The King Crab is what you get when a bunch of Star League engineers respond to your demand for a sledgehammer of a mech to sweep hordes off boards reliably and efficiently while being tough enough to make it home. The Annihilator is what you get when you round up a bunch of Star League goobers that I can only loosely describe as "engineers," into a single foundry, coke them up to the gills on Canopus battle powder, drop a shitload of salvage at their feet, and ask them this question: "How much GUN can you put on a single chassis?"
They got the Urby when they asked for a "heavy scout" in middle of the engineer's Friday night poker game after everyone was at least kind of drunk and demanded they have the design by tomorrow morning. Drunk rambling: "Uh, det's slab de HEAVY gun on, uh a pair of legs. Legs are fast. Yeah."
I think the Annihilator is one of those mechs that can rally both sides of the community behind it by its form alone. Old school vets will see Godzilla, whereas newcomers will see Geth. Both are equally famous from their respective franchises.
The Annihilator definitely caused some raised eyebrows when they showed up with the dragoons but the everyone was basically “hold it, hold it, what the hell is that thing” when they saw zalman and his stone rhino.
Hi: I used to own the entire regiments of Wolf's Dragons. Yes all 890 mecks. Including 10 of these monsters when I was in the Army when we played in the 1990's. I always liked them.
That's the argument everyone uses, EVERYONE always says "well, that mech is great, but can it fight [insert number of urbanmechs here] all at once?" On the one hand, i agree, cost effectiveness is great for the urbie. On the other hand, I get it, the urbanmech is the definition of "how many kindergarteners can you fight"
@@scienceinsanity6927 I always make the argument to people, being former military, that the difference between the urbanmech on the table vs how it would be used in a real life context is significant. On the table, any number will end up getting picked apart. But in the real world, like anti-tank guns, you use 5, 6 or more to ambush single mechs and hit them until they die and hopefully only lose one or two for something much bigger. Honestly, it would probably be used as effectively a really big infantryman, as opposed to an MBT or AFV the way you would a mech like a Marauder. That's probably why so many veterans love the urbie. It's the grunt's mech.
@@fix0the0spadeI'm a sea fox, i can get 12 for the price. Through bargaining. By which i mean "i'm in a hammerhead and i declare a trial of possession". Jokes aside i threw an arbitrary number of urbys, because realistically almost any mech would die to 3 AC/20s
OMG the jaffa comment had me dying 😂😂😂 "A Serpent guard, a Horus guard and a Setesh guard meet on a neutral planet. It is a tense moment. The Serpent guard's eyes glow. The Horus guard's beak glistens. The Setesh guard's nose drips." Jaffa joke from Teal'c
British Engineering-"we thought the sa80 was a good idea!" also: 2 British dudes in a shed in maybe Devon "we've designed the world's best sniper rifle, now we just need to con the government into thinking we can actually make it at scale"
While Royal Armories left the new engineers to work on it, the design is not that bad. The problem is what they did during the production like telling workers "this is ur last job"
The original SA80 made was pretty good then the arsewipe govt wanted it to be made from cheaper inferior materials. And voila a pile of buggy constantly jamming underpowered pos.
I've reached the point of Critical Mass in my current MW5 playthrough long ago, now it's just mech collecting. Dropping with 4 Annis and unleashing "16 barrels of hell" is such a satisfying thing to do. By far not the best lance but imagining the "Oh crap!" feeling my enemies must feel gives me endless pleasure
It's worth noting that in tabletop, LBX autocannons can fire either solid rounds like a normal AC or the cluster shells. What makes the LB-10X such a great weapon is that it's 1 ton lighter than the AC/10, so the upgrade basically pays for itself in letting you immediately add an additional ton of ammo of your cboice. Pulse lasers trade some of their range for higher accuracy, giving a -2 modifier to shots made with them at all range brackets.
The wide gap between tabletop which the lore is written around, and MWO which has to balance for first person pvp essentially. Necessary for the games to function, but it's created some interesting perceptions about what certain weapons preform like, or what changes one can casually make to a `mech.
@@flyinggoomba5127 From what I understand lore-wise, arms and attachment things (like the ears on a catapult) are pretty easy to replace if you have something to replace them with but anything torso mounted is much more difficult. Taking the subject for example, taking the arms off the Annihilator and replacing them with, say, the LRM racks of a longbow would be relatively simple (just got to get the connections right) but replacing the AC/10s in the torso (or the engine or something nuts like that) would involve cutting the whole mech apart and piecing it back together maybe-kinda.
To be fair to British designs, the plywood plane, the Mosquito, was an amazing aircraft that worked weirdly well, carrying a unusually large paload for the time at higher speed and altitude than most opponents. Their tanks, through the Centruion, redefined tank design by creating the Universal Tank concept, which became the MBT concept. Naval wise, the famous Dreadnought which not only was better armed than all previous counterparts, it was also better armoured and, importantly despite not mentioned often, was signifigantly faster, it's steam turbines giving it a top speed of 21 knots consistantly compared to the less consistant 18 knots of triple expansion engines on all other battleships. Throw in the PIAT, a spring loaded anti-tank mortar that outranged most contamparay man-prtable anti-tank weapons, and a naval limpet mine that used sweets as a fuse and a condom as a safety. The Brits designed weird stuff, but it worked far more often than not.
Hell, the Swordfish was - IIRC - the most effective torpedo bomber of WWII - it was a British Biplane. Brits have had some good designs, but admittedly, they have had some seriously messed up ideas, designs, implementations in its history
@@DadalorianCreates Yeah, the Swordfish was great, between the Battle of Taranto, damage to Bismarck high kill count against submarines and Italian merchant vessels and long service life, it outlasted its replacement in service and almost outlasted the replacement to its replacement. I also love the RATO Anti-Submarine version, in order to launch off the escort carriers and modified merchant ships, they mounted rockets to a canvas biplane to get it into the air faster and armed it with rockets to engage the submarines.
Our engineering is similar to our cooking - not the prettiest but it does the job and usually isn't stupidly expensive. Also Hurricanes were primarily wood construction, just updated to metal wings from 1939 onward. The Mossie wasn't a new idea, just a new implementation of an older one. Would also like to point out that the Chieftain tank was the only one that actually met the original NATO brief in that it had a multifuel engine. If you squinted at it enough and hit it a few times with a really big hammer.
