well basicly to avoid lots of issues wouldnt it be easier to end retirement from AOD till .....

With the AoD rulset atvs and arty aren't as big a problem as they once were, or so I'm told. The schmitts got replaced by kelswas and the arty got replaced by....arty. May I ask why you fell that there is a loss of competitive play? I don't belive you are drawing a logical conclusion here.

My thoughts on this issue.

I am glad this happened.

After observing Mechwarrior in a year and a half after set retirement, all the promises expected from retirement never happened.

** Instead of relaxing this, Power Creep intensified. The noob is supposed to get terrified by a DF Schmitt/Maxim tank drop is now forced to play against a Yami army, a Pre Nerf Twins army, or a Solitude army. For a noob, Solitude or Yami is even more terrifying because of magical special abilities. What more, he cannot get these pieces from boosters, but buying paying mucho dinero in trades. Check how Yami used to cost a year ago, and what Solitude costs in ebay now. It prejudices against players who can't attend conventions, not having the bucks, or is located outside of the US.

** The result of "Let's Milk the Existing Market to Death" has only resulted in accelerated power creep. While the stats have become stable, the Special Abilities, Pilots, and Gear has become more and more outrageous. The pressure is on for one set to exceed that of the previous one.

** If ATVs are a problem, to give a sample of a nonunique metagame unit, issue new ATVs for a new set of players through another set. ATVs are going to be a lot cheaper and easier to obtain and trade, than super rare convention pieces.

** Set retirement does not gain new players. Rather it drives them away knowing that whatever they invest now, would be obsolete.

** For people worrying that people are going to buy less boosters, that's wrong. You're only talking about a vertical approach. You're basically talking about milking an eroding market to keep buying and buying boosters till the last buyer gives up. That is not a growth strategy. That's what you call an autopilot-to-your-death strategy. You need a growth strategy. You need a horizontal approach. You need to expand the market instead. You need not concern about milking existing players to keep buying boosters, but to expand the overall base even if individual players buy less boosters as a result. And the best way to do that is to give them confidence about what they buy as an investment.

** set retirement has given retailers less confidence, knowing their inventories would be obsolete and left unsold. Seen too many stores still have boosters of Dark Age, Falcon's Prey, Liao Incursion, Fire for Effect, etc,.

** Let me get the hammer and hit it hard on the head on some of you. The number of dealers have decreased for Mechwarrior. The number of retailers have decreased for Mechwarrior. Many stores that used to carry them no longer do, including those with wide exposure like Gamestop. The state of the game is spiraling. Seriously. Something desperate needs to be done. The only way to get out of a spiral is to turn to the opposite direction.

** I really cannot see how past ATVs, Maxims, Schmitts, and even artillery pieces be unbeatable or uncounterable. Our tournament legal ATVs from Annihilation are all based on the Liao ATV dial and specs, with some improvements to boot. So clearly set retirement has not stopped such pieces from reappearing in a future set, nor has stopped their effect on the game. And despite what anyone thinks of these old pieces, they are dwarfed compared to the power creep in special abilities, pilot stats, and special gear.

I haven't read other posters' reactions and I don't know whether a flame war has started!! :) Just thought I'd say that. Whatever, I really wanted to respond because I've been thinking on this and I think this really is a good question... here are my thoughts on the matter.


The rescision of retirement is both good and bad. When you ask is it good for the game, however, that appears to be a loaded question. Is it good for the game could mean does it mean the game will be balanced better as a result. Or it could mean will it mean we still have a game in two years time.

For me the answers "Yes" and "No" to those questions mean that we have a balanced game that dies. "No" and "Yes" means we have a game with some balance problems but that continues into the future. "Yes" and "Yes" is a perfect world and we all know the world isn't perfect!! :)


You see we all (those who currently play the game competitively I mean) know that the retirement issue never affected casual play except insofar as people see playing in tournaments as a "right" and that they felt that retirement denied them that "right". Much of the reaction to retirement was irrational (I'm not going to play any more because you are forcing me to buy new, I'm no longer going to buy cases, that sort of thing) and I must admit I cut my expenditure too.

Now my expenditure was cut for two reasons. Cost. Space. Those are the reasons. However retirement brought forward my realisation of both. Retirement made it patently clear I was running out of space and retirement highlighted just how much old stuff I wasn't using. I blamed retirement at the time but as I became more honest with myself I realised it was simply a rational evolution of my playing. With or without retirement I had to cut back, retirement just brought forward the realisation.

