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Im looking for someone to help show me the ropes on what to do or not do in list building, on field tactics, and strategies in playing certain armies in a competitive tournaments like th RTTS.
I am not looking for someone who will build my lists for me or just pat me on the back and say good boy.

I have done well in other games and have decided its time I stepped up my game in this one.

I know they arent the same level of difficulty but I have placed 6th In Heroclix Worlds, and top 25 in few other bigger tournaments. I also placed 24th in Mechwarrior Nationals. So I have some idea of the mindset needed. When I did those though I did them my way. I played armies or pieces no one thought could be played in those levels and did well

If anyone wants to help me out, then please holler at me.
I have Vassal, and can download skype if need be.

Do you have an army yet?

Just to go over a couple basics:

Anti-Tank: LOTS of anti-tank. you really need almost no anti-horde firepower. Most of the Troop rank and file units you have to take will do this job fine, and almost every good competitive army you face will have very little if anything walking around on the board. Melta is king here, but twin-linked lascannons work wonders. There are very few strong and often played lists that bring a bunch of infantry to the table, that being an Ork Kan Wall (Kill Kans are still the most important part) and Imperial Guard (who can brings lots of everything).

Objectives: 2/3 of the missions in the standard rule book(which you'll be playing most of the time) require troop units to capture objectives. You need mobile and resilient scoring units, as well as fast moving pieces that can make late game moves to contest objectives from anywhere on the board.

Redundancy: Redundancy and replication in list building is important. Your opponent has a lot of guns and killy things too, their going to blow your stuff up. You need to be able to deal with casualties, so you need multiples of things that can do the same job. This is especially important in armor, where 1-2 vehicles will get locked down quite early by enemy AT and do nothing. 5-8 vehicles means that he can only disable part of that (without some incredible luck/poor positioning) so that they as a whole have a better chance of accomplishing their task.

Resiliency: Yeah, that 370 point Sternguard unit is good and all, and I'm sure if the stars align your Honor Guard/Vanguard Veterans will do a lot of damage. But at the end of the day you end up paying premium points for things that die just as easily as anything else. To quote a fellow dakka user, if given the choice between one uber warrior who can fire four bolters at once, or four completely normal guys carrying one bolter each, the latter is quite easily the superior option. The only thing worth paying 300+ points for is something that has excellent resiliency, either through toughness and # of wounds (Nobz), a 2+ save (Terminators), or a 3-4+ invulnerable save (Terminators again).

Mobility: It takes almost an entire game for an infantry model to slog it's way across a 6x4 table, and by then it's probably blown away anyways. Anything that lacks extreme range needs to be able to move, and move fast. This means infantry in transports, infantry with long range, or tanks with long range. People argue that Eldar aren't very competitive, but a Mechdar list combines excellent survivability, great anti-tank, and the best mobility in the game. This is a combination you should aim for in any army you build. Guns hurt, speed kills.

Bear in mind I play almost exclusively from Codex:Space Marines (and my examples show this) but you can apply the principles to any other army. Perhaps if you told us what you had/are interested in we could give you some more specifics.

I should have included my background in 40k. I have been playing since 5th Edition came out.
I started with Necrons, then Grey Knights, then Chaos Space Marines, Nids for the last two months, and have finally switched to the army I hope to play for the next little while, Imperial Guard.
I currently am working on for ard boyz, but am not definitive on what it will include. I placed third in our hardest store in the prelims with Nids.
I have yet to play a game with these Guard.
This is what I have
6 Vendettas
6 Russes I can get pretty much whatever sponsons or turrets needed.
4 Chimeras
3 Medusas
6 10 Man vet Squads with Meltas
2 Company Command Squads with Meltas

I dont have many other options but I will be buying stuff hopefully soon. I plan on trying to get more Chimeras, some Heavy Weapons teams, and a few more ordinance platforms. I also am in negotiations for a grey knight terminator for my Inquistor, and some mystic and Warrior models.

