Painting for Advantage

[ZaelART]

Sorry, but there is no such thing as painting for advantage.

There's painting for pleasure and for fun and then using your efforts to play a game, and no one should stop you from doing it the way that you want.

The game exists on paper, the rules exist on paper, the battalions exist on paper.

It is the players that bring the game to life and they should not be limited or punished in that regard.

Comparing with 40k SM is pointless, the most unique SM chapters have their own Codex and would be considered separate armies entirely with lots of different units - making it matter even less how they are painted. The fact that you are fielding a unit that is unique to that chapter makes it obvious enough what's going on... If someone wanted to make a complete army of Space Dwarves and used the rules for Space Wolves do you think I would care? If anything I would celebrate the effort that they put in, not punish or restrict it, because the rules for Space Wolves exist on paper and the player can use their imagination to create the models that they want to best represent those rules. Now, if that player suddenly decides that his Space Dwarves are actually appropriately modelled in such a way that they could also represent Blood Angels... I still wouldn't care, because those are his models, they are suitably modelled to represent BA units and as far as I am concerned that is fine because a player can use whatever rules he wants to best represent the models that he has so painstakingly put together. Hell, if he had his Space Dwarves riding bionic goats and was previously using them as wolf cavalry but decided that today they would be Ravenwing and decided to run the army using DA rules - that still wouldn't matter to me so long as they have the correct weapons. It's still WYSIWYG as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to kick up a fuss because he hasn't spray painted them black. Maybe today they're a clan that's working their way through the book of grudges (DA), tomorrow they're a clan of berserkers (BA), while next week, they're just having a good time (SW).

[fartsocks]

I'm thinking of starting a Tzeentch army with only pink horrors painted blue, and blue horrors painted pink.

[ZaelART]

49 minutes ago, fartsocks said:

I'm thinking of starting a Tzeentch army with only pink horrors painted blue, and blue horrors painted pink.

And that shouldn't be an issue.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Local Khorne player deliberately paints his Khorne Daemons icy blue because every Khorne army and its mother are painted red. They look really cool, and 40K For Grown Ups of all places was surprisingly moan-free about it.

[Infernalslayer]

I had a similar dilemma on painting/converting my Slaves to Darkness models as followers of specific gods, but as i currently work on Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch mortal armies i would need a vast amount of models,resources and space to dedicate their appearance to each god.

Thus, i decided to paint the units that will be used for every god in a default chaos color. Any other unit that will be used for only one god, i will paint/convert it to fit more thematically to that chaos mark, for my viewing pleasure.

Bottom line, you paint your army the way you like it and if someone happens to be that much grumpy to understand that, you just avoid them as that could hint some things about their sportmanship. 

 

[Arkiham]

i feel that this discussion is going massively off track

[Galas]

Going back on topic:


-If you put soft scores you are alienating people. Yes, is just X points. But it mean "You can paint your armys as you want... but If you paint them in this colours, you will have extra points"


And as I say early, you can't just bring to the table the argument of "If people accept this is because they like it"

No! That works if you are beginning from zero a new tournament with this new rules. If you change from one year to the next the basic rules of a really big tournament, people will just accept it! Maybe a couple of guys and girls will walk away, but the vast majority will just acomodate and be alienated.

 

To put an example: This is like DLC. They started as small things. We all hate them. We all say that nobody should buy them. Just look how that ended. DLC everywhere. People as a generalization, will jump through the hoop.

Change this rule of soft score for apropiate paint schemes to a rule of: "To enter you need a white t-shirt" If people don't like it, they won't go to that tournament! 

No. They totally are gonna go to the tournament they assist every year. With a lovely, shiny, and clean white T-shirt.

 

[amysrevenge]

It's not quite the same as a purely "soft scores vs. hard scores" argument.  Disregarding the edge cases (my earlier gag about the shade of brown on a scabbard for instance), the question "does the painted colour match the published scheme" has an objective yes/no answer with no subjectivity.  By that metric, it's not a soft score it's a hard score.

 

That said, there is definitely a very different feeling to "you can get these extra points if you paint better" and "you can get these extra points if you use these certain colours".  You can aspire to improve your painting, but you don't really aspire to paint-by-numbers - it's a reading comprehension task and not an artistic task.

