Ideal army composition

[Mackenzie]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the ideal army composition in percentages for semi-competitive to competitive 2000 point games for us.

 

I have played a lot of games of 8th and about 30 or so games with the codex thus far trying out most of the popular builds as well as some straight up wacky stuff just to try things out. My local games and players are all over the road from not competitive at all to pretty brutal. Most of the games I have lost have been to the more hardcore lists and hordes (big time tyranid spankings).

 

So I have been looking over a lot of the tournament lists and the lists that I have lost to and trying to find something in the maths that is less obvious. From what I can gather on average the “better” or at least more reliable lists to my eye have around 30-35% troops out of their 2000pts vs our average of 11-20%. It also appears their average army breakdown trends more toward 30-35% elites ~20%HQs and about 10-20% spread through heavy support fast attack or flyers etc. whilst our expenditure on elites is somewhere near 40-45 or even 50% which seems like too many eggs in one basket.

 

My thought is that our “ideal” composition while still putting up 9+ Cps to get our strats fed would be a minimum of 30-35% troops, and a maximum of 30-35% elites. My example list I am going to try out this week vs nids is:

 

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Imperium - Blood Angels) [83 PL, 1490pts] ++

 

+ HQ +

 

Captain [6 PL, 129pts]: 2. Artisan of War, Jump Pack, Storm shield, The Angel's Wing (replaces jump pack), Thunder hammer, Warlord

 

Chief Librarian Mephiston [8 PL, 145pts]

 

+ Troops +

 

Scout Squad [4 PL, 55pts]

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

 

Tactical Squad [9 PL, 167pts]

. 7x Space Marine

. Space Marine (Heavy weapon): Heavy flamer

. Space Marine (Special weapon): Flamer

. Space Marine Sergeant: Combi-flamer

 

Tactical Squad [9 PL, 151pts]

. 8x Space Marine

. Space Marine (Heavy weapon): Plasma cannon

. Space Marine Sergeant: Bolt pistol and boltgun

 

+ Elites +

 

Death Company [18 PL, 232pts]: Jump Pack

. Death Company Marine: Thunder hammer

. Death Company Marine: Thunder hammer

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

. Death Company Marine: Bolt pistol and chainsword

 

Death Company Dreadnought [9 PL, 174pts]: Blood talons, Meltagun, Smoke launchers, Storm bolter

 

+ Flyer +

 

Stormraven Gunship [15 PL, 352pts]: 2x Stormstrike missile launcher, Twin assault cannon, Twin multi-melta

. Two hurricane bolters: 2x Hurricane bolter

 

+ Dedicated Transport +

 

Drop Pod [5 PL, 85pts]: Storm bolter

 

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Imperium - Blood Angels) [30 PL, 510pts] ++

 

+ HQ +

 

Lemartes [7 PL, 129pts]

 

Lieutenants [5 PL, 85pts]

. Lieutenant: Chainsword, Jump Pack, Plasma pistol

 

+ Troops +

 

Scout Squad [4 PL, 55pts]

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout: Boltgun

. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Boltgun

 

Tactical Squad [9 PL, 151pts]

. 8x Space Marine

. Space Marine (Heavy weapon): Plasma cannon

. Space Marine Sergeant: Bolt pistol and boltgun

 

Tactical Squad [5 PL, 90pts]

. 3x Space Marine

. Space Marine (Heavy weapon): Lascannon

. Space Marine Sergeant: Bolt pistol and boltgun

 

++ Total: [113 PL, 2000pts] ++

 

Created with BattleScribe

 

My overall hope is that this configuration and approach will give me enough punch, as well as enough endurance to have a reliable take all comers list.

 

Your thoughts brothers ?

Edited February 23, 2018 by Mackenzie

[Brother Crimson]

Hi, I do not think there is a magic recipe but most armies have all of the following:

 

1- you need something to cover the board to grab objective and have some control over where the enemy can deploy. Usually this goes with scouts and intercessor for me. I like intercessor a lot because they are hard to remove for what they cost and scout deployment is awesome.

