Counts-As Marines

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**Voodoo Boyz**

So looking at 40k from the perspective of a nicely embittered Veteran, I have noticed a few things:

1.) GW Likes to release super awesome new rules for Space Marines
2.) They will constantly do this, year after year.
3.) The different Marine armies will have vastly different playstyles available to it.
4.) Waiting for new rules for your army sucks.

This said, why not create the "ultimate" army. An army of Generic angry* looking Marines, with all sorts of nice but not-chapter specific conversions for a variety of models (Quad style bikes that can be bikes, attack bikes, honor guard squad on bikes, or Thunderwolf Cav), give it a nice Black or some other neutral kind of paint job, with your own symbol, that would allow it to quickly adapt to whatever new Marine Codex comes out rules wise, and thus you can use those rules?

At a minimum it would take a few purchases to expand the army and use it as whatever chapter and build you liked.

*I say "angry looking" since armies that come out which tend to be all sorts of awesome like Space Wolves and Blood Angels tend to be the kind of army that some angry-screamy type guys would do well to represent a variety of armies.

Thinking about 40k again as something to play, and looking at my relatively poorly painted Marine army that could do with a re-do, I think that this is a pretty good idea to move forward with.

I figured I'd throw the idea out there for discussion.

**Frazzled**

Thats called a DIY chapter. Time honored tradition baby. Go for it!

**Voodoo Boyz**

So this is what the DIY chapters did after they got rid of Traits in 5th Ed 40k?

I feel far less like a unique snowflake than I did 10 minutes ago, Thanks Frazz!

**Frazzled**

Plus you have the benefit of accessing chaos bits and minis for a more antiquated feeling (or use as chaos as well). Dollar maximization...complete!

**Infneon**

This is exactly what I do, my Marines are painted up Black and Gold and I currently use them as Vanilla Marines and Blood Angels

**Envy89**

this is exactly what i am going to do with my marines.

painted in dark red... and called SW, BA, BT, or nilla marines.

alls i need to do is come up with various names and a bit of background fluff.

**Druidic**

Complely agree, I love my Ravenguard, but no one I play against has any issue with me using any rule set I like.

Just baught Blood Angels codex for my lad and consdering using them for my Ravenguard as they are a very jump pack heavy army, butthen again, I don't play competatively!

**Solorg**

Sounds like a munchkin thing to do to me. You know, playing for the most power.

Still, hey, if you're gonna put a ton of time and money into the game, and considering the fact that it is legal, why not?

I have a friend that intends NEVER to paint his models for just this reason. In the unpainted state, they can be any chapter. Once he paints them, he is nailed down to just one. And since there's a new more powerful Space Marine dex of one flavor or another every other month, he's always got an uber-powerful army!

'course my Orks take him down to china town one way or another anyway, WAAGGHH!

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

I wouldn't call it "munchkin" at all, but I would accuse anyone who had a problem with it of reverse munchkin-ing you

Paint how you want to paint. There's no good reason to do it any other way.

**Solorg**

I agree that people should paint the way they want. But if you don't paint for a particular chapter, I do consider it munchkin if you use the models as anything other than "vanilla" marines. For example, Blood Angels are red, end of story. Black Templars are NOT orange and silver. It's as if I try to tell someone that my unit of Ork Nobz who have all choppas are actually all equipped with Power Klaws. In friendly games, sure, maybe you get away with it, but it gets old fast when things keep on changing.

**Alex Kolodotschko**

Yeah, it can get pretty annoying when the assault marines that you have been creaming in combat for the last few months suddenly become Sanquinary Guard and kick you right back into touch.

**ArbitorIan**

This is a good way to do things. You just have to be pretty sure you can adequately convince people you're the right army. And, as people have said, it would be incrdibly annoying to play someone's Really Generic Lookin Marines who constantly counts them as whichever codex is overpowered this month. There's something in modelling style that gives the army a bit of integrity. For example, if I were doing this, instead of having just one army and 'counting' all the different things, I might do it as follows...

