The whole point of the Timber Wolf is that it isn't everywhere. Clan Wolf guards it extremely jealously, and most examples in other toumans are salvage/isorla.
It's everywhere in the games and tabletop because it's a ludicrously solid 'mech that can do just about anything with competence.
Hey, cuz, have you tried the 9S2?
16 rounds of 30LRMs, a Gauss, and an ER L Laser firing from the backline at a cool 1769BV. Anyway, tell my aunt I said hello.
I just can't love any Zeus that doesn't have a PPC. Personally, I like the 6T, introtech, 1400~ BV gets you a LL, PPC, LRM 15 and a few ML for backup. You can't hit the big red button, but for a chubby heavy getting to choose between LRMs and LL while shooting a PPC every turn isn't so bad.
Assault is just a weight class that does not stricly correlate with battlefield role. Zeus is what we often call "fat heavy" - it has nearly all characteristics of a heavy battlemech regarding speed, and weapons. Usually all it amounts to is more armor and meele dmg+other weight checks. Its just the same way dragon and quickdraw are fat mediums and many 40 tonners are fat lights.
I wanted to include him but he is such an oddball that is hard do nail it down. Its role is scout, hes mafia fast and in fights he bullies lighter machines or those who were stupid enough to let him enter charge/meele range
I mean, in theory he might bully lighter machines, but at 5/8 the 'mechs he could really smash in melee are fast enough to stay away from him forever, and the slower, heavier ones he can easily catch are troopers that are going tear it up by shooting it. Remmeber, the Charger doesn't just have medium 'mech speed, he's also rocking medium 'mech armor, with half a ton more then a Wolverine or Shadow Hawk.
Honestly they should have just went all in on the armor. Give it a single small in the head and add those two tons into armor. That or scrap the paltry smalls and give it a pair of mediums so it can still harass light mechs at greater than spitting distance.
I mean 1L is the biggest light mech nightmare in sub 1k bv. Large lases rips legs off of many designs easly and once it catcges up to you, you are dead drom those kicks and punches. Sure- it lacks the pulse weaponry or jumpjets but it has to be lucky usually once
But for 60bv more (1 less then a Light Rifle platoon) you could just run a Hunchback 4G instead. Same speed, same armor, and you get a medium laser that gives you a bit more reach.
Oh, and the biggest gun in introtech that can blow a 'mechs head clean off.
I love how there has been no attempt to put the original Banshee into plastic in the current generation of product, and they instead went straight to God's Perfect Introtech Assault Mech, the 3S and its direct upgrades.
Yeah but the Banshee is like that Butterball Superheavy Boxer. If you put it against most lighter Mechs that speed, endurance, and crippling Melee Ability is surprisingly nasty.
The charger is the inverse Urbanmech. Instead of the best armor and worst speed for the weight class, the charger has a high speed for the class and low armor.
I no joke prefer the Charger or Goliath in that peculiar 80 ton "overweight heavy" weight band, but the Zeus can get some good work done if you use it well.
I’ve grown to appreciate the Zeus he can do heavy things, and can take a punch but doesn’t break the bank to keep up and running. In MW5 I have a charger with a battle axe and he’s shockingly effective.
80 tons, as mentioned. Charger is just raw chaos for your enemies if you use it right, and I think that gets undersold. And the Goliath has a lot of raw armor and guns, if you can just stand the sight of a quad mech.
60 tons has the Rifleman. And that's the finest anti-air mech ever made, even if it's specialized into something a lot of BattleTech players don't care about.
40 ton don't have many at all I personally care about admittedly, but the Raven II is a dang solid upgrade over the original IMHO. Expensive as heck, but a solid upgrade.
Truth be told you are almost more likely to find a WHM 2C than a Goliath with how rare those things are lol. I do agree the Goliath does an excellent job tho.
In a more in-universe based context there is only one flaw the Zeus has: There aren't more of them.
1x large laser
1x LRM-15
2x medium laser
1x autocannon/5
with 11.5 tons of armour.
