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Breng77 wrote:
There is a big draw back to the WOTC argument, and that is cost. If say I go out and buy the above army, and associated books, spend tons of time painting it up, start playing it....and it gets banned. I'd be far more upset than I would have if someone told me no up front. MTG decks (excepting some very rare singles) are far less expensive, and easier to replace when your deck goes kaput.

So what about the cost for the people who buy FW stuff and can't use it in tournaments at all?

At this point the closer comparison to magic would be comparing FW to the Unglued/unhinged sets, these were never tournament legal, so demanding the change to making FW legal in a tournament is closer to demanding that those sets be legal, which would likewise get you laughed at.

Except that's a terrible analogy. Unglued was a comedy set that entirely broke the game to do funny things (not in the balance sense, in the "the rules don't allow this" sense of "broken"), and was never intended to be played in anything remotely resembling a serious game. FW rules, on the other hand, have been clearly intended for serious games from the moment they started producing them, and are now explicitly part of standard 40k.

Also the statement that WOTC never bans cards without massive playtesting is not even true(it probably is more so these days), there were plenty of cards created in mtg that were tournament banned upon creation (most of which effected the old concept of Ante back in Revised era.), I'm also pretty sure Sharazad was auto banned due to not working in a timed tournament.

Err, no. Ante was legal for the entire early history of the game, and only banned from tournaments once games stopped being played for ante. Sharazad has been legal and not legal in varying ways depending on the exact date and tournament format, and is now banned because there was no legitimate deck that ever used it to win, and its only purpose was TFG making timed games take too long. None of these were banned on creation, which would have been rather difficult since some of them were printed in the very first set.

And in any case, all of those were old cards from the earliest days of the game that didn't function anymore within the current rules. With FW we aren't talking about excluding units because they don't function, we're talking about banning things that are "overpowered" without any tournament experience to justify it. And that is something that has been done exactly ONCE in the entire history of "modern" tournament magic*.


*The emergency ban of Memory Jar, which only happened because it was clearly about to wreck game balance with another unfair combo deck right after the disaster of a metagame dominated by a brutally unfair combo deck that had just been banned. Things were so bad that WOTC offered free packs in exchange for mailing in your copies of the banned cards as an apology for letting them be printed, and another broken combo deck could have killed tournament MTG. This is the ONLY time a card has been banned without extensive tournament experience at the highest levels of play demonstrating that it breaks the game.

Lastly GW does not run many (any?) tournaments and when they did FW was not legal in those events.

So what? The tournament community, as a whole, hates GW's events. Remember all the rants about soft scores, 'ard boyz having stupid missions, etc? For as long as I've been playing 40k GW's own events have been laughed at by most tournament players. So it's pretty ridiculous to suddenly hold them up as the source of all wisdom on how tournaments should be run just because they finally produced a single policy you agree with.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


So what about the cost for the people who buy FW stuff and can't use it in tournaments at all?

@Peregrine No one forces anyone to buy Forgeworld, its a choice.

 Peregrine wrote:
So what? The tournament community, as a whole, hates GW's events. Remember all the rants about soft scores, 'ard boyz having stupid missions, etc? For as long as I've been playing 40k GW's own events have been laughed at by most tournament players. So it's pretty ridiculous to suddenly hold them up as the source of all wisdom on how tournaments should be run just because they finally produced a single policy you agree with.

I didn't realise you were the appointed Spokesperson for the Tournament Community in North America, must have missed that Memo.

Are you trolling? Because almost all of your posts are Inflammatory and seem always to tend towards picking fights with people?

 mwnciboo wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


So what about the cost for the people who buy FW stuff and can't use it in tournaments at all?

@Peregrine No one forces anyone to buy Forgeworld, its a choice.

Are you trolling? Because almost all of your posts are Inflammatory and seem always to tend towards picking fights with people?

Your post right now could be considered inflammatory and tending towards picking a fight with him, since you are accusing him of trolling.

 mwnciboo wrote:
@Peregrine No one forces anyone to buy Forgeworld, its a choice.

