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Stelek wrote:If you use marines as a baseline...and 10 man squads as their baseline for the future...1500 points is very bad.

Not in any way good except for Xenos players, with cheap and plentiful troops. Our 'expensive' units generally run 13-22 points, and destroy marine troop units without much trouble.

Add that all together, and I welcome 1500 points + all the players using marines. Makes winning so much easier.

This is good, eh?

With the DA codex as a reference, I'd have to most certainly agree with that!

Schepp himself wrote:

Stelek wrote:Our 'expensive' units generally run 13-22 points, and destroy marine troop units without much trouble.

Care to enlighten me what these units are? I have Tyranids and Eldar so I'm interested.

Greets
Schepp himself

Ever heard of Harlequins? Trooper + Kiss = 22pts

....I suspect Genestealers are in that range too but I've misplaced my 'dex.

Yes, they are.

What i think he is refering to is that non-marine playes can do alot better at 1,500 points because they can spam you with non expensive units that are still effective. IG for example can pack in alot of heavy weapons at 1,500 points if you do it right. and there is no way a marine based army can come close to responding with effective firepower to firepower.

10 SM with Special, Heavy, and Razorback isn't too bad.

My biggest complaint with tournaments is lack of time to play. While I haven’t participated in as many tournaments as some of the others here, I’ve been in my share. So far I think the only time I’ve every played a game out to turn 6 is when it was the last game of the event and the judges just let things run till everyone was actually finished (3-4 hours of game play). With that being said, I think that the time limits that most tournaments put on their games (2.5 hours or so) demand that the armies be smaller. If you are playing 1850 or more points in that time, you’ll find that it just isn’t enough time to finish games almost irrespective of what army you are playing. Heck, at the last tournament I went to, my first game ended on turn 2 because setup took a while and so did the first turn. So there are really 2 ways to solve the problem. One would be to play smaller point games (say 1500 or so) which would allow most people to finish a game in the allotted 2.5ish hours of play. The other option is to just increase the length of the game time. If you bump it up to 3.5 hours per game, you can fit more points into it.

With that being said, I enjoy larger games more than I enjoy smaller games. It give both players the opportunity to field a larger variety of units and see how they function. It also increases the effectiveness of force multiplier units (which is a concept I really like). But again, if larger games are going to be played, they need to have an appropriate amount of time allotted to them.

Never had that problem. i have been in lots of RTTs and even a GT and with few exceptions(mostly argumentative or whiny players) we easily get done within 2 hours with 1,850 points(heck even managed it fine in ard' boys with 2,500). of course most of us are vetrans and we know our armies well.

I vote for 1850, fully admitting that I may only be doing so because it is what I'm "used" to doing...

US GT is 1750 this year.

Of course US GT is denying anything that doesn't have its own Codex or Army Book.

Poor Dogs of War and Chaos Dwarves, we hardly knew ye.

We've run our own tournaments with 5 games over 2 days, 3 hours per round, at 1850 points per side. We've never really ever had a problem with the time limit, even with Orks and 'Nids in the same tournament (the same game even!).

Anyway, 1850 is the points level I prefer. It's big enough to give you some toys, so you can have fun, and small enough to force you to make choices.

BYE

Honestly I have found that the smaller the points limit in the game the more it becomes about skill.

Here in Charleston SC when we were haveing bi weekly tournies at the LGS ( read as a few years ago) we played 1000 points. It kept the games quicks, and you didn;t see alot of broken broken builds, a couple eldar ranger armies, a couple 2 chappy 5 tac 3 dev blood angels but nothing too bad, well ok the eldar rangers were horrid.

I agree with Yak that 1500 points would be better than either 1750 or 1850, heck i would even go so far as to say 1250 might be the best of the bunch. the Less points you give someone the more they have to think about what to put in the list rather than throwing everything they want into it then filling the last 200 points with anti MEQ/skimmer stuff.

Look at it this way, if the limit was 1500, your average eldar mech list would have 1100 ish points tied up in falcons and harlies, is 400 points really going to be enough to get two units of troops an hq, and still figure out a way to get some anti horde/ tank into the list if you come across IG or Tau or orks? Same could be asked of Nidzilla can you get two units of troops for around 100 points, at 1500 your basicly playing 8 MC's and thats it.

Basicly 1500 or lower points makes people think.

Troops for mech Eldar is 2 biks squads with destructor warlock. Relative ly cheap.

Troops for zilla list min is 60 points.

Also, lower point games are more about luck than skill. The fewer the rolls that you make, the more any one roll matters.

In a 400 point game, having your 200 point tactical squad roll a 12 on thier leadership and run off the board is a game-losing setback. In a 2000 point game, it's a setback, but it's recoverable from.

For small games I favour 850 and 1250. 850 allows you to have a tiny army but it doesn't hamper armies that have either really expensive troops choices (Necrons) or FOC requirements that would be crippling at 500 points (Guard).

1250 is just for good quick games.

But for standard play, 1850.

2550 is good for big games.

BYE

"Certain Guard armies DEFINATLY dont take longer to play...since they (for the most part) they skip movement, psychics, and hth phases. The gunline Guard armies anyway. "

I have to disagree with a lot of what is being said about Hoard armies being particularly playable at 1850+ or even close to that even with a veteran player. I'm a veteran. I have been playing IG for about 4-5 years now and I requently find it difficult. I think ALL other armies, even other hoard armies are faster than IG.

