Design by constraints

Sorry about the delay - I don't know how the regular bloggers do it every day :)

One of the most powerful tools, in my opinion, in designing your army is the use of constraints. Now we're all used to some for of constraint - nearly every game out there has some form of limitation on how you create your force. Points, FOC charts, unit size restrictions - all these and more enforce a set of rules that constrain the choices you can make.

But that's not what I'm talking about here - I'm talking about self imposed constraints. Limitations that you place upon yourself in order to challenge yourself or to shape the composition of your force.

Constraints can be an interesting way to improve your game. The way this type of limitation works is this: Perhaps there is a unit that you always take. You've designed your force around it, and all of your opponents have come to expect the presence of the unit. So for a game (or more): Don't take it. Force yourself out of the comfort zone and see how you do without this unit. Surprise your opponent. The unexpected can be powerful, and you'll sharpen your skills without relying on your go-to unit. This is a great thing to try with those units that you consider auto-include. Another way to do this is the opposite approach: Those units you find to be useless, pointless, worthless - give them a try. Stretch your tactical muscles. See if your skills can lift up a mediocre unit. Maybe something isn't as bad as your feared.

Note, I'm not recommending this approach for those of you who are in-it-to-win-it on tournament day - these sorts of experiments should be done in friendly games, leading up to the big day and helping you to be a more skilled player. In many games, the dice can be cruel, or there are effects that might remove your favorite unit - so make sure you practice some without it.

For me, I apply constraints as a way to build a fluffy or thematic list. When I come up with an idea for a force, somes story describing the army I'm building, one of the first things I do is to ask myself what units are required, and just as important, what units should be restricted or prohibited so that my force is "true" to the concept or theme.

As an example, in the 40k fluff, the White Scars don't use dreadnaughts (it's there, go read the old Adeptus Astartes books). So, in building my sons' White Scar list we're not taking any dreadnaughts (even though they are cool). And obviously he's taking bikes :) Two constraints that are not in any way required by the rules, but certainly contribute to the thematic integrity of the list.

All of this is leading up to my current 40k, Infinity, and Heavy Gear projects. More on that later...

How did I survive all those years...

....without knowing about superglue accelerant?

Zip Kicker is awesome. I couldn't do my Infinity figs without it.

Test figure for my IG scheme...

So here's the first figure for an Imperial Guard force that I'm thinking about building...

Need to clean up the base, and maybe add some grass or rocks...

I like it. Think I'll stay with it.

Theme Based Army Building

In theory, all army building is theme based. Your theme could be "A list that crushes all my opponents before me and makes them cry".

But usually, that's not what people mean when they talk about a theme. When I say that, I'm referring to some aesthetic, artistic, or story-based concept that is applied to a force that usually ties your army together visually as well as tactically.

The most basic of themes is your paint job - making all the units follow a standard color scheme can transform those plain grey & metal figures into a solid representation of a unified force. A good paint job can pull together units that normally might seem odd to be together - but somehow, when they're all painted the same way... ta da! They're an army!

Another type of theme is the "iconic" army - this force is constructed in such a way that others viewing it on the table immediately recognize it for what it is - because not only are the figures from the given army list, but your choices fall in line with the established fluff.

Consider, for a moment, Space Marines. By everything you read, the vast majority of your force should be tacticals (unless you're doing a specialty force, but more on that later). Everything you read about the Emperor's boyz would suggest that most forces are made up of large amounts of your basic line trooper, the tactical marine. This flies in the face of common competitive tactics (considering that tacticals are overpriced and not as flexible as the fluff makes them out to be). But visually, a large number of 10 man tactical squads on the board just screams "Space marines".

Finally, there are the "specialists". Deathwing and Ravenwing. The 10th company. A specific craftworld. Speed Freaks. Armored Fist. These more specific themes can really be evocative and look great on the board - the trick is, to truly represent your theme and not "cheat" by adding some choice units which in theory shouldn't belong ("Why yes, my scout company just happened to be joined by a terminator squad and two riflemen dreads...")

This leads me into my next project, an Imperial Guard army. But I didn't want to just sit down and throw together the usually suspects (Vendettas, MeltaVets, Manticores) - I wanted a theme. So I'm building an Imperial Guard mortar battery. In the next few articles, I'm going to describe how I've planned this out and then blog about my efforts...

My next project

So I'm starting a new project, an Imperial Guard army. In the next days/weeks/months, I'll put up the idea for the theme, but for now here's a test figure to see if I like the plan: