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Leo_the_Rat wrote:How does the opponent "suffer" if he's only really playing from the hobby side? Why should he care what rules are being used when all he should be caring about is how nicely painted is the other player's army.

You can't have it both ways if you're just in it for the painting then you shouldn't care about the rules as to what army is using which rules. If you're just in it to play then it doesn't matter how it's painted only how it's played.

Both of the above are very narrow minded approaches but they seem to be the mindsets of a lot of posters.

This game is more than just a typeset, and if you saw it as such it's questionable why you'd even play it over some of the better written and cheaper games out there. This game has one of the best settings ever created, and even for competitive playee like myself, nothing sucks you out of the immersion faster than what you describe. This is the exact same reason the London tournament got so many complaints, the complaint about the terrain was literally that it kills the immersion. The only thing narrow minded is pretending that you couldn't possibly envision why this might bother someone.

SickSix wrote:Good grief. How many people whining and carrying on about this are actually going to participate in this event?

Probably none of you.

Get over it. As stated it would be ridiculous for Games Workshop to allow armies to be played in THEIR tournament that look nothing like what they have said those armies should look like.

Its like arguing that your Mazda RX7 with chevy LS motor should be allowed to race in a Mazda factory spec event.

I'm on the side of this being a good thing and I really like this rule the more I think about it. But this post is atrocious. Nobody is whining harder than yourself. Whether people attend or not is irrelevant, the question, as proposed by myself, is whether you like the RULES in general, not whether you are attending. It's both a hypothetical question that anyone can answer about how they feel about this rule if it was at a tournament they were attending, as well as one grounded in the potential reality of GW setting a standard, it may or may not be picked up by all but it will definitely be more commonplace. Please leave these unnecessary inflammatory posts at home, I like the rule, but this is a forum for discussion and I've encouraged people to share their opinions with me, if this bothers you this much then you may need to find somewhere else to devote your internet efforts towards.

Tamwulf wrote:The chances of me flying all the way over to England to play with little toy soldiers at Warhammer World is about nill. Might be a once in a lifetime, epic trip and maybe someday I'll do it. Not for the next few years though.

This is just another tournament requirement like any other. Every tournament I've ever attended has had rules like "All models must be painted", and when that wasn't enough "All models must be painted with at least three colors, and the base must be painted". Or "You must field at least one detachment, and a maximum of three detachments". Etc., etc,. etc.

If the tournament organizers want a rule that says "If your Space Marines are painted like Ultramarines, then they must be played as Ultramarines and not Blood Angels", then OK. If I want to play in this tournament, then I'll abide by that rule. If I don't like it, then I won't play in the tournament. Seems pretty simple to me.

TLDR; If you don't like it, don't play in the tournament.

Thanks, we are all aware that we aren't being held at gunpoint to attend, we are simply discussing whether or not we think a rule is any good. Do have anything to actually contribute?

Player A has a space marine army lovingly and skillfully painted in Salamanders livery.
Player B has a space marine army jokingly and hastily painted pink. He calls them the Pink Weirdos and plays them with different chapter traits every game (or every tournament, as the case may be).

The rule discussed in this thread imposes a new and meaningful in-game restriction on Player A. Player B, meanwhile, is explicitly and completely exempted from that restriction and may continue on as he always has. I'd love to understand how all the "this is fine" and "good for the fluff" crowd manages to internally justify that.

Greywing wrote:
Player A has a space marine army lovingly and skillfully painted in Salamanders livery.
Player B has a space marine army jokingly and hastily painted pink. He calls them the Pink Weirdos and plays them with different chapter traits every game (or every tournament, as the case may be).

The rule discussed in this thread imposes a new and meaningful in-game restriction on Player A. Player B, meanwhile, is explicitly and completely exempted from that restriction and may continue on as he always has. I'd love to understand how all the "this is fine" and "good for the fluff" crowd manages to internally justify that.

Player A always plays his army as Salamanders. Why else would he lovingly and skillfully paint them as Salamanders? If he wanted them to be Dark Angels, then he would have lovingly and skillfully painted them as Dark Angels. So how does this restrict player A when he always plays his (or hers!) Salamanders that are painted as Salamanders as Salamanders? If player A didn't want to play Salamanders, then I would have expected him to paint them in whatever scheme he wanted.

