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I love the modeling, the strategy behind the Warhammer game, and the lore. However, one aspect that I loath is painting, and I can't be the only one who feels this way. I know this is almost blasphemy to admit, because part of the hobby involves painting... I just can't stand doing it, which leads me to my question...

If GW made a painting machine/computer program connected to a device that allowed you to put a model into it, and set the parameters to paint the model a certain way, would you shell out the cash for it?

Possibly for my guardsmen but not for the models I want to have a pride in but it is very subjective, I like the fact that every model I have painted has been done by me and is in some way a little piece of creativity, however painting 100 guardsmen identically is somewhat boring and repetitve

If it could paint at least as well if not better than I could, possibly, if for nothing else as a time saver (painting an army is a huge time investment). That said, I don't mind sitting around painting and watching TV on a lazy evening.

The time saver is really the point, at least for those who have multiple armies. That much painting is always a pain, regardless is you like to paint or not. Horde armies would benefit the most obviously, but I have to admit I would be interested in such a product even for my marines.

I totally agree that painting is time consuming, between 40K and Fantasy I have 8 armies and it can be an arse but hey that is the fun in the hobby for me, one day they will all be done. I can completely understand the OP's point of view though. I just don't think you would get a machine that could produce stuff of a good enough standard at a reasonable price especially if it was made by Gw.

Such a device cannot exist within our lifetimes, so why bother with this exercise?

Painting/gaming is where you actually start to see a return on your investment. If you buy a computer game for £40 you'll get, maybe 3-4 hours out of it before your done. You spend £40 on miniatures and you get the 1 hour it takes to build, 3-4 hours it takes to paint, and unlimited number of hours you get to play with it.

Would I purchase a machine that paints my models so that they look 100% identical to someone elses army? Hell no, I take considerable pride in the time and effort I put into each and every Guardsman. Removing such a key skill developer from the hobby would, in my opinion at least, cheapen the overall experience for everyone.

Besides, GW already tried to release a spray gun to shave some of the time off of batch painting, and you don't need to go far to see how poorly a reaction that was met with.

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:If you buy a computer game for £40 you'll get, maybe 3-4 hours out of it before your done.

You must have the shortest attention span in the world and quit before you're finished... Action games alone take about 8 - 10 hours of solid gaming, not counting getting stuck. RTS's generally take longer, and RPGs measure in the dozens of hours of gameplay. That's not even counting multiplayer (which 40k is, naturally). Counter Strike alone gave me thousands of hours of gaming.

All of my friends clocked somewhere around 300 hours or so on Left 4 Dead. I myself clocked 500, with over 300 of it being on single player. Any FF game is gonna eat up a good day or two, and that's playing with cheats.

Anyways, I love the converting but loath the painting too, especially since my friends paint so much better than me. At least I can show them up with my awesome army of unpainted convertees >:3

I think I've opened a can of worms with this gaming analogy...The point I was trying to make was that, in comparison to most electronic entertainment, you'll get, on average, more bang for your buck with a mini. Obviously this is insanely subjective so perhaps I shouldn't have brought it up...My bad!

I stll think that painting is a vital part of the wargaming hobby, and is one where you can truly see yourself develop over time; take a look back at the very first mini you painted and then look at a model you've done recently. Its likely there's a huge difference in the quality, and its this self-improvement that, to me at least, keeps me motivated in the hobby.

L. Wrex

I find the painting aspect to be a way of getting rid of stress, but yeah, I can see why people would dislike it, especially with the time part of it.

The time aspect of painting is the only part I dislike. I don't play with unpainted armies. So right now, I have a Tyranid army I really want to get using, but I've only painted a squad of Warriors and nearly a squad of Hormagaunts. I don't get the time to paint.

This is what commission painters are for. I would hate if GW made such a device, impossibility aside, as it would cut into my insignificant commission painting profits.

Given the amount of money I spend on each mini, I like to get as much as I possibly can out of it, so therefore I paint them myself. You're cutting a large fraction of the hobby out by auto-painting them.

There is an unspoken pride in seeing your army painted before you and being able to say "I did that". However it's still tedious when you're painting Nids or a huge army of bretonnians (who generally need a unique paintjob for each knight).