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I've been trying to locate/motivate people in my local area to start picking up some smaller fantasy games. Both to speed up out games (most play 2400+) or better yet to attract some new people into the game I was hoping to keep games small, simple, balanced and as fair as possible.

So what's a good size game set? And how should we keep things including the feel of a bigger game while being smaller?

Thoughts: 500 - 600 points.
Limits in addition to point percentage limits:
Lords: 0-1. Heros: 0-2 must have at least 1 character. Max caster level 2. Max magic items reduced by half.
Core: 2 + may upgrade one unit banner to a BSB for 15 points. Max unit size 40.
Special: 0 - 2. No repeating unit types.
Rare: 0 - 1.

I was thinking of limiting the maximum unit size to 30, but I did not want max unit size to discourage people from being able to experiment with hoard formation should they actually have the points to make one.

The idea was small scale army which basically recreates the multi unit aspect of a full scale game while reducing some of the unbalanced spamming which can occur at low point games.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

One thing I have found useful in sub 1k games is to change the magic phase to 2d3 power dice.

I would say atleast start at 750-1000 armies like Woc and ogres doesnt work at all at 500

 Castitas wrote:
I've been trying to locate/motivate people in my local area to start picking up some smaller fantasy games. Both to speed up out games (most play 2400+) or better yet to attract some new people into the game I was hoping to keep games small, simple, balanced and as fair as possible.

So what's a good size game set? And how should we keep things including the feel of a bigger game while being smaller?

Thoughts: 500 - 600 points.
Limits in addition to point percentage limits:
Lords: 0-1. Heros: 0-2 must have at least 1 character. Max caster level 2. Max magic items reduced by half.
Core: 2 + may upgrade one unit banner to a BSB for 15 points. Max unit size 40.
Special: 0 - 2. No repeating unit types.
Rare: 0 - 1.

I was thinking of limiting the maximum unit size to 30, but I did not want max unit size to discourage people from being able to experiment with hoard formation should they actually have the points to make one.

The idea was small scale army which basically recreates the multi unit aspect of a full scale game while reducing some of the unbalanced spamming which can occur at low point games.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

500 is fine, but be warned, Brettonia armies barely even function as legal armies that low due to compulsory bsb and unit of knights of the ream. Factor in that, for an amy to be legal it needs 3 units and a general (which a bsb cant be) and they have a real problem.

As already mentioned, ogre players wont like it either, but at least they can function.

Repeating unit types being banned will hamstring gunlines. Dont know if that was the intent.

The magic items limit seems odd. 50 points isnt alot to work with at low points anyway, and nobody at 500 points will be stupid enough to give a lord more than that.

Limiting magic to lvl 2 seems a good call. The odds of people even having crazy spells is reduced, and to cast them they will likely IF. Trust me, a dimensional cascade hurts at 500 points alot more than a pit of shades of something. Be warned though, dwarfs will have a trivially easy time of shutting down magic.

Oh and in reponse to;

BooMeRLiNSKi wrote:
One thing I have found useful in sub 1k games is to change the magic phase to 2d3 power dice.

Im sure vampire counts and tomb kings love you for that.

I'd try and up it to 1200 and run the game exactly as normal but perhaps disallow Lord choices. It's perhaps a little more than you'd expect, but it's honestly a lot better for most armies than games under 1k.

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
Im sure vampire counts and tomb kings love you for that.

VC are my main army as it goes. Certainly at 500-750 (I did say sub 1k) the extra powerdice just hurts you more. You can only afford a level 2 wizard really so end up being either forced to 4-6 dice both your spells each turn and miscasting yourself to death (no points for a "disposable" bunker at that level either) or never getting anything off because he's throwing more dispel each turn than you're using to cast.

With 2-6 dice per phase as opposed to 2-12 the big spells become more risky to take as you may never get the dice to have a chance of getting it off, which is good because one casting can be enough to finish the game at this level, and if you take two of the lower casting ones you'll get at least one of them off per phase.

Much better for VC than going

I have 9 power dice and he has 6 dispel dice, I throw 6 at invocation of Nehek and raise 10 zombies... and then nuke 20, get sucked into the warp and my army crumbles to the ground.

BooMeRLiNSKi wrote:

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
Im sure vampire counts and tomb kings love you for that.

VC are my main army as it goes. Certainly at 500-750 (I did say sub 1k) the extra powerdice just hurts you more. You can only afford a level 2 wizard really so end up being either forced to 4-6 dice both your spells each turn and miscasting yourself to death (no points for a "disposable" bunker at that level either) or never getting anything off because he's throwing more dispel each turn than you're using to cast.

With 2-6 dice per phase as opposed to 2-12 the big spells become more risky to take as you may never get the dice to have a chance of getting it off, which is good because one casting can be enough to finish the game at this level, and if you take two of the lower casting ones you'll get at least one of them off per phase.

Much better for VC than going

I have 9 power dice and he has 6 dispel dice, I throw 6 at invocation of Nehek and raise 10 zombies... and then nuke 20, get sucked into the warp and my army crumbles to the ground.

Thing is, the average number o' dice will be 6 for a phase. If you get two 3s, you will likeley get one spell of a magic phase. 9 power dice is a great scenario to be in, and why you would squander 6 of those on a single spell that isnt one of those uber army destroying one I hear about (but have never see) anyway is beyond me. And if you are , for example, 6 dicing dwelers, I hope to hell what you are casting it at is worth more points than the 30 zombies you would lose to a cascade.

