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Hey guys,

I was wandering how everyone goes about building a list in general? If you got to your FLGS, how do you decide what you'll include in your 2,000 Point List when you don't know what your opponent is bringing? How do you decide what to include in a competitive 1,850 Point List for a tournament?

I ask because I always seem to have an element of my army that always lets me down. For example, I filled the Troops Choices in a CAD for my last game (using Black Templars) with two Scout Squads with Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Bolter in each squad thinking they'd be able to do work against my opponent's infantry (they were using Dark Angels with three Tac Squads, an Assault Squad and a Sternguard Squad as part of their army). They ended up doing very little, with their only notable achievement being that they killed a SM Bike and made the unit run back 5". I always seem to make decisions when it comes to my lists that lead to these sorts of scenarios. It's the things like trying to fill the Troops Choices in a CAD to complete my list that always put a massive hole in my list in terms of feasibility and effectiveness.

So in the hope that I may combat this, I'm curious to know how the you (the community) goes about creating a 100% cohesive list.

Cheers guys

Well I usually start with some sort of theme or idea that I want to run with for a list. It can range from something simple like "I feel like using Killa Kans today" to some sort of strategy concept "Im going to run 5 Battlewagons to form an AV14 wall which will neutralize most of the enemy shooting. Then I will have flyers come on to provide supporing fire while the majority of the ground force goes in for a turn 2 charge on the enemy. It will be sorta like WWII Germany lighting warfare tactics (aka Da Blitz-a-Krieg)."

From there I work on a basic check list of sorts
1. How hardcore of a list am I trying to make here? This depends on the opponent (Not list tailoring but I will expect a much more demanding list from Eldar than I would from Imperial Guard or Dark Eldar) and any agreed upon competitiveness levels.
2. How will I deal with vehicles
3. How will I deal with fast moving units
4. How will I deal with Death Stars
5. How will I deal with large numbers of models
6. Does this seem like it will be fun to play?
7. Does this seem like it will be fun to play against?

Run through that line of thought while running the numbers on points to come up with a list. Run through the check list of sorts again to refine what is going on with the list until you have something that seems playable. Note that I don't always have a counter to everything in a list but I understand my list's weaknesses and figure out how to play around them.

In general you want to ask the following questions:

1. How do I deal with infantry?
2. How do I deal with mechanised units?
3. How do I take objectives (if you play objective-based missions)?

You may also need to include options to deal with flyers, depending on the local meta, though I find a lot of the time you can ignore flyers as their actual impact can be quite limited.

You also need to be aware of what's considered good and bad in terms of your own options. Sniper Scouts aren't seen as terribly good because their key role of taking down infantry is something Marines are good at anyway. Similarly, the targets a Heavy Bolter is good against are the same things a Bolter is good against so paying extra for it isn't too useful, though the Hellfire shells a Scout HB gets are actually pretty neat.

One good way to know if your list is at least not terrible is to consider how it would do against an extremely unbalanced army. How does it deal with all bikes, for example, or 5 Knights, or hordes and hordes of Orks?

If you feel it would at least do OK against those extremes it's probably good enough. This requires experience, though. Sniper rifles may look good against bikes, for example, but they're really not as they lack the rate of fire and punch to damage them consistently.

Depends on how I'm feeling.
Bashy - Wulfen Murderpack, Deathpacks, Firehowlers.
Shootie - Wyrdstorm Brotherhood, Bjorn, Murderfang, Greatpack.
Tanky - Bjorn, Murderfang, Ironwolves.
Stompy -Tyranids.

Every list I make is crafted differently. A bespoke masterpiece of the gamer’s art. Or a hodgepodge of units that’s going to get me tabled. Something like that.

I try to keep a few concepts in mind when building a TAC list:

Getting scoring units to objectives and keeping them there as long as needed.
Dealing with heavy armor
Light/med armor
MCs
Flyers
Superheavies/GMCs
Hordes

Those are the things I need to do/kill. How is up in the air, but I should have a plan. Preferably one without a single point of failure. Back ups, redundancy, overlap, and redundancy are all good to have.