@@MrGrimsmith Squinting at it and hiting it with a hammer? You mean careful analysis and percussive maintenance? Those along with being made by 3 guys in a shed are the staple of British military engineering genius.
@@bismarkeugen6881 It's in one of our laws somewhere - "Thou shalt not diss the men of the sheds or those wearing flat caps". We also have the oft maligned but ever true "If in doubt give it a clout" and "If at first you don't succeed, try a bigger hammer" :D
@@RvnKnight In a co-op game with friends we built up a four Annihilator lance that we nicknamed "Global Warming" because we were a slow, impending doom. Maps with a lot of valleys or hills were incredibly painful to march across, but the defense missions were hilarious - enemy dropships would open up and the mechs inside were half-way dismantled before even touching the ground. Good times.
I think my favorite version of the Annihilator is the refit the Dragoons did after the "debacle" on Misery. They stripped out the auto-cannons and ammo, and replaced them with four PPCs and enough heat sinks to fire them all nonstop.
I made something similar in MW5 but with 6 PPCs, and when I fired them all at once my heat guage went from empty to overheat shutdown instantly. After adding a few more heat sinks and splitting the PPCs into 2 groups of 3 things cooled down significantly.
Step 1: Buy a LAM Urbanmech. Step 2: Replace AC20 with all AC2s you can cram in. Step 3: Make your best A-10 Warthog impression, as the "Freebird" rings in your cockpit.
I remember the genesis of Gausszilla. It was well before MWO was a thing, or even conceived. A fan took this custom 'Mech to challenge the creators of BattleTech to a trial of grievance... over the cartoon series. He was so offended by the cartoon, its stories, and the overly prejudice representation of both Clanners and Combine members. Sadly, he didn't actually end up using the Gausszilla for the fight, but instead a Dire Wolf/Daishi in the fight - because while they accepted the challenge, they required he use a canonical design. Yes, the fight was real. And hilarious.
The thing about the Annihilator, and a lot of other 'Mech like it, is that it was designed to fight in a singular/specific environment/style. Some 'Mechs, such as the Hunchback, can survive outside of that environment...most cannot. (Also, some 'Mechs are better in realtime fights versus tabletop, others are much better in the lore than their actual performance anywhere.)
For that last point, the delight of unit history written separate from or before the stats of the machine are produced to fit it, you're certainly right on the money.
It literally lives up to its name with that load out. I did missions alone with just a ppc-x annihilator and would come out on top without losing a component lol
You should do a piece on the weapon systems of Battletech, starting with the lowly flamer (lol) all the way up to naval autocannons. Some of them are absolutely terrifying PPCs have always been my favorite, and as I learned more actual science over the years I realized just how nasty those things would really be. They're radiological weapons as much as anything else. The blue color of the beam is from air ionization and that's... Not something you want to ever see. Were any of this real crew survivability in the case of a direct hit by a PPC would be very, very low. The vehicle/mech/ship might be alright, but the humans inside would probably not, and it wouldn't be pleasant
It honestly surprises me when I read the novels, the rules books and law that when Wolf's Dragoons showed up for the first time with a sizable amount of SLDF quality configured and well maintained mechs such as Marauders, Hunchbacks, Orions, a couple of Atlases and dozens of other mechs out of no where including three never before seen varients including the Annihilator; You'd think it would raise eyebrows, but nooooo, people only started to get suspicious when the Stone Rhino showed up.
People are morons and all it takes is "yeah we found a Royal grade SLDF cache with some prototypes" which is likely something that has happened in the past. Now something like Amaris Folly showing up later on out of the blue is less believable.
Finding SLDF caches happened (rarely but it happened) or getting hold of a ComStar mech could also happen. So it was plausible, until - as you noted - a novel design showed up. It was "known" that ComStar suppressed SLDF technology so it was present but rarely seen. Caches are also plausible due to the sheer scale of the Inner Sphere, the Amaris Civil War and the somewhat hurried SLDF Exodus.
Cons -High head, low guns, makes for bad peaking. -Slow -Bad armor -EASILY cockpited. Pros -Looks like godzilla. -Massive firepower -Range --Looks like godzilla..... wait.. already said that.
I hate piloting this in MW5. However when I have two with me for defense missions it turns into I CAST LIGHTING STORM or DAKKDAKKADAKKKADAKKA Fun to shoot. Not to walk down the block
To be fair the annihilater is actually a really good solaris mech in the new dlc :-) it's damage output is so good it kills most of the opposition whilst they're busy fighting each other....don't use it in the missions where they focus on you though as it dies far to easily and if your against one the head is so easy to hit its only a threat for a very short time.
I just remember the briefing in MechWarrior 3, where the intel recon shows the map, and the commander guy marks like five or six points of interest and said “These… are Annihilators.” Thank god that Intel turned out to be outdated and the Annihilators had left the mission zone by the time your lance goes through
For the record, the 1E Annihilator is posterior kicking design. Still slow, still a glass cannon but 4 PPC's, 4 Medium Lasers, and 41 Heat Sinks to COMFORTABLY deal with heat. Keep it at a distance and support it with a mech that the opposition cant ignore like an AC 20 armed Hunchback and let it do ots long range thing.
This all happened when 4 urbanmechs wanted to sneak in to the "assualts only" club. After being turned away several times they hit on a plan.......4 urbies in a trench coat!!
My introduction to battletech was mechwarrior 3 and the first time you encounter an annihilator it’s in a tunnel with only one approach to it and an ally you’ve been searching for already engaged with it, announcing she’s tangoing with an annihilator with panic in her voice. It’s definitely a hard filter because when encountering it you are equipped with medium mechs only and every pull of its trigger will either kill or knock you over, where you will die on your back when it fires again. Left quite an impression.
@@voidofhope6259 yep! My strategy was always “sorry Epona, you’re dancing solo.” I’ll wait until you’re the focus of the annihilator because lance mates couldn’t die and mecha could be repaired or replaced pretty easily in that game.
