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I had posted a pic of my jetbikes (converted by AshAxe) on Dakka awhile ago and it sparked a bit of debate. Unfortunately, I didn't respond in a timely manner and it disappeared. Rather than necro the thread, I thought I would start another; Does "Counts As" armies tick you off? For example, my bikes that started the debate;

http://op40k.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-celestial-lions-relic-bike-squad.html


Now, lets say the bikes were created for a Scars Heresy force (Which I am now using them for)...so no fluff rage at the lack of jetbikes . How angry would this make you as counts as TWC (To represent the damaged bikes, building up momentum..so they start slow then speed up, honor guard to represent their attacks/wounds, etc)? Or, to put it bluntly, if a player were to sit down across from you and say "I'm using the SW dex for my Heresy marines, everything is WYSIWYG except the Heresy jetbikes represent TWC"...would you rage?


Another example, this gorgeous army;

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Gorgon%27s_Genestealer_Cult



Big thumbs up from me, gorgeous with many unique ideas...however the first 5 or so times playing it would be confusing (Remembering what was what). Personally, I would gladly accept that confusion to take pics of my army fighting that beauty, what about you? When does "Counts As" go to far for you?

Counts as only really annoys me when people try to shoehorn in their powergame-y list.

I don't mind World Eaters counts as Spacewolves or anything like that.

But what WOULD annoy me is if some World Eater player said, "This Rune Priest with JotWW and ___ is actually a World Eater with powerful guns".

Stuff like that, as if they aren't even trying.

Heh, right and I understand that. There's obvious stretches in some cases just to make a power list.

Usually however (In my experience), Counts As players are using it...not so much for a crutch but for a way to represent a particular force (at a particular time) with a fun play style they enjoy.

The two armies you showed have some good effort put into them.

The counts as type armies I dont approve of are the ones that have little or no effort in trying to make them distinctive. Some guys that have a CSM army but do nothing to make special conversions and when C:SM came out, they immediately just became codex marines.

Neither of those examples bother me in the slightest. Their well done, and well painted. So long as you slowly walk me through what is what, and let me make some notes if needed, its fine.

Now if I had to play that hockey team that went to the GT many years ago, that might annoy me.

Pardon my ignorance, but TWC?

ThunderWolf Cavalry.

Counts-as goes too far if they take household items as is and say it's something that I'm supposed to kill. Disgusting.

Rico...

I would have no problem, as long as you walk me through what is what, and allow me to make a few notes (as someone said above) if needed, then I have no problem.

Its always cool fighting a unique army, it makes it so both of us have a better time.

Rico wrote:ThunderWolf Cavalry.

Counts-as goes too far if they take household items as is and say it's something that I'm supposed to kill. Disgusting.

Rico...

Like a soda bottle for a carnifex?

AgeOfEgos wrote:I had posted a pic of my jetbikes (converted by AshAxe) on Dakka awhile ago and it sparked a bit of debate. Unfortunately, I didn't respond in a timely manner and it disappeared. Rather than necro the thread, I thought I would start another; Does "Counts As" armies tick you off? For example, my bikes that started the debate;

http://op40k.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-celestial-lions-relic-bike-squad.html

As I recall, that thread got pretty "heated" very quickly, with an even split down both sides, and almost got locked. Why would you bother to bring this topic up again?

perhaps to have a cooler dicussion?

I don't see a bit of problem with your bikes. Ork players all the time count boars as bikes, etc, and it's all perfectly acceptable as far as the group I game with thinks.
What was the reason for people not to like it? As long as there's no modeling for advantage, which I don't see here, I welcome the chance to play against people that have the creative talent you show here.

carmachu wrote:perhaps to have a cooler dicussion?

I thought this was quite reasonable and likely until I looked up at the thread title and saw 'what makes you rage?'.

Huh.

Orkestra wrote:

carmachu wrote:perhaps to have a cooler dicussion?

I thought this was quite reasonable and likely until I looked up at the thread title and saw 'what makes you rage?'.

Huh.

It was tongue in cheek but I changed the title to avoid any literal reading of the topic.

