"In Defence of.... Unpainted miniatures in a game." Topic

You know the boiler plate lead in.

Here we are considering. Can there be any defence of unpainted or partially painted miniatures in a game.

Closest I ever came was not having some bases painted and flocked, and I felt bad about that. I just don't see the point. I see this in WH40K at the local hobby shop. The same people keep bringing the armies in. They don't even try to paint them.
I game with friends, and don't put toys on the table unless they are painted.
That said, its a hobby, for fun. If that floats your boat, why should I mind?

Doesnt need to be any defence, if someone doesnt want to paint them thats upto them :)

Is it allowable to do because of enthusiasm to begin playing and he will paint them as he goes along?

Only a heretic would suggest it is acceptable.

Bad paint is better than no paint.

People have different reasons for enjoying the hobby. It isn't my thing as I enjoy seeing a good looking game on the table. However if your thing is playing the game and the game is the most important thing then I don't see a big problem with it.

I play Bolt Action regularly at a club where it is just catching on. Most people are in various stages of building their armies and as long as progress is being made I don't mind playing against unpainted minis. I give a little flak to the guy who has his Finns for a month or so now and it still proxying them with partially painted Brits though.

No

A game with unpainted minis is better than no game.

I did it long ago as young player, unpainted micro armor. Now: Just tisn't done, old chap.

I don't like unpainted metal. However, spray-paint one army red and the other blue and game on!

Personally, I won't allow ANY unpainted lead on my table.

Frankly I'd rather not play at all than see any unpainted lead on the table. I have politely declined to play at other hosts due to unpainted lead.

I can relax my standards to allow primed minis – one of the chaps was just starting in Ancients and had primed but not painted figs and he was so keen we just let him play

That being said, next time he showed up his units were so well painted my minis looked sad in comparison

No.

If there is clear and evident progress in painting the army, I suppose it is ok. If the person game after game, months at a time, makes no attempt to paint their army, I might be inclined to politely decline a game and seek someone that paints. Part of my enjoyment is seeing a well-terrained board with good painted figures…I can step back for a minute and it should look like a diorama. So if someone brings their "ghost" army, my enjoyment is lessened…

In the end, your figures, do what you want with them. But there is no entitlement to a game if the other person disagrees with your position.

damon.

In my experience, this is more of a divide between historic gamers and fantasy/sci-fi/FOW gamers (and I throw in FOW because it has a lot of fantasy/sci-fi converts). I have seen people buy a blister pack at the store counter, open it up and superglue it together, then put it in the table to game with. That's not my cup of tea, but I don't play in those games either. Some of us view figures more as representations of units, while others simply view them as tokens, and an unpainted token works just as well as an exceptionally painted token.

No

We allow them in our Napoleonics games, but no matter what the figure is and what the owner claims the unit is, it only has a morale of 1 (on a 1-5 scale).

Just don't do it out in public where it might scare the horses.

Maybe, to test out some rules or to get a game in. always a temporary thing as I really wanted painted minis on the table

I'm quite tolerant of a child or newbie doing this, so long as eventually he makes some effort to paint. Actually this has happened several times and no one has ever had to take the player aside and talk to him. They all seem to fall-in quite quickly with the club norm.

For me, never. For a young person excited and just getting into gaming, yes. For someone who has been around 10+ years, maybe to test a new unit or rule but I'd expect better standards than I would for the youngster.

It depends. Playtest of a new rules system? No worries.

New player just starting out? No worries.

Player just got a new unit and wants to try them out to see how they function and haven't gotten around to painting them yet? Sure, for that game, I don't have an issue.

If it's temporary, then that's fine.

I can say that if someone came to my house to play a game and declined to play because of no paint in any of the above circumstances, they'd be shown the door and not invited back. There's no excuse to be rude over a friendly game.

There are numerous games I have wanted to play but haven't because I don't have time to paint the figures. Is my life better for it? Probably not. So I have no problem with people that play with unpainted figures if they don't have a problem with it. I don't even mind playing against somebody that is using unpainted figures. But I would never play with unpainted figures myself. I even have issues playing with figures painted by somebody else.

