Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In an effort to encourage more random list building and less of the arms race I've seen happen before, I've taken a real liking to generating random forces.

What I do is put all my armies out on a table and randomly roll to see what I'd play. Since I play and actually manage to carry with me: IG, GK, Daemons, Tau, Orks, and a bit of eldar now too, now also buying necrons <_< with plans to make an allied space wolf group and later on sisters when they come out with plastic... oh gawd.... my broken back

Then I'd roll a D6 and 4-5-6 = I make an ally or 1,2,3, I take it as one force.
Then repeat for allies. (reroll if it's an illegal combination)

Then I seperate the army by choices and roll to see which HQ I'd take, then 2 random troop choices. Then likely at least 1 heavy and 1 fast, and 1 elite. Troop sizes I'll roll D6 or 2D6 to see the size, or more for hordes...
Then I roll for allies if any with above choices.

After all the random, I take a look to see what I got and then add in some more stuff I think that covers up weaknesses and then take out D3 units that I think just don't work with the list to see how it'd all play out. Rest gets randomly cut down due to points by again rolling to see which unit falls out after the core is built.

So far, I've generated the following winnars (and a buch of random combos that basically took full advantage of desperate allies lol) -
IG + GK gun lines,
Daemons + Tau (not sure how it worked but apparently alot of flamers + some rail guns is a good combo, also FMC bullet soaks)
Tau + GK gun line again,
Ork + mech IG (green tide is apparently pretty good with some LR back up, also Lootas are still amazing)
Daemon + ork shooting was also surprisingly effective with some long range lootas and FMC...

Honestly it's been a ton of fun. Also since it's so random, no one really ever cares if it turns into something OP or list tailors against or for it. Has improved my local gaming conditions a bit I must say. Some are still pissed off when I win
though as they then feel kind of bad about their own army but at least I don't feel so bad about it anymore lol.

We generally play at 1500 so I don't carry more than 2k points of anything of the above and for my eldar force, I got literally just the codex and we're just using a few count as models for the 6-10 man squad I do use right now so it's not entirely impossible to bring it most places. It's also very tight for points so it pretty drastically challenges what you can and cannot take/add or possibly randomly lose. Frankly I think it helps me be a better general as well so I'd encourage folks to at least give it a try.

A few times I have done 4-5 lists at a set points value, and let my opponent randomly choose a list.

Last time it was 750pts I think, one list was devi's and scouts and marines, other was 4 dreads and a few scouts another was two tac squads and DC in a pod. Managed to get three games in and it was a good laugh

 sudojoe wrote:
add in some more stuff I think that covers up weaknesses and then take out D3 units that I think just don't work with the list

So you add in things to cover up weaknesses and take things away that just don't work from the random list?

Defeats the purpose of rolling randomly.