Considerations for low point games

The 40k scene at my FLGS is only just recently starting to get bigger. January was kill teams, last month was 500 points, and this month it's 750. I only started playing in January, but I think that I'm pretty solid with small-squad-tactics kinds of things, and I ended up getting third place in January, and first last month. Unfortunately, this month I'm getting absolutely stomped. I spent a lot of time coming up with a 500 point list for last month, and it worked really well. This month I tacked on some stuff, and it's just not working together. Now, not to say that all of your points don't matter in every game, but in small-point games like this, I think it's extra-important to be competitive with your choices, as what might be a 150 point 'fun/fluffy' choice is negligible in a 1850 army, 150 points is comparatively 1/5 of your army in 750 points.

In essence, what do my fellow Archons and Archettes find is absolutely /key/ in low point games, or alternatively, what are the most competitive choices that should form the base of your army?

For reference, my current list looks like this:

Succubus w/ Archite Glaive + Parasite's Kiss
w/ 5 Wyches
in a Raider with Night Shields and a Dark Lance

10 Kabalite Warriors
in a Raider with Night Shields, Splinter Racks, and a Dark Lance

3 Reaver Jetibkes w/ Cluster Caltrops and a Blaster

5 Scourge w/ 4 Blasters

Razorwing Jetfighter w/ Dark Lances

In 500 points, having two Raiders was great, but now it seems that what was MSU (for that point value) is now two easily focused, important targets. I never have enough shooting turn 1, which means that half of my guys are mulched by the time the scourge or the Razorwing come in. I decided to put this in Tactics as opposed to Army Lists since I'm asking about low point games in general, although specific advice on my list would be appreciated as well. I'm thinking Wyches as this point value are dead weight and Kabalites and splinter fire is going to be the answer.

EDIT: I would also like to know what people think of taking fliers at this points level. I know they're great, and the Razorwing should be in most army lists, but sub-1000, and especially sub-750 points games, is it worth it?

Please don't double post, Thanks - Mush

I agree that in small point games every point counts and you do need to maximise your list. To my eyes the wyches and even the raiders are a bit too pointy for what they actually can do. You’ve probably heard this before but if you’re going to take small units and want to go msu then it has to be venoms (dual cannon) all the way.

If I was to do a 750pt army it would probably look like

HQ Archon, with dual cannon venom

5 kabalites with a blaster and dual cannon venom

5 kabalites with a blaster and dual cannon venom

5 scourges (4 haywire blasters)

5 scourges (4 haywire blasters)

Razorwing

The 3 venoms put out a silly 36 poisoned shots at 36”. Also worth noting ios that just because a unit has a special rule (deep striking it does not mean you have to use it. Depending on terrain etc. I would start with everything you can on the table. At low point games the last thing you need is having half your army on the field for half the game.

I only added the razorwing in as at 750 pt games i've face a helldrake before...... good luck if you face a helldrake at 750pts........

der-al wrote:

snip

Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying I'm dead set on MSU, only that it was kind of what I was doing before, and it seemed to work really well. I'm open to anything. However, I do think getting some more venoms in my list will be key. I only own one right now, and I'm thinking about ordering two more so I have some options. Is an Archon HQ in a Venom by himself really safe? If the Venom gets destroyed he's pretty screwed. I've never run that before so I'm not sure how that'd go. I mean if I'm just getting a cheap HQ, why not a Lhamean in a Venom for a measly 65 points?

My concern with Haywire scourge at this points level is that we don't have a lot of vehicle presence, thus far. In the four games I've played this month, there's been one Stormfang gunship, some Land Speeders (which are cake for anything), and a goddamn knight (That guy was playing knight/summoning daemons at 750 pts. You might guess how popular he is at our FLGS). I'm worried that without enough vehicle presence, they'll fall flat, since S4 AP4 isn't much use outside of glancing vehicles to death. That's why I initially went with blasters. Maybe one squad of Haywire scourge and some other anti-tank? Or Scourge with Heat Lances?

