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Any system of valuing units is min-maxable without army list restrictions like the old Force Org Chart, for example.

Balance in an army comes partly from the combat strength of each type of unit, and partly from the combinations of units available and the number of them you can take.

Some of the AoS fan-made systems address this by limiting the number of Heroes and Monsters you can put in an army.

The chart isn't inherently necessarily if you do the points system right. A giant horde of goblins with pointy sticks vs a bunch of steam tanks can be fair as long as you get the point values for each right so that you have an appropriate number on each side. Force org charts actually lead to significant problems when the concept of a troop tax gets involved. If my tanks are only fair if you force me to also pay for a bunch of foot soldiers, I would argue that you didn't set the point cost of the tanks high enough.

But I will agree that the force org chart can work, if you get the point values right. Troop tax concept aside, they introduce a system of constraints on army building and while that can be annoying if you want to do something that doesn't fit, constraints are very important to the balance of most games.

Yes, wounds or model count make terrible point systems (though, I have used them from time to time for convenience in pick up games).

But they do not have to be used in the absence of a comp system, so I don't really see why they have been brought up.

It is definitely possible to play AoS with no comp (including a model count or wound restriction), and instead two players choosing armies they feel are appropriate and then negotiating and retweaking slightly before the game begins. See MongooseMatt's Warhammer World reports for examples of this.

 jonolikespie wrote:


*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.

D3 wounds on his attacks is gross, rend is always good. Autoheals wounds, is a Wizard, can still summon.
On a par with a Chaos Lord or a Stormcast Lord Celestant on average, but clear winner if luck's on your side.

List building is the salt in the soup. Without it a major component of the game is missing. I know no player here who actually doesn't enjoy it. It is certainly one reason why AoS is almost dead here.

RoperPG wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:


*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.

D3 wounds on his attacks is gross, rend is always good. Autoheals wounds, is a Wizard, can still summon.
On a par with a Chaos Lord or a Stormcast Lord Celestant on average, but clear winner if luck's on your side.

See, that doesn't sound bad, but I used to love that my vampire lord would chew up and spit out a chaos lord like he were nothing

Most of what I could add to this thread has already been said, so I'll make use of some quoting exercises here

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
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.

 wuestenfux wrote:
List building is the salt in the soup. Without it a major component of the game is missing. I know no player here who actually doesn't enjoy it. It is certainly one reason why AoS is almost dead here.

My sentiments too - I love making up lists and tweaking them based on how the game turned out. As long as the community makes the points value, I think it will turn out really well.

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

I agree with this! Sorry but can't resist linking to my own on-going project on this matter. So far there are but a few factions done, but you'll find unit cards for all armies in time here. Just make a comment there if there's any faction you want me to do next

 Bottle wrote:

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.

If you ever get really bored on the train and want to write something, please let me know about your thoughts on the discrepancy, I would really love to hear them

I agree with this! Sorry but can't resist linking to my own on-going project on this matter. So far there are but a few factions done, but you'll find unit cards for all armies in time here. Just make a comment there if there's any faction you want me to do next

Thats awesome - thanks so much

 jonolikespie wrote:
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.

Goblins have crap saves of 6+ and are one wound each. Their weapons don't rend and they only hit on 5 up and wound on 5 up or a 4up for their best weapon and gobbos have 1 atk each. Their bravery is 4.
WoCs have 2 wounds each and a 4 up save. They hit on 4 up at worst and 3 up with hand weapons x 2 attacks. They can also reroll hit rolls of 1 if the WoC is dual wielding blades. Their bravery is 6.

So goblins, per model, are less likely to hit, wound, avoid battleshock, survive wounds, etc.
But both model/unit types are equal.

I love me some list building, and when I could still play AoS it was probably the one thing I missed.

I'm not what I would consider a competition player, I more or less use list building as a guide to grow my army. Escalation leagues are my favorite (got a new one starting in a month!!!) I always use it as an excuse to start a new army.

First step is getting all the rules I need. Once I have them I read everything, looking for the theme I want to go with. I start with a 500 point army, then write out a 750, 1000, 1250, 1500, and 1850 list. (that's the advancement my local shop does, with each increase every two weeks.) My focus is pretty much how it's all gonna look.

