List Building 101

    Welcome back recruits, I hope you have been enjoying the past week assembling your troops and thinking about all the awesome fighting and warmongering they are going to be doing! Everything should be coming along nicely, and you might be asking yourself where you go next after they are all sitting there assembled and looking awesome. We still have a lot of modeling left to do, basing, priming, painting, possibly sealing, storing, and transporting. I told you there was a lot to just the hobby side, but trust me it is worth it when we start breaking into the Meta.

    So there are a couple of tools that we are going to need if we want to start building army list that will one day be the number one list at the Nova Open! Let's see you should have the main rule book (BRB), all the codexes you would need for your army (since we get into different detachments for an army, more on that in future post), a blank piece of paper and pen (there are also programs, more on those in a future post). Now that we have all of our post age hipster gear, let's look at my small little force that I am going to refer to as the Scrubbing Bubbles.

Scrubbing Bubbles 1.0

   Now that our soldiers are here to clean the bathroom while we find the right song to listen to while we "clean". Let's look at what we have on the wet palette, starting from left to right front to back. The front squad is a Infantry Squad that has 1 Sergeant, 8 Guardsmen and 1 Special Weapon Guardsman, next to them is our Company Commander, then our Primaris Psyker. In the second row we have two more Infantry Squads and they are both the same with 1 Sergeant, 8 Guardsmen and 1 Special Weapon Guardsman. Lastly in the back, waving the last goodbye you'll ever see, it's our Leman Russ Battle Tank with a Demolisher Turret! Now that we have some structure and know what we are looking at let's go to our list and codex!

This is the first list I have hand written in a long time...

   The first thing we need to figure out is what type of Detachment we will be running, this is probably the most daunting thing when you first start building list. Turn your BRB to page 240 this will be where we find all the information about building a Detachment so that our army is Battle-Forged! When we build our army and it is Battle-Forged, it means we unlock some nifty features to our army and command points (CP)!!! Command points are where it is at, this is where our little snowflake bubbles can really be an individual. Since I have 2 HQ choices and 3 Troop choices, I am thinking I am going to build them into a Battalion Detachment so that I have access to +3 command points. 

We must take 2 Hq and 3 Troops MINIMUM

   Okay so some of you might be screaming at your monitor saying that Battalions actually give +5 command points, you are correct, however I have not mentioned anything about the FAQs until this point.  FAQs are essentially a patch to the game to try and make the game more balanced, this is something that is well known and essential to playing competitive, so take a few minutes read over the Big FAQ and your armies respective FAQ. As of the publication of this post the FAQ states you receive +5 Command Points for Battalion Detachment and +12 Command Points for Brigade Detachments. (After writing this little section, I can't think of a more clever way to introduce players to the FAQ, well played GW).

How about that Segue though?

   Okay now that we know we have our Army list spelled out with all of the units, we have them organized into a nice Battalion and even have ourselves 5 Command Points to spend! We need to get a little deeper into the list so that we meet up to the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) standard. This just means that what the models have on them is what you have them as in your list, so that you don't decide that that flame thrower is really a melta gun when it's next to the tank and not the troops. Funny how sometimes you don't play against the Daemons of Chaos and you still get the Changeling running around.

Want to stop troop spam? Have them write each one!

   So we take our Company Commander, his model has a Power Sword and a Plasma Pistol so we need to represent that on our list, don't forget to write down how many points everything is next to what it is. I am not going to put the points on the list for sake of not wanting to get into trouble. Then the Primaris Psyker has a force stave and a laspistol, there isn't really a need to write this on the list since it is in the Datasheet and it's not an upgrade, but we forgot to pick him some Psyker powers. We will give him Psychic Barrier and Night Shroud, or you can choose to role at the start of every match! We go all the way down and get to what we are looking at on top, if you have the Astra Militarum codex you can add all the points up and should get 438! 

Now that's a list

   Alright, since we are a Battle-Forged army we have to pick our Regiment! This is one of the areas Guard really shine, but also a really awesome mechanic that basically every army with a codex has access to. I went ahead and picked Cadian as my regiment, because I want my guys to sit back and just shoot, if any unit does not move it can re-roll 1s to hit. Combine that with the order of bring it down and you get a flat out re roll on misses which is huge for an army that only hits half of the time! I think that about covers the basics on how to write a list, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask them at the bottom!

