http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/2007/baltimore_coverage/default.htm

And, of course, the statistics links don't work.

Damnit, Malfred. This is all your fault.

I will wait for the results before I get in my soapbox, but I am getting it out of the garage, and getting it ready.

Hello:

We're aware of the problem and will address it on Monday.

Thanks,

Rich Curren 
GWUS Web Manager

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

Curren

Looks like the Stats are up now.

in Baltimore at the 40k tournament, I ended up with 97 battle points and only 11th place.

I guess I can only win best general, so I might as well take the hardest army I can and crush 5 people and make their GT experience miserable.

2007 overall

mike 1st with 1475 (toledo)
scott 2nd with 1225
rick 3rd with 1100
greg 4th with 800 (toledo)
troy 5th with 725
pete 6th with 600 (toledo)

well 3 of the top 6 go to the toledo guys. impressive showing from one adepticon team.

I didn't finish too far down. I did see what really attracted the judges regarding painting, so I've found something to work on for next year. I got to play Greg in round 2 and he was a great guy to game with. He played a very tight game. It just wasn't meant to be for me when he kept making successful psychic tests to use Lash despite me having Eldrad on the table. Regardless of my outcome, I played 5 great games and got to hang out with my buddies.

Blackmoor wrote:in Baltimore at the 40k tournament, I ended up with 97 battle points and only 11th place.

I guess I can only win best general, so I might as well take the hardest army I can and crush 5 people and make their GT experience miserable.

nope, not gonna win that either.

best general combines battle and sportsmanship score (at least in previos years).

the rulespacket doesn't mention how best general was scored this year.

take care,
jsa

@Blackmoor,
I cannot figure out how Mike's army, that Pete was playing, got 15 more painting points than your army. I think Mike's Chaos are well painted but nothing stands out, no conversions catch the eye. Maybe someone can explain to me what makes that army consistently worth 40 painting points. The guy that won the Baltimore GT's best painted award got a 40 on painting too. Maybe you could have told the judges that Mike painted your army too, I bet it would have helped your score.

Normally 97 battle points will get you best general, but you had the misfortune of playing in a GT where Scott Simpson got 100 battle points. To the best of my knowledge that has only happened one other time. What makes Scott's performance even more impressive is that he got max sportsmanship points too! That is unbelievable.

BTW, your sportsmanship score was WAY below the average, what happened there Allan? I would point to that as the main reason that you came in 11th place.

Darrian

I saw Scott's Army at the Necro and Atlanta gamesday and I thought it was way better than the paint score they gave it. Scott is a great gamer to play and a superb tactician. He is perhaps one of the top Tau players in the country and getting 100 in battle with Tau is very impressive along with the fact the army is very balanced.

Darrian13 wrote:@Blackmoor,
Normally 97 battle points will get you best general, but you had the misfortune of playing in a GT where Scott Simpson got 100 battle points. To the best of my knowledge that has only happened one other time. What makes Scott's performance even more impressive is that he got max sportsmanship points too! That is unbelievable.
Darrian

I can think of two other times this has happened. This year with Bill Kim and a few years ago with Marc Parker

100 battlepoints is nice no matter how you slice it.

- G

#1. I screwed up and should have gotten 100 battle points, but I read the 3rd mission wrong and for some reason I thought I needed to keep the suicide squad alive, so I put it on my fortuned Dark Reapers at the back of the table.

#2. As far as Greg’s and Mike’s paint jobs go, they have a very good looking army. There was some talk that they deserved the 35 paint score that they received at the Las Vegas GT, and not the 40 that only the top tier armies should get. I am not a paint judge, and I have no idea what they are looking for. But I am realistic of my paint jobs and I belong around the 25 point range. I played 2 of Da Boyz, (James Woodcock and Chris Courtney, and they both deserve their 40 score in painting.)
Greg’s Army:




Mike/Peter







#3. How come Chris Courtney won best painting, and Rick Sidehbotham and Paul Miglino scored a 45 in painting to Chris’s 40?

#4, I played next to Scott Simpson in game #5 when he was on Table #1 and I was on #2. I can say that his army is painted very well, and his army should be up in the 30 point range like it did in Chicago. To add to that he receives 4 Player’s Choice votes, so I was surprised that it scored only 25 painting score.



Edit: I think he updated them since these pictures. I thought they had a camo pattern added.

#5. I have no idea why my sportsmanship is so low. I normally just sit and think and I am so tired that I don’t do much else. I scored a 44 at the Las Vegas GT, and 36 at Baltimore. That is an average of 7 points a game, so who knows. Maybe it was my cheesy army. In Las Vegas I took 3 Guardian squads, and 1 Dire Avenger squad. In Baltimore I switched it up to taking 2 Guardian squads and 2 Dire Avengers squads.

#6, I was just kidding about taking a cheesy army and crushing people. I just don’t have it in me to take a cheesy army. But I will spend the next few months sequestered away, and painting my butt off to be ready for next years Tournament season where paint scores will not stop me from winning!

[quote=Blackmoor#3. How come Chris Courtney won best painting, and Rick Sidehbotham and Paul Miglino scored a 45 in painting to Chris’s 40?

Scott's army does look like it deserved 5 more points. As for Mike and Greg's models, if they were more consistant(oblits) than I would say a 40 is cool, but I am going to have to say IMO that should bring it down by 5.

albinoork wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:#3. How come Chris Courtney won best painting, and Rick Sidehbotham and Paul Miglino scored a 45 in painting to Chris’s 40?

rick and paul did not paint their own armies.

Still, a 40 is the most points you can score. That means that your army is at the top of the heap.

so far I've heard in this thread:

"blah blah blah... They really need to switch all of the tournaments to Hard Boys format and tell the munchkins to shut up, man up and play the frikkin game."

@Blackheart, what you have so far heard is the posters trying to figure out how the subjective part of the scoring is done. The battle poins are easy to understand, the sportsmanship is also fine because your opponent judges you based on your game, but no one seems to understand how the judges score painting. I am all for painting being a part of the overall score, but I would love for there to be a more objective system to be used.

Darrian

Yeah Blackheart, what you should be hearing is more or less the opposite: people discussing painting scores and looking for any rhyme or reason. Some of it might be sour grapes, but I think everybody has been pretty humble and honest about their painting.

I've actually played against that chaos army, and it looks way better on the tabletop. It's a very crisp and clean, but it does lack a "look at me, I'm awesome" quality the really top notch GT armies tend to have.

I hear team toledo will not be touring next year so it will open up a few spots for you lesser players. Well that is unless they score a bunch of points at adepticon.

FWIW, I think Greg's (I don't know any of these people) army is the best out of those shots. It really stands out in the Oblits, where Greg's models have much better depth in the armor plates, and better work on the muscle/glue stuff. Mike/Peter's Oblits have some head swaps and weapon mods, which is nice, and makes them look less generic, but the paintwork is lackluster. Very drybrush-ish. Their bikers have some nice aspects, some good pop in the exhaust color choices, and the leg armor on the bikers is nice, but there's places where the color choices don't define the shape of the bike enough.

The Tau stuff is certainly clean, and with a nice color scheme, but that's about it. It needs more highlighting to really show off some skill. The terrain piece on the Piranha base is nice, makes me wonder why some of that technique didn't get applied elsewhere.


Out of curiousity, how many Lashes did the winner have in his list?

skkipper wrote:I hear team toledo will not be touring next year so it will open up a few spots for you lesser players. Well that is unless they score a bunch of points at adepticon.

If that is true, that is too bad.

I want to play those guys as well as Marc Parker and Scott Simpson.

We always end up on the top tables, and I keep on missing the Toledo boys though. At Baltimore Brad was on Table #1, I was on table #2, Greg was on Table #3 and Pete was on Table #4.

I was only able to play Greg once, and that was at Gamesday LA, and I almost beat him by 10 points, but ended up with a tie.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/181782.page

It looks like bringing a pro painted army is necessary now to do well in the circuit. Thanks GW!

- G

hasn't painting been the most controversial thing over the years?

my own observation is that if you don't paint it yourself, you should get a goose egg. (of course then you have the less scrupulous that would lie about it) I also think there should be an award for "playing hard" an award for "being a good sportsman" an award for "painting" and an overall award for the best of all 3. 4 awards available to those who care to try. you know?

Painting is the most subjective thing at Tourneys (apart from Sportsmanship). It is basically art. What is 'good art' to one person (judge) is crap to another... Not much you can do about it other than paint your best and hope your techniques are in line with what the judge thinks is good painting.

Hopefully they keep 'Ardboyz going. If they do I could see it being more coveted than a GT win.

[quote=Blackmoor
Still, a 40 is the most points you can score. That means that your army is at the top of the heap.

Only thing really problematic is the judging on the paint scores. I forgot who I think it was Cassius Bellis who used their tyranid army both the exact same paint job but got different scores.

What I am trying to say is why did they (Mike and Greg) get the paint scores that they did?

If I knew why they scored so high, I could replicate it, and improve my own paint score.

I wish the judges gave us feedback on why they scored us the way they did, and how we can improve our paint score next time.

Hi Blackmoor (and others)

When our paint judges score the painting level of each army they also take notes and write comments regarding those aspects of the army that are outstanding or require more work. Our paint judges should be available to chat with regarding your score (and how to improve it) following the final round.

For future GTs our head Painting Judge is working on an older style, more "objective" checklist that, once we are all happy with it, we'll be posting as part of the GT 2008 Rules packet. Expect to see it online in January. Hopefully that will give a bit more clarity for next year's events.

We're always looking for ways to improve our events and constructive feedback is the way we can gather ideas about what you (the players) want to see. Filling out the survey at the end of the show is vitally important, and hopefully we'll see an increase in the number of players who do so next year.

Have fun!

Cheers
Dave Taylor
GW US Community Development Manager

The suit talks!

Hey Allen,

Post some pics of your army. There are plenty of people that could offer a critique and comparison. I can't say much for everyone else's army, but here are the things that I worked to do with my force.

1. Conversions - I tried to implement at least one to two conversions per model. Coupled with that, one of my main objectives was to have them not stand out.
a. The most widespread conversions were the heads (clipping off and shaving down the berserker "bunny ears") and the bolters (from the marine scouts).
b. All heavy weapons have sites/targeters sculpted on their heads.
c. Oblits - I sculpted the muscle over the weapons to make them look like they were protruding from the flesh. This could be better, but practice makes perfect.
d. The biker lord - Kharne on a bike - there are numerous conversions on this model and I will only list a few.
-cut Kharne's legs and repositioned them to fit on the bike (sculpted the gap between the legs and the torso).
-sculpted the collar of khorn
-scraped out the marine helmet from the chaos lord power fist
-ork arm for the left arm
-guitar wire for the power fist and power 'axe/weapon'
-extended the front part of the bike with hunter killer missile parts.
-there are many more, but this should give a good start for the biker lord
e. Demon Prince with wings (no pics online, but I will get one for ya') - converted from Belacor (sp?) - hand made axe, sculpted the majority of the legs (knees, calves, thighs), sculpted chest armor and collar of khorne. Heck, I even sculpted the fingers and claws on the axe hand.

The only things that did not have any conversions were one or two marines, bloodletters, furies and the spine beast (Greater demon)

2. Painting - I focused on several layers of shading and highlighting.
a. Light source - I tried to make my light source from above/slightly to the front.
b. Shading - The darker areas on the guys are not just shadows from the camera. I worked to account for the light source on the underside of the legs and torso armor by making them a darker shade of red.
c. Highlighting - Again, going back to the light source, all of my highlights were done with this in mind. One of my pet peves with highlighting is the philosophy of highlighting every armor piece or edge. I have noticed this more on some of the armies that receive high scores. Why this is the case, I have do not understand and I personally think it looks bad.
d. Poses - poses affect light source quite a bit and I tried to account for this in the shading and highlighting. I am far from perfect at this, but I did try to account for it.
e. Layers - I have a minumum of five layers on some colors and upwards of 9 to 10 on others. I spent a lot of time trying to blend on the armor. Again, I'm not perfect, but keep trying to improve.

I cannot say that these items were reflective in my scores. This was just my line of thinking as I worked on my force over the past two years. Also, I continually worked with my buddies (one of them being Chris Borer) on critiquing my painting and getting outside input. Are there areas that could be better? Most definitely. Overall, I hope this offers some potential insight.

Also - to clarify a previous post - I received a 35 in painting and not a 40.

Talk to ya' later,

Thanks Dave and Greg.

Since I won SoB in the 'Ardboyz, I was going to play them next year.

I thought I that I would have to play one army, and do it correctly as far as painting and converting goes. My fingers are going to be killing me after I convert a lot of metal sisters.

I would also like to see sportsmanship go to a check box format too. The sportsmanship scoring was a bit odd as well. When the rules were posted, and when some people saw that there would be no comp score, only sportsmanship, everyone thought that meant that you can bring any army that you wanted to. But it seemed the sportsmanship scoring changed, but everyone was still using what sportsmanship use to mean, instead of going off of what the score card really said.

Blackmoor wrote:Thanks Dave and Greg.

Since I won SoB in the 'Ardboyz, I was going to play them next year.

I thought I that I would have to play one army, and do it correctly as far as painting and converting goes. My fingers are going to be killing me after I convert a lot of metal sisters.

I would also like to see sportsmanship go to a check box format too. The sportsmanship scoring was a bit odd as well. When the rules were posted, and when some people saw that there would be no comp score, only sportsmanship, everyone thought that meant that you can bring any army that you wanted to. But it seemed the sportsmanship scoring changed, but everyone was still using what sportsmanship use to mean, instead of going off of what the score card really said.

48% subjective scores. Bad system.

But with that being said it does look like the good players are winning and that is what ultimately counts. But that has come down to the fact that a lot of the good players know how to romance and fool the system. I'm not calling anyone out here either, I'm one of those people.

I want to thank Dave for the educating me as to how the painting scores are calculated and how they might be improved next year. I played in the Vegas GT and the LA Gamesday and I had a great time. I cannot wait to attend the circuit again next year. Thanks Dave.

I want to thank Greg for explaining all the work that he put into his army. I am a novice painter and some of the detail that Greg worked on was lost on me. I hope to bring a far betterpainted army to the circuit next year. Thanks Greg.

Darrian

To inquisitor malice:

If yours was the Chaos army that had very clear pictures posted, the problem is your conversions don't stand out.

While it's my subjective opinion, if they don't stand out and your army looks 'vanilla' as a result--why did you do them in the first place?

Also I'd rate your 'conversion' work more as 'plaster' work. You move something here, you add a little there...and it ends up looking the same.

Don't be offended, I'm just offering you a critique.

It's a decent paintjob. A 35? It is not.

To dave taylor:

I've never had a judge be available to explain my painting, is this new? I'm only asking in that in 15 years of attending GW tournaments, I've always felt (and had this confirmed, sadly) that my scores were biased. Hell, I know it's hard to judge one's paint score, which is part of why I think it should be seperate from the scorecard--but far too often I see barely primed 3 color touch armies or half done paintjobs on foam boards beat the crap out of my own (and many other far superior paint jobs).

Will GW consider a seperate scoring system for painting?

Will painting be judged on plain whiteboards instead of the current?

I can't do anything about my work being graded with a primed army and stuck with the same score, since if one could appeal their lousy rating everyone would.

To blood angel: You really think so? I consider myself one of the best gamers in the country, and I always cringe at the overall winner running through alot of painters/converters (no offense intended) and when I see their army, wondering who they played that was any good.

1 guy in over a dozen GT's, games days, etc has stood out as having an army I wouldn't just sweep aside, and when I played him he was hella hard to beat. I've longed for the GT where I don't end up playing:

A painter/converter.
A tyranid player with 150+ models.
A Imperial Guard player with 150+ models.
A cookie cutter space marine army.
A cheat.

That's pretty much my usual set of games, and it's sad to go to a competition and not experience any from the guy across the table. Even when he cheats.

I tried to get my painting up, but I failed and I'm really loathe to run up to another GT and get a lousy score again.

I've given up on my sportsmanship, and I'll just ding everyone with a 1 or a 2 so I at least will outscore the numbnut who just had a tantrum because I beat his army.

Sorry, the last few were just rants. The 'fix' always seems in, and I guess with so many points coming from a popularity contest I really shouldn't expect much.

