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On List Construction

5K views 19 replies 12 participants last post by  Omegabob 
#1 · (Edited)
A little bit of musing that I have been indulging in has led to me coming up with the following rough guide for things you need in a list, not things that are nice, things that are required. So pretty much heres a preview of the tactica segment on list building (or part of it at least), enjoy.

Scoring Units
Scoring units, or troops, are essential and not just the madatory amount to build a list. Two thirds of games are objective based and therefore having these units alive to claim said objectives is the only way to win. As games get bigger the more stuff will get killed. This is inevitable and as such you must make sure you have enough scoring units to cope with the changing conidtions of play.

Remember that a savvy player will target your scoring units when he can afford to ignore other threats to do so, or when doing so will ensure victory. Both these conditions are met when you have few scoring units or weak scoring units (read small squads) as a small amount of firepower diverted from a threat will remove them from play, making victory then a matter simply of keeping their scoring units alive.

So, what does this mean? In my extensive experience, and through alot of theory work, I have come to the not earth shaking conclusion that you require one substantial scoring unit per 500 points to reliably win games. Yes this means that a 3500 point game cannot possibly have enough points without using detachments.

Now these numbers are minimums, not optimums or maximums, minimums. That is to say if you want to take six troops choices in a 1500 point game, knock yourself out, but please, please don't take two. This shouldn't be too arduous, our troops are fine units aside from the fact that they are scoring so no one should be finding this rule too hard to follow.

tl:dr 1 Scoring Unit Per 500 Points minimum

Dark Light Weaponry

Dark lances are great, blasters are great, heat lances are fun. We like all these things, but we need to make sure we take enough. In small games the prevalence of vehicles is lower, in large games higher, so naturally we need more anti tank in larger games, but how much more?

Well there are two important considerations, Killing Vehicles (Wreck, Explode) and Disrupting Vehicles (Other results on the table). You need enough anti tank to destroy roughly one sixth of the vehicles on the board every turn on average and enough to disrupt one third to one half. So how much is that, well every time we fire a lance or balster we have a 7.4% chance to kill a vehicle and a one in three chance of disrupting it. So with six tanks on the board we would need a minimum of thriteen dark light weapons to achieve our goals. This works on the assumption that we are always firing at armour twelve, taking into account that that is not the case this number drops to about eleven.

Why did I choose six tanks? Two reasons, first one sixth of six is easy to work out to follow through my example, second six AV12+ tanks is about the right number to budget for in a 1500 point game, about two tanks per 500 points when facing a mech force. Sure some armies will have more, but they will tend to have less troops and each tank you disrupt will mess with there plans all the more as they tend to be overly reliant on armour. Additionally against such armies movement and target priority can often effectively nullify extra vehicles.

With an estimate of two tanks per 500 points we then come to the crux of this section, for every two tanks the enemy has you need four anti tank weapons, when he has six you need twelve, for example. This is once more a minimum. I would suggest that an optimum is clsoer to five per 500 points, but anywhere inbetween the two is workable. I'll talk about maximums and optimums in detail at a later date this section is on minimums.

tl:dr 4 Anti Tank Weapons per 500 points minimum
 
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#3 ·
Nice work, although are the loss of dark light weapons during the game taken into consideration? As well as shorter ranged weapons like blasters and heatlances won't be in ranged until the 2nd turn. I'd consider it a minimum of 9 for 1000pts and 20 for 2000pt minimum reasonable. This is just from experience though.
 
#4 ·
They are taken into consideration in that you should be losing dark light weaponry at a rate similar to that at which your opponent is losing tanks. I'd agree that 9 and 20 are better at those points levels, but would argue that 8 and 16 respectively are the absolute do not ever ever drop below this minimum. Personally I run more than the minimum and in the range I would consider closer to optimum, which I'll put a long post up on later. 20 would be up at the low end of the optimum range, 9 still below it.

Additionally whilst Heat lances are a special case Blasters can be brought to bear turn one if neccessary, such as when facing a heavily mech force, through movement + disembarkation. Although this makes the squad carrying it more vulnerable. Also they will be able to be broguht to bear often if the opponent has first turn. Hope that clears up my reasoning somewhat.

Thanks for asking the question, making me think about and justify the things I'm spouting helps the eventual tactica be better as I'll realise when I've made a mistake.
 
#6 ·
IMO blasters should not count too much when discerning anti-tank unless you are pro* as they create a metric ton of issues with balanced list construction i you start assuming they are a viable source of anti-tank in their own right.

Same for heat lances they (like blasters) are good at what they do, but you cannot generally use them to their fullest as they are somewhat counter to the strengths lances have outside of their application on infantry. Infantry lances are a sadly overlooked area due to their icnrease over their old cost, when i nreality they remain a perfectly useable and (typically) cost effective choice.