It may not seem very impressive but that loadout is very good at something, and that something is solving problems. It's not going to square up well against Battlemasters, Highlanders, and certainly not an Atlas- but any assault that skimps on the armour or overspecializes is going to have a bad time when a Zeus comes knocking. What the Zeus does is put 80 tons of Lyran solutions onto a battlefield made of problems. Lighter mechs that can't bust it are going to get their teeth knocked out, and more importantly it's going to promptly delete enemy armoured support thus freeing up other Lyran assets which will in turn put more lead and laser downrange at things that CAN mess up a Zeus.
It's a classic case of Generalization vs Specialization.
The retcon that the Star League deployed them in companies was one of the best lore decisions ever made. A single Shadow hawk is barely a threat 1v1. Four of them vs another lance? That's a problem.
Honestly, it's always been WVR/SHD/BLR supremacy for me, but I've always dug the Dougram aesthetic, but the WHM (and the Destroids in general) is a very solid choice too.
I love the Zeus. It's a great addition to my "55 Trio but Bigger" force (the others being the BattleMaster for the Wolverine and the Goliath for the Griffin)
Back in the good old days, before them got dayum clanners powercrept everthang, my favorite mech was a -4g named "HeartBreaker'.
The mini had a really bad black-with-a-split-heart-on-the-chest paint job by yours truly. Natasha Kerensky? never heard of 'er.
We would balance by tonnage - because BV didn't exist - usually in the 200 - 300 ton range.
I'd usually bring something like a Whammer 6D, a couple of mobile mediums or lights, and HeartBreaker.
While the Whammer attracted fire and the lighter mechs maneuvered for back shots or to screen the big mech I'd "run" HeartBreaker straight at whatever unit I'd fixated on.
It never survived the battle without losing major pieces, but I got more headshots and CT cores than I can remember with that thing.
Its like german wehraboos and panzers. They say panther tank good because better armor and firepower than sherman or t34.
Forgetting the fact they also had to face infantry (wich they were bad at because of visibility) artillery (big tank with thin side, rear and roof armor equals damage even on misses) and aircraft (again thin side/roof)
A battlemech wont face just battlemechs. It will face infantry, armor, aircraft, VTOLS, artillery. And inlore the zeus can take all of those on. And still have the speed to manouver and get out.
Isn't the cockpit and communication equipment also designed with battlefield command in mind? I am admittedly not that well-versed in BT lore but I could swear I've seen that somewhere.
It is, in fact. Though I wonder whether the Reinforced Structure or Hardened Armor Awesome I built is more insane. They each deal more damage, more effectively, with more durability. ... But they use LFE and cXL to achieve it.
Its official designation by the lyrans who developed it is a light-assault.
Its ment as a long range skirmisher and support for heavy lances and he is quite solid at the role.
What pushed him over the edge to be excellent is its of field performance. Its easy to repair and spare parts are extremly common, making it very popular especially with mercenarys.
Beeing able to repair clan/lostech in the Video game adaptations massivly skews perspective.
The Gargoyle is an amazing heavy mech! What do you mean, it's not a heavy? Right. The Gargoyle is an amazing medium mech! Jumping 5/8/7 with that many lasers for that cheap, easily among the best mediums out there.
The Zeus 6S compares very favourably to the Awesome 8Q when the intended purpose of the Mechs are considered, the other contemporary 80-ton machine from TRO: 3025.
There's not that much difference in raw damage output between the two (the Zeus actually has a slight edge at medium to close ranges) and the Zeus can sustain this rate of fire far longer than the Awesome is able. The Awesome trades speed for armour and hard hitting weapons.
Of course one could the pose the question of which Mech to take in an assault fire lance? For me this doesn't boil down to an either / or choice but a "Both? Both. Both. Both is good" proposition.
If you treat it like an overweight trooper mech such as a centurion or vindicator it is fantastic. It’s when you use it like a stalker, battlemaster, awesome, or atlas where it lets you down
They are all viable. Even the original AC/5 variant. In Introtech who doesn’t want a mech that can almost equal the awesome long range damage, while being heat neutral and faster?
It’s a generalist in a weight class that tends to be more specialist. Means it’s extremely flexible, and can be fit into just about any role you need in a formation.
