Ok, i gotta admit that unpainted armies are a real bug bear of mine; i USED to play 40k and down an old GW store nearly every week i'd see the same poeple come in with the same unpainted (usually bearded out!) or only undercoated army only to see some poor soul who had spent a decent amount of time and effort be beaten by someone that (to me) seems that they just had too much money and not enough time!
 Now, luckily here on Taccomm's we seem to be more focused on Specialist and other companies games and I see a lot of VERY nicely painted armies, but i wondered how often do people see unpainted armies here? I will be the first to admit that for a little while my half painted orks have been taking to the field and that i have at least three armies sitting around that need painting (i don't play with these!)
 So; my questions are 1) what's your view on unpainted armies? 2) When is an army not an army and just a bunch of plastic figures? (if you get my drift: no semantic games please!   ) and 3) what makes us wargamers buy more stuff than we have time for?!
Fire away gents...fire away...

PS: In no way is this post aimed to offend or be aimed at individuals on this forum; from what i've seen I'm more than happy  

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Well for me the painting always has come first. Even back when I did play often, I spent a lot more time painting than playing the game. Sadly I was the only guy around that did that.

I feel that a lot of feeling is lost from the game when played with unpainted stuff, but its also almost impossible to have those perfectly painted armies for each game, and you must have respect for your opponent, who may not be as interested in the painting aspect or not as handy with the brush.

A bigger problem for me is actually the games table and terrain. Ive a lot of painted minis. 3 out my 5 armies are 80 % painted or more, meaning that I could pick out smaller armies just from what I had painted. However I dont have a board to play on, and very little scenery. For some reason thats the way its always been. Making a really nice scenic games table has always seemed to be the great project I never get to realize. Not having a nice games table an terrain is probably even more important for the feeling of the game than individual minis.

As for collecting, yeah sure Ive got more than I have time to paint. But I have a clear plan of what Im trying to do: I want some of the classic epic armies all painted, all at around 4-5000 points. Right now I almost have that and more than half of it is actually painted, so Im fairly happy with the situation.

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"We are the sword of fire with which the Traitors shall be cut down."

1) I think playing without paint is completely beyound the purpose of miniatures gaming - there's a reason we use miniatures... if you don't paint them I'd rather see cardboard bricks with stats printed on. That said I do sometimes use miniatures that are IN painting.. for try-outs and tests of rules and the like.

2) Where I play we have rule that says "You know when it's painted". ALl the "must have 3 seperate colours" and so on can be lawyered into nonsense anyhow (three dots on the base and so on). So a mini is painted when you don't find that it lacks paint in some place. And no - noone is expected to outshine everyone with outstanding paintjobs.

3) In my native language I'd say "luftkasteller" meaning something like "fantasy castles in the sky".. You know - you can IMAGINE doing all this and that.. and the enthusiasm you can muster can completely squash your sense of realism. So while you'll never be able to paint that 40.000 pts Imperial Guard army - there's bound to be someone buying it anyway believing that they'll be the ones to make it!

Just my 2 kroner

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If you suddenly find that I make any sense.... look out of your window for armageddon!

Some very good points well made  

Sounds like it's down to intention so far; Hena just wants to have fun without sticklers like me complaining whilst everyone does seem to be on the 'painted mini's are good' bandwagon.

When it comes to the armies themselves though i think Rastamann has it down to a tee when he says that:
"There's a line I won't cross, though, which is that of fielding an army which is all mostly proxies and stand-ins - that, to me, is just a bunch os plastic models."
From past experience this is definitely where i stand.

I think what Parzal say's holds a lot of weight; it's about athmosphere and something that i really miss having at the moment IS a decent collection of terrain and tables to play my games on, nevertheless i'm more of a Hena when it comes to my tables at the moment; kitchen table, books underneath a brown cloth, tatty bits of bunched up (green) material as woods and the same set of Titan Legions buildings everytime; oh and gaffa tape as roads! I MUST GET BETTER!

And yeah; "LuftKasteller" and insanity defintely play a role in having too many miniatures!

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I've enjoyed painting Epic Minis since I first joined TacCom just a few months ago... seems longer somehow... but that had not always been the case. When I first started Epic our group never painted beyond maybe one or two favoured detachments or a mass base coated army.

This remained the norm with the group for years until I eventually started trying to paint my armies. From the outset the results were very rough but I kept at it and found my skills develop until I began to feel I was doing ok painting. I found this encouraging but the others in the group even now do not paint much.

I don't know if it has made the armies I field play better but I do feel a certain amount of pride in them and pleasure if anyone makes a comment on this or that looking good.

Now I have TacCom to encourage me I have found painting all the more important and have hopefully developed and refined my painting skills and even started modifying minis which I am still dazed about and can't quite believe.

As to the size of my armies. At the start I wanted to be able to field anything there was and later I wanted to field everything I had. I have loads of stuff and more than I can use but since most of the group uses my stuff that has worked out well. I'm going to have fun painting it and fielding it so it's all good.

I'm no painting snob and would play with any army that isn't painted in a heart beat. So long as the game was fun I wouldn't care a crap. Same if it was against a powerplayer (Our Chaos player is) or a new start or whatever. A games a game and I wouldn't whine or whinge about being beaten and I can wangle around rules lawyers with the best of them so no big deal.

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[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Usually with any new army for any game I'll proxy in some friendly games for a while, then once I'm sure I want it I'll go on a painting/converting frenzy and get at least half completed before it takes the field again. Then it's just a case of going formation by formation and painting them up.

I generally spend more time converting than painting, but I'm a big fan of fully converted armies. It just doesn't feel right for me to put any model in an army without converting them at least a bit.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Painted armies look so much better, and it's all about them looking good. I don't mind playing against unpainted armies, but the reason we spend all this money is to have something we like.

