While everyone is either getting salty or excited about the upcoming Space Marine and Necron releases, the item that drew my eye was the announcement of the new Forge World book. While I don’t have an inside scoop, I thought I would discuss what things I am expecting to happen in this new book, and 5 things I hope that they address.
What I hope for:
- Updated rules for Eldar Corsairs:
- I have this as the number 1 thing I want, but also realize it to be the least likely to occur. I love the fluff behind the corsairs but their rules make them a somewhat odd army to play. I would love to see an expansion of the models to include their old HQ options (especially a Void Dreamer) but I am not anticipating it. The Corsairs have somehow stuck around this long so it will be interesting to see if they can dodge anther bullet, or if they have danced one too many times on the knife’s edge.
- Re-balancing of Superheavies
- What I mean by this is that several of the superheavy options seem to have point costs that don’t line up with their value on the tabletop (shocking news, I know, more at 11). One of the first that jumps to mind is the Typhon tank. Now I am biased as I have one myself, but I feel the designers tend to over-value T9 as that is the only reason I can think of for it to cost almost as much as two knights. It has a decent gun but doesn’t have any real gimmicks to justify the price tag. Some of these decisions were made back when 8th had just launched, and don’t reflect the recent power-creep. At the same time, a few notable dreadnought chassis practically became mascots for unintended rule interactions combinations. None of this is surprising as it is just the downside of trying to update a model’s points value to represent it’s perceived ability.
- Inclusion of the new horus heresy tanks
- The most notable examples of the above are the Aquisitor (above) and Arquitor. Perhaps I am just being lazy and trying to justify the cost of one model (look honey I know it’s expensive but I can use it in two games, it’s practically buy-one-get-one free!) But I feel like the Aquisitor could add a lot of value to talons armies and give the sisters and unique option to help them stand out. At the same time I realize the world hardly needs more space marine models to balance around so perhaps they will hang out with the legion jetbikes in the 30K only part of the store.
- Fair distribution of data sheets
- If Vegas cared about 40k I do wonder what the over-under line would be for the number of the 191 sheets in the new book belonging to space marine or Imperium units. While I don’t think all factions should have the same number of entries, I do hope that the cuts don’t hit Xenos armies hardest at the expense of a few Imperium options. I would love to see a balance that perhaps brings back certain models *Cough* Eldar Firestorm and Drukhari Raven *Cough Cough* to balance out the faction representation.
- Revamping of Cerastus Knights
- Perhaps this is another niche complaint of mine but I am hoping that the FW team can breathe a bit of life into these units. The models are amazing but I feel they need a little something that makes them unique compared to other knights. I would be okay even if this makes them non-competitive, or hard to use because of their cost. I am just hoping they can get a niche that does justice to the wonderful sculpts.
What I am expecting
- Forge World characters getting axed or getting legion traits
- I figured I would start with a hot take here. I think Forge World Really needs to figure out what to do with named Space Marine characters who don’t have a defined chapter trait. We saw this a bit with Lias Isadon spawning dozens of new flavors of Raptors. I think they will take steps to prevent players from having this flexibility. Since there are a few characters they still sell (Moloc, Carab, Tyberos) I believe they will give them defined chapter traits rather than discontinue the model (especially since Carab appeared in the preview.
- Uneven distribution of data sheets
- I may be double-dipping here but I fully expect the vast majority of the 191 datasheets to be Space Marine or Imperial units. At a certain level I am sure many of these cuts are being made to units that do not have existing models, or lines that GW has terminated a while back. Many of these units that have made it this far on severely borrowed time already. But given that Space Marines are the top sellers of 40k (this likely holds true in the Forge World store as well) and also that business don’t run on sympathy, I worry about many of the flavorful units that the Orks, Eldar and enjoyed losing out.
- Corsairs and Renegades going away
- With there being over 400 Forge World units with rules it’s not surprising to see the need for the reduction. Thus I expect certain armies (Renegades, Corsairs, etc.) to be cut altogether. This is mainly given their lack of model support and lack of focus over the more recent years (though the renegades did borrow heavily from the guard line). While this may come off as rather negative, I prefer to think of it as an “Until later” rather than a “goodbye” type move. Given that GW has resurrected other factions from the past we might get to see these lines again with a fresh batch of new sculpts.
- Large superheavies will still be unusable
- While there may be a guy in your local club clamoring for Warhound titans to go down to 1,000 points because “they can only kill 2 units a turn! “ I still think many of the larger superheavies will be seen only in apocalypse games. Furthermore I think this is a very good thing. I remember a time in 7th when if you didn’t have a Revenant titan in your Eldar army you weren’t really trying. Certain large models belong in oversized games and I think the game suffers when these units are too cheap (which we saw with the Taunar)
- There will be a unit that suddenly surges in viability
- There are few things more timeless then GW accidentally making some unit overpowered through the release of a new profile, points values, the discovery of an odd rule interaction or some such nonsense. And, as we said before, this is somewhat understandable if you are trying to figure out how to balance hundreds of unit profiles. But honestly it is one of the things I am looking forward too. Is there a chance they miscalculate and we end up under the oppressive rule of the “9 Cyclops Demolition Vehicle Meta” or some other unit? Sure it’s possible but it’s equally possible a majority of these revamped datasheets allow players to dust off their old models and bring them back to the tabletop.
My biggest hope for this release is that it will open new possibilities for fun games and memorable units to build stories and memories around. 40k is a luxury hobby, and Forge World is the pinnacle of that. Hopefully these new rules will give these fabulous models the time in the sun they deserve. What are you looking forward to or dreading about it’s release?
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