So this is for full count-as armies and not proxies. This was brought up by Dashofpepper and I think it merits it's own thread

Feel free to discuss your reasons and thoughts on counts-as.

Me, I'm good with it. I like counts-as and feels like it brings something to the hobby creativity wise. It's fun and as long as the work is put in I don't mind do a little extra mental lifting for playing against a unique and cool army.

B. on the condition that the models are modeled with easily identifiable weapons, are the proper size and rough shape, and cannot be confused with units that they are not.

Also if you are going to use this for justification to create and use your particular counts-as army in a tournament, you are going to want to post what that counts-as is.
I believe for the most part people are fine with clear counts-as armies in tournaments--I have both played and fought against them in the past.
Your newest proposed counts-as, however, received a somewhat different response on your old poll.

Linkie?

If it is easy to identify what is what, go for it.

The only time I get annoyed is when it's clearly an attempt to recycle models or just based on laziness.

I think this is a complex question to answer.

If I had an army where not one single model was actually the models from the codex, I'd quickly get into a situation where life was not only difficult for my opponents, but VERY difficult for opponents who weren't as experienced against multiple codex styles.

Example - You do a "Knight" Space Marine army. All of your models look like foot knights from the Middle Ages; guys with "bolters" all have crossbows, guys with bolt pistols and close combat weapons all have little hand firing crossbows or early era pistols, and swords. All your guys with power weapons have big-ass swords of epic size, or steampunkily look "energized," or glow like magic weapons, etc. This is pretty easy - a future space marine is a dude in heavy armor with a big weapon of some kind. These are just like old fashioned marines.

Example - You do an alien insect space marine army. All your space marines w/ bolters are those squat buggly looking insects with creepy looking gun #1 (they're the proper size, proper base size, by the way). All those very heavily armored bugs are terminators, with different weird weaponized arms all being different things. You can "kinda" clearly tell what each is supposed to be, but life is suddenly EXTREMELY hard on your opponent.

In the 2nd example, while I still think it could be OK, you need to go above and beyond to explain not just what the units are, but what they do, at all times and repeatedly, until your opponent clearly gets it. You know I <3 you, but your Ad Mech demons army is a good example of the 2nd above sample, not the first - nothing in your army had weapons that were like Demon weapons (which are mostly just claws), none of them really looked at all like demons (base and model sizes were fine), and any opponent who wasn't super experienced dealing w/ demons in the first place was going to have an even harder time keeping track w/out a lot of constant reminders and aid. Veteran opponents in a quick game could easily forget which 40mm bases were XYZ, which were XZY, etc.

That's what this gets into ... let's say with your AdMech, that someone forgot which models were Screamers of Tzeentch and which were Fiends of Slaanesh (I think you had both). He gets some unit out and goes after the Fiends, thinking they're the Screamers. Do you suggest it's a bad idea, even in the movement phase when yo'ure not sure what he's doing? Do you allow him to go back when he's reminded by you and completely change his whole turn's movement to that point, b/c he would have "done it differently" if only he'd known? How do you react and adjust?

Not all opponents aren't going to be able to keep up, but the more you get away from the way the models should look naturally, the more you have to do some ABSURDLY over the top explanations to make it clear without either a) having to do something wrong (like suggesting what your opponent should or shouldn't do as a practice of reminding him what the models are), or b) pissing people off.

So, there's no firm answer here. A Pre-Heresy counts-as army where you creatively but clearly model more out-dated weapons or vehicle chassis to stay in tune with the fluff where those weapons didn't exist? Cool. An entirely counts-as army where none of the models are even remotely visually similar to their Codex counterparts, where none of the weapons are the same, and where every single model requires an explanation pre-game of what's what? Much tougher to pull off fairly (to both you AND your opponent).

I voted B, but I agree with everything MVBrandt said. I'm not the sharpest tournament gamer out there, but I have played your AdMech army and while I love it, I also found parts of it confusing. "Easily identifiable" means different things to different people. In your army, everything looks different from each other, so an opponent shouldn't have trouble differentiating the bloodcrushers from the fiends for example. But there is a much better chance of them forgetting which is which than there is against an actual Daemon army. Luckily I don't ever know what anything is even in a normal army so I just have to constantly ask questions, but someone who doesn't ask a lot of questions may easily make a mistake that costs a game due to confusing two units.

I would have picked B... But the issue is many unreasonable total conversion armies do not fit "easy to identify" even though the person with the counts-as army has rosey-colored glasses on how awesome his army is and how anyone who doesn't clearly recognize his models is just being a hater.

Because 'clear conversions' are a grey area which cannot be objectively determined, I will have to go with C. I do not mind them in tourneys, but I often find myself really hoping not to play specific armies which I see that are unclear and would make for a terrible game and burden me personally with a disadvantage as I have to spend effort with a decoder ring to understand what i am actually fighting.

I have played against terrible counts-as in tourneys and it is miserable, especially when the person is clearly power-gaming. It always seems to be squats as orks or some sort of Humans as demons or 'something' as duallash oblit spam. They not trying to fit a theme at all, same old meta list and the counts-as is a piece of wargear trying to confuse opponents.

Friendly play, hobby events... fine. Competitive tourneys... Your unclear proxies, I don't want to play them.

@Ph34r

It's actually not for my other idea. It was an idea brought up by Dash. Has nothing to do with any army I've made or may make in the future. Not everything is about me

@MVB

And I totally get where you are coming from. And the answer honestly if they look to be going after the wrong target I will say things like "scared of those screamers are ya?" when they start to move that way. That way they remember what they are, haven't moved yet, and we don't have any issues. I have taken more extreme steps with the Admech actually to make it more clear (picture cheat sheet) but I do in fact understand. I love that army and I'm not sure I'll ever do such an extensive counts-as again even though I was considering a daemon one for Adepticon but after some thinking and some people's reactions I've decided I'll likely just do a mech guard traitor force which though boring for me will pass muster

Brad,

Sensible, but that's actually precisely the problem. It doesn't really matter how you go about it, you're playing head games or unintentionally taking advantage or risking them going "woah, I gotta take back my whole turn, those first 4 moves were also related to me going after those fiends thinking they were screamers."

Unless you start every one of your and your opponent's turns going "this is x, this is y, this is z, this is a, this is b, this is c," even a great opponent might forget at the worst possible time, leading to an unfair loss or an unpleasant exchange of "take back" requests.

So that's not me saying don't do it, but you basically have to do the "xyzabc" above, every turn, until your opponent specifically asks you not to, that they've got it. Of course, then when they make an innocent mistake confusing two units with each other ... you're still "in the wrong," and all the problems resurface.

For a tournament setting, you should probably have an army that does NOT require explanation, or is so close to "clearly identifiable" that after your very first explanation, your opponent's go "ah, makes sense," and that's that. Case in point - Dan Oppedisano has a counts-as guard army that is Vraksian Renegade Militia. All the weapons are wysiwyg, but the vehicle mounts and conversions are a bit more demonic ... i.e. brass cannons of khorne instead of medusa cannons. Once explaing, it's sensible - you're like, OH, duh. But the army doesn't really "look" anything like a guard army at a glance.

Anyway, just rambling. You know I <3 you, and <3'ed your admech force, but speaking in the vacuum and speaking as a TO, that's my perspective. Even "sly reminders" are absolutely the wrong way to go about it, b/c they don't actually preempt the possible problems .. and you end up being a pushy boor if you go through every unit at the top of every player turn to keep your opponent from forgetting in the first place (or being able to claim that's what happened). Very catch 22 possible in a hurry.

Obviously there are 5,000,000 steps you can probably take to preempt problems, but I don't know that any are perfect.

Oh no offense taken at all Mike. I love that army, I'll probably continue to expand it cause I just love the modeling but Daemons have taken a back seat this year to Nids (at 2k) and Dark Eldar at 1,850. Nids because if I don't play them I'll feel like a hypocrit after saying they can compete and Dark Eldar at 1,850 because I don't like any of the armies I can make at 1,850 for bugs I've also considered a traitor guard army (inspired by Dan no less ) that uses rough riders, orgryns, and exterminators (not Executioners!).

Basically I enjoyed it, most of my opponents enjoyed it, it's a great modeling project that was and is a lot of fun but it's probably not gonna see much light outside of fun games or tournaments that a lot of people have seen it already (i.e. SoCal based one )

Aye - I feel you, and it's more of a good example of a problem area than a unique example of one badly done, or anything.

I also think opponents are more willing to let things slide when you've clearly put your back into an army; this doesn't make the pitfalls in terms of "fairness" go away, but it does ease tensions.

Not a huge fan of counts as in tournaments. Mostly because its hard to tell where to draw the line. Yeah a pre- heresy marine army is pretty easy but than i have seen some conversions that just make me shake my head and wonder WTF. I remember playing a guy in the Chicago GT years ago that ran a Chaos army that was so heavily converted with Green Stuff it was next to impossible to tell what was what. I cannot remember his name but many of the old timers would remember this guy. He was some kind of graphic design guru and his stuff looked amazing. It was just impossible to tell exactly what it was. The next year he showed up with a Marine Templar army and that was just as hard to figure out.

Were the templars yellow? Just wondering

If it really is that big of a difference, then make some little name plates to put next to the units when they are on the board. I do this with my psychic powers. You can always convert fancy little plates that are themed around your army.

Hulksmash wrote:So this is for full count-as armies and not proxies. This was brought up by Dashofpepper and I think it merits it's own thread

Feel free to discuss your reasons and thoughts on counts-as.

Me, I'm good with it. I like counts-as and feels like it brings something to the hobby creativity wise. It's fun and as long as the work is put in I don't mind do a little extra mental lifting for playing against a unique and cool army.

Depends on what it is, what it represents, and how much effort went into it. For example:

Years ago there was a hockey team for a 40K army, complete with bus at a GT. Tons of effort, but complete pain to figure out everything exactly, as things didnt translate well. Bad counts as army, as it requires too much effort on ones part to figure out whats what.

Variety of steeds to count as bikes? So long as their roughly the same size as bikes, its all good. Cold ones instead of bikes work out well for a snakebite ork army or a marine varient from a hostile world, or something a touch different then horses for rough riders(or bikes in some cases instead of horses). Very good counts as.

Or juggernauts instead of giant wolves for space wolves/chaos 'counts as". I can see a chaos warband, non-marked, easily using the space wolves book.


Goofy, and very un40k-ish items in the game? Not very good. Its gotta have some relative place. I can live with female marines for example. I cant live with a hockey team.

Arg. If I had known you were going to post this as a separate poll, I would have worded the answers differently to establish better categories.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:If it really is that big of a difference, then make some little name plates to put next to the units when they are on the board. I do this with my psychic powers. You can always convert fancy little plates that are themed around your army.

Presuming your sizes are correct this is a very strong solution.

You should know better by now Dash

I voted for "C", but I could also see "B" as well. Basically, the rule of cool would apply, as always... if it's awesomely done (and very clear) people should not have any problem with it.

But when people decide to run orks as nids or vice versa simply due to the advantages of one codex over the other (as an example) I cry party foul...

Hulksmash wrote:So this is for full count-as armies and not proxies.

nkelsch wrote:. Competitive tourneys... Your unclear proxies, I don't want to play them.

RiTides wrote:But when people decide to run orks as nids or vice versa simply due to the advantages of one codex over the other (as an example) I cry party foul...

Not to get snotty, but how many times does the difference between "counts-as" and proxying need to be explained?

Whoops

One more time, perhaps?

Although, I personally think people draw a rather clear line there when there isn't always one (i.e. there is overlap between the two at times)... but then again I haven't seen too many of these in-person, so perhaps I'm just unclear on it.

::Claps for Polonius::

It's all good Rtides. I think where your at is why most people have problems with "count-as". Most people to closely associate it with proxying. Where 90% of counts-as style armies are generally well thought out and pretty well done. At least from my person experience.

@IM

I've already gotten some tiny markers done from the suggested sight you guys gave me when I asked about counts-as for Adepticon

Hulksmash wrote:::Claps for Polonius::

It's all good Rtides. I think where your at is why most people have problems with "count-as". Most people to closely associate it with proxying. Where 90% of counts-as style armies are generally well thought out and pretty well done. At least from my person experience.

@IM

I've already gotten some tiny markers done from the suggested sight you guys gave me when I asked about counts-as for Adepticon

Best example I can offer is this.

I know my the Necron Codex, the Ork Codex, and the Dark Eldar codex. The old Dark Eldar codex. I hate the new one (Damn you forever GW for raping and despoiling my beautiful Lelith into an inferior HQ).

Short of my codexes, I Space Marines fairly well, although need to ask questions about what vanguard veterans do, and what wargear things have....but I know that its mostly BS4, T4, 3+ saves with 2+/5++ for terminators. Sisters...I know that the immolator has flamers and the heavy support thingy shoots D6 STR8 AP1 missiles. Tyranids I know decently but still need to ask a lot of questions, and the same now for daemons. I know they all have invulnerable saves, and in general which ones are shooty and which ones are assaulty.

You ran an admech counts-as daemon army at the Nova Open - and while looking at it was a visual treat, I was thinking to myself that I hoped I didn't have to play it - because I don't know daemons like the back of my hand, and you'd be putting me in a position of not even getting to look at models and say, "Oh - that's a daemon prince...what mark does he have? What does it do? What's his toughness and save?" I don't know if screamers are the flying melta bombs or the flying flamers, but you had counts as some of those, and it would have been an absolutely confusing game for me trying to not only associate unfamiliar models (counts as) with their semi-familiar would be models, but to try tracking them throughout the game. You PERSONALLY I can trust to not switch things up on me, and to be patient answering my questions....but I've run into things like, "I'm not answering your questions, here's my codex" before. Not that I'd expect that on any kind of regular basis, but I'm just more comfortable playing against models that I can recognize. I remember seeing a beautiful Ork counts as army once - the guy had nob bikers - and to count as them each nob biker was a space marine biker in close combat with a nob - the one I clearly remember had a nob with a pike or something impaled through a space marine, and the whole bike and space marine was lifted over the nob's head like a giant hammer; or as if he had just speared him and was going to crash him into the ground. But I couldn't make out the nob's wargear for WYSIWYG or anything, and wouldn't want to play against that either.

