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Gods.

I'd almost managed to forget about that travesty

Wargames have always been list driven.

The only difference now is that various internet alchemists try fool people into believing that list building is a science.

warboss wrote:The other thing is the slow disappearance of rigid comp at tournies in the past few years. Back in the 90's when GW had strict sportmanship and comp scoring, people simply couldn't bring as hard of lists as they do now. You still had codex creep and books that were more powerful than others but you could simply spam the same most effective unit in a book to the max (like MSU styles now) without a penalty. Nowadays, most lists seem to built on that premise.

Have to agree with this comment. I used to like to go to the tournaments because of having your opponent bring in something interesting. Before 5th Ed the codexes (as well as chapter approved, and WD) had plenty of war gear and options to have different and unique customizations to their army. Now to me it is MTG with plastic models. Expensive models to unlock unique abilities for their army. One or two major combinations in a codex is what most people will play according to what is being posted in hundreds if not thousands of web sites plus blogs. To me there is no fun at that.

Yes I still play, but but I play less now. and I'm doing more painting and am seriously looking at other games and/or going back to Advanced Squad Leader.

I'm a Grognard and been war gaming for 40+ years. Modeling that long as well. Most types of game rules of these Modern Times are pretty simplified compared to what I have played in the past.

marielle wrote:Wargames have always been list driven.

The only difference now is that various internet alchemists try fool people into believing that list building is a science.

You've clearly never played a real wargame (by which I mean the original wargames that predate GW). GW was one of the first wargames to develop the concept of list building, prior to that, most wargames, being historical in nature, used historical TO&Es to allocate forces. Battles were frequently recreations of real world ones, if not recreations of the real world forces of the time, and :shock: forces were usually not balanced at all.


Although I will agree that the internet has definitely resulted in a spread in list building 'theory', which has devolved into the 'netlist' phenomenon, where people frequently bring lists that are ~90% identical on an army-by-army basis and promise to destroy every opposing list you encounter based on unit spam and/or some sort of gimmick.

Someone is feeling a little nostalga for the good ol days

It seems that your really just complaining that your opponent is better then you and has prepared more. Which does suck when your playing someone's army who trounces yours before you even get a chance. I get the same thing with my lists since I am more on the hobby side of the hobby vs power spectrum.

Nobody likes playing an overpowered or underpowered opponent. This type of issue has nothing to do with the year and everything to with finding similar minded people to play with.

I don't play competitively enough for it to be an issue, and my meta is kinda messed up (a lot of people have started taking anti-vehicle infantry horde type lists (let me tell you something, it is HARD to kill 60 power armored minis...)which is nice, sine I'm no longer seeing as many mechvets, etc. type lists. What semi-frustrates me though, is that people keep demanding really awesome units capable of doing all sorts of stuff, and then when GW gives it to them, they stick 'em inside a transport to pretty much do nothing all game. Whats the point of all the options, etc. that GW is giving you if you don't use 'em?

doomworcs wrote:Someone is feeling a little nostalga for the good ol days

It seems that your really just complaining that your opponent is better then you and has prepared more.

Wow. You're assuming... quite a lot.

The whole 'Lists vs. No Lists' thing has me really excited to play Hail Caesar. All of my wargaming experience has been with games that contain lists - 40k, Fantasy, Malifaux, Warmachine, Flames of War - that the idea of a game where I can either research an actual battle, or just say, "Yeah, that looks like it'll be fun' is... refreshing, to say the least.

Building a powerful list has been a part of the game since I started playing, just before 3rd ed. was released... but your list was also circumscribed by the conventions of your peer/gaming group.

We would try to outdo each other, because that's the basis of a wargame- not that we wouldn't have fun in equal measure, sometimes taking ridiculous units or taking immense joy in an "inaccurate" guess range, or whatever. Our lists, though, generally conformed to certain rules that limited the power-gaminess of it all. Min/maxing of any kind was considered the ultimate in cheese, we never fielded special characters, and you were always very clear on the capabilities of your units before the game ever started. I'd rather give up an inch of movement than let an opponent think I tried to sneak in an extra quarter of an inch.

