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Ok, now I am really confused. Now that I got the Generals Handbook and reading the rules, I thought you can't go over the not limit. So how come in the Battlereport the Stormcast Eternal Army has 2040 points? I can understand going under, but how are you allowed to go over? I really hate to say this is GW incompetence strikes again, but I can't see this as any other way.

How can you go over 40 points in a 2000 point game?

Its up to the players.

No one stopped anyone from going over 2000 points in the past either.

Its up to the players and up to the event if you want to spot people extra points.

You're not suppose to go over the points limits. GW battle reports do this kind of thing every so often. When in doubt follow the rulebook.

yeah I noticed that too and couldn't come up with anything.
maybe they're more lenient on going over since its hard to adjust your list by just a few points?

Are you serious? You've never played a game where one person was slightly over the points limit? Really?

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Are you serious? You've never played a game where one person was slightly over the points limit? Really?

Hey I have tried to do things not buy the book, and almost everyone I see "has to do it by the book" or not play unbound if it is by the book.

So no going over at all. It's "cut something out to bring it down" if it ever happens.

Specifically says in the battle report they used points as a guideline.

There's also a table that the player with less points can roll on to get a bonus p109 under triumphs.

I see it being very much a deliberate design choice by GW to have one side go over the points limit in the battlereport. It's another chance for them to drive home the message "nothing is set in stone" which resonates throughout the book.

Honestly I don't see a problem. The points are IMHO a rough guide for building armies, not a set-in-stone limit. I'd extend the same thing to the number of BattleLine units, maybe even the number of artillery/behemoth depending on the game.

Is it really that bad if, for example, I want one unit of 20 Ghouls instead of two units of 10 in a Flesh-Eater force? Does it 100% follow the rules? No, but is it a huge impact?

Rigidly following those rules are fine for tournaments, where you need some balancing factor. But for regular games, I'd much rather see points function as a rough estimate rather than law. E.g. this army is 1060 points, and I only have 1 battleline unit, but it's not a big deal.

I have no issue with this outside of competitive games. In fact, I think I might have a discussion with the locals in my GW store regarding this, since they seem to have jumped onto the GH points bandwagon.

 Bottle wrote:
I see it being very much a deliberate design choice by GW to have one side go over the points limit in the battlereport. It's another chance for them to drive home the message "nothing is set in stone" which resonates throughout the book.

Sadly Bottle, can you go and have a game and either you or your opponent go over 40 points? I am sure you will allow it but how many will say you can't go over 1 point?

Davor wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
I see it being very much a deliberate design choice by GW to have one side go over the points limit in the battlereport. It's another chance for them to drive home the message "nothing is set in stone" which resonates throughout the book.

Sadly Bottle, can you go and have a game and either you or your opponent go over 40 points? I am sure you will allow it but how many will say you can't go over 1 point?

With GHB I'd be fine with it, the book is pretty clear that it's a guideline anyways and 40-80 extra points isn't going to have a noticible impact on the balance of the game compared to other factors.

I really hope that is the case NinthMusketeer, I really do.

Davor wrote:
I really hope that is the case NinthMusketeer, I really do.

What I meant was the balance of the costs themselves is already loose enough that the extra points, comparatively, won't make a difference.

Yeah as a balancing structure the points in the ghb are very basic. Its not a precision balancing structure by any means.

Davor wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
I see it being very much a deliberate design choice by GW to have one side go over the points limit in the battlereport. It's another chance for them to drive home the message "nothing is set in stone" which resonates throughout the book.

Sadly Bottle, can you go and have a game and either you or your opponent go over 40 points? I am sure you will allow it but how many will say you can't go over 1 point?

I wouldn't say it's a sad thing. Personally I will always build to under the point limit and would prefer my opponent too as well. Once or twice is fine if you can't fit everything in for whatever reason, but if it's every game then we might as well be playing 2100pt games.

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Are you serious? You've never played a game where one person was slightly over the points limit? Really?

I'm serious that I've never played above points levels. Either exactly at or under by a few points.
FLGSs where I've played, that was the expectation. Since that was the expectation at many different venues where I've played, I'm going to guess it's not that rare.

I think it's OK to go over a little. Usually we would play around the can go 20pts over in 40k no real big deal as long as your opponent knows all is good let's face it point systems are never completely balanced so it's nice to give people a bit of a break when it comes to points some times, plus some times people want to try out there new units and it doesn't fit in right to pre existing army without going slightly over and it can take to long to rewrite a whole list.

 privateer4hire wrote:

Albino Squirrel wrote:
Are you serious? You've never played a game where one person was slightly over the points limit? Really?

I'm serious that I've never played above points levels. Either exactly at or under by a few points.
FLGSs where I've played, that was the expectation. Since that was the expectation at many different venues where I've played, I'm going to guess it's not that rare.

All the more reason for GW to underscore the casual nature of the points by having one value go over, then.

Try making a 2000 point list of Khorne Demons with Skarbrand and the Blood Host rules.

Now try to make that list without a Herald on foot. It's impossible. You either get 1980 or 2040.

There are no 60pt or 140pt units.

 DeffDred wrote:
Try making a 2000 point list of Khorne Demons with Skarbrand and the Blood Host rules.

See the second bit is irrelevant because right here you lost all your friends

But in all seriousness, I like that GW included the mini chart for the player with less points.

DeffDred wrote:Try making a 2000 point list of Khorne Demons with Skarbrand and the Blood Host rules.

