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Hey! So myself and my girlfriend want to start out small when it comes to warhammer 40k games. Now our options are space marines, chaos space marines, orks, and tau. I was hoping that some of you would help us create a mini army for the sake of a short battle so that we may learn the basics. Preferably 500pt armies or less, since we are both busy and have a limited amount of time. Amy army lists out of the specified armies would be greatly appreciated! ( We can settle for the beginner's sets, but would prefer simple units. i.e. space marines and terminators as one army vs. tau with a few crisis battle suits/stealth battle suits). Please list the units needed and their point value, we have the said armies all ready(each roughly 1500+) that i have painted. I just want somewhere small to begin with before getting into these larger battles.

Sure. Here's a list I made, stuff you could probably pick up for less than $60 on eBay.

Space Marines - 400 points

5x Scouts

8x Tac Marines, maybe a Plasma Gun or something

8x Tac Marines, maybe a Plasma Gun or something


Orks - 400 Points

10x Slugga boys, Bigshoota, Nob, Bosspole

10x Slugga boys, Bigshoota, Nob, Bosspole

5x Nobs, Bosspole

As for points, check the codices or Battlescribe

To have fun at lower points games, why don't you try Kill Teams missions? Heralds of Ruin is a fan site that contains the rules for this smaller scale, more narrative driven game of 40k that ranged from 200-400pts.




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You can still construct lists that can later build into standard 40k but expansion and new rules and fun are handled by the campaign system rather than just buying new models.

Zone Mortalis rules and board make for excellent small point games. Can be vicious little games though!

While they can be vicious the board is time consuming to make by hand or really expensive(but worth it) to buy.

I would say it's by far the best value board available. The other realm of battle boards are just (very pretty) glorified tables. They allow you to play a game with a very different feel and they keep your model count down. Allowing you to have lots of little armies. That's pretty much all I have so it suits me really well.

My normal 500 point Space Marine lists take the following form:

Inexpensive HQ (bare bones chaplains, librarian, or techmarine offer a lot of utility with just their stock gear)

Full 10 man tac squad
5 man scout squad

Fun unit. This varies depending on mood, and can be anything from a predator tank to an assault marine squad. It generally should cost around 100 points, depending on what gear I give the tacs and what HQ I’m running with.

 Knockagh wrote:
I would say it's by far the best value board available. The other realm of battle boards are just (very pretty) glorified tables. They allow you to play a game with a very different feel and they keep your model count down. Allowing you to have lots of little armies. That's pretty much all I have so it suits me really well.

It definitely is, and even if you dont have the board you can make one pretty easy if you want, but the rules are amazing.

forgeworld has the rules on their site for free and I know they are in some HH book as well: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Zone_Mortalis_Expansion.pdf

Jreilly gave already two useful lists.
In small pt games, you need numbers.

most small points games I seen dont allow terminators their save is to good for that small of a game.
But i guess if you build I list to counter would be fine

cman64,

What you are asking for is kind of hard to deliver as each army doesn't have one way to play. You can put together a Space Marine army designed around hard defenses and long ranged weapons, OR fast moving strike forces OR massive numbers to overwhelm the enemy OR a few, elite murderous units OR....

You mentioned having 1500 points of painted models...what do you have? We can put together some lists that recommend, say, Predator tanks, which won't help you if you don't have any Predator tanks.

That being said, I can give you some base rules for Space Marines.

1. Tactical squads are your all-purpose soldiers. They are average at everything and don't excel at anything specific. You can change their focus with the addition of special and heavy weapons. (making them Anti Infantry or Anti Tank focused)
2. Assault squads are your fast moving close combat squads. They are close combat focused, but not necessarily close combat EXPERTS. They are more-or-less average compared to other armies' CC units
3. Devastator squads are your Heavy Weapons specialists. They can be Anti Tank or Anti Infantry, but don't try to mix the weapons to cover all options. That rarely works out well. If you want an all purpose unit, take missle launchers. They have range and AI AND AT missles.

