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Hello y'all

Back story: I had an awesome buddy which I played with regularly but unfortunately he moved far far away. I played about 4 years exclusively with just him. Great dude

Q: Now that I am going out to stores and hobby places to get pick up game I find that I cant find a game. Or I should say a "good" game. Good to me is playing against a painted army and an opponent with a properly formatted army list.
1. I dislike playing unpainted lists. At my local GW I always see a bunch of guys always painting yet no one ever has a painted army. I know painting is time consuming but i draw the line when someone tries to put down partially built models as well. I have refused 4 games due to this reason.

2. I love 8th ed but know that it is easy to make mistakes when making an army list with composition and points which is why I use battlescribe. Although the app isn't perfect it produces clear easy to read and understand lists. I keep running into opponents who don't have any written lists. They claim they just have it in their heads. When I request for a list they literally just write some chicken scratch on a piece of paper I cant understand. I have refused 3 games so far due to this. On one instance I refused because the guy tried to claim he had a 2000pt necron list when he was putting down 100 warriors, 3 crypteks, and 3 monolths!

Now I am here to ask this question from people with more social gaming experience. Am I asking for too much? BTW this is not a rhetorical question or whatever the verb would be. To me it isn't but considering ive had to refuse 7 games in a row im starting to think maybe its not the gaming community but me and maybe i need to change. Should I keep looking or settle?

I'm totally fine with shoebox rhinos as long as the army list is legal and can be recited both forwards and backwards by my opponent, preferrably blindfolded.

The not "fully" painted armies proabably being excessive.

base coated and you can clearly see they are working towards it then i have no issues

the occasional proxy or partial builds when painting sub assemblies sure

a turret fell off and is lost in the warp whatever no issues.

It gets old if you play against some one with an un primed un flashed army that you can clearly tell they dont give 2 gaks for.

as to lists. yeah no real excuses. its really not hard to read and write a list. especially these days with every cell phone having a calculator.

From your description it's doesn't sound like you're asking too much here. Your description makes it sound like you would still play against someone if they had an unpainted but assembled army and they had an army list written on a phone notepad and only power levels. While you might not enjoy that game so much, you wouldn't turn it down. Is that correct?

But if the person has unassembled models, and/or they don't have a written army list, that you wouldn't face them, correct?

In this case, I would say that you are not being unreasonable at all. You may not be getting games in that are as nice as previously, but you're not turning away people willy-nilly either. Just make sure that you're clear with them why you're choosing not to play against them. That'll help change your environment to be something more conducive for your gaming community.

I have to say that is incredibly big of you to see that the problem may be you, because it partially is. You need to realize not everyone has the time or money to paint their entire army, and with 8th so new people are trying out new models and combinations they never thought of before so there is a lot of experimentation and that half built rhino may end it's life as a pred and the player doesn't want to build the rhino only to realize they wasted not only their time but their money on a model they will now never use. You may be far more comfortable with your army but most people right now aren't and are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Not only this, but with a codex coming out for every army, everything will change AGAIN, meaning there will be ANOTHER scramble to see what people want and don't want in their armies and that means even longer periods of experimentation. Asking every opponent to have a fully painted and completed army at this stage of 8th means you may not be playing anyone for the next few months.

For your second question: I don't think it's out of the question for you to have people write down their armies, they should! But you need to meet them halfway and work with what they have available. Even if someone is clearly not building correctly, the solution isn't to tell them no, you should be explaining what they did incorrectly and be like "Hey man is that list built correctly? Can I see it and your book? I think you messed up". You'd be surprised how open people are to this because everything is so new right now that it is stupidly easy to mess up your list, your units, your army, everything.

Expecting everyone to conform to your rules greatly limits the amount of games available to you.

 HiddenPower wrote:
Hello y'all

Back story: I had an awesome buddy which I played with regularly but unfortunately he moved far far away. I played about 4 years exclusively with just him. Great dude

Q: Now that I am going out to stores and hobby places to get pick up game I find that I cant find a game. Or I should say a "good" game. Good to me is playing against a painted army and an opponent with a properly formatted army list.
1. I dislike playing unpainted lists. At my local GW I always see a bunch of guys always painting yet no one ever has a painted army. I know painting is time consuming but i draw the line when someone tries to put down partially built models as well. I have refused 4 games due to this reason.

