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Kilkrazy wrote:I'm not claiming any moral high ground from this. I just don't understand the idea that I should feel obliged to play with unpainted soldiers because some young chap wants to, while he should not feel obliged to play with painted soldiers because some old chap wants to.

I completely agree with this sentiment, however;

Kilkrazy wrote:
I've never seen an unpainted army fielded, ever. My playing experience is at long-running clubs, with a higher proportion of older players. These sorts of venues have a culture that you don't play with unpainted figures. It is the standard culture of wargaming from as old as we know about model soldiers.

It is exactly this kind of atmosphere that prevented me from ever getting involved at my LGS. While they weren't quite as "conservative" as this, I still got the distinct impression that most players there would rather not play than play an unpainted army. As a gamer who started less than a year ago, and a snail-slow painter to boot, I felt absolutely no reason to engage with the wargaming community at large - especially when I could have a load of fun playing some games with my buddies in one of their basements. TBH, I felt somewhat pushed out "until I could get a painted army."

Truth be told, I would very much always prefer to play a fully painted army against another fully painted army, on a nice table with good terrain, against a friendly and fun opponent. Unfortunately, this idyllic scenario is out of reach for me. My army is not fully painted (though some of it is), and since I can't go to the LGS without a fully painted army (and because it's fairly out of the way for some of my friends) I have to play against their armies, which are mostly unpainted, and mostly made of card-stock circles. Furthermore, none of us have the money for a table or terrain, so we make do with what we can get our hands on. So really, the only thing I've learned to care about in my games is playing against a friendly and fun opponent.

So as much as I agree with the painted-only sentiment, the sad truth is that for some of us, we simply can't afford the time or money to make our games so picturesque. Obviously then, I'm not going to decline a game for purely hobby-ing reasons; it would be quite hypocritical of me to do so.