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Wait wait wait.... admech as a counts as DAEMONS army? That's streaching things a bit far isnt it? especially since any of the MEQ armies would do much better or if you want to go more skitarii instead of praetorians, Imperial guard.

warboss wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across.

um... space wolves being wholey different from alpha marines in both their deployment stategies, combat tactics, and organization isn't "my idea of how the fluff works". it's gw's. who knows, maybe he is the part of that small minority of people using the SW codex for non-sw armies that aren't doing it for the power builds. you're right.. i should just take everything i read on the internet (even if it sounds unplausible) at face value even if i disagree with it. right after i post here, i've got a few nigerian emails about transferring funds i need to respond to while i'm in this new trusting mood.

Remember though, there is SW fluff, SW rules which are supposed to reflect the fluff, and Alpha fluff. He is using the SW rules, which can support fluff from other armies. The tactical marine stats and rules reflect the fluff of vast amounts of various chapters/legions. The special rules for the "deviant chapters" can be all sorts of things. Infiltrate can represent actual infiltration, or advanced scouts ranging ahead of the main force, etc. Deep strike is teleporting, summoning from the warp, parachuting in or flying. A 4+ ward save is from a Rosarius, or being a tizz cult marine. Those are just those I can think of off the top of my head. The same rules represent a broad spectrum of fluff.

In fact, I would argue the C:SW is the best option for his army. What SWs call "great heroes", Alpha calls "Guys who have been fighting since it was called 'The Horus Incident'". All the rules say is "These guys are very tough and fight very well". SW Scouts are "Genos modified operatives" (see the Alpha novel whose name escapes me; the IG were heavily geno modified soldiers.) The rules say "These guys are tougher than normal humans, shoot and fight better too, but don't wear power armor, and are sneaky". Using C:SM rules loses you the extra characters for no good reason (4 expensive characters isn't exactly optimal), and the scouts are not much worse, just a bit different and cheaper. C:CSM doesn't even allow for guys in less than power armor.

Always remember that Rules != Fluff, but rather try to approximate it in an abstract way. It is very much on purpose that a few generalized rules cover wide ranges of fluff. Otherwise it would be like playing Inquisitor with a separate sheet for each model. We tried that once with ~8 models... it was more than a little awkward, though fun

Now, if he was throwing around thunderwolves and whatever other stuff makes people cry cheese vs Space Wolves, I would be more inclined to agree with you that he was just power gaming.


Also, thanks for the compliments I really like the way the ork rules play, partially because my main army is Sisters and secondary is IG and I am sick of shooting only, and also because they really match the brutality I imagine in chaos uprisings and marines. I hate the fact that stock marines are only about as big as Cadians. Having one giant, brutal Chaos marine striding into battle with little gibbering bullet catchers really sets off the difference between them. "Yea, you are going to gun down 7 of the ten little gribblies, but then Brother Brofist here is going to rip your limbs off."

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?
*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.
*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it
*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.
*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.
*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?
*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

Guys might I interject & say you've made this a much bigger deal than it ought to be .

I have used parts from the SW kit mixed in amongst my chaos marines. I know it's not 100% fluffy or even 50% fluffy. I just feel the way SW can be run effectively (MSU that can hit you from all sides) is a very alph-esque thing.

That and I'm not doing it for the "power build" I know SW is one of the top 3 currently. I'm doing it because of the flexability in the list and I sincerly enjoy the playstyle. Yes wolves can be run as a very in-your-face aggressive army but I don't plan on running it that way.

Warboss already said he'd play it no problem, but might raise the fluff question which I'm OK with. I fully admit the fluff isn't anywhere near perfect but IMHO the chaos codex is way too bland & lacking options for a legion as resourceful as the alphas.

A side effect of this thread- Wehrkind, I didn't realize you had such an awesome counts-as army (that someone linked to earlier)... that thing rocks!!

I don't even see any problem with using one meq army as another just because the new ones more powerfu, Provided you use the right weaponsl, mostly because the new one's not so much more powerful it'sjust GW lets some codex's get antiquated and lets face it with the bottom three codex's of any single run you are generally looking at fighting an uphill battle to begin with. And with the MEQ armies they all look similar enough and use most of the same weapons so it's Close enough.

nkelsch says it much more harshly than I would for fear of retribution, but I agree with his sentiment 100%.

