An Exclusive Engagement: How to Assemble a Craftworlds Combat Patrol

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Regardless of whether you are a player new to 40k looking to get started with the few models you already have, or a veteran Warhammer enthusiast with a collection so large that your wallet shudders whenever it is near, 500pt matches are a great way to enjoy the hobby. These games are fast, surprisingly dynamic, and highly tactical. In 9th edition, 500pt play presents many of the same tactical considerations as 2000pt play but with a much faster pace. It is without a doubt the best way to learn the game, and probably the most efficient way for experienced players to get multiple reps in a single evening.

In this strategy guide, I am going to run you through the general tactical differences between 500pt and 2000pt games, how to think about list-building at the 500 point level, and then provide a single sample list drawn exclusively from the models in the “Combat Patrol’ box. Although this particular roster is not as highly competitive as others you might build with access to the full range of models, the Combat Patrol box set is by far the most cost-effective way to get into Craftworlds, and its contents are more than sufficient for midrange competitive play.

One quick note before we dive in: the various iterations of Chapter Approved sadly do not include mission scenarios specifically for 500pt games; these can still be found exclusively in the 40k Core Rulebook. That said, there is nothing to stop you from using the most up-to-date secondary objectives, which is what I would suggest as they are better balanced than the core book options.

What Makes 500pt Games Different

The big difference between the 500pt format and larger games is that in a small game almost every decision you make is critical. To put it another way, mistakes are catastrophic. For example, in one 500pt game I played in early 9th edition, I moved my Shinning Spears too far forward on the first turn in order to score both a primary and a secondary objective; (I was counting on my opponent's tiny unit of Custodes failing a charge roll.) It felt like a really dodgey choice at the time, but the reality of my bad decision was made manifest three minutes later when my Spears were completely annihilated in a single round of combat after my opponent sensibly rerolled the failed charge. At that point, I had pretty much lost the game.

I actually love this about Combat Patrol games. Because turns happen so rapidly and because consequences are so significant, it's easy to identify what works and what doesn't; these games will make you a better player. And if you do lose because of a single bad choice, it's no big deal. 500pt matches are over so fast that once you get the hang of 40k you can play three in an evening, so knowing you have blown one of the them with a single stupid move doesn't matter.

I need to mention one more reason that I love this format before I get into exactly how to approach 500pt list building as a Craftworlds player. The low number of units on the table makes it easy to keep track of relevant stratagems and combos, (not just your own but your opponent's too!) As a result, 500 point games frequently have the mental intensity of a good chess match, which generally only happens in 2000pt play if both players are veterans with encyclopedic knowledge of one another's units. This makes 500pt games ideal for new players who want to master particular combos and tactics without having to keep track of twelve different unit profiles and 15 relevant stratagems while not forgetting to roll their feel-no-pain saves or whatever. Also, losing over and over again simply because your opponent can continuously "gotcha" you with powerful stratagems or unit abilities is less likely to happen in 500 point games, where you can quickly learn what every one of your opponent's units can do and which stratagems are most likely to appear. 500pt play is a great way for new players to learn 40k and for experienced players to hone their skills.

A Few General Notes on Combat Patrols

1) In Small Games, Every Unit Needs Versatility
Unlike in 2k games where you can afford some units in your list that are only there to screen or only there to score secondaries, in 500 point play every unit in your list needs to be able to reliably perform at least two of the following jobs: objective control, secondary scoring, target elimination, screening, trading up, buffing or debuffing key units.

Farseers with FORTUNE and EXECUTIONER in Ulthwe or Children of Prophecy lists are a good example of this kind of versatility. They can score “Warp Ritual” or “Psychic Interogation” with fair reliability and spend a CP to either provide a defensive buff, debuff, or do some real damage with EXECUTIONER. Alternatively, they can pivot into full murder-mode throwing down SMITE and EXECUTIONER on the same target if something really needs to die. (EXECUTIONER is amazing in 500pt games by the way, for obvious reasons.)

