Will the Real Army List Please Stand Up

Just like the Joker card in Dark Knight.  How come army lists are all the same or extremely similar?

I’ve been looking at several 40k blogs learning as much as I can about this game.  How to use units.  Hold objectives.  Bait your opponent into a trap.  Reading the occasional BatRep and looking at the army lists involved.  Probably like many people I don’t pay much attention to the army list unless I play the army.  Presently those are Dark Eldar and Necrons.  I’ve been working on my Necron list.  Taking out what I think doesn’t work in the list or with my play style.  I’m starting to find my play style.  Something a player of my years in the game should know by now.  Perhaps my play style has changed.

My Eldar, first army, in mid-90’s was shooty.  Long range shooting.  Very little H2H, hand-to-hand.  Since then I have been playing a much closer game.  Still not H2H orientated.  It’s getting there.

Since Fantasy Flight’s pre-adepticon 1850 tourny I’ve been working on my Necron list.

This is what I ran back in March.

List v1.1 1850

Imotehk the Stormlord

Orikan the Diviner       

2x 10 Necron Warrior 

1 C’Tan Shard            

Writhing Worldscape   

Grand Illusion  

1 C’Tan Shard            

Entropic Touch

            Time’s Arrow              

5 Canoptek Scarabs    

5 Canoptek Scarabs    

5 Necron Destroyers   

1 Necron Monolith      

1x 3 Canoptek Spyder, 1x gloom prism, 1x fabricator claw

First game was great.  Only one Immobilised Rhino left on the field.  Second game Dark Eldar rocked me.  Third game Imperial Guard also cleaned my clock.  Not as soundly as Dark Eldar though.

Had my buddy Simon look at the list afterwards.  He suggested to drop one C’Tan.  Have more scoring units.  Definitely beef up scarabs from 5 to 10.  Spend two turns generating one scarab squad then send them in.  Next two turns generate scarabs for second squad.  Add Cryptek with tremorstave to take advantage of Writhing Worldscape the entire game.

List v1.2 2k version (first Necron/Daemons BatRep on my blog)

Imotehk the Stormlord

Orikan the Diviner

2xHarbinger of Transmogrification, tremorstave
1x10 Necron Warrior
1x 5 Necron Warrior

1 C’Tan Shard            

Writhing Worldscape   

Grand Illusion  

1 C’Tan Shard            

Entropic Touch

            Time’s Arrow

2x10 Canoptek Scarabs

1 Necron Monolith      

2x 3 Canoptek Spyder, 1x gloom prism, 1x fabricator claw

List v1.3 2k new version (last game)

Imotehk the Stormlord

Orikan the Diviner

2xHarbinger of Transmogrification, tremorstave

1xHarbinger of Eternity, chronometron

2x 5 Necron Warrior (Natfka’s voice goes through my head “Not enough scoring units”)

1 C’Tan Shard            

Writhing Worldscape

6 Canoptek Wraiths, 3x whip coil, 1x particle caster, 1x beamer

10 Canoptek Scarabs

5 Necron Destroyers

1 Necron Monolith

2x 3 Canoptek Spyder, 1x gloom prism, 1x fabricator claw

List v1.4 2k new, new version (hopefully ready for next game)

Imotehk the Stormlord

Orikan the Diviner

2xHarbinger of Transmogrification, tremorstave

1xHarbinger of Eternity, chronometron

2x 5 Necron Warrior (voice still goes through my head)

1 C’Tan Shard            

Writhing Worldscape

2x 6 Canoptek Wraiths (buddy Simon would be proud), 3x whip coil, 1x particle caster, 1x beamer

10 Canoptek Scarabs

1 Necron Monolith

2x 3 Canoptek Spyder, 1x gloom prism, 1x fabricator claw

Version 1.4 is the list that I came up with while playing Bryan’s daemons.  The Wraiths were awesome in tearing down a Daemon Prince.  Want to have a squad of 6 tear down Skarbrand.  I'm sure those little ghostly robots will love Skarbrands re-roll failed to hit rolls.  Even now I can hear their ghostly howls of joy.

Building an army list never appealed to me.  I believed you buy the models you liked or thought were good.  Build your list and kept on using it til you found out how it worked.  This lead to my 3rd ed Necrons losing A LOT before I started understanding how they worked.  Once I figured out my strategy the list worked dandy!  It was a great list.  So there are two way to make a "winning list."  Slowly put together a list, modifying as you go learning what works and doesn't work or beat your head into a wall until you figure it out.  As we know, one way is extremely more efficient!  There are more than two ways to build a list.  Was just illustrating a point.

Then Bryan and I started playing....  Never before did army list building matter to me.  Even for my Dark Eldar.  I have my list of Dark Eldar and through playing will figure out how to use them effectively.  I feel Bryan has challenged me to make a stronger, better list.  I mean come on.  How dare he try to make a me a better player. The nerve!

Now that I've looked through blogs taking in as much as I can, I see a list very similar to my own.  Its a 1850 list.  Which I would probably lose the Monolith.  Then list would be practically the same.

Back to the crux of the post.  Are army lists only built one way?  It seems eventually most lists end up looking similar.  I found a list very much like my own.  Guess it bugs me a bit when everyone is playing almost the same army.  That is my issue to deal with.

Quick note.  Couple of Fridays ago I saw these two guys playing 40k while we were RPG'ing.  Most of the models were unpainted.  The models were just placed on the table.  None of the units were using cover.  Unit coherency wasn't specific.  The guys were moving models across the table, rolling dice and removing models without tactics.  The best thing is they were having fun!  Damn, I miss those days.  The days of heavy weapon teams running across the table to attack a unit with their fists.  The days of not using the transport feature of a vehicle.  Nostalgia is a good friend.

Another quick note.  Nostalgia should Not be trusted.  Couple of years ago when I started Netflix my first movie was one I remembered from my youth.  Thought the airplane in it was the best thing ever.  Received Firefox put in the PS3 and wow, what a slow, barely interesting and terribly boring movie!  While watching it I took Transformers the Movie along with several others off my queue.

slainte mhath