I really appreciate how this channel sets itself apart by being the host and a friend who both enjoy a hobby taking somewhere under an hour to talk about a concept in decent detail and amazing analogies. The jokes and comparisons keep things light-hearted, it's not overly long, and you've managed to capture the spirit of enthusiastically talking about a hobby in a casual setting. It's so good.
I feel like this is the only mech that allowed me to win the MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries campaign. In every mission before this mech- "how does the enemy have this many mechs to send against my one lance!" In every mission _after_ this mech- "WOOYOO! More headshot/cores for the taking!!!"
@@kazekamiha wait, it can fight? It never moved for me... also having to crouch and walk super slow to avoid headcapping yourself on the ceiling, yeah... I hated that mission.
The Mosquito was genius, it could just take shots that did no damage because the rounds would go right through instead of turning to shrapnel and tearing eveything apart. Its literally the most successful plane of the war.
In MWO, my dual RAC5/LB10XAC Annie was terrifying. That was the mech I got my "Ace of Spades" and "Liquid Metal" achievements with. It'll always be near and dear to my cold, dead, black, heart.
I remember fielding a lance of two Annihilators and two Atlas II in the HBS BattleTech game, a bit not lore friendly for a mercenary unit operating in the periphery; however, it was fun having 6 gauss rifles to play with.
To be fair that game throws out lore friendliness with, well, everything? As a Taurian man myself I find it hilarious that the game assumes the Concordat a) has the kinds of mechs they throw at me in game, and b) enough of them to justify sending them outside Taurian space.
Here because of the other side of this colab on Venom's channel, been emjoying your content. In MW5 the Annihilator can be a situationally hillarious mech with the right build, never thought of it as the uber-urbie but it fits...
I've been seeing your videos pop up here and there and have considered watching several. But the title of this one caught my attention instantly. Time to begin another journey with yet another creator who apparently likes the same stompy robots I do. Also, fun story I always tell when the Annihilator is mentioned: In MechWarrior 3, I built an Annihilator with 7 Clan ER PPCs. I deployed it in an instant action against a few Clan 'mechs. The first one came into view, I hit the alpha strike button... And lit up the landscape in glorious gamma radiation as my reactor went so critical that my torso turned into a new star. MechWarrior 3 didn't play around when it came to the heat mechanics. It was great.
As a pilot of King Crab with two rotary ac/5. Who faced the lance of urbies and pair of annihilators in urban environment. You can run and shake off damage from annihilators. But urbies will devour you alive.
As a veteran Highlander pilot they're terrifying. My highlander had it's gauss ripped out for a ER PPC and lots of armor and double heatsinks shoved in. Even went through the process of getting MP lazer's. But those damn urbies. Against a Atlas? Not a big deal. AGAINST A F*CKING TRASHCAN ON LEGS THO!? It's honestly pitiful how many C-bills I've burned through repairing damage from urbies compared to literally everything else combined
LBX are better in every way then a standard AC because they can use solid or cluster shot, they aren't just using shotgun ammo by default. MWO just made them cluster only for variety. In tabletop cluster also gets an accuracy bonus and tortures your opponent with the amount of time it takes to roll all those hit locations...
The video games all make the LBX only cluster, though some of the mods for HBS Battletech let you choose. In reality the fact that you can have two bins, one of solid and one of shot, is the primary thing that makes LBXs so good- the extra range is just a cherry on top.
I had one of these in MW5, I put 4 PPC Xs on the damn thing and replaced the medium lasers with ER ones. The dopamine of turning locusts and javelins into clouds of ash in one volley more than made up for the fact that 98% of each mission was just trying to walk to the enemy
The Annihilator, The turret that is effective as 4 Urban mechs as it is slow as 4 Urban mechs, without turning said mechs into the an afront to the Urban Lord spawn, the Urban Train Poor thing can't even levitate for the life of itself
Well this was the most amusing episode of anything I've listened to in a while. Several of my interests just slamming together hilarously, I'm delighted.
ANNIHILATOR with all clan weapons (Clan vehicle after all) and a Clan XL suddenly becomes much more viable. Heck, it even has armor. Ran one with 4x Uac/10 and clan erML. I just deleted anything that got near me.
My favorite play I ever made in MWO was taking my jumpjet raven, jumpinng on top of an atlas, and balancing on top of it while shooting down. He actually was able to hit me with the stupid small laser in the eye so I guess that's what that is for. Still won because I had two medium lasers and was shooting him in the head.
29:00 Doing the math on the AA-12 shotgun shows that the full drum gives only eight seconds of buckshot downrange... We can be sure that it seems a lot longer on the other end. Scaling this up to chain-fired autocannons sounds really fun.
The thing about the annihilator head is that I don't think its actually a proper head unit. It's shape and viewport doesn't give ample room for a cockpit and have sufficient protection for its weight, it serves another purpose. The placement is ideal for a targeting array or searchlight which would make sense as its a long range duelist and night fights and on board gear is a thing. The other is, and this trick has been used in real life, a false cockpit. Sometimes it gets extravagant but it's purpose is clear, keep the enemy distracted by giving an obvious target to protect the pilot so it can continue fighting.
Personal favorite load out for a ballistic assault mech: 4x Heavy Rifles and a ERPPC. Long reloads? Sure. But you don't get much more heavy hitting than that.
the best, most important trait of this mech is that you can fit a flamer in its neck/"mouth" area to make it look like its breathing fire like godzilla.
Good Evening, My name is Neko and I am an addict. [all together] "Hello Neko" Neko: I have been addicted for almost 40 years. Yes, I still have all of my hard copy books. I ... umm ... I am going to get some coffee.
38:00 the ac2 spam variant is or anti air / anti tank while still providing anti light mech ability. That said a disco ball version is better because you can sweep the laser, you just can't use buckshot.
I've done the stand in one place and shoot each other thing. I was in a Timberwolf Howl, armed with 3 ATM-9, specced for missile range (195% of standard ATM range) and sensor range (1360m); he was in an Annihilator armed with 2 RAC-5; specced for jam avoidance, armor and ammo capacity. I jumped up on a building to deliberately make myself obvious, and we spent a couple of minutes shooting each other. I had an easy time locking onto him as we were well inside my sensor's enhanced range... he fired roughly 400 rounds into me, but clearly wasn't paying any attention to his rangefinder, as we were beyond the RAC-5 maximum range, as well as his sensor range of 800m, so not only was he not even scratching my paint job, he was unaware of the fact. It was a glorious victory of knowledge of one's weapons over ignorance of the same.
