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What are the rules on scratch building stuff on a model?

For example, it's easy to cast/mold stuff and if I did it on a bunch of missile launchers to make up a dev squad from tact marines, would it be tourney legal? Those bitz guys are makes a killing on things and it's a waste to keep buying tacts or dev boxes just to field missile launchers and the like.

What about scatch building tanks like a rhino from a scale model tank and using stuff like plasti-card? All this stuff is easy and quick for me to make being a scale modeler but would I be able to take them to tourneys?

Or even mold/cast jump page to make jumping assault squads?

Thanks

Depends on the TO, you'd have to ask him. I believe GWs official position is that the model must be >= 75% Citadel or Forgeworld product.

Is there a good shop in the US that sells Forgeworld products? I was trying to find one.

Ebay lol. Beside that you'd have to call up a store & see if they can order & have them shipped or drop shipped to you. As far as I know most stores, even in europe, don't stock forgeworld because it's so specialized and so expensive that it isn't worth the shelf space when they could just do special orders.

The Model most be, at minimume, of 75% Games Workshop or Forge World parts.

There have been a few reported incidents were red shirts have snapped off offending parts on a model or two, but don't put stock into it until you see it happen for real.

Just paint up your minis and nobody will know the difference3 between an original and a cast piece. GW doesn't mind you casting small pieces, see their older White Dwarf article on green stuff casting.

I know of 2 web stores that sell FW bits.
1) Bits and Kits UK- UK based. This was my favorite site for a while because prices were low (GBP to USD), selection was great and delivery was as fast as US based bits dealers.

2) Bits Barn- US based- Not bad, but slow to deliver.

On topic, what would be the case on fully scratch-built vehicles, I mean, not using other companies things, just, say, wood, polyestirene and cardboard?

@ Vampyr Wulf, Ask the TO, it will vary from tournament to tournament, but GWs official stance is 75%.

@Gambak, even painted its fairly easy to tell fakes unless they are VERY well done.

@Cambak, where did you hear that part about breaking minis? I know you said not to take it as fact until I see it myself but this seems like something I'd have seen a massive rant about.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:@Cambak, where did you hear that part about breaking minis? I know you said not to take it as fact until I see it myself but this seems like something I'd have seen a massive rant about.

I think it is one of those urban myths that circulate around the internet. I know that if anyone broke my conversions and scratch built models they would answer to the full extent of the law and/or my boot

But then I played at Warhammer World with both my DP's a few weeks ago (neither of which is a GW model and neither of which is close to 75% GW) and no one seemed to really care.

@SilverMK2 yea that was my thinking & sentiments as well. I personally find Mantic games ghouls better looking and their skeletons easier to work with so I've been thinking about using those along with some GW bits & if they break them I will happily show them the soles of my boots. Then again I don't attend anything at GW stores as the nearest one is 3 hours away

Dark wrote:On topic, what would be the case on fully scratch-built vehicles, I mean, not using other companies things, just, say, wood, polyestirene and cardboard?

Yes, this one, da orkz wants to know!

Thanks guys... 75% eh? Hurm...

@ Dark: Yeh... scratch build meaning building it from scratch with styrene or something similar. OR, just grab a cheap 1/48 or 1/32 scale tank from a cheap scale model manufacturer and build up from there.

DreamKnight wrote:Thanks guys... 75% eh? Hurm...

@ Dark: Yeh... scratch build meaning building it from scratch with styrene or something similar. OR, just grab a cheap 1/48 or 1/32 scale tank from a cheap scale model manufacturer and build up from there.

What I understood if that if I grab a cheap 1/48 or 1/32 tank and I use it as a base, then I should add GW and/or FW bitz so 75% is from them, but I wanted to know what happends when I don't use anything made from another company (as I understand the other case as "If you're going to play my game giving money to another company, I want to make sure you spend money on my stuff as well").

I think the bottom line here is, "Ask the TO."

Quite simply, while GW's rule is 75%, that doesn't mean every TO in the world follows it.

At my FLGS, the TO actually allows anything that shares a similar footprint and construction. He's allowed scratchbuilt IG tanks before, because they were roughly the same size as a Leman Russ, and had the turret and sponsons in the same location.

DreamKnight wrote:Is there a good shop in the US that sells Forgeworld products? I was trying to find one.

I doubt there are any independent stores that do so. They'd have to pay full price for them, and then would either take a loss by selling at the same price, or charge more than FW does and hope that it matches what people are willing to pay for the convenience of having it right away.

Well I would say that it's ok to scratchbuild stuff, that's the bread and butter of an Ork player. But you talk of recasting missle launchers and other bits, I would be wary of doing that before going to a GW tournament. Though no one is likely to notice in reality I have to point out it's probably infringing copyright so don't point it out. There's plenty of threads already established, many many pages long, where people argue the toss about 'fair use' or 'just for personal use' so I'm not going to say any more.

Sure, you'll spare your wallet by recasting, but by doing so you will jack up the price for us who buy all our gakk legally and suddenly you have a horde of angry nerds with empty wallets standing on your recast (probably) porch with the recast (certainly) shovels that you made a hundred of for no particular reason and dumped on your front lawn.

Bottom line, casting is awesome, recasting ain't!

Dark wrote:On topic, what would be the case on fully scratch-built vehicles, I mean, not using other companies things, just, say, wood, polyestirene and cardboard?

I had a conversation about this at a GW near me the other day. The guy wasn't sure but he thought that you could do it so long as it was GW product (a full rhino made of GW green stuff would be legit, for example)

Ordo Dakka wrote:(a full rhino made of GW green stuff would be legit, for example)

And more expensive... =p

Ordo Dakka wrote:

Dark wrote:On topic, what would be the case on fully scratch-built vehicles, I mean, not using other companies things, just, say, wood, polyestirene and cardboard?