Some people who left the game needed a break from it for various reasons. Retirement brought the departure forwards. Here's where the good about removing retirement kicks in. You see these people had, until now, no way to rejoin the game short of charity. There was no way such people would spend enough to play again on the "off chance" they liked the game again. Removing retirement allows them to get back into the competitive scene. This has two benefits. Increased player diversity and attendance at events and the corollary that when old players see some of the exciting new kit, then they will start spending again.

This is, to my mind, the greatest boon of unretiring the pieces. The BM still has control over the most abused older pieces whilst the player base could start to expand again by getting back into the hitherto "lost players". I guarantee if they start to come back, they'll start spending again because this does happen to be quite an addictive game.


Now for the downside. The retired pieces have something of an "aura" about them. Many of them achieved mythical status in the past because they were perceived to be "broken". Also the cries of the pro-retirement band who rallied whenever a "retirement is bad" thread came up was "do you want to see XYZ again?".

Much of the hype is just that, hype. The old cheap command is not as powerful as it used to be simply because 'Mechs, pilots and gear give you some of that on auto. For instance some of the powerful 2nd generation Pulse cards with no second modifier allow a 'Mech to take another 'Mech down by 6-10 clicks in one order. In a 600 point, 50 minute environment there just isn't the time available to play the slow-and-steady Supportwarrior army that loses units early on but gradually wears the opposition down. It just won't work often enough to be top-tier competitive because at every event there are people who are either deliberately or casually slow and these people need just one Pulse to come off to render the "death by paper cut" armies that most used cheap command worthless.

Cheap command will make drop armies more viable, don't get me wrong. They just will never be as dominant because there are equally powerful mechanics available through Gear and Pilot choices. And if they prove to still dominate, the BM can retire them.

Then there is the Arrow IV. That's easy to sort out because its defense is easy enough to hit with a 'Mech. It'll also lose an artillery duel against a Paladin every time. The Swordsworn one is owned by the Steel Wolf one. There are still the Sylphs and the ATVs...

The Maxim/DI Schmitt drop is salvaged after 5 clicks. 5 clicks is pretty easy these days. Heck a CNC PXH - I equipped with Pulse has a potential 23" assault range (longer with Faction Pride) and can deal 6 in one turn, forcing the Maxim to spit out the Schmitt. Sure, the Schmitt is a threat but on the open field with a mere 20 defense on a unit costing nearly 100 points, it is far less of an issue.

The REAL downside to my mind is not whether retired units come back, it's the potential lack of consistency across the globe - even within the same State!! If one venue feels only the "parent" factions are allowed and bans all "child" faction units and also bans all artillery there will be a very different feel to another venue that bans only specific units on a specific unit list. That means when everybody comes together at major events some people will be less capable than others of dealing with that event's restrictions.


However I suspect that whatever WK's standard set of "House" rules happens to be, that will become the norm in competitive venues. Some of these venues are allegedly thriving now, with retirement - although not very many in reality. The venues that are not thriving now at least get a shot in the arm. Whether that will be enough to take them off life support remains to be seen but there is a chance because all the hard work from Envoys and Venues hasn't really done the trick. And the more places selling this product, the more likely we are to still have a game in a year or two years' time. So from that perspective, provided we manage the scope of house rules and work together as a community then I believe that yes, this IS good for the game.

the probability of offending DF fans not withstanding, since a large number of pieces that are so called "Over Powered" belong to the DF faction. Perhaps only that faction should be left retired :knockedou

Heck, I know it won't make a diff to me... :p


btw, Kotch makes a good argument around somewhere in the middle of that long post :)

but really, some good will come out of un-retirement. I am counting on a number of players coming out of the woodwork with their bags full of units. More players at the venue (finally) will translate into more publicity.

We are currently a "novelty" at our venue. People taking a break from Magic, watch us play. Thats it. With more people as part of the MW crowd, it will undoubtedbly act as a draw for players of other games to give us more than a curious glance.

But those old players could have played unrestricted you say? yes! they could. But what they largely had was friendly games. Now they can take part in the official stuff again. And everyone want to be official! :cheeky:

DF's competitiveness lies in a basic faction paradigm that relies on accuracy and speed. Originally Dragon's Fury was the Improved Targeting faction. When IT was moved to the Stormhammers as a faction device, Dragon's Fury moved to high attack values. High attack and speed makes Dragon's Fury competitive even the AoD period.

However, the Dragon's Fury is not without its flaws. To balance out, the DF suffered from poor defenses and fast declining stats. They are fragile. Another curtailment is range. Short range, 12" at the most, is a trademark of the Dragon's Fury, with very few pieces that have 14" range. With fragility and short range hanging behind them, the Dragon's Fury is hardly overpowered. A typical example of a unit that shows both the DF's strengths and critical flaws are their Arrow IVs.

