Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks.

There was talk about putting a limit on the number of times you can do that, since the guy is obviously bottom feeding and not trying to compete and win the tournament.

This was met with a lot of opposition, with one person stating that if people don't want him winning it they need to up their painting and converting.

I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area....so I have no clue how to "up" my score.

Should the local TO put in such a rule, or should this guy be allowed to keep pocketing money?

Some people are good painters but bad generals.

That doesn't mean he's just showing up to claim the prize.

If you want to win, look at his "extremely well painted army" and up your game.

Is he winning with the same army every time? then ya, kibosh it. The folks winning the game play side have to change up units every now and then to compete, the painters should as well.

Cyporiean wrote:Is he winning with the same army every time? then ya, kibosh it. The folks winning the game play side have to change up units every now and then to compete, the painters should as well.

Oh I agree with that as I have seen this happen many of times in my region.

They ought to just divide the competitions entirely. I know people think of 40k as an integrated hobby, but it is simply irrational to judge tournaments in that way. By this logic people should be judging the backstories that are written for individual regiments/chapters/etc...

This way the painting conversion prize pool is segregated from the tournament prize pool.

MediumYellow wrote:They ought to just divide the competitions entirely. I know people think of 40k as an integrated hobby, but it is simply irrational to judge tournaments in that way. By this logic people should be judging the backstories that are written for individual regiments/chapters/etc...

This way the painting conversion prize pool is segregated from the tournament prize pool.

In many Flames of War tournaments, they do judge your history and back story.)

There's no one way to run a tournament, no 'logical' way to run it. Logical just means it makes sense to one group. Maybe not to another group. Best thing here is to talk to the TO. Preferrably not as a group, and quietly. You don't want to make it seem like a witch hunt against one guy. Maybe suggest that players winning best painted don't enter with the exact same army the next time, and enforce that on the other side as well. I've seen the situation where one person wins 4 tournaments in a row with the same Leaf Blower list, similar situation. And its a lot harder to buy, paint up and convert another unit of models for an award winning army then it is to just buy something and get it to three color standard.

And I would absolutely avoid words like 'bottom feeding' in the discussion.

I consider people who spend 100's of dollars on plastic figures, just to glue them together and push them around tables trying to beat other plastic figures, bottom feeders.

Its all perspective. Maybe you think somehow pushing plastic around and rolling dice is the only way warhammer can be enjoyed. If so, I'm sorry. I feel that a huge part of the enjoyment is in playing with a carefully painted army against another carefully painted army, so the game feels like it has some "depth" to it. I mean, when I play against unpainted armies, I kinda take a step back, see myself pushing little plastic men around, and ask wtf am I doing here?

Its much easier to enjoy a game with well-painted armies.

While I'm a staunch proponent of playing in tournaments / public / outside-of-proxy-testing with fully painted armies, and take a lot of pride in my own mediocre but patiently-applied paint jobs ... I think it's unfair for anyone to really look down on another for the way they enjoy the hobby.

This kind of applies across the board, including to whether someone changes up their army list or their paint job, or whatever. If the guy doesn't have to elevate his paint game by doing something new in order to win, why should he?

If he had the funds and inclination to, what makes anyone think he wouldn't go right ahead and win again, since his older paint job consistently beats everyone else anyway?

Live and let live. If you want to win a paint award, go win it, don't hope to pressure someone into somehow screwing up a new job and therefore not winning, so that you maybe can (or someone else).

Calling ANYONE a bottom feeder for reasons not relating to their personal behavior and attitude toward others ... well, that's just uncalled for.

This is especially true where they can't defend themselves. What are you going to do, go to your store and say SOME GUYS IN A DAKKA THREAD SAY YOU SHOULD CHANGE THE RULE! Just seems pointless / grasping for commiseration.

I don't play tourneys, but look at it from the other side, there is a competition for best painted army. You turn up and win, but have to put up with all those crap painted armies that people bring which clearly didn't stand a chance- and they are arguing that they are playing to win?

{edit - someone above said about the same thing as I was typing}

I fear we're not getting all of the story, or even all of one side side.

The OP seems pretty upset about this, but from the facts he presents it sounds like a guy shows up with the best painted army and wins the award every time. That's pretty fair, i suppose.

Is his army clearly well beyond everybody elses?

MediumYellow wrote:They ought to just divide the competitions entirely. I know people think of 40k as an integrated hobby, but it is simply irrational to judge tournaments in that way. By this logic people should be judging the backstories that are written for individual regiments/chapters/etc...

This way the painting conversion prize pool is segregated from the tournament prize pool.

Um... they already are? if the guy is winning 'best painted' he is winning best painted and not best general. I don't see how irrational it is to judge tourney where there is a prize for best painted based upon painting.

And to the OP: <text redacted> If his army is the best painted, then he should win. If you want to score better, paint better. You have clearly hit the top of the level of effort and skill you are willing to put in and just want the 'top dog' out so you can try to win. This was like how many of the golfers back in the day were hating on Tiger Woods and felt he should step aside so other golfers could win top honors... Eventually other people upped their game and have simply beaten him by playing better, not by asking the better person to be removed.

I also don't feel like someone should be asked to not play with his army or be forced to change it simply because people want a cash grab. Especially for RTTs which are local and frequent. I usually try to do one style of army for the entire tourney season so those models get a lot of replay with slight tweaks. I would be highly upset if I was told "you used those trukks last week, you better bring Kans this week or be penalized because your stuff was painted too good!"

<text redacted; there are ways to express your difference of opinion that do not involve attacking other posters --Janthkin>

You know what I hate, there's this guy that shows up to our tournaments and tables everyone he plays against.

He's obviously a bottom feeder, showing up just pocket the tournament winnings every time. Should we ban him from our tournaments because he's such a better player than the rest of us?

Honestly I think the only beef I would have is if the guy bought the army painted off Ebay or had it commissioned. Even then, he PAID for it.

This is coming from someone who has to use his good painting scores to make up for my other gaming defecits, namely the Thrice-Cursed Dice Gods.

However, it has to be said, there is the phenomenon of "Paint Burn-out" and I'm not talking painting the army. We had a guy locally who had back in the day, a super painted O&G army, that had within it 5 golden demon trophy models. Yet as time went on and he kept entereing the same army, he was no longer getting 'best painted" because we had seen it x number of times before. So when someone had a decent army, they gave it to him instead.

Weird that that hasn't happened in the OP's locale yet, though it might be the case of "I cant beat his painting, so why bother"

KGatch113 wrote:

I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area....so I have no clue how to "up" my score.

Yet you assume he must know how to up his win count.

Sounds like sour grapes. Get over it...

Maybe talk to the TOs and find out what the painting rubrics are. Chances are there's another part of it you don't realize like conversions or highlighting, etc.

Or you left your small pond for a bigger lake...

The more I think about it, the more that Bottom Feeder irks me.

Sorry dude, you sound like the one with the problem. Up your game.

KGatch113 wrote:I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area

Did you guys even read his post? The other players have tournament level painted armies. Its just whoever judges paint thinks this guys is the best.
So in effect there is no competition happening whatsoever for painting.

In the gameplay you have a shot at overcoming your opponents through a number of different things. However with this, there is no way for them to overcome their opponent solely because the guy judging paint likes this army the best.


I would have no problem if there was actually a competition for paint score but according to our source there is multiple armies that could potentially win it. It sounds more like the guy won it once and now every time he shows up its just assumed his army is the best painted.


My suggestion would be just to do away with painting scores while still requiring armies be painted OR switch to a renaissance man type of award where you get points for playing and painting.

Handing out free money to some specific guy every single tournament is a bad idea just in general. You are going to lose players and have less attend if every tournament there is a $40 tax on prize support. No matter if you think painting is a legitimate award or not, unless you get some variety in the winners you are going to start having players upset.

I don't see the problem. What if there is one guy that shows up with the same "kill em all let god sort them out" list and wins Best General every tourney? Is he disallowed from playing in the next tournament to give someone else a chance to win?

To me he isn't a "bottom feeder" he just enjoys a different aspect of the hobby. Some people compete to stomp a mudhole in their opponent and walk it dry, some folks enjoy painting and could care less if they ever win a game.

@Timmah: I think that's assuming from his post things that aren't there. Either way, he should talk to the TO about how he can improve his painting score. If, in the process, the TO says, 'Don't bother, that guy's army will always win', then the group has a larger problem that has nothing to do with the guy with the well painted army.

Boss GreenNutz wrote:I don't see the problem. What if there is one guy that shows up with the same "kill em all let god sort them out" list and wins Best General every tourney? Is he disallowed from playing in the next tournament to give someone else a chance to win?

Except that isn't happening. Just from a business sense of getting more players in the door, having one player always win the same prize is bad.

If this was happening I would suggest a change there as well.

Define 'compete' at the tournament.

I could say the same thing about half the people who attend most tournaments. Because, if you have a tournament with painting as a scored component, I'm going to say that someone who makes the bare effort at painting their army isn't competing at that event. 'ard boyz style tournaments, fine. But, if you make something part of the score system, then anyone who makes less than a true effort can be said to not be competing.

If there is a prize for best-painted, why is no one else stepping up their game to win it? Seems that it is out there for the taking, with just a little effort.

Edit:

So you don't know how to up your game? Step one; actually talk to the guy judging the painting. Ask what he's looking at. Ask him what you need to work on. Talk to the guy who wins. Ask him how he gets some of his effects. I've never met someone who was unwilling to talk about techniques. I think I've seen this advice many times, often posed with the 'offer to buy the guy lunch' to pick his brain.

There's more to painting to win the prize than just making the army look good on the tabletop. It is as much a part of tournament prep as listening to podcasts and reading forums to find out what the metagame looks like or what new tactics are being developed. And, there's always more that you can do. Do your bases have interesting stuff on them? Do your models have any battle-damage? Paint scratches? What about tattoos, or face paint, or oaths scribbled on their armour? Do you have any blank spaces on models that could be filled with some freehand design?

Redbeard wrote:I could say the same thing about half the people who attend most tournaments.

Absolutely. Unpainted or barely painted armies at events that have painting scores. That guys not even trying to win overall/painted. We should disallow them from winning anything.

I see painting and playing as two completely different entities that can't be judged the same way.