And nobody forces you to buy other models that might become obsolete because of allowing FW. It's a choice to buy ANY models, and I don't see anyone demanding that we ban codex units because they made other codex units a waste of money.

Are you trolling? Because almost all of your posts are Inflammatory and seem always to tend towards picking fights with people?

No, everything I have said in this thread is my sincere opinion.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


Your post right now could be considered inflammatory and tending towards picking a fight with him, since you are accusing him of trolling.

It's kind of the age old, which came first the Chicken or the Egg thing... Flame wars are never fun, but at least he's saying he is sincere.

Why is it on the internet everyone feels their way of playing the game is the only way to play and everyone should convert to their opinion? Seriously, it is the same as the whole casual vs competitive debate; people seem to think they have a licence to ram their play style down everyone elses' throats. Where I come from TO's use the rules they want, and players go to the events that suit them, and everyone ends up being happy, because there is enough diversity to suit everyone. A case of 'all tournaments should be pro-FW' or 'all tournaments should be anti-FW' is bound to fail. So why doesn't everyboyd let the TO's, the people that usually know what they are doing, run their tournament their way, and leave the players decide what they want to go to themself. If a small country like Ireland can provide enough for everyone, then surely the mighty USA can do the same?

^this, totally agree, the reasonable centre road. No radical opinions just a natural take it or leave it approach.

 Peregrine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
There is a big draw back to the WOTC argument, and that is cost. If say I go out and buy the above army, and associated books, spend tons of time painting it up, start playing it....and it gets banned. I'd be far more upset than I would have if someone told me no up front. MTG decks (excepting some very rare singles) are far less expensive, and easier to replace when your deck goes kaput.

So what about the cost for the people who buy FW stuff and can't use it in tournaments at all?

And you entirely missed the point of what I was saying.

So right now you buy FW knowing that you cannot use them in a tournament (generally speaking.), so you made an informed choice about how to spend your money.

If instead players go out and spend money on those units to use for tournament play, and then have entire lists/units banned after the fact then you have a lot of models that you cannot use, that you did not know you could not use when you bought them.

Except that's a terrible analogy. Unglued was a comedy set that entirely broke the game to do funny things (not in the balance sense, in the "the rules don't allow this" sense of "broken"), and was never intended to be played in anything remotely resembling a serious game. FW rules, on the other hand, have been clearly intended for serious games from the moment they started producing them, and are now explicitly part of standard 40k.

Except that asserting that FW has always been designed for "serious games" is an opinion, depending on the way someone defines serious games. Most FW books are used to play using the units within that book against other units in that book to recreate a "historical campaign" IN fact asserting that any GW product is meant for "serious games" is considered a stretch by many.

All I'm saying is that the magic method of banning units/lists after the fact is a terrible precedent and non-functional in 40k.

As for GW tournaments, I never said that they were good, but they do give an insight into how "official" GW intends things to be. Assertions otherwise are like saying we don't like how WOTC ran their tournaments so we must include everything they ever printed.

Again I am not totally opposed to including FW in tournaments, but the assertion that it must be included, is simply not a good argument. I think it should be taken on a case by case basis, if a particualr shop/tournaments/etc. and its attendees want to use the rules great, if they prefer not to that is also fine.

 Peregrine wrote:
Disallowance of FW by far. Without my FW units I don't have a legal army, and I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars and months of painting time on models I don't like just so a TO with delusions of grandeur can have the fun of banning anything they don't like.

(I have just as much dislike for people who run comp events, but thankfully those are completely absent in my area.)

This was written by Peregrin in the thread about what keeps people from playing in Tournaments http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/482051.page. Let's all just bear this in mind when responding. I don't want to have to spend hundreds of dollars and months of painting time on models I dislike just to be competitive in an event allowing FW, but according to Peregrin and others that argument is moot so I am not sure what else to say.

 Peregrine wrote:

 mortetvie wrote:
Doesn't a lack of knowledge need just that... a lack of knowledge? I KNOW what FW units do, I know about them, that is not a lack of knowledge. It is a matter of preference.

It is lack of knowledge because you apparently don't know that GW has stated multiple times that FW units are 100% official and intended for use in standard 40k.

