Building models with inflight wargear?

[nimbusjack]

Hi folks, new to the game and building my first army list. As I'm planning it, I'm realizing I'm almost certainly going to want to change up kit load outs for units, and it seems like I need a lot of different weapons for my models.

 

Feels like a dumb question, but do people actually buy and represent all the specific gear their guys are using? What if you want to change it, buy and build a whole new model? Do people play with gear, but it's not represented on the model? Where do you buy just the gear?

 

Hopefully that makes sense, thank you.

[Madao]

Magnets, magnets, magnets. But to be honest - I don't bother with magnetizing troops and most of the infantry. Worst case scenario - they will have suboptimal loadout, but it is usually not a big deal

[Xenith]

Hi Nimbus and welcome to the forums!

 

For 'everyone has it' wargear like bolt pistols, frag and krak grenades, official GW stance is that it doesn't even have to be modelled onto the miniature, however for special weapons and stuff, best to have it on - the best option is magnets, as above, where a 2mm magnet in the wrist will do for normal marines gun options, and 3mm mags in the shoulders for melee weapons.

 

What army are you playing and what options do you want to swap between?

[Halandaar]

3 hours ago, nimbusjack said:

Feels like a dumb question, but do people actually buy and represent all the specific gear their guys are using? What if you want to change it, buy and build a whole new model? Do people play with gear, but it's not represented on the model? 

 

So one of the longstanding principles of the game is What You See is What You Get - meaning that if your unit is using a particular special or heavy weapon (or really anything that you had to actively choose during army building, as opposed to their default gear) should be shown on the model so your opponent can easily see what you do and don't have. 

 

It avoids confusion (for example you mixing up which squads have which weapons because the models don't have them on, or your opponent mixing up and making a poor choice as a result), and also helps against cheating (for example someone claiming that all the Flamers they have on their models are actually Plasma Guns if that benefits them more in a particular match-up). Most organised environments like gaming stores, tournaments and so on enforce WYSIWYG so the short answer is yes, people do represent the gear their models are using.

 

As for how you get around wanting to change the loadouts from one game to the next, that will depend on your preferences, and then either how much money or time you are willing to invest in solving the problem, and also which models/units you are using. For example in a Space Marine Tactical Squad only one guy can take a special weapon anyway, and the kit comes with all the different options he can take, so you could potentially magnetise the wrist of that one guy and all the special weapon guns he can take which would let you freely swap it from one game to the next. A lot of people advocate for that approach as it gives you complete flexibility, but it can be fiddly and time consuming and then you've got to have somewhere to store all your spare magnetised bits as well. 

 

For small infantry-sized models I personally find that more hassle than it's worth; I'd rather just play a game with a slightly sub-optimal weapon in my unit, but for bigger stuff like my Chaos Knight I've magnetised all the weapon options because it seems daft not to get maximum mileage out of a £100 kit. 

 

5 hours ago, nimbusjack said:

Where do you buy just the gear?

 

Depends on what you need really; a lot of the time nowadays units are only allowed to be equipped with the weapons that actually come on their model kit, so you don't need extras. For Space Marines (or Chaos Marines) GW does packs of special and heavy weapons (they're marketed for MKVI Heresy Marines but are easily usable on other types of Space Marines), and for any other stuff there's market for specific bits on eBay or even webstores that deal in single components. Hope this helps!

[Bryan Blaire]

Realize that while most folks like WYSIWYG, per the above, it’s not actually a rule in the game - so your best bet is really to ask/talk with the folks you are going to be playing with.  Honestly, people could be a lot more free with their army lists and that will take care of 99% of opponents’ confusion issues, but a mainstay of this game has been less and less good sportsmanship and more Gotcha! gaming (especially with things like strategems, etc.) it has seemed like lately.

 

Understand that there are a lot of very uptight 40K players that take a very hard-line “official GW only” stance with little allowance for anything else.  People even want to take this stance for your paint schemes, and try to force you into rules based on your paint on your models, even if there are no actual rules for this in the game.

 

There also seem to be a lot of people who are convinced that you should only be allowed to even play if you have paid as much or more than they have for your models.

 

It was definitely not always this way in the hobby - it used to be a lot more about having “your guys” represented the way you wanted to see them, but it has definitely turned a more hard-line way, which is truly sad.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Bryan Blaire

[Karhedron]

I think the most important thing is consistency. For example, it is OK to call a plasma gun a flamer as long as:

1. You tell your opponent that is it is a flamer before the game
2. All your plasma guns count as flamers so there is no risk of confusion.
3. You have a clearly written army list that your opponent can see to check you are not changing things mid-game.

Most players are decent and happy to play fairly. They don't like it if someone seems to be playing for advantage or doing things to confuse them during the game. If you follow these 3 steps, it should minimise the risk of misunderstandings and ensure a happy game for both of you.

[nimbusjack]

Wow the quality of these answers far exceeds what I expected! I think my question was answered several times over, and I have many options here. Thank you so much, will be hanging around the forums as I get deeper into the hobby. Thanks for being so welcoming.

