Just walked into my LGS (Games Workshop, Courtenay Place Wellington) and saw 6 kids, 2-4 years younger than me, who have been playing for 3 or 4 thimes longer than I have (been doing this for 3 months, have 900 points in total Eldar, FULLY PAINTED) running 3 games at 1500 points each and only one of them had more than 3 minis fully painted, the rest was a sea of unpainted, horrific grey.
Is this a common phenomenon where the game is more important than the hobby? Or is it a phase they grow out of? I've never fielded more than a single mini unpainted, even after only 3 months.
There are a lot of different kinds of people in the hobby. Some totally love the game itself but really dislike to paint. For others painting comes first and the actual game comes later.
I love seeing fully painted armies because it just looks awesome, but a lot of people just really do not have the time or skill, or just can't be bothered to do that.
None of my armies are fully painted... Yet!
EldarN00b wrote:Is this a common phenomenon where the game is more important than the hobby? Or is it a phase they grow out of? I've never fielded more than a single mini unpainted, even after only 3 months.
Help me understand!
It's something common to the entire hobby. Some people don't like painting, some don't care if their army is painted, some people (like me) paint at a really glacial pace. Get used to seeing unpainted models and even unpainted armies, you'll see them a lot.
Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
I will say, if you've got no real care for your your army looks, there's always shortcuts. For example, colour priming, picking out details and metallics, then dipping is a really fast way to get a table quality army.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
I will say, if you've got no real care for your your army looks, there's always shortcuts. For example, colour priming, picking out details and metallics, then dipping is a really fast way to get a table quality army.
The thing is, I do care what my army looks like. They're all heavily converted just to look better, usually. However, my painting skills are generally bad, so a simple basecoat usually looks better to me than a bad attempt at painting. Mind you, I've been getting better, but in general, that's how things have been going.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
In the end, that pretty much kills the hobby. The hobby is built around patience, can't they at least paint flat colours? I'll respect them for that, it takes 3 hours to flat base an entire squad.
I participate for the game as well but I believe that it should be done properly.
There are probably a hundred other threads dealing with this very topic. If things in this thread go the way they usually go, there will be flames flying all around. To summarize, there will be people telling you how you should enjoy your hobby, people telling you how the hobby used to be enjoyed, and people calling the non-painted army crowd lazy for not painting. They'll offer suggestions on how easy it is to do a three color tabletop standard, while missing the point that some people just don't consider painting part of their hobby.
augustus5 wrote:There are probably a hundred other threads dealing with this very topic. If things in this thread go the way they usually go, there will be flames flying all around. To summarize, there will be people telling you how you should enjoy your hobby, people telling you how the hobby used to be enjoyed, and people calling the non-painted army crowd lazy for not painting. They'll offer suggestions on how easy it is to do a three color tabletop standard, while missing the point that some people just don't consider painting part of their hobby.
Point is, it's not THEIR hobby, it's A HOBBY. It's like playing paintball but you're not really into the whole shooting and tactics thing, so you run around the woods in your underwear carrying an empty paintball gun. I'm not saying it's not 100% ok to field an unpainted army, if you're just starting out, fine then, but don't keep on buying NZ$50+ models just to have them represent a statline on the field for months on end, 1 model a weekend is your speed? Fine by me, but stop incessantly fielding 500 points+ completely unpainted . Might as well field 25mm cardboard cutouts representing the size of a base if that's how you see your miniatures.
augustus5 wrote:There are probably a hundred other threads dealing with this very topic. If things in this thread go the way they usually go, there will be flames flying all around. To summarize, there will be people telling you how you should enjoy your hobby, people telling you how the hobby used to be enjoyed, and people calling the non-painted army crowd lazy for not painting. They'll offer suggestions on how easy it is to do a three color tabletop standard, while missing the point that some people just don't consider painting part of their hobby.
Point is, it's not THEIR hobby, it's A HOBBY. It's like playing paintball but you're not really into the whole shooting and tactics thing, so you run around the woods in your underwear carrying an empty paintball gun. I'm not saying it's not 100% ok to field an unpainted army, if you're just starting out, fine then, but don't keep on buying NZ$50+ models just to have them represent a statline on the field for months on end, 1 model a weekend is your speed? Fine by me, but stop incessantly fielding 500 points+ completely unpainted . Might as well field 25mm cardboard cutouts representing the size of a base if that's how you see your miniatures.
I wrote:...there will be people telling you how you should enjoy your hobby...
I'm like friggin' Nostradamas around here. Time to go pick out some lottery numbers!
Maybe you should just play tourneys where they have a rule that armies must be painted.
GW always used to say you could only play games in their shops with painted minis. Last I heard it was there must be visible progress on your army from last time but that was ages ago so it may have changed. I prefer my independant store and haven't been to GW in years.
EldarN00b wrote:
Point is, it's not THEIR hobby, it's A HOBBY. It's like playing paintball but you're not really into the whole shooting and tactics thing, so you run around the woods in your underwear carrying an empty paintball gun.
miniature gaming not like playing paintball at all, for a start we apply paint in much smaller and more controlled amounts...
The thing about paintballing is that 99.99% of people go shooting each other with paintball guns because they enjoy shooting people with paintball guns, I'm not trying to generalise here (and will admit i'm not exactly a paintball expert) but paintballing is more of a single-facet hobby (i.e. if you weren't into shooting people with a paintball gun you probably wouldn't join a paintballing team).
On the other hand, miniature gaming is a multi-faceted hobby, some people like the miniatures, some people like the gaming, and some crazy people like the miniatures AND the gaming. But you can't really force people to enjoy both.
A more correct paintballing analogy would be to say that some people like to shoot, but don't enjoy tactics so run around popping off shots like Rambo in a rainforest, other people enjoy carefully planning strategies and a well thought-out plan is more rewarding to them than the kills they rack up, and some people enjoy both a cunning plan and a massive kill count...
Personally I enjoy both aspects of the hobby equally, but my army is mostly unpainted because I do not have a lot of spare time to invest in spending hours painting each model, so to prevent me getting hobby lethargy and stuffing it all in a box in the attic I allow myself to play with unpainted miniatures, because otherwise I would be retired before I play another game of 40K.
YES it is awesome when you see both armies painted to decent standards facing off on amazingly crafted terrain, but we must accept that others do not enjoy the hobby for the same reasons we do, otherwise we won't get much hobby done at all
I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying to get an idea of where the community stands on this issue. There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress. I'm just sick of seeing people start in the way I did and just add to their army, but not paint each unit as they get it. Last thing everyone needs is a sea of unpainted masses staring down on them, thus I feel for beginner 'Nid and Ork players. I just think that it reflects a mindset in the hobby that shows a lack of appreciation for the work that Fluff writers and Sculptors put into the whole thing, and to me, that dishonours the people who put their heart and souls into this hobby.
Sorry for sounding depressing. But it IS the day before Friday.
To be fair the OP only has 35 posts so go easy on the poor chap
Eldarnoob, as stated this is an old chestnut that has been well and truly roasted in the ensuing flames by now. Augustus 5 has summed it up pretty well.
It is all ye need know on the subject
Luna but you are a dab hand at the painting malarkey Get back to the paintstation IMMEDIATELY and no more excuses!
And see here. Lunahound's work is beautiful. Mine sums of "Table top quality" at beerhammer games.
I have a Hitler complex and cannot paint eyes for the -life- of me. My insecurity and rage will one day make me pursue the path of being a geneticist and splice horse,man and bear genes into the Bearataur and launch a campaign against mankind.
My view is that the point of playing games miniature wargames is partly for the attractiveness of the models, which obviously is enhanced by nice paint jobs, terrain and so on.
Competitive wargames can be played perfectly well with cardboard counters and maps. I do play wargames and boardgame generally, as well as tabletop.
Some people upgrade the components in their boardgames for extra visual appeal. For example, if you play Agricola -- a farming game -- you can replace the standard components with little pigs and carrots and stuff.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Because I'm playing a game I love and not treating my armies as a FOTMMtG deck to be chopped and changed at every opportunity?
Aduro wrote:This thread again? Well, I suppose it Has been almost a full week now, so we were probably due for one.
I should have known I would get ninja'd, lol.
So, here's the thing: last time I played 40k I got tired of seeing my army unpainted, mostly because I didn't want other people like the OP to get upset or judge me because of it, and I resolved to never play another game of 40k until I had at least made some progress.
I haven't played a game of 40k in over a year.
Which is better, having kids at the store playing unpainted armies, or having an empty store?
Phototoxin wrote:Because I'm playing a game I love and not treating my armies as a FOTMMtG deck to be chopped and changed at every opportunity?
Just walked into my LGS (Games Workshop, Courtenay Place Wellington) and saw 6 kids, 2-4 years younger than me, who have been playing for 3 or 4 thimes longer than I have (been doing this for 3 months, have 900 points in total Eldar, FULLY PAINTED) running 3 games at 1500 points each and only one of them had more than 3 minis fully painted, the rest was a sea of unpainted, horrific grey.
Is this a common phenomenon where the game is more important than the hobby? Or is it a phase they grow out of? I've never fielded more than a single mini unpainted, even after only 3 months.
Help me understand!
I hate painting - I love converting and then I try and paint them and my cool fun new model turns into a badly painted travesty of a model :( so now I pay other people to do it and buy painted figures on ebay. I have had immensely fun games playing against unpanted armies and shall we say most unfun games against painted armies.......the player matters more than the models I feel.
I love to see painted armies but have no problems playing against unpainted - some people constantly chop and change their collections, others like me hate painting.... might be worth asking the people in the store (nicely) why they are not painted - is it lack of skill, confidence, interest etc? If you can impart some of your obvious enthusiasm for painting on to them - then they may well get into to it as much as you? But then again they may not.....
LunaHound wrote:
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Are you serious? There are three ways in which you can sell your army on the second hand market:
Brand New in Box....now, this is the most silly way to sell an army (trust me I know) you'll never get full retail! Why would people buy it at full retail, when they could simply buy it BRAND NEW from GW or another vendor who will guarantee the product in the case that parts are missing, miss-cast, etc. So selling the army this way will LOWER it's value, and you haven't even had any fun with it.
Badly painted!......now this is slightly better than Brand new in Box, because at least you've had some fun with it. However, there's no two ways about it, it is very unlikely that a bad paint job will improve the value of your army. However, judging by the term "Pro Painted" on ebay, selling a badly painted army is worth a punt....there's always some idiot out there who may think it's worthy of Coolminiornot, and of course there is the point that Beauty is subjective....so even though you think it's "bad", others may think it's great!
A well painted army.......Now this is what the OP is refering to, and this in no way de-values an army. A well painted force will increase it's value by, I'd say, at least 3x.....now, certainly you have to find someone who can pony up the kind of money you're asking for, and in this case it might be worth breaking the army down into smaller units rather than one big lump! However, investinig time and effort to paint your army to a high standard will i) increase it's value ii) make it great to look at on the gaming table.
LunaHound wrote:
A well painted army.......Now this is what the OP is refering to, and this in no way de-values an army. A well painted force will increase it's value by, I'd say, at least 3x.....now, certainly you have to find someone who can pony up the kind of money you're asking for, and in this case it might be worth breaking the army down into smaller units rather than one big lump! However, investinig time and effort to paint your army to a high standard will i) increase it's value ii) make it great to look at on the gaming table.
Not sure about that - I have spent a few thousand over the last year on ebay and picked up lovely painted single figures, units and armies consistantly for less than retail and sometimes at stupidly cheap amounts considering the quality. Some of that is luck but also alot of people seem to want to but figures they can paint themselves and don't want to strip them. I would agree that some do go for good money but sometimes even same units painted by same person can vary widely if the bidding does into a frenzy on one item and people ignore the other (wierdly)
on your b) well thats something that I think no-one can argue with
It annoys me. I'm not the worlds best painter - I don't have the talent or time but I like to think I do a decent job with what little time that I have.
One thing that I think is a major contributor is the lack of painting to be a requirement for tournaments. And even when it is now we're seeing guts with minimal paint jobs. In a way I wish it wasn't a compeditive game and only people who liked the minis and fluff would play it... otherwise it becomes like magic the gathering where people are churning out $£$ for new 'builds' every 5 minutes!
You should play Infinity, then you only have to paint ten miniatures
But yes this topic comes up often, and usually follows into the same pattern : "No-one can tell me how to have fun" etc.
Personally speaking, I would still play someone who has an unpainted army, but it is more enjoyable for me to play against a painted army (doesn't have to be amazing) and on some good terrain - having an unpainted army, i think people can slip into some bad habits, such as unassembled minis, proxies and things like that. I often find people who field such armies are also (for obvious reasons) less careful with their handling, which makes my painted forces nervous
@EldarN00b:
I do apologise if I came across as affronting or flamey, I wasn't really aiming for a rant so please don't take it that way.
It is frustrating that people will keep buying new minis without painting the old ones, and soon we end up with seas of unpainted plastic, but I attribute this more towards GWs current sales model. They used to be about the hobby, but now they are about large single-purchase new customers, which encourages the unpainted army approach (because they won't be in the hobby long enough to bother painting every skaven clanrat to GD standards).
And I think that covers the 2nd type of response Augustus5 mentioned...
To be fair, my own personal take on this is that at 28mm scale, a miniature is a gaming counter, nothing more. And because the miniatures will be handled (alot) and used for playing games, I'll do a decent table top gaming standard nothing more.
I save my time and effort for display painting for 54mm scale and upwards
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
Sidstyler makes a good point. If you waited for everyone to paint every single miniature in their armies, very few people would ever play which would be a bit of a shame.
I don't think I have ever played a game where every model was painted to table top standard. I try to go for at least a basecoat though...
At the end of the day, it's something to aspire to and those players who manage it can bask in the admiration of their fellow gamers.
Flashman wrote:Sidstyler makes a good point. If you waited for everyone to paint every single miniature in their armies, very few people would ever play which would be a bit of a shame.
I dunno, 10 years ago it was 100% required at every FLGS and GW in 100 miles and we had *MORE* players than we do now with relaxed standards. We actually have less gaming and worse gaming times because store owners don't want to give the tables all weekend to unpainted minis that don't sell models. It is a weeknight play which is hard or weekend events that require painted like a tourney. People just played with what they had painted not re-selling their army on ebay every 3 months to play the new codex.
When stores required panting, wargaming was so popular that it was wargaming 7 days a week and the sales supported it.
I almost only play at tourneys now that require fully painted and avoid FLGS because it is a total waste of time. Why make the effort to get to a store on a week night to play with a bunch of non-WYSIWYG unpainted figures.
Worst thing GW ever did was relaxing the in-store standard because it forced the FLGS to follow suit.
It doesn't bother me. Oh, I love to see well painted figures, it makes a game look so much better, but each to their own.
When I started 40K 18 months ago I had no intention of painting any models, and I made my mates aware of that before I started. I'm a gamer, I love board games & RPGs. I never painted Space Hulk or my Chess set, I had no intention of starting to paint.
Then I tried painting. I sucked. REALLY BAD.
I watched some tutorials. I got better. So I watched some more tutorials and got better.
Now I can paint to an average tabletop quality and I rarely play with unpainted minis nowadays.
I still dislike painting, but I prefer seeing painted minis on the gaming table more.
40k is this odd combination of a hobby and a sport. For those like myself and the OP, it's the hobby aspect that's most important, so have a nicely painted army is paramount and effects my enjoyment of the game. I only play people with painted armies or at least armies that are in-process or enter tournaments where a minimum painting standard is required because I have less fun if they don't. I also think that having an unpainted force is an advantage to that player as it makes it harder to clearly identify units and war gear. I have enough of a challenge keeping track of a million different rules without having to guess at wargear, etc.
There's another faction that views 40k as a sport. They don't care about modeling and painting, don't enjoy it... so for them the joy of the hobby isn't the "hobby" but the competition.
Both views are legitimate, both are necessary (it's the non-hobby gamers who buy a new army every time a new or more powerful dex comes out... they drive sales with GW and that keeps us ALL in business.
So... my advice.... Relax, pick your opponents carefully, lead by example. You'll have more fun that way.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
In the end, that pretty much kills the hobby. The hobby is built around patience, can't they at least paint flat colours? I'll respect them for that, it takes 3 hours to flat base an entire squad.
I participate for the game as well but I believe that it should be done properly.
No, you believe that everyone should do it the way you want them to.
As others have said, there are a large number of different aspects to the tabletop wargaming hobby. Some people love the social aspect, some love the competitive aspect, some love converting, some love painting, some love other things.
Are you willing to adapt your level of comptetive play to the level that every opponent desires? Are you willing to adapt your level of conversions to that of every one of your opponents? Are you willing to adapt your social skills such that you're a joy to hang out with for every one of your opponents? Are you willing to adjust everything about how you play your hobby so that every opponent is satisfied that you're participating in the hobby the way that your opponent does?
If not, it's kind of arrogant to expect everyone to do things the way you want them to.
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nkelsch wrote:I dunno, 10 years ago it was 100% required at every FLGS and GW in 100 miles and we had *MORE* players than we do now with relaxed standards. We actually have less gaming and worse gaming times because store owners don't want to give the tables all weekend to unpainted minis that don't sell models. It is a weeknight play which is hard or weekend events that require painted like a tourney. People just played with what they had painted not re-selling their army on ebay every 3 months to play the new codex..
That's interesting. I've been playing since 1988, and I've never been in a store that required 100% painted models.
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
I agree. Pick one.
If you're not a hobbyist, play with 100% grey models.
If you are a pure hobbyist, play with 100% painted and based models.
I won't allow any in-between at my table. Cheater.
You know, I've been in this hobby for a decade, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a discussion on painted and unpainted armies.
The OP's visceral reaction is interesting, and finding out that there are likeminded fellows that have opinions on the painting status of armies is fascinating.
Gitsplitta wrote: (it's the non-hobby gamers who buy a new army every time a new or more powerful dex comes out... they drive sales with GW and that keeps us ALL in business.
I would disagree with the assertion that the 'non-hobby' gamer keeps GW going. I think the 'non-hobby' gamer is a statistical nothing compared to what keeps GW in business... 12 year old gaming children... And they are basically not even aware of this paint-vs-non paint because they do whatever the redshirts tell them from my observation.
For every adult meta gamer who is churning through full armies every 3 months to buy new codexes, there is a hardcore painter who buys thousands of points of stuff to paint, paint and sell, collect or whatever. I am not convinced that I have to thank the non-painted grey hordes for the prosperous sales of the game.
Polonius wrote:You know, I've been in this hobby for a decade, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a discussion on painted and unpainted armies.
The OP's visceral reaction is interesting, and finding out that there are likeminded fellows that have opinions on the painting status of armies is fascinating.
