12-06-2013, 02:27 PM
Yeah, I've seen some talk about the Imperial Armour rules, the fan-made rules and the Compendium rules (which seem to be a compromise between the first two), but I'm very cautious because I've seen it happen a lot: a race is released with its strengths and weaknesses (in the case of Tau - strong ordnance but fragile little ships that are rubbish at close quarters) but then people want to reduce the strengths because they are seen as too powerful (in this case, reducing overall levels of ordnance) and fill in the weaknesses (putting boarding strengths back up to full and beefing up the shields on the carrier).
The end result is that the army/fleet loses its unique character. With the Compendium, for example, the Tau now have no carriers that can match the Imperial/Chaos carriers, despite being an ordnance-based fleet.
That being said, the Imperial Armour rules originally released for the models are marked as "experimental", i.e. probably not sufficiently playtested, and I did find them a bit boring. All of the ships had movement 20, all of the ships had 45 degree turns, all had prow deflectors, all had torpedoes, all could launch attack craft etc. The Compendium list is definitely more interesting in that respect, as there is at least one ship that doesn't have to be on "reload ordnance" orders every single turn. So I'll give it a try on Tuesday.
The end result is that the army/fleet loses its unique character. With the Compendium, for example, the Tau now have no carriers that can match the Imperial/Chaos carriers, despite being an ordnance-based fleet.
That being said, the Imperial Armour rules originally released for the models are marked as "experimental", i.e. probably not sufficiently playtested, and I did find them a bit boring. All of the ships had movement 20, all of the ships had 45 degree turns, all had prow deflectors, all had torpedoes, all could launch attack craft etc. The Compendium list is definitely more interesting in that respect, as there is at least one ship that doesn't have to be on "reload ordnance" orders every single turn. So I'll give it a try on Tuesday.