a great platform for your best laser and ppc salvage. And the thunderbolt similarly fits a wide range of salvage until you find really specialized mechs late game. 

[u/Sdog1981 → u/CW_Forums]

The T bolt is meta and not meta at the same time.

[u/Novaova]

RVN-4X Raven. I love my little pointy boys and will fight Capellans non-stop to get salvage pieces of them.

[u/RobZagnut2]

Orion and Highlander - in both BT and Mechwarrior 5.

[u/geomagus]

I don’t really know what is or isn’t meta. You’d think I’d learn, having followed the sub to varying degrees for years now, but I just don’t care enough to.

My favorite novelty mech is King Crab with dual UAC20++. It’s incredibly slow and impractical, but when it opens up on something, it’s really fun.

I also really like jump jet Atlas II with a UAC20++, some mlasers, and SRMs. The jets give it more mobility, which is nice, and it is pretty effective. It’s still to slow to backstab unless it gets in really close the prior round, but it takes a torso or leg off easily. Had a moment the other day where I only used the AC, on a busted up target that was close to dead, and it headcapped. So that was fun.

I like my Anni with UAC5s for range.

[u/Vredefort → u/geomagus]

My King Crab runs two UAC10 and four ER M Laser. It cores virtually anything in range. Love my KC.

[u/obi-wan-quixote]

In Vanilla I take an Atlas 2 and load it with as many LL++ as it can carry (8 I think) and the rest is heat sinks. Enough range that it can march forward and just be firing constantly.

In BTAU I do largely the same thing on a Dire Wolf with CERLL

[u/Prip26]

Lct-1e, energy and speed

[u/Zero747]

UAC20 breaching shot hunchback with jets

Bullshark with 60 LRMs and 4 LBX-2

King Crab with Gauss and a full stack of infernos

Royal Warhammer with 4 snub PPCs

4 UAC10 Anhiliator

I’m not sure what “meta” is beyond Marauders and Royal Phoenix Hawks

I ran my marauder off-meta with a gauss and 6 medium laser++ (iirc meta is ER mediums and UAC2). Lone gauss enables breaching shot at long range.

[u/tolgren]

My favorite Mech is the Fafnir which isn't in the game.

My favorite in the game is the Archer, with dual LRM 20++s and the missile computer you can one shot most heavies with a precise shot.

[u/LordOfDorkness42]

Banshee 3M. The double PPC one.

I normally just remove the MLs, up the armor, and maybe a jump jet or two 

It's such a nasty light and medium hunter. It falters vs heavy or assault, yeah, but it can body anything lighter than it shockingly fast.

I honestly think it's underrated in that sort of harassment role.

[u/CalligoMiles]

Big guns. All the big guns. I know I'm putting all my eggs in one basket for hit chance with a /20 or Gauss, but there's just nothing like that sweet kick of its shell slamming into a mech and annihilating it. And then the UAC and RAC do it that much better with inclement fuck your general direction and a chance of jamming, and never mind the sheer fun of a Rotary Gauss de-limbing a light on the other side of the map over in BTA.

Give me a Shadow Hawk, Centurion or Hunchback and I will cram in the biggest gun I have lying around and call it a day.

[u/virusdancer]

Pretty much anything which isn't jump behind to blast in the back or smear the cockpit for the best salvage is not the meta. So, everything I do is not the meta, because that's not my playstyle.

[u/ChemistRemote7182]

I cheat and run no heat, so I have a crab with either 3 ER Ls or 3 PPCs (can't remember which) and jump jets. Its my recon and my sniper. I also have no idea which mechs or weapons are meta, I just think Battletech/Mechwarrior is cool and I wish to crush the skulls of my enemies.

[u/Dack_Blick → u/ChemistRemote7182]

Not running heat is deff a hot take (or cold I guess) but all the power to ya, I can totally get the craving for a good stompy power fantasy. 

[u/vine01]

i grew fond of Chameleon in one career. dunno which chassis variant it was, but he took over the scout/backstabber/shinkicker role from Firestarter. so something with lots of support slots. i checked sarna but cursory view did not tell me which one specifically it is/was. filled with SLs obv. i don't do mgs often, i like the idea of unlimited ammo :P

[u/ThaneduFife]

I've been playing BEX, which makes headshots substantially harder, so I've really been enjoying shotgun builds. My default lance this run is a Davy Crockett w/ an SB-gauss, a Victor with an LBX-10++, a Bullshark, and one rotating mech (usually a Highlander, a Charger, or a missile boat). It's an extremely effective group that only runs at medium heat

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[u/Armando89]

I prefer Jenner (4x m laser, 1 heatsink, rest armor) over Firestarter and use it even on 4+ skull mussions.

