Pre-painted miniatures

[Krefey]

So GW recently announced "pre-painted" terrain:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/fonzhtcp/colour-us-surprised/

Question is, will this eventually lead to "pre-painted" miniatures?  What would that mean for the hobby?  Would it kill off painting?  Would it be just be a portion of the community that would embrace it while everyone else keeps painting them the way they do now?

It would potentially open up access to having "painted" armies for people who don't enjoy painting or are unable to do so for some reason, but also opens things up for people who are "lazy".  Does that matter?

What do people reckon?

[Rossco]

Pre-painted miniatures have been around in fantasy for over 20 years.

Mage Knight pre-painted figures by Wizkids were deliberately sized to fit with 28mm figures from other companies such as Reaper. On the early Mage Knight sets the factory painting was blocky and rough. The later sets had better accuracy at paint placement with better colour choices, so were mostly table top standard straight out of the pack. Sometimes the faces in the later sets still needed some neatening up, but overall there was not a lot of work required on them.

Wizkids went on to apply those lessons from Mage Knight to their ongoing and popular Heroclix line.

Pre-painted miniatures for D&D and Pathfinder roleplaying have also been around many years, and that hasn't stopped people buying and painting fantasy figures.

I have happily used plenty of Mage Knight and Heroclix figures as characters and monsters in my Kings of War armies. I have units that would have cost up to one hundred dollars for the correct figures and then require assembly and painting, while the close proxies using pre-paints were only fifteen to twenty dollars for the unit.

Using pre-painted figures has not harmed my own painting of units. It just saves me a bundle of money and gets my army on the table while I still have enthusiasm for making and playing it.

There are also wargamers who have difficulty painting due to medical reasons. Pre-paints will be an absolute godesnd for them.

[mikewicked]

I personally don't care. I enjoy painting terrain, so as long as unpainted kits remain available - go nuts. I'd much rather see pre-painted terrain on tables than bare plastic, or worse, basic MDF or acrylic board terrain. I dunno - to me, it's like the card terrain from the 90s.

But it's strange too how pre-painted MDF and cardstock terrain doesn't get drawn into the conversation, while it being plastic does.

I'm interested to know what sort of texture this UV resin leaves on the surface - I have a feeling a bunch of toys are "painted" using the same "bubblejet resin" tech, and they do have a slight texture - which is fine for toys, but at the scale of this terrain, might make repainting awkward - at least for washes and the like. (But then maybe I'm being sensitive, since resin printing layer lines aren't really an issue, and it's probably on that sort of scale?).

I am sort of interested in whether this will make it to actual minis too. Right now, I can't see how it would, since my assumption is because it only sprays on a plane, there'll be essentially a seam along the "mouldline" of the sprue, or some sort of "sunsetting" effect as the spray goes over the horizon of the mini - and that will be much more noticeable than on terrain.

But I also wouldn't rule out them creating specific kits designed with this in mind - maybe vehicles, or maybe special edition models.

[Rossco]

7 hours ago, mikewicked said:

...

I am sort of interested in whether this will make it to actual minis too. Right now, I can't see how it would, since my assumption is because it only sprays on a plane, there'll be essentially a seam along the "mouldline" of the sprue, or some sort of "sunsetting" effect as the spray goes over the horizon of the mini - and that will be much more noticeable than on terrain.

...

I have not seen any significant 'sunsetting' with Mage Knight, Heroclix or D&D miniatures, just a minor effect at most. Robot arms can be programmed to rotate around an object held in place on an assembly line. However, mold lines that can't be ignored (e.g. on the head and shoulders) do frequently happen and they automatically get painted over at the factory. To fix the mold line you have to scrape the paint off, then fix the paintwork afterwards. Pre-paint paints can be quite thick, so keep the repair paint as thick as possible.

[chromedog]

There have been attempts at SF prepainted miniature games in the past.
They all died.  Of course, none of them had a corporate juggernaut like GW behind them (and I don't think they had anything resembling semi-competent management, either).

[mikewicked]

8 hours ago, Rossco said:

Robot arms can be programmed to rotate around an object held in place on an assembly line.

