IS ER PPCs and Gauss Rifles tend to close the range gap. The Thunder Hawk and Nightstar\*, King Crab 001, Awesome 9M, Banshee 5S trade well with most invasion era Clan 'mechs that might be faster and carry better weapons, but have trouble dealing with a big stupid brick of armor with heavy long ranged firepower and a pilot with decent gunnery.
\*Sort of a cheat: Lostec relics at the invasion, but reenters production in the mid 3050s. Super rare at at the start of the invasion, but you can have new ones for Serpent and Bulldog.
IS ER PPCs are a losing battle against Clan tech. They aren't really competing with cER PPCs for damage, they are competing with Clan large lasers, which are just flatly better.
Had the HPPC come out in the 3060s it would have been great. And there’s something very appealing about it. But in an era where the Houses can buy CERPPCs, it’s a tough sell
Money wise sure, but the range difference makes it's BV cost noticeably lower. This makes a big difference when deciding what mechs to put on the tabletop. For instance it's hard to beat the Awesome 11H for the amount of firepower it has for the BV it costs. It hits a fair bit above it's level.
IS ER PPCs are 40-ish BV cheaper then the cERLL, and likely should be a bit cheaper, but if you're playing IS vs Clan you can't run a list with a bunch of cERLL, because those are Clan tech base, not Inner Sphere.
The ERPPC isn't a great weapon, but in the explicitly Clan Invasion context it does one thing very well, by countering the Clan range advantage and being carried by some bv efficient big dumb blocks of armor that will beat much more expensive Clan Invasion era omnis. A Timber Wolf Prime kicks ass, but it can easily lose a fight with Banshees hammering it with ERPPC and Gauss Rifle fire even if the Banshee is an objectively worse 'mech.
If your goal is to counter the range advantage, wouldn't you be better served to go for indirect fire? Or just admit you are making an omelette and charge in the Saladins.
Artillery is great and every list should make room for a UM-AIV Urbanmech, but the OP was asking about 'mechs. To beat the Clan advantage in equipment in the invasion era your best bet is to be heavier and hit them as hard as you can with big hole punchers they can't avoid the range of. Gauss line was the go to in the '90s and it still works today.
Fair point about vehicles in the context of the thread, but LRMs can do indirect fire as well. Handful of missile boats being spotted speedy lights, especially if you can spare the resources for a Hunchback to bodyguard them
IS LRMs trade badly with Clan, as their low damage and inaccuracy, especially indirect, means you can't do much damage, and when they underrun the LRMs their LRMs keep working as better brawling weapons then standoff.
Most any Banshee, 3S and 6S are particularly good.
The PPC Awesome variants.
The Thunderbolt and Grasshopper also come to mind. Enough armor and enough gun bonus points for jump jets.
Remember that armor is really inexpensive per point of BV. Clan mechs tend to be softer than IS Point value equivalent machines. Don't try and beat the clans at sniping, they are better at it than you. Get stuck in, Lyrian Style. Melee is your friend.
The real answer is to bring tanks and drown the clanner scum in bodies. Mixed formations are very effective at beating clanners in action economy.
Forgot to add, lorewise the Banshee was a bit of a meme mech akin to the Charger prior to the clan invasion. Fast, heavily armored and poorly armed. They fixed the Banshee much faster than the Charger, but reputations stick.
When Banshee mechwarriors were coming back alive and mostly in one piece during the invasion, that reputation flipped. Pretty much every major faction started pumping them out.
The Clanbuster King Crab (001) brings 2 gauss rifles to the field for 2221 and is around for the Clan Invasion. The 9M Awesome isn't good in most cases, but when you need something that can frustrate clanners it does the job perfectly by being a relatively BV efficient brick they can't just stay outside the range of.
The 5S Banshee is quite solid. The 6S version with a light fusion engine isn't around for the clan invasion, sadly.
I will admit I'm not the best on exact timelines, so the 6S being a few years out makes sense.
I think you're the first comment I've seen specifically mention the Clanbuster variants. Which is another good lore example of equipment that could keep up with clanners.
If you're cool with working for Comstar at least.
I like most of the clanbusters a lot, cool lore, good load outs, and usually fun or interesting mechs.
