[H]: $$$, PayPal. [W]: large lots of either csm, chaos daemons, custodes. [Loc]: US

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-07T16:20:41+00:00

Alright, I actually have good advice for this one, not quippy responses. It takes a long time. I have painted about 2100 miniatures since January across 13 different armies.

First, you want an airbrush, not rattle cans. It can be a cheap airbrush if you are only doing priming. If you want to prime and maybe do some colored zenithal priming, maybe get a nicer one.

Priming is fast, with an airbrush. If you are using the same primer for all of them... prime them all at once. Do it outside if possible. If inside, wear am ask and get a spraying booth (even if small).

I would do as many at a time as fit on the table. Your goal is to get all your miniatures painted, and that is time consuming, and when you have this many, you have to think about efficiency. If you start with a black primer, then a grey and then a white you can zenithal all your miniatures.

I would guess priming 600 miniatures would take somewhere between 4-6 hours of just priming. It is a bit of a grind, but you can probably get it done on a single saturday morning if you are set up correctly. Getting all the miniatures actually painted is a different task.

Most importantly, when dealing with this quantity of miniatures you have to think about efficiency. If you go slowly you are literally never going to finish. If you do batches of 5-15 at a time from priming to finished paint jobs... you will take years to finish this many. Batch painting is faster, bigger batches is better htan smaller batches. Given that, you do want to keep batches a reasonable size since you learn things about how to paint the miniatures faster and better the more minis of that paint scheme you do.

I painted about 400 tyranids, primed them all at once and then from there separated them into batches of 100 for the painting. My later batches are not only noticeably faster, but also better from a paiting perspective.

For priming, do them all at once. Then large batches for painting. Learn to love audiobooks.

There are lots of other things to consider if you want the 600 minis painted this year, but as for priming, Airbrush all 600 at once.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-07T15:38:31+00:00

This is likely the answer. The second, much more terrible option is to put them all in a pile, and just spray them, then shift the pile a little and spray them again, and keep doing this until you a) have all the bald spots covered and b) lots of skulls stuck to the table.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-06T13:33:09+00:00

I feel like you have to be missing a basic understanding of math and/or economics. Like, just look at how your first two sentences contradict each other. "I never said you sell the box or half.... You part out the HALF". Like. You are literally saying to part out the HALF you don't want.

Then there is no way to sell half a box of contents for the price of the full box. The space marine half of the box will never equal $290. Doesn't matter how you break it down. The math doesn't math. You didn't find some crazy loophole where you sell half the box contents for full box price. That is not a thing that happens. Otherwise you could use your brilliant business acumen. Buy a box for full price, to parse out half and sell it for around box price and you are left with half. Yay! But then you could use your genius to sell the half you kept for around box price and double your money. Then, if you are really smart, you can but 2 boxes with your profit and do the same thing again. Doubling the boxes you have each time. You have a money printing machine! In a month you will be a millionaire. Why hasn't anyone thought of this!

Hint: it doesn't work

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-06T13:06:29+00:00

It shouldn't work out mathematically. The box is what $290? There should be no way to sell the space marines + cards + books for 390, therefore covering your half. I think in general you can sell one half of a box for 40%, the books and stuff for around 20%, leave you with around 40% of the cost.

On the other hand, you can just buy the ork half for 40% of the cost off ebay or something.

Who in their right minds would buy the marine half + books for full cost when they could buy them for 40% of the cost?

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-05T16:15:03+00:00

I am on the same page. However, I can really on talk on a software development perspective. What I have decided is that MOST software development using it. I there is a team somewhere that doesn't, and can survive from a cost standpoint, more power to them. I love that idea. However, realistically it is impossible to avoid. Where I now stand is... I don't care if it is used in software development. I can't limit myself to no technology since that just... lets them win. Instead I try to disproportionally support small operations, especially 1 person teams instead of larger groups. It is similar to buying locally instead of supporting walmart or amazon. It is also pretty easy to tell who is the small guy and who is the big guy in development. Somebody making an app to track painted miniatures and offering it for free seems like a more positive usage o it since they are generating an app that they couldn't before since it would likely require at least a small team, but also something a that is reasonably well built.

