Just now, Dice lord said:

I'm sorry to hear that you'd be embarrassed; ppl are quick to point out flaws in other people's efforts (especially arty-crafty types of things) without being master's (or even competent) themselves, so be proud of your efforts.

If ppl don't like your minis tell em to do it better; if they do better, tell em to teach you how!

It's me who didn't like them. I've not given the critics out there a chance to point and laugh....

.... though I'd not blame them if they did. I'm seriously bad at painting.

Just now, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

It's me who didn't like them. I've not given the critics out there a chance to point and laugh....

.... though I'd not blame them if they did. I'm seriously bad at painting.

....at the moment. If that's the case, you can only get better So what y'all got to lose.

6 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

It's me who didn't like them. I've not given the critics out there a chance to point and laugh....

.... though I'd not blame them if they did. I'm seriously bad at painting.

Have you tried the Army Painter Quickshade dips? More experienced painters often post that they give poor results or are cheating but for a beginner they can be a real morale boast when it makes that basic painted model like a hundred times better. They are not much good for storm troopers though due to the white armour. Strong tone works well for most models but best to apply with a brush then remove excess with a smaller brush than dip though as gives better results.

This same discussion came up in the Fallout Board game discussion. I understand FFG's reasoning for not prepainted, such as cost, and I suspect painting it's actually appealing to a vast majority of gamers.

I also believe painting is itimaidating to casual gamers, myself included. I always thought gamming looked like fun at the comic shop, but was intimidated by it. I don't have any friends that are gamers and it kinda a difficult thing to just jump into.

X wing got me into gaming, and even now I keep lusting after Imperial assault. Again, the painting just scares me off as the guys who play it locally are really amazing at painting.

I think a prepainted collectors set in addition to the regular would bring casual players into the fold and satisfy everyone. My own opinion is I'm going to give this a try, maybe I will even attempt to paint (god help us all) i think if I settle on a few units I really love I will just hire out a custom paint job.

44 minutes ago, Moon of Dalo said:

Weird. You don't have time to paint, but do have time to play?

Must be a gamer thing, many don't have the time to wash either.

Not sure I understand your point* but as someone with 2 young kids, a demanding job and a wife that I adore, getting out for a couple of hours on a Wednesday to play a couple of games of X-Wing with a few pals is a treat, trying to carve out time to sit and paint miniatures to get them ready to play can be a chore and - surprising as this might be to you - they aren't actually the same activity.

But hey, if your attitude comes from having nothing going on in your life and endless free time and therefore not understanding how someone might have time to play and not to paint, I'm wasting my metaphorical breath.

* it's either that or you don't understand how life outside your bubble works.

26 minutes ago, Dice lord said:

....at the moment. If that's the case, you can only get better So what y'all got to lose.

That's true, I couldn't get any worse Maybe I'll give the starter miniatures a go. Just for a laugh. I usually don't care so much about starter models as they're there for me to practice the rules.

20 minutes ago, Guest Aeneades said:

Have you tried the Army Painter Quickshade dips? More experienced painters often post that they give poor results or are cheating but for a beginner they can be a real morale boast when it makes that basic painted model like a hundred times better. They are not much good for storm troopers though due to the white armour. Strong tone works well for most models but best to apply with a brush then remove excess with a smaller brush than dip though as gives better results.

No I haven't. Coming from a 40K background, I used Citadel paints. But I'd rather not pay GW prices for paint anyway so can give the Quickshade a try.

You've actually given me an idea.

4 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

No I haven't. Coming from a 40K background, I used Citadel paints. But I'd rather not pay GW prices for paint anyway so can give the Quickshade a try.

You've actually given me an idea.

With Quick Shade you just need to do the base colours on the miniature and it's fine if a little colour is out side the lines. Coat the model in the Quick Shade, taking off any big pools and wait 24 hours for it to dry before spraying with a Matt varnish.

What then Quickshade does is shade the darker parts and highlights the raised areas. The shade also lines all the detail. It is really easy and can look impressive, better then most prepaints.

I would be EXCEEDINGLY happy (as a gamer and not a painter, myself) if FFG would release some pre-painted minis as an option for non-painters. It would bring in A LOT of additional gamers.

37 minutes ago, Stormtrooper721 said:

I would be EXCEEDINGLY happy (as a gamer and not a painter, myself) if FFG would release some pre-painted minis as an option for non-painters. It would bring in A LOT of additional gamers.

I think this is very valid. A big part of X-Wing's success with the casual player is because they can buy it, pop open the blister pack and it's ready to go.

I understand why they are going with unpainted but at best, it's less new-player friendly and at worst, may alienate people (detrimental to long-term game viability).

2 hours ago, Moon of Dalo said:

Weird. You don't have time to paint, but do have time to play?

