Why Do We Love The Conjurer? HellHound? Wolverine IIC?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 вер 2023
- Today, we cover one of my favorite Clan medium mechs. The Conjurer!
Join this channel to support the creation of future videos and access our Discord!:
/ @mechanicalfrog
BattleTech imagery remains the property of Topps.
Some imagery/video from Pixabay
#BattleTech #Mechwarrior #CatalystGameLabs #lore - Ігри
I just like calling it the Wolverine IIC to anyone who sees themself as a clanner. It makes the salt flow so well.
Let's be real, it doesn't take much.
"HEY! You in the Wolverine IIC! Chall-bat! Cmon bring it!" and watch the Clanners mald, cope and seethe.
and then they table you and the salt flows once more. ;)
I'd like to see ya try canborn ;D@@HeadHunterSix
@@amw5288 Bargained well and done, surat. :p
"trust the frog-"
*"I will narratively follow you into literary hell."*
Literary Hell: Virgil, Herodotus, and Dante sitting around smoking and complaining about politics.
It might be my anti-clan bias but I refuse to call the Conjurer anything but what it is, a Wolverine IIC.
That's fair.
Whenever I play clans I always seem to take a Conjurer. It’s just such a good baseline Mech to figure out what else I need in a force and it has never let me down. One of the best non Omni clan mechs of possibly all time
100% Agree
Medium mech is as medium mech does. The Wolverine is most definitely a medium mech.
Hmmm.... very medium.
Its the most medium of the mechs.
It is one of the medium mechs of all time.
A managable meddling medium mech, mediating mediocrity and modest magnificence, menacingly melting most middle mass machines to minute molten messy mounds, mauling misbehaving mercs in a mesmerizing metal massacre.
@@Szoki86Marvelous!
As Khan of Clan Black Sheep (Bandit/Dark Caste) I can assure you that the Wolverine II is not lost to times ravages, we stole some from Wolverines, as well as the blueprints to continue to create them.
Ah... good to know.
Ah, the Wolverine IIC, one of my favourite clan mechs
An excellent machine.
The Conjurine IIC is an excellent Mech with some questionable variants. The 8 is basically an attempt at using mid grade conquered Wolf Empire factories to get the touman more units and show off the Clan version of the RAC/5. Ironically one of the best counters to the Conjurine IIC is the Wolverine in its various upgraded forms, including the Wolverine II which was later revived in 3076 by the Word of Blake, the Capellans, and the Fedrats. Marik had it for a bit, but as with all nice thinge, we lost it.
"We need more mechs. Let's make this deathtrap."
Oh hell yes! One of my favorite simple Clan mechs, it is a trooper mech, plain and simple. No nonsense... And yes the 1 and 7 are best used in tandem in my experience
It just works.
@@MechanicalFrog it's better than it just works, it works perfectly as intended
Aff@@Zeeke01
I’ve had an 8 turn out to be the hero of a long slogging fight, but you’re right that IS XL is a nightmare
I guess it could perform if there are bigger threats on the field, but that only lasts so long.
A clanner hearing that the conjurer was called the Wolverine IIC- “BATCHALL!!! ALL OF THE BATCHALLS!!!”
All the Batchalls... all of them.
The only thing the Conjurer 8 has going for it is the RAC 5 and MASC but thats about it. I'm a bit surprised you didn't add in the Hellhound II (The Hellcat but not the aerospace fighter) in this video as it is a Conjurer that had a strange history between Jade Falcon Merchants and Clan Nova Cat. Originally I thought it was a apocryphal mech that turned cannon such as the Deimos from MW4: Mercenaries until I realized it got on the cover of Recognition Guide: ilClan, vol. 30
I didn't want to wander too far from the point.
One of my favorite mechs. Ironically I found it through modded mech 5 because I'm a wee bit too young to have played mech 4 sadly
Every time I look at the other options, I really feel there's no improving on the original. The Wolverine IIC Mk 1 really has a fantastic balance of Durability, Firepower, and Mobility.
