A Guide and Checklist to Building an Army List

The strategy of 40k extends well past what you do once you place your army upon the table, face off with your opponent, and start throwing dice. This is the most crucial part of victory, but only a part. Having some concept of how you will use your army, what style, what theme, which units will play what role, this is an enormous facet of combat. However, there is again another part, which is what I am here to speak about. List building is an art, and a strategy which has immense importance on the battlefield. My main gaming partner is an excellent gamer. He plays very intelligently and reacts fairly well to changes in the battlefield, but his lists contain many un-synergetic elements, and do not fully conform to an overall style of attack. For years I have seen hundreds of lists on these forums and others that are built with just a number of 'strong units' instead of units that will work well together, are a compilation of units which are meant for a style which do not fit the commanders intent, or just lack the elements needed to meet battlefield goals. This is fairly normal, as knowing and understanding which units do what and how to combine them is as similarly difficult as knowing how to use them once they are on the field. This article is not necessarily meant to tell you how to play your army, but is something of a beginners guide (though it is certainly in no way meant to address trivial matters that we all in time come to understand. Many advanced tournament players still put forward crappy, or at least inefficient lists.) and checklist concerning what should be going through your mind when you are making a list.

Also, I wish to reiterate that your own style of play is something you should form that you and your opponents (assuming you aren't in a tournament seeking to utterly annihilate all those who stand in your way!) can enjoy time and again at various levels of gaming. This is a guide to the parts I personally consider essential to a successful list.

There are innumerable styles and overall modes of attack and defense that are pursued, which can vary as immensely as a static SAFH (Shooty Army From Hell) as we often see from the IG, to an adrenaline blood lust pumped Ork WAAGH, Tyranid horde, mechanized force, or other such army who is intent on getting into assault asap to tear you limb from limb. Among the most important things that are essential to all armies of any kind, is the ability to gain and maintain the initiative, while preventing your opponent from doing the same. This is where your army concept comes to be. There are a few main facets to this concept, and a few options.

MEDIUM OF DAMAGE:

This is the method by which you will destroy your opponent, or at least remove threat to your own army while you complete your objectives. Some armies, as mentioned, will host an awe inspiring quantity of firepower that will reign down on their opponents from the opening of turn one, and leave no where to hide. Another may be based on getting into close combat, or using more close-range mediums such as assault/rapid fire weaponry. Regardless of what particular method you use, you must choose which is going to work for you. You can certainly mix mediums, but beware of splitting your damage base unwisely, and be VERY careful when mixing the mediums of mobility among your main units (main killing and scoring units, that is).

Imagine that you have half an army of ranged firepower and half dedicated close combat. For the first half of the game your ranged elements are pounding away at enemy lines, while your close combat is doing nothing because it is moving into position. In the second half your CC element assaults your enemy, reducing the possible targets you can fire on, and possibly leaving your ranged elements with nothing to do, especially if your opponent moshes your CC elements leaving nothing in the open, and quickly disposing of your forward squads. This is an extreme scenario, but it certainly happens. You should be ensuring that your force is capable of putting out a large amount of damage while minimizing TTT (Time to target) and time out of combat. Thus if you are an aggressive force, ensure you have enough units to make it through enemy fire while footslogging, or have some manner of transports/drop pods/infiltration/deep striking to get you where you need to be to apply your medium of damage.

One concept that I believe is more important than any other in list building, is to select your medium of damage, and find a way to apply it that works best, without wasting points or slots on things that you do not need. This is, oddly enough, fairly hard to articulate correctly because it is very hard to be meaningfully specific, while being general enough to be correct without being vague. I suppose I can put this down by saying you want to be able to direct as much damage at your opponent as possible for as long as possible, and create the army that allows you to do that. This means selecting your main units (scoring and elite/heavy type units) and then your necessary HQ and any other supporting units you have to take, and some reactionary units (which are discussed later). You need to carefully weigh these HQ and other supplemental units and upgrades and make sure they are worth taking, that they actually pull some heavy weight in your army (or worthwhile weight anyway) and that you are not sacrificing too much of what you need (scoring capability, anti-armour ability, anti-personnel, etc.). Also you need to be careful in general with mixing mediums of damage and mediums of movement. I will give a couple of examples in addition to the former one and then move on to not dally here to long.

