OBT Forum

I like that one I like that's it's action shots flying through the air

I wasn't a fan of the big long rifles look of the art, and whilst yes the arm flipping is good, you can't do it the normal way IE going clockwise and 'over' the shoulder' with it due to the Partial wing system being in the way, or potentially being in the way if you need to jump.  So instead you have to go counter clockwise and rotate the arms down to point backwards and that just puts a whole extra level of stress on the shoulder joint as it has to rotate all that way around.  You'd also have to sacrifice any real ability to move the arms, they would have to be fixed rifles that could only elevate and depress. You loose any flexibility of them being arm mounted because any aiming would have to be done with the torso as there's no left or right panning with the guns otherwise.  And then there's there's the AC's on the shoulders.  Not a bad thing in itself, they were on a gimballed mount so you could at least pan then and seemingly elevate them too.  But I don't even wanna think of how complicated you'd have to make the ammo feed for the guns if they went from the torso into the shoulder if you've got to have a fully rotating shoulder mount that goes the 'wrong' way when it rotates.

By massively shortening the lasers from their NL-55 mounts and swapping positions with the ACs to get some actual arms you get a lot more flexibility.  With hands you can move things aside (trees etc) or punch a hole in something to stick your gun through rather than having to use the barrel of a laser as a club.  You'd also have a damn sight easier time trying to stand up with a hand and bendy arm than trying to use the lasers as stilts. And that got me thinking about how hard it would be to stand up with arms like that. Something like a Warhammer could do it by resting on one arm as they have an elbow joint, and then jamming the other gun into the ground and using that as a stilt until you get your feet under you and can stand. But without an elbow joint it would be a bloody nightmare.
You'd have to like..roll onto your belly and then it all depends where the arms are.  If the arms were forwards and I would now assume pointing 'up' past your head, you'd have to either do it entirely with the legs or spin the arms round over your shoulders , digging one or both guns into the floor to lever yourself up until you can get a leg under you.   (and now I'm wondering how something like a Vanquisher or Stalker would stand up, unless they scooted along on their 'nose' and then slammed it into reverse, making the Mech rear back enough for them to shove a leg forwards and get it under them enough to stand, otherwise they'd basically be doing this - https://imgur.com/gallery/nJGuVl8  :s )

I know i'm over thinking this and I'm not criticising your points, but rather pointing out what I didn't like about the original art/design.  The 'mini-Shrike' look is kind of deliberate and perhaps a 'subtle' (in a Clan way) attempt at deception.  Think of this as the Hipper to the Shrike's Bismarck.  The Germans very deliberately made their battleship and heavy cruiser look the same in almost every regard (apart from scale obviously) so to trick and decive an opponent or someone who spots one.
Same kind of thing here, some PBI sees a Mech coming towards him (or a group of them) and radios it in, and its a 'big thing with wings' and his commander could now be thinking "Oh god, its an assault Mech."