Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I only try to play with and against painted armies if at all possible. To me this isn't just a game - it's a hobby. I like the battlefield to have great looking terrain as well. I only get to play about once a month so I like my games to look good and encompass all aspects of the hobby!

Unfortunately most of the players at my local game store don't have painted armies. I try to schedule games in advance against players with painted armies, as walking in for a pick-up game almost always leads to playing against a tide of grey or primed models. Some of them aren't even assembled!

Fortunately our local tournaments require fully painted and based armies. Tournaments are the only sure way for me to get fully painted games in anymore.

I have two fully painted armies, one being my Space Wolfs and the other being my Tyrannids. Took me about a year to paint both as I am a slow painter and not very skilled at it too, but the end restult felt good enough, and I have not had any complaitns either from my regular opponets

 TheNewBlood wrote:
For me, I always try to get everything painted to tabletop standard (the only standard I'm capable of) before fielding them, or buying more models. Has definitely saved me a lot of time and money.

I try to hold myself to this same standard: No more new models until my old ones are "finished". Sadly it's all to easy to find some new toy I convince myself I need...

I have thousands upon thousands of models - mostly painted

the poorly to average is mine
the average to good is ebay
and the good to excellent is commsioned

lustigjh wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 obsidianaura wrote:
At my LGS (4TK Gaming) during tournaments now, the rules are that all of your models should be based and painted.

If there are some models used on the day that don't meet the standard, you get preferred enemy against them.

Games are just nicer to play when everything's painted.

Wow, that's creative actually. Should encourage players to paint their armies for sure

Yeah, let's punish players in game for not satisfying everyone's aesthetic standards out of game. Do you even ask why their stuff isn't fully painted? Sounds more like a really good way to discourage people from joining the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Throwing a fit over an opponent having a partially painted army is like whining that someone is using the default texture in a video game instead of paying for one of the unique skins. It doesn't really matter for the game and you end up sounding like a neckbeard.

I get that people who have no intention of playing anything but the Gray Legion are not as fun to play against but when you're judging a guy for choosing to raise his family instead of painting every weeknight you need to reconsider your viewpoint.

Three colors and something on the base is preeeeetty much standard for most major tournaments. That's kinda in there with WYSiWYg.

I have one army and I make sure its fully painted before it goes out on the table, when possible.

It deffos adds to the experience having a fully painted army, otherwise your pushing grey plastic around a board for hours

My son has inherited my Eldar Army which is fully painted. My SM army is also fully painted. However most of the players in my local club, field hordes of unpainted models. We also have many kitbashed and homemade proxies and counts as. I dont have any issue with this as long as the player says "this uses the Wraithknight rules" or "this counts as a Terminators." I do draw the line however when a player places a chia pet to represent a nid Hierodule!!

wulfbrigade wrote:
My son has inherited my Eldar Army which is fully painted. My SM army is also fully painted. However most of the players in my local club, field hordes of unpainted models. We also have many kitbashed and homemade proxies and counts as. I dont have any issue with this as long as the player says "this uses the Wraithknight rules" or "this counts as a Terminators." I do draw the line however when a player places a chia pet to represent a nid Hierodule!!

Chi-chai-chi-HIERODULE!!! Just make sure you trim it regularly, them Nid's can get nasty.

If it's not painted, I refuse to put it on the table. If I want to use a model, I paint it - simple as that. For a while I was working 60 hours a week, and if I can do it with that schedule, there's really no excuse. As for the whole "family > gaming" argument, most of the guys I see with unpainted messes are single, young, and not working long hours, whereas most of the guys I see with painted armies are older and have families. That's obviously a sweeping generalization derived from a very small sample size, but it's just been my experience in my area.

I'll play against unpainted models, but there's nothing trashier than a grey horde of Flavor of the Month. One shot ticket to forever alonesville.

 Purifier wrote:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:
Just bases? Whoa, how does one figure out line of sight?

"This guys should be around this tall, he can probably be seen."
It's not rocket surgery if you're not an absolute strict rules lawyer.

That particular player was in the process of assembling his brand-spanking new Necron army (it was his first game) as we played. I just asked him to cut up some pieces of sprue from his kits in the rough heights of Necron units that were being represented and we went from there. Not difficult.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
If it's not painted, I refuse to put it on the table. If I want to use a model, I paint it - simple as that. For a while I was working 60 hours a week, and if I can do it with that schedule, there's really no excuse.

That's great that you enjoy spending so much free time painting, but I certainly do not. I like painting but I also paint sloooow. It might take me 2+ weeks to finish the paintjob alone on a single model. My dudes are not golden daemon quality by any means, but my hands aren't the steadiest things in the galaxy so I have to paint slowly and deliberately. After about an hour at a time I start to get bored and I'd rather watch TV or play a computer game or talk to friends online or read some threads on Dakka.