It just works.
the one argument for the 8 is that it is a weapon of desperation, it will get phased out as soon as the wolf empire is wiped out.
You almost lost me at the start, but then you finished strong with the whole Wolves being wiped out thing.
The wolverine IIC...see clans can like something even when they cant name it properly :-) another great overview of a really efficient medium that can be the backbone of any well rounded lance :-)
An excellent pick for any star.
I had an awesome game last night using the variant with 4 Heavy Mediums Lasers, great time!
Good stuff! Glad to hear it works.
My favorite of the medium IIC 'Mechs, mobile and well-armored with a very good mix of weaponry.
"It just works."
I had some drawn out comment about Clan Wolverine and the Minnesota Tribe, and how the Clan got shafted by Nickolas Kerenski and his ego.
Life is full of little challenges.
I'd probably take the 1 or the 7, but if I had the budget I'd grab the 5, replace the atm6s with clan srm6s, throw two more tons of amo, and then up-armoring the thing with the two remaining tons of armor. You'd save some c-bills, and keep its focus on brawling up close and personal, 11.5 tons of ferro-fiberous is damn tough, and two srm6s are nothing to sneeze at, especially on a medium that's relatively quick
Sounds like a plan.
I am now immediately declaring a Trial of Refusal for your use of the Not Named,
Do not refuse my batchall!
🤣
I declare a trial of napping. Best nap wins.
A trust in the Frog, for the Frog has never led me astray.
Frog is forward. Frog is light...
The original spec Wolverine IIC is an excellent trooper mech, and one that even a hundred years after the Clan Invasion, is still worthwhile. By Clan standards, it's cheap, flexible, and while good enough at most tasks it isn't a specialist at anything. For the sleepy looking grunts in the back- those are my guys, my messmates. The S-SRMs rather than the flexibility of SRMs in terms of payloads is in keeping with Clan psychology, so I'll forgive that in a garrison machine.
7:15 Nova Cat here, listen. We do not always make a lot of sense. Just trust in the process, quiaff?
That art sure is mid-2000s mechwarrior dark age clix tho. Gott damn.
"Why are you doing this?" - I had a vision... "Oh..."
The Conjurer is one of my favourites. I often pair the default variant with an Incubus 3. These two nightmares often take down well passed their tonnage in mechs. They'll routinely outlast whole lances as a pair
They would work well together.
So...I largely started my Battletech/Mechwarrior career with Mechwarrior 4, that being the first game in the franchise that I personally owned and didn't just get time on at a game shop or someone's PC. So my love for the Conjurer lies not with the O.G. canonical fits, but the non-canon apocryphal fit that I will hereafter refer to as the 'MW4 Hellhound'.
Full stop, it is my favorite mech in the franchise.
First and most obvious oddity on display is...the display. The MW4 model for the Hellhound is something that could have only come about due to the very odd and specific series of circumstances that landed FASA in hot water in the late 1990s. Namely, it was a pseudo "Re-Seen" design of one of the mechs claimed by Harmony Gold. Since FASA Corp was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time of MW4's production, they didn't want to take any chances of getting into legal disputes with those legal parasites, and thus, the new model was commissioned and used SOLELY in MW4.
Don't get me wrong: The classic Wolverine and Conjurer models are great mechs, but I love the look of the MW4 Hellhound even more. (also; the MWO/MW5 Wolverine is one of the few models I actively despise. It just looks...off. And I like the visual coherency of the MWO/MW5 mechs a lot otherwise).
If forced to choose a Conjurer for deployment, I'd roll a Conjurer Prime without question. Clan Large Pulse Lasers are extremely reliable. Beyond that, it's a toss up between the Prime and the Conjurer 8. Yes, the one our Froggie Friend badmouthed, though hear me out; my reasoning why is a bit esoteric and conditional.
The Conjurer 8 has a fun as hell loadout to actually pilot yourself with a RAC/5, Streak-6, two Medium Wubs and MASC.
