Which army takes the least effort to paint?

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**$pider**

The army painter options are basically made for getting something on the table ASAP. Spray paint the models, fill in minor details and dip in shade. Spray the anti-shine. done. I think Space Marines would be easiest with this method. Currently I am using the Army Painter - Army Green spray for an IG army. So far I am very happy with the army green spray.

The only thing I am not sure of is whether or not decals can be added after the models are dipped.

**poda_t**

Ultragayrines, Bloodangels and space puppies are easy: they are all monochrome with a wee bit of detail, all doable with spray. If he sticks to 100% armored suits, its a quick paintjob, and then a dip.

Id imagine imperial fists would also work in this fashion... and so would ANGRYMARINES!

**ghostmaker**

Grey Knights I buy master titanum and that is the base color then I do gold for words blue for eyes and blue for weapon and bleached bone for patchment. Takes about 20 mins a model.

**GreyHamster**

The smaller details on Grey Knights don't look that good if you don't paint them, while normal marines don't have any such detailing.

Pretty much any chapter that doesn't have baroque ornamentation like Wolves or Templar do would be ideal, especially ones in darker monochrome. Salamanders, Ultramarines, Relictors, Avenging sons, the like. Spray the basecoat, dot the eyes, boltgun on the weapon, and wash a similar color or dip, and he's done.

A second advantage to Marines over Tyranids for ease of painting is model count. Even if a tyranid takes 2/3 the time, you have half the marine models.

**fenrir1997**

I gotta vote for nids:

basic colors, Army Painter dip in strong tone. Table top quality for the new guy works wonders.

**Danzag**

Gonna have to agree on Necrons.
I did two battleforces worth of stuff in just over 2 days.

Primed Black, Spray Mithril Silver, Eyes and Small Details Light blue, Light Wash, Done.
I pretty much primed EVERYTHING in one hit.
Prime 10 warriors, another 10, another 10, another 10, another 10 and by the time the last lot was done, the first lot was dry and ready to be turned and done again.
Scarabs were even simpler.

The only things that took a little more effort were the Destroyers, even then, they only took about an hour each with some highlighting done.

**Praxiss**

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:It depends on how much detail, how many layers of highlights, and how much you can be bothered really.....If you want to be quick just do 3 colours basic and paint the bases. I wouldn't say any one army is 'easier' to paint than any other.
Colour scheme comes into it, as does the sheer amount of detail you want to put into a project. You get out what you put in thou. So if you slave for 5-6 hrs over a single rank and file trooper, painting him and his squad mates to the very best of your ability then you will have an army that you can be proud of and that may start conversations at your LGS or with friends. Similarly, if you paint every mini with a 3 colour basic and spend no time at all with details, then you would have a finished army. It would be a little dull and would not be a conversation piece, but it is yours.

I agree to an extent. I get convos started at my LGS and my IWs have a stupidly simple 2.3 colour scheme. Spray Black, Boltgun, Shning Gold Trim. A simpel paint scheme can be very effective when it is carries through the entire army consistently. I find that throwing in the odd covnersion helps models stand out, even if it a simple kit bash/arm swap whatever.

**gilljoy**

Really depends on how much effort you want to put in and how good you want your army to look.

Most of the marines are easy enough to paint but I always find highlighting them hard.

Necrons are really easy to paint.

Tyranids dipped also turn out really nicely.

Most armys will look better with a simple basecoat on the component parts and followed by a dip.

**Stavkat**

NoBaconz4You wrote:Quickest to paint? Marines - there is no cloth and very little flesh. Most parts are straight, regular and blocky which make them easy to shade and highlight (little blending needed).

When his friend doesn't really want to paint anything, mentioning shading and highlighting and blending is downright crazy!

And in my experience they can be very easily 'drybrushed' to table top standard in a matter of minutes (with any colour).

This is better. Basecoat, paint the guns metal, some drybrushing, wash. Done. Until the friend wants to do more.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

GreyHamster wrote:A second advantage to Marines over Tyranids for ease of painting is model count. Even if a tyranid takes 2/3 the time, you have half the marine models.

