Ok, since there has been much discussion about the dying off of the palace this is one of my attempts to breathe life back into it.

How this thread works is members take the initative to describe how to play a small point cost (warband preferably) of a army they have. This is so that we can get rid of the one off "how do i go about playing x army?"

My armies are Empire Orcs and Gobs and Tomb Kings. As there are already generals for the former armies present I will discuss the tomb kings.

But not now though. Im going to leave it up to you guys to see how many people will join into my kind of thinking before I think to hard about it. So after one palace member makes the effort I too will put my tatical skills into written form about the creation of an effective beginner warband.

In our gaming group, we rarely play warband-style battles. The occasional 500 points is played though.

With my new Asur, a nice block of spearman and an rbt seems like amust, supported by a noble.

Something like this:

Noble with heavy armour, shield, great weapon: 97
20 spearmen, standard: 190
10 archers: 110
eagle claw: 100

An alternative migth eb two seaguared units: at only 13 points for a fully equipped seaguard, you could get:

Noble with heavy armour, shield, great weapon: 97
14 sea guard with shields, 182
10 sea guard with : 120
eagle claw: 100

In 6th edition my high elf list was:

Noble: reaver bow, HA, Halberd/GW
10 archers
5-6 silver helms: full armour, champ
RTB

A very shooty list indeed :). These days (and I play by border patrol rules) I have to adjust the list a bit since a lot of things are in the specials/rare section. It will probably be something in the lines of what Maelduin posted. Archers and spearmen supported by a RTB. Still, im sorely temted to get a unit of swordmasters in there instead of the RTB, totally deadly in such small games :P .

My O&G list was something like:

Black orc boss
24 orc boyz
20 Night goblins: fanatic
5 Wolf riders: spears
That goblin catapult thingy

How to play 500 points of Dwarfs

My first tactic, is to act like Dwarfs are the best ideas the Old Ones have come up with since air. It doesn't do much in game, but it sets the mood of superiority, and as long as you don't play it too hard, it will make it a funner game as long as your humble after the game.

First of all, the Crux of small games Cheesy Shooty or The Other Side. Its always easy to pick the Shooty side, especially with Dwarves. They have arguably the best shooting phase in the game, and they are above average in combat, if anything makes it to you lines. A sample list being

Master Engineer- 80
Brace of Pistols

Organ Gun- 120

10 Thunderers- 150

10 Warrior Rangers- 146
Throwing Axes
Full Command

If you want you can also switch out the Rangers for a second unit of Thunderers. Huge in the shooting phase, ME entrenches the Organ Gun to give it some protection, and then everything shoots.

The Other Side is a basic Dwarf Army mini sized. There are of course debates about what is a normal Dwarf Army, but to me it is 1 warmachine/500 points, relatively large blocks of infantry, a shooty unit, and characters. So this put into a 500 point game would be my standard list it was of course lost in the crash, so her it is again.

15 Warriors- 180
GW
Shields
SB+Musc.

10 Miners- 135
FC

10 Quarrelers-120
(split into 2*5)
Shields

Bolt Thrower- 65
Engineer
R of Fire

Of course this cant be used in an actual 500 point game, but with some miner(tee-hee) changes it can be fixed up.

Burro Boskov

My brother fielded dwarfs aswell, pretty effective list.

Thane
10 Thunderers
14 Dwarf warriors
Organ gun

Pretty balanced with emphasis to the shooty side, but still there is a resonable fighting unit waiting if the enemy shoot make it through the hail of fire. Still, had some fun games vs this list with my O&G border patrol. It really depends whether the organ gun blows up or not. But the goblin catapult is highly effective vs dwarfs due to it´s longer range B) .

With tomb kings what you want in a 500 point game (where they are argueably much more weaker) is 1 hitty unit aka Tomb Scorpion and 1 unit of large US. Those two things will be your most effective force. Most units in the Tomb Kings army list are too expensive to risk in a 500 point game. One mistake throws away alot of points. anything that has less then 4 attacks and is over 60 points is a no-no. A tomb giant could be included but that dwarven bolt thrower is going to make you sad. A SSC is great against horde armies but unless you are a guessing machine then you are going to feel like its wasted. Especially if you roll a missfire. I have yet to have a successful archer unit that has not been a fancy flanker or road block. Crumbling is also a problem in small point games so try to get as much static CR as possible.

Thats my two cents for now.

Brets are not at their best in small games: they do well in large heavy cav units, but you can't have many of those units in 500 points. Besides, a standard-sized unit (let's say, 8 Knights of the Realm with full command and paladin) is perhaps a bit overkill in games where we mostly see small units. The way to go is probably to take smaller, more flexible units and a lot of peasants.

