8th Edition - does it work at small(er) point values?

[Yodhrin]

I'm interested to hear about this from those who've had a chance to give the rules a spin.

 

Personally my heyday for actual gaming as opposed to hobby stuff was the mid-2nd through 3rd Edition era, so on the rare occasion I venture out from my comfort zone in skirmish-sized game systems what I consider to be an army and what modern GW consider an army look hilariously different. I popped back in to 40K a few times in the 4th-7th period, but my experience was that not only were the "standard" game sizes going up, but the rules had actually become bad at doing anything else unless you brought in additional rules to keep a lid on things(Zone Mortalis & Strike Force for example).

 

Is that still the case, or can 8th function adequately down around the 1000pt range?

[kenshin138]

It works fine at 1000pts. I've been part of a 500pt league and it's fun even at that level.

 

The only thing that may be a little odd is if you run Maelstrom of War missions, they use 6 objective counters. This can work a little strange at low points, but is certainly playable. 

[Cryptix]

If you can manage to put in a detachment limit of some kind, it works yeah. 

I say that because I kinda broke the game by taking a 5 carnifexes in a 500 point tourney.

[Montford]

I have played quite a few games at 750 and 1,000. Seems fine to me.

[Kinstryfe]

In my limited experience, it seems to depend on how "balanced" players are being with their lists. I just played a 1000pt game with a standardish guard list where I made sure to not go too nuts with anything, and my randomly selected opponent had an 18 model tyranid army. Needless to say I was steamrolled by a couple giant models I simply wasn't equipped to face because I simply hadn't considered it. I watched another game where a daemon player fielded 4 models total and got taken out by a few lucky rolls. Talking with the players, the problem at low points with the new detachments seems to be that literally anything can be an army, and you can only plan so many counter-units to be responsive with in those same points, so all-comers lists are hard to come up with that low.

[Gen.Steiner]

Just refer to the old 40K in 40 Minutes rules.

No vehicles heavier than a Chimera, no multi-wound characters above 2W, 1 Troops choice mandatory, everything else optional.

750 points tops, and I'd say no Fliers or Lords of War either.

[Adeptus]

Most of my games have been in the 50 - 75 power levels range and the game works perfectly at that size. I can't imagine there'd be a problem running it at lower levels, although at 50 PL I was down to 6 models...

[Frater Cornelius]

Just refer to the old 40K in 40 Minutes rules.

 

No vehicles heavier than a Chimera, no multi-wound characters above 2W, 1 Troops choice mandatory, everything else optional.

 

750 points tops, and I'd say no Fliers or Lords of War either.

The 2W must be updated to 5W though, as that is the average of regular HQs. There are some below, but very few and those above are usually the heavy weights.

[M@verik115]

The smallest I've played so far was 700 points and it worked very well. 

[Halandaar]

Only game I've played of it so far was a 500 pointer and that worked fine, although both lists were reasonably balanced with fair mix of infantry and a only a single vehicle on each side.

[Gen.Steiner]

Yeah, it's easy enough to put in (say) a Wraithknight or what-have-you, I mean you can fit a barebones Banehammer into under 500 points (435 IIRC) so a modicum of prior discussion is required!

[N1SB]

My closest group of Warhammer friends started with 500 pt games, just to do quick tests with the rules and units, thinking of scaling up.  As it stands, we STILL play mostly 500 pt games because in our case, we usually switch to D&D afterwards.  500 pts, we found, is totally serviceable, but it occurs to me there's 1 caveat:

 

- there were few Transports taken

 

It used to be the "tax" for low points games were the HQ, but now with higher costs for Transports (like even for a simple Rhino or Ork Trukk), at 500 pts those are seldom taken/don't seem to pay off.  That's not to say Vehicles; I reckon Tanks and especially Dreadnoughts are extra-competitive at that level.  Having said that...

 

Yeah, it's easy enough to put in (say) a Wraithknight or what-have-you, I mean you can fit a barebones Banehammer into under 500 points (435 IIRC) so a modicum of prior discussion is required!

 

Apparently a barebones Baneblade variant was tried in a new Warhammer store nearby in a 500 pt game; it was all that could be fitted in.  And it was the store manager playing it.  He wasn't trying to win-at-all-costs, in fact in my experience store managers take it easy on players and let them win, but it was meant as an experiment.

