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.

So like headers on an exhaust manifold a guide i have used in building list is a few big guns with twice as many medium guns and then twice that many little guns. They idea is that a balanced list will only contain a few large models, several elite/medium duty models and a lot of little models. Now list building of course creates many skews in the idea but if my list contains the above said amount of fire power then it should be able to at least hold its own. How wrong is this train of thought and how do i break away from this concept.

I think it’s pretty wrong, honestly. The game just isn’t that formulaic. What even counts as a big, medium or small gun? Where do melee units fit into all of this?

A much better approach to list building is to build for capabilities and outcomes. Start with what you want your army to be able to do, and tick off units that let you do those things.

So instead of thinking “I want two big tanks” you think “I want to be able to kill big tanks”. Then try to budget in enough units that will allow you to kill big tanks - and all the other stuff you want to do.

Oh, i really dont know what i want my army to do (well i do i want a bunch of gaudians with wraithlords and a wraithnight, really bad list though). I face so many different list that i have no idea what to build for. So i kimda just am left with a numbers game or so i feel.

Yeah but you do know what you want to do. You want to be able to beat all of those armies - or at least compete against them. That means being able to neutralise their threats, survive their attacks and succeed at the mission objectives.

Anyway the point is that there's no reason for an army to follow the 1 2 4 format. You can run an army of just imperial knights or just infantry, and any mixture in between. It's the capabilities of the army that matter, not the size and shape of the models in it.

A better formula that works well for starters looking at doing list building is 40/40/20.

40% of the list should have anti tank duties and the equipment to deal with vehicles.
40% of the list should have anti infantry duties and the equipment to deal with infantry.
20% of the list should have support / other duties like scouts or tau drones, things that are not there to nessisarily kill but have other value for your army.

This has worked well for me when helping new people make a competitive list. If it's for fun, do whatever you want. :p gl.

100% boyz, 0% toyz

 koooaei wrote:
100% boyz, 0% toyz

This. Target saturation is crucial in 40k. If you take 1 dreadnought it will die turn one and do nothing. If you spam them they might very well overwhelm and rout your opponent. The same is true of tanks, infantry or monsters. If you take a little bit of each then all of your opponents weapons will find something they can kill effectively.

Oh, so split fire being a free action in 8th really makes some types of list building really difficult to play with.