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 kingbobbito wrote:

 pwntallica wrote:
If you haven't painted their eyes and guns, better get the brush out before the game starts(this actually happened recently, and yes he got them done, and did a decent job).

Feth your eyes, ain't nobody got time to paint those

I will say they're something we've never required, we do more of a three-color rule with some sway room depending on what army you're playing. Most of the time if you have the body painted and the weapon a different color it's good.

I won't lie when I say that eyes are one of the few things I've genuinely skipped, like half of my scouts don't have them because I just cannot do them right. I get them decent on all the models that I care about, but after I did 4 scouts and botched two of those... maybe when I'm a bit better at painting I'll try to make them look less googly.

I can definitely understand the frustration of painting eyes. Painting faces in general is why all my early space marines ALWAYS had helmets and I didn't even do scouts until I had years of practice to improve. You should have seen some of the early face attempts I went back and repainted recently. I had a sergeant my brother and I referred to as "lazy eye Larry/Lazarus", and now he is just simply "fancy face".

But this guy was playing necrons, and the warriors and immortals (the guys he had to fix) don't have many other colours beyond their body, eyes, and guns. They were just dry brushed silver bodies, washed, with black primer on the gun(and those green rods, but those don't count, ). He just had to quickly dab them with green and do a few green details on the guns. Yes I have seen people do crazy shade paint jobs and yes you can make necrons really nice, but I'm talking a basic paint job on them, to get 3 colours without the eyes(since primer and wash don't usually count) can be difficult.

*edit*
Also, he was well aware of the painting requirements. He just tried to squeak them in with "well they are black, silver, and black washed". If it was a casual game, then yeah it would have been fine. But this was a rule for an event he knew ahead of time.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
In the store-run tournaments I've seen, the only penalty for unpainted models is that you will be unable to win the overall grand prize, as you will obviously have zero points in your painting score. This still encourages people to paint their armies, without actually excluding those who have not.

My FLGS tournaments use this kind of thing too. I've never gotten a single point for painting because I've never played with a fully painted army. However, the only time I've fielded a figure that was unprimed was a casual game (it was Azrael, and I had just recently assembled him, in case you're curious). I think that everyone SHOULD at least throw a coat of primer on their figures (it takes next to no time, and looks better than bare plastic/metal/resin) if they want to play in tournaments, but I don't think that it should be a requirement (tournaments at my FLGS would be even more barren than they currently are if they suddenly enforced a 3-color minimum, since many of the local players field grey hordes!). I do think it is appropriate at bigger events to require painted minis, as there will probably be photographs taken and unpainted figures don't look so great in those.

My current New Years Resolution is to paint every unpainted miniature that I currently own (and its a fair number of them! ), at least to a minimal tabletop standard (as such is the limit of my abilities currently, but I'm sure I'll get better!). This herculean task may get even more difficult as I plan to buy a bunch more stuff when I get my tax return! I may exclude my DV Chaos guys as I don't plan to actually field them any time soon, but we'll see...

 kingbobbito wrote:
For everyone worried about painting elitism no, we definitely don't do that sort of thing

Usually once or twice a month we have painting tutorials, and we'll usually pick a random topic to cover on those days based on what anyone wants to know. Going over how best to thin or mix paints, how to highlight, when to use washes, etc. Plus the store owner is a great guy, he'll happily sit down with you for an hour or more to show you how to paint something you're struggling with (how I learned to paint fething robes, the hardest thing to shade on DA and make it look good).

In general though, I mainly just look at painting your models as a common courtesy to guys that care more about the narrative (which is really prominent at my store). It's not a ton of work, and it genuinely is more fun to play against an army that looks nice. Sure, I'll play an unpainted army. But if the following month you show up and haven't painted a single model, and I know that you had more than enough time, I might be a tad disappointed.

Look at it this way. For a second, assume I'm a lazy slob. I don't like personal hygiene, and I feel that I don't have enough time in my schedule to shower or brush my teeth every day. Even though it might only take an hour a week to take quick showers, I tell you that an hour is too much to ask of me. Every time I show up at the store, I reek of pure filth, I'm covered in grease, you can actually smell me across the table. You can easily just ignore it, but it's really obvious the entire time and kind of annoying. Would you be a bit reluctant to hang out with me, maybe ask me why I haven't showered and smell like bum?

