Counts-As: Your own thoughts on the matter, and when it gets taken too far?

[Marshal_Wilhelm]

When I see BA getting this and that set of goodies, but selfishly keeping it to themselves (which doesn't seem very BA to me, anyway)
or Ultramarines without the sense to carry a chainsword on themselves, despite Tacticals getting beaten up by Chaos Marines and Grey Hunters _ha, obviously these heretics and barbarians are just stooges!_ and the like, it just makes me sad.

And then a friend reminds me that 'yes, the on table rules don't truly represent what happens fluffwise' & so I calm down. But boy, wouldn't it be sweet to have something a bit more neato to take to the table?

This is count as, and I know some dudes are allergic to it, either from supreme orthodoxy (to which I would think that playing a pretend game and the issues that my friend points out, renders moot) or from being bashed by powa! gamers.
Well, on the powa! gaming thing, that really is something you need to make clear about what you want from your games before one of you bushwacks the other guy, playing his strong list against your laid back list.
So to my mind, no reason to be allergic to counts as, at all.

To me, for instance, the Mentor Legion [a heavily retcon'ed Chapter - wearing green and white] could quite happily be tech savvy, [old fluff] but because they know other Imperials are allergic to it, they conduct themselves covertly and secretively [new fluff] and tadaa, a perfect blend of the the two seemingly conflictive fluffs.

So somehow, the Mentor Legion are open to technology. Perhaps the initial recruits were from a world where they had lived in harmony with benevolent aliens, such as the Tau, or Eldar that weren't being capricious xenos? I don't know.

But anyway, the idea of having one Marine force, able to use different Codices, and having it be because of experimental weaponry, tactics and/or technology, is just too cool to me.

For example, from C:SM:
• Vulkan's oodles of twin linked mayhem. Refined weaponry.
• Vanilla. Perhaps the Chapter is not trying out anything too high tech on this outing? But Sternguard and Conversion beams could be expected.
• Lysander. His bolter drill is the old targeting network fluff. His armour has a targeting machine spirit that when linked to a squad, gives improved targeting prowess. A bit like those AWAC aircraft.
• Shrike. Fleet on his army? Various combat drugs are within usage by the Mentors, and this one increases metabolic rate. Or soemthing.
• Pedro. Plenty of Sternguard, this seems very Mentors'ish.
• Khan. Their leader is equipped with a phasing device, perhaps somewhat like the Warp Spider's jump generator. This represents furious charge by landing blows whilst partially phasing, for example. Hit & run is them spiriting away from their now confused foes. Outflank'ing is done via grav chutes, termites & moles, or other such means.

C:BA
• Fast vehicles. Tinkered with designs to improve the output of the humble Rhinos power plant.
• Sanguinary priest's FNP and FC. Furious charge, like fleet, can always be accounted for with combat stimms. But given it is one package, instead of a sacred cup, the Sang Priest is actually sporting a force field generator. A field envelops the squad, hence FNP. But the field can also be harnessed by the squad on the attack, lending extra power to blows, accounting for FC.
• Death Company. This guys are stimmed up warriors. There is a borderline limit as to how much the patients can receive, and this dosage is right on the limit.

C:CSM
• Plague Marines. A new type of power armour is being made, but is not as heavy as TDA. FNP, t4(5) and -1 initiative are the result.
• Berzerkers. A lower dose of what the Death Co get.
• Havocs and Chosen. The mass of special weapons is the extra equipment the Chapter runs.
• Obliterators. A new TDA rig. The gun is very powerful, and has many settings.
• Daemon Prince. Perhaps something like the Dreadknight.

C:SW
• Wolf standard. A variant force field generator of the Sang Priest, but with the long term protection benefits exchanged for a one off, different modulation.
• TWC. Like the Daemon Prince, a fighting rig, styled like the Dreadknight.
• Mark of the Wulfen. A developing power weapon.

Whilst the Mentors would have Librarians, spells from Librarians, Rune Priests and Chaos Sorcerers could easily be represented by a new gun, or some kind of a force generator, a tractor beam or gravitron gun for Lash of Submission, etc. The perils roll is simply the finicky nature of the new tech.

Whilst I wouldn't really be interested in overloading an army with a powa! build from any of the Dexes, I think they all have something cool that could easily represent the tinkering happening in the Mentor labs.

