Its going to be dissapointing showing up at a tourney and playing vs someone that has unpainted minis. This has happened to me at Dust tourneys. But the most annoying part is having a bunch of troops on the board unpainted and the bases not marked to designate each squad from one another. Have others run into this problem? Can a TO require models to be painted or at least have bases marked for like troops.

I have seen Flames of War tourneys where right in the rules it states all minis had to be painted. At least use a black magic marker and put dots on the bases.

I don't have any experience in proper wargaming, but I don't feel FFG will make painting a requirement. At the very least, they ought to require you to distinguish your figures as you suggested, with a marker or similar.

For Imperial Assault, unpainted minis for tourneys is common. However they (FFG) provide small colored circular stickers in their core & expansions with numbers on them for you to denote different figures in a two or three person squad. Maybe they'll do something like that.

At minimum they should make people denote different squads.

As a side note I have played a couple games where we were playing the same faction fighting each other both of us had primed our figures black after I had gotten home and started to re-organize I was short a few pieces. So mark your minis.

Nothing in any game I've ever played required that you mark different squads in different ways. In fact no one I've ever played with has actually done this.

All my Bolt Action, all my 40k stuff, all my Warmachine stuff, Flames of War... None of them are marked so you can tell which models belong to which squad, and again this is the standard that I've seen as long as I've been playing.

Many tournaments are going to have requirements about painting, at one point 40k had a 3 color rule IIRC, where you had to have at least 3 different colors on the model, but that was dropped some time ago.

It's highly unlikely that FFG will require models be painted, since they've never made that requirement for IA, and that includes marking them for different squads.

Even in X-Wing the require you to use number ID tokens to distinguish generic ships. I hope they have that a rule here because number stickers for bases like IA is really a minimum effort thing.

But I will be painting because looking at an entire unpainted army is an eye sore.

1 hour ago, x13phantom said:

At minimum they should make people denote different squads.

As a side note I have played a couple games where we were playing the same faction fighting each other both of us had primed our figures black after I had gotten home and started to re-organize I was short a few pieces. So mark your minis.

Painting to denote squads is pretty rare in wargames. For starters it limits list building, one you paint up green Squad, you're stuck with them. Secondly, most games require you maintain distance between squads.

For what it's worth I played 40k for a while, including a stretch with a high model count army. Never had a problem.

Yeah, I play BA and 40k which require 1'' between squads and you can visually see the different squads. You don't need to make them different colors or anything, you can just se the squads. Oh, also I know both games do awards for like thematic and best painted and stuff like that.

Back when I was playing 40K, I loved it when I played against a painted army, but then again I played against the unpainted too. I used to mark my squad by a different color ring around the base to differentiate.

Also there were different levels of competition for painting armies.

As for legion it depends on the players, the game is what matters, the rest is icing on the cake.

A good rule of thumb is the everyday troops should have at least 3 colors and shading. But the squad leaders and heroes should be done up to make them stand out. Your TO might put up a small prise for best painted mini and/or squad.

But above all playing the game is where it's at.

4 hours ago, chriscook said:

Its going to be dissapointing showing up at a tourney and playing vs someone that has unpainted minis. This has happened to me at Dust tourneys. But the most annoying part is having a bunch of troops on the board unpainted and the bases not marked to designate each squad from one another. Have others run into this problem? Can a TO require models to be painted or at least have bases marked for like troops.

I have seen Flames of War tourneys where right in the rules it states all minis had to be painted. At least use a black magic marker and put dots on the bases.

You should probably expect to be disappointed. Most FFG events are official events due to the use of an OP kit. FFG is almost certainly not going to require a fully painted army to participate in an event. Many people want to play but don't want to paint. These people are still allowed to participate. Requiring that an army is fully painted has the practical effect of pushing potential players away.

X-Wing, Armada and Imperial Assault all have game mechanics that differentiate units... typically through the use of tokens or stickers. I'd expect that Legion will have a similar mechanic. It's very unlikely that you'll run into a situation where you're not sure which unit has which upgrades.

