The distant staccato report of cannon fire echoed down New Edinburgh’s cramped streets as I pushed Royal onward, doing our best to chase the fighting as it swung throughout the city. The slow groan of her actuators and straining myomer thrummed through the cockpit, the thunderous crash of her foot upon the pavement punctuating each step. The comms were alive with the sounds of battle, the grunted effort of my Lancemates fighting for their lives and the incessant ravings of Wilmarth on an all band.

The fight had left us as quickly as we had found it, my more mobile Lance-mates chasing after Wilmarth’s cowardly dogs, leaving Royal and I behind. I’d caught glimpses of the opposition as they flitted between buildings, skidded through intersections and traded fire with my comrades. But Royal was slow, always had been and always would be. 

Annihilators were like that. 

Every passing engagement had been too short. Too far away. Too fast. We couldn’t keep up, not even close. Royal couldn’t pull up a solid targeting solution fast enough, let alone swing her guns around and on target in the few seconds we’d have them in our sights. Taking speculatory pot shots at passing phantoms in the depths of the city was off the table, at least by me. According to Hauptmann General Fabel we were to do all we could to put down these rebels for what they’d done to the people of this city, slinging shells down random streets felt far too reckless. 

“HAUPTMANN,” the Comm crackled, Sergeant Major McDall screaming over the line, “GOT THE LAST ONE ON MY ASS, DRAGGING HIM TO YOU.”

“Roger, Sergeant; drag him down Schönfeld avenue and I’ll give him what I can.” I answered, pivoting Royal around to the right as I pushed her for every drop of speed she could give me. 

It wasn’t much.

We cleared the edge of the block, a vast wall of concrete giving way to the shifting greenery of the trees lining Schönfeld avenue. Royal rumbled along, trundling out into the intersection as McDall and his Commando streaked past us, a battered wolfhound close on his ass as he went by.

Royal struggled to come around on the pair, failing to find a firing solution before they were long gone and around the next corner. 

“THANKS HAUPTMANN, BIG HELP AS ALWAYS.” McDall shouted as he and his pursuer disappeared around the corner. 

“CARLSON, GET THIS FUCKER OFF ME.” He grunted, the sound of a his ‘mech skidding on the shattered roadway filling the comm.

“On it Sarge.” Corporal Carlson responded, the roar of his jump jets followed close behind by the rhythmic hum of his pulse lasers searing the air.

The Wolfhound reappeared on the street, scrambling away from Carlson and his pursuing Nightsky as the young warrior chased him down, burying a hatchet into the machine’s back. A sigh of relief sounded across the line as McDall’s Commando staggered out into the street, pausing to survey the wreckage as I glanced down at Royals ammunition display to find it oak green across the board. 

Every bin was full.

I wasn’t going to hear the end of this.

– Hauptmann Alan ‘Hitrate’ Bartels, Lyran Eighth Donegal Guards, Caledonia, April 3056.

—

Howdy Mechwarriors and welcome to another Mech Overview! This time around we’re looking at the Annihilator, the final word in ‘walk slowly and carry a big stick’. The Anni, as I will be referring to it from here on, is a monster of a machine. Originally conceived of at the very end of the Amaris Civil war it’s one of many machines that followed the Clans along out into the deep Periphery on their exodus. It is also one of the many machines that came back to the Inner Sphere in the drop-bays of the Wolf’s Dragoons as they hadn’t realized the IS had never actually put the machines into production due to…

Disagreements.

Chassis

The Anni is a full blooded assault class, weighing in at 100 tons. There’s a lot that could be done with a frame like this and with a name like Annihilator it gives a lot of expectation for what it’s trying to do. It certainly tries to fill that expectation.

Now, Anni’s all have the same problem: They’re fucking slow. The fastest one, which is a specialty variant, goes 3/5/0 and every single other one goes 2/3. This thing is not going anywhere fast. But what it is doing is getting there with a whole lot of firepower.

Anni’s thusly all have a few things in common: They carry a lot of guns, a- usually -acceptable amount of armor, are terribly slow, and they all look incredibly imposing.

Annis are very specific tools for very specific tasks: Beating things to death with hammers before you get beaten to death with their hammers. Unfortunately the way that Annis are built kinda breaks our review format because they are incredibly specific in use case and want for certain maps. They want to be in good positions where they can put on the hand brake and sling shells down long range shooting halls where things are forced to take them from head on and will have a hard time out maneuvering the thing. It’s rare they find it, if they do they’re absolutely incredible at the job due to just how cheap they are when compared to their comparators.

Let’s get into them.

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).

1X

Immense them in an ocean of ball bearings, laser fire, and armor.

