Hey, your videos have really helped me 'just start' painting. From refining my techniques to just making myself paint. I've painted all the marines from dark vengeance (been on the frame for 5 years. Its moved with me 7 times). I'm working on my genestealer cult now, i'm *actually* working on my blood ravens. So yeah. I just wanna say thank you! Also, I love your pro tips!

This is why I prefer to play games with the miniatures still on the sprue.

I do get that painting is not everyone's bag, but to me, my stuff just doesn't exist until it has been painted.

my entire army is proxies, a hav about 120 pimaris intercessors, 2 repulsors 3 redemptor dread naughts and a 30k anniversary captain they're all just rocks but hey man, in my heart, they are primaris...

Never used sub-assemblies. I really never felt the need, as when I'm having trouble painting an area, it's probably because it's so hidden and obscure, you can't even see it properly unless from a specific angle. Also, I don't agree with the whole "don't build" but that's me, if it helps other people, they should try it. Me, I glued my entire ironjawz army and started playing with it, but then. slowly but steady, they are all being painted, and I promised myself I'd only get the Maw-Krusha after everything else was painted. Goals and personal rewards, to me are the way to go (and I refuse to create a time limit for myself, like "paint everything before a game or tournament". Painting is something to be enjoyed and a relaxing activity, not a race against time) Ofc, this is all personal opinion :) YMMV and I'm happy Uncle Atom is here to talk about all the different things we can try. Keep up the great work!

But building them is the BEST bit....

I’m new to 40K and miniatures and it never occurred to me that people wouldn’t want to paint them. I sort of thought you “had” to paint them. This is fascinating to me.

When GW makes it official: painted Miniatures get +1 to hit versus unpainted miniatures. THEN.THEN people might pick up a paintbrush

I always jam pins up their legs and paint them on a block of wood. This means I can't tack them to a base and go. I just set a time every week and force myself to paint. That being said, we need to stop demanding that people paint. I have lost count of how many people have flat out refused to play because they don't want to paint.

I think it depends on what your priorities are for the hobby as a whole. For me, I have many, many models that were painted (poorly, by my current standards) from over a decade ago that I plan to eventually repaint them. My first priority for tabletop games like Warhammer is to actually play the game. I have always enjoyed building models so that's typically pretty high on my list of things I like to do in the hobby. But painting for me is a chore and extremely time consuming, especially playing a horde style army like Tyranids. I'm not going to let it get in the way of me enjoying the game for what it is, a tabletop strategy game.

I always paint in sub assemblies. I get a drastically better result.

As complete novice in world of painting and especially minis I can say that it is very good advice because in every tutorial / video you see as almost everybody paint them assembled

Hi, I'm relatively new to the whole wargaming dealio, just got my first stater box for age of sigmar. One thing that I never really understood was all of the disdain towards people that use unpainted models... my understanding is that since this is a game and for the most part people play games to have fun and a person is having fun playing the game with the models unpainted then why try to ruin their fun by insisting that they need to have painted models?? Sorry for the mini rant but it was something that was bugging me for a while now lol

I like building it all first so I can start playing. For me, having one new unit painted each week is the reward... slowly seeing the army go from grey primer to full colored.

We always start out with good intentions when building our models.... but life helps to convince us that we can always paint them tomorrow.

This is almost exactly how I painted my space wolf scouts for SWA. I had every excuse to play with them simply assembled, but for me, assembling and filing and painting is all a hobby to me. Atom, thanks for this video.

The problem here is you treat these hobbies as a single hobby, when in fact its three. Why should someone be ostracized from gaming because they don't or struggle to paint? That's like telling someone you can't paint miniatures because they don't game. You need to stop thinking of this as "the hobby" and treat it as the many hobbies it encompasses.

