Terrain Submissions and Scoring for Challenge XVI

'The Eye of Byron'

Hello Everyone, Byron here!

As Curt mentioned in his opening post for the year, I have been roped into volunteered to being the terrain minion for the year. Many of us were upset last year by the exclusion of terrain painting since terrain is such a big part of miniature gaming and painting.  There were several reasons for it, not the least of which being that certain submissions of terrain were: A) scoring huge points for very little apparent effort and B) the points scored were based simply on volume and not any relationship to the amount of time/effort being applied. 

Since this challenge is really all about having fun and getting things from our mountains of shame actually painted and on the table I discussed with Curt about bringing terrain back into the challenge. Due to various different issues with any hard and fast scoring system for terrain, I came up with the idea of having one person score it for everyone so that a single consistent view was taken for adjudicating the score for each piece of terrain and Curt agreed to give it a shot this year and see how it goes.  

To be clear, please do NOT blame Curt for anything you do not like about the new terrain system.  While the old system had issues, and we all know that, Curt has been very diplomatic (as always) and has not wanted to throw anyone under the bus, so has not even told me the exact issues he had, or examples of the problems as he sees them. This is entirely my take on the issues of why terrain was removed and how I see making everything as fair and event to people that both choose to paint terrain and those that choose not to.

Now, please keep in mind a few things:

• Being a long time gamer and having painted WAY too much terrain for tournaments over the years, and being terrain designer and seller, I have a pretty solid idea of how much time/effort any given piece of terrain should take to get to a table top standard.

• As Curt has alluded to with his comments about my diabolical nature, I am harsh on everyone, but no more than I am harsh on myself and my own painting!  So, if you do not like the idea of me judging how long I think a piece should take to paint, please remember terrain is optional to paint! 

• I personally view points as superfluous to this challenge, as I view the idea of painting 10,000 points of miniatures just to win $50 or $100 worth of prizes kinda crazy. I get that points are important as a measure of how much painting we have each done, but I have never viewed them as anything other than that.  After all, this is a painting challenge, not a painting competition. All to say, I have never argued about points awarded to my figures (as I simply don't think they matter) and will NOT argue or even respond to comments about points awarded for terrain. 

• You are not forced to paint terrain, so if you disagree with the system outlined here, please just don't paint terrain and if enough people feel that way Curt will either chose to got back to no terrain or find a different system of scoring that addresses the issues in a different way. 

How will points be awarded? 

With all the warnings out of the way, here is the long and arcane way Terrain will be judged for points:

1. I will look at a piece and determine how long I believe it would take me to get it ready to an acceptable table top standard, meaning to a simple standard that you would take to a club or tournament game, NOT the insane levels that people go to for demo games or painting competitions. It's an estimate based on the size and complexity of the terrain piece to be painted.  
2. The time estimate will NOT be entirely for the paint job done to the model, for the simple reason that the challenge does not do that for figures. Case in point a crappy simple Necron painted by me that took 2 hours and is barely passable as tabletop quality gets the same 5 points that someone like Nick or Sydney gets for one of their gorgeous 40 hour plus paint jobs.  
3. While the paint quality is not going to affect the score the paint techniques and amount of painting will affect the time estimate. If I look at the same piece done by two painters and one is done with a single colour of spray paint and a little dry brushing and the other is clearly painted with great care and detail I will view that as more time spent (but again not in a direct correlation to paint job quality).
4. I will multiply that amount of time by the amount of time it takes to get a 28mm rank and file model to a decent tabletop standard.  Since most people paint a simple rank and file figure in about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, I am going to assume a 2 hour period to get 5 points when painting figures. Therefore if I think a piece of terrain would take me 4 hours to paint, it will get 10 points so its roughly the same as painting normal figures.  

In theory this will work to be fair and even to everyone.  This allows things to be score appropriately for what they are.  Size of model will still matter but will be adjusted to ensure that it is not simply about how big the terrain piece is but how much painting is actually done to it.

Comparison of flat rate vs. adjudicated scoring

Examples of past issues and how they would now be scored:

• Someone could paint a super plain building (like one of the basic Infinity buildings I sell that are basically boxes with almost no detail and no interiors) that are 6" cubed of volume but they can be spray bombed or airbrushed in 2 minutes and then dry brushed the corners and put a little graffiti on it and spent a grand total of 10-15 minutes on the building and then villainously claim 20 points per building due to volume. Realistically you could paint at least 5 of these in the same time as a normal 28mm figure so it should only be worth a point or two.  
• Alternately someone could have a small pile of rubble (maybe 2" of volume) that is made up of chests, coins, books, rope, pots, pans, etc.  To paint all of the detail on this piece would take at LEAST 2 hours, yet under the old system 2" cubed would only only score 2 points.  Clearly it would take the same time as a standard 28mm figure to paint something like this and should score 5 points just like a figure.
• Some terrain is large but has no (or very little painting on it), for instance forest sections can be massive (2x 6" cubes per forest is not uncommon), but all that is normally being painted is the base work.  Previously a forest section with pre-made trees might score 20-40 points simply because of its size, yet clearly there was 10 minutes of painting done to the base, so it should maybe score a single point.  Now, obviously if the trees are GW or other brands of trees that are all plastic and need each and every leaf and trunk painted just like a figure, then it would score many more points, but if a submission is a bunch of model railroad trees stuck on a painted base, that's a point or two. 
• No distinction was given between a 6" cube of a building like the basic box described above or a 6" cube of a building that had brick and stone exterior, shingles, window frames, and a complete interior.  In the past both would score 20 points.  Under this system the super plain one might score 2 points, while the super detailed on would be viewed as needing 6+ hours to paint and score at least 15-20 points.

Hopefully the intent here is at least clear and understandable even if the exact details are left a little vague (on purpose).  This is being done to allow everyone to submit terrain as they would like, and I will be looking at it and making a time estimate and painting effort and score based on that.   

Terrain Submissions 

So, for the few brave readers that have not run away in tears of anger, frustration, confusion or dismay, here is what should be covered in a terrain submission:

• Size of the terrain piece: A rough measurement of the terrain for width, depth, and height.
• Pictures: There should be enough pictures to show the terrain piece from enough angles to see all the painted areas, which included the interior if it was painted.  If no interior pictures are shown then I have to assume it is not painted. There should also be at least one picture with a measuring tape and a figure of the same scale as the terrain by the terrain piece to help with the sizing.
• Title and Labels: Please ensure you have "Terrain" in the both the title of the submission and in the Labels section, this will make them much easier to find and score on time.
• ONLY include terrain pieces in your terrain submissions.  To keep things simple and separated your miniature submissions should be on your normal day to your normal minion, and terrain submissions with be separate from them and submitted for Sundays (but may be published over the course of the week if there are too many any given week just so that we do not flood out the normal painting submissions that day).  
• Standard submission information: Other than the few specific requests above, terrain submissions should follow the normal submission requirements (formatting, a bit of a story, history, or how it was painted, etc, etc)

 
That's it, hopefully a bit clearer than mud. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments. Otherwise, I hope to see a lot of cool terrain pieces being submitted over the Challenge!

- Byron