Howdy Mechwarriors and, unfortunately, welcome back to Mech Overview. I say unfortunately for a simple reason: We are talking about the Mist Lynx. The Mist Lynx is no one’s favorite Clan mech, resembling in a lot of ways a Clan Jenner (more so than the IIC, honestly) and I mean that in an extremely bad way.

The Editor can correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty confident this is the only painted Mist Lynx we have in the back end. That bodes extremely poorly, because we had a lot of Dire Wolfs (I hate BattleTech’s fucked up plurals so much) and they were sold together in the same box. [Turns out I had two others I had forgotten even exist. –Ed] This is one of the original Clan Invasion Omni Mechs, a batch of mechs that are extremely hit and miss, ranging from pretty good (Mad Cat, Dire Wolf, Stormcrow) to extremely fucking bad (Loki, Thor). The Mist Lynx is, uh, one of the extremely bad ones for a lot of reasons, primarily that it is just a poorly put together omni-mech with a lot of fixed equipment, an insanely annoying crit layout, and just poor everything.

Chassis

So the Mist Lynx is, as mentioned, an Omni-Mech, and one with a lot of problems. Weighing 25 tons, the Mist Lynx carries a pretty crappy armor load, only 75% of the already meager amount allowed on a 25 ton frame. In addition, the Mist Lynx is absolutely full of fixed equipment, with an active probe hard mounted in the head, and six hard mounted jump jets pushing it to a deeply infuriating 7/11/6, coming one shy of the 7 hex TMM breakpoint for its jump, while still paying for +4 TMM due to its 11 hex run.

This is 4 tons of hard mounted equipment, which is quite a lot on something this light. In addition, due to the use of Ferro armor and Endo-Steel for structure combined with being so small it needs to put heat sinks outside of the engine, the Mist Lynx is fairly cramped, with no slots in the left torso, head, or center torso, only 2 open slots on the right torso, and 1 slot on each leg. This means that nearly everything that you mount to a Mist Lynx has to go into the arms which only have 8 total points of health. We talk a lot about how expensive Clan weapons can get, and hanging them out in a location that will explode and cease to be if anything bigger than a medium pulse laser tags it is an extremely good way to have 600 BV fall off your mech in one go. So, the armor sucks, the movement profile sucks, but at least we could pod in the extra jump jet, right?

Well, that would give us asymmetrical jump jets, which near as I can tell simply are not done on canon mech designs despite being fully legal in the construction rules. It just feels wrong to do it. In addition, the fucked crit layout and the nature of the mech as an omni means it can’t use a partial wing, and due to the jump jets being fixed, it can’t use improved jump jets either. Absolutely fucking dreadful at being an omni-mech and reconfiguring for any use case, the Mist Lynx is completely locked in to being a scout mech and it isn’t a particularly good one. 7/11/6 is just not particularly fast for a mech like this, with a lot of common light mech hunters like the Wraith TR-1 being able to either keep pace or outmaneuver it.

So, the Mist Lynx is fragile, small, a bit slow, can’t get a ton of TMM jumping, has no room inside of it to put weapons where they will survive a 10 damage hit, and it is going to end up full of the most expensive bullshit Clan BV can buy.

It really feels like an attempt to execute the whole “outrun what you can’t outgun” concept, much like the Stormcrow, but unlike the Stormcrow the Mist Lynx isn’t outgunning shit. Unlike something like a Fire Moth, which falls into a similar camp, the Mist Lynx can’t consistently have 4 or 5 TMM to help compensate for its poor armor, it will have a 3 most of the time, a 4 on nice, flat, open ground where its movements will become very predictable. Just a dire, horrible, no good little light omni-frame.

At least he looks like a friend. 🙂

Variants

God help us.

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).

Prime

Coming in at an admittedly fairly low BV of 871, the Mist Lynx Prime carries an LRM-10, a streak SRM-4, and a pair of machine guns. The primary issue here is that all of these weapons and their explosive ammo are hanging out in the Mist Lynx’s four armor arms. I can see a play pattern here where you hang back and fire the LRM-10 to harass people, but there are better light mechs to do that with. This one is wasting tonnage and BV on things that are not LRMs, and trying to get up close using a Mist Lynx is going to be very dangerous for the Mist Lynx.

