Courtesy of Eldoniousrex
ROM was wrong. The covert attempt to eliminate New Hessen’s AeroSpace assets had clearly failed as the 33rd Division attempted a combat drop near the capital city of Buchvaal. Worse, ROM had failed to correctly estimate the planet’s force composition. Not only had the remnants of all three Ceti Hussars chosen New Hessen to reconstitute, but the mercenary unit Hampton’s Hessens had somehow managed to build themselves up into a reinforced regiment with over 100 ‘Mechs—most of them a single, rugged design.
“Look at them,” Precentor Keira Montague whispered from the cockpit of her Toyama. “Look at their shambling gait, at its graceless lines. Look at how its armor seems to rattle as it moves, like it might fall off with a single strike. Are those… rivets?”
Adept Ramsey couldn’t tell if Precentor Montague knew she was still speaking loud enough to broadcast to the entire Level III, but the despair in her voice came through clearly. They were outnumbered nearly four to one. The 33rd was one of the Word’s better-equipped divisions, but even the technological edge couldn’t save them with such long odds.
She wasn’t wrong though. The ‘Mech which Ramsey’s sensors confirmed to be 55 tons through magnetic resonance scans looked like it was designed centuries ago even though the metal and primer were clearly brand-new. Yes, they were slow, an obviously underpowered engine struggling to propel the ‘Mech at even a jaunty walk, but still clearly powerful enough to condense charged particles into a projectile that could scour the armor of Ramsey’s Gurkha at 600 meters.
Once the first started firing, they all began to unleash their PPCs. They were obviously firing beyond their primitive targeting system’s ability to track. Still, there were so many that even a few lucky shots caused considerable damage to the ‘Mechs at the fore of the 33rd’s invasion. An invasion that was quickly becoming a rout.
“Precentor, we must begin a fighting retreat, use range to thin their numbers,” Ramsey shouted, trying to break Precentor Montague out of whatever fugue had gripped her. His ER PPC struck one of the shambling ‘Mechs square in the chest, knocking off whole panels of armored plate while melting parts of others, and yet the ‘Mech continued to scuffle onward alongside dozens of others.
“No, Adept.” For a moment Ramsey thought he’d gotten through to her, but then he saw Precentor Montague’s Toyama charge at the Hessens’ line. “Look! They are nothing! Ancient relics attempting to withstand the might of Blake himself! We will crush them!”
For a time, it seemed like Montague might actually pull it off. She fired all her long-range weapons at one of the 55-ton ‘Mechs, knocking it flat on its back, before turning to another and unleashing a brace of medium laser blasts and ‘Mech-sized buckshot from her LB 10-X autocannon. It too fell with a trace of smoke from the ‘Mech’s cockpit indicating a dead or disabled pilot, but three more simply took their place for each ‘Mech that fell. Eventually, they all stopped targeting the 33rd generally and poured their combined firepower into Montague’s Toyama. Particle blasts and laser beams riddled the Precentor’s ‘Mech, turning it from a pristine example of the Word’s power into molten slag in mere seconds.
“The Precentor is down! All units, pull back to the Harz Mountains!” Ramsey shouted even as the ‘Mechs started pouring fire into the rest of the 33rd once more. ‘Mechs began dropping all around him, and even though an equal number of the enemy fell, Ramsey knew the math wasn’t on their side.
~
Demi-Precentor Mauricio frowned at the data he was being presented. “The entire 33rd Division is gone?”
“Yes sir,” the Acolyte said. “However, the remnants formed a brief insurgency where they managed to smuggle a company of ‘Mechs off-world.”
“Well that’s something, I suppose.”
“Yes, however,” the Acolyte nervously twisted the report in his hands. “The ‘Mechs are of somewhat… questionable quality. They appear to be using a level of technology that the Inner Sphere hasn’t seen since the Terran Hegemony.”
Mauricio furiously grabbed the report out of the Acolyte’s hands, read it, and nearly lost his lunch. “By the grace of Blake, we lost an entire Division to these museum pieces. How?”
“Well,” the Acolyte whinced. “They made a lot of them, sir.”
The Rook epitomizes the philosophy that cheap and good enough wins wars. The 55-ton ‘Mech was born from the prescient warning of General Pat Hampton, who having seen firsthand the atrocities committed by the Word of Blake, decided the planet of New Hessen needed to prepare for an imminent Blakist invasion. To that end, General Hampton—who had formed a military dictatorship on New Hessen following a bloodless coup—ordered Hessen IndustrialWorks to begin construction of a BattleMech using information from the New Dallas Memory Core.
