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Oh, I'm not objecting to historically accurate depictions of WWII German forces. I'm objecting to people putting Nazi iconography where they don't have to, eg 40K Guard, for which historical realism isn't a thing.

If you showed up with your historically accurate WWII German army as a proxy for a Guard force, I'd be "eh, whatever." If you start painting swastikas on Leman Russ, I'd be asking you why.

This is how I feel.

German WWII-era vehicles had the Balkan Kreuz as marking, not the swastika
Some units (like the DAK) had a swastika in their divisional symbol, but that's specific cases
However, tanks quite often used a flag on the rear-deck to avoid friendly fire by planes, said flag was often the red one with black swastika on white discus

 SisterSydney wrote:
Oh, I'm not objecting to historically accurate depictions of WWII German forces. I'm objecting to people putting Nazi iconography where they don't have to, eg 40K Guard, for which historical realism isn't a thing.

If you showed up with your historically accurate WWII German army as a proxy for a Guard force, I'd be "eh, whatever." If you start painting swastikas on Leman Russ, I'd be asking you why.

I'd be asking why too, but responses I would find acceptable would be "I like the aesthetic" or "I felt nazi symbols were appropriate for my genocidal imperial army".

So yeah, I'm saying I would find a Brony Bretonnian army more offensive on the table top than an IG army with nazi iconography. If it was someone walking down the street with a brony tshirt vs someone with a nazi tshirt, yeah, I'd find the nazi tshirt more offensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TanKoL wrote:
German WWII-era vehicles had the Balkan Kreuz as marking, not the swastika
Some units (like the DAK) had a swastika in their divisional symbol, but that's specific cases
However, tanks quite often used a flag on the rear-deck to avoid friendly fire by planes, said flag was often the red one with black swastika on white discus

A lot of my WW2 aircraft models have swastikas on their tails. NOT the Balkankreuz (which is on the wings and fuselage).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 SisterSydney wrote:
Oh, I'm not objecting to historically accurate depictions of WWII German forces. I'm objecting to people putting Nazi iconography where they don't have to, eg 40K Guard, for which historical realism isn't a thing.

If you showed up with your historically accurate WWII German army as a proxy for a Guard force, I'd be "eh, whatever." If you start painting swastikas on Leman Russ, I'd be asking you why.

I'd be asking why too, but responses I would find acceptable would be "I like the aesthetic" or "I felt nazi symbols were appropriate for my genocidal imperial army".

So yeah, I'm saying I would find a Brony Bretonnian army more offensive on the table top than an IG army with nazi iconography. If it was someone walking down the street with a brony tshirt vs someone with a nazi tshirt, yeah, I'd find the nazi tshirt more offensive....

Yeah, context isn't everything but it sure counts for a lot.

If you're painting swastikas on IG to make a point about how the Imperium is (at least sometimes) as bad as the worst regimes in human history, I'd respect that, though it might be a little more reality than I'm entirely comfortable with in my game of toy soldiers with giant tanks and chainsaws. "I like the aesthetic" doesn't satisfy me as an answer, honestly -- but unless we knew each other personally I'd just swallow my discomfort and get on with playing the game and enjoying every other aspect that doesn't make me uncomfortable....

....which I hope is what all the people who dislike Pony armies would do if they had to face one. There! I made my saving throw to get back on topic!

This entire thread reminds me of the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon attempts to make a new circle of friends. He ends up returning to his core group of buddies because the new guys were having fun, and they were "doing it wrong."

I can back the idea that a Nazi-themed army would make people uncomfortable.
...but that is neither here nor there. A "My Little Pony" theme isn't morally offensive. Maybe the army is, if you take the game super-seriously, like I do with D&D, but there's nothing ethically corrupt about cartoon ponies, like there is with Nazism,

I can also back the idea that, at a big ol' official tourney like this, the Pony General's opponents might feel a bit cheated.
You worked hard, you paid your entry fee. And Warhammer has enough literature and background info that, if you're not in it for the narrative, I think you're missing out. And if you are, I can see how this army would not satisfy.

Saldiven wrote:
This entire thread reminds me of the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon attempts to make a new circle of friends. He ends up returning to his core group of buddies because the new guys were having fun, and they were "doing it wrong."

Then it would seem you are misunderstanding the points raised in the thread, but then what do expect from someone who watches TBBT.

