Common Themes in MSU Lists

I wanted to devote another thread to exploring MSU. After some back-and-forth with Swordmaster late March on some previous posts, I started digging through some old Warhammer Fantasy posts of mine. I was looking to see how I had explained the MSU style of play in the past, and what insight those definitions in "laymen's terms" could provide to jump start some thinking in Kings of War.

The best summary I gave was the following, summarized here:

-You take only the characters you need
-You run lots of smaller units over big blocks
-Ideally, nothing is game-breaking should you lose it

Warhammer and Kings of War, however, are two different games. While it helped to frame my thoughts, this summary didn't translate well, due to it being applicable to a different games. More work and thought was needed.

You could say the Swordmaster and I are trying to essentially gain our knowledge via a more "bottom-up" oriented method: playing games with our armies and trying to noodle out for ourselves what units and tactics work for us. Ideally, at some nebulous point, we'd have enough experience to compare notes, and find places where our choices (regarding stuff like similar unit selection, or similar in-game tactics) overlap, and give some insight into how a MSU-style list is built and played. Bottom-up is a solid way to approach this, as it's pursuit of knowledge is based on experience.

It may be a bit premature (I’m not an accomplished player; and there aren’t a lot of explicitly identified MSU lists out there), but I think approaching MSU from a more "top-down" approach might provide some good food for thought for anyone interested in trying an MSU force for themselves. Start with a more general idea, and try to to apply it elsewhere. Ideally, coming at it from both ways would let us explore MSU in more depth and with more success than trial and error.

As mentioned above, the commonalities we would be looking to find could be found either in more specific things like tactics (how to deploy a given kind of MSU list; what to shoot at when, etc) or in more general, strategic things (like list building and looking at what types of units are taken). As also mentioned above, I’m not an accomplished Kings of War player, so I’m going to ignore the former in favor of the latter. This more analytically-focused work is low-hanging fruit I can try to tackle in between games.

So the last few months I've been examining some self-proclaimed MSU lists that have found online, as well as others list that have similar methods but aren't so explicitly named. As Swordmaster had argued and predicted, each army does seem to have its own take on building a MSU force, but I have found some tenuous themes. In general, an MSU-style list will:

-Largely avoid Magic Items

Arguments can be made for some items (like the Inspiring Talisman or Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar), but generally I only saw a few run per list (0-3). The logic would be that the points are generally better spent on fielding more units, rather than upgrading a bunch of troops.

-Avoid big point sinks in list building

I’ve seen the term "point sink" bandied about online… but not even urban dictionary has an actual entry for the term. I have tossed around a few possible definitions in my head. Each approaches it from a different perspective, so all three are below. Hopefully one of them will speak to you, and get my general point across. I have defined a point sink as:

“Something that takes up an unreasonable amount of points for what it does.”

The efficiency-conscious approach. You don’t take units that don’t do their job well; or take a Horde to do a Troops job. Inappropriately-costed units have seemed to be less of a thing in Kings of War though, as internal army choices are pretty balanced.

“Something that costs so many points, losing it severely hinders your chance of willing.”

The loss-mitigation approach. If you need it to win your games, don’t take it. If your list falls apart without it, don’t take it (and revise your list). Lists that subscribe to the MSU style generally have some redundancy built in, and units cheap enough that any and everything could be expended for the sake of pursuing victory.

“Something that costs more than 10% of your army.”

The mathematically-inclined approach. Simple to understand and apply to your list. Does this unit cost more than 10% of your army? If so, you should have a good reason for including it. Not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t run it (some fantastic units are bobbing around at this cutoff point, and rules were made to be broken and all that), but you maybe shouldn’t run too many of these costly units, or you’ll quickly find yourself with fewer units than your typical opponent, which is a bad spot for an MSU army to be!

-Run more, smaller-sized units over fewer, larger options.

It's hard to define what counts as a small unit, which seems odd for a game that spells out so precisely the sizes of the units in the game. The issue is that there can be a few ways to define a unit's size, namely: label (titled as a Troop or Regiment, etc), points cost, and footprint. These possible definitions are muddied in turn both by non-linear unit costs (with larger units being cheaper per model), and by differently-sized unit types (normal 20mm or 25mm Infantry vs 40mm Large Infantry, for instance).

Take the Herd list from this thread. It uses a few Large Infantry Hordes to unlock a ton of troop choices. Is that list MSU? Largely it is. Even though it uses Horde-sized units, those units are still not that expensive (they are about 12% of the list's total points each). With regards to the footprint of the units, the 40mm hordes are actually smaller than a typical 25mm regiment-sized Infantry unit from that same list.

Or consider the Goblin list from this thread. It's got a Legion, and three Hordes. Is this an MSU list? Maybe? Again, it has units the carry the big labels, and the footprints are big, but if we consider that the Herd list above could be MSU, than an argument could be made here, as each of it's 20+ units cost a pittance. There is an amazing about of redundancy built in, to the point where half the army could be gone and the player could still play the game they want to play.  The list can play the attrition game very, very well....

EDIT:
Seek to win the game via combats, and win combats via swarming enemy units and overpowering them.

Credit goes to Swordmaster for this one. Swarming your opponent is how this army intends to win. This isn't a zerg rush (quick aside: google that term for fun), but a controlled concentration of force after maneuvering during the early turns of the game. 

That goblin list is formidable. It has a ton of drops, redundancy and resiliency, but it is not an MSU-style list, as it seeks to win the game by tarpitting its opponent and blasting them off the field with magic and war machines. It is a resilient gunline; not an MSU list. 

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Just about every MSU thread I have participated in online has been derailed by hair splitting at some point ("the units are cheap, but big. We should title this MMU, or multiple medium unit style of play instead," or "a MSU unit shouldn't have more than 10 models," or "a MSU army needs X deployments to count, etc, etc). Pinning down and defining what MSU is or is not is usually a waste of energy.

After rereading my old explanations of the style and working out the above... they're both on par with the amount of ambiguity contained. 

I think defining MSU is more a wishy-washy "spirit of the law" kind of thing, rather than a hard and fast "letter of the law" kind of thing. My goal here is not to pin down a definitive objective answer of what it is or what it is not. The common themes explored above are meant to give someone a loose "guide" for building a more MSU-oriented list, particularly if it is their first time trying the style, or they are trying it was an unusual army.

To recap the highlights, TL;DR style, typically a MSU-style army will typically:

-Run more, smaller unit sizes over fewer, larger options

-Avoid big point-sinks in list building

-Largely avoid Magic Items

-Win the game via combat; win the combats via swarming your opponent

I enjoy running all these tiny units, and hope to see more players experimenting with this style of play, however they define MSU.

Thanks for indulging in a longer post (and making it to the end). Until next time...