Encouraging Painting

[TornadoCreator]

One thing I've noticed is there are a lot of unpainted battle reports on YouTube and so many people seem to play with unpainted models as standard. One thing that my local clubs are doing to prevent this is punish unpainted or none-representative units. For every unit played that's unpainted you lose 50 victory points, for units that are not solid representatives you lose 50 victory points (ie. using Tomb King Skeleton Horsemen as Tomb King Skeleton Horse Archers or using Undivided Chaos Warriors with Shield as Khorne Chaos Warriors with Great Weapons), using "counts as" models that are completely none-representative loses you 100 victory points (ie. using empty horses to represent cavalry, using empty chariots, using empty bases with tooth pick flags, using models from other armies as "counts as"). This stacks per unit, so if you have 5 units all unpainted, you're starting on -250 victory points.

What do people think of this tactic? Would this encourage you to paint your army or what? For me, as I'm currently using largely empty bases and "counts as" models because I've only just started back up it puts me at a disadvantage but I'm honestly not that bothered as I fully intend to paint my army, but I know a lot of people don't enjoy the painting and just want to game. What are your opinions? Do you have better ideas on how to encourage people to paint their armies? Do you agree with the club that this method is simple, fair and easy to run?

[RaShondala]

I think that's absolutely ridiculous. People might genuinely only have time to paint one model every week or so, and punishing them for that seems very anal.

The Tales here are absolutely wonderful inventions though. If more places did that, more models would be painted.

[Lance Tankmen]

i encouraged all my friends to paint there models, and we dont play with unpainted, save for our TK friend who uses 6 horsemen bases and 3 chariot bases but he works 40 hours a week and goes to school, and plays in a band, so i paint some of his models here and there. as for the count as models, love it

[theunwantedbeing]

What do people think of this tactic? Would this encourage you to paint your army or what? For me, as I'm currently using largely empty bases and "counts as" models because I've only just started back up it puts me at a disadvantage but I'm honestly not that bothered as I fully intend to paint my army, but I know a lot of people don't enjoy the painting and just want to game. What are your opinions? Do you have better ideas on how to encourage people to paint their armies? Do you agree with the club that this method is simple, fair and easy to run?

I really like the idea.
Very simple, very easy to enforce and manage.

I'm sure some people will be stubborn and not turn up as a result, but those are going to be the type who aren't worth keeping as part of the gaming community anyway.
The "no time to paint" lot who refuse to exchange gaming time for painting time.

[Ramius4]

While it's certainly neat to look at, painted units or proxied models have no bearing on gameplay whatsoever. Mind you, I havent' played in a store in probably 10 years, and things like that are precisely why. The point of the game is to have fun, not whine about whether or not the other guy painted his army. There's a large number of people who have absolutely zero interest in ever painting their stuff. How does the opinion of the people that do prefer to paint, somehow carry more weight than theirs?

I really like the idea.
Very simple, very easy to enforce and manage.

I'm sure some people will be stubborn and not turn up as a result, but those are going to be the type who aren't worth keeping as part of the gaming community anyway.
The "no time to paint" lot who refuse to exchange gaming time for painting time.

Pfffft! There are 'gamers' and there are 'hobbyists', and people of every shade in between. Apparently you're a hobbyist-elitist-snob. And I would say that's "not worth keeping as part of the so called community".

I paint my armies. But I could give a rats ass if the person across from me does. It's really like claiming that someone is doing something wrong because they didn't paint their chess pieces... Seriously.

[Artinam]

Meh, don't like it. It also encourages people painting as quickly as possible with disasterous results. Organising painting days might be a better idea. Should such subtle measures fail I'd put in some restrictions.

We had a massive tank battle once with Flames of War and every tank had to be painted to participate. My friends helped me getting my Panzer IV hordes in coat of paint.

[DareX2]

I don't think in-game bonuses or penalties for painted minis is a good idea. There are many reasons minis don't get painted, and laziness is only one of them. Likewise, some people are more interested in playing the game than in the crafting aspect of the hobby.

Instead, try and make painting a social thing. Have scheduled painting sessions, where there's a set schedule time to get together and paint. This can be every third Friday, for example, or it can be a post game experience where players talk about the last game while building/painting/etc.

As suggested, the Tales of Gamers army log is another good way of getting people interested in painting. It can be appeal to the slightly competitive side of people, encouraging them to keep up with the group. Another possibility is to spend a lot of time talking about painting and conversions, and generally leading by example. Passion and excitement are contagious.

Finally, if you really want to enforce painting at the club, simply set a club rule where models must be painted with some effort to be put on the tabletop.

