So, around my FLGS there have been some new 40k players, and its been nice. I've gotten in some more PUGs than I usually do, but out of the 6ish new players, none of them have painted armies. My stuff isn't that great, but it's painted. The closest that any of then has is one guy who draws on the models with pertinent markers. It's kind of annoying honestly, because when I got into the game, it was what we did, not this amazing standout thing that happens rarely. Any of you finding this issue too?

Nah, not really. Grey legions have always been a thing...

I have a big amount of primed models but in recent months I've grown a dislike with playing with unpainted models.

Doesn't bother me that other people don't and most people at my local GW have at least a partially unpainted army

Do a search on Dakka and you will find multitudes of threads condemning those who don't paint and condemning those who condemn them.

Skriker

I don't really consider it an issue, but I'm in the group that is in the hobby for gaming first and modeling second.

My feelings about painted armies are well documented…
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/08/painting-matters-in-defense-of-hobby.html
...so I'll leave that alone for now.

As to the prevalence of unpainted 40k miniatures, in the FLGS's that I've seen Grey legions seem to be the norm. Our club moves our meeting (usually at member's homes) to the FLGS every other month or so and we're on 40k night. I can't recall the last time I saw a 40k night where more than half of the minis on the tables were painted. This has kind of been the norm for quite a few years, perhaps almost a decade. There was always some grey on the table, but when GW dropped the paint requirements from som tourneys and stores the grey quotient went way up. It didn't help that GW eventually got out of the tournament running business while at the same time the size of most armies has grown.

Why does this topic only seem to come up in GW subforums? Is it because the company constantly pushes for larger games, making it more difficult for new players to get their collections painted? And the seemingly daunting task of painting those large collections of minis would make starting all the jarder?

I don't know. I'd think it varies from club to club or store to store. For example, both the tournaments I've attended in the last few years and the casual pick up games at my local GW store have good majority of the armies painted - at least 70% - the quality or completeness of the paint scheme notwithstanding.

I don't look down upon those who play without their armies being painted. Sometimes one might want to test out their models, and see if a certain unit choice or setup works before committing to painting it - I've been there myself. Maybe one has trouble deciding on a chapter or hive fleet, and wants to use their expensive models in the meantime.

And it's not limited to GW games at all. I've seen plenty of Warmachine/Hordes games being played where only a few models had primer, and the rest were bare metal or plastic.

OP, are the new players still learning to paint? If they are, that's kind of understandable. They want to play with the models they've bought and assembled. But keep bringing your own painted stuff, maybe share a few tips on how to paint. Hopefully that will make them interested in painting their armies.

 infinite_array wrote:
Why does this topic only seem to come up in GW subforums? Is it because the company constantly pushes for larger games, making it more difficult for new players to get their collections painted? And the seemingly daunting task of painting those large collections of minis would make starting all the jarder?

Probably because the game is so awful that the only reason to play it is the aesthetic value of two awesome looking armies having a battle. If you just have a bunch of space marine legs glued to bases and cardboard boxes with "Rhino" written on them then what's the point of playing? There are plenty of vastly superior games available if the models are just a more expensive version of cardboard counters and hex maps.

If ya got time to play, you got time to paint. I won't play against unpainted models.

I really don't understand how you can be pride to play when you army is a grey legion. It makes me think about these 12 yo kids who get into the Hobby, buy hundreds of minis and quit after six months like they were switching TV channels.

I don't think the argument of ''it's a game above all" or "modeling is not that important" is even valid. This stuff has been made to be painted and that's why it's so important for us; who gives a damn about a grey mini? Nobody. Would you cry if your fully painted army is lost for a reason? Sure.

Playing grey army is a sign of laziness and great despise for everything that make 40k so special (fluff, customization, personal involvement, creativity). If you're in 40k just to play (i.e just to win) I don't think you deserve the attention of the majority of players who spent hours to make their armies so great.

Either you paint & play, either you change for another game. No compromise.

I don't want to strip gak paint jobs, and I don't want to paint gak onto models wasting money and time, because people who play, want to play against finished product.

Then again, I haven't played that many games.

Do you want to play against an army, testing out your builds, playing strategically? or do you want to live the fluff.

Either way people play for different reasons.

Call them Grey Knights!

The funny thing is, wayyyyy back in the day, people would play unpainted Grey Knights, and they would be.... beige. The color of the old old old space marine plastics .

Then there were the guys who bought an airbrush, primed everything black and airbrushed it on an angle and BOOM. 3 Colors required? Airbrush a second tone at an angle. Yipee.

The hobby and game are what you put into it. Frankly, I have found that the people who put a lot of effort into their armies to be more entertaining to play. I'm not being a paint snob, and it isn't about how good the finished army is -- it's just about people putting *effort* into their army and caring what it looks like; they tend to be more engaging and interested in the same sorts of things as me.

I don't want to strip gak paint jobs, and I don't want to paint gak onto models wasting money and time, because people who play, want to play against finished product.

That's sad for you but IMO, you're missing the whole point of why playing 40k. And you will never prevent real 40k fans (understand : painters) from judging you for this. Whether you like it or not, there's a hierarchy between painters and non painters.

I'm not being a paint snob

I don't think there is such thing as paint snobs. As you said yourself, painting is great, painters are more entertaining and people who make great efforts to have decent armies should make feel to lazy grey-lovers that it is just not the way 40k is.

Perhaps I sound harsh, but I play Inquisition for a reason

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Perhaps I sound harsh, but I play Inquisition for a reason

I have some REALLY old Inquisitor models (like, 80s?) that I felt like painting Those were such awesome metal minis, excellent even by today's design standards. I have no idea why they got discontinued.

You also have to understand that it take time to paint an army. I re-start 40k only few month back and only 25% of my army is paint.

I can paint an average of 10 models per month…. and/or 2 tanks.

If you are talking about people who never paint it, them mix-feeling. As much as I found the painting part as (maybe more) interesting as the game, some people are only attract by the game itself.

You are free to not play agains an un-paint army but here is a rule that my FLGS apply when organizing a tournament:

- All models have "un-painted preferred enemy" as well as any prefer enemy rules the model might have.

It reward player who spend time and passion building a painted army.

I have some REALLY old Inquisitor models (like, 80s?) that I felt like painting

Lucky you. I'll be curious to see them.

I wasn't even born in the 80's but, I have the Inquisitor Coteaz mini which is not that bad in terms of awesomeness either !

You also have to understand that it take time to paint an army. I re-start 40k only few month back and only 25% of my army is paint.

I can paint an average of 10 models per month…. and/or 2 tanks.

If you are talking about people who never paint it, them mix-feeling. As much as I found the painting part as (maybe more) interesting as the game, some people are only attract by the game itself.

You are free to not play agains an un-paint army but here is a rule that my FLGS apply when organizing a tournament:

- All models have "un-painted preferred enemy" as well as any prefer enemy rules the model might have.

I do understand it takes a ton of time to paint everything. I respect people who try to paint despite being busy with plenty of other things and I will never cast the stone at them. At least they try, they are not like "Nah, painting is just stupid". Plus; you FLGS rule is really nice !

Love modelling and playing. Don't like painting. But playing with painted models feels better. So, the painting process goes on, albeit slooooooooooowly.

Just continually shame them as half humans and non participant neck beards....

Until their army looks better than yours....

Then condemn them for not having a life and being savant paint a holic neck beards.

At my FLGS, there's no prohibition on unpainted armies, but people will offer to show you how to paint. Like, you will not stop hearing about it until you finally paint your models.

You would be surprised what passes for a 3 stage paint job these days.

@RazgrizOne -- Here are a couple that I just grabbed off my shelf. The half painted one has literally been half painted since the 80s. The dude in Terminator armor, I love. Look at all the Inquisition badging!



That was back from when GW paints were in pots that look like the current P3 pots! Happy times.

Nice ones. I especially like the Terminator! The other one is quite.... weird ahah.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Nice ones. I especially like the Terminator! The other one is quite.... weird ahah.

Yeah I have this habit of buying really old 40K stuffs off ebay or some other sources. I bought the 40K Rogue Trader rulebook this way.
I have a bunch of metal minis that I liked at first, but after assembling them I find my enthusiasm vanishes rapidly as a good many of them look really... silly. I especially hate the current SM range -- the older models all looked awkward. Only the relatively new character models looks slightly more anatomically correct (especially in comparison to the CSM Chosen models, the proportion makes a bit more sense). On one hand I'd love to see a new and better range for SM/CSM, on the other I'd hate to force myself to replace all the old ones. The day they update the style for the SM range for the better would be the day I play unpainted for a decade...

Why does this topic only seem to come up in GW subforums? Is it because the company constantly pushes for larger games, making it more difficult for new players to get their collections painted? And the seemingly daunting task of painting those large collections of minis would make starting all the jarder?

Ah come on now. We all know GW do some things that are wrong but are you seriously blaming them for hobbyists lack of painting?
There are tonnes of reasons models remain unpainted from kids/work to shakey hand syndrome and everything in between.. Blaming GW on this one is fairly lame.

Probably because the game is so awful that the only reason to play it is the aesthetic value of two awesome looking armies having a battle. If you just have a bunch of space marine legs glued to bases and cardboard boxes with "Rhino" written on them then what's the point of playing? There are plenty of vastly superior games available if the models are just a more expensive version of cardboard counters and hex maps.

You too Peregrine
Do you honestly believe the thousands of us that still play 40k regularly and at all levels do it purely for a visual aesthetic? A visual aesthetic does not equate to fun, which by and large 40k provides. It has some issues sure but at its core. Its Fun.

The sheer amount of people who like Wh40k but can't paint their models makes me deeply regret that I allowed my psychologist to convince me that I shouldn't spend 7 hours a day doing sculpting/painting and should seek a "realistic" career.

Every time there's a complaint about unpainted models, I strip and clean one of my half-painted models and immediately play a game with it.

If GW is pumping out updated codex and new models at their current rate, expect lots more games against the Great Unpainted.
FotM is a bigger problem now than it has been, and it's all GW's fault.

 Crablezworth wrote:
If ya got time to play, you got time to paint. I won't play against unpainted models.

Yeah, a 2-3 hour game totally compares to painting 1500+ points of mini's, especially things like Imperial Guard, Orks, etc. Good comparison.

 Ratius wrote:

Why does this topic only seem to come up in GW subforums? Is it because the company constantly pushes for larger games, making it more difficult for new players to get their collections painted? And the seemingly daunting task of painting those large collections of minis would make starting all the jarder?

Ah come on now. We all know GW do some things that are wrong but are you seriously blaming them for hobbyists lack of painting?

GW bears much of the blame, but it should be noted that even though it doesn't come up as much on other sub-forums, GW/40k is by no means the only or worst example of not painting.

For example, When our club first formed, for a years or so we played at another FLGS that had a very large WM presence. If our current FLGS and it's 40k club (meets on the same night as we do) usually only has 50% or less painted on the table, the WM players at our previous location were much worse. Maybe 30-40% painted on most evenings. I recall seeing one player open his locker (they had some school style lockers in the FLGS) and seeing 3-4 shelves packed with upainted metal. The tables were often fields of raw pewter. At first I thought this was unusual given the low model count of WM games, but then it was explained to me how many players will buy nearly the entire range of figures for a faction at one time just to have all the options available to them. Not really that different from buying a huge 40k army.

It is interesting that you don't see much of this on the PP sub-forum, I wonder if it could have something to do with WM being a comparatively young game (1 decade vs 3 for GW). WM has existed mostly in the time of wider acceptance of grey hordes and maybe the expectation for fully painted armies just hasn't been as strong in the WM community. I could be very wrong on this, it's just one possible explanation.

I for one play the game for the game first, modelling second and then painting. I hate painting models, and I'm not good at it either, further pushing it to the bottom of the priority list. And the cost of painting alone doesn't exactly help either. Especially if you want an airbrush and need to buy a decent tank etc along with it.

I don't feel a lick of shame for playing unpainted minis. That said however, painted minis are awesome. I would love to play with a painted army. But I very very rarely get past priming them.

The last time I was in the process of paining minis was 4ed sisters, with the witch hunter codex. And then came the white dwarf codex and I kinda shelved them until...god knows when. That put me off painting even more.

So anytime I have the opportunity to paint, I rather convert or build some other kit instead. And yet I would rather paint my minis myself than have them painted by some service. But I'm at a point where I don't think I'm ever going to paint them so I'm considering to get them painted anyway.

An airbrush amongst a group of gamers can banish unpainted models in no time.
It lets you hose down an army quickly, and the details and flesh can be done afterwards.

The modelling part is the bit that slows me down. I am obsessive about mold-lines. And I magnetise everything.
So, painting comes along way down the list of things to get a model to the table.

Regarding the topic. I blame Wh40k Dawn of War. It introduced lots of people who aren't passionate about modelling to the hobby.

I can understand why some people are upset about unpainted armies. They kinda kill the whole point of miniature wargaming. Without interesting looking models, they could as well be played with counters or something like that.

I recently inherited a 1500ish point Vostroyan army from a friend. He had attempted to paint them batch-style, so I got fifty guys painted red, washed, and with painted hats. Also five red tanks of various styles and around ten HWTs.

Over the course of Memorial Day I painted around four and a half hours, and got all five tanks and twenty infantrymen done with base coat, ink and highlight.

I don't understand people who "can't find time" to paint.

the_scotsman wrote:
I recently inherited a 1500ish point Vostroyan army from a friend. He had attempted to paint them batch-style, so I got fifty guys painted red, washed, and with painted hats. Also five red tanks of various styles and around ten HWTs.

Over the course of Memorial Day I painted around four and a half hours, and got all five tanks and twenty infantrymen done with base coat, ink and highlight.

I don't understand people who "can't find time" to paint.

I think it's more about prioritizing certain things. For example, I get off of work at 6. Essentially I have 4-5 hours before I need to think about getting ready for bed. In that span I need to cook and eat dinner, clean up my place a little, browse the internet a bit, play witcher 3. That doesn't leave much time to paint. So it's all about juggling available time to different activities. I used to try to at least paint one model a day, that helped a lot. But after painting Imperial Guard and Tyranids I'm a little burned out on painting troops in batches so I've been focusing on just characters and HQ units.

There is only a hierarchy if the people you see as below you care what you think. Personally, I wont play with snobs who thumb their nose at other players for any reason. People who show up to have fun with good sportsmanship at the top of my pyramid.

Lance845 wrote:

There is only a hierarchy if the people you see as below you care what you think. Personally, I wont play with snobs who thumb their nose at other players for any reason. People who show up to have fun with good sportsmanship at the top of my pyramid.

I showed up to a neighbourhood bbq completely naked, those snobs kicked me out. Geez, they're so elitist with their basic expectation of clothing. Snobs, the lot of'm.

Wasn't there just recently another thread about painted minis? The elitism is strong with this one...

Like I said in the previous thread, I have no problem with unpainted minis. 40k is a major time commitment, and new players or people who are simply busy often don't have the time to get an army fully painted. The new pace of releases from GW isn't helping any either.

I will gladly play against minis in any state of pain coverage, but I prefer to play against fully painted armies.

So, if you have so little time that you literally can't paint your army how exactly is it that you have time to play with your unpainted models?

Lance845 wrote:
There is only a hierarchy if the people you see as below you care what you think. Personally, I wont play with snobs who thumb their nose at other players for any reason. People who show up to have fun with good sportsmanship at the top of my pyramid.

To be honest, I don't understand what's the point of buying all these expensive miniatures if one isn't going to paint them to high standard. I think that the aesthetic aspect is very important in miniature wargaming. If not, why not skip the whole "spend a lot of money on miniatures" part and play with counters?

I don't think it's anything wrong to be snobbish in an expensive hobby. It's not like your ability to make living or anything important like that depends on Wh40k players not being snobbish on tabletop.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
If ya got time to play, you got time to paint. I won't play against unpainted models.

Yeah, a 2-3 hour game totally compares to painting 1500+ points of mini's, especially things like Imperial Guard, Orks, etc. Good comparison.

I'm really appreciative of people who are up front with their decision to not play my army, because it always improves my gaming experience when I don't have to play them.

I only have so much free time to get games in, why waste it playing against someone who doesn't paint?

I only have so much time to spend on my luxury hobbies, why waste it playing against someone who I'm clearly not going to enjoy the time with?

Which also begs the question, why should I use my very limited time on painting when I have the chance to actually get in a game with people I do enjoy spending time with?

It's very simple. Some people are into the modeling and painting side of things, which is great! I want to play games with my friends, so that's where the time gets spent in my hobby.

As I said, entirely seriously, if someone isn't go to play unpainted armies and speaks up about it, that's fine. Because I don't want to play someone like that as much as they don't want to play me.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I only have so much time to spend on my luxury hobbies, why waste it playing against someone who I'm clearly not going to enjoy the time with?

Which also begs the question, why should I use my very limited time on painting when I have the chance to actually get in a game with people I do enjoy spending time with?

It's very simple. Some people are into the modeling and painting side of things, which is great! I want to play games with my friends, so that's where the time gets spent in my hobby.

If you're not in it for modelling then why not ditch miniatures altogether?

Priorites, Gaming is awesome, models are great (and kind of needed) and painting kinda nice. And there is also terrain to work on which is pretty cool (as in: more so than painted minis).

I don't think anybody play unpainted minis as a choice, it's just that painting them can be at the very bottom of a long list of things to do.

I think a lot of people are scared of painting miniatures, they want the miniatures to be like the box set image in their choice of scheme, then when they try their hand on painting... It looks like doo doo.

painting takes time and practice just like anything else. Gaming with painted miniatures and terrain brings the game to tenfold of enjoyment. If you're not into painting, then look into painting services with your disposable income instead of gathering more grey plastic crack.

Miniature protection should also be a priority for those that have painted miniatures, I have seen some quality painting get dinged due to putting them in a box.

Im one of those who plays with half finished armies. I find painting difficult. Id love to find time to do it. My flgs didnt teach newbies how to paint so ive basicaly taught my self. And now i know how i want to do it justice. So trying to find 5 hours or so to paint (im slow at it) whislt juggling school work and other hobbies is hard.

I think it dosnt help new players how much the standerd of painting has gone up used to be you could get away with only five paints and one brush. So it becomes i thing of you being to scared of ruining your nice new models.

Eh Another painted vs not painted thread.. already?

The only reason id ever refuse to play a player is if they are known cheaters or people that have personally wronged me.

That said. I will still poke fun at the grey legion if its in the same state for many games in the same way i judge my own army being in the same state of transition from old to new paint.
But damnit im still trying

But i do think of a grey legion player less than one with even a basic painted army.

