Effectiveness"Numbers and weapons do not win battles." "No, but I'll sure bet they help."

Efficiency
Okay, I've been talking a fair amount lately about efficiency. The idea of finding the most power for the least points in your army makes a certain amount of sense. For one reason or another, however, some players don't do this.

"I Don't know how/I'm no good at math."
This isn't a good excuse. Not only is there a good amount of information available to you online (though sifting through it can be difficult) but I've distilled most of the best stuff into just a couple of streamlined articles, and I've got deeper explanations of some of the concepts in other articles if you want to know more. As to the math, the most complicated thing you'll do is multiply or divide. If you don't know, look it up and learn. If you can't be bothered to learn, then it doesn't matter.

"It makes me feel dirty."
Hmm. Well, this is a game about fighting, and generally the point of fighting is to beat the opponent. Certainly, you should play fair and friendly, but that doesn't mean you can't play to win, right? If the area you are in isn't a highly competitive environment, you can just take it up a notch. As long as you are still friendly and fun and sociable and all that, you'll just win a bit more often. This will tend to have a rising tide effect so that the other players will start trying to improve their armies and their tactics to keep up with you. As long as you keep your head about it, it doesn't have to turn into an arms race, or at least you can continue being friendly and fun while your armies get more and more effective.

"This is what I have."
Well, I can't argue with economy. If those are all the units or models you have and you can't spend more money on it, that is in fact what you have. You may be able to make the units more effective, however, even if they are the same models. You may also be able to make inexpensive additions, such as a couple of heavy or special weapon models, or maybe by converting one of your models into something else (for example, a regular Space Marine into a Veteran Sergeant.) Little tweaks here and there can really add up to something, as long as you try. While I'm thinking about it, I'll toss out another example. I have a Deathwing army that currently has a lot of Cyclone Missile Launchers. While these things are pretty good, now that 4th edition has changed the Assault Cannon, I'll be switching over to them.

One option would be to buy a whole bunch of Assault Cannon-Armed Terminators. That's pretty expensive and I seem to have left all that extra money in my other pair of jeans or something. Option 2 would be to just order the AC arms as Bitz from the good folks at GW. That'd still cost some money, but only about a quarter of what the whole Terminators would cost. Option 3 would be to find some weapons that look like Assault Cannons on various plastic models (like Helicopter Gunships and various kids toys that have some sort of Chaingun or minigun or other multi-barrelled cannon.) I'd still be spending some money, but if I hunt around a bit, I should be able to find the kits on sale or in a bargain bin, and I'd end up with some other bits while I was at it. Finally, I could try making the things myself. I'd start with a basic Terminator Storm Bolter arm and cut away the Storm Bolter and hand. A small box and cables (Guitar strings are great for cables) makes the weapon housing, then I could make the barrels out of plastic or wooden rods (they are pretty close to the size of toothpicks) and that would be that. It'd look better if I threw on an eagle insignia or something, but I'm pretty sure I could find one laying around in my bitz box or something.

Given the combination of my lack of free time and money being a bit tight, options 2 and 3 are the most likely, but it doesn't hurt to think outside the box. Heck, you might be able to get free models by doing something special for your local gaming store. Oh, one last example: When I was getting started and I didn't have the money for all the Raiders I wanted to use, I experimented with making my own. They looked pretty cool, but I had a hard time getting them to stay together. Eventually I managed to get all that I needed through presents and saving up my money, but in the meantime, I managed to use the army the way I wanted without spending all that cash.

"This is what I like."
There's also no arguing with taste. Some folks just like certain things or don't like certain things. Again, you can make sure that even if you aren't taking the most efficient unit, the unit you take is the most effective that it can be. Without compromising what you like, you should be able to make a number of tweaks to that unit or model to make it more effective. You may also find that certain units work better together. I think that this is probably particularly true of the less-optimal units, especially those with unusual rules. In addition, by forcing yourself to make a less-than-optimal choice work, you may find better ways of using it, or simply get so good at using it that your skill makes up for it's shortcomings.

