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MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

And IG as a stand alone codex already has a higher number of units then most other armies. Example: IG has ~50 unit entries while DE have ~30... does this mean we should start banning IG? This isn't a strong stance IMO.

Breng77, are we now arguing whether price and availability is a mitigating factor in allowing FW at tournaments?

BTW, I have Crusade of Fire. A small handful of games were played with Daemon Worlds special rules, about half (overall) with a fixed warzone trait depending on the location on the campaign map, and the remainder were normal 40k. In addition, I'm not counting the 3 "special" battles which were played differently to the rest, not as standard 40k.

It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

That doesn't matter though because of the allie matrix. DE have VERY limited number of entries and VERY limited allies, most marine armies can take IG and have more entries to start as well. So IMO allies shift the meta much worse then FW. And for the record most of the "broken" combos people have mentioned....in fact ALL of them have required allies to pull off. So why are we not discussing whether of not allies are healthy for the game?

Because without allies, you would need to create a balanced codex, rather than saying "ally with Tau/Necrons/IG for your anti-air".

MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

Tournament Organizers are free to do as they please with regard to legalization. Most Tournament Organizers for the larger events present multiple opportunities; i.e., at AdeptiCon you can play FW in the Gladiator or Team Tournament or Friendly, but not in the Champs. At NOVA, y ou can play FW in the Narrative or Trios Tournament, but not in the GT or Invitational. Hooray, options! /fin

No bias here.

 Dozer Blades wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

Tournament Organizers are free to do as they please with regard to legalization. Most Tournament Organizers for the larger events present multiple opportunities; i.e., at AdeptiCon you can play FW in the Gladiator or Team Tournament or Friendly, but not in the Champs. At NOVA, y ou can play FW in the Narrative or Trios Tournament, but not in the GT or Invitational. Hooray, options! /fin

No bias here.

I'm a GT going player and organizer who likes playing with his FW IG whenever allowed (which is at precisely half of the major GT's I regularly attend each year), and allows it in precisely half of the 40k events he hosts (2 out of 4).

Which way does that bias me?

You're clearly biased towards the middle ground. You have no place in modern political discourse.

Glocknall wrote:

At their core, tournaments are supposed to be about bringing your plastic/metal army men and playing with other people in a largely fair and diverse competitive environment.

Fixed that.

Since...when?

Fair has never extended outside the initial environment (attempting to control for sports, ensuring points values are equal, sometimes attempting to control things through mission type and sometimes borking it majorly), but never extended to ensuring armies don't have advantages over each other. Otherwise people would be far more concerned with necrons

We already have, and always have had, vast disparities between army power, unit availability, issues with armies being two editions behind, etc. Fair only extends to ensuring fair missions (sometimes, when TO's don't go out of their way to mess with certain types of armies), table setup, and even points matches and attempting to control sportsmanship. Beyond that, other than now-almost-totally-extirpated comp scores, fairness doesn't really factor into it. No tournament tries to make sure Sisters of Battle can match Necrons on an even footing for example.

As for diversity, tournaments have never had a responsibility to attempt to enforce diversity. A few have tried but there's a reason we have sillyness like Adepticon 2011 and the most populous army being Space Wolves with literally almost 90% of them being bandwagon codex-hopping "counts as" lists. Nobody seemed to think that was something TO's needed to directly address until "zomgforgeworld".

One can doomsay all one wants about how it'll see a huge shift to IG armies, since when did the composition of the armies present become the responsbility of TO's? Where was this concern over the armies present when SW's overran events a couple years ago? Where's the concern over necron domination at the tournament level? We see similar shifts every time a new codex is released, and most armies getting more options is not a bad thing.

And fundamentally, I also fail to see how adding in dozens of new units and a bunch of new army lists would hurt diversity, and if we're talking tournament level play here, then I'm sure the players themselves will adapt and shift to new strategies/different armies as time goes on, as they always do.