I love painting. That said, I don't always feel like doing it. It's a hobby, right? Something that you do in your spare time to have a fun and enjoyable time, right? I don't want that to turn into a job. So I paint whenever I feel like it. I will put grey models on the table and I shouldn't feel ashamed of that and nobody really should. It might seem wrong to some people, but many people are here to game( I don't play 40K anymore ,but my point still stands). I am one of those people and although gaming is more important to me, I also like the hobby aspect. That's why I am not limiting myself to hex and counter wargames and boardgames. Nobody has the rights to tell me that I am not a true hobbyist and I am doing things wrong. It's my spare time. Sorry to say it , but it sounds a bit snobbish indeed. I usually paint 2-3 models per week, but sometimes I don't feel like painting for months. Sorry,but that won't stop me from playing the games I love just to please someone.

It seems to me that more and more we're splitting into two hobbies. One group of folks have chosen to take a large part of the hobby (painting) and make it optional or even -in many cases- irrelevant. That's their decision, but at a certain point we're not even participating in the same hobby.

There's "wargaming" in which miniatures exist, but without any community expectation that they will necessarily be painted, the game could just as easily be played with chits or printed cardboard stand-ups. Indeed many folks openly declare that they feel no desire to paint their miniatures.

On the other hand there's "miniature wargaming". A hobby in which the visual element of the game is central to the hobby. Painted miniatures are an expected and vital part and the hobby could not exist without them.

I know which hobby I want to be apart of.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I only have so much time to spend on my luxury hobbies, why waste it playing against someone who I'm clearly not going to enjoy the time with?

Which also begs the question, why should I use my very limited time on painting when I have the chance to actually get in a game with people I do enjoy spending time with?

It's very simple. Some people are into the modeling and painting side of things, which is great! I want to play games with my friends, so that's where the time gets spent in my hobby.

If you're not in it for modelling then why not ditch miniatures altogether?

Maybe because he enjoys the game?

I have to be honest, I've just started a new army, I am a competent painter and when I put my mind to it I am very quick aswell...

However I have to admit that starting a new army from scratch and once you have it all built up it does seem like abit of a task, and I enjoy painting, so I can imagine what its like for people who aren't as keen.

Tbh im just glad I can get a PUG and play with my new army, safe in the thought that soon it will be painted.

What im getting at is most people probably have all the will to one day field a painted army, but that's hobby time that could be spent playing, not painting.

 Eilif wrote:
It seems to me that more and more we're splitting into two hobbies. One group of folks have chosen to take a large part of the hobby (painting) and make it optional or even -in many cases- irrelevant. That's their decision, but at a certain point we're not even participating in the same hobby.

There's "wargaming" in which miniatures exist, but without any community expectation that they will necessarily be painted, the game could just as easily be played with chits or printed cardboard stand-ups. Indeed many folks openly declare that they feel no desire to paint their miniatures.

On the other hand there's "miniature wargaming". A hobby in which the visual element of the game is central to the hobby. Painted miniatures are an expected and vital part and the hobby could not exist without them.

I know which hobby I want to be apart of.

Have you considered that there is a middle ground? Like I said, I enjoy the hobby aspect and that's why I am playing miniature wargames. Yes, it is secondary to playing, but it is a nice bonus, additional content if you will. Yes, it enchances the game. That's why I am slowly painting my Malifaux collection and I feel great satisfaction when I put a newly painted model on the table. But that doesn't stop me from playing my bare metal Infinity army, which next on my to-paint list. I am not lazy, it's just that I like playing and I am only a human with limited time on his hands.

MarsNZ wrote:
Maybe because he enjoys the game?

Then why play 40k? The game sucks, it's just something you put up with to use your nicely painted miniatures. If you're happy to play with cardboard tokens instead of real models then why not play one of the vastly superior games that are available?

 Peregrine wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
Maybe because he enjoys the game?

Then why play 40k? The game sucks, it's just something you put up with to use your nicely painted miniatures. If you're happy to play with cardboard tokens instead of real models then why not play one of the vastly superior games that are available?

Of course that is your opinion peregrine. In MY opinion the game is fun to play, and although I like painted models, I am not what you would call an elitist painter as many in this thread seem to be.

You don't have a right to tell people that they are wrong/ lazy/ 'not a real 40k player' for playing with unpainted models. You do have the right to not play them and vice versa. Presenting highly charged opinions as facts doesn't make your stance any more true then before so stop doing it.

I still have a lot of models to paint, but I refuse to field a unit if they aren't painted. I wouldn't refuse to play against an unpainted army, but feel it does take some of the atmosphere away from the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
Maybe because he enjoys the game?

Then why play 40k? The game sucks, it's just something you put up with to use your nicely painted miniatures. If you're happy to play with cardboard tokens instead of real models then why not play one of the vastly superior games that are available?

Yeah, anyone who's been on this forum for at least 5 minutes knows your opinion on pretty much any topic. We like 40k, we don't obsess over painting models preferring to go at our own pace. We don't really care what your opinion on our hobby is.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
In MY opinion the game is fun to play

How many other wargames have you played?

You don't have a right to tell people that they are wrong/ lazy/ 'not a real 40k player' for playing with unpainted models.

Of course I do, and I will.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
Maybe because he enjoys the game?

Then why play 40k? The game sucks, it's just something you put up with to use your nicely painted miniatures. If you're happy to play with cardboard tokens instead of real models then why not play one of the vastly superior games that are available?

Yeah, anyone who's been on this forum for at least 5 minutes knows your opinion on pretty much any topic. We like 40k, we don't obsess over painting models preferring to go at our own pace. We don't really care what your opinion on our hobby is.

Pretty much.

I see unpainted models for every game except X wing, ultimately it's someone else's stuff so who cares? If you do care, then feel free to decline and carry on. Probably for the best anyway, who wants to play with a snob?

In saying that painted armies are of course better to play with, every one agrees on that. But there is no reason to be upset that someone didn't spend their time on their stuff.

 Swastakowey wrote:
In saying that painted armies are of course better to play with, every one agrees on that. But there is no reason to be upset that someone didn't spend their time on their stuff.

You don't see the contradiction here? If painted armies are clearly better to play with then not painting your army is saying "I don't care enough about your enjoyment of the game to paint my models". And I'd say that's a pretty good reason to criticize someone.

At my LGS there's been a very slight uptick in gray legions simply due to the current release schedule GW's been on. Harlequins, Eldar, new Knights, Skitarii, Ad Mech. Book releases and fresh models have been dropping fast and furious, so fast that not everyone's had a chance to keep up with painting.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
In saying that painted armies are of course better to play with, every one agrees on that. But there is no reason to be upset that someone didn't spend their time on their stuff.

You don't see the contradiction here? If painted armies are clearly better to play with then not painting your army is saying "I don't care enough about your enjoyment of the game to paint my models". And I'd say that's a pretty good reason to criticize someone.

No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car, but I don't hold it against the person because by their choice or circumstance they don't have a flash modern car to pick me up in. The fact they took the time to pick me up is fine enough by me. Same with war gaming, if someone hasn't painted their army by choice or circumstance i'm not going to be upset, i'm still happy he took the time to have a game.

You are free to refuse the ride someone has offered because you are not pleased by their vehicle, but there is nothing wrong with accepting the ride either. Usually the latter would be seen as more sensible however and rightfully so.

To be insulted by the fact someone doesn't care for your enjoyment is pretty silly, especially because chances are they don't care about you in the first p[lace when deciding what to do with their time.

At the end of the day, if you play a bad game to merely look at painted things be (re)moved on the table, then maybe it's not worth playing the game in the first place regardless.

I can't really gripe about unpainted minis because then my main battle bro would think I was a jerk. He has had the same Space Wolf army for years. I've watched Sgt. Grey tuck his hot plasma pistol for under his barely primed arm so many times now it just wouldn't be right to paint him!

That and his skill with a brush is neglible thanks to a birth defect that left him kinda lame. We joke that he will seize up one day during a battle and fall on the table. There is also the very real danger of me painting his minis for him. I already had the honour of putting the brush to Njal. That was fun. Almost made me wanna join the pack!

As for myself, I just can't put an unpainted or half finished mini on the table or I feel bad. Not for the other guy, but for my poor nondescript soldiery!

Besides, everyone knows that paint gives you obvious in game benefits. I painted my dudes green and suddenly FnP!

 Dust wrote:
At my LGS there's been a very slight uptick in gray legions simply due to the current release schedule GW's been on. Harlequins, Eldar, new Knights, Skitarii, Ad Mech. Book releases and fresh models have been dropping fast and furious, so fast that not everyone's had a chance to keep up with painting.

That could be a good reason if you collect all those armies, most of us have 1-2, those of us that have more are probably working on back logged army projects.

The reason I like having fully painted games outside of enjoyment for myself is that it promotes our hobby, count how many people gather around to watch your game if the models are painted to a standard quality or higher. In order to promote our hobby pass the gaming with 'toys', we should do our best in all aspects of the hobby so that our 'models' are not 'toys'. Who knows, maybe one day our hobby will be aired on ESPN 2 like they did for video games tourney; they already have poker, I would think MTG isn't far behind as they already air that on a smaller network. Why couldn't 40k?

 Swastakowey wrote:
To be insulted by the fact someone doesn't care for your enjoyment is pretty silly, especially because chances are they don't care about you in the first p[lace when deciding what to do with their time.

And that's just absurd. Of course we should be insulted if another player doesn't care about our enjoyment of the game, because when you play a two-player game you're expected to make sure both players are having fun. We don't acknowledge that the rules lawyer who can't stop swearing at their opponent every time the dice go against them is "just enjoying the game their way", and we don't limit ourselves to being thankful that the guy who bathes once a year is generous enough to play a game with us. We judge those people for their bad behavior, and no reasonable person would question our right to do so. So why is refusing to paint your models any different?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
To be insulted by the fact someone doesn't care for your enjoyment is pretty silly, especially because chances are they don't care about you in the first p[lace when deciding what to do with their time.

And that's just absurd. Of course we should be insulted if another player doesn't care about our enjoyment of the game, because when you play a two-player game you're expected to make sure both players are having fun. We don't acknowledge that the rules lawyer who can't stop swearing at their opponent every time the dice go against them is "just enjoying the game their way", and we don't limit ourselves to being thankful that the guy who bathes once a year is generous enough to play a game with us. We judge those people for their bad behavior, and no reasonable person would question our right to do so. So why is refusing to paint your models any different?

True, bad wording. I meant dont care about your enjoyment of the game when they are at home, in their spare time, usually a fully capable adult with things to do and deciding if they should paint their models or not.

Not painting models is not bad behavior. It's not unhealthy. It's not vital.

All the examples you pointed out is actually bad/inappropriate behavior... in any situation. Not painting models is not close to any of those.

MarsNZ wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I only have so much time to spend on my luxury hobbies, why waste it playing against someone who I'm clearly not going to enjoy the time with?

Which also begs the question, why should I use my very limited time on painting when I have the chance to actually get in a game with people I do enjoy spending time with?

It's very simple. Some people are into the modeling and painting side of things, which is great! I want to play games with my friends, so that's where the time gets spent in my hobby.

If you're not in it for modelling then why not ditch miniatures altogether?

Maybe because he enjoys the game?

It can be as enjoyable with counters without wasting money on unpainted miniatures.

The only person who gets to whine about my unprimed models is a person who does more conversion and kitbash work than I do. At my local clubs, that's nobody.

I'm gonna repost what I posted in the last one of these idiotic shaming competitions:

 j31c3n wrote:
I don't care if your army is just bases with unit types written on them in marker (yes, I've actually played against this guy). My army is heavily converted and sometimes takes a week for me to pose a single model (I work very long days). I sometimes put down unpainted models because I am so insanely judgemental about my own army, but no-one else's.

I do not care what state your army is in, I do not care what the board looks like. I've played on boards that were covered in a sheet of paper and area terrain was drawn onto it. It was still fun to me because we were rolling dice and having a good time. Anyone who is going to judge another player by the appearance of their army rather than their character and how enjoyable it is to play with them is just not a person I am interested in playing this game with. Life is too short to spend it associating with people with that kind of attitude.

Similarly, I take great pride in the fluff of my army and I write out little stories about each individual model and why they take the kit they choose and what all their little gubbins represent. I am very fond of how they fit into the universe as a whole. However, I don't care if you're playing My Little Pony Astartes or Hello Kitty Sororiitas, as long as you're a blast to play this game with. Be a good sport and you can play Eldar/Guardsman hybrids and Genestealer Orks and Chaos Tau for all I care.

^Exalted for truth. Nobody should judge another player solely on the condition of their models.

 Crablezworth wrote:
If ya got time to play, you got time to paint. I won't play against unpainted models.

You must have done really bad at maths in school

Ha, I created a thread similar to this some days ago and almost my entire 3500 point Chaos Army is painted except two oblits, a raptor squad and a regular tac squad. So frakkin excited to paint them but my brush got destroyed after I finished my Helbrute earlier this week so I have to get another one.

I have never played anybody with a painted army except my brother. He has an entirely painted 3600 Ultramarine force. But obviously I've played a lot more grey armies than painted ones and I'm utterly use to it. I just won't decline someone who has a grey army and the only things I look for in players is if he/she smells good and are they friendly, that's it. I'm always a bit disappointed to play a grey army but unfortunately, so so many people just don't have it in them to paint whether it be time or money keeping them from doing so.

Anyways, it doesn't matter how you're army looks when you play me, you'll die just the same. How you want to look upon your death is your choice, just die with the dishonor of being grey and boring

 TheNewBlood wrote:
^Exalted for truth. Nobody should judge another player solely on the condition of their models.

Whenever I play a game, I am just glad to be sharing a table with someone cool. Everything else is so secondary compared to that experience that I just do not care about it at all. Bring your WAAC list, bring your fluffy IG Rough Riders led by Space Teddy Roosevelt, I don't care. Let's roll some dice.

 Swastakowey wrote:
No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car.

Wait, what makes a 2 door car bad?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car.

Wait, what makes a 2 door car bad?

Not just any two door car, a crappy one. Maybe some insects inside, no AC, food all over....ya know....crappy.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car.

Wait, what makes a 2 door car bad?

I am over 6ft tall. Most 2 door cars means I can hardly fit. I own a RAV 4, the only 2 door car that actually lets me sit normally. I could say small car, but most of the time... whats the difference eh? I also put crappy in there just in case...

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car.

Wait, what makes a 2 door car bad? I have never had any trouble finding people who want to go for a cruise in my classic 2 door sports car

My car is a beater that wouldn't sell for $300.00. But you know what? It runs and it gets me from A to B and it rarely lets me down.

 j31c3n wrote:
Anyone who is going to judge another player by the appearance of their army rather than their character and how enjoyable it is to play with them is just not a person I am interested in playing this game with

Appearance of their army is part of how enjoyable it is to play with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
True, bad wording. I meant dont care about your enjoyment of the game when they are at home, in their spare time, usually a fully capable adult with things to do and deciding if they should paint their models or not.

Why does the time of the action matter? There's no difference between doing something during the game that hinders the other player's enjoyment of it and doing something before the game that will have the same effect once the game begins.

All the examples you pointed out is actually bad/inappropriate behavior... in any situation. Not painting models is not close to any of those.

And my point is that not painting models should be treated that way.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Not painting models is not bad behavior. It's not unhealthy. It's not vital.

It's just a question of etiquette. If your local scene demands this, then you should be polite and follow that etiquette. If not, then play them grey.

I'll give you a better example: clothing on beaches!

If you go to a nude beach, you should strip down. If you go to a regular beach, you should wear a bikini or swimwear or other beach-appropriate attire. To do otherwise is actually neither unhealthy or vital; but it is pretty rude and "bad behavior", because you are at a public place with expectations of its guests. In your own home, do whatever you want.

 Peregrine wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
Anyone who is going to judge another player by the appearance of their army rather than their character and how enjoyable it is to play with them is just not a person I am interested in playing this game with

Appearance of their army is part of how enjoyable it is to play with them.

My army is not yours. If you (using the general you) want my army painted, then you can fork out the cash for it to be professionally painted.

 Talys wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Not painting models is not bad behavior. It's not unhealthy. It's not vital.

It's just a question of etiquette. If your local scene demands this, then you should be polite and follow that etiquette. If not, then play them grey.

I'll give you a better example: clothing on beaches!

If you go to a nude beach, you should strip down. If you go to a regular beach, you should wear a bikini or swimwear or other beach-appropriate attire. To do otherwise is actually neither unhealthy or vital; but it is pretty rude and "bad behavior", because you are at a public place with expectations of its guests. In your own home, do whatever you want.

Yep and if everyone demands you have to use unpainted then you cant use painted models. That means nothing. If someone demands I use GW models only then I will not play them, just like if someone demands I use painted models.

Being naked around others is offensive/rude to the general public. Children are not allowed to see people naked on television etc, it is also illegal in most places. Unpainted models are none of those. They are simply models without paint. Bad example. Better one would be overweight people. Yes they may not be the nicest to look at on the beach, but you generally don't have a right to tell them to spend the next year getting fit so they are presentable at the beach. Despite everyone wanting to get everyone fit. Its simply their choice, let them be.

 j31c3n wrote:
My army is not yours. If you (using the general you) want my army painted, then you can fork out the cash for it to be professionally painted.

Or I can just refuse to play against you and tell you to paint your army. Hopefully enough other people will do the same, and you will have a choice of either painting your army or never playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Being naked around others is offensive/rude to the general public. Children are not allowed to see people naked on television etc, it is also illegal in most places. Unpainted models are none of those. They are simply models without paint. Bad example. Better one would be overweight people. Yes they may not be the nicest to look at on the beach, but you generally don't have a right to tell them to spend the next year getting fit so they are presentable at the beach. Despite everyone wanting to get everyone fit. Its simply their choice, let them be.

Ok, so by that example you have no right to complain about the guy who never bathes because it's perfectly legal to smell terrible. It's simply their choice, let them be.

 Peregrine wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
My army is not yours. If you (using the general you) want my army painted, then you can fork out the cash for it to be professionally painted.

Or I can just refuse to play against you and tell you to paint your army. Hopefully enough other people will do the same, and you will have a choice of either painting your army or never playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Being naked around others is offensive/rude to the general public. Children are not allowed to see people naked on television etc, it is also illegal in most places. Unpainted models are none of those. They are simply models without paint. Bad example. Better one would be overweight people. Yes they may not be the nicest to look at on the beach, but you generally don't have a right to tell them to spend the next year getting fit so they are presentable at the beach. Despite everyone wanting to get everyone fit. Its simply their choice, let them be.

Ok, so by that example you have no right to complain about the guy who never bathes because it's perfectly legal to smell terrible. It's simply their choice, let them be.

