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Okay, so here's my quandary. Way back when I got back into 40k I picked up Marines, and at the same time I picked up Dawn of War, now "what does this have to do with 30k?! Go post in the right board!" You might be saying, but stick with me and it will make sense.

I immediately fell in love with the Blood Ravens, and the more I followed them and their fluff and the alluded but never confirmed connection to the Thousand Sons, that made me love them and the Sons even more. Mostly because it left so much open to the imagination with just enough threads grounding it all as plausible.

Anyhow, along came Forge Worlds Age of Darkness, and I fell head over heels for it as well and was lucky, I thought, because I could easily adapt my existing collection which was ForgeWorld heavy already to this new setting. But I began to run into a few issues, mostly other players having issues with my "non 30k army" and how I'm just using an entire army of Proxies. Which to me is a tad bit insulting.

I play my Army as part of the Corvidae Cult of the Thousand Sons, obviously a sect that was sent away prior to Prospero and remained loyal after those events, according to the alluded fluff that connects my two armies.

Now where you all come in is this, what could I do to help stop some of these criticisms?

They share nearly identical colors, nearly identical emblems..
And given what they are im planning on seeing which fits them more Actual Thousand Sons rules or the Upcoming Shattered Legion rules. So I'm really at a loss.

Are other people exclusively using FW models and/or the new Betrayal at Calth models for their 30k games?

Honestly, I'd tell them to bugger off. Forgeworld is prohibitively expensive so not everyone can afford it.

Well, it's less of a case of models as I think (I'm not at home to look) right now my only non heresy models are some Bikes and the Regular Achilles and not the Alpha pattern.

It's mostly because people see the raven emblem, and I guess Slaneesh opens a stick shape warp portal in their rear and they have to argue about how they aren't an accurate 30k army and I'm ruining their narrative.

Can you post a few pictures so we know what we are dealing with?

If its a big issue, there are plenty of 3ed party guys who sell just heads with the egyption theme. Changing out a few heads would be the easiest route in my mind.

But in all seriousness, I would tell them to go fly a kite.

they are being donkey-caves. unless your bolter tacticals are running around with missile launchers and meltas mixed in, you should be just fine. although, stay off my TS turf

Fisheyes wrote:
Can you post a few pictures so we know what we are dealing with?

If its a big issue, there are plenty of 3ed party guys who sell just heads with the egyption theme. Changing out a few heads would be the easiest route in my mind.

But in all seriousness, I would tell them to go fly a kite.

Yeah I can get a few pictures up once I get home, everything I've got on my phone currently are old pictures of primed or grey resin.

Not everyone plays 30k for the same reasons.

I'd certainly play with non-FW models in a 30k game.

Some people only want to play with painted models.

Some people play 30k because they like the aesthetic, the fluff, the story, the models, or any combination of the same.

When they spend $1000 on a 1500 point army, maybe they are also making the choice that that's what the want to play against.

That's their choice. Using non-FW, indeed, non-Legion models (Raven Guard) is your choice.

Don't get pissy when it isn't appreciated. I think over the next few years we're going to see a lot of this as people look to play 30k with their existing armies as it gets more and more popular.

Ah, the 'quality of the opponents models' paradox.
Personally i always humour people wanting to have a game of 30k without FW marines - if they look like marines to me and their weapons are WYSIWYG there isn't a problem.

There is one speed hump though - if you've got lots of FW painted up nice you tend to want to take photos.

Interesting mix of thoughts.

On one hand, no - you shouldn't have to use all-ForgeWorld models or even any ForgeWorld models. And plenty of mk7 suits of armour and 'modern' 40k vehicles were in use during the Heresy. I have a Word Bearers force made up of 3rd party models and 1ed rhinos and I think that's fine.

I also like the idea of building a 30k army to represent a proto-Blood Raven sect of Thousand Sons - though I should point out that there was no such thing as a 'corvidae army' - all companies had a mix of disciplines within them.

