Topic: When is an apple not an apple?

[The Reborn]

If you please, I would really appreciate your thoughts on my predicament.  I am not a fan of many of our Aspect models, and like many, hoped for new plastic designs. Rather than buy expensive old metal models from Ebay ( I hate failcast), I've adapted my game to use wraith units to do the jobs many of my old Biel-Tan Aspects used to do. Basically, I've moved from BT to Iyanden....all except for my paintscheme, which is closer to Saim-Hann. A Red army using Iyanden-specific rules.....How do you guys feel about me, or anyone, doing this? Just wondering.

[Lord of Winter and War]

Just paint your stuff however you want. All that matters, is that your opponent knows which traits your using.

Marine players have been doing that for a decade.

Rules are tied to what the detachment is, not how you paint the models.

[The Reborn]

Thanks for your opinion KS.

[The GrimSqueaker]

KS is right. As long as you and your opponent(s) are clear on who is what then the painting is purely for aesthetic reasons.

[Gildaheir]

I agree with the others.  If you have a consistent paint scheme, and you're up front about what Craftworld you're playing, I don't see any issue there.

[Partninja]

Paint how you want and play how you want. Nothing wrong with using different army builds and rules to change things up. Even if an army was painted specifically as an established craftworld I see nothing wrong with running the other craftworld rules. My LGS does this constantly as it keeps our meta from being stale. Most armies are custom schemes now anyway.

My army for example started off as a red and black based sort of corsair list back in 4th edition. As i slowly got more models I started painting them however I wanted based on the unit. My guardians are mostly black armor based while my Scorpions and Avengers are red armor based. My Banshees and Hawks are bone armor based. They all share the same color pallet though to tie everything together. This allows me to use whatever rules I want since I'm not following a specific scheme.

If I had to start all over I probably would have painted with an Iyanden/Yriel raiders scheme. I kind of got obsessed with yellow armor after helping a friend paint his yellow space marine army.

[The Reborn]

Thanks guys, I appreciate you taking the time to give me your opinions.
My Craftworld is themed but obviously very different to Iyanden to look at. I just wouldn't want to feel I was cheating anyone in any way.

@Partninja, my Craftworld is also red and black....the red is a very vibrant metallic.
My backstory centres around a huge red spacial anomaly known by Eldar as "the blood of Vaul". My craftworld maintains a presence within it, all ships are red, plus the deep black of space out near the galactic rim.😀

[Irisado]

I agree with the others that, so long as it is clear, there is no issue whatsoever.

I have a similar story to Partninja's, albeit for different reasons, thus I agree with him very strongly here.  I started out as an Alaitoc player, following the colour schemes in White Dwarf for the GW studio Eldar army of the early 1990s.  Over time, I shifted away from Alaitoc to my own craftworld, which has a totally different colour scheme, so I just wrote a narrative to explain it.  In this case, they were a splinter faction which broke away from Alaitoc, thus they still have some troops and vehicles which are still in Alaitoc colours.

[haunt]

Honestly, a good amount of us don't stick to the craftworld colors and no opponent will force you to the color of a particular craftworld for the fact that is not the spirit of the game.

As everyone else before me, play and use the appropriate trait you deem worth your army.

[flatworldsedge]

Yep - just to add my 2c... you could play your Eldar with Necron points costs and rules if you wanted and I'd be cool with it!  As long as we had a list somewhere that says which models are representing which unit in a straight forward way, with the points/allowances all adding up for whatever army it's meant to be!

[The Reborn]

Thanks guys, this makes me feel happier about it. Cheers for your input.😊

Irisado, I know what you mean, in 3rd ed I had an alaitoc army, kept them for years until I needed the money badly and sold them.
I wanted to future proof myself to some degree as GW have been pretty free n easy with the canon of late....so I went with my own colour scheme, own craftworld, then this....😕

[Zayvian]

Just kind of a side note on this, Isn't Biel-Tan the sword-wind? I've been away from Eldar since the start of 4th edition, but IIRC they're often made up of mostly aspect warriors. If you desire to be true to fluff, unless you're taking squads of guardians or vehicles, most of your units would be painted the colors of their aspects rather than following the theme of the Biel Tan craftworld. You could easily end up with each unit in the army being painted a different color.

[laucian_meliamne]

I'm not sure if GW retconned this or not, but previous editions specifically said that on some Craftworlds the Aspect Shrines colour their armour to match the Craftworld instead of using the traditional shrine colours.

The old 40k card game had a lot of artwork featuring this aesthetic, for example these Warp Spiders in Alaitoc livery:


I also opted for that with my Craftworld Ethrandir army. (Note: these pictures date to 4th edition, so please forgive the decade-old photographic quality)







Rules-wise I've run Ethrandir as an Alaitoc Ranger force (in 3rd edition; man was that Disruption Table gross...), and later as an Ulthwé Strike Force.  For the new edition I'll probably be going back to Alaitoc and blowing the dust off of my 20-something classic Ranger models.

