2.0 Building armies - the strategic approach
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I have composed a checklist that I follow when building my armies. It is listed below, and after it I tell how I actually go about in each step.
Before choosing the overall strategy it is well worth looking at the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen enemies. While it is true that it is virtually impossible to make a good defensive Skaven army, and thus some of the suggestions below may be useless to some particular force, the general guidelines should prove helpful.
I have listed the main strong points of each army you might be facing, and the things you should look out for. After that are my quick suggestions for "medicine" against this army. One thing you should also consider is the actual person you are playing against! For example, my regular undead opponent is very fond of mummies and the undead chariots, so when I face him I usually take some flaming weapons for my characters, and plenty of missile support to cut down the undead chariots.
Strong Points: Some decent artillery. Unlimited number of Knightly Orders. Cheap Useful troops.
Dealing with them: Without the army book of their own, the Bretonnia is currently pretty weak. You can simply overpower them with superior quality and special characters. Warning! This will change with the army book! For now, any long range attack that allows no save will demolish the Bretonnian Knights.
Strong Points: All troops are powerful hand-to-hand fighters. Countless unique Magic Items. With the undead, the most powerful characters you can get. Chaos Gifts.
Dealing with them: The thing to remember is that very few things can stand against Chaos in fair hand to hand match. Don't be fair. Buy all possible anti-character equipment you can think of, Black Gem of Gnar leading the way. Flee from the battles you are destined to lose.
Shoot, shoot, shoot!
Take plenty of anti-flying items: the Amulet of Ravensdark is particularly good.
Strong Points: Bull Centaurs. Earth shaker Cannon. Dwarfs that can ride monsters! Spell-casting Dwarfs! Access to Chaos only magic items. Good monsters. Cheap hobgoblin and orc and goblin sidekicks. Blunderbusses. High leadership.
Dealing with them: You MUST get rid of the Earth shaker Cannon(s). Flying troops, missile troops, your own artillery, anything will do, just as long as these devices are silenced. Against Bull Centaurs, I'd recommend heroes with weapons that cause multiple wound per hit. Against Blunderbusses, I recommend very fast troops that can outflank them and charge in without taking too many casualties.
Strong Points: Cold One Riders, Dark Riders, Dark Elf Crossbowmen and Witch Elf Characters! The Destroyer.
Dealing with Them: Toughness 3 is the key. Like most other Elves, the Dark Ones are very vulnerable to powerful strikes. Take high strength troops and a few missile units to pick on the rather lightly armored dark elf Regiments. Try to cause as much casualties as possible! Normally, I choose very carefully whatever I wish to move my units to a better position or to attack/shoot my enemies, but against Dark Elves I almost always try to kill as many troops as soon as possible. Since Elves are expensive troops, they can not cope with high casualty ratio.
Strong Points: Staggeringly powerful customized magic items. Special characters with free choice of magic items. Very resistant to Magic. Quality troops. Many devastating war Machines (especially with Runes). High leadership. Toughness 4. The "Stealth Bomber" Gyrocopters.
Dealing with them: If you have VERY powerful hand to hand fighter (like Chaos Lord or Black Orc War Boss), I recommend mounting him on monster, and giving him the Sword of Destruction. This way, you can negate the nigh-invincible 800+ point Dwarf Lord's magic items.
I recommend taking fliers to deal with the war machines.
Take any and all War Machines that allow no save, since the high armor save values of the Dwarfs is legendary. Trying to out shoot Dwarfs is almost always futile: crossbows, hand guns, cannon balls and bothersome Gyrocopters will soon make mess of your army. The only army I'd really recommend to challenge the Dwarfs in a missile duel is the High Elves. They can mow the Dwarfs down if they have enough Repeater Bolt throwers.
The weakness of the Dwarfs is their slowness. If you keep your wits about you, you should be able to dictate the events. Attack their flanks, evade the most powerful characters unless you are sure you can win, be persistent on your use of spells. Even the Master Rune of Valaya fails sometimes. Make sure your hand to hand troops have a very high strength so you can negate the high toughness and armor saves of the Dwarfs.
