After looking at the new Pathfinder models (which are fantastic btw maybe the best yet) many of them, this kind of goes for the commandos as well, can be used as a stand in for rebel troopers. Bistan makes an interesting sub for a z6, the human unit leader could sub in for the rebel trooper unit leader. Those kinds of things. And I to got me thinking what would happen at an official tourny if these things were done. Obviously paint bistan differently if you're going to use him as a a z6 or something. But things like the rebel officer upgrade. Can I just use the normal mini as my rebel officer upgrade? This game has been very vague on this kind of stuff, which I prefer but it does leave questions.

The game appears to be pretty clear that, officially, you need to use the models that represent that unit in an "official" game; local tournaments will vary, of course. I think you should tend towards thinking of your opponent and how likely doing this is to cause him confusion in the middle of a game. If you have a Pathfinder unit or two on the table, I wouldn't be very comfortable with you mixing Pathfinder minis into other units. I'd be fine with you using a normal Rebel Trooper leader as a Rebel Officer as long as every Rebel Trooper unit in your army had the Rebel Officer upgrade, and so on. I have enough to keep track of without having to remember what is what and worry about confusing your units for those of a completely different type.

While I'm very much in favour of conversions and alternative models, people can be easily confused. An example from this weekend:

"Why would you remove the sniper as a casualty"

"He's not the sniper."

"But the fish guy is the sniper."

"No, the bloke with the long sniper's rifle is the sniper."

I modified my X Wings in Armada simply by removing the top wings to create a 'merc' fighter. Apparently this was confusing despite the fact I explained pregame what they were, they were on X-Wing bases and painted differently from the other fighters.

2 hours ago, Katarn said:

While I'm very much in favour of conversions and alternative models, people can be easily confused. An example from this weekend:

"Why would you remove the sniper as a casualty"

"He's not the sniper."

"But the fish guy is the sniper."

"No, the bloke with the long sniper's rifle is the sniper."

I modified my X Wings in Armada simply by removing the top wings to create a 'merc' fighter. Apparently this was confusing despite the fact I explained pregame what they were, they were on X-Wing bases and painted differently from the other fighters.

I'm guessing you won that game. 😜

It just seems like an easy way to confuse others. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve got some truly custom sculpts that don’t look like another unit.

7 hours ago, Tirion said:

Bistan makes an interesting sub for a z6, the human unit leader could sub in for the rebel trooper unit leader.

I have been going through the same thought process!

The Commandos and Pathfinders are both so close to the Rebel Troopers that it’s tempting to work them into the regular units...

I’m considering a 2nd pack of Pathfinders and those extra Pao and Bistan models would look great in some other units, but I think it might be confusing.

For casual games it can be fun to play custom models “as if” to keep the rules clean but like you said when you get to tourney stuff it’s important to be close to the as sold figures and poses.

I mark the unit type on my bases so I have no worries about mixing figures and parts from the Troopers and Commandos. I think I'll figure a way to distinguish between Pathfinders and Commandos so I mix them too.

5 hours ago, lologrelol said:

I'm guessing you won that game. 😜

No, that question came from my team...

Even in normal games I get complaints that commandos look too much like troopers so it's hard to focus fire my snipers.

The other possible point of confusion arrives from Legion allowing friendly units to be in base to base. If you freely mix in Pathfinder minis into a unit of Rebel Troopers, field a units of Pathfinders and then have those two units intermixed, now it becomes very difficult to remember which model belongs to which unit. If I draw range to a model in that scrum, if it's a Pathfinder mini, I have no way of knowing which unit I'm targeting if I haven't studied your models intently. Unless both units are painted vastly different bright colors, it can be difficult to remember what models go with what unit, and that assumes your opponent isn't colour blind.

9 hours ago, GunNut said:

I mark the unit type on my bases so I have no worries about mixing figures and parts from the Troopers and Commandos. I think I'll figure a way to distinguish between Pathfinders and Commandos so I mix them too.

