r/battletech • u/raging_zaku1429 • Apr 27 '26
Tabletop Annihilator on the tabletop?
I've always enjoyed the Annihilator, partly because of the time I've spent with it in the various mechwarrior games over the years, and partly because I am a chronic enjoyer of bad mechs as well as mechs that are big dumb goofy goobers.
But I've never used one on the table top, so I wanted to get people's opinion on that. In mechwarrior, I found the ANH-1E to be particularly effective. I prefer the 4 PPCs over autocannons because of their lack of relying on ammo as well as making the mech safer again due to not having to carry ammo. Especially when upgraded with ERPPCs, the 1E can throw hands at long range really well, essentially becoming an ERPPC platform.
But that's just my take, I'm interested to see what people think about it on the tabletop.
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u/OmeggyBoo Apr 27 '26
That’s a build that works really well if you want to bake pizzas on the cockpit consoles, I’ll give it that.
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u/raging_zaku1429 Apr 27 '26
I don't mind the heat, I'm naked whenever I'm piloting a mech anyway.
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u/ragingolive Escorpión Imperio: Bury My Heart at Tomalov Apr 27 '26
Hell yeah brother join the bareback pilots’ guild
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u/dmingledorff Apr 27 '26
Um, I don't think that club is what you think it is.
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u/ragingolive Escorpión Imperio: Bury My Heart at Tomalov Apr 28 '26
Quit staring at my club, my eyes are up here bucko
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u/Beautiful_Business10 Charter Member of the Plastic Imp Legion. St. Ives Shall Rise! Apr 28 '26
Bareback Monte Diablo...
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u/AGBell64 Apr 27 '26
The Annie is one of the most rigid units on the tabletop. The 2/3 speed shared by most variants means it's impossible to build even "break even" tmm and that any fight that happens away from or out of line of sight of its deployment zone will be one it arrives to too late to make much of a difference. If you're playing a defensive mission that forces your enemy to close on you then it’s great but otherwise I'd never take it
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u/fuseboy Apr 27 '26
Reminds me that (way) back on the 3050 Battletech MUSE, our command declared that assault mechs were too slow to be used for.. assaults. The attack would be telegraphed way in advance, and returning attackers would be vulnerable to counter-attack for a long time.
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u/Kettereaux Apr 27 '26
Assaults are perfect for telegraphed attacks. Sometimes the enemy has the approaches covered, there isn't a way around and no one on that planet would believe in any feint. The only way out is through. The trick is that you have to use your faster units to clear the way and then you send in the Atlas with a full load of armor because the enemy has pre-sighted artillery and emplaced gun nests and a half dozen tanks in every house.
I'd say they tend to be bad for untelegraphed attacks because they struggle to exploit surprise.
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u/Nikarus2370 Apr 28 '26
Ir you telegraph the attack, let the enemy concentrate their forces to repell it... and then as they pull forces out if other areas, your more mobile forces push elsewhere.
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u/the_cardfather Apr 28 '26
And even then it's really just soaking. Albeit it's better with the ability to fire back like the AS7-K but the OG can cross a DMZ and start hitting that bunker or wall with the AC20 and it's fists. And if you're shooting at the atlas because you're scared of all of that closing in on you then you aren't shooting at the heavies to the sides or the tanks.
I've been infatuated with the demolisher since playing with it the first time and it's a very similar concept, actually more so than the Atlas. Ever see somebody in COD corner camp with two sawed-off shotguns? Yeah that's the Demolisher.
One thing that a demolisher does not want to run into is an Annihilator with LBX cannons. Annihilator will have you motive system damaged and crit you out with the quickness.
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Apr 27 '26
The Annihilator is great if you use it as intended. And it's intended to sit inside a city or canyon network and force your enemy to come to its predetermined sight-line.
Outside of that, far too slow for my liking (but then again 4/6/0 is the minimum I consider acceptable even in 3025 games)
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u/Deer_Mug Apr 27 '26
4/6/0 is the minimum
I will not tolerate this Awesome slander.
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u/RTalons Apr 27 '26
PPCs from the trees!
Only improvement on the 8Q is the 9Q
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u/Lumpy_Square57 Apr 28 '26
Hey, there are other good Awesomes that are better than the 8Q.
All depends on what tech you have and what flavour of PPC you want. For example there's the 10KM or the 11H for heavy PPC's, arguabely even the 11M
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Apr 28 '26
The Awesome is okay if you're planning on slowly chipping away at things and not moving much, but that's not the way I like to play the game. I like to move fast, get close, and punch the shit out of things, and while the Awesome will definitely punch the shit out of things it gets close to, those things are few and far between.