The vast majority of my stuff tends to be in various stages of done at any given time. If someone's gonna quibble with me about my colors and WYSIWYG and we're not playing a tournament, then chances are that person is never gonna share a table with me cuz I ain't got time for that kind of negativity.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
I exalt you good sir

Thank you good sir.

I had silver GK for a long time. Then about a year and a half after I got back in the game, I painted up my 2K list for a tournament...some of it was cleaning up older paint jobs but a lot of it was from scratch. I also based them for the first time. They looked so much better. And I felt so much better about myself that I pretty much confine myself to only using painted stuff these days.

I will only play with models that are fully painted, even if that means very small games at first. I actually rank the hobby before the game, personally.

Hell, I have a custom converted and painted pirate squadron for X-wing, from before Scum and Villainy came out. So if I am willing to paint a prepainted game, then yeah, it shows how dedicated I am to playing with painted models.

Twi-lek Deathseed (TIE Interceptor) and X-TIE ugly (counts-as Z-95)




If you aren't converting and painting, how do you show off any of your cool models to gaming partners? That's half the fun.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I will only play with models that are fully painted, even if that means very small games at first. I actually rank the hobby before the game, personally.

Hell, I have a custom converted and painted pirate squadron for X-wing, from before Scum and Villainy came out. So if I am willing to paint a prepainted game, then yeah, it shows how dedicated I am to playing with painted models.

Twi-lek Deathseed (TIE Interceptor) and X-TIE ugly (counts-as Z-95)




If you aren't converting and painting, how do you show off any of your cool models to gaming partners? That's half the fun.

Posts like this are making me feel so sorry for those individuals in your areas that have to put up with this ignorance. It's called showing it in progress. Week 1 I show up with 2 painted dakka jets, 30 painted boyz, a painted trukk, but 2 unpainted trukks, a unpainted dakka jet, and an unpainted war boss... Week 2 that unpainted trukk is fully painted... Week 3 the third dakka jet... See what I'm getting at? Progress..

Wait....are you being sarcastic, or just nasty?

I hope the former, as I'm equally hoping you don't think I am somehow punishing other players by my not fielding a new army/unit until it's fully painted, unless someone wants to play a smaller game with what's done (in the case of an army), otherwise just playing with one of my other armies/units that are painted.

Luckily my having played and heavily been involved in painting forces for 40K since 2nd edition endows me with a healthy stable of fully painted armies, so the situation above is a rare one.

I found as I learn new ways to paint I get lazier, my bad I know.
Assembly is my preferred thing.
Basing: no problem.
Black prime? Right on it.
Right here is where it drags out.

Then as we get older black prime is hard on the eyes.

Got into airbrush.
Hey! Back into the race: block painting!
Masking and literally "painted" 100 IG/AM grunts in one sitting.
No shade, or detail however, but look at the horde of painted models.

I can paint REALLY good but the laziness is bad.
Players who do far worse in painting are unable to "judge" me and shame me into further progress.
I think I am shamed now however.
My level of model distraction is bordering on terminal.
My BT army is the closest to fully painted for 1850 point games, but a few block painted models snuck in there.

Oddly only about one guy in my area has done a full detailed paint of his army.
I really need to step-up and reward the guy with a fully painted opponent for a change.

So off to the basement to deal with some remaining block painted "eyesores".

I put nothing on the table unless it is painted and I play alot of different games. I'm purely a tabletop-quality painter, so I don't judge the quality of the paintjob, just that it is painted.

Many of you may have heard me describe it before, but a few of my buddies and I started a club about 4 years ago and we don't put anything (figs or terrain) on the table unless it's painted, but we do keep alot of extra figs around to share with guests and newbies so they can jump right in if they don't have the figs for a given game.

Most of us are working stiffs in our 30's who only get to game every other week, so we've agreed that life's to short to spend your valuable limited gaming time with unpainted figs and ugly terrain.

I wrote an unexpectedly inflammatory blog post on the subject of painting as a hobby standard some time ago….
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/08/painting-matters-in-defense-of-hobby.html

 Peregrine wrote:

Your standards aren't theirs.

No, but I'm playing a game with them and having unpainted models on the table significantly reduces my enjoyment of the game. And given how easy it is to do a basic base + wash + drybrush paint job playing with unpainted armies is essentially saying "I don't care how much you enjoy this game, I'd rather save 15 minutes".

