Hey all,

In late October a friend of mine is hosting a 1000 point tournament at our local hobby shop. I started writing up a few army lists and I realized that I have no experience with 1000 point games. I thought it would be appropriate to start a discussion of the thought processes behind army design at the 1000 point level.

Points of interest include, but are not limited to, characters, magic, unit sizes, number of units and shooting. These are all familiar topics we grapple with when designing lists for 2000-2250 games, but I believe they take on a different significance at the 1000 point level and are worth discussing.

Character choices is an interesting dilemma. Many 2000-2250 point armies only include 2-3 of the possible 4 character slots. Although many people field a Lord, it is feasible to copy and paste the character selection from your standard 2250 list and use it in smaller games. However, the percentage of total points spent in characters is thrown way off. Armies may wish to include a General, Battle Standard Bearer and a scroll caddy. This could consume a severe chunk of your points. Does that mean it's better to cut out the Battle Standard Bearer and/or the scroll caddy in order to fit in more troops?

On a similar note, it seems that magic can be extremely powerful in a 1000 point list. Three wizards and a bound spell or two has the potential to do some serious damage. Although this may be the same or less magic than we see in 2250 games, there are many less models on the table. That means that each spell and each casualty has a larger impact on the game. With the looming threat of a powerful magic phase, is it best to fight fire with fire or simply take your chances on not drawing an abusive magic phase?

Shooting also seems to be more powerful. Not only are there less models, making each casualty more important, but there is generally lower leadership. That makes for some potentially game breaking panic tests, especially if a given army only contains a few units.

Should units simply be copy and pasted from larger lists, or should they be scaled down? For example, should a Dwarf list run with a single block of 23 Warriors or split it up into two units of 15? How important is that maximum static combat resolution? Some armies, such as Beasts of Chaos and Ogre Kingdoms, generally field minimum sized units and will not be faced with this question. This seems to be a big advantage to me. The sheer amount of units you could fit into a Beasts of Chaos list seems intimidating.

I know that I wrote a lot without saying much, but I hope that people will respond to my questions and we can get some good discussion going.

-heinzdwarf

If you get some good psychology protection I could see taking my chances with magic and go without. How about a Slaanesh WoC army for example? Just take a cheap Exalted general, and fill up with troops.

If you go for magic I could see that a lot of magical missiles could be nice as well. Flickering Fire them to oblivion.

I enjoy the lower point games quite a bit (beastmen have a more level playing field for one). The emphasis is more on core troops and less on characters (and specials and rares to a lessor extent).

Characters should be in the small game to boost up your core troops (LD bonus and magic defense - followed closely by magic offense then a distant HTH support).

Specials and rares should be in the small games to boost the effects of the core troops by quickly engaging the enemy core troop flanks (in conjunction with friendly core troop charges), picking off the small harrassment units, clearing table quarters, etc.

My first few games with beasts were at a 1500 tournament, where I took MSU (2 herds, 3 hounds, 8 chariots, ogres, minos, centigors) and a lvl 1 scroll caddy, worked a treat. It's all about the troops and how many units you can get on the board at that size.