Low Points Games...Who's Playing Them?

[Gwill_of_the_Woods]

I have been playing mainly 1000 point games, some skirmish, fire storm, campaigns, and silver tower.

I don't think I have actually played a 2000 point game yet.

I am totally not a power-gamer or in anyway interested in the competitive side of things!

[Moonlightwolf]

500 points games are the standard at my Local GW's AoS night, admittedly its usually 4+ players so their is often 2000ish points on the on the table but no one is fielding huge forces.

[DinoTitanedition]

I usually do not use points, but when I do calculate what I field, it always turns out to be around 500-750 points. That is the size that shows the strengths AoS brought to the Warhammer hobby: fast pace, no bloated rules, neccessity and therefore politeness in between players, affordable costs of hobbying, better painted quality of armies.

 

To me it is not Games Workshop who drove the 2K point value, it`s the playerscene that just couldn`t have fun without the competitive note of pointvalues. What good did it do? I hear the constant moaning about balancing and costs again. Obviously to some that is an equal part of the hobby as building, painting, playing with and writing narrative for your toys (which are in my opinion the four pillars of the hobby).

 

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that - if that is fun to some people, knock yourself out. To me, that is more of the downside to the hobby. What drove me out of Warhammer Fantasy Battles was the highly competitive ever same fielding armies on the field, a certain lack of love for story and a rather depressive dark background that ultimately created boredom in the setting. With the increasing return of it, I find myself playing less and less....again. The World of Warcraft like flavour of the new system was what got a lot of people into the hobby, be it new or old players.

 

I might be the heretic here with making these statements, but in the end it all boils down to these rather obvious things. So, from that point of view, low pointed games make the game more interesting, as you have to face different challenges all the time and do not know what will head you way. This way you are rather forced to be a bit more relaxed about your games overall.

 

Stick to 500-750. That seems to be the best size for this.

[MrCharisma]

I played my first 1k battle last week, however; it was a 6 person Triumph & Treachery game. Good fun!

[someone2040]

So in general, most of our games locally are at the 2000 point range. This is primarily driven by it being the most popular points range, and also tournament practice.

I have no issues with smaller games though, other than that the matchup can be a bit more swingy due to lower points and you really have to hone in on what scenarios work well in smaller games. I actually prefer to build armies up to around the 1000-1200 point range, as I feel that's arounds the time I start getting distracted and want to do something else instead rather than slog through another 800 points of models.

That being said, I think now that the scene is a bit older and we've run a few tournaments and people have built up their armies, 2k is kinda the automatic default because most people can play games at that level now. So unless you've got a reason not to, it kinda becomes the thing that gets played. Plenty of good reasons to play smaller though, time of course being a pretty big reason why!

 

I do agree with some of the sentiments though in the thread that we do have to be careful. It's very true that '2-2.4k norm' did make it very hard to get into Warhammer Fantasy and it's something that AoS could just as easily fall into. The fact of the matter is, WFB scaled down just like AoS does. Perhaps not as elegantly in some cases, but it could easily be done. Yet nobody played the game at that level, and that's what drove the point about needing to scale up to 2k armies straight away to get in a game.

[Ar-Pharazôn]

My area is more or less exclusively 1K games. It's a much easier benchmark for new players to hit than 2K, and it's faster, which is important with college students who aren't always free. 

[DrDemento]

Our garage group almost always plays 600-1k multiplayer games with three core players and a few attempted converts from boardgaming group.  

Mostly two teams when large for potential expediency but the coordinating analysis paralysis slows it down. Triumph and treachery is fun - we use cards dealt out instead of picking.

I really push for all lists to have a behemoth for the fun factor and for a forced balancing,  although some factions have a hard time at the 600i or so range and some players refuse to take behemoths (the ogre gut buster and Ironjawz players, understandably).

We still plan to play 2k games and have a dozen 1k to 3k painted factions between us.

[Kugane]

I think if we, as a community, started to shift the standard to 1k instead of 2k it would be a lot more interresting for new players to join in. I personally dislike playing against people who haven't painted their army, even though I can understand. I think 1k games would motivate people to keep painting.

[Aginor]

I occasionally play 1000 point games but I prefer 1.5k and above. Main reason is that my main army is Seraphon, and that army needs their synergies to work. So I need my support units and a bataillon. Not impossible at 1k but there aren't many options then. The minimum requirements for some bataillons are already near 1k.

With my Death army it is a bit better. But even there I prefer 1.5k because then I can play the large groups of Skeletons I like AND one big guy (like a Zombie Dragon).

[chord]

When playing 1K point games I find ignoring all allegiance abilities, etc works best.  Just warscrolls, the games move fast, and are more fun.  

[Mr. White]

44 minutes ago, chord said:

When playing 1K point games I find ignoring all allegiance abilities, etc works best.  Just warscrolls, the games move fast, and are more fun.  

I think this is a great suggestion for those who are more Matched Play focused. Let loose the need to fit your army into an allegiance ability criteria and go with a collection of cool-to-you models instead. Ride the warscrolls only.

[LeeM]

I've yet to play (despite having SCE half of the starter set and some Arrow Dudes, but drooling over the new Nurgle stuff) and I don't plan to play at more than 1000pts. If I get the SC! Nurgle kit I can start at 500 straight out of the box. 

Local Lot are all tournament nuts, so I might end up getting swayed eventually but as is, I just to paint and play as quickly as possible! 

[karch]

We don't play points but if I counted them I reckon we would be in the sub-1000 class.

A lot of our games look more like something out of Mordheim than warhammer.  One character and his retinue, a few small units etc. 

Big units are too cumbersome to move around.

