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I have a small 1500pt tournament coming up. At least 2 of the 3 games will involve a random number of objectives.

So, at that point level, how many scoring units would you consider appropriate?

4 would probably be good.

I played a 1500pt rournie a while back with 3 troops, 3 was ok but 4 would have been better.


Would be different for marines because of combat squading.

Depends on how good/cheap your troops are. For my DE and Tyranids (who both have fairly good and/or cheap troops) I tend to run about 4 or 5 at the 1500pt level.

I always make sure I have one troop choice per 500 points, but that's really just the minimum IMO.

Since I loathe the Necron troop choices, I tend to run two proper troop units, and a small min squad for a backfield objective.

With my Space Wolves, I'll always have at least 4 in transports.

I've heard 1 per every 500 pts, plus one*. At 1500 pts, that'd put you at 4 troops choices.

Seems to work out about right for me.


*I believe this was from Sandwyrm at The Back 40k, just trying to give credit where it's due.

The right number really depends on your army and play style. A good rule of thumb is as others said. One troop per 500 points. Some armies have better troops than others so adding more of them is good. Example would be space wolves, grey knights and dark eldar. Armies with poor troops will not have as many at any points level. Units like tau fire warriors and codex tactical marines are usually not taken in large numbers because they are not as effective as other choices in their respective codex.

as a daemons player I've been doing ok at 1500's with just 2 troops (10 total models!) though people say I'm crazy. I think I might get up to 4 troops at 1750 and possibly 5 at 2000. My troops are either sturdy or shooty though very weak compared to my HQ / Elites/ heavy support choices.

As IG, I run at the very least 4 troops at 1500 and 5- 6 at 1750/2000. Possibly more if I used platoon squads instead of vets but I love my mech and BS4's too much. The troops are very killy but so very squishy even with some armor.

As GK, 1500 sees me at 4 again, and possibly 10 with combat squads at 2000 with fairly larger squads. The troops are quite sturdy and good all arounders.
As GK henchmen, I'm at 5 troops at 1500, 6 at 1750... possibly 7-9 if I took a grand master at 2000

The amount of troop choices you bring to any tourney really doesn't matter anymore. If there is just one Grey Knight player there, forget about winning, just focus on trying to get "best painted army" awards.

sub-zero wrote:The amount of troop choices you bring to any tourney really doesn't matter anymore. If there is just one Grey Knight player there, forget about winning, just focus on trying to get "best painted army" awards.

Obviously this isn't serious, but yeah - take 4 scoring units at least (you can get away with 3 if you're running an "elite" army though). Personally I like to run 1 or 2 long-ranged squads with minimal numbers as objective campers.

pretty sure that you'll definately see some GK players no matter what tourny you go to. Also, they are not really that invincible once you play them a few times and figure out their weaknesses. Low numbers can be countered by volume especially shooting. They die just like every marine (well cept blood angels as they got all them FNP saves).

Take down the autodreads and just gun down the gk that try to charge is the best policy. You can still kill them in assault as well. Necrons, IG, most mech lists that can put down AP1-2 or just sheer volume does quite well. Even as daemon player, it's still doable as you don't run into all warpquake spam that much. A bunch of power weapons from bloodletters still gets through. Enough bodies can still survive to delivery the blows. Shooting warpfire/breath of chaos does quite well. Bolt to the back of dreads is very nice. Dreadknights are still killable again with enough bloodletters or rending.

No special craziness with list tailoring here, just standard practices, target selection, and getting used to their powers. Most of the common necron builds are quite strong vs GK if you really just hate them bad enough.

1 troop per 500pts, with a minimum of 2.

Thus at 1K and below, 2 troops.

3 at 1500.

4 at 2K.

BTW, I consider this a minimum. You can go more depending on your codex. Some armies (grey knights, space wolves, IG) has some pretty good troop choices.

