Older units not allowed in tournament play...why?

[Vash The Stampede]

Why was it that with the later expansions for MWDA like Falcons Prey and AOD, units from earlier sets like Dark Age and liao were no longer tournament legal? It seemed weird that after having all those pieces that you suddenly could not use the for the tournament games.

[ChrisSymons1981]

As far as I can remember it was to help "force" people (for lack of better terminology) to play/buy stuff for AoD and after (probably to help boost profits of those sets)

The reason that it got overruled was from the massive backlash from the player base from the sole reason of people not being able to play their older units.

If I'm wrong on either of these statements, I'm sure someone can clarify a bit further. My mind is getting awfully rusty after all these years without a tourney

[cavingjan]

The official reason was the remove some of the old and more problematic units from tourney play. It was mostly targetting vehicles and artillery. Three approaches were possible:
1. Change the stats of all targeted units but we all know that doesn't work well unless there was a problem with the dial (AKA blank square) to remind the players they need to ignore the primary tennet of the game which was everything was on the game piece.
2. Ban the targeted units and suffer from having a multiple page ban list.
3. Ban the sets that contained the units in question which could be done with a single sentence. This approach hid the faction bias for the problematic units. Players would've howled when their faction lost all of their top tier units when other faction hardly lost any. (Doesn't matter if the other factions weren't as strong.)

[StCptMara]

The official reason was the remove some of the old and more problematic units from tourney play. It was mostly targetting vehicles and artillery.

The major trouble makers were: DF DI Schmitt and DF Marksman combined with the DF Maxim. Dragon's Fury were
the KINGS of Tank Drop. On the Artillery side, it was pretty much all Sword Sworn Artillery. Unfortunately, this banning
pretty much removed Bansen's Raiders from the game, and, until Vanguard, left Liao with next to no usable units.
Remember that Sword Sworn and Storm Hammers had their killer Balacs, and and then there were teh Skadis and
Yashas and all those other less rugged, but every bit as dangerous VTOLs post Falcon's Prey..and Liao, until Vanguard,
had only one attack capable VTOL in the form of the the Shun.

Another reason, of course, was that before Falcons Prey, infantry and vehicles were lower point-valued. You could
field ALOT more infantry in the older sets. And there were people who would field all-infantry armies that were
extremely tournement viable. In fact, ALL the best vehicles and infantry(short of the Highlander Sniper Team) were
from before Falcon's Prey. If you used those, you would NEVER use a 'mech.

[Captain of C-21]

A little bit from column "Let's get rid of troublesome units in one fell swoop", and a little bit from column "Other collectible games are doing this and making money (like magic), so let's do it too!" .  The problem was in the fact that Clix was way more expensive than a card game.  Whereas in Magic you could buy three boosters and have a wide arrange of cards to use, the same money would field you one booster in clix and it was a total crapshoot if you got anything good with the first couple boosters.  I remember being a young, unemployed teen and wondering how in the heck was I going to afford to keep playing.  Then our venue basically ignored the retirement.

[jackpot4]

It was the retirement that saw our venue's players quit the game.  I had invested what little money I had and suddenly I couldn't use my favorite pieces, I didn't even win that often I just liked to use my favorite mechs!  I had suggested to the Battlemaster that we ignore the retirement like what captain just said his venue did, but he wouldn't have it.  I never understood the retirement myself, especially now. 

There are plenty of lightning fast units to take out artillery, plenty of anti personnel to go around, and the mechs in dark age easily adapt to the card system - but with limits.  (such as: named units can only have non-named pilot cards as in: Lt. Diane Jameson cannot have the pilot Enlil Searcy, it must be something like Graduate Certificate - Frihet Training Facility)

Playing today, if I knew someone at my venue was going to play infantrywarrior I would devise a plan to take out his artillery, use my Davion Atlas to destroy the infantry with antipersonnel, and provide sufficient ranged infantry such as SRM teams, a behemoth II, and Sgt. Leo Riordan to deal with vehicles and infantry.  The Behemoth tank drop with Margot Calumet is pretty nasty as well.

As I was younger, much shorter tempered, and low on cash I couldn't stay in the game but in the last year I have brought together a nice set of units that I could definitely do some damage with, it's just a shame there is so few people still playing....

[JadeHellbringer]

It walked me away as well. I enjoyed playing Bannson's Raiders early on, but upon finding that most of the army I had was now totally useless, I gave up. Even as the Jade Falcons were being added to the game, and all the excitement I had for that, I just couldn't bring myself to be involved in a game like that where you spent the money on this, and two years later that stuff isn't legal to use anymore in a game.

Glad they made changes to that policy later, and I did end up becoming involved with the locals here in the DC area after moving here, but I don't blame a lot of people for not coming back after that mess.

[Khymerion]

The major trouble makers were: DF DI Schmitt and DF Marksman combined with the DF Maxim. Dragon's Fury were
the KINGS of Tank Drop. On the Artillery side, it was pretty much all Sword Sworn Artillery. Unfortunately, this banning
pretty much removed Bansen's Raiders from the game, and, until Vanguard, left Liao with next to no usable units.
Remember that Sword Sworn and Storm Hammers had their killer Balacs, and and then there were teh Skadis and
Yashas and all those other less rugged, but every bit as dangerous VTOLs post Falcon's Prey..and Liao, until Vanguard,
had only one attack capable VTOL in the form of the the Shun.

Another reason, of course, was that before Falcons Prey, infantry and vehicles were lower point-valued. You could
field ALOT more infantry in the older sets. And there were people who would field all-infantry armies that were
extremely tournement viable. In fact, ALL the best vehicles and infantry(short of the Highlander Sniper Team) were
from before Falcon's Prey. If you used those, you would NEVER use a 'mech.

This right here is what killed it for me.  Like JadeHellbringer, I played almost exclusively a Bannson's Raiders/Liao army in MW:DA.   It was literally all I had thanks to the group dynamic we had set up that allowed us to pool money and buy cases of boosters.   When the later sets started not releasing jack for the BR...  I held on but this ruling pretty much made me retire entirely from the game.  I was not going to try to scrape together a new army to play.   I don't operate like that.   I tend to be mono- or dual-faction at best focused in any game I play.

Sure, it stopped the tank drops.   Sure, I never used a mech if I could help it.   Sure my carrying case of miniatures had hand painted Napoleonic regimental battle standards on the sides and my vehicle and infantry tactics more reflected my background in playing that era of games instead of giant robot fun...  but with the way Wizkids really didn't give the BR much else to work with...   this was the last straw and while there would still be a community for a while longer, it was the beginning of the end for the group of players that I was playing with.

Seems when one of the six members of the group stops playing, there is less money floating about to buy more cases of minis, less variety in the group, and while I let them continue to play at my place, I wasn't running the scenarios anymore and that group lasted a few months more before slowly all but two had quit and only one was playing six months later.

In the end...  faction bias from the creators and this move just ruined the environment.