Strong Points: Vast array of troops that make it very hard to predict what kind of an army you are facing. War Altar of Sigmar that makes Empire troops immune to psychology and break tests and grants them magical superiority. Flagellants. Supreme Patriarch with the Staff of Volans. Some very dangerous War machines.
Dealing with them: Take all sort of War machines (preferably with strength 10) to take out the empire artillery, war wagons, steam tanks and especially the War Altar of Sigmar. I recommend Goblin Doom Divers if you can lay your hands on them. (Via allies perhaps?)
The Special characters of the Empire are quite useful, but they are not adept hand to hand fighters. Engage and destroy.
Humans have low leadership scores, so terror and such things work very well against them. If you have truly superior hand to hand troops, charging across the battlefield as fast as possible is a good plan. Almost any flying creature can easily deal with the War Machine crews of the Empire. Ring of Corin might be good for taking out most troublesome magic items like the Staff of Volans.
Strong Points: Repeater Bolt Throwers! Chariots that come from the regimental allowance. Very powerful mages. High movement rate.
Dealing with them: Ruby Chalice is essential to your main unit. If you can get troops with multiple wounds, go for them! Repeater Bolt Throwers can't penetrate such units. An overall tactic that works for best against the High Elves is to attack, and do it quickly. High Elves have some decent hand to hand troops, but practically every army has better ones. If you have access to Dark Elf allies (or you are a Dark Elf Lord!) Take the dark spawn of Naggaroth! They get hatred against the High Elves for free, and are generally much better fighters.
Strong Points: Superior numbers. Many good hand to hand units. Dangerous if quirky war machines. Powerful magic items. Goblin Fanatics. Very wide choice of different troops. Very useful shamans. Mork's War Banner that will kill your wizards by merely touching them!
Dealing with them: There are two methods I use when dealing with Orcs and Goblins. I either make a superior and lightning fast assault army, or go for full defence. Neither is 100 percent sure. If the Greenskins are having a good day, a hand to hand against them is hopeless. On the other hand, a systematical concentration on their units with Chaos or Skaven army should break them. Start with the most powerful units! Breaking Goblins is no use since this doesn't even cause panic tests! Defence against Greenskins should never be done halfheartedly. The basic toughness of 4 and many relatively fast and powerful units will soon race across the battlefield, shrugging the missile casualties off with their countless ranks, and crush your troops.
Strong Points: Large and numerous units. Dangerous war machines (if they can be persuaded to work!), Some extremely deadly spells. Many good magic items. Very dangerous special characters, especially Deathmaster Snikch. Vermin Lords. Warpstone, Screaming Bell boosted Grey Seers (especially Thanquol).
Dealing with them: Skaven are all or nothing army: If their initial charge fails, they are history. You must be ready to take casualties: Nothing will prevent this. If you try to play defensively, you'll need a lots of missile troops since the number of opponents you must cut down is very great indeed. Crown of Command is essential: otherwise your army will break as the Plague Cencer Bearers and Skaven characters put an awful pressure on your units.
Troops with good armor save are often a very good buy since the strength of the Skaven rank and file is rather feeble. If you do take all those knights and Iron Breakers, be sure you have some way of dealing with the Poison Wind Globadiers and Plague Cencer Bearers. Banner of Wrath is very good at this. Kill their mages! Skaven sorcerers are hideously dangerous creatures.
Strong Points: Extremely Powerful Characters. Horrible Spells. Nagash (if your opponent can stand you when you roll on the floor, laughing at his hat). Mummies and Wraiths. Screaming Skull Catapults. Staggering ability to absorb damage.
Dealing with Them: You must realize that the undead characters are the thing that count in their army, while most of the rank and file are there just to provide "Look out, Sir!" Roll. Go for full thrust against these: Black Gem of Gnar, Van Horstmann's Speculum, Dark Mace of Death, Black Amulet and lots of anti-character spells should do the trick. Try to get the High Magic Spell "Drain Magic" to shut out the horrendously powerful Undead magic.