A group of minis on a table is an army. Boring, beardy, unpainted, annoying, still an army.
A group of corresponding converted and painted minis on a table is an awesome army that someone is very proud of.

I would never buy anything I'm not at least intending to paint . . .

And I will finish that 40000 point army! I WILL!

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"Stars in my pocket like grains of sand."

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Reading this thread so far, Id like to add a tip that can be a shortcut to getting nicelooking armies faster. Basing. Paint the army in basic colours, or even in a single colour with a shading was (works quite well with some infantry) and then do the bases in the same way all the way through to the last mini. You have then an impressive army, without having impressive single minis.

Basing is key when youre actually playing with your minis, while that last bit of extra highlighting is much less important. In fact I have a hard time noticing the difference (I wear fairly strong glasses, and really need to take them off and look at the mini from 5 cm distance to appreciate my own paint job).

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"We are the sword of fire with which the Traitors shall be cut down."

I'm a quite a slow painter, especially in 6mm scale and struggle to get units finished. With money being tighter than before I cant afford to buy ready painted figures any more.  So I cant always have 100% painted armies. As a result I tend to be more tolerant if my opponent has unpainted figures.

But painting is a big part of the hobby. And it is more enjoyable to play against well painted armies on well crafted terrain. Also there is a correlation between painting and the berad factor. It is a broad brush assumption but in general those players who take the time to paint their armies tend to be more interested in army background/theme, and therefore less prone to fielding the most beardy/cheesy points optimal min-maxed armies.

Haveing drifted more to Epic and other Specialist Games I tend to see the latter less often. I am fortunate that my most regularlr oppoenent Colin aka Kleomenes has several well painted Epic armies that he is consistently adding to. Even amongst the new players there seems to be more of an effort to paint up figures. Hopefully we will soon have a painted Epic Eldar army down the club which will be great as I have yet to face the Swordwind.

Cheers

James

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Dito.

To the questions:
1) Armies that are completely unpainted should not be fielded at all. Armies that are at least 50% painted are ok. The army should in the course of time become more and more painted. The painting speed is up to the gamers.
2) If it is not painted at all.
3) We love cool miniatures. That's why I will finish my 3 EA armies not before 10 years have passed (especially as I'm building a Traitor Titan Battlegroup for the Titan game I develop, let alone converting a new Titan class I came up with).

EDIT:
I strongly support the idea of WYSIWYG. Which sometimes gets me into trouble, but that is my own problem. I rather reconvert a miniature than have it lose its WYSIWYG status.
But of course WYSIWYG is not so much about painting (it can be though), but about converting.

I do not like out of the box miniatures that are not converted at all. But I will always tolerate them, never criticize them. Unconverted miniatures that are painted always look good. Converted miniatures that are painted also look original and creative.

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"Your limbs are mighty. Let them smite the foes of our Emperor."

Well I dont' enjoy painting, I enjoy playing games.

I'll play with unpainted figures at home but I wouldn't expect to take them to a tournament. I've used undercoated mini's in GW when time hasn't allowed me to finish them, but never more than for 2 weeks.

The only time I ever paint with any urgency is when the deadline for a tournament is approaching.

Now buying stuff is easy, we all want to have the new shinny stuff and different periods keep on tempting us. If they didn't we wouldn't be gamers.

Painted armies look awesome. I will admit that. Most times I am green with envy seeing other people's painted armies.

Some of us however actually live in a reality where time is a luxury. When we do get free time, we would rather spend it playing games with our unpainted minis rather than talking about the game and trying to paint them up.

Also, why paint something you are not going to use? We are not the best painters, hence it takes us time to paint. We may spend several hours on stuff only to find out we do not like it in the game afterwards. Hence we would rather play, and then plan to paint in the future after we get the enjoyment out of the game.

If a person expects painted armies, then good for them. They (the armies) will definitely look great. Yet if that person expects it to play a friendly game, well then I am sure I can find plenty of other less anal people to play against.

This is a hobby. People need to get off that pedestal and stop telling others what is right and wrong. I will play with unpainted minis. Most times I will be the person that outbids you on an auction just to have that unpainted mini, and to play with it on a table full of other unpainted/half painted minis. Eventually it may get painted, but then again, it may not. I will not use "cardboard bricks with stats printed on" - In fact, if you told me that in person, I would say three words to you that would no doubt create a lot of hostility.      

We play for the enjoyment. That can take the role of the painting hobby, or the love of trying the rules and testing each others strategy. Fat load of good your painted minis are going to do you when the time you spent on them is the time your opponent spent playing all those games and learn basic strategies and actually had human communication.

Ok. Rant over. I gotta get to bed. Just please, people who paint, get off your high horses. This thread, no matter what the intention or disclaimer, was always going to offend or drive friction. Just play the game and have fun. Simple.  

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1) what's your view on unpainted armies? 2) When is an army not an army and just a bunch of plastic figures? (if you get my drift: no semantic games please!   ) and 3) what makes us wargamers buy more stuff than we have time for?!
Fire away gents...fire away...

1. I dislike unpainted armies. Depending on what kind of list the person brings I may refuse to game with them because I just don't care to see gray plastic wiping out my painted army on a good looking board. It breaks the atmosphere. I make exceptions for new players, proxy tests and armies that get more painted with time because I know not everyone can paint up a whole army before playing and it takes time to do that. I do prefer painted armies.

2. it's always just a bunch of plastic figures, it becomes an army when the list is penned.

3. For me, I see a good deal on something I plan to use later and so I get it while it's available. Of course, lately I've stopped almost all buying to work down my list of things to paint. It works, and I've gotten about 1k of guard painted, 2.2k of marines, and 1.3k of AMTL plus about 1k of 40k marines and a few bits of terrain.

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-Vaaish