Covered in an absolute pile of guns, the Sagittaire is an assault mech from the airplane on legs design family, though perhaps after eating a little too much Halloween candy. Found in the Eridani Light Horse Hunter Lance box, it’s a huge mini that to my eyes looks more than a little bit ridiculous, with gun barrels far bigger than similar weapons on other mechs. This is one of the small handful of mechs produced in plastic so far that don’t have any variants earlier than the civil war, so we’re seeing advanced technology across the board.

The fluff has this mech designed for urban combat. I’m not sure I agree there, as it’s slower than I’d prefer for that – at 3/5/3 trying to move any real distance will require running, and thus skid checks. That said, the weapons on the base variant are mostly short ranged, so you need to be somewhere that blocks enough line of sight to avoid getting picked apart at range.

Peri: “Designed for Urban Combat” is BattleTech TRO-speak for “slow and bad” in most cases. Good urban combat mechs are generally at least 4/6/4. The Sagittaire is a chunky weirdo from the 3060s that is asymmetrical and weird looking, and has graced the covers of a few sourcebooks over the years. It is probably one of the most iconic Davion mechs of the post-Civil War period, displacing the Enforcer and Centurion as the symbol of Davion military hegemony.

Chassis

At 95 tons having a 3/5/3 movement profile isn’t a particular surprise. Every variant has jump jets, so it’s a bit up on mobility compared to its peers, but it’s still a 3/5 on the ground – it’s not getting anywhere fast. Every variant is running 288/293 armor, so close enough to max as to make no difference. All variants use either an XL or light engine, which is pretty much the tradeoff for being able to mount the jump jets. Torsos are generally well crit padded, so while it does mean the mech will die to torso loss, chances of the sides taking too many engine crits is relatively low.

Peri: I really like the 95 ton weight bracket, there are a lot of very high quality mechs at this tonnage. The Sagittaire is quite tough even though they mostly mount XL/light engines, and several variants don’t have explosive components, massively lowering their rate of instant death compared to mechs that mount ammo.

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).

SGT-8R

I see this one primarily as a 2,088 BV way to remove light mechs from your general vicinity. Mounting two large pulse lasers, an ER PPC, five medium pulse lasers (of which two fire out your rear), and an emotional support small pulse laser, this is absolutely covered in weapons with improved hit chances – and the included targeting computer just makes it even easier to hit. They aren’t long ranged weapons, this isn’t some clan bullshit, but if something fast gets in close it’s going to have a bad day. Both arms (which carry a large and medium pulse each) can also flip, so even getting behind it is no protection. Heat sinking is pretty good – it can fire all the forward facing large and medium pulses at a run without building heat, or fire the ER PPC and both large pulses while only going to +3.

The comically short range of IS pulse lasers unfortunately holds this back – 3/5/3 is very hard to actually get your primary battery in range with, so you’re stuck responding to what your opponent wants to do rather than making plays.

My rating: C+

Peri: If the base model was a hair cheaper, maybe 1800, I’d have a much better opinion on it. The ER PPC is spiking the price a bit on a mech that would really benefit from being a cheap slab of pulse lasers and nothing else. A single IS ER PPC is just not a good main gun for a 95 ton mech, a Panther can do it for a third the BV and a third the weight. I’d look into the Flashman 9M for a much better execution of this concept, as that mech actually has enough long range guns that your opponent might decide to risk the pulse lasers to avoid getting lit up at a distance.

SGT-9D

Designed around running a C3 master computer, this variant trades the large pulses in for LB/X 10 autocannons and the medium pulses for regular medium lasers. It’s trading accuracy for range, which is reasonable when running C3. Two tons of ammo in each side torso without CASE isn’t great, but it’s an IS XL engine – the CASE wouldn’t stop the ammo from being a mission kill, so outside of a campaign it doesn’t really matter. At 2,063 BV I wouldn’t take this outside a C3 lance – you can get a similar weapon load on a Nightstar 9FC with more speed for cheaper. I probably wouldn’t take it in a C3 lance either – while it is one of the best armored C3 master mechs, the combination of XL engine and ammo explosions leaves you vulnerable – go with something cheaper that’s less likely to be a primary target.

My rating: C-

SGT-10X

I can’t really figure out what’s going on with this one. I think someone just wanted to see how much tonnage could be lit on fire? It’s using improved jumpjets to give it a 3/5/5 move profile, which is definitely faster, but it’s not enough faster to actually make it into the 2-hex short range of the four medium variable speed pulses that comprise the primary armament. The only other weapons are a pair of light PPCs, which do have range but they just aren’t doing much damage. 1,794 BV is cheap compared to any other Sagittaire, but it’s just too slow for the weapon load – a load that can be carried on a fully armored 5/8 60 tonner for almost 400 BV less, and that would actually be able to get in range to use the VSPs.

My rating: D

Peri: Ok so hear me out this is a good mech. 5 hexes is a big breakpoint for jumping as it puts you at the breakpoint where your TMM and AMM are equal. The added jump mobility also means that the 10X is actually a good cityfighter. In an urban environment, or in a particularly rough set of hills, the 10X can hide out of line of sight before stage-diving anything that gets within 5 hexes of it. Quad MVSP is a lot of fucking damage with a -3 hit bonus up close, and there is so much armor on this stupid thing that it is very unlikely that it will bite it on the first attack run. Putting a +3 TMM on something this big and tough is insane.

