Yes, I feel it makes a difference
No. Painted or unpainted makes no difference to me
All of my fully painted models have done way better than my unpainted ones, except for Brother Cornelius, my Dark Angel venerable dreadnought, who has managed to kill off, 3 tau drones, 1 fire warrior, 1 possessed, and 1 chosen, over the course of 7 games.
Took out my Eldar for the first time in the new book with a brand new spray based Crimson Hunter Exarch. Long story short, the majority of my army performed very well (they've been painted for 10+ years), but the unpainted hunter exarch managed to miss 6 of 12 shots he took in the game despite having BS5.....
Of course they do!
It's a scientific fact!*
*Citation needed.
Armies Played (in order of acquisition)
Crons, SW, SM, Tau, 1k Sons, IG, Nids, BA, DE
I dont know about playing better, but it certainly hurts a lot more when your brand new painted unit gets destroyed. Now that i have a little more time i find i can get units painted now (more so than before) but i know it really sucks to get that next squad done and watch as my opponent gleefully destroys them just because of the new paint scheme
But play better or not the more of my army i get painted up the better i feel about it
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal) Satire 6
Sgt Ardopholus Rambanar is my case for my vote of YES.
In the summer of 1996, while in college, we were playing Star Wars RPG. We were using the miniatures battles rules for certain events to play them out. We were using a painted Star Trek runabout, some LEGO base plates for the tarmac, an AMT Falcon kit and the minis. Very few were painted, but my one biker scout was completely painted and based.
I as the GM was running the Imperials and left the scenario up to the actual rules of the miniatures game and figured i would base the rest of the adventure on the outcome of this game. This one lone biker scout ended up neutralizing a majority of the party and managed to keep them from obtaining their objective (to steal the runabout or some such...) This one scout got promoted and made his way up as a major antagonist for the remainder of the campaign, and even developed into a major character side store for the 2 tie in campaigns that would be run through the summers of 2001 and 2008. (He ended up being a cloned version of one of the party members from the 3rd campaign who was a main NPC associate of the members of that first campaign in 1996).
So yes, painting a miniature fully helps bring out his inherent abilities as a character :-)
John M>
this is probably going to sound like trolling, but i just don't understand how people need a painted model/unit to think about the best way to use said model/unit. i don't bother painting my stuff unless i think it's good already and i think i will be fielding it more often, because yes i do like the aesthetics of a fully painted unit/army but my dice won't magically get better if i have that.
You know what will make my models play better and my dice roll hotter? Loaded dice
Personally, I don't think painted armies influence dice roll probabilities (unless its Ork Go Fasta Red...) but if you take time and effort to paint them, I think you feel more invested in them and almost demand they perform well, as to reward your time and effort
A friend of mine has a fully painted Dark Angel army and 9/10 times, his Plasma Cannon/Plasma Gun marines roll 1s and fail their save. I don't recall this problem when they were unpainted (same '1s roll to hit' problem with his Necromunda Goliath leader with melta gun).
As a aside, I wonder if proxy models perform better than official ones?
A new 40k player once asked me about Target Priority. Of course I told him to shoot the ones with big swords and close-combat those with big guns!
But the best advice is: Kill the well painted ones first.....
Melissia Wrote: "I think the secret to getting more people to stop calling you an arrogant elitist douchebag is to stop being an arrogant elitist douchebag."