Hi all,
Hope I'm not jumping the gun here, but horizon has asked us to discuss possible changes to the category rules for the next gothicomp here on Tac Comms.  
In case you haven't read WR 26 (then go read it now ), here are some suggestions:

"The fleet category in 2009 has been a great success in
my opinion but I think ‘requesting’ a new fleet each
year is too demanding for most players (or painters).
This is why for GothiComp 2010 I want to see if it is
possible to run a ‘small fleet’ category. Think of patrol
fleets or small explorator groups. As a guideline to this
category I was thinking to have a 500pts restriction
with a maximum of two capital ships and at least three
escort vessels.
For this I want to encourage people to show ships not
shown before and not selections of last years fleet. Of
course, repainted they are ‘cool’ again.
Let us know what you think about this at the Tactical
Command forums!
Horizon"

Here is my feedback:
1)  I love the fleet category, so I'd like to keep it in the competition.
2)  I'd prefer to have as little restriction on the fleet list as possible, to encourage more entries.  I think the ships and points listed above should be the minimum, not the maximum amount of ships in the fleet.  I.e., I don't think there should be a maximum amount of ships you can enter in your fleet.  However, I have no problem making the minimum amount of points/ships small to encourage entries.
3)  There should be a restriction saying all ships in the fleet must be new gothicomp entries.

Cheers,
CF

Hmm in my opinion both options would be ok. Horizons as well as Chanucks suggestion.

I think many BFG players have more than one fleet even if the second fleet is smaller. With both ways there could be enough people having the possibility to take part in 2010.

But that may only delay the need of a smaller fleet entry restriction like Horizon mentioned it.

So i think for 2010 it would work both ways, from 2011 on there could be more difficulties for ppl painting new fleets every year.

On the other side i think some of the entries from 2009 wouldve had better chances with a smaller fleet size. Some pictures werent good enough to see how well they are painted as every single ship was very small. In addition some fleets simply look boring when there are 10 small ships side by side but might look impressive if u only see three ships but in greater detail. Of corse the pictures are up to the people who send them.
The second part of the answer were just some thoughts about 2009 and im not even sure which of the suggestions they would prefer.

As another Idea for 2010 maybe the Jury could decide places 1-3 for conversations as there were several good ones in the contest in my opinion. The prize still should be for the first, but i think its worth mentioning more than one conversation, as they are a complete different field apart from the painting category.