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Assembled and WYSIWYG (or minimal proxies) will do for a pick up or test game. I will play against a painted army in preference to an unpainted one, though. If it's a tournament I'm going to be annoyed to see anything unpainted. I'll try to be nice about it, but my enjoyment will definitely be diminished. I think Vandez said it well.

Depends. In general, I play two types of games. 1500 point games against people I know well on Thursdays, and larger Apocalypse games against people I'm less familiar with on Sundays. Both have different expectations.

Because I know the people on Thursdays, I know the details about what each player is currently producing, so if they do play with undercoated minis (Thursdays are at Warhammer World, so undercoated is the minimum) it's usually because they have an army under development and/or we're testing a prototype army. On the whole though, we each expect armies to be painted in a reasonable time frame, so usually the models are fully painted.

Sundays are larger inclusive apoc games, played at the University. Here, not everyone is a hardcore 40k player, and the large number of models involved means bare plastic is a common sight. Because Sundays are less serious (not to mention played on cardboard terrain), I'm willing to let it go.

Overall, I have no issue playing against unpainted armies so long as it's obvious the person is attempting to paint them. It's when clearly no effort is made that I get annoyed, especially as I spend a long time painting myself.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Still on the sprue is fine by me.
Seriously though, to those of you who voted "black or white undercoat," why?
Is an army made of white or black models better than an army made of gray ones?

I once read a players pack for a tournament which read "All models must at least be undercoated. Bare metal or plastic will be removed from the table".

Yeah, I didn't understand it either.

I prefer unpainted armies to basecoated ones, honestly.
At least you can tell what the model looks like; with a black basecoat it just looks like an inky blob.

Hang on, I thought basecoated meant you had all the flat colours painted on the model, but no shading/highlighting/detailing

That's what I voted for.

I am seriously unimpressed by unpainted models at tournaments. In friendly games on my kitchen table I don't mind unpainted models too much, and may occasionally even proxy something. At club I'd expect to see at least a mostly painted army, and progress being made week to week.

I voted fully painted, with a caveat that I don't mind facing proxies, unpainted, partially assembled if my opponent is trying something out, or working on the models.

We also have a "club" that plays at people's homes, and we're all into the painting of the minis primarily, and we feel bad if we bring unpainted minis to the games. I've played a couple games at the local GW (against one of my club mates), our armies were painted, few to none of the others in the store were.

And, to top it all off, Gorgon (Best Appearance winner at the Baltimore GT) is in our group, so all of the rest of our stuff is just meh in comparison ;-) But it does help me push the painting and technique envelope.

Neil wrote:

I prefer unpainted armies to basecoated ones, honestly.
At least you can tell what the model looks like; with a black basecoat it just looks like an inky blob.

Hang on, I thought basecoated meant you had all the flat colours painted on the model, but no shading/highlighting/detailing

That's what I voted for.

I am seriously unimpressed by unpainted models at tournaments. In friendly games on my kitchen table I don't mind unpainted models too much, and may occasionally even proxy something. At club I'd expect to see at least a mostly painted army, and progress being made week to week.

I actually meant for that to be "undercoated." (I edited my original post.)

I prefer fully painted, but I will settle for base coated. I'll even be kind to let you bring some primered ones, as long as they are the same primed ones ever week for over a month.

Progress on the army goes along way with me.

I have really low standards for WHFB. Almost the entire army can be blank bases as long as there are enough either real figures or paper cutouts to identify the units. Bonus points if they cut out cardboard movement trays.

For 40k, paper cutouts or legs and guns would be my minimum standard to play against.

It's more important to me to be able to tell which squad to which a model belongs than how its painted, so a splash of paint or color on each of the bases is really, really appreciated. There's nothing worse than looking at 30 orks piled together that all look the same (because I don't know any better) and trying to figure out which models are which. Or worse yet, the beautifully painted IG army where you can't tell to which squad any of the figures belong if the squads get close to each other.

I've played against a unit of Fire Warriors that was only legs. It made them easy to tell apart from the assembled, also unpainted ones.

No particular personal standard, but obviously my preference would be a standard similar to my own. 'Eavy Metal standard would just make me look bad.