Tweaking Units
Okay, I've talked about tweaks to units, what are they? A tweak would be a fairly small change in the unit, rather than something major. Adjusting a 7-man squad down to 6 would be an example of a tweak. It takes the same amount of damage (4 models) to reduce the squad to under half for scoring purposes or Victory Points, but the even-numbered squad is 1/7th less expensive. Adding a special weapon to a squad, or replacing it's special weapon with a more effective one for it's role is another example of a tweak. If you already have a squad with a Lascannon and you are planning at shooting at light vehicles and heavy infantry with it, adding a Plasmagun to the squad makes it better at this task for very few points. On the other hand, if your squad has no heavy weapon and is intended to be mobile and take out light infantry with short range shooting and hand to hand, a Flamer would be an excellent addition. Most of these things may seem obvious, but sometimes we all get stuck in a rut and don't re-examine our lists, we just take the same old thing. Every once in a while, it's good to re-examine the usual suspects and see if you can tweak them a little bit or get just a little more out of them. You might also decide to use them in a different way. On the other hand, sometimes the same old thing isn't really a bad idea, though.

Experience
When you use a list for a long time, keeping the units and models more or less the same from one game to the next, you get a better feeling for what you can do and how your units work best together. By getting a better grip on just what to expect from your units and how they work together best, you can use them more effectively than other people would be able to. In addition, sometimes you can find new or different ways of using units, making them more effective than they would at first appear. As an example, in my old Genestealer and Lictor list, I decided that I'd use my Lictors to stand in for Hormagaunts. Instead of using 30-40 Hormagaunts to tie up the enemy front line on turn 2, I would pop my Lictors up in cover just outside the enemy deployment zone. While they wouldn't generally be able to charge on turn 1, they'd be able to get a charge on turn 2, which is as fast as Hormagaunts. In addition, since they'd be popping up close to the enemy, they'd be a good distraction away from my other units. Finally, since they get a bonus to their cover save, they'd soak up a lot of firepower that would otherwise be creaming my Genestealers. When you look at them in this light, the 240pts they cost was pretty reasonable, since they'd do the job that 300-400pts of Hormagaunts would normally do. This gave them a viable purpose in my list and their special rules made them very effective in that role. In a different list, that potential might have been wasted. In my list, if I hadn't used them that way, they would have been much less effective. The combination of what else was in the list (Genestealers, Winged Tyrant) and how they were used made all the difference.

Synergy
Units working particularly well together. Some units work better together than others. Some units will support each other by being placed close together. Others will be able to support each other from across the board. Some of these interactions are pretty obvious, but not all of them are. Sometimes you have to experiment with different ideas and find out what works for you. Generally, they either supplement or complement each other.

A supplemental relationship means that each unit makes up for something the other lacks. An example of this might be a Lictor and a Carnifex. Before combat, the Lictor can make up for the slow movement of the Carnifex by keeping a squad occupied for a turn while the Carnifex lumbers forward. Once the Carnifex arrives, it brings more crushing power to the combat and, because it is so resilient, it keeps some of the heat off of the Lictor. In turn, the Lictor's high Initiative helps keep the Carnifex from getting nailed by characters and other things that go faster than it does. That high Initiative also helps when the enemy attempts to fall back and the lictor catches them. A Space Marine example might be a Devastator squad that has long-range guns paired with an Assault squad. The Devastators can damage units at long range, but will struggle in close combat. Keeping the Assault squad ready to jump on a unit that threatens to assault the Devastators makes up for that poor CC capability.

A complementary relationship between units is one where the similarities between the units are what help them out. A Tyranid example might be a Lictor and some Genestealers. They all have I6 and Rending attacks, so they help to clear the combat zone as quickly as possible. Another Tyranid example would be improved Hormagaunts and a Flying Tyrant. With their speed, both will reach the front lines by about turn 2. Both are very effective killing machines, and their weight of numbers (there being typically a lot of hormagaunts, and Monstrous Creatures counting as 10 models for outnumbering) can quickly sway combat resolution. The speed and power of their attacks working together makes them much more likely to collapse the enemy line in a turn or two, while they'd struggle individually.

