Do you consider the "Painted Army" points on your matches?

[gideon stargreave]

I think of it as the work that goes on before the battle. Battles are a pretty small part of warfare. The painting points are like making sure your supply lines are good, or you have added enough holy unguent to appease the machine spirits or something 

[Foremole]

8 hours ago, Rogue said:

 

If you like painting and gaming, great. If you like gaming but not painting, also great. So why penalise the second guy because he'd rather be playing than painting?

 

Because I'd rather be playing with someone who paints their army than playing with someone who doesn't.

 

Problem is, it doesn't change the fact some people don't care about painting their armies. Someone who doesn't care is probably going to look at a loss from the 10 VP rule as one that didn't really count, "because who cares if I've painted them or not", while someone who does care is probably going to look at a win from the 10 VP rule as one that also didn't really count, "because I still had to play against an ugly army".

 

The solution, if non-painted armies is a dealbreaker for someone, is to convince your friends to paint their armies or find people who have painted armies to play against. But honestly, even as someone who's more hobby first, game later, I'm more happy to show my painted army to someone with an unpainted one than to not play a game.

[Orion]

12 hours ago, Rain said:

I don't care how many special little coins your guys collected before they all died. If they all died, you lost.

 

Faction - World Eaters

 

I think you're playing in the spirit of the game. 

Keep up the Long War. 

[Rogue]

50 minutes ago, Foremole said:

 

Because I'd rather be playing with someone who paints their army than playing with someone who doesn't.

 

 

Well, yeah. Me too. But I'd rather play someone who doesn't paint their army then not play at all.

 

And telling the person with an unpainted (or even mostly painted army) that playing against me carries a penalty isn't a great way to encourage a game.

 

This all still feels like a weaponisation of the hobby side of things. Because I have more time than you, or have had my army longer, I gain an in-game advantage. Why?

 

Slightly silly example, but imagine if Golden Demon was scored 90% on painting, 10% on your current ITC rating. Painter A gets 90 for painting, but doesn't play, so loses out to painter B who got 81 for painting and is also top of the ITC rankings for an extra 10 points and a total of 91. Yes, painter A is better at painting, but we apparently have to penalise her because she doesn't choose to engage in all aspects of the hobby.

[Bryan Blaire]

4 hours ago, Rogue said:

Slightly silly example, but imagine if Golden Demon was scored 90% on painting, 10% on your current ITC rating. Painter A gets 90 for painting, but doesn't play, so loses out to painter B who got 81 for painting and is also top of the ITC rankings for an extra 10 points and a total of 91. Yes, painter A is better at painting, but we apparently have to penalise her because she doesn't choose to engage in all aspects of the hobby.

If those were the rules for the Golden Demon contest and you agreed to participate, why would you have an issue with it being judged in the fashion dictated by the rules of the contest?

 

Now I’m all in favor of house rules and ignoring what I consider stupid rules GW writes (I really have to be at this point, or I can’t play a lore accurate Space Wolves army that GW made up because of how they wrote the army/unit construction rules for 10th), but that doesn’t mean that disregarding them without agreement of the other party is right for a game between two people.  If it really means that much to any two players participating in a game, they should just agree not to use any particular rule they want.

 

So to answer the OP’s question - whether the 10 points for a painted army rule applies in any of my games is determined by whether me and the folks I play against decide we really want to apply the rule to a particular game.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Bryan Blaire

[Rogue]

If they were the rules, then fair enough. My point is that they're not, and it would seem odd (to me, at least) if anyone were to seriously suggest that a painting competition should be scored on gaming ability.

 

But I agree with your point about house rules - any two people can decide to play (or ignore) any rules they choose. For myself, I wouldn't want to ignore the rule as it applies to my army, nor would I ask my opponent to ignore it for me - if my stuff is unpainted, I don't get 10 points, because that's the rule. On the other hand, I don't choose to enforce the rule on my opponent's army - if they have grey units, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. Equally, if they decline the points, I wouldn't insist.

 

(As a more general rule, I feel it's broadly okay to ignore things that disadvantage your opponent, but wrong to ignore anything that disadvantages yourself.)

[MegaVolt87]

In a tiebreaker situation, for a casual game even I think applying the painting points is fair in that instance. I am a firm believer of having your own fully painted army motivates others. I am adept in beer gogiling your grey plastic as whatever I want to blow up, you are only robbing yourself by not fully painting your force. 

[MARK0SIAN]

One thing I think is important in all this is that the points are a bonus for painting your army, they’re not a penalty for not doing so. It’s not like you get 70 VP in the game then have to subtract 10 for not painting your army. I realise you could argue this is semantics and the end result could be the same but I think the intent is important. 
 

