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I am wondering if any one has tried something like this and if so, how did it turn out.

This is how I would work it:

You take each game-ready unit in your army, including characters (everyone has a different definition of what is considered game ready), and write their entry onto an index card. This entry will include any upgrades the unit will be taking and their points cost.

Agree a points limit with your opponent.

Shuffle your index cards and draw cards until you reach the points limit. The last card you draw will usually take you over the agreed points limit, so discard that card (assuming it does take you over the points limit)..

The cards that you have drawn is your army. You each have a few minutes to organise your forces into formations, or simply declare as unbound. You may also spend the remaining points you have on generic things like fortifications.

What do you guys think, and also any suggestions on modifying it or potential problems you see. I think a method like this could result in some interesting games, and a chance to use some of those units that just don't see any game time any more.

A random army is something I've considered in the past, but not quite with the set-up you mentioned above.

If I were doing something like that, I'd write up six entries per FOC slot (more if I had time to get a d66 table - so up to 36 entries?). Every time you select a FOC slot, randomly roll to see whose available. Maybe convert the left-over points into dice rerolls usable during the game (10 points per reroll?).

Random armies might prove entertaining for on occasion gaming - especially as a handicap. Certainly wouldn't want it to become standard; might make an interesting component for a campaign - using random rolls to determine what sort of replacements are available to replace lost units (say, roll 3 random units and you can choose to add one to your force).

The problem with this is that, depending on hand size and armies, you're just going to end up with certain players regularly trouncing others based off of what they have available in their army.

Let's say I'm a tournament player, who has an 1850 set of Eldar. I don't have any other Eldar, except a few here-and-there things. If I arrange all my models into decks, then they're just going to come out as my tourney list every time.

Now, let's say I'm mostly a modeler that likes to play 40k sometimes. My shelf has lots of bad units on it, and not everything really goes together. Now, I'm going to draw crappy, awful units every time.


I think a better way to do this is to start by forcing all players to use a CAD. If they have any unique detachments, they're allowed to take those detachments instead of the main rulebook CAD, but it has to be a regular Detachment, not one of the decurion-style ones. No Formations are allowed.

Then, arrange decks by unit type. HQs go in the HQ pile, Troops in the Troop pile, Elites in the Elites pile, etc. You need to bring at least one card for every available slot, unless you don't have the models - So, for a CAD, you need at least 2 HQ cards, 6 Troops cards, 3 Elites, 3 Heavy Support, 3 Fast Attack, 1 Fortification, and 1 Lord of War. Units that don't have a slot (For example, Mekboys,) get set aside for now.

First, shuffle all your piles. Then, draw the minimum requirements for your army, usually two Troops and an HQ. If you run out of points before drawing those minimum requirements, then you immediately stop - You're playing Unbound, with the units you have available.
Otherwise, once you have drawn your minimum requirements, then you roll a D6.
On a 1-2, draw a Troops choice.
On a 3, draw a Fast Attack choice.
On a 4, draw a Heavy Support choice.
On a 5, draw an Elites choice.
On a 6, you may draw either an HQ, Lord of War, or Fortification.

Once you have the maximum number allowed of any force type (For example, once you have 3 Elites,) any further rolls on that Force type must be re-rolled until a legal choice is rolled. (In the case of a '6', the HQ, Lord of War, and Fortification choices must all be filled before it is rerolled.)

If you draw a card that costs more points than you have remaining, discard it and draw again from the same pile. If you draw two cards in a row that you cannot use, immediately stop - That is your army.

From there, you may immediately chose as many 'No-detachment' choices as you can afford. In cases where they are sometimes choices, but can also be taken as non-detachment options (For example, Techpriests as part of an Iron Hands detachment,) you may still take them as long as you have the models.

Once you can no longer bring any models, stop. This is your army.



I feel like this version provides a bit more structure, and allows armies to still have some kind of cohesion even if the player gets a few bad draws. You're always going to have a battle-forged army unless you're playing a very small game with very expensive units, (Say, if you're playing a Space Wolves with a Company of the Great Wolf and bring nothing but decked-out Wolflords and maximum-size Terminators squads for your HQs and Elites,) and while it does limit armies somewhat since you can't bring allies, it keeps things nice and neat.

The biggest worry with this is that you end up with armies that just can't deal with each other. Either your totally random army selection or the ones that let have a bit less randomness (like waaaghpower) Let's say my guard choices include:

HQ: Yarrick, Lord Commissar, CCS
Elites: Bullgryn, Scions, Ratlings
Troops: 3 melta vet squads, 2 infantry platoons
Fast attack: hellhound, rough riders
Heavy Support: LRBT, LR punisher, manticore, wyvern

My opponent rolls/draws his army and gets land raiders and dreadnoughts, or a wraithknight, or an imperial knight.

Now my army, I get the infantry platoons, the scions, the ratlings, the rough riders, the punisher, the wyvern....

I now have an army that has near zero chance of being able to handle his army, even if I run lascannons in the platoons I only have 3 and BS3 means they're not hurting a land raider any time soon. Not being guaranteed meltavets or the LRBT or the manticore or even the bullgryns means I'm not hurting any high AV/T. I spend a game scrambling around for objectives and just not killing anything.

Maybe if we agreed to go small points and no hard to kill units it could happen.

Thanks for the ideas and comments. I also knew that there could be issues with what is in a persons collection, but wasn't sure how to go about fixing it.

I certainly wouldn't want this to become a standard format, but rather a 'I want a change' format.

I know there are some players who can get 'stuck in a rut' and bring the same units every game. Sometimes this is because those units are optimum, but sometimes it can be a case of it doesn't fit with the army, so I would need to redo the entire army selection. Or its a unit that you have been meaning to go back and repaint but never get around to.

The reason I was looking at this is because I am planning to create a card for each unit in my IG fluff regiments (see signature) and use the random method of what to add next and wondered if I could transfer this into my games from time to time. Oddly enough, I was already planning to use the Combined Arms Chart and simply draw cards until it was filled up and pick my next unit from that until I had finished the chart, then rinse and repeat, but hadn't even thought about using FoCs to help balance the randomness in the game selection of it.

For those of you who looked at my fluff and thought that's a lot of units (and therefore a lot of cards), I have a computer programme that makes that part relatively easy.

The problem, besides the collection, is that you could have one player playing at a significant point disadvantage. Let's say we're playing 1500 points. I get lucky and my combination of random draws comes out to 1485, but yours is 1501 and your cheapest unit is 200 points. Now you're playing with 1301 points against my 1485 before we even consider the quality of which units we've each drawn.

IMO a better way to get variety without the immense frustration of a list-building rule that reduces the game to a contest of who gets screwed less by the randomness is to have only a small part of it be random. For example, maybe you each draw a single random card and that unit has to be in your army, but the rest is built as normal. Or have your opponent write your list, proxying models if necessary (so the guy who only has the models to play the top tournament list still has to play random stuff). Or your opponent gets to ban one unit from your army. These ideas will force you to take units you might not otherwise want to take, but the game isn't going to be decided by the list-building gimmick.