Overall this is just a lot to pay for something that can barely pitch in an LRM-10. Hate it.

Rating: D

A

The A is the cheapest Mist Lynx at 608 BV, and it is very easy to see why. The weapon load consists of a flamer, two machine guns, a TAG, a pair of anti-personnel pods, and a pair of anti-missile systems. This thing exists to kill FUCKING INFANTRY with the flamer and MGs, annoy things by TAG’ing them, and I guess to slightly keep itself alive with AMS. Cool.

If you are doing TAG/Semi Guided stuff, you should probably spring for either a more durable spotter, a faster spotter, or TAG armed Battle Armor. All of those will do this job better, even though 608 BV is genuinely pretty close to the range where it is hard to be actively bad. The A manages it though, because it can only do a grand total of 6 damage. There is a 300-odd BV Wasp that can do 8. Pathetic little wretch of a mech.

Rating: D-

B

Costing about half again as much as the A at 1209 BV, the B certainly has a lot more damage. It carries a pair of ER medium lasers, an ER small laser FSFR, and a pair of SRM-6s. This is a really good amount of fire power actually, more damage output than the Gargoyle Prime and nearly at parity with an intro-tech Warhammer due to its better heat management. The issue is that all 818 BV worth of guns (I checked) are sitting in the brittle little arms of a mech that wants nothing more than to explode and die. The armor on this is only marginally better than a basic intro-tech Locust if you count the rear torso armor, otherwise it is actually worse from the front arc. I would not pay 1209 BV for a Locust, and you shouldn’t pay 1209 for a Mist Lynx B.

Rating: F

C

Hey the C is 1320 BV.

Rating: F

Carrying an ER large laser, an ER medium laser, an ECM, and an AMS, the C has a pretty clear purpose as a skirmishy little sniping bastard. Unfortunately, you can do better, even if you are only looking at other Mist Lynxs with the Prime doing this job cheaper. Outside of the Mist Lynx you will be better served with an Ostscout 12R or a Pack Hunter. This mech doesn’t really have the TMM and movement to get away from a light mech hunter, nor does it have the oomph in it to fight back. It isn’t going to be able to consistently execute the hit and run shit it is clearly designed to do. Horrifically expensive, miserable little mech.

D

At 842 the Mist Lynx D does the C’s job better and it honestly is funny as hell even if it is vaguely terrible. For guns we have an ER medium laser, an ER small laser FSFR, and an Ultra AC/2. The UAC/2 is a hilarious way to give this mech the ability to poke people from a distance for an insignificant amount of damage, while the ER ML is the actual main gun here. While the armor and movement are still, you know, Mist Lynx, at the very least this has a use case as a “little bastard”, as Liberty is fond of putting it. I personally think it is still bad due to “Being a Mist Lynx” disease but poking people with a UAC/2 is very funny.

Rating: D

E

E means ATMs and honestly they cooked a bit here. We have an ATM 6 with 4 ER small lasers, and it only costs 997 BV. That is a point blank, heat negative alpha strike of 38 damage on a reasonably fast little frame. While it has all the usual Mist Lynx problems, this does enough damage for a low enough price that it is actually a very usable little mech. It will still probably die, but due to it being a Mist Lynx and, therefore, being bad, your opponent might let it slip through to land a couple of good backstabs before they turn around and obliterate it. This is the first Mist Lynx that really feels like it has a chance to trade up into another mech, I really quite like it. You can, at least, use it like a faster Commando, which is a horribly dire thing to be saying about a mech.

Rating: C+

F

At 1173 BV the F is, once again, disgustingly expensive for what it is. It is also a bad heavy laser one. You get a trio of heavy medium lasers backed with a quartet of small heavy lasers. They are tied in to a targeting computer, so it can actually hit the broad side of a barn with those lasers. It also has a light TAG and an ECM so you can pretend this backstabbing asshole is a scout. The damage is extremely high here, but the F has some serious heat problems and can’t effectively make use of all of its lasers without slowing down and instantly dying. If you want spike damage at point blank range, just take the E.