[Travis Baumann]

I have never followed 'Eavy Metal/White Dwarf/Box Art for any miniatures.  In fact I often try to come up with something new and different so they don't look like cookie cutter armies.  Some of the coolest photos I saw of LVO were the drastically different paint schemes for armies that I would have never thought of.  It would get pretty dull to go see 100 tables with 30 identical armies of each faction.  I find the imagination and creative individuality of different paint schemes and even conversions really inspiring.  I understand WYSIWYG weapon/banner/mount wise and basic sizing for behemoths/mounted heroes for competitive matched play, but definitely not paint schemes. 

[Galas]

 

If someone think that this deserve less score that this same miniatures painted red at the same standart... or that they hurt "clarity".. maybe he should be playing historical games.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Not the ones my mate painted, but that was the gist of it, and they look great on the table. Models are still Bloodletters.

The other point is that the argument of clarity is silly. Firstly it relies on everyone memorising schemes of every, little canon Chamber, and then what Battalions it goes to, and then using it to track exactly what units are in that Battalion. Which doesn't help with clarity at all if the entire army is painted in the Hammering Hammers scheme with the Hammer Hammernator Battalion buried in there somewhere.

[Aelfric]

Hi, I find this an interesting debate and have been moved to add my two pence.  I would like to make a logical argument; please feel free to let me know if you find my logic flawed.

There is one army book, battletome, for all Stormcast Eternals.  Within this book, the SE are broken down into Stormhosts.  Each Stormhost is made up of a number of Chambers, of which there is one of each.  

The book states that there are hundreds of Stormhosts and gives the uniform for 18 as examples.

There are 8 Chambers included as battalions that have their formation and special rules laid out explicitly - 4 Warrior, 2 Harbinger and 2 Exemplar.

If we take the 4 Warrior Chambers, these are for The Hammers of Sigmar, Hallowed Knights, Celestial Vindicators and Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

Now the only logical argument that would restrict painting schemes is to say that if you have painted your SE to represent one of the above then you should only field their specific Warrior Chamber and not one of the others.  However, if you have painted your SE to represent a Stormhost that has no defined Chamber, whether from the book or from your imagination, then you can argue that the Warrior Chamber for your Stormhost follows the SAME pattern as one laid out for those mentioned above.

I would say, therefore, that, unless you are particularly smitten by a particular Stormhost, pick one that has not been as well-defined as to limit your possibilities and reduce the chance of confusion on the gaming table. 

I hope this makes logical sense and I would just like to add that I personally would not have any problem facing any chamber no matter its paint scheme.  My Aelves on the other hand are not so confident!

This is my first proper post, so I hope I haven't inadvertently made a faux pas.

 

 

[PVG]

I think people are getting into silly territory with some of these examples. No one is complaining that your blood letters are blue, that's perfectly fine as blood letters aren't getting bonuses from being Ultra Blood letters. This actually comes down to a WYSIWYG argument more than a painting argument. If your army is painted in baby pink and has Slaanesh icons all over it can you claim it's Nurgle this week because you want that bonus?

Where do the rules for WYGIWYS and the paint schemes cross over? If I have a detachment of Wally's magical elves with +2 twangers and they look identical to Dave's Magic Elves with +2 twongers am I representing their unique traits in my painting? Does it then become reasonable to say "In the lore Wally's magical twangers turn all their hair ginger, if you want the bonus for the twanger you need to paint their hair some form of ginger or red"?

With the way GW has destroyed any sort of structure in their army building rules there is a fair debate to have about colour schemes and WYSIWYG. If my opponent is running a Stormcast death star made up of Lightning Bobs, Thunder Freds and Clapping Clives in the same formation is it unreasonable to ask for each unit to represent that unit in some fashion? GW have created a situation where identical models are performing in vastly different ways. If I as a player cannot look at your army and see which are Bobs, Freds and Clives then I would consider that be hiding public game information at worse and violating WYSIWYG at best. One of the best ways to make this function in a tournament setting is to say that your unit must represent the unit or a successor unit in an identifiable way. If we use the Space marine example then Nova marines are fine Ultramarines, but your khorne berserkers, dark angels or Dark eldar are not. They are distinct different models and this can lead to misplays based on bad information and especially in a tournament situation as being discussed here. If you're 6-8 hours deep at a tournament, tired and hungry as you finish up the last game of the day your opponent "proxying" his faction units can be the difference between a fast and effective turn and a game lost to shooting the stabby ones instead of the shooty ones both carrying the same weapons.

