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Now maybe this is just me but it seems to me like tournaments have been going towards a painted at all, vrs painted yourself scoring system for giving these scores. I remember back in the day that tournaments made it very clear that if you did not paint it yourself you did not get the points for that section. Now there seems to be no distinction in scoring. Now since it seems that major tournaments seperate the battle skills from the hobby skills that is not a problem, however for things like over all and the like I was just curious on peoples feelings about this.

I ask because I have looked into getting parts of my army painted but have usually stopped because I knew that it would get disqualified from certain aspects(or at least it used to)

 Leth wrote:
Now maybe this is just me but it seems to me like tournaments have been going towards a painted at all, vrs painted yourself scoring system for giving these scores. I remember back in the day that tournaments made it very clear that if you did not paint it yourself you did not get the points for that section. Now there seems to be no distinction in scoring. Now since it seems that major tournaments seperate the battle skills from the hobby skills that is not a problem, however for things like over all and the like I was just curious on peoples feelings about this.

I ask because I have looked into getting parts of my army painted but have usually stopped because I knew that it would get disqualified from certain aspects(or at least it used to)

How would they tell you did not paint it yourself? I think that is probably the issue.

I think that's complete crap. You spent your time or you spent your money. Either way it cost you something.

As a past tourny organizer I might be able to shed some light on this albeit they are not my opinion on the matter.

Tourny organizers want as many people to show up as possible. Some competitive players complained that they could not compete for over all and would not go to events that paint was required. AARD boys pretty much proved it. There was also an explosion of pro painted armies as people now make a living doing it. To compensate and bring as many people into events TO's turned a blind eye to the occasional unpainted army or model and allowed pro painted armies. People who play for the hobby aspect revolted and threatened to stop attending events because WAAC players were buying the paint trophies with a store bought army. To compensate TO's now allow armies to be painted by others and not affect your score but prevent you from winning best painted.

That is more of a history than an opinion.


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And to Darfskey:

How would you feel if I brought Tony to an event to play an army I painted....he kicked everyones butt....and I claimed I did it and took home the trophy. Same thing with paint.

As a commission painter, I just want my customers to be sure to let the tourney organizers know that I painted some/all of the models. To do otherwise would be really BS, as they would be taking credit for my work and profiting from it. Of course, there is no way I can stop this, so I just have to live with the knowledge that some people will that kinda thing.

_Tim?

 darefsky wrote:
I think that's complete crap. You spent your time or you spent your money. Either way it cost you something.

So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

Hell I have no problem with people using pro painted armies, I love seeing them and I hope to have one some day I just don't feel that they should be able to achieve a hobby award for it.

This could go either way. I take more pride in my army because I built/paint it. But I dont care for people who specifically bought a finished army because they are lazy and/or talentless.

On the flip side of the coin, car guys do the same thing. Last few cars Ive bought have a lot of "go-fast parts" in them and I rather buy them like that. Then guys who build cars themselves turn their nose up at you.

Youre damned if you do and youre damned if you dont.

 Leth wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
I think that's complete crap. You spent your time or you spent your money. Either way it cost you something.

So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

Yea I'm ok with it and here is my logic.

if someone spends 100 hours painting something and lets say there time is worth $10 an hour that"s $1000 worth of hours. Time is the only thing we have a finite amount of in life. We can spend it in many different ways. Money and time are both "investments"

That all being said, I paint my own armys, I like doing it and I think I'm a pretty fair painter. But I wont begrudge or stop someone winning for there investment of a different manor.

I paint for commission, and tons of clients used it in tournies.
I certainly don't care whether they claim they painted it or not, I get paid for painting, not to judge xD

I think the most valid complaint against commission painted armies winning prizes is that it's a form of plagiarism. The owner is taking credit for work that they did not do. Of course, this assumes that the owner isn't explicitly stating it was painted by someone else and still winning, and that the Best Painted prize is intended to reward an individual for their own painting skills rather than their ability to get things painted.

darefsky wrote:

 Leth wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
I think that's complete crap. You spent your time or you spent your money. Either way it cost you something.

So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

Yea I'm ok with it and here is my logic.

if someone spends 100 hours painting something and lets say there time is worth $10 an hour that"s $1000 worth of hours. Time is the only thing we have a finite amount of in life. We can spend it in many different ways. Money and time are both "investments"

That all being said, I paint my own armys, I like doing it and I think I'm a pretty fair painter. But I wont begrudge or stop someone winning for there investment of a different manor.

So in a sports competition you have no problem with someone using steroids, in fact (via your logic) it is a perfectly valid option. The problem is not a matter of time/investment it is a matter of credit for your accomplishments. "I am a amazing accountant/psychologist/whatever so here is my hobby award symbolizing my skills at making....... money........? yeeeeaaahhhhh"

darefsky wrote:

 Leth wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
I think that's complete crap. You spent your time or you spent your money. Either way it cost you something.

