When Warbands first came out, I bought into the idea that the standard game size was 1000 points, and I spent about two years hypothesizing 1000 point armies (it was about that long until I finally got an opponent again). 1000 points means you have the freedom to take pretty much anything you want, occasionally it gets to the point where you have so many options, that it's too many options. Deciding what to do with my Mordor at that points level gets overwhelming, I want to take everything!

Well, then I got back into playing, and discovered that I no longer knew how to build smaller armies. "Wait, so I CAN'T fit two named Ringwraiths and three captains into this army? How do I play!!" Made all the less convenient by my opponents mostly having a preference for the smaller games. Last week, I played 600 points where I was even with if not outnumbered by a Last Alliance army, and I was Mordor. Let that sink in for a second. Granted, I took three combat freaks and ended up winning, but for someone who grew up playing the game with a strict "outnumber your opponent" policy, that was jarring. It comes from trying to compress a 1000 point army into 600 points, so trying to keep all the big heroes because I can't bear with dropping them.

Earlier today, I came up with a little exercise. I mostly designed it so I know what to buy for my good armies, but it seems to be helping quite a bit with the readjustment. Start at 400 points, go as bare-bones as you can then upgrade till you're at 400, then take that army and modify it in whatever way you see fit to bring it up to 600, then 750, then 1000. Somehow, scaling it up and back down really helped, I was able to piece together Lothlorien and Durin's Folk armies that finally pleased me, I was able to fit models in that've been losing my mind over for the past few months, I thought more about synergy than I ever have before, it really seems to have helped me.

Not sure what I'm getting at here, just wanted to share a helpful experience.

I understand what youre saying. Personally, I hate playing 500 points or less, unless were doing multiple games that day.

My friends and I usually play 700+ and I love it.

As for small army building, I personally base my army choice off of point value.

At 850, you see me take a like of named wraiths on fell beasts, and monsters.

At 350-500 though Im likely to take goblins, Hunter Orcs, Hobbits, etc with stuff thrown in.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Sounds familiar, with Moria in my case. In 500pts, I'd take Durburz, some elites and as many shamans/captains with full warbands as fit. Possibly exchange a warband for a cave troll. Already from 700pts onwards, however it feels as if you've got the points to just take all kinds of goodies. Two trolls, a drum, a warband of elites.. and in the end, you've got as many troops in your army as there were at 500pts.

Now, that isn't a problem per se, as everything has a points cost, and most points give a good indication of their power - but of course, that's not entirely how it works. A (relatively) small army will break much faster, and a 700pts Moria force shouldn't break at the same number as a 500pts one!

Elite armies can somewhat get away with it (many two-attack models compensate for having lower numbers; the Defence 7 of Fountain Guard/Dwarves means you die significantly slower), and there are armies that simply work differently: High Elves are basically forced to take an expensive hero in 500pts already, and in that sense work better in 700 (where they'll have that same single expensive hero, but now fitting 3 warbands). The aformentioned Dwarves can choose to go elite or horde-ish. But if the troops are as worthless as those in Moria or (parts of) Mordor, you can't afford to lose too many guys to shiney stuff.

I think 750 point armies is the sweet point for army size.

700 is the sweet spot for me

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An interesting pattern that I found, at least the way I was building the armies, is that, going from 600 to 750 typically just meant adding one big model. So it happened quite often that the 750 version of an army was smaller than the 600 because I tried to squeeze Beorn in there.

At 400, you have a decision to make. You want to max out on numbers, but you know that no one has an answer should you choose to take a big hero, so it is very tempting to take that Gil-Galad or Aragorn. It's a decision I'm currently struggling with, I have a 400 point tournament on Saturday, and I have 170 points to spend on something. 170=Named Wraith on Fellbeast... So tempting...
170=One full warband
170=Two strong heroes...
I spent what felt like hours toying with that decision, ultimately I opted for Shelob and a Ringwraith, but the knowledge that, should I take a Fellbeast, no one at that points level will have a counter, is very real.

600 I find awkward because you know you need numbers, but you know you can take bigger things and more elites. The 600 point army I mentioned in my original post had 26 models, the 400 point army I'm taking this weekend has 25 models (it was going to have 27 until I opted for Spectres, partly for aesthetic reasons). It's not enough points to really horde, unless you're Goblins/Hobbits/Lake Town, and it's not really enough points to go fully elite. You're compromising something no matter what.

750 I did find perfect, all the armies I made felt whole. While I did say that they typically got smaller than their 600 point versions, it didn't feel like that big an issue, the armies gained things that they were missing at 600.

1000 gets to the point where, no matter how balanced an army you make, you're still worried that your opponent has struck some absurd combo that will trash you, it's big enough to fit anything. That's the point size where you have to stop thinking about balancing your armies, and instead come up with a combination that's amazing at something (even if it's lacking in other departments); like the famous Reaver+Shade+DM army.

I really like building an army with 350 to 500 points, because you have to think about how it will work and how it will deal with other armies and scenarios. Way more fun than taking 2 wraiths, a shade, burdhur, shamans and lots of orc spearmen and morannons at 1000 points.