Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm a bit of a noob and I was building a small Necron Army, and I was wondering what was the "Base amount" Of points I should get, I don't go to Tournaments and I mostly just play friendly games in the local GW store. I don't want to waste money getting 5000 points worth of models if I know I'm not going to use them. So I would like to know how much points you would usually need for a army

I'd start small and build to whatever your meta plays at. Most people seem to stop at 1850 from what I can tell.

A lot smaller than most of us have I can tell you that.

The nasty bit about 40k is that you are not likely to b satisfied with a single 1850 pts army. Army building is a vital part of the experience for most of us and guess what those new lists require new models :\


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyone telling that you only need $300-400 because of list x is lying. 40k is one of those nasty games that you keep spending money on.

Depends how deep you want to dive in.

I'd shoot for the first few games of about 900 points to get familar with the rules and various unit types.

My son and I prefer to play games of about 1250 points - you get a decent army at that size without spamming units - but we also don't use formations or named characters. However, from reading around here most folks play with 1850 on the board and I'm guessing they have around 2K points so they can swap in or out various units to try out different lists.

I'd aim for 750 points as a base army. I'd build from there.

Really though, unless you're looking to build a single list (I've done this with Necrons and Inquisition--I'll never buy anything for them again) then you may find yourself with an ever expanding army. I highly doubt I will ever stop growing my Dark Eldar.

750 is a nice number. 1000 is the most common where I play.
1500 requires longer games, and I rarely see 2000.

Consider that your collection will probably end up 20-30% larger than your typical game size. I find that 2500 points of models gives me lots of flexibility in building armies at 1850 and 2000. You may have specialty units that unlock a cool formation or only make appearances in certain types of games. You'll end up with a few versions of your list and a nice sideboard of models to provide variety.

It's quite possible to play with a small army at the 500-1000 point level and work your way up over the years. When I had players who would play me we still usually only played 1200-1500 games despite having much more.

I personally would not be happy leaving an army "unfinished". I like the look of a large army on display and I also like having options for different styles of armies. It will be two more years of collecting and painting before I feel my Tau army is done with at least 3 of all the key units I want.

Then there is always FW.

Aim for about 1000pts to start with, that makes for a good core to the army and lets you get going quickly.

I have about 3500pts of Dark Eldar. Very rarely do I field anywhere near that amount, but it does let me run pretty much any list I feel like and the fact that I very rarely run the same list 2 weeks in a row means that it will take a lot longer for me to get tired of the army, if I ever do, than I would if I was running the exact same models week in week out. Of course I do end up with some miss buys, those Hellions and Wyches are unlikely to ever see the table top again under this codex, but I'm OK with that since most of the collection gets into rotation.

Even if you keep to one army with no allies (something that I failed at Lol), your probably going to end up with more than you would field in a typical game. I would shoot for about 750 to 1000 as the core that you'll more or less always want to field. These should generally be your preferred HQ choice and troops, though alternative detachments might change that. from there you'll add things you like because of performance on the table or because you like the models.

Stormonu wrote:I'd shoot for the first few games of about 900 points to get familar with the rules and various unit types.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

I recall being challenged to a 1620 point game. I kid you not: 1620 points.

Of course, I said yes, but to the OP:

No.

200 (kill teams)
500
750
1000
1250
1500
1850

Those are the numbers you should be considering.

As far as I'm concerned the amount I'd suggest is around 1000 points, maybe 1500 at the most. That's large enough to play friendly and enjoyble games and will be already expensive enough.

 Traditio wrote:

Stormonu wrote:I'd shoot for the first few games of about 900 points to get familar with the rules and various unit types.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

I recall being challenged to a 1620 point game. I kid you not: 1620 points.

Of course, I said yes, but to the OP:

No.

200 (kill teams)
500
750
1000
1250
1500
1850

Those are the numbers you should be considering.

I've been challenged to games of however-much-I-have-in-my-box-right-now points.

You can play whatever the hell you want, usually the exact army you want doesn't hit on an exact commonly played number of points so you have to drop a dude here or there to make it fit.

My recommendation is see what the locals play. If they all play 1000pts, then you're going to want to aim toward 1000pts.

Initially only buy a few things and start painting, with the intent of later buying however many points the locals usually play. That will give you a bit of an idea how much money you'll be spending in the long run, but don't buy it all up front, just buy a small amount and start painting, you might find you don't actually want to invest the time and money in to a full sized army.

Ebay is flooded with people who started down the road of building a 1000pt or 2000pt or 3000pt army and only got through painting 300pts before giving up. Don't be like them Buy 300pts first and then expand slowly.

I've been challenged to games of however-much-I-have-in-my-box-right-now points.

You can play whatever the hell you want, usually the exact army you want doesn't hit on an exact commonly played number of points so you have to drop a dude here or there to make it fit.

My recommendation is see what the locals play. If they all play 1000pts, then you're going to want to aim toward 1000pts.

Initially only buy a few things and start painting, with the intent of later buying however many points the locals usually play. That will give you a bit of an idea how much money you'll be spending in the long run, but don't buy it all up front, just buy a small amount and start painting, you might find you don't actually want to invest the time and money in to a full sized army.

Ebay is flooded with people who started down the road of building a 1000pt or 2000pt or 3000pt army and only got through painting 300pts before giving up. Don't be like them Buy 300pts first and then expand slowly.

I tried to be frugal with what I bought but that eventually went out the window as I learnt more about the game and how it is played. I think as you play you will change the direction of your army and pick up more stuff. It's nice to have options as well, so having a set point might not be the best idea.

I think a good starting point is 1000 points. That way you can play smaller games and have options and then field your whole army. When you field your whole army you can see what performs well and decide what you are lacking on and decide what you would like to have more of and where to expand.

