Ok, then b) option seems good for me.
Another variant is not forbid but penalize different lists of b) could be, -1 command for succesive mercenary list.
In example. Empire are allied of the dwarves (-1 command for the thunderes) but hire the tuska from dogs of war (-2 command when ordering to the monster). Finally the scouts has contact with local tribes of lizardmen and seems friendly to the army. Some skinks are leading the army through the jungle (-3 command to the skinks).
Cheesy example: Dwarf with winged hussars (-1 command), reiksguard (-2 command) and silver helm (-3 command). Now it is not sense to brigade them.
Another idea completely different (focusing in a tournament) is limiting the use of mercenary in a randomize way: Use a modification of the territory rules of warmaster ancient armies. But you could only buy mercenaries with the points of the territories.
I used the rules in a long campaing four years ago (times goes by...
) and I like the mechanics.
Old WorldI read
WFHGS use them for short campaing of 3 battles in a day, and work for them.
Maybe could add a little bit more of complexity. But I discovered that players use to like this kind of things. If you prepare two set of cards with territories (bad and good), like Tilea for pikemen, Mines karak a karak for thunderers, wasters of chaos for monsters, mountains of uthulan for flyers, plains for chariots, lizardmen from lustria jungle, some samurais from the far Cathay, then could hook the attention of the players to use new units in their armies.
The rules state that territories give you points you can use to buy some type of units (cheapest cavalry of your list, infantry of your list, etc...) avoiding max and min and over the fixed points. You can combine two territories usually mines, port or citadel with whatever to boost the points of the unit. In example two plains give you 2 cheap units of cavalry but a plan and a gold mine gives you a unit of heavy cavalry.
You have 3 cards and you have to play with 2 of them. This is your bet, if you loose the battle the winner can stole you one card forcing you to take one from the deck (you could improve) or the winner can try luck and take one from the deck directly.
You could simplify that, making a really cool cards with images from landscapes and illustrations, printed and glue over a normal poker cards, that state a place and the merc unit. Each card is divided in two with Ligth territory and a Dark Territory, so each card could be used for two types of armies.
Then you are quoting/controling in a very cool way the units of mercs, giving them some background, and avoiding extra cheesy players. There is always a touch of luck and randomize when taking the intial territories and of course the pleasure of conquerer and victory taking the card to the beatan army. Also make non symetrical games (in points). In 1000 points game could be not good. but in 1500, 2000 and 3000 in my experience is affordable (the asymetry of points is not going to break the game).
Examples:
Mountain --> monster / flyer (black mountains, wyrm mount / Middle mountains griffon mount)
Forest --> archers (Lorien, wood elf archers / Naggaroth dark elves crossbow)
Wastes --> monsters ( Land of death sphinx / araby deserts Tuska)
Plains --> chariots (kurgan territories chariot / uthulan plains high elf chariot)
Mountian passing --> hard tough infantry (world edge mnts black orcs / karak a karak dwarf warrior)
River crossing --> light fast infantry (skull river 2x goblins / reik river fishermen and hunters 2x peasents)
Farmlands --> infantry (Talabecland halberdiers / bad lands 1x warrior)
Town --> Infantry ( wolfenburg free company halberdier + skirmisher / castle of drakenhoff tomb guards)
Pasture --> cavalry (Stirland pistoliers / Bad lands 2xwolf raiders)
City --> heavy cavalry (Altdorf empire knight / The inevitable city chaos knights)
Mines --> infantry dwarf ( karak azul dwarf thunders / Mingol Zharr blunderbusses)
Port --> infantry (sea of claws elf spearmen / Naggaroth port dark elf spearmen)
Fortress --> artillery ( Nuln cannons / black cragg stonethrower)
Fate card / famous hero leading the army--> gives a magic object
Intrigues --> see table
Events --> see table
That means more work for he organizer and extra units painted to be used for different players. But people usually have lots of fun with this kind of things. You can not solve the riddle of the "cheesy player" but you can go around.