Hulksmash wrote:I don't see why that is a problem Ph34r. Basically you, who is against non-easily recognized counts-as could still vote two which says it's cool as long as I can tell what it is easily. If you don't like counts-as in a tournament even if it's easy you choose the others. B would still exclude armies the one up for discussion. I suppose I could have added more depth but I was at work and Dash had brought it up so I used his

Not a problem imo. This thread serves a good purpose, and it has shown that most people are fine with playing against counts-as, as long as the conversions are crystal clear. It doesn't do much to provide clarity to "how much can I get away with before the other guy is confused"

Read the P&M nkelsch. Those units aren't used as the same thing in the same game. Oddly I've never used the attack drones as hounds. It was a thought that I decided against and have started building seperate ones. Not to derail it but Daemons account for Admech technology extremely well. To each his own.

Back on topic

Agreed. And that's not something you'll ever be able to know until you show up with it But like my other thread served as a solid barometer on the daemons it can kinda help. I pretty much cut short that idea at this point. I'd rather build my DE and paint up a quick 1k of IG for Adepticon

No back on topic for reals!

nkelsch wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

First off, you seem to be overly using the term proxy. By convention, a proxy is a placeholder, or a marker. "This predator is actually a vindicator." If I took current guardians, used old eldar lasguns to arm them, and added some human heads, and called them "high tech ghoul star humans," that's a counts as. It's because they have appropriate weapons, armor, size, etc. Yeah, using guardians out of the box as guard is proxying. converting them to act as IG might not meet your insanely high standards, but it's a counts as.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

what agenda do you think is being advanced? Do you think that people are lazy? Or do you think people build counts as armies for advantage?

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

This is where you lose me completely. Yeah, Hulk's Admech are pretty clearly based on Imperial models, but IG weilding two handed axes or burst cannons aren't exactly easy to place in the IG codex.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?

Simply asserting that you don't get the connection doesnt' help us. Now, if you wanted to say that being armored but slow looking, they'd make better blood crushers, I'd agree. But I don't think a conversion that involves some method of increasing speed and lots of wacky HtH weapons is that totally out of line.

*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.

Again, unless most tau players add the sensors and the chainswords, it's not a proxy.

*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it

It's true that people wouldn't guess it, but it's a power armored, monstrous sized model armed with a lascannon. How does that not fit the profile of a DP of Tzeetnch with Bolt?

*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.

Aside from pointing out that it's a far too complicated converstion to be a simple proxy, I'll agree that some people have a real problem switching unit types with counts as.

*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.

Yes, because when I build my random regular IG out of the box, they frequently have two handed axes. I'd agree that using them as plaguebearers is a little sloppy.

*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?

Again, my regular random IG are always armed with burst cannons. And the drone has a lascannon, which clearly marks it as bolt of change (something the standard models don't do)

*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

My problem here is that juggernoughts as mounts don't confer a speed bonus, only toughness, wounds, size, and a save. I'm underwhelmed with this conversion (I think the fiends would work better as crushers, and then do some cool spider walker things for fiends), but these ogres have only HtH weapons (no ripper gun). It's one of the weakers counts-as in the list, but again not a straight proxy.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

I think you overstate the case. The princes, the letters, the fiends, and the horrors are all pretty appropriately modeled to show their saves, movement, weaponry, etc. The crushers should, IMO, be up armored and clearly have power weapons. the speeders as chariots is going to simply bother some people, but it's made pretty clear and includes some nice touches like the techpriest to show that it's not a "stock landspeeder." I'll agree that I think some conversion work to make it less clearly space marine (different pilots, etc) might make it clearer.

Reecius wrote:I voted A because I think it is great to see how creative people can get. I also own every codex and know the rules for every unit pretty well so it is easy for me to identify what units are what once I have been told.

But most gamers aren't that OCD about the game and I can easily see how they would get confused. I think B is the best of all worlds for the community at large.

And Hulk's Admech army (counts as Demons) is sweetass! Like Inquisitor Malice said, you could just label stuff to make it easy.

I have to agree with Reece here. I also voted A because "counts as" is awesome. One of the major draws of playing 40k for me. In the case of Hulk's army, it isn't exactly how I would do such an army, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome to see what he came up with.

Read the P&M nkelsch. Those units aren't used as the same thing in the same game. Oddly I've never used the attack drones as hounds. It was a thought that I decided against and have started building seperate ones. Not to derail it but Daemons account for Admech technology extremely well. To each his own.

