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Hey guys.

Well after the power went out I popped open my warhammer books and tought wtf I will make a bloodbound army list.

Well after I picked some random guys and what to bring or drop depending on who I will play I was done.7 minutes.

This is really killing me, I miss spending hours tweeking a 2k list trying to figure out if I had enough dispels flankers siege and blocks to hold people back. Since my main was skaven I have like200 paper weights and need to buy more stormvermin so I droped them for garbage.

Now my ogres people say are to cheap based on wounds or scroll counts, so they are gone. Now I got bloodbound and........ There is nothing to do. Grab a box i put aside go to the store throw some models down and ....done?

I have literally seen a guy bring two carrying cases and we agreed on 20 models and some odd wounds and scrolls. He just started to pick models to use based on what I put down. And i did not want to say anything because finding someone to play aps with is like finding a pot of gold.

I miss the options for the troops, the dispel pool, the heroes.... The I have a legit army not just a bunch of models in a box and if I want to win brig two boxes and keep putting them down til they quit or times up.


Anyone else feeling the list build woes

Indeed, list building should be a vital part for a gamer. But list building in AoS is hardly existing. This may kill the game and not the simplified rule set.

Yes and no. It was a bit hard to understand where you are coming from. Yes I miss list building, no to "tweaking". That is the part I have a hard time with.

Guess I have been reading internet too much, since "tweaking" usually means, how can I make my list better so I can win with plastic toy soldiers.

What is wrong with making an army and just "playing" with that army, win or loose? This is what I love about Age of Sigmar, no more nerds and geeks math hammering out on what is a good army and how to win.

Problem is you want a fair army to play with. That is hard to do when you want a quick pick up game with strangers without going into "negations" and agreeing what is fair and not fair and just want to play.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Indeed, list building should be a vital part for a gamer. But list building in AoS is hardly existing. This may kill the game and not the simplified rule set.

Disagree. I'm a gamer through and through, hate modelling and painting. I'm purely into the wargaming, not even minis are necessary IMO, and list building is not something I consider vital at all.

List building is only something that becomes mainly relevant for the 'competitive' game, and even there that is not really true, there are scenario driven games and tourneys in the wargame world where no list building is involved.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to win at a game of plastic solders, It becomes a problem when there are WAAC players involved. And I agree that I enjoy armies looking like armies and not whatever the latest cheese is, but the complete lack of any restrictions actually makes this problem worse in AOS. Restrictions on list building was one of the great things about 8th edition. You had to take core.

There's no more mathhammer because you don't need to figure out how certain elements of the army function together. You can just spam the most overpowered thing in *ANY* army. It's horrendeous, you wanna talk about armies not looking like armies. Oh i'm just going to take this unit from this army and this one from that army and mash it all together in some pathetic looking hodge podge army. Mathhammer was fun because you could see what kind of interesting combo's you could create, and what your odds of success were when engaging enemy units.

Army list creation and tweaking was a really fun and interesting part of the hobby, it's dead now. Might as well just take GI Joes and make pew pew noises.

List Building is a pain in the ass for me - usually have to do it at the last minute after work.

I had hoped that GW would realise unit cards to make army building quiker and easier but nope :(

List building is my single most hated feature of Warmachine. I understand the appeal - I really do, I used to spend hours building decks for CCGs - but when it comes to miniatures, I hate it. At the point I'm shelling out $50 and spending a dozen hours on a model I like, I don't want to not use it because it isn't worth the points or doesn't play well with these other models or can't counter this special attack. Or going to a store and seeing a neat model for a good price and thinking, man I'd love to get that one, but it doesn't fit with my army, so I have to buy this ugly as crap unit instead. Like in Warmachine, I love the Warjacks, which are almost universally underpowered for the cost compared to units and some of the cooler looking variations kinda suck, so they never get used. I think many WMH players wouldn't even run jacks if it weren't for the free caster points.

The reason I quit Warmachine though was because my companions would download these really overpowered lists from the internet that usually involved exploiting field allowance loopholes in tier lists in order to basically create games where I had no chance of winning and basically just sat there and watched as my units were torn to pieces, completely unable to affect the outcome of the game at all. They weren't trying to be dicks. They just saw the lists and thought it sounded cool and wanted to try it out. But the lists were cheesy as crap and COMPLETELY unfun to play against, made worse by the fact that half the models on the table were proxies because who would actually buy ten of the same warjack?

