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 JohnHwangDD wrote:
...particular squads are actually Berzerkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines or Marked.

Poll needs another option to point this bit out. I wouldn't mind if each unique unit is represented by a unique model, but no copies counting as something else. So he is free to have his blue Tac Squad count as a CSM Tac squad, or a blue Predator counting as a CSM predator, but not then saying "Tac Squad B" is actually a group of plague marines. Basically, in a tournament setting, I would mostly be concerned with the mechanical element of, "is each unit easily distinguishable as the army list entry." If yes and it is relatively simple to track, then go for it. If I need to refer back to an index every time I look at the table to track a dozen unique units that are not easily followed, then no. Basically if the army units are not easily identified, it messes with the opponent's target priority and time, both of which are important in a tournament setting on the clock.

Nope nope nope nope nope.

If it looks like Ultramarines, play it as Ultramarines. Anything else is potentially confusing to your opponent. If your opponent has to constantly remind themselves that your models AREN'T what they look like, and you don't have to remind yourself of that, then you have an unfair advantage.

You're making a choice to make the game more confusing for your opponent so you have a better chance of winning. That's a dick move, and I'd refuse to play.


(Obvious exceptions for mates proxying things to test them and count-as used to represent forces/models without rules. This is neither of those)
.

I think it's likely a lot of people answered the question posed without reading the first post, especially coming from the other thread. AS the question is phrased the answer is one way, then when you add a bunch of caveats its the other way for me, and I suspect others. If the rule is a rule in the tournament then I wouldn't be OK with it. If someone is proxying incorrect wargear or using the same models as different units, then I wouldn't be ok with it. And in both cases, I would call a judge.

If someone isn't doing that and is using Tac Marines as Chaos Marines and Assault Marines as Raptors, Bikers as Bikers and Dreadnoughts as HEllbrutes then that is totally fine from y point of view.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
JohnHwangDD, if one actually wanted to field a chaos army that is recently turned loyalist marines, then how would you expect it to be represented?

Red Corsairs. The first thing that they do is to deface ALL of the loyalist / Imperial iconography, insignia, heraldry and badging. They might still be blue, but there won't be a single intact Ultramarines symbol anywhere to be seen.

But not all renegades destroy their heraldry. They might think that they're in the right and proudly represent their chapter. Also, what if it is Alpha Legion masquerading as Ultramarines?

He said recently turned loyalists, not Chaos Marines

But seriously the key point here is identifiability. Red Corsairs, even if painted in the classic style where they are in their old colors but with red Xs (I think it was Xs) across things and defaced Imperial Symbols, still works.

I don't think there would be an issue if, say, the "Khorne Berserkers" were painted like Ultrmarines with the aquila/symbols gouged out, a red X somewhere and maybe a hastily scribbled red Khorne icon. Same perhaps with Plague Marines if the armor is done differently (coated with Nurgle's Rot, for example, or greenstuff mold over parts). That's identifiable. But "These assault marines are Khorne Berserkers" is just confusing.

Slipspace wrote:
The disingenuous motive behind starting this thread aside, the original post contradicts itself. How does the army have ALL weapons correct while still representing Cult Troops like Noise Marines, or even have Calgar as a Chaos Lord (unless that Chaos Lord is really armed with a combi-bolter and two PFs)? So the strawman falls apart under the weight of its own abstract and dishonest creation.

Having said that, if the army was just CSM squads, Bikers, Havocs etc and all the weapons actually were correct, so all ML were MLs, flamers were flamers and none of the units were armed with weapons unique to CSM I wouldn't have a problem with it. Once you start having to remember which identical-looking squad is Plague Marines and which are Noise Marines then it's gone too far. With a bit of creativity I think it is possible to have renegade UM with Cult troops in their ranks, but it would require some extra modelling effort from the player to make it work.

WYSIWYG ultimately comes down to a judgement call. It's very difficult to make hard and fast rules that everyone will agree with but I think there's probably general agreement that there's a spectrum from completely stock, official paintjobs and models at one end to random collection of confusing models and toys at the other. The main criteria for me is "is it confusing" but even that requires a judgement call.

Yeah. You could easily construct a similar scenario designed for a sympathetic response. Take an example from my play group:

Tired of getting endlessly stomped with his grey knights, one of our players decided to run them using Deathwatch rules until an updated book comes out.

-Librarian with force sword in terminator armor is a librarian with a force sword in terminator armor.

-Brother captain with halberd and storm bolter is a watch master with guardian spear.

