List Design for Beginners - Part 5 - Basic Concepts - Redundancy.

Let's start with an easy one that nevertheless is often completely ignored or disregarded by people when they write their lists, namely 'Redundancy'. At it's most basic level this is having multiple units that can do the same job in case some of them get destroyed or are otherwise incapacitated.

Statistically your going to go 2nd at some point and vs. certain armies with characters that can bend those rules governing turns it's going to be more than half the time.....

At this point a decent opponent will be looking at your army and prioritising what units need to be eliminated early. An Imperial Guard player with a mechanised gun-line is going to be targeting your anti-tank first whereas a horde Ork player is unlikely to give a shit about you killing an Ork a turn with your Lascannon but is going to become very interested in that unit with four Flamers. Even an opponent of less than average skill level is still going to have some idea of what he intends to kill first that turn, a skilled opponent on the other hand will most likely know what he'll be targeting and in what order for the next six turns.....

There are a number of ways too deal with this scenario,

1) Protect those units you know are important with everything else in your army.
2) Have duplicates of everything so it doesn't matter if one, two or even three units of a single type get blown to shit.

Or even better,

3) Protect the important units with the less important ones and have duplicates of everything so it doesn't matter if one, two or even three units of a single type get blown to shit.

This is where redundancy comes in but first we need a brief interlude to talk about Spam.

A Brief Interlude to talk about Spam.

If you find a unit that does exactly the job you want and compliments your army perfectly and your allowed to take three then I see no reason why you shouldn't. If you adopt this approach then certain people will get shitty about it...My personal opinion is that they can go fuck themselves but that's just me. What I will say however is that just because three units have identical stats doesn't mean they have to look identical in every way. Give the units different squad markings, add different types of pintle mounts to vehicles, vary your colour scheme slightly, add battle damage, etc. though you'd be hard pressed to make twelve Razorbacks all look different it should be easily manageable with three Vindicators or similar ;-)

Right now that's out of the way...

Anti-tank is important in 5th edition and I'm presuming will remain so in 6th as GW are unlikely to let go the licence to print money that is 'buy a vehicle and a unit to go in it' or the 1+1 as certain internet pundits call it. How much anti-tank to take is an eternal debate that I won't go into as I don't have a lifetime spare to argue about it but what everybody of any importance will agree is you need a lot.
Very few armies these days will appear on the table with less than four vehicles, most will have six to ten and a few may have twelve or even more. However an opponent with twelve vehicles on the table is highly unlikely to have all twelve of them possessing a high armour value, most will be in the armour 11 or 12 sort of range and that's where the majority of your strength 6, 7 and 8 weapons will be aiming. Those vehicles with higher armour values will obviously require higher strength weaponry to destroy but on the other hand you'll need less of that high strength fire-power as there's less for you to use it against. it would be nice to be able to cram your army with high volumes of high strength shots but unfortunately those weapons are usually priced accordingly.

The upshot of this is that if your army only has two anti-tank units in it and your opponent has a wall of armour then those anti-tank units are going to take the brunt of their fire-power. If on the other hand you have six of those units then your opponents choices become more difficult. Obviously the same basic principles apply to anti-infantry weapons as well.

This is why balanced armies>rock armies on most occasions.

There is no fixed formula for this but as a brief rule of thumb, in an ideal(ish) world you'll have,

1) At least three units capable of destroying heavy armour. As these will often be required to stop a heavy transport (such as a Land Raider) as far away as possible (so the cargo doesn't immediately disembark and kick your teeth in) these need to be either long range or expendable depending on your army.

2) The ability to fire effectively at at least three (but more is better) light transports per turn. For obvious reasons you need less shots if your firing strength 8 Missiles than you do if your firing strength 6 scatter lasers. Missile Launchers are ideal as they generally have an alternative anti-infantry fire mode.

3) Enough anti-infantry to destroy a tactical squad in a single round of shooting or to maim two or even three. Tactical Squads are the benchmark for troop units in 40K.....If you can't kill Power Armoured Marines then you might as well go home now.

4) Sufficient low AP weapons to cause problems for the 2+ save crowd. Missile Spam is wonderful till you face off against thirty Terminators and for those you'll need AP 1 or 2. Plasma is one of the most common weapons used against these sorts of enemies but there are many, many others that can do the job.

As an example here's a somewhat extreme example of redundancy that is nonetheless still effective.


2000 Pts - Grey Knights Roster

HQ: Castellan Crowe (1#, 150 pts)
   1 Castellan Crowe @ 150 pts

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Troops: Purifier Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purifier Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Knight of the Flame
      2 Purifier (Psycannon)
      1 Purifier (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      1 Purifier
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Heavy Support: Purgation Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purgation Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Justicar (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      2 Grey Knights (Psycannon)
      2 Grey Knights
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Heavy Support: Purgation Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purgation Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Justicar (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      2 Grey Knights (Psycannon)
      2 Grey Knights
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Heavy Support: Purgation Squad (6#, 195 pts)
   1 Purgation Squad @ 195 pts (Razorback)
      1 Justicar (Nemesis Daemonhammer)
      2 Grey Knights (Psycannon)
      2 Grey Knights
      1 Razorback (Psybolt Ammunition)

Total Roster Cost: 1905*

* So we have a few points left over but this list is more to prove a point ;-)

The only difference between the units is that six of them are Troops and three are from Heavy Support making them slightly less of a priority in objective games. However your opponents target priority becomes irrelevant as every unit does exactly the same job...


So that's a brief guide to redundancy in 40K. Next time I think we'll look at duality with an appropriate army list to illustrate the point.

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 4 - List Analysis - Marine 'Best-Of'.

Before we get down to individual concepts lets take a look at a few nicely balanced lists that tick all the appropriate boxes as examples.

Though there are a lot of different lists I could have used as our first example I've picked what is (imo) the first truly 5th Edition list to hit the internet...Namely Stelek from YTTH's 'Best-Of' list. My own mechanised Marine list at the time was very close to this one but I have to admit that this one was better and therefore was how my list inevitably ended up.

