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Orlanth wrote:Things I do not WYSIWYG:

Extra armour - Why spoil and expensive Rhino or Russ model by covering it with plasticard. Also I dont know if I can afford it all the time.

Grenades - Too fiddly on the model, and its too picky too. An opponent is supposed to notice that some squads have grenades and others dont.

Any form of field generator other than a KFF. - If a marine has an Iron Halo it is because I say he has. There are too many alternatives that can provide a force field from gorgets, jewellery etc. We still dont know for sure what item in particular gives the Warlocks a save. Is it the runes on the robe?


Other things I put on vehicles but might not pay for.

Smoke launchers and storm bolters/heavy stubbers. - They can go into battle with ammo right.

Space Marine Company standard. - I like giving the command squad a standard, but I dont pay the points for it. In my army the standard is the commander personal banner, held by a faithful command squad member. The Company banner is safe back home.

This sounds like my approach.

When I first started my first 40K army earlier this year I modeled some upgrades on my Ork Trukk that I won't be taking everytime. I put on the wrecking ball because I thought it made the model look awesome, and only later realized that it probably wasn't an upgrade i'd take everytime, same with say the Extra Armour and the Reinforced Ram. All those parts make the physical trukk model look good, but I might not necessarilly take them.

I figure so long as i'm consistent across all my trukks I shouldn't have a problem. I'd never say one trukk with the wrecking ball modeled had it, while another one with the wrecking ball modeled didn't actually have it. Either they all have the upgrade, or they dont. Likewise, I wouldn't give the wrecking ball to a trukk that didn't have it modeled.

Alpharius wrote:We are living in the Grand Age of Counts As.

That is GW endorsed, no less!

Almost anything goes, though keeping confusion to a minimum is recommended, of course.

An attitude like this can be the problem with the Grand Age of Counts As as you put it. The counts as
rule is there for if you want to model a White Scar that is using two power fists and run him as the
Calgar rules you can. For my army I plan to model a librarian and use him as the special character
in the new codex, all modeled for my Crimson Fists. This is the spirit of the counts as, not just do
what you want when you want. Everything still needs to be appropriately modeled and represented
on the field.

I would have a problem with someone having a generic commander model and every game switching
who that character is from the list of special characters, that is abusing the spirit of the counts as
rule idea.

Well, I have started the collection of a bunch of British Napoleanic miniatures for use in an Empire Fantasy army as various units. (Curiassers are knights, muskets are handgunners, Bayonets are spearmen, and riflemen are archers. Cannons and the like aren't really a problem seeing as they already have them.) Is that going to far?

Well, look at you army and consider it from the stance of someone who knows nothing about Napoleonics.

Cannons as Empire Cannons? Okay, that's easy enough to keep straight.

Guys with some kinda long gun as Empire Handgunners, again easy.

These other guys with the slightly different guns are not handgunners, but what are they? And these guys with the other rifles that look close to the other ones are a totally different unit? Huh?

You see the problem is that even at 25mm someone who does not know the specifics of your models won't understand or likely notice the differences. It is unrealistic to expect someone you have never met to be able to the tell the difference between a musket, rifle, or even repeating carbine for that matter!

There is a reason why so many of the weapons in these games look so different or exaggerated. You need to able to ID them from 3-4 feet away. There has to be a certain level of "obviousness" to the miniature for practicality sake.

I played a game this weekend against a light blue Blood Angels army where the predator tank was originally going to be proxied by a Zoids gryphon and I didn't mind because it's only a paint scheme and there are too many chapter rules and make your own chapter rules to care.

"Counts as" is supposed to save you from situations were codex shifts made your model useless, things like Chaos renegades with plasma cannons or multimeltas, although there may be unstated statutes of limitations in there somewhere. The Grey Knight without the psycannon would be annoying. Fluffy blade master as storm shield would be annoying inversely proportional to how cool looking those twin swords are.

Ratbarf wrote:Well, I have started the collection of a bunch of British Napoleanic miniatures for use in an Empire Fantasy army as various units. (Curiassers are knights, muskets are handgunners, Bayonets are spearmen, and riflemen are archers. Cannons and the like aren't really a problem seeing as they already have them.) Is that going to far?

Why not just play Napoleonics, then?

Historicals can really be great fun.

JohnHwangDD wrote:However, I don't like to see what are clearly Ultras being played as something other than Ultras.

What about the other way around? Like DA/BA/Chaos being played as Ultras? You know, on account of their codex being crap.

I just model what I am playing.
As a Tyranid player this ALWAYS means buying/breaking something to get a new model/unit.

I play with only overly modeled "counts as", once in a while in low point game I will not use the extra armor, or flesh hooks, or somesuch in a game. But the models always have any applicable modeling (or more).

That said. If playing random friendly games, I do not really care so much if my opponent plays proxy for everything. I do not, but it is ussually worth the time to play vs random examples. Of course, I will still try to mock them enough to get them to actually play 40k like the rest of us in the mean time.

a long as it looks close enough to what its ment to be and im informed then i dont really care lol

As long as the "counts as" both A) counts as something GW made up and assigned points for as opposed to a DIY character and B) is consistent and differently consistent througout your army I'm fine. Like in the above example blue blowpipes vs red blowpipes is not different enough.