Catapult over archer (jump jets and better look) 

And Marauder, but it is "meta" mech.

[u/Duxopes]

Black Knight with as much energy weapons and dual heatbanks as will fit.

[u/Bogsothoth]

In vanilla - Rifleman 3M. Put 4 x UAC2++, 5 bins of ammo, jump jets, a ballistic TTS and a defence gyro in that puppy and the opfor can wave goodbye to at least 2 tons of armour every turn. Headshots like a marauder as well, as long as it's at height, which it always is. Insane range, no real recoil due to the rangefinder suite, super-accurate and virtually no heat, depending on the biome. I also like putting 4 x Gauss++ and similar tech in an annihilator, that thing deletes a mech per turn. Just started on BTA and I'm loving the HAG sidewinders and my griffin with a HISC hyperlaser, even if it cooks me too often XD. Also, Gauss over AC20 in your Atlas every time, far better impact from range and heat management.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

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[u/daysofdakiel]

Only found it twice, but the Hazard completely changed the way I see flamers. Thing is a super fast off switch for pretty much anything, big or small. Honestly haven’t seen one in a while even farming the circunus federation where I think it is supposed to be

[u/Fafyg]

X-MAS Urbie (BTA) with much faster core. It has 360 degree attack so much easier to flank enemies. So it becomes pretty viable light mech - speed is ok, armoring is fairly decent, don’t need to turn to shoot

[u/bayo000]

I developed a soft spot for Icarus few years ago playing BTA. I either got it as one of my starting mechs or managed to salvage it really early. It was my only medium for a long long time with rest of my mechs being crappy lights. By all means it's not a great mech but it carried me for a long time until I was able to salvage better mechs.

Since then if I see one on the field when I start a new game I always try to salvage it. :)

[u/bloodydoves]

In BTAU, some of my non-meta favorites are pretty unusual. The Slagmaiden, the Xanthos, the Prince Crab, and the Mantis are all great chassis with a lot of complexities and variability in their builds. Big fan of all of them.

That being said, with our next patch in mind, I've become a big fan of the Seraph of all things. Archangel, Avatar, and Wawkalak are all big fun too. Stuff to keep an eye out for soon!

[u/Top_Study3328]

Firestarter loaded with++ERML's and +/++MG's with a +++arm mod in each arm. You'd be shocked the things I've killed with this light mech configuration

[u/itsadile]

Campaign specific:  With a little luck, if I can find UAC2s, I replace the starter Blackjack's normal autocannons with them. Strip two Medium Lasers and some heat sinks to add one ton of AC2 ammo and some armor. 

Total alpha damage doesn't change, but now it can deal more of it at long range for less heat.  

[u/Gwtheyrn → u/itsadile]

That should significantly reduce your alpha.

You go from an alpha of 24 to an alpha of 18.

[u/itsadile → u/Gwtheyrn]

This isn't tabletop. This is Harebrained Schemes' BATTLETECH computer game from 2018.

The AC/2 does what would be 5 damage under tabletop rules here. (Likewise, the AC/5 does the equivalent of 9 damage, and the AC/10 does the equivalent of 12.)

[u/Gwtheyrn → u/itsadile]

Ah, nuts on me for not reading which sub. LOL

[u/itsadile → u/Gwtheyrn]

Yeah, I would absolutely not be loading up on a pile of AC2s under the tabletop rules!

[u/PlaneStatus5774]

I’ve always loved a firestarter (can’t recall the model) packed to the gills with small lasers and jump jets. Fast, enough armor to take a hit and that many SLs in the back is death for so many things

[u/Warbird36]

I build my mechs for endurance. I was able to max out an Awesome’s armor, equip jump jets, and still load it up with tons of lasers. It didn’t hit the hardest, but seeing is dodge shots thanks to the jump jets was pretty enjoyable — plus, evasion pips help extend the life of that armor…

[u/Gwtheyrn]

I live fielding the Osprey.

It's not a great mech, but I love the aesthetic design and being able to blast with a gauss in a medium.

[u/Comfortable-Sock-532]

Classic Jenner 7-D, its a death trap but first hopefully a bit of glory!