Warhammer 40K: quite glad I don't have the time or money.

[Jericho941]

Some of the spin off novels are fun. I never really got into the actual game play.

I'm a big fan of the Ciaphas Cain series, and Dan Abnett's work is good as long as it isn't about fighter pilots or the Alpha Legion.

[SoupOrMan]

I always thought WH40K was an overly complex system. Poor game mechanics. Quite aside from their habit of making rule changes to force you to buy new overpriced miniatures.

That's when you find enough people who have enough of the old minis and little patience for the new "tournament-approved" stuff. The only time I think a change was actually warranted was with the original Eldar Avatar mini. The first version was basically "I HAVE THE MIGHTIEST HAT AMONG THE SPACE ELVES!", a regular sized mini with a giant crested helmet and big spear. The revamped Avatar had the exact same design but was larger-scale to be of appropriate dreadnought/demon size.

[SoupOrMan]

My current paint removal method is as follows: completely submerge minis in a bath of undiluted Purple Power. Wait 24 hours for the first soak. Transfer the mini to a total immersion water bath and use plastic-bristled brushes to remove the paint as it peels off. I have also tried brushing the miniatures while they're still immersed in the degreaser and it seems to work about the same. I may use the water bath as a rinse from now on.

Results so far on metal miniatures: Some of the most caked-on twenty-five-year-old Testors enamel is sliding off of the metal minis save for places where the detail is too fine. I've got both an Atlas and Battlemaster mech with so much fine detail that I've taken to using a pencil topper eraser to try to force the remaining paint out of the fine valleys and such. I might try a stiffer eraser from an art supply shop to see if that will work. It's that or a wire brush.

The plastic minis are doing great. No softening, no loss of detail after 60+ hours of total immersion.

Testors basic gloss green enamel is my new bete noire. That stuff does not come off easily. The other colors have been peeling off like a stripper working for fives instead of singles. Testors gloss green? Stone bitch.

Purple Power is working just fine so far. You just have to let it soak for a couple of days to get the thickest stuff removed. I've been using an unused magazine brush and previously used toothbrush-style gun-cleaning brush both with plastic bristles. They weren't kidding when they said Purple Power was a degreaser, either. The bristles on one of the brushes has been restored to bright white. The other brush started out black and hasn't faded or fallen apart.

So far it looks like I'll have plenty of blank space to try all kinds of new color schemes as well. I think one or two squads will get some kind of Chapter livery, the rest will be camo patterns. (MARPAT is going to be out of the question on 28mm minis. I was a terrible detail painter as a teenager, I'm going to be as bad now.) This time, though, I'll stick with water-based acrylic paints only.

It looks like I'll have a fourth year-round hobby to keep me away from the television after hockey, shooting and reloading.

[Captain Wheelgun]

Maybe you should try using an ultrasonic cleaner along with your current setup. Let the pieces soak, then give them a short ultrasonic blast at the end.

[dfwmtx]

I wonder what the cost benefit analysis is of buying WH40K figures versus making your own with a 3-D printer.

[SoupOrMan]

I wonder what the cost benefit analysis is of buying WH40K figures versus making your own with a 3-D printer.

Wonderful... until Games Workshop sues you into oblivion.

And no, that's not exaggeration, they've done it to individual gamers who were doing their own resin casting.

Yep. One of the many reasons I'm repainting my minis instead of going out and buying new. It's also one of the many reasons that if I ever did go back to playing I'd avoid any GW-affiliated stores. Quite often your loudest regulars are the ones who live and breathe "everything must be tournament-legal, no conversions" as their build philosophy. I met two in college who didn't want to play me because I had heavy bolters built out of old sprues, 1/4" hex nuts and chopped bolter bits. Yes, they're ugly as sin and I can think of better ways to build them now, but you're not going to mistake them for any other heavy weapon. But because they didn't come off of some official Space Marine heavy weapons sprue with the words "HEAVY BOLTER" somewhere on it with a corresponding "SPACE MARINE HEAVY BOLTER" description in a GW or ForgeWorld publication, they wouldn't play.

The best part? I mean, the absofuckinglutely best part? THEY BOTH PLAYED ORK ARMIES. Conversions are bloody CELEBRATED in Ork armies and they're both bitching about some ugly-ass sprues converted into heavy support weapons. The Blood Angels and Tyranid players were totally cool with them. The Chaos and Imperial Guard army owners gave me some ideas on how to sand the sprues into a more boxy and beveled shape for next time I made more. But the Ork players were beside themselves about two heavy bolters slung under two Space Marine arms.

I guess watching my Devastator squad hose down their Boyz squads with heavy bolter fire like so many South African baboons on a tennis court really upset them. I'd think they'd be more pissed about losing their Dreadnought and Wartruck to well-placed missiles, but hey, it was the Emperor's Will. They pulled their armies off the field over it, so I guess the victory went to me and my Imperial Guard ally.

I stopped playing after that, so it's been about 15 years. Then I got a severe case of link-drift thanks to HTRN's Angry Marines link, dug up my minis and said "Yikes, my paint jobs are an abomination to even my unartistic eye. This must be fixed."

So yeah. Totally blaming this on HTRN. It's not for making Games Workshop going full cavetard in their legal pursuits of intellectual property, but for getting me back into painting tiny little space dudes.

[SoupOrMan]

If I WERE to play miniature based wargames, I'd go for the "swarm of rats" philosophy, and use unpainted minis...

Just to piss off all the assholes.

For a while I was a serious tournament level Magic the Gathering player. At peak, my collection was, in theory, worth something like $15,000 (I had been playing since Beta). In total however, I only paid a few hundred. Most of my collection was either actually collected, traded for, or won in tournaments and/or games.

I sold out after the second major price crash, but before the total collapse. I got about $3500 for everything in... 2000 I think?

One of the guys I played with ran out of glue one day so he played with a bunch of unpainted armless Eldar Guardians. We said they were from the Sah-Vatt craftworld.

[Jericho941]

If I WERE to play miniature based wargames, I'd go for the "swarm of rats" philosophy, and use unpainted minis...

Just to piss off all the assholes.

I'm really bad at painting, so I basically went one up from that.

Take: Space Marines
Add: One coat of red spray paint
You get: Blood Angels!

[SoupOrMan]

If I WERE to play miniature based wargames, I'd go for the "swarm of rats" philosophy, and use unpainted minis...

Just to piss off all the assholes.

I'm really bad at painting, so I basically went one up from that.

Take: Space Marines
Add: One coat of red spray paint
You get: Blood Angels!

Neckbeard the Picky: "ALL YOU DID WAS PRIMER COAT THEM!"

Other gamer: "Winter camo. In Finland. Good enough for Simo Hayha, good enough for us."

*Neckbeard goes into apoplectic fit*

[HTRN]

I wonder what the cost benefit analysis is of buying WH40K figures versus making your own with a 3-D printer.

Like Chris said, GW is kinda rough on people who do that. And if you're copying them, it's cheaper and faster to make resin molds.

Moar on GW and 3d printing