BattleTech Mech Overview: Rifleman IIC

Welcome back, MechWarriors! Today we'll be looking at the Clan second-line heavy mech with guns for arms and a big dish-shaped "hat" on its head! That's right, we're talking about the Glass Spid-

Wait, what's that? The Clans made two of those? It's the Rifleman IIC today? Ugh, okay...

Rifleman IIC. Credit: Rockfish

The Rifleman IIC weighs in a little heavier than the standard Rifleman at 65 tons. As a BattleMech rather than an Omni, it does change things up sometimes in terms of its chassis, but it broadly tends to be slower and more heavily armored than its predecessor, with an emphasis on using jumping capability to try to compensate for its glacial ground speed. Most conversation around the Rifleman IIC tends to center its standard variant, which is the poster child for Pulse Crimes in the minds of many, but there's another nine of these things, too! Let's take a closer look...

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).

Standard

The elephant in the Rifleman IIC room, the Rifleman IIC Standard foregoes the mix of autocannons and lasers typically found on its spheroid predecessor in favor of a different approach to shooting at aircraft: four Large Pulse Lasers. It also has an Emotional Support ER Small Laser and an Active Probe For Some Fucking Reason, but what you really care about are the CLPLs. These sit at a happy intersection of "don't rely on the Anti-Aircraft Targeting quirk to shoot fast-moving targets at a good distance" and "are perfectly effective into ground targets." Our Standard friend here only has space for 19 DHS, so it builds 2+Movement heat firing off all four of the pulses, but with its 3/5/3 movement profile, flippable arms, and max armor, it's built for TurretTech, not mobility, and you can easily just drop one gun to recoup heat whenever you find you need breathing room. With nothing explosive on its frame and a standard fusion engine, the Rifleman IIC Standard also takes a looot of killing to put down.

Boring, practical, straightforward, the Rifleman IIC Standard will dispense 30-40 accurate damage at good range until it dies or has angry battle armor thrown at it (recommendation: throw angry battle armor at it). It's a bit expensive for its damage profile at 2,307 BV, but this guy has a fearsome reputation for a reason. The expected BV changes to pulse lasers may kneecap this variant in the near future, though.

Lynn's Rating: B, would definitely be higher if it had better mobility

2

Control rolls. The only excuse for this mech existing is control rolls. For the uninitiated, Aerospace Fighters have to make their equivalent to a PSR any time they take any damage, introducing a small (for decent pilots in atmosphere) but nonzero chance that they'll lose control, lose altitude, and become some combination of more-vulnerable or dead.

I say control rolls are all the Rifleman IIC 2 is good for because its entire armament is comprised of four U/AC 2s, for an astonishing alpha strike of up to 16 damage and up to eight hit locations (cluster-table-dependent). This doesn't hit the Bane/Kraken weight of fire to truly threaten TAC-and-ball torture to mechs or guarantee immobilization for CVs; it's just kind of sad. Incredibly long-ranged, but sad. Speed picks up a touch here to 4/6/3 (the six full tons of U/AC 2 ammo, enough for 33 shots with all four guns on ultra mode, were definitely more important than the fourth jump jet), armor is down a whopping three pips, and BV drops like a rock to 1,345, but none of that really matters. While writing this article I had a brief flash of hope that the Rifleman IIC 2 might at least be an okay choice to Stand On Points due to its combination of armor and BV cost, but no, it really isn't. You could get multiple Thunderbolts, a decent Orion, a decent Cataphract, or even the 6/9/6 ECM-and-BAP-equipped Solaris weirdo the Morpheus MR-P1 with the same or better armor for cheaper than a Rifleman IIC 2, and you'd have a mech capable of actually fighting.

Lynn's Rating: F.

3

...huh. Okay, so, this Cloud Cobra variant, developed to bolster home defense after Task Force Serpent's invasion of Huntress, drops back down to the 3/5/3 movement profile, brings back the Active Probe, keeps two Ultra AC/2s and two tons of ammo for them, and then loads a Heavy Large Laser in each arm. It's back to full armor coverage, but with standard armor like the 2 rather than Ferro-Fibrous like the Standard, so it has enough crit space to jump to 21 DHS. That prodigious heat sinking capability means this thing is actually heat neutral at a run with all the guns firing at full rate, only gaining +1 heat on a jumping alpha.

This is... interesting. We've got no TarComp here for the heavy lasers, but the Rifleman IIC 3 comes out to 1,733 BV, so it's just 2,080 at 3/5 skills, which sort of sounds... plausible. It's still very tough, and after two Heavy Larges are done hole-punching the UAC/2s might actually do something. The big problem is speed: This has the lowest effective range of any Rifleman IIC we've seen so far, and 3/5/3 starts to sound like a real liability if you want those HLLs to reach Short range.

Looking at this through the lens of Goonhammer's rating system (or on the FedSuns and Mercenary availability lists it eventually ends up on), the problem is that plenty of Heavy PPC mechs just give more bang for the buck than this can offer. I'd say it's playable with an upskilled pilot, though.

Lynn's Rating: C-.

Rifleman IIC, Wolf's Dragoons Alpha Regiment

4

Okay, so the Rifleman IIC 4 takes a Standard, swaps to standard armor, drops the probe and the Emotional Support Small Laser, drops down to 16 DHS, and replaces two of the LPLs with two ATM 9s and four tons of ammo (two in each arm). This... is pretty tasty, actually. It's still 3/5/3, so it's not building significant TMM and it's not going to be particularly capable of closing to HE range or controlling ATM ranges, but you're not giving up much in the way of damage potential even firing Extended Range missiles, and the 4 can punish anyone who gets close to its sniper nest with a lot of hate. It's also a relatively-low 2,140 BV. I'd rather have a Nova Cat E in this price / firepower / armor bracket (and anyone who has Rifleman IIC 4 MUL access other than the FedSuns has the Nova Cat as an alternative), but this isn't a bad mech by any stretch.

