why is modeling and painting part of the hobby

[Mike Headden]

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[willz]

Mike Headden wrote:

What constitutes “necessary” when indulging in a spot of wargaming is entirely between you and your opponent unless you are taking part in a tournament or store setting where the location owners also get a say. As I have mentioned many times before, I played a perfectly good intro game of Chain of Command using Space Marines, Elder and a Kellog’s mini-pack with a straw pushed in the front and PzIV/70 scrawled in sharpie on the top. The Wargaming Thought Police did not kick in the front door and drag us off, never to be seen again. Oi! Who said,”What a shame!” 🙂 If, as I have to do increasingly often these days, you play solo and at home then you have almost unlimited options. As I have also mentioned more than once, if you are playing solo, and your opponent disagrees with you, you have bigger problems than with wargaming! 🙂 There is no wrong way to”play toy soldiers.” It is at base a pleasant way to spend a little of the time between our arrival and our inevitable shuffling off of this mortal coil. Do what you do your way and leave others to do it theirs.

Excellent stuff wargaming at its best ……. hang on is that the wargaming police bashing at the door for supporting a heretic😁.

Well done that man BZ’s all round.

[John Treadaway]

MustPlayThat wrote:

I enjoy the hobby as is, but would love vast choice of coloured items.

I’d like a cherry on top too…

What I would say is that I play games with entirely painted by other people models (especially the likes of Konami pre-painted space ships and other material which are executed to a level I could never begin to aspire to – see above and below); I play games with figures I’ve painted myself (again, above and below) and I play board games with unpainted plastic (and cardboard) counters and models. We all do most of that, don’t we?

I love the fact that’s it’s a very broad hobby. Don’t be held back by lack of painting/modelling ability.

John Treadaway

www.hammers-slammers.com
http://www.hammers-slammers.com

"They don't have to like us, snake, they just have t' make the payment schedule" Lt Cooter - Hammer's Slammers

[Phil Dutré]

If you look at the history of the hobby, miniature wargaming has always been very much intertwined with toy soldier collecting, casting, and painting. I have old toy soldiers books from the 50s or earlier  that have a chapter on how to wargame with one’s soldiers.  This started to change in the 60s, but even if you look at Featherstone’s first books, half or third of the book is still about toy soldier modelling and painting. Gradually one sees the “toy soldier” part to take less and less pages in the wargaming books.

But to come back to the original question, no one is forcing anyone. As Martin said, it is a hobby and not a job. However, if you want to game in a club or take part in a tournament, then there indeed might be an expectation to show up with painted figures. The hobby is *miniature* wargaming after all. I also don’t show up at the local stamp collecting club (if these still exist?) and tell them I feel forced to collect stamps and rather want to collect teaspoons instead. The hobby is *miniature* wargaming, and collecting and painting miniatures is part of that.

But wargaming is a broad church. There is board wargaming (no figures at all!) but if you like the visual spectacle of figures (but don’t want to paint them), there have been attempts to bring painted miniatures to market (ranging from Heroclix type games to current 3D printing). Or you can pay for a painting service. Or you can go for a different visual style. E.g. you can simply undercoat your figures and give them a single colour wash. Works great. It’s not the model railroad look, but visually, it does work.

One other thing: many miniature rules and procedures are of course designed with miniatures in mind (because of limited record keeping, limited visible stats, imprecision in measurements etc). Simply taking the rules and replacing miniatures by something else is not such a good idea IMO. Then you might as play board(war)games – even some board(war)games come with plenty of (unpainted) miniatures these days. The truth is that miniature wargaming rules often are less sophisticated design-wise compared to boardgames, exactly because of the medium of miniatures. But the visual spectacles makes up for it all! 🙂

[Phil Dutré]

For a different visual look, here are some images of games I’ve run in the past:

Using paper models for an ECW game:

Using “undercoat and wash only” figures, for a Warhammer Quest game:

Using single-colour spray-painted 1/72 Napoleonics:

I admit such styles do not appeal to everyone (and I do prefer fully painted miniatures myself for most games), but they still provide a good visual appeal. YMMV.

