General Question about Conversion, Painting, Customization.

[Blood Reaver]

As the topic description stated, i am new to the hobby with a Dark Vengeance pack coming in the mail. I was wondering are there any rules stating what you can and/or cant convert, paint, customize you army with?

 

For example, i am planning on running blood angels allied with dark angels (Twin Angels) and i want to convert my death company with Deathwatch Kill Team shoulders (because their awesome and Death company is awesome so it fits) and perhaps somehow if i ever acquire enough chaplain skull helmets, to use those for Death company heads because i find that it would be fittingly grim and intimidating for a unit of .... misunderstood and unfortunate individuals. Also am i allowed to say, replace the death company bolt pistols with the bolters from the Deathwatch kill team kit and still call that a pistol or a chain axe for a chain sword?

 

The points of contention that i find here is that there seems to be some rules regarding deployment of actual Deathwatch troops and i am afraid of making my army illegal by simply putting Deathwatch shoulders on Blood Angel troops. As for the second, i do not know if i am allowed to replace the correct weapon models with different ones for fluff or personal taste because of the WYSIWYG rule. Anyone have a ruling on any of these questions? Inputs greatly appreciated, thanks!!!

[Lorenzen]

in most cases single bits dont particularly matter (for instance heads) however from a background point of view it would be incredibly unlikely that all of the members of the death company (either held in statis or chosen on the eve of battle) were all members of the deathwatch at some point

 

and as far as bolters for bolt pistols goes.. death company can choose to use either bolters or bolt pistols, so if you model them with one choice expect to be using the rules of that choice in game.

 

there will always be the crowd that say "theyre your models do what you like" but if you wish to stick true to the lore, things like that are usually best to look in to.

[dswanick]

1. Their your plastic toys, do with them as you will.

2. If you plan on playing friendly games outside of your own basement, be sure that your friends will be able identify what models and units are represented. (If two guys standing next to each other look like they have the same weapons, they should have the same weapons).

3. If you plan on playing competitive tournaments, you really need to have models showing the appropriate wargear (a Bolter-armed Marine for a Marine with a Bolter). So long as your units are readily identifiable and their wargear is accurately modeled you should be good.

[Jacinda]

icons, colors, helm type ... go nuts if you want. When building your army you can either stick as close to the fluff and paint schemes done by GW as you can or pull out the stops and make the army uniquely your own.

 

As far as weapons, it is best to stick to bolt guns for bolt guns and bolt pistols for bolt pistols. If you do any conversions there -- like mabe using chaos bolters with the belt feed ammo dangeling under them as bolt pistols -- make sure all you custom bits represent the same thing. When you can point to your army ans say "all these are bolt pistols" most people do not have a problem as long as they are all the same and they all at least sort of look like a bolt pistol

[Blood Reaver]

Thanks for the quick response guys, guess i wont be proxying bolt pistols with awesome bolters =( One more question, since i probably wont be able to get chaplain skull helms in any large amounts or any amount for that matter (trust me i've tried), would it be illegal to put necron heads in for the death company as i do like the skull theme for them. I guess it is odd for using Deathwatch shoulders for Death company, maybe lore wise it could be used as a successor chapter for the blood angels that have strong ties with the Inquisition and willingly send large tithes of veterans to Deathwatch and they take trophies during their time there (rationalizing necron helms as modified trophies).

[Grotsmasha]

Chapter House Studios sells skull helms, hell I've got a bunch of them PM me if you'd like.

 

Cheers,

Jono