Too Paint or Not - part 2

Okay,

While going through some of my favorite blogs, I ran across a Rant by a fellow gamer & Blogger John over at Plastic Legions http://plasticlegions.blogspot.com/ To par phrase John, he has issues with the GW Circuit events that are not staying strict with painting. It would seem that most events per the post are allowing unpainted models to be entered in the events. This goes against any sort of GW Grand Tournament in the past which required you to have all painted models.

Now I took some time to take a look at the events & John was correct, most of them state that you do not have to have a fully painted army, but it is highly encouraged. Now most events are using the guidelines found on the IndyGT website http://www.indygt.com/ which is a great site and they encourage people to play regardless of what the paint or model type is made from, hence the Indy GT rules. They are not as strict as the GW GT rules, which is fine and you see a ton of cool looking models with these rules.

Now my Beef along with fellow Blogger John is the paint part. I admit it, I am a paint snob! I like seeing painted models on the tabletop. I have been know to play with unpainted models at my house while trying out a new army. But if I go out in public to play, you will see painted armies from me on the table. Also if I was playing in a tournament that had loose rules for paint, I will still show up with painted stuff. Take for example my good friend Dean who organized a Lord of the Rings primer event this past November. Since it was a primer event, he kept the rules for painting very lax. The purpose was for folks to try out armies for the Gathering in the Desert event in February 2009. I spent the week before hand painting up a 350 point army and had it ready to go with two days to spare. Which I then built a display board for the army (Actually two boards were built. But all but one guy had fully painted armies at the event, so there must be a few people that think like me.

Now I am not saying that all the events should be the same, but my feeling is if this is a Grand Tournament than shouldn't the armies on the table look Grand? GW is moving towards more folks like myself running large events. Now if GW is allowing us to run these events in lue of them running GT's, than shouldn't we as organizers follow some of the guidelines that GW used to adhere too? Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we need to run all the events just like the last or next one, but shouldn't painting be the same on all of the events? Painting is part of the Hobby of GW, heck most people have at least one or two bottles of GW paint on their paint tables.

I look at painting like a steak, when its raw, it is not very appetising looking, but once its cooked and plated up it looks astounding and you can't wait to eat it! Painted armies are the same way when I look at them. When I see someone playing with an unpainted army, it does nothing for me, but when I see a fully painted army, when I know the person put a ton of work into painting it than it inspires me. Heck it even makes me want to rush out and start another project! So why would anyone want to show up to a Grand Tournament with unpainted stuff.

Another thing, my local guys that I game with are harsh, like I mentioned above, they will give me crap if I showed up with unpainted stuff. This is not a bad thing, in fact for me it spures me onto finishing a project or army. Because of this I have a couple of fully painted WAB armies (Vikings & Normans) 3 Lord of the Rings armies (Dwarfs, Easterlings, and Orcs that can be for any army) there is also about 200+ WW2 28mm figs that I have painted and 2 40k armies (Sisters of Battle & Imperial Guard) and throw in a few other models (Pirates, Old West, Near Future, Pulp) you get the picture. All of these were do to wanting to play with my buddies with my own painted stuff.

So after a longish rant, there you go, I am a Paint snob and as long as I am running events than there will be a painting requirement...