Know what even better represents the IMPERIUMS admech, The Imperial Guard and Space Marines. Heck you can even mix the two with allying. Shoot, both Space marine codexs and the imperial guard ALREADY HAVE admech units in them in the form of techpriests.

See the thing is though, he has to explain what each of the models is. And that is both frustrating and time consuming. Granted nothing in any codex comes close to praetorians, so those will always be a gray area but the IG do such a good job of everything else.

Well, I'm certainly a biased party here, playing a heavily converted daemon army myself. Most of my conversions are based off of IG models, so I suppose it would fit under the category of a proxy army.

I do four things to try to compensate for opponents' potential confusion:

I take care to model things so that they are as intuitive as possible. (e.g., for a bloodcrusher conversion, does the conversion look big and armored and lumbering? Does it look as though it moves 6, charges 6? Does it look as though it wields power ccws? etc.) My plaguebearers look like zombies. My horrors are skinny, hunched creatures with "guns," etc.

And I always keep my conversions to the same scale as the GW version. (So, for say a soulgrinder, is it the same proportions, the same footprint, the same model height, with weapons mounts in the same place on the model?)

And I don't simply substitute one kind of GW model for another. All my models are converted.

And I repeatedly remind my opponents during games about what each model is and (if they seem confused) what it can do.

Most people seem to have no problem with the result. But the potential for confusion does concern me.

Wehrkind wrote:

warboss wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:Key points: HIS idea vs YOUR idea of how the fluff works. You want him to use yours, not his, and you assume he is simply power gaming because he uses his idea. At least that's how it comes across.

um... space wolves being wholey different from alpha marines in both their deployment stategies, combat tactics, and organization isn't "my idea of how the fluff works". it's gw's. who knows, maybe he is the part of that small minority of people using the SW codex for non-sw armies that aren't doing it for the power builds. you're right.. i should just take everything i read on the internet (even if it sounds unplausible) at face value even if i disagree with it. right after i post here, i've got a few nigerian emails about transferring funds i need to respond to while i'm in this new trusting mood.

snip

I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

OT there is a big difference between if people will play against you (most will if you put abit of effort in to explain) and whether they will want to listen to you try and justify it with the fluff part of the hobby.

@tinfoil -- Your army's so nice I think I've given up my plans for a Dark Mech army. Mine would have been IG based, but some of the concepts I had...well, I think my version would just end up a pale imitation of the original.


Anyway, I own a counts-as-Orks Genestealer Cult. I think my stuff is pretty clear, and the VAST majority of the comments I've received on the counts-as aspect have been positive. Still, I've also had some critical comments. And you know, that's their opinion and they have a right to voice it. The reality is that any time you stray away from "stock" you open yourself up to some criticism, and you as the count-as owner just has to accept that.

Quite honestly, I've been in this hobby for so long that stock armies are pretty darn boring to me (meaning owning and playing them, not playing across from them). Although my caveat here is that my next army looks to be a mostly-stock Vostroyan army, just because the models are so nice.

I do have another army concept that's percolating, and it's a counts-as army with some very heavy conversions. Ironically, it's also based on Daemons. However, in my concept the units will still obviously be Khornate, Slanneshi, etc., which I think will end up helping opponents know what's what at a glance.

A somewhat off-topic but interesting thought IMO -- do all these counts-as Daemons armies say something about Daemon gameplay vs. Daemon miniatures and visuals?

@gorgon

I think it had a lot to do with the models that were out and are still out. The massive expensive metal models aren't fun for anyone really. For me it's not even the cost, it's the weight and the easy chipping. I love the codex but I hate the models. Though I have been more inclined of late to start an all plastic one but I'd still have to convert some plague bearers as I hate metal...

Oh and the lack of chariot models doesn't help either.

gorgon wrote:@tinfoil -- Your army's so nice I think I've given up my plans for a Dark Mech army. Mine would have been IG based, but some of the concepts I had...well, I think my version would just end up a pale imitation of the original.
...
I do have another army concept that's percolating, and it's a counts-as army with some very heavy conversions. Ironically, it's also based on Daemons. However, in my concept the units will still obviously be Khornate, Slanneshi, etc., which I think will end up helping opponents know what's what at a glance.

