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more random curiosity

so far I have only managed two games of 10th, the first was @ 1,000 points, Death Guard v Necrons, where I had six units and three characters (2x plague marines, 1x blightlords & 3 poxwalkers). The second @1,500, Death Guard again facing Blood Angles with nine units and three characters (2x plague marines, 1x blightlords, 2x poxwalkers, 2x bloat drones, 1x plagueburst and a blight hauler)

in both cases a lord of virulence and both the blight bringer and blightspawn

thinking in both cases was "In need enough units to sit on objectives and have stuff still that can move", the secondary characters are cheap unit buffs that to be honest I could probably do better without and more marines but for now whatever

in both games I have more units than my opponent, in the first they had four units, one of which was that floating thing with the huge anti tank gun + characters in each units, the second saw eight units and two characters which was a closer mix to mine

first game the big gun they had lost them the game, that and buff characters in each unit meant not enough actual army, the second game the Blood Angles had two small but nasty units, one with the chaplain model and the other with Dante, both of which were nice but essentially lacked a target worthy of them.

Q: how many units & how many characters do you run at say 1k, 1k5 and 2k?

thinking it seems very easy to shoot yourself buffing a small number of units to be better than they need to be and ending up not having enough "stuff" to actually manage anything?

Also 2nd Q: when building your force roughly how much is "army" (stuff that does things) and how much is "support" (stuff that helps others do things from a distance)? I'm finding I take not much actual support but focus on units able to advance and get stuck in, or at least operate up close and not really bothering with rear area sitting support units, yes this can leave a rear objective exposed but not had that bite me yet as I tend to end up holding the centre of the board

All of my games of 10th (of which there have only been a few) have been 1,000 point games.

My dark eldar list had 9ish units plus a single character. (I think I'm semi-consciously rebelling against the drukhari detachment rules, plus our generic characters are just so anemic this edition.) Drukhari tend to want to run lots of small units despite pain tokens giving more benefit to larger units because we're too squishy to survive a counter-punch. Better to have two units in two hard-to-reach places than one big unit that's harder to hide.

My first craftworld list had 8 units plus 2 characters. The first character was a farseer because he and some of my windriders were newly-painted models I wanted to run. The other character was a warlock that I included because 10th's awkward point system left me with a big gap,and he was the only unit that I could buy with my remaining points. He spent the game using Quicken to zip around the table and do mission objectives.

It's worth noting that the craftworld detachment rule encourages me to field multiple small units because it means I get more free rerolls. The only unit I took more than minimum models in was my windrider unit because I wanted to buff it with Guide and the Bladestorm strat.

My most recent list was a variation on the first list that swapped out the warlock, bikes, and farseer for Illic and a 3 squads of rangers (1 squad had 10 guys.)

My opponents so far have been an Iyanden list with like, 5 units and 3 characters, necrons with 6 units and 3 characters, and a sisters list with 6 units and 3 characters (including celestine.)

At higher points, I'm not sure if I'd go out of my way to add more characters. Most of them seem like they're basically squad upgrades. So it's not that I'm building my list around my farseers and warlocks; it's more that I have units I want to field, and then I'm weighing whether it's worth adding a psyker or phoenix lord to that unit.

The generic drukhari characters all seem pretty bad, so I feel like they're more of a tax unless you're leaning into the detachment benefits.

How many characters vs units I take really just depends upon what I'm aiming for. Or am in the mood to play atm.....

The last game I played I used Khorne Demons.
Karanak - Warlord
Skullmaster
Skullmaster
Fleshhounds x10
Fleshhounds x10
Fleshhounds x10
Bloodcrushers x3
Bloodcrushers x3
Bloodcrushers x3
Characters led units, I burned CP as fast as I got them making objectives sticky, and I took the fight to my opponent.

The game before that I used Necrons:
2 Lokhust Lords with res orbs & blades (one was the warlord) each leading a unit.
Nightbringer
Deceiver
Void Dragon
Ascendent Ctan x3
Heavy Lokust x2
Heavy Lokust x2
Massacre the foe & then spend turns 4 & 5 farming VPs.

The SMs I've been using lately consist of some mix from the following - exact mix depends upon pts.
Primaris Chaplain on bike
Primaris Techmarine
Phobos Librarian
Phobos Librarian
Outriders x3
Invader atv x3 (all with gatling, all run as separate units
Eliminators x3 (Las-fusil x3)
Eliminators x3 (Las-fusil x3)
Redemptor (gatling)
Redemptor (gatling)
Hammerstrike speeder
Hammerstrike speeder
The most characters I've ever run here has been 2. One game it was the Librarians, one game it was the chaplain/tech, several games just the chaplain.

The other Necron list that I've been annoying foes with this past month is maximum scarabs, Spyder/reanimation shenanigans, with a heavy dose of Lokust support.
Deathmarks & Doomscythes & a Doomstalker also tend to make an appearance - depending upon pts available..
The only characters here are 3 Lokhust Lords with res-orbs leading the destroyers.

I'm a Crusader, so I rarely (if ever) take named characters, but I do play pretty heavy on generic characters. Often, I like doing battlefield promotions- there were rules for doing this with some units in some armies in 9th, but we've just made it a generic requisition.

This means I'm not always in direct control over which characters are available at which time.

It works with units too- GSC is a good example; I will be restarting that Crusade soon, but in 9th I started with nothing but purestrains, and I added a model to my pool every time I took out a human. Once the pool reached minimum unit size for Brood Brothers, I paid the RP to raise my supply limit so I could field the unit.