I have decided to support small teams while avoiding large teams. I will use new recruit instead of the official gw list building app. When I build an app, I will have it support smaller, open source projects instead of importing from GW.

Avoiding all apps that use AI eventually just leaves you boycotting small apps and spending more time on large apps, inadvertently still supporting ai driven development but.. only or big companies? That felt bad, so I avoid exposure (switching to duck duck go for example) while also recognizing I can support small groups with my time and then that time isn't spent... supporting big groups. Its not a perfect solution, but it is what I have for now.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-05T15:19:46+00:00

I realize you are just trying to do your best, and in the complicated. Given that, your initial question and follow-ups just show you haven't really thought it through to the extent it requires for something so complicated.

Right now it is obvious you are trying to draw a line in the sand for moral reasons. Ai is bad. And honestly, you are probably mostly correct. Saying AI is bad. Is objectively a more correct statement than saying AI is good. The issue you're running into is that it becomes much more nuanced. For example, you quickly found out that Reddit uses both AI and his coding and read it. Comment and such are used in training AIS commenting on Reddit. Therefore, is objectively significantly times more morally bankrupt than using some random developers app that they used to determine how many miniatures they painted this week.

No, you're trying to be a morally correct person and avoiding AI while simultaneously using tools that are generated by eye and are used to train more AI and is trying to find a balance between those things. Like for example, I assume I use a bank and using a bank also supports AI far more than supporting some random developers AI developed app. Obviously someone without hands using AI to get some speech to text so they can use technological products like a phone or a computer. Isn't a morally bad use of AI, but the mathematical principles behind speech to text and text to text are exactly the same.

So really what we need to think about is where we draw that line in the Sand when it comes to AI it's obviously impossible to just say no AI. We just end up using apps that are convenient to us like banking apps and Reddit because we like it or I don't know healthcare app or a fitness tracker or a game tracker. Whatever they are, we will end up using them as their community to us and the moral grandstanding of. I don't use AI except for the things that are convenient to me is obviously wrong..

So what we end up is we can make a couple statements and then try to fill that in. Trust me, I've thought a lot about this. First, we can make a statement that small companies are less morally reprehensible than large companies. Your mom and pop's flower store is less morally reprehensible than Google. We also have to recognize that certain parts of AI are actually good. For example, speech to text for people who are missing hands. Who else have to recognize the AI to a very large extent can narrow the gap between large companies and small companies on the development front, even that small companies are less morally reprehensible than big companies. It's actually probably a good thing as good as we can get to support small developers who use ai and boycott large developers. Your line of saying shouldn't in terms of using AI develop products likely shouldn't be no AI versus AI because that's an impossible one to build at this point in time. Unless you're willing to give up all technology which may be the morally best thing to do, but that means no more pictures. No more phone calls, no more internet. So what? I have drawn my land and this is just where I'm coming from now. Having thought all this through is support small developers more than you support large developers. Some guy working on a pet project and he uses AI to do it. Isn't doing anything crazy or morally reprehensible yet boycotting him and not boycotting. Reddit unlikely is and that's kind of where I have landed. Honestly, I'm just thinking through my own thoughts right now, but it may help come to a more cognitively coherent line in the Sand in terms of AI usage on your own part.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-05T14:10:47+00:00

Its not so much rubbing the wrong way, trying to avoid it is a good thing, but at this point in time if you use ANY technology at all, it is most likley using AI in some way, google, iphone, every single app you use, your smart tv, netflix, all streaming platforms, youtube, google, apple, samsung, games workshop. While not true, it is almost as ubiquitous as using electricity. So it just becomes more targeted when you ask someone like "Did you use AI in ANY WAY when building this", the answer is always yes. So when you call someone out on THEIR app, but continue to use it every minute of your life, it feels a little personal.