Which now, I don't. It's hard to keep going and keep getting dirt thrown in one's face for the effort.

Maybe it's my age, I've entered the cynical pre-mid life crisis stage.

Oh and just so I'm not an ass....well, allright, I'll probably still be considered an ass, but I'll go get a decent camera and post comparative pics. Hopefully I'll get feedback that can ease my tortured soul.

Well my cameraship and my wife's camera...not so hot.

So, two pics.





I ask the question: Why does mine rate a 20, and the one below it take 2nd best painted? 40 points? Oh before you ask, my vanes were broken off by the multitudes of players that manhandled my army while I was out getting lunch. The GW paint judge busted my Vyper model but hey, what's a little breaking of models between strangers? A blister doesn't make up, btw.

If I put mine on a foam board with a brass plate, I get +25 points? My army was coherent. That other one was made coherent by the foam board, since it was a kaleidescope of colors without a unifying color scheme.

I know, it was insisting on clean lines and the colors to carry the model...if I'd only painted my gems (thus ruining my scheme) a GW judge might have given me better points than a IG army that was primed black. Yes, really.

Please note I don't convert Eldar models for the most part, I find them far too aesthetically pleasing as they are. Pretty much the same with Nids and Tau (not Kroot--ugh).

You tell me what you think. Do be honest.

Yes, I do think so.

I've played every major winner (and 90% of the 2nd and 3rd place winners) in the last two years with the exception of Marc P. If you haven't and gone to as many tournaments as you say you have then you aren't in the same league as they are.

I just told you that they know how to 'beat' the system. Plotting strategy for the 'meta game' is just an extension of plotting strategy for the table top.

If I put mine on a foam board with a brass plate, I get +25 points? My army was coherent. That other one was made coherent by the foam board, since it was a kaleidescope of colors without a unifying color scheme.

I think that just the paint on that one model of yours is already a kaleidoscope of colours without a unifying colour scheme, unless of course you're running Toxic Crusaders Eldar.

I know, it was insisting on clean lines and the colors to carry the model...if I'd only painted my gems (thus ruining my scheme)

"Insisting on clean lines and colors" is all very well, but you shouldn't be surprised that you'd be outscored by the guy who painted the other Prism model, which also has clean lines and colours, but nice blending on top of it.

Actually, you don't have clean colours. Brush strokes are visible even from this distance, and splotches of black show through. I mean, you just basically drybrushed the whole tank, right?

Admittedly, scoring you lower than an army that was merely primed was ridiculous.

blood angel wrote:Yes, I do think so.

I've played every major winner (and 90% of the 2nd and 3rd place winners) in the last two years with the exception of Marc P. If you haven't and gone to as many tournaments as you say you have then you aren't in the same league as they are.

I just told you that they know how to 'beat' the system. Plotting strategy for the 'meta game' is just an extension of plotting strategy for the table top.

So, the league of thieves is it? I know how to beat the system, I simply refuse to do so.

I don't know much about the last 2 years, I've only been to a few tournaments (since I go usually 1x a year)--but rolling my opponents in 45 minutes gives me plenty of time to watch the top tables and wonder how these fellows (the 'major winners' in their own league?) managed to get there.

And I see for myself, they kiss the blarney stone, they game the system and their opponent....and strangely enough, don't face what I'd consider competitive armies.

By the way, 15 years + 11 GW tourneys and 3 adepticons....and I've yet to encounter a good player in a 'tourney' game. Am I making myself clear? I'll take any of my armies against anyone, anywhere--and I'll win. No one has ever beaten me that I didn't allow them to. Is this me being conceited? Nope, I know just how good I am. I know it comes off sounding like a ass, and I'm allright with it. As they say, the truth hurts.

If only I was dishonest, I'd win? That's a sad commentary on the GW tournament scene, but I guess you could say the entire reason I'm talking on this forum now is I'm fed up with just reading and lamenting the mass idiocy. I'm willing to take anyone on the internet, without prejudice, and say I can kick your ass 9 times out of 10. Are you?

That league you spoke of, seems shallow and beyond the pale to me. Alot of hot air, very little substance. Hell, look at the winning armies for the past 9 GT's and if you think those lists were any good and didn't just run over a bunch of artists and theoryhammer junkies....you're smoking something good, and send it on over.

Please note that of the 150+ players I've played over the years, not ONE has won Best General or Overall--cause I knocked them out of the running.

Nor 2nd place or 3rd.

Quite a few have won best painted, player's choice, and best sportsman. I give full marks.

So, anyone coming through Utah in say the next ten years thinks they can take me? I'm all for it. Hell, I'm starting to plan for next years GT (LA, Seattle, or LV) scene and if I need to come down early to take your name, be glad to try and work it out. If you're any good, odds are we won't play each other in the tournament so it'd have to be a Friday game.

Believing I care whatsoever about a 'meta game' would be a mistaken assumption. The grand tournament scoring system is, and always has been, broken. You can choose to abuse it, or be a honest player. I'm honest, and I lose, yet I'm better than anyone I've seen play or have played.

Whatcha got to say, other than I'm an ass?

Just drybrushed?

I feathered.

I layered.

I highlighted.

The brush strokes are *supposed* to be visible.

If my paintjob is a kaleidescope, given I have 4 primary colors (granted, each color section has 4 subcolors) and it's spread across my army...what would you call the other?

It has 14+ colors on it, only 2 (the red and the purple) were highlighted.

Oh and the bottom was left primed black. How many coats and touchups do you see on his Prism Cannon? It looked worse in person. Mine took me a week to get right.

At any rate, you seem to miss the point. Best painted? My standards must be coming down, I don't see beyond painted to tabletop because of the -=Edit=- I can't think of any way to express myself without using profanity-=Edit=- work on the prism cannon and the armature--or are they not a major feature of the vehicle, being unique in the game, and should be painted to a higher standard?

Ah well, I'm an ass and being quite aggressive, so I doubt anyone will agree with my view. I could be shocked, who knows.

I'll take your word for it, but the fact is that not a jot of that can be seen on the photo you posted, and that's all I and anyone who wasn't actually there have to go on.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:I'll take your word for it, but the fact is that not a jot of that can be seen on the photo you posted, and that's all I and anyone who wasn't actually there have to go on.

Yeah well it's 4am, I'm cranky and my wife's digital camera is as crippled as my higher thinking processes are at the moment.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the foam crap his army was on. I swear it was at least 2 feet high at least...

Stelek wrote:If only I was dishonest, I'd win? That's a sad commentary on the GW tournament scene, but I guess you could say the entire reason I'm talking on this forum now is I'm fed up with just reading and lamenting the mass idiocy. I'm willing to take anyone on the internet, without prejudice, and say I can kick your ass 9 times out of 10. Are you?

That league you spoke of, seems shallow and beyond the pale to me. Alot of hot air, very little substance. Hell, look at the winning armies for the past 9 GT's and if you think those lists were any good and didn't just run over a bunch of artists and theoryhammer junkies....you're smoking something good, and send it on over.

Please note that of the 150+ players I've played over the years, not ONE has won Best General or Overall--cause I knocked them out of the running.

Nor 2nd place or 3rd.

Quite a few have won best painted, player's choice, and best sportsman. I give full marks.

So, anyone coming through Utah in say the next ten years thinks they can take me? I'm all for it. Hell, I'm starting to plan for next years GT (LA, Seattle, or LV) scene and if I need to come down early to take your name, be glad to try and work it out. If you're any good, odds are we won't play each other in the tournament so it'd have to be a Friday game.

Believing I care whatsoever about a 'meta game' would be a mistaken assumption. The grand tournament scoring system is, and always has been, broken. You can choose to abuse it, or be a honest player. I'm honest, and I lose, yet I'm better than anyone I've seen play or have played.

Whatcha got to say, other than I'm an ass?

This is pretty much the funniest thing I've read today, heh.

If you show up to a tournament and refuse to compete in all the aspects that winning is judged on then you are wasting your time and money. While you're down there in the loser's bracket you can't possible feel as superior as you are trying to come off here. Your painting scores don't go in until much later in the tournament, in round two and three you should be playing people with your similar OMGIWINZAGAIN battle point score.

With that said I am one of the largest and most vocal opponents of the current system. It is broken and having almost half of the total points being subjective when there is obvious evidence that it's flawed is the tournament organization crew simply being ignorant.

http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/2005/Results_Coverage/Baltimore/winners.htm

That's me 5 GT's ago smiling in the green shirt

I never said I don't compete in all areas. I busted my ass to be unoffensive (it's difficult, as you can tell) and have a well-painted army. As ever, I get burned for not working the system.

Maybe I should bring friends along to pad my favorite player score?

Talk up the GW staff.

Bring a huge display.

Just a few examples of working the system.

I said I'm honest, and that means not working the system.

Anyway, I'm glad you got a laugh.

It's good to amuse a BA player. They've amused the hell out of me over the years.

Stelek wrote:To inquisitor malice:

If yours was the Chaos army that had very clear pictures posted, the problem is your conversions don't stand out.

While it's my subjective opinion, if they don't stand out and your army looks 'vanilla' as a result--why did you do them in the first place?

Also I'd rate your 'conversion' work more as 'plaster' work. You move something here, you add a little there...and it ends up looking the same.

There are two lines of thought when it comes to conversion/paint work that I see and they cover the extremes in miniature painting. I will refer to them based on painters/sculptors that I know since I am not up on the artistic technical terminology.

1. Joe Orteza styles have a huge amount of conversion work that stands out quite a lot. It is purposely ment to stand out. The painting style that compliments this also is ment to have the mini 'pop'. This is based on his earlier works and I have not kept up on current projects from him.

2. Chris Borer styles work to have conversions look like they seemlessly belong to the original model. The painting style that compliments it is based on smooth to near perfect blending, shading and highlighting. Ah perfection and Chris's sword winning Fulgrim - what sweet irony.

Both styles are on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum. Yet, I believe both have their merits depending on what your desire is in artistic expression.

For me, I prefer the Chris Borer style and I continue to use his influence on my armies. I believe it is more difficult to achieve perfection in this style when a model is heavily converted and therefore have more appreciation for it. That is why I chose the method behind the madness. All I know is I have a long way to go to match my mentor.

stelek if you are as good as you say you are, and you have been to three adepticons. You should have walked away with thousands of dollars in prizes from winning the gladiator. If we could have a name we could go back and check your scores at adepticon and the GT's. I know you would have won if it wasn't for that dog and those meddling kids.

Hmm, I don't see any Fulgrim model in GW's range.

Very sublime indeed.

====

Most of my GT records don't exist. GW lost them. Good thing they keep cutting costs in the web department. Oh right, what web department...it's one guy now. Some nonsense about a invalid ID.

Since Adepticon doesn't keep records like GW does (well, ok, what records they do keep aren't kept the way GW keeps them) it'd be difficult to check. For the record, I've never been able to schedule in time for the gladiator tournament. The LV GT was the first 'friday' I've been able to attend--ever.

Do you think Adepticon is a better tournament scene than the GTs or Games Days? Different, not better.

Oops almost forgot--the prizes mean little to me. I can afford a customized army painted by the best ebay has to offer, but being an *honest* player I choose to play my own self-painted self-converted army. I hold myself to a higher standard than greed. You should too.

Stelek wrote:

Most of my GT records don't exist. GW lost them. Good thing they keep cutting costs in the web department. Oh right, what web department...it's one guy now. Some nonsense about a invalid ID.

Since Adepticon doesn't keep records like GW does (well, ok, what records they do keep aren't kept the way GW keeps them) it'd be difficult to check. For the record, I've never been able to schedule in time for the gladiator tournament. The LV GT was the first 'friday' I've been able to attend--ever.

Do you think Adepticon is a better tournament scene than the GTs or Games Days? Different, not better.

Hello:

Please tell me your name and I'll try to find the records of your performance. We've held quite a few tournaments since 1997 and between office moves, computer crashes, and staff changes those little bits of paper and excel files can get misplaced. However my records and memory are more extensive than most. No promises but we might have your information here somewhere. You can e-mail us at: Techpriest@Games-Workshop.com

Actually our web department is 2 people. You can view us both here:

http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/2007/baltimore_coverage/lotrwinners.htm

Best Sportsman and Best Appearance.

Thanks,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

When you're that sexy, it only takes two of you for anyone to have all they'll ever need.

Rock on!

well seeing as you don't like playing the meta game. you will continue to do poorly at GT's. there are events for people like yourself. The hard boyz and the gladitor. each of these have huge prizes with your self proclaimed skill you should easily win both. I will even go as far as paying your entry fee to the gladiator to see your skills destroy the other players. When you lose. i expect a full refund

*Laugh.*

You misunderstand my point in being.

There shouldn't be a metagame, or the ability to manipulate it. Sorry, guess I should really say 'requirement' instead of ability.

Maybe being honest is just so alien a concept that trying to explain it is beyond my talents.

Thank you for being condescending enough to offer to pay my way--how about this? You invest your money.
Me? Oh I'll be allright, I have plenty, and while I'm a bit of an ass I'm no jackass.

Maybe when the GT format is corrected, and dishonesty is no longer rewarded, I'll do better.

Oh, and just to keep with the "I really am better than you are" storyline, I wouldn't lose. The scenarios are a bitch, but the best players run balanced armies.

Note the Adepticon scenarios meet my demandingly high standards, while the GT/Ard Boyz scenarios fall far short.

Too gimmicky. Like your post.

Would you like another lump, or two?

Stelek wrote:
Since Adepticon doesn't keep records like GW does (well, ok, what records they do keep aren't kept the way GW keeps them) it'd be difficult to check. For the record, I've never been able to schedule in time for the gladiator tournament. The LV GT was the first 'friday' I've been able to attend--ever.

Actually, AdeptiCon does keep very good records, very good PUBLIC records. You, and the others reading this thread, can view them at http://www.adepticon.org/modules.php?name=Sections Now, I think we'd all like to know who the man behind the iron forum id is so we can just see how great a General you are. Obviously, the world is out to get you because you apparently keep getting demoted to the losers bracket in swiss tournaments while all the other cheats and frauds play at the top tables leaving you to cry in your soup. So now that you've come across all hardcore and bad*ss, let's go find out how good you really were at the past 3 AdeptiCons that you've attended. Let's see that dominating Battle score, Mr. Undefeated.

Stelek:

There shouldn't be a metagame, or the ability to manipulate it. Sorry, guess I should really say 'requirement' instead of ability.

The metagame is something that arises by itself. There is no game without a metagame. Not even rock paper scissors is metagame-free.

Email sent, as requested. I doubt you'll find anything. Last time I tried I had credit card receipts and copies of my GT tickets faxed in to Glen Burnie with a very legal letter demanding my results be found.

That was a long time ago, and I've had several more get lost. I'm used to it.

What I'm really looking forward to is having my picture finally get posted on the GW website, but my record get 'lost' again. lol

Really? Who got 11th place in 03?

Can't tell, can ya.

Nope, you can't.

As far as who I am, I swear there is a search function on Dakka...use it?

Either post your name or stop posting.

Something smells funny, and I'm betting it's all the bullsh!t.

A metagame that involves manipulating the scoring system while not actually creating a new ruleset is not a metagame.

It's called cheating.

Please differentiate your concepts properly before you start in with the 'metagame! metagame! metagame!' idiocy.

I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm calling the calling of cheating a 'metagame' idiotic.

Since I joined, my information has been available.

If it's so difficult to find....I'm speechless.

A metagame that involves manipulating the scoring system while not actually creating a new ruleset is not a metagame.

No offence meant, but are you sure you know what is meant by the term "metagame"? A metagame is rarely "a new ruleset" per se.

It's called cheating.

What an interesting definition. Last I checked, cheating meant "breaking the rules." Has it changed recently?

Stelek wrote:Really? Who got 11th place in 03?

Can't tell, can ya.

Nope, you can't.

As far as who I am, I swear there is a search function on Dakka...use it?

Michael Cosson was 11th place in the 40k Gladiator in 2003
Michael Mcguiggan was 11th place in the 40k Championships in 2003

I'm not seeing any dominating performances by an Andrew Sutton anywhere....

something like this "hi my name is keith nyberg." We can then go look and see what we find.
you can see I really suck.