On a nostalgic note, I hate Tempests and their pop-up attacks so, so much.

I also miss accidentally guess ranging my earth shaker into the marines who just happened to be in hth with my guard. That was just wholesome fun.

infinite_array wrote:

The whole 'Lists vs. No Lists' thing has me really excited to play Hail Caesar. All of my wargaming experience has been with games that contain lists - 40k, Fantasy, Malifaux, Warmachine, Flames of War - that the idea of a game where I can either research an actual battle, or just say, "Yeah, that looks like it'll be fun' is... refreshing, to say the least.

To be fair, you can do this with any of the list driven games you have listed. As I understand it, this is the way Rogue Trader/old 40k used to be, even for a short time after the concept of lists was introduced. The problem is, large portions of the GW based game community (which extends beyond the realm of GW games to Malifaux, Warmachine, and FoW) is unaccustomed to such a concept and will frequently look at you like you have two heads if you suggest it, and if you do get them to agree to try it out, there is usually a lot of whining and moaning on the part of the losing side, claiming that they could have won if they had a balanced force, blah blah blah (its happened to me before). Indeed the release of Apocalypse was in many ways meant to be a return to this kinda thinking, the problem is the datasheets all have associated points costs, etc. and people take this to mean its normal 40k without an FOC, despite the fact that the book itself (and the battle reports therein) suggest throwing down with your entire collections and using a rough estimate of points and adding strategems to the smaller side to try to balance it out. Indeed, the only Apoc games I have ever played have had strictly enforced points limits and limitations on what I could bring, etc. for the purpose of a balanced battle, not that its helped any as the xenos side (more often than not at least 90% eldar vs. what is almost purely a primarily imperial force) has always managed to crush the opposing force.

In part, I blame generation x and generation y (both of which are sometimes referred to as the 'gimme generation'). We exist in a society where everything is pretty much handed to us, instant gratification and the like. Lists cater to this phenomenon in more ways than one. We don't have to seriously consider what we're going to bring to the show. We're given a set of guidelines and rules, pointed in a rough direction, and told to go. Basing things on historical builds would require us to instead spend time researching this stuff online (or heaven forbid at a library) in order to come up with something. Just showing up with your collection and throwing down would require either thinking :GASP: of ways to try to balance things out on your own (giving one side special rules, abilities, etc.) or asking someone to games master (which is in itself a fun and rewarding experience) which is frequently hard to do, because the third guy often wants to play an actual game as well.

And for the record, yes it is possible to get historical with sci-fi and fantasy type stuff, either by information provided by the people writing the setting or by 'translating' (for lack of a better term). I can't speak of Malifaux, but Warmachine texts describe force compositions for various factions (and I'm not talking about 'theme lists', I'm talking about what pretty much amounts to TO&Es/OOBs) and Forgeworld does the same on the GW end of the spectrum. Certain Black Library books, and a much smaller number of codecies do similar things (Space Marine Chapter Organization, Tau Cadre organization, etc.) as well. Plus, you could always base force composition over the descriptions given in the books about historical battles, some go into greater detail than others, but it shouldn't be difficult.

As for translating, I've seen it done before on other forums to varying degrees of success, but what that entails is basically researching TO&E/OOB for the opposing sides of a historical battle, and then translating the units described to 40k forces (for example). So say you research a historical ww2 battle, say an action of US Marines in the pacific against a small Japanese held island in the Pacific. Lets say in this battle that the Marines outnumbered the Japanese Army troops by 3 to 1. In this case you would pick one 40k faction to represent the Marines and one to represent the Imperial Japanese Army. Now, lets say you didn't really care if the IJA based player had a fighting chance, he's not playing to win, he's playing to see how long he can survive (which can be VERY fun). So, the USMC player is going to use Imperial Guard and the IJA player is going to use Tau. Now, we have a fundamental problem here: 40k forces don't have access to quite the same weapons and equipment... whatever! Use analogues. USMC amphibious transports are Chimera's, Infantry platoons are infantry platoons, say 3 platoons to a company (often a historical order of battle will give more precise breakdowns, etc.), Naval Gunfire Support can either be represented by a master of ordnance, or on table artillery units (Medusa, Griffon, Basilisk, etc.), and so on and so forth. In the case of Tau, you could say 2 FW squads =1 platoon of IJA infantry, a unit of light tanks could be a unit of Crisis Suits, etc. Get creative.

