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For a long time, 1500 points was the default standard for army size at 40k tournaments and by extension the default standard for pick-up games.

Increasingly, though, armies with PV's of 1750, 1850, 2000 and 2500 are becoming more prevalent and there are even rumours circulating that GT's (the last bastion of 1500pt gaming) may be looking to revise upwards to 1750.

So what is driving this?

The obvious, cynical responce is to say that its just GW trying to get us to spend more money on models.
The alternative, however, is that this is something which is being driven by the tournament community itself - consider how much more effective a 'power build' can be compared with a 'battleforce build' at higher points values. At 1500pts its harder to construct an army that relies on maxing units to be effective. Most of the top-tier competetive army lists posted on dakka are at minimum 1750pts and often higher.

This is leading to a demand from players for events (like 'ard boyz, for example) that cater to this type of gaming format.



So, the questions then become - is this trend inevitable? and more importantly, is it desirable?

I would argue that many of the arguments over which armies/codices are better have less impact at the traditional 1500pt game limit - even more so when played on tables that actually have the recommended 25% scenery on the board.
Other considerations would be less time required for games (allowing more games to be played at the event) and possibly even a higher standard of presentation of armies (as the smaller model count allows for more time to be spent on them).


So what do people think. Are higher PV's here to stay? And are they a good thing?

Is it an inevitable trend? Probably. Is it desireable? Not from my perspective.

I've played in US GT's starting around '98, through '03, then took some time off and played this year. I've seen 1500, 1750, then 1750 with separate 'detachments' of the same army, 500 points to swap out during the tourny, back to 1750, which seems to be the default US GT value.

I prefer smaller points games, and the game is supposedly 'balanced' (or better balanced) at 1500. Of course, being a realist, the power builds are just different at the lower and higher levels. People are still capable of spamming certain units at 1500 as they are at the higher. Some would argue lower points values impact people's ability to counter the power builds.

For myself, I prefer there to be some thought that goes into list building. I want to have to make that tough choice. To my mind (and I'm sure GWs), higher points values means more models, and usually more expensive models (i.e. 5 LRs) that you wouldn't take in 1500 point games.

Also, some of the reported difficulties in finishing games, especially for horde armies, I'd suggest going back to 1500. But ymmv.

I have noticed and also disliked this trend. The one time that I went to hardboys at (2500) you just see some crazy stuff, and the games take forever to play. I also enjoy more well painted and converted models at 1500 rather than a slew of undercoated plastic at 2000 or >. I think it may be more that just power gamers and GW greed that is influencing this though. Just like apocalypse is a chance to bring out all of your models, maybe a segment (read not me) of the gaming population has been clamoring for higher points limits to inlcude more of their models.

I would love to see the point values go back down to 1500. I feel this is a much more reasonable value for the game. As a "skirmish" type game as you get higher in points, it becomes less Skirmish like.

I've played 1000 to 3000 point games and find that for for a tournament, 1500 to 1850 works the best. The games are quicker and people are more limited on what they can take. With one force org chart, certian armies do better at higher points values than others because they aren't having to fill slots with junk to make points. Tau is/was one the armies that comes to mind when talking about disadvantages at high point games.

Having lower point games, with the occasional high point game at the LGS helps players not see the entry step as being so high.

I like bigger games.

Ard Boyz have been fun as long as you play against someone who knows what they're doing and doensnt soak up scads of time.

1850/1750 is a decent point level for RTT's/GT's, 1500 just seems too small, but I havent really played at that level in years. Not since GW upped the point level here in the U.S. years and years ago. Back at that time I was playing 1500.

With units running around like the Nob Bikers, 1500 pt level is broken, I cannot see beating a 1500 pt Nob Biker list with anything BUT another Nob biker list.

I dislike the trend towards larger and larger games. Usually the people pushing for this seem to have a larger is better mentality. Unfortunately, it really just means more of the same for a lot of stuff. Instead of having one tactical squad, you've got two. Instead of one dreadnought, you've got two or three. And your opponent has the same. Having gone to numerous tournaments, and only having completed 2-3 games with my ork horde I can tell you that I will probably never field it again. I just can't seem to play fast enough to finish a game. And all that rushing really isn't fun for me....

I think that 1500 is a good level.

I've also been playing a lot of 750 pt games in a local league. The store has never had much of a GW following, they just started carrying stuff, so the idea is to give people a chance to get a start.

I've been having a ton of fun, and finishing games in an hour or two, instead of three or four. I never feel like I'm hampered by the low points level, thought I've got enough models for 2500-3000 pts. Instead I enjoy doing a different list each time. In most cases I need to make some hard choices about what to take.

