Thursday, September 9, 2010

Painting Scoring - Or Why Should This Count towards a TOURNAMENT

So you may have noticed I'm doing opinion rants on Soft Scoring. I hate soft scoring. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Every time I see it I almost need to hold back the need to Vomit on the playing surface.


So.....

Painting.
I love seeing painted models. I love playing with painted armies. I love to paint. However, does that make me better at playing the game? nope.

Do I believe that painting should be scored on a percentage basis in a tournament against battle points? Never.

Why? precisely because no matter how well I paint it does not make me better at playing the game.

Should painting be judged? YES. because of the time and effort required to paint an army fully. there should be some reward. It should not be tied to the overall score though. it should be an appearace award.

4 comments:

  1. There's always going to be controversy surrounding soft scores.

    I don't play in tournaments at all, but I see where you're coming from. My only retort would be... This is a hobby not just a game and skill can always be foiled by dice. If you feel the need to be so competitive then maybe you should play M:TG.

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  2. Horrible example. M:tG's deck draw mechanic is just as random as dice.

    Wanting tournament results to be based on performance at the table does not equate to being competitive. It is a desire to have the person who performed the best by a completely objective metric be the victor, regardless of who it is.

    There is no need to imply that the person that feels thus feels 'they' need to win or do best by calling that opinion competitive in an attempt to dismiss it.

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  3. Hmm, as both a player and a TO this is something I can weigh into from both sides.

    GW soft scores used to drive me insane although I think their "checkbox" system is pretty good now. The unfortunate reality is that I've been dinged before because I've added bits to make things look cool for not being WYSIWYG - a HK Missile on a Land Raider that I pointed out didn't exist and was there for aesthetics before the game.

    But if I show up with my newly purchased pewter flavour of the week army and roll the competition do I feel I deserve best overall? Not in the least. If a player comes in second, is a totally awesome guy, and has a totally awesomely painted army do they deserve to get best overall? Damn right they do. Similarly if you put all of your efforts into painting but have no idea how to play you may get best painted but certainly not best general.

    Players who spend 100's of hours painting their forces to look the best of the best -always- deserve something extra. While players should strive to excel in all parts of the hobby some just don't like painting, aren't very good at it, or both. It's unfortunate because building and painting your miniatures is -at least- 50% of the hobby. Not only that, but playing against another fully painted army is also very rewarding and adds tons of ambiance to your game experience.

    Now in 40k the lines are clear cut, but when it comes to Warmachine there are more fuzzy rules on the subject of best painted and tournaments. What I prefer to do is always set some of the prize pool aside for the best painted army - usually on par with what the second place finisher brings home.

    Then of course there are formats like Hardcore that require fully painted. Having special events to try and motivate the painting bug is always a good idea as well.

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  4. Painting rewards are cool. They did a fully-painted prize at the PAX Masters, and I (who was only about 70% painted) thought it was a great idea.

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What have you to say on this?