The data found in the New Dallas Memory Core wasn’t nearly as ground-breaking as the Helm Memory Core discovered decades earlier, but it contained all the knowledge necessary for a minor industrial manufacturer to begin producing BattleMechs, albeit at a technological level not seen since the Age of War.
Dubbed Retrotech by the MRBC, these ‘Mechs were born out of desperation. As the Word of Blake used WMDs to reduce the Inner Sphere’s manufacturing capacity, other manufacturers were forced into wartime production, the result of which was ‘Mechs that were objectively substandard even at the height of the Succession Wars. Initial variants of the Rook were no exception.
Built with primitive armor that provided only two-thirds of the protection of even standard armor, and a Vlar 200 Classic primitive engine capable of propelling the ‘Mech to a top speed of 54 kph, the Rook overcame these deficiencies in two ways. The first was an arsenal of Succession Wars-era weapons, including six Martell Medium Lasers, a Small Laser, and a Hellstar PPC. The second was being produced in vast quantities.
In just two years, New Hessen WorkMechs designed and manufactured over 100 NH-1A Rooks, all of which helped defend the planet from a Blakist invasion in 3076. Although vastly outclassed individually, with woefully inadequate heat dissipation for its all-energy armament, there were so many Rooks that even as one shut down due to heat saturation, another could simply take its place. However, the glacial pace of the Rook meant that the Blakists were easily able to disengage and go to ground, resulting in a guerilla campaign that lasted several months.
In the years following the invasion, New Hessen WorkMechs improved its manufacturing process to produce refit kits that brought the Rook up to Succession Wars-era standards. The NH-1B gave the Rook a DAV 220 standard engine capable of pushing the ‘Mech to 65 kph, as well as standard armor and 20 single heat sinks. This still wasn’t sufficient to keep the Rook heat-neutral, but it was a vast improvement over the NH-1A.
The NH-2 would become the standard Rook model produced by New Hessen WorkMechs. The NH-2 retained the standard engine and 12 tons of standard armor from the NH-1B but would incorporate some then cutting-edge technology as well, such as a Compact Gyro and six Rawlings 45i Improved Jump Jets capable of launching the Rook distances usually seen by much lighter, faster ‘Mechs. Two of the Medium Lasers were dropped, but the remaining Small Laser was upgraded to a Small Pulse Laser and the PPC was upgraded to an ER PPC. The single heat sinks were ditched in favor of 12 double heat sinks that were nearly able to keep the Rook cool enough for continuous firing.
Seen in limited quantities before the final thrust to end the Word of Blake on Terra, the NH-2 would go on to see success on the export market, especially among mercenary units.
via Camo Specs
Following the Jihad, New Hessen WorkMechs fully joined the modern age with the NH-3X variant. This latest variant uses a 330 XL engine and a supercharger to achieve a top speed of over 129 kph—a dizzying speed for a dumpy ‘Mech initially designed to move at less than half that velocity. The ‘Mech loses the Improved Jump Jets for standard models but uses two more to retain the same jump distance. A Binary Laser Cannon replaces the ER PPC, and the ‘Mech loses two double heatsinks as well. Pilots of this model will have to carefully manage their heat to avoid a shutdown.
Rooks were a common sight on the open market following the Jihad, but the Capellan annexation of New Hessen in 3144 has largely stopped exports as the Confederation stockpiles arms for its drive to consume former Republic worlds. NH-1B models are mostly seen in garrisons and planetary militias, their slow speed preventing them from serving in faster units. The NH-2, meanwhile, is a darling of mercenary units even into the ilClan era.
And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.
I’ll take a company’s worth!
Well now, I always love a good story of a t34 turned darling nwn and while it lacks the junkyard charm of the original, the NH-2 is likely to become my personal favorite mech of them all
So. What you are saying is that the NH-1A Rook is the 31st century M-4 Sherman.
What has history taught us? Cutting edge tech is not a guarantee of victory. Whether you’re Zhukov employing the old soviet method, or you’re the Death Korps of Krieg fighting chaos space marines, inferior technology from a lesser peer enemy can win if you have enough of them, and you’re willing to bury that more advanced force under your corpses.
Hell, BattleTech as a setting pretty much runs on the whole idea of the museum pieces being brought out and putting a good show against the latest and greatest weapons. I’d say the Rook is less of a bad mech, and more like the jihad’s version of a Sherman or T-34.
I agree the Rook is bad, until ye get to the NH-2, then ye have a pretty good Mech. I think the NH-2 is even better than the more advanced version, with a binary cannon, the NH-3X…
I like the design of the Mech, like how it looks, and I like the 360 turret as well. So, I half agree… It’s a Half-Bad Mech…
Eh it’s a bargain-basement Black Knight.