Again, I can't discourage the practice of punishing players for not painting their army, especially in a club setting.

[Graxy]

Considering VPs are there to reward tactical plays (or luck in many circumstances), and having something painted doesn't affect tactics whatsoever, I don't think it's a great idea. I know that some tourneys have their own ways of docking players for unpainted armies, but that's more along the lines of resolving overall ties in points (e.g. if 2 players scored 30 pointts overall using the 20-0 system in a 3 game tournament, but one army is painted and the other isn't, the painted one may be awarded a place higher than the other (just a rough example)), but as far as the actual gameplay of the hobby goes, you shouldn't be forced to do something that you don't enjoy or don't have time to do if you want to have greater success.

[shelfunit.]

Personally I don't like to play with unpainted armies, but I am more than happy to play against them. If I was a store staffer who wanted to encourage them I'd do it as some form of "escalation" league type of thing, as a campaign with maybe extra resources going to painted units, or a bonus on a unit experience table* roll. Something that has a very low result on an individual game, but which over a period of time works out to be definate advantage to a painted army.

*Totally random on the spot ideas here if you can't tell...

[tmarichards]

My reports almost always feature fully painted armies, but that's mainly because I almost exclusively play in tournaments at the moment, and if it's not up to minimum standard you can't use it.

I've always liked the idea of a sliding scale for painting at clubs- from the first time you bring in an army to play with, there has to be some progress next time. Not much, but a little.

[TornadoCreator]

Wow, I'm shocked at the negative response. I was under the impression most professional clubs and GW stores refused to let you play at all with unpainted models, excessive "counts as" models etc. and so far I've been allowed to play where half my army is represented by tooth-picks in blue tack with a scrap of paper with, "Chaos Warrior" written on it. Is it annoying that I loose 100 VP for using them, sure, but I'm playing with club terrain on club boards in club rented rooms, against someone who's spent a few hundred pounds to collect and paint his army and I have movement trays of tooth-picks...

If I don't want to play with penalties the club has over 3000 points worth of fully painted Bretonnians and Orcs & Goblins which are free to use for club members, and the club has a weekly painting day for people to get painting lessons or just paint somewhere where there's space etc. and the club provides paint. The local GW stores let our club even use non-GW models and unfinished armies when we game in their upper-floor games rooms (probably because we're a big club and spend a decent amount of cash there). I'm not sure it's all that much of a punishment really.

Still, overall I can see why some people would be against it, some people enjoy gaming and not painting and don't want to be penalised. There was a Skaven player in our club who's army is entirely unpainted except for an undercoat of black and he got very pissed at the rule because he said it was unfair for people who play horde armies like Skaven and Vampires who wouldn't have the time to paint everything. I can see his point but when the club is providing the tables, terrain, and gaming space I tend towards agreeing with there house rules... and as someone who has an entirely unpainted and unfinished army, it's a rule that really does hurt for me, (I lose most games as at current I'm starting with -950 victory points for a 4000 point game, but like I say half my army are tooth-picks at the moment so I don't think I have the right to complain).

[Graxy]

In a fair few amount of stores, I know that most staff members won't care about painting stanards or painted armies, mainly since they're making more money off of model sales than they are making off of paint sales. That being said, they still have a good knowledge of the hobby and know that people won't want to buy something without making sure it will work, so many will be fine with proxying to test, but permanent proxies (e.g. gnoblars with no extra work but an extra head on one model which will count as the champin being used as horrors) are a no-no.

[Nubl0]

we just have the occasional painting competition around here, like large monster, regiment/units and heroes. Everyone enjoys entering and eventually you end up with a painted army if you do it enough heh.

[DareX2]

Still, overall I can see why some people would be against it, some people enjoy gaming and not painting and don't want to be penalised. There was a Skaven player in our club who's army is entirely unpainted except for an undercoat of black and he got very pissed at the rule because he said it was unfair for people who play horde armies like Skaven and Vampires who wouldn't have the time to paint everything. I can see his point but when the club is providing the tables, terrain, and gaming space I tend towards agreeing with there house rules... and as someone who has an entirely unpainted and unfinished army, it's a rule that really does hurt for me, (I lose most games as at current I'm starting with -950 victory points for a 4000 point game, but like I say half my army are tooth-picks at the moment so I don't think I have the right to complain).

