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Gents (and the odd lady)

I recently visited Warhammer World late January. As I was looking round the gaming tables I noticed that almost all the armies present were not fully painted. On one such table a guy had his own SM chapter,fully painted to a very high standard. I asked him how long he spent on his army and it was in the region of about 4 months (around 2000 pts). His opponent had an eldar army. Not one painted miniture. The Grav tanks were assembled but didn't have flying bases. The guy had not primed a single model.

As I went into the store area of WW, the junior gamers were having a fairly heated WHFB between Orcs and Dark Elves. I spotted a Dragon.....no legs,no rider and no bottom jaw, resting on a 50mm base courtesy of blu-tac. Again no paint. Straight out the box.

I enjoy gaming. I really do. But amongst my small group of friends that game (around 6 of us) we have a few house rules. One of the rules is all models must be assembled and primed minimum.

I don't mind playing against unpainted armies at my FLGS when I get time to go. But do you not find it detracts from the enjoyment of the game? I wouldn't enjoy having spent 6 months or more on painting/converting an army just to take on an unpainted/semi assembled army because the owner has no time/can't be bothered/can't afford to.

I can understand playtesting A new model/character/unit which has not been painted, but a whole army?

As for proxies, I have never played against Terminators disguised as poker chips. But I'm sure some of you have.

Gents, the floor is yours.

We have had a fair few of these threads.. we'll see how this one goes for the moment, standard blah blah about search functions, old grudges etc etc.Void where prohibited, beware of the Monkees.. one their mums invented Tipex etc etc.

Yes, I would play against an army like that.

Times have changed since I went to WW.

About 5 years ago they had a sign saying words to the effect of, "Our tables are out together by dedicated hobbyists, and as such deserve respect. It is a requirement that all armies gaming on our tables should be fully assembled and have the minimum of 3 colours of paint."

I would game against an unpainted army (I'm well aware of peoples time constraints), but I'd much rather play against a fully assembled and painted army.

At my local gaming store, nobody really cares if your army is painted. Even in sponsored tournaments, there are plenty of unpainted models. Guess we're just weird like that.

I really hate playing against not fully assembled armies... I dislike them not being painted, but I can totally understand how long it takes. I myself am guilty of playing in a tournament with only half my army painted last year. HOWEVER, in that same tournament, another player made such a fuss that the judges allowed him to play his tyranid army, which consisted of two large units of primed hormagaunts, one totally unpainted hive tyrant, and empty bases to represent three carnifexes and tyrant guard. I ranted about this for days afterword, at least I beat him rather soundly.

I would go against a unpainted and unprimed (because i'm guessing my first game will be fully assembled and maybe primed) and I don't have a problem with proxies in a game so long as I am informed of what they are before hand. but unassembled? no, unless he can't get a hold of a certain piece that broke or something. If there is a extenuating circumstance as to why they aren't fully assembled then maybe. I'll be taking pride in painting my minis so goinging in with them primed at least will be fine by me.

I have started to change my mind about this.

At first I was anti unpainted minis, but as the winds of change have swept through GW' s business model I have had to change my stance and play against gamers who have unpainted minis.

So long as it is obvious what the minis are supposed to represent I am happy to play.

I am not so flexible when it comes to proxies. Again providing it is a logical proxy (SM Bikers representing TWC) and that similar minis do not represent two different things (2xRuss LRBT representing executioners and standard LRBT) I dont havea problem.

I do have issues with guys and gals who have an army and keep proxying, Invest in some more minis or stick to an army choice.

oh @c34r34lk1ll3r how the hell do you pronounce your name? whats wrong with the 'old timers' alphabet?

@Mr. B: "cereal..."

@OP: Yes, I've done so. On both sides of the table. Usually, I've got paint, but not always.

My friends and I play with some proxys but we really try to build and paint (or at least undercoat) all our models. We've been slowly building our armies (due to money concerns ) and now having 1000pts each we are starting second armys to keep the flavor. This however results in a large amount of Proxying as I'm moving from SM to Nids and I just can't afford to buy all those swarms yet.
agree that The game looks better when everything is built and painted but if your playing with some good friends I think it's no less fun. I guess it's lucky we all want a finished army or we'd be playing with blank bases

I don't mind if the models aren't painted or primed. I still think they look cool . But when they are not assembled, its pushing it. If someone doesn't have their flying bases because they forgot them at home, then I don't mind.

But should people not play their armies for months on end, because they haven't painted them fully? No, that ruins the game.

