Grey

A grey is a wargame miniature that has been assembled but not yet painted. The name comes from the grey color of most plastic and resin kits or the tarnished pewter of unpainted metal. While playing with greys is frowned upon in most GW stores and tournaments, and painted armies look awesome, having an unpainted army makes no difference to actual gameplay. Necrons are the only army that does not need painting in order to look realistic, as their vanilla paint scheme is already grey. Even though completely unpainted models are generally referred to as greys, primed models can also be considered greys, since no actual detail paint has been applied to them.

Not to be confused with greens, the master sculpts for production models, which comes from the yellow/blue binary resin (aka "Green Stuff") used to make them.

In Space Station 13, assistants are the lowest ranking individuals on the station, and start play with a gray jumpsuit and no access to anything important. New players tend to start with this role, as a way to get used to the game's odd controls before trying anything more important. 'Grey' is a quick yet non-specific way to refer to an assistant.

Gandalf used to be one of these, before somebody finally put a white base coat on him.

Grey Tide

A term with multiple meanings, depending on context and community.

• Sometimes used to describe the typical new Ork player, fielding large amounts of unpainted boyz. In their defense, when you've got three hundred basic infantry models, painting does get to be something of a chore.
• Occasionally used to describe a sudden influx of new players to a local gaming scene, particularly if those players are young. In some areas a new group of high school kids discover 40k for the first time every other year or so, bringing a pile of players with freshly de-spru'd models.
• Space Station 13: Sometimes assistants will group up in a sort of proletarian riot, commonly known as 'The Grey Tide'.
• Also, the Gray Tide is a Principality in the Eberron game setting.