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If GW switched to or added prepainted miniatures, would you buy them?

It depends to what standard they would be painted,if it is tabletop standard then perhaps I would do touch ups here and there.Yet I think I would still stick to buying unpainted minis as it gives me something to do,also there is always a nice sense of accomplishment for me atleast,to see a unit that I have just painted.

They would have to be cheaper than the original, unpainted becuase I like my custom colour schemes.

Would NOT buy prepainted minis if GW switched to.
I dont think I have any interest in "ready to go" figs. Now if its only some prepainted for a standalone game, thes could be acceptable.
A game like 40k with its wide range of paintschemes couldnt be covered with pre-paints.
Maybe 'showcase' kits not intended to be used on the tabletop would find some customers.
I believe pre painted would not strengthen 40k, but distract ressources.

HATE

- Salvage

No, because then it would be a sign that they are taking even more options out of the codexes. If this happens, they might as well make 40K a Milton-Bradley board game with all the rules and army lists on the inside of the box lid.

I like painting these miniatures, but I could see the appeal of a prepainted force, it would depend on the paintjob really. I may totally hate all the prepaint jobs (knowing GW, it would be all Ultramarines anyways :/ )

Make it collectible, too.

"Awww nuts, another Marneus Calgar!"

I'd be OK with prepaints for things like rank and file troopers. This assumes they have a decent three color paint job. What's the point in building and painting 120 Orks if I could buy them already painted? I'm not going to paint them to a Golden Demon level of detail anyway.

Of course I would still buy assemble and paint kits for characters, special units, customization and the like. Prepaints would be filler for the cannon fodder ranks.

I would then spray them black and pint them myself, if I liked the figures.

I would buy prepainted troops. As an ork player I don't really want to spend the time painitng 100+ boys, but i do want to paint my warboss, nobz, trukks and other things.
But 6 pt models that i take off the table in handfulls, yeah if i could skip painting them i would.

I might buy them, depends on how well they are painted and stuff depends on how i could use it/them with my existing army

I probably wouldn't buy them. Is there a plan to make pre-painted minatures or is this just discussion?

where is the "I would buy them and then strip them" option?

It'd be nice if they put a really thin coat on them or made them where they were really easy to strip if you wanted to, or just seal them if you didn't. If they did that, I might buy a squad or two. Would be a nice way to get started in a new army without the time investment initially.

But I'd love to see them for other players. The crowd I play with is the polar opposite of WYSIWYG, so I get a little sick of seeing the same grey and black legions "counting as" the flavor of the week.

Valcatta wrote:I probably wouldn't buy them. Is there a plan to make pre-painted minatures or is this just discussion?

it is a frequent topic of discussion but there are no plans in the pipeline that we are aware of.

legoburner secrately works for GW, its just anoother ploy to get more money out of us aaaaaarrrrrrrgh

Pre-painted minis would be such a cop-out. I dread the day GW decide to take that route. Even though I rarely get round to painting, and don't even enjoy the process much tbh, I still want to make the effort for the sake of having my own work on the tabletop. Rather that than have my minis painted by someone else or (more likely) by machine. If they existed alongside bare minis, and everything was still available unpainted, I'd tolerate them. If they completely or partially switched to prepainted I'd quit the hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

warpcrafter wrote:No, because then it would be a sign that they are taking even more options out of the codexes. If this happens, they might as well make 40K a Milton-Bradley board game with all the rules and army lists on the inside of the box lid.

Shhh! Don't give them ideas

Wouldn't buy them but would be a good idea for younger people who want to get into the hobby but don't have the attention span or skills to paint them yet as they are too young. My little brother could do with some pre painted figs... so cruel...

I would buy pre-painted minis, but if that were to take place GW would first have to get a clear rule system in place or lose sales. Because with pre-painted mini's its about playing the game not doing the hobby. So unlikely to ever happens since they don't focus on making decent rule books.

HATE all the way

I would only buy them if they looked good, were properly fluffy, and if it didn't cost a fortune.

If they look decent, I would buy them for armies I want but have no interest/talent for painting like Eldar, Orks or IG.

Everything else is outsourced, so why not the hobby?

No thanks.

Tolerate as long as they are only a sideline kinda thing. If not, well, guess I have enough Mini's to be going on with...

80% of my fun is converting and painting minis... I really dislike premade, prepainted models for wargaming. things like mageknight and the D&D minis are fine, but warhammer is a big no.

I'd tolerate them, but in my eyes, even a poorly painted army is better than a pre-made army.

I may buy them for scrap and conversion if they're worth it, though... But I'd never leave them as they are.

Oh my God would I purchase pre-paints...

