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[maynes32]

I am in the process of building my first army in almost 15 years (yay!), and I had a couple of questions:

1) In other wargames I've played before, magic tends to be a "go big or go home" aspect. At 36 points, do you pretty much have to have 18 points of magic or just abandon it entirely? Or is it possible to run, say, 12 points or so? My problem is that my collection is currently small enough that with the two armies I primarily want to play (Coral Elves and Frostwings), I can't get to 18. I guess I could splash in a Firewalker mage or two, but I'd rather stick to two races - I'll have enough trouble keeping two sets of racial rules straight.

2) Is it possible to build a successful "jack-of-all-trades" army? Or is it better to focus on one or two aspects? My preference is for the former, but, again, based on experience in other games, it seems to be a loser generally.

Thanks for the help,

BLM

[chuckpint]

Most (but not all) armies tend to maximize the amount of magic that can be cast. The beauty of this game, is that other ways exist to win the game. All-melee armies can work well. Especially if you can wipe out the other guy's mages!

Jack-of-all-trades armies tend to do poorly. Of the 5 types of action icons: Melee, Magic, Missile, Maneuvers, and Saves, you can at best be good in 3 of them. On the other hand, picking just one leaves you a "one-trick pony", and that can kill you if the terrains come up wrong.
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[cliffwiggs]

excellent questions, most of which have the same answer 'it depends'.

on your first question, bring as many magicians as you need to cast the spells you want. for example, I play many all lava elf armies. but I hate the spell lighting strike. The easiest way to defend against that is a dwarf racial spell (earthen armour). so I will add 2-3 dwarf mages to my army just to cast that one spell.

On the other... you are getting into game theory. it really depends on what your opponent brings and what the terrain comes up as.

lets assume there are only three choices for making an army:magic,missile,melee.

If you specialize in one of those 100%, then you will win if you end up there. This is common for all melee or all missile armies. If you end up in one of the attack types you have 0% in, you will get hosed unless your opponent also have 0% in that type.

If you balance at 33% across all three types, then it depends on what your opponent does and what terrain type you come up in.

so there is no 'best' army, its just what you expect your opponent to bring and how to beat him.

I typically try to be good at two things and then I have a 66% chance to end up in a type of combat I want to be in.
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[DEEPBLUEB2]

What I have seen...
is armies that tend to use less than half magic,
make it up though the use of trolls or the gold medallion.

I have made a few all melee armies...
and then IDs are your only magic.
This fails against a black dragon breath.
Melee is the most common face..
so it's a good gamble,
but that's just it...do you want to gamble?

Jack of all trade...
looks good on paper...but the wrong rolls seem to come up all the time...
that's why the fireshadow is so popular...
its "jack of all trade factor" is also a wild card.