If player B paints his army half- and calls them Pink Weirdos and always uses different chapter traits every game... OK. That's the way player B wants to play and enjoy the game. Player A doesn't give a crap because he always plays Salamanders. If player B's Pink Weirdos wants to use Salamander Chapter Traits, that's fine as long as he doens't call them Salamanders. They are Pink Weirdos using Salamander Traits.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
In the past it's always been fine for a successor to use the characters. Unless that's been specifically addressed I'd assume it was still the case. "Counts as Calgar" is still valid, afaik. E.g. my army is led by Chapter Master Marius Alexandar Kreiger, who happens to have Terminator Armor and some sweet Powerfist Storm Bolter combi-weapons.

It has been addressed. Calgar has the ULTRAMARINES keyword and not the <CHAPTER> keyword. So if you want to play a successor of the Ultramarines (e.g., Novamarines) you would replace <CHAPTER> with NOVAMARINES. Calgar's ULTRAMARINES keyword would not change to NOVAMARINES.

Sort of, but there's nothing stopping me from saying the rest of my army is all keyword <Ultramarines> either. So, white paint job, but they're <Ultramarines>.

In fact their write-up explicitly states it: "If you have created your own unique colour scheme, then you may give them any keyword that you wish." So yes, it has been addressed, but I'm not locked out of stand-in special characters.

The rules in the codex don't care what color your army is painted. Calgar will always have the ULTRAMARINES keyword. You don't have a 'stand-in special character', you have an Ultramarines army in a different paint scheme.

Im sure they just dont want people with "clear" UM, or Salamanders, armies that are 100% clear to be painted as one trait, and they are playing them as another, just for confusion's sake.

If you UM are green that should be fine, but if they are green with salamander markings, and fire bases, well you are playing salamanders.

So I guess new IG players that want to run Tallarn or Mordian in a GW event are just screwed unless they have excellent ebay-fu.

This is what happens when you start giving out free special rules for everything...Gone are days when chapters were picked for fluff/colour scheme. And top of that all it creates is unfluffy armies. Hell even now it can be seen with raven guard described as assault specialists yet rules encourage gun lines. And less said the fluff abomination that was all bike white scars the better...Or how people think Iyanden force needs to be 100% wraiths to be fluffy.

tneva82 wrote:
This is what happens when you start giving out free special rules for everything...Gone are days when chapters were picked for fluff/colour scheme. And top of that all it creates is unfluffy armies. Hell even now it can be seen with raven guard described as assault specialists yet rules encourage gun lines. And less said the fluff abomination that was all bike white scars the better...Or how people think Iyanden force needs to be 100% wraiths to be fluffy.

I'm with you there. Get rid of all the chapter/regiment specific rules. The only possible exception I'd make is for Knights because it gives them some much needed variety. An added bonus is it removes an unnecessary layer of complexity.

What an utterly moronic rule! The color someone paints their models has no business becoming a rules issue. As long as someone makes it clear which chapter/craftworld/whatever's rules they're using, and have paid the appropriate points and so on it doesn't matter what color they are.

What exactly is this supposed to accomplish? Is this just another dumbing down by GW, because they think it's too hard for new or even existing players to face armies whose color schemes may not completely match the rules they are using? An attempt to push players to buy more models?

Blastaar wrote:
What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?

CASUAL AT ALL COSTS BEER AND PRETZELS FORGE A NARRATIVE.

The purpose of the rule is the incompetent s at GW whining and crying about "competitive" players making choices based on winning games rather than obedience to GW's vision of the fluff. The idea that someone could choose the rules for their models based on what strategy is most effective instead of what paint scheme they are most similar to is offensive to GW and must be shut down. If your models look like Ultramarines then they must use the rules for Ultramarines, deciding that the Ultramarines rules are not effective enough and you're going to use the Salamanders rules instead is WAAC TFG NOT BEER AND PRETZELS abuse of the rules. The inevitable conclusion is that competitive players will ignore the event, as they do with most of GW's poorly run nonsense, and only GW's ideal BEER AND PRETZELS players will show up.

 Peregrine wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?

CASUAL AT ALL COSTS BEER AND PRETZELS FORGE A NARRATIVE.

The purpose of the rule is the incompetent s at GW whining and crying about "competitive" players making choices based on winning games rather than obedience to GW's vision of the fluff. The idea that someone could choose the rules for their models based on what strategy is most effective instead of what paint scheme they are most similar to is offensive to GW and must be shut down. If your models look like Ultramarines then they must use the rules for Ultramarines, deciding that the Ultramarines rules are not effective enough and you're going to use the Salamanders rules instead is WAAC TFG NOT BEER AND PRETZELS abuse of the rules. The inevitable conclusion is that competitive players will ignore the event, as they do with most of GW's poorly run nonsense, and only GW's ideal BEER AND PRETZELS players will show up.

