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Depending on where you live you can get single figures off of eBay or some bitz sellers for relatively cheap and play something like Inq28 or Hinterlands/AoS28. Add in making terrain and scenarios and you can have a very complete and very rewarding miniature hobby in a warhammer universe for very little money.

I agree that saying "if you don't have the money, don't play" is dumb. It's far better to explain why paper miniatures aren't something I'd like to see at tournaments, stores or conventions rather than just saying that.

In follow up to my previous post,

Obviously fully assembled and nicely painted is the ideal, but I'd rather play against something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srpNOjjt-3k&index=4&list=PLOt6UN-cmqk1zHORa-HfJ5JFw7i2ChTF1

than half assembled / unpainted miniatures.

Second hand miniatures, lots of scrubbing and lots of scratch building will get you very far on very few dollars.

I'm not sure it's very applicable to tyranids though, you might want to check Imperial Guard or Orks instead for massively cheap yet very time intensive armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Wargaming can be an expensive hobby. 40K is one of the worst (expensive models with exceptionally large forces considered "normal").that I've seen as far as cost. There's no shame in being unable to dive into it. There are heaps of thing I know I can't afford to do that I'd like (heck wargaming is the cheaper of my two main hobbies, sadly). I'd imagine 85% of the people on this board started by buying a single blister or a small box at an early age, and slowly (sometimes very slowly) expanding into the full game mode. It happens, no worries there.

Actually 40K is one of the most affordable hobbies out there.
Try another hobby for once, most sports will set you back more than an MSRP 40K army.
And let's not get started on any one of the expensive hobbies, like cars, bikes, LARP, Airsoft, TCG, Pool, Movies, ...

morgoth wrote:
Second hand miniatures, lots of scrubbing and lots of scratch building will get you very far on very few dollars.

I'm not sure it's very applicable to tyranids though, you might want to check Imperial Guard or Orks instead for massively cheap yet very time intensive armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Wargaming can be an expensive hobby. 40K is one of the worst (expensive models with exceptionally large forces considered "normal").that I've seen as far as cost. There's no shame in being unable to dive into it. There are heaps of thing I know I can't afford to do that I'd like (heck wargaming is the cheaper of my two main hobbies, sadly). I'd imagine 85% of the people on this board started by buying a single blister or a small box at an early age, and slowly (sometimes very slowly) expanding into the full game mode. It happens, no worries there.

Actually 40K is one of the most affordable hobbies out there.
Try another hobby for once, most sports will set you back more than an MSRP 40K army.
And let's not get started on any one of the expensive hobbies, like cars, bikes, LARP, Airsoft, TCG, Pool, Movies, ...

TCG...cardboard crack.
You go to a pre-release, everybody around you draws amazing stuff, you get rubbish...logical response "Well, that sucked, guess I don't have the luck for this game".
TCG player response "I'll pre-order a Booster Box, then trade for what I need" on failing at that it's off to ebay and Star City Games to buy from the 2nd hand market.

 roflmajog wrote:
Just between you and your sister do what you want. However I definitely wouldn't use them for tournaments. In casual play I wouldn't mind playing vs a paper army 2-3 times but I would want to see the paper phased out for plastic over time if it was going to be a long term thing, maybe 1 more plastic squad each time we played.
Have you tried looking on ebay for cheaper models?
I doubt stores would want you playing with paper either unless you were gradually building up a plastic army that you were buying from them, which would probably be more expensive than buying from ebay.

Like this guy says, I'd probably be willing to indulge you if you were trying out and army or filling in the gaps for your halfway-done forces. I probably wouldn't play against you regularily though, and certainly not if this paper army was a permanent thing rather than a temporary solution to your lack of funds.

A store definitely wouldn't be okay with you playing there with paper, I wouldn't suggest trying that. Among friends or family (or any player not against it), go for it! These guys that are saying 'if you're poor this hobby isn't for you' are un-fething-believable. Screw 'em.

nareik wrote:
In follow up to my previous post,

Obviously fully assembled and nicely painted is the ideal, but I'd rather play against something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srpNOjjt-3k&index=4&list=PLOt6UN-cmqk1zHORa-HfJ5JFw7i2ChTF1

than half assembled / unpainted miniatures.

