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Direct from FW on facebook:

Hi {person}, Forge World has always been an official part of Games Workshop. As with any Games Workshop games you are essentially entering into a social contract with your gaming opponent. Your opponent may not want to play against Forge World units, just as them may not want to play against a Grey Knights army etc.

Page seven in our Imperial Armour Apocalyspe book explains the use of 'stamps' for game classification purposes. Anything stamped with Warhammer 40,00 for example is usable within the normal Codex selection and Force Organisation charts.


This means that you are no longer allowed to complain about comparing "no-FW" house rules to "no-{codex army}" house rules, because that's exactly how GW sees it. There is nothing "optional" about FW rules beyond the usual fact that you can't hold a gun to someone's head and force them to play against you. You can talk all you want about whether you should or shouldn't have a "no-FW" house rule (just like you can propose all the limits on codex units you want), but the debate over what the standard rules of the game according to GW are is now over.

I would have been nice if that would put that on page 1 of all the FW books instead of spawning 1 X 10^6 internet arguments.

Still, though, my meta is strictly no FW, and this wont' change it.

And saying that Forge World has always been a part of Games Workshop....well yeah, they are the same company. But considering how bad GW is at play testing, the fact that no cross division play testing is done, the current feelings about FW in the Competitive meta, and the cost prohibition.....this means absolutely nothing and your not going to see a Carte-Blanche acceptance of FW all of sudden. Sorry to burst your bubble....

 quickfuze wrote:
And saying that Forge World has always been a part of Games Workshop....well yeah, they are the same company. But considering how bad GW is at play testing, the fact that no cross division play testing is done, the current feelings about FW in the Competitive meta, and the cost prohibition.....this means absolutely nothing and your not going to see a Carte-Blanche acceptance of FW all of sudden. Sorry to burst your bubble....

My goal with this isn't absolute universal acceptance of FW, it's to thoroughly demolish the idea that FW is somehow "not official" or that according to GW it isn't really part of the game. People can refuse to play against FW (just like they refuse to play against flyer spam armies or 5-Riptide gunline Tau) just as long as they admit that they're using a house rule.

Does it matter if it's a house rule?

Martel732 wrote:
Does it matter if it's a house rule?

Yes, because many people default to to playing by the standard rules of the game unless they have a compelling reason to do otherwise. So when the anti-FW crowd makes up arguments about how it's "not official" those people are more likely to default to "no FW" because they've been told that's what the standard rule is. If the anti-FW crowd dropped that pretense of "officialness" for their position a lot fewer people would listen to them, and FW rules would be more widely accepted.

With the things they are making legal in the main codexes it might not be long until people will only want to play FW.

 Eldarain wrote:
With the things they are making legal in the main codexes it might not be long until people will only want to play FW.

And there are two playing forums just for that....APOC and 30K.....most people dont refuse to play against FW unless its a comp. environment....the problem lies in the sheer quantity and unfamiliarity people have with the individual units and the cost prohibitive aspect that lends to fewer people having access to the rules for said units to ensure they are being played properly. Plus there are a couple stupid over the top units in FW (not all, but there are a couple).

The only way FW is going to be accepted in my area is if their prices come down. Most of the reasons I've heard for why people won't accept FW is because of price and poor balancing.

I look at this way, unfamiliarity is no excuse not to play.

For example:
I am unfamiliar with the Adepta Sororitas (nobody plays them and GW doesn't care enough to give them a proper codex), but as long as someone can show me the rules, I'm happy to play against them.

I'm not attacking you here, just the points.

Common FW problems brought up wrote:
the problem lies in the sheer quantity and unfamiliarity people have with the individual units

How is it any different to having to know about all the other codexes out there? The answer is you aren't expected to be able to understand or know all the units in other codexes, so why is this brought out as a problem for FW?

 quickfuze wrote:
the cost prohibitive aspect that lends to fewer people having access to the rules

It costs $1.30 more for a FW book than it does for a codex. 84.30 (using one of the newer FW books which seem to cost a bit more) compared to 83 AUD.

 quickfuze wrote:
Plus there are a couple stupid over the top units in FW (not all, but there are a couple).

