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Keep the heavy bolter and flamer sisters that come in the 42USD squad and don't bother buying melta sistersfor 8.25 each and say that Forge World Manchu makes a few variants on the melta design that look "superficially similar" to heavy bolters and flamers.

You can try it. Some players might even be ok with it... so long as they can easily tell the difference between models with flamers and models with meltas that look like flamers.

We already went over this, but I'll try to put it differently, to see if that makes my position a little clearer: Weapons and armour, when it comes to WYSIWYG, are treated very differently. Something that looks like a heavy bolter is always a heavy bolter. Something that looks like a chainsword is always a chainsword.

But something that looks like a bodysuit with a few armour plates can represent a Guardian's 5+ Mesh Armour, A Dire Avenger's 4+ Aspect Armour, or an Exarch's 3+ Aspect Armour.

You can tell, from looking at the model, what it is armed with. You can not tell, from looking at the model, what its armour value is, or whether or not its armour is stronger than the model standing beside it. The best you can do is make sure that your units are recognisable for what they are supposed to be, and let the model's statline do the rest. There is no real need to ensure that artificer armour looks different to power armour, any more than there is a need to model Space Marines with bigger biceps than Catachans due to their higher Strength.

The reason I find your position confusing is because you seem to be saying two opposite things at the same time: just make sure they have ornate painting/fancy markings and they're Honor Guard VERSUS do whatever you want (including nothing) and they're Honor Guard.

I think you're still misinterpreting what I'm saying. I'm saying that I personally would prefer Honour Guard to be ornately modeled, because that's my own personal take on what they should look like... but that I don't care if an opponent uses regular power armour so long as the squad is easily recognisable for what it's meant to be. It's not so much saying two opposite things as simply not requiring an opponent to adhere to my own expectations.

Since Marine Chapters generally have clearly defined markings for different unit types, so putting a marking on there that means 'Honour Guard' is ultimately sufficient... the model has a 2+ save on its statline. It has that save regardless of whether it's modeled in armour that is indistinguishable from regular Mk7 power armour, or whether it has an eagle for a head.

Whilst the discussion is certainly an interesting one, to the OP, I suggest using the UM Honor Guard.

Why? Well, the Sons of Orar use the U symbol, albeit upside-down, so if they are a splinter of the Sons of Orar, they could probably get away with regular U's.

If not, file off all the U's honestly.

However, I'm steering clear of the Artificer/Power Armor debate.

@GBF: Thanks. I try to stay out of YMDC. Noticed too late that this wasn't P&M.

@insaniak: Part of the reason I stay out of YMDC is because I'm a purely casual gamer. So I have no trouble with an opponent who says "hey, mate, I'd like to use this squad as Honor Guard" and don't expect to ever play against someone who would respond negatively to me saying "oi, I haven't got my melta sisters yet, do you mind if I just use these counts as?" But since this thread is about WYSIWYG as a tourney rule, I think you have to do something more than rely on grammatical conjecture when GW provides you with the model of what artificer armor looks like, either on a Techmarine or a Honor Guard. Personally, I feel like your weapons/armor dichotomy is only so good (works suitably well for Eldar--if they didn't have heads) but it doesn't work so well in the example of artificer armor. I can tell by looking at the Honor Guard models that come with Calgar that they are armored differently than a tac squad. Now I can't tell that the difference is between a 2+ and a 3+ but neither can I tell from simply looking (without the same knowledge of the rules that tells me artificer armor--which is ornate--is different from power armor--which is more plain) at a flamer that it's S4 AP5 rather than S8 AP1. To adopt and paraphrase the last line of your post: my counts as melta has those last stats regardless of whether it's modeled with a tube in place of a promethium cannister or whether it has the cannister. Sorry for misrepresenting your views where ever I may have done so--that's why I underlined the "seem to be," so as not to unthinkingly put words in your mouth/text in your posts/whatev.

Yes you can always file off the big upside down U on the shoulderpads and I dont see why that should a problem as one possible solution to this particular modeling exercise. I don't think anyone is going to knock you for using those honorguard for their intended purpose. In fact I think it's one of the easiest solutions at hand.

G

I don't care if someone uses the official Marneus Calgar Honor Guard group. That said, I would want Honor Guard to clearly be Honor Guard. Giving them bolters in one hand and power weapons in the other, like the Ultramarines models, would probably be the best way to indicate their weapon loadout. They also have artificer armor, but representations of that are not very consistent, so you could probably get away with giving everyone Mk. 8 armor and lots of purity seals.

In my mind, an Honor Guard is definitely "fancier" than a Command Squad, and should look different on the battlefield as well.

Manchu wrote: I can tell by looking at the Honor Guard models that come with Calgar that they are armored differently than a tac squad.

Sure, you can see that their armour is modeled differently... but that doesn't automatically mean that their armour is (ruleswise) actually better. It simply means that they look different. A Space Wolf and an Ultramarine also look different. The Space Wolf has all sorts of adornments on his armour... and yet has the same save.

Now I can't tell that the difference is between a 2+ and a 3+ but neither can I tell from simply looking (without the same knowledge of the rules that tells me artificer armor--which is ornate--is different from power armor--which is more plain) at a flamer that it's S4 AP5 rather than S8 AP1.

