Reader Question Time - Count As and You

So a quick one here.

I was writing up a short editorial on competitive play and count as, and well, it got a bit wordy.

A couple of articles recently have gotten my attention, as a lot of blogs recently have become a bit stale. Its not surprising since 5th Edition has been explored quite thoroughly and 6th is around the corner. It certainly is effecting me, as I've pretty much slowed my army progress down to a crawl with one eye on what 6th Edition will mean for army list construction.

However, one of the articles that did catch my eye was over at House of Paincakes

In summary the article is basically referring to the "great model, terrible rules" conundrum that many people have, and how many might approach the situation.

This obviously can be broadened into the whole concept of count as.

WHERE DO YOU STAND?


The concept of Count As is a very polarising one in our hobby.

You have players that love it, no matter how it appears, there are some that hate it equally. More often than not you find players that appreciate the models, but dislike that you have the element of "justification", "oh your just playing it with the best book", and then the players that hit the nail on the head, right theme, right models and right units, and it all works. And then everything in between.

I have my opinion on the issue, which I won't put forward just yet, but I'd love to hear what others think about Count As.

Is it always wrong?
Is it never wrong?
As long as it matches the theme?


My examples above are more closely linked to examples such as players doing Adeptus Custodes or Mechanicus count as. Something that exists strongly in fluff, but has no representation in the game.

However,

ONE ARMY TO RULE THEM ALL COUNT AS

This is the truly controversial one, and the one I am more interested in.

Do you care what your opponent puts down on the table, as long as its modelled accurately and clearly?
As long as he's not playing Ultramarines as Space Wolves, is it that bad?
What if its his own DIY Chapter, can you REALLY take offence?
Should you just pick a theme and a book and stick to it?

Again I am holding back my opinions, I really just want to see what our readers feel on this one.

Building the Desert Lions - Part 3, Robots Great and Small (finally!)

Hi everyone, its been a while since my last hobby update.  I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say my hobby time has been severely limited, partly out of necessity and partly out of choice.  However, I recently found some gaming time at last, and this has inspired me to get building again!  I have at long last created some of the major units for my long term project - The Desert Lions Chapter.  Since most of you probably weren't born (warning: possible exaggeration) when I started this project, check out the links below for a recap.

http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/counts-as-purifiers-and-dreadknight.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/building-desert-lions-part-1-some.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/building-desert-lions-part-2-coteaz.html

Building the Desert Lions - Part 2, Coteaz, Henchmen and Anti-Grav Transports

Zooom! (if only I was using the BA codex)   

Welcome to part two of my (very) irregular series on building my counts-as Grey Knights, the Desert Lions space marine chapter.  Part one, containing the background for the army can be found here, and a 'prequal post' containing my 'purifiers' and 'dreadknight' can be found here.

Today, I am going to show off my Commander, an as yet unnamed Techpriest who is a counts as for Coteaz.  Additionally, there are some members of the proto-scout elements of the chapter, who count as henchmen with bolters.  Finally, I'll be showing you my almost completed anti-grav rhinos and razorbacks. 

Would you ever "re-do" an army?

So just a quick(ish) update from me on what's going on (*self edit* turns out its not so quick, not even ish!). Obviously I am trying to pump out a bit of a deathwing tactical series - this will be fractionally on hold until after Brighton Warlords next week - but next up in that is the second basic deployment article in the phalanx - which covers some variations as well, hopefully pretty cool - also have some quick articles about Ravenwing, Belial and Upgrades - one of these might see its way to the site in the next week though.

I've got a few bits I need to do the the army before I go down, nothing major - just make sure those bikes are what I now will refer to as "stupid WYSIWYG" because not only does GW explicitly rule that you do not need to represent standard wargear on a model (I.E anything that's not an upgrade and comes as standard) but when I put the GW provided grenades on, that apparently wasn't enough either! All I say is good luck to anyone with Grey Hunters - Bolt Pistols, Grenades, CC Weap and Boltgun on every model?! Heaven forbid you run a Ork army with Cybork units lol!

Anyway it shouldn't be too much work. I need to repair two models and have some minor paint touch ups. If I feel particularly bored I can re-do some shoulders and arms. I do need to finish off the banner bearer as well as some little touches to the command squad that I missed last time round. So its basically a case of v.easy stuff to get 99.9% complete, a lot of monotonous small bits to get 100%!


But once its done its done ... or is it?

Recently I've really been thinking about completely redoing the entire force. I really love the army itself, but I have to say I did rush it a fair bit, and have some really cool idea's for a new version. When I made it, I did it as a sort of a "theme without a real theme", but I have to say right now I really want an army that either has an extremely strong theme (I.E fluffy count as) or is straight up Codex scheme and painted to the best of my ability. I have a few idea's that I'd like to run by you and see what you guys think.

Honestly - I am contemplating starting this army again - would you ever think of doing this? Anyway - on to my thought process.