So I only play with my minis if they are painted, because that’s what I’m here for. If I want to play a really good strategy game there are better options than most war games. The draw of me to miniature war games is just “these look cool and the little guy I spent a bunch of time one gets to do cool things.” Idc if my opponent has painted their minis but I want mine to be.
Same. Forcing myself to only play with painted models also helps me get models painted faster and stay motivated. I’d never enforce my personal standards, or be grumpy about how my opponent chooses to play/collect/paint their toy soldiers.
This is a great comment - it really succinctly explains exactly what I wanted to say. Like, I enjoy playing miniature wargames, but I don't think I'd bother going to the effort of packing up all that stuff and taking it some place to play if it wasn't for the full experience of playing with painted miniatures on a board with terrain. It's like you say - there are deeper, more interactive and far more convenient options for playing a strategy game than most tabletop wargames. It's not necessarily about the game, the minis, visuals and the narrative individually - it's the whole experience that brings me back time and time again, and it all starts to crumble a bit for me without one of the pillars holding it up.
I wouldn't give someone a hard time for not having an army painted and I certainly wouldn't refuse to play them. It's one thing if 80% of their army is painted and they're just trying out a new unit, or they're actively painting that army and haven't gotten to 100% yet. But it does take some of the wind out of my sails when I step up to a table and across from me is a sea of grey or a monochrome primed army. It just takes some of the fun out of it for me. Especially when you consider some of these games stretch to 3+ hours. It's not like we're talking about 30 minute matches and on to the next one.
Solid agree. Pushing painted (even primed ones for me) minis adds so much to the narrative aspect. Pushing completely grey armies feels more like a board game and less of a war game where I'm about to sink a few hours into. I'm more willing to make decisions that would make cool-story telling moments than necessarily win a game with coloured minis.
I realize that it’s probably different for everyone, but at my local meta, people with unpainted armies are usually synonymous with people who power-game and buy the tournament-winning list, but don’t bother to paint it because they know that they’re gonna buy a new “best-in-the-game” army before they have time to paint the one they have.
i find they often paint it but to a piss poor standard. like 15 minutes a guy, spraycan hit the little chest emblem and maybe some brown on the base 10 POINTS!!!
Absolutely was the same when I used to game at a local club, same guy would have a brand new tin can army, as some liked to call it if it was all white metal, and he was looking to 'break' the latest codex
I'm a part of 2 gaming groups. One hasn't got any rules for playing with painted, and one does. Guess which group of people actually gets around to painting their armies? The group that has to. Currently I'm speedpainting 45 beastmen models, just to get to 1500pts for our next game. They're not looking great, but good enough to proudly say I've got 1500pts painted. Before march I'll have 6k points of beastmen painted, and then I can spend as much or as little time highlighting every single horn and spike as I feel like. That's a way bigger accomplishment than having the most awesome armies unpainted.
I would love to see a narrative campaign from you guys! I usually feel more immersed if I am playing a skirmish game like Frostgrave rather than an army game like 40k or aos because I can get more attached to the singular characters in my warband instead of having a couple of heroes and a lot of faceless troops One could play with bottle caps and cereal boxes and still have fun but having painted models and terrain helps because my brain has to do less work to imagine what is happening Also using a lightweight rules system so I don't have to stop the action to check the book too often
I think being able to differentiate between models in your opponent's army is another reason that some people push a painting requirement. It's not the most compelling reason but it's the kind of anecdote that you'll carry with you and re-tell forever if it happens. Also that choose your own adventure, super fancy campaign sounds phenomenal.
For me. The thing about a painted army is it shows commitment to what you are doing. If you have the disposable income to buy whatever disgusting cheese laden forge world model and slap it together in 20 min to show up at a tourney you are revealing exactly what kind of player you are. Committed to winning without the effort and commitment to the hobby. I will happily play games with new players with no painted models. I often refuse to play people who bring Grey plastic to tables week after week. Warhammer and wargaming is both sides of the hobby
Scott, John do you hear yourselves? You paint miniatures for a living, yes your stuff should be painted. I work 50-60 hours a week, I have an hour commute to LA everyday, I have a wife, and 2 kids. I paint every chance I get and would never bring an unpainted army to a tournament or even my local gaming store for a game. I play games at my house with my kids, and will certainly play on unpainted terrain or some of the units aren’t finished, but most people got into the hobby, cause of the cool, painted minis. Some people don’t care, but even those folks that are being polite are going to enjoy the gaming experience more when 2 well painted armies are played against each other on an interested board of terrain. Set the example fellas.
I enjoy painted armies battling across a beautiful table top. It feels right and is the hobby. I think the wargaming hobby is the combined hobbies of model building, wargaming and painting. Focusing on one way more than the other I think in the end might reduce your enjoyment of the hobby. I think that painting is the hardest and least required but it also does the most for the enjoyment of the true hobby of wargaming. I won’t ever mock someone’s unpainted hobby but I will work hard to paint mine and encourage my friends to paint as well. I also get really immersed in the games mid way through! Even when I’m planning my attacks and turn I’m looking at how cool the ranked up units look, thinking about how cool the cav is as they crash into the flanks. It’s cool to envision the whole battle. It doesn’t take away from trying to win at all For the series. I know Scott has been talking about Oathmark but if you want a narratively driven, miniatures agnostic game then that’s the one for you.
On the flipside of the whole 'it sucks to have a painted unit not be a fit for your army or wiped T1' argument, one MAJOR reason why I exclusively game with painted miniatures is that we, as miniature wargamers, tend to have pretty short attention spans. When I played as a teenager back in the day, I'd constantly find myself getting a new army, playing with it, getting through maybe 1/3rd of the painting and then getting excited about some new project. Eventually, I'd end up either selling the old project or adding it to the pile of half finished projects that I'd never go back to. At least if I paint the whole army first, I'll end up with a finished army to be proud of and look cool on a shelf than a half-finished monument to failure. It's so easy to get really jazzed about an army, play with it before it's finished and get bored before you even complete painting the whole thing. All it takes is one painted army to break from this cycle, and then you can play with that army while you work on your next.
Over the weekend, I played in a local 40k tournament. Two of my three games, my opponents didn't have fully painted armies. I had a great time. One of my opponents was running the Silent King's barge, without the Silent King & his Crypteks on it. He was a great dude, who I wouldn't have been able to meet if there was a painting requirement. I brought a fully painted army. I've got some retro models & a bunch of conversions in my army. I didn't play the best, only winning one of my games, but I had a ton of fun anyway. I do things like that to be able to play with (and show off) my cool models. I was floored to have won Best Army, which was the real place I was trying to compete.
Why TOs (and some players) want/require painted armies on tournaments (TO, 20+years competitive player here): 1) Tradition - back in ye olden days, GW (who was the only kid in town) required painting even in their stores to play and tournaments gave out points for painting (as in having a fully painted army is equivalent to winning a game). 2) Outside presentation (you guys touched on that one) - Pictures of tables with painted minis look cooler then silver/grey hordes... as simple as that. 3) Fairness due to differentiation - it is simply easier to differenciate minis/units if they are painted. I remember playing against a pure silver Cryx horde back in the day and running into every "trap" on the table simply because I couldn't distinguish the models there. Tournamen Players ultimately want to enjoy their experience by clashing their wits with others ... everything that puts that into the forefront and makes the experience as a whole more enjoyable is good and playing with and against painted armies is a part of that.
The thing with me is that I'm a mini painter first,3d printer second,terrain builder third and somewhere down the line a wargamer. I don't really mind what my opponent's army looks like,but I'm not playing until everything in my army is painted to the point where I don't think I could do much better even if I was to spend more time on it. I'll happily spend 200 hours painting a 20 model army and won't even mind the fact that it's probably going to take me months to get there. If everyone was like me nobody would play the game and it would be dead. It would be absolutely insane for me to expect anyone to treat wargaming the same way I do if I wanted wargaming to exist as a hobby.
