Your thoughts on third-party models for AOS

[wayniac]

So my budding group is having a discussion at the moment in regards to allowing third-party models in games (not necessarily just third-party bits, I mean actual third-party models e.g. using Mantic Undead for Deathrattle).  The argument for is that we are not playing in a GW store anymore, so why restrict models to only GW products (especially when we aren't doing the same for terrain).  The argument against is that it helps people easily recognize what model is what, instead of having third-party proxy models, and also that some people may abuse it.  I feel that as long as some WYSIWYG and relative similarity is kept, third party models should be fine (and third party bits for conversions should absolutely be fine), with the idea being that a model being proxied should at least look similar to what it s meant to convey (for instance using an appropriately sized Reaper daemon as a Daemon Prince).

What are your thoughts?  If we were playing at a GW store I could see this being a problem, but since we are moving to play at an independent store instead there seems to be no compelling reason to not allow third party figures.

[Galas]

90% of my heroes and commanders are Third Party Models because they just look cooler or to give me variation. The 100% of my zombies and the 80% of my skeletons are all full mantic, for economical and quality reasons. Never had a guy that don't know that a unit of mantic zombies was in fact a unit of zombies.

Nobody remember how in the Total War:Warhammer video talking about the Vampire Counts they show a painted army of warhammer with mantic models in it(Zombies, ghouls and skeletons) ? It was hilarous. They deleted the video after people noticed  

If you are in a GW, thats ok, only GW models. But in a club or in other store where you buy time to time? Use what you want. (Obviously as you say, with a adherence to similaritys. A Doombull model and a Minotaur Hero Model from other company have little diferences. Usin a full proxy army can be a little tricky (Like a full werewolf army using lizardmen rules) but as long as things are clear I see no problem) 

This "GW only" policy its OK if pushed by GW, because thats how they do their living. When players push it in non-GW enviroments its more like fanatism to me. 

And as customers we don't want to be fanatics.

Just my two cents. 

[MrCharisma]

+1 to what @Galas said. 

You might need to consider your local tournaments (if you play in tournaments) and their rules too. 

If you're not playing at a GW it doesn't matter what you use, so long as its WYSIWYG. 

[Vasshpit]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

.....I feel that as long as some WYSIWYG and relative similarity is kept, third party models should be fine (and third party bits for conversions should absolutely be fine), with the idea being that a model being proxied should at least look similar to what it s meant to convey (for instance using an appropriately sized Reaper daemon as a.....

+1

On a side note I do expect GeeDubs to release some zombies as its definitely become enough of "the norm" to proxy Mantic zombies that they've had to of noticed by now.

[Thain]

As long as I can tell at a glance from tabletop distance that Model X is meant to be Unit X, I say the more the merrier.

Games Workshop is rather unique in the broader wargaming hobby in that they have seemingly convinced a huge swath of their customers that they are part of the "Games Workshop hobby" not the wargaming hobby. For most war gamers, there's no such thing as only using one manufacturers models for the game. 

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

I'm perfectly fine with third party as long as it a) Doesn't look like ass (Like those badly done recasts that show nurgle-tier deformations) and b) Resembles the thing it supposedly counts as.

I, though, am fonder of the Citadel miniatures so I generally stick with them, though I've bought a few upgrade kits from third parties.

[Criti]

I think you know my opinion on this,  given that I was part of that conversation.  But I still say that since GW is not sponsoring the group, it's not a GW store, and the store owner doesn't care about sticking to GW.  As long as the model has the proper equipment on the scroll, I can't think of any legitimate reason for disallowing 3rd party models.

I would prefer people limit themselves to models they can get through the local store... but that is a part of a whole different "pay where you play" discussion.

[Galas]

1 hour ago, Thain said:

As long as I can tell at a glance from tabletop distance that Model X is meant to be Unit X, I say the more the merrier.

Games Workshop is rather unique in the broader wargaming hobby in that they have seemingly convinced a huge swath of their customers that they are part of the "Games Workshop hobby" not the wargaming hobby. For most war gamers, there's no such thing as only using one manufacturers models for the game. 

Just like Apple.

But that was actually words of the old ceo, Tom Kirby. He said that Games Workshop IS the hobby. If you don't play GW products, to the old GW, you are no part of this beautiful hobby.

And with how many years they push that agenda and advertising, its understandable how many... more-proGW-than-reasonable fellow hobbyst friends existed.

But today, with the past years of decline of GW (I say past years! Todays GW its actually pretty good!) and the proliferation of other alternatives, the Monopoly of the fantasy and sci-fi wargaming hobby of GW has ben shattered, to the benefit of all of us. 

If today's GW offer actual deals that save you money and not only clicks, engages with the community, relaunchs specialist games, lower prices with reboxes, etc... its because people open their eyes and closed their wallets to abusive practices. Thats why its so important to be a responsible consumer and think critically how you spend your money.

[Sadysaneto]

All my hammerers, longbeards, warriors, slayers, runelords, and belegar and ungrim are either aow or scibor.

 

Because old gw dwarfs are hedious.

[Thain]

1 hour ago, Sadysaneto said:

All my hammerers, longbeards, warriors, slayers, runelords, and belegar and ungrim are either aow or scibor.

 

Because old gw dwarfs are hedious.

If I ever win the PowerBall, I'm financing a plastics plant for Scibor. 

[Kosmion]

i get why theyre not allowed in GW stores, but outside of that i see no problem with it at all. unless the fig is for ex. 3x times the size of what unit its supposed to be, or the opposite, much smaller

[AGPO]

Personally I'd rather see a cool looking army with non-GW minis than play bare plastic. I have a fair few third party minis with my Daemons but nothing someone couldn't identify easily.

