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Just curious as to what others think about requiring 3 color minimums + Fully Finished Bases for LGS Tourneys that are not qualifying events for major tourneys. Fully understand having the requirements for qualifiers and major tourneys. Believe that casual tourneys are meant to help draw more people into 40K, have fun playing games against different people, and for newbies to learn the game better. Would you rather play in a small tourney with all figures painted and based, or a larger tourney without the restrictions? Personally think it is a bit elitist to have painting requirements, and the store owner's reason is to "force" people to paint their models. The result is there are only 25% -33% of the amount of people normally signed up for the next tourney...instead of 20-30 people signed up a week out, there are only 7 currently signed up. Think that a larger draw is better, most definitely for the LGS owner who stands to have more potential sales with a larger group of people coming in.

Thank you for taking the time to read/reply as am curious to see what the community thinks.

I personally love seeing two fully painted armies fighting. I think that having two painted armies is more appealing and would in turn draw more people to watch and be interested. Aside from that I was always a fan of local tournies that didn't require paint but offered a painting prize that was on par with 2nd best general. This motivates the people that have the grey legion to paint their army so if they don't place they can have a chance at winning a prize for being one of maybe 7(using your percentages) that have a painted army.

My 2 cents.

So in a different reality lets say Im a power gamer, the worst time of curb stomping, cheating power gamer. I only show up to small tournaments cause I know I can win. I run the most Dbag list possible. Now my winnings allow me to constantly buy new models for the next up and coming Dbag list. Granted I might also be a smart gamer and win sometimes because of that but most of the time my super army of the month wins.

And I never paint it. Cause by the time I finish building one army or group of new models I have won more and move on to the next Dbag list.

That said Im all for painting requirements. They dont have to be as nice as my army, but I go to win painting awards. But its always more fun to play a painted army then not. This might allow some people who dont normally win to get some prize support.

I can see what you are saying Mike, but my experience differs. The power gamers where I play have been playing for many years, have multiple full painted armies, and only have to fully paint a few models when their codices are updated. Quite a challenge for a newcomer to not only purchase the required models to be competitive and to then have them fully painted as well in a short amount of time.

Let me clarify, sorry. Painting should be required for prize support, not to play. I have no problem with people playing with unfinished armies, as Ive been there, done that. Winning more models though should be those who can paint them.

Its part of the Hobby.

Maybe I am just an "Elitist"

If im playing at my FLGS on a sunday for a pick-up game, unpainted doesnt mean a thing to me. It takes time for folks to get stuff painted up. I totally understand.

If im playing at my FLGS in a "local" tournament, I want to see fully painted armies. Proxies are alright as long as they arent outrageous..Power armor boys standing in for scouts would be an example of outrageous.

If im playing at the GT level, I want to see the BEST!!
Go big or go home.

If the numbers you claim are represented, the TO will change his mind. People buy models when they come to store tournaments. Less players means less sales.

I'm pro-painting but don't think it should be mandatory to play. Fully painted an based armies should be rewarded through painting scores or separate competitions though.

Help the TO to find the happy median that allows the most people to play while rewarding those tht spend hundreds of hours painting.

Honestly, most qualifier events don't require you use their painting policies. We just had a qualifier for Mechanicon, and there was no requirement even though Mechanicon historically has very tight appearance requirements and collectively has some of the best looking armies a GT can get.

YMMV depending on your local area, but at my FLGS we don't use painting requirements for any tournaments for a few reasons:

1) In my experience it's new players who are less likely to have a fully painted / based army, or veteran players starting a new army. You want to energize your new players and give them every opportunity to play more often so that they stick with the hobby and don't quit because they never get a chance to use all the models they just dished out hard earned money for.

2) Perhaps it's a luxury but we don't have any TFG's in our area and all of our highly competitive players have fully painted armies since they regularly take them to GTs and use the store tournaments as practice for their lists.

3) You want as many people to play as possible so the store sees more income. Appearance requirements will restrict that. I'm not sure how your store handles prizes but my store takes the entry fees and converts it to store credit for the prizes. So the more people the compete in a tournament, the more income the store will receive.

4) You always have the ability to reward players with exceptional appearances by having dedicated prize support specifically for best in show, or by using combined overall scores for your 1st / 2nd / 3rd places rather than just the win loss records.

