With the 8th Ed. rules the classes of units are allocated based off of %. If I'm playing a 1500 point game and my lords can be up to 25% is that 25% figured off points I'm permitted to use or the actual points I use? For instance if I'm playing a 1500 point game and I use all 1500 points 25% would be 375. However if I only use 1495 points 25% of that would be 373. So when figuring my % for Lords, Heroes, etc, do I use the total I'm permitted to reach or my actual army size?
Agreed, 25% of 1500. Otherwise, you would need to write your list before knowing the points you can spend on things....
You can't go wrong if you go the agreed value. 25% of that is always going to be at least 25% of whatever points you end up on. Unless you go over the agreed point value, but you shouldn't do that.
I find that in friendlies, no-one cares of you are over by a few points. Of course, if I go down GW to play, I make sure I'm not over, as some people are a bit touchy....
You usually won't have problems staying within the boundaries of the percentages. The difference between under or slightly over isn't enough to afford another unit (or even another model usually), so it has little impact on your list. Lords and Heroes is really annoying, as it invalidates all our SC's (they are already bad, but points restrictions make them impossible to field). So, you're down to Slann, Oldblood, EOTG, Scar-Vet and Priest. Usually one of each, sometimes not even all of them. Core is easy as to fulfill, even moderately sized Saurus blocks go over the minimum quite easily, so field a couple and get over the line with some cheap blowpipe units. Skrox units also easily make up the minimum Core. Special is easy, you'll never break 50% Rare is easy, you just add Salamanders until you hit cap.