Helldrake, Riptide, Screamerstar, etc, etc and on and on. There are awful stupid over the top units in a whole bunch of codexes as well. Nearly every codex. Again, not a problem with FW, but 40k as a whole.

Again, the subject here is not whether or not a "no FW" house rule is a good thing, it's what GW's official rules for the game are. And that question has just been answered beyond any possible doubt.

Martel732 wrote:
The only way FW is going to be accepted in my area is if their prices come down. Most of the reasons I've heard for why people won't accept FW is because of price and poor balancing.

Move to Australia, where it's cheaper now in a lot of cases to buy directly from Forgeworld in the UK than it is to buy the equivalent GW kit locally...


With the addition of allies, and the obvious lack of any editorial control over codexes now, balance is a fairly lame reason to exclude Forgeworld.

 Peregrine wrote:
Again, the subject here is not whether or not a "no FW" house rule is a good thing, it's what GW's official rules for the game are. And that question has just been answered beyond any possible doubt.

Well yeah a comment is nice, but why does a communication from a random GW/FW employee hold more value now than when they respond to a query in regards to rule questions, or the promised Elysian update that wasn't what we had been led to believe, etc. I'm happy they said it, but can you explain why this comment is gospel, but other comments from these people aren't?

 Peregrine wrote:
Direct from FW on facebook:

Hi {person}, Forge World has always been an official part of Games Workshop. As with any Games Workshop games you are essentially entering into a social contract with your gaming opponent. Your opponent may not want to play against Forge World units, just as them may not want to play against a Grey Knights army etc.

Page seven in our Imperial Armour Apocalyspe book explains the use of 'stamps' for game classification purposes. Anything stamped with Warhammer 40,00 for example is usable within the normal Codex selection and Force Organisation charts.


This means ...

...absolutely nothing to those who want to hear it from the GW design studio rather than from Forgeworld.

That statement is no better than the statement in the front of the IA books. It's still a statement from the guys making the supplemental rules, rather than from the guys in charge of the actual game. If someone isn't inclined to accept Forgeworld's word for it that they can claim to be producing 'official' material, then it makes no difference how many different places, and how many different ways, Forgeworld make that claim.

Some how I doubt this will suddenly make my opponents like Basilisk artillery squads.

Until GW takes the initiative or forge world learns to properly update (and wont cost a small fortune everytime) then it will forever be anathema to standard 40k.

Even if it was worded by the most high ghod and chiselled onto stone tablets, that FW proclamation still wouldn't end the debate on how official FW rules are .

If you think it's the end of the debate, dream on, my friend. A debate that has (nerd)raged for years and still has years left in it, because the one thing that nerds like to rage about is "You aren't playing the game right!".

When GW include FW units in their BASE rules or codices, when they include them in LARGE BLOCK CAPITALS as 'legal' in their army books, it STILL won't end the debate.

It's not quite a King James v Good News level issue, but some do see it that way.

While I broadly support Peregrine in that Forgeworld should be a default inclusion, I'm all for more variety, choice and the pretty, pretty models...

I recently arranged a game with a new member of our gaming club, his first with us, and one of only a few he'd played (he'd started two or three months previously, just playing at the local GW)

Knowing all this, I took a relatively moderate list (not that Blood Angels can exactly bring the pain just now) without (I hoped) being too patronising or soft just because he was new.

We set up a table and begin unpacking our models.

Guy plonks a Spartan down on the table.

Rude.

(Still won,couldn't hurt the bloody thing though!)

 motyak wrote:
Well yeah a comment is nice, but why does a communication from a random GW/FW employee hold more value now than when they respond to a query in regards to rule questions, or the promised Elysian update that wasn't what we had been led to believe, etc. I'm happy they said it, but can you explain why this comment is gospel, but other comments from these people aren't?