Us nutters in the Mechwarrior business call that a prime ticket to Brawlhalla...while the tabletop warriors will be seeing the same mech as the short bus to the salvage yard.
This all hinges on what set of rules you're adhering to as they differ between the tabletop and video games. If it's an Inner Sphere XL engine, you had better be maxing the armor on the frame because that is a massive liability. But Clan XL Engines don't pop when the mech loses a side torso in Mechwarrior, making them effectively the single best (and expensive) mech upgrades there are.
Of course, since the canonical fit for the Conjurer 8 uses an IS XL Engine, you would never catch me running one of those things without it being modified to carry full frontal armor. But with a Clan XL Engine? That's party time, baby.
Now, as fun as all that sounds, my heart lies with the MW4 Hellhound. It has a solid default configuration, but that's not the loadout I ran in my many hundreds of hours in LAN multiplayer matches.
My preferred kit was four medium pulse lasers, a Clan ER Large Laser and a C-Streak SRM 6 (+1 ton of ammo). Frame equipment options: Jump Jets, ECM and the rest of the tonnage dedicated to extra armor. When the MekTek pack released and new weapons were added, I swapped the ER-Large laser for a Light PPC, specifically for the on-hit disruption effect that could temporarily switch off enemy ECM/IFF Jamming.
Alternatively, I had a build that ran 4 ER-Medium Lasers, a Clan LBX-5 and a Light PPC with Jump Jets and ECM.
Keep in mind, that the stats for most of the heavier weapons in MW4 are not what they are in the tabletop. Some are better, some are worse, some behave completely differently (like the Bombast Laser, which is basically the Charge Beam from Metroid).
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that for some odd (or accidentally awesome) reason, Catalyst Gaming Labs re-canonized the MW4 Hellhound design as the 'Hellcat' (sometimes called the 'Hellhound 2').
The prime configuration of the Hellcat attempts to faithfully replicate the MW4 Hellhound's loadout and accomplishes this via the blackest of clan space magic (a Clan XXL engine). This makes the mech completely untenable for the cost
The only other canonical fit for the Hellcat, the 'P' variant, drops the engine down to a Clan XL-250 engine, and is probably one of the only times you will see a Clan XL Engine described as a sensible downgrade to save expenses and/or liability.
Consequently: Someone ported the MW4 Hellhound into MW5 via modding and called it the "Hellcat". And it's a pretty terrifying mech in YAML-MW5 to encounter. (though it suffers a bit from a lack of free tonnage since it isn't using MW4's bizarre and arbitrary free-weight system)
MW4 is one of the mechwarrior games that I barely played. I'm glad people really got into it, though.
I really love the Hellcat, though I found it through the mod you mentioned. It's probably my favorite clan Medium mech at this point. Just a really nice mech, even if a little slow for a clan Medium.
A Hotboi version would be awesome.
Plasma Rifle and plenty ammo for long engagement.
Snub PPC w/cap as hammer and sensor disruptor.
Some ER Smalls for infantry and armor.
At least on SRM with inferno ammo and case II.
My IS Wolverine wielded a Snub forever. SRM changed to SRM 4 Inferno and acid. With half tons each. 1 ton HE for infantry, armor and buildings.
Pair of IS med pulses in torso.
Rest was cooling and improved JJ w/directional change capabilities.
Surprised a lot of enemies expecting me to land in a certain spot.
Engine HS increased to DHS. 10(20).
It was painted in acid/neon green and pink stripes (let sister paint miniature 😅)
It seemed to always just survive even in losses.
Was tempted to reinforce left arm to act as a shield, but that would cost the inherent battle fist quirks.
Gonna pull my battlecard for this mech and definitely try to rebuild it in MW/Battletech game or Rogue Tech, just for the memories and see if it holds true.
Playing early era we used roughnecks, wolverines, and Urbies.
All smokers (IC). Working our way into making true frontline mechs.
