Painted Armies for Tournaments

[wildbill]

I have zero mod status, but based upon the sub-topic in the ReaperCon Warlord thread, I started this one so people could wax philosophic about a painted army requirement in tournament.

 

Since I'm kicking off this here shindig, I guess I'll spit out my two cents.

 

I own 3 armies right now: Dwarves, Darkspawn and Razig. The first two are painted. The third is partially. I'm not a painter. I could care less about painting. I pay people to paint my armies. I doubt my Razig army will ever get finished since I never field them anywhere outside of my house, and usually they are used as proxies for something else. I don't want to see Reaper become like GW in that they require people to have painted armies. You can't go to a Rogue Trader or Grand Tournament without a painted army. Period. You will lose points from your total and thus won't win any prize at all. So why bother playing?

 

Now, if you want to include a best painted army prize that is really fabulous (like a set of paints or something), then that is motivation for people to paint their army as fabulous as they can. But, I want to see the option stay open that allows me to show up on Friday (or even Saturday morning!), purchase a brand spanking new army, glue it together and then play it in the tournament. I shouldn't get docked points because I chose to spend $100-200 dollars on minis for a new army.

 

Anyways, like I said, my two cents.

 

Wild Bill

[Feanor]

Agreed, I like to paint my stuff anf I like playing with painted minis but I would certainly not want to see it become a rule or points thing.

I do support a seperate prize for best painted but not have it tied to overall winner.

[Doug Sundseth]

I'm not a painter. I could care less about painting. I pay people to paint my armies. I doubt my Razig army will ever get finished since I never field them anywhere outside of my house, and usually they are used as proxies for something else. I don't want to see Reaper become like GW in that they require people to have painted armies. You can't go to a Rogue Trader or Grand Tournament without a painted army. Period. You will lose points from your total and thus won't win any prize at all. So why bother playing?

 

According to your description, you can field an army that is unpainted. Thus, there is not a requirement that armies be painted for GW events. This is but one of the many reasons that I'm not interested in GW events.

 

But, I want to see the option stay open that allows me to show up on Friday (or even Saturday morning!), purchase a brand spanking new army, glue it together and then play it in the tournament. I shouldn't get docked points because I chose to spend $100-200 dollars on minis for a new army.

 

If I'm going to go to the trouble to travel hundreds of miles to play in a miniatures tournament, I want to play against painted armies. That's much of the reason that I bother with miniatures rather than just counters the same size as miniature bases. After all, counters are much easier to understand, can carry much more information, and don't require proxies.

 

FWIW, I've never seen a historical army at a convention that was unpainted. (It must be said that I've seen some pretty dubious proxies, though.) Historical armies usually field more figures than fantasy or SF armies, too. If they can do it, you can do it.

 

All that said, if you want to play with your buddies, I don't care what toys you play with or how you prepare them. For that matter, if a convention organizer advertises that painting is not required (or miniatures are not required), it's his business. I'll probably skip the event, but there are lots of events that I skip; no hard feelings on my part.

 

Upshot? I disagree with you. I want only painted armies in convention tournaments.

[WizardOne]

...Now, if you want to include a best painted army prize that is really fabulous (like a set of paints or something), then that is motivation for people to paint their army as fabulous as they can...

Maybe the paint set prize should go an army with the saddest paintjob? The guy with the really spiffing paintjob may have bought his figures that way and never lifted a brush while the guy who shows up with a regiment from his Legion of Bare Naked Metal (LBNM) may have chosen to do that instead of show off some truly awful paintjobs. It is possible to make a mini look worse with paint, it is, BTDT.

 

 

...You will lose points from your total and thus won't win any prize at all. So why bother playing?

Because pushing little model soldiers around on a tabletop is fun.

 

 

...But, I want to see the option stay open that allows me to show up on Friday (or even Saturday morning!), purchase a brand spanking new army, glue it together and then play it in the tournament. I shouldn't get docked points because I chose to spend $100-200 dollars on minis for a new army.

 

Anyways, like I said, my two cents.

 

Wild Bill

OK, If I understand this, you would like rules that encouraged (other) people to paint their armies whilst not penalizing your LBNM army? ?? Are those the key points?

 

My two cents:

I bailed on the Saturday Tournament (even though I was signed up in advance) partly because of the mostly unpainted and sad state of my army (there were some other factors also—Saturday was just not a great day.) But I was glad to read that there were plenty of other folks eager and available to play.

 

Some small reward(s) that effect play for people who show up with totally painted armies would not be a terrible thing:

—Your army is fully painted; mine is not = you get an extra action card.

OR

—Unpainted armies are always matched against each other in the first round as much as possible. (So that peeps who showed up with painted troops can at least enjoy viewing a similar opponent in round one.)

OR

—Scores and scenario points can fall where they fall but LBNM armies are limited by rule to no better than second place. (The value of a paintjob varies according to how the participants otherwise scored.)