A year ago or so, I was all about "proxy minis". I always used my missile launchers as lascannons, and regular termis as librarians... Now, because I only play with friends ¡, we only play "what you see is what you have". Since I've done this and 8th edition has come out I've had the best games of 40k! Also, although I have the full Dark Imperium set, I haven't played much with the primaris, jusr because I have 3/4 of my regular Ultramarines army already painted, and I prefer 10000 times more to use painted minis. Then, after playing many games with them, I can appreciate the choice I made with a veteran sergeant with power sword and grav pistol. He did so good I promoted him to Lieutenant! (regular marine of course, no Primaris crap)

i just have one rule. no unpainted model will EVER hit the gaming board for me! it simply ruins the emersion for me

My group just has a rule that you can only use painted models. Then if you have a game coming up it's pretty good inspiration to get painting.

I think you see people buying and assembling armies because more than anything they want to play the game. Most people have good intentions of painting their armies but painting an army takes patience, dedication and time. Frankly, as a person who is passionate about aesthetics and the visual presentation aspect of a game (it drives me banana sandwich when I see medieval cottages on a 40k table) I'd much rather see my opponent field an unpainted force versus a heavily proxied army. In fact, if someone tried to play with pill bottles and unsuitable figures from other games - I'd probably decline to play. Finally. I never found sub-assemblies worth it. Any hard to reach areas by nature are also hard to see.

1) Make screenshots at GW website of models you bought and would want to field. 2) Cut the model outlines out in Paint (or whatever) and print a sufficient number of them on a sheet of paper, leaving an empty rectangle below the outline. Cut them out of the sheet with scissors. 3) Print some 25mm wide circles. Cut them out. 4) Glue the model outlines to their "bases", by folding that rectangle at the bottom and gluing it to the base. 5) Voila, you have a paper proxy army that you can test on the table. Optionally, print it on dense paper and use carton as bases for more durability.

Bit of a YMMV this one Uncle Atom but I do see your point very well with the setting goals objective linked to building and painting to promote "getting shit done" for your hobby. Me, I'll happily paint in sub-assemblies if it will be a difficult miniature to paint when it is fully completed. But if it is a miniature that will be very easy to paint once fully built (such as a Primaris Reivers with his arms out holding a pistol and combat knife), then I'll often just base paint and get around to fully painting it later when I do an "assembly line" run. Likewise since I am trying to convince friends to come back into the game (and, if I have succeeded, stay in the game for 8th Edition) they might still build first to play against me right away to see if "this is the army/armies they want to commit to" and learn the new rules at the same time for their preferred playing style. Playing with proxies for them from that point is also fine as once they've decided on an army, then they'll figure out their next expansion option. But sometimes playing with a proxy in your friendly local gaming store can be a bit of a problem: Games Workshop stores in striking distance of me really get ticked off when people bring in 3D printed proxies (painted or not) or 100% rival company miniatures (25% kitbash is fine, as long as the majority of the miniature is GW/FW stuff). Using a Coke can or something as a drop pod tends to get a pass if it isn't too blatant (or will not damages their provided battlefields) but it does get a frown. Usually now if the people I play with want to proxy, we do a GarageHammer meeting as no one wants to get booted out of a GW/Warhammer World store for playing an 3D printed proxy. In the end I use the official HQ Warhammer World painting requirement to painting as my benchmark and it tends to keep the peace at the FLGS until I fully finish my army painting.

Another mental trick I use for smaller scale games is to deliberatly pick out campaign/league teams of models I don't have painted, then set myself the goal of having them painted before they can be used. Its why my deadzone v1 kickstarters are fully painted while most of my old warhammer is still grey.

Great insight as usual. I'm starting my first ever 40k army and I'm keeping all the backpacks off, to paint them better. And the mono-posse models are in sub-assembly too.

For primarily warm colored & earth toned armies, say Vikings, or Pathans, or Space Orks in some schemes, I like to assemble, do the basing work, and then spray white primer and wash/stain with a burnt umber from the craft store cheap acrylics for a shaded undercoat. Then after painting a couple of the most prominent colors, like the base flesh tone & some metals, they can show up on table top without the incompleteness being glaring and annoying, since everything is at least a shaded brown. For tabletop quality some of the leather or wood parts can be left that way or done last. Payne's gray works well instead of the brown when cooler colors predominate, like metal armors, or a mix of the two can also work. It's not much more work than assembling, and looks a lot better than plain black or white primer. Paint over this base as if it was a dark gray or black primer as time is found.