This, nothing else to add, really.
Good looking 2D paper troops like that beat Space Marine torsos without heads and arms any day.
And some of the stuff you can find online, especially the papercraft stuff is pretty amazing and I totally wouldn't mind playing against it:



Playing with friends, buds and in a dedicated club everything goes as long as your opponent gives his okay.
Of course, tournaments are a different beast and organizers should be consulted and send pictures of what you plan to bring, but expect 90% (especially if sponsored by a store) of them to say no, but in the end it is their event and they give the OK...
Independent stores it depends, bringing paper print outs or 3D printed models is an absolute no-go as a stranger, if you buy stuff there often/regularly they might however be okay with it if you do it one or two times to test out what you want to buy next via proxies, provided you ask.
Don't even try in GW stores if you value your reputation and want to be able to pu a foot inside the store ever again.

TheBoy wrote:
!00% I'd play against paper. Hell I play against bare bases and plastic disks for drop pods. Its about rolling dice, taking minis off the table, having fun and relaxing. This is a game people you already use your imagination to pew pew why not just imagine a fully painted model? Maybe we play for different reasons but me personally I could still visualize a paper space marine chopping through a squad of firewarriors just as easily as a plastic one.

Maybe I'm just lucky and my local game store is chill but we spend money on soda, candy, books, dice, dice bags, they have 3d printed goods; its not just 40k keeping them afloat, magic alone does that. Just to make it clear I have a reaver, 4 knights, two warhounds, a storm lord, too much Tau.. too much.. Nids, GK, Eldar, Skittari, Daemons, Inquisition and you can use any of them if you play w/ me hell its prolly the only time I'll ever see my titans in use. Plus letting someone play with a model they never thought they would see let alone use puts a smile on my face xD. Some people aren't lucky enough to have the spare cash its no reason to belittle them they could be really great people and you are passing up the chance to form a friendship just because they don't have the same level of investment as you? That's just...

Instead of putting someone down for having no minis how about you offer to let them use one of your own armies? So instead of saying "No, I wont play you because you have no/paper minis." look at the fact someone is interested in the hobby and be like "Hey Instead of playing that paper SM army why not try a game with one of these?" Maybe you could even sell them that old army you have that's gathering dust to fuel your current one.

I agree with this post entirely. Use your imagination. I have played against a person who had a few completed tyranid models, some not completed ones, and a lot of paper markers. I could still imagine a horde of tyranids advancing towards my space marines who were trying desperately to gun them down before the Tyranids closed. I also played against an imperial guard person who did not have enough models, and I let him use some of my space marine tanks that I wasn't using to represent a leman russ or chimera. It did not ruin the game.

I find it funny the people who are saying that they would never play against someone who was using paper models or markers or incomplete models. Did all of you have a fully assembled and painted army when you started playing? I am guessing no, you had a few models that were assembled and painted, then maybe some that were not painted, and you may have even used some markers for models. Also, if you say you won't play against someone who doesn't have a fully painted complete army, does the quality of their paint job matter? If their painting is not as good as you would like does it ruin it for you?

My advice to the OP, find others in your area who don't mind you using paper models. As you can see by the responses here there are people out there who would play against you. If you find several people you can form a group and you can set up your own tournament. There is nothing that says a tournament has to be run by a store.

I personally wouldn't want to play against strips of paper, but the paper models that others have shown would be fine with me. So long as the things your using look like the thing your trying to represent im happy. Im also happy to play against unpainted or partially painted models as i can say from experience, that can take bloody ages. I regularly have more models unfinished painting wise than finished.

I also wouldnt mind bringing extra models down to lend someone for a game either so they didnt have to use so many paper ones, same goes for terrain. I think i agree with some other posters that there is a bit of an elitist attitude amongst parts of the community, but thats inevitable with most gaming communities. For every elitist who wont play with me because my army is half finished, and half with only its base coat on it, there are 3 more who will and are of a similar mind to me. So its really the others who lose out in the end.

