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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?

Same thing here. None will win, all will lose.

sourclams wrote:Same thing here. None will win, all will lose.

Which is why we are enjoying it so much. You can't get more 40k than that. In the grim darkness of the Dakka Forum, there is only nerd war!

biccat wrote:

Some excerpts from the offending posts:

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.

biccat wrote:

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.

Never. Ever starting a thread like this again. All I did was reap one hell of a whirlwind.

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.

biccat wrote: I'm pretty sure no one has degraded others for choosing to paint their miniatures.

Sure they have. We're called "Nerds".

Ssgt Carl wrote:

biccat wrote: I'm pretty sure no one [on DakkaDakka] has degraded others for choosing to paint their miniatures.

Sure they have. We're called "Nerds".

Good point. Corrected version above

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.


PS: Augustus, those Eldar look good btw.

Augustus wrote:

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 you are saying you can paint an entire army like Augustus 5 in a Weekend?

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?

augustus5 wrote:

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".




Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

Augustus wrote:

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...

Obviously we disagree.

I have made no attacks at all Augustus and... whats the purpose of re quoting my ponies?

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.

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.

Luna I agree with u. It was a joke. And the main reason why I said it was for a laugh. You guys are gettin way to serious in here.

wowsmash wrote:Luna I agree with u. It was a joke. And the main reason why I said it was for a laugh. You guys are gettin way to serious in here.

Sorry but i was pretty much dazed and confused by someone accusing me of attacking them...

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?

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.

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.

wowsmash wrote:

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.

*sigh*