2 x Tactical Squads, with a few different weapon options
2 x Scout squads, with a few different weapon options
2 x Assault squads
Terminator Squad
Dread
Predator, with magnetised weapons
Landspeeder
Bikes

Then,

My guys riding giant beasts
Hairy-lookin heroes of different sorts
Smaller beasts
Hairy-lookin terminator champions with cool weapons.

Also,

Elite-looking honor guard guys with winged jumppacks
Vampire-looking hero guy
Predator turret with twin assault cannons

Plus

Robed, hooded hero guys
Some robed, hooded 'acolyte' guys
Knight-lookin hero champion

This way, with cunning choice of units, you could create an army that not only counts-as different marine forces, but also looks like they really fit into the fluff, and looks different each time. Your 'Space Wolf' army build would really LOOK like a different army to your 'Black Templar' army build, even though they're a lot of the same models with the same colour scheme...

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

The following post contains hyperbole.

Solorg wrote:Black Templars are NOT orange and silver.

I'm sorry in advance if this offends you, but this attitude is exactly one of the reasons I'm getting fed up with the GW end of the hobby. Elitism for it's own sake and communist-like dedication to fluff that contradicts itself is a waste of everyone's life. The game should be fun and creative, not "I painted my marines blue so I'm morally superior."

Solorg wrote:It's as if I try to tell someone that my unit of Ork Nobz who have all choppas are actually all equipped with Power Klaws.

Except that it isn't a WYSIWYG issue. Other than not being the case, your example stands.

**Alex Kolodotschko**

Do as ArbitorIan suggests.
I'd be more than happy to play that army.
It will cost you a little more buying in these specialist units each time a codex comes out but it'd give you plenty of unit options and you'd have one hell of an apocalypse force.

**nkelsch**

Alex Kolodotschko wrote:Yeah, it can get pretty annoying when the assault marines that you have been creaming in combat for the last few months suddenly become Sanquinary Guard and kick you right back into touch.

Well, Sanguary Guard have different Wargear than assault marines and should be expected to be modeled as such. This is the trick to Everymarine armies... your codex specific units need to be WYSIWYG. You can't simply have 'all units with jetpacks' be the same as the weapon options differentiate... And the idea that somehow 'bikes' are Thunderwolf cavalry is also a stretch as bikes are not cavalry and have different weapons.

If you want to do it right, I would get good with magnets. But usually the result is proxies being called 'counts as'.

I don't mind you playing ultramarines as Space Wolves or Blood Angels, but your TWC better be on some sort of cavalry that is clearly TWC and not a simple biker model and your Sanguary Guard better have clearly shown force weapons and not be basic jumpacks with chainswords. If you do that, then it is a PROXY and unwelcome at many events.

**Solorg**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:The following post contains hyperbole.

Solorg wrote:Black Templars are NOT orange and silver.

I'm sorry in advance if this offends you, but this attitude is exactly one of the reasons I'm getting fed up with the GW end of the hobby. Elitism for it's own sake and communist-like dedication to fluff that contradicts itself is a waste of everyone's life. The game should be fun and creative, not "I painted my marines blue so I'm morally superior."

Solorg wrote:It's as if I try to tell someone that my unit of Ork Nobz who have all choppas are actually all equipped with Power Klaws.

Except that it isn't a WYSIWYG issue. Other than not being the case, your example stands.

Nah, I am not offended. But I do consider it a WYSIWYG issue. If I am playing against Orange and Silver marines, I expect that I am playing against either vanilla Marines or else some sort of funky custom chapter. But I would not expect to be playing against Blood Angels or Dark Angels, for example.

That said, if your Blood Angels don't look exactly like those in the book, it doesn't bother me - but they'd better be red and the Death Company had better be black!

I have been known to play against someone who proxies in a differently colored army. But make no mistake. That is a player I am choosing to tolerate as a favor to him. Just the same way that I tolerate the player who says his Rhino is really a Landraider for this game only.

A little of this is fine, hey, I'm not a hard-nose. But when a player wants Blood Angels and the entire army he has on the table is any color but the one it's supposed to be, well, at some point enough is enough and you just hand the guy a can of red spraypaint and ask him to spray the way he plays.

**JSK-Fox**

I love successor chapters, don't you?

