Charge into battle! With my action packed tips and tricks that will win you games!
In all seriousness, I figured I'd compile what I've learned up on my blog. While I'm certainly not the best player, I do consider myself a good player. Needless to say, I wouldn't be brazen enough to put up a post like this if I lost all the time ;). The first entry is going to contain my method of list building. My approach is based on experience, things I've read up on and podcasts I've listened to.
So, without further ado, here we go.
List Building
This is where it all starts. The game before the game. I won't be bringing in budget (read - money) into this equation. We'll pretend that the sky is your limit.
- Build your army with a purpose/theme. You should have a general idea of what you want your army to accomplish or you'll end up with a mish mash of units that fail to do much of anything. Do you want your army to be fast and aggressive? Assault based? Shooty? Do you want to fight towards your objectives or sit back on them? If you have an idea of what you want your army to do, your list should reflect this. If you take a list at some of the lists I've built in previous posts this can be seen. My Tau army is built around the idea of fast moving, hard hitting force that can quickly redeploy, wheras my Chaos lists tend to be all about driving towards objectives and getting into assaults. I can expand on these lists, but I'm simply illustrating what "goal" I had in mind when I made these lists.
- Bring the tools you need to deal with a variety of opponents. While the "all-comers" list is talked about everywhere, I don't like the term. Basically you want to make sure you have the tools in your army you need to deal with a variety of targets. This may mean bringing a few weapons to deal with heavy armour, some to deal with light armour, and so on. How much of each you bring is really up to you, and in many ways the local metagame. Now of course, some armies are better at this than others, but you'll be crying if you don't bring at least meltabombs in a squad if you have to deal with some big tanks. If you overspecialize you'll do better against lists that aren't prepared to deal with it, but you're going to run against hard counters as well.
- Bring units that have versatility/duality of purpose. Some of the best things to bring to the table are units that can do more than one job. I'm lucky that I have that with many units with the Tau. Hammerheads can drop big templates to deal with infantry or deal with heavy armour. Crisis suits are able to engage a wide variety of opponents with most loadouts. If you have units in your army that can do more than one job then you run less of a risk of overspecializing and can deal with a variety of tactical situations. Consider what your weapons can do and how you outfit your squads. Autocannons can take out both infantry and light vehicles. Mmmm useful. Chas Obliterators can pick and choose the weapon they need to do the job and space marine missile launchers are good anti-mid armour vehicles or light infantry killers. Bring some swiss army knives into your army.
- Make sure you have a role in mind for each unit. Kind of runs contrary to my previous point, but it's still valid. Not every unit is going to be flexible, but if you have a few in your list, you're going to be a bit further ahead. Flexibility aside, you should have a reason for including a unit in your army and make sure you use it the way it is intended. For example, I took a small squad of Chaos raptors in my last army, I gave them melta guns (some duality of purpose there), and a champion with a power sword. They could either be fast moving tank hunters, or be used to assault depleted enemy squads or support failing assaults. In those roles, they work terrific. Using them outside of these roles would have been a mistake and they would have done poorly. Any unit is useful if you built it with a role in mind and it is supported/supported by the rest of your army, which brings me to my next point.
- Synergy/Combos. The units in your army should support each other. A good army can still function with some elements missing, but it functions even better if it has it all. Many people run into the mistake of considering the usefulness of a unit on it's own and not how it will work in an army. This is a huge error in my opinion. Using the example of chaos, on their own, Summoned Lesser Demons aren't terrific, but using them to start an assault for hard-to-get-into-assault Khorne beserkers makes them very effective. Crisis suits are vulnerable on their own, but having mobile cover in the form of tanks makes them more survivable. Using Chaos Raptors (or Assault marines for that matter) in the role stated in my last point is another example of this. You should consider how each of your units can support the others as well as how they operate on their own. If each element of your army operates independantly of the rest of it, then it won't be as effective. Hit hard, hit fast on a weak point, then redeploy.
- Mobility. I firmly believe that even a static list needs some mobility. While I tend to favour playing very mobile armies, you do not have to go this route. If you like playing a static list you may consider taking a transport to help get to objectives, but, barring that, taking some mobile elements reduces your opponents options and increases your own. Taking some fast moving elements like land-speeders, or bikes, or whatever your army may have in that realm can be used to slow assaults, harass advances, contest objectives and hunt armour. If you lack mobility another army is going to take advantage of it by staying out of reach, or controlling the board. Bring at least a few fast movers.
- Be careful about over-upgrading. Your upgrades help cement the role of your unit and should support its purpose. It makes no sense to take a long range weapon and a short range weapon in a squad for example. You wouldn't want to take a power weapon or power fist in a squad that is going to sit back and shoot the whole game. Besides this, you don't want to sink all of your points in upgrades and reduce how many units you have on the table as a concequence. My philosophy is to give a unit just enough to let them do their job, but no more. It hurts a lot to lose a lot of points from one lucky shot.
That's about all I have to say about list building for now. I may add more later, but my next post will take a look at some general gameplay tips and look at each of the phases of a turn in detail.