The reason lists are so important is around 1,000 points I start to add models that are more expensive points-wise, so I often need a side-board of models. Due to this I usually end the league with over 2,000 points of painted goodness. I have to have it planned exactly, so I can make sure I get it all fully painted with each increment of the escalation. (In our leagues, painted models have hatred of unpainted models.)

For me it's the ultimate speed painting challenge. When he did it for AoS he just added a box/monster/hero in a specific order every two weeks. Thats easy, no real challenge.

I guess I just like being able to work out future purchases and build orders. I can see the flip side of course, just buy and paint whatever I like. However army list building was just an aspect of the game I liked.

I do list building for AoS, but in a slightly different way (and this works really well for building up armies).

We are playing through the Realmsgate War campaign, so every time they release a new book (and I have started doing this for the Battletomes too), I go through the Battleplans and work out what forces are needed for each. And then I paint them

For example, the Fyreslayers book has just come out and it has the At the Threshold. Now, this could have really large forces, but I don't want to dive into the Fyreslayers too heavily at this point. The narrative before the actual Battleplan also gives good hints on what types of forces are present and what characters lead them. From that narrative and the models I had picked up, I could put together this list;

Fyreslayers (42): Runefather on Magmadroth, Hearthguard Berzerkers x 5, Auric Hearthguard x 5, Vulkite Berzerkers x 20

So, now I just need some Bloodbound to match them! The narrative mentions a Lord on a Jugger, Skullcrushers, Khorgoraths, Bloodstoker, Blood Warriors and Bloodreavers - so, those are the units I will be including. Just need to work out how many now.

The Battleplan favours the Fureslayers (defensive position, Bloodbound have to cross the battlefield, and they only win by exiting the Fyreslayers' table edge and doing damage), so they should have a larger army, perhaps around 60-ish wounds to match the 42 of the Fyreslayers. However, the Fyreslayers have a monster (the Khorgorath is just not in the same class) and the Bloodreavers are really not all that and only have a Bloodstoker to pump them up. However, the Skullcrushers can get all kinds of nasty when they are used in number, so I need to cut back on those unless I want to paint up lots more Fyreslayers, which I have no intention of doing right now

So, take all that, and I end up with this:

Bloodbound (76): Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut, Mighty Skullcrushers x 3, Bloodstoker, Khorgorath, Blood Warriors x 10, Bloodreavers x 20

And there you go, list building and I have a bunch of Fyreslayers to get ready for it!

I do much the same with all the other Battleplans (can give my listing for all of them, if anyone is interested), often using the same process I used on the Bloodbound above for both sides if I do not have a small, compact force that is basically going to be using all of its models.

I thought monetary value was picking up as a legit gauge for list-building.

No joke. Though it was a joke at first shortly after AoS hit. But I've heard $200 v $200, $500 v $500, etc is allegedly quite balanced w/ the new re-packaged stuff and new models.

I don't think I've ever seen so much hate for building lists! Though it's pretty clear that "list building" is much closer to concepts like "metas" and "min/maxing" to most of you, and not flourishing under restriction like me and Spinner

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.

and Bottle

I also like to do list building with comps.

and Wuesten and so on. I also agree with Waspy

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.

that the so-called blank slate of army "design" in the AOS RAW that so many profess to love is perhaps the most crippling of points systems for me! Looking at model-limited games - which I've no desire to ever play (have actually used wounds-based thus far) - all I see is the most min/max-able, power model favoring, heroes & monsters-hammer "comp" I could imagine. No wonder you all hate to actually list the models you want to use

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.

The lack of built-in list building just about got me to walk away from AOS as even a modeling endeavor, which is its strength as a game, frankly. As a great many WHFB players learned this summer, it's pretty hard to be motivated to build and paint models in a vacuum - just because art or something. I don't have the time or money to just buy cool stuff, build it, paint it, and set it aside, to eventually be plonked down in increasingly larger, inevitably unbalanced games of AOS. (Spoiler: that's how we did things when I was 10 and just starting out with WHFB.) What I need is an army list to guide my purchasing / building / painting.

