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 Kilkrazy wrote:
I didn't actually realise there are people who prefer to play with unpainted figures, but if that is what you like, fair enough.

However I prefer to play with painted figures.

I have heard of many not caring but never actively preferring it before now. With most people though I think its less they prefer to play with unpainted figures than they don't like to paint and would rather play than paint. I know plenty of people into wargaming who hate painting so often pay others to do it for them and would happily buy prepaints if available. I don't count myself among them but I can understand where they are coming from and would hate to have them excluded from the hobby because of their lack of enjoyment of painting.

I don't use unpainted models. This may mean that I sometimes can't field a model or unit I want to use, but so be it. I don't do competitive army list creation, so that's not really a concern anyway.

I also don't use unpainted scenery, and I try to make the board look like a place, not just a game board*.

That leaves my opponent. I don't often play against strangers, so I know my friends are also trying to get their armies painted. Their standards are laxer than mine, which is a little disappointing, but we must all make sacrifices.

*Warmachine seems to be the worst offender for that, locally; two 6" diameter forest templates on an otherwise bare green table does not, IMO, make a game board. Especially not when you have all the fantastic imagery of the game world as inspiration. :(

Games Workshop used to preach to its employees to be aware of the "4 Pillars of the Hobby". The idea was that this hobby is broken down into Collecting, Assembling, Painting and Playing. Different people prioritize different things and not everyone likes all 4 pillars.

While I enjoy painting my armies and would prefer to play against painted armies, I do recognize that not everyone enjoys that element of the hobby as much as I do. If I had to rate myself on a scale of 1 to 10, it would look like this...

Collecting 7/10
Assembling 6/10
Painting 10/10
Playing 2/10

My friend who loves tournaments, gets other people to assemble his models and plays exclusively with unpainted models probably looks more like this...

Collecting 1/10
Assembling 1/10
Painting 1/10
Playing 10/10

It's just different priorities. You need to realize that your hobby isn't the same as my hobby and that there is no correct way to participate.

 bitethythumb wrote:

I think the core thing with me is that this hobby is (for me that is) 70-90% painting, modelling, converting... to actually ignore a simple paint job (and as you said, not really that hard) is really sad, a primer and a base paint do WONDERS.

I am not a big sigmarine fan but love the models (still have no built mine) but will give them a primer coat and a simple gold base and add details to only the weapons or "key" features (like wings for the angel guys) to distinguish them from the army, and that will be it.. I think it would great and at least allows me to SLOWLY learn to paint with them... (maybe give them individual shades as well) and these things are so easy to do ANYONE can do them.. and lets be honest, if you spent 30 hours building your army, whats another 2 hours giving them a paint job (a simple paint job is REALLY quick and easy to do)

I'm pretty new to this but have painted enough in the past to know how, so here's my super lazy attempt at the Retributors:


Not as good as most guys here could do but I guarantee you they look miles better than any unpainted army. Finished them in a single evening when I wasn't even focusing. Here's how:

Start an assembly line, maximum of 5 guys for sanity's sake. Paint them all one colour, move on to the next, ect.

1. Primer. Spray this to save time.
2. Really sloppy base colour. Go nuts as you'll paint over the terribleness later. (I went for brown then gold because in my limited experience, just gold looks pretty bad.)
3. WASH! This is the ultimate cheat. Get a wash colour or water down a paint to be so thin it barely adheres (for gold use red/brown) and wash the entire armour with a large brush. Takes about a minute per model and it'll dry in the recesses giving your guys a shade.
4. Base paint the details from biggest to smallest. Sigmarines have very few.
5. Wash the details with appropriate colours.

You're done. Maybe use GW's Astrogranite and a texture brush for the base as based models look a million times better, but other than that you can just highlight things once you're feeling more confident.

 WarAngel wrote:
Am I the only one who likes the look of an assembled but unpainted model?
I thinking of having one for AoS that I have just this way.

No, I like bare plastic, too. I grew up with plastic Star Wars models and pewter dragons, so the whole idea of painting minis is still new and strange to me. Plus I don't like to paint and am not good at it...

I'm not saying it isn't easy to get acceptable table standard results if you know what you're doing.

I'm saying that some people just don't care.

I enjoy the painting, so spending 40 hours over a couple of weeks working on 5 models is a good use of my free time.

I have friends who would think of 2 hours painting as 2 hours of their life they'll never get back.

