How to build an army that is fun to play against - mindset and practicalities

[Tawnis]

1 hour ago, Antarius said:

One thing I genuinely find difficult at times is how to merge my love for thematic armies with "non-annoyingness". Especially when those armies either naturally lean towards one-sidedness or have to lean strongly into certain mechanics.
For some armies, it's obviously not a problem - for example, I have a lot of Poxwalkers that I expect I'll use when I eventually play my Death Guard army and they have that returning/multiplying mechanic, but those also feel cool to play against, because everybody loves gunning down zombies. My old WFB Ghoul-heavy Vampire Counts army was probably less fun, even if the theme was awesome, because the army sort of "broke" several of the game's basic mechanics, even though I tried to rein it in, while listbuilding.

To some degree, I think this is a question of thinking "yeah, this is thematic, but before I get started on this army, is it really a theme that's going to be fun on the table?". I mean a ruthlessly efficient, heavily armoured siege force is dead on for Iron Warriors or Fists, but if the theme can be brought out without bringing three Vindicators (or whatever thing that's going to really skew a list these days), maybe it's just not a theme that needs to be represented to its fullest. This is where things can get rather tricky if you, or your opponent, just really loves an idea that's difficult to pull off in a balanced faction.

 

Yeah exactly, you can bring a thematic multiple unit list without it being meta (most of the time.) For example, if you're running SM outriders I'm not going to begrudge anyone brining 3 full units of outriders with 3 Chaplains and a bunch of extra ATV's as that's the detachments theme and there's not much else in SM to fit with that unless you have the old legends units. On the flip side, if someone's gunna drop 14 of the best equipped War Dogs on the table, I know they're trying to play a very different kind of game. 

 

This is why I've taken to (outside of competitive events) asking my opponents ahead of time if they are interested in playing my Kroot list or something else, forewarning them that it's a very aggressive and oppressive list, and that's mostly because with as few units as we have and their low points cost, there isn't really a way to play full Kroot and not have it be very strong. Some people are cool with it either because they've never seen the army before and want to try, some people want the challenge, and some think I'm exaggerating how strong it is. If someone asks for a more casual game, I'll either break out the Legends version of the list as that's reasonably weaker, or run a different army that match up entirely. 

[LameBeard]

8 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

we've been playing 2nd edition 40k - that version you *absolutely* could make your opponent have a miserable day with any number of broken combinations. I'm sure even younger gamers with no experience of the game will have heard of the horrors of virus & vortex grenades, polymorphing super-assassins and five men Wolf Guard all armed with cyclone missile launchers & assault Cannons! So, quite simply, we don't use that stuff.

We all work, have families etc and have too little time for hobby activities. Why we would do that to each other and ruin our evening's entertainment? (You do it once of course, for a laugh, but that's it!)

 

I understand context is very important, but even when playing against someone you don't know, I think it's doubly important to be conscientious. It's a shared social experience. I think I actually get more satisfaction from knowing my opponent has enjoyed themselves than I do, but YMMV.

I played against that stupid all-WolfGuard list in 2nd. At least my opponent had the grace to say my polymorph wouldn’t work because they weren’t eligible targets and let me change the list. It was still a massive waste of a church-hall hire.

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, Tawnis said:

 

Yeah exactly, you can bring a thematic multiple unit list without it being meta (most of the time.) For example, if you're running SM outriders I'm not going to begrudge anyone brining 3 full units of outriders with 3 Chaplains and a bunch of extra ATV's

And this is exactly the problem. Unit redundancy is only ever accepted if the unit is "middling" to "bad". Someone earlier said 10+ War Dogs is bad, but what if the person just likes War Dogs vs the big Knights?

 

Attitude is key to create an enjoyable game. It's not my JOB to give my opponent an enjoyable game via running some list where I take bad units on purpose. My job is to be polite and cordial, give compliments to their paint job (if painted) because I'm awful at painting myself, and answer questions about my rules and strats to the best of my knowledge. If my opponent says it's a bad game because I decided on running even a slightly optimized list with a cohesive plan while they decided to run some crummy "one of everything and all the squads have mismatched weapons" that's on them. If anything, those armies look worse on the table due to being asymmetrical. 

[Tawnis]

6 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

And this is exactly the problem. Unit redundancy is only ever accepted if the unit is "middling" to "bad". Someone earlier said 10+ War Dogs is bad, but what if the person just likes War Dogs vs the big Knights?

