Marine Paradox

[Wishing]

It breaks the identity law. (Grey plastic has no identity.)

I agree with this. It’s about degrees and layers of visual identification.

If you play with coins, these cannot be visually identified as anything. There are no irritating clashes of one thing representing another thing, because everything is nothing.

If you play with grey plastic, the only visual identification is by race/model range. A grey marine is a generic marine, a grey ork is a generic ork. You only get clashes with visual identification if you use an ork as an eldar or similar.

Both of the above examples have no in-game visual identity. They have no fluff in their looks. The marine has no chapter, the ork no klan. The exception is if the grey model is covered in chapter/klan-specific iconography. That counts as a pseudo-paintjob in terms of identification.

Once the model gets paint, it assumes a visual identity in the game. You can easily ignore this identity, just like you can easily play with coins or unpainted models. But since most people start playing because they are attracted to the visual identity of models, it creates annoyance in many people when the paint suggests one identity and the rules suggest another. This annoyance can be mitigated with explanatory fluff and theme, and worsened by appearances of a WAAC attitude.

[totgeboren]

Whilst I have the funds to buy a whole Deathwing army if I wished, I own nine Blood Angels Terminator Squads in addition to two companies.

I don't really think anyone so far in this thread would mind playing you. Yours is the perfect example of when people are fine with codex-hopping. You use the DA codex to allow you to play a force which is well within the setting.
Ultramarines with Sanguinary priests or Iron Hands riding Thunderwolves is not really supported by the setting. The BA doing a Terminator assault just sounds awesome.

What people mind as I see it is those who have especially standard SM, but then realised they are really into fire after a while (Vulkan), only to find their inner beast and having lots of psychers following the SW codex, and only then realise they have mighty priests who grant them FnP and fast vehicles come the BA codex and so on.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I don't think you are thinking about this the same way most of us are. Yes, you can use another codex to represent different organisational structures that you can't represent with your own codex (see my post above, especially the reference to Captain Korvydae). The problem lies in the special rules. Would you argue that, due to their "initiative", a codex-organised force of ultramarines decide to drop all the heavy weapons from their tactical squads, force their scouts and veterans to swap armour (and in the case of the scouts, go a little crazy in the process), ALL become very skilled at counter attacking compared to every other marine in the universe, and gain a 6th sense that allows them to sense enemies (significantly better than any other space marines, at any rates), and also happen to find some animals that they allow to follow them around and fight with them? I am sure you could, but you WOULD need to spend quite some time thinking about the background story for your abnormal Ultramarines to justify it. Same goes for an entire force of Ultras developing psychic powers at the same time, and also managing to find a crap-load of power weapons. Far too coincidental for people to NOT think you are WAAC, unless you can give them justification in the form of an interesting backstory.

See, you're far too worried with making sure all the details match exactly. That's the unimaginative rules-lawyering and narrow-mindedness behavior I was talking about.

On the other hand, I'm looking at it as utilizing a list like BA to represent a force of Ultramarines who have adapted their tactics to use an all out assault force. And the niggling bit of the Black Rage is simply a game mechanic you have to deal with to represent it on the table. You just shrug and get over it. Using the Wolf Codex is really no different. The Tactical Squads are dropping their heavy weapons to become more mobile. The Ultramarines Veterans aren't becoming scouts. The Scouts are just getting a slight increase to their WS and BS (something they had in prior editions anyway...). See, when you actually have imagination, when you actually have a narrative for your army, you aren't worried about the nits and bits of the tabletop rules. You're confusing the ability to write an elementary framework story based on an existing template and adhere to it religiously as imagination, lol. That's not developing a theme. That's using an existing theme and parroting it. There's nothing wrong with that. However, it's neither the best, nor the only, way to do it.

Really, the problem with the game is that Games Workshop has ruined it, and newer players like you can't remember back when it was more flexible and less tailored to sell as many models as possible. It develops an elitist attitude amongst the newer players where anyone trying to deviate in the slightest bit is to be despised. It's a game kiddos. Just have fun with it. Stop worrying so much about what other people do with the plastic toy soldiers they bought simply because they didn't paint them in the color Games Workshop instructed, just because you might have chosen to do what you were told.

[Dreadlordpaul]

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer if i used the grey knights book to do a 1k son armyor if i used the space wolf book to do a world eaters force

[totgeboren]

Really, the problem with the game is that Games Workshop has ruined it, and newer players like you can't remember back when it was more flexible and less tailored to sell as many models as possible.