Hmmm,

It would seem fine enough to me. However, I could see why you would want to take TWC for competitive reasons. Still, all that time and effort into those models seems worth it.

What I don't like are models that have 0 conversion work to show what they are supposed to be. I mean, I'm cool with a Chaos Marine Sergeant with a Powersword becoming a Chaos Lord or Sorcerer, but one with a bolter? That's pushing it in my book.

carmachu wrote:Neither of those examples bother me in the slightest. Their well done, and well painted. So long as you slowly walk me through what is what, and let me make some notes if needed, its fine.

Now if I had to play that hockey team that went to the GT many years ago, that might annoy me.

Do you have a link to that..or is that a joke?



I'm just curious about how rigid players view fluff/counts as and what triggers their tolerance (Or intolerance as it may be)...so I can make sure I avoid it when I make Counts As armies . Anymore (and perhaps because I've played so long)....whenever I start a new army the first thing I think of is how I can make it 'my' army or unique. Counts As is the logical solution in most cases. From what I get, it basically boils down to;

A) Intent (They did this because it's cool...or they did this because they will WAAC)
B) There is so much effort there, I don't care....it's great looking (Or they hardly put any effort in it because they want to WAAC)
C) Confusion (Too much stuff to remember counts as)

They are cool and all, but it annoys me that they are closer to another unit in the codex, bikers, than they are to what they are representing. It would be kinda like using an army with no tactical marines, but having all your scouts be up-armored slightly and be tactical marines. Even if they are the most beautiful scout-counts-as-tactical marines ever, it is still confusing that they are closer to scouts than tactical marines.

EDIT: and as nice as those are, they really do not scream TWC at all to me. They have storm bolters, which TWC do not have. They are jetbikes, not cavalry. And they definitely do not scream "4 attacks, strength 5, rending" to me.

ph34r wrote:They are cool and all, but it annoys me that they are closer to another unit in the codex: bikers, than they are to what they are representing. It would be kinda like using an army with no tactical marines, but having all your scouts be up-armored slightly and be tactical marines. Even if they are the most beautiful scout-counts-as-tactical marines ever, it is still confusing that they are closer to scouts than tactical marines.

I agree , they look like jet bikes , and certainly not TFC

whitedragon wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:I had posted a pic of my jetbikes (converted by AshAxe) on Dakka awhile ago and it sparked a bit of debate. Unfortunately, I didn't respond in a timely manner and it disappeared. Rather than necro the thread, I thought I would start another; Does "Counts As" armies tick you off? For example, my bikes that started the debate;

http://op40k.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-celestial-lions-relic-bike-squad.html

As I recall, that thread got pretty "heated" very quickly, with an even split down both sides, and almost got locked. Why would you bother to bring this topic up again?

I agree , people have their reasons for not liking it as TWC , you either accept them or not AoE , recreating the thread wont make it anymore favorable towards them looking like bikes instead of wolves

As long as it is extremely clear and uniform about what is what (in other words, if combined in all of my assault squads there are a total of 6 melta's, but I only have 5 and a flamer, saying that all special weapons count as a melta's) then I am fine with the proxys.

If someone wants to see whether Pariah's are useful in their Necron army and sub in a squad of SM's to count as these troops, I'm fine with that too. Especially if they are looking to drop AU $200 on a squad of 10.

If someone wants to say that the chaplain along with the rest of the assault squad has a jump pack, im ok with that.

However, if its a hodge podge of counts as (so this flamer is a plasma gun, while this flamer is a bolter, while this flamer.... etc) or this entire army made up of SM and orks is really guard or nids, or this totally mixed arms unit (think SW or Chaos Termies) has some completely different combination to what is WYSISYG, then I will have an issue.

I especially have an issue with no effort Chaos counts as SM choices that have marks of Khorne etc everywhere with Zerker heads and no effort whatsoever to make it look like any sort of a SM army. You know, the sort with ultra spiky Terminators with combi weapons trying to pretend to be storm bolters. But that is more of an aesthetic thing as I own both Chaos and SM/SW and I try and make sure that the conversions are correct etc.