You can't win more than once with the same paint job. New tournament, new entry. If a guy kept showing up and winning at a tourny I pay to enter with the same submission every time, I would voice my disfavor. I'm basically giving this guy my money for something that no longer requires effort on his part.

In regards to playing, if you keep running the same army, people will start fielding armies with the purpose of expressly beating yours. It will take effort to win every time you enter.

MVBrandt wrote:While I'm a staunch proponent of playing in tournaments / public / outside-of-proxy-testing with fully painted armies, and take a lot of pride in my own mediocre but patiently-applied paint jobs ... I think it's unfair for anyone to really look down on another for the way they enjoy the hobby.

This kind of applies across the board, including to whether someone changes up their army list or their paint job, or whatever. If the guy doesn't have to elevate his paint game by doing something new in order to win, why should he?

If he had the funds and inclination to, what makes anyone think he wouldn't go right ahead and win again, since his older paint job consistently beats everyone else anyway?

Live and let live. If you want to win a paint award, go win it, don't hope to pressure someone into somehow screwing up a new job and therefore not winning, so that you maybe can (or someone else).

Calling ANYONE a bottom feeder for reasons not relating to their personal behavior and attitude toward others ... well, that's just uncalled for.

This is especially true where they can't defend themselves. What are you going to do, go to your store and say SOME GUYS IN A DAKKA THREAD SAY YOU SHOULD CHANGE THE RULE! Just seems pointless / grasping for commiseration.

100% true MVB. Do what you feel like to enjoy the hobby of 40k. Some people love to paint and bring their armies to compete for painting. Others want to take skulls and claim generalship. There is no wrong way of enjoying 40k as long as you do not exploit people or are being a TFG. As to him winning multiple times with the same army? How is that different than a player who wins multiple tournaments with the same army for battle?

Crazy talk here, but did anyone actually talk to the guy?

And limiting the number of times you can win with one paint job is silly. I'll just touch up one of my minis before every event.

How about making it best painting can only be won once a quarter? If he is there just to collect money he will only show up that once a quarter. If he is there to enjoy the hobby and play he will probably show up all the time still and enjoy playing as well. There could be several ways to handle this to make everyone feel satisfied.

Necroshea wrote:You can't win more than once with the same paint job. New tournament, new entry. If a guy kept showing up and winning at a tourny I pay to enter with the same submission every time, I would voice my disfavor. I'm basically giving this guy my money for something that no longer requires effort on his part.

I see. So lets think through that. Let's say there are eight people. Two have painted armies that are really good. Two have painted armies that are 'tabletop' quality. Two have painted armies that meet the 'three color' definition, and two have armies that are bare plastic, they don't care about painting, they just want to play.

Let's say the tournament runs twice a month. So, month one, the two good armies both win. But now they're disqualified. So month two, the tabletop armies win. And now they're disqualified too. Month three, we have armies that barely have any paint on them winning (and being disqualified), and by month four, the unpainted armies are winning best painted. Yeah, that makes sense.

Or, what constitutes a new entry? How many models do you expect someone to paint in a month? If I have one new unit, but the rest of the army is the same, is that enough to allow me to compete?

In regards to playing, if you keep running the same army, people will start fielding armies with the purpose of expressly beating yours. It will take effort to win every time you enter.

You're assuming a lot here. First, I might be able to tailor a list to beat you, but if that means I lose to everyone else I play, I still don't win the tournament. Second, I might not have the available models to make list to beat you. I've got 20k points of daemons painted to choose from, and I'm not likely to beat a competent grey knight player regardless of which ones I bring.


You're presenting two different philosophies. You're saying that, for painting, a winner should have to change their army in order to be allowed to win again, but for playing, everyone else should be expected to change their army to beat the current winner. That's hardly consistent, let alone fair. If someone is allowed to win the battle points until someone else beats them, it should be the same for the paint points.

This entire subject is blown a little out of porportion to me. $40??? Who cares. This guy travels (from who knows where), pays an entry fee, plays all day/weekend and wins one aspect of the tourney for $40 bucks. It's more like $20-$25 after you factor his costs in the matter. So if you want $20-25 bucks either give him some painting competition or go get a minimum wage job and work it for three hours. If he's a poor general at least you can say you beat him on the field.

MightyGodzilla wrote:This entire subject is blown a little out of porportion to me. $40??? Who cares. This guy travels (from who knows where), pays an entry fee, plays all day/weekend and wins one aspect of the tourney for $40 bucks. It's more like $20-$25 after you factor his costs in the matter. So if you want $20-25 bucks either give him some painting competition or go get a minimum wage job and work it for three hours. If he's a poor general at least you can say you beat him on the field.

I love this type of condescending reply, really I do.

Clearly the OP cares, clearly everyone that replied to this thread (including you), cares as well.

Why do you enter a tournament? Just get a job for that day and you'll get alot more money than you could by entering most tournaments!

@KGatch113

Maybe talk to the TO about doing a different scoring structure.

Instead of the usual Best General, Sports, Painted do a Renaissance format for the top 3.

Renaissance = 33%battle 33% Sports 33% Painting or a combination thereof.

The only bottom feeder I see in this thread is the OP for poor sportmanship and whining about a completely appropriate result. So... let me get this straight... he's mad that a guy with the best painted army won the painting award? That sounds like the ideal result. If someone comes to the tournament and repeatedly wins (like a dashopepper type), do you disqualify him from winning even if he was fun to play against or make him reroll all 6's to satisfy other players' egos? If the guy painted his own army, paid the tournament fee, followed the game rules, played his games, and was a good sportsman... why he should he be punished for simply being good at one thing being graded in the tourney? I might have some sympathy if he just showed up and then forfeited every game without actually playing but that's not the case here. If you're not going to disqualify someone from winning Best General with the same army, you shouldn't disqualify them from winning Best Painted.

I have no problem with someone sweeping painting awards for a year if their army is the prettiest there. After a year I feel like they should start up a new one as at this point they have won enough to buy a new army with little to no cost. Same goes for the same army list. But I've got a "season" mentality.

@Timmah

No where in that post does it say that multiple armies are showing up at the same standard. The OP just states he's won painting awards. Well so have my Tyranids which are by far my ugliest army. But that was at a location where 99% of people didn't do more than the 3 color minimum. Your making broad assumptions.

@Dave_Fay

That's a solid idea as well, though mixing the scores could make the problem worse if the guy isn't the worst player in the world

I regularly score best painted at the local events I attend, but my battle points usually garner me a fairly average result. We have probably half a dozen big fish in our little pond that compete outside our area as well as within and all of them have wonderfully painted armies. I'm sure that my armies score higher than my opponent's because I'm not at every event they're at and don't get the over-exposure.

Our local club's events allow you to score yourself, but the points only account for 25% of your overall score. It's based on a sliding scale: max points for fully painted, based, and display boarded army; next to max for fully painted and based without display; average for all but a few minis painted; below average for some painted; zero for no painted figures. It's fair for everyone and still helps someone like myself with average generalship score in the upper-mid-range.

If the guy has entered the competition then he is competing like everyone else. The fact he may or may not play to win his games is besides the point as you can't police how people wish to play their army. So you can't then begrudge him simple because his painting standards are so much better than his playing ability.

The only thing that you could suggest is that people who win consistantly (like 5 times in a row perhaps) are asked to sit out of a round to allow others the chance to win it. But then again, why should he be penalised simply for being good at painting compared to others?

nkelsch wrote:

MediumYellow wrote:They ought to just divide the competitions entirely. I know people think of 40k as an integrated hobby, but it is simply irrational to judge tournaments in that way. By this logic people should be judging the backstories that are written for individual regiments/chapters/etc...

This way the painting conversion prize pool is segregated from the tournament prize pool.

Um... they already are? if the guy is winning 'best painted' he is winning best painted and not best general. I don't see how irrational it is to judge tourney where there is a prize for best painted based upon painting.

I guess I infered from his post that somehow the prize pools were linked in some way because he used the term bottom feeder. I can't imagine why he would use the term if the painting competition were judged in a completely separate competition.

MediumYellow wrote:I guess I infered from his post that somehow the prize pools were linked in some way because he used the term bottom feeder. I can't imagine why he would use the term if the painting competition were judged in a completely separate competition.

Reread the first post. He's talking about the guy winning Best Painted month after month.

PhantomViper wrote:

MightyGodzilla wrote:This entire subject is blown a little out of porportion to me. $40??? Who cares. This guy travels (from who knows where), pays an entry fee, plays all day/weekend and wins one aspect of the tourney for $40 bucks. It's more like $20-$25 after you factor his costs in the matter. So if you want $20-25 bucks either give him some painting competition or go get a minimum wage job and work it for three hours. If he's a poor general at least you can say you beat him on the field.

I love this type of condescending reply, really I do.

Clearly the OP cares, clearly everyone that replied to this thread (including you), cares as well.

Why do you enter a tournament? Just get a job for that day and you'll get alot more money than you could by entering most tournaments!

Yes but what I am ultimately saying is. Why all the gripe for $25 bucks? It's not that much. Everyone who schedules times to play tourneys could obviously be doing something else. I don't think the guy who the OP is complaining about is bottom feeding at all, and to call him a bottom feeder is clearly an insult. The TOs want a painting aspect to their tourney....this guy always shows up and wins. Like Kronk said way up in the chain...."Up your game and give him some competition" I'm saying the same thing. To me the OP is pretty bad sport about this whole thing....it's 100% petty.

Why do you enter a tournament? Just get a job for that day and you'll get alot more money than you could by entering most tournaments!

Everyone facepalms sarcasm. Clearly my snipe at getting a minimum wage job and working it for 3 hours was sarcasm. Sorry you missed it.

What size tournaments are we talking here? We have a painting prize at our local tourneys, but that's typically $15 that the TO throws in himself, less than all of the top three prizes get. A $40 paint prize sure does sound fancy.

Yeah. Is it a $1 pot entry fee and you guys have 40 players? That guy must have a finely painted army, indeed!

Timmah wrote:

KGatch113 wrote:I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area

Did you guys even read his post? The other players have tournament level painted armies. Its just whoever judges paint thinks this guys is the best.
So in effect there is no competition happening whatsoever for painting.

Then the problem is not with the player, but with the judge.