The units are NOT officially sanctioned for 40k play as you suggest in the same way codex or WD amendments like the Night Spinner. Otherwise, nobody could have a basis for objecting to the use of forge world.

They are sanctioned in the exact same way, people either don't know (and just repeat "FW is unofficial" because that's what they've heard) or don't like it.

And since when did people need a "legal" reason for objecting to the use of something? Does the trend of "1999+1" tournaments mean that GW didn't officially sanction the use of two FOCs in games of 2000 points or more?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
Why should they be penalized if they do not have the financial resources to have the information to compete with an army that uses FW models or get FW models of their own in order to compete?

Why should I be penalized if I don't have the financial resources to buy a Vendetta or 99999 Necron flyers? Why should I be penalized if I don't have the resources to buy any codex except my own? Should we limit tournaments to the starter set models and rules because that's the cheapest way to play the game? If not, why should we allow some expensive elements of the game but not others?

And what about the players who bought armies that use FW units? Why should they be penalized and kept out of tournaments because they don't have the financial resources (or time and interest in building/painting) to build an entire second tournament army?

This whole thread boils down to two sides completely stalwart in their belief that FW either should be allowed or banned with no room for compromise. They make up the noisiest groups for sure. The rest, and it would seem the vast majority including myself and RiTides, want FW to be included at some GTs/RTs but be excluded from others to provide variety.

That line of thinking just seems weird to me, to "provide variety"? Surely having more stuff available is going to be the better path. By the same token, why not try banning individual armies to get "more variety"? A tournament where no Necrons or no Orks or no Space Wolves or no Skimmers or no MC's are allowed?

I'm not trying to portray this in stark "MUST ALLOW!" terms, but it just seems a silly justification.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That line of thinking just seems weird to me, to "provide variety"? Surely having more stuff available is going to be the better path. By the same token, why not try banning individual armies to get "more variety"? A tournament where no Necrons or no Orks or no Space Wolves or no Skimmers or no MC's are allowed?

I'm not trying to portray this in stark "MUST ALLOW!" terms, but it just seems a silly justification.

Adding more units doesn't add more variety in top level tournaments. Lets face it, good players use good units, period. Adding FW just adds a handful of power units to a handful of armies and that's all that will really matter. Do you think you will see a ton of inferus predators, avenger fighters or other mediocre units? Nope, it will be all the top shelf stuff.

Look at the armies that do well in tournaments NOW, I wager most of the top armies only use 25-30% of their books as it stands. The whole adding diversity argument is kind of silly in that regard.

So why doesn't everyboyd let the TO's, the people that usually know what they are doing, run their tournament their way, and leave the players decide what they want to go to themself. If a small country like Ireland can provide enough for everyone, then surely the mighty USA can do the same?

Geography most likely. The US and Canada have less then half of the population density that Ireland does. I live in the most densely populated portion of Canada and we have exactly 2 tournament providers within 150km of where I live. One of them is an annual event over a weekend costing $80+ covering 5 games and including soft scores, and the other is a small gaming shop that hosts 5-6 events a year of 3 games, costing only $20. There isn't a lot of choice in many areas, and electing not to go because you don't like the rules is electing not to play at all. Hell, in the last 2 years over half of my gaming has been in tournaments due to my local players being a bunch of flakes and with the local gaming shop now including soft scores and me skipping those events means I've played exactly 2 games of 6th edition...total.

 Carnage43 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
That line of thinking just seems weird to me, to "provide variety"? Surely having more stuff available is going to be the better path. By the same token, why not try banning individual armies to get "more variety"? A tournament where no Necrons or no Orks or no Space Wolves or no Skimmers or no MC's are allowed?

I'm not trying to portray this in stark "MUST ALLOW!" terms, but it just seems a silly justification.

Adding more units doesn't add more variety in top level tournaments. Lets face it, good players use good units, period. Adding FW just adds a handful of power units to a handful of armies and that's all that will really matter. Do you think you will see a ton of inferus predators, avenger fighters or other mediocre units? Nope, it will be all the top shelf stuff.