Between 1 per 500 pts and 1 per 500 pts +1, with a min of 2

While generally I agree with the 1+1/500, it does completely depend on the army

If your talking Nurgle CSMs....I might only run 3 up to 2K - and then just unload with Defi's, oblits, DPs, etc...

But if your talking nids - I would be pusing 6 troops even in as low as 1500 (cause Genestealers, Tervigons, and Hormies are amazing)

And when I run Necrons - I might run a bit troop heavy dependinf on opponent (4xImmortals with teslas and 2xWarrios with Phaerons vs nids is kinna sick)...

but generally - when it comes to it - the 1+1/500

I run two at 1500 and four at 2000. I wouldn't suggest doing that, but the list I have runs well with that set up.

You can't have a blanket formula for scoring units which covers all armies due to the huge variation in Troops across all the books. If you are highly durable you need less (Draigowing), if you are fragile/cheap you need more (Dark Eldar). If you are purely on foot you tend to need more than if you are fully mech, since you are slower and more vulnerable on foot. 3 scoring units (not Troop units, slight difference since you factor in combat squads etc) is the minimum for any points level tbh, 2 is pretty risky even at 1000pts. At tournament standard levels (1850-2000pts) imo you want 5 scoring units as a minimum for any army, at least 2 of which can push forward and capture midfield objectives without being crushed.

Well the minimum is two, the maximum is six, nine if you take an HQ that makes a non-troop scoring like Kantor, 18 if you can combat squad. That said, you won't see Marines playing maximum troops, and Grey Knights probably can't afford to take a Grand Master, six troops and three other full sized units.

There can be a lot though.

As a rule of thumb you need one troop/scoring unit to sit on your home objective, and enough units to contest the rest of them. If you can eliminate the enemy and hold more objectives then go for it, but that's not as important as making sure there's no one contesting your home objective.

Between 2 to 6...

clively wrote:I have a small 1500pt tournament coming up. At least 2 of the 3 games will involve a random number of objectives.

So, at that point level, how many scoring units would you consider appropriate?

It might help a little if you had mentioned which army your taking to the tournament, but hopefully you might have a better idea with all the general answer you recieved?

Also do you know what the missions will be before hand for this tournament?

As a Eldar and SOB player I very often take very few scoring unit, Usually has to be above 1750 before I consider taking more than 2 troops.

I used to hold fast to the 1 troop choice for every 500 points rule and I still think it is a good rule but my preferences in list building have changed and yours probably will too.

Like others said there are units in other slots I'd rather take than MSUing troops.

If I knew before hand that my tournament would be exclusively objective games I'd probably take at least 3 troops no matter the point level.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:Between 2 to 6...

I don't worry so much about things like number of units as much as the mass of my scoring units. For instance, DE and Daemons have easy to kill troops (other than plagues and wracks). Having more than 1 unit is a good idea, since they can be easily killed. Since you don't want to spend all your armies points on, and you can generally preserve at least 1 if you know what you are doing, I personally make these troop choices small. 4-6 units of 5-10 each, with 20-40 scoring bodies is what I've had best luck with.

With marines your units can combat squad so you can have some flexibility about how you use them. 20-30 scoring bodies is generally my limit as marines are pretty pricey and marine troops aren't super effective. This is either 2-3 full units or 4-6 razorback squads.

With orks and nids your guys are supper cheap, pretty durable, and can take large units. They aren't marine durable, so really big units are generally the idea. 20-30 in a squad and 2-4 units. Their offensive power is pretty diluted, so don't go crazy or it becomes unwieldy.

Going outside these conventions pretty much means you are probably playing point levels where the army doesn't fare as well. Filling up your troops should probably only happen when your 0-3 slots are filled (though some armies have only junk units in at least one of these slots, so that slot doesn't count).

An example I've found is that at high point levels (about 2k and above) DE just can't take their most effective units anymore, since the FOC is completely full of optimized units. The more expensive units are usually not even as good as the optimal "net list" option, so you can't just upgrade to an expensive unit and even get the same performance.

