Army Planning & Design

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

The posts on another Topic prompted this, I'm interested in peoples motivations when planning an army.

Is it all "about the winning" (the EE way Lol) or do you have themes and ideas that you are really excited by, or simply want to try out!

PLEASE be honest with your answers (I know its hard, but please try) or the poll is pointless.

I've included my own vote, for the Themed Army with Miniatures I like.

 

[Ilushia]

I went for the second option with a slight qualifier: I tend to design armies around concepts I like, but I tend to try and make those concepts into something which should be reasonably powerful. I love throwing in miniatures which look cool, and cool-looking minis/inspired ideas are almost ALWAYS the basis for my armies. But I tend to start there and move towards the 'armies designed to win' stage. I'll try to create an army with as much of the stuff I like in it, which is still a reasonably capable army to play wherever possible.

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

Surely making something playable comes from the player not just the Army.

One of the Staff tournaments I played in ages ago at the EE HQ was to draw an army out of a hat, and play with that army.

People TRIED to do the dirty, by writing really poor Army lists - its surprising how quickly you learn new tactics Lol!

 

[Ilushia]

Oh, definitely the player really makes the army. But some things just don't stand up very well under pressure. Like a 2000 point MI army with 1 Sarissa with an Ajax onboard, 1 TAC Thunderbolt with an Ajax and 650 points of infantry! It's legal, it's possible. It's also very very hard to win with under most conditions. Sure you'll be able to drop two REALLY BIG templates down and wipe out a huge amount of enemies with them most likely... But against most armies that's unlikely to turn the tide for you unless you find a very good place to drop them.

The halmark of a really well balanced list is that it can do things other then what it does 'best' and still function well. Imagine a Bug army with NO warriors in it, based entirely around, say, Blister and Hopper bugs. Could you imagine trying to win with such a beast? or a 2000 point PL 3 army with 2 Brains, 3 Tankers, 4 Hoppers, 5 tunnel markers and 4 tunnel entrances. It's legal, it's possible... But it's not what I'd consider remotely practical. And I know people who would indeed try to play the list because it uses large numbers of their favorite monstrosities (I would! I'd get totally stomped, but I'd probably love it anyway!)

 

[Gauntlet-]

I usually form a general theme, sometimes I get very specific, my Tau Army was an Oshovah led force with Maxed out Battlesuits, which was considered 'cheap' by many early in Tau history until players realized how to beat it (similar to beating exosuits Id imagine) I kept with it while others went on and balanced their forces, my 2nd tau army which would have existed if I hadnt heard of SST in 04 was going to be a tank brigade with infantry...

so I take a theme and I make it effective, as much so as possible, I like having lots of options so I can do a different army any time I want to... Eventually I Will have 30 Spider Bugs, and a bunch of Mantis Bugs for a Jungle Fight Camapaign battles, and eventually I will have 100 warriors for swarmage.

and Ill want to use them all at once too! I love SST because you can do much larger battles than 40K in less time and smoother operation.


I plan on designing a army of caps one day equipped with 4 Nukes and launching them all in the first round itll have to be about 2,500 to be remotely balanced with equipment and will be 2 platoons.

Notably, Im positive that the force would do much much better to launch the nukes later in the game to destroy forces that made it through to the deployment zone... But I dont care, I want the ultimate Barrage army...

itll be easy to do with my current models too as 1200 points is peewees lol

 

[Ilushia]

Part of what motivates me is what I'm doing. If I'm planning to go play as part of a tournament or competition I'm likely to bring different forces then a friendly weekend game with someone I like. I build forces centered around weird, off-beat and entertaining concepts for local play. And tend to bring forces which are designed to win, consistently, when going to play in competitions. After all, when going to a competition people are usually there to compete! No reason not to let them live it up after all! I'll admit, I like to win a lot. But I like to win on MY terms, MY way. So almost always my armies reflect my style of combat, just sometimes I do it more extreme then others.

 

[Gauntlet-]

I know what you mean, I for one like alot of everything, I got one brain tanker and plasma before I dared double up on anything

overall my arachnid 'theme' has been movie accuracy... I hate the movie in many ways but I also Love it in others, and the bugs design is one

Mongoose's bugs are nowhere near accurate enough 6-8 modifications and 1 hour per warrior later, and mine are accurate lol... all of them. I buy 20 warriors and I only get 15 the way I make them!

So I have a very particular idea of what my army has to be!

