Painting and Tournaments

Morning folks! The last few mornings I've been listening to various podcasts on the way to and from work and a subject that's been mentioned on a few is about painting of models for tournaments.

One gripe is that some tournaments include a painting score in the overall tournament score and some people seem to get annoyed by this, which then prompted me to spout my opinion on here on paint scoring and painting for tournaments in general.

Painting For A Tournament.

Personally, I've never taken part in a tournament or competition without fielding a fully painted and based force. My stuff isn't amazingly well painted (it'll never win any kind of award) but I pride myself on the fact that they are all painted.

If I know I'm not going to get a model / unit painted in time then simple, I won't use it. It helps that I'm a very self motivated person when it comes to painting and if I have a goal, I work really hard towards meeting that.

However... I'm in the hobby as a gamer primarily. I don't particularly enjoy painting, or go out of my way to paint new things, other ranges, specific models. I paint as a means to an end - to get a fully painted army on the table.

I've heard comments like "I don't enjoy painting" or "I'm rubbish at painting, so I don't bother" plenty of times over the years and they're valid enough points. At the end of the day, in this life, your time is your own to do what you want with. But personally, at a tournament I've paid to enter I would expect everyone treat it and the other players with a sense of respect and show up with a fully painted force.

There's nothing worse than seeing a lovely board, filled with excellent terrain, and half of it is full of grey plastic or bare metal. Of course, there's always the situations where someone is called up last minute, or slots are filled out with gaming club / store regulars who can be called on at short notice.

In my time around tournaments I've seen some bare minimum painted armies. Literally sprayed black, metal areas drybrushed and then an extra colour somewhere for detail. This then chucked on a static grass base means that it's technically a fully painted army.

I'm cool with that though. Not every army needs to be a 300+ hour painting project since some people just want to get down to gaming, which is my philosophy. If it wasn't for Badab Black wash, I'd probably still be painting my Ork army - I know all too well the "paint as quick as I can for gaming" mentality.

What it shows to me though, is a degree of respect towards the event and the players you will be facing which is something everyone should be doing. Showing up with a pile of plastic and the latest meta-list, 5 minutes before the tournament is supposed to start and gluing half of your Riptide together cheapens everything.

So... Scoring.

It's my philosophy that any tournaments you want to be charging entry for should be asking for painted armies as a minimum - and to be fair, most do.

Painting scores shouldn't be there to encourage people to paint to a bare minimum of black, boltgun metal and a stripe of white though. I would like them to encourage people into painting up their forces, which is maybe an aspect of the hobby they think they don't enjoy but come to enjoy as a result.

Painting scores should be broken up well enough that they are a deterrent to Timmy's brand new, still stinking of plastic glue Tau/Eldar showing up. But the flip side - not so much that they put off existing players and players who want the tournament to reflect the best general.

Gaming scores should be the major factor in tournament points, with bonus modifiers for  painting achievements.

Now, not everyone is an 'Eavy Metal painter. For some people, Boltgun metal Necrons with gold detailing and green gauss is a great achievement. If someone has painted a full force uniformly and based them, that should impact the tournament score as much as the guy who showed up with a GW studio army.

There's some players who are fantastic painters and gamers, some who are great gamers but don't/can't paint well and some who do a decent middle ground. For a bloke with 3 kids to paint up a Tyranid force to a tabletop standard is a bigger achievement than for a lad who's a student to paint up a Grey Knight Paladin force to an amazing standard.

There's no easy solution to painting scores and I'm in no way experienced enough to start suggesting ways about it, but I think they're something that should be persisted in for this HOBBY. As it is a HOBBY, not just gaming, not just painting, not just list writing - it all folds into this hobby we enjoy.

Conclusion
For me, however well written a list is, however enjoyable my opponent has been to play against, in a tournament I've paid money to get to and taken time out of my family/work life to get to, I'll be dissappointed coming up against grey plastic.