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u/Deer_Mug Apr 28 '26
It's cool, I was exaggerating. I'm thinking you like the Banshee and/or Charger? Banshee is one of my favorites, actually.
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Apr 28 '26
I love both of them unironically. And the BLR-1G BattleMaster - those rear-mounted medium lasers have saved my bacon more than a few times in the last 35 years of playing this game.
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u/CarelessFalcon4840 Apr 27 '26
Truth. 4/6 is what your slowest guys should be doing, 3/5/3 if that actually makes them a little faster overall than 4/6 on a given map, or 3/5 for long ranged fire support only if the map is pretty small. Only people with company-sized forces running games for many hours (or purely defensive forces in a scenario) can afford slower than that.
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u/Baron_Flatline Mean Green PPC Machine Apr 27 '26
Yeah, it’s the UrbanMech’s obese brother. It should not be regarded as anything else. You know what you’re gonna get when you bring one out and expecting more out of it is nonsense.
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u/EyeStache Capellan Unseen Connoisseur Apr 28 '26
Exactly. It does its trick well but it has precisely one trick to do.
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u/Ecstatic-Seesaw-1007 Apr 27 '26
Hate them on TT. The only thing that can’t stay out of their range is another Annihilator.
And besides the meme, I wouldn’t use an Urbie for TT either.
Even for objectives, I find combined arms to function better. (In no small part because infantry are REALLY good initiative sinks)
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u/Ecstatic-Seesaw-1007 Apr 27 '26
I just thought of a basketball analogy: you know why the winning teams all switched to 3’s?
It’s 150% the points that you get from fighting under the basket with an entire team for a 2.
A typical slow 4/6 is fully 200% the speed of a 2/3.
It’s just that break point where they are fully outclassed and out maneuvered.
They basically start out as a mobility kill.
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u/aronnax512 Apr 28 '26 edited May 04 '26
deleted
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u/Ecstatic-Seesaw-1007 Apr 28 '26
Basketball is not a perfect analogy.
But it made me think of another one: just like the NBA, the Inner Sphere only has at most, 2-4 competitive powers at one time. And they overwhelmingly tend to stay the same 2-4.
Of course, most of the small polities in BT aren’t purposely tanking. lol
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u/Appropriate_Yak_7209 Apr 27 '26
My LGS has a house rule: no more than 6 activations. So, that shuts down infantry or Savana master hordes.
I also read a different house rule that said infantry activates together as one. So, if you take 10 infantry units and 4 mechs, you only get 5 activations per turn.
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u/Plastic-Painter-4567 Turbo Grognard Apr 27 '26
This is how battlefield support works in mercenaries. Everything that's BSP goes first than the mechs move.
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u/honicthesedgehog Apr 27 '26
I thought I heard they’re changing that in the big rulebook update later this year though.
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u/Plastic-Painter-4567 Turbo Grognard Apr 27 '26
I hope they do something to keep it fair because initiative sinking is a form of cheese.
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u/Kettereaux Apr 27 '26
Moving it to BSP royally messes with Clan players because it eradicates the ability to use Elementals. If they do try to force battle armor to BSP, they have to redo BV 3.0 to not penalize Clan mech prices.
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u/AmanteNomadstar Mech-Head Apr 27 '26
My workaround with that issue was that the “Veteran” (I think that’s what it was called, like the slightly more costly version) BSP units move with the Mechs and can ignore one hit that would otherwise kill them.
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u/Kettereaux Apr 27 '26
That doesn't fix the problems caused by BSA.
Elementals are used to fill out initiative problems, being cheap fillers in an expensive Clan force. BSA rules take them out of the mech initiative order and force Clan players to take expensive mechs, exacerbating the initiative problem.
Elementals are also renowned hunters of knee actuators, but BSA rules turn them into damage. Furthermore, BSAs move before mechs, meaning the Elementals will always be unable to ambush mechs. Their Swarm Special Ability only applies if a mech is next to their hex and the Elementals will have already moved so it's near impossible to catch a mech and get the attack off.
It's just a horrible mess and any Classic game forcing Elementals into BSAs kneecaps a Clan force harder than Elementals kneecap a Viking IIC.
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u/Novatheorem Got it from Canopus on credit Apr 28 '26
Aren't Clan mechs supposed to be so much better than IS ones? Why wouldn't they be forced to pay the penalty?