So, I walked into my LGS yesterday and there was half a dozen people playing games with battleforce-esque armies.
I mean seriously, they were terrible from a list building standpoint, plus their tactics left a lot to be desired.
Is this a common phenomenon where painting is more important than the game? Or is it a phase they grow out of? I've never fielded more than a single squad of Ogryns, even after only 3 months. Yet some of these guys have 2 or 3 squads of them.
In the end, that pretty much kills the game. The game is built around list building and tactics, can't they at least read a couple tactics articles? I'll respect them for that, it takes 30 minutes to read a couple.
To the OP: No, no you're not the only one. There is constant moral outrage that occurs basically bi-monthly on this grievous and most horrific sin against the righteous purity of our most scared hobby. After drawing attention to the fact that the people that the poster complained about last month still don't have their thousands of points painted given A FULL MONTH to do it, typically there will be the detractors and nay-sayers who appear in the thread trying to spread such dangerous and heretical ideology like "It's their stuff", "You shouldn't paint for others, and shouldn't expect them to paint for you", and (the most dangerous of all) "It's just a game!"
Seriously though, chill out, it's just a game and they're not grown, mature adults like you. They'll get it in two or three years when they are and all will be harmonious. If it's that big a deal, why not take the initiative and try to "grow the hobby" in your area by having a painting class or finding other ways to encourage them to actually up their game? That's what I did. We have a guy playing Imperial Fists who paints, well, badly, to put it honest. To give myself to experiment with yellow, and because I knew he had AOBR and a couple of Rhinos, I put together a plasmagun guy from bitz I had laying around, painted to the best of my ability, and gave it to him. I then told him what every paint I used on it was, and where I put them. He got taught how to highlight and he got a model out of it, and was very appreciative.
Much more productive that complaining annonymously on a wargaming forum.
EDIT: Also, just checked out your Serpent. Nice job. I've been painting for a few years now and I still can't get my whites to come out that smooth.
Just don't see the commitment to being a fully paid up member of the Sarky Gets Society like you used to
I blame the internet memes as it is so easy to copy paste with the flavour of the month for the drop in standards.
Timmah wrote:So, I walked into my LGS yesterday and there was half a dozen people playing games with battleforce-esque armies.
I mean seriously, they were terrible from a list building standpoint, plus their tactics left a lot to be desired.
Is this a common phenomenon where painting is more important than the game? Or is it a phase they grow out of? I've never fielded more than a single squad of Ogryns, even after only 3 months. Yet some of these guys have 2 or 3 squads of them.
In the end, that pretty much kills the game. The game is built around list building and tactics, can't they at least read a couple tactics articles? I'll respect them for that, it takes 30 minutes to read a couple.
Yeah, because pushing little plastic men on the table is serious business.
I had a friend tell me that I wasn't playing the game right because I didn't run dungeons.
I had a friend tell me that I wasn't playing the game right because I didn't PvP.
I think that it's just a game, made for fun, and I can get my jollies any way I darn well please.
If I want to put an emphasis on painting because I enjoy it and tactics be damned, good for me.
If I want to put an emphasis on gaming because I want to win and don't care about a sea of gray plastic, also good for me.
If I get my jollies from running around the painball feild buck naked waving my arms in the air and screaming "TO-RA-LU-RA-LA!", then I'll darn well do it. I know I'll (probably) lose and get shot to oblivion, but if that's what I call fun, then I'll do it every chance I get.
If you don't like it, you don't have to play with me.
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
I agree. Pick one.
If you're not a hobbyist, play with 100% grey models.
If you are a pure hobbyist, play with 100% painted and based models.
I won't allow any in-between at my table. Cheater.
Well, I'd never refuse a game, whether painted, unpainted, or cardboard chits.
I think it's confusing and aesthetically displeasing playing a half-painted army, especially when the painted half is done to a very high standard and they're placed next to their grey and metal bretheren. Or worse, primed. The contrast creates the appearance of a half-done job that you didn't care to finish. It shows you have the ability but not the interest in following through with your project.
But like I said, I wouldn't turn down a game based on the state of someone's models. Everyone enjoys the hobby differently. I personally prefer not to play with unpainted models (which is why my O&G army hasn't seen a table yet...damn you goblins!)
Just don't see the commitment to being a fully paid up member of the Sarky Gets Society like you used to
I blame the internet memes as it is so easy to copy paste with the flavour of the month for the drop in standards.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Logically speaking, skip buying the figures altogether, and invest the money elsewhere. )
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Logically speaking, skip buying the figures altogether, and invest the money elsewhere. )
I myself find playing with an fully painted army versus an fully painted army, much more enjoyable than playing with dull grey minis. Painting is an essential side of the hobby, and I feel embarrased if I must field unpainted miniatures. Sure people can play with unpainted ones if they like, but putting even little effort on painting their minis is much more better than not a giving s***. I must be lucky, because even my FLGS 10-year old kids try to paint their minis, and almost always field an fully painted army. Well tomorrow is friday, so Magic the Gathering players like myself, will be taking over our FLGS so I don't have to watch unpainted miniatures dominating the battlefield.
Ps: People seriously, even try to paint your fething minis
biccat wrote:
But like I said, I wouldn't turn down a game based on the state of someone's models. Everyone enjoys the hobby differently. I personally prefer not to play with unpainted models (which is why my O&G army hasn't seen a table yet...damn you goblins!)
Didn't mean for that to look like I was taking a dig at you, biccat.
I appreciate a well painted army but I understand if people don't like painting as much as I do. My army certainly isn't 100% painted, but I make sure that a new miniature or unit has been painted since the last time I played. The first time I put a 100% painted army on the table was very satisfying for me.
Not sure if this has been said but armies are very often works in progress.
Also the shifting level of points making armies larger surely has an adverse effect on completely painting a force.
As long as people play with likeminded gamers, all is well. Remember, someone does have the right to tell you how to enjoy 'your hobby'. It is the person paying the rent on the gaming space you are playing in at the time.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Logically speaking, skip buying the figures altogether, and invest the money elsewhere. )
I don't field unpainted stuff, have not since I started in 1990. I will at minimum undercoat and pick out detailing if the models are unpleasant or chorish to paint, especially large blocks of fantasy d00ds, however, since 40K models tend to stand on their own, I lavish them with details.
Oddly, my guardsmen are all very well painted, individually, yet my former dwarves were pretty much bronze, silver, with a drybrushed beard/hair color.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Lowers resale value? Why buy them at all if you're only worried about the value you can hawk them for later?
Ma55ter_fett wrote:If I painted my marines I wouldn't be able to switch between BA and SW at the drop of a hat now would I?
JJ did a Standard Bearer column in WD a few years back on how he painted his first Space Marine army grey and has used them ever since to represent any chapter he chooses.
Theduke07 wrote:Lowers resale value? Why buy them at all if you're only worried about the value you can hawk them for later?
He's clearly buying Warhams as an investment, just like you imply.
Or maybe he just wants to make sure if he gets sick of the game that he can recoup some costs but NO he surely ONLY cares about the value he can "hawk" them for later.
It depends on where you're playing to me. I have never really considered a LGS to be a 'serious venue', if you will, and feel like games played there are more akin to practice. In that setting it doesn't bother me to see unpainted figs (though I'll admit wincing when I saw an army with unassembled heavy weapons set in a pile on dip can lids).
Most of the gaming I do that isn't at home is at historical conventions. That setting is a bit differnt than GW games because the gamemaster usually provides all the figures (though FoW and FoG are changing that). I always felt that games like that were as much an aesthetic presentation as a tactical excercise and it was even inconsiderate to players to present a half-finished product. One local annual con requires fully painted figures. A couple years ago a GM got kicked out for trying to use bare metal figs (the fully painted requirement was made quite clear on the website and in gm registration info)
At the end of the day, I prefer everyone uses painted figs, mostly cuz I think it just looks prettier which makes it more fun for me. I feel like painting them is part of the hobby. I have seen a couple folks say things to the effect of "if you like painting great but if you just like the tactics that should be fine. You don't have to play with me if you don't like unpainted figs." but what would you think if you were playing soccer game and half the people decided they didn't like running. They aren't breaking any rules and may have great strategy but you wouldn't want to play with or against them because they weren't (here's where I am gonna get attacked) 'doing it right'.
Okay, follow me here. Simply because your main objective is to have fun and you are achieveing that objective doesn't necessarily mean you are doing to activity correctly. In something like this hobby it is OKAY if you 'don't do it right'. I mean, lives don't depend on it or anything. If you have more fun only doing parts of the game that's fine. Just don't argue that you are doing it right. Instead, argue that someone is being anal and legalistic if they care. It shouldn't bother anyone that you're not doing it right because having fun is what it is about.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby, or the wrong army. You buy this hyper expensive, legal crack because it's fun, not because you want to make a few quid selling it on.
JeneralJoe117 wrote:
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby, or the wrong army. You buy this hyper expensive, legal crack because it's fun, not because you want to make a few quid selling it on.
I need to get in on this Warham investment market you and that other guy seem to think exist.
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Ssgt Carl wrote:
At the end of the day, I prefer everyone uses painted figs, mostly cuz I think it just looks prettier which makes it more fun for me. I feel like painting them is part of the hobby. I have seen a couple folks say things to the effect of "if you like painting great but if you just like the tactics that should be fine. You don't have to play with me if you don't like unpainted figs." but what would you think if you were playing soccer game and half the people decided they didn't like running. They aren't breaking any rules and may have great strategy but you wouldn't want to play with or against them because they weren't (here's where I am gonna get attacked) 'doing it right'.
Okay, follow me here. Simply because your main objective is to have fun and you are achieveing that objective doesn't necessarily mean you are doing to activity correctly. In something like this hobby it is OKAY if you 'don't do it right'. I mean, lives don't depend on it or anything. If you have more fun only doing parts of the game that's fine. Just don't argue that you are doing it right. Instead, argue that someone is being anal and legalistic if they care. It shouldn't bother anyone that you're not doing it right because having fun is what it is about.
Who says what the "right" way to play a game is? Especially a way that doesn't impact the actual play? Just because people are not into the painting doesn't mean they are "doing it wrong." It's all personal preference.
As much as I enjoy painting, my time is limited, and what little time I have isn't always put towards hobby time. What's more, when I do paint, I do so at a fairly slow pace. I like to ensure that every single model looks great. I'm not going to waste my time painting my miniatures to a sub-par quality.
I think I agree with everyone here. ... I'm new to these forums so does that prevent me from being ?
Seriously though, a big draw of the game for me was the images of the miniatures in battle online and in the books. The fully painted models and boards are just too cool. I try not to field unpainted minis but if I haven't gotten to them yet, I'll put em out there if I need the point count. I certainly don't hold anyone else to my standard of trying to field only painted minis. I think it does make the act of playing the game more enjoyable, but I wouldn't avoid someone just for fielding an unpainted army. It would just be a better experience, for me at least, to play someone on a well-crafted table, with well-painted terrain and with fully-painted armies.
Brother Gyoken wrote:
Who says what the "right" way to play a game is? Especially a way that doesn't impact the actual play? Just because people are not into the painting doesn't mean they are "doing it wrong." It's all personal preference.
Playing the game is only part of the hobby. As far as GW specifically, and who says it is "right" The Warhammer rulebook describes unpainted figs and makeshift terrain as "humble beginnings" with an end result being a painted army on nice terrain. If you don't intend to paint your figs then you are not using the product the way it wasn intended.
Personal preference is used to figure out the way you have the most fun, but, as I said, its a non sequitur that because you are having fun you are necessarily doing it right.
This is one of issues that draws me more to historicals. The maturity level in those niche areas of the hobby tend to lean toward people who are generally interested in their armies and thus you find painted forces more often. Hint: resale generally isnt on your mind when youre assembling a Peninsular British Guard list or a Marian Roman legion. Its kind of an unspoken rule.
Does it bother me when I see unpainted models on the field in 40k? Yes, it irks me a lot. They're your models, you assembled them, youre supposed to enjoy this, paint them for Throne's sake.
Would I say anything? I might give a gentle ribbing in good fun, but I expect unpainted/unfinished minis in GW games so I tend to keep it to myself. It just lends itself to the community. Its something I have to live with in exchange for playing the fluffy, unbalanced, cool model world of GW.
That's very true actually, I haven't come across many unpainted FoW armies. Even a couple of guys I know who took up FoW, having previously just played largely unpainted 40k armies, made some effort to paint up their historical forces. Also we spent a lot more time setting up themed terrain and trying to make it look good, much more than with 40k. I wonder why that is?
JeneralJoe117 wrote:If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby, or the wrong army. You buy this hyper expensive, legal crack because it's fun, not because you want to make a few quid selling it on.
How in the world can you make that statement when GW flip-flops on whatever makes a good army with nearly every codex as the metagame shifts?
If you pimped out your Space Marines in 4th ed, you probably had a bunch of footslogging tactical marines with las cannons and plasma guns in minimum squads.
Then you probably moved to Land Raiders and TH/SS Terminators once 4th ed came out, and then you probably moved to lots of light mech with razorbacks, dakka dreads, predators, and maybe one Land Raider with a TH/SS squad and/or speeders. That is, if you didn't jump onto the SW or BA bandwagon with their 'new and different but better' marines.
GW in many ways forces players to 'churn' through models in their release cycles by making the 'new' the 'best'. For players that don't want to simply sit upon gigantic stockpiles of models, wanting to retain resale value in order to sell gently used and buy newer isn't something that one can really criticize.
Ma55ter_fett wrote:If I painted my marines I wouldn't be able to switch between BA and SW at the drop of a hat now would I?
JJ did a Standard Bearer column in WD a few years back on how he painted his first Space Marine army grey and has used them ever since to represent any chapter he chooses.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I think that so long as someone at least coats the models, its preferable to bare plastic, IMHO. As for an earlier poster, so long as its wsywyg, i doubt anyone will tell you that your red space wolves are a problem... or your blue painted salamanders, etc.
Its a game that takes a certain degree of imagination to play, that being said, I don't think that its necessary to have everything in top shape, but the attempt to make the models nice is appreciated.
With that in mind, I'll say that I HATE playing people that leave weapons off and then say they are random things... or space marine legs on bases, with no torsos, weapons, etc.
I've avoided these people like the plague because the squad loadout seems to change at convenience.
Pacific wrote:That's very true actually, I haven't come across many unpainted FoW armies. Even a couple of guys I know who took up FoW, having previously just played largely unpainted 40k armies, made some effort to paint up their historical forces. Also we spent a lot more time setting up themed terrain and trying to make it look good, much more than with 40k. I wonder why that is?
I dunno, I like to think it's because people who play historicals are more interested in the history of their armies in a way that runs deeper than "GIANT SHOULDERS GIANT GUNZ THIS WILL WIN WOO" but that can't be entirely true because there are power gamers in FoW. I dunno, but whatever it is, its a very, very good thing.
Im quite happy that my historical gaming club requires painted figures. Historicals tend more to be about the entire hobby; a mix of tactics, painting, modelling and historical interest that melds together into something that feels a bit more personal. Its pretty safe to say that no one gets into Napoleonics because they love to dominate, first and foremost its about recreating something that you love: history.
Yeah, if price is that big of an issue for you, then search FLGs for discounts or just buy cheap model paint from model train shops or craft stores or whatever.
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
Dude, I'm the OP. What I field will always be fully painted. I don't have a single figure atm that I have not painted (except maybe the weapons on my Wave Serpent, doing that this games night). I meant that our ever expanding collections are works in progress.
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Artanis wrote:Paints are so prohibitively expensive though
$6USD for a regular GW pot over here means every time I think about buying paint I look at more models I could be buying instead.
I'll get around to painting eventually, it's just a huge investment in time and patience. Plus it takes ages to get half decent.
Spend a saturday or two at your store's painting table. It's what I did, haven't bought a single thing on painting except for a fine detail brush.
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
Dude, I'm the OP. What I field will always be fully painted. I don't have a single figure atm that I have not painted (except maybe the weapons on my Wave Serpent, doing that this games night). I meant that our ever expanding collections are works in progress.
I am unable to reconcile your most recent statement with your earlier one. You state "all of our armies," implicitly including your own, are "works in progress," and therefore there's an excuse for fielding unpainted armies.
Regardless, as has already been pointed out to you, other people enjoy different aspects of the hobby. While I have a fully painted army, I didn't for most of the 10+ years I've been in this hobby. I have at least 2 armies that have never seen the tabletop because since I've gotten those armies painted (1 warmachine, 1 fantasy, 1 40k) I haven't played with unpainted miniatures. The major reason that I don't have those other armies painted is because I don't have the time to paint. And I'm sure a lot of others are in a similar setting. If I can get 2-3 hours of free time a week, I'd rather spend it playing than painting.
Ssgt Carl wrote:Playing the game is only part of the hobby. As far as GW specifically, and who says it is "right" The Warhammer rulebook describes unpainted figs and makeshift terrain as "humble beginnings" with an end result being a painted army on nice terrain. If you don't intend to paint your figs then you are not using the product the way it wasn intended.
Personal preference is used to figure out the way you have the most fun, but, as I said, its a non sequitur that because you are having fun you are necessarily doing it right.
Who says these players are even part of "the hobby?" Maybe they are just playing a game.
And using this logic, how far does the "intent" go in determining if you're playing the "right" way? Is someone magnetizing arms "doing it wrong?" Obviously GW doesn't want that! What if they painted their models using Vallejo paints, or Krazy glue? The book clearly states they are meant to be painted and assembled with Citadel products, so clearly they are doing it "wrong." How about third party bits? DOING IT WRONG.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
I beg to differ...
How many painted armies you will ultimately see depends on your own involvement in the hobby. If you mostly buy to paint but also like to play the game casually around a local venue, then be prepared to see grey legion everywhere. If you start going to Indy GT's all over the country you'll rarely see an unpainted army. On a more competitive level people will show up with an army they painted or one they paid to have painted. Adepticon had 200+ players last year and all of them had (3 color minimum) painted armies.
Also it depends at what point you see your fellow hobbyist/gamers at in an armies evolution. For instance when I start a new army I play test a list for about 3 months to dial it in on a competitive level. I may only have one or two models painted and the rest will probably be proxies or a collection of things that don't even match the right army. Also at Ard Boyz I fielded a mish mash of unpainted and painted models from about 5 different players armies. If you casually walked past my table at any of these times you probably wouldn't think highly of my hobbying. In fact I have 6 fully painted armies for WH / WH40K / LotR and in the past year I've painted around 10-15 armies for commission. I always compete for best painted first for a tournament and go for best overall second but looking at 60% of my games you would have no clue.