Because it reinforces what we already knew. We've already got the official published statements saying FW is part of the game, and now we have a GW representative explicitly stating that they see it as equivalent to any other rules GW publishes. The anti-FW crowd loves to argue that GW really meant that you need to ask for special permission beyond what you need to play with any other rules, and now we have even more evidence that GW doesn't see it that way.

 insaniak wrote:
That statement is no better than the statement in the front of the IA books. It's still a statement from the guys making the supplemental rules, rather than from the guys in charge of the actual game. If someone isn't inclined to accept Forgeworld's word for it that they can claim to be producing 'official' material, then it makes no difference how many different places, and how many different ways, Forgeworld make that claim.

The "actual game" difference is one invented entirely by certain players, GW has not divided their company into "real GW" and "less official".

And the difference isn't just that it's another claim, it's that it explicitly puts refusing to play against FW units on the same level as refusing to play against a codex army. There's no more room to argue the intent of the "show your opponent your rules" statement and pretend that it is a requirement to have special permission.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azreal13 wrote:
Guy plonks a Spartan down on the table.

Rude.

Hardly. The Spartan is an overpriced paperweight most of the time, it only looks overpowered because the basic codex Land Raider is garbage. A new player using a single Spartan is hardly in WAAC territory, especially if the rest of their list wasn't anything worth mentioning.

Well, it's nice to know that Forgeworld is more official now than it has ever been. It really cleared up the confusion on just how official it was.

Joking aside, I wouldn't bother anymore with this Peregrine. People are going to dislike things that they don't really know about. That just how it and how it is always going to be. Jervis himself can proclaim that a IA book is on the same level as a codex yet people will still refer to p. 108 as the ultimate defense against the horrors of a sub-company that makes big stupid models.

 Peregrine wrote:
The "actual game" difference is one invented entirely by certain players, GW has not divided their company into "real GW" and "less official".

No, but they have divided their company into 'Games Workshop' and 'Forgeworld'... without ever addressing just where Games Workshop feel that Forgeworld sits within their game design structure.

That, coupled with the lack of a Forgeworld presense in GW stores, reinforces the belief that 'GW' releases and 'FW' releases are different things.

And the difference isn't just that it's another claim, it's that it explicitly puts refusing to play against FW units on the same level as refusing to play against a codex army. There's no more room to argue the intent of the "show your opponent your rules" statement and pretend that it is a requirement to have special permission.

Except that it's still coming from Forgeworld instead of from the design studio.

Again, no amount of insistence from Forgeworld is ever going to change the fact that to many players the only people with the authority to declare something 'official' are the guys in the GW design studio.

 Peregrine wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Guy plonks a Spartan down on the table.

Rude.

Hardly. The Spartan is an overpriced paperweight most of the time, it only looks overpowered because the basic codex Land Raider is garbage. A new player using a single Spartan is hardly in WAAC territory, especially if the rest of their list wasn't anything worth mentioning.

i love landraiders.

Anyway, I don't get how this debate over forgeworld legality in friendly games even began. Can you reference me any arguments from a while back where people sorta picked up these thoughts?

 insaniak wrote:
No, but they have divided their company into 'Games Workshop' and 'Forgeworld'... without ever addressing just where Games Workshop feel that Forgeworld sits within their game design structure.

Like how they've divided the company into Games Workshop and Citadel? You're imagining a major division between the two instead of them being different brand names GW sells their products under.

Again, no amount of insistence from Forgeworld is ever going to change the fact that to many players the only people with the authority to declare something 'official' are the guys in the GW design studio.

And, again, that belief has nothing to do with reality. Some players can demand an answer from the specific GW employee they want to hear it from before they'll change their house rule, but that doesn't mean that GW is obligated to run their company that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Largeblastmarker wrote:
Anyway, I don't get how this debate over forgeworld legality in friendly games even began. Can you reference me any arguments from a while back where people sorta picked up these thoughts?

