Heh no problem. I didn't really like the glass jaw either but compared to the other Highlander units around that time it was fantastic. I need to try and get the kodiak myself. I have very rarely ever seen one.

I say, if they can't make the historical figures in a way that accurately reflects those characters, then don't make them at all.

It had always seemed that these figures were directed at the long time Battletech players, as a way to tie in their old favorites, or bring in those who hadn't tried Mechwarrior yet. But the figures don't represent the history that these players know, why would they want to play the game? An old BT player will look at these "historical" figures, think, "Well that's not right, this game is stupid, I'll stick to BT".

Being one of these players who has read most of the books, I appreciate historical accuracy, but can tolerate some creativity. Yet I have had no desire to include any of the historical figures in my collection, because they do not reflect the characters I know. Thanks for trying, Wizkids, and thanks for realizing it just wasn't working.

No they made him a Gunslinger so he could fight for the factions he DID fight for (including Davion, Liao and Steiner). Making him St Ives would have meant he couldn't be recruited to anybody and he did actually fight under other colours, not just St Ives.

As a corollary thanks to the rule system he can fight for others. Well rules can't cover every situation and not even CBT covers everything that can happen in the books. Want to be historically accurate? Just don't recruit him. But to decry that he can fight with others is being a tad hypocritical when Liao units can be in the same force as Davion and Republic units. I mean the paradox of enemies being in armies they shouldn't already exists, it's up to YOU whether you do it.

And Kai in the Republic? Total anachronism, by the time the Republic existed, Kai was dead.

And those of us who liked the concept and accepted that inaccuracies WILL arise JUST LIKE THEY DID IN THE CBT SOURCEBOOKS are extremely disappointed in the whiney minority who made it happen.

Maybe the whiners will kill the game eventually too. And they'll smugly say that since the game never really fit with their idea of the universe it's for the best and they'll go off and play something else instead.


ANY old BT player? Speak for yourself dude. I've been playing since 1984 and I have read over 50 novels - probably nearer 100 - and at one time I owned almost every sourcebook and I've only sold off the ones that have been superceded in the rules.

Yes I would prefer certain incarnations of characters but what people here are crying about as being historically INACCURATE is really only a feature of the game. There is no old-style Warhammer. Thanks to a certain lawsuit there never will be. However far more people prefer Natasha in her merc days than as a Septuegenarian clanner. So they put her in her Daishi and represent her as a Merc. There are no rules to allow her to recruit only to old-school Inner Sphere factions.

I mean let's take for instance two IDIOTIC things that have been said:

She'd never recruit to Marik because they killed her lover.
Erm, she fought for a Marik subfaction under a Marik banner.

She'd never recruit to Kurita.
Erm, actually she did. And if I recall correctly the Dragoons spent longer with Kurita than with any other house. After they re-recruited to Davion during the Fourth Succession War they were granted Outreach and after that Dragoon regiments could be hired out to multiple houses and the Dragoons ceased recruiting en-masse to just one faction.

Yes later in her life she may have applied that logic but the point is that's a SNAPSHOT of her life. And unless they rewrite the rules so people recruit to the right factions, there will always be the situation where something CAN happen. It's up to you to police whether you do it. And if other people can do it and decide to just to see what happens, what right have you to tell them they can't?

Like post-Marian reform Roman Legionaries pitted against the might of a C5BCE Spartan army, it couldn't happen. It's an anachronism separated by almost four Centuries but isn't whether Sparta could have done better against Rome at its peak an interesting concept? And a fun thing to play even though it never happened and couldn't happen? Why not just do it for the hell of it?


That's just it! You have a choice. Exercise your choice. Don't remove the choice for everybody else.

Actually I've seen historical wargamers do exactly that. If we can do that with REAL history, why can't we be allowed to do it with FICTIONAL history?

Ok, lets remake Malvina as Exarch of the republic. We can say its an alternate reality of the game, no one will complain. And while we're at it, lets make a historical fig of Sun-Tzu Liao as leader of HD.

That wasn't what I suggested now, was it? The ability to take something out of context and experiment does not in one iota change what actually matters. If you don't want something to happen, don't do it. And what does it matter to you how someone on the other side of the world feels about the same issue?

Natasha Kerensky was a great pilot. Great. Play imbalanced games in a friendly context giving her whatever stats your opponent will let you give her. In the meantime in the tournament scene, play the balanced version. Does it really matter that much?

Don't like her being able to recruit to Jade Falcon? Don't do it. That simple. Does it really matter to you if someone else does? Because in their mind they're probably renaming Natasha Kerensky as Diana Pryde or something... what's wrong with that?

