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I'm working on a Beasts army, and because I won't be at 2k points for a little while, I've set a preliminary goal of 1000 pts. I basically cut my 2000 list down by 50% in every department, at which point I realized that this left me a single level 1 scroll caddy. It struck me as rather light for magic defense, and then I realized that I'm talking about a 1000 pt game. And then I tried to remember something that I haven't done in years: playing a 1000 pt game. What's it like? Does anyone bring magic? It seems to me that without a geared-out level 4 spellcaster, a magic-heavy army would be an impossibility. Will a single level 1 scroll caddy be enough? In addition, should I be spending the 35 pts to upgrade to level 2 for that extra power die?

I'm playing an Undivided beasts army, so Leadership will be an issue, even with the re-rolls. A re-rolled 7 still means I'm running 17.5% of the time.

I'd appreciate any insight. It's just been so long since I've played a game at that point value.

It actually is possible to do a magic heavy 1000pt army if you really want to. Three level two wizards are quite something in that size of game. I used to try it with the old Empire book to see what would happen. And well wow betide any opponent who didn't have some anti-magic capabilities.

Most sane people don't go out on that kind of extreme silliness though. Magic is definitely a possibility in 100pts so maybe having a single wizard is good back up, but I doubt it could be considered essential.

I would just use one lvl 2 wizard (with any item that gives you an extra power die or bound spell). The 3 dispel dice should be enough to blunt most magic coming your way and your 5ish power dice should get something through.

I would almost always take a scroll caddy when I am not playing Khorne. There are some times in the game when relying on a dice roll could cost you the game. For that reason alone I will almost always have a single scroll in my small armies and at least 2 in anything larger than 2k.

Demogorgon is right. Three L2s can be pretty ridiculous at 1k. I faced a VC army with this in a random pickup game last summer, in the only Nemesis Crown Campaign I played. It was gross. I had only brought one scroll caddy, and it was just not enough, despite me playing WE and getting stuck in quickly. I made a good fight of it, though. Overall, one scroll caddy should be enough vs most armies. But if you know you’re going to a beardfest, bring a second one and/or some fast magehunting units.

On the flipside, if you know your opponent is reasonable and casual, each taking a single L2 with a single scroll and optionally one additional arcane item can give quite a fun magic phase for a game of this size.

Unless you happen to face some silly vampire counts /skaven army with 3 mages, you generally do fine with just 1 mage in 1000 pts. It is indeed advisable to upgrade him to lvl 2, as it's only 35 pts and makes him a far bigger threat in offensive magic. Good magic kit for bray shaman would be lvl2 upgrade,scroll, chaos armor, braystaff and maybe a spell familiar. In that way he can fight ok in cc (he can even choose to have 2+ save) and he has a bigger change to get some good spells. Lore of beasts often works best, I've noticed.