Its a good show, it took 7 seasons for the shamy kiss but it was worth it :-)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Think difference between ahistorical German force and IG, no need for full Nazi symbols.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 SisterSydney wrote:
Oh, I'm not objecting to historically accurate depictions of WWII German forces. I'm objecting to people putting Nazi iconography where they don't have to, eg 40K Guard, for which historical realism isn't a thing.

If you showed up with your historically accurate WWII German army as a proxy for a Guard force, I'd be "eh, whatever." If you start painting swastikas on Leman Russ, I'd be asking you why.

I'd be asking why too, but responses I would find acceptable would be "I like the aesthetic" or "I felt nazi symbols were appropriate for my genocidal imperial army".

So yeah, I'm saying I would find a Brony Bretonnian army more offensive on the table top than an IG army with nazi iconography. If it was someone walking down the street with a brony tshirt vs someone with a nazi tshirt, yeah, I'd find the nazi tshirt more offensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TanKoL wrote:
German WWII-era vehicles had the Balkan Kreuz as marking, not the swastika
Some units (like the DAK) had a swastika in their divisional symbol, but that's specific cases
However, tanks quite often used a flag on the rear-deck to avoid friendly fire by planes, said flag was often the red one with black swastika on white discus

A lot of my WW2 aircraft models have swastikas on their tails. NOT the Balkankreuz (which is on the wings and fuselage).

I am probably talking out of my ass here but I think the reason for that was that the Luftwaffe was a very nazified branch of the German Armed Forces. Being a highly politicized force it would make sense for their vehicles to have party symbols. Other Heer vehicles did not feature the Swastika other than those of the DAK. Even for them it wasn't a red/white/black deal like some would believe but TanKoL is correct in that some vehicles did display the national flag for identification purposes. Usually these were half tracks, armored cars and soft skin vehucles, though, not MBTs.

More relevant to the topic I see no real problem with the pony army. If they function as gaming pieces then it is an acceptable army.

 Ahtman wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
This entire thread reminds me of the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon attempts to make a new circle of friends. He ends up returning to his core group of buddies because the new guys were having fun, and they were "doing it wrong."

Then it would seem you are misunderstanding the points raised in the thread, but then what do expect from someone who watches TBBT.

No, I understand them completely.

I'm just mocking them as being the kind of thing that Sheldon would raise.

This is a game of little plastic army men that people are taking WAY TOO SERIOUSLY.

Some people do spend a lot of time, energy, and talent painting their little army men so they look awesome, though. I can understand some of them being prickly about people who don't put in the time.

This has gotten quite far afield, but the issue of army appearance standards was never being considered in a vacuum / by itself... it was in the context of an event with a painting requirement.

That really is the only reason there's a discussion at all... if it's not going to be enforced, then an event shouldn't list a painting requirement. But if it does, in that context everyone who paid to participate in that event is expecting armies to meet a minimum appearance standard.

This particular case was more complex because the TO gave approval beforehand. They posted on one of the earlier pages here that they would not be approving armies like this in the future, so it will be a non-issue going forward.

I think regardless of theme, prepainted toys do not meet the painting requirement of the vast majority of GT events. Again, these are paid events with additional requirements for participation in them. I use a monsterpocalypse model in my army, and the paint scheme was even similar to my army's... but I still repainted it, because prepainted toys just aren't meeting the minimum standards for a GT event.

Live and learn, I don't think this is really that big of a deal, but participation in these events is totally optional- if someone does not want to paint their army, then they are not (usually) allowed to participate, which is why this isn't usually an issue. In this case, permission was granted, but since the TO has said that that was a mistake and they won't be repeating it, I really think there's nothing more to see here. Unless you lot want to keep discussing swastikas

 RiTides wrote:
" prepainted toys do not meet the painting requirement of the vast majority of GT events. "

Doesn't that discount any armies painted by other people? Does it matter who did the painting?

It does not matter to me, as the opponent of the person fielding the army, whether they had it professionally painted or not.

And I think that's really the point here- what people can reasonably expect to face at an event with a painting requirement. I also think it's pretty clear that the vast majority of prepainted toys would fall outside of that requirement (G.I. Joe or similar action figures, toy dinosaurs for Lizardmen, etc).

