The New Vehicle Design Rules: A Gee Dub Flub

Well the Chapter Approved is here. By and large I like it I suppose. Wish it had Custodes stuff, disagree with some of their points decisions, etc. etc.

But there is one thing in there that had SOOOOOOOOO much potential and it was ultimately squandered

The new Land Raider Vehicle Design Rules.

I am not even upset that they ONLY did this for Land Raiders. I understand. There are just to many tanks out there to truly capture. Why not stick with something iconic with a lot of upgradability from a modeling perspective. Thats fine.

The problem isn't that it was limited to the Land Raider. Its the limitations they put ON said land raider. GW just had so much potential with these rules and a good deal of hype. The original ones even allowed you to recreate the infamous Deoderant Stick Grav Tank. The idea is just AWESOME. However, this iteration is just lacking effort in several areas...

1- FACTIONS
I am glad they at least included Chaos Space Marines in the potential benefactors of these rules, but I think they still messed up. There are 4 other factions I think that SHOULD have had options present. Lets discuss them.

• GREY KNIGHTS- How can you give this to other Astartes and NOT THEM. Where are the options for a GK LR with psycannons and inferno cannons etc. etc.
• CUSTODES- Man are the boys in gold jonesing for options. This could have helped them if rules for Venerable were included. 
• INQUISITION- There are numerous inquisitors that have LRs in the fluff and it is something they have had in the past. Why not give them some access to this. If anyone will have a custom raider, its and Inquisitor.
• ORKS- SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY WASTED FOR LOOTIN'. My goodness, how awesome would that have been. Orks already lost their Looted Leman Russ in the transition to 8th.

2- WEAPONS

WHY THE LIMITATIONS? Such a disappointment keeping me from making turly awesome unique conversions. I don't get it, you ask about conversions in your big survey, make VDR rules to encourage conversions, and then write rules that totally box in that creative potential. So many things should have been in here. Here are some Imperial options I can think of off the tap of my head:

-Plasma Cannons

-Conversion Beamers

-Quad Lasers

-Quad Heavy Bolters

-Thunderfire Cannons

-Single Assault Cannon

-Psycannons

-Inferno Cannons

-Autocannons

-Multi-meltas

-Helios launchers

-Whirlwind Launchers

-Typhoon Launchers

-Demolisher Cannons

I mean, someone made this on their own!

I am sure the list could get bigger, but I think you get the idea. More options were needed. This really really breaks the section in the book for me. It is either lazy or reeks of marketing interjection into rules design. Just because only certain things are available in certain boxes, why limit the creativity of your customer?

3- OPEN PLAY ONLY

These probably would have been best to be open play only, but instead of rubber stamping it in the book (like it is), a general statement up top would have been nice.  Basically say "These rules are for casual, creative fun for you to implement in all typse of play". Don't worry about making sure they aren't in tournaments. TOs would take care of that.

4- POWER LEVEL

Lastly I also think all the choices should have impacted Power Level instead of a blanket 30. Make a baseline and then each weapon would add or subtract from that to help provide a little more resolution and balance for player to figure out how to use them in their game.

Ultimately, these rules are asking us to buy and already $80 model and ADD TO IT. They really should be letting the player have more creativity than they did. It just seems rushed and kinda lacking as is... hopefully they flesh it out better in in future...