-Draigo is a terminator captain with relic blade and storm shield.

-Strike squad members are deathwatch vets with storm bolters and either a power sword/power axe/power maul depending on what they're armed with. Demonhammers are regular thunderhammers since they also have storm bolters.

-Terminators are the same: Power Weapon/Storm Bolter or demonhammer/storm bolter.

-Interceptors are vanvets with a WYSIWYG violation of Storm Bolter -> Bolt Pistol, otherwise the same conversion to power weapons.

-Dreadnought is Vendread.

-Rhinos are Rhinos, razorbacks are razorbacks etc.

He only does this in casual games, with his opponent's permission. He politely declines games against folks who he knows have competitive lists and who insist he runs grey knights, because he knows he won't have a good time playing against those lists.

In this scenario, we've asked after the same question, except we've removed:

-the cash prize
-the implication of a violation of established rules
-the heavy unit misrepresentation (you don't have to remember one unit of X is Y, and one unit of X is Z)

We've retained

-the fact that the player is explicitly doing it for better rules
-the fact that the player isn't being perfectly WYSIWYG, just as close as they can get (interceptors not having storm bolters, force weapons becoming power weapons).

I'd be cool with the following -

Models are WYSIWYG -

Bolter is a bolter, chainsword is a chainsword, alright we're off to a good start. Heavy weapons equal each other? Cool. Bolter as Sonic Blaster? No go. The unit's guns need to be visually identifiable AS its intended weapon, and consistent across the board. If you found a cool 3rd party bit gun which looks suitably unboltery and is CONSISTENTLY used throughout the army then WYSIWYG has been restored, cool.

Would I be happy with the army as OP stated, no not really, but he CAN do it, I personally don't believe paint should affect rules as long as the equipment for the model matches the rules you use. The game is YOUR DUDES and no one can 'tell' you to paint them a certain way whilst using other rules. How you build them however is a constraint.

I could paint all my CSM as Ultramarines (and in fact I have painted a squad as Dark Angels just to annoy my local friendly Deathwing player. This was pre Fallen datasheet) and say I was fielding them as Black Legion/ Alpha or any legion. If my opponent is upset I would say I am sorry, I have painted them as I like and I can clearly mark whilst we're playing or find another solution we're both happy with. No other human being can 'tell' you how to paint your models, unless you wish to enter something THEY are organising where they are absolutely free to slap whatever conditions. Hell TO's are pretty carte blanch to do whatever to the rules at their tournaments technically, he could blanket rule no knights. Not saying people would like it but its a different situation to a casual game.

I don't see the difference between it being OK to paint your models differently but not OK to model your models differently.

What a lot of people are saying is that it's NOT fair for your army to appear to be X (an established and common thing with rules) but actually be played as Y (a different established and common thing with different rules).

If that's the case, then it's the case in the example in the OP (the army looks like Ultramarines but is being played as CSM). It's the case if all your flamers are actually plasma guns. It's also the case if your army looks like Ultramarines but you're using Iron Hands rules.

All of those things are confusing. All of those things force your opponent to do more work than you have to do. All of them are equally unfair.

You can model your models however you want, carrying whatever you want, and you can paint your models however you like. But if they look like X and you're playing them as Y, that's confusing and (IMO) unfair.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I don't see the difference between it being OK to paint your models differently but not OK to model your models differently.

What a lot of people are saying is that it's NOT fair for your army to appear to be X (an established and common thing with rules) but actually be played as Y (a different established and common thing with different rules).

If that's the case, then it's the case in the example in the OP (the army looks like Ultramarines but is being played as CSM). It's the case if all your flamers are actually plasma guns. It's also the case if your army looks like Ultramarines but you're using Iron Hands rules.

All of those things are confusing. All of those things force your opponent to do more work than you have to do. All of them are equally unfair.

You can model your models however you want, carrying whatever you want, and you can paint your models however you like. But if they look like X and you're playing them as Y, that's confusing and (IMO) unfair.

Sure, but one should be reasonable when drawing those lines.

If I painted my Ultramarines a slightly different shade of blue than normal, it would be unreasonable for an opponent to claim to be confused as to what he's facing. Likewise, if what looks like my Librarian suddenly cast Doom, it would be very reasonable for them to call BS.

Flamers as plasma guns is a reasonable thing to be confused by. They have very different battlefield profiles, and important decisions could be made based on a mistaken assumption. But an Ultramarines tactical squad and an Iron Hands tactical squad are pretty similar in capabilities if not the details, so you're not likely to mess up your threat assessment based on that.

