BattleTech Mech Overview: Emperor

Hello again, MechWarriors! Today we're taking a look at the "original" big bouncing boy, the first-in-universe 90+ ton mech to mount jump jets (via the power of retcon, since the Highlander is older out-of-universe), the Emperor!

Hastati Sentinels Emperor. Credit: Jack Hunter

Look at that wide lad! The Emperor is a pretty consistent mech, usually running a 3/5/3 movement profile, always having heavy armor coverage (the variant with 95% coverage is the lightly armored variant), and pairing some form of Big Gun in its cannon arms with a smattering of lasers across its torso. That said, there's a good bit of variance amongst the Emperors within those constraints, so let's take a look at what's on offer!

Liberty: The Emperor is a monolith, both physically and meta-physically in the fact that most of these things are exactly the same. If it weren't for the fact that they did have some differences I'd say this thing was downright Omni-like! I love Emperors to no end, the things are great and my beloved 6A sees field with the Marshals and the Scorpions quite consistently!

Variants

These mechs have all been reviewed based on a standard F through S scale, which you can find described on our landing page here (along with all of our other ‘Mech reviews, the name of the box you can buy to get any of the mechs we have covered, and our general methodology).

EMP-1A

Oh boy, a Primitive 'Mech! The Emperor 1A predates the Star League, y'all; we're going back to the Age of War for this one. I double-checked Interstellar Operations: Alternate Eras for this, and I'm pleased to report that Primitive rules are less punishing than I thought (and some of our other reviews have indicated). While the rules are presented terribly, I think I am correct in saying that Primitive BattleMechs (as distinct from Primitive IndustrialMechs, which suck even more in combat than regular Indys) are mostly just profoundly tonnage-inefficient by "modern" standards: primitive cockpits don't, in fact, give them to-hit penalties, and primitive BattleMech armor is BAR 10, which means they shouldn't be giving up more through-armor crits... which is very good, given that any crits they do take get +2 to the roll result, so crits happen on 6-up and limbs get blown off on 10+, oof.

Anyway, all that adds up to mean that if you're in one of the two Periphery nations that still has the Emperor 1A after it re-entered production due to the Jihad-era RetroTech boom (the Marian Hegemony [boo, hiss] and Liberty's beloved Fronc Reaches [yee-hah]), it's at least a usable shitbox. It only moves 3/5/0 (no jump jets for big boys yet when this one rolled off the lines), its arsenal is limited to an AC/5 in each arm and three medium lasers across the side torsos and head, and it has two full tons of ammunition in each side torso, begging to explode it to death, but it still has very heavy armor for a 1,453 BV mech, it manages heat remarkably well, and modern procurement bureaus can stuff it full of specialty ammo to partly offset the AC/5 of it all. An ON1-VA is probably better if you're looking for bottom-dollar beef, but an Emperor 1A still kicks for 18 damage, so I can't say it's useless! It also has its own miniature available from Iron Wind Metals, a sharp sculpt even if you don't customize it into a beloved cartoon duck, as Valk did with hers.

Lynn's Rating: D+, the weak weapons and susceptibility to crits are still a huge letdown.

Liberty's Rating: D+ is right, much as I love any weirdos that I get to putz about with in the Marshalry the 1A is genuinely just better served being something like a Hound or ON1-VA. That said, damn that model is nice... Need to get one now, fuck.

Darkwing Duck (Centurion) and Launchpad McQuack (Primitive Emperor). Credit: Valk

EMP-5A

No, I don't know what happened to Emperors 2-4; presumably they didn't make it off the drawing board or the proving ground. With the 5A we're safely in the embrace of the Star League and familiar IntroTech. This iteration fills in the last handful of armor pips the 1A was missing, adds the jump jets that cemented the Emperor's legacy, and augments the mech's arsenal with a Large Laser in each arm, mounted alongside the old AC/5s. We're down to two tons of AC/5 ammo, still plenty to load Precision or Armor-Piercing if you feel like it, and up to 16 heat sinks over the 1A's 11. Unfortunately, if you're familiar with the heat generation of a standard Large Laser, you'll have seen the downside that comes with these upgrades: this mech goes up 2+ movement heat just firing its longer-range guns, and an alpha strike would send it to +11 even from a standstill. Still, there's manageable firing patterns here, you'll just have to drop a gun or two some rounds, and accept that your knife-fighting guns are the medium laser trio plus one LL. I think the firepower here is disappointing for 1,830 BV, but this is still a huge chunk of beef (with okay mobility thanks to the jump jets), and its ammo is reasonably well crit-padded, too.