I think they are beautiful armies if done well, just not something I want to face in a tournament that is timed, when every question I have to ask, remember, and get answered, and try keeping track of and strategize against is time against the clock that we should be playing - I already have a tough time getting through 6-7 turns in a game.

In a friendly game with no time limit....absolutely. Bring it.

Dashofpepper wrote:Arg. If I had known you were going to post this as a separate poll, I would have worded the answers differently to establish better categories.

Yeah. I would think that most people that were against Hulk's proposed army would still vote B in this poll -- to not do so would be to preclude armies like renegades counts as Space Wolves or traitor guard counts as IG, or other such counts-as armies that are very easy to play against without a bit of confusion.

sabote wrote:Not a huge fan of counts as in tournaments. Mostly because its hard to tell where to draw the line. Yeah a pre- heresy marine army is pretty easy but than i have seen some conversions that just make me shake my head and wonder WTF. I remember playing a guy in the Chicago GT years ago that ran a Chaos army that was so heavily converted with Green Stuff it was next to impossible to tell what was what. I cannot remember his name but many of the old timers would remember this guy. He was some kind of graphic design guru and his stuff looked amazing. It was just impossible to tell exactly what it was. The next year he showed up with a Marine Templar army and that was just as hard to figure out.

This guy might have been Joe Orteza. I remember seeing some of his stuff in White Dwarf back in the day.

Be more specific.

I don't see why that is a problem Ph34r. Basically you, who is against non-easily recognized counts-as could still vote two which says it's cool as long as I can tell what it is easily. If you don't like counts-as in a tournament even if it's easy you choose the others. B would still exclude armies the one up for discussion. I suppose I could have added more depth but I was at work and Dash had brought it up so I used his

Well, even though I voted as I did for "general" counts-as, I certainly make exceptions for awesomeness as do most people I know!

Hulksmash wrote:I was at work and Dash had brought it up so I used his

PIllager!! And stuff!!

I have to say go for it. I love to convert models, but I keep them in the realm of canon. I am currently doing a sisters of silence army. No female models out there except for sisters of battle (boooo) or dark eldar wyches (maybe yay). I had to order a lot of custom parts and assemble the pieces for a count as army.

I dont think you should be running a soda can you just finished drinking out of as a drop pod, nor a space marine as a imperial guardsman. However, if your army is themed and modelled to fit, then go for it.

Fetterkey wrote:

sabote wrote:Not a huge fan of counts as in tournaments. Mostly because its hard to tell where to draw the line. Yeah a pre- heresy marine army is pretty easy but than i have seen some conversions that just make me shake my head and wonder WTF. I remember playing a guy in the Chicago GT years ago that ran a Chaos army that was so heavily converted with Green Stuff it was next to impossible to tell what was what. I cannot remember his name but many of the old timers would remember this guy. He was some kind of graphic design guru and his stuff looked amazing. It was just impossible to tell exactly what it was. The next year he showed up with a Marine Templar army and that was just as hard to figure out.

This guy might have been Joe Orteza. I remember seeing some of his stuff in White Dwarf back in the day.

That is exactly who it was!! Wow just could not think of the name its been such a long time lol. Amazing and I have never seen its like but it was pretty hard to figure out many times.

Actually, I think my relative lack of encyclopedic 40k/WHFB knowledge makes me more in favor of counts as. Demons, for instance, are pretty vague to me past how they deploy and which ones are likely to shoot me vs ripping faces off manually. If you tell me which random model is which and stats, I am as good as I am going to be, whether that model looks like a purple manta ray or a little robot or whatever. I am the same way with most Xenos; they all look alike to me.

Fortunately, most 40k armies are imperial/CSM and so use most of the same basic gear. That makes things a lot easier (CSM counts as Space Wolves etc.)

Personally, my only real request for counts as is that it is easily distinguishable and reasonably shaped for the stats. Applying a little thought so that the rules match the models in an internally consistent manner is really important. If I can look at a model and see "It is big and has giant bladed things, it must want to chop me" or "It has a large gun, it must want to shoot vehicles" I am already pretty far ahead compared to demon princes that have that Str8 lazor power thing.

RiTides wrote:I voted for "C", but I could also see "B" as well. Basically, the rule of cool would apply, as always... if it's awesomely done (and very clear) people should not have any problem with it.

But when people decide to run orks as nids or vice versa simply due to the advantages of one codex over the other (as an example) I cry party foul...

Not that I agree with running orks as nids but I cry party foul when one army has an advantage over the other simply because it's a little bit "newer".


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Hulksmash wrote:::Claps for Polonius::

It's all good Rtides. I think where your at is why most people have problems with "count-as". Most people to closely associate it with proxying. Where 90% of counts-as style armies are generally well thought out and pretty well done. At least from my person experience.

You mean like the steampunk nids. Yeah those were awesome.

I voted B. as long as the models are clearly modelled thematically and intuitively to resemble their official counterparts as well as appropriately based, i'd have no problems with counts-as. Someone who went with the previously mentioned "knight" theme with marines who used squires with boltpistols/ccw as scouts, foot knights with bolters as normal marines, and mounted knights with storm bolters as bikes... sounds cool and meets my personal requirements. the steampunk orks counts as necrons in the gallery are another example of what i wouldn't mind.

This is the perfect exaple of what a counts-as army should be like:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/271328.page

if a counts as army is cos you are lazy/power gamer people won't want to play against you, if you have care and dedication with easy to understand units people will want to talk about your army and play you.

I LOVE that army... one of my faves. If you put in work like that, of course anyone would want to play you!

B. I love counts as armies but they need to have a way of identifying. I feel that anyone who wishes to field a Counts-as army should have a refrence sheet like the ones Protieus does for his armies (and Hulkmash did for his AdMech) in order to make life easier for opponents who may not be familiar with the codex or can't work out what is what.

Link

It's about halfway down the page.

I think this is a super hard topic because of the huge variety of “counts as” that you see. This is how I have seen tournaments in my area called, and pretty much how I have called the ones I have run.

1.Space Marines painted Book A counts as Space Marine Book B – I’m 100% percent cool with it so long as all the weapons are right.

2.Special character models counts as non special HQ choice – 100% as a long as its openly disclosed (preferably by mouth but on the army list is ok I guess)

3.Non special character model counts as special character – I’m less ok with it. I’ve never stopped it in any of the tournaments I have run, I would say so long as the weapons are the same I would let it fly. But personally if the only reason it was done is because a person had an extra Berserker model and didn’t want to pay $20 for Kharn I would be upset.

4.Stead models counts as bike models or vice versa – I’m cool with it so long as there isn’t an option in the codex for the other model. If you say a steed is a bike but you could buy either I think that is legitimately confusing. I wouldn’t allow it in my tournaments.

5.Really out there conversions that don’t look much like the original thing- I would say rule of cool applies. If someone poured their heart and soul into something, I’m willing to tolerate a little confusion. In my experience people who are so into the hobby side aren’t that into the gaming side and it’s an easier game for me anyway.

6.Modeling for cost savings – I’ve seen some people use fantasy zombies as plague bearers, poorly convert some cheaper vehicle into a more expensive one, or some variation of this. There is a fine line between what was done for cost savings and what was done because someone liked this model better. It’s almost impossible to prove, so long as everything was the right size, right weapons, and not made of toys I would allow it, but this is my least favorite of all.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
3.Non special character model counts as special character – I’m less ok with it. I’ve never stopped it in any of the tournaments I have run, I would say so long as the weapons are the same I would let it fly. But personally if the only reason it was done is because a person had an extra Berserker model and didn’t want to pay $20 for Kharn I would be upset.

4.Stead models counts as bike models or vice versa – I’m cool with it so long as there isn’t an option in the codex for the other model. If you say a steed is a bike but you could buy either I think that is legitimately confusing. I wouldn’t allow it in my tournaments.

6.Modeling for cost savings – I’ve seen some people use fantasy zombies as plague bearers, poorly convert some cheaper vehicle into a more expensive one, or some variation of this. There is a fine line between what was done for cost savings and what was done because someone liked this model better. It’s almost impossible to prove, so long as everything was the right size, right weapons, and not made of toys I would allow it, but this is my least favorite of all.

This really breaks down for me at #3. I don't understand the concept of "It isn't the character unless you paid X$ for it." I could understand being annoyed if it looked exactly like the other 20 odd Berserkers and so folks got confused about which was which. But being upset because someone didn't want to pay the extra money for a model? Is it that they didn't pay, and so a gift of Kharn would be bad, or that GW didn't get cash for one, and so a decent conversion would be bad? I am hoping you really meant that you are annoyed that the player didn't have a special dedicated Kharn model of some sort, but I do hear a lot of people complaining about "they were too cheap to buy the model." To be honest, many of GW's models are so bad I wouldn't use them if they were free. (See my marauder heavy WoC army; using Rackham models wasn't exactly the cheap way out!)

I can kind of understand #4 though unless they have both options modeled the same way in the army, I don't see an issue. The steed part is just to mark him as having a special upgrade and rules; so long as it is there and fairly intuitive without the shell game aspect I don't see the issue.

Again with #6, I don't see the issue. I sometimes like a model better because it is cheaper, and if someone uses toys I don't draw that distinction. Then again, I feel tremendous guilt playing with non-painted or partially painted units, so to me both poorly painted or poorly converted models fall into the "cares more about the rules than the models" category of players, which doesn't bother me much. It just makes my models look better by comparison I just don't get why people accept "He doesn't paint well" but not "he doesn't convert well" or "he doesn't have cash to buy stupid expensive models as much as me." I can accept arguments along the lines of "If you are going to play, at least try to do it right" but only so far. I might even argue that having "the right" models for an army is easier and lazier than having poorly converted and painted models, and so even if you have 400$ in metal plague bearers, if they are not painted to my standard I think you should be ashamed. Learning to paint is after all pretty cheap, and if you are just putting together models that look the same as everyone else's you should at least put that much effort into it. (I wouldn't of course do this, I am just saying the distinction between bad painting and bad modeling isn't very compelling.)


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Oh, and I don't mean to jump on you, just that you were nice enough to clearly number your points such that I could address them sufficiently easily

Yeah, I have one of the old metal SM captains that I gave a plasma pistol to and call Sicarius. I don't use the official model because my guys aren't Ultramarines.

I did that because:
1) basic captains are pants
2) I had the model already painted
3) I was too cheap to buy the new model

it's still converted properly, but would I lose favor because I did what I did out of sloth, frugality, and powergaming?

Wehrkind wrote:
This really breaks down for me at #3. I don't understand the concept of "It isn't the character unless you paid X$ for it." I could understand being annoyed if it looked exactly like the other 20 odd Berserkers and so folks got confused about which was which. But being upset because someone didn't want to pay the extra money for a model? Is it that they didn't pay, and so a gift of Kharn would be bad, or that GW didn't get cash for one, and so a decent conversion would be bad? I am hoping you really meant that you are annoyed that the player didn't have a special dedicated Kharn model of some sort, but I do hear a lot of people complaining about "they were too cheap to buy the model." To be honest, many of GW's models are so bad I wouldn't use them if they were free. (See my marauder heavy WoC army; using Rackham models wasn't exactly the cheap way out!)

I personally think most of GW’s special character models are pretty nice. What I don’t like is when a person takes a single marine out of the plastic box, adds a storm bolter and fist onto it and calls it “Pedro Kantor”. I also have some friends who run an Emperor’s Champ model as Khan for their fist armies. They at least have a fluffy reason and a nice looking model. Would I stop any of it? No. Do I personally need to like it? No (although I have mixed feelings on the Champ/Khan thing). I guess I just like people to have the actual special character model, I think it is the least confusing/best situation. The exception would be a sweet conversion that looked better/different than the original model, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. It kind of goes back to the “you did something that looks worse just to save money” thing which I don’t like.

Wehrkind wrote:
I can kind of understand #4 though unless they have both options modeled the same way in the army, I don't see an issue. The steed part is just to mark him as having a special upgrade and rules; so long as it is there and fairly intuitive without the shell game aspect I don't see the issue.

My thing is that the marker is confusing if you are used to seeing it for different things. If you put rough riders on bikes it’s not going to do anything because Guard don’t have bikes. If you put marines on cold ones it doesn’t matter because marines don’t have steeds. If you put a chaos lord on a bike and call it a steed to me that’s really no longer counts as that’s proxy which should not be allowed in tournaments. I think in that situation the modeling is important, it’s like having the right weapons modeled.

Wehrkind wrote:
Again with #6, I don't see the issue. I sometimes like a model better because it is cheaper, and if someone uses toys I don't draw that distinction. Then again, I feel tremendous guilt playing with non-painted or partially painted units, so to me both poorly painted or poorly converted models fall into the "cares more about the rules than the models" category of players, which doesn't bother me much. It just makes my models look better by comparison I just don't get why people accept "He doesn't paint well" but not "he doesn't convert well" or "he doesn't have cash to buy stupid expensive models as much as me." I can accept arguments along the lines of "If you are going to play, at least try to do it right" but only so far. I might even argue that having "the right" models for an army is easier and lazier than having poorly converted and painted models, and so even if you have 400$ in metal plague bearers, if they are not painted to my standard I think you should be ashamed. Learning to paint is after all pretty cheap, and if you are just putting together models that look the same as everyone else's you should at least put that much effort into it. (I wouldn't of course do this, I am just saying the distinction between bad painting and bad modeling isn't very compelling.)