NEXT
P.S. Where is this thing’s tonnage going? By my math a 55 ton mech at 5/8/5 should still have 15 tons to play with after 10.5 tons armor:
PPC 7
4 ML 4
4 HS 4
total 15
Why bother going down to 4/6/4 ? Why lose +1 at every stage to incoming fire modifiers? For a couple heat sinks? Really?
I assume it’s the primitive armour & primitive engines. Primitivity isn’t exactly efficient.
Primitive engine means its using 200 engine to get 3/5 movement.
Cockpit is 5 tons, not 3 tons.
Armor is more like 15 tons iirc, because it’s primitive.
It uses primitive components, which weigh more than their standard counterparts. Primitive armour and engines are its issue. The whole idea was that they brought out the museum tech to fight out of desperation as they could pump them out like no tomorrow. It’s entirely fluff reasons for this, they were never meant to have that +1.
I don’t get the Rook…
Why not the Introtech Panther? Wasn’t it widely proliferated, cheap and available centuries before the Blakist party?
Originally, the problem was twofold: a materials shortage and a new entrant into war materiel manufacture. Not only was New Hessen Workmechs a newcomer to building proper BattleMechs, they didn’t have even Third Succession War era tech to spare. Introtech Panthers had also very likely dried up in their area of space since proven ‘Mechs were probably being scraped from every corner they could find them to fit the March Militias and probably more than a few line units. This left NHW relying on much older technology and the requirement to make/support it themselves.
Therefore, the original Rook was born, with its Retrotech 1A variant being more of a “best we’ve got” stopgap measure until they made it to the ‘proper’ base model, the 1B.
to get full use out of the panthers, you also have to make SRM ammo. an all-energy loadout means less production and logistic requirements. also means that the Rooks don’t ever have to fall back to reload
Yep, that’s a bad mech all right. Sure you can stuff it to the gills with lostech but that defeats the point of the Rook in being cheap and low tech budget. The B refit with Succession Wars era tech isn’t that bad as a city fighter all things considered since you can now fire all the medium lasers, but it isn’t good for a 55 tonner to be moving at assault mech speeds.
I’ve never played the Rook before in a game; it seems like a decent Mech even though it’s primitive, but remember, primitive in this timeline is way more advanced than what we have now because in the future: THEY think 21st. Century tech is the Stone Age!
Oh come on, picking on a Primitive-tech ‘Mech? That’s just…low
Awesome rendition of the Black Knight in the illustration, though
How’s the old saying go? “Quantity has a quality of its own”?
Especially when that “quantity” is armed with PPC’s…
While quality typically wins against quantity as people tend to forget more men and hardware means more ammo, more food, more maintenance, more risk to logistics etc Rook was in the awesome situation of being designed for defensive warfare meaning logistic centers were basically right there with them, as well as using easily maintained parts that did not require ammo.
Kinda like Urbie – generally trash solo, awesome in niche use and often numerous.
If I were a merc I’d never get into the initial model, if I were a soldier I’d love it as it always had numbers on the enemy.
“Cheap and good enough” haha I can buy two Enforcers for the price of one Rook. Heck, even an Awesome 8Q is cheaper than this thing.
if you’re looking at the BV/CBills listed on sarna, that’s for the NH-2. the “cheap and good enough” NH-1A is 1197 BV / 3,909,694 CBills
ENF-4R is indeed cheaper, but not much (1032 BV / 3,536,875 CBills). -5R is also slightly less BV (1192) but ~60% more CBills (6,582,375)
AQS-8Q is 1605 BV / 6,598,170 CBills
so, even sidestepping the entire fluff aspect of “what can we make with limited technology and production capabilities”, the Rook is actually relatively cheap
As Biosterous pointed out, the Primitive version of the Rook is cheaper than the 3025 tech one, which is the headline Rook variant featured on this site.
However, it’s not like the Primitive variant is 20% of the price of other ‘mechs, or even close, so the massed hordes of cheap ‘mechs really doesn’t make sense logically, but this IS a game!
But in the storyline, if an entity only has factories that can crank out ‘mechs with Primitive technology in the short term, you gotta go with that. Even if you’re able to retool your factories, *that* would cost an arm and a leg, and you’d need the time to do so, which doesn’t work in the fluff story.
Cost vs production capacity is always an interesting point. The Charger was produced for hundreds of years even though cost-wise it was an albatross around the Dragon’s neck.
Production-wise, the Rook was a step up from Industrialmechs which is what New Hessen would’ve end up with if Hampton didn’t demand a Battlemech. That it sucked didn’t matter since it was still a proper weapon, which short-term protected their world and long-term provided them with experience on how to make proper mechs, steady income via sales, and more independence.
