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yukishiro1 wrote:It's a bad rule regardless, because it encourages shoddy painting jobs instead of taking your time to do a better job. If they were trying to encourage people to take the painting side of the hobby seriously, they failed pretty hard.

I mean as someone who really prefers to play against painted armies...I can tell you I'd much rather play someone who has a beautiful army that's half-finished than someone who dumped their minis in a gallon can of red paint, then a gallon can of wash, then splashed on some white and black in a couple spots and called it a day.

It is time to stop using this completely inaccurate statement. The fully painted rule does not encourage shoddy paint jobs. The only people who will do a shoddy paint job due to this rule are the same people who wouldn't have bothered to paint the models anyway.

And you can't just spray on a base code, slap on some wash, and add a couple of spots to the model and meet the Battle Ready standard (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/05/21/introducing-battle-readygw-homepage-post-1fw-homepage-post-1/). And nothing stops a player who wants to paint to a higher standard to paint up their army to Battle Ready to game and then go about improving the paint jobs to Parade Ready standard later.

 Leth wrote:
Everyone knows what the rules of the game are. If you don’t like the rules? Then either agree to not play with them or find another game.

It really is sad how unwilling people are to have a conversation and someone playing by the rules is considered a bad person.

Tournaments will have scoring set out in advance, you knew that before showing up so that is a decision you made.

Casual games? Who cares if you win or lose based on a 10 point non-game swing? You still won the game, but they won the overall score. Again, who cares.

Honestly, it has gotten me to paint more over time instead of the bum rush for a tournament that I used to do which I ended up stripping afterwards because it looked awful.

Minis look way better now and it’s actually nice to have models that look good,

This rule has been a major part of removing a lot of conversation and helping people be the bad person. And possibly even intended as a marketing to get people talking about the “Hobby”
If peer pressure is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby.

 Leth wrote:
It really is sad how unwilling people are to have a conversation and someone playing by the rules is considered a bad person.

Let's not pretend that this particular rule has anything to do with the game and the way it is played. It's a completely separate aspect that has been brought into the game.

 alextroy wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:It's a bad rule regardless, because it encourages shoddy painting jobs instead of taking your time to do a better job. If they were trying to encourage people to take the painting side of the hobby seriously, they failed pretty hard.

I mean as someone who really prefers to play against painted armies...I can tell you I'd much rather play someone who has a beautiful army that's half-finished than someone who dumped their minis in a gallon can of red paint, then a gallon can of wash, then splashed on some white and black in a couple spots and called it a day.

It is time to stop using this completely inaccurate statement. The fully painted rule does not encourage shoddy paint jobs. The only people who will do a shoddy paint job due to this rule are the same people who wouldn't have bothered to paint the models anyway.

And you can't just spray on a base code, slap on some wash, and add a couple of spots to the model and meet the Battle Ready standard (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/05/21/introducing-battle-readygw-homepage-post-1fw-homepage-post-1/). And nothing stops a player who wants to paint to a higher standard to paint up their army to Battle Ready to game and then go about improving the paint jobs to Parade Ready standard later.

It totally encourages shoddy paint jobs.
WAAC players, and new players will end up going that route.

Apple fox wrote:


This rule has been a major part of removing a lot of conversation and helping people be the bad person. And possibly even intended as a marketing to get people talking about the “Hobby”
If peer pressure is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby.

I'm not following you on that last part. Its actually confusing. Peer pressure and word of mouth is _exactly_ how you recruit people into any hobby.

Peer pressure isn't exclusively some bizarre negative thing that magically forces people into drugs and cults. Its basic, typical human behavior about sharing and exchanging interests.

 alextroy wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:It's a bad rule regardless, because it encourages shoddy painting jobs instead of taking your time to do a better job. If they were trying to encourage people to take the painting side of the hobby seriously, they failed pretty hard.

I mean as someone who really prefers to play against painted armies...I can tell you I'd much rather play someone who has a beautiful army that's half-finished than someone who dumped their minis in a gallon can of red paint, then a gallon can of wash, then splashed on some white and black in a couple spots and called it a day.

It is time to stop using this completely inaccurate statement. The fully painted rule does not encourage shoddy paint jobs. The only people who will do a shoddy paint job due to this rule are the same people who wouldn't have bothered to paint the models anyway.

