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I think it depends on the persons/groups taste. For me personally I see it as a more open arena in what you do, as long as there is a rational behind it. It’s closer to historical war gaming than 40k but at the same time it’s not. It still is a fictional setting, but more importantly it is a galaxy wide conflict, to argue absolutes (“x is not a thing”) is a very slippery slope- arguing what “your dudes” would do or should be like in a fictional setting is always a tough sell.

For example I agree many legionaries don’t have ornamentation in the books, but I can see a couple of legions having ornamentation on the squad level. Emperor’s Children, Blood Angels, Thousands Sons, and Salamanders are all legions that I can easily see normal marines embellishing their armor with various items. All these legions place emphasis on ideals that naturally lead to modifying their armor, and many lineman are still veterans of decades of war easily. Sons of Horus, Night Lords, and Word Bearers also would personalize armor but with spikes, trophies, or scripture. Looking at Horus Heresy art I would say both approaches are equally valid. It’s the “why” over the “what” essentially. For example if someone told me their army was a DG army that was resupplied by Zhao Arkkad (which happened in the fluff) so they had TS FW helmets and torsos in their DG army as surplus then I would say that’s awesome. Without the explanation I’d think it weird, but it breaks the stereotype of what a DG should look like while adding flavor to the force in a manner that makes sense. As long as someone can rationalize their choice to me in a way that is plausible then I would have no issue, aesthetic and style is highly subjective so this is how I try to set an even standard when it comes to choices outside the traditional fluff.

Scale for me also isn’t an issue as long as they are consistent, people do true scale projects all the time after all.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
MKVII+ legs, chest and helmet is a big no-no for me. MKVII arms are fine as I do believe there is art that shows that similar styles of arms were in service durig the time and the backpacks are so similar to MK IV backpacks I'd just write if off as a production difference. Stormtalons and Stormravens are right out. The current Death Guard stuff is just too oversized for 30k. As nice as the models are. When it comes to LoS it does become an issue when the models are that out of scale.

Plastic rhinos and land raiders are fine with me. I personally phased out the ones I had in my army (Aesthetic thing. I just wanted my 30k army to feel "more 30k") but it's 100% kosher with me if someone else uses them.

I agree with the rhino and land raiders, and in book 1 page 147 there's a normal plastic land raider (albeit with the FW extra armor) in one of the opaque background pictures, which is cannon for me since they are models in the 30k setting placed by the creators of the setting for the book, so there is no reason to prevent someone from using it. I'll have to check for rhinos later... Now for MK VII I sort of disagree. Rather there are multiple astartes wearing basically MK VII helmets, when you compare it to MK V it is clearly 80-90% mk VII in style (page 72 book 1 among many others). All you'd really have to do is cut off the top vent/"mohawk" portion off, even then on page 93 and 74 there is a variant with the top vent, albeit much smaller than the GW kit version. It is allowed in that sense, but never as a complete suit so I cut off the vent and add it here or there in my army like how it is in the pictures. The bolters also work, not only are they in a few background pictures in the black book about the Salamanders one of them has a combi-flamer in the Godwyn style. I personally would allow legs (torsos also but to a MUCH lesser extent) too if used intermittently. I am a sucker for the early Horus Heresy art covers, and the Flight of the Eisenstein has lots of leg armor pretty similar to MK VII. But to be fair in the black books they are not there so it's a grey zone depending on how their done. For Pauldrons I have no issue, they are so similiar to MK IV that who's to say Brother Honorious likes his shoulder trim a bit thicker than others XD. Now if someone ran a siege of Terra army I'd allow MK VII suits in general; we don't really know the numbers of the suit per legion, if they were issued as a complete suit or piecemeal to replenish damaged bits, or even if they were issued before the siege started, allowing in theory mk VII to be plausible in the Sol system/sector and not just the Siege of Terra, so who knows ?

The scale is fair enough, I've already thrown my opinion on the matter and to each their own!

@Hordrak those terminators look good to me! The funny thing is when I look at the FW legion Terminator praetor, I can kinda see a symbol on their robe (the black robes just going down from the pauldron) that looks like a straightened symbol of Tzeentch... It's probably the sun symbol with the side flames cut off, or is it?....

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-DE/Thousand-Sons-Legion-Praetor-2017

AnomanderRake wrote:The line for me is effort. You want to plop down an army with 40k plastic IIC Rhinos and Mk.VII armour in 30k colours and tell me all about your company's illustrious action at the Siege of Terra, go ahead, absolutely, happy to have you. You want to plop down your army of 40k plastic IIB Rhinos and Mk.VII armour casually sprayed black and then tell me you know your plastic Vanguards with Lightning Claws aren't actually Dark Furies but if I could just pretend because the rules are so awesome, I'm going to start looking at you sideways. (Addendum: Trying things in proxy before dumping the money is rather different from treating the proxy as an end goal, and it's very much a difference of attitude.)

