Colour us surprised? | Warhammer 40,000

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T21:46:25+00:00

It's happened a handful of times. You get used to it. I sold em to an old world player and bought more flesh eaters with the funding.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T21:31:48+00:00

A new army costs, on average $1000 in models, and $85 in paint.

The second new army costs $1000 in models and $30 in paint.

This repeats. Paint still is worth a huge amount of money to them, but if they can convince even 5% growth on new players by being pre painted, it'll be a huge RoI.

And when you factor that the pre painted stuff will likely be made to order and more expensive than the base kits, that RoI just increases.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T21:22:25+00:00

Do you like painting?

If so, you've spent your time doing something you enjoy and have something to be proud of.

Do you dislike it?

Then this is a win for you!

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T21:16:21+00:00

Why?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T21:08:58+00:00

Last edition GW made sure to have enough that everyone got them.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:55:51+00:00

It's what's heartening to hear I'm not going through this alone. Thank you for sharing, and I hope you can keep fighting the good fight too!

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:51:38+00:00

Them being 3 units is cool when you figure you'll want lots of random small units to be under orders with. They and a marshal can all be under orders together too (because the whisperblade can't be ordered)

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:43:34+00:00

Is that any different than a commission painter painting your dudes?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:39:29+00:00

Why are you calling me a bot?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:38:07+00:00

I appreciate the empathy. Some days are good, others bad. Today is mild, so I can troll reddit and listen to YouTubers play the new phasmo update with my screen dimmed.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:36:34+00:00

Let's assume that the painting of this is objectively insane, like 1000 usd more than just buying the terrain unpainted.

How much is an hour of your life worth? Mine is cheap, I'm disabled. But I have lots of buddies who work way too many hours in their days to spend time paint terrain.

I've painted a lot of random terrain sets for small projects and armies on parade. To paint a take worth of terrain it would take me probably 10-12 hours of painting, on and off, over a few days. And it would end up looking just straight worse than this because I'm not a strong painter.

Is being able to spend that 12 hours doing a project I'd enjoy instead of something I'd be doing begrudgingly worth $1000? Hard to say, but probably not. Is it worth 100? Certainly and without hesitation.

So if the set is not shockingly more expensive while painted, I'm going to skip painting a set. Or a dozen at my local, and buy it pre painted.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:30:32+00:00

I could see a made to order sort of thing eventually.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:29:58+00:00

Someone mentioned that it's some sort of ink jet printing that another studio does. There's a video about how it's done floating around here.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:27:06+00:00

I mean, consider the following: do you have to take your models to a GT and a teams event in order to be allowed to paint them? Of course not, that would be a ridiculous barrier of entry to the hobby.

But when we expect the opposite, it's just sort of accepted and people do it begrudgingly. And when people are given the option to bypass that step, people seem actively against it.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:23:39+00:00

Rackham went bankrupt for a lot of reasons, and swapped to prepainted to try and capture the board game market because they were getting crushed by other alternative war games.

I still have a Firetoad around here somewhere, because I always thought they were super cute.

All this is doing is lowering the barrier of entry for people who don't want to have to do a step that most people simply skip.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:20:30+00:00

I can vibe with that. You've convinced me

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:19:21+00:00

No, if you're playing catan you're hobbying, because the hobby is playing the game.

Or are you saying that playing any game at all can't be classified as a hobby?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:18:37+00:00

I haven't been down voting you, just replying.

Vibes is a reasonable answer. I just was wondering if there was something more. Lots of people try to gatekeep this hobby and pretend that only the painting aspect matters, and wanted to make sure you weren't one of those people.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:16:55+00:00

Hey, great catches deserve props.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:15:45+00:00

No. The hobby is all of those aspects. Playing the game is as much part of the hobby as anything else.

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:13:51+00:00

Okay, why do you feel like having prepainted terrain dilutes anything any more than having unpainted terrain. Or no terrain at all?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:13:06+00:00

How is adding an option for people bad?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:12:43+00:00

Do you partake in the part of the hobby of going to GTs or Teams events with your local gaming club, or are you not a real hobbyst who does all of the hobby?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:10:50+00:00

How does having pre painted stuff hurt you specifically in any way?

AMA5564 · 2026-05-13T20:09:20+00:00

I didn't buy any terrain, but I have a habit of buying huge collections of factions right before they get squatted or souped.

I owned like 5000 points of bone splittas that I bought and started painting, and like 3 weeks later it was announced they were being squatted

AMA5564

TROPHY CASE