But if we were playing, and you wanted to play Ultras but flat out hated hated hated the Marneus model or wanted a DIY codex chapter using his special rules, so you made up a guy with Marneus's rules only instead of gauntlets of ultramar you instead had Hammers of DIY-it-town, and modeled two thunder hammers with a SM Bike's bolters on the shafts so he held the hammers in front of him in some sort of fencing pose to line up the bolters to fire... great. Tell me its Marneus rules, But you wanted your own flavor, so your guy is Captain John Shaft... I can dig it. But that also means if you snag a librarian or chaplain I expect to see Tigurius and Cassius- or codex build-your-owns without any divergences. I don't expect to see your version of Sammael, and your version of Mephiston hanging out with your version of Cassius.

Basically if you tell me before we do anything your captain/master is Marneus, your librarian is Tigurius, as long as I can tell which one is your version of Marneus, and which one is your version of Tigurius from 5ish feet away, I'm good.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:However, I don't like to see what are clearly Ultras being played as something other than Ultras.

What about the other way around? Like DA/BA/Chaos being played as Ultras? You know, on account of their codex being crap.

You weren't asking me, but yes, I absolutely hate that too. Even more in fact. I picked Ultras before any second edition marine codexes were out. And I got bent over by GW, and they were using super glue for lube. I had to wait longer for my codex, and it sucked compared to the first three marine codexes. The fluff was thinner, the rules weaker, and definitely not worth waiting for. So if I had to live through the craptastic output that was second and third for my Ultras, you suckers can do the same in 4th and 5th for your Angels/Wolves. On the down side, so can I. I picked an awfully bad time to make a Ravenwing army. (I did it right before the "new" DA codex came out. So I ended up having extra speeders and bikes as I ended up going combi-wing, and have a bunch of primer black bikes, attack bikes, and such sitting around)

Swordbreaker wrote:You see the problem is that even at 25mm someone who does not know the specifics of your models won't understand or likely notice the differences. It is unrealistic to expect someone you have never met to be able to the tell the difference between a musket, rifle, or even repeating carbine for that matter!

But how is that any different from someone who simply isn't familiar with the race you are playing?

As a guy who owns both Squat and Space Slann armies I'm very forgiving when it comes to "counts as".
In any event WYSIWY fetishism is annoying in the extreme.

TR

Blackmoor wrote:I am pretty lax when if comes to WYSIWYG. Just tell me ahead of time so I know what is what.

Where it becomes a problem for me is when your opponent starts to play 3-card Monty with the models and units.
For example: Like when you kill a squad that he said earlier that had a powerfist wielding Vet Sgt with all the upgrades, and then when he charges you with a squad that he said earlier that had no upgrades, and now all of a sudden the squad has the Vet. Sgt in it, etc.

One thing I do hate though is when my opponent starts to complain about WYSIWYG about very minor things when they start to lose. In a tournement I brought a chaos rhino with a pinicle combi-flamer (which was modeled), but he was upset when I tried to shoot he rhinos regular combi-bolter. In my experiance 95% of rhino do not have there bolters modeled.

These are pretty much my sentiments.

Make everything clear beforehand, have a legal list, and I probably won't care about the "counts-as", so long as the list is legal (although I may have problems with a slowed list, or using "counts as" just to jump on the bandwagon to use the newest cheeseball Character, although these are entirely different problems)

To me, "counts as" is a different issue than "over modeling." That said, I am in favor of both being OK. Just be consistent across the army. (IE no saying "This trukk is as modeled but this one doesn't have the wrecka ball. All or nothing)

Personally, I really don't mind at all so long as it is consistent. Even if it is kind of icky ("These ork nobs are obliterators") so long as it is dead consistent, I don't mind.

That said, I PREFER to be able to just glance at a model and know what sort of weapon it has, or at least that it has a different weapon from the guy next to it, but as Doc Thunder so aptly pointed out, a lot of codex's have all sorts of crap I don't recognize. It is all I can do to tell Tau weapons apart, much less tyranid or eldar.

To that end, I think if you are going to go balls to the walls with counts as, you really should have an army list printed out with pictures of your units right there with their entries. The pictures should call out things that are different about each model.

Taking Migsula's T.W.A.R. as an example, the little AI guys could have a little pic of each variety next to the stat line. The big guys could have a pic of them next to their stat line. If I need to reference or call him on a shell game, I can then do so easily.

I have no problems with wierd counts as, but if you are going to go to or save the effort of converting all that stuff, make a little effort to have a well put together list.

On a side note, i think using the mega-nob bodies is a brilliant and cheap idea to make a unit of Oblits. Put some energy weapons on them, replace the head and wamo! 1/2 price Oblits that look cleaner (i'm not a fan of the flesh look of the Oblits)

Now on topic. If i can tell what it is or if i can remember after being told once i'm fine with it. granted i play in tournements and make darn sure i know what is what when we start and if it's ridiculous i'll call you on it but it's only happened once in the last 10 years so.....

