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 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He says that almost all conversions are lazy and bad and are basicly proxying. Can you give me some good counterarguments in the form of some stuff you've done or seen?

In his defense many conversions out there are lazy and done just to be cheap. You just don't see them on Dakkadakka.

Like what?
Besides you're not going to get better without practice and sometimes you need the model ASAP so you can play with mildly proper representation.

@OP: just tell your friend he's being a stuck up gakbird. Conversions are part of the game. And GW prints rules for things that they don't even sell bits for, so I'm not even sure where he gets off.

Using DV models as Plague Marines or MoN Marines is just fine. Your friend is the one with the problem. Conversions should be encouraged.

I was going to give a counterargument.... but you know what? I think he has a fair perspective. Though I disagree with it.

Don't get disheartened though, endeavour to do the best you can; try create those few conversions that aren't just lazy, badly done proxies. Make something to be proud of.

Here are my attempts to create renegade blood angels (so still chaos, but not so much from the Nurgle) using 'rescued' DV set.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-74952-44362_Dark%20Vengeance%20Chaos%20Blood%20Angel%20Conversions.html

If I am going to be honest I'm not that proud of all of these models. You can tell; some never were really properly finished.

While you might want not to be lazy, I think the other side of the coin I've learnt with conversions is not to overdo it either.

Another thing, is a good paint job will go a long way. You can create (and alter) a lot of detail with paint.

My final point is to think of the story behind the models you are creating. Why are there a bunch of Nurgle marines in mark 7 armor? Were they wearing it when they turned traitor? Did they loot it as replacement parts after defeating some 40k loyalists? Are they newly created recruits for traitor Legions using parts taken during the Fall of Cadia?

 mmzero252 wrote:
There's a person at our local store that is exactly like this. Any converting or proxying (because the model is OOP) is considered a proxy by him. He refuses to play against people that "proxy" models because it's not clear to him what models are what. This is the case for literally any unit or any amount of units. Even if the model is just a gun difference, he'll still whine about it.

It becomes a massive issue if he participates in tournaments. In just this last one the store had, he was matched up as my ALLY in a 2v2 and he constantly complained about my units not being correct. It cost us all but one game because I couldn't carry his terrible purist units hard enough.

Ugh that sounds awful.

I mean if people are proxying coke cans for drop pods yeah, I understand that's annoying. But if you're making legit proxies based on what looks cool, and putting in effort, that should be encouraged. But there should still be consistency within your army.

As an afterthought, I think is unfair to dismiss conversions because most of them are lazy, bad proxies; if this is the quality you perceive most conversions as, you probably perceive most models to be lazy and badly assembled regardless of if they are a conversion or not.

OP, can you post some of your coversions here?

OP you need to just find new people to play with.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
See, this is the kind of thinking that gets us Deathwatch Librarians that aren't allowed to ride Bikes.

Whut they do not have a bike option :\

Cheap? Lazy? I'll bet his broke arse couldn't afford any of my work ¬_¬

It sounds like he also would not want your work. Regardless, nothing has been said to indicate the friend is broke.

 troa wrote:
It sounds like he also would not want your work. Regardless, nothing has been said to indicate the friend is broke.

Just a joke My point was more that some people will pay much, much more for a professionally finished and/or modified piece than they would for one that was simply assembled and painted.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
See, this is the kind of thinking that gets us Deathwatch Librarians that aren't allowed to ride Bikes.

Whut they do not have a bike option :\

That's the whole point. GW has been turning their model design & rules design to the point where they have written new codices with rules for just the models they have in their current range. Speaking of which, look at the Deathwatch Watch Master. The model has almost no options (none in the clam pack anyways, IIRC) and as such the rules in the book have almost no options. In order to field one, you almost certainly have to have one, instead of just building your own terrific model with all manner of magnetized parts to be able to swap between gear configurations. If the rules would have allowed, for example, the Deathwatch Watch Master to have a power sword and a storm shield, people would be simply using left over bits and a regular (Death Watch) marine body, instead of buying a specific Deathwatch Watch Master mono-pose character.
Many people have a Librarian Biker in their collection. You would not find one in the GW stores or their webshop. Lazy or not, fugly or masterfully done, all such Librarian Bikers would either be Rogue Trader era out of print metalics, or conversions. And if this trend in GW rules design continues, I do believe one day we will either see a specific "Space Marine Librarian With Space Marine Bike" model, or there would be a new Codex Space Marines in which a Space Marine Librarian would not have the option to take a bike.