IF your new and just cant afford to buy like 500 points at a time [most of us cant] make friendly with some local gamers and see if they will either a) lend models for games to you from their collection, or b) ask if they mind playing small scale games to help you get used to the game and to learn what models would best expand your army with your hard earned and limited cash. i ve done this with like 5 or more of my friends over the last year and now they all have caught the 40k bug =D [and i have 5 more mates to play with, and my local store now gets more regular business so everyone is a winner!]


edit: grammar/spelling

 Humble Guardsman wrote:

 roflmajog wrote:
Just between you and your sister do what you want. However I definitely wouldn't use them for tournaments. In casual play I wouldn't mind playing vs a paper army 2-3 times but I would want to see the paper phased out for plastic over time if it was going to be a long term thing, maybe 1 more plastic squad each time we played.
Have you tried looking on ebay for cheaper models?
I doubt stores would want you playing with paper either unless you were gradually building up a plastic army that you were buying from them, which would probably be more expensive than buying from ebay.

Like this guy says, I'd probably be willing to indulge you if you were trying out and army or filling in the gaps for your halfway-done forces. I probably wouldn't play against you regularily though, and certainly not if this paper army was a permanent thing rather than a temporary solution to your lack of funds.

A store definitely wouldn't be okay with you playing there with paper, I wouldn't suggest trying that. Among friends or family (or any player not against it), go for it! These guys that are saying 'if you're poor this hobby isn't for you' are un-fething-believable. Screw 'em.

It might depend on the store honestly, if you are slowly buying models from them while using paper to supplement, some might be ok with it. If I were an owner and had a customer who bought say a box of models once a month, while playing with paper I'd be ok with it, it might encourage others to do the same. In the end sales are sales. That said if you aren't buying stuff, and working on your army, then I would be against it as the owner.

Now this is just my opinion, but I feel the game would benefit if people would give guys like this 1-2 small point games. I know lots of people that like the models, but they stop dead from actually attempting the hobby stating that any time they approach anyone they're told. "Come back when you have a fully painted 1850 army."

Sometimes I feel like this is one of the few hobbies where a large portion of the population actively works against pulling new people into the hobby.

I know I had bad experiences with this kind of behavior where I couldn't even get people willing to do a quick fight against dark vengeance box set pieces as a hello when I started and felt completely snubbed right after trying to join the community.

I'm not saying devote your entire day to guys like the OP, but I think it would do a world of wonder for the hobby in general to give him a quick 500- point game once and add you would like him to have a squad or two next time you played.

 TheIngeniusNoob wrote:
So I play 40k with my sister. We don't have a lot of money so i used DND miniatures to represent the armies. I've seen the prices that GW puts on their Tyranid miniatures and have also seen some of them 3d printed. But what if I printed out of paper? It would be easy to create armies that cost a lot of points and to accurately size the models. I've printed a small 500 point simple army of Tyranids and it works but I'm only using them for personal use right now, so no one go freaking out about my doing so. But seriously, what if we had these in tournaments?

If you and your sister are having fun at home, please continue to do so! If your friends are up for it too, great! The hobby has room for all!

Tournaments? You'll more than likely be told no, sorry.

I agree, Hatachi.

I feel the '2.4k standard game' the playerbase fixated on did a lot more to kill Warhammer Fantasy than anything GW did.

This is one of the reasons for the success for AoS; you can just grab a few models and get going.

I'm sure with time AoS will bloat to steadfasthorde MCstar shenanigans that eventually killed fantasy.

In the mean time, lets enjoy the 40k rule reboot until everyone starts deciding the 'correct way to play' is with $1000 armies.

I would play small 500-1000 point games with new players all day. I would even show them what I've learned about Ebay-fu, the cheapest ways to get miniatures, and help them model and paint their army.

At the moment I have about 1700 points of Dark Angels bikes and terminators that I got for less than $200 by buying the DV set, using /r/MiniSwap to trade all of the things I didn't want for things I did, then using Ebay bits stores and a lot of conversion work to fill in the gaps. I'm not even setting them on the table until they're finished.

Start collecting sets and each of the forces from the DV set can be had for about $60, and I would be happy to play against any one of those. That's pretty much the cost of any other high-end board game or miniatures game out there. Even a kid or someone with a tight budget can set aside that much if they're truly interested in something. And seeing some of the amazing scratch builds out there that are so close to the real thing proves that a will can find a way within basically any means.