So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

Yea I'm ok with it and here is my logic.

if someone spends 100 hours painting something and lets say there time is worth $10 an hour that"s $1000 worth of hours. Time is the only thing we have a finite amount of in life. We can spend it in many different ways. Money and time are both "investments"

That all being said, I paint my own armys, I like doing it and I think I'm a pretty fair painter. But I wont begrudge or stop someone winning for there investment of a different manor.

GreyHamster wrote:I think the most valid complaint against commission painted armies winning prizes is that it's a form of plagiarism. The owner is taking credit for work that they did not do. Of course, this assumes that the owner isn't explicitly stating it was painted by someone else and still winning, and that the Best Painted prize is intended to reward an individual for their own painting skills rather than their ability to get things painted.

Exactly, personally I go for rewards for what they represent, not to just have them. Now if you want rewards that hold no value besides "I bought this prize" that is one thing but it has always been presented to me as a representation of a players hobby skill or combined hobby skills and generalship. I would rather have a victory mean something other than them just chucking an award at the dude with the money to spare.

That's like saying the dude that can afford all the latest and greatest uber-cheese armies to stay on the front of the current meta shouldn't win best general....

I totally get where people are coming from, and personally I would never buy a commissioned army, I take pride in my painting, and I value my time painting,

I'm trying to convey the message that painting vs paying are both investments of one sort or another.

The only reason i think tournies allow it is because it cant be regulated. If there were a easy cost effective way aside from polygraph to tell then they would penalize/dq the player but i dont see it happening. You can disagree all day or you can agree. Eitherway its futile because unless the player admits to not painting it there is no way to tell. i personally disagree with taking credit for something i didnt but i cant say the same for some

Ineedvc that can be true but you might be suprised how tight the community of painters is and the great majority publish with pride the armies they have painted. I know of several instances where someone has tried to pass of stuff they did not paint and gotten caught then banned from events.

And for darefsky take a look at my 1st post and respond to that....

They should be scored, but have a checkbox for 'I did not paint this army'.

You get a score, but can't win any of the appearance-related prizes. This is why having best general, best appearance and renaissance man is such a good idea. They can show up and win best general.

If someone is going to 'lie' about it, that is on them. Honestly, people *KNOW* when you didn't paint the army. You can't have an awesome painted army without someone beginning to talk technique with you and it would be pretty clear if you know no technique then you are not a painter.

Agree with nkelsch.

This is more complicated than just "should you get a score" because there's more than one reason for a paint score.

Why have a paint score or requirement for painting? Because a room full of fully painted armies is preferable for most people to one filled with bare plastic. A paint score that ties in to the final score is a way of ensuring everyone brings the best they can. Most people won't be trying to win best painted, but the incentive for more than bare minimum painting is there and it enhances the event for everyone. For this purpose it doesn't really matter whether it was painted by the player or not.

The paint prizes on the other hand are another matter. If a best model or army prize is offered, this is a competition for the artists and using a commissioned work to win is bad form indeed.

So no restriction on commission work for paint scores but winning paint prizes should be a no no.

 Leth wrote:
So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

To me, that really comes down to whether the event has set the prize to be specifically for painting, or just for presentation.

If the former, then yes, players should be declaring it if they didn't paint the army themselves, and it should be judged entirely on the players' own painting.
But if its the latter, then I don't think it matters who did the work. It's just about whose army looks the best.

True, if its painting contest like Golden Demon, then 100% yes you should not submit smoeone else's work.

If its like a game tournament and having a painted army is like... just a plus, its fine.

One of the biggest reasons why organizers changed from a "Painting Score", requiring it to be your own work being judged, to an "Appearance Score", based on how good the army looks regardless who did it, was to not punish the honest.

Lots of people compete in events and would like to be able to contend for the top prizes, but believe they do not have the skills or the time to paint an army to the level needed to compete in aggregate scoring. Some of them genuinely don't.

Back when painting was more commonly expected to be done by yourself, the situation arose where there was an incentive for players to be DIShonest, and players who told the truth about having a commissioned army were effectively penalized for being honest.

There are really two major components to scoring painting and giving prizes for it. One is to reward and encourage people who have excellent and inspiring skills in that area, and encourage them to attend events. Another is to encourage EVERYONE to bring attractive armies, because for the three or five or eight people you play against, the experience of playing a game against a great-looking army is not dependent on who painted that army.

By not penalizing players with commissioned armies in Appearance scoring, but just barring them from winning Painting-specific awards, you remove the incentive to lie, except for the truly scummy. Folks who buy a painted army can still win the prizes which they have to compete for; the folks who will try to flalsely claim credit to win a Painting prize are rare.

