Courtesy of Eldoniousrex
“I’m tellin’ ya, man, I’m cursed! Just cursed!” Private Coop McRawder shouted to no one in particular. He was already three sheets to the wind after being on Galatea for just two hours—shore leave as the Rowdy McRawders rested and refitted before returning to find contracts in the Hinterlands. Coop, the youngest of the McRawder clan, was a regular at the Easy Eights bar whenever he was planetside.
He also tended to get roaring drunk and then loudly express his grievances to the entire bar. If his mother wasn’t very good friends with the Easy Eight’s owner, he’d have already been tossed into the Galatean dirt.
This time, however, a rosie-cheeked lass sitting at the bar next to him was just drunk enough to bite. “Alright, alright,” she said, vainly attempting to lower Coop’s volume with a conciliatory note. The bartender nodded his thanks at the intervention. “Why are you cursed?”
“My ‘Mech keeps getting blown out from under me, that’s why!” Coop roared, slamming back his beer and calling for another. The bartender rolled his eyes, but dutifully refilled Coop’s stein.
Undeterred by the volume, the woman pressed, “So why does your ‘Mech keep getting shot up? Y’never heard of cover before?” She tried to make the question flirtatious rather than accusational, but her girlish giggle instead came out as a stifled burp.
“‘Course I have!” Coop shouted after another gulp. “You shoulda seen me on my last mission! I was duckin’ and weavin’ outta trees, hiding behind hills, diving into knee-deep ponds. I was a regular special-ops commando!”
This actually brought a moment’s silence between the two as she considered his situation. “Well, what ‘Mech you drivin’?”
Another gulp, then Coop grinned. “A Cougar!”
“Well there’s your problem,” she said, taking a more measured sip from her own beer. Coop had expected the sound of awe that usually accompanied his declaration of driving a Clan OmniMech. The derisive tone made him turn to face his new companion.
“And what’s wrong with a Cougar?!”
Finishing her drink, the woman also turned to face Coop, revealing her name to be ‘Sally’ thanks to the tag on her technician’s fatigues. “First, it’s slow as hell for a light ‘Mech. Don’t matter how much dogin’ and weavin’ you’re doing when you’re the same speed as heavy.”
Sally called for a refill before continuing. “Second, you’ve got barely more armor than a Commando. But your biggest problem is you’ve got more guns than most know what to do with.”
“Oh, trust me, I know what to do with ’em,” Coop retorted with a raised eyebrow.
“Sure, killer,” Sally replied with a dismissive sip. “But that much firepower on that vulnerable a platform is always going to be a top-priority target for any commander worth their salt.”
Another moment of blessed quiet fell over the bar as Coop thought upon Sally’s wisdom. “So I’m not being paranoid—they really are gunning for me?”
“Yep.”
The revelation stunned Coop, who downed his beer with the glum realization that he’d been bait for the Rowdy McRawders ever since his first deployment. The silence deepened before it dawned on Sally that she may have accidentally burst an emotional bubble she didn’t know existed. Luckily for Coop, she had a thing for sad puppy types, and now that he wasn’t being a drunken lout, Sally’s reappraisal of the young man was much more favorable. She then came to a decision.
“I’m off-shift for another hour. Wanna head back to my place?”
Coop blinked, then downed his beer. As the two left, the bartender saw Coop had left more than double his usual tip.
Following the disastrous Refusal War, then Khan Marthe Pryde ordered the reconstruction of the Clan Jade Falcon touman with all-new ‘Mech designs. Those designs would become known as the Fire Falcon, Black Lanner, Night Gyr, and Turkina, but Pryde demanded a fifth design to complete a full Clan Star. However, Marthe Pryde recognized that she’d already exhausted her scientists by tasking them with designing four new ‘Mechs from the ground up. For the fifth, she allowed them to start with an existing chassis rather than start over from scratch. That chassis was the Adder (Inner Sphere reporting name Puma), with the final design being known throughout the Clans and Inner Sphere as the Cougar.