Now, mixing multiple chapters together that are all painted the same? We're back to BS, because without some obvious indicator I I don't know if or when you're switching up your doctrines to fit the situation.

Anyone's free to draw the line where they like, but fact of the matter is we're in a time-intensive hobby with more rules available than folks have time to paint. So "paint doesn't matter as long as it's same faction / everything is obvious" seems as fine a line as any.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
All of them are equally unfair.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the cognitive load of 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but I'm using Raven Guard chapter tactics, otherwise they're WYSIWYG' is considerably lower than 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but they're being run as Chaos, so this unit is Berserkers, this unit is Havocs, this unit is Obliterators...'.

I absolutely would not want to face an entire army of proxies, but being painted blue and using the army-wide rules associated with green isn't remotely on the same level and I have no problem with that.

If OP is using this entire-army-of-proxies thought experiment to imply that people should treat paint schemes as locking players into a particular subfaction, then that seems rather dishonest.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
...People draw the line differently.

If you look at the poll numbers, quite a few people just don't care.

If you think that there is a better way to ask the question and get the answers, please feel free to start another thread with a better poll.

Last time I looked the poll was 42-22 "this is an unacceptable proxy".

The numbers changed as more people voted...

It's now 70-40 "unacceptable proxy". Still not sure how you're drawing the conclusion that most people don't care.

My WYSIWYG standards are actually pretty strict, but happen to think that if if two units have identical gear and profiles, then it is fine to use the models for those units interchangeably. What I mean with this is, that the standard CSM and a Tactical Marine are both Space Marines with a power armour and bolter, and have identical profiles. So it is fine to use a loyalist model to represent the chaos equivalent. A lot of people do this, heresy era power armour models are popular in chaos armies.

Of course when it comes to more specialised units that do not have such direct correlation, then some differentiation is needed.

Ultramarines gone chaos sounds like a valid concept to me. It is not something that is ever gonna happen in the official lore, but it is a thing that could happen. I would view it as alt history version of the Ultras. People often do loyalist versions of traitor legions in 40K, and those don't exist in the official lore either.

The situation described in the OP is not at all WYSIWYG - because what you see is NOT what you get in the given scenario. Drawing any "conclusions" from such a faulty premise is just dishonest. This very point has been brought up by others already, so I am baffled why this thread is still running...

People tell me everything is WYSIWYG all the time, but they've never actually given me the models.

 LunarSol wrote:
People tell me everything is WYSIWYG all the time, but they've never actually given me the models.

I'll admit, that took me a minute to get.

catbarf wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
All of them are equally unfair.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the cognitive load of 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but I'm using Raven Guard chapter tactics, otherwise they're WYSIWYG' is considerably lower than 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but they're being run as Chaos, so this unit is Berserkers, this unit is Havocs, this unit is Obliterators...'.

I absolutely would not want to face an entire army of proxies, but being painted blue and using the army-wide rules associated with green isn't remotely on the same level and I have no problem with that.

If OP is using this entire-army-of-proxies thought experiment to imply that people should treat paint schemes as locking players into a particular subfaction, then that seems rather dishonest.

Ok, fair point. I should have been clearer with that.

Flamers/plasma might only be asking your opponent to do 5% more work, ultramarines/iron hands might be asking them to do 10% more work, and the OP example 30% more work. They’re not equally unfair in the additional work they’re demanding of the opponent.

However, you shouldn’t be asking your opponent to do ANY more work because of your painting and modelling choices (Rule of Cool notwithstanding, and even then it should be the minimum amount of work).

In that respect I agree with the OP. Wrong paint scheme and marines/chaos marines are both unfair for the same reason.

For me, the models come first as a visual representation of what is happening.
However, for casual play, I would be happy with the rationalisation of "these chaos marine statistics 'count as' Ultramarine statistics" (rather than "these Ultramarine models 'count as' chaos marine models). It is functionally the same, but it's a different headspace.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

catbarf wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
All of them are equally unfair.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the cognitive load of 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but I'm using Raven Guard chapter tactics, otherwise they're WYSIWYG' is considerably lower than 'hey, my guys are painted as Ultramarines, but they're being run as Chaos, so this unit is Berserkers, this unit is Havocs, this unit is Obliterators...'.

I absolutely would not want to face an entire army of proxies, but being painted blue and using the army-wide rules associated with green isn't remotely on the same level and I have no problem with that.