And you can't just spray on a base code, slap on some wash, and add a couple of spots to the model and meet the Battle Ready standard (https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/05/21/introducing-battle-readygw-homepage-post-1fw-homepage-post-1/). And nothing stops a player who wants to paint to a higher standard to paint up their army to Battle Ready to game and then go about improving the paint jobs to Parade Ready standard later.

Everything you wrote here is wrong. On your first point, this simply isn't true. If you are someone who is painting up an army over time and playing in the meantime, you will often be in a situation where a portion of your army is painted to a high standard, and another portion of it is either unpainted, or just primed. This rule encourages you to do a quick and dirty job on everything, rather than taking your time unit by unit. And no, you can't really go back and improve the job, not if you paint to an actual standard and don't want to have to strip the miniatures and redo them. Going from the sort of thing you can do in a few hours for a significant part of an army (i.e. what you can do to not take the 10VP penalty) to an actual good painting job is not something you can do by just doing a second highlight (which is why their "Parade Ready" is such a joke), it requires redoing the paint from ground up.

On the point of what battle ready actually is, the only actual statement in your link is: "Battle Ready models have their main areas coloured and an simple finish on their bases." Spraying on a base color, splotching on some other colors, washing, and then dumping a wad of textured paint on the base qualifies, based on that statement. Technically, that doesn't even require a wash. In the past, they've talked about three colors, so as long as you splotch on two additional colors beyond the primer color, and put a wad of gunk on the base, you apparently meet the requirements.

"Man, look at these chuckleheads, playing 40k in a way that I personally don't choose to play 40k. What a pair of bozos! Look at how wrong the fun that they're having is! If you think they're having fun, not only are you hurting the hobby, but your opinion is objectively bad and worse than my opinion. It makes me so mad to see people doing this, spending their private time doing something that doesn't effect me at all, and brings them joy. I get so MAD when I see this picture that I just have to gak up threads on the internet about how my type of fun is better and superior, and also I'm better at the hobby not just the game."

If you're seriously posting in this thread? That's you. That's you trying to flex that you're better than other people for having your dumb, private opinion on this matter. Listen to how dumb you sound.
Opinions are like donkey-caves. I only really care for a few of the ones that are spread on the internet, and mostly they're stinky and uninteresting.

Voss wrote:

Apple fox wrote:


This rule has been a major part of removing a lot of conversation and helping people be the bad person. And possibly even intended as a marketing to get people talking about the “Hobby”
If peer pressure is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby.

I'm not following you on that last part. Its actually confusing. Peer pressure and word of mouth is _exactly_ how you recruit people into any hobby.

Peer pressure isn't exclusively some bizarre negative thing that magically forces people into drugs and cults. Its basic, typical human behavior about sharing and exchanging interests.

Ok, if negative reinforcement is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby. Painting should be fun and enjoyable part of the hobby itself, not used as a punishment or used as a way to try and push others out.
There was already social mechanics that worked for this.

Apple fox wrote:

Voss wrote:

Apple fox wrote:


This rule has been a major part of removing a lot of conversation and helping people be the bad person. And possibly even intended as a marketing to get people talking about the “Hobby”
If peer pressure is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby.

I'm not following you on that last part. Its actually confusing. Peer pressure and word of mouth is _exactly_ how you recruit people into any hobby.

Peer pressure isn't exclusively some bizarre negative thing that magically forces people into drugs and cults. Its basic, typical human behavior about sharing and exchanging interests.

Ok, if negative reinforcement is the only thing getting people painting, then it’s largely failed at getting people into the hobby. Painting should be fun and enjoyable part of the hobby itself, not used as a punishment or used as a way to try and push others out.
There was already social mechanics that worked for this.

Yes...? And those social mechanics haven't gone away. They still function the same way they always have, regardless of this rule.

Even if you don't like this rule, it still isn't the 'only thing' getting people painting. And painting isn't being used as a punishment or to push people out.
It can be weird to be worked up about losing games because the army isn't painted, but painting isn't being used a sentence assigned for losing, nor are people being force to leave if they lose a game or show up with an unpainted army.

Even on some bizarre day where it is the 'only thing' getting people painting, they're still buying and assembling miniatures and playing the game, so I'm not sure how anything has failed at getting people into 'the hobby.' They're a couple hundred bucks and multiple hours in, and at least showing up for a game by the time this rule comes into play. Presumably _something_ attracted them along the way, or they've wasted their time.

