Would you find this acceptable at your gaming group/table?

[Calyptra]

If a new weapon becomes a better choice for one of my units, I build a new model. Given that this is a hobby about building and painting models, and then playing games with them, I don't see a problem with this. Odds are pretty good I've got the parts I need in my bits box, and if I don't, I can probably order the relevant bits on ebay.

 

If you don't want to build and paint models, why are you in a hobby about building and painting models? I don't expect people to care as much about it as I do, but it seems like the rate limiting factor here is just not wanting to build the toy soldiers.

 

If you don't want to engage in a fundamental part of the hobby but still play, that's your choice. Refusing to engage in a fundamental part of the hobby and then expecting other players to accomodate that seems more problematic.

 

I'm fine with proxying a model because you forgot it at home, or because the green stuff is still curing. There can be perfectly valid reasons to proxy.

 

Proxying a model because you just can't be bothered to build it is another matter. I'm sure I'm going to be called elitist for this, but I honestly think that's lazy and disrespectful to your opponent.

 

If everybody in your area is happy playing games with colored stones and green army men, then I'm glad you're all on the same page and I hope you have fun. Otherwise it seems like the position being taken here is "I don't care about building/painting models (in a hobby game that is explicitly about building/painting models) so neither should you."

 

...I should probably just go back to the Forge where it's safe. At least if a mob people I've just antagonized come for me, I expect their torches and pitchforks will be largely proxied.

[Ishagu]

I completely agree.

 

End of the day, saying a flamer is a plasma or something similar is only done to improve your chance of winning against an opponent. You are bypassing the hobby to win at the game. *Yoda Voice* The makings of WAAC I see in this mentality.

 

We can play digital versions of 40k and bypass the hobby completely. There's something that grips us all about these tabletop armies, and the work we put into them.

 

I just feel that we cannot understate the visual importance of the army.

[Slave to Darkness]

 At least if a mob people I've just antagonized come for me, I expect their torches and pitchforks will be largely proxied.

Funniest thing I have read all day. 

 

*Pokes you with a pitchfork that looks suspiciously like a hamburger*

[totgeboren]

I can'tell you to do anything, that's totally right.

 

I can refuse to play against you, which I certainly would. My armies are fully painted, every model is equipped exactly as modelled. I expect the same in return from my opponent.

 

Now I'm sort of more on your side than against it, but for example CSM Chosen, who since 4ed have come with bolter, bp and ccw as default (the official models also come with bolter, bp and ccw molded into the models), and basic CSM have also have had this option for over 10 years, but these all now lack the option to have bolter, bp and ccw.

What's you opinion on these? :p

 

I'm not gonna cut up my carefully painted and converted models, (especially not the DV Chosen!) I'll just say "Their chainswords don't work properly". Would you disprove of that?

 

Hmmm...I guess in most tournaments, the official CSM Chosen models would not be fieldable anymore?

[Dragonlover]

Yes, it's a hobby about building and painting. I can still decide 'I don't want to build/paint these specific models' and check my opponent is cool with me having stuff that's pretty much there. If they aren't, I might retool my list, I might just not play. Depends what else I have available. This is a hypothetical by the way, as I know nobody who cares. The closest is my mate who makes sure he's WYSIWYG because that's how his brain works.

 

Glad to know you think I'm lazy and disrespectful though. As opposed to not being made of money and wanting to focus my hobby time on something a bit more exciting than building Berserkers I don't need from a kit I'm not a massive fan of nowadays.

 

Dragonlover

[Slave to Darkness]

Thats why I prefer to get a group of gamers who have a similar mindset to gaming as myself. Up north I had a cracking group of mates and we used to beerhammer in my mates garage or in my living room. We did everything from cardboard counters Rogue Trader style up to full on Cheese WAAC Beardness. Sometimes we only took one day off a week from gaming (only because my mates missus was pissed I saw him more than she did :lol: ). We rarely played in store because of mouth breathers, neck beards, smelly people, fedoras and a lot of customers got into the 100% WAAC 100% of the time all day every day mentality. 

[Slave to Darkness]

Tbh I think we are going around in circles here, everyone thinks their way to play is the right way. If people like Ishagu want to waste their cash on every possible combination of wargear then fair play to them, thats what they find enjoyable in the hobby. If people dont want to do that then their just as correct.

 

As for the 'its an unspoken social contract to turn up with 100% painted minis and you must act and play a certain way' crap. Sod that, if you dont like my army or how I view the hobby then quite simply ':cuss you' Ill go find someone that isnt so anal over a game of TOY SOLDIERS!!

[Antarius]

Just playing devils advocate - some people play for the immersion and this would ruin it for them.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the only justification. Even so, I still think you'd have to turn the guy down in a nicer way.

