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yeenoghu wrote:and my cigarette box is a hellhound.

I frequently use my pack of smokes to represent an extra hydra.

Proxies are fine by me, this can be an expensive hobby so i dont mind if someone uses substitutions/stand ins. My friend currently uses his chaos warhounds to represent his skaven jezzails. i dont really mind as long as its clear what the proxy is supposed to be.

Does this issue also encompass the following scenario: you have a fully painted wysiwyg Ultramarine marine army and decide that today you want to take them our for a spin as Blood Angels or Space Wolves? I don't see any issue with that as the only real difference will be the color of their armor and I certainly would let someone else do that because otherwise its not stretching the imagination or ruining the aesthetics of the game.

The one thing that I do see is a weird dynamic where some people are very opposed to the concept of proxying I guess is the best term subbing something like a coke bottle for drop pods and little green army men for IG because they shelled out the cash to build, paint and model their army appropriately so why can't you? On the other hand does this attitude impose a sort of economic bar on the hobby? You need to make x per year to even think about fielding a 40k army? Shouldn't the game, as it is a game at its most basic, be as open and accesible to everyone as possible?

I can see both POV's because I've spent a king's ransom getting my SM army up and running and would feel a bit of annoyance if my opponent plopped down army men. The dilemna is am I being some sort of gaming elitist when I feel that way? Maybe the guy plopping down his green army men makes minumum wage or is down on his luck, should that mean he shouldn't enjoy the game as much as I do?

Wow I don't post often but this issue has recenlty boiled my blood so please bear with me, the thing is i have built and converted some pretty 'out there' counts as armies and still use them a lot.
(google search khrave & barghesi and you will find my little pink and blue aliens that counts as orks). Thats good for you i might hear you say.
The thing is i only play with my local group and i would say that atleast 90% of them proxy most of there armies.
Well whats the problem with that, you clearly embrace the 'counts as' rule.

The problem is I have spent YEARS working on the projects, and doing a really good counts as army is not cheap. For instance i use the three eyes chaos marnie possessed head on my khrave nobs, and i have almost 50 of these. (You get one in each box of possessed marines). My whole army has cost roughtly double that of a normal ork army in the end. Do i say this to brag (only a little, but then thats why i started the army in the first place) but mostly i made this army to look cool and to have something no else in the whole world has!
But ergo thats the problem, im not the best player (more of a converter and painter) and my army lists are built to use my cool models not to steam roll over every other army.
But others have now started to do what they think is the same, but to me proxy is not the same as counts as. And for one simple reason, when you play as a counts as army you are limited to the models you have converted and painted. When you proxy, anything can be anything. So when i lay out my army ready for battle its very clear what everything is because everything is WYSIWYG but whats to stop my oppnent to then decide that the marines with no arms are now armed with plasma guns? or the three apples from his lunch box are now leman russ's? Nothing thats what. And this has happned. Only two weeks ago I faced a newish guy at the club, he played nids and me my barghesi. I had my army out of the case on the side so he knew full well what i had. He then decided that what units he was going to take but as he didnt have most of the correct models so he decided it was fine to proxy his amry from bits and bobs. Now when i say he proxyed his army it was the most extreme version, he didnt even own his own codex and had to share with someone else during the game. He used space marnies and orks boys to count as the same thing and even had a space marine on a horse for the doom of malah thingy. And to top it all off he won by a hefty margin. Since then the whole idea of proxying has left a sour taste in my mouth.

To me proxying to win is akin to cheating or at the least not playing within the spirit of the hobby.
Sorry for the rant, im ill and cranky!

I allow any proxy as long as the width and hight of the model are the same or very nearly the same.

This means that almost any infantry can be proxied by another infantry. However, it is difficult to proxy vehicles as the different armies generally have very different vehicles. A rhino cannot be proxied as a raider.

As long as some efforts been at least attempted 'count-as' is fine with me.

