Furycat

So, I was going to make a post discussing my potential 2000-point Imperial Fists army list and looking at how I could break it down into 500-point chunks for painting and what the list would look like at 500, 1000, 1500 points as I progressed, however thinking about all that I realised that there was probably a post in there about the general process of writing a Warhammer 40k army list and how I approach it. And now it’s now, and I’m doing that.

I’ll start off by saying, I am by no means the greatest player out there, and I’m not a tournament player (Or at least, not yet). But I have been playing wargames for a very long time, and I like to think I’ve got at least some useful insights into this process. And besides, it’s helpful for me to actually write out all these thoughts as it forces me to think about them in more detail, rather than just doing it by instinct, so to speak.

The Basics

And by that, I mean really basic. Things like, how many points am I writing this list for? What sort of game is it intended for? Is it a competitive list? Or a more fluffy, fun sort of list? What’s the theme of the list? Yes, even a competitive list should have some sort of theme, beyond of course ‘winning’. What faction are you playing, and within that, which sub-faction? What models you own will also quite possibly play a part in this, unless you are doing this as part of planning out an entire new army project.

For a lot of this post, I’m going to be working from the assumption that we’re building a competitive list of some sort. Not necessarily for a tournament, but a list that is intended to fight against tough opposition with the intent of winning.

Theme is an interesting one, at least I think so, and can have quite an impact on how you go about constructing your list. The theme could be something you just find really cool, without necessarily having much regard for effectiveness on the tabletop, though that isn’t to say you can’t then design a list around that them that’s intended to be as effective as possible within the constraints of your chosen theme.

You could for example, decide to theme your list around trying to make a particular unit work for you because you really like it. You could have your theme be high-mobility warfare, or incredibly durable units such as Terminators, or Gravis Marines. The faction and sub-faction you are choosing will quite naturally have quite an impact on the theme you decide to work with, but if you have something in mind when you start off it gives you a framework to build around.

Detachments

You are going to have to select one or more detachments, depending on the size of battle you are playing, for your army to fit into. This will partly be decided by the points value you are playing at; you are unlikely to be filling out a Brigade Detachment in a 500-point Combat Patrol game for example, but it will also be affected by the theme of your force, and which faction you are playing. If, for example, you are playing a faction with comparatively expensive HQ and/or Troop options, and your theme calls for a lot of units from the Elites slot, you might not be able to easily do a Battalion Detachment, particularly at lower points costs.

I would start off by looking at what units you MUST have in the army, to accord with your theme. If you have decided that your theme is making a particular unit work for you because you think it’s really cool, then they are going to be an essential include. Note these down and figure out the points costs, either on a bit of paper, on a spreadsheet, or in a tool like BattleScribe and see how many points and slots they take up.  That should give you some idea of what detachment they can fit into.

Most often, this will be either a Battalion Detachment, or perhaps at lower point values a Patrol Detachment, but it could be one of the more specialised detachments, such as if you are wanting to play a lot of Terminators, you could very well need a Vanguard Detachment. At this point, it’s worth considering if your faction/sub-faction has any ways of allowing you to take this detachment for free. For example, Dark Angels Space Marines, can take a Deathwing Vanguard Detachment for 0CP if they meet the requirements.

Assuming however that you are going with a Battalion or a Patrol, you will most likely want to look at meeting the requirements in terms of Troops and HQ units for that detachment. At this point, your list is beginning to take shape somewhat, and you should have an idea of how many points and slots you have left to work with in building out the rest of your army.

So, lets get on to the real meat.

Unit Selection

This is probably the bit that most people are the most interested in. How do you select units to make up a good army? There’s a lot that can be said about this, but in general the following things should apply.

First, each unit should have a purpose. There should be a reason it’s in the list, and a thing you intend for it to do on the battlefield. In more casual games, that purpose could very well be ‘I like this unit and think it’s cool’, which would be a perfectly valid reason. A unit could also be in for a reason such as ‘I need a second HQ to fill a Battalion Detachment, and this guy is cheap.’ From a more competitive perspective. It’s also possible for a unit to fill several purposes in your list. Going back to the HQ example above, the unit might not only be a cheap way to fill out your Battalion, he might also be there to carry a specific relic or warlord trait for you. Here’s a few of the sorts of purposes a unit might fill, and in general a well-balanced army should aim to have units that fill most, if not all of these.

