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Fun topic to revisit.

How important should listbuilding be in a miniatures game?

On one extreme we have a game where most models are equivalent to others, 2000 points would be equal to 2000 points, and the game would entirely be decided by gameplay.
On the other extreme (like 40k) we have a game where 2000 points could really be 1000 points, 2000 points, 4000 points depending on how good you are at either copying netlists or doing probability math to find the undercost units and max out on them (or take the overcost units because you like how they look and handicap yourself) - and gameplay only matters where two players show up with actual lists that are close to each other in power (and the game is a foregone conclusion otherwise)

Next sub topic: balance. How does one balance a game where listbuilding is overly important? How do you have balance AND create a system where listbuilding 2000 points to act as 4000 points is desired?

To me the two things are mutually exclusive to some degree. You either want balance, in which case you want 2000 points to be as close to 2000 points on eiither side as possible, or you want listbuilding to play a significant role, in which case you are actively seeking to IMBALANCE the game through the list building phase.

This is a hard question for me.

I'm inclined to say "listbuilding should matter a lot", not because I think people should win or lose before the game even has started (because that's what would happen), but because I'd like to see armies have natural counters. So if you want to build a tank company, then it should act like 4000 points against an army with 0 AT weapons, and 1000 pts against an army specced for anti-tank.

That means that I do want situations to exist in which there is imbalance, yes.

To me max 75%. sort of.

when I first get a look at my opponent's list/army I never wanna feel like we shouldn't bother setting up the table one way or another.

But on the other hand. Going through books finding fun synergies and new combos is interesting and very much a part of 40K. so yes list building should be able to give a major edge to people that are good at it.

Thats the thing though. When you have a game where you have extreme hard counters (and the past 15 or so years have shown that people love building hard counter armies) you are playing a thousand dollar game of rock paper scissors.

Important enough to matter.

A player who throws darts at a wall or randomly selects an assortment of models with zero thought to covering their bases or capabilities or have a plan to use them should be punished on the table for their list building decisions, but likewise making a cohesive list should not be the single largest defining factor of the game's outcome.

Generally speaking, if two players meet with lists that have some sort of vision or plan or synergy, the game's outcome should then rest on in game decision making.

 auticus wrote:
Thats the thing though. When you have a game where you have extreme hard counters (and the past 15 or so years have shown that people love building hard counter armies) you are playing a thousand dollar game of rock paper scissors.

Kind of? I mean, I play a tank company, but I don't feel bad or betrayed by the game or that I wasted my money when I get annihilated by huge numbers of anti-tank weapons. I feel like that's a reasonable and realistic thing to expect when I bring a good portion of my list as armour. It's not like "rock, paper, scissors" because I have no real emotional investment or expectations of 'rock'. But a tank? I can be pretty enthusiastic about my tanks - I name them, I paint them, I make up silly stories about them, I find them theme songs, etc. And I think it's okay, too, for them to be destroyed by "paper." That's what makes a good story after all.

Plus, the games are REALLY fun when you're fighting paper and still have a fighting chance anyways because you've developed specific tactics to counter certain common AT builds, like how the Germans developed ways to confront the Soviet pakfront instead of just saying "well, they papered our rock, lets go home lads."

Building a good list should matter, it is a cornerstone part of the game and thus bringing something that works should be an important aspect.

The key is that list building ties into the balance of the game itself and, in an ideal world, you'd want it so that the game offers multiple viable potential lists and where the power difference between viable and sensible lists isn't all that great.


Ergo its important to build something sensible that works and which has clear functional elements that compliment each other; but it shouldn't be possible to build a list that will quite simply steam-roll everything else it encounters.


Of course the list building waters get very muddy because building is only half of the equation - playing a list is the other aspect that doesn't, I think, get enough attention nor discussion. Thus its perfectly possible to build a viable list but use it very badly.



