"Do You Punish Your Minis?" Topic

Not physically, but morally.
I glare at them to let them know how disappointed I am!
Then, in full view of other dice on the table, I pick new ones to throw, "next time".

No post-game punishments, but perhaps a highly visible location of shame so all can witness the shame of incompetence. Dice are definitely subject to public shaming and relegation.

Not for historic regiments but I have give some fantasy tribes bad positions and disadvantages in future games. I do rewards in similar ways for good work.

x42

Oh. It's "Punish minis", not "punish dice". 🤦‍♂️
Oh well.
I expect units and figures to behave poorly, tabletop genius that I am. 🤷

If I notice that my painting was really poor then I'll blame myself.

In the 80's the local club had a gamer who had a 25mm Republican/Imperial Roman Army (WRG). And if they were victorious in a game, when he took them home he would put painted NSFW figures and treasure piles in their storage box until the next game. If they lost, dead horse castings were put in their box.

His wife finally left him.

The ignominy of defeat is punishment enough.

Since I was the one rolling the dice to create the outcome, the shame and punishment are all mine.

Last night a good friend hit my artillery battery, and I blew the moral test. The shame was mine and he let me know it the rest of the night.

I usually punish poorly preforming dice more often, but minis who underperform get a good talking to at the least.

STM, that's hilarious!

It hadn't occurred to me before to punish poor performing minis, but the idea is intriguing! Perhaps decimatio? Melt down every tenth figure? Pour encourager les autres? Thjen there's "dicematio" -- take a poorly rolling die and smash it with a hammer!

Conversely, rewarding units that performed well with some sort of decoration on their officers or standards, a la the imperial Roman army, might be a fun little ceremony.

The closest I've come to anything like this is setting up a little parade/trooping of the colors/honor guard display for a dead bottle of paint I've used for a long time before disposing of it, or for painted minis once glorious on the table top but succumbing to the dreaded Lead Rot; these lie in state for a period, and then I bury them honorably. They are not thrown away. Their remains must still be in the earth at several former homes.

When we ha a local historical minis shop, there was a person who would sell his army if it lost with a really bad result.
He woas also a very good and very fast painter, so he would buy and paint new figures for a new army and use it until it lost.

Naw… My paintjobs are punishment enough for them! Their poor performance is just their way of getting even!

"There are no bad regiments, only bad colonels"

Attributed to Napoleon and very true – as per above and as per Harry Truman, the buck stops with the boss

I knew a guy once who went home and smashed a unit of 15mm Napoleonic British Guards after they failed to take a battery of artillery. They had a 98% chance of winning, but rolled a 99.

Not with miniatures but certainly with dice.

They perform badly, and often from Bad dice rolls they get punishment, nockdd down a peg in their rating.