 

2- you need two type of firepower units: one that can deal with lots of cheap units, one that can deal with heavy armor. Recipe varies but a common blood angel way is death company and sanguinary guard. Heavy bolter devastators and predators inceptor/lascannons dev etc.

 

3- you need CP, try to fill bataillons or brigade.

 

4- choose your HQ depending on play style. Try to get the most of of them. For exemple if you have a sanguinor try to run lots of melee.

 

As for your specific list there is a sub section just for list discussion. You might want to post it there as well.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Brother Crimson

[Panzer]

I don't think you can compare armies like that.

Not every army has the same options for the same costs in the same sections and each army has different traits, stratagems, relics etc. that affect the list a lot.

 

Edit:

Also just looking at the Troop selection in your list it's all over the place.

Flamer tacs aren't good, lascannon tacs need redundancy (like ~4 of them), plasma tacs are okay but i've never seen people praise them so i'd rather take a heavy bolter squad instead.

Also why play them 10 big if you aren't going to take a second special/heavy weapon and why don't the sergeants have anything? If you play a big squad you should go all out with it.

Scouts are great but only two units won't get you very far. Either saturate the board with them to establish controle, or take something else. Imo if you take Scouts you want at least 50% or more of your troop choices to be Scouts.

Edited February 23, 2018 by sfPanzer

[Indefragable]

Echoing what the others have said: I think you’re analyzing things for the sake of analysis. Why do BA lists tend to have 50% Elites? Because 50% of our entire book is in the Elites section.

 

I also agree with sfpanzer’s analysis: the list you posted feels all over the place. I don’t see any reason to take large Tac squads in 8th: if you’re going for crunch, then min-max the heck out of those dudes.

[Fahlnor]

I'm not a fan of internet wisdom regarding which units are good and which aren't. I think that what is important is what your units can do and how you use them. To that end, I've decided to stay away from the "Flamer tacs aren't good", etc., which is often stated as fact here and elsewhere online. For example, see Lawrence Baker (Tabletop Tactics) winning No Retreat! with Dark Eldar in 7th, winning GW's GT Heat One with five Tactical Squads and placing well at 2018 LVO with around 90 Eldar Guardians.

 

What I do think is valuable is evaluating how or why something works (or doesn't work). Your analysis doesn't touch on why you think the lists have been designed that way or how they are being used to best effect. At this point, your data is about as useful as noting that 37% of winning armies are painted red, or that 62% of winning armies contain no Finecast.

 

I'm not going to say your list is good or bad, but I will say that your analysis so far doesn't seem to actually achieve anything. I would be very interested in hearing the results of further investigation, though. What is it about Troops which makes successful armies bring them? How are they being used? Why is 50% too large an investment in our Elites? Do all of the Elites function in the same way, perhaps? Maybe we are spending points on units which all do the exact same thing and are leaving ourselves exposed in other aspects of the game. What's the counter to the standard breakdown of lists? If winning lists tend to have large numbers of Troop choices, perhaps there's something we can start doing which would counter that element of the meta?

[Xenith]

The ideal army composition has enough punch to cripple the enemy, with enough troops to be resilient and claim objectives. 

 

If you keep losing objective games, then you need more troops, or to change your tactics to focus on killing opposing troops. 

[Brother Crimson]

I think this could be an opportunity to discuss what can work or how lists are used. And there was a question I have been asking myself for a while. How did Alex Fennell managed to make his list work at LVO?

 

I think this could be a good analysis because it is unconventional.

 

For reference the list was:

 

Deathwolf herald

4 space wolf lord

Space Wolf battle leader

2 captain hammertime

Mephiston

6 infantry squads with mortars

Platoon commander

Cyberwolf

Quad launcher

1 of each assassin.

 

This is 1500 point in characters (including assassins) so we are far from traditional army lists.

[Panzer]

Well it's pretty obvious how that list works. Some cheap infantry squads to get CP and claim objectives and all the beatstick characters he could find.

What placement did he end up with? It was just short of top10 iirc, no?

[Brother Crimson]

No that list made the top 8. He lost on quarterfinal against Eldar (its the controversial match)

[tychobi]

I split up my lists for analysis by optimal target and then choose a platform that presents a target priority issue to my opponent or a needed strategic advantage.