Casually there is no discussion to be had here. You ask your opponent and go from there based on whatever social contract you make, this is purely a tournament issue and a WYSIWYG issue at that.

[CoffeeGrunt]

The large problem has occurred with GW recently opening the floodgates in terms of mixing and matching disparate armies together. Used to be that you couldn't have Skeleton Archers alongside a Wight King, but now you can. 40K has had a similar change of state. You cite the Dark Angel / Ultramarine / Khorne Berzerkers mixup as an example, but these are different models.

This discussion is about paint jobs. You're discussing proxying, not a rigid adherence to boxart paint schemes in order to facilitate the other player. I also think it's a bit disingenuous to try and compare Sigmarines to Space Marines in this manner. The different Chapters of Space Marines are very different entities with entire series of novels characterising them, and decades of lore creating their unique identity, as well as most of the major ones having their own kits to represent the basic troops. Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Black Templars and Ultramarines all have their own unique version of the Tactical Marine boxset as well as other kits to make them wholly unique from each other.

Conversely, the Stormcast do not have this differentiation between Chambers. They're all the same kit, they're just different colours on the same armour. Minimal fluff exists differentiating them or characterising them, and very few characters have been introduced that demonstrate their unique outlooks. They are, to even a non-casual observer, all identical.

I'd argue that a cohesive paintjob is more important than having every squad be the "correct" colour, partly because it's more aesthetically-pleasing, and partly because I don't believe there is such a thing as a "correct" paintjob.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, PVG said:

GW have created a situation where identical models are performing in vastly different ways. If I as a player cannot look at your army and see which are Bobs, Freds and Clives then I would consider that be hiding public game information at worse and violating WYSIWYG at best

Very well put. 

If you're 6-8 hours deep at a tournament, tired and hungry as you finish up the last game of the day...

i think this factor is overlooked too often.   There is so much to keep track of in your own army, let alone an opponent's.  Add in the blur of models at an event, and the fatigue ... man, I just can really understand why some folks prefer to follow a tight WYSIWYG approach. And yes, paint is part of WYSIWYG. It's a component (not be all end all, just a piece) of the overall visual that informs the opponent about what the model is and what it can do. 

[PVG]

14 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

This discussion is about paint jobs. You're discussing proxying, not a rigid adherence to boxart paint schemes in order to facilitate the other player. I also think it's a bit disingenuous to try and compare Sigmarines to Space Marines in this manner. The different Chapters of Space Marines are very different entities with entire series of novels characterising them, and decades of lore creating their unique identity, as well as most of the major ones having their own kits to represent the basic troops. Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Black Templars and Ultramarines all have their own unique version of the Tactical Marine boxset as well as other kits to make them wholly unique from each other.

Conversely, the Stormcast do not have this differentiation between Chambers. They're all the same kit, they're just different colours on the same armour. Minimal fluff exists differentiating them or characterising them, and very few characters have been introduced that demonstrate their unique outlooks. They are, to even a non-casual observer, all identical.

 

At what point does proxying end and paint schemes start? If a kit makes a Space wolf, an Ultramarine and a Blood Angel is it a proxy to paint it red and use it as a space wolf or is that using the correct model? You need to remove all the fluff from this discussion, your fluff games aren't tournament games. If you want to say your hero is Sigmar himself come to smite Chaos you can, that's fine. The issue here is WYSIWYG when identical models are representing unique entities within the rules. At the level of discussion this sits on is one completely split from having a nicely painted army to play against and it's closer to "Does the miniatures on the board fairly represent the game state?" In a tournament setting the functionality of the game transcends all other aspects of the game.