Now when it comes time to actually get a specific list together for a trip down to the FLGS, there are a lot more variables then just mechanics.

Do I have a theme in mind? Armored column/mech? Null Deploy drop pod? Last stand gunline?
Is there a new tactic I want to try?
How competitive was my last game? Do I need to tighten things up a bit to be more of a challenge?
How well will it pack?
What fresh paint do I have that needs it’s baptism of fire? I always try to get as much as I can into a list.
What dusty old stuff has not seen the light of day in a while? I try to rotate my collection.

With those list two points I often have a few units to form the core of my list around. From there it’s seeing what roles they fill, and what support they need. Also, if they suggest a theme by themselves.

The how it packs it totally artificial, with no relevance to game play. But, for example, the tray for my Land Raider also has slots for 2 Dreadnoughts. So if I’m bringing the big box, they are slightly more likely to find a place in my list. There have also been times where if I tweaked my list a little bit, I could fit the whole thing into one KRU worth of foam.

I generally also try to think of how a list will scale up or down. If I’m bringing a 1,850 list, I will also toss an extra 150 points of stuff into the bag in case someone wants to play a 2k game. And have an idea of what to pare out if I need to cut down to 1,500. Sometimes I’ll go as far as to build and write up modular lists over a variety of point values.

Look at my fluff, pick units from it. If I am in the mood, I might pick something from a specific part of my fluff (such as a spyre noble, her household guard and her honour guard). Do I win much, nope, but I prefer playing to the fluff that I have put countless hours into than worrying about is it competitive.

FLGS
1. Open the Rulebook and look for the Combined Arms Detachment (or a Codex with their Equilivent CAD Style Detachment)
2. Go "Ew" When Looking at Formations
3. Field 2 Troops and HQ
4. Field some powerful units
5. ???
6. PROFIT

Comp
1. Find a Dumb Formation No One uses (Trinity of Blood With Kytans)
2. Have a CAD as my Primary Detachment
3. Fill the CAD with Dumb (But Powerful when spammed) Units (Brimstone Horrors Summoning Pinks)
4. Have Fun with a Stupid list that sounds powerful on paper
5. Potentially win
6. ???
7. Maybe PROFIT

For me, alot of the above mentioned points (do I have enough anti-armour? can I deal with unit X?) come in after the initial list is made, and are realised by swapping special/heavy weapons or units without greatly affecting the initial build. Generally the following steps are adhered to:

1) Choose two troops choices that are at least 90% painted. Add more troops (with increasingly lax painting standards) for each 500pts above 1000pts. Add transports as required.
2) Choose a HQ choice that looks nice on the battlefield (including using a special character as a mundane version, as the special will have been painted better)
3) Add in whichever anti-tank unit is closest to completion. Transport as required.
4) Add the Avatar of Khaine (or equivalent), because I'm happy with how his paint scheme is coming along, even though he's not finished being painted yet.
5) Add long-range supporting fire (Dark Reapers / War Walkers, Predators / Devastators).
6) Add fast objective-grabby things (Swooping Hawks, Ravenwing)
7) Realise I was meant to be playing the person in the group with the worst ability to deal with Monstrous Creatures or being swept in combat. Remove the Avatar of Khaine from the list. Replace with a unit I haven't used in a while only to be reminded by their effectiveness in that game exactly why I haven't used them in a while.
8) Realise I've left unit X at home on my painting table. Replace with whatever unit I think of next that happens to be in my army case.

(Sorry for the slightly silly response. I'm sure it hasn't helped the OP's problem at all...)

Keep a little note book and write down multiple list ideas based on what you have, different sized games, usual opponents, competitive and casual etc.. Update it regularly and over time try out all your ideas. Best laid plans will not survive first contact with the enemy but never stop planning nonetheless.

I sorta have baseline units that I will always bring. Ex. 3 Kabalite warrior units in venoms, and at least one HC formation, and then I build around that. Am I bringing a grotesquerie? Then I want a succubus or Lelith to throw into a grotesque unit. Am I bringing Dark Artisan? Then bring a lhammean as I don't have to worry about a kabalite warlord.

