The other day I came across the phrase “play with gray” on Reddit, a reference to playing miniatures games without, or before, painting the minis. It immediately resonated with me.
The state of the miniature union
I’ve pretty much stopped painting minis.
The last minis I recall finishing were a couple of Blood Angels Infiltrators back in July 2023. (I might have poked some half-finished terrain after them, but I didn’t get far.) I tried to chart a course out of the painting doldrums by assembling a couple Blood Bowl minis in January 2024, but that didn’t take. A few months ago I packed up my painting tools and set the hobby aside — dormant rather than dead, I hoped, but you never know.
For the three years I was painting regularly, 2020-2023, one of my goals was to never play with an unpainted miniature. And I succeeded! And hell, it was a good motivator to keep painting. But at the same time, when I concluded that the juice — the number of games I actually played with my lovingly painted minis — wasn’t worth the squeeze, I wasn’t wrong about that, either.
So with Star Wars: Shatterpoint, I’m starting out low key. I’m going to play with gray.
Playing with gray, and a corollary
If I want to paint for the joy of it, then cool. I’ll do that. But I’m not letting a “need” to paint get in the way of inviting a friend over and kicking Shatterpoint’s tires.
There’s also a corollary to the whole idea of playing as a return on the investment of painting: Time spent painting a squad/army/team/etc. I don’t wind up liking could have been spent painting one I know I love. My Hive Fleet Balaur Tyranids that I painted up for Kill Team are a good example.
While I had a great time painting them, and leveled up as a painter in the process (they remain my best-painted minis to date), that team has been played twice, once by me and once by Reagan, and neither of us wanted to play them again. That’s a lot of painting hours that could have been saved if I’d assembled them and played a game or two before taking them any further.
Like seeing an old friend
Tonight I returned to form, and it felt good. I queued up an audiobook, Thrawn, parked my stained painting mat on my equally paint-spattered desk, pulled my tools out of the closet, and sat down to work on a Star Wars: Shatterpoint squad.
A year on from the last time I did this, I find that I now need my magnifiers to spot and accurately remove mold lines. Given that I picked up a pair of reading glasses this year — long overdue! — I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.
After forty-five minutes of Thrawn, which is excellent so far, I’d gotten Luke fully cleaned and ready for gluing. I usually mark day one with a new game/army/etc. by fully assembling and posting a mini, but as my glue has dried up a little pile of Luke’s bits will have to do.