Strong Points: The Wardancers. Unless your opponent wishes so, you'll never score a single hit against them in hand-to-hand. It doesn't matter how powerful you are - Wardancers on Shadow's Coil are untouchable. Wood Elf Scouts. Hail of Doom arrow. Powerful Chariots. Very good mages. Treemen if you are an Orc General.
Dealing with them: The magic items I take against them are Ruby Chalice and the things that increase your combat resolution. The best ways to deal with Wardancers is with missile troops and psychology. While they do have a good Elven leadership, repeated tests against it will eventually rout the unit. A mid-powerful unit of Wraiths is good opponent for Wardancers since they force a break test at the end of the each hand to hand round regardless of winning/losing. While the Wardancers are reasonably difficult to hit with arrows, it is also good to remember that each wound caused is worth at least 20 points, and since the Wardancer units are rather small, even few casualties will soon cause a panic test.
Of course knowing your enemy is only half the battle! The most important thing is to know your own army! I won't go to this in length here, having dealt with the individual armies in my previous articles. One thing though: choose a strategy that suits your own army! Think carefully what way would be best for dealing with your chosen opponent, and start composing the overall strategy of your troops:
After deciding in what way you intend to deal with the opposition, you must choose your overall plan: Will you defend, attack, or try to strike out a balance between these basic tactics?
Skaven, Chaos, Orc and Goblin and to some extend, the Dark Elves, are at their best while attacking and should generally avoid any attempts to out-shoot the artillery of the Empire. Some armies, like the High Elves and Dwarfs will very often dig in their Deployment zone and refuse to come to you. Then you`ll have no choice: If you can't defeat them in an archery tourney, don't try -> kill them in the Old Fashioned Way: Good old hand to hand combat! I personally feel that frenzy is the mark of true melee troops. If your army has them, go get them!
There is nothing wrong in putting every possible effort to make a truly formidable assault army. There are suitable troops in every army for your main units: Iron Breakers for Dwarfs, Dragon Ogres for Chaos and Flagellants for the Empire, etc. Take the most powerful characters you can get, and plenty of them. Arm them to teeth, put them inside best armor you can find, protect them from magic, and put them into the first rank of your assault units.
Simple: Remember to protect your units! Be sure that every main unit has some kind of protection against magic, good armor save or Ruby Chalice against missiles, and as great numbers that you can muster.
Pick your fights: Defeating a unit of Skavenslaves is truly glorious, but it will avail you not if that 24 strong Rat Ogre unit, led by a Vermin Lord, is bearing on you form the back!
When playing a mainly offensive army and facing another of the kind, it might be good idea to soften the opposing units a bit before engaging them. Troops should move towards enemy, but not to charge headlong against first unit in their path. While they move forward, the war machines and archers pick on the opponent`s units, so they might lose that one crucial extra rank before hand to hand begins.
The Waves suits well for offensive armies that can field large and/or numerous regiments. The basic idea is to divide the army in two parts: First part should consists of very fast troops that can cause considerable damage in hand to hand, followed by slower and more powerful troops. For example, an Empire army could lead it's attack with War Wagons, Kislev Winged Lancers and Steam Tanks, supported by flyers, Outriders, Pistoliers and Kislev Horse Archers.
Following these units would come the Slowly moving but powerful Knightly Orders (with more characters you can shake a stick at), Reiksguard and Flagellant infantry and Ogres, possibly accompanied by the War Altar of Sigmar that ensures that there are no problems with the morale. The advantage of this strategy is that the first wave will "soften up" the opposition before the real units get stuck in. Since the first wave is not supposed to survive the combat, you don't have to tool them up with characters and Magic items. Just good, cheap, basic troops that can do their worth of damage. The BEST such unit is the Skaven Plague Cencer Bearers. At 15 points, you'll get all the killing power you can hope for. Followed by Frenzied and character-heavy Plague Monks, you have a classic "Waves" attack!
