War Gaming: Army Design Philosophy

Building an army for a tabletop war game isn't like designing an actual army. You don't have to contend with the military-industrial complex, and it only seems like you're spending several billion dollars. You're also working on a much smaller scale: dozens of troops rather than hundreds of thousands. But the basic goal is the same: create a force capable of dealing with an enemy force of unknown composition and responding to rapidly changing conditions found on a battlefield.

This article is primarily based on my experience with Warhammer 40,000, which is what I've played recently, but the ideas should apply to other games with similar structures.

There are a few different ways you can approach building an army. One is to design everything with strategy in mind, refusing to spend a single point that doesn't fit into your overall goals. Another is to build an army with some sort of theme in mind. Finally, you can just pick whatever models you think look cool or fun to play and throw them all together into one box.

The first philosophy can be a good first step towards winning games. Understand, however that the product of this single minded focus on victory will produce a soulless killing machine. This may seem pretty cool, but focus on that first part of the phrase: "souless." By focusing on winning, you deprive your army of any sort of cohesive element or character. It's going to be very obvious to anyone who looks at this army list that you're playing to win, and only to win. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as you don't let that attitude completely control how you behave around the table.

The second philosophy involves focusing your thinking more outside of the rules. The "theme" of your army doesn't have to be an actual theme. It could simply be building an army around how you think your faction would actually field, based on the fluff (the story and lore behind a game that is unrelated to the rules). This can be a lot of fun, and can bring a lot of insight into the game. The other way to do this is to actually have a specific theme in mind. Maybe you want to build an army around some real life group, or a group from some other piece of fiction. As long as you stay within the rules, you can have a lot of fun with this. Or you might make an army based around a specific piece of fluff. You can find more on this style of army here.

The last design philosophy is often the most anarchic, and is therefore a lot of fun. Just look though the troop list or army book for your faction, and pick whatever looks cool. You'll probably have to adhere to some sort of rules about what you can take, like the force organization chart in Warhammer 40k, but other than that, just take whatever you like. This isn't necessarily the smartest thing to do, but it guarantees you like every part of your army.

That's really the most important thing. The goal isn't to create an implacable purveyor of death, or a brilliant work of art. It's to create an army that you enjoy playing, and that people enjoy playing against. If you learn nothing else from me, remember this: if you're not having fun, you're not playing a game. I don't know what you're doing, but games are fun, and if you're not enjoying yourself, then you're just going through an elaborate ritual to distract yourself from how miserable you are.