Lynkon


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Here's a basic Combined Arms Detachment Space Marine list which revolves around two Rhino's with half-sized Tactical squads to grab objective points late game, but the core of this is sitting back on your board edge and chewing up the enemy with long ranged fire. If you play it as Imperials Fists, you get the Bolter Drill and Siege Masters chapter tactics so you can reroll 1s on the bolter shots, and the Lascannon Devastators have Tank Hunter.

HQ

1 Librarian (ML1, Bolt Pistol, Force Sword) (65 Pts)

Troops
Tactical Squad 1 (110Pts)
1 Rhino (Storm Bolter)
1 Tactical Sgt (Bolter, Bolt Pistol)
3 Tactical Marines (Bolter, Bolt Pistol)
1 Tactical Marine (Flamer, Bolt Pistol)

Tactical Squad 2 (110Pts)
1 Rhino (Storm Bolter)
1 Tactical Sgt (Bolter, Bolt Pistol)
3 Tactical Marines (Bolter, Bolt Pistol)
1 Tactical Marine (Flamer, Bolt Pistol)

Heavy Support
Devastator Squad (150 Pts)
1 Dev Sgt. (Bolter Bolt Pistol
4 Dev Marines (Lascannon, Bolt Pistol)

Whirlwind
1 Whirlwind (65 Pts)

Lynkon_Lawg wrote:
cman64,

What you are asking for is kind of hard to deliver as each army doesn't have one way to play. You can put together a Space Marine army designed around hard defenses and long ranged weapons, OR fast moving strike forces OR massive numbers to overwhelm the enemy OR a few, elite murderous units OR....

You mentioned having 1500 points of painted models...what do you have? We can put together some lists that recommend, say, Predator tanks, which won't help you if you don't have any Predator tanks.

That being said, I can give you some base rules for Space Marines.

I'm mainly asking for smaller games so that myself and my girlfriend may touch up on our skills before we begin much larger battles. Thank you for you input and everyone else's! Now As far as what models I have, I should have enough as far as making a mini army goes. I should have begun with what I had in the first place, so that i could have help making these mini armies. i was originally thinking that I could use what I had to make the posted lists instead, but many of these lists have squads that i have yet to add to my collection

Anywho this is my current inventory:

Space marines;
1 Chapter Master
1 chaplain
1 librarian
1 techmarine
43 tactical marines+4 sergeants (4 squads of 10 men including the sergeant; 7 marines left over for a possible fifth squad)
13 devastators ( 14 if you include the techmarine)
5 close combat terminators; including veteran sergeant
5 terminators; including veteran sergeant
5 terminators; including veteran sergeant
3 bikes
1 attack bike
2 dreadnoughts
2 land speeders
1 rhino
1 vindicator
1 stormtalon

Tau:
2 piranhas
1 hammerhead gunship
1 ethereal
1 broadside battlesuit
1 cadre fireblade conversion
4 crisis battle suits
18 drones
24 firewarriors
12 stealth suits
1 battlesuit commander conversion(old metal broadside arms(2), flamer, shield)

Orks:
1 dakkajet
1 battlewagon
1 trukk
4 killa kans
3 deffkopta
5 nobs
1 warboss
7 burna boyz
8 lootas ( with a mek conversion)
17 gretchen (1 herder)
15 boyz

Chaos Orks(conversion):
1 predator
1 rhino
3 ork bikes
1 warboss(converted Ghazagull thraka)
5 possessed marines
7 chaos marines( Dark vengeance set. 1 could be considered a dark apostal)
7 khorne berserkers
5 storm talons
1 ork sorcerer/weirdboy
15 boyz
5 'ard boyz
20 cultists (dark vengeance set)
1 hellbrute (DV)

Now the points I said are about what i think is the total point count when I did my best to calculate them. I apologize in advance if they are more or less than what i had said, since only up until recently have i been more interested in learning/playing than modeling and painting. This is so far what we have to choose from for a small battle.