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Hey folks! This is COMPLETELY a hypothetical situation. I just want to feel out how other folks think.

Marine Codices have traditionally been something that players can swap codices between - with a "These are Black Templar today!" switching to "These are Space Wolves today!" with a bit of model switching. I've seen Ultramarine Blood Angels, and completely red space wolves that were painted (and usually played to be Blood Angels).

Grey Knights are the first Marine codex that I'm aware of where swapping codices with the same models isn't really possible. Grey Knights don't have the same wargear, weaponry, special weapons that other armies do.

I wonder how many people are using "counts as" Grey Knights with their other marine armies?

So what happens if a GT has a WYSIWYG rule, and you face off against an opponent who plops down an odd collection of Space Wolves or Blood Angels or Regular Marines....and hands you a GK army list? A variety of responses have come to mind, but I don't know what the appropriate response is.

"Uh...your army list says Nemesis Force Halberds but those guys all have bolters."
"Uh...your list says psycannons, but all I see are two missile launchers."
"Uh...so I take it that your army is on another table and you grabbed someone elses' by mistake?"
"Uh...none of that is WYSIWYG. I'm not playing against it - its not my job to remember an entire army proxy. Didn't you read the event rules?"

What *is* appropriate? I just went through a couple weeks of *heavy* conversions, revamping 90% of my army to be appropriate to fit into their appropriate WYSIWYG. When I start the GT circuit, my junk is going to *be* WYSIWYG. Either I have it, or I converted it into something reasonable (like LOTR Wargs + Tyranid Scything Talons = Khymerae). I'm having trouble imagining tolerance for people who didn't bother doing the same are and using "counts as" for their other marine armies to be Grey Knights.

What's your attitude? TOs, how would you deal with this situation? If you kick off your event, and a player calls over a judge and complains that their opponent's army isn't WYSIWYG, what do you do?

I don't mind conversions, or even a bit of counts as - especially when models don't exist. But I'm having nightmares about entire "Counts as" GK armies.

I agree with your responses-- in a true WYSIWYG environment, Tacs (or Grey Hunters, or CSMs, or Assault Marines) are not going to cut it as Grey Knights. At minimum, I would expect to see power swords and storm bolters on normal Marine bodies. While that isn't really WYSIWYG-- the Nemesis force weapons look quite different from standard power weapons-- it would be close enough to satisfy me in that respect. Similarly, I would expect psycannons in such an army to be converted, probably either from heavy bolters or assault cannons (on Terminators), and certainly not missile launchers.

"Your army does not appear to be WYSIWYG. We may have to call over a judge/TO."

That's probably what I would say because I can be a pushover sometimes (most of the time).

I concur that merely swapping out SM-models will not really cut it. I can understand Grey Knights not painted as Grey Knights but they ought to be equipped as Grey Knights.

"Your army does not appear to be WYSIWYG. I'm sorry, but we have to call over a judge/TO."

I could see accepting a certain degree of counts-as, but a sword is not the same as a halberd. A bolter is not a storm bolter. Etc.

Mannahnin wrote:"Your army does not appear to be WYSIWYG. I'm sorry, but we have to call over a judge/TO."

I could see accepting a certain degree of counts-as, but a sword is not the same as a halberd. A bolter is not a storm bolter. Etc.

This is exactly my take on it. I don't even mind a storm bolter and power weapon on a normal marine body. But if someone puts down a Tactical Marine with a bolter, I'd have to draw the line, and I'm someone that doesn't even mind proxies for most games. But at a GT where I've likely spent a lot of money and put a lot of time into my own preparation, I think I'd probably feel more than a little insulted if someone set up an army full of proxies across from me, especially if it's not the first round, meaning no one spoke up, or no judge saw fit to enforce the rules of the event before that point.

Edit - All that above said, I've seen some pretty cool Custodes as Grey Knights conversions using a chopped up Halberd and Bolter to look like the old style Nemesis weapons. I'd totally allow that.