In addition not enough people know properly, how to build a list. They can pick out things and put them together, but they don't have the right knowledge to evaluate the stats of units together very well. To really make viable choices on what is a solid choice vs a poorer choice nor the ability to easily see combos that can work on the battlefield (which then ties back into how you play a list on the table so that it works).

I'd like to make special mention of whackier scenarios or homebrew tournament rules (like ITC). You should know these are coming and incorporating them is a part of listbuilding.
Whackier scenarios (like the open play deck) present their own problems that need solving and should be created thus to encourage a tac lists will beat anything but the most skewed specialists of skew lists 75% of the time.

Spam and skew lists often revolve around knowing the parameters and rules so changing these on semi-random basis can destroy these lists abilities to win consistently throughout an event. Thus providing a big boost to list diversity.

 Earth127 wrote:
Spam and skew lists often revolve around knowing the parameters and rules so changing these on semi-random basis can destroy these lists abilities to win consistently throughout an event. Ths providing a big boost to list diversity.

I have noticed this as well, and may be why I don't understand why people think the game is unbalanced. My local club has something like 24 regular missions to choose from. Even if we decide "hey, we'd like to play Maelstrom instead of Eternal War" (which I do like), that's still 12 missions that are vastly different.

It's very difficult to spam/skew your way to victory in a setting where you might need 2/3rds of your army off the table turn 1, or you may have to grab a relic with an Infantry keyword, or you may give up extra points for every Heavy Support unit you lose, or whatever.

I think list building has several components and some I value more than others.

The part of list building where you take units you want to achieve certain goals (anti-tank, flanking, objective control, deep striking...) should be important. It is part of the on table strategy and your strategy on the table requires you pick tools that allow you to achieve it.

The part about list building I don't think should be the end all be all is the part where you find the best/most undercosted unit and spam it because it can do all things better than specialized units. Or the broken combo (cough pox walkers) that exploits some poorly written rule (assassin/character spam) to your advantage.

3x fire raptors and guilliman is not a feat in list building but it is one of the most powerful armies SM has. I'd much rather reward the player who comes up with novel uses for units but 8th edition is just so killy that your good strategy just dies in the face of that much fire-power.

Skew lists are also a culprit. 15 (or whatever the number is) PBCs is an insanely strong list but doesn't do any of the "list building" things I think should be important to a miniature wargame.

Stronger delineation of roles for units would help. Fairly costed units would help. Stronger objective based scenarios would help. Better terrain rules would help. Larger play surfaces/reduced points for games would help. Better designed armies would help (closer fluff representation). Stronger list building restriction would help (current detachment rules are garbage). Fall back mechanics are too binary. Strategies are poorly balanced but they could have helped.

Building a good list should have an impact on the game, but, not beyond the point where it takes over from the person’s ability to actually play the game and use the list.

Being able to build a list that has synergy, redundancy and duality is something that can really aid you in a game – and rightly so, as it proves that you have a good grasp of the game and the army, but, when you get “plug and play” things (like the Riptide Wing in 7th) it suddenly becomes an issue of the list dragging the players through to victories, rather than the players overall skill doing the work.

Personally, I think it should be around 65/35 playing to building, with that changing to 90/10 when you’re not in a competitive environment and just playing for a laugh.

It does mean it is VERY hard to balance though, as there will be many points of cross over where the fun games turn “un-fun” simply due to each players ability at list building and their understanding of the game leading to unbalanced games.

Tough question. It should matter, but it shouldn't be an auto-win. Every codex should be able to compete against every other codex without the game being a foregone conclusion. At the same time however, while every unit in a codex should be at least situationally useful, there at least needs to be some thought involved in building a competitive army.

Specific balance issues can destroy any part of the game.

To me the conversation starts and ends with the glaring issue, and one I don't hold GW at fault for: GW is in the business of selling miniatures.


From a business standpoint, the rules of the game need only be "just good enough" to maintain interest and keep kits selling and the game and its rules are there. Despite the balance griping, etc. there are very few people who've thrown their hands up and quit as a result. They, begrudgingly or not, still buy models - maybe new ones for their army, or an entirely different army, etc.