mike_houghton98 wrote:I should have included my background in 40k. I have been playing since 5th Edition came out.
I started with Necrons, then Grey Knights, then Chaos Space Marines, Nids for the last two months, and have finally switched to the army I hope to play for the next little while, Imperial Guard.
I currently am working on for ard boyz, but am not definitive on what it will include. I placed third in our hardest store in the prelims with Nids.
I have yet to play a game with these Guard.
This is what I have
6 Vendettas
6 Russes I can get pretty much whatever sponsons or turrets needed.
4 Chimeras
3 Medusas
6 10 Man vet Squads with Meltas
2 Company Command Squads with Meltas

I dont have many other options but I will be buying stuff hopefully soon. I plan on trying to get more Chimeras, some Heavy Weapons teams, and a few more ordinance platforms. I also am in negotiations for a grey knight terminator for my Inquistor, and some mystic and Warrior models.

Congratulations, you have the basis for probably the most lethal list in the game. Are you sure you need our help?

LOL I just bought what was there. Lol I got all that, 100 steel legion models, and 23 Death Korp for 500 dollars
I know the list I have seen others run. But I am wanting to learn the stuff that will benefit me no matter what army I play. Thanks again for you help, the stuff you posted has already helped me out.

I wrote a fairly comprehensive list building guide for new players a while back that has proven to be very useful for a lot of people.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/04/40k-list-building-101-part-1.html

It comes in four parts, the last three sections of the article are linked at the bottom of each article.

That is a good place to start.

Good luck with it, it is a great hobby and a lot of fun. Competitive play, for me at least, is where's it at too. You will make a lot of friends and have a lot of fun with it.

mike_houghton98 wrote:I started with Necrons, then Grey Knights, then Chaos Space Marines, Nids for the last two months, and Imperial Guard.

Here is your first problem. Why are you playing Imperial Guard? What DIDN'T all those other armies offer you?

mike_houghton98 wrote:
This is what I have
6 Vendettas
6 Russes I can get pretty much whatever sponsons or turrets needed.
4 Chimeras
3 Medusas
6 10 Man vet Squads with Meltas
2 Company Command Squads with Meltas

Congratulations, you have a 4th ed list. You can no longer min/max and win games like you used to. The first thing you've got to do is choose two (or fewer) prongs and go with that. Right now you're running a part mech, part air-cav, part armored, part artillery list. This simply won't do. You have to few points in any one category, and right now the category that's suffering the most is the one that is most necessary - troops.

I'd start by coming at your list with what you want its style to be, and then set your list accordingly, and then ask for advice on how to make that list more competitive.

Necrons did not have enough options for me. Same with Grey Knights. I loved Chaos, but needed to get rid of it due to money issues. Nids I just got bored with.

I will be getting more stuff when I can. Im not asking to make my lists more competitive. I want to know how to make competitive lists, and use competitive strategies.
I will be able to work on making the lists on my own. Im not asking for specifics regarding the army I have, but stuff that can come in handy across different armies, and for stuff that will allow me to understand what my opponents might be trying to do, or how their units work.
I want to also let it be known that I plan on sticking with this army for the next year. So this can be a process that takes some time.

Ailaros, you are away that the hardest list in the game right now is 4-6 units of melta vets in chimeras support by melta vets in vendettas right? With Manti/Hydra/Basilisk/Russ support that's certainly a good start.

To make a competitive list is easy.

Figure out your local metagame, and build a list to counter it.

one of the staff at my local gm once said this "he who brings more than 3 valkyries and/or vendettas has no friends in a tournament, but a load of epic wins"
And i think, with 6 troops squads, that troops isnt suffering much at all
I only have 2 atm =(

I believe I am tooled up for the local meta rather well. As the person who use to play with these pieces never lost with a list built out of them. To put that in perspective, before that he was on bar with the rest of the local "hard boys". Me and him were even in wins and it was always a competitve game. Not with these pieces, he wiped me off the table in two turns twice, and had tabled every other gamer in the shop. I dont know if its because we all actually stink or what. I would like to think we are pretty decent.

