Mega Mode in the Builder: Rethinking a Smaller-Points List
Mega Mode in the Builder: Rethinking a Smaller-Points List
Sometimes a single idea in the army builder is enough to send us straight back to the drawing board.
This time, Michał dropped a simple “mega mode”, and that was enough to kick off a proper list-building moment. Wilini’s reaction said it all: apparently you can push things really hard in the builder, to the point where it earns genuine respect. That kind of discovery is always fun — the moment when a tool, combo, or list structure suddenly opens up and we start seeing new possibilities.
What followed was the very familiar next step in our hobby process: “okay, but now we need to rethink the list.”
And honestly, that is one of our favourite parts of army-building. Not just writing a list once, but going back, trimming it, reshaping it, and figuring out what still works when the points level changes.
In this case, the key thought was for smaller-point games: instead of taking a Damsel, Wilini was considering going with a Baron as the leader. It is a small sentence, but it carries a lot of weight in list design. A character swap like that can change not only the role coverage in the army, but also the whole feel of the force on the table.
For lower points, that kind of adjustment often makes a lot of sense. You start asking ourselves questions like:
- do we need support magic here, or do we want a more direct command piece?
- how much can we invest in utility before the core of the army gets too thin?
- what gives us the most value when every point matters more?
A Baron instead of a Damsel suggests a shift toward a more straightforward, possibly more aggressive or more stable command structure for compact games. And that is exactly the kind of choice we love discussing: not just what is “good,” but what fits the scale of the battle.
That is probably the biggest takeaway from this little exchange: sometimes list-building is not about inventing something completely new, but about spotting where a list needs to change gears when the format changes. Bigger games can afford one kind of luxury; smaller ones often reward cleaner, tighter decisions.
We are definitely into this line of thinking, and we can already see how one builder discovery can snowball into a full rethink of the army.
Sometimes all it takes is:
mega mode
…and suddenly the whole list is under review.