This has the knock-on effect that GW doesn't need to invest larger resources, more time, or more people into making a brilliantly designed game. I've been playing GW properties since 1994 and I can still pick apart almost every game they make, with only a few gems hidden in the pile. They do excel at making "cool" games, and many games which are just good enough to warrant playing.

That's the business problem. Seven Tyranid Hive Tyrants may not seem like a cool list, but GW has no issue with you buying seven $50 kits to do so. The massive easing of force organization, while fun for narrative gaming, puts a hurt on the competitive environment.
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The second part of the list building issues for 40K is simple; the game is decidedly based upon simple combat and very little else. If you don't create narrative events/things yourself, the basic game of 40K is very simple: kill the other guys. This basic premise creates the problem that is inherent in the dread Mathhammer. A well designed wargame would have a purpose for all the units provided, but there are no mechanics to really push this idea. If X kills more than Y (particularly when its double-so) why bother with Y? I say this as a non-competitive gamer myself. I run units because they're cool, but I fully understand the momentum behind Mathhammer.

40K has no combat engineers, no ammunition transports, no reconnaissance aircraft, no real saboteurs, no communications units, no artillery spotters, etc. 40K has never had these, and the thin game design means you'll likely never see them. This means you don't have units which can do alternate things, or have a separate purpose. I introduce stuff like this into my games when I can, but that's from a personal narrative perspective. I'd love to see a game where Imperial Guard have to call in for artillery support, and need proper communications to do so - while deploying combat engineers to clear minefields so the infantry/tanks can advance - hell a bridge-laying Chimera would be awesome. All elements of other wargames, but 40K is only based around the more simple objective of shootin' the other dudes in the face.
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The above issues are why I'd like to see campaign books put out by GW akin to historical wargames. I'd like to see purpose designed scenarios accompanied by historic army lists (i.e. "During the battle for the Cylinder of Methos, the Ulthwe Eldar warhost was comprised of..."). Introduce more narrative elements, stratagems, etc...and provide an alternate version of 40K to try out. I understand this'll never happen, but it's something I feel GW is lacking.

 Elbows wrote:
To me the conversation starts and ends with the glaring issue, and one I don't hold GW at fault for: GW is in the business of selling miniatures.


From a business standpoint, the rules of the game need only be "just good enough" to maintain interest and keep kits selling and the game and its rules are there. Despite the balance griping, etc. there are very few people who've thrown their hands up and quit as a result. They, begrudgingly or not, still buy models - maybe new ones for their army, or an entirely different army, etc.

This has the knock-on effect that GW doesn't need to invest larger resources, more time, or more people into making a brilliantly designed game. I've been playing GW properties since 1994 and I can still pick apart almost every game they make, with only a few gems hidden in the pile. They do excel at making "cool" games, and many games which are just good enough to warrant playing.

That's the business problem. Seven Tyranid Hive Tyrants may not seem like a cool list, but GW has no issue with you buying seven $50 kits to do so. The massive easing of force organization, while fun for narrative gaming, puts a hurt on the competitive environment.
________________________

The second part of the list building issues for 40K is simple; the game is decidedly based upon simple combat and very little else. If you don't create narrative events/things yourself, the basic game of 40K is very simple: kill the other guys. This basic premise creates the problem that is inherent in the dread Mathhammer. A well designed wargame would have a purpose for all the units provided, but there are no mechanics to really push this idea. If X kills more than Y (particularly when its double-so) why bother with Y? I say this as a non-competitive gamer myself. I run units because they're cool, but I fully understand the momentum behind Mathhammer.