Stelek wrote:Since I joined, my information has been available.

If it's so difficult to find....I'm speechless.

I'm also not seeing Andrew Sutton in any record of any tournament anywhere.

Nomic is metagaming. What you (ok, and most everyone else) talks about isn't my view of metagaming, which is inventing new rules or overlaying different rules.

Cheating can be not only breaking, but the bending of the rules or the manipulation of the referee in your favor.

If you are playing army X because army Y is allowed in your circuit, this is a minimalist metagame. You haven't changed any rules, you are merely reacting to what an opponent you have yet to play MAY do. Minimalist, reactive.

Now if you are going to play Army J because of a scenario (or set of them) in said circuit, that's closer to true metagaming because a rules overlay (the scenario) has altered the rules of the game you are playing.

Make sense? I can give more examples, if you'd like.

Metagaming your gameplay is different then social engineering the paint judge, a rule judge, and your opponents into giving you better scores.

That's what I don't like, I don't think it's metagaming, I think it's dishonest and cheating. Just my viewpoint, I suppose.

http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/Results_Coverage/seattle_2004/Results/Seat40Kresults.htm
http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/Results_Coverage/seattle_2004/40K/images/sutton_andrew_c.gif

he has major sportsmanship problems.

mauleed wrote:

I'm also not seeing Andrew Sutton in any record of any tournament anywhere.

Hello:

Mr. Sutton played in the Vegas 07 GT. Full results can be seen on our web site here:

http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/2007/tournamentcircuit/vegasgt/40k.htm

Thanks,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

As far as I know, I only have 2 records on the internet. Both held by GW.

FYI *I* was frigging 11th place, I have the scoresheet from that year--but it doesn't matter much since they lost me 3 times in a row. Can't imagine why I stopped going.

Either way, I'm not too worried about it. I know how good I am. I know how honest I am.

I wait patiently for the day when GW comes out with a gladiator style tournament, only without the morons running around with rulebooks stapled to their chest, and without the pre-released scenarios for everyone to metagame on.

If I social engineer my way to victory, what kind of victory is that? Nothing I'd be proud of.

I'm proud of my record, even if most of it's been lost over the years.

Ah well, here comes the

Stelek wrote:As far as I know, I only have 2 records on the internet. Both held by GW.

FYI *I* was frigging 11th place, I have the scoresheet from that year--but it doesn't matter much since they lost me 3 times in a row. Can't imagine why I stopped going.

Either way, I'm not too worried about it. I know how good I am. I know how honest I am.

I wait patiently for the day when GW comes out with a gladiator style tournament, only without the morons running around with rulebooks stapled to their chest, and without the pre-released scenarios for everyone to metagame on.

If I social engineer my way to victory, what kind of victory is that? Nothing I'd be proud of.

I'm proud of my record, even if most of it's been lost over the years.

Ah well, here comes the

ha ha

you could always offer the occasional deleted by mods to a red shirt in return for some small tid bit of what is being released next week.

Please stop feeding the blatantly obvious troll

(who doesn't even know what a metagame is)
(and insists he is good, but can't back it up with stats)
(and insists that he wins even though everyone around him cheats - by using the metagame) rofl

Stelek wrote:To dave taylor:

I've never had a judge be available to explain my painting, is this new? I'm only asking in that in 15 years of attending GW tournaments, I've always felt (and had this confirmed, sadly) that my scores were biased. Hell, I know it's hard to judge one's paint score, which is part of why I think it should be seperate from the scorecard--but far too often I see barely primed 3 color touch armies or half done paintjobs on foam boards beat the crap out of my own (and many other far superior paint jobs).

Will GW consider a seperate scoring system for painting?

Will painting be judged on plain whiteboards instead of the current?

I can't do anything about my work being graded with a primed army and stuck with the same score, since if one could appeal their lousy rating everyone would.

Hi Stelek

The typical problem that most organizers and players will find is that the question of "How can I improve my painting" always comes at the end of the tournament once score sheets are the only things available (ie. no recollection of army by the Paint Judge, particularly with 160+ armies being judged for 40K, and the player has packed their entire army away and there is no way to get the entire army out. So, this year, starting in Las Vegas, we asked our paint judges to make comments regarding the army so that we could provide some small measure of feedback for those players who wanted to ask about their painting at the end of the tournament.

I find it interesting that you mention 15+ years of GW tournaments. I can only assume that you mean tournaments for GW games, as our first US open GT was held in 1998, so I must admit I cannot speak for the tournaments you may have attended that were run by others.

I am confused by you question regarding "a seperate coring system for painting". Painting is scored seperately from Battle points and Sportsmanship. At the end of the tournament all three scores are added together for the Overall score. We also award prizes for Best General (Battle Points with a tiebreaker determined by your opponent's records), Best Painted (best painted army) and Best Sportsman (best sportsmanship score, with a Battle Points tiebreaker). Is there a point I'm missing?

Painting will be judged on how the army is presented. If you don't wish to have a display board distracting the judges eye, that's fine. If you present a great army on a crappy board you will suffer. Consistency is what ARMY painting is all about. Keep an eye out on our website in January for the rules we'll be using this year.

General Commentary:
We are very invested (personally and professionally) in presenting a great event. However, when the event relies on the interaction of individuals that we do not control we have to rely on the good behavior and sporting attitude of all of our participants. While all of us can "lose it" during intense competitive play, I've got to say I'm impressed by the geniality shown during this year's events. This is certainly a step in the right direction. Tournaments can be played in a friendly manner as long as we step to the table without the fragile ego, and look at each game as the opportunity to make friends and learn more about the great hobby we all love passionately.

Cheers
Dave Taylor
GW US Community Development Manager

skkipper wrote:http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/Results_Coverage/seattle_2004/Results/Seat40Kresults.htm
http://gt.us.games-workshop.com/Results_Coverage/seattle_2004/40K/images/sutton_andrew_c.gif

he has major sportsmanship problems.

FYI I didn't paint that figure. I even put it on my record sheet.

I'm glad Rich found 1 of my 2 internet records....that exist today. I have a whole load of GT tickets sitting someplace. lol

Btw, as far as sportsmanship goes--I'm not a prick to play. I kill your army, and I do it dispassionately. I say "ok" to the point of infuriation. I don't show emotion when I lose most of my army, or my "big" unit. People don't know how to take it. Drives my wife crazy. Took stjohn 5 years to get past it, now we're friends. My friends back home called me the Vulcan. lol

Hello:

In the interest of Customer Service I believe I have found the GT results records for 2001 and 2002. Please let me know if you attended any of these tournaments and I will attempt to recover your records. We will work on getting those scores added to our archive as well if possible.

Thanks very much,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

well, the two records we do have on him make it possible that he is indeed 10-0 in those two tournament, though sadly GW doesn't bother to record wins/losses, only battle points so we can't tell.

But obviously his sports scores are highly suspect, and perhaps he is a cheating, intolerable Jerk. Perhaps not. My sports scores at the first two GTs I went to aren't any better, so I can sympathize if that's not the case.

But plenty of people on Dakka have played me over they years, and we have yet to find anyone that says I'm a jerk (at least when playing the game). So what I'd like to know is has anyone here ever played this gentleman and could they comment on his sportsmanship or lack thereof?

Stelek:

Nomic is metagaming. What you (ok, and most everyone else) talks about isn't my view of metagaming, which is inventing new rules or overlaying different rules.

These are both valid meanings of the word "metagame." They just refer to different things, with some degree of overlap. The fact that they use the same term is perhaps confusing, but that doesn't invalidate either meaning.

Cheating can be not only breaking, but the bending of the rules or the manipulation of the referee in your favor.

This seems to be an axiomatic statement that I can neither prove nor disprove. I can only disagree--I do not count the sort of metagaming we're talking about as cheating.

If you are playing army X because army Y is allowed in your circuit, this is a minimalist metagame. You haven't changed any rules, you are merely reacting to what an opponent you have yet to play MAY do. Minimalist, reactive.

I'd say this is a clear example of metagaming. If you hear Eldar and think Falcons and Harlies, and build your own force accordingly, then you're tapping into information that has its origin outside the game, i.e. that they are extremely popular choices in such armies. Likewise, if you go light on anti-horde because you know that there is no stronge horde list in the current army line-up, then you are also taking into account the metagame.

Now if you are going to play Army J because of a scenario (or set of them) in said circuit, that's closer to true metagaming because a rules overlay (the scenario) has altered the rules of the game you are playing.

Make sense? I can give more examples, if you'd like.

I don't need examples, I understand just fine. The point is that using a display board that looks a certain way, or an army that spams conversions, is no less an example of metagaming than the ones you've listed. In this case, you're taking into account objectives that exist outside the game (i.e. soft scores) and the likely factors that will affect this.

Andrew - to be fair to everyone else - on the old Dakka, your name was not in your profile and most of the times people do not include their name. I had checked the profile before based on a similar posting in I believe the 'ard Boyz thread below.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/197466.page

At least your new profile has it. Only through unnecessary cross referencing via google and various posts, was your exact name pinpointed previously. Interesting how this thread is going down a repeat cycle.

Why is anyone even taking this guy seriously,

he thinks metagaming is cheating, whatever that means.

RichCurren wrote:Hello:

In the interest of Customer Service I believe I have found the GT results records for 2001 and 2002. Please let me know if you attended any of these tournaments and I will attempt to recover your records. We will work on getting those scores added to our archive as well if possible.

Thanks very much,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

Rich - thanks for responding. Even though it is not for me, I must say it is a breath of fresh air to see the customer support improving. Dave Taylor and the rest of the crew have done an excellent job with that this year.

Hello:

If anything, this thread has helped me to locate information which people might enjoy to place on our web site and allows me to try and help out a customer with a complaint, so it is win-win in my book.

Thanks,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

Dave,

Yes, 15 years of playing GW tournaments. Local, regional, national, international. I see all events, whether run by you or by a third party, as reflective of GW. After all, if you didn't want someone to run a tournament odds are they wouldn't.

As far as painting goes:

I asked the judge who scored my army what was wrong with it. He said it was fine. I then asked him if I was poor, average, or superior. He said superior. I asked another judge that I'd seen judging what they thought of my army. They said it was good painting, but a display board would "bump it up". I asked a third judge, what the score was for armies with display boards and this judge replied boards were meaningless. So, my army was out, it was looked at, but I was given different answers. This is, as you know, a common problem. Could I get the person judging my painting to be the impartial 3rd one? That's what my issue is--that even being a proactive player is meaningless unless I'm going to try and social engineer my way up the points chart. The guy who got 2nd best painted was hovering over the judge, talking up his foam crap. That is what concerned me. Still does, because every tournament I go to; from local to international, appears tainted by the same kind of 'cooking'.

Makes me, and every single new friend I take, not want to go back the experience was so unpleasant.

Personally, I look forward to having a "display board" category for painting and a "just the army, hold the crap" category for painting. So I guess we'll see if having a brass etched plate on walnut will give +5 points or not, in January.

Anyway, given the prevelance of pro-painted armies (and lack of pro painters) at events, I think GW should stop kidding itself about painting being so important. It should be scored completely seperate, and have no bearing on overall. Overall shouldn't be won by a unpainted army, but it isn't me bringing in unpainted (or merely primed) armies and being allowed to stay--that's GW's doing by allowing it. I'd been told that horsegak was done with, I go to Vegas and it's just like it was in Seattle, LA, and Chicago. I wasn't exactly pleased, nor were most of the other players.

FYI I've never ever "lost it" or raised my voice to anyone. Why be a prick when you're smashing the other guys army? Win the way you lose. Alot of guys don't do that.

Oh and I've been playing since it was me, Abaddon, and 3 terminators taking the 2d6 save at -9 from the Eldar lascannons.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:Andrew - to be fair to everyone else - on the old Dakka, your name was not in your profile and most of the times people do not include their name. I had checked the profile before based on a similar posting in I believe the 'ard Boyz thread below.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/197466.page

At least your new profile has it. Only through unnecessary cross referencing via google and various posts, was your exact name pinpointed previously. Interesting how this thread is going down a repeat cycle.

Well I kept trying to add it, it'd say it was saved, and then it wouldn't be.

I tried again this morning with the new software, and it seems to be holding onto it.

My apologies if it seems like I was being obtuse, I really thought it was right there on my profile.

tegeus--good points all. I disagree with your 3rd response, I don't think that's metagaming as the rules aren't modified.

I still don't see how my distaste for social engineering as being part of the metagame makes me unwilling to metagame. I just don't see how convincing players and judges to upscore me isn't cheating, and not metagaming.

I have most, if not all, of the army types one would consider in making a tournament and test them regularly. If that's metagaming, allright...but doesn't that reduce us to Magic: The Gathering style 'metagaming'? I like to think our game is more cerebral. Maybe I'm nuts.

Well, fyi I'm not a troll. I've been one, but I am not one today--and not here. I ponied up $50 so if you think I'm here just to be a dick, I'm not.

I've been silent for 10 years, and it's about time I stood up and tried to do something to make me less of a whiner and more of a contributor.

Bitching is easy. Doing is hard.

I still don't see how my distaste for social engineering as being part of the metagame makes me unwilling to metagame. I just don't see how convincing players and judges to upscore me isn't cheating, and not metagaming.

Well, I've made my case as to how it is metagaming, and for your part you haven't made any case for why it counts as cheating (though like I said, it would be difficult to argue about what cheating is or isn't, so I don't blame you).

A question: if you compliment your opponent on a nice army and try to act in an affable manner during the game, are you "cheating"?

davetaylor wrote:

Hi Stelek

The typical problem that most organizers and players will find is that the question of "How can I improve my painting" always comes at the end of the tournament once score sheets are the only things available (ie. no recollection of army by the Paint Judge, particularly with 160+ armies being judged for 40K, and the player has packed their entire army away and there is no way to get the entire army out. So, this year, starting in Las Vegas, we asked our paint judges to make comments regarding the army so that we could provide some small measure of feedback for those players who wanted to ask about their painting at the end of the tournament.

I find it interesting that you mention 15+ years of GW tournaments. I can only assume that you mean tournaments for GW games, as our first US open GT was held in 1998, so I must admit I cannot speak for the tournaments you may have attended that were run by others.

I am confused by you question regarding "a seperate coring system for painting". Painting is scored seperately from Battle points and Sportsmanship. At the end of the tournament all three scores are added together for the Overall score. We also award prizes for Best General (Battle Points with a tiebreaker determined by your opponent's records), Best Painted (best painted army) and Best Sportsman (best sportsmanship score, with a Battle Points tiebreaker). Is there a point I'm missing?

Painting will be judged on how the army is presented. If you don't wish to have a display board distracting the judges eye, that's fine. If you present a great army on a crappy board you will suffer. Consistency is what ARMY painting is all about. Keep an eye out on our website in January for the rules we'll be using this year.

General Commentary:
We are very invested (personally and professionally) in presenting a great event. However, when the event relies on the interaction of individuals that we do not control we have to rely on the good behavior and sporting attitude of all of our participants. While all of us can "lose it" during intense competitive play, I've got to say I'm impressed by the geniality shown during this year's events. This is certainly a step in the right direction. Tournaments can be played in a friendly manner as long as we step to the table without the fragile ego, and look at each game as the opportunity to make friends and learn more about the great hobby we all love passionately.

Cheers
Dave Taylor
GW US Community Development Manager

First, i apologize for adding fuel to the fire of the flame war but things were getting a bit silly and the amount of coffee i had this morning made me a bit giddy.

Thanks for the post and while this does help to answer some of the questions i've had it does however fail to answer one. Does GW have any intent to make an adjustment to how it includes painting in the overall scoring? I understand that this is an integral part of the scoring and that the means with how it is judged is based on how we as hobbyists present it. The concern that i have is that if someone else PAINTS an army for a person, one can not accordingly judge the player on how its painted. We could say that they are judged on presentation, with perhaps some clearer, guidelines: board, squad markings, basing, conversions, theme, fluff. This would offer those who aren't as talented painting to still do well in presenting their armies while rewarding the talented painting in a seperate category. I know it spawns people to lie, and what if they are honest, etc. but i feel we should be honest in this case. If we make the guidelines clearer, as sportsmanship and general are, this would kill this issue dead.