Nope, being unhygienic means you are potentially harmful to others (sickness etc). Being overweight has no effect on someone else... usually.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Nope, being unhygienic means you are potentially harmful to others (sickness etc). Being overweight has no effect on someone else... usually.

You can smell terrible and be unpleasant to be around without being a health risk.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Nope, being unhygienic means you are potentially harmful to others (sickness etc). Being overweight has no effect on someone else... usually.

You can smell terrible and be unpleasant to be around without being a health risk.

True, but being unhygienic is also very different to just being fat. Unless the site of the overweight is so bad that you must ask them to leave etc. The ones who don't shower can actually smell rancid. But not liking the look of something is a bit over the top to have a huge dislike of it.

Unpainted armies don't bother me at all. I've been playing for four years and have around 4000 points of Chaos Space Marines, the only models who are painted are two or three terminators, around ten CSM and a Chaos Lord and I wouldn't consider any of them finished. Although there's plenty of stuff in the army in various stages of paint.

I have four steady opponents, one guy with a tau army, around 2500 points and not one mini has made it past half a base coat and the same goes for his grey knights except a stormraven painted entirely silver, even the canopy.

The Raven Guard player uses chaos black primer to spray all his minis, most of them forge world 30k stuff, he then heavily paints the eyes red and does a once over of each pauldron in a thin layer of white scar because despite over ten years in the hobby have doesn't really understand how to paint, like layering and washes etc and has no plans to learn.

My brother, the Salamander, has around the same amount painted that I do and he's been playing the same length of time as me.

And finally, the Blood Angel, pays whoever he can to paint his mind to any standard, leading to a mixed look.

And all of the above is fine, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how their armies look, the minis themselves are good and I'm enjoying the game. Yeah, 40k may not be the best table top game out there and Warmachine/malifaux/whatever may be a better game but I don't really care, I play because I enjoy the fluff of 40k. I don't know the difference between Menoth, Khador or any of the others and frankly don't care and have no interest in learning, if I wasn't playing 40k I wouldn't be tabletop gaming.

40k is just an excuse for me to hang out with my friends and family and maybe make some new friends while I'm at it with the added bonus of letting me assemble some cool looking kits that I always wanted when I spent my teenage years playing dawn of war, I don't care how your army looks as long as you and I can have a good time.

Maybe within the bounds of this friendship we may decide that painting our minis would be enriching to our hobby experience and I'm sure we'll work out a system to support each other while we do that, but I would never consider it may place to tell anyone else how to spend their money or their free time, let alone ostracise anyone who's half as passionate about the 40k setting as I am because their minis are grey. Anyone who wants to talk fluff or share a few stories is welcome at my table.

Some people like to play the game and paint second. Or some people have painting projects they are working on that isn't in the main army. I spent several weeks painting my Phantom titan and as such didn't have time for my little guys.

I also would rather play first and paint second. The paying of the game is where the fun is. the painting is where you can take a little bit of pride out there. The 2 don't have to go hand in hand and I'll play anybody at any point level with any amount of models painted or unpainted. I even have titans to play against titans, so bring it on.

 Peregrine wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
My army is not yours. If you (using the general you) want my army painted, then you can fork out the cash for it to be professionally painted.

Or I can just refuse to play against you and tell you to paint your army. Hopefully enough other people will do the same, and you will have a choice of either painting your army or never playing.

Your loss. My table is the party table.

Swastakowey wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
No not really. Its better to be picked up in a flash car than it is to be picked up in a crappy 2 door car.

Wait, what makes a 2 door car bad?

I am over 6ft tall. Most 2 door cars means I can hardly fit. I own a RAV 4, the only 2 door car that actually lets me sit normally. I could say small car, but most of the time... whats the difference eh? I also put crappy in there just in case...

What's the difference? Well, a lot of 2 door cars are actually quite spacious, it has more to do with cabin layout. Funnily enough I've driven a lot of 2 door cars that have more leg room than some of the large 4x4's I've driven.

I'm just over 6ft (with reasonably long legs) and I fit better in my 2 door vette than I do my 4 door commodore, simply because the seat doesn't move back far enough in the commodore

j31c3n wrote:My car is a beater that wouldn't sell for $300.00. But you know what? It runs and it gets me from A to B and it rarely lets me down.

I've never understood why people bother with fancy modern cars... I'm glad they do because it means I can buy them in 20 years time for almost nothing, but it seems like such a money sink to me.

Anyway, my apologies for taking the thread off topic (not that it's a very useful topic, we had another thread just a few days ago, in fact it's still on page 2: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/650102.page).

 Swastakowey wrote:
True, but being unhygienic is also very different to just being fat. Unless the site of the overweight is so bad that you must ask them to leave etc. The ones who don't shower can actually smell rancid. But not liking the look of something is a bit over the top to have a huge dislike of it.

So now you've gone from "you can only judge people for things that are dangerous/illegal, otherwise let them do what they want" to "you can judge people for things that are safe and legal but unpleasant, but only the things I don't like".

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
True, but being unhygienic is also very different to just being fat. Unless the site of the overweight is so bad that you must ask them to leave etc. The ones who don't shower can actually smell rancid. But not liking the look of something is a bit over the top to have a huge dislike of it.

So now you've gone from "you can only judge people for things that are dangerous/illegal, otherwise let them do what they want" to "you can judge people for things that are safe and legal but unpleasant, but only the things I don't like".

I don't know why we have to be judging people at all based on such insignificant things like whether they paint their army or smell bad.

Isn't it enough to just avoid playing against people who don't have painted armies or smell bad if that's what you want to do, I don't see any benefit in judging them other than to appease some petty superiority complex.

I should have expected this thread to go in this direction, but that actually wasn't my intention. I play against unpainted armies, and have no issue doing so. I was actually making an observation about how more of the Grey Legions seem to be popping around where I am, and was wondering if anyone else had noticed this popping up in their local areas. Really, that's it. I am not interested in shaming people, that's a crummy thing to do and I want to encourage people to paint, same with the people at my FLGS, where they host a paint night, so you can just show up, slap down some paint, maybe get in a game. It's nice and relaxed, and they have an airbrush which helps.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
True, but being unhygienic is also very different to just being fat. Unless the site of the overweight is so bad that you must ask them to leave etc. The ones who don't shower can actually smell rancid. But not liking the look of something is a bit over the top to have a huge dislike of it.

So now you've gone from "you can only judge people for things that are dangerous/illegal, otherwise let them do what they want" to "you can judge people for things that are safe and legal but unpleasant, but only the things I don't like".

I don't know why we have to be judging people at all based on such insignificant things like whether they paint their army or smell bad.

Isn't it enough to just avoid playing against people who don't have painted armies or smell bad if that's what you want to do, I don't see any benefit in judging them other than to appease some petty superiority complex.

This thread has gotten weird.

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:

This thread has gotten weird.

I was just trying to lighten the mood. I didn't think anyone would take the nude beach analogy seriously

Following Peregrine's example, I guess I should have said, the local diner where etiquette is that you don't stink when you go inside? (That's a joke too, I'm falling over laughing here... don't take it seriously, man...)

 Talys wrote:

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:

This thread has gotten weird.

I was just trying to lighten the mood. I didn't think anyone would take the nude beach analogy seriously

Following Peregrine's example, I guess I should have said, the local diner where etiquette is that you don't stink when you go inside? (That's a joke too, I'm falling over laughing here... don't take it seriously, man...)

Fair enough. I was just saying in general. I honestly, and stupidly, thought that this might not turn into people getting mad because 40k started the second world war or whatever.

What's wrong with a little informed judgement. "Judging" is not an inherently bad activity. We judge things every day.

I look across the table at a field of unpainted grey and I can pretty easily "judge" that you value the visual aspect of the game less than than I do. This is because regardless of personal situation, you have made the personal choice to put unpainted figures on the table.

It doesn't make you a bad person (It's not a moral issue), but it is an entirely accurate judgement that you don't value the entirety of the hobby (of which painting models is a part) as I do. There are probably plenty of cool, nice and great humanitarians who probably put grey hordes on the table, but that' s not enough. When it comes to hobbying, I'm looking for likeminded folks who value the entirety of the hobby as I do, and that includes painted miniatures.

As I said in an earlier thread, for those of us who value painted minis as core to the hobby, a game with a cool opponent who fields unpainted minis is still a game with unpainted minis, and that's just not the experience that many of us are looking for.

 Eilif wrote:
What's wrong with a little informed judgement. "Judging" is not an inherently bad activity

No, it's not inherently bad.... but in this context it almost always is. Your own blog post that you posted a while back talks about how people who don't paint their models are "lower[ing] the hobby" and "does no one any favors" for not meeting the "standards" you decided to set for participation in "the hobby".

That is very much a negative judgement. You can simply avoid playing against such people without doing so.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I only have so much time to spend on my luxury hobbies, why waste it playing against someone who I'm clearly not going to enjoy the time with?

Which also begs the question, why should I use my very limited time on painting when I have the chance to actually get in a game with people I do enjoy spending time with?

It's very simple. Some people are into the modeling and painting side of things, which is great! I want to play games with my friends, so that's where the time gets spent in my hobby.

If you're not in it for modelling then why not ditch miniatures altogether?

I enjoy building miniatures. I enjoy converting miniatures. I enjoy moving the miniatures around a table, making pew pew noises (or tsssiiing noises when my Dark Elves are on the warpath) and rolling dice.

I don't enjoy painting anywhere near as much as I do building and playing.

If you're willing to help me strip and repaint my models when I am unhappy with a rush paint job; I'll totally field painted.

Painting is my favorite part of the hobby, yet I still haven't played a game of 40k or WHFB with a fully painted army yet! :(

I try my hardest though and week in week out you will see the army progress.

I'm about to play a Necromunda campaign with fully painted gangs, terrain and on a battle board. I can't wait! :-D

Depends on the person.

I've made the switch from power gamer to collector so shall probably only be fielding painted models, based minimum as I don't have a lot of free time. I find more enjoyment from painting these days and looking at gorgeous models, although I will play against unpainted.

My friend is a power gamer (and probably forever will be) and has a unpainted Centurion star list, aside an Imperial Knight that he's contemplating stripping anyway. Also has base coated Tau that doesn't see a lot of paint put on them. He just likes beating opponents into the dirt, thinking up of cheese lists (he wants to start Eldar and build the dreaded Scatbike and Wraith Formation) and generally leaving nothing on the table.

These threads are always entertaining, especially when either side attempts to portray some moral high ground. My turn? : )

Personally, I've never fielded an unpainted model. To me it means the unit isn't ready, due to it's availability, lack of equipment or training. It encourages me to get new units ready for battle! We play 'practice' games where people are allowed to bring unpainted things on occasion but if playing a campaign or something 'serious' those models aren't allowed. Once you get used to playing armies with unpainted miniatures there is little incentive to finish them. Don't get mad at me if I wouldn't play against your unpainted army. It's YOUR army, but it would be OUR game if played. So...no thanks.

I admit I don't understand the attitude that painting figures is an optional aspect of the hobby. If it's just rules on a table, why bother with scenery? You can argue that cardboard chits don't represent the game models' mechanics and be correct, but why bother with ruins, buildings and trees when beer bottles, tennis shoes and cereal boxes suffice for terrain? Isn't the point to create a spectacle? To me the game is an excuse (w/ GW's current rules a rather poor excuse) to play with cool little miniatures, to give them purpose beyond the fun of creating them. If it's purely competition, aren't there much better formats?

 Talys wrote:
Call them Grey Knights!
The funny thing is, wayyyyy back in the day, people would play unpainted Grey Knights, and they would be.... beige. The color of the old old old space marine plastics .

??
First time I saw grey knights was these guys:

They were metal.
Agreed though that the first release marines in general were in that tan plastic.

I personally am having a hard time justifying unpainted anything being seen in public other than to show a customization or demonstrate some creative use of magnets.

It helps also that the best painted army at the FLGS is also played by the nicest person so it has forced me me to get at least one army looking good.
I starting bringing completely painted terrain (bless airbrush!) since the FLGS stuff is... ummm... not good.

 e.earnshaw wrote:


I think it dosnt help new players how much the standerd of painting has gone up used to be you could get away with only five paints and one brush. So it becomes i thing of you being to scared of ruining your nice new models.

I think this is really a big part of it.

When I got into the hobby there were very little in the way of highlights, a "good" base was painted straight green with green flocking, there wasn't a whole lot of blending on models, and weathering was unheard of outside of Orcs.

Compare what constituted a good / great painted model from second or third edition, and look at what constitutes good or great right now. It's a whole hell of a lot more intimidating to start painting your dudes these days than it was back then, but painting hasn't really gotten any easier for a beginner.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
What's wrong with a little informed judgement. "Judging" is not an inherently bad activity

No, it's not inherently bad.... but in this context it almost always is. Your own blog post that you posted a while back talks about how people who don't paint their models are "lower[ing] the hobby" and "does no one any favors" for not meeting the "standards" you decided to set for participation in "the hobby".

That is very much a negative judgement. You can simply avoid playing against such people without doing so.

True. Avoidance is easiest. Still, I stand by the "lowering" (maybe I should have said "Lessened") comment. I make the point in the blog that it is not a "moral" judgement, but as painted armies become less and less prevalent in the hobby, those who choose to field unpainted armies, quite literally "lessen" the hobby.

The fact is that if judging by the FLGS tables, the hobby looks less attractive now than it did in the past. That's a loss and "does no one any favors".

As for "standards" as a whole I didn't invent them and ignoring them doesn't make them go away. I could ramble on, but it's probably easier to reads the blog post as a whole for the practical application of "standards" in other hobbies (railroading, Classic cars, etc) that are similar to wargaming.
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/08/painting-matters-in-defense-of-hobby.html

Painting is an important part of the hobby next to the modelling, collecting and playing parts.
To me, unpainted miniatures have no place in 40k. The only acceptable reason for there being unpainted miniatures on the table is that you were planning to paint it, but did not get it ready in time for the game.
If you do not plan on painting your miniatures, why use them at all? The whole raison d'être for 40k is nice looking miniatures. If you ignore this point you might just as well be using bottle caps or cheap toy soldiers and save yourself a lot of money.

The honest to god truth is I hate painting, it's always a struggle even though I just paint table top quality, nothing fancy. The reason I slog through it is only because I expect my opponents to have painted armies. I have an entire series of pictures that would suck a lot if half the mini's were bare plastic.

 morganfreeman wrote:
but painting hasn't really gotten any easier for a beginner.

Sure it has. You don't have to paint everything to the highest standards of painting contests to meet the minimum painting requirement. And now it's very easy to paint to a basic standard: spray with colored primer, paint the details, cover the whole model in a black wash. If you're feeling really ambitious you might even drybrush a quick layer of highlights after the wash. And GW will even sell you the exact paints you need for a nice easy step-by-step process that takes all the guessing and creativity out of painting. And if you don't like GW's methods you can always follow one of the countless other tutorials you can find online. The way the world has changed in the past 10-20 years makes unpainted models less forgivable than it was when techniques were less developed and getting information was much harder.

I think it would be hard to argue that painting is 'not' part of the hobby. But it's also understandable that each of us weighs the different aspects at different levels of priority. Some folks grab the newest toy, rip it out of the back, pop a little glue on it and it's ready to go on the table in ten minutes. Other people (like myself) grab the latest toy, rush home to assemble it, and wouldn't dream of fielding it until it was painted - which, in itself, is part of the huge motivation to -paint- it in the first place.

In the groups I've gamed with in the past, everyone used painted stuff. It was just an expected thing. When someone in a rare circumstance plopped down an unpainted fig or unit - they'd get grief for awhile... but no one would refuse to play them. But if they showed up AGAIN, weeks later, and there's been zero progress made... you can bet the grief would escalate.

But I've also played regularly at stores where painting is completely optional, and despite the large paint racks on the wall from different companies, painting wasn't really encouraged/pushed. This was especially disheartening while playing -at- a GW store. Having your customers playing with painted stuff is like 'free advertising', and you'd think you'd want 'advertising' to look good.

That being said, I am totally for 'paint requirements' in tournaments. I am also for scoring the painting 'effort': if you do the 'primer + two color, spray at different angles, done', you're likely gonna get a lower painting score... but at least you do have color on your figs.

Privately, in a random pick-up game with a friend or two, I'll force myself to use fully painted units, but if the other guy doesn't have a painted list, I'd still play. I just might not seek them out again anytime soon, as the incentive to do so is less than if he had a fully painted list. (and of course, other factors like attitude come into play, as well).

When it comes down to it, like Eilif said, this isn't a 'moral issue'. It's a simple matter of preference. Some people prefer a window-seat on a plane because it enhances their experience... and some people prefer to play against painted armies because it enhances the experience.

I think a big part of overcoming the beginner's fear of painting miniatures is the realization of two facts.

You can strip and repaint miniatures as many times as you like. My Space Marines went into the Green Stuff half a dozen times as I both decided on what color scheme I want and as my painting skills got better. Same for my FoW British.

And remember the three foot rules. Don't think that your minis will look bad if they don't resemble the exact skill level as whats on the box. It takes a lot of practice to get that good. To begin, you can settle for what's called the three-foot or arm's-length rule. For most of the time, you'll be seeing your miniatures at arm's length on the table. If they look good from that distance, then they're good to go. It helps when you're terrible at certain details (eyes, for example) like I am.

Oh, and washes. I swear by a good brown or black wash on anything. A wash will make a decent tabletop quality paintjob look great.

 Peregrine wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
but painting hasn't really gotten any easier for a beginner.

Sure it has. You don't have to paint everything to the highest standards of painting contests to meet the minimum painting requirement. And now it's very easy to paint to a basic standard: spray with colored primer, paint the details, cover the whole model in a black wash. If you're feeling really ambitious you might even drybrush a quick layer of highlights after the wash. And GW will even sell you the exact paints you need for a nice easy step-by-step process that takes all the guessing and creativity out of painting.

I have to agree with this. It's never been easier for a beginner to get painting. In fact, free tutorials make it incredibly easy to achieve high quality results in almost any hobby with less effort and frustration than in the past. GW paint guides are just what my buddy started out with and in a year his figures looked better than mine.

Don't forget also colored primer sprays that make basecoating a breeze and the dipping methods that take basic block painting to a nice tabletop standard in one or two steps.

As a new player ( who has probably 95% of my army painted) my biggest determent from painting is simply the skill gap. I'm not good at painting, and I don't want to be bad to feel bad because my army looks bad. So the veteran 40k players kind of leave me feeling like the following are my only options.