First we'll look at the list as a whole and then we'll break it down,

1750 Pts - Original 'Best-Of' Marine list

HQ: Master of the Forge (1#, 120 pts)
   1 Master of the Forge @ 120 pts (Converison Beamer)

Troops: Scout Squad (7#, 161 pts)
   6 Scout Squad @ 161 pts (Sniper Rifle x5; Heavy Bolter w/Hellfire Shells; Sergeant Telion)
      1 Sergeant Telion

Elite: Dreadnought (1#, 105 pts)
   1 Dreadnought @ 105 pts

Elite: Dreadnought (1#, 105 pts)
   1 Dreadnought @ 105 pts

Elite: Dreadnought (1#, 105 pts)
   1 Dreadnought @ 105 pts

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad @ 205 pts (Flamer; Multi-Melta; Rhino)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)
      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad @ 205 pts (Flamer; Multi-Melta; Rhino)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)
      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad @ 205 pts (Flamer; Multi-Melta; Rhino)
      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)
      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

Fast Attack: Land Speeder Squadron (2#, 140 pts)
   2 Land Speeder Squadron @ 140 pts (Multi-Melta x2; Heavy Flamer x2)

Fast Attack: Land Speeder Squadron (2#, 140 pts)
   2 Land Speeder Squadron @ 140 pts (Multi-Melta x2; Heavy Flamer x2)

Heavy Support: Predator (1#, 85 pts)
   1 Predator @ 85 pts (Heavy Bolter (each side))

Heavy Support: Predator (1#, 85 pts)
   1 Predator @ 85 pts (Heavy Bolter (each side))

Heavy Support: Predator (1#, 85 pts)
   1 Predator @ 85 pts (Heavy Bolter (each side))

Total Roster Cost: 1746

Now first let me say that truly balanced competitive lists should't rely on single 'rock' units to carry the weight. For every game won by such lists there's another where the unit in question is torrented to death, tar-pitted into uselessness or any number of other disasters ;-)

Okay now back to that list,

HQ: Master of the Forge (1#, 120 pts)

   1 Master of the Forge @ 120 pts (Converison Beamer)

Troops: Scout Squad (7#, 161 pts)

   6 Scout Squad @ 161 pts (Sniper Rifle x5; Heavy Bolter w/Hellfire Shells; Sergeant Telion)

      1 Sergeant Telion

An objective holding unit needs a number of factors, amongst which are survivability (either through inherent toughness, high armour saves or weight of numbers) and if at all possible something to do while it's sitting there.

We've bundled these together because 'together' is exactly how they work.  The Master of the Forge uses his 'Bolster Buildings' rule to up the cover save of a building by one and Tellion's Stealth rule ups the units save by one effectively giving the Scouts a 2+ Save against anything with the exception of Template weapons and the odd rarity with cover ignoring special rules. The unit is armed appropriately for it's role (which is sit at the back and shoot at things while not dying). Originally the Scouts would have had Camo Cloaks but they became unnecessary when the recent main rule book FAQ/Errata stated that 'Stealth' was passed on to the unit that the person with the ability was in. 

So we have a unit with decent survivability to sit on our objective while the rest of the army gets shit done. This unit also retains it's usefulness in Kill Point missions as it's fairly safe at the back but still has the weapon range to kill things itself.

Elite: Dreadnought (1#, 105 pts)

   1 Dreadnought @ 105 pts

I like Dreadnoughts, however even taking that into account the 105 point upgrade-less Dreadnought is exceedingly useful. It scares vehicles with it's Mult-Melta, Heavy Infantry by virtue of being S10 and ignoring armour saves, normal Infantry by being pretty much invulnerable to most of them once it's in combat and can even worry Monstrous Creatures (if only a little). With three of these marching into midfield along with the Tactical Squads you give your opponent the problem of what to prioritise. If nothing in your army is essential and most of it can threaten both infantry and vehicles then you have both Duality and Redundancy covered as well as making your opponents target priority something he needs to be extremely careful about.

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 205 pts)

   9 Tactical Squad @ 205 pts (Flamer; Multi-Melta; Rhino)

      1 Sergeant (Bolt Pistol; Bolter)

      1 Rhino (Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter)

What certain portions of the internet refer to as a 'Melta-Bunker'. It has survivability (Metal Box + Bodies) can threaten vehicles with it's Multi-Melta, Infantry with it's Flamer and you still have 10 Marines to annoy people with. Three units of these parked in mid-field with 3 Dreadnoughts along side them is a lot of mid-range threats to everything all sitting in your opponents way ;-)

Fast Attack: Land Speeder Squadron (2#, 140 pts)

   2 Land Speeder Squadron @ 140 pts (Multi-Melta x2; Heavy Flamer x2)

Nothing quite screams 'Duality' like a fast moving platform with a Multi-Melta and a Heavy Flamer. They also work wonderfully as 'movement blockers' as the last thing that a Land Raider want's near it is a pair of Melta Weapons.

Heavy Support: Predator (1#, 85 pts)

   1 Predator @ 85 pts (Heavy Bolter (each side))

2x S7, AP4 shots and 6x S5, AP 4 shots for 85 points. Autocannon threatens medium tanks, Autocannon + Heavy Bolters can easily torrent a few wounds onto Monstrous Creatures and Daemon Princes with ease and put holes in Infantry by the same method. Armour 13 on the front makes it pretty survivable while it's doing it as well.

So it's an old idea but like all true classics it isn't really showing it's age as much as you'd imagine.

See what I mean ;-)

Anyway,

10 Multi-Melta's,

4 Heavy Flamers and 3 Flamers,

6 Autocannons shots,

18 Heavy Bolter shots,

Some Sniper Rifles,

and 2 Small Blasts that will be wounding most things on 2's (Conversion Beamer) or everything on 2's (Hellfire Round).

It also has 4-7 Scoring units and can afford to lose almost any unit to a dice disaster without compromising the list in any appreciable way.

So a list written at the very beginning of 5th Edition that can still compete in today's mechanised environment because it has all the necessary ingredients to do so....

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(e) - What Army to Choose?

Well were on the home straight now,

Previous articles can be found below,

Blood Angels, Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines,
Dark Eldar, Eldar and Grey Knights,
Imperial Guard, Necrons, Orks,
Space Marines, Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Tau.

Now for the last three,

Black Templars.

The recent FAQ has been fairly kind to the Black Templars as it has given them the Marine versions of many of the special rules and weapons stats. These FAQ's have breathed a bit of new life into the codex in much the same way that they did with the Dark Angels but not necessarily for all the same reasons ;-)

Mech - Due to the ability to give pretty much all your vehicles Power of the Machine Spirit you can make a mechanised Black Templars army 'pseudo' fast, by which I mean you can take Razorbacks, Predators and even Vindicators and make it so you can move 12" and still fire a weapon. This helps to get side armour shots with the Predators, shots after moving 12" with the Razorbacks and to have an effective threat range of 36" with your Vindicators. Combined with the 'Abhor the Witch/Destroy the Witch' vow and you can get an extra D6" of movement towards the enemy after deployment if the enemy army has a Psyker in it....Even an extra inch or two can make a big difference ;-)

Terminator Spam - Take a pair of Terminator Command Squads and another three units of Terminators from your Elite slots and give each unit a pair of heavy weapons and you have a formidable wall of 2+/5+ saves that are firing a combined total of  40 Assault Cannon or 20 Cyclone Missile Launcher shots per turn. For 3 points a model you can give them 'Tank Hunters' as well.