But like what others have said. Don't rush into those 1000 points get some small games with what you have first. You might play a few games and decide that Necrons aren't for you.

It's entirely subjective and different to everyone. Do you like your army because of a few select models or does the game itself why you got into it for? If it's models, but and paint them first!

If not build up a core army, for instance look at building a reclamation legion is a good start for your army and gives you a good base. Then build formations as you like. Stop whenever you think you have enough

This is what I did. Worked out a list that I would be happy playing at 750 then bought and painted it. Then scaled up and designed a list at 1k and bought and painted it and so on except then I forgot to paint it and just kept buying...

I've now got over 4k in orks about 1.5k scars and about 2k in Nids.

Remember slow and steady doesn't win this race because its not a race but its still the best way to go!

SphessMahreens wrote:
I'm a bit of a noob and I was building a small Necron Army, and I was wondering what was the "Base amount" Of points I should get, I don't go to Tournaments and I mostly just play friendly games in the local GW store. I don't want to waste money getting 5000 points worth of models if I know I'm not going to use them. So I would like to know how much points you would usually need for a army

If you are in Vancovuer, the typical game at the local GW is 1500 as far as I know.

Best to ask your friends/whomever you are going t o play with regularly, though.

Game sizes usually look like this:

Kill-Team: 200-500 pts

Combat Patrol: 500-750 pts

Standard Engagement: 1000-1750 pts

Large Engagement: 1750-3000 pts

Apocalypse: 3000 - Everything in my collection, and the collections of these other fourteen guys. Pts.

Work your way slowly up the lines, getting a feel as you go. Don't forget to change it up and ignore everything I just said for some fun.

Semi related to the topic but I would strongly suggest not to try and bloat up your list with upgrades and luxary equipment options to try and reach a point plateau. If your army list with essential wargear is at 830 then ask to play a 830 game or at most 850. Don't try to stretch your points to fit 1000 points because your setting yourself up to be at a big disadvantage as they are bringing 1000 points while your bring your 830 plus a bunch of semi useful extras tacked on that may or may not be of any use in the match.

As to more on topic I would suggest 500 being a very easy to reach starting point and with the Start Collecting box sets it basically comes down to getting one of those and maybe an extra troop choice to fill out the standard CAD requirement for 2 troops and an HQ. That being said I don't think the game as played by the BRB (smaller point games might work better using a Kill Team rule set) really feels like a real 40k until your playing 1000 points. At 1K you have more unit variety and it doesn't feel like your army consist of 2-3 units like it can when playing at 500.

A good game in a GW is 1000 - 1500 pts. ( there is just no room really to play with bigger armies).

Most players like to be able have some variation in what they can field. This will result in you owning ~2x the points needed to field. -> So you would most likely end up with 2000- 3000 points if you would be able to restrain yourself from keeping buying more stuff ( most players can't). Games in on regular sized tables ( 6x4 not the 4x4's found in GW's) are usually 1500 - 2000 points this results in players eventually having a collection of 3500 - 4000 pts per army, but most players will start with multiple armies over the years..

This doesn't mean that you should go out and buy it on one big gulp. That doens't work at all and would just result in you having a pile of unpainted models. But what this does show you is the expected cost of this game. You can calculate what ~3000 pts of Necrons are most likely going to cost you. If you don't want to spend that much money on it then you would be better of not to get sucked into this hobby for you will most likely spend at least that much money on it over the following months / years if you like it.

Need? Zero, if you ask my wife.

Start at 500 points. Or just get one of the Start Collecting boxes. See if you like the army. Don't invest too heavily until you're sure you like them. Expand from there.

 Cleatus wrote:
Need? Zero, if you ask my wife.

Exalted

Start with a 1000pt list until you can comfortable with the rules. The bump it up to 1500. When you feel ready to play 1850 games (the average in most areas), you should "own" 2000 pts of models. This gives you 150pts to swap out a try different options.

Having said that, I "own" about 4000pts of Eldar & Dark Eldar and 3000+pts of Daemons.

 Cleatus wrote:
Need? Zero, if you ask my wife.

Tell her that one pair of trainers is sufficient to protect your feet from the ground, anything else is excessive

Don't make the mistake I did, and keep swapping armies halfway through collecting. Absolute worst habit any 40k player gets. Try to limit pointless (hehe) expenditure.

My local games are 2,000 points standard. I like my armies to be at least 2,500 so I can swap things around.


That being said, I think I currently have at least 3,500 in every army, some up to 35,000. I know, I have a problem.

Going by memory, I've recently bought ~500 points of Eldar, and have in stock around 1500 of BT and something to the order of 2000 in IG.

I have in the past had a fair bit more (SM, Orks and CSM), but a lot of that got deleted from reality by youthful incompetence.

1000 points is a good goal like a lot of people are saying. Personally, my friends and I started at 500, then worked up from there. Most of the start collecting boxes get you to somewhere around 500, so that's a really good way to start. Starting 200-500 points also lets you test the waters with an army, making sure it's what you want to stick with and that the playstyle appeals to you. For example, I love the look of necrons, got a small force and played a few games, they're not for me. I didn't jump down the rabbit hole with them and drop what I would consider to be too much money to try them out. Basically agreeing with Cleatus on this. Bonus is small armies lead to faster games as you're learning the rules.

After that, most people look for games around nice even numbers like what Traditio posted.

If I had to start Necrons all over, I would pick up a Start Collecting box and a box of Warriors. Don't use the SC formation to begin with. start with just the Overlord and two units of Warriors until you get a feel for how the army plays, then slowly build from there. As far as "final" army size, aim for about 15-25% larger than your local meta typically plays, so round 2000-2500 points. That will give you some options to swap in other units if you find that one just isn't doing as well as you had hoped.

Need? None. It's a game.