(Answered) Official fiction vs MUL and faction availability

[darkdaysdawn]

I noticed that in the story, "Chaos Theory", which comes in the Alpha Strike boxed set, Star Colonel Aren of Jade Falcon is piloting a Warhawk...in 3151.  However, in 3151, the MUL says that Jade Falcon did not use Warhawks (they seem to be the sole domain of The Scorpion Empire).

Is faction availability on MUL intended to be a balancing aid?  If so, is fiction ignored?  Or are the MUL's faction lists for thematic purposes, and not for game balance?

I played a lot of Alpha Strike the first time it was released, but then a player in our group started building very abusive lists (i.e. spamming rare units) which turned the rest of us off.  He was eventually ejected from the group, but it still tainted the game we had at first very much enjoyed.  Now I'm playing a lot of it again, and teaching a bunch of "new to BattleTech" people, so I want to avoid the same thing happening again.  Not sure if the MUL is part of the solution or not, or if it's just up to pre-game negotiation and "gut feel" to create a balanced game (realizing of course that BT has so many units that balance will never be perfect, or even close to perfect).

[Sartris]

Game balance has never been part of the MUL's mission.

Availability on the MUL is not all or nothing. a missing unit from a faction list does not preclude them from using it - it just exists in insufficient numbers to be noted as representative for a force of that faction. Since the developers have no interest in tracking exact production numbers or regimental compositions, what that exactly "representative" means varies on a lot of factors including data and material unavailable to the public. Trust that if the MUL says a faction has a unit, they have it. The MUL is canon. The reality is that salvage and the ability to keep machines running for centuries technically allows for most factions to theoretically possess anything. We can't possible keep up with that level of granularity for nearly 10,000 discrete units.

It's going to come down to players to decide what is allowed and what is not. To avoid the risk of sounding official about something that isn't, I have no particular advice to give on the allowances or restrictions you want to allow. The best solution is to ask others what they do. There are no plans to dictate mandatory army compositions for the reason you give - balancing something that was never designed to be balanced in the first place is a fool's errand.