So lets say 10 man tac squads preform excellently for you, and you want at least two. You can take those two squads. Do I have enough anti tank? no. So then I thin, okay, what anti tank do I want? maybe a pred, maybe a sternguard unit, etc etc and keep going until you have a few units that do anti tank, anti heavy infantry, take objectives, etc etc.

It's okay if units let you down, not all units have to steal the show.

Personally, I like having multiple units that can do different tasks. So lets say I am building a marine list. Instead of only having a single 5 man sternguard melta squad, I take two, or a stern squad and a predator, or some combination of that sort. That way if my sternguard unit dies on the drop, the pred can still go tank hunting, and vice a versa. For example, I give a haywire grenade and a blaster to my kabalite warrior units, they can finish off a rhino or something, and they can hurt every single thing in the game, but they can't do it alone.

Does that make a bit of sense? I am never good at explaining myself

 IllumiNini wrote:
Hey guys,

I was wandering how everyone goes about building a list in general? If you got to your FLGS, how do you decide what you'll include in your 2,000 Point List when you don't know what your opponent is bringing? How do you decide what to include in a competitive 1,850 Point List for a tournament?

I ask because I always seem to have an element of my army that always lets me down. For example, I filled the Troops Choices in a CAD for my last game (using Black Templars) with two Scout Squads with Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Bolter in each squad thinking they'd be able to do work against my opponent's infantry (they were using Dark Angels with three Tac Squads, an Assault Squad and a Sternguard Squad as part of their army). They ended up doing very little, with their only notable achievement being that they killed a SM Bike and made the unit run back 5". I always seem to make decisions when it comes to my lists that lead to these sorts of scenarios. It's the things like trying to fill the Troops Choices in a CAD to complete my list that always put a massive hole in my list in terms of feasibility and effectiveness.

So in the hope that I may combat this, I'm curious to know how the you (the community) goes about creating a 100% cohesive list.

Cheers guys

There is a mental checklist I go down and you just need to make sure that the baseline of your army has a dedicated unit that COULD handle the following:

1. Anti-AV, enough to kill two tanks reliably in a turn, regardless of which turn. usually best to plan for AV 14. Could be Haywire, could be Fusion Blasters, could be a lot of things. Imperial Knights are another target for this particular component of the list. I say two tanks because I know that 6 hull points becomes three against an Imperial Knights shield (unless I cause explosions which happens). You dont want them firing more often than once a game if you can avoid it. Some can carry around 24 STR 6 AP 3 Rending shots. This is terrifying.

2. Anti 2+ Armor. in otherwords you need a unit that can wax terminators and terminator like armor such as megnobz or Artificer armor. melee is often the better choice here because such units tend to be hearty and locking them up for a bit can be pretty important. in my experience it tends to take exorbitant effort to take these units down through shootign and they tend to advance farther than i would like. Having a good answer is always wise.

3. Anti Horde: you need a unit that is a veritable bullet hose or that puts out a ton of attacks (or both, like the Court of the Archon). This is of great use against mobs of cheap dudes who will want to swamp more expensive and important models in your army. Swarms are the worst, and Necron swarms are REALLY the worst! But even lesser things like Cultists and conscript blobs are an issue. Make some provision for this in your list. Hordes are NOT as common as they once were i nthe competitive realm but they still exist in various forms, especially when they use Forgeworld rules which can make some Chaos Cultists into ridiculous Necron-like blobs. it pays to have a way to mill through them with sheer volume. given there are only so many turns and sometimes less in competition which are timed matches... definitely want to include something like this.

4. Anti-"Marine" measures. specifically AP 3 which is fairly prolific. being able to reliably knock out that one important unit can be gold. It can be done through melee as easily as ranged means, just depends on your army, but its usually better if this be a ranger ability.

5. Anti-Air. this is really dependent on your local players BUT... assuming you have players who play flyers (or if you plan to play in competitive events whwere Magnus and other monstrosities will be lurking) then you'd be a fool not to take some.