Appreciate you guys expressing in the preamble ramble about the pressure/stress/experience of running your own business and despite all the fun, there's always a lingering cloud of trouble if you don't keep going or that there's always something you're missing. Feel much the same in my experience so far with my 3D printing store I started earlier this year.
The reason the navigators from Dune remind you of the navigators in 40K is because GW cribbed them directly from Dune along with a lot of other stuff in the 40k universe.
@@027shogun the idea of a god emperor is not even just from Dune the Japanese emperors are considered to be descendents of a literal god so it's not even a purely fictional concept.
30:43 Well, i used to watch people paint minis and nerd about it, while not painting myself, because I think it is relaxing and intresting. I did that for years. I recently bought my first set of minis to paint. And I think you guys had a fair bit to do with that.
Painted armies are a requirement because painting and aesthetics is one of the major draws of the hobby. It's best seen in that statistic that supposedly only 20% of people who collect actually play the game
Yeah one time someone made fun of my mostly painted 40k army that took about a year and a half to get there. At the next league start I had a fully painted black templar army which was the latest cheese army of (if I remember right) 3rd edition. Those vows made em powerful and dangerous.
I think Scott's idea for story driven battles is awesome. I'm doing this for my son's Warcry campaign. Thanks for the idea of background sounds, smoke machines, etc!
Great episode. Awesome to see you guys freestyling again. Being long in the tooth, there was a time when a painted tournament army reflected a much more methodical investment in your hobby, often taking months to collect and paint. In turn, a painted army represented a honed collection and composition of a participant much to what you both alluded to for practice purposes. I think smaller tournaments feel the need to legitimize the same bar of entry as what used to be referred to as Grand Tournaments, perhaps not realizing it gatekeeps the hobby. I think there are far more insightful ways now to encourage the painting side of wargaming least which is a "grow" league or directed hobby nights within a group. I will say the quest for those of us who are adherents of the "Stillmania" concept is to put your best foot forward (painting, gameplay, and sportsmanship) so we can be ambassadors to the overall community. In this way, we can inspire others to likewise paint a great army while still offering the most important aspect which is the opportunity to game with an opponent regardless of their hobby confidence or experience.
I have the Grex TG3 that Monument airbrush is based on (saw Jason using it) and I freaking love it. Love the gun style trigger. No more claw hand cramps from the standard style airbrushes. Also the air being automatically on before and after actually spraying paint is amazing.
I love the way full painted looks. Nothing better on the table than two well painted armies and terrain. I'd never gatekeep people out of the hobby by making it a requirement. GW having "battle ready" for their tournaments is a way for them to sell more paint.
I went to my first tournament ever beginning of last year. There was a requirement of painted armies... Stressful but it helped me a lot to have a deadline to get my stuff painted. Was the biggest tournament ever of Infinity in NZ, and we had some great painting jobs; that got me inspired further to keep playing AND painting.
First episode of TUP I've seen after watching both of your individual channels. I think I'll be here to stay. But to your overall point: When I was younger, I would often play with unpainted miniatures. Two decades later that has changed. BattleTech is my jam, which means much smaller forces than 40K. That also means I have a decent collection of painted minis to choose from as I can easily mix and match units. I do put a lot of effort into those. However! I play D&D/Pathfinder with friends. Simply because of my knowledge of the medium, I was the first to paint minis for the group and have gradually acquired a large collection of the old Ral Partha fantasy line produced newly by their successor Iron Wind Metals. I still paint those minis, but I've started cutting corners on prep work. Do I spend a lot of time removing mold lines, fixing mold slip, and doing perfect prep for miniatures that will be handled by 10 people across two groups over the course of years? They will inevitably be chipped and paint will wear off -- no matter how much varnish I use or whether they are plastic or metal. So I might as well do something to make it easier to work through the backlog. I recently painted a group of IWM's Hackmaster Simian Orcs. They are really cool miniatures with nice volumes. Part of me already regrets not removing those mold lines and not doing more work on contrast. But I need to be realistic with time commitments and the amount of money I've spent on pewter that is sitting unpainted.
I always thought that 3 color minimum or other painting requirements were to stop people from busting out a pay-to-win army every time new tournament results come out , never really thought about immersion or making the hobby look good as a whole. The GW store I used to go to in Denver had a house rule that any model with less than 3 colors was the preferred enemy (back when that was a thing) of painted models on the table. Great podcast, excited for the new set!
Around @22 min, Jon mentions something intersting: painting for others outside of a painter/buyer deal is Great! I find my things are better when I care about how they are for
Just catching this video (sorry) but Jon emptying every last drop of the dew into that awesome Tup Cup, was a total vibe for me... that's dedication. As for the topic, I see both sides. How I tackle it, is I usually paint by points. So I start Kill Team because, that will tell me if Im going to like how the army plays, I then do like 500 points and play a short game with my roommate and friends, then I do like 750 (usually ends up being some sort of cool character to add to the roster) then 1000 etc etc. I find that for me that keeps me 1 motivated to paint and 2 keeps me wanting to play and learn the game. But in general I dont mind playing against people who have unpainted mini's, people have kids, a wife, family obligations, hectic jobs etc etc. A friend of mine works in the ER and very rarely gets time to paint let alone play, especially during a pandemic. So I think, as content creators, often you are painting stuff for a Patreon, youtube, on twitch and very rarely do you get to just sit and paint what you want to paint and work on personal projects. I've offered to help and paint parts of the army for them... but they just want to paint it themselves so they can say "I did it all!" which I can respect.
Hey guys great show! While I have not stepped into the 40k world, yet... or play group tends to stay closer to board games ie Gloomhaven, Mansions of Madness, etc. As far as painted vs unpainted I get more "mersion" with the painted minis with my game sessions. Right now our group is playing through Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion. I went through and painted each of the 4 minis for the campaign and I find myself more involved/excited to get that game to the table versus something that is unpainted. Side note, I love the idea for your kickstarter. Our group is streaming each of our Gloomhaven chapters and I'm constantly trying to get the other players to "play" in character during our sessions. (spoiler - they aren't into it). Keep up the great work!
As a painter, I would never put miniatures on the table that were not painted. If I can't take the time to paint my miniatures, I shouldn't put the miniatures on the table IMHO. Visually it is impressive and makes it more enjoyable. This is where the table top standard comes from. The figures are not for a painting competition, but for use on the table and from arms length (3-4 feet away) painted figures show a commitment to the game.
Jazza and Tabletop Time are planning a narrative campaign with all that production value for Age of Sigmar. At least it sounds like an old school RTS campaign story where they have a map that will provide buffs, and be invaded, etc.
I think your comments about writing lists based upon the performance of a unit summed up your position pretty well. I paint units that look cool and that I can imagine in action while I'm painting them. I don't worry about how well they perform. I'm in it for the story, the cinematic adventure I'm going to participate in on the table. Painted figures with cool terrain becomes a movie in my head. Otherwise you might as well play with cardboard chits.
Okay, I’m a screenwriting and filmmaking student and I would absolutely love to make this narrative show happen. What an unbelievably cool idea. Using narrative rules like crusade for 40k would lend itself to the experience as well.
This is a really interesting conversation, Competition versus Immersion. I have played competitively over the years but Jon's comment about immersion made me realise that I primarily play for immersion - especially through historically based scenarios. If the era/theme interests me enough to be 'immersive' then I will want play a game, and then possibly play competitively. Whilst I am not an obsessive about ‘painted armies’ I have always fielded painted troops - even if that was a rattle can of olive green the night before… The ‘narrative campaign’ certainly sounds interesting and worth exploring further. BTW, I would totally rip you for fielding unpainted troops - Cos you ARE the TH-cam painter guys.