Because the IG stuff is far and away the best of the bunch and can be readily allied to nearly any army.

I'd argue that many of the units I listed above would make pretty routine appearances as well and that units like Tetras and Warp Hunters. In fact, far more than IG units, I've seen Tetras in huge numbers locally.

TOs already do this in mission design.

Is that related to controlling the composition of armies present, or just controlling their rankings and/or providing new experiences? Many still use rulebook missions or slight variations thereof.

Either way, that's another aspect that can be pursued the units people seem to be having issues with are artillery units. Design missions that emphasize mobility and a need to physically control the board and such lists will fail.

Therein lies the fundamental problem with FW. Simply making a beautiful model is not enough to see their product fly off the shelf. They know they have to have the rules to back it up with. Its gotta be better the codex units if their going sell units.

Typically not, and one will notice most FW units ported into codex books get notably better. Hydras went from 200pts to 75 and able to ignore flat-out/jink saves for example. While Contemptor Dreads are "better" in an absolute sense than normal dreads, they also end up costing about twice as much or nearly so, so their tabletop performance for the points invested isn't too dissimilar.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

That doesn't matter though because of the allie matrix. DE have VERY limited number of entries and VERY limited allies, most marine armies can take IG and have more entries to start as well. So IMO allies shift the meta much worse then FW. And for the record most of the "broken" combos people have mentioned....in fact ALL of them have required allies to pull off. So why are we not discussing whether of not allies are healthy for the game?

Because its been don, and sans FW seems to not really create a problem with balance....Like I said my preference would be to play FW and Ban the most offensive units in it (essentially 5 IG units.) , people don't like this because they want the broken units, not the fluffy fun units.

MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

Tournament Organizers are free to do as they please with regard to legalization. Most Tournament Organizers for the larger events present multiple opportunities; i.e., at AdeptiCon you can play FW in the Gladiator or Team Tournament or Friendly, but not in the Champs. At NOVA, y ou can play FW in the Narrative or Trios Tournament, but not in the GT or Invitational. Hooray, options! /fin

Interestingly the only 40k tournaments that GW actually run themselves; Throne of Skulls, doesn't allow Forgeworld.

Breng77 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

That doesn't matter though because of the allie matrix. DE have VERY limited number of entries and VERY limited allies, most marine armies can take IG and have more entries to start as well. So IMO allies shift the meta much worse then FW. And for the record most of the "broken" combos people have mentioned....in fact ALL of them have required allies to pull off. So why are we not discussing whether of not allies are healthy for the game?

Because its been don, and sans FW seems to not really create a problem with balance....Like I said my preference would be to play FW and Ban the most offensive units in it (essentially 5 IG units.) , people don't like this because they want the broken units, not the fluffy fun units.

It clearly has shifted the meta game and by that nature means it has shifted the balance, how is that hard to grasp?

FW has not been used at enough venues to make judgements on it's impact, but certainly any new introduction will shift the balance, you act like every time a new codex comes out it has no influence whatsoever which is just false.

Finally as others have pointed out ad nauseum, people already cherry pick. They cherry pick even more with the ally system.

Breng77 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

That doesn't matter though because of the allie matrix. DE have VERY limited number of entries and VERY limited allies, most marine armies can take IG and have more entries to start as well. So IMO allies shift the meta much worse then FW. And for the record most of the "broken" combos people have mentioned....in fact ALL of them have required allies to pull off. So why are we not discussing whether of not allies are healthy for the game?

Because its been don, and sans FW seems to not really create a problem with balance....Like I said my preference would be to play FW and Ban the most offensive units in it (essentially 5 IG units.) , people don't like this because they want the broken units, not the fluffy fun units.