Played with this mech alot in MW5, fitted it with 4 level5 medium lazers and 4 level5 PPC-X and it was EXACTLY what it's name implies, annihilates anything in front of it.
tbh in mwo just love that you can slap 4 rac2s on this thing and enough heat sinks and ammo you can strategically jam your guns consistently enough to near constantly be firing without overheat
The Annihilator is made to be attacked. It's supposed to be so scary opposing commanders prioritize and charge it. Then while it wipes out a lance or two of charging smaller mechs it's buddies flank and roll your assaults.
With this I like to up the armor WAY up, swap the quad AC/10s for a pair of AC/20s and AC/2s. In Mech 5 I got an all energy one I loaded up with quad PPCs and Large Lasers.
Fun story I like bringing up with our tabletop group. An Anhilihator was one of the mechs I fielded, my opponent turn one ran a Dasher point blank to him. I praise the balls of that clanner pilot. I manage to land all 4 AC10 shots, and a couple of the medium lasers. My opponent said to not even worry about the hit location table hahahaha
I remember my very first experience with an Annihilator, it was in Mechwarrior 3 where it was the first 100 ton Mech I faced off against in the game. With a twist of luck, I managed to salvage it the first time around. I knew nothing about Battletech at the time and the sheer size and amount of guns it could hold made younger me jump with joy. Even after I blew it up with a single alpha strike due to all my on board guns being Large Lasers.
The comment I have on the LBX is that they are regularly the only way I can get headshots in mw5. I tend to accidentally core the mechs but with LBX headshots are not only possible but funny.
I've noticed in mechwarrior 5 that only hitting the glass counts as a headshot. Makes sense at first, until you hit a centurion on it head fin and it's counted as a center mass shot.
HBS Battletech Annihillator Build: 4x UAC10 TTS balistic Just enough Double Heatsink to be barely heat neutral. As much ammo as you can carry without sacrificing too much defense. Reasoning for this build: if 4 Ac10s are good, 8 is obviously better. I call this Annihilator the 'Fuck you in particular'
Just in case you missed the other links, check out Venom geek medias channel and all his great content.
www.youtube.com/@venomgeekmedia9886
Thanks for allowing me to indulge my terrible tastes in mechs
We now need Sci in a video about Star Trek on Venom's channel. Also Venom Excelsior mafia.
@@barrybend7189 Do it one better. Drach, Venom and ScIns talking about the Battleship Yamato
y'all should look into battlefleet gothic iffn you want your mind to explode.
MRM140 is L337 for Mr.Miao
The King Crab is what you get when a bunch of Star League engineers respond to your demand for a sledgehammer of a mech to sweep hordes off boards reliably and efficiently while being tough enough to make it home.
The Annihilator is what you get when you round up a bunch of Star League goobers that I can only loosely describe as "engineers," into a single foundry, coke them up to the gills on Canopus battle powder, drop a shitload of salvage at their feet, and ask them this question: "How much GUN can you put on a single chassis?"
And when they were done the engineers answered:
"All of them."
Damn Right!
Accurate.
And the Marauder II is the hot, sexy embodiment of "If I can see it, I can hit it, and if I can hit it, I can kill it"
They got the Urby when they asked for a "heavy scout" in middle of the engineer's Friday night poker game after everyone was at least kind of drunk and demanded they have the design by tomorrow morning.
Drunk rambling: "Uh, det's slab de HEAVY gun on, uh a pair of legs. Legs are fast. Yeah."
I called my Annihilator Legion because it's head screams Geth to me.
I always thought of Mecha Godzilla when I saw the Annihilator.
Holy crap it does, when I first saw it I thought Gojira, but when you point it out, it does look like a Geth.
@@abaddonblack1294 I remember in MW3 seeing it in the target view over in the lower right corner and thinking it looked a lot like Godzilla.
I named my Annihilator the Fat Labrador.
I think the Annihilator is one of those mechs that can rally both sides of the community behind it by its form alone.
Old school vets will see Godzilla, whereas newcomers will see Geth. Both are equally famous from their respective franchises.
The Urbanmech is a turret. The Annihilator is a geograpfically flexible Point Defense Bunker.
The Annihilator is a Gatehouse Brian. Not quite a *Castle* Brian, but close....
The Annihilator definitely caused some raised eyebrows when they showed up with the dragoons but the everyone was basically “hold it, hold it, what the hell is that thing” when they saw zalman and his stone rhino.
Hi: I used to own the entire regiments of Wolf's Dragons. Yes all 890 mecks. Including 10 of these monsters when I was in the Army when we played in the 1990's. I always liked them.
16:27 Ironically, that's why the Clans needed the intelligence they were supposed to be gathering
I'm addicted to this channel.
Also the urby is FAR better than the annihilator because a dozen ac/20 urbys cost LESS than an annihilator
You get 6 Urbies to the Annihilator, unless you're talking about GaussZilla with it's 5 Clan Gauss Rifles.
That's the argument everyone uses, EVERYONE always says "well, that mech is great, but can it fight [insert number of urbanmechs here] all at once?"
On the one hand, i agree, cost effectiveness is great for the urbie. On the other hand, I get it, the urbanmech is the definition of "how many kindergarteners can you fight"
@@scienceinsanity6927 I hear you...but, kindergartners don't have AC/20s
@@scienceinsanity6927 I always make the argument to people, being former military, that the difference between the urbanmech on the table vs how it would be used in a real life context is significant. On the table, any number will end up getting picked apart.
But in the real world, like anti-tank guns, you use 5, 6 or more to ambush single mechs and hit them until they die and hopefully only lose one or two for something much bigger. Honestly, it would probably be used as effectively a really big infantryman, as opposed to an MBT or AFV the way you would a mech like a Marauder.
That's probably why so many veterans love the urbie. It's the grunt's mech.
@@fix0the0spadeI'm a sea fox, i can get 12 for the price.