My abridged answer to the the painted minis question is as follows: For 40k or AOS, at least prime it. On the off chance both players have grey plastic, its so easy to lose track of where models are at amongst terrain or in a scrum with the enemy. Its hard to make informed decisions very quickly when you're eyes are looking from a high level view, like you said its a a chess game. In addition, my philosophy for getting painting motivation is priming it. Its what I tell new players all the time. Painting bravely starts there.
I don't put anything on the table that is unpainted. It's difficult but I feel like it's a slippery slope and I would ultimately lose my motivation to paint something if I ended up playing several games without painting it. Playing with an army I've painted is the ultimate reward for getting it finished. It's easy for me to say because my preference is Infinity... a game with fairly small armies by comparison. But tbh aesthetics is a key driver of my miniature game enjoyment or else I'd probably just be playing boardgames. Playing with unpainted armies is like watching a film with temp/unfinished vfx. It gets the point across but is absolutely less enjoyable than the full experience.
Currently in the state of painting a freshly assembled Black Templars army I'm torn if it should be fielded unfinished. Don't want to wait half a year though and it will be nice to see some progress each time they see some action. I think actually playing the models can be a good motivation to keep painting and not suffering from painting burnout.
I also have to agree; models that Do Work get painted. I play Kill Team, and it's easy to build a list, and after a few test games, if I jive with that list, then they get primed and get on the backlog.
One of my expirences with having painted minis for tournaments was getting told "Its about respecting your opponents time and effort" and something about "3 color minimum", But "your paint job dont have to be good" which was confusing me
👋 Hey non painting post here but hey Scott that Gatorade bottle sometimes gets mold up in the nossle i had to throw 3 of mine out. Just a heads up my dude! Stay Safe!
Also, It feels so good to hear discussions about dune both the movie and the book, I actually waited until I read the entire book to watch the film, and unfortunately, the film went out of theatres. On one GLORIOUS morning, however, ONE theatre had an Imax screening of Dune and I booked immediately, traveled for 2 hours, and finally got to watch it! Safe to say, it was all worth it!
I am no longer a wargamer but as a tabletop GM/DM I strive to have my adventure and terrain builds as complete as I can. That being said, I am happy and fortunate to be able to host amazing players at my table and an unpainted mini matters way less to me than the enjoyment and thrill of the role play and problem solving. Fun is the key word at the gaming table and I am very lucky to have a long time dedicated group that are willing to come and run through the stories and adventures I devise!
Great video guys. I don't buy the immersion thing myself and I would never give anyone static for not being fully painted in a game BUT I consider painting models as a courtesy to my opponent that is important and polite to strive for. I'm 50 years old now and I've been in the hobby for 30+ ywars so I put massive pressure on myself to be fully painted but that is very much a me thing.
Oh my god this creation of a show idea sounds absolutely amazing. ***Insert shut up and take my money meme here*** Incidentally Dice check does something similar but it's focused on a competitive tournament scene instead of a story driven campaign. They do a good job of making it look professional and very cool and have a lot of sponsors that helps pay for the creation as well.
I've never been huge on the painting side of the hobby, but I love seeing a completed force. I wouldn't refuse to play someone with an unpainted army, but it definitely takes it away from the immersion of the game when it's just a sea of grey. Like the guys said - I don't mind if an army is 'poorly', or partly painted, so long as there is progress being made and more is painted each time I play the same opponent.
I like the point that Jon made. You don't want to see all the effort you put into your miniatures be destroyed. So it's not procrastination that are causing my miniatures from being painted, it is fear of them being destroyed... lol
My position is on spectrum depending on the size of tournament. My FLGS is having 40K and AoS tournaments and they do not require painted armies. For store tournaments I think that’s appropriate. It speaks to the idea of testing your list in a tournament setting before having to have the entire army painted. For larger tournaments, where it’s trying to reach a wider “regional” scale, then the painting requirements is a good gate keeper IMO. It’s not so much that it’s an immersion issue for me, but In the past I’ve been to warmachine tournaments where I’ve seen it go to the other extreme, where not only are models not all painted, but the paint schemes are inconsistent where it’s obvious the person wasn’t even playing with models they owned and they borrowed the models to make the army. I’ve seen this at smaller 40K tournaments which is fine, but I feel like the requirement at least keeps some requirement of investment in the models.
Wow, great episode guys! Been in both camps, and also a team orga. I think it's fine to have a tournament with a painting restriction, however it also depends if it's an annual big event: 1) is it at a public place and has a goal of popularizing the game amongst normies (In Serbia there was a practice to organize events at shopping malls, and in later years at a video games new year event called Gamescon duh xD). 2) if you, as an organizer, set certain standards for painting quality, it's kinda lame if the photo coverage of the event is weak. And if there are no childish photos of capturing an epic scene of a dragon fightinf slayer or similar. Especially in this day and age of social media... 3) this one is my personal, I hate it when I see armies painted in minimum standard base colors tournament proposition. Models painted in base colors imho look worse than 'grey pile of shame'. I like to see new gw models or similar 3D prints in real life in a unicolor, as .stl models are shown online. In my gaming career I've been playing paperhammer, proxyhammer, won several tournaments and many BPA awards, playing only with bases against friends, and modelling and aesthetics of this game is a huge part for me, but I'm also really competitive. So when it comes to playing against paperhammer or grey pile of shame' army, it really bothers me for a couple of minutes until the game starts and then it doesn't matter with which models an opponent plays may it be sergio calvo rubio lvl or grey models- as long as it doesn't confuse me and alters the game in this way (one can argue grey color similar size units can cause confusion, but it never happened to me, although I am familiar with some people to whom it did happen.
It's funny Jon mentions to watch his face in the last half of the Killing Your Friends video because when I watched, it was almost impossible not to see how pissed he was. I started to wonder if he is an angry drunk or just gets mad when losing. Was a great watch though, I highly look forward to more games.
Fundamentally, miniatures games play exactly the same whether you're using painted figures, unpainted figures, or bases with the word "orc" painted on them. The _only_ advantage of miniatures is spectacle, so embrace the spectacle. If it's a convention, every army should be painted (and must be painted if I'm the organizer). Games at conventions are as much for the onlookers as for the players, and ghost armies are ugly. One major goal is to bring people in, so painting really is important. (As is being friendly to anybody who walks by.) If it's a store tournament, every army should be painted, but that's ultimately up to the tournament. I would never bring gray figures to a tournament and would be at least disappointed if my opponent didn't bring painted figures. Why bring miniatures instead of just using base-sized counters if you're not going to bring _painted_ minis? That's fundamentally a politeness issue for me -- don't be a douche. (Note that hectoring your opponent for not following your own rules, though, is also impolite.) If it's a friendly, especially if it's a new army, then whatever, though I would expect a second game with the same army to have more figures painted than at the first outing.
My thoughts on painting for games is the same as my thoughts on dressing nice for dinner. I do it, I hold myself to some minimum standard, but I would never say something to the guy across the table about his stuff. I mostly played with a small group of friends... even at those games, somebody would always ask "do you mind if I play an unpainted squad", and the answer from their opponent would always be "of course... you don't have to ask!"... it's the thought that counts, i guess.
As far as the unpainted minis go, it depends on the situation. If I'm playing on a piece of plywood with a rolled out grass mat and a few out-of-the-box terrain pieces, I'd care very little about unpainted minis. If I play on custom boards, hand-sculpted with hand-painted Tabletop-world houses, etc., and my army is all painted. The player across from me starts placing unpainted minis, then I'd feel like they're showing a bit of disrespect to the tournament organizer. They put effort into making or acquiring the boards; I put effort into painting the minis. Do I say something? Probably not. I don't know their life, I don't know if they are lazy or just ran out of time, maybe this is their one day a week where they get to NOT deal with life - when it's the choice of playing or painting, they chose to play, why would I poop on that persons time out? But it does feel like the Tournament isn't worth their time, and I'm not worth their time to paint the minis. Since we know Jon plays D&D... Imagine showing up to play D&D with a custom campaign world, painted monsters, 3d printed dungeon everything's gorgeous, and the player shows up with an unpainted plastic figure. And you KNOW that dude runs a youtube painting channel. Sure they might have been painting something else for another game, but could you honestly say that the thought "I spent days prepping this shit.. you couldn't spend a few hours to base coat and wash that mini" doesn't cross your mind?