Black Templars work well enough if you use the codex as it's intended. If however you just like Power Armour then pick one of the other Marine 'flavours'.

Tyranids.

Tyranids are a difficult army to do well with based on how the current game works. They're are quite light on anti-tank shooting and in addition have problems with the way their Force Organisation Chart has crowbarred a lot of useful stuff into one slot (Elites). They can be made competitive but you as the controlling player need to accept their limitations from the beginning in order to avoid frustration.

The 'Death-Star' - Take a Hive Tyrant and give him a 2+ save, 'Old Adversary' and a few other upgrades, then stick him with two or three Tyrant Guard and repeat a 2nd time. Then throw both units at the enemy and hope they reach it intact enough to kill your opponent when you reach it. There are of course other variants on this theme but the basic concept remains the same.

The Horde - Termagants, Hormagaunts and Gargoyles are fairly cheap and Genestealers are reasonably priced (as long as you can reach your opponent without being 'torrented' to death)  so an army with over a hundred creatures is entirely possible. This sort of build really requires Venomthropes to give it a 5+ cover save (amongst other advantages) but will have problems vs. vehicle heavy armies, especially ones that have any degree of mobility.

Stealer Shock - An old build that I never really rated even when it was popular. It's the same principle as the 'horde' build but uses Genestealers (almost) exclusively and relies on going first in combat (due to high initiative) and a torrent of attacks in order to cripple what it hits before it gets a chance to hit back. against vehicles you just have to hope that you get enough rending rolls to do the job. It bounces off Land raider Spam as well...

Balanced - This is the way to go with Tyranids (imo). Take a HQ of your choice, Hive Guard as light anti-tank, Tyrannofexes with Rupture Cannons for heavy anti-tank, Tervigons and Termagants as troops and advance the lot in a series of lines designed to give everything (except the expendable stuff at the front) a cover save.

Tyranids are generally considered one of the weaker of the 5th Edition codices and there are fairly justifiable reasons why this is so. With the growing popularity of Librarians (or equivalent) as HQ's making the possibility of your six wound monstrous creature dying to a single lucky Force Weapon hit quite likely and that same psychic defence stopping many of the near essential Tyranid psychic abilities from working it can be a bit of an uphill struggle for the Tyranid player. Grey Knights obviously make that Force weapon issue a much bigger problem as well.

Witch Hunters.

I don't see these anywhere near often enough to have a good handle on them so this might be the weakest analysis I've done so far. If anybody has considerable experience with Witch Hunters and would like to 'chip-in' with some filler in the comments section then that would be much appreciated. In fact I only know one really effective Sisters of Battle list...

Immolator Spam - Take anything that can have an Immolator as a transport and give it one and then fill out the points with Sisters of Battle in Rhino's and give all the passengers all the Meltaguns they can carry. This sort of build needs practice to get right but once you've got the hang of it you'll be popping transports and flaming the contents like there's no tomorrow ;-)

And on that somewhat of an anti-climax we've reviewed all the various codices...

Now that's complete I hope you can pick a codex that suits you and an appropriate build from it as the basis for your army. Next we'll start looking at some list building concepts that apply across the board like Duality, redundancy, Bubble-Wrap etc.

Thoughts, comments and filler for the Witch Hunters section are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(d) - What Army to Choose?

So far we've covered,

Blood Angels, Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines,
Dark Eldar, Eldar and Grey Knights,
Imperial Guard, Necrons and Orks.

As the whole 'alphabetical order' system seems to be working just fine we'll carry on like that.

Space Marines.

First lets clear up a bit of a misconception. The newer Space Marine variants like Blood Angels and Space Wolves are not better than 'vanilla' Space Marines, they're just...well...different and therefore have their own builds that work well. I have Marine builds that can happily kick the shit out of other Marine books because they're builds that compliment the codex. If a build would be better using the Grey Knights book then that's what I'll use but the fact that I still have 'vanilla' Marine armies that win games should tell you something as I don't play to lose now do I?

Now that I've got that off my chest...

'Best Of' - A concept that was first made popular by Stelek of YTTH that was then stolen by lots of people who claimed to have been doing it that way all along...Some of them actually may have been I suppose, but if they were then they were keeping very quiet about it, lol. Anyway, the idea was to take Marine units that were cost effective and offered both Duality* and Redundancy* and then repeat that idea across your whole army.

* These are all fundamental list building concepts we'll go into later in the series along with a few others that I've mentioned in earlier articles.

The basic format was a Master of the Forge with Conversion Beamer who fortified a building and sat in it with a unit of Camo Cloak equipped Sniper scouts (so they all got a 2+ Cover Save), 3 Basic Dreadnoughts, 2 or 3 Tactical Squads in a Rhino with Multi-Melta + Flamer, Some Multi-Melta + Heavy Flamer equipped Landspeeders and 3 Predators in the cheapo Autocannon + Heavy Bolter configuration. This particular build is still an excellent example of list building at it's finest and is a good example of all the concepts we've been talking about as we've gone along so far.

Biker Armies - Taking a Space Marine Captain or Kor'sarro Khan on a Bike enables us to take Space Marine Biker Squads as Troops. This gives a highly mobile army that can pack a lot of Melta but is quite low on models even at high points values. It also really requires a tooled up, expensive Command Squad if it actually wants to kill anything that's a bit tough as normal Space Marine Bikers aren't what you'd call an assault unit by any stretch of the imagination. The basic template is Biker Captain, Biker Command Squad, Space Marine Biker Squads supported by either Land Speeders or more Bikers depending on your preferences. I've also seen it fielded with two Captains and two Command Squads but that particular army is 'Elite' in the extreme. Both variants are relatively cheap to buy if you use the  Dark Angels Ravenwing Battleforce as a basis. Four of the aforementioned battleforces will set you back just over £200 but will give you 24 bikers, 4 Attack Bikes and 4 Landspeeders to build your army out of.

Editors Note : I've just checked and Wayland Games are currently doing the Ravenwing Battleforce for £41.00. Their banner is at the top of my blog so give it a click if your interested ;-)

Dreadnought Spam - The Master of the Forge enables us to take Dreadnoughts in both the Elite and Heavy Support slots giving us the option of taking up to six in total. Most often used to take six Ironclads but has also been utilised to gain access to six 'Rifleman'** or 'Dakka'** Dreadnoughts in the same army. The Master of the Forge/Multiple Dreadnought concept is also a fundamental part of certain 'drop' builds.

** These are the common internet nicknames for a Dreadnought that's replaced both it's arms with Twin-Linked Autocannons as four Twin-Linked S7, AP 4 shots at BS 4 can be pretty scary...

