mark preston used my chaos army and got painting scores, he also informed them that he had not painted it

i think it my have been the haphazard appearance of glyns army


i believe that the scores should work like this

if its painted and and runs 3 colours the army is cohesive and and based

you should get your points if you have painted it or not.
if it top class commission you can not win best painted and still only receive the marks awarded for the the basic conditions

and that were i think painting points for tourneys should stop.
best painted should then be awarded separately with a 1-3 placing

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In Glyns case I think the reason he didn't score was as he had packed away his army - as he himself has said.

Painting scores are one of the most problematic areas of tourney scoring and will be under review at the end of the year

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Actually it was me packing my army away after the first game rather than leaving it out; they had no army to judge and so gave me zero.

This was partly me having half packed it away without realising before someone mentioned it (I’d not read the rules pack at all), but I took for granted that a borrowed army couldn’t score; IMO it seems unfair for any army you hadn’t painted to.

I don’t care one jot that my tournament ranking were a few lower than they could have been; it was entirely my fault and I was there to have a good few games and improve my game, not actually compete for a top spot or anything.

Personally I think the best system is like what Zog suggested but with the requirement that the player had solely painted the army themselves, borrowed or commissioned models should score 0 in my opinion.

Agreed.  We actually had the players judge each other and turn in a scorecard with each army ranked 1 through 10. (one being the best)  I then added the scores together for each army and the person with the lowest score was the winner.  

Because it is a peer judged system, describing things as "Best Appearance" opens your mind more to other things like conversions, carefully flocked bases, color schemes, and all that.  My Dark Eldar won the first year most probably because it was new looking and had a lot of conversions.  The second year people were vanilla on it and ranked me fourth place (been there, seen that); instead they ranked Studdering Dave's Imperial Guard the highest.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I find this is the best way, in fact it turns me off Tournaments that inc painting scores into the overall Tournament winner.

Personally I love playing against a well painted army (especially given the mediocre quality of my own armies!) and am happy for my opponent to have a few extra points as a consequence. Based on that view, I don't mind whether the opponent painted the army himself or had it pro-painted at vast expense, so on that basis the Epic UK system seems best.

E&C (aka Fluff King) - I am somewhat surprised that you object to nice looking armies not painted by the user and that you would like to place 100% emphasis on winning, 0% on painting. Are you playing some sort of devil's advocate here?! Is this post a trap for unwitting WACC gamers?!!  

I'm happy for there to be some points in the overall scoring for paining and sportsmanship. Just not the same number of points as a massive game win.

The average score at Open war was 24 out of 25, with only 4 out of 18 players receiving less.

At Epic-UK events there are normally 2 painting trophies up for grabs. The judges choice and players choice. Its not unusual for different armies to win these trophies.

Soft scores are probably the most debated aspect of tournament gaming and I don't think a perfect answer will ever be found.

I personally prefer to see the "Best General" and "Best Painter" prizes kept separated. Gaming scores don't count for the best painted prize, so why does the reverse seem to be true?

Some basic soft scores are a good idea, but they should be easily achievable things to ensure that everyone can easily get full marks. That way the painting scores aren't so much a reward for bringing an amazing army; the lack of them is a penalty for anyone who has not bothered with basing, unit identifiers and so on. Since that is about ensuring a minimum standard for the event as a whole, there's no reason not to apply it to borrowed armies.

The only time gaming scores and more challenging painting criteria (highlights, freehand, conversions, etc) should be combined is if you were to have some kind of "Best Overall Hobbyist" prize.

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For me tournaments should be about the skill of the individual, and being able to 'buy' or 'borrow' some skill seems off-kilter to me.

Also "fluffy" isn't nessesarily incompatible with "competative"... I'm a practitioner of the 'third way', in this regard.  

I guess I'm actually advocating a more competative aspect to the "best appearance" placings, in a way... and as a decent chunk of my Epic hobby* involves scratch-modelling or converting, I'd quite enjoy the competative aspect of bringing a unique army to a tournament and facing off against guys like MoK or Tom of EW (or Jonluke, if he ever comes to another tournament) in a more formal "whose army looks the most badass?" manner.


I'm a nerd, no way am I that socially adroit.  


*"Everyone's Hobby is different" - From GW's "little red book".

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Personally I think that there should be a small factor for painting scores into the overall result, but only up to the "does the army look reasonable?" level. Anything beyond that should be soley for the Best Painted award.

So I'd have a fixed 5 points or so for a reasonable standard of painting (nothing so formal and abusable as "3 colors"), essentially just a tick box for the army. This will encourage painted armies, and a seperate Best Appearance award will encourage stunning armies.

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I agree, just tick a box for a bonus point if they've made a reasonable effort to field a painted army.

By all means have a separate prize for best painted army (i would consider it dis-honourable to enter a commissioned job into this).

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If you see the Dark Angels army you will be able to guess who painted it (as they are, well, basically green with flocked bases). The core of the sallies were bought in an auction and it took over a bloody month to paint up enough extra stuff to take it to 3000 points and that only if I use poor stuff like raider, whirlwind and mixed pred formations!

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Over in australia with 40k we have fairly extensive "soft" score ratios up to about 50% of scoring. (Soft being composition or some sort of handicap between tough armies and soft armies, painting, theme and sportsmanship) On painting scores (as well as sports scores) I usually come down on the argument that having an unpainted/poorly painted army should be a large loss of points (ie. enough to stop you from getting a podium finish) but that there should be little if any distinction between an army that is painted to a "tabletop standard" level and a Vaaish/Warmaster Nice/Onyx/Mark Logue level. The really nice armies should be rewarded with a "best painted" prize but otherwise shouldn't have much of an advantage.