Lynn's Rating: C-

Liberty's Rating: C-. I mean... he's a guy. It's a functional enough old Succ-War shitbrick and for that there is an amount of love I must of course offer it. The numbers 2-4 were unfortunately nuked out of the factory by orbital bombardment and as such shall not be mentioned. Begone, we are innumerate in this house.

EMP-6A

Okay, it's only with the 6A that we've reached the "poster child" Emperor, the one the plastic CGL mini depicts. This is functionally a Royal Emperor, though it proliferated further than the "true" Royals (before the Free Worlds League effectively bombed the entire chassis out of existence in the Second Succession War, anyway, heh), and it comes with some fancy toys: An XL engine and twelve double heat sinks help free up the weight to convert the arm autocannons to LB 10-Xs, the side torso MLs become MPLs (while the head laser is still a regular ML), and CASE is here for the four tons of ammunition in case you're playing a campaign or using the playtest rules (which would be very, very kind to this mech). Like Perigrin, I'm very high on the LB-10, and this is an excellent set of brawling weapons. You still probably aren't alpha striking (7+ movement), but you're heat-negative with your longer-range guns and you can drop one LL when you get close and blaze away with everything else for a serious punch. We're only up to 1,969 BV for this package, and while it's not winning a footrace or a sniper duel with any 2k BV Clanners, this looks like a very nice "stand on objectives" mech, and it has proliferated widely since its reintroduction in the Clan Invasion.

Lynn's Rating: B-

Liberty's Rating: B. I love this thing. It's useful, straight forward, and happy to take damage until a side torso falls off. It will sit there and sling shell after shell after shell at things for a reasonable enough price as it eats shots until it eventually gutters out and goes down. Also, god bless the LB-10, they're just a good weapon to have. The 6A is a pile of tough useful utility and we love that.

EMP-6A-EC

Clanners... What are you doing, Clanners? Okay, so, this is the "Early Clan" upgrade of the Emperor, and it is... weird. If you have TRO: Golden Century and can explain some of the choices made here, I'd love to hear more lore in the comments! In any case, the Star Adders' rather disjointed upgrade sees the Extra Credit Emperor drop the head laser, pick up another two heat sinks, gain Clan-grade ERLLs in the arms, swap the left-arm LB-10 for its Clan-grade upgrade, and swap the right-arm LB-10 for an LB-5 and a prototype Streak-4. Oh, also, the single LB 10-X still has four tons of ammo allocated to it?? This still all shakes out to basically the same firing pattern as the regular EMP-6A but with stronger Large Lasers and slightly weaker autocannons, but the cost is up to 2,214, the ammo bombs are bigger, and I'm not particularly impressed.

Lynn's Rating: C

Liberty's Rating: C. About right, just a weird dude that does weird things with weird weapons. Cool?

Emperor. Credit: Rockfish

EMP-6D

While the 6A returned in the Invasion Era (in keeping with its out-of-universe debut in TRO: 3058), it didn't start seeing further upgrades until the Jihad era. The 6D was the FedSuns' contribution, and the results are somewhat predictable: Both autocannons are RAC/5s here, all five lasers are ERs, and we've picked up enough extra heat sinks and ammo to use all but one of the critical slots available... unfortunately pushing a ton of RAC ammo into each leg in the process! Heat is a bit spicy, especially if you want to burn that leg ammo as fast as possible, but if you drop both ERLLs you can fire everything else on full blast for an absolute storm of 5-damage hits at close range. 2,382 BV and no damage cluster larger than 8, though...

Lynn's Rating: C-

Liberty's Rating: B. CAN YOU HEAR IT? THE CLATTER OF THE WORLD'S ENGINE RATTLING TO LIFE? THE SONOROUS CHATTER OF GARGANTUAN MOTORS BREATHING HATE AND FIRE INTO THE GUTS OF THESE WONDROUS WEAPONS CALLS TO ME. I SHALL ANSWER THIS CALL AND HEED NOT THE DANGER OF THE LEG AMMO. I WILL CARE NOT FOR THE ISSUES OF HEAT AND I SHALL DRIVE ON IN THE NAME OF HOUSE DAVION. I AM THE SHELL SPITTER AND YOU SHALL RESPE- Deafening Ammo Explosion.

