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JohnHwangDD wrote:Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies.
...
I don't think there's a single Golden Daemon painter who's painted an entire 1500-pt 40k army, much less a 2000-pt WFB army. The model counts are just too high.

Interesting, since I personally know at least four painters who have won at the golden daemons (not necessarily gold, mind you) and who have done just that. At the 2007 Adepticon Team Tournament, one team had at least two GD painters on it (Jamie Welling and Dave Pauwels). One of the redshirts at my local GW won his G.D. before joining the staff, and has a 10,000 point, fully painted adeptus mechanicus army. And, the manager at the same shop has won twice in the Staff category (where, sure, he's not competing against Natalia or Chris Borer, but Tim Lison and Dave Taylor are not exactly slouches), and runs a 3k Ork and Goblin WFB army.

And that's not even including people I know of, but don't personally know, such as Dave Taylor (who played at Adepticon this year), or Vincent Hudon, who did Magmatrax in 2006 and plays with him in his army.

G.D. painters DO play, and DO paint armies. So, again, I ask, what is the difference between a GD painter hiring someone else to make the moves on the table for him and claiming the battle points for themselves, or Napoleon himself having someone else paint his army to get his painting points for him.

No one even thinks twice about the first. You go to a tournament, you play your own games, you earn your own battle points. Why is it so horrible to ask the same for people to earn their own painting scores?

And don't even give me the B.S. about how long it takes, or how some people don't like to paint. Some people don't like to powergame codexes. Some people don't have time to keep up on Dakka with what the power builds are. Some people don't like to playtest their armies. We don't make exceptions for them. If you want to be known as the "Best Overall" I believe that you should be responsible for every aspect of your score.

Redbeard wrote:
And don't even give me the B.S. about how long it takes, or how some people don't like to paint. Some people don't like to powergame codexes. Some people don't have time to keep up on Dakka with what the power builds are. Some people don't like to playtest their armies. We don't make exceptions for them. If you want to be known as the "Best Overall" I believe that you should be responsible for every aspect of your score.

I fully agree.

and as for the get a jpob that pays more comment even if I had a million bucks I would not spend a dime towards anyone else painting my army as I model and enjoy every moment of it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's the tipping point?

Do we invalidate team-painted or club-painted armies?

If a buddy gives you a painted model, or paints a model / unit for you, does that invalidate the entire army?

What if they just help with basing? Or base-coating? Or priming? Or mold-line cleanup?

Or suppose a guy buys a painted army or pays to have his army painted to tabletop standard, and then does a touchup / detail work. Or adds a unit or two? Does that mean he can reclaim them as his own?

The overwhelming majority of self-painted models are mediocre to poor. If someone has the money to have their models painted, why should we hold that against them?

And on top of that, the overwhelming majority of models aren't even fully-painted and based!

I say, anything that gets more painted models on the board is a good thing.

And if that means that the "rich" players can have their armies painted by starving painters, I'm OK with that.

Agreed John. Very much so.

While I don't have anything painted other than by myself, I have solicited services from people that do paint professionally to do my armies.

There is just no way to enforce this if disclosure isn't made by the person who had his army painted for him.

You may as well tell people who haven't painted an army themselves that they cannot participate in any games because you feel that they 'cheated'.

This thread serves no purpose other than as a venue for a poster to find companions share in airing out his sour grapes.

Redbeard wrote:I tend to think that people with pro-painted armies shouldn't be eligible for best overall either.

I agree. Best overall, is best overall which means playing and painting, not just best general.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies. They paint models. The time involved with Golden Daemon techniques does not transfer into mass production unless you've got a team painting the stuff.

I don't think there's a single Golden Daemon painter who's painted an entire 1500-pt 40k army, much less a 2000-pt WFB army. The model counts are just too high.

Then how do you explain Slayer Sword winner Scott Bowser painting this army:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/207391.page

or this one that you can buy now?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=190237083942

Anyone willing to accept a best painted award when they didn't paint the army won't be honest enough to admit it at the beginning of the event anyway. The only way to catch them is if somone else points him out. Maybe T.O.'s could have everyone sign a pledge at the start that they painted 90% of their own models. In the end, self policing is the only thing that works...

Redbeard wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies.
...
I don't think there's a single Golden Daemon painter who's painted an entire 1500-pt 40k army, much less a 2000-pt WFB army. The model counts are just too high.

