Model Requirements for Tournaments

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spubbbba
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Model Requirements for Tournaments

Post by spubbbba »

So GW, have recently published a set of guidelines for events held at Warhammer World. They don't hold many Blood Bowl events there but I guess this will apply to those few that do happen.

I thought it might be interesting to discuss if there are similar expectations for non-GW BB events. The new GW plastic can be assembled without glue and the humans and orcs are coloured so you could quite easily play at home without any paint or glue.

Let's look at the guidelines.

All miniatures in your collection must be Citadel or Forge World miniatures.
This has been in place for ages and is fair enough, though it does make things tricky for BB that most teams don't have models for sale by GW anymore.

All miniatures in your collection must be fully assembled.
I'd say this is a bare minimum for any tournament, it doesn't take long to assemble 11-16 models and they are harder to tell apart if missing heads or limbs.

All miniatures in your collection must be fully painted.
What classifies as "fully painted" is the tricky part as everyone has different standards. 3 colours minimum is a common rule, though does that allow you to spray the model black, splodge flesh on the face and then add a blue bob on one shoulder pad?
Things like painted decoration can help differentiate positionals and number is very important for knowing which of your 4 blitzers has guard. In their example the space marine has quite a lot of detail and is mainly lacking shading and highlights. I think most would agree that the final model isn't really painted if it is just red, but where the cut off between those 2 is the are for debate.

All miniatures in your collection must be fully based.
Do non-GW tournaments generally care about what the bases of BB models look like?
Blood Bowl is a little different from most other GW games in that it is played on a board so many people see them more as gaming "pieces" than gaming "miniatures". Most board games come with pretty simple plastic unpainted models, sometimes they are just tokens.
So there is some precedent for having a plain black base, or maybe just painting the top green. I know some people like plain bases and will put their models on clear ones. This can be especially true for wargaming as your beautiful converted jungle basing will look a bit silly if the table is desert or ice themed.

Each model must completely and accurately represent its entry on your army roster including all weapons and equipment.
This doesn't really apply to BB as you can't upgrade equipment as such. Obviously conversions of things like secret weapons would be a factor but that is more covered by the next rule.

You need to contact us to let us know about any conversions you are planning on using.
Probably the biggest potential issue for those wishing to attend Warhammer World as the majority of teams are not presently available from GW. So you either have to find old 2nd/3rd edition models or convert those teams.
With teams being small BB is an ideal game to create truly unique and individual models. However being able to tell positionals apart is important when fitting multiple timed games in and coaches often suffering from lack of sleep and/or hangovers. Even using the official models doesn't always help, I'm talking about you amazons and new plastic human blitzers.
I think the rule of no proxies is sensible, especially if they are blood bowl models from another team.
So how would tournament organisers approach really crazy and out there conversions?

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Darkson
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Re: Model Requirements for Tournaments

Post by Darkson »

[facetious mode on]"All miniatures in your collection must be Citadel or Forge World miniatures" and "All miniatures in your collection must be fully assembled." - does that mean they're going to come round to your house and check your hobby area? ;)[/facetious mode off]

As a TO I really don't care whether a model is painted or not (I don't do best painted, nor give points for painting) but I do ask that any team is easily told apart for your opponent, regardless if you think it's easy, even if that's something as simple as base rings or pieces of paper on bases. In the case of a dispute I'd make a call towards the opposition (you might find a team easy to tell apart due to familiarity, something your opponent doesn't have the luxury off).
I don't mind proxy models, as long as it's not totally confusing (for example, a dwarf coach forgot his chainsaw model, so borrowed a Helmet figure).

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Re: Model Requirements for Tournaments

Post by Baxx »

Playing at a miniatures game tournament usually requires a minimum of painted models and bases. Anything else is just lazy, specially in Blood Bowl where you need so few miniatures. This is the standard requirements for most if not all other miniature game tournaments, alternatively you can have painted models as first tie-breaker. I have never seen the quality of paint be a topic in any tournament. Who owns or have painted the tournament is also irrelevant (except who painted the miniatures in best painted competition, contestants are expected to have done the painting themselves). Proxies have always been a total ban in every miniature tournament I've been to, WYSIWYG is strictly enforced (and should be in my opinion).

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