An army with several different movement mediums will not be able to attack together, thereby lowering the time and amount of damage applied, and increasing time to target (giving your opponent more time to attack and spreading out your army so he can attack it piecemeal quite often). For example you have an Eldar army with Banshees in a Waveserpent, some Swooping Hawks, some Guardians and an avatar. This obviously isn't a real army, but let's just pretend these speed ranges represent whole sections of an army. The Banshees can get to the target very quickly, but either attack alone and fizzle, or wait on the rest of the army to arrive. The Swooping Hawks will show up a bit behind the Banshees, but still have to wait on the Guardians and avatar to attack with full force. Attacking in waves isn't really a good idea, especially with a more mobile opponent. We certainly see a lot of lists like this out there. Some slower elements are useful in a fast list, and some fast units are definitely useful in a slower list, but these typically should make up more of a 'supplementary role' that offers support fire, or reactionary attacks. It should not be expected to be part of a main attack and should not detract from your ability to make strong enough main attack, as we see below.

Now back to my example of mixed mediums, I have one opponent who does something of a Rhino rush, but had a couple of devastator squads and some other static elements. When it comes down to his attack the devastators have not yet laid down enough damage to compensate for the points spent there instead of on the aggressive advance. The result is that his attack stagnates and is countered by my reactionary counter-assault units, and while I'm in close combat his ranged does nothing, and then is pummeled by my ranged and mobile units after I finish his CC assault. Too many points were sunk into a supporting element when the main attack depended on mass and momentum.

OBJECTIVES:

There are many things I would entitle 'battlefield objectives', which I will address a bit later, but the primary and most important are those which win the scenario. These most often include putting a scoring unit on a particular objective, and/or contesting objectives your opponent is trying to hold. So this comes down to this question when building a list: (1) How am I going to get scoring units onto the objectives, (2) keep them alive, (3) and stop my opponent from doing the same?

Before addressing the above specific points you need to ensure that you have an army with enough scoring units to hold the objectives. I won't personally give a recommendation for the number of troops choices (or other scoring units like Sternguard with Pedro) you should take, as this is heavily dependant on how you will get them there, how resilient they are, how you intend on keeping them alive, and overall preference in style and to fit your opponents. I personally have three tactical squads in my marine lists of 1750-2000 points, sometimes three for 1500 lists, and usually two for anything less. This choice is based on several variables. However in my Eldar lists, I tend to base my style on completely annihilating my opponent regardless of scenario, so usually take a light amount of troops, which often function as locking units (described in my Locking, and Lock and Hammer articles on 40konline) and to just hold my own objectives.

(1) The first point is medium of mobility. How are you going to get your scoring units to the objectives? The obvious options are a: footslog, b: use a transport, 3: deep strike or use another medium of speed (such as a librarian with gate, drop pods, etc.) Which medium you use is going to be tied into a lot of variables, such as how resilient your troops choices are, your ability to dig out opposing units from objectives, how many troops choices you took, what other roles your troops choices might have, etc. I will leave the specifics to you; just keep in mind you have to choose a viable way to get your scoring unit on the objective. Having a non-infantry heavy marine list and trying to footslog your only two tactical squads onto objectives is not going to be very reasonable at 2000 points, for example.

(2) The second point is how to make sure your unit arrives intact and stays on the objective to hold or contest it. The obvious first way to manage this is to either take enough scoring units that your opponent won't be able to reduce them all below scoring by sheer number of units, or because if they focus that much on your scoring units, your main damage causing units will destroy him. This can mean an infantry spam list such as many large squads of guardians, a Saim-Hann jetbike list, or putting down a near battle-company sized marine list and combat squadding.

There is next the option of not spamming scoring units, but making those you have be resilient ones. This either means taking units that are inherently resilient (Sternguard, Marines in general, Eldar jetbikes, wraithguard), taking large units (squads of 20 guardians, for example), using supplementary means to improve their resilience that we find in HQ units, or attachments like warlocks with conceal/embolden, camo cloaks for scouts, etc., or minimizing TTT/making it safer, which means very quick or safe transportation. A quick moving Waveserpent is pretty safe, and a drop pod is going to allow very little shooting on your squad before it takes hold of the objective, where it's resilience will increase from cover saves or hiding out of LoS(usually, anyway).

In general you are going to have to size up and analyze what your opponents' armies may be comprised of, and what level of mobility, resilience, and numbers you are going to need to get to, take, and hold objectives. There is no set number or formula.

(3) Thirdly is stopping your opponent from ending the game holding objectives. This is constituted by getting to objectives first and holding them, stopping your opponent before he gets there, taking him forcibly off the objective, or contesting objectives. The first option is already covered. Maintain speed and initiative and get there first. It's going to be harder for him to get you out cover than to walk onto it and defend.

The second option is multifaceted. You can outright destroy him with firepower or CC, destroy his mobility by knocking out his transports or blocking it/stunning them, or if they are not in a transport you can lock them in CC to stop him from moving toward/onto the objective.

