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Between books, tape measures, dice, bags, repair tools, datacards, and miniatures- this hobby can get very cumbersome to haul around.

My ultimate quest is to have a ridiculously small/easy to transport force that I can carry in my backpack, and take with me on ye olde public transportation.

An army that I can carry easily, without breaking my spine or will to live.

Also, small numbers of models don't always equal easy to transport. Case in point, I've seen an Imperial Knight player attach so many bags to himself, you'd think he was cosplaying as Samwise's Pony in LotR.

So if anyone has any ideas or specific armies to hunt down, please share them with me.

Thank you.

You're probably looking at something like Custodes. Elite style army, smaller model count and doesn't rely on Titans for the smaller model count so you don't end up with fewer, bigger models to carry around.

Even something big like a Landraider is lower profile and wide rather than tall.




Also I picked a Battlefoam 720 bag and honestly whilst there are cheaper options (and they could seriously do with a redesign on their magnetic rack system so that it uses sliding shelves on a rack instead of fixed position on variable stems); the ability to just put everything in one bag is a huge boon. It will hold books, dice, measure, rulers, papers, cards, etc..

Space marines also work well. Points dense, infantry pack well, and boxy vehicles take up less space then others.

I’m a big fan of KR foam for moving my marines and eldar around. Although getting more into magnets for newer armies. Mostly because things like tryanids do not like to slot nice into foam.

Any elite army will naturally be small.

Space Marines seems to be the easiest. Very little pointy appendages, models that cuddle themselves and have a good center of mass, and most of their vehicles are just metal boxes. (Metal in terms of lore)

Chaos marines, guardsman, sisters, and orks would be I saw mildy difficult, but IG and orks are horde armies unless you mass tanks with guard.

All Eldar tho I believe is one of the hardest to transport because they are the polar opposite to SM, tho they can have a small model count, they have very skinny limbs and a weak center of mass that can well be 6cm above the base.

Would Grey Knights fit into the Astartes mold, of small boxy army?

They are shorter than regular Marines, and I don't believe that you have to.play with the Dreadknights, do you?

I looked at Custodes and If I avoid all the Forgeworld stuff like the tanks and Dreadnoughts. It might be doable. It's just that those models are so expensive.

Beyond that I haven't played a Space Marine army since 5th edition, and that was a Dark Angels 1st Company Terminator army (which I don't even know if you can still do). So I wouldn't know where to start.

I'm going to pass on Tyranids, Orks, Guard, Knights, Eldar, Sisters, Imperial Agents, and Chaos for now...

I noticed no one mentioned Votann. Is that because no one plays them?

Grey Knights are another "elite of the elite" so yes they'd fit as a smaller force, esp if you don't take the Dreadknight model.



Votann aren't as heavily played, but their tanks are also somewhat taller/larger than a landraider. I'm honestly not sure how they play out numbers wise

 Quixote wrote:


I noticed no one mentioned Votann. Is that because no one plays them?

That's a good question, I've never played them but I am planning too. I don't think they should be too hard but the hover bikes and tanks are something I would look into.

I agree with Overread that Grey Knights are a great army to transport. They are like marines but even denser.

Thanks for the help.

Some variation of Space Marines sound like the way to go.

Any advice on building? I haven't built an army since 2009.

And I didn't want to copy/paste some Meta list off the internet.

I'm not the best at list building because I've not done much of it in 10th edition.

I think my best advice I can give considering you are coming back from 2009 is to look at stratagems and see what's associated with what units and look up the detachment rules and work from there.

 Quixote wrote:
Thanks for the help.

Some variation of Space Marines sound like the way to go.

Any advice on building? I haven't built an army since 2009.

1) start by looking through all the units/models on GWs site.
Make a list of those that you really like.
Try and include as many of those in your force as possible.

2) read the rules. Rule book + all balance, commentary pages, erratta/fans on GWs community page.
Read the Space Marine codex - units, detachments, strats.

2) since you have a space/transport limitation? Try and get the most bang for your buck with the units you choose.

Think of why you want to play the army, what units call to you. Take the top 3-5 off your list. Figure out what they need to be supported. Take that. Are there any jobs that need to be done that aren’t covered? Get units that can do that.

You should be able to take and hold objectives. Some you need to get to first, others you can camp from the start of the game.
Some missions require units to take actions. Sometimes in odd places. Having cheep units that can get places and do things is nice.
There are giant robots and tanks out there. Can you kill them?
There are hordes or gribbly things that want to eat your face and/or put a axe into your skull. Can you thin them out before they get to you?

Characters need specific units to join in this edition. Make sure they pair up.

Make sure you like your army. Make sure you have fun.

Back in the day, I think a gray knight terminator army was the "smallest" you could do, miniatures wise. Custodes were just a thing people did as conversions back then.