I would love to see an army of paper/cardboard cutouts. Post pics please!

While I'd prefer fully painted, the minimum I'll play against is at least assembled.

If YOU choose necrons, but then can't be bothered assembling them (or even asking for help or how-to) then I don't want to play you - you probably don't even know your army's rules yet, either. [experience has taught me this].

If you wish to proxy, then at least use something of a similar size to the original (I've seen a brass scorpion proxied with a Transformers Skorponok that was about the 'right' size) and lego titans/battlemechs.

That landspeeder cannot proxy for that basilisk. That ork warbuggy is NOT a battlewagon (especially not the metal RT vintage piece.

I would have to say that as long as they have the figs I will play. And if your working out a new army or testing out a list before you buy some stuff I dont mind proxies. I just wanna know ahead of time what it is so that I know for the rest of the game.

I myself like many others here enjoy seeing two painted armies clash. Its one of the things I work towards with my armies. Is to get them fully painted, and play impressive battles. Though sometimes I dont move very fast (especially when I forget my stuff at a friends house for a week -_-) so I wont rag on anyone about the progress of there painting.

Though I gotta say one thing I DO NOT enjoy playing against are people who put together there models, but don't take the time to even cit off the little extra plastic bits that you have to cut off if you just pop the pieces out. That annoys me to no end! And another thing that really annoys me but I will still play against is when people (usually new people to the hobby who don't know much better) try, and paint right onto metal models. Painting right on plastic doesn't work great either, but painting right onto metal seems to look horrible!

Alright that is all. I am done now

Here is how I break it down.

I will only play with labeled bases if it's a one off thing for a particular unit for the purposes of testing or if the model has not been released.

I will only play against plastic if it is the only opponent I can play and again, it's a one off for a new unit that your working on. I'd expect to only play against said unit a couple of times before they show improvement. Exceptions may be made for people who buy a whole new army in a short time period, but the army should show progress.

Black or white undercoat, aka primered as far as I am concerned. I'm on the fence about this. For certian armies, it's not that bad for their vehicles (black templars). For others it is just as bad as plastic. In general, same as with plastic, a couple of times is fine, but you need show some progress.

Base coasted to me is having the base colors on the model. Again, as with the primers, this depends on the army and how clean the person was in basecoating. My base coats are really rough, so they look like a 4 year old did them. On the other hand, if I were a bit more patient with it, it would look descent. If it looks OK, then it's fine with me. If it looks lke a 4 year old did it, same as with primer.

Fully painted to me means the army is painted well enough to know what it represents and looks like an army. Stuff generally matches and is consistant across the army. There is no proxing and everything is WYSIWYG. Lastly, the models are all based, flock or otherwise. This is where my army lies.

Fully painted to a high standard includes all those armies that are fully highlighted and decaled (painted or otherwise) to make them really stand out. These armies, when done well, are truely a privalege to play against.

My rule is this: For friendly games, As long as you have some models in the unit assembled, its good. Black (or White) primer armies of doom are OK, you will just revieve a scathing remark if I do not see even an attempt at progress (even just spraying on some 'ardcoat) every month. I expect people to turn up at tournaments with at least 3 colours ('ardcoat black counts as 2), and NO PROXIES! After all, this is a tournament.

Hello,
I honestly think that if you are into the hobby you really
need to paint your miniatures.Laziness is no excuse! So
what if you can't paint well? You only learn how to paint
if you actually paint!In my opinion if someone continually
fields an unpainted army you've got to question what
their motive is.Are they into the hobby or are they just
powergamers intent on just winning all the time?

I prefer to play against mostly painted armies but as I know that the people who frequent my FLGS usually take a long time to paint, I'll accept models from Primed, a Base color and so on. On the other hand I hate to play games where I have unpainted models, and the only time I allow myself to do so is if I recently bought them and just finished assembly before the game or if I have just started painting.

Painted for me.

I hate playing against well-painted armies, because they end up with their super detailed chaplain they spent hours making getting killed by a slugga boy who has green all over his shirt, brown all over his arm, and all the paint worn away from the top of his head.

I am not a particularly skilled painter.