The age old question of should I take a large amount of really bad people, or a small amount of the best of the best. The reason to do so in warhammer is points, the reason to do so in reality is a mix of casualty numbers, and expense to train these units. So in warhammer what does this mean? well, certain armies are designed to fight one of these ways. But every army can still go either way. Orks can make nobs troops, IG can field veterans, Space Marines can load up on sternguard, just gotta take 10 regular Marines too. Anywho, point is, every army can also field horde, IG...can be IG. Space Marines can field scouts and tac squads, Orks can field mass slugga's, everyone can take loads of troops. So where I'm going with this is, its a decision we all make when we pick our armies.
In quality armies, each man is worth his weight in gold, and must be used to the max efficiency the commander can afford. This favors more skilled and veteran players. Where as a quantity army, each man is worth less, and its what they accomplish as a whole that matters. This favors beginners, who's mistakes are afforded by high numbers.
Wait a minute, that's the opposite of how GW has made it! Space Marines are cheaper and easier to collect than a horde army, favoring beginners!
Well you know what? they also made the snipers in the Space Marines, you know, the scouts, they made them the noobs. So they obviously just don't give a shit.
Anywho. Play styles are based less on the army we field, and more on what we like. I could field my current battle plan, and use Space Marines. I could even do it with orks. When it comes down to it, quantity, has been made the better of the two. Why? because that makes more money for GW. Why? because that takes more time to collect, giving you a reason to continue the hobby. Why? because we love plastic crack.
There is a niche market who enjoys fielding small veteran armies, and I do too, but sadly the days of quality armies are now fairly rare, and find themselves in use only as a side dish to the main course. I will field them for fun, and for particularly casual games, but never when the shit hits the fan.
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I would argue that with the current game mechanics a bias towards quantity is the only way they could go.
ReplyDeleteAs it stands if you were to try to make the weaker units any weaker they'd be downright useless and if you were to make the stronger units any stronger they'd be nigh unkillable. If you look at a more complex system like deathwatch, you see that by comparison the warhammer system is very limited when trying to illustrate different tiers of quality. The two solutions to this problem would be to add a multitude of special rules, multiple wounds on troops and so forth or move to a more complex system. Both of these would result in a slower paced, less accessable game.
I'd say that games workshop opted for simplicity.
Oh, I'm not saying it needs to change, I enjoy fielding a massive army, but it's the fact I feel limited to only that.
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