[MustPlayThat]

hey Phil hreat pics of paper wars just downloaded all the paper models I want from juniorgeneral.org there topdown range is pretty what im looking for.

 

[Phil Dutré]

BTW, if you want to have the visual spectacle, but don’t like painting figures, there’s not much to worry about. The visual impression of the table is much more determined by the scenery elements and the basing of the figures rather than the individually painted figures. A table with good scenery and less-than-well painted figures looks much better than well-painted figures on crappy scenery.

Invest in some nice buildings, trees, hills, a good gaming cloth or other surface … and pay some attention to a uniform basing for the figures (can be even as simple as green flock or a well-chosen green/brown/grey paint that blends with gaming mat), and leave the figures undercoated or with a wash only. It does wonders for the visual look of the table.

[Guy Farrish]

Phil Dutré wrote:

The hobby is *miniature* wargaming, and collecting and painting miniatures is part of that.

My hobby is ‘wargaming’ – I sometimes choose to use toy soldiers to pursue it, sometimes cardboard counters, sometimes maps and pens, sometimes one of, or a melange of, many other methods.

‘Miniature wargaming’ is just one small part of a much broader hobby, embrace it all.

 

[Andrew Beasley]

Just found this video: https://youtube.com/shorts/0hF1y153fr8

Mr Cavill says ‘you must paint them’ – so that answers the question ‘why’ 🙂

(I understand he paints his own Custodes – sample here [Spikey Bits])

[Mike]

Ah yes, that video is a classic 😀

[Steven Francis]

I guess for a lot it is fun and gives you the chance to put your stamp on the little figures you have. Personally I would also suggest most pre paints are… Rubbish… And a lot worse than I can do and I am not an expert in any way.  I repainted some hero click models a few years back and even just a repaint and ink wash was enough to make them look good rather than just okay.

 

But I do get that people have time limitations and can totally get challenges with dexterity and eyesight. TBH I would paint for others just to get a range of minis to do and not have the clutter up the house…

 

[Mr. Average]

We do seem to live in the age of labels and categories, and if it doesn’t have X characteristic then it’s not “really” the real thing.  I call BS on all of that.  Unless the International Wargames Commission declares what is and is not a “real” part of the hobby and marches its armed Wargames Commissioners into every club on the planet to ensure compliance, this hobby is, for you, whatever you want it to be. I see no point to using any criterion to include or exclude any part of the hobby from being “real.” It’s as real as you want it to be.

I have zero idea what attracts me to painting these little figures, it just does. I also know a lot of people who just want to push them around on the table and not be bothered, and that’s fine too, and doesn’t make them any less of a gamer or me any more. Spend too much time worrying about what defines a thing and you find all these reasons why everything you don’t like has to be excluded, and that is what bugs me, not the different ways in which people choose to enjoy their personal and social time.

[Mr. Average]

Phil Dutré wrote:

BTW, if you want to have the visual spectacle, but don’t like painting figures, there’s not much to worry about. The visual impression of the table is much more determined by the scenery elements and the basing of the figures rather than the individually painted figures. A table with good scenery and less-than-well painted figures looks much better than well-painted figures on crappy scenery. Invest in some nice buildings, trees, hills, a good gaming cloth or other surface … and pay some attention to a uniform basing for the figures (can be even as simple as green flock or a well-chosen green/brown/grey paint that blends with gaming mat), and leave the figures undercoated or with a wash only. It does wonders for the visual look of the table.

I’ve played amazingly convincing games where the person providing the miniatures simply spray painted one side red and the other side blue. It looked awesome and did not diminish the experience one little bit.

[MustPlayThat]

I think I have figured it out, because looking at the miniatures and terrain is enjoyable too, I look at my tabletop alot when I have a good scene .

[Author]

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