List building also gives my mind something to grind through at work, in the car, at the gym, whenever my mind wants to be interested in a game and scheme for future games and army projects. When everything was going crazy last summer and the Internet burned with hatred for AOS, for me the most salient voice in that storm was a reply to a post on Blood of Kittens, which described how AOS is a game and a kit building experience, but it was really struggling to stay a hobby for many of us. By which the author meant a mini game (or probably any crafting experience, or even larger than that) that transcends the gaming table and the painting table and enters the mind. For me, list building is absolutely the thing missing from AOS that kept me from thinking about the game past a certain point. "This is a cool model, I could use that" or "I've already got all these models, guess I'll use a bunch when I play, but just shy of Sudden Death" is a pretty bleak mental exercise for me, a guy who routinely logged on to Dakka to help pressure cook lists over in the Army Lists forum!

Enter scrollbuilder.com and SDK. The former because I don't care to do the calculations involved in the latter (and have no real source for the values otherwise). Anyway, I'm a pretty staunch proponent of SDK at this point and very interested to get some games in with it. Like Bottle, I often trot AOS armies from batreps (i.e. armies that actually saw the field) through various comps, generally with the intent of seeing how the SDK compare. With some numbers to wrap my mind around - and often additional restrictions (see Adepticon's 1800 SDK comp, my current favorite) - AOS has become interesting at last, and that includes thinking about what to do with models I own, what models to add, and planning out whole new armies. Which absolutely is the first step in buying, building, painting and playing for me.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Though it's pretty clear that "list building" is much closer to concepts like "metas" and "min/maxing" to most of you, and not flourishing under restriction like me and Spinner

It is some of that, though I'm not sure where you draw the line between "flourishing under restriction" and "min/maxing", but it is also this:

What I need is an army list to guide my purchasing / building / painting.

That's just not what I want guiding my purchasing / building / painting. I guess I want the exact opposite. I want to purchase/build/paint what I want, and then create an army from that which is playable and fun - the restriction here not being what I can play or what I should play, but what I feel like playing. That requires either fewer constraints in how I build my army (like AoS), or it requires more versatile units (like Infinity).

 Sqorgar wrote:
I'm not sure where you draw the line between "flourishing under restriction" and "min/maxing"

I spent the entirety of 8E creating armies based on event restrictions - because let's admit it, unrestricted 8E was a bad time to not be a powergamer - and seeking to undermine the prevailing meta. I deeply miss that mental exercise, and even if it didn't translate to too many victories on the tabletop, it gave me personal goals in army construction: use this never-seen unit, avoid using these always-taken units, and so on. Maybe what I'm saying is that I need a prevailing meta to be a better special snowflake

I guess I want the exact opposite. I want to purchase/build/paint what I want, and then create an army from that which is playable and fun - the restriction here not being what I can play or what I should play, but what I feel like playing.

Yeaaaaa, that's not me at all. I'm a 'Counts As' maniac who wants to either connect cool models with rules that work, or go backwards and take underused / interesting rules and connect them to cool models ... and then buy/build/paint/play to bridge the gap in between. Rules and thematic army construction - i.e. there's an army being constructed, not just a gathering of cool models - is hard when you're just going from models to models to models to oh a game using some of them back to models, and so on.

I'm wondering if part of the anti-list "fakk it take whatever" AOS mentality* that I'm so against is that I tend to suffer from overchoice / choice overload. With such an array of choices, all of them pretty decent, how do you choose anything? Particularly when you're a 'Counts As' modeller and can justify next to any model / conversion!

*As noted, AOS RAW based on model count absolutely favors taking more powerful models over less powerful ones. So "fakk it take whatever" is less likely to be the prevailing design philosophy in practice, if we think of AOS as a game like virtually all the other games on Dakka (i.e. winning is a thing that happens for one side and not the other).

- Salvage

I'm not a fan of list building; I've got lists that I rarely deviate from, usually at a few points levels.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Yeaaaaa, that's not me at all. I'm a 'Counts As' maniac who wants to either connect cool models with rules that work, or go backwards and take underused / interesting rules and connect them to cool models ... and then buy/build/paint/play to bridge the gap in between. Rules and thematic army construction - i.e. there's an army being constructed, not just a gathering of cool models - is hard when you're just going from models to models to models to oh a game using some of them back to models, and so on.

