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Ok, so I've never been to a tournament with what you see is what you get, but I've been worried, firstly because I'm not confident in my ability to paint metal models, and secondly because they're much more expensive.

Recently, I got what is possibly the last SM strike force in australia, (it has been taken off of the GW site.) wich gave me 5 tanks, 2 tactical squads and a captain/comand squad.
I already own 2 captains and 1 command squad, but I got to thinking that I could use the command squad as an honour guard squad and the space marine captain as a chapter master (after all, the box simply says SM commander.)

My real problem is that now I have a some 4,500 pointsworth (up to 5000.) and I'd like to start tournaments, but I'm worried if I use a command squad as an honour guard squad, somthing bad is gonna happen.

The dispute is:

Is using a command squad/captain as an honour guard/chaptermaster against WYSIWYG

and,

Will I be Dq'd if I try to use them

PS: I realise that WYSIWYG more applies to weapons, but I'm still confused.

Are the weapons wysiwyg?

If your command squad has power weapons and fancy looking armor to count as Artificer Armor I don't imagine there would be a problem. The only Honor Guard models in existence are covered in Ultramarines iconography so there should be a little leeway for conversions...

And for the Chapter Master a Captain should work fine. Wysiwyg is more to keep people from saying "This Grot is a Carnifex" and similar nonsense. As long as your "counts as" models are reasonable you shouldn't have too much of a problem.

And ask the tournament organizer!

If you want to run honorguard you should buy the models or appropriately convert the models you are intending to use.

G

thanks for the help guys.

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you want to run honorguard you should buy the models or appropriately convert the models you are intending to use.

G

What honor guard models? The only honor guard I can find are Calgar's and they have Ultramarines iconography all over them.

From what I can tell though there isn't much difference between the honor guard and a regular Marine...much like every single other Marine model in existence. Just put more bits on them, paint them gold, whatever, and there's your honor guard.

Don't be shy about trying to paint metal. It's really not a big deal.

Painting metal isnt an issue - just make sure you undercoat with the spray first, you can get away with just foundation on plastic models but metal really, really needs priming.

Main issue is it will chip if you are not careful handling, so when you have finished varnish the masterpiece to help it last *

*and pin every join. EVERY joint. It is really, really worth it.

If you put a Space Marine beside an Honorguard you will see there are a lot of differences.

G

Yes but the point he is trying to make, is the ONLY HONOR GUARD is covered in Ultramarines. Now thats fine, unless you dont play Ultra marines.

I agree, as long as the power weapons are power weapons, the bolters are bolters, and they look cooler/deadlier then a regular marine, they will be fine. Put some cool shoulder pads (my brother used grey knight terminator pads and man do those look AWESOME for an honor guard) and a few small details so it looks like artificer armor and youll be set.

As mentioned WYSIWYG is mostly so you can use a different model for counts as for a beneficial reason, IE grot for APOC bloodthirster

What bitz sellers are available to you? Aquirung Errant armor torsos, Chapter/Company champion helms and special shoulderpads are a good way to go about making honorguards.

Yes they should be properly converted to have artificer armor.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Yes they should be properly converted to have artificer armor.

G

Which, by the fluff, can easily look exactly like power armour but be made of better materials, thus making your "Power Armoured" marines perfectly fine.

That's really stretching it don't you think? Artificer armor is very ornate by it's very nature.

G

Paint them in a slightly fancier manner than your usual colour scheme (maybe gold helmets or shoulder pad trims) and you should be fine.

Green Blow Fly wrote:That's really stretching it don't you think? Artificer armor is very ornate by it's very nature.

G

Not necessarily. I doubt a Chapter like the Iron Hands would make it very ornate, preferring substance over style.

I think you could away with a nice paintjob on the minis. There are also some nice ornate shoulderpads that come with the plastic command squad.

G

Yeah, you would have to go beyond just basic tacticals marines, but requiting the official honor guard models goes a bit far.

