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I know I might've posted this in the wrong place, so if I have, mods please move it to the correct place and spare me your wrath!

When you are building a new army list, what do you personally start?

With your HQs? Your troops? Your basic requirement and then flesh out?

Do you have any specific rules of thumb, such as "2 troops quads per every 1000pts" etc?

Just wondered how others do things differently

I ask myself, what do I like, what is it I want to put in here specifically? Then I build the rest of the list around that.

I always start by asking myself what my tactic is going to be.
Do I want to go with lots of vehicles?
Do I feel like playing a shooty/melee game?
Or do I want a fast army with Jumpers and Bikes?

Then I pick the core-units for my tactic and build the list around them.
I have a small checklist that I "need" to be able to counter, like MC's, light/heavy vehicles, 2+ armour and so on.

I usually start with what I want in the list, then fill the basic requirements for a legal list, then build the rest of the army based on whether I need AT/AI shooty/assault. For example, my DE list building tends to go:

1. Baron + beastpack
2. Troops on venoms
3. Ravagers/Talos...s/Cronos, ok, well, heavies.
4. Fine tuning, such as replacing a venom with a gunboat, adding a gunboat for 3rd troops, bringing in a secondary assault unit, etc...

As for troops choices, if the army has solid troop choices that won't hamper my overall performance, I'd sometimes put more troops in than I'd normally do, but usually, 2 troops units 500-1000pts, +1 troops unit per 500 after that.

Usually I'll start with a theme. RW, DW, GW, or a mix of them, or if I'm playing vanilla marines, drop pods, bikes, lots of armour, that kind of stuff. Then I flush out the list with things that fit the theme and help fill roles. I'll make sure I have some anti tank and some anti MEQ, some anti horde or a way to put out a decent amount of higher ap shots. I build some redundancy into the list, then flush out whats left with some flashy or hard hitting things.

Usually I'll go for at least 1 scoring unit +1 for every 500. But sometimes, like when bikes are troops, and the army focuses around them I'll have more.

Then I play a few games, tweak it a bit. If I like it, it then becomes a staple core list. I have about a dozen of these. They never stop changing, but the core of them remains pretty consistent. If I cannot get it to play right for me, or I don't enjoy it, without having to change less than half the list, then I usually scrap it and start back at square 1.

For myself, for a list to be successful it has to be:
1. Fun to play, mostly for me, but also for my opponents to an extent.
2. Decently competitive. It doesn't have to win every single game, but at least put up a decent fight consistently. I do have varying degrees of competitive lists, depending on how I feel like playing that day.
3. Relatively TAC. The be a core list, it has to be at least 75% TAC, with 25% room for adjustment depending on who or how I'm playing. The perfect list would need little to no adjustment between games/opponents.
4. Rule of cool. I like to enjoy looking at my fielded army, and get a sense of excitement seeing them deployed. Getting a positive reaction from my opponents is also a plus.

This is how I build a list. Unless I'm building one for a highly competitive environment, such as a tournament, or when someone at the shop needs to be taken down a peg (not in a mean way, just has gone on a long win streak). YMMV

I use army builder so can quickly get an outline of an army. I do this repeatedly based on a theme I want to see what looks like a good base to work from, generally discarding several lists in the process. Then it's saving multiple versions of the list each with a slightly different focus so I can compare them at leisure. I tend to build up a fair stock of lists like this which I like.

ie. Tanith First lists I'll save some platooned infantry, platooned + vets, pure vets, vets allied with pardus air (and more) all with the same basic troops + flamers/snipers/missile launcher basics.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I ask myself, what do I like, what is it I want to put in here specifically? Then I build the rest of the list around that.

This.

Whatever theme/concept/tactic I have in mind for that particular list usually requires a few select units. I choose those and then build the army around that.

I try to get as many speciality units on the field with some heavy weapons as I can.

I play Ulthwe Eldar. This makes many of my list building decisions for me. Admittedly, the choice to play a themed list is the list building itself.

So I always start out with a Farseer, and 2 squads of guardians. Then I take the units that I see as competitive - war walkers and fire dragons for me.

Then I fill in the units I like to field, and what I need to fill tactical gaps.

I impose my own limitations on my list building. I must take an equal of less amount of aspect warrior squads as I do guardians.


Do you mean from the beginning of collecting an army?

I am planning to start an Iron Hands army at some point.
This fluff neccessetates a Master of the Forge, dreadnoughts, thunderfires, tactical squads and sternguard.
But i'd be starting with the mandatory HQ and Troops. Mainly just so that I can start allying them in as early as possible

First I select the theme of the list.
Am I going vehicle heavy? Infantry? Fast?
Then I start with my basic core.
For there I add the stuff I want the list to include, then I put in the filler.

I usually start with "what models do I have" and "Is there anything I want to try as a proxy (If it's allowed)?".

After that it's: What should my minimum 1 HQ and 2 Troops be?

Then it's just building around a tactic.

I always start with an "idea" for a list. Some sort of central theme or type of list. Then I always start with my HQ choice. There is just something exciting to me about kitting my HQ choices to fit the needs of whatever list I want to build. From there it is always whatever I need to support the tactic.

First I decide on the general theme of my force, i.e. mechanised assault, foot horde, walker wall, fast assault, etc. This generally then provides a list of the units I'm going to be fielding.

As I put the list together, I have some basic rules I follow:

- I try for at least 1 troops unit, plus 1 per 500 points
- I plan for facing armour 14, to there's always something that can kill land raiders or russes
- I also have at least one unit that can cause significant damage to heavy infantry (terminators being the primary threat)
- I also make sure I can get to any objectives that are scattered around the battlefield so a minimum of mobility is important

Once all of this is taken into account, I take a look through the list I've created, and tweak to see what else I might want or alternatively not need. I also do a sense check on the number of models, and the proportions of HQ / elites / troops / fast attack / HS.