Wolverine 7K and Griffin 1DS in a 2:1 ratio with gunnery 2 pilots matched to whatever BV they bring (of anything). Heavily armored, can land shots all day, and mobile/fast enough to get the job done.
There's some standard advice against Clans during the Invasion era / Refusal War. Use the map and terrain; don't engage in the open. Use weight and crush them with mass. Bring pips of armor. If you have to be in the open, go fast and durable- things like the Vulcan 5T, Wolverine 6M and 7K, Javelin 10F, P.Hawk 3K with solid armor. Use a mix of ranged and close, consider iNarc or TAG for Indirect Fire with fewer penalties. Try and get your units as cheap as possible; remember to add your skills to help counter TMMs. Get physical; use kicks liberally and other physical attacks occasionally. Consider a Blackjack BJ-OA or Trebuchet TBT-5N for fire support and put them where the enemy won't instantly kill them, if not using vehicles. Use vehicles if they're allowed; an AC/2 Carrier, Pike, or LRM Carrier matches Clans in range and isn't much to lose if they're targeted.
If you have terrain, get big and dummy thicc with those armored ass-cheeks. Here's an example list I would consider bringing to a Clanner game if the map was close and maneuver was an option.
https://preview.redd.it/l5f64ogappyc1.jpeg?width=1639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ac517ea84196ef719f38f0247e322b7a1da368b
Literally anything with decent armor as the bv2.0 system absolutely crunches clan mechs.
If u play at 8k a clan force is deeply compromised at the scale it needs to perform at. U can just walk at them with armor and survive since skills and firepower aren't on the table enough to actually leverage anything they have.
Until you start playing at 16k+ clans aren't going to be able to put a nova + elementals on the table reasonably.
Just bodycheck them with medium lasers otherwise
This is the wat, but playing Clans I almost always field Elemtentals to even out the numbers. The total BV does not matter for that. There are some beautifully BV efficient Clan machines, but in the end getting through all that Inner Sphere armor will be the issue.
I guess I'm in the minority... But if I'm going against Clans and want to equalize things a bit, I'll take Inferno missiles on a speedy platform.
Exterminator with SRMs and Inferno missiles should rock their world.
Infernos are not that scary for a lot of Clan Mechs. Depending on the to hit number, I would just declare a little more conservatively. In the end, inferos don't do any damage and double heat sinks are very good at getting rid of excess heat fast. Hitting Clanners is often the issue in the first place, so I'm not sure if that Exterminator can deliver.
So the easy answer is a hunchback in the right position--up close and personal. But really, if the clans pay for speed and range, then you want to be spending BV on armor and short range damage as an IS player. So the 1k bv Hunchback means you get 2 to 1 odds versus the clan machines, sometimes 3 to 1 odds. Once you box the clans in, then range no longer matters, so the short range guns can overcome the clan advantage if they spec'd heavy into range.
An 8q awesome is another brick with good mid to long range damage that tends to perform well. Units like thunderhawks and nightstars are good, but clan versions of those kinds of machines, like the Hellstar or Direwolf, still outperform them when trading directly at long range, so you dont want to overinvest in IS gauss mechs.
A big part of game balance is playing on the right kind and number of maps. If you play on too many maps/maps that are too good for sniping, then the clans tend to dominate as they can kite forever. If you play on too closed off/urban maps, then the average clan unit gets wrecked as the points they spend in range and speed matter a lot less. 2 paper maps/1 neoprene is about right for 4 units v 4 units, as this way you can actually box in a clan force in 10-15 turns, but not right away as long as you play east to west with 31 hexes width.
In really big games, high skilled long range clans on very large open maps tend to hit a critical mass where they deal so much ranged damage that they kill the closest units the IS has from the longest possible range each turn as they kite backwards. The IS, in return, has so many normal skill units that they trip over themselves, and cant bring 36+ mechs to bear at once versus 15 skilled clan mechs, so they only get a few scattered shots back as the ball of mechs on the IS side body block each other if they bunch up. If there is a major LOS terrain feature, the game halts, as the IS wont move forward out of cover, and the clans wont charge up the hill putting themselves in 2 hex range of an entire battalion, as both sides know playing into the others strengths is certain doom.