If you decided you wanted a more cinematic, possibly slightly more balanced approach, you could equate the IJA to Space Marines (which frequently cost more points per model) and equate the USMC to Orks or even nids, etc. there really is no end to the inspiration you can potentially derive from a real TO&E or OOB.

List building was a big deal in 40k literally from the start of 2nd ed-the "Black Codex" that came with the boxed set had units and points for all of the factions, and we immediately began breaking them down and looking at what kind of army lists we could make.

2nd ed had more of a meta than people remember, too. Competitive Ork players spammed pulsa rokkits, Space Wolves had the notorious Wolf Guard termy squads armed entirely with assault cannons. Eldar would take all jetbike armies, or all Halequin armies. And everyone either had an ubercharacter, or had to plan around the ubercharacters they knew they'd see.

I wasn't playing 40k before 2 ed, but list building of some sort figured into the other wargames we played. Battletech tended to be sorted by weight. Renegade Legion (which was an awesome game) had a point based TOE (sound familiar?)

In short, it's been part of wargaming ever since gamers broke away from strict historical gaming.

This shows games can change over time.

Ordznik wrote:In short, it's been part of wargaming ever since gamers broke away from strict historical gaming.

Spot on. I remember whole armies being banned from tournament games back in the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies days. Not to mention some of the idiotic crazyness of 2nd edition 40k wargear-character combinations. Imperial Assassin on a bike with Vortex grenades, anyone?

Blaming the internet is a red herring. Reasonably intelligent people were fully capable of seeing exploits in shoddily balanced rules systems back in the 80s and early 90s as well. It wasn't rocket science.

The month 2nd Ed 40k was released.

I always thought the list you brought was limited by what we, as 12yo kids, could afford...

Now, I am able to afford more, thus I can tailor my lists accordingly.

Eilif wrote:Rogue Trader and early RPG's, there's an element of randomness in charachter and list generation and in many game-effects that would seem to stifle some of the list-building focus.

Rogue Trader was so abusable that the only factor limiting the cheesiness of your army was your own personal feeling of shame.

Eilif wrote:Sounds like you started up right as 2nd edition was coming out. That's when I found out about 40k. A friend lent me a RT Compendium and by the time I bought in it was 2nd ed. Sisters of battle came out in 2nd edition. I remember the release of the minis and articles in WD, though I don't recall if/when they got an official codex.

There was a Codex: Sisters of Battle for 2nd Edition - I've just started rereading it.

I remember a period where the game was unbalanced enough that the solution to certain armies was generally considered to be "give them 0 for comp and sports--" although certain abusive armies might stomp you, the soft score hits would prevent them from actually winning events and this would motivate players to tone it down. Now that comp and sports have fallen by the wayside at most events, this is no longer an option-- fortunately, the game is also more balanced to compensate, so the truly insane builds don't show up anymore.

I'm willing to consider chess as a balanced-sides wargame, and people've been playing that at a cut-throat level for centuries.

But the Internet has certainly made it easier; crowdsourcing lets people figure out the most degenerate lists or strategy (or the best lists/strategies within a certain metagame, at least) in a fairly efficient way. Before, you'd have to stumble upon all the little intricacies of a given list/strategy on your own, or with the help of a handful of people you played with. Now, if you're willing to tap into it, you've got thousands of people helping you.

I'm also sure that game designers recognize what players are doing, and how they're approaching the game; I'd be willing to assume that most designers mold their products to meet consumer expectations. It's entirely possible that wargaming HAS gotten more list-reliant (WarmaHordes certainly is!), and that it's because of a feedback loop between players and manufacturers.

