how many of those units actually see play. I see more units with decoy that see play then I do with streak.

And you make anothe valid point agains AP, In additon to no disadvantage, AP counters 4 types of defensive Special equipment.
Heavy
Hardened
Reactive
Decoy

the problem with making reactive counter AP, is that most factions don't have reactive.

there are 34 units with reactive. Of those units

SS has 3, 2 are le's
Rots has 3
merc's have 3
liao has 2
highlander has 4
DF has 4
Steel Wolves have 16.

This HEAVILY Biases Reactive armor special equipment to SW.

If there was a defence adjustment of +2, it balances it for all types of armor.

If the black dice was used it would be easy to say that for reactive armor, it only pierced on a 5 or 6.

And for heavy and hardened, on a 4, 5, or 6.

For the cost of AP, it is a tremendiously over powered ability. Espically when it is combined with Artillery, as others have continously pointed out.

I don't feel that for its cost, AP should be able to do all the things it does. Espically when you consider how much more expensive units with heavy, hardened and reactive armor is.

cheers

Mercy

- Hardened and Reactive armor reduces AP damage by 1.
- Artillery with AP SE, only gets the AP if there is a direct hit and the marker is placed under the center dot of 1 unit.

I agree that is makes sense that Streaks should counter decoy if AP did not. The original idea behind streaks is that they didn't even fire unless they were guaranteed to hit their target through a laser designated lock on system (granted in MWDA they sorta went with the mechwarrior video game system of locking on through mountains and firing up over them).

Additionally, ECM already counters Streaks and on top of that you'd be taking a -1 hit on damage to target the unit with decoy. Of course, now that I think about it... that #### Liao Shockwave has both and a 22 defense... and point defense.

Actually the more I think about this the more I like it. It gives units with streak more to do that just sit behind a blocking piece hoping someone comes close enough to shoot.

Ok, as for the AP stuff, I think it would be fine to either force AP to fire at a single target, or require a +(1-2) to hit, or have reactive negate it; but only one of them. I still have to say I like the idea of reactive armor negating it best if only for simplicity, followed by the single target thing, and lastly by the to hit penalty (this one last because it doesn't do anything to help the AP artillery issue).

-WHZ

I agree with you war on the artie issue.

however, If they made artillery have to roll to overcome defence, as proposed, then it would work out well.

Good discussion all, thanks for contributing.

I dont think that adding a +1 or +2 to hit with ap is such a good idea. It would render certain mech close to impossible to hit. ( I use the term impossible loosly) Consider the rots hellstar in hindering, 22Hard +2 for camo +1 for hindering modifier +another 1 or 2 for AP? Gives it a 26 or 27 defence. Even with the highest unmodifided attack in the game right now (12 IT) your needing a 14 or 15 to hit. I know this would be for a minority of pieces, but they would be highly played pieces if this were the case.
Regarding arty and AP, I would like to refer to warflails thread on the topic as Im sure many point have been addressed there.
When I look at the numbers for AP and the factions with the most of SW, SS, SH have a commanding lead. So those would be the factions that would be most affected by any change in the way AP works. Even if Decoy and Reactive armor were made so that AP does not negate them AP would still have two defensive SE's that it defeats. There for I think that it would still remain viable, while not being overly effective. Thoughts?

has anyone mentioned that your proposed run change would make the SW forestry mech mod ridiculously hard to hit? it already has a 23 def in terrain. you propose to give it a 25? its a light mech!!!

Foust,

Very true, but you could always turn off AP, or use an energy attack for an unmodified chance to hit.

Or use streak, as that ignores terrain. And if it ignores terrain, it ignores Decoy. (though i do not know this for a fact). I don't recall a ruling on the use of streak with camo.

@ Foust: Agree in principle. I think that giving Decoy and Reactive the ability to negate AP is a "good thing" as it provides the AP shooters with at least some targets they have to worry about. However, that doesn't really change the fact that the main issue is that there are simply too many units with AP out there for Hardened and Heavy Armor to have all that much meaining any more.