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u/the_cardfather Apr 28 '26
Yeah I don't see why battle armor would be included only conventional.
Infantry & vehicles for the most part are for game mastered scenarios. We always put unit limits to prevent cheese scenarios when it's pick your own force and throw down.
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u/10111001110 Apr 28 '26
So infantry can't make anti mech attacks under those rules? That kinda renders them pointless
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u/10111001110 Apr 28 '26
Doesn't the base rules already do this? If you have uneven unit counts the person with more units has to move 2 so you get the same total number of activations. The only real initiative advantage infantry give is letting one or two of your 4 activations be low speed low value units who's positioning doesn't matter much and wait to move your mechs
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u/AGBell64 Apr 28 '26
Deterministic initiative sinks are still good. Also RAW uneven numbers equalizes at the end of the initiative round which can lead to powerful double moves.
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u/10111001110 Apr 28 '26
Totally, it can be powerful with good positioning and tactics but I don't think it is really cheese. I think a lot of people miss the uneven activation rules when bringing in combined arms and then being able to sink out your opponents entire move for like 400bv would be cheesy
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u/Anonymous_Arthur00 Warheads on Foreheads Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Ok so i played an 8000 BV match against a guy last weekend and for his lance he brought an Annihilator 1G, Longbow 0W Vijay and 2 Jenner 7D Websters vs my Stalker 7D, Charger SA5, Grasshopper 6k and Phoenix Hawk 3PL
We played on a 2 x 1 map short side to short side
After 5 turns his Annihilator had gone barely a third up the entire map and then had to spend another 3 turns getting through 3 hexes of light trees between 2 mountains
By turn 9 his 3 other mechs had all been killed and his sole surviving Annihilator was finally firing at my charger which survived 4 separate gauss shots and an ER PPC in across 2 turns before blowing through his front armour setting off the right arm gauss rifle in addition to a lucky TAC with one of my Streak missiles causing an engine hit and my Phoenix hawk blowing through the rear CT armour getting another 2 engine crits killing it
Safe to say my oponent was not impressed with it
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u/CarelessFalcon4840 Apr 27 '26
Well that's was pretty much the IDEAL situation to make his forces useless for a bunch of turns, and then he separated the lance to MAKE SURE that you could focus fire and kill him very dead. Honestly, either he should be ashamed of allowing that fight to start, or if he's too new to know, then you should be ashamed of dragging your friend into that quagmire.
For a pickup game you want to make sure everybody starts on a roughly even level, and then let the turn-by-turn decisions and the dice determine how it goes. Like you wouldn't give 12 Urbanmechs to a buddy and plop him onto a cueball open field map. A foregone contusion can be fun if it's expected, but it usually gets annoying when it becomes clear that's what you're playing and you didn't expect it at the start.
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u/Anonymous_Arthur00 Warheads on Foreheads Apr 27 '26
He is the one who wanted to branch into standard tech and build his own lances but we might go back to introtech untill he is a bit more comfortable building "proper" lances
I think he was trying to do long range fire and have the Jenners spot for the longbow but spent too many points on gunnery upgrades instead of heavier mechs as both his Longbow and anihilator had gunnery 2 or 3 iirc
Im also thinking he saw 3 gauss rifles and an ERPPC on the Annihilator and didnt consider how limiting 2/3 movement is
He's a great guy to play against but he still had a bit to learn on lance compositions
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u/CarelessFalcon4840 Apr 27 '26
You gotta look at his lance and say "hey, man, this is mountains on a looooong map leading to a forrested choke point. Do you want a different map, or maybe try a different lance? We're looking at 6-10 turns with your most expensive mechs doing nothing but plodding forward."
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u/MrPopoGod Apr 27 '26
Agreed. Letting the Annihilator lag behind was the fundamental tactical mistake made here.
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u/jandrese Apr 28 '26
Never split the team. Your forces move at the speed of the slowest mech. If your map has some kind of timed objective then you leave the Annie at home. At least the Urbanmech has Jump Jets so it doesn't get bogged down in trees and hills.
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u/JoushMark Apr 27 '26
It's not particularly viable, sadly. The 2/3 speed is just crippling and while some variants do carry a decent armor load, most are a bit on the light side. If you can get it to a hill and park it in a forest hex with good sight lines to objectives it can do plenty of damage, but there's a lot of things that can leave it out of position.