I don't really think that's relevant. One is obviously a much bigger detractor to the game and affects people outside your game as well. I don't see a squad of grey marines bothering a store owner enough to make him ask you to leave


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 pwntallica wrote:
Our FLGSs don't allow grey armies. But they will allow unpainted units as long as they are assembled and WYSIWYG. As long as you are making progress on painting them (ie primed one week, a few base colours the next, so on) then you can use that unit. It helps get new units on the table, and also encourages you to paint, without limiting you to excluding a unit or two you just haven't had time to finish up yet.

I personally will at least prime my guys and get the base green on them before I put them on the table, and once again, this is only ever a unit I am working on that I just didn't get painted in time because "oh yeah I have a life and stuff happens", and I have a game scheduled.

This rule is for regular/casual/pick-up games, as well as narrative and campaign events.
Tournaments still have a painting minimum. I'm not sure if it is actually the "3 colours" rule, but basically it has to be pretty much finished. If you haven't finished all the shading on some guys you're good(ie a step not everyone does or can effectively do). If you haven't painted their eyes and guns, better get the brush out before the game starts(this actually happened recently, and yes he got them done, and did a decent job).

Really? I would never step foot in your LGS again. I think having a requirement for painting, even if it's "as long as you are making progress on it", is absurd. 40k and other TableTop games are already a niche hobby as it is, why bother pushing other players out just because they don't play how you want them to?

 jreilly89 wrote:
I don't really think that's relevant. One is obviously a much bigger detractor to the game and affects people outside your game as well. I don't see a squad of grey marines bothering a store owner enough to make him ask you to leave

It's funny, because it actually does annoy the store owner. You don't do anything on your models but want to use his beautiful tables (we're talking top-notch hand sculpted terrain, at least half the buildings he did from scratch). He always says if you don't care what things look like, you should be playing on a piece of plywood in your basement with some cardboard boxes as buildings, why bother driving half an hour to the store if you don't care what the game looks like.

In actuality, he is fine with you using his tables with unpainted models, he's a pretty cool guy. However, he will point out what I mentioned above when he sees a game with unpainted models.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
I don't really think that's relevant. One is obviously a much bigger detractor to the game and affects people outside your game as well. I don't see a squad of grey marines bothering a store owner enough to make him ask you to leave

It's funny, because it actually does annoy the store owner. You don't do anything on your models but want to use his beautiful tables (we're talking top-notch hand sculpted terrain, at least half the buildings he did from scratch). He always says if you don't care what things look like, you should be playing on a piece of plywood in your basement with some cardboard boxes as buildings, why bother driving half an hour to the store if you don't care what the game looks like.

In actuality, he is fine with you using his tables with unpainted models, he's a pretty cool guy. However, he will point out what I mentioned above when he sees a game with unpainted models.

Except playing in your basement is creepy for pick up games most of the time and is a really stupid store owner if he has an attitude like that to a portion of wargamers in an already small market. I dont care how good he is at making buildings, he sounds like a dirtbag.

I hope his house is in pristine condition, or his car and he better be in shape, or he sounds like a bit of a hypocrite too. After All why bother living if you treat your body badly, or why bother living in a home that you dont clean if you can live in a cave for free and so on.

There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models. At all. No reason to make a fuss about anyones models in a negative way unless they are your own. Doing otherwise makes you the one in the wrong, not the person doing whatever they please with toys.

When I was a teenager, we just used what we had. Since I've gotten older in the hobby, I prefer now to only use painted miniatures - for myself.
If others I play with want to use grey/primed whatever, im okay with it. I may ask what colors he intends on using, and thus try to spur him to paint them

 Swastakowey wrote:
There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models.

Sure there is. They look ugly, and they ruin the aesthetic aspect of the game (which, IMO, is the most important part since the rules are borderline unplayable). Obviously you have a right to use your unpainted models in games with people who don't object to them, but everyone else has a similar right to refuse to compromise their enjoyment of the game so that you don't have to spend time painting. And even if I play a game against you I'm certainly going to judge you for bringing unpainted models.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Except playing in your basement is creepy for pick up games most of the time and is a really stupid store owner if he has an attitude like that to a portion of wargamers in an already small market. I dont care how good he is at making buildings, he sounds like a dirtbag.

I hope his house is in pristine condition, or his car and he better be in shape, or he sounds like a bit of a hypocrite too. After All why bother living if you treat your body badly, or why bother living in a home that you dont clean if you can live in a cave for free and so on.