Even when offered newer mechs to sell to museums, we were stubborn.
BTW no one expected primitive fusion powered primitive mechs on a raid on a moon.
We actually had to wear spacesuits with limited cooling inside.
We got ignored by patrols as we were carrying containers and dragging ore carts.
No one bothered to scan us or give a passing glance.
We heard jokes about us and a lot of "Those poor bastards. Who did they piss off to get that duty and how were they threatened to get into the cockpits?"
12 hours later, we got signal from drop ship that it was on approach. Locals had departed for planet to counter a rumored pirate raid.
(Cough. We bribed comm privates to catch and report chatter as well as a mayor to sound panicked. Okay we didn't tell mayor it was a fake raid. And got creative about how nasty the pirate could be.
He did rest burning ears of defense force officials off.)
To our surprise after mounting weapons again. Our raid target was wide open and supplies being moved to landing pad to resupply defenders on planet if need be.
Our dropship landed. And one guy in our lance tested his chutzpah.
"Hey whoever's in charge. We got sent to move stuff. Tell us what and where, cause we got to get back to ore hauling duty."
As we'd been seen doing just that the last 48 hrs, they accepted us.
We loaded ammo, spare parts, rations, and even two fusion powered recovery vehicles.
Ship burnt to orbit and landed over mountains where we trudged back grumbling. Loaded up. Burned to jump ship and left.
GM said as we were docking that three tramp freighter type jump ships just popped into a pirate point and at least 5 small dropships were on long scanners burning for moon and planet.
As aerospace assets started to move we decided that going home was a much better option than trying to grab another jump ship.
End tale.
Next sessions were us fixing mechs and doing best to make them real combat chassis.
My wolverine was born from primitive to basic star league levels then. Though the industrial mechs often outshone it in raw damage output. It always survived. Well enough to walk home at least.
The Urbies though were great fun on piece battles. Not one was stock. Not one didnt fail to blow up primitive engine in battle.
One was just basically a jumping mobile turret. As its legs barely worked. 😊
Urbie Kanga almost.
"Mechfrog! You will hear about my lawyers!" Nicolai Malthus(probably)
Nothing worse than a litigious Jade Falcon.
@@MechanicalFrog You dare refuse my legchall?
Wolverine IIc forever and always.
The new Hellcat or whatever it is does look snazzy, but the refined Wolverine styling of the Wolverine IIc remains classic.
Truth.
See this is what MWO should do. Bring in some more IIC mechs.
Couldn't hurt.
Thank you for covering one of the best IIC we builds, It's truly a one-of-a-kind machine at least that what it does
It's a fun one.
The Conjurer 8 kinda builds upon a trend most of the ilClan era Wolf designs have where speed and new toys are prioritized to the detriment of everything else
"We make bad mechs and still win all the time."
Infinite plot armor! yaaaay!@@MechanicalFrog
@@MechanicalFrog"You make a choice to win, and you win" - Clan Wolf
The Hellhound has become one of my favorite mechs since it got added to MechWarrior: Living Legends a few years ago. I'm using the Hellhound D from that game as my profile picture.
I don't actually play tabletop but I recently picked up an Alpha Strike Conjurer just to have it.
It just works.
One of my favorite clan medium mechs!
Sweet! Good taste, then.
as far as I remember was the Wolverine released nearly the same time as the Shadowhawk AND as a competition to it.
You can find Wolverines with the same Equipment / Weapons as an basic Shadowhawk, but from different manufacturers.
But, in MW5 I preffer the Shadow Hawk... maybe because it was one of the first Battlemechs I read about in my first Battletech novel: Decision at Thunder Rift, first Novel of the Gray Death Trillogy. ^^
I'll take a Wolverine over a Shadow Hawk most days.
A useful lesson in the power of branding.
Hah
The Wolverine is just an exceptionally well-balanced, solid option on your Medium-class lineup. Sturdy and does extremely well in its range brackets.