What Falcon scientists came up with typified the Clan’s aggressive tendencies, but it’s arguable whether it’s an improvement over the Adder. The Cougar‘s available OmniPod space comes to 19 tons—more than half the overall weight of the chassis—but this enormous firepower comes at the cost of speed and armor. The Cougar has just 5.5 tons of ferro fibrous armor (half a ton less than the Adder), and a top speed of just 86 kph, the average of most Clan heavy ‘Mechs.
The Cougar was also deployed without the usual battery of tests that Clan scientists would require of a new OmniMech. Instead, the Cougar was given its baptism of fire during the Battle for Coventry in 3058. Lyran and mercenary forces initially considered the Cougar a new variant of the Adder and were surprised by the Cougar‘s blistering firepower. Even though it was often driven by Falcon cadets before their Trials of Position, it was deployed in such numbers that its overwhelming offensive capabilities often made up for lackluster piloting.
Following the Battle of Coventry, the Cougar quickly spread throughout Clan space. Cougars were often spotted fighting amongst Smoke Jaguar forces during Operation BULLDOG, and salvage meant the design even began appearing in Inner Sphere forces. Cougar manufacturing lines were destroyed by Clan Steel Viper in 3071 during the Wars of Reaving, but the Falcons soon reconstructed those lines on the new Falcon capital of Sudeten.
As the Clan began to emphasize mobility as well as firepower into the Republic Era, the Cougar saw less use in the Falcon touman even as construction continued unabated. Instead, the Falcons sold the aging design to fellow Clans and even the Republic to fund its development of newer ‘Mech designs. At the height of the Republic, the Cougar could be found in militaries and top mercenary commands throughout human space.
The Cougar is given at least one long-range weapon in nearly all its configurations; Clan scientists correctly assumed that the Cougar‘s best role outside of near-suicidal Falcon aggression would be fire support. The Prime configuration is a perfect example, with twin LRM-10s and twin Large Pulse Lasers offering withering force projection at any range. The A variant leans into the fire support role with twin LRM-20s with Artemis IV tracking, twin ER Medium Lasers, and a Small Pulse Laser for anti-infantry duty.
In its B configuration, the Cougar mimics its progenitor with an ER PPC in each arm and an ER Medium Laser. Instead of a Targeting Computer, this variant mounts six additional double heat sinks to manage the oppressive heat generated by each particle cannon. The C configuration is no less hot with five ER Medium Lasers in one arm and a Gauss Rifle in the other. The D configuration is more manageable with an ER Large Laser, an Ultra-class 10 autocannon, and paired SRM-4 launchers.
More modern variants of the Cougar attempt to overcome its lack of speed by adding a supercharger to the Mech’s engine. The I configuration mounts twin Improved Heavy Large Lasers and twin LRM-10s, much like the prime configuration, but it has three more double heat sinks to manage heat. The T configuration has two Streak LRM-10s and two ER Medium Pulse Lasers tied to a Targeting Computer, as well as a Watchdog CEWS providing electronic countermeasures.
Despite being the very definition of the proverbial ‘glass cannon,’ the Cougar continues to remain popular enough for Olivetti Weaponry to produce the ‘Mech at scale, with licenses provided to Sea Fox and Inner Sphere manufacturers. Or perhaps it’s simply the fact that Cougars often make for tempting targets, with competent commanders focusing fire on these vulnerable ‘Mechs. The Cougar undoubtedly suffers higher losses than other light ‘Mechs, requiring a robust manufacturing base to keep the Clan OmniMech in service.
And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.
Absolutely awesome take by Eldoniousrex!!!
I played a lot of Mechassault so the Cougar has always been a favorite of mine, but it’s true; it’s just dang tough to keep these things alive even under ideal circumstances on the modern board.
It’s just big enough, just dangerous enough for the other guy to think “I can afford to spend a Gauss rifle shot on this thing” or otherwise expend an outsized number of resources for the express purpose of killing it. My table has a JF player so I see plenty of these things, and in the same breath, I see plenty of these things (along with Ullers) exploding gratuitously.
For as much BV as these things cost–from a low of 1300 up to the 1780-ish mark–they are quite squishy, and all it takes is one crazy person in a Phoenix Hawk 3PL to give it a nasty wakeup call.