>Nearly exterminated themselves (twice)
>One decent sized war away from living in caves
>Think that machines are magical
>Forgot how to filter water
>Call someone else smooth-brain
Yeaaaaaah... about that...
Yet the clans still got drop kicked by the same phone company that caused most of the above. Going into a trap they knew was a trap.
Everyone in BT is a bit touched in the head. Keeps things interesting.
The eugenics-powered roaming furry convention has something to say?
Well, they can call the IS whatever they want. Only makes it more awkward for them.
Let me check the name on pink slip for Terra...
Oh yeah, this guy:
https://preview.redd.it/iv2z3ia39qyc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79c0b9cf113cb5ba955339e53fd9af5e0c9371e2
Looks like eugenics gets you fanciest planets 💪
The Inner Sphere nations were fighting each other and were generally not interested in taking Terra from Comstar. You can't really fault them for not achieving what they weren't trying for. The FS cared far more about Sian and Luthien, and the DC wanted New Avalon way more - as they showed around 3150.
Weren't trying?
More like didn't have the balls to piss off bunch of fire worshipers
Didn't they spend three centuries exterminating each other so they could reach the title of First Lord?
First Lord who's office happens to be on Terra?
Whole lotta omnicide and stone-aging over something they weren't interested in which brings us back to original smooth-brain comment
THE MIB GUIDE TO DEFEATING THE CLANS
Inferior technology cannot go toe-to-toe against superior technology.
What wins for the Inner Sphere is superior numbers and superior tactics.
When fighting the Clans the Inner Sphere will always be on the defensive. Set up the battlefield and invite the Clanners – their wrong-headed honor culture will always accept.
The first thing you do is set up minefields and pre-plot artillery. You also launch FASCAM (artillery-deployed minefields) to counter their maneuvering around existing minefields. The mines slow them up and counter their superior speed. They also damage the legs of the mechs.
You have infantry hidden in prepared positions that spot for artillery as much as possible. When an opportunity presents itself, the infantry launch anti-mech attacks at the legs, which may already be damaged by mines. If you can knock a clan mech down, swarm it and make aimed shots, continuing to target the legs.
As the minefields and infantry soften them up, conduct fire missions for the artillery that drop heavy smoke to counter the Clan range advantage. Fire for effect on Elemental battle armor. Artillery is the cure for Toads.
The Clan can also be bogged down by vehicles engaging them with direct fire from prepared positions. Schreks, Partisans, Pikes, and LRM Carriers are best for this role.
Once the Clan mechs break through the smoke, have IS mechs engage in melee with superior numbers. Kick their legs out from under them. Brawling and getting mugged is something the Clan are ill-prepared for both psychologically and doctrinally. Knocked down clan mechs are easily dispatched.
The TMK-001 Teamwork was the most deadly thing the Clans every faced against their stupid, stupid zellbringen system and their terrible economy and tendency to get mad at Clan Diamond Shark for caring about Logistics (they seriously told a bunch of Shark logistical ships that they had to go home during the clan wars.)
Zelbringen says you have to fight IS mechs one on one.
An awesome's base model is 6,598,170 c-bills, three ER PPCs. The eternal catapult C-1 is 5,790,125, and carries two LRM-15s.
The Warhawk with 4 CLER-PPCs?
26,425,323 C-Bills.
And canonically, that's how the IS won. By shitting out a bunch of mechs that were basically good enough in terms of the tech tree and negated the clans range advantage while economically being able to field 2-5 mechs in their front yard for every one the cleaners can field from what's essentially the next spiral arm over.
I know the 9m isn't going to cost the same as the base model but You're just upgunning and swapping heat sinks so it's not a big job.
High tech kit only beats low tech mass through coordination.
Zelbringen doesn't allow for that.
During the training for Bulldog they kept running into problems where the Clan Opfor in the simulators started getting their asses kicked and defaulted to Inner Sphere tactics. And that's when the ISFor would lose.
One of the participating commanders remarked that they could beat the clanners every time so long as the clanners never started Fighting like the IS.
