Is List Building (and by extension Army Choice) a part of the game?

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**MagicJuggler**

Drasius wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Sorcererbob wrote:
sennacherib wrote:
I feel like list building is a big part of the game, perhaps more so than it should be in a balanced game.

I agree, and it's been an ongoing debacle for GW for more than 2 decades. Maybe the solution is for GW to release some pre-made balanced lists for competitive play? This makes it more like the "default" mono-colour decks that you can buy for MtG. From a sales perspective, it allows them to bundle the premade armies.

Some would argue that all of the fun is in making a list; my suggestion wouldn't stop you from making a list - it would just mean that you would put balance at risk if you are building your own.

The formations in 7th were basically "pre-made lists", and I don't think anyone wants to go back to that.

Formations were a great idea that was terribly implemented. I'd love to go back to them - if they were handled well.

I think it's worthy of a separate idea, but one showerthought I've had in the back of my head is a flexible "Reverse Decurion" of a sort. Rather than "Take a core, take an auxiliary, tada, yer done," you link a bunch of small, relevant detachments into a larger semi-cohesive whole, and purchase their benefits as they scale upward.

For example, an Armored Spearhead and Superheavy Tank could have "one degree of separation," but adding in Flyers would require an Officer of the Fleet or so, and you would need to unlock a certain amount of a given army before being able to field said army's Lord of War. (Ex: No "Magnus just shows up to chill with Morty" or so).

Again, superearly, and probably better-implemented by adapting the Kings of War army structure to 40k, but half the issue with 8e souplists is the ease of cherry-picking, making it ironically closer to Unbound than 7e armies.

**sennacherib**

I agree that if well handled Formations could be a good thing but there were to many problematic rules interactions. It was not well thought out or represented.

I don’t play AOS but I know that’s when it was first released they had Formations of a sort where if you take this formation you get these bonuses. Not over the top but bonus for taking a fluffy mixed list. I feel like that was the best that GW has ever done at creating balance in this way.

They also used to have strict limits on the number of certain units you were allowed to include like 0-1. There was lots of teeth bashing about that thought.

**TangoTwoBravo**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
So this was spawned by a discussion about statistics in another thread but I wanted to make a larger thread about it.

Is listbuilding and army choice a part of the game?

For example, if you have two players who are equally skilled on the tabletop but one of them is better at building lists, then the player who is better at building lists will win the game, surely? Listbuilding is a player skill that affects the game, and so having a better list means you're a better player (provided we accept the competitive hypothesis that winning = better player, that's important to note!).

It does mean that if lists were swapped then the other player would win - after all, their skill is equal, so all that's determining outcome is the list.

Now if we zoom out one more step, army choice affects the list options one has: e.g. I want to play mono- Ordo Hereticus Inquisition. This means that I will not likely win a tournament, even if I am 100% the best listbuilder ever and 100% the best player ever, simply because the faction lacks options.

I recognize that there are many many many many factors that go into army choice (aesthetics, narrative (in my case), money, emotional investement, etc etc.) that are divorced from the purely competitive element, but if we're abstracting enough...

... wouldn't a player's choice of army be part of "player skill at Warhammer" all other things being equal?

(This is part of the reason I believe I am not a good warhamer player (well, that and I'm also not good at listbuilding or playing!): My army choices, even when I decide to start a new project, are almost always sub-par.)

Is this a rhetorical question?

List building has always been a core element of the game and one of the reasons why its popular. By list-building I mean designing your units and making careful choices. I think its quite deliberate. The ability to customize your list is one of the major attractants. I have almost as much fun preparing for a tournament or game as I do playing the game. The game rules and supplements have certainly reinforced this over the years. You can absolutely hurt your chances with poor list-building and increase your chances with smart list-building.

I do not think that Army Selection is a core element. By Army Selection I mean selecting Dark Angels over Blood Angels. Its an important decision on a personal level given the subsequent investment of time and money, but it is not intended to be a determinant of future on-table success.

Cheers,

**Unit1126PLL**

Some good input but I would like to reiterate a question from earlier in the thread:

How do you divorce army choice from listbuilding? It seems rather obvious to me that your army choice affects your list options much like your in-game options!

E.g. A Space Marine "list" could include Astra Militarum - but a "Space Marine army" may or may not. Does that make sense? My question?

**TangoTwoBravo**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Some good input but I would like to reiterate a question from earlier in the thread:

How do you divorce army choice from listbuilding? It seems rather obvious to me that your army choice affects your list options much like your in-game options!

E.g. A Space Marine "list" could include Astra Militarum - but a "Space Marine army" may or may not. Does that make sense? My question?

To me, list building means picking the units in your army. You have choices, bounded by constraints and restraints. The ability to have that choice is part of the fun, and is a design feature of the game. It absolutely has a effect on game performance.

