Choose This, Not That - Part I, Competition

Hey everyone, Dis here introducing our newest contributor, Tuff Love! TL has been a fixture on the 40k tournament scene in my neck of the woods for nearly as long as I've been running events, and he's had his share of time in the winner's circle. He's well-suited to the topic of building armies, so without anything more from me...

Dear readers, this is part one of a three part-series on army list composition. There are three basic approaches to constructing a list – competition, friendly play, and fluff. This article focuses on competition, because after all what fun is playing if you don’t win?

Sifting through the fluff.

Competitive armies revolve around 3 tenets – play to your army’s strengths, preparedness, and picking better units. Playing to your army’s strengths means actually knowing and understanding the codex you play. Sorry to say, that usually means skipping past all those pages of pretty pictures of painted models and inspiring tales of valor and gore and going straight to the unit summaries, special rules, and selection options. Get too caught up in the fluff and suddenly you think that there is such a thing as an “elite” guardsman, when in reality it’s just some jerk that happened to roll a couple 6’s and then died in the next battle. And pictures are nice, but their real value is that they show you what 3 colors look like on your models so you know what you have to do to get a paint score. You need to read the book and know what the numbers mean in game terms before you can move on to preparing a balanced list with effective units. If you can’t be bothered to “read”, or “understand”, that’s fine, but do everyone the favor of looking up your army somewhere and see what other people do that works. Get the opinions of people that consistently succeed. They don’t have to be likeable; they only need to demonstrate that they know what they’re talking about. Know what your army is BEST at, not good at, and move on to step 2: Preparing a Balanced List.

As this article develops, it occurs to me that the creation steps are escalating in terms of sensitivity. Preparedness, for example, is a more sensitive topic than knowing your list but far less sensitive than choosing units and the requisite hand (and sometimes face) slapping that accompanies that discussion. Anyway I digress, on to preparing your list for tournament play.

Preparation is a 3 step process. First you need to have an idea of what you’ll be facing; second is how to crush it by applying the strengths of your army; third is testing what you plan to field. Each army generally has one or two “best” builds that are more prevalent at tournaments because they win. Wolves shoot, Orks ride in Battlewagons, Blood Angels drop just outside 1 inch of your head, Dark Eldar stay on the shelf at home, etc. Know the basics of the “best” builds and it will go a long way to helping you apply appropriate force. If you play regularly at a shop and know which army other players will bring, use that knowledge. Don’t forget you’re there to win, people who “enjoy playing” usually play for the Best Sporstman award, aka the loser’s prize. Enjoy winning; it's more rewarding emotionally and financially. Learn how your army’s prowess can be most effective against enemies and suddenly the game is much easier. Preparation also hinges on being able to handle different problems. I repeat, different problems, NOT every problem. Don’t bother planning for an army of 150 Fire Warriors and 2 Ethereals. If you get that lucky your only worry should be how guilty you’ll feel delivering the victory handshake. If your army is fast and good in close combat, tailor your tank killing into that by using melta bombs, melta guns, or power fist equivalents. If you shoot and lack mobility, know which guns are best for which types of target so that you won’t have to move much. Plan ahead, shoot ‘til it’s dead, and move on to the next target. There will be games where you will have less than optimal matchups, the key is to use what you have for the purpose for which it was intended. Lastly, play your list before competing with it. Test it out and see what needs to be changed, rare is the list that doesn’t need some fine tuning.

Last and certainly not least is the wonderfully debatable topic of unit selection. Here’s a secret – no one cares how much you love that Hive Tyrant with wings, every biomorph, and is sculpted so prettily. It has no invulnerable save, so four lascannons later you can put him back in the box. Moral of the story: every unit has a counter/foil/nemesis, no matter how cool or powerful. The bottom line when picking units should not be to select the most powerful choice in each slot, but pick the “better” choice. The constant debate in creating and tweaking armies is what is good and what is better. Yes Eldrad is fantastic, but can a vanilla Farseer with some upgrades accomplish the same purpose in the army and save you 100 points to boot? Better is subjective to each army and list, but it is absolutely vital to maximizing effectiveness. Choose units for a purpose and use them for that purpose during games. Choose units to fill needs, not use points. Choose units that fit into your plan and use the rules and abilities of your army to the fullest, not because of some nostalgic connection or that it may have won you a game 5 years ago or that it’s sooooo cooooool. Choose units that will help you win and if that means cutting out a perennial favorite, then so long old wife and hello new girlfriend. Finally, use math please; if you don’t know math then you better learn some. Look at the numbers and work it out in terms of return on points, survivability, killing potential, etc. so you know more or less what to expect from your choice. Have an understanding of the odds ahead of time and you won’t be disappointed when a ten-man (girl?) Daemonette squad charges a Terminator Assault Squad, kills 1 thunder hammer terminator, and then gets bent over the table. For your reference – 40 attacks, hitting on 4’s = 20 hits. 20 hits with 5’s to wound = 6.33 wounds, 3.16 rending. 1 death due to rending, 3 saves on 2+ and then the remaining thunder hammers beat some toughness 3 face.

Read closely, plan ahead, choose wisely, roll well. Happy winning.
-TL 

How do you go about building a competitive list? Do you bypass the fluff completely and reach for the best choice, or do units of Chaos Possessed, Flash Gitz, Ratling Snipers, and the occassional Necron army sneak in sometimes, just because?