Thanks for the kind words, but I certainly hope you do continue with the Dark Mech idea! I love seeing different takes on the idea (and I've pillaged my own share of ideas from others).

gorgon wrote:A somewhat off-topic but interesting thought IMO -- do all these counts-as Daemons armies say something about Daemon gameplay vs. Daemon miniatures and visuals?

I think you're definitely on to something here. I love the way the codex plays. It doesn't break 40K game mechanics, IMO, but it plays like nothing else out there.

warboss wrote:Alpha Legion are not Space Wolves and this list tests the borders a bit

Wehrkind wrote:No, it's fine and you're a snob

I'm on the Warboss side of things here. Basically, creating counts-as armies is really cool. You should do it. But if you ARE going to do it, it has to be WATERTIGHT. No possible room for confusion. I'd argue that taking Alpha Legion as SW is confusing. The single most annoying thing I'd find is that he has a load of units that are apparently 'cultists' who are much better than regular marines. The general most annoying thing is that I can, off the top of my head, think of at least three better ways to represent AL than using SW. (Chaos Marines with Summoned Daemons, Vraks Renegades and Heretics, Space Marines with lots of regular Scouts). I realise that they maybe 'super-modified genos cultists' but that's still quite a way off of 'better than a marine'. In fact, I'd argue regular Marine scouts or Summondes Daemons are much better placed for the 'modified human' role.

This makes me question the motives for using SW, other than 'I had one army, but wanted another'. If that IS the motive, then it's exactly the same as 'these orks are actually nids'.

There was a thread on here a while ago, soon after the SW codex released, that caused a similar argument. A guy had an amazingly created marine army, with some fantastic jetbike conversions. He'd decided that he should definitely use the SW codex, because then the jetbikes could be thunderwolves. He was bawled out by the whole site because, if his motivation was REALLY to do 'jetbike ancient marines' there are loads of obvious better ways to represent them - Land Speeders, or Bikes for example. It was quite obvious he was just latching onto the new codex.

I'm in the process of making a madmax/fallout counts-as orks army at the moment. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I've only had good responses so far, but the thought that I might run into a hater at a tourney is always there of course.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes to deal with my gamer ADHD (switching armies waaay to often, I'm running out of space ) This is likely to cause more troubles, I know one tourney where they would probably not allow me to play my marines as anything but BA's as they are painted red.

I like counts-as, but it has to be well done. Easy to see what is what and rule of cool is in effect when it comes to counts-as IMO. A cool theme is also very important (i.e: grot rebellion)

I hate when people go crazy with this. I saw a guy with a adeptus mechanis army that was counts as IG. It was freaking crazy, you couldn't tell what was what. Walker were tanks, walkers were tanks...ugh.

Fantastic looking model, but brutal to play against.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes

Don't do it man, I started writing my fluff for my chapter before I even decided to make an army and now I've put myself in a situation where I can't decide which codex to use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

spireland wrote:I hate when people go crazy with this. I saw a guy with a adeptus mechanis army that was counts as IG. It was freaking crazy, you couldn't tell what was what. Walker were tanks, walkers were tanks...ugh.

Fantastic looking model, but brutal to play against.

it shouldn't take too much conversions on an IG army to make a good Admech army. A few dark angels legs and heads (for the hoods and robes) and some cyclops demolitions vehicles with heavy weapons on them as HWT, a few red paint jobs and voila.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
found the pic of a really good skitarii army

gendoikari87 wrote:

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes

Don't do it man, I started writing my fluff for my chapter before I even decided to make an army and now I've put myself in a situation where I can't decide which codex to use.

Why? What's the problem? Just use whatever strikes you as cool at the moment? I get bored of playing one army, usually following a tournament. If I had managed to make such a SM chapter, I could just switch codex and not have to go on a shopping spree to get my newest gaming fix.

Polonius wrote:I think you overstate the case. The princes, the letters, the fiends, and the horrors are all pretty appropriately modeled to show their saves, movement, weaponry, etc. The crushers should, IMO, be up armored and clearly have power weapons. the speeders as chariots is going to simply bother some people, but it's made pretty clear and includes some nice touches like the techpriest to show that it's not a "stock landspeeder." I'll agree that I think some conversion work to make it less clearly space marine (different pilots, etc) might make it clearer.

