How to get into Wargaming Part 2: List building

So you've got into the 40k hobby. The best way to make your first army is to build a list you like and then play it. This is very cost effective way of doing it in opposed to buying battleforces. The stages of building a list are...
1.) Read the Missions: If you understand the missions and what they have in common you can write the list to give you as big advantage as possible.
2.) Pick your most liked unit: Whats the point of making an army if you cant field the unit you like.
3.) Find units which support them with a degree of synergy.

So expanding on my first point. Reading the missions. This is the most forgotten element of 40k. When you play most games like board games etc, you look at the board, make a plan. Same here. So 5/6 of the missions have objectives so troops are highly important. Most missions have D3+2 objectives. So the average is 4 onjectives. So I always field my 1500 point list with at least 4 troops choices. Some missions allow Heavy Support and Fast Attack to be scoring but also give away victory points. So these can be a double edged sword. I'd reccommend taking one or possibly two depending on which units you like. Rather than just filling these out and making a 1 in 6 dice roll. Also you need to remember the secondary objectives. The most important is first blood. This is a victory point which only 1 player can get so getting a unit dedicated to achieving this is a good idea. There is also Slay the warlord so pickng a resiliant warlord who stays quiet is a good idea. The last one is being in the opponents deployment zone. This is harder than it seems. A resiliant unit deep striking usually does it. Also hammer units such a big terminator units can achieve this.

Coming Up: An example of a written list from Grey Knights using this method.