40K has no combat engineers, no ammunition transports, no reconnaissance aircraft, no real saboteurs, no communications units, no artillery spotters, etc. 40K has never had these, and the thin game design means you'll likely never see them. This means you don't have units which can do alternate things, or have a separate purpose. I introduce stuff like this into my games when I can, but that's from a personal narrative perspective. I'd love to see a game where Imperial Guard have to call in for artillery support, and need proper communications to do so - while deploying combat engineers to clear minefields so the infantry/tanks can advance - hell a bridge-laying Chimera would be awesome. All elements of other wargames, but 40K is only based around the more simple objective of shootin' the other dudes in the face.
________________________

The above issues are why I'd like to see campaign books put out by GW akin to historical wargames. I'd like to see purpose designed scenarios accompanied by historic army lists (i.e. "During the battle for the Cylinder of Methos, the Ulthwe Eldar warhost was comprised of..."). Introduce more narrative elements, stratagems, etc...and provide an alternate version of 40K to try out. I understand this'll never happen, but it's something I feel GW is lacking.

How would you implement combat engineers, ammo transports, reconnaissance aircraft, saboteurs, comms units, or arty spotters in 40k?

Keep in mind that ammo transports, comms units, and artillery spotters already exist in various forms. (The Trojan, the vox-caster mechanic, and the Aerial Spotter stratagem). Heck, Marbo even has a sabotage rule that does d3 mortal wounds...

As 40K is written now? I probably wouldn't. There's not enough rules-depth to make it worthwhile. Also the kill-kill-kill of 40K is what most of its players expect.

A real wargame should be less about killing and more about influencing the battlefield outcome. 40K is currently scaled too big to introduce other things like pinning, ammunition checks, etc. Things I associate with a more legitimate "wargame" so to speak.

It's not a critique of 40K. It is its own thing, but I think a lot of people subconsciously think its more of a wargame than it really is. 40K is more of a large gladiator arena than a meaningful wargame in a true sense. GW has been good about shoe-horning in a little taste of some of the above as you mentioned with mortal wound rolls, re-rolls (ugh) to various things, etc.

My critique is more that list-building now is tailored around mathhammer for lethal efficiency, as there are no other considerations which a player really needs to make. As someone who doesn't mathhammer or netlist or optimize, etc...I admit there's no logical reason not to outside of fluff.

 Elbows wrote:
As 40K is written now? I probably wouldn't. There's not enough rules-depth to make it worthwhile. Also the kill-kill-kill of 40K is what most of its players expect.

A real wargame should be less about killing and more about influencing the battlefield outcome. 40K is currently scaled too big to introduce other things like pinning, ammunition checks, etc. Things I associate with a more legitimate "wargame" so to speak.

It's not a critique of 40K. It is its own thing, but I think a lot of people subconsciously think its more of a wargame than it really is. 40K is more of a large gladiator arena than a meaningful wargame in a true sense. GW has been good about shoe-horning in a little taste of some of the above as you mentioned with mortal wound rolls, re-rolls (ugh) to various things, etc.

My critique is more that list-building now is tailored around mathhammer for lethal efficiency, as there are no other considerations which a player really needs to make. As someone who doesn't mathhammer or netlist or optimize, etc...I admit there's no logical reason not to outside of fluff.

Pinning does need to be implemented, and even used to be. They dropped it, I think, because it was either too strong (4th edition, when transports were deathtraps) or too useless (ever since). I just wish they had a way to make it work, but it doesn't really fit.

Ammunition checks? Really? The game goes for 6 turns, or ~2-5 minutes of combat, given how many times a tank can fire its cannon and assuming rates of fire of about 5 rounds per minute. I actually really don't like games that put arbitrary rules because "it's a wargame!"

I'm reminded of the Early War Flames of War rules, that had ammunition checks for the Soviet KV-1 heavy tank, even though it used exactly the same gun with exactly the same ammunition as the T-34. They claim this is because the tanks ran out of ammunition in combat sometimes. Which is true, but only at battles like Raseniai where a small number of KVs were attacked by a much larger number of vehicles and fought for hours. In the engagements that Flames of War reflects, a KV-1 will not be any more likely to run out of ammo than a Pz IV.

 Elbows wrote:
To me the conversation starts and ends with the glaring issue, and one I don't hold GW at fault for: GW is in the business of selling miniatures.

