Complaints

I am not quite as irritated as my little man seems to be (although I like his outfit, since I look like that most days)

But recently I have had some complaints regarding the way Tournaments both local and regional seem to be going. I realize that I am going to be a voice in the darkness, but that doesn't bother me.

I read a lot of posts against certain aspects of the hobby, and listen to the same on Podcasts. In addition I look at tournament organization and how points are done as well before I start my complaint.

Now, first off, I'm no fluffy bunny. I don't believe in Comp, I believe you should bring whatever list you want, and you shouldn't get dinged for anything like that. I think all comp is generally arbitrary.

Saying that, it appears that the anger against comp has bled out into other areas, as more and more support is drummed up to make the Overall winner at events the same thing as Best General. I see more and more tournaments giving less (or no) points for painting/modeling/converting. I have a real problem with this. I think that Overall encompass all aspects of the hobby, it's OVERALL after all, not best general. If all you are really judging is battle points anyway, then let's call a spade a spade, it's a battle points tournament. I understand that there are battle point purists that want some type of hyper competitive environment, but I'm not one of them. If Overall is going to be the same as Best General (and thus get all the best prize support) shouldn't we switch best general over to best hobbyies and it be combination of other events?

40K and Fantasy are more then us pushing unpainted pieces of plastic around the table. I will play with unpainted models, even proxies, but when I go to tournament, I want to see a lovingly crafted army that someone put their heart and soul into, not something someone dumps on the table.

My fear is that as we make painting and hobby less and less a part of the tournament scene, people will do it less and less, and we will end up with gray armies against gray armies. One of the reasons I painted my first army completely was because I knew I had to be able to win local tournaments. The other players were good, and I needed to make sure that I scraped in every point I could add together to get the job done. I think that is something we should encourage. I don't care if I fight four different leafblower lists in a row, as long as each one has some soul with it. Are you playing Steel Legion fresh from Armageddon? Death Korps that have brand new flat grey vehicles heading for an assault? How many people would show up to tournaments with unpainted models if they could... I would say at least 50%.

Last week I did a break down of the Wargames Con points, and effectively, there is little difference between Best General and Overall. The painting between a 3 color model army and a master-crafted army is 5 pts of their total out of 400 total points(that is 1%). Where is the reward or encouragement to really paint a high end army, to go all out? Is this what the hobby wants, is this what we want as players? Also, there is no award for best army, so why bother with a display base, flags, individual soul for your models... there is no reason. I don't care, but invest some spirit with them, make them yours, and I think that should be rewarded in the points department... not much... but more then 1%. Maybe up to 5% max on the points?

Now, saying all that, I want to say that it's their tournament (as it is for each organizer who throws one). I have thrown tournaments and run large events before and generally you can't make anyone happy, any of the time. For each thing those poor individuals do and decide someone will complain. Perhaps this is just coming from someone that grew up in the GW Tournament scene where presentation and interesting list building was part of the points total. I certainly have no desire for any comp, but shouldn't we reward the conversion/entire army painting?

Just some thoughts to chew on.