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Do you build your army's based on what you think looks the coolest, or do you build it based on fluff and lore, or do you build it only based on it being a competitive only army?


I personally just build it on what i think looks the coolest.

I build my army based on looks and what I want to use it for.

I have:
Salamanders have various elements, gunline, assault, deepstrike.
Ynarri are a take all comers and not anywhere near complete.
Admech is all assault Metallica maniple that's waiting for 30k robots.
I will be starting a chaos force when shadowspear comes out.

And I cant wait to see what Sororitas are gonna look like, I dont care if they're good or not rules wise.

Fluff/lore and looks. My last army was a four seasons of Eldar (a contingent from each of the four sub races) before Ynarri were a thing and my current army is Imperial soup based off the idea of what would have happened if Inquisitor De Marche had had a cabal of Inquisitors working with him when the Relictors fell. As such it comprises of six inquisitors and their retinues.
Malleus inq - A company of Relictors.
Xenos inq - A deathwatch kill team from various renegade and traitor legions/chapters and a demi company of Grey Shield Primaris.
Hereticus inq - A coven of fallen sisters and various other Ecclesiastical troops (crusaders, priests etc.).
Machinum inq - A Dark mech. forge priest with turned Skitarii and Armiger.
Militum inq - With guard from lots of different regiments with storm troopers and void troopers.
Redactus inq - With a collection of the weird and bizzare stuff that has been written out of the rules.

All of the above. Any army I build needs to look good, needs to be competitive, and needs to be reasonably explainable by fluff. So I play guard + knights. They both have the same color scheme, House Terryn. The tanks even have Terryn decals, as they represent their PDF. ticks all 3 boxes for me.

My various aeldari armies (I have them all) are built for competition.

My Night Lords and Chaos Daemons armies are built solely for the look of the think.

My Valhallans and Orks are built to reflect a specific fluff piece.

So...all of the above.

Depends on what kind of game I'm playing that night.

 ingtaer wrote:
Fluff/lore and looks. My last army was a four seasons of Eldar (a contingent from each of the four sub races) before Ynarri were a thing and my current army is Imperial soup based off the idea of what would have happened if Inquisitor De Marche had had a cabal of Inquisitors working with him when the Relictors fell. As such it comprises of six inquisitors and their retinues.
Malleus inq - A company of Relictors.
Xenos inq - A deathwatch kill team from various renegade and traitor legions/chapters and a demi company of Grey Shield Primaris.
Hereticus inq - A coven of fallen sisters and various other Ecclesiastical troops (crusaders, priests etc.).
Machinum inq - A Dark mech. forge priest with turned Skitarii and Armiger.
Militum inq - With guard from lots of different regiments with storm troopers and void troopers.
Redactus inq - With a collection of the weird and bizzare stuff that has been written out of the rules.

Eldar are extremely cool looking IMO. I think they are my favorite looking army overall out of all the army 's in 40k.

The poll seems a little odd. Namely, the second response seems more emphatic than the others, making it less likely to be selected.

Me, I build for fun.

I build my lists based on what looks cool and then look to make fluff around that and then optimize the list the best I can.

My most recent list is a CSM list with CSM MSU Plasma, Havoc Squads with Autoguns, Contemptors, Plasma Bikers, and Rhinos.

I build the most competitive army I can with stuff that looks nice

I try to build a semi-competitive, fluffy list, that I enjoy looking at. So all three, I guess.

I buy and build based on looks and what units I like and what sinergies I want to try and then I try to make the best list possible.

For example if I'm trying to make a Dark Angel Deathwing List work I'll try my best with the tools I have at my dispossal.

I generally build my lists to have a certain play style. Building around a strategy which might be fully competitive or might be less than optimal but I generally expect it to be functional.

I don't trust this poll. Only 8% build for competitive reasons? Yeah right...

This is dakkadakka post 2017, and reading trough the tactica-threads (or just reading the forum in general), I always get the impression that 95% of the posts here are about how to win tournament-play andhow any unit that's not borderline broken should be avoided because one can always spam them broken unit instead. Also soup, soup and more soup.

Looks & theme mostly.

A mix of all 3 for me.

My primary driver is fluff with looks following behind. Third is competitiveness.

Though I do have a more competitive Ork army I can run if my favoured army isn't working for me.