Digging your opponent out of a fortified objective is a real pain, and often quite difficult, so having to do this isn't exactly ideal, but sometimes it happens. Once an opposing scoring unit gets into hard cover digging them out with firepower is seldom the solution, and charging into close combat is often also not ideal, but is often the better of the two. Designing an elite unit meant to clear off an objective is likely to be an expensive and inefficient element of your army if that's its the main purpose, so either intend going in to use large amounts of focused firepower, an elite CC unit (harlequins, banshees, vanguard, terminators, etc), or some element of your army that can take care of this problem, or follow the next step, if necessary.

The last main option is to contest objectives that your opponent has taken that you cannot retake. Having the last second dash or attack onto an objective that allows for suicidal moves without repercussions is a great motivation for taking the second turn if you can do it without suffering considerable casualties from first turn shooting. All armies should typically contain some element that is fast enough to react and respond to your opponents' actions if your army isn't already based off of these anyway. You can definitely use more resilient or slower moving units to contest objectives, but this often requires them to dedicate their actions for several turns to get into a position to contest, likely wasting their medium of damage and giving your opponent the chance to destroy this unit and stop its obvious intent. So for this role I tend to use my mobile support fire elements when possible (landspeeders, Vypers, Fireprisms, Falcons, or last turn turbo boosted bikes).

In the end all armies should have some capacity to one of these above options, and do it well. To give your opponent the ability and opportunity to take objectives when they want and keep them is to offer a huge advantage in most battles.

DESTROYING THE OPPOSING FORCE:

Your attack power is obviously intertwined with your need to take and meet objectives, and preservation of your own force, but when it comes down to it 40k is about destroying your opponent, even though you can win games while having done very little of this. So on top of meeting scenario objectives, you have other battlefield objectives such as destroying potential threats to your army and robbing your opponent of his initiative (his big hitting units and his mobility usually). So here we look at the basic types of threats you may face and what you need to handle them. This is likely the simplest part of list building, but also a challenging one if you are building a list to be excellent at taking down tanks, MC's, heavy infantry, and horde all at once while still being able to take objectives and live.

First up is considering the various types of opponents you will have to destroy. Not all of us are building take-all-comers tournament lists, so obviously you will not have to address all the threats on the list below and can build your lists accordingly.

Armoured threats (and MC's): Some opponents may host resilient units such as Landraiders, Leman Russ, Falcons, and Carnifexes, or medium to lighter units such as Rhinos, Predators, landspeeders and Vypers. Be it a single tough enemy unit or an armoured company, you will likely need to take down vehicles (or MC's) at some point. Just as in considering your primary medium of damage, you need to choose whether to take ranged weapons (Lascannons, bright lances, melta/fusion guns), CC weapons (power fists, melta/haywire grenades), how many of these types of weapons, and how to implement them. In my Eldar lists I do not believe in dedicated anti-tank units, even in my tournament lists, but this works very well for myself because I almost all of my units capable of powerful anti-armour attacks and will be in the position to use them, which leaves my opponent unable to know where the explosion is going to come from. In my marine lists, this isn't quite the case.

In the end the question is: Do I have the anti-tank power (the number and quality of weapons as well as a way to get them to a position to hit the target) to take down a Heavy battle tank if I have to? Can I take down many lighter tanks or MC's if I face a mechanized/Godzilla/armoured company?

Anti-personnel: Be it the heavy infantry of Deathwing or Nurgle, or the massive hordes of the Mon-Keigh IG, or the green tide of the WAAGH, you will almost always need anti-personnel capabilities. You can often combine massed firepower onto power armour instead of using low-AP weapons or a squad of power weapon wielding banshees, but if you are going to face heavy infantry you need to have some idea how to go about their destruction. Being able to take both heavy infantry and massed infantry can be a hard balance in list building, but it is also one of the most important when you build a tournament style list. The tools for hordes are obvious, you need multiple shot weapons, blast weapons, massed attacks, or a resilient body for them to sink into but be unable to break (I don't like the last method much, fighting to defend is fighting to loose in most instances, if that is your intended primary method of destroying the opponent).

And the simple question is: Do I have the capacity to destroy heavy infantry if present, or destroy a light infantry horde?

Another point to remember is that if you are filling your army roster to take down that troublesome C`tan, Carnifex, Leman Russ, etc. and decided to take comb-melta Sternguard, or fire dragons to fix the problem, it may be very obvious to your opponent what is his biggest threat to this very important component of his army, and strive to destroy it. Make sure you take units and elements in your army that you are sure can get there and get the job done (Fire dragons in a Falcon are a pretty good bet, as are the Sternguard if they deepstrike onto the target). Ideally you will see a threat on the battlefield and have the unit and be in the position to ensure that it will be dead when you need it to be, if it is a priority. This means at times spending points on upgrades and taking dedicated units/equipment. At the same time you can't take every bit of wargear and still need to find the points and slots for scoring units, transports, etc. This is essentially the spirit of my "The importance of upgrades" article I wrote concerning upgrades on Eldar transports in mechanized lists. Some upgrades and units are superfluous or unnecessary, but sometimes those supporting the main elements of your army are absolutely essential, even if for every four of upgrade X you take you could take another unit Y, because you need to be able to count on the Y's you have doing their job transporting a scoring unit, or blowing up a tank. The importance, role, and value of upgrades are an important lesson to learn for your army.