Gosh I am glad someone mentioned this in the thread. I was beginning to think people were missing the point here, which is "least effort for an army" not "least time to paint a given model"

**Madmax1**

I'm going to go against the grain here and say Orks. Yes, I know the ork models have a lot of detail...BUT, it doesn't matter how well you paint with orks. If your paint job is sloppy and ugly, that's ok. It's supposed to look sloppy and ugly.

**bazookatooth**

Personally i have painted marines, orks, grey knights, chaos marines, and tyranids. I have found the tyranids are by far the easiest. Here how i did them: body-bubonic brown, carapace-scab red, teeth-skull white, eyes and toxin sacs/weapon parts-goblin green. I use devlan mud to wash the whole model (brushed not dipped) and then use the 'ard coat to give them a slimy/shiny look. Very easy and you can do a 30 blob of gaunts in a 3-4 hours using this technique. It will get an army up and running in no time.

**Battle Brother Ambrosius**

I would say Necrons or Black Templars.

Crons= Black undercoat, boltgun metal highlight, green eyes and badab black. Done.

Templars= Black undercoat. Some white for shoulders. Red eyes. Done

**Stavkat**

Madmax1 wrote:I'm going to go against the grain here and say Orks. Yes, I know the ork models have a lot of detail...BUT, it doesn't matter how well you paint with orks. If your paint job is sloppy and ugly, that's ok. It's supposed to look sloppy and ugly.

Again the question is which *army* takes the least effort to paint. I am not sure how sloppy / quickly you mean for orks, but you at least have to paint 3 times as many models as you would for marines.

**latrodectus**

Madmax1 wrote:I'm going to go against the grain here and say Orks. Yes, I know the ork models have a lot of detail...BUT, it doesn't matter how well you paint with orks. If your paint job is sloppy and ugly, that's ok. It's supposed to look sloppy and ugly.

This is the opposite of truth. Poorly painted models are NOT orky. Poorly built models are not orky. They still look like garbage. Orks are surprisingly difficult to do well, because in order to make it NOT look like garbage, but still "thrown together", you need to have at least a moderate degree of talent.

On topic, Marines are very simple to do.

**Sin_Un_Nombre**

I have to go with Necrons here. Prime black, kinda drybrush with pretty much any silver known to man, green in the eyes, done. You don't even have to use GW paints. Krylon spray primer and a cheap, giant bottle of Folk Art silver from Wal-Mart will get the job done nicely, and for around $5. Not to mention they can play the MSU game, so you don't have to paint very many models. Obviously for bigger games you need a Monolith, but that can come later, after he's more comfortable with painting and modeling.

Jon

**DX3**

Nidz. Necrons. Candy Colored SpaceMans.

Base coast. Highlight / Drybrush. Dip. Done.

Now, Fight !

**dalsiandon**

Necrons I'd think are the simplest from the look of things, Marines have a lot of details, not nearly as many as some forces but I have to agree as a player who uses 'Nids and Marines i'd say necrons for fast to paint and simple.

I figure Necrons are 4 colors tops to do.

Black base,
Gun Metal or chrome,
Bright Green - Radiation Green or Neon Green, some kind of unsettling green color.
and maybe some red in there for the engines on the hovering ones,
and flayed ones get flesh color too
The scarabs would prolly just be the two colors of black and gunmetal/chrome

My simplest 'Nid has 4 colors and that's the spore mines, the larger creatures might have ten to fifteen. As for marines, even the simplest of my marines have nearly a dozen colors on them.

**Madmax1**

Yeah, on second thought, you guys are right. I've seen some badly painted orks that don't look orky, they just look bad. Plus, it's a ton of models to paint. I think Necrons are probably the easiest. Base color, pick out some details, a little dry brush, a wash and done.

**Nightwalker**

Necrons, don't do CSM they are annoying as hell to paint with their horns and other mutations

**imark789**

Yeah stay away from Imperial guard too