Now that I've defended reasons people will field unpainted models I must say, if you only plan to casually play you should be prepared to see more unpainted than you'll see painted. Most players have no desire or intention to paint their little men. Just a fact of our hobby.
see, i love to paint but i want my space marine army to look nice so my painting is yellow and takes a age, i only have about 550 points of fully painted guys, because of this really doin't mind unpainted models on the battlefield, since i have quite a few on myself.
Well, I do enjoy playing against/with painted armies, but usually, I never get to paint mine. I tend to flip-flop army-wise (I've done Tau, Space Wolves, Black Templar, Grey Knights, Tyranids, and C:SM all in the past year, mainly through trading the previous army) and am just now really getting to like this space marine army, with the intention if re-doing my Tau when they get a new codex. Join that to the fact that I'm in college, and have limited time/funds, and paint like a slug, I don't usually paint much. In fact, I don't own any paints atm, though I did partially paint my Tau. Plus, having this as your available painting area isn't too good for wanting to paint !
EldarN00b wrote:There's nothing wrong with not having a fully painted army, hell, all of our armies are works in progress.
Do you think other people feel the same way you do when they see your half-painted army across the table?
Personally, for gaming and aesthetic reasons I'd rather see a fully painted or fully unpainted army. I really don't like playing against partially-painted armies.
I agree. Pick one.
If you're not a hobbyist, play with 100% grey models.
If you are a pure hobbyist, play with 100% painted and based models.
I won't allow any in-between at my table. Cheater.
Well, I'd never refuse a game, whether painted, unpainted, or cardboard chits.
I think it's confusing and aesthetically displeasing playing a half-painted army, especially when the painted half is done to a very high standard and they're placed next to their grey and metal bretheren. Or worse, primed. The contrast creates the appearance of a half-done job that you didn't care to finish. It shows you have the ability but not the interest in following through with your project.But like I said, I wouldn't turn down a game based on the state of someone's models. Everyone enjoys the hobby differently. I personally prefer not to play with unpainted models (which is why my O&G army hasn't seen a table yet...damn you goblins!)
Not sure if your joking or not, but maybe instead of them only doing a half ass job, maybe life got in the way and they had to stop painting a bit. Maybe it takes a while to get that level of detail and so it's play with half painted models, or not play for a year.
I will say this is not directed solely at you, but the 100% Golden Deamon Quality only or else A Kitten Dies crowd comes across more than elitest. It discourages people from playing, which I think some of them want. They want lower number of people playing and fear the game might become "hip" if we allow people to slowly or comfortably work on.
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby
There is nothing wrong with buying warhammer for gaming and collecting.
Of course this still falls under "everyone have a different opinion of why they are into warhammer" .
Please review yakface's poll thread to see that painting is NOT the only reason people are into warhammer.
Please accept this truth even if you think painting is the SOLE reason for some of you.
As i stated, painting is a hassle, this is a personal opinion, if i can game without painting them, i'll be happy with that.
As i stated putting in time to make a mini presentable is time and effort consuming, and it doesn't always fetch a good price ( in direct comparison of time spent ).
What i painted i can only sell at MSRP value which averages something like $5 earned per hour.
Hence is why i don't like painting my minis, which i'll state over and over again will not apply to most of you that ENJOYS painting.
jbunny wrote:
I will say this is not directed solely at you, but the 100% Golden Deamon Quality only or else A Kitten Dies crowd comes across more than elitest. It discourages people from playing, which I think some of them want. They want lower number of people playing and fear the game might become "hip" if we allow people to slowly or comfortably work on.
No one here is advocating good painting, just painting. Hell, Im not a good painter and nothing I field is painted well, but it is painted.
littleboyblues wrote: Most players have no desire or intention to paint their little men. Just a fact of our hobby.
I don't believe this to be true in the least. I also will use this time to remind people "the interwebz" online community is a small small small portion of the gaming community and most people who buy GW models and play GW games have no idea people argue on the internet about this stuff.
Anyone who overestimates the vocal minority of the internet into how things are done is instantly wrong.
Flashman wrote:I agree your point is valid Luna, but as others have noted, your painted stuff looks great, so it's bemusing to hear you don't enjoy painting
But that's not really fair, for example, a tall athletic person wouldn't necessarily enjoy basketball, maybe they like go karts which are
absolutely bad because they probably wouldn't fit, but in their mind go karts > basketball
I prefer to play with a painted army, and will plan my lists for the local tournament around the painted models in my collection. If i have an unpainted unit i feel the list needs it becomes my next grandiose painting project, in order to make the list
If i were to field my orks i'd HAVE to take some unpainted models, as i have about 500 pts of my 18000 or so actually painted. My necrons are about 2/3 nicely painted to 1/3 poorly painted previous paintjob that is being upgraded
My Dark Eldar are being run unpainted right now, as i'm still thrashing out what scheme i want to paint them.
I have no issue with playing against an unpainted army. I vastly prefer playing against a painted one for aesthetic pleasure, but the game is more important than the paintjob, to me. Some of the nicest painted armies i've played against were run by utter WAACTFG's too, so looks aren't everything
I'm a glacially slow painter, with minimal artistic talent. I can paint to a decent quality, but it takes me a long time per model (about 2 days per ork boy) to get that quality.
It doesn't help that i have severe nerve damage in both hands, periodic tremors if i hold them in one position too long and a dodgy spine that limits my ability to paint for long periods (though good painkillers can help if i'm in a pinting mood..).
I also have only about an hour per night to myself, between work and kids.
I will get them all painted. This is carven (slowly and shakily) in stone. It will probably take about a decade.
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Lowers resale value? Why buy them at all if you're only worried about the value you can hawk them for later?
Because you are ignoring the collecting and gaming aspect.
mikhaila wrote:
LunaHound wrote:
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Logically speaking, skip buying the figures altogether, and invest the money elsewhere. )
Why? i enjoy collecting, gaming and modelling ( ok kit bashing since i suck at this lol )
Phototoxin wrote:
LunaHound wrote:
Irdiumstern wrote:Painting is the most boring, painful, and slow part of the entire hobby for me. I much prefer converting and playing, and I'd rather not waste time on painting.
Exactly, not only is painting time consuming and not fun, it LOWERS the resale value.
So logically speaking, why would i put effort into something counter productive?
Because I'm playing a game I love and not treating my armies as a FOTMMtG deck to be chopped and changed at every opportunity?
And how do you judge to what you perceive as FOTM army? Because its not painted is that all? Atleast give GW some credit that their launch are effective ;P
wow cool yakface added FOTM i proposed.
Delephont wrote:Are you serious? There are three ways in which you can sell your army on the second hand market:
And which of the 3 ways do i fit into? If you think my efforts can fetch anything worthwhile of my time, i'll be brave and say this.
I WILL sell you my painted stuff for the prices you claim i can get. The way i do things, isn't it just so cool :3
Anyways, the majority of the quotes im responding to have 1 thing in common.
They put painting as top first reason for warhammering over all the other reasons. Which is not fair and certainly not true ( according to the poll )
Of course because everything is a personal preference, i fully understand ( and agree ) that painted armies are more fun to look at
and certainly adds another element of excitement during a game.
I only wanted OP to know that there are various reasons to why an army is not painted, and he doesn't really have to hate it as much.
Message brought to you by LunaHound from Im ok with you not painting your little gray men Mafia
Flashman wrote:I agree your point is valid Luna, but as others have noted, your painted stuff looks great, so it's bemusing to hear you don't enjoy painting
But that's not really fair, for example, a tall athletic person wouldn't necessarily enjoy basketball, maybe they like go karts which are
absolutely bad because they probably wouldn't fit, but in their mind go karts > basketball
I dunno, generally speaking you get good at something because you enjoy doing it.
However, I admit that enjoying painting miniatures doesn't necessarily mean you would want to paint an entire army of them. My local GW manager doesn't own a painted army. He just likes painting single miniatures.
jbunny wrote:Not sure if your joking or not, but maybe instead of them only doing a half ass job, maybe life got in the way and they had to stop painting a bit. Maybe it takes a while to get that level of detail and so it's play with half painted models, or not play for a year.
Obviously you missed the part where I said it gives the appearance of a slack job.
I prefer the appearance of an unpainted army to a half-painted army. But frankly, I'm happy just to play.
jbunny wrote:Not sure if your joking or not, but maybe instead of them only doing a half ass job, maybe life got in the way and they had to stop painting a bit. Maybe it takes a while to get that level of detail and so it's play with half painted models, or not play for a year.
Obviously you missed the part where I said it gives the appearance of a slack job.
I prefer the appearance of an unpainted army to a half-painted army. But frankly, I'm happy just to play.
And thats the difference in us. You see the negative "He's slacking", and I see the positive "Wow that's going to look great once he finishes" I'm glad I see the positive in things and not the negative on trivial things like painted toys.
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby
There is nothing wrong with buying warhammer for gaming and collecting. Of course this still falls under "everyone have a different opinion of why they are into warhammer" . Please review yakface's poll thread to see that painting is NOT the only reason people are into warhammer. Please accept this truth even if you think painting is the SOLE reason for some of you.
As i stated, painting is a hassle, this is a personal opinion, if i can game without painting them, i'll be happy with that. As i stated putting in time to make a mini presentable is time and effort consuming, and it doesn't always fetch a good price ( in direct comparison of time spent ). What i painted i can only sell at MSRP value which averages something like $5 earned per hour.
Hence is why i don't like painting my minis, which i'll state over and over again will not apply to most of you that ENJOYS painting.
Luna, don't bother trying to use logic or explaining how you enjoy your hobby to a bunch of closed-minded people who insist on defining your hobby for you. You won't change their minds. Just keep on enjoying your hobby the way you choose to do so, and let the high horses pat themselves on the back for painting their armies.
JeneralJoe117 wrote:If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby, or the wrong army. You buy this hyper expensive, legal crack because it's fun, not because you want to make a few quid selling it on.
How in the world can you make that statement when GW flip-flops on whatever makes a good army with nearly every codex as the metagame shifts?
If you pimped out your Space Marines in 4th ed, you probably had a bunch of footslogging tactical marines with las cannons and plasma guns in minimum squads.
Then you probably moved to Land Raiders and TH/SS Terminators once 4th ed came out, and then you probably moved to lots of light mech with razorbacks, dakka dreads, predators, and maybe one Land Raider with a TH/SS squad and/or speeders. That is, if you didn't jump onto the SW or BA bandwagon with their 'new and different but better' marines.
GW in many ways forces players to 'churn' through models in their release cycles by making the 'new' the 'best'. For players that don't want to simply sit upon gigantic stockpiles of models, wanting to retain resale value in order to sell gently used and buy newer isn't something that one can really criticize.
Truth be told I don't play the game out of a need to win. I play vanilla marine. I could play BA or SW and be better, but I don't. I like my army and I don't feel the need to flip-flop for the sake of winning.
Personally I would like to see people at least put some colours on their models. Even slowly. Just my view.
On the flip side lets say little johnny goes past GW, sees the staff painted models and thinks wow I wanna do that! Buys an army, buys the brushes, gets the paints, sits down aaaaaaaaaaaaand...
Yeah, comes out a multicoloured blob.
Some people get disheartened, and don't want to show off the models they painted, not even for a game, so just use em grey.
I can understand that, but still, just looks nicer. End of the day up to people what they do with the insanely priced plastic/resin/metal they bought with their cash.
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby
There is nothing wrong with buying warhammer for gaming and collecting.
Of course this still falls under "everyone have a different opinion of why they are into warhammer" .
Please review yakface's poll thread to see that painting is NOT the only reason people are into warhammer.
Please accept this truth even if you think painting is the SOLE reason for some of you.
As i stated, painting is a hassle, this is a personal opinion, if i can game without painting them, i'll be happy with that.
As i stated putting in time to make a mini presentable is time and effort consuming, and it doesn't always fetch a good price ( in direct comparison of time spent ).
What i painted i can only sell at MSRP value which averages something like $5 earned per hour.
Hence is why i don't like painting my minis, which i'll state over and over again will not apply to most of you that ENJOYS painting.
Luna, don't bother trying to use logic or explaining how you enjoy your hobby to a bunch of closed-minded people who insist on defining your hobby for you. You won't change their minds. Just keep on enjoying your hobby the way you choose to do so, and let the high horses pat themselves on the back for painting their armies.
I didn't say 'YOU MUST PAINT YOUR ARMIES YOU FILZY PIGDOG'. I'm just saying that if you only buy armies, use them until the next FOTM comes out, then sell your armies and move onto the next one, not painting the army because of something as poxy as re-sale value, THAT seems a little strange to me. Don't think I'm berating your choice, I'm not, I couldn't care less if you paint your plastic fun bits or not.
If you're only worried about the re-sale values you're either in the wrong hobby
There is nothing wrong with buying warhammer for gaming and collecting.
Of course this still falls under "everyone have a different opinion of why they are into warhammer" .
Please review yakface's poll thread to see that painting is NOT the only reason people are into warhammer.
Please accept this truth even if you think painting is the SOLE reason for some of you.
As i stated, painting is a hassle, this is a personal opinion, if i can game without painting them, i'll be happy with that.
As i stated putting in time to make a mini presentable is time and effort consuming, and it doesn't always fetch a good price ( in direct comparison of time spent ).
What i painted i can only sell at MSRP value which averages something like $5 earned per hour.
Hence is why i don't like painting my minis, which i'll state over and over again will not apply to most of you that ENJOYS painting.
Luna, don't bother trying to use logic or explaining how you enjoy your hobby to a bunch of closed-minded people who insist on defining your hobby for you. You won't change their minds. Just keep on enjoying your hobby the way you choose to do so, and let the high horses pat themselves on the back for painting their armies.
I didn't say 'YOU MUST PAINT YOUR ARMIES YOU FILZY PIGDOG'. I'm just saying that if you only buy armies, use them until the next FOTM comes out, then sell your armies and move onto the next one, not painting the army because of something as poxy as re-sale value, THAT seems a little strange to me. Don't think I'm berating your choice, I'm not, I couldn't care less if you paint your plastic fun bits or not.
Who said non-painters only buy/sell flavor of the month armies?
I prefer to see painted models on the table, but at the end of the day I'm mostly just glad to be having a game. I could say seeing painted models involved in said game is a nice bonus.
As much as i'd like to see a painted army, i can totally understand if its not all painted up! Many opponents i play against are in various stages of completing their respective armies... especially those of us who play horde armies!
What I do hate however is proxies... it just erkz me! But thats another chat for another time/thread!
For anyone just coming into this thread, here is a summary
Person 1: I think you should paint your army and here is why
What person 2 thinks person 1 said: If you don't paint your army you are lazy and not a true gamer and should be spurned!!
Person 2 replies: That element of the hobby is not always for me because ...
What person 1 thinks person 2 said: You painters are arrogant fools who don't understand the hobby!
the conversations seem to escalate from there.
augustus5 wrote: Luna, don't bother trying to use logic or explaining how you enjoy your hobby to a bunch of closed-minded people who insist on defining your hobby for you. You won't change their minds. Just keep on enjoying your hobby the way you choose to do so, and let the high horses pat themselves on the back for painting their armies.
This quote kinda shows how niether 'side' is willing to understand point the other side is trying to make. I think folks are getting offended that anyone thinks that it would be nice if they painted their army when offence was not meant to be given.
I'll admit I have a viewpoint that makes it hard for me to accept a lot of the good reasons not to paint an army. I consider warhammer and GW to be a tiny tiny portion of the hobby and I think others are answering the OPs question from a viewpoint of GW as a hobby in and of itself. I am realizing more and more how different the point system/army building style of gaming is from what I would call scenario based gaming in some respects.
I just don't get why people are willing to pay a fortune for little plastic men with details if they aren't going to assemble and paint them properly - they are made for it after all. If not, why not play a different game where the models you buy are pre painted instead.
I myself like all facets of the Warhammer hobby. I enjoy everything including converting, painting, playing with and reading about them, so it really hurts me when people are just pouring their broken, partly unpainted Orks from a shoe box onto the table opposite me, because that way they clearly show that they don't give a gak about my hobby.
I don't expect people to have their entire armies painted at all times, because some people also have work, education and family, and therefore not enough time to paint it all before playing with it.
I am a student myself, and I don't have the time to fully paint both a fantasy and a 40K army, I would just be happy if people would at least try to paint their army to a table top standard if they have the time, because it would really improve this lovely hobby for everyone.
I like unpainted armies, it makes it easy to spot the people who aren't worth playing! You're not the only one op!
Painting armies is work. It's not done solely for personal enjoyment, it's also done to share in a community, and specifically with an opponent, and possibly spectators. The idea, that 'I don't like work, and for me the hobby is just play' is just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined. Go play a PC, console, board or card game then, there's loads of Warhammer ones now! Painting is clearly an important part of the hobby.
I wont play people with unpainted armies.
I never play anything unpainted.
Unpainted armies are why I have essentially abandoned Privateer Press games (even in PP sanctioned events), usually those people can't even paint 3 models much less the 75 or so needed for 40k. That is truly pathetic.
I don't care what other people do for fun, especially in their own space but in stores and in public, it's a terrible showing. To the op, you are right, it's frustrating, but know the world is peopled with peasants, and you are not one of them, or alone, KEEP PAINTING Brother!
Augustus wrote:The idea, that 'I don't like work, and for me the hobby is just play' is just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined. Go play a PC, console, board or card game then, there's loads of Warhammer ones now! Painting is clearly an important part of the hobby.
Different priorities dictate different out comes. One cannot use one's priority to judge one's discipline.
For example, we can't say a Physicist is lacking discipline because they arn't as familiar at the subject of biology as a Bio Chemist.
And we cant say a Bio Chemist is lacking discipline if they don't share the same amount of knowledge in physics field as a Physicist.
This is the fundamental flaw in our logic in how we judge wild animals. And why we perceive pets to be "smarter"...
When the honest reason is, they can afford to do more different things when their top priority isn't the bare minimum survival which takes all their effort.
Augustus wrote:The idea, that 'I don't like work, and for me the hobby is just play' is just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined. Go play a PC, console, board or card game then, there's loads of Warhammer ones now! Painting is clearly an important part of the hobby.
Different priorities dictate different out comes. One cannot use one's priority to judge one's discipline.
For example, we can't say a Physicist is lacking discipline because they arn't as familiar at the subject of biology as a Bio Chemist.
And we cant say a Bio Chemist is lacking discipline if they don't share the same amount of knowledge in physics field as a Physicist.
This is the fundamental flaw in our logic in how we judge wild animals. And why we perceive pets to be "smarter"...
When the honest reason is, they can afford to do more different things when their top priority isn't the bare minimum survival which takes all their effort.
There's also a fundamental flaw in using phyicists and wild animals to prove some point about not painting warhams. I'd always thing an animal in wild to be much smarter than something domesticated. As for Physicists, I've yet to get one to balance a ball on his nose properly.