In an open field fight or against players who refuse to get close to it the 10X is going to feel like a bit of a waste, but if you have some rough ground to sit in and/or an opponent who has short ranged loadouts on their mechs, the 10X is a jumpscare machine that will do horrible, horrible things to anything that ever steps within 5 hexes of it. 1794 is a perfectly fair price for something that has this durability with this mobility and this firepower.

My rating: B-

SGT-14D

This seems to mostly be designed as a showcase for various upgraded inner sphere energy weapons, and that’s not really an endorsement. Two large re-engineered lasers, an ER large laser, three medium VSPs, and a medium X-pulse laser cover all the various types of laser. These, combined, generate 57 heat. It sinks 28 with the radical heat sinks turned off, or 42 with them on (they cause each heatsink to sink an additional point of heat, with escalating failure chances like MASC or supercharger). There isn’t a good firing pattern with that heat dissipation, you could do the re-lasers and ER large twice, then use the RHSS to fire the re-lasers and two of the VSPs and drop to zero. Or you fire the VSPs and X-pulse, building 1 heat at a run, and every other turn swap the x-pulse for the re-lasers and RHSS to drop to zero again. Either way you’re leaving a bunch of weapons on the table even on turns you use the RHSS, which is not my favorite thing to do when they’re all effective against the same targets at mostly the same ranges, and where using more will immediately push you into bad heat zones.

And again, we’re spending 1,960 BV for a 3/5/3 mech that badly wants to be at 2 hex range, and good luck actually making it there. It’s carrying C3, but that doesn’t actually help here – weapons with variables based on range still use their actual range, not the range of the C3 spotter.

My rating: C-

Peri: I want to like this because large RE lasers are so good, but this mech just doesn’t make great use of them. It also doesn’t make great use of the RHSS, which is a fantastic piece of equipment if a mech is built around it. Heat is the dealbreaker here, and it would really benefit from dropping the VSPs and ERLL for more heat sinks and MXPLs. I honestly just wish that every mech had more MXPLs, its a good weapon.

SGT-14R

This has pretty much gone back to its roots as a pulse + targeting computer boat, though doing so much much more effectively. It’s mixing some of the best parts of clan and IS techbases to run a clan ER PPC, pair of large variable speed pulses, trio of clan ER medium lasers, and a trio of clan small pulses (one in the front for emotional support, two in the back for emotional distress), all attached to a targeting computer. At short range (4 hexes) the VSPs are at -4 to hit, if you can get there. It’s a lot of accurate damage, which makes the 2,626 BV cost not remotely surprising. It builds a little heat shooting both VSPs and either the ER PPC or all three medium lasers, but not so much that it’s a problem unless you’ve managed to just get into a standstill firefight where nobody ever breaks line of sight.

I’m still not rating it incredibly high, because while I really like large VSPs needing to get to 4 hexes on a 3/5/3 chassis is something that you can only force against mechs that are also 3/5, and you mostly don’t need the accuracy from a VSP against those.

My rating: B

Peri: The 14R has a lot going for it. The weaponry is very good, Large VSPs are disgusting weapons no matter what is carrying them, and the price is super appropriate. My favorite part of this mech might actually be just how good the firing patterns are. You can heat neutral fire the ER PPC and ERMLs, then drop the PPC for LVSPs once you are within 4 hexes. You get acceptable mid-ranged damage with a headchopper on top of genuinely frightening close range damage. Another good thing to note is that the Large VSPs, an SPL, and 2 of the ERMLs are all mounted in arms without lower arm actuators, letting it flip its arms around and deliver the instant death technique to any light mech that wanted to get lucky. Putting 2 LVSPs on a -4 to hit into an offending flanker/backstabber will probably instantly kill them. What you are really paying for is an ok amount of long range damage combined with an 8 hex bubble that any intelligently piloted light mech will refuse to enter.

Honestly the 14R is one of the best assault mechs in the game at actually assaulting a position. It can put out some adequate fire on the way in and shove through a gap or gate and blast things to scrap once it gets into a base. Not many things in the game are going to want to pick a close range fight with a 14R. Quite a good mech.

Conclusion

This is definitely a mech that exists. The 14R is the only one that does anything particularly interesting with the mix of VSPs and clan energy weapons, but even then it’s still just Hit Mods: The Energy Mech. Pretty much across the board it’s a slow mech with short ranged weapons – very powerful if you can actually get in range, but a canny opponent will look at it and just decide to be elsewhere (and elsewhere doesn’t actually have to be all that far away).

Peri: The 10X and 14R are both really interesting assault mechs, role wise. The 10X really feels like a counter piece to a local meta infested with backstabbers or high TMM short range mechs like the VSP Spider, VSP Cicada, or any of the various Fire Moths and Incubus’s. I would also kill to have one on an urban defense mission, it’ll eat things alive if it can jump next to them in some narrow city streets. The 14R on the other hand is a perfect mech for attacking a fortified position. As long as you can keep it supported and get it into the enemy’s position, it’ll wreak havoc on anything that can’t just run away from it. This is why it is far away best used for a mission that involves taking ground from the enemy, they can’t run away if they are forced to hold a position. And, unlike the King Crab, it is actually good and functional in normal people games often enough that it isn’t a complete trap to take on the off chance you get to attack a base.

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