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Here's a question for the experienced IG commanders out there. I'm starting my IG collection with 1500 points of an all foot army (thanks to all of you who steered me in a sensible direction for weapons and combined squad sizes), and while I'm painting up and getting my army ready to play I'm thinking about it's future growth. While my medium term goal is a full 3000-4000 points of infantry for a 6000-7500 point apocalypse size force with plenty of tanks/artillery, is there a point level for regular games that fielding only ground pounders becomes pointless? While my next additions will be armour and artillery for more variety/options for what force to bring to the table, I'd still like to field the occasional 2000-3000 point horde, as long as it's not just going to waste my few available gaming hours. Is that still playable with both a chance of fun and victory?

Ive played foot horde, mech vet and hybrid lists and what I can tell you is that every 30+ platoon of guys you add is a significant chunk of time you are adding on to your turns.

Of the tournaments I've played in, my highest success rate was with a foot horde list. But I can tell you that it was the least amount of fun I had playing IG. I really felt that my opponents were simply getting less game time than they would against a "normal" list and were therefore having less fun. Plus it gets tedious fast moving hundreds of little guys across the board if you actually care about positioning and unit spread. When you and your opponents are having less fun, I see no reason to field that army unless its some how the greatest thing ever and you must WAAC.

I fielded an 1850 foot horde list and I can't even imagine the amount of time it would take to set up and run 3000+ points of IG infantry.

What I will say is that if you have your heart set on doing this, play your army with a friend you trust, because there is just no way to move that amount of models in a timely fashion on your own.

Using good movement trays helps speed things up somewhat, but horde+few gaming hours do not mix.

If nothing else, hordes take longer to paint, further reducing your time available.

That said, apoc and big games are outside of the timed tourney theme, so by default they become friendly games. Here, the idea of winning should be the furthest thing from your mind, and instead you should be maximizing the fun for both players. To this end, getting some timesaving devices, playing fast and loose, and encouraging your opponent to help out are the way to go.

Yeah this one guy was in an apoc match and had three 100 man squads moving. his face said all i needed to know. he hated moving those huge sqauds

Obviously you'd have to sort of train yourself up for the movement - I don't mean start doing hand exercises or finger push ups, just get used to doing everything FAST. Because if you move at a normal pace, stopping to faff about, it will take forever. But if you think about it, just really moving as fast as you can once you've made your movement decisions should close up the gap between horde and 'normal' (ie almost all vehicle) play. Don't let some little difficulty like time get in the way of building the army you'd want.

I'm building an all-infantry army myself, I haven't thought farther ahead than 2000 points, but I can easily see myself going up to about 500 models in the long run.

You could try an all infantry army with some static elements.

The good thing about Infantry Platoons is that each Infantry Squad is capable of fielding a Heavy Weapons team; think ablative wounds in this case for fielding a long range weapon. These squads can remain static if so desired, occupying an objective for the entire game, or bubble wrapping other squads in the even of an assault.

One Platoon Squad should get the Al'Ramen upgrade for the sole purpose of using them to capturing objectives. Having about 100+ men flood one side of the field in a sudden thrust is very terrifying.