Having played the absolute hell out of both Mechassault and Mechassault 2, the Cougar holds an admittedly special place in my heart. Sadly, even I have to admit this thing is simply a stereotypical Jade Falcon-style design: “Me Jade Falcon, You are Not. Therefore I shall succeed bc Muh Batchall” The Cougar is, at best, an under-tonned Vulture (yes I said VULTURE) or Catapult, with nowhere near the armoring. At worst, the Cougar is a massively Up-gunned Commando with nowhere near the speed. Now, as someone who actually plays the sadly long-out-of-production Dark Age miniatures game that WizKids produced, one or two of the Cougars in THAT can be a pain in your arse- especially when the only friend you have that plays collects Steel Wolves and uses the Cougar they got like a flanking scalpel (sadly the only unit he regularly uses well). But aside from a handful of circumstances, the Cougar is just way Too Much for way Too Little- too much cost and guns for too little speed and survivability. Excuse me while I go dust off an Anubis.
This is easily the best intro comic to date.
You know using it as bait seems like a viable strategy in campaign setting. Too dangerous to leave alone even if there are bigger mechs around
The Cougar B is the better Adder Prime. Sure, a TC is great, but not when it means you can’t fire both guns without insanely overheating. The Cougar Prime COULD be good, but it basically has to alternate firing 2 LPLs while remaining stationary and 1 LPL+2 LRM10s if it wants to move at all. The A, and C, definitely decent machines, especially for their weight class. The A has the firepower of an Archer C in a smaller, cheaper, package. The C has good hitting power, but I’d rather have a Kit Fox A.
Yep, it’s just an Adder / Puma for the Jade Falcons, who wanted a little more punch than their 30-ton Kit Fox / Uller for light lances while blooding their youth during the hunt-and-fade hit-and-run slow burn campaign of Coventry against that bald whats-his-name guy.
It “caught on” but it’s got the same flaws as the other two mechs – not truly fast, not armored enough to survive the incoming attention that its punch-above-its-Inner-Sphere-weight weapons will generate.
Not “bad” in my opinion, just too good for its own good.
This is one Bad Mech article I actually disagree with. Admittedly its because of a videogame that I give it some passes. The Cougar is a mech I used heavily in Mechwarrior 4 and its expansions. In that game the default was 97kph speed, 2 clan ER Large Lasers, 2 LRM-10s, and maybe some other options like Jump Jets.
Its tabletop speed is lower than I would like for a Light(97kph is my starting point) but Its a heavily armed light mech. Its excellent fire support which already have examples in existing mechs like the Valkyrie(86kph) and Panther(64kph) perform.
Its follows one of the two common examples of Clan Mechs, either extremely fast speedsters or heavily armed fire support. Balance isnt really something the Clans do except for Second Line garrison mechs that don’t have Extralight Engines.
The Tabletop has different considerations in Battle Value and accuracy penalties. “Speed is armor” is something that only works on the tabletop.
Well, the Cougar IS an OmniMech, right? Couldn’t it be configured to provide the right amount of firepower and allow it to take advantage(?)of it’s(very)slow speed somehow as a light mech? And. in the process, NOT get blown away in combat? LOVE the Foghorn Leghorn illustration; in some of the cartoons, the other character sometimes yells, “Ah, SHUT UP!” and knocks Leghorn on his feathered butt when he’s yapping too much and doesn’t be quiet! With a mech, just turn him into burnt chicken powder by blowing him away outright! That’s a JOKE, son, a JOKE!
Theoretically that’s what most of the main Cougar configs are trying to do. Most boast effective combat ranges of 15 or better and have at least a little punch out to 20, but there’s few ways to not risk taking a shot in return, and this thing can come to regret the presence of Gauss rifles or PPCs very quickly.
The Fire Falcon, Night Gyr, Turkina, and Black Lanner were not “all new” post-Refusal War. All of them fought on Tukayyid.
I’d still class most if not all of them as all new since they first debuted during the second wave of the Clan Invasion. Some didn’t even show up until the actual battle of Tukayyid, which is the case for the Turkina, so I’d argue that they were all still very new.
