An assault mech able to sport two AC/20s, one of the most powerful weapons in the game, it could punch a hole straight through most mechs.BattleMechs, Weapon Systems, and Mini-Campaign Add Fresh Gameplay to Award-Winning Turn-Based Tactical ‘Mech Combat GameīERLIN & STOCKHOLM - OCTOParadox Interactive and Harebrained Schemes today announced the Heavy Metal expansion to BATTLETECH at PDXCON, the annual celebration of Paradox’s global community.

The King Crab was one of the toughest mechs in BattleTech when it launched. It’s just a shame you have to field a pretty dull mech to use it.

So an item that pushes every mech in your lance up a rung in the turn order is a hugely powerful ability. Pilots can learn abilities that buff initiative, allowing them to push a heavier mech to go earlier in the turn order, but opting for that ability locks them out of picking other, equally powerful skills. Attacking first offers a huge advantage: you could knock down your opponent, damage a vital weapon system, or even destroy the enemy before they can get a shot in. Light mechs go first, then medium, heavy, and assault mechs go last. In BattleTech, turn order is determined by a mech’s initiative score, and that is dictated by the weight class of the machine. This device, fitted into the Cyclops’s head, pushes up the initiative score of every mech in your lance – a powerful buff. What makes the Cyclops special is a new item that Harebrained has added with it: the Battle Computer. Still, in a fight, it’ll be able to take on most lighter mechs through the sheer bent of its substantial armour. It moves faster than the King Crab but it’s hardly Usain Bolt. It’s an assault mech you can kit out with autocannons, missiles, and lasers, but not in the quantity of the other machines in its weight class. Where it could come into its own is the teased Urban Warfare expansion – due in summer 2019 – the tight streets and sightline-blocking buildings could let you get up close to an enemy mech without being vulnerable to attacks from its lancemates. I found the open battlefields of BattleTech really didn’t play to the Hatchetman’s strengths. If the hatchet is blown off you’re left with a very lightly armed medium mech. And that right arm is particularly vulnerable. If you’re too far behind enemy lines, your Hatchetman can be cut to shribbons. Once you get close enough to an enemy to hit them with a melee attack, you’ll have to come to a halt, and that means all your evasion protection will disappear. While it can dish out melee damage equal to mechs two classes higher in the food chain, it has the armour of a medium mech. However, it’s very easy to overstep with the Hatchetman. Sprinting towards the enemy has the added bonus of buffing your evasion significantly, making it much harder for the enemy to hit you on their turn. I often lean into this and sprint my Hatchetman mechs into combat, sacrificing the opportunity to fire in favour of getting into melee range faster. The Hatchetman’s lower weight class means it can be swift on the battlefield. This means Hatchetman mechs are able to dish out a whopping 110 melee damage in combat, which puts it in the same league as the significantly heavier, slower assault class mechs. The hatchet weapon is fixed to a hardpoint on the medium-sized mech’s right arm and it gives a bonus +70 modifier to your melee attack damage. Maybe, when Axman comes, we can finally bury the hatchet(man). It carries a significantly larger melee weapon, and sports a spread of large lasers and autocannons. This heavy-class mech is the older sibling of the Hatchetman. As exciting as the arrival of Hatchetman is, its inclusion in BattleTech hints at a future mech: the Axman.

New mechs in battletech flashpoint