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I used to be of the some mindset. But there are ways of painting that are quick, easy and give decent results.

These guys, for example, I painted all six squads in a weekend.



On the other hand, I really enjoy painting tanks.

To be fair, I don't mind painting tanks, but I can't STAND painting infantry. Which sucks, given that I like infantry-based armies...

OK, well there are always a few exceptions!

The sight of two well painted (well, not even well painted, just functionally so) armies on some good terrain is payment enough for the time and effort you have to put into use of your leisure time in my book.

Although, with a continuing reduction of points cost, and ever bigger armies for both WFB and 40k I can see more and more of this kind of thread becoming the norm in the future. Certainly, it makes some of the specialist games a more viable option if you insist on having a fully painted force!

Son_Of _Deddog wrote:I realise this is getting off the point slightly, but could plastics be moulded pre-coloured?? Ork bodies green, trousers red , marines blue (or some suitalble colour) etc?? Then unpainted armies might not look so bad to those who have the time/money/patience/inclination/enter-your-reason-here to paint armies .

Would that be practical??

Yes, easily, though it might possibly push up the price of kits (Ha! Ha! Ha!)

The better Gundam kits are moulded in up to six colours, sometimes with two colours in a single sprue frame, to allow the kit to be completely finished without any painting. Final detailing is done with markers and stickers.

I have suggested this several times for SMs in particular. They would work really well with a choice of coloured heads, torsos, legs/arms, pauldrons (different left and right if you want) and backpacks.

Kilkrazy wrote:The better Gundam kits are moulded in up to six colours, sometimes with two colours in a single sprue frame, to allow the kit to be completely finished without any painting. Final detailing is done with markers and stickers.

Sometimes four colours on a sprue with coloured markings moulded in.

Im sorry but am I the only one who is absolutely horrified by this idea?!? Pre-painted models?? How on earth are you meant to recreate the level of detail and high/lowlights and shades which go into a fantastically painted model? Not only that but even for someone who doesn't enjoy painting, the feeling of a job well done when you can stand back from a well painted model/squad would be totally lost!

Pre painted models is just lazy, if you HATE painting that much then i'm sure nobody would complain if you sprayed your models in one colour and picked out faces and guns in a couple of different ones. A perfectly acceptable table standard army which could be done in an hour, and with 4 paints.

If you pre paint/mould models with colour then from a hobby point of view you are taking away a massive chunk of the game which a huge percentage enjoy. Not only that but you are also, from a buisness point of view, at risk of losing a vast majority of GW enthusiasts revenue which could potentially put them out of buisness. The amount they would lose in paint sales alone would be massive! Why not go the whole hog and just sell fully assembled, painted plastic soldiers instead. Or sod it, let's just make an Xbox game and all sit indoors playing online, at least we wouldn't have to worry about getting a game!

Parents love their kids starting in GW games because they are not just sitting in front of the TV playing Xbox, but are doing something creative. Like someone before said, if they did this then they might as well sell up to Hasbro or the like.

GW has been a profitable company for many years and have expanded year on year, so they must be doing something right. Making a change like those discussed wouldn't make it GW anymore, just another generic toy soldier producer.

If it ain't broke, then don't fix it!

The Decapitator wrote:Im sorry but am I the only one who is absolutely horrified by this idea?!? Pre-painted models??

If people had the option, and it saved me looking at some of the gray mess of doom across the table on occasion, I really wouldn't have a problem with it.

The Decapitator wrote:Im sorry but am I the only one who is absolutely horrified by this idea?!? Pre-painted models?? How on earth are you meant to recreate the level of detail and high/lowlights and shades which go into a fantastically painted model? Not only that but even for someone who doesn't enjoy painting, the feeling of a job well done when you can stand back from a well painted model/squad would be totally lost!

Pre painted models is just lazy, if you HATE painting that much then i'm sure nobody would complain if you sprayed your models in one colour and picked out faces and guns in a couple of different ones. A perfectly acceptable table standard army which could be done in an hour, and with 4 paints.

If you pre paint/mould models with colour then from a hobby point of view you are taking away a massive chunk of the game which a huge percentage enjoy. Not only that but you are also, from a buisness point of view, at risk of losing a vast majority of GW enthusiasts revenue which could potentially put them out of buisness. The amount they would lose in paint sales alone would be massive! Why not go the whole hog and just sell fully assembled, painted plastic soldiers instead. Or sod it, let's just make an Xbox game and all sit indoors playing online, at least we wouldn't have to worry about getting a game!

Parents love their kids starting in GW games because they are not just sitting in front of the TV playing Xbox, but are doing something creative. Like someone before said, if they did this then they might as well sell up to Hasbro or the like.

GW has been a profitable company for many years and have expanded year on year, so they must be doing something right. Making a change like those discussed wouldn't make it GW anymore, just another generic toy soldier producer.

