![]() I am generally not a huge fan of the Inner Sphere ER large laser, I generally find it to be way too much heat for not enough extra range. Streak SRMs are always good weapons, as they don’t fire unless they hit, and if they hit, all of the missiles hit, no cluster roll required. It trades the weapons on the Blackjack for 2 ER large lasers and 4 streak SRM-2s. Credit: Jack Hunter BJ-2Ĭoming in at 1148 BV, the BJ-2 is an advanced tech upgrade. ![]() Cannot recommend this variant in any situation.Ĭlan Wolf Beta Galaxy Blackjack. I give it a D+ on its own merits, not having jump jets hurts real bad, but this is honestly an F tier mech because you could just spend 50 extra BV and get the far superior BJ-1. It strips the jump jets out of this mech, leaves the AC-2s in place, and, to make up for losing a huge chunk of the mobility, power, and flexibility of the basic Blackjack, you gain a mighty, earth shaking, apocalyptic 2 small lasers. The 1DC meanwhile is a really awful “””upgrade”””. I honestly like this variant quite a bit, and I am confused why I don’t use it more often. It manages it’s heat decently well, and the Large Lasers give it a mid-long range punch that it didn’t have before. ![]() Coming in at 1015 BV, it trades the basically worthless AC/2s and 2 of the medium lasers for 2 Large Lasers and a lot of extra heat sinks. BJ-1DBĬarrying marginally less armor, the 1DB is honestly a pretty good upgrade. It can mess with the heat scaling on an assault mech, and it is likely not threatening enough for you opponent to invest a lot of gun into on its way in. Overall suffers from the fall off as the timeline moves on much less than the BJ-1, I’d give it a C+ overall. That said, the 3 hex range on the flamers makes this somewhat rare. If you are using the heat damage optional rule for flamers (which you should), it also becomes pretty good at killing Elementals and tanks, and the extra heat can really mess with your opponent’s ability to manage their heat scale. These are all great changes for the mech, and 4 flamers makes it death on legs to infantry. It swaps the AC/2s for 4 flamers, a bucket load of heat sinks, and it drops the jump jets to speed the mech up to 5/8. BJ-1XĪn interesting variant, and an earlier version in universe, the BJ-1X is honestly probably a better mech. Probably a B+ mech in its era, but a C in more advanced games. It really compares badly to most modern medium mechs for the price, with thin armor, too much AC/2, and it is pretty slow. It even almost has enough heat sinks for them! It’s movement profile of 4/6/4 is also decent for the time, but the big issue with the BJ-1 is the march of time. I have been pretty clear in the past that the AC/2 is barely a weapon and only really has a niche against aircraft, but 4 medium lasers on a 3025 medium mech is very good short range damage. It costs 949 BV and carries 4 medium lasers and 2 AC/2s. ![]() The “basic” variant of the Blackjack, the BJ-1 is a great example of a mech that absolutely rips in 3025, but falls off fairly hard later in the timeline. ![]() The Blackjack is 45 tons, but the Blackjack Omni-Mech is 50 tons. I will be covering the Omni version of the Blackjack in this article, as they are very similar mechs and the miniature easily works for both of them, even though they are technically different mechs. The Blackjack also was used as the base for an Omni-Mech conversion later in the timeline, confusingly also just called the Blackjack, which massively expands it’s variant list. Most Blackjacks can jump, and this makes them a bit more slippery than a lot of other 3025 era medium mechs. This is due to another part of the Blackjack’s identity, which are jump jets. This is fun but doesn’t come up nearly as often as you would think it does, at least in my games. It is an odd looking, boxy dork of a mech, and it frequently finds its way into my lists for a few reasons, so lets talk about it.īlackjacks on the whole are notable for basically never having lower arms, meaning that every variant can flip its arms to shoot behind itself, which means that it is never unable to return fire at something. Howdy, this week we are taking a look at the Blackjack, the dependable little medium class dork you start out with in HBS’s Battletech video game, and one of the mechs featured in the Alpha Strike starter box. ![]()
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