Or they disagree with you on their power level and have issues with double standards as nobody would attempt to suggest stuff with codex units.

 ruminator wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

Tournament Organizers are free to do as they please with regard to legalization. Most Tournament Organizers for the larger events present multiple opportunities; i.e., at AdeptiCon you can play FW in the Gladiator or Team Tournament or Friendly, but not in the Champs. At NOVA, y ou can play FW in the Narrative or Trios Tournament, but not in the GT or Invitational. Hooray, options! /fin

Interestingly the only 40k tournaments that GW actually run themselves; Throne of Skulls, doesn't allow Forgeworld.

These are run by GW's marketing arm to drive sales to core channels, i.e. large plastic kits. They are never anything the design studio has had anything to do with and are less and less a part of the tournament scene these days.

 ruminator wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
Talk about a conversation getting in the weeds. FW isn't necessary, at all, for fair competitive play. Adding FW 40k approved units will add a high concentration of powerful units to IG, while largely adding none to most other codices. Take that as you will.

Tournament Organizers are free to do as they please with regard to legalization. Most Tournament Organizers for the larger events present multiple opportunities; i.e., at AdeptiCon you can play FW in the Gladiator or Team Tournament or Friendly, but not in the Champs. At NOVA, y ou can play FW in the Narrative or Trios Tournament, but not in the GT or Invitational. Hooray, options! /fin

Interestingly the only 40k tournaments that GW actually run themselves; Throne of Skulls, doesn't allow Forgeworld.

They also don't run allies, but nice try.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

That doesn't matter though because of the allie matrix. DE have VERY limited number of entries and VERY limited allies, most marine armies can take IG and have more entries to start as well. So IMO allies shift the meta much worse then FW. And for the record most of the "broken" combos people have mentioned....in fact ALL of them have required allies to pull off. So why are we not discussing whether of not allies are healthy for the game?

Furthermore, the majority of IG units are Apocalypse. You're considering the half a dozen Baneblade-chassis variants, for example, and other Superheavies like the Malcador and Gorgon. That brings you down to chassis variants based off of Leman Russ and Chimera hulls (many of which are Codex: IG options, which further discounts that), as well as artillery platforms. Ditto with Space Marines. Once you eliminate all the Codex variants, as well as Mark and production Forgeworld variations too, you don't have that many "new" units for IG and SM. For the rest, how different is a Leman Russ with one gun to another - they still work the same way. There's no trickery involved. As a result, there is merely an illusion that they have that much more because their pages are so much more cluttered.

Sure, once you get down to it, you may still have more IG and SM "new" units, but not by much to the next-leading one. In response to that, think about what armies the majority of the 40k fanbase plays (I'm not talking tournament, I'm talking overall player base). That's right, forces of good, i.e. Space Marines and Imperial Guard. Look at how many Space Marine codices we have - Space Marines, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Black Templars, Grey Knights, Dark Angels. Therefore, Forge World as a studio has to cater in some form or another to their target market, i.e. the player base demographics, and the releases they have are correspondingly higher in SM and IG units. It's a purely business decision that makes logical sense.

And thus, I think that I have defeated the argument of "FW adds 50 more units to IG than anyone else".

So no one has issues with the Chaos Dwarf Tamurkhan book?

Only the 40k stuff?

I love my tamurkhan book, glad it's not an issue

 Vaktathi wrote:
Since...when?

Fair has never extended outside the initial environment (attempting to control for sports, ensuring points values are equal, sometimes attempting to control things through mission type and sometimes borking it majorly), but never extended to ensuring armies don't have advantages over each other. Otherwise people would be far more concerned with necrons

We already have, and always have had, vast disparities between army power, unit availability, issues with armies being two editions behind, etc. Fair only extends to ensuring fair missions (sometimes, when TO's don't go out of their way to mess with certain types of armies), table setup, and even points matches and attempting to control sportsmanship. Beyond that, other than now-almost-totally-extirpated comp scores, fairness doesn't really factor into it. No tournament tries to make sure Sisters of Battle can match Necrons on an even footing for example.