1) Be outed for playing unpainted

2) Be outed because my paint skills are lackluster
or
3) Spend an absurd amount more money on a hobby that is already pricey to have a pro paint my army

To be honest that ruins the hobby for me. Hobbies and games are supposed to be about having fun, not being ridiculed and forced to spend a huge amount of time learning to paint well or spend a huge amount of money to hire someone who paints well.

At the store I work at we go out of the way to let people interested in the game know that they don't have to paint the models if they don't want to. Painting can be a huge boundary to a prospective player who has no painting skills and it's just makes for a great environment in the shop to encourage people to play how ever they want.

 infinite_array wrote:
I think a big part of overcoming the beginner's fear of painting miniatures is the realization of two facts.

You can strip and repaint miniatures as many times as you like. My Space Marines went into the Green Stuff half a dozen times as I both decided on what color scheme I want and as my painting skills got better. Same for my FoW British.

And remember the three foot rules. Don't think that your minis will look bad if they don't resemble the exact skill level as whats on the box. It takes a lot of practice to get that good. To begin, you can settle for what's called the three-foot or arm's-length rule. For most of the time, you'll be seeing your miniatures at arm's length on the table. If they look good from that distance, then they're good to go. It helps when you're terrible at certain details (eyes, for example) like I am.

Oh, and washes. I swear by a good brown or black wash on anything. A wash will make a decent tabletop quality paintjob look great.

I agree with this. It took me a while to realize that stripping paint off of my minis was possible to do so I could fix my mistakes. And we all know that Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil are the greatest things you can pick up t make minis pop. My guard would look awful without Nuln Oil

 FenixPhox wrote:
As a new player ( who has probably 95% of my army painted) my biggest determent from painting is simply the skill gap. I'm not good at painting, and I don't want to be bad to feel bad because my army looks bad. So the veteran 40k players kind of leave me feeling like the following are my only options.

1) Be outed for playing unpainted

2) Be outed because my paint skills are lackluster
or
3) Spend an absurd amount more money on a hobby that is already pricey to have a pro paint my army

To be honest that ruins the hobby for me. Hobbies and games are supposed to be about having fun, not being ridiculed and forced to spend a huge amount of time learning to paint well or spend a huge amount of money to hire someone who paints well.

At the store I work at we go out of the way to let people interested in the game know that they don't have to paint the models if they don't want to. Painting can be a huge boundary to a prospective player who has no painting skills and it's just makes for a great environment in the shop to encourage people to play how ever they want.

No one should be critising anyone for the skill (or lack of) in their painting. As long as they have made an honest effort (non of this three blobs of paint to try and get round three colour rules) it will be welcomed. We all started off like that, no one is born being able to paint. Give it a go.

Get a spray can of the base colour, a pot of lead bealcher, a brown or black wash (depending on the army) and a medium paintbrush. You will be amazed by how quickly you get stuff painted, how good it looks on the table and how quickly you improve.

All the minis you paint will then be ready for some more details, highlights and a wash when you want to take the next step. Build up one step at a time and soon you will be getting people asking you about your painting.

In historicals painted or not isn't even a question. Everything is painted before it goes on the table.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Call them Grey Knights!
The funny thing is, wayyyyy back in the day, people would play unpainted Grey Knights, and they would be.... beige. The color of the old old old space marine plastics .

??
First time I saw grey knights was these guys:

Spoiler:

They were metal.
Agreed though that the first release marines in general were in that tan plastic.

I personally am having a hard time justifying unpainted anything being seen in public other than to show a customization or demonstrate some creative use of magnets.

It helps also that the best painted army at the FLGS is also played by the nicest person so it has forced me me to get at least one army looking good.
I starting bringing completely painted terrain (bless airbrush!) since the FLGS stuff is... ummm... not good.

This is where I first saw them, in 1988:



They used the basic Mk6 armor used in the plastic Space marines box (The super awesome one that was posable! wheeee. I still have enough bits to maybe make one squad ); those were beige-colored plastic. I am pretty sure the metal (terminators) you have are newer, but it's possible that I just bought them later on, as my funds were pretty limited (allowance) back then. Mostly, because they are in Terminator armor, and those models came after tan plastic. I still have those too, though... I think 2 squads of 5 unpainted! The Ordo Malleus Daemonhunters and Inquisitors were probably around before in metal, in some fashion, but not the Terminator ones.

By the way, just for kicks, a few things for fun:

- Back in 1988, the price of this hardcover was $43.95. And no FLGS discounts back then; it's actually pricier than a current codex, LOL
- You could switch a flamer for a Graviton Gun for free!!!
- And Grey Knights could take Shuriken Catapults.
- Or a Conversion Beamer!
- Sergeants could have a Vortex Grenade, bwhahahahaha
- OMG look how many types of grenades there were. Anti-Plant! Choke! Scare Gas! Photon! Virus!! STASIS!!!!
- Remember Halluciongen?
- Wow, 260 points for 1 squad of tactical marines.
- Ordo Malleus faction had Grey Knights/Demonhunters/Inquisitors AND Imperial Guard AND Adeptus Arbites... with Webbers! Oh yeah, and you could add 0-2000 points of Sapce Marines hahaha. Guess they were starting the allies matrix early!

Holy CRAP there were a lot of rules and tables back then. Chaos attributes was 1d1000 to generate and covered 30+ pages. There were some real winners like: STUPID ("Some of the unit are merely idiotic..."), HORRIBLE STENCH, and INVENT YOUR OWN. And people thought Unbound was bad.

I absolutely hate painting models. Im bad at it and painting bores me. But I still get it done, it just makes the game more fun (for me anyways). I don't avoid playing people with grey legions, but id much prefer a coloured (even rather basic) army

I associate unpainted and poorly painted armies with smelly little screaming kids and stinky obnoxious man babies. I just don't have the time to get involved. No thanx.

 FenixPhox wrote:
I'm not good at painting

This can be fixed. Simple tabletop-standard painting (base + wash + highlight) is something that virtually everyone is capable of doing, if they put in the effort to learn how. And nobody can reasonably judge you for painting at a well-executed tabletop level. If people are really complaining that you aren't matching the best commission work and painting contest winners then the problem is with the TFGs in your group, not your painting.

 Peregrine wrote:

 FenixPhox wrote:
I'm not good at painting

This can be fixed. Simple tabletop-standard painting (base + wash + highlight) is something that virtually everyone is capable of doing, if they put in the effort to learn how. And nobody can reasonably judge you for painting at a well-executed tabletop level. If people are really complaining that you aren't matching the best commission work and painting contest winners then the problem is with the TFGs in your group, not your painting.

I echo that. Any sort of reasonable effort indicating that you actually care about your minis as more than just monopoly markers makes it a lot more enjoyable, in my opinion. I really can't remember the last time I saw someone make fun of a player's painting -- it really wouldn't be tolerated around here. That's just bullying.

 Peregrine wrote:

Or I can just refuse to play against you and tell you to paint your army. Hopefully enough other people will do the same, and you will have a choice of either painting your army or never playing.

THIS is why I had you on ignore for so long. Thanks for reminding me of what kind of person you are. Back on ignore.

It's a quite interesting clash of personalities going on here. I'd be grateful, if you would all fill this test and post results here, especially, Peregrine:
http://cognitivequiz.com/quiz.html

 Talys wrote:
- Back in 1988, the price of this hardcover was $43.95. And no FLGS discounts back then; it's actually pricier than a current codex, LOL

Not only that. After correcting for inflation it's $87.90. And median wages were 2x lower back then, so when it comes to cost in work, it was also like today's $87.90.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
It's a quite interesting clash of personalities going on here. I'd be grateful, if you would all fill this test and post results here, especially, Peregrine:
http://cognitivequiz.com/quiz.html

INTP, which matches similar tests. But the test has nothing to do with painting models or not, and has some obvious flaws in its design. So I guess there's some trivia for you, but it's kind of off-topic for this thread.

It seems one camp is really latching onto that playing 40k at least for "painted" models is optional.
I had started out as a person who put together models before tabletop and I think leaving a model unpainted unless molded in color never really occurred.

I would say BECAUSE of 40k those standards have slipped.
Tabletop war gaming started out with cardboard counters and little icon like pieces that obviously did not look like it needed painting.

So why having nice big 3d model figures are we fighting for our right to continue to play them unpainted with no intent to change that and feeling angry when people voice their opinion on that subject?

I must admit that the single best reason to paint an army is how it looks like to someone who never played: like garbage unpainted.
No ambassador for the hobby award for you!
At least something that looks good lends some respectability to uninitiated and changes attitudes when some turkeys come in the shop to make fun of "the geeks".

I am getting older, the hobbies of an old guy has to have that cool something to it or it is just plain sad.
Younger people are too AFRAID of ridicule but the secret is that "turkeys" out there can find ANYTHING to make fun of, so you might as well not make it easy for them and do your best rather than not try at all.

 Talys wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 FenixPhox wrote:
I'm not good at painting

This can be fixed. Simple tabletop-standard painting (base + wash + highlight) is something that virtually everyone is capable of doing, if they put in the effort to learn how. And nobody can reasonably judge you for painting at a well-executed tabletop level. If people are really complaining that you aren't matching the best commission work and painting contest winners then the problem is with the TFGs in your group, not your painting.

I echo that. Any sort of reasonable effort indicating that you actually care about your minis as more than just monopoly markers makes it a lot more enjoyable, in my opinion. I really can't remember the last time I saw someone make fun of a player's painting -- it really wouldn't be tolerated around here. That's just bullying.

Actually, badly painted armies are much worse than unpainted armies due to the additional cringe factor of seeing expensive models ruined by bad painting.
An acceptable army starts somewhere around Forge World studio armies level.

Anything beneath that level is unacceptable and is an eyesore and brings shame to the hobby. People should seriously start practising on toys and cheap plastic historical miniatures/kits before putting their hands on Wh40k miniatures and models. They can start bringing their miniatures to the gaming table after a few years of practise.

People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Actually, badly painted armies are much worse than unpainted armies due to the additional cringe factor of seeing expensive models ruined by bad painting.
An acceptable army starts somewhere around Forge World studio armies level.

Anything beneath that level is unacceptable and is an eyesore and brings shame to the hobby. People should seriously start practising on toys and cheap plastic historical miniatures/kits before putting their hands on Wh40k miniatures and models. They can start bringing their miniatures to the gaming table after a few years of practise.

People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

I really hope this is a (bad) attempt at a parody and not a serious argument.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Actually, badly painted armies are much worse than unpainted armies due to the additional cringe factor of seeing expensive models ruined by bad painting.
An acceptable army starts somewhere around Forge World studio armies level.

Anything beneath that level is unacceptable and is an eyesore and brings shame to the hobby. People should seriously start practising on toys and cheap plastic historical miniatures/kits before putting their hands on Wh40k miniatures and models. They can start bringing their miniatures to the gaming table after a few years of practise.

People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

I really hope this is a (bad) attempt at a parody and not a serious argument.

Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

Because there's a huge difference between painting to a decent tabletop standard and matching the level of FW's work. Virtually anyone can easily paint to a decent tabletop standard if they're willing to invest the time and effort, so the only reason (outside of a very small number of exceptional cases like physical disabilities) would have an unpainted army is if they just don't care enough to do it. But not everyone can match the much higher level of quality that FW produces, especially without dedicating huge amounts of time and effort to learning. It's the difference between "stop being lazy" and "you suck for not being born with natural artistic talent".

 Peregrine wrote:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
In MY opinion the game is fun to play

How many other wargames have you played?

You don't have a right to tell people that they are wrong/ lazy/ 'not a real 40k player' for playing with unpainted models.

Of course I do, and I will.

You seem to imply that 40K is absolutely awful and should never be played by any sane individual. I simply cannot see why. Yes, the rules are a bit threadbare, but I often go games without breaking the system, and when I do find a paradox, I compromise, because I'm not playing against total donkey-caves. I like 40k because it's a large game, and nothing beats the sight of a table full of unique-looking miniatures. Not the 6-model-per-team fest of Infinity, or the low-quality-model-skirmish fights of Warmahordes. Those game's rules may be more sane, they may not break all the time, but I simply do not consider skirmish games a viable alternative to a mass battle game like 40k.

I love the setting of 40k, from the somewhat tongue in cheek humor of Toaster God, to the Serious Business of Gaunt's Ghosts. I love the faction design, and even the art in the rulebooks and codexes. I like the models and the process of turning them from featureless grey blobs into nice-looking soldiers of the Machine God, or the swarms of the Hive Mind. I like the way the game plays (if your group isn't full of TFGs and tournament-practicing rules lawyers), but above all I love the sight of a hundred or more miniatures on the board.

I see absolutely no reason for the rampant, pathological, foaming-at-the-mouth, irrational hatred you have for the entire fanbase of 40k and the game itself. Show me on the doll where GW touched you, if you please.

 Verviedi wrote:
Yes, the rules are a bit threadbare, but I often go games without breaking the system, and when I do find a paradox, I compromise, because I'm not playing against total donkey-caves.

Good games don't require compromising on how to interpret the rules, the rules just work correctly "out of the box". And even when 40k's rules function they're still a bloated and poorly-designed mess.

I like 40k because it's a large game, and nothing beats the sight of a table full of unique-looking miniatures. Not the 6-model-per-team fest of Infinity, or the low-quality-model-skirmish fights of Warmahordes. Those game's rules may be more sane, they may not break all the time, but I simply do not consider skirmish games a viable alternative to a mass battle game like 40k.

Sure, and that's a valid point, but it's one that doesn't exist if the models aren't painted. The sight of a table full of painted models is awesome. The sight of a table full of half-assembled gray plastic is not. So if that's something you value then you should agree with me that painted models are mandatory.

I see absolutely no reason for the rampant, pathological, foaming-at-the-mouth, irrational hatred you have for the entire fanbase of 40k and the game itself.

I don't hate the fanbase of 40k, which would be absurd considering that I'm a member of that group. I hate GW and the incompetent morons they put in charge of writing the rules, and I hate them because I love the setting and want it to be better.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:


Actually, badly painted armies are much worse than unpainted armies due to the additional cringe factor of seeing expensive models ruined by bad painting.
An acceptable army starts somewhere around Forge World studio armies level.

Anything beneath that level is unacceptable and is an eyesore and brings shame to the hobby. People should seriously start practising on toys and cheap plastic historical miniatures/kits before putting their hands on Wh40k miniatures and models. They can start bringing their miniatures to the gaming table after a few years of practise.

People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

U wot m8?

I accept my bane with open arms.

Out of curiousity, Peregrine and Aszubaruzah Surn, where do you draw the lines for what is acceptable or not?

Would this one live up to your standards?



It's not my newest model and I have gotten a little better (I also fixed the scratched-off paint on the lower right helmet horn), but I am certainly not anywhere near Forge World painter level. I am curious as to how my skill level is regarded by those outside my immediate gaming circle, and as to what exactly constitutes an 'acceptable' standard.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Yes, the rules are a bit threadbare, but I often go games without breaking the system, and when I do find a paradox, I compromise, because I'm not playing against total donkey-caves.

Good games don't require compromising on how to interpret the rules, the rules just work correctly "out of the box". And even when 40k's rules function they're still a bloated and poorly-designed mess.

I like 40k because it's a large game, and nothing beats the sight of a table full of unique-looking miniatures. Not the 6-model-per-team fest of Infinity, or the low-quality-model-skirmish fights of Warmahordes. Those game's rules may be more sane, they may not break all the time, but I simply do not consider skirmish games a viable alternative to a mass battle game like 40k.

Sure, and that's a valid point, but it's one that doesn't exist if the models aren't painted. The sight of a table full of painted models is awesome. The sight of a table full of half-assembled gray plastic is not. So if that's something you value then you should agree with me that painted models are mandatory.

I see absolutely no reason for the rampant, pathological, foaming-at-the-mouth, irrational hatred you have for the entire fanbase of 40k and the game itself.

I don't hate the fanbase of 40k, which would be absurd considering that I'm a member of that group. I hate GW and the incompetent morons they put in charge of writing the rules, and I hate them because I love the setting and want it to be better.

I agree that the rules are bloated and poorly designed. However, they are nowhere near as broken as what you describe. You refer to them as if they break every turn, when in my experience the only game-breaking paradoxes I have encountered are Kharn Against Invisibility and Sun Shark. No, I don't play that often, and there are probably more, but those are the ones I have encountered.

I wish, I truly wish painted models were mandatory. However, at my FLGS alone, we have a person who believes paint just covers detail and all models should be unpainted, many people who focus on the game and painting to a high standard, so they have some extremely well painted models and the rest grey or primed, and people who simply don't like painting. I respect that. I personally don't like painting and I cannot justify why I don't like painting, but I paint everything to the best of my ability because looking at my finished models makes me proud.

I must say that 90% of my games have been played against a completely grey or primed or partially painted armies. If models were required to be painted, sadly, instead of painting, the people who don't like painting would simply quit, and the 10% of games I have played would become the 100%. I would rather get a chance to play the game and use my painted army, to give my opponent a show, than wait a month in a ghost town shop for a game.

 Verviedi wrote:

You seem to imply that 40K is absolutely awful and should never be played by any sane individual. I simply cannot see why. Yes, the rules are a bit threadbare, but I often go games without breaking the system, and when I do find a paradox, I compromise, because I'm not playing against total donkey-caves. I like 40k because it's a large game, and nothing beats the sight of a table full of unique-looking miniatures. Not the 6-model-per-team fest of Infinity, or the low-quality-model-skirmish fights of Warmahordes. Those game's rules may be more sane, they may not break all the time, but I simply do not consider skirmish games a viable alternative to a mass battle game like 40k.

I love the setting of 40k, from the somewhat tongue in cheek humor of Toaster God, to the Serious Business of Gaunt's Ghosts. I love the faction design, and even the art in the rulebooks and codexes. I like the models and the process of turning them from featureless grey blobs into nice-looking soldiers of the Machine God, or the swarms of the Hive Mind. I like the way the game plays (if your group isn't full of TFGs and tournament-practicing rules lawyers), but above all I love the sight of a hundred or more miniatures on the board.

I see absolutely no reason for the rampant, pathological, foaming-at-the-mouth, irrational hatred you have for the entire fanbase of 40k and the game itself. Show me on the doll where GW touched you, if you please.

Honestly, just put him on ignore. I did, and it's been nice.

I don't believe in censoring people.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Would this one live up to your standards?

