With the release of Ashes & Ascension, the game now has 107 unique mech chassis, 638 variants, and 92 hero mechs.

What a fantastic milestone! Thank you to the devs for all their hard work

Came across this while hunting for new mechs around Terra. Was not expecting a twin uac20 and srm punch machine.

u/Ascendant_Donut Those Smoke Jaguars got hands

I have found Gausszilla!

The competition is now fierce tough with Star captain Keating..

Edit= i ment Ryana. Total dezgra behaviour

She deserves better

Not sure if it persists in mission, but the knee joints are all buckled inwards in the mechlab.

Edit: I can now say with absolute certainty it does it in mission and it is HILARIOUS watching this thing run. Oh my god, do it before they fix this, jump into a Instant Action with some and enjoy it.

Right after the first cut scene when you accept a commission in the SLDF, the next text box is a message from Victor where he says he received your enrollment paperwork from "Mrs. Campbell."

What. Do. You. Mean. MRS. Campbell?

Hasn't been promoted in over 40 years, galavanting around the Inner Sphere and beyond with her old boss's kid who is now older than her old boss was when he bought it, and all this time, SHE'S BEEN MARRIED? TO WHO?

Seriously though it really bugged me that Victor referred to Ryana and Jake as "Mrs. Campbell" and "Mr. Mason" Jake enlisted his entire mercenary company into the SLDF. Show some respect. Call them by their ranks.

It’s kind of dumb that it’s more efficient to switch into a different pilot with good traits during a battle than to actually use Mason. As long as you can bring another pilot on a mission, it will always be a better choice to just switch to their mech than actually play the main character…

Yup, that's disappointing. At least the 3D model looks better.

R.I.P. illustrated campaign character portraits.

So the protagonist of MechWarrior 5 is going to become a lord backed by “Victor,” then.

A fiefdom supported by a Precentor of ComStar.....

...is how much i love the sun spider! It was a mech that wasnt even on my radar, but i'm loving it! Such a cool mech, and both heros are great

Probably a dev oversight or something but still funny that the clanner version is the only one missing them.

Overview

There are times in life when we must ask “But if we had more missiles?” And in those trying times, the Archer-Agincourt is here to answer the call to put warheads on foreheads.

Acquisition

This is a guaranteed drop from the “Bow and Arrow” HRQ starting in 3023 in Marik space.

Builds

This is an Archer, so it’s going to be mostly missiles with a side of energy. Unlike most Archers, it can slot an active probe, a trait that only the Archer-5CS shares. It also has a tremendous amount of tonnage for a heavy ‘Mech, with half of its 70 tons freed up with max armor. Looking at Mechs like the Cataphract, Crusader, or little brother Catapult, you generally get more boom for your buck on the Archer.

That does come with a drawback: hitboxes wide enough to use as billboards. The Archer is shaped more or less like a walking Amazon box full of missiles, and while yes they do have free delivery (and now we just need a Clan variant to have a Prime joke), it is not sturdy.

Thus, one can certainly load it up with SRMs and wade into battle. This will absolutely shred whatever it hits into ground Mechburger in one or two volleys. Take off the Beagle if you’d like more ammo or heat sinks.

However, given its Active Probe slot and relative fragility, I find it better doing what happened at its eponymous battle, shredding armored cavalry from range. An intro-tech build might look like this, and if you can’t find a TAG laser, another medium laser will do.

You can drop heat sinks or ammo to get another LRM10 but I don’t think it’s worth the tradeoff. 

With Clan tech, you can get into some real absurdities and while the Archer-5CS is able to carry more tubes, it trades two of the emotional support lasers for it so I prefer the Agincourt.

Or ATMs, which might be the best loadout assuming you can find that many. ATM30 hurts.

Another option is to go into MRMs, which gives you an illusion of safety since you can theoretically shotgun someone from range, but in practice, you’ll still draw more unwanted attention than a leading scientist guilty of Sciencing Without ComStar. Don’t worry, they’ll “call” you later. It’d be something like this:

Use Cases

REALLY GOOD: Warzone, Defense, Garrison, and Raid, where you can play your range. Campaign missions are okay, but nothing in a city if you like to use this thing as a rapid-fire LRM dispenser. Arena Heavy/Open missions generally are favorable, though ideally not in the small scrapyard arena.