Oh my god, I knew this made more sense! I've been trying to paint my Tempest of Souls Nighthaunt starter army for 3 weeks now, but they're all assembled and it's been so hard to get to everything without wrecking the bits I've already painted [and it's put me off building my Myrmourn Banshees, because the models are so pretty but I know I'd have to miss bits if I paint them post-assembly].

Our group has the same rule as RonnocFroop. No unpainted models allowed on the tabletop. Granted, we've been gaming together for a long time so everyone has built up a pretty large collection of painted miniatures so it's not an issue like it would be for newer groups or a new player coming into the hobby.

This great advice for your second army, but if you are just starting, or like me just getting back in, get them together and get playing. It would be horribly demoralizing to have to wait that long to play. I just make sure that every week a little more is painted.

I appreciate what you're saying here Atom. I have 3 armies and I've purchased 90% of it second hand (meaning they are largely assembled for me and not painted/poorly painted). This has been bitter sweet. I got to play all my armies right away, but it is a struggle to know what to paint and to get motivated. Right now my painting motivation is 50% shame and 50% hobby fun haha.

I would add a tip, don't even open the box until you are ready to assemble and paint those miniatures. If you can't resist that after buying a new toy, then leave them on the sprue until you are ready. You will have less risk of losing a piece before you do assemble & paint it. Plus, if you decide later that you don't want to add that unit to your tabletop or don't want to start a new army, game, etc. then you will be able to resell them for much closer to what you paid for them and take less of a loss. Models unopened and still in shrink wrap will take the least hit, but it goes down quickly for models that are removed from the sprue, partially assembled, poorly assembled, and/or missing pieces. Primered, half-painted, or poorly painted can take a bigger dent in resale price. Which brings up other topics of when is it ok to buy used, partially assembled, and partially painted models and how to save money doing it?

Many years ago I was in a war game group that had a system in place for unpainted armies. A base coated miniature without detail would be allowed with no modifications to the rules. A miniature that was primed with some paint would get a -1 modifier a model with only primer would get a -2 and an assembled unpainted miniature or unit would get a -3. Yes we did have people that would roll so badly that once the modifiers were taken it would get wiped out. I remember one of my early units with primer breaking and running when they lost moral to a well painted unit and fleeing right off the edge of the table. This happened despite having a highly detailed command unit with a standard barer (see next paragraph). To encourage people to paint their models a base coated miniature with some detailing (shading or highlights) would get a +1 modifier and a fully painted miniaturize would get a plus two. If your army was fully painted with a highly detailed command unit to include a standard barer the entire army would get an additional plus one. Once these rules were implemented we started seeing more and more partially or fully painted armies with some units that the owner would designate as untested that had little or no paint. The army that I remember having the best paint job (not mine btw) was fully detailed with a command unit and a standard barer that the owner would add a small streamer to each time he won a battle. We were all shocked when he turned up one day with a full army of unpainted miniatures and told us he had to start over as he had sold his previous army (turns out he didn't but that is another story. The way he proceeded would be if a unit did well in battle he would work on that unit the coming week so the next battle they would show more experience. Later on this was adopted by other players and we would often end up with a mix of painted/partial paint/primed mini's in an army, but no one would show up with an unprimed army as no one wanted that dreaded -3 to every die roll.

I tend to have 3-5 units on the go at any one time so I have a variety of different stages to work on depending on time/mood but I;m not racking up shelves of grey models that I feel I'm never going to get done. Balances nicely with having new stuff available quickly, motivating me to keep painting and giving a sense of progress to the army project.

I built my Aether-Khemist and Arkanaut Frigates in subassemblies. It didn't prevent me in any way to play them ;). And I'd prefer to play vs gray army. or even halfway assembled models over pill bottles any time.

I have the opposite problem. I am painting all my models before I play and it's stopped me from playing for about 20 years. :) I bought my first miniature in 1997. It's not 2017 and I've never played a single game. It's not just for that reason obviously since that was me as a kid versus me in college and grad school and Army and job now but I'm on my way. I've got a LOT of the army painted though. This video has really made me think though... damn I need to just play. I can paint the rest afterwards. I might not even like this game anymore. I've got 8th ed. It might be time just to play for the fun versus the fulfillment of having a fully painted army.