The above issues are why I'd like to see campaign books put out by GW akin to historical wargames. I'd like to see purpose designed scenarios accompanied by historic army lists (i.e. "During the battle for the Cylinder of Methos, the Ulthwe Eldar warhost was comprised of..."). Introduce more narrative elements, stratagems, etc...and provide an alternate version of 40K to try out. I understand this'll never happen, but it's something I feel GW is lacking.

I would be all for that, I would happily buy the models to finish army lists to round out what is needed particular scenarios as well. Of course, I play couple of historical miniatures games already and am quite used to the idea. However, I don't see as their would be much of a market. Battle for Calth happened to come with a game that arguably is better designed that Warhammer 40K in many respects. Yet, many (dare I say most) players bought the box just for the miniatures and can't be bothered to try any other game except for 30K/40K. I think even specialized forms of 40K would fall into that. Which is a shame.

As to the OP, I think that list building should only be important enough to have a fairly diverse line of unit types in the army. I have no issue with a little rock-paper-scissors in my games which I think is the bedrock of why combined arms exist in the first place. I prefer to think of it kinda like Infantry, Calvary, Artillery (i.e Napoleonics) when talking miniatures wargaming though. A good list has to have all these elements to succeed and a game with good list building has several options for each of the combat roles required (usually 3 roles or more). Beyond that, I don't really want the list to have much importance on the game compared to how the units get used on the table.

I usually like games that use FOC to prevent a player from not having at least a portion of each role required to succeed. What I don't like is games where FOC treats required units as tax to get good units. I would prefer game designers to at least try to play their game with unrestricted unit choices with the intention of making them work in such a way that that players want all the combat roles in their list rather and just forcing them to take them to unlock what they really want. One of the things I like about Dust Tactics: Battlefield was the game was designed to have a good mix of infantry and armor (too bad they couldn't get flyers to work as well) for success in the game. Ans it did it all with out any restriction on which or how many units could be taken (with the exception of heroes).

I don't think Warhammer 40,000 can pull this off as there is way too many faction with way too shallow unit choices. Even of the factions that have a decent number of unit options there isn't often a lot of differing roles covered. I am still surprised that despite the inclusion of flyers for years now, that dedicated anti-air doesn't exist beyond re-purposed units that can also do anti-air now. At no point in real war so far has the inclusion of air combat not been met with specialized weapons to deal with them from flak guns to MANPADS. I get that the table is way too small for flyers but since they exist in the game, so such specialized weapons or other flyers exist to deal with them. Stranger still is factions that have too many unit choices that basically fill the same role to point the d6 can't seem to fit them all in (i.e. Terminators of all kinds, Centurions and Devastators). All would be fine if there weren't codices out there starved to HQ choices without repeating choices to fill out a full Battalion Detachment. As CSM marine player I wouldn't mind updated sculpts from some of my stuff, however; there are swaths of factions that really should have basic choices added to model lines to make 40K a better game.

Saturmorn, I was considering actually build an Eldar Firestorm - an actual Eldar anti-aircraft grav tank which came about in Epic a while ago.

Used to be a Forgeworld modification kit, I think.

 auticus wrote:


Fun topic to revisit.

How important should listbuilding be in a miniatures game?

On one extreme we have a game where most models are equivalent to others, 2000 points would be equal to 2000 points, and the game would entirely be decided by gameplay.
On the other extreme (like 40k) we have a game where 2000 points could really be 1000 points, 2000 points, 4000 points depending on how good you are at either copying netlists or doing probability math to find the undercost units and max out on them (or take the overcost units because you like how they look and handicap yourself) - and gameplay only matters where two players show up with actual lists that are close to each other in power (and the game is a foregone conclusion otherwise)
.

The simple answer is that along with ‘communication’, list-building is, and should be treated as the most important aspect of a wargame. But not in the way that you think.