There are bad Zeuses, but they're all part of the weirdo Zeus-X line with Composite Structure and XXL Engines. Other than that, they're all at least OK. Even the wacky Blazer one is usable, it just has an awkward heat curve.
Ya, the Zeus-X line is just weird. Hate that that version of the Zeus is what became associated with a named hero. They just try to do too much, an suffer from new toy syndrome even worse than the original 3050 upgrades. The one with the LB20X is….serviceable as a worse Victor. But when the Davion’s do a mobile big gun light assault better than the Steiners, that says something haha.
Ya, I like the Blazer one as one of the better uses of that weapon system (and a 3025 head chopper), but it also shows how awkward that weapon can be.
In my experience, the issue with the 6Y isn't actually the Blazer, it's the LRM. Dropping a couple of Heat Sinks to up that back to an LRM-15 would give it a simpler alternating fire pattern and feel like less of a waste on the cool down turns.
This is the perfect opportunity to tell everybody about my favorite Zeus variant, the 10WB. 1x ER large laser, 2x heavy PPCs, 4x ER medium lasers, and 17 double heat sinks. I brought it as one of my starting mechs in my first Hinterlands campaign and it’s great.
Balanced for BV, there are actually a LOT of really good Zeuses:
"The Golden Trooper": The Zeus 9S. This thing is kind of the gold standard of what an up-gunned heavy trooper should look like. Coming in at a fairly cheap 1639 BV, that buys you an ER PPC, ER Large, LRM15, and x1 front-facing MPL. Enough heat-sinks to shoot all the front-facing stuff for 2 heat + movement, and you'll basically only shoot the MPL and the LRM at the same time at 5-6 hexes away. So, for most purposes, totally heat neutral.
More armor than most heavies and a standard fusion engine for durability. 1 ton of LRM ammo is plenty for standard games, and it's CASE'd. Every box checked.
In a lot of ways, this should be directly compared to the king of Troopers, the Thug 11E. While the Thug has more damage up close and more CT armor, the 9S deals significantly more damage from 7+ hexes away, and is no slouch up close either. So, think of it as a long-range Thug alternative.
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"The 7-hex God": The Zeus 9S2. This thing exists to fulfill exactly 1 purpose: to rain hellfire on your enemies from exactly 7 hexes away. Besides the Perseus P1B, there are few designs this laser-focused on 7-hex domination. For a still-reasonable 1769 BV, the Gauss rifle provides stellar hole-punching, supported by the ER Large. x2 LRM15s join the chorus to crit-seek and just sandblast armor down.
Sandblast Mechs (like the Longbow 12C) want to be paired with hole-punchers (like the Warhammer 8K or Perseus P1B), which is why the Zeus 9S2 excels: it's an all-in-one package of holepunching and sandblasting.
For best results, load it with narc-tipped LRMs. Under current rules, that basically upgrades your x2 LRM15s to Artemis IV against narc'd targets. And under playtest rules, you'll also get a fantastic -1 to your TN.
The XL-engine makes this a bit more fragile than the 9S, but since this thing is basically the platonic ideal of a backline fire support, there is no need to put it in harm's way. And besides, 25 ST armor is really good protection for an XL engine.
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"The SRM6 Chad": The Zeus 6A. There are extremely few x3 SRM6 Assaults in the game, and very few come in this cheap. For just 1405 BV, you get to field an Assault that excels at crit-seeking. At range, a PPC and Large Laser can poke your enemies, and the armor is good enough for the bargain bin price.
Up-close, let loose with your trio of SRM6 -- ideally, narc-tipped. You have 1-ton of ammo placed in the right arm, so choose your ammo type wisely. You could also opt to make that 1-ton infernos to basically guarantee a max +15 heat applied to your prey / completely annihilate BA, tanks, and infantry. That 1-ton is enough for 5 Rounds of point-blank action, which is honestly plenty given that this will spend its first few rounds at range anyways.
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"The Angry Bastard": The Zeus X 9WD. If you're feeling Wobbie-ly, or you just feel like bringing one of the cheapest double-headchopper units in the game, check out the X 9WD. For just 1716 BV, you get an LB20X, a Heavy PPC, and x2 MPLs. It's well-sinked enough that it only builds 1 heat on a running Alpha.