As a Tournament Organiser, the primary reason for me is because people are dedicating their weekend to play Warhammer and travel to be there, and for everyones experience I feel there should be a minimum painting requirement. Its less about the external factors… its about the players at the event not just rocking up to a major and play opponents who haven’t painted their army.
I don't mind unpainted minis at all, but I will admit that I do feel a bit bad about fielding them myself, if only because, merited or not, it feels like it exposes my laziness as a mini painter to the world. 100% do the narrative campaign thing, and definitely do it with Reign in Hell or at least something that's not a GW game (no shortage of channels for narrative games of that already!).
Ninjon, would really like a video shootout between your tried and true Iwata and the new pistol wielded by Daryl on your channel next year. I have some big monsters and collections to paint next year from Bardsung to Infinity Tag Raid and I’m going to pull the trigger on an airbrush to get it all done. Always appreciate your candor.
for me it took me forever to really get into painting, i painted my first model in 2018 and ya know it lit that fire haha, im no stickler when it comes to unpainted versus painted, not everyone likes the painting side of ttg and ya know, thats okay, but yea once i started painting and really getting into it ive painted more, one piece of advice i can give is even if you just under coat a mini then youre doing just fine, take your time and work up the will to paint, you got this.
In our gaming group - we do historicals but, hey, minis are minis - we have this rule for minimum requirements for minis on the table. They must have the basic uniform color so we know whose side they are on; they must have their weapons painted so they can shoot/slash; and they must have their face painted so they can see....
I get immersion when I am painting my army, thinking about each person/creature, what is its story, who is this person? Are they ready to march into plastic hell and die? And I think that gives me pride and association to my faction and gets me to that "angry-john" moment when I lose outright, even when its the dice rolls fault.
20 years ago people would look down on you for playing with an army of unpainted minis. No one cared how well they were painted, but they expected something on them. I dont know when it suddenly became widely acceptable to play with an unpainted army, but I suspect it was with the mass influx of new people in 8ed. Painting a huge part of the hobby, and the refusal for some to do it has always been baffling. Quite frankly, the game is not (and has never been) mechanically good enough on its own for me to want to waste my time starring at a pile of grey styrene on a neoprene or cardboard battle mat for 3+ hours. Painted armies & decent terrain are a must.
I've only ever heard the "muh immersion!" argument from one guy. He got asked why he never shows up on narrative game nights or plays any narrative campaigns. Because it sure seemed like he cared so much about immersion in the setting we would have thought he's first in the door on those nights.
I don't give my opponents a hard time on plastic models on the table, I tease my friends to motivate them to make progress. Though on the inside I really do wish my opponents all had fully painted armies. My favorite part of any wargame is deployment and seeing a army all lined up ready to go. I can imagine the whole scene, and I love to take photos of both armies from dynamic angles. I lose some of this immersion when my opponents army is a bunch of plastic and I normally just take shots of my side of the board. In the end of the day both my opponent and I are just looking to play a game we both enjoy and some paint wont stop us from playing. I have held myself to it its not completely painted I cant play with it, but this is just my own way to motivate me to paint my armies and I don't expect anyone else to hold themselves to this same rule.
I don't play mine unless they're painted. It's like a motivation to paint. Of course, I play small games like Malifaux & Kill Team. I have an AOS army that is barely painted that I've never put on the table. I can understand not having a full 2000pt army painted, that's tough. I don't think I'd mind though.
I’ve offered to paint someone’s army before. But honestly the “respecting your opponents gaming experience” that goes both ways. If someone plays with unpainted minis clearly playing the game is the most important part of the hobby for them. Ied also like to add that I owned the local LGS (closed thanks to covid) we only had a painting requirement one time and we realized it wasn’t worth it and dropped that requirement going forward.
I'm a 40k player, for me the game rules already cover the caveat of whether my minis ought to be painted or not, and I'm man enough to accept losing 10 VP on the match to try out a new unit before putting paint on it. For example my Sororitas Exorcist; I'm not painting a whole mobile cathedral, including stained glass, right away if it doesn't perform on tabletop, I'd rather prioritize painting something that will stay in my 2k list
Half the fun in playing for me is to marvel at the army my opponent fields. If it's not painted there is a significant loss on fun to be had for me. But I would never be offended by it or tell that guy he needs to paint them. I would offer him some help in finding a way to paint them ofc. There is so many fast ways to paint minis to a good standard today!
I don’t do a a lot of miniature gaming but in bigger tournaments it might also be they want to be able to see what’s going on at a glance. Space marines are mostly blue but hopefully they can glance at your table and easily see who’s who.
I’m for sure a casual player! Off course i like to win, but the fun experience for both (or all) players are always more important. I get pretty immersed in the story that gets written while we play. I do not play army sized games tho, I feel it would be harder to get immersed in. I want my single models that all matter. Lastly, having painted models are more enjoyable, but I would never give anyone shade for bringing an unpainted model
A random game at the FLGS or a game with Friends i prefer that my opponent has a painted army, but wont mention it if they dont. I only play with painted models myself and any decent tournament should have a paint and basing requirement.
For me, way back in the 80-s when I learned D&D, we always played with minis, theater of the mind is ok, but less immersive for me. I think some people don't paint minis because, they, like myself, aren't good enough yet, and to see our painted minis up against others is embarrassing to a degree. To me, it's the fun of having the right representative minis, painted or not, on the table. I will get better over time but the desire to game before my painting improves is quicker.
I'm on board for a big-time Reign in Hell video narrative campaign project... thingy. I'll even drive up or whatever. Hit me up.
Does this mean we are going to get the tag team wrestling match with you and sam vs scott and jon?
You’re awesome, UA.
THIS I WOULD LOVE TO SEE
So I only play with my minis if they are painted, because that’s what I’m here for. If I want to play a really good strategy game there are better options than most war games. The draw of me to miniature war games is just “these look cool and the little guy I spent a bunch of time one gets to do cool things.” Idc if my opponent has painted their minis but I want mine to be.
Same. Forcing myself to only play with painted models also helps me get models painted faster and stay motivated. I’d never enforce my personal standards, or be grumpy about how my opponent chooses to play/collect/paint their toy soldiers.
Totally I've like never won a game but sure as heck have always played with painted minis
@@foxtrot2824 seconded Aaron, I've gotten so much done when I know I have a game lined up the next week and I just really want to field that new unit.
This is a great comment - it really succinctly explains exactly what I wanted to say.
Like, I enjoy playing miniature wargames, but I don't think I'd bother going to the effort of packing up all that stuff and taking it some place to play if it wasn't for the full experience of playing with painted miniatures on a board with terrain. It's like you say - there are deeper, more interactive and far more convenient options for playing a strategy game than most tabletop wargames. It's not necessarily about the game, the minis, visuals and the narrative individually - it's the whole experience that brings me back time and time again, and it all starts to crumble a bit for me without one of the pillars holding it up.
Gandalf in a Waldo paint scheme hahahahahahahaha well this is clearly happening.
Also I totally called Jon was wasted that night xD
I wouldn't give someone a hard time for not having an army painted and I certainly wouldn't refuse to play them. It's one thing if 80% of their army is painted and they're just trying out a new unit, or they're actively painting that army and haven't gotten to 100% yet. But it does take some of the wind out of my sails when I step up to a table and across from me is a sea of grey or a monochrome primed army. It just takes some of the fun out of it for me. Especially when you consider some of these games stretch to 3+ hours. It's not like we're talking about 30 minute matches and on to the next one.