 

Personally, I wouldn't refuse to play someone new, who was in that situation (or someone experienced who "just wanted to try it out"). Otoh, I play for the immersion and I don't have a lot of game time on my hands, so I wouldn't be happy with playing against that sort of army going forward.

 

I would, however, always try my very best not to be a jerk about it.

[Blindhamster]

to be fair, WYSIWYG has actually been a legitimate rule at some points over the years I've played. The mentality goes back and forth from time to time.

As I've already said, my personal preference is to play against armies that are WYSIWYG, I also prefer to have models at least base coated, even better if they've got multiple colours on them (i wont say "painted" as honestly that phrase means different things to different people"). I likewise prefer to play on a table with "proper" scenery.

For me, the immersion and "wow factor" is greater that way, and those are large parts of why i bother to play at all.

That being said, I've never had problems with friends proxying models if they've wanted to try stuff out. And don't mind the occasionally counts as for some weapons etc. That being said, I see no real reason to play a game against someone that has an army entirely made out of proxy that bares no resemblance to the force they're playing outside of a one off for a friend that wants to try a new army before they buy it. Again this isn't because i feel other people have to do what i say, its purely because i derive a lot of my fun when gaming from looking at the cool models being moved about the board and taking photos of said models.

[Slave to Darkness]

Would proxys be fine if they were painted? :P

[Blindhamster]

depends what they are! As i said, for occasional stuff, proxies are fine regardless, most people i know proxy so they can try something new, i dont know many that never actually make something if they actually enjoyed using it.

[Doghouse]

Tbh I think we are going around in circles here, everyone thinks their way to play is the right way. If people like Ishagu want to waste their cash on every possible combination of wargear then fair play to them, thats what they find enjoyable in the hobby. If people dont want to do that then their just as correct.

 

As for the 'its an unspoken social contract to turn up with 100% painted minis and you must act and play a certain way' crap. Sod that, if you dont like my army or how I view the hobby then quite simply ':cuss you' Ill go find someone that isnt so anal over a game of TOY SOLDIERS!!

 

I've known people play with card counters or bits of paper or in one case plastic bases with coloured dots on and they had just as much fun as people with fully painted armies. In fact when infantry rules for Adeptus Titanicus first came out in white dwarf that is exactly what we had to use to play! Most of use Rogue Trader players grew up where you had no choice to proxy because the models didn't exist.

 

End of the day there are no universal rules that apply to every game run in the world, you won't get GW officials stood watching your game at home, it's down to two players deciding how they want to play the game. The rules have always had the rule it's your game play it how you want, the books are just guidelines.

 

As for the OP I'm glad your store manager stepped in and dealt with it. :)

[Jagus Kumkani]

Personally, I don't care. There are more important things to be angry about than little plastic men whether they be GW or Army men. I've played plenty of people that hadn't had any of their stuff painted. Someone could use different colored rocks for all I care. 

 

I act the game out in my head as I play, as if it were a movie. I'm not sure how everyone else interprets their games. But we have to understand, this hobby is expensive and not everyone can throw cash at this stuff.

 

The kind of attitude these guys displayed is ridiculous and keeps people from getting into the hobby. If it were me, I'd refuse to play the guys who displayed such behavior.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

Tbh I think we are going around in circles here, everyone thinks their way to play is the right way. If people like Ishagu want to waste their cash on every possible combination of wargear then fair play to them, thats what they find enjoyable in the hobby. If people dont want to do that then their just as correct.

 

As for the 'its an unspoken social contract to turn up with 100% painted minis and you must act and play a certain way' crap. Sod that, if you dont like my army or how I view the hobby then quite simply ':cuss you' Ill go find someone that isnt so anal over a game of TOY SOLDIERS!!

 

I've known people play with card counters or bits of paper or in one case plastic bases with coloured dots on and they had just as much fun as people with fully painted armies. In fact when infantry rules for Adeptus Titanicus first came out in white dwarf that is exactly what we had to use to play! Most of use Rogue Trader players grew up where you had no choice to proxy because the models didn't exist.

 

End of the day there are no universal rules that apply to every game run in the world, you won't get GW officials stood watching your game at home, it's down to two players deciding how they want to play the game. The rules have always had the rule it's your game play it how you want, the books are just guidelines.

 

As for the OP I'm glad your store manager stepped in and dealt with it.

 

One day Ill drag my arse over to Basingstoke for a game, you seem to have a similar attitude to the hobby as I do. 

[Doghouse]

 

One day Ill drag my arse over to Basingstoke for a game, you seem to have a similar attitude to the hobby as I do. 

 

I'm starting to get the suspicion it might be because we're becoming the war gaming equivalents of dinosaurs mate. :D

 

I'll have to dig out the turned upside down chocolate mousse pot and toilet roll buildings and the deodorant stick hover tanks. You grab a couple of encyclopedias (hard copy of wikipedia for the younger crowd) and chuck a tea towel over it for hills. 

