@hakkenshi: I would think the shift to a low defense / high attack paradigm would normally benefit the Highlanders, except all the Highlander units which could profit by it will get eliminated by set retirement!

I think Hardened Armor SE might be the new Highlander paradigm, or something. Who knows.

The new design team apparently realized the DF paradigm was the most popular and propagated it to the rest of the factions. I don't like that very much. Being hard to hit should be someone's gimmick.

Sylth have Speed mode VTOL?

No Capture attempts. Dirty.

Non-unque Pathers and Spider? I'll take. And I honestly don't see how a Laio Panther coud suck. If it looks like a panther, and is 100 odd points i'm all over it.

-BA

Wow, if thats what you think the worst they have done is, then I envy you. Your needs seem so easy to meet;)

@The_Phantom: Well, I think overall they've made decisions without really taking into account the prejudices of those of us who came into this game because of CBT. Hey, that's mostly fine by me. MWDA has to survive as a game entirely in its own right. It has to be a rewarding game experience for people who've never even heard of CBT and have a lot of replay value.

Infantry in CBT are very slow WRT 'Mechs; MWDA infantry are blindingly fast. Well, OK, I dealt with that.

CBT 'Mechs can have heat issues but it's never the dramatic factor that it is to MWDA 'Mechs. OK, I dealt with that.

The ratio of the typical MWDA 'Mech's speed to its weapons range is much higher than it usually is in CBT.

Charging in CBT is a tactic for the suicidally desperate. In MWDA it was for a long time the whole point of 'Mechs, and special attacks remain important and viable offensive options. OK, I dealt with that.

Artillery in CBT is something of a bad joke. This has been the hardest difference to swallow, but I did.

Faction abilities represented a risky decision on WK's part to import fluff into gameplay. For House Liao they did an acceptable job. But to make a physical attack a primary part of the arsenal of a True Clan of Kerensky will infuriate me if this is in fact what will happen. (I have no idea if the rumor that was dropped will have any degree of truth to it and I hope that it does not.)

I see no point to making CJF a bunch of DFA specialist clowns except as a DELIBERATE insult to CBT fans. I don't care if it stemmed from either malice or ignorance; I find both inexcusable. I don't know which of the game designers had the creativity breakdown which led to this being (possibly) adopted instead of some other faction ability which would have made CJF no less attractive. I'm sure that the people who post to this forum could have come up with no less than a dozen perfectly playable ideas which would have agreed with canonical ideas about Clan tactics.

Didn't they learn anything from the Arnis Debacle?

I pity Victor Milan and Stackpole and Coleman if they are going to have to write this into their fiction.

Nice.

wow, nice, i'm with you,

only now am i learning CBT (both rules and fluff) and i like it, but i have taken the same attitude as my BM ( a collecter with well over 300 cbt mechs) that MWDA is not CBT and should be treated in the same way Robotech and CBT is, same mechs difernt art, in other words its its own game and so it should evolve and grow in its own way even though those ways don't always make sense

I am excited. DF better get the Elite Panther, and it better have an energy attack--they have PPC's for crying out loud.

I am enthralled by the chance of a SC Warhammer II, and hopeful of 6 damage.

Also, the Sylph BA are intriguing. Gives Base/Break a whole new name and meaning. Can base anything on turn 2.

Oh, and Wizkid's train of thought. "Hey Jade Falcons, like birds! What if they could attack from the sky, like birds! Let's do it! And we'll make their choppers really good, too! And all their 'mechs will have wings! Green ones! Because they're birds!"

Mark my words, they'll have choppers to put the :^^^: Balac to shame.

Actually catsup_fiend there have been special instances of physical attacks being used by clan warriors. Jade Falcon warriors to be exact as well. Could this willingness to use these tactics evolve into a preference for DFAs? Maybe, maybe not. But the Jade Falcons have used physical attacks before. So it really shouldn't come as some huge insult.

Ok I can see how DFA will be the new favorate pasttime of the cheeseballs if this faction ability comes true. There is however a big historical precedent for Jade falcons being DFA specialist.

1) they ALWAYS Hot Dropped, and their warriors made sport of landing on top of enemy machines

2) There was lots of DFAing in old fiction. (Adian Pryde did it at least a couple of times)

3)Hate to say it but they ARE birds. and WK designers are dopy enough to do such a thing

I play Swordsworn. I don't own a single :^^^: Balac. I feel they're
over-rated. I prefer the :^^: SSw Sprint in a harrassment role.
Swordsworn has plenty of other sources for AP attacks. And they
have better defenses. ;)

So, putting the :^^^: Balac to shame shouldn't be that difficult,
IMHO.

ARGHY BLAR BLAH!!!! NO SW, ME GO sUpER CrAzY!!!!!!! hfsddfdgs!!!! AHH!!!! ME SoOo AHH!!!! *Twitches Eye* *And Goes To Crawlspace*!

wuh?!?!? i dun want anymore elite DF units... alll i got of DF are elites!! yea the whole army is red and all cool looking and stuff but still elites dun come easy... oh yea and as for the PPC.... Abeda shoots out 2 SRM4... the ones that got a max range of 12 and a min range of 2... i wonder how da #### wk pull that one outta their ### they are called short range missile for a reason... should have been 2 target ballistic for 2 AnP 0/6 range...[p.s. somewhere on the wk website there's a panther shooting ballistic out of its PPC, look around and you'll see it]

hmmm a sport of landing on enermy's head.... sound like fun... i actually DFA more than i charge, since most of my agility mechs got JJ... let see now... charge and miss i take 2 damage, hit and still take 2 damage.... or DFA and take 1 if hit and 2 if miss... plus no heat for DFA...

as for the list there... seem kinda odd that Liao only getting 1 U/LE.... usually they get like 5 of the same mech that basily all do the same stupid thing... hey i'm happy as least they aint taking up all the space in my booster....

as for the SS balac... my DF shun put that thing to shame :-p

Mechs with only 22 defense tops? Ugh. I hope they do some more playtesting to balance things out. Or up the defense a bit. This is getting to be an offense strike happy set. I'm guessing the HL Templar design will be based off MW4.

For every anecdotal reference you have for an isolated Clan warrior using physical attacks, I'm sure I can find two or three general statements in CBT sourcebooks (and rulebooks even, namely MaxTech and BF2) stating that Clanners don't use them. There are even codified rules stating at what levels of honor the Clans will abandon them.Specific reference? I don't count Aidan Pryde; in fact, I specifically discount him because he a notorious iconoclast.

I'm not going to buy any argument that the Jade Falcons evolved a preference for DFA. The reason I won't buy it is that it makes no sense for the Clans to keep zellbrigen yet drop their inhibitions about physical attacks. They almost certainly would keep both or drop both. Why would they adopt part of the Inner Sphere way of combat but not another? It's going to take some very powerful logic to sway me.