OR

—Everybody who enters up gets a doorprize, but... (People with totally painted armies may choose 1 infantry figure OR two bottles of paint since they might be running low on some color(s) or they might be out of figures to paint. People with unpainted armies must choose two bottles of paint... )

OR

—something else wiser and more fair.

 

Finally:

Pushing little model soldiers around on a tabletop is fun even if there is some penalty concerning paint or my lack thereof.

[kyaakone]

I would favor both of the following:

 

(1) armies with greater than or equal to X percentage of painted miniatures get a free luck stone (awarded luck stone ignores unique restriction). X is determined by the amount of notice participants get before tourney starts.

 

(2) prize (store credit) for best painted army

[vutpakdi]

An in game benefit or a significant out of game benefit would encourage people to show up with painted armies, but you might get something other than what you expect unless you put in some restrictions. For example, if I get some in game benefit for showing up with a fully painted army, then I'll probably always field one or more of my painted armies as a proxy for any other factions.

 

I'd rather face a completely unpainted army than a completely painted, but proxied army where I have to always try to remember who is what through the entire game.

 

Ron

[wyrmgear]

I am of two minds on this as, the way I see it, there are primarily two types of people in the minis world: gamers and painters. I realize the world is no where near this black and white, but I think most folks will still lean towards one or the other.

 

So...

 

Mind One:

I think armies should be painted for tourneys. It's not like you don't know they're coming up. When is the next Reaper Con tourney? I am willing to bet the worst painter could have an army ready by then. If you can't be ready due to extenuating circumstances, wait for the next one; chances are your life will not be ruined by the delay.

Mind Two:

I should think that painting can very much be something that gets in between a gamer and her/his game. I decided to get in the tournament about two or three weeks before hand, I only got one troupe painted (part of that is due to how I paint...) so if there were a painted only rule I would have been screwed. As it turns out they had too many folks playing and, like WizardOne, I opted to sit out anyway (see mind one).

 

I think that if it ever becomes necessary to trim down the number of entries to a tournament, then maybe painted armies could be a tie breaker. This does not mean the armies have to be painted well, but some sort of effort (not just primer and splatter) should be evident. I also feel it is reasonable for a company that hosts the tournament to require a painted army if that is what they do- make miniatures and paint.

 

Again, that said, I think it is commendable that Reaper is more interested in seeing happy customers than enforcing some kind of draconian law on their events.

 

 

So, I can't decide - I paint WAY more than I play, but I love the games when I do play. When I run RPGs I would never even consider using a mini that hasn't been painted (my players would be all "what's that? "Well, it's a thug", I would say. Then they would say "Well, it's all dull metal, just like the boss, how do we tell them apart from here ['from here' being arms length away]?)

 

 

Anyway, there ya go. If it ever came down to it I would say they should be painted. If I don't have my army painted I wouldn't play and I wouldn't complain.

 

-wg-

[Vaeris]

Well, you could make it so that the in-game benefit only applies for painted, non-proxied armies. That way you don't "limit" proxying and still offer the benefit of having a fully painted listed of the army you have put together on paper.

 

I'm by no means an excellent painter. I do like to have my mini's painted to reflect what they are supposed to be, though, and it does enhance the fight experience for me when all minis on the table are painted as such. That said, demanding they be painted, I think, is far from the right way to go. Rewarding those who take the time and effort to paint them up to fully represent what they are, however, is a very nice bonus. Any in-game tactical bonuses should be carefully considered. I do think, though, that a fully painted (or percentage wise "more" painted) army should break any ties points wise. If both are fully painted then go to normal tie breaking procedures.

[Bearfoot_Adam]

This is an expensive hobby both in dollars & time. That's why I love the proxy and paint rules as is. Plus I don't want to wallop the competition with stellar tactics only to lose to a technicality because I don't have a fully painted army. Whether I am in my buddy's kitchen or at a convention I feel like the game should be about the game.

[Shakandara]

I proxied nearly all of my Merc list at RCon, but did so with theme and purpose.

 

1. I proxied most of my list because I dislike the majority of the merc grunt sculpts. I've been known to refer to the rank-and-file models as "city watch rejects", so I proxied every soldier model because I wouldn't be caught dead with an army of the actual models.

2. Since 76% of my list (28 of 37 models) was made up of only 2 datacards replicated across several troops, I made a strong effort to make the soldiers from each troop visually distinct from the other troops, to make it easier for both my opponent and myself to track them on the table. That meant that I used 5 different solider model types, but each was easy to identify as being part of their troop.

3. I used many of my Sisters models as proxies, since they once belonged to the Merc faction. It was an homage to their roots.

4. Outside of the Sisters, I used as many painted models from the same faction as I could (it turned out that my elves best served this purposed) to fill the soldier ranks.

