Tournaments and Proxying / WYSIWYG

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Mitt Romney is that you? Thanks for taking my point out of context. I was clearly not talking about proxies, but about needing to have say all 40 of an empire halberdier unit have halberdiers as opposed to say half (with the other half having swords and shields).

Howdie Newt, don't worry, you'll learn basic political rhetoric someday! Not.

You were arguing that there is no WYSIWIG in Fantasy, and of course I agree with you that we should not take it to extremes in your example but the salient point within this context is that there remains a certain level of WYSIWIG. It's sometimes up to the players and sometimes up to the TO but it's there. Your example is one I'd have no qualms playing with or against and is a good means to save some dough but I'd rather not give some people licence.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Little fuzzy pom-poms!Im sorry but that is hilarious i almost wet myself when i read that.

Here's a picture for you:



This is the infantry but he also has clamstrosities (clamshells with googly eyes on 40mm bases for MI/MC/MB) and various other proxies.

Interesting to read other people's opinions. I can't say I disagree. The 50/50 (roughly) idea I like quite a lot...this is actually something I do with my Empire where my units are roughly 50/50 between spears and halberds. I think it will look a little silly with the Grave Guard because the models (old and new) are so different but hey, if that's the only solution. Like I said before, the GG are not even in my tournament list atm (bc i run a cavbus list), but who knows what i decide in the future.

Oddly enough I have 20-30 old (really old) grave guard models with halberds and another 20 or so hand weapon and shield, so I can mix and match to make a decent unit of about 30 either way.

Have you ever experienced horrible proxies at tournament...or even asked the organizer to remove certain models off the board?

I've never asked an organiser to remove models. Big tournaments don't tend to have a problem with proxies, much more at small tournaments where people are trying out their lists and soforth. Probably the funniest was at a mid-sized tournament my friend forgot his hellcannon (this was one where we travelled and had submitted lists weeks earlier) and the TO promised to bring him a replacement. Well, no replacement could be found so eventually he went to war with a plastic dinosaur with an empire cannon tacked on the back.

@ Lord Inq: You run GG with HW/SH you say? Very interesting! Could I pursuade you in writing up your thoughts in the VC tactica thread because there are no others (maybe 1 or 2) there that advocate running this setup and I'd be very interested to read more about your unit choices that synergize with this as well as the success you've had with that.

I'll do that then.

Page 88, Weapons: First paragraph: A minority of the unit can carry different weapons for the same of varierity. Units counts as what the majority is armed with. Its important that the appearance of the unit isn't misleading (Paraphrased it). So simply said, they are in the right unless you field them with Shields .
So yeah there is a degree of WYSIWYG in Warhammer Fantasy.

One can argue how much of a hard rule this is, but still completely justifies their view.

Right. Which is why many tournaments make this a literal rule - at least 51% of your unit needs to have the right equipment. This rule is probably intended more for things like command groups, that often don't have the weapons of the unit modeled on there.

Why not? Why is it any different for a character vs a unit? In both cases you have to point out and make it clear to your opponent that the model is actually carrying different gear from what it actually has. And in both cases an opponent could easily forget and make a mistake. It is also a lot easier (and cheaper) to have characters as WYSIWYG than units. You may have to have 3 different sorcerers to represent all the builds, but that is sure cheaper than having to have 3 separate units of 50 empire state troops (halberdiers, swordsmen, and spearmen). It seems you are trying to straddle the fence on this. Either Warhammer is WYSIWYG or it isn't.

Well, characters are a lot more variable than the units. It's not very reasonable to expect a player to have enough character models for any given set-up, particularly when using old or dramatic models. Especially when different tournaments may have different comp that affect how you want to build the characters. I sculpted a Tyrant for my OK, and I armed him with the Tenderiser (I even copied the illustration under the tenderiser in the book), no shield since great weapon and with Mawseeker he was tough enough. I made him look WYSIWYG. New book - Tenderiser is gone. I want to arm him with a shield and the great weapon isn't a good option. I spent six months making this model, I don't want to use another (hard enough fitting a Tyrant in at all!), I don't want to convert him but the new book has taken away the weapon I used to use and I don't want to use a sub-optimal set-up. I might at some point add a shield on his back to get a bit closer but for the time being I'm happy with his Enchanted Shield being an Enchanted Gut Plate if anyone asks.

