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Rating:
Reviewed by: David "MacAttack" McCulloch
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Wolf's Dragoons
FASA 1989 ISBN 1-5556-075-1
The Product:
Under the command the enigmatic Colonel Jamie Wolf, the mercenary unit known as Wolf's Dragoons first appeared in the Inner Sphere in 3005. Since that time they have worked for (and against) every Successor State.
Their origins a mystery, the Dragoons fielded five complete line Regiments and a plethora of support and independent Battalions and Companies, including the infamous Black Widow Company under the command of the First Lady of Death herself, Natasha Kerensky.
In a change from the normal format, this is a pure sourcebook with no scenarios or MechWarrior statistics for any of the personalities described. The book details the history of the Dragoons in detail. From the time they entered service with the Federated Suns, through their involvement in the Marik Civil War and their pivotal role in the 4th Succession War.
A complete breakdown of the Dragoon's is provided, along with thumbnail descriptions of their key personnel. Additional sections outline the Dragoon's friends and enemies and provide speculation on their true origins.
A 'mini TRO' of eleven 'Mech and six vehicle designs give the details of equipment used by the Dragoon's, including the unparalleled Marauder II, the first printing of the Wolfhound and the Dragoon's own OmniVehicles.
The Good:
The quality of the writing is exceptional, with the flowing narrative of the history drawing the reader along. The unit and personnel thumbnail descriptions avoid falling into a repetitive pattern with each and every one making interesting reading in there own right.
In contrast to many later publications, the Mech designs presented in Wolf's Dragoons are actually correct. Even more encouragingly, the artwork for the new Mechs and vehicles is quite good. Not as sharp as the 3050 TRO, but quite good.
The Bad:
The same critical error as that made in the Kell Hounds is repeated with unit composition broken down to individual MechWarrior level. As the Dragoon's are a significantly bigger unit than the Hounds, this generated page after page of unit listings.
This problem is compounded by the fact that the fate of each member of the unit is also listed. As the Dragoon's took such heavy casualties in the 4th Succession War, this means that upward of two thirds of the people listed are dead.
As the thumbnail descriptions of the units and their officers provides all the information anybody really needs.
In all, twenty pages are wasted with this material, and the same mistake would later be repeated in the Wolf Clan and Jade Falcon Sourcebooks.
The artwork varies wildly from good to bad in standard FASA style. Portraits of the personalities outlined would have completed this book nicely.
Continuity:
The history section gathers all the previous details on the Dragoon's history from the House Books and various other publications and weaves them into a coherent whole. The standard of writing shows that great care was taken and there are not jarring inconsistencies. Some minor points in the fluff text from the Black Widows may not quite sit comfortably, but as this was one of the first BattleTech publications it is not totally surprising that things do not mesh exactly.
The true origins of the Dragoon's are never disclosed here. Although one of the suggested motives for them was that they were performing a recon mission for the returning Star League Defense Force, no hint of the Clans is included.
The OmniVehicles are an ominous precursor to the technology the Clans would ultimately unleash.
The Wolfhound head matches that seen in the 3050 technical readout, but (for reasons I have never had an explanation for) the first miniatures had a completely different head. This was fixed in a later resculpting.
The novel, Wolves on the Border, covers some of the events, but does not include the Dragoon's titanic struggle against the Draconis Combine after the battle of Misery. The two 4th Succession War Atlases cover Jamie Wolf's personal war with the Dragon in great detail. Somebody was paying attention to detail and continuity however, so nothing slips.
Conclusion:
Despite the dreadful waste of space, there is no impression that something else was cut thankfully. Overall it is an excellent product that could have been improved very marginally.
If you are looking for anything about the Clans, then this book will probably disappoint, but for anybody with even a mild curiosity about the Dragoon's early exploits in the Inner Sphere there is no better source of information.
Wolf's Dragoon's rank as one of the best all time BattleTech products and is awarded 4 Timber Wolves. If you are a Dragoon fan, then you just have to get this one.
The Story Continues:
Following the 4th Succession War, the Dragoons change quite significantly. Some of this is outlined in the scenario More Tales of The Black Widow Company, while the stresses the mercenaries experience following the Clan Invasion are depicted in the Novel Wolf Pack. The Blood of Kerensky series gives some insights into their origin and their training methods.
Beyond this point, the Dragoon's have languished in a kind of limbo, often mentioned in passing, but never doing anything. Although hauled out of the closet for the fighting on Coventry, the focuses of those events were elsewhere and the "toughest mercenaries In the Inner Sphere" were just there to make up the numbers.
Naturally the Dragoons get a section in the Mercenary Handbooks and Field Manual, but these publications are always frustratingly lacking in new insight, instead just recycling the same old information.
Perhaps because it has the opportunity to go into the kind of detail I want, the Wolf's Dragoons of the 3025 era come across as meaner, leaner and more competent than their successors in 3050 and later.
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