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I have a problem with my 40k army because I HAVE to paint them completely before playing with them. In the store in my hometown of Baton Rouge I saw a lot of unpainted models being used because people there just didn't want to spend more time painting than playing. Since I have been relocated to Fort Bragg I have noticed the store here the people don't play with a whole lot of unfinished models, if any.

Last game I played was a week ago, and before that over a year ago. I pulled out my Predator, which I painted over a year ago, and felt crummy because the paint job looked bad. It bothered me the whole game and was actually relieved to see that ugly tank get blown off the table. I obsess over my art work so much that it has caused me to not be able to play a whole lot of 40k games.

Any one else have this problem?

I sorta have this problem. Not so long ago I once decided to start a Chaos Marine army. It mostly looks like garbage as I got lazy when painting most of them because painting with a toothpick was easily starting to wear on my patience. There are three reasons why I don't use them today.

1. I suck using any kind of Marines army
2. As mentioned my Chaos Marines mostly look like rubbish
3. I actually sorta bragged about the rubbish ones, and even today it still whips at my conscience, even though I'm known as the "Tau kid" around these parts

I absolutely have this problem to a horrible extent. It makes me not show my work to people, and even makes me want to just quit for periods of time. I am called an artist and known as one, but I just hate alot of my miniatures..

no not really there's normally some unit thats being worked on and is partially finished.

Yeah some older units (oldest is 6 years in regular circulation but there are older ones) may not look as good but hey money is an issue - so is time

Sadly I too have that problem. For several reasons I only painted and modeled for the last few years and only got back into gaming (40k as well as fantasy) this year.
But since I only field fully painted models and don't have enough time to paint (job, family, etc.) i'm pretty set on my current point values and army lists - I'd rather not play at all than field partially or badly painted minitaures.
New stuff just takes time to finish - so my whole cupboard is full of unpainted GW and FW stuff and only every few weeks (or months) a freshly painted model or squad is ready to join my forces on the gaming table.

I try and have everything painted before I play with it. Really want to play my Eldar at an event in December, but there is no way I will have them painted up in time, so I will probably be bringing my CSM instead :(

This is exactly why every one of my mini's is stripped right now. lol

Why do you HAVE to play with a fully painted army? I also like to have my army fully painted but realistically that isn't going to happen in the near future. So I try to field as complete an army as possible, and work towards my ultimate goal (world domination...I mean a fully painted army).

I always field fully painted armies as well, but I don't let it stop me getting games in.

I'm a big fan of painting my miniatures in single pieces first and assembling it after I painted it. I even paint the shoulder guards, arms, weapons and heads seperately on my CSM. So I would have to assemble them to play, only to rip them apart when it comes to actually painting them (and I don't even want to think about painting a pre-assembled defiler ).

Another point is, that I'm primarily into the painting and modelling part of the hobby - playing with my miniatures is a very nice side-effect of it all.

If I only played with painted minis I'd never play. I'm far too critical of my art-work, and by the time I finish a squad I'll usually want to go back and paint it from scratch again. Sometimes I do.

Ashrag wrote:So I would have to assemble them to play, only to rip them apart when it comes to actually painting them.

I do exactly this as well.

i rarely play with unpainted models because i know that if they end up in my carrying case they won't come out for a long time.

hence i usually paint my stuff before playing it.




i manage this by having fairly simply color schemes(grey and silver for my Marines, black for veterans and vehicles)

if you keep your schemes simple you won't notice the difference between your bad and good paintjobs.

my Tac marines have, what i would consider, paintjobs on the shady side of mediocre, but from a distance it's tough to tell.

i dont have that problem, but I have that perfectionist quality about my work and what I display as well. I become discouraged in other ways if im not getting the results I want (putting 40k away for a couple of years is generally how I seem to deal with it). Since my last renaissance with the game, ive learned that I dont have to be perfect with everything, that every detail isnt absolutely necessary. In fact, I try not to paint details right now, as I am going for quantity over quality (though my quality is still good), I figure I can always come back and exhaust myself on the small details. I dont have much advice I can give to you about this matter, I also feel this way sometimes. Try to remember why you do this though, to have fun...its not a contest and no one is criticising you, its just meant for recreation. best of luck.

PraetorDave wrote:Why do you HAVE to play with a fully painted army? I also like to have my army fully painted but realistically that isn't going to happen in the near future. So I try to field as complete an army as possible, and work towards my ultimate goal (world domination...I mean a fully painted army).

It's just a habit I have. I love putting in the time to paint the models and make them look good. I feel it pays off in the end. I don't HAVE to paint them, but to me it's just better that way.

Thats why I paint my models with simple colors schemes. It easier to do, and they still look OK without looking like crap.

a good rule is, if you are putting more then 5 colors on you might be getting too complicated.