If it ain't broke, then don't fix it!

I could care less, to be honest. If you're buying Something like "Blood angels accessories", I think it would be okay...But definitely not an entire tactical squad or something. It would be like SPACE HULK

GW used to do this with leman russ treads. I still have most of sprue of those beauties

When I first started playing I didn't care, I made ork trukks outa Popsicle sticks, battle wagons out of tonka trucks and buggies out of dollar store vehicles.

Now I am a bit more concerning, I don't bring a model out to play at the store unless it's painted, I use a lot of the kits for vehicles now that I can afford them and though I am not going to win any awards for my army I take pride in making my army not only "mine" but fully painted and wysiwyg. With some decent converting going on in there.


I think it really comes down to an age thing, I mean there is occasionally a kid with a nicely done army but it's rare and thats fine by me, as they get older and more experienced and decide that they are actually going to stick with the game they start doing more, taking more care and getting more advanced and experienced and it all comes together.

^^ Exactly that.

A lot of the people with bare armies are young'uns who don't have the skills. They don't acquire the skills because they are in and out of the game in a couple of years.

Pre-paints are a failed concept, at the moment. The quality/price balance is too poor, probably because figure wargamers are used to pretty high quality paintjobs which the Chinese can't replicate cheaply enough.

The multi-coloured plastic idea is a different thing. It works fine for Gundam. I don't see why it wouldn't work for SMs, and E/DE, Necrons and even Tau. Anything with chunks of uniform divided up for multiple colours. It isn't even a new idea, Matchbox were doing two-colour model kits in the 1970s.

I know there are people who are horrified by pre-paints and probably by multi-colour kits.

I would rather play against an OK looking pre-painted or multi-colour army than a grey army.

I think GW did the hobby quite a disservice by promoting Golden Demon, and 'Eavy Metal so strongly, which makes people think they need to paint their figures to an extraordinary standard, unachievable by most of of.

They did the hobby another disservice by dumping the "minimum three colours" rule for shop play and competitions.

But then, we must always remember that GW don't give a feth about the hobby except to the extent that it affect their share price.

Pre-painted mini's belong in board games or kidde crap like Mage Knight. I think it would defeat the whole point of WFB or 40k to have sprue's of prepainted mini's.

agroszkiewicz wrote:Pre-painted mini's belong in board games or kidde crap like Mage Knight. I think it would defeat the whole point of WFB or 40k to have sprue's of prepainted mini's.

Agreed.

/still wants to play against apinted armies.

I have a friend who refuses to update his Lizardmen. Has had them for almost 4 years now, most of them half painted, some the same ..poor looking first paint jobs that he did. So it's like a horde of rainbow, and it just bothers me.

I put so much time into my army, perfecting it and scratch sculpting, and he has the same army from way back when. He even uses necromunda models as saurus warriors. He is one of the few people I game with, but he just doesn't really care about the models I guess.

Then again, I am pretty fanatical when it comes to my hobby. Sculpting an entire skaven, and ogre kingdom armies, and what not. Oh well.

I never meant for the "pre painted" idea to replace painted models. It was merely a stop-gap measure; if you wanted to paint them you still could, but if you didn't it would still look better than a Grey Tide...I imagined something VERY basic to avoid the whole isse of prefentially not painting models.

yournamehere wrote:I think it really comes down to an age thing, I mean there is occasionally a kid with a nicely done army but it's rare and thats fine by me, as they get older and more experienced and decide that they are actually going to stick with the game they start doing more, taking more care and getting more advanced and experienced and it all comes together.

I still see plenty of people who are older and have been in the hobby for years and either don't paint their stuff, or it's painted so quickly and badly it might as well not be painted.

I was re-reading one of the booklets that came with my AoBR. In the section under painting, like 6 or so pages in, it says it's completely fine to have unpainted minis, but having them painted would look and feel better or what not. You can look for the pages yourself if you have it, but basically it says GW doesnt mind either way. I'm guessing tourney play is different, but casual play it really shouldn't matter. According to GW.

I personally like the grey as a base for the plastic. Keeps it a neutral to avoid confusion(especially for me)
As a 3D modeler, it's always nice to have something a single color, even when adding another object to the original(like having a human model then adding an accessory)
I view the paint as the skin and such added later for a finish product.
So, if they made pre-colored sprues I would be shaking my head at GW and more then likely not buy alot of new models unless i truly truly needed them for my army.

Everybody enjoys different aspects of the game and hobby, really. Some people (like myself) are quite into the game aspect, while some other (also like myself) are into the modeling and painting aspect.

I don't think it's fair to criticize unpainted or "poorly" painted armies because it's not fair to assume one individual's standard is the one that all hobbyists should strive to attain. I own 4 "armies" (Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos and Warmachine Cryx) and only three of these are actually fully painted. I've gotten some nice compliments on these armies, but I don't expect my opponent to have his armies fully painted, because I myself have an unpainted army. Even if I had 4 fully painted armies, I still think it's rude to assume that unpainted is lazy and/or disrespectful.