2. I love 8th ed but know that it is easy to make mistakes when making an army list with composition and points which is why I use battlescribe. Although the app isn't perfect it produces clear easy to read and understand lists. I keep running into opponents who don't have any written lists. They claim they just have it in their heads. When I request for a list they literally just write some chicken scratch on a piece of paper I cant understand. I have refused 3 games so far due to this. On one instance I refused because the guy tried to claim he had a 2000pt necron list when he was putting down 100 warriors, 3 crypteks, and 3 monolths!

Now I am here to ask this question from people with more social gaming experience. Am I asking for too much? BTW this is not a rhetorical question or whatever the verb would be. To me it isn't but considering ive had to refuse 7 games in a row im starting to think maybe its not the gaming community but me and maybe i need to change. Should I keep looking or settle?

Point 1] I don't mind facing unpainted/finished armies as long as there is some sign of progress. Each week at least a half dozen models finished or at least primed.

Point 2] This quick way of finding out if they are 'fudging' their points cost is to plop down you best guess 2k list, but add a Land Raider or two. Don't put them on your list, jut put them on the table. If they question your count, then question theirs. If he is ok with it, then he is most likely there to blow out of each other and have fun, if he makes a big deal out of it...well...

Proxies and unpainted armies you will find far more common than painted ones. It has to do with people testing stuff out before they buy it. If it's not a tournament and the stuff they are Fielding is easy to understand as a proxy (using a wraithlord as a contemptors dreadnaughts as an example is fine for me as they are both 4" tall and use the same base size. Just don't try to fire it's starcannons and we good xD

When it comes to lists. I generally trust the other person for casual games and may request to see their book for a rules clarification but noone has ever tried to field a bigger army than is legal but if you're meeting up for a game with a determined army size and he has a very obviously larger force(that necron list easily clocks in at 2750) I'd ask if he was joking, if he didn't give me a list I'd say have a nice day and see if any other games are going on to watch before leaving.

Essentially the common practice is to not care about the "look" of the army outside of tournaments cause(at least in my experience as a waac gamer) most people use casual(non tourney) games as a way to test out stuff they don't use or isn't ready just to see how it works in the field.

If it really bugs you that your opponent isn't painted than you could specify that in your game requests. Though if I'm being honest I wouldn't even respond to someone if they made a stipulation of the game that it has to be fully painted WYSIWYG(I know you didn't specify but it's assumed with a fully painted army). Just speaks to a very... Rigid personality I probably wouldn't enjoy playing against(especially as my brother does all my painting since I hate to model and only like to play)

I've seen more unpainted armies in my 20 years than i have painted it's just a fact that many people dont enjoy painting.

So either make make peace with unpainted stuff or sell up and start playing x-wing.

1) I am usually OK with unpainted models and proxies. But since I started to paint my stuff, I am starting to become elitist and encourage my friends to get their stuff painted.

Draw the line at proxies at tournaments. No, no, no no no.

2) Written lists are always a given. I aim to buy some paper and have it in my bag alongside my pens so that I can make one on the fly.

I can't fault the OP. Nothing too unreasonable. I, too, prefer painted forces, and generally apologize in advance if I'm using un-painted models, like my recent BFG additions I haven't gotten around to painting. Though I also understand that many people in 40k will either never paint their armies, or never finish painting their armies, so while I'll prioritize playing against painted armies, I'll still gladly play against an unpainted or partially painted force, especially if the table terrain is nice and the opponent a good person. I also agree about the partially built thing as well. I'll accept proxies and counts as the situation dictates, but I expect there to be an appropriate model on the table for every model in the list.

The list thing is something I generally make clear to my opponents. I personally hate battlescribe as I find the format to be unnecessarily clunky, but I think its better than nothing. I've always just typed something up in word and either save it to my phone/tablet or print it off. I have not played against someone who just puts models on the table without legibly writing down all the units, wargear, and point costs, and I don't intend on changing that. Its a basic consideration for your opponent, and the time it takes is a pittance compared to the time you've already allocated to play the game. The advantages of a clear list are too numerous and the only disadvantage is a pittance of time to write one out in some form.

