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Late 90s here (so 3rd ed 40k) and the 2nd or 3rd ed of Majik:the walletstomping.
It also coincided with GW wading into the tourney scene (prior to this, all of our tourneys were indies).

Reecius wrote: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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
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.

Your personal anecdotes are not indicative of the entire internet.

Evocatus wrote:

Reecius wrote: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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
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.

Your personal anecdotes are not indicative of the entire internet.

I feel like he just said that using slightly different wording.

Anyhoo, +1 for the internet. Just look at the Army Lists section. You've got people designing competitive lists and drawing from a pool of hundreds of skilled gamers with their own experiences and points of view.

All the internet has done is make the process of making and comparing lists more efficient-which, granted is definitely something. But I'm entirely serious about the 2nd Ed powerlists. They were just as meticulously thought out, just as relentlessly nasty, and far cheesier. The meta just changed more slowly and inconsistently.

And speaking of Kriegspiel and other, similar games-it's worth noting that most of them were intended to be balanced. The balancing happened at a scenario level, playing assigned forces and having assigned objectives. There certainly were some games that weren't balanced but still managed to be fun (somebody mentioned Ogre, and I don't remember ever hearing about the Nazis winning D-Day if both players knew what they were doing), but overall balance has always been a concern in wargames.

Ordznik wrote:All the internet has done is make the process of making and comparing lists more efficient-which, granted is definitely something. But I'm entirely serious about the 2nd Ed powerlists. They were just as meticulously thought out, just as relentlessly nasty, and far cheesier. The meta just changed more slowly and inconsistently.

And speaking of Kriegspiel and other, similar games-it's worth noting that most of them were intended to be balanced. The balancing happened at a scenario level, playing assigned forces and having assigned objectives. There certainly were some games that weren't balanced but still managed to be fun (somebody mentioned Ogre, and I don't remember ever hearing about the Nazis winning D-Day if both players knew what they were doing), but overall balance has always been a concern in wargames.

I mentioned both Kriegspeil and Ogre. I've seen the Germans win D-Day once or twice, although I'll give you its rare, some of the more detailed scenarios where they cover all the landing zones have a tendency to be partial victories, with the allies not managing to meet all objective. I played in a scenario once on the German side and happened to hold Juno Beach with one other player, while the rest of the German side held Pointe du Hoc and Sword Beach. Allies pushed through at Utah, Omaha, and Gold. Truthfully, a lot of it depends on the system being used, etc. Even though its a historical fight, it doesn't necessarily mean that terrain layouts, force dispositions, and relative ability of units on the table are accurate.

For me it was 2nd ed 40k after 4th ed fantasy. With the introduction of special characters which many in my gaming area made the rule of "the answer is no and assassins are special characters" so they couldn't be fielded. They unbalanced the game a lot and some even able to rampage through an entire list solo. Wargear/magical item combinations came around as they could be chosen not randomised and there was criteria for choosing which units could be included. From 2nd ed 40k it was % of the total cost of the army so people began min maxing.
While RT did indeed have a hell of a lot of weird and wonderful combinations, a lot were randomised (take a look at the ork book specifically, especially the painboy charts ) and hence you couldn't rely on them cropping up.
With each edition I feel the rules writers have tried to set what was out of balance back into balance. Vehicles taking a huge hit in 3rd ed for example but with the change to AP from the old armour modifiers to me GW writers just seem to pumping MEQ as the ultra powerful army .
As long as the army lists have some imbalance and some units clearly worthless when you could take another of unit x or y which are better in every situation (swooping hawks vs warp spiders, or possibly 6th ed eldar vypers vs war walkers which I hope doesn't happen) we will have people searching for the unbeatable list, it's the nature of the beast.

For my way of looking at it all, Once they went to 2nd ed. things started becoming very list driven, I mean many have called it "Hero-Hammer-40k" where the army list you made was designed to do the best it could to deliver your pimped-out-tooled up bad-ass commander to fight your opponent's version of your guy while the rest of the army died in the process of doing so, but 3rd ed is where they got so heavy with the whole minimum needed of 1HQ/2Troops

In RT, all you really needed was make a squad or two and go at it.

Personally, I'd say it started when the expansions for 1st edition 40K which actually had army lists came out.

It was certainly strong in 2nd edition.

I recall Space Wolves being ridiculously tough in 2nd edition. There were even more powerful in hand to hand than normal marines, about the only thing that could take them down were genestealers. I was always loosing to my friends Space Wolves.

Necrons gave him a fright when they had rules in White Dwarf.

Hi all.
I would say list arrived in 2nd ed.
But the focus on writing a good list over learning to use what you like the look of , realy came into its own in 3rd ed 40k.

At this taime 40k changed from a more narrative skirmish game , into a 'competative battle game'.
(But failed to change the core game mechanics to allow it to have intuitive tactical focus.)

By the simple expediant of far more minatures were required to get to a 'full army'.And the increase in expence meant gamers wanted the best value for money from thier purchases.

'Yeah you can buy that ordinary minature for £4 .Its worth 30pts in game and a has cr^p rules and is a waste of points...OR you can buy that character model for £8 .Its worth 120pts in game and has seriously cool special rules!'

