If you count different weapon options (because let's face it, Ironclads and Defenders are different weapon options) then it's a lot more. Otherwise it's somewhat comparable.
Extreme measures are not needed. If non-theme lists were as viable as theme lists that would (by definition) not invalidate themes or the models inside them. Not to sound too paranoid here, but I think the purpose of mandatory themes is to sell themes. Not to balance the game. Dynamic updates and CID have done a LOT to do that.
The issue with balancing factions internally not using themes, is that you have to make very similar units worth taking on their own merit, but not so good that they overshadow other similar options in a faction.
That is feasible when you have only a couple of similar units in a faction, but as the catalougue expand it becomes harder and harder.
Ret for example have: halberdiers, sentinels, infiltrators, eluwhir (Can't spell it) swordsman and ryovass defenders as dedicated melee units.
That is 5 units that are directly competing for space, more may be added as the catalogue expands, it is hard to make one not overshadow the others. Themes remove that direct competition between say sentinels and halberdiers, all you have to do is make the two themes enticing enough to play and each unit now has a place, even though on paper a unit may be slightly worse than other similar faction units in a direct comparison
Put another way, these five units are not distinct enough from one another that, but for a gimmick or trick in a list (i.e. - "corner cases"), there actually isn't a good enough reason in most instances to take 3 out of the 5 unless you are forced into a situation where you can't take one or more of them (btw, Cygnarguy this whole comment isn't aimed at you, you just made a good lead in for me!).
Because it's really saying the same thing. Balancing by theme instead of balancing by unit / jack / solo - game entity, essentially - and then counter-balancing - is actually abdicating a large portion of the balancing process. While absolutely it breaks it up into more bite size manageable chunks, what do you think is actually the REAL impetus: keeping the perpetual release schedule model intact while installing a pressure relief valve on unilateral balance and reducing the amount of resources required to balance as well as be able to double dip on releases with minimal additional design (I.e. - the trencher long gunner), encouraging spending habits of their customer base into channels, or removing internal competition amongst like entity groups within a faction?
My feeling is this. If you have 5 melee units in a faction, all five should have a reason to be taken, or they shouldn't have been designed and released in the first place. Maybe not in every list, but definitely not relegated to corner cases for 3/5 of the unit type. If that is not the case, why did you release this unit or design it during an edition change / update / CID / whatever other thing they call it where this unit doesn't have a clear and distinct role outside of the fringes of trick and gimmick lists?
Because that's what Themes are : they are a pressure relief valve on balancing the game so we can continue to get releases that only need to be micro balanced rather than really well developed and macro balanced by reducing the time it takes to unilaterally balance, and crowd-source what unilateral balance you do end up doing. It's setting up mini-factions within factions to break them into small chunks to balance, rather than against everything in the faction. That means then as long as that mini faction is balanced, you don't have to balance the entire faction among itself, which makes it easier to 1) balance, and 2) keep pumping out stuff in a perpetual release business model.
Cynically, its smart business, it means less development time and it will encourage larger spending habits. If you don't believe me, i point to Trencher Longunners. Longunners with a new sculpt essentially and extremely minutely different rules from normal longunners that are basically Longunners you can use in the Trencher mini faction themes. I'll get to the spending habits in a bit.
While i 100% get what you're saying and from an optimistic point of view, you ARE NOT wrong, there's a deeper issue here. That issue is also equally, accurately, saying "We have 5 units - Halbs, Sents, infiltrators, and Eluwhir (sp), ryovass. One of them is a strong take the overwhelming amount of time. One of them is a strong take most of the time. One of them is decent in some situations, so-so. Two of the are extremely corner case.
The descriptors or exact numbers are objective, sure, but i think there's few people that would say "Infiltrators, pound for pound, are as useful, versatile, and slot into just as many lists as Sentinels". That's the overarching point.
The internal balance, using this example, is wrecked. It's been wrecked for a while. Themes is the equivalent of throwing your hands up in the air, saying "Firetruck it, there doesn't need to be good macro balance because we're going to install an artificial mechanism into the game that edition to edition breaks the faction into more manageable pieces to balance.
This also will have the side effect (intended side effect!) of influencing purchasing habits. Raise your hand if you bought into a theme list you don't use anymore, can't use anymore the way you used to use it, or now sucks as opposed to what it was. How many of you own / have owned models you wouldn't have otherwise bought either at all, or in the frequency you own the but for the existence of a theme list and the benefits it yields? I'm guilty on both counts.
This Theme system doesn't require extensive management of internal balance to the same standard we used to ( such as it was - which for all the things PP nails, internal balance is one they've struggled with for a long time. CoC is the best example of internal balance they have, which is not surprising given who designed most of it). If there's no theme that ever lets Caine3 be in a list with a Stormclad, i don't need to balance the stormclad against Caine3 to anywhere NEAR the level of scrutinty that i need to balance the Stormclad with casters the Stormclad can be a choice with. I reduce my invested time and effort into design, development, and balance by breaking the game's factions up into factions with factions.