Beerfart wrote:I like bigger games.

Ard Boyz have been fun as long as you play against someone who knows what they're doing and doensnt soak up scads of time.

1850/1750 is a decent point level for RTT's/GT's, 1500 just seems too small, but I havent really played at that level in years. Not since GW upped the point level here in the U.S. years and years ago. Back at that time I was playing 1500.

With units running around like the Nob Bikers, 1500 pt level is broken, I cannot see beating a 1500 pt Nob Biker list with anything BUT another Nob biker list.

yea.... a unit of 10 termis with storm shields/hammers also is hard to deal with... and kills nob bikers quick.

but yea this is a hard list to deal with for anything else

Chimera_Calvin wrote:For a long time, 1500 points was the default standard for army size at 40k tournaments and by extension the default standard for pick-up games.

Increasingly, though, armies with PV's of 1750, 1850, 2000 and 2500 are becoming more prevalent and there are even rumours circulating that GT's (the last bastion of 1500pt gaming) may be looking to revise upwards to 1750.

To my understanding GWUK is very attached to the 1500pt size, and unlikely to change it. Here in the US we’ve had larger point sizes at GTs for as long as I’ve been in the game- which is more than nine years. My first GT (Baltimore 2001) was the one Cruentus mentioned where you had a 1250 core list, and chose one of two 500pt blocks to have a 1750pt list in each game. The whole 2250 army also had to legally fit within one force org chart, and was judged for comp and painting, and you got to use the extra stuff in 2 of the 6 games.

In my experience extreme builds are more dominating and unbalanced at smaller point values. This is due to the nature of the force org chart, which doesn’t scale to game size the way the Core/Special/Rare/Characters unit limits and requirements do in Warhammer.

Three holo-falcons in 1000 points, or in 1500, dominate the game much more than they do in 1750 or 2000. Same with tyranid monstrous creatures. The classic nidzilla list has its sweet spot at 1500pts on the nose. The current crazy-good choice is the Nob Biker mob. Any given “overly-good” unit in a limited slot has a greater impact the smaller the game is. Oblits, Lash HQs, Lootas, or whatever.

The other virtue of larger games is that they are less dependent on pure luck. The more units there are on the table, the more individual dice rolls are involved, and the less chance there is that one given roll will decide the game. It still happens, but if you have two Troops in position to seize a given objective (for example), you are much less vulnerable to a blown Morale test than if you only have one there.

Personally I find 1750 or 1850 to have more tactical depth and to support more interesting/attractive armies than 1500. I have very rarely run out of time in a tournament game against an opponent who knew how to play with appropriate speed for their army. IME so far 5th edition plays significantly faster, and could possibly support 2000pt tournament games assuming 2.5hr rounds were allowed. I didn’t run out of time in either of my games against footslogging horde Orks at Baltimore. Still, for the benefit of the slower players out there, I could easily see keeping it at 1750 or 1850.

I think the real issue is space. On the standard 6x4 table the board starts to get crowded when you go over 1500 and especially when you get up over 2000. Less points means more maneuvering which means more tactical (oh noes! ) game play.

Also, as Cruentus mentioned, at 1500 you are forced to make some interesting choices. 1750 seems to be a sweet spot for a lot of forces where they can pack in a lot of neat toys while still having a solid core.

Adepticon Gladiator at 2250 will be pretty interesting I think...

Mannahnin wrote:I have very rarely run out of time in a tournament game against an opponent who knew how to play with appropriate speed for their army. IME so far 5th edition plays significantly faster, and could possibly support 2000pt tournament games assuming 2.5hr rounds were allowed. I didn’t run out of time in either of my games against footslogging horde Orks at Baltimore. Still, for the benefit of the slower players out there, I could easily see keeping it at 1750 or 1850.

I understood the rules very well each time I went to tournament. I played as quickly as possible, often times measuring only the front of the group or a single model, and then moving in mass. I usually fielded some where around 150-160 models. Then there are the issues with making all the die rolls, etc. For die rolls I usually used a die pool, and pulled thing out and put them in depending on the number I needed to roll. Then there are the logistics of moving that many models from board to board.

I have been to some where between 3-4 RTs, usually with 2-3 hour time limits. I have completed 3 games, two of which went over the official time limits. I'm going to guess that I've played somewhere around 15 games in a tournament setting, less that 1/4 of my games were completed. I don't believe that any of my opponents were deliberately attempting to stall. I've heard similar complaints made by other horde players. It really is much more stuff that needs to be done with a foot slogging list.