Rating: D-

G

Another creation of the Clan Bureau of FUCK INFANTRY, the G carries four ER small lasers, and eight heavy machine guns in a pair of MG arrays. This is actually a bit more damage than the E, which is hilarious, and it is quite a bit cheaper at 834 BV. Aside from its urge to GRIND INFANTRY INTO BLOODY SHREDS, the G’s machine gun arrays actually can head-chop if you get lucky on the Cluster roll. At a dirt cheap price the G is another mech that will run in, do a heap of damage, and then die, but the lower price here compensates for the E’s much better range of engagement. The G has to be literally on top of people, but the E can play things back if it has to.

Overall this is a usable little backstabber, but it isn’t anything special and I personally prefer the E, though the slight but present chance of a random HMG array Head-Chop might be an X factor in its favor. I’d need to play with it more.

Rating: C+

H

The H is another bad heavy laser one, and in my opinion it is worse, even if it is cheaper. For 982 BV you get a heavy medium laser, two heavy small lasers, an anti-missile system because the designers seem to think that missiles are this thing’s problem, and a streak SRM-6. There is no Tcomp to help with accuracy so those lasers aren’t hitting a damn thing, and the Streak is cool I guess?

I can see what they were going for, with the lasers to open holes and the SRMs to exploit them, but the accuracy penalty combined with “Being a Mist Lynx” disease means that it is going to struggle to execute that game plan.

Rating: D

I

Ok this one is kinda cooking. At 689 BV, a price low enough that the fucked up movement and armor stops being as big of a problem, the I carries a Narc missile beacon and 5 SRM-2s. This one is sneaky, very sneaky, and has one of the most gameplay-aware designs I have seen in a while. You see, NARCs basically give regular missile launchers the benefits of Artemis, as long as you load NARC ready missiles. Any standard missile launcher can load them for no additional BV cost, including the I. If you give an SRM-2 the NARC bonus, you get both missiles on a 6 or more. So here is where the gameplay awareness comes in.

If you have a target NARC’d, and fire all the SRM-2s at the enemy and hit, you will on average land 8 to 9-ish missiles, if my math is right. However, if you were to combine them into a 4 pack and a 6 pack, you would get 7 to 8-ish missiles if my math is right. So you get marginally more SRMs on target with this pile of individual ones compared to the larger packs due to the weird way the cluster hits chart is laid out. Also, you get more to-hit rolls in the first place, meaning a higher overall chance of landing at least some damage, compared to the more all or nothing nature of a smaller number of bigger launchers.

Also, the NARC beacon works for all the mechs in your force, not just the Mist Lynx. This means that combined with some other mechs (LRM Nova Cats and Adders instantly come to mind), the Mist Lynx I can act as a significant increase to the average damage output of your force as a bit of a weird support piece.

Overall this is actually a pretty decent little mech, only held back by the weird movement, At this sort of price you can excuse a lot, and the I not only does real damage, it provides real support and real value for the rest of your force. Love it.

Rating: B-

J

So back to normalcy here the J is 1704 BV and sucks horribly. It has an ER PPC, an improved medium heavy laser, and a supercharger so it can go 7/11(14)/6, a really unpleasant movement profile. This is just a lot to spend on this little rat of a mech, and you would be better off in very nearly all circumstances with a Pack Hunter.

Rating: F

K

It’s bad!

For 976 BV it carries a pair of ER medium lasers and a PAC/4. PACs are funny, I love them in concept even if they basically always suck in practice. Including here!

You can get more damage and more utility for a lot cheaper, even just with other Mist Lynx configs. This does nothing you would want and costs too much doing it.

Rating: F

L

Correct me if I am wrong but I think this is the first L variant I have reviewed. There are a lot of these fucking things.

