Happy New Year everyone and welcome to a double feature showcase of the myriad sins of Clan Jade Falcon. We are starting 2024 off strong with the Loki (or Hellbringer if you want to double your caution), a clan invasion era heavy omni-mech that is notable in and out of universe for being completely insane. The mech was designed by the very best weirdoes and rejects the Clan scientist caste had to offer, and is the platonic ideal of the nutcase philosophy that the Clans have towards war and combat. There is also the Loki Mk II featured later in the article, which is in a lot of ways a reaction to the sins of the Loki and an incredibly different beast of a mech that could fairly easily be represented by the same miniature, in a pinch. So, let’s get into it.

Loki (Hellbringer) Chassis

The Loki is an omni-mech, so all variants share the same structural components. Let me just tell you straight up that things are pretty fucking dire out of the gate for poor Mr. Loki. The Loki is a 65 ton heavy omni-mech with a movement profile of 5/8/0 stock. That is pretty standard for Clan heavies, what isn’t standard is that the Loki, an expensive Clan omni-mech, has less armor than a base model crappy 45 ton intro-tech Vindicator VND-1R. The Loki only has 17 points of center torso armor, 14 points on the side torsos, 11 on each arm, and 15 on each leg. It actually has more internal structure than armor. The Loki is here for a good time, not a long time. It trades away nearly all of it’s survivability and durability as a heavy mech. There are Panther variants with thicker armor than this, and the Panther is a 35 ton light mech. So, what do you get for trading away any and all significant survivability and consigning yourself to a shallow pauper’s grave on the outskirts of Katyusha City?

Guns. Lots and lots of guns.

The Loki has a mind-boggling 28.5 tons of pod space available. 43.8% of this mech is free to stuff full of guns. This is where the problem begins. Clan weaponry is an unfortunate combination of very light and very expensive. It is really easy to pack hundreds and hundreds of BV worth of guns into a mech that is out-tanked by a lot of Phoenix Hawk variants, a mech I frequently derided for it’s piss-poor durability. The Loki is pure offense over defense, a meme of a mech that doesn’t care if it or it’s pilot comes back alive. The Loki is pounding back half a bottle of rotgut gin cut with the lemonade that kills you in a Waffle House parking lot and starting a street fight with the local racoon population out of sheer unmitigated bloodlust. The Jade Falcons canonically love the thing, because it lets them kill or be killed at frightening velocities, speedrunning their nihilistic strength based philosophy at speeds that only one other mech can match. No variant can fix this core and horrifying issue of god-awful durability, but they are all deeply amusing, so let’s take a look at them.

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 and our general methodology). In addition, each Loki will be given an “Insanity rating” to judge how detached from the baseline reality of BattleTech as a game that they are.

Prime

The Loki Prime drunkenly stumbles out of the bar at 2654 BV, a goddam hilarious amount to pay for a mech this fragile. It’s equipment is also pretty nuts, with 2 Clan ER PPCs, an anti-missile system, 3 ER medium lasers, a streak SRM-6, 2 machine guns, 4 A-Pods (single use anti-infantry land mines mounted in the legs, because clearly the biggest threat to a 5/8/0 mech with no armor is attacks from unarmored infantry), and an active probe and ECM, for spice. It also carries a targeting computer, just to make it more expensive and make sure that you hit all of those expensive PPC shots. But wait, there’s more! It only has 26 heat sinking capacity, meaning that with the ER PPCs alone it builds 6 heat at a run! This is terrible, it costs a fuckload for 2 guns it can’t shoot without overheating. The Loki Prime talks mad shit but has a glass jaw and exhausts itself very thoroughly in just a couple of turns. One of the most godawful prime variants of any Clan Omni, and it isn’t particularly close. This is a worse version of an Adder Prime.

