With the end of the Federated Commonwealth Civil War, Archon Peter Steiner and Grand Duke Morgan Kell found themselves with a serious problem.
The various battles of the Civil War and the Jade Falcon Incursion had inflicted massive casualties on the units fronting the Jade Falcon border. To make matters worse, many of their most important units are mercenaries, and almost all of them had been severely abused in the fighting. Barber's Marauders and Storm's Metal Thunder had been wiped out; the Blue Star Irregulars had lost a regiment's worth of men; many other units like the Grave Walkers and Brion's Legion had also taken serious losses.
In order to shore up their flagging defenses, help out the mercenaries under their employ, and also to entice yet more mercenary units to fight under the Lyran banner, the Archon, along with the Grand Duke and Khan Phelan Kell, came up with their brainchild, the Loup Garou, using clan technology brought in by the Wolves in Exile.
Since its inception, the Loup Garou has been routed to all of the Lyran Commonwealth's mercenary and regular units on the clan border.
Extremely well received, the design is fast earning a reputation amongst the Jade Falcons as a vicious contender on the ground. Even the Diamond Sharks on Twycross have come asking the Wolves in Exile and Kell Hounds for plans for the mech; they estimate production of the design at Trellshire Heavy Industries to start in a year's time.

In many ways a bigger, better Wolfhound upgraded with cutting edge clan weaponry, the Loup Garou is an incredibly simple yet effective combat design.
Its amazingly low cost makes it even more attractive to mercenary units. Meant for general frontline combat as well as heavy raiding, the Loup Garou can fulfill either role well.
In fact, the design uses an upscaled version of the Wolfhound's KH chassis, modified with the clan grade endo steel that is rapidly being brought into production in the Arc Royal Theatre's various orbital manufacturing facilities.
Its armor protection is ferro fibrous armor, also of clan quality. While this might be a problem, Khan Kell initially assured that the supply of the armor will be adequate.
In the end, it turned out the Diamond Sharks at Twycross were more than willing to sell, which neatly solves the supply problem. Twycross' central position on the border doesn't hurt; the Diamond Sharks are making a booming business out of selling weapons and tech to all buyers on the edgy front(Come one, come all! Enough guns for you to blow each oth... I mean, your enemies up!).
Speed for the Loup Garou was adequate for its weight class, and Morgan Kell consciously used a standard Vlar engine available from Edasich Motors in order to keep costs down.
Maintainence is easy for the techs, and duty on Loup Garous are highly sought after(No, it's my turn today!).
The Loup Garou's weapons consists of just two weapon types, clan large pulse lasers and heavy lasers, all tied to a targeting computer. The targeting computer was added in after the mercenary consultants on the project mentioned that most of the new mechwarriors entering their units are likely to be green recruits fresh out of cheap private schools and academies; they needed every edge they could get to even hit an immobile target(whaddya mean by NOT hitting the broad side of a barn?!?).
The large pulse lasers, imported from the Wolves in Exile's facilities on Arc Royal, provide deadly accurate long range firepower, while the heavy lasers provide the equivalent of 3 Inner Sphere PPCs at close range. The design essentially forces opponents to choose one of two evils. Either suffer the deadly accuracy of the large pulse lasers at long range, or get smashed at close range by the heavy lasers. An ECM suite provides some electronic warfare defense, and has proved to be useful in negating clan Narc and Artemis systems.
The Loup Garou features fully articulated hands on both arms, a concession to the unique run-and-grab salvage tactics of many mercenaries. The mech has also been seen on many border worlds helping out in construction when not in combat. This has proved to be a public relations coup for many mercenary units(See that spanking new mall? Yup, my boys built that!).

The Falcons and the Lyrans on Blair Atholl had arranged two 'training sessions' per week, and both sides were settling into somewhat of a routine(warriors from opposing sides would sometimes meet up in bars and have a drink) when the first Loup Garou arrived, along with a test pilot, and a whole bevy of engineers and techs desperate to prove the merits of their design.
Almost immediately during the next 'training session', the Loup Garou piloted by Star Captain [Classified] brought down three clan heavies in a series of classic one on one duels. The first one, a Summoner Prime, tried to stay at long range, but realized that his weapons could hardly hit the target while those of the Loup Garou's were hitting back relatively easily. He fell when his mech ran out of LRM and LBX ammo.
The second mech, a Loki C, tried to close in, only to be savaged by the large pulse lasers, and then torn apart by the heavy mediums.
The last mech, a Night Gyr, expected little difficulty in putting down the Loup Garou, which had been badly damaged in the previous fights. As it turned out, the Night Gyr's pilot is now a bondsman currently cleaning the Wolves in Exile base mess hall on Blair Atholl.
The prototype Loup Garou eventually ended up during the final assault on Terra, where it participated in the very last battle around the Star League Court.

One suggested variant replaces the pulse lasers with extended range lasers, while putting in more heat sinks, to give an extended range combat sniper.
Another easy refit replaces a large pulse laser for a PPC, but problems would frequently crop up with the targeting computer, which seems unable to handle three weapons types.

Loup Garous are deployed all along the Jade Falcon front. Most Lyran mercenary units on the clan front have at least one Loup Garou, while most Lyran regular regiments have two.
Khan Kell has also deployed two stars of the mech in his 4th Wolf Guards on Crimond, while the Kell Hounds field a lance.