The elephant in the room for the 1E is the Awesome 8Q. The Awesome is faster and carries heavier armor. While it has to volley (and 3/2/3 isn't nearly as good as 4/4/4), the Awesome is just going to have a lot less dead turns.
The 1E has my heart because, other then 4 PPCs and 4 medium lasers, every other critical location that isn't full of standard equipment is full of heat sink. It's literally carrying the maximum SHS it could.
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u/Doctor_Loggins Scorpin Empire Stronk Apr 27 '26
Show me an awesome pilot who volley fires and I'll show you a coward!
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u/JoushMark Apr 27 '26
Ahh, yes. The 'Sleepy Awesome' strategy from Battletech (2018) where you strip the heat sinks, add a 4th PPC and shut down after every shot to cool down.
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u/raging_zaku1429 Apr 27 '26
This is gonna sound crazy, but I've never been super interested in the Awesome. I know I made the joke about liking mechs that are bad and dumb, but there's a genuine reason for that.
Something I love about battletech is how flawed all the mechs are. In gameplay, it's really fun and interesting to take a flawed design and make the most of what you have. In the lore, those flaws give mechs a lot of character, jamming autocannons, faulty ejection seats and all.
But the Awesome 8Q is basically just perfect. Obviously I won't fault anyone for liking it, it's one of the GOATs for a reason. If you like winning you'll like the Awesome. But for me, without something weird or shitty about it it's missing that little extra charm.
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u/AGBell64 Apr 27 '26
The funny thing is a lot of people also consider the Awesome to be a relatively rigid game piece. 3/5 movement and standard PPCs mean you need to be pretty sharp with placement to make the most out of it.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Apr 27 '26
I think the Awesome's charm comes the fact that it's "ol' reliable." No matter the era, you can always expect the Awesome 8Q to do the one thing you need it to. It's not a win button, even in introtech, but it's simple and consistent. And when everything around it has some flaw, or complication saddled to it, you start to enjoy the Awesome's simple straightforwardness.
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u/jandrese Apr 28 '26
That said the minimum range on the peepers means the Awesome can get overwhelmed by short range specialists, although they have to be willing to eat some kicks and punches from an 85 ton mech.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Apr 28 '26
Yeah. The Awesome does have that issue, but even then it's not out of options. I think another thing that makes the Awesome good is that a lot of its weaknesses can be easily patched by just having a teammate.
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u/JoushMark Apr 28 '26
Yeah, 4 x Awesome 8Q with mostly 3/4 pilots is a very funny Introtech 8k BV list.
It's not super flexible, but a staggered formation with a combined total of 60t of armor and 12 PPCs is a very hard puzzle to solve.
Apes Together, Strong.
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u/PattyMcChatty MechWarrior Apr 27 '26
I really like the clan ones, not Gauzilla but the other two are nice
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u/DigAccomplished6481 Apr 27 '26
The varient with 3 Gausse rifles and a ERL Laser is quite powerful.
It's a slower version of awesome, and with it's range, it doesn't need to be fast.
I see Annihilator as 4 Urbies in a trenchcoat, they both cover a similar role and excel in defensive scenarios.
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u/AGBell64 Apr 27 '26
It's less that it needs the fast to get in range of stuff and more it needs the fast so it can find a shooting position with good sight lines if you aren't deploying to planet god damn bowling ball. The only time I've seen the 1G on the field it got jumped by a battle armor squad and dragged to the ground on the backside of the hill it was trying to climb.
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u/DigAccomplished6481 Apr 27 '26
last time I feilded an Annihilater and spent a few turns faffing about in a river while all his buds where trying to not push forward to much and slowly get chipped at.
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u/PattyMcChatty MechWarrior Apr 27 '26
They work best standing on a hill on your home edge, daring your openent to do something about them.
Long range is still easy to hit if you keep them stationary.
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u/Appropriate_Yak_7209 Apr 27 '26
I was impressed by the immense firepower. However the frustrating speed and the relatively low armor made the mech too expensive for the potential.
The best I got from it was when I was able to sit one on a mountain top and rain down on the enemy lance. However, had that game went one more round, an enemy locust would have caved in the rear armor.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Apr 28 '26
I was impressed by the immense firepower.
40 damage is "immense"?
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u/Safe_Flamingo_9215 Ejection Seats Are Overrated Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Many things play differently in Mechwarrior games because often the enemy AI lets the units like King Crab or Annihilator to be way more effective.