Yeah, no. I don't miss that - though I probably wouldn't have minded as much if we played more than the one Steamroller scenario or used more terrain than the perfunctory forest, hill, linear obstacle. I mean, if you had to create a general list that had to survive a bunch of different situations, that'd solve most of the problems with the over optimized cheese lists that do one thing, and only one thing, well - but the people who create those optimized lists really only want to use them in optimal environments. I guess that's why I like AoS. Many scenarios, no min-max optimization, every unit is viable. Buy what you like, play what you want, and nobody argues that exploits are balanced.

I think if list building is a major focus of enjoyment for your participation in Teh HHHobby, you should not play AoS.

No! I most certainly do not miss list building. I do not have time nor do I enjoy pouring over an army book stressing over how to spend 1, 3 or 100 points. Some people do, good for them. I guess I'm just getting old so I would rather be playing with time that I have for gaming.

 Sqorgar wrote:
List building is my single most hated feature of Warmachine. I understand the appeal - I really do, I used to spend hours building decks for CCGs - but when it comes to miniatures, I hate it. At the point I'm shelling out $50 and spending a dozen hours on a model I like, I don't want to not use it because it isn't worth the points or doesn't play well with these other models or can't counter this special attack. Or going to a store and seeing a neat model for a good price and thinking, man I'd love to get that one, but it doesn't fit with my army, so I have to buy this ugly as crap unit instead. Like in Warmachine, I love the Warjacks, which are almost universally underpowered for the cost compared to units and some of the cooler looking variations kinda suck, so they never get used. I think many WMH players wouldn't even run jacks if it weren't for the free caster points.

The reason I quit Warmachine though was because my companions would download these really overpowered lists from the internet that usually involved exploiting field allowance loopholes in tier lists in order to basically create games where I had no chance of winning and basically just sat there and watched as my units were torn to pieces, completely unable to affect the outcome of the game at all. They weren't trying to be dicks. They just saw the lists and thought it sounded cool and wanted to try it out. But the lists were cheesy as crap and COMPLETELY unfun to play against, made worse by the fact that half the models on the table were proxies because who would actually buy ten of the same warjack?

Yeah, no. I don't miss that - though I probably wouldn't have minded as much if we played more than the one Steamroller scenario or used more terrain than the perfunctory forest, hill, linear obstacle. I mean, if you had to create a general list that had to survive a bunch of different situations, that'd solve most of the problems with the over optimized cheese lists that do one thing, and only one thing, well - but the people who create those optimized lists really only want to use them in optimal environments. I guess that's why I like AoS. Many scenarios, no min-max optimization, every unit is viable. Buy what you like, play what you want, and nobody argues that exploits are balanced.

Doing it once is not a dick move, doing it twice, maybe, but doing it thrice, yes that is a dick move. What I don't understand is, if they are not being dicks about it, why did you quit? I mean they would have stopped that, and if they didn't stop then yes it is a dick move.


As for list building, I use to love making lists in games, like Battletech, Star Trek and yes even 40K/Lord of the Rings. Thing is, nobody plays LotR so quit that, and 40K is a horrible game now, it's not balanced so really making lists for 40K is not fun because the points are made up and don't mean nothing. So yeah I would love for 40K to become sigmared.

Now I can just use minis I think are cool looking and use them in games now with my family. No more worrying, beautiful mini, crappy rules, so have motivation finally in the last 10 years of making a mini and painting it.

I used to LOVE list building, it was my favorite part of the game even. I would spend hours making this last or that list for this game or that game. I had a lot more free time then. These days I spend most of my Warhammer time putting together models and painting them, organizing them in foam and researching ways to get better at painting. That's how I hobby now, before I would play games ALL THE TIME but with unpainted minis, primed minis, proxies blah blah. I find that as I get older it's much more rewarding to get a mini looking how I want it, even if it takes me months and months or years to finish an army because now it's more about the hobby and less about smashing face. That's for me though, each to their own.

List building?

You mean the process in which 75% of your models on the shelf become utterly worthless due to the other lists in your current meta?

...Yeah,dont miss that at all...

