The Army List

Every army needs at least one Lord or Hero to serve as its General, representing you on the battlefield and issuing the orders behind every move, shot, spell, and attack your troops make. If your army includes both Lords and Heroes, the General must be one of your Lords.

An army needs at least one Core, Special, or Rare unit for every 500 points played, on top of any Lords and Heroes -- an army isn't much of an army without warriors to fill its ranks.

Every army list divides its units into several categories, each with its own limit on how large a share of your points it can take up.

At least 25% of your points must go on Core units -- the iconic backbone of every army, making up the bulk of any warhost. Unlike other categories, there's no upper limit on how much you can spend on Core. For every Core unit with the Expendable special rule you include, you must also include at least one Core unit without it.

Up to 50% of your points can go on Special units -- elite troops capable of anchoring a battleline or achieving great things in their own right.

Up to 25% of your points can go on Rare units -- the most unusual warriors an army fields, from mighty monsters to strange war machines, often powerful but demanding a canny general to use well.

Up to 25% of your points can go on Lords, up to 35% on Heroes, but no more than 35% total across both categories combined. Lords are your army's most powerful individuals, fearsome in martial or magical might; Heroes are a notch below, but still worth many ordinary warriors.

Some Lords and Heroes are Wizards with access to one or more Lores of Magic. You won't pick their actual spells until you deploy them, but note which Lore each Wizard uses on your army roster when you build your list.

Every Warhammer Armies book includes rules for several Special Characters -- famous, named individuals like Karl Franz, Grom the Paunch, or Vlad von Carstein. For army-building purposes, what matters most is that each is unique: an army can never include more than one copy of the same Special Character.

Some units are rare enough to carry a hard limit, shown in the army list as something like 0-1 or 0-2 -- meaning you may never include more of that unit than the number given.

Special and Rare choices also have a limit on how many duplicate units of the same type you can include, shown below -- this applies only to repeats of the same Special or Rare unit type, not to your total number of Special and Rare units overall, and is based on the unit type itself rather than its size or wargear. A character's Monster, Chariot, or Shrine mount that's itself a Special or Rare choice also counts toward this limit.