Likewise I have vampire character models without armour that I'm fielding with armour and so on. Normally I'll try to fit the models as close as I can but I'd rather use a cool looking model even if the equipment isn't spot on.

Is this a double standard? Sort of I guess. I'm just used to the expectation that my units need to be armed right (at least the majority) but characters are a bit more flexible. Since magic items don't (for the most part) have to be shown, it seems silly to get bent out of shape on their mundane equipment. I'm used to asking or being asked "so what does this guy have?" even when the equipment is entirely shown on the model anyway.

[snyggejygge]

Why not? Why is it any different for a character vs a unit? In both cases you have to point out and make it clear to your opponent that the model is actually carrying different gear from what it actually has. And in both cases an opponent could easily forget and make a mistake. It is also a lot easier (and cheaper) to have characters as WYSIWYG than units. You may have to have 3 different sorcerers to represent all the builds, but that is sure cheaper than having to have 3 separate units of 50 empire state troops (halberdiers, swordsmen, and spearmen). It seems you are trying to straddle the fence on this. Either Warhammer is WYSIWYG or it isn't.

Well for starters they are clear that magic items doesn't have to be the same type, my Charmed shield could just as well be a charmed armourpiece just as a Sword of Might could be an AXE of might, also, why should I reveal my magic items to you? You don't model dispel scrolls and amulets, so why my magic shield?
You should know that he's a character, which level, and whether he's a BSB or not & ofcourse what mount he's riding, but as far as I'm concerned, that's it. If you want to know whether I've got a magic lance or magic shield - wait until we're in combat, just like for armour, talismans and other items!

Besides if I have a few really awesome & good looking models which represent the characters I will be using & you cannot be confused whether it is a character or not, then I should be allowed to use that awesome model despite it not carrying a shield or a sword, without me having to use 10 different models for my 10 different builds. I prefer a cool looking character model over a goofy one any day, even if it does miss a shield or not, I won't make a new character each time GW makes a change to what equipment my characters can use, magical or not.

[Gradek]

Well for starters they are clear that magic items doesn't have to be the same type, my Charmed shield could just as well be a charmed armourpiece just as a Sword of Might could be an AXE of might, also, why should I reveal my magic items to you? You don't model dispel scrolls and amulets, so why my magic shield?
You should know that he's a character, which level, and whether he's a BSB or not & ofcourse what mount he's riding, but as far as I'm concerned, that's it. If you want to know whether I've got a magic lance or magic shield - wait until we're in combat, just like for armour, talismans and other items!

Besides if I have a few really awesome & good looking models which represent the characters I will be using & you cannot be confused whether it is a character or not, then I should be allowed to use that awesome model despite it not carrying a shield or a sword, without me having to use 10 different models for my 10 different builds. I prefer a cool looking character model over a goofy one any day, even if it does miss a shield or not, I won't make a new character each time GW makes a change to what equipment my characters can use, magical or not.

But you are asking someone to make those same changes you don't want to make with a character for an entire unit. It is no less WYSIWYG for you to have to have a character model that has a shield than for me to have a unit of 40 spearmen that are actually equipped with halberds. Just as confusing and just as much of an inconvenience to the person who owns the unit. Consistency needs to be applied here. If it is WYSIWYG for units than it had darn well be the same for characters too.

[Son of Morkai]

I would be tempted to just write "We have Great Weapons!" on the unit's standard.

[snyggejygge]

But you are asking someone to make those same changes you don't want to make with a character for an entire unit. It is no less WYSIWYG for you to have to have a character model that has a shield than for me to have a unit of 40 spearmen that are actually equipped with halberds. Just as confusing and just as much of an inconvenience to the person who owns the unit. Consistency needs to be applied here. If it is WYSIWYG for units than it had darn well be the same for characters too.