First off, to all the haters, I was not complaining about this guy, I was bringing up the situation to start a discussion on the matter.


I mentioned my armies merely as an example....And yes, there are several beautifully painted armies that show up.

There is a vast difference between someone who comes in, plays, and wins a tournament and a guy who shows up, enters his army, and gets 40 bucks with no effort. ( my feelings). The guy who wins still has to play, every single time. The painting guy did his work years ago and has added nothing.

I've gotten garbled answers from TO's, and I suspect one problem is laziness...the guys don't do an in depth examination of armies, or know what has to be converted or not, I think.

( I will throw a complaint out about the old GW scoring system where you could get 34873442 points for conversions and only have an average paint score, and beat a beautifully painted non converted army....I still see that happening, and its lame.)

The TO's have listened to those who are complaining, and the response was at first to limit the number of times you can win. I have been reminded that you can re-enter an army if change 25% of the force.

KGatch113 wrote:

Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks.

There was talk about putting a limit on the number of times you can do that, since the guy is obviously bottom feeding and not trying to compete and win the tournament.

This was met with a lot of opposition, with one person stating that if people don't want him winning it they need to up their painting and converting.

I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area....so I have no clue how to "up" my score.

Should the local TO put in such a rule, or should this guy be allowed to keep pocketing money?

If nobody else is willing to step up to *COMPETE* for best painted, why not? If one guy wins over and over for Best General, would you have the same issue? If he painted the best army and nobody has managed to best it, why not?

Sounds like you aren't understanding the point, and aren't stepping up your game. If you feel the criteria should be changed, bring it up.

KGatch113 wrote:
I've gotten garbled answers from TO's, and I suspect one problem is laziness...the guys don't do an in depth examination of armies, or know what has to be converted or not, I think.
...
The TO's have listened to those who are complaining, and the response was at first to limit the number of times you can win. I have been reminded that you can re-enter an army if change 25% of the force.

That's completely bass-ackwards. Instead of providing a limiter on who could win, you should be pressing the TO for the rubric. Step one: Hold the TO accountable. Stop blaming that guy until you actually know what's going on.

Also, if conversions are part of it, put some conversions in your army. Not rocket science here.

If there is only a single person who always wins, then you only have a single person to beat.

If you want to win the prize, paint a better army, simple as that. Then that player will have to paint a new army to an even higher standard to beat you in future.

Jeez, I really don't get this, it's like those whiners who complain that Michael Schumacher wins too much... what exactly would you do? Give the prize to the guy that comes second instead, for the sake of "making things fair"?

Jealousy and spite, pure and simple. You'll probably tell yourself that it isn't, but it is.

KGatch113 wrote:

The TO's have listened to those who are complaining, and the response was at first to limit the number of times you can win. I have been reminded that you can re-enter an army if change 25% of the force.

That same rule better apply to the guy who wins Best General. He should be disqualified from winning that catagory unless he changes 25% of his army.

KGatch113 wrote:

Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks.

There was talk about putting a limit on the number of times you can do that, since the guy is obviously bottom feeding and not trying to compete and win the tournament.

This was met with a lot of opposition, with one person stating that if people don't want him winning it they need to up their painting and converting.

I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area....so I have no clue how to "up" my score.

Should the local TO put in such a rule, or should this guy be allowed to keep pocketing money?

He is competing. He is competing at painting. Sounds like you're jealous that he's winning Best Painted and you're not.

The OP also started a thread a month ago saying the tournaments he goes to most people have a hand written army list that are hard to read and some players have wargear suddenly "appear" midgame.

It sounds like you have to many players who are more interested in winning and not enjoying themselves and the hobby. I think you need more guys like the good painter and fewer of the others.

KGatch113 wrote:

First off, to all the haters, I was not complaining about this guy, I was bringing up the situation to start a discussion on the matter.

Sorry, man. But it's really hard to accept that you're trying to start a discussion on the matter when the very FIRST WORDS in your title are "Bottom Feeders".

Just saying.

I don't doubt that there may be problems. I'd hold the TO or the Painting Grader to the fire and demand to know what counts as "good" and "bad" paint jobs.

DarthDiggler wrote:

KGatch113 wrote:

The TO's have listened to those who are complaining, and the response was at first to limit the number of times you can win. I have been reminded that you can re-enter an army if change 25% of the force.

That same rule better apply to the guy who wins Best General. He should be disqualified from winning that catagory unless he changes 25% of his army.

KGatch113 wrote:
There is a vast difference between someone who comes in, plays, and wins a tournament and a guy who shows up, enters his army, and gets 40 bucks with no effort. ( my feelings). The guy who wins still has to play, every single time. The painting guy did his work years ago and has added nothing.

KGatch113 wrote:
Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks.

Sorry but your original post says the guy does EXACTLY that. He comes in, plays (but happens to lose), and wins the painting prize. If your TO really did change the rules to screw over a single guy who is good at painting (and didn't apply the same 25% must change army restriction to winners of the OTHER categories like best general/army lists), that's just sour grapes pure and simple with no basis in fairness or sportmanship. Also, as previously stated, you can't start a flaming thread complaining about an anonymous person with "Bottom Feeding:" and then claim you're not complaining.

warboss wrote:

KGatch113 wrote:
There is a vast difference between someone who comes in, plays, and wins a tournament and a guy who shows up, enters his army, and gets 40 bucks with no effort. ( my feelings). The guy who wins still has to play, every single time. The painting guy did his work years ago and has added nothing.

KGatch113 wrote:
Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks.

Sorry but your original post says the guy does EXACTLY that. He comes in, plays (but happens to lose), and wins the painting prize. If your TO really did change the rules to screw over a single guy who is good at painting (and didn't apply the same 25% must change army restriction to winners of the OTHER categories like best general/army lists), that's just sour grapes pure and simple with no basis in fairness or sportmanship. Also, as previously stated, you can't start a flaming thread complaining about an anonymous person with "Bottom Feeding:" and then claim you're not complaining.

If TOs made the average tournament player change 25%+ of their army the tournament scene would grind to a halt and we would all drown in the tears of SW, Necron and GK players everyehere...

CT GAMER wrote:
If TOs made the average tournament player change 25%+ of their army the tournament scene would grind to a halt and we would all drown in the tears of SW, Necron and GK players everyehere...

It wouldn't be the average player but just one person per tourny (the winner). Either way, I think changing the rules to screw over one person who is good in one aspect of the tourney grading who is doing absolutely nothing wrong is complete crap. If they wanted to make a general change to all parts of the tourney to encourage "new" army builds winning, I'd be fine with that as a player.

Sounds like sour grapes man. Seriously, even though the limiter would never affect me (i have army ADD) i would find it ridiculous and unfair to other's. Like I said before. The earliest I would like to see a TO talk to someone is if they have been winning for an entire year with the same painted force with no change. I figure that's long enough for another painter to step up or for them to buy another army off the prize support.

I'd be happy to play against a well painted army in a tournament, even if maybe only a unit or two changed over the course of the year.

Myself, I rarely game, and have an army that I like that I have painted up pretty well (the only tournament I played in that had a best painted award (the last Dakka UK tournament in GW World actually ) I came second with my army). I've maybe added... 2 units to it in a couple of years?

I know that pretty much any tournament I chose to enter, even a friendly "bring a fluffy list and play for fun" tournament, I would probably come somewhere towards the bottom in terms of winning games/KP's/etc, simply because I don't play enough to be all that good at the game (that, and my list isn't one that many people would probably consider "good" ).

If I were to suddenly decide to get into gaming, I almost certainly would be bringing the same army to your tournament, week after week. If it was better painted than every other army, it may well get best painted every week too, because, well, it is better painted every week.

Until someone else picks up a brush and paints something better than mine, why should I not win best painted? As others have said, should the person who is the best player be disqualified from winning best general if he stomps everyone else every week? Or does everyone else have to step up their own game in order to try and beat them?

Frazzled wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:

KGatch113 wrote:

The TO's have listened to those who are complaining, and the response was at first to limit the number of times you can win. I have been reminded that you can re-enter an army if change 25% of the force.

That same rule better apply to the guy who wins Best General. He should be disqualified from winning that catagory unless he changes 25% of his army.

I like the idea of the best general having to change over 25% of their force or bring a different army if they wont the last tournament. It might break up stagnant army builds and compositions. If I won with my deathwing, I would need to change the composition of the army for next tournament or bring a different army so that I would not just continuously stomp everyone. What's wrong with saying hey you did really well why don't you switch it up and give someone else a chance to win? Or at the very least show off your generalship to keep winning with a multitude of lists.

KGatch113 wrote:
First off, to all the haters, I was not complaining about this guy, I was bringing up the situation to start a discussion on the matter.

If I'm a hater, then here's my hate.

I'm smelling total sour grapes man. I'm not opposed to that guy winning the painting section of the tourney time after time. Nor am I against the OP knocking that guy off his throne. I'm sorry to say it, but attacks like this in a forum setting, where he neither knows about it, nor has a chance to defend himself ...are immature, and I'm not surprised at all that it didn't go your way. with people getting on your case instead of supporting you.

If you wanted that support you would have got it had you posted some pics of models in your army in the painting forum and said "...there's this guy at a tourney who wins and I wan't to beat him. Plz look at my stuff and provide critique on what I can do to get better..." That would have been a totally different...and a lot more constructive thing, than trying to get the best guy in a specific section of a tourney banned for being the best.

The only part I'll concede is that if you've asked the rules for scoring and aren't getting them from the TOs, then that needs to change. But attacking the guy, calling him a "bottom feeder" when the problem doesn't have anything to do with him....well it says more about you, the OP, than anything else. If you've got a problem with the TOs in this, find your solution with them.

So many good points made in this thread.
1. You wouldn't rally the troops to have the TOs metagame against the best general in the tourney, why do it to the best painter.
2. Why shouldn't the guy just show up and win time after time if no one's giving him competition. Other players can step up, brush up, and knock this guy off his throne. This guy will either A. Rally and take back his spot. Or B. Let it slide to someone else.