You live in another reality.

 SickSix wrote:
Its like arguing that your Mazda RX7 with chevy LS motor should be allowed to race in a Mazda factory spec event.

It's not at all the same, because GW does not require strict obedience to the fluff in a consistent manner. A bright pink army would be 100% acceptable (and could use whatever rules you want) despite being blatantly against the fluff, where in a "factory spec" event you'd be required to choose one of the GW chapters and use the paint scheme and rules for that chapter. This is more like a "factory spec" event where you can use any vehicle with a Mazda logo mounted on it somewhere, except if it started as a Mazda out of the factory you must use the original factory-new configuration. An arbitrary subset of the field gets restrictions, people who bring in random non-Mazda vehicles can gain any advantage they want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
You live in another reality.

You disagree with the obvious truth of the situation? It's not like this is a rule that came out of nowhere, GW has previously talked about how they think people should use the rules that match the paint scheme and it's bad to use a different set of rules just to gain a better chance of winning.

The more I think on it the more I think this is jst someone in the office who took GW's internal painting policy and decided to roll it out because "it works". Even though it doesn't actually work for the market.

It makes full sense for GW's internal system to use only official scheme armies in their marketing; but they can't easily roll this out for the market in general.



Also don't forget this rule doesn't stop you using custom schemes; what it does is imposes a random rule that if you use a custom scheme you can use any force you want; whilst if you use anything that is similar to or is an official scheme your army is locked to that army.
So basically it means if you're running Tyranid and want to mix some Kracken and Behemoth in your army you've got to paint both differently (even if different is just a marking on the base). However if you used the Kracken official scheme then you can't use any of those models as Behemoth, however your friend who used a random colour scheme can.


It creates a daft situation where anyone who uses official schemes is penalised over those who use a custom scheme; whilst GWs marketing and guides all gear people toward official schemes (and lots of armies have sub-groups where the official schemes are hardly different from each other - Daughters of Khaine are one example where the different groups are basically the same mix of red, gold and black colours).

The rule is fine.

Its not a moustache twizzling moneymaking scheme, its not an unfair restriction, no small animals are being slaughtered. Its just GW trying to ensure their game is played how they envisioned the game would be played.

You think if you turn up with an awesome painted blood angels army entirely in blue they're gonna make you play them as Ultramarines? grow up.

This IS great for fluffy players, nobody cares when Chudsly McNeckbeard rocks up with his 3 colour min eyesore and states they're the flavour of the month sept- i can see what he's here for.
But when he rocks up with his pro painted Salamanders and tries using UM or RG chapter tactics.... just kills the thematics of the game, which is obviously something GW want to maintain at their tourneys.

Anyway, "nobody" enters WHW tourneys anyway because they only use rulebook missions/ Dont use ITC/ Dont use ETC.
So see you guys at Heat 2, with my lovingly painted Imperial Fists that ill be playing as Ultramarines.

Process wrote:
Its just GW trying to ensure their game is played how they envisioned the game would be played.

That's hardly a compelling defense when "how they envisioned it" is stupid.

You think if you turn up with an awesome painted blood angels army entirely in blue they're gonna make you play them as Ultramarines? grow up.

Uh, no, that's what the rule says. You're literally saying "it's ok that the rule exists, they won't enforce it", a clear concession that the rule is stupid.

But when he rocks up with his pro painted Salamanders and tries using UM or RG chapter tactics.... just kills the thematics of the game, which is obviously something GW want to maintain at their tourneys.

I see. So having models using the "wrong" tactics (because apparently Ultramarines never use stealth units which would be appropriate with Raven Guard rules) for their paint is killing the thematic value, but having a barely-painted army that has the same rule flaws on top of looking like trash somehow doesn't? This is, to put it politely, a bizarre view of things.

So, I agree with the GW rule – to a point, but not in the vast majority of cases.

Taking the Ultramarines example used by others – If the Marines were just painted blue and white, then, who cares. There are so many official chapters out there now and so many homebrew ones to fill the GW gaps, that there are bound to be colour clashes.

The bit where it gets a little difficult, I guess, is there you fully load up on things like Ultramarine transfers and then try to run the Ultramarine special character models as standard models.

