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I know I am probably in the minority out there ...

But I can't help but wonder if anyone else out there can't stand partially painted armies in pictures included in Battle Reports.

Both myself and my dad REFUSE!!!! to put an unpainted model on the table ... period.

IS THERE ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE THAT FEELS THIS WAY?!?!?!?

Even a base coat looks better than raw metal or plastic ... I understand that if you don't have enough time to get something finished prior to a battle. But I really don't like getting my hopes up clicking on a battle report "with pics" only to find that some un-godly proportion of the models are unpainted. If that is the case ... words will be enough if its a good battle.

... OK ... glad I got that off my chest.

Let the backlash begin!

Generaly, I paint my models up fully before fielding them. Exceptions being for things like the new 'Nids dex, where I ran a few partially painted units because I was completely re-fitting my entire army, and I wouldn't be able to play for a week or two otherwise.

Let the Flames Commence!

I don't have much time to paint, so...

FEAR THE GREY & SHINY ARMY OF DOOOOOOOOOM!

I agree in principle I try and field my army fully painted however if you buy a new model and have the opportunity to use it before it is painted (as long as it is assembled) then why not. Just don't take pictures and post a crap battle report.

Why even take them out of their packages?

Ed_Bodger wrote:I agree in principle I try and field my army fully painted however if you buy a new model and have the opportunity to use it before it is painted (as long as it is assembled) then why not. Just don't take pictures and post a crap battle report.

EXACTLY!!!! ... if timing is an issue ... or if you just wanna game with it ... THATS GREAT!!! ...

BUT DON'T TAKE PICS FOR A BATTLE REPORT OF THAT !!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Redbeard wrote:Why even take them out of their packages?

I just laughed and cried simultaneously

OK, unpainted i can kind of understand...to a degree. but still in the packs?!

Not each player is a decent painter.
But keeping them in the boxes is a weird thought.

My armies (BA, Eldar, EC) are fully painted.
Especially the Eldar army is painted not too bad.

I don't mind provided the player is making progress on painting.
I.E. this week he has 2 squads fully painted, next week it's 3, the week after & his LR is painted. I know people are busy but I try to paint at LEAST one unit per week.

That said people who make NO attempt to paint their army beside the 10 min base coat of spray pain kinda tick me off.

My local GW the black shirt has the same problem, he refuses to let any models tha havent go their bascoat on (e.g. salamanders have to be painted green so they are disinguisabel.) EDIT: <- fail spelling

Bear LaMorte wrote:I know I am probably in the minority out there ...

But I can't help but wonder if anyone else out there can't stand partially painted armies in pictures included in Battle Reports.

Both myself and my dad REFUSE!!!! to put an unpainted model on the table ... period.

IS THERE ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE THAT FEELS THIS WAY?!?!?!?

Even a base coat looks better than raw metal or plastic ... I understand that if you don't have enough time to get something finished prior to a battle. But I really don't like getting my hopes up clicking on a battle report "with pics" only to find that some un-godly proportion of the models are unpainted. If that is the case ... words will be enough if its a good battle.

... OK ... glad I got that off my chest.

Let the backlash begin!

I totally disagree. I would love to see some unpainted armies in WD to show that gamers are real people and don't get everything prepared pro-painted standard in a couple of days. The idea of 40K is primarily fun and to an extent looking good. Hell, a group of unpainted IG still fight the same as a painted bunch. Not everyone has only painting Warhammer in their lives to worry about. I get about 6 hours a month to build, convert and paint my figures but I scrape by. If people want to photograph unpainted minatures in battle reports that's fine, as long as their relevent to the report.

My two cents.

The OC-D

P.S. Re-reading this, I feel it sounds really sarcy and whiney. I don't mean it to appear like that.

"Fully painted army" is synonymous with "badly painted army" in my eyes. That's obviously not always true, but it's very rare that I personally clap eyes on an army that was simultaneously well painted and fully painted.

Maybe I'm a slow painter, but it takes me somewhere around 10-15 hours to get a single average-sized infantry model from on the sprue to fully painted and based, double that if there's any green stuff work involved. Working at that rate, I'm certainly not waiting until everything is fully finished before getting some games in!