Solid agree. Pushing painted (even primed ones for me) minis adds so much to the narrative aspect. Pushing completely grey armies feels more like a board game and less of a war game where I'm about to sink a few hours into. I'm more willing to make decisions that would make cool-story telling moments than necessarily win a game with coloured minis.
I realize that it’s probably different for everyone, but at my local meta, people with unpainted armies are usually synonymous with people who power-game and buy the tournament-winning list, but don’t bother to paint it because they know that they’re gonna buy a new “best-in-the-game” army before they have time to paint the one they have.
Absolutely, same around me also
i find they often paint it but to a piss poor standard. like 15 minutes a guy, spraycan hit the little chest emblem and maybe some brown on the base
10 POINTS!!!
This is very true, verified at my local game store
Absolutely was the same when I used to game at a local club, same guy would have a brand new tin can army, as some liked to call it if it was all white metal, and he was looking to 'break' the latest codex
This
I'm a part of 2 gaming groups. One hasn't got any rules for playing with painted, and one does. Guess which group of people actually gets around to painting their armies? The group that has to.
Currently I'm speedpainting 45 beastmen models, just to get to 1500pts for our next game. They're not looking great, but good enough to proudly say I've got 1500pts painted. Before march I'll have 6k points of beastmen painted, and then I can spend as much or as little time highlighting every single horn and spike as I feel like. That's a way bigger accomplishment than having the most awesome armies unpainted.
I would love to see a narrative campaign from you guys!
I usually feel more immersed if I am playing a skirmish game like Frostgrave rather than an army game like 40k or aos because I can get more attached to the singular characters in my warband instead of having a couple of heroes and a lot of faceless troops
One could play with bottle caps and cereal boxes and still have fun but having painted models and terrain helps because my brain has to do less work to imagine what is happening
Also using a lightweight rules system so I don't have to stop the action to check the book too often
I think being able to differentiate between models in your opponent's army is another reason that some people push a painting requirement. It's not the most compelling reason but it's the kind of anecdote that you'll carry with you and re-tell forever if it happens.
Also that choose your own adventure, super fancy campaign sounds phenomenal.
For me. The thing about a painted army is it shows commitment to what you are doing. If you have the disposable income to buy whatever disgusting cheese laden forge world model and slap it together in 20 min to show up at a tourney you are revealing exactly what kind of player you are.
Committed to winning without the effort and commitment to the hobby.
I will happily play games with new players with no painted models.
I often refuse to play people who bring Grey plastic to tables week after week.
Warhammer and wargaming is both sides of the hobby
Scott, John do you hear yourselves? You paint miniatures for a living, yes your stuff should be painted. I work 50-60 hours a week, I have an hour commute to LA everyday, I have a wife, and 2 kids. I paint every chance I get and would never bring an unpainted army to a tournament or even my local gaming store for a game. I play games at my house with my kids, and will certainly play on unpainted terrain or some of the units aren’t finished, but most people got into the hobby, cause of the cool, painted minis. Some people don’t care, but even those folks that are being polite are going to enjoy the gaming experience more when 2 well painted armies are played against each other on an interested board of terrain. Set the example fellas.
I enjoy painted armies battling across a beautiful table top. It feels right and is the hobby. I think the wargaming hobby is the combined hobbies of model building, wargaming and painting. Focusing on one way more than the other I think in the end might reduce your enjoyment of the hobby. I think that painting is the hardest and least required but it also does the most for the enjoyment of the true hobby of wargaming. I won’t ever mock someone’s unpainted hobby but I will work hard to paint mine and encourage my friends to paint as well.
I also get really immersed in the games mid way through! Even when I’m planning my attacks and turn I’m looking at how cool the ranked up units look, thinking about how cool the cav is as they crash into the flanks. It’s cool to envision the whole battle. It doesn’t take away from trying to win at all
For the series. I know Scott has been talking about Oathmark but if you want a narratively driven, miniatures agnostic game then that’s the one for you.
On the flipside of the whole 'it sucks to have a painted unit not be a fit for your army or wiped T1' argument, one MAJOR reason why I exclusively game with painted miniatures is that we, as miniature wargamers, tend to have pretty short attention spans. When I played as a teenager back in the day, I'd constantly find myself getting a new army, playing with it, getting through maybe 1/3rd of the painting and then getting excited about some new project. Eventually, I'd end up either selling the old project or adding it to the pile of half finished projects that I'd never go back to. At least if I paint the whole army first, I'll end up with a finished army to be proud of and look cool on a shelf than a half-finished monument to failure.
It's so easy to get really jazzed about an army, play with it before it's finished and get bored before you even complete painting the whole thing. All it takes is one painted army to break from this cycle, and then you can play with that army while you work on your next.
I always assumed the painting requirement was at least partially to make flavor of the month a little more complicated.
Over the weekend, I played in a local 40k tournament. Two of my three games, my opponents didn't have fully painted armies. I had a great time. One of my opponents was running the Silent King's barge, without the Silent King & his Crypteks on it. He was a great dude, who I wouldn't have been able to meet if there was a painting requirement.
I brought a fully painted army. I've got some retro models & a bunch of conversions in my army. I didn't play the best, only winning one of my games, but I had a ton of fun anyway. I do things like that to be able to play with (and show off) my cool models. I was floored to have won Best Army, which was the real place I was trying to compete.
Why TOs (and some players) want/require painted armies on tournaments (TO, 20+years competitive player here):
1) Tradition - back in ye olden days, GW (who was the only kid in town) required painting even in their stores to play and tournaments gave out points for painting (as in having a fully painted army is equivalent to winning a game).
2) Outside presentation (you guys touched on that one) - Pictures of tables with painted minis look cooler then silver/grey hordes... as simple as that.
3) Fairness due to differentiation - it is simply easier to differenciate minis/units if they are painted. I remember playing against a pure silver Cryx horde back in the day and running into every "trap" on the table simply because I couldn't distinguish the models there.
Tournamen Players ultimately want to enjoy their experience by clashing their wits with others ... everything that puts that into the forefront and makes the experience as a whole more enjoyable is good and playing with and against painted armies is a part of that.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan, i would buy Master Yoba merch
The thing with me is that I'm a mini painter first,3d printer second,terrain builder third and somewhere down the line a wargamer. I don't really mind what my opponent's army looks like,but I'm not playing until everything in my army is painted to the point where I don't think I could do much better even if I was to spend more time on it.
I'll happily spend 200 hours painting a 20 model army and won't even mind the fact that it's probably going to take me months to get there. If everyone was like me nobody would play the game and it would be dead. It would be absolutely insane for me to expect anyone to treat wargaming the same way I do if I wanted wargaming to exist as a hobby.
Appreciate you guys expressing in the preamble ramble about the pressure/stress/experience of running your own business and despite all the fun, there's always a lingering cloud of trouble if you don't keep going or that there's always something you're missing. Feel much the same in my experience so far with my 3D printing store I started earlier this year.
The reason the navigators from Dune remind you of the navigators in 40K is because GW cribbed them directly from Dune along with a lot of other stuff in the 40k universe.
Exactly; like the whole idea of a God-Emperor...
@@027shogun the idea of a god emperor is not even just from Dune the Japanese emperors are considered to be descendents of a literal god so it's not even a purely fictional concept.
i was looking to see if somebody else had already pointed this out. Thank you
And Dune cribbed them from Buck Rogers and Space 1999
30:43
Well, i used to watch people paint minis and nerd about it, while not painting myself, because I think it is relaxing and intresting.
I did that for years.
I recently bought my first set of minis to paint. And I think you guys had a fair bit to do with that.
Painted armies are a requirement because painting and aesthetics is one of the major draws of the hobby. It's best seen in that statistic that supposedly only 20% of people who collect actually play the game
Yeah one time someone made fun of my mostly painted 40k army that took about a year and a half to get there. At the next league start I had a fully painted black templar army which was the latest cheese army of (if I remember right) 3rd edition. Those vows made em powerful and dangerous.