Sure, this isn’t so much of an issue in a casual, at home game, but, the difference here is that it is a GW event. They of course want to promote their models, and they don’t really want to see new players/twitch viewers walking by and seeing everything being proxied at their own event. Why would someone go and buy a new model, if, they knew they could just use another one as a stand in 100% of the time.

But, for me, it is why I have completely moved away from GW paint schemes and create my own for 8th edition. The only models I’ve stuck to a GW scheme for, is my growing Carcharodon force, but that is purely from wanting to have a force of that particular Chapter. My other marines are painted in my own scheme so I can run what I want without having any issues.

That's hardly a compelling defense when "how they envisioned it" is stupid.

If how they envisioned it is stupid... don't fething play.

Uh, no, that's what the rule says. You're literally saying "it's ok that the rule exists, they won't enforce it", a clear concession that the rule is stupid.

No, im literally saying that GW will apply common sense (its a thing that exists outside Dakka, you might have heard of it), if a guy is stood there with all of his BA characters and specific units just painted blue... its quite clear what they are. Regular players just trying to have fun don't live by RAW, and can make decisions based on context.

I see. So having models using the "wrong" tactics (because apparently Ultramarines never use stealth units which would be appropriate with Raven Guard rules) for their paint is killing the thematic value, but having a barely-painted army that has the same rule flaws on top of looking like trash somehow doesn't? This is, to put it politely, a bizarre view of things.

Yes exactly. You cant kill what was never alive to begin with. There is no theme with the trash painted army, whereas running completely different CT actively goes AGAINST the theme.

Process wrote:
If how they envisioned it is stupid... don't fething play.

Or we could acknowledge that it's stupid, make the obvious modification to turn GW's vision into a more sensible idea, and play the game. The printed rules of the game are relevant to me and my games. GW's personal opinions are not.

No, im literally saying that GW will apply common sense (its a thing that exists outside Dakka, you might have heard of it), if a guy is stood there with all of his BA characters and specific units just painted blue... its quite clear what they are. Regular players just trying to have fun don't live by RAW, and can make decisions based on context.

IOW, GW won't apply the rule therefore the rule is good.

Yes exactly. You cant kill what was never alive to begin with. There is no theme with the trash painted army, whereas running completely different CT actively goes AGAINST the theme.

Again, this is just bizarre. You'd rather have a no-theme game with a trash painted army than a game where the models don't match the rules. You're honestly claiming that your game experience is made less enjoyable if your opponent replaces their bare-plastic Ultramarines army (with three dots of color on each model to be tournament-legal) with nicely painted models in Salamanders colors. Utterly bizarre.

Barring marines does anyone actually KNOW the formal paint schemes for different armies and sub-factions? Honest question here, because outside of marines GW has never pushed the painting schemes of other factions.

Marines get not only marketing but unique models and heroes per sub-group to the point where Ultramarine models are different to Blood Angles.

However I bet even players of other factions don't know the formal schemes for their own army let alone others. So clarity on the tabletop is meaningless unless GW is now going to put that same marketing behind every other army. I've played Tyranid for years and couldn't tell you the formal paint schemes for the different groups - I might recognise one or two but I coudln't tell you them (and the number of custom tyranid armies is legion)

 Overread wrote:
Barring marines does anyone actually KNOW the formal paint schemes for different armies and sub-factions? Honest question here, because outside of marines GW has never pushed the painting schemes of other factions.

Marines get not only marketing but unique models and heroes per sub-group to the point where Ultramarine models are different to Blood Angles.

However I bet even players of other factions don't know the formal schemes for their own army let alone others. So clarity on the tabletop is meaningless unless GW is now going to put that same marketing behind every other army. I've played Tyranid for years and couldn't tell you the formal paint schemes for the different groups - I might recognise one or two but I coudln't tell you them (and the number of custom tyranid armies is legion)

Or what about Tau, where it's explicitly stated that they use colors appropriate to the environment and the sept colors are only their parade-ground formal uniforms (if they're ever used at all)?

Or Tyranid who evolve colours on the fly; even if you had two different broods one might evolve the same colours to ensure that they blend with the rest of the attacking swarm.

Or Guard who decide to use actual camo on all their units instead of military dress.


Honestly all GW needed to mention was that units of DIFFERENT subfactions had some form of means to tell them apart from other units on the table top. Something that should be part of good game advice even to the point of tellin which squad is which so that you can easily tell your units apart from each other.

Or we could acknowledge that it's stupid, make the obvious modification to turn GW's vision into a more sensible idea, and play the game. The printed rules of the game are relevant to me and my games. GW's personal opinions are not.