My original point was that the $40 section prize, after expenses and whatnot to actually attend a tourney is actually a whole lot less than $40. Why the gripes and sour grapes, why do you care if some dude you don't know wins alot? He does play in this tourney, even if he doesn't have the W/L record, So really he is doing more than showing up and collecting money (like you proposed earlier). Is $20-$25 worth all your hard feelings or is it something else?. Is there something more here? Did this guy give you some sort of grief you're not telling us about? Did he kick your puppy?

My question is what's the difference between me not buying any new units in the past 5 years and me not painting anything new in the same time period. If I can win using the same stuff that I had 5 years ago in the present I haven't put any more effort into it than not painting.

Guess I am a bottem feeder as I have only won one tourney and always win best painted at my local shop over and over again. Considering I play differeant list that may or may not be competitive I enjoy the hell out of my time spent. I always vote for some one else as the group decides who gets best painted and it seems that I always do. Sounds like you need to stop being an over competitive douche and pick up a brush.

Just to add further, we used to have real problems with later rounds at our tourneys because somebody (or three) would inevitably be a sourpuss and drop out of the tourney early after it became apparent they weren't going to win top three. So our TO decided to give everybody tokens on entering the tournament. You get two tokens to start, plus one for every game you play (and plus three if you win a game). At the end of the day, all the tokens go in a bag and the TO pulls one out and that's who 3rd prize goes to. Everybody has a shot, even if winners have slightly higher odds. It's cut down on the cut-and-run crowd quite a bit, even if there's no true 3rd place award anymore. If I go to my next tournament and lose three games but win the drawing for the last prize, does that make me a "bottom-feeder" too?

Loch wrote:Just to add further, we used to have real problems with later rounds at our tourneys because somebody (or three) would inevitably be a sourpuss and drop out of the tourney early after it became apparent they weren't going to win top three.

Standing rule should be if you drop you are banned from next x number of tourneys...

I wouldn't be mad at the guy who wins best painted all the time if it's legit. It is kinda lame, but he's just playing by the rules of the tournament.

Maybe if you think this guy is unfairly getting the best painted award, you can get the TO to change the painting judging by letting all the participants vote....or you could just cry about it.

I regularly win Best painted but really try and bring a new army at least every other year.

Sounds like so much Sour Grapes from the OP though...

Would you force a good general to change his list that he's put a lot of time and effort into, just because he keeps winning local tournies?

If the answer is no, then you have no right to complain about another player's well-painted army. It should inspire you to try and paint your models better. Alternatively, if it really really really annoys you, just play in tourneys without a paint score?

KGatch113 wrote:He never wins a game, but

So just to recap: is this guy a "bottom feeder" because he has a better painted army than the rest of you (according to the judge(s) at least), or because he doesn't do well in the gaming side of the tournament? Would you complain less if he won more games?

I'm sorta with Hulk on this, my take has always been, it's fine if you win/take down an award for a long time, but there has to be some sort of "time limit" on it, and it shouldn't NEED to be enforced.

The idea of the prizes, imo, is to drive people to want to continue in the hobby, to paint, to play, to share experiences, and to improve. If a guy walks in with a golden daemon quality army, and plays it in a bi-monthly tourney for 5 years running sweeping awards the entire time, you're going to drive people off. People need to feel that the goal is attainable.

Most good painters I know, and I've taken down best painted awards myself from RTT level tournies, will "bow out" themselves after a couple of awards. It's just good sportsmanship after you bogart the awards for 3-6 months, or at most a year, to change armies, or to just let other people have a crack at it.

That being said, I've seen the exact same behavior from the players that routinely win best general, either after a month or two of winning straight swapping armies, or bowing to let others have a chance by assisting as a rules judge or a TO for the events.

Mind you, the OP in this case sounds more like sour grapes than the above, but this was written to a broader version.

Boss GreenNutz wrote:To me he isn't a "bottom feeder" he just enjoys a different aspect of the hobby. Some people compete to stomp a mudhole in their opponent and walk it dry, some folks enjoy painting and could care less if they ever win a game.

I think if he win best painted all time and you want to win just paint better. Not everyone is a good player let a good painter win the best painted.

Has anyone asked why TO's ensure that the same best painted winner can't then win in the same tournament when it next does its rounds?

That would seem to take care of the problem as;

a) They get the benefit of winning, then the floor is opened up to other painters the next time. This would also encourage people to paint their forces as best as they can instead of not bothering as "TFG's in again"

b) If a tournament is run annually, then that player will surely have acquired & painted up an entirely different force by the next time they can enter.

Alternatively, they can enter in recurring years though have to submit a different army to game with if they want to go for the best painted (ie, initially won with Marines, next time enter with Tau).

Just to point out I'm not saying ban that person from gaming, just ensure that other painters have a chance of winning too

Okay, here's a get out clause for the TO, why not suggest that as part of the prize, the winner is a guest judge for the next competition?

Obviously he knows something about painting, so why can't he be a judge, it at least frees the slot for someone else to win it next time round. Extremely obviously as a judge he can't enter.

Cheers

Andrew

"Bottom feeding" is intentionally seeking out weak competition in order to succeed without challenge. At least that's how I've always understood it. Which is not at all applicable here, unless the guy just comes to the store to sweep the Best Painted prize because everyone else there sucks at painting.

I have been to stores where they disqualify a given army from winning consecutive events. And others where the local folks just gradually stop putting their votes toward a great army they've seen a hundred times. And others where the same guy or two consistently wins, just because no one else is at the same level (those guys usually do change army after a while). The same thing happens with Best General, too, where one or two guys tend to dominate many stores.

AndrewC wrote:Okay, here's a get out clause for the TO, why not suggest that as part of the prize, the winner is a guest judge for the next competition?

Obviously he knows something about painting, so why can't he be a judge, it at least frees the slot for someone else to win it next time round. Extremely obviously as a judge he can't enter.

Cheers

Andrew

As long as whoever wins the tourney also can't enter the next tourney and insted can be a guest "score keeper" or "terrain setter".

kitch102 wrote:Just to point out I'm not saying ban that person from gaming, just ensure that other painters have a chance of winning too

But to play devils advocate, would you do the same to a person who scored the most points in the tournament? Make him play a totally different army the next time? Gives other people a chance to win best general.

if someone winning best appearance every time is such a horrible disaster, then there are constructive solutions:

Expand appearance scoring to include best conversion and best single mini along with overall appearance. And for best conversion and single mini make it a 'hall of fame' which means winners for best single mini and conversion that 'winners' can't enter again. He can still be judged fairly for his best army appearance like he should, but other people can attempt to win best single mini and conversion.

But this thread reeks of poor sportsmanship and sour grapes.

Just to point out I'm not saying ban that person from gaming, just ensure that other painters have a chance of winning too

Your ideas are terrible, unfair and the other painters don't 'deserve' a chance of winning if it is done by removing the best people from the competition. You just want a shameless cash grab for yourself. If you want it that way, run your own event and disqualify everyone who paints better than you so you can give yourself the prize? Why not just turn the cash prize for best appearance into a random lottery like a door prize?

Nice calling the person who paints better than you TFG... very good attitude.

Clearly a case of "this guy won a prize and I didn't, so he needs to be punished because ME ME ME."

CT GAMER wrote:As long as whoever wins the tourney also can't enter the next tourney and insted can be a guest "score keeper" or "terrain setter".

Because, one is subjective based on the opinions of a few people and the other is held thrall to the random rolls of dice?

There is no right answer here, except perhaps 'put up or shut up'

Cheers

Andrew

TLDR.

If your TO is getting aggrieved by it, basically include the painting part in to the actual tournament.

Make it an additional amount of points, that'll motivate this guy to be a better general, aswell as the people who don't bother painting their armies to paint aswell.

Tournaments I compete in sometimes do it, and those are the ones that people on the whole enjoy more, I admittedly don't have a painted Grey Knights army so wouldn't put them in the painted tournament but my old Necrons or my Eldar would regularly turn up.

I'd be fine with best painted = actually is best painted.

The game store that holds tourneis is all about the nepatism for match ups, scoring, paint and fellowship. Last year was different, but 2011 has been all buddies win. I still go and cough up my $$$, but don't expect to win anyhting.

Let us also remember even if the tournaments are run at 1500, the time put into each mini can be close to hundreds of hours. If the army is heavily converted, you can expect an extra 20-30% extra he paid to convert the minis. Really if he is raking in $40, that barely pays off the paints he had to use for the army much less the army iteself.

First off, again to all the haters....I do think the guy is a Bottom Feeder, and Mannahim's definition is perhaps the best. My goal is to win overall, period. If I get something else, then great. Check my sig, I usually am the guy who wins Best Sportsman. I'll be honest, the award I really want is a Best General...it is the only one I've never gotten.

I still disagree with the people who say someone who wins a tourney or a best general all the time is the same. It isn't....game skill is a different thing.

And again, I think part of it is laziness on the different TO's doing the paint judging. My RavenGuard army is made up of converted pre heresy armors, and I never get conversion points, but I swapped out bolters for bolt pistols on my Wolves to represent True Grit and I get most of the points.

But the general consensus seems to be its ok to keep winning the same award, so be it.

I think the general beef with the guy is he only comes to win the Best Painted award, because he hates playing and knows he is not going to win the tourney. <shrugs> I think it rankles the guys who try to compete and who have great armies and he edges them. ( I checked with one of the TO's, he uses a pretty standard rubric, but he adds in Player's Choice votes. I suggested getting rid of that and going with highest score, with battle and sportsmanship scores as possible tiebreakers....any other suggestions?).

KGatch113 wrote:
I think the general beef with the guy is he only comes to win the Best Painted award, because he hates playing and knows he is not going to win the tourney. <shrugs> I think it rankles the guys who try to compete and who have great armies and he edges them. ( I checked with one of the TO's, he uses a pretty standard rubric, but he adds in Player's Choice votes. I suggested getting rid of that and going with highest score, with battle and sportsmanship scores as possible tiebreakers....any other suggestions?).

Would you be ok with the prettiest army being used as the best general tie breaker? If not, then the opposite shouldn't be the case as they don't suddenly become more related when reversed. If you're going to have separate scoring and awards, they should stay separate. I'm sorry but you're just going to have to deal with this guy being a better painter/converter in the eyes of others. Since you brought up winning sportmanship awards frequently, should YOU be excluded from winning that award ever again? Maybe you're pissing off someone who is a good sportman but never gets that award, making you just as much a "bottom feeder" to that guy. Messing with the rules in ONE category to screw over ONE guy is never a good idea.