Fast and Slow - A hybrid of the Biker and the Dreadnought builds. The basic idea is that the Bikes zip about killing things and drawing the enemy fire while the Dreadnoughts move forward and punch things when they reach the enemy in later turns. I'm not convinced about the idea myself but I'm told it has been used effectively by other people. If any of them are reading this then feel free to extol it's virtues in the comments section.

Drop Pods - Another army that requires a bit of practice to utilise correctly. The 'Drop Pod Assault' rule enables you to drop half of your army (rounding up) on turn one with the rest arriving from reserves as normal. Drop Pods also have the advantage of not dying if they land on another unit like most 'deep strikers' do, rather they stop just short of whatever they would have landed on...they can still scatter off the board though so be careful ;-)
There are many different 'drop' army concepts though my personal favourite is to alternate between standard Dreadnoughts and Tactical Squads till you reach your chosen points value (including a Master of the Forge once you need that 4th Dreadnought) and then use the Dreadnoughts as an 'Alpha Strike' first wave with the Tactical squads arriving later in support. A Master of the Forge with no upgrades, 6 normal Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods and 5 Tactical Squads (with free upgrades) in Drop Pods comes to 1965 points if your interested. Dropping a Tactical Squad and a Dreadnought and their associated Drop Pods reduces the army by about 250 points so you can easily scale it down if you so desire.

Salamanders - By taking Vulkan in your list, all your Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Meltaguns and Multi-Meltas become twin-linked. Combine this with BS 4 and you have Melta weapons that rarely miss (It's something like an 11% chance of missing I believe) and Flamers that re-roll to wound. This rather cleverly makes your army behave exactly like a salamanders army would, lol. Don't forget to take some long range weapons though or you could find yourself outmanoeuvred or crippled at range by certain opponents.

Razorback Spam and Rhino Rush - Yes they can do these if they like but they are (imo) two of the 'other Marines do it better' builds.

Hopefully the above will have shown you that there's still plenty of life in that particular book. It also contains the 40 point Thunderhammer + Storm Shield armed Assault Terminator which is one of the most cost effective assault unit in any Marine book and arguably one of the most points effective in any Codex...

Editors Note : It's also been pointed out to me via E-Mail that my alphabetical order system has failed by virtue of the fact that I forgot to mention both Black Templars and Dark Angels...I am therefore going to pretend that I intended to cover Dark Angels with Space Marines, sneak Black Templars in the next article with an equally lame excuse and just hope everyone believes my poor attempt at deceit...

Dark Angels.

Dark Angels basically had no build that couldn't be done better by somebody else in Power Armour. The recent FAQ has however created one viable build by virtue of the fact that they now get the 3+ invulnerable save version of the Storm Shield and the two shot version of the Cyclone Missile Launcher. It goes a little something like this...

The Dark Angels Build - Belial, Upgraded Terminator Command Squad with Apothecary, Cyclone Missile Launcher and maybe a Standard Bearer, 3 or more Deathwing Terminator units with Cyclone Missile Launchers and a couple of Ravenwing Attack Squadrons with 2 Meltaguns and a Multi-Melta attack Bike. Everything that can have a Storm Shield gets one, every unit that can take a Cyclone Missile Launcher does so.

If anybody deserves a new codex then it's the Dark Angels as only having one build that works and a load that don't must be pretty annoying.

Space Wolves.

The Space Wolves Codex is another fine example of what wonders can be done with a 5th Edition codex if some thought has gone into it's design. Their Grey Hunters get the 'Chaos' weapon load-out of Bolter, Bolt Pistol and Close Combat Weapon giving them that all important extra attack, in addition they get the 'Counter-attack' special rule so they get the same number of attacks when assaulted (if they pass their Leadership test) as they do when assaulting. This is somewhat mitigated by their lack of a 'sergeant' making them Leadership eight, but even taking that into account they're a bloody bargain.
Wolf Guard can be taken as elites and configured with almost any combination of Marine equipment that you so desire. Additionally, members of the Wolf Guard unit can be attached to certain other Space Wolf units giving the controlling player considerable flexibility in unit configuration. This wide variety of war-gear also extends to your HQ's making them flexible in the extreme...Oh...and you can take four HQ's if you like...
Before this turns into a unit by unit Codex review, lets look at some builds...

Razorback Spam - A Grey Hunters squad in a Las/Plas Razorback costs 150 points, three Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltas in a Las/Plas Razorback costs 144 points and your Long Fang Squads can take them as well. Add in a Rune Priest or two with the 5+ Cover save power (Storm Caller) and at least one with Tempests Wrath in order to annoy deep striking opponents and maybe a Chooser of the Slain or two in order to keep Infiltrators at a safe distance. Twelve razorbacks at 2000 points is enough to annoy most people but certain Tau, Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard builds will still give you a rough time should they be going first.

Cavalry - Thunderwolf Cavalry were another 'broken' unit until people actually looked at their points cost and other limitations and then (most) people shut up about them. That's not to say that they're ineffective because they're still bloody good at what they do. You can almost do a pure cavalry but you'll need to have a couple of Grey Hunters units to hold objectives if you want to win two thirds of the missions. If you take Canis Wolfborn as a HQ then Fenrisian Wolves become troops but are unable to score by virtue of their special rules so you can do an all Cavalry list but you'd need to completely destroy your opponent in Objective games in order to win. The basis of a list like this would be Canis (or a Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf), Iron Priests on Thunderwolf with Cyberwolves, Fenrisian Wolves, some Grey Hunters for objective holding duties and Thunderwolf Cavalry (Obviously). As Games Workshop don't produce a Thunderwolf model other than Canis then you'd have to find a 3rd party who supplied something you could use instead, though I've seen lists using Chaos Horses from Fantasy, Khorne Juggernaughts, converted Elven Lions from the Chariot kit as well as any number of other options.

Loganwing - Logan Grimnar makes Wolf Guard units troops so you can have an army of them if you like. For the most part these consist of Power Armoured Wolf Guard with attached Cyclone Missile Launcher Terminators with various support units but the possibilities for such builds are far to varied to discuss here without starting a new series of articles but it's enough to say that it's an extremely viable possibility for now.

Battleforces - I know that's a dirty word amongst competitive gamers but it's possible to take quite a varied combination of Space Wolf units and still have an entirely viable army as long as you remember to cover the basics.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, there's a lot of variety possible with this codex so it's not surprising that it's the basis for many 'Counts-As' armies.

Tau.

Tau only really have one viable build and it's somewhat one dimensional if were being honest. Most Tau armies work by shooting at you and hoping they kill your whole army before you either shoot them dead first or get into combat with them and then kill them dead. It's a running joke at my FLGS (started by me I'm ashamed to say) that if a Tau player is looking at the assault stats of anything in his army other than Kroot then your probably about to win.