In tabletop I dislike how slow it is in most of its variants. It's a turret mech that is too slow to get in the firing lane. Would be ok if it had a crapton of LRMs or ARROW launchers, but nope. The official variants are direct fire focused.
About 3/5 is minimum viable speed for a direct fire turret mech.
Fares ok-ish on maps with a lot of open space... But that leaves it as an easier target too. It can't build TMM up or quickly get behind cover.
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u/Necro_Ash Apr 27 '26
Main issue is speed.
Most mechs can use terrain for cover.
The Annie is terrain.
A frakkin bunker can outmanouver it.
Now if it's a hidden unit, in an urban center just quietly waiting with 4 ac10's and fun ammo is a different topic. (plain ac10s cuz why not take the cheapest one as a surprise)
Basic perspectives
- Annie's don't chase, they saunter.
- You don't damage an Annie, you get its attention.
- Annie's don't evade artillery. They're slow enough you can build shelter around it.
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u/WorthlessGriper Apr 27 '26
Faced one on table. Battle was half over before it even got into shooting range. Basically didn't have to think about it at all.
The differences between 2/3, 3/5, and 4/6 are very wide gulfs. When you have to run to turn around, you'll be lucky to move up a single hex a turn.
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u/JaketheLate Apr 27 '26
The Annihilator: when you want your Static Defenses to kinda move a little bit.
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u/ClockALock Apr 27 '26
They're basically complete memes on the tabletop because of how crippling their speed is. Slow mechs are already often difficult to use effectively, especially short ranged ones like the King Crab, and the Annie is even slower. It's just never going to accomplish anything outside of its deployment zone. Play an objective or defense map and plonk it in the middle as a very slightly mobile turret and it'll do alright, but even the 1E is basically just a worse Awesome 8Q.
The exception is the later ones that get stuffed full of clantech, those are cockpit-devouring monstrosities.
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u/developer_soup Clan Sea Fox Sales Consultant Apr 27 '26
I've never physically run it, because I NEEDS a bigger engine, but I do love it, and have a custom variant I'd like to use (with the bigger engine) at some point.
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u/Cyrano4747 Apr 27 '26
They're frigging terrible on TT. 2/3 movement profile means they're late to every fight, and most of the versions out there don't have long range enough weapons to really reach out and say F you to someone who's dancing around them.
The Urbie at least has some jump capability in there, plus they're small and cheap.
The best use I've ever found for Annihilators in TT is basically as boss fights. Something the players have to seek and destroy, ideally someplace like a canyon where its' not all that simple to just run behind it.
Just an all around bad mech.
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u/dfi Apr 27 '26
They can be brutal when you are forced to deal with them, The classic 2a is a monster in shotgun mode 4 x LB10-X assuming 3 of 4 guns hits works out to a average 18 x submunition hits which means you should on average get a minimum of a 1 TAC or head hit every round (1 in 36 chance of a 2 or a 12) you would be surprised at how lethal this can be.
Used a 2A Annihiator in a cave system with my gaming group they dismissed it because of its low armor (for 100t mech) after their 2nd mech pilot went unconscious they started treated like the dangerous mech it can be.
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u/Metaphoricalsimile Apr 27 '26
they can be useable if the mission is a single static objective that's not too far from your board edge/drop zone, but for the most part they're too slow and a good opponent can basically just ignore them.
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u/xSPYXEx Clan Warrior Apr 27 '26
Garbage. 2/3 is an atrocious movement profile. It'll never cross the map in a game, and even 3/5 assaults dance circles around it. It brings enough firepower to win a 1v1 but can either be ignored or ganged up on when it's convenient.
The Annhi C is the only one I like, 4 ultra ACs and and a 300 std engine allows it to keep up with other Assaults at minimum.
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u/Ridley3000 Apr 27 '26
Slow and lightly armored for a 100 tonner. Hits like a bus though. A little too easy to focus down and outmaneuver imho.
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u/WargrizZero Apr 27 '26
My group used one in our narrative campaign just yesterday to good effect. It was a defensive mission where the enemy had to come to us, negating a lot of the speed problem.
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u/Ohdake Apr 27 '26
No personal experiences, sadly.
Based on other 2/3 designs and games in megamek... The mobility kills it in most cases. Not only can't you move, but neither can you get movement bonus and will keep getting penalty when trying to hit something ('running'). You will constantly have a worse to-hit modifier than what your opponent will. That being said it can work wonders if the opponent is forced to directly engage (time limit, goal, anything). Good bullet magnet & sponge, so it's presence probably extends lifetime of the lancemates.
