Actually I kinda think Agility+Evade+Heavy armor is great. You can't damage it at all with close combat, and at range its defense is 23--not typically crackable by anything less than a formation drop or a 'Mech. Its attack is 11, it's got Evade, and it's fast as heck, a great candidate to charge with since it deals 3 damage and its stats don't change. It's not a hard hitter but that's not really important.

You're trying to make a conclusion about whether a unit inside a transport is a friendly unit based on an indirect relationship between two glossary entries that probably weren't meant to work together when the glossary is known to be problematic and there's another part of the rules (which you cite) that clearly says "friendly units may begin the game as passengers" which clearly implies that passengers are still considered friendly units (if, indeed, they are friendly units and not captive infantry). Your argument is tenuous at best. I agree that we need a clarification but, this being WK, we'll probably never get one so just flip a coin before every match in lieu of a useful ruling.

For me, for a competitive army, there are two types of vehicles. 'Big' tanks to drop offensively, and 'small' support vehicles for defence. A vehicle that is dropped simply has more range. And is it somewhat safer from artillery.

The best AoD Mechs can take more damage then the 'old' Mechs. So the damage output requirement for a tank has gone up. Pre-AoD 4 AP would be sufficient. Now I think 4 is too little, even 5 is not all that much.
We see a lot less hardened armor on Mechs. But some popular infantry have reactive. So with 'only' 4 damage, AP is still a nice thing to have.

There are some Mechs with a very short dial (ie Alpha). But at least half a dozen others take for ever to kill. So yes, the need for damage potential is as great as ever.

I don't think TD is dead, yet. It has just become harder to use effentively. Mainly because defense values have gone up. A year ago, a defense over 22 was rare. No sane person would play an Atlas in a competitive army (). Then came Geoff Becker and the Bounty Hunter. Now, in AoD, 23 defense is common as dirt.

Tankdrop still has the advantage of range. And is has the option of being assisted by dropped infantry, wich a Mech with an assault order does not. So TD will be around for a while. It just wont be as easy, or as cheap.

Dragon’s Fury, Elite Unit (60 pts.)
The Dragon’s Fury unit is a unique design in terms of what Tokugawas are capable of. Though it offers the shortest maximum range at 10, it also offers the highest starting damage value at 4 and single-use Homing Beacon all the way down its dial. With damage that decreases to 3, and eventually to 2 on its last non-Salvage click, you may elect not to use it at all. If you do put it to work, however, Improved Targeting all the way down the dial and a starting attack of 9 will pretty much guarantee a hit.

Right - im going to lay down some wisdom on you all.

The strength of the Scmitt was that you could push it after firing once - so after a mech was hit, it had to either return fire effectively or run away. aftehr this the schmitt would have inflicted 10 damage, and taken 1 under optimum conditions.

the Homing beacon is Single use on this, and is essential for tankdropping. Hence, a semilar manoever with the Tokugawa would deal 4 damage (non AP) and take 3 - on a 60 point, 7 click unit (that counts the starting click).

So after the drop has been made with this unit you cannot fire again in the second turn - and I would bet heavily that the damage on this tank goes down to 3 after only 1 click - to counter the use of the homing beacon.

As such this is a Tankdrop-lite that can defend its transport after the drop (360 arc, remember?) if needed - much in the same way that artillery, command, and Vtols - all the old abusive tactics - have been toned down after AoD.

See, not so scary after all, eh?

D503

Good points, D503. I'd say you hit the nail on the head.

It just depends on what you qualify as a fix. The old power pieces have been mostly retired, and replaced with MDFA'ing gunslingers, JF Sylphs, and another 10+ page faq. 'Mechs are now about a third the power they should be but can still shut themselves down from walking 3 times in a row. Faction balance is gone too.

This is a fix?

10 page FAQ?

how much of that FAQ is just to keep rules lawyers and idiots from abusing things, though?