I'm a fan of painted armies at tournaments, but don't disqualify the people who don't like to paint. Have a separate contest to represent a different aspect of the hobby. I dislike the tournaments that include painting into the composite score. Liking or disliking a paint job is subjective.
One concept I liked for the painting competition is that for the duration of the tournament, participants and onlookers vote for his or her favorite painted army. At the end of the tourney, the top 3 are selected and the crowd cheers for who they think is the winner.

I agree with MikeFox here, welcome the unpainted armies to play but only allow painted armies to be eligible for prizes.

As for what should determine a painted army, 3 color minimum with painted bases is good. That being said, I wouldn't penalize someone for a new addition for an existing army.

j-

Again I dont think we are talking about having everyone painting at a Masterclass level. But if I can work a 40 hour a week job, take care of my wife and all the animals we have, have a social life, play 40k and still find time to paint an award winning army; then I dont think its to much to ask people to prime their figures, paint them 3 different colors, dip them in wash and glue some flock to their bases. Armies of grey or white primer get old real fast.

I think that the two should be separate. Have a painting comp running along side it where people can enter models and armies. Whilst I love seeing painted models and am finally working my way up to painting my own army I don't think fully painted should be required for prize support.

The argument of 'painting is part of the hobby is one I don't like'. As some people don't like painting just like some don't like gaming. If you paint GW miniatures should you be forced to play the game? After all its all part of the hobby. But the answer is no of course not. So why should they be forced into doing something they don't enjoy.

I also think that the tournament is to reward generalship and to show who makes the best lists and has the better skills to win their games and so why shouldn't they be rewarded for being a good general and learning how to play well. In principle its the same as painting. People that paint to a high standard have learnt how to paint and different techniques just as how a good gamer has learned different tactics and such.

When painted miniatures has no impact on the rules and game itself a tournament is where you play the game so, why should painting affect who wins prizes? When a tournament is about seeing who plays the game the best of those there.

I think that tournaments are for proving who games the best and painting comps are for who paints the best. Run the two in parallel but do not have one affect the other. After all someone who mainly games doesn't enter a painting competition with grey minis and say "I should get a prize because I play the game". but to many it seems acceptable for a painter to get a prize in a tournament because he paints his minis. I'm probably not explaining this point well but I hope you get the gist of it.

Just my thoughts.

Edit: As for basing I strongly disagree with minis needed to be based. Some people just don't like basing their minis and prefer black plain bases. Its all cool making some nice desert bases or snowy mountain bases which look great in a matching setting or plain area. But if your playing on a green forest board they look very out of place. for this reason some people base there minis on clear plastic bases so that it matches whats beneath their feat, literally.

I'm fine with that as well, but then the prize support should be similar. Best army should be getting something similar to the top player, but its usually like $20 for best paint, $70 for top player.

Personally, I try to only play with painted minis. So painting requirements don't affect me.

What I try to do is get my stuff at least 3 colored, then worry about the highlights, then the bases, so any way you look at it, it would at least meet the requirements. My lists happen to mutate quite a lot, so it does get hard, maybe you found something that worked really well a week before the tournament, would you then not play with it because it wasn't done or would you go anyways for the fun of the game.

Granted, it does hurt when someone says that you'd have gotten a prize if you had your army done (like what had happened at Anime Expo with me) but heck, that's a compliment in itself.

I won't attend your event if you allow unpainted, I know many others who will not either.

'Ard boyz was the trashiest garbage event I have ever seen. And in my experience, unpainted is the same as unassembled, incomplete and non-wysiwyg.

You know, you could have a "dipping seminar" before your tourney where people can learn speed painting techniques and do it as a club or store to help prepare people.

Of course there will be those people who want to keep I assembled and unpainted so they can preserve resale value and then can coxes hop to the next net list for faces mashing. If that is who you want to cater your event to, have fun. That is a major reason 'ard boyz was such a terrible experience. Is ce there are lots of events which require fully painted models, my needs are taken care of, so if people want unpainted events, have fun. Just don't expect us people who want a minimal standard to fill out your event numbers. Unpainted events has been seen as a deterrent more than a draw in many circumstances, but TOs know their audience best, so one standard wont fit all areas.