It'll be like xwing. Card by the unit and you can visually see what weapons they have.as for unpainted units, yeah it's visually immersive if both sides are painted, but you'll still have a great time playing.

27 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

Requiring that an army is fully painted has the practical effect of pushing potential players away.

Also why I don't harass people for poorly painting an army. The manufacturers always have these (often photoshopped) display images to help sell the product. Better to communicate that while nice is nice, acceptable is acceptable. It's just as much about the game as the hobby. Everyone is welcome at my table. Except Jar-Jar of course.

Even if he was painted?

Brand new to this. Target market individual dabbling in X-Wing; wanting to paint/build but minus a game. Now, I have Legion. All in so to speak.

History major and big time WWII guy and was a little disappointed in what I think is called "rivet counting" in historical games. I get it. I understand why. Appreciate it the accuracy; effort and correctness. Takes research and passion to do that and understand. As I was debating FoW or BA, did all that reading and such. Then, I went to observe some games at a large tourney ...

What I witnessed, as I searched for a mini game that would hold my interest, was something that drifted beyond polite discussion on potential correct color of an item to arrogance/attitude found in sand boxes occupied by 8 year olds. The sand box crowd being the rivet counters.

It was not a question of painted. It was extended diatribes on hues of colors, which became awkward and sometimes heated. Sort of starts to take the "fun" out of this.

Am I going to learn to paint and model and do all that stuff? Yes, as we speak I have my first 2 latex molds full of plaster, as I try to make my own rocks; a frame built for a structure at scale and some test models order,ed which I can learn to paint upon. What will kill this game for me and, educated guess, folks like me? Rivet counting

Unpainted ... yeah, not super fun but I get. I travel 80% of the time for work so I have empathy. Hassling someone over something like this? 100% don't get the misuse of energy in that discussion and the need to state the obvious. Considering the number of folks from X-Wing crossing over, my guess is a fair amount of primed "dudes" running around on Endor in the near future.

Painted in any manner ... ever better. Effort ... trying ... getting into ... it is appreciated. And I can see where a long time gamer would have an expectation around this and someone new/newer would/should understand/respect the minimum effort be it 3 colors or whatever. I may be an outlier but this is all I have done since Legion was announced. Trying to learn how to model, as I have zero clue. Totally foreign.

Pro painted ... super cool. I would do unquestionable things to have that time, skill and patience level of a lot of you.

Busting someone's tail because they took artistic liberty and or theirs is not 100% accurate or it is a dreary primer black ... misguided. I am coming from the perspective of someone having never done this and entering into it. My vote would be minimum expected effort ... little something beyond primed ... but, if not possible by all ... not a deal breaker for me.

Of course, that is now, as I have not played a single game with my finely painted army against primer black. Or have had that happen 100s of times over. So I see all sides.

Regionals, nationals, worlds... I can understand a higher level of expectation there.

But for everything else, it really comes down to your local community more than anything else. I've heard some horror stories about the way some people play X-wing, but my local community was awesome when I played. I even signed up my 9 year old (at the time) daughter to play in a league. I was nervous since I could understand "the guys" wanting a night away from everything and not wanting to deal with a kid that only knew half the rules. Way above my expectations, they were very patient with her and made sure she was engaged and having fun. I always had a good time playing with them, but they really impressed me.

These are the same people that will be playing Legion in my area, so I know they're still going to be about building a community and having a good time. They will be happy to help and give pointers if someone asks, but they're not going to criticize and start fights just because they can. If it wasn't for them, I'd be a lot less excited about this game coming out. I'd still love the concept of the game, but it's the people that make it fun.

TLDR... find good people to play with and the rest will work itself out.

Just now, Basylle said:

Regionals, nationals, worlds... I can understand a higher level of expectation there.