Pretty much +1 to all the above responses. Politely calling a judge/TO over would be completely justified. If the models don't have Stormbolters and PWs then they aren't WYSIWYG.

If it's a Wysiwyg event, they'd apparently be going against the rules. First off, the TO should have spotted that and done something to fix it, second off, if tht happens, call a TO over. Either they play it as the army it is, get some Grey Knights, or forfeit the match- and probably the tourney.

Then I hope that no TOs are weak-willed enough to have WYSIWYG as a rule, then let it pass if they get put on the spot to make a decision about it. I don't mean that to sound confrontational, I promise - I can't think of another way to put it.

One can kind of understand the spot they'd be in. At a big event, people have often traveled a significant distance, and it sucks to have to DQ someone for the weekend.

Really, TOs should have a loaner army on hand for just such an occasion. If someone shows up at an event with an unpainted or non-WYSIWYG army, they get to either re-make their list into something they've brought which is actually painted and WYSIWYG, or they get to use the loaner army.

Some years back there was a nightmare story at a GW GT where a kid showed up with a "Dark Eldar" army which was mostly just proxies from Empire models. Down to a great cannon pretending to be a Ravager. Downright disgraceful. And the GW guys let him play with it. It was an absolute travesty, but one understands (a little bit) how it happens.

I ran into this on Friday at my FLGS.

First guy was running rogue era marines painted in 5 different color schemes combined with a walker from dust tactics as grey knights... The guy was new to the group so I just grinned and said why not. Second game of the night was against an honest to god grey knights squad with a plethora of old 2nd/3rd gen terminators painted as blood angels.

Needless to say I'd love to actually play against grey knights and will no longer be playing against "Counts as" grey knights as its not my job to know what proxies for what for an entire army.

Mannahnin wrote:

Really, TOs should have a loaner army on hand for just such an occasion. If someone shows up at an event with an unpainted or non-WYSIWYG army, they get to either re-make their list into something they've brought which is actually painted and WYSIWYG, or they get to use the loaner army.

That's a good idea; especially the re-making the list part, which saves trouble all around. But what about the game being interrupted? Tournament clock is ticking down, and I would be EXTREMELY pissed if my super fast army only gets through two turns because my opponent had to create a new list because they were too lazy to abide by the GT rules and bring a WYSIWYG army.

If the TO mistakenly allows the army in and you encounter it mid-tournament, obviously there's no time for remaking the list. If a loaner army and list are immediately available they should be employed immediately, and extra time put on the clock to compensate if at all possible.

That being said, I rather doubt that a loaner army is going to be right on hand if the TO was disorganized enough to allow the non-WYSIWYG army into the event in the first place. At that point, the fairest option is probably a forfeit for the non-WYSIWYG player for that round. The opponent gets a Win if it's a straight W/L or W/L/D event, or a Win with battle points equal to the max which any other player scored in that round if it's battle points. That way they don't lose ground for it, but they don't get unearned bonus points over people who had to actually play.

I think when an entire army is not what it appears to be , its unfair for the person to keep track, which would allow alot of potential cheating.

I have a question tho. At a GT im bringing 6 Wave Serpents all with "Bright Lance" Turrets. My list says all my wave serpents have scatter lazers, and because all of my serpents have the same wep I dont see the bright lances as being a problem because there all the same. Is this an actual problem I have to fix? Because Idk where to get 6 turrets.

Ugh. Yeah, I'm sorry to say, but it is a problem.

I'd recommend picking up scatter laser turrets (or just a dozen scatter lasers) online and converting the tanks to have swappable gun options.

Mannahnin wrote:Ugh. Yeah, I'm sorry to say, but it is a problem.

I'd recommend picking up scatter laser turrets (or just a dozen scatter lasers) online and converting the tanks to have swappable gun options.

yea well 6 vehicles with the same weapon. Dont see how its a problem lol.

Yea short of spending 350 on new tanks I havent found a way to actually get turrets or weapons.

Smitty0305 wrote:I think when an entire army is not what it appears to be , its unfair for the person to keep track, which would allow alot of potential cheating.

