After the beating I took following the Stinger video, it needed at least a mention.

@@MechanicalFrog Hopefully the comments were not too harsh. What you added to this video was all I wanted. Just a "and there's a LAM variant, but that's a story for another day. "

Yeah it's a shame that it and the Stinger haven't gotten the recognition they deserve.

For players there aren't many good reasons to take Wasp nor Stinger over Jenner or Phoenix Hawk (same could be said about Valkyrie & Dervish and Panther & Griffin). I have paired Wasp with Banshee BNC-3E largely for lore reasons as a Lyran garrison force where both 'Mechs are canonically used. Surprisingly enough, I have won with them against more competent 'Mechs, including a lance of Orion, Lancelot, Trebuchet, and Locust. This is a no-shitter: Lancelot got legged by weapons fire, Orion got a fist through cockpit (compare to TRO3039 cover page), Locust got KO'd, and Trebuchet got away. 1 of my 2 Banshees got head blown off by medium laser from Locust & falling damage, then another Banshee hit Orion with a fist of karma.

That's fun, though personally I tend to start with mediums so that doesn't usually come down to whoever lands the lucky medium laser hit first.

@@MechanicalFrog mediums are good too, ole shadowhawk vs wolverine?

I would have to figure out the LAM rules first... I've never played with them.

@@MechanicalFrog I would gently recommend Interstellar Operations as the most comprehensive iteration of the rules, as well as the Battletech Compedium for a look at the classic rules before they were considered controversial.

Absolutely. Keep your enemies guessing.

Can hardly take a stroll down to the corner shop without tripping over one.

Kinda makes sense. The original Stinger is better versus infantry with it's dual MGs, but the Wasp has a little more ranged punch with the SRM. When you are that light it's better to run fast and shoot at mid range, than run up and machine gun someone.

The two medium lasers sound warm but fun.

@@MechanicalFrog Yeah, jumping and firing both lasers results in 12 heat. 2 over the usual maximum, but by putting the extra ton from ammo into a 'spare' heat sink, it becomes only a 'heat delta' of +1 per turn. If the Mech runs and fires both lasers, it 'only' generates 8 heat, and with 11 heat sinks, it can then 'lose' 3 accumulated heat. So, overall, not a 'bad' design... at least to me.

It's pretty good. The CGL revamps have been extremely good.

I don't have anything against LAMs. I just have no experience with them in the actual game.

My focus is flighty, so we're just going to keep hopping all over the place and see what happens.

"I just think it's neat..."

Big fan of it, a mate is starting a light mech force and I am heavily pushing him to include both this and the locust

It's quite fun. I collect books like they're going out of style, so any time I see an opportunity to grab an old BT trinket, I'm in.

IS light mechs really have struggled to be useful in the post 3050s.

IS light mech with probe, ecm. 21:23 stealth armor can actually reach positions where small weapon loadouts can really matter. The ghost and specter variants of wasp and stinger come to mind. Laser cutters, vibro blades, on top of MG arrays or micro pulse laser arrays make them dangerous backstabbing. I started an RP tabletop game where the players started out on an invaded world. They'd found a pile of wasps and stingers discarded after battle moved on, and techs had salvaged all the bigger mechs and weapons. Thus, I let them build their own custom stinger or wasp. Even allowing hybrids as long as 3 pieces of mech belonged to one of those two. Then I had them roll for gleaning the battlefield for spilled armor , weapons, and ammo. One duo set went full srm2 (ra la rl & ll) Another duo smalls each arm with mgs on torso. The last two went traditional builds, but upped sensors, comms, and tweaked armor using FF found on the battles. They rescued techs, soldiers, civvies kept in POW camps and kept mostly out of sight, using seized comms and IFF codes to listen to and plan raids an attacks. Six 20 tonners fighting gorilla warfare and avoiding major battles to gather enough supplies, food and spare parts to survive. They became, with their rescuees help, a pretty good commando team and infiltration squad. Almost as much action on foot or in vehicles as in their bastardized mechs. Their final mission was infiltration of a star port and taking a VIP union class from inside from the Kuritas. Only to discover that they were actually LIAOs. They passed Intel via comstar to a nearby border world where kuritas lords of light were stationed. They held the ship. The VIPs and LIAO commanders hostage until the very angry LOL Brigade from Kurita made orbit and dropped on the fake kuritan companies. They got 2.5% of salvage from the fights, plus the already seized materiels and mechs/vehicles. Kuritans wanted their stolen heavies and command mechs back and offered cbills, training, and techs to fine tune their own six man lance as well as purge and clear dropship of LIAO devices and malicious code. I made next six months pass with hand wavium. And left them staring at the future. Six man mech commando team, with a mix of six more medium mechs and vehicles. Also 40 volunteers. 4 techs. A med team (and 12 groupies who all wanted the XO who had been a local Corporate Rockstar before invasion. ) "Mercs or what?" I asked. They said , "Salvage and Rescue. Combat engineering. Like the Seabees used to do." Quietest guy spoke up. "Maybe, also, some revenge and mayhem." Thus we ended session with them trying to trade good mechs and tanks for mechs with hands (can carry more) and transport vehicles of all sorts. As well as a chunk of cbills to get their Spaceball to a jumpship and travel to mercenary star to register. Star Salvage and Revenge was born there and then. It's too bad we never continued campaign. But I'd started running shadowrun and a seat at my table was in high demand. Between Navy and Shadowrun I had no time to revist that battletech campaign. Kinda miss running it. Even now.