Different strokes for different folks. If you require all your opponents to have fully painted armies, then your potential opponent pool shrinks dramatically.

 kveldulf wrote:
You know, some people get into the hobby the wrong way. If he happens to bring up the whole lack of painting thing, then I would point him to ebay. There are some armies fully painted on there sometimes at retail cost or less - already painted. If he's patient enough, he can snag a deal and then sell his current stuff. This is a win/win for a gamer like him.

For a gamer like who? As someone who enjoys assembling the minis most and playing far, far less, your proposal sounds like a lose-lose to me.

 Kriswall wrote:

Different strokes for different folks. If you require all your opponents to have fully painted armies, then your potential opponent pool shrinks dramatically.

I think it depends on what games you're playing as well. If you're playing GW games - with their "buy more and more and more" mentality - then it's going to take forever to get everything painted.

Play a skirmish game like Empire of the Dead or Frostgrave (or Necromunda, Mordheim, or the various Kill Team mods that offer a better game than what GW threw out there), and suddenly a "fully painted army" is 8-15 models.

We get guys posting on Dakka from the Chicago Skirmish Wargames club, which have a mandatory painting requirement. Which may seem exclusionary, until you realize they play a lot of games with small model counts (it's in the name of the club, after all) and they're happy to loan models out to new hobbyists. And their batreps/AARs look a lot better than the fields of grey and black we see from other posters.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 WarAngel wrote:
Am I the only one who likes the look of an assembled but unpainted model?
I thinking of having one for AoS that I have just this way.

No, I like bare plastic, too. I grew up with plastic Star Wars models and pewter dragons, so the whole idea of painting minis is still new and strange to me. Plus I don't like to paint and am not good at it...

Many years ago I was playing 40k with my Khorne daemons (this was before Codex: Daemons was a thing ), entirely unpainted and in the shiny metal + sandy bases. Opponent's mom came in to the store to check out what sonny was up to, and praised my army for its shininess. I mumbled something about not painting them yet but she was all "Why would you want to cover up all that lovely metal?"

In retrospect, she may have been a War Mom

Kriswall wrote:My friend who loves tournaments ...

Funnily enough in the WHFB scene, tournament players are most often the ones with painted armies, because our events require painted armies, reward painted armies, and provide hard deadlines to get armies painted by. All of these are great drivers to getting your dudes painted - even the 'legions' required by 8E

On the topic at hand, I spent many years in the hobby (almost 15!) not painting more than a couple of handfuls of models across all those different armies. And then I decided I was done with unpainted, and painted a CSM army. And then a Skaven army. And then Ogres. And most recently Tzeentch Daemons. Also a Mordheim band. Plus a whole lot of Skorne (speedpainted in a weird mono-red scheme, but still painted).

I'm not a fast painter, but the impetus to play with only painted dudes is a strong one. All of these games are at their best with two painted armies and decent terrain, and that composite experience is far better than any of the rules themselves, at least for me. Once I experienced that with my CSM I understood what I had been missing.

That said, there are downsides of playing with only painted models. For one, I find I now play less - a lot less actually, as I have very little hobby time. Can't get stuff painted? Means I don't play either. And if I don't play, where's the drive to paint? It's a vicious cycle I'm struggling to escape at the moment. Basically the prime reason I no longer play Infinity, despite a thriving local community. Because I can't be fakked to paint ~10 little alien lads.

The other downside is the one the OP laments: you can't paint the other person's minis, or can't make them do it anyway. Playing in a gaming club this is less of an issue, with events driving us all to paint. However general play isn't the same. There are two reasons I stopped playing WM/H: 1) I only played Khador or Menoth over and over; 2) nobody felt particularly compelled to paint their minis. Looking around, there's a lot more variety now at the store, both armies and players ... however there isn't much more painted

- Salvage

My club charges a fine for unpainted minis and no-one wants to pay that so we have no unpainted minis here.

How do you guys deal with players who want to battle with an unpainted army? Does it irritate you?

If it comes to playing against unpainted or no game - slap those suckers down and LET'S ROLL!

It doesn't irritate me, especially if the person is working on them at their own pace.

Not everyone has the patience or skill to paint/learn, and that's ok. Their dollars support our hobby, too. I'd much rather have more potential opponents than play painted only.