I usually put my models into two categories, one is the "use all you want" group which I play around with it all the time, the other part is the "more important" group which generally count as a collection

Looks like a revolution to present unpainted armies in WD.
But I understand THECD.
Those armies painted by the eavy metal group are out of reach for a normal player.

Rube wrote:"Fully painted army" is synonymous with "badly painted army" in my eyes. That's obviously not always true, but it's very rare that I personally clap eyes on an army that was simultaneously well painted and fully painted.

Everyone starts somewhere. You don't have a well-painted army without having a less-well-painted army first. With experience comes progress.

The problem isn't that people are painting badly, which is a problem that self-corrects given time, the problem is that people don't try.

wuestenfux wrote:Looks like a revolution to present unpainted armies in WD.
But I understand THECD.
Those armies painted by the eavy metal group are out of reach for a normal player.

I disagree. Anyone can have a nice looking army if they spend just a few hours learning some simple techniques. Learn to drybrush. Spend some time practicing brush control. Learn to use a wash. Choose a colour-scheme that works with your skill-level (don't try to do Imperial Fists as your first army).

But if people don't start somewhere, they'll never get anywhere.

Redbeard CHEERS TO YOU MATE!! ... sounds like you and I are on the same page!

I think everyone PREFERS fully-painted, well-painted armies. It's part of the appeal. We all fell in love with the awesome minis in the codexes and rule books. But I'm not an elitist about it. I work at my minis and have ~3K orks done since December. But I don't turn down games or not read batreps because of some unpainted/poorly painted models. C'mon, man. It's not that big of a deal.

Bear LaMorte wrote:Even a base coat looks better than raw metal or plastic ... I understand that if you don't have enough time to get something finished prior to a battle. But I really don't like getting my hopes up clicking on a battle report "with pics" only to find that some un-godly proportion of the models are unpainted. If that is the case ... words will be enough if its a good battle.

I would rather see a good battle report with pics of unpainted figs then a good battle report with no images whatsoever. I've yet to see anyone explain the battlefield clearly enough for me as what even a few pictures do.

In a general sense I do prefer seeing batreps with painted armies rather then unpainted, but I prefer pictures either way.

Easy on the caps lock duder.

In a perfect world, every game I play would be with a beautifully painted army versus a similarly beautiful army, across a fully molded battlefield, replete with hundreds of hours worth of scratch built and GW terrain. But there are these pesky things called "Real life commitments" like "college" and "jobs" that get in the way.

As a full time student with a dodgy part time job I still manage to find the time to paint a lot of my stuff, but even then I really don't spend my "me" time doing much else.

Rube wrote:"Fully painted army" is synonymous with "badly painted army" in my eyes. That's obviously not always true, but it's very rare that I personally clap eyes on an army that was simultaneously well painted and fully painted.

Maybe I'm a slow painter, but it takes me somewhere around 10-15 hours to get a single average-sized infantry model from on the sprue to fully painted and based, double that if there's any green stuff work involved. Working at that rate, I'm certainly not waiting until everything is fully finished before getting some games in!

I agree I am an ok painter sometimes a good one but whatever standard I do I take quite a while to do it.

My aim whenever I put something on the table is that if it is SW for example the armour is the same colour as the rest of my marines (SW grey) the face is skin coloured and the weapon is base painted. I can achieve this look for a squad in two hours and they look fine. I would be bloody ashamed to say they were finished I refer to them as base coated but it does make them instantly recognisable as my models from my army. By the time I play with the unit again I try to have it finished or at least to table top standard and the following time it is finished. I have made this rule for my units and unfortunately for me if I don't find the time to improve it before the next game I am not allowed to use it.

I would never suggest this for other people as I just use it to discipline me to stick to one project at a time but it seems to work.

Oh and being really snobby about this (again just my preference) I will not read any battle report where the majority of the models in the pics are unpainted. I am just not that interested. Painted model pics capture the imagination much better.

Bear, you’re not alone. You’re actually part of a proud tradition going back to historical wargaming. A lot (possibly the majority) of historical wargamers today still follow the tradition of never putting an unpainted model on the table.

That said, I concur with Thor’s point that a battle report really should have pictures (or diagrams) to be clear. While unpainted models in the pics are disappointing, no pics at all is generally not as good or useful a battle report.

I also agree with Redbeard. It’s important that people paint, and everyone is capable of painting increasingly nice models as they continue to paint.