The Tau Build - Commander with Crisis Suit, 3 units of Crisis Suits, mandatory unit of Fire Warriors, some Kroot, Piranhas, possibly some Pathfinders and some combination of Hammerheads or Broadsides in the Heavy Support slot.

I've honestly got nothing against Tau. They're an extremely effective army when used correctly but if you want to win games then your army configuration is going to be very similar to every other Tau player who wants to win games...

Okay that's three more done. Just Tyranids, Witch Hunters and Black Templars (that I should have done first but forgot all about) left to cover before we can get stuck into some of the list building fundamentals.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(c) - What Army to Choose?

Part 3(a) can be found here and Part 3(b) can be found here.

And on we go,

Imperial Guard.

The quintessential Mechanised army. Cheap Transports, Squadron-able Heavy tanks, Vendettas and Valkyries combined with cheap troops should you feel your tanks need some bubble-wrap* make for a formidable wall of armour to have to wade through. Fortunately for your opponent the guardsmen inside them are (for the most part) crap.

*another concept we'll come back to later sometime after we've completed our codex overviews.

Mech - The obvious one really. Chimera's filled with scoring units backed by various tanks with Vendetta/Valkyrie Squadrons zooming about annoying the fuck out of your opponents. An army that works well is pretty easy to come up with using this aspect of the Imperial Guard codex, an army that will roll over your opponent without feeling the bumps takes a bit more work.

The Flying Circus - Valkyries and Vendettas in various squadrons filled with Veterans with Meltaguns can arguably be considered as one of the best Alpha strike armies there is.....as long as you go first. Armour 12 is not a great defence and once your on foot even Veteran Guardsmen are going to get boned by pretty much everything in assault and pretty much everything else when shot at. I'm not dismissing it completely as a competitive build but it certainly has some issues.

Infantry - Due to the cheapness of Imperial Guard troops it's possible to field hordes of infantry backed up by dozens of Heavy Weapon Teams. Large 'blob' squads of infantry will make a mess of pretty much anything (and I do mean anything) should a correctly configured one get the chance to charge an enemy. Such armies do have a number of weaknesses however the main ones are that Guardsmen will lose in a fight against almost anything that gets stuck into them and that having no vehicles has a major impact on your mobility.

Hybrid - Often the best bet. Lots of armour with infantry to get in the way of anything that tries to destroy them.

The Imperial Guard codex has gained somewhat of a reputation for being overpowered which it doesn't necessarily deserve. It's scary to be sure but is by no means unbeatable...

Necrons.

Another of the older codices that has trouble competing in the mechanised world of 5th edition. Due to the 'phase-out' rule which causes your army to disappear should the number of units with the 'Necron' rule go below a certain percentage you'll find that much of your army will be ignored while the aforementioned 'Necron' units get wiped out causing everything else to die with them.

Tri-Monolith - Monoliths are a bastard to kill, 3 of them are almost impossible to reliably get rid of for most builds. However I've only once lost to Necrons in all the years I've been playing and have also never even fired at a Monolith, I just destroy everything else and go for the Phase-out...

'Balanced' - I'm not sure there is such a thing for Necrons. Take enough Warriors so your army doesn't phase out after losing a unit or two and fill the rest of the army with killy stuff.

My opinion is to wait until they get their new codex (which should be sooner rather than later) when they'll hopefully have been bought up to 5th edition standards.

Orks.

Another army that many deem to be uncompetitive due to their lack of Melta, crappy vehicles and (somewhat ironically) poor performance in assault if a decent or semi-decent unit assaults them first.

Horde Orks - 180 Orks takes a lot of shooting to kill and a few of these armies did remarkably well in the early days. However a Mechanised opponent will outmanoeuvre you and it doesn't take many Flamers to put a dent in a horde army with saves as rubbish as most Orks have. Other more practical disadvantages are that it will take forever to paint and you'll be lucky to finish a 1500 point game in less than 2 hours, lol.

Battlewagon Spam - A wall of Battlewagons (well 3 could be a wall...admittedly it wouldn't be a very big wall...) filled with scary killy Orks is a common enough concept. Though armour 14 on the front is great, your more likely to be being shot in your side armour of 12 due to how narrow the 'official' Battlewagon model is. As Front, Side and Rear armour facings are decided by drawing an imaginary line across the vehicles corners Battlewagons are only armour 14 in quite a narrow cross section. These sort of builds also require you to use at least one HQ choice on a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field in order to give your vehicles a 4+ 'obscured' save. There are, however very few armies that are unable to destroy three vehicles in a turn and from that point on your walking...

Kan Spam - Killer Kans can be taken as Squadrons of three and a single Deff Dread can be taken as a troop choice for each big Mek you have as a HQ. This gives you a wall of armour that the rest of your army can hide behind. The Meks (with the obligatory Kustom Force Field) will be giving a good portion (if not all) of this wall a 4+ save with the rest of it getting a save either from the KFF or from the big pile of tin cans in front of them. Two Meks with KFF's, nine Killer Kans and two Deff Dreads can be fielded for less than 800 points which leaves plenty for Troops and Lootas.

Dual Nob Bikers - The army that gave wound allocation such a bad name. Each Warboss enables you to take a Nobz unit as a troop choice. You then give the whole unit Warbikes and each model in the unit a slightly different war-gear load-out so you can spread any non-instant death wounds around the squad. You end up with an extremely mobile unit that takes a 4+ cover save with it wherever it goes and can kill pretty much anything it assaults with brutal efficiency. The downside is that two Biker warbosses and a pair of wound allocation optimised Nob Biker units is going to be the best part of 1500 points of your force and there are plenty of balanced army lists that can still kill them relatively quickly.

Hybrids - Your best bet for a consistently successful Ork army is to create a balanced force using the best bits rather than to opt for a 'Spam' list.

Orks are a fairly forgiving army for the beginner but you'll find them frustrating to use against more experienced opponents.

Okay that's another three covered. Space Marines, Space Wolves and Tau will be coming up next...

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(b) - What Army to Choose?

Part 3(a) can be found here.

Leta great straight to the next three then shall we?

Dark Eldar.

Dark Eldar have always been a bit squishy and their vehicles are also for the most part made of cardboard. This makes them somewhat of a 'Glass Hammer' as they have the ability to dish out a lot of damage but don't take the hit back so well themselves should their victim survive the first attack. This doesn't apply to all their units, however...

Mech - Dark Eldar are for the most part poorly armoured and of low toughness so putting them in a vehicle is usually a good idea. They work well using the 1+1* concept particularly well and armies with ten or more vehicles are not uncommon.