Sounds like it has the zoomies.

Fair point.

A little bit of this... a little bit of that...

Warm but fun if you're savvy.

The nonsense must flow.

They are pretty much interchangeable thanks to all their variants.

It does good work.

The 1S is a fun pick.

This made me go check to see if I need an updated Tetanus shot.

Glad to do it. Enjoy!

We've all been there.

It is difficult to top the hits...

@@MechanicalFrog DJ pulse laser in the house!

**Frog House Music Intensifies**

Light mech pilots tend to live short but glorious lives.

I didn't get a chance to drop it into the Stinger video, but this is just as fun.

Much appreciated!

Numbers matter in a mechfight more than many realize. You only get so many shots and turns per mech.

Maybe... Thanks! Have a great weekend!

I know people generally aren't keen on SRM-2s and 4s but with all the various useful ammunition types, it makes sense that they were so common across the Inner Sphere.

@@MechanicalFrog Old comment, but I think of SRMs as being a bit like a grenade launcher. They beg for a split ammo tank, with a 20% reduction in total capacity (round down) but you can carry two types: SRM2, 20/20; SRM4 10/10; SRM6 6/6. 20 loads of HEDP and 20 of smoke/frag/inferno/whatever the mission calls for will outlast a WSP-1.

Definitely some similarities.

Pressing F for respect.

I was actually worried I didn't own a Wasp. I was digging through my mech pile and managed to find one in an unopened box. I need to fix this and expand my Wasp forces.

@@MechanicalFrog yeah ya do! Haha But they're such great little mechs. Sharp looking, cheap, relatively fast, able to carry Inferno Missiles, and not too difficult to "upgrade" that Medium Laser to an ER Flamer 😉

Absolutely.

The speed definitely needs to be a consideration as so many of its peers are zoomers.

I think the 8T is undervalued. It could be quite a pain to deal with.

@@MechanicalFrog Definitely, that thing has RANGE for fire at you while also having SPEED to avoid your return fire. Enough to get that dodge bonus at 10 movement. To fight a mech like this you need something like a Dasher, Fireball or Dart, a real "speed demon" of a mech, or a mech with Clan Large Pulse lasers and a pilot with PATIENCE!

Yeah getting chased down by other lights would be my primary worry.

@@MechanicalFrog and give the limited anti-infantry options with only SRMs, running into Battle Armor might also be an issue. But that applies to pretty much any mech. At least the Wasp has hands to grab Toads.

Hard to beat the 3G...

The WSP-1D does work really well in a light recon lance when combined with the afor mentioned STG-3G, a PXH-1D, and a LCT-1E. Great if you game play allows you to min-max your units. Great for campaign play as there is no ammo expenditures, no ammo explosion, just enough speed to out distance medium recon lances, enough firepower to fight off faster light mechs (Jenners, Spiders, etc.), and (as also described) enough SLs and a Flamer to survive infantry ambushes.

Hope you enjoyed it!

It could be quite fun.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Sounds like all the LAMs...

@@MechanicalFrog Not really, LAM's are pretty balanced in the current rules. Pulse laser/LBX and TC's make mince meat of them. Problem was my opponent was expecting a Heavy/Assault force to face him and brought Clan long range high damage cheese. If I had brought what he expected it would have been a far straighter fight, probably more in his favour. I think a lot of people forget that LAM's pay more tonnage for their internal structure and cannot benefit from Endosteel, FF, or XL/Light engines.