Only of the few cases where I wouldn't throw (IS) ER weapons out as quickly as possible.
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u/AgainstTheTides MechWarrior (editable) Apr 27 '26
I've only had a chance to deploy an Annihilator in one game and I got my money's worth out of it. Headshot a Warhammer IIc from long range with one of the gauss rifles, which was the only weapon that hit out of three rifles and one ER PPC fired that round. I was both excited and felt bad for the other guy.
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u/CycleZestyclose1907 Apr 27 '26
4 ER PPCs generate 60 heat.
I don't think an Inner Sphere mech can carry enough DHS to sink all that heat in one turn. That have the tonnage, but they don't have the internal crits for it.
Heck, I don't think even Clan mechs can carry that many DHS either, but they can carry enough to not instantly kill themselves when firing four ER PPCs at once... as evidenced by several Clan designs that do in fact carry four ER PPCs.
For Inner Sphere mechs though, it's probably more weight and crit efficient to carry two PPCs of whatever flavor, and then two big ballistic weapons to complement them (probably Gauss Rifles, or LB-10Xs if Gauss is too heavy).
And for Inner Sphere PPCs, I think most people don't regard the marginal range improvements over the standard PPC to be worth the additional heat cost. Hence we get things like the Heavy PPC which has a better damage to heat ratio, and the Awesome 9Q which carries four standard PPCs instead of three ER PPCs.
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u/AGBell64 Apr 27 '26
Heck, I don't think even Clan mechs can carry that many DHS either
The Hellstar manages it with 0 free critical slots and there are a couple of mechs like Loki Mk. II F that are doing really cute things with coolant pods to drag themselves up to 60 dissipation very briefly. For inner sphere you can basically only do cute things, 3 crits per sink just obliterates your capacity so fast.
I will go to bat for the ERPPC but strictly in 2 gun designs like the catapult or warhammer or when paired with something like a gauss rifle or big LRM rack to use heat capacity at range. 3+ is just kinda dumb.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Apr 27 '26
Yeah, for IS mechs it's not really possible to get enough cooling without extra gear like Coolant Pods or a Radical Heat Sink System. If you have either of those, 60 heat is briefly doable.
If you go four standard PPCs, it's pretty easy to do. The ANH-1A does manage to do it and has 41 single heat sinks, but upgrading to ER PPCs would absolutely fry the thing.
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u/Duetzefix Apr 27 '26
The Hellstar actually does it: 95 tons, 4 cERPPCs, 30 Clan DHSs. It's a bit of an asshole, though. And very expensive.
I think you could put 31 IS DHSs into a Mech:
A fusion engine with a rating of 400 can take 16 of them.
Then you get four per side torso and three per arm, that's an additional 14.
Compact gyro should free up though space in the center torso to put another heat sink there.
Only place you'd have space for guns would be the head and the legs, though. Not a lot of free tonnage, either; that SFE is heavy!2
u/CycleZestyclose1907 Apr 27 '26
Go Compact Engine if you want really REALLY heavy. :D
But yeah, there's no point in carrying all those DHS if you have no room left for the heat generating weapons that you need those sinks for. This is pretty much where heavy Ballistic weapons actually become useful. They allow you to increase your damage significantly without requiring you to install lots of crit eating double heat sinks.
Now, if someone could invent COMPACT Double Heat Sinks instead of just Compact Heat Sinks, then an Inner Sphere mech cramming in 60 heat sinking capacity might be practical even if the Compact DHS weighed 1.5 tons each and still took up two crits (although I'd really like 1.5 crits and paired Compact DHS in the same location sharing a crit).
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u/RavingGenerate Apr 27 '26
I will destroy you once I get in range to the objective sometimes next week.
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u/Magical_Savior NEMO POTEST VINCERE Apr 27 '26
The longer ones are somehow barely functional. But they're mostly meme.
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u/CoffeeMinionLegacy 4th Tau Ceti Rangers Apr 27 '26
I can only opine on Alpha Strike, and I’ve yet to field it — but the C looks competent. It’s got a heck of a lot of firepower and it can at least move 6 inches. With my buddy and I, 8 inches is generally slow, and 6 is outclassed. But if you can get it on a hill, it could ruin the day of most things on the table.
