Hey folks!
I'm relocating articles I've written to the blog here, so while you may have read this before, I wanted it archived here.
Before the Tournament:
List Creation: If you're going to be playing in a tournament, you want to make sure that you have a "Take All Comers" list. Popular and powerful builds: Mechanized IG, Mechanized Spacewolves with Longfang Spam, TWC Spacewolves, Mechanized Blood Angels, Mechanized Eldar. Is your list capable of competing against these six builds? There are certainly others, but if you can stand toe-to-toe with those six builds, you'll be able to adapt and deal with other builds too. I don't want discussion about this article to devolve into a discussion of what makes a competitive list - there are a lot of theories about it, and it deserves its own thread - this isn't even a topic that can be summarized across all codices, but I list those six because they are amongst the most popular and the most likely that you're going to see across from you on the table in a competitive scene. The one thing I will offer here is that you should bring a list that you are comfortable playing (see my note on practice) - just because someone on the internet has had fantastic experience with a list doesn't mean that you are going to as well - a list is just a piece of your experience in a game; how you use it, what you face against, and your ability to adapt to changing needs on the table play a much bigger part. For example, I play a nonstandard Ork list that gets immense critique when I post it on the internet. It isn’t supposed to work, it isn't a netlist, but I have phenomenal experience with it because I'm intimately familiar with its strengths and weaknesses and what I need to do with it to pull out a win. Find what works for you, what you're comfortable playing, and tweak it and tweak it until you feel like it has the ability to face "all comers."
I'm relocating articles I've written to the blog here, so while you may have read this before, I wanted it archived here.
Before the Tournament:
List Creation: If you're going to be playing in a tournament, you want to make sure that you have a "Take All Comers" list. Popular and powerful builds: Mechanized IG, Mechanized Spacewolves with Longfang Spam, TWC Spacewolves, Mechanized Blood Angels, Mechanized Eldar. Is your list capable of competing against these six builds? There are certainly others, but if you can stand toe-to-toe with those six builds, you'll be able to adapt and deal with other builds too. I don't want discussion about this article to devolve into a discussion of what makes a competitive list - there are a lot of theories about it, and it deserves its own thread - this isn't even a topic that can be summarized across all codices, but I list those six because they are amongst the most popular and the most likely that you're going to see across from you on the table in a competitive scene. The one thing I will offer here is that you should bring a list that you are comfortable playing (see my note on practice) - just because someone on the internet has had fantastic experience with a list doesn't mean that you are going to as well - a list is just a piece of your experience in a game; how you use it, what you face against, and your ability to adapt to changing needs on the table play a much bigger part. For example, I play a nonstandard Ork list that gets immense critique when I post it on the internet. It isn’t supposed to work, it isn't a netlist, but I have phenomenal experience with it because I'm intimately familiar with its strengths and weaknesses and what I need to do with it to pull out a win. Find what works for you, what you're comfortable playing, and tweak it and tweak it until you feel like it has the ability to face "all comers."
