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I have an idea for a tourney I am thinking of running this new concept for painting requirements.

For the sake of the argument, assume the following:

A standard tourney like an old RTT:

Sheets w/ checkboxes;
scores for sports,
book missions w/ teirs for the majority of the score
no painting requirement but: 10 point chart for boolean painting scores (Maybe worth 10% of total score, but minor)

and this:

Armies that do not meet the 3 color standard (any 3 colors AT ALL on EVERY model) will be intentionally paired and must play on (one of the) special boards:

The special boards would be (set up to be balanced) covered in newspaper, and the terrain would be bottles, card board boxes and cans, with forests made from torn comic strip pages and crumpled paper balls. This would not be a surprise, it would be listed in advance.

What do you think?

Awesome....

Well, that at least makes it so that the people who didn't paint get shunned, so it gets a cookie.

I am a little concerned about a few details, like an odd number of unpainted armies, or the reality of say just 2, making them play the same board over and over, or play eachother for 3 rounds.

I wouldn't want to do that to anyone.

Also I wouldn't want to make some one with a compliant army play on the paper either, but pairing winners/losers could force that.

I have a couple logistical issues to work out first I guess.

I think its a terrible idea.

If people are already getting punished for not painting why would you punish them more?

All this will do is reduce the number of players you get, and honestly I would not be surprised if you permanently lose a couple players.

I think it's an awesome idea on paper, but would not go down well in practice.

Clthomps wrote:I think its a terrible idea.
If people are already getting punished for not painting why would you punish them more?

To make a point.

All this will do is reduce the number of players you get,

I suppose that is possible. The event I am cosidering will probably sell out anyway, most events do in my area.

and honestly I would not be surprised if you permanently lose a couple players.

That could be bad, it might be to hard to do this in a non punitive way, but then, if they aren't painted armies, couldn't a sold out event stand their loss?

Is there a difference between playing a painted army and playing an unpainted army? Sorry, I just don't get it. o-o;

insaniak wrote:I think it's an awesome idea on paper, but would not go down well in practice.

Agreed. Maybe have one board like that, and just rotate the unpainted armies onto it? I think one board would be funny, half a dozen would be like a SNL skit - they make the same joke over and over until it's not funny.

Why don't you simply require that all figures be fully painted to a 3-color standard? That way you don't have to humiliate anyone to make your point, they just can't participate in the tournament unless they meet the standard. Give everyone plenty of warning... and go. If there's no minimum painting requirement in a tourney like 'Aard Boyz, I see no problem with the inverse... a tournament that has a strict minimum painting requirement.

I agree with Gitsplitta, in most GW tourneys I have played in, the three color standard has been used. I wouldn't recommend making the unpainted armies play on special tables as if they've come for a nice day out, you've kind of ruined it a bit for them ^^

I love the first part of the idea... I always thought it would be cool to have a 'speed-painting' round before the actual games begin, where everyone scraps together some arts n crafts terrain, or finishes a slop job on their greys beforehand... and THEN play with all the bottles n cans n boxes we all just made somewhat 40k-ish (my best one was a pile of back-yard rocks in a pile topped with 4 beer cans next to each other like silos... with plastic straws connecting them all and painted all rusty metal-like... some kind of nuclear reactor...), sort of haphazzard terrain but at least now the nike shoebox looks like a bunker or a wall or whatever instead of saying Nike on the side. Maybe some little bit of overall points to whoever made the most viable half-assed terrain in an hour... and then we all play in the new home-made arts and crafts sandbox we all invented together. It would make for some cool gamer solidarity.

Great Unclean One wrote:I agree with Gitsplitta, in most GW tourneys I have played in, the three color standard has been used. I wouldn't recommend making the unpainted armies play on special tables as if they've come for a nice day out, you've kind of ruined it a bit for them ^^

Like they are kind of ruining it for everyone else who has to play them?