Now try to make that list without a Herald on foot. It's impossible. You either get 1980 or 2040.

Here's where we can pause and admit that some special characters and/or formations are not meant for less-than-grandious engagements, or that shoving them into lesser battles comes at a cost for a reason. Thinking in particular of the laments of our local beardy Destro player, who complains from time to time about how hard it is to stuff both Gordrakk and all his Ogre toys into the same 2k list

Bottle wrote:I wouldn't say it's a sad thing. Personally I will always build to under the point limit and would prefer my opponent too as well. Once or twice is fine if you can't fit everything in for whatever reason, but if it's every game then we might as well be playing 2100pt games.

privateer4hire wrote:I'm serious that I've never played above points levels. Either exactly at or under by a few points.
FLGSs where I've played, that was the expectation. Since that was the expectation at many different venues where I've played, I'm going to guess it's not that rare.

Yep, I have always been under rather than over points, and that's from 20+ years of mini-gaming and army building. It has never occurred to me to ask for more points than the agreed points limit. While it's frustrating that AOS MP points make it tough to directly hit the mark, I find I can either do it with some juggling and army concessions, or accept that I'm 20-40 points under, most likely just like my opponent.

Spoiler: I'd also bet that 'competitive points level' is headed back up to 2500 by next summer, as it did with 8E. Currently I'm looking at the Crossroads GT, that crept up from 2000 to 2240, one presumes to stuff in a decent monster or 2x an elite unit, as those tend to cost that much ...

- Salvage

 DeffDred wrote:
Try making a 2000 point list of Khorne Demons with Skarbrand and the Blood Host rules.

Now try to make that list without a Herald on foot. It's impossible. You either get 1980 or 2040.

There are no 60pt or 140pt units.

Play at 1980?

I routinely play as close as I can but if I don't get there, oh well.

You get all the upgrades for free, so no reason to try and play AoS like 40k.

Also playing a bit lower than the limit might get you the triumph table. The triumph table is all around awesome.

We usually allowed you to go over by 4 points. That said, it's a lot easier to hit a points limit when you can add individual goons rather than whole units

I think that with the way points work in AoS it's very hard to not go over, since you can't add/drop individual models. I'd say maybe 20 points or even 40 points (see example Matched Play battle report in the General's Handbook; the Stormcast army is 2040 and the Chaos army is like 1980), with IMHO what being needed is a gentleman's agreement that if you can drop something to get as close to the point limit without hindering yourself, then do it.

For example, playing Flesh-Eater Courts my options are very limited in what I can take and since you can't reduce the points of units by taking 5 instead of 6, for instance, I find most lists I build do go over just by what I field, and would be way under if I reduced a unit. So in this case I'd hope my opponent would not be a douche and still let me do it if I, say, dropped fielding the Battalion as well to save some points but I'm still 20 points over and can't reduce it without dropping an entire unit or character.

This is IMHO yet another reason why points for AoS are intended to be very rough and not played to be adhered to in the same way as points in other systems or even in old WHFB or 40k where it's a hard limit. You really can't meet the limit that well with how they decided to go with points, either you're well below or a bit over from what I've found. That coupled with how they chose to do it (points for blocks of units, not models) just kind of reinforces the idea they are basically a bone thrown to people who want to use some semblance of point costs for matched play, in the General's Handbook they even only refer to it as being for tournaments or club leagues, and seem to make it clear that Open/Narrative play is the recommended approach.

Just my observations.

I don't believe it's being a douche to make you play by the rules.

If you agree to changing the rules prior, great.

What I have seen is folks trying to squeeze in min squads so they can play their 2kpt game with 900pt models...

That's more along the lines of being a douche.

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
I don't believe it's being a douche to make you play by the rules.

If you agree to changing the rules prior, great.

What I have seen is folks trying to squeeze in min squads so they can play their 2kpt game with 900pt models...

That's more along the lines of being a douche.

The issue here is that if you're say 20 points over, there's nothing you can drop without being like 80+ points (depending) UNDER. So there's a fundamental difference. It's not like 40k where you can be like oh I just won't take melta bombs on this unit. Unless you're adding a cheap battalion or something you can drop, either you play a little over where it won't impact the game, or you play way under the points limit because you have to drop an 80 point character so you aren't 20 points over.

I don't see anything wrong with being 80 points under. Everything is in divisions of 20, so it's like being 4 "divisions" under. My 2000pt list is 1940 and I don't lament not having something to fill those remaining 60 points. (I just get the triumph table instead).

Like I said earlier in this thread, if there was no way a player could field between 1900-2000pts due to the model they had with them, I would let them play a little over in a friendly PUG. But I wouldn't want my opponent to do it every game because then we may as well be playing 2040pts and if that was the case I should be bringing another 10 Handgunners along.

 Bottle wrote:
I don't see anything wrong with being 80 points under. Everything is in divisions of 20, so it's like being 4 "divisions" under. My 2000pt list is 1940 and I don't lament not having something to fill those remaining 60 points. (I just get the triumph table instead).

Like I said earlier in this thread, if there was no way a player could field between 1900-2000pts due to the model they had with them, I would let them play a little over in a friendly PUG. But I wouldn't want my opponent to do it every game because then we may as well be playing 2040pts and if that was the case I should be bringing another 10 Handgunners along.

Yeah had a match where someone was 60 points over 1000 and I was at 960 I still won it did not make that much of a difference. I agree with you on not doing it all the time though.