Season of war: Firestorm - Painting for rules debate.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, Burf said:

Preach it. I ran the alpha legion color scheme for my whitescars, ultramarines, and ravenguard through all of 7th and have blood raven ravenguard that you bet your behind I'm still running Shrike with in 8th. My stormcasts are all Gold and purple and my Neave and her shadowhammers will be too.

If you want a fluff accurate paintjob, play a historical.

You're coming dangerously close to saying that your personal preference is the 'right' way and everyone else is wrong. Considering your preference for mixing and matching paint schemes with rules in such a conspicuous and relaxed way is far from the norm in my experience, you might want to rethink your tone.

And why should historicals have the monopoly on being accurate to the setting and period? If we're not going to represent the background on the tabletop in a somewhat accurate and immersive way then why bother having background at all? If the White Scars can be represented using any colour scheme you please, why stop there? Why not represent them using Tyranid models, or green plastic army men? Why bother saying the rules are for 'White Scars' at all if it doesn't matter what you use to represent them?

To me, the logical end point of your approach is to dispose of the background completely and just have a purely mechanics-based game that people are free to cherry-pick special rules from as they please - and also free to use whatever kind of wild proxy models they want. I suppose some might relish that degree of freedom but for me it would be a complete turn off.

[RuneBrush]

11 hours ago, Solaris said:

And what if your opponent says, "Hey, I know they're painted like Lions of Sigmar, but I want to try out the Hammers of Sigmar formation, is that ok?"

Or, what if he has painted his entire army as animated statues guarding a lost, ancient city ruin and had several pages of fluff written on his paint log on the internet, and wanted to run them as Hammers of Sigmar? (Yes, this is an army that I was/am planning to do at some point  )

I honestly think that you'd have to be a complete jackass to object in either case, but maybe that's just me.

Again depends on the opponent and game being played.  If my opponent rocked up and dumped it on me with no notice I think anybody has the right to be a bit miffed.  I'd also be less annoyed with the second instance than the first!  One shows lots of effort and time, the other shows somebody who doesn't think the background is important enough to follow (or worse still isn't bothered) - no matter how you wrap it up in your own fluff.  However you think about it, AoS is a visual game and not just between the two players, running one army as another in whatever game system is going to cause confusion and everybody is going to have their own opinion on if that's OK or not.  It's also a step away from the dreaded "this bottle top represents model X"

But I will add in a caveat in case my comments are coming across as forcing my own opinion as being the only one - if my opponent spoke to me prior to the game then it will change things entirely.  It could be that I might want to do the same and try out something a bit different without the usual constraints of how I've painted my army.  For me this discussion is very much down to respecting your opponent and communicating properly.

9 minutes ago, Burf said:

If you want a fluff accurate paintjob, play a historical.

Not quite what I've been saying (typed media is never a good platform for a discussion) and you're entirely entitled to your opinion on what you want to run for your armies.  Personally for me, I've put hours into painting up my Bloodbound as part of The Goretide.  It's not been laziness or not being creative, but integrating my army into the background that exists.  I know that I can put it down on any table and don't even need to utter a word for it to communicate what it's about or does.  My Orruks are being painted completely non-standard, white armour, turquoise blue skin and likely a Syish themed but hopefully should still convey exactly what they're about.

@tea_wild_owl That ghost ship looks amazing!

[Thebiggesthat]

12 minutes ago, AlexHarrison said:

I think you will find we don't push grey plastic in 40k and in fact every model is painted in tournament play. We also can paint our models how we want, and since when is a game of toy soldiers about looking how "they should". Why does your opinion on what "they should" look like apparel to someone else's view on what "they should" look like? Seriously, this bugs me, and putting 40k players in a specific boat is unnecessary when we have more variety to choose from (GW produced successor chapters for a reason).  Stop going off topic and trolling please, you're just inciting posts like this one.

Oh, and you said the opposite when you were first on the scene. So who's the troll?