There just aren't many excuses for not having SOME kind of models. One valid reason people have brought up is that you would like to test out the game or a certain unit's rules and are using proxies temporarily. But even that is for one or two games. If the question is whether or not it's acceptable to permanently use 2D, printed proxies because you're either too lazy, too cheap or too uninterested to invest a minimal amount of time and effort, even when people are more than willing to offer their own time and resources to help you out, then my answer is NO. And I'm not ashamed of that at all.

morgoth wrote:
Second hand miniatures, lots of scrubbing and lots of scratch building will get you very far on very few dollars.

I'm not sure it's very applicable to tyranids though, you might want to check Imperial Guard or Orks instead for massively cheap yet very time intensive armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Wargaming can be an expensive hobby. 40K is one of the worst (expensive models with exceptionally large forces considered "normal").that I've seen as far as cost. There's no shame in being unable to dive into it. There are heaps of thing I know I can't afford to do that I'd like (heck wargaming is the cheaper of my two main hobbies, sadly). I'd imagine 85% of the people on this board started by buying a single blister or a small box at an early age, and slowly (sometimes very slowly) expanding into the full game mode. It happens, no worries there.

Actually 40K is one of the most affordable hobbies out there.
Try another hobby for once, most sports will set you back more than an MSRP 40K army.
And let's not get started on any one of the expensive hobbies, like cars, bikes, LARP, Airsoft, TCG, Pool, Movies, ...

Morgoth, I meant in terms of wargaming...40K is one of the most expensive. I agree it pales in comparison to other hobbies. My other main hobby is firearms...so...(sigh) yeah. But some people are put off by 40K and assume that's how much wargames cost when in reality that's not the case for the vast majority of other games. Only Flames of War is really up there in my mind as being as expensive.

Elbows, I agree that it isn't on the level of firearms/ cars etc expensive in the long term. The issue I come across is that compared to other participatory group hobbies like sports it has a larger buy in to do a quick overview. Most martial arts dojos or adult hobby level sports teams will usually loan you gear to give it a go once or twice. They want to give you that quick taste to try to pull you in.

At home with friends and family, Yes. If you're starting out use lego or salt shakers or what ever you have on hand.

At the FLGS, No.

At tournaments, No.

It is tabletop miniature wargaming. A large part of the game/hobby is the assembly, painting and fielding of miniatures.

