Building a Tournament Army

You're going to be playing in a Tournament, a competitive setting and it's time for you to start building your army. You wonder to yourself, what should I take, how can I make my army as effective as possible.

First things First, find out what point level you're playing at, and any rules that coincide with the tournament. It's important to know if you'll be playing a 1,500 pt game, or a 1,750 pt game as this will change your strategy quite a bit. The other thing to find out is what Force Organization the tournament will be using. Often this will be the normal FoC but in smaller or larger matches it can change. For instance a 400 pt Combat Patrol Tournament will often only require 1 Troops Choice and no HQ.

Second, find out if there have been any missions posted for the game, or if there will be. It's important to see the missions as this can change the game play drastically. If there is a lot of night fight, you'll want to take things like Spot Lights, and units with Acute Senses. If it is a majority of Objective Missions be sure to stock up on troop choices so you're not left with your hands tied behind your back when your minimum two troops get killed in the first turn.

Third, try to find out what the Meta Game at the event location is. For those of you who do not know, Meta Game is the typical armies and play styles players use there. In some areas they might be Tank heavy, or they might be chock full of Horde armies, of you might be the only one not playing a Space Marine army. This is very important to find out, as you'll know if you want to take those lascannons to pop some tanks, or if you want to take heavy bolters to mow down the Ork flood.

Lastly, don't be afraid to bug the TO, or tournament organizer, he's there to answer questions and help you out before the tournament begins. Most TO's will agree that questions before hand are more welcomed then questions during or after the event has taken place. TO's like to get things like how does X effect Y and can I take ABC or XYZ in my list out of the way. That way we can all have plenty of fun on the day of the tournament.

-CKR