Time to Pay the Piper - Part 26

If you look closely at the picture on the left, you'll see me participating in the only continuous hobby I've ever had;  playing the bagpipes.

So what the hell has this to do with 40k, the blogsphere and why isn't there a picture of Durham Red in really skimpy clothes to take my mind off this drivel?

Some of you are actually thinking that aren't you? Go on; you can be honest with yourselves; you won't hurt my feelings and you'll feel better.

Well you see, on a bagpipe chanter there are nine notes; more if you count notes that are made by flattening the existing ones, but in reality only nine. There are loads of embellishments that are made from these notes from the simple gracenote to a crunluath a mach which is used in piobaireachd, that allow the movement between the normal notes to sound better. But as before, still only nine notes.

And you see, it's the nine notes that count here.

Given that there is a finite number of ways in which these notes can be played properly, then sometimes the result is that one tune sounds a lot like another one, only different. And to get the best sound possible, your chanter and drone reeds need to be tuned.

See where I'm going with this? Yep, that's right, 40k.

Using the Standard Mission Chart, there are a finite number of ways in which your opponent can set up his force. Add in your agreed point level and that number of ways is going to drop slightly. Your opponent needs 1 x HQ and 2 x Troop choices to make his army legal, so you should be able to roughly work out what the minimum and maximum points they are going to spend are, and how many they'll have left. Look at the units and wargear that are going to cause the most havoc during a game, and the number of ways your opponent can set up their army drops even more.

And this is how to start getting your own army balanced. Take the worst case scenario you think they're going to bring to the table and build your list to counter it. Take the next biggest nightmare they can bring and tweak your list to try and counter that without losing too much of your first list's integrity. Of course, there's no guarantee that your opponent is going to do what you would like them to do; but if you build your army to face a horde of Orks, then tweak it slightly for the armoured options you know they can take, you stand a better chance of giving them something to think about.

It's not a science and only game play and repeated list building will really give you the experience you need. It is, however, a starting point and maybe, just maybe, if you spend long enough learning to tune your army you'll be able to hit the right notes.

Anyway, here's a special treat