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What is the best and worst races for low point combat patrol style (400-500) games? I was playing blood angels last year at a 400 point combat patrol tournament and I got stomped due to massed fire from guard/orks destroying me. I don't necessarily want to power game it, but something a bit more competitive.

Orks are pretty great at 500 points because their bread-and-butter unit (Boyz) are both cheap and effective.

HQ:
Big Mek w/ KFF

Troops:
20x Shoota Boyz (2 Big Shootas) w/ Nob (PK/BP)
20x Shoota Boyz (2 Big Shootas) w/ Nob (PK/BP)

Elite:
5x Lootas

Total[u]: 500 points exactly

That's 40 shots from each group of boyz and then up to 15 for the Lootas for a possible 95 shots per turn. Not many armies can deal with that at 500 points.

Probably chaos. You can blob well with cultists and still throw down insane elite troops for low point games. Also their basic HQs start at a very low point cost. Might be worth looking into.

My opinion is
Best: Orks
Worst: Tau

All Marine armies are just a little too point-hungry to do great at really low point games. If you really want to fit a LR into a 500 pt list though, that's another story.

You could also go Tyranids.

HQ
Tervigon

Troops
10 termagants
Tervigon

You can then spend the rest of the points on upgrades like additional psychic powers and abilities on the Tervigons. It his hard enough for people to deal with 2 T6 W6 MC's but then the Tervigons spawn additional troops. Even if you get only 1 round of spawning, you should end up with around 20 additional Termagants which is like starting with a 100 point advantage over your opponent.

 Greenizbest wrote:
Orks are pretty great at 500 points because their bread-and-butter unit (Boyz) are both cheap and effective.

HQ:
Big Mek w/ KFF

Troops:
20x Shoota Boyz (2 Big Shootas) w/ Nob (PK/BP)
20x Shoota Boyz (2 Big Shootas) w/ Nob (PK/BP)

Elite:
5x Lootas

Total[u]: 500 points exactly

That's 40 shots from each group of boyz and then up to 15 for the Lootas for a possible 95 shots per turn. Not many armies can deal with that at 500 points.

For guard you can have.
CCS plain

PCS x2 plain

Infantry squad x3 (so 30 blobed)
infantry squad x3 (again 30)
410points

that leaves 90 points for upgrades.

 kinratha wrote:


For guard you can have.
CCS plain

PCS x2 plain

Infantry squad x3 (so 30 blobed)
infantry squad x3 (again 30)
410points

that leaves 90 points for upgrades.

You're right about guard, but going about it the wrong way.

You go

CCS 3xFlamer

Vets 3xGrenade Launcher

Vets 3xGrenade Launcher

Leman Russ Demolisher

Aegis, Quad Gun

Troops behind Aegis, Demolisher tables them due to severe lack of Anti-AV14 in 500pt TAC lists.

IG or Orks. They're the two really scary armies at that points level. Where most armies are struggling to get 2 troops and an HQ, IG and Orks are both trying to figure out if they want a tank or just a crapload more bodies.

Heck, IG can even throw down two leman russes at 500pts if it feels like it. When our local GW store opened up, 3 of my friends all took an IG list that took a vendetta, a russ, and two vet squads and a CCS.

With orks though, you just bring a stupid amount of boyz, a KFF mek, and some lootas and roll dice till you win

Eldar is good at smaller pt levels:

Farseer w/ doom, runes of warding
2x10 Dire Avengers in Serpents w/ shuricannon, underslung shuricannon.

 Hedkrakka wrote:
Worst: Tau

Wrong. Tau are actually one of the best small-game armies.

1) Their troops are cheap (120 points to fill both FOC slots), and taking cheap troops still gives you a viable unit (unlike, say, a minimum-size C:SM tactical squad which will have no weapon upgrades).

2) Their HQ is cheap, and it's an efficient shooting unit (unlike other HQs which are pretty much a point sink).

3) They don't need transports to function properly.