Look at the armies that do well in tournaments NOW, I wager most of the top armies only use 25-30% of their books as it stands. The whole adding diversity argument is kind of silly in that regard.

While I don't necessarily disagree in all respects, it will open up a larger pool of available units, and generally what's already routinely taken from codex lists won't go anywhere, we'll just see more FW stuff (admittedly likely the best FW stuff) added on top.

And if all we're seeing is 25% of the available codex-list units anyway, variety isn't much of a leg to stand on...

The problem is people go to events to win!!!. Which in general makes the game not nearly as enjoyable. My new mindset is to take fun stuff. will i get shot off the table some games sure but that happens. there is no event in 40k that has the prize support to cover the time and money invested in the hobby.
40k isn't balanced as it stands adding forgeworld will not make it worse.

I would have to say from my experience of heavy tourny playing that you can expect 1-2 variations from each codex. Examples being: Grey Knights - purifier spamm, draigo wing, henchmen; Blood angels - Jump pack of doom, Razor spamm; Space wolves - thundercalv, long fang spamm (nigh mandatory now); Chaos - havent played the new stuff, but they seem to have the most variation at the moment; Guard - Leaf blower, Air Calv, Russ spamm; Orks - green tide, speed freaks, loota spamm. This can go down any codex. My point of the long winded list is that in a world where so little difference is taken out to a tourny adding more to the mix would be new and exciting.

I also agree it should be take it or leave it approach with a grain of salt. I personally own Forge World fliers because of fluff, but my current air calv without the forge world fliers was so unbeatable the game pool for the army dried up over two weeks after the swap of 5th to 6th. I cant blame anyone for it, and i understand their hate - its the win list. Here is what i can say, if someone wants to bring an old school dready, or a jeep, or whatever they invest the time and money for by all means allow it to the mix.

Is their units that will push the limits of fair play? Of course! I could argue this with standard codices. Take me to court over it if you will, but if their is a powerful unit(long fangs, nob bikers, ect) don't be surprised if they make it to the table.

To conclude this, if FW is allowed, bring it out, if it isn't, put in your display case and move on with life. Everything in between that, can just about ride the chain sword...

There are actually 3 camps in the debate.

#1. Ban all forge world: it's too unbalanced.

#2. Allow all forge world: everything is balanced perfectly or the other angle might be "everything in 40k is so unbalanced boooohooo flyer spam allow broken fw units"

#3 Allow some forge world, the average TO is smart enough and has enough insight to ban the broken units.

As part of camp #3 I find it a lot easy to have a productive conversation with camp #1 on how units like grot tanks won't break the game, or how eldar/tau flyers might actually improve the meta. Camp #2 seems to be causing most of the problems here with talks about belligerency staging 6 player boycotts of tournaments after they already reserved spots, or remaining willfully ignorant to the fact that there might be a few really unbalanced lists within the 15 fw books released in the last 9 years that won't mix well into the 6th ed meta.

I think that there is a 4th camp that lies along 2 lines

Line 1: I am not willing to allow FW if that means banning specific "40k approved units", this is a road that leads to Comp and a slippery slope. So for me FW is an all 40k approved units or none.

Line 2: Given that tournaments only function when they are well attended, what is the sentiment toward FW given by my attendees.

i still go back to say, if you want a fixed competitive environment where you don't have probability, play chess. If you want to roll dice and such, it goes down to what the TO says. If he says FW is in then go for it. Of course apoc units don't make sense in a normal game.

Thus the camp i believe i am in is: FW is cool if TO is cool with it.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Camp #2 seems to be causing most of the problems here with talks about belligerency staging 6 player boycotts of tournaments after they already reserved spots, or remaining willfully ignorant to the fact that there might be a few really unbalanced lists within the 15 fw books released in the last 9 years that won't mix well into the 6th ed meta.

hey you are wrong here, I said we would show up the morning of the event and say we would play but we have forgeworld in our lists and you haven't made a statement on forge world. we will play with these list or we will leave. We would not reserve spots and back out. if the tourney is full good for him but he has space for 60-70 gamers and normally pulls 40-50.