But for everything else, it really comes down to your local community more than anything else. I've heard some horror stories about the way some people play X-wing, but my local community was awesome when I played. I even signed up my 9 year old (at the time) daughter to play in a league. I was nervous since I could understand "the guys" wanting a night away from everything and not wanting to deal with a kid that only knew half the rules. Way above my expectations, they were very patient with her and made sure she was engaged and having fun. I always had a good time playing with them, but they really impressed me.

These are the same people that will be playing Legion in my area, so I know they're still going to be about building a community and having a good time. They will be happy to help and give pointers if someone asks, but they're not going to criticize and start fights just because they can. If it wasn't for them, I'd be a lot less excited about this game coming out. I'd still love the concept of the game, but it's the people that make it fun.

TLDR... find good people to play with and the rest will work itself out.

You bring up good points about your local group. One thing I don't want to hear is someone didn't paint minis becausethey say they're bad at it. I used to be in the same boat and after playing some 40k and painting my minis, they actually look really good after just watching videos and putting a wash on everything.

I started war gaming back in the late 80s with BattleTech. I also played 40K when there was a 3 color rule. I played Dust as well.

If I am making an effort to play, I am painting my army. I learned to paint and have some horrendous early attempts but IMHO it is more accessible now between YouTube and so many miniature painting sites/tutorials. It does take some effort but if you follow the Army Painter Method you can get some good for war gaming miniatures. I am not a rivet counter but I do try to make them look as cool as I am capable.

GW stopped the 3 color rule when their was a time if they would even be an ongoing concern. It was a way to bring in more people to their tournaments/products.

In all that time, at the club level, it did not matter if you painted or not. My first army I first played with only one figure painted and slowly painted them all over time. Most all tournaments (I believe there are some game systems where it is a requirement but I cannot think of it at the moment) do not care but I hear it is changing. My understanding is there is an Infinity Tournament in Belgium where they spend months making incredibly detailed game tables for the tournament. The rule for that tournament is they must be painted. My understanding is that next year at Adepticon you will be allowed to come hang out and play, but the prize winning tournaments will require miniatures to be painted. There are even rumors the 3 color rule may come back at national or international tournaments for 40K. BeastOfWar.com even had a long discussion and large forum post about this all.

Unless Lucas or Disney stick their nose into this, I suspect that FFG will not require miniatures to be painted but similar to Runewars there may be exclusive prizes for those who come with painted miniatures as an incentive to paint them.

I rather like playing someone who has also painted their miniatures. Otherwise, we might as well play with chits, blocks or tokens on a hex map. Even X-Wing derived from a game that used cards and not miniatures (which came later) to play. That said, there are many who have zero desire to paint. Which is fine. As long as we are playing and having a good time I do not care. However, what I will hate, is if there some entitlement by the non-painters that they "must" be allowed to play in certain tournaments although "painting" is the rule for that tournament. If it is the rule, then that is the rule. I see no reason why there should be an exception given 99% of other tournaments will painting optional. The crying over one tournament that requires painted miniatures I have seen several times.

Lastly, if you do paint your miniatures and make the effort, nobody should give you any cr*P about if it is a good or bad paint job. You made the effort stick to it and you will get better.

For me, the fact that FFG doesn't require painted miniatures in tournaments is a key reason for wanting to start Legion. I like playing miniature wargames, but I deeply dislike painting (I tried it and for me it feels like a chore).

4 hours ago, LordBlades said:

For me, the fact that FFG doesn't require painted miniatures in tournaments is a key reason for wanting to start Legion. I like playing miniature wargames, but I deeply dislike painting (I tried it and for me it feels like a chore).

As much as I would love 100% of my opponents to have painted armies, Looks nice and helps with unit recognition, I struggle In IA against unpainted squads. I appreciate the fact that as a standard rule there will not be a requirement to paint and this will bring in more players.

You're out of luck as far as paint goes.

As for the unit marking, i quote the runewars tournament rules (which in some form i expect to see in legion as well) under "component modifications". so it looks like you're golden there

You're out of luck as far as paint goes.

As for the unit marking, i quote the runewars rules (which in some form i expect to see in legion as well) under "component modifications". so it looks like you're golden there