Motion for Mandatory Painting Score for all Future Tournaments in MIA

Alright.

So I think we need to really start supporting the hobby aspect of this game more, and I think the biggest way to do that is require a painting score for the tournaments we run as well as really encourage players to at least "show progress" on their painting. I mean hell, if requiring all armies to be painted will get LUIS to paint a full 2250 army, then the rest of us just need to get our acts together.

I watched a Fantasy game last week, with two fully painted armies, and it was pretty sweet. It made me want to just stop playing my WoTR game and watch. We need more like that.

Do I think we need to just bash everyone who doesn't paint quickly? No, not at all. However, I have noticed a drop off in painting posts since the Dragon closed, and they had the pretty intense painting score.

I'd like to see the painting score be at least 30% of the total, simply cause I believe anything else players will shrug it off.

What do you guys think?

I am all for a painting score. Nothing is more annoying to me then people who come with Silver horde week after week. I am not saying that they should be painted to amazing standards just that people make an effort and have more then 2 colors on the model.

I mean with the new dipping thing Eric(Hurricane) showed me, even Luis can now paint an army. And that is saying a lot since I think blind Chimps can paint better then Luis.

I've expressed my views on this before on the Dragon Boards. I think painting should be included in the score, but only as a tiebreaker.


Here is my rationale. The game we play is just that, it's a game. During a tournament, there's going to be a winner, and a loser, or a draw. It is the essence of competition. Painting is not a competitive endeavor in itself, it's a personal thing. Something that we also share with others.

If you want painting as a competition, and reward people who spend a lot of time on how their army looks, than have a painting challenge during the tournament, or a best painted army award. This way, a person who paints well can still receive recognition, and be rewarded for his hard work. By creating a separate recognition for good painting, you are awarding people who have time and talent to paint, but you are not penalizing people who lack the time or skill to present painted armies.

I wholly agree with you Dan, about the fact that it would be nicer to see more of the hobby aspect in our game, but I don't think pressuring people to paint in order to compete in tournaments is the right way to go about it. It's negative reinforcement. You're applying an intolerable situation, which can only be ameliorated by increasing the behavior which you want to see (in this case, better painting) You may get negative responses for that. For instance, I'm someone who tends to have time to either play, or paint. I usually don't have time to do both. So if forced to paint in order to compete, I may become resentful or disillusioned.

If you want people to paint, make it a positively reinforcing situation. Create painting workshops, painting challenges, speed painting contests, and stuff like that. Maybe we can even create a monthly Sunshine Daemon Award , that's posted on the traitor legion for everyone to see. That would be cool.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

30% is WAY to much to place on painting. Like Stephan said, on a tournament setting scorign should be
based on how well you played, not how well you paint.
Yes, having 2 painted armies on the board makes the game looks a lot prettier, but my painted mini is not gonna make me a better General just cause it looks awsone.

Make paiting a part of the score, maybe worth one point per game if you have a fully painted army.

Yes, i did paint 2500 points of Tomb Kings in a couple of weeks, but i aint looking foward to do that again for a while ( nother 13 years or so )

ps: screw you javi ! i would OWN that chimp !

There are lots of possibilities and I completely agree about the opportunity of negative re-inforcement for having a painting score. Maybe doing some of those painting events would work to, but then those would take away from the tournaments (I don't know how many events Joel would put up with for Fantasy).

I just want us as a community to take a serious look at the hobby aspect and decide what is the best way to actively promote the hobby aspect of the game.

More suggestions! I went a drastic route on purpose, so lets get alot of more middle - of - the - road ideas like Stephan's!

How about quality instead of the usual quantity?
Why should a thousand dipped models be better than one model done in a week?

The Eldar Guy wrote:How about quality instead of the usual quantity?
Why should a thousand dipped models be better than one model done in a week?

HORDE HATER !

I'd like to see us include paint score.

I agree that it should be @25% so that it has impact, but is not the overall deciding factor.

I'd like to see us use a system that awards clear cut points and not one based on subjective opinions. Anyone meeting all paint "objectives" would get a full paint score. This keeps things fair between all artist skill levels.

I would have won the last fantasy tourney if Nate included the paint score.

Something like this?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=300005&pIndex=9&aId=3400027&start=10

10 Points max shouldnt be bad, it wont make someone that lost 2 games win the tourney caue they had a fully painted army.