What are your opinions on painted models in a tournament environment, painting in general and are you an advocate of painting scores affecting tournament standings?

SB

Why I Like Smaller Games

Morning all.

Having managed to squeeze in two enjoyable games of 40K in on Monday night, I got thinking on my drive to work the following day about the games the night before and why smaller points games seem to be more enjoyable at the moment.

1. Clarity of Rules
One thing I've personally had is I'm still not 100% on a lot of 6th edition rules and no matter how much I read the book, it's not sinking in. I'm the sort of person who needs to play the game, encounter a scenario and then see how the rules work for that (with a bit of prep before hand of course).

Smaller games allow you that kind of freedom to check things and not impact the length of the game drastically. It also means you don't get so many of these instances cropping up all throughout a game.

This then means that when you start stepping up to larger games like 1500 - 2500pts you know how these units handle quite well and you're not wondering how a Chariot moves, or what distance a Beast unit falls back, etc.

2. Decisions Matter More
In a lower points game like Monday night, I found myself really having to think a lot more about movement directions, distances to and from units, weapon ranges etc.

Every casualty you take in a smaller points game is felt more. There's less units for your characters to hide in, less vehicles to target saturate enemy heavy weapon troopers with.

I was using a unit of 6 Dire Avengers on Monday night in a Wave Serpent and when it eventually got blown up (it took 1 and a half games to blow up though) 3 Avengers were blown up in the aftermath. Normally, for a full 10 man unit in a Serpent that's not THAT bad. When you only have 6 models, you've lost half of your unit and half of the available shooting power. Which for Dire Avengers is baaaaaad.

3. Cinematic Feel
In larger points games, the cinematic feel comes from two large forces sweeping across the table and the odd close up moment where someone facepunches someone else to death.

However in these larger points games with multiple units of the same type, multiple heroes and such it's easy to lose the individual narratives when unit Sergeants are just a Sergeant, rather than the cowardly Dire Avenger Exarch who fled after his unit was destroyed, the vein Jetbike riders who go for the glory of capturing objectives and the warrior Farseer holding up a unit of Terminators on his own.

You do still get these moments in larger games, it's just they're far more prevalent in the smaller points games with less things to distract you from them.

4. Learning Your Army Basics
This one is very key for me as I've got Multiple Army Disorder, where I own an army for most of the 40K races, but chop and change them every week. This makes games like 1500 and 2000pts pretty slow as I don't know how half the units work in 6th, how they work at all, how any FAQs affect them, etc.

Playing 500pts with the Eldar let me get a good grasp of their statlines, how the army plays and what most of the basic weaponry does. Next game I could be playing 750pts and know very well how the units I've used previously will work and then press on with newer units in the extra points.

My plan is to add in some War Walkers and maybe some more Dire Avengers, so now I know the core of the army I can start to play around with some things. One thing was swapping the Eldar powers for Rulebook powers and see how that works for the army, since in my first game I stuck with the Codex powers.

Obviously this isn't going to work if you want to run 400+pt Nob Biker units, Riptides and equivalents or Flyers. But it'll let you get a good feel for your army, know the core rules, stats and weaponry for them and then add in the flair units like those.

5. Multiple Games / Actually Finishing Games
One problem I've found in 6th edition is actually getting games finished. A 1500pt game shouldn't take 4+ hours to finish, even in a social situation. Half of the issue comes from 6th edition generally taking longer to finish games, and the other half comes from unfamiliarity with the rules, codex or in some cases, nagging from elsewhere.

On Monday night even though I was late to show up, we managed to fit in 2 full games of 500pts and be home for 11. Previously I'd be lucky if we were on turn 3 by that time, unless I was getting absolutely pasted by Slaanesh Daemons again.

I understand that 1500 to 2000pt range is the done thing and some point in the future I'll be able to finish those games through to Turn 7, then do that comfortably and get home at a reasonable hour.