And as noted, the TO already came in and said this army would not qualify for their requirements in the future. That makes this a non-issue going forward, but the question of "What is painted?" is certainly something all tournies face. Many now have changed their painting rubric to stop people from doing the "3 dots of color on a model" route. There are always going to be loopholes in the letter of the rules, but the intent is pretty clear imo.

I would never have the guts to toe that line at an event, personally... I know it's hard for TOs to tell people they cannot participate, and they rarely do, but the painting requirement is there so that hopefully people will put in the effort (or the funds, if they're paying someone to paint) to bring an army that is well done.

Putting (factory prepainted) toys on square bases does not meet that minimum requirement for the vast majority of events... to use my above example, I'd feel the same way about facing Skylanders or Pokemon or G.I. Joe toys. It might be totally fine for a fun game as proxies, but it's not something that would be allowed at any GT that I know of, due to the extra requirements they lay out for the presentation of armies.

To me it's about

1) not putting in the time. That entire army probably took less time to throw together than it takes me to paint 3 actual Bretonnian Knights.

2) It not being remotely a bretonnian army. Using unpainted toy dinosaurs as lizardmen would be more fitting than this army. It's not Knights on horseback in a medieval setting. It's not even a cavalry army, it's just horses. It's no more a Bretonnian army than if I mounted Termagants on cavalry bases and called them knights.

Now, I'm a pretty easy going person when you meet me in person, so yeah, I'd just play against it without making a fuss, but it would definitely annoy me. Honestly, yeah, I'd rather play against a Nazi themed IG army than a brony army... some people might find it more morally offensive, but to me at least it fits the 40k grimdark and I'd treat it the same as playing a video game like Wolfenstien.

 RiTides wrote:
It does not matter to me, as the opponent of the person fielding the army, whether they had it professionally painted or not.

And I think that's really the point here- what people can reasonably expect to face at an event with a painting requirement. I also think it's pretty clear that the vast majority of prepainted toys would fall outside of that requirement (G.I. Joe or similar action figures, toy dinosaurs for Lizardmen, etc).

And as noted, the TO already came in and said this army would not qualify for their requirements in the future. That makes this a non-issue going forward, but the question of "What is painted?" is certainly something all tournies face. Many now have changed their painting rubric to stop people from doing the "3 dots of color on a model" route. There are always going to be loopholes in the letter of the rules, but the intent is pretty clear imo.

I would never have the guts to toe that line at an event, personally... I know it's hard for TOs to tell people they cannot participate, and they rarely do, but the painting requirement is there so that hopefully people will put in the effort (or the funds, if they're paying someone to paint) to bring an army that is well done.

Putting (factory prepainted) toys on square bases does not meet that minimum requirement for the vast majority of events... to use my above example, I'd feel the same way about facing Skylanders or Pokemon or G.I. Joe toys. It might be totally fine for a fun game as proxies, but it's not something that would be allowed at any GT that I know of, due to the extra requirements they lay out for the presentation of armies.

I am going to push back on you a little, and ask what the difference is between factory painted models and commissioned painted models are. Assuming they are done to the same standard, the owner of the models paid for the paint either way. The owner will get docked for painting if people don't like the look either way. That's what painting/modeling scores are there for, to punish people who bring ugly armies and reward people who bring pretty ones. So if you want to move beyond simple "Looks good/bad" and put special rules and requirements based on what third parties painted the models, you ought to be able to clearly explain the distinction.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Some people do spend a lot of time, energy, and talent painting their little army men so they look awesome, though. I can understand some of them being prickly about people who don't put in the time.

Correct, and since that's what they do, the expect other people to do the same thing, too. They expect other people to derive the same pleasure as they do from the same aspects of the hobby as they do.

Hence, "they're having fun, and they're doing it wrong."

Saldiven wrote:

 SisterSydney wrote:
Some people do spend a lot of time, energy, and talent painting their little army men so they look awesome, though. I can understand some of them being prickly about people who don't put in the time.

Correct, and since that's what they do, the expect other people to do the same thing, too. They expect other people to derive the same pleasure as they do from the same aspects of the hobby as they do.

Hence, "they're having fun, and they're doing it wrong."

Except that when I paint an army its as much for the enjoyment of my opponent as it is for me. Sure I get to pick the colors and I like to paint. But when I put them on the table its as much for the overall gaming experience of both players as it is for me. So when I plop down my well painted army, and I face yet again another grey plastic or primered army, its my opponent who is saying "this is all about MY gaming experience". Since he doesn't like to paint he gets to say "feth you, I just like rolling dice"? I think you have it backwards, the people who don't paint their armies are the "its-all-about-my-fun" crowd and not the likes of us who insist its part of the hobby (calling us elitist I think it was).