There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models. At all. No reason to make a fuss about anyones models in a negative way unless they are your own. Doing otherwise makes you the one in the wrong, not the person doing whatever they please with toys.

Hahaha, can I shoot your argument down when I say yes, he does drive a nice car, from the outside at least he has a nice house, and he's in physically good shape

On a side note, what do those things have to do with painting? If you drive a crappy car it's because you can't afford a nice one, whereas 3 colors of paint is relatively cheap (especially compared to models). Number two, what do I care what the inside of his house looks like? He doesn't bring his house to a store and show it for everyone to see. Number three, are you saying that being out of shape but encouraging people to be involved in art makes you a bad person? A thin guy is a better person than a guy that knows how to paint?

Face the undeniable power of my logic! And try not to throw around so many insults to people that you've never met and only know a single statement that they've made in their lifetime

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Except playing in your basement is creepy for pick up games most of the time and is a really stupid store owner if he has an attitude like that to a portion of wargamers in an already small market. I dont care how good he is at making buildings, he sounds like a dirtbag.

I hope his house is in pristine condition, or his car and he better be in shape, or he sounds like a bit of a hypocrite too. After All why bother living if you treat your body badly, or why bother living in a home that you dont clean if you can live in a cave for free and so on.

There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models. At all. No reason to make a fuss about anyones models in a negative way unless they are your own. Doing otherwise makes you the one in the wrong, not the person doing whatever they please with toys.

Hahaha, can I shoot your argument down when I say yes, he does drive a nice car, from the outside at least he has a nice house, and he's in physically good shape

On a side note, what do those things have to do with painting? If you drive a crappy car it's because you can't afford a nice one, whereas 3 colors of paint is relatively cheap (especially compared to models). Number two, what do I care what the inside of his house looks like? He doesn't bring his house to a store and show it for everyone to see. Number three, are you saying that being out of shape but encouraging people to be involved in art makes you a bad person? A thin guy is a better person than a guy that knows how to paint?

Face the undeniable power of my logic! And try not to throw around so many insults to people that you've never met and only know a single statement that they've made in their lifetime

Missed the point, I meant a dirty unclean car, or a house that is not presentable and so on. Many people do not clean their cars and they get grubby. Car goers hate this because its disrespectful to cars. Yet they dont make a fuss about it to car drivers. In my industry its boats, many people dont clean their boats properly or keep them presented (because it takes a lot of time and effort) yet they arent treated any differently, its their boat, nobody has any right to be an ass about it.

Same with models. It isnt easy to do 3 colours and leave it at that. For guard armies that could be 150+ models!

I threw around non insults, I just said if he says that to customers he is, in my opinion, a dirt bag. And with an attitude like that he better make sure everything else he does is at the standard other hobbyists keep their toys (like cars, boats, gardens etc) or he is being a a hypocrite.

It doesnt take a genius to know there is no reason to be upset over unpainted models. Being passive aggressive about it (especially to customers) is downright rude too.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models.

Sure there is. They look ugly, and they ruin the aesthetic aspect of the game (which, IMO, is the most important part since the rules are borderline unplayable). Obviously you have a right to use your unpainted models in games with people who don't object to them, but everyone else has a similar right to refuse to compromise their enjoyment of the game so that you don't have to spend time painting. And even if I play a game against you I'm certainly going to judge you for bringing unpainted models.

Yea thats fine, but you have no real reason to be passive aggressive or belittle someone for it though. Simply say you prefer painted models and move on. Being a pain about it makes you the only one in the wrong.

Looks ugly is subjective too. I personally prefer grey to badly painted for example.

I much prefer playing against painted models and will only bring painted models myself.
I don't understand what the rush is when it comes to playing with new models, I've finally had my first game with my Dark Eldar that I started over 3 years ago as it's taken that long to get round to painting them.
I've got over 1500 painted in under a month for an escalation campaign.
I won, they looked great on the table against my opponent's freshly, fully painted tau and the experience was worth the wait.

When I ran my store I would gently enforce that unpainted models would not get an armour save as their armour wasn't battle ready. Painting was mandatory for all organised events.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Handy tip.

Paint the eyes first. Paint the white way more around the eye then you need to, then paint black lines starting from above the eye going below the eye (instead of doing a black dot). Then paint the face around the eyes. You will have near perfect eyes every time.