And I say this Auticus, because being honest, the way you framed the question above is problematic at best, and really, is kind of misleading. What you call ‘list-building’ in the context above is technically ‘list-building-for-advantage’. ‘list-building’ encompasses a lot more than just ‘list-building-for-advantage’, which is how its often interpreted here. For narrative-leaning players for example, constructing a good themed scenario, with ‘appropriate’ forces (and I define appropriate in this context as being designing ‘compatible’ forces that fit the ‘theme’ of the scenario in question.) requires a great understanding of ‘list-building’, and implementing this into the ‘game-building’ aspect of their game, and requires understanding ‘relative’ value, rather than just ‘absolute’ value. Its just as vital as two tournament players trying to squeeze every last ounce of power into their 2000pt lists (as you say, in effect making them ‘worth’ 4000pts, or whatever). For the narrative players, what they do is still vital list building, just not ‘list-building-for-advantage’.

 auticus wrote:

Next sub topic: balance. How does one balance a game where listbuilding is overly important? How do you have balance AND create a system where listbuilding 2000 points to act as 4000 points is desired?
To me the two things are mutually exclusive to some degree. You either want balance, in which case you want 2000 points to be as close to 2000 points on eiither side as possible, or you want listbuilding to play a significant role, in which case you are actively seeking to IMBALANCE the game through the list building phase

You are talking here about where on the spectrum of homogeneity (where, essentially everything is equally good against everything else) versus synergy building (essentially building in 'the best' list you can). If you want to open up lists to list-building-for-advantage, and want to counter it effectively, you either need to look into specific formats to curb the 'absolutist' tendencies of this style of game, or else put in limits in terms of what can be taken (i.e. Reduce choice and limit 'the powerful things') as a starting point. Further tools could be circular balance, and essentially looking at multi-list formats, and basically opening up lists to 'silver-bullets' that shut them down. There is no one approach to take but a lot of small steps can help push it in the right direction I think.

Tricky one.

Listbuilding should absolutely feature as part of your tactical tool kit. But equally, it should be no replacement for genuine player skill.

And that's been GW's previous weakness. Some builds have traditionally just been far more potent than others - either because they allow unusual combinations that your average 'balacned' army list just can't deal with, or because they exploit points cheap units.

Consider the 3rd Edition Nidzilla. Your minimum troops filled out with Rippers. Everything else is a Monstrous Creature. Few armies had the raw firepower to deal with these, and many weapons were all but useless.

Consider also the Dwarven Gunline Of Mind Numbing Inevitability. Deploy on a hill, castle, reduce your opponents game to removing models and hoping they can get across the board quick enough to still have some combat worthy units left.

Neither of those require any particular skill to succeed with once you've deployed. Therefore, they stand as pretty good examples weak systems.

And yet....just because a list is good, does not mean it's broken or unfair - provided at least part of it's success is down to the owner knowing how to make the most out of it. 8th Ed is giving me some hope here over the meagre games I've played. That's because of how the buff bubbles and CP stuff works. If you've worked it out for yourself, you'll do well. If you're just copying it off the internet, you won't - because there's no step-by-step guide for how to best spend those CP and exploit your other buffs should a key unit be dropped.

Can the outcome of a game be decided at the listbuilding stage? If so, listbuilding is too important. It's all very well to talk about superior lists "still needing skill" to use, but the reality is a lot of the time they don't, and when they do the level of skill required is marginal compared to the on-table advantage they grant.

You have to be a genuine grade-A numpty to fumble a game with some lists in some systems unless you come up against A: a similarly broken list, B: a total hard counter to your list, or C: someone with orders of magnitude more tactical acumen than you. Theoretically having to adapt to the changing situation with your netlist is a lot less of a downside when the chances of the situation changing are often tiny, or at least the chances of them changing before you've crippled your opponent's force beyond salvation are tiny.

Listbuilding is supposed to provide a common framework to ensure that any given two players can select their armies and have a game with a reasonable enough level of balance that the deciding factor is their competence as "generals" - that idea is fundamentally incompatible with listbuilding also providing substantial advantages if you can "game" it well, or with the idea some lists can be a hard counter to others.

 auticus wrote:
How important should listbuilding be in a miniatures game?

