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Hey everyone,

One of my local shops is getting ready to hold event and I noticed that for their competitive event they are not allowing experimental units, but for their narrative event they are. They have made them unique 0-1 and worth 2VP if you kill them. Does this seem fair or a bit over the top?

Thank you

If you are talking about Forgeworld then the only reason they are listed as "experimental" it's because they have not been in a book yet. There is no reason events should not allow them and no...they are not so special they should count as two points.

 Fishboy wrote:
If you are talking about Forgeworld then the only reason they are listed as "experimental" it's because they have not been in a book yet. There is no reason events should not allow them and no...they are not so special they should count as two points.

That's not entirely true. There are several data sheets in the download section for units that are not in books and are not marked Experimental.

We allow them for the simple reason...they are supposed to be tested and then we email forge world and let them know our feedback, why do you think the derptide got nerfed, because players sent back feedback and it got changed.

The haters need something to ban. A few years back, it was FW in it's entirety. Then it was LoW's, now it's experimental units.

At this point, the rules are such a hodgepodge, I don't know that it much matters . A casual player can't hope to know the rules of what they're playing against, or what units that look identical to the ones next to them are from a formation that grants them special rules, etc...

This is certainly reason enough to just allow everything and the kitchen sink, as GW clearly wants it all included (apocalypse only units, D-weapons, etc) without restriction. But it makes timed tournament 40k play more of a challenge than ever!

I'm not sure what others are experiencing but the local scene has mostly stopped playing 40k as a result of this trend... I could definitely see playing a game as GW is pushing, or as the OP even mentions - a "narrative"... but competitively, it just seems to be an ever more square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

I am all for testing Experimental units in a sandbox environment, friendly game or plain test game.

I always defended FW rules being used and I am still very much pro-FW but Experimental are labeled as such for a reason.

 Glitcha wrote:

 Fishboy wrote:
If you are talking about Forgeworld then the only reason they are listed as "experimental" it's because they have not been in a book yet. There is no reason events should not allow them and no...they are not so special they should count as two points.

That's not entirely true. There are several data sheets in the download section for units that are not in books and are not marked Experimental.

There are several of us who have made the request to Forgeworld to remove the "experimental" tags and the consistent response we have received is this (cut and paste from forge worlds emailed response):

"Thanks for your email. Experimental is just a label we use to tell customers that the rules may change when the product goes into a book. It's nothing more than that. Individual tournament organisers get to decide which models they will or will not allow in their events. Certainly I've heard of all kinds of different things including an event where rhino's were banned!

So just have a chat to the organiser of the event."

No.

Tricky - there are so many OP units and formations that can be found in the basic codex that its tempting to just say - whatever you want bring it. So it depends on what else a tournament is restricting.

So if they are imposing limits on some things then its pretty legitimate to limit Experimental Rules units - if they are not - well then why limit one maybe OP unit and ignore the def OP standard units......?

I think that as long as everyone is clear that they are (or are not) allowed it should be fine...

In this specific case are they making any special rules for "Cheese" units for either event?

No because the rules can change a lot such as the super riptide.

While I voted "only in friendly games", I can see some possible exceptions. The laser vindicator, for example. Not published in a 40K book yet, but has been published in a 30K book, so that helps to nail down its "official rules".

Also, it strikes me as ironic that, when the rules are freely available to all (on the FW downloads page), they're not allowed. Only once they're in a $70+ book do they become allowed. And, even then, one of the arguments against FW is how hard it is to get all the rules...

I kinda see a lot of the forgeworld models as a kind of Pay-to-win. Most of the time they are outright better than standard GW and not everyone has the money, or the time to learn everything plus FW.

 devinple wrote:
I kinda see a lot of the forgeworld models as a kind of Pay-to-win. Most of the time they are outright better than standard GW and not everyone has the money, or the time to learn everything plus FW.

Can you give some examples of FW models being better than standard GW - which includes all the recent Marine, Eldar and Necron Cheese?

I definitely don't agree with the power level comment of devinple, but the time portion is definitely a factor... the number of rules, formations, etc to keep up with now is really insane.

