Starting a campaign at lower points

[Moldek]

Hey guys, I need some advice from people with more games under their belts.

I don’t have a gaming group, so originally I started playing with just the card packs for NH and SCE since I already had some minis for those. Just played a few games with my gf and relatives. I managed to convince them to start a campaign! I’m pretty happy about it. I bought the starter set, and we’re going to add a couple of other chaos warbands. I’ll keep the AoS warbands for convergence battles and such.

I expect this to stay pretty casual, and I don’t think they’d be too excited about pitching in for more models soon. I also expect to paint most of the models myself.

In order to keep a sense of progression without having to buy more boxes, I was wondering if it could be feasible to start the campaign at a lower points threshold. It would help people get familiar with the rules, and have that feeling of success when they’re able to recruit another fighter.

So to the point, what do you think about lower points battles? I’m thinking around 700-800. Do you feel it’s too unbalanced? Any advice?

(if that helps, it’s gonna be golems, beasts, unmade and corvus)

[Lior'Lec]

     How many chaotic beasts do you have besides the starter set critters? If you already have some of the new beasts introduced with Monsters and Mercenaries then you can just leave the warbands as a single box each and let everyone expand their groups with beasts. The same could be done with mercenaries if you have a small chaos AoS army to pull them from. 

[Moldek]

@Lior'Lec

I have about 8-9 chaos hounds. I suppose I could also try to make some custom chaos spawns and razorgor, with spare parts and a bit of sculpting 🤔

I also have a Lord of Plagues, and I guess with a bit of creativity I could convert some count-as StD mercenaries (my collection is mostly random old models such as flagellants and a lot of leftover parts).

You may be right that it’s better to stick to the intended game size and extend that way. It does add a bit more work for me but I can probably paint up the beasts pretty quick and work on converting the allies and bigger beasts while the campaign grows. Plus I can make some unique dudes, which is always fun.

Thanks for your suggestions!

[Lior'Lec]

     @Moldek, then that’s the route I’d suggest going first. You can convert some custom mercenaries and pick up a random blister hero here and there to keep the costs down for now, and if you’re really lucky the other players will enjoy the game enough to consider buying their own box of minis to expand their squads. Also by focusing on monsters and mercenaries as your reinforcements it gives you extra time to build up some custom minis. 

[Redmanphill]

I would think that smaller point games could unbalance the scenarios a lot. Not sure if I'd recommend it to be fair.