Everybody loves a great conversion. Building, converting, and painting your army is a significant portion of table-top wargamming. There are so many options that can make your army unique.
However, some folks will convert models for their own advantage. Their models will be too big, too small, or just not right for tournaments or even pick-up games.
An example is the picture above. It is a custom Ork Battlewagon. The small circles are normal 28mm bases (about 1”) so you can actually see the size of it. A normal, out of the box Battlewagon is 3.5” x 6.5”. This conversion is more than 5.5” wide.
How does this help the owner of this beast? It blocks line of site for units behind it. It allows for a larger area for ramming other vehicles or performing tank shocks. Disembarking units can cover a larger area. There are all types of advantages for this conversion. Yes, it is cool that you can fit all 20 Orks into the back of the Battlewagon, but the rules were not designed for a vehicle that takes 15% of the table.
The opposite can also be done. In a game that employs true line-of-site, making your models shorter means you can hide them from fire much easier. I’ve seen Necrons with the pieces simply glued to the base with the explanation that they were waiting to reassemble themselves. This allows them the hide behind anything.
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| We'll be back - with the rest of the model and some modeling glue. |
There are some conversions that are done correctly, such as Rob Baer’s Looted Imperial Guard army and his Orkquisiton army. You may not prefer completely different models being used to represent the army of the codex, but everything he converted was the correct size and shape based on models of the codex.
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| The Orkquisition - conversions done right. |
There are two ways modeling for advantage can be corrected. The first way is for rules to be written that explicitly state the size and shape of every model. This is not optimal as it will restrict creativity. Sometimes a bit, arm, or a wheel just needs to be slightly outside the “norm”.
The other way is for individuals to simply consider their conversion and do everything they can to ensure that their conversion does not provide an advantage. If you are converting something, try to follow these guidelines:
1 – Make sure your vehicle is the correct size. Compare it to the size of the normal GW vehicle and try not to deviate from that too much.
2 – Make sure your vehicle does not have any abnormal extensions. A turret that is 4” higher than normal or dreadnought arms that stick out too far should never be considered. Imagine a dreadnought with wings on the tips of those wings are the weapons. According to the rules, you cannot shoot at wings, so this would allow you to completely hide the walker and shoot indiscriminately. It will also earn you a couple of impolite names from your opponent.
3 – Make sure your based models are on a proper size base. This means no dreadnoughts on a 28mm base or an infantry model on a 60mm base.
Yes, conversions are cool and everyone loves them. If you have a model that is outside the norm in size or shape, then save it for basement or apocalypse games. Make a datasheet for it and get an agreement from your opponent for the points it is worth. You can even use the old Vehicle Design Rules (VDR). Yes, in many areas it is overpriced, but for a fun game with customized models, these rules are a lot of fun.
For general pick-up games and tournaments, the trick is to make your conversions in such a way that your opponent doesn’t think you are simply trying to gain an advantage.
Posts
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I agree with everything you're saying here except for your criticism of the first battlewagon. That is clearly a labour of love and just looks cool. As an ork player, you read the battlewagon entry (particularly before there even was an official battlewagon model) and/or ork fluff, and the ork part of your brain thinks 'I want to build the biggest, baddest, stompiest tank I possibly can'.
ReplyDeleteNow in a tournament I would expect the owner of the tank - if they were playing very competitively themselves - to give their opponent the benefit of the doubt; allow shots to go 'through' or 'past' the battlewagon at units on the other side, I wouldn't try to claim the deathroller could hit 50 people at the same time, etc. But I wouldn't think highly of people who told me I couldn't use something this cool in a normal pickup game (especially if I was willing to give my opponent the benefit of the doubt).
I should also clarify that I play an almost always losing infantry horde, don't have any battlewagon models and so have no personal competitive interest in this 'arguement' being settled in my favour. Guns on wings is one thing, but cool modelling, if not actually being taken advantage of by the owner (even if technically the conversion/scratchbuild gives an advantage) shouldn't be penalised by what is a pretty sloppily worded set of rules in any case.
I agree. The battlewagon is a labor of love, as everything in a person's army should be. However, the focus of this series is what you can do as a player to decrease the chances of your opponent thinking that you are doing things to gain an advantage in the game: AKA - thinking you are a WAAC player.
ReplyDeleteI love that battlewagon. However, if you knew that it was built by someone who exclusively plays in tournaments and it was designed for the explicit purpose of getting as much under that deff-rolla as possible, what would you then think of the player? How's about if he brought three of them (which, in this case, he did)?
If folks are going to play this game competitively then they should either agree on the rules (which would include guidelines - written or not - about model size) or they should stop crying "WAAC" and "CHEATER" that we always hear after the major tournaments.
Save the cool conversions for beer and pretzel games. The competitive folks can't handle them.
Man I would sure love to make custom LR conversions that are 2 feet long and make up some fluff so my Termies can assault out. I wish Ork players would stop hiding behind fluff to make poorly modeled crap.
ReplyDeleteLord Aki; I think that's a fair point: if the player is building this sort of thing specifically for tournaments, then yes, I do feel differently. If the player is giving the opponent the benefit of the doubt (in effect, pretending the model is no bigger than the official model) then I still think it's fine. But if they're trying to use the deathrolla to hit loads of people at once, etc. then I agree that criticism is fair. My point is that I'd like to see cool conversions in a tournament (if I took part in one) as well as at beer and pretzel games - but i would expect the owner to not 'use' the wing guns, 10" wide death rolla, etc.
ReplyDeleteDuke07, I've no idea if the owner of that battlewagon is hiding behind fluff or not, but I'm certainly not. As I said, I've got no battlewagons at all, let a lone advantageously modelled ones. If you want to bring a 2 foot long land raider (and it looks good) then be my guest. As long as you don't then try to launch 2 foot assaults with your terminators...