If you feel like you're not getting the points you deserve for conversion scoring, make an effort to be there when the judge is scoring. Not everyone is familar with preheresy armor (TOs aren't perfect, all knowing beings)... point out that you've converted that on the models. Point out that you've done x and y AND z to change the standard look of the guy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:"Bottom feeding" is intentionally seeking out weak competition in order to succeed without challenge. At least that's how I've always understood it. Which is not at all applicable here, unless the guy just comes to the store to sweep the Best Painted prize because everyone else there sucks at painting.

KGatch113 wrote:
First off, again to all the haters....I do think the guy is a Bottom Feeder, and Mannahim's definition is perhaps the best.

KGatch113 wrote:
I've won several Best Painteds with several different armies but none of them ever get more than half the paint points in this area....so I have no clue how to "up" my score.

Buddy, you can't have it both ways (similar to how you claim not to be complaining but title the thread with namecalling folllowed by nothing but complaining). Either the guy follows Mannaheim's "bottom feeding" description in that he's seeking out weak painters to compete against (including YOU) OR you've got a nicely painted army that has previously won awards and that possibly deserves to win. Pick one side of the arguement and stick with it as the two points are mutually exclusive.

Best painted often a self limiting condition though. You keep bringing the same army over and over and no matter how well painted it is, people get tired of seeing it and it scores less and less over time.

This is especially the case if other players in the area man up and get their armies painted up well.

The same can't be said for best generals. People like Dashofpepper can pull out a string of wins in pretty much any level of tournament using several different armies, and different lists. If they lived next door to me and went to all the tournaments that I went to there would be almost zero chance of me ever placing first (aside from my crappy skillz ) unless the table holding his army spontaneously combusted just before the first game.

IMHO Calling this bottom feeding is lame. the guy always wins well, maybe one of yall should try to paint and convert so that there is a competiton. afterall painting is part of the hobby. if he has invested that much time and effort in his army, then his commitment deserves to be recognized just as much if not more than the gamers who buy all the components to a web list, show up and kick butt with the grey plastic legion that they just put together to win the tourni with.
I say good for him for having such an amazing army. I am glad that he gets some recognition and if you want said recognition, instead of grumbling about how you think he is bottom feeding, pick up a paint brush and some bits and start work on something that could beat him.

KGatch113 wrote:
I've gotten garbled answers from TO's, and I suspect one problem is laziness...the guys don't do an in depth examination of armies, or know what has to be converted or not, I think.

This much at least I totally agree with. I've brought my dark eldar to at least one tournament where they're been given a zero for conversion work just because the TO didn't know enough about dark eldar to recognize conversions in the list. So guys with space wolves where one of them had a (gasp) chaos marine's axe would get full conversion, but my dark elf cloaks and flags, hellion halberd redesigns, and custom Sathonyx kitbash just go right by without notice.

This topic is very relevant to me as I have just won Best Painted the other day with a totally uncompetitive army. I knew I was going to lose every game but that I have a fair shot at Best Painted.

Now I have to decide whether to bring the same army next time, and frankly the idea of just turning up to take the painting prize with the same army is a little embarassing, especially as it would be completely obvious to everyone what I'm doing, since the army has almost no chance to win any battles in the first place. Our scoring is 100% players' choice, and I won by a landslide the first time, I doubt many would be happy to hand me another prize for no extra work.

Loch wrote:Just to add further, we used to have real problems with later rounds at our tourneys because somebody (or three) would inevitably be a sourpuss and drop out of the tourney early after it became apparent they weren't going to win top three. So our TO decided to give everybody tokens on entering the tournament. You get two tokens to start, plus one for every game you play (and plus three if you win a game). At the end of the day, all the tokens go in a bag and the TO pulls one out and that's who 3rd prize goes to. Everybody has a shot, even if winners have slightly higher odds. It's cut down on the cut-and-run crowd quite a bit, even if there's no true 3rd place award anymore. If I go to my next tournament and lose three games but win the drawing for the last prize, does that make me a "bottom-feeder" too?

Wow I must be getting old because I like this idea... I am even typically a top general... It's not about the prize's but about the bragging rights that I care about. I think everyone should have a shot at the prizes for being good sports.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lord_blackfang wrote:This topic is very relevant to me as I have just won Best Painted the other day with a totally uncompetitive army. I knew I was going to lose every game but that I have a fair shot at Best Painted.

Now I have to decide whether to bring the same army next time, and frankly the idea of just turning up to take the painting prize with the same army is a little embarassing, especially as it would be completely obvious to everyone what I'm doing, since the army has almost no chance to win any battles in the first place. Our scoring is 100% players' choice, and I won by a landslide the first time, I doubt many would be happy to hand me another prize for no extra work.

You should post some pictures of your army, was sad when I went to your profile and no pictures :(

Cyporiean wrote:Is he winning with the same army every time? then ya, kibosh it. The folks winning the game play side have to change up units every now and then to compete, the painters should as well.

Well now lets think about this a little shall we? It takes a heck of alot of time for painters to "change up" their stuff to have different things every time while the "general" just has to fire up army builder and is good to go, so that seems a little unfair to the painter but if we what to travel this road then the "general" players should have to switch up their winning armies as well, I mean everytime to not just one unit but a couple. Plus like one poster said some people are good generals but bad painters and some people are good painters and bad generals, I really find it offensive that someone would call someone winning an award regularly with the same army (that being the same list or the same paint job) a bottom feeder. last time I checked the if your the best at something every time you show up then you deserve to win, anyone that thinks otherwise is really just being a crybaby, and before I get the couple obligatory post of "he must be a painter" I am but I am also a good general (ask anyone in my area). Just think about if the shoe was on the other foot and you were winning with your painted army but getting crushed every game, would you feel the same way? I think not. just food for thought.

As long as he stays and plays all his games, what's the problem? Anyone who leaves early should forfeit all chances of any prizes but if he stays and his army is nicely painted then so what if he loses every game. Imagine having to spend an entire day there and being smashed purely to win a best-painted trophy and then have people saying he doesn't deserve it ...

Personally I'm more upset when I turn up fully painted and based to play against a sea of grey plastic or little more than pooorly undercoated models. All grey armies should be forfeit from winning trophies of any kind.

ruminator wrote:As long as he stays and plays all his games, what's the problem? Anyone who leaves early should forfeit all chances of any prizes but if he stays and his army is nicely painted then so what if he loses every game. Imagine having to spend an entire day there and being smashed purely to win a best-painted trophy and then have people saying he doesn't deserve it ...

Personally I'm more upset when I turn up fully painted and based to play against a sea of grey plastic or little more than pooorly undercoated models. All grey armies should be forfeit from winning trophies of any kind.

Spoken for truth

KGatch113 wrote:
First off, again to all the haters....I do think the guy is a Bottom Feeder, and Mannahim's definition is perhaps the best. My goal is to win overall, period. If I get something else, then great. Check my sig, I usually am the guy who wins Best Sportsman. I'll be honest, the award I really want is a Best General...it is the only one I've never gotten.

Isn't best general the guy who wins the tournament? Like best w/l record? Now you're saying you'd really like the Best General title, but all the while along you've been griping about the guy who wins a totally different award and I don't see where the two intersect, unless the paint score ties into the Best General award somehow. And introing by calling people haters makes you less "Best Sportsman" and more TFG.

I still disagree with the people who say someone who wins a tourney or a best general all the time is the same. It isn't....game skill is a different thing.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. But what you're missing is that if it's not right to change the rules to screw over the best general, why should it be right to change the rules to screw over a consistent winner in some other category. And once again, you're not in the painting forum asking how you can spruce up your army, you're in the tourney forum asking how to tear down some other guy who edges you out in one category.

And again, I think part of it is laziness on the different TO's doing the paint judging. My RavenGuard army is made up of converted pre heresy armors, and I never get conversion points, but I swapped out bolters for bolt pistols on my Wolves to represent True Grit and I get most of the points.

Having noted what you thought could be the problem, I'd would bring some sort of card or plaque to go along with your army listing amongst other things what you did to convert your key pieces. You're probably right, the judges may not even know you've got conversions if they're good and seemless. Let them know, pimp yourself out to them by telling them what kind of work you've put into your army.

I think the general beef with the guy is he only comes to win the Best Painted award, because he hates playing and knows he is not going to win the tourney. <shrugs> I think it rankles the guys who try to compete and who have great armies and he edges them. ( I checked with one of the TO's, he uses a pretty standard rubric, but he adds in Player's Choice votes. I suggested getting rid of that and going with highest score, with battle and sportsmanship scores as possible tiebreakers....any other suggestions?).

See I'm a little confused because your original complaint against this guy is he shows up with a better painted army, but at the bottom here you're talking about highest score, battle scoring and sportsmanship scoring as tiebreakers......to what? The painting award? Are you now talking about an overall award that includes several categories, painting being one of them? Because originally you were talking about some pittance money prize that the same guy wins every tourney. Please explain this out a little.


And how often are these tourneys run? Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly? What's the entry fee and how many people on average usually show up? How many games are played during the tourney on average. I'd like to get more of a feel about the tourney scene you're talking about.

Yeah, its always the dirtbags that show up with their well painted armies, are very sportsmanlike, but don't troll forums so they don't know or care about what is the most effecient army and end up losing that ruin the day for me.

JERKS!

MightyGodzilla wrote:
And how often are these tourneys run? Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly? What's the entry fee and how many people on average usually show up? How many games are played during the tourney on average. I'd like to get more of a feel about the tourney scene you're talking about.

This is the big thing for me. I usually play in local "small pond" 40k tournaments (between 10-40 people). If the painting award is 20% you only need 20 people to get $40. So I can see where the OP may be coming from.

The biggest thing is clarity on how the painting is judged (how much for conversions, display boards etc). Most tournaments at my LGS (for 40k and Fantasy) use the same painting scale...and I'm currently scratching my head on how to add conversions to a mostly metal Eldar army.

I wouldn't punish either the painters or competitive lists (as the game doesn't get updated often enough for lists to change drastically) just get a clear answer before hand on what they are looking for and do your best to up your entry.