I think that pre-painted minis makes the hobby into just a game. There are other pre-painted games out there, and the thing that makes Warhammer unique is the building and painting aspect. The desire to paint is the reason why I got into it.

No, the thing that makes warhammer unique is its lore. The miniatures GW produces haven't historically been THAT exceptional in quality, though they have ramped up the quality recently.

Melissia wrote:No, the thing that makes warhammer unique is its lore. The miniatures GW produces haven't historically been THAT exceptional in quality, though they have ramped up the quality recently.

I agree on the lore aspect...without it 40k is just another "dudes in space with guns" game.

However I feel that GW models have been a bit higher quality on average than the competition, and have felt that way since the mid 90's when I started painting. Not enough to justify GW's national debt generating levels of reimbursement, but a discernible difference none the less.

Their quality has improved ,but when I look at Rogue Trader models, or even second edition models... yech.

I would really love to paint my army. I got a very nicely painted set of infantry from a deal, and I've decided to use their color scheme as my own.

I just don't have much time at the moment.

Gavo wrote:I would really love to paint my army. I got a very nicely painted set of infantry from a deal, and I've decided to use their color scheme as my own.

I just don't have much time at the moment.

Time is my biggest killer. I've got plenty to build and paint, and more on the way for Christmas. But it takes me about a month or two of on and off painting to paint a unit.

-Loki- wrote:

yournamehere wrote:I think it really comes down to an age thing, I mean there is occasionally a kid with a nicely done army but it's rare and thats fine by me, as they get older and more experienced and decide that they are actually going to stick with the game they start doing more, taking more care and getting more advanced and experienced and it all comes together.

I still see plenty of people who are older and have been in the hobby for years and either don't paint their stuff, or it's painted so quickly and badly it might as well not be painted.

Ah, but thats because you are Loki, and you exist purely to sew confusion, chaos and laughter wherever you go! Don't see we can't see through your attempts at mischief, mr. god!

I think right now I'm spending about two to three hours a weekend painting. I've gotten to where I'm finishing one or two at a time, but they're all kind of works in progress right now. It's very hard to say what my actual painting speed is.

I had a friend who i tried to get into the hobby cause he saw my painted space marines and thought they were cool, so i took him to the local game store and he bought a warhammer fantasy starter box. We got home and he opened it up eager to play and said "hey these are not painted and put together like yours!" A few weeks later i became the proud owner of a warhammer starter set.

I think its 50/50 its fun cause its a game and part of the game is painting the models, without painted models, you might as well just be using bottle caps for "counts as"

Not at all. The models still look cool and represent what they are even if they aren't painted. Although quite honestly I don't mind a few caps "count as" at all if it comes down to it and is necessary.

Laughing God wrote:If a guy showes up FOR A YEAR with models modeled like the ones posted earlier on this thread and painted horribly, or not painted at all just because he wants to POWERGAME (just takes enjoyment from winning, no actual social enjoyment for just gamplay)and they start all over again the next time he thinks a cheese list surfaces... Im srry if you fit this description you are a TERRIBLE HOBBYIST and if that makes me a "nazi,elitist, pompus duech" then I will accept that and not play you and enjoy my game with one of my friends or a complete stranger that doesnt fit THAT^ description. They can continue playing the game how they want and prolly have fun, save alot of time and money, and be cancer free (apparently o_0) but they shouldnt plan on making many friends or finding many people to play while they continue powergaming with ugly models you bought off ebay or just never painted a year ago.

I think this thread is boiled down to it's core point. As we see above the OP isn't a pompus, elitist, nazi, etc... By his description of what he despises is what essentially is a TFG is, which I can safely say 99% of us here at dakka and around the world whether in clubs, or in FLGS despise. He has said that he will play unpainted minis within reason, as long as you tell him the exact reason.

Yes, this thread is going around in cicrles, but what good discussion doesn't.

When I was a kid and played this game I just wanted to have all the new models when they came out and have a big army or the next army. I would even buy (or get for Christmas : )) a new unit before I had even taken others out of the box.

I've just got back into the hobby and now I am refusing to buy anything else until I have painted what I have. You can still play small games as you build up the army and IMHO it gives you more satisfaction that you built/collected/modelled your own army rather than just bought a job lot off ebay.

I totally understand that many aren't too good at the painting (I am by no means brilliant myself) but some kind of effort makes a massive difference on the tabletop. If you have the skills to glue together the bloody fiddly (although much better and more detailed!) plastic miniatures that they have these days then surely you can throw a few colours on them?

No judging here though. I'll play anyone, but just prefer the fully painted opponent.