EMP-6L

Ah, here we see the start of the passionate love affair between the CCAF and the Emperor, and the emergence of a new Emperor archetype: the Stealth + TSM Emperor! The bones of this Emperor are pretty much the same as any other 6A-derived Emp, but that 100% armor coverage is all Stealth armor now (with the necessary ECM suite shoved into the left arm) and nearly all the weapons have been swapped out: The 6L mounts a gauss rifle in the right arm, an ER PPC in the left, and two MPLs in each side torso. This is... actually a better weapons load for managing TSM heat than it looks like (as long as you aren't playing with quirks, where Improved Cooling Jacket basically prevents you from walking if you want to stay at 9+), since a Gauss can fill the "one-heat weapon" niche that's more commonly filled by something like a small laser, and you've got juuust enough heat capacity with 24 sinking to do the stealth-sniper thing for a while with the long range guns before you decide to really turn on the heat and kick off some legs (though the stealth heat can't contribute very well to your TSM upkeep, so you'll be turning it off for that). Worth noting, also, that while no Emperor has hands to throw, this one does have lower arm actuators, so its punches are only at a +1 to-hit penalty and can still knock off heads when the heat is on, a niche but valuable application. Unfortunately, the headcapper and the ERPPC mean this is the second-most-expensive Emperor at 2,681 BV, and you can do better at that BV.

Lynn's Rating: D+

Liberty's Rating: D+. I'll be honest I kinda like this thing, conceptually, but man I wish people building TSM machines would take a moment to think about what the machine wants to do because stealth and TSM? Cool, great for the close and a consistent and free 10 heat is helpful. Stealth, TSM, and a desire to snipe while having a forcible heat related +1 so you can maneuver?

Ok but why?

EMP-6M

A relic of the era in which the FWL and the Word of Blake were in bed together, the 6M is a strange beast, but recognizable as the offspring of its particular parents. Armor coverage is slightly thinner than the norm (though it's still rocking 28 points of protection on its least-armored front-facing locations), the skeleton is endo-steel (a very rare choice for an Emperor, otherwise seen only in one Unique variant), the engine is Light rather than XL for added survivability, and the Triple-Strength Myomer is here (though paired with Standard armor). The weapons have been swapped out for a light gauss and an ERLL in each arm, an ERML in the head, and an MPL in each torso location. Fire control is enhanced by a C3i unit.

Unfortunately, even for a TSM mech, the 6M doesn't mount enough heat sinks to justify its arsenal, mounting only the ten weight-free Double Heat Sinks it's entitled to. It quite simply doesn't need the second ERLL for any purpose; it doesn't even add an additional long-range 8-damage hit on the turn you engage TSM, since any firing pattern that gets you to +9 from cold which uses both ERLLs needs to drop at least one of the Light Gausses, and the MPL trio fills the exact same hole in its heat profile.

I suppose the one ERLL, one ERML, and two Light Gausses it can afford to throw at 12 hexes aren't the worst payoff a heavily-armored 2,090 BV mech can add to a C3i network, and you've got the same punch/kick potential as the 6L for significantly lower BV, but I'm not exactly excited by what I'm seeing here.

Lynn's Rating: C-

Liberty's Rating: C. I really like LGRs and they buy a bit of love for me, still annoyed about the damned TSM though. Stop fuckin' putting TSM on snipers, I beg you.

EMP-6S

Lyrans can't lie... we all know they like big guns. Unfortunately, the Emperor 6S manages to be a surprise contender for the title of "Worst King Crab." The 6S starts with the normal 6A-derived chassis, but swaps its arm guns out for a pair of LB 20-Xs, keeps a bog-standard medium laser in the head, and mounts an MPL in each torso location.

This is still a 3/5/3 mech. Its longest-range weapons have 4/8/12 brackets. Inner Sphere LB/20s are one crit slot too big for it to flip its arms.

Even with two headchoppers and a lot of critseeking ability for a budget 2,065 BV, this mech is laughably ineffective. If you want a mech to fill this role (and you're playing with objectives to prevent just being completely kited), take a Nova Cat M, I beg of you.