Dire Avengers are another good pick for the simple reason that they can perform an action on the same turn that they lay down a withering hail of shuriken murder, and so on.

2) Durable Units Have Added Value
Because players have so few units on the field, losing one can be pretty devastating. As a result, durable units that are objectively hard to eliminate can do good work for you, especially because in a 500pt game your opponent has fewer resources to deal with stuff that’s really tough. One option is to anchor your list with something like the Avatar of Khaine or some Wraithblades and throw FORTUNE on them every turn- (if you go with this approach, you ABSOLUTELY need FORTUNE.) Although solid in lots of match-ups, once you add in the cost of a Farseer and a unit of Rangers to fill out a Patrol Detachment, there aren’t many points left for anything else, which can make scoring secondaries pretty tough. If you want a durable power-unit, you are better off going with a Phoenix Lord. All of them are viable at 500 points, although I think Baharroth, Asurman, and weirdly Jain Zar are probably the best.

Instead, I would encourage you to think about durability another way: durability relative to unit cost. Arguably the two most efficient units in the codex in this regard are Vypers and Warwalkers. At only 45 points with 6 wounds ,T5, and a 3+ save, Vypers are a little less that 8 points per wound with solid defensive stats. The same is true of Warwalkers which, although a little more expensive, come with T6 and a 5+ invuln to fall back on. Consider that with the stratagem “Lightening Fast Reactions” either of these can also be made -1 to hit. For 210 points, (SIGNIFICANTLY less than the Avatar of Khaine,) you could have two Vypers and two War Walkers which can spread out to also help with board control, target elimination, and secondary scoring.

Arguably, Vypers and Walkers are the MOST efficient units at 500pts and both continue to be highly valuable in two thousand point play making them an excellent starting point for a collection.

This brings us to our third point.

3) Monsters and Vehicles Without Declining Profiles Have Added Value
Vypers and Warwalkers fight just as well with 1 wound remaining as they do with 6 wounds remaining, which makes them especially strong when you only have a small handful of heavy weapons.

This is also true of Phoenix Lords and Wraithlords. Wraithlords with Ghost Glaives are excellent bully units, especially in an Ulthwe list where the 6+ feel-no-pain save means you can save them from high damage weapons by auto succeeding on a 6 with a Strands of Fate die, and the Ulthwe 5++ against mortals provides some protection against attacks that circumvent high toughness and an automatically successful armor save.

4) Low Movement Values are Less of a Problem
With such a small board and objective-driven victory conditions, even very slow units have no trouble getting into the fray turn 2. Hard-hitting durable units whose only drawback is that they are slow-moving are a bargain in 500pt play. This is less helpful for Eldar than for other factions, as our own lumbering beatsticks, Wraithblades with Ghost Axes, are still overcosted, although you can get some real value from those Wraithlords with Ghost Glaives that I mentioned earlier. 

The larger consideration is that factions with many such units, like Custodes, can be monstrous to play against in small games, which is all the more reason to consider how your list will deal with units that it could normally just outmaneuver.

4) Deepstrikers are Even More Powerful
With so few models on the table, it is very difficult to spread out and prevent deepstrikers from appearing in your backfield or within charge-distance of a vulnerable unit. As a result, units that can deepstrike, especially those that can do so without spending CP, are especially useful.

War Spiders can hit monstrously hard, especially with the Exarch power “Surprise Assault,” as can a 10-elf unit of Dire Avengers in the Webway with the Exarch Power “Shredding Fire” and the stratagem, “Bladestorm”.

Deepstrikers can also help you score the secondary objective “Behind Enemy Lines.”

5) The Big One: You Probably Need to Switch Up Your Preferred Secondary Objectives

You might find that your go-to secondary objectives are less viable in 500pt play.

For example, "Engage on All Fronts" is fantastic for a 2000pt Craftworlds list, but in 500pt games what few units you have are likely to need to be in very particular places each turn in order to contest primary objectives while remaining alive, and those locations might not conveniently line up with the requirements for this secondary objective. You can still make "Engage on All Fronts" viable, but you really have to build your list around it to do so, and even then you may struggle to score points as you inevitably lose one or two units early on.