And this NEGATIVE sybiosis has taken its toll on the gamepaly ever since.

The developers originaly wrote rules for for relaxed narrative gameplay, but corperate want rules driveing marketing through competative enforcement.And so the devs are trying to build a game on a totaly inapropriate base.

Think steam powered fighter aircraft...thats how bad it is.

Other games have more apropriate rules,(so we get steam powered railway locomotives, and jet powered fighter air craft.)

The severe lack of actual tactics,(in game chioces,) means 40k is dependant on strategic elements .
So list building and deployment has far more importance in 40k , than it does in other non GW games.

While I know it was different for everyone. List building became a major facet of game play in 3rd 40k.

For me, In RT. My local meta didn't even use points, the had a number count for army vs army. People tended to build military based, organized, units and lists as most were ex military and played games to recreate some military unit composition. While the group I played 3rd/4th 40k with; back in RT had infact built lists to curbstomp their opponents and brought specialized units with no obvious tactical organization. Such as a IG commisar in terminator armor with a powerfield jump packing into and enemy formation and calling artillery on himself.

Second edition for me was much more formalized, but I had a lack of money and had to do with whatever I had. This seemed true for most people and only 2-3 opponents could field an entire army they had list built/playtested before they bought the models, to maximize thier effectiveness. They may have list built but I could still pull and occasional victory with some surprise wargear/tactic/roll. I didn't really "list" build until late 2nd and even then I went against the established character based meta as I figured: If my opponent didn't expect to face a horde of marines or guardians,they wouldn't be able to counter it.

Interesting thing is I built my 2nd ed. competitive army in a way which translated very well to 3rd. Suddenly I went from rarely winning to winning almost every game. Tourny's became more frequent as well as the numbers of opponents I could find. I could play test an army and find out which units worked more effectively for me. I saw many people translate from games like Star Wars CCG and Magic, and games became much more competitive. Army codex's tended to focus on a particular trait and maximizing your units towards this particular trait gave the army better advantages otherwise wasting points. AKA blood angels devestator squads, which tended to run towards the enemy rather than shoot, lots of points wasted, well, I better not bring them.

Also as said recently the advent of internet discussion groups spead up the speed by which people could get feed back on armies, playstyles etc. How often to you see new players posting on forums for wanting to start a new army, and how to build it.

I would say the current change, for me in list centric armies developed right around 2001. While like I said in 2nd I started, it wasn't really about creating the winning lists. Same with 3rd. I didn't build the list to win, that's just how it worked out for me. I didn't really have to start working at it till about 2000, when my 2nd ed armies were stolen and I had to rebuild. At that time most of my games were tourny's that I had to pay for, so I wanted to win, as opposed to 2nd ed where most of my games were one off's and in someone's garage against regular friends. At that time it seems there was a convergence of multiple factors, increase in population on the internet, tournament focused army rules, and influx of new tournament focused players from computer and card games.

And yet, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade books and novels like Gaunts' Ghosts always feel more the product of narrative battles still played by GW members, not tourney driven style games.

I understand the second one means more sales as folks try to build that Uber tourney list, but I feel, based on the other books, that they still play more like for fun and story-lines, If I had truly wished for being overly competitive, football, or other sports comes to mind. I prefer more relaxed games that I can write fluff about, win or lose.

Now having said that, I have been talked into 'Ard boyz this saturday.

Also I think a lot more models were around the same few prices, you really paid more if you got more figures in a blister. Yes kids, GW regularly used to sell blisters with five figures crammed in them for £5. Other than that catalogues were full of pages with the same prices on a lot of things.

Later on pricing was distinctly based around how good something was in the game meaning people with money could buy all the most powerful stuff. Special Characters in particular become especially expensive, they are just silly money today.

List building has never been a major feature in historical wargames because historical lists are naturally limited in by reality.

The accuracy of historical lists depends on the quality of research and availability of sources with which to design them.

For example, we know where all Royal Navy ships were for the whole of the FIrst World War. That means we can compile a precise order of battle to refight Jutland, or we can play alternate scenarios in which we add or remove units for various reasons. If we decide

Ancients and Mediaevals are harder to be sure about. Some armies are better known than others. The lists available have been arrived at by a combination of historical and archaeological research, combined in some cases with intelligent guesswork.

There will always be a core set of troops which make up 80% of the army, and a number of upgrades, downgrades or special units which depict specific campaigns, variations during the “lifetime” of the army and give players an opportunity to add some personal flavour to the army.

There are no super weapons or superhero characters, though.

SF/Fantasy games of course can offer a wide open choice of units and that is part of the point of playing them.

The thing about SF/Fantasy is that lists clearly can be very unbalanced, which means they are more important in winning and losing than historical lists. That factor will also attract people who want to optimise a list.

I blame the internet.

For me it was pre 2nd edition.

Adepticus Titanicus and Space Marine (Epic) had lists, and both had overpowered v's underpowered options, which lead to spamming of certain Titan weapon combos and vehicle choices in the game whenever I played with my mates.