Through bargaining.
By which i mean "i'm in a hammerhead and i declare a trial of possession".
Jokes aside i threw an arbitrary number of urbys, because realistically almost any mech would die to 3 AC/20s
OMG the jaffa comment had me dying 😂😂😂
"A Serpent guard, a Horus guard and a Setesh guard meet on a neutral planet. It is a tense moment. The Serpent guard's eyes glow. The Horus guard's beak glistens. The Setesh guard's nose drips."
Jaffa joke from Teal'c
British Engineering-"we thought the sa80 was a good idea!" also: 2 British dudes in a shed in maybe Devon "we've designed the world's best sniper rifle, now we just need to con the government into thinking we can actually make it at scale"
While Royal Armories left the new engineers to work on it, the design is not that bad. The problem is what they did during the production like telling workers "this is ur last job"
Geoffrey DeHavalind: What would happen if I took a plane made of balsa wood and stuck two of the biggest, most powerful engines I could find into it?
Is this an accuracy international reference?
@@highlorddarkstarWhy yes, I believe it is.
The original SA80 made was pretty good then the arsewipe govt wanted it to be made from cheaper inferior materials. And voila a pile of buggy constantly jamming underpowered pos.
I've reached the point of Critical Mass in my current MW5 playthrough long ago, now it's just mech collecting. Dropping with 4 Annis and unleashing "16 barrels of hell" is such a satisfying thing to do. By far not the best lance but imagining the "Oh crap!" feeling my enemies must feel gives me endless pleasure
I can imagine a fire lit clearing in a forest , with a group of Urbies slowly circling the Annihilator with deep chanting coming from their speakers.
It's worth noting that in tabletop, LBX autocannons can fire either solid rounds like a normal AC or the cluster shells. What makes the LB-10X such a great weapon is that it's 1 ton lighter than the AC/10, so the upgrade basically pays for itself in letting you immediately add an additional ton of ammo of your cboice. Pulse lasers trade some of their range for higher accuracy, giving a -2 modifier to shots made with them at all range brackets.
The wide gap between tabletop which the lore is written around, and MWO which has to balance for first person pvp essentially. Necessary for the games to function, but it's created some interesting perceptions about what certain weapons preform like, or what changes one can casually make to a `mech.
@@flyinggoomba5127 From what I understand lore-wise, arms and attachment things (like the ears on a catapult) are pretty easy to replace if you have something to replace them with but anything torso mounted is much more difficult. Taking the subject for example, taking the arms off the Annihilator and replacing them with, say, the LRM racks of a longbow would be relatively simple (just got to get the connections right) but replacing the AC/10s in the torso (or the engine or something nuts like that) would involve cutting the whole mech apart and piecing it back together maybe-kinda.
To be fair to British designs, the plywood plane, the Mosquito, was an amazing aircraft that worked weirdly well, carrying a unusually large paload for the time at higher speed and altitude than most opponents. Their tanks, through the Centruion, redefined tank design by creating the Universal Tank concept, which became the MBT concept. Naval wise, the famous Dreadnought which not only was better armed than all previous counterparts, it was also better armoured and, importantly despite not mentioned often, was signifigantly faster, it's steam turbines giving it a top speed of 21 knots consistantly compared to the less consistant 18 knots of triple expansion engines on all other battleships. Throw in the PIAT, a spring loaded anti-tank mortar that outranged most contamparay man-prtable anti-tank weapons, and a naval limpet mine that used sweets as a fuse and a condom as a safety. The Brits designed weird stuff, but it worked far more often than not.
Hell, the Swordfish was - IIRC - the most effective torpedo bomber of WWII - it was a British Biplane. Brits have had some good designs, but admittedly, they have had some seriously messed up ideas, designs, implementations in its history
@@DadalorianCreates Yeah, the Swordfish was great, between the Battle of Taranto, damage to Bismarck high kill count against submarines and Italian merchant vessels and long service life, it outlasted its replacement in service and almost outlasted the replacement to its replacement. I also love the RATO Anti-Submarine version, in order to launch off the escort carriers and modified merchant ships, they mounted rockets to a canvas biplane to get it into the air faster and armed it with rockets to engage the submarines.
Our engineering is similar to our cooking - not the prettiest but it does the job and usually isn't stupidly expensive. Also Hurricanes were primarily wood construction, just updated to metal wings from 1939 onward. The Mossie wasn't a new idea, just a new implementation of an older one.
Would also like to point out that the Chieftain tank was the only one that actually met the original NATO brief in that it had a multifuel engine. If you squinted at it enough and hit it a few times with a really big hammer.
@@MrGrimsmith Squinting at it and hiting it with a hammer? You mean careful analysis and percussive maintenance? Those along with being made by 3 guys in a shed are the staple of British military engineering genius.
@@bismarkeugen6881 It's in one of our laws somewhere - "Thou shalt not diss the men of the sheds or those wearing flat caps". We also have the oft maligned but ever true "If in doubt give it a clout" and "If at first you don't succeed, try a bigger hammer" :D
“But then it would just be a Stalker with arms.”
Yes. Yes it would. And I would love to pilot a Stalker with arms!
If it has arms, would it still be a Stalker?
Isnt that just the northstar?
Or would it be a Madcat without the ears?
Aren't the Annihilator and Urbie in MW5 the only mechs where the walk animation matches the movement seen in the cockpit - because they are that slow?
What's worse is that I've used Urbies and out ran Annihilators in that game.
@@RvnKnight In a co-op game with friends we built up a four Annihilator lance that we nicknamed "Global Warming" because we were a slow, impending doom. Maps with a lot of valleys or hills were incredibly painful to march across, but the defense missions were hilarious - enemy dropships would open up and the mechs inside were half-way dismantled before even touching the ground. Good times.
I think my favorite version of the Annihilator is the refit the Dragoons did after the "debacle" on Misery. They stripped out the auto-cannons and ammo, and replaced them with four PPCs and enough heat sinks to fire them all nonstop.
Based.
