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Personally, I would walk out of any store that "forced" me to play with my toys in a specific way. I live in a city where there are 4 stores within 15 minutes of my house where people play 40k, so it wouldn't be hard for me to take my money elsewhere.

That said, we used to have a GW store where the manager would harass people about not having painted mini's, which got old real fast. He has since been let go, and the new guy is 10x better. His attitude is "come in, play, have fun", and I can tell you the store is selling 3x as much product because of it.

I'm actually all for gw only allowing painted mini's being played in their store, and no proxying..

Then again, all the stores in my city have only two tables and are quite small.

So of course they only want to show off what the game is meant to look like, not some half arsed attempt of it with just plain grey plastic armies, missing arms etc..

Dragonzord wrote:
not some half arsed attempt of it with just plain grey plastic armies, missing arms etc..

Because everyone is a fast painter and has enough time to spend ages to get everything painted I for one can't and don't even want to spend all my free time painting, yet I don't want to paint anything less than the best I can do, and as such progress is very slow indeed.

At my local GW even the manager has a lot of unpainted models when he plays.

These models are expensive, don't rush them for the sake of playing a game. Not everyone has as much free time as they'd like to paint them all.

So long as you are making steady progress on your army I see no problem with it.

Personally though I refuse to play with anything less than a fully painted army. I don't hold it against anyone who doesn't though.

 XT-1984 wrote:
Personally though I refuse to play with anything less than a fully painted army. I don't hold it against anyone who doesn't though.

This was my plan at first in July - no games until I have a painted, playable force. But after a month and half and still only barely having ~500 points painted even to a table-top standard let alone finished (highlighted etc) and no one even playing such small games, I gave up. And ever since I've gotten a nutty amount (~13k points) of new models, and my time since has mostly been spent assembling them rather than painting.

Orktavius wrote:
As for basing models.....Yeah, you should base em, a black base on a rocky table looks a helluva lot worse than a simple sanded base with a quick brown paint job by far. Seriously, that some people get bent out of shape by GW trying to have some standards is sad....GTFO of my hobby!

Yeah right. Hope this is tongue in cheek, but the lack of smilies makes me wonder, because I've been painting minis a long time indeed and I have NEVER flocked a base and my minis look just fine on the table with painted plain bases. Requireing them to be flocked is a stupid extra requirement that is completely unnecessary for game play. If the models are fully built, WYSIWYG, fully painted and have painted bases who cares if the bases have sand on them?

Reminds me of my absolute favorite elitist moment in a GW store. Friend was pulling out his orks, which were as listed above (fully built/painted, WYSIWYG and painted but unflocked bases) and his opponent starts ranting and complaining about how crappy the game looks when people use minis that don't have flocked bases. He must have groused for a good 10 minutes before he started pulling out his own army. His own force had fully flocked based, but then looked like they were painted by a color blind 4th grader with no hand eye coordination or motor control. Basically his minis looked like complete and utter crap despite their flocked bases. After complaining about lack of flocked bases making the game look awful on the table and then pulling out such a horrible looking army the guy seriously needed a beating with the clue stick. After my friend completely tabled him with his minis with unflocked bases and the guy began to whine some more we left laughing heartily and never bothered to play in that store again.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 XT-1984 wrote:
Personally though I refuse to play with anything less than a fully painted army. I don't hold it against anyone who doesn't though.

And that is exactly as it should be. Personal preference is just that: personal. I usually get to avoid all such issues anymore by having my own 4x8 table at home.

Skriker

tvih wrote:

Dragonzord wrote:
not some half arsed attempt of it with just plain grey plastic armies, missing arms etc..

Because everyone is a fast painter and has enough time to spend ages to get everything painted I for one can't and don't even want to spend all my free time painting, yet I don't want to paint anything less than the best I can do, and as such progress is very slow indeed.

And? If GW wants to have their tables to show off what the game is meant to be played like, in order to make more money, then thats how it is. If you're a slow painter, or dont have time, then simply dont play where they say that they want full painted armies...

Their house, their rules.. They're a business trying to show off how their product looks..