BanjoJohn wrote:
Back in the day, I think a gray knight terminator army was the "smallest" you could do, miniatures wise. Custodes were just a thing people did as conversions back then.

I played Dark Angels 1st Company Terminator Deepstrike Fun (Back in 4th5/5th), due to its small size and they were plastic, unlike the pewter Grey Knights (The Custodes only existed as an old Rogue Trader model).

I like the idea of grabbing the models I want to play with the most and building around them.

Its down to Inquisitorial Space Marines (DW or GK) or Custodes... I guess it's a good thing I like halberds. Now off to read...

Odd question: are their any official color schemes to GK other than bare metal? I can't find any.

All-on-foot Biel Tan Aeldari/Eldar. Especially with the old metal models, like I have.

You can cram 2000 points of metal Aspect Warriors in a very small space without any fear of damage. Dire Avengers, Howling Banshees, Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Striking Scorpions, Warp Spider...hells, I DARE you to try and break one of my metal Warp Spiders. You'd have to throw them on the floor, with force.

If you avoid Swooping Hawks, or bring a tube of glue in case some wings drop off, and things like Shining Spears, you could easily cram thousands of points in a backpack and not worry about dropping it. I have 30 Banshees, 10 Dragons, 10 Reapers, 10 Scorpions, 5 Hawks, 10 Spiders, 10 Wraithguard, and a bunch of other metal minis (including a couple Wraithlords and some Farseers)in a plastic tub about the size of 2 toasters separated by foam trays.

It's the new plastic minis with all the gew-gaws and bits sticking out all over that take up space and are fragile. That and monsters/vehicles, etc.

And you won't be throwing games either. The Aeldari Aspect Warriors are nothing to be sneezed at. They can tear stuff up and do whatever you want them to. Couple in some old metal Rangers for Infiltration/screening abilities, the aforementioned Wraithguard for some resilience, and maybe some metal Phoenix Lords, and you'll have yourself a good time picking and choosing 2000 points out of a backpack to spank your opponents with.

Downside? I can say this because I've been at this a while, and I own all of these old, metal minis. They're expensive now. But worth it, if these are your goals. Plus they're just cool.

I thought about suggesting Eldar. The tanks actually don’t pack that poorly, amd the infantry is elite and gets the job done.

But the new plastics, like many modern minis, do not pack tight. Graceful, swooping motions, yes. Lovely sculpts, yes. Pack nice? Nope.

 Kagetora wrote:


If you avoid Swooping Hawks, or bring a tube of glue in case some wings drop off

The Old Swooping Hawks will be the second worst thing I've ever made, with the original Fire Prism being my worse because I couldn't even finished it; the crystal wouldn't fit properly with the gun.

Back on topic, what about mass terminators and land raiders, that sounds fun, at least for me. Kinda how I play my Spaces Marines.

 Nevelon wrote:
I thought about suggesting Eldar. The tanks actually don’t pack that poorly, amd the infantry is elite and gets the job done.

But the new plastics, like many modern minis, do not pack tight. Graceful, swooping motions, yes. Lovely sculpts, yes. Pack nice? Nope.

Precisely. With a Falcon or Wave Serpent, if you magnetize the base and turret, they can pack pretty compact. But nothing beats the old metal Aspect Warriors for durability and putting securely in a small space.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NivNeos wrote:

 Kagetora wrote:


If you avoid Swooping Hawks, or bring a tube of glue in case some wings drop off

The Old Swooping Hawks will be the second worst thing I've ever made, with the original Fire Prism being my worse because I couldn't even finished it; the crystal wouldn't fit properly with the gun.

Back on topic, what about mass terminators and land raiders, that sounds fun, at least for me. Kinda how I play my Spaces Marines.

The original Fire Prism was a nightmare. That huge, heavy hunk of metal trying to hang off a reasonably well-balanced plastic "disc" was just pathetic.

☆☆☆ELDAR

Does the Iyanden Wraith host still exist?

It seems that running a bunch of Wraith-guard/knight/lord/etc might be a small list... and most of them look sturdy... and not in wacky (easy-break) poses.


☆☆☆MARINES

Is a Terminator / Land Raider army viable for any Marines? GK/DW, heck, Dark Angels. I'm not picky.

 Quixote wrote:
☆☆☆ELDAR

Does the Iyanden Wraith host still exist?

It seems that running a bunch of Wraith-guard/knight/lord/etc might be a small list... and most of them look sturdy... and not in wacky (easy-break) poses.

Yes. Spirit Conclave Detachment.

The problem is, you have to field 1-2 Wraith Knights to probably be effective, and they're pretty large/fragile.

If you wanted to try a pure Wraithguard/Wraithblade force, with a couple of break-down-and-transport Wraithlords, you probably could....but the Aspect Host is going to be 2x as effective and probably cheaper.

