What I game with (part three: the army lists)

Army lists are a strange thing. On the one hand they provide a bit of order so the an army is both balanced and represents the background a game is set in. (As I have mentioned, this is not 'fluff' unless you think that background is light and no real substance to a game. An approach I avoid like the plague!) On the other hand it encourages the belief that all armies must look a certain way and must conform to this and the game is about maximizing forces to beat an opponent, not participating in the playing out of an event!

When reviewing Ravening Hordes, Warhammer second editions army lists and expansion, Rick Priestly stated that the book was not a scenario (like the previous 2nd edition releases) "but a scenario construction kit." (White Dwarf 90 June 1997 p.2 I knew there was some reason for keeping a magazine for 29 years!)

Some army lists yesterday.

'Warhammer Armies' the third edition army lists states that

"The purist approach is to use army lists as they stand, with no alteration , and to use the rules for scenery deployment and the like as given in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Alternatively, the players may decide to allow a certain amount of leeway ('if you let me use an extra Level 25 Hero, I'll let you use your homemade Orc Ornithopter'). Scenery could be organized by discussion rather than random generation, with players using special buildings or terrain models."
Nigel Stillman and Friends 'Warhammer Armies' 1988 p.4

I would also like to point to the statement on p.5 of this book which states "Players shouldn't feel over restricted in their choice of models...these guidelines have been formulated to make games easier to play- not to restrict players or make them use specific models."

Over the years many army lists have been released by Games Workshop and other companies. Some have continued in the tradition of facilitating the playing of games. Others seem to be more geared towards getting people to buy models. A particular pastime has arisen in the past 10 years on the internet involving gamers moaning about army lists making armies overpowered/ underpowered. Those of you that have read my last two posts won't be surprised to think that I feel they are missing the point and if the army list is that much of a problem, they shouldn't use it and agree another way of forming a force with their opponent! As suggested, lists should just be a tool to get a representative force for a scenario or campaign, not to enslave choices. If you are going to use an army list (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't) ask three simple questions.

1) Does it represent what you want it to represent?
By looking at the background of an army it is possible to give you an idea of the force you want to represent. A narrative should already be forming in your mind about what you are building and why. For a scenario you should already have a strong narrative, likewise a campaign should give you an idea of the starting point for your army with it's history up to that point.

Historical gaming enables you to actually read up about the forces that you are going to use and then search for a force that represents this. Likewise, fiction can be an inspiration. My current interest in Warhammer started with being given an Araknorak as a present and building an army around this. The list I used was the Warhammer eigth edition 'Orc and Goblin' army book. But this list was used as a guide to builfd the force I wanted, not the definitive list. I considered using other list published but stuck with this guide, adapting it for the version of the rules I play with (see my last post). What I didn't allow was for the list to dictate what I was my force would look like.

Some lists are specifically built for campaigns (for example the lists in Forge Worlds Imperial Armour books or Flames of Wars briefings). These tend to need little work done to them since they are based on the background. Conversely, other lists are simply aimed at all games with in a rules set. These generic lists can be used to represent a narrative army with some work. But they also seem to suffer from the Max-Min competitive gaming mind set. basically the ideas that you must take this and never take that in order to win your games. Basically ignore that, use what you want and move on to the second question to gain balance.

An example of some excellent campaign themed army lists which can be used to add to narrative, rather than simply restricting your force.

Finally, it is also worth mentioning that some lists expect you to buy and assemble massive units of rank and file just so you can play the special models you want to play. Ask yourself is this really necessary? Will adjusting this aspect of the list really matter? If it does perhaps you should use another army list and if there is no other try a different rules set. After all these are tools to allow you to play, not restrictions to prevent you from playing!

2) Will it allow balance with in the game I am playing?

So you carefully select the list that will provide the guide for your themed force and then you realise something, it is looking a bit different from the other army. In fact it has bigger, harder units and they are all elite. Now it can be interesting to play out famous massacres and walk overs, with the challenge being  allowing some of your army to survive through heroic actions, if you want the narrative to continue beyond one game, every game being a walk over (or massive defeat) soon becomes boring. Likewise, having your army composed of if it's unit variety your after)lite units might be interesting for a one off game but will soon become boring and will not produce narrative gaming.

3) How can I adjust it to do these things?
The best way of adjusting is too have a narrative in mind when assembling your army. The list is a guide and should be used to work with the narrative and adjusted with it. Always have a theme for your army, giving an idea of why they are at war who they are fighting and let this then be reflected wit the list you choose. From here adjust the list as you want and talk to your opponent about adjustments used.

These adjustments can take the  form of altering the profiles if your list is form a different edition of the game (but gives a better variety of troops or is more reflective of the background your after. Other changes can be adding or taking away troops, ignoring minimums or maximums and so on. The main thing is to get the army you want  to collect and play with represented on the table and not to be slave to someone else's idea of what that army should look like.

As a rough guide I find that for every adjustment made to a list that gives it an advantage,  you should also make an adjustment that reduces its abilities elsewhere. However it is entirely up to you. The only real rule is to stick to a narrative since your developing an army and a story aimed at making your collection more than game pieces and also discussion with your opponent of both the narrative and how you see it playing. You then have a starting point for your scenarios.

With this and the previous two posts in mind, I am now going to stop the lecturing posts and continue this blog writing about what I am doing for my hobby and why. This will probably take the form of sporadic posts about what I've been painting and  the background I'm using, with a few comments on how I play the games. I also aim to put up my recently completed Orc and Goblin army to show how the vague principles I write about actually work.