 Leth wrote:


Casual games? Who cares if you win or lose based on a 10 point non-game swing? You still won the game, but they won the overall score. Again, who cares.

Minis look way better now and it’s actually nice to have models that look good,

People who play the game do care. The whole goal of the game is to find out who the winner and who the loser is. Caring about who wins is practicaly build in to any game. If people wouldn't care, they wouldn't be keeping a score in the first place.

As the looking good goes, though. Do people really think that models painted by someone who doesn't want or like to paint, and who does it for the first time in their life, are going to end up looking good. Because the esthetic aspect is often brought up as the argument of favour of playing only with painted models. Well I have seen my share of bad painted models to say that it seems to me, that being painted does not automatically makes a model look good.


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Voss 796210 11057468 wrote:

Peer pressure isn't exclusively some bizarre negative thing that magically forces people into drugs and cults. Its basic, typical human behavior about sharing and exchanging interests.

Only in this case it isn't magical. 10VP is a substential number of VPs, which when differences in list powers are added means some armies are practicaly on the auto lose situation. And as the sharing goes, since when is playing the game synonymous with painting? those are two distinct actions that can over lap, but that is more or less all they have in common with each other. Specialy as the we consider that for eight edition there were no such rules in the game.

Well, the idea behind it is if you get people to start painting - even if they don't do it very well at first - it will lead to them caring more about it, and, eventually, to do them developing the skills to paint better. In my experience, this is true for people who take up painting voluntarily. It's certainly been true for me. My first models were junk. I'm still not a great painter by any stretch of the imagination, but in about 8 months of doing it a couple hours a week, I've got to the point where I now feel confident putting models on the table in front of people, and where I get compliments on them. That's been a really satisfying experience, and I wouldn't have thought it was possible when I started. My hand tremor has even largely disappeared, something I definitely didn't expect to happened, and that I initially thought would preclude me from ever being able to paint to a decent standard at all.


I don't think that process is likely to occur for people who don't want to paint, but only do it to not to get the VP penalty, though. If anything, I think the requirement is likely to put them off painting entirely, because when you approach something from the point of view of "this sucks, but I have to do it," you're a lot less likely to come to enjoy the experience.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Well, the idea behind it is if you get people to start painting - even if they don't do it very well at first - it will lead to them caring more about it, and, eventually, to do them developing the skills to paint better. In my experience, this is true for people who take up painting voluntarily. It's certainly been true for me.

Again that is the sunken cost thing. Works well on people, specialy ones like me. I will not stop playing my army till GW gives me at least a few months good time.

And of course if someone spends a few hours on each model and has 80+ models in an army they are going to have to start thinking that they like or they may start feeling really bad that they wasted 200+hours of their life doing something they are not good at, don't like etc. And more important if they went through it , there is this mechanism that makes other people went through it too.The wave at schools at military works like that too. You may not like it, when it happens to you, but if you went throught it then the freshmen year is going to go through it too.

Also what does voluntary mean? If it was 5 colours to play at tournaments, one could just say that they won't play games at tournaments. When it is a 10VP difference rule, is not something one can just avoid or ignore. On top of it all, 15VP difference at the start of turn 2 is something, most armies are unable to go back from. If it was just suppose to be a symbolic thing,it should be something like lets say, in case of draw painted army wins or it gets 1VP. 10VP is just forcing people to paint their armies, there is no voluntary aspect to it, not if you want to play the game and not lose every time.

Of course you can just ignore it. Just play without the rule in your own head. If whether you win or lose the game has no impact on the next game - i.e., it's not a tournament setting - you can finish a game and say to yourself "I won! I don't count the paint score" and the other dude can say to himself "I won, thanks to the paint score!" and both of you can go home happy.

Karol wrote:

 Leth wrote:


Casual games? Who cares if you win or lose based on a 10 point non-game swing? You still won the game, but they won the overall score. Again, who cares.

Minis look way better now and it’s actually nice to have models that look good,

Caring about who wins is practicaly build in to any game. If people wouldn't care, they wouldn't be keeping a score in the first place.

I sure as hell don't. But if you're playing matched play, you by default are playing under the rule that states 10vp for painted vs not.

