Changes to Army Selection
The current system Heavy Gear blitz uses to select armies is incredibly flexible, so much in fact that it makes balancing armies difficult, if not impossible. The system was designed with PL 2 to be the standard level for an army. However, this is not the actual case. Most players go to PL 3 so they can avoid having to take core unit selections. Unfortunately, some armies have signature units in the Core section and are unfairly limited from taking them should those units be rather desirable (WFPA Dragoons, MDPK MP Cadres, ect).
Another problem is that even if the player decided to play at PL 2, some armies had a greater advantage due to having access to much cheaper core units than other armies. The following is an idea (inspired by Warhammer) to both simplify army selection and even the fairness overall.
Remove PL entirely. Instead of picking so many choices of each category, you may spend a percentage of your points on each category.The percentages are as follows:
25% minimum on Core units
50% maximum on Auxiliary units
25% maximum on Special units
25% maximum on Elite units
For example, let's have a PRDF and MILICIA army used for a 1000 TV game.
The PRDF player decides to take a GP Squad for his first Core selection. He puts a MAC on one of his gears. At 250 points, he does not have to spend any more points on Core units and may now spend his other 750 points on other units, with no more than 500 on Auxiliary units and 250 on Specialist and/or Elite units.
The MILICIA player is aiming to have as many gears on the table at the same time. He first takes a GP Cadre, makes them Convicts, and then gives them Asps. At 60 points he will need to buy at least another 4 such squads to exceed the 250 point minimum before spending points on other categories.
Under the current PL system, the MILICIA player could spend a mere 120 points to fill out his core requirement while the PRDF player would, without using infantry, be required to spend 490 points on his Core units, limiting his options on bringing other combat groups when compared to the MILICIA player.