I think it’s also worth noting that all of these omnis are produced by the Jade Falcons exclusively, at least at the time Marthe is reworking the touman. These are all also what I’d consider third-gen omnis, with some even being designed to outright replace existing omnis. So even if they technically aren’t “all new,” they’re new enough that I don’t think it’s a misleading statement.
They were new, but they were not developed under Marthe’s watch, only the Cougar was. The other four were already production models before she became Khan.
Oh man. My favourite art piece for this series ever!!!!
Make this my official BattleTech Loonie Toons cross over request.
Jepp, I agree with the term ‘GlassCannon’ for this one. But at least the F-Variant has JJs.
Jokes aside. I think the Cougar is following in the same footsteps as a Thorn or Firefly only much deadlier! If assigned for Light/Medium Mechhunting it should do a decent job with his long range weaponry.
Albeit, if I look to this Phoenix Hawk 3PL or even the good ol’ Wraith…. On the other hand, every other Mech has to fear those ones!
I feel like this article is being too harsh on the Cougar. Especially when you compare it to all the Inner Sphere light Mechs that go 5/8 or slower. Compared to the Gùn, Hollander, Valkyrie, Firefly, Hornet, Battle Hawk, Thorn, Garm, Panther, and several others I would much rather pilot a Cougar than any of the above mentioned Mechs. I would even probably take a single Cougar than the BV equivalent of any other of those other Mechs with only a few exceptions. The only 5/8 light I know of that I would absolutely take instead of a Cougar is the Falcon Hawk. When you compare it to its Inner Sphere competition I can entirely understand why it’s so popular among IS pilots.
If there’s any one of those ‘Mechs that can strike even a shred of fear into a Cougar pilot, it’s the Hollander. You want to get that Gauss Rifle off the field as quickly as possible.
The Cougar is pretty much the Hellbringer of Clan light ‘Mechs. As has been said of the Hellbie, it’s not just bad, it’s bad WITH BALLS. One of these comes on the field and just about dares any other light ‘Mech in the vicinity to take it on. And if the opposition is typical Inner Sphere lights, then they’d best steer clear. In fact, the Cougar seems designed primarily to face lightweight Spheroid opposition, most of which simply can’t bring that kind of firepower to bear at range. And we all know what a game breaker the Clan LPL can be, so having speedy lights and hovercraft on hand isn’t that much of an advantage. And two no-min-range Clan LRM-10s–those are the cool-down weapons!
OTOH, it’s also true that this ‘Mech writes cheques it can’t cash. While not exactly skimping on armour (it still has 88% of max for its size), the Cougar simply can’t take the kind of punishment it can dish out. Once it starts drawing fire–especially from similarly-armed Clan opponents–it’s not long for the battle. A Cougar has to kill what it faces really quickly because, as has already been pointed out, it’s a relatively soft target that’s too dangerous to just overlook.
Actually, I’m kind of surprised Sean would do the Cougar over the Kit Fox, which, although a step faster, is an even softer target with fewer guns overall.
I only had one experience using a Cougar. Time has muddied the details of the battle, but it was a Falcons vs…um…another Clan, Bears I think it was, for Harvest Trials? Anyhow, I was put on the Falcon side and given a Cougar. What sticks with me about that fight is that a couple of turns in, I took a single hit right to the CT that stripped the armour but didn’t go internal, so I had to spend the next several turns running around with no CT coverage while I sniped from distance. Some time later, I took a head hit and failed the consciousness roll. Fell over, right on the front, all damage to the CT, taking out all the internal structure. To this day, I still have an image in my head of the pointy CT section cracking like an eggshell on contact with the ground. Haven’t exactly had a warm fuzzy for the Cougar since then.
Do ALL light mechs NEED to be super-fast? Some designs do just fine with the whole 5/8/ whatever speed, like the Valkyrie (A classic!) and the Hollander, which is idea for the tactic of “shoot ‘n’ scoot” with that gauss rifle: I think that the Hollander II, with it’s extra weapons, is even better! I’m biased for the Hollander because I single-handed won the battle with it! Pretty good, huh?
No, just the ones you want to come back from missions and potentially use again.
