WFB: Building a Tournament Fantasy List.
by Jordan Braun
Building a tournament fantasy list is a whole other can of worms when it comes to army construction. There is a lot of factors to consider. Today I want to point out a few factors I consider when making an army list for my next tournament.
- Objective of the List
- Magic Offense/Magic Defense
- Model count/Unit count
- Answers for Popular Units
When your making an army you should have a style or purpose in mind. What I mean by this is you want to achieve a victory in certain way. Not to say there is only 1 route to a win ,but, a general tactic or method to get there when building your list. A couple of list objectives are:
Point denial/deathstar list: In this kind of list you have the majority of your points in a single unit or character. This could be a hard to kill unit with all your characters in it like 30 dark elf shades including a dreadlord, 3 masters, and an assassin. Another point denial list could be a sorcerer lord on a dragon for warriors of chaos. Coming in around 700 points it is very hard to kill if kept at range.
Another list objective could be dominance in a certain phase. Taking multiple casters with devastating spells for magic dominance. This could be gunline dwarf list for dominance in the shooting phase. Or it could be MSU list with dominance in the movement phase. Have a build in mind before you start adding up points. This way you won’t necessarily stray off course by adding units/characters that don’t contribute to your objective.
Magic is big in 7th edition. There are a few spells out there can really ruin your or your opponents day. There also are some new spam builds these days that bombard you with little spells overwhelming your magic defense. Magic is a huge topic that I can go on and on about.
Just some generally categorising is : Defensive is usually 2 level 1s with 4 scrolls. Heavy Defensive is 2 scrolls 6+dispel dice. Moderate is 6+ powerdice. Heavy is 9+ powerdice. Of course with each army all kinds of items and abilities can come into play. Becalming cogitation, Ring of Hotek, etc.
Have a plan when building the list.
In tournaments I would say either go defensive or offensive. Moderate magic doesn’t accomplish much. You won’t get past heavy defensive and you won’t be able to stand up vs. heavy offensive.
This is mainly considering what kind of casualties you can expect. A very small army may have trouble making it across the board against shooting or lasting through 6 turns of magic. Consider that some tournaments have objective based scenarios. Do you have a US5 unit or a large US unit that can survive the battle and claim this objective. Table quarters are worth 400 victory points. Consider having at least 2 units that only job is to sit back and claim. Chaos hounds are notorious for this in Warriors/Beast lists.
Alright so you made a list. Ask yourself these questions?
- Does your list have something that can take on a hydra/hellpit?
- Can you take on a large flyer(Thirster/stardragon)?
- Do I have enough magic defense or can I kill wizards fast enough?
- Can I take on plaguebearers/drakenholf banner units?
- Does my list have the tools to kill multiple stegadons/warshrines?
- Can I take on blackguard lead by a pendant wearer?
- If your using magic can you overcome Ring of Hotek?
- Do you have magic attacks/spells to kill wraiths?
No list is perfect. Every list will have a problem with something. The best you can do is prepare for the most threats and have a plan versus your weakness. My skaven have very little answer for regenerating units. My plan in that case is to stay away and feed that unit slaves. Its a simple plan and doesn’t depend on dice rolls.
That’s my $.02 BoLS. How does this compare with your list building techniques and do have any further refinements for the class? Your turn.
