500 Points, Weird Lists, and a Midweek Old World Plan
Some hobby weeks are all about big progress, painted units, and glorious victories. And some are about just keeping the train moving, wishing a friend a quick recovery, and getting excited about playing something a bit unusual. This was definitely one of those weeks.
First of all: we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for Wilini and wishing him a fast and smooth recovery. The original league timing got a bit tangled up by real life, but honestly, that’s just how it goes sometimes. The important thing is that nobody was putting pressure on anything — as we said in chat, recovery is basically a full-time job.
Even with that, we still managed to start shaping a plan for the week. The idea that emerged was simple: End3r vs. Pegie on Wednesday evening, with Stas around to help with rules if needed, and the final question being just where we’d actually meet.
But then, as usually happens in our group, one practical arrangement quickly turned into something much more fun: a side discussion about playing some completely unhinged little side game in parallel.
From league logistics to nonsense list-building
What started as “are the guys playing on Wednesday?” immediately escalated into the much more important question: what weird stuff can we put on the table at 500 points?
There were a few excellent ideas right away.
Stas, naturally, drifted in the direction of spectacle first — dreaming out loud about giant blocks of greenskins, something like 90 Orcs and 120 Goblins, basically Total War energy squeezed onto a tabletop. Not exactly a 500-point concept, but definitely the right spirit.
Then came the more realistic version of the same impulse: maybe instead of a standard tiny game, we do something unusual. Grand Melee, combined forces, oddball lists, things we normally just don’t play. That immediately sounded like the right kind of midweek hobby nonsense.
There was also talk of trying Trolls, albeit very much in the spirit of experimentation and with proxies fully accepted. Which, honestly, is one of the best things about these smaller side games: they let us test ideas we’d never commit to in a more serious setting.
Borrowed armies are one of the best parts of the hobby
At some point the conversation took an even better turn, when Stas asked the question we probably all love hearing in a friendly group:
Do you have some 500-point force I could borrow? Something I don’t know and haven’t played before?
That’s such a good summary of why we enjoy this hobby together. Not just building our own armies, but also getting the chance to try someone else’s collection, rules, and playstyle without having to commit months of painting first.
Michał came back with a genuinely tempting menu of options:
- Cathay — described, very succinctly, as a hammer.
- Lizardmen — cold-blooded, reliable leadership tricks, poison, and built-in armour.
- Renegade Crowns — which sounded cool enough that Michał was half-tempted to keep them for himself.
- Skaven — horde plus technology that may or may not explode in your face, which is exactly the kind of sales pitch Skaven deserve.
- Chaos Dwarfs — extremely tough and backed by strong guns.
There was even a mention that Stas’s Vampires could potentially be rebased in time, which is a sentence that contains both ambition and danger.
In the end, though, the choice landed on Lizardmen.
And honestly? Fair. They sounded great immediately.
Why Lizardmen won
The quick pitch was enough to seal it: cold-blooded leadership on 3 dice, dropping the highest, plus poison and armour by default. For a small game, that sounds like exactly the kind of force that can feel compact, sturdy, and just weird enough to be memorable.
Stas was in almost instantly.
The reaction to the list was also very relatable: not many wounds, but some really nice core stats — Strength 4, Toughness 4, Leadership 8 — which at 500 points starts feeling pretty respectable very quickly.
That’s one of the fun things about tiny games in Warhammer: The Old World: every statline matters more, every unit feels exposed, and even a small rules interaction can define the whole battle.
Meanwhile: Renegade Crowns at 500
On Michał’s side, we also got an actual list draft for a 500-point force, built in our own tool:
Here’s the list as posted in chat:
++ Characters [125 pts] ++
Outcast Wizard [125 pts]
(Hand weapon, Wizard [Level 1 Wizard], General, The Noble Outlaw ["Hold the Line!" + Repeater pistol], Warhorse, Twin-Tailed Wand, Daemonology)
++ Core Units [285 pts] ++
20 Sellsword Infantry [165 pts]
(Great weapons, Heavy armour, Standard bearer)
6 Hireling Outriders [120 pts]
(Pistols, Heavy armour, Feigned Flight, Reserve Move)
++ Rare Units [90 pts] ++
10 Border Princes Brigands [90 pts]
(Hand weapons, Light armour, 10x Blunderbusses, Formation [Skirmishers], Scouts)
---
Created with "Wiatry Magii's Old World Builder"
https://builder.wiatrymagii.pl
That is a really fun-looking little force. It has a bit of everything we love in these experimental lists:
- a character with flavour,
- a solid infantry block,
- mobile harassment,
- and a weird little ranged skirmishing element.
Exactly the kind of army that makes a 500-point game feel less like a stripped-down format and more like a self-contained scenario.
Michał also did the important tiny-game math and counted wounds: 33 on one side, 38 on the other, so basically no huge raw durability gap. That’s always a good sign before a casual experimental game — enough asymmetry to be interesting, not so much that it feels lopsided from the start.
Small games, big charm
We say this a lot, but 500-point games really do have their own special appeal.
They’re quick to arrange, easy to experiment with, and perfect for trying factions, units, or sub-factions that would otherwise stay theoretical for months. They also create exactly the kind of hobby energy we like most: one person lending an army, another trying a faction for the first time, someone else theorycrafting Trolls or bizarre combined lists on the side while the main league game happens nearby.
That’s a very Wiatry Magii kind of evening.
So the plan, at least at this stage, is:
- End3r vs. Pegie in the league on Wednesday,
- some kind of side 500-point Old World action in parallel,
- and hopefully a chance to put a fresh borrowed army on the table just to see what happens.
And if the result is chaos, weird rules interactions, and a lot of “wait, these guys do what?” — then honestly, that probably means the evening was a success.
Wishing Wilini continued recovery, and the rest of us: good dice, funny lists, and at least one game that feels slightly more experimental than it has any right to be.