I always though of it the other way around. Us oldies tend to want people to put some heart and soul into their armies, and the new kids just wanna play with the latest shiny toys.
I would be surprised if S_A_T_S is a new player, and I think the 'elitist attitude' problem is much more prevalent amongst the vets than the newb. :P

[Scaryscarymushroom]

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer if i used the grey knights book to do a 1k son armyor if i used the space wolf book to do a world eaters force

Not necessarily.

But many people are saying that because lots of people who use books that don't match their modelled army are WAACers, doing so suggests that you might be one yourself. They're saying that it calls your intentions into question. Not that you're immediately guilty.

You are immediately guilty of breaking the identity law, however. And some fluff "laws" too.

By the way.

LOL at Ultrama-dark angels one minute in to this video. The timing for this batrep is perfect.

[wyvirn]

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer if i used the grey knights book to do a 1k son armyor if i used the space wolf book to do a world eaters force

Yeah, probably. The onus of proving you're not one is on you. Also, wtf does it matter what anonymous people on the internet think about you? Do you really need to ask people who have no bearing on your life whether they think something would be kosher?

[yabbadabba]

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer if i used the grey knights book to do a 1k son armyor if i used the space wolf book to do a world eaters force

No, and there is nothing written anywhere which says that you and you mates can't play anyway you feel like, however you will find some people who will get incredibly uptight about it, and if you act like a knob, expect to be called one.

[Yodhrin]

This for me.
The background material for the various factions and races is what draws a good many of us too an army, if your Salamanders are suddenly running as Blood Angels, you're essentially trampling over what a good number of people love most about the game for what? A tabletop advantage.

Or, in your example, the desire to theme your force around the Assault Reserve company; impossible in the regular 'dex. My Iron Hands are a small detachment of Veterans in an escort-sized ship which accompany my AdMech Explorator fleet, and you're damn straight I'm going to use the Space Wolves codex when they deploy on the tabletop, because it lets me take a Terminator HQ that unlocks the Vet unit as Troops; Logan Grimnar plus eleven Wolfguard becomes two six-man Iron Hands Vet squads, one led by a venerable Sgt in Termie armour, forming a complete detachment which can be allied with my IG-based AdMech without resorting to house rules or Apocalypse. I'm not going to whinge if someone shows up using Chaos Loganwing, or Ultrawing through the DA 'dex, or even a complete Kroot army using the Tyranids 'dex; why bother having Counts As at all if it whittles down to "Counts As anything you like except this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and it has to be from your "official" codex, and it can't be that, or that, or that..." etc etc.

If you want to complain about people using boring spammy powerlists go for it, I'll join you, but just because your opponent is using Green Angels or Yellow Angels or whatever, that doesn't automatically mean they'll be trotting out a FNP-Bubblepalooza or Fasterback Spam list.

EDIT:

Yeah, probably. The onus of proving you're not one is on you.

Actually no, you've made an error of elementary logic; if you advocate the positive, you must support it. YOU are prejudging people, YOU are making the positive assertion, so YOU must prove your point. If you can't -and you can't, because "they play not-red Blood Angels" is not enough information to declare someone a rabid WAAC'er- then don't make it.

[Dreadlordpaul]

Well if i was to do the world eaters one i would only be using wolf lord grey hunters blood claws wolf guard thunderwolf cav (converted to be bezerkers riding juggers) and long fangs. For the 1k sons id only be using a librarian strike squads interceptors and purgatation squads

[Charistoph]

You know, if someone approached me with it before hand, I'd probably accept playing an 8th or 1st Company build from Codex: Space Marines so long as their Captain was appropriately configured (or heck, even had Belial leading it for the 1st Company example).

But it's a different story if there is little/no discussion before hand and I see yellow Troop marines with Fists on their shoulders, Bolters, CCW, and BP, charging me while backed up by Sanguinary Priests.

So long as a proper discussion is had before hand, I will play it with little complaint (or rather, complaints would be had during the initial discussion and ironed out before we roll for the game).

[Egaeus]

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer if i used the grey knights book to do a 1k son armyor if i used the space wolf book to do a world eaters force

According to some people you would be, since there are rules for making those armies. So for some reason you are choosing to use rules other than the "official" ones for those units. And, as others have said, the crux of the matter is that reason.

As I've said before I place a great deal of the blame on GW for creating a "power curve" because of the way they release rules. So you may well want to use the GK or SW 'dex because it is more powerful, but at what point do we acknowledge that if the newer books are better, then by contrast the older books are weaker/worse? So if the majority of one's opponents use newer books, how is it WAAC to want an even playing field, to not be disadvantaged by the fact that using an older book one may be paying more for essentially the same units?

If all the Codexes were perceived as balanced then I believe there would be far fewer issues with codex-hopping, since changing books would merely give one different options in theme and play style. There would still be the issue of using an army painted in a specific scheme as a different army, simply because there is a link between what an army looks like and the fact that there are rules meant to be used with that scheme. But I think people would be far less inclined to automatically assume one is a powergamer for using a "different" book.