I also haven't raised my supply limit above 50 PL (1K points) in all of 9th, so I have a low ceiling.

My current Sisters list comes in at 525 and has a Canoness, a Palatine, an Imagifier, a BSS squad, a unit of Doms and an Immolator.

My Drukhari opponent is a basic Alliance of Agony: Archon and a unit of Kabalites, a Succubus and a unit of Wyches and a Haemonculus with a unit of Wracks.

So if you count the Immo as its own unit, both lists are a 3/3 split.

I'm going to lean into characters with Sisters- mostly for story reasons. I want to do progressive modelling... So for example the Dialogus that you see on the box is a legendary model. The basic version is the Hospitaller from the Novitiate box; once she's Blooded, I'll swap her out for the Dialogus model... Without her custom backpack or auto lectern. At Heroic I swap in the backpack and she gets the Lectern at Legendary.

I haven't costed out the army beyond where I'm at, but I want to include at least two leaders from the Palatine/ Canoness Track (one starts as Canoness, the other starts as Palatine but can be promoted), a single Dialogus, Hospitaler and Imagifier; I'll need a Missionary to command the Penitent Legion and he will recruit three Preachers as the punishment of Arcoflagellation generates sufficient units for them to accompany. The Triumph will appear, but not until I'm ready for a 3k game... Which will probably happen by the 13th edition.

So that's 10 characters. They'll occasionally be joined by Agents as well, so that adds more- at least an Inquisitor and an Assassin.

Certainly not indicative of how a more conventional player would build a list, but you said you were curious.

many thanks all, nice to see different takes on it, seems characters selected with a goal in mind works.

I like the idea of promoting models as well and sort of running an army as if it were in a campaign (even if it isn't) and letting it evolve

My Craftworld Eldar tend to be somewhat character-heavy as I run a lot of Wraith units which really benefit from Spiritseers. Farseers are also good force-multipliers, but they're a bit trickier to include as the units they can attach too are very fragile. Ditto for Autarchs.

At 2K points I will typically have two or three units of Wraiths (either 10-strong on foot or 5-strong in a Wave Serpent) with Spiritseers; three or more units of Guardians and/or Aspect Warriors with two or more characters attached; and mixture of tanks, Wraithlords, and light vehicles. That averages out to four characters, half a dozen "main" units, and an equal number of support units (which usually cost fewer points, so 1/2 to 2/3rds of my points are in "main" units).

I'm still tinkering with CSM and learning the new ruleset but right now I tend to go for:
1 Lord (PA or Termi) with either Legionaries or Terminators.
2 Sorcerers attached to Legionaries.

I have used a list with an extra Sorcerer a few times but three seems to be a sweet spot for now. I might throw in a Dark Apostle at some point.

I like durable armies, whether that durability comes from amazing stats, large numbers of bodies, or MSU tactics.
Generally your third or fourth buffing character won't help with any of those (with certain exceptions. Looking at you Necrons, Custodes et al).

For example in my latest 1000pt army, I had one character (Captain, there to hold Bolter Discipline), 3 heavy weight vehicles and 2 units.
I would have run a 55pt Company Champion without enhancements, but didn't quite have enough points to get another unit.
I doubt I'd go above 2 characters in 2000pts for Space Marines, and could easily just run a captain.

Support wise, I would want a way of holding my home objective (sticky units, cheap units, indirect fire units), and disposable units to score objectives on my opponents side of the table (cheap deep strikers, bikes, biovore spore mines, etc).
I'd try to minimise the points spent on these as far as my models will allow - 35pt Exaction squads are looking good atm.

In an army like GK it doesn't matter as much, but generaly most if not all terminators squads are running with a draigo or a librarian. With around 4 squads in the arm this means 4 characters. NDK are no longer run, but if they ever become good, they would boost the character number by 2-3. Some people may run more characters, if only GW didn't forget to give any GK character the option to join a squad as a second HQ. With how much termintors cost it is just not valid to run more characters, then there are terminator units. On their own GK characters do nothing and very often just die. And they are VERY expensive.

There is also the locked to specific units problem. A champion can only join power armoured units and if he does, he removes scout from strikes, can't move as fast as interceptors and there is no reason to run purgators. Some people tried to run purificators with Crow. Without him they are super high cost, very low resilient and don't have much impact. With crow they do some more low strenght Anti Infantry shoting, which is good vs weak targets. Problem with that is a unit of purificators with Crow and a transports cost a lot of points to kill something like 5 arbiters, or 10 gsc who will respawn anyway.

On the spectrum of good elite armies, the custodes want a Trajan, Cpt or Blade Champion in every guard and warden unit they have. Which means they run 3 characters in every army, plus an assasin of some kind.

I've actually run a list with one character - a Terminator Captain to attach to a Terminator Squad - and seen some success. One win against Salamanders and a number of draws against my brother's IG.

It depends on the army I'd guess. The low model count armies will have fewer characters, and they need to be complete beatsticks, big force Multipliers, or both.

The higher model count armies can usually get away with more characters to buff more units.

its the thing with a buff character though, have had a look at one or two and not overly sure how worthwhile they are

they do indeed make a given unit far more dangerous, or more robust, occasionally both but it seems they usually provide the option or two buffed units or three, occasionally more, unbuffed ones which may be more versatile though having a lower combat density if such a stat can be considered

its actually something I like about 10th, makes you consider if a character in a unit is worth more/less than two units where as the Auras of the last editions would see the buff character buffing multiple units