 

Attitude is key to create an enjoyable game. It's not my JOB to give my opponent an enjoyable game via running some list where I take bad units on purpose. My job is to be polite and cordial, give compliments to their paint job (if painted) because I'm awful at painting myself, and answer questions about my rules and strats to the best of my knowledge. If my opponent says it's a bad game because I decided on running even a slightly optimized list with a cohesive plan while they decided to run some crummy "one of everything and all the squads have mismatched weapons" that's on them. If anything, those armies look worse on the table due to being asymmetrical. 

Yeah, that's why I said the best 14 instead of just 14 as there are 5 different options plus the character and you can run 6 of each since they are battle line. So if someone is running 6 copies of the top 2 meta ones plus characters, that's different than the "I just like War Dogs" player. Not that I begrudge that myself, one of my favourite games recently was against that exact list, but it's certainly not something that people just getting into the game or looking for a casual experience are going to have much of fun against. 

Kinda yes, and kinda no. Yeah it's not technically your job to give your opponent and enjoyable game, but if your opponents don't have at least some fun playing with you, you're eventually going to run out of opponents. My point was there's a difference between running a strong thematic list and running a meta powerhouse or an intentionally oppressive list. From what you said I don't think you skew that heavy, it was just the point I was trying to make. 

[kabaakaba]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

And this is exactly the problem. Unit redundancy is only ever accepted if the unit is "middling" to "bad". Someone earlier said 10+ War Dogs is bad, but what if the person just likes War Dogs vs the big Knights?

 

Attitude is key to create an enjoyable game. It's not my JOB to give my opponent an enjoyable game via running some list where I take bad units on purpose. My job is to be polite and cordial, give compliments to their paint job (if painted) because I'm awful at painting myself, and answer questions about my rules and strats to the best of my knowledge. If my opponent says it's a bad game because I decided on running even a slightly optimized list with a cohesive plan while they decided to run some crummy "one of everything and all the squads have mismatched weapons" that's on them. If anything, those armies look worse on the table due to being asymmetrical. 

I think it's not a correct way to understanding fun list. Guys above talk about not making kill machine list for non tournament environment. No one said make gimps or :cuss:. You definitely should optimize your list. 

[DemonGSides]

As long as I know it's a 14 Wardog list ahead of time I'm fine with it. I'll also just skew anti tank and we can both have a bad time, which often leads to having a good time. Mass casualties can be fun if you're in the mindset. 

[Blissful Brushes]

I know very little about the nuances of the game. For me the key is that your army looks cool, and within your own version of 30/40k it resembles your canon as well as you can make it.

 

For my own army, that means a mechanised infantry force supported by tanks who are meant to pierce enemy lines and do their thing. God knows if it’s competitive, it probably isn’t - I built the ‘list’ if you can call it that, by looking at a US ACR and trying to replicate it.

 

If I’m playing against a World Eaters army I don’t want to be fighting a million heavy weapons because that’s not very World Eatery and that ruins the immersion for me, beyond that I don’t really care much. Though I will admit that I’d rather not play against a list that has been refined to be the absolute perfect killing machine that’s going to end the game by turn 2.

Edited May 22 by Blissful Brushes

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Anarchic take:

Your buddy and you craft the worst list possible with your mini collection. Then you switch armies for the game. Hilarity ensues.

[Tawnis]

6 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Anarchic take:

Your buddy and you craft the worst list possible with your mini collection. Then you switch armies for the game. Hilarity ensues.

 

They have something like that in MTG. It's called reverse drafting and it's a blast. 

[kabaakaba]

Well, we can just roll d66 and chose units this way...

[Antarius]

Silliness aside (although I wholeheartedly support silliness, don’t get me wrong), if you’re lucky enough to have a regular gaming group, I definitely recommend switching armies once in a while. Firstly it’s good fun, secondly it can be a bit of an eye-opener when it comes to how your opponents’ armies work.
Generally speaking, I think it’s often the case that we see our own armies’ limitations and our opponents’ armies strengths, so it’s always an instructive experience to try and build an army using their codex and playing a game or two with their units. This tends to change your perspective on the power level of your opponents’ codices, as well as giving you some more practical experience of their armies’ vulnerabilities, so apart from being good fun, it’s also something that will improve your abilities when you switch back to your regular army/armies.

