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Simply wondering if Forgeworld units are legal in the major tournaments in 8th?

depends on the tourney..

Probably not. The books are even more of a dumpster fire than the rest of 8th edition, full of inexcusable typos and broken rules. It's unfortunate, but I have a feeling TOs are going to put a blanket ban on the whole mess until GW/FW gets some errata out.

No reason why they wouldn't be legal. The days when banning Forgeworld units from tournaments was remotely reasonable are long past. The days when you had to ask your opponent's permission to use them are also long gone. Forge World units ARE 40k units. You can field them with exactly the same freedom that you would field any other unit from your codex/index.

 Marsyas wrote:
No reason why they wouldn't be legal. The days when banning Forgeworld units from tournaments was remotely reasonable are long past. The days when you had to ask your opponent's permission to use them are also long gone. Forge World units ARE 40k units. You can field them with exactly the same freedom that you would field any other unit from your codex/index.

This is nice in theory, and a position I've held for years, but the new index books are a disaster. FW clearly rushed them out without bothering to playtest or proofread everything and there are a ton of mistakes. You'd have to introduce quite a few house rules just to make everything function, and that's without getting into any of the balance problems.

 Peregrine wrote:

This is nice in theory, and a position I've held for years, but the new index books are a disaster. FW clearly rushed them out without bothering to playtest or proofread everything and there are a ton of mistakes. You'd have to introduce quite a few house rules just to make everything function, and that's without getting into any of the balance problems.

To what mistakes do you refer? I only bought the Xenos codex (I play Eldar), and I've not had any problem with it thus far.

 Marsyas wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

This is nice in theory, and a position I've held for years, but the new index books are a disaster. FW clearly rushed them out without bothering to playtest or proofread everything and there are a ton of mistakes. You'd have to introduce quite a few house rules just to make everything function, and that's without getting into any of the balance problems.

To what mistakes do you refer? I only bought the Xenos codex (I play Eldar), and I've not had any problem with it thus far.

Well, there's a Tau flier that has a minimum movment speed and a Macro weapon, but not the Titanic special rule.
There's also a Tyranid weapon on the Dimacheron that boosts your Strength... On a to-wound roll of 6.
Big Mek Buzzgob says he can take a Kustom Force Field, and also has no way to purchase it and no listed points cost.

These are just a couple things I noticed while leafing through just the Xenos book, and doesn't even touch on the (im)balance issue or the other broken indexes.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Well, there's a Tau flier that has a minimum movment speed and a Macro weapon, but not the Titanic special rule.
There's also a Tyranid weapon on the Dimacheron that boosts your Strength... On a to-wound roll of 6.
Big Mek Buzzgob says he can take a Kustom Force Field, and also has no way to purchase it and no listed points cost.

Hah!
Oh, here's a fun one I just noticed: the Hornet's special rule, 'Lightning Assault,' does nothing. It gives -1 to the result of all shooting attacks against the hornets... until the end of your turn. Then your opponent's turn starts, and the benefit goes away.

These are just a couple things I noticed while leafing through just the Xenos book, and doesn't even touch on the (im)balance issue or the other broken indexes.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the Eldar options seem to me to be pretty reasonable. Wraithseer is a solid addition to a Spirit Host list and seems to be costed reasonably well for what it does. Hornets are things you actually have to think about whether to take instead of being automatically always preferable to Vypers. Shadow Spectres are less mobile than Warp Spiders and ever so slightly more expensive (when you count exarchs and exarch weapons) but have the potential to hit harder. More vulnerable to morale hits, but hurt enemy morale. Warp Hunters are notably more expensive than the other Eldar tanks, but also have notably better firepower, and so on.

Still, the rules here needing another round of proof-reading doesn't change the fact that they are 40k legal. Some of them don't actually do anything, but they're still legal.

I would love to see someone take the time-travelling macharius vulcan to a tourney and see what happens.

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Ideally I'd like them to be 'legal' as I want to purchase and play a FW army, but there are enough issues in the book that I couldn't get upset if FW lists weren't allowed at a tournament.

For example, the heavy mortar artillery unit specifies that its crew can't be targeted by a model unless it is the closest visible unit. Not 'enemy' just 'unit'.

They are definitely going to be legal in the ITC according to the draft ruleset for 8th edition, so I'd expect the FLG guys are going to FAQ the more egregious stuff if GW/FW don't get around to it soon.

Lots of stuff have weapon profiles without purchase options
Or says things like on a d6'roll of 2 instead of 2+.

However tournaments were playing with 5th ed rules in 7th edition and misprints and issues like buzzgrobs 400 pt stompa...so I doubt a few obvious typos will hold them back this time.