I think it’s fair to say that whether you support the rule or not there is a general consensus that playing with and against painted armies makes the game a better experience. I see this rule as existing to encourage you to do something that most of us agree makes the gaming experience better for ourselves and perhaps more importantly for others we play with. As such I support the idea, even if I wouldn’t always apply it in practice.

 

Now all we need are VPs if you showered in the last week and more if you’re wearing deodorant to encourage a certain type of player we’ve all met and to make the gaming experience better for all concerned 
 

 

[gideon stargreave]

As an interesting observation I’ve seen. Quite a few people here say they would rather play an unpainted army than not play at all. Personally I would rather never play again than play an unpainted army or use a bad gaming board. I’d like to add that I don’t have a moral reason for either of these positions. But for me the whole purpose of playing 40k and 40k adjacent games is the spectacle. I would absolutely cancel a game of my opponent showed up with unpainted  minis. Same as I would expect them to cancel if I showed up with 3000 points instead of 2500. 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

People are really against the rule here.

[Orion]

29 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

People are really against the rule here.

 

And a lot seem to like the rule. Otherwise this wouldn't have lasted 3 pages.

[ServoBadger]

I never apply the painted army rules, for a few reasons:

 

1. I only play with my friends.

2. I have a lot more time to paint than they do.

3. My painting is rubbish.

4. Any models they are given time to paint look so much better than mine that trying to take the moral high ground - and the ten points - would be laughable.

5. To me, congratulating one of my friends for beating me by ten points or less feels a lot better than claiming I actually won, when I clearly didn't.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

6 hours ago, JayJapanB said:

 

And a lot seem to like the rule. Otherwise this wouldn't have lasted 3 pages.

I mean I personally like the rule. We've been discussing the rule at one of our larger footprint FLGS and the current feedback, especially for tournaments has been overwhelming against. 

 

But it doesn't make sense to me why you just want to play with and against grey hordes all the time.

[TrawlingCleaner]

2 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I mean I personally like the rule. We've been discussing the rule at one of our larger footprint FLGS and the current feedback, especially for tournaments has been overwhelming against. 

 

But it doesn't make sense to me why you just want to play with and against grey hordes all the time.

40k (and other hobbies like it) are essentially 4 hobbies in 1:

1) Lore

2) Building

3) Painting

4) Playing

 

I don't begrudge anyone for not enjoying one or more of those 4 parts of the hobby or not having time or money etc etc. There's a whole lot going on in 40k and I've definitely been in the position of not enjoying one or more parts of the hobby during my time! I have pals that I build stuff for and I have pals that I paint stuff for, some that don't enjoy playing and some that don't have time for any of it and just borrow stuff. If you love building, painting and playing and would only play games with your own army being fully painted (I'm right there with you), that's fantastic! For me, I'm not a fan of pushing my personal standards on other people. Different strokes for different folks for sure!

 

Tournament settings are different I think, there's standards in place for game lengths, how many games you play, certain levels of behaviour etc. I think standards or base levels for paintjobs, WYSIWYG etc are a good thing there.

[Lord_Ikka]

11 minutes ago, TrawlingCleaner said:

40k (and other hobbies like it) are essentially 4 hobbies in 1:

1) Lore

2) Building

3) Painting

4) Playing

 

I don't begrudge anyone for not enjoying one or more of those 4 parts of the hobby or not having time or money etc etc. There's a whole lot going on in 40k and I've definitely been in the position of not enjoying one or more parts of the hobby during my time! I have pals that I build stuff for and I have pals that I paint stuff for, some that don't enjoy playing and some that don't have time for any of it and just borrow stuff. If you love building, painting and playing and would only play games with your own army being fully painted (I'm right there with you), that's fantastic! For me, I'm not a fan of pushing my personal standards on other people. Different strokes for different folks for sure!

 

Tournament settings are different I think, there's standards in place for game lengths, how many games you play, certain levels of behaviour etc. I think standards or base levels for paintjobs, WYSIWYG etc are a good thing there.

Very true- my personal likes are everything but painting. I choose to paint my stuff however, as I dislike playing with grey minis. I have the ability to quickly paint minis up to an acceptable table level, but that is because I have some nice free time that doesn't require me to do much else right now. I've been in the position of not having enough time, so I understand those that don't have fully painted armies and I would rather encourage people to get involved in the hobby overall than penalize them in a casual game for not having their stuff painted. 

 

Tournaments are a completely different ball game- if you go to a tournament you should have a minimum understanding of the rules, modeling, and painting because a tournament is a more intense experience than just a regular game. 

[Lord Marshal]

I genuinely forget that rule even exists unless somebody actually mentions it.

[TwinOcted]

If my army's fully painted I'm absolutely taking the 10 VPs.  I've done the work, so I'll have the reward, ta.

 

It's also worth pointing out that the rule doesn't require you to have painted your army,  just that it's painted.

[Helias_Tancred]

At the moment no, but thats a great idea.