How To Write A COMPETITIVE (and BALANCED) Army List in 40k | Warhammer 40k Tactics

#Warhammer40k #tactics
Going over the types of units to include in a Warhammer 40k army list, and breaking down some competitive 40k army lists!
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Timeline:
00:00 Intro
2:28 Coarse Silly Bus
3:07 The Pentagon of Power!
4:33 Ranged DPS Units
6:19 Aggro/Disruption
8:21 Tank Units
9:45 Counterpunch Units
11:20 Utility/Support Units
13:26 Anomander's Space Wolves List Review
17:43 Kellen's Novokh Necrons List Review
21:42 Lockjaw's Martian Admech List Review
24:40 Trevy's Tyranids List Review
27:38 Nonstandard List Archetypes
30:56 Outro

[@nurglematthew893]

Trevy!!!! Killin the game, merkin the lames. Thank you for what you do. Rollin and trollin' with KNOWLEDGE AND FACTS !

[@real-lomas-chenko]

Another great video trevvy. It's made me have a good look at the dark angels list I've been getting ready and I think I'm pretty well covered. Maybe need an extra couple of utility units 🤔

[@TacticalTortoise]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@onthewall7]

Could you do a video about building smaller lists too? (500/1000)

[@stevanlezaja4203]

I would be very interested in this too, since warhammer is expensive :(

[@Colton_T]

That would be very nice

[@lamhuynh7201]

1000 pts and below is not balanced for game, it’s the point margin where if you’re using rulebook system it’s almost always end up with combo list that can clear 1000+ pts above/unkillable centerpiece list topping. At that point you’re just playing yugioh/modern but on bigger table and more bodies

[@kaibe5241]

@@stevanlezaja4203 lots of games around you can spend $300 or so and have a full army. And they have better rules ;)

[@BlootusWealth]

@@lamhuynh7201 "Tell me you're bad at warhammer without telling me you're bad at warhammer"

[@AniGaAG]

Between all the videos that just reiterate the rulebook basics ad nauseam (what detachments are, what CP are, what points are, etc...) when you search "w40k army building guide", thank Big E for this one, as it's _actually helpful_ and what I was looking for. Thanks, great video, really helpful.

[@rathstar]

Great video and breakdown. Another tool against hiding units is deep-striking firepower units, useful for armies without a good melee threat such as Tau. They are more important with the recent indirect fire nerf, as attacking from multiple angles makes it hard for the enemy to hide safely.

[@jonibarra22]

Thanks for all the tips, friend!

[@TacticalTortoise]

Cheers!

[@markbrand6746]

Be cool to see how this scales down to combat patrol tournaments. I think the distinctions are super helpful. Made me think about my Orks lists in a new light.

[@patricklowrie5089]

Excellent video! For us Necrons players. If you're using Veil of Darkness to move a 20 Warrior blob, remember that the bearer and the 20 Warriors must be set up Wholly Within 6" of each other. If your Warriors are on 32mm bases they will not all fit in the 6" circle. If I am incorrect please let me know.

[@odarkeq]

I found a way to make Wolfram Alpha do the math. You can fit 16 32mm bases in a 6" circle. 11 around the edge and 5 in the center. Good job noticing this.

[@patricklowrie5089]

@@odarkeq Thanks Jason for weighing in on this. This has confused me at times because I have seen Necron players use the Veil of Darkness in contradiction to how the rule reads. One example is that the Royal Warden was the bearer of the Relic and the Royal Warden used the Veil of Darkness on himself and a unit of 20 Warriors armed with Gauss Reapers. The player set the Warriors up in basically 2 ranks of ten with the Royal Warden just in behind the Warriors. However, the rule reads, "If two units are set back up on the battlefield using this Relic, both units must be placed wholly within 6" of each other." I understand this to mean that both the bearer and all the models in the second unit being 'teleported', must all be set up to fit entirely within the 6" circle. So, in your example, the Veil of Darkness could be used to 'teleport' 15 Warriors and 1 eligible character (assuming all models are on 32mm bases and assuming Wolfram Alpha is correct on the math). Let me know if you have a different take on it. Cheers.

