Easily one of my favorite ‘mechs, the Lament is new to plastic in the Third Star League Strike Force pack. Created by the Republic of the Sphere, it has a very good balance of mobility, armor, and firepower. While carrying a fairly simple weapon load, it’s interesting to use in game, as it carries a Radical Heat Sink System, which is essentially a supercharger for heat sinks, giving you some interesting gameplay choices on when you want to use all your firepower.

Conveniently, it also looks very cool, which is a critical part of my decision tree for including a mech in my lists.

Chassis

At 65 tons the Lament is on the lighter end for a heavy mech, but makes up for it with maximum armor coverage. It’s well spread, with every location being able to take an ac/20 hit in the front, and the rear torso is able to take a clan medium pulse hit without going internal. With an XL engine and gyro it’s still not tremendously durable, but it’s more than adequate for a mech with longer ranged weapons and 5/8 movement.

The Radical Heat Sink System is what makes this ‘mech particularly interesting, as it effectively gives you temporary triple heat sinks. There’s a little risk to using it, as like MASC or a supercharger it can fail, but it’s a low chance and if you’re using it repeatedly you’re most likely in a situation where you don’t expect to live long. The rules for it are unfortunately only in Field Manual 3145 and Interstellar Operations: Alternate Eras, though hopefully if this force pack gets a set of PDF record sheets Catalyst will make the rules more easily available. One thing to note is that the table in the rules is confusingly worded, while it makes reference to consecutive uses and that the minimum roll is a 2+, neither of those are really true as explained in this forum post; it can fail on the first use just like MASC.

Peri: RHSS is a badly underutilized system and it owns so insanely hard. It is one of the rare pieces of ROTS tech that actually makes the game better by existing, and the huge world of design possibilities that it opens up cannot be overstated. I think that it is going to get a lot more common on mech designs going forwards, because it adds a great push your luck type mechanic for a very reasonable BV cost (IIRC it just effects the heat calculations to BV, but I could be wrong). If you remember how much we liked the “Hellstar at Home” Loki MkII variant with all the coolant pods, the RHSS opens up that sort of design to a lot more mechs with a lot fewer gimmicks.

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).

LMT-2R

The base model is running a straightforward weapon load – two heavy PPCs, three ER medium lasers. With 15 double heat sinks, it builds only movement heat firing the heavy PPCs, so every couple turns you can swap one with a pair of ER mediums to drop heat. The radical heat sinks bump it up to sinking 45, which conveniently enough means you can fire a full alpha strike while only building movement heat. This firing pattern works incredibly well, and with the 5/8 movement you’re able to reliably deliver a pair of 15 point hits anywhere you need them. Because it doesn’t do anything super crazy, it’s only 1,999 BV. Easily, in my opinion, one of the best uses of BV in the game (without being abusive like a fire moth), and never once have I fielded this and felt unhappy about its performance.

Jack’s Rating: A+

Peri: HPPCs are a genuinely fantastic weapon system, and the Lament 2R is making decent (though not top tier, see the Flashman 9M and Zeus 10WB for what the top tier looks like) use of them. The damage output of this mech at 4 hexes is pretty good for the price, but I am less thrilled about this mech than Jack is. It is very, very good, but I think that the overall field of “2000-ish BV HPPC Mechs” is filled with some of the best value for BV picks in the entire game. That said, it isn’t a mile worse, and it is easily in the top 10% of designs overall.

Peri’s Rating: A-, I am not beating the “Hates everything” allegations

Liberty: This loadout goes hard, love heavy PPCs, love a 5/8 caddy that packs them and has the heat sinks to handle them with movement heat on their own. That said the RHSS is a touch wasted considering the fact that they cover the minimum range hole for the HPPCs and yet all your doing using it within 3 hexes is giving yourself the sinking to handle 3 ERMLs and a pair of bad shot HPPCs… while still building movement heat. This could be better. That said, thing is incredibly cool and a funcitonal loadout for an alright enough cost, I do agree with Peri that the 2000ish BV HPPC mech bracket is filled with a lot of good competition but this is certainly up there.