RATING: F

INSANITY: A, costs more than a Thunder Hawk

A

The A comes screaming in blasting techno music at 1948 BV, which is still a funny amount to pay for such horrid durability. For weaponry, the Loki A is loaded up with 2 ER large lasers, an ultra AC/5, an LRM-20, a NARC missile beacon, an ER medium laser, 2 machine guns because clearly infantry attack is the main problem with this mech, and an active probe, for spice. I mean it is certainly cheaper than the prime, but there are assault mechs that do more consistent DPS than the Loki A, which builds 7 heat at a run firing it’s long range guns, for a lower price. This is less batshit crazy but is still nuts. I want to give a shout-out to the fact that the Loki A carries a full ton of machine gun ammo nice and safe in that 17 armor center torso. Which is 200 shots. If that cooks off, this mech with 38 points of total CT health will take 400 damage there, firmly punting it into orbit. Reminder that the Loki A has terrible heat management, and that overheating can cause ammo explosions. It is actually safer if it just doesn’t load the LRM or machine guns.

RATING: F+

INSANITY: B-, roasty toasty

B

Continuing the general trend of B configurations of Omni-Mechs being rather cheap, the Loki B comes in at 1592 BV, a price point that is dangerously close to being reasonable. You know, if it weren’t a Loki. For weaponry, Loki B carries a gauss rifle, an LBX-AC5, an ER small laser for some fucking reason, and 2 SRM-6s with Artemis IV. This sounds like a kinda reasonable set of weapons for a mech like this, it can hang back and threaten things that close in. It isn’t reasonable though, because whatever actual crack addict loaded the Loki B with ammo had no idea what they were doing, or was actively trying to get the pilot killed. The Loki B only has 1 ton of ammo for its LBX-5 and gauss rifle. You know, its primary weapons. So the gauss rifle can only fire 8 times, and the LBX-5 can’t take advantage of the main upside of LBX autocannons. You know, the ability to choose between solid shot and cluster ammo based on the mission. Don’t worry though, because the SRM-6s have 2 tons of ammo, so you can shoot it’s point blank ranged backup weapons all fucking day. You spend a lot of BV on decent long range guns, but no BV on ammo for them, so you run out of ammo quickly and are then encouraged to close in to short range with your incredibly fragile and expensive walking suicide booth.

At least it doesn’t overheat though.

RATING: F++

INSANITY: A, wants to knife fight with a sarissa

C

Coming in screaming and having forgotten it’s own name, the Loki C costs 2076 BV, and hurts my soul. For weapons, we are loaded with an ER large laser, 2 ER medium lasers, an ATM-6 (love ATMs), 2 ER small lasers for some fucking reason, and an LBX-20 Autocannon. This is a short ranged focused variant with a little bit of long range skirmishing capability. On a mech that is out-tanked by some Panthers. At least they loaded it with enough ammo and heat sinks this time, with a pretty solid 3 tons of ammo for both primary weapons. That said, under no circumstances do you want a Loki close enough to something to fire an AC/20 of any description at them. AC/20 range is a 2 way street, and I don’t think there is a single goddam AC/20 mech in the game that the Loki C beats cost-effectively within AC/20ing range. At least the AC/20 Urbanmech has the decency to be cheap. Still a baffling mech.

RATING: F

INSANITY: B, cost ineffective and fragile

D

Showing once again that whoever is designing these variants wakes up screaming at the mere concept of an attack by conventional, unarmored infantry, the D costs 2140 BV and is here to kill conventional infantry. It carries 4 medium pulse lasers and one micro pulse laser, and that is literally it for weapons that are capable of damaging other mechs. Most of it’s weapon load is devoted to 4 fucking plasma cannons, which each build 2d6 heat on any mech they hit and do ungodly things to any infantry or tanks that they hit. That said, they are each only loaded with 1 ton of ammo, so it runs out pretty quick. Can’t have the mech be consistent at killing infantry, that would be too good. Also it has 4 B-pods in the legs, which are even bigger land mines that it can shoot out of it’s knees to kill battle armor and infantry. This is bad, it’s a hyper expensive anti-infantry platform that dies in a stiff breeze, isn’t that fast, and runs out of infantry killing juice after 10 turns. It’ll do ungodly things to infantry, but a Piranha or Firestarter will do that job just as well for a fraction of the price.

RATING: F-

INSANITY: A+, SEE THOSE POOR INFANTRYMEN? SQUISH THEM LIKE INSECTS!