I'm fine with a couple of things being Proxied, mostly due to forgetting the model or what have you, but turning up week in week out, begins to get on my nerves.

I'd still play though, even if I make snide remarks

They can"counts as" as much as they like with me as long as its clear what's meant to be what when playing against them.

Stravo wrote:Does this issue also encompass the following scenario: you have a fully painted wysiwyg Ultramarine marine army and decide that today you want to take them our for a spin as Blood Angels or Space Wolves? I don't see any issue with that as the only real difference will be the color of their armor and I certainly would let someone else do that because otherwise its not stretching the imagination or ruining the aesthetics of the game.

The one thing that I do see is a weird dynamic where some people are very opposed to the concept of proxying I guess is the best term subbing something like a coke bottle for drop pods and little green army men for IG because they shelled out the cash to build, paint and model their army appropriately so why can't you? On the other hand does this attitude impose a sort of economic bar on the hobby? You need to make x per year to even think about fielding a 40k army? Shouldn't the game, as it is a game at its most basic, be as open and accesible to everyone as possible?

I can see both POV's because I've spent a king's ransom getting my SM army up and running and would feel a bit of annoyance if my opponent plopped down army men. The dilemna is am I being some sort of gaming elitist when I feel that way? Maybe the guy plopping down his green army men makes minumum wage or is down on his luck, should that mean he shouldn't enjoy the game as much as I do?

The whole "Ultramarines using Blood Angels rules" is a whole new can of worms. As long as the equipment is correct (i.e: your "Sanguine Guards" have jetpacks, some sort of power weapon, and a storm bolter) or at least recognisable, it's not really proxying at all. There's nothing that says all units using the Blood Angels book had to be red and have blood angels icongraphy. Now if you want to use Sternguard as Sanguine Guards, that'll fall in with normal proxy rules.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

The whole "Ultramarines using Blood Angels rules" is a whole new can of worms. As long as the equipment is correct (i.e: your "Sanguine Guards" have jetpacks, some sort of power weapon, and a storm bolter) or at least recognisable, it's not really proxying at all. There's nothing that says all units using the Blood Angels book had to be red and have blood angels icongraphy. Now if you want to use Sternguard as Sanguine Guards, that'll fall in with normal proxy rules.

That makes me think of Grey Knights as counts as Sanguine Guard. Have to scrounge up some jetpacks, but I must say: that would be fun.

Hi all.
When all said and done the minatures in a table top minatures game are just de -luxe counters .

It helps if they are easily identifiable and conform to the physical restrictions listed in the rules.

The difference of opinion comes down to differences in the amount of time and money spent.

If player A has slavishly bought GW only metal minatures to create his personalised army, painted to a hight standard.(He has spent £100s and months of effort.)
And player B is trying out a new army list , and is using a proxty list made up of 'reasonable proxies'.

Player A may take exception to player B , as player B prooves all player As effort and investment is NOT realy necissary to play the game.
Its the icing on the gamers cake,some people like it thick some prefer it thin.

No 'wrong' or 'right' here, just difference of opinion on how much the asthetic matters to you.

TTFN

Lanrak wrote:Hi all.
When all said and done the minatures in a table top minatures game are just de -luxe counters .

It helps if they are easily identifiable and conform to the physical restrictions listed in the rules.

The difference of opinion comes down to differences in the amount of time and money spent.

If player A has slavishly bought GW only metal minatures to create his personalised army, painted to a hight standard.(He has spent £100s and months of effort.)
And player B is trying out a new army list , and is using a proxty list made up of 'reasonable proxies'.

Player A may take exception to player B , as player B prooves all player As effort and investment is NOT realy necissary to play the game.
Its the icing on the gamers cake,some people like it thick some prefer it thin.

No 'wrong' or 'right' here, just difference of opinion on how much the asthetic matters to you.

TTFN

It all depends on whether they are testing a codex out or just constantly proxying.

