The Clans

The Clans

"We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial."

– Nicholas Kerensky

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the Capellan, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No! says the ComGuard, 'it belongs to humanity.' 'No!' says the Kuritan Coordinator, 'it belongs to me!' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... the Clan. A culture where the warrior would not suffer the bureaucrat. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the able would not be ruled by the incompetent. And by the sweat of your brow, the Clan can become your Clan as well."

– Nicholas Kerensky

The Clans are a civilization in the Battletech Universe. Descended from a remnant of the Star League Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before returning back in 3049 from the Deep Periphery.

From an IRL perspective in a very human focused setting without intelligent extraterrestrials, the Clans were designed to be very alien without actually being Aliens. They're not based on any one historic civilization and have a more Science-Fictiony way of operating.

History

In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord (along with the rest of the Cameron bloodline) and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war called the Amaris Civil War in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Aleksandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with some six million SLDF troops, their families (including Aleksandr's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) and some folks with valuable skills left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. For about 15 years, it seemed to work. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big and brutal shit fight in 2800. The closest equivalent to the Succession Wars in Clan space before the Wars of Reaving, they’d became known as the Pentagon Civil Wars. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter dissaray. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century, their population rapidly expanding and new worlds being colonized. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior (as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name).

Society

"Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us. Our heritage and our convictions are different from those we left behind. The greed of the five Great Houses and the Council Lords is a disease that can only be burned away by the passing of decades, even centuries. And though the fighting may seem to slow, or even cease, it will erupt again as long as there are powerful men to covet one another's wealth. We shall live apart, conserving all the good of the Star League and ridding ourselves of the bad, so that when we return — and return we shall — our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters."

– Aleksandr Kerensky, General Order 137, December 5th, 2785. These words would be the Nucleus of the Hidden Hope Doctrine

An Important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. The Amaris Coup and Civil War, the Death of Star League and the Exodus, the Exodus Civil War and the Second Exodus; these were harrowing events to live through, but also were seen as total failure of the old order of things even if it had aspired to noble ideals and achieved greatness. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures, but the aim was to start clean.

The Clans have produced fearsome genetically enhanced warriors, revolutionary BattleMechs and some darn fine cartoons (yes this is totally canon)

Even though there is a Grand Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. This includes codes for honorable surrender. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs and Battle Armor), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 40-50’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable infantry sent in the first wave of an assault instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Humans are mass produced as much as Mechs are in Clan Society. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Hence, while stuff like competitive combat sports and athletics are encouraged, things like literature and theatre are treated as frivolous trivialities at best. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), STEM topics, heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era. Overall, "Everything for the Clan", "The Clan Provides" and "The Clan Knows Best" are the overarching attitudes.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

• Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies (sibkos), but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. By far the smallest caste. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
  • Elementals: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor.
  • Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
  • Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
• Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
• Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers, and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along. They work with the Warrior Caste directly more than most.
• Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste with reservist status if they Clan requires more manpower.
• Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste, no less due to Battletech's universe using neo-feudalism.
• Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society in hiding. Makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors. They either survive as pirates, smugglers, or organized criminal syndicates that try to disguise themselves as guilds (which isn't hard as the Free Guilds do exist independently of each clan but are publicly regulated).

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a bloodname means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed to be used to produce the next batch of Warriors while they can participate in Clan Council. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

Two other known divides between members within Clan society depends on their form of conception and on their national origin. With the Clan scientist castes access to Iron Wombs and eugenic genetic engineering, Clansmen are classified as either Trueborn or Freeborn. The former are literal designer babies who are grown in an artificial amniotic womb while the latter are naturally born. Due to the Clan's focus on breeding the best of their warriors with the best traits as quickly as possible, Trueborn are generally seen as superior though whether it's due to their superior training regimes or genes is up for debate. Likewise, there's a distinction between those born within the Clan and those who were absorbed as bondsmen captured from other Clans or factions. Depending on each Clan's attitude and the captured person's origins, transplanted outsiders can be tolerated with the same treatment meted to native clansmen and promoted based on their merit and adaptability to Clan culture or subjugated to de-facto second class citizenship (whether as civilians or as warriors).

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion (partly due to their utilitarian mindset and a big portion of their population being designer babies), but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Aleksandr and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through the Remembrance, a long epic poem that summarizes each Clan’s glory. This too is another motivation for warriors to do their best in combat or competing to rise up the ranks and earn a Bloodname; the more they stand out positively, the more likely their genes will be added into the gene pool for scientists to add to the exo-wombs to spawn more sibkos and the more likely their name will be recorded in the Clan Remembrance with honor. Conversely, any disgrace a warrior commits risks anything from demotion at best to outright eliminating their entire Bloodname’s BloodHouse from the Clan’s records and genetic repository. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery and impart subtle meanings into the various rituals. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

In particular in their mythologized view of history Star League was a bountiful paradise despoiled by the greed and spite by wicked petty power hungry leaders, especially the five Great House (in of itself this is not a bad interpretation of events). As such they view the people of the Inner Sphere having fallen into Barbarism. This is notable because it gives them a standard to define themselves against as well as prejudices their outlooks against others.

Individual Clans

There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions. Besides the others mentioned on the Battletech page, the most relevant ones are the ones below.