[Lord Veshnakar]

My personal opinion is this. I buy models from GW because I like the game that they produce, and I want to make sure it thrives and continues. 

This is in the same vein for me as buying miniatures at the FLGS I play at rather than deeply discounted from online retailers. If everyone bought their miniatures online then the FLGS would eventually close and then we would have nowhere to play. 

It's self defeating basically.  And this is my personal opinion mind you. It's your money, do what you want with it, especially if you like said 3rd party miniatures aesthetically. 

[Thain]

1 hour ago, Lord Veshnakar said:

My personal opinion is this. I buy models from GW because I like the game that they produce, and I want to make sure it thrives and continues. 

Fair enough; But, then again, we did all buy the rulebook(s) from GW and most of us have bought a sizable quantity of Citadel Miniatures too... Its a big marketplace, I see nothing wrong with patronizing all the people in it. 

Eating at Chipotlé on Tuesday doesn't mean I can't eat at Qdoba on Wednesday.

[Jamopower]

7 hours ago, Thain said:

As long as I can tell at a glance from tabletop distance that Model X is meant to be Unit X, I say the more the merrier.

Games Workshop is rather unique in the broader wargaming hobby in that they have seemingly convinced a huge swath of their customers that they are part of the "Games Workshop hobby" not the wargaming hobby. For most war gamers, there's no such thing as only using one manufacturers models for the game. 

I wouldn't say it exactly unique. In e.g. Infinity, Warmachine or Malifaux the alternative models are even rarer. I guess it's mostly because of the rules tied to the models and level of competitiveness in some cases. I guess one of the driving forces behind AoS is exactly the same. Shift from general Tolkinesque fantasy to more special themes that aren't so easily "ripped off".

[deynon]

No problem at all. I think anyway that such thing has to characterize in some way the army not to fall in the proxies.

Sincerely I don't find it problematic, maybe cause I first handely has always mixed to obtain something suitable to myself.

Sometimes I found some who only saw GW models as the way, even woth the poses of the models, but never once seen soneone refusing to play against my modified models , even in official stores.

[Bowlzee]

Like others here, I buy mostly GW miniatures from my FLGS. I do however use Alt miniatures and convert when the unit I want has a terrible model, or one I don't think fits my army.

They are almost exclusively Mierce Miniatures.



Currently working on this Daemon Prince conversion. Should be instantly recognizable as one, and that's the key.

[RuneBrush]

I've personally not a problem with third party models, as people have said there's quite a few cases where a third party produces a nicer sculpt than GW (especially some of their older models).  I do have more of an issue with models that are questionable in what unit they're being used for, more so for models that aren't in the same sort of scale - the old "Why is your GW Daemon Prince larger than your third party Bloodthirster?" type of thing!

Although I do have non-GW models at home, none of them are for GW games or any of my armies.  I've always been fortunate that I've enough hobby cash to purchase the more expensive models GW and the armies I collect, I fundamentally like all of the GW model range.  However I'd much rather play an opponent who's spent a bit of time and effort with their third party army than one who's spent no time on a grey-plastic GW army.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say I draw the line at recasts though 

[Haanz]

I have no issue whatsoever with third party miniatures at a gaming club or non-GW store. As others have said, this is pretty common in tabletop wargaming outside of Games Workshop and as long as it's clear what it is and adhere's to WYSIWYG, then I see absolutely no reason why anyone would oppose it - particularly with Mantic miniatures where things are often a 1:1 correlation.

Personally, I only ever use Games Workshop minaitures in Games Workshop games though, but this is purely because we don't have any independant FLGS's in my city to play in (we do have clubs) and don't want to model-lock myself out of my local Games Workshop.

[SadGlad]

I would say no unless it's only one or two models. 

 

I even say no to use non-GW miniatures in Blood Bowl. 

[Urbanus]

I love third party models! Im terrible with them. I have a fyreslayer army made up of Mantic elves!

[Criti]

45 minutes ago, SadGlad said:

I would say no unless it's only one or two models. 

 

I even say no to use non-GW miniatures in Blood Bowl. 

Why?

What's the justification?

[Crowsfoot]

I think as long as most of your miniatures are from the games designer it should not be a problem, I do believe you should try and support the game your playing and also your local games stores if you play there.

If you just play with friends anything goes.

My local shop is cool with anything being used.

[Lucio]

As a heavy convertor and someone who builds models around a theme, I've always made some use of third party models and even got away with using them at my local GW as long as they're painted or at least base coated to hide the parts / materials.

 

That said, there's often problems with third part miniatures, poor sculpts, poor casting quality, harder materials to convert so predominately I chose to use GW miniatures because of the quality of the product.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I find most 3rd party manufacturers to be vastly superior to GW sculpts when it comes to resin. Ever watched some poor soul try and assemble a Fire Raptor for 40K? Or the still-somewhat-ropey Finecast line.

Personally I get bits from everywhere, though I'm a bit fussy and the options for 3rd party Death models are fairly limited. I currently have a Mierce Wiht King who masquerades as a Vampire Lord because my regular opponents said he looks too imposing to be a Wight King, so there he went. Give him the Tomb Blade and my opponent can easily tell what he's about.

Other than that, I have a brace of Mantic Zombies, but the rest is Citadel. My Tau army is entirely Citadel because there's so little in terms of third party models.

My Guard though? Hoo-boy, they're a party and practically every 3rd party manufacturer is invited!