* For those of you that are unaware of the term, it is the basic theory that the transport can be considered part of the unit for the purposes of giving the unit duality. So the vehicle can be anti-tank while it's passengers are equipped for anti-infantry duties or vice versa. We'll talk about it more in a later article in this series ;-)

Carnival of Pain -With the ability to take Wracks as Troops by virtue of having a Haemonculus combined with several units of Grotesques it is possible to have an army that is far tougher than one would normally expect from Dark Eldar. Multiple wound, T5 creatures are a pain in the arse to shift if there's enough of them combined with the liberal distribution of Pain Tokens (Grotesques units come with one as standard) dishing out 'Feel no Pain' to those same units. Watch Space Wolf players get annoyed when their fifteen Missile Launchers only manage to kill one Grotesque and mildly wound another...

Beastmasters - With the wide variety of beasts available it's possible to make a Beastmaster unit that's a wound allocation nightmare for your opponents. Khymerae have a 4+ invulnerable save, Clawed Fiends have 4x toughness 5 wounds and Razorwing Flocks have a whopping 6x Rending attacks each on the charge and as everything (including the Beastmaster) are classed as 'Beasts' (hardly a surprise) the unit has a considerable threat range.

Others - There's a lot of interesting stuff in the Dark Eldar Codex and it's easy to get carried away with some of the more exotic units and war-gear upgrades. Just make sure you've got the basics in your army sorted before you start taking too many of them though ;-)

Eldar.

Eldar are the ultimate specialists. Their units are usually excellent in their particular niche and average to shitty at everything else.

Mechdar - The most common build around in most places. Lots of specialist units in their over-pointed (Well maybe not when the codex was written but most certainly when compared to the newer codices) transports. Fire Dragons are one of the most common elite choices with Dire Avengers being the most common troop one. Many lists also have a unit of pathfinders for objective camping as well.

Footdar - Several internet personalities have recently been talking about how it's possible to build a viable 'all foot' Eldar list that remains competitive. I personally believe that a decently balanced mech list will kick the fucking shit out of a 'footdar' list nineteen times out of twenty and am yet to see a list that makes me believe otherwise...

Eldar MC - The basic template for an Eldar Monstrous Creature list is Eldrad (dishing out Fortune, Doom and Guide where necessary), an Avatar, three Wraith Lords and unit of ten Wraithguard  with an obligatory unit of Pathfinders and a few other bits and pieces to fill out the points and provide some extra targets for the enemy shooting.

Dual Seer Council on Jetbikes - Two Farseers, Two units of Warlocks on Jetbikes and some Troops. It used to be one of the few lists that was genuinely regarded as 'broken' in 4th edition. Fortunately the proliferation of Psychic Defence and torrent of fire armies has made this sort of army much less viable.

Grey Knights.

The new kids on the block. Due to the (generally) higher quality of writing in the newer codices grey Knights are fortunate to have a number of viable army options.

Razorback Spam - Yes, they (like the other Marine Codices) can field an army with a shit-load of razorbacks in it. Unlike the other Marine codices they tend to get out of theirs as Grey Knights are an army that likes to dominate midfield **. Giving a standard Razorback some Psi-Bolt ammunition gives you three twin-linked shots at Strength six at a bargain price.

** Optimum threat ranges is something we'll cover in more detail later.

Terminator Spam - With Terminators available as troops for the same points as a normal Marine Terminator and getting a whole host of extra war-gear essentially for free these sort of armies are bound to crop up (at least two of my friends are using them currently with fairly good results). Thirty Terminators (three units of ten) with six Psycannons between them, accompanied by a Librarian can actually be fielded for 1500 points exactly.

Purifier Spam - By taking Crowe as your HQ you can unlock Purifiers as troops and their pretty damn good. For less than 200 points you can take a 5-man Purifier unit with a pair of Psycannons in a Razorback with Psybolt Ammo. The main weakness of the army is Crowe himself who is unable to join units and is therefore a walking Kill Point for your opponent.

Inquisitorial Warbands - Coteaz allows you to take Inquisitorial Henchmen warbands as troops so you can have a Grey Knight army without any actual grey Knights in it if you feel so inclined. However these work best as part of a more hybrid build in my opinion.

The Others - Draigo unlocks Paladins as troops and Mordrak can take Ghost Terminators with him but I wouldn't recommend either of those concepts to a beginner (or anybody else for that matter).

Okay then, that's the overview of three more codices covered. Next time we'll look at the sort of army lists we can produce using the Imperial Guard, Necron and Ork books.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(a) - What Army to Choose?

After being nagged about it for a while I'm going to continue with a series I started many months ago and then for some reason completely abandoned. 

For those of you without photographic memories or who for some reason didn't follow my blog back then here is Part 1 which as tradition dictates was followed by Part 2. If you could all just ignore the reference to 'tomorrow' at the end of part 2 as well that would be lovely ;-)

Okay. I covered the different roles that are fulfilled by various types of units and their places in the Force Organisation Chart but that in itself raises the question of which Codex you should choose to start with. Many of you will already have a firm idea of which army you like based on any number of reasons from 'The models look cool' to 'I'm told this codex never loses', however it's a sad fact that certain people choose codices that are unsuitable for their perceived army concept or attempt to make armies do things for which they are not designed. I'm therefore going to go through the codices one by one and give you an idea of what army types get the best out of them. This will by its inherent nature be an 'overview' so don't get all tetchy should I skim over a build you think is awesome...

As no more suitable system springs to mind lets get all alphabetical on this thing,

Blood Angels.

Like most of the more recent codices Blood Angels can be used in a wide variety of ways. However, their special rules and unit choices push them in certain directions if you want to get the best from them.

Jumpers - No not the woolly outer garment that your mother made you wear in order to prevent colds but rather a force made entirely (or almost entirely) out of Marines with Jump Packs. Due to the 'Descent of Angels' special rule allowing you to re-roll failed reserve rolls on your Jump Pack units and also reducing your scatter to a single D6 you can produce a force that hides in reserve and then turns up pretty much simultaneously while landing exactly (or as near as damn it) wherever you like. Combine this with the Scoring nature of your Assault Squads (They're troops in case you were wondering) and you have a very mobile force. It is however by it's very nature an offensive force which wins by getting into your face as quickly as possible and then kicking the shit out of you.

Mech - Another handy thing about the Blood Angels is that all their vehicles based around a Rhino chassis (Rhino's, Razorbacks, Vindicators, etc.) are 'Fast' vehicles. This gives you more mobility than most Marine forces while still enabling you to dish out a lot of shooting. Having an additional shooty tank (the 'Baal' Predator) in the Fast Attack section allows you to field a veritable wall off Armour 13 while still leaving plenty of points for a Rhino Rush or Razorback Spam as part of your army. Due to the ability to take a Inferno Pistol or Hand Flamer on your Sergeant combined with the ability to take a special weapon even with a minimum squad size of 5, Blood Angel Razorback Spam lists are in the rare position of being able to take a Razorback Spam list that still contains a useful Troop choice inside it either with dual melta (anti-tank) or dual flamer (anti-infantry). Most of the other codices simply use the troops to make the Razorback scoring (for as long as they're in it, obviously) but they tend to be pretty useless once they're de-meched.

