I don't know about you guys but I'm sick of seeing a table full of unpainted grey and silver miniatures, why spend hundreds of Pounds, Dollars, Euros, Goats etc on an army when they just sit unloved and unpainted for eternity? Well part of my new year resolution is that I will strive to get my millions of miniatures painted starting with my Space Wolves!After discussing this with my three closest gaming buddies we all felt the same and suggested we do something to motivate ourselves into painting an army. After a bit of thought my mind wandered back to spring 2009 when White Dwarf did a feature called "A Tale of Four Gamers." Those of you that read it will remember that they got four gamers who each started a new army and were set deadline to assemble and paint the armies whilst getting in plenty of games, sounds good to me.
So with a bit of thought I came up with some basic rules and got the guys on board. The first objective will be to assemble and paint a 1000 point army by the end of February. Well this will be easy for me as I've got to get mine painted for the 7th of Feb due to Vapnartak.
If you successfully complete this task you earn 10 league points. Stage two's deadline is the end of March where players must have 1500 points painted and finally stage three will conclude at the end of April with 1500 points and a bonus unit painted, again 10 points for each deadline met.
We all agreed that in between these periods we will gather at the Man Cave (my garage) at least once a month and hold a games night. I can set up two 6'x4' boards in my garage so all four of us can meet up and get in a couple of games in one evening, brilliant!
The league kicked off a couple of weeks ago with two 1000 games being played in one evening, I didn't do a battle report as I am making myself do Bat Reps with painted armies only if it can be helped. I can say that I've managed to take the lead with two wins so far earning 20 points. I intend to keep you guys updated with the progress of this little friendly competition and hopefully get some nice battle reports up for you all.
You can follow the progress of this competition over at Captain Yukkas Tau blog.
6 comments:
February 23, 2010 at 8:27 AM
Events like these are a great inspiration for painting your army, as it's always helpful to have a deadline or competition to motivate. I've participated in a Tale of 4 Gamers for Fantasy, and now I have a fully painted Skaven army. This year is a little different and we're doing a "2010 Painting Challenge" where we paint 1 unit per month. For 2010, I am painting my Space Wolves.
February 23, 2010 at 9:36 AM
Your plan is fantastic and it is one that my friends and I have taken up as well. Once a month we get 2 games in, record the results and have a little Planetary Empires campaign going.
All the while, you get painting points for each figure you paint, and at the end of the campaign, whoever has the most points wins a prize. We further encourage this by having two painting nights a month at someone's house, giving us the encouragement we need.
Very nice article, really look forward to hear more about your gaming group!
February 23, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Great Idea. There's really nothing I dislike more than seeing games played out using unpainted minis. If it's in the privacy of one's own home, fine, but at a hobby store or on a public batrep posted to the net somewhere, it just looks sad and pathetic. If you're going to go through the effort of buying and assembling an army and then playing and recording the results of the battle, take the effort to paint your minis.
February 23, 2010 at 12:20 PM
I'm just coming to the end of my group's Tale of Four Gamers. I have a problem with mine though, we started back in November, and so the last 2 months have been over coursework deadlines, exam and dissertation work. Needless to say my first 1000pts was no trouble, but now I'm quickly slipping down the table!
We're doing an Apocalypse month in March to round things off, with a game at the end of the month.
www.miniacademics.blogspot.com
February 23, 2010 at 4:03 PM
Sounds great! You might want to consider this idea stolen, I could use it to motivate myself and my gaming group.
February 24, 2010 at 3:15 AM
Like the rest, I can't recommend this enough mate. There is a regular Tale of Painters challenge on one forum that I always enter, and its that motivation alone that gets my stuff painted!
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