I am asking him to follow the rules in the brb, where it says at least half the unit, & where it also says that magical items does NOT have to be modeled, it's a whole different matter on mundane equipment, but I sure as hell do not need to model my magic equipment on my characters, magical shield or not.

[Wishing]

Great discussion. I'm personally a big fan of WYSIWYG, but the principle does run into big practical problems when GW removes options from units, and your 100 strong unit with weapon X can now no longer be armed with weapon X. When your unit has been squatted, it's not very satisfying to just throw them in the bin, so I imagine most people would just go "screw WYSIWYG, they're now armed with weapon Y instead", like Lord Inquisitor did with his ogre.

[GrandmasterWang]

I agree with to's decision. I personally think that if,your character is armed with a shield he should modelled with it or a substitute

[Hinaelark]

But you are asking someone to make those same changes you don't want to make with a character for an entire unit. It is no less WYSIWYG for you to have to have a character model that has a shield than for me to have a unit of 40 spearmen that are actually equipped with halberds. Just as confusing and just as much of an inconvenience to the person who owns the unit. Consistency needs to be applied here. If it is WYSIWYG for units than it had darn well be the same for characters too.

In my local area here in Iowa, for casual games we don't normally care about wysiwyg, but for any tournament each unit you field needs to be at least 50% modeled as armed/purchased, so I need to have at least half of the skeletons I'm going to use modeled with hw/shield or spears, depending on how I'm using them, plus any that I expect to raise. Thus far they haven't enforced the same for characters which is good for me, trying to model heavy armor and shield on a vampire lord in a coven throne would be a pain and probably require more modelling skill than I have. I think the boundary line with wysiwyg with us is if gw makes the model so that you can buy it as equipped, it should be built that way for at least 50% of the unit.

[hazmiter]

Well, lest I get accused (again) of being entirely tournament-centric, the OP was asking if the tournament organiser's decision was reasonable... for friendly games this is obviously very normal for most of us. However, let me put it another way - bringing non-WYSIWYG models is an imposition on the opponent, he needs to remember all this stuff that should be visible on the models. It may not be much of an imposition, but it is one nevertheless, so asking is good form and not assuming it'll be okay. With friendly games the line is a lot more relaxed than in competitive games, but nevertheless most of us will probably have a line somewhere. (I, for one, am not a big fan of pieces of card the right size with "hydra" written on them, aside from rather taking away the spectacle of the game I just forget time and time again that there's a hydra over there in that patch of ground with a piece of card on it - I can deal with it but it isn't something I'd like to see on a regular basis. I'd much rather a model on the right base, something, anything, so there is a physical presence on the board.)

Most of us proxy stuff from time to time. My friend has a complete proxy army, with little fuzzy pom-poms on various bases with little googly eyes. Whenever a new book comes out so do the pom poms and we try out the new army/units. He's even brought the pom-poms to a local tournament (with very lax WYSIWYG rules, obviously!). In some ways, the pom-poms are easier to deal with than proxying different models. If I look at the pom-poms I'm unlikely to get them confused with another unit/weapon option. I might forget, in which case I'll ask, but with grave guard with HWS I might well forget they have great weapons (yes, even though my opponent pointed it out at the start of the game) because they look like HWS.

I can totally see my self running a giant stuffed gorrilla w boxing gloves ridden by a fuzzy pom pin as a chaos lord on emperor dragon XD

[laribold]

Some interesting opinions being debated here and I'd like to weigh in with an extension to this if I may...

What about paint jobs? I played one game where my opponent was playing WoC and had two units of Warriors, he'd given both units Mark of Khorne but one was clearly painted in Tzeentch colours (blue and gold etc). He made it clear at the start what was what and that they were both Khorne marked, but several times I glanced at the unit and in my head thought 'Tzeentch warriors' and made decisions accordingly.

He wasn't trying to pull a fast one or anything, but there's nothing in the rules about what units have to be painted like.

[Lord Inquisitor]

This is a pretty thorny one in 40K, where colour scheme is pretty much all that separates Dark Angels from Ultramarines. You don't want to prescribe anyone should have to paint their models any particular way - but you don't want them to be confusing either.