I think Nova is still allowing them so year, I'd expect most tournaments to.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bUs0HrJ3f6YzR6mWlT1LRLq0i9_0ekf7ah9WhCTxsIo/edit#"

Seem so

A Tourney may craft up some special stop-gap rules for the obviously broken ones in the current FW releases. But as far as playing them - they're just as GW as anything you find in the store.

I'd think with as many errors as they have, they need to be kept out.

 Jaxler wrote:
I'd think with as many errors as they have, they need to be kept out.

But my Tantalus! For the first time in forever....DE have a chance!

 Verviedi wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
I would love to see someone take the time-travelling macharius vulcan to a tourney and see what happens.

I thought this was a misinterpretation.

...I was wrong.

GG Forgeworld.

Explain.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Explain.

Macharius vulcan mega-bolter rule: If this model does not move during the Movement phase, in the preceding Shooting phase, change this weapon's Type to Heavy 30 until the end of the turn.

Now we all know what it is supposed to mean but if you go off RAW then you have some weird time travel thing going on.

Yeah so many errors in the FW books..

But what I don't get is how ITC can justify such rule changes when the current rules have barely been out...

Yep, I have no idea what word they were trying to use instead. It almost seems like somebody screwed up with a thesaurus and tried to use a fancy word without knowing what it meant instead of keeping it simple.

A very important technique for minimizing this kind of typo in a technical document (like a rulebook) is to have a simple syntax and stick to it.

For example, have "this turn", "previous turn", and "next turn" always refer to the same things. And have those be the only phrases that refer to them.

"If the Macharius has not moved this turn, it may fire the macharius vulcan gun two times in this shooting phase." Simple, clear. Especially so long as you consistently refer to the phrase "firing a weapon" to refer to firing up to the listed number of shots (so it would fire 15 shots twice, or 30).

GW and FW need to put the thesaurus away, and get a style manual instead. The rules section is no place for dramatic flair.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
I would love to see someone take the time-travelling macharius vulcan to a tourney and see what happens.

I thought this was a misinterpretation.

...I was wrong.

GG Forgeworld.

Explain.

It has an effect that only applies in the preceding shooting phase, so you need a time machine to actually use the rule.

Annoying sub-tangent about a very easily remedied item, about a very un-compelling rule, that barely anyone would use anyway...

I think excluding the repeatedly referenced few wording / typos, there are so many fun and fair things in the IA Indexes it would be dumb not to use them.

It's not like broken or unnecessary rules would have been banned before. Think of the heldrake formation in 7th. Or Orks with 5++ AND 6++. Let's just hope they don't react to these mistakes like before and say: "Yeah, it's right that way, 'cause Orks are dumb."

 DevilsPox wrote:
Annoying sub-tangent about a very easily remedied item, about a very un-compelling rule, that barely anyone would use anyway...

I think excluding the repeatedly referenced few wording / typos, there are so many fun and fair things in the IA Indexes it would be dumb not to use them.

Nah. EVERYTHING is broken, if you'll excuse the minor hyperbole. I'm sure there are some fun and fair units, but a huge number of units have legitimate errors that make them worthless, and there's a balance gap the size of the grand canyon between some of the units. The pricing is all over the place, and some units are straight-up better or obviously worse than their codex equivalents for no reason.
I can honestly say that, based on what I've seen, less than a fifth of the units are both fair, balanced, and lack any major errors.

Waaaghpower wrote:
Nah. EVERYTHING is broken, if you'll excuse the minor hyperbole. I'm sure there are some fun and fair units, but a huge number of units have legitimate errors that make them worthless, and there's a balance gap the size of the grand canyon between some of the units. The pricing is all over the place, and some units are straight-up better or obviously worse than their codex equivalents for no reason.
I can honestly say that, based on what I've seen, less than a fifth of the units are both fair, balanced, and lack any major errors.

Which units would you say are particularly unbalanced in the FW indices, out of interest, versus the equivalent units in the main indices?

 Jaxler wrote:
I'd think with as many errors as they have, they need to be kept out.

Please. It's half a dozen units across 4 books that have typo issues that are fixable in 10 seconds with a reasonable opponent (or TO). If errors are a reason to not allow entire books to be played, no GW game would ever be played !

Eyjio wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
Nah. EVERYTHING is broken, if you'll excuse the minor hyperbole. I'm sure there are some fun and fair units, but a huge number of units have legitimate errors that make them worthless, and there's a balance gap the size of the grand canyon between some of the units. The pricing is all over the place, and some units are straight-up better or obviously worse than their codex equivalents for no reason.
I can honestly say that, based on what I've seen, less than a fifth of the units are both fair, balanced, and lack any major errors.