Yes. Everything is painted an appropriate color, including smaller details, and there seems to be at least some level of shading. "Tabletop standard" IMO is a fairly low standard, and just means that the model can legitimately be considered "completely painted". In general I give the benefit of the doubt to any model that looks like it was the result of a sincere attempt to paint it, not just three dots of color on one shoulder pad to meet the letter of the law at a tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Verviedi wrote:
I agree that the rules are bloated and poorly designed. However, they are nowhere near as broken as what you describe. You refer to them as if they break every turn, when in my experience the only game-breaking paradoxes I have encountered are Kharn Against Invisibility and Sun Shark. No, I don't play that often, and there are probably more, but those are the ones I have encountered.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/15.page

If you aren't having trouble with broken rules it's because you've managed to fix all of the problems with house rules. But that doesn't mean that the rules as-written weren't broken.

we have a person who believes paint just covers detail and all models should be unpainted

...

That person is just hopelessly ignorant, if they sincerely believe that. I suspect the reality is they just don't enjoy painting and are using it as an excuse for why their laziness is actually some kind of aesthetic choice that shouldn't be criticized.

I would rather get a chance to play the game and use my painted army, to give my opponent a show, than wait a month in a ghost town shop for a game.

*shrugs*

I guess that's your choice to lower your standards to play more frequently. I'd rather play once a month against a fully-painted army and play some other game the rest of the time.

Talizvar wrote:It
- And Grey Knights could take Shuriken Catapults.

Gotta love the RT wierdness. Squats could take Shuriken Catapaults too. I have to assume that folks took them too as I've got a squat figure with one. Of course I've also got a squat with an AK47, so things were all over the place.

 Talizvar wrote:

I would say BECAUSE of 40k those standards have slipped.
Tabletop war gaming started out with cardboard counters and little icon like pieces that obviously did not look like it needed painting.
.

I tend to agree with your pro-painting views, but your history is a bit off. Wargaming with painted miniatures has a long history separate from counter wargames. Going back not only to Featherstone, but back into the late 1800's There's a sparse (in the early years) but interesting timeline of wargaming here:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html

 Verviedi wrote:
I don't believe in censoring people.

That's your choice, and I can respect that

 Peregrine wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
I agree that the rules are bloated and poorly designed. However, they are nowhere near as broken as what you describe. You refer to them as if they break every turn, when in my experience the only game-breaking paradoxes I have encountered are Kharn Against Invisibility and Sun Shark. No, I don't play that often, and there are probably more, but those are the ones I have encountered.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/15.page

If you aren't having trouble with broken rules it's because you've managed to fix all of the problems with house rules. But that doesn't mean that the rules as-written weren't broken.

we have a person who believes paint just covers detail and all models should be unpainted

...

That person is just hopelessly ignorant, if they sincerely believe that. I suspect the reality is they just don't enjoy painting and are using it as an excuse for why their laziness is actually some kind of aesthetic choice that shouldn't be criticized.

Do I like it? No. Have I completely given up? No. His most recent army is primed in 2 colors with shading, so I suppose that's progress. I am trying to tell him methods of painting without losing detail, such as thin primers and thinning paints. I want to believe eventually I'll fight a fully painted army.

I would rather get a chance to play the game and use my painted army, to give my opponent a show, than wait a month in a ghost town shop for a game.

*shrugs*

I guess that's your choice to lower your standards to play more frequently. I'd rather play once a month against a fully-painted army and play some other game the rest of the time.

My standards have been dead and gone since the first game I've ever played.

My experiences can be summed up easily. I play 40k against anyone. I just want to play a game. I want my games to look like the displays at Warhammer World, but ever since the first game I have realised that that will never happen.

Take this image from a game at my store.


I was playing Skitarii. My forces are most likely invisible (Infiltrators were deployed out of LOS and Skitarii are in a building.) Even though I was just a small part of my team, the game was incredibly fun, because I know that I will get to witness that sea of grey take color.

In my case, there are no other games to play. I'm locked into 40k. Even if people wanted to buy everything I had, I would never get my money back, and would have to learn a new ruleset, paint, and build an army for a whole new game. Unfortunate, but I'm stuck with 40k due to a lack of independents near me.

Can't wait until I buy a car.

I dislike the grey, but am not going to be an donkey-cave snob about it. As long as its primed its good enough for me not to care anymore.

I do take a fairly lot of time to paint my own stuff, but other than a basic priming don't have any standards. Even then I'm not going to say anything. Don't really care all that much.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

Wow, that is a high bar. You know, if they did that, your nifty Imperial Knight would have to be, like, a $1,000 kit because so few people qualified to buy it

And most people would have nobody to play with.

Gotta love the 2 trolls in here.

 Gamgee wrote:
I dislike the grey, but am not going to be an donkey-cave snob about it. As long as its primed its good enough for me not to care anymore.

I do take a fairly lot of time to paint my own stuff, but other than a basic priming don't have any standards. Even then I'm not going to say anything. Don't really care all that much.

Same here. I probably have one of the best ratios of fielding painted armies in my local group, and I like seeing but I don't get my knickers in a twist when someone uses unpainted stuff, or start to make pompous decrees about their personality or if they're a True Gamer. I just assume that maybe that aspect of the hobby isn't quite so fun to them, and that shaming or hectoring them to paint would lessen their fun. And we're here to have fun, right?

But Dakka as a whole (or a few loud members of Dakka who skew perceptions) has this one-true-way attitude when it comes to painting, and it's not really worth getting into an argument with them.

1: I don't like playing against unpainted models.

2: Sorry, but I really like playing the game and I don't have time to paint.

1: Yes you do, for I know all the circumstances of your life better than you do. Dance, peasant!

If you're worried about a bad paint job, most paint jobs can be improved by thinning them some more. THIN YOUR PAINTS! is a meme yes, but it's born out of sensible advice because generally most paint jobs can stand to be a little thinner. And remember, it could always be worse.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Actually, badly painted armies are much worse than unpainted armies due to the additional cringe factor of seeing expensive models ruined by bad painting.
An acceptable army starts somewhere around Forge World studio armies level.

Anything beneath that level is unacceptable and is an eyesore and brings shame to the hobby. People should seriously start practising on toys and cheap plastic historical miniatures/kits before putting their hands on Wh40k miniatures and models. They can start bringing their miniatures to the gaming table after a few years of practise.

People who can't paint well shouldn't even be allowed to buy Citadel and Forge World miniatures. They should be allowed to buy only painting supplies and be allowed to buy the miniatures only after showing a sample of historical models painted to the Forge World studio standards. Preferably with conversions.

I really hope this is a (bad) attempt at a parody and not a serious argument.

I actually completely agree with his first two sentences lol. unless you have time, skill and an airbrush, just don't bother or get it commissioned. No one wants to see it.

If someone realy does decide to pain his army then FW level is more or less the lowest one shoudl do. Otherwise army worth drops too much. Plus FW painting level is not that high to begin with, that is assuming someone does want his models painted and not paint splatered

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

Because there's a huge difference between painting to a decent tabletop standard and matching the level of FW's work. Virtually anyone can easily paint to a decent tabletop standard if they're willing to invest the time and effort, so the only reason (outside of a very small number of exceptional cases like physical disabilities) would have an unpainted army is if they just don't care enough to do it. But not everyone can match the much higher level of quality that FW produces, especially without dedicating huge amounts of time and effort to learning. It's the difference between "stop being lazy" and "you suck for not being born with natural artistic talent".

"Tabletop standard" is cringeworthy.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

Because there's a huge difference between painting to a decent tabletop standard and matching the level of FW's work. Virtually anyone can easily paint to a decent tabletop standard if they're willing to invest the time and effort, so the only reason (outside of a very small number of exceptional cases like physical disabilities) would have an unpainted army is if they just don't care enough to do it. But not everyone can match the much higher level of quality that FW produces, especially without dedicating huge amounts of time and effort to learning. It's the difference between "stop being lazy" and "you suck for not being born with natural artistic talent".

"Tabletop standard" is cringeworthy.

Be right back.

...I do not think you know what that word means.

This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]

[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

Lol at the Peregrine hate, very nice poster especialy for an internet AI logic construct heh. He/ she/ it discusses your points with counterarguments most of the time which is actualy one of the higher forms of respect.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Painting is an important part of the hobby next to the modelling, collecting and playing parts.
To me, unpainted miniatures have no place in 40k. The only acceptable reason for there being unpainted miniatures on the table is that you were planning to paint it, but did not get it ready in time for the game.
If you do not plan on painting your miniatures, why use them at all? The whole raison d'être for 40k is nice looking miniatures. If you ignore this point you might just as well be using bottle caps or cheap toy soldiers and save yourself a lot of money.

Because unpainted 40k models are still incredible models and look million times better than your average boardgame? There was unpainted toxicrene posted I think, if you cant see the difference between that bottle caps or cheap toy soldiers then idk tbh. Too much hyperbole imo.

I have a minimum of primer applied for fielding minis but the HAAC crowd here should loosen up, some people are in this for a game. You know, that thing that makes buying 60 of the same collectors item seem making sense. Even if you think rules are crap there are other appeals like scale, WW II ish interactions, variety of unit types etc.

Just paint your models.

 Eilif wrote:

Talizvar wrote:Tabletop war gaming started out with cardboard counters and little icon like pieces that obviously did not look like it needed painting.
.

I tend to agree with your pro-painting views, but your history is a bit off. Wargaming with painted miniatures has a long history separate from counter wargames. Going back not only to Featherstone, but back into the late 1800's There's a sparse (in the early years) but interesting timeline of wargaming here:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html

Thanks for that timeline link.
Ha, people could get into all kinds of talks on this matter and argue back and forth, I see enough information that the Pharaohs of Egypt were using figures so there is enough doubt (wonder if they painted theirs?)
I was thinking of Kriegsspiel around 1812... but I also found this timeline (thanks for making me look it up...): http://faculty.virginia.edu/setear/students/wargames/page1a.htm.

In the end, I was getting at that a "cerebral" game originally intended for the serious business of war needed identification and placement to visualize the situation, getting into prettying them up is a recreational esthetic.

I just recently got into Star Wars Armada (I jump around a fair bit I know)... thanks guys, now I am painting those tiny fighters: I blame you!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Verviedi wrote:
This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

This is awesome.
Probably 5X better than what I would "settle" being happy to see fielded.
My opinion in a sea of many differing ones I know.
I really should get my army together and take a picture but my BT is this:
Excuse the picture, I was showing script on model techniques.

 Verviedi wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

Because there's a huge difference between painting to a decent tabletop standard and matching the level of FW's work. Virtually anyone can easily paint to a decent tabletop standard if they're willing to invest the time and effort, so the only reason (outside of a very small number of exceptional cases like physical disabilities) would have an unpainted army is if they just don't care enough to do it. But not everyone can match the much higher level of quality that FW produces, especially without dedicating huge amounts of time and effort to learning. It's the difference between "stop being lazy" and "you suck for not being born with natural artistic talent".

"Tabletop standard" is cringeworthy.

Be right back.

...I do not think you know what that word means.

This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]

[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

Few years of practise more and you could be allowed to play in a FLGS.

 Talizvar wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Verviedi wrote:
This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

This is awesome.
Probably 5X better than what I would "settle" being happy to see fielded.
My opinion in a sea of many differing ones I know.
I really should get my army together and take a picture but my BT is this:
Excuse the picture, I was showing script on model techniques.

Time to buy a few buckets of toy soldiers.

I understand if the look of the game is important enough to you that you dont want to play with or against unpainted models but dont enforce that upon other people you are not playing with. Especially if they are working towards painting their army but haven't got it done yet.

Personally I much prefer playing with and against painted models and don't play games with unpainted models (At least on my side) but I would much rather play with a decent guy who hasn't got around to painting his models yet than an donkey-cave with beautifully painted models.

Also in regards to saying people must be of x quality paitner to play. forgeworld quality for example. Hopefully you are being sarcastic otherwise that's elitist nonsense. What you are saying there is that someone should have to work for years to get their painting level up to a certain standard in order to play a game and that it is embarrassing that they dare show their models before they get to that standard. Come off it I am willing to be you have fielded models that are lower than forge world quality at some point.

I like painted models. I enjoy this hobby for painting before gaming. Not everyone else has the same view. You don;t want to play with or against unpainted models that's fine and your right in the same way its your right to play 40k but not infinity or Kings of war but not WHFB. You want to claim that anyone who hasn't painted an army up to your personal standard is an embarrassment and shouldn't be allowed to play? That's extremely sad to me and is just a way of reducing the number of people already in a niche hobby.

You want more painted models at your local club? Try organisation painting nights where you all get together and bring along a few models. Try to help each other out and encourage painting and maybe see if you can help others see it as a fun activity not a barrier to entry. Don't beat down other gamers in your community so you can get a smug sense of superiority that your models are better painted than others.

To sum up my post in short. Play how you want with who you want and allow others to do the same.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Why? Would you disrespect your opponents and ruin the game atmosphere by fielding a poorly painted army?

Because there's a huge difference between painting to a decent tabletop standard and matching the level of FW's work. Virtually anyone can easily paint to a decent tabletop standard if they're willing to invest the time and effort, so the only reason (outside of a very small number of exceptional cases like physical disabilities) would have an unpainted army is if they just don't care enough to do it. But not everyone can match the much higher level of quality that FW produces, especially without dedicating huge amounts of time and effort to learning. It's the difference between "stop being lazy" and "you suck for not being born with natural artistic talent".

"Tabletop standard" is cringeworthy.

Be right back.

...I do not think you know what that word means.

This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]

[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

Few years of practise more and you could be allowed to play in a FLGS.

 Talizvar wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Verviedi wrote:
This is the absolute best I can do, in general terms. It is tabletop standard. I have been painting for 3 years now.
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/txv67bu09/image.jpg]
[img=http://s28.postimg.org/65luvsrzd/image.jpg]

This is awesome.
Probably 5X better than what I would "settle" being happy to see fielded.
My opinion in a sea of many differing ones I know.
I really should get my army together and take a picture but my BT is this:
Excuse the picture, I was showing script on model techniques.

Time to buy a few buckets of toy soldiers.

I have been playing at an FLGS a while now. I do not see your point and have clicked the yellow triangle of friendship on all of your posts.

Could I have some pictures of your own work if you have such extreme views?

Talizvar, your work is fantastic. I blame my crappy camera work for making my models look decent. This is a proper photo, so the flaws can be seen.
Photo taken of my army at my local game store on 5/13. Far better quality photo than I can take.

 carlos13th wrote:
To sum up my post in short. Play how you want with who you want and allow others to do the same.

I have to add that no-one can really "force" this requirement.
I think this is more of a want/attempt at a cultural push of why accept the minimum?
My problem is bouncing around between 4 game systems and more armies than you can shake a stick at and getting "bored" half-way through painting.
We can all compare excuses but a little bit a night will get it done and you have to admit, painted looks better.

 FakeBritishPerson wrote:
So, around my FLGS there have been some new 40k players, and its been nice. I've gotten in some more PUGs than I usually do, but out of the 6ish new players, none of them have painted armies. My stuff isn't that great, but it's painted. The closest that any of then has is one guy who draws on the models with pertinent markers. It's kind of annoying honestly, because when I got into the game, it was what we did, not this amazing standout thing that happens rarely. Any of you finding this issue too?

Its the release schedule combined with lack of standards of both stores, tournaments and players themselves.

GW pegged their customers correctly when they said that buying models is part of the hobby, I know a lot of people with still in box models that will never see a table.

 Talizvar wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
To sum up my post in short. Play how you want with who you want and allow others to do the same.

I have to add that no-one can really "force" this requirement.
I think this is more of a want/attempt at a cultural push of why accept the minimum?
My problem is bouncing around between 4 game systems and more armies than you can shake a stick at and getting "bored" half-way through painting.
We can all compare excuses but a little bit a night will get it done and you have to admit, painted looks better.

Yeah I realize it cant be enforced well not technically but you can make people who haven't painted their models yet utterly unwelcome in your local game store and make them leave the hobby. Going at it in an aggressive way towards people who haven't painted their models isn't the way to go about it. As I said encourage people to get into painting and help build them up don't instead knock them down for not conforming to your standards.

Verviedi, don't even stoop down to the level of Surn. Your models look great and I'd be happy to play against them.

Surn, belittling someone's painting like that is an absolute donkey-cave move.

I suppose that he somewhat suceeded in creating a response in me, so I am enabling him. I will stop responding to his barbs.

 Verviedi wrote:
I suppose that he somewhat suceeded in creating a response in me, so I am enabling him. I will stop responding to his barbs.

Yes, do. Your models are fine, better than mine!

 Verviedi wrote:
Talizvar, your work is fantastic. I blame my crappy camera work for making my models look decent. This is a proper photo, so the flaws can be seen.
Photo taken of my army at my local game store on 5/13. Far better quality photo than I can take.

Okay, looking hard for flaws... great thing about this topic is getting better at things.
Uh, picture still is not ideal, I can only assume you are being critical because maybe washes are not applied or very little?
I started out painting metallics on CSM Black Legion and found that the edges would look like garbage to me.
Washes seemed to fix that or I would "cheat" with a fine black ink pen to sharpen the border.
Maybe a bit of red wash on the cloaks? Again hard to tell.
The deal breaker will be not drilling or painting the tips of the guns differently: it just ruins the realism.
Those GW washes or the variants you can make (acrylic inks with flow aid) have been the best painting shortcut in years... dips are mixed results but are worth considering.
I am glad you got the white stripe on the tank, it is striking.
Applying the decals was a good fussy thing to do (I HATE doing those but feel they must be done).
You may have to add more char on that plasma guy.
Though the heresy of a Tau disk no matter how expertly applied may be unforgivable... what happened to a classic servo-skull? if you needed to up-size use an Ogryn skull though it may not have much space inside it.
My same models of this force is in boxes at the moment so I really cannot say more and not be a hypocrite.

I LIKE critique in the spirit of getting better at something you want to get better at.
I have not seen anyone judge any paint job when facing it and exclaiming it is no good.
Usually it is relief and expressing it is great to see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carlos13th wrote:
[Yeah I realize it cant be enforced well not technically but you can make people who haven't painted their models yet utterly unwelcome in your local game store and make them leave the hobby. Going at it in an aggressive way towards people who haven't painted their models isn't the way to go about it. As I said encourage people to get into painting and help build them up don't instead knock them down for not conforming to your standards.

It is a bit different in a forum than at a FLGS.
We tend to vent here, say the things we would not say at the store.
I had to get 100 grunts of Imperial Guard done for a big scrap with a friend's force.
For a lark, I brought them to my FLGS to work on for the day.
I had more people interested in assembly, priming, painting, materials for masking, airbrush... it was a support group and had someone settle down and started working on stuff with me.
It made it more fun than working in my basement, sometimes it seems too much like work so painting get-together events would be a good idea.
Some casual peer pressure in a gaming group could be a good thing.