As a rule of thumb, if there is an upgrade that is given to a unit that should be immediately visible, there should be some form of attempt to make this visible. This can be colour-scheme but equally some form of Khorne icon or similar would be fine too. A big old Khorne symbol over the blue unit should help with the confusion problem.

[Inevitable]

This is a pretty thorny one in 40K, where colour scheme is pretty much all that separates Dark Angels from Ultramarines. You don't want to prescribe anyone should have to paint their models any particular way - but you don't want them to be confusing either.

As a rule of thumb, if there is an upgrade that is given to a unit that should be immediately visible, there should be some form of attempt to make this visible. This can be colour-scheme but equally some form of Khorne icon or similar would be fine too. A big old Khorne symbol over the blue unit should help with the confusion problem.

I beleive people should try to show as much WYSIWYG as possible as part of this game is modelling/conversions/painting. Alot of times if you don't have the exact item you are looking for ask around your LGS and many people have bits/weapons they no longer use. I'm giving away jump-packs to a friend and I've been given bits that I've used to create combos. I've gone out of my way for heroes(I generally like custom building heroes from common models) to represent the loadout they use:

Saurus: Has a Great-weapon made to look like a double-halberd
Saurus: Has 2 1h'd weapons for when I use Fencer Blades
Saurus (Mounted): Has a Great Weapon
Savage ORc Warboss: Has 2 Fist weapons (not 1 fist & 1 1h) and bone armor to represent armor
Savage Orc Bigboss: Custom built a great weapon

(Sold) Dark Elf Witch Hag BSB: Used a Chaos Banner and 40k bits


Once you start building the models you really take to them. It also allows you to define them better. Also, if I don't use them as a hero choice they become my Champion in a unit and are easily distinguishable.

[Asensur]

In the rulebook it is pretty clear that at least half of the unit needs to be WYSIWYG.

"count as" and conversions should be use for hobby, not for proxies and to trick your opponent.

[Wishing]

Some interesting opinions being debated here and I'd like to weigh in with an extension to this if I may...

What about paint jobs? I played one game where my opponent was playing WoC and had two units of Warriors, he'd given both units Mark of Khorne but one was clearly painted in Tzeentch colours (blue and gold etc). He made it clear at the start what was what and that they were both Khorne marked, but several times I glanced at the unit and in my head thought 'Tzeentch warriors' and made decisions accordingly.

He wasn't trying to pull a fast one or anything, but there's nothing in the rules about what units have to be painted like.

This is a great example of why it is hard to make any specific rules about these kinds of issues. It's ultimately a conflict between models not being confusing in game, while at the same time allowing gamers some flexibility in what they do with their models. Exactly where on the scale you fall in terms of preference will vary from gamer to gamer.

This is also directly related to counts-as. The tzeentch warriors actually being khorne warriors is a good example. If you ask them, most gamers will probably say that they don't care what their opponents' models are painted like, and would defend everyone's rights to paint their models any colour scheme they want. But sometimes the colours mean something, and it does clearly break WYSIWYG when a khorne-marked model is painted in tzeentch colours, or a dark angel is painted as an ultramarine. Counts-as is an entire art devoted to not following WYSIWYG and making that into its own objective and purpose.

So in terms of tournaments, which the OP was about, I think it's fully acceptable for a TO to set their own standards for what degree of WYSIWYG they will accept or not. I think that rather than blanket bans though, cases should be evaluated on individual merits. To facilitate this, players with models that in some way have potential to be confusing or break WYSIWYG should be ready to send photos of their army to the organiser beforehand so they can decide whether the army is sufficiently opponent-friendly to be allowed.

[bad dice]

Incidentally Privateer Press have guidelines for WYSIWYG written into their core rules. I think it's any conversion must be based on the actual model and be readily identifiable as the model in question. No proxies or conversions are allowed at official tournaments. It's a completely different game-system however, and one which relies on the powers of individual pieces in a lot of circumstances so I can see where they're coming from. Although, interestingly, even with such a tight definition and binding set of rules I've seen every tourney organiser of PP events abide more by the "rule of cool" than anything official. Basically, if the conversion looks cool then you're good to go. I think if your Grave Guard were well painted and based and had even three or four models in the front two or three ranks replaced with, I don't know, converted plastic skellies with great weapons, I couldn't see a reasonable person objecting to it.