Totally agree.
the 5 can be saved with the swap to an XL engine, Additional ammo, heatsinks and a tag would make it a mean ever jumping brawler.
I dunno. Something about an XL on the Conjurer just feels wrong.
Ah! My favorite Medium Mech! Really just a great work horse. And my favorite 'clan', Clan -redacted-.
Excellent taste.
Any time you replace an AC 5 with anything else, it’s an upgrade.
Aff
All hail Clan Wolverine!
Yay
Like a true Nova-Cat warrior, I really love ALL conjurers, especially 2, 3 and 4. I just a Heavy Laser guy and love ATM.
Also, that DIRTY cheap in tonnage with 2 med pulse and Tcomp and ATM 9. No one want to get that HE ammo in the face or rear. Even in combined armed, that's an excellent machine.
Good times had by all.
Conjurer 6 looks to me like a Clan take on the Griffin or the SLDF Royal Thunderbolt.
Ironically the Project Phoenix Conjurer is one of the very few designs i didn´t like from that TRO, both optically and the loadout.
But this is the first time i see the Brent Evans take on the Wolverine, looks nice, the laser on top of the head looks funny IMO.
Yeh generally not a fan of the Project Phoenix stuff.
@@MechanicalFrog Yeah, we had that conversation before XD
Yet i really like the look of MOST of the PP designs.
Just the Conjurer, it is one of the few that don´t look right to me.
But hey, you know what they say, beauty lies in the eye of the beerholder.
Or the bee holder... @@sim.frischh9781
@@MechanicalFrog XD
The Frog abides!
Going by to get by.
There she is my favorite mech in battletech. Just perfect. I can't saying else that would do it creddit.
Excellent taste!
Neat mech! To avoid confusion with the Hellhound from MW4, it got retconned? as Hellhound II/ Hellcat. Which would be awesome to get a video about to get the point solidely across and for those not in the known
Going to have to ponder wandering into that minefield.
LOVE these vids, Frog! I never got into this mech...until now. MORE PLEASE!
Glad we can expand some horizons.
Why do we love the Conjurer?
Because it’s a Wolverine IIC - wait why are the clambers here?
WHY ARE THERE ANGRY CLANNERS!? AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
**Confused screaming**
You say Conjurer, but i say Wolverine IIC. Take that claners 🤣
*shakes fist*
I need to get one of these... Its such a good mech and yhe wolverine is one of my favorite mechs.
Might i point out that the conjurer 6 was actually an early Hellcat, and well, was built basically like the hellcat. Different chassis entirely, which the falcons then bought to create the Hellcat-P.
I had to speak up becaude the hellcat is one of my favorite mechs. Why? Because it looks cool. How did i find out it existed? By finding the mod for it on mechwarior 5. A weird way to find a mech but it's a great little guy
Yeh it's a strange little footnote to the Hellhound story.
youve been doin a great job of warmin me up to clan mechs and yhe more fun aspects of clan culture honestly. Still a taurian though so imma have to be stubborn on principle 😂
more to the point of the video, medium mechs are pretty great. they have a place in pretty much any formation, and wont usually drag them down. Love the idea of this brawler. a weapon system for everymech and likely will live long enough to demonstrate
Maybe Sea Fox can make some clan mech deliveries down there.
As a Davion player, I kind of like the 8. Wonder if the Wolves will sell me one?
Funny little aside, both the Hellhound model from Mech 4 mercs, and the latest Conjourer model are both in BTA 3062, and labled as such. Wonder if some one messed up when they did the models?
Blissful co-existence.
Yeah its an odd one in terms of what its role is supposed to be, more depending on the engine config than the weapon loadout in some cases.
The hilarity would be an field officer getting that 'wrong' and some poor bastard complaining he's in the wrong mech for that sir!
"We gave Jimmy the 5 as a joke."
@4:28 Trust the frog? You killed Vasyl! You've lost our trust. 🤨 The Wolverine is still a good mech and the Conjuror is a good take on it too... but still... VASYL!!!