If OP is using this entire-army-of-proxies thought experiment to imply that people should treat paint schemes as locking players into a particular subfaction, then that seems rather dishonest.

Ok, fair point. I should have been clearer with that.

Flamers/plasma might only be asking your opponent to do 5% more work, ultramarines/iron hands might be asking them to do 10% more work, and the OP example 30% more work. They’re not equally unfair in the additional work they’re demanding of the opponent.

However, you shouldn’t be asking your opponent to do ANY more work because of your painting and modelling choices (Rule of Cool notwithstanding, and even then it should be the minimum amount of work).

In that respect I agree with the OP. Wrong paint scheme and marines/chaos marines are both unfair for the same reason.

You're already asking your opponent to do some amount of work to learn the chapter colour schemes. Whilst I think everyone knows Ultramarines I can't tell the difference between most of the others at a glance as I find marines uninteresting. It's much less work for me if my opponent tells me their trait and I don't have to care about colours. I've found playing against people who expect me to recognise their chapters a bit more of a hassle as they don't tend to spell out the rules and capabilities of their army as clearly as someone playing "Orange Marines". This is obviously player dependant though.

Honestly, either as a TO or non-TO I would have a problem with it. You stated in the OP that it's "100% WYSIWIG, no exceptions". I've played small tournaments before where the WYSIWIG was pretty extreme (I lost WYSIWIG points because my grenades were all painted the same with no difference between Frag and Krak), but not as extreme as this where all company markings have to be exact.

Besides the odd level of WYSIWIG, yes it's a bit of a dick move that stinks a bit of rules chasing. Your (not necessarily OP, just "your" in general) will have a harder time of actually keeping track of which units are which, and the general idea just sounds like "Chaos are the flavour of the month, I spent 5 mins making up a crappy backstory so I can use them". If he had painted them up as "Ultramarines who have defaced their armour and turned renegade" fair enough, but "Oh they defected but haven't had time to do it" wouldn't convince me in the slightest.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with proxying to an extent, if you want to try out a unit before you buy it, but at a tournament that sounds pretty big judging from the prize, it'd be a huge no-no from me.

Big fat 'no' from me.

Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are different armies. If I'm honest, I don't even like the idea of a chapter that's clearly X chapter with all it's associated iconography pretending to be Y chapter, though I'm a lot more understanding of that position.

The Ultramarines could be proxying as Chaos Space Marines, Necrons or Tyranids for all I care - I still won't play against it, and I won't play in any tournament or event that allows that sort of thing, because it flies in the face of the enjoyment that I get out of the experience personally.

As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a board game, it's nor even just a 'tabletop wargame', it's a 'miniatures' game. If I didn't care what the miniatures looked like when I was playing, I would save myself the time and effort and just play with cardboard standees and tokens. The miniatures and the tabletop experience have to come first, or I'm not interested in playing.

Edit: to be clear, this position is based on this hard-line example. There is obviously a little wiggle room for practicalities in other circumstances, and I would totally be down for playing against an army converted from another range with the intention of using another codex (example: Skaven Ad-Mech, or actual Space Marine Renegades). I have exactly 0 tolerance for "but muh rules aren't top tier for muh models so ima say they're something else."

 Haanz wrote:
Big fat 'no' from me.

Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are different armies. If I'm honest, I don't even like the idea of a chapter that's clearly X chapter with all it's associated iconography pretending to be Y chapter, though I'm a lot more understanding of that position.

The Ultramarines could be proxying as Chaos Space Marines, Necrons or Tyranids for all I care - I still won't play against it, and I won't play in any tournament or event that allows that sort of thing, because it flies in the face of the enjoyment that I get out of the experience personally.

As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a board game, it's nor even just a 'tabletop wargame', it's a 'miniatures' game. If I didn't care what the miniatures looked like when I was playing, I would save myself the time and effort and just play with cardboard standees and tokens. The miniatures and the tabletop experience have to come first, or I'm not interested in playing.

Edit: to be clear, this position is based on this hard-line example. There is obviously a little wiggle room for practicalities in other circumstances, and I would totally be down for playing against an army converted from another range with the intention of using another codex (example: Skaven Ad-Mech, or actual Space Marine Renegades). I have exactly 0 tolerance for "but muh rules aren't top tier for muh models so ima say they're something else."

You can't have it both ways, either it's all ok or none of it is.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Haanz wrote:
Big fat 'no' from me.

Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are different armies. If I'm honest, I don't even like the idea of a chapter that's clearly X chapter with all it's associated iconography pretending to be Y chapter, though I'm a lot more understanding of that position.