In other words, you're not too picky if you're reasonable and polite about it. Do what you enjoy.

 HiddenPower wrote:
Hello y'all

Back story: I had an awesome buddy which I played with regularly but unfortunately he moved far far away. I played about 4 years exclusively with just him. Great dude

Q: Now that I am going out to stores and hobby places to get pick up game I find that I cant find a game. Or I should say a "good" game. Good to me is playing against a painted army and an opponent with a properly formatted army list.
1. I dislike playing unpainted lists. At my local GW I always see a bunch of guys always painting yet no one ever has a painted army. I know painting is time consuming but i draw the line when someone tries to put down partially built models as well. I have refused 4 games due to this reason.

2. I love 8th ed but know that it is easy to make mistakes when making an army list with composition and points which is why I use battlescribe. Although the app isn't perfect it produces clear easy to read and understand lists. I keep running into opponents who don't have any written lists. They claim they just have it in their heads. When I request for a list they literally just write some chicken scratch on a piece of paper I cant understand. I have refused 3 games so far due to this. On one instance I refused because the guy tried to claim he had a 2000pt necron list when he was putting down 100 warriors, 3 crypteks, and 3 monolths!

Now I am here to ask this question from people with more social gaming experience. Am I asking for too much? BTW this is not a rhetorical question or whatever the verb would be. To me it isn't but considering ive had to refuse 7 games in a row im starting to think maybe its not the gaming community but me and maybe i need to change. Should I keep looking or settle?

You are definitely not too picky.
Just imagine you are watching a war movie and Force A is fully fleshed out and Force B consists of grey troopers missing heads, limbs, etc. and driving unassembled vehicles. WTF?! Would you enjoy this movie? I wouldn´t. Don´t be ashamed that you enjoy the visual spectacle that two fully painted armies on a good table can provide.

In some circumstances you could cut your opponents some slack. When they improve their army over time it is not so bad, if some dudes are still grey. But hordes of grey mins are still a no-go. However, your list building buddies
are simply awful. In some cases it is just plain cheating. Give these jerks a wide berth. Nothing good can come from people who are not able to provide a readable list. Did they spent one day in school?

If you are in this hobby the have fun, you should never apologize for turning down games that aren't fun to you. Just understand that when you are picky, your options shrink - sometimes considerably so. A lot of people don't paint their models (or even want to, for some reason), and they can get a bit defensive if you (accidentally or intentionally) shame them for it.

When I was learning to play Warmachine, I'd face people who would proxy every single model in their army (this big jack is actually a completely different big jack), which I felt became a major obstacle, not just to my enjoyment of the game, but to my learning what all the units were and did (worse still when they started playing with just the bases without models). I now have a policy that you can only proxy one model or unit at a time, just for my own sanity. I have enough trouble keeping what's actually there in my head. I don't want to have to keep track of what isn't.

 HiddenPower wrote:
Hello y'all

Back story: I had an awesome buddy which I played with regularly but unfortunately he moved far far away. I played about 4 years exclusively with just him. Great dude

Q: Now that I am going out to stores and hobby places to get pick up game I find that I cant find a game. Or I should say a "good" game. Good to me is playing against a painted army and an opponent with a properly formatted army list.
1. I dislike playing unpainted lists. At my local GW I always see a bunch of guys always painting yet no one ever has a painted army. I know painting is time consuming but i draw the line when someone tries to put down partially built models as well. I have refused 4 games due to this reason.

2. I love 8th ed but know that it is easy to make mistakes when making an army list with composition and points which is why I use battlescribe. Although the app isn't perfect it produces clear easy to read and understand lists. I keep running into opponents who don't have any written lists. They claim they just have it in their heads. When I request for a list they literally just write some chicken scratch on a piece of paper I cant understand. I have refused 3 games so far due to this. On one instance I refused because the guy tried to claim he had a 2000pt necron list when he was putting down 100 warriors, 3 crypteks, and 3 monolths!

Now I am here to ask this question from people with more social gaming experience. Am I asking for too much? BTW this is not a rhetorical question or whatever the verb would be. To me it isn't but considering ive had to refuse 7 games in a row im starting to think maybe its not the gaming community but me and maybe i need to change. Should I keep looking or settle?