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you want to run honorguard you should buy the models or appropriately convert the models you are intending to use.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Yes they should be properly converted to have artificer armor.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:I think you could away with a nice paintjob on the minis. There are also some nice ornate shoulderpads that come with the plastic command squad.

G

You are not a very good troll. Make up your mind!

For my SM, I have the Troops (Tacticals and Scouts) painted very simply with the 3 colours of my army (Dark Red, Tannish Yellow, Black) with slight addedums of silver...the Elites (Termies and Sternguard) painted more ornately with gold and silver, the Chapter Master and Honour Guard decked out with as much gold/silver detail work as possible.

In short, the Honour Guard can look very different from regular SM, by a simple matter of more ornate painting, torsos, and weapons...especially when contrasted to very simple paint schemes throughout the majority of the army.

Che-Vito wrote:You are not a very good troll. Make up your mind!

First of all, lol, but I really don't think he was trolling. One liner posts just come off that way.
@Gwar!: I see your argument about the Iron Hands but every time I've heard of artificer armor described in novels or short stories it is described as more ornate. Something, even if it is just fancy shoulder pads, should be done to set them apart.

I do agree with some markings.
throw in a few new shoulder pads, change wargear and decoration on models and it will be fine.
Since there are no official models for them (except smurfs) you should get a fair bit of slack.

What chapter are you running?
I can give you some advice on parts and what to use to set them apart from everything else.

Manchu wrote:@Gwar!: I see your argument about the Iron Hands but every time I've heard of artificer armor described in novels or short stories it is described as more ornate. Something, even if it is just fancy shoulder pads, should be done to set them apart.

Firstly, it's spelt Armour You dern colonials need to learn how to speel!

Secondly, as long as you point it out before the game, I would have no problem with someone using Power Armour as Artificer Armour (so long as they were not a smug dick about it).

Could I use my heavy bolter equipped Sisters as having melta as long as I pointed it out beforehand? If so, I'm sure we'd be friends forever. I just think a significant amount of people might have trouble with it. As people have pointed out, the only out of the box honor guard (and so artificer ARMOR) available are UMs so people might cut you some slack. But it can be an awfully easy conversion (just using the fancy pauldrons, I mean)--and probably less expensive than me having to buy sisters with meltaguns and easier than converting the same.

Manchu wrote:Could I use my heavy bolter equipped Sisters as having melta as long as I pointed it out beforehand.

No. Heavy Bolters and Meltas are very different in appearance from each other. Power Armour and Artificer armour do not necessarily look any different.

Manchu wrote:@Gwar!: I see your argument about the Iron Hands but every time I've heard of artificer armor described in novels or short stories it is described as more ornate.

How things are described in the fiction is really pretty irrelevant. There are all sorts of things that are described differently in the fluff to how they actually appear in the game.

Artificer Armour in the current Space Marine codex is described as being 'superficially similar in appearance' to power armour. It says nothing about the armour appearing significantly different.

I see no reason that a suit of Artificer Armour couldn't look identical to power armour, having simply been made from superior materials. Or simply made from slightly thicker ceramite, which wouldn't actually look any different given the scale of the miniatures. While obviously it might look nicer to have models in ornate armour, either sculpt-wise or painted on designs, so long as they can be recognised as different from other units on the tabletop, that's good enough for me.

And even in regular power armour, Honour Guard would be differentiated from other units by their wargear and shoulder pad markings.

I'm with Insaniak and Gwar on this one. The only description of artificier armour that i've read (from the previous SM codex) just says it was made by superior armourers. It doesn't anywhere specify that it looks any different. GW haven't told us what they look like, only that they are similar to power armour.

I think just adding squad markings or another colour- on a shoulder pad for example- would be fine.

Gwar! wrote:No. Heavy Bolters and Meltas are very different in appearance from each other. Power Armour and Artificer armour do not necessarily look any different.