I also don't like the concept of blanking scores for buying/borrowing an army. It makes no sense and is usually championed by people who only have an interest in sniping out a particular person's scores. They shouldn't ever be eligible for a best painted award, or if they are the award should go to the painter, but it makes no sense to discourage the sharing/buying and selling of tournament armies.

I seem to remember a bunch of us epic guys where debating this at WH world a year or two ago.

We affirmed that a games tournament is not a painting competition, so painting should not be a huge factor.

On the other hand, the reason for the a painting score was to discourage unpainted/black undercoated armies from turning up. We all want to see something at least reasonably pleasing to the eye on the table.

Therefore, to satisfy this, so long as stuff is painted (to at least basic standard), that's fine and it doesn't matter who painted it.

However, for the painting prize (which IS a painting competition) then the army must, obviously be painted by oneself.

This is the philosophy that EUK use and I believe FCV.

As to how many points the scoring should contribute? All I can say is this, if you look at the painting scores actually given out in most tournaments in the past you'll usually see a difference of only a few points, maybe ~5 at most. In practice it doesn't make that much difference.

Even so, personally I'm not sure that you need any grades in the painting scores. Just deduct the equivalent of a big win from a players score if not painted to a basic standard.

Then pick out the best army for the painting competition(s)

My 2 pennies worth

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Congratulations, you've just entered a subject that has been debated for years and years (and, if I'm honest, years) in Warhammer Fantasty Battle (WFB) Tournaments   .

Until about 2 years ago, I used to play in 15 WFB tournaments a year for 8 years and painting always raised it's ugly head after every tournament, on every internet forum.

Before I go on I'll do an 'executive summary' so people don't have to read through the whole post.

I believe that the painting system EPIC UK use at the moment, which can be downloaded from our website (download one of our rules packs), is the fairest and the best way to mark painting at a tournament. Its based on the WPS painting system which has been altered, tweaked and refined over many years.

Okay so an explanation on why I feel this way...

Adding painting to your tournament score?

Firstly I suppose we need to define what a war gaming tournament is within the UK. It is not all about the gaming, it is a 75/12.5/12.5 split between three important parts of the hobby; playing a game, the manor in which you play a game and how your army looks on the battlefield.

WFB Tournaments used to include 'theme and history' points i.e. where a players army was designed to a certain theme, and they could prove it, they would gain additional points. However it was deemed that it was very difficult to define what was 'theme and history' as the WFB / 40K written background has been written pretty vaguely (for example: I could say that my 'uber death Dark Elf army' left Naggroth to battle the Empire in 1345 and there would be no proof to show I was either wrong or right. It's not like playing WW2 historical where they have detailed accounts of the dates of battles and what units, vehicles, formations took place). The whole 'theme and history' created more problems and confrontations than it solved and, quite rightly, it was dropped in WFB.

Now why painting was added to a WFB tournament is for many reasons:

Firstly not everyone is brilliant at playing the game; before a tournament starts most players have a good idea who will win the tournament, but that doesn't stop people entering because they still get to play three / five / six great games against different opponents.

The same goes for the painting prizes that EPIC UK offer (Players and Judges Choice); we all know Joe, Kevin, Ryan, Alan are some of the best painters on the present EPIC tournament circuit and they will win the painted trophies most of the time. So what is there for other tournament participants to aim for? Unlike winning the tournament there are no 'great games' for painting. When this change was introduced to WFB we saw the level of painting drop and some armies were unpainted because they knew who would win the painting trophies so 'what was the point'?

Therefore painting HAD to be a significant part of the tournament to make people paint their armies. It's very important for EPIC that all armies are painted; EPIC tournaments have a smaller number of entrants (per tournament) than WFB and 40K, so we have to make sure we sell the game as best as possible. Finally it's about 'player painting improvement'; for me, tournaments have improved my painting more than anything else. During the lunch times I walk around looking at other peoples armies, stealing conversion / painting ideas and speaking to players about how they painted their armies. I still take the Monday off after a two day tournament because I get the urge to get some painting done.

Having every army painted, and to a reasonable standard, is a very important part of the whole tournament experience.

The difference between players painted armies

So the next argument started; WFB players asked why did an army which had been sprayed black and dry brushed yellow (with 'Goblin Green' on the base) get the same points as an army that's been shaded, highlighted and based properly. Also what is 'basic standard of painting'? This could mean something to one person and then something totaly different to another; the painting system had to be nailed down in black and white so all players new what was expected.

Again unless there were different point scales for different quality of painting, then the level of painting would drop. Also as apart of 'players painting development' it was important to allow players to strive for better.

This is why we have the different 'bands' including:

- Painted and Based
- High Quality
- Wow

However we then had the counter argument of gamers saying they would never being able to reach 'Wow' and therefore they could not win tournaments. We then revised the points within the painting:

12.5% of the total tournament points is painting
Wow is around 16% of the total painting points (so that's around 2% of the total tournament points available to a player).

Then most WFB were happy with this any piece prevailed for a couple of years ...


until...

Painting your own army vs payment for painting

Of course there are two sides to this argument:

Side 1:

Side 2:

So with the two sides of the argument it was decided that both parties would get points for painting; but you could only win a painting trophy if you had painted each model yourself.

I think that's it ... like I've said before; you are never going to get a perfect painting system, however I believe the current EPIC UK system pleases most. If you want to know more about the arguments, please see any WFB forum  

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