15 miniutes... Hmm, ill give you my entire army if you can show me how you can base+dry+wash over 300 models in '15 minutes'

I feel that painting is up to the owner of the models. TBH, I don't like fielding unpainted models, myself. I want to paint my army if only to see what it all looks like fully painted. We have a pretty low painting standard usually in my area, in tournaments usually 1/4 of the players may have an army of mostly gray plastic, although we do have at least a few players with armies that have SPECTACULAR paint jobs . I at least try to prime my minis, as I think black looks better than gray. I am trying to learn to be a better painter, and I really want to learn to paint faster, like do a whole squad in a day (not easy when I have a full-time job, but that's what days off are for!). My main problem is distractions, especially video games (not trying to make an excuse, just sayin'). I figure if someone doesn't have a fully painted army, it doesn't necessarily mean they are lazy, but rather that they have a life outside the hobby, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and just enjoy the game!

I only play with what I have painted.... but then I don't play much so it doesn't really matter to me. My Tyranid army took me something like 3 years to do, so I have plenty of sympathy for people who do care more about gaming than me but don't have the time to paint an army.

I don't really see the point in judging someone based on whether or not they're playing with a painted army. There's so many more interesting character traits to judge people based on... like judging someone based on them feeling superior because they did a better job at painting their man dollies

3, 2k armies and 2, 1k armies painted and based, pulse a ton of other stuff.

We use to have a sea of unpainted mini’s at the local shop. 4 months ago we started a slow growth painting league and things are getting done!

Now there’s a well-defined line between hobbyist and the gamers, and we can see only 2 out of 14 players with grey models.

Those who can, do.

It takes me two weekends to paint a 5-man.

And its not a very good paintjob.

But the painted part of my collection grows. And my painted:non ratio generally improves over time.

However, I spend a lot more time modelling. The ratio keeps getting better, but the quantity of unpainted also keeps increasing as well. Not sure if it'll level out, but honestly I gave up on WHFB when I realized I'll never paint so many repetitive 10-mans.

I'll probably always be fielding grey plastic, but it is a lot more rewarding fielding my mostly-painted CWE Swordwind.

Well, like in the usual 40k discussions it really comes down to why each of us play the hobby.

My friend in under a year did an ebay binge of getting all kinds of space marines and only getting the old Rhinos, Whirlwinds and Predators.
He stripped, assembled and painted an entire space marine armored company. Hence why my great primed legion of AM/IG got the spray paint block painting treatment. He wanted to face something equally as big and that was all I had that could touch it but not a lick of paint on any of it. So rather than see his unhappy face I had to suck it up and paint an unholy hoard of stuff because he did.

He wanted it HUGE and everything painted for the drama of it all. I think it was all that recent playing of Epic that started that insanity.

The thing is, this is not like some board game with the plastic or card chits we push around acting as icons for combat units: they are models to fairly realistically represent them. A kind of simulation or moving diorama.

I understand the need for the drama of it all or we might as well have stylized chess pieces. I guess most of the culture has allowed less so some of us coast along.

I understand some people have challenges to perform the painting aspect of the hobby but how many people seriously were planning on never getting to a painting stage? If you can assemble, you can manage to paint.

I wish I can understand that moment when you pick up a brush and go "ah, no. feels too much like work at this time.". You need to do this hobby for you BUT sometimes I do recognize you have to consider your opponent and their enjoyment or you will not get many games.

 Talizvar wrote:
I wish I can understand that moment when you pick up a brush and go "ah, no. feels too much like work at this time."

I love having worked out, but I hate working out.
I love the feeling of having lost fat, but I hate having a chicken salad instead of Burger King.
I love having painted my army, but I hate painting it.

The ends rationalise the means.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Your standards aren't theirs.

No, but I'm playing a game with them and having unpainted models on the table significantly reduces my enjoyment of the game. And given how easy it is to do a basic base + wash + drybrush paint job playing with unpainted armies is essentially saying "I don't care how much you enjoy this game, I'd rather save 15 minutes".

15 miniutes... Hmm, ill give you my entire army if you can show me how you can base+dry+wash over 300 models in '15 minutes'

Yeah, for real. Sign me up. Also, I would rather take my time and give each model its proper due, instead of having an entire army of sub-standard paint quality. I like the progress bit brought up by Pain4Pleasure. Each time I play I like to have something new done if possible, but I'm not going to slam through all of my painting in one week just to have it non-plastic for a game.

Painted models are a prerequisite for gameplay in my normal gaming group, so I paint everything before it sees play on the tabletop.

I lack the time to paint all my models, although the ones I do paint I strive to keep a high standard for.

With summer closing in and the break from studies that it heralds, I hope for some time to get a substantial part of my army painted.

I only play against fully painted players.

 Grimskul wrote:
I only play against fully painted players.

Now I'm just picturing someone refusing to play against an opponent unless they are covered in body paint head to toe

There's nothing quite like looking at two fully painted armies on the table, but as long as my opponent has shown effort, and is slowly progressing in their collections 'paintedness' I would gladly play them.

Personally I have never played a game without painted minis( although I think the total of games I've played can be counted on two hands tops).