This hasn't always been a well received concept. MK2 rolled out the theme concept and it was met largely with lukewarm response. Early MK2 theme lists largely sucked ass. Not all, but most. The strategy was refined. Honed. It then gave us gems like Wold War, and Fist of Haalak. Themes so good it was really, really hard to avoid the buy in. One issue is that not every faction had a Fist or Wold War. Some Factions had a couple (and in one case that poor faction, the only decent-ish chance you had at being competitive was buying into one of the 2 or 3 ridiculous themes that encouraged ludicrous abnormal spending habits).
So there was mixed response. The prototype was largely garbage, but the kernel of genius was there, and it was refined by the end of MK2.
So how are could buy-in be achieved almost unilaterally, such we want it to be the norm and not the exception anymore: easy - make every theme have statistical, numerical, in game advantage and make NOT buying into themes a disadvantage. Before, in theme might give you an edge in certain scenarios, but there were probably more duds than there were rock star themes. Not anymore, or, well, perhaps more fairly, the ratio of advantageous themes went up markedly because of the incentive to play into them (free points, free models, literally - sometimes to the tune of free points consisting of 20% of your point threshold game size).
Voila. That ended up being the secret sauce : unilateral in-game benefit for those that partake, disadvantage for those that don't, but not prohibition! That's key. Prohibition would have set off a shitstorm. Had they said "You MUST play in a theme" that would be a big scary change, put off a lot of people. Instead the message was "The intent is that In Theme list construction is the norm, the go-to, but it is not a requirement." Psychologically people are wired not to like big changes, they prefer smaller ones. People also don't like ultimatums or being forced, they like choices. However, if your goal is to get someone to behave a certain way, not put the off with an ultimatum, but encourage them towards a behavior pattern, you can set up a false choice. The choice still exists, but there's an advantage to one, a disadvantage to the other. It's behavior grooming. So if you present the choice that you don't have to play in theme, but you will be playing at a disadvantage vs. in theme ("down points") as a choice rather than a compulsion, it will elicit a less negative response. You will get more buy in. Sure you won't have total conversion to your plan to influence customer spending and reduce resources into the design, development, maintenance infrastructure, but it will be high enough to be more than acceptable.
This is not really all that difficult, its a psychological technique to get people come around to your viewpoint and reduce the delta of threat when you introduce a big change - they are psychological techniques of influence. There are a host of great books about this, and even more god awful ones that salespeople probably read thinking it will give them an advantage. There's an entire industry built around helping people learn how to influence their value base and learn techniques to encourage the behavior in customers they want to achieve.
To me, however, that attitude is coercive, the design model as it relates to balance is an abdication of one of the most important things in a game (micro, macro balance, some would call it internal / external balance, and its a lot of that, but not quite 100%) with this many silos. And it's 100% ultimately geared towards reducing the effort required to spend on macro / micro balance, but also to give us products like Trencher Longgunners, and create scenarios like MadDogs or old school Fist or Wold War , or all these other micro trends that would otherwise not have encouraged abnormal customer behavior patterns. In many cases these abnormal patterns are then reversed, leaving the customer that engaged in the abnormal spending that was encouraged in a position where their purchase is no longer of the same value it was when they purchased it. It's almost like semi-commodity-ization of wargaming.
My game group actually refers to buying into a theme list as "gambling" on it - "Eh, i'm going to buy into (list) because i'm gambling on it staying stable for a while, because (faction) just went through a CID that involves (models) so the chances of it changing significantly is pretty low." This entered our lexicon over the past few years slowly but surely. The above example is a MK3 era example, but in end MK2 we'd say stuff like "well i'm betting that we won't get an edition change for a couple years yet".
And why do customers put up with this? Simple. It's tied to something they enjoy doing. A lot. A REAL lot. So the choice becomes either accept and continue enjoying this thing, or Firetruck You PP i'm done with this shit, or somewhere in the middle of this scale in the grey. Gaming is tied to social relationships, in many cases social relationships people really value. Sometimes gaming is the social fulcrum. So of course there is going to be a large rate of adoption, yet the situation remains such a controversial one. I know people that the only few hours of "me time" they get a week is game day due to job, family, and commitments.
It's hard as Firetruck to get someone to give that up. For me, for these kinds of reasons, giving up WM/H in the middle of MK2 for a year was actually harder than kicking my 20 year smoking habit. For those of you still reading (thanks, btw!), you might call bullshit, and its anecdotal, but for me, it was. So we'll take negative things in small doses and normalize them if it means we can keep doing the thing we like doing. Too many negative things and we'll turn, but if its by slow increments with some incentive, we'll deal with it. Until the day we wake up and go "Firetruck it, no more."
This is why i hate themes. I hate what they represent, and when i was working with PP as an infernal these are the concerns i brought up to my handlers about themes, and they've basically been realized at this point. Themes are largely why i started my exodus out of the game which is not quite complete, but damn near, themes are why i took a year off from the game in the mid MK2 era. You can chalk it up to a vet just not liking change and evolve or die dinosaur, or whatever else, but to me, themes represent a lot more than just "free points" and "design space". And i like very little of what it represents.
... sorry for the huge post.