Easy versus Strong and Tricky versus Weak

This distinction is something that's come up a few times recently in forum discussions, so I've decided to blog it.

There's a tendency for people to say that armies that are strong are easy to play well, and armies that are weak are hard to play well. That's obviously true in a certain sense and to a certain extent, because it's easier to win with strong armies than weak ones. However, it misses another way of looking at armies: that is, "did I get everything out of the army that I could"? In other words, to what extent did you avoid mistakes and play the army to its fullest. The question of how easy an army is to play well is actually a completely different question than how strong that army is when played well.

To give an example: I think Marro Drudge x8 would be a very easy army to play well. Sure, all the normal concerns of height advantage and common squad cohesiveness apply, but there's really no extra degrees of difficulty. There's no positional concerns, no auras to stay inside, no adjacency issues to contend with, no tricky special powers to navigate... nothing. That said, you're going to get killed in any 400 point tournament with that army, because 3 attacks of 2 doesn't really scare anybody, and a defense of 2 isn't worth much either. So it's a good example of an army that's easy to play, but bad.

On the other end of the spectrum, take an army like, say...

80 Raelin RotV
50 Marro Warriors
100 Krav Maga Agents
120 Greenscale Warriors x2
170 Moltenclaw
520

That's a pretty formidable army. Everything is an "A" or "A+" except B+ Moltenclaw. I don't think anyone would be shocked to see this army as a tournament winner. Yet playing this army forces you to make a ton of decisions that aren't necessarily easy. Do you lead off with the Marro Warriors or save them for cleanup? Do you spend an early OM putting Raelin on a perch, or do you place her at the front of your startzone and snipe from your end? When is it worth it to risk GSWs by moving them out of the auras to attack? How do you mix your OMs between the Krav and GSWs in midgame in order to keep the Krav from getting engaged and get the most out of your activations?

So, this is an example of an army that is fairly strong, but also fairly tricky to play well.

Obviously, there are also examples of armies that are weak and difficult to play well - most hodgepodges fit into that category. And there are also examples of armies that are strong and easy to play.

There are also armies that vary widely in how tricky hey are to play, depending on the opposing army and the map. Ratpodges are a good example of this. If you are playing an all-melee, all-normal attacking, non-disengaging opponent, then playing rats is usually pretty easy - just set up your shell and scatter away. On the other hand, if your opponent has a bunch of range and special attackers, then playing rats can be a real challenge, with lots of thought needed to make sure you're getting your order markers in the right places and repositioning rats when necessary. Rats are usually still good in those situations, but they stop being easy to play.