Dolgan wrote:
Just curious as to what others think about requiring 3 color minimums + Fully Finished Bases for LGS Tourneys that are not qualifying events for major tourneys. Fully understand having the requirements for qualifiers and major tourneys. Believe that casual tourneys are meant to help draw more people into 40K, have fun playing games against different people, and for newbies to learn the game better. Would you rather play in a small tourney with all figures painted and based, or a larger tourney without the restrictions? Personally think it is a bit elitist to have painting requirements, and the store owner's reason is to "force" people to paint their models. The result is there are only 25% -33% of the amount of people normally signed up for the next tourney...instead of 20-30 people signed up a week out, there are only 7 currently signed up. Think that a larger draw is better, most definitely for the LGS owner who stands to have more potential sales with a larger group of people coming in.

Thank you for taking the time to read/reply as am curious to see what the community thinks.

In the tournaments I run, painting has a separate prize slot. You may want to try that idea out.

On gaming nights, let alone tourneys, the store don't allow unpainted models, and I think that's good, because it's boring as the runs to play against.

Personally I have no problem if someone have unfinished models in their army, because unfinished means that they some day will be finished. But people that have no intention of painting their stuff at all I have no interest in playing against. People will call that elitist and, frankly, I don't care where they shove it.

Having a 3 color minimum greatly increases me wanting to attend a tournament. I like the spectacle of the game and enjoying other peoples creativity. Usually a great looking army is generaled by a great sportsman too so not only is the game great to look at (and photograph) but it's fun to play. It's very easy to get to a 3 color minimum on an army by assembly line painting and washing. Organizers are 100 percent allowed to run events in any way they choose, I just like the old style RTTs with Battle/Sports/Paint. I brought an unpainted mismatch of stuff I wanted to try out one time to a local tournament and just couldn't get into it. Never had played unpainted at tournaments before that and never will again regardless of the requirements.

So for smaller local rats that I run here is what I do.

1.) painting not required, as it encourages new players, and allows older players to test out new lists they are building.

2.) give out an award for best painted.

3.) give 5-10 battle points to every player with a painted army making it tough to win if you don't paint and any other top player is painted.

IMO, you shouldn't have a painting requirement if you're running a casual FLGS tourney whose goal is to get new players into the store (and hopefully buying) but I do believe painting is an integral part of both the hobby and the game experience. In the scenario the OP is suggesting, I think the best choice is to have a clearly deliniated painting score that is the *ONLY* thing that matters for a best painted award (obviously) but also count as a non-trivial (15-25%) part of the overall score as well.

There have been some interesting answers so far on what people believe. Just want to clarify that I do not own a LGS, and do not run/organize the Tourneys at my FLGS, so I do not get to make the rules.

Agree that it is more aesthetically pleasing to play against painted armies{my armies are painted above the 3 color minimum w/ unfinished bases}, yet it does not affect playing the game itself. Enjoy playing the game against people outside my normal group, possibly making more friends, and seeing/playing against different armies/lists... which are the reasons I go to Tourneys.

Like the idea of the separate paint and battle scores, which is how the Tourneys are generally run...the few who want mandatory paint requirements are the reason for the recent change.

Wonder how those who want 3 color minimums would react to grey models with 3, thin stripes of color on the models and 1 stripe on the base? Can imagine the wailing and lamentations such an act would provoke.

I think the answer to the question is in the title of the thread itself.

"Casual LGS Tournament " (emphasis mine)

Nobody would argue that it's not more enjoyable to play 40k with two awesome armies, the bottom line is for casual events especially ones held at a LGS you want to get as many people involved as possible. Paint requirements will only cost you new players, and probably annoy veterans that they can't test their new list ideas without fully committing to them. The bigger the turn out, the more people in the store giving it their business and more entry fees means more prize support.

One of the main reasons I stopped bothering with tournaments is the constant array of gray-plastic flavor of the month netlists I kept running into.

I guess that puts me firmly in the "pro" painting requirement column.

 morgendonner wrote:
The bigger the turn out, the more people in the store giving it their business and more entry fees means more prize support.

If that is all you want then yeah, don't play with a painted army. I don't play for prize support. I play to get away from the house and nerd out with my friends. The last two tournies I won I gave my prize support to new players who scraped enough stuff they owned to play at the point limit of the tournament. The army doesn't need to be a pro painted but it shouldn't be plastic grey or primer colored.

Back in 3ed I ran tournaments every month. We always used the "three colors painted and based" rule to allow players to participate. It may hurt at first, but players will come around once they figure out they can't play if they cant slap some paint on a model.