So because of your opinion its stupid we should ignore GW's opinion its not? ok

IOW, GW won't apply the rule therefore the rule is good.

Reading comprehension not a strong suit eh?... Not in other words, in clear words; GW will apply the rule when necessary, using common sense.

Again, this is just bizarre. You'd rather have a no-theme game with a trash painted army than a game where the models don't match the rules. You're honestly claiming that your game experience is made less enjoyable if your opponent replaces their bare-plastic Ultramarines army (with three dots of color on each model to be tournament-legal) with nicely painted models in Salamanders colors. Utterly bizarre.

Again with the old reading comprehension issue, never did i say id find it more enjoyable playing a trash painted army over an awesomely painted thematic army. I stated there is no theme present when playing the 3 dot tide whereas playing a fully painted Saly's army using UM CT actively goes against the setting and the lore thats been created.


Again, you're all wasting way too much Reee on this. Unless you turn up wilth a fully decaled codex adherant colour schemetheyre not going to force you to play a specific chapter just because of colour.

Process but a lot of people DO use codex colour schemes.

For every army that isn't marines GW has made a lot of subfactions too; subfactions that specifically have a bonus toward specific abilities. They basically expect players to take combined arms to competitive battles. This is the rub because most players have painted their faction in an official scheme and yet the rules benefit them to take combined arms not a single force.

This is different to how its been for 7 other whole editions of the game. Marines are the exception not the rule.

 Peregrine wrote:

You think if you turn up with an awesome painted blood angels army entirely in blue they're gonna make you play them as Ultramarines? grow up.

Uh, no, that's what the rule says. You're literally saying "it's ok that the rule exists, they won't enforce it", a clear concession that the rule is stupid.

I don't even agree with Peregrine's overall stance here, and he's still right on this. The logic you used Process, is just admitting that the rule shouldn't be enforced, which is his overall point



I disagree. I don't want every tournament to do it, but I think tournaments like this should be able to exist, and as always, Peregrine is the face of internet outrage machine overly utterly nothing, and doesn't know how to express a measured opinion on a matter. However, his response to you here is just correct, your defense of it seems equally rash... I would hope that they do enforce the restrictions they put in place. I've actually come around and think it's a great idea for a GW tournament.

The problem is this isn't a one-tournament rule. This is GW's standard package for any tournament event. And as they are the market leader that will filter down to other events too, esp if GW holds major events (and thus influence what competitive people have to take in order to advance through a tournament scene).

As a once-off it would be fine; but this is their standard starting package for any event they run.

 Overread wrote:
The problem is this isn't a one-tournament rule. This is GW's standard package for any tournament event. And as they are the market leader that will filter down to other events too, esp if GW holds major events (and thus influence what competitive people have to take in order to advance through a tournament scene).

As a once-off it would be fine; but this is their standard starting package for any event they run.

It's also troubling if they decide to push this out on to events they don't run but support. It's turning the competitive 40K into pay to win on an even more rediculous level.
Taking the worst Chapter tactic or not mixing and matching subfactions might fly in flgs or garage hammer but it will create a bigger gap betten those than can meta chase and have the budget/time to have a new army painted everytime GW decieds to spin the random imbalance generator around. But those that are building the best list they can out of the army they have are going to be disappointed. It will take whats already a 2 camp community and turn it into 3 camps potentially even 4.

Punish players for picking a colour scheme that has rules? Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea.

The only rule needed is to make sure multiple detachments have clear visual indicators for different 'chapters'. For all the supposed freedom everyone wants in this game to do exactly what they want, this seems completely contradictory. Let players paint what they want and run what they want.

In the past the only paint rule they ever had was "red ones go fasta" for orks and even then you could paint it however you want and just say the ork was colour blind and get away with it.

 Blacksails wrote:
Punish players for picking a colour scheme that has rules? Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea.

The only rule needed is to make sure multiple detachments have clear visual indicators for different 'chapters'. For all the supposed freedom everyone wants in this game to do exactly what they want, this seems completely contradictory. Let players paint what they want and run what they want.

I'm not in favour of the rule, but the idea is that if your marines are painted as Ultramarines you can't use them as Salamanders. If you paint them as custom marines then it doesn't apply. I can understand that they want to avoid situations where opponents get confused over the paint scheme and rules being incongruent. Now, the rule kind of falls apart when someone fields a blue with gold trim custom marine chapter. Of course it only applies to GW tournaments which most of you don't attend anyway so no fuss getting stressed over it.