However, I'd much rather get a game finished through to Turn 7 (if it gets that far) and see it's actual conclusion rather than calling a game half way through, since a lot of armies rely on late game pushes for objectives and other armies can deal a lot of damage in the early turns, especially when reserves come into it.

6. Conclusion
So that's my take on it all. I've enjoyed the last few smaller games I've played and I think from now on, the future when using a new / changed army is to start at 500pts and build my way up from there with a few games. Then by time I'm hitting 1500pts I know the army well enough to be finishing games on a club night and in any events.

May Painting Pledge - Dark Angels Devastator Squad and Belial Complete

Morning folks.

Quick progress update from me today, expect  afew more posts on a variety of topics over the next week or so, but for now it's my progress over the weekend.

Sorry for the terrible pictures of stuff but last night the lighting was pretty bad.

I upgraded to the new Belial model and plan on using my old conversion as a Commander in Terminator armour if ever I need to use a bogstandard character. Personally with the new rules I much prefer the sword and Storm bolter combination.

Plasma Cannon Devastator squad I'd been wanting to get done for ages. Guarantee in the first game they're used I'll roll a load of Gets Hot and then they will die in the first turn.

Paint:

• 5 Dark Angels Devastators
• 1 Belial
• 1 Stormlord
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Immortals with Tesla
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblades and Shield.
• Remaining Eldar vehicle weaponry.

Build:

• 20 Bloodletters
• 1 Skullcannon / Bloodthrone

That's all for now folks! See you soon!

May Painting Pledge - Dark Angels and Necron Infantry

Morning folks.

I'm still kind of underway with my April painting pledge, but thought I would outline my plans for this upcoming month and hope I can clear off another chunk of backlog. Money is a bit tight this month, so hopefully I won't be buying any new minis to add onto this, although I'm still weighing up an army trade with someone on TWF - so that could get added on.

Last month I got all my Necron stuff sprayed up from when their new Codex came out. I've used Necrons twice in the time since their codex was released, but I'm hoping I can give them a bit more play time in the next few months and try and get myself an enjoyable 6th edition list with them.

I'm also hoping that since my Necron colour scheme is the old boring metal and black, this lot will get out of the way pretty fast. I'm sticking to the infantry this month however, as I want to take my time on the vehicles and do them at the same time as I intend to re-paint my Monoliths to match.

In addition to that lot, I've already started on painting my much anticipated (and probably quick to get shot to death) Plasma Cannon Devastator squad for my Dark Angels force. I'm hoping these guys are quick enough to get out of the way as I've already chewed into a chunk of time for this month.

On top of that, last month while I did some game trading and got a bit of cash, I went and bought myself a Belial model to replace my converted and magnetised one. With his new rules I can't imagine taking the other alternatives to the Sword and Storm Bolter, whereas in 5th edition I would always have taken the TH/SS. So he's also on the painting pile and my old model will become a Captain in Terminator Armour.

So here's this month's list in full:

Paint:

• 5 Dark Angels Devastators
• 1 Belial
• 1 Stormlord
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Immortals with Tesla
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblades and Shield.
• Remaining Eldar vehicle weaponry.

Build:

• 20 Bloodletters
• 1 Skullcannon / Bloodthrone

That's my list for the upcoming month. As I say, hopefully I've nailed DA painting and can knock the Devs and Belial out pretty quick, and the Necrons are a very, very basic colour scheme so shouldn't be too bad.

Here's hoping!
SB

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - War Walkers Complete!

Been a while without a post since life has been in the way a bit and I've been having to grind through this month's painting pledge.

I've now finished the 6 Eldar War Walkers from the pledge and this was probably a pledge of it's own. There's so many fiddly bits, resetting black armoured areas and the sheer amount of gem stones on the model too. This combined with the fact every few minutes part of one would break and I'd have to re-glue it, meant that progress was very slow for the second half of the month.

So there we go. 6 Eldar War Walkers with Scatter Lasers and a Missile Launcher in each team too for a bit of anti-armour punch / blast weaponry (and also because I didn't have enough bits for all Scatter Lasers).