How hard is it really though?
1. assemble Space marine, do not glue back pack and bolter on said marine.
2. get can of favorite space marine colored spray paint, paint space marine.
3. spray paint bolter and back pack with black spray paint.
4. spray paint base brown/green/whatever that matches your base flocking choice the most.
5. drybrush bolter and backpack with boltgun metal.
6. glue bolter and backpack on space marine, glue him to base.
7. put elmer's glue on base, dip in flock, let dry.
8. stab brush in his eye with whatever color you want them to be.
9. field "three colors painted and based" space marines...........................

Seriously, assembling the little buggers is more time consuming than achieving a three color qualifier. If you don't give an arse about mold lines and clip marks, that pain goes away as well. I find it lazy, and though I'll never be a great painter, I never have a problem going far beyond three colors before any of my models make it to the tabletop. GW has rolled over backwards with their new paints where you can just insert a few drybrush steps and inks/washes to the above and come up with a quite pleasing paint job.

boyd wrote:

 morgendonner wrote:
The bigger the turn out, the more people in the store giving it their business and more entry fees means more prize support.

If that is all you want then yeah, don't play with a painted army. I don't play for prize support. I play to get away from the house and nerd out with my friends. The last two tournies I won I gave my prize support to new players who scraped enough stuff they owned to play at the point limit of the tournament. The army doesn't need to be a pro painted but it shouldn't be plastic grey or primer colored.

When did I say that's what I want? Outside of casual games I almost always am painted to a tournament standard, and I was in the upper cusp at Adepticon for appearance (grabbing me best Xenos).

What I was highlighting was that a bigger turn out is ultimately better for the store, as prize support in the form of store credit = more income for the store, which is what everyone should want when hosting events at a LGS.

I said what I want when hosting a casaul tournament is for there to be as many players as possible, and I don't want to discourage new players from playing because they're still working on their army. Only when it gets to a GT level do I start to have stricter expectations about a painting standard.

My .02 is I don't understand how people don't have painted armies these days... In today's age of miniature gaming where we have all kinds of painting services and people on eBay and different places looking to sell painted models, not even counting the cost of a cheap airbrush and some basic techniques to do it yourself.

In a small tourney or league at your FLGS I would agree with others that it shouldn't be a requirement to play. However, it should be to win overall. (Note- you should still be able to win "Best General" and "Best Sportsmanship" with an army straight out of the super glue or from planet Krylon.)

Unfortunately, I actually wish the painting award could go one step further and reward the one that did the best painted army that did it themself. While I would always rather play against painted miniatures than non-painted, I think that there is a piece of the hobby missing when a player wins overall and he/she didn't paint their own army... Understand that I'm an old-school gamer, and 15 years ago this really wasn't much of an issue. However today if you're only interest is to play in tournaments and you have the cash on hand, you'll have no problems going to one of these businesses that for a price will build your tournament list right down to unit selection, assembly and paint of the models and even up to working on your army strategy to put you in the instant meta-gaming seat.... Basically taking you from zero to Big Baller in just a couple grand.

nkelsch wrote:
I won't attend your event if you allow unpainted, I know many others who will not either.

'Ard boyz was the trashiest garbage event I have ever seen. And in my experience, unpainted is the same as unassembled, incomplete and non-wysiwyg.

You know, you could have a "dipping seminar" before your tourney where people can learn speed painting techniques and do it as a club or store to help prepare people.

Of course there will be those people who want to keep I assembled and unpainted so they can preserve resale value and then can coxes hop to the next net list for faces mashing. If that is who you want to cater your event to, have fun. That is a major reason 'ard boyz was such a terrible experience. Is ce there are lots of events which require fully painted models, my needs are taken care of, so if people want unpainted events, have fun. Just don't expect us people who want a minimal standard to fill out your event numbers. Unpainted events has been seen as a deterrent more than a draw in many circumstances, but TOs know their audience best, so one standard wont fit all areas.

This - the people who field unpainted or garbage painted stuff rarely abide by WYSIWYG or model completion standards.

3 colors is a joke. We're talking body one color, weapon one color, and ONE detail another color. Not exactly rocket surgery...and it's possible to achieve this while the minis are still on the sprue via creative rattle can technique.

The store where I play usually just charges players a lower entry fee if their army is completely painted. On average the cost is 10/15 painted/unpainted. Completely painted means 3 colors on all of the models.
Everyone can win and everyone can play.