End result: a Tau army covers its mandatory choices in under 200 points, (and it's an effective 200 points), leaving a lot of room to bring stuff that other armies can only dream of having in a 500 point game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheCaptain wrote:
Troops behind Aegis, Demolisher tables them due to severe lack of Anti-AV14 in 500pt TAC lists.

Only one problem with that: combat patrol bans AV 14 (usually F+S+R AV total of 33-35 or more is banned), so that doesn't work. For a standard 500 point game though it's hilarious, however my preference is a punisher cannon Vulture since 500 point games tend to be full of nice targets for it.

Any army which can sqeeeze something out of the ordinary, and preferably hard or difficult to hit into it stands a good chance. For example:

CSMs bringing a heldrake along

SM (/CSM) bringing landraiders (and little else!) or pairs of vindicators

IG/Necrons with two flyers.

If its a hard tank you take (AV14 allround hopefully), form everything up around it to keep dangers away. I suppose there is a bit of luck at 500pts as a balnaced force would be next to useless, you need to go for it one way or the other and hope it wrong foots your opponent.

Answering the question:
I would say Space Marines mainly due to the variant land raiders you can take or CSM as you can still afford troops to sit around the LR and keep people away from it.

I agree with orks, guard, and tyranid, because of lootas/cheap BW's, russes, and tervigons, respectively.

With a little creativity, it's possible to fit TWO leman russes into a 500 point list. There's not a lot that can handle that.

 Jasper wrote:

Answering the question:
I would say Space Marines mainly due to the variant land raiders you can take or CSM as you can still afford troops to sit around the LR and keep people away from it.

I'm all but certain that this is impossible.

 TheCaptain wrote:
I'm all but certain that this is impossible.

It's possible.

HQ: librarian
Troops: scout squad x2
Total: 250 points

Is it a bad start? Probably. Does it leave enough points to take any of the three codex Land Raider versions? Yep.

One of the better, if not best low point armies is certainly Dark Eldar.

Just their little Kabal blobs are enough to handle anything thrown at them. Their poison and specialty weapons are going to be more than enough for any armor, horde, or monstrous critters/heroes.

And Tau are pretty good too, though most people write them off, when you go against a seasoned Tau vet at 500, you should expect a lot of punch in a really small package.

Eldar - they can leave people feeling abused in 500pt games.

Just a few of the choices they are able to bring
Avatar
Shooty Wraithlord

3 Scatterlaser warwalkers are 180

Nightwings are cheap.

At low points cheap horde is way to go. As aforementioned, IG, Orks, and Nids are the best bed. meq are too pricy. Eldar and DE can be viscious at 500 but must be built up exactly right. Its easier to just get one of the others and hope the dice gods are favoring you

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:
I'm all but certain that this is impossible.

It's possible.

HQ: librarian
Troops: scout squad x2
Total: 250 points

Is it a bad start? Probably. Does it leave enough points to take any of the three codex Land Raider versions? Yep.

I'd go with a chaplain

Chaplain
5xScouts w/BP/CCW
5xScouts w/sniper rifles
Land Raider (I like the phobos)

Snipers camp your home objective, HQ and CC scouts ride in the LR and go forth to ruin someone's day. The re-roll on the charge will help mitigate the WS3 scouts in assault.

A MotF might not be a bad choice either. He might be able to fix the LR faster then a TAC 500 point army can hurt it.

Love Orks at 500pt. Especially against marines you can outnumber them 3-1.

Necrons,

Destroyer lord w/ 2+, Mindshackles

5 Necron Warriors
5 Necron Warriors

6 Canoptek Wraiths w/ 2 Whipcoils

I would argue for a necron foot horde. Overlord + res orb + 20 warriors.
Then 9 warriors.
Can deal with AV14 more effectively than pretty much anything, and with the 4+ WBB on 20 warriors, very hard to displace.
Guns would be effective against all targets except terminators/flyers. If a enemy brings flyers or terminators then they wont have much else, so just wipe their other bodies off the table.

