Editing Forge World (section)

== Company ==
[[Image:Manta.jpg|thumb|Hello, I'm a Tau [[Manta]]. I am reasonably priced at a mere £1,100 (€1,360) ($1,705).]]
[[Image:Trumpeter-KT.jpg|thumb|Hello, I'm a Trumpeter 2-in-1 1:16 King Tiger. You can buy four of me for that.]]
The first meaning of Forge World is if you took [[Games Workshop]] and leveled it up a few times. It's a sub-division of GW and produces [[finecast|resin-cast models]] for 40k, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|Fantasy Battle]], [[Battlefleet Gothic]], and [[Epic]]. Forge World grew from one of the oldest official giant [[butthurt|stupid]] model projects, the early 40K lead [[Thunderhawk]] Gunship, which was originally created as a limited edition and routinely thrown at people who won GW contests. The Thunderhawk proved so popular that GW realized there was a serious market for giant stupid models, and thus Forge World was born to provide them, starting with [[Baneblade]]s and suchlike, working up to full-sized [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|40K Titans]]. Over time it's since gone about producing its own range of models and rule sets for a huge array of different factions, and even has its own home-grown [[Imperial Guard]] variants (the badass <s>[[Death Korps of Krieg]]</s> (or at least codified what was once little more than a doodle in the 3rd Edition IG Codex) and [[Elysian Drop Troops]]). The awesome-looking Chaos Renegades for [[Lost and the Damned]] also came from here.

More recently, Forge World has been spitting out gloriously beautiful and horrendously expensive Horus Heresy-era models, meaning every mark of Astartes [[Power Armour|Power Armor]], Cataphractii [[Terminator]]s, and older patterns of [[Rhino Transport|Rhino]] and [[Land Raider]]. This, in turn, creates the best and worst things ever; re-built, revamped [[Rogue Trader]] models. The horrible, goofy weapons, tanks, and dreadnoughts are back, in wonderful, goofy new resin kits. They all look amazingly terrible (and terribly amazing), but the icing on the cake includes [[Primarch]]s like ''[[Horus]] himself'' and ''fukken [[Jetbike#Imperial_Jetbikes|JETBIKES]].'' Yes, Forge World put out pre-Heresy Jetbikes, and they are everything you hoped and dreamed for (provided you hoped and dreamed for resin dicks with Spess mahrienss inside them), including a new forgotten weapon type (the [[Volkite Weaponry|Volkite]]). And now they also have Mechanicum models too- because who doesn't want to play around with the oft-forgotten Imperial Robots?

In addition, many of their older models (read: all the ones you want) are no longer available and command even ''higher'' premium prices, and all special models (read: all of them) require an attendant overpriced supplement containing rules that tell you how the hell to actually use it, since just including these as a printable PDF on the site would remove a valuable opportunity to steal your moneys. These are called [[Imperial Armour]] Volumes, and are handily abbreviated by [[Neckbeard|everyone here]] as '''IA''' (and then a Volume Number). People who claim they have these either do not actually have these and instead have [[Heresy|.pdf copies]] '''/''' only have one or two (generally out of date) and treat them like Gutenberg Bibles '''/''' have like 4+ and are [[Flash Gitz|way too rich for their own good]].

Also responsible for the [[Forgeworld Reserve Phenomenon]].

As of April 1st, 2016 (and no, it doesn't appear to be an April Fools joke), Forge World has apparently jumped onto GW's "Last Chance to Buy" bandwagon and has decided to do some housecleaning on their product range. Thankfully, it's mostly obscure bits that likely hardly anyone ever bought or used, but notable losses include the Ork Kill Krusha Tank, Macharius Omega, and almost the [[Rage|''entire'' MKIV Dreadnought line, ''both'' Chaos and Loyalist]]. Many other models have gotten the axe since, notably all the Elysian line, mark 2, 3, and 4 space marine armor, etc. Combined with the retarded markup they now give to buyers outside the UK and the Adeptus Titanicus <strike>fiasco</strike> [[Adeptus Titanicus| glorious]] [[Adeptus Titanicus/Tactics| rebirth]], Forge World is <strike>now seemingly becoming the hated company Games Workshop once was, while the main branch keeps rolling out PR successes.</strike> showing the true colors of Games Workshop as a whole once more - with their "faster shipping" fiasco proving that the entirety of their social media is merely a publicity stunt (like most corporations). It's worth nothing that FW represents GW as a whole - they are run by the same people on the highest levels.