GKs and space marine armies generally can't muster any power at low points (500-1250), since their troops are so expensive. But give them 1850 or more points and they will fill their FOC full of power units that they just can't make room for at lower points.

I think at my last 1500pt tourny i took 7 scoring units. I always take alot since the guards best units are troops. Heres looking at you power blobs and mechvets.

Are you counting tactical squads that you combat squad as 1 or 2?

I would rarely bring more than 2 tactical squads, even in 2000 point games. Combat squading them and putting half in rhinos/razorbacks and leaving the other half on an objective or in cover to shoot their heavy weapon seems fine with me.

Dervos wrote:It might help a little if you had mentioned which army your taking to the tournament, but hopefully you might have a better idea with all the general answer you recieved?

I purposefully did not mention the army because I'm interested in generic recommendations with the reasoning behind them. Also, the list I'm thinking about isn't exactly standard and has some unit choices that the Net considers "sub standard". Although I want to win, I'm using this tournament to try a few new and interesting combinations.

Dervos wrote:Also do you know what the missions will be before hand for this tournament?

Not yet.

**************

@everyone: Thank you for the very good info.

Warboss Brokentoof wrote:The right number really depends on your army and play style.

This x1000!!! The only thing that really matters, is that YOU know how to play YOUR list. You may only need 2 troop choices in an objectives game. All you need to do is capture one objective and deny the rest. If you understand that going in, you can play accordingly. Your opponent will gun his or her hardest for your two scoring units, leaving the rest of your army to deal with his stuff. Its all in how you play! Minimum of two troops and your golden!

Summing up the recommendations

1. 2 units + 1 unit every 500 points above 500. For 1500 this works out to 4.
2. 2 units; with enough other unit types to contest the remaining objectives.
3. 3 unit minimum. High durability armies: 3. Fragile armies: more.
4. If army has great troops, take a lot. If not, stick with 1 per 500.

I find that 3-4 scoring units works for me.

With some armies, you want more troops, and with others, you want less. It all depends on how your army is supposed to function.

I agree with most here one for every 500 with an aditional 1 is a good minimum for most armies.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:Between 2 to 6...

I tend to agree with the majority and field a minimum of 1 per 500 points. As the points go up i will add more.

For exampel i play Chaos and necrons. I think CSM marines are pretty good all rounder so i tend to take 3 or 4 at least in any given list. with my necrons my army is still built aroudn a solid core of warriors (my apoc army is a troops slot of 60 warrios and 10 immortals). Not so much be3cause they are great but because they are fairly tough and cheap.

Well you asked for general advice and you got general advice. One for every 500 pts is a good general rule that works across codexes. it is also important to recognize play style's and specific army builds trump the general rule. mechdar need a different number of troops than footdar for example.

notabot187 wrote:
GKs and space marine armies generally can't muster any power at low points (500-1250), since their troops are so expensive. But give them 1850 or more points and they will fill their FOC full of power units that they just can't make room for at lower points.

This IMO is completely wrong. GK are actually very strong at 500-1000 points. They still bring a ridiculous number of powerweapon attacks, plenty of psycannons and even a few psflemandreads. They can put out plenty of firepower at these low point level and honestly their biggest weakness (limited long range shooting, mediocre at best anti av13+) are hard for their opponets to capitalize at the lower point level (how many av14 vehicles do you see at 1000pts?). GK do suffer at 1500, they don't suffer a lot, because their opponets can field more of the things they are weak against and GK still have to make sacrifices in their army lists.

I can run Scoring units up to 20 models in a single unit. When you say 4 units are you talking of putting 20 scoring bodies in 4 transports or would 40 scoring bodies in 2 units still work?

Most scoring units are 5 man in a SMU style with GKs being 3 man. You can stretch 40 scoring models the length of the board if you need to.