I've actually only painted a few models during my life, almost of them as part of my Mordheim warbands. I am a sloooowwwwww painter that would rather do my best and have it take a long time rather than paint quickly to get something on the table. Just my personality. To do less than my best will drive me crazy...

Now that I've truly taken the plunge into WHFB, I've been building my waaaagh and am starting to face the pressure of having an army big enough to play at the levels that opponents want to play at (2K+).

The problem is that now that I'm putting things together besides basic infantry, I'm noticing that some of these models look really hard to prime/paint once they've been put together. For instance, I have 2 unopened pump wagons (1 old and 1 new model) sitting on my table that I really want to play with, but they look really hard to paint once they are put together. The Arachnarok looks like another good example.

What do you guys do? Should I put them together and play, or is it really worth waiting until I've painted them before assembling them?

My plan has always been to build a 2.5K force first, then start painting it unit by unit so that I can be playing games while I spend months and months painting.

its quite a problem, i have models that i cant use becuazse they are in pieces...becasue i cant paint them to a decent standard if they are stuck togetehr etc etc.

but i do have a recomendation but i do not know if you will like it.

so like you said you want everythign to be to the best of your ability. but theres nothign to say that needs to happen straight away.

so what you could do is prime the minis - do all the base colours which for me would be brown green and metalic, stick them together and then go back and highlight up at a later date.


so in a way youll have an army with paint on it, and you can take your time and highlight up to make them look nice.

i currently have 1 unit at this stage which i did about a year ago, they look alright - not perfect but its unit with paint on it and tbh you dont really notice it among the rest of the army.
i dont know your paintign method but i do base colour - wash, then highlight - but i left my unit after the wash stage - so really they look okay.


also maybe your unit can earn their paint! it would suck say to paint up a 100 strong unit of snotlings to find they suck game after game and you dont want to use them. so maybe play a few games with teh base colours on and see what "deserves" to be highlighted first :)


sorry for the wall of txt

I used to paint before assembly but changed to assemble first.

There are three reasons as for why.

1) I get all the joints painted properly, so there are no glue over paint. The paint also covers the little lines between glued parts.

2) I tend to convert models more often, and I use GS to fill cracks and so on. I can't paint before this is done, and I can't convert or fill cracks before assembly.

3) I need my models to play with. Even unpainted models are better than no models.

I am a slow painter as well. Mostly because i do too many things at once and put them aside before they are finished. The thing is that i want to do my best but get bogged down by the useless details. When i restart working on half finished models (sometimes years later) i have given up on the funny details and just paint those simple and fast.....and when they have joined the ranks i never notice the sloppy things.

My point being is that if your brush cant reach it, neither will most eyes.
So (apart from shields) just do the assembly first and paint them later. And safe the special treatment for characters etc.

I am an exceptionally slow painter. Glacier slow as they call it. So we are probably in the same boat.

I would advise you just glue them together first and have fun playing whilst you slowly paint them up - playing a few games actually gets me more pumped to paint and then I do more. The more paint I do, the more I get to play etc etc. A vicious cycle!

The only thing I would suggest is to leave shields off and paint them separately, as well as riders and mounts. As for the arachnarok - most people paint the spider and howda separately and then combine later.

Another nifty idea that could be useful is one I picked up off a bulk army lot I got off the internet; the guy had pinned all his troop's feet to their bases and then tucked the wire loosely under the base. This means that you can take the model off and paint underneath at any time. This could be useful not just for whole models, but to riders and shields etc, where you can stick them in with a pin and bit of blu-tac and then take them off later when you finally get around to painting the models.

Good luck! :)

I assemble first unless it's a complex model like a ridden monster. Then I paint it and THEN I play with it. Models don't get to go on the gaming table until they are painted.

As others suggested you can use a combination.

For the snotling pumpwagon for example you could assemble the main cariage but leave the snotlings off. These you can put pins into and also drill the corresponding holes into the pump wagon.

This way you can paint them seperate but still stick them on for gaming.

Also the tip on just painting base colors first is a good one. This way you'll play with a decent looking army and you get to retouch the models afterwards.

The award system works as well. Units that perform well or are memorable in the game will get their next coat of paint. This also ensures that you don't keep using a game-losing unit just because you have put hundreds of painting hours in them
(snotlings fall into this category because large units aren't viable in game-play so it's a shame to paint dozens of bases of them)

Grtz
-EM-

The one thing I WILL say however when playing with unpainted models, and I have experience with this myself, if you handle them a lot, they will tend to get your hand's oils on the model. This is especially common with metal/lead models and can be annoying. Sometimes it actually affects the paint that you eventually put on, so make sure you always handle by the base.

After it's painted though, a layer of varnish will combat this. :)