After playing through the AS tournament at Origins and spending some time thinking about how things played out, there are a few ways that the unit construction and tournament scenarios could be adjusted a bit to make everyone's life easier. Several are minor, but the two big things are that I think the point value of the last round was just too much compared to the other rounds, and I think there could be a better way to deal with units that have 'advanced' special abilities.
In an effort to make sure that one bad round didn't automatically throw you out of contention for an overall victory, I think a little too much focus was put on the final fight, points-wise. I'm intentionally being vague so as not to spoil the details of the scenarios (which I'm sure will be tweaked a bit anyway), but I think the way it worked out was close to this: with two opposing forces, both with six units, if you had an absolute blowout and managed to get every point possible, the first and second rounds would account for about 25% of your points, and the last round would account for 75% of your points. So, there was a huge emphasis on winning the last round, and the way it was structured, you were very likely to get near-maximum points on it. I understand and am OK with the final round being a big percentage of the possible points, I just think it was TOO big of a percentage. If you double the possible point values in the first two rounds, and leave the third alone, you will end up with the first two rounds accounting for 40% of the total possible points, more if someone brings a particularly big force. If you triple the points, then it is almost an even split: the first two rounds total about half the possible points, and the last round accounts for the other half. I think somewhere between those two percentages is a point where the last battle is still really important, but it doesn't hurt someone who had a fantastic first and second round, and a mediocre third round.
Second, construction rules. I understand the intent: try to keep the rules being used to the 'standard' AS level. For some stuff, it's nice and easy: Sprinting? That rule is in the advanced section. Superheavy units? Sorry, not standard. Anything in the companion? Yeah, not even the same book there, so easy enough to understand. However, it is difficult to just say, "Don't bring any mechs that have specials from outside the standard rules," because there are some super-common Specials that are technically in the advanced specials section starting p.104, AS Rulebook. For example, LRM, SRM and AC are all specials from the advanced section. Do we want to exclude any mech with those specials? No, of course not. We don't want to actually allow using special ammunition, but it's OK that the unit has those specials on the card. So we ignore them. Same thing with searchlights, SRCH. Are we trying to exclude the Savannah master because it has the SRCH special? No. Heck, with all the PRB and TAG specials being advanced rules, you would need to throw out a boat load of cheap recon units if those specials are no-no's.
It gets annoying in other ways as well. In the revised standard Indirect Fire rules, you can spot with an aerospace unit for indirect fire, but only if it has the RCN special...which is an advanced special. HarJel (BHJ) actually exists in both the standard AND advanced sections, but with different wording that seems to say almost the same thing. Or how about the standard-rules Watchdog (WAT) which acts as if you have both ECM, which is standard, and LPRB, which is advanced! Gah! It just makes it really difficult to say, "Don't bring units that have specials from the advanced rules."
This all started because I brought a Gunsmith, which has the RFA special. RaiderRed pointed that out to me, and when I got home I started auditing my potential army lists looking for other units that might have 'advanced' specials. Well, my Vulture IV and Savage Wolf are out because their Ferro-Lam gives them CR, which is advanced. My Republic list couldn't use the Lament anymore, thanks to the RHS special. Then I started really looking at it, and realized the LRM/SRM/AC stuff was going to kick out a bunch of possible units. The Republic especially was getting loads of its signature units invalidated because of specials.
So, my proposal is this: Allow units that have advanced specials on their card, but do not allow the USE of those specials. So, if you want to bring a unit that has PRB or RFA or TSEMP, that's totally fine. You can't actually use those advanced-rules specials. Otherwise you end up excluding a number of perfectly normal units.
A couple of minor things that have been rolling around in my head:
The way points were awarded, all units were treated equal in terms of what they are worth to kill. This meant if one team had more units than the other, then the possible points each side could earn was different. So, it wasn't 'X points if you kill 25% of the enemy, Y points if you kill 50%," etcetera. Instead it was just, "X points for enemy unit killed/withdrawn." If someone shows up with a Nova of omnimechs and BA that is still 250PV, they are going to be worth more to fight against than someone with three Skill 2 Daishi A's (249PV...I considered it!) Might want to take a look at that.
Also, given the relative value of the objectives versus just killing the other guys mechs, there was an incentive to stick around and blow up as many of the enemies units as you could before you actually met an objective. You might want to make the objectives worth a little more, relative to kills, so there is more incentive not to just slug it out all three rounds. I got more points loosing round one than I did winning round two because I didn't try to pick up any kills before I went for the objective victory.
I still had a huge amount of fun though, and look forward to playing again at GenCon!