I have an incredibly long wall of text detailing my Archmagos' backstory. I won't put it here, but as a summary:

He's a heretek fleeing into Tauspace. He believes that all technology is blessed by the Omnissiah, and the idea that just human tech is special is illogical. He uses Tau drones and some other bits in his forces.

A while ago he purged all of the Puritan AdMech officials from his fleet, the Skitarii are too brainwashed anyway to know the difference, and his Cult Mech forces are all loyal to him above the "Puritans" on Mars.

He still uses the symbol of Mars on his forces, because it's his homeworld and a world blessed by the Omnissiah, but is also willing to modify and utilize Xenotech for the purposes of reclaiming lost knowledge.

I have Servo-skulls on models that can have them (High ranking officials).

 Verviedi wrote:
I have an incredibly long wall of text detailing my Archmagos' backstory. I won't put it here, but as a summary:

He's a heretek fleeing into Tauspace. He believes that all technology is blessed by the Omnissiah, and the idea that just human tech is special is illogical. He uses Tau drones and some other bits in his forces.

A while ago he purged all of the Puritan AdMech officials from his fleet, the Skitarii are too brainwashed anyway to know the difference, and his Cult Mech forces are all loyal to him above the "Puritans" on Mars.

He still uses the symbol of Mars on his forces, because it's his homeworld and a world blessed by the Omnissiah, but is also willing to modify and utilize Xenotech for the purposes of reclaiming lost knowledge.

I have Servo-skulls on models that can have them (High ranking officials).

I like that idea. Sounds like there's a lot of cool conversion opportunities.

 Ravenous D wrote:
GW pegged their customers correctly when they said that buying models is part of the hobby, I know a lot of people with still in box models that will never see a table.

Then you will find my hobby shelf amusing. Except for character HQs (because you're not going to field multiples, and they're very expensive), as soon as I consume a kit in modelling, I restock it on my hobby shelf, so that if I want a part from that kit, I'll have it. On top of that, I don't feel unpainted models are lost money, because if I ever quit 40k, I could simply eBay my all my BNIB shelves and probably **make a profit** over the price I paid for the product -- based on buying it at a good discount AND price increases through the years.

In fact, some models like Void Shield Generator, or even Plasma Obliterator, which I have a couple of in box, will sell for insane prices if I choose to do so. To take that last example, Plasma Obliterator is $150-$175 on ebay, and I paid... something like $75? That's a great reason to buy one and put it on your shelf, whether you paint it or not.

 j31c3n wrote:
1: I don't like playing against unpainted models.

2: Sorry, but I really like playing the game and I don't have time to paint.

1: Yes you do, for I know all the circumstances of your life better than you do. Dance, peasant!

If you have time to spend several hours playing a game of 40k then you have time to paint your models.

 Peregrine wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
1: I don't like playing against unpainted models.

2: Sorry, but I really like playing the game and I don't have time to paint.

1: Yes you do, for I know all the circumstances of your life better than you do. Dance, peasant!

If you have time to spend several hours playing a game of 40k then you have time to paint your models.

Of course he may enjoy playing 40k but not painting. So priorities the free time he has to play the game he wants to play instead of doing things to make other people happy..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
[Yeah I realize it cant be enforced well not technically but you can make people who haven't painted their models yet utterly unwelcome in your local game store and make them leave the hobby. Going at it in an aggressive way towards people who haven't painted their models isn't the way to go about it. As I said encourage people to get into painting and help build them up don't instead knock them down for not conforming to your standards.

It is a bit different in a forum than at a FLGS.
We tend to vent here, say the things we would not say at the store.
I had to get 100 grunts of Imperial Guard done for a big scrap with a friend's force.
For a lark, I brought them to my FLGS to work on for the day.
I had more people interested in assembly, priming, painting, materials for masking, airbrush... it was a support group and had someone settle down and started working on stuff with me.
It made it more fun than working in my basement, sometimes it seems too much like work so painting get-together events would be a good idea.
Some casual peer pressure in a gaming group could be a good thing.

Your example here is a perfect way to help people paint. Turning up and painting in store is a fantstic way to do it. Having regular painting nights with people there to chat to or just posting up on face book saying I am going to go down to x to do some painting anyone else want to come is a fun inclusive way to get people involved. Saying no one who hasnt painted their army should be banned from play in the FLGS is not the way to do it. Not that I am accusing you of doing that btw. Just that if someone wants the goal of more players with painted armies they may want to try to carrot more than the stick and try helping people to paint rather than trying to claim superiority over the non painting great unwashed.

In the last place I lived me and a friend used to get together once every few weeks to paint catch up and play games. We live too far away now but it was a great way for both of us to get some paitning and gaming regularly done.

 carlos13th wrote:
Of course he may enjoy playing 40k but not painting. So priorities the free time he has to play the game he wants to play instead of doing things to make other people happy..

IOW, he doesn't care about the other player's enjoyment of the game.

Also, this doesn't really counter my point that if you have time to play the game you have time to paint your models. Whatever the reason for choosing to play the game instead of painting might be you're still making that choice. You haven't been forced to give up painting because it isn't possible to do it.

 Verviedi wrote:
He's a heretek fleeing into Tauspace. He believes that all technology is blessed by the Omnissiah, and the idea that just human tech is special is illogical. He uses Tau drones and some other bits in his forces.

I know I just read in the new Cult Mechanicus Codex one of the Forge Worlds has been known to heavily "research" xenotech and made some comment that it is not that uncommon for the Deathwatch to conduct raids on groups that overstepped their bounds. It is an ebook on my pad but I can go look that up, it may help the fluff a bit.

I think your force is in the colors of Mars and that is sufficiently big that anything can happen.

Anyway, being on topic: we would not have ANY discussions worth having with a picture of bare plastic models: The reply would be "I am seeing this for what reason? Nice glue work?"

Effort can always be appreciated if anyone has an idea what was involved in getting a finished product.

 carlos13th wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
1: I don't like playing against unpainted models.

2: Sorry, but I really like playing the game and I don't have time to paint.

1: Yes you do, for I know all the circumstances of your life better than you do. Dance, peasant!

If you have time to spend several hours playing a game of 40k then you have time to paint your models.

Of course he may enjoy playing 40k but not painting. So priorities the free time he has to play the game he wants to play instead of doing things to make other people happy..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
[Yeah I realize it cant be enforced well not technically but you can make people who haven't painted their models yet utterly unwelcome in your local game store and make them leave the hobby. Going at it in an aggressive way towards people who haven't painted their models isn't the way to go about it. As I said encourage people to get into painting and help build them up don't instead knock them down for not conforming to your standards.

It is a bit different in a forum than at a FLGS.
We tend to vent here, say the things we would not say at the store.
I had to get 100 grunts of Imperial Guard done for a big scrap with a friend's force.
For a lark, I brought them to my FLGS to work on for the day.
I had more people interested in assembly, priming, painting, materials for masking, airbrush... it was a support group and had someone settle down and started working on stuff with me.
It made it more fun than working in my basement, sometimes it seems too much like work so painting get-together events would be a good idea.
Some casual peer pressure in a gaming group could be a good thing.

Your example here is a perfect way to help people paint. Turning up and painting in store is a fantstic way to do it. Having regular painting nights with people there to chat to or just posting up on face book saying I am going to go down to x to do some painting anyone else want to come is a fun inclusive way to get people involved. Saying no one who hasnt painted their army should be banned from play in the FLGS is not the way to do it. Not that I am accusing you of doing that btw. Just that if someone wants the goal of more players with painted armies they may want to try to carrot more than the stick and try helping people to paint rather than trying to claim superiority over the non painting great unwashed.

In the last place I lived me and a friend used to get together once every few weeks to paint catch up and play games. We live too far away now but it was a great way for both of us to get some paitning and gaming regularly done.

Indeed, as a student I keep in contact with my old buddy while at uni and we set up Skype, comparing paint jobs, discussing rumours and cheese lists and generally having a laugh.

Personally I don't care, it's not in my place to judge or dictate what other people do with their hobbies, nor how they go about doing it, I can understand the irritants sometimes, it can take some of the immersion out of the hobby and the game, but then I understand that not everyone is a confident painter, and some just don't want to and that's fair enough to me.

Well I'm in this hobby for collecting and painting first and gaming second. Where I live there is literally no one, aboslutely zero, zilch, nada, people who even play or collect any of this stuff. I know of all this stuff because I used to live down in the cities and peruse the stores buying DnD stuff. I recall this debate raging on even back then. It's always a cute debate. Judging happens all the time, it's normal and not inherently wrong. I judged every single post in this thread as I read them, I don't go through a single day where I haven't been judged by someone else numerous times. We are pattern seekers and pattern desirers, if we don't see patterns we try to make them and get others to conform to them and in this our clannish mentality arises where we create temporary groups of solidarity based on a common trait or theme. In this case painters vs non-painters. I'm a painter and collector myself and it wouldn't bother me one bit if I never play the game even once. Maybe some irony in that maybe not. I will be moving back down south again where this game is played, I haven't thought much about what it would take for me to refuse to play against someone, even though all my stuff will be painted I'm not sure it would phase me much if my opponent brought blobs of grey. I might silently judge out habit since it's pretty much in my DNA to do so but I'm certain that since I don't take the game seriously anyways that it would take something pretty big for me to refuse to play. On the flip side, I couldn't care less how sensitive my opponant is nor care what makes him/her refuse a game, the game is such a secondary for me that if I we didn't play that day/month/year it wouldn't make me flinch. It's not that I don't like the game, I do, it's just that painting and collecting takes up a much bigger place in my heart then the game itself does. Perhaps in this regard I should consider at least offering some simple basing and washing services if I get fast enough at it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Of course he may enjoy playing 40k but not painting. So priorities the free time he has to play the game he wants to play instead of doing things to make other people happy..

IOW, he doesn't care about the other player's enjoyment of the game.

Also, this doesn't really counter my point that if you have time to play the game you have time to paint your models. Whatever the reason for choosing to play the game instead of painting might be you're still making that choice. You haven't been forced to give up painting because it isn't possible to do it.

And you don't care about his enjoyment of the game if you wish to force him to spend his time painting to please you rather than just playing the game he wishes to play. Time is a finite thing. Choosing to do one thing removes the time to do another. You have time to paint just don't go to work, you have time to paint just wake up an hour early every day, you have time to paint just don't perform the activity you are doing the painting for. Just because its possible they could give up other things in order to paint does not mean that they have the spare time needed to paint. When people say I dont have the time to do x they don't literally mean there is literally no time in the day with which to do it as you are quite well aware. What they mean is that they cannot currently carve the time out to perform x action because other things that take up said time is more valuable or preferable to them.

Even with a job and 4 kids running around under this roof and 2 dogs it's not all that hard to schedule time for painting. Heck I just spent a full hour on these forums just now. I'd probably have a 5 man squad or more primed and based by now. Time is less an excuse then desire. Some desire to be doing something else. For the moment I desired to spend time on the forums instead of painting. I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't have the time though.

 carlos13th wrote:
And you don't care about his enjoyment of the game if you wish to force him to spend his time painting to please you rather than just playing the game he wishes to play.

But you could apply this argument to any other form of bad behavior. For example, the guy who bathes once a month just doesn't enjoy bathing and you don't care about his enjoyment of the game if you insist on trying to get him to take a shower and wear clean clothes. There are minimum standards you should be expected to meet if you're going to play a game with other people, and having painted models is one of them.

Time is a finite thing. Choosing to do one thing removes the time to do another. You have time to paint just don't go to work, you have time to paint just wake up an hour early every day, you have time to paint just don't perform the activity you are doing the painting for. Just because its possible they could give up other things in order to paint does not mean that they have the spare time needed to paint. When people say I dont have the time to do x they don't literally mean there is literally no time in the day with which to do it as you are quite well aware. What they mean is that they cannot currently carve the time out to perform x action because other things that take up said time is more valuable or preferable to them.

You're kind of missing the point here. People who say they "don't have time to paint" try to act like they'd have to give up essential things to paint: work, family obligations, etc. They tell the sad story of how they'd be willing to paint, but once they deal with the important stuff they just don't have time for a silly hobby. And then they go spend an afternoon playing 40k. So what they're really saying is "I have time for silly hobby stuff, I just choose not to spend it on painting".

And by your standard of "don't have time" it's just an automatic excuse. If you don't want to paint you don't have time to paint (since even if you have nothing but free time painting would still mean giving up your valuable sitting and staring at the wall time), so the concept of not having time becomes meaningless.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Out of curiousity, Peregrine and Aszubaruzah Surn, where do you draw the lines for what is acceptable or not?

Would this one live up to your standards?

Spoiler:

It's not my newest model and I have gotten a little better (I also fixed the scratched-off paint on the lower right helmet horn), but I am certainly not anywhere near Forge World painter level. I am curious as to how my skill level is regarded by those outside my immediate gaming circle, and as to what exactly constitutes an 'acceptable' standard.

I'm not a painting racist heh but I'd be a bit bothered by this model. I don't think this is your painting skill though, it's just that the white looks horrible, did you paint it on black primer? White is good for mixing or small highlights but for white surfaces I always go for white primer (then shade with greys) because it's hard to pull off with a brush for me, at least using skull white.

The bits where it's not white look ok.

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
And you don't care about his enjoyment of the game if you wish to force him to spend his time painting to please you rather than just playing the game he wishes to play.

But you could apply this argument to any other form of bad behavior. For example, the guy who bathes once a month just doesn't enjoy bathing and you don't care about his enjoyment of the game if you insist on trying to get him to take a shower and wear clean clothes. There are minimum standards you should be expected to meet if you're going to play a game with other people, and having painted models is one of them.

Time is a finite thing. Choosing to do one thing removes the time to do another. You have time to paint just don't go to work, you have time to paint just wake up an hour early every day, you have time to paint just don't perform the activity you are doing the painting for. Just because its possible they could give up other things in order to paint does not mean that they have the spare time needed to paint. When people say I dont have the time to do x they don't literally mean there is literally no time in the day with which to do it as you are quite well aware. What they mean is that they cannot currently carve the time out to perform x action because other things that take up said time is more valuable or preferable to them.

You're kind of missing the point here. People who say they "don't have time to paint" try to act like they'd have to give up essential things to paint: work, family obligations, etc. They tell the sad story of how they'd be willing to paint, but once they deal with the important stuff they just don't have time for a silly hobby. And then they go spend an afternoon playing 40k. So what they're really saying is "I have time for silly hobby stuff, I just choose not to spend it on painting".

And by your standard of "don't have time" it's just an automatic excuse. If you don't want to paint you don't have time to paint (since even if you have nothing but free time painting would still mean giving up your valuable sitting and staring at the wall time), so the concept of not having time becomes meaningless.

Why is painting models a minimum standard for behaviour? Most people value not smelling disgusting smells of body odur. Not everyone who games value painted models. If a group of people are happy playing with unpainted mdoels together that doesnt effect you. You have still yet to make that case other than the fact you don't like unpainted models personally.

 carlos13th wrote:
Why is painting models a minimum standard for behaviour?

Because the aesthetic side is a major part of miniature wargaming. That's why we use models and not cardboard tokens.

If a group of people are happy playing with unpainted mdoels together that doesnt effect you. You have still yet to make that case other than the fact you don't like unpainted models personally.

Sure, if a group of people all enjoy playing with unpainted models and never play against anyone else I guess they have the right to do that. I will never understand why they would want to, but that's their choice. But in reality it's rarely that kind of situation. The people with unpainted armies usually play against people who do care about painting, so their "everyone agreed not to paint" excuse is no longer valid.

 Blacksails wrote:
Verviedi, don't even stoop down to the level of Surn. Your models look great and I'd be happy to play against them.

Surn, belittling someone's painting like that is an absolute donkey-cave move.

He must be trolling at this point, those minis were too good.

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Why is painting models a minimum standard for behaviour?

Because the aesthetic side is a major part of miniature wargaming. That's why we use models and not cardboard tokens.

If a group of people are happy playing with unpainted mdoels together that doesnt effect you. You have still yet to make that case other than the fact you don't like unpainted models personally.

Sure, if a group of people all enjoy playing with unpainted models and never play against anyone else I guess they have the right to do that. I will never understand why they would want to, but that's their choice. But in reality it's rarely that kind of situation. The people with unpainted armies usually play against people who do care about painting, so their "everyone agreed not to paint" excuse is no longer valid.

The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. It is the most important part for me but not for everyone. So tell people you personally don't want to play against unpainted armies instead of trying to enforce only painted armies on everyone including people you are not currently playing with, which is what I have said from the start. Don't attempt to make your personal preferences rules everyone should follow. No one is forcing you to play against unpainted armies.

 Verviedi wrote:
I have been playing at an FLGS a while now. I do not see your point and have clicked the yellow triangle of friendship on all of your posts.

Could I have some pictures of your own work if you have such extreme views?

Of course. Though I wasn't doing any painting lately.

As you can see, I'm on the stage of a bucket of toy soldiers.

These are Italeri Roman soldiers. I have bought 35 of them for 24pln. IIRC the green guy is an Arabic swordsman, also from Italeri.

It was 5 years ago though. Good times. Was comfortable enough to think about painting miniatures and stuff like that. Nowadays I dread the future too much to be able to do anything like that .

I planned to go through all of them and then through other boxes of cheap toy soldiers but later my life kinda fell apart. I wasn't even able to make myself maintain my mega paint set. Wonder if it's all dry .

Though I wouldn't move to Wh40k miniatures anyway. I hate their proportions.

@Aszubaruzah Surn - I would never speak of your models or models like yours negatively, but by your own standards -- relative to Forge World studio models -- you wouldn't be permitted to buy Citadel or Forge World models. I'm not sure how that would help anyone...

In any case, if you limited gamers to people who produce models that look like this, there would be nobody left to play with or share the hobby with locally, and every hobby shop would go out of business.

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
Of course he may enjoy playing 40k but not painting. So priorities the free time he has to play the game he wants to play instead of doing things to make other people happy..

IOW, he doesn't care about the other player's enjoyment of the game.

Also, this doesn't really counter my point that if you have time to play the game you have time to paint your models. Whatever the reason for choosing to play the game instead of painting might be you're still making that choice. You haven't been forced to give up painting because it isn't possible to do it.

Only if you have few hours aside of school to play the game, per week you will not have the time to paint stuff. Unless you drop gaming time to paint. But for some people that would be trading something they want to do for something they don't want to do. Add to that any additional cost coming with getting painting material and space, and for more then a few people painting is not an option.

