Bell of Lost Souls editorial FAIL

Bell of Lost Souls.  You know the place.  You've probably been on one side or another of one of their myraid of arguments.  The site, as far as I can tell, is a group of players from Texas and their views and thoughts on the world of Warhammer.  It's certainly THEIR view and I won't fault them for it.  However as late there has been a great debate being waged.  The schism between "counts as" and "proxy".

An argument, which one of the head writers defended in his own editorial (linked below) AND FAILED MISERABLY AT.




Specifically, this has been centered around one of their authors, "Goatboy".  While not a fan of his play style or his painting (both are highly overrated IMO), he certainly garners my attention with articles.  Why?  Because I like the argue?  *shrugs*  He has this trend to bandwagon, enjoying the flavor of the month but usually with the same models.  He has a "goat" army: marines with beast men heads, that he uses for chaos marines, Blood Angels and Space Wolves.  Not my cup of tea and one of the reasons for this article.  The other reason is his new "Word Bearer" army... using Space Wolf rules.  Yes.  You read that right.  An army of fanatical religious nut jobs using the Space Wolf codex.  Not the Chaos Marine codex.

Take a look for yourself:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/01/goatboys-army-list-continuing-with.html

Bell of Lost Souls has jumped right behind their hombre in his defence and in so, here is the FAILURE of this entire thing.  That being the worst argument ever presented to man.

I shall present the bulk of it here.  My responses are intermingled within, in bold and italics: Like this.  The original article (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/02/editorial-is-it-proxy-or-is-it-counts.html) contained pictures, but I am not going to.

Using an Ultramarine as a Chaos Space Marine, or an Ork, or an Eldar Guardian isn’t appropriate. An Ultramarine as a Chaos Space Marine is a proxy…

OK, this makes sense so far.  A non chaos marine model using chaos rules is a proxy.  Makes sense and I agree. 

…but a Goat Angel is ‘Counts-As.’

Uh...

See the difference? No... no I don't.  Space Goats may use parts from both Loyalist and Chaos Space Marines, but they are neither and thus can be used in a variety of ways. Using straight Chaos Space Marines to rep out a new Codex chapter is all well and good at home, but is it appropriate at a tournament where you may be playing a stranger? 

I don’t think so. At the very least, I’m sure we can agree it is a gray area.

So why isn’t it okay to use Chaos Space Marines as Loyalist Space Marines? After all, the Goats are pretty chaotic looking; what’s the difference?

Sort it out like this: does a model have a stat line in the Warhammer 40K universe already? In this case of Goatboys Word Bearers... yes, yes they do.  They are called Chaos Marines. If it does, and you use it for something else, that’s a proxy. Ah, so his Word Bearers ARE proxies.  Goat Marines exist nowhere except Goatboy’s probably warped mind, yet Khorne Berserkers have a color scheme and set of abilities everyone is already familiar with. Using Berserkers as Vanguard isn’t cool. No, it isn't.  Wait, what does this have to do with Goat Boy's proxying?

But using Chaos Space Marines painted in your own design as Knights of Blood is perfectly cool. We’re all familiar enough with the game to be flexible on a technical proxy like that. It’s a game, after all.

So, in the end what you are saying is an Ultramarine can't be a Chaos marine because it is a regular space marine model.  However, a chaos marine model, or one HEAVILY influenced by them, can be any space marine chapter it wants to?  It has a Goat Head, Chaos parts, Chaos SYMBOLS but it isn't chaos?  It's a Counts As, not a proxy?

If it has an established set of rules current in the system, it's a proxy.  Goat Boys Word Bearers, however, are a Counts As because there are no Goat Marines?  Because... there are no Word Bearers anywhere?  At all... except in the chaos book?  Really, your argument rings false within itself as there is no Ultramarines codex so really, it can be whatever it wants to be.

Let's do the math here:

Marine style model + Goats Head + Chaos Bitz + Chaos symbols = counts as?
A blue marine using other rules = proxy?

Here is the FACT.  You are simply defending him not because he is right, but because he's the most prolific and arguably most netfamous writer on your site.   He's using models he thinks look cool, which IS cool and fine and dandy, but using rules he thinks are BEST!  Not best suited, but best in a competitive sense.  A simple admittance would be amazing.

Don't go out on some front defending his honour when your view point ARGUES AGAINST ITSELF.  He is proxying army after army and using the best rules he can find.  It's that simple.  Why not just admit it?