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Since when is 1500 points a small battle.

kb305 wrote:they are elite and cost very few points. you can spam veterans (purifiers) for dirt cheap. only 240 points for 10 and they all come with force weapons, tons of special rules, storm bolters and free upgrades.

in a small game of 1500 points you can have a purifier horde of 50 + crow. they are cheap elite psyker marines. usually you need to pay alot to get special weapons and stuff but these guys can take whatever for next to nothing.

Where i play 750 or 1000 points is already a decent level. And 1500 or 2000 is considered pretty large. Is it just because im relatively new to the hobby or are the point values just changing completely.

A small battle can be based on the amount of stuff on the table. Try putting a non-inquisition GK force on the table. It tends to be tiny. Could be a small battle at 1500 or even 2500 points.

The standard points value is around 1850 to 2250 points. A 500 point battle is crazy small, same with a 750 and 1000 but to a lesser degree. Stuff starts getting larger around 1500 points but not always. I can run an ork army with two vehicles and around 16 models at 1000 points that's still effective, or I could run one with 121 models at 1000 points. The one with more models seems like a larger battle after all.

750-100 is tiny for a game around here.


1500 is the bare minimum for a decent sized game. 1850 is more comfortable.

2500 is largeish. 3000 is where you can say its a large game.

Yeah i catch your drift but i just can't see how 750 points is ''tiny'' or ''crazy small''. It can be a decent sized battle with everything provided a tank some infantry an HQ and some elites.

admiral9 wrote:Yeah i catch your drift but i just can't see how 750 points is ''tiny'' or ''crazy small''. It can be a decent sized battle with everything provided a tank some infantry an HQ and some elites.

It's a matter of opinion. What you are used to playing, the largest you've ever played, how often you play, how many models you have, ect all factor into it. Just like you can't see how 750 points is crazy small, I can't see how you think 750 points is anything but crazy small. When I started I played at 1500. So now anything below 2000 points to me is smaller.

1000 and less is ridiculously small. 1500 is small, 1750-2000 is average, 2500 is on the large size of average, anything over that is considered large. Thats my local meta anyway, but in the US our view on 'average' etc. has become very skewed by 'Ard Boyz. Not sure if thats something that really ever translated overseas. The average gamer (that I know) could probably put down 3-4k points of minis for a single army easily, but we dont since anything above 2000 pts on the standard 4x6 table is just stupid. Hell, I feel uncomfortable playing anything over 1500 pts on a 4x6, but when thats all you have available to you...

Also depends on the army. With some armies, you'd be hard-pressed to field more than 5 models with upgrades at 750 points.

750 is an ok, but still tiny, Ork or IG army, but just about anything else will be hard pressed to get HQ and 2 Troops with full kit let alone Elites or something else.

admiral9 wrote:Yeah i catch your drift but i just can't see how 750 points is ''tiny'' or ''crazy small''. It can be a decent sized battle with everything provided a tank some infantry an HQ and some elites.

That's just it, at low point games you tend to see one uber unit and the rest is filler.

The primary issue is that 500 points is pretty much the smallest you can play at, besides combat patrol which is 400 points, and kill team, which is 200 points. 750 is only 250 more than the minimum for a normal game, and seeing as most troops choices average around 250 points...

You get better games under 1850 IMO.

The higher you go the more likely you are to see the uber gear getting spammed.... Games at 1000-1500 everyone has to make concious efforts to be effective... You cant take all the good gear and thus must rely more on your grey matter than your grey knights.....

I've always thought 1850 was the normal size.

1250 is starter, 1500 is a fast game 1850 is normal, 2000 is somewhat big, 2500 is large.

I thought this thinking was pretty universal, guess not.

I'm building my Eldar army for 500-750 as it's first incarnation, and then expanding it to a max of about 1,500. I'd really love to play some Combat Patrol games, because those look like a lot of fun. Especially as Combat patrol games don't follow the Org chart. All you HAVE to have is a troops unit. There are things you CAN'T have, but that's part of the fun.

People just have to realize that you can actually play WH40K without everything being full-size, fully-kitted out units. You just have to come to terms with the fact that some units might not be at max possible effectiveness. That's part of the whole strategy of small games- you have to make do without being able to munchkin everything out.

I just don't have the time with my buddies to get stuck into giant games with several dozen models on a side. I guarantee, especially with Eldar, that I can have two troops, an HQ, and a tank or two at 750pts.

My buddy and I play alot of 4th Ed, and when I play Space Wolves 13th Company, I'm pretty sure I can get two 6-man Grey Slayer units (each with a special weapon), a 6-man Storm Claws unit(with at least one plasma pistol), and a solo HQ in a 500pt army. Plus I can swap out the Elites for a three-man bike unit or three Long Fangs. That's actually a lot of power for a 500pt army.

Milisim wrote:You get better games under 1850 IMO.

The higher you go the more likely you are to see the uber gear getting spammed.... Games at 1000-1500 everyone has to make concious efforts to be effective... You cant take all the good gear and thus must rely more on your grey matter than your grey knights.....

I disagree, I find that below 1850 you are less likely to use a majority of options available to you in the codex. Not just not spamming them, but just not taking them period because they simply cost too much to field.

I disagree, I find that below 1850 you are less likely to use a majority of options available to you in the codex. Not just not spamming them, but just not taking them period because they simply cost too much to field.

I always thought that was the challenge of smaller battles. Less of the elite units with all their wargear to be used as crutches, more emphasis on tactics.

There is a tactical element in smaller games not present in larger games, but the reverse is also true.


In larger games you can take tons of stuff, now you gotta figure out how to use it. That Landraider that just totally dominates at 1000 points suddenly seems very squishy against all the stuff your opponent brings.

If anything, at low point games what you take matters greatly. And some armies just can't bring it. Orks are extremely broken at the 1000 point level and below because they can still bring tons of Boyz and that is literally all they need. Space Marines are lucky to fit in 2 maxed out Tac squads and an HQ and maybe a couple of vehicles, neither of which can compare to a horde of Ork Boyz.

I can make a list specifically to deal with the threat, but I find tailoring to be wrong on multiple levels. And even then, the Orks have a massive advantage.


the 1850+ range is where any army can compete. At extremes is where things become unbalanced, more so on the low end.

Grey Templar wrote:750 is an ok, but still tiny, Ork or IG army, but just about anything else will be hard pressed to get HQ and 2 Troops with full kit let alone Elites or something else.

Really i play tau and i can field 12fire warriors ,12kroot a ,devilfish ,2battlesuits ,1hqsuit ,3stealth suits and some drones

Well hey. You know, size isn't everything. It's all in how you use the size you have.

I mean. Um.

Anyway, I would say that 750 is probably the minimum you would get a nice balanced force (Tanks, infantry, stuff like that) in for most armies. Sure there are some that could do it in less, but you don't really start to see army flexibility and really interesting list building (IMO) until you hit at least 1k points. That said, 2k points may seem like a lot if you're strapped for cash, time, or play area.