Well, how about a V2 idea:

Same general rules but:

No painting requirements
Bonus paint points by the 10 point boolean sheet

Pair round one by paint scores! Put the 2 low pairs on 2 paper tables

Strike the paper for round 2 and 3

rest is normal?

another thought: 3 color standard = black undercoat, silver drybrush, red trim. Not that hard to do Doom Eagles. I did about 50 of them in 1 afternoon as a bday present foor my brother. Or... the orky version: black undercoat, green face n arms, metal weapons, random color pants. Damn I could do an army of that in an hour. Not a very difficult requirement but an excellent Idea, from a distance it still looks colorful, and everyone gets encouraged to start painting even if they aren't any good. My friend Jason who used to be an 'outrider' back in GW days insisted that at least the entrants made some attempt like flocking the base or something (black bases suck... at least paint them some color or other so the fig stands out... was his theory)

Augustus wrote:I have an idea for a tourney I am thinking of running this new concept for painting requirements.

For the sake of the argument, assume the following:

A standard tourney like an old RTT:

Sheets w/ checkboxes;
scores for sports,
book missions w/ teirs for the majority of the score
no painting requirement but: 10 point chart for boolean painting scores (Maybe worth 10% of total score, but minor)

and this:

Armies that do not meet the 3 color standard (any 3 colors AT ALL on EVERY model) will be intentionally paired and must play on (one of the) special boards:

The special boards would be (set up to be balanced) covered in newspaper, and the terrain would be bottles, card board boxes and cans, with forests made from torn comic strip pages and crumpled paper balls. This would not be a surprise, it would be listed in advance.

What do you think?

I have over 6.5k worth of Dark Angels. I go to university and work a full time job on top of my hobby. When I am not with my G/F or working/studying, I am painting. I constantly try to fit in time to paint.

While I do agree this would be a lolzy idea, especially if these players have nothing painted or put all most no efforts into it, but is it fair to players that don't have the time to paint a 2.5k army? I mean, I have a low model count with my Deathwing 'Ard Boyz list, and almost all of it was painted, but that was 4 months of prep! I don't move on to another model until it is absolutely finished *Perfectionism sucks sometimes!*.

IMHO, I think if a player is attempting to continuously paint there army, it is fine. In this instance, if under 30-40% of there army is completely untouched, gak table them, but that is still a tad bit harsh IMO.

Guitardian wrote:another thought: 3 color standard = black undercoat, silver drybrush, red trim. Not that hard to do...

Yes that's a fine example of what would qualify in the rules I am proposing.

I think your idea is one of those "worst of both worlds" scenarios where you would be perceived much more positively by simply enforcing a painting requirement and / or including a painting score.

I find it hard to 'repaint' figs. Yeah they're never finished, but the project always has to have an order to it to begin with (i.e. black base, base coat, brush up, wash, brush up again)... So redoing something means redoing all of those stages. That's why I like to paint squads all-at-once like an assembly line... cuz if I go back to it, I've already forgotten the specific order I did things for the rest of the squad, and it ends up not blending in if I do something like washing after drybrushing instead of before and so on.

Requiring 3 colors and based is all you need to do.

Even for people who want 'detailed' paintshcemes and are slow painters I bet some point in your painting the model is 3colors and based.

My orks get:
*Black basecoat
*Goblin green skin
*Ink wash
*basic eyes and teeth
*Grey base

BAM! Tabletop quality. And when I want to highlight the skin, paint the pants and other details later, I can... because my 3 colors was just the early steps of my regular paintjob.

So there really is never any valid excuse on why a player cannot meet 3colors and based for a tourney.

Painting as a requirement should either be enforced or ignored. Honestly I spent about 4 years organizing tourneys and except for a few people who just deserved ridicule for absolute refusal to try with no excuse most unpainted armies represented a few things. Either it was a new army bought to win, a new army that was just released and wants to be played with, or an army in progress where someone wants to take time to finish it well.

So I used to ask. If for instance it was a newly released army, I had no issue. I would usually let it fly for one tourney, then wanted to see progress. If there was constant progress in the painting of an army I was okay too. I had a golden demon painter who loved to play but painted one army each year. About 3 months into our season he would show up with a 50% painted army and each month we would slober over the new pieces, and after the Grand Tourney he would have the painted army until 3 months into the following season.

We were good with this becase he was always painting, helping us, and practicing for grand tournament.

