I'm a Painter, not a Gamer

So I've finally come to the conclusion that I'm always going to be a painter first, and a gamer second. Where many of you read over the rules over and over before you go to bed, I'm usually looking at midget porn...um, I mean painting miniatures, poring over tutorials and painting guides so I can get that just right green eye glow effect I want. Where some might break down the effectiveness of units in their codex and every other codex for every army in the game, exploiting weaknesses so they can DOMINATE the tabletops down at the ol' LGS, I'm ruining my eyesight painting Skaven to a level of detail that would make the 'Eavy Metal team throw down their paint brushes and tear their eyeballs out at the glory of my paint work.

Somebody's been to the Eye of Terror lately! Now let's paint some happy little spawn.

I realize everybody gets into this hobby for different reasons. I try, I really try to be polite and friendly when you plunk down your second hand piece of shit army that you dug out of the Gamer Grab bins at the LGS and didn't bother to strip or repaint. I really, really try to be nice when you kick my ass with your raggedy ass army dudes that belong to eight different chapters or craftworlds or hive fleets or whatever. But it hurts. Deep down, I want to jam my Xacto knife up your ass.

I'm not asking for everyone to get to Golden Demon quality - but that IS the standard you want to aspire to, ultimately - Right? Even a mediocre painter can do a neat, simple three color scheme, and have a good looking, painted army. It's those lazy motherfuckers that plunk down their primer black and plastic gray, headless, broken ass shit and say it's a counts-as army. Hey, I spent the time to paint my army and make it look awesome, what's your excuse? Masturbation seemed like a better idea?

I've heard that sometimes you don't have the time. That's OK, as long as you make some progress. I've put primed units on the table. No problem. But when I see the same army from six months ago, with the same half-assed primer paint job - or worse, shiny metal and plastic - I know you're making no effort to participate in the other, arguably most important aspect of this hobby - painting and modeling. You might as well play with paper chits or just play Dawn of War if all you like are "the rules." Wargaming is a tactile hobby, and if I'm going to spend my cash on premium priced sprues of plastic and lumps of metal, I'm sure as shit going to paint them as well as I possibly can.

Hell, I played at a tournament against a kid that DUMPED his fucking Space Marines out of a Crown Royal bag or some shit. I swear, I almost fainted. Half his shit was broken, and on top of it all, he didn't seem to even grasp the simple parts of the rules. At least if someone has a beautifully painted and converted army, I can forgive being terrible at the rules - that's essentially me!

OK, rant over. Don't take any of this too seriously, but please, please, at least make a little effort to always be improving your painting. I've put in a lot of work learning the rules, reading that damn big book until my eyes gloss over. The least you can do is check out some of the pretty good tutorials on the GW site, and give some of those techniques a try. A painted army is better than a competitive army, in my humble opinion.

EDIT: Since I sound like a whiny bitch in this post (just kidding, really! It's all meant to be light and breezy, for reals!) I decided to go ahead and post some Skaven in progress from the Island of Blood set. Enjoy.

Na na na na na na na na RATMEN!