The Warpcraft Secondaries can be excellent against lists without psychic denial, but unless you find the points for a Warlock Conclave, you will need to use at least 1CP most turns for “The Multifaceted Mind,” so you can still make use of your Farseer to cast a conventional power. CP is much more limited in these games, so if you plan to lean into these secondaries be sure that none of your other plans require CP.

One of my favorite secondary objectives for Combat Patrol play is "Behind Enemy Lines" if my opponent has a ‘forward’ list as you can deepstrike a reasonably cheap infantry squad into an obscure corner of your opponent's backfield and race in there with a fast attack unit to rack up 4 points per turn. Windriders are especially good because they can squat in your opponent’s deployment zone while using Battle Focus to put fire on the enemy and stay reliably out of line of sight. In order to prevent this, your opponent needs to divert resources away from the main engagement, which may give you leverage the more valuable primary objectives. Good 40k players consistently force their opponents to make choices between 2 almost equally bad outcomes.

The other solid pick on maps that allow for it is “Hidden Path” without the Webway Gate. If you more or less table your opponent by the end of turn 4, which most Eldar lists will want to do, you can easily hold the chosen objective for the last two turns of the game giving you nine points without taking any actions or doing anything that you would not do anyway. Usually, you can also score on it at least one other turn making it totally viable.

I also really like “Raise Banners,” as you can probably control two objectives for the majority of the game for an easy 10-12 points. This pick has good synergy with Dire Avengers who can raise a banner and shoot in the same turn.

The killy secondaries tend not to be great options in low point value games simply because there aren’t enough models on the table for them to score well even if you table your opponent. The best option if you have to lean that way is “Grind Them Down,” but only if your opponent has lots of cheap units and you went with relatively few survivable ones. Instead, you will usually want a Warpcraft secondary as your third pick.

How to Build a Craftworlds List for a 500 point game

Building an effective 500pt list is a much like building a 2k list; it's a matter of thinking about what obstacles your list is likely to encounter and making sure it has ways to overcome them. With so few points at your disposal, however, every unit needs to offer an effective answer to one or more of these obstacles. Here are some questions you should ask yourself during list construction:

1) How will my army play the primary objective game?
Presuming that you select a Combat Patrol mission from the Core Rulebook rather than trying to shoe-horn in a mission from Chapter Approved designed for 1k games, all of missions feature 4 objectives that are scored during your command phase starting turn 2. You get 5 points for controlling one, 5 more for controlling 2, and another 5 for controlling more than your opponent. (Consider also that this last objective is worth even more mathematically because scoring it by definition means you are also preventing you opponent from scoring at least 5 points. In two-player games, preventing your opponent from scoring is the same as scoring yourself.)

This means that if you can control at least 2 objectives on turns 2 and 3 while knocking your opponent off at least 1, you will win the game except in the most bizarre of circumstances. You don't necessarily achieve this outcome in the most obvious way, however, which would be to cluster all of your units on two objectives and shoot at enemies on a third. Instead, you might want to threaten all the objectives, or at least three of them so that your opponent needs to divide her resources to meet your challenge.

Alternatively, you might let your opponent dominate the primary objectives turn 2 so you can drop the hammer in the second half of that turn or the first half of turn 3, wiping a couple of key units off the board with powerful shooting units or fast target elimination specialists like Banshees or Shining Spears. If you can deal a blow so hard that your opponent doesn’t have enough left to retaliate in kind, you can win the primary objective game that way too.

Which of these strategies is best depends on the list you are facing and the skill and playstyle of your opponent.

2) What Secondary Objectives will my list favor and how will I score them?
The single biggest common mistake that I see new players make- or players returning to 40k from earlier editions- is not considering secondary objectives when they build their lists. Yes, 40k is narratively about goofy science fiction carnage in the grim darkness of the far future, but it is also a game that tells a story about rival commanders participating in a battleplan that may be much larger than the micro-engagement depicted on the actual table. This abstract narrative complexity is accounted for with victory points, very few of which are scored directly by destroying enemy units.