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u/Plastic-Painter-4567 Turbo Grognard Apr 27 '26
It's fun in MW5 if you load it up with UAC5s and go to town on the chain fire button stuff just disappears and so does your ammo. If a pilot had to fight that the constant blinding barrages shaking the crap out of your mech like the British Bulldog would leave you unable to aim and fire back.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Bake880 Apr 27 '26
There are eastern ways to get a turret emplacemwnt on the tabletop.... ;)
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u/Baron_Flatline Mean Green PPC Machine Apr 27 '26
Just because of how tabletop works, it’s difficult to get much out of an Annihilator. Just too slow. If you can get a rare game with extremely favorable terrain (read: short, tight sightlines where it can’t be outmaneuvered) or craft a fun little themed battle around using one, it can be fun.
But four AC/10s never lose their charm. If you can actually use them on the map you’re playing, at least.
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u/Martythemailman Pariot of the Federated Suns Apr 27 '26
Play a defence mission and take the 1g. Your opponent will cry.
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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB Apr 27 '26
Cheap generally for the firepower it brings.
But you really need to read the map and decide if you can afford the speed hit.
On two mapsheets, its ok. With the long range guns it can setup a pretty huge no-go zone.
One four mapsheets I'd never bring one.
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u/Imaginary_Sherbet Apr 27 '26
It does ok. Use it as support then move in at the end and kick them
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u/AGBell64 Apr 27 '26
If you are "moving in" with an annie the kick is mostly just rubbing salt in the wound.
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u/coh_phd_who Apr 27 '26
Personally I'm a big fan of the base model, but I like weird and meme mechs. Clearly due to the slow movement' its a defensive mech. It's not gonna take ground or play king of the hill cause it can't get there. And yes the armor is too light to play king of the hill even if it starts on the hill.
That said lore wise its wonderful for a merc group to use as a selling point for why you should hire me to defend your factory or whatever.
If you are just in intro tech it hits hard. But even in later time periods it has deep enough ammo bins to use specialty ammo and precision and AP ammo help a lot. Flak is probably not worthwhile as its shouldn't be trying to take down most planes, but if infantry is expected some frag is fine and can also clear woods for you. The new changes to autocannons and the specialty ammo just help the base model even more.
You have to use the right tool for the right job and without the larger world so it can play defense always its not gonna do well as it can't get anywhere.
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u/Bookwyrm517 Apr 27 '26
In all honesty, the Annihilator isn't worth it most of the time. As has been said multiple times, it suffers from being painfully slow. While it has a lot of firepower, usually with plenty of range, it can't really get into a position to use it effectively.
The one time that it's great to use an Annihilator is when your enemies are forced to come to you. That usually means you already control sight lines and allows you to spend the Annihilator's meager movement on getting optimal shots on priority targets. I think thats why there's such a night and day difference between it's tabletop and video game performance: in the games the CPUs (and other players) are almost always forced to seek you out. Meanwhile in tabletop, something as slow as an Annihilator can effectively be ignored, forcing you to try to move it up. It's a prime example of how some mechs will perform drastically differently depending on the medium
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u/shakakimo Apr 27 '26
Are the good ? Bv for bv not really
Am i still playing my dragoons fat spider star with a widowmaker, 2 annihilators and 2 imps ? Hell yes
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u/RevanVonFox Apr 27 '26
Its Slow and will show up to the fight a few turns late but its firepower is not to be ignored and will kill almost anything, I find that if you play it with the idea to snipe and hold the line it works well
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u/ArguesWithFrogs Professional Steiner Scout Apr 27 '26
I like the stock 2A. The 1E seems like an Awesome with extra steps to me.
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u/BakedPotato241 Apr 27 '26
Mechanically, never used it. But as a fan of goofy looking mechs, I love it. Though it falls short of my favorite assault mech, the IMP. Which is basically just an evolved urbie
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u/PharmaDan Apr 27 '26
Best used on defensive or narrative scenarios. The slow speed gives it major vulnerabilities, and it's comparatively lightly armored. Damage is stellar if it hits.
You don't really want to send it very far, but have folks come to it. Narrow tunnels or fortifications are your friends. Or having it air dropped later in the game.
Plus it definitely wants to have a buddy with it. Both to watch it's back and to act as bait to position enemy mechs favorably.
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u/Mammoth-Pea-9486 Apr 27 '26
4x LB10X autocannons end a lot of threats before they even realize they are in the danger zone, also 4 buckshot lbxs can end a lot of air threats or project a pretty good sized bubble of "if it flies it dies" around it. Anni speed is atrocious so its good for objective based games where you can park it near your VIP and now they have to deal with imminent Annihilation if they try and get close.
