Visual Distinction

[Talos]

As you can tell, I have never played in a tournament setting before. How anal are people about modelling? If I run a slaughter class cruiser, which has lances and batteries on the side, how important is it to have them the right way? If I have the lances in the forward hardpoint and the batteries behind them, is my ship less valid than one that is reversed?

[AndrewChristlieb]

WYSIWYG, if it has the correct weapons in the wrong slots its still the same class unless theres some other class that also has that profile.

[Sigoroth]

I think that it's more important that you are clear and consistent. For example, I run my Carnages with the little side tubes still intact, rather than clipping them off like in the picture. According to the book this makes them a Murder, but since I don't use Murders at all there's no chance of mixing the two ship types up. So if I were to go to a tourney with them I'd just say that they're all Carnages.

As for the Slaughter, well I myself model that with 1 WB hardpoint per side and 1 lance hardpoint per side. The picture in the book however has it modelled with 2 lance hardpoints per side (due to this we get the notion of "hybrid hardpoints", which shits me, to be honest) and some people model their Slaughters accordingly. In grey areas such as this, simply declare how you're running your ships.

As for specific placements, well I've seen people put their launch bays forward on their Devastations whereas I put mine at the rear. Putting them forwards looks so dopey. It doesn't really matter which way you do it, though I'd avoid something like putting the launch bay forward on the left and back on the right. That would look really silly. The reverse is perfectly fine though. 

[Talos]

Haha that puts a smile on my face, really. I don't think they look good forward either, I was just curious. I assembled most of my ships when my grasp of the rules was still shaky, so all my IN cruisers have different dorsal spires configurations, which my regular opponents don't care about them.

The concept of a hardpoint being worth more because of intangibles, like how some ships have extra little gubinz strapped on to their prow and sides to boost the battery strength, is fine with me within reason. Hybrid points to me is stupid as all hell and just shows that someone at GW didn't really give a shit while ordering concept sketches.