Because it’s more of a TTRPG than a wargame, ‘mechs are allowed to suck. There’s no competitive balance, there are ‘mechs that are great and ‘mechs that are dogshit not because of some need to balance factions, but because, y’know, sometimes people build kit that sucks.
It just feels more grounded that way. An assassin or a cicada or a yeoman sucks because, well, they Built Bad ‘Mechs
I love that some mechs were just designed poorly, some mechs are cheaper and easier to make in fiction so they're good in a logistical sense but bad 1v1, some mechs are just whatever would sell, some are very niche and good at that thing but bad on the whole, some are just whatever that faction could get running, I could go on but it's great flavour and really gives the vibes of something that went through a procurement process.
I think the combination of that, and how mechs are an Extremely Limited Resource really brings everything together. Like yeah there are Bad Mechs™ but it's very much a "you take what you get" scenario even when you're part of the largest military forces in the Inner Sphere. Your Hunchback Stackpoled in the last skirmish? You think Hanse Davion is gonna send you a new one on the next jumpship? Fuck no, but our 'Tech's did scrape a Hornet out from under the boot of your Lance Lead's Victor. Yes, it's shaped like an egg with legs. Yes, it's poorly equipped. Get in the robot, Commander.
And what happens after that? You fucking love it anyway
like if you're not familiar, the UR-AIV is one of the few mechs that can launch tactical nukes, making it the shittiest, most expensive, most situational mech I could name
oh, and a war crime, can't forget that part. it's not battletech unless someone's doing war crimes
I've been in a MechWarrior: Destiny game for a while now and my favorite thing about it is if you can justify it you can do it. You're not limited to shoot-and-scoot and maybe DFAs. You can run off a cliff at another mech that's below you and kick its cockpit in. You can hit a technical with another technical. You can turn a tank upside down so it can't drive anywhere. I'm running a Griffin that now has souped up 4xMLs and LRM-10, and a mech-scale shield and vibrosword.
And you can do stuff out of mech and let me tell you as someone whose mech pilot is a 6' 3" buff transbian Canopian catgirl, being able to do more than just mech combat brings so much more variety to the table, too!