Easy way to not be under the constrictions/rigidity of matched play....is surprisingly not to play matched play. Can't get any easier than that.

Havent played a matched play game yet and I sure as gak don't intend on starting. Cuz if you're bitching about how many VP you did/didn't get, my free time is better spent elsewhere.

Apple Fox, I'm disabled as well and need to be choosy with what I do hobby/physicality-wise. The play group you have seems to be the issue. I'd play you painted or not and wouldn't give a gak about 10vp, mostly cuz I don't care about VP to begin with.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Easy way to not be under the constrictions/rigidity of matched play....is surprisingly not to play matched play. Can't get any easier than that..

In case you haven't noticed it painted army=10 pts isn't matched play rule. It's for every scenario in 40k...

Literally only way to avoid it is to rewrite 40k for your games.

I have created a monster.

Beardedragon wrote:
I have created a monster.

Welcome to Dakka

"Buy paints, win more" is definitely a more insidious attempt at translating their business interests into actual game rules than the usual imbalances and power creep. Not that I would care much, personally, as between reasonable people those things are rarely played out the way they are written. However, I can see this becoming a problem for organized events, leagues and such, where you have to maintain a certain consistency across many games and players. There will be people who insist on it to get the edge in a competitive context and there is not much you can say against that, except explicitly excluding the rule from your competition as an organizer.

I think you need to see it from GW view a bit, the grey tide is not appealing to the eye, they want their products to be displayed in a more aesthetic manor than that as it is a form of advertising...

However, an interesting debate is, what is worse for GW in an advertising sense, Grey tide or awful paint jobs. I think grey tide potentially as it is hard to see the detail in them unless you get close up (also on a similar note, I personally find it extremely hard to pick out different models/units when they are only in grey from the other side of the board) but then well, we have all seen the horrific overly thick paint jobs that make a miniature looks like it is part melted so maybe that extreme is worse.

IMHO the rule was an attempt by GW to sell more paints in the short period and more miniatures in the long run. I mean lots of people, especially the new guys, would rush their paint jobs to field a battle ready army to the point that they will probably want to re-buy their entire army after a while, just to paint it better.

That rule is there just for reasons related to business, it has nothing to do with the game experience or feedbacks that GW received from hobbysts.

I think there's two factors that played into GW wanting to do it.
- more people painting equates to more paint sales.
- painted models look better, every time someone sees you playing 40k you're advertising the game - they want that game to look as good as possible.

It is also likely related to the greater attention paid to the competitive scene of 40k, in which requiring painted models is fairly common.

I certainly agree that it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. I've heard from a few GW employees that the execs couldn't care less about the hobby/players.

Beardedragon wrote:
I have created a monster.

I have had quite some fun reading the lame excuses for not painting, thanks for creating this thread
Waaaagh on lazy buggers, and don't let anyone cramp your idle style (thoses with a disability this is not directed at you, you have a good reason not to paint and I sympathize with you)

Anyone sensible wouldn't be claiming the points and it certainly wouldn't bother me. Everyone's different after all.

Haven't seen it happen though as my local has a painted and based policy. Which is fair enough as they have gone to the expense and trouble of several distinct tables and scenery.

They will match games to various points levels via escalation leagues, run painting clinics and a few of them will even paint up squads to help those less able.

All sadly on hold at the moment.

Simple Simon wrote:
Anyone sensible wouldn't be claiming the points and it certainly wouldn't bother me. Everyone's different after all.

Haven't seen it happen though as my local has a painted and based policy. Which is fair enough as they have gone to the expense and trouble of several distinct tables and scenery.

They will match games to various points levels via escalation leagues, run painting clinics and a few of them will even paint up squads to help those less able.

All sadly on hold at the moment.

That is top notch policy, this way people who paint slowly can still play and not feel in a rush. Hope you guys will start again soon (hoping costs nothing)

tneva82 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

Easy way to not be under the constrictions/rigidity of matched play....is surprisingly not to play matched play. Can't get any easier than that..

In case you haven't noticed it painted army=10 pts isn't matched play rule. It's for every scenario in 40k...

Literally only way to avoid it is to rewrite 40k for your games.

...or play Open Play, going by the mini-rulebook from Command Edition. The Determine Victor step in that game sequence, as seen on page 85 of the mini-rulebook, does not reference the +10VPs for painting, while both Matched Play (pg 95) and Narrative/Crusade do (page 146/7).