I played a squad deathwing at a tourney and had a blast, but it was obvious what everything was.

well say you model a very complex awesome looking veicule
that looks nothing like a vindicator or whatever it is suppose to represent
but still has clearly modelled upgrades and things

is that acceptable?

When doing Counts As, or Substituting models, all you need do is keep it simple.

Ergo, say I am playing against an Imperial Guard Player. He has a Missile Launcher in every platoon, and this is the only Man Ported Heavy Weapon he is fielding. Since this is one sculpt, if he wants to field them all as Autocannons, Lascannons or whatever, this isn't too confusing. But, if he started saying 'this one is Las, this one is Auto, this one is blah blah blah' I'd draw the line their.

Take Trenchies Space Slaan and Squat Armies. For a personal point of view, any army made up of non-current or non-GW models, as long as it is picked using a Current *Codex*, and has a consistent Proxy, is fine with me. However, I am not a fan of Home Brew Codexes. They are rarely balanced, and tend to get confusing. Thus, if he has either created his own list, or downloaded one, I wouldn't play him myself. Nothing to do with the models, purely about the rules. Currently, I have ever current (and most old) Codex and Army Book GW have produced. I like to read them in the bog, bed and bath. It also means I have a fair understanding of the potential of my opponents. Know your Foe and all that. But a downloaded, homebrew or whatever list? Sorry, not going to play it, as I have no idea whether it is fair, balanced or even fun to play against. If he furnished me with a copy to peruse over the next week, yeah, I'd probably give him a game, if I thought the rules were okay.

I'd be ok with a big sword being Lightning Claws but it'd better be Cloud or Siegfried sized.

I'm probably gonna do a squad of Possessed Terminators that count as being Terminators with Lightning Claws. I mean they are spiky as hell and they haven't guns so I see no issue. One would have a that Chainsaw possessed arm and a Heavy Flamer (probably Obliterator styled) thus being the Chain-Flamer for the unit.

Anyone who knows me should know that I'd never make a "counts as" decision in any of my armies based on leaving a model multi-use for cost purposes. Having said that, I have done a lot of "counts as" modeling in the past for army theme purposes. The army I won "best army" with at the 2004 LA GT used converted sisters of battle for all of my noise marines for my all female Slaanesh chaos army. I justified it because I converted every gun, swapped every backpack, and because sisters are in power armor, as are chaos marines.

I use counts as a lot so that I'm able to throw conversions and cool stuff into my armies, but whenever I do it, I hold myself to strict standards to model all the wargear correctly and make it obvious what the models are supposed to be. In the army I took "best army" with at this year's vegas GT, I had wanted to put in a unit of furies made of flying nurglings, two per stand on little wire stalks. They'd all have tiny fly wings and would have been well made. I know they would have been demonic and flying and on the right size of bases, etc.

I actually decided against it specifically for the WYSIWYG rules. I didn't want people to have to wonder if they were furies or nurglings. I didn't want people to think they had two wounds due to the two nurglings, vs. one wound. Basically, I didn't want to have anything in my army that people had to wonder over, so I didn't do it. I already had conversions for the beasts of nurgle, one was the beat model, heavily converted, and one was an old chaos spawn, heavily converted. I didn't want to have to explain more stuff than that.

For my opponents, I like to know what I'm getting as I see it come on the table against me. If a simple explanation covers all the bases, then I'm fine with any "counts as" especially if it was done for theme or cool conversions. I'm also a player who doesn't care if I'm playing a deathwing list made of terminators of some other flavor, including chaos terminators. Someone owns 50 chaos terminators modeled with the right weapons and wants to play with deathwing rules? So what.. sounds fine to me.

I agree with Chaosette, I love to see cool conversions and "counts as" so long as it isn't confusing AND everything is on the correct base size.

I was actually in the process of making a 40 bike Night Lords army when the Chaos codex changed making it illegal, so now I am running Night Lords that count as White Scars but making sure all the weapons are clearly modeled.

Playtesting a list with friends before you settle on a final version is also good if you have their approval, as most gamers just don't have the money to buy every single model variant and use it once to decide they don't like it.

Froggage wrote:
Playtesting a list with friends before you settle on a final version is also good if you have their approval, as most gamers just don't have the money to buy every single model variant and use it once to decide they don't like it.

Yeah, play-testing a list with "proxy" models and having a finalized list with a lot of "counts as" are two different things to me. I wanted to playtest my army against 'nidzilla, but none of my close friends owned it, so I ended up playing my list against bases with post-it notes on them with the wargear written on. That's proxy, and I'm cool with it, as long as its obvious, again, and not in a tournament setting.

Since I'm currently working on an Imperial Grotzman army, I guess my stand on 'counts as' isn't that
hard to guess. But like many have said before me, consistency is the key. Being able to see with but
a glace what a model is supposed to represent is of course a plus, but as long as I'm told beforehand,
I'm ok with it.

al-Majid Agandhjin bin Ahfal al-Rashid