Mine I didn’t use the PPC’s but instead used four Clan ER Large Laser and four Clan Medium Pulse Lasers
I made something similar in MW5 but with 6 PPCs, and when I fired them all at once my heat guage went from empty to overheat shutdown instantly. After adding a few more heat sinks and splitting the PPCs into 2 groups of 3 things cooled down significantly.
No Gauss Annhilator?
@@nickthenuker7916you made the fuck you mech
I don't think this can be considered silly as the Urbanmech. There is now a LAM Urbanmech. The TrashCAN can now fly.
TRASHCAN CAN INTO SPACE!
@@VallornDeathblade Super TrashCAN.
Step 1: Buy a LAM Urbanmech. Step 2: Replace AC20 with all AC2s you can cram in. Step 3: Make your best A-10 Warthog impression, as the "Freebird" rings in your cockpit.
@@andreykuzmin4317Honestly I want to make it an AV-4 platform. Cult of the Bomb and all that.
@@gmradio2436 "I must ascent beyond a super trashcan, I must become a Super Duper Trashcan!" ~ Vegeta, Urbie pilot
I remember the genesis of Gausszilla. It was well before MWO was a thing, or even conceived. A fan took this custom 'Mech to challenge the creators of BattleTech to a trial of grievance... over the cartoon series. He was so offended by the cartoon, its stories, and the overly prejudice representation of both Clanners and Combine members. Sadly, he didn't actually end up using the Gausszilla for the fight, but instead a Dire Wolf/Daishi in the fight - because while they accepted the challenge, they required he use a canonical design. Yes, the fight was real. And hilarious.
The thing about the Annihilator, and a lot of other 'Mech like it, is that it was designed to fight in a singular/specific environment/style. Some 'Mechs, such as the Hunchback, can survive outside of that environment...most cannot. (Also, some 'Mechs are better in realtime fights versus tabletop, others are much better in the lore than their actual performance anywhere.)
For that last point, the delight of unit history written separate from or before the stats of the machine are produced to fit it, you're certainly right on the money.
Annihilator in MW5 with 4 ppc-x loaded onto it is just insanity. Walking shotgun of doom and misery.
It literally lives up to its name with that load out. I did missions alone with just a ppc-x annihilator and would come out on top without losing a component lol
Kaiju KGC with 4 PPC-X is just far superior, but I agree
You should do a piece on the weapon systems of Battletech, starting with the lowly flamer (lol) all the way up to naval autocannons. Some of them are absolutely terrifying
PPCs have always been my favorite, and as I learned more actual science over the years I realized just how nasty those things would really be. They're radiological weapons as much as anything else. The blue color of the beam is from air ionization and that's... Not something you want to ever see. Were any of this real crew survivability in the case of a direct hit by a PPC would be very, very low. The vehicle/mech/ship might be alright, but the humans inside would probably not, and it wouldn't be pleasant
It honestly surprises me when I read the novels, the rules books and law that when Wolf's Dragoons showed up for the first time with a sizable amount of SLDF quality configured and well maintained mechs such as Marauders, Hunchbacks, Orions, a couple of Atlases and dozens of other mechs out of no where including three never before seen varients including the Annihilator; You'd think it would raise eyebrows, but nooooo, people only started to get suspicious when the Stone Rhino showed up.
People are morons and all it takes is "yeah we found a Royal grade SLDF cache with some prototypes" which is likely something that has happened in the past. Now something like Amaris Folly showing up later on out of the blue is less believable.
Finding SLDF caches happened (rarely but it happened) or getting hold of a ComStar mech could also happen. So it was plausible, until - as you noted - a novel design showed up. It was "known" that ComStar suppressed SLDF technology so it was present but rarely seen. Caches are also plausible due to the sheer scale of the Inner Sphere, the Amaris Civil War and the somewhat hurried SLDF Exodus.
Cons
-High head, low guns, makes for bad peaking.
-Slow
-Bad armor
-EASILY cockpited.
Pros
-Looks like godzilla.
-Massive firepower
-Range
--Looks like godzilla..... wait.. already said that.
I hate piloting this in MW5. However when I have two with me for defense missions it turns into I CAST LIGHTING STORM or DAKKDAKKADAKKKADAKKA
Fun to shoot. Not to walk down the block
Its along with urbies are supposed to be defensive mechs. They are not supposed to go anywhere but hold the ground they are put on.
I love the quad XB-10 loadout on annihilator
aka "fuck everyone in that direction" the mech
XB-10s are lowkey busted in MW5
To be fair the annihilater is actually a really good solaris mech in the new dlc :-) it's damage output is so good it kills most of the opposition whilst they're busy fighting each other....don't use it in the missions where they focus on you though as it dies far to easily and if your against one the head is so easy to hit its only a threat for a very short time.
I just remember the briefing in MechWarrior 3, where the intel recon shows the map, and the commander guy marks like five or six points of interest and said “These… are Annihilators.”
Thank god that Intel turned out to be outdated and the Annihilators had left the mission zone by the time your lance goes through
Getting off topic with your co-hosts is the best part of your videos. I loved this one. Really funny stuff.
For the record, the 1E Annihilator is posterior kicking design. Still slow, still a glass cannon but 4 PPC's, 4 Medium Lasers, and 41 Heat Sinks to COMFORTABLY deal with heat. Keep it at a distance and support it with a mech that the opposition cant ignore like an AC 20 armed Hunchback and let it do ots long range thing.
Or just turn it into a john Rambo with 4 ppc-x and get up close and personal and just disintegrate anything you come across
This all happened when 4 urbanmechs wanted to sneak in to the "assualts only" club. After being turned away several times they hit on a plan.......4 urbies in a trench coat!!
Strips all weapons, fits 4 ac-20, added ALL the armor, puts 10 rounds per gun in it, then fills whateve rest tonnage it has with heatsinks.
Leaves.
Sounds like a Solaris 7 job.
My introduction to battletech was mechwarrior 3 and the first time you encounter an annihilator it’s in a tunnel with only one approach to it and an ally you’ve been searching for already engaged with it, announcing she’s tangoing with an annihilator with panic in her voice. It’s definitely a hard filter because when encountering it you are equipped with medium mechs only and every pull of its trigger will either kill or knock you over, where you will die on your back when it fires again. Left quite an impression.