Spending money to win is nothing new. It's the core of most card games and some miniature games.

I don't fault anyone for having someone else paint their army. To me it's the same as the guy who buys 15 tanks, 200 troops or 60 combi-weapons.

If card gamers had to draw and paint their own cards that would be a viable comparison...they dont nor do they compete for paint and presentation awards.

I wont fault you for having someone paint your army. I know all about time constraints but I will fault any tournament organizer who allows purchased armies to win best paint and display.

 darefsky wrote:
That's like saying the dude that can afford all the latest and greatest uber-cheese armies to stay on the front of the current meta shouldn't win best general....

I totally get where people are coming from, and personally I would never buy a commissioned army, I take pride in my painting, and I value my time painting,

I'm trying to convey the message that painting vs paying are both investments of one sort or another.

It's like saying that if I'm a crap general, but I can afford to pay the three top-ranking players in the world to stand behind me in every game, telling me what do to, then I 'deserve' to win Best General (and take all the credit for it) since I invested the money in my 'advisers'.

 insaniak wrote:

 Leth wrote:
So you think you should be able to buy a prize for a skill you don't have?

To me, that really comes down to whether the event has set the prize to be specifically for painting, or just for presentation.

If the former, then yes, players should be declaring it if they didn't paint the army themselves, and it should be judged entirely on the players' own painting.
But if its the latter, then I don't think it matters who did the work. It's just about whose army looks the best.

 Mannahnin wrote:
One of the biggest reasons why organizers changed from a "Painting Score", requiring it to be your own work being judged, to an "Appearance Score", based on how good the army looks regardless who did it, was to not punish the honest.

Lots of people compete in events and would like to be able to contend for the top prizes, but believe they do not have the skills or the time to paint an army to the level needed to compete in aggregate scoring. Some of them genuinely don't.

Back when painting was more commonly expected to be done by yourself, the situation arose where there was an incentive for players to be DIShonest, and players who told the truth about having a commissioned army were effectively penalized for being honest.

There are really two major components to scoring painting and giving prizes for it. One is to reward and encourage people who have excellent and inspiring skills in that area, and encourage them to attend events. Another is to encourage EVERYONE to bring attractive armies, because for the three or five or eight people you play against, the experience of playing a game against a great-looking army is not dependent on who painted that army.

By not penalizing players with commissioned armies in Appearance scoring, but just barring them from winning Painting-specific awards, you remove the incentive to lie, except for the truly scummy. Folks who buy a painted army can still win the prizes which they have to compete for; the folks who will try to flalsely claim credit to win a Painting prize are rare.

Two fantastic posts!

As someone who had an army that I purchased well painted, I found it rather distressing how much angst people put into this issue. If it's an "appearance score", that all goes away.

Since I'm honest, I wrestled with this issue quite a bit. Also got some snide remarks. Which I thought was pretty darn stupid.

In warmahordes, there's the opposite problem- no painting points towards an overall score, so lots of unpainted armies, except in hardcore events where they require it.

For toy soldier manz tournaments, I honestly think going around and demanding to know who did / didn't paint their army, or if there were any commissioned pieces in it at all, is completely silly. What about conversions? Where do you draw the line?

It's a hold-over from an earlier era, and is slowly going by the wayside. If you want to be judged only on your own painting skills, simply enter a model in the painting competition that most major GTs have now.

But for appearance scores, who cares who painted it? I want to play against well painted armies.

*Note, I say all this, but after the remarks I got I ended up selling the army I had that was painted by someone else, and did my own. While it was satisfying working on my own models, the fact that folks got so worked up about this was really quite disappointing. At this point, I no longer play fantasy, the game system where I encountered this in. So... yeah, it's a big turnoff, and people who want to run successful events really should not emphasize this imo. Painted, painted damn well, but if you're getting upset about who did the work, all you're doing is punishing the honest folks and turning away people from your event.

 RiTides wrote:
If you want to be judged only on your own painting skills, simply enter a model in the painting competition that most major GTs have now..

This solves everything IMHO. I am glad it has begun taking off and now there is an 'indy' version of Golden Demon. But I still agree with appearance scores to promote armies to look good on the tabletop. Having people able to compete for personal painting skill and then having armies incentivized to look excellent, everyone wins.

