Fluff Bunny or Power Gamer?

[Akaiyou]

My friend and I are having a bit of a debate. He used to be a raven guard player and has all his guys painted up as such. He was taking a lot of losses with his ravenguard. And is now playing them count-as Iron Hands. He also went and bought himself an Imperial Knight, some Imperial Guard, and a couple storm talons to add to the storm raven he already owned.

He uses the following units in almost every list he makes.
Imperial Knight Errant (every single list without exception)
Chapter Master on bike with Hammer + Shield Eternal (frequently)
Space Marine Stormwing Formation (almost every list until recently when we found out that he does NOT gain iron hands chapter tactic benefits)
3 Leman Russ Battle Tanks (when using IG)

He claims that he is being a fluffy player. Using SM + AM + Imperial Knight is very fluffy. I tell him that he is most definetly a power gamer and should just embrace it for what it is instead of being in denial about it.

So what do the rest of you think? Fluff player or Power Gamer?

[Path Walker]

Using Iron Hands rules because they're better than the army he has painted pretty much discounts him being fluffy, he wants to win but, if he's having more fun, then he should embrace it.

[Learn2Eel]

Possibly the flyers aside his list conceptually sounds themed. Honestly, 75% of the players I meet would be classed as "Power Gamers" if the only necessary criteria was that they were using an army painted as one Chapter or sub-faction in a codex to instead represent another Chapter or sub-faction. So many people do it because they don't like how the army they have put so much time and effort into has poor rules or is misrepresented on the battlefield, which is their right to believe (heck, most Thousand Sons' players I know of just use the Grey Knight codex). Your friend is using an army painted like Raven Guard to represent a mostly properly themed Iron Hands army. There's nothing there that indicates to me that he is a "Power Gamer"; if he was losing a lot of games and wanted to change things up by gravitating towards a different albeit generally more competitive theme, I see no issue with that. Now, if he was regularly running something along the lines of three Knights alongside a Centurion-star and leafblower Guard then I think you might have a case to raise...

What people forget is that there is a massive gap between "Fluff Bunny" and "Power Gamer" that you will find most players sit somewhere in between. Your friend is by no means a "Fluff Bunny" but he certainly doesn't classify as a full-on "Power Gamer" either...so my vote will instead go to the addition of a third poll option; "Neither".

[Reldane]

Okay, I don't understand peoples problems with marines painted one way being used as a different faction from the same codex. Firstly its nice to have a change every once in a while, secondly the chapter tactics are not remotely balanced with each other - why should a player purposely take the weaker option because that is the faction that they like the fluff of? Finally would anyone have a problem if he was using a marine painted as a devastator as a tactical marine heavy weapon? I would doubt it.

[Arkhan Land]

I really cant decide, I sometimes have run the following army: Ultramarines, Bike Capn + Sqauds, A few sqauds in TLPGLC Razors, Vindicators, Speeders and Talon or two and... Russ CO sqaud, Two Vest and an artillerty battery and... An inquisitorial retinue that usually has some chimeras/razors psybolted out and either a Valk or a Crusader to top it off

This list is brutal and messed up, so many high strength Pies and buttload of High AP at range but...

Everything is painted as is, appropriate sqaud markings on vehicles, sqauds, tanks you name it, the Gaurdsmen all look UAD as hell, Ultra logos and blue everywhere even some on the tanks themselves, inquisitorial forces are marked as being from Tallasar (The local fortress, ***** of time making those decals from other AS/SM decal sheet words)

but... heres the caveat, I only use it in apocalyse games
I only ever felt comfortable fielding it in a normal game once (against a completely stocked Millitarum list, i mean fully stocked all the USRs you name it flyers artillery no un-embarked troops, two Tank COs with Pask, etc.) It was still a straight up annihilation

Fluffy as all hell and painted to match to a T yes.
Fun-non-competetive material: Not really

[Path Walker]

Okay, I don't understand peoples problems with marines painted one way being used as a different faction from the same codex. Firstly its nice to have a change every once in a while, secondly the chapter tactics are not remotely balanced with each other - why should a player purposely take the weaker option because that is the faction that they like the fluff of? Finally would anyone have a problem if he was using a marine painted as a devastator as a tactical marine heavy weapon? I would doubt it.

Because you can't call yourself a fluff player if you're changing which army you play just for the advantage. I play Minotaur Space Marines, I've a huge army of bronze marines, I use the FW chapter tactics for them, which aren't as good as the Iron Hands ones.

If you're using Raven Guard, call them Raven Guard and organise them as Raven Guard, use Raven Guard rules.

[daboarder]

Because you can't call yourself a fluff player if you're changing which army you play just for the advantage. I play Minotaur Space Marines, I've a huge army of bronze marines, I use the FW chapter tactics for them, which aren't as good as the Iron Hands ones.

If you're using Raven Guard, call them Raven Guard and organise them as Raven Guard, use Raven Guard rules.

you have no idea what his motivations are, it could be as simple as "i've played raven guard for 5 years I am now trying something different" without going through the time and effort of repaint my black marines into slightly different black marines.

Stop being a judgemental prick

[Path Walker]

you have no idea what his motivations are, it could be as simple as "i've played raven guard for 5 years I am now trying something different" without going through the time and effort of repaint my black marines into slightly different black marines.

Stop being a judgemental prick

Except, you know, if you actually read the OP, instead of immediately trying to attack me, you'd see that he changed because he was losing and rather than change up his tactics to take advantage of his strengths, he used the same boring Space Marine stuff.

He's not winning suddenly because he's using different Chapter Tactics, he's winning because he has an Iron Hands Chapter Master on a Bike with the Shield Eternal like every other boring Space Marine player.

As I said, if thats what he cares about, thats fine, but you can't call yourself a fluff bunny at the same time as using an unfluffy list just to win games.

Maybe more time reading and less time trying to make it seem like you're the boss of the forums and you wouldn't end up looking quite so silly.

[CoffeeGrunt]

There is no grey, only the brightest white and darkest black!

Most people, I find, are in the middle of the spectrum. Personally I will keep to a theme in models and paint scheme, but mix things up in rules to see what fits. My Tau would frequently flit between a Farsight Enclaves force, Empire force, or both of them mixed. My Guard are fairly static, but that's mostly because the Codex has no Chapter Tactics and no supplements.

The local Marines players here regularly mix up their Chapter Tactics to try out different builds, though, and I don't really hold that against them. They're representative, after all.

[Deadlift]

What does it matter ? Is he having fun ? Sounds like it. That's the important thing right ?
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