I still do enjoy list building. I just use other criteras for AoS - and yes, it's more simple than before.

Most of the time, it's a question of having the right miniatures, indeed. But let's be honest...that was mainly the case for Warhammer Battle, even with point system.

Davor wrote:
What I don't understand is, if they are not being dicks about it, why did you quit? I mean they would have stopped that, and if they didn't stop then yes it is a dick move

Because I didn't blame them, I blamed the game. It's a spectrum. The broken lists were awful, but there are a bunch of combos in the game which can literally end the game in an instant if you make a minor mistake. I like my games to be decided by more than one move, and I don't want to lose before I even put the first model on the table.

I play AoS with Project Points Cost. I love list building and still build lists. Best part is I no longer have to throw fun units out because everything gets balanced by the community. There is no cool new cheese unit or army book update that renders old units horribly overcosted. Everything is worth taking and it's glorious.

Oh the irony of how GW's point-less AoS made it my favorite game to build lists in.

I do not mean just the best use of your points but using the models you have and pointing them in.

I am and was bad for going fluffy lists. I had a 200 zombie list, where I started the game with say 40 black guard and a vampire with two necro.

I guess I miss the unit set ups like double weapns, shield and weapon, heavy weapon. Range, different unit sizes to max out horde rules ect.

Everything is kinda.... Pre built it just kinda seems 1 step away from just going to the store picking up a toy with rules and playing. It is bugging me to not be able to do a fluffy army thats why I am starting 30k for the word bearers and some fluff ness.

OgreChubbs wrote:
I do not mean just the best use of your points but using the models you have and pointing them in.

I am and was bad for going fluffy lists. I had a 200 zombie list, where I started the game with say 40 black guard and a vampire with two necro.

I guess I miss the unit set ups like double weapns, shield and weapon, heavy weapon. Range, different unit sizes to max out horde rules ect.

Everything is kinda.... Pre built it just kinda seems 1 step away from just going to the store picking up a toy with rules and playing. It is bugging me to not be able to do a fluffy army thats why I am starting 30k for the word bearers and some fluff ness.

But you still can pick different weapon options for units?
And I genuinely don't understand how you can say you can't do a 'fluffy' list anymore, when there are *no* restrictions? You can take *anything* you want?

Nope, don't miss list building either. Particularly in WHFB where the biggest indicators of winning were list and deployment (and not necessarily in that order - and this is pre -7th/8th).

I never cared to "tweak" lists to squeeze the last most efficient point out of my armies. I always preferred to play lists where I took what I wanted. So AoS gives me that.

And in the games I played (Brets v Orks), both armies felt like they should - my knights sweeping around woods, large masses or ork infantry running at my piddly lines of archers, and the cavalry and chariots and such ebbed and flowed in and out of the combats, plus heroic charges of characters into giants and other characters. It was fun and a ton quicker than a game of WHFB would have been.

That being said, I do miss the old world. But in my group, we still use that setting. Easy peasy.

 Sqorgar wrote:

Davor wrote:
What I don't understand is, if they are not being dicks about it, why did you quit? I mean they would have stopped that, and if they didn't stop then yes it is a dick move

Because I didn't blame them, I blamed the game. It's a spectrum. The broken lists were awful, but there are a bunch of combos in the game which can literally end the game in an instant if you make a minor mistake. I like my games to be decided by more than one move, and I don't want to lose before I even put the first model on the table.

I was going to say something how wrong you are but then I read the link you provided, and I forgot why I don't play Warmahordes. Yes you are so correct. Thanks for the link you made me chuckle.

Seems to be some sweeping generalisations about why people might enjoy list building going on in this thread.

I loved list building. For me it was about finding a fun list to play within a structured framework.

I still do list building for AoS too. Firstly a loose list building where I decide which models would be fun to bring to my next game. This is very possible with AoS because players with existing WHFB will have way too many miniatures for a single game and so can pick and choose a different army for each.

I also like to do list building with comps. SDK and GW School League are my 2 favourites, but I use PPC as well as a ready reckoner. I like to put together 2 armies and run them through SDK and PPC to see the discrepancy in points and think about why they might be different and if any compromise between the two could be made. It's a fun mental exercise for when I am bored on the train.