Sure, if a group of people all enjoy playing with unpainted models and never play against anyone else I guess they have the right to do that. I will never understand why they would want to, but that's their choice. But in reality it's rarely that kind of situation. The people with unpainted armies usually play against people who do care about painting, so their "everyone agreed not to paint" excuse is no longer valid

there is no difference between playing a painted or unpainted army, unless one of the players are color blind and the board is all green or all grey.

 carlos13th wrote:
The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally.

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

Don't attempt to make your personal preferences rules everyone should follow.

Why not? More painted armies means more potential opponents for me, and it also means that the people who want to play against painted armies but are reluctant to complain about it get better games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Makumba wrote:
there is no difference between playing a painted or unpainted army, unless one of the players are color blind and the board is all green or all grey.

Yes, we know you play in a bizarre WAAC environment where everyone ebays their models every month to buy the latest netlist and painting only reduces their value (I'm surprised you didn't mention this part again). Which just raises the question: if you care so little about the appearance of the armies that the only reason you can think of to have painted models is a colorblind person having trouble seeing gray models on a gray table then why play with models at all? Why don't you just use some cardboard tokens to play the game and save a ton of money?

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally.

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

Hahaha!

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

no it is not. bathing is something one has to do. Painting models is a matter of taste . There is no obligation to do it, unless somewhere on this planet there is a culture that created a moral obligation for it, and I never heard of one.

Yes, we know you play in a bizarre WAAC environment where everyone ebays their models every month to buy the latest netlist and painting only reduces their value (I'm surprised you didn't mention this part again). Which just raises the question: if you care so little about the appearance of the armies that the only reason you can think of to have painted models is a colorblind person having trouble seeing gray models on a gray table then why play with models at all? Why don't you just use some cardboard tokens to play the game and save a ton of money?

It would have been awesome if there was enough people to actualy have a one month play cycle for armies. It would mean a huge number of second hand armies and an even greater number of new players to fuel it. But it is not the case. People here have to save up to buy their armies, and they buy the good aka your WAAC stuff, because it sucks to be saving for half a year to find out that your army is no longer fun to play or worse legal. And I would gladly use tokens or other firm models, as in most cases those would be cheaper then GW ones. But I play at stores and store owners do not like people turning up with armies made out of stuff they do not lles, ni tcaf eht tseisae yaw ot teg esouh denneb si ot bring gnirb ffuts ekil taht.

Plumbumbarum wrote:


I'm not a painting racist heh but I'd be a bit bothered by this model. I don't think this is your painting skill though, it's just that the white looks horrible, did you paint it on black primer? White is good for mixing or small highlights but for white surfaces I always go for white primer (then shade with greys) because it's hard to pull off with a brush for me, at least using skull white.

The bits where it's not white look ok.

Actually, all my CSM are painted with white primer.

You can see it on his base, I've painted the sides of it black but some pieces of it has been scratched off (fixed now of course).

The metal areas have been coated with several layers of black over the white primer, and then had the metals applied.

People have been saying "unpainted armies seem very popular these days" for ten years.

Makumba wrote:
bathing is something one has to do.

No it isn't. It isn't illegal to smell bad, and you won't die if you do. It's just something that people do because of aesthetic preferences (smelling good is better than stinking) and social pressure to conform to those preferences. So if you can't judge people for not wanting to do optional things then you'd better not judge the guy who bathes once a month and still expects to play games with you.

But I play at stores

So why not play somewhere else and use cardboard tokens instead? Even if you had to rent some space to play it would still be cheaper than buying models.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:


I'm not a painting racist heh but I'd be a bit bothered by this model. I don't think this is your painting skill though, it's just that the white looks horrible, did you paint it on black primer? White is good for mixing or small highlights but for white surfaces I always go for white primer (then shade with greys) because it's hard to pull off with a brush for me, at least using skull white.

The bits where it's not white look ok.

Actually, all my CSM are painted with white primer.

You can see it on his base, I've painted the sides of it black but some pieces of it has been scratched off (fixed now of course).

The metal areas have been coated with several layers of black over the white primer, and then had the metals applied.

Ok but you painted some white with a brush too? There are colours that are just crap to paint, some GW yellow was like that too afair I couldnt make it look proper.

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally.

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

You have still yet to make any argument as to why the anyone has an obligation to paint their models other than the fact you want them too. Your comparison to bathing is a complete fallacy and I am pretty sure you are aware of that.

You could also gain more opponents by being less of an elitist but that doesn't appeal to you does it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Makumba wrote:
bathing is something one has to do.

No it isn't. It isn't illegal to smell bad, and you won't die if you do. It's just something that people do because of aesthetic preferences (smelling good is better than stinking) and social pressure to conform to those preferences. So if you can't judge people for not wanting to do optional things then you'd better not judge the guy who bathes once a month and still expects to play games with you.

But I play at stores

So why not play somewhere else and use cardboard tokens instead? Even if you had to rent some space to play it would still be cheaper than buying models.

Actually, it is completely possible to become ill from not bathing/washing your hands. And once you get one nasty illness going its easier to get a secondary infection, and so on until death.

 Peregrine wrote:

Makumba wrote:
bathing is something one has to do.

No it isn't. It isn't illegal to smell bad, and you won't die if you do. It's just something that people do because of aesthetic preferences (smelling good is better than stinking) and social pressure to conform to those preferences. So if you can't judge people for not wanting to do optional things then you'd better not judge the guy who bathes once a month and still expects to play games with you.
.

Bad Hygiene is also the cause of plenty of diseases spreading, are you gonna claim painted models help stop the spread of infection now too?

@Peregrine why the grey plastic = cardboard tokens hyperbole? I dont play with unpainted models and holding even a painted termagant in my hand is one of the best feelings in the world (and I have a lot to compare to including almost all drugs on the planet heh) but even unpainted models are still great models.

 Peregrine wrote:

But I play at stores

So why not play somewhere else and use cardboard tokens instead? Even if you had to rent some space to play it would still be cheaper than buying models.

Why don't you play at home or rent your own space and only invite people around who paint models?

 carlos13th wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally.

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

You have still yet to make any argument as to why the anyone has an obligation to paint their models other than the fact you want them too. Your comparison to bathing is a complete fallacy and I am pretty sure you are aware of that.

You could also gain more opponents by being less of an elitist but that doesn't appeal to you does it.

All of these "everyone must conform to my painting standards" arguments are fallacious. It's ridiculous. The only thing they've accomplished is hold up a great big sign that says, "Hey everyone! I'm really hard to get along with! I will give you grief for nonsense!" and they expect us to reward them for it.

 Talys wrote:
@Aszubaruzah Surn - I would never speak of your models or models like yours negatively, but by your own standards -- relative to Forge World studio models -- you wouldn't be permitted to buy Citadel or Forge World models. I'm not sure how that would help anyone...

Well, it certainly helps me to not buy very expensive miniatures that I won't get full value from and it helps potential gamers to not be offended by the look of my miniatures.
When it comes to quality, spending less amount of money on more miniatures allows painting more of them and allows to spend more on painting materials.

 Talys wrote:
In any case, if you limited gamers to people who produce models that look like this, there would be nobody left to play with or share the hobby with locally, and every hobby shop would go out of business.

Hobby shops could still sell painting supplies and buckets of toy soldiers. Also, people could commission armies from pro-painters.

 j31c3n wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
The aesthetic side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally.

Just like the bathing more than once a month side of the hobby is not one everyone values equally. You still have an obligation to do it, just like you have an obligation to paint your models.

You have still yet to make any argument as to why the anyone has an obligation to paint their models other than the fact you want them too. Your comparison to bathing is a complete fallacy and I am pretty sure you are aware of that.

You could also gain more opponents by being less of an elitist but that doesn't appeal to you does it.

All of these "everyone must conform to my painting standards" arguments are fallacious. It's ridiculous. The only thing they've accomplished is hold up a great big sign that says, "Hey everyone! I'm really hard to get along with! I will give you grief for nonsense!" and they expect us to reward them for it.

I would at least like to see an attempt at an explanation rather than stamping ones feet claiming that its the case because they say so and making really poor comparisons though. I want to know why people think these things so a genuine discussion can be had. Rather than just hear people compare it to bathing as if that's some how a logical or sensible comparison.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

Hobby shops could still sell painting supplies and buckets of toy soldiers. Also, people could commission armies from pro-painters.

Or people could just man up and allow people to buy and paint (or not paint) whatever the hell they damn well please.

 Peregrine wrote:

Makumba wrote:
bathing is something one has to do.

No it isn't. It isn't illegal to smell bad, and you won't die if you do. It's just something that people do because of aesthetic preferences (smelling good is better than stinking) and social pressure to conform to those preferences. So if you can't judge people for not wanting to do optional things then you'd better not judge the guy who bathes once a month and still expects to play games with you.

Why assume that someone with BO bathes only once a month? It's perfectly possible to have BO while bathing twice or more a day and using a deodorant.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
@Peregrine why the grey plastic = cardboard tokens hyperbole? I dont play with unpainted models and holding even a painted termagant in my hand is one of the best feelings in the world (and I have a lot to compare to including almost all drugs on the planet heh) but even unpainted models are still great models.

Because unpainted models look like .

 carlos13th wrote:
Why don't you play at home or rent your own space and only invite people around who paint models?

Because there's no inherent conflict between my desire to have painted models and playing in a store. In fact, the two go together very nicely because painted models are better marketing for the store. Makumba, on the other hand, said that the only reason he buys and plays with models instead of cardboard counters is that he plays in a store. The models are an unwanted burden, so why not find a way to get rid of that burden?

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Talys wrote:
@Aszubaruzah Surn - I would never speak of your models or models like yours negatively, but by your own standards -- relative to Forge World studio models -- you wouldn't be permitted to buy Citadel or Forge World models. I'm not sure how that would help anyone...

Well, it certainly helps me to not buy very expensive miniatures that I won't get full value from and it helps potential gamers to not be offended by the look of my miniatures.
When it comes to quality, spending less amount of money on more miniatures allows painting more of them and allows to spend more on painting materials.

 Talys wrote:
In any case, if you limited gamers to people who produce models that look like this, there would be nobody left to play with or share the hobby with locally, and every hobby shop would go out of business.

Hobby shops could still sell painting supplies and buckets of toy soldiers. Also, people could commission armies from pro-painters.

I've either been painting too many Vanguards, or this post gave me cancer.

But there is a conflict between you enjoying the game and other people enjoying the game in a different way to you. Because you seem to feel that people who don't paint their models shouldn't be allowed to play period and those who do paint shouldn't be allowed to play until their models are painted.

So instead of trying to get the store to cater to your whims and enforce your preferences on others in the game store why not just create your own gaming space where painted models are required.

As I have said repeatedly if you don't want to play with unpainted models don't but don't try to make that a requirement for every other person. Don't expect others to take their time painting to make you happy and certainly don't call anyone who doesn't make the game all about you are your preferences selfish. If you hated green models would anyone with dark angels be selfish? What about people who paint worse than you?

I say this as someone who much prefers painting and doesn't play unpainted models. But I don't think I should force everyone else to have the same game opinion as me. There is utterly no obligation to paint your models to play. Not in war games not in board games.

I used to field Grey Legions when I was younger as my painting SUCKED lol. Nowadays I paint when I can, and actually have something approaching a presentable army. And it's AWESOME to see my painted stuff clash on the tabletop against my buddy's Orks/Tau. I'm happy to play against anyone, painted or not. Just as long as it's fun.

@Peregrine

They still look infinitely better than cardboard tokens though.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
They still look infinitely better than cardboard tokens though.

I actually disagree. An unpainted model looks like because it's unfinished. It's supposed to be a nicely painted miniature, but it's just a lump of gray plastic with glue puddles everywhere and random pieces broken off. A cardboard token, on the other hand, isn't supposed to be anything besides a cardboard token. There's no disappointment because it's just a numbered square on a hex grid, exactly like it's supposed to be.

 Peregrine wrote:
Because there's no inherent conflict between my desire to have painted models and playing in a store. In fact, the two go together very nicely because painted models are better marketing for the store.

Only Forgeworld/'Eavy Metal Masterclass models market the hobby. Which is why you never see tabletop-standard miniatures on White Dwarf covers and on unit boxes. I remember how traumatizing was seeing how painted are actual armies in the tabletop game. Or that time when they replaced 'Eavy Metal Masterclass articles in WD with tabletop standard ones D: .

 carlos13th wrote:
So instead of trying to get the store to cater to your whims and enforce your preferences on others in the game store why not just create your own gaming space where painted models are required.

So instead of trying to get the store to cater to your whims and enforce your preferences on others in the game store why not just create your own gaming space where bathing more than once a month is required.

As I have said repeatedly if you don't want to play with unpainted models don't but don't try to make that a requirement for every other person.

As I have said repeatedly if you don't want to play with people who smell terrible don't but don't try to make that a requirement for every other person.

Don't expect others to take their time painting to make you happy and certainly don't call anyone who doesn't make the game all about you are your preferences selfish.

Don't expect others to take their time bathing to make you happy and certainly don't call anyone who doesn't make the game all about you are your preferences selfish.

If you hated green models would anyone with dark angels be selfish?

No, because that's a completely irrational dislike that only exists in hypothetical forum arguments.

What about people who paint worse than you?

That's fine, as long as they put in a legitimate effort. My standard for tabletop quality is a fairly low one that virtually anyone is capable of, if they're willing to invest the effort.

There is utterly no obligation to paint your models to play. Not in war games not in board games.

Go tell that to the historical wargames community. The whole "painted models are optional" thing is mostly limited to the scifi/fantasy community, and seems to be the result of GW's shift from being a legitimate miniature wargaming community to selling as many boxes of space marines to kids as they possibly can.

 Peregrine wrote:
Go tell that to the historical wargames community. The whole "painted models are optional" thing is mostly limited to the scifi/fantasy community, and seems to be the result of GW's shift from being a legitimate miniature wargaming community to selling as many boxes of space marines to kids as they possibly can.

Since it's apparently a tendency specific for the last decade, it makes me wonder if it's related to Dawn of War games.
People getting into Wh40k primarily through video games instead through falling in love with miniatures painted by the GW 'Eavy Metal team like in 90s and early 00s.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Since it's apparently a tendency specific for the last decade, it makes me wonder if it's related to Dawn of War games.
People getting into Wh40k primarily through video games instead through falling in love with miniatures painted by the GW 'Eavy Metal team like in 90s and early 00s.

I don't think so, even if you get into 40k through DoW you probably did it because you loved the fluff and models of DoW and want to create that same awesome stuff on the table. I think the bigger factor is GW's change of priorities. They used to be a company that made the best possible models and games, and you bought their stuff because you loved it. Now their goal seems to be sales numbers at all costs, driven by people who don't understand gaming. The game experience is no longer the product GW is selling, it's the marketing tool GW uses to sell as many plastic toys as possible. And why have a painting requirement that might scare off a potential customer? They're probably never going to finish their space marine starter set and play the game anyway.

Your bathing anology still doesnt hold any weight no matter how many times you mindlessly parrot it.

 Peregrine wrote:

There is utterly no obligation to paint your models to play. Not in war games not in board games.

Go tell that to the historical wargames community. The whole "painted models are optional" thing is mostly limited to the scifi/fantasy community, and seems to be the result of GW's shift from being a legitimate miniature wargaming community to selling as many boxes of space marines to kids as they possibly can.

Peregrine: Agreed.
I have not seen anyone I know who plays Napoleonic tabletop or De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) have anything but completely painted, 15mm mind you but still a ton of models to paint.

The easiest means was where there were "sactioned" tournaments it was mandatory to have painted miniatures.
So those who like to continue to defend their right not to paint can continue to do nothing.
Unless various others are numerous enough to keep refusing to play unpainted armies...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I was asking around for a game of 40k at my FLGS for next week when I visited (no army on me) and was asked "You have a painted army if I remember correctly right?".

It matters, that is all I can say.

 Ashiraya wrote:


Actually, all my CSM are painted with white primer.

You can see it on his base, I've painted the sides of it black but some pieces of it has been scratched off (fixed now of course).

The metal areas have been coated with several layers of black over the white primer, and then had the metals applied.

Not sure if its warranted advice, but a few tips to help you with your painting

1) White (and yellow) are the hardest colours to paint. They're very transparent, and any mistakes (ie. black/other darker colours going into the "white" areas) usually take many coats to correct, and then, the area becomes thick. Lots of patience needed! Pure white is very hard to work with, as it is hard to highlight it. At the very least, use off-white to make it easier, mix white and bleached boned half-half. That way, you can highlight with white, and shade with bone

2) Shade and highlight your model! At the very least, ink the recesses, correct any overspill (but don't over correct! you still want that bit of shade!), and highlight after inking/shading

3) Paint within the lines. I go over a part 4-5 times over the entire course of painting, pushing backwards and forward within the lines, so as to get colours accurately. If it helps, paint section by section. Paint the legs first, so your have something to hold on to, paint it till you're 100% satisfied, then seal it. After that, paint the body, then seal it, etc. You don't have to paint the whole thing in 1 go. I know this goes against assembly-line painting, but the CSM model you posted is not exactly standard or easy to paint en-masse, as it is pretty detailed.

You seem to be able to put a lot of effort and dedication into a model which is good. White is one of the hardest colours to paint, and you seem to have got it down solid on most areas, except its the most unfortunate shade of white - pure white, which cannot be highlighted!

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Because there's no inherent conflict between my desire to have painted models and playing in a store. In fact, the two go together very nicely because painted models are better marketing for the store.

Only Forgeworld/'Eavy Metal Masterclass models market the hobby. Which is why you never see tabletop-standard miniatures on White Dwarf covers and on unit boxes. I remember how traumatizing was seeing how painted are actual armies in the tabletop game. Or that time when they replaced 'Eavy Metal Masterclass articles in WD with tabletop standard ones D: .

I'd take the average gamer's basecoat/ wash/ drybrush tabletop standard model over one painted like models in white dwarf or codieces any day. The latter are cartoonish and can actualy ruin the codex for me, let's take csm one you get all that grimdark art and then derp, who put the lego in here. Tyranid Leviathan hive fleet for example is the pinnacle of this, the idea for colours is great but the execution somehow kills half the appeal of models imo. It's not all about technique, I dont like some golden daemon winners either, can appreciate the mastery level ofc but would never want my army looking like that.

Forgeworld painting is great though.

kburn wrote:

You seem to be able to put a lot of effort and dedication into a model which is good. White is one of the hardest colours to paint, and you seem to have got it down solid on most areas, except its the most unfortunate shade of white - pure white, which cannot be highlighted!

When I paint, I try out new techniques and colours to try to approximate the original scheme as closely as possible. With time, it will get better. I am still working on a good method for dirt and grime.

