Howdy, blue LEDs, and welcome back to Mech Overview. This week we are taking a look at the Flashman, a weird egg shaped dork from TRO 2750. The Flashman has, up until its recent redesign, always been a massively awkward looking mech. It has odd goat legs, it is, as mentioned, a weird egg, and its arms are just kinda there as little stumps. This might make you think that the Flashman is going to be a weird dork, an unfocused or messy design mostly notable for its odd appearance.

You would be extremely wrong.

The Flashman is a mech without a lot of variants, because it doesn’t need them. At any given point in the timeline it is extremely likely that a Flashman is going to be the best overall choice for a heavy mech for any faction with them on availability. This was massively surprising for me to learn a couple of years ago, because I had always not paid it any mind. The Flashman is not a mech that stands out to people unaware of what it can do. It is ugly, weird, and comes in the less exciting of the two ComStar boxes. It is likely the single best thing in any box it comes in.

So, let’s get in to why.

Variants

The Flashman is not an Omni-Mech, so I am free from having a chassis section. Yay!

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).

7K

The IntroTech model, the 7K is a monster of BV efficiency and armor. For 1480 BV you get a 75 ton heavy mech with 4/6/0 movement, good armor, and a phenomenal loadout for that price. It carries 2 large lasers, 5 medium lasers of which only 1 points backwards, and a flamer for reasons. This means that the 7K has no ammo, and as this is IntroTech, it also has a standard engine. Combining good armor, a lack of ammo, a comparatively low price, adequate speed for what it is, a standard engine, and acceptable firepower and heat management, this is a very high quality mech for what you pay for it. It is in a lot of ways similar to the IntroTech Ostsol, being a cheap heavy mech built around a pair of large lasers. The Flashman 7K has much better close in firepower though, and trades speed for armor.

This is extremely solid. 4/6/0 lets it keep up with later period assault mechs, and it has exactly enough firepower to chip in meaningfully while being difficult to kill in return. I like the concept of pairing one or two of these with something like a Kingfisher or Iron Cheetah that it shares a movement profile with. Solid, playable mech.

Peri’s Rating: B, at the upper echelon of IntroTech

8K

The OG Flashman from TRO 2750, the 8K is a very different animal. It is a fair bit pricier at 1779 BV, and it has both advantages and disadvantages compared to the 7K. It maintains the same armor belt, but goes up to 5/8/0 through the use of an XL engine. This heavily reduces the sheer zombie durability of the mech compared to the 7K, but it also doesn’t have the decency to leave it there, as it carries an AMS with a single ton of uncased ammo right next to the engine. Even with the hypothetical ammo explosion changes, this still dies instantly to that, cool. In weaponry terms, the 8K has quite a bit for this movement profile and cost, with three large lasers, the same five medium lasers (one backwards) from the 7K, and a Flamer and AMS to waste BV and make it explode.

I am much less fond of the 8K compared to the 7K, but it isn’t without merit. If you can keep it safe on the first turn or two while it dumps its ammo it is durable enough, and the combination of speed and decent damage is nice at this price. I personally find the tradeoff in durability in this mech compared to the 7K to be very unappealing when combined with the price increase, but being 5/8/0 is very good if you are on a good map and can leverage it. This is a mech that is very heavily harmed by the Clans existing, because they just have 5/8/0 mechs in this price range that do it better, from the Gargoyle B to the various big gun Novas.

A 5/8/0 heavy mech that can do 30-ish points of damage is decent, but better options exist at this sort of price range and it just isn’t special in the modern day.

Peri’s Rating: C-, this side of acceptable but far from exceptional.

9B

The first upgrade model, the 9B has a lot going for it. For a very reasonable 1600 BV, the 9B stays 5/8/0 but uses both weight saving tech and some weaponry reshuffling to get enough tonnage to upgrade to a light engine. Light engines are vastly better than XL engines, because you don’t lose the entire mech if they get shot. In addition, it is full of other weird ass equipment and choices. For weaponry, we have two ER large lasers, two medium pulse lasers, two ER medium lasers, an ER small laser for some fucking reason, and a C3i suite. C3i is cool and this mech would be great in a network for it, but C3i can be extremely hard to get value out of in practice, so I will be mostly ignoring it. The heat management on this mech is pretty good, going up movement heat either firing the ERLLs or firing everything but the ERLLs. This is very good.

In addition, the lack of explosive components combined with a light engine makes this mech far more durable than the 8K while managing to be a lot cheaper. It also has a compact gyro, which doesn’t help it much because it leaves 3 of the CT crits open, but is interesting to point out. The small cockpit it is using for some fucking reason is far worse, but even buying that off with a point of piloting skill still leaves the 9B a mighty 20 BV cheaper than the 8K.

Overall 1600 (1760 with a 4/4 pilot) BV gets you a tough core chassis with acceptable damage, decent speed, alright range, and a generally obvious use case as a midline do everything mech. Love it.

Peri’s Rating: B+, fast, tough, and altogether acceptable for the price.

9C

The 9C is a bit more similar to the 8K, and is worse for it. At 1779 BV it is, hilariously, the exact same price as an 8K, but different in a lot of weird ways. The movement is still 5/8/0 and we still have an XL engine, but the weaponry has seen a significant upgrade. The 9C carries three ER large lasers, four medium pulse lasers, a medium laser pointing backwards, and a C3i. This is decently acceptable and the lack of ammo really helps. The mech gets a bit hot firing all the ERLLs, but you are really buying this to try to get close and rip people up with the MPLs. This is a much better mech than the 8K, but my preference still goes to the 9B by a fair margin.

Peri’s Rating: C+, decent, fast, and in all ways a bit better than the average loser 5/8/0 mech.

