Me too! It's been a bit of an HA free zone around her the last week and a bit. Could do with some input.
Sorry, I've been out of town last week. Bob and I both were on separate business trips, and we wrapped it up by meeting at his home town for a few days to play, drink coffee and hash out rules. A half-hour of talking over coffee with books spread out around you beats two weeks of e-mail tag hands down.
Actually, this exchange about the Voss CL's is doing just fine without our input. It's the arguments for or against something that help us decide which way is the right way to go and which way isn't. Now, the Voss CL's are fundamentally different from the Mars-pattern vessels, which were incorporated by Cypra Mundi beginning about M37 when it was determined their own-pattern warships relied on ancient technology that was difficult to maintain, subject to warp taint in a lot of circumstances and in sum were no longer viable. This doesn't mean they weren't in use at all- many of these vessels remained in service right up to the 12th Black Crusade, when a disproportonately large number (though not all by far) went renegade, bringing up the possibility that they were flawed and hastening their decommissioning in favor of the newer Mars-pattern designs.
From a model profile standpoint, the Voss is simply too different in layout and mission profile to say it compares to the Mars-type cruiser hulls. Having 6+ armor does not in and of itself demand that the ships have only one weapon system. Letting these ships take 6+ armor as an option (as opposed to a fundamental requirement on the larger ships) in itself refletcs the fundamental difference in design. Voss is purposely and by intention as different from Mars-pattern ships as Chaos ships are, keeping in mind that until relatively recently, Chaos ships were (and in some cases still ARE!) Imperial ships.
I've read the arguments about the Defiant, I've seen the clever graphics, and I really admire the passion the players here exhibit concerning their positions. As with everything else, we are NOT going to make everyone happy. The tweaks incorporated into the Voss CL's were the easiest way to make them useful and congruent without going back to the drawing board or breaking what's in Armada. Despite the vociferous arguments going back and forth, I haven't seen or heard anything to make me believe what we did to these ships doesn't appear to fix 90% of their problems, keeping in mind we are never going to achieve 100% with anything we do to this game system.
Set fluff aside, put down your calculators, put your models on the table and HAVE FUN!!
- Nate