I like to think its good practice to review your army choices after you've played a couple of games. It's happened to me too many times that I went to a tournament and after a couple games I was swearing up and down that I made a poor choice with one unit or another.
This can be mitigated in your playtesting by conducting good post game reviews.
My experience is that the best armylists are those that have a balance of different kinds of units that all compliment each other. Some units have specific roles while other are more generalized. Yet everything in the army has a good flow. This gives you an army that's able to handle the majority of situations.
Lots of armies out there tend to be one trick ponies. Able to deal with one specific situation really well but few others. These tend to be the army lists that are highly tuned to dish out as much damage as possible with little regard to holding or taking objectives. There players answer to everything is "table my opponent" which doesn't actually win you games. A well skilled opponent with a well tuned and balanced army will beat out a power gamer everytime. You may disagree with that statement, but I find it's very true.
Aside from the usual I "Should swap this unit for that one?" here's a few questions you should ask yourself.
Is this unit worth it?
All to often I here the words "Is this unit getting its points back?" effectively asking did the unit kill a number of points in the enemy army equal to or more than you paid for it?
This is a terrible measure of a units value. You should judge a unit by what it accomplishes rather than what it kills. Units can grab objectives, block line of sight, absorb fire for other squads all tasks that result in few inflicted casualties but all very relevant to the task at hand.
What you should ask yourself is 'Is the unit accomplishing the task that I assigned it?' and is that task worth the points I invested?
If the answer is no, then try swapping out the unit or change it's configuration to see if they perform better.
As an example in my previous army I had a unit of deffkoptas. Even though they are a solid unit in there own right I found they were always dying early on in the game because they were a priority target in the flanking roll I assigned them. Because of this they were able to stay in the game long enough to harass the enemy enough to make them worthwhile.
I decided I can either swap out the unit for something more durable for flanking, say some armored trukks. Or maybe increase the squad size to keep them on the table longer, or add a character with a higher leadership value. Or perhaps I need to change my tactics completely and abandon the flankers all together and use there guns to provide support fire right next to other units?
At this point you make the decision you are most comfortable with and playtest.
Why am I taking this unit? Is it accomplishing the task that I assigned it? Or is it doing something else entirely?
Ask yourself this question of every unit in your army. You reflect back on previous games you might be surprised to discover that your sit back tactical squads end up moving alot to capture objectives or your assault squads never make it into HtH because they always get shot down.
That's usually a sign that your army selections don't match the tactics that you are applying.
Either try swapping out the affected unit with something better suited to the task at hand or reconfigure it to be better at the role that it is performing.
If that fails maybe a change in tactics is in order?
As another example I had a squad of Burnas in a previous rendition of my army. They were a pretty hard hitting unit but they were essentially a glass cannon. They can dish it out but they can't take it.
I also found that they were a one trick pony, they killed one, maybe two units and were wiped off the face of the earth. I needed to swap them out, or make them more worthwhile. To accomplish the latter I needed to make them either more survivable or make them more worthwhile in the first turns of the game.
My solution was to added a pair of meks to the squad with big shootas. This gave the burnas some long range punch that they could use to support the rest of the army until they got into position for there big hit. Suddenly the unit was useful early game as well as later game.
Am I taking this unit because its good? or because its useful?
This is a classic fallacy that I first encountered in my Magic days. Players will often use a card in a deck, not because its a good fit but because the card is inherently powerful. This is poor judgement IMO and usually results in poor army choices.
So ask yourself am I taking this Greater Demon, C'tan or Land Raider because its a good fit? or because its powerful? If you answer the latter try swapping it out for something that's a better fit. There is potentially alot of points tied up in that unit that could be put to better use. You might be surprised at how much of an improvement you get.
This can open up alot of possibilities in your army selection. You might suddenly discover that you play alot better with an extra scoring unit on the table or having that extra little bit of anti-tank or anti-infantry firepower that you didn't have before. Likewise you might discover that your entire tactical planning hinges on that single tank and you either need to put it back in, or change your tactics.
250 points is potentially a full infantry squad with transport and a support unit like an attack bike or a land speeder. You might not think that these units have the same raw survivability of a 14 armor all around tank, but in fact they are MORE survivable because they are 3 separate targets, some vehicle and some infantry. It's really on how you look at it.
That land raider may be the safest way to deliver your squad into HtH but the tactical squad and rhino can grab objectives, hold ground and deal with a couple different threats (and won't be killed by a single lucky lascannon!) and the speeder/attack bike can kill tanks or harass the enemy in ways that you couldn't before. Again its all about how you look at the situation.
Don't knock it until you try it. It may be the greatest thing slice sliced bread or it might flop. Either way you learned something about your playing style and your army.I'm not saying taking points intensive or powerful units is inherently counter-productive. On the contrary they can be a valuable addition to your army. Yet some players tend to use them more as a crutch then a useful tool. You might find that your playing improves once you take that away.
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