For those of you who are interested my name is Chris Kozemchak and I scored at 31st place. My painting score, in my opinion, was due to a series of broken models (the whole case tipped and broken a ton of models that morning), lack of squad markings and about 16% done to 3 color(incomplete) with basing. It's what i believe but could be wrong. B)

As i said before, I do not want to take anything away from Pete, i like pete, I think with all this other nonsense aside, he should get the award. I however, feel that this is an issue that hasn't been addressed, that SHOULD be addressed, and that it is unfortunate Pete's win has brought this to the foreground.

A win is a win. The tournament is over and Good Game for those who participated.

Now for the 2008 season lets talk about the standardization of the painting scores or go with what Paul suggested.

Having known Stelek personally for quite a while now, I have to say that he comes across like some European cheeses:
Stinky, weird, and offensive at first, but once you get to know him, is quite enjoyable - provided you have enough wine available.

He's got a strong opinion on just about everything, always KNOWS he's right, and never hesitates to tell you what he honestly believes.
He's the fiercest competitor I know.
And quite possibly the most loyal friend a person can have, too.
[/love fest]

So from Las Vegas I see that there were 7 players with a battle score equal to or better than yours. You are indeed the lowest ranking player with that number of battle points. However, your sportsmanship was also the lowest.

We often talk about top tier players here on dakka, or those who find they win more often than not in any setting. You may be in this catagory, however, most of these players also are found to be enjoyable by their opponents.

If you look at best general he only had 22 for sportsmanship but maxed his battlepoints. You can always play to be in this catagory, and in fact several players do knowing that they don't like to paint or not caring what anyone else thinks of them.

However, to truly be top tier you need to get out there and play some of the other top tier players. They aren't that hard to find and you will suddenly find yourself being much more respected when you speak of the problems in the system. You battle points back up your smack talk to some degree but still weren't good enough for that tourney by factoring only Battle points and using Sportsmanship as a tie breaker you would be 8th overall. Good for bragging rights but not for much else.

Think of 'Ardboyz as the way you would like to see things go and none of us know who the 8th place player is off the top of our heads unless he is a friend.

Just play for what you want. If you want all glory go for best general. You just need to pick up your game a notch and remeber those extra battle points and make sure you really can slaughter everyone and who cares what the rest of your scores are.

If you want something else than you have to play with the meta-game, sportsmanship, and painting regardless of how subjective they are.

Orion

From Dave Taylor:

"The typical problem that most organizers and players will find is that the question of "How can I improve my painting" always comes at the end of the tournament once score sheets are the only things available (ie. no recollection of army by the Paint Judge, particularly with 160+ armies being judged for 40K, and the player has packed their entire army away and there is no way to get the entire army out. So, this year, starting in Las Vegas, we asked our paint judges to make comments regarding the army so that we could provide some small measure of feedback for those players who wanted to ask about their painting at the end of the tournament."

I asked one of the painting judges at the Chicago GT what are they looking for when they judge an army while she examined mine. She spent about five minutes or more answering my question in detail. Why can’t you do the same rather than pass the buck?

- G

Well put, Orion.

Indeed, I do want "something else".

thehod wrote:A win is a win. The tournament is over and Good Game for those who participated.

Now for the 2008 season lets talk about the standardization of the painting scores or go with what Paul suggested.

I have to reinterate what Hod posted. What options do we have for painting and how can we address the issues that are on the table? Let's move to a move constructive thread. The issues that are at hand are:

1. Scoring armies that are painted by another person.
2. Paint scoring not being as straight forward.

So the question is 'what are the proposed solutions?'.

There are limits to what GW's employees can say, and it seems to me they've been very cordial. Don't drive them away.

I do think a discussion would be nice, but I don't know how much impact it will have on a paint scoring scheme due to be released in January.

It may not have an immediate impact. However, this is a subject that many have tried to address over the years with very little across the board success. I believe AdeptiCon has the best results consistently on paint scoring and is a beacon to look to.

Malice,

I'd suggest:

A) you can't address your first point. Players will either be honest about painting, or they won't.

B) Paint scoring as it is now, caters (In my opinion) towards extremes like boards, banners, outfits, etc that don't actually represent the *hobby*.

C) I think people willing to go "all out" or "get stuck in" as GW UK likes to call it, should be in a seperate category and the actual army painting/conversion work should end up on the tables themselves.

D) Since all armies should be painted in order to be eligible to play, shouldn't we remove the ability of players to procure pro-painting services and advance in a competition supposed to be of their own doing? Things are different now than in 2001 or 2002 (when several winners were highly questionable), but the rules don't reflect this. Sorry, a check box just isn't good enough if you want people to really feel like this is a competition.

Just some ideas.

Mr. Sutton:

Here is a link to another page containing your results, we'll do our best to get these and all of the 2001-2002 results we can recover into our GT section soon:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030116154843/us.games-workshop.com/news/us/events/GT-2002/coverage/LA/results/40kresults.htm

Thanks,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:It may not have an immediate impact. However, this is a subject that many have tried to address over the years with very little across the board success. I believe AdeptiCon has the best results consistently on paint scoring and is a beacon to look to.

Where do they have their paint scoring rules? I can't find them.

Thanks Rich. If you'd like me to get my old excel sheet with my scores from 97-04, I think I have it on CD someplace.

Only 9 more to find. lol

I'll see if I can find a pic of myself, I hope someone recognizes me. I know you, but I'm sure I'm just a face in the crowd to you.

Found one. Yikes!

Hello:

No problem. We won't need any further information. We won't be posting any pictures from those years. That coverage is indeed too incomplete to recover and too time intensive to reconstruct reasonably. One of the reasons we didn't carry it over in the past is that our site structure changed so much (new style, technology, layout) that reconstructing it was too labor-intensive to make it worthwhile. However, we will be posting the stat sheets and winner lists that we have so people can look back on those GTs. Note that it is around 20 tournaments (counting WH as one, 40K as another) in those 2 years. Considering the number of GT events we have held in the last decade or so I would say our coverage is quite extensive.

Thanks,

Rich Curren
GWUS Web Manager

paidinfull wrote:
If we make the guidelines clearer, as sportsmanship and general are, this would kill this issue dead.

Hi Chris

Here, here! I agree 100%. Clarity where ever possible. Honesty from all parties in everything, and setting aside egos that may be bruised in the honesty.

The following is NOT directed at you Chris, or anyone else who has posted in this thread, but is a general philosophy I've always followed.

In my humble opinion, the most important element that goes hand-in-hand with clarity from tournament organizers is honesty from players with themselves. Before a player drops cash on the ticket and perhaps airfare and hotel, they should take a good look at the tournament rules and determine whether or not they actually will have fun (and will their opponents have fun) at that event. If the answer is yes, then by all means attend. if the answer is no, then do not attend. Look for events in your area (or further afield) where you and your opponents will have fun. If no such event exists, then create it. If the answer is maybe, be prepared for disappointment.

Why do I like going to Adepticon? Because I can see dozens upon dozens of great looking armies with angles that I've never thought of. Will I play in the Gladiator? No, because I wouldn't enjoy being beaten into the ground the whole day, and my opponents wouldn't feel challenged by the Nerf bat armies I like putting together and fielding. I will, however, play in the 40K Team Tournament because my team is more about the fun chatter before the event and the deadline it provides. We don't really have any plan going into each game, and it is fun to see how our armies can be beaten next. The best teams we've played against were The Untouchables and Kryptman's Gamble, fun guys with cool armies and a great approach to the hobby.

I know what I want from an event, and if the organizer tells me they're going to provide something other than what I'm looking for I'll leave the gaming to those that are looking for their kind of thing.

In the future we'll be much clearer with what kind of event we are going to run, and expect that kind of thing from any event organizer.
Please be honest with yourself, so that you and those around you can get the most out of the experience.

Clarity and Honesty.

Cheers
Dave

Green Blow Fly wrote:From Dave Taylor:

"The typical problem that most organizers and players will find is that the question of "How can I improve my painting" always comes at the end of the tournament once score sheets are the only things available (ie. no recollection of army by the Paint Judge, particularly with 160+ armies being judged for 40K, and the player has packed their entire army away and there is no way to get the entire army out. So, this year, starting in Las Vegas, we asked our paint judges to make comments regarding the army so that we could provide some small measure of feedback for those players who wanted to ask about their painting at the end of the tournament."

I asked one of the painting judges at the Chicago GT what are they looking for when they judge an army while she examined mine. She spent about five minutes or more answering my question in detail. Why can’t you do the same rather than pass the buck?

- G

Hi Green Blow Fly

I'm confused? Did I not say that this had been a problem in the past, we took additional steps to address it this year, and when you asked in Chicago, you received feedback from the Paint Judge. How is that me passing the buck? My apologies if I have misread your post.

Cheers
Dave

Painting, like all art, is very subjective, which is in part, the reason i suggested a Presentation category instead of the overall Painting scores. One could categorize it in a number of different ways.

Is there a theme to the army?
Is the army uniformly painted?
Is the painting in lieu of the theme of the army?
Are the squads clearly distinguished and labeled?
Are all the models based?
Are all the bases uniform?
Do the bases have multiple types of flock/paint?
Are there conversions/unique(FW) pieces in the army?
Are there broken models?
Is there a display to go along with the army?
Is this display in theme with the army?
Do the HQ/Character models stand out from the rest of the army?

any additions would help. The idea is to make it less subjective.

@Stelek. I may noy have been playing tournaments for 15 years, but 8 is still a good amount, and I must say I have never heard of your name. And considering I game with some of the best, and my group includes 5 differant GT winners, one holding 5 titles, thats saying something. You are here to insite. You are what gives competative play a bad name. If you want a Gladiator style tournament than dont attend GTs. GTs are for complete gamers, ones who are interested in Battle, Sports, and Painting. Clearly you cant win as you dont have any interest in the latter two. Please stop giving us players a bad name

Woah, let's not be too hasty here, Darkness. He's explained why he gets bad sports (i.e. he doesn't talk much, not because he's an donkey-cave), and he's shown some of his painting and explained the effort he put in. We can wonder about the effectiveness of his efforts, but it is not fair to accuse him of not caring about these things.* We ought to take people's words in good faith unless there's a compelling reason not to.

*Not that everyone must care about sportsmanship and painting.

Glad you've never heard of my name.

I've never heard of your group. Are you a gaming club? Do you playtest for GW? Should I be aware of any other activities that should garner my instant respect? Please note being a multiple GT winner is obviously of little meaning to me. Bring your clubmates to Utah. I'll crush each and every one of them. With a smile, and a well-painted army.

By the way, if I'm what gives competitive play a bad name...what sign is your name on?

paidinfull wrote:Painting, like all art, is very subjective, which is in part, the reason i suggested a Presentation category instead of the overall Painting scores. One could categorize it in a number of different ways.

Is there a theme to the army?
Is the army uniformly painted?
Is the painting in lieu of the theme of the army?
Are the squads clearly distinguished and labeled?
Are all the models based?
Are all the bases uniform?
Do the bases have multiple types of flock/paint?
Are there conversions/unique(FW) pieces in the army?
Are there broken models?
Is there a display to go along with the army?
Is this display in theme with the army?
Do the HQ/Character models stand out from the rest of the army?

any additions would help. The idea is to make it less subjective.

Yep, the plan is to return to this kind of checklist. All shall be revealed in January.

But as a Sneak Peek I can let you know that Appearance scores will still be included in the Overall scoring

Cheers
Dave

Hey Dave - Thanks for the input. Oh and don't mind Steve's (Green Blowfly) post. I can also claim confusion.

I do care about sportsmanship.

I've given just about everyone of my opponents a max score. Them being poor sports is no reason not to be the bigger man about things.

I do care about painting.

I was insulted when a shoddily painted Eldar army crushed my rather clever paint job into the dirt with a an industrial insulating foam "case" spray painted 10 different colors.

See, if I didn't care I wouldn't post. That's how this whole internet thing works.

davetaylor wrote:

paidinfull wrote:
If we make the guidelines clearer, as sportsmanship and general are, this would kill this issue dead.

Hi Chris

Here, here! I agree 100%. Clarity where ever possible. Honesty from all parties in everything, and setting aside egos that may be bruised in the honesty.

The following is NOT directed at you Chris, or anyone else who has posted in this thread, but is a general philosophy I've always followed.

In my humble opinion, the most important element that goes hand-in-hand with clarity from tournament organizers is honesty from players with themselves. Before a player drops cash on the ticket and perhaps airfare and hotel, they should take a good look at the tournament rules and determine whether or not they actually will have fun (and will their opponents have fun) at that event. If the answer is yes, then by all means attend. if the answer is no, then do not attend. Look for events in your area (or further afield) where you and your opponents will have fun. If no such event exists, then create it. If the answer is maybe, be prepared for disappointment.

Why do I like going to Adepticon? Because I can see dozens upon dozens of great looking armies with angles that I've never thought of. Will I play in the Gladiator? No, because I wouldn't enjoy being beaten into the ground the whole day, and my opponents wouldn't feel challenged by the Nerf bat armies I like putting together and fielding. I will, however, play in the 40K Team Tournament because my team is more about the fun chatter before the event and the deadline it provides. We don't really have any plan going into each game, and it is fun to see how our armies can be beaten next. The best teams we've played against were The Untouchables and Kryptman's Gamble, fun guys with cool armies and a great approach to the hobby.

I know what I want from an event, and if the organizer tells me they're going to provide something other than what I'm looking for I'll leave the gaming to those that are looking for their kind of thing.

In the future we'll be much clearer with what kind of event we are going to run, and expect that kind of thing from any event organizer.
Please be honest with yourself, so that you and those around you can get the most out of the experience.

Clarity and Honesty.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks for the reply
Is it safe to assume that this means you (GW) are considering a change to this portion of the format to alleviate any whining or complaining after all is said and done?
Also to be clear I had a wonderful time at the event, I will be attending again, and will continue to support the hobby, as well as met new gamers in my area to play competitively with. I would however prefer to absolve this particular issue so that I know what to expect next year. Are the standards/expectations for painting scoring anywhere on the GW website? I'm afraid I don't know(clearly this indicates I was not aware of what to expect this year).

I said previously that the reason why i was disappointed and upset, was not because I lost, but a statement was made that caused me to agree that this particular portion of the competition, because the army had not been painted or built by the individual, GW was in a sense rewarding someone as a more dedicated Overall 40k hobbyist. I simply felt that this wasn't what I had expected.

My personal philosophy, as we are sharing them (hehe), is that this is just a game. Hence my sportsmanship scores. No need to argue, no need to get upset or frustrated, we are here to have fun, enjoy the fluff, think strategically and play a fantastic game. I entered the competition because i was awarded the ticket for winning a local RTT almost two years ago and this was my first time attending. If I won the Baltimore tournament great, if not oh well, there is always next time. I prefer to have things spelled out for me so as I know what to expect, and while I expect the scoring to be subjective, i do not expect to be held to different standard than other players. I say that because I don't believe you can compare Player A's painting, to Player B's painting, when Player B's army was painted by Player C. You are in a sense comparing Player A to Player C and the effort should be rewarded, in honesty, to Player C not Player B.

Dave,

I hope it's a non-subjective checklist.

I remember when some checklists had 1/2/3 next to them to "rate" them, which was really a 0/1/2/3 since you could not have the check in the first place.

Removing the graded slope and reducing it to "yes.no" would certainly be an improvement over the current system.

Thanks again.

davetaylor wrote:

Yep, the plan is to return to this kind of checklist. All shall be revealed in January.

But as a Sneak Peek I can let you know that Appearance scores will still be included in the Overall scoring

Cheers
Dave

Thats great. And very encouraging. I look forward to seeing what GW has decided on.

paidinfull wrote:Painting, like all art, is very subjective, which is in part, the reason i suggested a Presentation category instead of the overall Painting scores. One could categorize it in a number of different ways.

Is there a theme to the army?
Is the army uniformly painted?
Is the painting in lieu of the theme of the army?
Are the squads clearly distinguished and labeled?
Are all the models based?
Are all the bases uniform?
Do the bases have multiple types of flock/paint?
Are there conversions/unique(FW) pieces in the army?
Are there broken models?
Is there a display to go along with the army?
Is this display in theme with the army?
Do the HQ/Character models stand out from the rest of the army?

any additions would help. The idea is to make it less subjective.

