Fucking Hammerhands.
So during Battletech's Jihad, the Word of Blake was everywhere with fancy, experimental tech. They bombed shit and disrupted supply lines and fucked with interstellar communications and shit was fucky. I still don't think we have a clear, consolidated sourcebook for the whole fiasco. The Jihad-era sourcebooks are all filled with in-character snippets of intelligence reports, news articles, and rumors. You didn't really know what was happening. Not even when it was all over.
In the midst of this, Catalyst Game Labs needed to sell a TRO. TROs move units. I used some just this past weekend to hook some folks into the game. They have bite-sized lore, compelling stats, and pictures that are cool to look at. I have my issues with TROs, but they're great.
So in the chaos of the Jihad, folks were short in logistical supplies and made whatever military gear they could to thwart the WoB. Fair enough.
Here's what I do not fucking get. Someone made the Hammerhands. They didn't create it. The Hammerhands was created over 500 years before the Jihad. It was one of the Federated Suns' first 'mechs. It was eclipsed by the Warhammer, and people kept making Warhammers for FIVE CENTURIES.
Look guys, I don't love the Warhammer. I think it's subpar and undersinked. It's not terrible, but it's no Thug. But they should make more Warhammers. If they don't have the PPCs for a Warhammer, they should make a Warhammer with autocannons. They made the -8M, which carries a gauss rifle. They've stretched the definition of 'mechs defined by their weirdness--the 4/6 Charger, the PPC Catapult, the LRM Hunchback--so it makes little sense that they wouldn't just make a ballistic Warhammer.
Why would you make a factory--a rare and critical piece of infrastructure in BattleTech--that produces a Hammerhands? An ancient relic that's not designed for a modern world, which hasn't been produced in half-a-millennia, and which no pilot is familiar with? Why would you not create a tested, modern chassis, with generations of refinement in its production process, albeit with downgraded weapons? That's a key feature of the Succession Wars.
Someone said that it was because factories were easier to produce in the pre-Jihad eras. While the technology to make factories was rare in the Succession Wars, it was more common during the Clan Invasion Era (I refuse to acknowledge the FCCW as an era of its own). So you could make old factories that made fucking bullshit for your mechwarriors to die in.
That's not even my main point today. My main point is:
Why Is The Hammerhands A Viable Modern Weapon?
