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I usually field my canonesses with different equipment so therefore i just tell my opponent what gear they have before we start. I do however try to take a canoness with a somewhat similar look to the one im fielding (i have 4 of them i think) e.g A Canoness with eviscerator has a chainsword on modeled.

As for flamers and stuff i always use what they have on them. So no Heavy Flamer as a heavybolter.
I do let my opponent use whatever he want as long as he tells me.

I think strict WYSIWYG is crap. In a lot of ways it's a way to fill GW's pockets. Given their historic tricks of not including enough of various weapons (which goes back to plastic RT marines) and charging a premium for their models, I don't think it's fair to add WYSIWYG on top of that.

I usually run with all of my models fully painted, modeling exactly what they are, minus the odd bit of gear. (Bombs, other minor kit) However, I'd be hard pressed to know the difference between the various bits of Tau gear, nid mutations, Dark Eldar weapons, Sister of Battle, etc because I haven't had to face that many. Add in that many many many people do NOT paint their models, it's very hard to pick out the primer black weapon on the primer black model in the primer black horde of troops, so having the exact wargear modeled isn't that helpful anyway. Unless you're an expert player most people just accept their opponents word for something, and move on.

If you're confused about something, you should ask your opponent, and they should be very clear on what the various units are and what they're equiped with. I've been playing for years, and I still need to ask about various pieces of kit. When proxying something, if they just say what it is, and what it does that's usually good enough.

Right now I'm also running the local 40K league, and we've suspended strict WYSIWYG. Basically players are expected to act like grownups, avoid confusion, and use models that make sense. (So no coffee can dragons, grot warbosses, etc.)

This avoids the problems with quasi-legal older models with non-existent weapons, and encourages people to use their own creations, cool models from other lines, and other stuff. We've also got a league sign-up fee, so the store owner is getting a cut, and isn't strictly dependent upon model sales to make his margins.

Finally, players are required to show up with a clearly typed and printed army list for their opponents inspection. This also avoids a lot of the other problems with confusion. As of this writing we have 22 people in the league, and another 6 who wanted to sign up.

As the league organizer I have yet to hear a single complaint about people abusing WYSIWYG.

Mattlov wrote:As a Tyranid player, WYSIWYG is pretty annoying.

You aren't kidding. My daughter and I are putting together a smallish 'nid army. Before now, I've never had any interest in the army so my critter inventory is fairly limited at the moment. The good news is that I have about 80 genestealers from my original Space Hulk box, plus expansions - the bad news is that I want feeder tendrils on them. I'm too poor to go buy lots of new models and bits, so it looks like I'll be messing with floral wire and green stuff for quite some time, as tendrils are too much of an "obvious" 'morph to not represent (much like scything claws and such). Adrenal glands, toxin sacks and other "small" 'morphs I feel ok with just having on paper and not on the model.

I play strict WYSIWIG most of the time, with a few exceptions:

Standard gear: If the model comes with it automatically I don't mind it not being modelled. Grenades on just about anyone, Space Marine Pistols, CSM and their loadout of everything good.

Drastic Sweeping changes: Changing HW teams to single base, removing a weapon as an option etc. If the change was sweeping and changed things that it took some players many years to get modeled I don't care if they say "The new codex removed plasma pistols as an option, so all my champs that have plasma pistols just have bolt pistols until I get a chance to swap them. I would prefer that they eventually comply though.

I only fudge WSIWIG myself if I am playing a friendly game and forgot something or made a list on the fly and didn't bring all of my figs(for example, toning it down for a newer player and down powering the competitive tourney list that I brought so we can have a fun game instead of a humiliating massacre. I never tone down my skills .. I play my best on every game ... I think it is more humiliating to have someone baby you by not making obvious moves and playing under their skill level. )

I almost always play fully painted as well .. with the rare occasion where I'm testing a new army purely for tactics or unit/model that I recently acquired and haven't had time to paint yet.

Meph

ChaseMacKenzie wrote:What about the case where I run my LRBT with sponsons, as those without, or the Lascannon as a HB

I mean I only have so many tanks and how can one be expected to have tanks with/without sponsons or with a HB or a Lascannon for every occasion?

how does the general community feel about this

You can magnetize your sponsons and your heavy weapons to 'snap on' at a moments notice, it just takes some planning ahead is all.

Personally I'm a WYSIWYG nazi. I hate trying to figure out if guy #3 is the guy with the special weapon or if it was guy#4.. was it the guy with the green hair or the guy that was just primerd..