Something that you need to account for in the list is the differentiation of quality. All of those can be answered 'Yes' whether or not the army is of mediocre or superior quality. This is where the issue arises with a judges opinion and comes down to training. Having a checklist is an excellent idea. However, implementing a proper checklist is the hard part. One of our groups uses a checklist to account for this. See the example questions below:

1. Are the models painted in three colors?
2. Is there a basic level of highlighting (ie: dry brushing one layer)?
3. Is there a medium level of highlighting (ie: dry brushing with a wash and maybe dry brushed again)?
4. Is there an advance level of highlighting (ie: solid blending techniques applied, dry brushing is not noticeable)?

The same breakdown is used for shading, conversions, bases, etc. This allows for differentiation of quality. However, the key to a successful implementation of such a checklist is 'Training'. Judges who are going to use this type of list need to be trained on how to differentiate between the levels of quality.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:

Something that you need to account for in the list is the differentiation of quality. All of those can be answered 'Yes' whether or not the army is of mediocre or superior quality. This is where the issue arises with a judges opinion and comes down to training. Having a checklist is an excellent idea. However, implementing a proper checklist is the hard part. One of our groups uses a checklist to account for this. See the example questions below:

1. Are the models painted in three colors?
2. Is there a basic level of highlighting (ie: dry brushing one layer)?
3. Is there a medium level of highlighting (ie: dry brushing with a wash and maybe dry brushed again)?
4. Is there an advance level of highlighting (ie: solid blending techniques applied, dry brushing is not noticeable)?

The same breakdown is used for shading, conversions, bases, etc. This allows for differentiation of quality. However, the key to a successful implementation of such a checklist is 'Training'. Judges who are going to use this type of list need to be trained on how to differentiate between the levels of quality.

Those are great additions. B)
I didn't want to go into too much specifics but wanted to give a general idea.
Also if you do it on yes/no and you have around 20 questions it is possible to have a larger variance in scores rather than what appeared to be increments of 5. Maybe that is asking too much though...?

paidinfull wrote: I say that because I don't believe you can compare Player A's painting, to Player B's painting, when Player B's army was painted by Player C. You are in a sense comparing Player A to Player C and the effort should be rewarded, in honesty, to Player C not Player B.

Hey PIF - I completely understand your philosophy and have read the your groups slanted posts about the same subject in the IFL forums. That said however, I do not agree with the resolution of players receiving a zero or a penalty if they did not paint it. The reason being is we have been down this road in GTs before and the only players that are hurt in this (with any sort of penalty) are the honest ones. I believe it has happened in the past with the penalty system and to apply such a system, it will happen again in the future. As alluded to above, you cannot realistically police army painting.

Dave mentioned that it all comes down to honesty. Some people have it and some don't. Why punish the honest ones?

If anything - making painting slightly less in points in the overall scheme of things would be a better approach.

I give the players credit that did mark there sheets that they did not paint their forces. Rick and Pete both marked their sheets appropriately and I applaud them for it.

BTW: Tell your buddy Two Heads Talking form the IFL forums that Pete marked the forms appropriately indicating that he did not paint the army.

paidinfull wrote:
I said previously that the reason why i was disappointed and upset, was not because I lost, but a statement was made that caused me to agree that this particular portion of the competition, because the army had not been painted or built by the individual, GW was in a sense rewarding someone as a more dedicated Overall 40k hobbyist. I simply felt that this wasn't what I had expected.

My personal philosophy, as we are sharing them (hehe), is that this is just a game. Hence my sportsmanship scores. No need to argue, no need to get upset or frustrated, we are here to have fun, enjoy the fluff, think strategically and play a fantastic game. I entered the competition because i was awarded the ticket for winning a local RTT almost two years ago and this was my first time attending. If I won the Baltimore tournament great, if not oh well, there is always next time. I prefer to have things spelled out for me so as I know what to expect, and while I expect the scoring to be subjective, i do not expect to be held to different standard than other players. I say that because I don't believe you can compare Player A's painting, to Player B's painting, when Player B's army was painted by Player C. You are in a sense comparing Player A to Player C and the effort should be rewarded, in honesty, to Player C not Player B.

The reason I haven't answered this particular issue and keep refering to the magical "in January" is that there is a lot of discussion that needs to be done by the team here regarding this particular issue. Surpringsly enough, it's the various shades of grey that really trip us up ; )

A broader discussion will be had by our team here (and yes, our teams do make the decisions based on constructive feedback in tandem with what we (GW) want to see represented at our Grand Tournament), and as there are many angles I don't want to make a call one way or the other on this one right now.

We're glad you had a good time, and we'll be working harder to ensure you and everyone else has more clarity to make those honest decisions.

Cheers
Dave

@ Dave Taylor

When I read the original post it appeared to me the poster was asking you for an explanation how painting scores determined. I think he would appreciate something along the lines of a bulleted response.

- G

I will. Inquistor_Malice
B)
I agree, its great that they were honest and they should not be punished or put at a severe disadvantage than others especially for being honest. It should however make a difference that they did not paint their armies, and it also should not be easier for them to win Best Overall. Doing nothing at this point makes it easier, IMO, as well as discourages other individuals who put the effort into doing it themselves. It does this because it raises the point, why should i compete against someone who is paying someone else to do their work when I could do the same? This is a really big negative, in my opinion, to a business that wants to keep people buying and painting models. If GW was paid to paint models for competitions, there wouldn't be an issue if you asked me, but i think they would want to keep the competition about the customers. Doing it this was raises the cost point for hardcore hobbyists and reduces the overall appeal of the GW hobby. Collect, assemble, paint, play.

I haven't posted much on this forum but a bit about my hobby love is included in my IFL signature.
I have easily over 10k in guard, over 4k in Tau, 6k in Eldar, 3k Orks, 2k in Daemonhunters, and 2k in marines.

What i hope to say by this is, I am not the greatest painter nor am i the worst. I don't win every game nor do I lose every game. I love the hobby, from fluff to table top and agree with Dave that people should attend events, and play games, where one knows they will have fun. Competing against 165 other players is not guaranteeing yourself a win, so if you only have fun if you win, well... i think you see where i am going with this.

When I enter a competition, as do most people, you are entering under very specific guidelines, usually with an intent for personal gain. Be it to see how you match up competitively against others in the 3 categories, or to know you won't win but to have fun playing against the best with the small chance of winning it all, or just pad your ego. If you are competing against other people, in any event, be it 40k, swimming, music, sports, it is my opinion that the expectation is that you do the work yourself. Otherwise, the point of the competition becomes diluted. If you didn't do all the work yourself in this case what are you hoping to achieve? How are you competing? What are you competing for? To increase your chances to win free stuff? These are rhetorical statements by the way, intended to get you to think about the negatives to setting this standard. I know we can apply these to Pete, but please don't. My intent is to move forward to press my point and have an adjustment made so that in the future my colleagues, my friends and my opponents will be able, in the spirit of competition, to have a clear field of "battle".

I feel as a community that if we set a precedent, this is about the hobby and your personal involvement in the hobby, and in turn discourage those that are not honest about having someone else painting their army, cheating in the games, then those incidents will be fewer and farther between. You can't police it, it's like the war on drugs, but you can definitely discourage it.

I also hope that you can understand and agree that there is a large need to address this particular portion of the competition. I apologize if I've reiterated a lot of what I've said before but something should be done to address this.

This is a lot like boxing scoring and i think we all know how awful that is. 2 different judges can see a fight 2 different ways and removing the subjective nature of it to level the playing field would help substantially. GW has released how you get the best General, its clear as day. Sportsmanship is also a no brainer, it's listed on the sheet. The same should be done with the Appearance portion for the Overall scoring.

Green Blow Fly wrote:@ Dave Taylor

When I read the original post it appeared to me the poster was asking you for an explanation how painting scores determined. I think he would appreciate something along the lines of a bulleted response.

- G

Aaaah! I see.

I do not know which particular paint judge judged Andrew's work at the Las Vegas show, and I'm not about to publicly critique his work. I will also not critique his work as judged in Las Vegas in private with Andrew without having the army in front of me and Andrew standing right next to me.

As we all know, the internet and email cannot convey tone properly, regardless of the number of emoticons we use. All I can hope is that at the next GW-run tournament Andrew attends he is able to ask a paint judge about his army and accept praise and constructive criticism with equal measure.

Cheers
Dave

davetaylor wrote:

The reason I haven't answered this particular issue and keep refering to the magical "in January" is that there is a lot of discussion that needs to be done by the team here regarding this particular issue. Surpringsly enough, it's the various shades of grey that really trip us up ; )

A broader discussion will be had by our team here (and yes, our teams do make the decisions based on constructive feedback in tandem with what we (GW) want to see represented at our Grand Tournament), and as there are many angles I don't want to make a call one way or the other on this one right now.

We're glad you had a good time, and we'll be working harder to ensure you and everyone else has more clarity to make those honest decisions.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and understand it's not a simple process.
I respect and value the fact you are taking the time to address the "various shades of grey"

Green Blow Fly wrote:@ Dave Taylor

When I read the original post it appeared to me the poster was asking you for an explanation how painting scores determined. I think he would appreciate something along the lines of a bulleted response.

- G

Steve - If you have been reading the posts, Dave indicated that they are working on a new system and will release it in January. As far as the old system, everyone could ask Dave to go point by point on their army painting. That is not a realistic request since it would detract from the important aspects of organizing the events and providing a good system for us to enjoy. If a player really wants to improve their army painting score, they should post pics and ask for a review from his/her peers.

Greg you are entitled to your position. I will add that what the painting judge told me in Chicago was really simple and I see no reason why GW does not disclose this information. It warms my heart to see how well you are getting along with the corporation.

- G

Greg should be happy. Greg and Mike prove again and again they are top tier. Greg and Mike used to play guard and did very well in battle but their soft scores suffered. They switch to chaos and all of their soft scores went up. go figure. They play the "metagame" well.

Pro painted armies are great. I would happily lose a GT, because player X had an army pro painted. I go to have fun and see great armies. The last time I checked there isn't a gaint closet of prizes for a gt win.
nothing is worse then traveling to play primered armies.

If there was a penalty of any sort to my overall score, because parts of my army was painted by someone else. I would lie.

Steve - I approach it from a tournament organizer standpoint. Is it simple, who is to say. I will stick up for GW when I believe they are right though and I will critique them when they are wrong. Hell my post addressing one question on the UK GT shows a certain level of iritation with their organizers.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/196550.page#196578

Plus - my playtesting comments below.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/193869.page#195175

Please ensure that your facts are straight before posting comments such as those above. I give credit where credit is due and criticism where criticism is due. No more, no less.

Well the fun part of all this is, I got my wife calling me complaining about the paypal account then paypal calling me complaining a third party accessed my account...of all the dumb gak to trip someones security program, donating to Dakka does it?!

Not the trip to Vegas out of the blue, and not putting a very large bet on my paypal account.

Right. *rolls the eyes*

Greg it just your opinion in regard to the painting criteria and you jumped right in and spoke up. I have a right to my opinion just as much as you.

- G

Steve - my comments are directed towards this statement, which made no sense.

She spent about five minutes or more answering my question in detail. Why can’t you do the same rather than pass the buck?

Dave addressed the question in a professional manner, but I question the reasoning behind such a statement. I'm sure that Dave and I were not the only one's confused by this statement. Know that I do not have any issue with your opinion. However, the manner of presentation above does not make any sense. And seeing as I do not work for GW (nor have the desire to), I can readily and more directly question it. Your comments seemed unnecessarily antagonistic.

skkipper wrote:

If there was a penalty of any sort to my overall score, because parts of my army was painted by someone else. I would lie.

What if they asked you what kind of paints you used/techniques, and you had no idea? Wouldnt you be mad if you were disqualified and accused of cheating? I would never let someone else paint any of my army, if I am not good enough it means I dident deserve the paint score. On the other hand I also wouldnt want someone eliminated because they wanted an army that looked really good, and were not born with god given talent to make it that way. I can understand there rulings, you cant show off your hobby in white dwarf if the grand tourney champ came with unprimered grey space marines, but I dont feel that the ard boyz route is good either. Mabye they should split it completely, and have an equal prize for best general, and best painted army. Good players dont have to sweat top tier paint jobs to compete, and good painters get an equal reward.

Greg I will stand with what I said.

- G

Just my two cents....

First - For the first time since I've been involved in the GT's - the GW guys are actually listening/responding and welcoming our input and criticism. That is a HUGE advance from the days of not really giving a rip. It was obvious at the 2 GT's I went to this year that they are REALLY trying to improve the tournaments. So - for that - thanks and I hope you continue. Obviously we all enjoy this game - or we wouldn't be posting on these forums. I for one am excited to see the new plans for next year.

Second - There probably needs to be some kind of balance in the painting area. Right now you can basically have a full games worth of points swing around painting. Some people have the talent, some have the money, and some have neither when it comes to painting. What about an idea of a Low, Medium, High level of painting - with 5, 10, 15 points given. Pretty much everyone who paints three colors and frocks their bases ought to get the medium - with a few standouts having the high. You'd have to work to get the low and work to get the high's. Heck if someone is willing to spend big bucks for a beautiful army - they should get 5 extra points for it. Then have the painting component as it is today for those that painted their own armies - and give them great prizes for it - just don't count THAT towards the overall.

Al

Here's my 2 cents.

I like the scoring system the way it is now. Sure, it could use some work in the specifics, but in general it seems to be balanced out. The thing that a lot of you don't seem to understand is that in a tournament scoring system, what matters is not the total points available in certain areas, but rather the point spreads between the high and low scores in those areas, and the std. deviations from the mean.

If you look at it that way, it becomes clear that in terms of importance, battle is about at 60%, while sports and painting are both around 40%. That seems like a good mix to me. After all, the winner of an overall award at a GT is suppoed to demonstrate strength in all areas of the game - gameplay, sportsmanship, and painting. If all you care about is winning games, that's why there's a Best General award.

Personally, I think that purchased armies should be disqualified from any award that painting contributes to - those being army, painted, and overall. Or in other words, purchased armies should only be allowed to win general and sports. But how do you enforce that rule? You end up penalizing those who are honest. So as a compromise, allowing the points to count for overall seems like a workable solution.

As to the specifics, of how painting is scored - You're NEVER going to have a totally objective method of scoring painting. There should be a balance between subjective and objective points, but trying to get a totally subjective system just stifles creatitivity and rewards those who do the minimum necessary.

The way it stands now it is to your advantage to play a purchased army painted by a golden deamon winner, as you can score up to 45 points for painting - > this is the equivalent of winning a massacre plus an average painting score. It used to bug me but I have learned to accept it. I think Player's Choice is still reserved for those that painted everything themselves.

As far as guidelines for painting scores I would shoot for something along these lines (starting with minimum and working up):

All models painted with at least three colors and flocked bases (just one model out of an entire army that fails to meet this criteria can cost you)

The army has an overall cohesive appearance and looks good overall

Models are highlighted and shaded

And a display tray always helps.

- G

Centurian99 wrote:
Personally, I think that purchased armies should be disqualified from any award that painting contributes to - those being army, painted, and overall. Or in other words, purchased armies should only be allowed to win general and sports. But how do you enforce that rule? You end up penalizing those who are honest. So as a compromise, allowing the points to count for overall seems like a workable solution.

As I mentioned before, this is an area that we are looking at and talking about. No final decision has been made for 2008.

How would something Bill suggests be enforced? Actually it's you guys who would enforce it. We would announce the Overall winner and if someone in the crowd did not immediately stand up an let us know (shaming the player on the spot), we'd have an email in our inbox on Monday morning pointing out the person who had lied (and probably even giving us all sorts of links to the original painter's website and eBay auctions listing). We'd pull the person, reshuffle the prizes and their name would be mud for many years to come. There is no mileage in the long run, while they may bask in the glory for the five minutes they're receiving their prize and getting their photo taken, it would probably the last time they did it for a good long while. Would someone do it just to get one over on GW? Sure, but our friends on the internet would expose them just as quickly. We've had this happen last year for the Golden Demons.

Enforcing isn't the issue. It is other philosophical debates that need to occur.