Once you take your army out of the box and into a gaming enviroment, you have to remember that it transitions from a hobby to a social hobby. If you detrementaly effect someone elses enjoyment of the game by constantly using annoying proxys, people won't want you to be part of their social hobby and you won't get any games.

Effort isn't needed as you say, but if you put no effort into the hobby you get alot less out of it and people make less of an effort to involve you.

My playgroup is very Lax for counts-as.

For Wargear, no one really expects WYSIWYG.

For specific models, we allow all sorts of "counts-as" for a few games. We all experiment extensively with new units, and often times want to try them out before buying them. So, we end up using all sorts of cross-unit and cross-army proxies. But, if you use the same unit proxied in for a few games, we start giving you a hard time and make you break down and actually go buy it.

I think I've use all of my "These Falcons are really Fire Prisms." It's time to actually go purchase a few of them.

I've yet to have anyone have a problem with this, but what do you guys think?:

I have a Nightbringer model that I stuck some Tzeentch lord of change wings on because I thought it looked cool.

A Nightbringer doesn't actually have wings and can't move fast like other winged creatures in the game.

Would it be reasonable for someone to argue that I couldn't have wings on the Nightbringer because it doesn't actually have wings and can't fly 12 inches or whatever. Technically its not like I did a conversion on the figure that doesn't mean anything in the Warhammer universe (wings=fast movement speed) as opposed to just giving the Nightbringer a tale or something which doesn't specifically correlate with an 'ability/power' in the game.

I don't see any issue with it at all as I'm all about people having fun with the hobby, making conversions, etc. but have any of you ran into people that would have a problem with it?..I mean as long as I'm not trying to say the Nightbringer is actually a Monolith.

SuperCow wrote:I've yet to have anyone have a problem with this, but what do you guys think?:

I have a Nightbringer model that I stuck some Tzeentch lord of change wings on because I thought it looked cool.

A Nightbringer doesn't actually have wings and can't move fast like other winged creatures in the game.

Would it be reasonable for someone to argue that I couldn't have wings on the Nightbringer because it doesn't actually have wings and can't fly 12 inches or whatever. Technically its not like I did a conversion on the figure that doesn't mean anything in the Warhammer universe (wings=fast movement speed) as opposed to just giving the Nightbringer a tale or something which doesn't specifically correlate with an 'ability/power' in the game.

I don't see any issue with it at all as I'm all about people having fun with the hobby, making conversions, etc. but have any of you ran into people that would have a problem with it?..I mean as long as I'm not trying to say the Nightbringer is actually a Monolith.

I wouldnt have a problem with it, honestly, if it looks cool then it looks cool. But, one thing i would point out is that by putting wings on your Nightbringer, you MAY be adding a larger profile by which he can be shot at, which does affect him in game


Ultimately, i think it comes down to being reasonable. Counts as, to me refers to a permanent change in an army, whether i decide to not use a particular model and scratch build my own, for whatever reason is a counts as. a proxy is something that is temporary, and isnt/shouldnt be permanent. A "reasonable" person should never really turn down a good counts as force, or model. A "reasonable" proxie should be uniform across the board, special gear or persons should be relatively easy to spot.

Commander Endova wrote:To be honest, I'm pretty strict on the whole "Counts As" thing. I dislike when people make a generic DIY chapter and make it so that they can have it "Count As" whatever MEQ army's bandwagon they feel like jumping on that month. I've personally got an army for each of the three 5th Marine codices, and while I can't expect everyone to do the same, the practice is still sort of annoying for some unquantifiable reason.

Someone's just pissed off that they didn't think about that possibility before buying tons of the same models for 3 different armies

Poor attitude IMO, while I agree that it has gone a bit too far in some cases, I f.ex. read a bat rep with blood angels on bikes = thundercav, which is proxy IMO, but if it is pulled off well, I'm a firm supporter of "1 MEQ army to be them all". Why buy lots of the same units and paint them differently? Are you secretly working for GW maybe?