I'm okay with interacting with the hobby in one way or the other, but list building forces me to interact with the hobby in only way. List building turns the models into glorified pawns, and that's fine when that's what I want, but that's not ONLY what I want. And I think that miniature games that have a predominant pawn-ness to them end up creating subpar experiences.

Take Warmachine. I love some of the models in that game, but I'll never get them because they don't work unless I also field models I don't like. Every game I've played of WMH, and indeed every WMH picture I've seen retweeted from PP's twitter feed, has mostly unpainted figures on a flat table with no terrain. Here's the most recent one. Here's another. I'll bet you that some of those models are proxies too. And that's where the "models as pawns" mentality gets you, as a game. It creates a community of gamers who don't care that they are playing a miniatures game. And that's fine... sometimes. But that's not the only way I want to interact with the game. And there is really no other way to interact with Warmachine.

I think the models in Age of Sigmar make terrible pawns. Age of Sigmar is a game toolkit that allows you to create a variety of gaming experiences, and because there is no superior experience, it makes all experiences equally valid. In game theory, a dominant choice creates a situation where the best move is the same regardless of what your opponent plays. Those are boring decisions. An obvious choice is less interesting than a conflicting choice. I feel like many of the list building games are built around a dominant system, where choosing to go against the system results in making losing choices on purpose. But not so in Age of Sigmar. Without a dominant system, the types of games you can play are equally possible, and that's more interesting.

I'm wondering if part of the anti-list "fakk it take whatever" AOS mentality* that I'm so against is that I tend to suffer from overchoice / choice overload. With such an array of choices, all of them pretty decent, how do you choose anything? Particularly when you're a 'Counts As' modeller and can justify next to any model / conversion!

That's why some people have trouble playing open world video games. In general, try to focus on one goal at a time. The battalion warscrolls give decent intermediate goals for army building (not always), and focusing on a specific scenario or two helps. Like, I'm going to play this scenario and that scenario with a Lizardman army. What units will be most beneficial for each scenario, and which will be most beneficial to both. And so on.

I prefer the (generally) "I go you go" deployment in AoS.
Take Stormcast Decimators, for example. They're survivable, but unless your opponent has taken a lot of smaller/1w infantry, pretty much useless compared to Retributors. But they are pointed equally in most of the systems I've seen so far.
It's not just the lack of points, it's the random nature of terrain, the different requirements of scenarios and the Time of War rules that mean even if you attempted 'proper' list building, simply setting up the game would likely render all that time spent optimising as useless.
I used to be a very competent list breaker. But I really enjoy the reactive deployment of AoS.

Great posts from Boss Salvage! As mentioned before, I like to play AoS both with and without points - I love SDK because it is so simple. Every time I play a pick up game in a GW store though I play without points though and it's usually fine :-)

 Sqorgar wrote:
List building turns the models into glorified pawns, and that's fine when that's what I want, but that's not ONLY what I want. And I think that miniature games that have a predominant pawn-ness to them end up creating subpar experiences.

Not for me - like Boss Salvage quoted in his excellent post up there - and like he alluded to with 'choice overload', I appreciate the structure and restriction that list-building gives. It's so easy to throw everything that could possibly show up in a particularly themed force on the table; sometimes having the game rules tell me 'no' helps far more than it hurts. And, of course, that doesn't preclude using models you like just for the sake of using models you like!

As an example, I started toying around with Heralds of Ruin's variant Kill Team rules, because - again, like Boss Salvage said - tinkering with lists is a great way to kill time for some people, and I've got hopes of persuading someone into a game. I started with a theme: in this case, a group of penal drop troopers under a hard-bitten Commissar sent out on only the most desperate of missions. Reasonably well-trodden ground, but it's a solid theme and I want an excuse to use my Commissar model. Obviously it should have some Veteran Guardsmen, so I threw a few in there and armed them mostly with shotguns, because why not? Equally obviously, it should have some new recruits - and numbers-boosting cannon fodder - in the form of Conscripts, so in go two squads of those. I also wanted a Veteran Sergeant for the Veterans, so I got that, and a smattering of abhumans. In this case, an ogryn and a ratling.