This is the OG. The real Star-League-era McCoy and an absolute menace to polite ‘mech society had it ever been pushed forward for full production… or at least had made it out of the other side of the succession wars in one piece.

Clad in 19 tons of standard armor atop a standard structure with a standard engine and a standard gyro. Things are very standard here in 1X land and that’s fine because if it wasn’t then it couldn’t fit the rest of what it’s carrying. Armed with four LB 10-X autocannons with six tons of CASE protected ammo, four Medium Lasers, two Small Pulse Lasers to keep the rats away and a head mounted Small Laser the 1X is packing a lot of heat.

Speaking of heat, the 1X goes up 7 heat on a running alpha strike which isn’t great but it’s workable.

Coming in at a healthy 1,926 BV the 1X isn’t cheap but it’s also not terribly expensive for what you’re getting. 2/3 is a debilitating movement profile though. This thing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Liberty’s Rating: D. All the armor and guns in the world can’t save you from being this slow. That armor is going to ablate faster than you can kill whatever is shooting you which is fine on a squishy light ‘mech, not fine on an assault who’s only option is to just take the punishment and keep going.

Insanity Rating: B-. GUNS GUNS GUNS!!! SO MANY GUNS, DROWN THEM IN HEAD HITS, TACS AND FIREPOWER.

1A

The Dragoons had to lose their funny toys.

The 1A is essentially the austerity version of the 1X. Sent with the Dragoons into the Inner Sphere the 1A ditches the double heat sinks, a shit load of armor- retaining enough to still at least be AC/20 proof all over -, all of the small lasers and swaps the LB 10s and their six tons of CASEd ammo over to standard Autocannon 10s with four tons of non CASEd ammo. Additionally, to keep up with the heat, the 1A has 18 single heat sinks to try and manage what the guns are putting out.

They’re kinda failing.

On a running alpha strike the 1A puts out 26 heat which means you’ll go up 8 which, again, is manageable enough if you’re in a tight spot.

For 1,434 BV this is an incredibly cheap option for a fire support assault in the succ. war era which is something valuable in its own right. That said this thing is easily hunted down and murdered by things far more mobile than it and in later eras it is going to lose the range fight.

Liberty’s Rating: D+. The only thing making this higher than the 1X is the fact that it is just so much cheaper.

Insanity Rating: C-. Cheaper yes but why do funny shotguns go away? Funny shotguns funny.

1E

Lightning on demand and on call, whenever and wherever you need it within 30 days or it’s free.

The Dragoons took a 1A and field refitted it by ripping all of the cannons out of it, dumping another 23 heat sinks into it, buffing the armor up a touch and then cramming four standard PPCs into it.

Shit’s hilarious.

With 41 heat sinks the 1E is actually heat neutral rippling off all four PPCs at a walk, and only up 1 on a run. As well, at close range, the 1E has that familiar four pack of Medium Lasers to lean back on which helps to compensate for the minimum range on the PPCs.

For 1,625 BV this is honestly quite funny but it is still horridly slow.

This is an Awesome AWS-9Q competitor for around 200 BV cheaper owed entirely to the armor and the speed. Honestly, I’d rather have the Awesome in most cases. This is probably the only way to carry this firepower set, with reasonable cooling, in the introtech base.

Liberty’s Rating: D+. Extended range and good heat management makes me like this one more than the others so far but man is it still going to get beaten apart before it can do anything most of the time.

Insanity Rating: D-. Restrained. Semi-Competent. Stupid. Lame. Gib amassed AC/20s.

1G

G is for Gauss.

The 1G is an early clan machine, technically. Still using the IS techbase this variant was Clans Ghost Bear, Coyote and Star Adder out of the original 1X. Retaining the original armor load and double heat sinks the 1G ditches all of the 1X’s guns and replaces them with a trio of Gauss rifles, with two tons of ammo a piece, and an IS Extended Range PPC.

Dead heat neutral with a running alpha strike, and down 2 heat standing still, the 1G is the epitome of parking up on a hill and slinging a lot of hate at anything that even dares to move within your sightline.

Costing 2,274 BV the 1G costs a little less than what you’d expect for a machine that is this capable of laying down hate. But, in the end, it still only goes 2/3.

Liberty’s Rating: C-. This is a lot of hate for price and stacks up quite well against the Thunder Hawk, especially since it has double heat sinks to keep infernos and such from being able to just stun lock it to death, but it does still suffers from terminal slow.

Insanity Rating: A+. CANOE THEIR COCKPITS. SLAM THROUGH THEIR ARMOR PLATES. DIG THROUGH THEIR DITCHES. SHATTER THEIR JOINTS AND DRIVE THEM TO SUNDER.

2A

1X 2, pulse laser boogaloo.