Its actually pretty easy when you get the hang of it, just dont force someone to sit down before a game and it (not only because that is down right dumb)... because it takes planning to do it ahead of the face etc.

If I'm painting a single eye, I'm perfectly fine. I love models that have a bionic one because it doesn't matter what the eye looks like, there's nothing to compare it to. When I have to paint two identical eyes next to each other, however, I often end with one slightly different in size, or shape, or different sized pupil, or not quite even with the other. It's especially difficult on the scouts as half of them have a scope a mm from their face, I'm tempted to rip all the heads off and paint them separately.

I do use exactly that technique you described though, it's probably the easiest way to do them. If I could just get both eyes to be looking in the same direction for once

In my opinion, the best way to learn to paint eyes is to line up like, 20 heads. Just prime them on the sprue, and paint them right on the sprue. Keep practicing until you have it down pat. Then work on the faces, until you have those down pat. Any that aren't good enough, scrub the head (strip it) and do it again.

Really, the faces are just as important as the eyes in that they have a huge impact on what the model looks like finished.

As a bonus, when you're done, not only will be confortable and confident with faces/eyes, but you'll have 20 heads all done


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
There is quite frankly absolutely nothing wrong with unpainted models.

Sure there is. They look ugly, and they ruin the aesthetic aspect of the game (which, IMO, is the most important part since the rules are borderline unplayable). Obviously you have a right to use your unpainted models in games with people who don't object to them, but everyone else has a similar right to refuse to compromise their enjoyment of the game so that you don't have to spend time painting. And even if I play a game against you I'm certainly going to judge you for bringing unpainted models.

I agree with you in that they totally ruin the mood, and although I've played games with people with unpainted models, usually, I'll spend my time with someone else that likes building a nice-looking army.

That said, I find it a bit amusing that you're happy recognize that people have a right to not compromise their enjoyment of the game due to unpainted models (which, AFAIK, is not a rule in BRB), but not so much sympathy for people who don't want to play with/against superheavies, fortifications, forgeworld, spammy armies, or whatnot (because that similarly impacts their enjoyment of the game).

To me, I think that picking good play partners in 40k -- people who want the same thing out of 40k as you -- is really the key to enjoying it as a game. If neither person cares about painted models, then good on ya, I guess. I won't be watching the game, no matter how masterful you are, hahaha.

I like the rule. It takes no time to primer a model and do a base three color paint job on it. I am a very slow painter mostly due to time restraints but I recently painted almost an entire elder army in a matter of an hour to a 3 color minimum. I didn't go for neatness or detail. Warp spiders two squads, painted the shells maroon, heads either maroon or white depending on squad and the weapons zandri dust. Move on to next unit. Later as I have time I go back and pick a model or unit and do washes, details and clean up over the base colors. But at least my force looks cohesive on the field, I can tell units apart from each other at a glance, and its not some ugly grey mass or mismatched blob of badly painted Ebay rescues.

It requires so little effort and time, its the minimum I would expect from an opponent for friendly games after awhile and especially tournament games that I don't play in any more. I put forth a minimum effort, its the least they can do.

Painted vs unpainted threads always turn nasty.

Most tournaments require fully painted with a 3-color minimum. This is nothing new and is a very common practice for tournaments for the last twenty years. If it's a shock to you, I don't know what to tell you. It's honestly the way I'd want to play any tournament. Painted minis getting preferred enemy against unpainted sounds reasonable to make more inclusive tournaments.

As for playing pick-up games, I've never been to a store that required fully painted minis or GTFO.

While I would much rather play against another painted army, I have no problems playing against grey or primed armies in a pick up game. The only deal-breaker I have in playing pick-up games is "Is the other guy a jerk? No thanks."

For those who hate painting (I used to too) just force yourself to do it for a few weeks. Even for an hour every so often. Once you see what you are capable of you may start to enjoy it.

And what if you don't start enjoying it after wasting 20+hours on it?
I suggest setting up an area to paint in and have it dedicated to painting. Its easier to paint when you dont need to set up/pack up every time. What if after 20+hours you end up with a destroyed army that looks no better, and possibly worse, then if it was grey and there is no improvment in your painting skills, not to mention the feeling of money wasted on painting materials which cost a lot.
Also not everyone lives in countries where flats are huge, offten people live in places where there isn't enough space to get paint station.