Mewens wrote:I'm willing to consider chess as a balanced-sides wargame, and people've been playing that at a cut-throat level for centuries.

But the Internet has certainly made it easier; crowdsourcing lets people figure out the most degenerate lists or strategy (or the best lists/strategies within a certain metagame, at least) in a fairly efficient way. Before, you'd have to stumble upon all the little intricacies of a given list/strategy on your own, or with the help of a handful of people you played with. Now, if you're willing to tap into it, you've got thousands of people helping you.

I'm also sure that game designers recognize what players are doing, and how they're approaching the game; I'd be willing to assume that most designers mold their products to meet consumer expectations. It's entirely possible that wargaming HAS gotten more list-reliant (WarmaHordes certainly is!), and that it's because of a feedback loop between players and manufacturers.

I think its more to do with the fact that most major rule systems releases have been coming out from companies that are trying to attract the GW demographic/pick up gamers that are familiar with the GW method of doing things. It allows for easier transitions. The historical community (and the associated fringe sci-fi community) are still getting listless gaming system rulesets.

I think the more stringent the rules and codexes, the more list building is encouraged.

With Rogue Trader you had some goofy gak, same with early Fantasy. How can you list build when your opponent turns up with lizardmen riding giant slugs? And there was a lot more unpredictability in the game, you had huge tables for stuff like mutations and weapon effects and really daft things that could happen, games used less figures and could last for ages.

2nd Edition started to change this for 40K, and 4th/5th edition Fantasy did the same. You actually stated having dedicated army lists instead of being able to pick and choose pretty much anything you liked out the bestiary section. But then again there was a lot of flexibility, you had a heap of wargear/magic items, armies often had alternative lists in the, in 40K the tyranids had genestealer cults in the back, Chaos had daemon and cultist lists in them. And they were often weak or imbalanced forces, and armies could wildly vary. Army selection typically boiled down to "minimum 25% on troops, no more than 50%" on characters.

This isn't to say you didn't get cheese. You got some huge fething blocks of cheddar being put on the table, and Fantasy wasn't called Herohammer for nothing. But still, there was a lot more flexibility and you could make armies very unique. You could still flick to the creatures section in almost any army book in Fantasy 5th and pick a manticore or cocatrice for your vampire/empire hero. Obviously the game was open to abuse, but what game isn't? You could abuse Rogue Trader, people probably did but it was so easy, it was like abusing D&D and just making yourself a superhuman character, ultimately pointless. And you never knew what your opponent was going to have, or which of the hundred wargear cards he had armed his characters with.

Since then the codexes have become slimmer and armies are more strictly structured. Armies are not as organic as they were, codexes limit models and wargear quite strictly so for all armies it seems that there are a few basic designs. This means that the content of opponent's armies are more predictable, but also it means that many armies look very similar. The 'cookie cutter' armies are more common because it is so much easier now, before it was more of a free for all. Really, I don't think it's all that possible to come up with an army and genuinely surprise someone. It's not like you can bring something out of the blue like your slug riding lizard men to attack a castle (the slug's special rule was that they could climb up walls at standard movement).

So say you research a historical ww2 battle, say an action of US Marines in the pacific against a small Japanese held island in the Pacific. Lets say in this battle that the Marines outnumbered the Japanese Army troops by 3 to 1. In this case you would pick one 40k faction to represent the Marines and one to represent the Imperial Japanese Army. Now, lets say you didn't really care if the IJA based player had a fighting chance, he's not playing to win, he's playing to see how long he can survive (which can be VERY fun).

It isn't fun for me. I don't like getting into a game where the outcome is decided before the first die is ever cast. If I don't stand a chance and the other guy "wins" by default then why even bother wasting time playing the game?

And the casual crowd are the ones who are always claiming they don't care about winning, that they strictly play "for fun", but they seem to be awful big fans of unbalanced scenarios like this one where the game starts with a predetermined victor. I mean I don't really care, as long as both players participating in this nonsense want to play then whatever turns you on, but personally I don't find a game enjoyable when victory is all but assured and I don't have to really try, or when no matter how hard I try there's no chance at victory.