We also say that units marked with the 40k stamp is what will be allowed so that leaves 3 or 4 books in the mix. heck there are lots of 4th edition codex' s out there for armies. do those armies get banned because they are not design for 6th?

Since I was in the quote provided by overwatch, I just want to point out I am not necessarily adamantly for or against FW in tournaments, I will go to tournaments that allow or don't allow FW and that isn't a determinant factor for me. I just like playing the game and if I have to face up against FW in an event, so be it (I may not like it but that is another story).

I was mainly trying to point out the glaring logical failure of peregrine and the way he was articulating his position,I guess it turned into a troll war, my apologies.

 mortetvie wrote:
Since I was in the quote provided by overwatch, I just want to point out I am not necessarily adamantly for or against FW in tournaments, I will go to tournaments that allow or don't allow FW and that isn't a determinant factor for me. I just like playing the game and if I have to face up against FW in an event, so be it (I may not like it but that is another story).

I was mainly trying to point out the glaring logical failure of peregrine and the way he was articulating his position,I guess it turned into a troll war, my apologies.

The quote was to show Peregines position not yours. This thread has been full of flaming etc but I didn't find your comments particularly inflammatory. I was pointing out that in one thread he claims spending more money is not an argument for disallowing FW but in another complains that having to spend more money is an argument for allowing FW. Just a little discrepancy.

Ah, good point.

Breng77 wrote:
If instead players go out and spend money on those units to use for tournament play, and then have entire lists/units banned after the fact then you have a lot of models that you cannot use, that you did not know you could not use when you bought them.

So then don't ban specific models. I'm in favor of allowing everything GW publishes for standard 40k, with banning as an absolute last resort that should rarely, if ever happen (and is just as likely to happen to codex units as FW ones in any sane world).

Except that asserting that FW has always been designed for "serious games" is an opinion, depending on the way someone defines serious games. Most FW books are used to play using the units within that book against other units in that book to recreate a "historical campaign" IN fact asserting that any GW product is meant for "serious games" is considered a stretch by many.

Err, no. FW and every other GW product have been intended for serious games, which doesn't necessarily mean competitive games. A historical campaign is still a serious game, it's just a game with different rules and scenarios.

Unguled, on the other hand, was entirely a comedy set. The cards broke various rules of the game because it was funny, and didn't function at all in anything other than a comedy game where all anyone cared about was doing funny and stupid stuff. It was never meant to have any interaction with "real" MTG, it was a stand-alone set which you would play with once in a while when you wanted something silly, and most of the time you'd just read the cards and laugh at them. GW, AFAIK, has never published anything even remotely like that.

All I'm saying is that the magic method of banning units/lists after the fact is a terrible precedent and non-functional in 40k.

No it isn't. It's only "non functional" because people start ranting about how the sky is falling the moment a unit is published, and don't bother to wait and see if it's actually as dominant as they expect it to be. The difference is entirely in the attitude of the community: MTG is a competitive game, 40k so far seems to be a casual game with delusions of grandeur.

As for GW tournaments, I never said that they were good, but they do give an insight into how "official" GW intends things to be. Assertions otherwise are like saying we don't like how WOTC ran their tournaments so we must include everything they ever printed.

Except that's not true at all. GW could ban FW for all kinds of reasons besides whether they're official or not, for example, they might exclude them from 'ard boyz because 'ard boyz is nothing but a thinly veiled "buy a huge army" marketing effort and FW sales don't help independent stores. IIRC the tournaments aren't even run by the people who write the rules, they're done by the marketing department. It offers absolutely no insight into what is meant to be general policy about what is "official", and the only reason anyone talks about GW's own events is because they agree with the policy. If GW suddenly started allowing FW in all of their events all of these people would immediately return to complaining about how GW is clueless and all their events suck.

Edited by Janthkin

 OverwatchCNC wrote:
The quote was to show Peregines position not yours. This thread has been full of flaming etc but I didn't find your comments particularly inflammatory. I was pointing out that in one thread he claims spending more money is not an argument for disallowing FW but in another complains that having to spend more money is an argument for allowing FW. Just a little discrepancy.