First These "kids" are 2-4 years younger than you, that makes you a "kid" to most of us as well. Not really an issue but you need to understand the difference in free time a younger person will have vs someone at University or in the job market.
Second The hobby means different things to different people. I for instance prefer the following aspects of the hobby in this order. 1 Building and converting 2. Collecting 3. Playing 4 painting.
Third My biggest pet peeve in gaming is seeing poorly painted or badly assembled miniatures, followed by proxies like lego men or paper cutouts, and then having to ask what the ig unit is standing in as.
I love seeing a game one a great table with 2 well painted armies however when that is not an option I would much rather see a horde of gray that is WYSIWYG and assembled right.
Whats odd to me is that people get so hostel about this and other similar issues in this hobby. It doesn't make new people like my self very interested in looking for games.
First its you can't play with anything not painted or its you cant if its half painted even though your showing visual progress in painting your army.
Not to mention your not allowed to play test units by using proxies before you buy the unit. Anything else. Is it alright if i pay with my debit card or should i use cash (joke)
I mean really is it that important. This is why i really only play with one person every once in a while. I'm looking for fun with someone who has similar interests as me. so we can talk and i can get advice about modeling and painting tips. Not somebody can use me as his verbal punching bag/ nerd rage at me becuase he can't properly deal with other people in a social setting.
In this economy I am all for testing units before you commit to buying. In my local area we have some people still using Lego men, and coke cans on cardboard bases (dreadnaughts) since 4th ed. way not cool. Test out stand ins for a week or two. not months or years.
Not years no but i only get paid once a month and i only buget about 60 dollars US a month so i may not be able to buy them right away depending on the unit.
I'm not hostile at anyone it just seems strange that people through out so much hate in a game/hobby thats what 15yrs old.
All that does is shrink the player pool. which may or may not matter to some people, but for me i live in a smaller town/ area so the player base is very small for me. This area is very dominated by MTG which is fun but not really my thing.
NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE FELLOWS!!! You mean to tell me that after spending tremendous amounts of time & energy on painting ALL of my minis, that it is perfectly 'OK' to walk in to the FLGS and plunk down minis that are not even primered!?!?! WHO KNEW?!?!?
obsidianaura wrote:Maybe you should just play tourneys where they have a rule that armies must be painted.
GW always used to say you could only play games in their shops with painted minis. Last I heard it was there must be visible progress on your army from last time but that was ages ago so it may have changed. I prefer my independant store and haven't been to GW in years.
Shock and horror that GW wants something other than the green of money in their stores. I always believed that gw loves bare plastic grey because the more you see of it means somebody keeps buying more and more kits. While most corporate headquarters have soothing colors on their walls they have interns painting everything bare plastic grey because it looks like green to them.
While I have fielded my share of grey armies I am starting to adopt the idea that a painted mini plays better. Since starting in warmachine I have found this to be true more often than not.
Augustus wrote:I like unpainted armies, it makes it easy to spot the people who aren't worth playing! You're not the only one op!
Painting armies is work. It's not done solely for personal enjoyment, it's also done to share in a community, and specifically with an opponent, and possibly spectators. The idea, that 'I don't like work, and for me the hobby is just play' is just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined. Go play a PC, console, board or card game then, there's loads of Warhammer ones now! Painting is clearly an important part of the hobby.
I wont play people with unpainted armies.
I never play anything unpainted.
Unpainted armies are why I have essentially abandoned Privateer Press games (even in PP sanctioned events), usually those people can't even paint 3 models much less the 75 or so needed for 40k. That is truly pathetic.
I don't care what other people do for fun, especially in their own space but in stores and in public, it's a terrible showing. To the op, you are right, it's frustrating, but know the world is peopled with peasants, and you are not one of them, or alone, KEEP PAINTING Brother!
The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
Augustus wrote:I like unpainted armies, it makes it easy to spot the people who aren't worth playing! You're not the only one op!
Painting armies is work. It's not done solely for personal enjoyment, it's also done to share in a community, and specifically with an opponent, and possibly spectators. The idea, that 'I don't like work, and for me the hobby is just play' is just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined. Go play a PC, console, board or card game then, there's loads of Warhammer ones now! Painting is clearly an important part of the hobby.
I wont play people with unpainted armies.
I never play anything unpainted.
Unpainted armies are why I have essentially abandoned Privateer Press games (even in PP sanctioned events), usually those people can't even paint 3 models much less the 75 or so needed for 40k. That is truly pathetic.
I don't care what other people do for fun, especially in their own space but in stores and in public, it's a terrible showing. To the op, you are right, it's frustrating, but know the world is peopled with peasants, and you are not one of them, or alone, KEEP PAINTING Brother!
The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
I'd say he's more defining his hobby. You don't like his hobby so to you he's an elitist jerk. To him your the lazy peasant who can't be bothered to paint.
Luckily, both of you can still go have fun, and find people to play. Although, I have to admit, if you both walked in on the same day, I'd play the guy with the painted army. Nicer scenery to look at as I get massacred.
Skarshak wrote:As much as i'd like to see a painted army, i can totally understand if its not all painted up! Many opponents i play against are in various stages of completing their respective armies... especially those of us who play horde armies!
What I do hate however is proxies... it just erkz me! But thats another chat for another time/thread!
This is probably the closest anyones got on here to sharing my opinion. It's less about unfinished and more about lack of progress that I dislike.
I play the game because I enjoy modeling and I get a second use out of these models; if there was no game I know I would not be spending $60 per tank that's for sure! I'd go buy cheaper tanks with more detail from Trumpeter or tanks with INSANE detail and size for around the same price from Tamiya. As the models build up in my Space Marine "To Do" box, I see a VERY large number of hours of work a head of me as NEARLY my entire 2nd Company is in there; plus the makings for 1st, and a feeble start to 7th. And my guard army has many MANY models calling out to me to finish; there is easily 2500pts fully painted in my Guard, and probably another 1000 sitting beside me on a shelf , and if I go digging into the infantry boxes in the closet with the Marine box... Maybe I SHOULD look at painting forces for selling... anyway. I know and understand the pains of painting, mostly cause I enjoy em. I like the beauty this game can show; SPECIALLY when I have my camera about and there are painted models.
When I scroll down to Battle Reports on this site, and see "APOC PICS HEAVY" and I open it and see an entire game of unpainted scenery and models, I admit I breath a couple curses about these players and the poster. But when I go to the local game store for a throw down match, I don't generally drag my camera along. I do prefer using painted models 100% but sometimes, you only have SO much time in the month to play/paint so you gotta take some exception to just have some fun.
I think one of the discouraging things to new comers is the number of people that both piss and moan about having to paint their models and those that piss and moan about people NOT painting their models. There's a growing lack of encouragement in 40k towards painting. I find it *&^$ing hilarious when I walk into the store and someone goes "GUIS YOU GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT!" and I see them showing some 50 year old product/technique from model rail building thinking that this was just invented for war game models. One that springs to mind was when GW started to release their new washes recently... well that's a couple years ago now; regardless I had a good laugh in a store when some the guys were freaking out over it.
I was happy with the local GW's rule of no unpainted armies on the front tables, have to use tables in the back if you have even a single unpainted model ((of course when nothing's going on they let it slide)).
augustus5 wrote: The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
Heh, I chuckled when I read 'baboon'
So, are you saying a hobby cannot be defined or perhaps that anyone can define any hobby any way they want?
J'santai Khan wrote:NOW WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE FELLOWS!!! You mean to tell me that after spending tremendous amounts of time & energy on painting ALL of my minis, that it is perfectly 'OK' to walk in to the FLGS and plunk down minis that are not even primered!?!?! WHO KNEW?!?!?
Don't worry, you're still ahead of the game. people with unpainted armies get to play on the tables with cardboard scenery and unpainted GW grey plastic trees. We reserve the nicely modeled scenery for the guys with painted armies.
Joking: I'd never put unpainted scenery on my tables. Peasants, paupers, and Princes all get to play on the nice ones.
augustus5 wrote: The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
Heh, I chuckled when I read 'baboon'
So, are you saying a hobby cannot be defined or perhaps that anyone can define any hobby any way they want?
Anyone can define the way they want.
But they also should respect and tolerate other definitions.
Especially the part where i mentioned, warhammer is not built upon the painters alone, but the very different type of customers
that made GW nice and fat as it is today.
Dude, I'm the OP. What I field will always be fully painted. I don't have a single figure atm that I have not painted (except maybe the weapons on my Wave Serpent, doing that this games night). I meant that our ever expanding collections are works in progress.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Artanis wrote:
Paints are so prohibitively expensive though
$6USD for a regular GW pot over here means every time I think about buying paint I look at more models I could be buying instead.
I'll get around to painting eventually, it's just a huge investment in time and patience. Plus it takes ages to get half decent.
Spend a saturday or two at your store's painting table. It's what I did, haven't bought a single thing on painting except for a fine detail brush.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/09/29 14:00:18
Look he has at least purchased one brush, and mooched paints brushes primer etc while at a retail business. how dare we not fall into line with his way of thinking.
I see posts like this one and hope that it is someone being a TROLL. Because it is actually better than the other option of this guy being as socially inept as the tone of his posts would indicate.
augustus5 wrote: The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
Heh, I chuckled when I read 'baboon'
So, are you saying a hobby cannot be defined or perhaps that anyone can define any hobby any way they want?
I think that the hobby is defined by the player. Every person has their own idea of what the hobby is too them. If somebody chooses to play with a few friends, ultimately they must decide upon some guidelines for house rules, or ways to determine rules questions, whether or not they would use the INATFAQ, and whether they have paint/comp guidelines. The bigger the group or club becomes, the more important it is to establish these types of guidelines. Tournament organizers also need to set guidelines based upon what they want, or what they think will work best for the people who will be coming to the event. So, the hobby must be defined within those parameters. The hobby need not be defined for every player everywhere, and that is what I'm hearing from some of the people here.
Normally, I would not judge somebody for the way they choose to play the game or define their hobby, but there have been a couple people in this thread, that are defining the hobby for everyone, and doing it in a nasty sort of way. We all have found something we enjoy about wargaming, we all don't like the same things about wargaming. What I have done, with the baboon comment, is not to judge somebody based on how they enjoy their hobby, but to rather judge one who sought to judge others based on their hobby preferences.
Dude, I'm the OP. What I field will always be fully painted. I don't have a single figure atm that I have not painted (except maybe the weapons on my Wave Serpent, doing that this games night). I meant that our ever expanding collections are works in progress.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Artanis wrote:
Paints are so prohibitively expensive though
$6USD for a regular GW pot over here means every time I think about buying paint I look at more models I could be buying instead.
I'll get around to painting eventually, it's just a huge investment in time and patience. Plus it takes ages to get half decent.
Spend a saturday or two at your store's painting table. It's what I did, haven't bought a single thing on painting except for a fine detail brush.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/09/29 14:00:18
Look he has at least purchased one brush, and mooched paints brushes primer etc while at a retail business. how dare we not fall into line with his way of thinking.
I see posts like this one and hope that it is someone being a TROLL. Because it is actually better than the other option of this guy being as socially inept as the tone of his posts would indicate.
Really? I don't think of it as mooching at all.
I invite anyone to come into my store and take advantage of our paints and modeling supplies every week. Veteran or beginner, I don't care. Use the paints, help yourself to the glue, ask if you need files, pinning drill or clippers and we'll supply them. Lots of other stores do the same. Hardly mooching when it's a behavior that's encouraged by the retailer. If the store doesn't care, why should you?
I had a really bad first experience with painting.
When I bought my first miniatures, I felt ready. I had chosen a colorscheme (Red armor, gold highlights/shoulder plates, silver rods and skeletal column, spent hours looking at online blogs, and was hoping to do my models justice. I bought oil-based paints because they were the ones at the store. Unfortunately, I didn't know one little thing.
Oil-based paints don't get thinned very well by water.
My few miniatures looked like chunky blocks (Because I didn't want to "thin" the paint nearly at all, I was paranoid about how the paint wouldn't adhere like my first disasters). At first, I thought the paints were fine, painting was supposed to be this hard, etc. When I took out my miniatures at the LGS to try out a practice game (And ask for hints on fixing the problems), the person there told me that my painting sucked. I told him that I was trying to get better, at which point he pretty much said, "Yeah, well, go do that before playing me." I just said "okay" and left the shop.
I started painting my army again a year later, since at first I didn't feel like painting again after hearing official confirmation that I was just doing it wrong. At least now I know what to look out for on the paints I buy.
I understand what it's to be against an unpainted or badly painted army, because I had to sit there at my desk staring at them and trying to make them look acceptable. It looks ugly from both sides. I just wanted to say that sometimes, a person's pride in their force doesn't translate well to the tabletop.
I don't like to put a mini on the table that isnt painted to the best of my frankly atrocious ability, its the best i can do though and thats good enough for me. But its only my own army i care about in the painting side of things, if someone doesnt want to paint their army, meh whatever, long as its wysiwyg then i'm just happy to have a fun game.
Everyone forks out a tonne of money for their minis, and just because they dont paint them as far as i can tell shouldnt stop them from enjoying the part of the hobby they want to participate in, or enjoy.
augustus5 wrote: The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
Heh, I chuckled when I read 'baboon'
So, are you saying a hobby cannot be defined or perhaps that anyone can define any hobby any way they want?
I think that the hobby is defined by the player. Every person has their own idea of what the hobby is too them. If somebody chooses to play with a few friends, ultimately they must decide upon some guidelines for house rules, or ways to determine rules questions, whether or not they would use the INATFAQ, and whether they have paint/comp guidelines. The bigger the group or club becomes, the more important it is to establish these types of guidelines. Tournament organizers also need to set guidelines based upon what they want, or what they think will work best for the people who will be coming to the event. So, the hobby must be defined within those parameters. The hobby need not be defined for every player everywhere, and that is what I'm hearing from some of the people here.
Normally, I would not judge somebody for the way they choose to play the game or define their hobby, but there have been a couple people in this thread, that are defining the hobby for everyone, and doing it in a nasty sort of way. We all have found something we enjoy about wargaming, we all don't like the same things about wargaming. What I have done, with the baboon comment, is not to judge somebody based on how they enjoy their hobby, but to rather judge one who sought to judge others based on their hobby preferences.
As Luna pointed out, nicely written indeed.
I think you've hit the nail on the head about where this sort of disagreement comes from and that is the definition. I suppose I do believe there is.. let's see, I'll call it a definitive ideal in miniatures wargaming. That is to a masterful tactician with a beautifully painted army on stunning terrain. I certainly have not lived up to this ideal (and almost certainly never will) but I like to continue to try. But yeah, I guess that is defining it for everyone.
I will make an effort not to speak for anyone else here. If I came off in any of my earlier posts as if I thought anyone was somehow 'lesser' because they didn't paint their figures. At the same time, I don't think it should make me so terrible or arrogant that I wish they would. I wouldn't judge someone because they didn't mow their yard. I understand there may be reasons; they don't have time, mower is broken, health, or maybe they just enjoy watching tv more than mowing so they choose that activity over the latter. Flawed human I am though, I'll probably end up thinking "Come on, you know? Mow your yard man. It's so much nicer for everyone."
I don' think there is anything wrong with doing the hobby they way that pleases you the most but I guess I have never subscribed to the idea (in anything, not just gaming) that one has reached the ideal, simpy because they are happy the way they are. I see how this can be taken as a slight because it seems like I am saying "you have failed at gaming because you have chosen not to do everything you could." This isn't what I mean. By all means, do the hobby the way you have fun and don't let anyone make you feel bad for not doing it the same way you do but simply because you have fun doing it one way is doesn't mean there isn't a more ideal way. Doing something the ideal way is rarely the funnest, hence the reason so few of us are ideal. I understand that if I say I think you should paint your figs I might be percieved as arrogant or an elitest. Perhaps you can see that trying to define gaming however you like best seems to me like you're refusing to admit you're not perfect. Niether of those assumptions is correct but I guess, being human, we don't know everything (and this is meant to be more with humor and not seriousness) so come on, you know? Mow your yard.
*Edit* I just realized I wasted like 10 minutes of painting time writing this. Dangit!
Put simply some people are hardcore into the painting aspect and refuse/don't have the time to paint, others love the game but refuse/don't have the time to paint. So for me(and my most epic opinion)is that its that persons overpriced plastic cocaine, let them do with it as they please, if they want to put the minis on upside down and melt a limb, go ahead, if they want to have 10000 points of awesomely painted Imperial Guard and never put them on the game table, well it was their choice and they are enjoying Warhammer as they see fit, so please respect others choices in the game and move on with your day.
TL;DR:They spent the money on their mini's not you, so quit whining about it and move on with life, no use bursting a vessel over it.
Ssgt Carl wrote:This isn't what I mean. By all means, do the hobby the way you have fun and don't let anyone make you feel bad for not doing it the same way you do but simply because you have fun doing it one way is doesn't mean there isn't a more ideal way. Doing something the ideal way is rarely the funnest, hence the reason so few of us are ideal. I understand that if I say I think you should paint your figs I might be percieved as arrogant or an elitest. Perhaps you can see that trying to define gaming however you like best seems to me like you're refusing to admit you're not perfect. Niether of those assumptions is correct but I guess, being human, we don't know everything (and this is meant to be more with humor and not seriousness) so come on, you know? Mow your yard.
*Edit* I just realized I wasted like 10 minutes of painting time writing this. Dangit!
The simple truth is unpainted models are harder to distinguish than painted models and are a game-impacting burden on opponents. No player has the right to force a burden on an opponent or decide what level of burden is acceptable to force upon opponents. I paint my models and follow 100% WYSIWYG so I never burden my opponents. Opponents to have the right to accept the burden in order to play the game or refuse the game. If I was the one forcing a burden on opponents due to my own actions, especially one that impacts gameplay I would respect my opponent first by asking if I can use my unpainted models or if he would rather play someone else. It doesn't matter if I think playing unpainted models or proxies is an acceptable burden or not. My opponent should have every right to decline a game where gameplay is degraded in some way with no fear of being called names like elitist or baboon.
Unpainted models are hard to distinguish the weapons from across the table and hard to distinguish squads in lots of situations. It directly impacts gameplay. unWYSIWYG models and proxies and token stand-ins impact the game way worse. If I want a good gaming experience i will play the person whose army least harms the game, which means a fully painted and distinguished force first... an unpainted army second, An un WYSIWYG army 3rd and a token/proxy army 4th. or, I may decide to not play an army if I simply feel the lack of appearance will impact the game to an unreasonable level. Don't tell me justy because you are willing to do the mental acrobatics needed to keep track of unpainted and undistinguished units that I should be expected to.