If it helps I've never been a big fan of survival-style gameplay in the first place, and for that very reason. You know you can't win, it's literally impossible. There's no real goal or point to it, it's just nothing but a huge waste of time. While one could argue that playing games is a waste of time in the first place, I prefer if it feels like there's an actual point to what I'm doing.

I also don't like the insinuation that craving balance and fair play means I belong to a generation that is "entitled" or stupid.

Smacks wrote:

Eilif wrote:Rogue Trader and early RPG's, there's an element of randomness in charachter and list generation and in many game-effects that would seem to stifle some of the list-building focus.

Rogue Trader was so abusable that the only factor limiting the cheesiness of your army was your own personal feeling of shame.

If only I had room in my sig.,..

Sidstyler wrote:

So say you research a historical ww2 battle, say an action of US Marines in the pacific against a small Japanese held island in the Pacific. Lets say in this battle that the Marines outnumbered the Japanese Army troops by 3 to 1. In this case you would pick one 40k faction to represent the Marines and one to represent the Imperial Japanese Army. Now, lets say you didn't really care if the IJA based player had a fighting chance, he's not playing to win, he's playing to see how long he can survive (which can be VERY fun).

It isn't fun for me. I don't like getting into a game where the outcome is decided before the first die is ever cast. If I don't stand a chance and the other guy "wins" by default then why even bother wasting time playing the game?

And the casual crowd are the ones who are always claiming they don't care about winning, that they strictly play "for fun", but they seem to be awful big fans of unbalanced scenarios like this one where the game starts with a predetermined victor. I mean I don't really care, as long as both players participating in this nonsense want to play then whatever turns you on, but personally I don't find a game enjoyable when victory is all but assured and I don't have to really try, or when no matter how hard I try there's no chance at victory.

If it helps I've never been a big fan of survival-style gameplay in the first place, and for that very reason. You know you can't win, it's literally impossible. There's no real goal or point to it, it's just nothing but a huge waste of time. While one could argue that playing games is a waste of time in the first place, I prefer if it feels like there's an actual point to what I'm doing.

I also don't like the insinuation that craving balance and fair play means I belong to a generation that is "entitled" or stupid.

Who says you can't win? First its a dice based game of random outcomes, so ANYTHING is quite literally possible, second, you don't have to do an exact recreation of movements made by forces in the battle. I've seen recreations of Gettysburg where the Confederates won, likewise I've seen the Texans win the Battle of the Alamo (once). Challenging =/= predetermined outcome.

As for craving balance etc. balance is necessary for tournament/competitive play, but if you're just throwing down with your mates over a couple beers, does it matter? Can you not have fun unless you can pound your buddies face into the mud and paint the walls with his blood in what is supposed to be a fair fight? Better yet, can you not have fun pounding your buddies face into the mud and painting the walls with his blood when you're in whats supposedly a position of disadvantage? IMO, its more fun for me to be the underdog and manage to pull out a win when I should by all means not be able to do so, I then actually have something to be proud about.

I'm guessing you've never really played OGRE (let alone heard of it)? Look it up, see if you can't find a copy of it online to read through, its a fun game for both parties, even though the outcome is all but predetermined. Thats not to say the OGRE will win every game, but its incredibly hard for the OGRE to lose.

You've clearly never played a real wargame (by which I mean the original wargames that predate GW). GW was one of the first wargames to develop the concept of list building, prior to that, most wargames, being historical in nature, used historical TO&Es to allocate forces.

If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous.

If you ever find your way out of your backside, you might discover that WFB was basically a copy of 6th WRG ancients, and that 6th WRG ancients had numerous army books containing lists, from which players created armies to an agreed number of points. Indeed all WRG periods had similar books, and operated a similar points system. And so did many other rules sets.

