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Posted By two heads talking on 11/09/2007 10:17 AM
  personally, IIRC if you don't paint the army you get a flat goose egg on scoring, with that done, how in hells bells does one even come close to hitting top level with a big fat 0 in there amongst the other scores?  Best general? sure. Best sportsman? sure. Best overall?  umm..... 

I think the "umm" is about where you're getting this zero in painting thing.  The only thing that happens if you didn't paint it yourself is that you can't win Best Painted.  It'd be an unenforceable rule, which is why GW doesn't have it on the books. 

This has been standard GT policy for a long time...why does it come up again every year? 

@THT: There is no rule about get ZERO painting if you didn't paint the army. I believe you are just out of the running for best painted army.

stonefox:
By your reasoning, one would need to win all the other bests in order to get best overall, no? Clearly this is not the case.

Right, I forgot that you only needed to paint your own army for best painted.



If only.

Posted By tegeus-Cromis on 11/09/2007 11:07 AM

By your reasoning, one would need to win all the other bests in order to get best overall, no? Clearly this is not the case.

by my reasoning too, the only way to be best overall would be to best in all the categoriest.. clearly that is not the case. 

I just don't think it right for someone who put only gaming effort (clearly he did nothing hobby wise with that army) to win something that is supposed to encompass both gaming and hobby aspects. Just my not so humble opinion really. I just can't congratulate someone who I fell didn't deserve the accolades.  .

should their painting score be modified if they didn't paint their army? 

hobbyist that invest a lot of personal time into their armies can easily be offended by someone receiving a higher score when someone pays another person to paint their army.  my comments aren't addressed as personal attack more at the misleading concept of Best Overall. 

It is about the single individual that has excelled in all three areas:
Their abilities allowed them to win on the field, General. 
Their ability to have fun and enjoy the game make them great sports, Sportsman. 
Their painting, sculpting and creativity are judged, Painting. 

The award, in title, is for the individual who has excelled in all 3 areas, at least, as a first time participant that is what is conveyed, while reality seems different.

In the event an individual can win best overall with an army that is not theirs or painted by them, you are in a sense judging them on work they didn't do.  You can't really judge a players ability on someone else's sportsmanship can you?  So why in this case are you able to do so? It's incredibly subjective.  I originally didn't care at all.  An army list is an army list.  Who cares where you got it from?  This post in another forum changed my perspective however.

On a community level, it SHOULD be frowned upon.  There is no precedence for including painting under these guidelines.
<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"> <tbody> <tr> <td>My Quote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">It really bothers you guys that much that some made a list for someone else and thats what they used? (that is my perspective)</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>

No, that's not it at all. What bothers me the most is that he won "Best Overall". Meaning (in my mind) he was best in all categories, hence overall. How could he possibly be "best overall" if he didn't buy, assemble, modify or even paint the army?

In essence GW is saying that Pete is a better all around Warhammer 40K hobbiest than someone else who poured their heart and soul into their army.

I just don't think he deserves the award. There were plenty or really beautiful armies there and plenty of excellent players; players who really did encompass all the best aspects of the hobby.

Giving (and use giving because he certainly didn't earn it) Pete the "Best Overall" award is a crime because quite smply he's not. He's just some guy that walked in with a previously demonstrated winning army.

This year, the rules are what they are.

Pete followed the rules and deserves the win.

When the GT paint scoring was first put on line there was much discussion about how you did not have to paint your own army anymore.

I would like to see something that does penalize those armies that are not painted by the player, yet if you can?t paint very well, something to encourage you to bring in a nice army.

Something like either -5 or -10 painting score if you did not paint it yourself.

There have been a lot of discussions regarding dinging people who don't paint their own army and one of the majority positions was that it only hurts those players who are honest. If it affects a players chances of winning overall, I bet you'll see a lot of players lying and saying they did paint their army when in fact they did not. Much better is to remove them from the running for "Best Painted" but otherwise not worry.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

while i am upset and disappointed i am not upset or disappointed with pete. i played pete i lost to pete, i like pete, but this isn't personal. A very VERY valid point is raised because he won under the circumstances that he did. My question becomes, why include painting at all for the overall score of an individual if they did not indeed paint their own models?

I do not want to see people not play and frankly some people do not even enjoy that aspect of the hobby. In my eyes I am inclined to agree with Blackmoor in that a penalty should be incurred. If it is based on 50 points a -10 handicap is a fair agreement.

This can even be compared to steroids in baseball. Look at all the roided players out there. They have the mind, the ability, but not the body. So they went outside and did what they had to do to get to the next level.

