Harlequin

Biological Mech

Harlequin
Class		Pupa
Weight		20 tons
Armor		750
Heat Dissipation		6
Speed		2
Buoyancy		0.3
Jump Heat		5
Load-points		19
Perk Load-points		23
Hard-locked		No
Hard-mounts		Harlequin Melee X2, Harlequin Sniper Cannon, Bio Wing Locked
Omni-mounts		none
Shutdown Level		100
Regeneration		3
Creator		BonBun Paperdoll
Resistances
Ball	0%	Ener	0%	Expl	0%
Acid	0%	Chem	0%	Sonic	0%
DoT	0%	Electronics	0%	Melee	0%

Note: The Harlequin is mispelled as Harliquin on the databases, and altering those things would be quite difficult at this point. This wiki article uses the dictionary spelling rather then the database one.

The bio-mech sister of the Trickster, the Harlequin has better focus on melee at the cost of airspeed.

History

With The Scourge Infestation many mechs were called into action. The agile Trickster was among them. The mech's speed and ranged utility proved a good asset against the the skirmishing abilities of the Throg's swarm. But some where overcome, and when the Throg got their hands on the new technology found in that mech, they found a great new asset to add to their own army. As Lance Commander Howard Tanner later recalled the first known encounter with a Harlequin:

“Was probably one of the more horrifying moments I had facing the Throg. We had a Trickster pilot, Alice, who had gone MIA a few missions back. We were moving through some blasted out city when we saw the distinct outline of a Trickster up on the rooftop. We thought it was Alice at first, figured she'd somehow had held on all this time. We tried hailing her, that's when the quill shots started coming. We returned fire and that's when it lunged off the building top streaming those strange purple vapor trails, we saw the gleam of buzz and a claw seemingly haphazardly stuck to arms with that bio-matter meat stuck to it and we knew something had gone horribly wrong. Damn thing ripped through half my lance before we put it down including an assault mech at close range. Finally, the Lakota just unloaded with everything. I was as rocked by those darn missiles as the other mech was, but my armor held out, her's didn't: blown to pieces. When we checked the wreckage there was no mistaking it, hidden under meat was the markings of Alice's mech. Dunno what happened to the poor girl, but those bastard Throg, what a mess. It was like watching some nightmarish carnival performance as that thing danced through my mechs slashing claw and blade, like a clown a carnage, a harlequin of horror.”

Description

The Harlequin looks like a trickster wrapped in meat. It has sawblades and claws for melee which inflict knockdown, and instead of a Strife Jet, it has a Bio Wing which is functionally similar to a JumpJet. On top of the melee weapons the Harlequin comes with a shoulder mounted quill-sniper. The Harlequin's melee weapons do superior damage compared to the Trickster and inflict knockdown, which can fluster many opponents in close.

Without the strife jet the Harlequin can not get around as quickly as it's technological sister, however it can stay in the air for long periods of time with the help of that Bio Wing and its inherently high Buoyancy. Like the Trickster the Harlequin is not the most robust mech, making for a good skirmishing unit that can get in close and do some serious damage in melee.

Other Notes

The Quill Sniper has a very broad hit-box, making it easy to hit targets, but also easy to hit cover, do not aim low with this gun. If you intend on sticking with it, Personic Acid Cannons and Thorn rifles allow you to match the projectile's speed and travel path so all your shots will hit the same general area. Otherwise, a lot of people like to switch over to more instantaneous or high-yield projectile weaponry on the Harlequin.

The Harlequin's melee attacks are quite potent and inflict knockdown with a 180 degree attack arch. This allows a Harlequin to get near an enemy mech and run circles around it while flailing its arms creating a death dance that can potentially lock the enemy into an immobile state.

Trivia

The original design of the Harlequin was actually intended as a technological mech, and sported a black and white checkered pattern over it's facade, similar to 'harlequin' fabric print commonly worn by clowns and mimes. It also featured large, pin-wheel shaped spinning melee blades and no shoulder-mounted gun. The decision to re-texture and re-brand the Harlequin as a bio-mech caused a great deal of tension between the builder and MCM's owners at the time. A compromise was met, where a technological counterpart would be released (which became known as the Trickster), and a set of more organic-looking melee blades were made for the Harlequin. However, these new organic blades were not included with the retail version of the mech at the time.

The original design of the Harlequin was greatly inspired by the Eldar Harlequins from Warhammer 40,000.