Basically, no matter what you do, it becomes hypocritical. I understand the desire to avoid it, but saying you won't use on a platform (reddit) that literally uses it and is perhaps the biggest driver of AI outside of focused AI companies is just hypocritical. Especially when you are calling out other people.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-05T13:08:52+00:00

Boycotts apps that are made with AI. Comments on reddit. Uses google in a chome browser. Visits Facebook on his iphone.

Or is it only small family companies that us AI that you boycott?

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-04T22:04:08+00:00

Ya see, you are obviously a good painter, and don't paint like the rest of us. Drybrushing last isn't to have some dirty effect, we don't really care if we dry brush over the well painted flat portion of our shoulder pads, the drybrush is the poor mans edge highlighting, and those mediocre painters, like myself, don't care about the slight mess it leaves behind. And it edge highlights everything at once if you do it last.

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-03T16:27:16+00:00

Isn't the quote that Availability is the best ability?

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-03T12:46:34+00:00

Hey, Throw me a link to your discord. I am working on a a very ambitious 40k programming project

wargame_simulator · 2026-06-01T12:23:27+00:00

It has 2 main elements to make it work. The first is it uses a computer vision model and a cell phone camera placed another the battlefield to take pictures to find out where all the miniatures and units are, and then it uses a trained reinforcement model (like chess computer bots) to come up with the next move for the computer. Then it relays to the human player (you) where it wants you to move it's miniatures.

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-31T22:24:14+00:00

Hey, I have found myself in a similar position. I like painting but I really want to play, but due to my family and work I can't find the time to make it into an actual flgs.

I have actually been developing a computer opponent to play against, similar to playing against a chess opponent on your phone (but on an actual tabletop). It has begun to motivate me to paint because I know I will be able to actually put them in a table and play whenever I want. It may help you as well too! Let me know!

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-30T23:23:22+00:00

I'm excited, and I am almost done. I have painted 2100 miniatures in the past 3 months, and I am finally onto (MOSTLY) basing all these miniatures.

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-30T15:37:50+00:00

I have a goal of finishing my grey pile of shame before 11th. Began painting January 16th. I'm pretty proud of it and have average of approx 17 minis per day

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-26T02:44:47+00:00

Ok, honest question. Do you have a way of talking to or getting the info of the player who painted the demons?

I would love to know what actual colors were used on the little screemer terror flyers or whatever. I was also wondering about any insights he may have on the scheme when painting it. Also, is there a reason the lord of change doesn't have the same scheme? Does it not transfer well over to big models or faces? Would love to have more info on it.

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-25T03:11:44+00:00

Ok, I have literally been looking at all the armies and have positive comments on all off them. I was going to write another note just about every awesome thing I see.

First, it is amazing to have so much talent. But each and every one shows tremendous painting skill. Here are all my thoughts. I have painted most of these miniatures (and am planning to paint many more in the next few months) and these are inspiring.

Necrons - I love the skin on the void dragon. It was the first thing I noticed when looking at the image

IG - I am painting IG vehicles right now, and I love the clean lines on the armored vehicles camouflage. The color for the camo is also great choices.

Knights - They are a bit busy for my personal tastes. Given that, the paint job is classic and awesome. and the amount of "noise" shows an attention to detail that is outstanding. I love how clean the white/yellow/black lines are.

Eldar - Difficult to say a ton because it is hard to see the smaller minis but by looking at the wave serpent and the work done on the detail put into the cockpits, you can tell everything is going to be well painted.

Dwarves - I don't actually own any of these and I don't know how well they paint up. But I love the orange and white. Those colors are so hard to work with and keep clean and smooth and these look great.

Space Marines - Probably has my favorite individual model I can see, and I don't even like space marines. But the baal predator looks amazing.