I think complaining about people making things uglier just to save money is legitimate. I’m not saying everyone has to run out and drop two paychecks on an all forge world army, but there is balance in there. Where that balance is I don’t know, so I would never call it in a tourney unless someone was obviously using toys which 90% of us I think would agree is out of balance.

And most tournaments do give extra points for conversions so they do reward modeling as well as painting. But that is kind of off topic, I never said we shouldn’t do those things. I just said uglier or really pushing it counts as stuff just to save money isn’t IMO good for the tournament scene or the hobby. But it’s just my opinion.

Wehrkind wrote:

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Oh, and I don't mean to jump on you, just that you were nice enough to clearly number your points such that I could address them sufficiently easily

No jumping taken. I like discussing these things, that’s why I posted :0)

Re: Pedro Can't Do, see, so long as it doesn't look like a Sgt (ie. so I don't get confused as to which one is Pedro) I think that is fine. Not every model that uses Pedro's rules has to be represented by the man himself. In fact, the book specifically says that you can use the rules to represent your own chapter instead of the Crimson Fists, in which case the model wouldn't even make sense. (Unless your chapter master really idolizes Pedro down to dressing like him )
And honestly, I get really tired of seeing the same models used all the time anyway. Yea, it is easy to spot ol' Tiggy as himself when the model is used, but if 4 people are going to field him at my shop, I would rather 3 decided to model up a replacement. If someone wanted to make a demon army with a "night of the living dead" theme using zombies as plague bearers I would be all for it, just because it would be different. I would actually prefer it over someone who just dropped a wad of cash on the army, primered it and slapped on some house paint with a giant brush and called it done.

As to making things ugly in order to be cheap, I do understand your point, but let me put it forth another way:

If I were to field 25mm Army Men (soft green plastic) as my IG, but had painted them all to Golden Demon standards, or perhaps more realistically paid someone a lot of money to do so , and they were properly set with weapons etc, would you prefer that to someone who had an all genuine and expensive GW army built and painted poorly?

If not, why not require the GW army guy to have his stuff propainted? Lots of painting services are pretty cheap these days, to table top anyway.

My point is mostly that people who don't like counts as because the model doesn't look good enough sometimes forget that we painters think most people's armies look like hell :-P but just deal with it. I don't think that poor modeling or using sub-par models deserves special reprobation, considering that spending extra on painting lessons or straight up painting services isn't going too much farther if you are insisting that someone pay 20$ for a mediocre character model.

Of course, I am all in favor of teasing people whose models don't look cool. I like to think that all my armies are silently screaming vituperative at less armies


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Actually, this segues nicely into the PrePainted Plastics debate. I personally don't like them because they generally are not painted as well as I would like, and the soft plastic doesn't give the details I expect. Plus, I like to cut things.

However, if someone were bring in a crappy PPP army of GW stuff somehow, I wouldn't complain. I wouldn't like the paint job ("Dude, that man's eyes are like, on his temples") but I would appreciate that there is something there other than bare plastic/metal and primer. As I see it, some aspects of the hobby are not for everyone, whether it is painting well, modeling well or having the cash to get the exact model.

Wehrkind wrote:My point is mostly that people who don't like counts as because the model doesn't look good enough sometimes forget that we painters think most people's armies look like hell :-P

That's a bit glib and arrogant of you to say. As a painter I admire everybodys efforts. *looks at latest painting attempts and remembers the shody work of other people armies at FLGS* Okay... maybe you do have a point.

Personaly I love a well painted counts as army. What I don't like, on par with your ideas, are people who claim that a standard rank and file troop counts as an Independant Character or claim that their (un-converted) CSM are cult marines. Things like that irritate me and should not be allowed in a tourny.

@ Wehrkind.

Most of the special character replacements I have seen fall into the uglier to be cheaper category. There are some that don’t, the Emperor’s champ thing is one of them. And I kind of like those, but I still think it would be less confusing, if only slightly, to have the real model in a tournament setting. And lowering confusion at tournaments is pretty important.

As for the golden demon army men, find me that army and I’ll give you an answer. Until then I say the people that model “uglier to be cheaper” almost always have the worst painted stuff as well. There are exceptions, which is why I don’t make rules disallowing the stuff. But I think everyone knows those two usually go hand in hand.

And I don’t know if I would rather play against the night of the living dead army as opposed to a stock army, I think that is the point of the discussion. It sounds like a lot of people are also unsure or would prefer the stock army. I think generally the stock models reflect the game world that I like to play in. Now it’s other peoples stuff, I’m not telling them how to spend their money and time; it’s just what I prefer. I like conversions and themes that enhance the game world, not counts as armies that jar you out of the game world. Just my taste.

I think we both agree that 90% of counts as cases should be allowed. I say because making rules around it is too subjective and unfair. You say (from what I can tell) because modeling should be encouraged, which I don’t disagree with. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be unhappy with what in my eyes is misuse or at least confusing use of the counts as policy.

If the person was using a whole bunch of wargaming models from all ranges and races (and perhaps no-wargaming models too) and was using it as an eldar army, then no. But if he was using some elf models (maybe high elves) then yeah that's ok. As i voted, as long as it's easy to identify that's fine by me.

I run Alpha Legion counts as Space Wolves.

Chaos lord = Wolfguard Battle Leader

Possessed w/ normal weapon arms = Wolf guard

CSM = grey hunters

Cadians A.K.A. Traitor guard / Cultists = wolf scouts

Razorback = Razorback

Havocs = Long Fangs

Landspeeders = Landspeeders

So far aside from the hardcore fluff lovers I haven't run into a single problem. When I explain that:
SW ability to take up to 4 HQ is something alpha legion would do. (They never rely on a single commander)
SW ability to use MSU with a ton of redundancy to attack from all sides effectively sounds like something Alpha legion would do.
Scouts "Behind Enemy Lines" sounds like an embedded chaos cult.

I know it's not perfect but I like the look of chaos models but the playstyle of wolves so its the best I could do.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:I run Alpha Legion counts as Space Wolves.

*snip*

SW ability to take up to 4 HQ is something alpha legion would do. (They never rely on a single commander)
SW ability to use MSU with a ton of redundancy to attack from all sides effectively sounds like something Alpha legion would do.
Scouts "Behind Enemy Lines" sounds like an embedded chaos cult.

while i wouldn't refuse to play against you in a tourney, i'd highly suspect you're using the most powerful codex as a counts as force simply because of the fact that its the most powerful codex, not because the fluff matches (because it doesn't). chaos cultists who should have inferior stats to a vanilla marine are the elite wolf scouts with rules/abilities that go above and beyond what a normal marine is capable of? SW for 4 hq's because the alphas use more of them? i'd think two identical twin chaos lords with the same loadout would better suit the fluff. i think it'd be more believable if you put some space wolf bits on those chaos models and just called them 13th company instead of shoe-horning them in as alpha legion.

p.s. this is coming from someone who used his blood angels as space wolves for 2 months inbetween the release of the SW and the rumors of an upcoming BA codex started to filter out. i always felt sooo dirty after a game. as soon as the credible BA rumors started leaking, i stopped.

warboss wrote:
while i wouldn't refuse to play against you in a tourney, i'd highly suspect you're using the most powerful codex as a counts as force simply because of the fact that its the most powerful codex, not because the fluff matches (because it doesn't). chaos cultists who should have inferior stats to a vanilla marine are the elite wolf scouts with rules/abilities that go above and beyond what a normal marine is capable of? SW for 4 hq's because the alphas use more of them? i'd think two identical twin chaos lords with the same loadout would better suit the fluff. i think it'd be more believable if you put some space wolf bits on those chaos models and just called them 13th company instead of shoe-horning them in as alpha legion.

i think that marines can use any book they want. If nothing else, nobody would care if you ran a DIY marine army with loyalist models painted grey (the classic "grey marines") as renegades out of the chaos book, ultras, blood angels, etc. I'm not sure I'd totally change my take because the player is using chaos marine models. the whole "rules must fit your paint scheme" thing is so very, very 3rd edition.

That said, yeah, I'm not sure trying to justify using wolves as the best represenetation of alphas in general is going to pass the sniff test. I personally think that a Khan led, all outflanking shock force does it better.

However, the wolf codex might best represent YOUR alpha legion warband. I always tell my opponents: "The background for my IG is that they're smart, and they like to win. Which is why they're armed the way they are!"

p.s. this is coming from someone who used his blood angels as space wolves for 2 months inbetween the release of the SW and the rumors of an upcoming BA codex started to filter out. i always felt sooo dirty after a game. as soon as the credible BA rumors started leaking, i stopped.

So... can he use his alphas as blood angels until chaos rumors start leaking out?

warboss wrote:

Shas'O Dorian wrote:I run Alpha Legion counts as Space Wolves.

*snip*

SW ability to take up to 4 HQ is something alpha legion would do. (They never rely on a single commander)
SW ability to use MSU with a ton of redundancy to attack from all sides effectively sounds like something Alpha legion would do.
Scouts "Behind Enemy Lines" sounds like an embedded chaos cult.

while i wouldn't refuse to play against you in a tourney, i'd highly suspect you're using the most powerful codex as a counts as force simply because of the fact that its the most powerful codex, not because the fluff matches (because it doesn't). chaos cultists who should have inferior stats to a vanilla marine are the elite wolf scouts with rules/abilities that go above and beyond what a normal marine is capable of? SW for 4 hq's because the alphas use more of them? i'd think two identical twin chaos lords with the same loadout would better suit the fluff. i think it'd be more believable if you put some space wolf bits on those chaos models and just called them 13th company instead of shoe-horning them in as alpha legion.

p.s. this is coming from someone who used his blood angels as space wolves for 2 months inbetween the release of the SW and the rumors of an upcoming BA codex started to filter out. i always felt sooo dirty after a game. as soon as the credible BA rumors started leaking, i stopped.

I don't get this either. Would you feel better if he called them Space Wolves? I can kind of get the fluff vs Wolf Scouts thing, that is pretty hair splitting, especially considering you can get no where near the army type he is looking for in Codex: Bland Marines of Chaos. No offense, but it really seems like you are unhappy that his imagination differs from yours. I do agree that wildly divergent rules and models makes for poor counts as choices, but aside from the slightly questionable scouts, there is nothing to complain of there.
And just a note, but suggesting that you think he is playing the strongest codex just to win perhaps says as much about your concern with winning yourself than his. Lots of people said the SW codex would make a better Chaos Codex than C:CSM when it was released, after all.

Gathering Storm: Hehe that was sort of my point, if poorly stated: Everyones stuff can look bad to certain people, and one should remember to roll with it and have fun with the game even if your opponent doesn't have the same preferences you do.

ArtfcllyFlvrd: Yea, I think we definitely agree on most cases. Though like I said, if you expect someone to spend X$ to get a better looking army, you might not want to rule out painting services for people who can't paint
I do like a lot of the stock models myself, but a differently built army can really mix things up and lend a lot of variety. Let's face it, the problem is very rarely too much variety, but usually that 5 of 10 armies are the Primer Marines, with the remainder being 3-4 different armies if you are lucky I would say my reasons for allowing Counts As is not just that it encourages modeling and creativity, which is very important, but that it lets people play the army they like. I want to play the army I like, and I don't think it would be right to tell other people to play the game the way I see fit.

Full disclosure, I have two >90% counts as armies I use Orks for my Word Bearers and Cultists though :-P

Gathering Storm wrote:B. I love counts as armies but they need to have a way of identifying. I feel that anyone who wishes to field a Counts-as army should have a refrence sheet like the ones Protieus does for his armies (and Hulkmash did for his AdMech) in order to make life easier for opponents who may not be familiar with the codex or can't work out what is what.

Link

It's about halfway down the page.

what? why does he need the refrence sheet at least 50% of each of those models were the original model they were supposed to be, heck the leman russ was just a leman russ with a few orky bits on them... overall a really good army.


also where can I get a link to this admech army? I'm slowly converting my imperial guard into skitarii.

It depends. I've seen an entire IG army that used eldar guardians as guardsmen. Technically it was WYSIWYG, but it was awful to look at. Or is that proxying?

3.Non special character model counts as special character – I’m less ok with it. I’ve never stopped it in any of the tournaments I have run, I would say so long as the weapons are the same I would let it fly. But personally if the only reason it was done is because a person had an extra Berserker model and didn’t want to pay $20 for Kharn I would be upset.

Lol, you wouldn't like my straken then He's a guard commander with an xv-8 arm and a plasma rifle that got cut down to a plasma pistol. he's for a Gue'vessa army I made. Shotgun vets also use Pulse Carbines.

Also for non tournament games I use a reaper "Space marine" as harker. and no, he looks nothing like a space marine. More like a vet with a chain gun. Official Tournaments I use Ox for harker.

Samus_aran115 wrote:It depends. I've seen an entire IG army that used eldar guardians as guardsmen. Technically it was WYSIWYG, but it was awful to look at. Or is that proxying?

Please explain how a Guardian with Eldar weapons is WYSWYG for an Iguard with Iguard weapons. They are similar, but in no way WYSIWYG and this is very much a proxy.

Polonius wrote:i think that marines can use any book they want. If nothing else, nobody would care if you ran a DIY marine army with loyalist models painted grey (the classic "grey marines") as renegades out of the chaos book, ultras, blood angels, etc. I'm not sure I'd totally change my take because the player is using chaos marine models. the whole "rules must fit your paint scheme" thing is so very, very 3rd edition.