No Defense. I have a whole treatise on defense of painted armies and standards in wargaming here:
link

Ended up being our most commented-on post ever and sparked a similar discusison over at WSS.

79th Pa makes a valid point.My experience is that fantasy/steampunk types aren't into painted minis (usually).I've never played a historical game when someone has unpainted figs.

Absolutely not! If you can't get the figs done, cancel the game!

Unpainted figures do not appear on my table.

No, no, no!

Unpainted figures used in a game are the ultimate wargaming blaspheme.

I would only do it to humor someone who was very enthusiastic and working on completing the army.

Personally I would never even consider doing this. Wargaming is about the visual aspect and that's what makes it different than boardgaming.

I used to do it a lot – very rarely now

However the clue is in the name of the hobby

Wargame

not

Warpaint

Now there is nothing actually wrong with well painted armies, but I sometimes wonder why those that possess them actually bother to game at all. It would be far simpler for them and their like minded friends to put their figures out on the table and sit there admiring them for a couple of hours. Less chance of the paint getting chipped as well

(Ducks for cover)

Don't do it anymore. I would rather not having enough fis and have to recycle or something rather than unpainted.

I agree with Joker. They must be painted, even if one is blue and one is red, even pink. Respect the game.

I use unpainted plastics all the time. My standard is bare lead should be painted a single color to match the plastics they are with. So paint those metal GIs OD Green and get on with the game.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Only if I get the smash every tenth figure with a hammer.

One the very first game I ever played, a guy set out a gun row with no stands or crewmen. He was banished from the kingdom for a while.

There is no way to justify it. I'd rather let someone play with my painted miniatures than play against unpainted figures.

Ditto

The two most important aspects to gaming for me are the fellows and the spectacle. One jerk ruins the whole night. Unpainted minis severely drag it down, as do masking tape roads, and felt cut outs with two trees called "forest."

If you enjoy that, game on! But I'll just watch thanks.

I hate to admit it, but 79thPA is kind of right. My club (all sci-fi fantasy gamers) does seem to be the exception in that we only allow painted figures. Every few meetings or so we leave our basements and go to the FLGS and it's rare to see Warhammer, 40k or Warmachine games with more than 50% painted miniatures.

Heading to Adepticon was a real change of pace. Thousands of such minis and all of them painted up! It was kind of glorious.

I've used unpainted minis when I was playtesting a scenario, and I didn't have all the units finished.

there is no defense for unpainted miniature…the offender should be summarily shot as an example to others.

As for unpainted fantasy gamers….meh, it's fantasy. Their uniforms didn't really exist.

We once played a game in a hotel while at a convention.
We used the minis we bought that day, and resin terrain we bought that day, and played on an ironing board.

So everything was shades of grey, which was really quite cool.
That's the only time, and only reason I can think of, to play with unpainted miniatures.

If it's a casual game, if one of your players just couldn't paint up his forces in time, if it's not going to become a regular occurrence….sure, let him play with his forces just this one time. You can't send the guy packing.

It would never keep me from gaming. I'm here to game. As I often have to paint both armies, I would not put off a game for another month just to finish those last few units. That said, conventions are different. People have paid money and you owe them your best.

Unpainted miniatures are the bane of miniature gaming….

no. it is indefensible.

It's just insulting.One player takes time out to put out a painted army/units and the other player puts down baremetal/primed units. Go find another hobby!

I like the look of the game as well as the game itself. The period with proper uniformed troops has great appeal to me. Your reinforcements can't arrive unless they are properly clothed. It gives the motivation to get your troops painted if you want to add them to the battle.

If we never allowed unpainted minis (or proxies) I wouldn't have gotten nearly as many games in as I have. I appreciate well painted armies and nice terrain and understand why many people don't want to ruin the athsetics. But my friends and I just have never been able to put the amount of time and money into it all to reach tghe level some others have. I'm a sucker for buying minis, not so much for terrain. I have hundreds of painted minis but not one army 100% finished painting. While we try to paint things up ultimately playing the game is more important to us.

Then use counters until your armies are finished. Of course this is a case of YMMV. Gaming is the most important thing? What about the satisfaction of the spectacle? If your group wants to play rather than paint, you will not attract any of those gamers who insist on satisfying spectacle….