I still haven’t done this but I think if it’s a nice bold color around the edge of the base, like I’ve seen some people do, it would keep things pretty clear. Maybe careful about the common colorblind colors...

(They changed Green maneuvers in X-Wing to Blue maneuvers to help colorblind people who had trouble with the Red-Green)

BTW: now I can’t stop thinking about giving my extra Pao and Bistan Z-6s..

Depends on how, where, and why you go about it.

If you only field Rebel Troopers, or all Fleet Troopers, etc. and the models all carry the correct heavy weapons if any, and are all in more or less the same color scheme I can't see a problem with it. If you are doing this in a way where you wind up with lots of extra models, no one can accuse you of being a cheapskate who is trying to chisel out an unfair advantage.

If you have multiple types of infantry squads and they aren't all identical troop types, and they aren't all the "right" ones, it could get problematic fast.

The problem I see with using "ordinary squad leaders" as officers is that will get really confusing fast. The best way to do THAT in my opinion, is to not use [squad type] at all in your army and use the squad leaders from that as more battle-ready looking generic officers. So, if you only take Rebel Troopers, use Fleet Trooper squad leader models as generic officers.

2 hours ago, BenBot said:

I still haven’t done this but I think if it’s a nice bold color around the edge of the base, like I’ve seen some people do, it would keep things pretty clear. Maybe careful about the common colorblind colors...

(They changed Green maneuvers in X-Wing to Blue maneuvers to help colorblind people who had trouble with the Red-Green)

BTW: now I can’t stop thinking about giving my extra Pao and Bistan Z-6s..

I have had great success with arm-swaps to create alternate Z-6 models for basic rebel trooper squads.

3 hours ago, BenBot said:

I still haven’t done this but I think if it’s a nice bold color around the edge of the base, like I’ve seen some people do, it would keep things pretty clear. Maybe careful about the common colorblind colors...

(They changed Green maneuvers in X-Wing to Blue maneuvers to help colorblind people who had trouble with the Red-Green)

BTW: now I can’t stop thinking about giving my extra Pao and Bistan Z-6s..

I use the unit symbol, so no color concerns there. I think I'm going to add branch-of-service piping, so Commandos will be Special Forces symbol plus blue piping, and Pathfinders Special Forces symbol plus a gold starbird for being part of the fleet.

21 hours ago, Katarn said:

While I'm very much in favour of conversions and alternative models, people can be easily confused. An example from this weekend:

"Why would you remove the sniper as a casualty"

"He's not the sniper."

"But the fish guy is the sniper."

"No, the bloke with the long sniper's rifle is the sniper."

I modified my X Wings in Armada simply by removing the top wings to create a 'merc' fighter. Apparently this was confusing despite the fact I explained pregame what they were, they were on X-Wing bases and painted differently from the other fighters.

I'd be curious to know what the "fish guy" was holding.

4 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

The problem I see with using "ordinary squad leaders" as officers is that will get really confusing fast. The best way to do THAT in my opinion, is to not use [squad type] at all in your army and use the squad leaders from that as more battle-ready looking generic officers. So, if you only take Rebel Troopers, use Fleet Trooper squad leader models as generic officers.

So long as no "normal" officers are included in the army for that given unit, this is a Proxy I actually don't have TON of issue with, since there literally aren't any "normal" officers in the army. Again, the main issue I have with using Pathfinders as a (for lack of a better term) "proxy" for normal Rebel Troopers is if there are also Pathfinders in the army.

19 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

So long as no "normal" officers are included in the army for that given unit, this is a Proxy I actually don't have TON of issue with, since there literally aren't any "normal" officers in the army. Again, the main issue I have with using Pathfinders as a (for lack of a better term) "proxy" for normal Rebel Troopers is if there are also Pathfinders in the army.

I mean if you used a Bistian for a Z6 I wouldn't mind, as long as you weren't putting another Bistian on the board. Still, if you're gonna do anything official then don't go swapping pieces from unit X into unit Y, or if you (the OP) do don't get sore if your opponent exercises their legitimate right to request you use the correct minis.