The admech as daemons army is flawed on a fundamental level... the Admech don't summon their entire army onto the battlefield, they deploy by conventional means while possessing the ability to teleport sometimes. They aren't orkimedes.
There are guardsmen counting as units with non-guardsmen movement, stats, saves, etc... There are gun drones with very un-drone stats. The lascannon as mark of change is a good touch, I will admit.
Everything is really well painted and converted, and it's a very cool army to look at, but daemons really aren't the proper list for it to represent. They are much closer to a variant of marines or IG or inquis. Heck, I can stat the army right now:
Landspeeders are landspeeders, walkers are penitent engines, cc guardsmen are crusaders or arco flagellents, gun guardsmen are stormtroopers or stormbolter warriors or HB servitors, drones are more acolytes, Ogryn are ogryn, praetorians are HWT or servitors. This would be an example of how the army used as counts-as would be not confusing to face in a tournament.

Are you saying the Admech never teleport?

If you want to play them as telelporting, you don't have a lot of options...

I mean, do you think Guardsman marbo is always hiding out where he's most useful? Probably not, but you have to use him that way.

If you want a force that is all deep strike, you're pretty limited.

Fundamentally, you're stuck on this idea that just because a force has rules (in this edition) that play one way, every army built around that idea must play that way. For AdMech, we know so little about it that saying there's a clear cut way they should be played is pretty odd.

I don't mean to sound like a giant jerk, but if you can't remember "my opponent is playing demons" during a game, than you have bigger problems than 40k. I mean, how many people really understand the Demon codex even when it's properly modelled? Do we really think that most people see a pink horror and realize it's got a 4+ save, and a shooting attack?

Illumini wrote:I'm in the process of making a madmax/fallout counts-as orks army at the moment. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I've only had good responses so far, but the thought that I might run into a hater at a tourney is always there of course.

I'm also pondering how I can make a chapter that can pass as many/all loyalist SM codexes to deal with my gamer ADHD (switching armies waaay to often, I'm running out of space ) This is likely to cause more troubles, I know one tourney where they would probably not allow me to play my marines as anything but BA's as they are painted red.

I like counts-as, but it has to be well done. Easy to see what is what and rule of cool is in effect when it comes to counts-as IMO. A cool theme is also very important (i.e: grot rebellion)

Oh, I've pondered this too. I came up with the following

You need to come up with a red-and-grey colour scheme, and call them something like Blood Wolves, but make sure the models have white robes on too. Paint the terminators in a contrasting colour - maybe all white. That way the regular guys can be BA, BT, SW or DA.

Then (and this is the important bit), make different characters for each 'version'. The characters are what really make the army, so as long as the character models (hell, you could even do variant sergeants) are REALLY like their chapter of choice, you should end up with a convincing army. All the regular guys and vehicles are only bought once, but the sergeants and characters you have four sets of!

BluntmanDC wrote:I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

I feel that SW Scouts could easily represent more lightly armored Alpha Legion Marines, as in "Legion", or as cultists imbued with additional chaos powers through whatever means (magic/possession) or even undergo the same "proto" Space Marine treatment that members of the Dark Angels legion received that were too old to undergo full Space Marine transformation. The Dark Angels couldn't have been the only chapter to have this situation when the Emperor found the Primarchs.

ArbitorIan wrote:Oh, I've pondered this too. I came up with the following

You need to come up with a red-and-grey colour scheme, and call them something like Blood Wolves, but make sure the models have white robes on too. Paint the terminators in a contrasting colour - maybe all white. That way the regular guys can be BA, BT, SW or DA.

Then (and this is the important bit), make different characters for each 'version'. The characters are what really make the army, so as long as the character models (hell, you could even do variant sergeants) are REALLY like their chapter of choice, you should end up with a convincing army. All the regular guys and vehicles are only bought once, but the sergeants and characters you have four sets of!

Or....just make sure your "Special Characters" or "Characters" are appropriate for the army being played. A Space Marine Captain could easily be the same as a Blood Angels Captain or Space Wolf lord (as long as he's not riding a thunderwolf). The sergeants shouldn't change all that much either between different codicies. You shouldn't need 4 of anything, but you may need one of each special character, and have a few units that are more purpose built then others.