[@R5h2x]

@@patricklowrie5089 Hey, just stumbled across this. According to my calculations, 6" = 152.4 mm So looking at the areas (A=pi*r^2) and the ratio of areas so we can ignore pi (and only considering the forward semi circle since you'll want your character at the back). I'm also assuming your character is a Chronomancer with a 40mm base. (0.5A - A(char))/A(unit) = (152.4^2 - 20^2)/(16^2 *2) = 44.5 Warriors. So you should be able to fit everything in easily. Let me know what you think!

[@OdinMagnus]

And here I thought my sisters army was just fun and goofy, but it meets all of the roles with at least 3 units. I even have the sisters fort that my retribution squad fires from.

[@samronco5133]

I'd like to see 18 tyranid warriors on the table top =D

[@TacticalTortoise]

I've got em in my case :)

[@stuartp2006]

I find it interesting that "tank" in gaming nomenclature means "big tough thing", whereas IRL a tank fulfills the role of cavalry and has lots of firepower for a given area and is quite fast and requires specialist equipment to take out (but also can be taken out by the driver steering too aggressively)

[@patriklarses512]

Great video. Really my main source of content and tactics for Tyranids. It really is not many sources for this, but this is awesome. Using the Pentagon it really seems that some units in the Tyranid codex really lack a clear role, and I think that confuses me a lot. While I play against other armies, their units really naturally fulfill many different roles. That said, how do you place a unit like the Carnifex? Which role does it fulfill?

[@TacticalTortoise]

Tyranids are pretty interesting because they have a combination of hyper-focused units that can only ever work in one capacity (like Hive Guard or Exocrines; they shoot really well, but do *nothing* else) and super-flexible units that can be built to do a bunch of different stuff (like Hive Tyrants or Carnifexes). Carnifexes in particular can be built for long range DPS, or short range/melee counterpunch. IMO the long range variants aren't very good tho.

[@sawyer6551]

I might have to try stealing your Tyranid list, been struggling pretty hard against my friends. Having a hard time in particular dealing with mass terminators and dreadnoughts, they seem to wade through my units with minimal losses and the dreadnoughts outshoot my exocrines and hive guard. Probably just poor playing on my part but any advice would be appreciated. Love your quality Tyranid content!

[@roaringlaughter3812]

Smite spam

[@bryanbrown5886]

Is there anywhere I can get access to the maps your using on TTS? I see them all the time in your vids and they look really cool.

[@TacticalTortoise]

tts40k.com/maps

[@JonBringer]

Hello Revy, I was wondering if my 1k sons list is okay?... Battelion/Cult of magic. Ahriman on disc, Daemon prince, exalted sorcerer on disc. 2x 10 rubic marines (s.cannon) 1x 10 tzaangar 2x 5 occult Termies (missile, s.cannon) Forgefiend (all the shooty) Magnus.

[@Backstabmacro]

It’s been fun discussing list viability and alterations on the Discord! If you’re not here, you should join...

[@kylewells6871]

Whats a good ratio for characters vs squads? I play deathgaurd and I've got a lot of sweet characters to choose from, I want to use them all! Problem is my characters come at a pretty good cost and I find myself being left with mostly characters towards turn 3-5. I love my terminators but they're expensive, I love mortarion but he's 1/4 of the list. To this point my list building has just been playing the units that I'm excited to play with. But I would like to be able to hang in a competitive setting. And personally I have a hard to time with smaller lists because of my relatively high points costs, I don't get a whole lot of table presence for 500-1000pts. I don't want to be forced to use a bunch of poxwalkers, poxwalkers are good but they're slow, no shooting, can only do (spread the sickness) action, and you pretty much have to be running term est to get the most out of them. They are super fun to use in term est but at the cost of no vehicles or mortarion.