Hybrid - You can of course do a mixture of the above two options, but in my opinion if your a beginner then its best to pick a theme and go with it.

The Others - You can take Sanguinary Guard as Troops if you also take Dante as your HQ and can field an army of Death Company if you take Astorath the Grim. Neither of those are 'Beginner' armies as they require particular strategies to get the best of. The Dante + Sanguinary Guard army in particular can cause problems for even an experienced player to get the best of.

Chaos Daemons.

I start this section with a warning...The Chaos Daemon Codex has some serious issues...Not put off?

Here goes then,

Your whole army deep strikes in but unlike every other codex with a 'Drop' build has absolutely no way to increase its reliability in the first stages and then has to pay a premium of 25 points per Icon to increase that reliability in subsequent turns. Combine this with the fact that you start off with only half an army and that 33% of the time you end up with the opposite half and you can see why I said the army had serious issues.Builds that work well are in extremely short supply but the two most common are,

Cavalry - Take units that are Beasts or Cavalry in every slot in which they are available and hope that enough survives your opponents first shooting phase to still be an assault threat later.

'Bolt Spam' - Take the 'Bolt of Tzeentch' Daemonic Gift in every slot you can in order to pop vehicles and fill the rest with the above mentioned cavalry units.

The Others - You can take Fateweaver (who gives rerolls to your Daemons invulnerable saves within a certain radius) and hope nobody gets through his bodyguards (they will, though) or take a pure Nurgle force with Epidemius (who gradually improves the Nurgle units as the body-count rises) but unfortunately the 'count' only increases if he's on the table and that 33% chance of the wrong half (without him in it) showing up will majorly screw you over. As with other character reliant armies these both have major weaknesses and I wouldn't recommend them as a 'starter' army.

Daemons are not a user friendly army in any way, shape or form and it would be remiss of me to recommend them to a beginner. I have however listed the options anyway as people sometimes ignore my advice no matter how sage it may seem to the more sensible among you ;-)

Chaos Space Marines.

A cool idea that's ruined by poor codex design. Virtually everything in the codex is over-pointed and can be outperformed by similar units in other codices. That is not to say that a Chaos army cannot be successful but rather that it is a far less forgiving Marine Codex than any of the others. Before the Chaos players get too depressed lets look at a few builds that at least have a moderate chance of success.

Chaos MC - It's possible to cram a pair of Daemon Princes, a Greater Daemon, three Dreadnoughts and three Defilers (basically big Dreadnoughts with a Battlecannon) into a list and pretend like your a 4th edition Nidzilla list...It looks scarier than it actually is but can be made viable with good deployment and a bit of skill.

Rhino Rush - If you have enough Multiple Small Units (MSU) moving forward with a good mix of Meltas and Flamers in those units then at least some of them might survive long enough to get stuck into the enemy. If you like Rhino's and don't mind having 20 Kill Points in a list then this might be worth considering.

Dual Lash - Daemon Princes or Sorcerors with Lash of Submission combined with Obliterators is a tried and tested Chaos Space Marine variant. It is somewhat less effective with the trend for mechanisation that 5th edition favours but it certainly is an option to consider if you like the idea of moving your enemy infantry into clumps and then dropping Plasma Cannon Blasts on them ;-)

The Chaos Marine codex is another of the ones that suffers from overall bad design. if you like the imagery of Chaos then few people would condemn you for picking a different codex altogether and attempting to crowbar some Chaos models into it in the form of 'Counts-As' units.

I think those three will do for today. Next time we'll have a look at what the Dark Eldar, Eldar and Grey Knights have to offer.

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 2 - Even more choices.

Carrying on from this article.

This will be a very quick overview as unlike HQ's and Troops the other slots vary tremendously in what they include so I'll get into specifics tomorrow when I start giving examples.

So you've decided on a theme, picked the HQ that suits your army and made sure you don't auto-lose objective missions by picking troops that survive.

So what's next then?

Well actually killing shit might be a start ;-)

Generally most of your 'killing stuff that's close' will be found in the Elite section, 'Killing stuff that's far away' will be in the Heavy Support section.

And stuff that's quick should generally be in the Fast Attack section, though there is the occasional fuck-up like Chaos Spawn which are slow and purposeful...in the Fast Attack slots...Thanks again Mr Gav 'Can't write anything worth a shit' Thorpe.

ELITES

Here you'll find things like Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Fiends and some of the armies support elements like Tech Marines/Priests, Sanguinary Priests etc.

Some books have a variety of effective units in these slots (Pretty much all the Marine Books) unfortunately many have either too much competition for a space on your roster (Fiends, Flamers and Bloodcrushers from the Daemons Codex) or contain certain essential purchases which push the others to the sidelines (Hive Guard in the Tyranid Codex).

These will most likely be the units doing the brunt of the killing and therefore need to be thought about carefully. Synergy is very important here as it is everywhere when designing a list. Sternguard for example are an awesome Marine unit but if you've gone down the 'gunline' path then Rifleman Dreadnoughts will obviously be more useful even though Sternguard are probably a 'cooler' choice. If they bring nothing to the army take something else that does, or failing that write a list that they work in ;-)

HEAVY SUPPORT

Its rare to find a competitive army that hasn't filled all three Heavy support slots almost instantly. At the risk of sounding like a broken record these must compliment your armies overall structure. If the rest of your army is filled with anti-tank then take units that destroy infantry and vice versa.

Imperial Guard players obviously have the best time of it here with virtually any weapon type you can imagine available and due to the ability to squadron they can have pretty much any amount of fire-power they like. They also have access to the Hydra which is bordering on the most under-pointed unit in any codex...Fortunately they can still only fire at one target per slot so it's not all bad, lol.

Marines also have a nice cross section of options but more often than not the Predator is the best choice with 2 S7 and 6 S5 shots at AP4 for a measly 85 points.

Tyranids only have one real choice and that is the pricey but effective Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon, a choice made all the simpler due to the (imo) over-costing of the Carnifex.

FAST ATTACK

Pretty self explanatory really, Assault Troops, Beasts, Fast Skimmers, Bikes etc. all fit into this category.

What's worth noting is that several of the codices have surprisingly shooty units in the Fast Attack section that can be used to add to the weight of fire coming from your army but on a usually more mobile platform. Landspeeders, Attack Bikes, Harpies and of course the Vendettas and Valkyries of the Imperial Guard are all units that fit this category.