Casper wrote:The biggest thing is clarity on how the painting is judged (how much for conversions, display boards etc). Most tournaments at my LGS (for 40k and Fantasy) use the same painting scale...and I'm currently scratching my head on how to add conversions to a mostly metal Eldar army.

I totally agree with you on getting the points breakdown from the judges to maximize your score. As far as your eldar army goes..alotta peeps will add in stuff from the various elf fantasy range of sprues to their 40k eldars. Hooded heads, capes/cloaks, that sort of thing. A bunch of my guardians have skirts from the plastic archer set. Just a thought, albeit off topic.

So you guys have got me rather curious about something. Let's say a golden demon winner paints up a snazzy army, and brings it to your local tourny scene. Let's say there's about 4 locations that do tournies. So anyways, this guy has said nicely painted army, and he submits the same army every time to every event. Because it's golden demon quality, he wipes the floor with everyone every time. This goes on for 5 years.

You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

Necroshea wrote:So you guys have got me rather curious about something. Let's say a golden demon winner paints up a snazzy army, and brings it to your local tourny scene. Let's say there's about 4 locations that do tournies. So anyways, this guy has said nicely painted army, and he submits the same army every time to every event. Because it's golden demon quality, he wipes the floor with everyone every time. This goes on for 5 years.

You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

Unlikely situation. In any real-world situation, adults would talk with the person in question to see if he planned on trying new armies, offer to have him as a guest painting judge, etc. i.e. many of the solutions offered in this thread. I wouldn't call him a bottom feeder anonymously.

But if it came down to it and the guy just brings the same army every time, is a good sport, plays his games, etc and keeps winning, oh well. I would think the same thing if the same guy won Best General for 5 years straight with the same list and no one was able to beat him.

And he would probably spur me to really work on my own army in order to have some chance of beating him in the future.

Necroshea wrote:You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

Would you be perfectly okay with the same person winning each tourney for five years straight with the exact same army list?

it's the exact same situation.

What about if the person showed up with a new army at each tourney, all painted to the same high standard and kept winning that way? If other people can neither paint nor play to the recurrent champions abilities, do you go all Harrison Bergeron on them?

Portugal Jones wrote:

Necroshea wrote:You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

Would you be perfectly okay with the same person winning each tourney for five years straight with the exact same army list?

it's the exact same situation.

What about if the person showed up with a new army at each tourney, all painted to the same high standard and kept winning that way? If other people can neither paint nor play to the recurrent champions abilities, do you go all Harrison Bergeron on them?

You're side stepping the question. Would you kindly answer it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pretre wrote:offer to have him as a guest painting judge

That's a brilliant idea.

Necroshea wrote:

pretre wrote:offer to have him as a guest painting judge

That's a brilliant idea.

It along with a number of other, non internet slander, ideas came from earlier in the thread.

Necroshea wrote:So you guys have got me rather curious about something. Let's say a golden demon winner paints up a snazzy army, and brings it to your local tourny scene. Let's say there's about 4 locations that do tournies. So anyways, this guy has said nicely painted army, and he submits the same army every time to every event. Because it's golden demon quality, he wipes the floor with everyone every time. This goes on for 5 years.

You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

I am perfectly okay with that. One does not improve ones own ability by competing against those of lesser ability. If there's someone there who wants to give me a non-moving target to aim for, that's great, I'll beat him and make him up his game.

Necroshea wrote:

Portugal Jones wrote:

Necroshea wrote:You guys are perfectly okay with that? There's no right or wrong answer here.

Would you be perfectly okay with the same person winning each tourney for five years straight with the exact same army list?

it's the exact same situation.

What about if the person showed up with a new army at each tourney, all painted to the same high standard and kept winning that way? If other people can neither paint nor play to the recurrent champions abilities, do you go all Harrison Bergeron on them?

You're side stepping the question. Would you kindly answer it?

Sorry, I didn't realize my answer'd go right over your head.

If someone keeps legitimately winning, and the only solution is to hamstring them, then what's the point? I know there are people out there I will never legitimately beat in a game because I will not wring everything I can out of a list and the rules like they do. If I play them routinely for five years straight and whine about how they keep winning, whose fault is that?

Vonnegut reference ftw, btw.

If you don't like people showing up and winning a particular tournament by being the best at the thing the tournament is for, then don't have one.

Remember this isn't a question of "Who's a sore loser", it's a question of "Do you mind if the same person wins the same trophy in the same tournament with the same entry every time they enter it"

pretre wrote:Vonnegut reference ftw, btw.

It's appropriate. If this guy is so good that the OP and his buds, despite being good painters themselves able to win Best Painted on their own, can never beat him... it's not that guy's fault, and we only have the OP's less than objective statement that this guy doesn't even try and play, only showing up to get his hands on that cool $40.

kitch102 wrote:Remember this isn't a question of "Who's a sore loser", it's a question of "Do you mind if the same person wins the same trophy in the same tournament with the same entry every time they enter it"

No, not if it is all legal and above board. Not if they are participating in the tournament appropriately and a good sport, etc so on. Nope.

Don't you have local champions who win 80-95% of the tournament games they play? They do the same thing for best general.
Or really nice guys who always seem to win best sports?

One thing to consider, is if he doesn't even try during the game. That would be the 'battle' equivalent of showing up with just grey plastic.

If he's not really trying and engaged in the game, I could see the issue. It's the same complaint you hear about the people just trying for best general from another perspective.

pretre wrote:

kitch102 wrote:Remember this isn't a question of "Who's a sore loser", it's a question of "Do you mind if the same person wins the same trophy in the same tournament with the same entry every time they enter it"

No, not if it is all legal and above board. Not if they are participating in the tournament appropriately and a good sport, etc so on. Nope.

Don't you have local champions who win 80-95% of the tournament games they play? They do the same thing for best general.
Or really nice guys who always seem to win best sports?

I'm coming at this as an outsider, as I'm just getting back in to the hobby, so I can't really draw on personal experience (having never entered a tournament). The thoughts that I'm putting in are based on what I think I'd like to do were I a TO / event organiser. I'm all for competition and having a goal to strive towards, it just wouldn't sit easy with me if I thought people were avoiding my tournament because one person kept winning the same award.

Kudos to that person for their skill, though I think that as the 'gold award winner' for that category or whatever, they should be given free entry to the next tournament and some kind of buff, title, or entry in to a hall of champions (insert any number of other ideas here, the list could be endless) instead of being able to enter the same competition the next time round.

On the flip side though, I'd definitely have speed painting competitions that they could enter on the day so everyone can display their skill given the same time as others (that to me is skill, as I could spend an entire year painting one model and getting it to GD standard, but that's no good if I have to paint a unit of 20 models!)

skyth wrote:One thing to consider, is if he doesn't even try during the game. That would be the 'battle' equivalent of showing up with just grey plastic.

Objection, speculation.

If he's not really trying and engaged in the game, I could see the issue. It's the same complaint you hear about the people just trying for best general from another perspective.

Sure, if he's a bad sport or just checks out during his games, that's not cool. No indication of that though.

pretre wrote:

skyth wrote:One thing to consider, is if he doesn't even try during the game. That would be the 'battle' equivalent of showing up with just grey plastic.

Objection, speculation.

Over-ruled, this whole thread is speculative lol

I didn't say that was what was happening, but it is an interesting thing to consider.

The OP did mention that he hates playing and never wins anything...Could indicate that he's not even trying to win. Bad sportsman or just totally checking out would be the battle equivalent of coming in with just bases with legs glued to them

skyth wrote:The OP did mention that he hates playing and never wins anything...Could indicate that he's not even trying to win. Bad sportsman or just totally checking out would be the battle equivalent of coming in with just bases with legs glued to them

That's not at all what he said:

"Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks. "

Portugal Jones wrote:Sorry, I didn't realize my answer'd go right over your head.

My apologies on being thick, I just expect people to be clear when they answer things. Forgive my insolence.

Portugal Jones wrote:
If someone keeps legitimately winning, and the only solution is to hamstring them, then what's the point? I know there are people out there I will never legitimately beat in a game because I will not wring everything I can out of a list and the rules like they do. If I play them routinely for five years straight and whine about how they keep winning, whose fault is that?

You're comparing being a general to painting, and it's not the same.

Being a general is a challenge ever game. Every game you must put forth new effort in order to win. With painting, the challenge occurs once, and afterwards requires no more effort. This is what I have a problem with. A lack of continuous effort. The one guy who keeps winning paints one time, and the people who keep losing can put months and months of effort into it and never win. Sorry, but I'd much rather award the people actively doing something.

Comparing being a 5 year long general to being a 5 year painting winner goes like this. At the first tournament, you move everything directly forward every game. You move straight forward, fire, rinse and repeat. You win the tourny doing this. So for the next 5 years you do the same thing. such a concept is ludicrous because it will not work.

My main point is winning a tournament by means of strategy requires CONSTANT use of skill. Winning a painting competition like the 5 year example required a one time expenditure of skill.

However, I do not plan on arguing this. I like to see people constantly improving. As it's been said before having a golden demon level painter "camp" at painting competition will do nothing but drive people away. Check out a new tourny, perhaps bring a friend or two. Want to win the painting competition? Well you won't because there's a GD painter here. Maybe after spending countless months getting better at it you might beat him, maybe, but doubtful.

This post turned out longer that it should be. In closing, I'd like to simply state if I was TO I would not allow the same entry to win for five years.

P.S. I'd also like to add if that same GD winner keeps submitting new stuff that dominates the contest, I would have no problem with that. Hell I'd ask for pointers.

People may agree or disagree with the OP. But if theres one thing that can be learned with hobbies with any form of tournament side, is that repeat winners can affect the playerbase to some degree. A constant, repeat winner who cannot be beaten by any amount of personal improvement is going to eventually cause problems. Everyone's breaking point is at a different level, so times will vary.

At this point its upto the TO to find a middle ground that doesn't hamstring the winner, but at least acknowledges the efforts other runner-ups made. Constructive criticism is a good thing, but at the same time people need to actually be thrown a bone otherwise we cannot learn and improve ourselves.

There is another alternative that does not hamstring the winner. Allow him to keep using his army. But take the prize money and split it up. A third goes to the winner, then a third to second and a third to the third. This way he still gets the prestige of winning, and two other people at least get honoured that their attempt to compete was acknowledged. As whats the point improving your army if your gonna be ignored anyway?

