Can you be 100% 3rd party and still be playing Warhammer?

[Beaky Brigade]

This is a (tongue in cheek) philosophical question about the core components of the Warhammer gaming hobby.

 

How many official GW products you can replace and still be playing a game of Warhammer 40,000? What is the most important official component?

Rules? Models? Scenery? Narrative themes?

 

I'm not concerned with the collecting and painting hobby, that's something that is very individual to each person. I'm talking about the shared experience of playing '40k' on the tabletop with another human being. This isn't about what is currently allowed at venues, or product elitism, but what you feel is important to your own gaming experience.

 

Are you buying into a select club by using GW products, the joining fee of this club being the regular purchase of GW rules and models, or does 40k have a life of its own inside our brains beyond the commercial side?

There has been a lot of talk (in reaction to GW practices) about a rosy future where everyone will 3D print their own minis from royalty free STLs. Whether or not this is feasible, it would certainly increase the visual variety of the hobby, and reduce the GW studio influence on the 40k aesthetic.
 

But would that be a desirable future?

Let me give you an example which is already possible today:


Two players arrive for a game of 40k at their local gaming club.

Lets call them Gary and Barry.

Garry has brought Sisters of Battle, not the overpriced GW minis mind you, but 'Gunz Nunz' from a small third party provider.

 

The 'Nunz' have heavy plate armour and large calibre 'Gunz' but there the similarity with the GW range ends. Garry painted them with Vallejo and Army Painter paints.


Barry is a 3D printing enthusiast and has 3D printed an entire Primaris Space marine army. Officially they are called 'Space Knights' on Thingiverse in a weak attempt to dodge IP lawyers, but it's clear the designer of Barry's models has attempted to copy GW designs instead of making something original.

 

The army almost worked out free if you discount the cost of the 3D printer, print resin, and time spent setting up the ∞ axis. Barry is eagerly awaiting multicolour 3D printing because finding the time to put paint on his models is his weak point.

 

They unroll a 3rd party gaming mat onto a club table and start unloading their armies from their KR and Battlefoam figure cases. The gaming club has kindly provided unpainted laser cut Sci-Fi ruins for their members to use as scenery.

 

Garry nearly drops one of his cases and sighs as Chessex dice spill all over the carpet.


Up to this point I think most people would agree that a game of Warhammer 40,000 is about to be played. Not necessarily something that GW would promote, but recognisably 40k.

 

But lets throw in a final twist. No rulebook or codex comes out, just a bundle of paper stapled together.

Barry and Garry are both deeply dissatisfied with the current edition. The purpose of the day's battle is to try an open source ruleset for 28mm Sci-Fi wargaming which was developed by a like minded internet collective. While this ruleset works with a variety of scales and miniatures, it's main purpose is to be an alternative to the official GW 40k rules.

Are they playing 40k now?

What if they have a narrative battle planned about the defence of a sacred relic?

What if they don't really care for narrative at all and just see battles as an intellectual test of strategy and statistical chance?

 

 

 

Personally I think GW models (however they are produced) will still be a core component of the Warhammer hobby in the future, even if 3rd party options rise to greater significance. People interested in 40k will want to belong to a common grim dark club rather than play a generic sci fi game.

A not so brilliant but interesting analogy is sports fans wearing replica kit to support their team. The official replica kit is expensive so some fans will purchase 'fake' items that look like the real thing.

But why don't they simply not bother and come in normal clothing? Or just wear an ordinary piece of clothing that matches their team colours? Both those options are cheaper than fake shirts/hats and jerseys. Is it because they want to belong to something and fit in?


I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this topic!




 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Beaky Brigade

[AenarIT]

 

[...]

Are they playing 40k now?

[...]

 

Imho, yes. 

Look at 9th Age, the the community based continuation of WHFB. It's still WHFB in the minds of those who play it, very often with third party models as the original ones went oop years ago and obviously with rules written by the community. 

 

40K is a tabletop game for battles set in the grim darkness of the far future. 

Whether the models, rules, colours, mats, terrain, dice, etc are from GW or from third parties is kinda irrelevant imho. 

Even the rules, which are arguably the last bastion of GW proprietary "hold" on the 40K system, could be substituted. What matters is what the community decides to play, to invest the time in studying, brainstorming, practicing, etc...

