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Howdy all!

I'm starting my first army (I've chosen Black Templar) and had a question concerning WYSIWIG etiquette.

For several reasons, I was planning on building my army without using the special Templar bitz and just using the "Counts As" option. I also wanted to use a similar but slightly different color scheme. My reasoning is as follows:
1). I don't have a whole lot of money to spend and those bits are way too expensive
2). I am a newbie painter and don't want to have to deal with all the detail
3). If Games Workshop decides to mess with the BT codex, I will still have the option of playing the army as another SM army

While I will most likely be playing at my local game store, I wanted to retain the option of playing in the tournaments that people keep talking about. Will I be able to use this army as a Templar list in tournaments? Would YOU allow me to run the army against you in a tournament?

Thanks in advance for all the comments!

For the games I run (mostly out of my house):
1) No counts as
2) All must be painted & based
3) WYSIWYG

For example,
1) Toy dinosaur does not count as a carnifax
2) SM painted as Ultramarines do not count as Grey Knights (unless running a test game to see how GK work against whatever)
3) If the model has a bolt pistol, it must have a bolt pistol in its war gear

With our house rules, your army would be a variant of Ultra.

That said, if you gaming group is cool with it than groovy.

YMMV

I doubt you could pull this off at an official GW tournament.

I'm pretty oblivious to everything Space Marine that doesn't have to do with Grey Knights, so you could get by with pretty much anything against me.

Against others... not so much. Black Templar are fairly unique in terms of appearance and modelling, at least as far as SPHESS MAHRINES! go. For that reason, I'd imagine most people would frown upon bringing something like that to a tourney.

As far as I'm concerned, so long as every unique unit has a unique model that is clearly explained before the game, I'm fine.

As for tournies, you won't get by with that, and if you do, your soft scores WILL suffer.
Your best bet is to either buy Black Templar and play Black Templar, or just play the vanilla smurfs like vanilla smurfs.

Are they painted like Black Templar? Is there a distinction between Sword Brethered and Neophytes? Is the first point being ignored? If these three are satisfied, it's all good with me. Hell, I'd be fine with them painted as UM and using BT rules for them.

As long as its WYSIWYG I wouldnt care what color you painted them. But as Im sure you can tell, this really depends on the person. Id say if your going to play a tournament, contact the organizers and ask them. They have the final say in it all when it comes to that line of thinking

Templars aren't hard to paint. What are their colors? Pure black with white shoulder pads? It really doesn't get much easier than that.

Rrrrrrg,

Depending on what exactly yer trying to proxy.

I, personally, don't like having a SM scout wysiwyg as a Terminator w/Assault cannon. However, most SM armies are similar w/slight variants w/their design.

So long as your Black Templars aren't too "deviant" I wouldn't have a problem with them. But then again, I probably live halfway across the planet than you do.

You should be more worried about what your local opponents think.

Hahaha!

This reminds me of my first 40K tourny, I was using DE and it was 3rd addition rules. Since we were playing in a shop that was a buiness first and a hangout second the organizer\owner allowed my opponent to buy a Eldar Avatar off the shelf right before we played but since he obviously couldn't paint assemble and field the thing in time we (myself included) agreed to let him field a troll doll as a proxy! I still smile thinking about that bezerker with the Don King hair cut tearing into my Wyches... good times. So yes I would say it depends entirley on the crowd you played with even in the case of tournaments.

I was planning on making everything completely WYSIWYG EXCEPT for the paint scheme (which will be predominantly black but may have some "non-Templar" colors) and the Templar bits (tabarded torsos, rhino doors, shoulder pads, chained up weaponry, etc...). If I decide to run something like Sword Brethren, I will make them easily distinguishable from the regular CCW/bolt pistol troops, but probably won't spring for the overpriced GW models for that unit. I'm also going to avoid exclusively Templar painting details (like lots of crosses and stuff).

I guess my objective is to have an army that people will say, "Oh, that must be Templar" while still being able to use it as a non-Templar army if GW messes with their Codex too much in the future.

edit: spelling error

as long as your weapons and armor are WYSIWIG, most people wouldn't care. i'm using my BA currently as space wolves since the BA pdf is so bland. i had to amputate dozens of arms and jet packs but i won't be changing the shoulder pads or decals. considering you can field marneus calgar leading a contingent of blood ravens per RAW in the current marine codex, i don't think you have to worry.

I agree - you don't need to be black&white with tabards to use the black templar codex.

The problem that the OP will face is that if he should ever try to switch to vanilla marines then he'll have so much illegal wargear that the vast majority of his infantry will be useless.

My tips to you- buy blood claws packs, they come with cc weapons, and you dont have to use the wolfy bits. that way your models, if you want cc marines, will always be wysiwyg.

My brother plays a wysiwyg BT army, and he never got the bits packs.

I agree about the basic infantry being mostly unusable in a vanilla codex. However, the following CAN be interchanged:

1). Any Initiates armed with bolters and special/heavy weapons (flamer, missile launcher, power weapon + bolt pistol, etc...)
2). Assault Marines
3). Terminators
4). All the bikes
5). All the vehicles, dreadnaughts, speeders, and drop-pods

So it seems like the vast majority of the army can be interchanged at will. If I decide to run a vanilla list later, I will have to buy and paint a couple of Tactical Squads, an HQ or two, some Sternguard, etc... But that is only like $100 instead of $500 for a whole new army. Furthermore, if I switch to another SM army that has basic troops with CCW/bolt pistol like Blood Angels and Space Wolves (or do their troops use bolters?) I will be able to use almost all of the "Templar" portion of the army.

Other people have to be doing this, because it seems so simple and efficient. It kinda insulates you from whatever weird things GW might do to a single army by allowing you to cheaply switch from Black Templar to vanilla to Blood Angels to Space Wolves with only relatively small amount of changes.

I used to play some 40k back in early 3rd edition using proxies and other people's models, and have occasionally read through the major 40k forum sites since then. It has been my impression that every couple of years GW decides to switch things up by changing the rules and everyone has to buy new/different models to keep their lists effective. As much as I enjoy playing/talking about 40k, I don't feel any obligation towards GW to increase their stock's value, so if I can find a way to play and enjoy 40k without having to spend $500 every time a new Codex or ruleset comes out, I'm going to.

Thoughts? Objections?

As long as they're black and white and your weapon choices are legal, I don't see any problem with using whatever is laying around. I'm guessing due to AoBR we'll be seeing a lot of Blood Angel conversions to this or that.