Not at all. I am pretty much the same way. There is nothing wrong with being a gaming "snob".

1. Painted models. I dont think its too much to ask for. If you are in the 40k hobby, its a large part of it. I dont care if your not the best painter, but making a decent attempt is not hard. Also works in progress dont kill it for me too much. As long as the "progress" part is true. I know some people dont like to paint, but again why are they not playing X-wing then? Its a silly argument that because you dont like to paint, its ok because you like the game.....well thats part of it. There are also people who will paint for you. Too many BS excuses IMO.

2. Battlescribe is awesome. Easy, fast, and easily share-able. I am lucky that the few people I play with use it. We never have issues.

Finally, get the hell out of the stores. I hate stores, and will not play a game in one. In my area, they seem to attract the most odd people, from personality-wise to body odor-wise, and just about everything in between. I personally dont see any upside to playing in a store.

I play with a buddy in his garage. We can cuss, smoke, eat, drink (even adult beverages), and dont have to worry about store hours, talking over each other, or dealing with others that are not playing our game (like customers trying to walk around us).

It depends.

If you expect to reliably find pick up games at the stores you frequent, then yes, you are being too picky, because the oppoents you want simply are not there.

You aren't being too picky to have standards for who you play against. You might want to try using local facebook groups or other means to meet like minded folks. They are out there, you just need to find them, and 40k night is probably not the best way to do that.

Ok thank you very much for the responses guys, and ladies. I clearly see that just like many other things in life compromises must be made. Honestly, I think I just miss my old wargaming buddy. Now he was stricter than a commissar. He did not go over or expect me to go over a single point on a list. He had 2 mottos; strict but fair, and follow the rules or else were just 2 grown men playing with toys. I guess I got used to it.

I think I did become too rigid. But trust me y'all its so awesome playing fully painted WYSIWYG armies with an honest opponent. Il keep looking and try to accommodate more, and thank you for your opinion y'all

Not at all. Asking for someone to have an army list, assembled models with a lick of paint is what I ask for. Having said that, it's actually the rules of my local GW. There are exceptions made here and there when it is clear a regular is trying out something different or is building up a new force, however, if someone turns up night after night with a complete shambles then they'll be called on it.

I definitely don't think you're too picky wanting written, legible, accurate lists. Completely reasonable ask, unless you agree before hand that you're doing some Open Play or just mucking around.

As for only playing against painted armies... that might be viewed as elitist by some. Personally, I only field painted (or very close to done but WIP) models, but if I demanded to only play against painted stuff, I'd get like zero games, even amongst my close friends. And honestly, I rarely play anyone outside of that circle of folks, mostly because I know we can all have fun and none of us are That Guy; the risk of playing a douchecanoe at random is a little high for my tastes. Kinda depends on what you're looking for, though, so the "I only play versus painted" is really up to you. So long as you realize that might limit your choice of games, and some might think you're a jerk for it (for the record, I don't necessarily think you're a jerk for it).

We don't have a huge AoS community currently (mostly because the LGS I usually play at got a bit butt-hurt over the initial release, and now don't carry it, though they do have 40k and a bunch of other stuff). I will say that the 40k community is growing, though, and it seems like those folks are, in general, playing with a higher percentage of painted models than the (now dwindling) Warmachine/Hordes community generally played with. So yeah, it's "part of the hobby," but some folks don't want that part so much as they want rolling dice and pushing around duders.

Look, it's really easy.

This is a hobby. Your hobby, and the way you spend your spare time - hopefully to relax or have fun (yeah, some people love the super competitive stuff and it's how they get their rocks off). If you're like most people and you don't have a ton of free time, there's nothing wrong with being picky about who/how you game. If anything, that's a great thing.

As adults (most of us) we get to choose how we spend our time and with who. To me, miniature wargaming is more than pushing grey plastic around chipped foam hills and rolling dice to "win". So I'll pass on games like that. Don't care for tournaments, don't care about leagues, or netlisting etc. But if you want to run a game and the goal is to have a good time - I'm in.

I get blacklisted at my little club as the grognard who's picky about 40K, so I only play games with a handful of people who are like-minded. Doesn't impact me at all.