Of course the other option is for people just not to use GW-created schemes for their armies, but there are only so many color combinations out there...

[Stonerhino]

Well if i was to do the world eaters one i would only be using wolf lord grey hunters blood claws wolf guard thunderwolf cav (converted to be bezerkers riding juggers) and long fangs. For the 1k sons id only be using a librarian strike squads interceptors and purgatation squads

So you think a World Eaters army should look like

Chaos Lord
Chosen (Wolf Guard)
Chaos Marines (Grey Hunters/Blood Claws)
Havocs with heavy weapons(Long Fangs)
And Thunderwolf cav
???

So according to you guys i would be a Waacer

No according to you, you are. Don't hide behind "I think this better represents my army" and just say "I wants moooore".

And I can't think of anything that screams Thousand Sons better then Shunting Grey Knights.

[MajorWesJanson]

There is quite a difference between "I want to use this set of rules because I hear they are powerful and want to win" and "I want to use this ruleset because I like some of the options and fit a style of play I want to try"

I have a custom chapter, but am perfectly fine with switching books. I have been running a vanilla list with bikes and Khan, but now switched to the BA book because I wanted to try an armored company SM list (3 Raiders, 3 Baals, 3 Vindicators). Not because the BA book is "better" than the SM one, but because it allowed me to take options which let me play a different style list, without having to buy an entirely new army.

If someone has a painted Ultramarines force, but wants to try using the Space wolf, Dark Angels, or Blood Angels book, as long as the models are wsywyg or close, than assuming that the only reason they are doing so is that they are a WAAC player is rather petty. If someone has a nicely painted and themed army, they should be congratulated for their work, not derided for using it in a slightly different fashion than usual.

[S_A_T_S]

See, you're far too worried with making sure all the details match exactly. That's the unimaginative rules-lawyering and narrow-mindedness behavior I was talking about.

On the other hand, I'm looking at it as utilizing a list like BA to represent a force of Ultramarines who have adapted their tactics to use an all out assault force. And the niggling bit of the Black Rage is simply a game mechanic you have to deal with to represent it on the table. You just shrug and get over it. Using the Wolf Codex is really no different. The Tactical Squads are dropping their heavy weapons to become more mobile. The Ultramarines Veterans aren't becoming scouts. The Scouts are just getting a slight increase to their WS and BS (something they had in prior editions anyway...). See, when you actually have imagination, when you actually have a narrative for your army, you aren't worried about the nits and bits of the tabletop rules. You're confusing the ability to write an elementary framework story based on an existing template and adhere to it religiously as imagination, lol. That's not developing a theme. That's using an existing theme and parroting it. There's nothing wrong with that. However, it's neither the best, nor the only, way to do it.

Really, the problem with the game is that Games Workshop has ruined it, and newer players like you can't remember back when it was more flexible and less tailored to sell as many models as possible. It develops an elitist attitude amongst the newer players where anyone trying to deviate in the slightest bit is to be despised. It's a game kiddos. Just have fun with it. Stop worrying so much about what other people do with the plastic toy soldiers they bought simply because they didn't paint them in the colour Games Workshop instructed, just because you might have chosen to do what you were told.

See, again you don't seem to understand what I say. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. What you say above (hightlighted in red) is exactly what I meant. My example about the Space Wolves was listing the different things you would ideally need a justification/story for if you were to include them in your Ultramarines-counts-as-Space-Wolves list. Someone making a THEMED list is just not going to have all those options (even a Space Wolf player won't use all those options), but if they do end up taking particularly 'non-codex' units, they would ideally need an explanation/story, as you have provided in the quote above. All I would want is some little back story or thought to have gone into making your army. I really don't want to think that you have just decided "BA are hard, everyone on Warseer says they are really competitive, so I am going to give up playing my Ultras and just use the painted models I have for that army as BA instead."

As for "new player like you"; girl, please. I have been playing this game for more than 18 years. That may not be Rogue Trader days, but it's pretty damn close (2nd ed released in '93, I start in '94). Let's not add age assumptions to the WAAC assumptions that we are discussing.

[Lord Damocles]

So you think a World Eaters army should look like

Chaos Lord
Chosen (Wolf Guard)
Chaos Marines (Grey Hunters/Blood Claws)
Havocs with heavy weapons(Long Fangs)
And Thunderwolf cav
???

Funny that.

As an asside, I can't recall there ever being any background which has [non-character] Berzerkers riding Juggernaughts. This seems to be something which has been conjured out of the aether purely to allow for the use of Thunderwolf Cavalry (and Juggernaughts aren't even unit type Cavalry)...