[Turragor]

Edit post too long and OT

[AlexHarrison]

5 minutes ago, Thebiggesthat said:

Oh, and you said the opposite when you were first on the scene. So who's the troll?

Opposite to what sorry? Im not trying to be personal mate, just stating that your views can come across trying to incite quite a harsh conversation so lets just all move on with this topic. It's derailing currently. 

Anyways, as to the firestorm abilities, I'd like to see them at least played out in a few tournaments before people cry cheese and instinctively ban them. Personally I think they arn't overly as strong as some people have pointed out compared to some combo's already in the game.  

[Solaris]

1 hour ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

And why should historicals have the monopoly on being accurate to the setting and period? If we're not going to represent the background on the tabletop in a somewhat accurate and immersive way then why bother having background at all? If the White Scars can be represented using any colour scheme you please, why stop there? Why not represent them using Tyranid models, or green plastic army men? Why bother saying the rules are for 'White Scars' at all if it doesn't matter what you use to represent them?

Oh dearie me, using Tyranid models as something else, who would do such a vile thing? In that case I assume you would be completely adverse to fun and unique projects like this one?

 

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

Again depends on the opponent and game being played.  If my opponent rocked up and dumped it on me with no notice I think anybody has the right to be a bit miffed.  I'd also be less annoyed with the second instance than the first!  One shows lots of effort and time, the other shows somebody who doesn't think the background is important enough to follow (or worse still isn't bothered) - no matter how you wrap it up in your own fluff. 

Agree to disagree then. I think everyone is in their full right to pick the colors and the Chapter rules they prefer for the army that they put countless hours into, and I don't think anyone has the right to object or be miffed if it is silver and yellow instead of gold and blue. Your army, your choice. If someone doesn't think the background is important enough to follow because they find the standard colors boring and uninspired, they will of course paint them differently. It's a creative hobby, so let people be creative!

Quote

But I will add in a caveat in case my comments are coming across as forcing my own opinion as being the only one - if my opponent spoke to me prior to the game then it will change things entirely.  It could be that I might want to do the same and try out something a bit different without the usual constraints of how I've painted my army.  For me this discussion is very much down to respecting your opponent and communicating properly.

I still don't see it though, why do you have to be warned in advance that your opponent wants to run a specific formation but has the "wrong" colored shields? It seems utterly absurd to me.

Quote

Not quite what I've been saying (typed media is never a good platform for a discussion) and you're entirely entitled to your opinion on what you want to run for your armies.  Personally for me, I've put hours into painting up my Bloodbound as part of The Goretide.  It's not been laziness or not being creative, but integrating my army into the background that exists.  I know that I can put it down on any table and don't even need to utter a word for it to communicate what it's about or does.  My Orruks are being painted completely non-standard, white armour, turquoise blue skin and likely a Syish themed but hopefully should still convey exactly what they're about.

@tea_wild_owl That ghost ship looks amazing!

I'm doing a unique take on everything that I make, but I also make an effort to make sure my models convey what they are about. This includes brown-skinned ogres, orcs and grots (themed army, beasts of the savannah), black-grey malignants (ghosts of the desert) and the like. I am also happy to use non-standard models if they better convey the themes that I want in my army. If someone told me "I don't want to play you because your spirit hosts aren't turquoise and your banshee isn't produced by GW" it would honestly blow my mind. I find this attitude utterly incomprehensible.

   

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Solaris said:

Oh dearie me, using Tyranid models as something else, who would do such a vile thing? In that case I assume you would be completely adverse to fun and unique projects like this one?

 

 

It really irritates me when people pick on the one aspect of a post they think they can score cheap shots with and ignore the rest, so if that was your intention congratulations.

Conversions that are entirely the product of the player's imagination, fielded using generic rules, is one thing. An army painted and modeled as an established background faction benefiting from the special rules of an entirely different established background faction is very different, whether you agree with it or not. But I think you know that.

