List Building Games
I think some of the attraction of the games we play is the ability to create seemingly limitless combinations of units or armies and sometimes come up with that all conquering combo. Whether it is from the boundless lists of old style GW codex or card type units of games like X-Wing the designers put the choice of army into our hands and that gives us a feeling of control over the destiny of our gaming. Which is really great. One of things I really loved about 40K was the ability to not only choose one of the famous chapters but the freedom to design your own.
Freedom of Choice
Well that may not be the case as much as we think. This freedom of choice is easily tainted by a number of factors. It could be restricted by the companies business model. If they make the next new shiney the best then you are restricted into buying those armies or units, especially if your chosen army hasn’t had any recent updates. I’m no business expert and I wont claim that is the case but I speak from the heart using my own experiences and that certainly felt the case when I played 40K. A game I played for a good while and competitively, but one I left because I ultimately felt I could not or would not keep up with the perceived power creep. But then the grass is not always greener, as they say.
Gaming Structure
Our choice could also be restricted by the structure we choose for our games. Now whether it is an official tournament or just a game with friends we usually put some kind of structure to our games. Obviously the official play is the restrictions imposed by the organisers whereas club or home games might be more subtle, something like a theme or a story. Maybe a recreation of a battle in your chosen games lore. The game that has replaced 40K for me is Infinity and while at its base level I feel it has more choice in army selection as there is more balance in the game one of the big arguments by the people who play Infinity is ITS, its official tournament play, is how to be efficient in ITS you need a certain type of army build and to be honest the more I’ve played the more I agree that is the case. So even here the restrictions have been imposed. Its not just Infinity either. While the restrictions there are down to the best way to win the mission I also feel that X-Wing, the other game I play competitively these days, also can restrict your choices. Now here I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m not hugely experienced but when I first started playing I definitely felt that the hour time limit made the game very different beast to an open ended game. I believe this had an impact of the two ship lists that dominated for a while. Admittedly this may have been addressed with the latest FAQ but I’m probably not the best person to ask.
So where to now?
I guess I’ve been thinking about these things a lot lately. The new X-Wing FAQ changed my squad for the last tournament I went to and I’ve been talking about high order Infinity lists with the Totally Crit guys. Either way we never really like the thought that our choices are restricted but always seem to forgive out favourite games for any they impose. After all we all partake in this hobby out of love for the Emperor, for the Force or maybe just for the destruction of our enemies.
As always please feel free to leave a comment.
8obman 
I think you’ve just barely started to scratch the surface of the “list building” meta-game.
Its roots don’t really lie in traditional miniatures wargames. These have always restricted your army choices either by fiat (“you must take at least one general and three core units”) or by rule (where armies that choose not to take, for example, a general are at a clear mechanical disadvantage).
The origin of the modern list building meta-game is in the CCG community and, in particular, MtG, where the idea was born of the “perfect deck”: the almost Aristotelean conviction that there was a perfect combination of cards that would render victory inevitable. This, then, infected the competitive wargaming community (basically 40k), in the early 2000s, when “net-decking” became a thing.
This is illustrated by your comments about the ITS. 40k began to fail as a game for me when the vast majority of my potential opponents began treating every casual game like training for a tournament. Sides had to be equal-pointed. Objectives had to be mutual. Rules As Written and FAQs prevailed.
Similarly, I do love Infinity and enjoy the ITS, but treating every game like an ITS game exploits only a tiny fraction of the game’s possibilities. If you want to play different games, play different missions. Play missions from the rulebook, or YAMS, or Campaign:Paradiso, or make up your own.
List building IS fun. And Infinity’s Army platform makes it more fun than most. But if you treat list building as an exercise in tournament prep it will become work and sap all the pleasure from the activity in pursuit of the “perfect list”.
Those are some interesting points. I fully agree that list building has a lot of mileage as a topic, not least because there are many avenues to explore from the macro to the micro.
I’m not really sure I follow with your next points though as pretty much every game I have played in the last 25 years has list building in it. While I have not many memories of Rogue Trader 2nd Ed 40K had much list building it and was first published more or less the same time as MTG I believe. I also have very little experience of MTG certainly nowadays it is not a ‘free’ building system as it has restrictions in it with the various formats. With reference to ‘net-decking’ it be interested in examples of that as it is a hot topic in the gaming community in my experience and has been a part of wargaming culture as long as I’ve been part of online communities and I imagine as long as there have been online wargaming communities.
I think this blends into the second point. Again I’d be interested in when 40K failed for you as I’ve played with equal pointed games since second edition. Sure there were no specific missions but points were a way to make the games fair. I think once wargaming lost its ‘underground’ nature and became very popular and not only that but ease of access to information because of the interweb then net-listing would inevitably become a thing. There have always been competitive people and with the explosion of interest in wargaming and along with it tournaments then net-listing is only a logical step. Again that explosion of interest and tournaments means people are travelling to new metas and experiencing new perspectives on rules as such FAQs are a natural progression help games flow by removing any confusion over contentious issues.
Here is where we come together on views. I completely agree that those restrictions can strangle a game and very much so in the case of Infinity as there are so many options. ITS not only restricts force selection by the necessity of specialists but also the turn limit favours very order efficient lists, something that was touched upon with X-Wing and big ship lists. I had a very entertaining game when I completely forgot the mission and went solely for the kill. I guess it also depends on your group and somewhat you as an individual as while I was playing 40K tournaments I never really felt the need to practise as such as I considered every game as practise. In fact it came up at the local club when it was mentioned about practising for a league which itself was practise for tournaments. With Infinity however I have had very little fatigue in playing practise ITS for tournaments so hasn’t really become as issue, which is weird as I am usually the sort of person who wants to try out everything. But then I feel that is affected by my gaming group who are largely competitive and tournament focussed and it is easy to get swept up in that.
Sure, list building is fun but can soon turn to work as you say. Which then turns the hobby time into stress time. But then that can be true of many aspects of the hobby and again something that I have come to terms with recently being as I started to take things a bit too seriously and as such it was starting to become stressful. But again it could come down to your character as finding the all destroying combo could well be the part of the hobby you enjoy most, I know I regularly turn to list building in my spare time just to see what I can come up with.
Finally. Many thanks for the comment. I hope my article provoked some thought as your comment did. I was really musing on how we restrict our choices, sometimes without knowing it and how or if that has an effect on our gaming. Again from personal experience with 40K I was always looking for something new or a different way to play. Whereas with Infinity or X-Wing I have not really run the course with organised play, although playing YAMS or an open large game does tug on mind every now and again.