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As the original question I posed has been answered, I have edited my OP so that I stop getting a stream of people answering the same thing given that I quite quickly accepted the answer after the first two posts.

My new question is this:

Does anyone know another model similar in size to the standard wraithguard models that I could possibly convert? My concern is that necron warriors may be too small. If anyone knows offhand what the size difference is, I'd be grateful for the info.

Tournament would kick you out, no questions asked.

well maybe they'll ask how do you have such giant balls @_@

They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

Alright, didn't know if recasts were accepted or not. Thanks for clearing that up.

Rather illegal, yes, both in a tournament rules sense and intellectual property laws sense. Best start trawling ebay and trade sites, coming up with a convincing conversion or counts-as, saving those pennies, or rewriting your list.

Or just wait until they come out in finecast.

Then no-one will know the difference by weight alone.

Don't ask, don't tell.

Just don't mention it to anyone. You will be fine as long as they are painted; no one will know the difference.

As long as they're painted no one will know.

I wonder how legal it would be if you sculpted them by yourself (they would still look like gw wraithguard) and then casted those (for your own use only)?

I don't know about Canada, but in the US you are perfectly within your rights to recast models for your own use. The minute you decide to sell or trade those models, you are committing a crime. So the person who said something about having your army confiscated is way off.

A GW tournament will obviously not allow recast models. A privately organized tournament may or may not, but as long as your models are painted and don't let others handle them, it is not likely that anyone else will know.

I could never see a tournament kicking you out for having resin wraithguard.

I would not go flaunting it or anything though.

Kairos wrote:Just don't mention it to anyone. You will be fine as long as they are painted; no one will know the difference.

Until they pick one up to have a closer look.

Best bet is trawling ebay or trades or waiting for them to be Finecast. Failing that consider alternates that you may be able to get for cheaper, particularly from ebay and trades - the old Ghost Warriors would be good and would add variety and are likely to be far cheaper to hunt than Wraithguard.

It's risky business! If the casting quality isn't top-notch, then you can't even blame Finecast flaws, since Wraithguard haven't moved to resin yet. If they looked convincing, and they were painted up, then nobody would be able to tell from looking at them, but as has been pointed out above, someone lifts one up, and it's game over.

If you fancy a challenge, you could always kit-bash/sculpt them, based on Necron Warriors?

Everyone will be fine with it apart from the organizers of a GW sanctioned event and even then there is little they can do about it other than kick you out a tournament. As long as your not selling them you can recast for personal use only to your hearts desire.

@popsicle Those converted Wraithguard are indeed pimping

helium42 wrote:I don't know about Canada, but in the US you are perfectly within your rights to recast models for your own use. The minute you decide to sell or trade those models, you are committing a crime. So the person who said something about having your army confiscated is way off.

Not true. You are not allowed to recast for your own use. Personal/fair use has a very narrow legal definition. An example of 'fair use' would be recasting a single model 10 times to use that model to test paint schemes and paint it up in dozens of ways. After you are done, you would destroy the duplicates. That is an example of personal use under the law. Making more copies because you want them cheaper is not fair use or personal use.

A GW tournament will obviously not allow recast models. A privately organized tournament may or may not, but as long as your models are painted and don't let others handle them, it is not likely that anyone else will know.

Almost every INDY event has ties to GW. Part of those ties and the reputation of the event is to not promote or support lawbreaking. Yes, most people 'won't' know or even care, but if you had a whole army of legacy metal models in resin, that is a huge red flag especially to people who are very familiar with older models. Most stores do not want bootlegs or counterfeits as it spits in the face of the business they are in, selling models. Most tourneys want to not have their event tainted by someone breaking the law. You will face resistance and major issues if you game at most tourneys with counterfeits.

Popsicle is correct. Convert them legally. Or become an eBay pro and buy up odd lots and learn to use simple green. Wraithguard are easy to restore.

My reasoning was that I was certain it was more or less fine for personal use in friendly games. I don't see that large of a difference between recasting, and sculpting your own to cast (besides IP complications for exact replicas). A straight recast is essentially just faster. I'd already figured tournaments wouldn't accept them, but given that I've never played a GW-sanctioned tournament before, I figured I'd ask.

The issue with doing a conversion from existing bits is that the most common seems to be necron warriors, and while that conversion is absolutely awesome, I'm fairly sure they're smaller than the standard wraithguard.

I suppose I could always cast from the metal original, and then cut up the resin one to make conversion bits if I find a model of similar size to the wraithguard. IIRC, don't tournaments allow conversions if they're at least mostly GW model? This also allows for the addition of insignias or other details to be added and produced en masse.

The question is then, what plastic or resin kits are out there where the minis are of similar size and shape? If this turns out to be the most reasonable route while still being legal for play, I'm up for the work. I just really don't want to put nearly $400 after tax into 20 troops models. Does anyone know offhand if necron warriors are that off in size?

Of course its illegal, its no different to shoplifting a few packs of wraithguard from a store.

Just pick a cheaper army.

If there's any doubt then you're really better off not bothering, it'd be a lot of time and effort to go to for no avail.

Please be careful with what you post, Dakka does not condone or support copyright or IP theft etc etc blah blah, you know the drill. Those who breach the rules will will be mercilessly crushed, turned into energon cubes and fed to Sharkticons.

.. or something.

Those converted Necrons are great BTW


Dropped K added

Sharkticons. They're called Sharkticons.

(Don't mind me as I go back to hunting Wreck Gar MLPs)

I would recommend purchasing them outright. You know what you are paying for and you will get the result that you want. Regardless of the legality issue, casting resin is not an easy task and could very easily cost you an arm and a leg.