What do I do with my hands? How to Build Miniatures!

     Hello everyone, welcome back it's been some time since I have posted, but I actually have just been busy painting and building. Figured it's too easy to write about theory without having anything to back it up, so I may have to shift gears until I can start getting more games in consistently. However another new challenger has entered the arena, which I can not stress how awesome it is when someone starts 40k. Then you think about all the things you have learned over the years and for some reason we try to cram it all in, like we are just going to upload our info like the Matrix.

Whoa! I should thin my paints, Sandra!

It really seems that 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 has brought a new surge of life to the hobby, I know it rocketed me back into this wonderful hobby. The rules are streamlined, the game feels more alive because it seems like everything just dies, except guardsmen they are the new cockroach. I can attest to three people starting 40k in the past year, and I have a hard time explaining my thoughts so this should be the best place for all of us to start. Now let's start our journey into the wonderful world of 40k and get our little armies ready to bring us glory at the tabletop.

Okay, so when your models look like this your ready to go!

So before we take the plastic wrapping off of our new box of plastic crack, let's make sure we have everything we need just to build the models! First that we need are some side pliers or something to cut the models off the sprue, just be careful not to cut your fingers off. After you cut the piece off there might still be a little left over plastic where you cut it, this is called flash. Flash can also be where some of the molding material came out of the mold, this is where you need a hobby knife and some files. You may also notice mold lines on your model, you should just go ahead and take those off while you are building your model, as you get better at painting you will appreciate the small effort to get rid of these.

Basic Starting Kit

Now you should have all your little dudes parts floating around a desk, floor, couch, or across the room, it can be a messy process. Now if you aren't gifted with foresight then you might notice your little model pieces aren't staying together, you're going to need some adhesive. This is where we have to talk about what your material is made out of! Since this is a 40k blog, I am going to assume that you are putting together Games-Workshop models like the good boys and girls that you are. That means that there are two types of materials out there, plastic and resin (Citadel Finecast, sigh-duck).

This is finecast

This is Plastic

So now that you have Sherlocked which type of material you are working with, you can now reach for the proper adhesive. When dealing with the plastic models you want a plastic cement, this will melt and fuse the two pieces together. I have always used the Testors Cement in the red tube, I've tried others but nothing is better than this stuff. With resin models you need to use super glue or just a strong gluing compound, BUT before you go gluing your resin models together. You MUST WASH THEM IN WARM WATER WITH DISHSOAP!!! Your glue or primer will not stick right, because they use a non-sticking compound to help the model release when it is done. So always wash your resin models. (don't use super hot water as you might melt the models).

Plastic Cement

There is also one other thing I would like to mention before you go creating life in your miniatures. The pin vice is one of the best tools you can have to keep your models together, especially old metal models or the flimsy resin models. Just drill a little hole in the two parts and use a little bit of paper clip to help reinforce the joint, an extra 30 seconds on your building time will ensure those pesky soldiers only loose their limbs in war, not on the way to the battlefield! You can also get a head start on magnetizing your models, which is another hobby hack and an article when I get some more stuff to build. Lastly, you can drill your gun barrels out, it's one of those things that once you do it, you always do it. So seriously just get a hobby pin vice, don't get a dremel, it goes to fast and you will either melt plastic to the bit, or go through it into your finger. I didn't think it could happen to me, but if you're feeling lucky punk, go ahead, when I say I told you so you can send me $100 and we'll call it even. Spray a little WD-40 in the spinning head part when you first get it, it makes a world of difference.

Hobby Pin Vice

Okay now you are on your way to assembling your troops to become the back bone of your army. There is still much to do, basing, priming, painting, and then finally you can take them to battle, where you find out they aren't "meta" but it doesn't matter because you put your heart and soul into them.  We will cover everything as we continue down this trail. These are just my personal recommendations, I have linked for simplicity. Please don't hesitate to ask questions, I will come back with a priming and basing article, then a painting article. I will be talking about the basic how to do articles and once I get some more miniatures I will do a guided walk through.

Lastly, here is what I have been working on.