[RuneBrush]

I'm not going to reply to every bit because I think we've de-railed the topic massively already

14 minutes ago, Solaris said:

I still don't see it though, why do you have to be warned in advance that your opponent wants to run a specific formation but has the "wrong" colored shields? It seems utterly absurd to me.

You're right - it is absurd.  But there's a difference between the a non-standard scheme and an army that's painted as something else.  As I said I believe it's just polite if you don't really know your opponent to warn them that you're bringing Lions of Sigmar but running them as Hammers of Sigmar.  You don't have to of course, but you have to accept that your opponent may take exception to what you've done which may (or not) affect potential future games.  This is the point I'm trying to convey and it's blown into an in-depth conversation about conversions, custom paint schemes and all sort which most people (myself included) don't have an issue with.

I also have no idea why spirit hosts even came into the conversation - they don't have a background based colour scheme!  My example of my Orruks was to try and emphasise that I'm not a militant Ogor who wants everything to look as if it came out of the forges of GW - I'm not, I'm quite relaxed about conversions and similar!

[Keldaur]

Runebrush, yes there is a difference, where i disagree is that i don't find it impolite. I won't take for granted that someone who i haven't played with that he is out to get me because he didn't bring the "right scheme".

I might be wrong, but i do believe that's what solaris is saying. The problem isn't his army not matching the right colours in fluff, the problem is adhering moral values and prejudices because he didn't bring the right colours. And when it is a person who you don't know, that is extra important, because you don't really know what is going on, and if that can be off putting to you, then you should be the one making questions to guarantee your expectations on the game, because i am sure you will agree that everyone has their own thoughts on what they do value the most about the hobby. Ranging from gaming, to painting, to conversions, to fluff and everything in between and with different priorities for each person.

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Keldaur said:

Runebrush, yes there is a difference, where i disagree is that i don't find it impolite. I won't take for granted that someone who i haven't played with that he is out to get me because he didn't bring the "right scheme".

When it comes to politeness what you as an individual think doesn't matter. You have to act in accordance with what the people around you consider to be polite or the whole concept of politeness doesn't work.

 

5 minutes ago, Keldaur said:

I might be wrong, but i do believe that's what solaris is saying. The problem isn't his army not matching the right colours in fluff, the problem is adhering moral values and prejudices because he didn't bring the right colours. And when it is a person who you don't know, that is extra important, because you don't really know what is going on, and if that can be off putting to you, then you should be the one making questions to guarantee your expectations on the game, because i am sure you will agree that everyone has their own thoughts on what they do value the most about the hobby. Ranging from gaming, to painting, to conversions, to fluff and everything in between and with different priorities for each person.

 

When you're interacting with someone you don't know (in any situation, not just gaming), the mature thing to do is to act according to the default polite and acceptable standards of the society as a whole, until you get to know that person more intimately and can find your own level with them.

In the case of Warhammer my experience suggests that people who paint an army as one faction and play it as another are a very small minority (to be specific, I have never met anyone IRL who does this). So when meeting with and playing against strangers I feel it's polite and appropriate that they should default to the community standard of playing the army they've collected, modeled and painted, rather than cherry-picking whatever special rules they please and expecting everyone else to fall into line. It doesn't matter how loudly they wail about creative freedom or how petty they may think WYSIWYG is, if their way isn't the norm then they have no right to expect that their personal preferences should be respected.

[Solaris]

35 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Conversions that are entirely the product of the player's imagination, fielded using generic rules, is one thing. An army painted and modeled as an established background faction benefiting from the special rules of an entirely different established background faction is very different, whether you agree with it or not. But I think you know that.

There is also a difference between a player saying "I like this theme and these rules, but I dislike the standard colors. Since I will put countless hours into my army, I'm going to paint them in a way that I like instead." and a person saying "This shoe box is a Rhino, this one is a Stormraven, and the green army men are Terminators. Deal with it ******." I think you know that as well. You are coming off as extremely intolerant of hobbyist's creative freedom in a creative hobby. To me, and to many others it seems, creative freedom is far more important than adhering to the color scheme someone else has pushed as being the "right one".

