Editing Forge World (section)

=== Common Misconceptions ===
You'll occasionally find arguments online or perhaps within local gaming groups about the validity or "official-ness" of Forge World products. This has become less prevalent in recent years as the general perception of Forge World has become more mainstream, though every now and then the prejudice rears its ugly head, usually when a [[That Guy|certain opponent]] [[Butthurt|won't let you play]] the FW model you forked out a small fortune for.

Lets make one thing perfectly clear: Forge World ''(and Black Library)'' <u>is</u> Games Workshop. They share the same trading address and legal identity. It is not a subsidiary company (which would be a separate legal entity, but owned by the parent) nor is it a [[Fantasy Flight Games|licensee]] (which is a third party permitted to use the IP).

By comparison, [[Citadel Miniatures]] was founded as a subsidiary company and had its own separate projects outside of Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 ''(so your opponent can [[Rage]] when you tell him your Forge World model has more direct legal provenance than his old metal models)''. GW also acquired Sabertooth games, which operated as an independent subsidiary, but both were eventually absorbed back into Games Workshop.

So, back to the issue with Forge World. Many [[Trolls|people]] had an innate dislike for the fact that Forge World models and rules were not actually declared by Forge World *or* Games Workshop to be "officially" part of the game; they would refuse to allow them on the tabletop, since they did not come from a Games Workshop primary rules source (such as a Codex, or the Big Rule Book). Forge World eventually started printing prefaces in their books explaining that their rules were official; but some still claim that since "Games Workshop" itself hasn't come out and said it, that they remain unofficial. However, since the spines of FW's books have always had the Games Workshop logos on them and the inside front cover have the legal copyright and property notices from GW, this argument seems specious at best; rather, much like how the Big Rule Book has no actual explicit declaration that rules from [[White Dwarf]] are "official", the Imperial Armour books themselves should be considered as canonical (what ever that means in 40k) as GW sources.

However, as with White Dwarf, GW hates you far too much as a gamer and customer to label any of their rulebooks/codices with edition numbers, much less ensure that their FW rules are always kept up to date with the current edition, and unlike Codices where you can typically determine the edition at a glance, a lot of Forge World books superficially "look" similar and may even have exactly the same name ''(to date there have been FOUR books with the title "Imperial Armour Apocalypse" but only two of them have sub-titles)''. This can be a major reason the rules are banned at tournaments, and an opponent might object for the same reason they might object to fighting a [[Squat]]s army under the current rules - however "obvious" the rules translation might be, some people are uncomfortable playing games across too wide an edition gap, as rules interactions may make no sense at all and/or have utterly pathological balance ramifications. '''Update''' this has become pretty much irrelevant with the release of 8th edition where Forge World have released complete indexes for pretty much their entire line.

We all know how [[ChapterHouse Studios|litigious]] GW can get with regards to "unofficial" products using their copyright, so you can bet if it wasn't official/legal Forge World would have had their asses handed to them, but it would seem absolutely stupid to sue the guys in the next office over in the same building as you. Seriously, there isn't even a divider between the FW and main parts of the store at Warhammer World anymore...

So next time you get to the table and your opponent starts whining about your Forge World models not being legal, just batter him over the head with your Imperial Armour book, which will be an order of magnitude heavier than his little codex and claim your victory by default.

'''As an additional side note''' - this has nothing to do with the perception of FW rules being either powerfully unbalanced or too focused on the narrative, but on reflection, that's no different from the [[skub]] surrounding [[Grey Knights|codex creep]] and [[Tyranids|painful nerfing]] already rampant within "core" GW material. So what's new?

If a Tournament Organiser decides that they don't want to include Forge World rules then that is entirely their prerogative as they will want the tournament to be as balanced or as hassle free as is reasonable, especially since FW have a tendency to publish their rules with minor variances across multiple "in-date" books, which can be a nightmare to manage, especially where some books have "current" rules alongside other rules which have been superseded elsewhere. Though with the advent of 8th edition, and all factions receiving simultaneous rule updates via indexes (Imperial, Xenos and Chaos Imperial Armour indexes), these rules are much easier to keep track of than ever before.

But these organisers ''(if they are smart)'' will also likely restrict "core" army selections too, so no Unbound lists or may exclude certain FOCs, because in the end which is more unbalanced and [[Cheese|cheesy]]? The guy who takes a contemptor dreadnought in his Combined Arms detachment or the guy who take an unbound army of Heldrakes? (Ha Held Rakes sound scary). If the tournament organizer is using the ITC standard for 40k, Forge World units themselves are in fact quite legal.

All that said however, there is a somewhat valid reason why someone may be a bit "model-shy" around Forge World rules; and that is information. There are 16 armies in 40k, and each dex tends to have more than one valid build; the Astra Militarum alone has six (tank heavy, artillery heavy, balance, flying circus, infantry spam, veteran spam). From a player's perspective, throwing MORE armies, rules, and models at them only compounds how much they need to consider. By counting Forge World, the number of army lists jumps to over 28 without considering supplements or mini-codices with only a handful of options, and again, each list can be played in more than one way, and then there are the (admittedly handful) of differences between Forge World and Games Workshop about the same model "is that the vanquisher with the coaxial? or not?" and then on top of all that you need to consider allies. While Forge World is legal from any logical standpoint, people are not logical, and may be daunted by just how much new information they have to learn in order to make proper gameplay choices and not lose, because they did not know that the Death Korp can give orders to artillery. Again, though Forge World is by any standard as legal as any codex, the other player may feel intimidated by your Space Marine siege army just because he does not know for sure what it can do and chose to walk way from it the same way he would if you brought an unbound army made of nothing but riptides.