[Servant of Dante]

Lol me and my friend (both on the younger end of 40k players) play semi-regularly on a cordoned off section of a ping-pong (table tennis) table with his chaos model boxes and some other assorted packing materials as terrain. Some of that shaped styrofoam looks like nice buildings :D

 

So you're not the only ones playing that way

 

Edit: I believe a pringles can has also made an appearance :P

[Doghouse]

Excellent stuff mate :tu:

 

Glad to see the torch being passed on.

[Trevak Dal]

My models are often unpainted but I've stripped and repainted my Tau like 4 times, and my chaos 3 times in varying stages of completion. I often get bored with painting a certain way, or get inspired by somebody's work or reading something.

 

I heavily credit Mr. Dembski-Boden's Talon of Horus (and my laziness, and my desire for a black army) for me settling on Black Legion.

 

I'd tried them as World Eaters, but all the Red was...annoying to paint (hadn't discovered Rust-Oleum red automotive primer at the time, cheaper than army painter and in a bigger can too). Then I switched to Red Corsairs, because the Badab Wars books were out and I was fascinated with reaving space pirates-my best friend plays space wolves and that part how they took the Space Wolf ship was cool.

 

I gave up my Red Corsairs theme because I couldn't figure out how to translate the theme over to terminators, and raptors-i LOVE the Raptors but I HATE painting them. So. Much. Detail. :cuss. My. Life. That is probably why I won't strip them again from being black legion because it took forever to paint them.

 

They look a little odd in that I got very sky blue helmets on my champions and markings on my "secondary champions" for when I run lots of 5 man squads. I was having a hard time easily distinguishing my guys and accidentally cheated-which I immediately called on myself when I found out. And I always appreciated the...orderly approach of Codex style squad markings. Did a similar thing on my Tau team leaders.

[Adeptus]

All I can say is that I'm not going to remodel my entire army just to use different loadouts in different games if I feel like it.

My response would then be to not make a habit out of using different load outs. Just use the ones you've modelled. Impacting on your opponents enjoyment of the game in order to improve your chances of winning isn't cool, IMO.

[Adeptus]

As long as I have a list to show my opponent what unit has what that should satisfy any reasonable (imo) fellow gamer. I'm not about to tear off arms or load outs for models every time I play a game. Most of my models are WYSIWYG but not all of them. I don't think it is reasonable to expect people to labor endlessly on new kits and kit bashing every time they want to try a different load out.

I do, however, think it's reasonable to expect someone to just use their models as they're modelled. You might not win as easily if you're not using the "best" load outs but I think that's ok.

[Arkangilos]

Well I wouldn't do it for an advantage :p

[Slave to Darkness]

 

 

One day Ill drag my arse over to Basingstoke for a game, you seem to have a similar attitude to the hobby as I do. 

 

I'm starting to get the suspicion it might be because we're becoming the war gaming equivalents of dinosaurs mate.

 

I'll have to dig out the turned upside down chocolate mousse pot and toilet roll buildings and the deodorant stick hover tanks. You grab a couple of encyclopedias (hard copy of wikipedia for the younger crowd) and chuck a tea towel over it for hills. 

 

Im actually thinking of starting a Terrain thread for people on a budget, oldschool style like this. 

[Ishagu]

Well I wouldn't do it for an advantage :p

So are you nerfing your units? Why do it at all?

[Arkangilos]

No, I would do it to make sure I wanted to do it...

[Adeptus]

No, I would do it to make sure I wanted to do it...

 

I don't think anyone has a problem with sporadic proxying like this. Trialling a new unit, character or upgrade is fine, making up for accidentally leaving models at home or bringing the wrong list is fine, trying something off-the-wall just for fun is fine, it's consistent proxying where the main motivation is 'my models don't have the best gear, and I want them to have the best gear' that crosses the line, IMO.

 

I don't think it's too much to ask for people to use, where possible, their models as modelled. Barring the types of scenarios outlined above, like trialling something new or whatever. Simply counting your models as the 'best' versions because you want to have the best chance of winning no matter what your models look like is, to me, prioritising your own wants over those of your opponent and at the risk of sounding overstated, that's pretty selfish.

 

To be clear, I'd never refuse an opponent for proxying, and the game might still be great fun, but almost without exception I'd prefer if my opponent didn't proxy. Barring, once again, exceptional circumstance like forgotten models or trialling a new unit or something like that.

 

Part of my background when it comes to this issue is perhaps the fact that I prefer to play with power levels over points, and one of the more important balancing factors is a fairly rigorous adherence to WYSIWYG. Also, I think I'm lucky that most of the players in my local group share my desire to make their own armies as WYSIWYG as possible, so it's something that has become a normal expectation for all of us on game nights.