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Has anyone ever chosen a unit (or even a whole army) over one they prefered, simply because the one they liked better looked harder to paint???

Yes.

No

I'm on the horns of this dilemma now....It's a tricky one.

Yep. I play Marines because I can't paint faces worth a damn... Which stopped me playing the Guard Army I craved.

But going to give guards a try soon.

I'm glad it's not just me. I want to start 'Nids-or evn Orks-but they look a bit beyond my ability..so either CSM or Necrons it is then..

I'd not give up on them. as I've matured I've learned to take things like that as a challenge. buy a box of nids or some AoBR orks and have a play around. they don't have to be good, just table worthy. play around with schemes and techniques.

What I plan to do with a Guard squad box.

I agree with Capt_Bowman. I've been in the hobby for over ten years. Over that time I've improved dramatically as a painter and modeler. I'm also partially color blind so it offers some additional challenges. Bum a spare model or two off of a friend to try your hand at something you consider hard. Ask for some tips. It really isn't as hard once you learn how to dry brush and use washes.

My mate Jay has come to the conclusion I "need to stop being such a tart and get on with it..". WIth that we sat down and I painted a few boyz...with mixed results. Decent enough thoug, so Orks it is..

I would suggest anyone else in my position do likewise.
Thank you all for your input..

Started with Marines years ago because I was intimidated by painting faces. This was back before the new Citadel Wash set, so it was REALLY time consuming to shade and such. Ended up gravitating to CSM due to modeling options/personal style and have stuck with them for the last 4 years. I personally think that 'nids, crons, and tau are the "easiest" to paint but also have some of the coolest bitz that respond really well to edging and washing. Eldar would be my vote for "hardest" since they have ALOT of very bright very intricate coloring that doesn't look right unless its blended well.

You're not gonna get better if you don't break out of your comfort zone. Just sayin'.

Yes. I play chaos now, but eldar and tyranids are on the horizon.

But I paint my chaos in a rather difficult way, so I guess ion a way, it is hard to paint...

Wow i feel like the opposite. I pick hard to paint armies and shy away from the easy ones. Not to say that i don't suck but i think doing something hard forces you to progress

I cannot paint. At all. So I moved on to Tau because of all the flat surfaces and lack of extravagance.

I still can't paint even Tau, but at least I can paint them better than my Chaos.

Brother SRM wrote:You're not gonna get better if you don't break out of your comfort zone. Just sayin'.

That's almost exactly what my mate said (with a few less "f" words..). We sat down with some stuff and tried to knock the rust off m painting skills. Necrons were, as I suspected, quite easy. I found 'Nids quite fiddly, but Orks were much easier than I remenbered from 17-odd years ago. CSM's were OK, but there's a lot of detail on some models, so they turned out harder than I thought.As Orks were one of the two I wanted (in theory) to start, then thats what I've decided to do..Moments later Jay haned me some bits and pieces-a couple of Killer Kans, a Deff Dred and a bag containing assorted Boyz/Nobz...

Painting really well has never been massivley important to me. I have always enjoyed playing more. Coming from a mainly Epic background doesn't actually help. I have about 9500 points of Epic Orks, but they don't demand a huge amount of skill. Now my son is getting more into 40k, it seems stupid not to learn...

Ere we go, Ere we go, Ere we go.....

I think half the trouble is that WD never shows armies painted by normal people - yes it is good to aspire to paint at an 'eavy metal standard or beyond but most of us mere mortals will rarely if never achieve this instead you should celebrate your successes and if you struggle with complex paint schemes then close that codex with its nicely painted models and choose a very simple and easy to do paint scheme.

For example:

SM and CSM (any variant) Metal armour, black boltguns blue shoulder pad trim all wearing helmets:
Drybrush boltgun metal onto the whole model, allow to dry, wash with badab black, drybrush with chain mail and highlight if you wish with mithril silver or a blend of chain mail and mithril silver. Blue is probably the easiest colour other than brown to paint so use that for your secondary colour.

Orks - Any type of green blending for the skin use black and silver for the armour use blue as a secondary colour for the reasons above you have got Snakebite clan Orks.

Eldar/Tau - Paint them shades of blue - easy if you want to branch out paint the aspect warriors helmets their traditional colour - much less area to get wrong will look good.

Necrons - See SM/CSM

Deamons - don't do them

Dark Eldar - Black with Grey Highlight

Tyranids - Black with blue highlights

IG - are easy greens and browns if you are worried about faces I have got a very easy tutorial I can email you it is simple if you use the right blends.


Bottom line is you can make any army look good with simple paint schemes and with a little time and effort spent on certain models like HQ choices you will have a great looking army.

Good luck and try and enjoy it

Bottom line is you can make any army look good with simple paint schemes and with a little time and effort spent on certain models like HQ choices you will have a great looking army.

Well that all depends on whether or not you like the paint scheme. A scheme can be simple and easy but if you don't like it, you won't have fun using the models.

I have to make my own colour schemes, I have to. Dipping my models or sticking on Default Colour Scheme A doesn't appeal to me.

Brother SRM wrote:You're not gonna get better if you don't break out of your comfort zone. Just sayin'.

Yeah, totally. I tell this to novice painters all the time. And they learn...Eventually I've got a friend who plays eldar.... I've painted the majority of it for him

Yes. In my case it isnt so much cant paint, as too lazy/too little attention span to paint large numbers of detailed figures.

Thats why I chose Necrons as my main army, very easy and quick to paint the troops. I can save the detail work for selected minis. Only problem is they had to go on hold for the most part since the new codex is due next year.

I selected Marines for my son, as they are quick and easy to do a basic paint job on. Im painting them for him, hes only 7, so I wanted something I could do pretty fast but still look decent.

My detail army is my Orks...they allow me to do lots of conversions and detail painting.

IM trying a bit of a different theme with them. Instead of massed boyz Im going with a dred mob type thing. 2 big meks and a bunch of dreds, backed by some nobz and kommandos w Snikrot. Alternate version replaces a Mek and dred w a megaboss and more nobz.

Think I might make an all termie army for use with either the Aetherverse or Shock Force systems. Ill also be making army lists for the above armies in whichever system I decide to go with.

Hell, my 40k armies may never be used with the 40k system, though Im going to build them based along the 40k outline, so I can play it if I want to.


EDIT: If I had the patience Id do Eldar, as when well painted they are one of the best looking armies out there.