Which brings us to proxies and conversions...

I always thought a proxy to be a stand-in model for one of two reasons. Either there wasn't a model available at all (whether by not having existed ever, or being OOP), so you would have to use something else to represent it on the tabletop. Or you could proxy a model because you just didn't have the model it should represent just yet. More often than not, this proxy would allow you try out a model before committing funds, time, energy, only to find the rules or actual model lacking. In my experience, people who allow their opponents to use proxies are often just as curious as to what a specific rule can do. They don't care about model accuracy and WYSIWYG in this specific instance.
The other side of the spectrum to me is a conversion, where there is an existing model, and you just alter it. The simplest of these would be to swap the head, or a weapon. The more elaborate ones change the pose and dynamics of a model. From a standing Space Marine Captain with a power sword to a running Space Marine Captain with a power sword, for example.

And to the OP...

That last example I gave. If I recall correctly, there are no (current) models available for a running power-armoured Space Marine Captain with power sword. So when I make a conversion of it, it is also a sort of a proxy. The same goes for a Chaos Terminator with a Plasmagun-Combi-Weapon. I couldn't find any, but I could make a conversion (which could then be called a proxy as there is no in print model or part for a Chaos Terminator Plasmagun-Combi-Weapon). From a certain point of view, your friend could be right about conversions actually being proxies. I cannot subscribe to the notion that all of them are 'lazy' (though I have seen Chaos Terminators with a regular combi-bolter with a plasmagun bit superglued on top of it, which looked sort of silly to my opinion). Like I said above, some options in current codices are not available as a model without converting/proxying.

I don't want to offend your friend at face value here (always two sides to a story and some such), but I, too, cannot fathom his problems with converting/proxying, and his responses seem, for a lack of better words, "uninformed". Some armies, most notably Orks and Chaos, practically beg for conversions, kitbashes, and for what it's worth, some proxies.

Does your friend also play warmachine?

I mean a significant portion of this is collecting.

I personally really like the aesthetic of Deathwing Knights, with the robes and shields, and that will be the base for my terminators / Grey Knights (although, I will paint my Grey Knights gold, call them Gold Knights, and the primary difference is that instead of leaving no witnesses they broadcast their victories on 40k social media, like Metal-Objects-In-Your-Face-Book).

I guess technically that's converting. If someone started actually getting in my face and telling me I was ruining the game, I honestly wouldn't know what to say. That is incredibly rude, for one, and two, it's just an opinion, being conveyed in the most aggressive way possible. I could easily see my response being, "Well that's just like, your opinion man. But don't worry, we won't ever be playing together."

 n0t_u wrote:
Does your friend also play warmachine?

You've got the wrong end of the stick there. WMH's conversion rules are rather relaxed and have been for some time. The only thing you cannot change is the weapon type (and even then, these rules only apply for Steamroller events). As long as your opponent can tell what it is, then there is no problem. I've got loads of converted Jacks (mainly for my Mercenaries). All are easily identifiable and nobody has ever complained. Even our stickler TFG whom at our last tournament insisted one of our players swap out his Eyriss3 (whom he was using as Eyriss2 as he liked the model more, yes he was technically correct, but he wasn't running the tournament nor was he playing him. I had no issue as Eyriss3 is a CA and Eyriss2 is a solo and he had no units Eyriss3 could possibly be attached to in his forces.) said nothing about my converted Doom Reaver Ogrun Bokurs, neither of which are made from PP models or the DR unit leader made from the free Khorne guy from WD.

I LOVE converting models. It's one of my favorite parts of the hobby, making a unit completely unique. Granted I take a lot of time on mine and make sure they're WYSIWYG. If I pour hours of my time and energy into a model to make something cool and unique (especially if it's painted and WYSIWYG) I cant imagine anyone not wanting to play it?