E

The E has some stuff going for it. Price isn’t one of those things, costing 2304 BV. It carries jump jets, which move it to a 5/8/5 movement profile. If that was a 5/8/4 I think I would scream. For weaponry, it mounts 2 ER large lasers, an LRM-10, and a HAG-20 because fuck it, why not. It actually carries 12 shots for each ammo using weapon, but you bet your ass that it doesn’t have remotely close to enough heat sinks, building 8 heat with a running alpha and 11 with a jumping one. Which would be OK, a lot of mechs don’t want to alpha strike every turn, except the Loki E’s guns all have the exact same range bands and the exact same sniper role, so you would always want to shoot all of them. Also, reminder, 2304 BV for a mech that some Cicadas have better armor than.

RATING: F

INSANITY: A, My brain hurts

F

The F costs 1839 BV, and carries 2 LBX-10 Autocannons, 4 ER medium lasers, and an SRM-6. You bet your ass it also only has 2 tons worth of ammo that both LBX’s have to share. So you only get 5 shots with each type of ammo. It does have the decency to actually have reasonable heat management though, able to fire everything but the SRM-6 without cooking the pilot. That alone, combined with both having any vaguely reasonable amount of ammo on top of it and lacking the weird paranoia about the concept of unarmored infantry approaching it, makes it far and away the most functional of the Lokis so far. By which I mean it is a D instead of an F.

RATING: D-

INSANITY: C+

G

Hey kid. Wanna fall over and kill your own mech? The Loki G comes in at 1943 BV, and carries a large improved heavy laser, 3 ER small lasers for some fucking reason, and an improved heavy gauss rifle. Assuming the Loki G has taken even 2 points of rear CT damage, it is in the small and exclusive club of mechs that can kill itself by firing it’s guns. Heavy gauss has a chance to knock your mech over when you fire it, and the Loki takes 7 damage when it falls over. There is a single crit of heavy gauss rifle in the center torso of the Loki G, so if it falls on it’s back after getting tapped by a single SRM, small laser, or *gasp* a couple of dudes with rifles on foot, it can take an internal crit and crit that single CT gauss crit, dealing a 22 point explosion to the CT, which only has 21 structure.

Even without that somewhat unlikely case, this is still not a very good mech. It is super expensive, mounts guns that want it to get dangerously close to the enemy, can knock itself over, and is made of glass.

RATING: F

INSANITY: A, Can die after resolving it’s own shooting

H

Wandering around blackout drunk on honor after a Logan’s Run marathon, the Loki H costs 1952 BV and carries a whole light lance worth of gun. It mounts a large heavy laser, an ER PPC, 4 small heavy lasers, an ultra AC/5, an LRM-15, 2 A-pods because the infantry hater snuck back in to the mech bay, and an active probe, for spice. It can’t fire all of it’s weapons at a run, but it also isn’t really built to, having a few clear range bands built into it. It still will have heat issues when at point blank range, but it will also be, you know, very dead at point blank range. Because it’s a Hellbringer. Or Loki. Whatever the kids are calling it now. Heavy lasers have an accuracy penalty, so most of the time at close range the Loki H will actually be at a disadvantage to hit compared to other mechs. Reminder that the Loki is made of glass.

RATING: F

INSANITY: A, Can’t hit shit captain.

J

But what if the Prime and A had a horrible mutant child and it could jump? Costing 2415 BV, the Loki J can move 5/8/5, and carries an ER PPC, 4 ER medium lasers, a UAC/5, a streak SRM-4, an anti missile system with a ton of ammo in the center torso because of course it is, and an active probe, for spice. The J is sort of heat efficient at long range, but it rapidly starts cooking if you jump too much or start shooting short ranged guns at the same time as long ranged guns. Mech bad.

RATING: F

INSANITY: B, goes flying through the air on fire and screaming

M

Holy shit this one isn’t that insane! It’s just bad! The Loki M carries a gauss rifle with 2 tons of ammo, 2 ER large lasers, a streak SRM-6, and a normal SRM-6. Having both types of SRM on the same mech hurts my soul but other than that this isn’t that bad. It mostly loads long ranged weapons, it can fire them all at a walk without heating up and only barely heats up at a run, it doesn’t have center torso ammo, and it is actually encouraged to hang back by the design of the mech. It still costs, you know, 2200 BV, so it isn’t good. It just is less fucking unhinged.

