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Ello dakka. I have a question:

Are there any rules which state you can not use heavy suooirt at 500 points? I believe you can - that you go strictly by the mission parameters. I'm looking for second opinions/rulings to help alleviate FLGS concerns.

you can use heavy support in 500pt games, nothing i know of keeps you from it. If you're playing combat patrol you can only have vehicles with total AV of 33 or less, plus you cant have ordenance, so maybe thats confusing people?

In the current rules the points value of the game has no bearing on what you can take.

However, the rules aren't really designed for games that small, and so armies can easily wind up being a little unbalanced. In 3rd and 4th edition GW had a '40K in 40min' (also known as 'Combat Patrol') ruleset that took that into account, allowing you to play small games fairly by limiting certain things like characters with more than 2 wounds, anyone with 2+ armour, or more heavily armoured vehicles like the Landraider or Monolith which are hard to counter unless you build your list specifically against them at that size.

If you're playing games around that size at your store, I would recommend either digging up a set of those rules, or working out something similar with the other players.

insaniak wrote:If you're playing games around that size at your store, I would recommend either digging up a set of those rules, or working out something similar with the other players.

Seconded. Armies are severely limited at 500 points, so much so that a surprise Land Raider could be a totally impossible task to take down. Or a Wraithlord, or any other nasty brute like a tricked-out Daemon Prince.

Necrons have no options at 500 pts.

2 units of 10 warriors- 360

Lord with 40 pts of wargear

And you're done..


Orks do pretty well at any points level

One of the other changes in the Combat Patrol rules was the removal of the compulsory slots. You didn't have to take a HQ, and (IIRC) only needed to take a single Troop choice.

insaniak wrote:One of the other changes in the Combat Patrol rules was the removal of the compulsory slots. You didn't have to take a HQ, and (IIRC) only needed to take a single Troop choice.

Of course the compulsories are what make in unlikely that a land raider is going to show up in your typical 500 point game....or any other high point nasty for that matter.

Skriker

The current small game rules are Patrol Clash from School League.

Homer

Some of those rules are still pretty tough for a number of armies. Tyranids, for example, have a tough time getting Synapse coverage with a restriction to 2 wounds, which means they're either playing all Genestealers or just being annoyed with lots of uncontrollable units. Necrons have a tough time fielding anything reasonable in 500 points, though it's doable, especially if you tweak the force org a bit more.

We play Combat Patrol type games fairly often in my club, and this is what we've kind of settled on for the rules:

-------
Army lists may not total more than 750 points.

Armies must include 1 Troop unit and may have up to 2 HQ, 6 Troop, 2 Elite, 2 Fast Attack, and 2 Heavy Support units.

No special or unique characters are permitted.

No models may have more than 3 wounds or better than a 2+ Armor save or 3+ Invulnerable save.

No vehicles may have total armor value (Front+Side+Rear) greater than 33.

No ordnance weapons are permitted.
-------

One additional relaxation we've considered is upping the armor limit. The basic feeling is that Landraiders and Monoliths would be too tough at these point values, but there's no reason to not allow in Drop Pods or Predators. So, one restriction might be to simply disallow any vehicle with an AV14 facing but let anything else fly.

There are longer discussions about how we arrived at them in these posts:

http://rocketshipgames.com/blog/?p=274
http://rocketshipgames.com/blog/?p=174

A lot of it comes from a Combat Patrol tournament we ran last year:

http://pagegaming.com/index.php?n=Warhammer40k.CombatPatrolTournament

We used rules more akin to the classic ones for that, and several armies really chafed under them.

Skriker wrote:Of course the compulsories are what make in unlikely that a land raider is going to show up in your typical 500 point game....or any other high point nasty for that matter.

They're too limiting though. For some armies, (Necrons being the prime example) requiring the nomal 2 Troops and 1 HQ means you are don't get anything else.

I find Guard is pretty hard/boring to make a list at 500 points with compulsories.

Plus Combat Patrol would remove the idea of fielding a LR.

insaniak wrote:They're too limiting though. For some armies, (Necrons being the prime example) requiring the nomal 2 Troops and 1 HQ means you are don't get anything else.

True, but part of that isn't the coompulsory selection specifically so much as necrons have next to know options for any unit type in their list. Looking forward to hopefully having more troop options in a new Necron codex...

These days I just wouldn't play necrons for a 500 point scenario like that. There might be some players out there who *only* have necrons, but most of the necrons players I've known have something else too for when people either whine that their necrons are too cheesy or for those smaller scenarios where they have very limited options.

Skriker

I tell the folk who claim Necrons are too cheesy that we can always play a different mission, like Meat Grinder

Necrons have way less cheese factor than some of the PA crowd, and pay a premium for the cheese they do get.

Most of the locals prefer to play vs my Necrons rather than my orks, though, as the number of troops orks can put on the table at any points level is impressive

wow people complaining necrons are cheesy, thats kinda funny.

Well some cheese is pretty stinky.

There's also a mission in Battle Missions that's fun, I believe it was called combat squads or something. It's suggested at 200pts, and removes certain options, but also some restrictions like unit coherancy. Vs necrons I usually allow him to also ignore phase out. Its just _way_ too easy otherwise. It's also fun at the 500pt mark. IIRC it's 0-1 hq, 1-4 troops, 0-1 fast attack and 0-2 elites or something like that. I'm at work so I can't really look it up but I'm sure someone here will be able to decipher my ramblings and know what I'm babbling about