That said, yeah, I'm not sure trying to justify using wolves as the best represenetation of alphas in general is going to pass the sniff test. I personally think that a Khan led, all outflanking shock force does it better.

*snip*

So... can he use his alphas as blood angels until chaos rumors start leaking out?

sure, like i said, i wouldn't refuse to play them. i'll just call him out on WHY he's using the most powerful codex for his toy soldiers when he tells me its because they capture the feel of alphas more. if he wanted to use an inferior, less OP codex, i'd just leave it be. when i used spacewolves and people asked, i simply said the truth that after not playing for 5+ years, i came back to 40k and found out my blood angels had a pathetic PDF with little variety instead of a real codex and i didn't want to use it. the SW codex was coming out so i decided to opt for that instead of the vanilla and dark angels marines that were heavy in my old store. i didn't try to make up some twilight-esque combination of werewolves and space vampires.

Wehrkind wrote:I don't get this either. Would you feel better if he called them Space Wolves? I can kind of get the fluff vs Wolf Scouts thing, that is pretty hair splitting, especially considering you can get no where near the army type he is looking for in Codex: Bland Marines of Chaos. No offense, but it really seems like you are unhappy that his imagination differs from yours. I do agree that wildly divergent rules and models makes for poor counts as choices, but aside from the slightly questionable scouts, there is nothing to complain of there.
And just a note, but suggesting that you think he is playing the strongest codex just to win perhaps says as much about your concern with winning yourself than his. Lots of people said the SW codex would make a better Chaos Codex than C:CSM when it was released, after all.Full disclosure, I have two >90% counts as armies I use Orks for my Word Bearers and Cultists though :-P

the bold part is needlessly inflammatory as i already said i'd play against him. his army passes mostly passes my counts as criteria in that the substitutions are mostly intuitive and easily recognizable so i'd not complain. just don't tell me its "creative" to take the most powerful codex and use it for your clearly NOT-sw army. would i bring up anything if he went through the trouble of converting some SW bits onto each of the guys? no. would i mention the above if he is just using his chaos marines as space wolves? yes. frankly, i think SW would be a great codex for doing preheresy world eaters (the mark of the wulfen guys could be the ones with the aggressive psychosurgery brain implants) but it all boils down to the modelling and the cool rule. if you're doing it and it looks cool, i'd have no problem with it.

p.s. orks as marines and ig? really???

nkelsch wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:It depends. I've seen an entire IG army that used eldar guardians as guardsmen. Technically it was WYSIWYG, but it was awful to look at. Or is that proxying?

Please explain how a Guardian with Eldar weapons is WYSWYG for an Iguard with Iguard weapons. They are similar, but in no way WYSIWYG and this is very much a proxy.

Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

gendoikari87 wrote:what? why does he need the refrence sheet at least 50% of each of those models were the original model they were supposed to be, heck the leman russ was just a leman russ with a few orky bits on them... overall a really good army.


also where can I get a link to this admech army? I'm slowly converting my imperial guard into skitarii.

-He was annoyed with people failing to understand that it was a counts as guard army. At a recent tourney his army was mislabelled as Orks on the first day and he had to get the organisers to change. Also, it's just his thing. He did the same for his renegade mechanics counts as daemon army.

-Check the gallery of the author of the thread. I think he also used to have a P&M blog on it as well.

warboss wrote:
sure, like i said, i wouldn't refuse to play them. i'll just call him out on WHY he's using the most powerful codex for his toy soldiers when he tells me its because they capture the feel of alphas more. if he wanted to use an inferior, less OP codex, i'd just leave it be. when i used spacewolves and people asked, i simply said the truth that after not playing for 5+ years, i came back to 40k and found out my blood angels had a pathetic PDF with little variety instead of a real codex and i didn't want to use it. the SW codex was coming out so i decided to opt for that instead of the vanilla and dark angels marines that were heavy in my old store. i didn't try to make up some twilight-esque combination of werewolves and space vampires.

I get where you're coming from, and it's possible that you're right about your buddy being a closet, self loathing power gamer. I'm just going to say that you're coming off as a pretty big jerk ripping into the guy. Maybe you know for certain, but I don't like attributing motive that casually. It's not like a less powerful codex would work better. (DA or BT? really?)

I write documents analyzing people's credibility at work, and let me tell you: a light touch goes a long way. It's far more effective to set up the relevant facts and let people draw their own conclusions than to spell everything out.

I voted A because I think it is great to see how creative people can get. I also own every codex and know the rules for every unit pretty well so it is easy for me to identify what units are what once I have been told.

But most gamers aren't that OCD about the game and I can easily see how they would get confused. I think B is the best of all worlds for the community at large.

And Hulk's Admech army (counts as Demons) is sweetass! Like Inquisitor Malice said, you could just label stuff to make it easy.

warboss wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:I don't get this either. Would you feel better if he called them Space Wolves? I can kind of get the fluff vs Wolf Scouts thing, that is pretty hair splitting, especially considering you can get no where near the army type he is looking for in Codex: Bland Marines of Chaos. No offense, but it really seems like you are unhappy that his imagination differs from yours. I do agree that wildly divergent rules and models makes for poor counts as choices, but aside from the slightly questionable scouts, there is nothing to complain of there.
And just a note, but suggesting that you think he is playing the strongest codex just to win perhaps says as much about your concern with winning yourself than his. Lots of people said the SW codex would make a better Chaos Codex than C:CSM when it was released, after all.Full disclosure, I have two >90% counts as armies I use Orks for my Word Bearers and Cultists though :-P

the bold part is needlessly inflammatory as i already said i'd play against him. his army passes mostly passes my counts as criteria in that the substitutions are mostly intuitive and easily recognizable so i'd not complain. just don't tell me its "creative" to take the most powerful codex and use it for your clearly NOT-sw army. would i bring up anything if he went through the trouble of converting some SW bits onto each of the guys? no. would i mention the above if he is just using his chaos marines as space wolves? yes. frankly, i think SW would be a great codex for doing preheresy world eaters (the mark of the wulfen guys could be the ones with the aggressive psychosurgery brain implants) but it all boils down to the modelling and the cool rule. if you're doing it and it looks cool, i'd have no problem with it.

p.s. orks as marines and ig? really???

I didn't mean to be inflammatory, sorry, but that's how your statements comes across. Perhaps if you had suggested other codexes that you thought would cover the his idea better, instead of saying first that you thought he was using the most powerful codex to win, and saying how your idea of the army didn't fit it as well. Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across. Just one of those things, our opinions of others tend to reflect more on ourselves than they do of the others.

Not to mention the fact that your friend's list as posted doesn't even seem that hard. Where are the 30 thunderwolves? It looks to me like he made a pretty friendly, even handed list, not the uber tourney copy pasta lists people hate SW players for. Further, it isn't as though CSM don't have their power build.

Considering you also just happened to use that self same "power dex" for your army instead of the regular SM codex further undermines your points. It might be time for some serious thought about why you are so concerned about what codex your opponents use. If you are interested I can get you some brochures and pamphlets for Kumbaya-con and some of our programs for learning what kind of a gamer you are, and coming to terms with your place in the community.

As to Lost and Damned counts as orks here's the modeling thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/228000.page#530250
TL;DR : The nobs are heavy army & power clawed, leading truck mobs of muties hopped up on drugs. The Lord leads a small unit of terminators (mega nobs), and there are some random tanks and some shootas. Pretty obvious what things are, and it plays a treat. Every terminator should have 3 attacks and two wounds More epic marines captures the feel better, as even a lone 'nob is scary when he gets into combat.

Wehrkind wrote:Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across.

um... space wolves being wholey different from alpha marines in both their deployment stategies, combat tactics, and organization isn't "my idea of how the fluff works". it's gw's. who knows, maybe he is the part of that small minority of people using the SW codex for non-sw armies that aren't doing it for the power builds. you're right.. i should just take everything i read on the internet (even if it sounds unplausible) at face value even if i disagree with it. right after i post here, i've got a few nigerian emails about transferring funds i need to respond to while i'm in this new trusting mood.

Wehrkind wrote:Considering you also just happened to use that self same "power dex" for your army instead of the regular SM codex further undermines your points. It might be time for some serious thought about why you are so concerned about what codex your opponents use.

i'm not "concerned" as i said i'd play against it without a fuss in a tourney (you keep missing that part). questioning why someone is playing a count-as army that isn't modelled as such isn't evil. what i'm doing is DISCUSSING it seeing as how he put it up for DISCUSSION on a DISCUSSION board. i couldn't give a care if he used skittles as necrons ultimately seeing as how the probability of me actually facing him is close to zero. If he posted "i just use them with SW" i woudn't care but he's making the case that its a plausible substitution that fits the fluff. i'm making the opposing case. as for my own case, i played it for the first two months because it was known as the true power codex of 5th edition so far and stopped using it soon after; read into that what you will. i only mentioned it to show that i really don't have a problem with someone doing it as long as they're honest about why. either way, i've voted and spoken my peace. later fellas.


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Wehrkind wrote:As to Lost and Damned counts as orks here's the modeling thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/228000.page#530250
TL;DR : The nobs are heavy army & power clawed, leading truck mobs of muties hopped up on drugs. The Lord leads a small unit of terminators (mega nobs), and there are some random tanks and some shootas. Pretty obvious what things are, and it plays a treat. Every terminator should have 3 attacks and two wounds More epic marines captures the feel better, as even a lone 'nob is scary when he gets into combat.

you've got a very nice army there and have taken the time and effort to make it work and plausible. i'd have no problem playing against it and would congratulate you on work well done if i ever faced you across the tabletop. when you initially said "i use orks as marines and ig", i took that at face value in that you use unconverted ork models as marines some days and IG other days. THAT i wouldn't play against as its needlessly confusing.

Wait wait wait.... admech as a counts as DAEMONS army? That's streaching things a bit far isnt it? especially since any of the MEQ armies would do much better or if you want to go more skitarii instead of praetorians, Imperial guard.

warboss wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across.

um... space wolves being wholey different from alpha marines in both their deployment stategies, combat tactics, and organization isn't "my idea of how the fluff works". it's gw's. who knows, maybe he is the part of that small minority of people using the SW codex for non-sw armies that aren't doing it for the power builds. you're right.. i should just take everything i read on the internet (even if it sounds unplausible) at face value even if i disagree with it. right after i post here, i've got a few nigerian emails about transferring funds i need to respond to while i'm in this new trusting mood.

Remember though, there is SW fluff, SW rules which are supposed to reflect the fluff, and Alpha fluff. He is using the SW rules, which can support fluff from other armies. The tactical marine stats and rules reflect the fluff of vast amounts of various chapters/legions. The special rules for the "deviant chapters" can be all sorts of things. Infiltrate can represent actual infiltration, or advanced scouts ranging ahead of the main force, etc. Deep strike is teleporting, summoning from the warp, parachuting in or flying. A 4+ ward save is from a Rosarius, or being a tizz cult marine. Those are just those I can think of off the top of my head. The same rules represent a broad spectrum of fluff.

In fact, I would argue the C:SW is the best option for his army. What SWs call "great heroes", Alpha calls "Guys who have been fighting since it was called 'The Horus Incident'". All the rules say is "These guys are very tough and fight very well". SW Scouts are "Genos modified operatives" (see the Alpha novel whose name escapes me; the IG were heavily geno modified soldiers.) The rules say "These guys are tougher than normal humans, shoot and fight better too, but don't wear power armor, and are sneaky". Using C:SM rules loses you the extra characters for no good reason (4 expensive characters isn't exactly optimal), and the scouts are not much worse, just a bit different and cheaper. C:CSM doesn't even allow for guys in less than power armor.

Always remember that Rules != Fluff, but rather try to approximate it in an abstract way. It is very much on purpose that a few generalized rules cover wide ranges of fluff. Otherwise it would be like playing Inquisitor with a separate sheet for each model. We tried that once with ~8 models... it was more than a little awkward, though fun

Now, if he was throwing around thunderwolves and whatever other stuff makes people cry cheese vs Space Wolves, I would be more inclined to agree with you that he was just power gaming.


Also, thanks for the compliments I really like the way the ork rules play, partially because my main army is Sisters and secondary is IG and I am sick of shooting only, and also because they really match the brutality I imagine in chaos uprisings and marines. I hate the fact that stock marines are only about as big as Cadians. Having one giant, brutal Chaos marine striding into battle with little gibbering bullet catchers really sets off the difference between them. "Yea, you are going to gun down 7 of the ten little gribblies, but then Brother Brofist here is going to rip your limbs off."

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?
*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.
*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it
*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.
*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.
*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?
*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

Guys might I interject & say you've made this a much bigger deal than it ought to be .

I have used parts from the SW kit mixed in amongst my chaos marines. I know it's not 100% fluffy or even 50% fluffy. I just feel the way SW can be run effectively (MSU that can hit you from all sides) is a very alph-esque thing.

That and I'm not doing it for the "power build" I know SW is one of the top 3 currently. I'm doing it because of the flexability in the list and I sincerly enjoy the playstyle. Yes wolves can be run as a very in-your-face aggressive army but I don't plan on running it that way.

Warboss already said he'd play it no problem, but might raise the fluff question which I'm OK with. I fully admit the fluff isn't anywhere near perfect but IMHO the chaos codex is way too bland & lacking options for a legion as resourceful as the alphas.

A side effect of this thread- Wehrkind, I didn't realize you had such an awesome counts-as army (that someone linked to earlier)... that thing rocks!!

I don't even see any problem with using one meq army as another just because the new ones more powerfu, Provided you use the right weaponsl, mostly because the new one's not so much more powerful it'sjust GW lets some codex's get antiquated and lets face it with the bottom three codex's of any single run you are generally looking at fighting an uphill battle to begin with. And with the MEQ armies they all look similar enough and use most of the same weapons so it's Close enough.

nkelsch says it much more harshly than I would for fear of retribution, but I agree with his sentiment 100%.