To put it more simply: you win this game by scoring points, so when you build a list for competitive play, you should start by considering exactly how you are going to do so. I already mentioned earlier some of my own favorite secondary objective options, so I will not do so again here- just be sure you have a plan for how you can reliably get to at least 30 points for secondaries.

3) How will my objective-holders deal with potent melee threats?
The board is so small in 500pt games that melee units, even slow melee units have no trouble reaching combat on turn 2. If your opponent has claws and teeth and swords at her disposal, your forward-most objective holders are going to be tangling with them turn 2. Also, because melee units fight on both players turns, their damage output is significantly higher than that of shooting units once they are engaged. What are you going to do about 10 Genestealers or some terminators with axes the size of a Volkswagen Beatle?

The most obvious solution SEEMS like a robust melee unit of your own that can take a punch and hit back, like a Wraithlord with a Ghost Glaive, FORTUNE, and at least one Strands of Fate die set aside for an armor save. This approach can work well but is also hugely dependent on the fickle favors of the dice.

Another option- and I think a better option- is to use a “pawn” unit to force your opponent into a bad trade. A “pawn” is a disposable unit primarily employed for board control and favorable trades. My typical picks for pawns are Vypers, Warwalkers, and Rangers, and of which can grab a midfield objective to draw out an opponent’s target elimination units. Even something as inane as a single War Walker can actually be pretty robust if you make it -1 to hit with “Lightening Fast Reactions” and keep a Strands of Fate die in the hopper to auto succeed on an armor save against something really hard-hitting.

Against of 500pt list that relies on one or two very powerful close combat threats, your opponent has to choose between just letting you have the objective or punching out the Warwalker with an expensive melee unit that is then subject to a powerful counter attack by the rest of your army. At this point, your opponent may not have anything that can reliably eliminate whatever retakes the objective next turn.

Another equally effective might be a unit of Rangers with a Shard Net using “Advanced Positions” to deploy behind an obscuring terrain piece while screening the midfield. Your Rangers can halt the enemy melee advance, giving you a turn to blast the interlopers or counter punch them with your own melee heavy hitters, like Banshees or Shining Spears. Warp Spiders also make a superior screening unit because of their ability to move 6” away from an enemy who declares a charge.

Alternatively, you could try to melt away from engagement when challenged by powerful melee units and shoot the hell out of them before your opponent can score at the beginning of her next command phase. This tactic requires a highly mobile force with brutal fire output and might be unreliable if your opponent is running an army with lots of invulnerable saves. It can also be difficult to kite an enemy army on such a small board, but Swooping Hawks and Baharroth can make it work with their insane redeployment options.

The point is that in some cases you will be better off letting your opponent have the objectives early and figure you can do most of your own primary objective scoring after you have largely tabled the opposing force.

4) How will my objective holders deal with potent shooting armies?
It's all well and good to move a unit of Dire Avengers onto your backfield objective turn 1, but what happens when your opponent hoses them with 30 S4 -1AP shots at long range? You need to make sure that you have ways to hold objectives against armies that have high fire output.

This is why hit penalties, invulnerable saves, feel-no-pain rolls, and high toughness models are so valuable in small games, as are units with good defensive stats that pay relatively few points per wound. Against that shooting army I just mentioned maybe your Dire Avengers start the game in deepstrike, and instead on turn 1 you park a Vyper Jetbike on the objective and use “Lightening Fast Reactions” to help shrug off high volume small arms fire. (A Vyper using “Lightening Fast Reactions” will on average suffer 2.5 wounds from the attack I just described and then fight just as well as it did before it was damaged.) On the other hand, if the only long-range fire power that your opponent has is a couple of Lascannons, then obviously the Avengers are the right choice.