If he was a winner who was only interested in fun, then this repeat winner shouldn't be unhappy with this surely?

Exalted, both of you

pretre wrote:

skyth wrote:The OP did mention that he hates playing and never wins anything...Could indicate that he's not even trying to win. Bad sportsman or just totally checking out would be the battle equivalent of coming in with just bases with legs glued to them

That's not at all what he said:

"Guy I know has an extremely well painted and converted army. He never wins a game, but always wins the Best Painted award. So for showing up, he gets 40 bucks. "

He said it in a later post not the original post.

kitch102 wrote:Remember this isn't a question of "Who's a sore loser", it's a question of "Do you mind if the same person wins the same trophy in the same tournament with the same entry every time they enter it"

Nope. If they are the best/produced the best why should I mind?

Necroshea wrote:Being a general is a challenge ever game. Every game you must put forth new effort in order to win. With painting, the challenge occurs once, and afterwards requires no more effort. This is what I have a problem with. A lack of continuous effort. The one guy who keeps winning paints one time, and the people who keep losing can put months and months of effort into it and never win. Sorry, but I'd much rather award the people actively doing something.

So, some guy maybe spends a year or two building, converting and painting up a masterfully worked army and he can only win best painted with it once? I don't know of anyone except perhaps some of the painting commission teams/guys who could knock out a high level paint job on an army in anything less than a month of solid painting - and that is essentially a professional painter with all the speed painting tricks in the book.

It's not the paint job on the day that is being rewarded, it is the weeks, months or even years of painting, and the weeks, months and years of work it took to be able to paint to that level on that scale which is being rewarded.

The only difference between best general and best painted is the battle for best painted is a much slower affair - someone comes in with a well painted force and it may take someone else weeks or months to either pimp their existing paint jobs or paint a new force which will beat the current "best painted", while it takes maybe an hour or two to play a game.

Additionally, "best general" isn't always a continuous effort. Many of the top players will be so far above and beyond the skill of other players (especially at local tournaments) that they could probably beat everyone there with an army of half the points, in the same way that a multiple GD winning professional painter is almost certainly going to knock out in a couple of hours models which most other people attending the tournament could never get close to without some serious commitment to bettering their painting.

But as I have mentioned before, bringing out the same army again and again and your painting score will gradually go down and down as people get bored of seeing your stuff. You see and hear about it all the time; great painted armies that wow everyone the first few times they show up, and gradually as people get bored of them and other people take up the gauntlet, their score drops and they get overtaken.

It's not the paint job on the day that is being rewarded, it is the weeks, months or even years of painting, and the weeks, months and years of work it took to be able to paint to that level on that scale which is being rewarded.

But when does the other people's weeks, months and even years of painting get rewarded? When it follows a rather arbitrary set of judge 'rules'? Why?

Or does that count as nothing?

Mr Hyena wrote:

It's not the paint job on the day that is being rewarded, it is the weeks, months or even years of painting, and the weeks, months and years of work it took to be able to paint to that level on that scale which is being rewarded.

But when does the other people's weeks, months and even years of painting get rewarded? When it follows a rather arbitrary set of judge 'rules'? Why?

Or does that count as nothing?

He addressed that in the remainder of his post. The part where he talked about army fatigue setting in (he didn't use that term exactly so don't look for it).

WTF are you all arguing about?

This is just plain stupid.

There is an award for best painted.

IT GOES TO THE GUY WITH THE BEST PAINTED ARMY.

Why is this so hard?

If you REALLY have a problem with it, simply eliminate painting as a prize category, eliminate pure battle points as a prize category, and go for a single prize consisting of the composite score, with battlepoints being weighted like 3x painting points (75/25), and just give out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, instead of Overall winner, battlepoints winner, and painting winner.

NEVER make rules that make it impossible for a player to win multiple times in a row... thats just stupid, because if you "adjust" the competition, its not a competition at all, its just you being biased against someone and not giving him a fair shot.

Mr Hyena wrote:People may agree or disagree with the OP. But if theres one thing that can be learned with hobbies with any form of tournament side, is that repeat winners can affect the playerbase to some degree. A constant, repeat winner who cannot be beaten by any amount of personal improvement is going to eventually cause problems. Everyone's breaking point is at a different level, so times will vary.
...
There is another alternative that does not hamstring the winner. Allow him to keep using his army. But take the prize money and split it up. A third goes to the winner, then a third to second and a third to the third. This way he still gets the prestige of winning, and two other people at least get honoured that their attempt to compete was acknowledged. As whats the point improving your army if your gonna be ignored anyway?

So this extended discussion on this topic has got me thinking. Hyena makes some good points about the same winner affecting the participant base. But at this point the OP hasn't gotten back to answer some of the questions I've posed....(Quoting myself)And how often are these tourneys run? Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Quarterly? What's the entry fee and how many people on average usually show up? How many games are played during the tourney on average. I'd like to get more of a feel about the tourney scene you're talking about. (/quote)...so we really don't know how long this guy has been winning or how many actual times he's won. Has this guy has been winning for years with his Golden Daemon-like skills or has he only been around for a 3 to 6 months. In either case I simply do not believe that the guy has no love for the game and just shows up to win the $40 (more like $25 =P) sidepot for best painted army as the OP suggests. To do so he's got to travel, register, and play a game with others for about 8 hours and I highly doubt that you're going to stick around and do something you hate for 8 hours (tourney time, at least 8 right) for a paultry $25. He might just be perfectly fine with being a poor tactician and having a poor tourney ranking, but "in it for the money" hardly seems likely.

If he has been winning with the same army for over a year (same army no new additions or progressions) then I'd say that the TO's take a great big picture of it, frame it, and give him honorable mention for the years to come. The honorable mention status would prevent him from winning the "Painting award sidepot" unless he's adding newly painted stuff to his army, and the player base should be appeased because there's not a same, constant winner. Here's the catch, if there's a painting score tied over to the general, overall award then it should be scored normally, and added normally to his overall score. (Because if this guy is going for an overall award, then his points for painting shouldn't have a half life).


Necroshea's initial query (mainly the unlikely 5 year and GD skills portion of it) and MrHyena's post got me thinking. Necro, the only problem I got with your initial query is the guy you're describing is a total ringer. But that being said, it did make me think your point over. That with Hyena's notion of the same winner adversely affecting a playerbase....hmmm. So I come up with my "honorable mention scenario"


But to be straight there's a ton of sour grapes from the OP, and I'd much rather see a guy knocked off his throne due to legitimate competition rather than mob mentality and rules lawyering against that person.

Mr Hyena wrote:But when does the other people's weeks, months and even years of painting get rewarded? When it follows a rather arbitrary set of judge 'rules'? Why?

Or does that count as nothing?

Well, I can't comment on the painting criteria used in the OP's case, but most tournament packages I have ever read have a guidline as to how painting will be assessed - 1 point for primed, 2 points for 3 colour, 3 for washes and limited highlighting, etc, etc.

It is not necessarily how good the result is at the end, but the fact that a painter has painted "to the rules". So long as your army features fully done bases with painted rims, highlighting, shadowing, etc, etc you will come out with equal (or near equal - depending on the scoring chart and judges) as someone who has won a GD for every single mini in their army.

As mentioned, if someone brings the same army week in, week out, and there are other people who have similar scores in painting, you will quickly find that they either pull up the extra few points, or the judges get bored of seeing the same army all the time and... not dock points, but just award less as there has been no improvement, meaning that others start to take first.

But again, how is painting any different from playing? Some people have either natural talent that puts them to the fore, or greater experience, or perhaps luck, etc, etc. At the end of the day, you are rewarding the "best". No matter what the government may want you to think, not everyone can be a winner.

I've heard as many, if not more words of praise for people in close fought second and third places than I have for the people who come first. I know I got a lot of good comments and suggestions when my army came in 2nd best painted that spurred me on to repaint a couple of units, touch up a few bits of sloppy work on bases, add in a couple of extra special models, etc. My army, I like to think, is now better than it ever has been. If I'd come first I probably would have been content to rest on my laurels (as I hate painting) and the next tournament I went to someone probably would have had a better looking army than me...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

OverwatchCNC wrote:He addressed that in the remainder of his post. The part where he talked about army fatigue setting in (he didn't use that term exactly so don't look for it).

But...then whats the point if your still not being acknowledged for the work you've done? I don't agree with the 'Everyone's a winner!' view, but positive encouragement is important. I wouldn't count tips from the winner as being positive encouragement (As realistically, thats the exact opposite).

He addressed that in the remainder of his post. The part where he talked about army fatigue setting in (he didn't use that term exactly so don't look for it).

If people get sick of seeing the same army week in or whatever, this is obviously not happening in this guys store. I find it hard to believe that not a single army that was worthy of praise appeared that could not be allowed to win.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to get rid of the judge who probably isn't doing very well.

Mr Hyena wrote:But...then whats the point if your still not being acknowledged for the work you've done? I don't agree with the 'Everyone's a winner!' view, but positive encouragement is important. I wouldn't count tips from the winner as being positive encouragement (As realistically, thats the exact opposite).

I don't really know what you are expecting people to say... you can only have one winner, maybe a runner up, and you have to have some way of determining said winner, either just through some kind of "wow!" factor, or a proper scored painting system, just as you have KP's/BP's/etc to determine the best general.

You can't say "hey, Fred has been playing since the RT days and has 20 years of experience and wins all the time but the guy who came second has only been playing 3 years and has never won best general - he should win best general!"

Horst wrote:WTF are you all arguing about?

This is just plain stupid.

There is an award for best painted.

IT GOES TO THE GUY WITH THE BEST PAINTED ARMY.

Why is this so hard?

If you REALLY have a problem with it, simply eliminate painting as a prize category, eliminate pure battle points as a prize category, and go for a single prize consisting of the composite score, with battlepoints being weighted like 3x painting points (75/25), and just give out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, instead of Overall winner, battlepoints winner, and painting winner.

NEVER make rules that make it impossible for a player to win multiple times in a row... thats just stupid, because if you "adjust" the competition, its not a competition at all, its just you being biased against someone and not giving him a fair shot.