Seems like a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. The question was rhetorical and posed only to show that this conversion would be far less demanding than a typical WYSIWYG issue with weapons. But if you insist . . . The idea that power armor and artificer armor do not "necessarily look any different" is unsupported conjecture (albeit, as I said, not implausible in the case of a dowdy chapter like the Iron Hands). The "official" look of artificer armor is substantially more ornate than power armor both in terms of the line drawings in the codex and the models. In fact, the current C: SM says that the two are only "superficially similar in appearance." And this "official" line is what is important, no? After all, there are no real heavy bolters or melta guns--the only thing to prevent me from saying that the heavy bolter is a melta gun is the fact that if you look in a codex at the picture "officially" labeled heavy bolter it will not look like a melta gun. Admittedly, power armor and artificer armor differ less drastically to the hobbyist's eye (who knows which pair the uninitiated think look more strikingly different?) than a heavy bolter and melta gun. But the point of WYSIWYG is to make it "so your opponent can clearly see what they are facing." If you can accept regular marines with no additionally conversion or fancy painting as wearing artificer armor for a game then I don't see why you can't swallow me saying my heavy bolters are meltas.

I suggested using ornate shoulderpads from the command squad kit.

G

Che-Vito wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:If you want to run honorguard you should buy the models or appropriately convert the models you are intending to use.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Yes they should be properly converted to have artificer armor.

G[/quote ]

Green Blow Fly wrote:I think you could away with a nice paintjob on the minis. There are also some nice ornate shoulderpads that come with the plastic command squad.

G

You are not a very good troll. Make up your mind!

For my SM, I have the Troops (Tacticals and Scouts) painted very simply with the 3 colours of my army (Dark Red, Tannish Yellow, Black) with slight addedums of silver...the Elites (Termies and Sternguard) painted more ornately with gold and silver, the Chapter Master and Honour Guard decked out with as much gold/silver detail work as possible.

In short, the Honour Guard can look very different from regular SM, by a simple matter of more ornate painting, torsos, and weapons...especially when contrasted to very simple paint schemes throughout the majority of the army.

insaniak wrote: It says nothing about the armour appearing significantly different.

Well, there are the pictures and models . . .

insaniak wrote:I see no reason that a suit of Artificer Armour couldn't look identical to power armour, having simply been made from superior materials. Or simply made from slightly thicker ceramite, which wouldn't actually look any different given the scale of the miniatures.

But that's all justification from fluff . . . fluff that you're making up. Here's some other made up fluff: the Sisters of the commandery attached to Forge World Manchu requested that all of their melta guns be constructed to look exactly like heavy bolters. I know it's not as "convincing" but (1) I'm being intentionally silly and (2) the standard of "convincing" is entirely subjective. Artificer Armor, according to the actually source published by GW, DOES look different from power armor.

insaniak wrote:While obviously it might look nicer to have models in ornate armour, either sculpt-wise or painted on designs, so long as they can be recognised as different from other units on the tabletop, that's good enough for me.

We don't disagree about this. (As you must have seen from the post you quoted?)

4M2A wrote:I'm with Insaniak and Gwar on this one. The only description of artificier armour that i've read (from the previous SM codex) just says it was made by superior armourers. It doesn't anywhere specify that it looks any different. GW haven't told us what they look like, only that they are similar to power armour.

To adopt the tone of ye olde Trolle: No. Clear line drawings are provided at C: SM 5th p. 102.

Manchu wrote:To adopt the tone of ye olde Trolle: No. Clear line drawings are provided at C: SM 5th p. 102.

And nowhere does it state that those line drawings are the only way it can look.

In fact, the actual rules make no reference to the drawings, so they cannot be used as part of your argument.

Gwar! wrote:]And nowhere does it state that those line drawings are the only way it can look.

In fact, the actual rules make no reference to the drawings, so they cannot be used as part of your argument.

This is pretty laughable. You could say the exact same things about the line drawings of weapons.