Hulksmash wrote:I don't see why that is a problem Ph34r. Basically you, who is against non-easily recognized counts-as could still vote two which says it's cool as long as I can tell what it is easily. If you don't like counts-as in a tournament even if it's easy you choose the others. B would still exclude armies the one up for discussion. I suppose I could have added more depth but I was at work and Dash had brought it up so I used his

Not a problem imo. This thread serves a good purpose, and it has shown that most people are fine with playing against counts-as, as long as the conversions are crystal clear. It doesn't do much to provide clarity to "how much can I get away with before the other guy is confused"

Read the P&M nkelsch. Those units aren't used as the same thing in the same game. Oddly I've never used the attack drones as hounds. It was a thought that I decided against and have started building seperate ones. Not to derail it but Daemons account for Admech technology extremely well. To each his own.

Back on topic

Agreed. And that's not something you'll ever be able to know until you show up with it But like my other thread served as a solid barometer on the daemons it can kinda help. I pretty much cut short that idea at this point. I'd rather build my DE and paint up a quick 1k of IG for Adepticon

No back on topic for reals!

nkelsch wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

First off, you seem to be overly using the term proxy. By convention, a proxy is a placeholder, or a marker. "This predator is actually a vindicator." If I took current guardians, used old eldar lasguns to arm them, and added some human heads, and called them "high tech ghoul star humans," that's a counts as. It's because they have appropriate weapons, armor, size, etc. Yeah, using guardians out of the box as guard is proxying. converting them to act as IG might not meet your insanely high standards, but it's a counts as.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

what agenda do you think is being advanced? Do you think that people are lazy? Or do you think people build counts as armies for advantage?

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

This is where you lose me completely. Yeah, Hulk's Admech are pretty clearly based on Imperial models, but IG weilding two handed axes or burst cannons aren't exactly easy to place in the IG codex.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?

Simply asserting that you don't get the connection doesnt' help us. Now, if you wanted to say that being armored but slow looking, they'd make better blood crushers, I'd agree. But I don't think a conversion that involves some method of increasing speed and lots of wacky HtH weapons is that totally out of line.

*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.

Again, unless most tau players add the sensors and the chainswords, it's not a proxy.

*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it

It's true that people wouldn't guess it, but it's a power armored, monstrous sized model armed with a lascannon. How does that not fit the profile of a DP of Tzeetnch with Bolt?

*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.

Aside from pointing out that it's a far too complicated converstion to be a simple proxy, I'll agree that some people have a real problem switching unit types with counts as.

*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.

Yes, because when I build my random regular IG out of the box, they frequently have two handed axes. I'd agree that using them as plaguebearers is a little sloppy.

*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?

Again, my regular random IG are always armed with burst cannons. And the drone has a lascannon, which clearly marks it as bolt of change (something the standard models don't do)

*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

My problem here is that juggernoughts as mounts don't confer a speed bonus, only toughness, wounds, size, and a save. I'm underwhelmed with this conversion (I think the fiends would work better as crushers, and then do some cool spider walker things for fiends), but these ogres have only HtH weapons (no ripper gun). It's one of the weakers counts-as in the list, but again not a straight proxy.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

I think you overstate the case. The princes, the letters, the fiends, and the horrors are all pretty appropriately modeled to show their saves, movement, weaponry, etc. The crushers should, IMO, be up armored and clearly have power weapons. the speeders as chariots is going to simply bother some people, but it's made pretty clear and includes some nice touches like the techpriest to show that it's not a "stock landspeeder." I'll agree that I think some conversion work to make it less clearly space marine (different pilots, etc) might make it clearer.

Reecius wrote:I voted A because I think it is great to see how creative people can get. I also own every codex and know the rules for every unit pretty well so it is easy for me to identify what units are what once I have been told.

But most gamers aren't that OCD about the game and I can easily see how they would get confused. I think B is the best of all worlds for the community at large.

And Hulk's Admech army (counts as Demons) is sweetass! Like Inquisitor Malice said, you could just label stuff to make it easy.

I have to agree with Reece here. I also voted A because "counts as" is awesome. One of the major draws of playing 40k for me. In the case of Hulk's army, it isn't exactly how I would do such an army, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome to see what he came up with.

Read the P&M nkelsch. Those units aren't used as the same thing in the same game. Oddly I've never used the attack drones as hounds. It was a thought that I decided against and have started building seperate ones. Not to derail it but Daemons account for Admech technology extremely well. To each his own.

Know what even better represents the IMPERIUMS admech, The Imperial Guard and Space Marines. Heck you can even mix the two with allying. Shoot, both Space marine codexs and the imperial guard ALREADY HAVE admech units in them in the form of techpriests.

See the thing is though, he has to explain what each of the models is. And that is both frustrating and time consuming. Granted nothing in any codex comes close to praetorians, so those will always be a gray area but the IG do such a good job of everything else.

Well, I'm certainly a biased party here, playing a heavily converted daemon army myself. Most of my conversions are based off of IG models, so I suppose it would fit under the category of a proxy army.

I do four things to try to compensate for opponents' potential confusion:

I take care to model things so that they are as intuitive as possible. (e.g., for a bloodcrusher conversion, does the conversion look big and armored and lumbering? Does it look as though it moves 6, charges 6? Does it look as though it wields power ccws? etc.) My plaguebearers look like zombies. My horrors are skinny, hunched creatures with "guns," etc.

And I always keep my conversions to the same scale as the GW version. (So, for say a soulgrinder, is it the same proportions, the same footprint, the same model height, with weapons mounts in the same place on the model?)

And I don't simply substitute one kind of GW model for another. All my models are converted.

And I repeatedly remind my opponents during games about what each model is and (if they seem confused) what it can do.

Most people seem to have no problem with the result. But the potential for confusion does concern me.

Wehrkind wrote:

warboss wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across.

um... space wolves being wholey different from alpha marines in both their deployment stategies, combat tactics, and organization isn't "my idea of how the fluff works". it's gw's. who knows, maybe he is the part of that small minority of people using the SW codex for non-sw armies that aren't doing it for the power builds. you're right.. i should just take everything i read on the internet (even if it sounds unplausible) at face value even if i disagree with it. right after i post here, i've got a few nigerian emails about transferring funds i need to respond to while i'm in this new trusting mood.

snip

I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

OT there is a big difference between if people will play against you (most will if you put abit of effort in to explain) and whether they will want to listen to you try and justify it with the fluff part of the hobby.

@tinfoil -- Your army's so nice I think I've given up my plans for a Dark Mech army. Mine would have been IG based, but some of the concepts I had...well, I think my version would just end up a pale imitation of the original.


Anyway, I own a counts-as-Orks Genestealer Cult. I think my stuff is pretty clear, and the VAST majority of the comments I've received on the counts-as aspect have been positive. Still, I've also had some critical comments. And you know, that's their opinion and they have a right to voice it. The reality is that any time you stray away from "stock" you open yourself up to some criticism, and you as the count-as owner just has to accept that.

Quite honestly, I've been in this hobby for so long that stock armies are pretty darn boring to me (meaning owning and playing them, not playing across from them). Although my caveat here is that my next army looks to be a mostly-stock Vostroyan army, just because the models are so nice.

I do have another army concept that's percolating, and it's a counts-as army with some very heavy conversions. Ironically, it's also based on Daemons. However, in my concept the units will still obviously be Khornate, Slanneshi, etc., which I think will end up helping opponents know what's what at a glance.

A somewhat off-topic but interesting thought IMO -- do all these counts-as Daemons armies say something about Daemon gameplay vs. Daemon miniatures and visuals?

@gorgon

I think it had a lot to do with the models that were out and are still out. The massive expensive metal models aren't fun for anyone really. For me it's not even the cost, it's the weight and the easy chipping. I love the codex but I hate the models. Though I have been more inclined of late to start an all plastic one but I'd still have to convert some plague bearers as I hate metal...

Oh and the lack of chariot models doesn't help either.

gorgon wrote:@tinfoil -- Your army's so nice I think I've given up my plans for a Dark Mech army. Mine would have been IG based, but some of the concepts I had...well, I think my version would just end up a pale imitation of the original.
...
I do have another army concept that's percolating, and it's a counts-as army with some very heavy conversions. Ironically, it's also based on Daemons. However, in my concept the units will still obviously be Khornate, Slanneshi, etc., which I think will end up helping opponents know what's what at a glance.

Thanks for the kind words, but I certainly hope you do continue with the Dark Mech idea! I love seeing different takes on the idea (and I've pillaged my own share of ideas from others).

gorgon wrote:A somewhat off-topic but interesting thought IMO -- do all these counts-as Daemons armies say something about Daemon gameplay vs. Daemon miniatures and visuals?

I think you're definitely on to something here. I love the way the codex plays. It doesn't break 40K game mechanics, IMO, but it plays like nothing else out there.

warboss wrote:Alpha Legion are not Space Wolves and this list tests the borders a bit

Wehrkind wrote:No, it's fine and you're a snob

I'm on the Warboss side of things here. Basically, creating counts-as armies is really cool. You should do it. But if you ARE going to do it, it has to be WATERTIGHT. No possible room for confusion. I'd argue that taking Alpha Legion as SW is confusing. The single most annoying thing I'd find is that he has a load of units that are apparently 'cultists' who are much better than regular marines. The general most annoying thing is that I can, off the top of my head, think of at least three better ways to represent AL than using SW. (Chaos Marines with Summoned Daemons, Vraks Renegades and Heretics, Space Marines with lots of regular Scouts). I realise that they maybe 'super-modified genos cultists' but that's still quite a way off of 'better than a marine'. In fact, I'd argue regular Marine scouts or Summondes Daemons are much better placed for the 'modified human' role.

This makes me question the motives for using SW, other than 'I had one army, but wanted another'. If that IS the motive, then it's exactly the same as 'these orks are actually nids'.

There was a thread on here a while ago, soon after the SW codex released, that caused a similar argument. A guy had an amazingly created marine army, with some fantastic jetbike conversions. He'd decided that he should definitely use the SW codex, because then the jetbikes could be thunderwolves. He was bawled out by the whole site because, if his motivation was REALLY to do 'jetbike ancient marines' there are loads of obvious better ways to represent them - Land Speeders, or Bikes for example. It was quite obvious he was just latching onto the new codex.

I'm in the process of making a madmax/fallout counts-as orks army at the moment. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I've only had good responses so far, but the thought that I might run into a hater at a tourney is always there of course.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes to deal with my gamer ADHD (switching armies waaay to often, I'm running out of space ) This is likely to cause more troubles, I know one tourney where they would probably not allow me to play my marines as anything but BA's as they are painted red.

I like counts-as, but it has to be well done. Easy to see what is what and rule of cool is in effect when it comes to counts-as IMO. A cool theme is also very important (i.e: grot rebellion)

I hate when people go crazy with this. I saw a guy with a adeptus mechanis army that was counts as IG. It was freaking crazy, you couldn't tell what was what. Walker were tanks, walkers were tanks...ugh.

Fantastic looking model, but brutal to play against.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes

Don't do it man, I started writing my fluff for my chapter before I even decided to make an army and now I've put myself in a situation where I can't decide which codex to use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spireland wrote:I hate when people go crazy with this. I saw a guy with a adeptus mechanis army that was counts as IG. It was freaking crazy, you couldn't tell what was what. Walker were tanks, walkers were tanks...ugh.

Fantastic looking model, but brutal to play against.

it shouldn't take too much conversions on an IG army to make a good Admech army. A few dark angels legs and heads (for the hoods and robes) and some cyclops demolitions vehicles with heavy weapons on them as HWT, a few red paint jobs and voila.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
found the pic of a really good skitarii army

gendoikari87 wrote:

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes

Don't do it man, I started writing my fluff for my chapter before I even decided to make an army and now I've put myself in a situation where I can't decide which codex to use.

Why? What's the problem? Just use whatever strikes you as cool at the moment? I get bored of playing one army, usually following a tournament. If I had managed to make such a SM chapter, I could just switch codex and not have to go on a shopping spree to get my newest gaming fix.

Polonius wrote:I think you overstate the case. The princes, the letters, the fiends, and the horrors are all pretty appropriately modeled to show their saves, movement, weaponry, etc. The crushers should, IMO, be up armored and clearly have power weapons. the speeders as chariots is going to simply bother some people, but it's made pretty clear and includes some nice touches like the techpriest to show that it's not a "stock landspeeder." I'll agree that I think some conversion work to make it less clearly space marine (different pilots, etc) might make it clearer.

The admech as daemons army is flawed on a fundamental level... the Admech don't summon their entire army onto the battlefield, they deploy by conventional means while possessing the ability to teleport sometimes. They aren't orkimedes.
There are guardsmen counting as units with non-guardsmen movement, stats, saves, etc... There are gun drones with very un-drone stats. The lascannon as mark of change is a good touch, I will admit.
Everything is really well painted and converted, and it's a very cool army to look at, but daemons really aren't the proper list for it to represent. They are much closer to a variant of marines or IG or inquis. Heck, I can stat the army right now:
Landspeeders are landspeeders, walkers are penitent engines, cc guardsmen are crusaders or arco flagellents, gun guardsmen are stormtroopers or stormbolter warriors or HB servitors, drones are more acolytes, Ogryn are ogryn, praetorians are HWT or servitors. This would be an example of how the army used as counts-as would be not confusing to face in a tournament.

Are you saying the Admech never teleport?

If you want to play them as telelporting, you don't have a lot of options...

