Am I a painter or a gamer? The answer to that question changes depending on when I’m asked. I really enjoy both sides of the hobby and when I saw this post from Gareson it got me thinking about the balance between painting and gaming. This year I’ve been trying to get more games played as I realised I have a lot of miniatures that despite being fully painted have seen little tabletop time.

That said, I really enjoy painting and that is probably shown by this image taken from the Collection Manager on Forward Kommander
Hordes Collection March 2011
That’s 247 miniatures for Warmachine and Hordes, of which 11 are unpainted and 11 are proxies (my Circle force). It’d be tricky to do, but it’d be great to have some statistics on the amount of tabletop time my different miniatures have seen. That’d give some idea of the balance between how long they took to paint and how much game value they brought. Not that it really matters as I find painting to be rewarding in itself.

If I had to give up gaming tomorrow would I still paint? The answer is probably yes. I guess I’m a painter who likes to play games (but ask me again next week as the answer may have changed!).

Owen