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The BLT; or Combatting Cheese - Steve Rose | |||||||||||
| Whilst in its place cheese can be a good thing, this place is limited to such areas as pizza, toasted sandwiches and fondue parties. However, this really gets us no further with the purpose of this article. With this article I intent to address the issue of how to minimise or eliminate "cheese" in wargaming. As any of you who have read my earlier article will know, I consider cheese to mostly be extreme selection of forces, or over tailoring your army to each opponent and scenario. One possible solution would be to adapt the force organisation chart from Warhammer 40,000, modifying it to look like this:
I would suggest that this only comes into effect once the compulsory minimum selections are taken into account, and that this chart is treated for all intents and purposes as infinite in scope, merely dependant on points and the number of troop selections taken. This has the advantage that a force of minimised troops, and maximised fast atatck or elites from the current force organisation chart would now need to be padded out to more closely resemble a sensible force, one which is likely to be fielded by a "real" general, but does not prevent the troop heavy IG army or the so called "reserve company" army from being fielded. With regards to Warhammer, one could adapt the already good system towards the Skaven pattern - designate certain units as mainstay units, and then allow more unusual units on a one-per-mainstay unit, or even a one-per-two-mainstay units principle. This may have the dsadvantage of being slightly more unweildy, and also making the armies more bland, but this latter objection only really applies if only one unit is selected as mainstay troops. This policy would also not be as limiting at first sight, as there may be a dozen different units which can all be taken on a one-per or one-per-two policy. To my mind, this should be used as an adjunt to the current system of Lords/Heroes/Core/Special and Rare choices. The major alteration, in my opinion, needs to be in the mindset of the members of our hobby who must win every game, no matter what, even at the expense of the game being enjoyable for all involved. I have enjoyed games where I have had my hide nailed to a wall, but only in cases where I've had such bizzare congruences of fortune appear in a game that I've just had to laugh at it - like a game where a huge unit of knights charges a mob of goblins, and rolls all ones, and consequently loses the combat, only to flee 3" and be run down. I've also lost enjoyment of games where a unit of mine has hideously over-performed - for example, Death Company in a Blood Angels force effectively single-handedly stomping an enemy army flat. However, moments like this are few and far between, and if an individual is continually flattening opponents it may be time to step back, and ask "Why?". Is this individual merely a good to superlative general, or do they have an exceptionalyl extreme force - minimum sized compulsory choices, maximum sized specialist troops, which just happen to always fit the scenario you've decided to play? If the latter then, in my opinion at least, they are guilty of cheese, and games may be more enjoyable for both them and their opponents if persuaded to step back, and select a more basic, or less extreme form of the same army, even by just bulking out compulsory choices. And so, in conclusion, with some approach along the above lines, and especially a change in mindset - it's a fun hobby, not life and death after all - in my opinion cheese can be eliminated without stifling good, innovative tactics and inventive generalship. I would also encourage keeping the main body of the army the same against varied opponents, ratehr than the complete and total rewrites which some players utilise every time they meet a different army - some even having a folder of army lists, all completely optimised to face particular opponents or particular armies or even particular scenarios - and that, in my opinion, is the most heinous of all, especially when it's individual scenarios they're tailored for, rather than different types of scenario. | |||||||||||
Want to discuss this? Or anything else? | |||||||||||
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