 

The result was plenty of unpainted pewter (22 of 37 models), but a list that was easy to distinguish on the table. I could have instead proxied the entire army using only my painted elves, but it would have made game-play harder on both myself and my opponent.

 

If I were told that I *had* to bring a painted army to play a tournament, I would totally proxy one of my painted factions for the faction I wanted to play for that con. In fact, I'd proxy stuff from as many factions as I could just to prove the point that playing against a fully painted list isn't all it's cracked up to be. It would be an ugly mess, but it'd be legal.

 

~v

[kyaakone]

An in game benefit or a significant out of game benefit would encourage people to show up with painted armies, but you might get something other than what you expect unless you put in some restrictions. For example, if I get some in game benefit for showing up with a fully painted army, then I'll probably always field one or more of my painted armies as a proxy for any other factions.

 

I'd rather face a completely unpainted army than a completely painted, but proxied army where I have to always try to remember who is what through the entire game.

 

Ron

 

I meant to ask about the amount of proxying, specifically at the ReaperCon tournament. I also enjoy seeing non-proxied armies fielded. Maybe its because I'm still very new and my collection is small, but there's something exciting about saying "and this is M'Sher, represented here by the actual model... yay!".

 

So how much proxying happened for the ReaperCon tournament?

[Shakandara]

My first two opponents were entirely unproxied, Reptus and Crusaders. My third opponent had a Darkspawn list that was nearly 100% proxies; the witch queen was the sole exception of his 70+ models on the table. He used a very similar system to mine for delimiting what models were what and belonged to which troop. Was very easy to figure out what I was fighting, despite the proxies.

 

~v

 

 

[Doug Sundseth]

If I were told that I *had* to bring a painted army to play a tournament, I would totally proxy one of my painted factions for the faction I wanted to play for that con. In fact, I'd proxy stuff from as many factions as I could just to prove the point that playing against a fully painted list isn't all it's cracked up to be. It would be an ugly mess, but it'd be legal.

 

~v

 

It's probably a good thing I'm not a judge for any of your tournaments. I'd probably have to DQ you for poor sportsmanship.

[Rastl]

I like having a painted army if I can. I like seeing painted armies on the table. But as I've said every single time this topic has come up I'm playing an opponent. If their army isn't painted it will still probably kick my butt into next week.

 

A small tournament prize for "Best Painted Army" separate from everything else would be a nice encouragement for those people who enjoy painting as well as playing. But the real focus is on the army list and how it's played.

 

I set a personal goal to have my army painted for this year's tournament at ReaperCon. I made that goal and think it looked darn good. Did I get upset when I fielded them against a partially painted army or an unpainted one? No. As long as someone has taken the time to make their army list and play the game I'm happy.

 

As always, I really like the Reaper rule that no paint is required. More people playing is a good thing!

[SelnartheBlack]

I'm going to add my not so humble two cents to this discussion. I'm hoping it will help stop some of the mindsets I'm seeing on this thread. Mainly because they're counter productive to the growth of this war game.

 

1. Painted armies and proxies: While it is nice to play against a painted army, no where in the rule book is it mandatory. It is in the rule book that proxies are allowed as long as the miniature being used is identified (aka this elven wizard is Ardynn). I have played war games a long time, and GW does require painted armies and no proxies for their tournaments. Suggesting such a rule may scare off new and old players alike. Play the game, enjoy it, and enjoy the players who you share time with. Paint DOES not cause some one to have better tactics, die rolls or a better personality.

 

2. Rewards for a painted army with points or whatever. Um, again paint does not help with tactics or your personality. There should be no rewards for a painted army, other than the aesthetic pleasure. If you want some sort of reward, enter them into the painted miniature contest - You may win or at least people will see your hard work up close. Some of us do not have time to paint on a regular basis. I have a max of 4 hours a week for that if I'm lucky. I'd rather take that time and play the game. Nor do I think you should get an "edge" for having painted minis, because the next thought will be only a "well" painted army gets the edge. On top of that who can say for certain if a player painted his own miniatures. Do they lose the edge because they did not paint it him/herself? It's a damn slippery slope once it starts and all because a few of you are offended by non painted bits of metal on the playing field.

 

3. Costs of the game. Quite frankly, any war game is not cheap. War Lord is one of the cheapest and still cost players hundreds of dollars. That just the miniatures. Then there are the paints (oh does it only count as a painted miniature if painted with Reapers paints. After all we can all tell by the shade that it's a cheap acrylic) and brushes. As well as the basing supplies. Oh and the carrying case, oh I'm sorry you can't play because your miniature carrying case is not the official Reaper brand. Am I making a point yet?

 

I feel that mandating painted minis in order to play against some one is snobbery. What I like about this game is due to the fact that it reminds me of what it's all about - the people, the tactics and the good times. Oh and poor sportsmanship is forcing your beliefs on other players. Which is what some of you want to do.