How to make a balanced, all-comers army list.

Unit types: If you want a list that can take on any army, you need to identify which types of units you will be facing. These are: Light infantry: soldiers on foot with little to no armour saves, usually cheap Troops. Easiest to kill by weight of fire. Put lots of shots on them, and lots of them die. Medium infantry: soldiers on foot with a decent armour save (4+ or 3+). For killing these, same tactics apply as above, only less of them die, because of the armour saves. If there are no enemy vehicles present, these are a good target for your anti-tank weapons of AP4 and AP3. Heavy infantry: soldiers on foot with a very good armour save (2+) and often an invulnerable save. These units are often expensive, slow, but pack a great punch. These are hard to kill by definition, and sometimes it is best to just go around them, because they are usually slow. If you do want (or need) to kill them though, find AP2 weapons, or just rain down a disproportionate amount of shots on them, until they are dead. Dont leave any survivors, because they will ruin your day if they get too close. Fast units: Jump infantry, bikes, cavalry, beasts, etc. These are basically versions of the above 3 types, which move twice as fast. If you can kill regular infantry, you can kill these too, just try and do it quickly, before they get to you. Light vehicles: vehicles like transports and such, with armour values of no more than 12. Can be killed with Strength 7 and 8 weapons rather well, and Strength 9 and 10 just murders them, but is much harder to come by. Heavy vehicles: big tanks and the like, with armour values of up to 14 (which is the maximum). Easiest to kill with melta or lance type weapons. Melta weapons need to come in close, so any units that have melta weapons, need to have some form of added mobility, for example a transport vehicle, or jump packs. Walkers: vehicles that act like infantry with an armour value. Most are armour 12, some even 13. If they assault you, and you have no way of dealing with armour 13, you will be stuck in combat with them until they kill you, because you cant do anything to hurt them. Solution to walkers: meltabombs and powerfists. Flyers: flying vehicles, which you cannot assault, and only hit when shooting from the ground, on a 6. Are (at the moment) exclusively light vehicles, so S7 and up is good for dealing with them. However, due to the only hitting them on 6s, you need to dedicate a lot of your high Strength firepower to get them down. Solution to killing flyers: bring your own flyers (these dont have to hit on 6s) or get twin-linked high Strength weapons. If you can get neither, pump heavy weapons into them, hoping for 6s. Monstrous Creatures: big monsters that move like infantry, and have high Toughness, lots of Wounds, and good saves (usually 3+). High Strength/low AP (AP3 and under) weapons are how you deal with them. Flying Monstrous Creatures: same as above, but they fly, meaning you only hit them on 6s. Bring twin-linked weapons, or Fortifications with a Quadgun. So, if you want to make an all-comers list, you need to be able to deal with all of the above.