While the Rook (1-series and possibly 2-series) would never have been good enough for a regular army, it’s perfect for low-end merc outfits and militias. Still better than a tank or Industrialmech.
I love the look, the stats are okay. It’s a trash mech, yes, but within its parameters, it’s really decent. I wouldn’t mind a lance or two if I had the money.
“What have we got a lot of?”
“Lasers and PPCs.”
“Can you make something to put them on?”
“Sure, but it won’t be very good.”
“Can you make lots of them though?”
“That we can do!”
Interesting history lesson. Good article.
Sir. This is an Urbanmech with AAAAARMS.
The PPC is a perfectly good replacement to the AC/10, and medium lasers compensate well in minimum range. A 55-tonner’s armor scheme means it can comfortably last for more than two minutes on the modern battlefield.
Your right, this is just a 55-ton SuburbanMech. Same speed and with a turret instead of 360-degree rotation.
PFFFFT YOU’RE RIGHT AND I LOVE IT!
Urbie evolves into Rook, Rook into Imp.
It really does seem like a mech that once it hits that NH-1B level becomes just a space Sherman. It’s cheap, it can be outclassed, but I imagine it’s easy to build, easy to maintain, easy to repair, and I’d bet it’s incredibly easy to pilot. Armor is alright, weaponry is alright, speeds a bit slow but if you play Inner Sphere you’re probably used to that. I feel like the only bad version of this is that primitivetech version. The others are adequate, nothing special but not particularly bad. They’re the effective tool that’s available.
If there’s any primitive mechs from the Age of War which are REALLY good, it would have to be, hands down, the Firebee! Update it to modern tech standards(XL engine, endo-steel chassis, ferro-fibrous armor, double heat sinks, ER weapons, etc.)and it would STILL be REALLY good! Even if it originally DID come from the Capellans…..
What’s next, a Bad ‘Mechs article about the Mackie?
With these guys, who knows! The Mackie was, and still is, THE FIRST BATTLEMECH of all! Is nothing sacred?
And, y’know, I don’t think I’d even call this thing a bad ‘mech. Not even the Primitive version. Yeah, it’s *slow*, but that’s really the only thing wrong with it. It’s got decent armor, good firepower, enough heat sinks to cover the long range or short range guns with some left over for movement, no ammo… There are Introtech ‘mechs in its weight class that I think I’d pick it over, though that really says more about how bad they are than how good the Rook is.
(I wrote a shootout program that I can give two arbitrary ‘mech designs to and have them slug it out. I’ve been running a bunch of matches between the Rook and the Shadow Hawk 2H or 2D. So far the Rook has won *all* of them. Mostly it’s ammo-racking the Shadow Hawk. Don’t do ammo, kids, it’ll kill ya.)
But more to the point, the Rook succeeds brilliantly at its actual design goal. It’s not intended to go one-on-one with a Daishi in a Trial of Stupidity. It’s intended to be a trooper ‘mech with minimal logistical footprint that can be produced in quantity with a limited industrial base. And it accomplishes that quite handily, with a design that’s actually pretty decent, considering. A Rook that you can build is better than a Daishi that you can’t. A hundred Rooks that you can build…
Perhaps worth noting that where most of these articles follow a hapless MechWarrior marching to their doom in the Bad ‘Mech du jour, in this one the hapless MechWarriors marching to their doom are the ones trying to *fight* the Rooks…
Even the best Clan warriors equipped with the best Clan OmniMechs can be overcome if you send COMPANIES of Rooks at them! The Clans would, of course, say it isn’t fair combat, but since when is warfare fair? History shows that those who engage in unfair combat are usually the ones who win! Most of the time….
I just read the story this time around, and I think this is the Urbie’s long long cousin. Short, stocky, slower then most mech’s it size, but given numbers and the right strategies it can become an effective mech.
The Blakists would never understand the idea that cheap mech’s (like our beloved Urbie) can be effective in given environments, and the Rook I think turns this up to 10. PPC, Primitive equipment, and a Penatrator’s level of MLs? It’s cheap, it’s dirty, but by God it’s gonna get the job done.
P.S: you guys should REALLY change this series to “Mech of the week” Rather then Bad Mechs, as even the worst Mechs have a use case
When it comes to unconventional “unfair” warfare in the Battletech universe, look at Wolcott during the Clan Invasion: The DCMS challenged the Smoke Jaguars to an honor duel for Clantech using everything from chaff hanging in the trees, Mech-sized tiger traps with high explosives, hid-and-fade tactics using everything from Mechs to, my personal favorite, Savannah Master hovercrafts, and Clan rules of engagement against the Clans themselves, and won hands-down! Just loved it!!!