Proxy models in Matched Play

[Kerelian]

It's not entirely on topic, but I appreciate this discussion.

I personally much prefer being able to fiddle around and convert models if they are a frequent appearance in my army. I have nothing against the fixed poses, but being unable to personalise them makes for a more monotonous army. I spent untold hours mixing and matching my space marines into unique poses.

That said, I fully sympathise with the preference for easy assembly - that part of the hobby isn't everyone's favourite - and Nighthaunt would likely make for very difficult assemblies in multiple pieces.

[Kanyon40]

As was mentioned, many people probably have more of a problem with this than say so because they want to protect the community or don't want to be the bad guy or fun killer. We have a guy in our community who doesn't run any of his armies completely with the right models. No one says anything because our community is small and we don't want to lose anyone. But no one ever knows what units they are playing against. I have even played games where he was confused with what his units were supposed to be.

In my opinion, this shows a disregard for those who do invest time, money, and effort into having the right models. No, they aren't cheap. We all know that because we all buy them. The occasional stand in for a unit isn't so bad, but when I am playing my blood angels and I get attacked by Astorath the Grimm, and as a blood angels player I couldn't even recognize that the other player was using that blood angels character, that is a problem. Especially when he runs soup armies and uses the same models no matter the configuration.

I shouldn't have to work extra hard to know what I am up against, and it is hard to strategize when I can't look and tell what units are what on the table.

This ruins the immersion, competitive balance, and fun to me and others in my community (we play age of Sigmar and 40k, and the issue is present for both), but no one wants to be the bad guy. I believe it is up to the sent over to make sure their opponents know what is in the table if you aren't using the exact wysiwyg models. I can't know so the armies, so I certainly can't know all the potential proxies or stand ins for them.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Mohojoe]

Just throwing in my perspective into the ring. 

 

I don't get to play often so I'm more than happy to play against most stuff. Sure, I would prefer if people put in the same effort as I did but I know that's out of my control. 

In a tournament, usually the TOs set a boundary on what is allowed. All models painted with at least 3 colours and based etc. Proxies being used at a tournament I do not agree with (I'm aware your post was just about pick up games) as this competitive setting doesn't call for it. 

At the end of the day I want to play more games and meet more people so proxy away, just don't take the ******

[Ollie Grimwood]

19 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I hear ya, but my point is, you wouldn't find out if they did. This came up in another thread a few months back, so I'll give the short version of what I said there (without going into the whole discussion of social awkwardness and difficulty in being assertive for many in this hobby).

 

This is and has been a passion-topic of mine for the 30+ years I've been playing Warhammer. I've spoken to literally hundreds of people about it in many different settings. I've had to press (nicely) to let them feel safe in being honest, but in a surprising number of cases, people have eventually said that yeah, their opponents do things they would like to tell them to not do, but don't speak up because they don't want to look like the bad guy.

It's way more common than even I thought it would be.

 

We can all appreciate the skill and creativity involved in customizing and painting a model, but when that effort interferes, to whatever degree, with a player's ability to make the connection between on-field representation and the rules, it's actually pretty selfish of us to take the liberty. Cool awesome amazing display model? Hellz yeah! Difficult to recognize gaming piece? Nope.

No what happened is what I said happened.  I was there, I’ve been in the hobby for 30+ years and on the planet for 40 I’m able to judge people’s reactions and have a conversation with them to ascertain their feelings.  I’d rather someone  I’ve never met didn’t make assumptions on my character and conduct in circumstances they weren’t present at. 

 

 

 

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

.  I’d rather someone  I’ve never met didn’t make assumptions on my character and conduct in circumstances they weren’t present at

I wasn't assuming anything of the sort.

[KHHaunts]

In terms of matched play I and competitive settings I think it's dependent on your community. My local warhammer shop is very open to custom conversions providing they are made from.GW products.

In my opinion a proxy is taking a unit of models that you already own and saying "these count as" just because you want them in your army without spending money.

However if you by a model. Any model and repurpose it for your desired role then I say use what you like.

Example before modifying came out. I collected modifying that was a limited army. So I decided to run blood knights but wanted to keep my ghost theme so I converted some chaos horses with bits of cairn wraiths and Newtonian knights along with green stuff to create something very much like the current dreadblade narrows. I called dread wraiths explained this to my opponent and obviously assured them that I hasent added any keywords I shouldn't have and every response I have had has been great with people praising my creativity.

As above just be considerate of basing. And it's identification.

[Malios]

The topic of count as / proxying is always going to be plagued by subjective interpretation dependend on individual views, experiences and their gaming community. My personal views on such a topic, to emphasise this, are a mess of contradictions.

On one hand, I firmly believe in the "what you see is what you get" rule. This rule has been enforced in every wargaming community that I've been a part of and, from the gaming perspective, it keeps things direct and simple. If it looks like a plasma gun, its a plasma gun. If it doesn't look like a plasma gun, then its not. (I will be using alot of 40k examples from here on as its easier to relate for me then AoS. Apologies in advance)

On the other hand, I'm also a firm believer that the gaming aspect is only one part of the hobby: creativity in both painting, theming and modelling should be encouraged otherwise our hobby would consist of pre-built, mono coloured plastic miniatures on a pre-defined 2D gaming board (one would argue that our hobby is slowly becoming this way though with the coloured monopose kits and lack of wargear customisation in both 40k and AoS, but thats a different topic entirely and not something to discuss here).