My point is that VC and TK are balenced with the assumption that they can replace lost wounds/dudes. D3 powerdice will make that really, really hard. God forbid you end up on a table against a runesmith. In fact, this would seem to penalise certain armies alot, while others get scary without magic. I mean, good lord, I can take ALOT of night goblins at 500 points. About 100, with two mangler squigs and characters. Good luck shifting that without magic in 6 turns with a paltry 500 points.

EDIT: Just worked out the last part. Cant run two manglers that low. But my point is, there is little to stop some armies cheesing it up with impunity. Dwarfs will utterly shut down the average 3 powerdice a turn you have. Greenskins will mob you to death, safe from the unit wipes that usually keep them in check due to cheap wizards. Wood elves will do....er....something.

Fantasy simply doesn't work under 1k without major rules changes. At which point it really isn't Fantasy any more.

Anyway, if you want to get people started here is what I recommend.

Have everyone buy a Battalion and 1 hero level character. Have a small tournament with this group of models. Don't worry particularly about point costs for the tournament, but limit it to 1 hero character and whatever the battalion has.

Maybe have everyone toss in $5 for the winner or something as a little incentive.

Do not alter the actual rules themselves. No power dice alteration or anything. It will only confuse people once you do start playing bigger games.

People can play small games with their little battalion and slowly add on to it, but you shouldn't alter the rules so the small games are balanced or work better. This will give people no incentive to enlarge their collections and actually play WHFB proper.

People will always tell you that "the game doesn't work in low points"

People say this about 40K, they say it about Fantasy. And honestly it isn't true in either case. Its not the same game, but it is still there.

Remember Fantasy has % limitations, so a lot of your proposed changes aren't really needed at all.
1) No army can afford a level 3-4 for 125 points. Infact most combat Lords are more expensive than that base, and if somebody brings a Combat Lord, they won't be able to afford ANY fancy gear which is needed to make the fighty lord good. If somebody wants to spend 25% of their points on a slight leadership boost, let them.
2) Core, every army already needs to have at least 25% of their army be core, and to have a legal army there must be 3 sepearate units. As such having a 2 core requirement isn't needed. There will be core, and there will be at least 3 units on the table.
3) Why not repeating units in special? This doesn't really make sense.

The only thing you really need to worry about are fixing a few small issues local to indiviual armies which hamper them at low point games. As was brought up, Bretonnia need to be allowed to leave the BSB at home.

Well some armies can barely bring ANY character for 125 points and still have a legal army(3 units besides characters)

Mr Mugguffins wrote:
Thing is, the average number o' dice will be 6 for a phase.

Actually it's more like 7.17 with one channel, roughly 40-45% of your magic phases will have 8 or more dice

If you get two 3s, you will likeley get one spell of a magic phase. 9 power dice is a great scenario to be in, and why you would squander 6 of those on a single spell that isnt one of those uber army destroying one I hear about (but have never see) anyway is beyond me. And if you are , for example, 6 dicing dwelers, I hope to hell what you are casting it at is worth more points than the 30 zombies you would lose to a cascade.

It's not the 30 zombies you lose that are the big problem. Obviously having your one and only general sucked into the warp as VC, especially at low points level, is game over as your opponent would not have to lift a finger while your army falls to bits. A power drain is also pretty fatal to any army that is magic driven.

My point is that VC and TK are balenced with the assumption that they can replace lost wounds/dudes.

Yes, and my point is that you'll be forced most turns into chucking more power dice at a spell then you need to. Do you know how many spells from the Lore of Vampires I would cast on 6 dice with my one and only general and LoV wizard? None.

D3 powerdice will make that really, really hard. God forbid you end up on a table against a runesmith. In fact, this would seem to penalise certain armies alot, while others get scary without magic. I mean, good lord, I can take ALOT of night goblins at 500 points. About 100, with two mangler squigs and characters. Good luck shifting that without magic in 6 turns with a paltry 500 points.

The minimum dice is exactly the same though, what this does is give you a more workable dice pool for that points level of game. Yes, Dwarfs can break the magic phase and still can/do, without some fairly serious restrictions, at all points levels. However, I don't think a book from 6th edition, which is well known for creating severe issues with magic, should be any sort of benchmark for making adjustments.

EDIT: Just worked out the last part. Cant run two manglers that low. But my point is, there is little to stop some armies cheesing it up with impunity. Dwarfs will utterly shut down the average 3 powerdice a turn you have. Greenskins will mob you to death, safe from the unit wipes that usually keep them in check due to cheap wizards. Wood elves will do....er....something.

Actually I came to this conclusion whilst teaching my friend to play the game against his O&G army over a series of intro games at points levels 400-750. I'd be much more afraid of the cheap Orc Shaman, who can be out of a unit and has less to worry about at this points level if he is, chucking all his dice at boosted Foot of Gork with impunity... then I would be of a unit of 60 NG's.

This IMHO is actually more helpful to VC and TK at this points level. Counter intuitive at first perhaps, but you'll actually end up getting off just as many, if not more, spells as you''re opponent wont have a bunch of dice to chuck at your only two spells (and he'll always get the important one... unless you irresistible force which probably isn't worth it) and dispel with irresistible force.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well some armies can barely bring ANY character for 125 points and still have a legal army(3 units besides characters)

I think Ogres especially suffer from this.

 captain collius wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well some armies can barely bring ANY character for 125 points and still have a legal army(3 units besides characters)

I think Ogres especially suffer from this.

With some minor house rule changes ogres do amazing in small point games. Using the old warbands rules without really any changes my ogres have never been defeated simply because of the weight of their attacks cannot be weathered at 500 points and below.