The basic defensive strategy is to field all possible missile troops and war machines and to wait while your enemy jogs towards you. However, a wise and experienced general will see through this and realize that even though the casualties are going to be immense, once the hand to hand is initiated, a defensive army is history. Since almost all missile troops are very fragile, this calls for some strategic variants.
If you choose to defend, be sure to pick the right tools! If you are facing Orcs, then longbows with their pathetic strength 3 will not suffice. If you are expecting Chaos Knights, even the usually devastating Hellblaster Volley Gun will not bite through their 1+ (or 0+ with the standard of shielding!) Save. Better to get some cannons that allow no save.
On a final note, NEVER field an army without any good hand to hand troops. Melee is an essential part of Warhammer, and if any enemy unit with even decent hand to hand capabilities reaches your line, your missile troops are history.
In this strategy almost no enemy units should make it through your hail of missiles. If you know your enemy prefers to advance with faster troops leading the way, followed by slower troops, concentrate all your fire on the nearest unit threatening your line. If you have sufficient firepower, you should be able to destroy the units almost completely once it gets out of the hail of missiles. Then it should be weakened enough for your own hand to hand troops to handle. In this strategy, pick your targets carefully! Don't waste even one arrow on screening units or such unless you have no choice.
This is rather a variant of any other defensive strategy than a new idea. The main thing is just simply to put more distance between your missile force and The evil enemy who wishes to do much harm to you with their hand to hand monsters. In this strategy, just deploy your troops as near your own table edge as possible. This ought to give you one more turn to shoot at your enemies. The trouble with this strategy is that once your enemies get to you, any and all your troops will certainly flee off the table if broken in hand to hand.
This is a very good option for the armies like the Elves who traditionally have missile heavy and fast troops. The trick is to have fast and powerful reserve that moves to meet any threat that charging enemies make. While just one or two fast and powerful units does not cost as much as a full hand to hand army, they can throw back the enemy offense with bit of luck and a well timed charge.
Many people wish to field a variable army that has both defensive and offensive troop types. This is as good idea as any, as long as you know what you are doing. The very classic move is to concentrate all your offensive troops on one flank, and all your missile troops on other. While your melee troops charge and (hopefully) break any opponents on their own flank, the missile troops pound the incoming enemy on their own. The offensive flank then turns to face their enemies that are heading for their missile troops and tries to charge their flank or back. If this works like a textbook example you should be able to "roll" the enemy line, defeating a foe after another, spreading panic as you go. The trouble is that this is a very classic strategy indeed, and a wily experienced General knows how to deal with your flanking force.
This is a more defensive version of the Flank Attack. You still divide your troops in half, Defensive and offensive. Your missile units should be in the middle of the line, and you should race your offensive units from each flank to make "an arch", or a U Shaped line. Hopefully your enemies will have deployed centrally, and they`ll have to advance inside the U. Then the Iron Jaws close on the hapless enemies, while the centre of your line keeps a constant barrage of fire that weakens the advancing enemy. Caught between such a deadly one-two the enemy will hopefully be crushed.
You probably have many "Da Plans" of your own that differ radically from the classic strategies I have explained above. I introduce one of the odd ball-schemes that do not follow the classic approach of Warhammer.
Armies that have lot of skirmishing troops and models that can move individually, can try out an interesting variant of Strategy: Guerilla War. I don't suggest this strategy to very inexperienced generals. The gospel of this strategy is not to get stuck in hand-to-hand. Small units of skirmishers, armed with missile weapons, will scuttle to the defensive positions on the field, constantly harassing the enemy with their bows/crossbows/ slings/whatever. The trick of defeating the enemy in hand-to-hand lies in powerful models like lone monsters (Manticores are especially well suited for this), Chariots, powerful characters on fast/flying mounts and the right combo of magic items. They can move through the Battlefield amazingly quickly and put a crushing pressure against their chosen target.
