These days, most tournaments tend to be played at around 700 points and up. As such, this has become somewhat of a default game size, and most models are competitively assessed for their value in games of this size or above. An unintended side effect of this is that when people are tasked with making an army list for a smaller event, they often treat it in much the same way they approach making a 700-point list. We discussed last article why it doesn’t make sense to “scale down” a 700-point list, but surely designing a 500-point army from the ground up is no particular challenge, right?
Unfortunately, small games are an entirely different beast to larger ones. The principle reason behind this is that to compete, a 500-point list requires all the same capabilities as a larger one, but with vastly less points to acquire them. You still need a banner, numbers, mobility, hitting power, Might, and some way to deal with enemy heroes if you want to avoid any auto-losses. The great challenge of this points value is fitting all of these in while still getting a bit of character into your force.
To do this, each army has to be really stripped back to its
core essentials. Sure, those two Wood Elf Sentinels can do great work, but once
you include them in a list with a couple of heroes, some cavalry and a banner,
you probably have less than 20 models to play with. While this isn’t impossible
to use, it makes life really difficult for reasons we’ll discuss below. This
principle is especially relevant for heroes. I adore Gil-galad and love trying
to fit him into armies, but he’s just so expensive when Glorfindel or even a
mounted Captain will provide almost the same punch. Moreover, your opponent is unlikely to have brought along the sort of
expensive heroes that make Gil-galad a worthwhile investment (as we covered a few weeks back), so those extra points are likely to end up wasted.
Sorry mate, you're getting a downgrade (LoTR Fandom)
For similar reasons, elite armies can struggle at
these points values. Most games are still played on the same boards and with
the same terrain as in larger games, which means that the gaps between terrain
pieces are the same size but much harder to fill. At 700 points, a frontline of
15 models is often enough to totally wall off one of these gaps and stop your
models being outflanked. This is still true at 500 points, but it’s now much
harder to field such a frontline when you’re buying expensive models. As a
result, horde armies can find it much easier to outflank and trap elite enemies
than in larger games. It’s also much easier for the larger force to
bring their numbers to bear even without terrain being involved, because a much
greater percentage of their opponent’s models will be within 6” of the edge of
the battleline. What this means is that a smaller force can find themselves
fighting a lot of 2-1 fights and being trapped more often. This can force the elite force into shielding more often and
make it harder for them to leverage their superior quality. The net effect of
this is that numbers are much more important than at higher points, where you
often have room for a much longer frontline of expensive troops.
As a sad consequence of all of these factors, magic is
vastly less useful than at 700 points. A Wizard or equivalent is often
considered essential in large games, but this really doesn’t hold true at 500.
There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, Wizards can often take up
over 1/3 of your army at this level, which is a terrifying amount to spend on
someone that often struggles to kill enemies on their own. Compared with
fielding another mid-tier hero or a bunch more warriors, it’s hard
to justify. This is made particularly clear by the focus most spellcasters have
on targeting enemy heroes. Saruman is great and all, but he’s best when he’s
Compelling your enemy’s biggest models out of the fight. When the most
expensive enemy on the field is half his points, as is often the case at this
level, that is a much less appealing trick. In contrast, a mid-tier combat hero
can quite easily kill a dozen enemies in the first 4 turns, a tally that can
win you the game when it goes well. Even worse, the reduced size of most armies
at these points (especially when you’ve got a Wizard along!) can make it much
harder to keep them safely hidden behind your lines. There’s nothing worse than
having your expensive spellcaster pinned by enemy models and prevented from
using their awesome magical prowess. Finally, magic users tend to be best when
you have a couple of them, so you can blast through the enemy’s Will pool
quickly and leave them helpless against your predations. For most armies, this
just flatly isn’t possible at 500 points. Overall, spellcasters suffer from
providing lots of useful tricks at a points limit where raw efficiency is everything. I love using them, and frequently do at 700, but they need to work
so hard to pull their weight at 500.
Build me an army of 700+ points (Screen Rant)
That’s not to say that all spellcasters are trap pieces in
small games. A small spellcaster or two that can shut down enemy heroes easily
can make for a very efficient “trade piece.” Blackshield Shamans and Barrow
Wights are perfect examples of magic users that can easily shut down or kill a
substantially more expensive enemy hero, leaving you well ahead in terms of points
invested. The key here is that they need to be cheap enough that you’re fine
with them doing nothing more than harassing the enemy leader. Similarly, characters
like Círdan or Fury Shamans can sometimes do enough to justify their inclusion,
although it’s always worthwhile asking yourself if you would be better off with
another 8 Elves or Orcs instead. While these bargain casters can be worthwhile,
going higher up the magic pyramid is generally a recipe for being vastly
outnumbered in smaller games.
A bargain at any points level (The Dale Wardens)
In summary, the unique challenge of building armies for
smaller games is finding a way to maintain the numbers of your force while
still including all of the other elements that your army needs to compete.
Might, mobility, archery (sometimes) and a banner are all just as critical at
500 points as at 700, yet you’ve somehow got to squeeze them in alongside a
proportionally much more numerous force. The only way to do so is to downgrade heroes
and warriors alike, and to purge every spellcaster that you can’t absolutely
guarantee will earn their points back. Cunning tricks can give you unexpected
ways to respond to your opponent, but they can’t come at the cost of the
fundamentals that you need to form a competitive army. This is true at all
points values, but it’s a much more pressing issue in smaller games.
The final piece of advice I can offer is to pray to the
Valar (or Morgoth!) that you don’t end up facing Rangers of Ithilien in a killing
game. At these points levels it’s not a pretty sight.
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