Cheers
Dave

Dave,

Are there any plans to change the sports/comp scoring?

Like clarifying if it's only sports, or if it includes comp as well.

Look for the 2008 GW US GT rules in January. I'll bow out of this discussion now, thanks guys.

Cheers
Dave

davetaylor wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:
Personally, I think that purchased armies should be disqualified from any award that painting contributes to - those being army, painted, and overall. Or in other words, purchased armies should only be allowed to win general and sports. But how do you enforce that rule? You end up penalizing those who are honest. So as a compromise, allowing the points to count for overall seems like a workable solution.

As I mentioned before, this is an area that we are looking at and talking about. No final decision has been made for 2008.

How would something Bill suggests be enforced? Actually it's you guys who would enforce it. We would announce the Overall winner and if someone in the crowd did not immediately stand up an let us know (shaming the player on the spot), we'd have an email in our inbox on Monday morning pointing out the person who had lied (and probably even giving us all sorts of links to the original painter's website and eBay auctions listing). We'd pull the person, reshuffle the prizes and their name would be mud for many years to come. There is no mileage in the long run, while they may bask in the glory for the five minutes they're receiving their prize and getting their photo taken, it would probably the last time they did it for a good long while. Would someone do it just to get one over on GW? Sure, but our friends on the internet would expose them just as quickly. We've had this happen last year for the Golden Demons.

Enforcing isn't the issue. It is other philosophical debates that need to occur.

Cheers
Dave

so if i have one guy in my army that my friend painted for me as a gift, I can't win overall? That seems really really lame.

Even with one model, I'd say if you really wanted to win overall you'd paint
that thing.

What if your friend was Jen Haley and she painted your awesome looking Terminator
Captain lord on a large base?

There are just too many what-ifs when it can be (not easily) solved by just
saying "to win these awards you need to do it yourself."

Can I win battle points if I "tag in" Centurion99 during a match?

Can I win best sportsman if Lance Armstrong is on my side of the table (ok, maybe
not the best example)?

Is the question "Do I HAVE this model, this paint job, this conversion" or is it "Did I do it myself?"

skkipper wrote:

davetaylor wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:
Personally, I think that purchased armies should be disqualified from any award that painting contributes to - those being army, painted, and overall. Or in other words, purchased armies should only be allowed to win general and sports. But how do you enforce that rule? You end up penalizing those who are honest. So as a compromise, allowing the points to count for overall seems like a workable solution.

As I mentioned before, this is an area that we are looking at and talking about. No final decision has been made for 2008.

How would something Bill suggests be enforced? Actually it's you guys who would enforce it. We would announce the Overall winner and if someone in the crowd did not immediately stand up an let us know (shaming the player on the spot), we'd have an email in our inbox on Monday morning pointing out the person who had lied (and probably even giving us all sorts of links to the original painter's website and eBay auctions listing). We'd pull the person, reshuffle the prizes and their name would be mud for many years to come. There is no mileage in the long run, while they may bask in the glory for the five minutes they're receiving their prize and getting their photo taken, it would probably the last time they did it for a good long while. Would someone do it just to get one over on GW? Sure, but our friends on the internet would expose them just as quickly. We've had this happen last year for the Golden Demons.

Enforcing isn't the issue. It is other philosophical debates that need to occur.

Cheers
Dave

so if i have one guy in my army that my friend painted for me as a gift, I can't win overall? That seems really really lame.

Why not? Shouldn't the person who paints every model in their army be rewarded for their efforts?

Like I said...its the logistics of the effort that make it problematic.

So - with the leaning towards requiring a player to paint their own models, then should this include conversions too? If we are moving to an absolute system, then I personally believe that conversions need to be policed as well since this can add significantly to the astetic appeal to a force. It is another part that represents the entire aspect of the hobby side.

I guess I look at like this Greg put 800 hours into his army. that is $40k in lost wages to me. paying $10k for a max painting score army is a deal. I then can take the $30k left over and travel to every major 40k tourney in the world. I guess you are punishing the people that have more money then time. I know if I was a game company these are the customers I would want.

Stelek is an interesting new personality. I'm digging the rampant agression, bragging on 40K skill and personal wealth, persecution complex, derision for everyone else's ethics, followed by premptive assurances that we're all too big of jerks to give the benefit of the doubt.

I'd point a few things out, based on the scores from the 07 Vegas GT.

First off, even if Mr. Sutton got a 40 in painting, his overall score would be 135, which wouldn't put him in the top 20.

Second, even if this event was judged solely on battle score, his 77 would place in a tie for 8th place.

And he posted a pic of himself. Normally I have to google trolls to get this sort of backstory. This is great!


Also: I'm impressed that there are two GW employees on this thread. This is a very positive step forward for my outlook on GW.

Dave Taylor: I've never met you, but I've always thought that you do some of the most inspiring conversions out there. They're simultaneously approachable, and clever. Approachable in that they make the hobbyist feel like he could do it himself... And clever, to the point that the hobbyist can't actually do it himself, because they're not as clever as you are. They're just very distinctive, interesting work that looks cool without resorting to being a total green stuff ninja.

I was insulted when a shoddily painted Eldar army crushed my rather clever paint job into the dirt with a an industrial insulating foam "case" spray painted 10 different colors.

Just to add another voice to it, let me assure you that your model is not better than the 40 point model you posted. It's not shoddily painted, it's actually pretty good work. Is it 20 points better than yours? I don't think so, but then again there are other models in the armies in question.

Looking just at these two Fire Prisms, the 40 point model is notably better, and it didn't take foam to do it. It does it on the basis of a better color scheme, cleaner work, and some moderately successful highlights. It's colors are less monolithic than yours. For example, no matter how carefully you may have executed the purple areas in the turret, they still end up looking like too much purple.

If you spent a lot of time on yours, then that's great. I hope you enjoyed it. But it does ultimately look like a fairly heavy drybrush job. In the end, if you spend hours and hours recreating a heavy drybrush job, that's probably something to take as a learning experience, and not repeat.

I mean, a week on that prism cannon? Have you considered that you might be overthinking things?

Just to put my money where my mouth is, here's one of my Falcons. All told, I think the entire model probably took me less than a week to paint. Personally I think it looks better than your prism cannon. Maybe I should go make a big foam box for it? You know, just for insurance?

I'm glad you dig me. You won't find much info on me on the net. Been around a long time, yet this is my first time really going public.

I like your Falcon. Since the pictures don't do mine vs his justice, I guess I'll suck it up. In person his *army*, not just 1 model, looked horrid. My army was next to his during paint judging, and I had people stopping at my army. No one stopped at the 2nd best painted guys table...it hurt the eyes.

At any rate, your falcon looks like a stippling job and it's shiny. The 'shiny' look is what I was trying to avoid, since oh almost every Eldar army is perfectly new and shiny. Like the Craftworld just gave birth to it.

If it matters, a stippling like yours takes me about a day. Why'd you paint some gems and not others? I chose to not paint any, but the ones you did paint blend in nicely. I've been thinking about doing a blue/white stipple on my Tau, but I'm not sure if I can avoid a 'it looks primed' on the white. Btw, on my Falcon it was primed white...not black. Yes, I overdid things on the Prism Cannon but in my own defense I think it looks better than glopping black paint on over white. If you'd seen his in person, you wouldn't think it was a better color scheme (not matching the rest of the army = bad), the work wasn't clean (glop paint, primed paint both show), and the highlights were orange stripes with a lighter orange in the middle and the not even. Like I said, pictures don't do it the injustice it deserves.

By the way, what megapixel does your camera have? I plan on buying one soon, my wife's camera is like 1.8, barely above a damn phone camera. :(

Since the line of thought is looking at absolute controls, points gained by armies not painted by a player should not count towards the 3rd place overall, 2nd place overall and the GT circuit points then either. If we are going towards absolute true representation in the hobby and for overall scoring (event specific and circuit points), then you have to elimate all contribution of points gained in this manner.

Also, how will you account for this from the satellite events (ie: the Necro) and the biggest event of the year (AdeptiCon) where you painting / converting your own models is not required to win overall there?

Centurian99 - if we followed absolutes this past year, then your Dakka Detachment 1 would receive no points towards overall placing at AdeptiCon since Yak had his hive tyrant converted by Insaniak. It's not his own work. Or are we going to stop at policing painting only just for convenience.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:Centurian99 - if we followed absolutes this past year, then your Dakka Detachment 1 would receive no points towards overall placing at AdeptiCon since Yak had his hive tyrant converted by Insaniak. It's not his own work. Or are we going to stop at policing painting only just for convenience.

Well it is a painting score....

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:Centurian99 - if we followed absolutes this past year, then your Dakka Detachment 1 would receive no points towards overall placing at AdeptiCon since Yak had his hive tyrant converted by Insaniak. It's not his own work. Or are we going to stop at policing painting only just for convenience.

Well it is a painting score....

Conversions affect the astetic appeal. If one question on the check list even asks about conversions (which most do), then it is not 'just' a painting score.

I see no difference between painting and conversion in terms of army appearance. I am sure some will disagree though.

- G

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:Since the line of thought is looking at absolute controls, points gained by armies not painted by a player should not count towards the 3rd place overall, 2nd place overall and the GT circuit points then either. If we are going towards absolute true representation in the hobby and for overall scoring (event specific and circuit points), then you have to elimate all contribution of points gained in this manner.

Also, how will you account for this from the satellite events (ie: the Necro) and the biggest event of the year (AdeptiCon) where you painting / converting your own models is not required to win overall there?

Centurian99 - if we followed absolutes this past year, then your Dakka Detachment 1 would receive no points towards overall placing at AdeptiCon since Yak had his hive tyrant converted by Insaniak. It's not his own work. Or are we going to stop at policing painting only just for convenience.

If that's the system, that's the system. You know me - I'll always work within the system.

We're just speaking on a purely theoretical idea-generating level here. And on that level, I like the idea that to win an overall, the whole army must be your work.

But as I said, its impractical for a variety of reasons.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I see no difference between painting and conversion in terms of army appearance. I am sure some will disagree though.

- G

I think they should be 2 seperate issues to judge. one can have a very nicely painted army with no conversions and a nicely converted army and be terribly painted. one should not affect the other negatively.

this will add one more thing to determine, but honestly, how long does it take to judge an army?

Honestly, I think we will have to get back to this in January. If I had a specific guideline that let me know I could get 35 points in paint for:

1) Doing it myself
2) Putting in a little effort
3) Making the army cohesive
4) Trying to use my (admittedly poor) paint skills to their highest level

I would be totally happy because I know that I will not have a 45 point army and I also feel that my battle and sportsmanship scores would make up for those 5-10 points that tourney winners usually have.

I look forward to seeing this in the near future. Thanks Dave.

Orion

So Dave, if you guys implement this, do you think the system of "we'll just backtrack it and note if the painting is done by somebody else" would really work? I mean, I'd really like some way to enforce self-painting, but maybe you could prevent it beforehand?

Problem is practicality, like Centurian99 said. Say require everyone to upload pics of their army, including a few choice models (HQ or vehicles), for public view before each event. This will give time for people to check if everyone's army was painted themselves and it would be to everyone's self-interest to point out that someone else's army was not painted by him. However, the problem would then be the burden of proof required, subjecting offending members to lie detector tests which aren't foolproof, and having everyone at the tourney know what everyone else is playing beforehand. Impractical, but possibly more effective than relying players to point out armies that aren't self-painted?

Or you could just ask everyone how they painted their armies. Nobody ever shuts up about that.

Dead horse meet 40k. 40k meet dead horse.

Not possible.

How many people does it take to prove that the entire army wasn't painted by someone else? Can one guy stand up and say it to spoil a guy's chances of winning?

Really.. you want people to bring nice armies to a tournament because you want to play against cool looking figs. That is the long and the short of it. GW wants you to have well painted figs there so they can take pics and sell more tickets next year or get some cheap material for their web site or magazine. Is that bad? No, it's just the way it is.

Who cares if someone painted their crap or not? That's what the golden demon is for.

Then overall should simply be best general.

If overall is supposed to represent who the best 'hobby nerd' is, then it 'biggest wallet' shouldn't be a factor.

I don't much care either way, because I always paint my own stuff, but if I get a vote, I say people who didn't paint their own stuff should get a half score for painting or some other suitable penalty that removes their ability to win overall.

It's like a guy buying a new corvette and taking it to a car show. Sure, the vette's cool, but that guy over there that restored the 65 Avante is waaay cooler than the guy driving the vette and he's waaay more a 'car guy' than the fellow that can make the big payments.

My two cents on painting:

Cent no. 1) Why add a rule that's impossible to enforce?

Cent no. 2) If painting is to be part of the competition in order to encourage great-looking armies, then it needs to represent a decent chunk of points. They used a quantitative checklist that created very little "spread" in the past, and it just left players wondering why they should put the extra 100 hours in for a few points difference. IF it's important, there needs to be *incentive*.

I'm not advocating the current percentages of scoring as is. I'm just saying that painting isn't something they should do halfway. Either keep it an important category to encourage great armies, or eliminate the category and just have a rule about no unpainted armies. Anything in between is a waste of time for both the judges and the participants.

Disclosure: I suppose some of you would label me as a "painter," although I did reach table 6 at the GT until my lack of practice did me in (my GT games represented the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th games of 40K I played this YEAR). I may be one of the "idiots" with a display base, but I also like the 'Ardboyz tourney format and definitely would have participated if my schedule allowed. *shrug*

Okay, so that one was more like a dime or quarter.

In person his *army*, not just 1 model, looked horrid.

Again, I just don't think that's possible. This army scored a 40. Now, to me, horrid would be something like a 5 or a 10. Clearly that Fire Prism isn't a 5 or a 10. Is it a 40? Maybe not. But there's an AWFUL long trip from 40 down to 5.

I think you're letting emotion cloud your objectivity here, and that's not very vulcan of you.

You strike me as a very detail/rules focused person, to the point that you seem to even invent your own details and rules. For example, why didn't I paint all the gems on my Falcon? It never even occurred to me that way. If I didn't paint them like gems, then they're not gems... Right? They're just sensor blisters or something. I painted the ones I thought would break up the color of the body at appealing points.

So, given your outlook on painting (must paint all gems or none, didn't you know?) I can see why you'd have issues with the 40 point Fire Prism. It's got some bizzarely glaring weaknesses, and some very nice points. What the hell is wrong with the prism (as you point out). But, on the whole (and again, given that pictures are what I have to work with) it looks much better than yours. You seem to be less of a "take it in as a whole" sort of guy, and more of a "how many checks on the checklist" sort of guy.

And you wrote the checklist in your head.

I mean, there's an "all gems or none" rule? Why isn't there a "both windscreens have to be the same color" rule?

My army was next to his during paint judging, and I had people stopping at my army.

Maybe they were just stopping by to grab an extra set of turret vanes?

Btw, on my Falcon it was primed white...not black.

Whatever works for you. Mine was primered both.

I primed the top of the hull and the turret black, the rest white. Then I assembled it all when painting was done. I don't normally do it that way, but I think getting a really clean, defined line between the top surfaces and undersides makes a Falcon/Prism/Serpent look nice.

My camera: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-Digital-Image-Stabilized-Optical/dp/B000HATNH4

I agree that the over all winner at the tournamanet should get most of his points from playing the games. Right now it's a 52 to 48% swing where it should be something closer to 75% to 25%.

blood angel wrote:Dead horse meet 40k. 40k meet dead horse.

Not possible.

How many people does it take to prove that the entire army wasn't painted by someone else? Can one guy stand up and say it to spoil a guy's chances of winning?

Really.. you want people to bring nice armies to a tournament because you want to play against cool looking figs. That is the long and the short of it. GW wants you to have well painted figs there so they can take pics and sell more tickets next year or get some cheap material for their web site or magazine. Is that bad? No, it's just the way it is.

Who cares if someone painted their crap or not? That's what the golden demon is for.

Completely agree 100%.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:

blood angel wrote:Dead horse meet 40k. 40k meet dead horse.

Not possible.

How many people does it take to prove that the entire army wasn't painted by someone else? Can one guy stand up and say it to spoil a guy's chances of winning?

Really.. you want people to bring nice armies to a tournament because you want to play against cool looking figs. That is the long and the short of it. GW wants you to have well painted figs there so they can take pics and sell more tickets next year or get some cheap material for their web site or magazine. Is that bad? No, it's just the way it is.

