Reply To: The issue of the "elite" army (and finding opponents)….

[limburger 21775xp 1]

Time/money definitely is a factor, but only in systems where you need to field your entire army.

Rules are another reason, because getting the feel of a ‘horde’ requires a system that allows for an army to have an x amount of reinforcements. Age of Sigmar already has a few armies with such limited features (Gloomspite Gitz get to respawn certain some of their core infantry). IIRC the ‘Force on Force’ rules also had rules specificly designed to allow asymetric warfare.
Without such rules the horde style armeis rarely have a meta-game reason to be used.

These ‘elite’ units also tend to be the rockstars of their era/faction.
It’s like the Tiger tank … it simply is more famous and it makes more of an impression than something like the Overvalwagen or the Landsverk. One needs to be invested in a historical period to even have heard of the other options.

And like any business the wargame manufacturers make whatever is most popular within any given era/faction.

Then there’s there problem that the manufacturing costs of ‘cheap’ units are the same as the expensive/popular ones.
You don’t have the production/resource problems that stopped Germany from producing thousands of Tigers. The only real choice is popularity of any given unit … and that tends to be based on fame/infamy of a certain unit.
As a result the cost is determined by the amount of people willing to buy such units … which can result in elite units being cheaper (or at least easier to source), because the production cost can be spread and more manufacturers are willing to produce them.