The 500 Point Army List Challenge!

[MaltonNecromancer]

All I seem to hear about is 2000 point battles, and while those are all well and good, I have a new tactical challenge.

Hoo boy, is it a challenge.

So, our club has just had a very successful tournament using 500 point battles over a lunch hour, and I'm planning next year's. Yes, I know the game is not designed for games of 500 points, so please don't raise that - if you're posting here, you have accepted that all you have is 500 points, and you're okay with that. No, this isn't Kill Team; it's standard 40K, just on a tiny scale- if you're posting here, you have accepted that you have to have squads that hold coherency and must seize Objectives, and you're okay with that too.

The challenge here is to take the limitations, and try to invent something that can actually win a game.

Yes, it's unbalanced, hard, and near impossible.This is deliberate.

Mytherers and whiners need not apply.

The 500 Point Army List Challenge Itself

The 500 Point Army List Challenge is simple: if you had to design an army of no more than 500 points (even one point over is not allowed, though under is just fine), following the standard FOC chart (i.e.: you must begin with 1 HQ and 2 Troops), what would you field?

Oh, and there are these unbreakable rules:

1.) The army must use at least one "iconic" to that army (i.e.: if BA, you must have Sanguinary Guard or Death Company; if IG, you must have at least one Chimera or Leman Russ, etc...)

2.) The army must include at least one unit with visual "Wow!" factor (i.e.: Carnifex, Dreadknight, Space Marine Captain in war bling, etc...)

The army must also be reasonably playable (i.e.: designed to actually win a game, insofar as it can given the above rules ), so once you've done the list, you must then explain how it wins; what tactics should the general playing it use?

So, given those very specific rules, what would you bring?

[JxKxR]

Would a commander in a battle suit count as the Iconic and Wow factor requirements?

[Bean]

For Chaos:
155: Daemon Prince, Warp Time, Wings
100: 6x Chaos Space Marines, Melta
35: Rhino
100: 6x Chaos Space Marines, Melta
35: Rhino
75: Obliterator

It's pretty simple. Daemon Prince flies across the table and beats someone's face in--not much at 500 points is a serious threat to the Prince in combat, and that's not a whole lot of shooting to drop him in time.

Chaos Marines in Rhinos follow him up, charging, melta-ing, or heading for objectives as appropriate.

Obliterator shoots stuff (usually stars on the board and puts that lascannon to use early).

Obviously, it's not a stellar list (it's only 500 points) but I think it'll be competitive with other lists of that size. It's an appropriately scaled down version of a pretty standard CSM list, and it still has all of the good parts (just in smaller doses).

[Lemt]

Oh, I got one.

Necron Lord and 2x10 Warriors.

There you go. Give the Lord some bling with the extra points. If you don't like that list, change the equipment on the Lord around and imagine it's a brand new list. That's all you can do.
Or if you don't want to screw Necrons over, break the FoC a bit. 1 HQ and 1 Troops, instead of 2 Troops.

[Fishboy]

This is one I've actually played a couple of times. The smaller number of points seems to actually level the playing field a bit, as I've had competitive games against the big three: BA, SW, and IG.

Tau 496 Point List

Shas'el Commander w/ Blacksun Filter & TL Missile Pod - 71 points
6 Man Fire Warrior Squad (x2) - 120 points
2x Sniper Drone Teams - 160 points
Hammerhead with Ion Cannon, Burst Cannons, Multi-Tracker, Flachette Discharger, Disruption Pod, Blacksun Filter - 145 points

How it wins? Go for the tabling. The hardest thing I've had to deal with was a Leman Russ. It took the center of the table to scare me off an objective, so I circled the commander one way, the Hammerhead another. I had to get lucky, but I scored a glancing hit from a side shot with the Commander which immobilized it. Something like a one in 50 shot, but it happened. Then I brought the Hammerhead around behind and blew it apart through the rear armor. If your opponent brings Dreadnaughts, you should be able to pop those without too much effort. Taking out those high point elements in an opponent's list quickly is key to tabling them. Your Hammerhead is your big hitter, so take care of it.

The only thing you're really worried about are LRs, but at 500 points, I'm not even sure you can fit one in.

I haven't played this list in a while, so it might do better with more reflection and some tweaking (like getting rid of sniper teams and adding another Hammerhead), but I kind of like the feel of it the way it is. I know the big signature item for Tau is the railgun, but for this point level, I think this is more effective.

[Sonikgav]

Inquisitor + 25 points of crap (Plasma Syphon/Rad Grenades maybe)
GK Termies - Hammer, 4 Halberds, Psycannon
GK Termies - Hammer, 4 Halberds, Psycannon

500 on the dot

[fuzzbuket]

with eldar:

20 dire avengers 2 exarch with twin pults 1 exarch has bladestorm.
asurmen!

yay!

with DH

cortez 100
2jokero,3hvy weapon servitors 100
rhino 40
10 power armoured aclytes with boltguns ( 1150)
5 grey knight strike squad,psycannon 110

thats 21 dudesmen1 tank, and alot of guns!

[thecactusman17]

500 points?

Ok...

Haemonculous, liquifier gun 60

Wracks x4, Venom w/ extra splinter cannon 105

Wracks x4, Venom w/ extra splinter cannon 105

Ravager 2x Dark Lances 1x Disintegrator Cannon, Flickerfield 115
Ravager 2x Dark Lances 1x Disintegrator Cannon, Flickerfield 115

Total: 500 points exactly.

Yeah, I think I'm covered on the competetive front.

[Master Bryss]

I did such a tourney recently, and brought:

Haemo w/ hexrifle
6 Warriors w/blaster in a Night Shield Raider
10 Warriors w/splinter cannon in a Night Shield Raider
Ravager with 3 Lances and both fields.

If I remember right, that's 1 point off. Battleforcey, but it worked well. Ended up losing in the semis by 5 Victory Points to:

Libby
2x 5 Scouts w/ m-launcher, sniper rifles
2x Vindicator

[Cyberscape7]

I had a 500 point eldar list in a recent tourney. Consisted of Farseer with Guide, 5 rangers, 7 dire avengers, 3 dark reapers and a fire prism with holofield. The basic idea is to put the DA's with the farseer to give it some protection, hang back with all the units and blast the opponent to the void My list only had two flaws that I could see:
1) If I get into combat, I'm kinda screwed.
2) My second opponent had a libbie with machine curse. My fire prism was made redundant.

There may not be a lot of scoring units, but I figure if you can kill your opponents scoring units, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem...
Btw I have a 1:2 win loss ratio with this list so far.