All my rebel troopers use captured stormtrooper armor, the commandos use scout trooper armor, and I equip captured Imperial Army uniforms on Luke. Seems reasonable for an insurgent force, right?

37 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

All my rebel troopers use captured stormtrooper armor, the commandos use scout trooper armor, and I equip captured Imperial Army uniforms on Luke. Seems reasonable for an insurgent force, right?

I get your point but mine is more that making different stats tied hard and fast to different uniforms isn't necessary to run a smooth game, other companies have done it for ages.

I would love it if they released "Imperial Stormtroopers in cold weather gear" which had stormtrooper heavies and were posed entirely different and otherwise marked from "snowtroopers" so you could still tell the squads apart. Likewise "Rebel Troopers" with rifles, Z-6's, etc. in Tantive IV uniforms.

It wouldn't hurt the gameplay and it would give people options.

51 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

All my rebel troopers use captured stormtrooper armor, the commandos use scout trooper armor, and I equip captured Imperial Army uniforms on Luke. Seems reasonable for an insurgent force, right?

Yeah, and Han is in his Darth Vader cosplay to pull a prank on Luke (sadly he doesn't know about Luke's initial violent reaction in the force cave on Dagobah so it wont go well for him)

2 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

I'd be curious to know what the "fish guy" was holding.

I am also very curious about this.

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

I mean if you used a Bistian for a Z6 I wouldn't mind, as long as you weren't putting another Bistian on the board. Still, if you're gonna do anything official then don't go swapping pieces from unit X into unit Y, or if you (the OP) do don't get sore if your opponent exercises their legitimate right to request you use the correct minis.

Being as that the squads all come with the "right" figures there's no reason not to have them on hand at a tournament just in case. It's not like 40k where you have to decide if you are going to build guys with this weapon or that. The important thing I think would be designating ONE type of squad that isn't used anywhere in your army as its actual self, to poach alternate figures from. I mean you could paint a whole box of fleet troopers in the colors of an officers uniform and use them all scattered across the army and I wouldn't care as long as you had no actual fleets, and didn't ALSO have a bunch of other stuff for me to mentally juggle.

2 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

I'd be curious to know what the "fish guy" was holding.

A regular rifle. I'm not great at sculpting but arm swaps aren't too difficult with rebels- textiles are easier than armour plates.

Last time I went to a 40k tournament up at HQ there was an eldar player who had built an exodite army. Basically he had dragons instead of tanks but there wasn't a problem because it was still clear what they represented. It was an exceptionally cool army if you like that kind of thing.

GW seemed a bit more easy going in that regard compared to FF, though that may be changing.

Officially, I think the models need to be at least close to the official one.

Casually, I’ll gladly proxy officer cards and use the regular unit leaders as officers on any group that pays the point to upgrade to the morale 2, etc.

34 minutes ago, MarekMandalore said:

Officially, I think the models need to be at least close to the official one.

Casually, I’ll gladly proxy officer cards and use the regular unit leaders as officers on any group that pays the point to upgrade to the morale 2, etc.

Officially (last time I cared anyways) they had to use 51% Citadel parts. Ie, "Do whatever you want but give us your money".

48 minutes ago, Katarn said:

A regular rifle. I'm not great at sculpting but arm swaps aren't too difficult with rebels- textiles are easier than armour plates.

Last time I went to a 40k tournament up at HQ there was an eldar player who had built an exodite army. Basically he had dragons instead of tanks but there wasn't a problem because it was still clear what they represented. It was an exceptionally cool army if you like that kind of thing.

GW seemed a bit more easy going in that regard compared to FF, though that may be changing.

Oh sure, I do plenty of arm swaps. I'm all for kit bashing.

I think the two problematic things to switch out are the unit leader and the heavy weapons trooper since those are the most distinct minis in any rebel squad. You also have to think about the times when the squad gets reduced to down to one or two minis