AOS 'Combat Patrol'

[Husslehoff]

Hi all, 

I was wondering if anyone had any experience or was interested in looking at a way of playing 500 point games in AOS. 

The recent 40k articles make it look like 'Combat Patrol' is going to be supported moving forward, and I wondered if in future we may see a version for us.

There's a great article in an old WD (Jan 313) looking at 500point games for Warhammer Fantasy that got me thinking about a more modern version. We do have Meeting Engagements and to an extent Path to Glory, but I wanted to know if we had general consensus on  some limitations, battleplans and ideas for our own version. 

Lots of club nights start slow grow campaigns or 'getting started' nights with these sorts of matches and I'd love if we could find some common ground on ways to balance it a little. Battleplans are probably the most important thing, as grabbing objectives can be a little harder with just 3/4 units on the board. 

I'd love to hear peoples suggestions or even systems already created. 

My initial thoughts were;

- Board size: 44 by 30 (Keeps in line with probable future sizes)

- 1 Hero, 1 Battleline, 0 Behemoth?

 

Let me know your thoughts and ideas. I do think 500pts can be a great size game, especially given sometimes hectic real life commitments, and a wandering eye when it comes to new releases!

[Icegoat]

Small aos games can be worthwhile but I find with smaller armies units really in their raw stats more than  buffs magics command points etc. Which is fine until you get something like stabbas or marauders who have innately good warscrolls which are buffed without other factors. Then it becomes a bit difficult. 

Also a lot of units and stuff at low point levels never die. For instance a unit of 10 liberator backed by a castellant will take all game to kill in a small point game 

[VBS]

A while back, I hastily adapted to AoS the WHFB 500p. games you mention:

 

You might find it useful. It mainly adapts army building and has custom battleplans with different objectives.

Best used for fun, not min/max in mind.

[Evantas]

Meeting Engagements or Warcry exist already to scratch that itch imo.

Honestly a 500pt 40k combat patrol is quite similar to 1000pt ME in unit sizes that it will take the same amount of time. 

Try it!

Edited July 17, 2020 by Evantas

[willange]

The problem with really small games, imo, is that the game becomes even more "rock-paper-scissors" than it already can be.  With 2k points, you have room to prepare for a number of different threats.  With 500 or 1000, you probably don't.

[Kramer]

I second the arguments that it becomes lobsided as well at 500pts. 

but, and it’s a big but I cannot lie. 

at that point level competitive should never be the goal. 500pts is introduction level, or the first round in a path to glory. 
my experience is that in that case play 500pts but make it a triumph and treachery game. Or just play skirmish. Because that way you still learn most of the principles, stats and it’s quick and fun. Although again hardly a balanced system, fun though 

[NinthMusketeer]

I think 500 points works fine, just that both players need to be on the same page with how strong their army will be. This is true for Matched Play in general, of course, but the further from 2000 points one gets the more true that becomes. A flat ban on summoning is not a bad idea either, especially considering the non-scaling nature for several army summoning mechanics (Nurgle will summon the same at 500 as it will at 2000, for example). The other restriction I would put in place is limiting maximum unit sizes so you do not end up with a case of the army being one big unit + buffer/healer.

[Baron Klatz]

I think narratively allowing a Behemoth choice could be fun. Just upgrade it with the Beastclaw Raiders rules that allow them to capture objectives.

[Fairbanks]

Our store started an Escalation League pre-Covid that started at 150 points and added that amount with each week.

At the 150 points level (which as our store is full of newer players, immediately got cheesed to allowing a 160 or 170 point unit), some things were more devastating than others (Eels and Gore-Gruntas often got a game-winning turn 1/2 charge that ended the game). But it was good to learn the rules and get the smash the armies together thing out of the way. We didn't require leaders, nor did we play with Allegiance Abilities.

At 300, most players opted to add a leader (except the Ogor/BCR player, who just added more Mournfangs). This was a better format and people started toying with the unit/leader interactions. It was also a good way to escalate the rules learning experience (as the learning that comes with the Hero phase is introduced)

Then Covid hit. Most players were looking to add a second unit/leader just to test more interactions (instead of adding more dudes to the existing unit)

 

[Tiger]

Path to Glory should work.

[someone2040]

These days I think it'd likely be easier to either run Skirmish at 500 points (and just have everything be an individual), or run larger and try Meeting Engagements. But a long time ago I scratched the surface on what say a 500 point ruleset might look like.

The problem with small games is that you don't have a lot of units to play around with. So it makes it harder to play more interesting battleplans as you have less units to capture objectives with. So the solution to this of course is... to allow more units! Skirmish does this by making everything an individual, but I wanted to keep in the format of playing something more 'standard' like.

So basically I came up with changing the unit sizes in smaller games to the following:

Old Minimum	New Minimum	Maximum
1	1	1
2	1	1
3	1	3
5	3	5
10	5	10
20	10	15

Also the following additional rules:

• You may increase units by individual models up to the maximum
• Any special rule granting bonuses when the unit contains a particular number of models halves the number of models required to gain the bonus
• Units less than the minimum size of the unit on the warscroll may only choose one 'upgraded' model
• Units that meet the minimum size of the unit on the warscroll may take upgrades as usual
• Each warscroll can only be taken a maximum of twice
• No Warscroll Battalions, WAR MACHINES or models with more than 8 wounds
• Maybe Max 2 heroes?

Probably would ban the extra command point as well at low point games.

The main change in this ruleset of course is that it allows you to use more units by effectively reducing the minimum amount of points you can spend on each unit. I wrote a bunch of lists out on what I thought would be interesting lists, and on average I got an extra 2 units to play around with.

As an example, at the time of writing, Ironjawz could only make a list like this due to the unit sizes available:
Megaboss 140
5 Brutes 180
10 Ardboyz 180
500pts, 16 models, 3 units

Which became this:
Megaboss 140
3 Brutes 108
5 Ardboyz 90
5 Ardboyz 90
1 Gore Grunta 60
488pts, 15 models, 5 units

I think the 2nd list is not only more interesting to play with from a game-play perspective, but would also look more visually interesting with the addition of a mounted model. Or basically, not only do you get to play with extra units, but you also get to diversify your list a bit at the same time. 

Perhaps interestingly, starter sets commonly don't come with standard unit sizes (or realistically fudge the minimums to take into account GW oddly designing starter set units). Rules like this would allow them to utilise starter sets without much changes (and likely just removing the large amount of heroes you get).

Probably if I were to look into this from here would be looking at the board size and battleplans. I think definitely from what we've seen, playing on a smaller board (originally envisioned 4x4) would certainly lead to a better game.