• Clan Wolf: The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces.
• Clan Jade Falcon: The other "Mary Sue" Clan. Also the Purist Clan, since they are staunch traditionalists which stick with Nicky's vision as tightly as they can. When you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo, you're thinking Jade Falcon. Were the asshats that invaded MY HOME PLANET in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
• Clan Smoke Jaguar: The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice as the green birb gets that rewarding loyal productivity gets you more of it. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion, and ultimately demolished in the Second Star League's counterattack during the Trial of Refusal.
• Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox: The Money Clan. Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
• Clan Ghost Bear: The Practical Clan. Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the Rasalhagues to make their own hybrid state.
• Clan Nova Cat: The Mystic Clan. Brought in to help Clan Smoke Jaguar, they ended up joining the Inner Sphere instead. However, they got the shit beaten out of them first by the Ghost Bears and then by their Inner Sphere hosts, killing them off.
• Clan Steel Viper: The smug clan. This clan had a rough start since their first Khan was a yandere (for real). They mostly isolated themselves and focused on making super-elite soldiers while dreaming about how they'd rule the Inner Sphere. This got them a spot as back-up for the Jade Falcons, but having super-elite infantry is not a replacement for actually good mechs, and they got kicked out of the Inner Sphere by the Falcons.
• Clan Coyote: The Survivor Clan. Initially did fantastically for themselves as a noble practitioner group of Zellbringen as well as best buddies with Clan Wolf, as well as being the clan directly responsible for the development of OmniMech technology and their Khan was briefly IlKhan for a bit before a Snow Raven plot killed her. Since that point, they've largely been sent away from Clan Space after the Wars of Reaving, but still survive to this day, though far more ruthless in their aims.
• Clan Snow Raven: The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of it's time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the Outworlds Alliance government to become the Raven Alliance.
• Clan Goliath Scorpion: The Stoner Clan with a twist of Indiana Jones treasure hunting. Have a deep preference for extremely precise strikes as opposed to brute forcing their way through things, while also requiring getting absolutely blasted on refined scorpion venom. Deep Warden feelings and an obsession with the past meant they basically kept themselves out of most clanner bullshit unless pressed. They also had a habit of trying to secure bloodlines or artifacts linked the the Star League and actually think they can find them with visions induced by said cocktail of narcotic scorpion venom. Eventually got into trouble for illegally adding bloodlines to their eugenics program from the SLDF descended Eridani Light Horse and just fucked off to the Deep Periphery to go fight the conquer the Castilian Cluster and the Hanseatic League to start their own empire.
• Clan Hell's Horses: The Biker Clan, for as much as one can be a Biker in Battletech. Known primarily for their use of combat vehicles rather than alongside Mechs. Hells Horses has the distinction of being an extremely stable Clan, if not the most powerful, due to their personal belief that all within it, including the Freeborn, serve the greater good of the Clan. Eventually fucked off to the Inner Sphere, with a hardliner contingent remaining behind and becoming a different clan altogether.
• Clan Fire Mandrill: The Horde Clan. Set up almost the exact opposite way as Hell's Horses, as it is organized in to dozens of mini-Clans called Kindraa, who often fought amongst themselves just as much as they fought other Clans. Unsurprisingly, they got completely wrecked by the Wars of Reaving.
• Clan Wolverine: The Not-Named Clan whom all the other Clans hate with a burning passion. Betrayed by the original founders of the Clans for being better at the Clan thing than Kerensky was. Survivors wondering who-knows-where, but the main Clan went out as balls-to-the-wall badasses.

Clan Military

Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their OmniMechs, which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

The Clans tend to organize themselves depending on their culture, but generally speaking have their own military structure. Unlike the Inner Sphere which uses the traditional "chain of command", "grunt to general" approach, the Clans do not necessarily have an officer system by the traditional method. Every Warrior is considered roughly the same until you get to the Point Commander rank, at which point traditional methods kick back in, but even so the relationship is much less formal. Every part of the Clan Touman is organized into a "Base Five" system, which organizes everything into even groups of five.

The Clan Toumans are (typically) organized into:

• Point: 1 Mech, 2 Tanks, 5 Elementals or 25 Regular Infantry
• Star: 5 Points. Considered the "base" unit of Clan warfare. Most Stars are all of one combat role, as mixed Stars tend to do poorly.
• Binary: 2 Stars. The point at which Combined Arms becomes feasible.
• Trinary: 3 Stars
• Cluster: 3-5 Binaries
• Galaxy: 3-5 Clusters, plus an extra Trinary for Command. Generally a logistical designation because the process of Clan warfare bidding down typically ensures that Galaxies will only ever be deployed rarely.

Mechs

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

• Timberwolf/Mad Cat: The Clanner's most famous mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a Marauder or a Catapult, and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed(and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
• Mad Dog/Vulture: The Clan's OTHER most famous mech. Basically the Timberwolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
• Summoner/Thor: The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to tangle with assault class stuff unless it has weight of numbers; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring enough guns. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
• Hellbringer/Loki: A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.

• Dire Wolf/Daishi: The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
• Executioner/Gladiator: A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
• Warhawk/Masakari: Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries FOUR CLAN ER PPCS in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
• Gargoyle/Man o'War: The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf(unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear.(apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)

• Stormcrow/Ryoken: The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
• Nova/Black Hawk: One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 20 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
• Ice Ferret/Fenris: A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
• Viper/Dragonfly: A fast jumper, often described(incorrectly) as lacking punch. Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes(extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers(extremely easy to hit the enemy). A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.

• Adder/Puma: The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light omnimechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an omnimech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf(though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
• Kit Fox/Uller: Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with nuclear weapons. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
• Mist Lynx/Koshi: A 25 ton dedicated scout omnimech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
• Fire Moth/Dasher: GOTTA GO FAST. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a battlemech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

External Links

• Part One of Tex's series on Clan History
• Part Two of Tex's series on Clan History