The only flaw here is that it's armored like a Heavy -- although the Light Engine helps somewhat. Definitely pair this with something that you send out in front -- and maybe something with infernos to take force some enemy weapon systems offline before the X 9WD arrives.
Cluster rounds and the Heavy PPC make this okay at range, but where it really shines is from 2-4 hexes away. The sweet spot is exactly 4 hexes, where the LB20 and Heavy PPC are in short range (before entering the minimum range of the HPPC) and the MPLs are at Medium (which becomes "effective" short-range).
Poke massive holes in targets, and then follow up with the unbelievably deadly might of an LB20X fired in crit-seeking cluster mode.
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There are other Zeuses, but those four are pretty remarkable in that there's very few other Mechs that do what they do.
A clantech Solaris Zeus from mechwarrior 5 is devastating. It can mount a Clan LB10X, 3 clan SRM6s and two clan ER large lasers. It's pretty fun to use in arena missions and raiding clan territory if you can use cover properly.
I’m sorry what? The Crud runs hot, and relies purely on LRM fire for range support.
The Zeus has ranged fire from a variety of sources, able to throw almost Awesome damage at range, while being heat neutral, and moving 4/6 (intro AC/5 variant). The PPC intro variant runs warmer, but then has potential to out throw the awesome slightly with some luck.
And that method continues with the new variants. The Crud always runs hot and its over reliance on missles means it’s fire power always has a high chance of being very anemic. And its backup weapons usually are underwhelming or are in the legs limiting firing arcs. Whereas at short range everything the Zeus has except the LRM is still viable.
The Zeus is a fantastic long range, trooper, generalist mech.
I find its a fat heavy mech, its got a decent speed, faster than most assaults but able to keep pace with most heavies, a solid if uninspiring weapons package that makes it reliable if not standout at all ranges, and to me pairs nicely with Orions.
I feel 80t mecha have to sacrifice one of the 3 options pretty heavily to otherwise stand on parity to other assault mechs, the Awesome sacrifices speed, and the Victor sacrifices armor for some examples.
80 tonners are like fast calvary for assault class since its one of the weight classes where an engine moving you 4/6 is about the same weight equivalent as a 3/5 for heavier assaults, so they tend to outpace their fellow assaults, but that also puts them in line to match most heavy mechs for speed, so for me they tend to pair better to a lot of heavy mechs, they just bring an extra 5t of either armor or guns to a fight.
The Zeus is an alright mech, for something made during the succession wars, its relatively cool running, has solid brackets for firing, and has decent armor, its a good example of a heavy generalist trooper mech, its also complete uninspiring snd isn't flashy about how it goes about its job, its there to do a job and gets it done reasonably well. I personally like them, they are enough of a mixed bag that you can usually slot one into a heavy lance and enjoy the slight boost to firepower and armor it gives, or it can work as a "fast" counter on an assault mech firing line, plugging gaps or reinforcing flanks.
The Zeus is supposed to be deployed a lance at a time as big trooper mech right? Be like having the Centurion, Trebuchet lance, but instead of playing mix and match, every mech is both.
If that wasn't the plan behind the design, I am boggled at what its purpose or niche is.
I mean yhea I would hate to be the Zeus pilot that has to engage a marauder was a warhammer in a straigh up fight since they have the same spees but the warhammer has better load out and the marauder both has a better loadout AND better armour meaning that the zeus which is 10 heavier than a warhammer only has 1 ton more armour than it and has worse weapons and against a marauder its both outguned and outarnoured
The marauder has half a ton more armor, and roughly the same damage output. The Zeus has enough heatsinks to just mash the fire button while the marauder is forced to go bracket fire, cutting its damaged parity by 40%.
The humble marauder absolutely blasting the Zeus Apart with its PPCs at long range whilst the zeus with its long range weapons cant at worst tickle the marauder and at most maybe slightly punch through a small ammount of armour
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u/Ecaza Mar 14 '26
It's a totally viable assault 'Mech! I have 12 of them in my miniatures collection!