Was intending to do a "List Building 101 but not just for beginners" thing but it kept expanding scope so I'm just going to talk about building effective lists instead.
What do you want your army to do?
We all want our lists to win games. Sometimes the idea for an army comes from wanting to bring and build around a few cool units. Sometimes, it's about the lore that you create for your own force. Sometimes, it's simply about bringing the best units available in a Codex. The question is, how do you go about that?
First, let's look at the core of what your army is meant to do. Is it meant to win by tabling the opponent? By scoring objectives in the first few turns and denying your opponent his/hers? Or maybe you want to win by attrition and grinding your opponent down?
To do that, you will need to understand the missions you will be using the list for as they will largely determine the lists you build. Are they ITC Combined Arms missions or the Champion's Missions? Are they the rulebook's Eternal War or Maelstrom missions? Each answer to the questions above can result in a different optimal list though there might be some similarities across the lists.
For example, in a standard No Mercy mission, you win by killing more units than the opponent. It follows then, that you will want a few large units that have both staying power and relatively large amounts of firepower. MSU (many small units) type lists will get destroyed in this missions. For the ITC Combined Arms version of No Mercy, victory points for the Eternal War segment are scored via a destroyed unit's Power value instead of simply destroying more units. That changes the whole dynamic as now you are looking across units' capabilities vs their power level rather than just their capability. None of these mission types require fast-moving or manoeuvrable units that naturally shine in objective-capturing missions like Scouring or Retrieval.
ITC's Champion's Missions are a different beast altogether as they allow you to pick your own main objectives which you can then tailor to your army rather than make a more versatile army tailored to the other types of missions.
Regardless of mission parameter, here are the common archetypes of armies you will find across the factions. Some factions populate certain archetypes better than others and elements of each archetype can also overlap.
Alphastrike
Militarum Tempestus Scion deepstrike spam; T'au Commander spam; Older Guiliman + Stormravens. These lists focus on crippling the opposing army or their key units by either going first (less feasible with the ITC style missions or Chapter Approved coming in December) or remaining safely off the table until the opportunity presents itself (usually on turn 1).
Spoiler
Pure vehicle or infantry lists. Invalidates certain portions of enemy's firepower and attempts to overload an opponent's ability to deal with threats. Examples are an all infantry Death Guard army or an Astra Militarum Tank Company.
MSU (Multiple small units)
These lists take multiple minimum sized units to make prioritising targets difficult for the opponent if they all perform similar functions. Small units can also waste enemy firepower from overkill as 20 bolter shots will tend to do more damage focused on 10 Fire Warriors than on 2 gun drones. Even though all units have gained the ability to split fire this edition, allocating the right amount of guns becomes tricky even with average calculations as the dice may not always roll the way you want them to and leaving a single drone alive can be detrimental to your mission if it still holds an objective at the end of the game.
MSU lists are also more effective with roll offs to see who starts first rather than automatic first turns in the base rule book's missions as they tend to have 20+ deployment drops.
Character focused
Can be fit into the Spoiler archetype but I felt that this might deserve a category of its own due to its uniqueness. Character lists typically bring 6 or more characters that benefit from not being able to be targeted unless they are the closest target. Imperium lists that do this usually bring 2+ Culexus assassins as they force the target's BS and WS to become 6+ when targeting them, making them a lot tougher than their T4 W5 profile suggests. Their supporting cast are usually other hard hitting or survivable characters such as Saint Celestine, Roboute Guilliman and other Imperial Assassins.
Deathstar
An old term from the 6th and 7th edition of the game, these are lists that bring a single dangerous and resilient unit and focuses buffs and psychic powers on them. Used to be Thunderwolf Cavalry with Invisibility psychic power (in 7th ed). The closest approximation this edition thus far might be 10 Blightlord Terminators with the Death Guard Cloud of Flies stratagem, and augmented by Chaos psychic powers such as Prescience and Warp Time.
TAC - Take All Comers
The most often seen archetype and the name speaks for itself. The list tries to cover all the bases and has tools (also called Toolbox list for a reason) for every kind of threat. These lists tend to have a few anti-tank/monster weapons, a few anti infantry weapons, long and short ranged threats and both speedy and slow units. More reactive than proactive.
While making your own lists and taking a look at what successful lists there are out there, you might come across a term called META more often than not. META stands for "Most Effective Tool Available". Usually something that is the most popular but also based on available tools/units on hand. For example, multiple Malefic Lords have been in almost every successful Chaos army in the ITC circuit and before the most recent FAQ, you would be hard pressed not to find units of Conscripts and a Commissar in an Imperium army. Another term for these units could be overpowered but META doesn't necessarily refer to only overpowered units. It will depend on what you might come up against most often and the tools you have available to deal with those obstacles.
In a local tournament scene with mostly tank companies or multiple titanic units (Imperial Knights, Wraightknights, etc), your most effective tool available would be deep striking Meltaguns or long-ranged Lascannons. At the other end of the spectrum, if your local scene consists of armies of conscripts or horrors or poxwalkers, your most effective tools to deal with them might be mortar teams, space marine scout bikes or taurox prime spam. The specifics might differ from battle to battle but communities usually have a general META and tailoring to that meta, though risky at times, can yield dividends when you meet the right lists.
I tend to look at the following characteristics when looking at lists (both mine and of those whom I play against) and units and mentally classify them into roles. For example, Dark Reapers are 100% firepower units with a very low resiliency so if I see them across the table, I know they need to be taken out as soon as possible (of course depending on my own units but in general). If a unit has a lot of resiliency like Conscripts that do not need to take morale checks or lose very few models for failed checks (like Valhallan Conscripts with a character with "Pietrov's Mk 45" nearby), then it might be better to ignore that unit in favour of shooting say the heavy weapon teams or Manticore tanks parked behind them.
Characteristics:
- Resiliency (how much of a pounding your list can take and keep firing back)
- Firepower (damage output. Anti-vehicle vs anti-infantry)
- Bubblewrap (how many models that need to be killed to get to the core of the list)
- Utility (Infiltration, Deep strike, transport, misc)
- CP usage (a lot more important with each codex that has been released)
How you go about using these characteristics is up to you as I don't have a fixed ratio or solution. Different types of lists will want varying proportions of the above and it comes down to what you're comfortable with, the models you have available, as well as the purpose of the list (once again, what you want your army to do).
They are merely useful pointers to keep in mind while making your list. There is a useful tool however, that I find myself using from time to time. A checklist when building lists or analysing opponents' armies.
Checklist
How am I going to score my own objectives
How am I going to deny the opponent's objectives
How do I deal with tanks/infantry/characters
Do I have any utility units
Which units have good or interesting interactions with other units in my army
How many Command Points do I need
Be realistic with yourself when filling out the checklist. Yes you might be able to foot slog Grey Hunters across the board to take enemy objectives but how long are you going to take to get there? Are they more effective than Skyclaws or Wolf Scouts? You do not need to ensure every tick in that list is checked but you need to know what you are going to do when you come across something that your list may not be able to handle.
Understanding lists and units are just one-third (but a crucial third) of the battle. Only when you understand list-building and what each unit is meant to do, can you prioritise your movement and target priority during the game (the 2nd third) and hope your dice rolls (the last and uncontrollable third) come out decent.
I hope you've enjoyed reading the article and are able to put the ideas in here to good use. Do hit me up at th3crossroads@gmail.com if you have any questions about your list or feel that I might have missed out something. Would like to hear your opinions about the topics and if there're any topics or review that you'd like covered in the next few articles. Till next time!