Yes you are too picky for the group you're playing with. If you want fully painted models(which is not...totally unreasonable but is toeing the line of elitist) and printed lists(which doesn't sound like a big deal but does feel restrictive to some players and people even just forget sometimes), you need to find a community that agrees, find like minded players and start a facebook group.

Because all you're doing in the group your in is getting a reputation for being an elitist TFG.

 Elbows wrote:

This is a hobby. Your hobby, and the way you spend your spare time - hopefully to relax or have fun (yeah, some people love the super competitive stuff and it's how they get their rocks off). If you're like most people and you don't have a ton of free time, there's nothing wrong with being picky about who/how you game. If anything, that's a great thing.

Agreed. I don't have the time to waste doing things I don't want/like to do, and with people I actually like.

As long as the OP can manage to find folks of like mind, should be no problem.

Boy would you guys LOVE my meta. I went there and I was the only person with a 99% painted army. When I walked in the first comment was "Wow a fully painted TAU army" despite the guys army being spray painted black and a cheesy netlist. The majority of people had only a few key models painted. I think of the 10 players two more than me had some decent painted models but it was like 1/3rd of their army and the rest were either spray painted or in progress and not as good as my "low" standard painting lol. The few centre piece models were commission except for one guy who painted his own. Other than that everyone else had a flat spray paint army. Every single marine player had a spray painted black army or gulliman blue spray or whatever it is. Very boring looking. Still I don't fault them for not having time and I knew in advance I was going to a place where people wanted to win first. I had hoped I would have seen some more painted armies or models but so it seems I am that rare individual. None of them would even consider magnetising except the store owner and one other guy not even there.

Other than him most of the people loved seeing a fully painted army. To them it was mythical and a rare sight and then they all complimented my Ta'unar and said it looked like I had a professional paint it even though I did it myself.

Overall a fun day.


People need to learn that unpainted models are not the sign of a lazy player of x army. It just means they are a competitive gamer and they swap armies all the time and paint them to the bare minimum standard of whatever area they are in. No it does not mean all tau players or space marine players are lazy nonpainters. It means that tournament players are primarily gamers. So don't get mad at the entire faction and those who actually play it because they enjoy it ect. Even amongst those people there are still people who hate to paint. I know I sometimes hate painting and don't work on anything for a long time.

1) I'm completely ok with people playing unpainted armies or using proxies in casual games (especially to test out rules for models), but in tourneys at least some kind of painting and model appearance respect (a proxy or a heavy conveted model that looks like the original model) would be expected.
People have lives and other stuff to do, so I understand them not painting their minis to the last one.

2) In this I agree with you. No list on hand, no game.

I play with people who have unpainted minis all the time. But, it's not difficult to get some paint on miniatures.

You can spray a base coat on an army in about 10 minutes, citadel primer + citadel base coat. And if you do the main coat lightly the black will poke through in some areas and look like shading. Maybe use some shades.

If you want you could dry brush them with a shade lighter than the base coat and have a 3 color army in about 1 hour. And all you'd need is 2 cans of spraypaint, 1 dry brush, and a pot of dry paint & a shade.

For where you are going yes you are being too picky no question. I think you need to find a better store or a gaming club of some kind.

I personally refuse to play at stores mostly because i like to relax and have a bit of fun. Stores are just to hectic for the most part and full of unnecessary people basicly every one else you are not playing against .

I think you need to find a couple of like minded people try gaming groups although most of the people in it may be not to your liking there maybe 1 or 2 that you can then play regular games with away from said venue make a friend or two which it sounds like that's what your missing the banter and relaxed atmosphere.

I must admit i hate playing unpainted army's i don't mind maybe a model or two but i too expect painted army's and i do expect models to be completed. The reason i expect this is as follows i hate and i mean hate glueing models together but i do it, i hate undercoating models but i do it so i don't see why others dont. Although i do love painting it's the first two parts as mentioned that drive me nuts.

As for people saying they don't have time to paint i can understand that but with the vast swaye of army's you can pick up off of eBay or such that are painted these days there is little excuse they may not be the best painted but at least they are.

As for having a list written out i don't mind if they write out a list there don't expect them to have a list completed but would expect a list to be done not so much for me to check but for there own peace of mind plus if there list looks off by to much or to little it's easy to see where they have went wrong.