I played a bit while in high school back in the lat 90's. I pretty much stopped while in the military and even got rid of my pieces. However, I'm looking at getting back into 40k since there's about half a dozen people I work with that play. Between that, and somewhat obsessively watching your videos I'll be getting back into it. So I've put several things on my Christmas wish list and we'll see what I get from there. My conundrum with assembling an army and painting before play is this: itemization. Sure I glued this guy with a heavy bolter, but maybe I have points to spare to make it a las cannon....too late, it's assembled already. So then I'd be stuck either not getting the composition I want, having to buy another box of units and re-painting, or attempting to remove the weapon and color match.

I have found this is me 100%. Like I have gotten to the point where once the mini hits the table it is basically "finished". So if I'm trying to use a piece, it has to be painted before I can put it on the table or I won't ever feel the need to finish it, unless of course there is a tournament or something coming up that requires all your stuff be painted.

When I started to play Flames of War, I went to a nifty site called "junior general" and printed off some top-down images of the soldiers I wanted. It's a lot easier to paint 100pts of T34s than it is to paint 100pts of Strelkovy, so I put paper images on my infantry stands. As I got the figures painted, I replaced the 2d images with 3-d painted figures.

A note on that Captain.. you totally can play him, he's on the base, has both weapons and it basically his full height. I don't care on the matter or grey/metal armies. As long as they are at least on a base and there is an understanding of what is what.

the way i send to think is, why not just paint before u assemble? if you paint everything before putting it together you're less likely to paint things u dont wanna paint, also building it can make it harder to paint some areas, i had a few miniatures that clipped together and didn't need glue so whenever i encountered that problem i just took of some pieces and painted what i needed to paint, and then i put it back together

That's exactly my struggle right now, I want to play, but I really don't want to play with place holders... yet I really need to paint in subassemblies or I just know I will regret later.

I can relate to this. So I collect 40k Space Wolves. I started collecting and building them about a year ago, and only started painting just over six months ago. I started painting because I got a Land Raider tank that needed to be painted on the inside before assembling. The necessitated that I went out and got the proper paints and stared. Its been great I now have 40 troops assembled and painted and 7 tanks. most of them are looking great (some not finished). The thing is I probably would never have started painting them if it was not for the Land Raider than needed to be painted before assembly. Once I got into the painting I found that it was far more satisfying than the assembly.

I started a space wolf army over a year ago and found myself getting nowhere. What I did was built the army in sub assemblies and then drilled holes into the changeable areas. I then magnetised these, so rather than worrying about what the model has I can swap and choose between what I have. It makes it a lot better as it feels like you're playing with more variety, as well as having more options to paint!

I completely agree with this. I am someone who buys these figures mainly to paint and play with my son at home. And since that is how I do it, I want to make sure that my paint jobs are as good as I can get them. Though I am still learning the new techniques that are out there, it is important to me to have them all painted before getting them on a table.

My tip for those who do not like to paint, get 1 black spray can and a colour spray can from a cheap store (1 dollar, pound, euro or so), Pre assemble the models, than Spray the weapons black and the models in colour, put them together...bam instant 2 colour models that dont look like crappy lazy grey. All in the same time as you would need to assemble that model twice. Make sure you put the cans in hot water for 15 minutes before spraying.

I realised some time ago (=weeks, months or so), that if you want try what kind of army you would or would not like to play... why not just buy bunch of bases and add paper on top of them with text like "Error: graphics of "Werewolf" not found", and play with these, and afterwards when you know what you like or want, then buy the stuff. (It just happen that I am focusing now in Frostgrave, meaning, that I really do not need testing in this way.... but at least I can use monsters what I do not have yet!)

