I need help....unpainted games

I blame my long affair with GW games, but I can't help but feel like my game is 'less than' if the minis aren't painted. When I look at awesome paint jobs on something like say, Castle Ravenloft, I don't see how anyone could play the game any other way. It's almost as if an unpainted set is 'less than' a painted one.

I've mentioned before that I find painting minis the most worthless hobby I have. I don't want to do it anymore. I'd rather spend the time doing a multitude of other things. So, what I find is that I start to consider not buying any game that has minis that look like they should be painted (this doesn't include DoaM games like NO or A&A), because I know I'll want to get around to painting them.

But it gets worse...When my Ravenloft game was unpainted I had all the kids on the block playing on it. Once I painted it up, I became an @$$hole and would only let certain folks play...and it also required me in attendance. It's like I didn't want all of those hours of painting to be damaged or mishandled. Additionally, the game required more money to create proper storage...I don't want painted minis banging around.

So, yeah, this is mainly just therapeutic and getting it off my chest, but how do y'all play games (Space Hulk, FoD, Talisman, whatever) unpainted when you can see how much _more_ awesome they'd be otherwise? Anyone else struggle with this?

I don't paint every game I have with minis. It is really a testament to a game I love that I will take the time to do it. I painted Fury of Dracula not because the game would be less without the paint but because it's one of my favorite games.

I have recently started War of the Ring, painting that is, and boy do I regret it. Not because I hate the painting process. I put on music or an audio book and I do find it very relaxing. I regret it because there are just SO MANY minis. I started it because the figures out of the box are a pain to tell apart AND it's a great game. Engineer Al did it the right way with spray paint, quick wash, and sealer. Ah well live and learn.

As for being more protective with games I have painted and really games in general. Some people really go overboard with taking care of their games and such. But like cars, motorcycles and board games, the only way to keep them perfect is to never use them and what the hell is the point of having them if that's your view?

If they get banged up so be it.

"Sealer"? I've never used a sealer on my minis in my life. We also just throw them in the box (LNoE, Talisman, FoD). They are all fine.

I don't paint mine because I don't have the talent. And it doesn't bother me, not a whit. The only game it does is Gears of War, because you can barely tell the players apart in greyscale. ("Which one are you?" "I'm the bad-ass grizzled marine with the heavy weaponry and the INTENSE facial stubble." "Nice. But which one are you?")

That's actually probably some sort of meta-commentary on modern video-game hero design.

The only game I have felt compelled to paint well is Warhammer Quest. The other game I painted was Runebound. However, that game I just painted the figs gloss black and then sprayed them with a shiny brass paint.

I feel much like you, especially after so many years on the Warhammer circuit. But, again like you, I don't particularly enjoy painting. Personally I've just come to learn to live with unpainted figures, although the itch to do something about it never quite goes away. But if that's not an option for you I have two suggestions.

First stick to games that are limited painting projects. Ravenloft, for example, with its smorgasbord of figures, is probably a bad idea. But you could still invest in games that you feel offer a surmountable painting challenge. Last Night on Earth, for example, only has about 20 figures and you might feel happy tackling a project of that scale and without the pressing need to paint tons of pieces you might enjoy the painting a little more too.

The second is to adopt the production line method of painting. Grab all the similar figures out of the box, quickly and roughly fill in all the big areas of similar colour on each, ignoring detail. Then move on to the next colour and so on, until you have a big batch of badly painted figures. Then either colour wash them in a single dark shade or, better yet, dip them. The results can be surprisingly effective for the relatively limited time investment.

Dip does seem to be the way to mass paint figures.
Base colour them as neat as you can be bothered, then dip into liquid varnish. The varnish provides both shading and protection. I have heard that you don't want LOTS of varnish on there, but haven't tried dipping to know. Probably a blast of spray varnish after that (maybe matt rather than gloss) and you are good. Should also be quite resistant to damage.

Another Warhammer player in the mix, with 256 Skaven to paint. 130 done...

Sam

Jazzbeaux wrote: Dip does seem to be the way to mass paint figures.
Base colour them as neat as you can be bothered, then dip into liquid varnish. The varnish provides both shading and protection. I have heard that you don't want LOTS of varnish on there, but haven't tried dipping to know. Probably a blast of spray varnish after that (maybe matt rather than gloss) and you are good. Should also be quite resistant to damage.

Another Warhammer player in the mix, with 256 Skaven to paint. 130 done...

Sam

That's the plan for my DE's, sprayed Purple, splashing enough paint on contrasting parts, armour leather etc, and adding a highlight to places that need it & ending with a dip.

I tried the same theory with Mtd demonettes, minus the dip as they don't fit in the can, and a GW wash for shading & they turned out amazing. From start to finish a unit of 5 took me 8 hours from assembly to shade & I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

I'll never paint another miniature again. The gameplay is in no way affected by having unpainted figures.

There was one time when we were playing BSG at Atlanta Game Fest and Richard Launius was trying to get a table started. I always picked on him for painting EVERYTHING, even prepainted figures. He comes over to MY table and says "folks, we're playing this same game with fully painted miniatures over here if you'd like to come on over. HE WAS HOLDING SAMPLES TO SHOW PEOPLE.

