Army building

At the moment, I'm in the middle of building and painting an Imperial Guard artillery company for 40k. I'm using a Spearhead detachment, and so I'm looking at 1 or 2 HQ, up to 3 Troops, up to 2 Elites, Fast Attack and Flyers. At present it contains a Company Commander, the compulsory HQ, a command squad with a mortar, medic and standard (to keep the crews of the field guns alive and in the fight) and a Master of Ordnance, filling the optional Elites, and a battery of 3 Heavy Mortars, a battery of 3 Thudd Guns, a battery of 2 Basilisks, a Griffon and a Deathstrike. I have plenty of other units, should I choose to make a Battalion instead, and plan to have a Brigade beyond this, so this Spearhead can remain stand-alone, so I have the option of adding Troops  another HQ, some Fast Attack, some Flyers, and another Heavy Support, and i can add another Basilisk and another 2 Griffons within the slots already occupied. Of those, since this is a Grand Battery, the extra Heavy Support, and possibly increasing the size of the batteries of self propelled guns seem the most fitting.

This has got me thinking about how we build armies for our games, and how that's evolved over the years. While i have a long history of gaming, i have to admit that, before the mid 1980s, I have no idea what techniques were in use, as, of all the games I've played, none of them have an edition before then that I have a physical copy of. As such, I'll begin in 1984 with Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures Warhammer, the Game of Fantasy Battles, entering its second edition by largely dispensing with the RPG elements from the first edition, that, along with the grammar were widely panned by critics.

Games Masters and Historical Refights

In my earliest days of hobby gaming, games were often multiplayer. In many cases, systems assumed that there would be at least 3 players: 2 opponents and a GM, who would set up the terrain, build the scenario, mission goals and, in many cases, even the specifics of the armies. Having done this, it can be very time consuming and a lot of work, especially in a time when there were no metrics to measure the strength of forces objectively.

Contemporary with this, and in many respects far preceding it, was the idea of historical refights, where the hard work of designing the terrain, missions, forces, etc., were all done by a third party, albeit, in this case, by history. This was, and in many cases still is, the norm for historical games, but in the mid '80s, between Chainmail, Warhammer and similar, Fantasy and Science Fiction games were becoming a large part of the market, and, while some games had settings like Middle Earth, where there existed historical battles, with detailed accounts thereof, most didn't. In the same way as a number of roleplay games gained boxed adventure packs, or adventures published in magazines, similar packs were released for a number of games, including famous examples like The Curse of MacDeath, based on Macbeth by Shakespeare, and The Terror of, and Revenge of the Lichmaster.

While games design has moved on in many ways, historical refights as a design model is at the core of numerous now iconic games, from Valley of the Four Winds, through Space Hulk, Heroquest and Space Crusade, to more recent games like Dreadfleet and Blackstone Fortress, to name but a few, all within the Games Workshop panoply. Indeed, even massive sand box games, like Warhammer 40,000, often include starter sets and scenario packs that contain "historical" forces, and scenario sets, and, sometimes even the terrain and miniatures needed for the campaign. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes.

Points values and army lists

Historical Refights are seldom fair, and setting up competitive events required some way to ensure that the games were fair, in so far as such can be possible. As such, with the rising popularity of the hobby in the 1980s, and the start of conventions and such, a metric was needed. This metric became the points values, still used in many games 30 years later.

There are several variations across the industry, from points and power levels to credits, tactical points, coins and myriad others. The specifics vary from loose systems, where the armament and equipment of a unit is irrelevant, like the Power Levels of modern 40k and Apocalypse to minutiae of buying individual rounds and such for the most elaborate systems.

Of course, while a metric allows theoretically matched forces, the actual structure of the forces needed some shaping, to prevent, say, a force consisting nothing but huge dragons. To this end, alongside the evolution of points values, we got army lists. Of course, as with everything else in the hobby, how army lists work, and how they're used, has changed greatly over the years.