There is another aspect to this topic that people don't think enough about. The whole reason that miniatures are expensive, GW but others as well is because of the POTENTIAL in the DETAIL that the miniature provides. In other words, you get a blank miniature with all the detail, but it's never seen or fully realized unless you apply colors to it! In other words, built into the prices you're paying is the VISUAL potential you can get from them. Why on EARTH would you pay GW prices for miniatures, but not just GW, any company and the prices they charge in general and then on top of it not even paint them but only play with bare gray plastic. Why even bother? Why the hell would you buy a $100 demon model and then leave it bare plastic??? GW is giving you the amazing detail but who cares if the detail is there if all you see is f'n gray? You're paying big dollars for awesome detail that you're never going to even enjoy!! Use gaming counters or poker chips for your armies and don't even bother buying miniatures! To me, it makes absolutely no sense to buy like 10 plastic guys for $50 and then not even paint them. Now of course you have every right to play wargames with unpainted minis if you and your friend/opponent aren't bothered by it. But in my opinion I don't see the point of spending loads of money on miniatures and then using them like Monopoly pieces. Don't expect to get too excited about your gaming tables if all you ever look at is a sea of unpainted minis. and terrain. Painting is what makes the hobby the hobby.

My local games group has some quite heavy handed house rules which actually really " encourage painting" , even to just a basic level . Its -1 AV on units if more than 1 model in a squad is "plastic grey ". This is based around the fact that It's really not a lot of effort to rattle can a unit . "Especially with modern base coating colour primers." It makes a big difference to the look on the table., and builds some tolerance for hoard armies as they don't normally care too much about AV, but when you're facing an army of unpainted points pricey primaris its going to add up and encourage at least base coating.

My friends and I played so many games of kings of War using cardboard squares and a new Army every week. Eventually, I settled on salamanders, my friend on ratkin, and another friend on ogres. We went out and bought a ton of models to build the forces the way we wanted them, then Mantic dropped the campaign rules, or rules version 2.5, and invalidated the composition of our new armies... Sometimes, there is no winning.

The secret is just to love your army. If you love it enough to paint it well, play with it and not sell it even after countless nerfs then you've won the game of 40,000 as a whole.

I've come up with a system where the unit I thought did the best in a game is put aside in my painting queue. Only when the models are fully painted will they get back on the field. So far, this has worked better for my motivation than anything else I've tried.

Also you can just print out the image of the desired miniature from the box on paper. And play it (for reference), or simply simulate the clashes of certain units on a piece of paper, or even in your head. It will look like this: "Squad 1 is advancing from 16" distance to 11" to enemy unit 1, so that his weapon would have X2 shots" dicing in the process, enemy squad 1 - 5 out of 8 models left.

I only put together one unit of a new army at a time, paint it and then move on to the next unit or solo. I'm not afraid of taking an unpainted army to play because I just refuse to take an unpainted army to play. The problem becomes if I have an entire army to assemble it then transforms from this great and nifty hobby and collection of models to this giant grey horde of metal and plastic sitting there judging me. In a giant lump like that it can become just another huge pile of work sitting on my shoulders waiting for me to get out of work instead of being a relaxing hobby for me to look forward to unwinding with after work. I'll play the army when it's done.

Just watched two guys playing grey soace marines against each other. Was kind if funny / grinchy to watch them discuss midgame which unit belongs to which player and after the game the trouble was really thick... never play grey!

Dear Minions, love your channel...never had this problem. I have to have my troops painted. This is partially because painting is probably my favorite part of the hobby. But here is another philosophical point. I am not afraid to sell off armies I don't love. Paint and play and if you don't like how the army plays or don't love the paint job, sell them and start again or start on something else. Selling a slightly "off" army pays for the next one, or at least gives you the seed money for the next project.

For me, the issue is that, having made the decision to get back to hobbying after a 20-ish year hiatus, repainting all my old stuff presents me with an enormous workload that I never had while collecting, because early teenage me could only afford miniatures in bulk from the starter sets(and I didn't want to play the armies in those, anyway), so I was never faced with more than 10 at a time.

I play AoS with my wife. When we got hooked we bought a lot of models (four armies worth) over just a few weeks, built them and started playing. While I agree with uncle adam, we wouldn't had our first game played yet if we'd followed this advice. I'm working my way through our collection unit by unit so our games feature more and more painted models. Btw my wife is a boardgamer so she would play with cardboard counters for all she cares :p

I personally just don't let myself play with unpainted models. Also started occasionally leaving pieces off to make painting easier.

