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@remilla I can get tabled by a small blind kid lol it's the attitude I despise as I still think of wargaming as a sociable hobby. The cheap goodies on eBay are indeed the only upside to there existence.

UNCLEBADTOUCH wrote:@remilla I can get tabled by a small blind kid lol it's the attitude I despise as I still think of wargaming as a sociable hobby. The cheap goodies on eBay are indeed the only upside to there existence.

It is, I mean, the guys I play with are much older than I, have played since rogue trader, and play a balance between casual and competitive. Those types you mentioned are a dime a dozen, and come and go, just treat them with the same regard as you'd treat those douches that hang out in the mall. That being said, just think of them as potential discount models.

There have always been hordes of unpainted armies. I myself am a slow painter and have been fir 14 years.

I first noticed it when GW started to relax the 'All models must have 3 colours and be based Goblin Green'. Honestly that's how it was at the GW I played in Vancouver BC. I think it was 1990-91 when they opened up here and since the store opened you HAD it have painted models because painting and modeling is part of 'The Hobby' ©,tm GWplc. The crappy thing was all models had to be baised with goblin green around the outside edge of the base. Even if you had like spaceship themed basing it had to be based with GG.


When they moved to metrotown it was even worse. It was no OLD GW figgies. So if there was a newer version of the figgies out say the SpaceMarine Tac box. Before that you had the RTB01 models, you couldn't use the RTB01's in the store anymore. I had a huge RT era Imperial Guard army, and because the the metal figgies had come out I was told I couldn't use them anymore. That was the First time I got mad at GW and sold all my stuff.....fun times....

So to answer your question, around here it was when GW relaxed the 'all models must be painted' rule that you started to see the 'Greyspacemarinechapterwhothisweekarebloodangelsandnextweekgreyknights' weekness start.

I've not seen an unpainted horde in historical or ancients tournaments here in 20+ years. it's just something that is "just not done".
The basic ethos of those gamers pretty much encourages you to paint your armymens. Lets face it, with those time periods, it's the main way your opponent can tell WHICH of Caesar's Legions you are playing.

Well to be fair, some people really suck at painting and really hate to look at their sucky painting. Me included. I paint so bad that an unpainted mini looks glorious next to a painted mini of mine.

chromedog wrote:I've not seen an unpainted horde in historical or ancients tournaments here in 20+ years. it's just something that is "just not done".
The basic ethos of those gamers pretty much encourages you to paint your armymens. Lets face it, with those time periods, it's the main way your opponent can tell WHICH of Caesar's Legions you are playing.

Agree fully. I think the rise of metal/grey armies coincided with the rise of plastic non-historical games.

I started 40k probably 6 months before 2nd ed came out.
When most minis were lead, you painted them because they made your hands black.
Plastics never had that problem, so as more plastic kits were available for 40k/fantasy, more unpainted armies appeared.

Looking back, my 2000+pt Ork army from 2nd ed was fully painted.
All the others were work in progress.

I have an Orc fantasy army that was fully painted, until I tried to play the game, and realized how bad my painted build was.
THis here may be the thing.
When you could still get a decent game out of a non-optimized list, then fully painted was easy. You bought the models you liked and painted.
No worries on if the stuff you painted worked together or was overmatched.

chromedog wrote:I've not seen an unpainted horde in historical or ancients tournaments here in 20+ years. it's just something that is "just not done".
The basic ethos of those gamers pretty much encourages you to paint your armymens. Lets face it, with those time periods, it's the main way your opponent can tell WHICH of Caesar's Legions you are playing.

This. And this was also my experience with my 40k and whfb gaming group. When I was taught how to play the game, the Hobby was stressed, with an emphasis on sportsmanship and painting. Very rarely did someone come to the table with an unpainted unit, and if they did, by next game it was painted. I was also coming from an RPG background, and had already been painting tons of models for that.

There may have been unpainted hordes in people's basements, but I'd never know, because we played in our group. I only attended GW tournaments because they were it at the time, and they required all painted armies. Even GW stores required it (don't think they do now). So I will put the rise of unpainted armies on a couple of things:

1) GW deemphasizing the hobby aspect with ard boyz and looser in store requirements
2) GW increasing army sizes, and game sizes with each edition (I remember 1500 as standard GT fare)
3) GW handing over tournaments to the community

The GW GTs are why I have 3 fully painted 40k armies of up to 1850 points. I have rafts of other stuff still to paint, but I paint it before it hits the table, that's my motivation (and I have a full time job and a 2 year old). The immersion in the game, whether its Nappies, ancients, jets, age of sail, sci-fi or whatever, is what prompts the painting. Its not the same experience facing unpainted models.

I have been a wargamer for far too long - approaching fifty years now - and I can remember the first UK national wargames championships, with hordes of unpainted airfix figures (even in a variety different plastic colours) marching to death and glory in the late sixties, early seventies.

Slowly painted armies became the norm, but there has been a trend latelly to allow the "greys" to return

No point being too fixiated on it though , after all we are only playing with toys.....lol

wilycoyote wrote:
No point being too fixiated on it though , after all we are only playing with toys.....lol

LIES!