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After all I have read, I would say the term "PoorHammer" should be owned by those who have made the decision to play the game and model to their heart's content, on their own terms and without spending a metric butt-tonne of money. In my opinion this is not a derogatory standard, but an honor. Many who model and play on the cheap really have a deep love for the hobby, they just refuse to dance to GW's tune. Many pieces are well crafted and imaginative.

Use it, love it, own it.

While making fun of someones conversions is a dick move.. You should always make fun of this model.

I just checked mine, Poorhammer is quite tame, i got a dill weed ( phalus attachment to the head ) tag on my hello kitty ones
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/617226-.html?m=2

I've honestly only ever heard it as a joke, as the game is expensive and sometimes scratch-built is the way to go.

Any negative connotations exist solely in your head.

Its not supposed to be an insult, poorhammer is just a term used for scratchbuilding on a budget.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I just checked mine, Poorhammer is quite tame, i got a dill weed ( phalus attachment to the head ) tag on my hello kitty ones
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/617226-.html?m=2

Oh for funk's sake!

That's going away now.

As a long time ork player I always enjoy seeing scratch built stuff. A lot of time Gdub didn't even have models made for stuff in their codex.. *cough*battlewagon *cough*

But for a while I played in the back of a bookstore and one guy would show up, start removing paperbacks from the shelves to "count as" rhinos, and when he stood then up on their end they were "counts as" dreadnoughts. He didn't even bring the books!

Come on man!

I think this is the same guy who tried to bring his little brother, wrap aluminum foil around him, and have him "count as" a titan. I don't mind warhammer on a budget, but sometimes you have to draw the line!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I just checked mine, Poorhammer is quite tame, i got a dill weed ( phalus attachment to the head ) tag on my hello kitty ones
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/617226-.html?m=2

Oh for funk's sake!

That's going away now.

I thought it was funny, and what about freedom of speech and all that

My Army of the Cairns list (back when that was a thing) was very cheap hammer, so now my Vampire Counts will inherit that.
My tree spirit army is just extra sprites and jungle trees with green stuff work (faces and arms and stuff).
My old lost and the damned was just things thrown together, quite literally...
My whole hobby experience has been extremely inexpensive.
I can't justify spending that kind of money when I could be buying more dolls and little outfits for them...
They're just cuter then a Space Marine.

Wow something new to feel offended about? Even if you are straight, white, male, and not obese or disabled in any way? And maybe also have money but still like putting making gamepieces out of paper or random trash objects?

Where do I sign up????

 Meade wrote:
Wow something new to feel offended about? Even if you are straight, white, male, and not obese or disabled in any way? And maybe also have money but still like putting making gamepieces out of paper or random trash objects?

Where do I sign up????

It's going on my tumblr!!!


(Gotta find some way to relate it to spaghetti but I will!)

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I just checked mine, Poorhammer is quite tame, i got a dill weed ( phalus attachment to the head ) tag on my hello kitty ones
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/617226-.html?m=2

Oh for funk's sake!

That's going away now.

I thought it was funny, and what about freedom of speech and all that

This is a private board. It's a benevolent dictatorship, and I for one welcome the vigilante of our Mod overlords!

Huh. Never really looked at poor/cheaphammer as a negative term, more like cleverly circumventing the ridiculous cost with creativity and abit of imagination. Then again I've play against a cardboard regiment or sprucrons if it looks good and/or are easily distinguish between things.

 Cleatus wrote:
I recently discovered that some pictures of my scratch builds had been tagged "poorhammer". For what it's worth, the images in question had voting disabled and were marked as WIP. I also found some images belonging to other users that had been tagged with "poorhammer" and "cheaphammer". That's pretty insulting. It's one thing if you don't happen to like something that someone else creates, but to go out of your way to poor shame someone and mock something they have created because it's not an official model, that's pretty low. The Dakka Dakka community has been extremely supportive of scratch builders. It saddens me to see this kind of behavior here.

I have removed the offending tags from my images.

Sure its an insult? Poorhammer sounds more like a pun on Warhammer, Scratchhammer dosent roll of the tongue the same way.

These days I only field space marine squads converted from Skullz Tech Priests, led by Sgt Centurious of course, and painted by either Bobby Wong or Virginia Lamb whomever is free that week (I'd post pictures but I dropped my phone and cracked the screen so just trust me).