Army choice, to me, means picking your Army/Faction. So I choose to play Orks and then get on with list construction. Or I choose to play Dark Angels. I think that the Armies/Factions are intended to be balanced and not factor into table-top performance. List-building that plays to the strengths of an Army, though, does matter. List-building that plays to the player's appreciation of the Army's fluff without reference to in-game effectiveness may lead to on-table frustration. While it is not the only determinant of success, list-building is important.

Having said all that, I don't think that I am understanding your question. Is this about the key-words and the flexibility of Imperium?

Cheers

**sennacherib**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Some good input but I would like to reiterate a question from earlier in the thread:

How do you divorce army choice from listbuilding? It seems rather obvious to me that your army choice affects your list options much like your in-game options!

E.g. A Space Marine "list" could include Astra Militarum - but a "Space Marine army" may or may not. Does that make sense? My question?

In a game where list building is how you get a Army on the table, I feel that you cannot divorce yourself. The only way you could do that is if you had randomized unit choices in a chart and each player rolled 5 dice and then had to play with what ever you rolled. Or if you had to take preset lists, then in both cases you would not be building anything. It would remove choice from army creation. Most people would hate this.

However, if all codex had great internal balance and all codex had great beteeen each other, then list building and codex selection wouldn’t comprise what I see to be 50% of what people try to claim is there skill at the game.

For example. I looked at the point per point kill ratio of the chaos cultist vs space marine.
It takes about 37 pts of cultists to kill 1 marine per turn, where it only take a bit more than 14 pts of marines to kill a cultist.
So for every 10 cultists basically 1 dead marine and for every marine a dead cultist approximately. Balancing the chaff aspect of cultists is a bit tough to figure out pt vs pt wise.

**Unit1126PLL**

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote:
Some good input but I would like to reiterate a question from earlier in the thread:

How do you divorce army choice from listbuilding? It seems rather obvious to me that your army choice affects your list options much like your in-game options!

E.g. A Space Marine "list" could include Astra Militarum - but a "Space Marine army" may or may not. Does that make sense? My question?

To me, list building means picking the units in your army. You have choices, bounded by constraints and restraints. The ability to have that choice is part of the fun, and is a design feature of the game. It absolutely has a effect on game performance.

Army choice, to me, means picking your Army/Faction. So I choose to play Orks and then get on with list construction. Or I choose to play Dark Angels. I think that the Armies/Factions are intended to be balanced and not factor into table-top performance. List-building that plays to the strengths of an Army, though, does matter. List-building that plays to the player's appreciation of the Army's fluff without reference to in-game effectiveness may lead to on-table frustration. While it is not the only determinant of success, list-building is important.

Having said all that, I don't think that I am understanding your question. Is this about the key-words and the flexibility of Imperium?

Cheers

No, my question is about people who play, say, mono-<insert army here> being upset that mono-<insert army here> isn't competitive. I can understand not wanting to change factions because of time & money spent, but surely if the codices are unbalanced, than you're deliberately harming yourself by playing a given faction, and if you're unwilling to change, it would perhaps be healthy to accept a few losses?

sennacherib wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote:
Some good input but I would like to reiterate a question from earlier in the thread:

How do you divorce army choice from listbuilding? It seems rather obvious to me that your army choice affects your list options much like your in-game options!

E.g. A Space Marine "list" could include Astra Militarum - but a "Space Marine army" may or may not. Does that make sense? My question?

In a game where list building is how you get a Army on the table, I feel that you cannot divorce yourself. The only way you could do that is if you had randomized unit choices in a chart and each player rolled 5 dice and then had to play with what ever you rolled. Or if you had to take preset lists, then in both cases you would not be building anything. It would remove choice from army creation. Most people would hate this.

However, if all codex had great internal balance and all codex had great beteeen each other, then list building and codex selection wouldn’t comprise what I see to be 50% of what people try to claim is there skill at the game.

For example. I looked at the point per point kill ratio of the chaos cultist vs space marine.
It takes about 37 pts of cultists to kill 1 marine per turn, where it only take a bit more than 14 pts of marines to kill a cultist.
So for every 10 cultists basically 1 dead marine and for every marine a dead cultist approximately. Balancing the chaff aspect of cultists is a bit tough to figure out pt vs pt wise.

I think you may understand what I'm getting at.

If listbuilding is part of the game, and the faction you play is part of listbuilding, then by bringing a bad faction, you're bringing a bad list, and that's a player choice that lost the game. Does that make sense?

**sennacherib**

Yep. That summarizes my intent.

Lots of tourni players openly scoff at people who aren’t tournis bringing their favorite codex army instead of the new hotness. I have always advocated playing what you enjoy.

