Someone took a look at the Cataphract and asked a simple question: “What if we made it smooth?” I’m not joking, the actual background of the mech is as a re-engineered Cataphract. This mini is being introduced in the Mercenaries box, so I’d expect to see quite a few of them on the table over the coming months. I’ve run a bunch of games with it, and the only times its disappointed me are when my dice have been so bad every single one of my mechs disappointed me.

Chassis

A 70-ton battlemech, the Caesar is first introduced in 3049, meaning it has full access to weight saving technologies like XL engines and double heat sinks. While the first variant (and both custom variants) are relatively lightly armored, the later versions pack on a lot more. There aren’t any substantial changes to the base mech between variants, with everything being a base 4/6 move and no jumpjets in sight. All the variants also share a weapon theme – gauss rifle in the right torso, big energy weapon in the right arm, and a variety of support lasers. That said, there is variety in whether the mech is using an XL engine or light engine, as well as a few XL gyros, so it does play around a bit with being able to change those.

Variants

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).

CES-3R

The base 3R variant is armed with an ER PPC, gauss rifle, and four medium pulse lasers – of which two sadly face backwards. Sinking 32 heat, it can stand still and fire every single weapon. It’s also the lightest armored Caesar, with only 168/217 possible armor. At 1,578 BV it’s a pretty efficient way to bring a gauss rifle and ER PPC for some long range firepower, but it would be hugely improved by either dropping some heatsinks for more armor or moving the rear facing pulses to forward facing – with this layout and the short range of inner sphere pulses, it’s unlikely to be firing all four at once.

My rating: C

CES-3S

The 3S immediately jumps up to being fully armored and swaps the XL engine for a light engine, drastically increasing survivability. The pair of rear facing medium pulses are traded for an ER small laser for some fucking reason, and the ER ppc is upgraded to a heavy ppc. It’s also found a guardian ECM (and threw it in the same torso as the gauss rifle, which is some nice crit padding). This is a mech that very much wants to stand 6 hexes away from you, turn off your c3 (if you brought it), and slam a pair of 15 damage hits into you. While secondary armament leaves something to be desired, that helps keep BV down to 1,909, a reasonable price for a full brick of armor with these main guns.

My rating: A

CES-4S

Probably my favorite Caesar, this is not quite fully armored, though 192 points is close, and it also has a light engine. Instead of a gauss rifle it’s carrying a heavy gauss as the main gun, supported by a large pulse, pair of medium pulses, and pair of ER mediums – all facing forwards this time. The heavy gauss is hard to use but great when it hits – with a minimum range of 4 and a short range of 6, you need to be standing at 5 or 6 hexes to both have the best chance to hit and maximum damage, which decreases with range. The supporting armament is a little bit weird, 24 heat is not enough to fire all of it, so you’ll be deciding between the pair of ER mediums or pair of medium pulses to support the LPL every turn – and at 6 hexes you’re always picking the medium pulses, which are equally accurate for more damage. Where this shines is that it’s only 1,750 BV, making it one of the cheapest ways to get a heavy gauss rifle on the board.

My rating: A

CES-4R

Going back to a regular gauss rifle and XL engine, the 4R uses a snub-nose PPC as the secondary big gun and has the same medium pulse/ER medium laser combination as the 4S, with a third ER medium laser firing to the rear. It’s also picked up MASC for additional movement speed, helpful as you very much want to get the snub into short range, but painful on the BV as it picks up an extra point of TMM it can’t reliably use. 28 heat sinking makes the support weapons work much better than the 4S, as firing everything front facing is only +1 heat standing still, so you can avoid heat penalties by just alternating fire of an ER medium. At 2,024 BV because of MASC I think this ends up just a bit too expensive – the 3S is more durable, only does 5 less damage assuming everything hits, and costs less.

My rating: B-

CES-5D

Mixing in a bunch of clan tech as well as TSM, a supercharger, an XL gyro, hardened armor, and talons in the legs, this mech starts getting weird. For guns it has a clan ER ppc, HAG/20, and pair of clan medium pulse lasers – with 20 heat sinks this is exactly enough to turn TSM on at a run, at which point if it wants to sit at exactly 9 heat it needs to walk, fire the ER ppc, and fire one of the three other guns. If you want to run there’s no way to stay heat neutral, you’re always either gaining 1 (bad, slows you down) or losing 3 (bad, turns off TSM). With everything turned on it is able to run for 9 hexes, which you need because the entire point of this mech is to get in close and kick with the talons for 42 damage, but you’re going to spend most of your time closing at the base 5 hex/turn movement. Moving this fast means it costs 3,123 BV (yes, I had to check multiple times that that is the BV cost, not the introduction year, which is 3148). Yikes. Funny, but yikes.

My rating: F

CES-5R

After that last bout of insanity this is a much more normal hardened armor inner sphere mech. It still has an XL gyro, but hardened armor makes TACs sufficiently less likely and packs so much armor into the CT that I’m not bothered. It’s running a gauss rifle, snub PPC, and 4 ER medium lasers – two are once again facing backwards. At 2,192 BV it’s expensive for a heavy, but it has solid weapons to sit at 7 hexes and a lot of armor to chew through before that gauss rifle and snub PPC go away.

My rating: B+

CES-3R ‘Archangel’

The first of the custom variants (and available in one of the Legends boxes), this is pretty much a 3R that swapped to clan weapons. It picks up an extra forward facing medium pulse in the center torso (great!) and keeps the rear facing pulses as inner sphere versions (extra great, no need to spend BV on them). Despite the increased heat load of the third forward facing pulse and clan ER ppc, it’s still oversinked, generating 30 at a run and sinking 34, but firing the rear pulses does theoretically let you overheat. I wish that some of those sinks were armor instead, though 184/217 is much better than the stock 3R. At 2,098 BV I’ve got no huge complaints about this, though it doesn’t particularly stand out either.

My rating: B

CES-3R ‘Gertrude’

Sticking with fully inner sphere tech, someone decided they really really really like ER medium lasers. There are eight of them, as well as the standard gauss rifle and ER ppc. They all face forward, and there’s nowhere near enough heat sinking to fire everything – it generates 40 heat without firing the PPC, and sinks 32. It’s also back down to stock 3R armor levels, which is less than great. Sure, it’s only 1,833 BV, but I’d rather take a 4S.

My rating: D

Conclusion

While never quite peaking into a great mech, there are a lot of Caesar variants that perform well. It’s just a solidly competent heavy mech that brings a couple big guns and some armor. Or you can go batshit with TSM and talons and remove entire legs in a single kick.

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