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So, I came across a mention in another thread of army bias in allowing FW, and since I've been composing a massive article/resource on FW rules locations, I thought I'd count up the real figures.

The number of new FW units is shown first, the number in brackets is the number of units in their Codex.

Adepta Sororitas -- 8 (16)
Chaos Space Marines -- 22 (37)
Chaos Daemons -- 13 (39)
Dark Eldar -- 4 (33)
Eldar -- 15 (40)
Imperial Guard -- 60 (50)
Grey Knights -- 18 (37)
Necrons -- 13 (31)
Orks -- 30 (26)
Space Marines -- 38 (47) (slight variations due to Chapter Tactics)
Blood Angels -- 29 (43)
Dark Angels -- 34 (38)
Space Wolves -- 32 (35)
Tau -- 21 (25)
Tyranids -- 7 (32)

Interesting. So, as we can see there's a clear bias towards Imperial armies (unless you're Sororitas), but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Orks, CSM and Tau all rack up between 20 and 30 new units. Arguably, the ally rules help this, since almost everyone can ally with a high-count army, except Tyranids.

Lords of War tend to make up around a quarter to a third of the entries in any given army. This helps the primary detachment only, though - since you can't take 'allied' Lords of War.

We should also point out that unit variation may not accurately represent tabletop variation. For example, many of the Imperial Guard vehicles are tanks where the only difference is the main gun, whereas all the Necron options are quite different units with quite different uses.

Thoughts??

Well it is Imperial Armour.
Interesting though. They do really like tau battlesuits and flyers.

I'm not sure why FW doesn't love us Tyranids, they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something, but what about the bugs?

Forgeworld was early on really just a place for treadheads to get their fix, and I'm glad they've expanded their range so much. This list also doesn't really show all the variations of Space Marine armor, does it? There's tons and tons of Space Marine kits and bits released for Horus Heresy, to the point where I think there may be more Marine kits than Imperial Guard ones, even if it's only a kit of "Mk.II heads" or whatever.

 Brother SRM wrote:
Forgeworld was early on really just a place for treadheads to get their fix, and I'm glad they've expanded their range so much. This list also doesn't really show all the variations of Space Marine armor, does it? There's tons and tons of Space Marine kits and bits released for Horus Heresy, to the point where I think there may be more Marine kits than Imperial Guard ones, even if it's only a kit of "Mk.II heads" or whatever.

This is true, thought most of those kits don't have an in-game impact.

This number DOES include all the Heresy-era vehicles that are now available as 'Relics' in the new edition of IA:2 - which is almost everything. Spartans, Fellblades, Contemptors, Javelin Speeders etc. Off the top of my head, the only things not available in regular 40k (and not included in the figures) are the new infantry units (Cataphractii, Breacher Squads, etc), the Jetbikes and some of the Sicaran variants.

 Kain wrote:
they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something

This sounds like the most transparent excuse I've ever heard of.

Updated to include the number of units in each codex - this number varies quite a lot as well!!

 Kain wrote:
I'm not sure why FW doesn't love us Tyranids, they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something, but what about the bugs?

The FW Tyranid range has really suffered from being transitioned into the main codex line, with things like Trygons and Flyrants superseded by plastic kits.

On the bright side, an IA4 second edition is in progress, which will refresh the rather dilapidated Tyranid range. The new devourer arms are a bit of a taster for that. All they've said so far* is that we will get new models, although to what extent is a bit of a mystery. As much as I'd like to see it, I doubt it will include anything GC-sized, so a re-imagined Dominatrix isn't very likely. At best I think we'll see R'Varna-style conversion kits for plastic MCs (perhaps to give us a Malefactor or Dactylis), and maybe a Mycetic Spore.

*Someone asked on the FW facebook page about updated rules for Stonecrusher Fexes and Meiotic Spores. They replied to say IA4 was being worked on and would see new model releases when it came out.

Jimsolo wrote:

 Kain wrote:
they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something

This sounds like the most transparent excuse I've ever heard of.

Not really. How much have you worked with resin models? Because I know for a fact that all the resin antennae on my stuff is so fragile I can flick them off of the models. DE would essentially be a ball of these and would crumble from touching them, I don't even want to think about fixing all the warping . Now if FW ever transitions to plastic or a stronger material then it wouldn't be so bad.

xttz wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I'm not sure why FW doesn't love us Tyranids, they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something, but what about the bugs?

The FW Tyranid range has really suffered from being transitioned into the main codex line, with things like Trygons and Flyrants superseded by plastic kits.

On the bright side, an IA4 second edition is in progress, which will refresh the rather dilapidated Tyranid range. The new devourer arms are a bit of a taster for that. All they've said so far* is that we will get new models, although to what extent is a bit of a mystery. As much as I'd like to see it, I doubt it will include anything GC-sized, so a re-imagined Dominatrix isn't very likely. At best I think we'll see R'Varna-style conversion kits for plastic MCs (perhaps to give us a Malefactor or Dactylis), and maybe a Mycetic Spore.

*Someone asked on the FW facebook page about updated rules for Stonecrusher Fexes and Meiotic Spores. They replied to say IA4 was being worked on and would see new model releases when it came out.