[El_Machinae]

I play all my pawns like they have furious charge!

[Veteran Sergeant]

I always though of it the other way around. Us oldies tend to want people to put some heart and soul into their armies, and the new kids just wanna play with the latest shiny toys.
I would be surprised if S_A_T_S is a new player, and I think the 'elitist attitude' problem is much more prevalent amongst the vets than the newb. :P

It's just a different kind of elitism, haha.

I dunno, it's not an insult to call someone a new player. It's just something I've noticed. Maybe veterans of the game are just devolving too under GW's onslaught. It's not hard to lose sight of what the game used to be like if everyone around you is a relative newb and have only played the watered down 3rd+ Editions.

But I remember the old days when my list just had to be at least 25% troops, and any model could control an objective. I remember when the Codex Astartes was the Ultramarines greatest strength, before Graham McNeill turned it into their greatest weakness, lol. And the Sisters of Battle were just fanatical religious warriors with a penchant for arson and killing ambiguously gay Space Marines, and not D&D clerics calling on miracles from a god that isn't a god. And no, I'm not saying the game was perfect back then, because it certainly wasn't. But the mentality of the game was a lot less competitive, and a lot less angry, lol.

Or, maybe it's just the Interwebs that are angry, and in the old days there weren't any forums for me to read about people complaining so much.

Ultimately, the fluff of an army is entirely separate from what the game rules are. Sure, there are players who just want to use the latest and greatest list. Why wouldn't they? It's easy to turn your nose up at them, but people like to win, and GW has done a terrible job balancing the codex lists and avoiding codex creep because they get obsessed with "sequel syndrome" and every additional Space Marine Army has to do something bigger and more spectacular than the other ones. That's how the game evolves from Imperial tech being these clunky, lumbering dreadnoughts, to some silly looking, universe incongruous anime contraption with a Terminator strapped to the front. However, some players just want to do something a little different from time to time, and it's only natural that they might want to try out other armies. Space Marine players have that luxury. If the army they originally chose didn't work out, or they didn't like it, they can try a new one without buying too many new models. Not to plug my own project again, but why wouldn't I model my Space Marines to work with as many codex books as possible? People should be embracing all the new awesomeness that plastic kits and magnets provide players. Back in the day, if I wanted some cool kit on my Marines, I had to convert the crap out of the models, and then I was stuck with that conversion unless I wanted to completely re-do him.

[Egaeus]

As an asside, I can't recall there ever being any background which has [non-character] Berzerkers riding Juggernaughts. This seems to be something which has been conjured out of the aether purely to allow for the use of Thunderwolf Cavalry (and Juggernaughts aren't even unit type Cavalry)...

Well according to the 3.5 Chaos codex a unit of Chosen can be upgraded to all be Aspiring Champions, given the Mark of Khorne and then given Juggernaut mounts. So while they are technically all "characters" the option to have a unit of "Berserkers on Juggernauts" did exist. I would wager there are a lot of options that aren't explicity mentioned in background but are allowed by the rules. I don't recall if the original 3rd ed Chaos codex had Juggernauts as units but I could have sworn that at some point there was such a unit. The thing is, even if they didn't exist before I see it being a very "characterful" interpretation.

And that's another aspect: different books do have different options. If you want to do an all-Terminator army your choices are limited to Dark Angels, Space Wolves or Grey Knights. If you want all bikes it's Space Marines or Dark Angels. So to some extent a particular "theme" is restricted to particular books. But as people have mentioned other chapters can field such organizations...they may not do it commonly, but it can be done. Except that unless you use one of those rulesets that allows it, you can't organize your army that way.

Along those lines I would point out that in some cases some options haven't been available all along. Perhaps a player would have played Grey Knights if they had had plastic kits and a more rounded army to begin with. Now this becomes a bit harder to swallow with some armies, for example Space Wolves and Blood Angels which are still similar to their earlier incarnations despite getting some new toys...although perhaps some players would have chosen them had some of the new options been available all along. But I think I do want to try and a make a distinction between "new and shiny" versus purely "powergaming". Although I am still going to bring up the issue of power creep and not wanting to be at a disadvantage for using an older book...as I don't equate wanting a balanced game with WAAC powergaming.

[Wishing]

There is quite a difference between "I want to use this set of rules because I hear they are powerful and want to win" and "I want to use this ruleset because I like some of the options and fit a style of play I want to try"

There is, but distinguishing them isn't easy for a number of reasons. The main one being that the first of those motivations is normally considered entirely socially unacceptable, and therefore 99% of anyone who has ever done a counts-as army will claim that their motivation is the second one, no matter what their actual intention might be.