 

The part of the codex that my need is fulfilled from means little outside of hq and troops tax for cp generation. I don't care if my anti multiple wound model firepower comes out of flyer or heavy or troops, that choice is directed by what kind of target I want to provide a foe or a style choice.

 

The role designations dictated by the codex reflect list building restrictions more than battlefield role in my opinion. Blood Angel elites can fill so many tabletop roles for instance. Your "fast attack" anti tank, anti infantry, support, warlord, short+ midrange shooting, heavy and med infantry, med armor, 3++ spam, deep striker shenanigans are all serviciably provided by our elite slot. You can build a cohisive, workable (if not matched legal) army out of nothing but elit's.

 

1st consideration should is rule of cool. Then let the light of reality guide you to an actual painted tabletop representation of that cool idea. For competitive players the "Cool" idea may be to win tons of games. Process remains

[Panzer]

No that list made the top 8. He lost on quarterfinal against Eldar (its the controversial match)

The controversial match was the pure BA list tho ..

[Calistarius]

 

No that list made the top 8. He lost on quarterfinal against Eldar (its the controversial match)

The controversial match was the pure BA list tho ..

 

He's referring to the match with Alex and Tony.  The one with Alex making the deepstriking mistake in the first turn that crippled the rest of his game. Alex is the one that had 1500 points of characters (3 of which were BA).

 

I saw this army composition when I was watching the top 8 games take place.  I couldn't figure out how he made it so far with this list, but it just shows you that you can give a really good player basically anything on the table top. His success is inspiring, to say the least.  It also makes me question the legitimacy of the "character spam is bad" argument.  

Edited February 25, 2018 by Calistarius

[Panzer]

Don't know what mistake he's supposed to have made then. The only one I know about is from the pure BA list where he charged the eldar flyer which in return exploded and took out half of the eldar army early on.

[Calistarius]

It was a Chaos Fire Raptor buddy. The pure BA player played against a Chaos player during the final round of the 2nd day. That’s the game that had the mistakes.

 

The first round of the final 8 players was when the major LVO controversy took place. I don’t want to go into the whole thing again, but it was an hour long first turn followed by an out of sequence deepstrike in the movement phase of the 2nd player. Loads of drama. That’s what is being referred to here.

[Panzer]

Ah or that. Really can't remember all the small details anymore lol

[Panzer]

Also oh you'e talking about that one game. I thought you were referring to something else. Was that really the character spam ba soup and not the other ba soup? I thought it was the other one that did so well.

[Calistarius]

I mean there were 3 players that made it to the final 8 that used key BA elements, so that’s pretty good! Lol, but yeah it was the character spam, BA w/ Guardsmen, and pure BA in the final rounds.

 

The character spam list made it to the semi finals, which blows my mind.

[Panzer]

golly gee just noticed my post got split for some reason. It was actually a single post without any merging or editing or whatever. 

[Jolemai]

Not guilty :)

[Panzer]

Oh and it seems I learned something new that gets caught by the swear filter. Nice! :D

[MeltaRange]

My rules for army composition are as follows.  Typically I subscribe to a lot of what Lawrence @Tabletop Tactics preaches.

 

1. Screening/Drop Zone Control so you can get your jump troops into position to do what they do best: charge.
2. Some kind of effective Assault.  Blood Angels certainly aren't lacking here, but the assault element must mesh well with your ranged firepower. (e.g. Lots of small arms firepower to clear screens, high powered melee attacks coming out of reserve to mop up the units being screened)
3. Ranged firepower with a special consideration on 2 things:
   1. Volume of Fire
   2. Indirect Fire (to me this also includes flyers with big moves since they can typically fly to a point and gain LOS to a unit)

I really like how the Blood Angels fit with these tactics.  Ultimately I like to form a couple firebases - one of Intercessors to push up and take ground while being tough and flexible, and one that includes either a couple flyers or some backline tanks like Whirlwinds to try and clear things like Hive Guard that would be tough to get to with deep strikers.  Then I have a variety of deep striking assault troops that will drop down where I need them.