A plea...

[AoM]

Redstripe's brought up a good point. None of the tournament stuff was ever intended to compete with the painting contests. The Wyrd painting contests are totally separate from any painting prizes that might be involved with a Malifaux tournament. Malifaux might be Wyrd, but Wyrd is not just Malifaux (see Twisted line).

[AoM]

Thanks for the clarification. In my mind that is fine. Although I also fully support back alley knife fights to settle ties in tournaments as well. But painted vs not painted seems less messy and more legal.

well, what happens when both undefeated armies are painted? There's always going to be rooms for "the simple joys of a monkey knife fight."

[elysium64]

What we'd been discussing was a bump just for having a fully painted and based force. there was nothing subjective about what we've been thinking about and discussing so far. merely an objective "is it fully painted or not" type of thing. The subjective, "best painted" side of things will be completely separate. We've just been looking at things where 2 people could go undefeated, but one has a fully painted army, and the other has a completely bare metal or primer army. They both played just as well, and there would just be a nudge from being fully painted.

Great, this I think is the way to go. Encouraging players to make some effort so all the games look good hopefully drawing in new players.

[Keltheos]

Sweet, game's not even on the shelves yet and someone's already brought up the 3rd rail of gaming - painted vs. unpainted...;)

[AoM]

You know us, Kel. we'll find all the problems. and if we can't find any, we'll make them up.

[Timberhick]

I completely disagree, not just globally with your opinion but also that game companies ignore the painting part.

you see the Hobby is two-ways.. one side is painting, the other side is gaming. what you are saying is basically that the "competition" during gaming should also focus on painting.. but I think thats silly.. I mean the many painting competitions dont involve the gaming side right ?
lets take the biggest company as an example... lets say someone enters golden demon with a unit of space marines, and the other enters a much better painted unit of grotz, but loses because grotz would never win from space marines in a game ? its completely silly, because the painting competition has technically speaking NOTHING to do with the gaming side.

I understand and agree that it looks much better to see painted miniatures on the gametable, even people who dont want or can paint their miniatures for whatever reason would agree to that. but especially when talking about competitive gaming (tournaments.) it is in fact the game that matters, not the looks.
and forcing these things together is unfair (as said before, there allready are painting competitions for the painting side, wich are usually much more rewarded and appraised than the game competitions as they are allready.) and also a bit stupid business wise, its allready an obscure hobby, dont make it even worse by alienating over half of the potentially interested parties.

as for leaving miniatures unpainted being "insultive" to the companies ? not so sure about that, while I do paint my miniatures I often find my inproper paintjobs are much more insulting to the miniature than leaving it tin with a prime layer only also I dont see why a company should take insult by that.
while its always good to see painted variants, the process from idea trough concept trough sculpt and final production, its allready rewarding on its own, and if people like and enjoy the final product but dont want to paint them, it shouldnt be insulting or any other negative emotion, after all, they like it so much its still ok in its bare form, a job well done Id say.

The hobby isn't two sides though. The hobby is painting and playing. It is us who want there to be two sides. I look at it this way, depending on your perspective, this is a hobby that after painting your miniatures you get the joy of playing with them or in order to play in the big tournaments you have to paint your miniatures.

I am in no way deluding myself into thinking that the average tournament in Smallville will have a painting requirement, what I am pleading for is the big tournaments(cons or hopefully the Wyrd only tournaments weekends) all have a painting requirement. I have been to both grand tournaments and PP tournaments, the difference is huge.

so to round it up, I love the painting side of the hobby, but if anything the gaming side of the hobby is the underappreciated side of things (even tough we are talking about gaming miniatures here.. the game SHOULD come first, then the creative side.), lets not make that worse than it is.

I needed to separate this particular part out. In the last 5-10 years years this doesn't hold water imo. The hobby has been all about the 'game'. Why would you think the game should come first for? Why does the game need to have the limelight? Why even have minitures for if the game is the important part? Would it not be easier for a company to produce cardboard counters then to spend all the effort into producing a miniature?
We all know people who are much better gamerz then painters and much better painters then gamerz. Why should Nathan be catered towards, because he games better, over Eric who is a better painter? There will always be more tournaments then painting competitions. Why should Nathan be able to walk around with a chestful of medals and ribbons while Eric only has a statue or two?

[Timberhick]

Sweet, game's not even on the shelves yet and someone's already brought up the 3rd rail of gaming - painted vs. unpainted...;)

Darn tootin'

Nip it in the bud now and we wont have to continue to have the topic.

I(big IMO incoming) do not want the travesty of what PP did to continue to filter out through the community. You may not agree with me and I couldn't care less, but seeing the sea of pewter at their tournaments and being fully encouraged by the designers to have it that way sucked for the community.

Nathan and Eric are going to have to think long and hard about what Malifaux is going to be about. Is it going to be just about the rules or is it going to be about the whole hobby.

[Keltheos]

Well, let's just be clear, the 'hobby' isn't the 'game' and the 'game' isn't 'painting'. ;)

I don't want to get into it, but things basically boil down to this (and these are generalities, but pretty much spot on in my 18 years of gaming):

Hobbyists don't understand the gamer's perspective...
Gamers don't care about the painting...
Painters don't need a game...

I'm a gamer first, painter second, hobbyist 3rd. I don't have enough time/opportunity to get my miniatures painted, and I'd rather have peweter on the table than - to me - a poorly painted model. I do love writing about gaming, so isn't working up fiction for your guys also part of the hobby? Should I get upset when there's not 5-page long treatments of each model in my force and their backstories to go along? For me, the words fuel the imagination more than the painted fig.

That said, do I like seeing games with fully painted models? Sure. Would I like to have some? Sure. Would I spend my gaming time just painting if I had time for one or the other? Nope.

I'm a big proponent of rewarding painting - outside of the tournament itself.

[EricJ]

(by the way, I both paint AND game FAR better than Nathan)

[Timberhick]

Well, let's just be clear, the 'hobby' is the 'game' and 'painting'.:marshmell

So it's 'lets cater to the Gamers only?'

It is the community who wants the divisions not the actual hobby. The hobby doesn't care less about the game, the hobby doesn't care less about the painting. The hobby cares about both equally. It is the people who make issues about one over the other. Think of all the hobbies out there that need the whole and not just a part, can't really be a scrap booker without the scrapbook itself, having everything you want to put into the book and showing that off doesn't show the whole effect properly without the book to put it into.

We expect, when people show up to a tournament, that they will bring everything they need to play. It will most likely be a requirement to bring the actual models in order to play, but why? The miniature is merely a representation of some stats, you can use anything for that. 3 nickels for Ice Gamins, halfdollar for the Ice Golem, quarter for Rasputina and we have a fully playable Cult of December. Why does it matter to put the actual models on the table when the game itself is what is important.

Like I said I have no delusions that there will be a painting requirement for local tournies, however when having a tounrament at a Con, it is more than just about the players having fun, it is also a tool for publicity. Seeing a sea of pewter compared to a sea of painted models..there is no comparission