I put forth a minimum effort, its the least they can do.

because paying 500$ for models and 200$ for books is not effort enough. elitist much.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
I don't really think that's relevant. One is obviously a much bigger detractor to the game and affects people outside your game as well. I don't see a squad of grey marines bothering a store owner enough to make him ask you to leave

It's funny, because it actually does annoy the store owner. You don't do anything on your models but want to use his beautiful tables (we're talking top-notch hand sculpted terrain, at least half the buildings he did from scratch). He always says if you don't care what things look like, you should be playing on a piece of plywood in your basement with some cardboard boxes as buildings, why bother driving half an hour to the store if you don't care what the game looks like.

In actuality, he is fine with you using his tables with unpainted models, he's a pretty cool guy. However, he will point out what I mentioned above when he sees a game with unpainted models.

I've never had this happen. As long as I'm buying models at their store, being kind and courteous, and spending money in the store, the store owners generally don't give a gak whether I paint them or not. I don't know who your store owner is, but he seems a bit too invested in the game and should step back a bit to avoid ostracizing customers.


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 dragoonmaster101 wrote:
I just make them slightly uncomfortable saying, "Oh I'm sorry can I rebuild my list! I thought I was playing Necrons when I saw your minis" don't overplay it, but it usually spurs them to paint. P.S. I basically have no time to paint or play so in the random moments when I can do either (I paint a little each day and can only play once every 2 weeks or so give or take 2 weeks), people make comments on what they want the next layer to look like lol my maulerfiends are right now in discussion since I just finished base coating them.

So make passive aggressive comments? Yeah, that's mature.

Jumping in late here, but as for the first post, my first club (and frankly best club I may ever play in) had a pretty strict paint policy. It helped that the members who ran the show also ran countless tutorials, organized many nights for painting, and ran other events that forced you to paint to play in them. I think its all about context, and my experience with required painting was positive and showed me a number of ways to paint well and quickly, and showed me the joy of playing on a table with nothing but painted and custom terrain with painted armies.

So far I've only managed to paint my spaceships, but I hope to one day finish my Guard. Got to assemble them first though...

 kronk wrote:
Painted vs unpainted threads always turn nasty.

Most tournaments require fully painted with a 3-color minimum. This is nothing new and is a very common practice for tournaments for the last twenty years. If it's a shock to you, I don't know what to tell you. It's honestly the way I'd want to play any tournament. Painted minis getting preferred enemy against unpainted sounds reasonable to make more inclusive tournaments.

As for playing pick-up games, I've never been to a store that required fully painted minis or GTFO.

While I would much rather play against another painted army, I have no problems playing against grey or primed armies in a pick up game. The only deal-breaker I have in playing pick-up games is "Is the other guy a jerk? No thanks."

Pretty much. I've tried to and I will never understand the argument that "paint your minis or you're not really into the game". I could make the same argument that if you're playing on a black or solid colored table without a terrain mat such as the Frontline Gaming ones, then you're not a true game. It takes little time to go buy one and they're so simple to set up.

Yes, I love painted models, beautiful terrain, and decent boards, but I would never refuse a game on a coffee table with grey minis and fething coffee cans. I would rather play an unpleasant-looking game that was a blast than waste my time playing against TFG with a beautiful, Golden Demon-worth army.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Pretty much. I've tried to and I will never understand the argument that "paint your minis or you're not really into the game". I could make the same argument that if you're playing on a black or solid colored table without a terrain mat such as the Frontline Gaming ones, then you're not a true game. It takes little time to go buy one and they're so simple to set up.

Yes, I love painted models, beautiful terrain, and decent boards, but I would never refuse a game on a coffee table with grey minis and fething coffee cans. I would rather play an unpleasant-looking game that was a blast than waste my time playing against TFG with a beautiful, Golden Demon-worth army.

My only question is, if you love painted models and nice terrain, but also like to have an enjoyable game.... why not have both? The argument I'd make against the gaming mat is that they cost what, $100? However, there's nothing stopping you from using a few dollars worth of carboard to make buildings and spray paint them grey, maybe do brown floors. that would cost you maybe $15, and would be a lot better than just having a fancy mat. A little work goes a long way in making a game more enjoyable.... unless you're going to drop a few hundred on prebuilt terrain

I'm not saying either that I'll turn down a game that I think will be fun, I'm saying, exactly as you said, that I love painted models and nice terrain. Because the game genuinely is more fun when you have realistic terrain to play on, and you're going against a recognizable army. Be a pal and make the game even more fun for everyone, because everyone loves playing against some cool looking stuff. If there are 2 other guys at the store, identical other than one has a painted army and one doesn't, which am I more likely to want to play?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The example I always think of for this is that every year, my church holds a Thanksgiving dinner. You can pay $10, or you can bring a dish that you cooked. We need to have at least 4 turkeys and 6 hams, as well as potatoes, salad, casseroles... enough to feed 50-100 people.