As for diversity, tournaments have never had a responsibility to attempt to enforce diversity. A few have tried but there's a reason we have sillyness like Adepticon 2011 and the most populous army being Space Wolves with literally almost 90% of them being bandwagon codex-hopping "counts as" lists. Nobody seemed to think that was something TO's needed to directly address until "zomgforgeworld".

One can doomsay all one wants about how it'll see a huge shift to IG armies, since when did the composition of the armies present become the responsbility of TO's? Where was this concern over the armies present when SW's overran events a couple years ago? Where's the concern over necron domination at the tournament level? We see similar shifts every time a new codex is released, and most armies getting more options is not a bad thing.

And fundamentally, I also fail to see how adding in dozens of new units and a bunch of new army lists would hurt diversity, and if we're talking tournament level play here, then I'm sure the players themselves will adapt and shift to new strategies/different armies as time goes on, as they always do.

Tournament do have the responsibility to create a reasonably fair competitive environment. This does not equate with complete fairness across the board which would be completely impossible FW or not. However as it has been pointed out you have already seen the strength of IG increase in the major GTs that feature FW (Adepticon TT, BAO, Broadside Bash). The difference between Necrons taking many top spots at Adepticon is the way their missions heavily featured Kill Points and random objectives. Those play strongly to the strengths of Necrons. Now we have two codices which one will certainly prove a tough matchup for Necrons and we have yet even explored Daemons yet.

FW IG has been well documented. Its extremely strong in tournaments. Other units you mentioned are simply not as good and spread more evenly to other armies. Again were not arguing every forgeworld unit, just the broken ones which heavily favor IG and SM.

I'd argue that many of the units I listed above would make pretty routine appearances as well and that units like Tetras and Warp Hunters. In fact, far more than IG units, I've seen Tetras in huge numbers locally.

Tetras were excellent Tau units when they were starved for mobile markerlight and their codex was terribly outdated. I have local players who used them in friendly games w/o issue. I'm sure they are still in use because people will still have the models. Markerlights certainly is not a problem for the new codex.

Is that related to controlling the composition of armies present, or just controlling their rankings and/or providing new experiences? Many still use rulebook missions or slight variations thereof.

Either way, that's another aspect that can be pursued the units people seem to be having issues with are artillery units. Design missions that emphasize mobility and a need to physically control the board and such lists will fail.

I agree but it is not hard to ally in mobility or take Vendettas for IG. The problem is the enemy has to be able to hold them throughout a game. When you have strong artillery and Vulture finding where your hiding through the entire game and your unable to shift the IG due to their firepower and durability they really don't have to grab objectives when they can stay on theirs.

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

IG are intergalactic whores... Just about every army can ally with them. Admit it, you don't like FW.

 Dozer Blades wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It is still closer than the Difference in FW where IG adds maybe 50 more to IG and 10 to Dark Eldar.

IG are intergalactic whores... Just about every army can ally with them. Admit it, you don't like FW.

Trollish, just like the whiffed guess at me a few posts earlier.

I don't think it speaks to FW dislike if someone doesn't want to have to change his army to IG primary or allied in order to access the most useful goodies. As has already been pointed out, all of the even outdated mainstream codices are inclusive of powerful units. Adding FW more or less only adds powerful units to IG. People have a right to not find that very appealing if attending a tournament.

Heh, and a caveat again, b/c these convos are so long and they get missed ... I personally use FW when I can in a tourney, attend a few tourneys every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW, and host 4 tourneys for 40k at NOVA every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW.

"Tournament do have the responsibility to create a reasonably fair competitive environment. This does not equate with complete fairness across the board which would be completely impossible FW or not. However as it has been pointed out you have already seen the strength of IG increase in the major GTs that feature FW (Adepticon TT, BAO, Broadside Bash). The difference between Necrons taking many top spots at Adepticon is the way their missions heavily featured Kill Points and random objectives. Those play strongly to the strengths of Necrons. Now we have two codices which one will certainly prove a tough matchup for Necrons and we have yet even explored Daemons yet."