WYSIWYG makes it so a player can look at your models and see exactly what's there.. I go so far as to magnetize my grenades.. go figure..

I personally think WYSIWYG is needed for tournaments (unless you have a really good counts as army). Also important so people don't just use empty bases.

They only time I every proxing anything is when i'm experimenting with a units layout, expecially when I was playtesting new crisis suit layouts. I had one suit built and would blue tac the guns on, and then just use terminators as subs (until i bought the model). I also believe that if you are proxying things and don't have the model you need an index card with it writen down next to/under the base to identify the unit easily. Or if your proxing half a squad (for instance lootas) that a protion of the squad is the normal GW model.

I do agree GW does a great job at not giving enough spare bits so you have to buy more stuff or scratch build things (Waaagh! banners, twin linked wep for eldar vehicles, only giving 1 melta gun in a set when you want 2, or only giving a missle launcher when you want a HB forcing you to buy a dev squad or metal model to get your needed bit.)

two_heads_talking wrote:

ChaseMacKenzie wrote:What about the case where I run my LRBT with sponsons, as those without, or the Lascannon as a HB

I mean I only have so many tanks and how can one be expected to have tanks with/without sponsons or with a HB or a Lascannon for every occasion?

how does the general community feel about this

You can magnetize your sponsons and your heavy weapons to 'snap on' at a moments notice, it just takes some planning ahead is all.

Personally I'm a WYSIWYG nazi. I hate trying to figure out if guy #3 is the guy with the special weapon or if it was guy#4.. was it the guy with the green hair or the guy that was just primerd..

WYSIWYG makes it so a player can look at your models and see exactly what's there.. I go so far as to magnetize my grenades.. go figure..

I second this. I magnatize options on my army. You can have one marine that is your special weapon carrier. He is magnitized to hold either the Flamer, Plasma, Melta or bolter depending on the situation.

Magnitized weapons on a vehicle mean I only need one tank to represent all the options.

GW gets no more money than necessary. I love magnets.

Magnetizing is fine. But in order for me to get 8 Feeder Tendril heads, I need 8 boxes of Genestealers. Bug players get SCREWED by it.

Another personal (and off topic) annoyance of my bugs is that they pretty much have to attack ass-first to even get in base to base with anything...

In 40k the only issue I've had is with orks. Unless someone does an obvious conversion it is a little difficult to see where a Big Choppa is. Nids can be an issue, but generally you can ask and they should be able to tell what a unit is unless they have 2 or 3 units of gaunts with different biomorphs.

Fantasy can be pretty prickly. Recently I faced a guy with WOC. He had two units of warriors with HW and Shields. I get into combat and bam, warriors with GWs. A little frustrating.

I understand that a magic sword looks like a regular sword, but a great weapon is a little bigger than a normal weapon.

I try to keep as WYSIWYG as possible, with a few exceptions.

1. Gear that is mandatory. Ok, so if a unit has a bolter, she has a bolter. I don't worry about grenades, bolt pistols on marines now, that sort of stuff.
2. Extremely small things. Book of St. Lucius... that's rather tough to add, or subtract for that matter. Other bits of kit that are well nigh impossible to pick out from across the table.
3. Things like Extra Armor or anything else that is larger, but not recognizable. They just are not worth modeling other than to look cool.

That said, I always have either a printed army list or the Excel spreadsheet I wrote the thing with, and I make a point of explaining everything at length. Granted, playing an army that is obscure and chock full of special rules like WH, you get used to it

I tend to be a lot more flexible with my opponants though, since I don't recognize Xenos gear 80% of the time anyway, and so just quiz them constantly about what stats and gear certain units have.

Where I think you have problems are on some of the standard issue items.

For example - a standard space marine has a bolter and bolt pistol now. How many marines actually have the Pistol modeled on them?

Same issue with my plague marines. Base model is a bolter, bolt pistol, CCW.

I think the key is to model the special weapons correctly - otherwise if it's a standard model it's no big deal.

I tend to hold myself to a pretty high standard and try to make my models as WYSIWYG as possible, mostly for my own satisfaction. It's akin to my extreme reluctance to play unpainted or partially painted models in public. However I'm fairly lenient in what I conder to be acceptable in others.