And when you do get that painted battle on a painted board. Woo. Making me bothered just thinking about it. hahaha so good.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with belonging to a community that requires painted armies and charges fees for unpainted armies... but it IS exclusionary. It prioritizes (perceived) quality over quantity. You'll have fewer players, but they'll be "better" players. If you're ok with turning people away and being exclusionary... awesome! I don't want to belong to your club anyways!

In many walks of life, I prioritize quality over quantity. I do not do so in my hobby community. I would prefer that EVERYONE be included and allowed to participate, without penalty, regardless of how willing they are to paint their toys.

I'm not willing to tell people that since they don't play with their toys the way I play with my toys that they have to stay home and can't come to the party. Had I done so when I was 5 years old, my dad would have spoken to me sternly about how to play nice with others. Nothing has really changed in that regard.

TLDR - It's not wrong to have high personal standards and expectations... you just limit your potential circle of friends when you force those standards and expectations on others.

ChazLikesCake wrote:
Other than mimicking Kilkrazy's opinion I have to add that last time I was in a GW store, interested in AoS, they'd set up the starter models with just gold and red undercoats and it just looked sad.

GW Bristol? Hah :p

In AoS I have 90% of my army painted.

I don't mind playing grey armies, but I prefer painted.

Worse is when the models aren't even fully assembled and you are playing an army of legs on bases...

Some elitism in this here thread.

I like playing with painted models but not only do I paint slow, I also have better things to be doing and don't always have time to paint. If I was playing someone and their army was bare plastic or just undercoated I couldn't care less. Painted models don't make the game, players do

 Bottle wrote:

GW Bristol? Hah :p

In AoS I have 90% of my army painted.

I don't mind playing grey armies, but I prefer painted.

Worse is when the models aren't even fully assembled and you are playing an army of legs on bases...

Bristol? I wish. Try heading further away from civilisation. Southwards.

 Motograter wrote:
Some elitism in this here thread.

I was wondering how long it would take before this got trotted out.

Elitism? No. I don't think anyone has said that people with unpainted armies are _better_.

I don't play against children, people who play Magic or Warmachine or people who don't speak English either, because I don't enjoy doing so. I don't claim to be _better_ than them, though.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Elitism? No. I don't think anyone has said that people with unpainted armies are _better_.

I don't play against children, people who play Magic or Warmachine or people who don't speak English either, because I don't enjoy doing so. I don't claim to be _better_ than them, though.

Nobody has explicitly said that people with painted armies are better. HOWEVER...

When someone says (paraphrased from comments in this thread) "We don't allow anyone with an unpainted army to play at our table", it is generally heard by people with unpainted armies as "If your army isn't painted, you aren't good enough to play with us". The attitude comes off as very elitist even if it's not intended to be. Remember, perception is reality. Your intentions makes almost no difference if your audience is getting the wrong message. You might need to modify the way it's being delivered.

Compare...

1. "We require fully painted armies. If you don't paint your models, you can't play here. Besides, it's not rocket science. Try harder. Go watch a Youtube video or something."

2. "We embrace every aspect of this hobby and love seeing fully painted models fighting epic battles. To whit, we do require that if you want to use our tables that you bring a fully painted army. If you're not interested in painting or find it too challenging, let us know! There are plenty of simple techniques we can share or even contract painters we can point you towards. We're looking forward to seeing you join us on the battlefield."

Same message, two deliveries. One comes off as elitist, the other comes off as simply having high standards and being excited.

 carlos13th wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Best thing to do, paint your own models. The more people in a group paint the more likely those who don't like painting will suck it up and give it a shot.

While I prefer painted, I look at the effort it takes to paint my own stuff and can understand why people don't want to do it themselves. I wish 6-15mm gaming was more popular because it takes no time at all paint up armies of those.

You say that but while it is certainly much quicker there are often more models to paint at that scale. Im painting 30 something guys at a time for flames of war.

Well what is the difference between painting 30+ guys for 28mm? The 28mm takes a long time. I paint my 6mm in batches of 60 men at a time and it gets done faster than painting q 28mm guy to a decent standard. If I count the models in my guard army I am painting around 60 models for a small game. That takes a month at least. I have painted about 120 men, 16 large men, lots of monsters and so in only 2 days.

While yes you paint more, it is also a lot faster and takes up less time.

I like being elitist... keeps the riff raff out.


Now where is Jeeves with my cocoa...

Most my friends have lives so they cant paint I have no issue with it because I play orks and believe me painting 140 boys will drive you fething crazy...

If you don't want to play because your opponents army isn't painted Then make room ill play them...

