Lately I have been thinking alot about painting and tournaments. Some of it is due to me making a large push to touch up and finish new units for my Crimson Fists. Some of it is due to what I have been seeing at tournaments locally too.
What ever the reason, I began to question how I felt painting fit into the tournament scene. I was never a big fan of soft scores. I always had a painted army. I was/am of the firm belief that if it ain't painted, you don't use it. Tournaments were always a reason to finish painting an army. A deadline, a motivation to paint new units.
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| My Sister's of the Ebon Chalice at CotN 2011. |
My older Sister's of Battle army even picked up Best Painted a few times at RTTs. I will be the first to admit it is not the greatest paint job, but it has a descent scheme and basing. I always painted to play, not to win painting contests, and it cost me points in battle point tournaments.
The reason why I started my Crimson Fists was those few points I was missing out on. I wanted to go the extra mile on it. I put the Forge World Doors on my vehicles. I have matching shoulder pads on units. I did resin basing on all my models to up my standard.
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| My Crimson Fists at the 2011 Bugeater GT. |
I was ready to compete, but tournaments have changed. Locally I'm seeing more unpainted armies at tournaments. Part of it was Ard Boyz, but not all.
It has left me wondering if painting is even required any more.
It does. Personally I think tournaments should require it. Our hobby is a game, but it is also a visual event. Nothing is cooler than playing other nicely painted armies. While it is alot of work to paint an army, it is rewarding to yourself and others you are playing against.
I now think painting scores should be in every tournament. It is part of our hobby. It makes the event better having painted armies. I believe it is as important as WYSIWYG. Hopefully this will not turn off new players from tournaments. Painting is not that hard. It takes time and new products like washes make it very easy to paint nice looking armies.
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| Best painted army from Bugeater GT 2011. Xaereth's DE from Delusion's Grandeur blog fame. |
Are tournaments slipping? Maybe. There are really good ones out there too. Con of the North RTT is probably the best example of a tournament with high levels of painted armies. The Bugeater GT in Omaha had a large number of high level armies also. This year they are increasing their "golden daemon" type of painting contest. I'm really looking forward to both events.
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| Best Painted from CotN 2011. |
Now this is not a rant on local tournaments. This is just me thinking/wishing out loud that there was more effort in getting armies painted up. I'm thankful for anyone willing to put time into running any event. It is a thankless job.
What do you think about painting requirements for tournaments? Should there be one, or should we take an Ard Boyz approach?
As a bonus and maybe an incentive to paint, here are army pictures from Con of the North last February and the Bugeater GT 2011.
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| CotN 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
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| Bugeater GT 2011 |
Looks like you had your 'Sunday Best' on when you wrote this post. I hope you don't mind me giving you a shout out in a my top 3 series called Sunday Best over at my blog. Cheers and thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteNp and thanks!!
ReplyDeleteHOTpanda, you should learn from the Inquisitor on how to effectively name drop a segment. But that's my two cents :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway ... onto the nature of the post itself. I know that the Khornehusker and March Hare don't require painting points, but at least for the Khornehusker that was born partially out of the fact that our group is just getting started in 40k and we didn't want to discourage people w/o painted armies.
But maybe that time has past. If there's one thing that the Bugeater taught me: you will get it painted if you want to play. We have a guy who plays VC for fantasy and never found the motivation to paint ... until he realized he wouldn't get in on the Bugeater GT. And somehow ... someway ... he got it painted.
The other ironic thing about the question of painting is that more often than not, it is the "competitive" gamers that get an army painted. Why? They know that the soft scores help ensure a victory. So the notion that the hard core players don't paint is actually pretty much not true.