Very important, roughly 50% of winning (with the other 50% being on-table decisions, strategy vs. tactics).

Next sub topic: balance. How does one balance a game where listbuilding is overly important?

By making list building about choosing the right tools for the job and composing a force that matches your intended strategy, not about identifying the most overpowered unit and spamming it. List building should be about things like playing aggressively vs. defensively or whether to commit to specialized AA units vs. accepting the losses to an air strike and winning the ground war. Units can be balanced in terms of power relative to point cost but you can still pick a bad combination of units that doesn't work with your intended strategy. Skill at list building would involve being able to figure out a clear strategy, identify the tools you need, and balance how you allocate your limited resources to the various roles (and you never have enough to be great at everything).

The problem with 40k is not that it has a strong list building element, it's that it has a strong list building element that is also a shallow list building element. List building in 40k consists almost entirely of doing probability calculations until you have identified a unit (or combination of units) that has the best stats for its point cost, preferably one that is the best by a huge margin, and exploiting it as much as possible. And because it's 2018 and the internet exists this probability math is quickly done by the community and becomes open knowledge. So really what list building becomes is a social question, not a strategic one. Everyone knows the best list for winning games, the only question is how much you're willing to prioritize that over things like getting to use the models you enjoy painting and how your fellow players are going to feel about playing against the best list.

List building shows you understand how the game functions within the bounds of the rules and reality. It's always been important and should stay that way. Good sports teams build a team to win, and are rewarded for doing so.

There are many aspects to the game from using the units on the field, math, codex knowledge and also list building.

If you are good at writing list and can find the synergy in the army, you should have a upper hand on the opponent. But you tend to play against other people with the same mindset. If building list is your thing, then you will end up in some sort of a more tournament-style of play. If you just want to try some really cool units and don’t care if they die right away, then you wont.

The beauty of Warhammer is that it contains so many different styles and ways to play the game. I have friends that don’t play at all, they just paint… For me that kind of sucks because I’m terrible at painting but I really enjoy battling it out!

With the new FAQ, list building got so much harder but that’s the fun part

Without balanced units/points, the game falls apart at the listbuilding stage, for better or worse. Balance is key, then certain choices won't be spammed as default.


Listbuilding should be important, unless you're playing something like the old WFB 5th Ed. campaign battles where you have choices made for you. Basically, if you're going to have the choice of what units to take, listbuilding is pretty vital. Every unit should have a function, and some should function better than others. The "jack of all trades" units that operate on the same level are the issue with listbuilding. "Oh, that unit? It does antitank, antitroop, AND blocks psychic powers. I'll take it and four more of them." should never happen.

For listbuilding to NOT be a spamfest, you need the balance. I don't see those things as mutually exclusive, unless you're going to extremes like Chess and... whatever "take what you will..." game is fashionable these days.

The problem with list building is when the game only offeres a choice for killing enemies or help other units kill enemies. Not only is it super boring, but it also become so easily "solvable" that it becomes impossible to create meaningful options.

When scenario objectives become more important than killing the opponents units, then you can create units that are good are good at objectives instead of just good at killing people. This creates actual strategy in list building.

Great example of this Infinity. It is an extreme where scenario based objectives are the prime directive of list building, and not "how good is this model at killing other models".

bananathug wrote:
I think list building has several components and some I value more than others.

The part of list building where you take units you want to achieve certain goals (anti-tank, flanking, objective control, deep striking...) should be important. It is part of the on table strategy and your strategy on the table requires you pick tools that allow you to achieve it.

The part about list building I don't think should be the end all be all is the part where you find the best/most undercosted unit and spam it because it can do all things better than specialized units. Or the broken combo (cough pox walkers) that exploits some poorly written rule (assassin/character spam) to your advantage.

Yeah this. List building should be about building a coherent fighting force of elements that can achieve various objectives and support each other.