WYSIWYG refers to equipment, not color choices.

33 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I'm not going to reply to every bit because I think we've de-railed the topic massively already

You're right - it is absurd.  But there's a difference between the a non-standard scheme and an army that's painted as something else.  As I said I believe it's just polite if you don't really know your opponent to warn them that you're bringing Lions of Sigmar but running them as Hammers of Sigmar.  You don't have to of course, but you have to accept that your opponent may take exception to what you've done which may (or not) affect potential future games.  This is the point I'm trying to convey and it's blown into an in-depth conversation about conversions, custom paint schemes and all sort which most people (myself included) don't have an issue with.

I also have no idea why spirit hosts even came into the conversation - they don't have a background based colour scheme!  My example of my Orruks was to try and emphasise that I'm not a militant Ogor who wants everything to look as if it came out of the forges of GW - I'm not, I'm quite relaxed about conversions and similar!

You're right, we're derailing the thread completely, so sorry about that =) I still don't see why anyone would take exception to my shields and trims being a different color than what's on the box. Spirit Hosts came into it because they do have a background-based color scheme from the way they are always portrayed in art!

I see the difference that you mention, but I disagree with it. If someone says "I like these colors, and these rules, so in my army I will combine them", then nobody has any right whatsoever to complain about it. Unless the person starts painting penises on every shield and banner, there simply is nothing to take offence to. I disagree that you have to communicate in advance that you want to play a regular game with a regular army - this is the absolute norm! You are the one imposing specific demands on the game by saying that you want everything to be painted according to what's written in the book, so you are the one that needs to communicate this special request in advance.

Anyway, we probably should stop this discussion, since it's massively derailing  

[Keldaur]

And that's what i am saying, that what you find to be the "default", is not neccessarily true for everyone. That is why you need to talk beforehand if that kind of stuff is so off putting. That's the mature thing to do, not to take for granted that something as inocuous as bringing an army not painted in the right fluff schemes is a sympton of unpoliteleness.

We like to talk about being a hobby, toy soldiers, and not taking it too seriously, but i find double standards on that matter when it comes to army representation or competition alike.

For example, i like playing good games, and that is what i value the most. If i play a game with someone who mostly values the hobby as a painter and collector, and he brings a list that will have a very poor match up against me, i will ask him to give me a moment, and make a list so we can both enjoy the game. I am the one who is responsible of my own enjoyment, and i won't think any less for somebody else, specially if I don't know him, for not valueing the hobby the same way i do.

Also, good for you that you have a likeminded community, but that isn't neccessarily true for most people. I hope you realize that if we are discussing is exactly because not only our expectations might be different, but that our anecdotical evidence also is different. The community standard around here is to enjoy wargames as games first, but we won't find that someone is being impolite because he doesn't fit the community consensus.

I don't know, i might not be good at conveying points, but it's mostly that if given the choice i would prefer to be inclusive, rather than exclusive.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Solaris said:

There is also a difference between a player saying "I like this theme and these rules, but I dislike the standard colors. Since I will put countless hours into my army, I'm going to paint them in a way that I like instead." and a person saying "This shoe box is a Rhino, this one is a Stormraven, and the green army men are Terminators. Deal with it ******." I think you know that as well. You are coming off as extremely intolerant of hobbyist's creative freedom in a creative hobby. To me, and to many others it seems, creative freedom is far more important than adhering to the color scheme someone else has pushed as being the "right one".

If you knew me at all you'd know that I'm the last person to 'restrict creative freedom' in this hobby. The issue here is that you're conflating creative freedom with the right to cherry pick special rules. No one at any point has suggested that people shouldn't model and paint their armies however they want. It's crazy that I need to type this out explicitly but here goes - everyone should collect, model and paint their armies in any way they damn well please. Be as creative as you like - all of the freedom is yours and no-one is trying to deny you that. The issue is with people cherry-picking special rules for an army that they don't own and haven't taken the time to build and paint.