There are so many factors that are inherently unfair in tournaments... Lack of terrain, missions that favor certain builds, home grown FAQs (ugggggh), etc. I don't you can make a good case to support your claim.

Tournaments don't have a responsibiltiy for or against it. BUT, if a tournament attempts to create AS FAIR a situation as possible (a very noble, realistic, and achievable goal), there's very reasonable argument to be made that allowing FW harms that goal, instead of advancing it.

This is certainly the goal of the NOVA's 40k GT (and, by having parallel paths within the same event, largely achieves this for those who love win/loss, those who love battle points, and those who love older school scoring that heavily favors soft scores, plus the provision of 6th-attuned missions and uniform terrain, yada yada), which is one of the reasons we don't add in FW unit rules there. However, similarly, it's NOT a goal of the NOVA's 40k Narrative, which is meant to be fun and wide open and enthusiastic and casual (and gets a ton of attendees, and is a mainstream event in and of itself), and which DOES allow FW rules, in fact even more broadly than JUST 40k approved (though no apoc/superheavy). This is just my own personal example - you can see the exact same variety of goal, intent, and subsequent allowance at AdeptiCon, WargamesCon, Feast of Blades, etc. etc. etc.

What's not being very clearly understood is the original intent of this thread (is Forgeworld "needed"), and the related question of what a TO's responsibility is. Once they've staked a claim on what they INTEND any given event they run to be, that becomes the realm of their responsibility. There are fair arguments to be made about how FW impacts different goals and responsibilities of a TO.

And for you guys out there constantly saying 40K ISN'T MADE FOR TOURNAMENTS TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE FAIR IS STUPID, hey ... eff you buddies. You're as off base and unfair in trying to tell a hard-working TO what they can or can't do as you would be to say 40K ISN'T MADE FOR INTERNATIONALLY ATTENDED NARRATIVE EVENTS THAT MIX FLUFF WITH THE REAL WORLD, TRYING TO DO SO IS STUPID. None of it is stupid, and all of it is stupid. We're playing with toy soldiers, but at the same time, people are paying THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to travel and attend events where they have expectations (ranging from "I want a fun crazy narrative" to "I want a competitive event where I have a fair chance of not being screwed by TOO many things entirely out of my control).

TO's put a lot of time into what they do; having discussions about what they should or shouldn't do with different rule components with regard to the goals of their specific events is a reasonable thing to do. Black and white shut down brush off statements that say one or another solution is wrong across the board, on the other hand, is not reasonable.

Are you trying to make your event more fair with the missions, scoring, FAQ's, terrain, etc., that you use?
Are you trying to make your event more variable, random, laid back, casual, etc?

Those two extremes need to address the inclusion of FW in entirely different ways ... and even THEN, how a TO chooses to rule is never "wrong" (or right). It's a toy soldier game, with a set of rules that are more like guidelines, to be played as people see fit, and to be organized into events as the organizers see fit, all toward the goal of having fun and playing together and making social connections.


PS - can we all grow up a little? I know I've had to over the years, from a guy who often [unintentionally] sounded like a dick in every post I made, to someone who at least tries not to. Our hobby feels utterly plagued right now by forum flames, legal battles by litigious donkey-caves, back-biting and sniping all over the place. It's annoying already.

MVBrandt wrote:
Tournaments don't have a responsibiltiy for or against it. BUT, if a tournament attempts to create AS FAIR a situation as possible (a very noble, realistic, and achievable goal), there's very reasonable argument to be made that allowing FW harms that goal, instead of advancing it.