I find it really amusing that;
1. This conversation is still ongoing and,
2. Some people are creating excuses based on hypotheticals that don’t apply to the question posed.
The OP has said that they have already printed out a 500 point army of nids and played game with their sister at home. Therefore the argument that it might be alright for someone to play with paper cut-outs if they just want to try the game out is irrelevant. The OP has already tried the game.
Then there is the suggestion that those who say they wouldn’t want to play against the paper army are suggesting they build a 1500-1850 point army and paint it and come back. No-one has said this in fact I said quite the opposite. I suggested that the poster try SWA or explore some of the other cheaper ways to be involved in 40k. Investing in a single box of minis isn’t the same as building a full army. On top of that as I have already stated I will quite happily play new players with a unit or two while they slowly build and will happily give my advice on building up an army slowly and for as little money as possible <cough> ebay <cough>. It’s ok if you don’t have the money to build a full army immediately and I’m not going to say you can’t be part of the hobby, I will even try and help you find ways to mitigate the issue but it isn’t appropriate to use it as an excuse to try and get an exemption from buying miniatures for a miniature wargame.
Now I will move onto the suggestion that we should give them some of our minis to play with so the new people can try the game out. Firstly I can’t tell you how many times I have actually done this myself but it is a lot and even seen others amongst our regulars do the same. Someone said that “not everyone lugs a full second army to a club so we can’t” and I agree to an extent. I generally tend to bring more than I need and will happily offer someone some of my units split down the middle or grab a load of stuff and tell them to take what they like the look of most for a mini game. The issue with this is that this person is not trying out the game, they have already tried it out as per the Ops first post. This person has already printed them and used them at home. They know how the game plays and they have specifically said that the only reason they haven’t bought minis is because of the price.
So… now I’ll move onto some other repeated suggestions. The first of which is the parroted point about the quality of paper 3D minis. If they are really finely crafted out of paper and the quality is at the level of some of the previously posted pictures then fine…. Right? Well I suggested that this doesn’t apply in this case because if it did we’d have been made aware as such earlier and probably in the original post. I even made the suggestion that they share images of these print outs in an earlier post. They have not obliged so I can only assume that they are not one of the few people who can make such amazing pieces of craftsmanship. I would therefore suggest people stop making the point about the quality of the paper model because it is again irrelevant.
I’ll now address the point a number of people have made about there being a snobbish or elitist element of the community. I would suggest that just because our views on what make a game fun differ from yours does not make us less of a person than you, which is what you infer when you suggest we turn our nose up at people. I think you’ll find pretty much everyone who has said they wouldn’t play against such an army has not said no-one ever should. Most of the people on here have said that if you want to play games like that feel free it just doesn’t fall into what we consider fun. Maybe some of the people who think that others are elitist for not adhering to the idea that 40k is just “rolling dice and having fun” are themselves elitist as you think you know better than us. It is just indicative of some peoples inability to accept the views of others. I mean… this is a long post and if you have read this far I hope you see where I am coming from and if not well you’ve kind of proven my point.
As a last point I will repeat a point I made in an earlier reply stating that I think it would be disrespectful to expect someone to play against a paper army purely because you don’t want to pay the prices everyone else does. That is the case in this instance as the OP has specifically stated it.
For me it’s about more than just the dice rolling. I fi wanted to roll dice and have fun I’d go back to Las Vegas. There is something, for me anyway, inherently satisfying about putting two painted forces on the table with painted terrain and creating something through the game that is pleasing to look at.
The suggestion that someone would rather play against a paper army rather than a half painted one for me again is irrelevant. I really dislike playing against unpainted armies. I have seen 2500 point armies dropped on the table with only a handful of minis having made it past priming. The whole playing with unpainted minis in my opinion should be actively discouraged. I am not going to make a big deal out of it if it happens but I’ll mention it and certainly wont play that person again unless they can demonstrate they’ve made strides to paint some of their collection. This is from a gaming area where I’ve seen multiple people play week in week out, with large armies (1500+ points of unfinished models) with no progress for months at a time. And I mean NO progress.
To me it shows real lack of respect for yourself and your opponents if you’re happy to put don’t unbuilt and/or unpainted miniatures down. More than anything it’s disrespectful of the effort that some people put into their armies if you’re not willing to make that effort yourself. This is the reason why I have and will never play with an unpainted mini.
This then applies, in my mind, to a paper cut out army. It shows a lack of wiliness to at least try and meet the effort made by others. I think we should all work to help each other have good experiences and it tends to be when this goal isn’t the interest of one participant that people have unhappy experiences. There are so many different ways different people enjoy 40k but I don’t think it is acceptable to put any one person’s interest above another. That’s why I’d appreciate it if those who would rather label others as elitist took a look at themselves and stopped judging others for voicing their opinions

As long as you have put genuine effort into making the paper mini look good and represent the unit it stands in for, then I have no problems with it. That being said, I appear to be in the minority here so it probably isn't a good idea to take to your FLGS.

The answer to your question actually is:

Tournaments normally want official models.

If you want a "fun" paper tournament, you should start one in your area.

Ask your opponent "do you mind if I use my 2d paper models?"
If they do mind, ask someone different.

Paper 2-D figure flats, no. Awesome 3-d papercraft vehicles, absolutely.

If you came over for a game and put a paper army on the table because that's all you could afford then I would not hav a problem. I've been in a situation where hobby dollars were scarce and living dollars even more so. Same as if you were using stand in figures. As long as we know what's what, I have no problem!

I only want to say that some paperhammer armies are really cool and have effort put into them. Personally I'll have 0 problems playing against something likes this:


They are even better that some official GW models for that same units!

But normally is a polite thing to ask your opponent beforehand to use things that deviaty from the norm. So, as always, ask first. And a "No" is a "no". If someone don't want to play against your paper army, thats totally fine, he is in his right, and he isn't a jerk oor something like that for refusing to play against you. Obviously, if you ask him politely and he negates politely. If he says something like "Paper models? Did really you try to play against ME with that crap? Omg, you are such a looser!" then maybe is better to just don't play against that person, with or without plastic models

Your table, your call.