For me, I always play it painted, which makes me a bit of a rarity in the local warmachine community (though I will say it took me over a year to get to that point). I, personally, don't feel the need to punish myself or avoid temptation to put an unpainted minis on the table, but I do find building and priming a whole bunch of minis to be a problem for a different reason. When you have a large queue of unpainted miniatures sitting on the shelf, I find it hugely demotivating. Seeing a ton of primed models just sitting there, staring at you, makes you feel like you will never finish. It also makes it hard to start new projects, because any time you go to paint a model, there are dozens of other models sitting there ready that you aren't painting, so there is an opportunity cost to starting a new project -- by painting my Winter Guard, I'm not painting my Iron Fangs. Leaving them unassembled helps, because if they're sitting brand new in a box, they're a little more out of sight and out of mind.

I have this problem. When I play with others, it motivates me to paint them. I think I enjoy building slightly more than painting. The only reason I do disassembly on some models is ease of painting. Some elites re impossible to paint completely assembled. I admit right now I have way more grey new minis than painted. I agree with proxy to learn a game/unit, but the minis and scenery is really what does it for me in the hobby, so I don't often proxy. Good ideas on ways to "force" oneself to get things done.

When i worked for GW we wouldnt let an army be ayed with in store unless it was at least 3 colour painted (bases and metals) gave the kids a bit of a push to get things done. Or only build 1 unit at a time and paint give yourself stumbling blocks to force you forward.

I had a small deathsquad of marines that I wanted to do a weird original paint scheme on, and match it to a custom chapter, but I wanted to be able to use them before i dedicated them to test mechanics. My game shop had a no unpainted minis rule, so I did a super basic ultramarines paint job (black blue and metalic, and a quick dry brush). I could proxy when I wanted to play weird shit, and they didn't look good, but they looked better than grey or primer. Plot twist, in the end, I just redetailed them and kept them ultramarines, but I think the general practice was a good choice.

This is the genius of PL, something I super wish was part of AoS. Paint the primaris captain and the intercessor squad in the box set. It's 13 PL. That will take you 2 weeks to paint tops. Play. The game is playable at 13 PL. Paint the next unit and character do that in 2 weeks, rinse and repeat until you are done. Now you have 41 PL of Primaris marines in 6 weeks. No one is asking for heavy metal quality. Paint your stuff. #playpainted

You're 100% right, Atom. At this point, I pretty much only allow myself to play with painted models, and because I've recently moved and have a newborn baby girl, I've basically played...hmmm...ONE game of 40k in the past year as I add to and paint up my Blood Angel army. I'm practicing what this video is preaching, but because of additional life reasons, it's REALLY hurt my playtime. :)

Well, I mostly agree to this idea uncle atom, but if you already have an assembled army that is unpainted, what I do is I play with it and at the end of the game, if one unit /model has done some really good job or done something epic in general, I paint it for the next game (I like to say the model earns its paintjob)

There are even models that you have to build in sequence or getting screwed later Tested by myself with some dragon/dinosaur heads with no chance to build their tongue inside the mouth :D A good tip about the infinity lie "I'll paint 'em later" can be simple: just paint one single model and use it as reference. So you can see it and the will to paint all others will come on his own

I too am very particular about removing flashing from models prior to painting them. The gaps may or may not get filled, depending upon the model. A character model will likely have the gaps filled. A rank and file troop choice, not so much unless it is very visible. I also fall in the drill the end of the barrels side of modeling. Even for rank and file troops. I think it takes it up to the next level versus the time involved before painting it.

Our house rule on unpainted model was (for 1000/2000 pts WFB) if the opposite team as a full painted army he gets 20% extra points in reinforcements and or magic items

Any recommendations for somebody who loves to play 40K, but lives in a small town now, with nobody to really play with? While I've played a lot of the PC 40K games, none of them really give me the satisfaction of the turn-based, tabletop version.

As a super noob i knew from the begging i was not gonna ever feild a grey force. Its a lot of work especially with orks but it just feels so wrong to play a grey blob.

