[Archive] Only 250 points, what would you bring?

Archive [Archive] Army Lists
1

Odatria:

I’m running a fantasy escalation league that starts this Thursday at my local gaming club. The armies start at just 250 points, and increase by 250 each month. Units can’t be changed between rounds, but unit sizes, composition, equipment etc can be changed freely. In the smaller points rounds there are also additional restrictions.

Month 1 you can’t take Lords or Rare, must have 50% Core, and up to 50% each in a single Hero and/or Special.

Additionally, you can have at most 1 wizard level and 1 warmachine. A unit champion can be the general.

Minimum 1 unit.

Month 2 you have 500 points. No Lords, 25% max Heroes, 25% minimum Core, 50% Special, 25% Rare.

You can have at most 2 wizard levels and 2 warmachines. A unit champion can be the general.

Minimum 2 units.

Month 3 you have 750 points. Up to 25% Lords, minimum 25% Core, max 50% Special, 25% Rare.

You can have at most 3 wizard levels. You need a Lord or Hero to be the general.

Minimum 3 units.

Month 4 at 1000 points onwards usual restrictions apply. So 50% Lords no limit on wizard level etc.

For the first month I’ve run up a few drafts, I was going for 3 bull centaurs (120) and 10 infernal guard (120) but the unit champion (general) took me to 252 so I had to reconsider.

I’m either running a daemonsmith with some 10 or 11 infernal guard, or more likely running 14 infernal guard with fireglaives and a unit champion for exactly 250 points.

It’s a painting league so I ruled out hobgoblins as I haven’t got time to finish a unit of 20+ this round. Already I have just tonight and tomorrow to paint 13 more infernal guard.

2

Rettile:

only hobgoblins with bows, lol

3

Odatria:

Nothing! 250P really?!

Me and my friends had one basic rule. Never play under 2000P. Because it sucks. It's boring.

At least 2250P. 2500 - 3000 even better. From then on it feels like a battle.

Ok you do that in the course of a campaign but ugh!

Herby
The idea is that the league follows units that become warbands, that become armies as a great hero emerges in the ranks. The armies are painted and photographed each month to keep a log of everyone's progress. We are already doing the same thing for 40k at the club. This also means at 250 points we will probably get four or five games a night, rather than just one. Multiple small games are more appealing to some people than one big one. It gives people a chance to win a few games if they had bad dice or played bad the first time.
4

Admiral:

Quite neat idea for army build-up. At these small points levels it’d probably be better with skirmisher rules, though. I wouldn’t want to play with formations beneath 500pts. :slight_smile:

5

Malorndk:

It has already been said. Only bring hobgoblins with bows, and maybe shields. Consider doing one big unit for a lot of steadfast.

On the other hand. Use the 6th/7th edition warband rules: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44801198/Warbands.pdf

The warband rules are not up to date, but they describe a very useable way to play warhammer at 200-500 points. It’s really fun and fast (Each game takes an hour at max) and it’s excellent for storydriven smallscale campaigns where each warband focus on one hero

6

TheHoodedMan:

Yes, I am with admiral. You will need skirmisher rules, similar to Kill Team or Mordheim and then switch to WHF in later stages.
I even would say under 1000 pts there is not much of a game in WHF.
(Additionally the armies are even more unbalanced til a size of about 2000 is reached but that depends on your style of play certainly).

But try it out. If it suits you, everything is well :-). Its a nice idea to play with increasing point sizes.

edit: Good advice, Malorn.

7

Bloodbeard:

We’ve run an escalation campaign, it’s great fun. We added 500p pr round. Reason: 250 is not enough with your restrictions. Units can be changed between rounds, but then you need to to thing many rounds ahead.

Basically you’ll have to run with hobgoblins for the first round. Because they are cheapest to downgrade later on - and you don’t want to many IG units taking up space for the expensive warmachines.

A 500 points, you can make fun and different lists - great for escalation. At that level I would bring a smith, a magma cannon or death shrieker a unit of IG and a hobgoblin bowmen unit.

8

Odatria:

We've run an escalation campaign, it's great fun. We added 500p pr round. Reason: 250 is not enough with your restrictions. Units can be changed between rounds, but then you need to to thing many rounds ahead.

Basically you'll have to run with hobgoblins for the first round. Because they are cheapest to downgrade later on - and you don't want to many IG units taking up space for the expensive warmachines.

A 500 points, you can make fun and different lists - great for escalation. At that level I would bring a smith, a magma cannon or death shrieker a unit of IG and a hobgoblin bowmen unit.

Bloodbeard
That's exactly why I'm thinking of using the infernal guard with fireglaives, they will always feature in my army, even if I give them great weapons or hand weapons later on instead of the guns. I don't always run hobgoblins at 2000 (one reason they aren't painted yet) so if I take them now I always have to include them. If I take 2 units of them now, I always have to use 2 units.
9

Grimbold Blackhammer:

Yeah…250 points with M3 means you could deploy in opposite corners of the board and never even meet each other in 6 turns. It’s a nice idea but without some kind of skirmisher rules, it doesn’t sound like it would work very well.