I always try to paint stuff before playing but I can appreciate that it's not always that easy. I don't mind playing against unpainted armies but there are limits. I once played a game where the guy put an unopened rhino on the table!! unopened box still with cellophane on!!! That game didn't continue lol.

Some people have army alt- it is. They resell better on rby naked than with a mediocre paint job. And I wouldn't drive off potential players by sticking a snooty nose up at the unpainted model peasants. Beggars can't be choosers and you will be lucky to find anyone willing to play this train wreck in a year as is.

Big P wrote:
I like being elitist... keeps the riff raff out.


Now where is Jeeves with my cocoa...

I hardly think that Jeeves would approve of your choice of drink. What kind of gentleman are you?

For myself, I don't think that I ever have played against a fully painted army. They're nice to see, though.

As long as they are at least assembled, I don't mind about unpainted or just primed models. I have a busy life, including a time schedule with which I could bore you by elaborating how much I sleep, bathe, work, spend time online with World of Warcraft or Star Wars; The Old Republic. There is also a missus Lord Xcapobl who wants some attention every now and then. As such I, too, have a lot of unpainted models.

Good to see so many comments and varied opinions on this subject.

After reading everyones comments I believe I still sit in the paint your damned army!!!!! camp but is still great to hear other peoples varied and equally valid viewpoints.

It certainly wasn't my intention to come across as an elitist jerk who is exclusive to those who haven't painted their models. As a new gamer I assumed it was general convention to buy models, assemble models, paint models and finally battle with models as a reward for the work put into painting an army to the best of your ability.... I was genuinely surprised that someone would front up with unpainted models wanting to play.

My apologies for not painting my army.. I suppose I should just not work/go to school full time and spend my time painting my 15k tau, 4k daemons, 2k eldar, 1.5k imp knights. I can put a box together in an hour I can paint a single model in two. Which do you think I'm going to have more of? When I can only play one to two days out of a month and latley I haven't even gotten to do that. I enjoy the strategy of the game the time it takes to build a strong list with almost no points left to spare. That requires play testing and sorry I dont proxy so yes I'm going to buy a box slap them together and try them out, many of these units get shelved never used again unless I get some crazy new strategy. Honestly be glad you are not playing all my painted models they are tried and true which im afraid would be bad luck for you. I try not to steam roll as its no fun for anyone so yes you will be playing 40 unpainted gun drones or 18 partially painted stealth suits. At least all 100 of my fire warriors are painted..

TheBoy wrote:
My apologies for not painting my army.. I suppose I should just not work/go to school full time and spend my time painting my 15k tau, 4k daemons, 2k eldar, 1.5k imp knights. I can put a box together in an hour I can paint a single model in two. Which do you think I'm going to have more of? When I can only play one to two days out of a month and latley I haven't even gotten to do that. I enjoy the strategy of the game the time it takes to build a strong list with almost no points left to spare. That requires play testing and sorry I dont proxy so yes I'm going to buy a box slap them together and try them out, many of these units get shelved never used again unless I get some crazy new strategy. Honestly be glad you are not playing all my painted models they are tried and true which im afraid would be bad luck for you. I try not to steam roll as its no fun for anyone so yes you will be playing 40 unpainted gun drones or 18 partially painted stealth suits. At least all 100 of my fire warriors are painted..

I get it if you dont like painting models, but at the end of the day, unless you have parkinsons or other debilitating issues then your only REAL excuse is that you would rather do something else.

No need for the sob story man, just say it.

"I don't want to paint all my models, I would rather assemble and convert instead."

It doesn't bother me, although I like painted models. Just excuses are tiring to hear when they aren't legitimate.

I am the newest to my gaming group by at least seven years... If they didn't let me play with partly painted models whilst I was catching up, I'd never get to play anything for the next year whilst I had to do nothing but paint to reach the amounts of figures they regularly field.

In my eyes an army that's clearly being continually worked on is acceptable.

Painting requirements are for chumps. I refuse to play against any army that isn't full on custom converted. An important part of the hobby is also modeling, you know. Every unit must have at least one proper conversion in it and any "character" must be unique AND named, although I will tolerate kit bashes if I NEED to get a game in and no proper hobbyist is around.

5 page minimum army background and notable conflicts as well! Costumes and monologues are for weird LARPers, I want printed handouts! Forge the narrative for heaven's sake! If I wanted to play a straight up dice rolling game I'd be playing DnD!