That's when the points limit came into play. The ruleset has some pretty nifty gear, but I didn't have a lot left over, and after a bit of thought, I decided to take another ratling instead of a smoke grenade for the Commissar. If the convicts can't keep their heads down, she doesn't want them on the team anyway. I'd also gotten it into my head that I wanted a Priest - I liked the idea of a preacher-man looking after the souls of the condemned, or perhaps a Priest who'd broken some sort of law and ended up in the Commissar's clutches while seeking redemption, and he'd be very handy as a buddy for the ogryn and Conscripts...but I'd run out of points. I could drop a squad of Conscripts, or I could take the Priest. It ended up being a fairly tricky choice, both ruleswise and fluffwise, but I ended up on the side of taking two squads of Conscripts. The Commissar would want more recruits, I felt - and they'd also boost my fragile Guardsman numbers. And maybe she didn't want the convicts getting it into their heads that they could appeal to an authority over her...after that, I still had a few points left. They turned into camo gear, a grenade, and a bolt pistol for the Sergeant. Obviously he's lasted quite a while as a de facto second to the Commissar and knows what he can get away with picking up and wandering off with (maybe she doesn't know her spare pistol is missing yet?)

Now, without points, I probably would have just tossed in the Priest without a second thought. I mean, why not, right? He does fit the theme, he synergizes well with the rest of the team, and I'm sure I could pick out an appropriately cool model (or conversion!). If my opponent's worried about balance, he can toss in an extra model, and we're square. But having to think about whether or not to take him made me think more about list composition, the story in my head, and why I wanted the models on the field in the first place. In short, I feel that it makes me think of them as pawns less than a 'take what you want' free-for-all would.

Could just be me, though!

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I'm a 'Counts As' maniac who wants to either connect cool models with rules that work, or go backwards and take underused / interesting rules and connect them to cool models ... and then buy/build/paint/play to bridge the gap in between. Rules and thematic army construction - i.e. there's an army being constructed, not just a gathering of cool models - is hard when you're just going from models to models to models to oh a game using some of them back to models, and so on.

I'm wondering if part of the anti-list "fakk it take whatever" AOS mentality* that I'm so against is that I tend to suffer from overchoice / choice overload. With such an array of choices, all of them pretty decent, how do you choose anything? Particularly when you're a 'Counts As' modeller and can justify next to any model / conversion!

I can attest to this . Always loved your armies, Salvage, and found it interesting, amusing, and occasionally worthy of a small bit of pity how you would go to such great lengths to use a model that NO ONE ELSE DOES (or at least, in a way no one else would) and construct an interesting and thematic list, complete with awesome conversions.

I think the overload might be an issue for me, too, although I hadn't thought of it quite like that before - I also do tons of counts-as and conversions, and planning all that and fitting it to a list is part of what is the most fun for me. Having just a blank slate and not having anything to compare to (without external comp, that is) is just a bit mind-blowing!

That's one thing I've heard people also miss when trying Kings of War (how the lists are simple without all all the magic items, etc of fantasy). But I'm hoping the streamlined gameplay makes up for it for me, and it still gives me a good target for my list building and modeling

Kings of War is debatably really good for people who want to use weird models or do a lot of customization since as long as it fits on the tray, you can put basically anything on the table and it doesn't affect the gameplay.

I'm just curious, were you going for "debateably" there? Looks like auto-correct

I enjoy list building allot and its my main reason i don't like aos.

I even enjoy building lists for games i owned no models for at the time.(mostly specialist games sadly by the time i had money they had been killed)

Trouble is allot of people in this thread don't seem to know what it is, its not just making the most effective list possible, its also about making a fluffy list or making a list around a unit you want to use or just making a list you think is cool.

I think it'd be easier to understand in a game thats actually balanced maybe.

 Spinner wrote:
sometimes having the game rules tell me 'no' helps far more than it hurts.

It's almost like the denial makes it more appealing. I think list building is "negging" you.

Now, without points, I probably would have just tossed in the Priest without a second thought. I mean, why not, right? He does fit the theme, he synergizes well with the rest of the team, and I'm sure I could pick out an appropriately cool model (or conversion!). If my opponent's worried about balance, he can toss in an extra model, and we're square. But having to think about whether or not to take him made me think more about list composition, the story in my head, and why I wanted the models on the field in the first place. In short, I feel that it makes me think of them as pawns less than a 'take what you want' free-for-all would.

