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Well, simply put, how do we feel about that?
Specifically, I am building my new SOB's, and planned for this by buying specialized bases. Some of the sisters posed with foot on rubble, a burned up hertic, etc do not really fit perfectly with the bases or motif, although not really that far off.
And I'm not complaining, cool minis are cool minis, and this does allow more options for these mono-pose minis, but...
It can be ridiculous. And where does not using the base for posing become modeling for advantage? If I do not put my Broodlord on the inch high pipe, but instead pose him on a lower base, am I being TFG? (my tables don't care at all, but at a tournament it could happen. I will say i tend to model for disadvantage, my biker captain is jumping over a log so posed an inch above his base)
There are worse examples...but really, just any thoughts out there?

shouldnt be too difficult to change what they're standing on etc. as long as your opponents dont care(I generally wouldnt) "do whatcha like".

now making a patriarch significantly shorter might border on modeling for advantage. On the other hand, if the base looks dope/better than originally sculpted and fits the theme of the rest of the army, no problemo.

I ran into this issue with the new Kaybaan Shrike model. He is posed on a piece of rubble a good inch tall, but I dont want to use the rubble section as I want to use it for terrain later. But, now Shrike is 1inch shorter.

In most cases people say "Better cover but worse line of sight!" But shrike only has a pistol and grenades as ranged weapons, and is a melee unit with fast movement. Its purely modelling for preference but gives a massive advantage. I ended up doing a custom base to give a roughly even height but it is quite annoying from that perspective

It honestly just highlights that line of sight has always been one of the most hazy rules in wargames. In general when you do line of sight to a model which is designed without any thought of its line of sight properties; its going to have issues. More so in a game like 40K where shooting is quite a big part of the game.

Modelling for advantage is often seen more in extremes rather than subtle situations. Such as modelling a Trygon with only the head appearing on the base as its just emerging from its burrow; or a tank with a shoebox sized plough at the front.

Both are extremes and are clearly far outside of the norm for the models. Both clearly take conversions into the extremes and can quite easily be argued, can result in unfair line of sight bias. OF course both can also be resolved; the plough can be said to not block line of sight; the burrowed unit can be said to have a "cone" shaped body visible X inches up from its base.

Rule of Cool. People are generally far more forgiving of gameplay hassle/confusion if the reason made the model(s) look more dynamic, serve a strong theme, etc. It's the same with 'counts as' conversions - if you aren't in a tourney with rules specifically against it and you're up front about it, people seem to be largely accepting. I can't speak to tournament play, though, where time limits may make opponents somewhat less flexible.

In all cases where line of sight questions may arise, having a stock model available to swap in should make relatively short work of it. Again, this should only pose a problem if on strict time limits, where a 30 second pause every time you try to shoot something can add up, or with people who would cry foul at the very thought of a model ending up 1/8" over, facing a few degrees to the left from where it was. I've heard (and would certainly hope) that those types are a small minority, but I'm not a tournament player of ANY game, so take that with the requisite grain of salt.

Rule of cool! Rule of Cool! Rule of cool!

If the end product is cooler than original and is executed to a high standard rule of cool trumps all.

I feel like a model should be considered as tall as its base is wide for the purpose of LoS so that dynamically posed models like Shrike aren’t at a disadvantage.

I'm generally against it but I admit it allows for more variety in poses, which is nice.

It's not usually TOO bad if the terrain is a seperate piece as you can usually replace it with something more appropriate to your theme. I do hate when it's molded on to the model or the pose is too extreme to easily replace the terrain element.

I'm currently in the process of repainting / rebuilding a lot of my Drow and i think it's a fantastic way to theme your army. Mine are all themed to be a Salamander raiding force. For example i've got a terminator bent over one of the lava rocks with his company banner up his rear as one of my objective markers and i'm planning on using a destroyed dreadnought for my new Tantalus base.

This also gives you options for easily identifying who is your WL, example mine has a Salamander skull in his claw and his coat is made from their skins (black/ebon).

Sounds like cool ideas Archon Sinister (nice avatar too...).