Just to be clear be clear I dont mind if GW only wanted painted minis in the store... I can understand why. Be it a little annoying for someone who wants to play with the 200-300's worth of stuff they bought a couple of months ago but havnt had the time to paint. interesting debate. Rage on.

HOWEVER: I got a reply from my friend who *used* to work there: "unfortunately I don't work there anymore so the rules might have changed, they used to be that your army had to be at least under coated and any conversions need to be like 90% citadel."

So it seems I'll be fine with a few undercoated. But alas I have found a wargaming club right next to my work place that meets every week after work in a pub. They even hold tournies so I'm just gonna go there ^^

chuxfm wrote:
But alas I have found a wargaming club right next to my work place that meets every week after work in a pub. They even hold tournies so I'm just gonna go there ^^

Definitely a far better option to be sure. Always better when pints are close at hand.

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:

chuxfm wrote:
But alas I have found a wargaming club right next to my work place that meets every week after work in a pub. They even hold tournies so I'm just gonna go there ^^

Definitely a far better option to be sure. Always better when pints are close at hand.

Skriker

My thoughts exactly

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Each store is different. At mine, you're not allowed to bring in anything higher than a 1,000pts (as we only have two tables and he wants to make sure games will be quick, to prevent people from hogging up the space)

He doesn't care if you have them painted, but he very much PREFERS you do, so if someone comes in they'll see what the game looks like at it's best. Having a bunch of half assembled unpainted minis doesn't look good for the game.

3rd party bitz and whatnot are a no-no, although that is company policy, and managers have no say in that. My manager doesn't seem to have any qualms with them, but all the same, they're not allowed (fair enough, it's they're bussiness) Greenstuff and heavy conversions using official parts are a-ok though. My warbikers are mounted on dark vengeance bikes, and I do quite a bit of conversions in general on my orks, and he has no complaints as long as I can point to any part and say "its from such and such GW kit"

Best thing to do though is call or message your store. They'll be more than happy to explain what is and isn't allowed.

Can I see those warbikes?

davou wrote:


Can I see those warbikes?

Almost finished painting the sergeant I'll leave a link on this thread lemme know what you think... It's my first conversion using green stuff. (only very basic stuff mind you)

Best thing to do in stores with ridiculous rules about painted and based minis that HAVE to be from gw is to make an army made of the old cardboard kans or Dragons for fantasy. They are official gw miniatures and they are already painted. So if they want to use their stupid policy i'll use my stupid cardboard army.

Jokes aside i see why stores like to enforce painted minis. If someone that didnt start the hobby so far watches a game of plastic grey marines vs black primered tau he wouldnt be as interested as seeing two painted armies go against each other and is therefore more likely to be hooked.

Hahaha the Cardboard Dredd.. F yeh

Dragonzord wrote:
And? If GW wants to have their tables to show off what the game is meant to be played like, in order to make more money, then thats how it is. If you're a slow painter, or dont have time, then simply dont play where they say that they want full painted armies...
Their house, their rules.. They're a business trying to show off how their product looks..

Their house their rules, and yes I wouldn't play in such a place... however, how exactly does an army painted to the level of gak look better than an unpainted model? At least the model itself can still look good unless they totally botched the assembly, but put gak on it and it probably doesn't. Yet the gak paint job is allowed, while unpainted is not.

Now, I'm not saying stores should become elitist in terms of how good a model's paint job has to look to be allowed on the table, but neither does the "has to be painted" make much sense, considering.

Even a crappy paintjob shows effort. Also, most people are viewing from arms length distances, and are not master painters. From a distance, the mere fact that the minis have color and contrast is usually enough.

For example, a guarsdman with only flesh, green on the gear, and khaki on the cloth may look gagbage up close, but on the tabletop he fills his purpose and you can tell what he is. His hands and face contrast with the green on his armor and weapon, making them easy to tell apart. His uniform and his armor contrast, showing that detail as well. It's not super detailed, but I can look down on a busy table and go "ok, he's a guy in basic armor and has a gun". A grey primed guardsman is a grey blob to the eye, and only by closer inspection you can tell what it is. With no contrast to distinguish his weapon from his hands, or his uniform from his armor, the eye has nothing to pick up on. Having 30 other unpainted models mixed in leads to a sea of grey that makes it hard to tell them apart, complicating the matter.