The 2A is a 1X with four key differences:

• The 10 double heat sinks are now 17 singles.
• The Medium Lasers are Medium Pulse Lasers.
• The Small Lasers are gone
• Any needed weight was taken from the armor, and two missing tons of ammo.

This is an interesting setup to say the least. Being the 3048 variant built for the Dragoons its pulling in some Helm Memory core technology it is quite capable of defending itself and reaching out to touch targets with a wall of bearings.

An alpha strike on the run sends it up 9 heat but this is squarely a bracket firing ‘mech. Slinging the big guns at things until they get to a point where the MPLs really wanna be talking keeps you down on heat in both bands, or up one if you run while laying into the MPLs.

Sliding in at 1,595 BV I actually like this variant quite a bit for what it’s trying to do. There’s a good amount of backline shelling to be had here, even if it is still 2/3.

Liberty’s Rating: C-. This is a better version of just about any of the autocannon ones that have come before it.

Insanity Rating: C+. Big shotguns fun, blinky lasers fun. Slam forth the wall of bearings and sunder their armor and internals for having the gall to stand before you.

2AX

The Lyrans are doin’ weird shit up in here with armor and guns but I am very onboard. Buddy was built wrong as a joke.

The 2AX is a unique experimental variant that ditches everything that came in Annis before it, only retaining the Anni’s usual frame and movement profile. It achieves this movement profile with a compact engine and compact gyro fitted with ten single heat sinks. It carries a near full armor load of reflective armor and then armors all of the head crit spots which is incredibly funny.

All of this builds up to the guns.

A pair of Improved Heavy Gauss rifles in CASE protected side torsos with four tons of ammo each in the corresponding arms.

Hilariously stupid.

Note that if you fire Heavy Gauss rifles on the move you instigate a PSR. Also note that reflective armor takes extra damage from physical attacks which includes fall damage. Also also note that the center torso, while using the compact items, still only has two things trying to eat crits for the important bits within while the rest of the slots are reserved for Reflective Armor space.

Why aren’t these slots filled with ammo bins???

There is only one answer: This thing’s designers wanted it to beat itself to death.

For 2,553 BV I know that I shouldn’t want to run this thing but man am I susceptible to the siren call of two iHGRs. If you want this just go get a Fafnir.

Liberty’s Rating: D-. This is terrible, absolutely HILARIOUS, but still terrible. 

Insanity Rating: A+. KILL THEM ALL. END THEIR WORLDS AND SHATTER THE VERY GROUND UPON WHICH THEY WALK. I AM THE END OF TIME AND DESTROYER OF WORLDS. 

3A

Like that Popping Cat but with 40mms.

This thing is… strange. 

Essentially taking the frame of a 2AX the 3A has a Compact Engine and Compact Gyro on a standard frame clad in a full load of Light Ferro Fibrous armor. Eschewing the ‘hardest head in the Sphere’ idea of the 2AX the 3A does not armor everything in the Head and instead loads up on a lot of dumb shit:

• 12 Double Heat Sinks
• 4 IS gradeER Medium Lasers
• 8 Light Auto Cannon 2s with 5 tons of ammo.
• A Targeting computer.

Load it with precision ammo and send some incredibly accurate needles into anything that gets near you about it.

The 12 double heat sinks are fighting a, slightly, losing battle on a running alpha strike, going up 6 heat. This is manageable. When you’re at the point of tossing on those ERMLs you just drop 6 of the LACs and call it good, really.

For 1,712 BV this is the funniest Annihilator because it’s genuinely an idiotic use of a 100 ton frame. That said I have, and still do, used this thing and it’s incredibly entertaining to roll this many AC/2s at someone.

Liberty’s Rating: F+. Kept from being a flat F just by the funny factor, seriously ineffective machine but I love him so much.

Insanity Rating. C. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink. 

4A

Identity crisis in a box.

The 4A has problems. For 1,726 BV this thing hauls in a pair of Heavy PPCs, a pair of LAC 2s with a ton of ammo each, and a pair of LB 10-Xs with two tons of ammo each. The armor is back down again and the thing only packs on fifteen double heat sinks meaning it only sinks thirty heat on a ‘mech that builds 6 heat on an alpha strike, or 8 at a run.

On a ‘mech that does not have an option for bracket firing. Everything here is on the same range bands. This heat issue can be solved by just firing off the HPPCs or by dropping one every other turn and banding back and forth between 2/3 and 1/2 movement profiles but there are a lot of HPPC ‘mechs that just do the job way better for near the same price. Also it just randomly has a compact gyro in it for some reason?

Liberty’s Rating: D-. This thing is all over the place and has the capacity for a great loadout with the heavy choppers and the followup scatter shots. If there was a way to ditch those LAC/2s for some extra heat sinking then we’d be golden but as it is we don’t have that option which is unfortunate.