The problem is that it's encouragement by punishment, which is the worst way to convince a person to do anything. It just breeds resentment and casts the whole hobby in a negative light. The hobby is all about having fun, and it's not fun to walk into a game where you're not only getting the stink-eye for not being able to finish your army before you bring it to the club, but as a result you lose before even setting up your minis. People who have families, work more than forty hours a week, have other hobbies, paint slowly, or generally do not have time to paint between 50 - 200 toys are made into outcasts.

I appreciate that your club wants to have standards, but I think the way they're going about it is poor. If they want solutions to people bringing painted armies, they should focus on rewarding players for painting instead of punishing players for not painting. Maybe offer painted armies a bonus to scenario, terrain, deployment or first turn rolls. Maybe a fully painted army gets one free re-roll per game. Maybe create a system similar to the loyalty rewards cards of cafes, where every time a club member brings a new fully painted unit to the club they get a whole punched in their card; after X number of punches, they may exchange their card to re-roll any roll (even a roll made by the opponent!) in a game.

[Urgat]

Well, to be honest, I don't like it either. I play warhammer because I love to play a game between two cool-looking armies, and really don't like unpainted armies much, but it's no reason for me to enfore it on others. What I could do, were I to belong to a club with a selection of other players, is to just play the ones who have painted armies if it's obvious the others have no intention whatsoever to touch a paint pot. The rules are much better these days, but I still have a hard time understanding why people would play Warhammer just for them. Well anyway nope, don't like this idea, enforcing stuff (beyond necessary rules) is a bad idea. If I don't like someone's army (or the guy itself), I just don't play him.

[spikedog]

I've always liked the idea of a sliding scale for painting at clubs- from the first time you bring in an army to play with, there has to be some progress next time. Not much, but a little.

This, as long as there is some progress then playing against unpainted is fine. For people that don't paint at all then rather than penalizing them I always liked the idea of giving bonuses to the opponent. So if a painted unit attacks an unpainted one they get +1 to hit or something. So if two players both with unpainted armies play there is no bonus but it gives people that take time and effort to produce a nicely painted army (or even a regular painted one) a little bit of a consolidation from having to play an unpainted one.

[Sexiest_hero]

I have a kid, a job, a wife and a small Apt. Although I've primed everything, I get maybe a hour of paint time at 2 am once a week before I pass out. I usually wake up with the shattered remains of my GUO and Chaos lord having a tea party with my two year old. So I don't fault anybody for not painting. You never know their home life.

[Bad monkey]

I have a kid, a job, a wife and a small Apt. Although I've primed everything, I get maybe a hour of paint time at 2 am once a week before I pass out. I usually wake up with the shattered remains of my GUO and Chaos lord having a tea party with my two year old. So I don't fault anybody for not painting. You never know their home life.

Mr hero, you have hit the nail on the head. I would love to paint more but real life just wont allow it.

Encouraging some sort of painting challenge might be better than punishing folks in game. As if anything it would only serve to put folks off playing you, I know it would me.

[TornadoCreator]

That's one of the reasons I'm glad no-one but me touches my things. I'm a horder. I've got a large DVD collection, I collect classic video games complete in box, I have roleplaying books no longer in print from the 80's, and I'm starting to collects wargaming miniatures again... a child would be the equivalent of a small tornado (somewhat fitting for my name), but still, I don't think I could handle that. All it would take is seeing Archaon Lord of the End Times, now covered in glitter and wearing a tiny pink hat, his sword snapped off because "it's naughty to walk around with knives", now going shopping with a My Little Pony ridden by a Bratz doll to make my poor brain give up and walk out..

[theunwantedbeing]

I have a kid, a job, a wife and a small Apt. Although I've primed everything, I get maybe a hour of paint time at 2 am once a week before I pass out. I usually wake up with the shattered remains of my GUO and Chaos lord having a tea party with my two year old. So I don't fault anybody for not painting. You never know their home life.

I think the best way to encourage painting is to provide a place to paint at the club.
Also providing paints and brushes and such.
Then you give a bit of prefferential treatment to players who either already have fully painted armies, or who have been painting their army.

eg.
Gamer 1, 2 & 3
1 & 2 have been waiting an hour to play.
Gamer 3 turns up 5 minutes before a table opens up
Gamer 1 & 3 then get to play each other, gamer 2 has to wait some more.

Why?
3's army is more painted than 2's is.
Also 2 didn't spend that hour painting his stuff.

eg.
Gamer 1, 2 & 3
1 & 2 have been waiting an hour to play.
Gamer 3 turns up 5 minutes before a table opens up.
Gamer 2 is asked if he wants to keep painting and let gamer 3 play

See, much better all because gamer 2 was showing he was putting in some effort to paint his stuff.
Nobody is treated unfairly.