For example, you may have a unit of Thunderwolf Cav, painted in the same scheme as the rest of the army, but they only come out of the case when you are playing Wolves. Conversely, you could have a Furioso dread that only comes out when you play Blood Angels. However, your regular dreadnought with Lascannon is always appropriate, as is your Space Marine commander wielding a power sword and storm bolter.

whitedragon wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:I feel that fluff wise SW scouts do not represent cultists very well at all, even if they have been upgraded by the alpha legion, the SW scout stats, represent a full space marine with decades of training in the art of 'scouting', not a pumped up cultist.

I feel that SW Scouts could easily represent more lightly armored Alpha Legion Marines, as in "Legion", or as cultists imbued with additional chaos powers through whatever means (magic/possession) or even undergo the same "proto" Space Marine treatment that members of the Dark Angels legion received that were too old to undergo full Space Marine transformation. The Dark Angels couldn't have been the only chapter to have this situation when the Emperor found the Primarchs.

how? proto space marines are not marines, they wouldn't have the same stats, they could represent degeared alpha legion but not possesed human cultists

I'd say that "proto" space marine Luther would argue with you. He wasn't a "full marine" according to you and the only better fighter amongst the DA legion was his Primarch. They were marines they just weren't functionally immortal like the marines with the full implant set.

And I agree with WhiteDragon that they could be "enhanced" humans or degeared Alpha Legionaires. Fluff is in the eye of the beholder.

nkelsch wrote:

Polonius wrote:
Eldar in 2nd edition were modeled with, and used the rules for, lots of imperium weaponry. Guardians could take lasguns, they used lascannons, heavy plasma guns, and missile launchers, and rangers used needle sniper rifles.

So what? 2nd edition orks used Imperial weapondry... It doesn't make those 2nd edition orks 5th edition I guard. And it doesn't make 3-5th edition plastic guardians with eldar weapons Iguard either. It is still a Proxy.

I just see the same people with an agenda making excuses. Total conversion armies can be fun but many times are poorly executed and unclear and make it hard for gameplay. In true competitive play it is rude to burden opponents with that.

I think the ADMECH army in question is a great modeling project, Looks great. Utter garbage as a clear counts-as army and saying imperial weapons and humans are demonic powers and demons is a steaming load. Especially since most of the models clearly fit as I guard with Imperial weapons. It is no better as Ork models being used as Space wolves simply because the player wants the power of space wolves... Pretty much any ork model you convert is going to fit better with an ork army list before it pretends to be anything else. Same with humans holding imperial weapons, Demons are not the logical leap and highly confusing.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8617-8170_Adeptus%20Mechanicus%20Counts%20As%20Daemons.html

*tank-like weird robot men as Fiends? what?
*Shield Drones as *BOTH* fleshhounds and or screamers? If it was actually clear how can it be either? That is a straight up proxy.
*Tzzzench deamon priest? no one would know that from seeing it
*Chairots? Imperial landspeeders have rules already. This is a Proxy.
*Random regular I guard as Plaugebearers AND or Bloodletters? If it can be either then it is neither. This is a proxy.
*Again, more random regular Iguard with what looks like something used as a fleshhound elsewhere int he army is now a pack of horrors?
*Ogryn with rules now become models mounted on juggernaughts? PROXY.

Not a single model in the whole army works or is valid. They are all horribly confusing and most of them have better rules fit in an Iguard list. The models that are being used as multiple totally dissimilar units shows how unclear and vague the conversions actually are.

Great models. Neat project. Terrible counts-as army as demons. I feel sorry for anyone forced to play against this in a real tourney as it is selfish and burdonsome to expect someone to translate what these proxies are supposed to be. It is the poster child for all that is wrong with total conversion armies.

Damn son, you acted like he kissed your sister or something! No need for the aggressive posturing.

I see no reason to limit anyone's creativity. I played against this army at a tournament and so long as you know the Demon codex it is quite clear what is what. My buddy who also played this army at the same tournament said he had no problem with it either. I think the biggest problem with anything based on a Demon army is that most people just don't know the rules for demons! haha.

Saying people can only counts as what you think is a good fit for counts as is very similar to saying that people can only run chaos armies in their sacred numbers or with ancient adversaries fluff (which doesn't even exist anymore). The game is set in a fantasy/sci-fi universe that is enormous in scope. You can make pretty much anything and it can realistically fit. It is silly to try and put limitations on what someone wants to do.

