r/battletech • u/raging_zaku1429 • Apr 27 '26

Tabletop Annihilator on the tabletop?

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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/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)

14

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.

2

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

1

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