Must be a gamer thing, many don't have the time to wash either.

Lolz!!!

Oh, I shower daily!

When I painted Warhammer minis, I guess I just didn't do it quickly. It would take the better part of a couple of painting sessions to get a model "just right" for me to be "done." And even then, I still saw little places that could be touched up better.

Yes, I have kids, a wife and a career, so when I do MAYBE get that 3-5 hour in once a week or month, I want to spend it actually PLAYING the game and not prepping or painting a figure or three FOR the game.

5 hours ago, Moon of Dalo said:

Weird. You don't have time to paint, but do have time to play?

Must be a gamer thing, many don't have the time to wash either.

I am sorry that you do not under stand the simple concept of time, and it sounds like you do do wash either so have fun sitting alone and painting you mass armies in your own filth, but those of us in the real world there can be lots of issues on our time. For example I work two jobs and am taking care of my ailing father, so with what limited time I have do I want to play the game I enjoy and have fun, or have a miserable time and paint? It is not that I can not do a good job, but I get no enjoyment out of it and it takes me so long to do.

I also find it funny how so many people are saying that it would be so expensive to offer prepainted units that are going to be terrible looking, but you can do it easy and cheap your self and turn out a much better end product in very short time. So which is it someone with no skill can crank out good looking units in very short time for very little money, if this is true setting up a production line and just cranking out the prepainted units should not be that expensive and look at least this good, or is it going to be so expensive (because it takes so much time and skill to do) that someone with little to no skill with not be able to turn out a decent looking unit? Because maybe it is just me, but I see those two statements as flip sides of the same coin.

3 hours ago, Bojanglez said:

I think this is very valid. A big part of X-Wing's success with the casual player is because they can buy it, pop open the blister pack and it's ready to go.

I understand why they are going with unpainted but at best, it's less new-player friendly and at worst, may alienate people (detrimental to long-term game viability).

I agree on the "less new player friendly" part, but not it alienating players to the games detriment.

In my 30 years of gaming, I've met far more people that won't play because of soft plastic/pre painted models than I have those that won't play because they come unpainted.

I mean....just look at GW, Privateer, Wyrd, Corvus Belli, and every historical manufacturer among others. Hardly failures in the market....in total for wargaming unpainted models ARE the market, or at least the massively overwhelming majority of it.

No, unpainted models definitely don't stop a game from succeeding or hurt its player base.

Xwing and Armada are terrible examples of prepainted minis. The angular ships with only a couple colors are not that expensive to paint, humanoid figures with a paint job even a little bit not garbage are vastly more expensive. It's great that you would pay more for prepainted. Guess what? You can already do that. It's called commission painters. Why should I have to pay more for my game just to strip minis and repaint? And putting out versions with both painted and non painted? Really? That's a huge pain in the butt for the company, and for stores that have to carry multiple SKUs and find more shelf space. How do you decide how much of each to order? /rantoff

Sorry if that sounds cranky, it's been a long couple of days at the Con

Looks like it's time to get that commission painting business I've been thinking about for the last few years finally off the ground!

Whilst I'm not thrilled by the idea of having to paint so much white; I like that they're not pre-painted. If I'm building them, I like to paint them too. And on my desk is already Team Yankee, Hail Cesar, and Bolt Action armies in various stages of painting and completion...

So what's one more system?

You can repaint pre-painted models. So imho the argument here is clear.
Pre-painted I would buy some for sure. Unpainted? Not so sure about it. Though I really like the better quality compared to IA. But I guess, I stick with X-Wing. ;-)
And it not about time, or skill, but I simply have better things to do with my free time than to point minis, and I am definitely to cheap to buy someone else to do the painting. I am actually a little surprised that FFG goes unpainted again.

Commissioned painters are a magnitude outside of what you can do with automatisation to cut prices, so I don't think commissioned painters are a legit alternative to pre-painted models. They are something entirely different.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

You can repaint pre-painted models. So imho the argument here is clear.
Pre-painted I would buy some for sure. Unpainted? Not so sure about it. Though I really like the better quality compared to IA. But I guess, I stick with X-Wing. ;-)
And it not about time, or skill, but I simply have better things to do with my free time than to point minis, and I am definitely to cheap to buy someone else to do the painting. I am actually a little surprised that FFG goes unpainted again.

I think it was clearly explained why here and in the Runewars forum, you can not compare the X-Wing/Armada ships with detailed infantry miniatures, good prepaint cost some money, look at the prepainted Arkham human sized minis they don't look that good. And yes you can repaint them, you still pay for paintjob you might not want. I think there is a reason why there are no miniature wargames feautering detailed human sized miniatures as prepainted miniatures, some tried but they didn't really look that good.
And I'm sure FFG thought the whole thing about prepainting through and as we see they didn't so it probably was not feasable.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

You can repaint pre-painted models.