 

And Baneblade variant in 500 pts lost.  I don't know the details, but it was supposedly against a normal balanced army, and there was enough room on a sparse table (few models but still much terrain) to hide things out of Line of Sight, and presumably played objectives...probably the right move against superior firepower.

[Gen.Steiner]

Yeah, I can imagine hiding is about all you can do at that points level. It's much harder to hide from a Wraithknight than a Baneblade though!

[Yodhrin]

That's genuinely good to hear. I've found I have less and less patience for building up huge assembly-line armies, I'd rather build multiple small, unique, themed forces than one modern-GW-size army. I had been constructing things with FW's Strike Force rules in mind which tbh I still prefer to 8th, but it's good to know that I'll be able to make those SF armies functional in 8th with only minimal additions to my existing plans.

[Gen.Steiner]

Yeah, the basic rules are absolutely fine for small skirmish forces - platoon strength or less. A squad of Marines in a Rhino for example, with a landspeeder or something in support.

[Trevak Dal]

Are there rules for playing at a handicap? Because normal war isn't fought fairly, you got differing numbers of troops, specializations and training.

 

I'd like to see how far I can go with two tac squads in superior terrain against a larger foe.

[Adeptus]

Are there rules for playing at a handicap? Because normal war isn't fought fairly, you got differing numbers of troops, specializations and training.

 

I'd like to see how far I can go with two tac squads in superior terrain against a larger foe.

My friend, Narrative play is for you! Read through the section on narrative play and scenarios and see what you can come up with

[the jeske]

Some armies do not work well in small games, or are funeled in to very unfun to play builds. Marines on marines are ok, as long as no one takes a death star or both players take one.

[Gen.Steiner]

Some armies do not work well in small games, or are funeled in to very unfun to play builds. Marines on marines are ok, as long as no one takes a death star or both players take one.

 

I disagree.

 

I can't think of any army whereby a small, sensibly built, 500 point force would be 'unfun'.

 

The key - as always - is communication.

 

I think that discussion with your opponent about what sort of game you want to play, and the use of scenarios - e.g. "Commander, you must stop RED forces from taking the bridge intact - defend it until you are either victorious or forced to blow the bridge" - will always improve any sort of game, and particularly so in smaller battles. My main gripe about only being able to play in local GW with PUGs is that I can't really do that; it's almost always some form of 'kill-em-all' against armies that are often built to be as aggressively dominant as possible.

 

Less room for my sort of gentle amusement. I remember fondly a game I played years ago where I defended a trench system against an infantry assault. Guard on Traitor Guard. Loved it.

[N1SB]

We've been experimenting with all sorts of 500 pt lists.  We've yet to find an unfun list to play with/against at this points level, but I think it's because of 2 things in 8th:

 

1. All the Detachment options - so many varieties, we still enjoy experimenting

 

2. "Anything can kill anything" - so far, we've yet to find a Deathstar 500 pt list

 

The keywords being "still" and "so far".  This might change as we get experience.  I totally hear how in previous editions, at low points certain armies don't function properly (i.e. Tyranids had major problems due to their Synapse tax).  It's early days yet and I'm guessing once we see fancier army-specific codex rules being implemented (like Chapter Tactics, a 500 pt army of Iron Hand Dreadnoughts might actually be a real problem for example) this calculus might change.

 

It's much harder to hide from a Wraithknight than a Baneblade though!

 

That's a GREAT point.

 

The official GW Konor campaign, if your meta is anything like mine, is involving a lot of small 500 point games just so that new/lapsed/veteran players can field their new stuff what with the 8th ed rules.  I'm anticipating a Wraith Knight list in the final Lords of War-based week.  A great warning here.

[klisof]

I've played a few 50 power points games and found them to work fine, you my need to scale number of objectives, board size.

 

Fielding a mixed primarus/custodes list vs random lists felt balanced, other lists either had the tools or the numbers (or both) to be competitive. Most games were going down to the last turn to decide the winner which is something I like when playing.

 

Having said that, if would be possible to put together a cheese list if you wanted so as always it depends on the group you play with.

[Gen.Steiner]

I think for 500 point games 4' by 4' is fine; but a 6x4 is just as good - possibly better if you like fire and movement tactics etc.