Personally, I am glad there are plenty of events which require fully painted and WYSIWYG models for participation so I can play fair and balanced games without one person gaining an advantage by forcing a burden on their opponent. This notion of 'I play the game and the game is MY hobby' is nonsense because unpainted models degrade the game and impact the gameplay and make it unfair for your opponent.
Wardragoon wrote:Put simply some people are hardcore into the painting aspect and refuse/don't have the time to paint, others love the game but refuse/don't have the time to paint. So for me(and my most epic opinion)is that its that persons overpriced plastic cocaine, let them do with it as they please, if they want to put the minis on upside down and melt a limb, go ahead, if they want to have 10000 points of awesomely painted Imperial Guard and never put them on the game table, well it was their choice and they are enjoying Warhammer as they see fit, so please respect others choices in the game and move on with your day.
TL;DR:They spent the money on their mini's not you, so quit whining about it and move on with life, no use bursting a vessel over it.
I think this kind of misses the point that this is a social hobby. Perhaps how you choose to do things matters because, for most people involved in gaming, it isnt just them.
I (somewhat) enjoy painting enough to put paint to a model, and I generally try to paint one squad a week, which has gotten easier with my Shameless Plug-I mean Painting Blog. Don't know what came over me there. >.>
Anyways, I would prefer if both armies were fully painted, but I also prefer going without sleep so I can have more time for fun. Tried going without sleep back in High school, just started sleeping there instead.
Or, as one of my mates puts it, "Man Dollies!" I love my man dollies, I do.
Personally, I prefer to paint my army to the best of my ability, but that's just because I enjoy fielding a fully painted force, and I love how good they look on the table. However, I'll also field an unpainted/painting in progress model or squad without much qualm, because if it's unpainted it just means I've only recently bought it and haven't had the time to finish painting it yet.
Then again, given that I'm pedantic enough in my painting that I don't fully assemble my models until they're painted, I usually only field unpainted tanks that I can put together without glueing and pull apart again later anyway. ¬_¬
If someone wants to field an unpainted army against me, I'm okay with that too. I prefer seeing fully painted or at least in-progress armies, because damn, they look so much better, but hey, I understand that not everyone has the time or desire to paint their stuff. It's not that much of a big deal to me.
And I'm still inexperienced enough in the hobby that, unpainted or not, I'm still not really able to tell units apart by sight yet, and so will still be asking "What the hell is that unit and what scary crap does it do?" of pretty much anything anyway, hehe.
Only read the first page of this, but one comment 'Its not your hobby, its a hobby' from eldarnoob. Yes thats true, but i don't think your paintball analogy works. Playing a tabletop wargame has different areas, modelling, painting, fluff, playing etc. And there is no obligation to do all of them, some people just paint and would never even think about playing. I think the number of people with un-painted armies is probably greater than the number of people who hate seeing unpainted models, if it really bothers you that much, you have two options, ignore it/stop playing or paint for them. I would love to have a fully painted army, and there is no good reason why I don't, I have the time to paint, its just really really boring. Once i got everything out and read to paint, got a drink and then couldn't be bothered so put it all away, another time i was home alone for 3 days, so had full use of the best table for painting, so i got everything out and planned to get quite a lot done over those 3 days, and ended up finishing a few details on a Rhino, and doing the first 3/4 stages of two other rhinos, because other things (anything) is just more enjoyable than painting.
What you need to consider really, is that you might not like someone having a painted army, but they might not like painting (or have the time, skill etc) and painting models against your own will certainly takes a lot more effort than playing/watching a game against unpainted models.
It's pretty easy to see both sides of the argument. On one hand, I know how to paint and make my models look how I want them to. I got into the hobby because of painting, because I liked the challenge in trying to paint like the guys in 1992 white dwarf mags.
It seems very plausible to me that people buy models because of how they look painted, wanting to reach that goal, falling short, and simply quitting for not wanting to put in the work, laziness, the learning curve, whatever. Painting, while often fun, can often be a chore if you want to get results. Especially banging out squad after squad; it is easy to get tired of painting. So in that respect, I can see why people don't paint their stuff.
Maybe it's a matter of pride for me, but I wouldn't get onstage and sing or play an instrument in front of people without having my performance at a presentable level. I wouldn't write the LSATs unless I'd studied. I won't field a sea of grey units, because if I have the ability to make those units look hot, or at least acceptable, I want to do that so I can be proud of my handiwork when I put them across from my opponent.
I don't have a problem playing against a sea of grey--I don't think my gak doesn't stink enough to cop attitude with people who don't paint their stuff--but at the same time, it's kind of sad and disappointing to see it month after month. After a while, there's not a ton of excuses to not making at least gradual progress on your stuff. if you can spend hours a day poring over army lists and making three different forces in army builder for every 50 pt increment from 750-2500, you can spend ten or fifteen minutes a day putting a basecoat down, or doing some highlighting, or whatever.
You can't make people take pride in their armies, or their bodies, or themselves. But you can set an example. Being a dill weed who will castigate someone for being a lazy fatass or having an unpainted force or no self esteem doesn't do them any favors, and worse still, makes you a sorry and petty human being. A real man sets the example and encourages people to reach their potential, he doesn't meet his own standards and tell people who haven't to f*ck off.
Option 3 - buy nicely painted figures off ebay cheaper than unpainted (although I guess some will consider that "cheating" to....sigh)
Option 4 - get someone else to paint them for you - not cheap (as above).
I don't enjoy using unpainted or just undercoated black figures but I also don't have time, inclination or skill to paint my figures (took me 15-20 years of wasted time, effort and plenty of ruined expensive models to realise that mind you).
I will take time to compliment people of cool painted minis and as I mentioned ealrier it might also be helpful for some poeple to explain to those starting out or in the early days what gets them stoked about painting, maybe give them tips and encourage them........
augustus5 wrote:
The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
You've got to chill out. If anyone's coming off as elitist and nasty in this thread, its you. I dont see why you feel the need to come after people who say they wont play against unpainted armies, who cares? There's nothing more strange about that than those who are saying they wont paint because of resale values.
Theres no reason to call anyone a baboon. You say the hobby is defined by the individual player, yet berate someone for their own definition, the very thing you're arguing against. Take a step back.
augustus5 wrote:
The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
You've got to chill out. If anyone's coming off as elitist and nasty in this thread, its you. I dont see why you feel the need to come after people who say they wont play against unpainted armies, who cares? There's nothing more strange about that than those who are saying they wont paint because of resale values.
Theres no reason to call anyone a baboon. You say the hobby is defined by the individual player, yet berate someone for their own definition, the very thing you're arguing against. Take a step back.
I agree with augustus5. I don't care if you refuse to play someone for having unpainted models, but you shouldn't berate people who don't enjoy the same aspects of the hobby as you.
Selected excerpts from the offending post:
"people who aren't worth playing"
"just a flacid excuse for being undisciplined"
"truly pathetic."
"in stores and in public, it's a terrible showing"
augustus5 wrote:
The nerve of this baboon. Not only do you come off sounding like an elitist jerk, you manage to try to define what the hobby is supposed to be for everyone else. I'm glad you avoid playing people with unpainted armies, because I'm sure playing a game with you would be no fun at all.
You've got to chill out. If anyone's coming off as elitist and nasty in this thread, its you. I dont see why you feel the need to come after people who say they wont play against unpainted armies, who cares? There's nothing more strange about that than those who are saying they wont paint because of resale values.
Theres no reason to call anyone a baboon. You say the hobby is defined by the individual player, yet berate someone for their own definition, the very thing you're arguing against. Take a step back.
Pretty much agree. I find it amusing that champions of choice (like the choice to take a hobby that DOES include painting and just ignore that part) will berate someone for choosing to only play against people who have the same dedication to the hobby. Not "your" hobby or "my" hobby but "THE" hobby, which unequivocably involves painting regardless of your own personal preferences and/or abilities. Feel free to ignore that part of the hobby as I can't force you to put paint on your models but don't tell me that it isn't a traditional, legitimate, and beneficial part of the experience. Just be man enough to admit you're simply ignoring that part of it instead of trying to redefine it for everyone according to your personal whims. I play against people who don't paint all the time in friendly games and don't really care but I'll only attend tournies that have a painting requirement. If I'm paying to play, I want eye candy on the table. The OP put it best (and I'll expand on it)... you can run around the woods in camo with an empty gun in a box and call your sport "paintball" because you're just not into the "shooting" thing and firing your gun makes it "used" so its resale value decreases... but don't be surprised if people prefer not to play with/against you or simply tell you you're doing it wrong.
You know all those threads between 'WAAC' vs 'Fluffy bunny' gamers, and all the vitriol that gets tossed about over what the 'right' way to play a game is?
So what? Those are his opinions, they may not be nice opinions, but they are his. As long as hes not singling out individual posters, it shouldnt be a big deal. Were supposed to be adults here.
Granted, the peasants comment was a little over the top.
warboss wrote: Just be man enough to admit you're simply ignoring that part of it instead of trying to redefine it for everyone according to your personal whims.
Agree 100%. Any way you slice it, not painting your minis while at the same time calling yourself a wargamer is lazy. There isnt anything horribly wrong with that, but youve got to man up and admit it. Its an integral part of the hobby. If you dont like to paint, whatever, just admit that youre choosing not to partake in an inherent and important facet of the hobby and the other half of what makes wargaming, wargaming.
I mean, I dont enjoy painting very much. Im not terribly good at it and I much prefer to convert and play the game. But I paint every model before I field it out of respect for the hobby. Maybe thats elitist, I dont really care.
I agree with augustus5. I don't care if you refuse to play someone for having unpainted models, but you shouldn't berate people who don't enjoy the same aspects of the hobby as you.
As long as you don't berate people who refuse to play against the unpainted models.
It sounds like you can call someone declining a game a "baboon" and "elitist" but if you call someone who didn't paint "lazy" the world has ended.
Both sides are namecalling, but only one side makes and action that is a burden to opponents and makes the game harder to play fairly... The person who showed up with painted models requires no concessions from their opponent and places no burden upon them. The same cannot be said for unapinted/unWYSIWYG/PROXIES/unclear Counts as/Tokens as each progressively negatively impacts the ability to play the game. Players should have every right to decide at what level the degraded experience of the game is something they are not willing to accept.
I just started playing this game a little over a year ago myself. Not all of my minis are currently painted. Why, you ask? Several reasons:
1) Choice - When I look into buying stuff and my choice comes down to spending money on new models or spending money on extraneous supplies, I almost always choose models. I have the same issue with magic cards, I would rather buy cards than sleeves or boxes, it's why most of my cards are pretty beat.
2) Time - Most nights I get about an hour and a half to dedicate to reading/watching tv/painting/prepping RPG stuff, etc. I cannot paint every night for that hour and a half, my ADHD (no joke) will not allow it.
3) Lack of artistic talent - I try, but most of my models are pathetic. I don't mind so much for the basic troops, but I just recently had to strip all of the paint off of a Carnifex model because even my untrained eye realized exactly how horrid it looked. I really have issues ruining 50+ dollar models with horrible painting. The wings on my gargoyles are still black because I can't make them look the way I want them to.
I'm glad the group I play with is much more forgiving than a lot of the people posting here or I would never get to play. I love this game, but find painting to be like a job that I don't get paid for.
Battlesong wrote:I just started playing this game a little over a year ago myself. Not all of my minis are currently painted. Why, you ask? Several reasons:
1) Choice - When I look into buying stuff and my choice comes down to spending money on new models or spending money on extraneous supplies, I almost always choose models. I have the same issue with magic cards, I would rather buy cards than sleeves or boxes, it's why most of my cards are pretty beat.
2) Time - Most nights I get about an hour and a half to dedicate to reading/watching tv/painting/prepping RPG stuff, etc. I cannot paint every night for that hour and a half, my ADHD (no joke) will not allow it.
3) Lack of artistic talent - I try, but most of my models are pathetic. I don't mind so much for the basic troops, but I just recently had to strip all of the paint off of a Carnifex model because even my untrained eye realized exactly how horrid it looked. I really have issues ruining 50+ dollar models with horrible painting. The wings on my gargoyles are still black because I can't make them look the way I want them to.
I'm glad the group I play with is much more forgiving than a lot of the people posting here or I would never get to play. I love this game, but find painting to be like a job that I don't get paid for.
While there are extremes on both ends, you'll find that most people on the "pro" painting side (not to be confused with the ebay "pro-painted" descriptor) would simply prefer to play against painted armies and can/do play against unpainted ones. I personally encourage people to play and show progress towards an ultimate goal of painted armies but don't refuse to play anyone in a friendly game unless their personality reminds me of an unflushed toilet bowl (which is totally unrelated to painting). Personally, I only respond in these threads because of the vehement denial of painting as part of THE hobby (no such thing as "your" or "my" hobby, just parts of THE hobby you choose to participate in or ignore) and the sheer hypocrisy of people who cry "it's my choice not to paint!" but berate others for expressing a choice about who they prefer to play against.
My original play group had the right idea. Show up each week with some sort of progress made. First week all grey. Next week at least have models primed. The base coat them. Just make progress. Because of that I can field a mostly painted Army. Use to have a 1750 BA List completely painted. Then 2 editions and 2 codex later I can do a competitive army painted around 1500 or so. Why? Because I have been completely changing units out, and changing individual models out as well.
BTW I much rather play unpainted models, than play a completely "painted" army that looks like it wsa dipped in a vat of paint 3 times. And it looked that way because the person was rushing to get things painted and not taking their time. But I would never refuse to play them, and I would never talk down about their painting skills. If they ask I will give helpful suggestions.
nkelsch wrote:It sounds like you can call someone declining a game a "baboon" and "elitist" but if you call someone who didn't paint "lazy" the world has ended.
Like I said, I don't care about those who refuse to play against unpainted armies. But when you refer to those who don't paint as "peasants" or worse, you're being a jerk.
And your analogy is off. Calling those who don't paint "lazy" would be like calling those who do paint "baboons." I'm pretty sure no one has degraded others for choosing to paint their miniatures.
nkelsch wrote:
As long as you don't berate people who refuse to play against the unpainted models.
It sounds like you can call someone declining a game a "baboon" and "elitist" but if you call someone who didn't paint "lazy" the world has ended.
Both sides are namecalling...
Comprehension fail, I didn't call Augustus a baboon because of his choice to play only painted armies, but rather for the way he said it. As I pointed out to Ssgt Carl:
augustus5 wrote:Normally, I would not judge somebody for the way they choose to play the game or define their hobby, but there have been a couple people in this thread, that are defining the hobby for everyone, and doing it in a nasty sort of way. We all have found something we enjoy about wargaming, we all don't like the same things about wargaming. What I have done, with the baboon comment, is not to judge somebody based on how they enjoy their hobby, but to rather judge one who sought to judge others based on their hobby preferences.
My baboon comment to Augustus was in direct response to his defining what the hobby is to Everyone, and doing it in a nasty sort of way. There have been others who have posted in this thread stating their choice to play against painted armies only and I respect their ability to articulate it in such a way as too not offend others. Augustus came off sounding like a baboon riding high on the horse, and so I called him out on it. I still have zero problem with the fact that some people might not want to play against me if I bring one of my unpainted armies to the table. It will not hurt my feelings. Each person should be allowed to enjoy the hobby as they see fit. TOs should be able to place whatever restrictions they choose in their events. This isn't organized sport, this is a hobby.
Sure they have. We're called "Nerds".
I think that we can rest assured that we are all viewed as nerds to some degree because of our chosen hobby.
augustus5 wrote:...you come off sounding like an elitist jerk...
Yes I know, I can accept that. I don't take offense to it either, but I will stick to my position, painting is integral.
Let me ad, I do not advocate 'talking down anyone's paint job(s)', whatever they may be. I just expect people to try. There's a difference between trying, (with whatever results) and playing unpainted while belligerently claiming painting isn't a part of the hobby (if you don't want it to be), not the same! Furthermore the thread started out as a public display, as in playing at stores etc.
From the onset of the thread, I agree with the OP, I hate seeing an army of unpainted minis on the Tabletop at venues of any kind.
To reiterate: what people do in their own confines, up to them, I have no opinion.
mikhaila wrote:...I'd say he's more defining his hobby. You don't like his hobby so to you he's an elitist jerk. To him your the lazy peasant who can't be bothered to paint.
Luckily, both of you can still go have fun, and find people to play. Although, I have to admit, if you both walked in on the same day, I'd play the guy with the painted army. Nicer scenery to look at as I get massacred.
Thanks, indeed. Though I am not calling Luna or Augustus5 anything and I do not claim to define the hobby. It's already defined, in the published material the company makes, where there are never any unpainted miniatures. I surely didn't define painting miniatures as a part of the hobby, GW does.
augustus5 wrote:...We all have found something we enjoy about wargaming, we all don't like the same things about wargaming.....
LunaHound wrote:@_@ nicely written
Wow that's really sappy, why don't you two just hand out participation ribbons so everyone can be a winner then.
Let me explain this with an example,
I like to shoot baskets, I'm pretty bad at it, but its a good way to bring my heart rate down after a work out, but I don't really play basketball. When a group of people come in to play an actual game in my gym, I always yield the long court, either leaving or going to another hoop, as they are the real players. Sometimes I play with them, if they have an odd number and need a man. This is just good etiquette for a shared space. I know I'm not much of a player and the only piece of the game I really like is shooting, I have no skill for the tactics, endurance for the long games and running or aptitude for the coaching and plays. So I can understand the 'like part of it' perspective, but...
I don't call myself a basketball player.
I don't think what I do is playing basketball.
I don't claim the sport is just about shooting free throws and forget the rest, because that's all I like.
I acknowledge better players than me, and yield the courts when they want to play, or I participate at their level as I can, sometimes I even improve a little on a good day.
This isn't prejudiced or nasty, it's just the way of things and proves the point that painting is part of the hobby, just like basketball is about a lot of things besides shooting free throws, and those who don't do it all, aren't 'bad' just something less.
augustus5 wrote:Normally, I would not judge somebody for the way they choose to play the game or define their hobby, but...
I will, when they choose to ignore integral parts of the hobby.
augustus5 wrote:I think that the hobby is defined by the player. Every person has their own idea of what the hobby is too them.
How many battle reports in white dwarf are done with unpainted figures? How many images of new GW product come with just images of the bare metal models? How many examples in the rulebook show bare metal or plastic figures? None. Painting this as 'me' defining the hobby for everyone:
people in this thread, that are defining the hobby for everyone
is a poor argument, when painting is such an obvious part of it, just like dribbling, offense, defense, plays, scores, uniforms, teams and athleticism are all parts of basketball. They don't sell prepainted figures, it isn't a board game some people 'choose' to make minis for, there are no depictions in official material of playing with unpainted models. They sell paint and tools!