In the Bret book, there is a rule saying that the Brets must have a BSB. The warband rules say that they don't have to take one in 500-pts games, but I don't know what the Border Patrol rules say about this. The list I'm making here is a Warband.


-Bretonnian Paladin (general) with heavy armor, shield, lance, barded warhorse and Gromril Great Helm - 110 pts.
-6 Knights of the Realm with full command - 168 pts.
-15 Men-at-Arms with spears, Standard and Musician - 90 pts.
-10 Men-at-Arms with halberds and Musician - 55 pts.
-10 skirmishing Bowmen with Musician - 75 pts.

Total: 498 points.


Notes: The main unit is obviously the 6 KotR. If they're lucky or if they face an opponent with little or no shooting, they can reach close combat with a rank bonus. The Paladin is not in any unit, but the Helm gives him a 1+ re-rollable save, making him almost immune to S3 and S4 shooting. He probably won't break any enemy units by himself, but his flexibility and his speed allow him to quickly bring support wherever needed with his S6 charge.
The 15 Men-at-Arms with spears should make a decent anvil for a small game. It's well worth it to give them a standard: it costs only 10 points and it brings no victory points to the enemy if captured. The 10 Men-at-Arms with halberds will be kept in the center, slightly behind, and will stand ready to help either the knights or the bigger unit of M@A (whoever needs them the most). The skirmishing Bowmen, fast and expendable, are perfect for support.

I friend of mine played brets in the last border patrol tournament we had at the local club and actually won it. Dont remember his list in detail, but it was something in the lines of :

Paladin
6-9 Knights of the realm (dont remember exactly how big the unit was)
10 Pesants
3 Pegasus knights

His infantry unit didnt do anything for most games, it was simply there because the border patrol rules demanded a unit of 10+ infatry. His lance was deadly with the character in it and the pegasus knights were even deadlier. Their ability to fly and with lots of high strength attacks made sure they were where they were needed the most.

Dont remember whether brets need to have BSB in border patrol, but I dont think so.

Gah. Curse my mouse with its back button. I had a long post all written out and now it's gone so a shortened version will have to do. Redo from Start. Out of Cheese Error.

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Orcs and Goblins

There are two main approaches I'd take when building a 500pt greenskin army. First, a couple of big infantry blocks backed up by auxilaries. This is similar to Tyrion's but spreads out the points a bit more.

Black Orc Big Boss w/ HA, shield
19 Orcs w/ shields, standard bearer & musician
20 Night Goblins w/ Musician
7 Wolf Riders w/ spears, musician
Orc Chariot
Spear Chukka

The second approach: the Green Tide. Try and mke as much of a miniature horde as possible, with several medium-sized infantry blocks forming the bulk of the warband. Use a Boss as a champion to keep costs down.

15 Orcs w/ shields, full command (commander)
15 Orcs w/ add'l choppas, full command
15 Night Goblins w/ fanatic, musician
15 Night Goblins w/ fanatic, musician
10 Arrer Boyz
Spear Chukka

The Arrer Boyz can stay with the chukka in case of scouts, etc. And they can shoot, too. This is the sort of list I'd like to see with Skaven as well.

Finally, here is a fluffy list, more based around a fun theme than real competitiveness.

2x Night Goblin Shamans with 50pts of magic items between them*
19 Night Goblins w/ 2 fanatics, full command
19 Night Goblins w/ 2 fanatics, full command
12 Night Goblins w/ shortbows
2 Squig Herd Teams

*I'd spend these points either on five magic mushrooms to share between the shamans, or I'd give one shaman two magic mushrooms and the other shaman one magic mushrooms and the mad cap mushrooms. It all depends.

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Wood Elves

I'm not an actual wood elf player but I do tinker with them from time to time, so here's how to play 500pts of wood elves.

8 Dryads w/ Branchnymph (commander)
8 Dryads
10 Glade Guard
5 Wild Riders w/ musician, standard bearer, Banner of the Zenith

Nice and small; the Glade Guard sit back and shoot while the Wild Riders zip up, slowing down the enemy advance with the banner as well as generally messing about. The War Banner could also be substituted there, but simply co-ordinating a charge with a Dryad unit might be another way to rack up combat resolution without losing the added marchblocking power.

Nice lists there, but unfortunatly illegal in border patrol games. I like the WE list aswell. Wild riders can be really powerful in 500p games. What does that banner do?

Yeah, I rarely if ever play Border Patrol games, which is why they're all warband lists.

The Banner of the Zenith makes the Wild Riders marchblock at 12", sorry I didn't explain that before.