I have a question tho. At a GT im bringing 6 Wave Serpents all with "Bright Lance" Turrets. My list says all my wave serpents have scatter lazers, and because all of my serpents have the same wep I dont see the bright lances as being a problem because there all the same. Is this an actual problem I have to fix? Because Idk where to get 6 turrets.

Well, hit up the Warstore for some Scatter Lasers? They ship bits fast. Friend with some maybe??

I know that a *HUGE* no-no in tournaments is saying, "This melta is a flamer" or "This bright lance is a scatter laser" or "This missile launcher is a lascannon." That's why post-codex release for BA, IG, SW there was such a HUGE rush on missile launcher devastators, melta guns...I remember 'Ard Boyz last year or two years ago, GW was out of stock of melta gun bits. For EIGHT WEEKS because everyone and their brother was trying to get ready for the tournament - where you need WYSIWYG.

That stuff definitely gets crunched down on.

Either convert it, get the bits quickly, or build your list according to what you actually have. But in terms of the Alamo, with a WYSIWYG in the door policy, if your wave serpents have twin bright lances on them, and you say, "No, those are scatter lasers" your opponent is going to say, "No, those are bright lances...and your list is incorrect and apparently has too many points in it too."

An army list is a description of the models you have on the table - not a guide to explain what the models on the table count as.

With my Dark Eldar...I hit local events using "counts as" because the new stuff wasn't out yet. Subbed in some other stuff. They're ok with it because its a local event - and those are not usually particularly stringent on standards, just a base guideline unless its getting abused.

At a national event...you simply CANNOT show up without the models that are in your list.

FW makes wave serpent turrets. Six of them won't run you anywhere near $350, they're maybe $20 each.

Is it harsh that you need to do this? I don't think so. WYSIWYG is explicitly defined as a game rule. Play in your basement with your friends, do what you want. Play at a tournament where your opponent has paid an entry fee, and possibly a hotel and travel costs as well and they should expect to face an army that meets the rules.

Event rules are posted for all to see well in advance. I don't feel bad for a player who travels to an event with an army that doesn't meet the rules, I feel bad for their opponent. The player who fails to meet the rules should be asked to leave before pairings are even posted, not coddled and allowed to play - that's unfair to their opponents who are not only paying customers, but presumable paying customers who are actually following the rules.

I'm not sold on providing them alternative armies either. TOs have enough to worry about when organizing an event. Bringing extra armies for people who cannot follow simple instructions should not need to be another concern. "Sorry, you don't meet the requirements to play in this event." And if they paid for travel, maybe next time they'll learn to read beforehand.

Smitty0305 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Ugh. Yeah, I'm sorry to say, but it is a problem.

I'd recommend picking up scatter laser turrets (or just a dozen scatter lasers) online and converting the tanks to have swappable gun options.

yea well 6 vehicles with the same weapon. Dont see how its a problem lol.

Yea short of spending 350 on new tanks I havent found a way to actually get turrets or weapons.

The War Store's Battlewagon Bitz section has scatter lasers for $4.99 each. GW sells the whole eldar heavy weapons sprue for $6.60. You may be able to get them cheaper trading with other players or buying them on Ebay or elsewhere online. Seriously, it costs $60 if you go the laziest possible route and don't already own any. And if you have Eldar stuff, you certainly already have some Scatter Lasers.

Something else that I thought of that is generally applicable to everyone...

There *is* a degree of "Counts as" and "Proxying" and "conversion" that works in GTs too. at the SVDM last year, I had 30 Lootas. 20 of them were Lootas, and 10 of them were very heavily converted big shootas - such that no one could POSSIBLY confuse my converted Lootas with big shootas. That was the requirement to meet the WYSIWYG rule for the tournament. Since I was doing custom work, I even contacted Mikhaila, told him what I had done, got further guidance on making them acceptabe....might even have sent pictures.