I'm willing to play against unpainted models but I would make it known that I'm expecting at least primed and basecoated next time (if there is going to be one).

As for lists, that's pretty manditory. I'll grab a piece of printer paper for them to write it out on the spot if I have to. With power levels simplifying the points calculation to a rough estimate, they should at least be able to do this.

Note that the first store I played at had a "no paint, no play" rule; i.e: if you had no paint, you get no play. This was an actual GW store, and fairly popular too before the money crunch shut it down (the store was packed from opening till close). Other stores I've been to are a bit lenient, but unbuilt models on a pickup game was always a no-no. And obviously GW stores and FLGSes here who hosted 40k games always asked for lists; store managers would back you if you refused to play against someone without a list.

Nothing wrong with not painting your models; nothing wrong with wanting to only play against painted armies either. Everyone's entitled to approach the hobby in their own way, and there's nothing elitist about having your own route towards gleaning the most enjoyment from it, whatever that is. You just have to recognise that if you have certain deal breakers as to how you want to approach it, you're further limiting the people you have the option of playing with, in an already relatively niche game. You just have to pick what's more important to you: playing the game, or only playing games that fit your set of criteria.

Personally, I've no problem interest in playing unpainted armies, so I don't. It limits the pool of people I could potentially play against, but I'm ok with that; it's not like I have that much time to spend on playing tabletop moon men, so I'm focussing my attention where I will personally get the most out of the time and effort put in. At the same time, if someone wants to play with unpainted guys, then go for it, and I hope they have a lovely time, but I have no interest in playing them til you get some paint on them.

As for the list thing, if you're struggling that much with it for pick-up games, maybe give Power Level a go. It's much less granular, but it's very quick to throw a list together and there's not really any scope for people to sneak things in the my haven't paid for. I was initially very sceptical but, having given it a go, I'm a fan:

Based on your points, no. Far too many people see wargaming as an opportunity to let out all their hatred for mankind by being WAAC. Not having legible written lists on request, and never painting your army just enables that. I have never liked painting, but at minimum I always try for a tri-colour scheme. It's not hard. Spray one colour, use two others for some detail.
As for list writing, apps are not necessary, but only a very small percentage of the human population of earth ever figures out how to write legibly (I've had employers practically fawning over me because they found out that I can write a legible essay with few to no errors), so it's not a bad recommendation.

When i play, im pretty cool about peoples models, but i need to see just a LITTLE form of commitment, alittle painting just shows they care. A sea of grey and 5 models painted, that totally cool. Consistent grey for months on, yeeeah, that aint cool. Proxies, go crazy, you need to know how the model plays/feels, unassembled models is lame unless they are new of course, it aint hard to assemble the models. Comeon.

I dont think ive EVER asked for anyones armylist pre-game or during game. Sometimes ive asked marine players their list after the game to get inspiration for running my melee wolves differently.

But im in a local group with 9 people. We are all pretty close and have a good code of conduct. And if people want to cheat in their list, well... I kinda feel sorry for them and i know my Wulfens and Arjac Rockfist loves a hard fight if it should be so.

Allthough, consistent cheating, and misreading etc. Is bad all around, it may start a arms race with fluffy lists starting to dwindle and casual players starting to suffer. Its not cool.

I wouldn't say uptight, but your preferences will lead you into a drop in the amount of "good" games if you decline to play someone due to paint issues. Some of the best players either can't fully paint their army due to time/family/whatever, or get tired of painting a million and one minis just to satisfy players with expectations such as yourself. Everyone has preferences and there is nothing wrong with that, but it does cause exclusion on both ends. Say we play and you exclude me because I haven't finished my paintjobs, what is preventing me from excluding you when you decide we can play now that my army is painted? Petty, but it happens.

While I will only ever use a painted army on the table and I prefer to play against a fully painted army, I usually don't refuse a game unless they also:

don't have a list showing their units (it's all in their heads)
don't know their army at all (just bought it, but don't even know which unit is which).
have odious personal habits or are an otherwise socially objectionable person.
Cheat (as in they are known for it.)

Fortunately, where I play, I don't have to worry much about these 4 conditions, and most of the players are new to the game and still learning to paint.