Another entry in the Clan Invasion assault mechs with an XL engine and two+ gauss rifles (like the Nightstar, Devastator, Pillager, Thunderhawk, etc), the Gunslinger is distinguished by being rather rotund and boat-faced. It’s not tremendously unique, doing pretty much the same thing as all the others – slow, well armored, and carrying the only IS weapon that can directly compete with the clan equivalent. The stock variant could go away and honestly I don’t think anyone would notice, though later variants do go in a more unique direction.

Chassis

At 85 tons, the Gunslinger is on the lighter end of assault ‘mechs. It’s still well armored, but that’s still 5-10 pips lighter armor everywhere than some of the comparisons. One strange thing about the armor is a disproportionate shift of torso armor to the rear. 34 points of CT armor in the front and 19 in the rear is real light – compare to a Devastator with 47 in the front and 12 rear, or a Battlemaster with 40 front and 11 rear. On one hand, it’s added protection from getting backstabbed – on the other hand that’s one fewer hit to get to your internals in the front.

The movement profile is also unique, at 3/5/2. This is not the good unique that makes you want to take it, this is the bad unique that wastes in the range of 150 BV to give you a jump you’ll practically never use unless you need to go backwards across terrain. If you’re moving forwards there’s no situation I can come up with where the jets give you more hexes of movement.

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).

GUN-1ERD

This mech was designed as the not-getting-backstabbed gauss boat, with the paired gauss rifles being backed up by four medium and one small laser facing forward, and a pair of medium pulses facing back. Simple enough, and with that heavy rear armor it does a remarkably good job discouraging other mechs from trying to get behind it. That said, I’d rather it have a more traditional armor load and drop the jump jets. At 2,286 it’s towards the cheaper end of well armored dual gauss mechs, and would be way up there if not for those useless jump jets. It’s carrying both ECM and an active probe – probably not super useful without optional rules, but could shut down c3 if a spotter tries to dive on you.

Jack’s Rating: B+

GUN-2ERD

This is a fantastic example of how to build a c3 master mech. The rear pulses are gone, it’s upgraded the medium lasers to ER mediums, and picked up a third jump jet – mostly inconsequential changes. What makes it great is that gauss rifles are the perfect c3 weapon, with 7 hex short range allowing your spotter to stay just outside ECM range, and it carries ECM itself – useful if you’re using the advanced rules for counter mode, making it much easier to keep your network online. 2,423 BV (plus 20% for the c3 network) is entirely reasonable for this, it’ll anchor a network and put out solid firepower without issue.

Jack’s Rating: A in a c3 lance, B otherwise.

GUN-2ERDr

This trades out the ECM for boosted c3, which drops it down to 2,371 BV, but those savings are going to be balanced out by the boosted c3 contributing 7% to network cost (it both costs more and makes math more annoying, if you’re using a mixed network). Better if you’re not using c3 though!

Jack’s Rating: B in a c3 lance, B+ otherwise.

GUN-3ERD

This is where we get real fun with it. A pretty much full clantech upgrade, it’s using a clan XL engine (so much less chance of death by gauss rifle, especially as you now have CASE II in the arms), and your medium lasers are now clan ER mediums, so they contribute a ton more to general combat. But what’s most interesting here is switching the armor to ballistic-reinforced, which means you’re taking half damage from autocannons, gauss rifles, and missiles. As this variant doesn’t sacrifice any armor coverage, it takes an already durable mech and turns it up to 11, where you can happily trade shots with anything else shooting guns. It’s now 2,844 BV – as much as many clan assaults – but it performs just as well.

What’s best about this is that it’s genuinely unique. There are only 21 mechs with ballistic-reinforced armor, and nothing else does this kind of damage. It’s good in most situations, because almost everyone has ballistic or missile weapons, and B-R armor has no gameplay downside.

Jack’s Rating: A

GUN-1ERD (Jared)

Jared ripped off the nice shiny gauss rifles to replace each one with an LRM 15 and pair of streak SRM 4s, along with dropping the jump jets. I almost don’t hate it – while it’s a fundamentally different mech than something carrying a pair of gauss, it’s an effective weapon load for a brawler. That said, there are 7 tons of ammo, two of which are in each arm. And there’s no CASE. It’s not going to empty the ammo bins fast enough, especially the vastly oversupplied SRM ammo, and if one of those bins gets hit the mech goes away. At 1,813 BV you can find better 85 tonners, particularly some of the Battlemasters.

Jack’s Rating: C-

Conclusion

The main problem with the Gunslinger is that it’s very map dependent. A 3/5, even with 2 jump jets, does not have good mobility. You’re picking a movement path at the beginning of the game and pretty much sticking to it. On a relatively open map, that’s ok – even if you’re not totally optimally positioned, you’ll have shots. On a denser map with a lot of elevation, that can be much more of a problem, particularly with the -3ERD where you want to move in close enough to use your lasers as well as the gauss. I’d probably drop it somewhere between half and a full grade on those dense maps.

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