I think this is all pretty cool stuff.

[sonsoftaurus]

Proxy: Don't mind it in casual games, prefer not to see it often.

Counts-as: Love it. Different things for wargear/weapons, different codex, different paint schemes, completely different figures, go for it. As long as it's consistent and understandable, I'll happily play your army from the cybernetic dystopian future Hogwarts that uses Tyranid rules.

Rules. Models. Paint schemes. Mix and match as desired. It's your hobby. As long as it counts-as fun, I'm in.

[Belial69]

The only rule of thumb that my group really stick to is WYSIWYG. It can be as heavily converted as you like.
For example my jokearo army (just for fun). 43 warhammer quest snotlings covered (carefully) with flock to make apes and painted orange. (These originally were mutants in my LatD army - evil space monkeys!) Coteaz is a monkeyed up mantic forgefather, with hammer and the crow from the WH giant set for the cyber eagle. And the giant is also flocked and orange with the big stone for a daemon hammer and GS digi weapons on the other hand for a dreadknight.

[ComradePenguin]

I have a zombie army that that uses the ork book. Each zombie counts as a normal slugga boy, and I've converted a bunch of huge mutants for my nobs and warboss. I even have a bunch of surgically altered weapons zombies to count as lootas. So far no one has had an issue because all 135 zombies are fully painted and converted.

I am personally fine with people wanting to try new units out as long as the model is suitable. For example I don't want to see a grot count as a vindicator. But I'm for people being able to use models before they shell out the money for them, these plastic toys are expensive after all.

[Houghten]

I'd have it that for an army to be legal from a codex, it has to be using a colour scheme exampled in the book. But wouldn't a popular idea.

Too right it wouldn't. I'd probably stop collecting altogether. I can't stand to have a plain force just like the ones in the book. Black-and-yellow Tyranids, grey-skinned Orks, white-and-red Space Marines* and psychedelic green-and-orange Chaos Marines, that's me.

(Those of you with long memories may remember me saying that "I don't like painting, or even choosing a colour scheme." Which is still true, but painting-by-numbers? Blech. Worse.)

*No, not like the Blood Ravens. They're red-and-white, not white-and-red.

[(TV)]

If I see a bunch of unpainted guys who've switched books to the newest every few months without getting any closer to completion, especially at a toruney (provided they even allow unpainted) then it bothers me but as far as I can see it's not expressly against the rules. However if I see that someone has invested the time to complete and fully paint/etc an army, I don't think people should bother them for fielding with rules they like the most or feel most fit their count as list. There's lots of underrepresented factions from fluff that would otherwise not be seen either due to non-existant or really bad rules, so someone being open minded and adapting existing ones seems cool to me.

Regards,
TV

[St.Germaine]

Couldn't be bothered to waste my time with a tournament. I prefer a fluffy army to something that will do well at a tourny. A loss with a fluffy army is better than a win with with a cookie cutter list. To be honest I could give a rat's *** about balance as well. Playing the "British" in a Rorke's Drift style scenario and surviving is worth more to me than a dozen tournament wins.

With that said, not likely I'm going to see any of these armies across from me at a tournament. At our local gamestore, I'm game for all three. I'm currently involved in using a proxy army while deciding if I'm interested in a SM bike army (OK, I've played enough proxy games that this decision has already been made.)

The army I've played with the longest is in the second category. My Loyalist Emperors Children have been seeing the tabletop since the release of the 1st BA codex. The almost berserker aspects of that codex were exactly what I expect of a chapter almost rabid in their need to redeem their honor. The next version of the codex put them on the shelf for a long time. The latest codex has them seeing the table again.

I've never personally seen anything as extreme as the third example in the original post. We did have a girl in our group for a while that played Halloween marines with a lot of intriguing conversions.

[Fxeni]

Rule of cool: The nicer your army looks, the less people will complain about it.

[Psychosplodge]

and

[hippsman]

I'm cool with proxy as long as it is only a model or two and for a good reason (i.e. model is broken, don't have the bits for this one piece.) I'm not much for saying that this eldar squad represents my long fangs or even taking a squad of bolter carrying marines and say they are long fangs. If you want to field a unit, model it. the only exception is if you are play testing with a friend to see if a certain model is worth buying.