I've converted my own DE venoms. They're based on other vehicles - but cannot POSSIBLY be mistaken for any other vehicle - since the WYSIWYG features are not replicable on any other vehicle in 40k. You CANNOT look at one of my Venoms and say, "Oh, that's a XXXX."

Not having Scatter Lasers on your Wave Serpents is something you could get away with...IF...whatever you *do* have on your wave serpents doesn't look like anything else. Not EMLs, not bright lances, not shuriken anythings....something unique, preferably looking like what a scatter laser does; whether made out of plasticard, cardboard, or whatever...the WYSIWYG is meant to present visually distinct representation of a model.

Because if you don't - if you play your 6 bright lance wave serpents as scatter lasers...what happens when you win the roll to go first against someone...who has a land raider, and they reserve it. Turn 2 they come in from reserves, and you're shooting your scatter lasers elsewhere and he says, "Wait...those are bright lances." And you say, "No...those are scatter lasers. I told you at the beginning." And he says, "I didn't hear it...I only reserved my land raider so that you wouldn't throw six twin-linked bright lances at it."

The game just broke - because your opponent presumed what he saw is what you were equipped with. In the best interpretation, you've burdened your opponent unfairly and have an extremely unfair advantage. In the worst interpretation, you're cheating. The difference between the two can get pretty narrow. It really *is* one of the most important issues at tournaments. Important enough that I'd even make a thread asking what to do if someone dared to try ignoring WYSIWYG to play a "Counts as GK" army because they're so used to just swapping marine codices with their models. I've never actually had anyone *not* be WYSIWYG in a GT game before.

I really don't see a problem with the bright lances counting as scatter lasers, IF every bright lance on a wave serpent counted as a scatter laser. This removes any kind of confusion.

augustus5 wrote:I really don't see a problem with the bright lances counting as scatter lasers, IF every bright lance on a wave serpent counted as a scatter laser. This removes any kind of confusion.

It doesn't necessarily, though, as Dash's example illustrates. It puts an unreasonable burden on your opponent.

You could just as easily say that a Space Wolf player could use all lascannon models in his army but play them as missile launchers. Or an IG player have all the meltaguns in his vet squads represented by plasma. Sorry, but that's not going to fly.

augustus5 wrote:I really don't see a problem with the bright lances counting as scatter lasers, IF every bright lance on a wave serpent counted as a scatter laser. This removes any kind of confusion.

Where do you stop? Where's the line? If every guardsman on the table is an identically equipped Grey Knight Paladin, it removes any kind of confusion. If every square chimera shaped piece of paper is an identically equipped chimera, there's no confusion there either.

It's very clear (ok, most of the time). If a tourney packet indicates all models must be WYSIWYG, then the offending player should not get a pass, period. If the TO will not enforce the rules in their own packet, then that is where you advise them after the event you will no longer be able to support their event for such reasons. If the TO folds on this very simple ruling, what other rulings are they failing on?

Folks who are trying this, just stop. Folks can spot the difference between conversion work and simply using proxies b/c you think you've built the uber winner army, but couldn't be bothered to model it properly.

And finally: No, Brightlances can not and should not be counted as Scatterlasers in a GT setting. Period, end of story.

I understand the point about not wanting to DQ someone who traveled a long distance to get to a big tournament, but I also don't understand why someone who's willing to travel that far wouldn't check their list and army over and over again to make sure it didn't all foul of the rules laid out for the tournament. Yeah, it would suck, but it's REALLY annoying even in local games to have to go back and ask EVERY turn what the grenade launchers, flamers and plasma guns really were in that squad (we have some local IG players that do this). In a tournament, where time matters, it's just not right.

I think it boils down to the entitlement attitude that seems to be pervasive in our society nowadays. I don't see being able to play as any codex you want at any time as a right; you need to put the time/effort/money into an army to get it legal if you want to play that codex. If you don't have the models, sorry. Save up your pennies, get them painted, and ten show up with that codex.

(I'd also like to blame video games, rock music and methamphetamine</old man rant> )

Lorek wrote:(I'd also like to blame video games, rock music and methamphetamine</old man rant> )

Nice

Yeah... wysiwyg. There are little areas you can let slide, but weapons aren't one of them...