6. Objective Scoring. While blowing the enemy off the table IS fun, what good does it do you if you lose in the end? Value Objective Secured units in a Combined Arms Detachment. They aren't the sexiest units as a rule but they win games. Having at least four is advisable.

Now i am only referring to the baseline of the army here. This wont fill up all 1850 points of a tournament army. But having scalpels that allow you to do these things is an awfully good first step.

Anti-psyker capability is a debatable one. Psykers can rarely be stopped from getting their powers off and so any attempt to counter them involves fair expense. Sisters of Silence and Culexus Assassins are cropping up like crazy in competitive lists to handle the worst of it and they are quite good for the purpose. If you ARE considering having an answer to Psykers (other than being a super psyker army yourself) consider these two for Imperial armies. I even took a Culexus Assassin for my Tau Empire this last Major I went to and it did stop a Librarian Dread from Force Weaponing my StormSurge. Hooray.

Anti-Psyker measures are expensive though and you really need to kind of look around and see what's going on in the area to determine whether this high cost will truly be worth it to you given how hard it is to stop theenemy Psykers you see at tournaments. Magnus gets his off on 2+, other Formations make this easy to do in similarly scary fashion...

I don't use anti-air as most flyers are very ignorable.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't use anti-air as most flyers are very ignorable.

Magnus. Rehati Formation. Nuff said. They can no longer be ignored. But again this is very dependent on who you play with. Some groups use very few flyers, but as soon as i show up at a tournament, they are there. So if you want it set up inevitable for tourney play...

Pretty similar to everyone else here. Pick a theme, think out what I need to include to be able to deal with anything I'm going to face, mostly pick from that line while also including stuff that I just like to run. I like to do math as well when I'm thinking about how likely something is to be able to deal with the target, like I rarely use snipers as their overall damage output is extremely minimal.

 kingbobbito wrote:
Pretty similar to everyone else here. Pick a theme, think out what I need to include to be able to deal with anything I'm going to face, mostly pick from that line while also including stuff that I just like to run. I like to do math as well when I'm thinking about how likely something is to be able to deal with the target, like I rarely use snipers as their overall damage output is extremely minimal.

Sniper DAMAGE output may be poor but sniper usefulness may not be. consider that MANY snipers make excellent line breakers. it isn't ALWAYS wht they can kill. its the game points they might be able to get for you as well. POINTS, not kills, are how you win. Just food for thought.

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't use anti-air as most flyers are very ignorable.

Magnus. Rehati Formation. Nuff said. They can no longer be ignored. But again this is very dependent on who you play with. Some groups use very few flyers, but as soon as i show up at a tournament, they are there. So if you want it set up inevitable for tourney play...

I'm still going with kill their ground units, since most AA options are extremely inefficient vs FMCs. GW has forced us to ignore them. Even in a tourney, I wouldn't spend a point on AA with BA. Maybe with vanilla marines or IG, but even then, FMCs laugh off hydras and stalkers like they weren't there. And there is the spectre of DFTS becoming actual rules in 8th, which punches most flyers in the AA-gonads.

Your choice of course.

What kind of AA are we talking here? I know you don't use FW, so I think we are aware of the same stuff. Are you saying that hydras/stalkers are worthwhile vs FMCs?

I play Nids and Necrons.I tend to play 1250/1500/2k point games. I build my lists based on 3 things in order of importance.

1) Bring something to deal with anything.

2) What do I enjoy playing.

3) A theme

To expand on these...

1) With my nids I think it's unfair to bring more that 1 Flyrant for every 1000 points in the army. So I don't. So I have 1 -2 flyrants in my list depending on points. This includes electroshock grubs and the standard loadout of 2 tldwblw which allows me to deal with pretty much everything but especially acts as my anti air. E grabs help me deal with AV 13+. I tend to bring a living artillery node because it gives me some long range guns and some AP2. I bring zoanthropes because good synapse and mind bullets are lances so I can deal with armor. I bring a few groups of 10-15 gaunts to act as distractions and chew through infantry if they can reach them.

Everything in the list is there for a reason. Each thing brings something to deal with anything my enemy might bring. I have a couple sources of anti armor. Something to get a flier. Things to hit high Armor saves and waves of high number units to get at infantry. It's an all comers list. I always make all comers lists.