I get the appeal of points. I really do. It's as much a way to interact with the game away from the table as it is an exercise in logistics. I just don't think it works very well, and when it fails, it can feel overly limiting.

There's a tight rope list building walks. Too loose and it loses its ability to function as a balancing agent, and fails to provide the interesting trade offs that makes list building fun. Too strict and it takes decisions away from the player, forcing them into particular strategies and builds. I think games that have an overpowering dependence on synergies tend to fall into the latter category. How do you give a point value to the character warjack Ruin, when it has so many more abilities when paired with Butcher than when it is paired with any other warcaster. The relative power of the model changes drastically based on what else is in the army, and the points just do not factor that in.

The argument I think you are making is that by not having any list building at all, Age of Sigmar falls prey to the former problem - that it doesn't provide any structure, trade offs, or balance. And that's kind of true, but AoS never advertises that it does. Simply lacking a feature is different from having a failed one. It's like complaining that a man looks terrible in a bikini, when bikinis were never designed around a male build in the first place.

So what is the alternative? Well I think there are a bunch of different reasons to pick the models that you do for a game, and I like that there isn't one dominant one making all the other irrelevant. You CAN have points for AoS, and there are several point systems out there - all community designed, some of them built around different balancing mechanisms and different interesting trade offs to make. But you can have other reasons for picking your models too. Like how the school league is built around hour long games, or how some tournaments are built around an ongoing narrative, or how varied scenarios keep the game from becoming a mosh pit in the middle every game. And the thing is, in many of these cases, these are not exclusionary goals. You can have an hour long narrative skirmish, or scenarios with specific point values, or points games built around aesthetic appeal, and so on. It's harder to do that in a system with a dominant army building process.

I don't think there's only two ways to pick your army: narrative or points. Neither one of those describe me, and neither does picking an army based on looks. There are a dozen different reasons why I might like a model, and I couldn't tell you which one is ultimately the deciding factor because it always changes. I buy this model because it looks fun to paint, I buy that model because I got a good deal on it, this one filled out a hole in my army's current capabilities. I bought this model over here because it was bundled with another model I liked, this other model was one my wife kinda liked and I was hoping it would entice her to play more, and this model I bought because I liked how it looked. There's no order to how and when I buy my models, and I appreciate the freedom to buy whatever for whatever reason without having to justify it within a specific gameplay structure. I can find room for any of them in Age of Sigmar, while in something like Warmachine, making buying decisions like those create crappy games and wastes money.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Spinner wrote:
sometimes having the game rules tell me 'no' helps far more than it hurts.

It's almost like the denial makes it more appealing. I think list building is "negging" you.

It's more of an S&M thing, given some points systems.

The argument I think you are making is that by not having any list building at all, Age of Sigmar falls prey to the former problem - that it doesn't provide any structure, trade offs, or balance. And that's kind of true, but AoS never advertises that it does. Simply lacking a feature is different from having a failed one. It's like complaining that a man looks terrible in a bikini, when bikinis were never designed around a male build in the first place.

That's actually only part of what I was saying - the bulk of my post was refuting your idea that 'list building reduces models to glorified pawns' and limits hobby activity. Which...well, maybe it does for you, we clearly have very different approaches to tabletop gaming, but that's not what you said.

It's harder to do that in a system with a dominant army building process.

It's not exactly easy to have a point-based game when you have to build the points system from scratch, either.

 Spinner wrote:

That's actually only part of what I was saying - the bulk of my post was refuting your idea that 'list building reduces models to glorified pawns' and limits hobby activity. Which...well, maybe it does for you, we clearly have very different approaches to tabletop gaming, but that's not what you said.

I don't think a "points system" is an approach to tabletop gaming. It's a way to interact with the game, but it is not the game itself. It's more like a mini-game, and some people like the mini-game more than the actual game. The problem is that people become so reliant on the mini-game that they forget how to interact with the actual game without it.

