Counts as armies Good? Bad? or just Ugly?

[Admiral-Badruck]

As some of you know I am the kind of gamer that says " play what looks cool, and fit it to the rules that best fit the idea of the army." for example I saw some really cool Soviet themed grots so I bought up a heap of them. I looked into an all grot list built out of the Ork Codex but the look of the army was too regimented and just did not shoehorn in to place no matter how I tired to do it. I tried to write my own Codex Grots for them but that was just too much work... I was on the brink of scraping the whole idea when I heard on a pod cast called The Heroic 28s that some of the guys did counts as armies like an Eldar Exodites army that counts as Nids and uses the FB Wood elves Dark Elves and models mixed with bits from the lizard men range...after checking out the pictures I thought.. I would put my grots on big bases and play them as IG. I got some IG bits some Imperial weapons blisters and set out on building a grot army it looks quite nice plays really well. So far there have not been any questions about what a model is or what weapons he has. in the army all the weapons are WYSIWYG Example( flamers look like flamers plasm looks like plasma.) and there is nothing not represented on the models that are finished... I should have the finished Grot Guard online and ready to fight by next Nagoya Hammer.

Now for FB related stuff.

I love my oni Orcs I have put beards and horns on almost all the models they should have paint soon. but they are clearly orcs and play with all the rules from the Orcs and Goblins army book. I do not thing they take anything away form the gaming experience of the people that play them. The are themed in the look only. is there anything wrong with this? some of them are not painted but they will be soon I have stopped gaming for now just to get them all painted up and ready...for Orctoberfest.... hope no one is disappointed to see read orcs with beards and horns on there heads in place of regular old green skins...

Now for a more extreme idea.

I saw some Roman models that I really want to build and paint up but I am not into the whole historical gaming thing (mostly because not too many people play it and secondly because I do not know much about history and I could not be bother to learn history just to play a game) never the less I really like the models and I would like to play them in WHFB but I can't seem to find an army that has heavy armored infantry with mostly basic human stat lines... (meaning ST 3 T 3) I found one unit that could fit the Armor values that I want, however it is not even a human... far from it in-fact.... drum roll.*//// Storm vermin in the scaven army book best fit the armored value of a Roman Phalanx....

My question is could I get away with playing Roman historical models in the place of ratmem in heavy armor?

What are your thoughts. I really would like to know... Please post links to count as Armies that pull it off..

[Mike the Pike]

Short answer, NO! Storm Vermin =/= Roman Phalanx.
I have to say that this is one of your nuttier ideas yet, and that's saying something.

Counts as armies can be quite cool but only if its very clear to your opponent what everything actually is. I haven't heard any complaints about your grots so I assume you have succeeded there.

However it was pretty confusing in yesterday's game as to what everything was. This wasn't particularly to do with the Oni theme but the fact that none of the characters in the unit looked very different from the regular troopers/each other.

The only one that was recognizable as what it actually represented was the Black Orc BSB. Big Bosses, Shamans and Warbosses should stand out from the crowd. You don't have to have the official GW model or anything but stick on stones or something, give them extra 'uge weapons etc. Fighting that lot yesterday was very confusing and I am supposed to be the 'expert' on WFB (yeah, right )

[Mike the Pike]

BTW The Phalanx is most often associated with Ancient Greek Armies (although the Romans did use it on occasion).

BTW2 High Elven Spearmen would seem a more obvious choice as a WFB Phalanx equivalent to me.

[job]

I agree with Pike on all his points. Sorry, Badruck, but I'm not digging your ideas, and certainly the Skaven don't take after the "Roman legionaire" theme. (Actually, I hear there were some attempts at a "Oriental" scheme. Stuff like their equipment having nagatas for polearms and gutter runners thematically like ninjas. Anyway, Splinter was a rat and a ninja master, after all.)

Otherwise, If you want to play historic miniatures, why not just play historic games? Even though you mistakenly identified the idea of phalanx formation with typical Roman legionaires, part of the fun of historic miniatures is that you can finally do all that research you couldn't previously.

Oh, and as for your Oni, models. I was fine with them, but I'm not sure if you changed things up for the game vs. Mike. When we played things seemed to be pretty much WYSIWYG. Just get some kind of trey built for your Ork horde unit and I wouldn't complain about anything, and complement you on getting things painted up. (Unlike my host of grey and metallic dwarves.)

[me_in_japan]

having played against Badruck's grotIG, I can vouch for them. Everything looked like what it was supposed to (if you set aside the fact that his "IG" were small and green.) Tanks were tanks (indivdual variants were pointed out pre-game) and lasguns were lasguns, flamers were flamers, etc.