Also the armies with black undercoat, red eyes and silver guns disappeared and we got more painted armies over all.

nkelsch wrote:Requiring 3 colors and based is all you need to do.....

Dave47 wrote:...perceived much more positively by simply enforcing a painting requirement and / or including a painting score.

I see a pattern growing here, allow me to comment.

I agree, enforce the 3 color standard in the first place, makes sense.

Why that isn't really an option is because of the competing concerns for including everyone (stipulated by the venue) and requiring a standard (stipulated by the judge). This thread was an attempt to get opinions on a compromise between the 2 positions:

The venue wants no one to be turned away
The judge wants to run a quality event

So how about the version 2 idea?

Augustus wrote:
The venue wants no one to be turned away
The judge wants to run a quality event

So how about the version 2 idea?

If the Venue wants no one to be turned away... then you have to allow totally unpainted armies and probably proxies as well.

If the TO wants to run a quality event, then there needs to make a softscore which makes unpainted armies and proxies basically unable to compete and win any prizes so unpainted players will choose voluntarily to not come to the event or not take prizes from people who followed the rules. Then the TO is not turning anyone away but the lack of 3colors and based means the person cannot compete.

I think the version 2 idea could work. I agree with dietrich that it's one of those ideas which will provoke a reaction/get a laugh at first, but keeping it going for a prolonged period would get old and less amusing. The bad SNL skit analogy is a clever one.

Augustus wrote:Why that isn't really an option is because of the competing concerns for including everyone (stipulated by the venue) and requiring a standard (stipulated by the judge). This thread was an attempt to get opinions on a compromise between the 2 positions:

The venue wants no one to be turned away
The judge wants to run a quality event

In what way is it a quality event if you're intentionally degrading the experience for a number of your participants?

edit: I can see potential problems with version 2 where two excellent players, neither of which have painted their armies, get paired up when they might not have done so if the pairing of the first round was random, and fight to a draw, knocking them both out of contention.

But things like that are pretty minor.

Another idea to consider is a simple rule that was suggested at my FLGS...if your army is not 100% painted to a 3-color standard, you cannot take the Best Overall prize. Yuo can take Best General, just not Best Overall.
Essentially, you forfeit the top honor if you don't get some paint on your figs. You still get something for being the best at the gaming part, but not the hobby part.

Clthomps wrote:I think its a terrible idea.

If people are already getting punished for not painting why would you punish them more?

All this will do is reduce the number of players you get, and honestly I would not be surprised if you permanently lose a couple players.

You say it like it would be a bad thing.

So, the worst case scenario for V2 is that everyone shows up with painted armies, four people with painted armies get assigned to play on the paper tables, and the point gets completely lost.

Setting out one paper table might be a way to prove a point, and just strange enough to write off as "Well, the tournament organizer was pressed for time, too. Heh." Setting out two paper tables and forcing people to play on those tables is digging into the passive aggressive "I can't turn you away, but I want to make leave" territory.

A much better compromise between the two positions would simply be to set minimum play requirements: All figures must be assembled and properly representative; figures don't have to be painted, but must be clearly marked for squad membership; no invisible models on empty bases; etc. It is possible to eliminate a lot of the functional problems with unpainted armies without needing to have everything fully painted, and almost anyone would be willing to concede that a person can't actually play the game without assembling their figures. Then again, one of the things which I think is really obnoxious is the person with the fully painted set of models that doesn't understand the need for squad markings, and the mischief that results when a model "accidentally" switches between squads.

I love this idea.

Also, add in that if you lose your first game you are given a magic the gathering starter pack and you have to go play that instead.

People who lose are obviously bad and don't belong at a tournament. You wouldn't want them ruining everyone elses experience.

This idea screams of "painted army elitism."

It's like you're telling the guys, "We think so little of you because you do not paint your army that you don't even deserve regular terrain."

Honestly, and this is no slight on you - merely fact, there's only one place locally who runs tournaments regularly. If they ever held a tournament like this, I would never play in one of their tourneys again (and I've never played in a tourney that I didn't have a completely painted army).

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:This idea screams of "painted army elitism."

It's like you're telling the guys, "We think so little of you because you do not paint your army that you don't even deserve regular terrain."

Exactly. Works for me.