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Hello all. I am trying to use the app Battlescribe on iPhone to write some army lists and am having a problem. I am primarily a painter but want to create my first army, so am writing a 1000 point list to base some painting around, hence the need for Battlescribe. Not being a gamer though, I don't know what I should be choosing for one of the options. You have to specify a 'force type' and there are a lot of options. I know that I don't want some of them, but many of them are complete mysteries to me! Could somebody explain what they all mean? I know that there are a lot....

Combined Arms Detachment
Allied Detachment
Formation Detachment
Inquisitorial Detachment
Fortification Detachment
Apocalypse
Spearhead
Planetstrike Attacker
Planetstrike Defender
Zone Mortalis Attacker
Zone Mortalis Defender
Zone Mortalis Combatant
Imperial Knight Detachment
Legion Of The Damned Detachment
Unbound Army (Faction)
Siege Assault Vanguard Detachment
Space Wolves Detachment
Ork Horde Detachment
Great Waaagh! Detachment
The Wolves Unleashed Detachment
Company Of The Great Wolf Detachment
Officio Assassinorum Detachment
Nemesis Strike Force
Realspace Raiders Detachment
Covenite Coterie Detachment

Thank you.

The ones you want for building any army are:
Combined Arm Detachment (1-2 HQ, 2-6 Troops, 0-3 Elites/FA/hS)

Allied detachment (1 HQ, 1-2 Troops, 0-1 HS/FA/Elite)

The rest are army/supplement specific and you can largely ignore them for just building a simple list to paint.

They are the different kind of Detachments you can have.
When in doubt, just use the Combined Arms Detachment.

First a Detachment is a FOC used for building a battle-forged army. If your army is battle-forged it gains various benefits. Of the following, Unbound and Apocalypse are not part of Battle-forged. Additionally some of the detachments are mutually exclusive - for example you cannot take both a Planetstrike Attacker and Planetstrike Defender detachment in the same army.

Combined Arms Detachment: Standard FOC from previous editions.
Allied Detachment: Ally FOC from 6th edition. Your Warlord cannot be from this Detachment, nor can the Faction be the same as your Primary Detachment (where your Warlord is located).
Formation Detachment: A detachment that uses the various Formations found in the newer codices and dataslates. Formations consist of specific units and are a detachment of themselves.
Inquisitorial Detachment: A Detachment that is specifically for an Inquisitor army.
Fortification Detachment: A detachment that lists the various fortifications. A number of regular detachments can take fortifications but not all.
Apocalypse: For use when building an army for Apocalypse games. Basically anything can be taken, and will include Apocalypse Formations.
Spearhead: An expansion for Warhammer designed around fielding lots and lots of tanks.
Planetstrike Attacker: For use with the Planetstrike Expansion.
Planetstrike Defender: For use with the Planetstrike Expansion.
Zone Mortalis Attacker: For use with the Zone Mortalis Expansion by Forgeworld.
Zone Mortalis Defender: For use with the Zone Mortalis Expansion by Forgeworld.
Zone Mortalis Combatant: For use with the Zone Mortalis Expansion by Forgeworld.
Imperial Knight Detachment: A Detachment for including Imperial Knights.
Legion Of The Damned Detachment: A Detachment for the Legion of the Damned.
Unbound Army (Faction): Unbound allows you to take any unit you want, as well as Formations. It is sort of like a scaled down version of an Apocalypse army.
Siege Assault Vanguard Detachment: For use with Siege Assault Vanguard ar my by Forgeworld.
Space Wolves Detachment: A Space Wolves detachment.
Ork Horde Detachment: An Ork Detachment.
Great Waaagh! Detachment: An Ork Detachment.
The Wolves Unleashed Detachment: A Space Wolves detachment.
Company Of The Great Wolf Detachment: A Space Wolves detachment.
Officio Assassinorum Detachment: A Detachment to include Assassins in your army.
Nemesis Strike Force: A Grey Knight Detachment.
Realspace Raiders Detachment: A Dark Eldar Detachment.
Covenite Coterie Detachment: A Dark Eldar Detachment.

If you have a certain army in mind (for example if you want to build a Space Marine army), you can cut a number of things out.

Thank you all. That has answered my question perfectly!