Khobai, on 28 November 2012 - 06:10 AM, said:
no they dont. most mechs have their main weapons in their torsos.
Lets run down the list shall we?
Commando, center torso slots, and arm slots, and it isn't exaclty SLs in those arms
Jenner, center torso slots and arm slots,
Raven, Slots all over the bloody place, haven't counted them cause I haven't picked one up.

Cicada, Torso slots... so thats 1 to you.
Centurion, heavy weapons all in that right arm, lasers in CT and missiles in LT. So arm shots still count.
Hunchback, 2 arm slots, giant piles of torso slots... thats 2 to you, but most hunchies have lots of HS in the arms cause the torsos are crowed
Dragon, Heavy weapons in the RA, energy in the LA, and slots in the torsos
Catapult, Well the Gaussapult has gauss rifles in the torso... but the rest have those GIANT arms full of missiles.
Cataphract, Lots of toys everywhere, but still got those critical hard points in the arms...
Awesome, one arm with slots everything else in the torso... lets count that one as well.
Atlas, Arm slots for energy weapons, the rest in the chest... so you get another.
So I count 4 out of 11 with the big guns in the chest. And of those, only the Cicada has no arm mounted weapons. The Cicada is also the only one who isn't going to be cramming the arms full with everything that wont fit in that rather crowded chest. So out of 11 chassis, we have exactly 1 that isn't affected in any way by having its arms blown off. Even the 4 with all the heavy stuff in the chest will notice the loss of an arm in their overall effectiveness. All of the rest take a hit, and many of them take a big hit with the loss of one or more arm.
Any damage you can deal to any enemy mech (thinking about those games where teammates shot me in the *** here) on the field is good damage. 3 points delt to the left arm of anything on the field is 3 points less armor for the brawlers to contend with when they start doing their job. And of course... if I think I'm only going to hit with 3 missiles out of 30, I just hold the shot for a better target.
At any rate, the ECM Jennies are perfectly acceptable to me. I think of them as an encouragement to teamwork and situational awareness.