The other type of units in this section will be the ones who's job it is too get amongst the enemy quickly and neutralise whatever elements of it they can. Jump Pack Marines (excepting obviously the Blood Angels who get these guys as troops), Raptors, Storm Boyz and Gargoyles are all units that fit this sort of use. Either they move up fast and due to there proximity force your opponent to pour firepower into them rather than something else or even better actually reach that thing and destroy it before it gets a chance to start killing things you need to stay alive (like troops for example).

Despite what many people think, taking the killiest unit from each section isn't always the best idea. The whole army needs to work together with enough redundancy to enable you to survive the odd disaster with enough anti-tank to de-mech your opponent while still being able to kill the guys that fall out ;-)

Tomorrow we'll look at building specific types of lists from the ground up and how to configure squads for the roles you need them to perform.

Thoughts and Comments are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 1 - Too Many Choices

I've been thinking a lot about list optimisation lately due to the 'Throne of Skulls' being 1500 points and all of my usual lists starting at 1750.

At the 1500 points level, not wasting any points is even more important. Picking the correct units for the job is of course an issue as well...

So where do we start?

Well it has to be the HQ really doesn't it.

He's the guy (or gal, daemon, mutant, robot, etc.) that shapes your army or supports it depending on who he (she, it, etc.) is.

HQ.

We can split HQ's broadly into 3 types.

1) Utility.

2) Army Changer.

3) Death Star.

Obviously some cross over into multiple categories but there are few (if any) that can do everything.

Utility.

The most obvious of these is the Librarian or equivalent thereof. He gives us a chance of neutralising enemy psychic powers (usually within a 24" range, but not always), has a selection of useful defensive powers (Various 'Shields of whatever' type abilities), Offensive ones (ranging from direct shooting attacks to combat enhancers like Warptime) and the more situational abilities (like Fear of the Darkness or Null Zone for example).

Also you have the individuals who enhance one unit directly such as Chaplains, Wolf Priests or give a specific benefit such as Masters of the Fleet in Imperial Guard Command Squads.

All of these have one thing in common, which is they support your army (or aspects of it) but don't actually do the 'Heavy Lifting' themselves.

Army Changers.

Formally a rarity, but have now (since the Space Marine Codex) become more common place are HQ's who change the whole way your army works. Characters who by virtue of the special rules they give you, move your army towards a very specific build. Vulkan is the most obvious example as he makes both your anti-tank (Melta) and anti-infantry (Flamers) much improved as well as making the one unit that doesn't need much help at smashing things (TH/SS Assault Terminators) better at smashing things.

Also in this category or those characters who move units within the FOC usually from something else into the troops slot. Bike Captains who allow you to take Fast Attack Bikers as troops, Mek boyz who allow Killer Kanz as Troops and with the recent arrival of Dark Eldar Haemonculi who shift Wracks also into troops.

Each of these choices forces fundamental changes to your army before you've even started.

Death Stars.

Units with incredible stat-lines or abilities who are there just to kick the shit out of things. That's oversimplifying some of them I suppose as some have other abilities as well. Good examples are the Swarmlord or other tooled-up Hive Tyrants, Lysander or pretty much any Greater Daemon in the Chaos Daemon book.

So, certain HQ's shape our army from the ground up others are added after in order to help out, but whichever you pick they need to compliment your plan not be in spite of it. Vulkan doesn't help a mech gunline particularly and neither would Lysander whereas a Librarian with Shield type power obviously would increase it's survivability by a fair margin.

So that's the guy at the top clarified, now for the guys who do the grunt work...

TROOPS.

So 2/3rds of the standard missions require troops to win and the FOC says we have to have at least 2.

These fit into different types as well. Broadly speaking 3 types exist.

1) Sit on an objective and refuse to die

2) Take objective and then try not to die.

3) Actually do stuff as well as sit on an objective and refu....

Okay they're a little more difficult to categorise but we'll give it a go.

Sit on an objective and refuse to die.

The requirements for this role include but are not limited to,

1) High toughness

2) Good armour save

3) Weight of numbers

The best example of this is the Plaguebearer in the Daemon Codex. It's useless in a fight,moves slow and can't hurt vehicles but it's great at not dying. T5, 5+ Inv. and Feel no Pain combine to make a unit that at a trivial 75 points for a minimum unit of 5 will sit in cover and annoy the fuck out of you if you can't spare a dedicated assault unit to go in there and shift it.

Another example of this kind of unit are Space Marine scouts that with Camo Cloaks combined with a bolstered building gives them a 2+ Cover Save. Though different in use to the above mentioned Plaguebearer unit they serve the same purpose which is obviously 'hold an objective and bloody well stay there'.

A unit that does this job but in a completely different way are Gretchin from the Ork Codex. For 100 points you can get 30 bodies (you can have less, obviously) that can sit in terrain and go to ground for a 3+ cover save that will take forever to shift with ranged weaponry.

Then there's the Tyranid Tervigon. A 6 wound, T6 MC with a 3+ save that can spawn other scoring units around itself for free while simultaneously making them better.

All perform their role well but in slightly different ways and they (or something like them) are imo essential for any competitive army. Always remember however that if their job is to just sit there then avoid giving them unnecessary 'just in case' equipment if those points could be better spent elsewhere ;-)

2) Take objective and then try not to die.

Okay I have to give them a mention...Khorne Berzerkers. A unit of charging Khorne Berzerkers will punch a whole through 95% of units that are foolish enough to be out of a vehicle anywhere near an objective...which they then defend with...Bolt Pistols...So am I saying they're good?

Not really, but they are a good example of an objective taking unit rather than an objective keeping unit.

Of course one of the best units for this job is a standard (if there is such a thing) Marine. Decent stats across the board, Good armour, Frag and Krak Grenades and a wide variety of equipment options make them about the best choice for this role. Unfortunately not everyone has access to Marines now do they...

Swarm units approach this type of activity in the same way as they'd approach the 'not dying' one only they have to reach it first which necessitates large units or a sacrificial unit that gives a cover save to the unit behind it. Gretchin and Termagants amongst others might just reach an objective with enough numbers to still be able to switch back to the job of 'Not dying' by the same 'Go to ground, don't get assaulted' method they would have been using if they had been there all along.

3) Actually do stuff as well as sit on an objective and refu....

Be aware of what you want the unit to do and equip it accordingly. One of the biggest mistakes I see (and if I'm honest the one I used to make the most and probably sometimes still do) was loading a squad with enough equipment to open a shop when you had a specific purpose in mind for them but kept adding stuff 'just in case'.

As a brief rule of thumb, if dropping the upgrades is enough for another unit then you've probably overspent a bit, lol.

I think that'll do for now. I'll cover the other FOC slots tomorrow and do some sample units for specific purposes either then or the day after.

Thoughts, Comments are (as usual) most welcome.