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Let me say I am talking about a couple things, and I will be honest it is a grey zone (what I call a spectrum). What are your feelings about using 3rd party miniatures or bits?

Some examples, using Mantic Forge Fathers as a Squat themed Space Marine army, Or using parts to make other forces

As long as it is similar n size it's ok. But a toy car for a titan no.

I love to see it across the table from me, as long as it's not an excuse to just not bother with your army. But really, that's normally the opposite of what you see when someone fields a modded army - if anything they care too much

Go aheaa. I# this a trick question?

No, this is a question because someone in another thread made a comment (in passing) that got me thinking...

My honest opinion is that its fine and I encourage 3rd party and other options.

GW has gone so far off the deep end with their prices that I have no sympathy for them losing sales to 3rd party and 3d Printers.

When you can explain to me how 5 Ork Kommandos, made of Plastic, should cost $45 then I might change my opinion, but as it stands their prices are just unrealistic and completely restrictive to their apparent goals of growing the game. If prices were more balanced I would probably have a complete 2nd army by now and have bought more minis from them to complete said army, but now? not so much.

basically the more creativity someone uses in constructing their army the better I like it. a boring, straight from the box, no conversions no transfers just primary colored paint marine army is far more boring than an army incoroporating a bunch of cool 3rd party sculpts. But random toys thrown in as proxies....eugh. worse than minimum effort official kits.

To help enplane where this is coming from/? I am a 50% Narrative/theme type...in other-words I have a backstory for my army that affects my decisions.

My space marine army is an Ultima Founding Chapter, that focuses on practicality. They are more likely to use allies than almost any other chapter

I have as part of the backstory that a group of Squats have taken up residence (using Iron Hands rules) on their chapter world

So for the majority of the squats I will be using either Manic Miniatures or Ramshackle Miniatures

Absolutely fine, so long as it looks good and I can tell what's what.

Conversion has been encouraged by GW for so long that its as huge part of the hobby; some people have whole armies that are total conversions.

The key points are:
1) That any GW store/event is going to enforce majority/all parts be GW products. So you can't use a whole 3rd party model or you might find some conversions get questioned. This is a case by case situation so some stores might be more open than others.

2) Base size and other physical attributes are part of the game; thus some conversions can change game state and be used for unfair advantage. So if your conversion of a tank has a shoebox sized front so that you can hide the rest of your army behind it - yeah - most people are either going to say no, or house-rule that it doesn't cover that large an area of something.

3) Lazy. Yeah this comes into it. If you decide to field a lictor that is just a base, nothing else; because the camo is so good that its invisible. Yeah its technically fluffy, technically correct and totally lazy and most might refuse it.
Like it or not the quality of your models matters, especially when dealing with conversions over official models.

4) Easy to tell apart. Unity type, weapons and which unit is in which group. These are three key things to take into account. Most players want to be able to tell which weapon is which on models and which model is what. So if you convert your army to have different units looking very similar if not the same many might dislike that as its confusing the game state and giving you an advantage.



Remember all of these things are variable. Some players are stricter than others; some environments (eg tournaments, GW stores) are stricter than others; some are far less so. So what works for one opponent in one situation might not work for another.

If you're playing competitive games, esp if they are outside of your local club, then always check beforehand with the TO. If you can't then try to take official spare models of those you've converted - or an alternate non-converted selection of army choices so you can play without the conversions if they get ruled against.
(Of course sometimes if you turn up with a My Little Pony total army conversion that gets through because its a bit like going to a formal race dressed in a chicken suit - everyone knows you're there for a laugh rather than winning and can take it in kind).





I have some sympathy for GW with regard to 3rd party companies that make whole ranges of alternative sculpts for them; but the market is open and GW doesn't seem to be suffering for it in any great degree (considering how they are still the giant of the industry and all). As for price that's an endless debate best left out of here as it gets ugly very fast. Price is what it is.

Basically whats been said. Most of my Daemon HQs and several units are 3rd party and I have a few in my Ministorum army.

I'm not so fussed about base sizes and dimensions. Base size especially because GW are incredibly mercurial with their base sizes. My friend has Imperial Guard heavy weapons teams based on cavalry bases, I have carnifexes on circular bases and genestealets on 28mm bases. These days heavy weapons teams are on carnifex bases, carnifexes are on bike bases and genestealers are on terminator bases. It's madness! Who knows when they'll change things next. As long as no one is putting Captain Slamguinius on a 5 foot wide base I have no problem with base size.

As for physical dimensions again I'm not fussed as long as its not a riptide lying flat on his base. I generally go by the old rule of not counting extremities such as wings and weapons as part of LoS so removing Mortarions wings for example wouldn't be a big issue for me. Same goes for hight. I think that if someone puts effort to converting model into a cool pose or puts work into a scenic base I'm not going to throw a strop because the model is am inch higher or lower than the stock version.

SemperMortis wrote:
My honest opinion is that its fine and I encourage 3rd party and other options.

GW has gone so far off the deep end with their prices that I have no sympathy for them losing sales to 3rd party and 3d Printers.