How competitive do you want to be?

The old Force Org Chart is dead. It’s a wild world out there. The only real rule for army building is you can’t take more then 3 of a unit, unless it is battleline, then you can have 6. Might be an exclusion for dedicated transports; I’d need to check.

That’s pretty much it. So the question of “can I do...” is yes. Even in skew lists, taking 3x max squads of most thinks will get you close to the point cap if you have more then one datasheet for your theme.

They way armies are structured in 10th is via detachments. Most of them don’t put restrictions on what units you can take, but do have stratagems and bonuses that promote certain units or play style.

 Overread wrote:
Votann aren't as heavily played, but their tanks are also somewhat taller/larger than a landraider. I'm honestly not sure how they play out numbers wise

I face LoV quite regularly and their model count usually is similar to my orks unless I bring a lot of ork boyz. Both tanks are rather tall, but neither is the size of a landraider.

 Nevelon wrote:
How competitive do you want to be?

I don't mind being the guy with the weird and wacky army, since the odds of me playing a tournament aren't very high.

But I don't want to be destroyed every time I set my army down, because in the land of pick up games, no body wants to play against the "easy win" army.

A Warhound Titan. But probably not much for a quality game.

Oh, I thought I would suggest/share. I recently discovered "Pluck Foam" which I have started to use for transporting miniatures instead of getting any of those battlefoam cases or GW cases. Just cut/pluck the squares out that you need for each mini, and you can put it in a box or something to carry it around.

BanjoJohn wrote:
Oh, I thought I would suggest/share. I recently discovered "Pluck Foam" which I have started to use for transporting miniatures instead of getting any of those battlefoam cases or GW cases. Just cut/pluck the squares out that you need for each mini, and you can put it in a box or something to carry it around.

Most people go the other direction. They start with pick-a-pluck then go to Battlefoam for the pre-cut foam - but its mostly personal preference. Pick A Pluck lets you customize each "sheet" faster than using the Battlefoam "CAD" software then waiting for the ship. But the CAD software lets you get slightly more bang for your storage buck by being able to curve the trays instead of Dot Matrix them.

Edit to Add - also Battlefoam does the new hotnetss with the magnetized trays for magnetic bases. I didn't do that iwth my 40K yet (and expect I'll stay with foam) but you can bet I did it with my Bretonians and that #$&U($#@ing Battle Standard Bearer.

How competitive do you want to be? You can make any army with 3 of each character pretty small.

For the eldar you could buy every phoenix lord (currently 6) for ~700pts, 3 autarchs ~200pts, 3 farseers ~200pts, 3 wraithlords 450pts, and 3 units of wraithguard and that would get you close to 2000pts.

That's about 30 models.

Competitive? I'm not looking for a Meta chasing Tournament Army, but I don't want a dumb army that no one wants to play against either.

Strangely, I can't find any lists online where anyone else is trying to build small.

I guess I'm the only poor sod that is bound to public transportation.

The reason I was looking at Terminator armies are:

1. High Points/Low Models
2. Usually Compact, easy to transport (ie. No wings, or dynamic poses that are fragile).

The only outlets along this reasoning I could find are:

1. Grey Knights (new codex out soon, so I'll have to wait to buy, as I don't want to buy something I can't use, plus all the models are still the old short style)

2. Dark Angels: Deathwing (Cool models for the 1st Company, but I don't know how they play, or why Characters like Belial cant join Deathwing Terminators, but can join regular Terminator units.)

3. Adeptus Custodes (I like their models, but from what I'm lead to believe, I will need Sisters of Silence and Forgeworld Resin Tanks for them to be any good).

Whatever I end up with, I'm going to buy piecemeal, I only have the funds to spend about 50 bucks a month on new army stuff.

I didn't even think about foam for transportation. That's going to take up more room.

Maybe I should aim for 1000 or 1500 points?

I can say that I am personally trying to restore-rebuild my collection after giving up almost everything around 12 years ago, but I'm aiming for like 750-1k points for each little force, but using 3rd/4th/5th ed points/codexes instead of the new stuff.

Even if you wanted to play the new editions, I still think smaller armies are more fun because its not a big commitment, you can get more games per hour, fewer money spent, fewer things to paint, and you can try to do different missions instead of just "kill everything" so 1k might be good.

 Quixote wrote:


I didn't even think about foam for transportation. That's going to take up more room.

My mate uses plastic storage boxes with magnetic sheet stuck on the inside, and magnetises the models' bases. Can just line everything up in ranks and they don't shift about, no need for foam or anything and can store a lot in a relatively small container.

I mean from my experience, elite units are stronger in later editions. I think you can make a good army with elites and heavies alone. They have more wounds and can pump more action economy and value compared to their older counter parts.