I am confident with the right information, and guidance I will be able to play any army, and against any army. That is my main goal.

I guess envy's post pointed out what's essential quite well. These are the things you have to accomplish, it's your decission depending on your playstyle which ability of your army you like to stress.
To tactics on the table experience is key. IMO there are no tactics like "do that again and again and you're golden" since too much depends on random dice or situational decissions.

I plan on playing on Vassal alot starting next week. I know the system isnt perfect but I think its good enough to help me in learning my army. I saw where one of the more tournament minded players has been playing the same list over and over and that is how it has gotten so good. Is that a common practice?

I would stay away from vassal, it can lead you to LoS rules confusion, because it is 2d, and 40k is an inherently 3d game. The 3rd dimension is in fact incredibly important to 40k gameplay, and it will in many ways determine how you deploy your army, and choose targets.

What I would do is play as much as possible against the best players in your area, and learn the rules really, really well.

Ive been working on the rules partd. I am in the process of trying to obtain all of the codex's (sp?) I understand the need for true line of site, but it cant hurt that bad to play on vassal can it?

eNvY wrote:Ailaros, you are away that the hardest list in the game right now is 4-6 units of melta vets in chimeras support by melta vets in vendettas right? With Manti/Hydra/Basilisk/Russ support that's certainly a good start.

What was posted was a 4000 pt. list with only 60 infantry models. I can take 600 infantry models for that many points, and then laugh as his vendettas and melta vets shoot at conscripts.

This is a clear case of "oooh, shiney!" syndrome.

mike_houghton98 wrote:I want to know how to make competitive lists, and use competitive strategies.

oh, right then.

For list building, there are a few key rules to live by.

1.) this game involves a movement phase. This means you can move your guns to where they are most effective. This means that you can take guns which are effective against certain targets and not against others. Of course, this means that you need to kit your list to include sufficient mobility (however you choose to define that).

2.) take weapons which are effective against all major target types. Note the word "effective". Just because a particular weapon can engage several major target types doesn't mean it's effective against them. This means taking meltaguns/bombs (lots of them) for vehicles, power weapons/AP3 for marines, and either some big close combat units or some template weapons to take down hordes, etc. This is actually surprisingly easy to screw up, especially when you have units which overlap in role (for example, I was rudely awakened one game to the fact that anti-MEQ weapons are NOT always anti-MC weapons).

3.) your list must be able to win games. This sounds silly, but it's also something people miss. With all the sub-concerns of keeping units alive and maximizing damage output and mobility, some times people lose track of the fact that in order to win games you need to be able to take and hold objectives, and relatively efficiently destroy enemy units. The rest is important, but tailoring your list to fulfill the criterion of actually winning missions is the core of a list-building strategy.

4.) it doesn't hurt to spam, especially in a guard army. For example, let's say that you have your anti-horde and anti-meq down, and that all of it is on AV14 chassis. Just because you are engaging lots of different target types doesn't mean you need to PRESENT a lot of different target types. This is especially true of guard, whose units are so cheap. I mean, I could have a few russes and a few AV12's and a few fistfuls of infantry, and they all have weapons that cover all target types, or I could have a horde of infantry or a mechanized company that handles all target types. Generally the latter will be more difficult to counter.

As for strategies on the field...

on-field gaming comes down to two things, basically, movement (and it's subset of deployment), and targeting. Targeting means having the right guns and shooting them at the right targets in such a way where they cause the most damage. While this isn't, strictly speaking necessary (as you can win an objectives game without firing a shot, in theory), it definitely makes things easier for you. having the right guns requires good list building, shooting the right targets requires understanding of your squads and what their role is. Getting them in the right place at the right time requires movement.