A Space Marine example of a complementary relationship might be a Terminator Armored Chaplain accompanied by a squad of Terminators or Assault Terminators. Separately, each will do a good amount of damage, but will struggle with large squads and drawn-out combats. Together, with the combined amount of power and the Litanies of Hate of the Chaplain (everybody in a squad he is joined with gets to reroll failed to-hit rolls on the first turn) makes sure that they will land a devastating blow in that first charge, which will make it more likely they'll survive any subsequent turns of combat and also make it more likely that they'll be able to do it again. Another example for Space Marines might be two Rhino squads. By itself, a good Rhino squad can do a lot of damage by Rapid-firing Bolters on one turn, then charging in with a flamer and then jumping into combat with a powerfist Sergeant. Again, against large or particularly tough units, this may not be enough. Two units, then, get a lot more done. With 2 sets of Rapid-firing Bolters, 2 Flame templates and 2 Powerfist Sergeants plus all those extra attacks, you've got a lot more. Remember, twice as much isn't just twice as good, it's better. Doing twice as much damage during and before the first round of combat means that there's even less of the enemy to strike back at you, so you take less damage. Doing all that damage also means that the combat won't last as long, so you have more chances to do it again.

Effectiveness rather than efficiency
I'll use my Genestealers as the example here. They were not terribly efficient in 3rd Edition, and taking a few of them pretty much guaranteed you were going to be simply giving away victory points. On the other hand, having a lot of them was much more effective than just having some of them. An analogy that The Fabulous Orcboy uses is Space Marine Whirlwinds. 1 Whirlwind can be annoying. 2 Whirlwinds can do a fair amount of damage, making them about 4 times as bad as a single Whirlwind. 3 Whirlwinds will be dropping pie plates on you like it was a bake-off. Even if you've got power armor, that much template love is a bad thing. 3 Whirlwinds are about 9 times as bad as one Whirlwind. The same thing goes with Genestealers. If you just have a few Genestealers, they are fairly expensive and somewhat fragile (especially before you could give them a 4+ armor save and before they could Fleet!) This makes them a target and can make them a point sink. On the other hand, having many Genestealers gave me pretty much the apex Assault. No assault-based list could take on my Genestealers. In addition, most Shoot/Counterassault armies were hamstrung as well. They didn't have enough shooting to totally stop me, and all the points they spent on hand to hand were pretty much worthless against those Genestealers. Wraithlords? Berzerkers? BloodThirster? Didn't matter. Point-wise, they were inefficient, but they did so much damage that I could still use them effectively.

How do I fight this?
There is one final thing to be said for Effective rather than Efficient lists. If you use an unusual unit or you use it in an unusual way, it's very strangeness is a bonus for you. It means that most opponents won't have a really good idea of what it is capable of or how to deal with it. Especially in a tournament setting, that can be worth it's weight in gold. With limited time available to figure out how the enemy army works, mistakes are more likely to be made and will be harder to correct for. An example might be an Eldar player that hadn't seen Genestealers very much. They might throw a few Striking Scorpions or Banshees their way and think that would be enough. Then they'd choke on their soulstones as their Elite fighting units got shredded and the Genestealers kept coming. If they put a large number of Banshees up against the Genestealers, nearly wiping them out before the Genestealers could strike, they'd have a much better chance. Without being familiar with the Genestealers, they might not realize how quickly they'd need to beat them, which would give the other player the edge.

The biggest bang for the buck, however...
All that being said, the easiest way is to find the most efficient units and use them in the most efficient manner. (By easiest, I mean you don't have to put in as much experimentation and trial and error and practice as you would for less efficient units.) Just remember that there's more than one way to skin a catachan, and there's more than one way to build an effective army.

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