A couple of us get together and cook all the meat at the church, then rely on people to bring everything else. Get about a dozen or so different types of casserole and whatnot, the rest of the people pay the entry cost.... then a family of 5 comes in (and I know these people, they have a lot more money than I do), come with a fething can of corn. A single can of corn, that they poured into a bowl and microwaved. Like enough corn for just their family to get corn. And they expect to get what I spent all day cooking? Yeah.... we're a church, we won't turn people down for nonsense like that.... but you can bet I was fething pissed. How about you only get to eat your corn, while I get all the meat?

Just because you don't like cooking or don't "have the time to cook" doesn't mean you can show up and expect free food. Either actually cook something or pay the entry fee that everyone else that didn't cook paid.

I think the line gets blurred when people fail to realize the two parts of 40K. The hobby and then the game. In order to play the game all you really need is the rule book. You dont even really need the offical models as anyone who has ever used a proxy can tell you, all a model really is is a place holder on the table.

So for those who play the game for the game and only the game, they obviously see that using unpainted minis is perfectly fine. As long as a place holder of some sort (this can include terrain to a degree) is in place the game is good to go.

Those that focus on the hobby see the entirety of the hobby. That means, paint, actual terrain, conversions, etc. Because other wise they see you as not into the hobby, just the game. However, expressing this can sometimes be tricky as the gamer will often see themselves as the hobbiest in the collecting aspect. However, be warned... if your not fully invested in it, then you have no right to criticize anyone who places a coke can for a carnifex. After all they too are just playing the game.

Its just a matter of seeing where each of use personally is invested into this thing called 40K. Just because your higher up on the tier, doesn't make you better or right. Its just your placement, and you need to realized that no matter where you are in the tier.... there is probably someone one step higher.

For me there are two factors in fielding (un)painted minis.

First, who am I playing against?
- Random Stranger? I'll try and put my best foot forward with WYSIWYG + painted minis. It's a courtesy since we don't know each other and I want them to have a good experience.
- Acquaintance? I'll ask them before hand if they're uncomfortable with unpainted minis. If they are I'll ask if we can play less points, etc. or find a point of compromise.
- Friend? I know they don't care, and most of the time we want to proxy / try new things anyway, so there is much more leeway here.

Second, what is the situation / game?
- Large tournament? Look professional and have everything painted. People are paying and all have an understanding of the rules, so I have less sympathy here.
- Local tournament? I can understand more flexibility here; maybe allowing unpainted armies will get more people to enter depending on the number of people in your local meta. You can also do some rules as suggested previously to create incentives for painting.
- Casual game? See point #1

From what I've seen, people seem to do a poor job communicating with their opponent about what expectations are. This seems silly to me, since you're likely to spend the next 3 hours with whoever you're playing, so 5-10 minutes upfront would make the whole situation better and more fun.

If you're proud of your models you will paint them to the best of your ability (whatever that may be)

I see it as an expectations issue; if you put loads of effort into an aspect of your models (build or paint) you tend to expect the people you play to make the same effort - even though this is completely irrational logic as your opponent could be any personality type, not just yours.
From that perspective, you may then see that thing which your opponent hasn't done but you have as being deliberately lazy even though there may be a perfectly valid reason for it.
Of course the other side of that is another person seeing your effort as excessive and therefore your attitude as pernickity, unable to understand why the layer of paint matters to you at all because they only wish only to play the game because of time and money constraintsthey have.

Wern't there threads on dakka when Warhammer world made 'three colours minimum and based' a rule? i didn't like the concept at the time because i liked having my fully painted models on black bases for an 'in-game-avatar' kind of feel.
I have since based most of my models (pva then dust in layers - easy and no painting) and i'm kinda glad now.

fielding a fully painted army does give you a nice feeling inside, it's such a shame some peeps don't feel that.

 kingbobbito wrote:
One of the rules of our store is that if you wish to compete in any of our organized events, all models need to be painted. At the end of a game, any models that aren't painted count as casualties, AKA won't count as controlling objectives and unpainted warlord will result in "slay the warlord".