**Frazzled**

JSK-Fox wrote:I love successor chapters, don't you?

**Anpu42**

My DIY Chapter is Broken up this way
1st Company: Deathwing
2nd Company: Grey Knights
3rd Company: Black Templars
4th Company: Dark Angels
5th Company: Shrike
6th Company: Blood Angels
Ect.
My Tactical Squads for all mof my list are armed the same way to be compatible with all of the armies, but the Grey Knights and Black tempars. If a new dex come out I change mabye 1-2 models and now its legal.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

Solorg wrote:That is a player I am choosing to tolerate as a favor to him.

Solorg wrote:...enough is enough...

What exactly are you tolerating? What is it "enough" of? Why, again, is the guy who paints his space marines blue morally superior? At the end of the day, are your little, imaginary, toy soldiers not "really" dark angels because of their color scheme? Does different color paint make something a "fake" blood angel then? It's all fantasy. None of it is real except the effort put into playing the game and the artistry associated. If I'm expected to compromise artistry so that it makes a guy "really" a certain type of marine, whatever. I don' get it

**Solorg**

It's simple. If you follow the chapter's color scheme, everyone knows what it is just by looking. If you don't, no one knows what you're playing until you explain it. Sounds like a WYSIWYG problem to me.

For what it is worth, other armies don't really have that problem since you get to pick your own color scheme, but Space Marines definitely have color schemes that identify them as being from one chapter or another - and more importantly, indicate the kinds of abilities that the army possesses. And sure, you can make up your own chapter with your own colors. But to make up your own chapter with its own made-up colors and then claim that they are "yellow Blood Angels" or whatever, well, you're going to confuse a lot of people.

As mentioned, I'd probably still play you, but yellow Blood Angels? Come on!

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

...except for when he says "I'm playing Dark Angels." That clears it up pretty well for me. I'd like answers to any of my above questions if you can find them

**Solorg**

...and if you paint your marines pink, they clearly belong to the Hello Kitty chapter. See the Hello Kitty Codex for details. If I see a pink Marine Army, as your opponent, I am going to EXPECT Hello Kitty Marines complete with hot pink Landraiders, dreads with Hello Kitty heads on them, and Marines with little pink skirts on.

I mean, if you're going to play with a given Codex, at least try to make the effort to model your guys the way they're supposed to look.

That's all I am saying.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

I understand where you're coming from to a degree. I just don't see the need for me to spend whatever amount and paint a red tac squad w/multi-melta when I have a green tac squad w/multi-melta sitting on the shelf. If the only complaint here is that you should be able to tell what it is by looking at it then there's no reason I couldn't print out cool 3d cardboard cutouts as long as they're the right colors, but I'm sure you'd have an issue with that too. I think I've proven my point anyway.

**JSK-Fox**

Frazzled wrote:
JSK-Fox wrote:I love successor chapters, don't you?

I know I am.

**Balance**

I would definitely be annoyed if someone did this and chose which army to use based on my army... If you did it once, no problem. Do it twice, and you'll be telling me what you field first for a long time.

**Hordini**

Solorg, what about successor chapters? That seems like a pretty good reason to use chapter-specific rules with an alternate color scheme.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as the weapons, equipment and vehicles are basically WYSIWYG, I don't have a problem.

That's the beauty of DIY chapters though. I'd much rather see a selection of nicely painted marine armies with custom color schemes that all use the Blood Angels codex (or whichever other codex), rather than one more of the same red marine army.

**Frazzled**

Would mean squat. As long as its WYIWYG its not an issue if they are wolves, BA, DA, or Iron Warriors.

**Voodoo Boyz**

I would intend to model things appropriately.

There would be no "Chainswords are power weapons".

But I can have "fairly ornamental Jump Pack Dudes w/ Power Fists & Power Weapons" that would be Assault Vets or Sanguary Guard, or whatever.

For the Cav idea it'd be a quad style conversion that could be on a cav style bace, but it could count as bikes if I wanted.

**Karon**

Honestly, I frown upon idea. Your army will look boring and plain.

Its just more fun to play against a cool, unique army that isn't the norm.