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sharlin — Battletech - Shrike Assault Mech.

#battletech #mech #mecha #scifi #plogg
Published: 2017-08-22 05:10:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 4143; Favourites: 82; Downloads: 88
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Description Or if you're in the DragonCat universe, the Shrike)

Although sharing some 'DNA' with the Onager, the Shrike is a different beast entirely.  At 95 tons it shares the weight bracket with the Turkina for heaviest front line Mech produced by Clan Jade Falcon, and indeed was built to supplement the older Mech, trading firepower for mobility and accuracy.
Built around an endo-steel skeleton and powered by a powerful 380 rated XL engine that can push the Shrike up to 64kph. The addition of a Partial Wing System allows for leaps of up to 120 meters with far greater control than the typical brute force required for normal jumps.

The Shrike also features a curiosity amongst The Clans, a full head ejection system.  The Mech was designed with an eye to it being the ride of an Officer, and with the Falcons suffering such heavy losses amongst their Officer corps something was needed to improve the life expectancy of the surviving officers.  Whilst somewhat controversial at first, it was recognised that Spheroid opponents would try targetting a Commanders Mech to weaken the Clans forces coordination and throw battle plans out of sync, so the system was accepted as a 'necessary evil'.

Built to engage at long range the Shrike is armed with a pair of ER Large lasers, each one mounted in a semi-gimbaled mount that allows them to fire at targets off center of without having to turn the Mech's torso, which is handy in a jump.  A HAG-20, currently imported from Clan Sea Fox provides additional long range firepower as well as acting as a lethal anti-aircraft weapon and sandblaster against heavily armoured targets.  The HAG is fed by three tons of ammunition, giving it long battlefield endurance.

For short range work a SRM-6 is also installed, which is useful when targets close or finishing off a weakened foe or one bold enough to try getting under the HAG's minimum range.  
The Shrike also features a potent electronics system, an ECM shields the Mech from hostile C3 systems and targetting equipment whilst a targeting computer is linked into the lasers and HAG.

Whilst lighter on firepower than the Turkina the Shrike's mobility and speed allow it to control the range against an opponent and it can jump a huge distance without relying on massively heavy Improved Jump Jets.  

Subject to a brutal trial by fire against a Turkina, the Shrike has started entering limited production with Clan Jade Falcon with one of the pre-production Mech's claimed by Khan Jaina Pryde.


Drawn by the amazing Matt Plog, this version of the Shrike came of my desire to change the Mech around a bit, and as good as the original art was, I felt it was too flat and broad across the chest and just looked a bit off.  Plus the partial wings were way too small, a drawback of having to base the art on the clickytech models.  
Plog produced a much more angled and aggressive looking machine whilst keeping the same kind of feel for it.  

The negative quirks are due to it being pretty damn new, the non-standard parts would probably dissapear in a few years but these would almost certinally be the perview of Cluster and Trinary Commanders and above, so not that common really, with the Turkina likely to remain the Falcons big 'line trooper' assault Mech thanks to its greater firepower.

Thoughts and comments are always most welcome

Drawn by the amazing - mattplog.deviantart.com/


 
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Comments: 13

Darkton93 [2017-09-04 00:41:29 +0000 UTC]

I can't ask Plog so I'll ask you: Can I color this?

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sharlin In reply to Darkton93 [2017-09-04 09:39:01 +0000 UTC]

I'd be honoured if you did!  And any of the other Mechs/Warships i've got in here too

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Darkton93 In reply to sharlin [2017-09-05 04:28:31 +0000 UTC]

Pic done! Hope you like it! Gave it the colors of the old MWDA miniature. 

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sharlin In reply to Darkton93 [2017-09-05 06:22:57 +0000 UTC]

Oh wow! Magnificent! <3 <3 <3

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Gabriel1177 [2017-08-23 18:19:07 +0000 UTC]

Cool

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man-among-men [2017-08-23 02:37:31 +0000 UTC]

I had a hard time believing this is a real battlemech! Then looked it up and found you heavily modified it, quite well I might add. Anime much? I mean this thing has motion.

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sharlin In reply to man-among-men [2017-08-23 03:40:37 +0000 UTC]

Well Mech's have a lot of motion to them, they are not just some big upright walking tank but they also don't move like a Gundam or something, but somewhere in between.   And yep, the Shrike's real, their makers, Clan Jade Falcon really went in with the IMMA BURD!!!!!! design asthetic

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man-among-men In reply to sharlin [2017-08-23 04:17:10 +0000 UTC]

Well, yes they deserve some reasonable action, however, the speed must be small enough to keep the pilot alive and not regurgitating, as the in canon battlemechs have no inertial dampening. I feel that may be what I would do in that cockpit. thus I prefer to think of them as more "upright walking tank(s)". but to each his (or her) own, I don't mean to argue or criticize. I mean there could be inertial dampeners in an alternate battletech universe right? and anyway it's pretty damn cool. I wish I could draw like that. I just don't have the attention to go through all those polygonal details. Oh, I see. Ha, Jade Falcon, Bird...

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sharlin In reply to man-among-men [2017-08-23 10:57:47 +0000 UTC]

Well Battletech is a mix of hard and soft sci-fi and they are really not THAT advanced, unless you look at their absurdly efficient fusion reactors.  The Battletech Battle Armour suits are all gyroscopically stabalized but I doubt there's any form of dampning there apart from being a a 1 - 2 ton and rather small target.  The way the Battletech armour works might also help them.  With modern armour a shot will either punch through its target or be deflected/resisted by armour.  With the B-tech stuff you have to abrade it by just battering away at it and wearing it down.

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man-among-men In reply to sharlin [2017-08-23 14:28:11 +0000 UTC]

Precisely. that is what I love the most in the franchise! Potentially realistic weapons, theoretical actuators and generators, pros and cons clearly shone in virtually everything. And again, I'm not trying to argue, but I've been thinking about the inertial dampening. The first edition of citytech (or possibly battledroids.) mentions in some of the more advanced rules that when a mech falls you must take a piloting roll to determine if the pilot Is injured by the fall. my second edition is in the mail and I don't play the new ones so I don't know how much has changed with that, and anyway this is just from memory. This information can be interpreting in three ways in this scenario: one; the inertial dampeners are non existent as the MechWarrior can be injured from the fall, two; the inertial dampeners are weak  but nonetheless there, as the MechWarrior doesn't necessarily get injured from the fall, three; Schrödinger's cat. (in other words, no one has observed this who makes the rulebooks, and until some one does it is both and neither at the same time. pardon the quantum physics.) This little line of comments should be submitted to the MechWarrior forms! Imagine the replies!

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sharlin In reply to man-among-men [2017-08-23 20:33:30 +0000 UTC]

In B-tech at the moment, if you do fall you have to roll to avoid taking damage to the pilot, and the art always depicts them as strapped in with a cross harness to a chair, but i'd assume its more like a jet fighters or tank drivers position.

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The-Electromage [2017-08-22 12:13:40 +0000 UTC]

This is tasty; it reminds me of a Super SAMAS PA body with a head style like the Red Hawk PA, both from Rifts.

 

Very Nice Mech!

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sharlin In reply to The-Electromage [2017-08-23 03:40:57 +0000 UTC]

Oh wow, they are REALLY nice! And i'm glad ya like

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