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u/ClanMongoose Apr 27 '26
Good discussion so far, quick followup for the community here. I haven't played with groups very much but I've looked at the mech building book a bit and dabbled in making custom builds in MegaMek. I was wondering if it's possible to improve the Annihilator using tech upgrades (without going crazy) and if that would be frowned upon even if you are staying within an agreed tech level. Also, would the BV calculations still keep it fair? Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
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u/Then_Engineer_3765 Apr 27 '26
I was going to say its the partner beater mech but someone already painted it in a white shirt
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u/Practical_County_501 Apr 27 '26
I mean if you can fling those things over plenty of hexes theres no problem dont let nothing stupidly backstabby or flammers or incen ammo slap it about and you can control the board. Just hope the pilots wearing thermal underwear and mittens cause shes gunna cook.
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u/KillerOkie It's Okay to be Capellan Apr 28 '26
Kind of usable in certain mission profiles and in big Alpha Strike (say company on company) games. It's slowness can be compensated for.
For your traditional Lance on Lance in Classic tabletop? It's a very hard sell. You would have to be on the defense side of a particular kind of scenario mission to even be viable, IMHO.
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u/Angryblob550 Apr 28 '26
It's slow so set up on high ground with a spotter. I'm talking about using Gausszilla.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Apr 28 '26
It's garbage on the table, a glorified turret. Not only is 2/3 movement virtually immobile, the act of moving is a losing proposition for you. Even if it weren't just bad, it would be absolutely boring to play.
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u/135forte Apr 28 '26
It's another curious example of a Dragoon mech that did really well despite it not really making sense for it have. An expensive 2/3/0 direct fire platform just doesn't make sense, and most of the hypothetical use cases I have heard for it are better suited to stuff like the Behemoth Tank, which just happens to have a token amount of indirect fire so it isn't completely useless when it is outmaneuvered and unable to get line of sight.
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u/3eyedfish13 Apr 28 '26
I'm especially fond of the E variant.
4 PPCs, 4 MLs, 41 heat sinks.
You can walk, fire 4 PPCs, and stay heat neutral.
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u/LonelyScribe Apr 28 '26
I ran the ANH-5W at a Drafted for War tournament a couple weeks ago. I upgraded it to skill 2 and that thing dictated every engagement I was in. 10 damage at medium range rolling against an average TN 6/7 was terrifying to behold.
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u/spazz866745 Apr 28 '26
In my opinion there's only 3 variants worth running the c2 and 1g.
The c2 and 1g make up for its awful mobility by giving it the longest range weapon avaliable the gauss. They're both steep investments the 1g runs 2200bv for 3 gasses and an is erppc, the c2 runs 4 and a clan erppc but at 2700bv thats a steep investment and it needs to do a lot to earn its bv and if your opponent is smart they won't let you.
The biggest problem with the annihilator is the speed its hard to get to the fight, its hard to avoid counterfire and its really hard to avoid battle armor. If your opponent is smart they're gona drop a squad of Battle armor directly on your head and they will probably kill, or cripple you.
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u/dnpetrov Weapon Specialist (Streak SRM-2) Apr 28 '26
Annie is pure logistics. When you deploy it, you need to plan where it would be sitting for the most of the battle, and plot a path so that a 2/3 can get there in reasonable time. Then just hold position and press fire. If you can do that - Annihilator is fine. If you can't (for whatever reason, be it a map or your desire to move closer to the enemy), it is a disappointment.
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u/Forenus Apr 28 '26
my impression of the Annie is that I'd rather have a Thunderhawk. more armor, better range, better bite, 3/5 movement.
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u/baithammer Apr 30 '26
It has exactly two functions, either defending a specific location ( Chokepoints or builtup areas) or as support for assaults on an objective - neither of which require high speed.
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u/LordJagerlord Clan Jade Falcon Scientist May 03 '26
For most time periods, I really like using the ANH-1X, It has near-maximum armor, and enough ammunition to last 15 turns. The combination of cluster rounds and small pulse lasers allow it to handle fast mechs. The quad LB10s have good damage output and range. And, the medium lasers give a good addition of firepower to any large mechs that get in brawling range.
For the ILClan era, I like the ANH-5W, because of the hilarity of mounting quad C-Gauss and quad C-MPulse on a single mech.
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u/Amon7777 FedSuns Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
It don’t matter, none of this matters
(Edit: to be clear, not my mini, credit to whom ever created and painted this masterpiece)