I really dislike list building. I don't really miss it though I realize it is a cornerstone to most people that play games in my experience, which is one reason i put together azyr, but made it super simple instead of a precision system.

Mainly I think I disliked list building in GW systems where there were apparent takes and not-takes, which caused lists to become samey.

I don't - all the games I play still use lists!

Seriously, though, I like list building because it limits my resources. It makes me think about what I want versus what I can have, and I find that sort of challenge inspires a surprising amount of creativity. It's why I like the random Chapter creation tables for Deathwatch and why I use How to Host a Dungeon to create (so far theoretical, but some day...) dungeon crawls for RPGs. Which is more fun? Working with a blank canvas...or working with a canvas that has an interesting-looking splotch on it and figuring out how to incorporate it into the finished picture?

I build a lot of "lists" in my head and on paper just for what would be a good match against what, what fits a scenario, where I want my collection to go, what a themed war band would look like. I like playing around with www.scrollbuilder.com too.

However, I'm also glad that making points-costed lists is not the standard way to play the game. At first I thought it was a big miss on that front, but now looking at points-costed lists just seems gamey and an eyesore to me.

I loved list building.

I loved having restrictions to work within, only having so many points to build my vampire lord who I'd love to give every upgrade in the damn game if I could.

I really enjoyed that 25% of my army had to be useless zombies and the like, because I found that much more fluffy than being able to field dwarves alongside chaos.

The tiny little tweaks here and there were loads of fun to fiddle with, choosing between wings for maneuverability or the pure killing ability of red thirst. Having to choose between the +3 attack or +3 strength swords. Picking out what armours and ward saves he needs.

One of my favourite builds was a ghoul king with a 5 point trinket that gave a 2+ ward save against flaming attacks because of how common the flaming hills were in 8th ed. Flying a ghoul king onto that was hilarious when someone tried to move him.

All of that is lost with AoS. I went to check, and apparently the vampires really only maintain the ability to take wings, everything else is generic and your only other options to customize anything is pick the mount. That's not fun in my opinion, and makes it a lot harder to do good narrative play if you can't customize your characters.

*Edit* you know while I have this open I want to bring up a... question I had when AoS first landed and I first looked at the vampire rules.
Are typical vampire lords still ungodly killing machines they used to be?
4 attacks, hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+, seems pretty lame compared to what they used to be, especially without any of the actual vampiric powers or being able to summon half an army a turn while still fighting on the front lines.

I think i spent 300 hours or more building yugioh decks and some magic. Guess I like making a plan and trying to minimize my deaths and losses as best I can lol.

For aos it kind seems bring all your big best stuff forget the rest because it will be wounds or model count.

I used to enjoy the on-the-spot list building my opponents at the LGS used to do. They'd ask to see what I brought and 10 minutes later the had the perfect list. It was awesome.

They didn't just do that for WFB. They were kind enough to do it for my 40k and FoW gaming as well. Always felt appreciated that they'd tailor their lists to whatever I had selected first. So nice of them to let me pick my army first, huh?

privateer4hire wrote:
I used to enjoy the on-the-spot list building my opponents at the LGS used to do. They'd ask to see what I brought and 10 minutes later the had the perfect list. It was awesome.

They didn't just do that for WFB. They were kind enough to do it for my 40k and FoW gaming as well. Always felt appreciated that they'd tailor their lists to whatever I had selected first. So nice of them to let me pick my army first, huh?

I almost didn't catch the sarcasm there because when I played 40k I was newish to the hobby and would arrive at the club with 4k points of models and build a list after someone asked me or a game. I never quite got the point of coming to the table with a list because there were so many things to try and we'd play anywhere from 1500 to 3000 points so you'd never know what you'd need.

The thing that stopped me doing that was realizing just how unbalanced the game was and how terrible the game worked as a 'pick whatever you feel like an put it on the table' game.

How is a wound-based or model-count-based system any less potentially min-maxable than a point system? They basically ARE point systems, just with everything costing 1 point.

Yeah... a goblin and a chaos warrior being equal in a model based system makes it SIGNIFICANTLY worse than in the previous points system we had. Wound is little better.

Wound-based does produce a slightly better spread of point values, but it still is basically just a really simplistic point system that doesn't even attempt to account for differences in offensive capability. It's totally min-max-able.