Article:
Building an Army List - Min / Max

Last week I talked about the motivations and steps needed for new players to get involved into the wargaming hobby. While it may be a bit more fun to dive right in and give everyone specific army strategies, I would be doing a disservice to all of those individuals who may have questions on how to build up their tabletop force. It is with that thought in mind, that we now move onto the next big discussion once you have chosen a gaming system and an army; how are you going to play that army?

No matter what gaming system you are operating in though, once you have some figures, you have to figure out how to build an army list. In my experience, army lists and building has fallen into three different broad categories.

• Balanced list – Better known as the all-comers list. No matter who your opponent may be, your list will have some elements in it that will be suited to fight back. It ensures that you will always have a competitive game.
• Horde list – Armies like Orks, Tyranids and Skaven fall into this category. Most of the units are very cheap point wise, and it allows you to greatly outnumber your opponent. The trade off is that in large numbers the army is great, but the unit stat lines are low and they are easy to kill.
• Min-Max List – For the Warhammer 40k players who are interested in Space Marines, you can easily start to create a list like this. Min-Max lists are personified by very low model count, with units that can fill many different roles. You will always be outnumbered, but your units have the ability to fight back, survive, and win.

These broad generalizations are independent of specific army tendencies like some excelling in ranged combat while others are great in close combat and melee. For the most part, any army in the game in some fashion can be good at ranged and / or melee combat. All depends on how you write the list.