I had a conversation about this at a GW near me the other day. The guy wasn't sure but he thought that you could do it so long as it was GW product (a full rhino made of GW green stuff would be legit, for example)

The product being what I built or what I used? (I ask because i'm not getting this right)

What you used.

That can be dodgy, as one can claim to have used GW's boxes for cardboard and gs to fill the gaps.

Oh well, the way I see it then, it's a non explicit way to say "If you use scraps, do wathever you want; if you use other companie's products, at least 75% should be from GW".

Yeah lets go with that. The guy didn't know anything for sure, anyway.

Ordo Dakka wrote:Yeah lets go with that. The guy didn't know anything for sure, anyway.

In the end, I don't guess one would get yelled a lot for one or two vehicles or similar after spending a lot on toy soldiers from them xD

Vargtass wrote:Sure, you'll spare your wallet by recasting, but by doing so you will jack up the price for us who buy all our gakk legally and suddenly you have a horde of angry nerds with empty wallets standing on your recast (probably) porch with the recast (certainly) shovels that you made a hundred of for no particular reason and dumped on your front lawn.

Bottom line, casting is awesome, recasting ain't!

Yeh right. I'm sure one lone guy, recasting two missile launchers and putting it on two AoBR tacts to make a 5xmissle launchers (the other three from a Dev squad and two AoBR sets) is really going to be the cause of any price hikes. Besides, it would affect me since I just spents $600+ last month on fantasy and have and will end up spending about the same for a SW army this week.

Though given GW's track record, I wouldn't be surprised if they used that excuse for the next price hike.

DreamKnight wrote:

Vargtass wrote:Sure, you'll spare your wallet by recasting, but by doing so you will jack up the price for us who buy all our gakk legally and suddenly you have a horde of angry nerds with empty wallets standing on your recast (probably) porch with the recast (certainly) shovels that you made a hundred of for no particular reason and dumped on your front lawn.

Bottom line, casting is awesome, recasting ain't!

Yeh right. I'm sure one lone guy, recasting two missile launchers and putting it on two AoBR tacts to make a 5xmissle launchers (the other three from a Dev squad and two AoBR sets) is really going to be the cause of any price hikes. Besides, it would affect me since I just spents $600+ last month on fantasy and have and will end up spending about the same for a SW army this week.

Though given GW's track record, I wouldn't be surprised if they used that excuse for the next price hike.

This is an inherently flawed argument using the "ME ME ME" mentality so common among pirates. The world doesn't revolve around you, you know.

One person recasting two models will not cause a price hike.

One thousand people casting two models each will cause a small price hike.

Ten thousand people recasting a hundred models each will cause a massive price hike.

While you alone are not the entire problem, you are a part of the problem, and sticking your head in the sand doesn't make you less a part of the problem.

Alright, thanks guys... was just curious. There's also a matter of how to make your Thunderwolf Calvary tourney legal as well. I guess then that'll depend on the size of the wolf compared to the SM model! LOL

Though it would be a cool project to see if I can build most of say a Rhino from say... a bunch of CD cases.

Meh. I won't get into the recasting debate. It's been done.

For-fun games, I follow the rule of cool. If it looks cool, sweet!

For Tournaments, just call the TO first. "Hey man, I have a scratch built rhino and the dimensions are _____." and go from there.

SaintHazard wrote:
This is an inherently flawed argument using the "ME ME ME" mentality so common among pirates. The world doesn't revolve around you, you know.

One person recasting two models will not cause a price hike.

One thousand people casting two models each will cause a small price hike.

Ten thousand people recasting a hundred models each will cause a massive price hike.

While you alone are not the entire problem, you are a part of the problem, and sticking your head in the sand doesn't make you less a part of the problem.

Nor did I say it was all about "ME ME ME" though I am asking about "what if I...". I was trying to figure out what's legal or not and what would be OK in the grand scheme of things getting into 40k and building an army to play before I'm going to do it. Better to know now before spending time to build stuff that you may use later for a tourney. And who's to say that what I'm trying to do is pirate stuff when it's simply to spend time to make some pieces so that you can spend that money on buying more boxes a SM Tactical than to spend $12 for a RL piece that some store cut apart?

Anyway, I digress. I pretty much go the answer. Thanks guys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kronk wrote:Meh. I won't get into the recasting debate. It's been done.

For-fun games, I follow the rule of cool. If it looks cool, sweet!

For Tournaments, just call the TO first. "Hey man, I have a scratch built rhino and the dimensions are _____." and go from there.

Yeh, it sounds like the debate is something that's been brought up before. Sorry for bring it back up. LOL

Thanks Kronk. I'll do that if it every gets to that point.

Don't have a citation to back it up, but I seem to recall reading something from GW about their 75% policy. It's mostly meant to allow a degree of flexibility in modeling (like head swaps, etc.) while ensuring you don't go 3rd party for your whole army. Plasticard/cardboard scratchbuilds with some GW bits tossed on were fine, but sticking shield drones on a Gundam model and calling it a Tau titan wouldn't fly in their stores (3rd party model). Same deal - plasticard and battlewagon bits tank? Cool. FW Grot tank crew on a Tamiya model? Not so much.

Could be mistaken, of course, but that's my take. Then again, I can't seem to rectify that stance with how I would assume they'd view using cardboard Rhinos, instead of their widely available and (by their standards) relatively inexpensive plastic kit... Well, the closest GW store is in NYC, so I don't have to worry about it.