Fostering friendly rivalries with multi-part kits?

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I've had a thought, and there are a LOT of kits which have some kind of dead something or other on them, especially newer Astartes and Heretic Astartes kits (which have dead of the other on them). What provoked me to start thinking about this was actually Haarken's base, which is a whole Primaris Marine. What I was thinking is, I could start actively doing up corpses of Spess Mehreens my friend plays (he's a Dark Angels player, even when he's an Iron Hands or Ultramarines player, he has a green Guilliman and Feirros) in Dark Angels. How far should I take this? Should I get, like, a DA Upgrade Pack for situations like Haarken, where the Spess Mehreen on the base is actually multi-part himself? Have any of you done anything similar?

[MARK0SIAN]

I mean... the ultimate one to wind him up would be a DA pas on one shoulder and a Chaos Star on the other ;)

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I mean... the ultimate one to wind him up would be a DA pas on one shoulder and a Chaos Star on the other

I've already got a Fallen Sorcerer working for my Word Bearers, Haarken's going to be a Raptor Lord for said Word Bearers with a bit of modification.

[N1SB]

 

Back in 1st ed, Ork players are encouraged to adorn their Warboss's Bosspoles with Marine helmets each time defeated a Space Marine army.  It's like if you had 3, your Warboss is upgraded to a Warlord.  Those were fun times, getting some Beakies on our Bosspoles.

 

It's really great that tradition is coming back.  But I reckon don't go buy extra bits, like the Upgrade Kits, because it's like you're going out of your way to humiliate your opponents, even though I know they're your friends.  If you had spare bits already, it's like "oh I had this lying around, I was just looking for ways to spice up my bases", that's fun.  Going out of your way to buy extra stuff, even/especially if you're doing this to honour your friends and the games you've played together, leads to bitterness.

 

UNLESS, that is, you actually want to drink their tears.  I tabled a 40k tourney friend in an official GW campaign (it was the AoS one, not Konor), converted a miniature that is the ghost of his then Warlord with parts from an easy-to-build cheap set for that reason, it's well done, and every time I pull it out for a game at the Warhammer Store he kinda leers at it.  He's actually a frequent tournament winner, and a really close friend, which makes it just all the more amusing to me.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

See, the thing is, I never win, and I could use a DA pauldron anyway to make my Fallen Sorcerer easier for future repaints... because I KNOW I'll be doing them. Also, a bit of tear-drinking would be phenomenal if I DO win against one of his DA armies.

Also, it occurs to me that buying ONE upgrade kit should be fine for a good while, You get an ornate left-handed plasma pistol out of it, some pauldrons, a couple heads... just generally plenty to work with.

[Halandaar]

Have any of you done anything similar?

The guy I play games against most often has a Lamenters army:

[Panzer]

It's a pretty common thing to do for people who have regular opponents. ^^

[Tichinde]

or classic enemies:

 

 

 

 

I also tend to stick with casualties from my "other" armies that I have or are building (I have too many)  so expect to see some dead cultists and thousand sons when get round to it....

[Fajita Fan]

If I had a regular opponent I would totally do this.

[MegaVolt87]

You could do the same thing using transfers or doing free hand. Halandaar is doing it right IMO. I don't think it's worth getting the upgrade spures just for that.

[Gederas]

I have enough regular opponents at my local GW that I'm planning on routinely doing this with my Chaos. It also helps that two of them play an army I have easy access to the same symbols as, because I play that army (one plays Dark Angels, the other plays a custom Chapter that uses Dark Angels chapter badge :lol:).

 

But yeah, if you want to do it, go for it. That being said, buying an upgrade kit might not be for the best. You could ask them if they have any spares (because let's be honest, its easy to end up with spare shoulders/helmets for Marine armies)

[Azekai]

I have done this for years. My first regular opponent was orks, so an ork skull on the base of my dreadnought seemed appropriate.

Later, another buddy of mine got really into the Tau, and I played Death Guard. This was before poxwalkers came out, but I used the old 4th ed summoned daemons and represented them with zombies. I zombified a fire warrior after a few hard-fought battles, and it was very well-received

Recently, I made a chaos knight adorned with trophies, but I left them unpainted until I played my first battle. That conflict ended up being an insane fight between World Eaters, my Nurgle knights, and a pack of Tyranid bio-titans. My Atropos triumphed in the end, splattering a daemon prince underfoot; her trophies were accordingly painted in World Eater colors... 

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I have done this for years. My first regular opponent was orks, so an ork skull on the base of my dreadnought seemed appropriate.

 

Later, another buddy of mine got really into the Tau, and I played Death Guard. This was before poxwalkers came out, but I used the old 4th ed summoned daemons and represented them with zombies. I zombified a fire warrior after a few hard-fought battles, and it was very well-received

 

Recently, I made a chaos knight adorned with trophies, but I left them unpainted until I played my first battle. That conflict ended up being an insane fight between World Eaters, my Nurgle knights, and a pack of Tyranid bio-titans. My Atropos triumphed in the end, splattering a daemon prince underfoot; his trophies were accordingly painted in World Eater colors... 

I need pics of that Knight.

[Azekai]

Hmmm, I got picks of the 'before' of my Atropos... but nothing current. I will see what I can do. Might be Wednesday.

I would encourage you to make trophies even if you don't win; the current win/lose dichotomy is overrated anyway. But if something engaging or dramatic happens, feel free to reflect that- it's your hobby.

Take down a tough enemy commander? Make a trophy. Did your ground-pounder hold an objective against all odds? Spruce the guy up a little. Did a tank explode at a memorable moment and kill everything within a 1 block radius? Paint up some battle damage (or kill markers ). 

[Exilyth]

If you do not mind having parts of your faction show up on your opponents bases, trading leftover bits with your friend/opponent would the economically sensible thing to do.

[Fajita Fan]

I use my spare bits to make bases and trophies for my own opposed armies. 

[jeremy1391]

In the past buddies and I have swapped heads and helmets after defeating each other in the past.

[MaliGn]

I rarely actually play, but for my word bearers I have a number of trophies from different places, originally this started with a dark angel, mainly because I had the upgrade kit for the robed bodies for the chaos marines themselves. More recently I've tried to use a variety of ultramarine successor chapters in order to be more interesting than just Ultramarines.

[Kierdale]

As others have said, if a friend or regular opponent has bits to trade, that’s the easiest thing to do.

Putting trophies of regular opponents or friends (or even one-off victories that you want to remember) on your models (or objective counters and/or terrain) is an excellent idea.

 

I don’t game much these days but do put an army into Armies On Parade each year. I put them into a battle scene against a chosen foe, and usually buy a box or two of that foe for trophies and so there are a few enemy on the diorama base. It’s also a way to have a break from painting one army for months, and get to make a few of another army that you like the look of but don’t want any army of ;)

[Lord Marshal]

You could always claim bits of your opponent instead. Start small with a finger or part of an ear, no need to be too drastic.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

You could always claim bits of your opponent instead. Start small with a finger or part of an ear, no need to be too drastic.

Shh, that's heresy, and open heresy attracts retribution.