Why is it painting can so easily be 'divorced from the hobby' and that's legitimate, anymore so than removing any other part? It's because undisciplined people want to be included the same as everyone else when they haven't earned it and 'call it OK'. It's not.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
augustus5 wrote:... Augustus came off sounding like a baboon riding high on the horse, and so I called him out on it...
OK I went and looked at Augustus5 gallery, it all makes sense now.
Is this your unpainted army?
Do you use it for play?
Here's some of mine:
Call out heard, and answered.
Back when you had to prime every mini with a brush by hand, and speed-painting tools weren't really being used, I could see not having a fully painted army. Nowadays it really is just laziness though. It takes all of a weekend to get an entire army painted to an acceptable 3 color standard. Through a combination of spraypaint, dips, drybrushing, and speed-weathering, you should be able to paint a decent, cohesive looking army in a weekend.
I really don't buy the "I have no time!" argument. If you have time to fart around a game store on the weekend then you have the time. You're simply choosing not to paint your stuff.
augustus5 wrote:...you come off sounding like an elitist jerk...
Yes I know, I can accept that. I don't take offense to it either, but I will stick to my position, painting is integral.
Painting is integral to some...
[quoteAugustus]Let me ad, I do not advocate 'talking down anyone's paint job(s)', whatever they may be. I just expect people to try. There's a difference between trying, (with whatever results) and playing unpainted while belligerently claiming painting isn't a part of the hobby (if you don't want it to be), not the same! Furthermore the thread started out as a public display, as in playing at stores etc.
So let the store owners decide what they want in their shop. If a FLGS has no opinion about the state on one's models, then don't try to say that the people playing there are in the wrong for playing with grey models. When there was a GW store near me, I brought my painted armies out when I played there, because that was what was expected. I'm perfectly content to play a grey army at my FLGS if I choose because many other people do the same, and it is an accepted there. The hobby is defined by the player or the group of players playing. There are no universal special rules concerning painted minis, no matter how hard you wish it to be so.
Augustus wrote:
Let me explain this with an example,
I like to shoot baskets, I'm pretty bad at it, but its a good way to bring my heart rate down after a work out, but I don't really play basketball. When a group of people come in to play an actual game in my gym, I always yield the long court, either leaving or going to another hoop, as they are the real players. Sometimes I play with them, if they have an odd number and need a man. This is just good etiquette for a shared space. I know I'm not much of a player and the only piece of the game I really like is shooting, I have no skill for the tactics, endurance for the long games and running or aptitude for the coaching and plays. So I can understand the 'like part of it' perspective, but...
I don't call myself a basketball player.
I don't think what I do is playing basketball.
I don't claim the sport is just about shooting free throws and forget the rest, because that's all I like.
I acknowledge better players than me, and yield the courts when they want to play, or I participate at their level as I can, sometimes I even improve a little on a good day.
This isn't prejudiced or nasty, it's just the way of things and proves the point that painting is part of the hobby, just like basketball is about a lot of things besides shooting free throws, and those who don't do it all, aren't 'bad' just something less.
You have managed to come off sounding even more arrogant than before. Judging by your little example above, you think that:
People who play with an unpainted army should not call themselves wargamers.
People who play with an unpainted army shouldn't think they are playing 40k? (or whatever other game I suppose)
People shouldn't claim that wargaming is just about playing games, because that is the aspect that they enjoy.
People who play an unpainted army should avert their eyes when a person with a painted army waltzes in and immediately yield their table to them, because they are obviously better players.
I think you have failed to show that painting is universally part of the hobby. It is part of some people's hobbies, but not all people's hobbies. People who gather to play in a FLGS which does not set restrictions about painting should not worry about your opinion, they should worry about the opinion of the store owner, and the opinions of the majority of the gamers there. Groups of gamers will tend to define what is generally accepted or not accepted in a certain place.
augustus5 wrote:Normally, I would not judge somebody for the way they choose to play the game or define their hobby, but...
Augustus wrote:I will, when they choose to ignore integral parts of the hobby.
You are attempting to define the hobby for them. Only the individual player or the group of players can define what the hobby is. There are certainly no universally accepted set of guidelines for what the hobby is.
augustus5 wrote:I think that the hobby is defined by the player. Every person has their own idea of what the hobby is too them.
Augustus wrote:How many battle reports in white dwarf are done with unpainted figures? How many images of new GW product come with just images of the bare metal models? How many examples in the rulebook show bare metal or plastic figures? None. Painting this as 'me' defining the hobby for everyone:
augustus5 wrote:people in this thread, that are defining the hobby for everyone
Augustus wrote:is a poor argument, when painting is such an obvious part of it, just like dribbling, offense, defense, plays, scores, uniforms, teams and athleticism are all parts of basketball. They don't sell prepainted figures, it isn't a board game some people 'choose' to make minis for, there are no depictions in official material of playing with unpainted models. They sell paint and tools!
If I were promoting the sales of miniatures I sell, and also promoting the sales of paint I sell, I sure as hell would show every model painted nicely in my magazine. It doesn't change the fact that many people are into the hobby because they enjoy the game and the fluff, and don't wish to paint. To all of those people, painting is not part of their hobby, no matter what names you call them, or how badly you wish for uniformity of your view. People are part of this hobby for many different reasons.
Using sports as analogy (following your example): I belong to a group of people who play soccer on the weekends. It is very informal. We do not wear jerseys, or have organized teams. We meet up, choose teams before the game and play. Are we playing soccer? Even though we do not wear jerseys, do not pay somebody to referee the game, do not play offense or defense as organized as a professional or otherwise organized team might play? We certainly are not as athletic as a school or professional team. Are we just peasant posers giving the sport a bad name?
To me, painting is no more an obvious part of wargaming than wearing a jersey or having organized teams and schedules is to playing soccer. We play soccer in a way that works for us. We wargame in a way that works for us. If I want to go play in a more organized soccer league, I'll need to adjust my approach, and probably wear a proper uniform and shin guards, and show up for practices. If I want to play in a GT, I'll have to break out one of my painted armies. The sport and the game can be defined differently depending on the individual or the group, but it can not be universally defined.
Augustus wrote:Why is it painting can so easily be 'divorced from the hobby' and that's legitimate, anymore so than removing any other part? It's because undisciplined people want to be included the same as everyone else when they haven't earned it and 'call it OK'. It's not.
You can not divorce something that was never married to the hobby. Even though there was a time when every big event had painting restrictions, that is no longer the case today. And even back in those days there were still people who played the game with unpainted figures. I'm all for TOs staging events with whatever restrictions they choose, or store owners setting restrictions on their tables. I can choose to play in said or event/store or not. I'm against people trying to force their vision of the hobby on anyone else, and name calling in the process. I'll reiterate that what I said to Augustus was not over how he chooses to play the game, but over how he has made clear that he wishes to define the hobby to everyone else.
Oh, and bravo, Augustus, for the way you showed me up by pointing out my unpainted army pictures and then posting pictures of your painted army. I take back everything I said about you being an elitist jerk and a baboon. Not to mention the stuff about you coming off as arrogant. You really showed me the light...
Nuggz wrote:I really don't buy the "I have no time!" argument. If you have time to fart around a game store on the weekend then you have the time. You're simply choosing not to paint your stuff.
I don't have time to do a lot of things that are not a priority to me. Perhaps many people don't place a priority on painting their miniatures. Perhaps many people don't view painting as part of their hobby.
Augustus wrote:Wow that's really sappy, why don't you two just hand out participation ribbons so everyone can be a winner then.
What... the... heck? what was the point of that post?
Whats the point of digging out his unpainted stuff and digging out your painted stuff? What exactly does that proof?
That you enjoy painting aspect of warhammer while some others doesn't?
Nuggz wrote:I really don't buy the "I have no time!" argument. If you have time to fart around a game store on the weekend then you have the time. You're simply choosing not to paint your stuff.
I don't have time to do a lot of things that are not a priority to me. Perhaps many people don't place a priority on painting their miniatures. Perhaps many people don't view painting as part of their hobby.
See the underlined portion above.
I suspect that this is the case with everyone. There's a difference between "I have no time" and "I don't want to".
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jbunny wrote:So you are saying you can paint an entire army like Augustus 5 in a Weekend?
Eldar respond very well to speedpainting. Using airbrush (or spraypaint) and dips you could easily do an entire army in a weekend.
Vehicles (inc jetbikes): spray bottom black, spray top solid dark color, spray edges lighter color. Black out cockpits. Done.
Infantry: Spray base color, paint helms another color, paint guns black, dip. Done.
Then just dullcote the entire thing. Done in a day.
augustus5 wrote:...We all have found something we enjoy about wargaming, we all don't like the same things about wargaming.....
LunaHound wrote:@_@ nicely written
Wow that's really sappy, why don't you two just hand out participation ribbons so everyone can be a winner then.
LunaHound wrote:What... the... heck? what was the point of that post?
The point of that post was to offer counterpoint to you congratulating augustus5. Well said that everyone can decide what the hobby is? by selectively omiting parts like painting? I disagree with both of you.
Also, intended as a humorous attack: What... the... heck? what was the point of this post??
LunaHound wrote:Whats the point of digging out his unpainted stuff and digging out your painted stuff? What exactly does that proof?
That augustus5 is taking this personally because he may play with unpainted armies, and to show, he's not in my league.
Augustus wrote:Is this your unpainted army?
Do you use it for play?
After he called me out I figured I'd go see if he had images of unpainted stuff in his gallery, and low and behold, SURPRISE, he does. Now I don't know for sure what they are, but obviously there was enough pride in them to upload and display 4 images of unpainted stuff. Why would someone do that if they weren't proud of it? See whats happening here is I came on strong in this thread, got called on it and actually exposed augustus5 as one of the unpainted players the op was posting about not liking in the first place and augustus5 got offended.
augustus5 wrote:Are we just peasant posers giving the sport a bad name?
I wouldn't go that far, I'd say the group is just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around, that doesn't make you soccer players.
If I said I didn't like the assault phase and played the game with marbles and cardboard in your store on the floor with jackets over books for terrain would you really think that's ok? What if I said for me it's just about the game play part...
wowsmash wrote:Enough both sides are wrong. I sentence you all to 20 lashes by wippy stick. So says the emperor.
For your crimes said lashes will take place immediately and be administered by the ork cheerleader from blood bowl.
P.s. It amuses me when a nerd tells another nerd to man up, continue if you dare.
I have made no claims for either side to be right.
Infact i have stated numerous times that GW is built upon the different type of customers ( i even quoted Yakface's poll results )
All i asked was for everyone to respect the existence of each other, get along, because they are all important to Warhammer no matter their personal preference.
So I guess I found the answer to my question then. Seems some people would rather no one played the game at all if it meant they were playing with unpainted models.
augustus5 wrote:
I think you have failed to show that painting is universally part of the hobby. It is part of some people's hobbies, but not all people's hobbies. People who gather to play in a FLGS which does not set restrictions about painting should not worry about your opinion, they should worry about the opinion of the store owner, and the opinions of the majority of the gamers there. Groups of gamers will tend to define what is generally accepted or not accepted in a certain place.
You are attempting to define the hobby for them. Only the individual player or the group of players can define what the hobby is. There are certainly no universally accepted set of guidelines for what the hobby is.
I think some common sense has to be applied. You seem to think that the god of wargaming has to write in magical ink : "painting is part of miniatures wargaming" or else you can do whatever you want and if you want to call it 'wargaming' well, then it is because you said so. Wargaming is a huge hobby with a lot of parts and NO ONE does all of them or even has fun doing all of them. It's kind of silly to say that means they are all doing different hobbies. It shouldn't take some official document for anyone to look around and see that painting is very major part of the hobby. Its fine if you you don't want to do that part, but just because you and your buddies don't like doesn't mean its not part of the hobby. If you want to say we are not doing the same hobby, fine, but don't call us both wargamers. You would be, perhaps, a "Model assembling table top strategist" and I could be a "dice rolling miltary model artist"... or is that kind of silly?
You seem to be stuck on this idea of 'defining'. Lets talk about defining. Where do you come off defining who gets to decide what the hobby is? As easily as you can say that the 'community' is just the people at the FLGS or only the people you play with or just you, I can say that anyone who pretends that one toy soldier kills another is part of the gaming community. I may never play a game with you or even meet you, but why do you get to decide that that means I'm not a part of the same hobby you are?
Certainly different groups will have different rules. Just like one group may play 40k and another may play Warmachine. Does that mean they are doing different hobbies? Different locally accepted guidelines does not somehow make it a differnt hobby.
Since the inception of modern gaming (I'm speaking of commercial gaming for the masses), about the time of Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years to One Hundred and Fifty and for that More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Games and Books, painted models have been part of the hobby. Actually, Wells thought that dice and tables shouldn't be part of it.
So I ask, can't we all just do the parts we wan't, have fun, get along even if we sometimes wish the other guy would act differently AND admit we are all part of the same big happy family?
Stunami wrote:I paint and get armies painted because of what I want to do. I'm not going to tell someone else how to have fun.
This! Honestly if you paint or dont paint doesnt matter to me as long as you have fun. As far as the your not a wargamer becuase you don't do what i do is pointless. The only thing that your saying is I'm better than you wether you mean it or not, thats what that statement says. If thats what you want to say then say, dont try and play it of as anything other than how dare you call yourself a wargamer, you didnt put the time and effort that i did into this hobby. please stop its very fail.
Even the lowest level of basketball has appearance aspects built in to the core component of the game. There is a reason why we do 'shirts and skins' because distinguishing team mates from opponent as an instinctual reflex is an integral part of the game. Not having uniforms can degrade the quality of the game and burden players who have to waste critical time distinguishing players opposed to making decisions and actions.
Unpainted models often have issues with being unable to clearly distinguish units. It degrades gameplay which means it cannot be divorced from the game without degrading the overall quality and experience of the game.
Let's see professional sports without uniforms and see how degraded and impacted the gameplay is.
Stunami wrote:I paint and get armies painted because of what I want to do. I'm not going to tell someone else how to have fun.
This! Honestly if you paint or dont paint doesnt matter to me as long as you have fun. As far as the your not a wargamer becuase you don't do what i do is pointless. The only thing that your saying is I'm better than you wether you mean it or not, thats what that statement says. If thats what you want to say then say, dont try and play it of as anything other than how dare you call yourself a wargamer, you didnt put the time and effort that i did into this hobby. please stop its very fail.
40kers are quite oblivious to the wider world of the Hobby. Masses of grey minis are almost exclusively a 40k phenomenon. You simply dont see it with historicals and other wargames, usually. So for people to just claim that painting isnt necessarily part of the Hobby because a fair amount of people in their own tiny niche of it also dont paint is just absurd.
Of course painting is part of it, its integral. You can define the hobby for yourself (whatever that means) all you want, and of course you have every right to play the game however you like, but dont try to redefine something as it pertains to the wider world. Wargaming is about assembling, collecting, playing and painting miniature soldiers. Thats just what it is. No one is forcing you to do all those things, but thats still what it is.
I'm gunna have to slightly disagree then. I never said it was not part of the hobby. i love to paint and am painting my first army.
What integral is up for debate and is pretty much opinion based so there is no right or wrong. Yes I'm aware that GW does the whole you must be painted to play in our stores, but not everyone has access to GW stores. I dont and any LGS in my area doesnt care much about 40k. Were tolerated as long as we dont get in the way of the MTG guys.
Im not trying to redefine anything. What i take issues with is it appears that certain "elitest" are basicly trying to dictate how people play warhammer. Wether you like it or not thats how some of us play. You can't make us stop, all you can do is not play us and to be honest im fine with that. There are certain individuals in this thread (not naming anyone in particular) that if there in person behavor is anything like what they come across on the internet. I wouldnt find it a great loss to not be able to play them.
As far as i go i dont look at your army wether its painted/not painted or all the models are what you see is what you get or not. Its going to be based on you. Are you fun or not. do you presume to tell others what to do (i don't consider giving tips or advice in a friendly manner telling people what to do)
wowsmash wrote:
What integral is up for debate and is pretty much opinion based so there is no right or wrong. Yes I'm aware that GW does the whole you must be painted to play in our stores, but not everyone has access to GW stores. I dont and any LGS in my area doesnt care much about 40k. Were tolerated as long as we dont get in the way of the MTG guys.
What individual store policies are arent really relevant. I wouldnt agree with a store not allowing you to play with unpainted minis, thats just dumb. However, any self respecting gaming club should make it a point.
wowsmash wrote:Im not trying to redefine anything. What i take issues with is it appears that certain "elitest" are basicly trying to dictate how people play warhammer. Wether you like it or not thats how some of us play. You can't make us stop, all you can do is not play us and to be honest im fine with that. There are certain individuals in this thread (not naming anyone in particular) that if there in person behavor is anything like what they come across on the internet. I wouldnt find it a great loss to not be able to play them.
Play the game anyway you want, I dont care. Id still play against your unpainted army. In the back of my mind Id still think youre a tad lazy, but whatever. Im not a jerk so I wouldnt say anything. However, just because you dont paint your minis does not mean that painting isnt an inherent part of wargaming, because it is. If you dont want to partake in that, thats cool, just dont say it isnt a part of the hobby. This isnt MTG or a boardgame. 40k doesnt stand alone, it is a part of a much wider subculture that has a history and tradition, like it or not.
Im not trying to tell anyone what to do. Im just stating a fact as to what miniature wargaming is as a hobby.
wowsmash wrote:
As far as i go i dont look at your army wether its painted/not painted or all the models are what you see is what you get or not. Its going to be based on you. Are you fun or not. do you presume to tell others what to do (i don't consider giving tips or advice in a friendly manner telling people what to do)
This kind of made me think a game I played several years ago. It was a western skirmish where each player had about 4 figs. The gamemaster had allowed more slots than he had finished figures for. A few players were given bare metal cowboys. At several points players had difficulty figuring out whos was whos and figuring out what they were carrying. The experience was undeniably worse for everyone than it would have been if the figs were painted. I'm not saying it was a horrible experience or that it was the end of the world, but there is more to miniatures wargaming than whether or not your opponent is fun. If that's all there was to it, then we would just sit across from each other and see who rolled highest the most times. This story isn't to try to tell you to paint or to game differently, just as something to think about. I think, for the most part I agree with the spirit of the point you are trying to make.
40kers are quite oblivious to the wider world of the Hobby. Masses of grey minis are almost exclusively a 40k phenomenon.\
I guess you don't play Warmachine?
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baboon wrote:That augustus5 is taking this personally because he may play with unpainted armies, and to show, he's not in my league.
After he called me out I figured I'd go see if he had images of unpainted stuff in his gallery, and low and behold, SURPRISE, he does. Now I don't know for sure what they are, but obviously there was enough pride in them to upload and display 4 images of unpainted stuff. Why would someone do that if they weren't proud of it? See whats happening here is I came on strong in this thread, got called on it and actually exposed augustus5 as one of the unpainted players the op was posting about not liking in the first place and augustus5 got offended.
