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Friday 1 December 2017

Painted Or Not

I read an article in one of the UK wargaming magazines this week that was in response to another article about the merits, or absence of them of playing with painted versus unpainted figures. It's an argument I have heard a lot over the years and it seems pretty devisive within the hobby.

Years ago I went to the Grimsby Wargaming club. They have a rule of no unpainted figures on the table. By painted they mean a minimum of three colours of paint. I guess that this is probably about the minimum requires to paint a naked figure. This strikes me as someone, somewhere has put some thought into it but it also strikes me that someone is trying to push their own agenda. It also strikes me that there are people out there that want to break the system, like making something out of 100% GW parts.
I guess making  a figure out of their sprue counts as 100% GW parts
What people tend to do is look for loopholes when you start producing rules for gamers rather than rules for games. If you put a three colour minimum, you have to then have a rule about historically accurate colours. This in itself is a bit of a minefield as there are a lot of gaps in actual knowledge and people tend to just make them up.

This is a blog mainly about painting figures so what I argue might seems a little counter intuitive. It is true that I like playing games with painted figures. It would love to play games using nothing but Kev Dallimore painted figures in all their exquisite glory. I live in the real world and I know that I don't have that kind of money.

Grey is grey. It is difficult to tell the differences between units if they are all the same single colour and this is the really  core of what painted figures mean to me. To me that is the long and short of it. I have a friend who used to describe bases of miniatures as pretty painted counters. Although I riled at it back then, I do kind of see the point he is trying to make. Wargaming rules frequently dispense with reality but that does not mean we dispense with rules.

Having played games for the best part of forty years now, I have to say I prefer painted figures. I recognise the nature of most gamers works against this. Most of us will not sit down and paint an army in a week or even a month. It can take months or even a year to get everything done. Most of us lack the ability to maintain the focus required for this. What I have found is that if you start painting an army, you want to play it. If you don't use it, you go on to the next thing that is catching your attention.

It stops people playing on the spur of the moment ideas. I have seen a few games that only use unpainted 1/72 plastic kit figures. It might not be pretty but it is gaming. They wre embracing a chance to play experimental games that didn't cost three hundred pounds to buy and six months to paint.

All of us use rules, that is part of what gaming is about. When it comes to wargaming most of us tinker with the rules. I am used to the free and easy side of gaming. I am never that sure that I like the idea that a club committee dictates how I play a game and the spirit that I play it in. So  if you are going to potentially tinker with rules if not throw them out and start with a different ruleset, then, all least when you are starting out, why base them. As games mature you would expect to have all the figures based and painted but making it a require stifles creativity and leaves each wargaming with a lead mounted of expensive dust collectors.

8 comments:

  1. I went to a store once that allowed you to have unpainted stuff, but it had penalties to its attack and defence values. Once you got it painted, the penalties went away. That way, you could get the latest unit and slap it on the table, and had an incentive to get a few coats of paint on it.

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    1. That almost sounds fair. It surprises me that it was a store as I would assume that this might put some customers off. It still sounds like a better idea than an outright bans

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  2. I must admit I prefer painted minis but most certainly don’t object to playing with or against unpainted. It just incentivises me to finish them. I love the sprue army btw!

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    1. Painted minis are the gold standard but they are not the be all and end all.
      One of the FabLab people showed me sprue necron army. Never give a fixed set of rules to a teenager, they will always find a way to beat you.

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  3. This was one of those things that used to bug me, but I got better. I paint for myself, and have long resigned myself to painting both forces for a game.

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    1. Gone are the days that it's easy to find an opponent. I am guessing that like you, no one wants to play the stuff you want to play. Even when I find someone who says they want to play (Not mentioning anyone by name, Spike + Martin) the concept changes. Rules are replaced, base sizes are amended. Paint both forces is the way to go. What we really need is a good AI opponent.

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  4. I am very much 'play it painted'.

    I really don't enjoy playing in a tournament against an unpainted force, especially for a low model count skirmish game. Fewer than a a quarter of opponents in recent years have had unpainted forces, but for me the effort of attending a tournament and creating an enjoyable experience for all is improved when all forces are painted, even if only to 3-colour standard (whether grey or not - I paint with a lot of grey and brown! :) ),

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    1. I don't know anyone who likes playing with unpainted minis, especially their own. If you are going to play a game seriously then you should paint them as well as you can. Having an obligation to have painted figures stifles a bit of creativity and can turn what is supposed to be a fun hobby into a bit of a black hole. I was thinking after I wrote this post that I should have included a bit about the outlawing of fantasy and science fiction in some clubs and at one point in one of the main magazines. It just creates more barriers an arguments.

      BTW I have more pots of brown and grey paint than I do of almost all the other colours so you are not alone.

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