So long as the compliments outweigh the negativity I'd say you're heading in the right direction.

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He takes particular issue with me converting the Dark Vengeance set to nurgely chaos.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He takes particular issue with me converting the Dark Vengeance set to nurgely chaos.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

I thought the Dark Vengance set had a group of chaos marines in it, just not marked ones- am I thinking of the wrong set?

I remember back when I got started in the game, (as an Ork player,) a friend refused to let me use some converted Kommandos that I'd made by brutalizing some Ork Boyz. It wasn't exactly a great looking conversion, but they also weren't finished yet, and I'd been playing for about two months at the time.
This was especially frustrating because they hadn't seen the models until after the game started, when I brought them in from reserve, and were refusing to let me play with them mid-game.

 B Stores wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He takes particular issue with me converting the Dark Vengeance set to nurgely chaos.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

I thought the Dark Vengance set had a group of chaos marines in it, just not marked ones- am I thinking of the wrong set?

I can't quite tell if this is a joke about Dark Angels being secret traitors or not...

The impression I got from the OP was he wanted to convert the dark angels into chaos marines. Interesting question whether his friend objects to the dark angels conversions or the crimson slaughter ones too.

as a flip side to this I had a friend attempt to use penny's as summoned bloodletters in his KDK army. Put the kibosh on that real quick lol

 supreme overlord wrote:
as a flip side to this I had a friend attempt to use penny's as summoned bloodletters in his KDK army. Put the kibosh on that real quick lol

I don't mind this if they just started the army, or if it's a new model, but if it's something that's been out a while and they have a large collection, I usually put my foot down. For example - A regular opponent of mine plays Daemons, and has been for ages - He didn't have any Blue or Brimstone horrors, obviously, but I didn't mind him using zombies (which happen to be blue, except the unpainted ones, which are basecoated black,) as stand-ins. If a year goes by and he still lacks new horrors, though, that'll be a problem.

 supreme overlord wrote:
as a flip side to this I had a friend attempt to use penny's as summoned bloodletters in his KDK army. Put the kibosh on that real quick lol

This is an example of proxying, not an example of conversions. A conversion is an attempt to make a model not built to the instructions/official specifications that makes a significant effort to be the right size and have the correct equipment. A proxy is a stand-in for a model that makes no effort to look correct.

People get mad at proxies because of exactly this situation, where someone's going to try using paperclips or coins or cardboard tokens out of cheapness or laziness and it makes the game look terrible. Conversions that are done properly (which I would define as "sufficiently WYSIWYG to not cause confusion, and not immediately obvious as a conversion (i.e. with no random patches of unfinished greenstuff) when painted") are awesome and should be encouraged. Players shouldn't be forced to have all duplicates of the same unit entry look exactly the *bleep*ing same, just because GW can't be bothered to make more than one Death Jester or whatever.

A lot of these types of behavior is promoted by the organizers for tournament. If there are anyone to blame, it is them. WYSIWYG is a good concept but everyone misinterprets to the extreme. Conversion generally takes more work than buying the exact models. If you friend views it as being lazy, he has a problem, not you. The entire 40K community should boycott these type of behavior.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I remember back when I got started in the game, (as an Ork player,) a friend refused to let me use some converted Kommandos that I'd made by brutalizing some Ork Boyz. It wasn't exactly a great looking conversion, but they also weren't finished yet, and I'd been playing for about two months at the time.
This was especially frustrating because they hadn't seen the models until after the game started, when I brought them in from reserve, and were refusing to let me play with them mid-game.

For all conversions and proxies, it is a courtesy to let your opponent know what you are using for what purposes before the game starts. He can either accept or refuse to play you at the start and then hold his peace afterward.

nareik wrote:

 B Stores wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He takes particular issue with me converting the Dark Vengeance set to nurgely chaos.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

I thought the Dark Vengance set had a group of chaos marines in it, just not marked ones- am I thinking of the wrong set?