After that, the same effect trickled into 2nd edition, mainly thanks to some of the crazy items all ready referenced. Vortex and Virus Grenades for example.

Although I agree with the Rogue Trader statement, you could do all sorts of nasty things with that ruleset if you where so inclined.

KillKrazy Wrote:

List building has never been a major feature in historical wargames because historical lists are naturally limited in by reality.

The accuracy of historical lists depends on the quality of research and availability of sources with which to design them.

I agree with you but wanted to add this as well.


Avalon Hill made several games in the 70's that gave you the option of list building your army.

Panzer Blitz, Panzer Leader, Squad leader, to a lesser extent The Arab Israeli War.

These games gave you the opportunity to build up lists at certain point levels.

It was great to create your own scratch build a division (or unit as per Squad Leader) and throw it against your opponent. Like Russians vs the US in 1945.

I can also point to Micro Armor as well for list building.

Games were so much friendlier in the 70's to the 90's, then there was a change in attitude. List building has been around, the current attitude that surrounds list building has not.

List driven games come from games that strive to have an even playing field, usually through points, rather than scenario driven games, which tend to have the forces unbalanced but even things up through scenario conditions.

Adam LongWalker wrote:KillKrazy Wrote:

List building has never been a major feature in historical wargames because historical lists are naturally limited in by reality.

The accuracy of historical lists depends on the quality of research and availability of sources with which to design them.

I agree with you but wanted to add this as well.


Avalon Hill made several games in the 70's that gave you the option of list building your army.

Panzer Blitz, Panzer Leader, Squad leader, to a lesser extent The Arab Israeli War.

These games gave you the opportunity to build up lists at certain point levels.

It was great to create your own scratch build a division (or unit as per Squad Leader) and throw it against your opponent. Like Russians vs the US in 1945.

I can also point to Micro Armor as well for list building.

Games were so much friendlier in the 70's to the 90's, then there was a change in attitude. List building has been around, the current attitude that surrounds list building has not.

I cannot speak about Squad Leader but Panzer Blitz/Panzer Leader only had 'Situation 13', which wasn't necessarily intended for balanced play (and the 'lists' were also prebuilt for you based on historical company TO&E, your 'list' was built by selecting a combination of prebuilt sublists).

Howard A Treesong wrote:Also I think a lot more models were around the same few prices, you really paid more if you got more figures in a blister. Yes kids, GW regularly used to sell blisters with five figures crammed in them for £5. Other than that catalogues were full of pages with the same prices on a lot of things.

Later on pricing was distinctly based around how good something was in the game meaning people with money could buy all the most powerful stuff. Special Characters in particular become especially expensive, they are just silly money today.

Noob, they were GBP2.99 for 5 in my day!

Totally agree with in game quality being tied to price.

The OP's question is, essentially, "when did people begin trying to maximize a certain result from a system?"

The answer, of course, is "as soon as the system is developed."

It's human nature. Give people arbitrary restrictions, and they'll explore them to the fullest.

The growing influence of the internet has sped up the process, but has not created the core impulse.

If the actual question is "when did min/max list building become notably prevelent," the answer is fuzzier. Pre-internet, it really came down to individual groups and how they gamed. That comes down to the dynamics of any given group.

Its not based on a time scale, but rather on the nature of the game.

The victor of any game is based on a combination of the selected forces and their in-game tactical application to achieve the specified victory conditions.

Some games, especially (most) board-games and 'historical re-fight' forms of wargaming give you no options with regards to your forces, hence list building cannot be a factor. Other games allow list building to varying degrees.

In general the more freedom you have to tailor your force the more important this will be in determining the victor unless stringent efforts have been made to ensure balance. 40k and WFB tend to have very poor balance, making list building very important to your chances of winning the game. Infinity has very good balance, despite the number of choices available, making list building less important as a decisive factor.

Ultimately, some games promote list building as important, some don't, and its been like that for as long as there has been games.

Kilkrazy wrote:List building has never been a major feature in historical wargames because historical lists are naturally limited in by reality.

I would note that websites like madaxeman.com discuss the best way to build army lists in Fields of Glory, and that the tournament results are compared to see which armies tend to win. Romans, for example, are seen as weak in mixed-period tournaments, as they can't counter knight armies very well. Now, I'll grant that 40k is considerably more honed than that, but then 40k is also a lot more popular than historicals, so it isn't terribly surprising. The most popular game will always attract the most competitive players - consider texas-hold-em poker.

I'd say that I've noticed, having left the hobby in 3rd and then returned in 5th, that scenarios have totally dropped off the radar. I seem to remember that playing scenarios used to be kinda common, just like it is in historicals, but now I've never even heard it mentioned as a possibility.

DBA (published 1991?) long ago came to the conclusion that Blades were statistically slightly superior to all other troop types, so that armies with lots of blade had an advantage in competition.

The limited extent to which you can tailor an Ancients list, however, means that list building simply can't be a major factor. You can pick an army with a lot of Blades if you like.

As for Romans being vulnerable to Knights, that reflects historical reality. The Romans tended to do badly against armies such as the Parthians who had excellent heavy cavalry. It isn't something you can design out of a Roman list, because the options to counter it are not available.