I have a 12yo grandson (apparently I’m old) and we’re both into Warhammer. We’ve all seen the online bitching about Games Workshop prices and much derision for their paints. Very recently, my grandson started parroting some of this, even though his parents buy him the minis and paints he wants and, while he’s gotten better with managing his pocket money, he’s far from understanding what it takes to earn a living or the true value of things. Being salty about GW seems to b a popular thing to do online and is practically a meme people repeat.

FWIW, I thought I’d share my, possibly unpopular view.

Frankly, if it weren’t for GW, painting and mini gaming wouldn’t be nearly as popular as it is. GW made it viable and was business minded enough to ensure that it as a company was not only successful and profitable but grew to the point out’s bordering on achieving mainstream awareness. That’s quite something for what started as an extremely niche, nerdy, quirky idea borne out of misfit creatives from the punk era.

IMHO, people forget that GW is a creative enterprise that supports multiple mediums; lore, illustration, sculpting, painting and literature. While some dismiss these because of their sci-fi or fantasy nature, I regard them as art forms. The quality has improved over time, thanks to GW’s patronage and some of the literature, illustration and sculpting are truly masterful. They then also go the extra step of having a studio with a team of full time painters to paint the minis used in box art. All of this takes talent, human creativity, time and a lot of effort.

I’ve worked for a company that did CAD sculpting, high quality plastic injection moulding, packaging, global distribution, marketing and sales. It’s incredibly difficult and expensive. It requires specialised, experienced people in dozens of fields of expertise. It’s not just a matter of paying a few bucks for a digital download and running off a couple of prints on your resin printer. Moulds are CAD milled and need to be hand polished, each costing $100K for something with a finite lifespan. The injection moulding machines cost hundreds of thousands, if not
Millions all up and then you need the land, factory building and logistics just to get started in what they do.

The first time I walked into a FLGS and bought a Warhammer model and paints was
In Sydney, Australia. I bought GW minis because they were what I was interested in, even before I’d ever painted one of really knew much about them and the models looked incredible. The paints were there in a nice display and looked good and I liked using them. Most people have no idea of what it takes simply to get to the point where your products are real and in a store.

Over the years, again IMHO, thanks to GW’s success, others have entire marketplace to compete. This has meant more and better paint options in particular, as well as some other good minis. In my experience, GW has not sat on its hands and stagnated but continued to evolve and improve. Their paints have gotten better over the years, as have their minis.

Ultimately, for me, the clincher if that I see GW as a company whose purpose lies in human imagination and creativity. Something that’s becoming rather rare nowadays. They carved the market and are successful and, for their sins, haven’t abandoned that core. Yeah, they’ve made decisions I’ve disagreed with and some I’ve been angry about but all of this is an attempt to point out the virtues that keep me coming back to them and why I don’t share the popular view that they’re expensive.

/rant

Including this big map of fantasy

Honestly, I think one of the best things about Warhammer is that people can enjoy the hobby in completely different ways. Someone might spend weeks perfecting the armor on the Lion, another person might be figuring out how to make their first 1,000-point army work, and someone else might just want to paint a ridiculous-looking Ork because it's fun.

I genuinely prefer seeing that kind of variety over every army becoming a copy of whatever list is winning tournaments. Competitive play has its place, but if you're constantly buying new units because the meta changed, it can start feeling more like keeping up with a trend than enjoying your hobby.

There's also something satisfying about using models you actually like, even when they aren't the strongest option available. You get more invested in painting them, learning their rules, and finding ways to make them work on the tabletop.

For me, an army has more personality when you can tell the owner chose its units because they love them, not just because a tier list told them to.

Winning is great, but I'd rather lose a close game with an army I'm excited about than win with a list I built purely because someone online said it was optimal.

I own a FLGS and so I'm trying to paint a team up to showcase the new paints, this team will be to my med standard with the new paints and pushing a few tests while also letting it as simple as I can on most of the models (aka basic paint jobs a new painter can do) and showcasing a could things on the a few parts, these are also with the GW brushes (which doesn't have a fine tip to them).

They have some good qualities and some bad, I'll try to key it simple.

The bad: They are a bit rough to push around and honestly you can't really glaze with them.

The good: they base very well, they actually wet blend together well.

The ugly: some of the steps between colors are to far or not far enough.

The point of these are to make painting easier and quicker. And I keep finding myself picking other colors outside the same line of 5 to darken or highlight better. As well as I'm still needing to mix to get a more gradual steps.

The wet blending on the shield is from Blue Gorkshroom 1, 3, 5. Which for a highlight is fine but to have contrasts for wet blending I find you'll need to pick different colors for a darker or a brighter shadow/highlight.

Then to the black/grey/white. These serious needs a more lighter grey and darker grey, the 5 step isn't enough and the dark grey is too light against the black and the light grey number 4 is too grey for the next step of white and I needed to mix the colors together.

Overall for a new painter I say they are great but will not be good to learn a lot of new techniques on. Adding these to your lineup of paints for a base color is what I recommend them for.

I'm very curious of what it would look like used as a bace coat. If you have please send a picture I'm very curious.

My first diorama!

I've seen some posts about golden demon, some people contesting judgments etc. I don't think people not participating realize the true value of this competition apart from taking a trophy. Its a celebration of our hobby, a meeting with great people, friends etc.

There are each year hundreds of artists gathering in one place and each one of them deserves to be recognized as such. But golden demon is the way it is (which is why we like it) and not everyone can win :) (I didn't and will keep trying).

So keep painting, respect each other's work winners or not winners!

Looks like my final Orktoberfest project for the year. Pretty happy with the base so far, though I'm not sure what else to add. Any suggestions before I finish it up this weekend?

Some work on my reposed Fafnir Rann from Warhammer horus heresy .Around 1h fun and color placement. Still have a lot of clean up and i'm unsatisfied with hair. Not usual space marine pose. I have resculpted his face to "close" his eyes. I'm going for tired after the battle feel.