C'mon, though, I don't think anybody paints their army for the primary purpose of increasing some stranger's pleasure in facing said army in a game -- in fact, I'd expect that's usually a distant second or third or fourth behind "I like painting models," "I like looking at my awesomely painted models," and/or "I like showing my friends my awesomely painted models."

Yeah, it's more fun to play against a cool-looking army than an ugly one, but as we've already discussed in this thread, some people (eg me) would be thrilled to watch the Pony Army in action. I suspect those people are roughly equal in number to the ones who would find it a bummer.

In short, we can all agree unpainted and badly painted armies are less fun to play against. We very definitely don't agree on whether the Pony Legions would be more or less fun to play against. So which of these two things should TOs be stricter about banning: the thing everybody dislikes or the thing some people dislike & others like?

 quickfuze wrote:

Except that when I paint an army its as much for the enjoyment of my opponent as it is for me. Sure I get to pick the colors and I like to paint. But when I put them on the table its as much for the overall gaming experience of both players as it is for me. So when I plop down my well painted army, and I face yet again another grey plastic or primered army, its my opponent who is saying "this is all about MY gaming experience". Since he doesn't like to paint he gets to say "feth you, I just like rolling dice"? I think you have it backwards, the people who don't paint their armies are the "its-all-about-my-fun" crowd and not the likes of us who insist its part of the hobby (calling us elitist I think it was).

Your mistake I believe is in assuming it is one person and not both. Gaming is a collaborative social game in most senses, and like most collaborative games each person has to respect how far the other wants to go. Just because one person wants to take an aspect farther because he is sure the other will like it does not mean he is right to try and force the other person to do so.

There are some obvious examples there, but seeing as how we just stopped talking about Nazis, I will leave them to you. Sufficed to say, no one likes being forced to have fun in a way they don't find fun. Each person has a different view of what that is, and the best you can do is work towards meeting in the middle and getting the most of what you want without overstepping what they want.

Tournaments are an example of where certain play styles are supported more than others. In tournaments you are expected to try and win, and build an army that will do so, as opposed to friendly games where maybe you want to focus on fluff or something. In general in tournaments it is understood that you can do everything allowed by the rules to try and win, so crying over an opponent having a cheesy list is silly. People who hate playing cheesy lists are warned to stay away; no one cares about their gaming experience.

Sorry, I am getting a little far afield perhaps; I just woke up. In general I just meant to say that both people are responsible for the outcome of the game, but you shouldn't expect both people to want or even like the same thing. As such, you can't say "well, this one isn't contributing as much to the public good of the game as me, therefor they are bad;" it is entirely possible that they would be much worse off by contributing, and so it would be unreasonable to ask that they do in every case.

Wehrkind, I guess I'll turn the question back on you then: would you be happy to play against Pokemon, Skylanders, G.I.Joes, or an army of toy dinosaurs at an event?

You're keying in on "factory versus commission painted" but that's obviously a hard rubric to define. The fact is, this army is made of (and looks like) toys rather than models.

That is a blurry line to be sure but I have seen a number of events that list "toys" as not allowed, although excellent conversions are. Where is that line? How do you define it? That is for each TO and event to decide.

This TO and event admitted they made a mistake allowing this army earlier in this thread. It obviously does not mean many people's standards. If someone else wants to run an event that caters to armies like this, they are welcome to... but they should also not expect that this would be considered an acceptable level of appearance for most events.

I'm not going to try to define what many TOs have had trouble doing for a long time- what's an acceptable army. But I will simply point to the reaction in this thread as evidence that this army falls below that bar. It's not up to the people to decide, it is up to TOs... but good TOs are specifically tailoring their events to be what many people want to attend, and so they take popular / majority opinion into account in setting up their requirements.

I believe that, were the player here to ask permission of any other GT ahead of time if he could bring this army, he would be told "No". The TO posted here saying he had spoken to him and that he'd agreed he wouldn't be taking it to any more GTs, and that it wouldn't be allowed at their GT. The player also posted here that he took it as a lesson learned. If we consider only the hypothetical, there is an infinite number of grey area cases that may or may not be acceptable to a particular GT... but what is clear is that in the case of this GT and this army, it is not acceptable going forward.