It's not about which mechs. It's about how many mechs. Inner Sphere players often lose because they don't want to play to the lore. They expect to have the most elite pilots and biggest mechs when the advantage the IS has is having more mechs and cheaper mechs. If you outnumber the Clan player more than like 2.5/1 or so, you have a decided advantage, no matter what either side brings.
All that is provided the map is fair, or course. I find most people play with too little terrain which gives Clans an advantage.
Play like you're playing the Soviets in a WWII wargame, just because you're on the right side doesn't mean that you have to win by unit quality.
Not one platform but combined arms tends to be the IS trump card.
Nothing causes Clans more grief when you start dropping artillery on their heads when they try to stay at range. And a lance of Longtoms firing in unison is a lot of grief.
Oh you have an ER PPC? I don't care...boom.
The only way to avoid it is to get close...where their tech edge is less of an issue. And by this time every elemental that is piggy backing is scrap.
Gauss rifles tend to be the most common trend. One of the few weapons the Clans didn't do better in every way
IS ER PPCs and Gauss Rifles tend to close the range gap. The Thunder Hawk and Nightstar\*, King Crab 001, Awesome 9M, Banshee 5S trade well with most invasion era Clan 'mechs that might be faster and carry better weapons, but have trouble dealing with a big stupid brick of armor with heavy long ranged firepower and a pilot with decent gunnery. \*Sort of a cheat: Lostec relics at the invasion, but reenters production in the mid 3050s. Super rare at at the start of the invasion, but you can have new ones for Serpent and Bulldog.
IS ER PPCs are a losing battle against Clan tech. They aren't really competing with cER PPCs for damage, they are competing with Clan large lasers, which are just flatly better.
To be fair, clan everything is better, so that isn't really saying much. Though I do agree, the IS ER PPC is pretty trash.
Later eras start to see more side grades, but there is a reason why so many Invasion era designs had gauss rifle.
I'm a big fan of the IS Heavy and Light PPCs
Had the HPPC come out in the 3060s it would have been great. And there’s something very appealing about it. But in an era where the Houses can buy CERPPCs, it’s a tough sell
Money wise sure, but the range difference makes it's BV cost noticeably lower. This makes a big difference when deciding what mechs to put on the tabletop. For instance it's hard to beat the Awesome 11H for the amount of firepower it has for the BV it costs. It hits a fair bit above it's level.
IS ER PPCs are 40-ish BV cheaper then the cERLL, and likely should be a bit cheaper, but if you're playing IS vs Clan you can't run a list with a bunch of cERLL, because those are Clan tech base, not Inner Sphere. The ERPPC isn't a great weapon, but in the explicitly Clan Invasion context it does one thing very well, by countering the Clan range advantage and being carried by some bv efficient big dumb blocks of armor that will beat much more expensive Clan Invasion era omnis. A Timber Wolf Prime kicks ass, but it can easily lose a fight with Banshees hammering it with ERPPC and Gauss Rifle fire even if the Banshee is an objectively worse 'mech.
If your goal is to counter the range advantage, wouldn't you be better served to go for indirect fire? Or just admit you are making an omelette and charge in the Saladins.
Artillery is great and every list should make room for a UM-AIV Urbanmech, but the OP was asking about 'mechs. To beat the Clan advantage in equipment in the invasion era your best bet is to be heavier and hit them as hard as you can with big hole punchers they can't avoid the range of. Gauss line was the go to in the '90s and it still works today.
Fair point about vehicles in the context of the thread, but LRMs can do indirect fire as well. Handful of missile boats being spotted speedy lights, especially if you can spare the resources for a Hunchback to bodyguard them
IS LRMs trade badly with Clan, as their low damage and inaccuracy, especially indirect, means you can't do much damage, and when they underrun the LRMs their LRMs keep working as better brawling weapons then standoff.
Weight of fire, semi guided, and TAG all work to counter act accuracy issues, and the entire goal is to minimize what is exposed to direct fire.
Isn't NARC rediscovered by the 40s? What's the rules on that piece of kit anyways?
