Step One: Big Choices

The first step in deckbuilding is selecting your warlord. This is by far the most important selection you can make, because not only does it select the one card you're guaranteed to have in every game, but it also determines your faction and what eight other cards in your deck are.



Thus, selecting a warlord (and hence signature squad) that fits well with your playstyle is a must. For instance, if you like grinding your opponent down in extended battles, picking Aun'shi would be a big mistake! If you're not sure what approach you want to take, picking a warlord that doesn't particularly commit you to any style (like Cato Sicarius) might be a good move. If you're unfamiliar with what different warlords and factions provide, my faction overview has more information on the different factions and warlords.



After choosing a warlord, I next select an allied faction or Synapse unit. Typically, this is based on whether there are any particular holes that I want to cover. For instance, Old One Eye is a bit weak on command, so I usually select the Stalking Lictor when playing him; Zarathur has tons of nice cheap effects but isn't great at drawing them, so I ally in Orks for Ammo Depot. There's usually some element that your main choice isn't great at or could use a little help with, and choosing the right allied faction or Synapse unit can be a great way to set up a solution.



If it's hard to decide what allied faction you want, consider what cards you would want to bring into the deck. Framing the question in terms of specific choices can help make the decision more grounded and practical. For instance, when making a Shadowsun deck, I think about which would be more useful to me - the Eager Recruit and Tactical Squad Cardinis that I would pull in from Space Marines or the Warlock Destructor that I would pull in from Eldar.





Step Two: Unit Selection

Once I've chosen my warlord and alliance/Synapse, I start filling in the deck. Units tend to be the most important component of a deck, so I often start by selecting my units. As I discussed in my article on the command struggle , I typically try to have around nine one-for-ones and six two-for-twos as a "command base". Since most of my decks play somewhere around 30 units, that command base constitutes about half the unit supply.



The remaining fifteen or so "unit slots" typically get allocated to a mix of generalist units able to be deployed either for combat or command (most two cost one icon units fall into this category) and combat specialists which are inefficient in command but strong in battle. In general, I like to keep a low cost curve - most of my decks focus primarily on units that cost 1-3 resources, with a few 4+ resource heavy hitters. I usually restrict myself to only 1-2 units that cost five or more resources - drawing too many of these early can be quite costly.



A typical cost curve for units might thus look something like this:

8-9 one-costers (all one-for-ones)

~12 two-costers (six two-for-twos and six versatile two-cost units)

~6 three-costers (mostly combat-focused cards like Honored Librarian or Pathfinder Shi'O'Res)

2-3 four-costers (heavy hitters like Inquisitor Caius Wroth, Daring Assault Squad, or Wildrider Squadron)

0-2 five+ costers (almost always Elites with a big impact on combat like Gleeful Plague Beast or Firedrake Terminators)

This curve means that you have some cheap units to deploy to late planets and take command, mixed in with some more expensive options that can be sent into battle. Many of the units, especially one-for-ones and two-costers, should ideally be able to do well in combat as well as in command, thus allowing you a good degree of flexibility in your deployments.



Note that some units, like Eager Recruit or Elysian Assault Team, are best thought of as being "combat tricks" rather than units proper. I often pretend that these units are events when figuring out what ratios I want in my deck - while there are some rare scenarios where I might want to deploy them normally (most notably deploying Eager Recruit so that I can play Promotion on it to steal command from an enemy one-for-one), they almost always end up being saved in hand to use for the right moment rather than deployed normally.





Step Three: Filling in the Rest

After establishing my unit selection, I fill in the remaining 50 cards with events, attachments, and supports. Of these card types, I generally prioritize events; a normal deck of mine might have 13 events, four attachments, and two or three supports. Taking many supports is especially dangerous because supports don't have shields - broadly speaking I usually want to have at least 15 cards with shield icons on them (events or attachments), at least 5-6 of which have two shield icons. This means that I usually wind up with relatively few supports - though note that some supports, like Rockcrete Bunker, provide defensive abilities that probably "count" somewhat towards your shield numbers.



With these general proportions in mind, how do I select the events, attachments, and supports that I want? Well, it's fairly simple. For events, I'm primarily focused on two different types of thing:

Strong surprises like Drop Pod Assault, Archon's Terror, or Gift of Isha which can change the course of battles.

Cards that provide economic advantage like Promise of Glory or Deception. These are usually pretty obvious.

Most of the time, finding the strong "surprise" events isn't that hard - just ask yourself whether this card could swing an important battle in a cost-efficient way. Indomitable and Crushing Blow are great because they combine strong effects with low costs; Squiggify is decent but not great because it has a very strong effect but is also quite expensive. This is also why you have to be careful around cards like Doom or Exterminatus - while these cards can be devastating, they're very expensive and have to be used well in advance of the battle itself, so the opponent gets more of a chance to plan around them.



As for attachments, I start by taking 3x Promotion in every deck that doesn't have a Limited command unit (AKA every deck that isn't Tau or Tyranids). Other than that, I usually don't take very many attachments unless they're extremely strong (Slaanesh's Temptation, Regeneration) or have strong synergy with other elements of my plan (Ion Rifle in Tau decks). While Conquest does a better job with this than many games, the classic card game principle of attachments providing card disadvantage if the opponent destroys the attached unit still holds true.



Supports are my least favorite card type thanks to the fact that they do not provide shields; as a result drawing them during command does not help you win battles that turn. However, some supports can still be very powerful - cards like Catachan Outpost or Ammo Depot can have far-reaching effects on the game and are quite difficult for most opponents to shut down. In general, I try to limit myself to relatively few supports so as to preserve my shield and unit count - the most number of supports I run in any of my current decks is 8, and that's with 3 of them being Rockcrete Bunkers.





Step Four: Test Hands

The last step of deckbuilding, and one which is frequently omitted, is to draw a bunch of test hands. Most deckbuilders, including both the CardGameDB deckbuilder and the ConquestDB one, have built-in "draw test hand" options. After composing a deck, I usually use these features to draw a large number of test hands. If the hands look like they are strong and segue nicely into my plan for the deck, that's great - if not, I try to make alterations accordingly.



My rule of thumb for determining good hands is the "rule of four" - I want to play at least four actions and at least four command hammers on the first turn, assuming a warlord that starts with the standard seven cards and seven resources. In some cases this is not possible but an opening hand is still quite good, especially if the planet layout favors playing few units.



Drawing test hands is a great way to get a fair chunk of the benefit from early test games without having to actually play the full game - it usually becomes apparent just from these test hands that there are a few changes that improve the deck's overall shape and consistency, and doing those before you start playing "for real" is a good way to accelerate the development of your deck.



Step Five: Play the Game!

Once all the above steps are complete and the test hands look good, it's time to take the deck onto the battlefield and see what it can do!



Often, doing this will show some weaknesses that you weren't previously aware of, cards that you'd rather phase out, and so on. That's okay and to be expected - experience often shows us things that weren't apparent from a purely theory-based perspective. Only through repeated plays of the deck will you refine it into a truly cohesive build - good luck out there!