The Tombworld from Play on Tabletop and Deployment Zone TV is this and it is awesome! I would LOVE this idea from you guys!
I think Scott's idea for story driven battles is awesome. I'm doing this for my son's Warcry campaign. Thanks for the idea of background sounds, smoke machines, etc!
Great episode. Awesome to see you guys freestyling again. Being long in the tooth, there was a time when a painted tournament army reflected a much more methodical investment in your hobby, often taking months to collect and paint. In turn, a painted army represented a honed collection and composition of a participant much to what you both alluded to for practice purposes. I think smaller tournaments feel the need to legitimize the same bar of entry as what used to be referred to as Grand Tournaments, perhaps not realizing it gatekeeps the hobby. I think there are far more insightful ways now to encourage the painting side of wargaming least which is a "grow" league or directed hobby nights within a group. I will say the quest for those of us who are adherents of the "Stillmania" concept is to put your best foot forward (painting, gameplay, and sportsmanship) so we can be ambassadors to the overall community. In this way, we can inspire others to likewise paint a great army while still offering the most important aspect which is the opportunity to game with an opponent regardless of their hobby confidence or experience.
Jon / Scott the owl from Sword in the Stone is Archimedes the educated owl!
love kicking on youtube on mondays and seeing this pop up:) Happy Holidays, Nerds!
I have the Grex TG3 that Monument airbrush is based on (saw Jason using it) and I freaking love it. Love the gun style trigger. No more claw hand cramps from the standard style airbrushes. Also the air being automatically on before and after actually spraying paint is amazing.
I love the way full painted looks. Nothing better on the table than two well painted armies and terrain. I'd never gatekeep people out of the hobby by making it a requirement. GW having "battle ready" for their tournaments is a way for them to sell more paint.
Jons mini-rant about Vincent stomping his army into the ground is the funniest thing I've listen to in a while. 66:43
I went to my first tournament ever beginning of last year. There was a requirement of painted armies... Stressful but it helped me a lot to have a deadline to get my stuff painted. Was the biggest tournament ever of Infinity in NZ, and we had some great painting jobs; that got me inspired further to keep playing AND painting.
lol, that ad was actually pretty funny xD Please make this new video series happen, sounds epic.
First episode of TUP I've seen after watching both of your individual channels. I think I'll be here to stay. But to your overall point:
When I was younger, I would often play with unpainted miniatures. Two decades later that has changed. BattleTech is my jam, which means much smaller forces than 40K. That also means I have a decent collection of painted minis to choose from as I can easily mix and match units. I do put a lot of effort into those. However!
I play D&D/Pathfinder with friends. Simply because of my knowledge of the medium, I was the first to paint minis for the group and have gradually acquired a large collection of the old Ral Partha fantasy line produced newly by their successor Iron Wind Metals. I still paint those minis, but I've started cutting corners on prep work.
Do I spend a lot of time removing mold lines, fixing mold slip, and doing perfect prep for miniatures that will be handled by 10 people across two groups over the course of years? They will inevitably be chipped and paint will wear off -- no matter how much varnish I use or whether they are plastic or metal. So I might as well do something to make it easier to work through the backlog.
I recently painted a group of IWM's Hackmaster Simian Orcs. They are really cool miniatures with nice volumes. Part of me already regrets not removing those mold lines and not doing more work on contrast. But I need to be realistic with time commitments and the amount of money I've spent on pewter that is sitting unpainted.
I always thought that 3 color minimum or other painting requirements were to stop people from busting out a pay-to-win army every time new tournament results come out , never really thought about immersion or making the hobby look good as a whole. The GW store I used to go to in Denver had a house rule that any model with less than 3 colors was the preferred enemy (back when that was a thing) of painted models on the table.
Great podcast, excited for the new set!
Sucks, if you're playing Army of the Dead, in LotR. Unless you can count the basing colours...
Hyper realistic glove snapping sound effect activated 34:34 !
Tabletop Tactics narrative campaigns are similar to what you are describing! Worth checking out!
Around @22 min, Jon mentions something intersting: painting for others outside of a painter/buyer deal is Great! I find my things are better when I care about how they are for
Navigators are able to predict future so they can chose safe path, Holtzman Engine allows to bend space
Just catching this video (sorry) but Jon emptying every last drop of the dew into that awesome Tup Cup, was a total vibe for me... that's dedication.
As for the topic, I see both sides. How I tackle it, is I usually paint by points. So I start Kill Team because, that will tell me if Im going to like how the army plays, I then do like 500 points and play a short game with my roommate and friends, then I do like 750 (usually ends up being some sort of cool character to add to the roster) then 1000 etc etc. I find that for me that keeps me 1 motivated to paint and 2 keeps me wanting to play and learn the game.
But in general I dont mind playing against people who have unpainted mini's, people have kids, a wife, family obligations, hectic jobs etc etc. A friend of mine works in the ER and very rarely gets time to paint let alone play, especially during a pandemic. So I think, as content creators, often you are painting stuff for a Patreon, youtube, on twitch and very rarely do you get to just sit and paint what you want to paint and work on personal projects. I've offered to help and paint parts of the army for them... but they just want to paint it themselves so they can say "I did it all!" which I can respect.
Hey guys great show! While I have not stepped into the 40k world, yet... or play group tends to stay closer to board games ie Gloomhaven, Mansions of Madness, etc. As far as painted vs unpainted I get more "mersion" with the painted minis with my game sessions. Right now our group is playing through Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion. I went through and painted each of the 4 minis for the campaign and I find myself more involved/excited to get that game to the table versus something that is unpainted. Side note, I love the idea for your kickstarter. Our group is streaming each of our Gloomhaven chapters and I'm constantly trying to get the other players to "play" in character during our sessions. (spoiler - they aren't into it). Keep up the great work!
As a painter, I would never put miniatures on the table that were not painted. If I can't take the time to paint my miniatures, I shouldn't put the miniatures on the table IMHO. Visually it is impressive and makes it more enjoyable. This is where the table top standard comes from. The figures are not for a painting competition, but for use on the table and from arms length (3-4 feet away) painted figures show a commitment to the game.
Jazza and Tabletop Time are planning a narrative campaign with all that production value for Age of Sigmar.
At least it sounds like an old school RTS campaign story where they have a map that will provide buffs, and be invaded, etc.
I think your comments about writing lists based upon the performance of a unit summed up your position pretty well. I paint units that look cool and that I can imagine in action while I'm painting them. I don't worry about how well they perform. I'm in it for the story, the cinematic adventure I'm going to participate in on the table. Painted figures with cool terrain becomes a movie in my head. Otherwise you might as well play with cardboard chits.
Was just thinking of something to listen to and this literally turned up as I clicked youtube, lovely timing.
Okay, I’m a screenwriting and filmmaking student and I would absolutely love to make this narrative show happen. What an unbelievably cool idea. Using narrative rules like crusade for 40k would lend itself to the experience as well.
Brother Alfabusa did something like that for a couple of eps. of TTS. And it was cool.
This is a really interesting conversation, Competition versus Immersion. I have played competitively over the years but Jon's comment about immersion made me realise that I primarily play for immersion - especially through historically based scenarios. If the era/theme interests me enough to be 'immersive' then I will want play a game, and then possibly play competitively. Whilst I am not an obsessive about ‘painted armies’ I have always fielded painted troops - even if that was a rattle can of olive green the night before…
The ‘narrative campaign’ certainly sounds interesting and worth exploring further.
BTW, I would totally rip you for fielding unpainted troops - Cos you ARE the TH-cam painter guys.