So yeah, paint your models however you want, and when you write your list just make a note of what Craftworld rules you're using.

[SeekingOne]

A few people I know have been discussing a curious case lately... A guy who was planning to attend the current GW Grand Tournament asked TOs a question about whether it's ok that his Ultramarines led by Guilliman are painted green. The answer he got from GW was that Guilliman is Ultramarine, and so his model, as well as Ultramarine models led by him, are expected to be painted in classic Ultramarines colour scheme.

[Bego]

Really stupid. I can understand the wish to see models paint fitting to their fluff, but people are sometimes also building and playing their armies over years and edititons and want to try different things now and then without repainting the same army again (over and over).

Even worse, when I decide that my 'faction' is a successor of an existing who is forcing me to paint it different. That means if I'm going to play a successor I can paint them however I want, but if I'm using my Blood Angels models as Ultramarines I'm not allowed to (because I forgot to say that my Ultramarines successors have the same colors as Blood Angels by accident?). I know, quite a constructed example.

Yes, tournaments attract players who select strong or even broken units regardless of fluff, but I don't think there should be painting restrictions other than 'have your army painted and show some kind of shared identity'.

[The GrimSqueaker]

Tourny organisers are running their own fiefdom and make their own rules for the event. Even GW tournies are essentially unofficial until their announcements are documented. What one does should not be considered papal bull for everyone else. Same reason we don't trust them to make rule declarations.

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

A few people I know have been discussing a curious case lately... A guy who was planning to attend the current GW Grand Tournament asked TOs a question about whether it's ok that his Ultramarines led by Guilliman are painted green. The answer he got from GW was that Guilliman is Ultramarine, and so his model, as well as Ultramarine models led by him, are expected to be painted in classic Ultramarines colour scheme.

So, if I am understanding this right, to play in that tournament I would have to repaint my Guilliman model and green stuff the Ultramarine insignia back on to him for him to be allowed to play?

*coughbullamphetamine parrotcough*

[Lord of Winter and War]

Tourny organisers are running their own fiefdom and make their own rules for the event. Even GW tournies are essentially unofficial until their announcements are documented. What one does should not be considered papal bull for everyone else. Same reason we don't trust them to make rule declarations.

This.

I've been to a lot of events, often they all have their own peculiarities. Not a hard and fast rule.

[SeekingOne]

So, if I am understanding this right, to play in that tournament I would have to repaint my Guilliman model and green stuff the Ultramarine insignia back on to him for him to be allowed to play?

*coughbullamphetamine parrotcough*

Not sure about green-stuffing, but I think this was kind of a desperate attempt to enforce some variety in the armies. Pretty much every SM army has Girlyman in it now, it's just silly.

To be honest, I didn't pay attention to this whole topic until we Eldar got the Craftworld traits of our own. And now, I have to admit, I already find those traits to be at least equally as annoying as they are useful. I always was a great fan of Saim-Hann, and my army is painted in distinct Saim-Hann colours. So, TOs of at least one event that I'm hoping to attend in close future already informed me that with my current army I will have to use Saim-Hann trait, and doing otherwise will be treated as violation of WYSIWYG requirement. I also know for a fact that if I try to use Alaitoc or Iyanden traits with my distinctly Saim-Hann models, a bunch of my fellow gamers (even though they wouldn't refuse to play with me) would definitely use it as a reason to blame me for being WAAC.
But even regardless of what TOs or other people think, I feel a bit weird myself when trying to use other traits with my army. In fact, I already started thinking of a new colour scheme that would be different from all 5 standard ones, and my next generic (i.e. non-Aspect) models probably won't be Saim-Hann anymore. TBH, I was a much happier hobbyist when the distinction between Craftwordls remained purely on fluff level.

[vonny]

Well I certainly made an Iyanden army myself, and I'll play with Iyanden attributes - whether they would be the best for my list or not.

My space marines are Lamenters, and not for one moment in 7th did I get tempted to play anything other than blood angel rules. Although I was jealous at the raven guard for their jump pack mastery.

My tyranids are painted up in a color that none of the official hive fleets have. Yet I always had the background in my head that it is a splinter fleet from hive fleet kraken. I've barely looked at the other hive fleet adaptations so far.

Maybe I'm just a player that cares more for the story than for the win, but... I never see why people feel the need to change their flavour every so often. I have no desire to use reboute. Sanguinius is dead, I am proud of his sacrifice, and would be ashamed to field a primarch.

Note: I don't condemn those who do, or accuse them of WAAC. The hobby is large and everyone can play it to their own likes and preferences. I just never really understood them.