As far as the Razorwing goes, it's underperformed every single game except one, and I think you're right about taking it low point games. It's fairly stock so it doesn't take too many points, but it is one more thing I don't start on the table. I'll avoid DS'ing too much stuff in the future.

Archon (Blaster), Venom
Warriors x5 (Blaster), Venom
Warriors x5 (Blaster), Venom
Warriors x5 (Blaster), Raider (DL)
Warriors x5 (Blaster), Raider (DL)
Warriors x5 (Blaster), Raider (DL)

Plenty of scoring units spread over 3 Venoms and 5 Warrior squads for AI, and 3 DL Raiders and blasters on all units for AT if you need.
I agree, if you have seen a light vehicle presence I would avoid bringing haywire blasters or similar weapons only useful against armor. Stick to Blasters and Dark Lances, this way if you run out of armor to shoot at they can still hurt infantry.

Trust me there isn’t many better ways of playing low point games with DE than MSU.

I play against a silly amount of armour and so the haywire scourges would be key in my meta, but you know your meta better than me. That said the two squads of haywire scourges would have been useful against the bloody knight. Really? A knight at 750pts? What’s the world coming to? And I thought I was hard done by facing two helldrakes at 750pts……

I’m not a big fan of lances on scourges, I like to keep my force as mobile as possible. Plus I’m not sure lances (or any heavy weapon for that matter) is the right choice for jump infantry, you’ll just be wasting points, whether you’re wasting points on the guns or the 12” move for the infantry is probably a moot point.  

I come from a craft world background (played CWE exclusively for years, that was until I got bored by the “new” codex after 3 months and let my more carnal desirers get the better of me) and I still try and maximise a single individual roll for a unit rather than generalise it. I’ve always seen specialisation to be more point efficient than generalisation, assuming you get the mix right and you’ve got plenty of redundancy. But that is just my philosophy and not necessarily correct.    

By the way the list I put up was a very quick off the cuff list trying to cover as many bases as possible. There’s nothing worse than losing all your anti-tank just leaving you with poison shots…..

You’re quite right about the Archon in venom, but I was also going to mention that if you’re concerned about easy STW points you could always drop the two blasters and put a shadow field on him. But I’m a bit old school and forgot that you can field court members as your HQ slot, so that would probably be a better option.

One last thing, do not be scared of unleashing most (if not all) of your missiles on the razorwing first turn (obviously this is very game and target dependant). I’ve noticed that too many people keep one shot weapons until later in the game when they could have been much better used earlier on. Also what’s the point in conserving one shot weapons if the platform holding them is liable to blow up if something looks at it funny.

If you’re not facing too much armour then you could go something like

Lhamean w dual cannon venom

5 kabalite w blaster and dual canon venom

5 kabalite w blaster and dual canon venom

5 kabalite w blaster and dual canon venom

Razorwing w 2 lances

Razorwing w 2 lances

And have some points left over

also what type of games are you playing maelstrome or normal?

Good to know, it sounds like next up on the docket will be getting some more transports. I've only got two Raiders and a Venom currently, so what I'm seeing is that I'm pretty short-handed for this points level. I was planning on making an order in the next few days anyway, so I'll scrap the Court/Harlequins I had planned in favor of some more Venoms.

Tempestus, I'll load up my Kabalites with Blasters, as they had previously just been running stock, for the massed splinter shooting. What are your thoughts on Splinter Racks? I'd assume not worth it if they're just in squads of five. I think one of the things that needs emphasis in these low-point games is saving as much points as possible on upgrades. 15 points for Racks is probably not worth it if I get blown out of the sky after a turn or two of shooting.

As far as the dude with the knight goes... it was pretty bad. I don't like the guy much anyway, and I flat-out told him that his list was pretty damn stupid, and didn't make any sense aside from squeezing as much overpowered crap as he could into one list. Luckily there are a lot of players at my FLGS, so it shouldn't be hard to find a game with someone else.