This is certainly the goal of the NOVA's 40k GT (and, by having parallel paths within the same event, largely achieves this for those who love win/loss, those who love battle points, and those who love older school scoring that heavily favors soft scores, plus the provision of 6th-attuned missions and uniform terrain, yada yada), which is one of the reasons we don't add in FW unit rules there. However, similarly, it's NOT a goal of the NOVA's 40k Narrative, which is meant to be fun and wide open and enthusiastic and casual (and gets a ton of attendees, and is a mainstream event in and of itself), and which DOES allow FW rules, in fact even more broadly than JUST 40k approved (though no apoc/superheavy). This is just my own personal example - you can see the exact same variety of goal, intent, and subsequent allowance at AdeptiCon, WargamesCon, Feast of Blades, etc. etc. etc.

What's not being very clearly understood is the original intent of this thread (is Forgeworld "needed"), and the related question of what a TO's responsibility is. Once they've staked a claim on what they INTEND any given event they run to be, that becomes the realm of their responsibility. There are fair arguments to be made about how FW impacts different goals and responsibilities of a TO.

And for you guys out there constantly saying 40K ISN'T MADE FOR TOURNAMENTS TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE FAIR IS STUPID, hey ... eff you buddies. You're as off base and unfair in trying to tell a hard-working TO what they can or can't do as you would be to say 40K ISN'T MADE FOR INTERNATIONALLY ATTENDED NARRATIVE EVENTS THAT MIX FLUFF WITH THE REAL WORLD, TRYING TO DO SO IS STUPID.

TO's put a lot of time into what they do; having discussions about what they should or shouldn't do with different rule components with regard to the goals of their specific events is a reasonable thing to do. Black and white shut down brush off statements that say one or another solution is wrong across the board, on the other hand, is not reasonable.

Are you trying to make your event more fair with the missions, scoring, FAQ's, terrain, etc., that you use?
Are you trying to make your event more variable, random, laid back, casual, etc?

Those two extremes need to address the inclusion of FW in entirely different ways ... and even THEN, how a TO chooses to rule is never "wrong" (or right). It's a toy soldier game, with a set of rules that are more like guidelines, to be played as people see fit, and to be organized into events as the organizers see fit, all toward the goal of having fun and playing together and making social connections.

QFT - well said, well said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MVBrandt wrote:

PS - can we all grow up a little? I know I've had to over the years, from a guy who often [unintentionally] sounded like a dick in every post I made, to someone who at least tries not to. Our hobby feels utterly plagued right now by forum flames, legal battles by litigious donkey-caves, back-biting and sniping all over the place. It's annoying already.

Honestly, about two pages ago I thought we all came to an agreement that limited FW was fine for tournies, or just restrict the horribly imbalanced combinations/units.

Can a mod change the title to Do we still need forge world in 40k tournament play?

Eyjio wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

FW is an "add-on" in as much as WD SoB is an "add-on", or any other Codex for that matter. FW is officially part of the game system as much as Codices are. An "add-on" would be Apocalypse, which fundamentally changes how the game is played.

This is simply untrue. SoB is published and printed directly by Games Workshop LTD, a subsidiary owned by Games Workshop Group PLC. Forge World is another subsidiary of Games Workshop Group PLC but otherwise unrelated to Games Workshop LTD - they have a different work force, different stores, different warehouses and produce different products. Forge World are licensed to be able to produce items for GW LTD trademarks and use their copyrights. That does not and will never make them "the same". They do not even use the same printing - Forge World books are printed in England, GWs in China. Forge World's self proclaimed officiousness is about as valid as Transformers saying they're valid for use in MTG because both are subsidiaries of Hasbro. It's marketed as "an expansion" because they are not allowed by the main company to produce additional models for the GW subsidiary and claim them to be normally usable units for any game. Please stop spreading this because it is wrong.

If you read carefully at the beginning of any FW books you will see that GW OWNS the words in the book. FW publishes but GW owns EVERYTHING. Names, models, rules all of it. Now considering how GW tends to go after anyone who threatens their IP do you REALLY believe they would let FW make that sort of claim in EVERY book since IA: Apocalypse 2nd ed if it was not true?