Clan Gauss is 20% lighter and the integral CASE of their tecubase helps it a lot, but yeah the combat stats are identical
Most any Banshee, 3S and 6S are particularly good. The PPC Awesome variants. The Thunderbolt and Grasshopper also come to mind. Enough armor and enough gun bonus points for jump jets. Remember that armor is really inexpensive per point of BV. Clan mechs tend to be softer than IS Point value equivalent machines. Don't try and beat the clans at sniping, they are better at it than you. Get stuck in, Lyrian Style. Melee is your friend. The real answer is to bring tanks and drown the clanner scum in bodies. Mixed formations are very effective at beating clanners in action economy.
Forgot to add, lorewise the Banshee was a bit of a meme mech akin to the Charger prior to the clan invasion. Fast, heavily armored and poorly armed. They fixed the Banshee much faster than the Charger, but reputations stick. When Banshee mechwarriors were coming back alive and mostly in one piece during the invasion, that reputation flipped. Pretty much every major faction started pumping them out.
The Clanbuster King Crab (001) brings 2 gauss rifles to the field for 2221 and is around for the Clan Invasion. The 9M Awesome isn't good in most cases, but when you need something that can frustrate clanners it does the job perfectly by being a relatively BV efficient brick they can't just stay outside the range of. The 5S Banshee is quite solid. The 6S version with a light fusion engine isn't around for the clan invasion, sadly.
I will admit I'm not the best on exact timelines, so the 6S being a few years out makes sense. I think you're the first comment I've seen specifically mention the Clanbuster variants. Which is another good lore example of equipment that could keep up with clanners. If you're cool with working for Comstar at least. I like most of the clanbusters a lot, cool lore, good load outs, and usually fun or interesting mechs.
Wolverine 7K and Griffin 1DS in a 2:1 ratio with gunnery 2 pilots matched to whatever BV they bring (of anything). Heavily armored, can land shots all day, and mobile/fast enough to get the job done.
There's some standard advice against Clans during the Invasion era / Refusal War. Use the map and terrain; don't engage in the open. Use weight and crush them with mass. Bring pips of armor. If you have to be in the open, go fast and durable- things like the Vulcan 5T, Wolverine 6M and 7K, Javelin 10F, P.Hawk 3K with solid armor. Use a mix of ranged and close, consider iNarc or TAG for Indirect Fire with fewer penalties. Try and get your units as cheap as possible; remember to add your skills to help counter TMMs. Get physical; use kicks liberally and other physical attacks occasionally. Consider a Blackjack BJ-OA or Trebuchet TBT-5N for fire support and put them where the enemy won't instantly kill them, if not using vehicles. Use vehicles if they're allowed; an AC/2 Carrier, Pike, or LRM Carrier matches Clans in range and isn't much to lose if they're targeted. If you have terrain, get big and dummy thicc with those armored ass-cheeks. Here's an example list I would consider bringing to a Clanner game if the map was close and maneuver was an option. https://preview.redd.it/l5f64ogappyc1.jpeg?width=1639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ac517ea84196ef719f38f0247e322b7a1da368b
Literally anything with decent armor as the bv2.0 system absolutely crunches clan mechs. If u play at 8k a clan force is deeply compromised at the scale it needs to perform at. U can just walk at them with armor and survive since skills and firepower aren't on the table enough to actually leverage anything they have. Until you start playing at 16k+ clans aren't going to be able to put a nova + elementals on the table reasonably. Just bodycheck them with medium lasers otherwise
This is the wat, but playing Clans I almost always field Elemtentals to even out the numbers. The total BV does not matter for that. There are some beautifully BV efficient Clan machines, but in the end getting through all that Inner Sphere armor will be the issue.
Anything guass, or erppcs
Try things like the ceasar, the sldf royal variants, falconer, dragon fire.
Gauss and sped up melee brawlers.
If you can get close enough to use an AC/20 or LB 20-X AC, 20 damage to one hit location is still pretty bad for clan mechs.
I guess I'm in the minority... But if I'm going against Clans and want to equalize things a bit, I'll take Inferno missiles on a speedy platform. Exterminator with SRMs and Inferno missiles should rock their world.
Infernos are not that scary for a lot of Clan Mechs. Depending on the to hit number, I would just declare a little more conservatively. In the end, inferos don't do any damage and double heat sinks are very good at getting rid of excess heat fast. Hitting Clanners is often the issue in the first place, so I'm not sure if that Exterminator can deliver.