The Ultramarines could be proxying as Chaos Space Marines, Necrons or Tyranids for all I care - I still won't play against it, and I won't play in any tournament or event that allows that sort of thing, because it flies in the face of the enjoyment that I get out of the experience personally.

As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a board game, it's nor even just a 'tabletop wargame', it's a 'miniatures' game. If I didn't care what the miniatures looked like when I was playing, I would save myself the time and effort and just play with cardboard standees and tokens. The miniatures and the tabletop experience have to come first, or I'm not interested in playing.

Edit: to be clear, this position is based on this hard-line example. There is obviously a little wiggle room for practicalities in other circumstances, and I would totally be down for playing against an army converted from another range with the intention of using another codex (example: Skaven Ad-Mech, or actual Space Marine Renegades). I have exactly 0 tolerance for "but muh rules aren't top tier for muh models so ima say they're something else."

You can't have it both ways, either it's all ok or none of it is.

Not how that works mate.

It'd deffo be a nope from me. Confusing, immersion-breaking, and just generally a bit of a pain. Smacks of trying to game the system without being willing to put in the time and effort of using the right models.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:


How are you proposing to distinguish Berzerkers/Noise Marines/Plague Marines/etc?

Squad number only.

As in "Squad #5 is actually Plague Marines"

No caps. No distinguishing bases. None of that. I

It's an Codex Ultramarine army "count as" Chaos Space Marines.

Sorry, but this is the breaking point. I wouldn't let a CSM player get away with fielding regular chaos marines with regular black/gold armor as zerkers, plague marines and noise marines.

In general, I have no issue with running UM a chaos marines, but when you expect me to tell apart identical units by squad markings - no deal.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Haanz wrote:
Big fat 'no' from me.

Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are different armies. If I'm honest, I don't even like the idea of a chapter that's clearly X chapter with all it's associated iconography pretending to be Y chapter, though I'm a lot more understanding of that position.

The Ultramarines could be proxying as Chaos Space Marines, Necrons or Tyranids for all I care - I still won't play against it, and I won't play in any tournament or event that allows that sort of thing, because it flies in the face of the enjoyment that I get out of the experience personally.

As far as I'm concerned, this isn't a board game, it's nor even just a 'tabletop wargame', it's a 'miniatures' game. If I didn't care what the miniatures looked like when I was playing, I would save myself the time and effort and just play with cardboard standees and tokens. The miniatures and the tabletop experience have to come first, or I'm not interested in playing.

Edit: to be clear, this position is based on this hard-line example. There is obviously a little wiggle room for practicalities in other circumstances, and I would totally be down for playing against an army converted from another range with the intention of using another codex (example: Skaven Ad-Mech, or actual Space Marine Renegades). I have exactly 0 tolerance for "but muh rules aren't top tier for muh models so ima say they're something else."

You can't have it both ways, either it's all ok or none of it is.

Why?

Just to clarify here, what I'm meaning to say is that I take exception to people trying to use another faction's codex simply because it makes them more likely to win games, despite already have rules of their own. But I am happy to play someone who has picked an existing codex to use with a heavily converted/hobby project army that doesn't have rules of their own - provided it's clearly been built and converted with that codex in mind and not just some army put together without a codex in mind, with units just designated as 'counts as' for whatever codex they feel like on the day. And to be clear, this is only ever acceptable to me in casual play, not tournament.

If someone wants to kit bash an army for the specific purpose of using another army list using parts from other ranges, I'm completely happy to play against it provided that it's clearly purpose-built with that list in mind. I've seen armies with Clanrat bodies and Skitarii Ranger guns, with Warp-Lightning Cannons on Dunecrawler legs - that to me, is fair play, it's a conversion, and it's obvious what it is and it's clearly purpose-built for that function. Similarly, in the past, I have used a number of Loyalist bits and pieces alongside the Chaos kits to make my Renegade Chaos Space Marines - the ratio was maybe 60:40 with Loyalist parts, but the Khorne Berzerkers were converted with Khorne Berzerker and Blood Warrior bits, the Chaos Space Marines had loyalist style missile launchers, Heresy-era heads, and CSM pads, etc and the Heldrake was converted using a Heldrake and a Storm Raven - all of it was obvious what it is, and I built it with the CSM list in mind and never used it as anything but that.

On the other hand, if someone assembles and paints an army out of a set of existing kits and canon colour schemes/iconography but wants to field it as a completely different armies set of rules just because they're better.. that's too immersion breaking for me, and I'm not interested in playing it.