Despite the fact that WYSIWYG is a ploy by GW to sell more models, it's generally a good thing. It prevents hard feelings in games among strangers by preventing the "that heavy bolter was a lascannon a moment ago type issue. And I do draw a distinction between people with honest concerns and what I like to call "WYSIWYG fetishists"...that is to say people who go completly overboard with the concept and cause trouble based upon their warped perception of the rule. (I've outlined this in a couple of seperate threads now)

Of course even being strictly WYSIWYG cannot save you from some confusion, especially were old models are concerned.
Let's play a game. I've attached a picture of several old models. All of these are tourny legal GW miniatures. If you faced an army with one or more of these, could you identify them without asking the owner what they were? Can you name them all? Now this is mainly aimed at the newer players. The old guys like me are going to have an easier time with this. and remember, no cheating now. Don't pop over to Stuff of legends and do your research. Play it as if you just saw them on the table at your LGS.

The bottom line here is communication. Not everyone is going to hold to the same standards, even in a tourny setting, and as I demonstrate in this post WYSIWYG is not fool proof. If you take a minute or three before the game starts and go over what every unit in your army is, it avoids alot of problems. "Declaring" an army is a long standing wargame convention, and I am always suprised how GW players seem to think that WYSIWYG is an acceptable substitute for it.

TR

I'm pretty bad about it. Check out my Counts As space Marine army ideas! (not really mine. I just wrote the words)

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

@TR:
They are (l-r, top-bottom).
Lascannon, Conversion Beamer, bolter (at least in my copy of CA:FBotA ads), grenade launcher, CSM grenade launcher, SM missile launcher.



Who needs SoL for simple things like that. The 'bolter' marines were some of the fist I ever got. They've long since been recycled, though.

Depends on the WYSIWYG.

Characters, I do expect to see appropriately modelled unless already an extensive conversion. Mainly due to the range of options available to them, it's nice to be able to look at someone armed with say, a Bolt Pistol and a Chainsword, charge it, and not suddenly find out the hardway he is in fact toting two Thunder Hammers and has just mashed my characters head down between his shoulders.

But for stuff which has fairly fixed equipment (for example, Penal Legions (Fnarr. I said penal) and Conscripts for IG, neither of whom have any upgrade options, I really don't mind what weapons they are armed with, as long as I know what the unit is.

And for varying Specal Weapons and Heavy Weapons in your squads, just keep it constant. I'm fine with your Missile Launchers being Lascannon 'counts as' but you can't have one being a Lascannon, another a Heavy Bolter, yet another a Mortar, and some of them actually Missile Launchers.

Trenchie's post above is a good example of my last point. The older weapons can be fairly ambiguous. Now I've been playing long enough that I know what those pictured above are (clockwise from left, Lascannon, Heavy Plasma Gun, Lascannon, Grenade Launcher, Missile Launcher, Missile Launcher) so if using them, just let me know what a Missile Launcher looks like in your army, and we're good to go with WYSIWYG, as I now know what I am seeing, and what I am getting.

But being a WYSIWYG Nazi is bad show in my book. No need for it. In a friendly game, stop being so anal, and if it's a competitive game, then your opponent really should have brought the correct models for his army, so there is not going to be a problem.

Trench-Raider wrote:\

The bottom line here is communication. Not everyone is going to hold to the same standards, even in a tourny setting, and as I demonstrate in this post WYSIWYG is not fool proof. If you take a minute or three before the game starts and go over what every unit in your army is, it avoids alot of problems. "Declaring" an army is a long standing wargame convention, and I am always suprised how GW players seem to think that WYSIWYG is an acceptable substitute for it.

TR

How dare you suggest communication!

Trenchie's post above is a good example of my last point. The older weapons can be fairly ambiguous. Now I've been playing long enough that I know what those pictured above are

Hehehe...No you don't. You missed two of them!
I'll provide the correct answers in a while.
But thanks for the kind words in any event.

TR

I like the Conversion Beamer and "Shark" ML.

I field my army WYSIWYG period. I play a few different types of Orks, but usually a swing between the Green Tide and a Mek List. The Mek List is lighter on models than the Green Tide obviously, but it's still a lot of models. The bottom line of it is that I really don't want to fart round figuring it out. I think it wastes game time and causes frustration for myself and my opponent. I use WYSIWYG because it saves the hassles. My models, my choice.

As to my opponent's models, well it's their models and their choice. The only condition is that it better be clear what's in a unit and if that means a little post-it note follows the unit around the board, that's what happens.

It's all about game management and being a courteous player.

WYSIWYG the only time i use this is when I'm in a tournament, other then that i don't use it.