Who cares if someone painted their crap or not? That's what the golden demon is for.

Completely agree 100%.

completely disagree. it's not that simple and not quite as complicated as either of you make it out to be. this might be a dead horse issue, but if by beating on it, we come up with a new way to make glue, then let's beat the bajeebus out of the carcass. If people are complaining about something, it's a valid issue. Even if you disagree, your point of view is valid too. Gw should look at it, evolution of the tourney circuit will keep the comp creeps from doing as little as possible to gain the maximum while abusing certain rules set forth many years ago.

just my perspective and I am willing to discuss and consider all points of view. but don't just go around calling people out when you are doing it yourself.

blood angel wrote:I agree that the over all winner at the tournamanet should get most of his points from playing the games. Right now it's a 52 to 48% swing where it should be something closer to 75% to 25%.

Centurian99 did a good job addressing this point earlier. The actual weighting is more like 60-40.

Why?

Because while battle points each game may range from 0 to max (and if someone wins and the other guy loses, there WILL be a large swing in points between them every round), painting scores (barring outliers) range from about 20-40. So even if you don't spend many, many hours contemplating (how to paint) your Avatar's navel, you can still secure 1/2 the points available. Sportsmanship similarly has a smaller actual variance, vs. battle points. (I'm not bored enough to determine the actual standard deviation for the last GT for each of battle, sports, and painting, though.)

THH - Quite the different tone from --

and you are supposed to get a big fat goose egg if you didn't paint the army yourself. 9 will get you 10 that pete never said anything about who painted it, playing it off with the occassional, well no one ever asked me if I painted the army, so I never told them. (bushleague if you ask me)

http://www.ironfistleague.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9201&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

A posters reach can be far and wide. I personally painted all of my models down to the last brush stroke. So from that point of view, I stand to gain in the arena where only models painted by you can count for overall. However, I do not believe you cripple players to the point that it is not worth bringing a top tier army whether they painted it or not.

One of the suggestions earlier was to decrease the overall points in softscores. As Janthkin and Centrurian pointed out, the actual weighting is about 60-40 on softscores when you account for statistical variance. Is the solution to change the ratio to 65-35 or 70-30? I believe that nudging it in this direction will help the system. It's just like any process control mechanisms. As you are trying to dial it in to the appropriate setpoint, you don't keep making drastic changes because otherwise you never establish a solid baseline to work from.

I really wouldn't mind it so much, if the 'entire hobby' aspect of your rating applied to the rest of the events as well.

For example, you should have to play games of 40k during Golden Demon, and they count 40% of your total score.

See, makes perfect sense.

gorgon wrote:My two cents on painting:

Cent no. 1) Why add a rule that's impossible to enforce?

Painting your own army has always been the rule, and this is the first year without it. So they are not adding it, but restoring it. And with the internet, it is easyier now to enforce than it ever has.

Cent no. 2) If painting is to be part of the competition in order to encourage great-looking armies, then it needs to represent a decent chunk of points. They used a quantitative checklist that created very little "spread" in the past, and it just left players wondering why they should put the extra 100 hours in for a few points difference. IF it's important, there needs to be *incentive*.

Check lists are good for a guideline for the judges, and then the judges should have some ability to reward great armies.

I think the pro-painted armied should get a penalty. Nothing so harsh as a 0, but something to encourage them to bring a nice painted army, but something to give people who painted their own army a slight advantage.

IntoTheRain wrote:I really wouldn't mind it so much, if the 'entire hobby' aspect of your rating applied to the rest of the events as well.

For example, you should have to play games of 40k during Golden Demon, and they count 40% of your total score.

See, makes perfect sense.

Yes because Golden Demon signifies playing the game as well as sportsmanship. Speaking of which, why don't I ever see pictures of Golden Demon games?

Blackmoor wrote:Painting your own army has always been the rule, and this is the first year without it. So they are not adding it, but restoring it. And with the internet, it is easyier now to enforce than it ever has.

Just so I'm sure we're talking about the same thing...do you mean players were actually penalized in a major way for not painting their own armies?

I've been attending GTs since the first Baltimore tourney in 1997, and I have to admit this is the first I've heard this. It was common knowledge that one multiple GT winner back in the day sometimes used pro-painted armies. I have my old rules packets...I'm going to have to check them tonight, because this is coming out of left field to me.

Check lists are good for a guideline for the judges, and then the judges should have some ability to reward great armies.

I think the pro-painted armied should get a penalty. Nothing so harsh as a 0, but something to encourage them to bring a nice painted army, but something to give people who painted their own army a slight advantage.

I don't like formal checklists at all. To paraphrase Dead Poet's Society, we're talking about painting, not laying pipe. Army painting isn't art, but it is artistic and virtually impossible to quantify. Now just to clarify, I'm all for official guidelines and training so that judges are grading with as much consistency as possible. But ultimately we're talking about human beings.

gorgon wrote:
I don't like formal checklists at all. To paraphrase Dead Poet's Society, we're talking about painting, not laying pipe. Army painting isn't art, but it is artistic and virtually impossible to quantify. Now just to clarify, I'm all for official guidelines and training so that judges are grading with as much consistency as possible. But ultimately we're talking about human beings.

This is not modern art. We are talking about the painting of static miniatures. There are a finite number of techniques that you can use, and a number of criteria you can use to judge them.

example
here is lord Klymyshyn. He isn't a pro painted demon winner ,but he was painted for me by a friend. I like him and I use him when I want a generic lord in my chaos army. I haven't painted it myself so I should get docked points. that blows, so I will lie and field him anyways.

If they bring back the requirement to paint your own army I am all for that, as it helps to promote all aspects of the hobby, which to me is what a GT should be about.

- G

I don't have a all or nothing concept in regard to painting gems. To me, they're aesthetic pieces to be done with as you please. I was asking why you chose to paint some and not all, I wasn't finding fault.

So, makes the rest of that set of comments not worth replying to, and moving on...

You seem to want me to define horrid. So here goes.

The army looked like several armies welded together with a base.

The base looked like a 15 year old got a 3x3 piece of plywood, a 2x3, and 3 cans of industrial spray foam (the kind you use on doors and windows) and sprayed the whole thing with a primer, then painted on several strips of colors that almost matched the models he routed out spaces for. Attach a bronze plate and voila, done.

The troops did not match the vehicles.

Many of the basics like flocking/basing and shading weren't done.

For this army to receive a '40' was to me enough to make all of the faults really come out.

In contrast:

On the other hand, I played the guy who actually won Best Painted.

Excellent conversion work.
Paint lines so crisp if I didn't know better I'd think there was a seamline on the model.
Excellent shading.
Excellent dry brush work.
Excellent highlighting.
A wide variety of models, with a very coherent paint theme.
His 'tray' was exceedingly minimalist, meant for carrying then for displaying.

His talents at making a coherent army come together made my efforts pale in comparison.

See, you don't understand just how dispassionate I am. I saw his army, and we talked about it for 20 minutes--before we even played.

I saw the other Eldar several times that day, and no one took it seriously it hurt the eyes so bad.

Armies that are actually mutiple armies welded together by a no-effort display stand shouldn't be considered double the average score (which was a 20). No way that army was in the same range of skill and effort as that displayed by the Best Painted army, but according to GW it was.

This kind of subjective problem is what everyone is discussing, isn't it?

skkipper wrote:example
here is lord Klymyshyn. He isn't a pro painted demon winner ,but he was painted for me by a friend. I like him and I use him when I want a generic lord in my chaos army. I haven't painted it myself so I should get docked points. that blows, so I will lie and field him anyways.

Really we are talking about pro painted minis that are there to score in the 30+ range. When you score in the 20s and below, no one really cares.

Heck, if you can paint an army that can score 25 points, and you bring a friends army that will score 15 points, I want to encourage that out-of-the-box thinking.

But if you read the rules, and the rules state that you need to paint your own army, then I would get a new mini and paint it, or re-paint the one you have.

Obviously a well painted HQ model can boost the painting score for an army. Don't mind skippy as he is a well documented cheater.

- G

the painting "did you paint it" item is the only thing I cheated at and will do it again.

Blackmoor wrote:This is not modern art. We are talking about the painting of static miniatures. There are a finite number of techniques that you can use, and a number of criteria you can use to judge them.

I'm all for standardized criteria that judges should review and consider as they're reviewing an army. But if we're talking about boxes to check off -- 2 pts for this, 2 pts for that -- I'd rather see the whole category removed. A dipped army might look great -- should it be penalized because it doesn't have traditional "highlighting?" Do banners score extra points just because they're there? Should conversions push an average paint job past an well-painted army with few conversions? If so, to what degree?

It's all so subjective that trying to force things into some quantitative matrix is doomed to fail. They tried to create a quantitative comp system and it penalized anyone who wasn't playing marines. I just don't see how something as subjective as appearance can get a similar system. You'll end up with players determining (or demanding to know) the minimum number of conversions they need to max that category, etc. That way lies madness.

Even on the pro-painting topic, what if I send an army out to have the base colors done but handle all the converting, highlighting, basing, banners, etc.? What percentage of the army must the player paint? Should they be penalized for even a single brushstroke being done by someone else(to ground this example, let's say a friend only helped them paint eyes)? If so, how would anyone know? What if my wife helped flock bases...not even painting, just gluing down flock? Should I receive a zero in painting?

mauleed wrote:If overall is supposed to represent who the best 'hobby nerd' is, then it 'biggest wallet' shouldn't be a factor.

I agree with this.

Since few people are truly honest about who painted what in their army, I think it's impossible to keep things balanced so long as painting is a 'soft' score in determining a overall winner (but strangely, not best general).

Best painted should, imo, be it's own competition and the painting scores shouldn't be included as part of overall.

If the army has say a 'average' or the 'first six' on a checklist, it should be eligible for overall.

Keeping things simple should be the primary goal here.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:THH - Quite the different tone from --

and you are supposed to get a big fat goose egg if you didn't paint the army yourself. 9 will get you 10 that pete never said anything about who painted it, playing it off with the occassional, well no one ever asked me if I painted the army, so I never told them. (bushleague if you ask me)

http://www.ironfistleague.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9201&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

A posters reach can be far and wide. I personally painted all of my models down to the last brush stroke. So from that point of view, I stand to gain in the arena where only models painted by you can count for overall. However, I do not believe you cripple players to the point that it is not worth bringing a top tier army whether they painted it or not.

One of the suggestions earlier was to decrease the overall points in softscores. As Janthkin and Centrurian pointed out, the actual weighting is about 60-40 on softscores when you account for statistical variance. Is the solution to change the ratio to 65-35 or 70-30? I believe that nudging it in this direction will help the system. It's just like any process control mechanisms. As you are trying to dial it in to the appropriate setpoint, you don't keep making drastic changes because otherwise you never establish a solid baseline to work from.

reducing overal points might be a solution. as if you do read the link, it was pointed out to me that my assumption of said painting scores was incorrect. but with that said, ones effort should be rewarded and no effort to me is the same as no score. see where I am going? some effort would be some score, min effort would be min score, max effort would be max score. (yes those points are and should be variable and what they should be can be determined later.) but my point has been, if the overall winner is determined by overall effort, playing, sportsmanship, painting etc. then failure to achieve in any of these would be disqualification in the overall running. you could win, best general or best sportsman, but nothing else. (yes that is draconian, but so what. ) "the hobby" is what GW wants to grow, "the hobby" is not just pushing models across a table, if it were we would still be using those stupid paper cutouts form the early 80's. "the hobby" is not just about painting contests, if it were we could just have daemon awards. "the hobby" isn't just about being nice or friendly to your opponent. "The Hobby" is about a combination of all of the above. and therefore should encompass all of the above, nothing more or less should be expected.

See, you don't understand just how dispassionate I am.

Maybe... Or do you not understand how passionate you are? I mean, you seem pretty friggin offended by this guy's army, and you're not holding back on the insults. It looks like it was made by a 15 year old, etc. etc.

For this army to receive a '40' was to me enough to make all of the faults really come out.

See, that's why I say there's a lack of objectivity. Either there are faults or there aren't. What it's scored doesn't change the paint job. Being scored great doesn't make an average army suddenly turn horrid, just like it doesn't make it suddenly turn great.

The simple fact is that you're cutting this army down because you're pissed at the score it got, not because it's actually such an offense to the hobby.

If they scored this army a 20, would you be telling everyone about the horrid trainwreck of Eldar crap you saw at the Vegas GT? No...

It's not a big deal, I just think that a guy who purports to speak the unvarnished truth about how awesome and wealthy he is, because it's the truth, should be equally willing to admit that he's taking it personally that an army he didn't like got scored better than he thinks it should have, because that's also the truth. Probably moreso.

You seem to have two categories for things:

1) Things you totally dominate.
2) Things which are crap and beneath you.

I think it's a lot of fun, and would like to see more commentary along these lines.

Also, I always want to know this of all the exciting new internet personalities I come across:

What do you do for a living?

What kind of car do you drive?

THH - having it be the sum of "The Hobby" is a great idea. However, your ideal of the hobby does not exist. Eliminate "The Overall". This because of the following problems:

1. Sportsmanship - This should not be included in any score. The second you put this in player hands to score, your entire system is flawed. In the current tournament environment you have:
a. The Politician - ie: you give me max scores and I give you max scores.
b. The Score Keeper - someone who reads the scores and applies it appropriately in an ideal manner.
c. The Poor Sport - somone who lost and sees all the negatives in the army they are playing against and takes in out in their opponents sportsmanship.
d. The Chipmunker - while not as prevalent - this is someone who will purposely mark scores down.
e. Mr. 'I Don't Care' - who marks everyone high no matter what.

This category is so flawed that it isn't even funny. It all depends on who you are paired with. Get rid of this category in overall scoring. It is completely worthless and has been for years. It should be used to as a minimum score to allow you to participate or like in the UK with their card system (ie: 2 cards and you are out). In the hands of the players, it is complete BS. All major tournament vets know this system is horrible.

2. Painting - This category has proven to be flawed in our current system and can be improved. I personally like the idea of a checklist. However, if you continue to use this system - it needs to be extremely detailed and the judges need to be trained and trained and trained again. Another option is to also go to the UK system where the top 10 armies are chosen by the tournamnet organizers and then voted on by the players. My opinion is that this score should not be counted towards your 'overall' score and needs to be completely separate. Having a separate score prevents the desire to purchase propainted armies since it can't influence an "Overall" award.

These two categories are biggest flaws in the entire system. Celebrating "The Hobby", eh. For the most part, working to achieve this idea called "The Hobby" is so conceptually flawed, that it is laughable.

I would like to say that the only event that has been able to successfully combine them to the best potential is AdpetiCon. Their sportsmanship scores are very detailed about being cordial (ie: did my opponent show up on time, did they bring the right materials to play). Not answers like "did my opponent hug me", which is how the current GTs are.

What I see with "The Overall" awards is all completely separate categories 1) sportsmanship, 2) painting, 3) best general. Do not combine them. We will probably never get to that system though.

Finally, I have to give the UK GT team a lot of credit. This is one area that they have a solid understanding of. Completely separate painting scores and best general not influenced by sportsmanship. All you UKers please keep in mind though that whoever is heading up your events team FAQ needs to get their head screwed on straight (and I am saying this nicely). The Yak FAQ (that AdeptiCon is adopting) runs circles around your group. Plus AdeptiCon itself runs circles around around the UK system. So you can come down off of cloud nine.

This category is so flawed that it isn't even funny. It all depends on who you are paired with. Get rid of this category in overall scoring.

Seems like a good alternative here is "rate your opponents." If you play five games, then you get a 1-5 rating from each player you face. If you're great, you get all favorites, if not, etc. etc. Clears up all the problems you cover in your list.

I think this same system could help with the painting as well. Have each player rate the armies they played from best to worst. At the end, you can take the top five (or 3 or whatever) painting scores, and have a vote for first and second.

Also, why not put some scoring variables on the signup forms? Ask the players doing the playing what they want battle, painting and sports to be worth. Take the average, and use that to weight the scores on gameday.

There's no reason formulas can't be used here... It's the information age, we don't need scores to be divisible by 5. Just publish all the formulas at the start of the event.