I mean, I get saying "I'd rather leave minis bare until i can paint them right" because I do the same thing. But saying a crappily painted mini won't look better than a hunk of grey plastic to a casual observer is kind of silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'll have to upload a pic of this later to show what I mean. Right now I need sleep

 XT-1984 wrote:
These models are expensive, don't rush them for the sake of playing a game. Not everyone has as much free time as they'd like to paint them all.

Also, some people just plain ol' don't enjoy painting.

I'm like that. I like the looks of painted minis, and I think playing with a fully painted army would be totally awesome and stuff and junk... But I just can't bring myself to sit still and just paint. Even with a TV show playing on DVD within earshot and eyesight. Even with music playing. Sometimes I get the urge to paint a particular model. I dunno, maybe the post above this one is right. Maybe I could just kinda say, "Feth quality," and paint a bunch of models in their basic colors. So for my Sisters, prime em white, paint robes pink, maybe paint insignia in gold, paint face, paint hair, and done. I could probably go for that, actually.

Building models? Sure, I can build and modify my models till I'm dizzy from the fumes and have the munchies - which I actually did once after I built more than a few squads of models over the course of several hours. I finally finished, and I was really hungry. And I ate food, but I was still hungry. So I ate some more food, but no matter how much I ate, I was still hungry. So I said, "Well, this isn't working, so I'ma just try to ignore it for now." Also, Testors plastic cement makes my head feel funny in a bad way very quickly, but GW plastic glue has no effect on me.

But yeah, I have loads of unpainted and unprimed models because I simply do not enjoy painting. I would find it a miraculous invention if holographic models were created, or if models in the future were made from something like digital paper, that you could plug a wire from the base of the model into a computer, and "paint" it using the computer. Hell, even a paint-on substance that did that would be rad. Holographic models would be my preference, though, cause then you could animate them and customize them and stuff. ^^

 Pouncey wrote:

 XT-1984 wrote:
These models are expensive, don't rush them for the sake of playing a game. Not everyone has as much free time as they'd like to paint them all.

Also, some people just plain ol' don't enjoy painting.

In my case I enjoy it but Its taught me I have very little patience. Also, with lack of experience its demoralizing when you put hours into a squad for it to look like gak. then its embarassing to go out with looking like that and several times I'd wished they were still just grey.

 Pouncey wrote:
Holographic models would be my preference, though, cause then you could animate them and customize them and stuff. ^^

Meh. When playing a tabletop game, I'd rather have something actually physical. Otherwise might just as well play with the computer

The sad part is that everyone needs to remember that GW's rulings on painted and based armies is because they expect the two people playing at that table to be functioning as free advertising for the store. And in true GW fashion, they can take it to ludicrous lengths.

I understand it, but that doesn't make it any less of a jackhole move.

Well I mean I'd much rather paint my guys to my full ability too, and I'd rather take my time. I'm just saying that even a really terrible mini (unless its REALLY bad, like lime green with pink highlights bad) it'll look better than bare plastic on the table. If you put any effort into it really, it'll look better than flat grey/black/green/whatever you use as primer. So even if you're terrible at painting, they'll be better than nothing. And as long as most people only see them at arms length, shouldn't have to worry about too much heckling.

I paint a unit at a time.

CoI wrote:
The place I originally wanted to play at wouldn't let me play unless I flocked my bases and had a fully painted army. So call ahead and ask.

That's insane.

I will never play at a GW store. The rules seem to be a bit overbearing seeing as the game is supposed to be about having fun and enjoying your hobby not stressing about three color paint jobs and how you can afford their overpriced models.

While I will admit it is nice to see two painted armies on the table squaring off it bothers me that GW pretty much tells people that they can't enjoy the hobby at their stores because of something so petty as paint.