9M

The Flashman 9M is the best frontline heavy mech in the game. The actual, literal best record sheet from 60-75 tons when it comes to an equation of BV spent to enemy frontline killed. It is very rare that a sheet is perfect, and the 9M comes within a half a ton of perfection. It is upsetting how well optimized this mech is, so lets get to it.

For 1895 BV you get the great destroyer, the obliterator of men and gods, a walking grist mill that converts living people into a thin red paste.

Starting out we have gone back to the 4/6/0 movement profile of the 7K, and we are still using a Light engine. This gives the 9M a frightening amount of space to pack full of guns, and whoever designed this thing picked the literal best ones to put in here. For long range work it has a pair of heavy PPCs. The 15 double heat sinks in this mech let it build movement heat firing this pair of headchoppers, and a pair of headchoppers at 1895 is already doing acceptably ok on the Hellstar-Thunder Hawk metric of headchopper efficiency. That said, the HPPCs building movement heat is fine, because you will only need to fire these for a couple turns as you close in anyway, they are a distraction from the real guns.

The 9M carries a horrifying laser show of four medium pulse lasers and four regular medium lasers. All together this is 28 heat, making it neutral at a run. Also a small laser for reasons, but I have never fired it.

The 9M has a very simple design plan. Run forwards firing the HPPCs and building up to 4-ish heat, then swap to the lasers once you are within 6-ish hexes and get blasting. The 9M wants to move straight for the enemy’s biggest mech, thump it with some big hits, and then spend the rest of the game until it is destroyed slinging 44 points of heat neutral, accurate damage into the enemy frontline. The 9M’s play pattern is linear, the mech is simple and boring, and it does its one trick very, very well. And hey, even if you need to hang back and use it as fire support, it is basically an 8Q Awesome in that role, and that is a good thing to be.

The only blemish on an otherwise perfect record sheet is the extraneous small laser, which sometimes can’t be helped, but this 9M is not maxing its armor and could fit an extra half ton of it. This is an insanely minor complaint though, and it really wouldn’t make a huge difference.

EDIT NOTE: In the original version of this article, the above paragraph mentioned a small cockpit on the 9M. The 9M does not have a small cockpit and I have no idea where I got this information from, but I have played it as having one for ages, somehow. It is even better than I was mentioning here because that was a real downside that doesn’t exist, I have just played a nerfed version of this thing for a year and a half and I don’t know how.

In my local meta, the 9M specifically has a reputation as a Dire Wolf hunter. It can usually trade itself 1 for 1 with either the whole Dire Wolf, or at least maul it to the point that it can be finished off easily by other mechs in your force. The 9M isn’t the best at dealing with jumping light mechs and on some maps it can get bogged down with its somewhat low speed and lack of jump jets, but if your enemy has a real, 4/6/0 or 3/5/0 brawling component, the 9M will trade fantastically into that in nearly all games.

It won’t win on its own, but it comes extremely close, and for a mech that is only 20-ish percent of an average force, that is extremely good. The 9M isn’t S tier, it can’t warp a meta that much, but it is an insanely good mech. I think of it in the same category as the Regent Prime, a brutal, simple, idiot-proof mech that will always get good value and trade up.

Peri’s Rating: A+

10E

The 10E is a miserable overpriced piece of shit. The mech costs 3349 BV, which is more than any Iron Cheetah, a mech that is actually busted wide open levels of good. This is the BV range for mechs that either suck or solo entire games, and the 10E can’t solo a game.

First of all, the 10E has reflective armor. This is theoretically great, but it does bring costs up and there are kick-related issues with reflective armor that, in my opinion, make it an extremely poor choice to put it on anything bigger than a light mech. Reflective armor is best used to keep something like a Locust from evaporating when exposed to pulse lasers.

The 10E also has a dismal movement profile, at 5/8(10)/0. All the usual supercharger issues apply, it can only get 4 TMM with a flat out run without turning and it has to use the supercharger for it, so in practice this stupid mech is never going to get 4 TMM in a normal person game of BattleTech, but it is getting charged BV like it can have that 4 TMM literally all the time. Superchargers boosting a mech to a 10 hex move is insanely, hilariously bad. It is fucking terrible.

The weaponry and XL engine are now Clan grade, which is great, but the specific weapon choices are not doing BV any favors. It has three ER large lasers, five ER medium lasers, one backwards, an ER small laser FSFR, and an anti-missile system so that you can have a little explosive ammo, as a treat. At least it has CASE II so it doesn’t literally kill you, but the 2 pilot hits from the ammo going off still sucks and AMS is functionally worthless 9 times out of 10.

This all adds up to make a mech that trades down into like, the majority of Mad Cats. When the Mad Cat is a fucking budget option to trade with you, you have seriously fucked up. In a BV-less world this thing is good, but if you are tonnage balancing in 2025, please stop.

Peri’s Rating: D-, it is in the Executioner-sphere of being theoretically good but far too expensive to ever be worth it.

C

This is a -C not a C, so temper those cheap clan mech related expectations. The FLS-C is a C3 refit of the 8K, swapping the Flamer for a C3 slave unit. Cool? If you want to do C3 stuff with the Flashman, take the 9B or 9C, this is just vastly worse for the same price.

Peri’s Rating: C- but just take something else.

Final Thoughts

The Flashman has several good variants, with the 7K and the entire 9 series having good use cases, even if the 9M is obviously and transparently the best one. The 10E sucks in the way that a lot of the bad Rec Guide mechs do (high price), and the 8K and C are aggressively mediocre. That said, the sheer quality of the 9 series Flashmans is enough to redeem the entire mech.

Also, the 9M being on Marik is singlehandedly responsible for it being the best MUL availability in Jihad. If you are playing anywhere from Jihad to Late Republic, grab one and mess people up.

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