"You Can't Always Get What You Want"

Some races allow you to build exactly what you want whereas others have you hitting against point limits very easily. In such circumstances you may have to compromise – but how should you go about it.

On Saturday I had a very interesting game against Tim Norling. We were both trying out 2400 point lists, his Warriors of Chaos and mine Skaven.

Tim’s list was radically different from that he had used at HomeCon. The new list contained two Lord level characters, one a hitty guy on a disk and the second a Level 4. His Lore choice had also changed to Heavens. In addition he had a BSB on steed and a BoS wielding Exalted also on Steed.

After the game we had a brief talk about how we thought it went before I had to rush away to complete some plumbing repairs – after my wife had threatened the ultimate indignity…….she was going to get a tradesman in.

So later that evening – after successful completion of plumbing problem which involved stripping down and rebuilding the inner workings of our toilet cistern – I gave Tim’s character setup some thought.

I’m going to say here that with 600 points it is a very hard job to fit in two effective Lord characters in a WoC list. My general feeling was that if you try you get one that is pretty less than optimal. In Tim’s list he was left with neither the Puppet nor a Scroll (Tim and I have had numerous discussions over the past 18 months as to whether you need one – I’m in the “It’s Mandatory” camp). I believe that the Puppet lifts the WoC list from also-ran to one that is very competitive. Yes, I know I lost to Sam’s list last week when he didn’t have it but that was the exception that proves the rule (or some other cliché).

When I sat in front of Army Builder that evening I built an effective Level 4 based on Tim’s character – enter the Puppet and then set about building three characters – all exalteds – within the 600 points. This is a difficult exercise but you can do it. I was happy with what I came up with – obviously my Disk guy was not as strong as Tim’s BUT he had the ability to do the same job to 90% the Lord level, in my expectation.

However the specific makeup of the characters is not the key point I’m trying to make. To me the weak point in Tim’s list was his magic, particularly defense. As such that is the place where he should not compromise. However an Exalted while less than a Lord is still a very scary proposition for most lists and here is where there is opportunity to compromise.

Different lists have different constraints. For WoC it’s never reaching minimum core while for skaven it is. In WoC your chokepoint is your characters. So what’s your wxperience with your army?

"You find sometimes....you get what you need"

Mick Jagger