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I'm curious what your opinions are on this subject. This is for non-tournament games either in your own home or at a store, whatever. What do you think constitutes 'battle ready'?

I only play with painted miniatures on the table. Our local events are also painted only. There is a monthly event that allows unpainted, but I've never been. Similarly there's a local store that tends to have painted miniatures be the rare occurrence, so I don't really play there either.

I'm a huge fan of smaller games and not playing the same sized game each time I play, so I have no problem playing a smaller game if someone hasn't finished stuff yet.

Non-tournament? If we're talking just a single unit, or a couple of units, then assembled but unprimed is fine for a while, but progress should be made to get them to fully painted. A whole army from scratch is fine unpainted if you're just in a hurry to get them playable (especially if you're still deciding on which scheme you prefer) as long as progress is made to make them something more than naked plastic.

Basically the end goal is fully painted, but if progress is being made and it's not just "attack of the grey tide part 56" every game, then I'm not going to pick on anyone.

I really don't mind going against unprimed models, as long as some effort is made to get them painted in the future, but it really isn't much of an issue to me.

If the model is there, it's fine. I had to run a bare base out of necessity (literally forgot the model it represented at home) once or twice, and I'd allow other players the same. +

Some proxying is also fine with me (including entire models), especially if it's to test something before spending the cash on it, and if there's an effort to find something close to the model that's being proxied - e.g. Bullgryn being proxied with Assault Terminators is fine, but if you run a Shadowsword with an Ork Trukk that's not really working for me.

Assembled/ proxied as lang as you are making a reasonable effort. Reasonable depends on the person. 1 of my regular opponent works a lot of shifts and overtime so not a lot of time for hobby.

Now that GW sells sprays its not that difficult to field a primed & based army. Even faster if your core color scheme involves heavy black.

 Marmatag wrote:
Now that GW sells sprays its not that difficult to field a primed & based army. Even faster if your core color scheme involves heavy black.

Even if it doesn't involve black it's getting easier to get 90% of your work done with a spray.

I'd like to see most (50%+) of the army across from me built and primed but as long as you aren't throwing soda cans out there as morty and mortarian I feel it's bad form to judge someone who is trying.

If you just got some new custode hotness or something I don't expect you to rush paint those in a week but throwing down 30 bases and calling them your ynarri and cwe dark reapers would probably leave a bad taste in my mouth. I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between. I mean after all painting/building is part of the hobby but it can take me a month to paint a unit (I'm scared to even start on my custode bikes)

Most people at my FLGS show up with fully painted armies and maybe one or two units will be unpainted (I bought a new Tigarius model before the last tourney and he was the only unpainted unit in my army and I would have been pissed if someone said anything.)

Un-based is totally fine with me though. I don't see why it is a requirement and is the absolute last thing I do to any of my minis.

I prefer fully painted but that's a PERSONAL limit. I'll play against someone else so long as they've assmbled.

There is no rule requiring paint.

As long as its assembled and glued to the bases I'm fine, people change their minds, test out new ideas, all those kinds of things regularly.

I only play with fully painted or nearly finished minitures. I hate fighting grey unprimed armies. The reason I dislike fighting grey armies isn't because I'm a snob, it's because for me the best part about the hobby is the look of a mini battle feild. The start of the game always is the best part for me and once models start leaving the table I lose interest (it's also why i watch the first 10 min of battle reports then just turn them off unless they use smoke effects and stuff to keep models on even when they're dead).

No offence to people who just like to play but I enjoy my side of the hobby and you like yours. Fyi, i don't refuse to play I just don't like it unless the army is primed.

I fully believe in Playing it Painted©, but if my opponent has just primed his stuff that's fine. I don't like playing against eh bare grey as the reflective nature of hard plastic makes deciphering units worse.

I'm fine with an occasional grey squad, but people that never paint anything, nor do they intend to - it's a bit annoying.

Some people don't paint their army because they can sell it for more on ebay if it's not painted - which results in them swapping out their army whenever the meta or rules change.

I can't control what they do, but I do actively seek out players that make more of an effort. Even if their paint job isn't great, it shows they're trying and is something to start a conversation over: Give them tips, maybe bring in some things and do a short tutorial.

Just last month I had a friend who never painted a mini. Sat down for a few hours, taught him some tricks. His first-try model was at very least tabletop quality, which was miles beyond my first no-tutorial model.

Always assembled. Always primed.

Im a pretty slow painter. I have my spats of all nighter weekends, then I'll take a break for a few weeks...

My table top standard is pretty lax, but my paint routine isnt. Multi colors on each model, alternate paint schemes for any duplicate models and units. Base coat, layers, details and a wash. Then I'm done for a long time.

Ive gone back to touch up long after, but I'm usually still behind on whatever project I initially started.

Im also more into building and converting than painting so midway through a project I'll build a new character or unit idea and the cycle begins anew. I'm focussing on Chaos right now, which in itself contains Death Guard, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and Nurgle Daemons.

I also have about 3000 pts of Loyalist troops and vehicles primed but unpainted, and 4000 pts of Orks base coated but not detailed.

I prefer fully painted.thoguh I have played games with partially painted models before.helped me have more desire to finish them.

Tbose guys who have like 20k points worth of troops and not a single one is painted! Just so much wasted potential! It makes me sad!

For a new army I might do a few unpainted games to build my excitement and become familiar with the rules.

Generally though, I'll make sure at least the main colours are blocked in on any model I use.

I view tricks such as shading and highlighting as finishing touches, not requirements.

