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I just love the OP sig. Just great.

I would have thought if the guy is going to use cardboard and duct tape for a rhino would have put some effort into it. Looks like he just slapped it together with no pride at all.

I know we are not all artists when it comes to this hobby, but at least take some pride into it. I know when I proxies, I did it to my best talents.

 krazynadechukr wrote:
2,000 point Tyranid 2d paper printed army! I would never play this person. It is an abuse of the proxy law!

"Hey, can my $1.67 army that took me 22 minutes to put together play against your $700, propainted, converted, Forgeworld army?"

I'd love to know where this was found! It could be the tool I use to get friends who don't play playing

Agree with whomever said if the guy showed up and said "look Im going to a tourney next week and would like to proxy in some bottles etc just to see if the army gels" or "Im starting a new faction and would like to demo a few models before splashing out", thats fair to me.
But regularly showing up (assuming so) is OTT.

The visual experience is important to me as part of the hobby as is making a game easy for the opponent in terms of knowing what is what and having an enjoyable game.

There might be legitimate reasons why he proxies (shakey hands syndrome or allergic to glue or whatnot) but even still there are viable alternatives to get an army up and running.

When I first started, I only had my vendetta, a battle box of cadians, and a single russ, My FLGS typically played 1850, and I really wanted to play. so I traced the footprint of my russ, and cut out five more tanks. People here were pretty ok with it, but I made sure to purchase at least one more russ every two weeks until my army was built. Not going to lie, I felt bad with the paper, but I'm glad they were lenient.

Proxing at home with friends to try things out? No problem. Doing the same thing for a pick up game with no effort having gone in to the proxy models? I probably wouldn't play you.
It's not a straight yes or no though. It depends on the situation and on the player.

 grrrfranky wrote:
Proxing at home with friends to try things out? No problem. Doing the same thing for a pick up game with no effort having gone in to the proxy models? I probably wouldn't play you.
It's not a straight yes or no though. It depends on the situation and on the player.

the wise monkey speaks!

I guess I'll bump this thread since it's about proxying.

Say if I had three Ball Predators (using firestorm cannons for bigger bores), would it be okay to use them as vanilla Leman Russes, or would that just be absolutely ridiculous and a crime against Warhammer even though I don't want to drop 150 USD?

I understand I could do the old "they're just a lost/newer/older technology, so that's why they're different" spiel but would anyone but the most die-hard WYSIWYG elitist refuse to play against my guard army because of this?

Heh, I love reading these threads about proxies. I've made a few cardboard space marine things, but the Land Raider I made ended up as my dice box. There was even a guy from bols at my flgs that took a funny picture of it and posted it. The main reason it has the hole in the front door there is because when I made it, I wanted to proxie the Achilles. It got used one time, the sponsoons kept falling off, then the gun fell apart, so it looks like that and it holds my dice The front hatch (read: area between the treads on the front) is magnetized to hold itself closed during transit. If I can be assed I'll take a picture of the Rhino I made (looks so much better) and post that too.



http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2013/12/wargames-gallery-12-26-13.html

I can understand and allow maybe a game or two to give them a feel for the army. Building a new force is sort of a big project to commit to and jumping around can get pretty annoying trying to find something you like. After that though, time to actually get some models to replace those proxies.

I'd play against the army described in the OP.

Then again, I have an extremely high tolerance for the antics of my opponent.

I once played against an army of green army men counting as Space Marines. It wasn't particularly thematic, but by no means intolerable.

OMG YOU ARE SUCH A HORRIBLE ELITIST POWERGAMER FOR NOT WANTING TO PLAY 40K VS EMPTY DRINK BOTTLES


To me there is something about the setting. I love the roleplaying aspect of the game, vocalizing 4 slugga shots richocheting off my ancient Iron Warrior armor after the first 15 sailed wide, and describing the blood splatter from the 1 that got through, etc etc etc.


In fact, if I was elitist, this probably wouldn't matter at all to me since it would strictly be about the rules and not the imagery. Let's face it, there is much better and much cheaper games then 40k out there, the attraction to this game is the universe, if I found my fun in this game playing coke bottles and pop-up book tear outs, I wouldn't have spent hundreds on my army. Sure, what the coke bottle guy finds fun and what I find fun are two different things, but playing a game of 40k is an hour or two long commitment at best, I'm not a charity. Some people don't have much money and I understand, being that I don't have much spare time you'll understand why I don't want to waste what little time I did set aside for having fun by bringing $500 worth of models to the table just to watch you draw measurements from the top of a soft drink can. You really don't need that much to put together 500 points, especially dragged out over the space of 3 months or so. Theres multiple articles online on how to start a cheap army. You are 35 years old if you wanted to make it happen you would find a way. I'll add that at the same time, I'm very cool with counts-as and custom models, love a unique army. I'm fine with conversions that suit the theme, cheap is fine if they make sense and the person has put some time into it. Re-casts are fine with me as well. It's not about matching my dollar - it's about keeping the table top fun and at least somewhat fluffy for both sides.

Personally when I play miniature wargames it is because I want to enjoy the aesthetics of a nicely done army and terrain.

I don't care if an army was expensive or cheap, what I care is, does it look good and tingle my modelling sense.

So an empty coke bottle, probably not. I would need to be in a forgiving mood.

A full colour print-out Tyranid army, yes! What a great idea!

There is a long tradition in wargames of flat metal figures -- normally called "flats", amazingly enough -- and also of print out or colour in paper soldiers which are often applied to the faces of blocks or stands to make them 3D.

But that is just my personal view, and I would not seek to enforce it on everyone.

