Welcome back to another Mech Overview. We’ve finally moved past the various starter boxes and their millions of introtech variants, and in this review are jumping all the way up to 3145. The Regent is a very new 90 ton clan assault mech with 5 variants, and in many ways it behaves more like an inner sphere mech than what we often get from the clans. They all have heavy armor, a standard engine, and 3/5 movement, comparable to most inner sphere assaults but slower than the generally 4/6 or faster clan mechs.

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 the other ‘mech reviews).

Chassis

The Regent is an Omni-Mech, and like all other Omnis each variant shares the same armor and mostly the same movement abilities. The Regent chassis is the platonic ideal of an assault mech, being a 3/5/0 slow ugly brute with the same armor as a Banshee on the torso and thicker armor on the limbs. It has no weight saving tech, no XL engine, nothing complicated or fragile. It isn’t the most durable mech out there and there are ones that will outlast it, but it also doesn’t have anything particularly expensive on it. It isn’t cutting edge or full of advanced cool boy technology, but there is a beauty in simplicity and the Regent is a very simple boy, a cudgel of efficient assault mech design that you can beat your opponent to death with. Also, unlike the Atlas, the Regent actually carries guns that are worth a damn on a chassis this expensive and slow. It makes better use of the BV it dumps into armor to protect weapons that actually make a difference at mid to long range.

Variants

Prime

Very much a brawler, three ER large lasers give this decent damage while moving into range, where an LB-X 20 AC is able to either punch big holes or fish for crits against armor that’s already been stripped. A secondary battery of two medium pulses, a micro pulse, and a streak SRM 4 can be used to pick up some accuracy against faster moving targets, but firing everything will rapidly overheat the mech. It has enough capacity to fire all three ER lasers at a run, but one of them will need to turn off once you want to fire the AC. I’m a big fan. I don’t know that it’s the most effective mech ever, but it has a lot of damage and is very durable, especially if you’re playing on a map where you can force targets into close range and aren’t overly penalized by the speed. It costs 2437 BV, which is a lot, but this is a clan assault mech – they’re all going to cost a lot, and you get a lot of usable gun for the price here.

My rating: A-

Perigrin: The Regent Prime is one of my favorite assault mechs in the entire game, stat wise. Calling it a brawler is misleading, it is really a generalist. 3 Clan ER large lasers is a pretty substantial amount of long range damage, 30 to be exact, and the Clan ER LL is one of the longest ranged weapons in the game with a short range of 8 fucking hexes. Up close the LBX/20 and medium pulse lasers give it a pretty substantial “get the fuck off me” armament, but with 4 hexes of short range on each of those weapons it can be a lot more proactive about using them than a comparable Inner Sphere mech, like an Atlas. In fact, the Regent Prime has roughly the same damage output as an 8Q Awesome and a 4G Hunchback stapled together, and it costs 200 LESS BV than taking both of those mechs! It is less durable, which is the common Clan problem, but honestly I would put money on the Regent because of it’s better range, more consistent uptime, and general efficiency. It is by no means an S grade mech, but I genuinely would run this any time I need an assault mech in a force and don’t have something specific in mind. It will never let you down and it will never fail you.

A

The A variant is far and away the most expensive at 3412 BV. It’s approximating a clan Awesome so that high price isn’t surprising, especially given that each of the three ER PPCs has both a capacitor and targeting computer. With the capacitors, each PPC hits for 20 damage, though I’d expect to not use them every turn – mostly I’d rather make 2 attacks for 15 damage each than a single attack for 20. They’re useful if you do find yourself in a situation where your only shots are unlikely to hit, as you can instead prep to hit harder the next turn. Charging all 3 will overheat by quite a bit, but charging only 2 of them is only a small rise in heat that’ll go back down to neutral with regular fire on the subsequent turn. I do think that despite the damage potential 3412 BV is just too much for this, as while it’s durable it’s still vulnerable to a golden BB.

My rating: C

Perigrin: The A is terrible. It costs 300 more BV than a Hellstar, which has 4 heat neutral Clan ER PPCs. That is 60 damage every turn forever without fail, and it has the same armor and is actually faster than the Regent A. The Regent A only fires 60 damage every other turn at best, and it will often cook itself alive trying to do that. I have yet to find a mech with PPC Capacitors that I don’t actively hate. Usually I don’t like to bring up the Hellstar, as it is a genuine S rank mech that is widely considered to be the best assault mech in the entire game with no competition, but the Regent A is trying to do the exact same thing as the Hellstar, for a higher price, and is doing it much, much worse. This is a fair comparison and in every way the Regent A loses. It isn’t even that good without bringing up the Hellstar, it has bad heat management and can’t do assault mech things very well. Avoid this one.