And good thing they have that rule to.
I mean it's already hard to rember all the special rules for all the diffrend units and all the combinations of broken that are used to play that game.
If you also had to remeber all the proxys you would go nuts.


On the proxy in warhammer topic.

I like wysiwyg for two reasons.
One it just looks better i mean i wanna fight models whit spears when i am supoosed to be fighting guys whit spears.

Two proxying is way to easy road to cheating. It's like hmm i know the CW dont have helbards but it would help agianst that mosnter --> oh yea thes guys have helbards oh and they are khorne btw, yea i know they are pink/blue whit headweapon shield but trust me.

Also the whole point is mute it's their event if you don't like it don't go

I rather think it is much ruder for you trying to change thier event then them telling you to be wysiwyg

[Gorbad Ironclaw]

How about this then. Back in 6th when I used my Dark Elves I would run a Lord on a Dragon. He was modelled with a lance, and he was also equipped with a mundane lance but he also had a magic weapon (Gauntlet of Power) so he would never get to use the lance. Now it was originally because I thought the model looked better with a lance and I wanted to make sure it was WYSIWYG but should I have needed/bothered to and would people feel it's misleading when he will never actually be using the lance?

[cosy]

How about this then. Back in 6th when I used my Dark Elves I would run a Lord on a Dragon. He was modelled with a lance, and he was also equipped with a mundane lance but he also had a magic weapon (Gauntlet of Power) so he would never get to use the lance. Now it was originally because I thought the model looked better with a lance and I wanted to make sure it was WYSIWYG but should I have needed/bothered to and would people feel it's misleading when he will never actually be using the lance?

I believe it's courtesy that you use the models for what they are ( the right weapons, champion clearly defined, etc) and you clearly state at the beginning of the game what the units represent. I accept when the models aren't made yet but i would personally never use Gorthor the Beastlord to represent my Luminark of Hysh for example. I do use other models to reinforce my units if i don't have enough. You can "feel" what is right and what is not (in my opinion).

However complaining about weapons for you characters is taking the ball to far. Also you don't have to say what equipment your character has. There are even magic items who have every reason to stay hidden.

[Balerion]

I can understand an aesthetic attraction to WYSIWYG, but whenever the "confusion" issue comes up I get... confused. How are these poor confused people getting so confused? They must be so confused that they can't find their way home at night, or keep their shoelaces tied, and that's no way to live.

If somebody tells me "this units is armed with life-jackets and watering cans" then my immediate reaction is to think about how my own army handles units armed with life-jackets and watering cans. When I deploy my units they will be in positions amenable to an anti-life-jacket/watering can strategy. Every time I touch my unit I will think, "Why is this here? Ah, yes, I put this here to counter his life-jackets and watering cans, and now I will move them in a way that accomplishes my goals in that regard!"

Between the knowledge of what units can be armed with, knowledge of what they are most commonly/most efficiently armed with, and an open declaration by your opponent that they are indeed armed with whatever, I am genuinely flabbergasted that people have trouble remembering it over the course of a game.

[Urgat]

I can understand an aesthetic attraction to WYSIWYG, but whenever the "confusion" issue comes up I get... confused. How are these poor confused people getting so confused?

Well, usually, that argument annoys me too, but sometimes, you know... The other day, I was watching a plog in the painting forums, it was a kickass army, an ogre army made up of gnobblars piloting converted 40k ork dreads and kill cans. Looked great, really, but really, I'd play that, you'd have to constantly remind me what is what, the only one I could tell apart from the army shot was the fire belly coz it had the firey ball from the skaven warmachine, otherwise, I just can't tell a unit of dreads from another unit of dreads, especially when they're all crammed together like that. There's a few armies like that, they're jewels of creativity, they look awesome but man, I wish they thought a bit more deeply about making the units recognizable.