I'm not a big fan of Lances on Scourge either, but from what I've heard, if you're going with AT scourge you either do Haywire or HeatLance/Blaster. I might try Heatlances in the next match just to save 20 points on Blaster Scourge, in favour of heavier antitank.

der-al, we're playing a mix, pretty much whatever people want to do. It's a fairly easy-going league, for the most part. I'd say Maelstrom happens more often, however.

I love the list suggestions - based on my limited selection, however, I think I'll be forced to run something more like this:

Lhamean
in a Venom with Dual Cannons

5 Kabalite Warriors w/ Blaster
in a Raider with a Dark Lance and Night Shields

5 Kabalite Warriors w/ Blaster
in a Raider with a Dark Lance and Night Shields

6 Reaver Jetbikes with Cluster Caltrops

5 Scourge w/ 4 Heat Lances/Blasters (starting on the board?)

Razorwing Jetfighter with Dark Lances and Splinter Cannon


This would put more units on the board, make them cheaper, and give me a lot more firepower turn 1. It's a little tough since I don't have a large selection to choose from, but that's why I posed this question. I think getting core listbuilding down is key in not only making the best of what you've got, but also in finding other units to fit a role that needs filling.

Sorry SweaterKittens, for some reason I read heat lances as dark lances, it must have been too late for me. Heat lances are good on scourges, infact I generally run two squads of haywire and one squad of heat lance scourges. (I either play dual CAD or real space raiders)

Personally I would deep strike the heat lance scourges (but they WILL die the next turn) but have the blaster scourges on the board. Therefore in 750pts I would probably go for the blasters.

You’re right about getting your core list sorted, the core of most of my lists is

4 lots of kabalites with blasters in dual venoms

3 lots of scourges (2 haywire and 1 heat lance)

Then I add stuff for flavour.

Here's what I'm running in 750 points right now. I think I need to go and look at some sections but I'm finding it good fun:

Lhamaean
9 Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider
5 Warriors, Blaster, Venom
5 Warriors, Blaster, Venom
10 Hellions
5 Scourge, 1 Heat Lance (I think I might swap for more Haywire here)
1 Talos, Chain Flails

I know most people hate Hellions but I love the models. If I had the money I'd probably use 6-9 Reavers instead, although the models are very expensive.

This is a similar story to my FLGS where the others are just getting into 40K, so I have to tailor my lists a bit so I don't stomp them through taking stuff they can't counter, in this case mainly fliers.

However I do also think that our fliers need target saturation to be really effective and so a low points game is probably going to limit their options if they come on turn 2, you ideally need a lot of infantry out of their tanks to make best use of the first turn missile strike.

As a result I run:
Blaster Archon + Venom

10 kabilites + Dissie Raider
10 Kabalites + dissie raider

Lance Ravager

6 reavers with 2 caltrops and 1 heat lance

I tend to get a good points return on all of the units and no single unit looks threatening enough to give the opposition clear choices in what to target first.

Hey Daemonspawn.

Curious about that triple lance ravager... if you find yourself against a non-armour army does the ravager feel like a waste? Or is it still useful for killing tough elite units such as Nobs/Terminators etc.?

I actually think I'd prefer a triple disintegrator cannon ravager, as 9 AP2 shots is quite impressive.

In my local meta most players have some sort of armour against which the lance ravager is useful. Otherwise it is very useful against MCs and of course against multiwound t4 characters.

I find that it is very handy for field of fire control, it can be positioned to effectively block areas of the table and prevent high toughness units or TEQs from being able to move freely.

After that I use it to throw overkill shots at stuff which simply must die, its great for finishing off units with just 1 or 2 models remaining.

Also as a secondary point, the remainder of the army is unashamedly AI so without the lance ravager I don't have enough AT to be able to crack open the tanks and get to the soft squishy stuff inside.

