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If you haven't seen any of forgeworlds new index books you may have missed the new weapon type they have introduced.

Macro - Double the damage this weapon inflicts when used against Titanic targets. Unless used by a titanic unit you can't fire it after moving.

Obviously they have introduced this to help deal with the giant titans with superhigh wounds scores but I'm slightly concerned by the impact it will have on the smaller GW Titanic units.

One of the key rules design philosophies in 8th was to make everything operate on the same scale, if something is twice as big as something else it has twice the wounds and takes twice as much firepower to kill. This rule seems to rather ruin that part of the design.

Take this as an example: The Landraider has 16 wounds and is a normal vehicle, the Monolyth is a titanic vehicle with 20 wounds. Against Macro weapons the monolyth is much easier to kill than the landraider. I know that's using likely the smallest of the titanic models to make a point so lets use some really common stuff, the Lemon Russ tank: 12 wounds and the Imperial Knight: 24 wounds. As the knight has the titanic keyword they are just as easy to kill as each other against marco weapons :-/

I know this won't come up very often as not many people have giant forgeworld models armed with them but the reason for my concern is a my group has a narative game coming up in a couple of weeks that is based around everyone bringing their super heavies. We have a few knights, baneblades, stompas, monolyths, tesseract vaults etr and then a Necron Pylon and a warhound titan.
The problem I forsee is these last two are able to utterly destroy the rest of the superheavies. The Pylon can deepstrike in as is not unlikely to do 30-60 to a titanic vehicle with one volley. The warhound isn't quite so destructive but with Turbolasers can still completely destroy most other things around. These don't mix well with the GW models as non of them have this new rule and it seems to make there reasonably high wounds stats a bit irrelevant as it basically halves them.

Am I getting worried for nothing? I'm thinking of talking with the owners of these vehicles and asking if they would be ok playing with Marco weapons being able to reroll damage dice again titanic targets instead, makes them better against them whilst still preserving the integrety of the wounds system.

On a side note does anyone else feel the forgeworld Index's don't feel as well play tested as the GW ones, there's alot more cases of worthless units and stuff that just seems OP. The GW index's aren't perfect but there is a general sense of reasonable balance.

I suspect they wanted to have the damage be the doubled amount, and then decided that was too much against non Titanic models. So they put the rule in to bring the destructive power back down somewhat. Unfortunately the granularity is very bad. Going back to your first example, 4 more wounds shouldn't cause the Monolith to take twice as much damage.

I fully agree that FW's rules seem far less thought out and play tested than GW's initial set of Index's. Macro Weapons are one example, Relics are another. Far less consistent across the board. Sadly, as the books have been printed, I wouldn't expect to see changes for months. The good news is, my wallet is happy I won't need to buy any FW any time soon as everything I wanted to buy ended up on the crap side.

What sort of point levels do you start getting macro weapons? I know the warhound is 1500. I don't think you will really see them in the average game, so it is not really worth worrying about. Any game that size is probably going to be a more laid back affair anyway.

 Trickstick wrote:
What sort of point levels do you start getting macro weapons? I know the warhound is 1500. I don't think you will really see them in the average game, so it is not really worth worrying about. Any game that size is probably going to be a more laid back affair anyway.

The cheapest units by faction are

Imperium - warhounds 1.5k (reaver and warlord have access)

Aeldari of all flavours - phantom titan 2.4k

Necrons - guass pylon under 500 points

Tau - axo1 tigershark (when it's faq to be able to shoot) 500ish (taunar and manta have access)

Chaos - warhounds 1.5k (reaver and warlord have access)

Orks - rofl

Tyranid - heirophant 1.8k


Outside of the pylon which to me seems fairly overpowered and the tiger shark which also seems very good but is more balanced. The next cheapest comes in at 1.2k for a taunar then the warhounds.

Honestly wouldn't be a problem in normal games besides those 2 units admittedly I feel we will see a lot of pylons as it just looks so good and necrons players have been complaining about a lack of anti tank as well.

Titanicus wrote:
Necrons - guass pylon under 500 points

Tau - axo1 tigershark (when it's faq to be able to shoot) 500ish

Fair enough, that puts them in the usable region.

Yeah. The FW books look to be a mess. Glad I didn't buy any. The very few FW nid units I want to use are fine to great though.

You guys are focusing on the pylon, but I think you haven't done the math with the Vampire Hunter for Eldar. Up to 24 str 12 shots that do d6 dmg per hit, potentially 2d6 dmg on a 6, with 32 wounds, hard to hit, inv save, 50" move, and 12 more heavy shots. And it doesn't even have a macro weapon. It may be twice as many points as a pylon, but is sure worth it.

 Nyghoma wrote:
You guys are focusing on the pylon, but I think you haven't done the math with the Vampire Hunter for Eldar. Up to 24 str 12 shots that do d6 dmg per hit, potentially 2d6 dmg on a 6, with 32 wounds, hard to hit, inv save, 50" move, and 12 more heavy shots. And it doesn't even have a macro weapon. It may be twice as many points as a pylon, but is sure worth it.

I've got one on my painting table right now 100% using it.

It does have some downsides the twin pulsar had to be fired at one target unlike a revenant which can split them. 1 model for 900+ (got to pay for vehicle upgrades and scatter laser) means you really are dealing with low body count on the table. It does get a lot of hits though especially with the twin pulse lasers to the only main downside is s12 is actually kind of lackluster in terms of super heavies but in a normal game should get light vehicles on 2s and heavier ones on 3s.

The thing I'm a bit confused about is why it didn't get titanic flyer like thunderhawk stormbird and manta this model is huge it's over a foot each way. The titanic flyer rule would make tons of sense because otherwise you are supposed to shoot to the base of this model instead of its massive size.