With the Necrons it's the same. I bring ghost arks packed with warriors. Gauss is good vs everything and a lot of shots can hurt basically anything. I bring a couple of night scythes depending on points for anti air. etc etc...

2) I really enjoy a mix of monster and swarm. My all comers lists won't win tournaments. But I would hate playing flyrant spam so I don't play tournaments. My necron list is based on fast mobility through vehicles and deep strike shenanigans. It's fun.for me and often unexpected by my opponent. (Hopefully fun for them but a lot of people seem to dislike playing necrons in general so I don't play them much.

3) Each army fits a version of the fluff I like. My necrons are a home brew dynasty. The nids act like nids.

Martel732 wrote:
What kind of AA are we talking here? I know you don't use FW, so I think we are aware of the same stuff. Are you saying that hydras/stalkers are worthwhile vs FMCs?

No. the original poster mentioned he plays Space Marines of some variety. Space mariens have a lot of options in that regard. The Storm Talons are definitely not the most terrible anti-air ever invented. they also do good work on ground targets although their durability is obviously light (and so is their points which makes them particularly attractive).

Space Mariens can also stow anti-air measures in inexpensive units in order to force a Jink decision. Even just a couple of these and a jink have effectively de-fanged the threat.

Against FMC's which are clearly the more dangerous possibility, the same things are there, though FMC's tend to be loathe to Jink unless theres a lot of them. Space Mariens also have some tank based anti-air which I have seen fielded exactly one time, ever. I cannot tell you why because i don't tend to play Space Marines much and have always opted to include it in things like a Scout unit. What i can tell you is that having no way to hurt a flyer can lead to some fairly painful consequences.

Magnus and his "batteries" are definitely not the least of your worries. Note that the Goldensprue Cup just happened and guess what Nick Nanavati brought for 1st place? Yup. Magnus and the Rehati Formation. Not shocking?

When faced with the inevitability of meeting such things, having anti-air makes sense. Having it, against such things, won't be why you lose, that's for sure.

Storm Talons could lose their AA at any time, though. DFTS is out there. Tournies could adopt it or 8th ed could hard code it.

There is almost no ground-based weapon in the game that can make a 3+ armor FMC jink. That's actually one of the most OP things about FMCs! And even the occasional AP 3 or AP 2 wound doesn't matter, because FMCs fight at full capacity until dead. A single AP 2 hit can cripple or kill a flying vehicle.

I don't think AA makes sense if all possible options are incredibly inefficient. This is why I consider FMCs effectively immortal. Yes, you can theoretically hurt them, but the math so against it happening that you are wasting your firepower.

I usually start with an idea/theme (eg: null deploy necrons), make a few lists along that idea (eg: Double d-cult, d-cult + judicators, night scythe spam) without much thought other than keeping below points. Then I compare the lists to each other, and pick my favorite (judicator + D-cult). Once I have a contender, I ask a series of questions:

1.) did I bring enough wounds
2.) Did I bring enough dakka
3.) what will I do against a shooty army
4.) what will I do against a close combat army
5.) what will I do against a gladius style ob sec spam
6.) do I have a hard counter, and if so how common is it.

If I run into an issue, (eg: tau with interceptor will ruin my day) I'll see if I can get around it, if not I'll circular file the list, and go back to one of my other ideas. If I like the answers, I'll go into polishing the list, tying minor alterations to see if I can enhance the list (eg: add a flyer for DFTS to get +1 to reserve rolls). Once that's done I'll post the list to see if i missed anything glaring.

 Grimgold wrote:
I usually start with an idea/theme (eg: null deploy necrons), make a few lists along that idea (eg: Double d-cult, d-cult + judicators, night scythe spam) without much thought other than keeping below points. Then I compare the lists to each other, and pick my favorite (judicator + D-cult). Once I have a contender, I ask a series of questions:

1.) did I bring enough wounds
2.) Did I bring enough dakka
3.) what will I do against a shooty army
4.) what will I do against a close combat army
5.) what will I do against a gladius style ob sec spam
6.) do I have a hard counter, and if so how common is it.

