What is a Vulture?
...'tis an Omnimech mate ^_^
The Mad dog serves mostly as a fire-support 'Mech. Many Mechwarriors have remarked about the foreboding feeling they sensed before looking up to see a Mad Dog perched on a ridge, firing missiles at the raging battle below, just waiting for its victims to die before swooping down for the carrion. The twin racks of 20 long-range missiles can hasten along the enemy's death; should the Mad Dog injure it and enemy at long range it can take fate into it's own hands, or arms in this case, and use its laser weapons to finish off it's foe.

- Mad Dog Battletech TRO
The Vulture (or "Mad Dog" as it's called by the Clans) is a fire support Omnimech from Battletech. Omnimechs, and Battlemechs are a special type of vehicle that appears in Battletech. Usually bipdeal in appearance and with a mobile turret-like torso, with similary mobile gun mounts at the sides. The high mobility of the mech, and it's extensive weapon systems and armour makes a 'mech capable of taking on almost any conventional opponent in the field.

'Mechs have numerous on board systems that are too numerous to mention here, but the core parts of a Battlemech or Omnimech are as follows; Torso the torso has the weapon systems mounted both in it, and the arm fixtures are attached to it, the torso itself can rotate (varying amounts on each mech), to help keep the enemy in it's sights, the torso is the heaviest armoured point on the mech, but if the torso is breached internal damage will occur, perhaps even resulting in the on-board reactor exploding violently. The "arms" are further mobile usually, and track independantly of the torso, as a result a skilled pilot can shoot backwards if need be. The legs of the mech are the most controvertial part of a mech the legs make the difference between a tank and a 'Mech really, they allow the mech to traverse extremely rough terrain, and travel at suprising speeds, however they're also a weak spot, since damage can cripple the myomers and actuators leading to limping, loss of speed - or in extreme cases complete paralysis. The Mech usually has a reenforced glass cockpit, the cockpit contains the life support systems and the pilot, while extremely hard to hit, and even harder to breech, it is technically speaking the weakest point on the mech, since a penetrating hit will usually incapacitate or kill the pilot, or at the very leats injure him to a point he control the mech effectivly.

The Vulture is a fairly average Clan Mech, it's more-or-less symetrical in design mounting pairs of weapons (giving a backup in case of extensive damage to one of it's weapon systems). It's mostly designed for combat from extreme range, packing Long Range missile racks and large pulse laser mountings. It does however have a pair of Medium Pulse lasers in it's nose turret so if something should get too close it'll find it's armour getting stripped away at an alarming rate from the Medium laser's blistering rate of fire.
Unlike many mechs, the Vulture has the ability to turn it's torso 360 degrees, this means that the pilot can attack any enemy, no matter where he is relative to the mech, the arm-swing abilty then lends even greater aiming flexibility. The Vulture isn't a particular fast mech, only clocking up 85kph, but it's fast to keep out of the main fray, and rain missiles onto the enemy. One note is the Vulture isn't all that well armoured for a mech of it's size, but since it's meant as a stand-off threat, this isn't really an issue.

The "Funky Chicken" variant that comes with this pack is a customised Vulture built to Mechwarrior 4 specifications, it is not an official Battletech unit but rather a user customisation of one. I chose to include this variant since it mounts 2 PPCs, and Total Annihilation had the technology to hand to simulate the PPC quite closely to the Battletech form of it, basicly a bit of eye candy and extra mass destructivness. The Funky Chicken does a lot more damage than the normal Vulture and is heavier armoured, but at the cost of speed and it has no tertiary weapon systems (Severe damage may leave it un-armed)