The classic example of this tactic is of course the Wood Elf Army. With it's excellent Chariots, Treemen, Scouts, Wardancers and Beast masters, supported by Elf Heroes on large monsters, they are the right tools for this job. Using every nook and cranny to give them some shelter the missile-armed Wood Elves harass the opposing troops, flee from them if charged, rally with their high leadership, and using their extremely fast troops, gather "striking forces" to defeat the enemy with a local superiority. Almost no unit can survive a combined charge of 2+ Wood Elf chariots supported by a Manticore-mounted Elf Heroes. The enemy that does not have a clear opponent in the form of big regiments, Charges to and fro, and will be crushed by combined missile attacks and concentrated charges.
A very entertaining variant of this is to field Chaos Army and alter the tactics slightly. The enemies of Chaos often expect a small compact regiments that are relatively few in number. The Chaos, however, can field a multitude of very fast troops that can form regiments from single models. Such troops like Chaos Chariots, Dragon Ogres, Greater Daemons and of course Chaos Characters have all the advantages of the maneuverability of a single model with the deadly hand to hand abilities of Chaos. In dense, terrain heavy battlefield they will be able to move very quickly and use any cover available, combining their efforts on one group of foes at a time. The enemy will be hard pressed to find good targets, and some War Machines, like Stone Throwers will be almost useless. Perhaps this is not a best possible tactic for Chaos, but it is an entertaining variant.
Now you should have pretty good idea what troops and characters you'll need to carry out your brilliant plan. When you choose them, try to remember what they are for. Of course Warhammer is a fast-flowing game where situations change all the time, so sometimes your troops will find themselves unable to perform the mission you gave them. If so, improvise! But if you do have a plan, try not to get distracted by trivial things and carry on regardless of any harassment
It is a very good idea to write the equipment and the purpose of every unit and character as a reference sheet, along with notes about magic items, dispels, armor saves and all other possible things you can think of. It may seem that you can easily remember every detail before the battle, but once the fighting starts the excitement of the battle will soon make you forget any details about such trivia things like the Amulet of Obsidian the unit has.
I personally always select the General first. Since he is possibly one of the most powerful hand to hand fighters in your army, consider first do you want him to be in the front line weaving a sword, or do you rather take the advantage of his ability to lead units within 12". This is a very important choice! 90% of Warhammer players prefer a hand-to-hand oriented general, but I'm not sure if this is always a good idea. Most armies have an access to lord level characters via special characters, or failing to do that, allies. These can fight just as well as your general, but only one model in your army has the ability to extend his control range to 12". It might be a good idea to give your general the Amulet of Obsidian, Sword of Fortitude and Crown of Command, and place him in the center of your line. He must then of course be protected from enemy characters, but any unit he is leading is almost guaranteed to stay on the line, especially if accompanied by Battle Standard Bearer!
If you decide to make your general a melee monster, I don't think you need any help on equipping him. Slayer Sword, Black Amulet, Golden Helm atop a big ugly monster. You know this already.
From the lowly goblin bosses, to the mighty Vermin Lords, there is a plenty of choice. The only thing you must do is to decide what is the purpose of each character. Since they lack the leadership qualities of a general, I prefer taking my hand to hand machines from the ranks of the heroes. It is always worth looking through the special characters section of your army.
Just take one for every melee unit you have. With their challenge ability, this is bound to be a wise decision. If you don't have them, Flying Horrors from Hell with demigod-riders will demolish your units. Enough Said.
Magic is a powerful tool in the arsenal of every army, except the Dwarfs. Even with Wizards, you should take what you need to carry out your plan: Offensive armies benefit for a friendly Grey Wizard that can transport them around the battlefield, while many defensive players regard their wizards as just another artillery piece and go for offensive Magic like Chaos, Amethyst, Chaos Dwarf and Bright.
My best experiences with such wizards are when I equipped some of them with multiple Power Scrolls (remember that you can take more that one scroll!). An Amethyst Wizard Lord with four Power Scrolls and the Purple Sun of Xereus is awesomely potent on close range.