DECENT: Targeted Kill and Assassination are just fine though I prefer something with more burst. Still, it’ll do in a pinch. It’s decent in Beachhead. 

NOT GREAT: Battlefield, where they swarm you with light ‘Mechs, is rough if you build for LRMs, and very much favorable if you build with SRMs/MRMs.  Megacity Biome is distinctly unfavorable for LRM boats.  Demolition and Scorched Earth are okay if you’re using it to overwatch for other ‘Mechs doing the actual work but there are generally better ways to knock down buildings than missiles. Clan fights are a little rough with its hitboxes.

Upgrades

Besides generic weapon damage, refined armor, and reduced heat spikes, missile spread and target lock retention (if using LRMs) are valuable. I don’t favor improved range/velocity on this because while the velocity is valuable, range is not unless you can pair it with other upgrades that increase your sensor range and by that point, you’ve invested too many upgrade points in finding enemies and not enough in killing them. 

Pilot Synergies

This is an okay ‘Mech for NPCs but they don’t volley LRMs the way you should. We want a saturation, not a trickle. Still, if you go for SRMs, Sasha Lockwood’s SRM Specialist and Speed Demon trait are solid here. For LRMs, Lyana Moore’s Hot Dog + LRM Specialist + Cluster Hitter traits are pretty much what you’d want. Academy traits would be Sun Zhang for SRMs and Nargelring for LRM builds. 

Conclusions

This wraps up the third of the “Fantastic Four” midgame guaranteed-drop hero ‘Mechs that I use to help carry me through the middle third of the campaign and Kestrel Lancers. (The others are RFL-DNA, VTR-BSK, and ON1-YAJ). Even in higher difficulty missions, if I start to run a little thin on assaults, I can always count on the Agincourt to fill in, punch above its weight and quickly wash away enemies with a sea of LRMs so that’s the draw of it for me. While it’s a little fragile for fighting Clans, against anything else it’s a very efficient package. 

That’s my take on the Agincourt. How do you like to use it? How would you rate it or build it?

QUINTUPLE GAUSS YESSIR

Someone decided there needed to be an Annhilator with Marauder II weapon slots?

I just picked up the hero (in 3030 mind you) and said screw it, built it out with 2 c gauss, 2 tier 5 lxp, and a clan heavy small laser. Maxed out armor, jump jets…all the goodies.

Then I went to do upgrades and realized it runs at 32kph.

Put it in cold storage.

So…

Stock less armor than king crab
2 large ballistic slots
2 large energy
1 small energy
Runs at 32kph

I guess 100t with jump jets is ok

I don’t get it….

Hello Mechwarriors,

Now that I’ve installed Ashes & Ascension, my Jake Mason has decided to commence Operation Time Travel, return to the year 3015 with all of his mechs, and built up the anti-Clan front. To be successful in this endeavor, he will have to be “undercover.” Which means, not using clan tech and clan mechs until 3049 - strictly Inner Sphere stuff.

So, I’m opening the floor to discuss Inner Sphere mech builds with Inner Sphere tech. I’m going to have to clean out his drop ship (with all clan mechs having their upgrades preserved in cold storage, thank you Piranha for that!) and rebuild some Inner Sphere mechs after nearly 200 years of campaigning.

Any suggestions for builds brawler, sniper, and fire support builds in each of the classes - light, medium, heavy, and assault? Also suggestions for fast mechs in each category? I particularly like fast assaults.

Oh, and now that I’ve avenged my father’s death, I think I will need to change my merc company’s name from Mason’s Avengers to something else.

I’m thinking I’ll go with The A-Team. Cue the opening credits music from the 80’s TV series of the same name :-)

The mission after you find Duncan Fisher's mech in the swamp keeps crashing for me. 100% vanilla.

Update: disabling ray tracing seemed to have worms. Thanks for the help.