Battletech's Stalker, a Juggernaut For All Ages. 

I heard a legend once. During the Reunification War there was a Periphery world, the forest moon of Wendor. There was some sort of tribe there, the Weoks, who once killed a Stalker by smashing it between two trees. But this was a long time ago, in a system far far away.

It doesn't stalk prey stealthily. It follows you around, leering creepily like the kind of person against whom you file a restraining order.

The death blimp rides eternal. I will never understand the obsession with putting a NARC launcher onto the 'mechs that sees supposed to be benefiting from the NARC. You put the NARC on a fast 'mech like an Assassin, a Commando, or a Sentinel. They run in, shoot the beacon at shorter range for a better chance at landing it, and then the LRM boats shoot the missiles.

Love the stalker … and the Radetzky-Marsch in the beginning gets me every time 😂

It’s a shame that Assault AES systems are too bulky to mount on the legs of most assault mechs. A new Stalker variant with those, plus reinforced armor and CASE II would go a long way to addressing most of the issues the Stalker chassis has faced in the past.

6:35 "The pilot and the commander will often decide those match ups", and also a pair of dice.

Ah, Stalker... My all-time favourite. Stalker is hilariously overgunned for what it is - and this is the beauty of the design. When you look at other designed from the "introductory" era, a lot of the mechs you get there are fairly undergunned. Even the great assaults of the era are not exactly bristling with guns - Highlander sports 5, Awesome has only 3 main weapons and dinky small laser, mighty Atlas carries 7 weapons, but 2 lasers face backwards. Victor, Zeus, baseline Banshee, Thug. They all pale in comparison to a monster with 10 weapons. And Stalker does not cheat it out with small lasers or anything like this. It has a truly solid complement allowing it to engage at all ranges effectively. Perhaps only the Battlemaster comes close to its destructive potential - also with 10 guns, though 2 of them are just machine guns. Anything lighter than it - Stalker shreds. Anything heavier? It still shreds it due to sheer firepower. I basically see only two effective ways of taking this mech on - having overwhelming long range firepower, or charging it in melee, and hoping to topple it. The one thing that makes Stalker incredibly dangerous is redundancy because of its symmetry. It is hard to fully de-tooth. Assuming it survives, blowing up the side torso still leaves this beast with half of it firepower intact. Many mechs have no such luxury. Loss of right arm alone robs Battlemaster of its long range firepower. Loss of right torso removes 2/3 of the Awesome's weapons. Most mechs concentrate their firepower on one side.

I once demonstrated just what a Stalker could do, even a 3025 one. My opponent had, as I recall, a medium or lower-weight heavy mech and 3 vehicles. I went full rampage on them. Split my fire between the mech and one of the vehicles (using the missiles on the vehicle to crit it), and got point-blank and kicked his leg off. First salvo: dead vehicle and a mech that's out of the fight. Then I split fire between the two functional vehicles and took them out. First salvo: one dead, one crippled. Second salvo, toast. Finally I finished off the mech. Everyone said I should have lost that fight, but the Stalker's firepower, versatility, and proper use of split fire won the duel. One of my torsos was open at the end of it (was about to dump ammo), but by then there was nothing left to crit me and everything was still fully functional. I see a vehicle and my first thought is, "What do I have to crit him?" The right weapons for the right target.

Ah, the shrapnel guest author.

Truly a machine thats always a Top priority target due to how much heat each variant is packing

Damn thing is a brutal weapon bracketing beast. One of my fav fire support machines. Had great luck with the straight up 3F and the 3H... the arm bins are usually empty by the time things close in. The combat computer is an insane quirk if you got one. Two free DB heat sinks if i read it right. It means the mech hits harder and stays more heat neutral than you expect. Thats how the mk2 stays heat neutral on stationary 8xML fire. Its effectively 24 heat sinking... to be fair you want to be moving usually if you're within 9 hexes though.

The legendary walking buttplug. I love using it with SRMs.

Stalkers are great when refit to LRM boats.

Ive come to like the Stalker a lot over time. I remember piloting one for a specific mission in Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries. The Stalker is a well-equipped mech with plenty of weapons for short, medium, and long ranges. I used to see custom models of the more well known Atlas and they were often equipped like the Stalker to the point I barely knew of the AS7-D Atlas with it's huge hip-mounted Autocannon-20. Its got flaws though. #1 Its somewhat lightly armored at 13.5 tons out of 16.5 tons of standard Armor by default. #2 Its got a lot of heat when firing all its weapons. #3 It lacks arms and so cannot punch. #4 Its weakest at Long Range because it only has 20 LRMs at that range. #5 Its biggest flaw is probably that it wouldve been better at 100tons. It if was heavier it would have more tonnage available overall to spend on equipment. I really like customizing it in Mechbays and simulator apps. Pick anything. Exchange the Short Range Missiles for Multi-Missile Launchers to improve its long range salvos. Exchange its lasers for Extended Range Models like ER Medium Laser and/or ER Large Lasers. The biggest change is to swap to Double Heat Sinks. Overall the customization is just to improve its armor and overall firepower beyond short range. The original Stalker's main strength was its impressive firepower at short range, with 4 Medium lasers and 12 Short Range Missile Tubes that it could safely fire without overheating.

Great video! I was browsing through some of the variants while listening, the 6M really stuck out to me. I am surprised at how little armor some variants have, even some that have a large number of short range weapons. Stalkers always felt like true walking tanks. Slow and hard to kill. The most recent one I faced I had a Uziel 8S harassing just trying to keep it out of the fight. Good video!

I found this video very enjoyable, always like throwing the death egg out in a conflict!

I enjoy all of Professor HeyTeeEn videos 🎉

I love the role play that you put into your videos, that is a part of battletech history.

One of my favourites.

Old reliable!

I feel like the Royal Variant and the Davion 7D are the most appealing to me. Otherwise I would rather take a Crockett or Battlemaster.

The Stalker is my favorite assault class Mech in the 3025 era. It is not the most powerful one but you get a lot of raw firepower and utility for the price. The large arsenal of weapons is well placed and makes the Mech very versatile. It can bombard, it makes large holes, medium holes and small holes. Armor, mobility and heat management are ok for an assault Mech. The only things to avoid are other Juggernauts with heavy armor-piercing weapons like AC/20 and PPCs (e.g. the Atlas or the Awesome). While the Stalker can do a lot of damage, it struggles to bring down heavy and assault Mechs quickly as it lacks in the heavy weapons department. For this reason I like to pair the STK-3F with Warhammers to great effect. The STK-5 series is not my cup of tea. While double heat sinks are probably the most useful upgrade the Mech can get, XL-engines, large pulse lasers and NARC-beacons do not add much value. I wonder why we haven´t seen a modern Stalker with MMLs yet? I would mount 2 ER-LL, 4 MPL and as many MMLs as reasonably possible.

The good old Doom Dildo. STK-5M. Remove the stupid NARC. Swap around LRM and SRM. You now have 2 Arms with each 2 Medium Lasers and a SRM6 each that can be flipped into the rear firing arc. This means you have 4 Medium Lasers and 2 SRM6 that can fire into your own rear Arc. That is more Firepower you can bring to bear on your back than most Mechs have all in all . . Armor up / more Heat Sink for the weight and space of the NARC and Ammo. The Thing will keep shooting at you even when it only has one leg, the CT and the cockpit left. Because it has no XL Engine. But Double Heat Sinks. AND AN ER LARGE LASER IN THE CT! It can have as much Armor as any Assault Mech and pummel Targets from Reach. It fucking won't die!