 

As for whether people have a responsibility to make an army that’s fun to play against, I find it difficult to come up with an answer apart from the rather obvious observation that you have no legal responsibility to do so and that literally nothing about this game is your job. But if you’re not interested in discussing how to build an army that’s fun to play against, which is the explicit purpose (and in the title) of this thread, I honestly don’t understand what your reason for posting in this thread is. I mean, you have the right to do so, but it seems unlikely to achieve anything except derailing an otherwise interesting thread - and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.

Edited Friday at 07:43 AM by Antarius

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

From my perspective what I can do is build a list that I would like to play against it. For example, I don't like running more than two of anything, everything I run is painted, and I tend to take 3 battle line. In general, that's the type of army I would like to face. I'm aware though that beyond making the list, and telling my opponent what I'm hoping for, I don't have control over what they choose to use. In all fairness they may not have a choice, for example the non-cohesive lists that HeadlessCross brought up are usually piloted by new players, and in that case I would usually either avoid the game with them (there isn't much of point if I already know the outcome), or suggest a smaller scale game to show them the next steps. 

[Wormwoods]

The only thing you absolutely need to have in an army for it to be fun - or at least not painful - to play against is some Poor Bloody Infantry. Include some troopers, battleline or whatever, nothing too elite, so that if worst comes to worst and you're just steamrolling the other player they can at least take a few models off the table by shooting at your footsloggers. 

 

It's a tabletop wargame, the point is to roll dice, move models around the board, and kill some enemy troops. If you're planning to being all tanks, or all knights, or all monsters or whatever, you NEED to make sure that's clear to your opponent, and that they can do something similar in kind. Doing a full tank engagement is fun as hell, but showing up to a game against 10 tanks when you only have like one anti-vehicle unit isn't.

 

So yeah. Take some infantry. Wargaming is stored in the infantry. 

[Rusted Boltgun]

Many thanks to @Antarius for this thread, as a new player I have found it most interesting.

Especially as I could be in danger of building a 'non-cohesive list'

For a while now, I have been acquiring Astartes models, starting with the Shieldbreaker and Ravenstrike Battleforce boxes plus some bikes and a Dread.

I have created lists using the app and been scaling them up, the idea being that I could paint up units to take the force to the next 'level'.This means there's a 500 point boarding action party, increasing to 750, 1k, 1.5k and 2k. 

So I have ended up with 2k worth of models which will become my 'default' army but I've no idea whether they will be fun to play against

 

Conversely, I have also been collecting Orks in parallel. These start with the 'old' Combat Patrol and become a Dread Mob detachment with the addition of the Stompa Boyz box. Again, I have scalable lists from 500 points up to 2k but the Dread Mob detachment has brought a theme I can build an army around, make painting decisions and construct a narrative. 

 

The Orks have been harder to fit into neat 500 / 250 pint increases and necessitate some models being dropped as the army size increases whereas the Astartes were a lot easier to just 'bolt on' more units.

 

I'm not asking for a critique of my lists (I may well do that in the respective sub-forums) but I guess wanted to show some of practicalities for a new player - your initial list might be a default box, fun comes later with experience and choosing to pick specific units.

 

I also acknowledge that buying 2k of models without playing a game is a pretty daft way to build an army but then I'm not aiming to play competitively or even in a group (at this point).

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

@Rusted Boltgun - I think the way you've approached building your marines is great (I'm not familiar enough with Orks to comment on them). I like playing against new players, it's just not uncommon for them to try to jump in the deep end. Which makes sense, 40k is not cheap and you'll want to use your models but easing into the game with smaller forces and building up to 2000 games is a better route. You'll have a better understanding of your units, and it wouldn't be as overwhelming. So having built lists like you did is great :).

 

The one piece of advice I'd give you at this stage, is that you shouldn't stop at 2000 points if you want to play 2000-point games (which is the standard). Having an extra 500 points of units that function as a reserve is really going to help your enjoyment of the game. It lets you change things up in your list and can really help when points are updated over time. I wouldn't add to many battleline style units (intercessors) because the shieldbreaker box has you covered. For your marines I think you'd want to focus on units that are good against vehicles. 

[Rusted Boltgun]

Thanks @Jorin Helm-splitter, I'm sure we'll grow the armies past 2k points over time, it will take me a while to get that many minis painted - hoping for our first 750pt match in September!