I could handle paint jobs not looking the same... my blood angels and codex marines are both red for swapping purposes.... but the models i use are all WYSIWYG in terms of wargear.

To be honest my attitude is does it look right fitting into the army. Do the counts as make sense? Can they be confused for anything else? I've happily attended tournaments with my Trolls counting as Minotaurs as there is no other creatures of vaguely the same shape in the list. None of my opponents had much of a problem as they looked right (and frankly are far nicer than the Minotaur models). Equally I refused to use my flys as Harpies as their just to small to counts-as adequately.

Mannahnin wrote:"Your army does not appear to be WYSIWYG. I'm sorry, but we have to call over a judge/TO."

I could see accepting a certain degree of counts-as, but a sword is not the same as a halberd. A bolter is not a storm bolter. Etc.

This is what I think too Dash. GK are not just another Marine dex, although they die as easily as regular Marines . If you want to run a counts as with GK at a TOURNAMENT then you better have magnetized weapons and such so your ML can become Psycannons. In this situation it has stopped being Counts As and has become a Proxied Army which is not tolerable at a tournament.

I'm generally more of a player than a painter/modeler, but I show up with fully painted and converted armies. By "fully converted" I don't mean everything is perfect... You'll see the wrong shoulder pads (covered in a uniform single-color coat of the right armies color), storm bolters made of 2 bolt pistols and some green stuff, warhammer fantasy weapons that uniformly are as close as you can come to the right 40k hand weapon (sorry if the midget arms look silly- empire simply aren't the same size as space marines!), ect.

My theory is that my opponent deserves to play something that looks like an army. My opponent shouldn't have to ask "what is that?" more than once a game unless he doesn't know the codex. It should all be self explanatory and fairly uniform. If, however, my opponent wants to stick his face closer than 18 inches from my models and get silly about details I'm going to lose sportsmanship scores due to my reaction. It's all there down to the melts-bombs... With twitchy hands like mine I'll never win a Golden Daemon so I don't get too bent out of shape about the details and do some definitely sloppy conversions.

I love ruberic-based painting scoring:

Is this Army painted to a 3 color standard? (5 points)

Are these models based and flocked? (3 points)

Does this look like an army (IE is there an overall color scheme with units differentiated in some way?) 3 points.

Are details such as eyes, boots, grenades and such picked out? (3 points)

Has there been substantial conversion work done? (3 points)

Subjectively, is this army exceptional in appearance? (3 points)


So I lose 3-6 points/percent next to the Golden Daemon winner who is going blind from hours spent with a magnifying glass, a dremel, and single-hair fine brushes. I'm OK with that. I checked most of the boxes and got almost as good a score, now let's play.

IMHO Grey Knights are not a Marine dex. They are not wearing power and terminator armor, they have special armor. Similar, sure, but they are distinct. Almost none of their weapon options overlap with other marine codexes, You can't just say a random termie with TH/SS is now a grey knight.

Personally, I see very valid paths for a unifying armor scheme for almost all the major marine codexes as long as the few unique units are modeled, but Grey knights just doesn't fit. I hope TOs don't succumb to crying of unfair and burdensome proxies.

As for heavy weapons... Personally, I support magentizing and swapping out the correct parts. I also support swapping dudes so they hold the right weapons. I feel it is easy and cheap enough to get the bitz from online stores and eBay. As for your Lootas Dash, that is a clear example of 'counts as' as they care clearly no longer BS and a Deffgun is the closest set of rules available for the model. There is a distinct difference between using 10 stock BS as deffguns and using 10 converted BS as deffguns, especially since lootas may take stock BS as a valid weapon choice.

As for people swapping to whatever heavy weapon is best... I think for tourneys it should be WYSIWYG. You can explain something 100 times, but the whole point is you shouldn't have to. Ina competitive setting, I think there is something to be said for fielding a clear WYSIWYG army and fairness to opponents.