40K Op-Ed: Proxies & Out of Print Minis
There’s a tempest in a teapot swirling around the community surrounding proxies. Let’s talk about 40K’s issue with good rules and hard to find models.
In the Olden Days
For a very long time, 40K strongly encouraged conversions, and the community has embraced proxies to various degrees over the decades. If you all go way, way, way back to the heady days of Rogue Trader, we get the famous deodorant-speeder, and for decades some models with rules had no models, so you had no choice but to make your own.
So AWESOME!
Heck, making your own models was the pride and joy of being an Ork player till about 10 years back.
But times have changed.
Fast Forward to Now
These days GW has its model range looking sharp and complete. The hazy missing model days are long gone, and if there’s something with rules – you better believe it has an official model as well. If you want to build up an army, you are guaranteed to be able to grab the correct models for it. Most of the time…
We have entered a newly complex time with several types of models.
- Units with models and rules (almost everything)
- Units with models and restricted rules (Legends)
But there’s a third grey area – Units with rules and very hard to find models. Today’s 40K controversy uses such an example. Meet the Chaplain Dread:
This is a unit that has rules (in this case quite good ones), that is not a Legends unit, but no longer available from Forge World. The issue at hand is that some larger tournaments are now enforcing rules to limit non-authorized proxies. So, for example, the above Chaplain Dread is a rare bird, unavailable for a while, but suddenly every marine player (so the majority) out there is putting them into their armies – mostly via proxies. Attempts to limit …let’s call them “cavalier” conversions and proxies have got some players all hot and bothered.
Where’s the Line for Proxies?
So the issue is where is the line for acceptability?
- Should we see GW start to move these out of print Forge World models into Legends?
- Should events limit such “hot” units to the actual models, making them rare and valuable commodities?
- Should they be allowed freely as proxies with no restrictions and minimal conversions (example: “My black dreadnoughts are really Chaplain dreads”).
Thoughts
Personally I think GW should move such unavailable Forge World units to Legends. I mean isn’t this pretty much why Legends was invented in the first place? To give obsolete models a place to be put out to pasture once they are no longer in production. With me, it’s not so much about the rarity of such units (you can always use them in open and narrative play). The issue is units like these make the game a steeper climb for newcomers who never had access to these units when they were in production years back. I firmly believe that any game should ensure that newcomers never be put in a disadvantage over older players due to issues of model/unit scarcity. The inherent issues of less experience are already enough of a challenge for newcomers to overcome.
~But I want to hear about what you think the best solution to this issue is because GW can easily solve the issue once and for all – so let’s all have our say.