I think you're still missing my point, somewhat... which was simply that in GW-land, something that looks like a flamer is always a flamer, whilst something that looks like heavy armour is sometimes heavy armour, and sometimes not. So WYSIWYG goes out the window where armour is concerned.

Whether a suit of armour is power armour or artificer armour is purely down to what the rules say the model is equipped with, because there is no clear line. You can't point at a moderately-adorned model and, going purely off the model's appearance, deduce whether that model is wearing lightly-modified artificer armour or heavily modified normal power armour. There is no line that says 'a model with this much adornment is wearing artificer armour.'


To be clear, I'm not arguing against the point that artificer armour is generally portrayed as being ornate. What I'm arguing against is the notion that an opponent should be held to your own preconceptions as to how to suitably represent a particular type of armour when GW have given us no actual yardstick, and the idea that the armour has to actually look heavier or more ornate in order to represent a better armour save despite rather a lot of examples existing in the game where this is not the case.

I think we pretty much agree. I see your point about armor being harder to apply WYSIWYG to but would remind you that the only reason that people recognize a certain weapon is because they've learned what that thing looks like. GW has established what artificer armor looks like and this look is significantly different from power armor that people should be able to learn, as GBF pointed out, what it looks like as well. At the same time, you're right to say there is no "must be this fancy" standard and that GW isn't really helping by writing rules that say Pedro Kantor is wearing power armor--especially when he can get an Honor Guard!

You know, I was feeling pretty slowed for how things turned out in the "butcher a valkyrie" thread. Then I read this one.

Now I feel better.

I don't think I've ever seen such a pointless argument. Just do what Blood Angels do, paint their helmets gold and bam, instant honor guard.

Sidstyler wrote:Now I feel better.

Don't get too excited. Who knows what you'll post next?

I'm a tad late to the party, but here's my view on the eldar debate: The stronger armour is enforced internally using some McGuffin the Eldar have. It doesn't look different.

Even though I'm using your excuse, This is not the same as the Artificer case, because the case here is "Two GW models have armour that looks exactly the same but one is stronger", while the Artificer case is "Two GW models have armour that does not look the same and one is stronger". GW has decided both cases via modeling.

As for the main debate: They do look similar. Look at your arm for a moment. It should be a normal human arm, unless you happen to be an amputee. Despite your skin tone or muscle, your arm should look similar to mine, or to a bodybuilder's. However your punch should be significantly stronger than mine, while your arm should be outclassed by the similar looking muscley bodybuilder's. Similar means "Roughly the same". I think we can agree that the armour looks roughly the same, in that it is based on power armour. However it is still vastly different.

Eldar armour does look different, slightly.

A Dire Avenger has slighty larger shoulder pads and some extra pieces of armour plating on the legs (and several more gemstomes dotted all over the place)
An Exarch has essentially the same armor as the Dire Avengers, it is just an older suit, as such the helmet it more ornate but the rest is the same.

It is my opinion that artificer armor should be modeled when it comes to tournament gaming, meaning that the armour in general be more "bling" a good source of this could come from raiding your bitz box, or the bitz box of other players (i have random heads/shouldpads/weapons etc that i cannot explain where i got them from) But as for buying the UM HG, that is frankly ridiculous, considering the HG in that picture look like they were designed to fit in with Calgar. IMO you don't need the fancy loincloths or eagle designs, but something to set them apart would be good.

In friendly games i couldn't care less if that tac marine is an HG or if those flamers are meltaguns. As long as i know beforehand what everything is.

Sidstyler wrote:You know, I was feeling pretty slowed for how things turned out in the "butcher a valkyrie" thread. Then I read this one.

Now I feel better.

I don't think I've ever seen such a pointless argument. Just do what Blood Angels do, paint their helmets gold and bam, instant honor guard.

Sidstyler is right!

Just make sure the helmets or shoulder pads have a different colour to denote what the unit is/does. Make sure that they have the correct weapons and you have perfectly legal units.

Actually, Sidstyler is wrong. Or, at most, no more right than the two and half pages of discussion that preceded his comments . . . and that he offhandedly dismissed.

BA Honor Guard (unlike Codex Marine Honor Guard) do not come equipped with artificer armor. Aside from one Techmarine, they can't even be upgraded to wearing artificer armor. So the BA Honor Guard that GW sells are not modeled with it on and their helmet color is a tradition specific to that chapter only (it's definitely not a Codex practice). The gold-headed thing is therefore no more an "official" solution than the fancy pauldron suggestion.

Manchu wrote:Actually, Sidstyler is wrong.

BA Honor Guard (unlike Codex Marine Honor Guard) do not come equipped with artificer armor. So the BA Honor Guard that GW sells are not modeled to be wearing artificer armor. The gold-headed thing is therefore no more an "official" solution than the fancy pauldron suggestion.

No he's right, the point being that you can paint the helmets, shoulder pads, greaves, feet, arse, cod piece, belt, base, hands or whatever to denote to you and your opponents what that unit actually is.

In an ideal world the models themselves should look suitably ornate, buts its not an ideal world, people do not or will not spend extra money on getting SM honour guard or do not have the time or the skills to to model purity seals or ornate designs on their armies.

is it so hard to imagine, in a game of toy soldiers, that one unit painted differently has better armour than another ?

So how about we leave it at 'Different people have different opinions. If you're playing in a tournament and are unsure if your models are WYSIWYG enough, just ok it with the TO' and move on before this degenerates any further.

Lock it up, insaniak.