As of 2022, their relevance has seen a decline. With the Horus Heresy, one of their most popular lines, getting a full-fledged reboot and its models being transferred over to the main studio, FW has been relegated to dealing with only the niche games, such as the LotR game and Blood Bowl...which Games Workshop ''also'' has stuff for on their main site. Even then, it's not very clear if they're the ones writing the rules to the games or if they're just making models. Their main claim to relevance with the 40K crowd right now seems to be keeping those few Death Korps of Krieg players that wanted Death Riders content.

...then that fell by the wayside, as 2023 and 10th Edition saw a good number of their 40K stock enter the Last Chance to Buy block, including those sweet Exalted Greater Daemons, special characters, and even some of their special dreadnoughts. At this point, it's looking more like they're just being relegated to making titans and little else as more of their rules become either integrated into the main studio's lines or dumped into a Legends index.

'''In conclusion:''' "Five hundred quid for a fucking titan? [[Rage|If I ever find the fucker responsible I'm going to beat them to death with their own]] [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-]]".
Note: Look at the new Warlord titans, 900 POUNDS for a titan, 1240 with weaponry.

<font size=1>'''*This doesn't mean to imply that you're limited to only two models unless you happen to be a serial killer or a corrupt mortician.'''</font>

=== Notable Writers ===

*[[Alan Bligh]], who unfortunately died of [[cancer]] on May 26, 2017, and who was responsible for the creation of many rules concepts eventually used in the Forge World rulebooks. [http://www.john-french.com/2017/05/alan-bligh-remembered.html Read an obituary written by fellow GW writer John French here.]
*[[John French]]
*[[Andy Hoare]]
*[[Neil Wylie]]
*[[Anuj Malhotra]]

=== Things Forge World Loves ===
[[Image:Red_Scorpions_Marine.png‎|thumb|150px|right|Screw giving the Sisters of Battle some [[Sisters of Cleaning|much needed loving]], let's just concentrate all our resources on some [[Red Scorpions|obscure chapter that nobody cares about]].]]
* Your money
* The [[Horus Heresy]]
* Aircraft
* Rapiers
* [[Tau]] [[Battlesuit]]s <strike>(XV9s!! fap fap fap) (XV107s!!! fapfapfapfap)</strike> (HERESY! '''''BLAMBLAMBLAM''''')
* IG Tanks
* Have we said your money?
* [[Daemon Engines]]
* '''The [[Red Scorpions]]'''
* [[Terminator]]s, all the Terminators (except for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator robots originating from a certain movie], even though Games Workshop lifted from that movie to make [[Necrons|a race of robots for their setting]])
* [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]]s and the price to go with them
* TEH [[Baneblade|BANEBLEHDS]]
* <s>[[Kroot]]</s>
* We may as well say it again, your money
* Charging 100$ for a book
* High quality Customer Service
* [[Space Marines]]
* [[Dreadnought]]s (they actually sell autocannons!!!)
** Now really only true for Contemptor/Leviathan/Deredeo Dreads, since they axed most of their Mk IV/V Dread stuff, including FW-exclusive variants like [[Chaplain]] and [[Noise Marines|Sonic]] Dreadnoughts.
* The [[Death Korps of Krieg]] (enough so that many of their units aren't as overpriced, though still not for the stingy).
* Adding an extra "0" to the end of reasonable prices
* The word "siege" attached to everything
* The [[Charcharodons]]
* Turrets & Immobile scenery
* Selling towing vehicles to move that immobile scenery around
* <strike>Units that are broken to play against</strike> not anymore, GW realised they lost money because of that
* The [[Minotaurs]]
* Your ''Opponent's'' money
* Bringing civilian vehicles to battle. Seriously, a Sentinel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(franchise)| Power-lifter]?
* Introducing Salvo Weapons on units that will never use the rules for salvo weapons properly, or making them so bad that no-one ever takes them.
* Papa [[Nurgle]]
* The [[Orks]], when [[Games Workshop|GW]] won't love them because they aren't serious enough (though 2023 FW doesn't love the Orks nearly as much as 2013 FW did)
* [[Total War: WARHAMMER]] (Especially the Norsca DLC, which whilst [[Awesome]], was basically a playable Forge World advertisement! (Until they stopped selling most of those things. But hey, they still sell the Mourngul and boob troll.))
* Discontinuing items more-or-less at random. Including ones you might actually need for making viable Horus Heresy armies.
* '''Your Money'''

