Tale of Four Gamers: Let's Try This Again! Rules

Right, so a bit of a rehash from last year, with the dates changed (obviously) so let's try once again to get this Tale started...

Participants
Ginge
Ken
Chris
Rich

From the mutterings about who is interested in collecting what, it seems we'll have two broadly aligned teams... although games can be played against anybody, not just a participant. We'll all meet in the climatic final battle, and we may cross paths along the way (some more than others) however we aren't duty bound to only fight each other, as that would put the two distant participants at a distinct disadvantage.

Phase 1 will run from the 1st to the 28th of September. From 29th September to 12th October will be the catch up phase 1. Each 4 week challenge period will be followed by a 2 week catch up phase, where points can still be earned by those who have fallen a little behind. I have previously had this period overlap the following phase but I've found this can lead to people forever being behind.

Let's finally begin that Tzeentch army... oh who am I kidding...

If you have finished on time, you can use this period to try your hand at something else, do some prep work for the next phase, or even make a start if you wish. The plan is to be fairly flexible with this time - basically if a model is completed by the deadline, it scores. It doesn't matter if you started a few days early while waiting for Bob to catch up with last months workload.

Phase 2 will be 13th October to 9th November, with catch up being 10th November to 23rd November.
Phase 3 will be 24th November to 21st December, with catch up period being 22nd December to 4th January (nicely giving people no mandatory commitments over the festive period)
Phase 4 will be 5th January to 1st February, with catch up period being 2nd February to the 15th, with a final climactic battle soon to follow (possibly on the weekend of the 16th/17th if that isn't too close to Valentines for anyone to avoid getting into trouble...)

During each phase the following points will be available.

Painting 500 points worth of stuff - 5 points
Getting a game in with your stuff - 5 points
Writing a narrative about your stuff - 5 points
Publish a blogpost detailing any or all of the above - 1 point

If you complete any of the first 3 in the catch up period it scores 3 points. The blogpost doesn't have a late version I'm afraid.

I would recommend in the first phase people stick to combat patrol style lists, as this will make your task easier. Yes, I know the rules for combat patrol no longer exist, but consider them guidelines. If you want to get in a 500 point game with someone, and the first and only thing you get out is a baneblade, chances are you'll lose your opponent. You may also struggle to write much character development for a tank crew sat in a laager waiting for someone to fight...

Perhaps best in phase 2...

I would also suggest introducing at least one character in phase 1, just to give yourself something to write about. This doesn't necessarily have to be a character model - just name a scout sergeant or something. Advance time in your narrative, next time we see him he's a captain, by the end he's a chapter master, new model each time and the story develops.

There will be other points available over the course of the challenge, although these can be scored at any time before the end. The points available are as follows.

Paint a set of objective markers. 1 point each, up to 6.

Make references to real world events. I like the occasional tongue in cheek piece of social commentary... 5 points each, available up to twice. (We're writing fiction, not the 9 o'clock news... two references tops)

Make references to games player. This can really set up some good feuds between players and really drive the narrative. Again, 5 points each, available twice each. Again, there's a limit - we aren't dwarves, we won't be writing a book of grudges.

During the final battle (which will be painted models only) if you have completed everything you pledged to complete during the whole challenge (whether it scored as on time, late, or didn't score at all) then having it all done by game day will net you a bonus 10 points.

The Eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that gives us a precise maximum score of 100. This will give each of us a percentage based challenge completion score. It could also lead to a draw, so there will be the standard tie breaker of the winning player of the winning team on the final battle, if necessary to crown an overall champion, but hopefully we'll all have fully painted armies which should be reward enough for all of us.

Clarifications

To keep things simple, if painting that full squad of tactical marines will take you over the 500 by the cost of one or two marines, just paint it anyway. You may have to drop some wargear or run a remnants squad for your game but I'm sure you'll figure something out.

If you want to paint larger squads, you can split it up. If I pledge to paint 20 boys a month for 3 months there's nothing stopping me from running them as two squads of 30 later (assuming the required nobs/boys ratio is corrected) We are assembling a pool of models to draw from. Just cos you paint it as a tactical marine doesn't stop it being the bullet magnet of a devastated squad at a later date...

There is no requirement to be battle forged at any particular step. It may prove useful for getting those games in, but technically if you can find someone willing to play against whatever haphazard force you've put together, great, it counts.

You can always paint more if you want to. Go nuts, we don't care. If anyone has a particular need to include previously painted models we can look into the substitution method we've used before, however I'm hoping to keep things fairly even for the final game, where we'll all be fighting with what we've painted for the challenge.

Anyway, I think that covers everything, any further questions feel free to ask.