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Or am I crazy?

I'm thinking of coming up with a generic color scheme, and buying models from whatever codex I want, painting them all the same, and then that way I can always play ANY marine codex, or any "chapter tactics" in the vanilla codex. Thoughts? I'm not talking about mixing them together across codices. Just having a reservoir of like-painted models to draw from so I can play whatever codex I want and have a cohesive color scheme.

Its been done before. Just wysiwyg all your equipment and no one will bat an eye.

Personally i like my marines generic yellow for Imperial fists, Lamentors(blood angels), and Angry marines (Black Templar) which are the ones i like to play most anyway.

But green nets you almost every chapter IIRC. Black is even better.

Its the most logical and cost effective thing you can do.

Create chapter 'Marines Fisticus', paint them a certain colour scheme, magnetize a bunch of weapons, and pick up the one or two specific kits only available in each codex, or build a suitable alternative that can also double as a few different similar vehicles.

Hell, you could do with a pre-existing chapter. Go to FW, buy legion models, paint them Sallies, use any codex you want. Running one of the assault companies? BA or SW, or even CSM. First company? DA for deathwing. Like bikes? DA or C:SM. Generic mix? C:SM. And, they also double as WYSIWYG legion models for any HH games you'd like to play.

Works for any marine chapter.

Power armour is power armour and a bolter will always be a bolter.

 Thorn678 wrote:
Or am I crazy?

I'm thinking of coming up with a generic color scheme, and buying models from whatever codex I want, painting them all the same, and then that way I can always play ANY marine codex, or any "chapter tactics" in the vanilla codex. Thoughts? I'm not talking about mixing them together across codices. Just having a reservoir of like-painted models to draw from so I can play whatever codex I want and have a cohesive color scheme.

Nothing wrong with that at all. Also pretty easy to do for any chapters that fit into the baseline space marine codex. A little tougher to also easily simulate Space Wolves, Dark Angels or Blood Angels with their specilized formations and units, but still also doable as long as you have extra minis available in your force. As long as your army is WYSIWYG no one will mind. Plenty of people have done this and plenty more will follow suit as well, so no worries.

Skriker

There is nothing wrong with doing that, and given the obcene nature of GW's pricing moel, it's one of the most intelligent things you can do.

I feel that anyone that would give you grief about "being cheap" or "not having the right models" is someone you should not be playing with anyway. In any event that sort of TFG is fairly rare in the real world, despite their being fairly common on web forums.

TR

Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

I painted up my chapter in original colors because none of the main ones inspired me - which does give me the side benefit of if I want to run a bike heavy list, I can play White Scars CT one game, and when I go all foot slogging Marines, Ultramarines the next, or use Blood Angel rules when I want to run all the assault marines I can carry, without the confusion of 'they look like ultramarines but use the BA rules'

At first, I was a purist back in the day with the CSM balking at the idea of my homebrew using loyalist rules, but the books have just worn me down over time. I don't see a problem with it. It's not like you are using them as a Xenos army. GW has kind of dug themselves this hole with the pricing and half their armies being 31 flavors of Marines.

Makes me wonder if this is starting to hit them back in sells some with people buying fewer kits with Space Marines (such as myself only getting a new Sternguard kit to add to my current SM homebrew army) rather then people going all in for a new Xenos army when new minis roll out. Maybe not, but it does seem like as time goes on this might get more and more prominent.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

Couldn't your opponent just tell you at the start of the game when you exchange lists?

Deathwatch covers everything.

 Blacksails wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

Couldn't your opponent just tell you at the start of the game when you exchange lists?

They should. but some people do forget. or are just surprised

Swappable banners are a pretty easy indicators though.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

I suppose this has to be said as there are indeed some careless/silly/stupid people out there who don't understand basic pre-game communication. But personally I cannot fathom a player doing the "generic army" thing not (for example) holding up the Dark Angel codex and saying something like "Although my marines are painted red I will be using this codex today" long before placing the first model on the table.

TR

 Desubot wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

Couldn't your opponent just tell you at the start of the game when you exchange lists?

They should. but some people do forget. or are just surprised

Weird. I mean, I'd expect it to be common practice that before deployment or anything happens, that when you meet your opponent, you swap lists and clarify the codex if required. Granted, a quick question would suffice too.

This is what I do. I have quite a bit of BA which I play frequently, but I have been using the new Marine book as of late. No one has said a word. As long as you are upfront about what you are doing at the beginning of a game, no one will say anything. If they do, you probably don't wanna play with that guy anyways.

 Desubot wrote:
Its been done before. Just wysiwyg all your equipment and no one will bat an eye.

What this guy said.

 Desubot wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

Couldn't your opponent just tell you at the start of the game when you exchange lists?

They should. but some people do forget. or are just surprised

Swappable banners are a pretty easy indicators though.

Pretty much. When I see yellow marines, my mind defaults to Imperial Fists. When one starts rolling for Black Rage, it would confuse me for a sec. Even with the pre-game communication, I am trying to remember my rules and mull my tactics. If I have to distract myself with one more thing (which army is he playing again?) it tends to frustrate me. Codex-hopping is tolerable when someone makes the effort to be clear. Just mentioning it once before the game starts may not be good enough for some people. Put some banners out there, use some specific models, etc. It's just a common courtesy and convention.

 spacewolved wrote:
Deathwatch covers everything.

I liked that.

 squall018 wrote:
This is what I do. I have quite a bit of BA which I play frequently, but I have been using the new Marine book as of late. No one has said a word. As long as you are upfront about what you are doing at the beginning of a game, no one will say anything. If they do, you probably don't wanna play with that guy anyways.