The Min-Max Model

A lot of the early army lists assumed a certain points cost for the force as a whole, and then gave minimum sized forces, with compulsory units, then optional additions, upgrades, etc. These often included a certain amount of allies or such, and limits on types of characters, etc. With these styles of lists, every force had a core that every force had to have. For example, the Imperial Guard in first  edition had to include at least a lieutenant, a command squad, and 4 10-man infantry squads, plus D6-2 Commissars, so, if you wanted to build a Guard force, your minimum purchase was:
1 lieutenant,
1 medic, with laspistol,
1 orderly, with a standard,
5 sergeants,
4 grenade launchers,
6 lascannon,
A handful of Commissars, since they were free and compulsory,
And 28 infantry with lasguns.

This was a not insubstantial investment, for a little over 1000 points, at a time when 3000 points was commonplace.

One of the big issues in these list was random elements. To use the same list as an example, officers could take a standard set of equipment, but, if you wanted something else, you had to pay points for rolls on random charts, which you were often expected to roll with your opponent present, which led to long lead-in before games, and a lot of proxying, since the 3 points to get your lieutenant a rifle could generate almost any rifle, from a shotgun to a plasma gun.  On top of this, some troops were limited to a random number, such as the D6-2 free Commissars, who had access to those charts, and up to D6 Techpriests, with points costs for some options, access to the charts, and up to 3 Servitors each.

To make matters worse, a lot of options relied on the presence of some other units. To stay with the same list, you needed a techpriest for every tank and speeder you were taking, and a techpriest or servitor for each transport or artillery piece, remember that the Techpriests, while not free, were limited to a maximum of D6, a random number, and you could only take Servitors if you had the Techpriests.

Basically, you could spend more time working out your force than actually playing.

Thankfully, the random equipment charts were, in most games, a short-lived fad, but dependencies and even random availability, still crop up with surprising regularity.

Ratios

The next big fad in list design was to assign a proportion of the available points to different categories of units, such as the standard ratios in Warhammer Fantasy's 4th and 5th Edition and 40k's second edition, where, for most forces up to 50% of the force's points could be spent on characters, their weapons and mounts, so long as at least 25% was spent on units or regiments.

This model led to what is often dubbed Herohammer. If money was tight, but you were taking part in a competition that required a 2000 point force, you could take a few mid-level characters and a huge amount of basic troops, but the system allowed you to spend 1000 points on a few big, powerful characters, decked out with the best kit available and riding a fearsome beast, with a couple of overequipped squads to fulfil the minimum 500 points, then use the remaining 500 points to take some big monsters or warmachines, or powerful, high points units from an ally. Thus games became focused on single, superhuman heroes, with units becoming something of an afterthought to fulfil minimum requirements.

In both those games, the following editions massively changed how army ratios were handled.

In the case of Warhammer Fantasy, Characters were divided into Lords and Heroes, with the number limited by the total points cost of the force. Everything else was divided into Core, which you had a minimum number of based on the total points,  and Special and Elites, which were capped. This didn't entirely remove the Herohammer, but shifted the focus back to units a bit, and to the most basic troops especially. Age of Sigmar has taken this further, with caps and minimums based on categories, rather than specific units.

For 40k, third edition brough the Force Organisation Charts, and army lists were built around categories of HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast Attack, Heavy Support and Super Heavy. Within these categories, a unit could be anything from a single model to a huge platoon of troops, complete with transports, additional support characters, etc., shifting  the focus heavily from Heroes to soldiers. While the FOCs have evolved, and the units are now, with a few exceptions, single units per slot, this mechanic is still recognisable 21 years on.

Outside of Games Workshop, the ratio system was fairly standard throughout the last 20 years. To give some examples:

Leviathan by Grendel Productions had minimum and maximum ratios for Characters, Cavalry, etc., that could vary between different forces.

Chronopia, by Target Games allowed 1 Individual per warband, or squad and limited missile troops to one warband per warband of other troops. Warzone, again by Target, at least in its second edition, used a similar ratio, with basic and elite squads in place of close combat and missile differentiation. Like many of the mechanics, this approach passed over almost unchanged into Void by i-Kore.

Who knows where army list structures will go next? Perhaps the streamlined Power Levels will become the new norm, allowing players to equip their units however they wish without worrying about the different costs for different options. Perhaps we'll see a rise in the resurgent minute precision, where even basic equipment costs more points on top of the basic. As ever, only time will tell, with most hobbyists clinging on for dear life, and hoping to enjoy the ride.