Never been a mini painter and never will be. They sure look nice, but in the grand scheme they don't add anything to me when we're playing. Plus I do not have the time. The only time my minis will have color on them is if they come pre-painted.

Nobody has ever stopped and gawked at the components of a game we played. We like the games to have high production values, but it sort of stops there. The components don't make the game, it's the people at the table.

Painting really does make a game with miniatures COOLER - how the hell could it NOT??? But, I would do almost anything to get out of painting them myself, unfortunately other people want way too much $$$ to do it.

I painted up the WOTR and expansion set and it is just AWESOME next to unpainted figs. They're all coated and protected so, unlike you, I don't give a damn who plays with it as long as SOMEONE plays and it's been played with a TON! It doesn't make the game better but none of my friends even WANT to play with their unpainted sets when they could play mine.

RUNEWARS is almost done but I don't want to get the expansion just yet until I get it finished. My advice to you is to not buy any game with UNPAINTED figs in it. I just saw "Mice & Mystics" and can't wait to paint those furry little bastards after it comes out.

Having grey, ugly minis on a game that is otherwise awesome is like a dark stain on the entire affair. Dreadfleet unpainted is like a bleeding ulcer..it cannot stand. A game just becomes more awesome when the minis look good.

Tell me Heroscape would be as awesome if the tiles were all grey and the figures all grey.

Sorry, but it is what it is. Anything else is being a paint denier. Don't try to lie and say that painted miniatures don't add to a game because you're fucking Luh-EYE-ing.

That said, if a game is awesome, it needs to be brought to its pinnacle of awesomeness. Average games do not rate getting painted because they do not deserve it. I painted Fury of Drac, Ravenloft, Space Hulk, Ashardalon, and some tabletop games, and that's it. Games I've painted are like heirlooms...they'll never be sold or traded.

But, I have a love-hate with painting. Sometimes I love to, it's relaxing, and it provides me the opportunity to be creative that buying scrap metal doesn't. I make tabletop terrain, it's awesome. I paint. It's awesome. And then I'll do so much in so little time that I decide that I simply don't want to anymore. And then I stop.

But in the end, every game I own with painted miniatures is better for it. The wanky grey shitty nurse and the farmgirl whore just aren't as awesome. The priest is just not as awesome without the flaming torch to ward off the leagues of undead.

It is what it is.

I don't really paint either. I painted my race cars for Speed Circuit, but that's about it. But I did run into the "cheap mini storage" problem for my pile of minis for Talisman 3e (they're that older brittle plastic). I ended up doing the following:

1. Buy cheap-ass cushion foam of desired thickness at hobby/fabric store.
2. Lay minis out on foam.
3. Draw lines around the minis with black marker.
4. Cut holes straight through using lines as guide.
5. Cut the cut-out parts (the pegs) down to 1/4 their original size.
6. Put the new 1/4-height pegs back in their holes to be the bottoms to make pockets for minis to go in.
7. Glue the whole mess to a piece of cardboard so it doesn't fall apart.

But as far as letting the neighborhood kids playing with your painted minis? I dunno. If you don't really value the painting as a hobby anyway does it really matter if your paint jobs get a few battle scars from being played?

SuperflyTNT wrote: Sorry, but it is what it is. Anything else is being a paint denier. Don't try to lie and say that painted miniatures don't add to a game because you're fucking Luh-EYE-ing.

Well painted, sure. But I've been to the FLGS on 40k Sunday and checked out gamer's figs.

Almost half of them are not spectacular and the rest are in the realm of holy shit what have you done? It makes me shake my head when I see a fifty dollar tank model with glorped on blobs of sloppy stroky paint further enhanced by a vomitous color palette.

The only painting job that I ever finished was Fury of Dracula. I don't have steady hands or tremendous patience, and my eyesight isn't quite 20/20 these days. My FoD figures look good enough at boardgame distance, but if you pick them up and look closely at them, they are not so great. I had particular trouble with Godalming's monocle.

So I got to work on Space Hulk with diminished enthusiasm. I did the door bases first, as a warmup exercise, and those turned out decently. My genestealers are about 90% finished, I just need to paint the tongues and claws. But I bought that issue of White Dwarf with the detailed tips on painting the 3E Terminators, and that intimidated me. I have painted some of the larger panels of armor on each of the Terminators, and almost nothing else.

But painting is an important way to protect your figures. One of my friends kept grabbing Sergeant Lorenzo by the helmet while we were playing, and finally that eagle fixture on top broke off. If it had been properly painted and sealed, it wouldn't have broken off so easily. I understand there is a way to soften the edges of the two pieces and re-attach properly, but I would need to practice with sprue pieces first, so I keep putting it off. With the high price of Space Hulk 3E, there is no reasonable way for my friend to replace Lorenzo, but he did end up donating about $80 worth of new miniature-scale map tiles to my Ptolus campaign.