First off,being broke is just an excuse for some people. Every single penny dropped into my almost 2000pt army came from my own pocket. I literally got a summer job cleaning out portable toilets on an army base just to play this game, and while i am with the consensus that a few reasonable proxies are okay, (is the bottle approximately the same size as the drop pod?) I did NOT drop hundreds of dollars and hours of my time to fire at shoeboxes and toiletpaper tubes. And this is while i was in high-school, so a 30-something year old should have no problem setting aside some money here and there towards funding an actual army.

It depends on a lot of things.

How much and how inaccurate is it?
- acceptable
"All of these Cadians are actually Stormtroopers."
"These two empty bases are the heavy weapons in this group of marines."

- not acceptable
"The 40 Coca Cola bottle caps are Space Marines, and the 20 Pepsi bottle caps are jump infantry."

Why is it being proxied?
- acceptable reasons:
"I want to try using 5 drop pods before I actually buy them"
"I am 14 and I have an allowance of 10 dollars a week"

- not acceptable
"Giving money to GW or any other company making alternate models is just throwing money away. Me, I had my kids make my army out of cardboard even though I make 10 grand a month!"

And also frequency. The more often I had it brought up against me, the faster my tolerance for it would wear down.

The thing about wargaming is, nobody HAS to play you. People may choose not to play you because they hate playing against a certain race or feel its cheesy. People might choose not to play you because they think you aren't a good sport. People may not want to play you just because you have unpainted models.

The great thing about this is - you don't have to play them either. If you think they are too picky and dislike their personality, don't play them. Have fun with your miniatures the way you want to. If you don't enjoy playing intergalactic super soldier space marines vs plastic bottles and cigarette butts, well, I don't blame you. Anyone saying otherwise should get off their self-entitled high horse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 13whited wrote:
First off,being broke is just an excuse for some people. Every single penny dropped into my almost 2000pt army came from my own pocket. I literally got a summer job cleaning out portable toilets on an army base just to play this game, and while i am with the consensus that a few reasonable proxies are okay, (is the bottle approximately the same size as the drop pod?) I did NOT drop hundreds of dollars and hours of my time to fire at shoeboxes and toiletpaper tubes. And this is while i was in high-school, so a 30-something year old should have no problem setting aside some money here and there towards funding an actual army.

This. I'm just over 20 years old. I have probably around 10k points of models. All payed from out of my own pocket over the years. I worked a fulltime low paying job so that I could buy the things I wanted. I hate to say it, but if you are 35 years old and you can't afford 500 points, collected over an indefinite amount of time, then you probably should be focused on fixing some of the other aspects of your life anyway not sitting around in the FLGS with empty coke bottles trying to play tabletop games. Harsh reality.


I can see their would be exceptions, in the most extreme cases. A single father who gets 1 day away from the kids a week and wants to spend it winding down playing 40k, but no longer has miniatures because he sold them all to support his family - I'll give this guy a game no matter how he chooses to represent his models. As far as the lazy 35 year old guy who lives off the government and spends all his money in the store on snacks and cigarettes, not so keen.

Some proxies are okay for your average pickup game, as long as they're comparable in footprint to the actual model. An army of proxies or using the same proxies week after week is not acceptable.

 Murdius Maximus wrote:

 lobbywatson wrote:

I've spent to much money and time on this hobby to be ok with coke bottles for Friday night games. I hate when I have something new thats not painted I feel embarrassed.

While I feel that you were not in the wrong for not wanting to play this guy, I feel like this statement is...wow. So are you saying that because you have spent time and money that someone else can't they aren't worthy of playing you? I agree with not taking that guy up on the game because lord knows I probably wouldn't have based on your description of his overall army, but man that statement sounds elitist and kind of unforgiving. Now if this guy has been playing the game forever, and hasn't invested a single dime, well I see where you are coming from. I'm not trying to be insulting but only interpreting what you posted so if I got the wrong idea I apologize.

Okay, time for adult talk: if you do not have money for something you really enjoy, it's time to prioritize. Many hobbies require disposable income and free time. Having disposable income and free time means you're taking care of your business as a adult. Maybe the 35-year-old manchild should spend less of his time in a gaming store and more time polishing his resume, working a second job, or getting a better education.

No, I'm not wealthy. No, he's not taking care of his sick mother and those 2 hours he spent trying to play with cardboard and coke bottles weren't the only free time he's had in months because he works really hard for minimal pay. So, can we keep the lame class-warfare arguments to a minimum?

I've run a few proxies. I threw some brown and yellow paint on some dollar store soccer balls for tyranid pods. One of my chimeras is made out of cardboard with she'll casings from my .38 as gun barrels. Also when I was running 2 tervigons, if I ran out of termagants (I had 75) I'd dip into my bag of beer caps. I also tried making some sprue men and sprue gant stand ins, but cutting the little pieces got tedious.

This is all casual games just fyi.

Speaking of proxies and it is sort of a proxy question, I have old school Necron Wraiths as you can get good deals on them on EBAY. I've never met anyone who had a problem with that, but was just wondering if people do?

Wait what, the guy is just following GW advice, it not his fault he could only get early WD. That show you how to proxy with every day household items. Anyone remember the write up on how to make deodorant speeders. Ohh... the days when GW was about their games and not money.

Hollismason wrote:
Speaking of proxies and it is sort of a proxy question, I have old school Necron Wraiths as you can get good deals on them on EBAY. I've never met anyone who had a problem with that, but was just wondering if people do?

I've seen this happen quite a bit, and never heard of a problem. The old models are a bit smaller than the newer ones, so I could see someone hypothetically having a problem, but I can't imagine, especially since those are the original wraith models.

There is a difference between making models out of bits of old stuff and using bits of old stuff instead of models.


Yoghurt carton for use as terrain.


Yoghurt cartons and other food packagings converted for use as terrain.

I played someone who used their iPhone as an Annihilation Barge and used their phone to text during the game.