My WYSIWYG is almost perfect. Well, my MotF doesn't have conversion bearmer gun (not modelled yet, would buy if they made one), my power swords on Captains may be relic blades (arenät they just a bit longer?) and my Land Raider may have Redeemer falme guns. And my flamers are sometimes meltaguns. Damn you starter boxes!
My only rules are
a) come with the right base
b) look at least almost like the real one
c) it is almost same sized
d) before battle clearly tells what they are
Besides that I don't care how WYSIWYG they are.
One of my friends converted Warriors to Immortals by adding Space Marine backpacks to them. At first it made me want to kill him, but nowadays it's allright and actually very cool!

Ok, it's been a couple of days. Time for the correct answer to the WYSIWYG test above!
Clockwise from upper left they are:
-First model Space marine lascannon
-Conversion beamer (I use this model on my master of the forge)
-First model space marine lascannon (yeah I'm suprised too..more on that in a moment)
-IG grenade launcher
-Space marine missle launcher
-Chaos Renegade grenade launcher

Now what seems to have tripped some of you up, and this was not a purposeful attempt at deception on my part, is that GW seems to have changed the decriptions of these a couple of time over the years. I took my descriptions from the 1991 blue catalog. for instance I have seen the third model described as a missle launcher in the past and the last model (as well as the shoulder fired Imperial version that I was unable to find a photo of) was callsified in the first "Chapter Aproved" book as a "heavy grenade launcher" and even included rules for that weapon which apears nowere else.
yes as you can see this adds yet another complication to the WYSIWYG question.

TR

Is it too much to ask that people play the game with correctly armed figures? I mean at home or in casual settng it's fine to playtest a new weapon loadout before buying, but in tourney strict WYSIWYG should be followed.

I have a friend who always has proxies, possibly in tournies, too. Sad thing about it. I magnetized his arms so he could play correct weapons. He always is mixing up weapons and they switch from round to round in assaults. So annoying that I'm really comtemplating pulling him aside and revealing that he has the rep of being TFG. This has been going on during the entire 10 year run of me playing 40k. Time to toe the line and be legit. Anyways.

I play strict WYSIWYG. It's on figs or it's not played. I let other people slide, but I refuse to play something not modeled in public games. At home it is fine to try something out.

Same here, completely WYSIWYG, although I only keep a handful of substitute models available.

To the people who say "what about when I do/don't want sponsons", etc - what you have is what you have. Use it and make the best of it.

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:Is it too much to ask that people play the game with correctly armed figures?

I dunno, you buying?

I try to hold to the rule as best I can, and thankfully with the Wolves it's fairly easy, they don't have a lot of things that aren't either too trivial to bother modeling or are already on the model in some way or another. My Wolf Lord (Wolf Guard with Lightning Claws) even came with a necklace of wolf teeth. More than anything, though, I got down the army list of models that I wanted, bought the boxes and blisters, and then customized the wargear loadouts based on what came in said boxes. The wolf sprues are very nice with the power weapons and fist they give, I didn't have to do much. My next army is going to be a good bit of greenstuff molding and a bit of bit bashing, but I'm a bit more confident in what I can do, so I'm going to hold myself as close to WYSIWYG within reason.

Ive been playing for along time, and I only play 2 armies, space wolves and vampire counts. My collection is large enough that i never play with unpainted or "half painted" minis, and its almost always full WYSIWYG, with one exception...
damn bolters, bolt pistol, close combat weapons on my blood claws and grey hunters!!!
they do not get all 3 standard, so i have to shuffle the troops around to get it as close as possible, but even then a few guys are always out of place. I just make sure i always declare which squads have which equipment layouts, and show my opponent how to differentiate. (shoulderpad color scheme, backpacks painted different, etc)
Ive never had a problem with anyone regarding this, as they are normally standard equipment on vanilla marines


I find the game infinitely more enjoyable with 2 fully painted armies that are completely WYSIWYG on a table with good looking terrain

Shoulderpad color schemes differentiate mine too. Well, that and the Grey Hunters have bolters or bolters/special weapons and the Blood Claws have chainswords/power weapons and pistols.

I was WYSIWYG, then they went and changed the codex, and now my vehicles have guns they shouldn't and warp amps they can't get, and the same is shot thorugh my troops, minor lil details like needing a 10 man squad for a HW, for CSM, (I had 6man EC squads) or lords with doom sirens or a chosen ACC, with a double bolter -and- a powerfist..

So now it's "as close as the rules allow"

i'll play against a non WYSIWYG if the player has a written list and is consistent. for instance, i usually play 100% WYSIWYG in regards to weapons (not including grenades) and other expensive upgrades. Now that GW has nerfed voxes and my IG army had 100% vox penetration in squads, i'll simply tell my opponent that none of the voxes modelled in the army exist. if i were to say some are there while others are not, that would be too confusing.