Interesting, since I personally know at least four painters who have won at the golden daemons (not necessarily gold, mind you) and who have done just that.

You're saying that every model in each of those armies is painted to Golden Demon-winning standard?

Puh-lease.

They may have done a single Golden Demon *model*, but that is a far cry from doing 50, 100, or 200 models to that standard of painting.

fnc821 wrote:and as for the get a jpob that pays more comment even if I had a million bucks I would not spend a dime towards anyone else painting my army as I model and enjoy every moment of it.

If I had a million bucks fall into my lap, you bet I'd pay someone else to paint (and repaint) my armies for me.

I have a *lot* of armies, with hundreds of models remaining to build, paint, and base. Considering the volume, I think it'd probably be cheapest if I hired a college student for the summer to prep and paint armies full-time. $10/hr = $80/day = $400/week = $4,000 for the summer. On a per-model basis, it's like $4/model, and I know I would get *much* better results than any "dip" shop. The cost and results would be well worth the few thousand bucks it might cost.

Having painted several hundred models, I will share that the enjoyment of doing rote painting eventually wears off. And the novelty of clipping bitz, cleaning mold lines, priming, and basecoating has been completely gone for a couple years. Now, I still have fun doing the development, assembly, and paint scheme development. And I enjoy playing with painted models. So if I had the money to allow me to focus my time on what I enjoy, while having someone else do the boring stuff, why shouldn't I do that? After all, isn't that the point of having lots of money?

Krak_kirby wrote:Anyone willing to accept a best painted award when they didn't paint the army won't be honest enough to admit it at the beginning of the event anyway. The only way to catch them is if somone else points him out. Maybe T.O.'s could have everyone sign a pledge at the start that they painted 90% of their own models. In the end, self policing is the only thing that works...

If everyone could agree on what "painted" means, and how to measure 90%, that would be great.

On the one hand, you're going to have guys who say that 90% means 90% wholly-self-painted, and on the other hand, you're going to have guys who say that 90% means no more than 10% wholly-non-painted. The wide range between these two viewpoints is very large, and not likely to be resolved to the satisfaction of the OP or anyone else.

chris borer will paint you a gd quality army, but the cost was in the 6 figures as he would have to quit his day job.

I think, as many folks have pointed out, that while the idea of a simple rule is appealing, the application becomes tricky, while enforcement is nearly impossible.

Lots of clubs swap armies, pool painting resources, etc. Other people pay to have a centerpeice model painted. I'm not sure either should be punished for that.

It's different at say, a small local RTT to sniff out a pro-painted army than it is at a GT.

Anyways, if I ran a tourney, I would assure people that pro painted armies are fine, but if you didn't paint or assist in the painting of the bulk of your army, tell the judge. I'd either block them from best painted, players choice, etc; or I'd work some deduction factor in determining paint score (about 20% or so, so a 9/10 would drop to 7/10). Make it clear that the judge isn't going to check up on the army, and that it's purely self reported.

I know this punishes honest players, but I think it allows them to play, and compete, while a small deduction encourages and rewards players to paint their own stuff.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
You're saying that every model in each of those armies is painted to Golden Demon-winning standard?

That wasn't your original argument. You said, Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies. Yes, they do. I'll agree that probably not every model in their army is the same standard as their GD entries - but I'll tell you what, their average stuff is as good as my best stuff.
That just happens the more you paint. My average stuff now is considerably better than my best stuff from 4 years ago when I started out. I can paint a model in less time to a higher standard that I used to be able to paint them to at all. The golden daemon painter's armies look amazing. No, their rank&file guy probably isn't going to win best single mini, but whatever.


Anyhow, that's secondary to the real point here. Do they check ID's at the door to tournaments? They didn't at adepticon. I could have switched my badge in order to allow someone else to play my army and bring me the glory of being a great general.

In an ideal world, the community would police itself, and people would be honest about whether or not they painted (or played) their own army. The claim is that by disallowing paint scores from pro-painted armies, you punish those honest enough to admit it and reward those who lie. I can see that, and I don't know a good solution to it. But, barring the idea that people lie in order to say they're the best at playing with toy soldiers, I still think people should only get scores for stuff they did themselves.

