Goatboy’s Monday 40k Thoughts – Should the Supplements be 40k Legal?
Goatboy here again with another Monday discussion/rant/barnyard hootnanny. Today I want to talk about those pesky codex supplements that are starting to hit the rumor discussion.
Right now we just have one with the Eldar Iyanden and we have another hitting in a week or so with the Tau Farsight Enclave book coming out. The question I have is – should these lists be considered legal for tournaments?
Now to start off I am all for more rules. The more tweaks and changes to the army lists create a really interesting game for 40k. You have so many options and build outs that it allows you to really customize your own personal force. I know how I play is not the same way you play so it is neat to give you as many toys and avenues to create your wallet crushing list.
So I am fine with these extra set of rules as I feel they add a lot. But we only have one list to really look at and I don’t think it is “broken” so it is hard to truly judge if they need to be legal. I have some local guys that say the only way it should be legal is when they have a physical book available. I understand this thought as a lot of people don’t have a Tablet nor the desire to spend $40.00 bucks on an invisible magic book. I feel this is a valid response as even though I own a Tablet I haven’t bought one of these digital pieces and I really hate the idea of causing game arguments without a book to back me up.
So far the two pages of rules really only tweak options from the main book. The only real changes from the Eldar supplement book is a change to one spell, a new set of interesting warlord traits, and a bunch of new “magical” artifacts. There are no new units beyond some tweaks to their purchase number so the rules as listed are still easy to know without having the 2 page pamphlet. This is an easy one to judge as there isn’t a whole lot for new players to digest and it takes only a few minutes to explain. But the question I have is – what if they use this to put out new models?
Could you see the Chaos Legions have more custom units? Or are they just going to have options available to the same units? Like Emperor’s children CSM squads having access to sonic weaponary? Or maybe the Hellbrute being something more then just a neat static kit? What if Thousand Sons had a Sorcerer conclave with 5 Sorcerer Lords to pick from? Maybe they will have a new and more annoying super Dragon. This is the biggest worry as options become different from their Main Book set and explaining your different units could go from 5mins to 15+ as each have options that are confusing. A lack of overall physical availability seems to push the identically costed but cheaper to produce digital counterparts. You add in the cost of your fancy Star Trek digital notebook and it becomes a bit of an issue.
So this rambling all brings back to – should these rules be allowed? Should we wait for a physical copy to let players try out these “tweaks”. If these are allowed should we let some of the FW one’s come in too? Am I worried about nothing? Where are my CSM Legion books? Do these pants make me look fat? I hope to have some conversion themed articles coming in the next few weeks. I am waiting on parts to add to my pile of plastic nonsense so look for a more hobby related set of thoughts to come.
So, if you came to a table would you throw down against an army that didn’t have a physical codex book out?