Q F T

After my long a$$ed wordy as hell post we have someone who mirrors my feeling and is to the point, with brevity.

What I'm expecting people to do is think.

Obviously banning the guy is wrong, he did do the work and should win. But its going to cause conflict and possible loss of tournament attendance if people think that improving their painting skills is pointless, because when they do, they lose anyway.

What we need is something fairer. Or is it ok to destroy a tournament like this?

You can't say "hey, Fred has been playing since the RT days and has 20 years of experience and wins all the time but the guy who came second has only been playing 3 years and has never won best general - he should win best general!"

If the same guy keeps winning best general all the time; extend the winner's bracket the same. Split the prizes three ways to the winner, and two runners up. Fair and encourages people to improve.

MightyGodzilla wrote:

Horst wrote:WTF are you all arguing about?

This is just plain stupid.

There is an award for best painted.

IT GOES TO THE GUY WITH THE BEST PAINTED ARMY.

Why is this so hard?

If you REALLY have a problem with it, simply eliminate painting as a prize category, eliminate pure battle points as a prize category, and go for a single prize consisting of the composite score, with battlepoints being weighted like 3x painting points (75/25), and just give out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, instead of Overall winner, battlepoints winner, and painting winner.

NEVER make rules that make it impossible for a player to win multiple times in a row... thats just stupid, because if you "adjust" the competition, its not a competition at all, its just you being biased against someone and not giving him a fair shot.

Q F T

After my long a$$ed wordy as hell post we have someone who mirrors my feeling and is to the point, with brevity.

Yeah that doesn't sound like a very friendly tournament to play at.

If we're talking about a ruthless cut throat setting here that welcomes WAAC players and campers, then my mistake. I just kind of assumed the tourny in question was the "everyone is here to have fun but has the capacity to get serious" kind of setup. The tournies I always find myself in.

Umm... "destroy a tournament"?! Really?

Seriously, Best Painted should be just that.

Umm... "destroy a tournament"?! Really?

When one person dominates, local tournament attendance tends to go down. If it goes down too far, there's no point in running the tournament no?

Whats so wrong with having a 'Best Runners up' rewarded section?

Mr Hyena wrote:

Umm... "destroy a tournament"?! Really?

When one person dominates, local tournament attendance tends to go down. If it goes down too far, there's no point in running the tournament no?

Exactly. Fairly even competition is one thing. Heck, a hurdle a little higher than your expecting to jump is all well and good. But running into a wall sucks and kills it for people.

Regular hurdle - Wow he's pretty good, this should be a good competition!

Higher hurdle - Oh man, I wasn't expecting something like that! I'll have to put double time on my stuff for the next event!

Wall - Wow, no way I'll even get close to that. What's the point in trying? This guy has YEARS on me.

Necroshea wrote:

Mr Hyena wrote:

Umm... "destroy a tournament"?! Really?

When one person dominates, local tournament attendance tends to go down. If it goes down too far, there's no point in running the tournament no?

Exactly. Fairly even competition is one thing. Heck, a hurdle a little higher than your expecting to jump is all well and good. But running into a wall sucks and kills it for people.

Regular hurdle - Wow he's pretty good, this should be a good competition!

Higher hurdle - Oh man, I wasn't expecting something like that! I'll have to put double time on my stuff for the next event!

Wall - Wow, no way I'll even get close to that. What's the point in trying? This guy has YEARS on me.

So? who goes to a tourney with the expectation they have to go home with cash in their pocket or they can't have fun?

Usually pretty damn good painters can go home with best overall by winning games. If they really want best appearance they can paint better. If they can't enjoy an event without winning something they didn't earn, then they are petty and should quit trying as they don't know why people go to events.

You should try your hardest and be happy with where you place. You shouldn't go to win, then get pissed off when people beat you and then look for ways to disqualify them so you can then win cash without upping your skill or effort.

Everyone who has to win cash to have fun and expects to win cash will always have an awful time. If you do your best and go to have fun, you will have a good time.

From the wording in the opening post, it appears that the group has at least tried to continue on even with this one guy making it pointless.

How do you have fun when the tournament hasn't changed each time its done? The cash isn't the problem here. The problem is theres no recognition for anything below first.

Which I personally chalk upto a terrible judge in my opinion that has no idea about his playerbase.

Mr Hyena wrote:From the wording in the opening post, it appears that the group has at least tried to continue on even with this one guy making it pointless.

Yes, they are doggedly soldiering on despite one guy apparently winning a minor award a few times in a row. Surely the emperor will look fondly on this extreme persistence in the face of such adversity! How dare that guy have talent greater than his fellow players!

It's a lesser ranked award among several others but you make it sound like the guy is sweeping the entire tourney and dominating every aspect. If the TO is so concerned about his other sour grapes ME ME ME players, he should institute equivalent rules for EVERY category and not just painting. Screwing over one guy who is doing nothing wrong is never the right thing to do.

It is threads like this that remind me why I quit playing tourneys many years ago.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this is bottom-feeding. If there is a painting component to the tournament that is judged, I would argue that it is as much a painting tournament as any other type of tournament.

CT GAMER wrote:It is threads like this that remind me why I quit playing tourneys many years ago.

Agreed. As I have posted I generally have no issues with a person bringing different armies and winning the painting aspect of a tournament.

I take issue when the TO gives the award to a person that brings in the same army every time, I also take issue as I have seen those types of "bottom feeders" (I like that phrase) go to every tournament available in a general area to get those awards which is prize money of some sort.
I personally consider slimy bastards, hustlers and part of the sickness that is part of our society.

But.

Let's take out my ranting and and say "Whose fault should it be put on"?

The hobby in general is at fault. Too many people are playing in games with partially painted or unpainted armies in local tournaments resulting in the creation of more of these kinds of hustlers.

And that is the way I see it.

Adam LongWalker wrote:

CT GAMER wrote:It is threads like this that remind me why I quit playing tourneys many years ago.

Agreed. As I have posted I generally have no issues with a person bringing different armies and winning the painting aspect of a tournament.

I take issue when the TO gives the award to a person that brings in the same army every time, I also take issue as I have seen those types of "bottom feeders" (I like that phrase) go to every tournament available in a general area to get those awards which is prize money of some sort.
I personally consider slimy bastards, hustlers and part of the sickness that is part of our society.

But.

Let's take out my ranting and and say "Whose fault should it be put on"?

The hobby in general is at fault. Too many people are playing in games with partially painted or unpainted armies in local tournaments resulting in the creation of more of these kinds of hustlers.

And that is the way I see it.

I was referring to the OP and TFGs n general that are attrcted to tournaments like flies on gak.

It only takes one TFG to ruin an event, and sadly more times then not I encountered at least one guy that made me want to gouge my own eye out.

40K ISn't a sport, no matter how badly people want to pretend it is serious buisness.

It is toy soldiers and nothing more...

@CT Gamer

The days of being just toy soldiers are long gone I'm afraid. It is what the hobby dictates.

Adam LongWalker wrote:@CT Gamer

The days of being just toy soldiers are long gone I'm afraid. It is what the hobby dictates.

No it is toys played with by adults who think if they post fancy blogs and talk about statistics and act like it is seriosu buisness that it will seem more legit.

it is still toy soldiers and we arent relly doing anything all that serious or important when we play. Can it be fun? Yes. Do many people ruin it with stuff like this thread illustrates? You bet...

What a terribly titled thread... I know it was pointed out on page 1, but I can't believe you'd start a conversation that way.

No one should be called a "bottom feeder" for winning any kind of award at a tournament. That's just silly. Take it as a challenge and paint your army to a higher standard, if you really want to take top place!

RiTides wrote:What a terribly titled thread... I know it was pointed out on page 1, but I can't believe you'd start a conversation that way.

No one should be called a "bottom feeder" for winning any kind of award at a tournament. That's just silly. Take it as a challenge and paint your army to a higher standard, if you really want to take top place!

Remember, if you paint your models too well and people show up at the tourney with unpainted or underpainted models, you are a 'hustler' who is stealing prizes and part of the sickness of our society.

People should be given things they don't earn and never be judged on their merit by the sum of their own actions. If someone is better than you, they are evil for making you look bad and should be punished for trying to hard.

Yeah, I wonder if he would be upset if you weren't allowed to win Best General or Best overall if your army didn't change enough, and without specifying what enough is.

The idea that the person winning best painted doesn't deserve it because he's not putting the effort into playing on the day misses the point entirely of the award. You're putting in the effort at home when you spend hundreds of hours painting it well.

Also, to reiterate a point made previously - calling him a bottom feeder is ridiculous because, by the OPs own admission, his armies have won Best Painted at other tournaments. There's also other people regularly at that tournament who have very well painted armies. There's plenty of competition for this person. Just because the OP has won best painted before, he still needs to be judged against the competition at each individual tournament. This guy might just plain be better. Winning Best Painted at one tournament doesn't mean you will win it at every tournament.

It very much sounds like sour grapes. You've won best painted before. There's other people at the tournament who have great armies. This guy is just better, and is beating you. He's not good at the game? Meaningless. You don't have to be good at playing to enter a tournament. There's various areas to be judged. He's not going to win best overall just by winning best painted.

CT GAMER wrote:It is threads like this that remind me why I quit playing tourneys many years ago.

It is certainly why I stopped playing 40k period.


@ the original poster

Learn to paint and convert themed armies people like so they will vote for you and then you can be a "bottom feeder" too!

Why don't you just try to encourage the organizer into reducing the prize support for best painted. 10 dollar entry fee to win 15 bucks seems fine to me.... But I don't think anyone would complain about someone bottom feeding 5 dollars....

If the local tourney community actually agreed with our sour grapes OP, he wouldn't need to whine to the TO to change the rules for ONE category to screw over ONE player who happens to have more talent then him (as judged by his peers and the TO). The OP has already stated that the painting score is based off of the judge's score as well as "favorite army" player votes. If the other players were tired of the same army winning best painted, they'd simply stop voting for that army as their favorite and the some one else would win. There is no need to tweak the rules because the OP can't handle competition.

<thread terminated; there are some useful suggestions scattered throughout, but a lot of anger, starting with the OP's choice of title. If we need to discuss this topic again, I'd encourage a less inflammatory title>