RATING: F

INSANITY: C-, hanging back and thinking about life

T

The Loki T is a Loki Prime that stopped to think about it’s life for a moment. Much like most rec guide variants, this is one of the best ones on the chassis. It is still 2444 BV, which is a fuckload for a Vulcan with delusions of grandeur. For weapons, it carries 2 ER PPCs, an ATM-6 with 2 tons of ammo, 3 ER medium lasers, 2 AP gauss rifles because the infantry fearing sicko snuck back in (but at least put usable weapons on), and an anti missile system. The real spice is that it carries 34 heat sinking capacity, actually letting it shoot both of its PPCs without cooking its pilot. If you like the idea of long range damage on a mech with no durability, this is probably the most functional Hellbringer/Loki/whatever. I don’t think this philosophy is any good, but this is the best representative of it.

RATING: D

INSANITY: C-, settling down in life but still drinks 4 bang energies and wonders why it has heart palpitations.

Loki/Hellbringer Conclusion

Yeah this mech sucks. And it sucks bad. This is not a controversial opinion, most people seem to agree that the Hellbringer/Loki/whatever is one of the worst heavy mechs in the game. There is basically no way to fix this without just making it fucking terrible. The core platform that is the Loki was so heavily flawed that it couldn’t be fixed, and simply had to be replaced, born again in a burst of fire and bong smoke, screaming the whole way down. And we got that mech, that glorious replacement rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of one of the absolute worst mechs in the entire game. Except it still has problems.

Loki Mk II / Hel Chassis

The Loki Mk II is one of the single biggest improvements in a design that can be seen in any BattleMech families in all of BattleTech. The main thing it accomplishes is massively increasing the armor, up to pretty decent levels for a 65 tonner. Even with that said though, it still has some issues. First of all, they didn’t want to, you know, cut into the guns it can carry, so the Loki Mk II only moves 4/6/0 instead of 5/8/0, and they use a small cockpit so that they can squeeze as much extra armor onto it as they can without cutting in to all those guns. Small cockpits are fucking terrible, being effectively a +1 penalty to your piloting skill with basically no refund. For context, that means you need to pay a significantly increased cost to get a Loki Mk II up to an effective piloting skill of 4/5, having to pay for a 4/4, and raising skills any higher than that gets really expensive really fast. Loki MK IIs are therefore very vulnerable to falling over, or they are very expensive, your choice.

That said, that might be worth it for a certain type of player. Why, I hear you asking? The Loki Mk II has FOURTY GODDAM TONS OF POD SPACE! Most actual honest to god Assault mechs carry less gun than that. The Loki MK II is one of the highest damage to weight ratio mechs in the entire game, and can put an ungodly amount of pain into an opponent for a suspiciously low price, assuming you aren’t paying for the extra piloting skill. Even if you are though, the Loki Mk II tends to be bizarrely affordable, being far too spamable for a mech with 40 fucking tons of gun in it. I really like the Loki Mk II for a wide variety of reasons, and I genuinely think it is worth it, even with the small cockpit tax.

Variants

You know how this works. Ratings are scored on a standard F though S scale, which is linked above from our home page, along with any other mech overviews you want to read that aren’t massively long. We will be continuing the insanity rating for the Loki Mk II, because it isn’t any less crazy, it is just a different flavor of madness. Maybe strawberry. It is Jade Falcon though, so maybe more of a Pistachio or Mint.

Prime

The Loki Mk II Prime costs a pretty budget friendly 2189 BV, and starts us off really strong with 2 gauss rifles, 2 ER large lasers, and a streak SRM-4. For 2189 BV, this is a steal. That is a lot of gun for such a low price. It does build up a slight amount of heat every turn, but it is pretty manageable by just dropping an ER large laser every 2-3 turns depending on what you are doing. This is a lot of long ranged firepower for reasonably cheap on a reasonably tough platform. It is slow and ponderous, but it will win duels with the overwhelming majority of mechs in it’s price range with guns like that. Very good as a line member of a fire support unit.

RATING: B+

INSANITY: F, Stern and fatherly, like a mentor to your other fire support mechs.