So don't give me 'you've clearly never played a real wargame', expecially when you display your complete ignorance of the subject by claiming that before GW people used 'historical TO&E's' (whatever they are) because no they didn't.

marielle wrote:

You've clearly never played a real wargame (by which I mean the original wargames that predate GW). GW was one of the first wargames to develop the concept of list building, prior to that, most wargames, being historical in nature, used historical TO&Es to allocate forces.

If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous.

If you ever find your way out of your backside, you might discover that WFB was basically a copy of 6th WRG ancients, and that 6th WRG ancients had numerous army books containing lists, from which players created armies to an agreed number of points. Indeed all WRG periods had similar books, and operated a similar points system. And so did many other rules sets.

So don't give me 'you've clearly never played a real wargame', expecially when you display your complete ignorance of the subject by claiming that before GW people used 'historical TO&E's' (whatever they are) because no they didn't.

You'll notice I said one of the first, not the first (Star Fleet Battles for example predates Warhammer by a few years, but never achieved the same popularity). In any case, my understanding has been that Wargames Research Groups points based gameplay was only used for competitive play, most casual games were done freeform. Having never really bothered with the rules myself, I dont really care either way, although from looking at it, it appears that Warhammer has little if anything in common with WRG ancients, or any of the other variants. Perhaps earlier editions of the game did, but Warhammer is certainly several orders of magnitude more complex a game (in terms of rules, not necessarily gameplay). As for TO&E, I suggest you look it up. People most certainly did use them then, and they still use them now. Panzerblitz/Panzer Leader for example used the TO&E system instead of points (but only for one scenario, the others all had predetermined force compositions).

Also worth noting, the first modern wargames, like Kriegspiel, did not use points at all.

Th internet is at fault here. No question in my mind that when the internet cropped up it promoted sharing of lists, thus...list driven 40k.

In any case, my understanding has been that Wargames Research Groups points based gameplay was only used for competitive play, most casual games were done freeform. Having never really bothered with the rules myself, I dont really care either way, although from looking at it, it appears that Warhammer has little if anything in common with WRG ancients, or any of the other variants. Perhaps earlier editions of the game did, but Warhammer is certainly several orders of magnitude more complex a game (in terms of rules, not necessarily gameplay).

Aha... so you don't know what you are talking about?

marielle wrote:

In any case, my understanding has been that Wargames Research Groups points based gameplay was only used for competitive play, most casual games were done freeform. Having never really bothered with the rules myself, I dont really care either way, although from looking at it, it appears that Warhammer has little if anything in common with WRG ancients, or any of the other variants. Perhaps earlier editions of the game did, but Warhammer is certainly several orders of magnitude more complex a game (in terms of rules, not necessarily gameplay).

Aha... so you don't know what you are talking about?

Clever, pick out the one part of my post which I'm not 100% on and claim I have no knowledge on the subject even though the rest of my post clearly shows I do.

chaos0xomega wrote:I think its more to do with the fact that most major rule systems releases have been coming out from companies that are trying to attract the GW demographic/pick up gamers that are familiar with the GW method of doing things. It allows for easier transitions. The historical community (and the associated fringe sci-fi community) are still getting listless gaming system rulesets.

Yeah, there's no doubt that GW's had a huge influence on how wargames have developed.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that, in any given system, there will be superior and inferior strategies, among them list composition (for games with lists, obviously). It's far easier to find these better strategies now than it was in, say, 1990; I'm sure that, while it's not a perfect analogue, there are dozens of places a curious historical wargamer could go to find strategies that would give Napoleon an edge in Waterloo. The game designers -- at least ones interested in creating relevant product -- watch what gamers are doing and act to address it; sometimes to bar certain behaviors, and sometimes to embrace them. I think the metagame of list-making has been one that's been embraced by GW and Privateer Press; that's the cycle I was referring to, where players were maximizing their lists, and the companies responded by making list maximization a core element of the game -- thus leading to even more list maximizing. The Internet has merely made such cycles far more efficient and speedy.

I wouldn't know my foot from a funny hat in the world of historical gaming, but I'm sure there have been design choices spurred by strategies that existed outside of the designer's initial vision of the game.