Which units would you say are particularly unbalanced in the FW indices, out of interest, versus the equivalent units in the main indices?

I suspect that there are a bunch that are severely underpowered, though obviously that's not a game-breaking problem. Two from the Xenos book that strike me as clearly well above the power curve are the Malanthrope and the Gauss Pylon. The Malanthrope entry is kind of a mess and it being too good is probably just an error. Presumably Shrouding Spores is supposed to actually do something, and I think most people would play it that way. And presumably it's supposed to cost a number of points more in line with its power rating, so about twice as many as it actually costs. Meanwhile the Gauss Pylon offers more efficient regular anti-tank than most anything else available to the Necrons, on a pretty durable-for-its-cost platform, with the ability to Deep Strike in and shoot, and a very good chance of one-shotting comparable or more expensive Lords of War on the turn it arrives, while additionally handing out a 5++ to everything friendly around it.

I haven't spent nearly as much time looking at the others, but Giant Chaos Spawn also look pretty nuts. They're absurdly durable for their cost, at 7.5 points per T5 4+/5++ wound, are quite fast at full wounds or more, and are pretty scary in CC. And on average they gain 2 wounds per turn, so four per round. So really they expect to start the game with 12 wounds, which is 6.25 points per wound. Any Spawn that survives to the second round of the game has basically paid Guardsman prices for its wounds. I'm not sure that there's a good answer to 13 of these and then 1000 points of other stuff.

So there are a few things that strike me as just kind of ridiculous and highly abusable, and I guess if I were running a tournament I'd be pretty worried about someone taking advantage of those even if by and large the Forgeworld units don't seem too bad.

Dionysodorus wrote:
I suspect that there are a bunch that are severely underpowered, though obviously that's not a game-breaking problem. Two from the Xenos book that strike me as clearly well above the power curve are the Malanthrope and the Gauss Pylon. The Malanthrope entry is kind of a mess and it being too good is probably just an error. Presumably Shrouding Spores is supposed to actually do something, and I think most people would play it that way. And presumably it's supposed to cost a number of points more in line with its power rating, so about twice as many as it actually costs. Meanwhile the Gauss Pylon offers more efficient regular anti-tank than most anything else available to the Necrons, on a pretty durable-for-its-cost platform, with the ability to Deep Strike in and shoot, and a very good chance of one-shotting comparable or more expensive Lords of War on the turn it arrives, while additionally handing out a 5++ to everything friendly around it.

I haven't spent nearly as much time looking at the others, but Giant Chaos Spawn also look pretty nuts. They're absurdly durable for their cost, at 7.5 points per T5 4+/5++ wound, are quite fast at full wounds or more, and are pretty scary in CC. And on average they gain 2 wounds per turn, so four per round. So really they expect to start the game with 12 wounds, which is 6.25 points per wound. Any Spawn that survives to the second round of the game has basically paid Guardsman prices for its wounds. I'm not sure that there's a good answer to 13 of these and then 1000 points of other stuff.

So there are a few things that strike me as just kind of ridiculous and highly abusable, and I guess if I were running a tournament I'd be pretty worried about someone taking advantage of those even if by and large the Forgeworld units don't seem too bad.

I'm not hugely convinced that the Malanthrope or Pylon are issues. The Malanthrope essentially duplicates a role that Tyranids already have and it's not all that good in either case; whilst better than a venomthrope which is very good, it's also considerably more points, when what you really want is a bunch to spread the hit bubble around. The Pylon is very good at killing one vehicle per turn and little else, plus it's in an army with really poor anti-vehicle, with a worse effect than the HQs (which you have to take anyway) already hand out with the 5++; against horde armies, that's a quarter of the army doing not much at all. I won't say it's not very strong for its points, but I really don't think it's actually too good at all - at the end of the day, it's killing one unit a turn, so even full mech armies have little to fear. The only things I think will struggle against an army with a pylon in are armies with multiple Imperial Knights, and I don't mind seeing that composition get weaker to be honest - it's not fun to face IMO.

Chaos Spawn I haven't looked at yet, so I'll take your word on how strong they are. In any case, it seems reasonable to actually allow them to be tested in tournaments first, then potentially create a ban list from the results. I've not yet seen any of the FW units which look as powerful as things in the main books, like the scion command squads, brimstone horrors or conscripts. That not to say they don't exist, but it seems premature to throw out books based on what we think might be strong rather than what we can observe.