Maybe the answer is to change the community outlook on what's valued. Is it better to buy the best overall title by spending money on a nice looking army, or is it better to be content with winning best general or best sportsman?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having painted several hundred models, I will share that the enjoyment of doing rote painting eventually wears off. And the novelty of clipping bitz, cleaning mold lines, priming, and basecoating has been completely gone for a couple years. Now, I still have fun doing the development, assembly, and paint scheme development. And I enjoy playing with painted models. So if I had the money to allow me to focus my time on what I enjoy, while having someone else do the boring stuff, why shouldn't I do that?

By all means, you should do that. I'm going to be utilizing a painting service to finish a lot of grunt work for an army I've had on the shelf for a while without time to complete it either.

But, what you shouldn't do, is earn points for having done so in a competition that rewards an individual's work. BY all means, have someone else paint your stuff. By all means, play with it. Have fun with it. Even enter tournaments with it. But, acknowledge the fact that you're doing so. Accept the idea that, if you enter a tournament with that army, you don't deserve to win Best Overall. Because, you're not putting forth the overall entry, someone else did a lot of it. Go and win Best General, Best Sportsman, Best Theme... because those are things you did. But in that case, you're not making an overall entry.

And, if you do win Best Overall, how can you have any pride in the fact that you bought yourself a trophy. Is that what money is for? And, if so, why not just go to a local trophy store and have them make one up for you.

money is to crush the souls of people with less. you will never win for i can hire the reanimated michelangelo to paint my guys!!!!! hahahahaha.

seriously painting to high standards takes huge amounts of time. I don't have that time but I have cash. I painted these guys by working 80 hour weeks.
I deserve overall because of my army is prettier, my general skills are better, and I can be social during game play.
who painted the guys imho matters not. I am a huge fan of the uk gt system.

fnc821 wrote:If the person has enough cash to get his/her army painted why not just buy what they would get if they win the tournament and leave the prise to someone that took the time to convert/paint there army??

So, is this thread just sour grapes against someone real that took away a trophy you "deserved," or is this thread just sour grapes against some theoretical person that may, at some future point, take away a trophy you "deserve"?

Redbeard wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
You're saying that every model in each of those armies is painted to Golden Demon-winning standard?

That wasn't your original argument. You said, Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies. Yes, they do. I'll agree that probably not every model in their army is the same standard as their GD entries

Huh?

If you're not clear on my original argument, then I would suggest you re-read it while carrying context from phrase to phrase, sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph.

If a GD-winner paints an army using layer / dip techniques that are indistinguishable from that of a non-GD-winner, because the resulting models within the army aren't up to GD standard, then you're just reinforcing my argument.

I still don't think your intial argument was at all what you're trying to morph it into in retrospect, but, fair enough, I'll concede the point - I must have misinterpreted what you wanted to say.

That said, rather than quibble over whether or not GD painters paint armies, let's address the real point.

Imagine a theoretical GD painter, I dunno, let's call him Leonardo. Let's imagine that he did, in fact, spend the time to paint every mini in his army to the same high standard.

Should Leonardo be allowed to pay Marc Parker or Greg Sparks or Bill Kim to pilot his army at the GT - under Leonardo's name?

And, if he did, would his title of "Best Overall WH40k Player" mean anything? When he posted his ideas about an army list here, would we give them the same weight as when Marc or Greg or Bill post?

This is one of those things that really depends on the participant honesty... so its almost impossible to know for sure who did what in one army.

This also happens in GD's these days( and im not quoting what someone else said, i was actually invited to sculpt something for a famous team of painters)... if someone is asked to sculpt and other will paint and participate... is that really honest and fair to the individual artist?

So is it fair for the man who worked on his army alone to compete with commissioned works done by god knows how many painters and artists?

My position on these kind of grey issues, since they are not fully covered on rules, is very simple.... I declined to sculpt for someone else to enter a GD and i think best painted army should be painted by army owner.

Its like competing for a job position with other guy portfolio... really depends on each ones integrity and honesty.

As for the GD winners dont paint armies argument... its just your general assumption based on the little that you know and that is rather irrelevant. GD winners do paint armies.

OK, we've got Leo, a guy who has made painting his army his lifework, having invested the better part of the last decade painting his army to GD standards. He's either independently wealthy or mooching off his parents...

In any given club, there's always some poor unnamed schlub who's stuck being the primary painter. If that guy happened to be Leo, I don't see any problem with Leo letting his teammates use his models, piloting them to the win.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Redbeard wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Golden Daemon painters don't paint armies.
...
I don't think there's a single Golden Daemon painter who's painted an entire 1500-pt 40k army, much less a 2000-pt WFB army. The model counts are just too high.