However, I also like playing for the look and feel of things, and how things are on the tabletop. My Word Bearers, though featuring no actual FW, still look like a Heresy era army through choice of models and colour schemes. I'm definitely the sort of person who would get annoyed at an opponent who fielded an army painted as Ultramarines but wanting to use white scars rules, for example. And there's, in my mind, a big difference n the appearance of a heresy-era proto-BR Thousand Sons army and just a regular 40k BR army.

So, I guess it depends on the look of it. If you've built a great heresy-era Thousand Sons force out of regular plastics, that's brilliant. If it just looks exactly like a 40k BR army, and you're saying 'yeah, they're definitely Thousand Sons', then I can see why people feel they're not playing a 'real' 30k army...


.

Use whatever models you want for whatever army you want to do. If someone has a problem with it, they can feth off.

Okay so as requested here is my current units that i most commonly use when possible. I've backed off painting recently due to the above mentioned issues causing me to consider if I'm going down the right road or not with my Army idea. Not pictured are 2 squads of mk 7 bolter marines as my camera battery died before i could finish snapping shots.

Excellent painting

Non 30k army?!? I'm seeing nothing but FW models and betrayal at calth - what's their problem?!

Good effort on the paintjobs too, they look lovely dude.

So, they have a problem because you call them 'blood ravens' while using 1k sons rules? while using FW models painted like 1k sons?

The canopy of your Fire Raptor isn't clear. I'm not playing against you.

But seriously, these are painted to a level far past anything 'narrative ruining' and having your Corvidae Cult as backstory makes them fit in flawlessly. These are beautiful models and anyone complaining about something like that really does need to take a good poop to try to dislodge the stick.

I'm one of those players that wants to get into 30k for that narrative on the table. Taking as few creative liberties as possible in my budget but even I balk at saying anything bad about playing against an army that looks like that. I'd be happy going up against that.

 SirDonlad wrote:
Non 30k army?!? I'm seeing nothing but FW models and betrayal at calth - what's their problem?!

Good effort on the paintjobs too, they look lovely dude.

So, they have a problem because you call them 'blood ravens' while using 1k sons rules? while using FW models painted like 1k sons?

Thats sort of the Gist yeah.

I play them as Corvidae Heavy Thousand Sons, Hence the Scheme and the (For them) Stylized Raven (Basically the Blood Ravens Emblem)
and I use the Generic Rites of War if i use them, and the Generic Legion rules.
While all of this would let me Keep a fun army for 40k games with my Ravens as well since part of their 40k fluff is being massive Relic collectors.

I had planned to Use Thousand Sons Rules (When they come out) for Campaigns up until we in our group hit a point passed Prospero, after which i was going to use Shattered Legion rules (if they fit) because it makes sense.

But as more and more people started showing up for 30k I began to get comments and looks about them Mostly in the nature of "Blood Ravens aren't a Legion" "There aren't any create your own armies in 30k" Or the occasional "Your Blood Angels are wrong" And so I explained as simply as i could their story, and it won a few people over, and Others gave me looks like i was a bit touched in the head.. Which lead me to begin questioning my choice.

As far as I know, there are no 'official' markings for each of the cults. There are some basic descriptions like 'raven' as the symbol but I've never seen much beyond that.

Until FW/GW release some specific fluff that physically depicts it, those people whining are being jerks for no good reason. If it is released in time and people complain, then they are being jerks for a poor reason.

I think it's awesome - ignore the neck-beards

Yeah, that looks like a pretty decent Heresy-Era army to me. Again, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a Corvidae army, but they're really well painted, in the correct colour, with bone as a highlight.

If anything, I'd say your problem is just with the markings. At the moment, they're very sparse on transfers and markings, and the only ones they have are clearly the 40k BR symbol. I think if this was mixed in with an equal number of actual TS symbols, markings, and (presumably) Egyptian-style stuff then you'd have something that looked a lot more like your idea - a definite 'Thousand Sons' army, but which could easily be used for 40k BR. Just refrain from sticking the legion number all over them!

If anyone still complains, you can always add some obvious TS units and characters when they are released and just don't use those in 40k!