Then it simply becomes an AARD boyz tournament where high end players bring purchased armies and win it all. That is BS, not what a lot of the major tournaments are about, and why the tournaments all have different awards. You paint it you can win it all or best painted....you purchased it and you can win general because...and please note this....YOU DID NOT PAINT IT BUT IT IS SCORED!!! The next step is unpainted armies because painting does not matter any more... Stop whining about how tournaments want to score it. I have seen the depreciation of events becasue TO's (myself included) bowed to the power gamers that complained paint was too high in the points catagory. Now it is simply the guy who wins the best general that wins the event and we have forgotten about the hobby side. It is all about what happens on the table and has nothing to do with the overall score any more. Go play dust tactics if you want to play pre-painted crap and expect reward for it....

I see no way to tell if you painted it or not, from a judges point of view. It comes down to a issue of personal pride and honesty. Either you are so honest that lying about something like that would really bother you, or you have enough pride in whatever you did that you would be unwilling to take credit for something that you did not do (paint wise).

My personal feeling is that lying is wrong and that the score given, is only given because TO's want to support the hobby aspect of 40k. IMHO hobby is an integral part of the game, and that one and the other are inseperable. If you didnt paint it you should not recieve a score for an aspect of the game you did not engage in or support. Just my .02$

I really don't understand the level of hate for commissioned armies.

Painting is one aspect of the hobby, yes. But not everyone enjoys it, has time for it, or has any talent for it. Why do you guys hate on people who commission beautiful armies, but nobody looks down on the talented artists who paint but have no interest in playing the game?

I don't see anyone in this thread arguing that commissioned armies should be able to take prizes. I'm fine that they can't. They shouldn't be penalized for it, though. You guys are arguing so aggressively as if someone here is insisting that commissioned armies should be available for all prizes. Now, part of me sees nothing wrong with the ARMY winning an award, as long as the general admits it is not his work and give proper credit to the artist. Why shouldn't the artist be able to win an award for incredible work? Don't you think it would raise the standard in some areas instead of the one capable local painter constantly sweeping all the awards? Having to compete against other talented artists should inspire him to improve. Now, again, that's just a thought. I won't argue it, because I have no problem with commissioned armies not being eligible for prizes, as long as they don't lose overall points for it.

Most people agree it is more fun to play against a painted army. The better looking the army, the more fun it is to play. My two self-painted armies look like absolute garbage. I've tried, really, but I don't have the time, patience, or skill required.I've put dozens of hours into them. They're table top standard, so at least they are not bare plastic.

I also have a beautiful commissioned army that constantly gets compliments whenever they hit the table. I've, luckily, never run into any real life hate about the fact that I paid someone to paint an army for me. From my perspective, it seems like people enjoy playing my professionally painted army more than my table top standard armies. I have, quite possibly, one of the most beautiful Dark Angels armies in existence. I am proud to bring them to the table, and proud to advertise the two artists who created them. Why the hate? Would you rather play against a bare plastic army, or one with the required three colors slapped on, or would you like to play against against a jaw-droppingly beautiful army? I'll pick the better one, any day of the week.

EDIT: Again, in summary, I believe you should get points for your army... I'm fine if you don't win any prizes, but you should still get the points. A commissioned army IS still supporting the painting aspect of the hobby.

To dauntless and to all comissioned army owners
Say you were to sell your beautiful army. (you prob wont but just humor me) Would the next owner be so noble? And the next? Eventually there will be someone who will say they painted the army and they may win awards for that. Is this fair to other players in a tourny? There has to be some painters out there who would be very upset if they were not getting credit for their work. No one hates comissioned armies, i think its a wonderful trade. Really opens up the hobby. I will not, however, compete in any tourny because there are comissioned pro painted armies. Lets try not to be niave about the honesty of others. I believe this site has a transaction report list. A check box will not work nor will a waiver, contract, hand on a bible, interrogation,or promise. People go to tournies to win and will do anything to win.


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To dauntless and to all comissioned army owners
Say you were to sell your beautiful army. (you prob wont but just humor me) Would the next owner be so noble? And the next? Eventually there will be someone who will say they painted the army and they may win awards for that. Is this fair to other players in a tourny? There has to be some painters out there who would be very upset if they were not getting credit for their work. No one hates comissioned armies, i think its a wonderful trade. Really opens up the hobby. I will not, however, compete in any tourny because there are comissioned pro painted armies. Lets try not to be niave about the honesty of others. I believe this site has a transaction report list. A check box will not work nor will a waiver, contract, hand on a bible, interrogation,or promise. People go to tournies to win and will do anything to win.


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My device uploaded it twice...sorry

 LunaHound wrote:
I paint for commission, and tons of clients used it in tournies.
I certainly don't care whether they claim they painted it or not, I get paid for painting, not to judge xD

This is Business!

Hmmm... I love this. We are talking about the game system were if you have the money to burn on all the newset stuff you got a better chance of winning. So what if they get a better chance of taking the "pretty army" prize doing the same thing, now. It just expanding on what already done. The root problem, needs to be fixed first.