Whatever you do, if you come up against a shooting army don't just shrug and say "my aspect warriors have an invulnerable save, so I'll hope for hot dice." That way lies ruin and defeat. You might have to count on doing some damage to the opposing force before making a big play for objective control.

5) What if my opponent brings something big and tough?

You don't need enough heavy weapons fire to be able to eliminate a Tyranid Hive Tyrant in a single turn, but you should have some way to damage robust units at range. Brightlances and D-Cannons can be highly efficient here, but so is high volume small arms fire if you cast DOOM on the target or GUIDE in a list making use of the custom Craftworld trait, “Hail of Doom.” Honestly, the way the game stands at the moment volume of fire combined with GUIDE or DOOM tends to be the most optimal approach for target elimination, partially because squads using this approach can threaten any target in the game- large units of Dire Avengers are especially good at this.

That said, another strategy for dealing with big tough units is to ignore them. There are some tanks and transports, for example, that don't hit hard enough to constitute a serious threat. If your opponent parks a tank on his backfield objective, you might be better off focusing on killing off her other units. Or, if your opponent’s vehicle is pushing into the midfield with some meltas or something, just avoid presenting any target to the tank except for a unit with good defensive characteristics reinforced with Strands of Fate dice that will enable you to auto-succeed on armor saves.

6) What if my opponent brings a horde of low-cost units with "objective secured"?

This one can really be a challenge. Do you have a way to deal with 60 Tyranid termagants in squads of 20 all with "Objective Secured" that auto-pass morale tests? Powerful melee units that can shred fragile enemies on both players' turns can be a good option here, as well as BLAST weapons like the Warp Spider’s Death spinners. Maximum sized units of Swooping Hawks and Dire Avengers are also highly efficient for this, as is a Farseer who can cast both SMITE and EXECUTIONER.

7) Have you considered your meta?

Ultimately, you will not be able to build a list that can bring the Asuryani “A”game against all comers. You will need to slant your list towards dealing with the armies you are mostly likely to encounter in your local play group. There is a delicate balance between building a list that is both flexible and optimized for the most likely challengers. If you know you will come up against lots of marines, for example, make sure you have enough high AP weapons to deal with Armor of Contempt or a Warlock with JINX to reinforce your Shuriken units. If you are likely to come up against Thousand Sons, you need multi-damage weapons to help you get around “All is Dust,” and so on.

Oh, here is the other crucial meta-consideration: how competitive is your local playgroup? If most people are running highly narrative lists with little to no consideration given to what is effective on the table, then don’t be the person who shows up with a sleek 500 points of finally-tuned elven fury. Tabling your opponent on turn 2 isn’t a big achievement if they were just running at you with Tyrranid Warriors because they think bugs are neat. Wrecking that guy is a little bit like showing up to a youth dodge ball league at the local gym and then tallying how many head-shots you can get.

If you want a list that can play both competitive and casual 40k, start by building a competitive roster and then figure out how you can seriously tone it down by selecting narratively-fun but less-than-optimal custom craftworld traits and psychic powers. Consider also picking some secondary objectives that will pose a significant challenge for you at the table. You don’t need to intentionally make play errors during the game in order to create a fun match-up with win potential for both parties. And try to be honest with yourself about whether you have really made it a fair fight with your selected sub-faction bonuses and psychic powers, or whether you have just engineered a close game that you know you can’t lose. If your opponent didn’t show up for competitive 40k, have the good grace to introduce enough game balance that they have a reasonable chance at winning so long as they don’t make massively stupid choices.