You think people have the automatic right to have it both ways - you want full creative freedom as well as full freedom on the tabletop to play however you want with whatever army you want. Well sorry, but what you do with your army in your own painting space is entirely up to you, but as soon as you start interacting with another person and the wider community then you have to suck it up and take their opinions and feeling into consideration too. As soon as your army leaves the painting table and enters the gaming table it's not all about you any more. To think otherwise would be extremely immature and self-centered.

The complete freedom to mix and match the way you want your army to look and how you want it to play is not typical of the community as a whole. It's not the standard. Your attitude is an outlier and no-one else is under any obligation to accommodate you, no matter how right you think you are.

[stato]

20 hours ago, stato said:

Given the issues they had with the Escalation battle plan, this 'Without Warning ability' for units to only deploy within 6" of an edge and 9" from enemy could be seen as particularly weak?

Certainly if you are facing a fast and numerous enemy, or one with their own deployment shenanigans, then you could find whole board edges neutralised for this deployment.  So you might be limited to only using it with your faster units, which kind of spoils the point maybe?   Im not a Death player so not sure.  Certainly it might force the opponent to hold units against their own table edge, which would be useful, not sure how it compares to other abilities.  The fact that it you might not get a unit at all kind of seems harsh.

Im just going to quote myself incase anyone actually wants to discuss Firestorm rather than Space Marines.

[Solaris]

@Jamie the Jasper You just come off as extremely intolerant at this point, so I'm not going to waste any more time on this discussion. I'm simply glad that both my local community and the "community as a whole" that I regularly interact with is not as intolerant.

39 minutes ago, stato said:

Im just going to quote myself incase anyone actually wants to discuss Firestorm rather than Space Marines.

I'm not completely sure on how to use this ability with the Death range currently. It would seem the most useful for shooting units, which Death has a remarkable lack of. Otherwise, units that can reliably charge 9" could be good as well.

[Keldaur]

Yeah it is also a very high inconvenience as plenty of people can find it offputting to commit to a scheme for its army, if it's going to come back and bite them in the ass later if they change their mind.

Anyways, apologies for the hijacking, no more offtopic from me.

[Ollie Grimwood]

I like a hobby job that matches the fluff, ooer missus nudge nudge wink wink (I wouldn't normally use the term fluff but I like how it sounds in the sentence) 

But that's boring who knows anything more about the Orruks in this campaigns beyond what we've seen in on the web store?  Ollie needs to get his Waaagh on (that's right I'm referring to myself in the third person) 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Solaris said:

@Jamie the Jasper You just come off as extremely intolerant at this point, so I'm not going to waste any more time on this discussion. I'm simply glad that both my local community and the "community as a whole" that I regularly interact with is not as intolerant.

Right, you hold the minority position and practically demand that the majority should accommodate you because apparently you're right and they're wrong, but somehow I'm being intolerant for pointing out the absurdity of this attitude. How does that make me intolerant? I honestly don't know how to conduct a rational and civilised discussion with someone who prefers to cast lazy aspersions on my character rather than engaging with any of the points I've made, so I too am now done.

[Twitch of Izalith]

On 21/09/2017 at 2:28 PM, Thebiggesthat said:

You are more than welcome to pick and choose what rules you want. Hopefully you have a gaming group that's fine with that. but please don't pretend it's anything other that choosing what gives you the best result on the table 

You can paint up some necrons in stormast livery and make a story of why they use seraphon abilities if you want.  

Personally, if I pitched up and the opponent put down some blood angels, and said, oh yeah, these are now space wolves because it suits how I want to play, I'd shake hands and pack up. It's the beauty of the hobby, you'll always find someone that wants to play your way I'm sure

 

Really?  What have you got against space wolves?