DEFENDING YOUR FORCE:

Do I have the resilience, firepower, and reactionary elements to keep my army alive long enough to take objectives and destroy the enemy?

This is the crux of the matter. You must keep your army alive long enough to meet your scenario and battlefield objectives before your opponent destroys you and your capacity to make war. This is of course a multi-faceted matter. It is largely attained by (1) Inherent resilience, (2) Overwhelming damage, (3) and being able to counter your opponents' attacks.

(1) This is the same as described before for scoring units. You either take overwhelming numbers of units so that your opponent simply cannot dish out enough shots to kill you, be it by taking massive light infantry or massed vehicles, or you take resilient units that substantially increase the quantity of fire required to take them down (heavy vehicles, or meq+ status), or thirdly use your situation to increase resilience (taking cover, staying out of LoS, or using some kind of equipment (camo cloaks, conceal, etc.) that will increase your resilience. The longer your opponent takes to kill you, the longer you have more of your force capable of causing damage to him. Whoever runs out of bodes first looses.

(2) Many armies are not particularly resilient, but are capable of laying down so much fire that their opponent withers away, or put their opponent in a defenseless position such as my Eldar mechanized CC army which appears suddenly and jumps into CC, not allowing most armies any ability to fight back nor the time to cause substantial casualties before the point of attack. Lowering the amount of time your opponent has to damage you is the goal here. It may be more fitting in the entry below (and I may have even typed it down there...this being an edit), but this concept can be utilized by coming in via drop pod force, staying out of LoS, etc).

(3) This is not easy to articulate in a clear yet concise way, but I take this to address everything concerning the question of: Other than soaking up shots with resilience or numbers, and destroying my opponents quickly, how will I stop my opponents' attacks from destroying me? This largely comes down to constructing your army so that it may avoid or negate your opponents' medium of damage. This, for me, often revolves around having a limited amount of units that are often mobile, and host the opposite medium of damage than that of the rest of my army. So for a ranged army, I would have some good reactionary CC units or close ranged surgical shooting units. For an aggressive army, I would have some ranged support with very long arms. This is to deal with potential threats the main bulk of my army is very susceptible to, and so that I can always be causing some damage to my opponent by avoiding a stalemate or wasted turns causing no damage. It keeps me versatile and capable to react quickly to my opponents actions and not loose the initiative. These list building methods can be enhanced by taking an army that primarily deep strikes so it cannot be shot until it has appeared, can shoot without LoS, infiltrates, and the normal manner of advancing through/behind cover.

In an Eldar army I would often use Fire Dragons or Harlequins in a Falcon, Shinning Spears, or jetbikes as my fast reactionary units, and Wraithlords or Guardians for my slower reactionary units (units that might walk out and engage my opponent in CC to stop them from assaulting me sucking them into a CC they cannot escape, or catching them once they do arrive). For my supporting ranged units, I would usually use fireprisms, or vypers, but more static elements like Wraithlords and Reapers can certainly be useful as well, they are just harder to use effectively and can be expensive, therefore disrupting the balance of support/attack units.

As marines I would likely use some fast element such as deep striking vanguard/dreads, bikes/attack bikes, or Sternguard with a librarian. You could also use MM/HF landspeeders, or assault marines, but I'm not a fan of those. Just to absorb opponents in CC, dreads and tactical squads do a pretty good job for slower units, and/or matched with assault marines or HQ squads to attack a squad that has been locked by these kinds of elements. Landspeeder typhoons can offer some pretty good support fire when it comes to the mobile stuff, as can vindicators but you certainly have to keep in mind its limitations.

Here's a list and summary of the checklist questions for writing a list:

-What should my main medium of damage be? (ranged firepower, close firepower, CC)

-How will I apply this medium of damage? (from range, deep strike, transports, etc.)

-Do I have unnecessary, inefficient, or too many upgrades/characters/supporting units?

-How many scoring units will I take, and how will I get them to the objectives, alive and hold them?

-How will I stop my opponent from taking objectives?

-Do I have the units/upgrades necessary to destroy Heavy tanks, massed tanks, MC's, heavy infantry, and massed infantry?

-Does my army have the overall resilience, firepower, mobility, and other qualities to withstand my opponents' firepower for long enough to destroy him and get objectives?