Beardedragon wrote:
I have created a monster.

Awoken, not created.

 Blackie wrote:
IMHO the rule was an attempt by GW to sell more paints in the short period and more miniatures in the long run. I mean lots of people, especially the new guys, would rush their paint jobs to field a battle ready army to the point that they will probably want to re-buy their entire army after a while, just to paint it better.

That rule is there just for reasons related to business, it has nothing to do with the game experience or feedbacks that GW received from hobbysts.

I think it is there for game reasons, because playing with 2 painted armies is better than playing with the grey horde or random mismatched models. People don't usually buy armies and not buy paint, I imagine the person who buy their first army with the intent of never painting them from the outset is rare to non-existent. It's when the reality hits you that it'll actually take a few hundred hours of an activity most people see as mind numbing that people don't end up painting their forces.

And yeah, playing with painted armies is nicer, it has to be a REALLY bad paint job before I'd rather face the grey horde.

All that said, I think it's a stupid rule. People can decide for themselves if they want to push their gaming group to paint their models. The rule only exists as a weapon to be wielded by an obnoxious person to make them more obnoxious.

The amount of stuck-up-ness in this thread is embarrassing.

Guys, can you not do simple math? Is someone lording over you and saying "for every match thou shalt fail to win, I will have a puppy murdered in front of thee"?

It's easy; just do the math to see if you would've won anyways, and then you can feel good or bad purely on your skill. Look...

Let's look at a few scenarios. In each scenario, your opponent has 10 points for painting and you don't.

End-game score; 72 for you, 84 for your opponent. Friendly game. = Painting score didn't matter. Your opponent won anyways, as without the painting score they still got 74 and beat you.

End-game score; 72 for you, 84 for your opponent. Tourney game. = Painting score matters for tie breakers, but you lost anyways. Get your army painted for a tournament and score those points, and if you don't, that's on you. Them's the rules.

End-game score; 74 for you, 82 for your opponent. Friendly game. = Painting score would've mattered if this was a tourney game, but it isn't, so doesn't matter. You can actually still declare yourself the winner here anyways. Without painting scores, your opponent would've scored 72, which means you out-played your opponent. If you don't care about painting, you 100% can just call this a win, and as it's a friendly game no one can really dispute you. Get your army painted so when it really matters at a tourney game, you don't lose.

End-game score; 74 for you, 82 for your opponent. Tourney game = The only time it actually matters, but guess what, you're in a tournament and you knew what you were getting into. Get your army painted for the next tournament and score those points, and if you don't, that's on you. Them's the rules.



If you care so much about these points in a friendly game that you are getting up in arms about these points means you're probably on your way to being a TFG

Apple fox wrote:
It does. Mostly unless something comes up, I try and leave it be. Say nothing, but discussion and argument does come up regularly now where before it was more fun discussion. Now it’s far more these are the rules and this how it works here. I pick and choose carefully who I will discuss it with, and most shops and game stores shouldn’t have to be the place for safety reasons as well.
I have had people relate my difficulty with walking as not impeding my ability to paint, that I am just lazy and unmotivated or refer to me as things I won’t mention over this.
Also unrelated but my chair has been moved more times since this rule than ever before at gaming stores, I can stand and walk a limited amount and I think things like this just tosses fuel on the fire for how people deal with it all.

Also reply to Stalked21 it’s cool, sometimes in text it’s hard to tell a questions intent behind it. But Hellebore is right, often a question like that leads into a a rather difficult conversations.

I appreciate where you're coming from. I have a chronic illness which is pretty much invisible but massively affects my life, and trying to have that discussion with people is soooo painful. Even my siblings didn't believe me until my early 20's when it started to become obvious that I wasn't just faking it to get out of school / chores. On a bad day a painting session can lead to days of pain and recovery, on a good day it won't, and it's hard to predict beforehand.

FWIW, as much as a prefer playing with painted armies, I try not to judge people who don't have one because you never know their circumstances.

I dont see how it is judging anyone to say "We are playing by the rules that you and I both knew when we started this game"

Seriously It is kinda funny that people are calling it a cash grab when nothing in the rule requires GW paints.

I have been kicked off of streams at tournaments because my army was unpainted, painted armies are more appealing all around.