Some magic items allow you to tailor highly specialized characters. Such items include: The Black Gem of Gnar, The Heart of Woe (a kamikaze character! BANZAI!), Aldred's Casket of Sorcery and Van Horstmann's Speculum (with Hydra Sword). I have recently had much success with 1 level one wizard on pegasus with the Black Gem (A cheapest such choice, really, since the Pegasus allows him to get to those opposing super characters fast) and a hero with Dark Mace of Death and Heart of Woe. You don't have to fight those Chaos Lords in hand to hand, you know.
A last word on characters, remember TO GIVE THEM REGULAR EQUIPMENT, TOO! A Mummy Tomb king with lance and a 2 handed weapon doesn't really need a magic sword.
Almost every army has some unique troops that are very good at what they do. For example, Empire Flagellants are a very good value for their points, while the High Elf Repeater Bolt Throwers are the best the money can buy. Whatever strategy you are using, you should always seriously consider if you wish to include these troops in your army. If your troops have some in-built advantage, it is usually a wise move to use them!
Many Warhammer players put their trust in one superpowerful unit that is accompanied by a legion of Characters, boosted with all possible Magic items like magic standards and Ruby Chalices.
The weakness of such units is that your opponent might just be able to cast Fear of Armar or the Curse of the Years with the Total Power, trashing your unit and your hopes of victory.
The strong point on the other hand, is that they are dead hard! Imagine a 40 strong Black Orc Unit with savage Orc Characters on the front rank, accompanied by Forest Goblin Battle Standard with a Spider Banner, and the Battle Banner as the regimental Standard. There is very little what you can do once this unit starts stomping all over your face!
Building such "Main Blocks" is a good bet for armies like Skaven and Orcs and Goblins that have very cheap troops, so they may be ably to compose two such steamrollers instead of one! One note: try to have some sort of plan against such units! They are often nigh-unstoppable if you are unprepared!
I divide the types of such core units in three board categories:
Infantry is the most numerous type of rank and file, and almost all armies have a good options out of which their core units can be made of if they want to field an infantry based army. If you are not worried about enemy missiles and war machines, you might as well wait for your opponent to come to you. Especially if your opponent favors lightning fast troops and you play Dwarfs, it is a worthless dream to hope that you could ever get to charge your hated foes. A better option is to choose a very high armor save troops (preferably with the Standard of Shielding), putting the front rank full of defensive characters (ones with very high toughness, Black Amulets, swords that allow you to strike first and so on) and a Battle Standard Bearer with combat resolution boosting banner for a good measure. Such units can take on even a concentrated enemy charge and punch back so it hurts. Suggested for high toughness/multi-wound/high armor save armies only.
Classic shock elites of any army are heavily-armored knights with lances, Magic Standards and hand to hand oriented characters. The main block of cavalry should be heavy cavalry. Charging Strength should be 6, armor save should be at least 2+, and the charge range 12" and preferably more. Weapon skill should be higher than average troops. Some units, like Bull Centaurs are still heavy cavalry in my mind because of other redeeming qualities. (Toughness 4 and 2 wounds in this particular case). You may get away with medium cavalry (say strength 3 plus lances, 3+ armor save), but I don`t recommend it. It is sadly true that some armies (like High Elves) can't have True heavy cavalry, so if they want to field this type of units, they must use whatever they can get.
The infantry can also serve as your main assault force. While it lacks the greater potential to charge, it is much more numerous. It can easily absorb almost any kind of missile casualties and still have full 4+ ranks when it gets to hand-to-hand. Also, your front rank will be narrower, allowing the front-rank hand-to-hand specialists to dish out even more damage! Choose the best hand to hand fighters you can find on your rank and file and give them suitable weapons (spears might be a good idea if their strength is high enough). Lap around if you win battles. And above all, choose magic items and spells that protect units, so your Steamroller will have some punch left even after taking a severe mauling. (And it will. There is nothing that aggravates enemy generals like a gigantic block of steel tramping towards his lines!)