 

[Ilushia]

I think if I ever started a bug army I'd probably wind up playing something TOTALLY impractical in a 'game winning' sense, just cus I love certain aspects of the army... Something like a 2000 point PL 3 army list with 3 tankers, 1 brain, 2 plasma and 7 Workers&Warriors units or the like. Will it win? I doubt it. But I'd have fun using it simply because it's got lots of impractically large bugs to run all over the field with! I might even go so far as to swap out the Workers&Warriors in favor of some other big gribbly bug if I could find one which costs 350 points to field! (King Tanker maybe... Dunno how much he is.)

 

[Gauntlet-]

hes 450, but you could always keep in mind that each tanker should have a tunnel marker and a tunnel entrance dedicated to him, which would up their essential cost to 350 each...

you could take 3 burrowers or something equally ammusing and walk them at the enemy...

 

[Ilushia]

See, now, that'd make my proposed army come out to 1950 points with 3 tankers, 1 brain and 2 Plasma. Dunno what I'd do with the extra 50 points though... I'm sure I could find something!

 

[LtLeonJonson]

other, i tend to use real world military guidelines on how to build a force, like an A Company, or a Ranger battlion etc, I am thinking that a 1000pts Pathfinder force would be some what like a SEAL or SAS team.

For a 2000pts Exosuit list I would probably go for a more mechanised, ie from Acthung Panzer, type of style, depth of penetration instead of width of penetration.

For a Marauder list I don't know, something like Mechanised infantry perhaps.

That or a build to a theme, ie the EE's Elder all scorpion army.

 

[Gauntlet-]

cooly- I like the idea of basing forces on real life examples...


By the way 50 points = 2 Cave Ins lOl

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

other, i tend to use real world military guidelines on how to build a force, like an A Company, or a Ranger battlion etc, I am thinking that a 1000pts Pathfinder force would be some what like a SEAL or SAS team.

Explain, I would "LIKE TO KNOW MORE" as I sticking Pathfinders together atm.

 

[Reborn]

I voted option 3 - I like the idea of a themed army, but I probably won't go for it if I hate the models. A good example of my themed army is my British Marauder Platoon (hopefully a Company eventually - about 40 Marauders to go). I like the Marauder models, and I like the idea of a small, elite force, and they're pretty hard as well, so it's all good

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

I voted option 3 - I like the idea of a themed army, but I probably won't go for it if I hate the models. A good example of my themed army is my British Marauder Platoon (hopefully a Company eventually - about 40 Marauders to go). I like the Marauder models, and I like the idea of a small, elite force, and they're pretty hard as well, so it's all good

"BRITISH MARAUDER PLATOON" PLEASE DO TELL!

 

[Reborn]

:lol: Basically it started off when I was saying to Rob Alderman (my friend and co-Mongoose Infantry buddy) that I wanted some sort of icon on a couple of my models to make them stand out, would he mind painting them?

He said he'd give it a go, being something of a whizz with the paintbrush. So I think - what do I want on my Ape Lieutenant? Well, a Sicon flag seems logical on one shoulder, but for the other one?

Being British myself and preferring the British Armed Forces to the US Military, it had to be a Union flag to make it clear that it was a British Platoon. Then he painted a Union flag on both of my CHAS unit's shoulders. Ever since then I've assumed that all my Marauders are piloted by British MI.

Anyway, that was at the beginning of my collection when I only had 24 Caps, 1 Ape, 1 Chickenhawk and a CHAS.

Since then my Marauder Platoon has swelled to 12-strong, and I took it to War of the Species where it came 3rd following a devastating defeat in the first round (direct fire nuke on a squad of Chickenhawks = owwww )

Anyway, as I say, they're all British, and I might get round to painting more flags on them one day, when I learn to get a steadier hand

 

[Lieutenant Rasczak]

Superb idea!

I'm sure I heard (or read) somewhere that you can buy transfer paper for your printer, I wonder if anyone on here has heard of it.

 

[Reborn]

That would be very useful. I'd definitely get some.

 

[Ben2]

and collecting a company level force (1 platoon pathfinders, 1 platoon exos, 1 platoon PAMI, 1 platoon LAMI).
At least it means I'll always be able to surprise an opponent and I won't get bored painting the same thing.

 

[Reborn]

I'm going to do the same except replacing LAMI with Marauders. I already have two platoon's worth of figs, just not all painted yet.