Scoring Primary Objectives
Assuming you’re playing some set of matched play rules such as the Nachmund Grand Tournament mission pack, or the Tempest of War mission pack, a significant portion of the victory points you score are going to come from primary objectives, and that means you need units that can control or contest those objectives. The most useful ability for this is Objective Secured, which pretty much all units in the Troops slot get, though some factions or sub-factions have units that can get this from other slots as well. You will want to consider things like, is this a very durable unit? Is it very cheap? Can I afford to simply sacrifice a lot of these guys to keep contesting/holding an objective? Does it have good mobility options? Or perhaps special deployment options? What is my overall plan for how these units take, and hold objectives?

Scoring Secondary Objectives
Secondary objectives fall into several categories, and you normally have three secondary objectives, with no more than one per category, unless you are using the Tempest of War mission pack. Most factions have access to unique secondaries from which you can select a maximum of one. It is worth reading through the secondary objectives from both your codex, and the tournament pack you are using to get an idea of which ones your force might best be able to work from. If you bring no units with psychic abilities, you are unlikely to doing any secondaries from the Warpcraft category for example. A lot of secondaries involve performing actions in different parts of the board, which is usually restricted to infantry units, and prevents those units from doing things like shooting and charging. Having an expensive unit of Custodes performing an action might not be desirable, having a dirt-cheap unit of Guardsmen doing them however is of less concern. What is your overall plan for scoring secondary objectives, and which ones do you think your force is likely to perform well in? It is worth keeping in mind that your opponent’s force will have an impact on this as well. You probably aren’t going to score well for something like Grind Them Down against a tough Custodes force. Make sure you have several options covered.

Killing Tanks / Monsters
Tanks and monsters tend to have high toughness, lots of wounds, good armour saves, and possibly even invulnerable saves. They also tend to concentrate a lot of power into a single model and can be very dangerous indeed if you don’t have the tools to kill them. It is definitely wise to have some options in your list whose main job will be killing these terrors. Small arms fire generally isn’t going to cut it, and watching lasgun or bolter fire pattering harmlessly off something as it slaughters your units can be very disheartening. Generally, you are going to want very high-quality attacks for dealing with these targets, with good strength, high AP, and high damage. Think Lascannons, Multi-Meltas, Dark Lances. Also consider the range of these weapons, how easily they can move around to get shots, and how good the BS or WS of the unit wielding them is. Two lascannon shots with BS 4+ realistically isn’t going to kill a tank or monster unless you get pretty lucky. If you are relying on melee attacks to get the job done, don’t forget to consider how you plan to deliver them to their target. A big unit of Terminators with chain-fists is quite likely to destroy a tank if they can get to melee, but walking them across the table to get there takes time, and they might be destroyed before ever getting there.

Killing Elite Infantry
The gold standard for infantry stat lines, is the Space Marine. T4, 2W, 3+ save. And with the new Armour of Contempt rule letting them ignore the first point of AP from incoming attacks, they can be very hard to kill indeed, especially in cover. You need to have some idea of how you will deal with elite infantry, be it Space Marines and similar, or something even tougher like Kataphron Breachers, which are T5, 3W, 2+ save. Or Custodian Guard at T5, 3W, 2+ save, 4++ invulnerable. I tend to base this on the standard Space Marine stat line. Most things that will efficiently kill Space Marines, will do a pretty good job on tougher things as well, and tougher things tend to come in smaller numbers anyway. For this you generally want to have a mid-to-high strength, and good AP. Damage 1 weapons are fine, if you have higher rates of fire, but Damage 2 is better, and Damage 3 is top notch as there are quite a few things out there now with a built-in -1 damage. Think S5-S7, AP-2 or better. You *can* do it with enough volume of lower quality fire, but it can take a very large number of shots indeed to equal a single higher-quality shot. Think things like plasma guns, grav cannons, power fists. There is some overlap here with Tank/Monster killing firepower as well, though generally these are less efficient at the job in per-point terms, but they can still get the job done.