I mean, do you think Guardsman marbo is always hiding out where he's most useful? Probably not, but you have to use him that way.

If you want a force that is all deep strike, you're pretty limited.

Fundamentally, you're stuck on this idea that just because a force has rules (in this edition) that play one way, every army built around that idea must play that way. For AdMech, we know so little about it that saying there's a clear cut way they should be played is pretty odd.

I don't mean to sound like a giant jerk, but if you can't remember "my opponent is playing demons" during a game, than you have bigger problems than 40k. I mean, how many people really understand the Demon codex even when it's properly modelled? Do we really think that most people see a pink horror and realize it's got a 4+ save, and a shooting attack?

Illumini wrote:I'm in the process of making a madmax/fallout counts-as orks army at the moment. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I've only had good responses so far, but the thought that I might run into a hater at a tourney is always there of course.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes to deal with my gamer ADHD (switching armies waaay to often, I'm running out of space ) This is likely to cause more troubles, I know one tourney where they would probably not allow me to play my marines as anything but BA's as they are painted red.

I like counts-as, but it has to be well done. Easy to see what is what and rule of cool is in effect when it comes to counts-as IMO. A cool theme is also very important (i.e: grot rebellion)

Oh, I've pondered this too. I came up with the following

You need to come up with a red-and-grey colour scheme, and call them something like Blood Wolves, but make sure the models have white robes on too. Paint the terminators in a contrasting colour - maybe all white. That way the regular guys can be BA, BT, SW or DA.

Then (and this is the important bit), make different characters for each 'version'. The characters are what really make the army, so as long as the character models (hell, you could even do variant sergeants) are REALLY like their chapter of choice, you should end up with a convincing army. All the regular guys and vehicles are only bought once, but the sergeants and characters you have four sets of!

BluntmanDC wrote:I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

I feel that SW Scouts could easily represent more lightly armored Alpha Legion Marines, as in "Legion", or as cultists imbued with additional chaos powers through whatever means (magic/possession) or even undergo the same "proto" Space Marine treatment that members of the Dark Angels legion received that were too old to undergo full Space Marine transformation. The Dark Angels couldn't have been the only chapter to have this situation when the Emperor found the Primarchs.

ArbitorIan wrote:Oh, I've pondered this too. I came up with the following

You need to come up with a red-and-grey colour scheme, and call them something like Blood Wolves, but make sure the models have white robes on too. Paint the terminators in a contrasting colour - maybe all white. That way the regular guys can be BA, BT, SW or DA.

Then (and this is the important bit), make different characters for each 'version'. The characters are what really make the army, so as long as the character models (hell, you could even do variant sergeants) are REALLY like their chapter of choice, you should end up with a convincing army. All the regular guys and vehicles are only bought once, but the sergeants and characters you have four sets of!

Or....just make sure your "Special Characters" or "Characters" are appropriate for the army being played. A Space Marine Captain could easily be the same as a Blood Angels Captain or Space Wolf lord (as long as he's not riding a thunderwolf). The sergeants shouldn't change all that much either between different codicies. You shouldn't need 4 of anything, but you may need one of each special character, and have a few units that are more purpose built then others.

For example, you may have a unit of Thunderwolf Cav, painted in the same scheme as the rest of the army, but they only come out of the case when you are playing Wolves. Conversely, you could have a Furioso dread that only comes out when you play Blood Angels. However, your regular dreadnought with Lascannon is always appropriate, as is your Space Marine commander wielding a power sword and storm bolter.

whitedragon wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

I feel that SW Scouts could easily represent more lightly armored Alpha Legion Marines, as in "Legion", or as cultists imbued with additional chaos powers through whatever means (magic/possession) or even undergo the same "proto" Space Marine treatment that members of the Dark Angels legion received that were too old to undergo full Space Marine transformation. The Dark Angels couldn't have been the only chapter to have this situation when the Emperor found the Primarchs.

how? proto space marines are not marines, they wouldn't have the same stats, they could represent degeared alpha legion but not possesed human cultists

I'd say that "proto" space marine Luther would argue with you. He wasn't a "full marine" according to you and the only better fighter amongst the DA legion was his Primarch. They were marines they just weren't functionally immortal like the marines with the full implant set.

And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

nkelsch wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?
*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.
*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it
*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.
*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.
*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?
*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

Damn son, you acted like he kissed your sister or something! No need for the aggressive posturing.

I see no reason to limit anyone's creativity. I played against this army at a tournament and so long as you know the Demon codex it is quite clear what is what. My buddy who also played this army at the same tournament said he had no problem with it either. I think the biggest problem with anything based on a Demon army is that most people just don't know the rules for demons! haha.

Saying people can only counts as what you think is a good fit for counts as is very similar to saying that people can only run chaos armies in their sacred numbers or with ancient adversaries fluff (which doesn't even exist anymore). The game is set in a fantasy/sci-fi universe that is enormous in scope. You can make pretty much anything and it can realistically fit. It is silly to try and put limitations on what someone wants to do.

I played in a fantasy tournament against an army that was themed as time warriors and he had everything from WWII riflemen to modern tanks to actual fantasy models and I thought it was great! Cool army that he had put a lot of time and effort into. I don't even really know the Fantasy rules that well and I just asked if I didn't know what something was, really wasn't hard.

If every army has to look the same, why not play chess, or have everyone play codex specific color schemes, etc. That seems bland to me. I know everyone has and is entitled to their own opinion, but by saying no to people you drive them away from the hobby. Let people play how they want to play and just be clear pregame what is what and ask during the game if it is unclear.

That's my take anyway.

Polonius wrote:Are you saying the Admech never teleport?

ph34r wrote:the Admech don't summon their entire army onto the battlefield, they deploy by conventional means while possessing the ability to teleport sometimes. They aren't orkimedes.

Man at least try to read my post.

The fluff precedent says that teleportation is extremely risky and strenuous on those who do it, so it is only viable for heavily armored units designed to teleport, like terminators, or maybe some crazy mentor legion experimental unit, or an admech heavy servitor type with specialized teleportation technology. Not "here's some combat servitors let's throw them through the warp and see what happens!".

Polonius wrote:I don't mean to sound like a giant jerk, but if you can't remember "my opponent is playing demons" during a game, than you have bigger problems than 40k. I mean, how many people really understand the Demon codex even when it's properly modelled? Do we really think that most people see a pink horror and realize it's got a 4+ save, and a shooting attack?

You don't sound like a giant jerk, nobody would ever forget what type of army they are facing, did you think you would be? Did you assume that an opponent would never remember that you're daemons? Actually now that I think about it, yeah, you do sound like a jerk, the reason being that you think the problem is with them remembering what army you are.

The problem is with them remembering that your ws3 bs3 s3 t3 w1 i3 a1 ld7 sv 5+ imperial guardsmen are, in fact, ws5 bs0 s4 t4 w1 i4 a2 ld10 sv5+ invulnerable daemons. Or perhaps that your ws2 bs2 s3 t3 w1 i4 a1 ld7 sv4+ tau gun drones are in fact ws3 bs0 s4 t4 w1 i3 a1 ld10 sv4+ invulnerable daemons. What's next, This land raider with robot arms on the front is a great unclean one? Perhaps these assault marines are furies, and these dark eldar wytches are daemonettes? Actually, those last two examples make more sense than this daemon-admech army, so scratch that "example".
Daemons are a tricky army. Looking across the board at a daemon army can make it hard to judge what is what if you don't yourself have a lot of experience with them. Looking across the board at a "daemon" army that is in fact an IG arny is even more confusing.
When there is no way to logically deduce what the opponent's army is across the table without consulting a "handy note sheet", there is a big problem with their army, and they should not be in a tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reecius wrote:I see no reason to limit anyone's creativity. I played against this army at a tournament and so long as you know the Demon codex it is quite clear what is what. My buddy who also played this army at the same tournament said he had no problem with it either. I think the biggest problem with anything based on a Demon army is that most people just don't know the rules for demons! haha.

This is the primary problem. When your army doesn't look like the units it represents at all, it is hard on your opponent and they will make mistakes, like it or not.

Reecius wrote:Saying people can only counts as what you think is a good fit for counts as is very similar to saying that people can only run chaos armies in their sacred numbers or with ancient adversaries fluff (which doesn't even exist anymore). The game is set in a fantasy/sci-fi universe that is enormous in scope. You can make pretty much anything and it can realistically fit. It is silly to try and put limitations on what someone wants to do.

This is a secondary concern. It isn't the core of the problem for you to attack and dismiss, it's just another problem piled onto the "your army doesn't make sense and is hard on your opponent" problem.

Reecius wrote:If every army has to look the same, why not play chess, or have everyone play codex specific color schemes, etc. That seems bland to me. I know everyone has and is entitled to their own opinion, but by saying no to people you drive them away from the hobby. Let people play how they want to play and just be clear pregame what is what and ask during the game if it is unclear.

This is an argument against something that nobody is saying. No need to strawman.

Well, I'm smart enough to not think that my opponent who says he's playing demons but uses a lot of IG models is running drones. I'm laid back enough that I'm not overly concerned about some minor advantage he might gain. I have enough respect for the hobby side to encourage neat looking armies.

I also know that if I were to model up some counts-as, most people would be ok with it, and most of those that aren't wouldn't say anything to me in person.

Hulksmash wrote:And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

A. i did say they could represent degeared alpha legion marines
B. an enhanced human could be represented by a normal scout but not a space wolves scout

its not ''fluff is in the eye of the beholder'' its the stat line doesn't fit the unit

BluntmanDC wrote:
its not ''fluff is in the eye of the beholder'' its the stat line doesn't fit the unit

cultists don't' have a stat-line...

If they had rules, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

cultists stat lines would be similar to a normal humans, counts as armys should pick a codex that best suits their fluff play style, same as the admech daemon army, why would an agumented human with a big gun have no BS points, it doesn't fit.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

A. i did say they could represent degeared alpha legion marines
B. an enhanced human could be represented by a normal scout but not a space wolves scout

its not ''fluff is in the eye of the beholder'' its the stat line doesn't fit the unit

Why couldn't Alpha Legion have veteran scouts? If your opponent has modelled scouts painted in Alpha Legion colors, with the appropriate weapons, does it really matter if they are "de-geared" marines or enhanced humans or cultists?

To put it another way, why do Space Wolves have the monopoly on scouts in the 41st millenium? Your "B" doesn't compute to me at all. Why can't enhanced humans be veterans either? What is the difference between Luther and a Dark Angels space marine really, besides Longevity and the lack of a Black Carapace?

BluntmanDC wrote:cultists stat lines would be similar to a normal humans, counts as armys should pick a codex that best suits their fluff play style, same as the admech daemon army, why would an agumented human with a big gun have no BS points, it doesn't fit.

What's the "fluff play style" for a force that doesn't have an army? If we knew how admech would play, they'd have an army book!

It isn't fair to say that counts as should always pick a codex that best suits their fluff play style, because, well, there is enough fluff variety for every potential army with no codex that you can pretty much justify any codex if you put even a little bit of work into it. For example, the daemons representing admech for the teleporting isn't 100% perfect, but neither is just some boring guard army since, well, they never teleport and don't really have anything to represent heavy infantry (ogryns don't count). And every army is different - there are admech units that would be much better represented by straight up IG...and there would be admech armies that would be best as straight up daemons. I think Hulksmash's army is somewhere in between since some of the units don't make as much sense teleporting...but when you're in between you have to pick *something*.

But this conversation isn't about what you should do for a counts-as. I think pretty much anything is fair game. This is about counts-as in a *Tournament*. And I think in that case, the burden is much more on the person bringing the strange army than in regular games with friends or random store opponents. In a tournament, winning matters, and you can't say sorry I won't play you, so anything outside of the regular rules that gives you an advantage is nice for you, but potentially unfair. You're technically playing for money here. I don't really think Hulks army was made to be an awesome Admech conversion (it is pretty cool, but not mind blowing), I think it was made to be a competitive and all-plastic daemons army, and it does this well. But I think it's in a grey area of being obvious/not-obvious enough what everything is to be truly fair in a tournament setting. In the end I think this is something for the TO to decide, and the player playing an army like this should probably talk to the TO ahead of time just to make sure there won't be any problems. Once the TO has approved it, who cares what the other players have to say.

ph34r wrote:When there is no way to logically deduce what the opponent's army is across the table without consulting a "handy note sheet", there is a big problem with their army, and they should not be in a tournament.

Pretty much this. We are not saying the models should be smashed with a hammer and the pieces burned... This thread is about tourneys... often where games are played over two days and for thousands of dollars and people spend hundreds to attend. People should expect 'FAIR' games and should respect thier opponent by not burdening them unreasonably.

To basically take the attitude of "screw you... you must be stupid or dumb if you can't keep up" is not good sportsmanship. you are coming the the game with an unreasonable army and your opponent suffers. And in a tourney where people have been playing with high stakes, long days, lots of distractions and probably hungover from being up all night, bad 'counts as' becomes a much larger burden than two dudes playing a pick up game in a friendly store one Saturday.

This Ad Mech army is a bunch of models that are generally unclear and I could just as easily shoe-horn these models into an Iguard list or even an ork list almost as easily as Deamons... EVERY army has high strength weapons, fast moving guys, melee guys, strong armor guys, small light vehicles which these generic unclear models can fit into. Is that a tzzench deamon priest? an I guard Sentinel? A Mega armor boss? A wraithlord? a Deff Dred? Frankly it probably could be any of them and fit all of those way before it fits a Daemon price which is part of the problem and also makes people question the motivation. Just like people who want to have bikes be TWC instead of SW bikers simply because they want the advantage and do not want to match the models to the closest appropriate rules.