 

One similarity could be found in the tournament circuit. For years the ITC 40K was a different thing than GW 40K, with its own FAQ, Erratas and so on. 

Even now the WTC plays differently than regular, single player tournament 40K. 

Still, it's 40K. A different kind of 40K as they imagine it in Nottingham, but 40K nonetheless. 

 

What lets GW be "in charge" of 40K as a game is pure convenience and "laziness". Few people want to play a custom set of houserules as it would make interaction with other groups of players very difficult. It's basically what happened historically with football: groups of players from across the UK decided to codify the rules of the game in order to be able to play matches together. 

As long as the game is fun enough, balanced enough, popular enough and convenient enough to pick up and play, almost everyone will follow GW's lead in rules, models, etc. 

If GW suddenly decided to stop balancing the game, to release a broken edition that is not fun to play, to stop releasing new models and so on, a portion of players would react to that and step in. Community-written FAQs, rules, updates and so on would keep the game alive.

 

As for your question regarding fake team shirts: people want to show their allegiance, blend in with the crowd at the stadium of feel as part of something but they can'f afford or don't want to spend so much on an original shirt. And those are fricking expensive nowadays

Same thing goes for 40k: you may have an army already but you don't want or can't afford to spend on an additional unit, so you resort to 3D prints or third party models to get it. You clearly want to enjoy the playing part of 40K because you like it, be it for rolling dice, for the friends you play with, for how much you enjoy the game itself, ... 

You may also want to try out a new set of rules (a new army) but you can't be bothered to spend £400-600 on a new army, so you get some STL files and print everything. You get to play with a different army for a fraction of the cost.

Edited June 19, 2021 by AenarIT

[MARK0SIAN]

For me it’s 40k if it looks like 40k. If your army looks like (or very close to) the army it’s meant to be and you’re using 40k rules then I feel like I’m playing 40k.

 

I don’t really care where your models come from, if they’re GW, 3D printed, 3rd party or even recasts. It’s the visual aspect of the hobby/game I enjoy the most so if I’m playing against space marines I want them to look like space marines. So if there was a choice of playing against someone who had a full GW army of stormcast eternals who was proxying them as marines or someone who had printed their own marine army I’d take the printed army every time.

[Doghouse]

I've known people use cut outs of images of models or tokens with whatever the current rules happen to be. Second edition used official cardboard cut out ork dreadnoughts in the starter set. 

 

It's what it is to your gaming group or friends at the end of the day, papercraft used to be extremely popular and can look a lot better than an army of plastic grey models.

 

If it's an official GW event then fair enough but if it's just you and your buddies play with what you want.

[sarabando]

its 40k if they are using any version of 40k from RT to 9th imo even if they have written their own rules from it.

[ThePenitentOne]

Tough call for me.

 

I've seen some "alternate rules" sets out there that might as well be playing checkers- there is literally nothing to them. 

 

If you use any edition of 40k, I can still recognize it as such.

 

As for models, if I can look at them and tell what they're supposed to be, that's fine.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

From the gaming side, yes you can.

From the modeling side, yes you can.

From the more side, yes you can.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

For me it’s 40k if it looks like 40k. If your army looks like (or very close to) the army it’s meant to be and you’re using 40k rules then I feel like I’m playing 40k.

 

I don’t really care where your models come from, if they’re GW, 3D printed, 3rd party or even recasts. It’s the visual aspect of the hobby/game I enjoy the most so if I’m playing against space marines I want them to look like space marines. So if there was a choice of playing against someone who had a full GW army of stormcast eternals who was proxying them as marines or someone who had printed their own marine army I’d take the printed army every time.

this for me, plus you say that your models are just from a random planet in the universe.

[RandyB]

The answers in this thread are dancing around one more component: lore/setting.

 

Third party models? Homebrew rules? Go crazy. Have fun. (See my signature )

 

Setting? That is the foundation of 40K for me. There's plenty of time and space for Your Guys to fit in, and you don't have to incorporate every word and page from the Black Library to "qualify". An alt.40K (or 30K, etc.) is still "40K" to me.

[The Yncarne]

If you’re playing 40k rules from the books and FAQs you are playing 40k.

[N1SB]

Fratres, I have an alternate take...you sold me on Space Knights vs. Gunz Nunz, I want to play it now. Let us know when you post the Kickstarter, I done you up a logo:

As for the Ship of Theseus/Living Ancestor's Axe/metaphysical question, what makes Warhammer Warhammer?

