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What are your feelings about converting models for allies and using other models to count as different units?
A couple examples..

I play Orks and want Tau Allies but dont like the Idea of Allying Tau with them so I want to convert up the Battlesuits to look like they have been Looted by the ork/gretchins still retaining the origanl armour and weapons of the tau.

OR

My Brother Plays Chaos and wants a "Deathstar" unit so he Allies Necrons but uses chaos lords and terminator models to count as a Necron Overlord and Lord retinue with Max upgrades..

How would you feel about vsing either of these?
And what makes more sense? the looted tau or the Chaos lords using necron lords rules, weapons and statline..

Thanks for your input

I have two simple principles about this sort of thing, the opponent is honest about what is what, and the Rule of Cool, as long as these are met I have no problem.

It becomes a bit of an issue when your Killa Kans start shooting Rail Rifles that i didn't no about, but if like you said you just get Tau models and loot them, it's all good.

I think your idea is amazingly cool. Using models from a different army converted to look like they belong with your main force? Great stuff.

Your brother's idea, however, is definitely not okay. Counts-as is iffy already, and when you are using counts-as allies that are the same models as your main army, you're out of bounds by a longshot. Your brother might want to use different models, (skeletal Chaos cultists?) or do some serious conversions.

Your idea is a great example of the appropriate way to incorporate "count-as" Allies and do it well. Using Terminators without conversion to count as a completely different army is not really the way to do it, though.

now take in to account the necron overlord stats are very similar to a chaos lord with power axe.. where as a tau firewarrior has alot less in common with a gretchin even more so comparing a battlesuits stats...
Does this affect how you guys feel about the subject and comments made so far?

No. I don't expect a Chaos Lord to stand back up after I shoot him to death.

I do expect looted Tau things to do Tau stuff.

If you're brother put work into fusing csm aspects with necron aspects, then depending on how they look then with me it's fine.

Eldercaveman wrote:
I have two simple principles about this sort of thing, the opponent is honest about what is what, and the Rule of Cool, as long as these are met I have no problem.

It becomes a bit of an issue when your Killa Kans start shooting Rail Rifles that i didn't no about, but if like you said you just get Tau models and loot them, it's all good.

This is exactly my opinion.

The Necron example could work, if the models look the part; if they just look like Chaos Lords, then it could possibly be confusing.

One idea I've been wanting to try is taking Necrons as allies to my own CSM and making them into a more updated version of the "Chaos Androids" of old. That way, you could make them look Chaotic, without having them be confused with Chaos models.

The Necron/Chaos example might be a bit confusing to some people, but for Orks to have some "looted" crisis suits that are still recognizable as crisis suits I wouldn't have any issue with that at all. I even recently recommended to someone how they could have IG allies with Orks and have some LR tanks that look a little orky.

If you search around on Dakka, I remember seeing a guy do looted Broadsides and Gretchen with Pulse Rifles...they look awesome!

It really comes down to 'rule of cool' and ease of remembrance for your opponent. Especially in a tournament or when playing competitively.

Sinny! wrote:
What are your feelings about converting models for allies and using other models to count as different units?
A couple examples..

I play Orks and want Tau Allies but dont like the Idea of Allying Tau with them so I want to convert up the Battlesuits to look like they have been Looted by the ork/gretchins still retaining the origanl armour and weapons of the tau.

As long as you make it perfectly clear that this is a really a Tau Battlesuit (either through modelling, paint-job or both) , and not built in such a way that others can confuse them for Killa Kans or Deff Dreads, then I think it is awesome (and coincidently the exact thing I have done )

My Brother Plays Chaos and wants a "Deathstar" unit so he Allies Necrons but uses chaos lords and terminator models to count as a Necron Overlord and Lord retinue with Max upgrades..

This is a bit of a sticky issue.
Chaos Lord models and Terminator models already represent a unit other than a Necron Overlord/Lord. In essence they already have their "own" rules. Using them, straight out of the box, as something else can be confusing.
Without some kind of conversion I would not like to do this.


This brings about another issue. Why do you care?
I mean this in the most polite and sincere way possible.

Really, for just trying out proxy everything in friendly games. If you decide to commit to it, allies as enslaved/looted is doable. If everything looks good, and easily represents what it is supposed to be.

Its not really of a fact that why do I care, like I'm not trying to be a rule nazi or anything.. its mostly due to we live in a small townand have a small war games group we play with, none of us have really been to official tournaments or even have a local games shop to go play in so it was more just me trying to find a general consensus of what others do and believe is OK just so we can have some sort of standard in our group and also making it easier if we were to play new people or ever go for a drive to another club or store so we all play pretty similar to how others do

As long as it's clear, I see it as fine.

Using chaos as necrons would be confusing. My response to that is if you want necrons, buy necrons. If you want chaos go chaos. It's the slippery slope that ends with 'My army of gummy bears is actually 6000 pts of Grey knights. That red one over there is Draigo'...

Using Tau allies with Orks - and converting them to make them more 'orky' is a good idea - It's Tau using Tau rules, just made to look cooler for your army.

Proxying silly things for friendlies is fine - as long as you don't proxy permanently. So the thunderhawk represented by the green gummy bear is fine to see what it does for a game, but I wouldn't use it for every game...besides, it'd probably go off.

Size is also a factor to consider when proxying too. 1 Gummy Bear wouldn't be good to use as a thunder hawk, but if you glued lots together....(solves los issues)

another bad thing with your chaos termies to crons are the bases. Terminators are on the 40 mm while the cron models are on the smaller ones. Not ot mention the body footprint, a Terminator of any variety is much larger than a skeleton model, effecting their Cover allocation. Rule of Cool aside, which imho, has become more and more abused by players wanting to MFA using RoC as an excuse "But this leman russ would look SOOO much cooler with an extra 5" on its gun barrel!!" Generally speaking, the rule of thumb you want to keep to for converting and count as stuff is 1.) make it uniform, as in if you substitute chainfists as warscythes, ALL chainfists should be wascythes. and 2.) try to keep the conversions the same size/on the same base as the model it is replacing.

Honestly, GW needs to make hard rulings on this stuff, and not have a "herp derp, we no care buy more stuff!!" attitude. Because hey, a converted model will always cost more than the original.

I use my ultramarines painted assault marines as BA allies often, and I am currently making some ultramarines terminators to use as deathwing. I also have two ultramarines colored storm ravens. I think it's fine as long as it's clear what's what, particularly for variations of power armor units.

I think you (slightly) missed the point, Naaskenai.

Within Reason.

If you're playing Chaos and you ally in Guard, you could quite easily use Cultists as "renegade guard".

I'd be fine with the "looted Tau suits", assuming they're appropriately modeled.

If you put a bunch of Chaos models on the board and told me they were 'crons, that's pretty lame.

Simple way to do the necron allies, Chaos Androids.

In Rogue Trader and 2nd Ed Necrons back then was Androids and cyborgs inhabited by a small Deamon of khorne(mostly), human sized deamon engines in sort.

Use Necron models, but with the chaos touch and it will go ok.





Here is my "Chaos Crons" modeles, used it as a Obliterator count as back in the day, it was just an excuse to be able to convert some necron modeles really...