I think that the FW tyranid deficit has multiple reasons. Some of the units were moved to main codex and models were replaced, they have't updated their books dealing with them for a while so there wasn't a need, and honestly the Imperial units are largely variants upon one another vs the xenos are entirely different from each other. This means forgeworld can release a new "unit" for IG which is a thunderer but is really only 1-2 parts to put onto a plastic kit.


In fact the imperial units listed are largely variants and share the same bodies to the kits, ie the vast majority of the SM tanks are rhino or landraider bodies. It is very rare for IoM kits to not be based on the common vehicle bodies. Additionally all the SM, DA, BA, and SW units are essentially the same units with rarely an iconography pack or special rules. Not exactly the difference between a eldar and chaos daemons model.

What did you consider a "unit"? Only things with new rules, or did you count things like the various alternate LRBT turrets that just use the codex rules? Did you count superheavies? Did you count every unit in an army list as a separate unit? I ask this because your count of 60 for IG seems a lot higher than it should be, IA1 has all of the IG units except the aircraft and it's only 41.

Also, how many units to C:SM have if you exclude their giant pile of boring Badab War characters?

I'm okay with Forgeworld being what it is: a bunch of designers making what they want. Less oversight from the invisible hand of the bean counters = guys making what they want to make = awesome miniatures. Does it mean a veritable deluge of Imperial units? Yeah, but then again that's the thing that draws most people into the hobby.

It means we have guys like Simon Egan making beautifully crafted, gorgeous miniatures because he wants to make the ones he's doing, rather than because Kirby said "We need to make quota, design an overpowered giant $115 kit people have to buy if they want to win a game."

I'd love to see more non-imperial stuff, but as long as what comes out continues to look great, I really don't care if it was literally ALL imperial.

Are you counting variants as separate units? I don't think that's overly correct.

I count 25 units in the IG codex, if you call Leman Russ Demolisher and BT separate units that's 26, if you count the Ordnance units separately that's 29.

There's then 11 special characters, so 40 all up.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Kain wrote:
they said that the dark Eldar aesthetic made for unpackagably fragile models or something

This sounds like the most transparent excuse I've ever heard of.

Resin is extremely fragile, dark eldar models are thin and spindly and have lots of thin, spindly, and easily broken bits and pieces on them. The forgeworld dark eldar models are lovely, but they break if sneezed on because while Resin is great for fine detail, it's low durability makes it less than ideal when handling an army whose defining aesthetic characteristics make for easy breakage.

Infantry are a no go and the vehicles lose those spikes and pointy bits so easily if not outright break apart. Fixing this requires either switching to a new material or compromising on the visuals of the Dark Eldar. Me and my Wife rather have her dark eldar army wait for a shift away from resin to get FW units rather than sacrifice the aesthetic appeal of the army.

Given all the Aeronautica Imperialis models were resin from FW, I'm sure they could do Dark Eldar if they wanted. Actually FW do use different varieties of resin, the AI Thunderhawk I bought came in a more yellowish resin that seems a lot tougher than their typical more pale resin.

Peregrine wrote:What did you consider a "unit"? Only things with new rules, or did you count things like the various alternate LRBT turrets that just use the codex rules? Did you count superheavies? Did you count every unit in an army list as a separate unit? I ask this because your count of 60 for IG seems a lot higher than it should be, IA1 has all of the IG units except the aircraft and it's only 41.

Also, how many units to C:SM have if you exclude their giant pile of boring Badab War characters?

Hello - I counted anything that has a new unit entry in a FW book. The link to the full list is in my sig...

This means that all the Baneblade variants, Macharius variants, etc are new units. The increase over IA:1 is because IA:1 doesn't include Aircraft, Titans or many of the Baneblade or Shadowsword variants.

very thoughtful and thought provoking. This is a lot to digest.

Less unbalanced than I had thought (especially when considering how many truly new and different units are involved in this).

Thanks

But they still sell all three weapon options for the XV9 battle-suits as separate kits...and don't even have a Pulse Submunition Cannon option.

That alone is the source of a lot of my ill will. The fact the models look awesome is what keeps me coming back.

Well considering that FW models are a bit like premium GW models its not shocking to see FW favor imperial armies when traditionally in 40k the imperial armies sell the best

Also, quite a few imperial FW kits can be used in multiple armies, whereas with xenos factions this isn't the case (excluding eldar and dark eldar).

Brother Michael wrote:
Also, quite a few imperial FW kits can be used in multiple armies, whereas with xenos factions this isn't the case (excluding eldar and dark eldar).

Some Chaos stuff pulls double duty between the two Chaos armies, but not all of it.

At least not outside of Apoc.

Screw me....As a nids player I knew it was bad bu tI didnt know it was this bad....

Hahaha I don't have any hope anymore for a decent Imperial Armor Volume 4.

vortexdr wrote:
Screw me....As a nids player I knew it was bad bu tI didnt know it was this bad....

Hahaha I don't have any hope anymore for a decent Imperial Armor Volume 4.

Set the bar low enough and you can never be dissapointed!