I know that I personally will not be bringing one to another tournament over 1500 pts.

I think it could be in response to certain 'issues' within the various Codecies.

For example, Necrons have a fairly limiting 460 point minimum spend (2x10 Warriors, 1 x Lord) leaving a fairly meagre 1,040 at 1,500 to spend. Add in the expense of their better units (Monoliths etc) and by raising the cap, you theoretically encourage more diversity in the armies.

I actually really liked it when they did 1850. Gives you just enough points to include some fat and customization once you get all the hard core necessary bits out of the way.

edit: I think that 1500 is about how much I tend to use as my lean, mean, bare-essentials only "block". That gets me my hard hitters, my ranged support, and my objective grabbers. After that I will usually add something to specifically counter the flavor-of-the-week list and then try and shoehorn in something that I really like for whatever reason other than game effectiveness.

I personally like the 1500 better for competative play, mainly cause the time aspect of some pepole playing larger forces. Seen people muppet about with orks for 90% of the round time too many times.

Other then that its fun to do diffrent from time to time.

More points mean more units on the board which means more variety and fun.

Plus, the lower the points, the more points that are taken up by the core 'must haves'. More points means the potential for more variety in competetive lists.

You also run into the hard limits in the FOC at higher points levels.

9 Oblits is rock hard at 1500 points. at 2500 points, it's not as big of a deal.

Bigger is better.

I've played in GT's and RTT's for years. In 30-40 games in large tournaments (30+ players), I have only ever not finished 2-3 games.

I simply do not like smaller games because the tactical design choices are limited. You either take a "balanced" force, which for skill armies means you are crap, and for horde armies means you can swamp your opponent; or you revert to the eggs in one basket approach, which for skill armies means you are effective as long as you draw the right oponent, and for horde armies means you swamp your opponent.

As much as people are screaming about horde armies now, lower the points costs in tournaments and see them become exponentially more powerful.

I think Mannahnin and Skyth have provided good points. Some armies aren't balanced until they run into FOC limitations.

Just to kind of make a counter argument, US GT's were previously 1850 a few years ago, and since have been changed to 1750 pts.

I think 1750 pts allows more diversity in armies, especially in armies that require a large amount of points. It does also allow armies to counter really tough units like Nob Bikers and such. Overall, I like 1750 over 1500

As Kymera (are you my long-lost chaos-worshipping brother...?? ) said, space is a big issue. I would also add terrain in to that as well.

Games over 1500 are terrific fun and can be really interesting and tactical - but only if the board is big enough and the terrain is good enough to support them - If not it just becomes a dice-fest that good play can't always get you through.

I would like to see the US go back to 1850 points... Not sure why they dropped down to 1750.

1500 forces you to build a good list though.

G

Ork wrote:Just to kind of make a counter argument, US GT's were previously 1850 a few years ago, and since have been changed to 1750 pts.

I think 1750 pts allows more diversity in armies, especially in armies that require a large amount of points. It does also allow armies to counter really tough units like Nob Bikers and such. Overall, I like 1750 over 1500

Except that this doesn't actually play out in the tournies. Case in point, I faced 3 CSM armies in the Baltimore GT. They all had Daemon Princes, two of them were sporting Dual Lash, Vindicators, Terminators, Oblits, and while one had 2 units of chosen in Rhinos, the other had TSons, Noise Marines in a Land Raider. For all intents and purposes, the lists were the same.

My other two games were against Space Marines with large units of Sternguard, Rhinos and Razorbacks. Again, not much variety.

So while it may be logical to think that larger points would mean varied armies, the reality is different in tournies. What you see if what is most effective for that particular army.

The differences between 1850 and 1500 are what is "effective". At 1500 as some mentioned, some armies are a little better than at larger points values. So it all depends on which armies you want to favor.

I'd prefer smaller games so that they go more quickly, there is more room for maneuver, and it is a little easier to use the relatively sparse terrain on GT tables. I don't mind that hordes or Nidzilla might be better in that environ.

But even so, is that the fault of the points limit, or the fault of players who dare not take a risk less they make their win less assured?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:But even so, is that the fault of the points limit, or the fault of players who dare not take a risk less they make their win less assured?

Neither, slow game designers would be the party at fault.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
1500 forces you to build a good list though.

G

yeah, we wouldn't want that would we?

Yes, because god forbid the players are offered a variety of army builds within their book. That would be a terrible, terrible thing,