I feel like that's a reasonable distinction to gauge, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position to take.

Edit: clarity, clarity, a couple words, clarity. Sorry for all the edits.

RaW you can't do it because you must use the correct model to represent the correct datasheet.

If you're going to ignore the RaW, you have to allow ignoring EVERYTHING, there is no middle ground.

I would say yes (especially if I was a TO) but with the following caveats:

1.) You must have a clear list of what each thing is at all times and this cannot change. Your Chaos Lord cannot be swapping marks or equipment willy nilly (unless magnetized ofc). this is not a requirement of normal Chaos Armies because you're already adding a layer of confusion by using ultramarines, so keeping things consistent goes a long way. This feeds into the second one:

2.) Anything that deviate outside the basic marine or terminator should have appropriate conversions to depict that. A marine with a chainaxe and some shoulder iconography a berserker does not make. he should be decked out in special equipment (maybe bionic legs and arms with drug injectors?). Similarly, a Plague Marine squad should have something representing their enhanced durability (boarding shields and heavier MK3 armor maybe). Basically, at eyeballing distance, my mind should instantly go "waitaminute, that isn't a tactical squad".

I have once played WHFB against an opponent who fielded an undead Blood Dragons army against me using Bretonnia's rules. his damsels were Lahmian vampires, his Grail Knights were Blood Dragons (and this was before Blood Knights existed, which meant each one was converted), and Knights of the Realm were Black Knights. His pegasi were converted from Dark Pegasi and were ridden by vampires as well (not quite sure which ones they were) and war machine crews and militias were skeletons. Aside from the black knights and skeletons, it was pretty clear what everything was suppose to be (given the difficulty of converting it, I gave him a pass on the rank and file). While he could have used it as a normal undead army, I couldn't deny that him using Bretonnia rules were a much better fit (and this was before bretonnia sucked).

tl;dr version: Largely yes, but you gotta put effort into it. Don't hand me a normal marine and tell me it's a berserker.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
RaW you can't do it because you must use the correct model to represent the correct datasheet.

If you're going to ignore the RaW, you have to allow ignoring EVERYTHING, there is no middle ground.

Actually, RAW is that you must use the datasheet to represent your model, not the model that represents your datasheet. Models without datasheets cannot be used. First paragraph of the core rules.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

[...]

If you're going to ignore the RaW, you have to allow ignoring EVERYTHING, there is no middle ground.

Citation needed?

Less tongue-in-cheek: many people find it very workable to ignore some rules but not others. The middle ground lacks the technical authority of either extreme, but gains a great deal of flexibility.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
RaW you can't do it because you must use the correct model to represent the correct datasheet.

If you're going to ignore the RaW, you have to allow ignoring EVERYTHING, there is no middle ground.

Far be it from me to not take every decree you issue as gospel, but I am actually not seeing a correlation between model and datasheet written out anywhere in my rulebook. And given that the rules currently support a multitude of cases where an official model has more than one set of rules it can be played with (A model I purchased from the Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad can be fielded as part of the Infantry Squad datasheet, the Heavy Weapons Team datasheet, the Command Squad datasheet, The Veterans datasheet, the Brood Brothers Infantry Squad datasheet, or the Brood Brothers Heavy Weapons Squad datasheet to give one example) and that the Indexes support many weapon options that have no official model produced by Games Workshop, I have to question this all-or-nothing view.

So, what is the "correct" model to use and what is the "correct" datasheet, as written into the rules? Looking at the designers commentary spreadsheet, it would appear that I follow this sequence when I have a model I want to use:

1) Determine the identity of the model and the wargear it is equipped with.

2) look in the codex to see if that model with that wargear is supported.

3) if the model or wargear is not in the codex, look in the index to see if the wargear/model is supported there.

4) If that model with that wargear is not supported in index or codex, either the model cannot be used or it must be used as something different.

I can find no point in the rules dictating that I am required to use only the bits that come from one particular kit to represent a particular unit or wargear option, and indeed from the way the kits are currently laid out I don't think it's feasible to expect that at all.

If I buy a Space Marine Captain model, and I use the Thunder Hammer bit from the Space Wolves kit, RAW I can use that model as a Space Marine captain with Thunder Hammer out of Codex: Space Marines, OR I can choose to use him as a Wolf Lord with Thunder Hammer from Codex: Space Wolves. The decision of what datasheet to use the model as is not dictated to me by the rules.