Much beyond that is a game of speculation and guessing... I've tried to articulate where I think that line is, but since I'm not a TO I don't have to make that call. I think the guidelines exist to encourage players to go above and beyond the minimum acceptable level of appearance, so that TOs hopefully have less armies "on the line" that they have to either penalize or exclude. Saying an army is equivalent to the worst painted armies at an event for appearance is damning it with faint praise... and while some may squeak through and be allowed, obviously that is not something to aim for. And where that cutoff line is is going to be hard to exactly define, as many things are treated on a case-by-case basis.

The point is, that you don't want to be close to the line and this is, I think everyone would agree even if they think it should be allowed, VERY close to that line.

 RiTides wrote:
Wehrkind, I guess I'll turn the question back on you then: would you be happy to play against Pokemon, Skylanders, G.I.Joes, or an army of toy dinosaurs at an event?

Actually yes, they would be better than some GW armies I have faced I'll break it down a little:

1: Pokemon : actually, I would love this (I have enough hours in Pokemon Silver to receive a BS in it.) I might tank the guy on painting scores if the bases were not nice, but really if the army looked good and internally consistent I wouldn't feel bad with decent scores. A Pokemon counts-as demons army could be really something. Granted, the usual rules of counts-as apply, particularly "it has to be clear what is what, at least when shown/explained."

2: I don't know what Skylanders look like in person, but the Google images of the figures make them look really good. (Granted, so do Rackham's promo images of their pre-painted models, which are... optimistic ) Rebase those bad boys and come up with a cool counts as theme, and I'll bite.

3: GI Joe: The scale is going to be wonky; fitting them on the proper bases would be really, really tough. If you ran them as Ogres on 40mm with melee weapons in their hands, that could work. They'd probably be floppy though, and fixing them up to avoid that sort of problem would probably require GS/gluing of joints and painting over that, at which point you are nearly at painting them yourself. Wouldn't be my first choice.

I would like to point out though that I have played a game that did use GI Joes as models a number of years back. It was sort of like a Necromunda style deal, which each character stated out and 54mm scenery used. The rules could have been tighter (it was a home brew) but it was pretty cool.

So that's the thing, I don't have a problem with toys. Sure, I prefer awesome models meticulously painted. I even have my own preferences of styles of painting I like to see. I do think that we are playing with toys, however; just some are nicer looking than others.
Now, I am totally down with TO's saying "Ok, this is our requirements", but I do want to encourage people to use soft scores like painting/modeling to socially punish armies they don't like the look of instead of banning them entirely. I think it is better to err on the side of "that's silly, but is allowed".

Then again, maybe I am just biased because my counts as Warmahordes forces a illegal at a lot of tournaments

Well, if you're OK with all of that, I can't poke holes in your position, just say that it is different than mine

About your last sentence- your awesome counts-as Warmahordes models would pass "rule of cool" and be allowed at almost any independent GW event. PP is just a lot stricter in their official events (which is one of the things that turned me off to playing warmahordes, since you're not allowed to convert much, but many of the models really need it! Imo, of course).

Yea, I really do miss that about the GW games. I have a pile of models I have bought just because, and can't really do anything with them now

Speaking of which, you need to teach me to 6th edition properly so I can have some filthy mutant heretics and their Word Bearer masters tear your bugs a new hole

 Wehrkind wrote:
A Pokemon counts-as demons army could be really something. Granted, the usual rules of counts-as apply, particularly "it has to be clear what is what, at least when shown/explained."

Perfect!

"Pikachu, I choose you.... from the depths of HELLL!"

I figure that is what Pokeballs basically are anyway, little tethers to the warp, binding a specific entity. You find the little demons running around the material plane, smack them around then banish them using the tiny, rune inscribed techno sphere.

There's an epic crossover fanfic in there... but don't ask me to write it, all I know about Pokemon is that Pikachu is cute and so is the evil redhead (Jessie, I think?).

Anyway! Another argument for non-standard counts-as models.

 SisterSydney wrote:
So which of these two things should TOs be stricter about banning: the thing everybody dislikes or the thing some people dislike & others like?

They can't be strict on both? They should learn to multitask.

I may be biased but I love that army and would gladly pit my Dark Elves against it