So, as Mr Morden posted it might make sense to link it to what else the event is doing - i.e. are they restricting anything? Most are these days... so, does Experimental rules from FW fall into something they want to restrict, to make things more manageable for their players? Or, if you're allowing everything else, maybe you want to allow it, too.

As is the case with many things in 40k now, it seems like an event-by-event basis is the only way to go, as FW themselves say. I don't think you could make a standard call on this (or really many parts of the game).

 Mr Morden wrote:

 devinple wrote:
I kinda see a lot of the forgeworld models as a kind of Pay-to-win. Most of the time they are outright better than standard GW and not everyone has the money, or the time to learn everything plus FW.

Can you give some examples of FW models being better than standard GW - which includes all the recent Marine, Eldar and Necron Cheese?

As an example of something that is strictly better, yet still certainly not being "OP" or "cheesy", would be the Sicaran tank. However, given that the paradigm for the last 10+ years has been "Space Marine Tanks = Crap", to finally have a tank that is actually good just blows people's minds. The Sicaran isn't OP, it just seems that way in comparison to the crap tanks SM have been stuck with. Kind of like if the only burgers you've had your whole life were McDonalds, and then you suddenly had a burger from any other fastfood chain, it would seem like the best burger in the world. While it certainly isn't the best burger in the world, the bar had already been set pretty low for you all those years that it just seems that way.

At this point, with whats possible from normal 40k codex books, I can't see any of the "experimental" units having anything near the power level of what's possible from what you can get out of mainline plastic stuff, don't see any reason they should have any penalty.

That said, they do sometimes get changed in response to feedback, and this is perhaps a great way to generate such feedback.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 devinple wrote:
I kinda see a lot of the forgeworld models as a kind of Pay-to-win. Most of the time they are outright better than standard GW and not everyone has the money, or the time to learn everything plus FW.

Can you give some examples of FW models being better than standard GW - which includes all the recent Marine, Eldar and Necron Cheese?

As an example of something that is strictly better, yet still certainly not being "OP" or "cheesy", would be the Sicaran tank. However, given that the paradigm for the last 10+ years has been "Space Marine Tanks = Crap", to finally have a tank that is actually good just blows people's minds. The Sicaran isn't OP, it just seems that way in comparison to the crap tanks SM have been stuck with. Kind of like if the only burgers you've had your whole life were McDonalds, and then you suddenly had a burger from any other fastfood chain, it would seem like the best burger in the world. While it certainly isn't the best burger in the world, the bar had already been set pretty low for you all those years that it just seems that way.

Agreed.

I'd judge this on a case-per-case basis, honestly. Experimental units are experimental. Many experimental units, such as the Mhara Gal, had extremely minor changes (points cost raised to 305 from 285, added a twin-linked bolter with soul blaze) and those units are often rather fine as they are. Those I'd play with.

The infamous R'varna, less so. It was clearly too strong from the onset.

Not every fw unit not in a book is experimental only the models with rules that may change due to them being a rough draft.

If forgeworld feels the need to put a disclaimer on a handful of units saying those model rules can drastically change when published then those rules should not be allowed for competitive play.

If FW is pay to win, then the CSM codex is pay to lose.

gungo wrote:
Not every fw unit not in a book is experimental only the models with rules that may change due to them being a rough draft.

If forgeworld feels the need to put a disclaimer on a handful of units saying those model rules can drastically change when published then those rules should not be allowed for competitive play.

Wraithknight? I mean, having played against 5 of the 9 (IIRC) models that are currently experimental. None of them has anywhere near approaching the points imbalance that a WK has. Can drastically change, and will drastically change are also two different things. IMHO the Experimental stamp seems to get applied to rules that have been hastily written while trying to get a model out for sale. This does not mean the rules are any more poorly written than rules for models in codexes. I'd rather see an "okay" list if there are specific models' rules that feel to far out of line with the current game "balance."

Thanks for all the feed back guys. We've decided that no experimental units for the competitive, but they will be unqiue 0-1 per army and worth vp1 for the narrative campaign.