I am uncomfortable with the power creep post AoD. Isn't set retirement supposed to curb power creeping? Take away set retirement and what do you get?

But power creep hasn't been curbed. Basically people need a reason to keep on shelling out money. That means something shiny and that has translated into power creep - even post AoD. Only the vehicles seem to have been immune.

As for who will buy more boosters, this game will not survive based on its current player base. CBT tried that and unless you get new blood, eventually people will drift away. Marriage, children, mortgages will take out the twenty-somethings and teenies at some point. Only when they get older again (like me) will they come back. So if you have a closed population you will see shrinkage and that shrinkage will accelerate every time a venue drops below the critical mass required to sustain interest at that venue (below about 4 players I would say will kill a venue).

Of course some venues will grow as other venues die. But there is never a 1:1 relationship. There's always one person (or more) for whom the extra distance is just too much of a barrier.

So to sustain the game requires new blood. WK have tried everything. War College, CTA participation prizes, lots of new shineys. Has it worked? Well WK just cut a shedload of staff and announced this so based on extrapolating the evidence we have in front of us I'd say no.

So how can WK gain new blood? Well unretirement may bring old players back to the game. It also means some of the more casual gamers can supplement their forces with older staple units. I fully intend to hand out Stormhammer ATVs and Purifiers to our local Stormhammer player and SRM Teams and Towed Autocannons to our Swordsworn players. I've plenty of Steel Wolf units and Highlander/ROTS units to hand out. That will round out and balance their forces and it won't stop them buying Wolf Strike.

It'll keep people's interest for longer, increases the quality of what I can give away from my own collection so people can participate whatever their means and means we can lure back older players in the meantime. That means some people who are not spending or who may soon stop are enticed to carry on a little longer. That means maybe a few more booster sales.

As for Power Creep. That's necessary in a Collectible game anyway. If all WK did was replace the same old same old then nobody would buy the game - retirement or no retirement. Each set has to offer something different or people won't buy into it. New mechanics with limited testing is bound to lead to an element of power creep.

If when a set was retired, the staple units were always reprinted (for a new faction of course so they don't class as reprints) then people would just feel cheated.

What unretirement does is enable WK to release a set of the "best of" support units from previous expansions. That would give access to a lot of the power units to newer players. Older players probably wouldn't need them but since sets will now be 2 'Mechs a booster then it would still sell well. Especially if a lot of the uniques were "updated" versions of old uniques with pilots and gear.

Who wouldn't want One-Eye in his Jupiter and Bart in his Arbalest? Who wouldn't want to see Gus Edgington in Wolf Hunter colours or Angus Drummond reborn?

My guess? Another 12-24 months...

Kotch ... I aint the brightest crayon in the box, but I do have to agree with most of what you said, and handing out pieces to people to get them back in, or get newbies in, is a very cool thing to do. Thanks for remaining a positive light in a place were sometimes there isnt one. I see alot of negative posts, but everyonce in a while a nice on pops up.

I hope your wrong about the 12-24 month thing though

Me too. It was supposed to be a joke. :)

@Deadbolt. I agree 100% with your post #48. ;)

hey! lets assume the worst. the absolute frakkin' worst case scenario. in under 2 years, MW dies. we still win. why?

CBT MINIATURES RULES!
and even hybridized games!
woah, i just got a gret idea....

we can stay in universe, just migrate, cause frankly, i aint switching game universes any time soon!

and best case scenario, MW doesn't die for about 5 years, and then everyone has enough mechs to make the ENTIRE republic army :P

and i state 5 years as best case because few CMGs last more than 8 years.

HaloGrunt, aren't collectable miniature games an invention of the 21st century? This century isn't even eight years old, so I'm afraid your bold statement has been built on thin air. Maybe the future will prove you right, it's not unlikely.

well, i lump CCGs in the same. i still have THOUSANDS of Trek CCG 1st edition cards, and it's deader than Sony Bono. the Battletech CCG is dead, several other CCGs are dead at the moment, and a lets not get into the online CCG thing. then you have Pokemon and YuGiOh which, well, are eternal. but collectible things in general last only so long. people lose intrest after a certain point. in a collectible game you either have to make it more complex, or it gets stale and repetative. the pilots and gear were the first overhaul, what's next? the ares is cool, but not a full overhaul as the pilots were. that was what? 3 years into the game? next one, though minor is squad cards, and then im assuming the new base set will have some overhauls. so lets say 1 MAJOR overhaul every 3 years, how long til we tire of it? how long til every poissible dial is made? will you still play if things repeat? still buy?

i know i will, but the same can't be said for everyone.

i want this game to last a long time, and i hope it will. it's all in our hands.


and i still have pogs, and i can still play!