In my opinion, AP should still be a powerful and highly desirable SE, which is one reason I don't advocate the adverse "to hit" modifier proposed by some folks. I also don't think that Hardened armor should have a special effect on AP because from a "real world" perspective they are passive systems (while both Reactive and Decoy are 'active' systems) which AP is specifically designed to defeat. The long-term solution (assuming this proposal had even the slightest chance of being adopted) is simply for WK to significantly reduce the number of figures with AP that are included in subsequent expansions and increase the numbers that have Reactive and Decoy.

Thats a good point but dont you think that it hurts AP too much at that point? If that change was made then it would almost require that AP still worked on all 4 of the defensive SE's that we have been discussing.
Im not sure this really deals with the real problem with AP anyway as we would just be making it harder for it to so the same thing. Now I maybe wrong but whats stopping something with AP from getting into a ranged formation and taking the AP shot? We arent really solving the problem there are we?
I see APs main problem as being the amount of defensive SE's it effects. Am I thinking correctly here?
Now without getting too far into it my read on streaks would lead me to believe that the +1 hindering modifier would be negated but the camo would not. Topic for another thread really, or a link to one with a conclusion.

I believe foust is pretty justified in his reasoning. I sometimes try to think of reactive armour as sort of a type of armour that combines WWII styles of tank armour. The germans had these things called shurzen, which were metal skirts that went around a tank to protect it from small AT rounds, where as the soviets used these things called boxspring armour. This was basically a rack of springs and wire designed to stop german infantry AT weapons. I know, I know, this isn't WWII and he is not the Fonz, but never the less I think of reactive armour in that sort of light: a specially designed type of armour deliberately designed to stop ballistic ordinance. For reactive armour negate AP as well only makes sense to me.
Also, streaks could use mercy's idea for AP (on the black die a 3+ hits) to negate decoy or just negate it all together. Then we might see more decoy and streak units on the field.

Just a thought, would ECM be sort of tied into the theory of evade or, more likely, electronic camoflauge...?

@Clown: Very good points. If WK decideds to start churning out more AP units and not change anything than this conversation is truly inconsequential.
I guess the hope of this discussion and any others like it on this board is that we can present rational point and counter-point theorys on a issue and that someone at WK will take a read and pass the thought up the line.
At this point Im seeing a camp for Reactive and Decoy negating AP, and a camp for a modifier of somekind to AP, Im including the 4,5,6 on the black die in this. Anyone care to play devils advocate and give some opinions on why AP should stay the way it is?

Well, the proposals I've seen here so far can be summarized as follows:

(1) No change to the present rules.
(2) The Decoy SE affects AP.
(3) The Reactive Armor SE affects AP.
(4) Turning "on" AP entails a negative "to hit" modifier.
(5) AP is only effective if the black die roll is in a certain range.

With the exception of #1, these proposals can be used separately or in any combination. I'm curious to hear what other's opinions are -- which choice(s) would you make?

My preference would be #2 & #3; I can also see using #5, but the die roll range would have to be pretty broad (2-6 AP is effective; only on a 1 is it not effective).

Giving AP a negative modifier to hit complete ruins the whole point of the equipment itself. AP is a hard counter to Armor abilites which would otherwise be totally overpowered in this game, expecially now that Charging is even riskier. Do you really want to see a game where Reactive and Hardened Armor become mandatory abilities, just to have a chance of winning?

I love Armor abilities exactly because they're powerful - even stifling - in the right circumstances. But I'd hate to see them choke this game down.

I have no objection to having Decoy work with AP, but let's leave AP as the armor-puncher that it is now.

I would personally prefer #s 2 and 3, with #5 effecting artillery. What about that?

Nightmoor, agreed AP needs to remain as effective against armor as it is now or we over power Heavy and Hardened. While allowing reactive to negate AP energy based weapons are still a hard counter to it. When allowing Decoy to negate AP we were allowing streak to defeat Decoy, providing the hard counter to it.

I think 2 and 3 are the best options but 2 needs a modification.
2b. Decoy negates AP, while streak negates Decoy.

@ducky I dont know that weve looked hard enough at these changes in regard to AP and arty. I think we have been trying to keep the discussion on non-arty units, perhaps we need to start considering arty with these changes as well since we have a few well thought out suggestions?