10

Wolf :

Chaos Dwarfs are built for this, with the new FAQ 50% lords

Daemonsmith basic 95

Some hobgoblins 55

And

Deathshrieker rocket 100

Done.

11

Odatria:

Chaos Dwarfs are built for this, with the new FAQ 50% lords

Daemonsmith basic 95

Some hobgoblins 55

And

Deathshrieker rocket 100

Done.

Wolf
It is minimum 50% Core so 125 points must be on hobgoblins or infernal guard.
12

Odatria:

I should add, it’s 3 points per round if you’re fully painted. Then 3 per win, 2 per draw, 1 per loss. There will be around 4 games in the first round, so I’m not using hobgoblins as I get the 3 points for painting. If my enemy sits in the opposite corner I’m happy to take 2 points at a draw, but I want to take the fireglaives to give me some range. I’m thinking single unit as well as wins are awarded on victory points, so it’s all or nothing for my opponent and they’ll have to come to me to win. If I take a separate warmachine and/or hero they can pick off the single unit and avoid the M3 block, winning on VPs. Plus my track record at miscasts and misfiring is telling me to stick to the Infernal Guard.

13

Geist:

I am just going to toss this in there right now.

At 250pts and 500pts and even 750pts USE THE WARBAND RULES.

Normal game play will not work at all at those tiny points. The smallest that I have ever seen a game of fantasy work ok at is 1000pts.

14

Wolf :

It is minimum 50% Core so 125 points must be on hobgoblins or infernal guard.

Odatria
Seems all too hard, the main rules are there to play the game in a certain way at a certain level.

If you want to run small points and build up suggest you use the following GW game formats:

Under 1,000 pts - Mordhiem;
1,000 to 1,500 pts Triumph & Treachery;
1,500 to Depends possibly up to 8,000 pts Warhammer;
8,000 to 20,000 pts Warmaster; and
20,000 pts might empires.

GW have developed these gaming systems for every scale of battle.
15

Bloodbeard:

I am just going to toss this in there right now.

At 250pts and 500pts and even 750pts USE THE WARBAND RULES.

Normal game play will not work at all at those tiny points.  The smallest that I have ever seen a game of fantasy work ok at is 1000pts.

Geist
I disagree. I played 500p games against Empire, High Elves, Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos and Goblins in the first round of our last campaign.

We had normal rules for force composition. Minimum 3 units, a hero for general, min 25% core etc.

These games were all great fun, was real warhammer. Manouvering, setup - was all important.

CD 500 force: Daemonsmith, 10 IG hw/s + banner, 10 IG hw/s, magma cannon
HE 500 force: Noble on horse, 11 swordmasters +mus+cham, boltthrower, 5 silverhelms
Dwarf 500 force: Runesmith, 23 warriors full command, gyrocopter, organ gun
WoC 500 force: Exalted Hero, 11 warriors, chariot, warshrine
Empire 500 force: Captain, 10 handgunners, 7 knights full command, cannon
Goblin 500 force: lord, hero w. bsb, 41 goblins w. netters, 25 goblins w. bows, 10 squigs + 10 herders

Lots of rooom for fun small armies at 500. 250 is something else, a lot harder for WoC, Ogres or CD. In our next campaign we are gonna use Regiments of Renown rules for the 250p games.
16

tjub:

I suggest to start out with something like this for the first rounds… http://www.thekeeponline.com/documents/Warbands.pdf

17

Odatria:

I am just going to toss this in there right now.

At 250pts and 500pts and even 750pts USE THE WARBAND RULES.

Normal game play will not work at all at those tiny points.  The smallest that I have ever seen a game of fantasy work ok at is 1000pts.

Geist
I disagree. I played 500p games against Empire, High Elves, Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos and Goblins in the first round of our last campaign.

We had normal rules for force composition. Minimum 3 units, a hero for general, min 25% core etc.

These games were all great fun, was real warhammer. Manouvering, setup - was all important.

CD 500 force: Daemonsmith, 10 IG hw/s + banner, 10 IG hw/s, magma cannon
HE 500 force: Noble on horse, 11 swordmasters +mus+cham, boltthrower, 5 silverhelms
Dwarf 500 force: Runesmith, 23 warriors full command, gyrocopter, organ gun
WoC 500 force: Exalted Hero, 11 warriors, chariot, warshrine
Empire 500 force: Captain, 10 handgunners, 7 knights full command, cannon
Goblin 500 force: lord, hero w. bsb, 41 goblins w. netters, 25 goblins w. bows, 10 squigs + 10 herders

Lots of rooom for fun small armies at 500. 250 is something else, a lot harder for WoC, Ogres or CD. In our next campaign we are gonna use Regiments of Renown rules for the 250p games.


Bloodbeard
Personally I wanted to start at 500 points, but knowing some of the 10 or so players who've signed up are starting new armies for it, they need time to paint. That's the sole reason I made the first month start so small. Our 40k league started at 250 and everyone was painted in month 1 and fantasy will usually involve more models anyway, let alone at twice the starting points. I'm expecting from 500 onwards it will work out playable and more importantly for us progress will be realistic each month in painting goals and purchases.