In all, I've not technically finished my entire pledge... but all that's left are the various magnetised weaponry which hopefully I can finish off in a night or two. But 95% of the work is now completed and with a good run at it tonight I might be able to finish the others and plan my pledge for May.

Paint:

• 3 Wave Serpents
• 6 War Walkers
• 1 Falcon
• All the Wave Serpent, Falcon and Guardian platform weaponry.
  

Spray:

• Dark Angels Plasma Cannon Devastator Squad
• 1 Imotekh
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Tesla Immortals
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblade and shield
• 1 Ghost Ark
• 1 Catacomb Command Barge / Annihalation Barge

Buy:

• Soul Grinder (Not happening now.)
• Tyranid Additions
• Black Spray

That's all for now folks, hopefully before the weekend I can get the weaponry done and sign off my Eldar for a while, just in time for a brand new Codex. YAY.

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #4

Morning folks.

Made a bit of progress on Wednesday night with my Eldar pledge, managing to get my Falcon painted, washed and based ready for warfare!

I'm much happier with the wash on the bone coloured flat plates on this vehicle, so might re-do the older ones another time.

While I had the chance, I did the black basecoat on the Eldar Warwalkers too, so that they had plenty of time to dry but I've not had chance to make a start on painting them up yet.

On top of all that, we managed to squeeze a 1,000pt (2 x 500pt players) game in for a bit yesterday afternoon which let me try out my Brotherhood of the Forge. I really enjoyed getting to use the Sisters of Battle codex, especially since I've not looked at it at all during 6th edition. And also the fact I bothered to read the basic Sister's infantry Act of Faith again and read the bit about re-rolling 1s to hit in shooting and assault.

So... the Brotherhood of the Forge will take to the battlefield on Monday night!

SB

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #3

Morning folks.

Another progress update from me last night. I managed to get a fair chunk of work done on my Eldar Falcon. Got the brass and bone areas painted up whilst I had the chance to and made some progress on the Falcon turret.

Tonight's job will be to finish off the Falcon completely by painting the cockpits, assorted Gems on the hull and weaponry, touch up the black areas and then give the entire thing a wash.

Hopefully I can blast through that bit quite quickly and get onto basecoating the War Walkers and leave them to dry overnight. It's a shame as if I get the Falcon done, I could make good progress on the War Walkers - I should have basecoated them at the same time as the other vehicles so they were ready to go straight onto.

Who knows, maybe I can get this month's painting done in a fortnight? HERESY!

If the unthinkable does happen and I manage to finish them, I've got myself a Dark Angels Devastator squad to finish off, an Immolator to paint and various bits to build, so there'll be a Painting Pledge Plus, later on this month.

Byes!

Post-game Thoughts - Khorne Daemons v Slaanesh Daemons

Afternoon chaps!

After playing the other week using my Dark Angels against Slaanesh Daemons, I decided to have a rematch aganst them, this time using my Khorne Daemons and have Hatred going all over the place.

Back in 5th edition, and late 4th edition, I attempted to play a Khorne only Daemon army, never did too well with it but the new Codex got me all excited and I thought I'd give them another run out to see how they go.

My list was as follows (where I can remember):
- Bloodthirster
- Herald on a Juggernaut (Greater reward + Greater locus of fury)
- Herald on foot.
- 4 Bloodcrushers
- 10 Bloodletters (Icon, Instrument, Champion w/ Lesser reward)
- 10 Bloodletters (Icon, Instrument, Champion w/ Lesser reward)
- 10 Bloodletters (Icon, Instrument, Champion w/ Lesser reward)
- 8 Flesh hounds
- Skullcannon
- Soul Grinder (Iron Claw, Phlegm)


We were both battling to take control of a Warpgate in the centre of the board (The Relic) and deployed as Dawn of War. Slaanesh Daemons deployed first and got the first turn.