Yep…i remember that mission. It was also dark as fuck too so you know you’re gonna run into it, but around which corner
@@voidofhope6259 yep! My strategy was always “sorry Epona, you’re dancing solo.” I’ll wait until you’re the focus of the annihilator because lance mates couldn’t die and mecha could be repaired or replaced pretty easily in that game.
I really appreciate how this channel sets itself apart by being the host and a friend who both enjoy a hobby taking somewhere under an hour to talk about a concept in decent detail and amazing analogies. The jokes and comparisons keep things light-hearted, it's not overly long, and you've managed to capture the spirit of enthusiastically talking about a hobby in a casual setting. It's so good.
I feel like this is the only mech that allowed me to win the MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries campaign.
In every mission before this mech- "how does the enemy have this many mechs to send against my one lance!"
In every mission _after_ this mech- "WOOYOO! More headshot/cores for the taking!!!"
My first encounter with it was in Mech 3.
In a tight corridor.
In an Orion.
Yeah, that was not a fun mission...
@@kazekamiha wait, it can fight? It never moved for me... also having to crouch and walk super slow to avoid headcapping yourself on the ceiling, yeah... I hated that mission.
Describing British WWI/WWII tank design as "some real Wallace & Gromit shit" had me hollering.
The Mosquito was genius, it could just take shots that did no damage because the rounds would go right through instead of turning to shrapnel and tearing eveything apart. Its literally the most successful plane of the war.
In MWO, my dual RAC5/LB10XAC Annie was terrifying. That was the mech I got my "Ace of Spades" and "Liquid Metal" achievements with. It'll always be near and dear to my cold, dead, black, heart.
On MW3, Annihilator with 4LBX is endgame. Mechs just fall with 2-3 hits and before they can stand up, they're dead.
this is exactly the kind of channel I needed in order to prepare writing my campaign
I remember fielding a lance of two Annihilators and two Atlas II in the HBS BattleTech game, a bit not lore friendly for a mercenary unit operating in the periphery; however, it was fun having 6 gauss rifles to play with.
To be fair that game throws out lore friendliness with, well, everything? As a Taurian man myself I find it hilarious that the game assumes the Concordat a) has the kinds of mechs they throw at me in game, and b) enough of them to justify sending them outside Taurian space.
Small hydroponics garden for growing the tea next to the kitchen.
"4 Urbanmechs in a trench coat" - you got me there...
You get automatic bonus points for having VenomGeek on the show. And he gets even more respect from me for joining the BattleTech community.
I’m pretty much only here for Battletech videos, but I enjoy your channel so much thank you for giving the community a fun experience!
Here because of the other side of this colab on Venom's channel, been emjoying your content. In MW5 the Annihilator can be a situationally hillarious mech with the right build, never thought of it as the uber-urbie but it fits...
I've been seeing your videos pop up here and there and have considered watching several. But the title of this one caught my attention instantly. Time to begin another journey with yet another creator who apparently likes the same stompy robots I do.
Also, fun story I always tell when the Annihilator is mentioned: In MechWarrior 3, I built an Annihilator with 7 Clan ER PPCs. I deployed it in an instant action against a few Clan 'mechs. The first one came into view, I hit the alpha strike button...
And lit up the landscape in glorious gamma radiation as my reactor went so critical that my torso turned into a new star. MechWarrior 3 didn't play around when it came to the heat mechanics. It was great.
I'd love to see a Superheavy Annihilator II that really pushes the four Urbies in a trench coat to tye max. 120 tons, 4 AC/10s, 4 lasers, 8 JJs.
As a pilot of King Crab with two rotary ac/5. Who faced the lance of urbies and pair of annihilators in urban environment.
You can run and shake off damage from annihilators. But urbies will devour you alive.
As a veteran Highlander pilot they're terrifying. My highlander had it's gauss ripped out for a ER PPC and lots of armor and double heatsinks shoved in. Even went through the process of getting MP lazer's. But those damn urbies. Against a Atlas? Not a big deal. AGAINST A F*CKING TRASHCAN ON LEGS THO!?
It's honestly pitiful how many C-bills I've burned through repairing damage from urbies compared to literally everything else combined
LBX are better in every way then a standard AC because they can use solid or cluster shot, they aren't just using shotgun ammo by default. MWO just made them cluster only for variety. In tabletop cluster also gets an accuracy bonus and tortures your opponent with the amount of time it takes to roll all those hit locations...
The video games all make the LBX only cluster, though some of the mods for HBS Battletech let you choose. In reality the fact that you can have two bins, one of solid and one of shot, is the primary thing that makes LBXs so good- the extra range is just a cherry on top.
thats awesome having him in here with us mechwarrior fans. I've been enjoying his romulan content and a lot of his animated battles
I had one of these in MW5, I put 4 PPC Xs on the damn thing and replaced the medium lasers with ER ones. The dopamine of turning locusts and javelins into clouds of ash in one volley more than made up for the fact that 98% of each mission was just trying to walk to the enemy
The Annihilator,
The turret that is effective as 4 Urban mechs as it is slow as 4 Urban mechs, without turning said mechs into the an afront to the Urban Lord spawn, the Urban Train
Poor thing can't even levitate for the life of itself
Well this was the most amusing episode of anything I've listened to in a while.
Several of my interests just slamming together hilarously, I'm delighted.
This mech tends to bang the cockpit on the leopard drop ship's door frame. So so many dents for both.
44:00 Did I just hear Venomgeekmedia do a LIndybeige impression on Science Insanity?
The Annihilator sounds like its design was inspired by the phrase,”The best defense is a good offensive.”
This was an awesome video, thank you for making my day a little better
ANNIHILATOR with all clan weapons (Clan vehicle after all) and a Clan XL suddenly becomes much more viable. Heck, it even has armor. Ran one with 4x Uac/10 and clan erML. I just deleted anything that got near me.
My favorite play I ever made in MWO was taking my jumpjet raven, jumpinng on top of an atlas, and balancing on top of it while shooting down. He actually was able to hit me with the stupid small laser in the eye so I guess that's what that is for. Still won because I had two medium lasers and was shooting him in the head.
This is the primary mech in my Battletech game.
Two gauss rifles and three UAC 5's.
