This is a Guest Post by Steve
All comers, fluff or win at all costs... Which one are you when you build a list?
The image above (from GW) is perfect for this as it captures the feelings some of us have when we face off against certain lists.
Do you build one list and play that regardless of who else you play? Or do you build a pure fluff list, one that goes along with a certain story that you read? Or do you do your research and mix and match your force into a beat you in the face list?
I have been looking around the different forums and blogs and I have come to the conclusion that there are a pretty even mix of the three out there. I think which ever one you follow tells a lot about the type of person you are.
If you sit down and build yourself an ACL then you really don’t want to have to remember a lot of different items from your force. Which is fine because that means that you also put thought into your force that you feel it can handle just about anything with equal chance at winning. I would say that you are the middle ground between the other two, and you just enjoy playing the game.
Which brings me to the fluff list players, these are the ones that tend to read the stories that go along with their force. They liked a certain leader or story that forced them to stick to strict guidelines for how the army was to be built (like Sarpedon and the soul drinkers or Khadors 701st iron rain). I think they are also the ones that get a unit out and try to find a way to use them even everyone else says that they are a loosing unit.
I think that every force, faction, and game has a unit like that. For me it was my piranhas for my Tau army, I loved the thought of those things on the board. Unfortunately they were not as durable as I had hoped and usually ended up getting blasted out of the sky, but there are times when I would still put 6-10 in a single list.
And before anyone asks I think I have enough to field 14 if I got crazy enough with it.
And then finally we have the WAAC list builders. Some of the people that fit into this category are also in the ACL category, they are widely known as tournament players or even power gamers.
They do the work to make a list that will stand up to anyone (as you would for a tournament) and they are built around the more powerful parts of a faction/army. They have an idea what they want the list to do and some idea what they will need to defend against and that is what they build it to do. Then you have the others that fit into the WAAC category, they are the ones that won’t ever enter a tournament.
Why do you ask? Well because they can’t alter the list to beat the person they are facing off against. These tend to be the ones that gloat about never being beaten, but come up with something that stops them from going to that tournament to prove how good they are. Which they really are not that good they just find the holes in someone else’s army and build to exploit it. They are the players that will ask you to play and then ask you what force you are playing and what you have in it (or wait to see what you pull out) and then decide what army to run against you.
In my opinion these are the ones that bring the game down. They are the ones that make it hard for the other categories to want to play, they are the ones that irritate me the most when I see them hovering about waiting for the next person to play (or victim as it were).
Me, I like to see myself as part of the first ACL category. When I played 40k my list only ever really changed when the points did, and that was only to add or remove units or if my opponent asked for a particular list type.
In War Machine I find that I play with the same list but I change out my caster. And that all depends on my mood, do I want a fun game, a challenging game, or am I helping someone learn the game or their list.
Am I an expert player? No, but I do see myself as a veteran player that like to play the games available.
Win, loss, or draw it is all about having the most fun I can. Winning is nice but playing a good game is better.
