Often in Battletech it is hard to decide what mechs to take in a lance. Certainly we all have our own favorite mechs, but what if you don’t really know what mission you will be playing, or what you might be facing in terms of opposing mechs or combined arms.
The Shadow Hawk is one of those iconic re-seen mechs you take when you need a little bit of everything on the table, or want a mech to fill a variety of roles, perhaps even a few you might now know about until you sit down to play the mission.
Indecisive?
Take a Shadow Hawk.
We start at 55 tons with decent armor, speed, and jump jets for a medium mech. This means you can run both recon, or stand and fight for a few turns if needed.
The mech is a mix of long and short weapons so no matter where you find it on the table, the Shadow Hawk has something to shoot with and at.
Long range has the AC 5 and LRM 5, switching to short range with the SRM 2 and medium laser. At medium to long range you have all four weapon to use.
Certainly not a heavy damage dealer (for a medium mech) say like the Griffin, but it’s not built to be. Griffin operates at long range only (optimally), the Shadow Hawk at all ranges.
Tactically you use it to further support the ranges your lance is good at, or as a stop-gap for the ranges you are bad at, in order to buy the rest of your lance some time to redeploy or move.
The power of the Shadow Hawk is that at least it is doing something every turn in the game.