40k tactics and list building

Warning!!! Long post and I think I may have rambled on a bit...

Here's just a few thoughts that I've been having over the last few weeks, please note that I'm by no means any amazing player but there are just a few things that I have noticed.

So what people usually do nowadays is find a unit that works well, stuff it full of equipment that does the job well too and then spam throughout their army. In the past I when I was told that this would make an army too "one-dimesional" I didn't understand how this could possibly be. I mean if you have loads of awesome stuff in your army wouldn't that make your army awesome too? Well that's the trap that most "netlists" fall into.

IDICBeer 40k

What one-dimensional means, is that every time you set up your army to play a game, you're always going to do the exact same thing no matter what, army-wide. This makes your list as a whole far too predictable, and so there is no scare for your opponent as everything is doing the exact same thing. While your whole army is working in conjunction with each other to do whatever they do best (e.g. meltavets in chimeras), because they all contribute small parts to a greater whole and that greater whole is always the same thing, then your opponent is always going to see what you're trying to do and perhaps be in a better position to adjust and stop it. It also, releases pressure off of your opponent and could make them complacent, rather than being on edge and being forced into silly mistakes and bad tactical decisions.

Imperius Dominatus

So let's take a look at an example, below is my Imperial Guard 1750 pt list:

Company Command Squad with 2x plasmagun, plasma pistol, power sword, vox and medipack

Veterans 3x melta gun, demolitions, chimera

Veterans 3x plasma gun and power sword, grenadiers, chimera

PCS with 4x flamer (ride in vendetta)

IS with autocannon, nade launcher (vox) and commissar with power sword and plasma pistol

IS with autocannon, nade launcher (vox)

IS with autocannon, nade launcher 

Heavy weapon squad with missile launchers

Vendetta

Hellhound

Leman Russ Vanquisher with lascannon

Leman Russ Executioner with plasma sponsons 

Leman Russ Eradicator

IDICBeer 40k

It's not a bad list but as you can see there's not really any out of the usual "scare" in this list apart from maybe the executioner... What I'm trying to say is that maybe armies need more than just good, solid choices, perhaps something a bit random or not cost/effective, like maybe a towering monstrous creature, an awesome close combat IC (i.e. Mephiston/Ghazghkull + meganobs - as Paul uses to good effect), or maybe just a tank with a rather large gun. 

Look at some of the better known bloggers out there: 

- Jawaballs whose blood angels include Mephiston and a Sanguinor accompanied by sanguinary guard, or even his alternative list with drop podding assault dreadnoughts and he's even managed to fit a dreadnight into his all terminator GK army

The Blood Angels by Jawaballs

- Fritz with his many big bugs in his 'nid lists

Fritz 40K

- Mercer's Red fleas (all assault marine army) and necrons which come with 2 triarch stalkers

Imperius Dominatus

In general, you may have noticed yourselves, especially when going up against a new army, you are mentally influenced to target the big stuff that looks like it might do damage. You can definitely use this against opponents, forcing them to shoot things that may be deadlier looking, while the rest of your army can remain largely unscathed. If people did this it would also mean there would be more variety in lists rather than having the problem of having just spam and nothing else.

To round off, I think it might be wise to include a big, mean-looking unit or two in your army, it doesn't even have to be incredibly expensive points-wise or even something that you wouldn't find a use for. I mean how hard could be adding a tank to a tank-heavy game? Or if you're the tank-toting Imperial Guard just a cheap 65 point guardsman Marbo?

Ok, so that was quite a long and rambling post, hopefully some of it makes sense... maybe? Opinions?