I found my answer a little while ago. My answer may or may not be the same as your answers, which is the way it should be, as it's up to each of us to decide our own answers on this one. My answer is: I don't know how to say it, but I know it when I see it. Recent examples include the 4th and 5th episodes of the Astartes fan animation...then its creator got recruited by Games Workshop itself, which is as much proof as you really need.

There are actual implications to this, which I realised when I read Brother Beaky's post. Warhammer has trained us from young to make stuff (build, paint, craft army list, make up our own lore) to play it. Well, now that we have that training, what's to stop us from our own stuff to play, as in our own game? There are reasons...it's hard, like I don't know how to sculpt a miniature...but there are 3D printers now.

It's a tricky question that even Games Workshop has to ask itself, and imho, it IS asking itself as it expands into other areas, like streaming. I do think part of Warhammer's value is that it is a shared "platform", like an operating system that's not just rules but lore and all those things that I can recognise "when I see it", and all our own creations are applications that run on this OS. In the meantime I really want those leaked new Mk VI's. I swear, with new Orks and new Mk VI's I can do a new Battle of Rynn's World. Wouldn't that be something.

Edited June 20, 2021 by N1SB

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Why not just play some other game like MtG and be done with it ?

[Kastor Krieg]

Why not just play some other game like MtG and be done with it ?

It's like giving up meth to start on crack, what are you proposing here? :D

[Lucerne]

The hobby is not actually a pipeline between your wallet and GW's bottom line lol, they're just the most common and self-interested means of indulging in it. It's honestly sad stockholm syndrome to insist otherwise.

 

Hell, 40k has been played in warzones with sticks and stones lol.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Lucerne

[AenarIT]

[...]

-I find visibly different third party models kinda meh; Less like they wanted to offer an affordable alternative and more like they just wanted a slice of the cake. Visually, they had the potential to make something perfect, but I have never seen one where sub-par 3D-modeling skills, or at least lesser attention to detail or effort invested was not evident, compared to the official figures.

[...]

Imho 3D printed alternative models are much closer to the originals in terms of quality than many people think. Especially once painted up. 

Mind you, alternative models not 1:1 copies, as those could be considered pirated models and we don't do that here.

I'll offer some examples (pictures from the web and various discord channels, definitely not mine):

[Doghouse]

Even just looking around Ebay for parts I've seen stuff that is amazing quality. Companies like Artel W even have minis I think are better than official ones in my opinion.

[Jings]

I'm of two minds here, although I definitely lean much more heavily towards "anything goes". I'd probably never turn down a game unless it was particularly egregious. Really depends on the situation. 

 

Don't mind proxies if someone's trying out a unit, although if it's two fully painted forces I'm not too big a fan if it ruins the somewhat rare experience of having two painted armies clash (there's usually some amount of grey/incompletion any any given list I run). 

 

Counts as? I get a bit more elitist, largely because I put so much effort into this area. If you're running your Bolt Action models as IG because you want to give 40K a shot? Sure. If you're running Vietnam-era soldiers carrying M16s with a couple Abrams specifically to use them as IG with no conversion work to make them "fit" the theme? I might turn my nose up at it because it doesn't mesh with me as a narrative player. But if you've converted up a scratch-built Sentinel, or have applied some amount of creativity to the effort, I'll be wayyyyyy more excited to play against it than a built-as-shown GW army. 

 

Basically, so long as it's either lazy but done for testing, or is cool and thematic/has had effort in it, then it's all good. I run a Napoleonic IG army where I just threw some cut-down Skitarii Ranger arms on them and, given the breadth of room for IG armies, they (imo) look very fitting to the part of nameless horde soldiers of the Emperor. Just gotta get the look and feel right, or at least have a good attempt at giving it a go. I always appreciate a good concept. 

 

Napoleonic Guard example if anyone's curious. https://i.imgur.com/0YXrZoI.jpeg

[OldWherewolf]

For me, it comes down to immersion.  How much do you, as a player, feel like you're in the 40K universe?

 

My first game of anything GW was WHFB, and being young and poor (like me), my buddy Jim used dog food for his grots.  We didn't care, we were having fun, and it got hilarious when the dog got in the room.

