"Ever Gamed With Unpainted Figures?" Topic

Zephyr,

I saw the battle report. The latter was the case unfortunately. I am surprised CC could bring himself to discuss that particular thrashing.

He gets a chance to redeem himself, as I play CC in the campaign this Friday. I'll let you know if his troops are still naked as the day they were cast.

A few years ago, in a Warhammer Ancients Tournament; I had to play against a succession of two unpainted armies. One was a shining Trojan sparkler and the other some kind of silver sliding Mongol incarnation. I was disgusted, and have not gone back to the rules since.

Oggie

If the kiddies at my FLGClub only used their painted miniatures… there'd be some pretty small games going on. I shake my head at the lack of any progress any of them have made over the past 6 months.

Unpainted figures? A few times, back in '79 when John Palomino and I played some of our first games of colonials. We did paint some of the troops later on as best we could. We had some teriffic (!) games and I wish I knew where the lad got off to so I could show him my figures now and he could see what a monster he created.

I havent played with unpainteds since, and have no excuse anymore…I know how to paint now. Even plastics :-)

If others want to play with unpainteds, thats fine too.

Never done it. Never will. I hate seeing this on tables at my FLGS and hate it even more at Cons. Come on, people. A Convention is your time to show off your game at its best, not at its, "Oh, well, I was going to paint these up but instead I wasted several weeks/months of my life playing the latest online MMUD."

I'd rather not play at all rather than have to play with an unpainted army, or play an opponent with an unpainted army.

Using unpainted lead… Hmm, now that's an idea… I'd be able to play something other than Rome v Carthage now rather than a year into the future ;-)

Oddly enough in the area I am from the GW people are the ones who play with fully painted armies and the historical people cannot be bothered to attempt to paint. I really wish people on this board would stop the GW bashing all the time I have a lot of gameing intrests but I do really enjoy 40k and I have 12 fully painted armies for the game.

Painting miniatures is bourgeois !

Yup done it, ruins the aesthetics. Never again.

Never done it, never will.

No, I don't. The FOW and fantasy/sci-fi crowd is big into using unpainted lead; it is common to see multiple games going on and tons of unpainted figs all over the place. I started gaming with lead figs in the 70's and one of the guys who ran a lot of games had a "no unpainted figs on the table" rule. That is just the way it was and has always been.

I don't even play CHESS with unpainted miniatures!

H#$% No! One might as well use cutout paper (oops) or round disks-one army using red and one army using black. No unpainted figures allowed on my game tables or at our Games Day event.

No. But when I was first starting out (playing Knights & Magic) my friend would always manage to make a run to the hobby store and pick up a couple of packs of new minis and field them. We basically played with everything you had on the table. No points. He would figure out what worked the last time and go get more, or heavier troops for the next battle. Of course, they were never painted. They would be by the next battle. They would also have been supplemented with another group fresh out of the pack.

Good times!

Well, I have some minis that were unpainted when this thread started and still are – and I use them from time to time at the local club. This is partly because I cant stand the idea of painting them badly just for speed.

Funnily enough, these are in a historic army (28mm Celts) – in our club WFB armies are pretty much always painted unless someone is trying out a weird build as a conscious experiment.

Last time I played with unpainted miniatures was about 25 or so years ago. I was DM-ing an AD&D campaign and needed a few hundred bandits, so I raided my Shogun boardgame box. They did the job.
Haven't ever played a 'proper' wargame using unpainted minis.

Cheers
Paul.

Over my rotting corpse.

now I have used some minis that were just there as markers and to help support hidden troops. Now if it a small unit or a once in a while I have no problem. but if the same people do it every time that is a problem.

When we were just starting out, none of our miniatures were painted. However, we had a rule in our gaming group that per game, the ratio of painted miniatures one fielded should go up by 10%. So, a new player should have acquired a fully painted army after 10 games.

"Over my rotting corpse."

…rough terrain, then, was it? ; )

Yes: RISK miniatures from numerous sets purchased on ebay, grouped into formations of the same colour for Horse & Musket games. No worries about damaging paintwork!

Yes, I play using unpainted miniatures.

I can't see the point in putting a "slop'n'go" paint job on a miniature just to get it on the table. I rarely repaint figures that represent the quality of my painting at the time, but I couldn't let an intentionally shoddy job stand.

