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Wondering about people's opinions on 3D prints for your army.

Walked away from a game last night. A guy had a 3D printed Tyranid army, the models were cool and all but I could not keep it straight what he was actually fielding. It ended amicably, we spent about 45 minutes looking over each others armies before calling it quits.

The thing that threw me off was the poses. Some of his Warriors looked like they were bent down running, the Venomthropes and Exocrines were almost identical models, there was this big thing that was meant to be either a Maleceptor or Tervigon that was was spread upwards like a pillar of claws. It felt like a modelling for advantage situation, even though I realized it was just how the models were sculpted. Nothing about the poses suggested the purpose of the model, I was going to have to keep a lot of proxies straight in my head for this to work.

To his credit, this was the best painted army I had seen in a while and it was clear he'd put a lot of time and effort into getting the collection together. I have no issue with the use of a few proxies so long as it doesn't lead to confusion or create advantages based on the size / pose. But being presented with something completely original seemed hard to process.

Anyone else have this issue?

Not exactly this issue, but ive in the past encountered "novelty armies" where every model is kitbashed and converted from scratch (ex - an ork army, but the orks are all skaven) and often times it is confusing and unclear what everything is supposed to be and it does slow the game down.

My take is: dont do it. The minis are just as much a critical component of the game as are the rules, showing up with a fully original army where nothing looks the way its meant to is like showing up with a completely different rulebook written in another language.

Nope, no issues at all, of course i don't play current 40K we all play 5th ed so i think model identification is a bit easier. We also play in a very casual lore focused group. i see it no differently than the old scene refusing to play against forge world models. which were in fact legal GW models with variant weapons. there are loads of people in my player group with some 3D printed minis or entire 3d printed armies. one of our chaos players hated the flesh metal look of obliterators so he made his own based on centurion suits.

I think conversions are great, just as long as your opponent can easily tell them a part... If they all look the same, it's on the owner to fix the issue.

This plain base proxy isn't a Carnifex, it's a Winged Hive Tyrant!

As someone who loves entire proxy armies and converted armies... I am obviously totally fine with this!

That being said: I think that for those of us who want to run entire armies done this way there are a few simple rules to follow:

1) Minimize the number of different units on the board

If I have an all proxy army of crazy conversions/3d prints/3rd party stuff it is cool, but one never wants to be in a modeling for advantage situation or cause your opponent any kind of extra stress. Keeping the number of data sheets on the board to around 4-5 is a great way to ensure no one gets confused.

2) NEVER have multiple models that look similar but are actually very different

I think the above example of tyranids is exactly an example of this. Them bugs look so similar that I often can't tell them apart with official GW models, let alone anything weirder! My way around this has been to keep things simple. Do I have one tank looking thing and one tank thing in my army? Easy! Do I have one troop type and one elite type? Sure do! Do they look different enough to avoid confusion? Now you're getting it!

3) Have a REASON for your proxies beyond just thinking they are cool:

Theme armies can easily be accused of being a way to break the game/gain advantage. One way around this (I've found) is to have a cool and thematic reason for your choices. A good example of this is my all proxy guard army representing non-chaos rebels. The tanks are all Leman Russ, but they look like an assortment of cobbled together tanks from across history. The troops are all basic guys with the same load-out, but they look all ragged and worn. The ogryn are, backstory wise, the reason why the rebellion happened and so there are a bunch of them all matching my guardsmen in style.

The end result is nothing too pointed for anyone to accuse power gaming, but fluffy enough to make for an interesting and unusual match.

I've not gotten the chance to play it as often as I'd like, but so far I've never been turned down either!

Yeah, in the end the ONLY issue is 'can I tell unit X from unit Y?' If I can't, then this is not going to go well.

Of course, this is complicated by every person having their own line where that issue becomes true.

It's your own army, do what you want, just be aware that some choices come with consequences expressed in confusion over unit identification.

Maybe the core problem is GW's unit bloat?

People have been doing "novelty armies" for decades and for most of that time the only real issue was what's a plasma gun and what's a melta gun. You knew the big Tyranid thing was a Carnifex because there were no other possibilities.

My personal opinion is that, I prefer many of the older miniatures which are out of production compared to newer models, so 1:1 scans or copies of the older out of print models is what I would personally 3d print for my own armies, they are only as confusing or hard-to-identify as the original models.

I have no personal problem with proxies that are completely different from original miniatures if other people want to use them, but I do prefer for things to not be confusing as to what they are

I've drooled over my fair share of Robotech/Gundam Tau conversions, but I honestly believe that if I can point to a model and say that's X and all other units that are X look like that, I don't have a problem.

It's when you have 18 radically different units and they are all the same model.... or vice-versa where you have 18 radically different models with an assortment of equipment and they are all supposed to be kitted the same.

You always need to be able to tell units apart easily.

But this can be a problem with GW models too. My 'guard horde' ended up using strips of gaffa with models on because it was so hard to easily tell models apart despite their intricate (and small) unit markings.

So Heresy games I have seen look like a nightmare to figure out.

leerm02 wrote:

2) NEVER have multiple models that look similar but are actually very different

I think the above example of tyranids is exactly an example of this. Them bugs look so similar that I often can't tell them apart with official GW models, let alone anything weirder! My way around this has been to keep things simple. Do I have one tank looking thing and one tank thing in my army? Easy! Do I have one troop type and one elite type? Sure do! Do they look different enough to avoid confusion? Now you're getting it!

This is the important one.
Your opponent should probably have gone just a bit further to differentiate the units.

Many of our club members came from GW, but for big battles we mostly use those and other models with Grimdark future, Age of Fantasy and Kings of War. So, we're fine with proxies, alternative models, etc. The onus really is on the player though to make sure each thing looks like what it is and different from the other units. If things are so similar that a random opponent can't tell then perhaps some marks on the bases, or a particular color of horn, or a pictorial army list. Something.

Not really, no!

Obviously you'd expect say, a flying space dinosaur bug to have wings if the unit it was proxying for also had wings.

And you've got a good point about modelling for height advantage. But if it makes the model look cool whilst it's sitting on a shelf which is where it will spend most of its time then... eh..