Blog Wars 9 – Painting Competition – Best Army (pic heavy)

by | Jun 9, 2015

This year's painting competition was judged in three parts and as a result I thought it only fair to post the pictures in three parts too. Today we'll look at the Best Painted Army away. The word "painted" is important there because I have now introduced a prize for Best Conversions that I hope will encourage people to see the two things as separate. I think too often the army that wins the "best painted" award is the one that's got some striking conversions. I don't necessarily think that people who can pull off amazing feats of modelling are always great at painting too. Hopefully adding in that extra prize will encourage people to try some conversions in their army as well as thinking about the paint job.

Best Painted Army
This was a two-horse race (in the voting at least). The winner was Dave Weston with his Tyranids. They've been featured before as they placed joint second at BW7 and won at BW6, We've had a debate before about whether you should be eligible to win Best Painted with the same army twice but it's worth pointing out that a lot of Dave's votes came from first time BW players and that a large portion of his army were new models. It's also worth bearing in mind that when Dave won at BW6 he hadn't even displayed the models and they were simply on his red plastic tray ready for the next game. They're still a stunning example of what can be achieved and I was thrilled that the custom built skyshield made an appearance. As per usual my photos of the armies were a little rushed but here's a few shots:




Runners Up
Liam Aincough and his Tau were a close second with just a single vote separating him and Dave. Incidentally Dave voted for Liam! There was then a gap of 7 votes to the chasing pack with Chris Benstead's CSM, Nick Thrower's Dark Eldar, Graham Sanders' Squats (IG) and Nathaniel Gibbs Spaces Wolves all tightly packed together. Here's a few shots of their armies and some of the other entries:
















Tomorrow I'll look at the Best Painted Character prize.