A

The A is a bit more of a wild child, costing 2249 BV and being a lot more similar to the OG Loki Prime, but with it’s life put together and a nice suit on. It carries 2 ER PPCs, 2 medium improved heavy lasers, 2 medium pulse lasers, 2 AP gauss rifles because the infantry guy is back, an LBX-10 autocannon, and an angel ECM, for spice. It has enough heat sinks to function pretty well, it carries enough ammo to shoot for a while, and it is in general very similar to the Loki Mk II Prime, just trading a bit of long ranged damage for better close range defenses while costing nearly the same amount. Very good mech, the choice between this and the Prime is a matter of personal taste.

RATING: B+

INSANITY: F, Rock solid and brightening the day of everyone around it.

B

True story, in the first game I played against my buddy’s Loki Mk II B, it fired a single shot that killed 2 Saladin hover tanks at the same time, and then proceeded to kill all of my battle armor in about 2 turns and spent the rest of the game terrorizing all of my tanks. It comes in at 1798 BV, a screaming deal for this mech, and carries a fucking Long Tom cannon with enough ammo, an ER large laser, and 4 medium pulse lasers. The Long Tom cannon makes this thing a fucking menace to conventional forces, because it hits in an AOE and can pulverize entire units of Battle Armor with a single shot, due to the rules of AOE weapons. It also is incredibly good at throwing the tracks off of tanks and just being an annoying, cheap little bastard. AOE weapons and Long Tom cannons are just so incredibly powerful in BattleTech. This mech comes with one of my highest recommendations for the sheer idiot fun you will have rolling damage on up to 14 of your opponents units at the same time, assuming ideal circumstances. More likely it hits 2-4, but you can always dream.

RATING: A

INSANITY: C, Carries a whole lot of artillery pieces and a whole lot of anger issues. The logical endpoint of the infantry guy’s mad quest to kill all infantry on the table.

C

Buckle up because we are now in the realm of all the new Loki Mk IIs from Rec Guide 33, all of which are varying degrees of batshit crazy and are all incredibly fun. The Loki MK II C comes out the gate screaming with 4 FUCKING ATM-12s! This is a horrifying amount of ATMs. That is 144 points of damage worth of ATM if it gets to close range. That’s as many as 12 12s, and that’s terrible. That said, it is a bit light on ammo for all that ATM, and it can only really fire 3 of them at a time before it starts to cook itself, but when you get within 3 hexes and have the chance to knock a motherfucker over with 144 points of damage, you have to take that shot. It comes in at 2214 BV, which is a hilariously small amount for this much gun. I have been using the ATM variant of the Vulture MK IV a lot lately, and I love that mech to pieces, but it costs about the same amount and only has 2 ATM-12s. That said, it is faster, and tougher, but still! Damage! If you want to do metric tons of damage to people and don’t care about coming back alive, the Loki Mk II C is actually a great choice. It can play conservatively with long range and medium range missiles to keep itself safe, and can then hit the gas and annihilate someone when it gets the chance. Love this mech, cherish this mech.

RATING: B

INSANITY: A, carries an entire lance worth of missiles for a dirt cheap price and isn’t worried about coming back alive. Will leave a smoldering husk behind, either it’s own or that of whatever poor bastard walked in front of it.

D

Infantry guy is back and he wants to fly away. The Loki Mk II D carries 2 improved heavy medium lasers, 2 LRM-15s, an ER large laser, and 2 plasma cannons. This isn’t terrible for 2370 BV. However, the big spice is that the Hel D can move 4/6/6. That is in fact really quite fast for that much gun. In addition, I normally hate plasma cannons but honestly this thing has so much other gun that it doesn’t really matter. Those jump jets really are what make this a good mech though, and seeing something with 40 tons of pod space flinging itself 6 hexes just feels wrong. Only really held back by it’s low damage compared to other Loki Mk IIs, compared to other Jump 6 mechs it carries hilariously overkill amounts of damage.

RATING: B

INSANITY: A-, please get the infantry guy away from the Loki factory.