*Read: spam the hell out of them, this usually creates totally diabolical lists designed to work on tables with bugger all cover, in which case you're not playing 40k how the ruleset is designed.
 
#7 ·
You know, I was a bit worried about playing my old Dark Eldar models because I thought they would limit me with the new rules but after reading your tactica articles I think I will be okay.
 
#9 ·
Omegabob said:
Totally agree about the troops. I usually always go with all 6 slots filled and I don't mean with just 30 guys. And all the squads that can get a Raider transport.
Just curious...would you count a Talos with TL Haywire blasters as anti-tank?
I don't count a talos at all.

While monstrous creatures that pop out of the webway are comical, I don't see it ever having more utility then a ravager. Period. We have a billion other options to kill infantry.
 
#11 ·
I wasn't planning on using the Talos for anti-infantry. I plan on using the Talos for anti-tank. Unless I'm mistaken when MCs hit vehicles in close combat they roll strength plus 2d6 for pen. With a good roll you could rip a Land Raider open with that or with a sub- or half-descent roll rip open just about any other transport vehicle (most of which have low rear armor). And with a Ravager, Razorwing, 4-6 Raiders and maybe some Venoms running around the Talos should get plenty of cover and use the TL Haywire blaster to stop tanks/transports from running away.
 
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#13 ·
Razorwings imxp are great all rounders, sure people have said 'oh they'll be dead by turn 2', but they forget we have several means to counter this, not least nightshields and flickerfields, put both on them (I know it's costly but hey...) and they are lethal. As soon as they arrive use the missiles (all of them) it's not exactly a waste as then if you did get unlucky and your opponent downs your fighter on his next turn you have already more than likely butchered an entire enemy squad, tha's one of his troops out of the way. The nightshields mean you are effectively 6" further away, so meltas more often than not won't work, and a 5+ invuln is more useful than people think for, since your opponent still has to penetrate/glance first to do any damage. I tend to hide mine near cover wheere possilble, not easy when something flies that high but it can sometimes be done if there are large buildings around.
Also back that up with a Ravager or a second Razorwing, the Ravager does some lethal damage too, and I go against the grain here, I tool mine up with 2 Dark Lances and a dis cannon, that way if troops are getting a bit close to her for comfort you let rip with the dis and mow a few down, and not only then, but with a shock prow you can knock them off the objectives, or the dis cannon can maybe dislodge them by killing enough to make them run.
 
#14 ·
Agreed if a Talos can get across the board into the fight he's money. Nothing does better than him in CC with a vehicle. Problem is terrain can make movement difficult, deployment can keep him in reserves 1st turn, and enemy can simply deploy away from him or run away. So if you figure that into perspective vs a ravager that can pretty much reach 48 inches with the 12 inch move and the 36 inch DL I don't see a talos as being better unless you run a WWP.
 
#15 ·
I don't see a talos as being better unless you run a WWP.
I agree the Talos doesn't have the speed or reach a Razorwing or Ravager does but I think it is still useful even without a WWP. A Necron player in my gaming group used to love to drop his monolith right in my backfield. He doesn't do that anymore against the Dark Eldar after a Talos with twin linked haywire blasters, chain flails and an extra close combat weapon got on it (granted I did get good rolls for the number of attacks and the attacks themselves). And when your enemy has a Razorwing, a Ravager and 2-4 Raiders to deal with they sometimes forget about that Talos creeping its way across the field. And don't forget a Talos is one of the few places we can get haywire blasters.
 
#16 ·
I hate to point this out, but aside from the Haywire Blaster it's actually impossible for a Talos to damage a Monolith due to the Living Metal special rule. The Lance special rule, as well as anything that causes extra penetration dice to be rolled (ie, Melta, Monstrous Creatures) have no effect on a monolith (Ordnance excepted, since it's rolling two and picking the highest). That said, a Talos really isn't a tank-killing threat if your opponent is good at screening. It is, however, an excellent distraction from your more valuable units - your troops and your ravagers.
 
#17 ·
Stradius, I think you mean the Heat Lance, as the Haywire Blaster is like a ranged haywire grenade, and thus one of the best guns in the game to mess with a monolith!

Honestly though, regarding the talos, as much as I LOVE the new model, I still can't find a place for it in any of my lists. Wondering if 6th ed will make them usefull.
 
#19 ·
Necron codex p.21 under Living Metal
"Similarly weapons that get extra penetration dice, (...monsterous creatures...) do not get the extra dice..."

So MCs like the Talos are not great at cracking open a Monolith, a haywire blaster will still screw with it though.
 
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