I can't quite tell if this is a joke about Dark Angels being secret traitors or not...

The impression I got from the OP was he wanted to convert the dark angels into chaos marines. Interesting question whether his friend objects to the dark angels conversions or the crimson slaughter ones too.

No joke here. The Dark vengeance starter set has the Dark Angels Space Marines and a Chaos Space Marines force (couple of cultists, couple of Chaos Space Marine Chosen and a Chaos Space Marines Lord which might be painted up to look Nurgly and such, a mono-pose Hellbrute.

does he own a gaming store and annoyed at missing out on some clamshell sales?

 Lord Xcapobl wrote:

nareik wrote:

 B Stores wrote:

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 MrVulcanator wrote:
He takes particular issue with me converting the Dark Vengeance set to nurgely chaos.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

I thought the Dark Vengance set had a group of chaos marines in it, just not marked ones- am I thinking of the wrong set?

I can't quite tell if this is a joke about Dark Angels being secret traitors or not...

The impression I got from the OP was he wanted to convert the dark angels into chaos marines. Interesting question whether his friend objects to the dark angels conversions or the crimson slaughter ones too.

No joke here. The Dark vengeance starter set has the Dark Angels Space Marines and a Chaos Space Marines force (couple of cultists, couple of Chaos Space Marine Chosen and a Chaos Space Marines Lord which might be painted up to look Nurgly and such, a mono-pose Hellbrute.

Those are the ones I was thinking of! I made a Nurglitch hellbrute from that kit if I remember rightly. If you spread the parts around I think there were enough parts for a group of chaos marines as well as the cultists.

Ruin wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
Does your friend also play warmachine?

You've got the wrong end of the stick there. WMH's conversion rules are rather relaxed and have been for some time. The only thing you cannot change is the weapon type (and even then, these rules only apply for Steamroller events). As long as your opponent can tell what it is, then there is no problem. I've got loads of converted Jacks (mainly for my Mercenaries). All are easily identifiable and nobody has ever complained. Even our stickler TFG whom at our last tournament insisted one of our players swap out his Eyriss3 (whom he was using as Eyriss2 as he liked the model more, yes he was technically correct, but he wasn't running the tournament nor was he playing him. I had no issue as Eyriss3 is a CA and Eyriss2 is a solo and he had no units Eyriss3 could possibly be attached to in his forces.) said nothing about my converted Doom Reaver Ogrun Bokurs, neither of which are made from PP models or the DR unit leader made from the free Khorne guy from WD.

I'll admit the last time I checked the models were all metal and the playerbase was seemingly filled with idiotic screeching TFGs.

Largely depends on how well you implement it, but yeah, that does walk the line. I'd be on his side if the end result was still very clearly a dark angel that didn't look nurgly at all.

I get not wanting to allow it if the end result still looks too much like a Dark Angel (although personally I would still allow it as I'm fairly laid back about all this), but in what way does it "walk the line"?

Is the concern the Mk 7 armor? The Dark Angels iconography? Personally, I've read enough 40K fluff over the years that I've seen "modern" marines turn to chaos on a surprisingly regular basis. Heck, go read James Swallow's Blood Angels anthology (awful book - don't actually read it). It goes something like this: Word Bearers: "Mumble mumble mumble ... CHAOS MAGIC!" This turns half the Blood Angels in the book evil on the spot.
Look at all the Space Wolves (and other loyalist marines) Huron has in his fleet. I mean heck, all you have to do to make a Red Corsair is paint a red "x" over one shoulder pad. So with all that, I'm not sure why the OP's Dark Angels would "walk the line". I could easily see plenty of scenarios where they become Nurgle marines.

To the OP: Like some others have said, you probably aren't going to convince this person to change their mind. I would just recommend playing someone else.

First of all your friend is an idiot, because if the conversion looks good, its fine.

Second point out to your friend that there are many cases in which GW had rules but no models to represet the unit, IE void shield generators, titan, and pipelines, thunderhawks for a time. So ask him well what then? You were forced to do conversions/scratch build.

Your friend is being that guy, tell him not to be that guy, tell him to be this guy.