Being a bit British, saying which codex I'm using often ends up sounding rather stupid. I just put the codex on the table as we set up (and pool my models on/near it before deploying). If they didn't figure out which codex I'm using in the set up time, that's their misjudgment. I will, however happily answer any questions about my army, and hand over the list when requested.

I certainly understand the reasoning. And if I played Marines, I might agree like everybody else. But since I don't, I'll go against the grain here and say that it would annoy me if my regular opponent did it. As far as I'm concerned, it's exactly like proxying because it puts the onus on me to remember which army you're fielding today. I'll get accustomed to Ultramarines or Blood Angels or Space Wolves quickly, but if you're constantly switching between codexes and chapter tactics then it's a lot easier for me to make mistakes because the same models will have different special rules from game to game. It's not enough that I'd put my foot down or anything or make a fuss about it, but I gotta say it would be kinda annoying in the long run.

None of that applies for pick-up games of course.

 Thorn678 wrote:
Or am I crazy?

I'm thinking of coming up with a generic color scheme, and buying models from whatever codex I want, painting them all the same, and then that way I can always play ANY marine codex, or any "chapter tactics" in the vanilla codex. Thoughts? I'm not talking about mixing them together across codices. Just having a reservoir of like-painted models to draw from so I can play whatever codex I want and have a cohesive color scheme.

People play homebrew chapters for three reasons:
1. They like their own paintjobs/color schemes. They also like minis from a variety of lines and/or converting them to their tastes. This includes using chaos minis and bits (from WFB as well).
2. They like their own fluff.
3. They like to play differing lists as building an army each time would be prohibitive. They may even switch between marines and chaos.

I think you'll find many older players play their own codexes, more for #1 and #2.

My last marine codex, the Zinc Warriors, were a home brew that I liked to play vanilla marines or Iron Warriors with. But they were cooler, because they were ZInc. Many thought they were original colors World Eaters because of the paint scheme.

Zinc Within Zinc Without!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Also make sure that your opponents know which codex you are using. Nothing is more frustrating thinking that someone is playing one book and being told, "oh, no, I didn't want to play them today". Maybe picking up some extra pieces that would clearly be for one specific army would help, too.

It helps if your homebrew DOES NOT look like one of the Big 5, but is unique. Briging a force painted like BAs but using marine or Wolf rules is bad form outside of a friendly local game.

This is a question that i have been mulling over. In order to save $$$ and storage space (i already have 5k of BA) i have rolled my DA and new SM army into a similar enough color scheme so that I can use models from both sides together. My DA are painted as Guardians of the Covenant, silver armor with black shoulders and red/maroon robes. I decided to do my vanilla marines as silver armor with blue cloth. That way they are similar enough to be from the same codex yet different enough to be obvious to my opponent which is which should i decide to do DA bikers with SM white scars bikers together.

If only i didnt have 5K of painted BA, i am seriously considereing stripping them and repainting them silver also.

My question is why? Why do you need to keep changing? Why are you changing from codex to codex, chapter to chapter? Just curious, and doesn't really matter.

There is nothing wrong with this. Hell you don't even have to be WYSIWYG as other people have said. Just clearly let your opponent know what is what, and don't change it during the game.

It's your minis, your time, and your money. Play as you see fit on how you have fun. Just don't be TFG who abuses this and mixes stuff up during a game.

"My question is why? Why do you need to keep changing? Why are you changing from codex to codex, chapter to chapter? Just curious, and doesn't really matter. "

Some times people like vanilla, other times rocky road.
having the option is just nice.

Davor wrote:
My question is why? Why do you need to keep changing? Why are you changing from codex to codex, chapter to chapter? Just curious, and doesn't really matter.

There is nothing wrong with this. Hell you don't even have to be WYSIWYG as other people have said. Just clearly let your opponent know what is what, and don't change it during the game.

It's your minis, your time, and your money. Play as you see fit on how you have fun. Just don't be TFG who abuses this and mixes stuff up during a game.

My OCD prevents me from using anything but WYIWYG. Cant stand people who have 2/3rds of thier armies as proxies (usually also dont have paint, missing arms, weapons) I cant keep track of what is what,,,, it also detracts from the visual aesthetic of the game.

Instead of generic, I think the idea of a chapter of unknown founding might be perhaps more interesting and fun (in painting and whatnot)

My marines are painted in a quartered bone and green colour scheme, but could be any Chapter.

That said, I think they'll be rolling as Dark Angels from now on. It's one book that basically gives me multiple interpretations of three armies and allows me to use my 50 terminators all together.

The reason why I would want to do this is: variety is the spice of life.

What are your guys' personal opinion about HQs? Should I paint them in their own traditional color scheme or my home brew chapter's? For example, should I paint Calgar blue, Astorath red, etc, or my homebrew color (black)? Successors often fight with their parent chapters in fluff... it could make sense...

 Thorn678 wrote:
The reason why I would want to do this is: variety is the spice of life.

Translate: easy codex-hopping

Wow I've never actually thought of this, my homebrew chapter is really specific:
Blood Angels successor who don't use devs and have a feral ice planet as their homeworld who love CC even more than normal BA as in they hardly field a single non-vehicle/psyker ranged unit and never use devs. They're even more unreasonable than BA.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

 Thorn678 wrote:
The reason why I would want to do this is: variety is the spice of life.

Translate: easy codex-hopping

Translate: efficient use of time and money.