Great topic. While I am not ultra competitive, I wouldn't show up at a club with a unpainted army. Very good advice about the proxy method, as I use this and most players are cool with it. From game play, logically it doesn't affect if unpainted, but it does affect the enjoyment. When my kids were younger and getting into the hobby, they assembled and played at home. BUT once they painted, even if not great, their enjoyment went up. The same goes for terrain too. For new comers, I get that playing quickly is key, and allowing them a mulligan at the beginning is fine. They just need to be encouraged to paint up, one unit at a time.

I have rule that I don't play with unpainted mini's and I don't believe in rushing a "table top standard" army. I guess I'm pretty patient but once they are painted nice they are gonna be like that forever so i think its worth putting in the time, especially for 40k minis because they are so expensive, painting should add value to them.

Hey uncle atom! I use poster putty to hold the subassemblies together while test playing them. In that way I've doomed myself to have a bunch of overly assembled/subassembled models that are already playable, and I find it difficult to get around to actually paint my boyz.

I played a game against a bloke who was using empty bases with bits from the sprue balanced on top to show which "mini" was which; no paint, no glue, no mini. That is hardcore not giving a damn. Personally I think that unpainted minis are anathema.

The counter to the arguement is getting in the BAD habit of using proxies rather than the appropriate model (caveat: I have a kitbashed Pedro Kantor that has the appropriate wargear and weapons in the proper spots, but he's more for show in a display case than to be used as I don't play Crimson Fists). The closest I come to proxies is using old Dark Angels Veteran models to represent my Sternguard (all wargear and weapons are properly modeled, the use of the old DA Veterans is that in my Kronos Elite, veteran troops not in Terminator Armor have ceremonial cloaks which conventional Sternguard models lack).

My problem is I don't have the time to paint being in college and all and I want to just play. I'd much prefer to play painted(and I do have fully painted armies) but sometimes life just gets in the way and I want to play the game I love rather than spend that time just painting

Proxies before buying actually models are also great way to make sure that if you don't like playing that army after all you haven't wasted money to buy expensive models for that army. Also I always make sure that my models are least primed before I play with them because it looks better than bare gray plastic/resin or bare metal.

Another alternative is to use poster tack to put them together BEFORE you paint them in subassemblies. Granted you have to use a bit to make sure it stays together but it lets me play while in the process of working on my models at least an hour a day at a time.

Always used to play with the three colour rule. Used to to refuse to play someone unless the figures were at least partially painted

Just got into the hobby couple of weeks ago, my favorite kit so far is the older chaos knights kit where you choose literally every single piece of the knight and it's a blast to build, however I just instinctively didn't attach the knight to the mount because after painting just few minis earlier I knew it would be basically impossible to paint the model if it was complete. Same goes for a lot of models with shields, just easier to paint separately. Now I'm not actually into playing at least yet, I'm just in it for the painting atm.

Im not really into "playing" the game (Probably because I've never played it before) I'm more into the hobby side of it all. Everything I do is in sub-assembly and thats just the way I like it.

The issue I am having is the models I bought on ebay are assembled AND primed... but the weapons (storm shield in particular) obscures A LOT of the model and fine details. Gonna be a nightmare to paint...

I use an equivalent of this for changing my bed sheets. I hate changing the bedding. I hate sleeping in a bed with no bedding more. So if I know I need to change the bedding, I'll strip the bed as soon as I get out of it and walk away. I know future me is gonna be annoyed, but it also forces him to put the new bedding on.

Blue tac exists, many people use it to hold a mini together to play with at my store.

Man I love this guys voice

i have so far in my hobby time, managed to not buy anymore models until all is painted. recently i bought two packs at once, which is more than i'm used to. that was a box of 11 boyz and a start collecting orks. its gonna take a pretty long while for me to paint them. so i got in a rut recently where i started studying intensely again, and aint got too much time to paint, so the drive to paint has gone down. although yesterday i played a game, and i was allowed to use some models that i kitbashed as nob with banner and big mek with kff. made me want to paint more after looking at them in action for the first time!