Movement, then, is the most important strategic element of 40k, and it's unfortunately one of the hardest to teach. You sort of just have to play a bunch of games and then really sit back and think about how everything deployed and how it moved, and how it could have moved better in order to really get that feeling for how it's done right.

a few general principles I've found to be true.

- a role for every unit, and a unit for every role. Basically, my squads all have a primary mission that they're good at, and perhaps a secondary. The thing that requires discipline is making sure that you're always using your units for the role that you took them. You may need squads to deny area to deepstrikers, but that's not the role of a meltagun SWS (unless, of course, your opponent brought nothing that meltaguns are good against - highly unlikely). It's easy to get distracted by the needs on the field and use the wrong units to fulfill these roles.

- win the game, kill the troops. It's easy to lose track of what's actually required to win a game, and just focus on the immediate needs on the field. This means running troops who are hurt into cover, and chasing down and attacking enemy units. These immediate concerns are obviously important (as they're immediate), but you can't let short term, local things distract you from long term, strategic needs. Sometimes you just have to let them shoot your troops and take unanswered casualties if it means sprinting your troops onto an objective, for example. This is one of the reasons I take artillery. Other players see the big guns and the big pie plates and the big damage, and they make it a priority in their minds to kill my artillery. This would be helpful to them if it weren't for the fact that their ACTUAL priority is taking objectives. I can loose every single artillery piece and still win games if my troops are on objectives while they're stuck picking over the rubble of my tanks far away.

- bathe your hands in blood now, wash them off later. Psychology has a lot to play in this game. If your opponent can spook you, either through a metagame thing like bringing a horde of troops or transports, or a specific army thing like drop pods or litctors, or whatever, then things will be bad. Lots of people, when faced with uncertainty become timid, and they start making mistakes in movement. Timidity loses games. As such, condition yourself in such a way where 80% casualties are acceptable if you can accomlish the mission, of that it's worth it to send a whole platoon forward to most assured destruction if it means another squad can get something done. Your hands will run red with the blood of your troops, but you can wipe them off with your victory towel once you're done.

I didnt paste a list Ali... I just posted the models I have... sorry for the confusion

There are a few good articles on the Capture and Control website about new players, tournament prep, and general tactics. The link put up by the guy from Belloflostsouls is also a good set of articles about list building. be sure to check that one out too.

mike_houghton98 wrote:I should have included my background in 40k. I have been playing since 5th Edition came out.
I started with Necrons, then Grey Knights, then Chaos Space Marines, Nids for the last two months, and have finally switched to the army I hope to play for the next little while, Imperial Guard.
I currently am working on for ard boyz, but am not definitive on what it will include. I placed third in our hardest store in the prelims with Nids.
I have yet to play a game with these Guard.
This is what I have
6 Vendettas
6 Russes I can get pretty much whatever sponsons or turrets needed.
4 Chimeras
3 Medusas
6 10 Man vet Squads with Meltas
2 Company Command Squads with Meltas

I dont have many other options but I will be buying stuff hopefully soon. I plan on trying to get more Chimeras, some Heavy Weapons teams, and a few more ordinance platforms. I also am in negotiations for a grey knight terminator for my Inquistor, and some mystic and Warrior models.

Inquisition as allies will probably be phased out and will probably no longer be legal by the end of the year. It's rumor, but it's about as reliable as rumor can be. You might want to hold off on buying Inquisitorial forces until the new book comes out.

You actually have more than you need when it comes to Russes, Medusa, & Valks, and I don't see everything you have listed being fielded except in an apocalypse game.

The cookie cutter IG list is
3 melta vet squads in Valks, and 3 in Chimera for a total of 6 melta vets
2 CCS in Chimera usually with a medic and plasma instead of meltas
3 tanks/artillery for heavy support, but nobody can agree which 3
That fills up every force org slot except for elites which most people will choose to be psychic battle squads in a Chimera.