Liberty’s Rating: B+. 

LMT-2D

Going up to 2,044 BV this trades some heat sinks and a medium laser for angel ECM and a remote drone command console. This is viable for specific campaign games, but not any sort of normal game – you’ve lost heat efficiency, drone control sucks, and the ‘mech costs more.

Jack’s Rating: F

LMT-3C

Stripping out the normal armament, this carries a trio of ER PPCs, a small x-pulse laser, and c3. Without an increase in heat sinks, it now can’t fire its main weapon group without using the radical heat sinks, so is doing less damage. When you add the cost of c3 onto the 1,874 BV cost it really doesn’t make much sense to run this.

Jack’s Rating: C- (Could be a D+, but I’m feeling generous because I like the ‘mech)

LMT-3R

The same as above, just trading the c3 slave for a second small x-pulse. It goes up to 1,888 BV and doesn’t even have the advantage of c3. If you want three ER PPCs, take an awesome.

Jack’s Rating: C-

LMT-4RC

The first significant change, this uses composite structure to shave off a bit of extra weight. While that makes it more brittle, it does still have maxed armor, so it’s not the end of the world. The new loadout is four improved heavy large lasers and an extra six heat sinks (bringing the total to 21). Heat math is not great here – without using radicals, it can fire two at -6, or three at +12 (not counting movement heat). With the radicals, it’s firing three at -7 or four at +9. These are not good numbers. You’re likely to be moving, so you’ll be hitting significant heat penalties or running very cold whether you’re using the radicals or not, and there’s no pattern that avoids heat penalties without waste.

It does carry a c3 slave, which helps it make effective use of the guns, and 64 damage on a full alpha is quite a bit, but over the course of a game you’re likely to deliver less damage than a -2R while costing 2,474 BV; a full 475 BV more.

Jack’s Rating: C+

Liberty’s Rating: B-. I’ll do a lot of things for four Large Improved Heavy Lasers, I’m about as feral for them as I am Rotaries, and dealing with weird and bad heat sinking is absolutely one of those things. This variant is funny as fuck and I will be using it.

LMT-2R (Manes)

The other clantech refit, this sticks more to the traditional -2R loadout, carrying a pair of clan ER PPCs and improved heavy medium lasers, as well as c3. It switches from an XL gyro on other variants to compact, giving you a bit more durability, and packs on a couple more heat sinks which aren’t that useful – sinking 38 or 57 heat isn’t much better. Yeah, you don’t have to worry about movement heat, but it’s not enough to fire the medium lasers without running the radicals and it’s way over-sunk with the radicals turned on, only able to generate 46 heat at a run.

At 2,297 BV it’s almost 300 BV more than the -2R, gaining a touch of durability and damage at point blank range. It’s most interesting if you wanted a -2R with c3, as it can perform the same role, but I don’t think it’s really worth it there. Still, at its core it’s a good mech, merely dropping down from excellent.

Jack’s Rating: B+

Peri: The Primary issue with the Manes is that the RHSS is being used so incredibly poorly here. It, bluntly, doesn’t need the extra 4 heat sinks and would be insanely better if it just packed on 4 more Improved Heavies. This might be the first time I have ever advocated for extra guns over more heat sinks, but come on, you pay for the whole RHSS, use the whole RHSS

Peri’s Rating: B-. I’d rather have an actual clan mech for this price, but for all my whining CERPPCs are still CERPPCs.

Conclusion

I’m going to use the -2R about 90% of the time, with the -4RC or Manes variant the other 10%. It’s an incredible cavalry heavy, easily one of the best in the game, and I don’t think there’s a situation where you’ll be unhappy fielding it. Keep it moving so it doesn’t take too many hits and it’ll batter things to pieces. I’m glad we got it in plastic, as I don’t love the metal one.

Peri: Just use the 2R. It is the only one of this that makes use of the RHSS in a decent fashion, which is a damn shame. For such a cool push your luck mechanic, it is being used in the lamest, most tame ways possible here.

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