There are plenty of troops that can fight well without many ranks and standard and heavy support from the characters. Trolls, Rat Ogres and especially Chariots are good in this role. Just don`t think that they can take on the entire army of the enemy! Their best place is in the flanks of the main unit, ready to charge the on the flanks of the enemy as soon as your main units get stuck in. This will give you additional combat resolution boost from the flank attack, plus from the wounds they will cause in actual hand-to-hand. The downside of these troops are that they attract unhealthy amount of missile fire and unhealthy spells. While losing them in this way is sad, you should remember that your main fighting units will be saved from this nuisance they are suffering.
You don't have to fight all your enemies. Skeletons created by the various raise the dead spells, Goblins or Skavenslaves with the Crown of Command, Swarms, Troll Slayers and all other troops that refuse to break in hand-to-hand are excellent for tying up very powerful enemies. If a unit of Chaos Knights spends the entire battle killing 100 goblins, they wont have much effect in the decisive combats.
Some units can be given a specific mission of destruction. You might well be tired of those Goblin Doom Divers pounding your own War Machines. Such a mess calls for drastic measures: a Dwarf General might decide that he puts one or two Gyrocopters with Runes of Disguise and attacks the Doom Divers with the ASAP. Or an Undead Lord, faced with Dark Elf Crossbow regiments, Might want take a Ghoul unit with a Vampire Count carrying a Ruby Chalice on the fore to take out this nuisance. With their -2 shooting penalty, relatively fast movement and toughness 4, the Ghouls should be able to dispatch any missile unit fairly quickly. Gutter Runners, with their admirable hand-to-hand potential and special deployment rules, are excellent troops for despatching any War Machine Crews.
Don't be blinded: The purpose of the missile troops is to slay their foes from distance. Even if you think that your Savage Orc Arrow Boyz could stand against those Dark Elf Warriors, think again! The lack of ranks and the missing standard already swing the odds heavily in your disfavor.
Devious game designers have given most missile troops an option to buy shields and/or light armor. Why anybody should do this is unknown to me. The only exception I can think of are the Dwarfs: their Crossbowmen can be made formidable hand-to-hand fighters with 2 handed weapons. It is also wasteful trying to charge with them: just stand and shoot, and commence the souls of your brave archers to their ancestors.
A good support unit for a defensive army is a unit of "harassers" the classic example of such troops are Kislev horse archers. The role of harassers is to stop powerful opponents from marching by being within 8" of them, shooting the arrows at any convenient target, and staying out the enemy`s charge range.
Even when you choose war machines, you should remember your overall strategy: Chariots for offensive armies and Hellblasters for defensive ones.
If you are putting together an offensive army, it is still worth considering to buy some artillery support. A dead enemy is always a good enemy, regardless if it is slain by a war machine of a warrior. If you are planning to close in ASAP, don't take war machines that have scattering templates. It is extremely painful to lose your own troops by friendly fire!
Many gaming groups make artificial limitations on allies or ban them entirely, but equally many enjoy the chance to field something different. Most generals use the allies to boost their weak points, for example, many Dwarf generals field allied Wizards so they'll get a shot in the magic phase.
As with all other troops, allies should also fit to your overall plan. If you are going to build a defensive line of Chaos Dwarfs, and you are afraid of the knights of the Empire army you are facing, taking some Night Goblin allies with fanatics, and placing them slightly forward to unleash their dervishes on any intruding knights is a good idea.
The last step is to put your troops to the right position in your battle line. When placing your troops, ask yourself: Is this unit going to get to the battle at all if I place it here? If you are putting a unit of Dwarfs to your extreme flank, the answer is usually no. Think in advance about the fields of fire. Put units that support each other next to each other. Deploy fast troops to flanks and slower ones in the middle. Look for advantages in the terrain. Watch out for the places where infiltrators can hide. Once again, pen and a paper are a good friend when deploying your glorious army of conquest.
Next part: What Are Your Orders, Sire?.