Interesting, since I personally know at least four painters who have won at the golden daemons (not necessarily gold, mind you) and who have done just that.

You're saying that every model in each of those armies is painted to Golden Demon-winning standard?

Puh-lease.

They may have done a single Golden Demon *model*, but that is a far cry from doing 50, 100, or 200 models to that standard of painting.

Who cares if every model is painted to their GD standard or not? The point is, they paint their armies themselves. The scores they would get, would be legit, because they're not pretending that they painted their own figs.

Redbeard's analogy is pretty good. If we won't let GD painters let other people play for them, why should we let the best players receive high scores by letting others paint for them?

Is it a 'hobby', or just a 'game'? Is the point of the tournament to only demonstrate who can move figs and roll dice the best, or is it to represent something more than that?

As someone else pointed out, it probably doesn't matter anyway. The dishonest will simply not admit that they didn't paint their force. If they win, they'll smile as they receive their accolades, and their victory won't be watered-down, to them, because they didn't do part of the work themselves.

Just my 2 coppers, tho.

I don't know if Jutami has ever won a GD, but if you want to see a whole army full of GD-quality minis, his cloudstrike eldar are somewhere around here.

edit: Here it is:

The rest of the army is here

As someone else pointed out, it probably doesn't matter anyway. The dishonest will simply not admit that they didn't paint their force. If they win, they'll smile as they receive their accolades, and their victory won't be watered-down, to them, because they didn't do part of the work themselves.

Yeah, I agree with you, KKirby, and Redbeard. This part, though, reminds me of the part in Starship Troopers where Dubois just hands Rico a trophy and tells him to be proud of it. Rico can't cuz he didn't earn it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:OK, we've got Leo, a guy who has made painting his army his lifework, having invested the better part of the last decade painting his army to GD standards. He's either independently wealthy or mooching off his parents...

Well i could tell you Leo is no diferent from anyone and their hobbies... and assuming is either rich or a mooch just because he enjoys his hobby on his own way its kind of pointless really.
Besides there are gd level painters that are so experienced that paint much faster than you are assuming they will...
Other awarded people that provide painting services also paint comisioned armies etc...

So when we are not sure of what your talking about better to restrain a bit of grosse generalizations...

Glaive Company CO wrote:I'm all about personal responsibility. It wouldn't bother me if someone beat me at a painting competition using models they spent money on as long as they don't mind me being a better person than they are. It's like allowing handicapped people to play too! If someone without arms or a fully functioning brain wants to compete in an event like this the only real option for them is to have someone else do the heavy lifting for them. Are YOU saying that handicapped people CAN'T compete in this event!? That's dangerous man! The winner of the event is a handicaped person (he can't paint). So, to compete against people who can paint he relied on the strengths he does have - money to pay someone else to do it. You can't fault him for that for the same reason that you couldn't fault me for winning the trophy by breaking into his house later that night and taking it. Being a winner is playing to your strengths man.

You're asking for it lol. I voted No. I voted No because someone who did not paint, should not get to go home with a trinket that says that they can. It will have their name on it, as if they can more than fingerpaint.

To me, someone who strives to better his painting with each model primed, I have a second place prize in a competition at KublaCon 08, that is something I cherish and will strive to be #1. If I were to pay a buddy to paint for me, or a service, the prize would be empty.

Today we award the Best Painted Army prize to participant "Highest eBay Bidder"!

A handicapped person has to play in the special Olympics, not the NBA. Maybe if there was an option on your army list "Did you paint this army yourself?" Making you ineligible if you checked no, but I guess how would they check that? If there is no spray primer under your finger nails you obviously didn't paint it yourself! If you don't have superglue stains on your crotch, you didn't paint it yourself (I hope thats superglue)! If you don't have clumps of Chaos Black stuck in your arm hair, sir, that army was not painted by you!

Redbeard wrote:Should Leonardo be allowed to pay Marc Parker or Greg Sparks or Bill Kim to pilot his army at the GT - under Leonardo's name?

I'm up for hire. People can send me bids and maybe I'll play for them. Payments will have to be in cash though and are nonrefundable.

stonefox wrote:I don't know if Jutami has ever won a GD, but if you want to see a whole army full of GD-quality minis, his cloudstrike eldar are somewhere around here.