[[File:Forge-world-last-chance-to-buy-banner.png|thumb|Remember that expensive-ass model you salivated over as a kid? You had better buy it <s>now</s> ''a week ago'', because it's already sold out by the time you see this image.]]

=== Things Forge World Hates ===
* Decent shipping
* Australians
* New Zealanders
* EU Citizens
* 'Rest of the World' citizens
* Anyone not in the UK, really
* Poor people (eg. most of the editors of 1d4chan).
* You.
* Making sure their rules all have models.
* Making sure their models all have rules.
* Making sure their weapons have weapon profiles.
* Making army lists (the rules for their models are fine; their lists, on the other hand, are not).
* Making sure their stuff is balanced.
*Making sure the £180 Fellblade Super Heavy Tank you just bought came with THE FUCKING TURRET
* Spell Chequing.
* The Sisters of Battle
* Did we mention you? You.
* Proofreading books before release for rules/timelines/basic logic errors ''(supersonic transports that cannot land?)''.
* Warhammer Fantasy.
* <strike>Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.</strike> No longer true, ever since they were given full control over the range. Now it's one of the few things they still make stuff for.
* Chaos that isn't Khorne or Nurgle.
* [[Dwarfs]]
* The Empire
* Other games workshop stores
* [[Gabriel Angelos|Making faces that don't look like shit.]]
* Making their instructions anywhere near understandable.
* Making uniform base sizes.
* Making sure their weapons don't have similar (or in some cases, the same) names.
* Releasing anything they advertise until long after the initial hype has died down.
* '''You'''

=== An Alternative Point on the Price (which is your soul, by the way) ===
While it’s a tradition of neckbeards everywhere to bemoan having to pay an arm, leg, testicle and unicorn blood for Forge World, it could be argued that Forge World’s high costs do have the beneficial side effect of taking some of the overpowered weapons and wargear that are supposed to be rare in the fluff, and bringing them into the tabletop while still making them rather rare in the meta, as comparatively few people are willing or able to fork over the [[teef]] for the models and rules. This is a good thing because, well, everybody ''wants'' a Titan, but do you really want everybody to actually ''have one''? This way, it’s a bigger deal when this stuff actually shows up on the tabletop, as it should be, and if you’re the sort that doesn’t like to go up against that sort of cheese you’re not likely to run into it too often.... or at least that's how it WOULD be if Forge World units weren't such a mixed bag these days. Not everything they make right now is overpowered, in fact if they aren't they tend to be absolute shite.

A case in point of what happens when that little status quo is disrupted, with the release of affordable plastic Contemptor dreadnoughts and Cataphractii terminators, and with Angels of Death giving us non-Forge World rules for them, you can bet that everyone and their [[squig]] is gonna have the damn things now, even with the rather dumbed-down rules compared to Imperial Armour.

There is also the point to be made that FW intended audience never was your average 40k player or casual fans of the setting, but the hardcore hobbyists who have been in the hobby for years, if not decades and accumulated a vast amount of knowledge about how to even handle this stuff correctly. Indeed, most FW models are extremely difficult to put together, not helped by the fickle material they are made from. This automatically pushed them into a niche audience, which was FWs entire business model; giving die-hard fans the possibility to see and own pieces of the most obscure lore from head honchos of GW. As such, production runs of FW models likely never were produced at scale or had substantial amounts of stock, which is important in price calculations, as mass produced goods can be made with bigger machines which put out more stuff at less of a cost in time and money, which in turn, makes the finished product cheaper. In essence, your Tau Manta costs an arm and a leg precisely because your Manta is very likely to be a custom piece just made for you and this costs an extra premium on top of the massive costs for material, labour and taxes.

=== 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.