I can really tell, where you are coming from, Atom. And I think, that it has a true ring to it, but in my case, it really is the other way round. I started play last week with some grey, and partially painted models of Orks. I loved the play that much, that I continued painting these guys - because I really hate the grey armageddon-dusted look of unpainted models. So I rather like to play with fewer models than with unpainted. And a good game motivates me to painting. :)

During 40k 2nd Edition my buddy had a trio of Lego Horse that stood in for a squad of Tyranid Warriors for a while (also we were poor high school kids and models are expensive).

The captain is one of few marines that I completely painted. Though I had to convert it. The original cape and iron halo looked awful. So I decided to cut it off and also change the helmet. It ended up looking really great.

I have a standing rule that if it's not painted, I can't play with it. I do proxy things like you mentioned as well.

I try my hardest to make sure that my models are at least primed and base-painted before I use them. This is because I'm in school for too long to take the time to paint non-stop . Once I get out of school though, I'm going balls-to-the-wall with my painting to catch up. Especially with my Infinity models.

Well, this is an issue all of us have, all of us are sinners which are buying miniatures having a ton awaiting to be painted But, all in all, painting in sub assemblies nowadays isn't an option; it's compulsory Back when I started in the hobby all the miniatures were single piece metals or monopose plastics, only the marines had separated arms and weaponry and was fairly easy to paint them even with the whole model built, but now we have a ton of monopose plastics which came in a thousand pieces and it will be impossible to paint them if you build the whole models at first, even if the miniature have room to customization or is multipose, the best is don't build it completely and work with sub assemblies And, playing with full built models or even worse, primed ones is an omen: this models will be covered in dust and dirt months or years before you decide to paint them

I like your thinking! But that's probably because I find it impossible to field an unpainted army - for some reason it just really really bothers me. I'm not so bothered if someone else is fielding something painted or not, but I think it does help me stay motivated when painting my own army.

Man...I was cracking open a soda (coke) right as you were saying that bit about losing weight and snacks......at the precise moment the soda hit my throat you chided me......well done.

Dude, you bought the army, once you’ve torn the shrink wrap, it’s yours. May as well build and paint.

I do not field a mini until I paint it. I understand some people don't like painting, but I enjoy the painting, and putting a painted model on the board is the pay off for me.

I like the idea. It is a good idea to only play with painted models. With people that don't have as much discipline, this will spur them to paint. Honestly though, my issue is that I have about three to four sessions that are about a hour and a half long per week to paint. I usually set a requirement of one large vehicle or figure with a couple of dudes, or a full squad of dudes per week. I then get it done. The problem though is that it still takes months to finish up the paint on an army, and I am going to get in a few games before then, so you are going to see some primed or grey minis, until I finish up that army.

I got my stuff finished when a couple buddies had really well painted armies, it made me feel guilty, so I got on it. Now, I got someone else working on his army. So for all the painters, play more!

On the contrary, if I don't build them first, I'll never play with them. I've been doing this for 30 years and I've yet to finish a full army. And if you're going to proxy, why not just use the unpainted miniature instead of a pill bottle? If I build the army first instead of painting them as I go along, maybe I won't ever get around to painting them. But if I paint as I go along... I'll still never get around to painting them all! For the record, I'm the sort who prefers to play with (and against) painted models - which is why I haven't had too many games in all these years. The last thing I need is another limit that keeps me from playing.

Am I the only one who doesn't care my opponents army is painted or not. I mean it's fucking great seeing two painted armies against each other, and while I suck ass (and always will suck ass) at painting, i will continue to work through my 2000 point Slaanesh army as I can. But I would much rather still be able to still be able to play the game with someone then not since they didn't paint their minis While yes painting and building the models is part of the hobby, so is the game, and sometimes I just want to play a game and that's what I am there for, not to be mocked because I'm only half done with my army Though my entire army is built, and I do much much prefer seeing built armies, I'm ok with unpainted ones I understand if you are like my brother and just not like doing artsy stuff, and just want to play a fun wargame with new people. Also I tend only to do sub assembly for models that hold something over them, ie Guard soldiers with their lasguns across their chest and the like, it makes it easier to just go to town then having to work around the gun