Warhammer 40K: The Biggest Losers – Forge World Edition

Let’s take a look at some units in the new Forge World book that didn’t fare well.

The new and massive Forge World book is out updating a ton of units. This represents a pretty major balance change for units for almost every army in the game. Overall the changes pushed Forge World stuff to be more balanced and less abusable. That doesn’t mean that everything did well out of the change, but today let’s look at some big losers in this book.

 5. Leviathan Dreadnought

The Leviathan getting nerfed was one of those things we all kind of knew was going to happen. This bad boy was one of the major problem units in the old Forge World Index and at the center of a few very (over) powerful lists. Right off the bat the Leviathan lost a point of toughness going to T7 and had its invulnerable save downgraded to a 5+. Both of these make it a lot easier to bring down, though they are somewhat offset by the inclusion of the Duty Eternal rule. A bigger blow is moving from BS/WS 2+ to BS/WS 3+ making them less reliable. On top of that its weapons, both for Chaos and Imperial versions, got nerfed. In the case of some like the Grav flux bombard, pretty heavily. It did gain some buffs, like being able to replace its heavy flamers with volkite weapons, so it’s not unplayable, but given its cost it’s no longer the unkillable killing machine it once was.

4. Macharius Vulcan

The Macharius Vulcan wasn’t crazy powerful before, but I did love the tank with a giant Gatling gun. While they weren’t super competitive this was a unit that I actually have and have gotten to use. Its main draw was that its big gun was heavy 15 and if the unit didn’t move then it would double its shots to 30, making it pretty fearsome. Under the new rules, the double shooting is gone, with the main gun just being heavy 16. Sure the tank got cheaper, but it has lost 14 shots and cost a lot of CP to take now, making it pretty dead now.

3. Trojan Support Vehicle

The Trojan was kind of a trick unit since it doesn’t anything on its own. Under the old rules it allowed a friendly tank to re-roll shooting attacks. This was a pretty powerful ability to use on a super heavy, such as a Banebalde, making one a lot more deadly. After getting reworked this rule is totally gone, replaced when a rule allowing it to reload one shot only weapons. While this has some pipe dream options of getting a 2nd Deathstrike shot off, more likely it’s just going to let you reload and fire some hunter-killer missiles. Given that it cost 85 pts I’m not sure getting 5, at best, Hunterkiller shots is worth it and even if it is, its old use is now totally gone.

2. Y’Vahra

The Y’Vahra caused a bit of a stir in early 8th when it emerged as a pretty powerful suit. Once the early shine of 8th wore off however it fell out of favor, with Riptides taking over as the T’au big suit of choice. Still, it seems that someone put a sticky note on a chair somewhere that said “nerf Y’Vahar’s” and now a few years later made good on that. Both its main guns got some big nerfs, with its cannon losing AP and its big flamer losing damage, going down to D1. This in particular is a big nerf since a 3d6 auto hitting D2 weapon was poised to be a big MEQ killer in 9th. Going down to 1d makes it much less useful in that role. Without much, other than a point cut, there isn’t much to recommend this suit now, and it’s likely until a new Codex comes around that the Riptide is still going to be the suit of choice you put on when you’ve got a fancy T’au bar mitzvah to attend.

1. All Those Who Didn’t Make It

Just a ton of units didn’t make it into this book, over 80 units, plus a few full armies got cut going into this book, and that was on top of units that already got sent off into Legends with the Minitorum Field Guide. This was just a massive bunch of units, from old favorites like the Mortis Dreads, to a ton of minor Guard tank variants. While some units got hurt real bad with rules changes, not having rules at all is the biggest wound you can be dealt. Let’s all pour one out for dearly departed friends (and enemies). To the fallen!

Let us know what you think the biggest losers in this book are, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.