[deynon]

I'm quite in the middle. Sincerely I would't like to see an army played with different rules only cause more favourable. But recently I had a similar priblem with the 40k. I had a formation for my BA and a similar one for the SM with the terminators cheaper, doing the same thing... I decided to use anyway the SM version and I've choosen the trait more suitable for BA ones. Anyway, the same apply to other formations.

Ones the not mixing of the armies naturally forbud such things, now why not use them? They can characterize and make you personalize you army. 

In 40k by bg is usual to see different chapters working together.  And they have the same tactic  manual to refer to.

Moreover invented chapters can do whatever they want.

In AOS I think it's even more so. There can be chambers more suited to some tactics but they are all the same at the end. What change are the roles of the units. 

Only one thing I think is essential: every unit can't be confused if it has special abilities cause formations or warscroll battalions with another one similar on the field

[Galas]

Then, if you had units that are part of different batallions should you paint or mark them to help clarity?

 

I actually, as Coffeegrunt said, think is more important to have a cohesive paint scheme than the correct paint scheme. Its not the same saying "My army is all black, but they are all using the Sigmar's Hammers rules" that "Those pink stormcast are Hallowed Kings, this group painted green with a magenta wash are Sigmar's Hammers" etc...

And comparing Dark Angels with Blood Angels and Space Wolves its not equivalent here. Blood Angels don't have Fenrisian Cavalry or Wulfen, Space Wolves didn't have Crusader Terminators, and Dark Angels don't have the Sanguinor. They are in all effects complete different factions with even totally different units, not the same faction with rules asociated to a paint scheme. (This is comparable with the Chapter Tactics of Codex: Space Marines. All my Imperial Fist are usin Black Templar Rules, for example)

The same with batallions. "All those stormcast with a red shoulder are from Batallion 1, the ones with a blue shoulder are from Batallion 2" 

[deynon]

4 hours ago, Galas said:

Then, if you had units that are part of different batallions should you paint or mark them to help clarity?

 

I actually, as Coffeegrunt said, think is more important to have a cohesive paint scheme than the correct paint scheme. Its not the same saying "My army is all black, but they are all using the Sigmar's Hammers rules" that "Those pink stormcast are Hallowed Kings, this group painted green with a magenta wash are Sigmar's Hammers" etc...

And comparing Dark Angels with Blood Angels and Space Wolves its not equivalent here. Blood Angels don't have Fenrisian Cavalry or Wulfen, Space Wolves didn't have Crusader Terminators, and Dark Angels don't have the Sanguinor. They are in all effects complete different factions with even totally different units, not the same faction with rules asociated to a paint scheme. (This is comparable with the Chapter Tactics of Codex: Space Marines. All my Imperial Fist are usin Black Templar Rules, for example)

The same with batallions. "All those stormcast with a red shoulder are from Batallion 1, the ones with a blue shoulder are from Batallion 2" 

The units doesn't have to be confused. Such thing apply to everything, technically even units of the same type in the same warscroll battalion.

If one wants to use a dofferent army it can use modified models to represent it. IE I painted some stormtalons as BA cause I liked the models ahd I wanted to play the formation. In the case of crusader terminators is simply to realize them modifying termies giving them appropriate weapons, I'm used to magnetoze the arms of my termies, it would be easy to do such a thing and with thematic shieòds too. 

Some for the sanguinor or cavalry modifying or personilizing and using the rules to the models. So there's not such a limit if someone wants to use it. It's not different than usong different chapter tactics: they are anyway different armied and at the same time marines.

In the past I found a lot of chaos marone players who used the templars or BA rules for they khorne marine armies adapting the models cause they thought the rules difn't represent their army. And they had marvellous armies all modified to do such.

So appealing to the color of the army is not quite useful. 

Moreover often the rules change. I have sanguinary priests in terminator armour cause with the previous BA codex was avalaible, now not more. All converted. I don't use it in the TO, but in some specific HR battles yes. Or for example if I want to use cataphracii terminators as my ones with the rules of normal ones... would you deny it? 

 

[CoffeeGrunt]

As Galas noted, using First Founding Chapters from Space Marines is a false equivalence, so it's probably best to drop that as a concept in this discussion.