My abridged answer to the the painted minis question is as follows: For 40k or AOS, at least prime it. On the off chance both players have grey plastic, its so easy to lose track of where models are at amongst terrain or in a scrum with the enemy. Its hard to make informed decisions very quickly when you're eyes are looking from a high level view, like you said its a a chess game. In addition, my philosophy for getting painting motivation is priming it. Its what I tell new players all the time. Painting bravely starts there.
I don't put anything on the table that is unpainted. It's difficult but I feel like it's a slippery slope and I would ultimately lose my motivation to paint something if I ended up playing several games without painting it. Playing with an army I've painted is the ultimate reward for getting it finished. It's easy for me to say because my preference is Infinity... a game with fairly small armies by comparison. But tbh aesthetics is a key driver of my miniature game enjoyment or else I'd probably just be playing boardgames. Playing with unpainted armies is like watching a film with temp/unfinished vfx. It gets the point across but is absolutely less enjoyable than the full experience.
Currently in the state of painting a freshly assembled Black Templars army I'm torn if it should be fielded unfinished. Don't want to wait half a year though and it will be nice to see some progress each time they see some action. I think actually playing the models can be a good motivation to keep painting and not suffering from painting burnout.
Thanks for pumping Zorpazorps youtube channel! The Minas Tirith build is a huge tribute to Tolkiens lore and to the best game GW has ever made.
Is there no video of the full length this week including the afterparty?
Uploading it now!
@Ninjon, how do you feel about the monument airbrush now? I’ve been eyeing one up, but there are almost no reviews about it
I also have to agree; models that Do Work get painted. I play Kill Team, and it's easy to build a list, and after a few test games, if I jive with that list, then they get primed and get on the backlog.
One of my expirences with having painted minis for tournaments was getting told "Its about respecting your opponents time and effort" and something about "3 color minimum", But "your paint job dont have to be good" which was confusing me
👋 Hey non painting post here but hey Scott that Gatorade bottle sometimes gets mold up in the nossle i had to throw 3 of mine out. Just a heads up my dude! Stay Safe!
Zorpazorp did a bunch of streamed lotr scenario playthroughs with live chat voting on game decisions. Was fun to watch.
Also, It feels so good to hear discussions about dune both the movie and the book, I actually waited until I read the entire book to watch the film, and unfortunately, the film went out of theatres. On one GLORIOUS morning, however, ONE theatre had an Imax screening of Dune and I booked immediately, traveled for 2 hours, and finally got to watch it! Safe to say, it was all worth it!
you NEED to go through with this awesome idea!!
I am no longer a wargamer but as a tabletop GM/DM I strive to have my adventure and terrain builds as complete as I can. That being said, I am happy and fortunate to be able to host amazing players at my table and an unpainted mini matters way less to me than the enjoyment and thrill of the role play and problem solving. Fun is the key word at the gaming table and I am very lucky to have a long time dedicated group that are willing to come and run through the stories and adventures I devise!
Great video guys. I don't buy the immersion thing myself and I would never give anyone static for not being fully painted in a game BUT I consider painting models as a courtesy to my opponent that is important and polite to strive for. I'm 50 years old now and I've been in the hobby for 30+ ywars so I put massive pressure on myself to be fully painted but that is very much a me thing.
Oh my god this creation of a show idea sounds absolutely amazing. ***Insert shut up and take my money meme here***
Incidentally Dice check does something similar but it's focused on a competitive tournament scene instead of a story driven campaign. They do a good job of making it look professional and very cool and have a lot of sponsors that helps pay for the creation as well.
I've never been huge on the painting side of the hobby, but I love seeing a completed force.
I wouldn't refuse to play someone with an unpainted army, but it definitely takes it away from the immersion of the game when it's just a sea of grey.
Like the guys said - I don't mind if an army is 'poorly', or partly painted, so long as there is progress being made and more is painted each time I play the same opponent.
I need this narrative campaign youtube series in my life
I like the point that Jon made. You don't want to see all the effort you put into your miniatures be destroyed. So it's not procrastination that are causing my miniatures from being painted, it is fear of them being destroyed... lol
My position is on spectrum depending on the size of tournament. My FLGS is having 40K and AoS tournaments and they do not require painted armies. For store tournaments I think that’s appropriate. It speaks to the idea of testing your list in a tournament setting before having to have the entire army painted.
For larger tournaments, where it’s trying to reach a wider “regional” scale, then the painting requirements is a good gate keeper IMO.
It’s not so much that it’s an immersion issue for me, but In the past I’ve been to warmachine tournaments where I’ve seen it go to the other extreme, where not only are models not all painted, but the paint schemes are inconsistent where it’s obvious the person wasn’t even playing with models they owned and they borrowed the models to make the army. I’ve seen this at smaller 40K tournaments which is fine, but I feel like the requirement at least keeps some requirement of investment in the models.
Wow, great episode guys! Been in both camps, and also a team orga. I think it's fine to have a tournament with a painting restriction, however it also depends if it's an annual big event:
1) is it at a public place and has a goal of popularizing the game amongst normies (In Serbia there was a practice to organize events at shopping malls, and in later years at a video games new year event called Gamescon duh xD).
2) if you, as an organizer, set certain standards for painting quality, it's kinda lame if the photo coverage of the event is weak. And if there are no childish photos of capturing an epic scene of a dragon fightinf slayer or similar. Especially in this day and age of social media...
3) this one is my personal, I hate it when I see armies painted in minimum standard base colors tournament proposition. Models painted in base colors imho look worse than 'grey pile of shame'. I like to see new gw models or similar 3D prints in real life in a unicolor, as .stl models are shown online.
In my gaming career I've been playing paperhammer, proxyhammer, won several tournaments and many BPA awards, playing only with bases against friends, and modelling and aesthetics of this game is a huge part for me, but I'm also really competitive. So when it comes to playing against paperhammer or grey pile of shame' army, it really bothers me for a couple of minutes until the game starts and then it doesn't matter with which models an opponent plays may it be sergio calvo rubio lvl or grey models- as long as it doesn't confuse me and alters the game in this way (one can argue grey color similar size units can cause confusion, but it never happened to me, although I am familiar with some people to whom it did happen.
New Podcast hype!! Was confused this morning when I didn’t see one. Haha thought I was a day ahead of myself haha 😂
The new video project you’re talking about sounds a lot like Inq28 or AoS28. Awesome stuff, worth a google. Cheers dudes!!
It's funny Jon mentions to watch his face in the last half of the Killing Your Friends video because when I watched, it was almost impossible not to see how pissed he was. I started to wonder if he is an angry drunk or just gets mad when losing. Was a great watch though, I highly look forward to more games.
Fundamentally, miniatures games play exactly the same whether you're using painted figures, unpainted figures, or bases with the word "orc" painted on them. The _only_ advantage of miniatures is spectacle, so embrace the spectacle.
If it's a convention, every army should be painted (and must be painted if I'm the organizer). Games at conventions are as much for the onlookers as for the players, and ghost armies are ugly. One major goal is to bring people in, so painting really is important. (As is being friendly to anybody who walks by.)
If it's a store tournament, every army should be painted, but that's ultimately up to the tournament. I would never bring gray figures to a tournament and would be at least disappointed if my opponent didn't bring painted figures. Why bring miniatures instead of just using base-sized counters if you're not going to bring _painted_ minis? That's fundamentally a politeness issue for me -- don't be a douche. (Note that hectoring your opponent for not following your own rules, though, is also impolite.)
If it's a friendly, especially if it's a new army, then whatever, though I would expect a second game with the same army to have more figures painted than at the first outing.
I guess another factor is height for LoS, though you could arguably replace all the minis with cubes for times when that's relevant
My thoughts on painting for games is the same as my thoughts on dressing nice for dinner. I do it, I hold myself to some minimum standard, but I would never say something to the guy across the table about his stuff.
I mostly played with a small group of friends... even at those games, somebody would always ask "do you mind if I play an unpainted squad", and the answer from their opponent would always be "of course... you don't have to ask!"... it's the thought that counts, i guess.