10 points broken up as this:
1-Painting is Uniform: Not a mix of schemes, styles, and looks.
2-Army is fully painted, but only to the three-color standard of basecoating.
3-Details: Details are painted such as eyes, buckles, and jewelry.
4-Clean Highlights: Lines are neat, drybrushing is appropriate, inking is controlled and not sloppy.
5-Based/Detailed: Bases have basing materials (flock/sand/tiles) or details painted on them.
6- Minor: Units have multi-kit conversions including head and weapon swaps. This is for more than a few models such as a unit.
7- Major: The army has some difficult conversions that use things such as putty, plastic card, drilling, sawing, minor sculpts, etc. This could also apply to the entire army having very well done multi-kit conversions (see above)
8- Highlights have been blended, shaded, or layered well – beyond the basic highlighting techniques of drybrusing and inking.
9- Masterful Blending: Highlights have been masterfully blended, shaded, or layered.
10- Overall Appearance: Overall appearance is amazing! Everything works great together to create an awesome scene.

This will give points to soem of us that dont do to well on painting if we manage to fully paint an army, and it will reward greatly those that put the extra time and effort to make their armies look pretty damn good.

A good/bad reasons I could think of off hand to adopt the 40pt(21%of total) GT score system is the following:
Good:
1) Its is common, universal.
2) It is tried and tested.
3) It factors in different aspects of painting and modeling and weights them according to difficulty, complexity, and overall appearance and rewards them accordingly.

Bad:
1) As with any painting score it alienates newer players.
2) It would require adjustment in points available to be earned (GT maximum of 190pts, I believe)


I like it because it weights in a number of factors, not all equally. There is also various ways to earn the 40pts. While there are 45points available there is a 40 point max. It can be earned by painting your entire army using blending methods and freehand work with spectacular basing and creativity. Or if, like most, can't paint like a gold daemon winner they can instead rely on conversion works to make up for dry brushing and whatnot.

and hell, if you want a smaller painting score you just total up the points and cut it in half for 10%.

Yeah Chris - that is the idea.

You would need to adjust the max to balance in with the 3 game event (vs. the 5 game weekend), but otherwise that would work.

Why should we emulate a gaming a environment (GT's) that most of us see as ultra competitive, and quite pressurized. An environment where people go and pay to have their armies professionally painted in order to have a chance of competing. Is that what we want.

Chris, in the negatives you mentioned above, the one that stands out to me the most is the fact that it alienates new gamers.

We really need to think about that. It's one thing to offer support and encouragement for a new gamer to paint his army. It's quite another to pressure the person into painting if he wants to compete.

Now I know you're all thinking... " There goes Stephan again, being oppositional just because he wants to be able to bring his cheezy vampire counts and Chaos Knights without having to paint them... and he's whining about not being able to win any tournaments unless he paints them "

But honestly folks, that's not really what I'm worried about. My self esteem is strong enough to handle not winning tournaments. So are my pockets, so store credit is not a big issue for me either.

To me it's the competitive aspect of the tournament. To me, the game, whether you win or lose should be about tactics and generalship, not what occurs outside of the tournament. Those games I had against Chris, Cosmo, and Luis, were awesome last tournament ! The most fun in a tournament I've had in a long time, and it had nothing to do with how the models looked on the table top.

Bill you mentioned that if Nate had included a painting score in the last tournament you would have won. Do you honestly think that would have been fair, considering I went undefeated with 2 massacres and a minor victory?

I'm just having a hard time considering the idea that someone can win a tournament based on their skill with a paintbrush, instead of their skill on the table top.

Also,

(sorry guys, but this is a very interesting topic that Matt and I used to discuss at length)

Chris brings up the very valid point of quality over quantity.

Why should someone who briefly paints 3 colors on a bunch of models and dips them get more points than someone who creates a beautiful piece of art on a single model.

I remember Matt lamenting to me that he had a beautifully painted ork army (which it really is) with the exception of a few un painted pieces that he never got around to finishing yet. But others scored more points then him in tourneys because they had a fully painted army, not half as well painted, but fully painted none the less.

To me that makes no sense.

Yea lot of the competitive players you see at the GT's and shit don't even paint their own stuff. I never was a fan of the idea but perhaps other incentives could be good, such as cutting back the main event prize and having a separate category for painted prize giving. Or perhaps giving out a prize to those who have been showing improvements to their forces and progress.

You had 2 massacres and a minor victory with a ZERO painted army.
I had 2 massacres and a minor loss with a FULLY painted army.

It is quite fair to pass you on paint and win in that situation. So yeah, I would have been OK with that.

As for subjective judges - I already said I think they should be yes/no paint objectives so that skill does not come into play. I don't think we want to punish the lesser artists in the game group, but we DO want to encourage them to paint their stuff.

Of course it is always optional to paint. You still get to play in the tourney.

I dont paint, but i understand where someone that paints would liek to see their efforts rewarded and ho painting the figs is part of the hobby.

I jut dont want this to degenerate to what the dragon was where having a fully painted army was worth a massacre in points, i lost many a tournament there because my army was unpainted and someone who actually scored lower than me in wins won the tournament.

