Paint for Points: Knowing is Half the Battle

Let’s face it bro, you are in this to own faces, crush fools and go home with the babes and the prize.  However, a decent paint score is often the difference between a Best General and a Best Overall trophy on your shelf.


Paint for Points: Knowing is Half the Battle


The Paint for Points articles series originally appeared on the blog Torrent of Fire.  Since it is no longer around, here they are, re-posted in their former glory.  These articles tackle the checklist painting approach, or painting with results in mind, with the motto: Paint smarter, not harder!

Let’s kick this series off with what seems like the easiest trick in the book, but is also quite often neglected:

Know the grid.

To judge your army presentation score, judges use a grid or a checklist that is more often than not published ahead of time and/or the same from year to year.

Know it. 
Earn it. 
Live it. 

Once you have found said checklist, there are three steps you need for total point stackage.

1. The big points. 

Obviously, this is not only where you get to stack the most points, but it’s also a good indicator of what the judges are looking for, besides the actual paint job that you did.

The big categories are usually Display Board (Adepticon) or Conversions (NOVA).

If these categories are not covered, even if you spent six hours on every single IG Guardsman, you will sleep on a ton of points simply because you missed the big picture.

Also, spending six hours on every Guardsman is a bad use of hobby time - check yourself before you wreck yourself, bro.

2. The easy points.

These are all the one or two points-per-category details that you can usually blast through the night before the tournament to get done.

Usually while drinking heavily, because, you know, tournament/reputation/weekend/any-excuse-is-a-good-one.

This collection of easy single points here and there is what’s hurting your score the most.

You can usually get these points in the form of: squad markings, uniform basing through the army, having some sort of written army background, painted eyes, etc.

If any of these are included in the checklist; the judge will actively look for those, so make sure it’s there.

3. The dictator speech. 

I will go briefly over this here, because this subject will have an article of its own soon.

Be prepared to point out and explain how you did what and where everything is.

Basically, if the judge has your tactical Marine in his hands, point out that the base is tied with your awesome display board. The freehand arrow and number on his shoulder pad is different on each squad because it fits your awesome background. Then complain about how tough it was to paint the lenses and the scope of the gun on every single Marine, especially with those custom resin heads.

Then take a sip of beer and watch the points stack up.

Find the grid; Master the grid; GO JOE!

Next in the Paint for Points series: The Art of the Quickie