While I cannot speak for him, I can say that it sounds to me like you are intentionally handicapping yourself by limiting yourself to a narrow group of units which creates an artificially imbalanced environment. You can very easily fix either of those scenarios by not limiting yourself to only a small subset of TW units so I feel like that is your fault for being predictable, not the opponent's fault for exploiting your shortcomings.
Actually, my group uses all canon units. We do what is fielded by the scenario. Some games are heavily limited(like
our "Turkey Day" events, where everyone has bad units in a grinder-like environment, or this year's Tanksgiving event,
which is going to be a vehicle grinder). Others are wide open, allowing any canon unit, with randomly determined pilots.
Then we have campaigns, where the units are determined by the players and their victories/losses. Most of the time,
though, we stick to tournement legal designs.
You must have missed the first sentence so here it is again:It's not a problem of balance, it's a problem of freezing out a player for a full turn. The "ah, well, go get the pizza" type of thing. None of the scenarios that you've suggested do that. If the fight isn't BV balanced then victory is determined by how long you withstood the assault and how well you did despite the BV difference. Not "go ahead and play with the X Box while the rest of us play BattleTech"
- Shane
Let me ask you again: Have you played against TSEMP? Because, I really do not see how one or two units with it
are going to shut down your whole lance/star. Also, why do you lose the mobility advantage against TSEMP? It
is still a weapon, like a Gauss, or Heavy PPC against a light, that the only defense is to not get hit. TSEMP, to me,
is not a weapon that is going to win the game...it is the opponent being afraid of it that will win the game. You
make it sound like, if by some chance you were to come to my group and play against me, and I was using a unit
with TSEMP, and you did play, you would spend the whole game hiding from it. That would give me the advantage
to manipulate you through my unit movement. Your solution to TSEMP is not to maneuvre, and then take that unit
down with extreme prejudice before it can shoot you(and you can use fire arc denial to make sure that it can't use
that big,bad TSEMP on you).
Then again, my group doesn't do one 'mech per person like can be implied by your view that one 'mech getting
TSEMPed takes the player out of the game. We are also a rather aggressive group. I have noticed from play
at GenCon that most players don't seem to be willing to take risks, or to go for the throat in play. I even had
God and Davion call me "crazy" when he saw how aggressively I played in the Open in 2011.(I didn't win..but
my opponent's 'mechs knew they had been in a fight...)