Question regarding unit availability per faction

[sillybrit]

I never touched MWDA or AOD or whatever it should be called, but one thing that has struck me as curious is how some units that are traditionally associated with a certain faction or factions within BattleTech, those factions don't appear to have access to those same units in MWDA. For example, as far as I can tell, House Davion doesn't get the Cavalier, a unit that's only built in the Suns in the current era and there doesn't appear to be any of their factories changing hands during the Dark Age, so its distribution baffled me when I was researching for the Cavalier's BAotW article.

Were MWDA units and their faction availability fixed in stone, or was there any explanation for oddities like the above?

[Steinerman]

I don't recall there ever being an official explanation (though I could be wrong).  I always assumed it was mostly due to trying to give all factions a fairly balanced unit-list while trying to keep the release sizes to a realistic size. 

IE: They couldn't give all units to everyone, or the releases would have been truly massive, so they had to pick and choose who got what and still try to offer a balanced unit-list for every faction.  Admittedly, it didn't always work out quite well.  (Liao never getting a Raven?)

[GhostCat]

Liao was late coming to the Game and so were the Ravens.  It is interesting that Liao didn't get one, but the same is true of other factions and units.  A non-unique Zeus would be a no-brainer for Steiner, right? 

If you are looking for FedSun Cavalier BA, they appeared in the SwordSworn faction with the first Dark Age set.  That's the one that gave us Hoverbikes to play with.  There is a "House Alliance" rule in place that permits them to be a part of House Davion as if they were in the AFFS all along.

D012 Cavalier Battle Armor 17 pts. (Swordsworn)

http://www.warrenborn.com/Unit.php?ID=D012

GC