I'm to lazy to paint and to eager to spend disposable income so my pile of shame is giant. I play regularly with the Grey Hordes, but I have a couple of 2k armies fully painted to use them in stricter tournaments.

When I played about a decade ago, I typically had unpainted models, mainly because I was constantly bouncing around between armies and never settling on anything. It's not that I didn't paint, so much as soon as I would finish painting a model/squad I'd get distracted and move on to the next thing. I had handfuls of (imperial and chaos) marines in myriad paint schemes, some Grey Knights (that had just been released) that looked really nice, a smattering of LotR characters, Dwarfs, High Elves, tons of conversions, and much more, all backed up by a seemingly infinite horde of partially assembled gray plastic.

This time around, I'm making it a point not to play with anything that isn't painted. As a result I haven't yet played a game of 8th (aside from a 500 point skirmish with a friend, to introduce him to the basics), but I am steadily working towards a fully painted army. Not gonna win any Golden Demons, but I'm improving and I'm satisfied with the look of my minis overall. I still have a tendency to get distracted, but at least this time around I'm being good about not even removing things from sprues until I'm more or less ready to paint them. It's much more satisfying this way, and easier on the wallet as well.

So for me, now, painted and based is the minimum acceptable standard. That being said, I wouldn't have a problem playing against someone with an unpainted army. I don't know about proxying bare bases though, that seems like a bridge too far to me.

 Galas wrote:
I'm to lazy to paint and to eager to spend disposable income so my pile of shame is giant. I play regularly with the Grey Hordes, but I have a couple of 2k armies fully painted to use them in stricter tournaments.

LOL. Fairest of points.

I'm tempted to limit my purchases dramatically, and buy direct from people who will build & paint the models for me. It's pricier but at this point i'm not even painting anymore - the task of looking at all the backlog is just depressing.

I absolutely refuse to play with unpainted miniatures. Of my own. An opponent is an opponent though, and life is what it is, so I will play against whatever. It is a bit of a let down to face the gray horde, because I love the visual thrill of a gorgeous battlefield with awesome mini's.

I play almost exclusively fully painted except for rare circumstances.

For others, as long as I can tell what it is we're all good.

I always play with my own stuff fully painted. For opponents, I certainly prefer it, but I'm not going to complain.

I have no issues with people using unpainted models. I'm a slow painter myself, and life is life, so while I can usually say I'm making progress each time, it isn't always much.

Add that to my purchase habit, stir in the fact that I like converting more than painting (and keep making conversions and reposes, which also adds to my to be painted pile), and I've fallen behind.

One thing I absolutely dislike though are the proxy hordes. Sure, proxy a unit. Maybe two. But the whole army, I'm a little less enthusiastic about. On top of that, the people who deploy they're imperial guardsmen for the 4th/5th game and say, "oh, they're space marines again" has led me to pack up my army a few times. Yeah I understand practice games, and trying stuff out, but at some point they have to buy the damned army.

I will hesitate very strongly to use an unfinished model (by finished I mean fully painted, based, and complete - never to be touched again). I'll occasionally make an exception for myself, but it's rare. I've got for assault marines who don't have jump packs because I had to order some, but I painted the minis with the rest so they've been fielded once or twice. As far as opponents go...I'll say in other games I've found nicely painted armies/models, but 40K is an absolute crap shoot, and I'd say that 90% of the people I play with are barely assembled/primed.

My personal opinion is pretty simple. 40K is a joint venture...a game between two people (occasionally friends, occasionally strangers). The game is about collecting, building, and painting (yes, painting) your miniatures, placing them on a 3D tabletop environment playing a fun, and hopefully beautiful, game. To me, genuinely, it's about bringing my half of that to the table. I'd like to expect the same from other people but we live in an ADHD environment so I've given up on that pretty much. I feel it's my responsibility to show you enough respect to show up with all of my gaming materials, a painted army for you to play against, and if I'm hosting - a nice table to game on. To me that's the entire point.

Nobody plays 40K because the rules are good...and no matter how cool you think the models are, none of them look good in grey plastic. I'm a gamer of all sorts; PC gaming (sims, etc.), board games (Zombicide, B-Sieged, The Great War), card games, you name it. Honestly if there's zero effort being shown on behalf of someone with regard to a nice tabletop wargame - I'd be fine just playing a board game instead. It'd be nice if we held ourselves to a higher standard, but the community as a whole doesn't. I'm sure some people will be insulted and think I'm a snob, but that's just how I feel. My enjoyment is exponentially increased when nice painted models are played on a nicely built table.

I hold the same standard for myself when playing Mordheim, dungeon crawls, Old West, gladiator games, etc.

I started back when games workshop required fully painted and based miniatures, and since then have never brought out unfinished minis in public. I have no problem playing against someone's unpainted army, as long as it's kind of assembled.

 Elbows wrote:
...40K is a joint venture... To me, genuinely, it's about bringing my half of that to the table. I'd like to expect the same from other people...

Well said. So were the rest of your points as well. I've found the more niche minis games tend to have more dedicated players and almost never have unpainted minis on the board. 40k is unfortunately the everyman's wargame. It's available everywhere. Easy to find opponents. Easy to understand the rules.

40k can be $2000 koniac or a line of coke off a toilet seat. Both will cost you a lot of money, but the person with the koniak is likely being more responsible, can afford it, and is enjoying it a bit more slowly. GW purposely casts the net wide with easy-to-build models and stupid-simple rules. At the same time the models, lore, fiction, etc is all well done.

Fully painted, no less.