In 500 points I could bring

HQ T/L missile pods w/ BSF

1x Crisis suit T/L Missile pod and BSF

2x Crisis suit T/L MP and BSF

2x Crisis suit T/L MP and BSF

6x FW
6x FW

Broadside with BSF

12 S7 36" shots that ignore night fighting gives quite a bit of punch in 500 points.

I like Tau a metric fart ton too. Something like this (don't have list on me):

Tau Penetrating Recon Force (~500pts)
Shas'el with Cyclic Ion blaster, Fusion blaster, and Multi-tracker (usually attached to XV-25 team)
Stealth Suit team (three man team, two Burst cannons and one Fusion blaster)
2x Eight man Firewarrior teams
Hammerhead w/ Rail gun

I got my death tank, and some Jetpack Fusions at OK ballistic skill, have fun with that one AV14 vehicle for a turn or two, three if I stink.
We get 2+ cover more often then not on commander and attached squad. 4+ cover on tankity-tank. Seeeeems gooood?
Solid if not under morale strengthed fire base. Meh.

All in all, tabled Necrons three out of four times so I'm good with that

Tau love low point games. Sure nids can squeeze a big beast in or IG can shoe horn a pair LRBT, but Tau comfortable fit answers to both in a 500 point list and still have lots of room for fun.

500pts:

El w/ MP,BC,MT 75

1XV8 MP,BC,MT 50
1 XV8 MP,BC,MT 50

6 Fw 60
6 FW 60

1 IonHead w/ 2 BC,DP,MT 130
1 Broadside w/BSF 73

Total 498

6 S7 AP4
3 S7 AP3
1 S10 AP 1 (or another 4 S5 AP5)
27 S5 AP5

It has got everything form Horde to AV14 covered. Just another way Tau can bring the fun at 500points or even on elast list to do the silly:

El w/ PR,BC,HWMT,TA 93

3x 10 FW w/'ui 330

Broadside w/BSF 73

@Tau lists

One broadside hardly has AV14 covered.

Not to mention, a demolisher instant deaths your warlord, broadsides, battlesuits, etc.

Opponent brings two, and well...

Boom.

 TheCaptain wrote:
@Tau lists

One broadside hardly has AV14 covered.

Not to mention, a demolisher instant deaths your warlord, broadsides, battlesuits, etc.

Opponent brings two, and well...

Boom.

Yeah, it's much better to drop the ionhead and trim your points a bit to fit in two more broadsides instead. Yes, you can actually fill all of your heavy support slots in a 500 point game with Tau, and still have a decent list.

And thankfully two LR Demolishers aren't going to show up in a 500 point game, since the absolute minimum list with two would be 520 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Other fun Tau list:

HQ:
Shas'el, MP, PR, TA ---- 87

Troops:
FW x6 ---- 60
FW x6 ---- 60

Fast:
Barracuda ---- 135
Barracuda ---- 135

Total of 477 points, so you still have a few left to play with the upgrades a bit. It loses the rock/paper/scissors game to AV 14, but two flyers in a 500 point game is going to make people cry.

(And hilariously this even works in kill team games. Barracuda, 6x fire warriors, 195 points. Enjoy your opponent's tears.)

 Peregrine wrote:
[
.

(And hilariously this even works in kill team games. Barracuda, 6x fire warriors, 195 points. Enjoy your opponent's tears.)

IN the current official Kill Team rules you can't use reserve, so no flyers.

Coteaz with two GK Strike Squads (9 men each, with Psybolt ammo), could be pretty effective.

barnowl wrote:
IN the current official Kill Team rules you can't use reserve, so no flyers.

Nope. According to GW's own event FAQ units which must start in reserve instead start the game on the table.

(Yes, the same event rules ban flyers entirely "because they have to start in reserve" but then simultaneously allows drop pods to start the game on the table. It's a blatant and clumsy attempt to balance the game and avoid auto-loss situations against flyer armies, and in a better-run event the general principle of "start on the table" applies.)

I think orks/guard.