Low points games

[Tyrion]

Does anyone have much experience they can share on how well the game scales down to low points games?  I was quite excited by the idea of the Blood and Glory 500 pts match and wanted to know how well it worked.  Do the missions in the generals handbook still work well with armies of only three or four units?

[wayniac]

Haven't tried (my preference is 1000-1250) but I would think some of them might be too much with only a handful of units and objectives spread out far.  At the very least I'd say a 4x4 table instead of 6x4 to condense things a little more, which might alleviate the problem, and I guess modify the scenarios that use 6 sections to only use 4 

[CoffeeGrunt]

We're running a 760pt tournament soon, and we're finding a few things about AoS:

- Points costs are almost entirely in multiples of 20, which is why we had to change it from 750pts to 760pts,
- Some armies just have more options for cheap units to fill gaps than others,
- Fast armies do really well  on a 6x4, but a 4x4 is just too small to allow any sort of flanking, etc,
- Buying in multiple models rather than individuals makes it tricky to fit units in,

[wayniac]

1 hour ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

We're running a 760pt tournament soon, and we're finding a few things about AoS:

- Points costs are almost entirely in multiples of 20, which is why we had to change it from 750pts to 760pts,
- Some armies just have more options for cheap units to fill gaps than others,
- Fast armies do really well  on a 6x4, but a 4x4 is just too small to allow any sort of flanking, etc,
- Buying in multiple models rather than individuals makes it tricky to fit units in,

That's some interesting observations.  Didn't know that points were almost all in multiples of 20, makes sense though so maybe points should always be even numbers.

[KHHaunts]

Yes they can work very well.

Havent done 500pts specfically but low points games can be very refreshing and easy as they allow multiple changes to the dynamics and objectives and mean that if you got whitewashed in a previous game or if you get tabled that isent your evening over you can just wait for the next match-up.

I cant remember all the GHB battleplans names exactly but i belive that their are a few particulalr narrative games that work with far less than 500 and some "series game" such as the one with the doomed defenders can be quite fun.

Basically one player deploys in the centre and has to fight off all the other players (who are on the same side) for as long as possible/ cause the most casulties to the enemy. you take turns being the doomed defender and see who can lost the longest. Makes for a great way off working on your strategic ability as you will get multiple chances to try and resist armies that are multiple times the size of yours.

[KHHaunts]

you might also consider something between the normal game and the regiments of reknown games for an interesting time.

[PaintingTentacle]

We play 500 point games all the time. Some armies scale better than others (Beastclaws as an example don't scale well). Over all, 500 points is a great 30-45 minute game, and is perfect if getting some practice games. 

It also eliminates the huge monsters from becoming the focus and makes people use more of their "troop" options. 

I really enjoy quick little games at this level of points. 

[Kramer]

54 minutes ago, PaintingTentacle said:

Over all, 500 points is a great 30-45 minute game, and is perfect if getting some practice games. 

Agreed. 500 points is great for a quick game or for getting somebody into the hobby. Not to many different units, so less rules to remember. It still keeps its tactical challenges (honestly I believe it adds some as well. For example: dividing your army gets more tricky)

[MightyQwan]

We are running a slow grow campaign started at 500 points. It's a lot of fun. Having so few points and still trying to be competitive in scenarios forces you to use cheap units. It helps develop tactics and strategies for those units that often get relegated to the shelf because other more effective units are not available.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[Kaptan]

I and a lot of other players at the store I play at, started at 500 points. Some of the battle plans are not so great for all of the 500 point armies. Escalation or Blood and Glory can be pretty hard for small unit counts. 

 

500 point is great for getting into the game. Less to think about, and more time to think about fewer actions. I just recently (yesterday) started playing at 1000 points and am having a lot of fun. Gift from the Heavens is one of my favorites for low unit count games. 

[Double Misfire]

If you're interested in really small skirmish type games have a look at @bottle's awesomely well written and presented Mordheim style Hinterlands skirmish rules for AoS. It's an incredibly well thought out rules mod and feels like it was made for lazy painters like me!

 

[foolsama]

The Matched Play scenarios were definitely written with at least 1k points in mind.

If you want to go smaller I suggest going with some of the other scenarios - things like the Path to Glory scenarios, and The Monolith, for example, work rather well. The Multiplayer scenarios also work pretty well for smaller forces.

And of course, you don't need a scenario - you can just play to the death!

[Tyrion]

Thanks for the advice.  I really like the idea of using the path to glory scenarios.  

[hobgoblinclub]

I played in the 500 at Blood and Glory, and was my least favourite part of the weekend, to be honest. This was party to do with having no breathing space between games, the whole thing feeling rushed, and my cobbled together list not having a chance against three FEC armies. 

500 points seems to work better for some armies than others. I was running skaven and found my clanrats to be next to useless against ghouls which kept coming back. To be fair I didn't have anything that could buff the rats as I'd just grabbed a handful of models from my 2000 point list at the last moment. 

I'm really interested in getting into 1000 point games, but I think 500 is just a bit too small. Unless you play herohammer or something similar. 

[Tyrion]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't playing.  That one of my concerns to be honest.  What was in the FEC army, was it just ghouls and a courtier of some kind?

[DodgyRoller]

Ive played a few 500 pt games in a few narrative games and they're okay but I think their really for newbies. I prefer to play 1000pt games as i find you get enough models on the board to have an interesting game without the downside of having 3 frostlord on stonehorns charging in a annihilating you in a turn, as for scenarios i think they work well and in some cases (three places of power) work better at 1000pts imo.

[hobgoblinclub]

1 hour ago, Tyrion said:

I'm sorry to hear you didn't playing.  That one of my concerns to be honest.  What was in the FEC army, was it just ghouls and a courtier of some kind?

Pretty much. One of them was ghoul patrol. Basically, each game amounted to me killing more but the ghouls coming back. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, I had a great time! I just find playing against Death frustrating. Being beaten by any other army feels fair enough; being beaten by Death is infuriating. 

[hellalugosi]

I really like the speed of 500 point games, and i've come to realize that the best way to make it work is to tailor the scenarios directly with it in mind. Asymmetrical battleplans with lots of terrain work fantastic, no mounted or flying units, and house ruling being able to take a 5 model minimum for units that are usually a minimum of 10 (paying half the points rounded up) and making the maximum size of a unit 10, also help to make it pretty fun.

I've been tooling around with my game group into making objective cards that are randomly generated based on your alliance for each player. For example, the destruction player draws an objective card for his alliance:

it says simply "If the enemy general is slain, gain 1 laurel of victory. Your general gains this command ability: Domination - In your hero phase, your general stokes the flames of a rivalry that must be resolved! Choose an enemy general within 10", until your next hero phase, if you slay the general you gain 3 laurels of victory. If the enemy general is slain any other way while this is active, gain 2 laurel of victory instead."

Then the order player draws "Set up an objective marker in the middle of the opponent's territory. If you have a model within 6" of this objective marker at the end of the game, gain 1 laurel of victory. Your general gains this command ability: Reconquest - In your hero phase, your general rallies his warband to recapture sacred ground. Until your next hero phase, if your general is within 6" of the objective marker, gain 1 laurel of victory."

So simple direct goals like these that add conflict to the game on a small level and are tailored to the alliances are what i wanna make for the game. Hell you could even throw a generic goal into the game like malifaux's line in the sand. whoever has the most models at the center of the board gains points or whatever.

Lots of opportunity to make 500pts very interesting!