It goes back years, so good luck finding the origins of it. But the general idea is that some people don't like FW for various reasons (too powerful, too expensive, etc) but are terrified of admitting that they want to play the game with a house rule, so they insist that FW isn't really part of the game according to GW. It's part of a larger issue with people being afraid of admitting they use house rules. For example, the whole idea of "1999+1" tournaments exists because people hated the idea of double FOC in 2000 point games but didn't want to admit that they're playing a 2000 point game with a "no double FOC" house rule. So we get the absurd idea that you play a 1999 point game where you're allowed to go exactly one point over the limit without the real limit being 2000 points, and a bunch of self-declared experts congratulating themselves on finding a loophole that lets them avoid double FOC.

 Peregrine wrote:
Like how they've divided the company into Games Workshop and Citadel?

Yes, exactly like that.

The difference being that GW have stated that Citadel models are used to play their games.

You're imagining a major division between the two instead of them being different brand names GW sells their products under.

No, I'm imagining them being two different brand names that GW sells their product under... but while they have made it clear that one of those brands is the miniatures range for their games, no such statement has been made for the other.

And, again, that belief has nothing to do with reality. Some players can demand an answer from the specific GW employee they want to hear it from before they'll change their house rule, but that doesn't mean that GW is obligated to run their company that way.

At no point have I made any claims about what GW is 'obligated' to do. They are certainly under no obligation to make any statement about the status of Forgeworld's range... but until they do, people will regard Forgeworld as an unofficial offshoot, and no amount of insistence by that offshoot that they are, in fact, official will change people's minds.

Ehhh, figures they finally 'clear' this up just before their supposed big push for superheavies in regular 40k (which I can't wait for tbh, gaks gonna be so cash)

Martel732 wrote:
The only way FW is going to be accepted in my area is if their prices come down.

+1.

Besides Apocalypse books and models, nobody in my meta has any motivation to try Forgeworld stuff. Occasionally someone will want to try something though and, for instance, convert an Eldar Wraithlord into a Wraithseer. At which point, the rest of us will go "Cool. Let's see what it does."

 Peregrine wrote:
But the general idea is that some people don't like FW for various reasons (too powerful, too expensive, etc) but are terrified of admitting that they want to play the game with a house rule, so they insist that FW isn't really part of the game according to GW.

That's a ridiculously biased view of what is actually happening.

The fact that you regard non-acceptance of Forgeworld as a house rule doesn't mean that those that don't regard Forgeworld material as offical are scared of house rules. It just means that they don't regard Forgeworld rules as official.

. For example, the whole idea of "1999+1" tournaments exists because people hated the idea of double FOC in 2000 point games but didn't want to admit that they're playing a 2000 point game with a "no double FOC" house rule.

As much as I dislike the '1999+1' convention, this is also innacurate.

People aren't calling it 1999+1 to avoid admitting they are playing with a house rule. They're calling it 1999+1 because that's quicker and eaiser (at least amongst people who know what you're talking about) than saying '2000 points with a single FOC'. For the most part, they're well aware that allowing that point over is a house rule.

The argument about the inclusion of forgeworld stuff has never been about the level of authority of forgeworld. It's always been about other things including, among others, whether you want to browbeat other people from an argument from authority fallacy.

Just saying that FW is more of an authority doesn't change this fact. It's just another pointless thread created to explain what people already know, but disagree with for more complex reasons.

What happened to the old thread?

Threads like these need to stop being locked because they seem to be a recurring theme, so we may as well have one thread running at all times.

 Ailaros wrote:
The argument about the inclusion of forgeworld stuff has never been about the level of authority of forgeworld. It's always been about other things including, among others, whether you want to browbeat other people from an argument from authority fallacy.

Just saying that FW is more of an authority doesn't change this fact. It's just another pointless thread created to explain what people already know, but disagree with for more complex reasons.

Agree 110%. Forge World clearly states that both players have a full say in what rules and therefore it is not a 'house rule' if you agree not to use them.