Guess who's back!! WFB & List building

Well I’m back. The brain juices are flowing and I have killed the Writer’s/Painting/Living Block.  Many thanks to the sledgehammer of ‘stuff’

Recently, the local players have been on a WFB kick.  We don’t know why we stopped playing 40k when the new edition came out, but we slowly migrated to WFB.  We even have a campaign in the works to ‘close’ out the season. 

The change in pace to WFB was fun and has raised a few interesting questions. List building it totally different in WFB!!!  In 40k you can (almost) just throw a list together and be able to do something with it. In WFB that same approach will leave you with a very disjointed list.  In building my lists, I personally take three (3) different approaches.

Approach #1 – What is this army’s theme going to be?

By theme I mean, what units does the army general prefer? How does he/she/it like to fight? Do they not choose any units do to a personal distaste?  Once I have decided I then pick units that suit the ‘flavour.  I still take time to include internal balance to the list.  This helps it be more flexible in its approach and on the table.  Whilst not an optimal way of choosing a list, it does make for some fun games. 

Approach #2 – What mood am I in today?

This approach is rather weird as it makes no rationale sense and can produce some weird list.  Sometimes I just can’t be bothered so randomly pick units that I think will be fun to play.  Once I have grabbed those units I add in some supporting elements then hope for the best.  It can sometimes produce an “all eggs in one basket (deathstar)” style list.  The list usually fails to have any real impact on the table but has been known to win games (only due to VPs).

Approach #3 – Who do I want to play today?

This is also known as List tailoring and I something I hardly do.  Why? I personally don’t think it is fair to the opponent and comes down to who has a unit the opponent may not have ever faced or how many of ‘x’ can I field that he can’t handle.  I only do this approach if I have an arranged game and we (both players) decided to play a competitive, no holding back game.

Additional Consideration: Does this list have a magic defence? If the answer is No, I will sometimes find a way to include atleast a basic mage, unless the list fluff doesn’t allow.  

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What approach should someone take?  The above are the ways I normal chose a list, but they are not the only ways out there.  I tend to like fluff over functionality so create a ‘reason for the battle’ before I build a list.  I personally, think that approach creates some good strong list, with an ability to be able to be fun.  I play for fun but that does not mean I don't like to win.