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Apologies in advance if this is a bit of a newbie question...I am very much a newbie to the game itself! I guess this is also less about a hard and fast rule than what is considered to be convention as well, so apologies if this is in the wrong section.

Imagine this hypothetical situation:

1) I am building an army, let's call its list X. Everything adds up, no problems, and in it I have infantry units and vehicles with wargear. E.g. IG squad with a vox-caster, a Leman Russ with heavy bolter sponsons + heavy stubber pintle mounted weapon.


2) Somewhere down the line I decide to create a new list, Y. While creating this list I overrun on points, though not by much. Said overrun can be solved by ditching the vox-caster in my squad and/or the heavy stubber on my tank.


3) The issue is that in reality, I don't want to take the physical parts off of my models.


So the question really is "Is it permissible to put a unit that physically sports wargear/pintle weapons on the table and ask that it be considered to lack said extra stuff?"

It's not covered specifically by the rules and it varies depending on who you play with. For me and my group that is absolutely acceptable.

WYSIWYG is not a rule in the rulebook, thus does not need to be adhered to in any way, in my opinion.

Ask your TO, if going to a tournament.
Ask your gaming friends, if at a FLGS.

For me personally, so long as you're clear with what has what, I don't care overmuch about the model.

As long as anything not WYSIWYG is easy to remember (like all weapon A is actually weapon B, or this character is actually that character) then I don't see a problem.

Magnets, magnets, and magnets.You can pop turrets off and on all day long. Same goes for arms. It's not that much extra work, and it will give you a more enjoyable experience in the long run.

In general most people approach WYSIWYG in a practical sensible manner of real world application.

Therefore the three key elements that most people rely on it with it are

1) Correct base size

2) Correct weapons

3) Correct model appearance.

Things like upgrades are generally not required and most people treat things like pistols, grenades, sights, seals, toxin sacs etc.... as decoration on their models more so than actual wargear. This is for two key reasons

a) Most times you can't actually "see" these small features when viewing at over 1ft away when playing the game (which is the likely average distance you're viewing the army at).

b) A lot of upgrades cost points to take and thus its a key area where you can increase or decrease the points cost of your army.


It's purely impractical to expect people to either use only one army configuration; or to expect them to buy, built and paint every single possible upgrade combo that they could possibly use. It's just not practical.

The primary weapons are key because those have the most impact on what the model does in any given turn. They identify it to the opponent, whilst upgrades are enhancements to the model most times.

Also don't forget there are already loads of things like bionics and spells that are not even modelled nor possible to model on the model. So there's already information that isn't on the model which is in the game.




Now something big like a voxcaster might be harder to "ignore" in terms of the unit because it clearly stands out as a primary part of the model. Heavy stubber you might get away with not including if there isn't anyone modelled shooting it on the model; and because unlike most of the other weapons on the tank its likely not practical to magnetize

Ah right, thanks very much for the clarifications. That's pretty much as I thought it must work.

General rule of thumb is as long as the special/heavy weapon model stands out in some way, most people won't care what you are running because unless you bend down to look, majority of the time you can't tell the difference between a bolter and a melta on a marine from standing at the table.

This is very variable from person to person, since there are no official rules on it.
Therefore, you must always check with your opponent or TO before using anything that is not WYSIWYG.
In general, as long as you properly inform your opponent before the game and as long as you are consistent in your application of "counts-as", people will not give you any trouble.

Also, a practical tip, if you use a lot of Leman Russ tanks for example, and they are all equiped with heavy stubbers except for one, than you should make sure that that vehicle is marked or identifiable, otherwise either you or your opponent might forget which tank had the stubber and which did not.
Always make sure that your "counts-as" units can be distinguished somehow from their WYSIWYG counterparts.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
General rule of thumb is as long as the special/heavy weapon model stands out in some way, most people won't care what you are running because unless you bend down to look, majority of the time you can't tell the difference between a bolter and a melta on a marine from standing at the table.

Aside from the occasional undercoated army in awkward poses, I can't say I've ever had any trouble differentiating between bolters and meltas on the table... Making the weapons easily recognisable is one of the reasons they're so over-sized. Although I have encountered a few players who didn't care about WYSIWYG because they didn't actually know what most of the gear looked like anyway

From my experience, most people prefer things to be as close as possible to WYSIWYG, simply because it makes it easy to remember what's what mid-game, but will be fairly easy-going about any discrepancies so long as they are pointed out before the game.

I always try to play as WYSIWYG as possible, but almost everyone I regularly play with builds their models like "that gun looks cool".

Then again, my area is overrun with tyranid players, and for the love of god, i cant even remember if hormagaunts are the melee- or the shooty-thingys. Much less what their weapons would look like...

Just clarify what is what before you play and everything should be ok.

Rule of thumb here is default pistols and grenades don't matter, rest is wysiwyg. No flamers as plasma guns etc.

But this is 100% dependant on your gaming group

The answer you're looking for is going to boil down to this: Is it more annoying to keep track of your This-is-really-that than the fun I'll have in a game. Having to remember your Intercessors with the auto bolt rifle magazines cause they looked cooler (and the assembly instructions didn't really make it clear they made a rules difference let alone something as minor as straight vs banana magazines) really just have the basic bolt rifle isn't very annoying. Remembering this Predator is Las/Las, and that one is AC/Las, the third one is AC/HB becomes annoying.

Keep it basic, keep it uniform, and keep it light.

Everyone in this squad with basic weapon X is basic weapon Y is easy.

Every model with a Flamer (built 3 editions ago because flamers weren't good or bad, and were cheap) really has a Plasma Gun because flamers now suck, and plasma is king is easy.

This flamer is a PG, that flamer is a Meltagun, and that one over there is a Grav Gun is none of the above.

Actually it's not that simple. Simple answer is check from where you play. Here that would not pass so if you try that you would not be playing for example. Only bulletproof solution is 100% wysiwyg. Anything else and it depends on local area.