With two very conflicting views, naturally my stance on the matter of proxies and counts as is a complicated one. I believe in the purism of "what you see is what you get" for the sake of gaming fairly and honestly, but also believe that our hobby should serve as an outlet for creativity rather then stamping it out. As a result, for me there is a line and that line shifts left and right depending on the context.

I fully endorse conversions and heavily praise people who do it well. Conversions when done well, particularly when the model is still readily identifiable from three feet away, is a skill in itself and can give alot of individual character to an army. As someone who can't sculpt or greenstuff very well myself, I have a great deal of hobby respect for those who can. I will never have a problem with conversions. Examples would incude someone repositioning Skarsnik.

As mentioned previously by others in this topic, a "count as" to me is generally acceptable so long as its readily identifiable, mostly matches the aesthetic and / or has had lots of effort, time and money thrown into it. Unless specified otherwise like in games of warhammer underworlds, being one of a few exceptions where  the rules are clear. Examples of such acceptable "count as" would include:

- Using anvil industry plasma guns in place of GW plasma guns. Great, its a plasma gun and probably cost as much.

- old matey investing a big deal of time using greenstuff, guitar strings plasticard and spare kharadron bitz to steampunk his odd unit of irondrakes he bought years ago into arkanauts to supplement his current Kharadron army. Fits the theme as well as the aesthetic.

- using 3rd party miniatures in general when they look, are equipped with and fit the theme of the units they represent. Mantic zombies and Ghouls are still zombies and ghouls. Avatars of War dwarfs are still disposessed duardin.

- An old fantasy Dwarf player uses his or her out of print metal  troll slayers as vulkite berserkers in a fyreslayers army. Great, they're basically the same thing these days and he spent a bank loan on those miniatures.

- using bretonnian men at arms as free guild companies. Great, they're GW miniatures at the end of the day and are equipped the same way.

- using chaos warhounds as Khorne Fleshhounds. This one pushes my limits because often its a decision purely to save $$ rather then for any other artistic reason, especially when flesh hounds were must have units  in Khorne daemonkin and other Khorne armies. But, I let this slide because as an Australian I'm empathetical towards the price gouging in this hobby as my country is on the worse off end of the stick. In this context the aesthetics are similar enough, the  warhounds themselves are plastic and more desirable to most hobbyists over taking the risk of investing in wallet-gouging failcast and you can buy four times as many. But, don't push my empathy as a fellow hobbyist by fielding warhounds and flesh hounds in the same army and using the same models to represent both.

 Despite having less or more leeway depending on the context of the game when it comes to count as, I do draw hard lines when the count as is so radically different to its intended purpose and / or has malicious intent behind it to gain a gaming advantage or be considered lazy. Some examples include:

- "Thousand Sons" Grey Knights and "Khorne Wing" dark angels from 5th edition era 40k. Some of the projects from a hobby perspective were works of art, but often their intent (to capitalise on the Matt Ward era codex creep because their "chaos dex was sub par in comparison") was not.

- Exodite "dragon wraithknights" in 7th edition 40k. Again, another great example of excellent hobbying and creativity, but is too different from a wraithknight to really represent one, even if the mini titan had a monstrous creature statline.

For this reason alone, to the original poster, I'm a firm "no" for the Skaven painted as nighthaunt. Nighthaunt have a very specific aesthetic which Skaven are too radically different from to identify from three feet away. I would also be inclined to say that such skaven models painted up quickly as "ghost rats" was lazy hobbying unless extensive effort was put in to make those Skaven truly appear like nighthaunt models.

But... Each to their own. If its an idea that you want to invest your money and time into and people are happy to play against it, go for it. However, if you set up ghost-painted out of the box clan rats across the table from me and said they were chainrasps, I'd probably decline from playing you in future after the game concluded if you were not a close friend because I'd see you as "that guy."

[amysrevenge]

I guess another way to look at the possible reactions to proxies and counts-as and such is a spectrum:

4: I love it, keep it coming

3: It's ok

2: Don't care

1: I don't like it, but you do you

0: Not only do I dislike it, I forbid *you* from doing it too

Me, I'm a strong 3.8-4 on that scale.  I'm happy to play with folks down to 1, but anyone dipping down below 1 makes me uncomfortable.

[Skreech Verminking]

Proxies i guess it depends.

i have played a few games where my partner wanted to try out his new army but couldn’t because the delivery was delayed for another month.

I even played against a full tau army beeing proxied as bullgors because my friend just wanted to know if this is the play style which suits him best in aos.

so I literally allow proxy, as long as their is a certain reason behind it. Playing a whole army proxied for like 3-5times will still be tolerated by me but that might have just been the last match I played against you

[erasercrumbs]

Keep in mind that whatever Nagash does to Skaven ghosts in death, the Great Horned Rat is infinitely more unkind. He turns the overwhelming majority of them into writhing, fetus-like grubs in the Realm of Chaos after they die. Being a ghost soldier sounds way nicer!

That said, I think the only people that would have real problems with your conversions would be grouchy people that would be no fun to play with anyway.