For my Daemonic rewards I rolled the following:
- Bloodletters #1 - 18" S8 AP4 Assault 1, Soul Blaze
- Bloodletters #2 - 18" S8 AP4 Assault 1, Soul Blaze
- Bloodletters #3 - swapped for Axe of Khorne
- Herald on Juggernaut - Re-roll failed Invulnerable saves
- Herald on Foot - Fleshbane and Armourbane

I tried to set my Bloodletter units up with a supporting unit each, 1 had Bloodcrushers, 1 had a Soul Grinder and 1 had a Skullcannon. Unfortunately, when I saw the Slaanesh daemons crossing the board at a ridiculous speed I got a bit carried away and bunged stuff forward into poor choices of assaults.

On top of that, I didn't realise quite how badly I'd do in all my assaults with the basic Bloodletters down to the fact we both had Hatred and I was striking last with reduced attacks from previous edition. In short, I was still playing most of my units as though it was 5th edition and the old Codex.

As far as the game and objectives went, the Slaanesh daemons got onto it in turn 1 and I never got near to removing them from it, due to poor shooting, bad assault decisions and some abysmal dice rolling for difficult terrain and charge distances.

The most notable was on turn 1 I chose to walk my Bloodthirster 6" and use the wings in the assault phase so I'd get hammer of wrath and a re-roll to distance. I forgot Monstrous Creatures always have hammer of wrath for a start, and then rolled 3" for my charge, followed by another 3" on the re-roll meaning he couldn't get into a nice squishy Fiend unit he was eyeing up.

Bloodcrushers die a LOT easier nowadays due to the fact they don't have the 3+ armour anymore, but make up for a bit by being able to tank some wounds. It really helped that I could re-roll the Heralds invulnerable saves too. Oh - and the other thing is that they've now dropped to T4 which was killer and I didn't realise until locked in combat... Oh dear.

Fleshhounds I didn't really get much chance to do anything with... I forgot they had Scout until I looked up there stats for getting into combat with a Seeker unit and even though they've now got 2 wounds, they got dragged down and then failed their Daemonic instability to kill them off.

Skullcannon had a prime shot on a Daemonette unit that was sat bunched up on the relic and missed completely. Then got smashed up by a Seeker unit a bit later. I'm not convinced by Chariots from my reading of the rules for them in the last few days, they seem to me like a Close combat oriented unit that's pretty easy to drag down in close combat because it's hit on rear armour. Few more games are needed with this because I still like the idea of it.

As with the Skullcannon, the Soul Grinder failed spectacularly and didn't really do anything. It managed to kill 2 Daemonettes with the big template and that was about it. Apart from one combat where he killed a few Seekers and then they rolled double 1 on their Daemonic instability and came back to life. BOOOOOO.

So anyway, notable things from this game:
- Khorne v Slaanesh in close combat is Slaanesh all the way due to the speed, number of attacks and striking first with re-rolls to hit. Maybe I should have piled more units into individual Slaanesh units.

- When playing against an opponent with no flyers and very limited shooting, don't walk around with a Bloodthirster. Fly it around, shoot stuff, vector strike and get to the soft underbelly of an army!

- Daemonic Instability rarely got used because units were wiped out to a man. The few instances it got used saw my Khorne Hounds with 2 dogs left fail by 11 or something silly, then the other with the Seekers where 4 of them came back to life due to the "reality blinks" double 1.

- On the Warpstorm table, we rolled 6 pretty much EVERY time for 4 turns. Which meant lots of D6 S4 AP3 Poisoned (4+) Ignores Cover hits got distributed, weakening my Bloodthirster and also the Keeper of Secrets.

All in all it was a really brutal game, I was wiped out apart from a Herald by turn 3 without ever getting close to the Relic or even out of my table half.

Maybe next time I'll keep some units in deep strike, take bigger Bloodletter squads and not waste so many of my units as I did.

That's all for now folks!