If you like single-action, imho the best airbrush is Harder&Steenbecks Hansa 381 / 281. Also much cheaper than the other HS brushes.
As far as the unpainted minis go, it depends on the situation.
If I'm playing on a piece of plywood with a rolled out grass mat and a few out-of-the-box terrain pieces, I'd care very little about unpainted minis.
If I play on custom boards, hand-sculpted with hand-painted Tabletop-world houses, etc., and my army is all painted. The player across from me starts placing unpainted minis, then I'd feel like they're showing a bit of disrespect to the tournament organizer. They put effort into making or acquiring the boards; I put effort into painting the minis.
Do I say something? Probably not. I don't know their life, I don't know if they are lazy or just ran out of time, maybe this is their one day a week where they get to NOT deal with life - when it's the choice of playing or painting, they chose to play, why would I poop on that persons time out? But it does feel like the Tournament isn't worth their time, and I'm not worth their time to paint the minis.
Since we know Jon plays D&D... Imagine showing up to play D&D with a custom campaign world, painted monsters, 3d printed dungeon everything's gorgeous, and the player shows up with an unpainted plastic figure. And you KNOW that dude runs a youtube painting channel. Sure they might have been painting something else for another game, but could you honestly say that the thought "I spent days prepping this shit.. you couldn't spend a few hours to base coat and wash that mini" doesn't cross your mind?
Playing with unpainted minis is like watching a b&w film. 5 minutes in and you don't notice anymore
That's a terrible comparison lol
@@WardenOfTerra I know lmao
As a Tournament Organiser, the primary reason for me is because people are dedicating their weekend to play Warhammer and travel to be there, and for everyones experience I feel there should be a minimum painting requirement. Its less about the external factors… its about the players at the event not just rocking up to a major and play opponents who haven’t painted their army.
I don't mind unpainted minis at all, but I will admit that I do feel a bit bad about fielding them myself, if only because, merited or not, it feels like it exposes my laziness as a mini painter to the world.
100% do the narrative campaign thing, and definitely do it with Reign in Hell or at least something that's not a GW game (no shortage of channels for narrative games of that already!).
Ninjon, would really like a video shootout between your tried and true Iwata and the new pistol wielded by Daryl on your channel next year. I have some big monsters and collections to paint next year from Bardsung to Infinity Tag Raid and I’m going to pull the trigger on an airbrush to get it all done. Always appreciate your candor.
for me it took me forever to really get into painting, i painted my first model in 2018 and ya know it lit that fire haha, im no stickler when it comes to unpainted versus painted, not everyone likes the painting side of ttg and ya know, thats okay, but yea once i started painting and really getting into it ive painted more, one piece of advice i can give is even if you just under coat a mini then youre doing just fine, take your time and work up the will to paint, you got this.
In our gaming group - we do historicals but, hey, minis are minis - we have this rule for minimum requirements for minis on the table. They must have the basic uniform color so we know whose side they are on; they must have their weapons painted so they can shoot/slash; and they must have their face painted so they can see....
I get immersion when I am painting my army, thinking about each person/creature, what is its story, who is this person? Are they ready to march into plastic hell and die? And I think that gives me pride and association to my faction and gets me to that "angry-john" moment when I lose outright, even when its the dice rolls fault.
Yes. Next question
I know I am late to comment on this one, but I didn't see it any where else, but the owl's name in The Sword and the Stone is Archimedes.
12:03 Snot shot spidey webby thingy
20 years ago people would look down on you for playing with an army of unpainted minis. No one cared how well they were painted, but they expected something on them. I dont know when it suddenly became widely acceptable to play with an unpainted army, but I suspect it was with the mass influx of new people in 8ed. Painting a huge part of the hobby, and the refusal for some to do it has always been baffling. Quite frankly, the game is not (and has never been) mechanically good enough on its own for me to want to waste my time starring at a pile of grey styrene on a neoprene or cardboard battle mat for 3+ hours. Painted armies & decent terrain are a must.
I've only ever heard the "muh immersion!" argument from one guy.
He got asked why he never shows up on narrative game nights or plays any narrative campaigns. Because it sure seemed like he cared so much about immersion in the setting we would have thought he's first in the door on those nights.
i painted a john wayne bust for my dad for christmas this year as hes a huge fan of the duke.
I don't give my opponents a hard time on plastic models on the table, I tease my friends to motivate them to make progress. Though on the inside I really do wish my opponents all had fully painted armies. My favorite part of any wargame is deployment and seeing a army all lined up ready to go. I can imagine the whole scene, and I love to take photos of both armies from dynamic angles. I lose some of this immersion when my opponents army is a bunch of plastic and I normally just take shots of my side of the board.
In the end of the day both my opponent and I are just looking to play a game we both enjoy and some paint wont stop us from playing. I have held myself to it its not completely painted I cant play with it, but this is just my own way to motivate me to paint my armies and I don't expect anyone else to hold themselves to this same rule.
I don't play mine unless they're painted. It's like a motivation to paint. Of course, I play small games like Malifaux & Kill Team. I have an AOS army that is barely painted that I've never put on the table. I can understand not having a full 2000pt army painted, that's tough. I don't think I'd mind though.
I would 100% watch VincyV TUP reaction videos
I’ve offered to paint someone’s army before. But honestly the “respecting your opponents gaming experience” that goes both ways. If someone plays with unpainted minis clearly playing the game is the most important part of the hobby for them. Ied also like to add that I owned the local LGS (closed thanks to covid) we only had a painting requirement one time and we realized it wasn’t worth it and dropped that requirement going forward.
I'm a 40k player, for me the game rules already cover the caveat of whether my minis ought to be painted or not, and I'm man enough to accept losing 10 VP on the match to try out a new unit before putting paint on it. For example my Sororitas Exorcist; I'm not painting a whole mobile cathedral, including stained glass, right away if it doesn't perform on tabletop, I'd rather prioritize painting something that will stay in my 2k list
Why not use a proxy before even wasting money on a model you're on the fence about ?
Half the fun in playing for me is to marvel at the army my opponent fields. If it's not painted there is a significant loss on fun to be had for me. But I would never be offended by it or tell that guy he needs to paint them. I would offer him some help in finding a way to paint them ofc. There is so many fast ways to paint minis to a good standard today!
Series idea sounds really cool!
I don’t do a a lot of miniature gaming but in bigger tournaments it might also be they want to be able to see what’s going on at a glance. Space marines are mostly blue but hopefully they can glance at your table and easily see who’s who.
I was thinking about ordering a mug to mother Russia for myself. But there doesn’t seem to be a link to it in the description
The teespring store is linked in the description, mug is available there
I’m for sure a casual player! Off course i like to win, but the fun experience for both (or all) players are always more important. I get pretty immersed in the story that gets written while we play. I do not play army sized games tho, I feel it would be harder to get immersed in. I want my single models that all matter.
Lastly, having painted models are more enjoyable, but I would never give anyone shade for bringing an unpainted model
The Master Yoba bit got some very loud laughter from me, great podcast guys!
Ninjon, now that you've had the Grex for 5 months, what are your final thoughts? Do you actually have more control than say the Evolution or HP-CS?
A random game at the FLGS or a game with Friends i prefer that my opponent has a painted army, but wont mention it if they dont. I only play with painted models myself and any decent tournament should have a paint and basing requirement.
Trapped under plastic: the birthplace of the legally risky Master Yoba
For me, way back in the 80-s when I learned D&D, we always played with minis, theater of the mind is ok, but less immersive for me. I think some people don't paint minis because, they, like myself, aren't good enough yet, and to see our painted minis up against others is embarrassing to a degree. To me, it's the fun of having the right representative minis, painted or not, on the table. I will get better over time but the desire to game before my painting improves is quicker.
This is why you just start painting "all the things", only way to get better is to paint, not think about painting.