Adding terrain like that to your theme is great! Which is why I have the mixed feelings when a model comes with it. As said a post above, better as a separate piece I can choose to use or not, rather than molded to the models leg, feet whatever. Seems so far rule of cool trumps and glad to hear it (although I suspect the harder tournament style players rarely weight in or visit this section).

edwardmyst wrote:
Seems so far rule of cool trumps and glad to hear it (although I suspect the harder tournament style players rarely weight in or visit this section).

I don't know about that, in the years i've been playing i've only ever had a single issue with a single player. I had kit bashed a model to carry a large banner and he gave me grief about it not being out of line of sight, so i broke that off right in front of him - it was an easy fix, i wasn't going to let that type of player dictate how i hobby (neither should you), and i wasn't going to give him an unfair advantage. I magnetize just about everything nowa days, solves a lot of these issues if you can just take the creative bits off before tournament play.

Personal opinion? Hate it. If it's not being put on a wooden plinth or submitted for a painting competition, I despise huge or mega-scenic bases, particularly when they change the size of the miniature. There are several miniatures I have not purchased or will not consider because they are too heavily sculpted into a terrain/showcase piece.

The further a gaming miniature gets from...being a gaming miniature, the less enthusiastic I am about it. Same goes for "everything must be leaping off a ruin with tattered scrolls swirling around them" nonsense.

Elbows: Dead on for me as well on all the tattered crap swirling about now. The doves for celestine were the ultimate "nope, not using that model" for me. GW does seem to be trying to make models for every single sector of the hobby, which makes perfect sense, but when try to make a single model fit every possible need (collector, diorama, game piece, etc etc) I think it gets bad.

There's an old axiom in military aircraft design...you can have a fighter which is a good fighter, or a bomber which is a good bomber, or a fighter-bomber that is terrible at both.

 Elbows wrote:
Personal opinion? Hate it. If it's not being put on a wooden plinth or submitted for a painting competition, I despise huge or mega-scenic bases, particularly when they change the size of the miniature.

Size of the miniature or size of the base? Altering the overall size/height is a big no no for me, but adding a little flavor here and there doesn't hurt.

edwardmyst wrote:
There's an old axiom in military aircraft design...you can have a fighter which is a good fighter, or a bomber which is a good bomber, or a fighter-bomber that is terrible at both.

The F-15E in it's prime would have something to say about that...

But even an F-15E couldn't do what an A-6 did in its prime.

Sure, the power to weight ratio of jet engines has made it easier to hang massive ordinance on a fighter plane and let it be a ground attack plane.

In any case, I still get frustrated by the miniature sold as a gaming piece that is really a diorama. I really find the named character on the floating sermon pulpit really lame. My opinion, I know, but it breaks the mood of the game for me, and that matters when I'm playing (and again, subjective to the max, so no need to defend it). I won't even get started on the parade in the middle of a battle unit...

However, i just finished my new Sisters, and was able to deal with all of the little bits of rubble etc attached to their feet. I chose to keep the heretic burning at the flamers feet, although I was tempted to remove from one unit.

Personally, I really hate basing elements integrated into the sculpts. Most models don't have integral basing, so I have to base them myself, and I like the opportunity to come up with a theme that I enjoy- but then I get the odd model with sculpted basing, and I have to either incorporate it into my basing scheme, or find a way to remove it.

My wife is getting into Drukhari. She likes Scourges. She doesn't like the random bits of ruins on their bases for them to be touching down on, so we're paintstakingly severing the models from the scenery, discarding the scenery, and pinning the Scourges to their bases with flight stands. It's a royal pain.

I've had to carve all my Forge World Tyranids off their sculpted-in basing, carefully slicing between talons on Hive Tyrant and Hierodule feet, and it just sucks.

If this kind of thing were sculpted to be more optional- like maybe basing material with a foot-shaped indent so you can easily glue in the model, but don't have to- that'd be completely okay. And in the meantime, if someone were to get on my case about 'modeling for advantage' because I based a model the same way as the rest of my army rather than perched on a bespoke piece of integrated scenery, I just wouldn't play against them. It might sound extreme, but I refuse to let my modeling be constrained by the inadequacies of TLOS in gameplay.