Not that I'm in the habit of validating myself to baboons, but those pictures are in my gallery because the army was for sale in the swap shop. It sold last week and the pictures have not been taken down. I post pictures of the models I post to my swap shop thread periodically.
I don't have pictures posted of any of the armies I play, unpainted or otherwise.
Bottom line is it's a game. It's supposed to relieve stress not increase it. If you take everything so seriously all the time it's not enjoyable to be round.
40kers are quite oblivious to the wider world of the Hobby. Masses of grey minis are almost exclusively a 40k phenomenon.\
I guess you don't play Warmachine?
No, I dont. But Id say it falls under a similar category. Sci-fi/fantasy games tend to be the biggest offenders.
I think you're right, about it being a sci-fi/fantasy thing. We don't have a regular historical wargamers group at the FLGS I frequent, but at any event I can remember, I have never seen an unpainted army among that crowd. Maybe there is so much realism that goes into those types of games that the people who play all share a desire to have their figures represent the real world equivalent as closely as possible.
I'm just keeping my army true to the background. All the artwork in my codex is in black, white, and grey, so...grey minis are more fluffy than your painted ones. :3
I really don't see unpainted minis as a problem, although I can understand why some people would.
I have quite a few unpainted models. Some of them are unpainted because I'm sick of painting that model (I have 300+ Necron warriors.) Some are unpainted because I do not believe that my painting skills are up to the task. (Like my terminator chaplain, I don't think I can do such an awesome model justice.) Others are unpainted because I haven't gotten to them yet. (If I'm working on painting my chaos lord, how can I pain SMtac squads?) I don't like to field unpainted models, but a lot of times I don't have a choice.
Now a friend of mine is an amazing painter, and refuses to field unpainted models, but he doesn't care about other people's armies. Another friend of mine is an atrocious painter, I cringe when I see his models. He knows this, so a lot of his models are unpainted. They look better in gray than if he gets at them with a paintbrush.
I had never heard of people refusing to play unpainted armies until I joined Dakka. I had never dreamed that someone would insult another human being simply because said person did not want to (or could not) sit down for hours and hours and paint minis, because lets face it, painting is a pain. Even if it's easy, it still takes a long time, and thats time I can spend playing Minecraft.
If you want to paint your minis, that's cool. I love seeing painted armies. If you don't want to play unpainted armies, that is ok as well. But, DO NOT insult another person because they don't spend hours painting their miniatures. If that's what you enjoy, fine. But play nice with the other kids.
Warhammer 40,000 is a fun game. Really, really fun. There are very few things I enjoy as much as playing 40k. Some people just want to enjoy the game, and attempting to force them into spending hours doing something they don't enjoy is going to achieve nothing more than driving them away from the game. If they just wanna play, that is just fine.
Well.. one thing, I would challenge the assertion that an unpainted model looks better than one painted, however badly the painted model is completed. I'm pretty average (probably below average looking at some of the other armies I have seen) but managing to get a unified look across a force, and consistency, means that it will always look far superior on a tabletop to a grey horde. And actually, having spent a lot of time working in GW and then an Indy, even young kids who are new to the hobby and haven't learned any real painting techniques beyond an undercoat are able to make something that looks better than unpainted.
Of course I would never not play someone who hasn't painted their force, but I find that other things tie in with coming up against someone who consistently doesn't bother to paint their minis:
- lack of respect for models on the tabletop, both of the player in question and their opponent. I have seen models get removed and then thrown in the dead pile like so much refuse. I once had a perilously perched, unpainted master of deathwing (actually, just half a model) tumble down some stairs and break my assault squad. The guy was really apologetic about it, but I don't think that would have happened had even the slightest bit of effort been put into it. I have seen this happen dozens of times over the years, even if its just when a horde of unpainted and unarmed (literally no arms) orks get shovelled into a close combat and end up knocking some of your models to the ground and damaging them.
Because they often have no concept of having to be careful about their own minis, it's far more likely a wayward sleeve will go over the tabletop and send one of your minis falling to their doom off the edge of the table. Again, this is just based on observations over the years.
- overall aesthetic. The best games I have ever played, the most cinematic and the best looking, have been with 2 painted armies on well made terrain. I am sure this is the same for many people. 'Turn signals on a landraider' the 40k comic used to joke about coke bottles and the like being proxies for Carnifexes, but that joke was based on reality. I have seen such situations and worse, while it doesn't destroy enjoyment of the game, I think it handicaps it.
- Finally, with a painted army (and again, I don't think it has to be well painted) you are much, much less likely to be that guy on the sidelines with no opponent during pick-up games or social nights.
My only counter argument to this, and this was raised by Chibi earlier in the thread, is that some of the new armies these days are so massive that players simply get overwhelmed. Understanding how much time it is going to paint those blocks of 50 infantry for WFB, like being stood at the base of a mountain, many people I think simply don't bother. I can understand this sentiment - for many of us, we started playing when the model counts were much lower, and if you are able to build up an army over the years and then add to it then that mitigates some of the time/effort issues. That being said, there are better paints these days (the likes of washes and even army dipping) which let you get results far, far more quickly than was the case when I started the hobby.
So! In conclusion, yet it's not the be-all-and-end-all, but I think there are definite benefits to having a painted force on the tabletop, and overall it is definitely a preferential experience if you can manage it.
Pacific wrote:Well.. one thing, I would challenge the assertion that an unpainted model looks better than one painted, however badly the painted model is completed.
You would change your mind if you saw these. I swear he dips them in house paint and calls it good. You can barely recognize some of the models anymore.
I don't want to sound like a jerk, but the OP, your post sorta reeks of smugness.
I'm happy you have a 900 point army that is "FULLY PAINTED", and I'm sorry you see a few guys who have been in the hobby longer than you that don't have fully painted armies, but have you ever considered they also likely have more armies and more minis than you do?
I have ~2500 necrons, ~3500 tyranids, and ~4000 grey knights. My necrons are about 80% painted, tyranids about 60% painted, and Grey knights just have a coat of chain mail armor on them washed with black and if some new player came up to me and judged me for not having my grey knights fully painted... well he'd get a pretty bad rep in our close knit gaming community.
Don't be so self righteous because you're battle force is painted and you had the time to do it , where the other people may have other obligations in their lives other than sit down and paint.
Again, I'm sorry if I came off as a jerk, but nobody has any right to tell anybody how to enjoy the hobby.
I agree with Cryage.
I'm a highschool student, working 2 jobs. I don't have time to paint all of my armies.
I have 4000+ of tau, 2500 IG , 1500 daemons, 1000 eldar jetbikes, and the beginning of a skitarii army. I'd say that at least 1/2 (in the skitarii, 100%) of my models have been converted or customized in some way and the only things I have painted or even plan on painting anytime in the near future are about half of the IG, 200 points of my tau, and the jetbikes, but only because they're my adepticon army, otherwise I would never have brought paint anywhere near then.
I love the hobby, but I am an awful painter and never have time to sit down and paint something, especially since I'm busy converting.
At my local store, no one cares if the other persons army is painted or not. I mean, sure, if someone has an exceptional army, it will be praised, thats just how things work, but if its not painted, no one makes a big deal about it.
And, honestly, my army may not be painted, but there is a story behind every model. When we play, its not just throwing dice, we're playing out a battle, telling the story of all the characters involved. My IG tanks have kill markings on the barrels of their cannons, and I could tell you what every single one of them was from. I had a guardsmen fall off of a tall piece of terrain once while in an assualt with a farseer. His arm fell off, but I stood him back up on the terrain and ended up killing the farseer. I replaced the arm with a converted bionic arm that I made and he now holds his chainsword in one hand, and the head of an eldar in his other.
My unpainted grey blob has much more character than your 900 points of painted eldar.
So tell you what, if you want to find time to sit down and paint my 10000 points or so of minis for me to your standards, then be my guest, but until then, I will continue to play unpainted becaues I enjoy the game.
Cryage wrote:I don't want to sound like a jerk, but the OP, your post sorta reeks of smugness.
I'm happy you have a 900 point army that is "FULLY PAINTED", and I'm sorry you see a few guys who have been in the hobby longer than you that don't have fully painted armies, but have you ever considered they also likely have more armies and more minis than you do?
I have ~2500 necrons, ~3500 tyranids, and ~4000 grey knights. My necrons are about 80% painted, tyranids about 60% painted, and Grey knights just have a coat of chain mail armor on them washed with black and if some new player came up to me and judged me for not having my grey knights fully painted... well he'd get a pretty bad rep in our close knit gaming community.
Don't be so self righteous because you're battle force is painted and you had the time to do it , where the other people may have other obligations in their lives other than sit down and paint.
Again, I'm sorry if I came off as a jerk, but nobody has any right to tell anybody how to enjoy the hobby.
At least you got something painted.
From my perspective, I'm one of those guys that will only field a fully painted army. I know others that really have time constraints and do not have a painted army. I'm cool with that. These are not the people I have any problems with in gaming with them.
Then there are those who are embarrassed/afraid about their lack of painting skill.
Painting is subjective by nature. Not everyone paints golden daemon quality or even table top quality. There is no true right way of painting, but many of these people are not told about this and only see how daunting this task could be. I do hope that more people do try to paint their armies but I understand why they do not and will openly game with them as well.
What people in my region are getting somewhat annoyed are the people that pick up the "army of the month" quickly put it together and that is that. I am not talking about the Timmy 10 year olds. I'm talking about the young bucks to the old nerdy neck beards. Almost most of these people have the WAAC metaphorically Tattooed on their foreheads. And WAACing is the only thing that they know in their pathetic lives. The rest are just plain LaZy... yes with a capital Z to emphasis how lazy they are. And for some strange reason some of them are even proud of their "laziness". Go figure.
What I believe is happening is that some of us old timers are bundling all 4 different groups of non painters that I have posted here into one larger group which I would consider an inappropriate action on their part.
You play against the opponent, not the models on the table. Two painted armies are great to see, but this is the sign of the times. Accept that as you will.
A friendly game with a good nature opponent with an unpainted army is certainly better than one who is total jerk with a painted one.
^^Agree, it is fantastic to see a fully painted army vs a fully painted army, I really do love seeing it
Most of the nid units that i field are painted, the unpainted ones are just some left overs that I don't use too frequently, so when i square off against my buddies and both armies are painted it looks amazing... but as you said, i'd never judge the person accross from me if it isn't painted.
I do also know what you know about the flavor of the month players. I was worried my group was going to call me that as I dove headstrong into the GK's, but it's because:
a.) I didn't have a space marine army
and
b.) I love paladins
Basically any fantasy game I play im generally always either a paladin or an undead(necromancer) character... I choose necrons when I first started and i was so eager to paint them and play them (since both were so easy lol), but I grew tired of the old codex and moved on to nids where I loved the swarm/cc army (a direct contrast to the necrons), and then onto GK's which I love playing the smaller squad/tactical combat - so I think all niches are filled for me - anyway i'm drifting off subject... I think the biggest thing is, find an army you ENJOY and painting (whether you're good or bad) won't be a chore but something that is enjoyable.
I remember when I first started, I spent entire weekends , up all night watching Sons of Anarchy seasons 1 & 2 while I painted them and I loved it
I dont personally have anything against people who play with unpainted armies, considering I know some extremely busy people who dont have the time to sit down and paint as long and as extensively as I do. And certainly I will not refuse a game, or deny my friends a game just because they have unpainted armies.
However I cant stand to play with unpainted minis but that's just me. For example, when I first started gaming, I was playing against IG for the first time and the only unpainted model I had was the Trukk my Nobz would be riding in, and that seriously irked me. But my opponent praised me and wanted to shake my hand. Why? Cause I was the first Ork player he's met who's even bothered to paint his army.
Im into the hobby for its gaming, fluff AND painting (though not so much on conversions), and at the end of the day, you cant deny the excitement of two, fully-painted armies going at it on a beautifully painted terrain-filled battlefield. It's just how I play, and its how the majority of my friends play, and we have a blast.
That being said, I have my own question for those who love doing conversions, but do not like painting them. Why go to the effort of some awesome conversions, if you're not going to fully realise the model's awesomeness with a paintjob? Im not picking on people, Im just genuinely curious.
Pacific wrote:Well.. one thing, I would challenge the assertion that an unpainted model looks better than one painted, however badly the painted model is completed.
You would change your mind if you saw these. I swear he dips them in house paint and calls it good. You can barely recognize some of the models anymore.
Haha well I would be interested to see them perhaps you could sneak a photo in next time you play him?
I remember when I first started, I spent entire weekends , up all night watching Sons of Anarchy seasons 1 & 2 while I painted them and I loved it
Totally with you on this one! I think there is nothing better than after a hard day at work, putting your feet up, putting something on the TV or some music on, and doing some painting Really, for me I think it's almost a form of meditation, I'm no 'Eavy Metal painter but I find the whole thing very relaxing.
Whats with this assumption that people with fully painted forces dont have as much of a life and/or responsibilities as those that do?
I work two jobs, am a uni student, have a myriad of other interests and goings on, hell 40k is one of the smallest parts of my life. But I still find time to paint, theres always time for anything you just have to find it. TEMPORAL DISCIPRINE.
Nuul Nalio wrote:I agree with Cryage.
I'm a highschool student, working 2 jobs. I don't have time to paint all of my armies.
I have 4000+ of tau, 2500 IG , 1500 daemons, 1000 eldar jetbikes, and the beginning of a skitarii army. I'd say that at least 1/2 (in the skitarii, 100%) of my models have been converted or customized in some way and the only things I have painted or even plan on painting anytime in the near future are about half of the IG, 200 points of my tau, and the jetbikes, but only because they're my adepticon army, otherwise I would never have brought paint anywhere near then.
Did you buy all those armies in one go? What ever happened to the old buy a kit, paint it, buy another kit, paint it.
Ooh, my favorite monthly thread, and one I feel rather strongly about!
I don't like the process of painting that much. To be honest, it feels like work even though -while not an advanced painter in any sense- I've finally come to a level of painting where I can paint with reasonable speed and I like the results (see my gallery). However I feel that an absolutely integral, and (for me) most enjoyable, part of the game is the marvelous spectacle of painted armies on a beautiful game board so I have few guidelines I follow.
1) I never put unpainted models on the table
2) I never put unfinished terrain on MY table (sometimes you can't help it at the FLGS)
3) I might give a game to an unpainted army, but I'll probably avoid gaming with them in the future. Life's too short for uninspiring gaming.
4) I'd rather play a smaller game or two with painted figures than a big game with unpainted.
I only get to game every other week, so I don't see the point in comprimising on the above. If someone doesn't care about the visual spectacle of the game, that's ok, but it's obvious that our persepectives of gaming are so different that it's not really worth our time to play each other.
As a result of all this, I've started a club where we don't ever play with unpainted figures. However, we always prepare extra painted forces so anyone can play with us even if they don't have painted figures.
These threads are always kind of amusing. People tend to take their views to seriously and with so much conviction. So a bit of background. I started playing at the time Rogue Trader come out. Took a 5 or so years break at one point but back in this. So been doing this a bit now.
How do I view the original question. To me this is a game. I still have models I bought in early '90 that I use in games and have not painted. Shock and awe! The aim for me is to play a game.
Well painting. I would like to think that I'm at least medium level painter. Otherwise all these years of doing that have not been very effective. I however don't like to paint. I find a lot of things more interesting than painting and frankly will do them instead many a time. I also will not speed paint or paint under the quality than I can. I did that once and regretted a lot. However I do prefer having painted model on board if I can choose between the two. Also I don't like to use other peoples painted models (preferring to do things myself).
So on to models. My interest was in gaming. In general I look to get most of the units in the army (as long I like the rules of unit) and want to try different combinations. Thus I field in most cases armies that I use are 10-80% painted. I do have an one army which by and large is fully painted, but I like to play several armies leaving some of them unpainted. I also own perhaps a cubic meter of models of different scales and games and most likely I won't ever manage to paint them all.
As far as playing others. I play against people not armies and don't really care that much. In many cases painted looks better on field but the player is the one that has most effect on whether the game is enjoyable or not.
For Addendum. Lunahound I think the ponies looked neat and certainly would be on the list of worthwhile quoting on this thread easily .
Edit: You can see an army that has been ~2 years on going project on my first ever video batrep (I'm the LatD player). Yeah I play Epic currently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbBJqCVRqxc
I realized something...
If those Marines weren't painted in different chapters ( or painted at all )
They could easily be shared between the different chapters. saving probably 70%
I realized something...
If those Marines weren't painted in different chapters ( or painted at all )
They could easily be shared between the different chapters. saving probably 70%
Yeah, when I saw that the first thing that popped into my head was an unflatering description of the owners level of intelligence, but it's their hobby, so I know my judgement isn't important in even the smallest measurable degree.
I realized something...
If those Marines weren't painted in different chapters ( or painted at all )
They could easily be shared between the different chapters. saving probably 70%
Yeah, when I saw that the first thing that popped into my head was an unflatering description of the owners level of intelligence, but it's their hobby, so I know my judgement isn't important in even the smallest measurable degree.
Thats not what i meant.
I meant having things painted makes GW extra money if they are all different factions and cant be shared as easily.
I realized something...
If those Marines weren't painted in different chapters ( or painted at all )
They could easily be shared between the different chapters. saving probably 70%
I respect your views and don't want to be one of the partisans for either side in this issue, but to me that's missing the point. WH40k is not a pure tactical exercise (anyone who treats it purely as that is fooling themselves) a lot of the enjoyment of a game surely comes from the imaginationland side of things - ie those aren't game pieces like checkers, they are little future space fascists and fungus bikers etc. If you are relying purely on your own imagination to transform your generic grey marines from being BT to ultramarines to dark angels to crimson fists and all the rest, with no visual component, why have the models themselves?
My point is, everyone who says that the game is what matters to them, and they don't feel a need to use painted models, do you feel the need to have the 'correct' models, or models that look vaguely appropriate, or any models at all?
I realized something...
If those Marines weren't painted in different chapters ( or painted at all )
They could easily be shared between the different chapters. saving probably 70%
Yeah, when I saw that the first thing that popped into my head was an unflatering description of the owners level of intelligence, but it's their hobby, so I know my judgement isn't important in even the smallest measurable degree.
Thats not what i meant.
I meant having things painted makes GW extra money if they are all different factions and cant be shared as easily.
How exactly does paint colour prevent faction jumping?
LunaHound wrote:
Because a painter / collector would field multiple standalone armies.
Where a player would just add them together and end up with less total models since they are all gray.
Oh, you're refering to the self impossed compultion to only field one chapter at a time and only as the chapter it's painted as. Yeah, that's a real bonus for Games Workshop. I thought you meant something else.
