Thanks!

And thanks to whoever moved my thread over into this one. How I missed this thread when I searched I'll never know.

Also thanks for not pointing out how I wrote 'there' instead of 'their'. Ugh

Unquestionably, they are different sets.
As others have said, the set symbol is the key.
That said, when dealing with the IG events, check with the judge.

Personally, at my venue, I am allowing the FF sets.

Why? Branding.

Both sets are branded with the set info. For example, the Smash fast forces packaging has the Incredible Hulk graphic. In my opinion, that places it under the IH "brand" of HC.

In the early events, I made the call to include them for that reason. Additionally, due to the nature of the event, and expecting new people, I decided that it was best to rule it liberally.

Situation 1 - FF banned
Moe is a newcomer arriving with a team with FF figs. He is upset because he can't play or can play with an underbuilt team.

Situation 2 - FF allowed
Larry is a newcomer arrivng with a team which did not have FF figs, though he would have liked to have them. He is upset because he didn't make the team he wanted.

Both have people upset, but only one results in an illegal team. I went the one least likely to get the DQ.

Note that Curly was smarter than the other two and called ahead of time to inquire.

My players asked me to modify the recommended format to allow the FF sets, as well as a couple other changes. But they did realize that the sets were different.

They should number all future fast forces into the main set if they are released around the same time.

You are looking at it the wrong way. Some venues honestly want to run things the way WizKids suggests (especially with something big like the Infinity Gauntlet event series).

When you read a suggested format and cannot run it without making decisions yourself because the suggested format doesn't specify, it is no longer a suggested format. Its a hint, or a clue.

Pretend we are not able to run what we want, or pretend you genuinely want to run the format WizKids has in mind. Can you really run their suggested events without making some sort of venue level decisions?

No.

Look at Month 2:

The suggested format for the Month Two Event is a 600 point, Modern-Constructed event utilizing at least 300 points of figures from Hulk and/or Superman.

What does that even mean? Forget for a second that there is no set titled just Hulk. They must mean Incredible Hulk. OK, but they don't even say Incredible Hulk and/or Superman sets. They just say Hulk or Superman. Do they mean 300 points of your team must be Hulk or Superman? As in figures named Hulk or Superman?

Ok, I get it, all dumb questions. Obviously they mean its a floor tournament where 300 points have to come from Incredible Hulk set or the Superman set, or do they mean Incredible Hulk or Superman umbrella. Well what are Fast Forces considered (same question here)? We don't know. WizKids won't tell you either since its just suggestion.

You cannot use a suggested format if it is not a valid format. It is IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to have knowingly run WizKids suggested format for Infinity Gauntlet month 8, because no one knows exactly what it means. WizKids themselves don't even know.

The recommended format is vague. It does not say Chaos War set, it just says Chaos War. One could infer that the Chaos War fast forces are part of Chaos War, despite being their own set. Just look at Harpua's reasoning before the examples.

Why are people so negative towards WizKids suggested formats? Thanks for insinuating that my judge is a sheep that can't think for himself though. I'll be sure to let him know.

For the record, we only used the suggested formats (to the best of our ability) for IG. We normally come up with our own events. Somehow we end up doing 500 pts golden like 2/3 of the time... If only there was some tool to help us change things up.

Sorry, rowdy, I have to disagree. I don't think any of the suggested formats caused me any confusion about what they said.

IG-2 was obviously a 600 point Modern 50% Floor using Incredible Hulk and/or Superman. I suppose it could have been more clear, but I can't see how anyone can honestly say it was vague.

IG-8 is the same: it's clear from the rules that a different set symbol is a different set, so Fast Forces aren't included in the suggested format. Other elements can be from other sets as long as they are Modern-legal, because the limitation is for figures only. The reason we aren't getting a lot of "this is how you have to do it" is because it is only a suggestion, and the RDs etc are being (in my opinion) overly circumspect in not saying anything that might sound like a directive.

As a judge, I've told my players ahead of time that we're running the suggested format, only the sets listed, and we'll be able to use the fast forces packs for those sets as well. Since we likely won't have the IG8 pack in in time to use the map from it, I'm allowing the use of maps from those sets and FFs as well, but no other maps.
Yep, still haven't received those prize packs...

OK, I'll give you that there could be confusion on that point. But every time I've seen that question asked on here the official response has been "they are different sets". the rider to "ask your judge" is because of the latitude given the judge to set the parameters, not because there's more than one answer to "is the FF part of the set?"

Judges and venues also have tournaments in mind for the base player group that as a whole shows up on a regular basis. WK gives those tournament guidelines in the prize kits as an outline with no strict adherence to them being required. If your venue was able to get those FF packs in and people want to use them , nothing wrong with that. If your venue wasnt able to get them and decides to use just those 3 listed sets, again nothing wrong with that.

Right, my point is that asking if the FF is part of the set is the wrong question. You have to ask your judge because there is no way to strictly follow the suggested format.

If there was a way to follow the suggested format, then someone saying "My venue said it is following the format," could get a clear answer here.

Since the format is not clear, we have to tell people to ask their judge if they are allowing the Fast Forces or not.