There's a difference between banning FW and changing the metagame so that units are less useful. If a unit is absolutely banned you can't use it and the money is wasted. If a unit becomes less effective because the metagame shifts, you can still use it and it's not a complete waste of money. Therefore, if there are competing financial issues, the default should be that everything is allowed since it's a greater impact.

And of course this is especially true since the metagame already shifts and makes good units become less effective and "forces" you to buy new ones. Should we keep playing 5th just because 6th changed the metagame and the most competitive players would need to buy new models to keep 100% optimization in their lists?

 Peregrine wrote:

So then don't ban specific models. I'm in favor of allowing everything GW publishes for standard 40k, with banning as an absolute last resort that should rarely, if ever happen (and is just as likely to happen to codex units as FW ones in any sane world).

I'm in favor of not banning anything ever, whether other "sets" of rules are allowed is something else, and up to the player base.

Err, no. FW and every other GW product have been intended for serious games, which doesn't necessarily mean competitive games. A historical campaign is still a serious game, it's just a game with different rules and scenarios.

Unguled, on the other hand, was entirely a comedy set. The cards broke various rules of the game because it was funny, and didn't function at all in anything other than a comedy game where all anyone cared about was doing funny and stupid stuff. It was never meant to have any interaction with "real" MTG, it was a stand-alone set which you would play with once in a while when you wanted something silly, and most of the time you'd just read the cards and laugh at them. GW, AFAIK, has never published anything even remotely like that

SO as long as something is not comedy it is serious, so by your definition of serious (which I said is what the argument depended on) you are correct. However, units designed for unbalanced historical missions are not necessarily intended for use in typical games.

No it isn't. It's only "non functional" because people start ranting about how the sky is falling the moment a unit is published, and don't bother to wait and see if it's actually as dominant as they expect it to be. The difference is entirely in the attitude of the community: MTG is a competitive game, 40k so far seems to be a casual game with delusions of grandeur.

NO it is non-functional for 2 reasons. 1.) The money and effort spend building armies is much greater than that building decks. 2.) There is no governing body for 40k tournaments, so who decides what is banned? individual tournies (comp), the player base (so at the end of 5th half of the GK codex would have been banned, and in 6th Necron fliers might be banned.) because armies with those units were consistenly dominating(as far as numbers) the tournament sccene.


Essentially if you allow something, and people build armies around it, then you say, that is too strong and ban it you hurt the game far more than not using the rules in the first place. Because players myself included, would quit competitive play entirely becaus they don't want to consistently have to buy new armies.(This is a reason why I don't play competitive MtG anymore, because they force you to continually buy new items just to attend.)

Except that's not true at all. GW could ban FW for all kinds of reasons besides whether they're official or not, for example, they might exclude them from 'ard boyz because 'ard boyz is nothing but a thinly veiled "buy a huge army" marketing effort and FW sales don't help independent stores. IIRC the tournaments aren't even run by the people who write the rules, they're done by the marketing department. It offers absolutely no insight into what is meant to be general policy about what is "official", and the only reason anyone talks about GW's own events is because they agree with the policy. If GW suddenly started allowing FW in all of their events all of these people would immediately return to complaining about how GW is clueless and all their events suck.

All assumptions made by you. If I saw an official statement from a GW tournament saying FW is legal, I would use them in my tournaments as well. It is just as likely that GW did not think FW was balanced for tournament play or think that people are familiar with the rules as it is that it was a marketing scam.

GW tournaments are marketing events, pure and simple, run by people in the marketing department. Ascribing any decision made therein to "balance" or "legality" or whatnot is silly, as it's there mainly to raise the profile of the game and push primary sales channels.

You already have an official statement from GW saying FW is legal in the FW books written by GW employees bearing a GW copyright written at GW headquarters. Again, this is significantly different than an *actual* 3rd party 40k product like Fantasy Flight Games RPG's where they have a statement saying "produced under license".