In respect to this discussion being about the Best Overall, it is my opinion that GW should consider either a penalty based system for these circumstances or not include painting at all.

Only problem is that if there's a penalty then people won't be honest about it not being painted by them.

The point of having a painting score is to encourage nice looking armies, regardless as to who actually made them. Better than an army of marines that are primered black and have a red, blue, and green dot on them...

There are a lot of people who do not have the talent to paint a GT army to the standard that it would score well. To make it so they cannot win if thay are honest would be a bad thing. For someone to pay someone to paint an army to the high standards costs a lot of money that they had to go to their job every day to earn and not use to buy other things. In my opinion they have put effort into haveing a well painted army. For the record I paint all of the armies I play in Tournaments so I am not just saying this because I am sore. I have run over 30 RTT's and literally hundreds of tournaments if you count all the other systems I have run and I have never once dinged someones score for paying someone to paint. I have been dinged when the RTT judge did not believe that I had painted my own army because he did not think I could paint that well, and it was very upsetting.

My previous post forgot to mention however that it is a real shame that someone of Mike's gameing reputation would let someone else use his army in a GT. I would let people borrow my stuff from time to time but I would not want them to win a GT without investing the money involved. But hey some people need to win at all cost.

vhwolf, I see nothing wrong with what Mike did. Pete Elias wanted an army to go to the GT with; the GT organisers permitted playing with an army one didn't paint onself; Mike lent Pete his army. Wrongdoing--where? I really don't see how anyone here has done anything they should be ashamed of (except maybe the organisers, if you believe there decision was such a terrible one).

Posted By vhwolf on 11/09/2007 5:20 PM
There are a lot of people who do not have the talent to paint a GT army to the standard that it would score well. To make it so they cannot win if thay are honest would be a bad thing.

There are a lot of people who do not have the talent to play at a GT to the standard that they would score well. To make it so they cannot win if thay play thieir best would be a bad thing.

Surely that is the point of a tourney - if you don't have the talent you don't win.

Posted By tegeus-Cromis on 11/09/2007 11:13 PM
vhwolf, I see nothing wrong with what Mike did. Pete Elias wanted an army to go to the GT with; the GT organisers permitted playing with an army one didn't paint onself; Mike lent Pete his army. Wrongdoing--where? I really don't see how anyone here has done anything they should be ashamed of (except maybe the organisers, if you believe there decision was such a terrible one).

Just because something is allowed does not mean that people should not feel ashamed about it. Yes people followed the rules but doing the right thing in life is not always the same thing as following the rules. If Pete wanted to go and play so badly why didn't he use his own army??? I am not saying that he should not have been allowed to borrow an army or that he should not have won, I just think that for personal pride Mike should have said something like I'll help you get an army together but I have already won at least one GT with mine so  it wouldn't be  cool to loan it to someone. This is all just an opinion however.  It is all just  a matter of  what each person  sees as  acceptable in life. Each person has to make up their own moral compass to decide what they think is right and wrong and then they must live in a society that makes it's own opinions about it. I feel that what was done was something to be ashamed of but I don't expect everyone else to feel the same way, I also would not penalize someone for doing it in a tournament I ran because it was not against the rules. However I would still not like it. It is my right to think it was a bad thing to do.

The issue however is that nowhere does it say that you personally have to paint the army. It just states that the appearance of the army will be judged. The point of the Best Painted category is that you painted the army yourself. The point of the Golden Daemon awards is for your paint talent. The GT is about having a well painted army(wherever you aquired it from), playing nicely, and playing well. Whether you agree with it or not that is just the way it is.

vhwolf wrote:The issue however is that nowhere does it say that you personally have to paint the army. It just states that the appearance of the army will be judged. The point of the Best Painted category is that you painted the army yourself. The point of the Golden Daemon awards is for your paint talent. The GT is about having a well painted army(wherever you aquired it from), playing nicely, and playing well. Whether you agree with it or not that is just the way it is.

Right. Just a question though: do you or do you not see the oddity of requiring self-painted armies to win best painted (i.e. your score in painting) but not for overall (i.e. which also uses your score in painting)? Furthermore, consider what puree said: "There are a lot of people who do not have the talent to play at a GT to the standard that they would score well. To make it so they cannot win if thay play thieir best would be a bad thing." Thoughts?

Sadly, you cannot include painted as part of a army score any longer. It's been this way for almost a decade now, but GW has refused to believe painting (and the judging of same) is a judgement call.