But once I was but a humble student trying to make armies out of random bitz and toys.

I had a zombie IG force with half the army using guns from WWII models and on square bases because zombies didn't have round bases.

Later I replaced them with EM4's dirt cheap, butt ugly plastics.

So it's an interesting question. Looking back would I say I was poor and/or cheap? Yes.

But at the time?

Yeah, I'd have been insulted.

And being 'polite' does not mean 'do no harm' or even 'treat others the way you'd treat yourself' being a good host means 'treat people the way they want to be treated' so yeah it sounds like there's a good case for not using these tags.

I'm guessing from the comments by US members that American English does not recognise the common meaning in British English of poor = not good.

As in the unofficial SAS motto: Proper Planning and Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Bring British, I took poorhammer to mean badhammer rather than cheaphammer, which makes the tag a derogatory comment on the modelling capability of the owner. That is why I thought it might be an insult. However, I now recognise that "poorhammer" is a punning term a few guys have used for scratchbuilding stuff. I don't think it should be a tag in the DakkaDakka gallery, though, because almost no-one uses it or understands it.

On the plus side, it has given me the idea to coin the term Phwoarhammer for describing stuff like this:




Some people look down on things like Hello Kitty Marines, or using cheap toys for Ork Trukks, and so on, because they are very emotionally invested in GW as the ultimate source of wargame wisdom and magnificent models. Everything must come from GW because that is the pinnacle.

When someone comes along and makes a comedy version, or does it just as well on the cheap, and has a great time, it undermines the emotional investment the 'true fan' has made. Naturally this is very irksome.

It pales into insignificance compared to what happens in a Napoleonics forum if you ask about "prolonges". (I once had someone criticise my 6mm Russian army because they have got the 1809 pattern company colours on their pompoms, and are supposed to be in 1812 uniform.)

Nope poor=bad in America too, but when I see poorhammer my first thought is still economic not quality.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


It pales into insignificance compared to what happens in a Napoleonics forum if you ask about "prolonges". (I once had someone criticise my 6mm Russian army because they have got the 1809 pattern company colours on their pompoms, and are supposed to be in 1812 uniform.)

+1 to this. Once saw someone get shot down for using Yellow and not Gold on some epaulettes.

Kilkrazy wrote:I'm guessing from the comments by US members that American English does not recognise the common meaning in British English of poor = not good.

As in the unofficial SAS motto: Proper Planning and Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Bring British, I took poorhammer to mean badhammer rather than cheaphammer, which makes the tag a derogatory comment on the modelling capability of the owner. That is why I thought it might be an insult. However, I now recognise that "poorhammer" is a punning term a few guys have used for scratchbuilding stuff. I don't think it should be a tag in the DakkaDakka gallery, though, because almost no-one uses it or understands it.

On the plus side, it has given me the idea to coin the term Phwoarhammer for describing stuff like this:




Some people look down on things like Hello Kitty Marines, or using cheap toys for Ork Trukks, and so on, because they are very emotionally invested in GW as the ultimate source of wargame wisdom and magnificent models. Everything must come from GW because that is the pinnacle.

When someone comes along and makes a comedy version, or does it just as well on the cheap, and has a great time, it undermines the emotional investment the 'true fan' has made. Naturally this is very irksome.

It pales into insignificance compared to what happens in a Napoleonics forum if you ask about "prolonges". (I once had someone criticise my 6mm Russian army because they have got the 1809 pattern company colours on their pompoms, and are supposed to be in 1812 uniform.)

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Nope poor=bad in America too, but when I see poorhammer my first thought is still economic not quality.

American English carries both meanings. Neither is a compliment. Poor quality is insulting, yes. The implication is that the model is of low quality, inferior, not good enough, etc. Some people do indeed look down upon anything that is not an official model -- even in cases where official models don't exist. It doesn't matter how well the model was made, to them the rule of cool is irrelevant. Some of this is likely a holdover from when GW ran tournaments I think, and there were requirements of having official models or conversions that were a made with a certain percentage of official bitz. The other meaning as it relates to economic status means different things to different people. There are some people who proclaim that if you can't afford the official models, you are not welcome, this is not the hobby for you. And from that perspective, yes, the term is insulting.