No one has been arguing that Natasha Kerensky's stats were bad, her being a 2/2/1 is fine, I wouldn't want another power pilot like Kelly coming out. They have just been ticked off that WK meshed the 2 sides of her together.

If she had had a free recruit to CW none of the fluff people would have minded much that she was a merc in a Daishi. If she had been put in the Warhammer sculpt that WK already put out they probably wouldn't have cared that she didn't recruit for free. (I know the WH sculpt isn't the same as what she piloted buts it's as close as they could have gotten, and the fluff people could just get the old sculpt and put it on anyway.)

Actually using your own example of Liao and Davion forces fighting together (which is a vulgar thought for many on both sides) when Kai (duke of St. Ives heir to the St Ives compact) was fighting with pretty much anybody else at his side he was doing so as an ally. Not as a member of their actual military. Much as allies in other wars have command of allied units even though they are not an actual member of that country.

WK could have made him a St Ives only unit. They did not. They instead made him a mercenary. Hireable to liao at a reduced cost no less. A bit inaccurate if I do say so. It is these very inaccuracies that many people don't like. Why have a "Historical" unit if other than the name it is not very historical?

Oh and by the way he died fighting House Liao as a member of the republic. I think your memory is slipping a bit. I think it was mentioned in a couple of books starting with ghost war. If I am wrong please let me know I will retract my statements saying so.

yes and purge the population of one out of every one male:mad:

As long as Malvina has an Atlas that can DFA I'm all for it!

Okay, in the grand scheme of things some of you are getting upset over absolutely nothing and, according to your profiles, some of you are in your thirties and forties and your getting upset about what someone said on the Internet about a styrene card. Honestly, what do you have to gain from this? Kerensky and Kai aren't going to be FAQed and since there aren't going to be any more historical pilots there is no point in fighting about it.

They said that there wont be any historicals in the near future, they didn't say there would never be anymore. Tony said so, and there aren't any coming out in the near future due to the long time put in to each set.

I don't get how that can be illogical in the context of THIS game. The example you bring up isn't really a good analogy. I mean we have stuff in this game that allows for sworn rivals to make alliances and gain special benefits from it as a result. This is essentially an analogous game mechanism that allows for some form of precedent to be set for historical figures being put into other builds.

Besides, aren't we all always droning on about how there is a lot of grey in the world of MW, and essentially anyone will work with anyone else to pursue their own self interest sometimes irrespective of w/e governing state they belong to. Hence, there is another precedent for the ability of historical pilots being able to work for/with anyone.

On another note, I love the flexibility that such a design gives me in designing armies fun or competitive games. lest we forget, that this after all a game. In all honesty such discussions that reflect such seriousness about something that is meant to be enjoyable, really can't help but suck a little bit of the enjoyment out of it.

To be honest the whole how people working with anyone else irrespective of their governing states is something that pretty much only happens in this game. Not in the fiction nor history of this game. Just the game itself. Which should tell you how different this game is from where it probably should be.

Historical units are fun to be sure. If done right. But is it even possible to make a historical unit for a game that doesn't seem to acknowledge that same history or even its current fiction and general unit alignment?

Another reason people get so upset about these characters is they become attached to them when they read about their exploits and what they stood for and against and they see something they would like to be in these fictional characters. Then along come these units for a game which pays lipservice to these same characters yet alters them into a form that we don't recognize as being the same.

I am sure that WK wants to make good units for the game. Often though they cannot make the game match with the imagery evoked by the writers and games of the past or present. It places them in a hard spot to please people.

I am thankful to Dblizzard for bringing up the New Coke analogy. It really does seem to do alot of justice to this argument. New Coke was a failure as a product not because it was bad or even tested improperly. It was a failure because of its impact upon its longtime consumers.

Many people liked the taste of New Coke. That was evidenced by the taste tests. It's failure was in the change forced upon people who had no desire to make such a change. Coke did not want to split consumers off of their main product by introducing another coke product so they thought that it would be best to just exchange New Coke for the old. It failed. Miserably. Classic coke was introduced 77 days afterward and quickly put New Coke pretty much out of mainline production.

All of that happened because people were comfortable with the coke they had and did not appreciate the change.

Historicals inspire much the same reaction from people. There are many who are happy with them being different from what they were historically. But there are some (probably a minority) that don't feel as though the units are close enough to their mental imagry to accept them and speak out loudly against them.

Bottom line for it all is are these units worth the outcry? Especially for a company as small as WK happens to be, and with needing every happy consumer they can find.

I don't think so. I think even as we argue WK employees are wasting time on our feedback instead of using it toward the creation of more units to continue the game. They need to spend that time for our feedback, but to be honest if these units didn't exist we may not even be arguing and forcing them to follow it.

(Edited a typo)

*Waiting for replies to looters thread about how fluff has no place in the game.