Here's an article I wrote up for a laugh.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Counts_As_Space_Marines_Army_Profiles

Rico wrote:Counts-as goes too far if they take household items as is and say it's something that I'm supposed to kill. Disgusting.

That's not "Counts as", that's "Proxy". Two different animals.

By the by, would having something largish animal such as a Cold One or even larger (think maybe a Carnosaur or heck, even a Stegadon if you wanted to go all out) counting at TWC be really out of place? Something that if it was done right could look as mean as a Thunder Wolf, and reasonably scaled?

lords2001 wrote:By the by, would having something largish animal such as a Cold One or even larger (think maybe a Carnosaur or heck, even a Stegadon if you wanted to go all out) counting at TWC be really out of place? Something that if it was done right could look as mean as a Thunder Wolf, and reasonably scaled?

I would be fine with that , because atleast it wont be mistaken for bikes.

malfred wrote:Here's an article I wrote up for a laugh.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Counts_As_Space_Marines_Army_Profiles

lol, nice

Well done bikes. Amazing work.


I proxied/counts as/whatever an Ork force as Space Wolves. Ork boyz were Gray Hunters. Grots were scouts. MegaArmor Nobz were Termies. The HQ was a marine dread I had converted to be Bjorn (Bjork as I called him) and skull pass spiders as fenrisian wolves. Everything was painted.

Minimal confusion IMO and the guys I played against had no problem tracking stuff on what was what.

The LGS and folks here on the net were pretty firmly against the idea, though. Was told that if I converted all the orks to have shoulder pads that it would go much further towards being acceptable. No less potential for misidentifying stuff just wanted more conversions.

The same people thought that the guy who did the beautiful Genestealer Cult with IG models was way more acceptable. Considerably more special rules and model types in play but because the aesthetics were there, that army was good to go.

Ironically, people who get pissy about this sort of thing often don't have fully painted armies (I don't field a piece unless it's painted and based). It's all subjective IMO.

Counts As simply replaces "WYSIWYG" as the new thing for the WAAC-job power gamers to get their rage on about.

If I'm using something that is counts as, you, my opponent, get informed of it at the beginning of the game and I will be happy to remind you of it during the game.

If that is a problem (please say it is) I'll laugh at you,. play someone else and let you go pound sand.

Most of the time Im completely fine with "Counts As" armies or units... its also nice that it resembles what its counting as or even if theres just a little fluff behind it... However when you show up to a tourny with a list using many drop pods and you proceed to use tupperware and dreadnaughts as count as drop pods... thats unacceptable... thats another subject for another time (and yes... that did happen to me once... I was astonished)

Howlingmoon wrote:Counts As simply replaces "WYSIWYG" as the new thing for the WAAC-job power gamers to get their rage on about.

If I'm using something that is counts as, you, my opponent, get informed of it at the beginning of the game and I will be happy to remind you of it during the game.

If that is a problem (please say it is) I'll laugh at you,. play someone else and let you go pound sand.

Pound sand eh? I guess it takes all sorts...


But back to the point, I think the objections raised here to 'counts as' and proxying is an issue related to the scale involved. You want to use a dread as an Ironclad? Or count bikers as TWC to test them out? Or you come up with some wicked conversion that makes some sort of sense? Or count flamers as plasma? I think most people would be reasonable and allow it.

However, if you want to use gaunts as terminators with different combi weapons, then there could well be a reasonable objection. Same as if you started proxying or 'counts as' a huge chunk of your army on a regular basis. This doesn't make them a WAAC player, just that if people, including myself, spend 80% of my time wondering what the unit they are shooting at or planning to assault/be assaulted by actually is, then it makes the game a hell of a lot harder, and less fun.

anything that ruins the game.
like coke bottle drop pod. vehicles should be vehicles that they are.
but then if you have the proper bases. (like or boyz as tact squads) then its all.
Basically.

but i havent played enough games to really care about the issue.

As a side note... I've been wanting to give TWC a whirl in my (/gasp) UM painted army and was thinking of using something along the lines of a 4x4. Would that be an unreasonable counts as? I guess even more basic than that, but does running a Smurf (or CF/IF/Sallies) army using SW or another codex break "counts as" in peoples minds?