Is this all that uncommon of a rule, or is it reasonable? In general we don't allow proxies in organized events (to avoid confusion and possible trickery/cheating), and our store owner has the rule about painting because a lot of people apparently used to play with unpainted miniatures. The rule is designed to "encourage everyone to paint their models, because a game isn't as good if you're playing against a bunch of grey pieces of plastic".

Do any tournaments have any rules like this, and do you agree with this idea? You're fine to use whatever in casual games and you can still play in events (at a disadvantage, so no one plays with unpainted stuff though).

I kind of like the idea, but I know that a decent number of people go to other stores because of this (there's one about half an hour away, and one an hour and a half away). I mean, of the few times I've been to the other store I've played against tau suits that didn't have any weapons attached but all had different weapons, and against a completely unpainted army of marines that had allies from different chapters.....

The restriction that units *must* be pained is a bit far.

I don't think I've ever come across anything that strict.

However, many events include a painting score, with most of the points easily obtainable with basic minimal effort and almost full points possible as long as your entire army is painted at all (and only really the lat ~25-33% of points are really differentiating between excellent and poorly painted armies), and the total painting score is often just as big as your battle scores, so coming with an unpainted army will affect your standings as much as getting tabled without accomplishing any objectives in every single game.

I prefer that. It means the game results matter, everyone gets to play with the models they have, and painting still matters.

for store events, my flgs uses a "preferred enemy (unpainted models)" rule. it's not devastating, but it's certainly a disadvantage and it's easily avoided if you can be bothered to hack out a 3-color paint job. that's strictly for events, though. for casual play, anything goes and you'll still see a fair bit of primed or unpainted plastic on the tables. given that painting and modeling has always been a big part of GW's vision for 40k, that seems pretty reasonable to me. I've never heard anyone that plays at the shop, either casually or at events, take issue with the policy.

I think the people in support of this painting rule are missing the core point of this. It's a game. All that is required I you have the pieces, you follow the rules, and you have fun. By excluding/penalizing people from the game because they don't enjoy/don't have time/are new the hobby aspects of the experience you degrade the community as a whole by building barriers to entry that will discourage people who might be great members of the community if you only let them get into it at their own pace and to their own extent. And lets face it, miniature wargaming already has MASSIVE barriers to entry built into it's complex rules, high costs, and outside perception.

The last thing ANYONE should do is turn someone down or penalize them for showing up to play.

Who knows seeing your paint might inspire them. Requiring them to paint might make them never show up.

Wow, such grumpiness. Different people have different preferences. Different groups have different norms. That's simple sociology and psychology. If you don't abide by the norms, you generally are ostracized. It's a simple concept, not one that requires people to make extreme statements, tell each other they're bad people, and get pissy about it. Better yet, these are tournaments we're talking about. Not every single game. Take a step back, breath, and use a couple of lenses before freaking out people.

Not to derail this or to make this a direct comparison, but!, 1700s America all the way up toooo... Today treats people of different skin colors differently by societal norms. The difference is today we recognize they being exclusive is bad and can actively advance the community by being otherwise.

Reading this thread makes me want to ignore every posting of tournament play and limit who I play with to a very small circle of friends. If the community was more encouraging and accepting of all walks of player there would be vastly more people to play with for everyone.

If your into it for the paint jobs, recognize that that is a separate thing from the game and relish in the delightful paint jobs you find as a separate entity. Because it is. Any person who encourages building barriers to the community from individual players to institutional stores that run events is basically doing all they can to hold the hobby back. Thanks guys!

Lance845 wrote:
Not to derail this or to make this a direct comparison, but!, 1700s America all the way up toooo... Today treats people of different skin colors differently by societal norms.

Why can't comparisons just be made to things relevant to the issue at hand?

Also, does this count for bingo?

I mean, seriously, is anyone going to compare racism to...paintism?

No. It's comparing the psychology of a communities barriers and how they effect that community its inclusion of new members, and its growth. Tournies setting arbitrary rules that build barriers and penalize encourages community members to carry those rules outside the tourny and view unpainted as "les than".

Institutional becomes societal becomes barrier for entry equals stunted community growth. It's just common sense.

Right now on this page is a thread about this exact thing happening to a colorblind kid. How is it not a bad thing?

And you don't see how comparing that to racism is patently absurd?