Clan Elemental
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Not to be confused with the Elementals you find in fantasy.
Elementals are one of the main phenotypes of Clan Warrior, genetically engineered to serve as power armored heavy heavy infantry in the Battletech universe.
History
There were two developments which lead to Clan Elementals, first of all was the development of a powered exosuit for deep sea mining by Clan Goliath Scorpion in 2842. The second was Clan Hell's Horses developing a line of bulked-out soldiers. Clan Wolf wanted a slice of both of these actions. First their merchants bought the schematics for the Diving Suit designs in 2860 and soon had their Scientists began to adapt them for combat. These were ready for service in 2868 and were a nasty surprise for Clan Nova Cat. Hell's Horses challenged Clan Wolf for their new power suits and after some negotiating had their set of combat trials for the rights to manufacture the armor in exchange for the gene-tech. In the end, both sides got the others tech and they were happy with this as they both came out ahead, though other Clans would go out of their way to acquire both for themselves in the next few years. Another breakthrough for Elementals was the creation of the OmniMech’s universal docking ports. While originally made for swapping out weapons, it didn’t take too long to realize that Elementals could piggyback off of OmniMechs by mounting onto chassis docks to recharge their weapons and move along with the BattleMech units for mobility. So while reverse engineered Battle Armor by Spheroids was initially restricted to defensive warfare, Elementals were able to be on the offensive alongside their MechWarrior brethren.
When these guys showed up in the Inner Sphere, they were a bloody nightmare. Imagine being a regular Federated Commonwealth grunt garrisoning some border world in 3050. You signed up at age 18 and got a couple months of basic training. You have a uniform with a helmet and a bullet proof vest and a laser rifle in a platoon with similar gear. You've been trained to fight guys with pretty much the same gear marching under banner of the Red Kuritan Snake, Green Liao Machete, or the Purplw Marik Birb. You might also have some specialists with C4 satchels and jump packs or alternatively with rockets launchers and jeeps to take on your occasional BattleMech, Jet fighter, or tanks.
Then out of of nowhere on the northern edge of the periphery, you hear that some strange guys have showed up and are landing troops, the officers muttering confusions about Batches of Challs and you're deployed to face them. Then you see a group of three meter tall broad bulky figures jetting into view and crashing down. Your company tries to light them up, but you might as well be shining flash-lights on them. They on the other hand hose you down with laser fire. Someone gets close and tries in desperation to bayonet the monstrosity, with has about as much effect as trying to carve up a car with a butter knife and is tossed aside like a doll. Grenades do little more than annoy them. Eventually the squad panics and flees in all directions. You stumble and desperately dump your power cell into one of the strange figures, which succeeds only in messing up the Wolf Logo on the shoulder. It walks over and picks you up to inspect you. Staring into the visor, you can just make out the rough image of a face. That's the last thing you see. The last thing you hear is a slightly tinny voice saying "Your courage is commendable little freebirth, but foolish". Now imagine that it's a bit later and you're another LCAM grunt who's heard stories of these mechanized monster troopers used by The Clans who've now jumped into your system.
This trauma, as well as the their foreign appearance alongside unknown BattleMech designs convinced initial defenders that the Clans were an invading force of aliens. Eventually as the invasion continued, the means of engaging elementals successfully were worked out. Mainly with the usage of vehicle mounted heavy weapons, defensive gun emplacement, or the usage or mines. Later, heavy man-portable autocannons, gauss guns, and flamers were created but were still restricted to defensive combat. Even then, in most situations they could still cut a bloody swath through conventional soldiers while they can swarm an unsuspecting BattleMech and tear apart like a pack of piranhas.
Elementals
Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, piloting a Dire Wolf, faces down ilKhan Lincoln Osis (bottom), in Clan Elemental Battle Armor, at the end of the "Great Refusal."
Your basic Elemental stands between 2 to 2.5 meters tall and is built like a brick shithouse. They're strong, fast and resilient. As such, most elemental wash-outs end up in the Laborer caste. As is typical with Clan Warriors, they've been trained from childhood to fight, survive, and work together as a team, with only the best of the best graduating. Even without Battle Armor, you would not want to throw down with an Elemental. In one humorous & bloodless example during the Clan Invasion, an undefended Draconis Combine planet tried to one-up Clan Ghost Bear with a game of American football in exchange for staying unconquered. They assumed the Bears didn’t know the game; only for the planet sport league to be utterly smashed by a team of Elementals who play it as a hobby, 84 to 3. One of the very few exceptions is if your name is Victor Steiner-Davion, who after a brief exchange of words dismounted from his captured Clan Daishi/Dire Wolf OmniMech and beheaded the former ilKhan of the Clans, Lincoln Osis, with a simple katana after Osis willingly took off his Battle Armor in an attempt to "teach Victor a lesson" just after the last remnants of his Clan Smoke Jaguar forces handily lost their part of the "Great Refusal" in the licensed novel Prince of Havoc.
Your basic suit of Elemental armor weighs a literal metric tonne with 250 kg of armor and is equipped with jump jets. They can operate in the vacuum of space, underwater or in heavy gravity. It has two short range missile launchers on its shoulders, and two modular mounts for weapons built into its arms. In infantry firefights, an Elemental is a goddamn nightmare able to cut a bloody swathe through squads of regular guys with guns while brushing off most of their fire. Against BattleMechs, they're small enough to hide, nimble enough to evade most fire (represented by a to-hit roll penalty in the tabletop game, but this "I'm tiny and hard to hit" bonus is not reflected in the various BattleTech-related video games that Clan Elementals have appeared in) and durable enough to take a hit or two from most BattleMech-scale weaponry. And since they come in fireteams of 5, a average MechWarrior can only kill one or two at best before the rest latch on. The last thing that many a Federated Commonwealth or Draconis Combine Mechwarrior saw during the Clan Invasion was an Elemental busting into their cockpit to shoot them in the face.