And if you want to really drill down to that level, my Forgeworld models have Games Workshop stamped on the sprues so they are in fact GW models.

 Oaka wrote:
Well, at the very least, it helps eliminate a lot of arguments that I thought were smokescreens for the real problem, "I think some units in Forgeworld are too good and I don't want to play against them."

- Forgeworld books are expensive Not anymore than a Codex. The IA books sure, but the rulebooks? Nope. IA: Aeronautica and IA: Apocalypse 2nd ed come in at $39 US
- Forgeworld books require too many additional books to know the rules for every unit Which is why you have rulebooks with condensed units in them. Currently about 2-3 books for FW versus 15 codices
- Forgeworld books are not readily available in stores I concede that point as it is totally true
- Forgeworld books are not an official codex Neither are White Dwarves but that did not stop people from flock to Chaos Demons when their units became OP through a White Dwarf updates now did it?
- Forgeworld books have more rules for certain armies than others Yes but the range is ever expanding, slower these days I will give you that but certain codices have more special rules than others, more heavy choices than others, more special characters than others, more EW than others. Big whoop

Personally I like my FW Eldar stuff, I don't use it in every list but I like variety and the models. Yeah I have ended up on the receiving end of a lucious assault drop pod. It happens. You either adapt and learn to think on the fly or you lose.

"Heh, and a caveat again, b/c these convos are so long and they get missed ... I personally use FW when I can in a tourney, attend a few tourneys every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW, and host 4 tourneys for 40k at NOVA every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW."

Do as I say not as I do then?

 Dozer Blades wrote:
"Heh, and a caveat again, b/c these convos are so long and they get missed ... I personally use FW when I can in a tourney, attend a few tourneys every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW, and host 4 tourneys for 40k at NOVA every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW."

Do as I say not as I do then?

No not at all.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
"Heh, and a caveat again, b/c these convos are so long and they get missed ... I personally use FW when I can in a tourney, attend a few tourneys every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW, and host 4 tourneys for 40k at NOVA every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW."

Do as I say not as I do then?

His point was for the purely competitive events universal FW inclusion is not suitable. For more casual, fluffy events its just fine.

Glocknall wrote:

Tournament do have the responsibility to create a reasonably fair competitive environment. This does not equate with complete fairness across the board which would be completely impossible FW or not. However as it has been pointed out you have already seen the strength of IG increase in the major GTs that feature FW (Adepticon TT, BAO, Broadside Bash). The difference between Necrons taking many top spots at Adepticon is the way their missions heavily featured Kill Points and random objectives. Those play strongly to the strengths of Necrons. Now we have two codices which one will certainly prove a tough matchup for Necrons and we have yet even explored Daemons yet.

I can't speak to the way the new books match up against crons yet because it's all still very new, however I'd argue that missions are the primary reason for Necrons showing, I'd say that, barring perhaps Eldar, they're the army best built to 6th edition even being a 5th edition army.

They can mitigate the painful impact HP's have on many others by being AV13 while Gauss weapons enable them to make more use of it against their foes than other races can, their assault units didn't rely on outflanking or transports to get stuck in and on average became even more effective with longer average and max charge distances (and swarms completely ignore terrain), they have great flyers and their flyer transport ignores all the bad stuff about being a flyer transport, Snapshots are clutch for Necrons with Tesla weaponry allowing them to fire with an average number of hits not much below what they'd normally get (snap-firing Telsa weapons effectively average a hit rate that a BS3 non-tesla weapon would while a Twin Linked tesla weapon snap firing is equivalent to an otherwise BS8 weapon. They also make excellent use of the character rules and challenges and can do more with Nightfight than just about any other army. Their mechanics are astoundingly flush with the 6E core ruleset.

FW IG has been well documented. Its extremely strong in tournaments. Other units you mentioned are simply not as good and spread more evenly to other armies. Again were not arguing every forgeworld unit, just the broken ones which heavily favor IG and SM.