[NovemberIX]

There is also one other fundamental question to ask yourself, are you in this for the gaming, or the painting and modeling? Not that you can't do one without the other, but deciding what it is that pushes you most can help you find some answers internally. I'm personally in it for the creative side, so I have way more than I need to play with, but I've also never played the same list twice and can make ad-hoc squads using models from my troops, vets, and devs as needed. But..... I also play a lot of Apocalypse size games, so it's not like I don't use big chunks of my army at once.  The nice thing about this hobby is that even when you're not directly engaging, by having it on display it can still be part of your regular life.

[nimbusjack]

5 hours ago, NovemberIX said:

There is also one other fundamental question to ask yourself, are you in this for the gaming, or the painting and modeling? Not that you can't do one without the other, but deciding what it is that pushes you most can help you find some answers internally.

 

I haven't had much of an opportunity to play with an army of my own yet although I've been hanging around the LGS as I dip into it. I've never been much of a creative so I'm really enjoying that side of things since there's just a ton to learn and the content online is fantastic. I'll probably be into a mix of both, although I don't really see myself ever getting into the competitive side of things. So the answer is probably leaning towards creative and playing casually on a regular basis with a group.

 

I've loved 40k since I was a kid but really got into it more lately after making my way through the first 8 books of heresy. That drew me into the heresy side of the game, so I've started to build up from the box set there with a handful of forge world models thrown in.

[Halandaar]

17 hours ago, Bryan Blaire said:

Realize that while most folks like WYSIWYG, per the above, it’s not actually a rule in the game - so your best bet is really to ask/talk with the folks you are going to be playing with.  Honestly, people could be a lot more free with their army lists and that will take care of 99% of opponents’ confusion issues

 

Yeah I should have mentioned this; it is not actually a rule of the game so if your gaming group is more flexible/laid back, then stuff like using a one weapon as another or even "proxying" whole models might be perfectly acceptable. I certainly have this kind of relationship with my usual gaming opponents, although I do still tend to adhere to WYSIWYG myself because frankly I forget enough stuff as it is, without having to try to remember that this guy's Plasma Gun is actually a Meltagun and so on.

 

17 hours ago, Bryan Blaire said:

People even want to take this stance for your paint schemes, and try to force you into rules based on your paint on your models, even if there are no actual rules for this in the game.

 

Given that Warhammer World's own events guidance expects you to use the matching rules for any studio-defined colour schemes, I expect this is just another thing that filters out from organised play into the wider game even though it doesn't have to. It's also the main reason I tend to paint armies in original schemes (or at least studio ones that don't have rules defined by GW), so I don't ever end up being in a position where I'm being told to use Ultramarines rules just because my dudes are blue. Probably also the reason I never managed to get into Heresy - being tied down to one colour scheme/ruleset doesn't work for me when there are so many choices!

 

[Bryan Blaire]

3 hours ago, Halandaar said:

Yeah I should have mentioned this; it is not actually a rule of the game so if your gaming group is more flexible/laid back, then stuff like using a one weapon as another or even "proxying" whole models might be perfectly acceptable. I certainly have this kind of relationship with my usual gaming opponents, although I do still tend to adhere to WYSIWYG myself because frankly I forget enough stuff as it is, without having to try to remember that this guy's Plasma Gun is actually a Meltagun and so on.

 

Given that Warhammer World's own events guidance expects you to use the matching rules for any studio-defined colour schemes, I expect this is just another thing that filters out from organised play into the wider game even though it doesn't have to. It's also the main reason I tend to paint armies in original schemes (or at least studio ones that don't have rules defined by GW), so I don't ever end up being in a position where I'm being told to use Ultramarines rules just because my dudes are blue. Probably also the reason I never managed to get into Heresy - being tied down to one colour scheme/ruleset doesn't work for me when there are so many choices!

On the WYSIWYG front, unfortunately, I’ve seen people at FLGSs wig out over people’s converted, 3rd party, and/or 3D printed weapons because they aren’t exactly what’s in the Codexes and claim that they “don’t have the ability to play an opponent who’s clearly trying to cheat” - which is a pretty big assumption if you just met someone else/never played them before, and don’t even take the time to ask some questions or discuss.  Maybe it’s just an American thing, but I’ve seen that behavior in a couple of states here now, and I think most of that comes down to trying to have pick-up/drop-in games without any prior discussion and not being able to manage a personal response to surprise.

 

To me, like Karhedron said, consistency is key there - if your “two pronged lightning guns” are all plasma weapons, because you think that the idea of lightning prods that arc lightning off is a better way to show plasma weapons, then just make sure they all look like that (and use the same/similar concept for all weapons of that type in your army), etc.  It’s a big galaxy out there in 40K, and while there’s STCs and tech heresy, it’s also unlikely that every single version of every weapon appears the same in 80+% form.

 

Halandaar, I also agree with you on the painting, and don’t find painting according to the Studio’s color schemes to be very enjoyable - even GW created things that I’m piggy-backing off of I tend to change - but I’ve also seen people (and there have been people here on this board) who have argued that if your color scheme doesn’t match the Codex one for Dark Angels, then you can’t use Dark Angels rules at all, you have to use something else, etc., even though there are no in-game rules that actually say that or use paint colors to define when rules can be applied.  The lengths people will go to try and control someone else’s fun or enjoyment boggle my mind for this game.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Bryan Blaire