I have no problem with that kind of thing at all. Likewise, oni-orcs are fine, as they are (I gather) basically just conversions rather than proxies. I agree though that it is vital that every unit can be identified. That means warbosses should clearly be warbosses, rock chuckas should obviously be rock chuckas, black orcs should look bigger and meaner than regular orcs, and so on and so forth. Its not enough for just one unit to fit and all the rest to be just chucked in there.

As for legionnaire clanrats - the stormvermin may fit the legionnaires, but what are you going to use for your grey seer? Your doomwheel? your great bell o doom? Not a lot of that in your ancient roman army, no? Pikey's idea of High Elves may be better, but you'd have to put your thinking cap on for as many units as you can. Any units that didnt fit the legionary theme would have to be cut from the list. I reckon

[Primarch]

ORIGINAL POST EDITED

Having given this some more thought:

You know what, if you want to use roman legionairres as skaven, then just go ahead and do it. They are after all just pieces of plastic representing imaginary units on top of a table covered with green cloth. However, given that you must KNOW how people will react, please dont bother trolling the forums in future and just go ahead and do whatever you want.

Ultimately, there is a reason why we all dont just put down little pieces of paper or buttons or scraps of garbage on the table, its because we all want our armies to look good on the tabletop. As part of that we want the models to accurately (or close enough to be understood by someone looking at them) represent what unit they are supposed to be in the game. If I put down a High Elf with a spear, then people can look at it and know that it is a High Elf with a spear.
It is totally understandable that we dont all want our minis to look identical, so we all make an effort to make them unique in some way. This could be through kit-bashing, paint schemes, green stuff, or even replacing the model with an entirely different one. If the model is close enough to what I want it to represent that people can still understand what it does on the tabletop then that is fine. For example, if I put down a model of a cowboy holding a spear and say to my opponent "This cowboy is a High Elf." My opponent can see that it has a spear and knows that I am using High Elves.
So, yeah, if you make sure that people can differentiate easily between the different units, and everything has the wargear it is supposed to have then go ahead and use whatever you want in whatever way you want.

BUT (yeah, there is a 'but'), for a lot of people as well as models being roughly the right sizes and shapes and equipped with the right gear, there is also a question of appropriateness. For example in WFB, High Elves are slender, elegant and noble, with shining silver armour and pure white robes. Cowboys are rough, crude and dangerous, with dirty clothes and dusty hats. They dont fit the theme of High Elves in any way. High Elves have special rules which make them excellent melee fighters due to being faster than their opponents. Cowboys were 'quick on the draw' but they didnt move faster than the human eye whilst hacking each other down with great axes. All in all, you'd have to agree that Cowboys dont make for great High Elves.

So to sum up:
Do what you want.
Dont expect everyone to like it.

[Colonel Voss]

Mid Roman Republic or after the Marius reform I would think the Empire would work very nice . Both sections had a sword and shield, and spear and shield based cohorts (phalanx was only during the very early Roman Republic). They did have war machines so you could count their catapults as mortars or something.

Like the others, if it is done right count as armies rock. But if you do it poorly, then their bad and sometimes ugly (I heard someone used a coke bottle as a stormraven )

[me_in_japan]

steady on, Prim - it was just a question. I mean, at least he asked. We don't all have the same idea of what is and isnt acceptable, particularly when it comes to proxying (as previous debates will attest) so Badruck was just checking if his "this is OK" matches our "this is OK". Having ascertained that it does not, he can now go off and rethink his Kunnin Plan. besides, it was a good thread title

@Voss:

then their bad and sometimes ugly

gnncgh! *flinching reaction as to nails-on-blackboard*

they're, not their

do I have to grammar police everybody on this forum?

*edit* ( )

[Mike the Pike]

^Sez hee hoo mist att leest harfa duzzin kapitalz ann apostrofy orr too az welll az yuzin weigh 2 menny sentins fraggments.

[Admiral-Badruck]

http://store.warlordgames.co.uk/testudo-6311-p.asp

I just assumed this was called a phalanx guess I was wrong...

my first thought was Empire but they have a 5 + save... that is fine but I would think that something that looks like this would have a better save than 5+....

as for the scaven they are very cool if I was to play them I would take all kinds of crazy looking ratty looking stuff the GW range works fine if you are doing scaven...

Storm Vermin are core units and by no means the best core units because they are more costly than the other core units and only hit a bit harder...

if I were to do a list of Storm Vermin counts as Roman Testudo I would my whole army of Testudo nothing else I would get some heros and perhaps a mage of some kind for buffs but other than that just Testudo...

still these ideas are a long ways a way I still need to finish the ONI Orcs and TENGU Goblins...

It is true that I was not clear on what as for heros in the list Mike the Pike played but I will do better and as soon as I finish this post I will start work on my Kodenoni and Seieioni they are going to take a lot of time and green stuff... but should be really cool once I get them done...