And on some level I get that, but at the same time if these units showed up in a codex, nobody would bat an eye which is what puzzles me. It's the double-standard.

I don't actually even own any of the units under discussion (my FW collection consists of a bunch of DKoK infantry and some Death Riders, some Heavy Mortars, some Rapiers, 2 Hades drills, an Eldar Vampire Hunter, Eldar Scorpion, Eldar Nightwing, Chaos Decimator, some IG Chimera Autocannon turrets, a bunch of Iron Warriors dreadnoughts, and some IW Land Raider hatches), but I'm puzzled when people wouldn't simply the book title is what makes the difference between a unit being untouchable or not.

Tetras were excellent Tau units when they were starved for mobile markerlight and their codex was terribly outdated. I have local players who used them in friendly games w/o issue. I'm sure they are still in use because people will still have the models. Markerlights certainly is not a problem for the new codex.

They're still very good units that allow one to get in markerlights without having to rely on infantry options, especially to places where the infantry options may not have Los or range. People use them because they're still effective, and very often full squads of Pathfinders are simply unnecessary.

I agree but it is not hard to ally in mobility or take Vendettas for IG. The problem is the enemy has to be able to hold them throughout a game.

The enemy need not sit on them the entire game, just at the end of the game and/or if you get points throughout the game then even if they get smashed they may have so many objective points accumulated the IG may not be able to make it up.

When you have strong artillery and Vulture finding where your hiding through the entire game and your unable to shift the IG due to their firepower and durability they really don't have to grab objectives when they can stay on theirs.

If you can remove the Ld buff component and force Ld tests on/attack the Ld of the artillery, they flee, and, aside from Sabres, the resilient artillery aren't scoring units.

MVBrandt wrote:
Tournaments don't have a responsibiltiy for or against it. BUT, if a tournament attempts to create AS FAIR a situation as possible (a very noble, realistic, and achievable goal), there's very reasonable argument to be made that allowing FW harms that goal, instead of advancing it.

And yet if that's its goal, then why no mention of making any effort to control codex units?

MVBrandt wrote:And for you guys out there constantly saying 40K ISN'T MADE FOR TOURNAMENTS TRYING TO MAKE IT MORE FAIR IS STUPID, hey ... eff you buddies.

MVBrandt wrote:PS - can we all grow up a little? I know I've had to over the years, from a guy who often [unintentionally] sounded like a dick in every post I made, to someone who at least tries not to. Our hobby feels utterly plagued right now by forum flames, legal battles by litigious donkey-caves, back-biting and sniping all over the place. It's annoying already.

You're as off base and unfair in trying to tell a hard-working TO what they can or can't do as you would be to say 40K ISN'T MADE FOR INTERNATIONALLY ATTENDED NARRATIVE EVENTS THAT MIX FLUFF WITH THE REAL WORLD, TRYING TO DO SO IS STUPID. None of it is stupid, and all of it is stupid. We're playing with toy soldiers, but at the same time, people are paying THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to travel and attend events where they have expectations (ranging from "I want a fun crazy narrative" to "I want a competitive event where I have a fair chance of not being screwed by TOO many things entirely out of my control).

The point was that if you're playing a game in a manner it was never designed to be played in, why flip out about units from one source, but do absolutely nothing about units from another source?

Glocknall wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
"Heh, and a caveat again, b/c these convos are so long and they get missed ... I personally use FW when I can in a tourney, attend a few tourneys every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW, and host 4 tourneys for 40k at NOVA every year, 50% of which on the nose allow FW."

Do as I say not as I do then?

His point was for the purely competitive events universal FW inclusion is not suitable. For more casual, fluffy events its just fine.

He did not make a distinction in regards to the type of events he attends.

In my humble opinion, FW doesnt wreck a tourney, ALLIES wreck tournies...

SOOO much fun to take on the meta necron flying circus with...oh yeah a Riptide just to boot!!