Not your table, your opponent has a vote.

Against a child, I would make considerations unless the child was scummy. And yes, there are scummy little brats.

Against your little sister- if she's anything like the little girl I played against, I'd gladly let her sub things in. And I'd see what I could dig up to help her out with starting her collections.

A grown adult with a job writing 'SPESS MEHREEN' on a piece of paper with 'BULTER GUN' underneath it, playing an apocalypse army with a bunch of trash on the table? No.

 Pr3Mu5 wrote:
To me it shows real lack of respect for yourself and your opponents if you’re happy to put don’t unbuilt and/or unpainted miniatures down. More than anything it’s disrespectful of the effort that some people put into their armies if you’re not willing to make that effort yourself. This is the reason why I have and will never play with an unpainted mini.
This then applies, in my mind, to a paper cut out army. It shows a lack of wiliness to at least try and meet the effort made by others. I think we should all work to help each other have good experiences and it tends to be when this goal isn’t the interest of one participant that people have unhappy experiences. There are so many different ways different people enjoy 40k but I don’t think it is acceptable to put any one person’s interest above another. That’s why I’d appreciate it if those who would rather label others as elitist took a look at themselves and stopped judging others for voicing their opinions

This is where people see the elitist attitude sir. You cant in one breath say that people find different parts of warhammer fun and that's totally cool, and then in the next breath say they are some how disrespecting you and others but not having enough time and/or money to have not painted all 3 base coats, every layer and every detail on every model they own if they want to play the game the models are made for!

I for one couldnt give a damn if all the models are painted, i enjoy warhammer for the game and building/collecting the armies. Painting for me is boring as gak and i suck at it, so my models have the base coat/layer, and major details done. [one of the reasons i picked ultramarines - i love blue and the major details arent hard to do, no multiple layers, no airbrushing, no technical paints etc.] But is my lack of enjoyment and skill in the painting department genuinely DISRESPECTFUL to you?!!? Really?! If we put that in another light, those folks who struggled in maths class at school are somehow disrespecting the odd person in the class who enjoys maths? No of course not that would be insane.

At the end of the day, if i have 2000 point army built but partially painted, and you have a 2000 point army painted to level 10 mastery, we have still spent the same amount of money on our hobby [equal commitment], however, for all you know having half my army painted and not just base coated was MORE effort for me to do than for you to do your whole army, because i suck at painting.

Now i understand you're not trying to be elitist and i dont think actually are, but you do come across that way from your choice of words - as mentioned above. Just as you said, you have to accept other peoples opinions, but you must also accept that people have different interests and skill levels within this awesome hobby game, and that has nothing to do with them disrespecting you, because if they were that would require a conscious decision to do so. They arent not painting their armies to specifically piss you off.

 TheIngeniusNoob wrote:
So I play 40k with my sister. We don't have a lot of money so i used DND miniatures to represent the armies. I've seen the prices that GW puts on their Tyranid miniatures and have also seen some of them 3d printed. But what if I printed out of paper? It would be easy to create armies that cost a lot of points and to accurately size the models. I've printed a small 500 point simple army of Tyranids and it works but I'm only using them for personal use right now, so no one go freaking out about my doing so. But seriously, what if we had these in tournaments?

For personal use, just to play the game between you, your sister, and perhaps a couple of other friends and family members, I'd say go for it. Having read all the above superficially, there are enough people who would play with you, possibly even just to see if they like the play style of an army and try it before they buy it. Heck, even I still have the Rogue Trader original book (not that 30th anniversary reprint), with the blue pages wich cut out counters for Pedro Cantor, 15 Space Marines, and a bunch of Ork Boyz and their characters.

What would my own stance on this be? I play this game for the fun of rolling dice and shoving models. Built, possibly primed, and maybe even painted models. I would play with you, and your paper or cardboard army, but I would probably start to advertise buying models. It's not my place to judge you for not having the money to get army after army, add glue, paint and brushes and other supplies to that. But my enjoyment of the game is not just in rolling dice or reading the books. I appreciate the models and a bit of effort that went into them.

