Building “Hobby” Lists
As I sit down to start writing the most abusive and cheesy lists possible for the Ard Boyz Training Camp, I’ve received a small stack of email asking about “hobby” lists.
The general question is “how do you make a hobby list?”. First, let’s define the term “hobby”. In Austin, we have a very competitive (and active) 40k community. We noticed that the competition to win local RTTs was pushing the less competitive players out (meaning that the same small group of players were playing in - and subsequently winning - all of the local RTTs). Our FLGS decided to introduce a tournament that focused more on the hobby instead of shedding blood.
A hobby tournament encourages balanced, non-abusive army lists. The army list should make sense with the background of the army (the “fluff”), but is not constrained by it. The units should be fully painted and based. Painting and composition are both judged. The goal being a less competitive event that appeals to the hobby player.
I think it’s pretty easy to build a “hobby” list. Just follow the steps I’ve outlined below and see what you come up with.
- CREATE A BALANCED LIST: Try to balance the close combat and shooting elements of the codex. Also try to strike a balance between distinct elements of your army (tanks vs. infantry, fast moving vs static). An extreme army may fit the theme of the codex better, but hobby is not theme. Balance is more important than fluff in this case.
- RED FLAG: If you are creating a very narrow army (Kult of Speed, Craftworld Iyanden, Sisters of Battle, Armored Company, Deathwing, Wych Kult, etc.), then you are probably off the “hobby” track. I recommend “stepping up” to the general codex. A Kult of Speed is a nicely themed army, but it’s almost impossible to build a hobby army out of KoS.
- CREATE SQUADRONS: Don’t fill slots with units that can be grouped into squadrons. This is more of a 4E problem - due to kill points - but I still see it all the time.
- ELIMINATE SPAM: Once you have your list, scan it for duplicate units in the HQ, Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy Support sections. Eliminate the duplicates. If you don’t have the models to do that, then try to make the duplicates different (e.g., a “shooty” Carnifex and a close combat Carnifex). If they have different deployment options, then use them (e.g., if you have two units of Storm Troopers, mount one of them in a Chimera and Deep Strike the second unit — same thing goes for Genestealers).
- MIN/MAXING: Now take a close look at your Troops selections. Avoid minimum sized squads with lots of heavy or special weapons (5-man las/plas Space Marines and 5-man Inquisitorial Storm Troopers with 2 plasma guns are a definite NO).
- MINIMIZE TROOP SPAM: Try not to spam your basic troop unit — if you have more than one option, then take it (e.g., Tactical Marines AND Scouts, Rangers AND Guardians, Genestealers AND Gaunts). If you only have one option, then try to make those units different (i.e., take advantage of transport options, deployment options, unit upgrades, etc. to make the unit different).
- VEHICLE UPGRADES: Take a look at your vehicles. If they all have the same upgrade, then that upgrade is potentialy a problem. Holofields? Spiritstone? Extra Armor? Multi-tracker? Disruption Pod? Limit the most abusive of these vehicle upgrades to one per army.
- WARGEAR: Take a look at your characters. Does every Sergeant have a Power Fist? Does every character have Terminator Honors? Does every Crisis Suit have the same upgrades? Change it up (especially if the wargear changes don’t require modelling changes).
- ABUSING DEPLOYMENT: Now take a look at how your army deploys. You want some variety here too. Unless you are a Chaos Daemon army, no more than 25% of your army should be deployed via Deep Strike or Infiltration.
- TOO MANY MODELS: Yes, hordes can be abusive — especially in a tournament setting when time is limited. Divide the point value of the tournament by 20 (or even 25), and try to stay under that number. So in a 2,000 point army list, go for a maximum of 80-100 models.
I know its tempting to grumble about not having enough models or that there’s nothing wrong with “three (insert unit here)”, but give it a try. For you organizers out there, you may want to lower the point value of your hobby tournaments to 1500 points or less until players have the variety in their list to field their armies at 2000 points.
I’d love to hear what some of your nasty, hardcore tournament lists look like after you’ve applied the hobby rules to them! Let me know in the comments!