Yes I can. But why should I pay more for my game to do so?

You can play with unpainted minis.

10 hours ago, Moon of Dalo said:

Weird. You don't have time to paint, but do have time to play?

Must be a gamer thing, many don't have the time to wash either.

People get into games for a number of reasons, but its important to note that a lot of players get into games for the social aspects. And modeling and painting miniatures is not a very social activity. So asking players to spend equal time gaming to assembling and painting their minis is actually a significant investment of time, money and energy that a lot of people would rather spend immediately getting into a game.

Hate on the casual hobbyists all you want, but if I walk into an X-Wing night at any of my local game stores, I can walk to their X-Wing shelf and purchase a core set and supporting ships that can be immediately played at 100 points as-is, and they'll look like a professionally painted demo game. This is a MAJOR reason why X-Wing has decisively outperformed Warhammer for the last year in most game stores.

11 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

Yes I can. But why should I pay more for my game to do so?

You can play with unpainted minis.

Yes and yes. As someone who is new to mini painting (runewars core set) and not very good at it, I would rather pay less and just play with unpainted minis than pay more for even d&d quality prepaints.

For those of you who are unaware WotC charges $20US for 6 minis thats $3.33 a mini. For the 33 minis that come in SW:L's core box that would be $110 for just the models. Now add in the rest of the core contents that puts you up to $150-200 for just the core.

20 minutes ago, Orcdruid said:

Yes and yes. As someone who is new to mini painting (runewars core set) and not very good at it, I would rather pay less and just play with unpainted minis than pay more for even d&d quality prepaints.

For those of you who are unaware WotC charges $20US for 6 minis thats $3.33 a mini. For the 33 minis that come in SW:L's core box that would be $110 for just the models. Now add in the rest of the core contents that puts you up to $150-200 for just the core.

$20 for 6 minis? That's a steal!

Go look at the games Legion is directly competing with, 40K and Warmahordes.

29 minutes ago, TallTonyB said:

You can play with unpainted minis.

I'm not sure why everyone is missing this.

If you're worried about not being able to paint well or not having the time to paint... then don't. There, I just solved your problem.
It's no different in Imperial Assault. Plenty of people paint those miniatures, but you don't have to, and many don't. But that get's a pass for some reason because it's considered a "board game" not a "tabletop game"?
Who cares what the game is labeled as?
Either you enjoy the game, the hobby or both. The game caters for all 3 groups.

Whether or not there's an expectation that your miniatures are painted depend entirely on the community so make it what you want it to be.
I very much doubt FFG will every introduce a "must be painted" requirement that's common to other tabletop game tournaments.
Btw, very few of those other tabletop games are actually designed for tournament play in the same way as FFG games are, which means often the hobby side has a stronger presence than the gaming side. I expect Legion to be more evenly balanced between the two or even skewing to the gaming side.

This is what FFG usually puts in their tournament rules for similar games:
"Players are welcome and encouraged to personalize their army according to the following rules:
• Players may paint their figure models. They cannot modify a figure in any way that would create confusion about which unit the model represents."

7 minutes ago, Inquisitorsz said:

I'm not sure why everyone is missing this.

If you're worried about not being able to paint well or not having the time to paint... then don't. There, I just solved your problem.
It's no different in Imperial Assault. Plenty of people paint those miniatures, but you don't have to, and many don't. But that get's a pass for some reason because it's considered a "board game" not a "tabletop game"?
Who cares what the game is labeled as?
Either you enjoy the game, the hobby or both. The game caters for all 3 groups.

Whether or not there's an expectation that your miniatures are painted depend entirely on the community so make it what you want it to be.
I very much doubt FFG will every introduce a "must be painted" requirement that's common to other tabletop game tournaments.
Btw, very few of those other tabletop games are actually designed for tournament play in the same way as FFG games are, which means often the hobby side has a stronger presence than the gaming side. I expect Legion to be more evenly balanced between the two or even skewing to the gaming side.

This is what FFG usually puts in their tournament rules for similar games:
"Players are welcome and encouraged to personalize their army according to the following rules:
• Players may paint their figure models. They cannot modify a figure in any way that would create confusion about which unit the model represents."

Lol. You're posting that on a miniature hobbyist site. You think anyone **wants** to play with grey plastic models? Of course, everyone wants their stuff to look cool and iconic.

14 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

$20 for 6 minis? That's a steal!

Not if you look at the minis.

44 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

People get into games for a number of reasons, but its important to note that a lot of players get into games for the social aspects. And modeling and painting miniatures is not a very social activity.

Oh but they can be, make painting sessions with your friends, teach each other what you can and help each other out. And you can also do terrain or minaaitures assembling sessions. There is so much more than just playing you can do together.