My rating: D-

B

A second brawler in the same vein as the prime variant, this one instead carries an ultra ac/20, two PPCs, and a larger secondary laser battery. I don’t like it as much – while having the headchopper PPCs is great, I am not a fan of ultra ACs as I don’t find them to be very reliable, and it doesn’t have any good way to fish for crits. At 2744 BV it’s also a bit more expensive than the prime.

My rating: B-

Perigrin: The Regent B is a bit better than the prime but is fundamentally the same mech for 300 more BV. 2 ER PPCs is better than 3 ER LL as it has the same damage output but can head chop, and I adore UAC/20s and would pick one over an LBX/20 basically any day of the week. The issue is that it isn’t as cheap as the Prime and it really doesn’t do anything different, so there is fairly little reason to take it. It is a bit better though, so if you have 300 extra BV laying around after building a force it would be a good idea to upgrade a Prime into a B, but I would still go with the Prime as your first choice in most games.

C

This has a pair of big-ass guns and nothing else. An improved heavy gauss takes up one side, and a hag/40 takes up the other. Each of them has 12 shots of ammo, so it’s got enough for most games, and when they hit they’ll hit very hard, but only having the two attacks on weapons with minimum ranges is iffy. I think it’s very fun if you’re rolling hot, and not tremendously effective if you aren’t. 2561 BV puts this solidly in the middle of the cost scale. Broadly, if you’re interested in this, I think you’re better off going with a fafnir, which at the same speed and similar cost gives you similar main guns, ECM, more armor, and a few support lasers.

My Rating: C

Perigrin: The Regent C is extremely funny but also extremely swingy and inconsistent. It has pretty good range, pretty stupid high damage, and when it is working it is going to put a massive smile on your face as you delete entire hit locations off of enemy mechs and knock them flat on their asses from massive 20 plus damage hits, but also every time I take a mech with a HAG-40 or a Heavy Gauss my opponent just stays away from the mech carrying it and I can’t ever get a good shot. 3/5/0 is just too slow for this sort of weapon, it will never reach anything, it will never hit anything, and it will just be a waste of BV in most games. Every few games it’ll find a good chokepoint or a good objective and absolutely rip though, so if you are into that this is an incredibly fun mech. The Fafnir is probably better though.

D

This one, to me, is a bit weird. It does some of everything – 4 improved heavy medium lasers give it punch at short range, paired LRM 15s, Ultra AC/2s, and LB-X AC/2s let it hit at long range. It doesn’t have quite enough heat sinking to even just fire the medium lasers, so it’s never able to use the full weapon complement even when at a good range for everything, and I really don’t think any variety of ac/2 is very good unless you’re playing against a lot of VTOLs. It’s cheap for a regent at 2116 BV, but at that price it still needs to be an effective mech, and I don’t think this gets there.

My rating: D

Perigrin: The Regent D is another very funny variant. It is pretty cheap, and it has guns that are honestly pretty cheap. The improved heavy medium lasers are a “Get the fuck off me” tool, it is mostly intended to just sit in the back and annoy people with it’s AC2s and LRMs. It isn’t really that good at fighting other mechs but if you are up against vehicles and infantry this thing is unholy murder with the right ammo loads. It is very specialized against conventional forces though, so if you are not expecting those I would give this a pass. It is fine at annoying enemies but for 2100 BV you can get a mech that can kill the hell out of this one in a wide variety of places.

Conclusion

As I finish writing this I’m laughing that my ratings broadly mimic the variants. Despite not liking either the C or D variant, I’m a big fan of this mech (partially, yes, because it looks very cool). It’s best as a slow moving anchor to your forces, and both of the brawler variants are also carrying enough long range weapons that being slow at 3/5 isn’t a huge downside, given how much damage it can then put out once it gets in range.

Perigrin: The two generalist variants are easily the best ones on the Chassis and are just really strong general purpose assault mechs. The Regent makes a very good single normal mech in a force of oddballs and weirdos. It is so consistent and so tough that it makes an incredibly good anchor to build the rest of a list around. Genuinely “Regent plus 1D6 other mechs” is probably one of the best ways to build a 10k BV list, and it adds so much hitting power to a force for such a low cost.

Also the Pope canonically drives one.