My gunline army does not skip movement, and the h2h can become long, too because with all of the leadership bonuses I can make a tar pit if needed. The deployment phase does take a long time. Our tanks, unlike those slimy xenos (skimmers), do block LOS. If our units are too close together one assault could end us. If we are too far apart we face similar difficulties. Do Orks have to think that hard? I think not. My Orks games always finish on time, by the way. When they get shot, they take their models off. Do nids have to think that hard? Harder than orks I think, but not by too much. Each unit has a certain skill and function and you know what you want to do with each unit when the game starts.

I have had people comment after playing me things like: "I didn't think Imperial Guard moved that much", "I can't believe you beat my Blood Angels in assault", "You outshot my Iron Warriors, and you don't even have anything cheesy in there", "I totally thought this game was going to be a push over when I saw your army." None of that happens by playing quickly.

Think of the standard set of five games in the rule book. I played in a tournament recently that rolled for scenarios from the BGB. There were 5 games, so we played each once, but with varied levels. My army is typically screwed by Alpha and Recon. And, it certainly has no major advantages in Cleanse like many other armies do. About the only scenario that really favors this army is Annihilation. By the way, it also used the Massacre scale which does not favor my army. So, with tables loaded with terrain I had to use it and manuver around it all day long.

In the Ard Boyz this is how far each game went:
Game 1 vs 3 Falcons in Alpha Recon: 4 turns and I won a massacre
Game 2 vs IG: 6 turn massacre
Game 3 vs Ksons: 6 turn draw

Game 4 vs Zilla Nids: 3 turn draw
Game 5 vs IG: 2 turn massacre
Game 6 vs Zilla Nids: 6 turn massacre

Game 7 vs Tau: 5 turn draw
Game 8 vs Chaos: 3 turn loss (because I couldn't knock the winning unit off of the objective that came in on bottom of 3rd)
Game 9 vs Chaos: 5 turn major victory

I like a big battle and Apocalypse has been something fun to play. But for tourney play...I like the 1500-1750 range, and prefer the 1500 point range truth be known. It just seemed to have made for more balanced armies, ect. in my opinion.

the 1500 point range truth be known. It just seemed to have made for more balanced armies, ect. in my opinion.

ROFLOL

Not even close,
this was a 1500 point game-

5 carnifex's and a tyrant in a 1500 point list is not "balanced"
as i need a crapton of heavy weapons to even have a chance against them.....and then stuff to deal with the guant hordes.

Any 40K army at any points level can be power listed. larger points games just let you use more of your models.

Don't worry, when the Nids are redone, they almost certainly won't have the ability to field more than 3 Carnifex models.

Indeed, I think Gunfex will become quite a bit more expensive compared to what we're currently seeing...

Really, I guess I am a typical American when I think "the more the merrier" as an answer to this question. I would say that 1850 would be preferable. I can only think of one possible reason 1750 might be preferable to 1850. It's not a reason I agree with, but rather only one possible argument that MIGHT hold water. And even so, it's pretty weak. In 1850 games, I always feel that I am having to take a bare-bones selection, not so much of the whizz-bang stuff. In 1750, being smaller, it may be possible that you just take that factor as a given, and focus more on getting the most out of what you have. I dunno, just rambling again I guess. I'm prone to doing that.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Don't worry, when the Nids are redone, they almost certainly won't have the ability to field more than 3 Carnifex models.

Indeed, I think Gunfex will become quite a bit more expensive compared to what we're currently seeing...

Redone?
what in like 10 years?
the nids just got thier new codex recently in the GW timeline. there are lots of other armies that are going to get codex's long before the nids, i don't see the nidzillla list going away anytime soon, if ever.

mughi3: I know JWDD was refering to the bug codex being redone specifically, however there's always the possibility that GW could make changes to the TMC Conga Line by changing something in the rules for Monstrous Creatures in 5ed. I have no idea if anything like that is expected or sspected, but it is possible. So yeah, it may be sevral more years until the bug book is re-visited, but that's not the sole source of alteration available.

1850 or 1750 i have been playing 1850 for a long time i like 1850 alot but as of late i have been play smaller battles 1500. and i must say the lower the points the more fun i have you have to think more on your list and battle plan just my 2 cents

but to the 1850 or 1750 I'll go with 1850 any day

mughi3 wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Don't worry, when the Nids are redone, they almost certainly won't have the ability to field more than 3 Carnifex models.

Indeed, I think Gunfex will become quite a bit more expensive compared to what we're currently seeing...

Redone?
what in like 10 years?
the nids just got thier new codex recently in the GW timeline. there are lots of other armies that are going to get codex's long before the nids, i don't see the nidzillla list going away anytime soon, if ever.

I think Nids will be redone 2-3 years from now because 8 TMCs is just too many in the current environment, and shooty Nids is really anti-thematic. The current Nid book is broken in many of the same ways as the current SM book in terms of tunability for efficiency vs restriction by fundamental army theme.

If GW is pushing 5th Ed as a cleanup, and "fixing" (i.e. castrating) the SM, the it make sense to expect similar cleanup (i.e. nerfing) of the Nids.

The idea that GW needs to deal with any of the minor players (e.g. Dark Eldar) before they fix larger sellers like Nids is kinda strange. As GW has clearly demonstrated, smaller sellers simply don't exist as part of the product line to be actively supported.

Now if, as a result of the nerfings, powergamer start switching to Dark Eldar / Inquisition / Pups en masse, then the GW will quickly detect the sales uptick which will naturally trigger a Codex revision sooner rather than later for the army affected.

'Zilla 'Nids will be meaningless in 5th Ed once Troops become the only scoring units you can get. Combined with Kill Points and other such things and we'll see 'Zilla 'Nids dissapear off into the night.

Sales of Gaunts will rise. GW will see that and only that, and 'Nids will sit as on the 'To Do' list for another 4 years or so.

BYE

then I guess my gaunts can come out to play.