You do realize, that Jutami painted that army for Therion?

I voted no. if you don't paint your own army, all you are promoting is painting services.

And for the "I got money, why should I paint?" argument, I just say, painting is part of the hobby, it's a requirement of the tournament scene, would you also like us to change the rules so all your expensive models win all the time too?

Hey what if you have enough money and pay someone to play for you, should you be able to win the awards, or should the player win them?

whitedragon wrote:

stonefox wrote:I don't know if Jutami has ever won a GD, but if you want to see a whole army full of GD-quality minis, his cloudstrike eldar are somewhere around here.

You do realize, that Jutami painted that army for Therion?

Yep, so what? John was asking for an example of an army that was full of GD-quality minis.

two_heads_talking wrote:I voted no. if you don't paint your own army, all you are promoting is painting services.

And for the "I got money, why should I paint?" argument, I just say, painting is part of the hobby, it's a requirement of the tournament scene, would you also like us to change the rules so all your expensive models win all the time too?

Hey what if you have enough money and pay someone to play for you, should you be able to win the awards, or should the player win them?

Maybe in the future GTs could be like NASCAR races. There's a driver, a team of mechanics, the funding from a major company, and all sorts of sponsorships.


(sponsored by W&N, the company that makes you paint well)

JohnHwangDD wrote:In any given club, there's always some poor unnamed schlub who's stuck being the primary painter. If that guy happened to be Leo, I don't see any problem with Leo letting his teammates use his models, piloting them to the win.

But if that is the case, Leo's friend would be the one who got the best Overall trophy, not Leo. I think Redbeard's point is that it would be absurd for someone else to play all the games in a GT and then have the painter get the trophy for best overall. Because it wouldn't be best overall, it would be painted by one person and played by another. But that really depends on the definition of best overall. Likewise, I don't think someone should get a Painting award for something they didn't paint.

On the other hand, I agree with you John that pro-painted armies shouldn't disadvantage honest players. Trying to figure out guidelines for what constitutes 'acceptable assistance' could be really difficult. For instance, I would want to know at what point is person then eligible for a painting award or best overall? Are they ineligible if their friend or spouse helps them out? What if a father and son paint the army together? I've bought a number of used partially painted armies in the past. Would I be ineligible for an award since someone else base coated and assembled the army? At what point do we draw the line?

I think part of the problem lies with how much emphasis is given paint judging in the tournament scene. The thing I don't like is when someone who painted their army and won all their games loses best overall to someone who might have lost one of their games, but got highest marks for a pro-painted army. Even then, you can be in a similar quandary, because even a pro-painted army could have details and some highlights added to it by the player. I still have to wonder at what point does it then become eligible for Best Overall?

My personal solution would be to de-emphasize painting scores as a whole. I think the new RT model is a good start, but even that is subjective. What if at GTs instead of a wildly unreliable score (I've known of many armies that have gotten vastly different scores at different GTs depending on their table position even though nothing changed in the army), they used a yes/no system. 'Yes' your army is painted and based and is eligible, or 'No' it is not. A pro-painted army could still be used in the tournament, but it would be up to the player how much they wanted to spend on it and how nice they wanted their army to look.

I want to publicly apologize to Grignard. I have an extremely uncaring personality but I understand that most people do tend to be sympathetic to other people's hardships. I never want to make someone feel bad for a problem they have no control over, but I also want to warn everyone that when reading my posts that may happen.

To rephrase my post:

Should you be penalized for having no talent when entering a painting competition? Yes. Should you be penalized for not being a good player when playing in a tournament? Yes. Now, you could pay someone who is better than you to do these tasks for you, and the only question then is "would you be proud of a win that you got this way?"

I think the thing is to look at one's basic principles. In my case, I think:
- painted models are better than unpainted models
- never punish honesty
- never reward lying
- avoid vagueness in standards and requirements
- always promote simplicity

Is it "fair" that the occasional person might win an award for having a painted army? Maybe, maybe not.

But the headaches associated with penalizing people from a vague rule that cheaty types are going to ignore, and clubs / teams are going to unintentionally violate really won't help anyone here.

Thus, I conclude:
- no penalty for paid painting
- Painting should be weighted less than Sports or Battle

Let's encourage people to field beautifully painted armies, and not worry so much as to how they got them!