Right, and so I don't understand some people (I don't mean you, HaloGrunt!)... which is it: are the rules too difficult to understand, or is there too much of a FAQ? We can't have it both ways.

or theres option 3

too many people that want to manupilate the rules for their own personal gain.

We have to consider that the game became more complex and this is the solution that WK found to improve it.

Of course complexity needs more gamerule interpretation and many players can't have it all in their heads. The most important things (rules and tactics) all players should know but if someone uses the lack of specific knowledge in his or her personal advantage then it's a pity and I've seen that happen.

I'm sorry but I have to agree with HaloGrunt with the matter about option 3.

The best thing to avoid that to do is to play regularly and learn from experience; and read the rules and FAQ from time to time.

.

Err.....to play devil's advocate (because I'm not a rules lawyer, just a friendly player who let's people pull back moves once in a while), option 3 doesn't make sense. You can't manipulate something that should be ironclad, like rules. Use loopholes, maybe, but that doesn't mean said player is ACTIVELY trying to screw his opponents, he could have planned for his opponent to know it, as they should, and played it as is (courtesy, in fact, since he allowed for the fact that his opponent isn't a dumb twit).

Puma, it's not an either/or situation. Too complex and too much FAQ actually go hand in hand. To a certain degree, FAQs helped clarify things......but then again, we've seen circumstances where they leave you with that "WTF??!!" thought, haven't we?? ;)

There are two issues here.

The MW rules are written in a way that implies they are simple. They are not. To save on postage and the size of the Starters, space in the rulebook is at a premium. Hence often things are not as detailed as they are with other gaming systems. Hence there are areas where explanation is needed so that people who don't have a postgraduate education can understand what was trying to be conveyed through too few words where context and sentence construction is as much a part of the rule as the words themselves.

Then there is the fact that few games are exposed to as rigorous a tournament scene as this one. Those that are have FAQs too. Magic has one. The Lord of the Rings CCG does too. When one considers the relative simplicity of the game systems, this one isn't all that bad.

I have played CBT all over the UK. I have found people who incorrectly interpreted lots of areas of the rules where the rules are actually well-explained.

For instance I have seen people who thought all missiles from an SRM hit the same location.

So yes the FAQ is inconvenient but most of what's in there is supported by the rules. There is a feeling in some areas that they can interpret the rules how they like "unless it's in the FAQ". For the worst excesses what are essentially clarifications make it into the FAQ. I'm glad they are aware enough that the document is dynamic and we get fairly quick feedback.

Yes it would be nice if the rulebook covered everything but no matter how good the designers are, no matter how good the playtesters are, there will be loopholes that someone will find to give them a competitive advantage as soon as you make a game as competitive as this one is.

Seen how often they change the rules in Formula 1 because someone found a way to legally circumvent something?

I wish it were as simple as this. The reality is that writing clear rules is difficult. It's not about saving space. It's about being unable to image every possible interpretation that will be put on a set of rules. That can't be done. Expecting a set of rules, any set of rules, to need no clarification is just begging for frustration. Rules need FAQs and clarifications. It's not because they're poorly written. It's because they're rules. Period. If players expect otherwise, then those players will be frustrated. Forever.

We can choose to be frustrated that some things aren't clear, or we can choose to be glad the rules writers will work to clarify them as they see a need.

Show me a document that needs no clarification, and I will show you a document that has never been read.

Dang it, Kotch. See what happens when you comment before you read a post to the end?! I just read your post to the end and realized that you basically said just what I said. Somehow, I choose to blame you. :cross-eye :cross-eye jk

Compared to the Dark Age-situation, this actually is a fix. I never said it was perfect, but the AoD-rules do work better within the limited set-up of tournament play. You know, playing areas of 3"x3", games with a duration of fifty minutes, etcetera. When playing informal games, you can of course introduce houserules to cure any wrongs you see within the game.

And FAQs will be FAQs: somewhat irritating yet unavoidable. Now let's get back to that charming Tokugawa tank, shall we?