PROXIES: How Far is Too Far?

Where do you draw the line with proxies?

#tabletopwargames #warhammerageofsigmar #tabletopwargaming #gamesworkshop #warhammer40k

[MrAnihillator]

1.Right size
2.Identifiable and distinct
3.Sportsmanship

[Adino]

I saw a guy use an old school 6 dollar bag of plastic army men once. Even quickly painted a red bandana on their heads so he could call them Catachans. lol

[nunyabeeswax]

Once played against a guy who printed his entire guard army. Like, inkjet. Bases were correct size, Paper was cut out to appropriate height. Dude even had construction paper tanks and Chimera. The guardsman were just paper glued to popsicle sticks on basese. Started our game with "Hey man, I apologize that they're paper. I can't afford the army without play testing it first." Guy was a pleasure to play with and respected the fact that some people dont like proxies.

They were the most inspired and incredible proxies I had ever seen. The whole game club let him use them for a while and he ended up making a Valykrie (everything was 100% dimensionally accurate) shortly before he started buying.

[nathanielhurley]

If i want to use my 3 year old as a warlord titan i should be able to.

What do you mean he's eating the models? That's lore accurate.

[GiraffeCrab]

Case and point: the issue of white dwarf where they showed you how to make a hovertank out of a shampoo bottle.

[SparrowwithaMachinegun]

"Look, I don't have 250 elven archers. BUT! I do have 100 Elven archers, 50 dark elves archers and 100 spare base plates. So lets do this"

[GuardianAssassin]

The craziest proxy I did was with my friend. I was running late and I found out the carry trays in my box had slipped sideways and crushed my Junith Eruita. I didn't have time to repair her and immediately drive to the store hoping the glue would be enough.

Luckily, I had just bought my first Amiibo and I got an idea.

Ironically, Princess Peach was on a 50mm base and approximately the same dimensions.

So I played with a 15ft tall princess against some 8ft Space Marines. XD

[envynemo]

as long as i can understand what they represent on the table i’m good with ppl using proxy even if Cheetos are used

[Izayoink_Saccuy]

Using a garden gnome as a Mortarion proxy

[GramSmasher]

- its clear what they are
- its clear what equipment they have
- as close to the original scale/size
- the correct base size

If all these are ticked, i have no issues playing against proxy models

[LoafingMushroom]

If you wanna play with an entire proxy army I will shake your hand and congratulate you on your wise financial decisions.

[Mangoman-vgyq]

In the end: anything can be a proxy as long as all players aggree on it.

[saschafeld]

There are two kinds of players.
One wants to play the game so they need some kind of minitures to use and dont care to much how they look.
The other one wants to build and paint the minitures and then just play the game to use and show them.

The Mickey Mouse army sound fun.

[RichyN]

Meanwhile Battletech is like "yeah just use some cardboard cutouts"

[wight]

I've been playing Epic Armageddon exclusively with proxies, but what made it work (for me) was printing out suitably thematic tokens and gluing them to sheets of foamboard: two armies of foamboard tokens fighting each other might not be to everyone's taste, but I found that it added just enough appropriate atmosphere to work.

If I were to do the same at 28mm scale, I'd probably look into paper standees. If I wanted to use a box, I'd probably print top, side, and front images and glue them onto the box. It's not as creative as painting the box, but it's still a big step up (for relatively little effort) from fielding a box of tissues.

[alastairsmith]

I have fond memories of poorhammer Warhammer fantasy as a kid. We would use minis when we had them, but there were also times that we wanted to have large battles we simply did not have the minis for, so we cut pieces of paper to the correct size to represent units and wrote on them what they were. These days I 3d print suitable proxies when I want to play something new.

[austinhicks]

Haven't seen anyone mention how second edition came with a cardboard picture of an ork dreadnought on a base.

[i]

I think it's a question of honor

If you want to test a unit and want to use a paper model before you commit, and ask about it beforehand, that's honorable. If you have taken the time to hand-pick a 3D model which matches the theme of your army, and painted it, that's honorable. If you have lovingly kitbashed an entire army of rat Imperial Guards, that's honorable as well and I can accept your silly Mickey Mouse proxy (Though it would be preferable if you found one in scale and made it all grimdark - I can handle a meme but you gotta OWN that meme)

But if it's clear you are doing this simply because it's cheap - Say dropping some unmodified gunpla on the field and calling them Imperial Knights - That's when it gets dishonorable. I'd be fine with someone chasing a meta list as it emerges just to see how it runs, but if they are doing that every week then it gets really silly and not so honorable.

I think the core question of proxying is like... "Is this respectful to the game?" The same action can be honorable or dishonorable depending on circumstance, with that in mind

[Subject_Keter]

I think the only thing that matters is "I can tell what I am shooting"

You cant roll up with some green army men and expect me to know this is a that and this one has Combat B.A.T Launcher upgrade?! 😂

[Lorkynn]

As long as I understand what you're trying to do, I'm usually okay with most things. Granted, I am not a hyper-competitive type of player. Because of cash restrictions I've had to use paper cutout proxies before.