 

I was playing another time with another friend in his first game of 40k.  He only had a couple models, and no terrain.  We just grabbed blocks of wood and sticks for terrain and made the best of it. We didn't care, we were having fun.

 

So for us, as long as we're having fun, that enables us to believe we're in the 40k universe, with Space Knights vs. Nuns with Guns/Bugs/whatever. 

 

I've played other rule systems, but they didn't have the lore or the fun ruleset that 40K provides, so I was just never able to get into them.  The Grimdark is really flushed out, as well as Star Trek and Star Wars.  So the rules lead to the fun which lead to the immersion.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yeah it’s about immersion for me as well. This mythical third party army I doubt exists that looks super cool tbh. It just comes across as a means of saving some quid.

[Lucerne]

Yeah it’s about immersion for me as well. This mythical third party army I doubt exists that looks super cool tbh. It just comes across as a means of saving some quid.

Tell yourself that, I suppose~

[Monstra Sumus]

Immersion and intent for me. Intent through shared enjoyment. Seeing a fully assembled and painted army opposite the table is wonderful and takes me back to Veteran Sundays at GW stores.

 

I've had people put down a really cool looking third party and say "this is my X unit, is that okay? I just really like the model". It's roughly the same size and appearance of the intended unit so sure, I'm cool with that. Hell they may have some more cool units I've never seen and if they look like a chicken but quack, well a birds a bird.

 

I've also had people put down empty bases to represent flying figures (no actual figure/model present) and entire squads of bases with unpainted legs/torso and a gun glued to the base to represent full units. That I'm not okay with as there is no intent to better the game or hobby. They were pushing latest tourney stomping rules and had all the civility of a rabid animal.

 

Someone once put a coke can down on the table with black paint blocking out the coke symbol. I moved it off the table as there was no communication about it. The guy got angry because I moved his Carnifex proxy without permission.

 

I believe there should a basic standard by which games should be played and that is "will my opponent enjoy this game win or lose?". That is crucial to me and the spirit of 40k.

[RWJP]

Personally:

At it's simplest level, if you aren't using GW's rules you aren't playing 40k. 40k the tabletop game is a rules system written by GW. Now, you could be using RT rules or 9th Ed, it's all still 40k.

You can use third party minis, 3rd party terrain, 3rd party paints, 3rd party dice etc etc etc, but in the end the actual game is the rules. Homebrew and Community-written rules systems aren't 40k, they're a variant based on 40k at best.

To go another step further to illustrate my point: If you're playing Kill Team, you're not playing 40k. You're playing a separate game set in the Warhammer 40000 universe. Same thing with Blackstone Fortress, it's not 40k. It's a different game set within the Warhammer 40000 universe.

All of the above things are of course still "Taking part in the 40k hobby" but you can only "play 40k" if you're using the 40k rules GW have published.

Edited June 20, 2021 by RWJP

[Halandaar]

A few others have hit the same point I'd make; immersion. Does it FEEL like 40k?

 

For me stuff like Lego armies, no matter how cool and creative that is in its own right, will never feel like 40k. Similarly for using historical minis or stuff from other IP as proxies, things that obviously belong in another universe (real or imagined).

 

For third-party and 3d print models, I think it comes to to style. I mean, I dont tend to avoid third party models because I have some sort of moral opposition to them, I just think most of them are crap. I agree with the sentiment that a lot of them feel like blatant attempts to cash in on GWs customer base, rather than genuine attempts to provide an alternative vision of the setting.

 

Obviously there are exceptions to that (especially within the 3d printing arena where a lot of stuff is genuinely excellent), so I think as long as it fits in and feels coherent with the 40k setting, that's absolutely fine.

 

So yeah. I suppose for me it comes down to; "does this feel like 40k, or does it feel like the supermarket own-brand version StarBattle9000."

[Osteoclast]

There is, of course, this image, of the “hardest” game of 40K ever played, using stones as minis in the middle of the Iraqi desert. Honestly, I’d call it peak 40K.

 

IMHO, as long as the two players agree that something is 40K, it is 40K, though you might have a devil of a time convincing bystanders that the My Little Pony/Digimon battle fits in. There’s enough room and outright statements in the background to fit just about anything in.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Osteoclast

[BrandX]

Why not just play some other game like MtG and be done with it ?

we could play armada, that's in space.