When you can explain to me how 5 Ork Kommandos, made of Plastic, should cost $45 then I might change my opinion, but as it stands their prices are just unrealistic and completely restrictive to their apparent goals of growing the game. If prices were more balanced I would probably have a complete 2nd army by now and have bought more minis from them to complete said army, but now? not so much.

I wanted the official part for dual devourers for mY Carnifexes recently. Looked them up and it's over $50 for two sets. Before shipping. Just the guns. It's basically just two arms. I have 6 Fexes, that's $150 to kit them. For a part that really should have been included in the base kit.

Prices on these models are ridiculous. I couldn't even care if you field recasts against me. As long as its on the correct base and somewhat resembles the intended model, I'm all good with it. I encourage clever conversions, nothing like making your army a little more unique, not even about what's available just do it for the love.

Rule of Cool. If it looks cool, shouldn't be an issue.

If it looks like ****, I will politely keep my opinion to myself.

Just base them properly!

If it's based, meet the base requirements. If it's a certain height, try to match the height. In essence, if you really want to you can melt down all your plastic into chunks that are about the same height and width of the desired model, and since it's GW plastic, it's legal to run an army of literal blocks.

Absolutely. As long as the model is an accurate representation of what its stats suggest it is, I encourage it. We shouldn't restrict ourselves to GW's interpretation and design. Just don't do it to try to make large, powerful shooters very small so they can hide behind cover or something unfriendly like that.

Disclaimer: I'm more concerned about having models painted than using third party or whatever.

With regard to stand-ins and third-party models; to me it's about one thing (the whole hobby is really): effort. And a close second would be aesthetics. Don't spray paint a dollar-store tank and claim it's your Ork battlewagon because you're being lazy and cheap (or dump a bag of green plastic army men on the table and claim they're Imperial Guard). Likewise I won't play your My Little Pony army, because I play 40K because of the lore, and the aesthetic. Don't get butt hurt when I refuse a game because you're not playing 40K.

Now, oddly I'd refuse a silly game like that, but I would be more than happy to throw down on a boardgame with you. But if I'm going through the trouble of bringing 40K stuff, setting up a table, building an army...let's play 40K.

I dont collect any but sure. Mantic stuff can be cool. If it looks good. Painted well. Good togo.

As I get older I find I care less and less about this.

Ironic as I now have tens of thousands of minis.....

I'm using Starfleet Marines as Guardsmen. I got them at a good price, and they're a similar scale. I can definitely afford to buy more actual GW Guardsmen, but these guys are old, rare, and thus deserve a place on the table top (in my mind). Placing them in a Guard army seems the best way to do this.

 Mr Morden wrote:
As I get older I find I care less and less about this.

Ironic as I now have tens of thousands of minis.....

Probably something to do your life priorities changing and when you have less time to play games you find that you value having fun more important than having an argument because your opponent brought a 2nd Ed, plastic warrior sized hive tyrant along on the square base he was supplied with.

As long as model and bits are the right scale and it fits the look of the game then I don't see a problem. Although I've played a few games against players using toy models (a TMNT car as a ork battlewagon) I am not a fan of that way of using things.

The rule of cool takes precedence - it’s the simple.

I would be absolutely fine with 3rd party miniatures. It would be helpful if they look roughly like what they are supposed to be (or at least plausible).

Why didn't you do a poll?

Mark.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Likewise I won't play your My Little Pony army, because I play 40K because of the lore, and the aesthetic.

How could anybody refuse to play the My Little Pony space marines?

Mark.

Cheeslord wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Likewise I won't play your My Little Pony army, because I play 40K because of the lore, and the aesthetic.

How could anybody refuse to play the My Little Pony space marines?

Mark.

Because it looks fething stupid and its another case of Bronies trying to insert them into every place they do not belong- both figuratively and literally.

For a lot of people the biggest thing 40k has going for it is the spectacle. Inserting a stupid parody army into it (this goes for just about everything. No I don't want to play against your Green Bay Packer marines) detracts from that.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Cheeslord wrote:


How could anybody refuse to play the My Little Pony space marines?

Mark.

Because it looks fething stupid and its another case of Bronies trying to insert them into every place they do not belong- both figuratively and literally.

LOL

If the size and appearance of the models is appropriate for that they represent I have no issues.

Stuff like Kromlech is totally fine by me, especially since I use their products myself.

My main concern was using Forge Father Figures for Squats (rules as Space Marines)

I don't mind as long as the model visually represents with a degree of accuracy what it's supposed to be. If you throw a Barbie Corvette on the table and say it's a Baneblade, I'm going to say 'no'.

I think if it's a model you like and it's not massively different in size use what ever you want.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Cheeslord wrote:





How could anybody refuse to play the My Little Pony space marines?

Mark.

Because it looks fething stupid and its another case of Bronies trying to insert them into every place they do not belong- both figuratively and literally.

For a lot of people the biggest thing 40k has going for it is the spectacle. Inserting a stupid parody army into it (this goes for just about everything. No I don't want to play against your Green Bay Packer marines) detracts from that.

Now I have googled it and seen some awesome armies! First time I have been tempted to do loyalist marines!!

(loyal to Majesty, of course)

Mark.