A precise shot can destroy any other mech.
The Urbie to the Annihilator is what Charmander is to the Charizard.
29:00
Doing the math on the AA-12 shotgun shows that the full drum gives only eight seconds of buckshot downrange... We can be sure that it seems a lot longer on the other end.
Scaling this up to chain-fired autocannons sounds really fun.
If you see the Annihilator and don't immediately think "Geth" I just don't understand your mind.
It’s easy! I simply haven’t played Mass Effect.
Even further bonus points for the tank museum and paper airplane skit.
13:30 Mosquito: a bit like the Hurricane, cloth and wood.
The thing about the annihilator head is that I don't think its actually a proper head unit. It's shape and viewport doesn't give ample room for a cockpit and have sufficient protection for its weight, it serves another purpose.
The placement is ideal for a targeting array or searchlight which would make sense as its a long range duelist and night fights and on board gear is a thing.
The other is, and this trick has been used in real life, a false cockpit. Sometimes it gets extravagant but it's purpose is clear, keep the enemy distracted by giving an obvious target to protect the pilot so it can continue fighting.
Personal favorite load out for a ballistic assault mech: 4x Heavy Rifles and a ERPPC. Long reloads? Sure. But you don't get much more heavy hitting than that.
Man, that guest of yours really should look into how awesome the history of the Mosquito was.
the best, most important trait of this mech is that you can fit a flamer in its neck/"mouth" area to make it look like its breathing fire like godzilla.
Good Evening, My name is Neko and I am an addict.
[all together] "Hello Neko"
Neko: I have been addicted for almost 40 years. Yes, I still have all of my hard copy books. I ... umm ... I am going to get some coffee.
I dig the commentary style. An instant subscribe. Lots of fun. Keep it up!
38:00 the ac2 spam variant is or anti air / anti tank while still providing anti light mech ability. That said a disco ball version is better because you can sweep the laser, you just can't use buckshot.
I've done the stand in one place and shoot each other thing. I was in a Timberwolf Howl, armed with 3 ATM-9, specced for missile range (195% of standard ATM range) and sensor range (1360m); he was in an Annihilator armed with 2 RAC-5; specced for jam avoidance, armor and ammo capacity. I jumped up on a building to deliberately make myself obvious, and we spent a couple of minutes shooting each other. I had an easy time locking onto him as we were well inside my sensor's enhanced range... he fired roughly 400 rounds into me, but clearly wasn't paying any attention to his rangefinder, as we were beyond the RAC-5 maximum range, as well as his sensor range of 800m, so not only was he not even scratching my paint job, he was unaware of the fact.
It was a glorious victory of knowledge of one's weapons over ignorance of the same.
The Annihilator out here just doing its best impression of MechaGodzilla
13:46
"what's he say" everyone else
" oh bri'ish thing's" British people
😂😂
Played with this mech alot in MW5, fitted it with 4 level5 medium lazers and 4 level5 PPC-X and it was EXACTLY what it's name implies, annihilates anything in front of it.
"Four urbies in a trenchcoat" that's a good one.
Now I can't help but imaging four Urbies ontop of each other in a trenchcoat and hat, lol.
Urban Mech is swag asf.
Putting four of them in a trench coat sounds like infiniswag.
"How do I sing in four part harmony?! I am not a man, I'm four Urbies in a trenchcoat!"
How can you hate the Urban Mech?
tbh in mwo just love that you can slap 4 rac2s on this thing and enough heat sinks and ammo you can strategically jam your guns consistently enough to near constantly be firing without overheat
I loved swapping out the Lbx for sld slugthrowers, and a ppc boat for a lance, took me forever to cross a large map, but everything exploded en-route
The Annihilator 3A is like the Jagermech's big brother with shoulder injuries.
The Annihilator is made to be attacked. It's supposed to be so scary opposing commanders prioritize and charge it. Then while it wipes out a lance or two of charging smaller mechs it's buddies flank and roll your assaults.
With this I like to up the armor WAY up, swap the quad AC/10s for a pair of AC/20s and AC/2s. In Mech 5 I got an all energy one I loaded up with quad PPCs and Large Lasers.
Fun story I like bringing up with our tabletop group. An Anhilihator was one of the mechs I fielded, my opponent turn one ran a Dasher point blank to him. I praise the balls of that clanner pilot. I manage to land all 4 AC10 shots, and a couple of the medium lasers. My opponent said to not even worry about the hit location table hahahaha
I remember my very first experience with an Annihilator, it was in Mechwarrior 3 where it was the first 100 ton Mech I faced off against in the game.
With a twist of luck, I managed to salvage it the first time around. I knew nothing about Battletech at the time and the sheer size and amount of guns it could hold made younger me jump with joy.
Even after I blew it up with a single alpha strike due to all my on board guns being Large Lasers.
It also fought Godzilla...didn't it????
Yay, Venom Greek Media, one of my favorite Star Trek people on RUclips.
I have enjoyed all of you content so far!
Fantastic episode. The two of you are great together.
VGM is the man, man!! I’ve legit listened to all his content on RUclips.
Whoa VenomGeek? Quite a crossover!
The Ork's of 40K are in fact British football hooligans with a bunch of garden sheds.
I call this 100 ton mech a tea party mech, because you can have one before it arrives.
The comment I have on the LBX is that they are regularly the only way I can get headshots in mw5. I tend to accidentally core the mechs but with LBX headshots are not only possible but funny.
I've noticed in mechwarrior 5 that only hitting the glass counts as a headshot. Makes sense at first, until you hit a centurion on it head fin and it's counted as a center mass shot.
HBS Battletech Annihillator Build:
4x UAC10
TTS balistic
Just enough Double Heatsink to be barely heat neutral.
As much ammo as you can carry without sacrificing too much defense.
Reasoning for this build: if 4 Ac10s are good, 8 is obviously better.
I call this Annihilator the 'Fuck you in particular'
The main issue I see with the cockpit like that is you can shoot it from every direction, not just the front.
Calling British Tank development "Real Wallace and Gromit Hours" is actually fantastic
Hold up, what about the quad PPC variant?
You change that huge beer belly it has, it kinda looks like a Geth.