War Gaming: Design Philosophy II: Revenge of the Colon

Last month I posted about designing an army. While I talked at length about how to think about building an army, I never really gave any advice on actually building the army. Let's fix that.

When building an army the first question you have to ask yourself is "What do I want to do?" Do you want to be very shooty, and hammer volley after volley of fire, or do you want to be really stompy and chock full of close combat nastiness? Do you want to field massive engines of death and roll over your enemies, or do you want to overwhelm your opponents with hordes of infantry. The army you want to play is going to greatly affect your strategy, and therefore your model selection.

Once you've decided on a general modus operandi, start looking over the unit list for your faction, and see what jumps out at you. Are there any units that look especially useful, or that you can immediately think of special tactics for? If so, that's a good place to start your army. After that it's just a matter of finding what units work well together.

Here's a few other things to keep a few things in mind while designing your army:

Avoid point sinks. I know it's tempting to bring every Monster Unit of Doom your faction has access to, and to trick out everything you have with as much gear as possible, but keep in mind you're on a budget. Points spent on cool wargear and really big vehicles aren't going towards more units, meaning that your army is going to be severely outnumbered. I'm not telling you to take nothing but minimally equipped basic troops and one leader with no special gear. I just want you to exercise caution when making big purchases. How many tank do you really need? Will your general really use 100 points of war gear? Does that squad of snipers really need to take grenades?

Be Diverse. I've said this before, but like so many basic concepts it bears repeating: the battlefield is an ever changing environment. You won't always anticipate what's going to happen before it happens. Yes, you could take a horde of frenzied berzerkers lead by an nine foot frothing maniac who can tear a man's arms from his sockets, but what if your opponent brings tanks. They don't have arms to tear off. While individual units may be best suited to a specific role, your army can't function that way. You have to be able to respond to a variety of threats quickly and effectively. So, if you do design the above army, make at least some of your guys are carrying bombs to take out any inconvenient tanks.

Be Flexible. Similarly, your units need to be capable of taking on multiple roles. It doesn't matter if you have the best tank hunters in the game if your opponent is bringing nothing but infantry. Suddenly you have a really expensive unit trying to picking off individuals with antitank weaponry into infantry squads. That's just not very effective. Have a plan B for all your units, and have one or two general purpose units that can do most things capably.

Be Mobile. I've written an entire article on mobility, but it bears mention here. You don't have to mechanize your entire force (unless you want to), but you do need think about how you're going to get your guys where you need them. Imagine that your entire force is on one side of the board, and suddenly you need units on the other side. How are you going to respond to this? If you don't have a good answer, you need to rethink your list. Then again, I play Dark Eldar, so I may be a little biased.

Be Resilient. Bad things happen in war. Don't rely on one unit to perform a vital function. If you're playing a heavily opponent, and you anti-tank unit snuffs it, your out of the game. Versatile units can help you with this.

There's a few basic ideas about how to build an army, or more accurately, how not to build an army. Keep this in mind, and you should do well. Also look at sites specific to your game, and see what other people field. You can find army lists for a lot of games on the 'net. The Jungle is a good place to check out army lists for Warhammer 40k. Otherwise, just keep experimenting. Every game is a chance to learn.