As far as combined arms: the Ghost Bear in me dropped 75 Elementals onto a table with a single light mech and fourteen tanks (I mean they were basically rocket sleds). That’s combined arms enough for my local group. Course we want to play more combined arms but often (without proxies) it’s hard to acquire a decent amount of vehicles.
This is why I'm reluctant to support a BMM for Aerospace, Vehicles, and Infantry. For as long as I can remember, the only one out of those three that has been remotely easy to acquire in large numbers is infantry, and mostly only in the form of Elementals. I would love to have a resource that is devoted to non-mech units, but not if getting representations of those units onto the battlefield remains difficult. Frankly, I just don't see how CGL could justify the resources for something like that, no matter how cool it would be.
Circling back around the Battlefield Support deck and the abstraction systems, I really like these options. They provide the feel of diverse, chaotic battles while conveniently sidestepping the above problem. It also dovetails very nicely into the recent focus on battlemechs. I mean, come on, the primary draw of the game has always been big stompy robots, right? I know some of us want to branch off into different directions, but we're all here for the same core reason. That reason should absolutely remain the core focus of the game, but adding these cool little options, either as an on-ramp to hunting down minis for non-mech units or as an end unto itself, really help inject some new life into the game.
We shouldn't be afraid to add player aids to the game. They do wonders for similarly complicated games, like D&D. If they make the game easier for new folks to get into, or provide a lure to get newer players to explore past the intro boxes, I'm happy to see them made available.