However, if you intend to win LVO and you want to win you will be playing Guard or Chaos soup. Lots of tournament players are buying Guard models right now so they can assemble Guard armies to win tournaments with. I think hobby scores would help tone down these sort of players by making 1/3 of your score based on paint jobs etc, but most competitive players freak about about hobby scores and sportsmanship scores since they don’t believe that’s part of the Sport. But that’s off topic.

**Melissia**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
What if that "reason for existing" is entirely narrative?

Like, say, you have a unit that is just flat worse than another unit, but is really good from a narrative perspective (e.g. Inquisitorial Acolytes, which I have tons of in my upcoming Inquisition list)?

What if someone makes tactical decisions based on a running narrative, instead of based on what is objectively the best tactical decision? Does that mean they're not playing the game, because it's "narrative"?

**Elbows**

While I don't do tournaments, I also don't ever imagine to expect to win a tournament using a fluffy or cool army. I'm fine letting the super-comp folks do their own thing. I can enjoy my narrative games and scenarios.

Would I love to see an increase in large narrative events? Well, hell yeah I would. It'd be awesome to see more side-rooms at large conventions with huge beautiful tables dedicated to narrative events -- but I don't see it happening.

**MagicJuggler**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
No, my question is about people who play, say, mono-<insert army here> being upset that mono-<insert army here> isn't competitive. I can understand not wanting to change factions because of time & money spent, but surely if the codices are unbalanced, than you're deliberately harming yourself by playing a given faction, and if you're unwilling to change, it would perhaps be healthy to accept a few losses?

Sometimes the only way to win is to not play. A few losses is one thing, continual losses until you buy a different army is a great way to get players to quit.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
In a game where list building is how you get a Army on the table, I feel that you cannot divorce yourself. The only way you could do that is if you had randomized unit choices in a chart and each player rolled 5 dice and then had to play with what ever you rolled. Or if you had to take preset lists, then in both cases you would not be building anything. It would remove choice from army creation. Most people would hate this.

However, if all codex had great internal balance and all codex had great beteeen each other, then list building and codex selection wouldn’t comprise what I see to be 50% of what people try to claim is there skill at the game.

For example. I looked at the point per point kill ratio of the chaos cultist vs space marine.
It takes about 37 pts of cultists to kill 1 marine per turn, where it only take a bit more than 14 pts of marines to kill a cultist.
So for every 10 cultists basically 1 dead marine and for every marine a dead cultist approximately. Balancing the chaff aspect of cultists is a bit tough to figure out pt vs pt wise.

I think you may understand what I'm getting at.

If listbuilding is part of the game, and the faction you play is part of listbuilding, then by bringing a bad faction, you're bringing a bad list, and that's a player choice that lost the game. Does that make sense?

**sennacherib**

Melissia wrote:
Unit1126PLL wrote:
What if that "reason for existing" is entirely narrative?

Like, say, you have a unit that is just flat worse than another unit, but is really good from a narrative perspective (e.g. Inquisitorial Acolytes, which I have tons of in my upcoming Inquisition list)?
What if someone makes tactical decisions based on a running narrative, instead of based on what is objectively the best tactical decision? Does that mean they're not playing the game, because it's "narrative"?

Prior to moving to the east coast, I used to be part of a Very narrative group in California called G3. It really effected how I played games. I have always enjoyed having themed armies but they take things to a whole new level. I played narrative games and after moving to the east coast I realized people in my local meta cared nothing for narrative gaming. The only thing that matters is winning. It’s a while different mind set.

While playing games where the only thing that matters is winning, myself and many in the hobby don’t feel the same way. Usually when I go to a tournament it’s to have 3-5 games and meet new people more than winning the tournament.

**RedCommander**

Of course it's a part of the game. You can't play a game without a list so you have to build it to play a game. This process can be either just throwing down whatever you have on hand or carefully selecting units and considering how they work together. Do note that list building is not the be all, end all when it comes to playing the game. A good list helps but you have to know how to use it.

Also, I'm afraid that the bit about "when all other things are equal" is a flawed thought model when it comes to this game because all other things are hardly ever equal. Recognizing this is important. This game is not played by perfect, completely predictable automatons and because of dice, outcomes of pieces clashing together aren't predetermined like in chess. In the end, how you command your forces on the table is what ultimately counts.

That said, winning isn't the only thing that counts in the game and other aspects are just as enjoybale. Still, I find the game much more interesting when both parties are doing their best to win, all in good sportsmanship, of course. Figuring out how your list works together is one of the cornerstones of success.

Either way, I don't consider picking the army as part of the skill. You should pick whatever army you fancy the most. Sure, I'm a devoted IG-player and they are now strong but this is the army I picked about 10 years ago when I first dabbled in 40k. I would have picked Guard even if 7th edition was still going on.