Lynn's Rating: B+.

5

The jump jets... they've been improved! The 5 has the same frame as the 3 and 4 (a full load of Standard armor over Endo-Steel with a 195-rated standard fusion engine), but moves to iJJs for a 3/5/5 movement profile. Weapons are overhauled to a trio of ER Large Lasers and a pair of Medium Pulse Lasers, with an ERLL and an MPL in each flippable arm and the third ERLL in the head for maximum zombie mech potential. We've got enough heat sinking here that the three ERLLs are heat neutral at a run, but an alpha strike would be 6+movement heat, so the big red button is a sometimes food.

The extra jump capability definitely helps the Rifleman IIC 5 get to the fight, but the uptime for its full damage output is lessened, and BV is up to 2,343.

Lynn's Rating: B-.

Hastati Sentinels Rifleman IIC. Credit: Jack Hunter

6

Take a Rifleman IIC Standard. Drop the jump jets and all the guns and drop down to the basic 10 DHS. Now mount a HAG/30 and an AMS in each arm, with a ton of AMS ammo in each arm and seven tons of HAG/30 ammo spread throughout the torso. That's the 6.

The HAGs give this probably the best anti-air capability out of any of the Rifleman IICs so far, and the HAG cluster modifiers mean this is actually dealing more damage on average cluster rolls than the Standard once it gets within 8 hexes, and heat simply does not matter to this mech, but the loss of the jump jets is a big blow to the maneuverability of a mech which is already notably lacking in maneuverability. 2,205 BV looks a bit steep for my blood.

Lynn's Rating: C.

7

It's a remarkable world when the one with the Targeting Computer is the Bad Heavy Laser One.

Okay, let me backtrack. The 7 has the 3/5/5 movement of the 5, the armor of the 2, and mounts two Plasma Cannons, two Heavy Large Lasers, a ton of plasma cannon ammo in each arm alongside the guns, an Emotional Support Micro Pulse Laser in the head (Infantry Guy, is that you?), and a targeting computer. It also sinks, uh, 32 heat. The HLLs alone are building 4+movement heat. At 2,205 BV this costs more than the 3 with an upgraded pilot. Unless you need to SCOUR TINY MANS FROM THE FACE OF THE PLANET, this is just bad, and even then I'm sure Infantry Guy could do better.

Lynn's Rating: D-.

Rifleman IIC, Wolf's Dragoons Alpha Regiment

8

Okay so this is basically a completely different mech. The Rifleman IIC 8 swaps to an XL engine to move a swift-footed 5/8/5, thins the armor just a bit overall and redistributes it so it's thicker-than-usual on the front torso locations but thinner on the back torso locations and the legs, and mounts an ERLL and two AP Gauss Rifles in each arm and an SSRM 6 in each side torso, with two tons of APGR ammo, two tons of SSRM ammo, and an ECM Suite in the head. These weapons build 4+movement heat if both streaks lock. I don't know who this is and what they did with the Rifleman IIC 8, but honestly I like what I'm seeing here for 2,541 BV. Perfectly competent Clan Cavalry Heavy.

Lynn's Rating: B+.

9

The Recognition Guides are here, so this is much more, uh, recognizable, for better or for worse. We've got the 3/5/3 profile, a full load of Reflective armor for some reason, four ERLLs, a targeting computer, and two coolant pods. The guns build 8+movement heat unless you pop a coolant pod, but are massively oversinked if you do use a pod. Also this costs 2,794 BV.

I don't like Reflective Armor on slow mechs which aren't pulse bait, and the heat curve here is just ill-thought-out. I would've actually rather seen fewer heat sinks and more coolant pods here, what the 9 went with is awkward. Just pay a little extra for the Supernova 5 if you think this sounds cool, I can almost guarantee you'll be happier.

Lynn's Rating: C-.

10

Okay, sure, yeah, that's another way you can interpret the Rifleman IIC's art! The 10 has the armor, active probe, and Emotional Support ERSL of the Standard, but moves to a 4/6[8]/4 profile via a supercharged XL engine and mounts two ProtoMech AC/8s in each arm, with the four tons of PAC/8 ammo in each side torso protected by CASE II. I strongly dislike PAC range bands, but the supercharger helps there, and this is probably a real mech with the upcoming Armor-Piercing ammo changes, especially if it stays near 1,587 BV. This is the cheap stand-on-points Rifleman IIC I hoped the 2 might be, with the benefit of an actual bite, albeit a very short-ranged one. Not setting the world on fire, but it has a role to play and can fill it.

Lynn's Rating: C+.

Clan Jade Falcon Gamma Galaxy Rifleman IIC. Credit: Valk.

Final Thoughts

That... sure is a lot of ways to build a slow 65-tonner with full or near-full armor and paired arm guns. Most Rifleman IICs are playable, and a few are good, but none are truly spectacular. The Standard, 4, 5, and 8 will all do consistent work, and the 3, 6, and 10 are situationally useful... For my BV, though, this is one Clan second-line mech which actually belongs in reserves.

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Tags: Battletech | Mech Overview | heavy mech | rifleman iic