Since everyone else is just repeating their talking points, I will repeat mine:

If you want unfettered FW in events, then bring back comp scoring. That way the guy who wants to roll in with grot tanks and/or the bajillion tau crisis suit variants won't be painted with the same brush as the guy who shows up with three Hades Drills and a half dozen Sabres behind a wall (hint: I can be both guys I am talking about). Plus maybe some of the more egregious list busters might learn the concept of self restraint. I mean does anyone really want to face an army with 3-6 drills, 3-6 Manticore platforms, and 6ish Sabres? Because you cannot have uncomped FW without that happening. Just look at all the counts as SW that went on (and still is) and tell me that every player would not imediately persue that path.

Plus, its pretty clear from the points the fanatical pro FW guys try to make that its mostly paranoia (or outright refusal to adapt 5th lists) concerning the introduction of flyers in the game that is a prime motivator. These same people are massively against the inclusion of the alternate army lists, despite those being far more tame than the unit additions they are pushing for, which further drives this point home. This is the wrong reason to push for FW, because all you are doing is holding people back from learning to cope with flyers in the regular game, by letting them apply a cheap band aid. Trying to deny an entire phase of the game, that GW is pushing no less, is not the path to take. If FW is to be included, it should be so interesting stuff like Space Sharks, the ork helicoptor thing, or Tetras make the scene, not because a few people zealously refuse to learn to cope with flyers and think they can avoid it by bulling the rest of the community into allowing Saberhammer to become a reality.

 Vaktathi wrote:
GW tournaments are marketing events, pure and simple, run by people in the marketing department. Ascribing any decision made therein to "balance" or "legality" or whatnot is silly, as it's there mainly to raise the profile of the game and push primary sales channels.

You already have an official statement from GW saying FW is legal in the FW books written by GW employees bearing a GW copyright written at GW headquarters. Again, this is significantly different than an *actual* 3rd party 40k product like Fantasy Flight Games RPG's where they have a statement saying "produced under license".

The officail statement that says make sure your opponent is happy to play with these rules because they may not know them? Not exactly ringing endorsement (i.e. this language does not appear in any other GW official product.), that means anything more than any other statement about legality made by any other branch of GW. (The FW rules writers to me do not appear to be the same guys that write the base rules, so how does that make them any better than people that develop the tournaments.)

Also unless I am missing an FAQ somewhere there are 40k approved units with no FOC slot stated...

I'm just saying the "its official" is not exactly cut and dry. I generally have no issue with the FW rules, and if my community wants to allow them I will.

Breng77 wrote:

Also unless I am missing an FAQ somewhere there are 40k approved units with no FOC slot stated...

Example please?

40k is unbalanced as it is, and more so with Allies now so I don't see that adding FW will really change things that much. Strong players can easily make brutally strong lists, especially with the most powerful dexes anyways so switching in some FW units just helps it against certain builds (eg dealing with flyers). I agree that for the most part it will be the best FW stuff that shows up but GW unfortunately is unwilling to make balanced armies anyway or errata problems with rules/units/wargear in dexes, especially as edition changes screw up many things in older dexes, so FW wont overly unbalance things any more than they already are.

Breng77 wrote:

The officail statement that says make sure your opponent is happy to play with these rules because they may not know them? Not exactly ringing endorsement (i.e. this language does not appear in any other GW official product.), that means anything more than any other statement about legality made by any other branch of GW.

It means it's not sold through the main sales channel and they may have never heard of it before, but functionally, aside from that, it's no different than anything else.

(The FW rules writers to me do not appear to be the same guys that write the base rules, so how does that make them any better than people that develop the tournaments.)

The marketing department puts together events designed to increase awareness of the brand and push primary sales channels, such events are played in a manner that the core design studio never intended. FW units are specialist, small-scale (in terms of sales volume) units designed to be additions that fit within the original intended playstyle and aren't something that the primary marketing forces care to push.

Also unless I am missing an FAQ somewhere there are 40k approved units with no FOC slot stated...

Which ones just out of curiosity? I don't have my books on me here at work right now so I can't check, but if true it'd be good to know/check up on so we can get clarification.

SO examples

from IA apoc; Second ed.

Ork War Kopta
Ork Lifta Wagon
Grot Bomb launcha
Chaos Contemptor Dread