The army building mini-game though, is built around the idea that the models are pawns in a game. Points only factor in a model's stats, usually under very specific circumstances. When you build your army according to that mini-game, you end up building it around model stats in those very specific circumstances. Therefore, the end result is that models' pawn values are vastly outweighed, as are those very specific circumstances. Sure, you can bring theme and personal preference, but you are still working within the pawn value point system. The end result is that army building dictates what is important about the game, what isn't important, and what is subservient. That's why Warmachine ends up with flat mats with minimal flat terrain and unpainted figures - the point system unequivocally dictates what the game is really about, and terrain isn't those "very specific circumstances" and few bother to paint glorified pawns.

In other words, the army building mini-game is overpowered and throws off game balance.

It's not exactly easy to have a point-based game when you have to build the points system from scratch, either.

One might argue that it is even easier AoS has a relatively linear power curve, so a general weighted wound count is usually enough to create balanced games. It's not that this approach doesn't work most of the time, it's that people feel super insecure that it isn't working and they can't tell.

 Sqorgar wrote:
don't think a "points system" is an approach to tabletop gaming. It's a way to interact with the game, but it is not the game itself. It's more like a mini-game, and some people like the mini-game more than the actual game. The problem is that people become so reliant on the mini-game that they forget how to interact with the actual game without it.

The army building mini-game though, is built around the idea that the models are pawns in a game. Points only factor in a model's stats, usually under very specific circumstances. When you build your army according to that mini-game, you end up building it around model stats in those very specific circumstances. Therefore, the end result is that models' pawn values are vastly outweighed, as are those very specific circumstances. Sure, you can bring theme and personal preference, but you are still working within the pawn value point system. The end result is that army building dictates what is important about the game, what isn't important, and what is subservient. That's why Warmachine ends up with flat mats with minimal flat terrain and unpainted figures - the point system unequivocally dictates what the game is really about, and terrain isn't those "very specific circumstances" and few bother to paint glorified pawns.

In other words, the army building mini-game is overpowered and throws off game balance.

Actually, I wasn't talking about points systems when I mentioned approaches - I was referencing the two very clearly different thought processes we have when making armies. I don't think I'd ever be able to set up an army made of a mishmash of models I liked. Whether or not I like the model is usually...either the second or third consideration when taking something in my list, behind 'does it fit the background' and 'will it work on the tabletop - or at least not cripple me'. If I really like the model and the rules aren't all that good, it'll probably find a way in there anyway, but if it doesn't fit the background it's an absolute no-go. I really like the look of Chaos Warriors. They're menacing, impressive, and very Warhammer-esque, but they wouldn't fit into a forest goblin horde even as a counts-as, so I never bought any for it. It would only dilute the theme, to my mind.

(Oddly enough, the reverse isn't true - a mutated pack of goblins on wolves or spiders would work great as counts-as marauder cavalry! If I played Chaos instead of greenskins, that would have probably ended up happening!)

I'm not sure I follow your argument about points not being 'the game'. Of course they aren't the game, but they're part of it, and calling them a mini-game is a bit like calling the magic phase in Warhammer a mini-game. It's just a different part of the rules. Furthermore, points don't have to only factor in a model's stats; you have other restrictions that can make up the framework of a points system. Slots, percentages, having to take another model to unlock them, and so forth. No, of course they're not going to reference something as subjective as aesthetic appeal. That doesn't make them bad.

I can't speak as to Warmachine; I haven't played it or even seen it played, but that doesn't sound like a problem stemming from points systems to me. Sounds more like a player group problem. You had flat terrain and unpainted models in Warhammer, you have it in 40k, I'm willing to bet you have it in Age of Sigmar (and some of the AoS players seem to agree with me, since the usual response to 'it's all a big mosh pit' is 'play with more terrain/objectives'!), you have it in basically every wargame ever. You don't have to absolutely focus on the points system unless you want to.

And, of course, the massive number of beautifully painted models and amazing terrain on the internet refutes the bit about 'painting glorified pawns'. I mean, come on. First Age of Sigmar invented narrative play and scenarios, and then it started a hobby-wide painting Renaissance?

One might argue that it is even easier AoS has a relatively linear power curve, so a general weighted wound count is usually enough to create balanced games. It's not that this approach doesn't work most of the time, it's that people feel super insecure that it isn't working and they can't tell.