Thank ya!

When I made the pattern for the dazzle I gave myself a headache... the lines were too close together.

@@MechanicalFrog - We appreciated that you are willing to suffer for your art.

I've never played with LAMs and beyond remembering seeing them way back in the day, I don't know much.

Glad someone appreciates that line.

An operation sneaky sneak version would be valuable.

Soon enough...

Or its weight in rockets. Or anything but a oneshot

It's not my favorite mech in the world but I won't rule out a video some day.

I was promised an atlas! Whatevere issues I may have with the sadists of Roguetech, that shit made me smile.

I like the Light PPC in the 8T but dislike the MML-3. That tonnage is really not used well.

@@MechanicalFrog True, but an MML-3 is still 50% better than an SRM-2. A single Wasp was never going to be much use and its weapons reflect that. How about 3-5 Wasps with MMLs firing off long range Incendiary or Smoke missiles, or short range Inferno or Tandem-Charge warheads? If you really want success with Missiles, then compact Clan-Missiles are usually the way to go.

Yep. So long as you don't send it up against the big guys, it'll do well.

This is getting deep.

You're going to coldly and callously take a poor Wasp's hand? How could you?

@@MechanicalFrog The ilClan era requires harsh choices😂

There is a LAM version... so you're spot on.

How I feel about the Crusader

*poof* Armor gone.

Sweet. Let me know how it works out.

@@MechanicalFrog Will do!

@@MechanicalFrog Had the game. This nimble little guy was a great annoyance to my opponent. Kept a few of his heavy hitters busy for longer than he would have liked. It was eventually trashed, but it took 7 straight turns of being missed before then, so I call that a great use of less than 1k

Or have a spare mechwarrior you wouldn't feel bad about losing.

The Phoenix art is just not for me.

@@MechanicalFrog understood. The new CGL art is really good, too.

Lammy LAM LAM.

Oh you...

He's still around, signing cards through the mail and attending a couple conventions each year. I bet anyone who has one of those books could get it autographed by him.

Oh yeah? That's cool!

They just soar...

Uh... yeah I guess I can see that.

@@MechanicalFrog Just pieces. Never seen a Wasp until today.

Probably a mix of issues including not wanting to make people think of Robotech and Macross. It and the Stinger have that look to them.

Everyone loves a little razzle dazzle.

recreate it with improved jumpjets, partial wing, and go to town. :D

@MechanicalFrog Their are still rules for LAMs mode changes and everything. You can zip across the table in fighter mode, change to half fighter half mech mode, then change to full mech mode. I would only want to use supper custom mechs for roll play games, and only after you've been playing for a time, so it feels like you've earned your super sexy mech with clan targeting computer, stealth armor, ECM system , clan SRMs, and a clan medium laser, and enough heat sinks to keep is cool so long as you don't alpha strike.

It's just a fun scene... :)

Watch out for the swarm...

Have a great one!

That would be quite a pick up.

"I just think it's neat."

It's all Greek to me outside of BT.

This is fair.

@@MechanicalFrog I have a custom variant that uses an XL engine, Partial wing, torso-mounted cockpit and a similar weapons load out to the standard Wasp. It's basically an LAM that's stuck in Airmech mode. Lots of fun because it's so hard to hit if you keep jumping.

Lots of versatility in that SRM-2

Elementals on occasion.

Don't post it anywhere that could give you or me issues. :)

@@MechanicalFrog That's sounds suspiciously like PP Molds, like the Blakist Fecal fight: the less CGL mentions it, the hope people will forget about it?

Real... just likely not going to get much love any time soon.

military contractors... what can ya say?

Kicking a crab in the head? How rude... Don't they know the future is Crab?

@@MechanicalFrog We don’t care :P

You definitely want to keep your distance from others when using it.

@@MechanicalFrog This design is also why I am curious, yet grateful, the Clans haven't developed Light Engines of their own. While I can see from a lore perspective that both Clan scientists and warriors would consider it wasteful, especially with how durable their XLs are in comparison to IS XLs, the thought of a mech with near equal durability of a standard engine (you would still need to get to the center torso to kill it even with both side torsos removed) and being 25% lighter than a standard is scary, especially if you add in how weight conscious Clan Tech is.