People can complain about the math, but math is math, it's not hard to figure out. And even if you're not able, the trick to winning a GT is still to beat everyone you play badly, make them love you for it, and do it with a pretty army. That's not going to change, no matter what the formulas are.

I have played at RTTs with both armies, so I am familiar with the 2 armies that got a 40 paint score at the Vegas GT.

Stelek wrote:I don't have a all or nothing concept in regard to painting gems. To me, they're aesthetic pieces to be done with as you please. I was asking why you chose to paint some and not all, I wasn't finding fault.

So, makes the rest of that set of comments not worth replying to, and moving on...

You seem to want me to define horrid. So here goes.

The army looked like several armies welded together with a base.

The base looked like a 15 year old got a 3x3 piece of plywood, a 2x3, and 3 cans of industrial spray foam (the kind you use on doors and windows) and sprayed the whole thing with a primer, then painted on several strips of colors that almost matched the models he routed out spaces for. Attach a bronze plate and voila, done.

The troops did not match the vehicles.

Many of the basics like flocking/basing and shading weren't done.

For this army to receive a '40' was to me enough to make all of the faults really come out.

Here are the 2 Prisms again:

And again, your Prism:



When you see the prisms together, lot of things stand out. One thing is that your prism cannon is much better.

But when you paint, you want 2 colors that compliment each other, and then neutral colors, or a minor tertiary color that compliments the first 2. On your falcon, you have the blue which goes well with the orange, but you did not stop there…you then added green and purple, and that is just too many colors.

Look at Toby’s, he has red and the purple, and then has the neutral colors of white and black, with the tertiary colors of green that goes well with both red and purple. Also notice that all of the gems are painted (as far as paint scoring goes, I think the details really matter). He has clean blending throughout the vehicle, and good highlighting

I saw the other Eldar several times that day, and no one took it seriously it hurt the eyes so bad.

Armies that are actually mutiple armies welded together by a no-effort display stand shouldn't be considered double the average score (which was a 20). No way that army was in the same range of skill and effort as that displayed by the Best Painted army, but according to GW it was.

This kind of subjective problem is what everyone is discussing, isn't it?

I saw that Eldar army up close, and it was a great army, I guess we will have to disagree about the quality of the paint job.

Here is Toby's army:

I'm a little confused right now. Clearly there is a theme to that army. There's a red-orange/purple/bone theme in all the models, it's very consistent and distinctive.

Even the blue in the basing rocks is complemented in the canopies on the Prism.

What are you even looking at Stelek?

You're losing objectivity cred with each passing second.

Janthkin wrote:

blood angel wrote:I agree that the over all winner at the tournamanet should get most of his points from playing the games. Right now it's a 52 to 48% swing where it should be something closer to 75% to 25%.

Centurian99 did a good job addressing this point earlier. The actual weighting is more like 60-40.

Why?

Because while battle points each game may range from 0 to max (and if someone wins and the other guy loses, there WILL be a large swing in points between them every round), painting scores (barring outliers) range from about 20-40. So even if you don't spend many, many hours contemplating (how to paint) your Avatar's navel, you can still secure 1/2 the points available. Sportsmanship similarly has a smaller actual variance, vs. battle points. (I'm not bored enough to determine the actual standard deviation for the last GT for each of battle, sports, and painting, though.)

You aren't thinking like a winner. You need to think that if two people maxed out their battle points and one of them was on the short end of the stick in a system where almost half of the points are SUBJECTIVE - meaning that two equally painted armies can still receive two different scores and mother Theresa can still get a zero for sportsmanship because she crammed a guys army in the box on turn three - then it is a bad system.

Your right Paul. As long as two armies of the same level can get 2 differant scores, then we do need to scale back the soft scores, but not get rid of them.

I completely agree. Soft scores should be a part of the game as I consider warhammer a social activity as well as competitive. It's the ratio that I have a problem with.

I am in agreement with both you Paul and Dave, the soft scores need to be tweaked and having 50% of the points not in control is pretty hard. Still most Tournament players will agree that Winning a GT combines not only skill but luck in the draw as well as the mission.

Here is another thing I found

Paint Scores:________________Baltimore GT_______LA Gamesday

Scott Simpson___________________25_______________25

Mike Mutscheller/Peter Elias_________40_______________20

Scott's army was scored higher in LA. and lower in Baltimore.



As a side note, I was going back through my scores, and I would have won the Las Vegas GT if I had bought an army that scored a 40, and would have been in 3rd place in Baltimore.

I was looking at the other parts of the army? The "new" parts, the harlies, looked good. The old stuff, didn't, like the Warp Spiders. The work on those was very sloppy. If you don't think so, you didn't look hard enough. The weapons on virtually the entire army were poorly done, lots of overlap, bleed, and glop. The colors on the rocks do not match the colors on the driver heads, it's a different blue. Or is "close enough" good enough for a '40'?

If that rates a 40, then that means you can ignore the faults for what reason?

FWIW, I painted the different colors on the Falcon for a reason--without the extra colors the paint job did not look complete. Why can't I have 4+ colors when Toby had 10+? What'd I miss in the great rulebook alot of you seem to be referencing?

He has white, red, black, and purple on his Falcon; I have 1 more major color but it's a bleed through from an actual paint job on the bottom--something his didn't have.

I used the same paint scheme across the army, with the same paints, at the same time. Maybe you thought it was great, but you'd be the first person to say so. No one there said it was great, and you seem to have left out the entire problem with the crappy base it was on.

Since it was judged while it was on it, maybe the point I've been trying to make should be looked at, instead of taking this as some kind of tit for tat.

The army doesn't rate 2nd best painted at a rogue trader, let alone a GT. For the reasons I've stated over and over...

Oops almost forgot, thank you for the link to the camera. I'll be looking for one at Best Buy or Circuit City this weekend.

FWIW, I painted the different colors on the Falcon for a reason--without the extra colors the paint job did not look complete.

Then perhaps what it comes down to is that you have, uh, unusual taste, while Toby's taste--whatever alleged sloppiness aside--is more agreeable to most people.

Like I said: Toxic Avengers Eldar.

Stelek wrote:
spaced out profanity it's equal.

Stelek, there's to be no profanity on the board. Getting around the profanity filters (which don't seem to be doing a good job anyway) is still disobeying the rules.

I know you've got that whole "vitrioloic martyr" persona going on, but please do it without the profanity.

The forum rules can be found here.

Thank you.

Selek,

1. the profianity is uncalled for, if you cant keep to an adult level of discussion you dont belong on a public forum.

2. you lost your credibility the moment you called his army crap. It is clearly a well painted army with a coherant and well executed theme.

3. you have a valid point that his army may have been scored above the level it deserved, 40 instead of 30-35 perhaps, but to go overboard slamming the army as "looks like it was done by a 15 year old" makes you seem childish.

I boil it down in my own eyes by the fact that I know I could replicate your prism with my skill level, but his eldar is clearly above the skill level I have and I am man enough to admire his talent and effort .

His army is clearly, obviously and easilly better than yours. If you cant see that you either need glasses or psychiatric help.

I will agree that the other army you liked to is better than his, but they are both on an entirely different level than yours ( or mine ).

Im sure you are probably a decent guy, and I think you may have let your anger and dissapointment cloud your view of things.

I guess you should try to consider what your attempting to accomplish with your posts.

If you are trying to sway people to your view, then you are going about it in the worst possible way.

If you are merely trying to vent your frustrations in a public forum, then I can respect that, and only ask that you please keep it civil.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:THH - having it be the sum of "The Hobby" is a great idea. However, your ideal of the hobby does not exist. Eliminate "The Overall". This because of the following problems:

1. Sportsmanship - This should not be included in any score. The second you put this in player hands to score, your entire system is flawed. In the current tournament environment you have:

2. Painting - This category has proven to be flawed in our current system and can be improved. I personally like the idea of a checklist. However, if you continue to use this system - it needs to be extremely detailed and the judges need to be trained and trained and trained again. Another option is to also go to the UK system where the top 10 armies are chosen by the tournamnet organizers and then voted on by the players. My opinion is that this score should not be counted towards your 'overall' score and needs to be completely separate. Having a separate score prevents the desire to purchase propainted armies since it can't influence an "Overall" award.

These two categories are biggest flaws in the entire system. Celebrating "The Hobby", eh. For the most part, working to achieve this idea called "The Hobby" is so conceptually flawed, that it is laughable.

I certainly agree that your points 1 and 2 are the biggest issues currently in the judging. I think if each was more clearly defined that it wouldn't be quite so arbitrary. I also wouldn't be adverse to having 5 seperate awards. thus allowing for all aspects of "the hobby"

FWIW, I painted the different colors on the Falcon for a reason--without the extra colors the paint job did not look complete. Why can't I have 4+ colors when Toby had 10+?

It's really not about the number of colors, it's about whether it works or not. I think your model would have looked better with fewer colors, and with less monolithic blocks of color, particularly the purple in the turret. Perhaps the picture isn't doing it justice, but that's my impression.

Would you care to post other pictures of your work, so we can see better the virtues you feel we're missing?

The vehicles weren't highlighted across the entire armor plate, like below

It's hard to tell what you're saying in this sentence. The picture you posted is a very nice, clean paintjob. If that's your work, then congrats, that's a very good job. It has edge highlights, and they're done very well. The whole surfaces aren't highlighted, just the edges. Is that bad? Or good?

That's a difficult effect to achieve.

What is? Gradients across panels? Or good edge highlights?

It's always difficult to do things well. Sure, it's easy to trace edges with a lighter color. But it's much harder to feather it out, and make the edge highlights look smooth and gradual. Doing a good blend is actually a lot harder over a small area.

Doing a real two brush or wet blend is certainly a more advanced technique, but it's not particularly hard to get a nice gradual effect without it. For example:



That guy has no real blending on his carapace, just layered highlights, but it looks smooth from anything beyond a few inches.

Drybrushing can also produce very nice blending effects, and is one of the most basic techniques there is.

It's not about using difficult techniques, it's about getting a great result. In fact, part of getting a great result is finding the easiest way to get the effect you want.

You say you spent a lot of time getting your Fire Prism to look like that. All I can say, is that if you wanted it to look tank brushed, then tank brush the thing. You'd have gotten the same result, but you wouldn't have all this stored up resentment to vent on the poor guy who had the misfortune of painting a similar looking army, but doing it better.

If my army is a 20, and Vaca's is a 40...

I think I've been pretty clear that his army doesn't rate a 40 IMO. I've said repeatedly that it's better than yours, but probably not 40 material.

That said the Iron Hands army is also nice, but not as superior as you're suggesting. It's got an interesting, cartoony feel to the paintwork. He makes a lot of use of layered highlights applied in a stylistic, rather than realistic fashion (dozer blades). I like the effect, but it's nothing I couldn't do. The bright edge highlights on black don't work for me. There's lots of custom work. I'm not a fan of the Dreads, but they're certainly unique. I like the NMM on the servitors and Dreads.

All in all, a nice army, but not what I'd call a 40 either, so I guess the judges are consistent?

Don't forget, the painting scores are always divisible by 5. There's not a ton of granularity there, and people have to "round off" their impressions. That means a 20 covers anything from, say, 17-22, a 25 anything from 23 to 26 and a 40 anything from 37-42. Maybe you were really a 22, the other Eldar a 37, and the Iron Hands were a 42?

I really don't understand the scoring system. If the idea is just to give a 40 to the best few armies at the tournament, then I would guess the Eldar army deserved it, since it's roughly on par with the Iron Hands. There are 162 armies there, and only 9 possible scores (assuming you can get a 0). You'd think there'd be more 40s.

On the other hand, if 40 is the type of stuff you find in the top 10 on CoolMiniOr not, then neither the Iron Hands nor the Eldar are even close.

I drive a 86 Bronco.

Hmmm. Not what I expected. But Sys Admin makes total sense.

lol what's that mean, total sense?

He's saying that you fit the stereotype of a Systems Administrator.

Interesting conversation...

The sad thing is the soft scores, particularly painting, can simply be bought too easily; and this, IMHO, ruins the experience for more "honest" gamers.

I have been to a couple GT's over the years, time and location permitting, and I always thought they were supposed to be a celebration of the hobby in all of its forms. But when Joe Tournament Player pays a pro-painter $1,000 to highlight, shade and base his army; then he arrives early on Friday to schmooze the judges; then he has a gaming group of 10-15 other people who also all go, and who give reciprocal scores to one another...then it pretty much removes the whole "fairness/objectivity" element to the tournaments.

I tend to commisserate with Stellak in this regard. Some people call this metagaming; some call it gamemanship; and others call it cheating. IMHO, it really all depends on the level and the degree that you take it to.

To a certain degree GW cannot control what is being done. All they can do is put the rules out, and then it is the individual players who find a way to bend, break and get around those parameters.

Where I think GW has failed in this regard is with their kaleidoscope of rules changes for their tournaments from season to season. While they have taken some steps to improve cetain areas, there have been others that have gone the other direction.

IMHO, the old 2006 season rules (for the season that was cancelled) had what I thought were the tighest rules set, and really worked to alleviate some of the "soft score abuse" that had seemed to become a hallmark of GW events.

I also give GW kudos for the Ard Boy events, which I much prefer to the GT events (and don't even get me started on the GD events...).

lol I do? And you don't even know me in the slightest.

Oh, I disagree Stelek. From your 71 posts here on Dakka, we have gotten alot of insight into who you are. Yep, you fit the stereotype.

Darrian

Stelek wrote:lol I do? And you don't even know me in the slightest.

lol Are you talking to me? I was merely clarifying.

lol ok.

It's not so much that Stelek fits THE stereotype of a Sys Admin, it just totally fits.

How so? You ask yourself, "how does this guy even survive in this world, being this ridiculous and abrasive?" The answer is that he's a Sys Admin.

When an organization has highly technical and critical systems (computer networks) they're typically very terrified of them going down, and not having the "IT guy" around to fix it. This means that no matter what a social slow somebody is, they will be tolerated so long as they do something arcane and confusing involving "the server room" and "command lines."

I think on some level social retardation is almost valued in sys admins. I think managers associate it with the sort of nerdy intelligence they think is necessary to the job. Really all it requires is reading a lot of white papers and being willing to carry a pager, but management doesn't know that.

As a software engineer, I get some of the intimidated management respect myself. But since we're required to meet with clients, talk during meetings without launching into a tirade about how terrible all Microsoft, etc. etc., we're a different breed.

Phryxis wrote:It's not so much that Stelek fits THE stereotype of a Sys Admin, it just totally fits.

How so? You ask yourself, "how does this guy even survive in this world, being this ridiculous and abrasive?" The answer is that he's a Sys Admin.

When an organization has highly technical and critical systems (computer networks) they're typically very terrified of them going down, and not having the "IT guy" around to fix it. This means that no matter what a social slow somebody is, they will be tolerated so long as they do something arcane and confusing involving "the server room" and "command lines."

I think on some level social retardation is almost valued in sys admins. I think managers associate it with the sort of nerdy intelligence they think is necessary to the job. Really all it requires is reading a lot of white papers and being willing to carry a pager, but management doesn't know that.

As a software engineer, I get some of the intimidated management respect myself. But since we're required to meet with clients, talk during meetings without launching into a tirade about how terrible all Microsoft, etc. etc., we're a different breed.

As a guy who not only is a sys admin, but manages a bunch of them, I have to say.....spot on.

Upper management that is either too stupid or too lazy to learn some basic stuff to ask the right questions always falls into the trap of treating IT like black magic and hence hiring only voodoo doctors to run it.

In most of the rest of business just regular old incompetence is rewarded. But you have to be a special kind of incompetent to get ahead in IT.

As much as I'd like to jump in here (this has gone to a topic near and dear to my heart), I'd like to nudge this discussion back on topic. GT results and all that.

mauleed wrote:
In most of the rest of business just regular old incompetence is rewarded. But you have to be a special kind of incompetent to get ahead in IT.

Balls.

Oh right, stay on topic. Hmmm. I think if I win a GT, I should upgrade to a sports car to better fit my 'image' I've been assigned by strangers on the internet.

I wonder if I paint it myself if that'll improve my soft scores...

Request granted, Stelek! (You did want this thread locked, right?)