Biggest downside to all the eldar flyers in this book though is they suck at shooting other flyers and they were all 4-5 in all their flyer scores last edition. Yet to hit other planes now requires 5+ at the best of times you couldn't even shoot a concealed hemlock.

Titanicus wrote:
Biggest downside to all the eldar flyers in this book though is they suck at shooting other flyers and they were all 4-5 in all their flyer scores last edition. Yet to hit other planes now requires 5+ at the best of times you couldn't even shoot a concealed hemlock.

That makes no sense. The Eldar are supposed to have the scariest fighters in the entire galaxy. When the Imperial Navy engages the Eldar in a dogfight, they pretty much can only win through attrition. It is like sending prop planes against jets.

my gut feeling is forge world was handfed the 8th edition rules fairly late in the game and told they had to update everything to 8th edition rules "pronto" the result was sadly predictable

BrianDavion wrote:
my gut feeling is forge world was handfed the 8th edition rules fairly late in the game and told they had to update everything to 8th edition rules "pronto" the result was sadly predictable

They lost their lead writer too. Pretty horrible combination of event pretty much destroyed their development power.

Actually there was an interview with one of the writers for FW a while ago, and I'm not sure he was meant to tell anyone, but he actually confirmed that FW got the rules the week GW released 8th and the rules writers had to literally go and by the full rulebook and indices from the store in warhammer world and walk back over to their offices to write up FW rules. Pretty impressive how quickly they've turned stuff out to be honest but that is the reason why their rules are so poorly balanced.


I will try and find that source for anyone that wants confirmation

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:
Actually there was an interview with one of the writers for FW a while ago, and I'm not sure he was meant to tell anyone, but he actually confirmed that FW got the rules the week GW released 8th and the rules writers had to literally go and by the full rulebook and indices from the store in warhammer world and walk back over to their offices to write up FW rules. Pretty impressive how quickly they've turned stuff out to be honest but that is the reason why their rules are so poorly balanced.


I will try and find that source for anyone that wants confirmation

That can't be true. Some of the FW books were released at the same time as 8th.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:
Actually there was an interview with one of the writers for FW a while ago, and I'm not sure he was meant to tell anyone, but he actually confirmed that FW got the rules the week GW released 8th and the rules writers had to literally go and by the full rulebook and indices from the store in warhammer world and walk back over to their offices to write up FW rules. Pretty impressive how quickly they've turned stuff out to be honest but that is the reason why their rules are so poorly balanced.


I will try and find that source for anyone that wants confirmation

That can't be true. Some of the FW books were released at the same time as 8th.

Yeah, there's no way that story is true. You can't get a book written, formatted, and printed that fast. The only way for FW to have printed copies of the books shipping out as quickly as they did would be for them to have all the 8th edition rules well in advance of the release date.

What gets me is the disparity in power between the eldar titans and imperial ones.

Eldar have always been as good or better and now their just flat out worse. When a revenant was better and more expensive than the war hound is now literally flipped.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:
Actually there was an interview with one of the writers for FW a while ago, and I'm not sure he was meant to tell anyone, but he actually confirmed that FW got the rules the week GW released 8th and the rules writers had to literally go and by the full rulebook and indices from the store in warhammer world and walk back over to their offices to write up FW rules. Pretty impressive how quickly they've turned stuff out to be honest but that is the reason why their rules are so poorly balanced.


I will try and find that source for anyone that wants confirmation

That can't be true. Some of the FW books were released at the same time as 8th.

Yeah, there's no way that story is true. You can't get a book written, formatted, and printed that fast. The only way for FW to have printed copies of the books shipping out as quickly as they did would be for them to have all the 8th edition rules well in advance of the release date.

Also 40k has only been out for a fortnight, so I don't know how any such interview could have been 'a while ago'.

I'd believe it if FW only got anything to do with the rules the week GW sent everything off to the printers though.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:
Actually there was an interview with one of the writers for FW a while ago, and I'm not sure he was meant to tell anyone, but he actually confirmed that FW got the rules the week GW released 8th and the rules writers had to literally go and by the full rulebook and indices from the store in warhammer world and walk back over to their offices to write up FW rules. Pretty impressive how quickly they've turned stuff out to be honest but that is the reason why their rules are so poorly balanced.


I will try and find that source for anyone that wants confirmation

That can't be true. Some of the FW books were released at the same time as 8th.

Yeah, there's no way that story is true. You can't get a book written, formatted, and printed that fast. The only way for FW to have printed copies of the books shipping out as quickly as they did would be for them to have all the 8th edition rules well in advance of the release date.

Maybe but I could see the core of the story being essentially true in that with deadlines etc FW had literally a week to write the rules.

In which case I wish FW had simply taken a month or two to do what they needed. I think people woulda been happier with a delay if it meant a quality set of rules for everything

I like the Revenant rules and am trying to fit him in 2k pts.

Low model count indeed.

I thought it would be more along the lines of 900 but such is life.

My thoughts are that the macro weapons are badly designed.

Thanks to them Titans can pretty much one shot each other. In addition, Titans actually aren't that tough to justify macro weapons.

Look at a Warhound, sure initially it seems impressive with its 35 wounds. But it costs 1500 points, you could have 3 Imperial Knights for that cost which would be far more durable. Sure the Warhound will slaughter 3 Imperial knights with ease, but in a Warhound vs Warhound scenario, they can pretty much one shot each other so whoever shots first wins.

I would have preferred if Titans were cheaper and lacked macro weapons.

Tyran wrote:
so whoever shots first wins.

I thought that was 40k?

 Uriels_Flame wrote:

Tyran wrote:
so whoever shots first wins.

I thought that was 40k?

It is too extreme with Titans, most other vehicles don't have the firepower to one-shot themselves unless they have some very good rolls.