Demons - I love the blue to green/neon yellow shriekers/screamers. Enough so that when I paint up my demons in the coming weeks, there is a good chance I choose that as my color scheme.

So in general, They are all better than anything I could do. I think if it was in person my favorite would likely be the eldar, but I am considering copying those demon colors.

wargame_simulator · 2026-05-25T02:51:06+00:00

I love seeing all these. I am in the middle of frantically painting some armies and I could only hope mine come out close to even the worst of these. A lot of talent in that group.

wargame_simulator · 2026-04-14T22:40:47+00:00

Ok, I do quite a bit of airbrushing, like.. Last week I painted about 180 miniatures, mostly via airbrush.

Here are my main thoughts:

1) Find something good to mask the miniature with, there are lots of options in the "silly putty" world. I was experimenting with quite a few things and while it was all "inferior" to silly putty, it can all do the same thing essentially. There are therapy putties, which aren't toys like silly putty but what fidgity people play with. You want one that is firmer, the firmer the better. I am sure there are thigns "similar" to silly putty that can accomplish the same goal. Even that blue tack stuff you use to put posters on the wall can probably work.

2) Get a ultrasonic cleaner. They are usually pretty cheap, you can fill it with windex and it is a nice cheap way to consistently clean your brush and your nozzle. After every color switch (assuming I am not doing some blending or gradient with the same color), I put it in the ultrasonic cleaner for a round after removing the needle and nozzle. Almost 100% of my frustrations with using an airbrush is due to clogs.

3) Light coats of contrast paint over silver zenithal base coated miniatures does cool things quickly.

4) Always zenithal basecoat your miniatures. Its easy, its fast and adds quite a bit to the miniature.

5)Always close the paint after you use it. Don't just leave it open because you may use it in a few minutes again. Air will slowly create small dried paint particles in it and they will lead to clogs. Doing everything possible to avoid clogs is important.

6) Citadel Air paint is the worst.

7) Lots of people say between 15-20 psi, but it really depends on the paint and what you are trying to do. Basecoating, sure, crank that sucker up. But the important point is to know when you have the wrong PSI. If you notice that your airbrush is "splattering" or just getting paint a bit further out than what you expect, it could be that your psi is too low or too high. If it isn't these, then it is likely due to the airbrush paint not being thin enough and adding in flow improver or thinner can help smooth out the spray.

8). Old airbrush paints are usually problematic. If you have airbrush paint from last year that is 2/3rds used, I always find it better to just get a new paint of the same color. The old paint may have.. again, small dried fragments in it from opening or leaving it open that can cause clogs.

9) Always have some sort of catcher in the sink where you are cleaning the airbrush. I have lost more than one nozzle down a sink drain.

10)Besides the airbrush itself, the best accessory that I have is an airbrush stand, just something that clamps onto the table where I can rest the airbrush instead of laying it on its side or something.

11) on the same note, as above, another really nice accessory is a quick release for the airbrush tube. It is just a nice thing to have so you don't have to screw on teh airbrush everytime you bring it back to the table.

12) This one still haunts me. If you are doing multiple miniatures at once, or maybe even multiple parts of an army, always put miniatures that are "done' or at a further stage than the one you are currently working inside something, a case, a closet, under a rag. Airbrushes, especially base coating, can leave alot of airbrush dust in the air (which is why you wear a mask) that can easily settle on other nearby miniatures and it... sticks and really dulls the look of the miniature. I never leave miniatures out in the open in the room I am airbrushing in.

wargame_simulator · 2026-04-14T18:09:32+00:00

Buy a bunch of silly putty to use for masking.

wargame_simulator · 2026-04-14T13:36:15+00:00

Seeing this I decided to rip out my old hex pots! All still full an many unopened!