Horde Killing
There are factions out there that can drown you in an absolute tide of cheap, fragile models and you should probably have some sort of answer to the question ‘What happens when my opponent throws 100 Hormogaunts at me?’. Typically, these units are lower toughness and have poor armour saves, so volume of fire is the order of the day. You want to put out lots and lots of shots. Most basic Troops choices can do at least a bit of this, but specialized options can really help out against large tides of bodies drowning an objective. Weapons that automatically hit, such as flamers are great, as are weapons with extremely high numbers of shots. Strength and AP are generally of less consideration, and anything above damage 1 is usually pointless as these models tend to have only a single wound each anyway. Blast weapons are also excellent, as they will typically get maximum shots against these huge hordes. Flamers, Onslaught Gatling Cannons, Frag Missiles, Hurricane Bolters, Radium Carbines all do well in this role. If you plan on doing it with melee units, you had better be bringing a huge number of attacks

Melee Threat / Counter-Charge
Even if you are playing a mainly shooting force, it is a good idea to have at least some form of melee capability available to you. Fighting over objectives generally means you are going to get up close and personal, and even if you have no desire to be in melee, your opponent may have other ideas. Even a relatively mediocre dedicated melee unit can be a credible counter-charge threat, and if your opponent has an army that is very poor in melee they can charge and push units off objectives. A counter charge unit is one that you hold back near key units, ready to charge any enemy units which have charged your key units. As charging units usually get to fight first, you can often inflict serious damage, even on powerful enemy melee units, before they get to strike. Alternatively, if you are playing a melee-focused list, then you are likely to have quite a few of these! Things to consider for each unit, is what is it focused on killing? Light infantry hordes? Elite infantry? Monsters/Vehicles? Make sure the weapons they have access to can do the job. Give consideration to how you intend to deliver them to their target without getting shot to bits first Can they deploy from reserves? If so, do you have any ways of making their charge more reliable? A 9” charge from reserves is not particularly easy to pull off, even with a command point re-roll. Transports can offer good survivability to deliver a unit to the target. Or if the unit is a counter-charge unit, or is especially survivable, then walking might well suffice.

Buffing & Support
Some units exist to make other units better, or support them in some way. A lot of HQ units fall into this category, some while also being powerful shooting or melee combatants in their own right as well. Some buffs and support abilities are innate, others might come from a warlord trait or a particular relic. It is generally best to have a particular idea in mind for which specific units each buffing or support piece is intended to work with. Don’t try to cover too much of your army, it’s very easy to have grand ideas of a single HQ unit giving out buffs to your whole army, but it almost never works out that way in practice. Generally, I would plan to have each buffing or support unit work with at most 1-2 units and build around that. Not everything in your army needs to be buffed in some way. It’s very easy to go overboard here, and pile in loads of characters with tons of extra warlord traits and relics giving out all manner of buffs, but generally you’ll see better results from having just a couple of support pieces, and more workhorse units.

Mobility
Getting about the board is important. You need to get to primary objectives. Many secondaries require you to get to specific parts of the board. And never forget your opponent, who will do their absolute best to crap in your cornflakes, requiring you to respond. Having units which are very fast, or have other ways of moving about the board, such as deploying in from reserves (Deep Striking, as it used to be called) to any part of the board, or just re-deploying once the game is ongoing. Transports also fall into this role, delivering key units to where they need to be, though some can also provide significant firepower or buffing and support. Plan to have at least some mobility in your list.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully once you’ve gone through all of the above you should have a selection of units that work well together, and cover all of the jobs above. Some units can cover more than one job for your army, but you should make sure that you have at least a couple of ways to do each job if possible. You will take losses, and it can really suck if an enemy force that’s heavy on tanks blows your only anti-tank option off the table early on. Once you have the main ‘must-have’ units from your theme in your force, you can work through filling out your remaining army by asking yourself ‘What job haven’t I got covered well enough?’ then ‘What slots have I got left free in my detachment?’ and finally ‘What in those slots, does that job?’

When evaluating a unit, look at how points efficient it is for the job at hand. Roughly speaking you can look at this as ‘how many points per shot/melee attack’ for combat units, or ‘how many points per wound’ for scoring/objective units. There’s a bit more to it than that, but that gives you a rough idea as to how you should be evaluating efficiency. You can also ask, can the unit do more than one job? Does it have access to special rules that make it better at that job?

The last part is, test it! Get some games in and see how it performs. Try and play a few different opponents and different forces. Multiple games are best, as poor luck or a poor match-up can colour your view. Once you’ve had a few games, you can evaluate which units are performing their job well? Which ones aren’t? Do units interact in the way you expected them to?

Hopefully this has been at least of some help, I’m planning to follow this up with a post looking at my planned 2000-point Imperial Fists list, in which I’ll detail my thinking on each unit, what I expect it to do for me, and how I expect the list to play overall, which should hopefully show this process in action.