Lynn's Rating: F

Liberty's Rating: D. Honestly it's 2 LB20s on a tough frame that just wants to try and hammer at people constantly. It, though in a slightly less useful manner, still does its best to be a good utility friend by being able to turn, look a target in the face, and then play grabby hands at its many open locations.

EMP-6X

Goonhammer has already reviewed this one as part of XTRO: RISC! Fun fact, though: Since this has no published MUL availability yet, Mekbay's availability display is completely broken for this variant and basically claims that anyone who ever gets access to any Emperor ever can use a 6X, so have fun convincing your buddy to let you take RISC Hyper Lasers in the Star League era, I guess??

Warrior House Hiritsu Emperor. Credit: Valk.

EMP-7L

The BV-budget-friendly (2,179!) entry in House Liao's Stealth+TSM Emperor line, the 7L is actually a really interesting mech which makes shockingly functional use out of all of its tech. Let's break down what we're looking at here. The 7L moves 3/5/0 when the heat is off, so we don't have the jump jets to deal with broken terrain and our only speed boost is the Kaio-ken that is Triple-Strength Myomer. We have a Standard Engine for the first time since the 5A, letting CASE actually be the survivability buff it's supposed to be. Weapons are a standard AC/10 in each arm, with six specialty-ammo-friendly tons of munitions concentrated into one CASE protected bomb in the right torso (padded only by a single DHS), plus one ERLL and two MPLs in the left torso next to the ECM suite. 12 Double Heat Sinks manage the heat. What this all adds up to is a mech with approximately four firing patterns: ERLL + Stealth for long-range plinking, two AC/10s + Stealth at mid-range, and then dealer's choice of "Stealth off, Alpha Strike" for shooting-focused brawling or a slightly awkward transition into TSM (smoothest is probably stand still, Stealth on, ERLL, both MPLs, one AC/10, though you could also turn off one sink, drop one MPL, and run to maintain mobility) followed by fairly easy maintenance (Stealth off + all energy weapons + run keeps things neutral) if you want to turn into Kickbot 9000. For my money I'd probably treat the TSM on this mech as either a "break glass in case of emergency" tool or as a pure speed boost on a larger map, but I like the potential here, as long as you can load specialty ammo for the ACs.

Lynn's Rating: C+

Liberty's Rating: C. This is better but I must once again state: STOP FUCKING PUTTING TSM ON MID TO LONG RANGE 'MECHS.

EMP-8L

The latest of the Capellan Emperors, the 8L is a remix of the 7L. The AC/10s become LB-10s, the ERLL becomes a Plasma Rifle, the six tons of ammo become four tons of autocannon ammo and two of (non-volatile!) plasma ammo, and the MPLs become Medium Re-Engineered Lasers instead. While the max heat ceiling is exactly the same, this redistributes things such that the close-in lasers run hotter and the longer-range guns are cooler, meaning the 8L is actually perfectly happy to fire both LBs and the Plasma Rifle with stealth running. The downside is that while maintaining neutral heat is still fairly easy (but cannot be done perfectly at a walk), the transition into TSM heat has become even more awkward. Since it mounts double heat sinks and has no access to odd-numbered heat from a weapon, the 8L must walk (it has no jump jets for an alternative route!) to reach the +9 TSM sweet spot by exact count, and must skip firing both ACs that turn.

I like the 8L's shooting better than the 7L's, but I'm not as much a fan of its TSM usage, and the BV does rise a bit to 2,385. Still, though, this is a mech I'm looking forward to getting to table now that I'm paying attention to its existence!

Lynn's Rating: C+

EMP-6A (Nerran)

So, this unique variant is a mech that looks odd if you just look at its record sheet, but it has a really fun backstory. Nerran was a Goliath Scorpion Seeker, one of the Adventure Archaeologists of the Clans, who discovered a badly damaged Emperor in a Brian Cache and identified its serial number as E6A-0001... the very first Emperor 6A to be produced. With only its left arm weapons still functional, his makeshift repairs furnished it with a Clan-grade gauss rifle in the right arm and a Star-League-era ERPPC in the right torso on top of its vintage Large Laser and LB-10. He also increased the heat sink count to 14, making his Emperor heat neutral on a running alpha strike. This mech would still like to be ever so slightly faster, but it has significantly improved reach-out-and-touch-you potential over most other Emperors and doesn't fare too badly up close. Not a bad package for 2,247 BV.

