Why on earth does Steel Wolves have both the green and veteran Cavalier Battle Armor from Dark Age? They are practically identical - the green version costs 2 less and has one less click, but beside that they are the same. WHY were these in the same set? Especially in DA, when there were only three units of each type to begin with?

For the same exact reason we have three Mad Cat IIs.

Explain

just because we do. We have 3 Mad Cat 2's because SW are a splinter faction from the great clan wolf,m and the Mad Cat is their signatrue mech. as to the pair of Cav BA, not sure exactly why.

But is it a problem that we have 2 different cav BA?

Considering the cavaliers are not that great of a battle armor in the first place, what is the hang up? I would be more miffed if say, DF got two versions of the Trike.

I don't see anything wrong with that. ;) :rolleyes:

Seriously though, there seems to be a number of instances where factions haven't received units that are traditionally linked to them (or at least to the House that they represent) ... DF not having a Kage unit, a Locust, or more Panthers all come to mind.



Wolverine

I always saw the imbalance as being representative of most of the Cavalier suits in Prefectures III and IV being found among the materiel of the military units assigned to Prefecture IV and thus under the command of Kal Radick. When Radick went rogue and formed the Steel Wolves he took the majority of the Cavaliers in that region of space with him.

I think the other Dark Age Cavaliers were Swordsworn weren't they? That represents a minority of the other Cavaliers that were part of Prefecture IV's defenses having renounced Radick and sworn themselves to Aaron Sandoval instead.

I'm not quite following this. SW has the MCII's in abundance because it's the parent faction's signature mech. Cavaliers are a House Davion signature piece, so any faction other than SS having them, especially a clan faction, seems even more bizarre.

If ownership is a matter of geography, then shouldn't SS have the MCIIs as well?

The "signature 'mech" thoery does not hold up for the Mad Cat IIs anyway. The Timberwolf is a signature Wolf 'Mech. The Mad Cat II is a Sea Fox 'mech produced for sale. It is "signature" to whoever has the cash for it.

Well I'm not sure why, it just seems that SW and Bannsons are favored by WK and the Laou and SS are the whipping boy.

We have a Kage, it is the LE version, but we have one, and we may not have a locust but it isnt like we dont have any other small, fast fragile mechs.

Liao are new. Even as such, they've got a solid number of units. Many of those units may be far from stellar, but that's a common situation in this game. Some units are great and some stink. If all of a faction's units were awesome, people would scream cheese.

The SS are, well, part of me really wishes I could go off about how poor the SS units are, but I'm convinced that WK tries to balance the factions. I can't believe that WK really likes one faction more than another. They love profitability, which a special ability not granted to most game companies.

"Wizkids hates my faction," is a common refrain. I think there are times when a faction does get the short end of the stick in a booster, but that it's attributable to the fact that there is a finite number of units in a booster set and a limited amount of time to crosscheck which faction has which units. WK really does seem to try to match unit abilities to faction characteristics, which is rather thoughtful. In short, give it time. SS will get some better units and cool uniques and the Liao ranks will be filled out.

I think one of the things that WK made up the whole "Republican Golden Age of Peace" thing to do, and that they've reinforced several times with the free trade pacts forged between the Republic and the Lyran Commonwealth, is that everything has been sold and stolen and captured and gifted and traded on the black market between every state in the Inner Sphere, Clans, apparently, included thanks to the Steiners, Sea Foxes and, maybe, enterprising Jade Falcon merchants.

Any of the old "Faction Equipment Assignment Tables" from CBT would be pretty irrelevant these days, it would seem, because every bit of military hardware in the IS has been shuffled around from state to state by ambitious merchants without much government oversight. Just because a particular faction has made a unit in the past doesn't mean that those units will just stay with that faction, it seems more than likely that the Golden Age caused that materiel to be scattered on the solar winds and could pop up anywhere in the Republic in almost anyone's hands. Some factions might have more of a certain unit (thus more common figures) than others, but there probably isn't a sharp line between those who can have a particular piece and those who can't anymore.

Its what leggerdemain said, PLUS when the comms blackout starts, everyone tries to get their hands on ANYTHING. So mechs are the first thing they go after. Result: everyone has mis-matched mechs. Like everyone having Ullers (clan desing, so they are priority targets for "acquiring"), or the Thor in DF hands, or the Arbalest in Raiders and the lack of Arbalest in SC hands (The arbalest is a Clan Nova Cat design, some were gifted to the ROTS).
Bannson got their hands on a batch of arbalests (perhaps bribing the official guarding the storehouse), and SC didng get their hands on any. (excluding Janis, but she got the very first arbalest built)

WHAT?! Maybe Bannsons is favored, but SW is definitely not. They only have one hlfway decent artillery piece, and many of their raging dials are not good enough to justify taking them in to battle IMO.

HL is Wizkids official whipping boy. Liao just gets the red headed step child routine until they get some more units in CA.

SS is definitely one of the most powerful factions if you have the right pieces. Sweet units being:
SS Balac
SS J-37
SS Fenrir
SS DI Towed AA Artillery
SS Sniper (it has never missed :confused: )
SS Towed Autocannon
SS Hoverbike Squad
Their 'Mechs are lackluster, but they have a LOT of good units.