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I'm curious, in a 2000 point game, how many "drops" or individual units do you think there is on average? I want to try to minimize my number of drops, and am curious what would be a "good" target to try to go first...

2000 points ig is around 30 drops for me.

I'm currently at 18-20 (depending if I group a couple units) for My Raven Guard / IG army (2 Battalions, 1 Vanguard)...trying to figure out chances of going first

As a CSM player, I usually see 12-14 per 2000.

10-15 seems pretty standard. My current tourney-list has 13. My most recent opponent was 14 drops, which he was able to reduce to 12 by utilising his Storm Raven's transport capacity.

Stupid NEWB question, as most of this is Theorycraft for me right now. But do units deployed in the shadows, high orbit, or in the aether count towards drops? If not, I am sitting at about 12...

Yes, they do.

However 3 units inside 1 transport is only 1 drop

My most recent list at 2000 pts includes 2 battalions, with 19 units, 19 drops (no transports) and 67 models. AdMech + Dark Angels. I rarely finish deploying first.

I am currently at 13 units for my "main" list, though it varies from 10-15 depending on how hard I want to make it (13 units is for the one I am considering for "tournament quality" though it is by no means a tournament winning list, lol).

I'm an Ork player so basically 0. But i do get the odd scions and snipers in front of my trukks.

My last Tyranid 2000 was 19 drops.

Thank god the days of 7-9 drops or GTFO are done.

That was not a fun time, trying to minimize your drops to fight over turn one.

So far my favorite change to 8th ed: Finish deploying first gets +1 to go first.

Hmmm. My pure custodes list is 8 drops...

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Thank god the days of 7-9 drops or GTFO are done.

That was not a fun time, trying to minimize your drops to fight over turn one.

So far my favorite change to 8th ed: Finish deploying first gets +1 to go first.

That still means that the chances are split 40/60, so if you are playing an army that is trouble if it goes second , you should seriously limit your drops.

Playing Guard with Dark Angels allies I get around 16-20 drops depending on how infantry heavy I go etc.

I play transport heavy Dark Eldar frequently and that can have between ~11 and ~30 drops depending on how I put things in vehicles.

My lists usually have 13-15 (DA)

Spoletta wrote:

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Thank god the days of 7-9 drops or GTFO are done.

That was not a fun time, trying to minimize your drops to fight over turn one.

So far my favorite change to 8th ed: Finish deploying first gets +1 to go first.

That still means that the chances are split 40/60, so if you are playing an army that is trouble if it goes second , you should seriously limit your drops.

Reading this thread shows a SERIOUS upswing in drops from the beginning of 8th. That's a really good thing. Armies are becoming more diverse and covering more bases and space. Transports have taken a whack, but there is no more shoving a 5 man squad and every HQ you brought into a rolling box expressly to limit that drop count. I'm sure some people still do it to game that +1 to go first, but it is no longer dominating the thought to the point that if you reach double digit drops on your list you're going into it expecting to go second before even hitting the table.

I'm normally around 30-35 at 2K as foot guard. Can't remember the last time I actually bothered to count my opponents units to see if I had a chance at the +1

My last game as Dark Angels I had 14 drops. I've gone as low at 4 in a 1500pt game but that was a super janky list that included a Land Raider crusader drop that was over 1k points including what it was carrying!

It's worth noting that taking in to account seizing the initiative you are 60% to go first if you finish deployment first. So it's nice to have that advantage but you can't bank on it really. It's not worth screwing your list to hunt for.

There should have been a poll with this.

I believe my current 2,000 point CSM list is 14 units. That's with couple of medium sized squads, terminators and a land raider I needed to soak of points. If I changed out the land raider or broke some squads into smaller squads I could easily be pushing 18.

In my opinion, I think 8 to 20 units is a good scope for 28mm sized miniatures wargames as it gives the player enough units to work with, enough space to maneuver (on a 6'x4') and keeps the game length in terms of time near the 2.5 hour mark.

I honestly think that 2,000 points for Warhammer 40,000 is just a little too unwieldy. I think my Chaos Space Marine army really should be sitting at about the 10-12 unit point rather than the 14-16. If I had my choice in pickup games, I think 1750-1850 would work better (and that is already compromise to me preferring 1250-1500). I think those last few points really are more of a comfort zone than needed to round out most army lists.