# List-Building



## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

A lot of problems I generally see with the lists that have been posted here or elsewhere, is generally a problem of army balance, so I thought I'd go over it in a Tactica. And, before you say it, no, I don't mean balance as in game balance.

What I'm talking about, is the ratios of various types of units in an army. And, to begin with, I'll list what these various types are, and their function in a list.

Magic Characters: These are one of the most versatile roles, depending on the lores available, but their general purpose is a combination of support and damage. 

Support Characters: Notice I put support, rather than combat. This is because a combat character won't do very well in this edition, and must have another role to fulfill. As most players know, this is either a high-leadership general, or a battle-standard. Alternatively, characters can do well in certain death-star setups.

Anvils: These are your generic, hard-to-kill infantry blocks. Either with numbers, or a good armor save, or both, these are meant to survive. Oftentimes these can be good recipients of buffs, allowing them the offensive power to kill something, or enough added defensive power to outlast anything.

Hammers: On the flip-side, these are your hard-hitters. Generally, these are more fragile infantry blocks, but as many people can attest, this also can include buses of hard-to-kill cavalry, or certain infantry like Chaos Warriors. Noone would deny those are hammers.

Flankers/Warmachine Hunters: These are your fast, small, and generally ranged units, although this varies. This also includes smaller blocks of ranged infantry, where larger blocks would probably go into the anvil category. These are used to deal with pesky warmachines, grab flanks to secure a combat's victory, wear down units with shooting, or to run down fleeing units.

Now, on to the part people seem to have trouble with, the balance of all of these. Obviously the exact balance depends on army, but there are a few hard and fast rules you can go by.

The first of these, is that the majority of your army should be either Hammers or Anvils. This is where specific army strengths come into play. A Lizardmen player will field significantly more Anvils, as they lack good dedicated hammers, while a Dark Elf player will often field nothing but Hammers. As a fast rule though, around half to two thirds of your army should be made up of these.

Next, characters, and the more important ones, wizards, are first. Generally, you'll want one level 2 for up to 1000 points, and one level 4 for higher than that. If your army has specific tools to assist with power dice, you can add more, usually another level 2 at higher points games. Some examples of these are Power of Darkness for Dark Elves, and a number of +1 power dice dealies for other armies.

Now, for support characters. Generally, you'll want around a third of your army to be characters, giving or taking some, depending on how good your characters actually are, and the synergy with your list. And, frankly, these characters come after any wizards. Once you have a good amount of magic, think about putting these in.

The most important of the two archetypes is the BSB. Do *not* forget to put these guys in, if you have the points. The rerolls for leadership increase the resilience of your army by a good deal, and they're a good buy for every army.

As for building them, here's the problem. Almost every single one will be Hero level, and they're going to be fragile. You'll almost never want to put a magical banner on one of these, as that's a quick way to get killed, though certain armies have banners that are good enough, or characters that are good enough to get away with this. Regardless, pack them up with defensive items and you're gold.

As for your general, apart from usual character-building techniques, make sure you have a body-guard for them. Generals are often very good in a proper Hammer unit, though take care to make sure they're not so fragile the General is on his own the latter half of the battle!

Now, the one that usually gets overlooked, flankers and warmachine hunters. Rather than being a certain percentage of your list, I'll just say that you should probably have 1 or 2 of these per every thousand points, for a generalist list. Warmachines are a powerful force, especially in the new edition, and you'll always want some of these to mitigate this effect.

Anyways, I believe I've gone over everything. C&C welcome, if anyone gives particularly good ideas, I'll update the thread with them. Thanks for reading!


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Interesting read.



Masked Jackal said:


> Now, for support characters. Generally, you'll want around a third of your army to be characters, giving or taking some, depending on how good your characters actually are, and the synergy with your list. And, frankly, these characters come after any wizards. Once you have a good amount of magic, think about putting these in.


I assume, given the limits on percentage spend, that you mean 1/3 by number of characters to number of other units; however even then I can see that being difficult to achieve for some armies; for instance, WoC characters are expensive.

I attempt to overcome this by stacking roles; for instance plan to put your BSB in your low Ld unit so he gives a Ld boost and a reroll.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Dave T Hobbit said:


> Interesting read.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, the exact number varies due to the army a lot. WOC characters cost quite a bit, while Orcs and Gobbos could fit several characters in for a similar amount of points. Generally, the more you invest, the more you want that character to be a swiss army knife. 

Using a BSB as you said is a good example, he buffs the unit by being able to take on a few nasty things they can't, provides leadership, and gives the reroll. Conversely, cheap characters can be taken to fulfill very specific roles, which can be a large number of things, usually cutting apart monsters, or being used to provide channeling benefits under certain army builds.


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## Atreyu (May 30, 2011)

> The first of these, is that the majority of your army should be either Hammers or Anvils. This is where specific army strengths come into play. A Lizardmen player will field significantly more Anvils, as they lack good dedicated hammers, while a Dark Elf player will often field nothing but Hammers. As a fast rule though, around half to two thirds of your army should be made up of these.


As said before this is an interesting read and most is very understandable. This specifically is where i start to fail to understand. If were looking for balance why would you have to focus on one or the other??? Why cant we find a balance of both. Lizards for example are perfect. There anvils are blocks of saurus that can provide support through the whole game, with stegadons saurus cavalry and even there hunting packs as there hammers to give them the winning edge in combat. Dark Elves too. There mass of Corsairs/Warriors as a hammer with there cavalry or basically any of there special choices flooding in to finish it out.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Atreyu said:


> If were looking for balance why would you have to focus on one or the other??? Why cant we find a balance of both.


Balance is different from equal proportions; as hammers and anvils can perform some of the same tasks they can overlap.

You can have equal amounts of hammers and anvils if you wish; however, some armies are easier to field with mostly anvil or mostly hammer.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Atreyu said:


> Lizards for example are perfect. There anvils are blocks of saurus that can provide support through the whole game, with stegadons saurus cavalry and even there hunting packs as there hammers to give them the winning edge in combat.


Saurus Cavalry are terrible, Stegadons are better in support, and Hunting Packs are terrible in combat. Like Jackal says, Lizardmen lack good hammers, in the case of Lizardmen, Saurus and Temple Guard are the anvils *and* hammers, hell they're the entire freaking forge, the Slann is the Blacksmith, and Hunting Packs+Skinks are the fire. I might just write that down...

As for the DE, pretty much all their units hit like a motherfucker, but even their anvils take casualties by the bucketful, so they'll take more hammers in order to hit first and hit harder. What we mean by 'Balance' is the ability to deal with anything our opponent sends our way, not a mish-mash of different units. If a unit fills multiple roles, and does them well, then taking several of them means that the list is more balanced than one that takes several different units that, whilst typified as a particular unit type, do their job averagely.


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