Necron warriors are not as bulky and will be a tad shorter.

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Orinoco wrote:

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Intellectual Property rights.

TheHarleqwin wrote:
I suppose I could always cast from the metal original, and then cut up the resin one to make conversion bits if I find a model of similar size to the wraithguard. IIRC, don't tournaments allow conversions if they're at least mostly GW model? This also allows for the addition of insignias or other details to be added and produced en masse.

The question is then, what plastic or resin kits are out there where the minis are of similar size and shape? If this turns out to be the most reasonable route while still being legal for play, I'm up for the work. I just really don't want to put nearly $400 after tax into 20 troops models. Does anyone know offhand if necron warriors are that off in size?

Using that Necron conversion as a guide I really don't think you'd need to recast a GW model at all. Looking at that, you could custom sculpt lower legs with minimal effort and skill. and lets be honest, Wraithguard heads ain't that complicated either (They don't even have faces!) The Wraithcannon looks like a Gauss flayer with some eldar weapon bits (also really just a pair of oval shapes anyone can sculpt.)

Just man up and custom sculpt those peices, and making castings of them! Get a box of Necrons, ebay yourself a few additional Eldar bits for pennies, fill in the ribs, add some shoulderpads and you've got Wraithguard for probably about $10 CAN per model.

Doing it yourself can skip 99% of the IP issues you're facing. Plus since it's a GW Necron model base the final model will be about 50% GW parts (or close enough) that you can take them to a tourney with pride in your conversion instead of guilt of your ripping off GW.

Now, buy some bulk Greenstuff or brown stuff from Reaper or GF9, and some tools. Take your time with the sculpt and accept that your first dozen or so attempts will suck. Ask for tips on Dakka Dakka. (I'd be happy to give you some pointers) But once you've got one or two solid sculpts that look good, you're ready to start making molds. And once you've got a solid mold you can drop enough resin castings to fill out your army in a matter of hours.

I understand that you might not be an experianced sculptor, but I've gotta say this is a solid beginner project. The perfect combination of challange and simplicity that you can both learn and still generate usable results.

Futhermore, casting whole models ISN'T EASY! You're going to spend the same amount of time sculpting the bits (which will be MUCH easier to cast) as you will trying to recast a single complete model in such a way that doesn't come out looking like you recasted it.

And in the end, ask yourself this: What's more important to you: 30-60 mins every night for a week or two until you get some good sculpts, or $750 CAN +whatever you spent trying to recast with little success?

DarkStarSabre wrote:

Kairos wrote:Just don't mention it to anyone. You will be fine as long as they are painted; no one will know the difference.

Until they pick one up to have a closer look.

Best bet is trawling ebay or trades or waiting for them to be Finecast. Failing that consider alternates that you may be able to get for cheaper, particularly from ebay and trades - the old Ghost Warriors would be good and would add variety and are likely to be far cheaper to hunt than Wraithguard.

"Until they pick one up to have a closer look. "

They won't. People generally don't touch other people's models without permission. If they do, they don't know what they are doing\much about the game anyway.

eldartau1987 wrote:

Orinoco wrote:

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Intellectual Property rights.

Who in their right mind is going to walk up to somebody and just start taking things? In the real world.

eldartau1987 wrote:

Orinoco wrote:

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Intellectual Property rights.

That gives the police and customs officers the right to seize them. Know any tournaments being run by on-duty police or customs officers?

A private citizen siezing another person's property and/or destroying it on suspicion of it being counterfeit opens themselves up to a whole world of litigation, it would be a monumentally stupid thing to do

Charax wrote:

eldartau1987 wrote:

Orinoco wrote:

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Intellectual Property rights.

That gives the police and customs officers the right to seize them. Know any tournaments being run by on-duty police or customs officers?

There were two off-duty officers at my last tourney, and I'm sure they'd work just as well. As to what Citizens can do vs. Law Enforcement officers, and what they will do, we're talking about MASSIVE complications since there are minimum 4 countries on this thread already. The bottom line, recasting someone's Intellectual Property(IP) is considered legally the same as tucking one under your coat as you walk out of the Game Store, you're just beholden to GW directly rather than the FLGS you just walked out of. It's also on the same ethical level. It'd be on the same moral level if we hadn't entered an era of relativistic blathering.

TheHarleqwin wrote:My new question is this:
Does anyone know another model similar in size to the standard wraithguard models that I could possibly convert? My concern is that necron warriors may be too small. If anyone knows offhand what the size difference is, I'd be grateful for the info.

There are a couple of pictures above, and while I can't find any direct comparisons on a quick web search, I'd estimate the difference to be about a head height, with most of that being in the thighs, which look to me pipes, and would be easy to craft.

Here's the Dakka Thread that the above picture came from
Here's the WarSeer Thread that the above thread referenced it from

Here's another thread with lots of hits for "wraithguard conversion" and TONS of pretty pictures, though it's probably not going to help you. I'm in love though....

Charax wrote:

eldartau1987 wrote:

Orinoco wrote:

n0t_u wrote:They'll kick you out if they notice that they're recasts, perhaps even confiscate the army and press charges depending on the severity. Either way it is illegal.

lol, what gives them the right to seize the models?

Intellectual Property rights.

That gives the police and customs officers the right to seize them. Know any tournaments being run by on-duty police or customs officers?

A private citizen siezing another person's property and/or destroying it on suspicion of it being counterfeit opens themselves up to a whole world of litigation, it would be a monumentally stupid thing to do

I did not believe that we were working on the assumption that people were being reasonable here. In the instance, the could in fact get law enforcement involved, who could in turn confiscate evidence. To prevent a total flame war, I would say that this off topic and we should work toward finding the OP a solution to a problem.