I remember bringing this up on my club forums once. I was treated like a heretic, and I didn't understand. 40K is a game. I want to play the game. I don't want to have to spend six months to paint up an army, the amount of time it takes me because I have a job, and a marriage, and other hobbies like video gaming, and I like to travel, and everything else that competes for my free time. I just want to play the game.

40K had been my only tabletop wargame up until this point, well with a little BFG thrown in. Sometime after this conversation was taking place I started playing Flames of War. Earlier this year I started playing AT-43 and have now given it up, but it did help teach me an important lesson when combined with my experience with the other two games.

AT-43 is a game with miniatures. Some people collect them, but at heart it's the nature of the product as a game which sells it.

Flames of War is a game with models. The game comes first, but the modeling is a very, very close second. I would hazard that many people purchase and paint Flames of War just for the pleasure of the painting and don't play so much, or just paint and don't play at all...but it was still conceived of as a game first.

Warhammer 40,000...I think it's models with a game. The models come first. Why I feel this way...the Codexes don't get updated quickly enough so armies get out of balance. It's far too easy to find power builds that dominate tournament play, which suggests lackluster playtesting to me. New models, however, always seem to be on the horizon. More attention goes to production of models for purchase than game design and updates. Therefore, this is why when you bring up pre-paints many 40K devotees lose their frakking minds, because it isn't about the game. That's part of it - but it's not the most important part of the hobby. The modeling and the painting are what matter most, in the end.

I feel that people like me, pure gamers at heart, are such a minority among the 40K community that there will never, ever be pre-painted 40K minis sold. It's not economical.

However, having grown as a gamer, I no longer see this as a problem with 40K. Having discovered games which I feel are more balanced, strategic, and tactical as games, I play those when I want a real gaming challenge. I see 40K more as I think it was originally intended, as cinematic reenactments of battles as-yet-unwritten in the 40K fluff, but not a hard-and-fast strategy game or tactical exercise.

I appreciate 40K for the modeling and the painting after my exposure to AT-43. That's a pure game which is only in its first edition so the rules have weak spots, but calling the minis "models" just offends me as a modeler and a painter. They're not enough to keep me interested in the game like 40K and FoW which, once the models are painted are something that represent me as an artist and are a marked investment of time and let's face it, a labor of love - so I could never really see selling stuff I painted. It looks cool just sitting in the display case so I can say "I made that." AT-43 stuff is disposable, just toys, who cares, so now that no one I've exposed to the game cares about playing it I'm selling all my stuff and converting the money into other games (like Space Hulk, what a great game).

Even with that said however, if it would mean being able to play my Ork Horde of 150+ boyz without having to spend probably a year or more painting them all, I'd like to play an army other than my Space Marines without having to field bitz of plastic and metal...so I would probably invest in pre-paints to enable me to play different kinds of armies quickly, and then do touch-ups on them later if I felt like it.

i would never buy prepaints, but i can tolerate them for people who dont have the time/desire/skill to paint. i like to paint my own armies, i have the time to do it, and i love doing it.

I would buy pre-painted GW minis.

The benefits are so plentiful, I don't really see why not.

1) Those of us with more money than time/motivation get to have a decent looking army on the table top right away.

2) The likelihood of playing against a fully painted army is increased. Save for my opponents who are tournament regulars, I have never faced a fully painted army.

3) The value of pre-painted miniatures on the secondary are unlikely to decrease if I don't change anything to the minis, since all the pre-paints will fit into any other existing pre-painted army. This gives me an opportunity to try an army that will look good right away without too much time investment...and should I not like it, I can sell it off for no loss of money and try another army. This really increases our freedom of army choice. As of now, the instant I paint any miniature, the odds of me selling it for what I paid for are nil. Right now, I can buy any AT-43 miniature off eBay and know it will fit in my existing armies without any need to strip the paint or deal with any bizarre conversions. And assuming GW minis don't undergo any sort of fire sale like Rackham's, I'm confident that the secondary market value will remain constant (or even increase given GW's annual price increases).

4) And the quality of the paint jobs on pre-painted miniatures will never surpass the really awesome paint jobs of people on dakka, like Migsula, Navarro, or Scarab, so it's not like pre-paints diminish the hobby aspect in any way. I will still be in awe of a really great paint job when I see one, and I will always wait in line at any Gamesday to see the Golden Demon entries.

If GW released pre-painted minis, I would probably maintain one or two armies that I would want to paint (which would likely become indefinite projects...as they are already), but collect other "off the shelf" armies to game with (and perhaps sell of or trade away when I get bored of them and want to try another one).

more time spent painting = higher sense of accomplishment.
No time spent painting = no sense of accomplishment.

Therefore: prepainted minis get no love from me.