[@Delphineas]

Does this apply to newbies as well? Or should we build what we like first to get a handle of the rules and how units handle in general and go from there? Obviously no one enjoys getting their teeth smashed in, so attempt to stay away from terrible units, but... I have a 1k Sisters army halfway built. Trying to get them all assembled so a local wargamer can take them and airbrush prime them. Building out to 2k points on Batlescribe has been giving me fits as I do want to wait for the Palatine and Paragons, whatever role that might be.

[@cwwisch]

You probably wont see this but how do you get that gas-like aura effect, I know how to get the rings but not the effect you have

[@D6Mafia]

I think it would be helpful to show a list that looks fine on the outside but then show how it doesn't fill all the roles

[@control745]

I'm kinda confused about Counterpunch. Maybe I'm overthinking it. So can anything technically qualify as a Counterpunch unit? Like basically they will be sitting back waiting to hit your opponent so any unit can do that

[@dashohoman2505]

And all I had to hear was exclusive content behind a paywall. And I'm willing to bounce have a good one y'all.

[@akumaking1]

I’m thinking about building an army based around Trazyn the Infinite that’s also lore friendly. Any advice?

[@MegaBsterling]

You've mentioned "deep strike" a few times, i can't find reference to it on wahapedia, is it a codex specific thing or just a player invented terminology to describe things like drop pods and teleporter-esque things? And would drop pods/teleporter units have to be declared in the strategic reserves list before battle now as well?

[@TacticalTortoise]

It's just a colloquialism for anything that reinforces anywhere on the table during the game game (like drop pods/teleport/manta strike etc). Deep Strike was the name of the mechanic in older editions.

[@bookys1237]

What’s the space marine chapter used for the thumb nail

[@erikwhitney7403]

Hi everyone. I watched this video which is awsome info. I created two chaos army lists on battlescribe before really building an army. would like suggestions where to get help on my lists. Not sure if I can post on here?

[@alagass6466]

You wouldn't be planning on making a small app or even a PDF download for this sort of thing?

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

Do these principals work for Kill Team?

[@michaelironrider9443]

Nice video! What is the difference between YT membership and patreon regarding the 4€ tier, do I get the same content? Thx

[@TacticalTortoise]

Yep! Same content; YT membership gets you some extra emojis and stuff, while Patreon gives you access to the member-only Discord channel and other rewards on the Discord server.

[@michaelironrider9443]

@@TacticalTortoise thx! Thats interesting because you can technically synchronise Discord with YT channel so you dont need to manually update it with fluctuating members. I will then join YT, I like their conditions more than patreon 👍😀

[@thorstenpaskert2090]

can you please tell me which mod adds the circle areas around the models for auras and similar? i really could need such a thing for my DeathGuard contagions. Thanks and N1 Video!!

[@TacticalTortoise]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/epuldHuKpcyMoq8

[@benmccanain5504]

I've gone from Death Guard to Blood Angels... shooting, not really either army's thing 😂

[@Henticore]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought in Nephilim Transport need to transport units, when they are set up on the field, but there are no eligible units for the Land Speeder Storms in the Space Wolves List. What do I miss here? 😅

[@TacticalTortoise]

Probably the date that the video was uploaded...

[@Henticore]

@@TacticalTortoise yupp 😅😅 that one is on me. Thanks for the answer, though. Keep up the great content and I'll start checking the dates on the videos more thoroughly.

[@user-tc9sk4ei9y]

Hey, check out my 750 pts DG list for a small upcoming tourney: plaguecaster (with extra mortal wounds from the Wretched company upgrades), 10 poxwalkers, 5 plaguemarines w/blight launcher, 5 blightlords w/flail, 2 haulers. Pretty sure I've got everything covered: haulers for ranged dps and a bit of disruption, plaguecaster for counterpunch with damaging spells, poxwalkers as pure support objective holders and termies plus marines as tanks (the former being more counterpunchy tanks and the latter being supporting tanks).

[@mikzpwnz_3199]

Why not have one of the plaguecaster's powers be miasma of pestilence? Keeping a defensive power to have some control over what your enemy will shoot at goes a long way.