LunaHound wrote:
Because a painter / collector would field multiple standalone armies.
Where a player would just add them together and end up with less total models since they are all gray.
Oh, you're refering to the self impossed compultion to only field one chapter at a time and only as the chapter it's painted as. Yeah, that's a real bonus for Games Workshop. I thought you meant something else.
Sidstyler wrote:I'm just keeping my army true to the background. All the artwork in my codex is in black, white, and grey, so...grey minis are more fluffy than your painted ones. :3
"Stelek" and "fun" should never be uttered in the same breathe...
If I had the money, I'd love to field several different SM chapters, each painted up in their proper regalia. As it stands, I have a generically painted SM foce, that I can use as most regular chapters. Kudos to the guy with all those beautifully painted armies though.
Eh. I can easily get as indignant over some fully-painted player that does not change up either their models or tactics, and as a result becomes predictable and easily beaten time and again.
It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
sourclams wrote:Eh. I can easily get as indignant over some fully-painted player that does not change up either their models or tactics, and as a result becomes predictable and easily beaten time and again.
It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
sourclams wrote:It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
Why do people have such a hard time separating the definition of the hobby from the specifics parts of it that they enjoy?
sourclams wrote:It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
Why do people have such a hard time separating the definition of the hobby from the specifics parts of it that they enjoy?
Because they want to feel better about themselves instead of admitting their shortcomings. I'm simply not good at layups in basketball despite having the height to actually do so. Therefore, layups are not part of my basketball and are haven't been historically part of the sport anyways... it's completely ridiculous reasoning. If you have ZERO interest in painting, just admit it and stop worrying about what others think. Don't sit there and try to redefine "your" or "my" or "our" hobby with your own ala carte interests. Painting IS a part of THE hobby that is generally completely optional (as is every part). Just realize that the choice to ignore parts of it does occasionally have a consequence.
sourclams wrote:It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
Why do people have such a hard time separating the definition of the hobby from the specifics parts of it that they enjoy?
I have a hard time understanding why certain people wish to define the hobby for everybody.
sourclams wrote:It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
Why do people have such a hard time separating the definition of the hobby from the specifics parts of it that they enjoy?
I have a hard time understanding why certain people wish to define the hobby for everybody.
The hobby HAS BEEN defined for decades. If anyone is trying to redefine it, it's the revisionists who somehow want to erase painting as part of it. Feel free not to paint; just don't kid yourself that you're not ignoring a part of it.
sourclams wrote:It really is about personal preference, which is why trying to define the hobby by the way that you participate in it is not only futile, but narrow minded and silly.
Why do people have such a hard time separating the definition of the hobby from the specifics parts of it that they enjoy?
I have a hard time understanding why certain people wish to define the hobby for everybody.
The hobby HAS BEEN defined for decades. If anyone is trying to redefine it, it's the revisionists who somehow want to erase painting as part of it. Feel free not to paint; just don't kid yourself that you're not ignoring a part of it.
I have played wargames for almost twenty years, and in that time, aside from historicals, I have seen unpainted armies in play in FLGSs and tournaments. There has never been a hard rule in any rulebook edition of 40k or fantasy saying that the game is intended for fully painted armies only. Don't kid yourself that it's ever been any different.
augustus5 wrote: I have played wargames for almost twenty years, and in that time, aside from historicals, I have seen unpainted armies in play in FLGSs and tournaments. There has never been a hard rule in any rulebook edition of 40k or fantasy saying that the game is intended for fully painted armies only. Don't kid yourself that it's ever been any different.
Thank you for completely missing the point and putting words in my mouth but I guess it's easier to "win" a discussion that way instead of addressing what is actually said. I never said you MUST paint or that games are intended ONLY for fully painted armies; instead, I've said "feel free to not paint". My point is just that painting has always been a part of THE hobby (no "your" or "my" BS) that people have always had a choice to ignore. People just need to be honest about the fact that they're IGNORING a part of THE hobby instead of trying to redefine it to suit their own lack of time/talent/interest.
Back in the day, you were not allowed to play in Battle Bunkers or most independent gaming stores without fully painted and based armies... One I used to go to even had house rules that unpainted minis had St and T 1 LOL! Things have changed and in order to not scare new gamers off this stigma has fallen wayside but for me and some old school gamers who remember how it was it is almost shameful to field unpainted figs, especially at tourneys... My personal opinion is different however, I hate to see quality minis being abused with fast paint jobs just for the sake of having paint on them, I think as long as they are all primed who cares....
It is IMHO irritating to see some of the same faces pop up in tournament after tournament over the years with no progress shown... I think tournaments are a different matter and models should be finished especially when there is an entry fee... I don't like paying to see crap on the nice tables...
Why is painting a model not part of the modelling process in taking something from a blister to the tabletop? This is the normal hobby, if you look around at wargaming in general. If you don't paint your army, you are not fulfilling part of the hobby. Models are supposed to be painted to be on the tabletop. However much the non-painters want to devolve the two and claim they have a different hobby, no they don't. It's the same hobby, and they decline to participate in part of it.
As for GW accepting non-painted figures, well GW aren't part of the normal hobby. They are the GW hobby and exist to shift stuff as fast as they can. They allow non-painted for one reason - it's part of the sell stuff fast strategy. If they tell kids they have to paint it properly before using it in store then the kids might think twice about buying it. If they say you can use it almost straight out the box then they will buy it. It's no wonder with the high turnover of armies, the White Dwarf "BUY THIS NOW" approach that the priority is on shifting flavour of the month armies ASAP. Telling people to paint isn't compatible with that, by the time they have painted it the next flavour of the month army will be out and they will be pressuring kids to buy that instead.
That's why there's no painting requirements in GW. And that's also why there are so few armies. Lots of youngsters with ants in their lacking the patience to paint models properly because they need to have then NOW and use them right NOW.
The idea that people who don't paint are some sort of martyrs for people with 'real lives' is such nonsense. Pretty much everyone who isn't a kid has a job and family commitments. We all manage to paint. If you don't, it's because you choose not to for whatever reason. No patience/laziness/personal dislike etc.
augustus5 wrote: I have played wargames for almost twenty years, and in that time, aside from historicals, I have seen unpainted armies in play in FLGSs and tournaments. There has never been a hard rule in any rulebook edition of 40k or fantasy saying that the game is intended for fully painted armies only. Don't kid yourself that it's ever been any different.
Thank you for completely missing the point and putting words in my mouth but I guess it's easier to "win" a discussion that way instead of addressing what is actually said. I never said you MUST paint or that games are intended ONLY for fully painted armies; instead, I've said "feel free to not paint". My point is just that painting has always been a part of THE hobby (no "your" or "my" BS) that people have always had a choice to ignore. People just need to be honest about the fact that they're IGNORING a part of THE hobby instead of trying to redefine it to suit their own lack of time/talent/interest.
You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby, any more than converting, or flocking bases. The game requires a WYSIWYG model on it's appropriately sized and supplied base to represent a unit in the game. If someone chooses not to paint, they are not ignoring part of the hobby, but rather not taking part in an extra-curricular aspect of the hobby.
Edit: I'm typing this as the base coat on my Paladins is drying...
Howard A Treesong wrote:How is painting "extra-curricular"?
Sorry, but these models are designed to be painted just like every other miniature figure and model kit, aside from those that are pre-painted.
I don't buy that argument. Of course models look considerably better when painted nicely, but I can't find anything in any edition of the 40k rulebooks that state that models used in the game should be painted/converted/flocked. WYSIWYG is mentioned, as is a requirement for a model to be glued to the base that it comes packaged with, but no mention of a paint requirement. Paint requirements are imposed by individuals, gaming groups, TOs, and store owners, and increasingly are required by fewer and fewer of these groups. Please prove me wrong by showing that painting is a required part of the hobby if you can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nkelsch wrote:
augustus5 wrote:
I have a hard time understanding why certain people wish to define the hobby for everybody.
augustus5 wrote:
You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby.
Hypocrite. These statements are not even an hour apart.
How exactly am I a hypocrite? I state that I don't understand why people wish to define the hobby by pushing a non-existing painting requirement onto others. Later Warboss states,
The hobby HAS BEEN defined for decades. If anyone is trying to redefine it, it's the revisionists who somehow want to erase painting as part of it. Feel free not to paint; just don't kid yourself that you're not ignoring a part of it.
, to which I respond that painting is not a part of the hobby. Perhaps I should have added for everyone? I have stated time and again in this thread that people, TOs, gaming groups, and store owners should feel free to define the hobby for their group/tourney, etc., but that no person can define it for everybody. Some of the Pro-paint crowd here repeatedly state that those who don't paint are either ignoring part of the hobby, or participating in something entirely different. I don't feel that's the case.
So next time, before making yourself look like an ass by calling somebody a hypocrite, try and read the entire thread.
augustus5 wrote:
I have played wargames for almost twenty years, and in that time, aside from historicals, I have seen unpainted armies in play in FLGSs and tournaments. There has never been a hard rule in any rulebook edition of 40k or fantasy saying that the game is intended for fully painted armies only. Don't kid yourself that it's ever been any different.
Thank you for completely missing the point and putting words in my mouth but I guess it's easier to "win" a discussion that way instead of addressing what is actually said. I never said you MUST paint or that games are intended ONLY for fully painted armies; instead, I've said "feel free to not paint". My point is just that painting has always been a part of THE hobby (no "your" or "my" BS) that people have always had a choice to ignore. People just need to be honest about the fact that they're IGNORING a part of THE hobby instead of trying to redefine it to suit their own lack of time/talent/interest.
You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby, any more than converting, or flocking bases. The game requires a WYSIWYG model on it's appropriately sized and supplied base to represent a unit in the game. If someone chooses not to paint, they are not ignoring part of the hobby, but rather not taking part in an extra-curricular aspect of the hobby.
Edit: I'm typing this as the base coat on my Paladins is drying...
Except it clearly is part of the hobby, not the GW hobby, or the PP hobby, or the tiny garage company hobby, but the hobby of table top wargaming.
I don't see why you, and others, are jumping through hoops to imply that painting armies is some sort of peripheral, vaguely related, exercise. People that don't paint their models are choosing not to participate in part of the hobby. That doesn't make them sub-human or evil, but it is what they're doing.
Warboss isn't missing your point, he's refuting your point.
augustus5 wrote:You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby, any more than converting, or flocking bases. The game requires a WYSIWYG model on it's appropriately sized and supplied base to represent a unit in the game. If someone chooses not to paint, they are not ignoring part of the hobby, but rather not taking part in an extra-curricular aspect of the hobby.
I agree that painting is no more or less a part of the hobby than assembly, converting, or basing, all of which are part of THE complete hobby that people can choose to partake of. As for that last sentance ignoring supposed "extra-curricular aspects of the hobby", that is nonsensical and completely self-serving revisionist redefinition of THE hobby. Could you please show me where a long standing company or group or website about THE hobby actually says anything remotely similar to that? You've been playing for two decades so there must be some reference to your claim. Painting is not something that is incidentally done to miniatures by a small group relatively recently but a long standing (and completely option... have to restate it before you try to put words in my mouth again) tradition in THE hobby since it's inception.
augustus5 wrote:You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby, any more than converting, or flocking bases. The game requires a WYSIWYG model on it's appropriately sized and supplied base to represent a unit in the game. If someone chooses not to paint, they are not ignoring part of the hobby, but rather not taking part in an extra-curricular aspect of the hobby.
I agree that painting is no more or less a part of the hobby than assembly, converting, or basing, all of which are part of THE complete hobby that people can choose to partake of. As for that last sentance ignoring supposed "extra-curricular aspects of the hobby", that is nonsensical and completely self-serving revisionist redefinition of THE hobby. Could you please show me where a long standing company or group or website about THE hobby actually says anything remotely similar to that? You've been playing for two decades so there must be some reference to your claim. Painting is not something that is incidentally done to miniatures by a small group relatively recently but a long standing (and completely option... have to restate it before you try to put words in my mouth again) tradition in THE hobby since it's inception.
I'm paging through my trusty copy of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, trying to find this painting requirement that established painting as part of the hobby, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
Because you're clearly trying to define the hobby in a different way.
When you're at the point of distinguishing between painting being not "part" of the hobby but an "extracurricular aspect" of the hobby I feel like you're just trying to make an argument for the sake or arguing.
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augustus5 wrote:
warboss wrote:
augustus5 wrote:You're missing my point that painting is not part of the hobby, any more than converting, or flocking bases. The game requires a WYSIWYG model on it's appropriately sized and supplied base to represent a unit in the game. If someone chooses not to paint, they are not ignoring part of the hobby, but rather not taking part in an extra-curricular aspect of the hobby.
I agree that painting is no more or less a part of the hobby than assembly, converting, or basing, all of which are part of THE complete hobby that people can choose to partake of. As for that last sentance ignoring supposed "extra-curricular aspects of the hobby", that is nonsensical and completely self-serving revisionist redefinition of THE hobby. Could you please show me where a long standing company or group or website about THE hobby actually says anything remotely similar to that? You've been playing for two decades so there must be some reference to your claim. Painting is not something that is incidentally done to miniatures by a small group relatively recently but a long standing (and completely option... have to restate it before you try to put words in my mouth again) tradition in THE hobby since it's inception.
I'm paging through my trusty copy of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, trying to find this painting requirement that established painting as part of the hobby, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
Yup, you're just being a ridiculous pedant now. /ignore
augustus5 wrote:
I don't buy that argument. Of course models look considerably better when painted nicely, but I can't find anything in any edition of the 40k rulebooks that state that models used in the game should be painted/converted/flocked. WYSIWYG is mentioned, as is a requirement for a model to be glued to the base that it comes packaged with, but no mention of a paint requirement. Paint requirements are imposed by individuals, gaming groups, TOs, and store owners, and increasingly are required by fewer and fewer of these groups. Please prove me wrong by showing that painting is a required part of the hobby if you can.
Second sentance in the 5th edition rulebook, page IV refers specifically to painted armies. Also, 4th paragraph on the same page:
"players MUST be prepared to expend time and effort collecting, assembling, and PAINTING their models"
My emphasis but quoted exactly from the FIRST REAL PAGE OF THE RULEBOOK.
How exactly am I a hypocrite? I state that I don't understand why people wish to define the hobby by pushing a non-existing painting requirement onto others. Later Warboss states,
The hobby HAS BEEN defined for decades. If anyone is trying to redefine it, it's the revisionists who somehow want to erase painting as part of it. Feel free not to paint; just don't kid yourself that you're not ignoring a part of it.
, to which I respond that painting is not a part of the hobby. Perhaps I should have added for everyone? I have stated time and again in this thread that people, TOs, gaming groups, and store owners should feel free to define the hobby for their group/tourney, etc., but that no person can define it for everybody. Some of the Pro-paint crowd here repeatedly state that those who don't paint are either ignoring part of the hobby, or participating in something entirely different. I don't feel that's the case.
So next time, before making yourself look like an ass by calling somebody a hypocrite, try and read the entire thread.
You are a hypocrite, hypocrite. You claim to be the only 'true definer' of the 'hobby' because you are pushing a self-serving definition based upon a lack of words within a rulebook for a game as if the rulebook for a game defines the hobby overall. "Oh it is not there, therefor my definition is correct and I don't know why anyone bothers to define it elsewhere."
You know why people define the 'hobby' because you are doing it! Saying the 40k rulebook says nothing about paint so that then defines 'the bobby' as only things mandated by rules is absurd, and intellectually dishonest, and making a definition based upon NOTHING and claiming all other people making definitions are wrong makes you a HYPOCRITE.
Edit: I see painting is in the rulebook. I look forward for your revised definition of the hobby to now include painting because the rulebook which you claim is the only source to define now says it is part of the hobby.
Howard A Treesong wrote:How is painting "extra-curricular"?
Sorry, but these models are designed to be painted just like every other miniature figure and model kit, aside from those that are pre-painted.
I don't buy that argument. Of course models look considerably better when painted nicely, but I can't find anything in any edition of the 40k rulebooks that state that models used in the game should be painted/converted/flocked. WYSIWYG is mentioned, as is a requirement for a model to be glued to the base that it comes packaged with, but no mention of a paint requirement. Paint requirements are imposed by individuals, gaming groups, TOs, and store owners, and increasingly are required by fewer and fewer of these groups. Please prove me wrong by showing that painting is a required part of the hobby if you can.
The warhammer rulebook does not define the wargaming hobby, although you will find instructions on how to paint and no unpainted models are used in photos. Painting is as old as the hobby, the only figures that are not intended to be painted are those sold pre-painted.
If you want to be picky, then no painting isn't "required" to play the game. But then, nor are figures really. They are only counters after all. Painting doesn't render the game unplayable in the same manner as say, forgetting to bring dice and rulers. But in any meaningful sense, these figures are intended to be painted. It's not an "extra-curricular" activity, it's just one that doesn't render the game unplayable if you don't do it. That's not quite the same thing. Writing your own fluff is "extra-curricular", painting is just normal behaviour, at least in the wargaming hobby as a whole.
Howard A Treesong wrote:it's just one that doesn't render the game unplayable if you don't do it.
The game can be rendered unplayable without clear unit designations where models are the same and have no difference between units.
There have been multiple examples where 'ard boyz games were damaged to an unplayable point due to lack of painting where units merged together and players were unable to keep track of the units.
augustus5 wrote:
I'm paging through my trusty copy of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, trying to find this painting requirement that established painting as part of the hobby, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.
There has never been a painting "requirement" but painting has always been a part of THE hobby. Most Rogue Trader books have back binding so I'll just assume you're not being obtuse and simply are missing the pages for the section "Assembling and Painting Your Forces" (248-254). I suspect most reasonable people when looking at a minis rulebook that has almost entirely painted minis shown in the pictures and has a specific section devoted to the painting of those minis would assume that painting is a part of THE hobby.
My playing with my own (poorly) painted figures from my varied attempts over the last 20+ years or using my nice shiny really well painted figures that I bought of ebay / from firends/ paid others to have painted.
Do you feel my providing a visual treat for friends outwegh my not doing mysefl (and hence missing out on the frustration and annoyance from failure)
Just asking out of interest as I am very happy with my new option.....
by the way.
?
, and if I go digging into the infantry boxes in the closet with the Marine box... Maybe I SHOULD look at painting forces for selling... anyway. I know and understand the pains of painting, mostly cause I enjoy em. I like the beauty this game can show; SPECIALLY when I have my camera about and there are painted models.
baboon riding high on the horse, and so I called him out on it. I still have zero problem with the fact that some people might not want to play against me if I bring one of my unpainted armies to the table. It will not hurt my feelings. Each person should be allowed to enjoy the hobby as they see fit. 