Also, wow, I am never going to get into historical wargaming.

I agree that scratch builders should take pride in their work. I much prefer the term scratch build to "poorhammer". It conveys the sense that a person is creating something without the connotations on either quality or status. That's my take.

I agree. Also, scratch build has the advantages that it is practically 100% understood by wargamers and modellers, and it isn't specifically linked ot Warhammer.

Using a toy car as a truck isn't really scratch building but could be considered "Poorhammer" or budget concious gaming if you prefer.

I appreciate people would rather be tagged scratch build than poorhammer but you can't really just replace one with the other as if they are the same.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Using a toy car as a truck isn't really scratch building but could be considered "Poorhammer" or budget concious gaming if you prefer.

I appreciate people would rather be tagged scratch build than poorhammer but you can't really just replace one with the other as if they are the same.

I have rarely seen somebody plonk down a not converted trukk or something they bought from a toy store. the exception bieng when i was 11 we used a big plastic tank as a kind of building.

I have a VW model kit shell im going to use for a limo for my GSC but im going to convert the hek out of it... im not sure if it will become a half flat bed or something else. but really ive played against people with paper proxies. and we both had great fun.

those Hello kitty marines are great

Poorhammer isn't a term anyway, though. It's used by about two people on the whole of DakkaDakka, that's part of the problem.

Scratch build, conversion, paper craft and even Toyhammer are all better, more descriptive tags.

I was curious, so I did a few quick Google searches for the following terms:
scratch building = About 9,800,000 results
scratch building models = About 2,550,000 results
"scratch build" = About 573,000 results
"scratch building" = About 447,000 results
"poorhammer" = About 6,120 results

More common than I thought, but not very.

I agree with Kilkrazy that those terms are more descriptive.

I find it interesting that the number of images tagged with "poorhammer" and "cheaphammer" has decreased since my initial post (fewer than two dozen when I found my images tagged, but more than the 4 Kid mentioned). Did the person who tagged these images delete the tags? Did users review their own images and delete tags they felt were not appropriate? Impossible to tell, but interesting nonetheless.

I think this discussion has run its course. Thank you for the discussion, everyone.

Mods, feel free to close/lock the thread.

I think its certainly possible that the person responsible for the tags removed them because he did not want to cause offence and probably did not even realise that it would be causing offence.

To the OP.. I have to say, it probably doesn't help that your avatar appears to be a malnourished Cleetus!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Phwoarhammer

Love it.

Ah Geeks and Nerds. We get pick on in school but when we grow up we are worse than the bullies and Jocks. At least Jocks and bullies will do it to your face. Some geeks and nerds do it behind a screen.

Makes you proud to be a geek and nerd sometimes eh?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Nope poor=bad in America too, but when I see poorhammer my first thought is still economic not quality.

For me, I thought quality when I read Poorhammer mentioned. To say it economically it's also an insult in my eyes as well.

What I don't get is that the OP pointed the finger at Dakka as a whole, while I get that Dakka is generally populated with self-righteous keyboard commandos, I hardly EVER see insults directed at another hobby work.

It's a shame that 1) People have to waste their time making up passive-aggressive insults via IMAGE TAGS on a wargaming website, and 2) people actually care.

Either way I'm sure whoever did it is *insert oblique insult concerning the promiscuity of tag creators mother and/or self hygiene*

Kilkrazy wrote:
Some people look down on things like Hello Kitty Marines, or using cheap toys for Ork Trukks, and so on, because they are very emotionally invested in GW as the ultimate source of wargame wisdom and magnificent models. Everything must come from GW because that is the pinnacle.

When someone comes along and makes a comedy version, or does it just as well on the cheap, and has a great time, it undermines the emotional investment the 'true fan' has made. Naturally this is very irksome.

I think that has a lot to do with the financial investment too. After all, the GW hobby is buying GW products. Anyone using finely wrought styrene or card is cheating at the real game.

Cleatus wrote:
Also, wow, I am never going to get into historical wargaming.

I think it depends where you get into historical wargaming, and perhaps whether you get into Napoleonics or not. (There are so many other centuries' worth of people stabbing and shooting the shinola out of eachother) And like you experienced, there's always three or four mini police out there, for any game.