Tournaments... Good luck on that. I have never seen a single tournament that didn't have the "3-colour minimum on your models" rule, usually expluding a primer layer. I guess it is up to the individual tournament organizer to decide, but as they are usually publically available and accessible happenings, most tournaments will likely expect you to have the models, at least, perhaps even a paintjob minimum.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
I am sorry, but if you can't afford the hobby, then don't do it, or stick casually playing with your sister OP. Just my opinion.

Why do you get to define "this hobby" for other people? Or do you mean just because the OP asked about tournaments and only not for tournaments? If so, I agree.

Paper miniatures are for home use and can be awesome for that.

Rippy isn't "defining the hobby" for anyone. The hobby is Miniatures Wargaming. It was defined long before Rippy was probably born so getting up on him about " the hobby" is BS. The same pretty much goes for anyone claiming cardboard cut-outs are perfectly fine just because GW released a couple of them 20+ years ago. Miniatures wargaming has evolved as the market has grown to accommodate and the sculptors have had time to create these beautiful game pieces. To make the cut-out argument realistic would be to collect a bunch of the original cutouts and field them. Which would be sweet af to be honest.

To the OP, that having been said, it's your game and do it how you want in your own home. I'd suggest making it a real hobby and doing something like Printable Heroes does with 2-sided hand drawn figures printed out and glued together for stand up figures. I think you already get that idea using DnD miniatures to game with but it could be a fun project to add some greater immersion into the hobby. There's plenty of graphics available that would do just fine for starting armies if you don't have much time, or like me, much natural talent for artistic endeavors.

No GW store I've ever been to would allow that style army in store, however. Most game shops selling the miniatures would be loathe to accommodate you as well. There are, however, plenty of beer & pretzel wargamers like myself who wouldn't mind it and would even love to help you with making a cool little cut out army. Now that I'm thinking about it, a Printable Heroes style deal would be pretty awesome to face...

the appeal of using a paper army is that by setting a model down in front of someone you immediately know whether or not they are worth spending an hour and a half with.

If they're okay with it, then great.

If they aren't then also great; you just saved yourself having to spend 90 minutes with a pedant

 Galas wrote:
I only want to say that some paperhammer armies are really cool and have effort put into them. Personally I'll have 0 problems playing against something likes this:

Spoiler:

They are even better that some official GW models for that same units!

But normally is a polite thing to ask your opponent beforehand to use things that deviaty from the norm. So, as always, ask first. And a "No" is a "no". If someone don't want to play against your paper army, thats totally fine, he is in his right, and he isn't a jerk oor something like that for refusing to play against you. Obviously, if you ask him politely and he negates politely. If he says something like "Paper models? Did really you try to play against ME with that crap? Omg, you are such a looser!" then maybe is better to just don't play against that person, with or without plastic models

I wouldn't mind playing against an army like that, but as I've already said, it's all about effort for me. Those are based, and it looks like their creator may have hand drawn every individual model. They are the correct size, some of them have 3D elements, and they perfectly represent the models they stand in for in a WYSIWYG sense. It's a pretty big difference from printing off promotional photos from the GW site and gluing them to irregularly sized, bare cardboard bases or something like that.

 davou wrote:
the appeal of using a paper army is that by setting a model down in front of someone you immediately know whether or not they are worth spending an hour and a half with.

If they're okay with it, then great.

If they aren't then also great; you just saved yourself having to spend 90 minutes with a pedant

If only it were that simple...

People have many facets, and the fact that they may be fine with paper miniatures tells nothing about most of these.

It's a pretty good start; Its kinda like showing up to play with someone and they haven't bothered to bathe or shower. I'm probably going to conflict with certain people, based almost entirely upon some things they decide to do or not do.

Another big one for me is people who are nasty or overly competitive against newcomers... If you can't be arsed to make something fun for someone that literally requires no effort to beat into a pulp why should I put faith in your ability to cooperate with me over a game that's meant to be fun for both of us.

I've played with people who didn't have enough points for a proper game, and I encouraged them to use empty bases to represent so that they could get started.

I assume that someone whose new, and considering paper miniatures will EVENTUALLY be bitten and start collecting actualy miniatures because they are cool.... Or else drop the hobby. Barring them from that first 'hook' because its not how you choose to play is petty and pedantic.