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 Horst wrote:

 ServiceGames wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
I spent years never playing more than 1,000 points (3rd-5th ed). We had monthly 500 point tournaments, it was wonderful for those of us with limited funds, or who were just starting out.

I'd actually never played 2,000 or higher until this past year.

I would honestly love that. 1000 point armies being the norm and 500 point tournaments being common. I'm not saying major tournaments need to be that way, but it'd be nice for my local meta to be that way. First of all, being a family man, I don't have anywhere near as much time as I used to. Please don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my family for any piece of plastic. I also tend to start losing interest in any one game that takes over about 90 minutes. It just starts feeling like a chore rather than fun. So, keeping the point count low would be a great thing for me. I especially love the idea of 500 point tournaments as you could play through the tournament and be done early in the day rather than it taking all day or two days.

Love this idea and wish it was more common.

SG

The problem is that the game is inherently imbalanced at that points level, because it's just not possible to make a take all comers list with that many points for many codex. Like, how do you possibly prepare to fight a list with 3 Custodes Jetbike Captains in a Supreme Command, and potentially a list containing ~32 Scion models with 12 plasma guns, or someone taking a single Knight Crusader?

You can just can't take enough of your army's tools to make a balanced list, so any tournament will boil down to rock paper scissors.

Don't all tournaments work that way?

Back when I started 40k in about 4th ed I seem to remember GW used to sell individual faction 'battleforces' for about £50-£60 and 'megaforces' for about £100. I always thought those were the best entry into collecting/expanding armies in bulk with a decent saving. Id love to see GW bring something similar back, it's how I got started on most of my armies.
Of course with inflation combined with GWs changing in pricing and overall improvement of the individual plastic kits looking back at those now they seem like amazing deals for what you got.

Eg the edition of the Tau battleforce I remember getting for about £50-£60 included a firewarrior squad, a kroot squad, a devilfish, a stealthsuit squad, a crisis suit and misc drones. Compare that with today's 'start collecting' tau box for the same price and you instead get a fire warrior squad, three crisis suits, an etherial and misc drones.

The overall 40k meta seems to change so drastically between different releases and editions that any attempt to create any fixed point, tabletop viable army boxes would be short lived at best.

 Blndmage wrote:


Don't all tournaments work that way?

Not quite. I've spent a considerable amount of time working on my list to ensure it can deal with hordes and vehicles. Most good codex can do this, through either allies or just good unit choices.

Armies can vary so wildly at 1000 points that it make no sense to try and provide a starter.

Dark Eldar starter at 1000 points - does it include Wyches, Kabals, or Covens? All 3? Does it have 3 detachments?

Battleforces are the best representation of what you're asking for. As to why there isn't a battleforce for everyone? Well, not every army is made up of primaris marines.