I guess I'm assuming it's the same tech as Archon Studio's pre-"painted" terrain, which isn't actually paint, but tinted UV resin, which is flash-cured as it goes on.

And I'm sure 3D spraying machines for this are in the works, I don't know if I think GW would have one yet - the way that the leaked images have "targets" sprayed onto the sprues at the plastic injection points just makes me assume it's a 2D printing setup (I guess like the EufyMake home printers.)

And then the subsequent issue with mouldlines - scraping actual paint from things like Heroclix is one thing, but if this is UV resin, then it'll be a different feel - possibly causing it to chip off, rather than scrape/cut.

But I do realise I'm speculating on something that GW aren't going to confirm, and on a product that's not currently out.

I must also admit that some elements on the leaked images don't fully match what I'd expect from a 2D spray setup - like the hazard striped piping, which looks too clean, so it might also be a multi-step process.

Edited May 21 by mikewicked

[Rossco]

If it is resin, then any mold lines would be a pain to scrape without doing damage.

Mage Knight and Heroclix have always been plastic, apart from one foray which duplicated a few MK figures in bare metal for painters. Makes me think the best pre-painting method may vary according to the material and production method.

I think we need to wait for more details of how GW is going to do the pre-paints.

One additional consideration. Pre-paints will have a price mark-up, but it shouldn't be too gruesome. Even if bought brand new in pack, MK and Heroclix are only a few dollars per figure. The mark-up for pre-painted by Archon studios may seem like a hit. From memory, around USD$100 for some sets, but this is spread over a large number of separate terrain pieces in the set or a very large model with many parts such as the pirate ship in a recent Kickstarter.

A friend who bought plenty of the Archon cave and dungeon terrain sets went for the bare material version. Those sets will take a lot of time and effort to paint well. Having seen how much was in each set, in hindsight the extra money for pre-painted would have been well worth it. The next Archon Kickstarter is for a gothic castle: I intend to go for the pre-painted options.

 

[Rossco]

8 hours ago, chromedog said:

There have been attempts at SF prepainted miniature games in the past.
They all died.  Of course, none of them had a corporate juggernaut like GW behind them (and I don't think they had anything resembling semi-competent management, either).

I remember AT-43 by Rackham Miniatures. It looked good but the company crashed and burned. I have some of the cyborg faction that are very useful as generic sci-fi baddies and am currently using them in games of Xenos Rampant.

[Gus]

When I can I use pre-painted minis but, at best, they cover unique units in my army. So for example for my Kings of War (KoW) Ogre Army I use Wiz Kids pre-painted Giant and Mammoth (the Giant can also work for other armies such as Goblins coz I am a cheap lol). I also reuse my GM Warhammer Gobbos for KoW (painting horde armies can really make you regret life choices - elite armies , like Ogres, have a lot less minis to paint). I also have a bunch of purchased Mantic KoW models too and, have been subscribed to their vault for 3d print models (STL files) as I have a 3d printer, for6 months or so which gives a few options. Great time to be in the hobby!

cheers

G

[chromedog]

3 hours ago, Rossco said:

I remember AT-43 by Rackham Miniatures. It looked good but the company crashed and burned. I have some of the cyborg faction that are very useful as generic sci-fi baddies and am currently using them in games of Xenos Rampant.

There was also an attempt at a warzone or at least mutant chronicles universe pre-painted thing ...  I wasn't interested in pre-painted anything, so I didn't follow it too well, but it disappeared pretty quickly.

I have a bunch of the At-43 containers, and a few of the mecha suits from one of the last factions released.  It started out as an alternate-universe WW2 (with Paolo Parente of Dust fame) but that fell apart and they went full on SF with it.  Paolo went onto other things.  

[mikewicked]

On 5/21/2026 at 4:35 PM, Rossco said:

Pre-paints will have a price mark-up, but it shouldn't be too gruesome.

Yeah, this will also be interesting.

The Archon Studio Prismacast (pre-painted) terrain is only $10usd more than the same kit in bare plastic, so very affordable - but this is GW, why charge little money when lots of money is an option?

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if their uplift is 50% more, or even worse.