And we’re back digging at the bottom of the barrel. The Cougar ironically works best in an IS style formation. It has great firepower and can overwhlem unwary IS and Clan mechs. The key, as with all Clan Omnis, is to build a Star to take up the slack. You put the post 3050 Jade Falcon Omnis together in a Star, and they’ll wreck face as the young kids say. Individually the Cougar suffers in duels with heavier opponents, but it can easily take garbage like the heavier Phantom, Pouncer, etc with flying colors.
I’m actually going to semi-disagree with this one, here; the Cougar is a bad light ‘mech, for sure, but it isn’t meant to be used like a traditional light ‘mech. This isn’t a Fire Falcon or an Adder or even a Kit Fox, this is the clan equivalent of the Panther. It’s a medium ‘mech that’s missing a few tonnes, is all.
If you’re using this thing like you would any other light ‘mech, you’re doing it wrong. The Cougar isn’t meant for reconnaissance or anti-infantry work or what-have-you, it’s meant to make other 35-tonners shit themselves when they see it across the battlefield. Sure, it moves like a Timber Wolf or a Gargoyle at less than half the weight, but it’s got over two-thirds as much pod space as one of those, and here’s the key thing: it costs less than half as much as one of those to produce. Would I rather have a Cauldron-Born in literally every circumstance? Sure, because it’s one of my favourite ‘mechs ever, but would I rather have two Cougars over one CB? Now we’re asking some serious questions. This is an Omni designed by a clan that was desperately trying to prove to the universe it still had teeth, and it was made to be cheap (for a frontline Omni, that is) under that specification. Sure, you can argue that with Clan pilots and the limitations of starlift and logistics, you want a smaller number of bigger, nastier mechs, but you can’t have those everywhere, and while I don’t think the Jade Falcons knew exactly what they were making here, they have semi-accidentally created an excellent Omni for low-level conflict dominance.
You can’t assign an Assault Cluster to every pirate band in the universe, but a star of Cougars backing up faster scouts would make one hell of a Striker Trinary, especially if you seed a couple heavies and mediums in there – Huntsmen, Vultures, Hellbringers if you absolutely must. When your enemy can’t field anything larger than a Phoenix Hawk with half the armour missing, double CLPLs and LRM10s become really scary. Bugmechs? Don’t make me laugh. And, yeah, I wouldn’t want to duel an Atlas in one, but I can’t name any light ‘mech – even a Clan Omni – that I would want to do that in. If you absolutely have to take that thing into a large-scale battle (don’t), take the A and let it sit behind a hill lobbing LRMs.
Now, of course, it does suffer from the usual Invasion-era Clan Omnimech issues – under-armoured, undersinked, trying to do too much and suffering for it (though it does manage to avoid the ammo issues so common in Clan ‘mechs, surprisingly) – but if we can forgive the Vulture Prime having one ton of ammo per twenty-tubed launcher, only two-and-a-half more tonnes of armour, and insufficient sinks to fire half of its weapons load without cooking itself alive, we can forgive this little guy for being designed by Jade Falcons. It is critically weak to Gauss Rifles, though, but everything is, that’s how the Gauss Rifle works. Everything beneath forty-five tonnes needs to run in fear when that thing is on the other end of the field, because no matter how hard you try, you just can’t fit that much armour on something that small – ferro-lam and the like aside, of course, but they weren’t even concepts at the point when this little guy was made, so we can forgive that.
In short, the Cougar is bad at doing light ‘mech things because it really really wants to be a medium, and if you treat it like a really cheap method of taking a lot of guns into a fight where everyone else is carrying knives, you’ll do a lot better. I’d take a Cougar over a lance of bugs any day, and that’s what it’s designed to fight. The Centurion sucks at doing medium ‘mech things because it’s a heavy with fifteen tonnes missing. The Linebacker is a medium ‘mech which needs to lay off on the fried food. The Charger sucks and is bad, and the Gargoyle is only marginally less bad, but they’re both trying to do a medium’s job at eighty tonnes. The Cougar is far from the first platform to get funky with weight limitations. Stop making it duel Timber Wolves and let it get back to what it does best: making every Ice Ferret, Kit Fox, and Fire Moth in the universe regret getting up that morning. You’ll find a fair bit more success that way.