Therefore, at some point I would have to repaint the miniatures to my best working standard. I would have wasted the time I initially painted them, plus all of the time stripping them. In terms of money, I would have wasted paint, primer and basing material, none of which is cheap.

All of this to keep someone else happy? I think not! I'll stick to gaming with friends with similar standards to me.

I have played with unpainted figs. Heck, it's rare for me to field a fully painted army. OTOH, I'd rather play with a partially painted force than one with a hasty (and bad) paintjob, and, I typically have to supply anywhere from two to six armies in order to get a group going.

My general rule is that, unless I bought it in the previous day or two, it needs to be assembled and primed, and that I need to make progress on my figures between games.

You know, I just recalled a time when I was playtesting some zombie rules and used a bag of unpainted, out-of-scale PLASTIC zombies to "flesh out the horde," so to speak. Nobody minded because it was a playtest.

Normally we don't, but recently we did.
However, it was a game of "…And All For One!", and none of the figures or scenery was painted.
It actually worked out kind of cool, like a black and white movie.

We would never mix painted and not though, that's just wrong.

No, I've got more self-respect.

Under no circumstances would I field unpainted figures. It defeats the entire purpose of having figures in the first place, which is to create an aesthetically pleasing game.

If you're just going to use them as game markers, why go to the expense of purchasing them in the first place, when cardboard counters, paper cutouts, or plastic pawns would do the job just as well (or perhaps better)?

If I have unpainted figures which are supposed to be in an upcoming game, I either find the time to finish them, leave them out of the game, or postpone the event until they're done. To do any less would be, in my opinion, a deliberate public display of laziness and incompetence, and a disrespectful affront to the aesthetic sensibilities of my fellow gamers as well.

Mind you, I would never suggest that every gamer in every game group should be held to the same standard; your gaming buddies may not take unpainted figures as a sign of laziness or incompetence, and likewise they may not have any aesthetic sensibilities for you to affront. There are several in the various groups that I game with who clearly don't. However, as Christot pointed out, there is that little matter of self-respect . . .

hahaha I have gamed with MOSTLY unpainted minis since my Dad got me into wargaming when I was 6!

I will likely be arrested and court martialled by the TMP thought police for playing with unpainted minis.

I am trying to paint up all of my figures though. So you can't say I'm not trying or making progress.

I don't have a problem with anyone playing with unpainted figs.

Otto
noizehive.blogspot.com

Seeing as I paint rarely, and game rarely, I often play with unpainted figures – whats the big deal with that? I'd like to get more painted, and they always look better, but I am playing a game to play a game – not for it's aesthetics! – bit like some of the older computer games still play better than the newer better looking ones – it's the game that counts! :-) (or so I tell myself!)

I'm doing it right now. I'm playtesting the new WW2 rules from TooFatLardies for an upcoming Winter War game at convention. About half my Finns are painted, the rest just primed. The Russians will be provided by the other player so in the meantime they are proxied by various unpainted plastic Germans, Brits etc.

Back in 1978, a friend in Texas had a large army of unpainted napoleonics. He had an Austrian army which he had just primed white. We called his force the ghost legions.

If a unit did well in a game, he would paint an additional color on only that unit. So in a game you could see which units did well as they were the most painted. Ironically he had some almost all white grenadier Bns and some fully painted militia and line units.

The other necromanced thread on "Villains" pales in comparison to a so-called gamer who uses unpainted miniatures.

The evil scholar Kelly DeVries TWICE polluted my gaming table with unpainted Normans: I was weak (this was before he went off to university to become "educated" and unapproachable, both, also, traits of villains)….

Dear Forum,

Memory serves me that I once commanded A Prussian 15mm Napoleonic Army of two Armeekorps, and as an ploy to frustrate the French, I had a black-primed 15mm miniature figure of Napoleon I, layed out on my 15mm guillotine, "safely" displayed near my rear base-line…..it "worked", I lost the battle in about a third of the time as it usually took(recall it was on a Sunday and the local drinking establishment had an early closing time, so things worked out okay!)….

In my prime,
wayneempire

No.

Yes I have I remember it clearly as if it was yesterday, Airfix old school back in 1964 with marbles as artillery.
(and so too did many of us start the hobby)

Cheers,
Regulars