Insanity Rating: B+. Worrying about heat is for the weak, smash in their armor plates and rend their insides with a shower of BBs. Rip and tear.

5W

The Dragoons come home to roost.

The 5W is an evolution of the 2A that takes it a step further and its all thanks to an Endo-Steel Chassis and beautifully light Clan Tech. The 5W takes a 2A, trades the LB 10Xs and tunes them up into Clan Spec Gauss Rifles- protected by CASE II -with two tons of ammo a piece, and then gives the IS MPLs the same treatment resulting in a machine with some real hate on tap.

Four Gauss rifles and four Clan Medium Pulse Lasers is a lot of damage to be able to punch into something. Especially when you’re kept cool by a standard ten pack of Clan Double heat sinks which makes it so the machine only builds movement heat when alpha striking.

Oh boy. 

Liberty’s Rating: C+. Purity of purpose is a good thing and it doesn’t get much pure than the 5W.

Insanity Rating: A+. One of these slugs has your name on it and I’m gonna fire them off until I find it.

C

SPEEEED

This one goes 3/5! What the fuck is going on in here???

Now moving at normal 100 ton speeds the C packs in 12 double heat sinks to support the monstrous amount of gun it packs on. Supported by four Clan ER Medium Lasers the C’s main armament is four Ultra AC/10s with eight tons of ammo. So

Those heat sinks manage to keep this thing’s heat relatively in check if you’re bracket firing. Sending all the UACs down range on double tap builds movement heat and doing the same with the ERMLs is at -2 heat. This can make for an effective firing profile where you bounce up 2 heat on the cannons, ripple the Lasers into something to dump the heat back out, and then do it again. Or just always be double tapping, that’d work to.

This thing is prepared to tear something in half if it gets a good hold of it, which it really should be when it costs 2,520 BV.

Big IF there though.

Liberty’s Rating: C. Very funny assault, get the guns talking and bathe something in 10 damage hits.

Insanity Rating: A+. I CAN HEAR THE SONGs OF THE END TIMES. THE HOWL OF THE ULTRA CALLS TO MY SOUL AND I INTEND TO FULFILL THE CALLING OF MY DESTINY. I WILL DRIVE THE SPHEROID DOGS INTO THEIR GRAVES.

C2

The perfect lifeform.

2,520 BV.

2,520 BV for what is quite possibly the most efficient machine on the Thunderhawk to Hellstar scale of fuck that guy measurement.

This thing has 5 head choppers and is down 1 heat firing them all on a run. Four Gauss rifles and a Clan  ER PPC supported by the emotional support cER Small Laser make for the most hateful loadout we’ve seen so far.

This thing is not ok. It will take heads given the chance and there’s little your opponent can do about that aside rom kill it but, much like all Annis, it has a standard engine. Then, even if you do beat the side off of it it still has a Clan grade ER PPC in the CT so it will just keep shooting at you with the thing until you either put it down or it puts you down.

Thing’s fucking angry.

Liberty’s Rating: A-. Holy shit this thing is horrifying, the absolute zenith of what the Anni is trying to do.

Jack’s Rating: B. Look, it’s got great guns, but at 2/3 movement you will never be trading favorably. It will take many turns to get up a hill. Your opponent completely controls what you can shoot at, which is not great at 2,500 BV.

Insanity Rating: A+. I AM GOD’S OWN CHILD. I WILL SHATTER YOUR ARMOR AND SHEAR FREE YOUR COCKPIT FOR YOUR HUBRIS OF DARING TO ENTER MY EYELINE.

Gausszilla

Hear my gauss rifles roar across the plains.

This is a C2 that bid away the ERPPC, 2 heat sinks, and a bunch of armor to mount a fifth gauss rifle.

That’s it, that’s the change.

For 2,455 I’d rather have the C2’s extra close range backup and the sinking to deal with it.

Liberty’s Rating: B. In reality the C2 is an improvement over Gausszilla and as such this thing really is missing some of the things that make the C2 so much of a threat.

Insanity Rating: A-. Less cool C2, still funny but it’s not as funny as the C2.

Conclusion

The Annihilator is so fuckin’ weird dude. I love how it looks. I love the concept of what it’s trying to do but that lack of manuverability often leaves me wanting more. For the same job things like the Nightstar just does it better while still being able to really drive that line forward into something.

That said the Anni C2 is explicitly best in class for its job and theres not really much that comes close if we’re honest.

There’s only one thing I’m surprised I don’t see here which is something like a ‘C 3’ variant that makes full use of Hardened armor to really be the absolute brick that this thing can be.

Until next time! Fair weather, good seas and happy trudging!

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