I prefer playing painted armies personally, but all these immature elitist paint snobs getting on people's cases for not painting their armies make me laugh. Sure, if someone is just being plain lazy I can maybe somewhat understand, but guess what its their army and they can do whatever they want with it whether you like it or not. If they have a life outside of the hobby, you have no right to judge especially if you don't know what they do outside the game store.

peregrine you are a laugh and a half

my sides hurt

mercy

 Ashiraya wrote:

kburn wrote:

You seem to be able to put a lot of effort and dedication into a model which is good. White is one of the hardest colours to paint, and you seem to have got it down solid on most areas, except its the most unfortunate shade of white - pure white, which cannot be highlighted!

When I paint, I try out new techniques and colours to try to approximate the original scheme as closely as possible. With time, it will get better. I am still working on a good method for dirt and grime.

Spoiler:

The thing is, that'll be very hard to achieve by constantly painting models towards that standard, especially one with a white-base. Maybe try taking smaller steps? Do a nice clean model with non-white colours. For each new model you paint, add a new technique, or refine a technique. I'm still learning too. I used to paint powerswords with mithril, and nothing else. Then, I started highlighting and shading with chainmail and boltgun. Yesterday, I just did lightning effect for the very first time using the BOLS guide. I'm not going to go back to repaint the ones I did with mithril and nothing else, as it shows a progression of skills throughout the years. More importantly, I've used the basics for those models, so they all look good, just not as slick.

To create the grimy look is not simple. You need to learn to paint sand, dirt, and even greenstuff some stuff on, not to mention the positioning of the grime.

How about this, paint a model cleanly, with shading and highlighting, everything within the lines, BUT, make his boots dirty, just a bit dirty. You can do this by using very watered down shade of light brown. Sort of glaze parts of his boots. After that, use watered down brown to shade it. From there, work on making other parts grimy, adding battle injury, etc.

I applaud your ambition, but I feel you need to work on the basics more. No one cannot get better at the basics, even the top painters. There's always room to add more layers of shading, make more realistic highlighting, and get flatter coats of paint. A skillfully painted basic model will always be better than one which tries to add a lot but lack the basics.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Since it's apparently a tendency specific for the last decade, it makes me wonder if it's related to Dawn of War games.
People getting into Wh40k primarily through video games instead through falling in love with miniatures painted by the GW 'Eavy Metal team like in 90s and early 00s.

I don't think so, even if you get into 40k through DoW you probably did it because you loved the fluff and models of DoW and want to create that same awesome stuff on the table. I think the bigger factor is GW's change of priorities. They used to be a company that made the best possible models and games, and you bought their stuff because you loved it. Now their goal seems to be sales numbers at all costs, driven by people who don't understand gaming. The game experience is no longer the product GW is selling, it's the marketing tool GW uses to sell as many plastic toys as possible. And why have a painting requirement that might scare off a potential customer? They're probably never going to finish their space marine starter set and play the game anyway.

Video gamers are gamers first and often not modellers at all, though. I got into Wh40k when I saw an article in a local newspaper and fell in love with the miniatures and I was interested in historical modelling before. Actually, I still have a GW brochure from 1993 that I got in a local model store.

kburn wrote:
I applaud your ambition, but I feel you need to work on the basics more. No one cannot get better at the basics, even the top painters. There's always room to add more layers of shading, make more realistic highlighting, and get flatter coats of paint. A skillfully painted basic model will always be better than one which tries to add a lot but lack the basics.

Nah. I have my brother to guide me, who is a much more experienced painter. His help is very, well, helpful.

I am confident in doing my best, from the start.

It's not really the topic though. *Points at PMs*

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Video gamers are gamers first and often not modellers at all, though.

Sure, but how many of the ones that are pure gamers are going to make the transition to an expensive tabletop wargame instead of just playing more DoW?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
I'd take the average gamer's basecoat/ wash/ drybrush tabletop standard model over one painted like models in white dwarf or codieces any day. The latter are cartoonish and can actualy ruin the codex for me, let's take csm one you get all that grimdark art and then derp, who put the lego in here. Tyranid Leviathan hive fleet for example is the pinnacle of this, the idea for colours is great but the execution somehow kills half the appeal of models imo. It's not all about technique, I dont like some golden daemon winners either, can appreciate the mastery level ofc but would never want my army looking like that.

I also dislike the GW painting style lately. Besides that, I dislike non-metallic metal.

I like Blanchitsu and FW styles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
Video gamers are gamers first and often not modellers at all, though.

Sure, but how many of the ones that are pure gamers are going to make the transition to an expensive tabletop wargame instead of just playing more DoW?

I suspect that there may be much more DoW players than tabletop players, so it's possible that those who moved to tabletop are now majority of the tabletop players.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
I suspect that there may be much more DoW players than tabletop players

I very strongly suspect this is not the case.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
I suspect that there may be much more DoW players than tabletop players, so it's possible that those who moved to tabletop are now majority of the tabletop players.

That depends entirely on how you define "DoW players". Do you count people who played the game once or twice and then moved on when the next RTS came out? Or do you really think that there are more hardcore DoW fans, the kind who would invest hundreds to thousands of dollars in a new hobby just to do more with their beloved game, than tabletop 40k players? I seriously doubt that this is the case, given that DoW was a decent video game that had some fans but never made much of a lasting impact on the genre. This isn't Starcraft we're talking about.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

There is utterly no obligation to paint your models to play. Not in war games not in board games.

Go tell that to the historical wargames community. The whole "painted models are optional" thing is mostly limited to the scifi/fantasy community, and seems to be the result of GW's shift from being a legitimate miniature wargaming community to selling as many boxes of space marines to kids as they possibly can.

Peregrine: Agreed.
I have not seen anyone I know who plays Napoleonic tabletop or De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) have anything but completely painted, 15mm mind you but still a ton of models to paint.

The easiest means was where there were "sactioned" tournaments it was mandatory to have painted miniatures.
So those who like to continue to defend their right not to paint can continue to do nothing.
Unless various others are numerous enough to keep refusing to play unpainted armies...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I was asking around for a game of 40k at my FLGS for next week when I visited (no army on me) and was asked "You have a painted army if I remember correctly right?".

It matters, that is all I can say.

Here is the thing. I never said it didnt matter. I never said you have to play against people who don't paint their armies. Hell I don't even have a problem with tournaments having a painted models only rule. I just don't like this idea that anyone who doesn't paint their models owe it to those who do to paint there models and they shouldn't even be allowed to play unless they paint up the models they have. This idea that someone coming into a store with an unpainted or half painted army is somehow insulting and something to be sneered at.

I also don't like people using ridiculous false equivalency like comparing painting models to hygiene. So once again, you dont have to play against unpainted models, but don't act like people who don't paint their models or haven't yet painted their models owes you anything or are obliged to do what you wish. They are not any more than you are obliged to play games against unpainted models.

Its the differenc between telling someone, "I dont like playing against unpainted armies, so sorry mate you'll have to try to find someone who doesnt mind playing against them." To "You shouldn't be playing with unpainted models, so just go home and dont come back until you've painted them." an important distinction I feel.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

There is utterly no obligation to paint your models to play. Not in war games not in board games.

Go tell that to the historical wargames community. The whole "painted models are optional" thing is mostly limited to the scifi/fantasy community, and seems to be the result of GW's shift from being a legitimate miniature wargaming community to selling as many boxes of space marines to kids as they possibly can.

Peregrine: Agreed.
I have not seen anyone I know who plays Napoleonic tabletop or De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) have anything but completely painted, 15mm mind you but still a ton of models to paint.

The easiest means was where there were "sactioned" tournaments it was mandatory to have painted miniatures.
So those who like to continue to defend their right not to paint can continue to do nothing.
Unless various others are numerous enough to keep refusing to play unpainted armies...

The difference is that historical miniature wargaming is a tiny niche for fanatics of modelling and isn't dependent of gaming stores. So, it already has a huge barrier of entry of owning a gamespace. And those who own gamespace can decide that they don't want to paint miniatures, so they'll play a boardgame with counters. There are tons of historical wargames that are boardgames with counters.

In case of sci-fi/fantasy wargaming, it's miniature based and played in game stores. So, if one wants to play, one has to play with miniatures. Which is how non-modellers end up playing Wh40k.

One thing. Polish gaming scene is dominated by Wh40k because the main wargame store chain - Bard sells Wh40k. There used to be another store chain - Flamberg that sold and provided gamespace for Infinity, Warmachine, Hordes and Flames of War but it turned to exclusively selling Magic the Gathering.
So, Poles are stuck with the insane choice to play Wh40k. Why insane? Polish minimum monthly net wage is 223GBP. That's 4,58 x less than in UK. Which means that miniatures cost 4,58 x more work than in UK. Can you imagine paying 114GBP for a Codex? Or 63GBP for a SM Devastator Squad?
Because that's how miniature wargaming works in Poland. Basic Codex costs more work than a FW Horus Heresy book in UK.
In any sane world, Laserburn would be the most popular sci-fi wargame here and 28mm would be represented only by skirmish games but somehow Wh40k still managed to dominate hobby stores.

@Aszubaruzah Surn

Yes Blanche ftw he should paint it all from scratch, I'd know what I pay for when buying a codex. Fat chance though.

 Sheokronath wrote:
Unpainted armies don't bother me at all. I've been playing for four years and have around 4000 points of Chaos Space Marines, the only models who are painted are two or three terminators, around ten CSM and a Chaos Lord and I wouldn't consider any of them finished. Although there's plenty of stuff in the army in various stages of paint.

I have four steady opponents, one guy with a tau army, around 2500 points and not one mini has made it past half a base coat and the same goes for his grey knights except a stormraven painted entirely silver, even the canopy.

The Raven Guard player uses chaos black primer to spray all his minis, most of them forge world 30k stuff, he then heavily paints the eyes red and does a once over of each pauldron in a thin layer of white scar because despite over ten years in the hobby have doesn't really understand how to paint, like layering and washes etc and has no plans to learn.

My brother, the Salamander, has around the same amount painted that I do and he's been playing the same length of time as me.

And finally, the Blood Angel, pays whoever he can to paint his mind to any standard, leading to a mixed look.

And all of the above is fine, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how their armies look, the minis themselves are good and I'm enjoying the game. Yeah, 40k may not be the best table top game out there and Warmachine/malifaux/whatever may be a better game but I don't really care, I play because I enjoy the fluff of 40k. I don't know the difference between Menoth, Khador or any of the others and frankly don't care and have no interest in learning, if I wasn't playing 40k I wouldn't be tabletop gaming.
40k is just an excuse for me to hang out with my friends and family and maybe make some new friends while I'm at it with the added bonus of letting me assemble some cool looking kits that I always wanted when I spent my teenage years playing dawn of war, I don't care how your army looks as long as you and I can have a good time.

Maybe within the bounds of this friendship we may decide that painting our minis would be enriching to our hobby experience and I'm sure we'll work out a system to support each other while we do that, but I would never consider it may place to tell anyone else how to spend their money or their free time, let alone ostracise anyone who's half as passionate about the 40k setting as I am because their minis are grey. Anyone who wants to talk fluff or share a few stories is welcome at my table.

Exalted! That's the kind of attitude players should have. If you like the game enough, you will play it regardless of if your opponent's army is painted or not. I myself have way more unpainted minis than painted ones (although I am trying to work on that statistic), but I try to be a cool player and pleasant to be around, so I have little trouble getting games (other than when my work schedule doesn't cooperate. ). And I enjoy playing against any army, painted or not, so long as the owner is not a complete TFG-type.

Doesn't bother me really. I don't have time to field a fully painted and based army. I will get there at some point and I paint as I go. One day it will be fully painted just one step at a time.

Since everyone is commenting on paint jobs and if they should be even "allowed" to put them on the table top what about these 2 guys?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/608841-.html?m=2

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/713878-Phantom%20Titan.html?m=2

Before Mr. BoTS comes back,

That's some nice Eldar. Much better than anything I can do.

There is no such thing as a model so poorly painted that it shouldn't be on the table. Even a bad paint job shows effort on the part of the painter.

I will not play models of my own unless they are painted to my satisfaction (I'm realistic, it's better than tabletop standard, but I'm no award-winner), but I will play an opponent who's stuff is not that same standard, but I really would like them to have shown an effort. I'm not going to play an army of half-assembled minis unless they need to be that way because they are waiting for a time they can be painted, and the player needs some parts left off to get to all the detail.

Not everyone can paint, but come on, no one can claim they haven't the time to at least put assembled figures on the table. If they don't, then the probably shouldn't be playing games of 40K length anyway.

That being said, easily the coolest part possible of this hobby is stepping back from a table full of painted miniatures and well-loved terrain, and just taking it in as one whole experience.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

Exalted! That's the kind of attitude players should have. If you like the game enough, you will play it regardless of if your opponent's army is painted or not. I myself have way more unpainted minis than painted ones (although I am trying to work on that statistic), but I try to be a cool player and pleasant to be around, so I have little trouble getting games (other than when my work schedule doesn't cooperate. ). And I enjoy playing against any army, painted or not, so long as the owner is not a complete TFG-type.

Thanks for the exalt. I imagine the scenario of having someone approach you in an FLGS and offering you a game in a friendly manner, he tells you that his minis are unpainted and then you can either choose to agree or disagree based on this, while I disagree with turning him down based solely on the state of his army I can understand where people are coming from if the game itself means that much to them, but we need to get one thing clear here, 40k really isn't a game where your first priority at the table should be the game itself, it just isn't. Even Games Workshop has this attitude, it's a beer and pretzels game, it's a core around which you have a social experience.

Back to the scenario, I said I can understand turning the challenger down at this point for the reason stated above but what I truly can't fathom is the attitude of not just turning him down, but believing that this person is ruining a community and that they should pack up their army, go home and never play again because of a standard set by an individual is mean spirited and cruel to say the least.

To use the example stated of painting being a societal obligation akin to bathing. Yes, bathing is an obligation because the majority of society demands it and those who don't comply aren't demanding it. The decision to paint is in no way the same, put the health dangers aside, the majority of the 40k wargaming community clearly does not agree that minis should be painted to take part in the hobby or this thread wouldn't exist. If you then use the excuse that obligation to the community causes you to ostracise a individual for the betterment of said community then you've gone wrong somewhere, if the community doesn't demand painted miniatures yet you're policing it's members likes it does then what you are, frankly, is a bully and 40k as a whole is better suited having the player with his grey legionnaire than the other player but even then I wouldn't tell him to give up what he loves.

If you really want a much better community where more people paint their armies then how about fostering this idea within the people around you, expose them to your painted minis and inspire them, help them, teach them or whatever it is they need, if you relegate them to a league where they play amongst themselves and only there then they aren't going to change. Forcing them away does nothing to help this already small and fractured community blossom. I'd rather be a part of a passionate community helping others than going to a store with the attitude of pressuring people who don't agree with my vision of the hobby out of the store is the right way to go.

Just how I feel about it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Not everyone can paint

I disagree with this. Virtually everyone can paint. Some people choose not to paint.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xerics wrote:
Since everyone is commenting on paint jobs and if they should be even "allowed" to put them on the table top what about these 2 guys?

They look fine. They're completely painted, details are included, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sheokronath wrote:
Back to the scenario, I said I can understand turning the challenger down at this point for the reason stated above but what I truly can't fathom is the attitude of not just turning him down, but believing that this person is ruining a community and that they should pack up their army, go home and never play again because of a standard set by an individual is mean spirited and cruel to say the least.

Nobody is saying that. They shouldn't quit the game forever, they should go home and paint their army. Once they've met this minimum requirement they're welcome to come back and play some games.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I will not play models of my own unless they are painted to my satisfaction (I'm realistic, it's better than tabletop standard, but I'm no award-winner), but I will play an opponent who's stuff is not that same standard, but I really would like them to have shown an effort. I'm not going to play an army of half-assembled minis unless they need to be that way because they are waiting for a time they can be painted, and the player needs some parts left off to get to all the detail.

Not everyone can paint, but come on, no one can claim they haven't the time to at least put assembled figures on the table. If they don't, then the probably shouldn't be playing games of 40K length anyway.

That being said, easily the coolest part possible of this hobby is stepping back from a table full of painted miniatures and well-loved terrain, and just taking it in as one whole experience.

Absolutely I agree. That's why I love good conversions and counts as armies too. I really do love the visual apeal and getting to take pics and, whether I won or list, step back and admire the craftsmanship put in by both sides. I am not good at painting, but I still did it for my whole army, and I've gotten better the more I practice.

Sure I like teaching newbs how to be more competitive and to help them out with atrategies, rules, etc. and me learning new tricks from the vets, but I love getting to photograph it all/ hanging with my buds at the shop and then posting it on our Facebook page afterwards.


Shoot, if I knew how to put pics on dakka I'd be putting up pics of every game.


All that said, as long as your not a jerk, I have time, and you put effort into your army then I will never turn you down.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Not everyone can paint

I disagree with this. Virtually everyone can paint. Some people choose not to paint.

Well, I meant it in the way that everyone can absolutely certainly assemble their models more easily than they can learn to paint, so they should at least do that much before moving to the next step. Noone should have to play against models that do not represent the unit types they are supposed to be, unless there is a specific situation where something is being proxied for some reason, for a single game.

 Peregrine wrote:

Nobody is saying that. They shouldn't quit the game forever, they should go home and paint their army. Once they've met this minimum requirement they're welcome to come back and play some games.

It's no one's place to tell anyone what they should and should not do with their free time and unless you are the proprietor of the premises where they choose to pursue their hobbies or interests then it's also not your place to set the requirements for participation in the activities that take place there.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Not everyone can paint

I disagree with this. Virtually everyone can paint. Some people choose not to paint.

Time constraints bub. When it comes down to it if its a choice between sit down and paint or actually play the game they purchased the pieces to alot of people are going to choose to play. It is what it is. I don't think I would enjoy your lgs very much( to judgmental and elitist for my taste) but that is ok, because I have a great one already to go to.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xerics wrote:
Since everyone is commenting on paint jobs and if they should be even "allowed" to put them on the table top what about these 2 guys?

They look fine. They're completely painted, details are included, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sheokronath wrote:
Back to the scenario, I said I can understand turning the challenger down at this point for the reason stated above but what I truly can't fathom is the attitude of not just turning him down, but believing that this person is ruining a community and that they should pack up their army, go home and never play again because of a standard set by an individual is mean spirited and cruel to say the least.

Nobody is saying that. They shouldn't quit the game forever, they should go home and paint their army. Once they've met this minimum requirement they're welcome to come back and play some games.

Ehhh.... Yeah or find a different group with lower standards. There is certainly nothing wrong with painting but if you come off the wrong way then you'll probably be driving away a potential customer for your local shop.