People tell horror stories about anal-historical-wargamer-style "oooh the buttons on that tunic are the wrong shade of silver you illiterate peon" snobbery in 30k, but I have yet to run across anyone who would take issue with someone putting an honest effort on the table, even if it did involve 40k plastics.

I agree with this sentiment exactly! Plus it’s not like Mk VII came out of no where; there’s a lot of basically Mk VII helmets in the black books, and I wouldn’t be surprised if proto mk VII was sent out how Mk VI was to the IW and RG for testing. 100 guys is a drop in the bucket, and it’s entirely plausible an entire company could have been issued test versions of Mk VII at some point. If people want to be asinine about rhinos I point them to page 217 in book 1. It’s tiny but it’s there XD. not to mention FW just released HH era doors and front plate for the normal rhino... I don’t want to come across as vindictive, but I’ll laugh if come the siege of Terra we have Mk VII IF/WS/BA players refusing to play early Heresy DG/WE/EC because their models don’t represent the corrupted version (ex plague marines) they would have been by then. It’s just not worth splitting hairs so much, especially when we don’t have any concrete facts or numbers on Mk VII.

conker249 wrote:All my Sons of Horus are MkIV armor, with the Eye of Horus pauldron being MkIII, I like it, some others don't like it because they are not full MkIV.

Have none of them read the black books? Even if they only have access to one there are mixed armor types in every book, and really when you think about it many of the books also cover how they looked before the heresy so it’s not like mixed armor was a result of the heresy or some odd occurrence.

Gashrog wrote:

R0bcrt wrote:

conker249 wrote:All my Sons of Horus are MkIV armor, with the Eye of Horus pauldron being MkIII, I like it, some others don't like it because they are not full MkIV.

Have none of them read the black books? Even if they only have access to one there are mixed armor types in every book, and really when you think about it many of the books also cover how they looked before the heresy so it’s not like mixed armor was a result of the heresy or some odd occurrence.

Grumpy old farts can be loathe to change. In the original fluff that still forms the basis of power armour evolution mark 5 was not 'not a mark' as it is in the Thorpe-fluff, but a specific design (albeit in the same way that a Sherman tank was a specific design) created and manufactured because of an apparent incompatibility between mark 4 and earlier technology. Many old timers feel "but it tastes so good" is insufficient justification for Thorpe's urinating over the established canon with Deliverance Lost. Even Forge World appear to be of two minds on the issue, there's far less mixing in the later books and in Book 6 there's a mixed MkIII/IV Iron Hand whose description states that that legion's techmarines are the only ones capable of doing such a feat because of the underlying incompatibility between the marks.

That said grumpy old fart or not anyone who complains about MkIV marines with MkIII pads is a tit of the highest order, the only practical difference is the *decorative* rim which any artificer could easily apply to a MkIV pad if a marine or his unit commander wished it.

Fair enough, I didn't start getting into 40k until middle school which was when the first Horus Heresy book came out (late 2000s? man how time flies XD), and then when I bought the collected visions book my idea of what Horus Heresy armor was like was very fluid due to the vast array of variety. I agree there is less armor mixing in the later books but it is still significant. For example book 7 I counted 7 power armor marines, and 2 had mixed armor (one was MK III with mk II shoulders and mk IV head for example). Book 5 had 2 mixed out of about 11ish (suzerains and ashen circles I didn't count as mixed but they are not standard so depends on your view point). Book 6 had 7 mixed armor out of about 20. While never the majority it is significant in number. Also I'm 98% sure the remark about the IH marine was about how one half of his chest plate was MkIII while the other half was Mk IV. There are a lot of other examples of marines having Mk IV heads on III bodies and vice versa, so I don't think FW is of two minds on the matter at all, if anything the IH marine proves you could do some crazy conversions if you wanted to and blame the tech-priests/marines XD. Keep in mind this doesn't even consider "local" patterns of Mk armor that would have been a similar degree of separation (for example IW mk II armor is very different looking in the torso when compared to normal mk II, and ofcourse Ultramarine Praetor armor) and technically would be considered distinct from the standard pattern in terms of supply and repair.

VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 Gashrog wrote:
a mixed MkIII/IV Iron Hand whose description states that that legion's techmarines are the only ones capable of doing such a feat because of the underlying incompatibility between the marks.

Well considering the fact that that armor shown isn't something simple like Mk IV legs and arms on a Mk III Torso, but a Mk III and IV torso hybrid. I'm of the opinion that its the hybrid that has only been managed by their artificers, not something as simple as making legs work with the Torso.

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was what they were referring too, in book VI we also have the WE with mk II torso and head (albeit modified legion specific versions) with Mk IV arms, legs, and jump pack. If a WE can fuse Mk II and IV then it's safe to say it's referring to the two halves of the torso of the IH and not the idea in general of mixing armor.