Feast of Blades '13

Friday, May 6, 2011

40k Editorial: Objective vs. Subjective Paint Scores



What up all! Kevin here from the land of Rhode Island is here talking about my experiences with Paint judgement and how it should be done. Its been awhile since the last tournament I was in and it really does take awhile to think and plot through every detail of any grade of criticism.






More specifically I would like to talk about paint scores and how it should be done.....mostly drawing from my own clubs extremely basic paint rubric grading system to a GT level system....first of all there are two types of grades someone can get....an objective and subjective grade....An objective grade is one based on goals and guidlines to be ment, a subjectiv one is decided via an oppinion based bias. I talk to you about this since this system seems to be blurred....






The last tournament in question was the Colonial GT....I brought my new dark Eldar, an army I had just finished painting to my requirments, with room to grow with detaila nd free hand, expecting a decent score since it was a rubric based objective paint/presentation score. This was a selling point for the tournament since I am no Michael Angelo and am just getting into highlighting my figures....the Rubric gave out 32 (I believe off memory) possible points.......I got 6.....






I remember being perplexed at this, when consulting the rubric getting 15 would be low and 12 at the bare minimum....but 6....i was shocked...after past drama discussed insueing I learned that half of the score was subjective and there was a heavy bias on the actual paint judgement...no BS aside (pardon mon francias) this is a great example in the current bias showed in an objective system.






In any good panel based system there is a standard still....so one way to determine a standard to be reached with a plus or minus system based around it....this is an understandable method to judge yet when a rubric is used is it not ment to be used? I know Cpt. Jack himself it may be more like guidelines but who is not to say the judge likes Red more than blue? It can bomb people on score....Ive felt its pain and refuse to play in any payed for events by a specific group/store because of it (3 guesses who).....lets say we have a 10 point scale based off this rubric....






4 points for painting range, this is divided up between players with the top 25% recieveing four points and every 25% level lower based on the judges oppinion being 1 point less......even though this parameter is subjective it is still objective in a way catagorizing the players based on all of the players themselves and not on a judges particular whims to give one player a 4 and one a zero






2 points for basing....one point is given to a player for basing all models and another for above and beyond work....a fair system with rewards for more work....






3 points for conversions.....one or 2 is a point while a lot is full...rewarding players for content not punishing them on thier own stuff....






2 points for display board....such as if you have any its a point while a 2nd for above and beyond.....






this is a small scale but it is a guidline to fairly judge....whic is the point...I go to a fairly biased University where grades can be very subjective and find it annoying at the least....leave it out of the game,,,,






Now overall best painted should be a judged thing between a panel....this I never argue, best painted and painting battle points can mean two completely different things...






more on this later......

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