As far as ensuring perfect tournament clarity, this requires players to now memorise not only all the rules for each faction, but also all the paint schemes that apply. This also retroactively applies to Sylvaneth, Bonesplitters, Disciples of Tzeentch, and any other Battletomes that have this format of Battalions, which means retroactively negating the ability to field armies that are 6 month old or less unless the owner repaints them.

I thought the beauty of Sigmar for competitive play was removing the rules bloat of Fantasy and 40K. Surely this only adds another layer of complexity that makes remembering your opponents' capabilities even more annoying?

Additionally, there's no real way you could actually enforce it mid-tournament without looking like a right killjoy. As much as you claim otherwise, there are more aspects to the game than the pure gameplay, and in areas such as America where tournaments are the primary means of meeting and playing other players, not everyone goes there for the gameplay, and not many at all go purely for the gameplay.

[Thebiggesthat]

So this has developed since I posted last 

I'll put in my current situation, to try and give more context. I have just got hold of a load of Stormcast, already sprayed silver. And some with some gold trim and red cloth. Now I really like the scheme, and was looking at doing some Hallowed Knights, simply because I liked the fluff behind them.

Now because I have got a slightly different paint scheme, should I be penalised? If I decided to go to a Tournament, and wanted to place as high as possible, should I have to repaint all the red to blue? 

[Captain Marius]

This is all still very hypothetical. Has anyone actually tried out a sigmarine army with one of these themed battalions yet? They all look pretty meh to me, id rather spend the points on more troops. Has anyone had any experience actually using any of these?

The only battalion ive seen in any army that looks like a must-use is Gnarlroot for Sylvaneth, which enhances all your wizards and consequently wyldwoods to a crazy level.

Still, the fact that you are paying points for these battalions means no one is getting free bonuses for using a certain paintscheme. It really is down to TOs to make this an issue or not.

[Thebiggesthat]

19 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

This is all still very hypothetical. Has anyone actually tried out a sigmarine army with one of these themed battalions yet? They all look pretty meh to me, id rather spend the points on more troops. Has anyone had any experience actually using any of these?

The only battalion ive seen in any army that looks like a must-use is Gnarlroot for Sylvaneth, which enhances all your wizards and consequently wyldwoods to a crazy level.

Still, the fact that you are paying points for these battalions means no one is getting free bonuses for using a certain paintscheme. It really is down to TOs to make this an issue or not.

I'm also a Syvaneth player, Gnarlroot is what I have used, and fortunately I ended up with the Gnarlroot colours (A ruddy orange-brown wood with greens) simply because I liked them

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

the fact that you are paying points for these battalions means no one is getting free bonuses for using a certain paintscheme.

You pay points for a lascannon, too. You still need to show it on the model.  Points+visual representation = fair to the opponent. 

[amysrevenge]

Yeah, but while it looks like one, it is NOT a slippery slope argument to ask to what extent you must conform to visual representation in order to be "fair to the opponent".

OK, Hallowed Knights are silver and blue.  Is any model that is silver and blue good enough to be fair to the opponent?  Or does it have to be the exact GW paints for that particular silver and that particular blue?  What about layers and highlights - is a basecoat-only model fair to the opponent or does it have to follow the scheme to the end?  My joke a couple pages back applies perfectly - what if the cloth bits at the waist are red instead of brown, on an otherwise 100% White Dwarf paint splatter standard?  Is that fair to the opponent?

Like I've said before: WYSIWYG for kit is easy - you can very quickly find a widely-agreed upon demarcation line between what is acceptable or unacceptable.  WYSIWIG for colours is pretty much a non-starter - you would NOT be able to find agreement upon any arbitrarily chosen demarcation line between acceptable and unacceptable.

Personally, I would argue for days and days against any ruling demanding WYSIWYG for colours at any event I was remotely associated with (and take note, bonus points for matching a scheme is EXACTLY equivalent to docking points for not matching a scheme, especially when only a small sampling of armies even have schemes that need adherence).  And if I lost that battle, I would immediately flip to demanding 100% adherence to the entire scheme, right down to colour selection for washes and highlight layers and drybrushing.  Because there's no point in between No Requirement and 100% Adherence that makes sense to select.