I may not live this one down.
Won't lie, I usually forget about the Wolverine. Not a fan of the AC/5 and low number SRM.
Similarly, I forgot the Conjurer exists. XD
Though, gotta say, I have a new found appreciation in how you frame it as a brawler that will bully filthy light mechs.
Plus that 3 and 4 variant just sounds fun. Good? Enough. Fun? Yes.
There are so many cool mechs out there. I don't want people to slip into playing the same 10-15 over and over out of habit.
@@MechanicalFrog Fair! And much appreciated.
first rule of clan wolverine; don't talk about clan wolverine
Clan what?
Its well-designed, fairly cheap, and has heritage.
I don't like the original Wolverine medium battlemech much as its usually competing with the medium-long range Griffin, and an Autocannon-5 is 1/4 as strong as what a Griffin has. I would customize the Wolverine to carry a PPC instead in a heartbeat.
The Conjurer on the other hand really exploits the new clan technology to have much better weapons range. It's also faster, fast even for some clan medium mechs while also staying relatively cheap through a standard fusion engine rather than an expensive Extralight engine. It's a bit light in firepower compared to others like a Stormcrow, but its still solid.
That's fair.
A Wolverine by any other name.
Indeed... :D
Ah, yes, one of those designs that brings forth the idea that garrison mechs are actually better than omnimechs in many ways. This is a solid brawler too.
I'll take a solid 90s pickup truck than the fancy BMW when I need to get some work done.
@@MechanicalFrog absolutely
There was a Mech warrior 4 mercenary Version that had 1 or even 2 AC10s. Wasn’t there
I don't recall.
I love it yes 1 and 7
Huzzah!
@@MechanicalFrog the name of our convention in May Hazza lol
Great minds.
Conjurer 6 is a mini Thunderbolt...
I can see that.
I actually find the Conjurer (Standard) to be too good, to the point of it being boring to play with.
The 4 is definitely my favourite. It's an absolutely brutal urban fighter that rewards precisely applied aggression. The Standard I could pilot with my eyes shut.
"You're too perfect... it's scary how much I love you..."
No real comments here, other than a small one on the Conjurer 5. I feel it's just a version of the 2 that fell off the deep end a little. You could easily convert the 5 into a 2 but with ER mediums instead of Medium Pulses by just dropping one ATM and moving the other up a notch. Might even be better than the 2, because it would still have the standard engine and have an extra ton to play around with. Just seems weird to me.
Anything to get more ammo on the thing.
Did i miss the mf variant with plasma cannon and inferno missiles ?
I can't do it every time or you will become complacent.
Trust the frog.
Rarely ever goes wrong.
Are the IICs done? Moving on to the rest of the second line Clan mechs?
There are a few more IICs out there, but they tend to be pretty rare.
@@MechanicalFrogC'mon, I still wanna see the Orion IIC, which just happens to be almost the exact custom loadout I run for my orions in modded MW5 once I get clan tech
No MechFrog variant? :(
#PlasmaRiflesForever
I have failed Clan Hoppy Frog and brought shame to my sibko.
#YvonneWasRight
**Confused screaming**
That is not a Conjurer...it is a Wolverine IIC 😁
**Gasp**
Why would you *reduce* the speed of a 'Mech with an XL engine?!?
To make a more expensive coffin.
@@MechanicalFrog But that's what the Hunchback IIC is for!
The Hunchback IIC is for the guy who cannot stop talking about how amazing a mechwarrior he will be. Blaze of glory, then sweet silence. @@scytheseven9173
No MF version?
This was before I started doing that, I think.
I've fought these in BTA3062, and I hate them.
It's a good mech for clanners who go in for being total d*ckbags.
Hah!
I tend to consider the clan names as inferior, but that's an IS bias. In this case tho, sorry but your dumb furry war is dumb, this is a Wolverine IIC
Alrighty. :P