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I was curious, What is the core part of your army/armies? Any set units you always bring? Do you have any base that your lists build arround? With my Tau I bring a Crisis Suit Commander with 3 Crisis Suit bodyguards, And then 3 units of 12 Fire Warriors. Thats the core I always bring and build my other lists arround.

I also play Tau and use 6x Stealth Suits, 12x Fire Warriors and a Battlesuit Commander, with an odd Riptide thrown in occasionally here and there The rest though is basically what I like the look of

Mechanicum:
2x6 Thallax and 20 Adsecularii. Maybe 2 Castellax.

I pretty much always run Dire Avengers in my games. Either as the troops in a CAD, or as a Pale Courts formation.

My autarch with jet pack, banshee mask, power sword and fusion gun also sees a lot of play.

I never leave home without my wave serpents, regardless of who is in them! Usually some fire dragons but often dire avengers instead.

Thousand Sons.

60 daemonettes with a herald, and 3 soulgrinders that I play with are often devistating

Orks: Flash Gitz. I love my gitz and they make about 90% of my list because they are fun to play. Battlewagons tend to always be core because they are vital to my Flash Gitz and if you have 1 BW you might as well have 5

Tau: Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, and Crisis Suits. I love the old school Tau fluff and strategy. Fire Warrior spam makes up the bulk of my lists (5 units of 12) with an Ethereal while my specialist units are Crisis Suits of either plasmas, fusions, or the newly available cyclic Ions or airbursts. Pathfinders are my preferred markerlight unit (models look cool and I find the scout move an underutilized feature of the unit). Hammerheads are often used but they are something I'm willing to cut from a list.

Grey Knights: Dreadknights, Terminators, Purifiers...... Grey Knight 101 stuff.

Space Wolves: Skyclaws. Best Assault Marines in the game IMO. 4 attacks on the charge, 3 when charged, cost the same as a tactical marine. My idea wolves list is the Firehowlers with 4 units of Skyclaws. Wolf Claw squad leader and a hidden power fist in each unit. Biomancy Rune priest are also quite common for me as well.

Black Templars: EC and two LRC.

Play it the fluffy way: charge straight to the nearest psyker or warlord.

Tactical Squads.

3rd Company, 1st squad: ML/F. Sarge just has a bolter. These guys have been the backbone of my army for as long as I’ve been playing Ultramarines. They prefer to take to the field in an old rhino.

3rd Company, 5th squad: MM/M, c-melta sarge. These guys are mostly 3rd edition, but have received weapon upgrades over the ages. Happiest in a drop pod, but will rhino when needs must.
(no formal pic of them, they are not based yet)

While I wil occasionally do themed lists that don’t have space for tacs, that’s a rarity. And these guys are the first two pics for tac squads. My 3rd tac squad is the 3rd co., 4th squad, which is HB/F, c-flamer. And is a mix of RTB01s and modern mk. VI armor from the last tac squad box.

Dark Eldar
2 units of 5 Kabalites with a Blaster in Venoms with double splinter cannons, a unit of Incubi (3 or 4 with a Klaivex, depending on the HQ and allies) and 6 Reaver jet bikes with Cluster Caltrops. It's been a very long time since I ran a DE list that didn't include those 4 units.

Eldar
Wraith Host, deliberatly keep them out of vehicles because with their firepower it's better to give your opponent some sort of chance.

I play Freakshows, so there are a few core units my army almost always contains. The Grotesquerie formation and a Farseer stuck in with a Windrider squad almost always wind up in my lists.

Mechanicum: the Ordinatus Ulator. The rest is flavored to taste.

Guardsman

Grey Hunters. Usually with Plasma.

Tactical squads. Big, 20-man tactical squads.

They do their jobs and they hold objectives.

Chosen.

 Chaos Legionnaire wrote:
Thousand Sons.

I feel for you.

Chaos Daemons: Bloodthirster, Kairos and a Skullcannon are always on the table. With formations now, there'll be a herald on disc with screamers too. Beyond that...stuff. Lol

Scions: Scions

Death Korp: Grenadiers and Earthshakers

Eldar: I nearly always bring a farseer (jetbike or on foot, depends how I feel), Dire Avengers, Jetbikes (SAIM HANN!) and my wraithlord, because he's my favourite model.

Red Scorpions: There will always be a couple of apothecary-led tactical squads, and at least one squad of devastators (I just love all of the targeters and extra stuff that came out in the latest devastator box). I always like to bring a librarian as well, because Loth is such a boss model (sometimes I play him as Loth, sometimes I don't). I do like to bring my ironclad dread as well. I stuck ALL the stuff on him, and he looks awesome.

Grey Knights - Fittingly, Terminators. There will always be a Librarian as well. The other HQ tends to vary between Brother-Captain and Crowe, depending on what I feel like.

Crisis Teams sometimes with Shadowsun or a Crisis Commander. I play against fairly casual players though.

Dark Angels: I almost always take a Ravenwing Command Squad with 6 men. 1 is Apothecary, 1 is Champ, 1 has RW banner, and another has a Grenade Launcher. This unit usually either tears gak up or gets focused down and killed by ignores cover weapons.

Tau: I always run a Mark'O. Always. I also always bring a unit of Pathfinders as a secondary markerlight source. Lastly, I never, at least competitively, leave home without my trusty Stormsurge.

Khorne Daemonkin: My Juggerlord is almost always there, along with a D-thirster. I usually also try to bring my Soul Grinder as well, as I'm very proud of my paintjob on that thing and its fun to use in game.

Broadsides, 24 fire warriors a fireblade and 1-2 riptides. Everything else is support.

I always tend to bring suicide fusion suits.

My topical list will be:
20~ fire warriors
1 Mark'o because tax
Fireblade
6 drones
3 broadsides minimum
Riiiiiiiiptiiiides
Pathfinders

I'm considering grabbing a ghost keal for wall of mirrors as well as some more broadsides.

My extra cheese is brining a cad along with a hunter contingent, so I can take 3 fireblades with 2 suits as tax (farsight baby) this also let's me yank a skyray. I then put the fireblades with my warriors, and due to co-ordinated firepower, I can shoot 144 times at 1 target. That being said in any competitive setting, I'm uncertain if this would be any good.

Dark Eldar: dual Cannon venom with a blaster kabalite x2 and my dark artisan formation.

Black Knights and regular RW dudes. Not that there are even that many other options.

Space Marines; 2 Tactical Squads, soon to be 5.

Tyranids; 6 man Warrior brood, 30 Termagants, Hive Tyrant with all the upgrades and 2 TG

Grey Knights; Paladins and Draigo

Chaos; Cultists as my only troop choice, Chosen, Raptors and Warp Talons as my only units.

My staple is to bring a 5 man command squad all with meltas in a drop pod. I try to bring it in every list of space marines I run. Its such a great utility to my forces and always will have a home in my armies.

Burna Boyz!
Stick em in a trukk.
Stick em in a wagon.
Spam power weapons against stinkin' spehs marines.
Spam flamers against scary bugs.
Make em meks and stick em in a robot!

Whats not to love?

Fourteen commissars.
I mean ten are a las and flamer veteran squad, but it's all about the hats, man.

Necrons: Warriors, Immortals, Tomb Blades

Orks: Boyz, Warboss, Tankbustas, Deffkoptas

Blood Angels: Sanguinary Priest, Tactical Squad with Triple Flamer, Terminator Squad, Assault Marines.

I don't always take each one but you can be sure I'm taking at least something from these lists.