 

[Mr. White]

3 minutes ago, karch said:

We don't play points but if I counted them I reckon we would be in the sub-1000 class.

A lot of our games look more like something out of Mordheim than warhammer.  One character and his retinue, a few small units etc. 

Big units are too cumbersome to move around.

 

Sounds fun!

So, do you just "eye ball" approximate forces and give sudden death conditions to any perceivable underdog - per the AoS 4page -, or have you guys come up with something else?

[karch]

Just now, Mr. White said:

Sounds fun!

So, do you just "eye ball" approximate forces and give sudden death conditions to any perceivable underdog - per the AoS 4page -, or have you guys come up with something else?

We play AoS pretty much as originally released. So 4-page and sudden death it is.

It works just fine if you don't go out of your way to break it.

[Mr. White]

Have you used the Open War cards?

[Planar]

Since we got into AOS a couple of years back, in my group we played almost entirely 1k due to the fact that we did not have enough miniatures for larger games. Lately we have started playing 2k games. In many respects I find them more enjoyable and rich in experience than 1k games. 

Some armies sing a completely different tune in 2k and generally there are more tactical options, more synergy and more chances to field expensive models. My Maw Crusha is way to expensive in 1k but in 2k it fits nice and has a completely different tactical role.

That said we still enjoy 1k games since they are fast and easier on the brain (especially after a long day at work). Sometimes we prefer to play 2 small 1k games instead of a long 2k game

 

[karch]

2 minutes ago, Mr. White said:

Have you used the Open War cards?

Nope. We first tried card-based shenanigans with Flames of War v4 and found they conditioned gameplay too much (actually we are now back playing v3 for the foreseeable future).

Might be worth checking out if the LGS has them, just in case.

 

[Actionpacked Fury]

I usually play team-games which we often arrange two players on each team and 1250 pts per person(sometimes 1000 pts per person). We get the benefit of playing larger games while we still doesn't have to paint up 2000 pts worth of models. Oh, and it doesn't hurt as much when you get destroyed as you can share your utter defeat with a buddy.

[jkav86]

Low point games can be a lot of fun, they go quickly, you can get a few games in on a single night and are also fun for an army you're just starting on. But I do love bigger games, they let you bring out toys you wouldn't get to use otherwise like some of the bigger monsters and large formations and the like. Often in a smaller game I think the big stuff can feel way out of place and kind of ruin some of the fun. 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Mr. White
As you can see from your responses, a lot of people are playing 1k games. It typically has to do with time restraints and mindsets. Most people don't have a lot of time - playing games in the evening are often 1000-1500, whereas when you go to the store on the weekend its a lot of 2000 point games.

Why? Well its designed that way. AoS is supposed to represent a large battle, so many players prefer to field the largest reasonable army they can. Standard is 2000 points by design - 40k, and WHFB have been using 2000 points as a staple for as long as I have been playing. When they designed the new points system for AoS, they could have devised a simple easy to use system (like power level for 40k) but they re-adopted the standard, 2000 point system.

All GW sponsored tournaments are typically 2k points, so this is the standard competitive size. If you are a seasoned AoS player, you are going to gravitate toward this size as well, because you have too many beautiful painted models you don't want to leave on the shelf. Also, as you play a lot of games and get familiar with your army, you can play 2k faster than you were playing 1k.  Recently I even played a 2500 point tournament. 

Does this make the game harder for people to get into? Not for the most part. 2k points is a goal and there is a long path to get there - skirmish, P2G, Season of War, Escalation Leagues. Most fans of warhammer are happy to play all kinds of games. That being said, groups of hyper competitive "I just want to do tournament practice" are also out there, and if you are trying to just enjoy games - of any size - you are probably not going to enjoy playing with these people/groups. These people are trying to bring the pain, and unless you are confident in your game and are prepared for a challenge, you do not want to play with these people.

If you want to steer clear of competitive tournament players, I would recommend trying out other stores and looking for different communities in your area. If you cant find them, you'll have to step it up and get involved yourself - start a FB page, host a 1k event each week, etc.

Personally I often host a AoS night and I started at 1k but are pushing for 1200-1500 to fit more goodies in. On the weekends I would be looking to play standard 2k games, but I would happily shrink my lists if there are people with smaller armies looking to play games.  

[chord]

24 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Why? Well its designed that way. AoS is supposed to represent a large battle, so many players prefer to field the largest reasonable army they can. Standard is 2000 points by design - 40k, and WHFB have been using 2000 points as a staple for as long as I have been playing. When they designed the new points system for AoS, they could have devised a simple easy to use system (like power level for 40k) but they re-adopted the standard, 2000 point system.
 

I think it is probably the old WHFB community encouraged GW to push 2K , vs GW wanting 2K to be the standard.  Look at their play testers or even community teams they get input from, vast majority are WHFB/AOS tournament players.

As a seasoned AOS gamer I would prefer 1K to be the standard,  it's a good size, and requires hard decision making when deciding what models to bring.

[WoollyMammoth]

@chord
I think its more at the time, 40k was 75% of sales so they wanted to match what 40k was doing. But regardless, a lot of people are playing 1k. its kind of standard for people who play evenings. Do you have a weekday game night in your community? 

[chord]

2 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@chord
I think its more at the time, 40k was 75% of sales so they wanted to match what 40k was doing. But regardless, a lot of people are playing 1k. its kind of standard for people who play evenings. Do you have a weekday game night in your community? 

No, its mostly Saturday/sunday for those of us with 9-5's.  There are no gaming clubs or anything around here. 

[ledha]

My area is full of veteran player, so we have many 2K pts game, but we regularly play 1000 and 1500 pts game (or even less) with the newcomers