I build the most competitive fluff compatible army possible for guard, and for flesh Tearers a completely uncompetitive army where everything but Seth, and a Ball predator is deepstrikable.

So while normally guard won't have a detachment of custodes (only for 4000pts or above) there is a group of custodes assigned as bodyguards for certain guard commanders.

Mix of all three. I pick an army based on looks, pick a theme that feels interesting, then build that army around that theme to be competitive. Some armies go more to one axis than others, but I would never disregard any of them entirely.

Mix of all 3. Same goes for any game I play, not just 40k.

If I come up with a theme but cannot make a list that looks like it'll stand a good chance then it remains on the drawing board. Most of my themes are selected based on looks primarily, such as my most recent "Plaguewing" list of a core of 3x7 Blightlord Termies. This list stayed in the theory phase for a while, despite it looking ace because I couldn't make a viable list. But then CA came along and dropped the cost of them so I went back to it because the pull of using 21 Blightlords was just too good to pass up for me, in spite of it being slow as feth.

Look, theme and fluff.

I want my forces to look nice on the shelf and tabletop, competitive performance isn't really an issue because I'm absolutely terrible at at the game.

I am a mix but as I am not the best painter mostly for competitive. I like to have headcannon for most of my armies though but it's not hard to come up with reasons for any perticular unit to be in your army. If I'm going to a tourniment I do make sure my whole army is decently painted and based minimum though with rims indicating differing cultures/hive fleets/regiments ect.

“Fluff” for me, as I build a collection of minis I like with “what new flavour of gameplay does the unit add to my experience” and looks when choosing new purchases. Everything can be made playable in narrative, so power considerations are mostly out of the scope at purchase time. But when making a list I mostly focus on scenario and how to build a fitting list that will ensure mutually enjoyable compelling narrative, so carefull power considerations come not with “maximize” but “equalize” goal.

Interesting results, i thought competitive would get alot more votes based on all the people making lists in the other section of forum.

I fall in the other cathegory. When I was buying my army I did not know that there is such a huge gap between unit and army viability. Right now if I were to buy an army my main concern would be getting enough back for the money I pay for an army.
Fluff and looks are all important, but I can imagine someone playing with an ugly army and still having fun, while playing with a "cool" army that sucks is not fun at all. Specially on the fringes this seems to be true. An army that kind of a sucks, but looks nice or you like its mechanics is ok. But if the army is the very best or the very worse, the looks not matter much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MinscS2 wrote:
I don't trust this poll. Only 8% build for competitive reasons? Yeah right...

This is dakkadakka post 2017, and reading trough the tactica-threads (or just reading the forum in general), I always get the impression that 95% of the posts here are about how to win tournament-play andhow any unit that's not borderline broken should be avoided because one can always spam them broken unit instead. Also soup, soup and more soup.

Well, some people claim that their IG+castellan combo is essential to their army being fluffy.

I take what looks cool and try to make a competitive list out of it.

Where's the both/all option?

I aim to build competative first (i.e. to win games at local stores rather than tourneys though), but a list that fits into the fluff though.

e.g. My AdMech lists feature a bunch of Kataphron servitors (and always have done even before vigilus) as the fluff states that they are produced in the millions....
I also do not tend to ally in much other imperium units, the most I might go for is 1x knight (of various classes).

I play at tournaments that require that my army is painted and wysiwyg so only play with painted and good looking models.

If i spent so much prep on my tournament army your are damn sure it looks as good as i can pull off.

I play at tournaments so a competitive is needed but it's not the most important part - drinking beer and having fun comes nr.1 tho wining is always fun.

But more importantly seeing i travel abroad for tournaments the size of the army matters a lot and that it fits in my battlefoam bag.

So play mostly infantry armys.







I build it only for competitive reasons. 11% [ 6 ]
I build it for fluff reasons. 32% [ 18 ]
Other? You can post why.

There really should have been an option for both. I have a competitive army that I model to look as cool as I can think of, and a creative army I model to be as competitive as possible within the constraints of what will look cool as hell. I voted for "other" but it doesn't really seem like the right option

 SHUPPET wrote:
There really should have been an option for both. I have a competitive army that I model to look as cool as I can think of, and a creative army I model to be as competitive as possible within the constraints of what will look cool as hell. I voted for "other" but it doesn't really seem like the right option

It's too late now i think. So just vote for what you mainly build it for i guess.