The Cougar HAS to be good at SOMETHING, right? I think once it finds it’s niche in combat, clan-style and otherwise, then watch out!!!
The Cougar… really? What’s next, the Timberwolf is a bad mech? The Atlas? The Dire wolf? All these articles are is just ragebait and hot takes at this point.
No Mech, like no thing made by mankind, is perfect; there’s always going to be SOMETHING that comes out in the wash and Mechs are no exception, right? Nothing’s perfect!
I don’t know, I remember making a Clan-spec 5/8/5 75 tonner in high school French class (1992?) that hits hard with two PPC’s and an ultra-20. Heat was an issue but I remember it being hell on wheels. Yes this was before “battle value.”
Also if cost is an issue as in C-bills, my “Summoner Grasshopper” with 22.5 tons:
2 x MPL LT, 1x LL LA, 2 x ERML RT, 1xLPL RA, 1x ERSL, 6xDHS. Relatively heat balanced and even weight balanced! This thing also kicks butt. Isn’t “maxed out” but is cheaper than Summoner 2s or Timber Wolfs. Aidan Pryde could have used this as he was always outnumbered and out of ammo.
Those two are as perfect as I could muster 30 years ago. What’s changed since then? Heavies 5/8/5 or mediums 7/11/7 are tough to beat. That’s why I’m not surprised the Wraith was part of a championship 2-mech limited BV match last year as the “Flanking” partner. At first it looks under-armed and vulnerable (XL engine not fully armored) but in-game it’s actually murder.
Why are the Marauder and the Warhammer feared heavies? Because they have 2 PPCs. Both are kind of glass cannons – the ‘Hammer because of its weak armor and the Marauder because of its torso AC ammo issue.
The Cougar matches their PPC output and is marginally faster – it will be hit fewer times while dishing out more. So its armor “problem” I don’t see compared to the IS examples above. 4-6 to 5-8 is the movement difference between losing (taking more fire than dishing out movement penalty-wise) to even-steven. So those two heavies will be -1 or -2 hit rolls against the Cougar’s defensive movement.
“Bad Mech”? “Bad variety of poor Mechs to choose from” – here’s an awful one – Phoenix Hawk IIC.
I’d love to see an Assassin IIC – 280 standard engine, 6.5 tons FF armor, endo steel, 6 tons weapons allowing MPL, LRM-5, SRM-4. Built-in CASE makes this Assassin a tough nut to crack. Like to see it against the Cougar in an arena with cover (Silesia?).
Personally I like the Phoenix Hawk IIC, but it’s only equipped with two AC/10 autocannons, and there’s not much in the way of ammo: as the weapons pods, while not Omnipods, are still semi-modular; there’s room in each one, tonnage-wise, for a Clan ER PPC and medium pulse laser, and that’s a VAST improvement in overall firepower, but it does run a bit hot, but at least you don’t have to worry about ammo resupply, so that’s good! Don’t know about how good the head-mounted machine gun, with ammo, is, I’ve never used it!
Man I love the Cougar. I think I own 4 of them? Maybe 5?
Used them heaps in MechCommander. Such a wonderful weapons-platform for light drop weights.
If there’s ANY Mech design from Battletech/Mechwarrior that screams anime, it’s the Wyvern IIC! It looks like it could fit into any of the Gundam saga universes very well!
One major thing to keep in mind when evaluating the Cougar is how much of a tax on your Battle Value bringing high speed to a fight can be. Dropping the speed lets you bring a lot of gun for shockingly cheap, letting you better equalize the numbers game with Spheroids.
Ah, the Cougar, my guilty pleasure. I’ll sometimes pop one of these into a mostly heavy star, since it’s movement synergizes well with most other clan heavies, and the lower PV means I have a few extra points to spend on better skilled pilots. Also, if it’s moving with bigger units, I find it’s less likely to be singled out, so it can actually contribute to a game. Yeah, the Cougar is slow and light on armor, but if you’re smart, you can make it work.
Hey MechWarriors! Have you ever been out campaigning in your Hellbringer, and thought to yourself, “I want to like this ‘Mech, but all this armor is making it too hard to die gloriously in battle”? Has Clan Jade Falcon got the OmniMech for YOU!