Who knows when the nexr fantasy tournament is gonna be, but we really do need to get this resolved before then, i say put up a poll and let the majority rule, or set up some type of council and let them decide the fate of the painting scores or other things for the tournaments.

shit then I should just go ahead and dip my shit.

There is no reason to exclude a quality aspect in this whole "Paint your army" thing.

This is about emphasizing the hobby aspect. Learn to paint. Simple as that. I can line up my models from oldest to most recent and anyone would be able to see a major degree of change. -Anyone- can get better (barring physical handicap, of course) as long as they want to.
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Edit:
Personally, my opinion is that a small inclusion of a painting score, 10% or so, wouldn't be game breaking but would also break up ties and have an impact on the overall scoring. When I played at the Silver Dragon I thought the whole painting shit was complete bull mostly due to the fact that I was a new player. If there is anything everyone wants it is new players. Some people need more than personal gratification for painting their army, and that's perfectly fine, but it shouldn't be so that players literally have to force out an army to compete.


btw, Isn't the next tournament coming up in next month? If anything painting shouldn't be included in the very next tournament. If people want to start doing it give people two or so months until the next tournament to paint (and paint well) their army.

Sorry Bill, I thought I you had a draw in there. Wasn't your last match a draw? I can't remember. Anyway, I made that comment thinking that you had a Massacre, a loss, and a draw. So I thought it was ludicrous to say you would have won the tourney. With 2 massacres and a minor loss, you wouldn't have been that far behind in points, so I can see where you're coming from now.

Still, something just sits wrong with me with that. You have 1 person who went undefeated, and most likely had to play the 1st or 2nd best player going into round 3. The other person lost one of their games and most likely did not have to face a point leader in the last round. How should the fact that one army is painted and the other is not be the difference there? I'm not seeing it.

It's about embracing the hobby as a whole. You deserved the best general award for that tourney. Best overall, I'm not so sure.

The next fantasy tourney is 'Ard Boyz in late September - where paint is not counted. So regardless, nothing will change until some time after Halloween.

There will be Fantasy tournament before that. Look tomorrow, for I will post details then. It will be in August.

As for the tournaments, it's exactly that, what Bill said. It's about Best OVERALL, not necessarily Best General. I think we include some portion of the other aspects of the game.

However, I'm all game for including a seperate area for "best painted army" or "best painted model." I think that is a great way too.

Now, as for painting counting the score, I think it needs to. Not maybe as radical as I put it, but it needs to weigh in somehow. I've watched guys from other places throw together a bunch of shit to play an undead army to win a tournament, simply cause thats what they wanted to do. I'm not saying that happens here, but I think we need to encourage the whole hobby.

What I think needs to happen is we need to create an objective, painting system which accounts for quality AND quantity. For example, you can recieve X number of points for having a fully painted army, but X is not the total. Someone with not a fully painted army, but say, half a army painted AMAZINGLY, can get Y number of points, which is not the total, but somewhat comarible to X (depending on amount painted, etc.) Only when you have a fully painted army AND it's done well will you get the total amount, which would be X and Y combined.

This way your rewarding both quality AND quantity, providing for those players who are aiming for a good table-top standard to still do well, but providing those players who put extra time and effort a little extra push. Should it be game changing? Thats to be decided, but I think it needs to contribute.

While I see your point Stephan about tournaments being the way they are, I feel that we need to show that we support the fully hobby by including painting scores into the tournaments.

Perhaps we should just increase our tournament entry fees to $10 and include prizes for Best General and Best Painted Figure? I'd be game for that.

Look, just like table fees , I've expressed my views as best I could, but I'm only one person. I respect the fact that in the end , it's majority rules because that's what makes us a community. If painting is included more in scoring, I'll deal with it, it's not a life changing decision.

Keep in mind though that if you are going to emulate GW tournaments, we need to make sure that other aspects of the scoring system are included. Like do you allow opponents to rate your army? That's intergral to the way they do it right? Are you going to use their system of sportsmanship too? How will you take into account armies that have been proffesionally painted? Or have had parts of it pro painted. Or what if parts were painted by someone else in the gaming community. If we are going to do this, it needs to be well thought out, not like Izzy who just tacked on 30 points at the end of your tournament for a nice looking army.

This requires more thought me thinks.

Opponents don't rate other people's armies in GTs. They are scored on three things: Battle points, Painting, Sportsmanship. I just think they do it very well.

Also, 3/10 of the points on sportsmanship are questions about "do you like the guy?" while the rest is all about "Did your opponent show up on time?" (for example).

Adopting a painting score checklist doesn't necessarily require the sportsmanship checklist.


I don't' really like painting scores, I believe it takes away from the hobby aspect. Instead of people just painting because they really want to some just do it for extra points.

As an FYI, I posted the August Fantasy tournament in the "Find A Game" section, check it out!