Rube wrote:"Fully painted army" is synonymous with "badly painted army" in my eyes. That's obviously not always true, but it's very rare that I personally clap eyes on an army that was simultaneously well painted and fully painted.

Maybe I'm a slow painter, but it takes me somewhere around 10-15 hours to get a single average-sized infantry model from on the sprue to fully painted and based, double that if there's any green stuff work involved. Working at that rate, I'm certainly not waiting until everything is fully finished before getting some games in!

You are a slow painter. I’m not a great painter, but my stuff is reasonably attractive (see gallery), and it generally takes me an evening’s work (maybe 3-5 hrs) to paint a unit. That’s around 10 infantry models, or maybe 5 special larger models like terminators. If I’m working with something organic where I can do a lot of drybrushing and inking, I can go faster. When I was prepping for the ’08 Colonial I painted twenty beastmen, a shaman, and a chariot up to a nice tabletop standard in a single evening. And I don’t enter speedpainting competitions or anything. I’m just a gamer and passable painter who mostly focuses on getting units done fast, rather than trying to win painting competitions.

Bear LaMorte wrote:Both myself and my dad REFUSE!!!! to put an unpainted model on the table ... period.

IS THERE ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE THAT FEELS THIS WAY?!?!?!?

This I like. Armies get painted before they see the table.

When I started the hobby, I figured I'd hate the painting and be nuts over the game itself. To that end, I decided not to field a model until it was painted. Since I was doing a horde army, it made sense. I really didn't want to wind up with a bunch of unpainted models. In practice, it's worked out well, especially since I actually like painting.

As for other folks, well, they're their models. I prefer to play against a painted army since it's often interesting to see what other folks have done, but at the end of the day, they're the other person's little plastic army men and they can do what they wish with them.

Mine arn't painted, because, uh... the warp did it! Yes, that will do.

There are hobbyist and there are gamers.

Hobbyist have the patience to finish painting their army before putting it on the table to play because their focus was on the hobby itself.

A gamer's focus was never about painting the army , its about putting the mini together and weeee game.

Different people , different priorities . I respect them both

Rube wrote:"Fully painted army" is synonymous with "badly painted army" in my eyes. That's obviously not always true, but it's very rare that I personally clap eyes on an army that was simultaneously well painted and fully painted.

Maybe I'm a slow painter, but it takes me somewhere around 10-15 hours to get a single average-sized infantry model from on the sprue to fully painted and based, double that if there's any green stuff work involved. Working at that rate, I'm certainly not waiting until everything is fully finished before getting some games in!

10-15 hours to paint one guy!?! Holy crap, there's gotta be a way to streamline your process a little.

Painted figs in a batrep instantly give it a +1, but as has been mentioned, Id rather see some pics with unpainted figs rather than no figs at all.

As for people painting their armies I don't get how the effort of at least priming the models the main army color is beyond many people. I almost always play with painted models, sometimes only to tabletop standard just to get things rolling. But even with my orks where the new codex took my army of about 40 models and necessitated an army of 80-140 models they at least got primed green until I got to their unit. It is to their benefit as most players that play for the game and not the hobby still want to enter organized events which often have minimum painting requirements. Primed and drybrushed armies may not be award winnign, but they at least look decent with the very bare minimum of work.

LunaHound wrote:There are hobbyist and there are gamers.

Hobbyist have the patience to finish painting their army before putting it on the table to play because their focus was on the hobby itself.

A gamer's focus was never about painting the army , its about putting the mini together and weeee game.

I see myself as both hobbyist and gamer.
But I've only been playing 40K for a couple of months and have maybe a couple of nights a week at most to paint; I'm playing Orks. So while I have every intention of painting up my army it's a slow process. I'm not just learning how to play 40K I'm learning how to paint so I don't want to rush in and mess up a load of models with crap paintwork. Crappy paintwork would be just as bad as unpainted figures. But if I waited until my army was fully painted I wouldn't have had a game yet, where's the fun in that? I want to play the game.

I can understand people wanting to see the pretty, pretty, (I do too) but give new gamers a chance and that includes the chance to show off their games. Give us time, we'll get there.

i don't know man. i mean my army is almost all metal and plastic and i don't have a problem with it and have never met anyone who did, but i do agree that i probably should paint my stuff if its going to go on the interwebs

but silver works so well for necrons...