You know, I've never seen a convincing argument for wounds being a good balancing method in a game where you can have, say, elves vs. goblins. Note that I don't mean 'some goblin archers with fanatics and Timmy's Terrible Troll Troop", I mean an actual swarm, the sort that you could very easily set up with a points system - I remember seeing pictures of a gorgeous 6th edition night goblin army. Over 200 models, if memory serves me right, including a converted giant, and it stretched from board edge to board edge. Definite strengths, definite weaknesses, probably a blast to play with and against (yes, he had movement trays!), and it looked fantastic. I bet it looked even better deployed against an elite High Elf or Chaos force. You can't get that kind of spectacle using wounds or model count to balance - both of them screw over horde armies, it's just a matter of degree.

 Sqorgar wrote:
The end result is that army building dictates what is important about the game, what isn't important, and what is subservient. That's why Warmachine ends up with flat mats with minimal flat terrain and unpainted figures - the point system unequivocally dictates what the game is really about, and terrain isn't those "very specific circumstances" and few bother to paint glorified pawns.

That is either an unfair generalization or a criticism of your local Warmahordes scene, not the game as a whole. If points lead to models being unimportant and being played on boring boards you can go prove how that is the case with 40k, Infinity, KoW, and every bloody other game on the market that uses points

 jonolikespie wrote:
That is either an unfair generalization or a criticism of your local Warmahordes scene, not the game as a whole.

From Privateer Press' own twitter feed:

* flat and unpainted
* big flat open terrain
* bare table, unpainted terrain
* look at all those exciting tables at this tournament
* same tournament, same felt covered tables - but at least the figures are painted
* more brass rings than terrain
* unpainted with flat tables
* some actual 3D terrain! ...for unpainted figures
* tonight's game will be played on bare corkboard with blue rectangles
* can't tell if the models are painted, but the board is a piece of felt
* another tournament of terrain-less tables
* what I wouldn't give to play on this table

This is Privateer Press' own twitter feed, advertising their game, and they've decided to report a bunch of pictures that make their game look awful. There are a lot of pictures of painted figures, but of the actual games in progress that they retweet, they almost all look like the above. I think I only skipped four images, of which only three had fully painted figures on halfway decent terrain. The last one was bare table, unpainted, but it was a person's first Battle Box game.

I'm not generalizing Warmachine here. This IS what Warmachine is. Go watch some battle reports on youtube. Most of them have flat terrain, even GMG, which has really great tables for all the other games played on the channel. Wargamer Girl, Advanced Maneuvers, Miniwargaming - flat, lifeless tables. If you move out of the channels that make a living from nice-looking battle reports, you'll find mostly unpainted armies as well. It is a generalization, but I think it's a fair one.

If points lead to models being unimportant and being played on boring boards you can go prove how that is the case with 40k, Infinity, KoW, and every bloody other game on the market that uses points

Of those, I only follow Infinity. Infinity is a game with few models and a requirement for lots of 3D terrain, so you'll never find a flat table in that game, ever. However, it is not uncommon to see bare foamboard or lasercut buildings with unpainted figures in that game - which still looks pretty good. Infinity is, I think, a game where treating the models like pawns does not hugely affect the aesthetic of the game, largely because the 3D board rules are an integral part of the experience. There's a lot of cheap, good looking terrain for the game. Heck, even the paper buildings included in the Ice Storm starter look pretty good on the table. So even when Infinity looks bad, it still looks good.

A cursory search of KoW battle reports shows a bunch of flat boards where the terrain, if there is any, is at the edges of the field (with maybe a single hill in the middle). I also see a lot of unpainted figures, including some unpainted GW models. There's no local KoW scene and I've never played it or seen it in person, but it strikes me as the type of game that shares WMH's pawns on a flat board mentality.

40k, I really can't speak for. The few games I've seen in person were entirely unpainted on both sides, but the online presence of the game has a wide breadth of quality, with some tables looking jaw dropping gorgeous and others being felt tables with a few unpainted GW terrain buildings plopped down. It could be that because the game is so popular, cliques have appeared within it, with some cliques having a larger presence in tournaments or online, where you might see better output there where in person games have more limited quality. I honestly don't know.