E

The Loki Mk II E is interesting. It comes in at 2443 BV, a bit high for a Loki Mk II, and it carries 2 ER large lasers, 3 ER medium lasers, a Rotary AC/5, 2 Streak SRM-6s, and a targeting computer. It is a hair short on heat sinks, about the same as the Prime, but that really doesn’t hurt it very much. This is pretty decent DPS out to a pretty good range, but the best RAC units are the ones that ONLY mount a single RAC. This is because RACs can jam, and if you want to unjam it you can’t fire any weapons on your next turn. This means that paying for non-RAC guns is kind of bad, because if you want to use your RAC, you are going to have to sit out some turns clearing jams and wasting the BV on your other guns. Overall it is a fun little mech, RACs are fun, but it isn’t super great. It does stand out, but it isn’t really that good.

RATING: C-

INSANITY: B-, Sir Jams-A-Lot wastes a lot of BV on things other than more miniguns.

F

The F is kind of nuts and hard to explain. I would describe it as a bootleg Hellstar. I frequently mention the Hellstar as a measuring stick against which other long range assault mechs are measured. The Loki Mk II F is 500 BV cheaper and is, for 6 turns, just as good at shooting as a Hellstar. It is more fragile, but let’s go through it. The Loki MkII F carries 4 ER PPCs, 40 heat sinking capacity from 20 double heat sinks, and 6 coolant pods. Coolant pods are an interesting piece of equipment that is consumed to add 1 extra point of heat sinking per heat sink for a single turn. So you get 6 turns of uptime on your coolant pods on the Loki Mk II F. For 6 turns, you sink 60 heat. 4 Clan ER PPCs are exactly 60 heat. You are heat neutral while firing 2 of them and running. So you run into position firing 2 PPCs, line up a good shot, stand still, pop a coolant pod, and then fire all 4 PPCs. This is a devilishly smartly designed mech, and it will do a lot of damage for a budget price. Once you are out of coolant pods it still has a pair of heat neutral head choppers for 2512 BV, which is not great compared to something like a Thunder Hawk, another measuring stick mech that has 3 gauss rifles. That said, it is a better price and rate than a lot of dual ERPPC mechs. The main difference between the Loki Mk II F and the other headchopper boats is that you sacrifice armor to save some BV, and honestly that is a trade I am more than willing to take. I was tempted to give this mech an S rank, but I’ll settle for an A+. It isn’t game warping, just really fucking good.

RATING: A+

INSANITY: A, uses a lot of elaborate tricks to act as a cut price version of one of the game’s best mechs. Actually makes the offense over defense trade work on a 2500 BV mech.

T

I am 90% sure the T is cheating somewhere on the record sheet that CGL gave out. The Loki Mk II T moves 4/6(8)/0 using a supercharger. For weapons, it carries 2 UAC/10s, which is 20 to 40 points of potential damage, out to a 6 hex short range, with 30 shots each, 2 improved heavy medium lasers, which is 20 more damage within 3 hexes, and an SRM-4. Oh, and a goddam targeting computer, giving everything a -1 to hit bonus. So this must be some 3000 BV abomination, right? Nope, the Loki MkII T only costs 2077 BV! That is a fucking criminal deal. That is dirt fucking cheap for something that can hit the gas to run 8 hexes when it needs to, can shoot out to a pretty long range with substantial damage, and can take a hit like any other heavy mech. There is way too much accurate damage packed into such a cheap fucking mech variant. There is something wrong here, I can feel it.

RATING: A+

INSANITY: A, I don’t understand how this happened.

Conclusion

The Loki is a tale of 2 mechs, both of them fucking insane. The Loki/Hellbringer is insanely terrible, with almost every variant finding new and inventive ways to not fix the issues that plague it. The Loki Mk II/Hel is insanely good, with shockingly low prices and enormous damage only somewhat dampened by how terrible small cockpits are. I can’t recommend the various Loki Mk IIs hard enough, they are incredibly powerful and potent heavy mechs that will feel like rock stars in nearly every game. Meanwhile, if someone put a base model Loki/Hellbringer down on the table across from me, I would take it as either a cry for help or a dire insult. The Loki provokes madness in BattleTech players and designers alike, an insane cast study in both terrible mech design and tier one mech design. I don’t know what I was expecting to have to say after all of that, but I just feel unwell. This article was over 5000 words, cheers and have a good day/night/whatever it is now.