Playing a game against space wolves painted red that don't really look like space wolves isn't really any different from just playing a game where you had the right models. As long as you agreed beforehand on which ones were thunder wolves or wulfen or something that really does work better with the proper model.

It takes a long time to get a new army ready for the table so I would be  totally fine if someone wanted to try out another chapter using the one they had already as proxy. As long as I can tell what battlefield role a unit has (jump pack, heavy weapon etc) I can play against it whatever colour it is. I might draw the line if someone wanted to use models from a totally different army but swapping space marines for other space marines would be ok.

Bringing it Back to AoS everthing I said above would also apply to stormcast. I would probably enjoy it more playing against one of the city forces that was painted up to represent it's allegiance but since Its kind of rare that I even get a game with every model fully painted in any colour - other than primer - I guess I can't afford to be too picky!! 

[Ben]

I'lllet this continue but the people in here arguing and name calling/character bashing need to settle down.  

[Solaris]

59 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Right, you hold the minority position and practically demand that the majority should accommodate you because apparently you're right and they're wrong, but somehow I'm being intolerant for pointing out the absurdity of this attitude. How does that make me intolerant? I honestly don't know how to conduct a rational and civilised discussion with someone who prefers to cast lazy aspersions on my character rather than engaging with any of the points I've made, so I too am now done.

No, I simply allow everyone to paint their models the way they like, whilst using the warhost/chapter/city/whatever special ruleset they prefer, or simply to experiment with different ones. I'd like people to show me the same consideration back, however it doesn't apply due to the armies that I play at the moment. You're being intolerant by having an attitude that people should be forced to conform to your preferences with their own painstakingly painted armies, yes. The assertion that my position is in the minority and that the community as a whole shares your opinion lacks foundation. My experience is entirely different, people tend to be pretty chill and accommodating, which I think is nice.

[chord]

I'd not play with a person who tells me my colors are wrong.  Bought my stormcast and painted them prior to any color scheme rules.  And in the starter book it says paint however you want.  I'm not buying more and I'm not repainting.  

[Burf]

On 9/20/2017 at 4:27 PM, Trout said:

What if the rule is that to qualify for a certain allegiance the models must be painted a certain way?

 

ADMIN EDIT : This is a split thread from the Firestorm Season of War book.  

Then I don't go to your event and tell everyone who'll listen to avoid it also.

[Ollie Grimwood]

55 minutes ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

Really?  What have you got against space wolves?

They've been cheating filth since second edition (but that's a different story). Cool background though ?

[Kramer]

On 9/21/2017 at 11:49 AM, Thebiggesthat said:

I agree. If you are honestly interested in a narrative focused, fluffy army, with the backstory of the Anvilguard for example, I'd expect someone to paint the models to match that. 

I agree with @BunkhouseBuster. And I think 'honestly' a bit to 'set in stone' (sorry not really what I mean but it doesn't really translate well, haha so hopefully you will get what I mean). Because this is my point, and I think BunkhouseBuster's as well. The narrative keeps me in the hobby when I'm building, when i'm playing and even in the competitive moments.  But if GW makes some amazing ruleset (personally don't like these but hey) I can't apply it to my own ficticious city forces. That sucks. I would like the option to field the army as a Anvilguard style army but just change the words to fit my city force. That way I can have my own fluff, but still be able to have acces to certain rules. 

That's the one part I like about the allies/grand alliance set-up. Now if I wanted to build a bonesplitterforce that kept the monster they hunted I can field such a force.  Same with a nurgle force that is heralded by Giant rats and mutated rat ogors. 

And being limited in that sense by a paint scheme seems a bit silly to me. Although I do understand your point of being true to the fluff if you want to play narrative. I think it's the difference of using the fluff as a set up or as a (more or less) fleshed out setting.

On 9/21/2017 at 11:49 AM, Thebiggesthat said:

ou kind of have to have a relaxed view of these sorts of things, in both competitive and non-competitive play.

And this is something everyone should use as a mindset for playing with plastic toy soldiers