I played in a fantasy tournament against an army that was themed as time warriors and he had everything from WWII riflemen to modern tanks to actual fantasy models and I thought it was great! Cool army that he had put a lot of time and effort into. I don't even really know the Fantasy rules that well and I just asked if I didn't know what something was, really wasn't hard.

If every army has to look the same, why not play chess, or have everyone play codex specific color schemes, etc. That seems bland to me. I know everyone has and is entitled to their own opinion, but by saying no to people you drive them away from the hobby. Let people play how they want to play and just be clear pregame what is what and ask during the game if it is unclear.

That's my take anyway.

Polonius wrote:Are you saying the Admech never teleport?

ph34r wrote:the Admech don't summon their entire army onto the battlefield, they deploy by conventional means while possessing the ability to teleport sometimes. They aren't orkimedes.

Man at least try to read my post.

The fluff precedent says that teleportation is extremely risky and strenuous on those who do it, so it is only viable for heavily armored units designed to teleport, like terminators, or maybe some crazy mentor legion experimental unit, or an admech heavy servitor type with specialized teleportation technology. Not "here's some combat servitors let's throw them through the warp and see what happens!".

Polonius wrote:I don't mean to sound like a giant jerk, but if you can't remember "my opponent is playing demons" during a game, than you have bigger problems than 40k. I mean, how many people really understand the Demon codex even when it's properly modelled? Do we really think that most people see a pink horror and realize it's got a 4+ save, and a shooting attack?

You don't sound like a giant jerk, nobody would ever forget what type of army they are facing, did you think you would be? Did you assume that an opponent would never remember that you're daemons? Actually now that I think about it, yeah, you do sound like a jerk, the reason being that you think the problem is with them remembering what army you are.

The problem is with them remembering that your ws3 bs3 s3 t3 w1 i3 a1 ld7 sv 5+ imperial guardsmen are, in fact, ws5 bs0 s4 t4 w1 i4 a2 ld10 sv5+ invulnerable daemons. Or perhaps that your ws2 bs2 s3 t3 w1 i4 a1 ld7 sv4+ tau gun drones are in fact ws3 bs0 s4 t4 w1 i3 a1 ld10 sv4+ invulnerable daemons. What's next, This land raider with robot arms on the front is a great unclean one? Perhaps these assault marines are furies, and these dark eldar wytches are daemonettes? Actually, those last two examples make more sense than this daemon-admech army, so scratch that "example".
Daemons are a tricky army. Looking across the board at a daemon army can make it hard to judge what is what if you don't yourself have a lot of experience with them. Looking across the board at a "daemon" army that is in fact an IG arny is even more confusing.
When there is no way to logically deduce what the opponent's army is across the table without consulting a "handy note sheet", there is a big problem with their army, and they should not be in a tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reecius wrote:I see no reason to limit anyone's creativity. I played against this army at a tournament and so long as you know the Demon codex it is quite clear what is what. My buddy who also played this army at the same tournament said he had no problem with it either. I think the biggest problem with anything based on a Demon army is that most people just don't know the rules for demons! haha.

This is the primary problem. When your army doesn't look like the units it represents at all, it is hard on your opponent and they will make mistakes, like it or not.

Reecius wrote:Saying people can only counts as what you think is a good fit for counts as is very similar to saying that people can only run chaos armies in their sacred numbers or with ancient adversaries fluff (which doesn't even exist anymore). The game is set in a fantasy/sci-fi universe that is enormous in scope. You can make pretty much anything and it can realistically fit. It is silly to try and put limitations on what someone wants to do.

This is a secondary concern. It isn't the core of the problem for you to attack and dismiss, it's just another problem piled onto the "your army doesn't make sense and is hard on your opponent" problem.

Reecius wrote:If every army has to look the same, why not play chess, or have everyone play codex specific color schemes, etc. That seems bland to me. I know everyone has and is entitled to their own opinion, but by saying no to people you drive them away from the hobby. Let people play how they want to play and just be clear pregame what is what and ask during the game if it is unclear.

This is an argument against something that nobody is saying. No need to strawman.

Well, I'm smart enough to not think that my opponent who says he's playing demons but uses a lot of IG models is running drones. I'm laid back enough that I'm not overly concerned about some minor advantage he might gain. I have enough respect for the hobby side to encourage neat looking armies.

I also know that if I were to model up some counts-as, most people would be ok with it, and most of those that aren't wouldn't say anything to me in person.