I want to know where all these total hypocrites who claim 'tournaments are competitive... if you are worried about appearance call it a hobby event.' are because if this is a tourney then there should be restrictions on unfair conversions, exploitative conversions, unclear conversions and burdensome counts-as armies. Fair is fair and we have a Meta game integrity. Someone should not expect to lose because thier opponent is modeling for advantage or having a cloak of ambiguity via unclear models. If that makes tourneys boring... so be it. You can't have it both ways. Competitive events require a level of fairness and standardization that an unclear 'counts as' army damages.

That is why I chose C. I have played against bad Counts as, I know people who have played against bad counts as and I see unreasonable counts as and conversions on this site every day... great to look at, I dread facing them in any tourney. I respect my opponent to bring standard sized models and correctly modeled and clear models for them to play against. If I have a conversion, I have the standard model in the bad if they feel there is a discrepancy with it. That is being a good sport and respecting opponents... not "you must be stupid if you can't suck it up." Opponents should expect a fair game and not have to suck up a disadvantage unwillingly.

I've never been to a 40K tournament so I have a different concern/perspective than most of you veterns. If I were playing a count as army at a gaming club or other casual situation I think it would be fun. A tournament is a much different matter. I am already laboring under a time constraint in an unfamiliar environment. Asking me to remember which special unit is which ordinary unit is putting a burden on me that is unfair. Even with a picture chart, I've got enough to worry about with my own troops and countering your (the opponents) tactics. It's just expecting too much for me to do all of this with an army that I'm seeing for the first time from an opponent that I've (probably) never met before.
You have an advantage from the start in this situation. Unless I'm using a count as army as well then you get to concentrate on me in a "pure" way. That is you know that my IG guardsman is an IG guardsman and not a horror. Meanwhile I have to remember that your rough riders are bloodcrushers and if I forget to check the chart you gave me I could be majorly screwed.
I'm not trying to take a swipe at anyone in particular but I'm just trying to point out that rookies or inexperienced players are entitled to the same level of fairness and ease as you vets. We already have a problem just getting our legs under us without an extra burden.

Polonius wrote:Well, I'm smart enough to not think that my opponent who says he's playing demons but uses a lot of IG models is running drones. I'm laid back enough that I'm not overly concerned about some minor advantage he might gain. I have enough respect for the hobby side to encourage neat looking armies.

I also know that if I were to model up some counts-as, most people would be ok with it, and most of those that aren't wouldn't say anything to me in person.

Who said anything about thinking that the "daemon" player is actually using gun drones rules? Now you're just making stuff up.

If you don't think that anyone would ever be confused by a counts as army that is incredibly unclear, because you would not be confused and/or not care that you are at a disadvantage, you're nuts. Sorry bud, the world doesn't revolve around you.

Keep in mind that a well painted and well intentioned confusing army is still a confusing army. Are the admech daemons well painted and converted? Sure. Would you judge differently if the army was less well painted, or you thought the other guy was a jerk? I think so. At this point you may realize that how confusing your army is, is not directly related to how nice a guy you are or how much effort you put into painting and converting.


The fact that nobody in real life would want to get you upset about your hard-converted army does not mean that they aren't thinking to themselves "man, I wish this guy's army was more consistent, it's impossible to keep track of what's what". Especially in a tournament.

Well, in this case, I don't need the world to revolve around me. I don't play counts-as, and don't mind if others do.

On the other hand, this thread is full of people saying "the rules you want to use are different than the rules I think you should use, and that gives you an unfair advantage and it's not right."

So, maybe you need to think about who is asking the world to revolve around whom.

Here's a stupid question: I play IG. I run both vets and platoons, and while my squads are all marked, a lot of people find it confusing figuring out what squad is what. I mean, i'm playing the army that way because it's stronger. I'm not using different models, in many cases the exact same poses are in both squads. Does that make me wrong?

What about completely unpainted armies? Why is it somehow ok to show up with a cardboard box full of grey plastic, with no way to tell squads or units apart, but counts as is "an unfair advantage"?

I guess my point is that there are lot of ways to gain an advantage, which have no other utility to the hobby. Once we eliminate hand written lists, unpainted armies, rules lawyering, all forms of cheating, and codex creep, than I can see making counts as armies a pretty big deal. Until then, there are simply easier ways to get ahead.

The best part is we're talking about the Daemon codex. The only truly not so great 5th edition codex and converting to play it is someone trying to gain unfair advantages

I understand where you guys are coming from. But you want a blanket statement when 9/10 the rule of cool will apply to something like this. And you guys (ph34r and nkelsh) will be in the minority. Reece said it best, if you know the Daemon codex well it's pretty easy to keep track of what's what. But then I've played against enough people at tournaments who don't know their own codex let alone mine so who knows right?

I've already ordered little plaques for them from a sight that IM (or someone from adepticon) recommended. Maybe it's my personal take because I think it's fine if my opponent brings something like this. In fact a different army normally get's my vote for best army at the end of the day because it's different.

It's a big hobby. TO's can outlaw stuff like this and most people that build it would just bring another army. It's not like it's my only one and I can tell you, most people would rather see my "Daemons" than my Wolves across the table from them

Oh and Labadomy, your objections were well said my friend.

Polonius wrote:Well, in this case, I don't need the world to revolve around me. I don't play counts-as, and don't mind if others do.

On the other hand, this thread is full of people saying "the rules you want to use are different than the rules I think you should use, and that gives you an unfair advantage and it's not right."

So, maybe you need to think about who is asking the world to revolve around whom.

Here's a stupid question: I play IG. I run both vets and platoons, and while my squads are all marked, a lot of people find it confusing figuring out what squad is what. I mean, i'm playing the army that way because it's stronger. I'm not using different models, in many cases the exact same poses are in both squads. Does that make me wrong?

What about completely unpainted armies? Why is it somehow ok to show up with a cardboard box full of grey plastic, with no way to tell squads or units apart, but counts as is "an unfair advantage"?

I guess my point is that there are lot of ways to gain an advantage, which have no other utility to the hobby. Once we eliminate hand written lists, unpainted armies, rules lawyering, all forms of cheating, and codex creep, than I can see making counts as armies a pretty big deal. Until then, there are simply easier ways to get ahead.

That is all well and good. I in fact love counts as, parts of my IG army are counts as, but I make sure it is very clear what they are. My entire Lamenters army is counts as, because it's the only way to field the Lamenters first company, but it's just a recolor. I'm even fine with significant counts-as armies. Like what hulksmash said, 9/10 times I love counts as. It's that 1/10 that is just confusing and doesn't make sense to an opponent, and can make for some serious problems in a tournament.

I'm saying the world revolves around everyone except the person making the counts as. Basically the exact opposite of what you are saying to me that I think.

That would be a bit confusing, and sure you could alleviate it, but it is totally acceptable for a couple reasons:
1. Those are the official models. Nobody can complain about modeling.
2. The statlines are almost exactly the same. Even if there was an official model, it wouldn't be a problem because they are so similar.

It's okay because that's part of the game, painting your models. I don't think anyone would ever be baffled by color enough to not be able to tell what a lascannon is. It's not even in the same ballpark as my arguments, I don't know why you would think that is a viable counterargument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Polonius wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:cultists stat lines would be similar to a normal humans, counts as armys should pick a codex that best suits their fluff play style, same as the admech daemon army, why would an agumented human with a big gun have no BS points, it doesn't fit.

What's the "fluff play style" for a force that doesn't have an army? If we knew how admech would play, they'd have an army book!

Fact A: Admech has fluff
Fact B: Admech fluff describes them as being similar to Guard, with variations
Fact C: Admech does not have a book
Fact D: Guard has a book

Given the preceding information, one would hope that one could piece together something with their massive powers of deduction and reasoning.

Hello,
Let me say this, if you are creative enough to sculpt, and build your own conversions, while retaining the "flavor of the grimdark,( now in tasty MSG thanks FW)", making it to where your base sizes and army make sense while your armies fit the game. I.E. not doing it just to be cheap. Then I am all for it. It is when I see a bunch of craftworld eldar suddenly with spikes, and he is telling me they are DE and I have no idea what anything is, I have a issue. Of course from a point of someone who works in a game store, if I see you fielding minis that were from a differnt game they you found for a dollar a piece (I am looking at you Mutant Chronicles plastics from like 1998), that did not look right I might ask you to get something that at least looked the part, or had the right guns.

Regards,
Carl

ArbitorIan wrote:

warboss wrote:Alpha Legion are not Space Wolves and this list tests the borders a bit

Wehrkind wrote:No, it's fine and you're a snob

I'm on the Warboss side of things here. Basically, creating counts-as armies is really cool. You should do it. But if you ARE going to do it, it has to be WATERTIGHT. No possible room for confusion. I'd argue that taking Alpha Legion as SW is confusing. The single most annoying thing I'd find is that he has a load of units that are apparently 'cultists' who are much better than regular marines. The general most annoying thing is that I can, off the top of my head, think of at least three better ways to represent AL than using SW. (Chaos Marines with Summoned Daemons, Vraks Renegades and Heretics, Space Marines with lots of regular Scouts). I realise that they maybe 'super-modified genos cultists' but that's still quite a way off of 'better than a marine'. In fact, I'd argue regular Marine scouts or Summondes Daemons are much better placed for the 'modified human' role.

This makes me question the motives for using SW, other than 'I had one army, but wanted another'. If that IS the motive, then it's exactly the same as 'these orks are actually nids'.

There was a thread on here a while ago, soon after the SW codex released, that caused a similar argument. A guy had an amazingly created marine army, with some fantastic jetbike conversions. He'd decided that he should definitely use the SW codex, because then the jetbikes could be thunderwolves. He was bawled out by the whole site because, if his motivation was REALLY to do 'jetbike ancient marines' there are loads of obvious better ways to represent them - Land Speeders, or Bikes for example. It was quite obvious he was just latching onto the new codex.

I'll play ball.

Space Wolf Scouts have the exact same stat line as Tac marines, with carapace armor. Their extra special rules include Acute Senses (fits with sneaky troopers with specs), And They Shall Know No Fear (I agree, iffy), Counter Attack (Iffy, but then the genos troopers in Legion were pretty bad ass standing up to Marines in some cases), Infiltrate (perfect), Move Through Cover (perfect) Behind Enemy Lines (Great), and Scout (yea... perfect.)
So of all their rules, Counter Attack and ATSKNF are the issues. Compared to the marines in power armor in the list, the main differences is the armor and sneakiness.

SM Scouts I would agree would be a bit better; a little lesser WS/BS, no counter attack or acute senses. Otherwise though, they are the same. A little less beefy in melee, but that's about it. Neither acute senses nor counter attack is all that powerful.

Summoned demons though? Really? Somehow infiltrating operatives that only attack in melee, have invulnerable saves, have to deep strike into combat around an icon without any sort of infiltration makes more sense? Really?

I could see the argument that the SM codex would be better, unless he wanted to take multiple character class units. It kind of breaks down then. Personally, I would probably run it as SM; I was thinking of running my LatD as SM, but I already had an SM army I hated to play, so it didn't seem like a good idea Plus Orks worked better for the beefer Marines and more melee oriented gribble.

Vraks though, hell, even I wasn't willing to pony up the cash for the books Blood Pact might work better, but I never was willing to pay that much to find out, and I wouldn't expect someone else to either.

Seriously though, you guys seem to be getting too wrapped up in what the book tells you the rules represent as opposed to what the rules actually represent across all books. Case in point: SW Scouts and regular SM Scouts. 1 point of WS and BS, Acute Senses, Counter attack and Behind Enemy lines are the only difference. Not much "better than a marine" after all, just two special rules, and not vastly better than a regular scout.

I dunno, maybe it is because I am more of a numbers/rules guy, but I see the rules and stats as modeling certain groups of behaviors. So when I say "This unit counts as X" I don't mean they have all the fluff and such, I mean they use the same rules to represent their own fluff. Units are just collections of stats and rules to roughly simulate their fluff. I say roughly, because half the time it is pretty vague, which is why a lot of more out there units have unique special rules. With pretty rare exception, there is a unit for any fluff idea, the trouble is getting them all in one codex.

As for nkelsch, Polonius put it far better than I could.


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RiTides wrote:A side effect of this thread- Wehrkind, I didn't realize you had such an awesome counts-as army (that someone linked to earlier)... that thing rocks!!

Thanks man, I appreciate it . I use a LOT of counts as, partially because my main army is Sisters and Inquisition, the Inq part of which doesn't have official models for most of it, but even with that my guard have Counts As Marbo, my orks are 100% and you have seen my Warriors of Chaos. The only army without counts as is my marines, come to think of it. There are just too many great models out there, and too many missing or crappy GW models, to not throw in different options. Not to mention too many cool ideas entirely without books (though oddly sometimes not without models).

I have to agree that as long as everything is adequately and consistantly represented, counts-as is fine. If every unit in a counts-as, let's say Space Marines for simplicity, army that has a Lascannon is using the same (reasonable) equipment on the model to represent it, be it a giant lazer gun, solid slug firing rail gun, or fancy organic spike launcher it's all good.

I'm a little biased though, as the customization and openness of Warhammer is what (Originally) kept me playing it. And as they're streamlining and removing some of the uniqueness from codices as they go, the counts-as front looks brighter for people like me who want to have characterful forces. I've toyed with a few ideas for them, just never got any off the ground. Though Lost and the Damned eternally tug at me.

Now, I do believe some concessions must be made by the person playing a counts-as force in a competetive setting. The already mentioned name plates or reference sheets are a fantastic idea to keep things moving with less confusion. Is it a little extra hassle? Sure, but someone with a full counts-as army has most likely already put a ton of time and effort into making their idea into a reality, what's another hour or two to ensure that you can play it with little trouble.