Of course I'm not a racist.
*facepalm and total fail*

One of these threads. Let's see how long it lasts...

Me, I am fine with only partially painted/assembled model, as long as I can clearly tell what they represent, though I get a bit annoyed with half assembled stuff if it stays like that for more than a Week or two.

I like painted but as long as it's put together I'm good with it.

I'm not sure if this is on or off topic, when it comes to things such as pintle mount weapons and camo netting for Guard tanks, if it's packed on the vehicle (ie a stubber strapped to a pack on the back of the vehicle or a bunch of netting packed up) would it bother anyone if the Guard player just declared before playing whether or not he was using those items? I ask because I've considered 'packing' every plausible option onto my
'mid-campaign' Chimeras.

Not painted?
Yes. Most people want to start playing quickly once they bought their minis and painting takes a while. I know I don't have a fully painted army yet and I would hate having to wait until all was done before I could eve play. It simply goes against common sense.

Not assembled?
I would, but but only if I had no other opponent choices. While painting takes a while, assembling can be pretty quick.

Proxy?
No. Just.. no.

Mr. Burning wrote:

oh @c34r34lk1ll3r how the hell do you pronounce your name? whats wrong with the 'old timers' alphabet?

cerealkiller. been using it for years. the extra 4 right after the c is intentional

I would play agaist them if they were unpainted, But not un-assembled, Why not just assemble them and make them look alot better before playing Warhammer.

Funily enough I don't recall ever playing against an unpainted or un assembled army before, Played quite a few games as well.

If someone fields an legless dragon stuck to a base with blue-tac and this is acceptable, what may I ask is the minium requirement for fielding a model?

I'll play someone with maybe a single unpainted regiment/vehicle, maybe they have had a busy month and they just haven't got it done in time. People who have whole unassembled/unpainted armies and show no signs of making a serious effort I will not play. We've had *loads* of threads about this but my enjoyment comes from playing with painted miniatures. Unpainted armies are visually unappealing and when a game takes several hours I want it to be a good one, I don't value the victory as much as having a good time.

Some people will come along and say they don't have time to paint, but many of us have families and jobs and do find the time to paint even slowly. The reason some people never progress with painting their armies is because they don't want to paint them. That's fine for them, but the take enjoyment from the hobby in a manner which I don't, so given the chance to play a game I would always aim to play with someone who enjoys painting and enjoys fielding painted armies. I like talking about painting and modelling, and I simply would have very little in common who focused solely on the gaming side.

It's long been the tradtition to only field painted miniatures in the wargaming community and it's something I fully support. This applies particularly in tournaments. Tournaments are the chance for a bit of publicity for the hobby, within the hobby and outside to some extent. I think unpainted armies at official events reflects very badly on the hobby.

I've said it before on other painting threads but will say it again here. The habit of fielding unpainted armies is something fostered by GW. Because they constantly put the pressure on selling the latest thing they have increasingly allowed people to use it prematurely, ie not assembled/painted. They won't send gamers away for a couple of months to paint their miniatures because their business model is about selling the latest thing to use *right now*. Their favourite customer is one that moves onto a new army every couple of months to keep up with the latest cool army, forcing people to undergo a lengthy process of painting miniatures isn't conducive to this. As I said, it used to be de rigueur to paint armies, now it isn't, particularly with GW. I mean allowing unpainted and partly assembled miniatures to be fielded at official tournaments is ridiculous.

I've no problem playing against an unpainted army or even an army that is partly unassembled (hive tyrant bodie with no arms or such,so long as I know what it's supposed to be) in friendly games.
However if some one was to place an empty base on the table and claimed it was a winged daemon prince or such,I'd have to refuse that.

I would of course like to play against fully painted armies but if someone has an unpainted unassembled army i dont mind.

But if there models are glued on with no legs or something crazy that would change the size of the model and effecting TLOS. The only time i would agree with that is for a freindly game where we are testing out tourny lists, then just a base is fine with me because your just trying to figure out what works and there wouldnt be any arguements.

I play against more unpainted, unassembled, proxied units than I do otherwise, but I try to field an all-painted force if at all possible. I recently played against a Tau army made of cardboard circles to represent Broadsides and Fireknives, Plague Marines to represent Fire Warriors, and he borrowed some Rhinos off me to proxy Devilfish. Either I shut up and accept this as the de facto standard, or I do not get a game.

I just played a game with a Tyranid player in which I lent the player about a dozen empty bases to use as spawned gaunts, and we were both using primed and partially painted figures.

Does anyone have a "My other army is painted." bumper sticker?