The problem is that 40k is such a shallow system this is barely necessary. In a system where everything basically works the same, players just spam the best values for points unit.

Mugaaz wrote:
The problem with list building is when the game only offeres a choice for killing enemies or help other units kill enemies. Not only is it super boring, but it also become so easily "solvable" that it becomes impossible to create meaningful options.

When scenario objectives become more important than killing the opponents units, then you can create units that are good are good at objectives instead of just good at killing people. This creates actual strategy in list building.

Great example of this Infinity. It is an extreme where scenario based objectives are the prime directive of list building, and not "how good is this model at killing other models".

I'm going to second this sentiment. I think list building should be about decided what kind of battle you want to have, not trying to eek out performance from limitation. When players only play a single type of scenario, list building becomes too important because minmaxing is so focused that points essentially don't matter anymore. One 1,000 pt army is in no way balanced against another 1,000 pt army. It's made worse by sharing lists on the internet, meaning that a lot of people can gain a lot of power to win without having to do any work themselves.

But if you play a variety of scenarios, in a variety of environments, then the points become a less restrictive limitation. You decide, I'm going to have this type of game (underwater defend the base or capture the flag in a forest), and the army lists aren't running at peak efficiency. They are a soft limit on what you can bring into the game - you are making choices about what functionality your army will have - rather than a hard limit that you are supposed to push up against as hard as you can, hoping to break it.

I kind of like how Star Wars Legion (and Runewars) does it, where there are randomly chosen scenarios, deployment zones, and battlefield conditions - but I don't think it goes far enough, honestly. Other game systems have something similar available (Open War cards for AoS/40k, ITS for Infinity), but most gamers don't actually use them unless it is the tournament standard.

In the early days of the current hobby of miniature wargaming (the stuff in the late 19th century and early 20th like H G Well's Little Wars is different in some key ways) there were a variety of ways proposed to set up a game. In the late fifties through the 70s, you'll find pretty much every imaginable mechanic, turn structure or army set up system. They might be published in a typed up or even hand written news letter, a short pamphlet, a magazine or an actual book.

The early wargamers faced a simple question: We have figures and terrain and rules to fight with, but how do we set up a game?

They tried everything from sticking to only the forces present in a historical battle to making an actual formation (say, an infantry regiment) and having one on each side, to random rolls, to just playing with whatever they had finished painting.

What you won't find though, is this idea that this step is where you should begin competing with one another. The entire point of this step was to make a game where both players had a reasonable chance of winning given the forces involved and the victory conditions of the scenario. An attacker might outnumber the defender, but they needed to take a fortified position which equalled things out. Victory conditions might be tweaked such that victory in such a game might be based on how long the defender holds out rather than if they hold till the end of the battle, for example.

Having the players attempt to win at the early stage of setting up the game through manipulating the forces involved would have definitely been frowned upon. It's attempting to do the opposite of the whole point of the system.

Warhammer comes from this traditional approach to wargaming. The mechanics are all present in some of the more popular rules from the 60s and 70s. From rolling dice per model to hit, wound and save, to phases in a turn (including the move, shoot, charge fight turn order).

If people find something fun, then they can do whatever they want, but I think people will find games like Sigmar and 40k to be more enjoyable if they remember that the point of picking an army is to make an enjoyable wargaming scenario rather than to attempt to win at that early stage.

Other games do a much better job of supporting competitive listbuilding. I think given that the warhammer games are cobbled together from a more traditional congenial approach with balance as an afterthought, it is little wonder that doing something against the design approach can easily break things.

If a game is going to be about competitive listbuilding, it should probably be designed with that in mind from the ground up. If you take a game where that approach is pretty much the opposite of what the designers of both it and the school of thought from which it originates, it's no wonder things can go wrong in terms of balance.

How important should list building for competitive advantage be? Important in the systems designed to handle it. In ones that have shown they can't handle it very well, it should probably be avoided unless both players are looking for the same experience of trying to make the strongest army possible, then have at it!