Sample List for 500pt Play: Storm of Blades

Asuryani Patrol Detachment ( 2CP - 500PT )

SUB-FACTION: Custom Craftworld: Hail of Doom

 HQ

  Farseer (100) 

   1x Farseer

   PSYCHIC POWERS: Guide, [FORTUNE or EXECUTIONER]

 TROOPS

  Guardian Defenders (110)

   1x Heavy Weapon Platform: Shuriken Cannon

   10x Guardian

 ELITES

  Wraithlord (135) 2x Shuriken cannon, Ghostglaive

   1x Wraithlord: 2x Shuriken cannon, Ghostglaive

 FAST ATTACK

  Windriders (90)

   3x Windrider: Shuriken cannon

  Windriders (70)

   3x Windrider: 2X Twin-Linked Shuriken catapults, 1x Shuriken Cannon

Total Command Points: 3/3

Reinforcement Points: 0

Total Points: 500/500

Archetype: Shuriken Brutality
Overall Approach: The list plays conservatively on turn one, then drops the hammer at the bottom of turn 2 or the top of turn 3, crippling the opposing list. If your opponent takes the midfield early, you annihilate her board presence with massed shuriken fire. If she doesn’t, you maneuver your bikes into position to hit her on turn two along with the Guardians using the “Webway Strike” stratagem. If your opponent has deepstrikers of her own, be sure to screen them out of your backfield until you are ready to make your move and remember you can use the “Forewarned” stratagem to light them up with your bikes or Wraithlord.

The goal is to score 15 primary points on both turns 4 and 5 after largely tabling an opponent, while picking up 5 or 10 on turns 1 and 2.

Best Secondary Options: Behind Enemy lines, Raise Banners, Warp Ritual, Grind Them Down, Hidden Path

FAQ:
Q: Why GUIDE instead of DOOM?
A: In Hail of Doom lists GUIDE is objectively better against most targets if only one unit is targeting them. Also, it has a lower Warp Charge value and only requires your psyker to be in range of the friendly unit rather than the enemy

Q: Why FORTUNE “or” EXECUTIONER
A: They suit different playstyles. FORTUNE is essential if you want the Wraithlord to expose itself to significant enemy fire- and in some metas this is definitely the pick.But having EXECUTIONER enables your Farseer to pivot into being a powerful target elimination unit in the midgame if something goes wrong and you lose too many models early. Along with SMITE, this space wizard can put out 3D3 mortals, which is insane at 500pts.

Q: What about screening and pawns and all that?
A: The units of bikes with Shuriken Catapults are your only true pawn unit. If you need to draw out the opponent, throw the catapult bikes on a midfield objective and give them Lightening Fast Reactions for 1CP. They can also charge enemy tanks to tie them up for a turn while you deal with the rest of the list.

Q: What should I buy next?
A: It depends entirely on what kind of list you want to run at higher point values, but I can guarantee that you want:
-A Warlock Skyrunner
-A Farseer Skyrunner
-At least one unit of Rangers

And you are unlikely to regret:
-Vypers
-War Walkers
-Two or more boxes of Dire Avengers
-Swooping Hawks
-Warp Spiders
-A Wave Serpent
-Howling Banshees
-Shining Spears

My advice is that you start by buying those first three units I mentioned and then get more games in while you are painting those. As you develop a sense of how Craftworlds play, you will be better positioned to decide what kind of list you want to invest in going forward. There is no reason to buy more models than you are ready to put on the table, (not that any of us have ever followed that sensible advice.)

Q: How do I tone this down if my opponent wants a casual match?
A: It’s easy. If it were me, I would take the Custom Craftworld traits “Children of Morai-Heg” and “Hunters of Ancient Relics,” because those are clearly what the designers actually had in mind narratively for my Craftworld, (Iybraesil,) and those happen to not be remotely competitive. But with this list you can really take anything that ISN’T Hail of Doom, Masterful Shots, or Children of Prophecy. As for the Farseer powers, I would swap EXECUTIONER for MIND WAR, and then decide whether or not it is reasonable to hang onto GUIDE; it probably is unless your opponent’s list is tragically squishy. You may also want to consider not starting the Guardians in the Webway if your opponent is not an experienced player.

So there it is.

There are LOTS of ways to build effective Craftworlds lists at 500 points. Hopefully the suggestions above have given you some ideas about where you want to start and how to approach love point-value 40k as an aspiring Autarch. Incidentally, those principles of list construction I mentioned above remain the same whether you are building a list for 500pt play or a full on 2k tournament match.