Conversions as a Warhammer Tournament Player - Dos & Don'ts

While Warhammer is one of the most popular tabletop games of all time, it is first and foremost a hobby. Unlike games such as Magic or Chess, a vital component to actually playing Warhammer is building & painting your miniatures.  Everything is supplied to you in pieces, and there’s absolutely an encouraged impulse to make ‘your guys’ truly your own, unmistakably your glorious army, from which heraldry they bear to the weapons they wield.  This is unfortunately at-odds with strictly competitive play, as readability at a glance, minimized sight lines, and “WYSIWYG”, or “What you see is what you get”, means creativity can be stymied for those aiming to top tournaments.

The two spaces in which my love for the hobby is strongest are both conversion & competitive in a duality, so I have plenty of experience finding ways to fulfill both halves.  To that end, I wanted to share advice as to how your beautiful, unique armies can remain tournament-legal, while not making creative concessions.

The first & biggest “Do” for conversion, which is important no matter how tournament-savvy you are, is to make sure the footprint and height of your miniature are roughly equivalent to its intended base.  While it’s quite fun to plant a sassy Nurgling on a 50mm base and call it a Daemon Prince, it’s unfair to your opponent to expect such a model to reasonably represent a tall, winged harbinger of Chaos.  This can be alleviated by erring in your opponent’s favor for all sightline concerns, by deeming the base to be an infinitely tall column of sight, but still this hurts at-a-glance readability for both participants.  You absolutely should try to have your conversion mimic the silhouette of its counterpart, and even better is being especially gracious to your opponent when they’re trying to set up sightlines for ranged attacks or spells.  Be courteous, and be clear.

Via Reddit

Throughout the course of editions, the preferred loadouts of specific models might change, as was the case with something like the Skorpius Disintegrator.  How lenient you can be with a model’s equipment depends on several factors: Is the visible, actual modeled weapon well-known?  Do you have multiple of that unit in your army, each with different loadouts?  10th Edition has made it easier for armies to standardize their wargear, ie “Every Kabalite squad has X, Y, and Z options”, but whether you’re playing Marines or Votann could determine whether that rocket launcher might be able to slide as a flamer.

If you’re converting models from different ranges, such as Age of Sigmar or Necromunda, it can be a huge boon to actually use the weapons or wargear from the intended counterpart, as I did with my Electro-Priests.  While the base model is different, being Tarantulos Brood, the Corpuscarii have their Gauntlets, and Fulgurites have their staves, down to a T.  While this quickly gets expensive, third-party bitz sellers can help offset this cost, and having friends break boxes with you between weapons and bodies also works well.  Do try to use appropriate modeled wargear, or if you can’t, ensure each model with a specific wargear uses the same equivalent piece.

One unfortunate truth of conversion is that not every model is on a base, and while a rough footprint is alright for casual play, you absolutely need an exact reference for competition.  In this vein, if you need to mimic a Rhino, Dunerider, etc, Do make it fully your own, and have fun with the template provided.

With all the previous points in mind, a clearer picture of approaching conversions emerges — You need your new models to be roughly the same size, exactly the same footprint, and ideally, easily readable in terms of weapons or equipment.  In a Games Workshop-run tournament though, a few more rules crop up, namely regarding the use of 3rd party pieces.

One of the biggest boons of our modern hobby is the ability to 3D print new pieces, or entire models, to flesh out your Warhammer army.  Oftentimes this takes the appearance of printed shoulder pads bearing an army’s iconography, new heads, weapons, etc, but a soft rule of thumb is as follows: At sanctioned tournaments, no more than 10% of a miniature should be non-GW plastic.  This is a largely unspoken rule, and does not account for fully-sculpted “Greenstuff” additions, but it is upheld nonetheless.  No matter how good a “fixed” 3D print of an old model looks, if Games Workshop has their skin in the game, tournament organizers are going to be more stringent in their policies on printed minis.

The good news is that, so long as it fits your theme, converting from a different Warhammer range than your base game is entirely allowed, so long as you meet the previously-discussed criteria.  I’ve seen tons of Marines use weapons from Stormcast bodies, or wicked Drukhari bear blades from the Idoneth.  Genestealer Cult heads fit well on nearly every Necromunda gang torso, and their weapons are nearly 1:1, Webbers not included.  Limitations breed creativity, and there’s plenty of crossovers still unexplored!

Via Reddit

One of the first places many people look for, when beginning their conversion journey, is the potential waste that comes from dual kits.  Of course, a given box of Sicarians can only build either 5 Infiltrators or 5 Ruststalkers, but once the dust settles you’ve still got the heads and arms for 5 of whichever was left on the sprue.  Naturally, you want to see these pieces used, either in a brand-new conversion, or as supplements to another unit as a bit of flair.

One might scour the web to find bodies that come in 5s or 10s which fit the leftover pieces from a kit like this, then track down the same amount of bases, either from a local store or a third-party retailer; by the end of it, you’re so determined to make a full 10 Sicarians of 2 different flavors that you’ve taken a dive headfirst into conversion!  To remind you, Warhammer is a hobby first, so even though your first few forays might not be the best thing you’ll ever create, having fun with it is paramount.  It does help quite a bit to pre-plan your work though, so Do write down your intended list of swaps or required pieces for a given conversion, especially if you need to repeat it later to expand the unit.

Via Reddit

I started playing Warhammer in 2010, so I’ve been in the game for quite some time, and perhaps the greatest casualty of the modern hobby has been the loss of the BitzBox.  Back in the day, Games Workshop stores would keep a box containing a variety of spare parts donated by the community, where one could leave one of their leftover components to take one from the box.  This meant that you’d see wild conversions far more often, and it was unusual not to see basing details such as a Marine head, or Eldar weapon, strewn at the feet of any army you’d play against.  Due to sanitary concerns, understandably, the Bitz Box met a tragic end in the middle part of the 2010s, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone for good.

If you can convince your local game store owners to get a BitzBox going, usually alongside some hand sanitizer that won’t melt plastic, it would be to the great benefit of the entire community you play in, I guarantee it.  Seeing a piece you donated eventually make its way onto a friend’s model provokes a feeling of elation, and the entire world of 40k feels more storied when forces march through decaying bits of their foes.

Via Convert or Die

Ultimately, your goal when talking to a Tournament Organizer regarding your conversions should be half-fueled by passion, the other by an allegiance to competitive integrity.  You’ve worked hard to make your force feel unique from the rest, and you want the opportunity to show it off on the competitive stage — but critically, you fully intend to do so without angle shooting, or without playing to unique advantages your conversions may provide.  It is a gift to receive permission to use nonstandard models in tournament play, and graciousness goes a long way, I’ve found.

With that, I hope this helps spark some creativity for those looking to flex their conversion skills in a tournament setting!  Do you have a converted army you want to show off?  What sorts of conversions would you like to see?   I’d love to hear what you’ve been thinking in the comments below!