Unfortunately for our Scorpion-loving friend Liberty, mixed-tech designs were considered "Experimental" at the time Nerran salvaged his Emperor, sharply limiting this design's availability in tournaments despite every single bit of its tech being in the BattleMech Manual, the usual gospel for tournament mech rules.

Lynn's Rating: B-

Liberty's Rating: B. This thing fucks and is incredibly cool. I love flavorful yet effective 'Mechs and want nothing more than to be allowed to run this thing at a tournament without some weird 'but actually doing it is bad for you' hook in my mouth that prevents me from being flavorful. JUST LET ME RUN MY FUNNY FIRST BUILD BOY!!!

I JUST WANNA RUN THIS DAMNED THING AND HORUS' BANDERSNATCH WITHOUT GETTING FROWNED ON FOR BEING 'EXPERIMENTAL' OR UNIQUE. THOSE TAGS DON'T MEAN BROKEN AND FUCKY, THEY JUST MEAN THEY WERE NEW OR LOW PRODUCTION. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE BAD AND BROKEN. MOST OF THEM ARE JUST DUMB. LET ME BE DUMB.

Not allowing me to be fun results in what I'm bringing to South Carolina Classic and Brawl in the Blue Grass. I'll not spoil them here but believe me, letting me just be funny and run Nerran would've been better.

EMP-6ME "Mercury Elite"

Ahh, Free Worlds League covert operations and incompetence, name a more iconic duo! This unique variation on the Emperor 6M belonged to Lt. Col. Anne-Marie McCormack, Jihad-era commander of the FWLM's elite "Dark Shadows" special forces, who doomed her unit to total destruction when their disloyalty to their Blakist-aligned chain of command was revealed because the anti-WoB fiction she wrote under a pen name got traced back to her.

Fortunately, the erstwhile "Captain Bernard Ryan" actually had quite good taste in mechs, I think. The 6ME thins the armor slightly more than the regular 6M (still 95% coverage) and swaps the equipment out for two Silver-Bullet Gausses, two Snub PPCs, the typical side torso MPLs (but no head or CT laser), and a regular C3S unit. The Silver Bullet Gauss is a niche weapon which basically works like a gauss rifle firing LB-X style cluster rounds instead of solid shot (and only firing cluster; it can't swap over to solid)... they're utterly useless against Ferro-Lameollar Armor and less flexible than LB 10-Xs, but I have a big soft spot for the SB Gauss. It pairs well here with the Snub PPCs for skirmishing in the 7-9 hex range (though a 3/5 mech won't be controlling ranges too precisely!), and is also a decent payoff for a C3 network, threatening TAC torture from across the map. The 6ME runs just a hair hot, but it only builds movement heat firing the long-range guns and is neutral at a run up close if you drop one Snubbie. Best part? SB Gausses are cheap as chips, and this mech only runs 2,004 BV.

Unfortunately for me, in addition to being a Unique mech which only existed in one era, the 6ME also, like Nerran's ride, mounts tech which was considered Experimental at the time but isn't anymore (the SB Gausses, in this case), which means that it's eternally Experimental on the Master Unit List, and even TOs who both allow "Experimental" tech if it's in the BMM and also allow a single Unique mech typically ban the combination of Experimental and Unique for some over-cautious reason (RIP my dreams of running Dark Shadows at next month's Carolina Classic).

But enough about that!

Lynn's Rating: B

Conclusion

Most Emperors play well to my tastes, combining not-too-big/not-too-small ballistic guns with a decent spread of lasers and bringing plenty of beef for their BV, but sometimes they're simply too slow or too short-ranged to really get where their guns want to be, especially for the models without jump jets. Considering that most Emperors have XL engines anyway, I'm a little disappointed there isn't a 4/6/something variant (not counting TSM speed boosts)! Still, while there's still space for innovation on the Emperor chassis (Emperor C / Mixed ClanSpec variant, anyone?), there's a solid spread of options out there, and most of them can put in good work!

Liberty: A full tilt C, IJJ, or 4/6 is sorely missed here and I'd bet they could've been hilarious with it. Also, there's not a missile variant which is surprising. Those big broad ass shoulders scream 'give me missile pauldrons. I can be trusted with missile pauldrons.'

Anyhow, until next time! Fair weather, good seas, and happy ruling-over-your-local-micro-empire-ing!

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Tags: Emperor | Battletech | Mech Overview | Assault Mech