Of course, when a company dominates a market for a long time -- like GW has -- those kinds of meta choices can become sort of the industry default.

Well, the problem with lists is that, unlike a maneuver strategy that would lead Napoleon to victory at Waterloo, it is much easier to analyze in scientific terms (a.k.a. Mathhammer). The reason why such and such list/unit is better than such and such list/unit is because it has a x% per point chance of killing MEQ's vs y% per point chance of killing MEQ's, and the same analysis can be conducted for defensive ability as well. Now, the game is complex enough that such an analysis won't give you a very accurate assessment of a units capabilities, but you can get numerical 'unit quality' scores for offensive and defensive power and use this to build your list. You're correct of course about list maximization strategies as well as meta-strategies in historical wargames, but it seems far more pronounced in warhammer than in other games. The main problem (I think) is that 40k and many other list driven games are very simple in terms of gameplay mechanics. A lot of people claim that there is no skill involved in these games, and that is true in a lot of ways. Rather than being the primary determinant of victory, skill is the secondary determinant, acting as modifiers to the primary determinant which is the list.

For example: 1000 pt game
Necrons:
Nightbringer
Monolith
2x ~15 Necron Warriors (two squads of how ever many necron warriors you need to bring a Nightbringer and Monolith to 1000 pts)
Imperial Guard:
Minimal HQ and troops
Leman Russ MBT's/Basilisks/Medusa/Collosus in Heavy

The game has a predetermined outcome. In the hands of equally skilled players (assume they are fairly competent) Necrons will be phased out on turn 1. I've seen it happen, in fact this Necron list gets phased out by most armies pretty quickly (that I've observed). Now, assume that there is a discrepancy in the skill of the players, the Necron player is vastly superior to Guard player. As a result, the Guard player targets the monolith/Nightbringer and puts them in hurt. If the Necron player is really good and the Guard player is really bad, it'll turn into a win, however assuming that the Necron player is slightly above average in skill, and the Guard player only slightly below average, the Guard player will still win, that Monolith/ Nightbringer won't last forever/when those warriors start getting closer they are going to become the target of choice, and it won't take much to finish them off. Perhaps its not necessarily the best example, since part of the skill involved in the game is list building, and noone in their right mind would take such a list as a Necron player(it saddens me to know people that would...), but you can't deny that its a fairly accurate assessment.

Warmachine I think gets around this in a lot of ways due to the nuances of its rules and listbuilding. First is the concept of a caster kill which kinda serves to level the playing field, you just have to kill one model to end the game, in some ways it becomes a freeform game of chess. The second concept is that they made listbuilding more complex a matter with the synergy/buffing effects of units, as well as the Theme list concept, which rewards players for taking balanced and fluffy forces with in game effects. GW has slowly been moving in this direction as well, but listbuilding and gameplay is far simpler by comparison. Thats not to say Warmachine is a golden egg of wargaming. It has its own powerbuild issues, but these tend to be more specific in nature (I.E. specific matchups have a tendency towards a certain outcome, example is Deneghra vs. Karchev, Karchev usually doesn't fair too hot, but other Khador casters don't suffer nearly as much).

Disclaimer: this is IMHO.

An interesting question but not one you'll get a definitive answer to. Some people innately look at a system and see ways to use it most efficiently. Others don't, looking instead tl find ways to create a story with friends.

Anyone's anecdotes about their personal experiences will not be indicitive of the entire gaming community. The difference now is the internet. That allows information to flow more freely and rapidly and list building becomes emphasized because it is one of the easiest things to communicate through the written word.


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An interesting question but not one you'll get a definitive answer to. Some people innately look at a system and see ways to use it most efficiently. Others don't, looking instead tl find ways to create a story with friends.

Anyone's anecdotes about their personal experiences will not be indicitive of the entire gaming community. The difference now is the internet. That allows information to flow more freely and rapidly and list building becomes emphasized because it is one of the easiest things to communicate through the written word.