I'll admit, I'm personally bitter about armies I put alot of effort into getting dinged by the GW staffers--and armies I wouldn't lay claim to (due to their horrible painting) getting not just a better score, but my army getting an 'average' and theirs double my score? LOL.

Have you all not noticed the ridiculous amount of effort that goes into half a dozen armies at every GT? Tables, huge amounts of conversion, painting as if one's life depended, banners, lights, gilded woodworking, etched bronze nameplates, everything-is-forgeworld, etc etc?

The fanatics seem to want us to spend a zillion dollars on a new army, and instead of just looking nice it has to be the above? So over the top that if you and I have the same army, same battle scores...that you will win because of your painting?!

Which you can (and many do) lie their ass off about?

I know alot of our GT winners that are nothing more than cheats.

Most of you do too.

GW still seems to think it's ok for cheats to win, so long as they can publish photos of these awesome armies.

Sadly, they've been losing attendees because of this. They've finally realized it's time for another sad marketing ploy--why it's high time for a small GT again, "old school style".

Hey let me disabuse you of the notion that "old school style" is or was a good thing.

Price stays the same for us, goes down for GW. Personally I hope they really go "old school" and hand out bits by the pound for a dollar.

I'd gladly pay 500$ for a flight and a ticket to the GT just to be able to buy at that rate.

But what do I know? My 6 month paint job (with no gaming) got me a lousy 20 because I used GW decals and "only" converted 1 unit. While my buddy's primed and unpainted army got...a 20. And the idiots with the big boards of foam? All got better scores, even with gakky paint jobs.

They don't score "style" in pro sports for a reason--it's not a number you can crunch in black and white like the score, number of passes, etc.

I don't allow unpainted armies to win overall in my tournaments, but painting? Best painted? Please. They don't have place in WAR tournaments. Want a painting tournament? Run one. Give out a big old prize for 1st place, and a pat on the back for everyone else. Oh right, GW has that already--it's called the Golden Demon.

Man, it felt good getting that out.

Oh and for everyone talking about a lack of talent at either painting or gaming--there's a very easy way to "fix" this, oft suggested to GW but so far it's fallen on deaf ears.

Painting is a seperate category that will NEVER influence your overall score, general, or sportsmanship (although sportsmanship should also be eliminated as any kind of scoring modifier).

Personally I'm working on my own format, to allow good generals to prosper while still allowing painting to be recognized.

I'm trying to 'wiggle' in conversion work and reduce sportsmanship to a bell curve warning system, but only time will tell.

Well, that and my wife allowing me to blow thousands on running a tournament for a bunch of sad sacks. New house? Nahhhh....tournament for the nerd herd instead!
I'm sure it'll go over well.

Wow - you seem a little bitter Stelek. Please expand on a couple things though. Cheats - how are our GT winners cheats? Not quite sure where you get this from. Also, expand on the painting aspects that you speak of. A lot of the armies that placed higher in painting are really well done. So, I'm not quite sure where this is coming from? Also, with the new Dakka - post some pics of your army. Maybe there are areas of improvement that people may suggest. Hell - it has taken me 15 years to get the paint scores that I now have at events.

Stelek wrote:
But what do I know? My 6 month paint job (with no gaming) got me a lousy 20 because I used GW decals and "only" converted 1 unit. While my buddy's primed and unpainted army got...a 20. And the idiots with the big boards of foam? All got better scores, even with gakky paint jobs.

i noticed a few "oddities" as well. my army, the purple tau (on a big board of foam), received a 35 for painting. it contained no conversions and only a few nicely painted minis. However, a friend's army (the dark eldar - dragon raiders), with many conversions and a consistently nice paint job recieved a 20 or 25. according to the painting scoring guidelines i expected our scores to be opposite.

if a painting score is going to be used it must be consistent.

does anyone know how many judges were used? what qualifications do they have?

did the critera change?


the secret must be in the foam.

take care,
jsa

There is no way around the painting problem unless you figure out how to prove whether someone painted their own army or not.

I'm in favour of armies being painted well but I can't see how you can enforce a standard. Someone mentioned black primer plus three different coloured dots as satisfying the rules. Exactly.

The players have to want to use nice figures. Some people are happy playing with bare metal. Others do not have the skill to paint stuff well. It does take time to learn.

I'm not against pro-painted figures. I have some pro-painted ancients myself, because I do not have time to paint everything.

I have a problem with display cases making up for bad
paint jobs. If Stelek's post is accurate, then that's a
problem. Boards of foam should be used as a bump
for equal painting jobs, not as a standard.

I mean, it's impressive going to events like Adepticon and
seeing multi-level monstrosities, but at some point the
foam escalation war has to end...