If I run into an issue, (eg: tau with interceptor will ruin my day) I'll see if I can get around it, if not I'll circular file the list, and go back to one of my other ideas. If I like the answers, I'll go into polishing the list, tying minor alterations to see if I can enhance the list (eg: add a flyer for DFTS to get +1 to reserve rolls). Once that's done I'll post the list to see if i missed anything glaring.

I like this list a lot.

Martel732 wrote:
Storm Talons could lose their AA at any time, though. DFTS is out there. Tournies could adopt it or 8th ed could hard code it.

There is almost no ground-based weapon in the game that can make a 3+ armor FMC jink. That's actually one of the most OP things about FMCs! And even the occasional AP 3 or AP 2 wound doesn't matter, because FMCs fight at full capacity until dead. A single AP 2 hit can cripple or kill a flying vehicle.

I don't think AA makes sense if all possible options are incredibly inefficient. This is why I consider FMCs effectively immortal. Yes, you can theoretically hurt them, but the math so against it happening that you are wasting your firepower.

I can't deal with what MIGHT happen. What MIGHT happen isn't really an argument?

But if your Blood Angels are enjoying massive success by not having Anti-air elements, cool. Like i said....It really does depend on whether you're going to tournaments and what your casual opponents do typically. As i said.

BA can't even cover the other things you listed while taking zero AA. AA is not an option for BA in general.

Martel732 wrote:
BA can't even cover the other things you listed while taking zero AA. AA is not an option for BA in general.

a-aight

First I tink of a theme then stick with it making it as threatening as possible to all types of units.

for black Templar I like the idea of melt it all and drown em in bodies. I would start with an empirors champ, throw him with a max squad of initiates in a land raider, get 5 more sqads of initiates and neophites mixed into them every squad gets a melta, so now you can deal with hordes or armor. 5 sternguard in a drop pod with combi meltas, and a meltabomb to crack armor. a stormtalon or two, an attack bike or two with multimeltas, and 1-2 thunderfire cannons to thin horrdes or crack light armor/hiding things.

Pretty much the same as others mentioned. Start with an idea of what theme I want to go for and try to create a list that has an answer for most army types while adhering to the overall build.

One thing that really helps me is to set the army up when I think the list is finished - it really makes the weaknesses noticable.
E.g I planned a mech tau CAD, was fairly happy with the list so set the army out and realised there were nowhere near enough models for the points level. I went back to the list and trimmed some unnecessary upgrades so I could buy some more bodies and was overall much happier with my list.

My GSC list has been pretty settled for a month or so now, and I'm happy enough with it to start buying towards it in earnest. How I came up with it:

- Watched some Youtube videos of people playing with the army. If you can watch an actual game at an event or LGS that's better, but otherwise Youtube is fine.

- Bought the Codex and read it twice.

- Made a preliminary list as an exercise in understanding the army. Posted it on Dakka and got a bit of advice on it.

- Changed it up in line with the advice. Proxied a few games with it against different opponents.

- Sat down and figured out what my list was doing well and what it wasn't doing, then went back to the Codex and retooled it a bit more.

From there it was a case of proxying games and adjusting as necessary until I got something I was happy with.

 Jancoran wrote:

 kingbobbito wrote:
Pretty similar to everyone else here. Pick a theme, think out what I need to include to be able to deal with anything I'm going to face, mostly pick from that line while also including stuff that I just like to run. I like to do math as well when I'm thinking about how likely something is to be able to deal with the target, like I rarely use snipers as their overall damage output is extremely minimal.

Sniper DAMAGE output may be poor but sniper usefulness may not be. consider that MANY snipers make excellent line breakers. it isn't ALWAYS wht they can kill. its the game points they might be able to get for you as well. POINTS, not kills, are how you win. Just food for thought.

At that point though why not run bolter scouts? Saves a few points, lets them move and fire, and generally better against most targets, outside of MCs, which you generally don't want to fire snipers at anyways. If they're forward on the board taking objectives this also means more likely to rapid fire.