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Hi folks,
Quick question for you folks - in 6th what would be regarded as the typical/recommended game size of 40K? I recall in 5th it was 1750 - has this remained the same, or do you feel that the added complexities of the rules in the new edition have reduced the average game size to 1500pts?

Most of my games have been 1500-2000, usually depends how much time we have or are willing to spend.

Personally, I like 1500 best, but for some reason, all the locals want to go 1850-2000.
In my opinion, this game is poorly balanced at 2k, giving people too many options for spamming their best units.

 matphat wrote:
In my opinion, this game is poorly balanced at 2k, giving people too many options for spamming their best units.

Definitely true and the double Force Org at 2,000 is a perfect example of bad moves by GW in spamminess. If they had made it +1 per slot or doubled it at 3,000 I'd be really happy.

I agree with the 2000 double force org 100%. That being said in my gaming group we typically run 1999+1 single force and that solves a lot of spamming problems.

My favourite games are 2000pts single force. Most tournaments are 1850 around here which is a great number for games roughly 3 hours in length.

Most of the games I see are between 1000 and 1500. I hear a lot of people stopping at 1999 due to the double chart issue when playing bigger games.

Recently my FLGS has been playing more 500-1000 point games. Mostly because of an ongoing escalation league but I've come to really like these smaller point games. They take less time, lists are easy to build, the only restriction is no flyers until 1000 points, and it feels pretty strategic. With so little to work with, you have to build a well rounded list. It might also help that our FLGS doesn't have any regular TFG or WAAC people.

Most games I play are 1000 - 1500 pts per person, but many (most) games are doubles so that's 2 to 3k per side.

The standard in my area is 1999 (or 2000 with single FOC), I think it's about the ideal size to be able to bring most (but not all) of your army's stuff to the table. You can have some heavy support, fast attack, some elites and still a lot of room for troops. For smaller/quicker games we do 1250.
I actually think that the smaller the game is, the more unbalanced it can become simply because you don't have enough points to buy appropriate counters in addition to your main units, and it becomes more of a rock paper scissors game. In a smaller game a single unit can have a larger destabilizing influence if you don't have the right tool to deal with it; in larger games you can afford either weight of fire/attacks or multiple specialized units to deal with it.

I've pretty much only played 2000pts in 6th ed. I'm thinking about stepping down in points however.

Like GK 12 a lot of my groups games are 1999+1 ( GW really should've made its dual force chart for over 2000k) and I agree its a great size for being able to bring a little of everything or some fun hqs or models and make good use of the table and tactics

Around my group we tend to go with 1500, it's short enough to make room for more games and more games in a day, and combines the potential for a solid list with most of the things you need while still restrictive enough to encourage smart list-building and efficiency.

It's definitely my favorite standard point amount.

From my understanding 1850 is common for tournies so me and a buddy base our lists around that. At 2k things get a bit squirrely so we pretty much avoid that. Anyways, 1850 is large enough to let you try out just about anything, so if a tourny crops up with a smaller point total you'll know enough about your units to know what will work in a smaller game.

I really like 1750. It gives you enough room to include everything you want without getting spammy or sloppy.

40k is not balanced below 1000 points. Certain armies(any type of marine army) gets hosed with requiring 2 troops and an HQ.


I think 40k is best played between 1500 and 2500. Anything outside of that range doesn't work well and requires different rules(Kill Teams or Appoc)

i dont mind 1999+1 but i hate double foc. Usually whatever counters me is limited because of the FOC not the points, at double FOC theyre bound to spam that model and i have to guess theyre doing it to counter it, and if i guess wrong my army is useless.

We usually go 1500 but sometimes bump it to 1750-1850. Im starting to dislike 1500 as orks because i always feel i am either lacking boyz, or lacking toyz....i dislike solid green tide lists because it lacks the lawls of an ork army, takes forever, and if i come across something with Ironarm to make it T7-9 i probably cant beat it with just boyz and a few lootas. Even just upping it to 1750 i feel much more confident because i still have ~80-100 boyz as well as a lethal missile or 2 semi-lethal missiles followed by loota support.

2k with my group, usually a lot of fun, unless you deal with the 1 TFG who frequents the locale.

For easy-going, relaxing games between friends, 2k doesn't take that long, it's only with TFGs and WAACs that things drag as you get into rule arguments, measuring out every model to be exactly 2'' away from each other and so on.

For tourneys, due to the different focus, we tend to drop it to 1750 max.

Certainly the average game size has been creeping up over time.

My FLGS used to play 1000's, and then 1500's, and now it plays 1850's.

That said, I kind of get the feeling that game size is kind of dependent on space. If you've got a gaming space that only allows 4x4' boards, and is small enough to require that games go quickly for everybody to have a turn, then they're going to be at smaller points levels.

My local usually run 1500pts, although there are a lot more shouting for 1850 and 2000pts.

Although we treat 2000 as 1999+1, so you only get one force organisation chart.

I'm personally a fan of 1250pts and 1500pts. 1250pts is my favourite as it is usually as quick as 1000pts but gives you more points to play with but also options. (E.g. in 1000pts I wouldn't take my Sternguard in a drop pod, 1250pts, I would.)

1500-1999 here.

I prefer 1500 or 1750 point games the most. However, now and again a big game is a lot of fun, like 2000pts or even more.

Currently we are planning a massive game where I will use all my DA (4741 points) against a combined force of my friends who play Necrons and Crimson Fists. We are going to do away with the FOC and just take whatever the hell we want.

Ours run between 1000 and 1850. Our latest tourney was 1850 and the one that they are looking at doing only 1500 for the next one.

Personally - 1500 is where I like since it requires you to balance between troops and powerhouse units....and you can REALLY tell who is making cheese...lol

I prefer 1500. You can have one, maybe two shiny things in your list, but you would have to really think hard about it.

My LGS is running most of our events at 1500 this year, because 6th is full of so many senseless random charts and overwatch nonsense. We can't play 1750 in the time we have for events.

Damn, 6th is terrible...

My local Meta is 1850 - 2000, with 2k the most prevalent. We don't play around with 1999+1 silliness and we don't play the "FW is not GW" game.

In my gaming group pretty much all games are somewhere between 1500 and 2000 points. That's been about the point range in every group I've played in since I started playing in 2003.