# Min-maxing in Warhammer Fantasy



## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi all,

We all know about phrases like powergaming and cheesefest, but how many people hear the term min-maxing on a regular basis? I went fishing for a definition to help us out a bit:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min-max said:


> Min-maxing is the practice of playing a role-playing game, wargame or video game with the intent of creating the "best" character by means of _minimizing_ undesired or unimportant traits and _maximizing_ desired ones.


This might sound like a load of hot air, but if you apply it to army selection it is the practice of minimising less effective choices (for example core units), whilst taking as many effective units (like specials and rares) as possible. Obviously to a certain extent we all do this, but true min-maxing takes this to the extreme.

A good example of this style of list selection is choosing a greater daemon fully kitted out in a 2000 point Daemons of Chaos army, usually accompanied by a large host of flesh hounds and horrors. It is important to note however that min-maxing does not necessarily equal powergaming, though the two are certainly close friends.

So here's the interesting part, a theme that developed in 6th edition in some areas seems to be on the rise again. The idea that a horde army chosen from a traditionally well-rounded army can be an effective counter to powergamers in competitive play. In most cases lists use Dark Elves or High Elves and maximise the cheap T3 blocks of core units, at the expense of virtually all other options. So in a 2000 point game these armies would be well over 100 models, but with only 2DD and minimal characters.

Against a balanced army this approach should fail, however against a powergamer who has small elite ItP units there is a good chance they will be overwhelmed even with lots of magic, due to sheer weight of numbers.

So what are your thoughts and experiences regarding min-maxing? Do you think the approach above even qualifies as min-maxing?


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

The armies I play in general don't really work that well min/maxing as both dogs of war and chaos dwarves aren't set up for this and Ogres specials are limited at best although I have seen the Ogre tournie list that most use as a template and this could be a prime example of min /max as it uses the bare minimum of Bulls then as many Ironguts as possible and the characters are mostly Butchers with the token bruiser to make it legal then just a few gorgers and yhettis. 
While it is no doubt effective and seems to be the most common build for OK armies it only really uses 6 of the possible units from the list. My armies generally have a lot more variety and I prefer troop heavy armies but I suppose that just makes me weird.


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## Exodus (Nov 12, 2008)

I have a 2000pt vampire counts army consisting of 
1 Vampire lord 
1 Vamp Heros 
2 Necromancer
1 20 man zombie unit
1-3 40 man scelton unit
4-8 20 man scellington units
1 banshee

and a box full of skelengtons to rise i have ended most games with moor troops on the bord than i started with its a one trick pony with feck all upgrades and pritty much 1 troop choise its scarry.

On the other hand i have a hord Warriors of chasos army with 
1 unit of 20 warriors 
1 Lord 
3 Exaulted Heros 
1 8 man knight unit and everything else is 15-25man marrader units 
its fricken huge but they die in droves 

Finaly i have an all goblen wolf rider army i made after reading a book on Gangus Kann its 1 goblin warboss
2 goblin shamans
1 banner barer
and a hole lot of wolve units (5-20man units)
There disarstraus but the most fun of any of my armys.

All the above armys pretty much are made up of 1 main type of cour unit but were all built on theams (An undead Legion Formation, a Norce Tribe and Wolfriding mongals). Ive faced balanced/power and min/max armys and won and drew many times and lost a few (mainly the goblins) so in my expereance they work but more importanly im happy with how the look and feel.


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## N0rdicNinja (Sep 17, 2008)

I'm a very "fluffy" gamer, which probably explains why I have no desire to enter into any tournies. XD I prefer coming up with a back story or something along those lines and end up building my army based off of that, for better or for worse. The majority of the people I play with are in that same kind of boat as well so it works out, we usually have some great showdowns and it's only amplified by the fact that we have some kind of story to go along with the battle, as you can probably guess we're huge into campaigns. =P This in general also makes things less boring, cause even the Power Gamers and Min-Maxers who do come to play with us every now and again will usually build really wacky lists that they would usually never attempt under any normal circumstances regardless of how fun it looks. But since most of us have very casual/entertaining lists they get to have some freedom and it keeps things light hearted.

As for my thoughts on Min-Maxing itself I can find to be enjoyable on a small scale, I'm pretty sure all of us have done it on a decked out Lord choice before, who wouldn't have fun with the idea of having an all powerful General leading your army. =) As for doing it for your entire army that would get annoying real quick in casual cause of how similar everyone's force would end up becoming. In tournies I completely understand this mindset, if I were to actually go into a tournie of some type I would try to think like a Power Gamer and would probably do a lot of Min-Maxing as well. But once again if your just playing with pals doing this every single time would probably just make me want to quit the game.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

I assume your 2 Greater Daemon example is for 40k Squeek, right? It'd be quite illegal in WHFB on 2k pts

Mini-maxing isnt as usefull in Fantasy as it is in 40k, simply because there aint no "heavy weapons", "Razorbacks" or similar uppgrades that are worth fitting as many as you can into the list.

That said there are always ways to make units more(or less) effective. My experience is that S/M elves(Swordmasters) do alot better as 9-10 man units then real 20 man units. Why? They have ASF and lots of attacks! So deploying them on 1 big line would generate you atleast 14 attacks on the enemy, even if charged before he can attack. This will normally kill his entire frontage and thereby winning you combat trough sheer killing power! If your opponent decides to waste(shoot or whatever) your "small" S/M elves unit then he gains max 150 pts which aint shit anyways, and your big units are unharmed!

Thats actually the only "sort of mini-maxing" I can come up with atm tho:dunno:


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Dammit, I double checked it and everything! I was going to give an example at 3k, decided it was easier to go 2k and missed that tiny thing...

I know what you mean Maiden, it is harder to come up with game winning examples off the cuff, but it is something of a hot topic at the moment in some places. I suppose you could accuse the dual STank and popemobile combo of min-maxing, depending on the set-up. I thought it was quite interesting that some gamers are starting to apply the term to core heavy hordes from normally elite based armies. I suppose you could argue that Vaz's marauder hordes fall in to this category.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

I'd personally have a very hard time not seeing a horde army as a horde, but a "mini-max" army. That somehow contradicts itself 

My point is mainly that the "mini-max" concept isnt very easy to apply on Fantasy armies since army construction is so diffrent between the games. WHFB has many "unwritten" rules on how to make armies. In 40k most things are vaild, you can have 3x10 terminators for example in an army. An WHFB army with 3x10 Chaos Knights wont happen since its too many points that aint doing anything in those units(rank)...

The dual STank and Popemobile aint "mini-maxing", thats powergaming


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

Too many of the mechanics of Fantasy work against min maxers. A horde army is literally unable to land any wounds on elite units, depending on SCR. However the rules put a limit to the amount of points of SCR you can get in any given combat. On the other extreme you can have a 500+ point single model run off the table by units that weren't even able to land a wound. And in the middle of these, you have blocks of elite infantry, that loaded up to maxed out CR become so expensive that your army does not have enough models to compete. Ultimately it's SCR that forces every type of unit into a happy medium.


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

a min max army would be something like

Prince on stardragon
Dragonmage
2x 10 archers
4 repeater boltthrowers


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## Ragnar4 (Jan 3, 2009)

Another Example?

Lady of the Fey
Battle standard bearer.

2 big units of grail knights ( the one legal unit and her personal guard unit)

The 1 unit of 6 knights of the realm, and 2 units of archers in about 2k points

Hardest hitting knights evar. Their only real weakness is the fact that their grail knights can't flee.


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