It provides a balance.

Interesting counter point. I'm looking at either a Ravager or Razorwing for future adjustments to my list (the one above). My army is incredible AI but my meta doesn't have many tanks - I ran into a roadblock against a *surprise* Monolith on Saturday where that extra AT would've been useful.

I glanced it down to 1 hull point with Heat Lance/Dark Lance and Blasters but that tied a lot of my units into shooting that thing instead of one dedicated team focusing it.

That's the scenario I am trying to avoid. Also I tend to run my boats with Dissies on them and use them for killing TEQ or possibly a bit of light tank hunting where I can use the maneuverability to get side or possibly even rear shots.

Kazzerscout wrote:

Here's what I'm running in 750 points right now. I think I need to go and look at
Lhamaean
9 Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider
5 Warriors, Blaster, Venom
5 Warriors, Blaster, Venom
10 Hellions
5 Scourge, 1 Heat Lance (I think I might swap for more Haywire here)
1 Talos, Chain Flails

where is the lhamaean going to hide since it's not an independent character?

I avoid wyches at all costs.

Reavers are wonderful at low points costs. As are warriors in venoms. A Talos or two are often something an opponent just can't bring enough firepower to deal with.

Just a couple thoughts, for whatever they're worth.

Quote :

where is the lhamaean going to hide since it's not an independent character?

He sits in the Raider with the 9 warriors. Just a 10 point HQ tax at the expense of a splinter rifle.

Kazzerscout wrote:

Quote :

where is the lhamaean going to hide since it's not an independent character?

He sits in the Raider with the 9 warriors. Just a 10 point HQ tax at the expense of a splinter rifle.

I think the point that was being made is that (s)he's not an Independent Character so can't join another unit.

Count Adhemar wrote:

(s)he's not an Independent Character so can't join another unit.

Didn't know that, I haven't played for about 7 years until 2 months ago so I'm hazy on the rules coming back to the game. In that case I'll just stick her at the back doing nothing, it's literally just to fill the slot - I feel like Archons and Succubus are a waste of points when a warrior with a blaster is almost as good in terms of what I'd take one for. My list isn't looking to get warriors in to combat.

My current 750 list is... different from the others presented here.

745 points

Dark Artisan:
-Haemonculus w/ liquifier, flesh gauntlet, nightmare doll, crucible of malediction, webway portal
-Cronos w/ spirit probe
-Talos w/ chain-flails, twin-linked heat lance

Scalpel Squadron:
-5 Wracks, ossefactor, Acothyst w/ hexrifle, Venom with 2nd cannon
-5 Wracks, ossefactor, Acothyst w/ stinger pistol & venom blade, Venom with 2nd cannon

I think I'm wasting the points spent on the Acothysts, but, in this list, I really can't spend them elsewhere. The Haemonculus has a flesh gauntlet mostly to mix things up a bit from the scissorhand he's been using; I enjoy variety. I also just swapped out the Panacea for a Crucible, because the Panacea hasn't been necessary so far, and I want to test my theory that the Crucible will probably kill more than 20 points of stuff, even if it isn't killing the actual psykers.

I've played four games with it, and lost two of them, which I attribute to learning curve more than to the list. Knowing when to be aggressive with the Wracks (and how to keep them alive the rest of the time) has been a major factor, along with when to focus on the mission.
I only have one gun that can hurt a tank here. If I'm playing against armor I have a pretty good chance of blowing up a tank when the Dark Artisan comes in. If there's a lot of armor, or if my opponent does the sensible thing and stuffs his Marines back into his Rhinos and drives away, then I need to focus on the mission. This hasn't been a problem for me yet - my losses have been to Tau, where I was two models away from tabling him but one of those models had the Relic, and Tyranids, in which I couldn't handle the flying Hive Tyrant (though I have plans for the rematch). I did horrible things to Grey Knights and Chaos Marines, despite their tanks and Rhinos.