The fact that people are getting upset about this is weird to me. I have played in tons of tournaments with all kinds of counts as armies including the "my dark angels are actually space wolves" type and have never had a problem with it.

Counts as armies bring variety tot he table.

If you know the rules well then remembering what is what won't be that difficult. I have never had a problem with it, although maybe I am just that much more intelligent than everyone else. From what some people seem to be saying it is quantum physics to them to remember these things when really it is pretty straightforward.

I think the real issue here is that some people feel that it provides some kind of unfair advantage or disadvantage to allow these things in a tournament. The real reason 99% of people make a counts as army is because they are inspired to build something unique and then want to share it with others. That is hardly something that warrants being barred from a tournament. The only time I could see it being unfair or unreasonable is if it is a totally outlandish substitution (which I understand is subjective). But if something is a reasonable substitution on the correct base size and it is obvious that the intent was not to gain advantage but to be creative then go for it.

Anyway, this argument is silly so I am going to bow out. To each their own I guess.

Reecius wrote:The fact that people are getting upset about this is weird to me. I have played in tons of tournaments with all kinds of counts as armies including the "my dark angels are actually space wolves" type and have never had a problem with it.

Why do you have to use the word "upset" to describe others wishing that tournament armies be clear enough to not confuse an opponent?
Are you trying to troll?


E: Basically implying that everyone else is mad is a really bad way to "bow out" of an argument. Like, the worst.

Was there not a thread already started about this? Tournaments are a strictly WYSIWG imo. I dont pay my money to go to a tournament to fight some godawful count as army and would be bummed out if I had to play one.

ph34r wrote:

Reecius wrote:The fact that people are getting upset about this is weird to me. I have played in tons of tournaments with all kinds of counts as armies including the "my dark angels are actually space wolves" type and have never had a problem with it.

Why do you have to use the word "upset" to describe others wishing that tournament armies be clear enough to not confuse an opponent?
Are you trying to troll?


E: Basically implying that everyone else is mad is a really bad way to "bow out" of an argument. Like, the worst.

I'm not entirely certain his use of upset has the negative connotation you're implying. I think he's genuinely surprised that people have negative feelings at all.

I also think he's saying that most counts as armies are clear enough not to confuse an opponent. I'd add that most counts as armies are clearer than a lot of unpainted armies, and even some painted armies.

The point is, experience has shown that in practice, people tend not to say anything negative about playing against counts as. There are a two possiblities:
1) People are more willing to say negative stuff online, and in person tend to stay quiet, or
2) After playing the army, they realize they're able to keep track of stuff pretty easily

The fact that you think his exit is "the worst" is a little hyperbolic. I mean, if nothing else, you can always be clearer in displaying contempt. Say something like, "I don't get why you losers have your panties in a twist over creative armies." I think that's worse right there.

whitedragon wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

A. i did say they could represent degeared alpha legion marines
B. an enhanced human could be represented by a normal scout but not a space wolves scout

its not ''fluff is in the eye of the beholder'' its the stat line doesn't fit the unit

Why couldn't Alpha Legion have veteran scouts? If your opponent has modelled scouts painted in Alpha Legion colors, with the appropriate weapons, does it really matter if they are "de-geared" marines or enhanced humans or cultists?

To put it another way, why do Space Wolves have the monopoly on scouts in the 41st millenium? Your "B" doesn't compute to me at all. Why can't enhanced humans be veterans either? What is the difference between Luther and a Dark Angels space marine really, besides Longevity and the lack of a Black Carapace?

space wolves scouts are different from standard scouts as they are veteran marines not enhanced humans pre marines, how is a cultist equal to a veteran marine?

polonius wrote:What about completely unpainted armies? Why is it somehow ok to show up with a cardboard box full of grey plastic, with no way to tell squads or units apart, but counts as is "an unfair advantage"?

pointless question, nearlly all non-painted games are among friends as most stores have a paint policy and no tournament (the point of the thread) allow non painted armies.

why not just use the DH codex for AL, I mean you get the uber SM's and wicked psychic powers, and you can use Storm troopers as cultists. Cause lets face it, storm troopers themselves are already fairly advanced humans. At least in training.

I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

BluntmanDC wrote:

polonius wrote:What about completely unpainted armies? Why is it somehow ok to show up with a cardboard box full of grey plastic, with no way to tell squads or units apart, but counts as is "an unfair advantage"?

pointless question, nearlly all non-painted games are among friends as most stores have a paint policy and no tournament (the point of the thread) allow non painted armies.

Really?

Except for hard boys.

And lots of local tournaments.

And even reasonably major RTTs.

Wait, what were you saying again?

Yeah, there are normally at least 3-4 people at local RTT's i've been to all over the west coast and in texas that don't have painted armies. And even GT's with a painting minimum had a dude with 3 dots on half his stuff last at a major event last year. Unpainted happens more than people think.

Thaylen wrote:I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

it wouldn't be allowed in a GW tournament

Hulksmash wrote:Yeah, there are normally at least 3-4 people at local RTT's i've been to all over the west coast and in texas that don't have painted armies. And even GT's with a painting minimum had a dude with 3 dots on half his stuff last at a major event last year. Unpainted happens more than people think

and i think most people would be off at having paid money to have to play someone like that

BluntmanDC wrote:

whitedragon wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

A. i did say they could represent degeared alpha legion marines
B. an enhanced human could be represented by a normal scout but not a space wolves scout

its not ''fluff is in the eye of the beholder'' its the stat line doesn't fit the unit

Why couldn't Alpha Legion have veteran scouts? If your opponent has modelled scouts painted in Alpha Legion colors, with the appropriate weapons, does it really matter if they are "de-geared" marines or enhanced humans or cultists?

To put it another way, why do Space Wolves have the monopoly on scouts in the 41st millenium? Your "B" doesn't compute to me at all. Why can't enhanced humans be veterans either? What is the difference between Luther and a Dark Angels space marine really, besides Longevity and the lack of a Black Carapace?

space wolves scouts are different from standard scouts as they are veteran marines not enhanced humans pre marines, how is a cultist equal to a veteran marine?

Because Space Wolf Scouts do not have particularly veteran stats. How many attacks? Just one. WS/BS? Standard. Ld? Standard. Same special rules as all the other marines in that codex, save for the sneaky bits. So describing them as Veteran Marines instead of sneakier marines is really just reading the fluff not understanding how they work in game. Just because the writer tells you how insanely awesome the unit is does not make it insane or awesome. Hell, most units' stats don't live up to their fluff, hence the existence of Movie Marines.
Besides, Alpha legion operatives are not mere Cultists like you would think of from the Dawn of War games. Alpharius doesn't roll like that. Alpha Legion is too sneaky and clever to use loonies with no subtlety who run around capturing things for chaos. Their operatives are the best at what they do and achieve high placement in various organizations. Think more James Bond than Gay Boy Berzerker.

polonius wrote:What about completely unpainted armies? Why is it somehow ok to show up with a cardboard box full of grey plastic, with no way to tell squads or units apart, but counts as is "an unfair advantage"?

This is an excellent point, as plastic/pewter men all look alike from 4 feet when unpainted, whether they are Stern Guard or Tactical marines.
Speaking of which, none of you guys EVER use Tactical Marines or Assault Marines dolled up a bit to count as Stern Guard or Vanguard Vets, right? Because you know, they make a model and just using marines from your box instead of using a much better looking kit for 50$ is lame.

Thaylen wrote:I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

I think it is freaking awesome, and wish to know where I can get my hands on 2-3!

BluntmanDC wrote:space wolves scouts are different from standard scouts as they are veteran marines not enhanced humans pre marines, how is a cultist equal to a veteran marine?

Why or why not? Seems to me it's most definetely "fluff in the eye of the beholder", since their stats (as shown by Wehrkind) aren't really all that different, and in most cases, the stats contradict the fluff anyway. So what you are really saying is, "If you don't follow my view of the established fluff, then I don't like it". We are all saying first that isn't a very good argument, and second that it's woefully restrictive on creativity that is one of the cornerstones of this hobby.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Thaylen wrote:I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

it wouldn't be allowed in a GW tournament

We don't have GW tournaments over here in the states anymore, with the exception of 'Ard Boyz, so it probably isn't an issue. And even if it was, slap some ork bits on there and paint it cool, and nobody would have a problem.

And to snip another piece from Wehrkind:

"Besides, Alpha legion operatives are not mere Cultists like you would think of from the Dawn of War games. Alpharius doesn't roll like that. Alpha Legion is too sneaky and clever to use loonies with no subtlety who run around capturing things for chaos. Their operatives are the best at what they do and achieve high placement in various organizations. Think more James Bond than Gay Boy Berzerker."

This is my point exactly. The fluff whole heartedly supports super awesome covert Alpha Legionnaires (either Marines or not) running behind enemy lines and causing havok. To suggest otherwise is laughable, and further takes your argument down the "f;uff is in the eye of the beholder" path.

Part of the thing that attracted us to 40k I'd imagine is the rich, open-ended world GW has created. To look at their universe with such black and white glasses really takes some of the richness out of it, and just enforces the notion of stereotype/archetype that everybody loves to get excited about. The 40k universe is something different to everyone, and I find it one of the great pleasures of this game to see how 40k looks through someone else's eyes (via their army/models) especially at a tournament, which (with the exception of 'Ard Boyz) is a showcase not only of good sportsmanship and generalship, but also of painting and hobby ability as well. To place some sort of artificial constraint on that is doing the entire hobby a disservice.

I also hear that if you want such strict interpretation of modelling/painting, Warmachine is a good place to start. (Although even that game is starting to loosen up a bit.)

Wehrkind wrote:

Thaylen wrote:I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

I think it is freaking awesome, and wish to know where I can get my hands on 2-3!

Ebay, they are like $15-20 a pop.

As long as its CLEARLY identifiable

I need the counts-as to be clearly identifiable. I've played against the plastic cup droppod army and I was quite annoyed. On the other side of the coin, a few years ago I played a converted SM army. The land speeders were RalPartha Werewolves with burst cannons on their heads, one dread was a portal on a dread base and the other was 2 beastman cav on a dread base. I stayed reasonably confused for most of the game. Thankfully, plasma cannons fix a lot of those problems. Stay in the middle ground folks. Make life easy on the majority of us.

Polonius wrote:The fact that you think his exit is "the worst" is a little hyperbolic. I mean, if nothing else, you can always be clearer in displaying contempt. Say something like, "I don't get why you losers have your panties in a twist over creative armies." I think that's worse right there.

1. I said "like". Not hyperbolic.
2. Your proposed response would fit the description of "saying that everyone else is mad" that I said. So thanks for supporting my argument?

I'm okay with it, as long as everything is rather easily identifiable. My daemon army is sort of counts-as, but more along the lines of "conversion." Everything has right wargear, right size, etc. Nobody complains, and I get quite a few compliments on the idea, painting, etc. However, I think something like "okay, these necrons with space marines shoulderpads are scouts" is not acceptable. I am exaggerating here, however you get the idea, correct?

I voted B.), in case you were wondering.

ph34r wrote:

Polonius wrote:The fact that you think his exit is "the worst" is a little hyperbolic. I mean, if nothing else, you can always be clearer in displaying contempt. Say something like, "I don't get why you losers have your panties in a twist over creative armies." I think that's worse right there.

1. I said "like". Not hyperbolic.
2. Your proposed response would fit the description of "saying that everyone else is mad" that I said. So thanks for supporting my argument?

I was just giving an example of a worse response.

Polonius wrote:I was just giving an example of a worse response.

Worse response, yep. Still the same type of response: the worst type.

I'm not sure what you're point is, but I think some people here have posted in a way that could reasonably be called "upset."

I think that if you look at reece's comments from the perspective of somebody who wouldn't even think that there would be a problem, seeing the sort of emotion in some of these posts is a bit noteworthy.

I mean, if you did something and found out that other people though it was rude, insensitive, borderline cheating, etc., how is it inappropriate to say, "man, I'm surprised how upset you are over this?"

Thaylen wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:

Thaylen wrote:I have one guy I play with that has converted the Dwarven Steam Behemoth from Mage-Knight for a battlewagon. He removed the base, painted it red, and glued some orky bits and weaponry on it.

What would you guys think of this?

I think it is freaking awesome, and wish to know where I can get my hands on 2-3!

Ebay, they are like $15-20 a pop.

Nice, thanks! I might have to look into those. I guess they don't make them new anymore (I guess not, since I don't remember seeing the name Mage Knight on anything for about 10 years)?

Polonius wrote:I'm not sure what you're point is, but I think some people here have posted in a way that could reasonably be called "upset."

I think that if you look at reece's comments from the perspective of somebody who wouldn't even think that there would be a problem, seeing the sort of emotion in some of these posts is a bit noteworthy.

I mean, if you did something and found out that other people though it was rude, insensitive, borderline cheating, etc., how is it inappropriate to say, "man, I'm surprised how upset you are over this?"

Alright then, I guess I'm just surprised you that all the "land speeder counts as chariot" proponents are upset that they are not universally accepted. Agreed?

That's fair. I don't think people weren't aware that some people might not accept the counts as gladly. I think that the level of hostility expressed was suprising.

"I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that. "

"I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies. "

"Actually now that I think about it, yeah, you do sound like a jerk, the reason being that you think the problem is with them remembering what army you are. "

"you're nuts. Sorry bud, the world doesn't revolve around you. "

"Are you trying to troll? "

I think there is evidence to support a finding of negative emotions being expressed in this thread.

Polonius wrote:
I think there is evidence to support a finding of negative emotions being expressed in this thread.

*LOL*

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? While hyperbole is the best, understatement is often pretty good. Well played sir.

[whistle] Point! Polonius! [hand signal]

Let's move on.