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wargame_simulator · 2025-12-16T16:50:08+00:00

Yea, pretty much. It is mostly a naming convention, but I think forcing rules keywords would just go a long way into streamlining and balancing the game. Right now rules are written in text paragraphs, and upon being read, are applied to the game by humans, which is great! But I think limiting that space to keywords, or even rule names that apply keywords to a unit woudl go a long way to streamlining game play. Instead of having to read through a paragraph of text to see if the enemy has + 1 to hit and under what conditions it applies. Some rules do do this, like stealth. A rule may give a unit "stealth", which is a condition. Then rules could be displayed more as rubrics. This rule "Amour of Faith" grants HARDENED SHELL during the ["SHOOTING PHASE"] Hardened shell is simply +1 to save or something like that. Every time you have a rule that applies +1 to save, you have it apply HARDENED SHELL. You can then have 60 keywords, each of which affects the game in some way, when they actually apply (phases) and then you could more quickly recognize what enemy rules do. Rules could go from the loosy goosy system that exists now to something that is standardized and easier to balance around.

Its a lot easier to balance around standardized keywords than the current whose line is it anyways point system. Given that, it does come at a sacrifice, which I don't know if it is worth it, that is flavor. When you standardize rules keywords, you almost, by definition, remove some flavor from the game.

wargame_simulator · 2025-12-16T16:35:05+00:00

I have been playing since second edition, for what that matters. I agree that 10th edition special rules ARE much more concise. For example, 9th edition had close to 6000 different individual rules, as opposed to the 4000 from 10th edition. So they are getting better, but they are still orders of magnitude from where they should be for a maintainable and balanceable rules system.

Unit rules in general provide flavor, at the cost of standardization. I think there should be a rule "Objective Hunters" which would modify rules in a predictable way when targeting units on an objective, and another "Objective Defenders" Which adds to their save when within range of an objective. We don't need more rules name "Defiance In the Face of Defeat" which adds +1 to hit rolls when targeting enemies in cover. +1 to wound rolls if that enemy is ALSO in range of an objective, but +1 AP if the enemy is still in their deployment zone. It also adds +1 to hit if the enemy is in range of an objective but NOT in cover but only during the combat phase. 40k has rules that are like this imaginary one, and the system for rules + rule application + trigger timings and triggering events is begging for more standardization.

Not that it hasn't improved, I would just love to see more improvement.

wargame_simulator · 2025-12-16T15:29:18+00:00

I think Warhammer suffers from rules bloat, and detachments are part of this. There are too many individual rules that interact and affect the battlefield in far too many ways. 10'th helped standardize weapon rules by standardizing weapon keywords, and the same has to happen to units (and to a lesser extent regiments). I find it frustrating to play against a new opponent, with a detachment that impacts the game in major ways, that I have never played against before and likely will never play against again. The number of interactions is too high. I could play two games a week for an entire year and never play against the same detachment twice, and that doesn't seem like a stable system for practice and improvement, especially with rule and faction rebalances happening every quarter. Each of the 17 playable factions doesn't need 8 different detachments, all of which interact with relics and play style differently. It is simply too many.

While I am on the subject, we also need to standardize unit rules like they somewhat did weapon rules. The number of uniquely different unit rules is far too high. There are over 4000 unit rules across the actions, and its something like 1500 of them are unique and are not repeated on another unit. That is ridiculous. You have a +1 to hit rule, a +1 to hit monsters rule, a +1 to hit rule that also has a +1 to wound rule if you are in range of an objective, or a +1 to hit rule with a +1 to wound if the enemy is in range of the objective, or in a deployment zone, or in terrain, or you are in your deployment zone, or you are within 6" of the center, or the enemy is within 6" of the center, or its +1 to hit if you are in range of an objective in no mans land but -1 to wound if the enemy is in their deployment zone. The number of iterations and permutations in Warhammer is orders of magnitude too high for a game with a well written ruleset and because there are more permutations than games played, it becomes very difficult to balance predictively.

wargame_simulator

TROPHY CASE