Does Painting Have a Place in Major Tournaments?




As the Hogs of War have been frequenting more and more tournaments lately, I have begun to wonder if a large painting subscore really has its place in a tournament setting. If you followed any of the post Big Waaagh Drama, painting scores that increased by 150% this year ultimately led to a huge disagreement and arguments on how things should have been handled. The resulting outcry was anything but subtle.

Now before I go on, I should state that generally our number fair very well on the softscores portions of tournaments and several of us are capable of higher painting scores. However, many people do not possess the abilities to paint to a higher standard, and I too, will never paint to a Golden Daemon Caliber model.

So my thought is do the masses think that painting be a fundamental part of tournaments left to a sole judges discretion to give you up to 1/4 of your total points? Or should it always be handled by checklist that is published in advance?

A local tournament we are about to go to (Patriot Games) does a single 10 point painting checklist. One point for 3 colors, one point for basing, another for scenic basing, one for shading and highlights, etc. The benefit is that everyone knows what is expected but no one shines or gains an advantage due to art backgrounds or the like. I think I am starting to agree with this... . Give Sportsmanship, give a basic painting rubric, and battle it out. Get down to playing some 40k. Then allow the painting competition to be hashed out by everyone choosing players choice....

Sure painting to a high standard has its place, but I'm starting to think that should be handled in a painting competition!

What do you think? Am I wrong? Lets hear it!