At 901 BV the L is another INFANTRY ANNIHILATION DEVICE for FOLIAGE MANAGEMENT and CIVILIAN APPLICATIONS. It carries a heavy flamer (for FOLIAGE MANAGEMENT ONLY), a heavy medium improved laser, an ECM, and a quartet of AP gauss rifles. There is some ok damage here and it isn’t too expensive but the AP gauss rifles can chain detonate the arm off pretty easily, instantly turning the pilot into liquid. Both arms and the right torso have explosives in them, this mech badly wants to kill its own pilot.

It isn’t that bad and does some OK damage but the fragility is even worse here than it usually is. APGRs, IHMLs, and heavy flamers are real guns that do real damage and that has value at this price, even with the Mist Lynx’s bad frame.

Rating: C-

M

We are going to complete the Alphabet I swear to god. They really wanted to salvage the Mist Lynx, there are tons of attempts here. The M is another machine designed for FOLIAGE MANAGEMENT and TACTICAL DEFORESTATION. At 961 BV it carries four ER micro lasers, an SRM-2 (load it with Infernos, don’t be lame), and a Plasma Cannon. Honestly there is a really funny play pattern here where you can either put a good clip of heat into a big enemy mech, or light an entire forest on fire. The issue is that the moment your opponent realizes you are skating around debuffing their dudes, the M is going to get turned into mech bolognese and your fun will end. I am coming around to Plasma Cannons as annoyance delivery devices, but IMO there are better Plasma mechs out there.

Rating: C-

P

I’m not kidding about there being a whole fucking alphabet of these. The Mist Lynx P is a dismal little mech that costs 1064 BV and carries an ER large laser, three micro pulse lasers, and four ER micro lasers. This is a confusing layout, with a mix of point blank backstabbing guns and long range skirmishing gun. It is at least cheaper than some of the other long range Mist Lynx’s, but it isn’t better. It is heat neutral at a run so it can blast all the time, but there are better backstabbers and better skirmishers at this price, you don’t need to mix roles like this.

Rating: D

T

Ok so we are skipping a few letters. The T is a lot like the Prime, costing 971 BV and carrying an LRM-10, a pair of ER small lasers, and an SRM-4. It also has an ECM, which is theoretically nice. The damage is also a bit better up close than on the Prime, so this is more clearly a mech designed to get up close and stab people, rather than being a pretty mid skirmisher. That said, there are just better Clan lights to do this with. There are even better Mist Lynx configs. I bet this was a hard mech to make a Rec Guide/Art Accurate config of.

Rating: D

Z

Ok so the Z is a complete weirdo, just a horribly weird mech. At 970 BV the Z is a society one, with a pair of iATM-3s and a NOVA CEWS that will probably cause a fist fight at a table over what it does, exactly. The wild ass thing though is that the Z pod mounts a single unit of Modular Armor. For those blissfully unaware, Modular Armor is an advanced system that lets you cram extra armor into a mech beyond what it can normally hold, though at a less efficient rate than just adding armor normally. In this case it is being used to give 10 extra points of armor to the right torso, which is holding the NOVA. Modular Armor does slow you down, reducing the Mist Lynx Z down to 6/9/5, but it can be jettisoned to go back up to the standard movement profile, and will also put you back to normal movement once it is destroyed. Modular Armor is a super funky thing because it can be pod mounted, and there are plenty of omni-mechs that would be totally fine with an extra 10 points of armor in most locations at the cost of slower movement.

I wish there were like, any good Modular Armor mechs. There really just aren’t, including this one. Even the Society bullshit doesn’t make this good.

Rating: D-

Final Thoughts

The Mist Lynx sure is one of the light mechs in BattleTech. I personally recommend the E and I, they do pretty decent damage and make the most out of a pretty crappy base frame. There are way too many of these though, and it really seems like they wanted to experiment and find out what could possibly make a good Mist Lynx. The sad truth is that it will always be a bad Clan light mech, mediocre at best, because the frame sucks and you can’t fix that. They did make a non-omni version of this later, which is a bit better and more changeable to find good configs in theory. We are not covering that at this moment though, because with all the random Dark Ages stuff coming out, odds are decent we get an actual model for it some time.

Cheers.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.