[@user-tc9sk4ei9y]

@@mikzpwnz_3199 plaguecaster will probably pick miasma and curse of leper as the go-to powers plus plague wind in case of occasional boyz or 'cron warriors en masse (the wretched upgrade strat gives the third power). I could go for the gift of plagues as the third one but I don't think it will make me any good as I don't take a company contagion (and I have little antihorde tools in the roster). Plus I strongly consider taking the plague skull relic for termie champ in order to dish out even more extra mortal wounds in a dire situation.

[@superjake5126]

What game is that in the background?

[@ColeNOXyd2nd]

Do you think the following SM list ist viable on 1500pt? 3x 3 Outriders 2x 3 Bladeguard Veterans 1x Bladeguard Ancient 2x Judicar 1x Primaris Captain with PS and Shield 1x Primaris Lietenant with PS and Shield 2x 5 Assault Intercessors 2x 5 Intercessors

[@ColeNOXyd2nd]

white scars btw

[@leegarner4592]

@@ColeNOXyd2nd think about what you're missing from the pentagon...

[@pigzy9807]

Looks ok, but I would drop at least one Judicar, you have (5 characters), one of the intercessor units, if you are going for a captain on foot get khan for the +1 to wound, with banner of eagle on the ancient, that's some good wound rolls. You could also consider a reaver Lt instead of the bladegaurd Lt, he can turn off objsec with a strat. With the points you save there, you should be able to grab a chappy on bike, maybe some vanguard vets with storm shields. If these are the models you just have, it looks like you a bunch of indomitus boxes? So I would consider some eradicators, the list has no AT and not much good shooting, they are great in WS.

[@Colton_T]

I like it

[@cadasshada9732]

Me just running pure guard infantry.....wins by time XD

[@tardigrade8019]

you drown your foes with your blood.

[@stevanlezaja4203]

Use your flashlights to outshine the astronomican

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

What is the 40k virtual tabletop on the vid?

[@TacticalTortoise]

tts40k.com

[@JakeDogg-RIP]

Still 4 hours! 🙄😪 will have to watch tomorrow, getting late... looking forward to this one tho 😁

[@cameronlemon8506]

how can the space wolf librarian take those three powers? that's an illegal pick

[@TacticalTortoise]

Tome of Malcador allows it to take an additional power out of Librarius or Tempestas.

[@fortdimitri2365]

Buy every custodian infantry set FUCK YEAAAAAAAAH

[@Andrew-wg6um]

Is he playing on Tabletop Simulator?

[@TacticalTortoise]

Yep! :) Come join us @ tts40k.com :)

[@spilnukim38]

I like your vids.. but some armies just havent units to fill your 5 roles... ex. Demons ? If you wanna play mono khorne demons ex. ? Ok you can take some chaos SM or something but mono stuff Arent doing it.. but would like you 2 hear what you think could work ?? ... other armies just have it so easy to make balanced liste.. Just saying 😂

[@trollzynisaacjohan1793]

never take a mono god list, Won't work. You need the range tzeentch provides at least.

[@stormisuedonym4599]

"If I deliberately hamper myself by using only a quarter of a codex, I can't easily fill all roles!" Top-tier smarts, right there.

[@markus3710]

lele ...just megaspam meta units and you annoy your opponent to death. eez win.

[@MrHerky61]

What game is this? Like what virtual 40K is it

[@TacticalTortoise]

Https://tts40k.com

[@Maishian]

I'm waiting for someone to make an AI in a program like this, that play tests every possible army composition (like the dota AI) to come up with the most broken over power army ever :)

[@genericprofile2381]

who need balancing get more artillery

[@marcelwachter1764]

Greetings from Germany Brothers!

[@TacticalTortoise]

Hello!

[@Matthewcahill86]

Guten abend!

[@FrogEnjoyer17]

Tuten Gag

[@JakeDogg-RIP]

9 hours 😫😖

[@davidneo3940]

How to write a competitive army list in 40K. Step 1: Play Space marines or broadly Imperium Step 2: Slay Xenos Scum Step 3: ??? Step 4: World Championship.

[@Direbeetus]

Drukhari have entered the chat

[@roaringlaughter3812]

Make the list as cheesy as possible. Done