Throwback Thursday - Race Selection

Okay Throwback Thursday on Friday morning. It must be Thursday somewhere - that's right Canada!!!


I early 2011 I looked at the mental steps I go to before I decide if I'm going to build a new army. In essence these are the steps you need to navigate before you decide if a race is for you.


I wrote:


So at the outset of building a list here's the steps I'd go through:

1. Define your Objectives Is it to win games immediately or to learn to play a new style eventually? This guide is aimed primarily at the first option.

2. Identify Your Comfort Zone If you are after immediate success, what style are you most comfortable with? Be honest. Are you a ploddy Dwarf who can't leave home without 4 warmachines or a Lizard that needs clouds of skinks to inflict poisoned hell.

3. Choose Your Weapon Does your chosen race allow you to play your preferred playstyle? If not then you might need to re-think your choice.

4. Dissect the Army Book/Codex Read, read, read. Go through the book and start thinking about units that will allow you to build a list suited to your playstyle


I'm pretty sure all this holds true. You can challenge yourself to radically change the way you play - and you'll see a lot of very good players who do do that - however generally people gravitate to a style that they are comfortable with.


Asking a Dwarf player to use a Wood Elf army is always going to be a difficult task. There is a school of thought that with the release of new units armies were gravitating to a single norm but I don't necessarily hold to that. I think any trend people were seeing was related to the release schedule rather than design consideration. Don't believe me - none of the three elf books have Monstrous Cav yet people will tell you 8th is a game of Monstrous Cav.