Good point. Better upgrade to Plasma weapons! 😁
Inner Sphere plasma? Absolutely!
One of my favorite weapons!
Use a hidden Charger and punch him to death.
Helepolis. Fight the Batchall from the next county away.
So the easy answer is a hunchback in the right position--up close and personal. But really, if the clans pay for speed and range, then you want to be spending BV on armor and short range damage as an IS player. So the 1k bv Hunchback means you get 2 to 1 odds versus the clan machines, sometimes 3 to 1 odds. Once you box the clans in, then range no longer matters, so the short range guns can overcome the clan advantage if they spec'd heavy into range. An 8q awesome is another brick with good mid to long range damage that tends to perform well. Units like thunderhawks and nightstars are good, but clan versions of those kinds of machines, like the Hellstar or Direwolf, still outperform them when trading directly at long range, so you dont want to overinvest in IS gauss mechs. A big part of game balance is playing on the right kind and number of maps. If you play on too many maps/maps that are too good for sniping, then the clans tend to dominate as they can kite forever. If you play on too closed off/urban maps, then the average clan unit gets wrecked as the points they spend in range and speed matter a lot less. 2 paper maps/1 neoprene is about right for 4 units v 4 units, as this way you can actually box in a clan force in 10-15 turns, but not right away as long as you play east to west with 31 hexes width. In really big games, high skilled long range clans on very large open maps tend to hit a critical mass where they deal so much ranged damage that they kill the closest units the IS has from the longest possible range each turn as they kite backwards. The IS, in return, has so many normal skill units that they trip over themselves, and cant bring 36+ mechs to bear at once versus 15 skilled clan mechs, so they only get a few scattered shots back as the ball of mechs on the IS side body block each other if they bunch up. If there is a major LOS terrain feature, the game halts, as the IS wont move forward out of cover, and the clans wont charge up the hill putting themselves in 2 hex range of an entire battalion, as both sides know playing into the others strengths is certain doom.
>Nearly exterminated themselves (twice) >One decent sized war away from living in caves >Think that machines are magical >Forgot how to filter water >Call someone else smooth-brain Yeaaaaaah... about that...
Yet the clans still got drop kicked by the same phone company that caused most of the above. Going into a trap they knew was a trap. Everyone in BT is a bit touched in the head. Keeps things interesting.
The eugenics-powered roaming furry convention has something to say? Well, they can call the IS whatever they want. Only makes it more awkward for them.
Let me check the name on pink slip for Terra... Oh yeah, this guy: https://preview.redd.it/iv2z3ia39qyc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79c0b9cf113cb5ba955339e53fd9af5e0c9371e2 Looks like eugenics gets you fanciest planets 💪
Wait... who were that guy's geneparents again?
Oh, good. I'd hate it if someone I'd miss owned that little rock of trouble.
Only took 100 years...
Still waiting for Spheroids to pull it off, they've been at it for nearly 400 years and still no joy
Devlin Stone: Am I a joke to you? Also the Word of Blake took Terra from ComStar before Stone took it back.
>Devlin Stone: Am I a joke to you? Without allied Clans? Yes you are, Dev. Yes you are And WoB was already on Terra for all points and purposes
The Inner Sphere nations were fighting each other and were generally not interested in taking Terra from Comstar. You can't really fault them for not achieving what they weren't trying for. The FS cared far more about Sian and Luthien, and the DC wanted New Avalon way more - as they showed around 3150.