No way about it, this ‘Mech is terrible. Sure the firepower is great, for all of two turns before enemy fire makes it holier than a wheel of swiss cheese in St. Peter’s Basilica. You can’t use it in light formations because it’s too slow to keep up, and if you want to slow the entire unit down to add a heavy ‘Mech, quit faffing about and put a proper heavy in. And you can’t use it with heavy units because it will instantly crumple the instant the sort of things you deploy front-line heavy OmniMech units against shoot it. And with 54% of its mass in guns, the enemy will be highly motivated to shoot it. I’m pretty sure the only reason it has any popularity at all is the Prime configuration, because two of the best and borderline most broken guns in the game will cover a lot of sins, and make mincemeat out of nearly anything under 50 tons. But the Battle Cobra Prime has been doing the dual large pulse game since the Golden Century, only faster, better armored, and with a standard engine, all for only 2 BV more. Of course, I can see why the Falcons wouldn’t consider the Battle Cobra a viable option.
The worst part is that it’s not even a good budget trooper Omni to rebuild your forces around. Slow light units with XL engines are absolutely HORRIBLE bang for your buck, because you can easily go into medium territory and find a standard engine ‘Mech that is objectively superior for right around the same price point. The Stooping Hawk already exists, carries 10% more firepower and nearly double the armor, all for a mere 10% price increase, which can be excused by not going through the R&D process of a whole new ‘Mech and the much much lower fleet attrition rates.
Even if going to the Mandrills isn’t an option for political reasons or the need to fill out TRO pages, taking the Nova and downrating to a 250 standard engine with 8.5 tons of ferro-fibrous armor (improving the armor by 3 points) nets you 18 tons of pod space to work with. 2 Large pulse, 2 micro pulse, 2 SRM-6 with a ton of ammo and 11 DHS comes out to 5,779,375 C-bills versus the Cougar Prime’s 6,065,438. You can find a ton in the other configs and come out ahead in having a lifespan long enough that the average Falcon MechWarrior will need both hands to count it. If you really need the 19 tons, you can strip a ton from this design and still be totally crushing the Cougar in literally every way
Hrmmm…my previous post disappeared. Makes me sad. I’ll repeat here then. Yeah, the Cougar qualifies as another Bad Mech(tm), but that doesn’t mean it’s not a FUN mech. It is. I love the looks, and it’s capabilities. It’s limitations are what makes the challenge. Use bad mechs and win games! That’s almost the pinnacle of having a good time, right there.
I thought this was a series about bad mechs? The Cougar isn’t bad.
As much as I enjoyed the article and especially the Foghorn take, I disagree that the Cougar is bad. The Falcons at the time of its development were learning from earlier mistakes. They came out with Summoner configs that made sense, real assault and medium omnis, and this. A gunboat with decent heat sinkage and ammo endurance that can slaughter any IS mech under 55 tons. It can easily take out clan lights too, and really only looks flawed when fighting heaviier clan mechs with the same speed. The configs are all good too, unlike earlier Falcon designs where they just randomly chucked things in to fill up pod space. This is a better Hellbringer and Kit Fox combined.
Yeah, I think this is fundamentally a misunderstanding of what this mech is for. In a general-purpose mixed field unit where you have a front line, back line, flanker/scout setup with heavy and medium mechs and no binding weight limits, sure, the Cougar doesn’t fit any useful role. But the Clans spend a lot of time fighting matched weight duels, and this is a context where trading some speed for armor and firepower is generally favorable because the slower mech will still be fast enough to force a head-on fight.
The Cougar, as well as the other bad mechs from the Clans, have to be evaluated from the Clan point of view: they’re a warrior culture based on ritual combat, duels, trials and such, but I’m sure there are those of us out there who think the Clans and their culture waste an awful lot of people, materials, and tactical advantages in order to be perfect warriors, and I thought the Clans were devoted to the motto “waste not, want not!” The GOOD news about the Cougar is that it’s an OmniMech, so it can be configured to take advantage of it’s strengths and put not so much emphasis on it’s weaknesses, like it’s slow speed! Jump jets can help with this slow speed and increase overall agility!