Summoner

Why it earns its tonnage

Seventy tons, walk five, run eight, jump five, and every one of the 17 configurations shares that same movement profile. The Prime spends its pod space on an ER PPC, an LB 10-X and an LRM 15, for 4/4/4 on the Alpha Strike card: a flat four at short, medium and long range. Balance, not a spike at any one distance, is the entire design signature.

Victor Steiner-Davion is the reason the Inner Sphere calls this the Thor. He fought a Prime configuration at Trellwan and named it afterward himself, reasoning that the PPC and the autocannon together read as lightning and thunder. It is a rare thing on this site: an Inner Sphere name attached to a real person, a real battle, and a real piece of reasoning, rather than a targeting-computer accident or a slur invented in a back alley.

The jump jets are not a configuration choice. Every OmniMech on this site trades some pod space for mobility in at least one configuration and holds it back in others. This chassis has never made that trade conditional. Jump five is fixed equipment on every single refit across two hundred and seventy-six years of production, which means the question a warrior asks about a Summoner is never "can it jump," only "which direction will it use that for."

What that costs. Fixed jump jets are tonnage that is not going into pod space, same as fixed engine and structure. Fourteen double heat sinks on the Prime is a modest allowance for a machine expected to fire its whole primary loadout in one alpha, and several of the later configurations exist mainly to buy that heat budget back with additional sinks rather than additional guns.

Nine years behind Clan Coyote, and still running

Clan Jade Falcon became the first Clan to win OmniMech technology from Clan Coyote, in a Trial fought in 2863. The Summoner, first produced in 2872 at the Svarstaad Industriplex Gamma, was barely a second-generation design and already the machine the Falcons built their doctrine around. It remains one of their most recognisable signatures: a Clan Coyote adage warns that seeing a Falcon not in a Summoner, a Hellbringer or a Kit Fox is the moment to double one's caution.

The design itself descends from the Thresher, a non-Omni BattleMech co-developed alongside it, and the Summoner is the OmniMech expression of the same idea: speed, jump capability and pod space in a package a technician can reconfigure for whatever Trial is next.

Longevity is the part of this chassis's record that actually stands out. Clan Jade Falcon eventually supplanted it in their own ranks with the Grand Summoner during the Dark Age, but Clan Hell's Horses kept the original in production at Svarstaad, and by 3150 the Summoner held a distinction neither Timber Wolf nor Dire Wolf can claim: the oldest continuously produced OmniMech in the Clan touman. The J configuration in this table, dated 3148, is that late production speaking for itself.

How these are rated

Every verdict below is against other Summoner configurations. As with every OmniMech on this site, the Trap test finds nothing on armour, frame or engine, since all seventeen share them. The tiers are judgement, not arithmetic.

Only the Trap tier is calculated. It is worked out from the variant data rather than decided by me, which means it is falsifiable: to argue with it you only have to name something the cheaper machine gives up. The other three are my opinion and you should treat them that way. 2 of the 17 Summoner variants fail the Trap test. The full rating scale is here, including what it deliberately does not measure.

The configurations worth arguing about

All 17 are in the table further down. These are the ones that change what you are actually facing.

On the table

Fielding one. The jump jets are not an emergency option, they are the plan. Use height, use terrain a walking machine cannot cross, and pick the range band the loadout actually wants before the enemy picks it for you.

Opposing one. At 2145 to 3092 Battle Value, do not assume the ground rules of the fight stay fixed. A Summoner that jumps behind cover one turn and reappears somewhere else the next is doing exactly what it was built to do. Watch the terrain it can reach, not just the terrain in front of it.

What I observe going wrong. Warriors who have fought a Daishi or an Atlas bring the same assumptions to this machine and lose the positional argument before the shooting starts. Seventy tons with jump five plays by different rules than a hundred tons with none.

Against OpFor Command

If you run solo games with our AI opponent, the Summoner is close to a mirror image of the Dire Wolf, and deliberately so.

• All 17 configurations carry Jump 5. The engine will use height and terrain that most Dire Wolf configurations, or an Atlas, simply cannot reach, every single time it is fielded.
• Roles split fairly evenly across Sniper, Skirmisher and one Missile Boat, so the tactical picture still changes configuration to configuration even though the mobility profile never does.
• Put a Summoner on the table when you want a scenario with real vertical terrain in play. Put a Dire Wolf there when you want the opposite problem.

All 17 configurations

Damage figures are the Alpha Strike short, medium and long values. Every configuration shares the same engine, frame and armour, so only the pods change.

Where and when you can field it

Availability for the Prime by era, straight off the Master Unit List.

Related designs

Other machines that do the same job

Take it to the table

Common questions

Stats on this page are generated directly from our variant database, which is reconciled against the Master Unit List for Battle Value, introduction dates and per-era faction availability. Alpha Strike damage values are the standard card figures. If you spot something wrong, tell me and I will fix it.