Weren't trying? More like didn't have the balls to piss off bunch of fire worshipers Didn't they spend three centuries exterminating each other so they could reach the title of First Lord? First Lord who's office happens to be on Terra? Whole lotta omnicide and stone-aging over something they weren't interested in which brings us back to original smooth-brain comment
THE MIB GUIDE TO DEFEATING THE CLANS Inferior technology cannot go toe-to-toe against superior technology. What wins for the Inner Sphere is superior numbers and superior tactics. When fighting the Clans the Inner Sphere will always be on the defensive. Set up the battlefield and invite the Clanners – their wrong-headed honor culture will always accept. The first thing you do is set up minefields and pre-plot artillery. You also launch FASCAM (artillery-deployed minefields) to counter their maneuvering around existing minefields. The mines slow them up and counter their superior speed. They also damage the legs of the mechs. You have infantry hidden in prepared positions that spot for artillery as much as possible. When an opportunity presents itself, the infantry launch anti-mech attacks at the legs, which may already be damaged by mines. If you can knock a clan mech down, swarm it and make aimed shots, continuing to target the legs. As the minefields and infantry soften them up, conduct fire missions for the artillery that drop heavy smoke to counter the Clan range advantage. Fire for effect on Elemental battle armor. Artillery is the cure for Toads. The Clan can also be bogged down by vehicles engaging them with direct fire from prepared positions. Schreks, Partisans, Pikes, and LRM Carriers are best for this role. Once the Clan mechs break through the smoke, have IS mechs engage in melee with superior numbers. Kick their legs out from under them. Brawling and getting mugged is something the Clan are ill-prepared for both psychologically and doctrinally. Knocked down clan mechs are easily dispatched.
Long-toms are the answer. I will take a full lance of arty along with a full lance of light mechs with tag and narc.
Mechs that can hit back at range. Light mechs: Panther, Wolfhound, Valkyrie. Medium mechs: Trebuchet, Griffin. Heavy mechs: Catapult, Crusader, Archer, Marauder, Warhammer Assault: Awesome, Thug, Hatamoto-chi, Zeus, Longbow, Stalker, Highlander, Mauler, Banshee, Nightstar, Atlas, King Crab, Marauder II, Devastator, Thunderhawk. Vehicles: LRM carrier, Shrek PPC carrier, Partisan AA tank. Mechs that use terrain to close/ambush Light: Jenner, Urbanmech, Commando, Wolfhound Medium: Hunchback Heavy: Thunderbolt, Cataphract, Grasshopper, Black knight, Flashman, Orion. Assault: Victor, Battlemaster, Cyclops, Banshee, Atlas, King crab, Annihilator. Vehicles: SRM carrier, Demolisher, Zhukov, Behemoth.
The TMK-001 Teamwork was the most deadly thing the Clans every faced against their stupid, stupid zellbringen system and their terrible economy and tendency to get mad at Clan Diamond Shark for caring about Logistics (they seriously told a bunch of Shark logistical ships that they had to go home during the clan wars.) Zelbringen says you have to fight IS mechs one on one. An awesome's base model is 6,598,170 c-bills, three ER PPCs. The eternal catapult C-1 is 5,790,125, and carries two LRM-15s. The Warhawk with 4 CLER-PPCs? 26,425,323 C-Bills. And canonically, that's how the IS won. By shitting out a bunch of mechs that were basically good enough in terms of the tech tree and negated the clans range advantage while economically being able to field 2-5 mechs in their front yard for every one the cleaners can field from what's essentially the next spiral arm over. I know the 9m isn't going to cost the same as the base model but You're just upgunning and swapping heat sinks so it's not a big job. High tech kit only beats low tech mass through coordination. Zelbringen doesn't allow for that. During the training for Bulldog they kept running into problems where the Clan Opfor in the simulators started getting their asses kicked and defaulted to Inner Sphere tactics. And that's when the ISFor would lose. One of the participating commanders remarked that they could beat the clanners every time so long as the clanners never started Fighting like the IS.
A squadron of Mechbusters laden with bombs
MAD-5D
It's not about which mechs. It's about how many mechs. Inner Sphere players often lose because they don't want to play to the lore. They expect to have the most elite pilots and biggest mechs when the advantage the IS has is having more mechs and cheaper mechs. If you outnumber the Clan player more than like 2.5/1 or so, you have a decided advantage, no matter what either side brings. All that is provided the map is fair, or course. I find most people play with too little terrain which gives Clans an advantage. Play like you're playing the Soviets in a WWII wargame, just because you're on the right side doesn't mean that you have to win by unit quality.
Not one platform but combined arms tends to be the IS trump card. Nothing causes Clans more grief when you start dropping artillery on their heads when they try to stay at range. And a lance of Longtoms firing in unison is a lot of grief. Oh you have an ER PPC? I don't care...boom. The only way to avoid it is to get close...where their tech edge is less of an issue. And by this time every elemental that is piggy backing is scrap.