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Many people I have talked to about 2000 points being the standard for competitive play often agree that it leads to more "optimal" or "fully-realized" play. By that I mean that 2000 points is typically enough for players to not have to make major compromises in list building. It leaves enough wiggle-room for building in redundancy, allows for significant anti-tank, anti-infantry, screens, and objective grabbers, and generally either lets players bring TAC lists that have answers to a wide variety of counters, or allows them enough "purchasing power" to overwhelm the opponent with one particular type of unit. Larger point limits also allow factions with cheap troops and HQ to widen the CP gap to some degree; its easier to justify spending a portion of your points on 'Tax' units to gain CP rather than spending it on more firepower because its a smaller percentage of your list.

In, for example, a 1000 point game, a lot of this goes out the window. At 1000 points, its very difficult to "fully-realize" a list. Most armies are going to have trouble building in decent redundancies while also staying TAC, let alone also being able to effectively screen everything. With fewer redundancies, there's the potential for bigger, more tactically significant "plays." Taking advantage of your opponent's poorly-deployed predator to charge and destroy it is a much bigger deal if their only other source of anti-tank is a couple plasma guns in their tactical squads. In addition, having less overall firepower to bring to bear makes wiping out whole units or vehicles in a single volley harder to do when lists are less redundant, which makes more elite units that pay for better survivability more viable. Necrons might be in vogue in such a league, seeing as wiping out squads to deny RP is much more of an ordeal.

So, the question is, does the 2000 point standard reward some factions more than others? Do the higher-tier factions and lists see their success in part because they more effectively capitalize on such advantages? If so, would lower point competitive games (I'm thinking even lower than 1500, more like 750-1250 max) and tournaments see a wildly different set of netlists and top factions that are quite distinct from the current meta, or do you think it would just be scaled-down versions of the current top lists from the usual subjects of factions? What do you think a distinct 1000-point meta would look like?

Furthermore, if you do think it would have a distinct meta, do you think it would necessarily be a good thing? My initial thoughts about fewer redundancies built into lists are that things may be more tactical, but I could also see this backfiring. Players may realize they can't effectively counter everything they might run into, and decide to just run massive skew lists to hope and overwhelm the limited resources of their opponents rather than making a TAC list, leading to a very Rock-Paper-Scissors meta. Could such a thing be effectively patched with more unit restrictions (patrol detachment only, single unit cannot be >X% of total point value, no more than Y number of models total in a list, etc.)?

Eager to hear what you think!

At 1000 points you probably see everyone get crunched by unkillable warrior blobs.

For me, I just like that 2000 points is enough to bring along the toys I like. Any points value you choose is going to be equally arbitrary and have its own distinct meta; at least at 2000 points I get to run things other than warriors.

Lower point games tend to inflate the value of everything restricted by "the rule of one". Psychich powers such as da jump, warptime, glamour of Tzeench and weaver of fates are twice as impactful at 1000 points than at 2000 points. The same is true of stratagems like Veterans of The long War, Onslaught, Endless cacophony and Single minded annihilation, or combinations like the swarmlord+genestealer bomb or rubrics+dark matter crystal bomb. Regards

ManTube wrote:
With fewer redundancies, there's the potential for bigger, more tactically significant "plays." Taking advantage of your opponent's poorly-deployed predator to charge and destroy it is a much bigger deal if their only other source of anti-tank is a couple plasma guns in their tactical squads

I find the opposite can also be true.

At higher points your opponent might have twice as many big guns, but so do you to blow them off the board with. And the higher points tend to lead to a greater deal of buffing from auras and stratagems to make that firepower even greater (especially when you factor in things like psychic and turn-activated defences that the opponent cannot use if they lose the first turn roll - really 40k could do with a preparation phase to dig in, pop smoke, and generally look to soften the alpha strike).


Beyond that some armies get stronger and some weaker as the points go up. Sororitas for instance are (and always have been) an army that gets weaker at higher points where as others have a minimum level before they reach the critical mass of combined buffing units and enough boots on the ground to use those bonuses effectively. And as have been mentioned some armies have powerful 'one off' units or combos that are more of a problem in low-point games.

I think practical 40k game size starts at around 1500 and probably ends at 2000 on a normal 6x4 board.

But lower point values lower the hurdle to get into the game and allow casual players into the league or event. It also helps out long time players who want to start a second or third army.

In my FLAGS we run 1k/2k leagues where 2k points is the "recommended" level, but everyone has to have a 1k army list so players just starting out can play too.

I'm definitely interest in seeing how lower points leagues would work. The abilities of some units could be very powerful, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Is there anything that there's not a counter for in the game? For larger, one off tournament settings where you're playing people you've never met before, and are sticking to the same list it would be...interesting...but for a local league I think it could be rather fun switching out lists to try and combat their new unit, or work around a favourite tactic they've got.

In 6th and 7th the default points value was 1850, when 8th dropped people decided armies were too small now so they went with 2k. Problem is that the only armies really affected were the existing "meta lists": Eldar, and SM w/free transports because Eldar formations were extremely undercosted in 7th and razorbacks weren't free anymore. GK and AM, for example, were basically the same. Then people just got used to it.

With "everyone can wound everyone", flyers being easier to kill and the active efforts of GW to balance points values (and now the rule of 3) I don't think there would be much harm in going to 1500 for 8th edition.

It would be nice to see GW make an official statement as toward their intended point value for designing and balancing the game. Sure, their track record for balance might be a complete piss-take, but at the very least, it'd help to establish some common ground for everyone to work with when considering how their changes will work, and communicate their intent for the game better.

I feel it would help a lot if GW were to say: "while Warhammer 40k is a diverse and varied game with plenty of room for creative narratives and experimentation, our vision for balanced, competitively minded play is focused on matched-play point values of XXXX. For this reason, while we encourage players to take advantage of the countless methods and scales of play available to them, they should note that differentiating from these values might end up skewing the balance of the game in unforseen ways."

It's definitely an interesting question, however having seen the way some people react I think it would take a major tournament to set the precedent as I've seen people call anything less than 2k beginer or scrubs games.
This is also very disturbing as an attitude as its creating yet another barrier for new players to have to pass before they can be one of the group.

What about an escalation (or deescalation) type tournament, Game 1-1000, 2-1500, 3-2000 (or reverse that).

So armies get a chance to compete at every point level.

I definitely think as soon as you go over 3000 or under 750 balance can become skewed. In a huge points game, swarms of models can become unstoppable as all the MEQ's get destroyed by anti-MEQ, but there are enough of the hordes the anti-horde stops working. 3000 points of termagant or conscripts is a bit extreme.

On the lower end, every wound counts, and synergy matters. If a list can bring anti-everything whilst being tough (destroyers, custodes jetbikes) then they will likely dominate as there is simply not enough models to deal other the high toughness high wound models. Dropping in morty on a 500 point game is completely unfair unless the opponent runs an anti- morty list.

I think 500-750 point tournaments are interesting and would make for very good games, whilst also sometimes having lists wipe the floor with others.

I agree that 500 - 1,000 would be ideal for tournaments, as they really make you focus your list. You can't take everything!

I don't think many armies would withstand the brothers grim at 1k. Even at their nerfed price point and rules.

The Lanchester square law comes in especially in small pt games.
That means, doubling the number of tanks requires to fourfold the fire power to take them down.
I remember that I won a larger local tourney at GW at the 600 pt level making use of this law.