Came across this: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/06/18/making-the-case-for-using-power-level-points-in-tournaments/

What are your thoughts? I think it's an interesting idea, but a tournament environment is going to bring the worst out of people and it will be prone to huge amounts of abuse, worse than what you normally see. I don't mind power level for casual games (or matched points), but I think using them in a tournament is asking for trouble and asking for people to just immediately take the best options just because nothing stops them.

The main issue I'd have with PL is not being able to control my unit size (tee hee). Most units are multiples of 5 so you can fill up a Rhino or Battlewagon without an issue, but things like Trukks or Devilfish you can't (without characters). Not a huge problem, but it can make a difference.

PL and Points will still result in people taking the best stuff, it's just that the best stuff is different for each system.

Works for me! The simplified approach to list building appeals to me in so many ways, particularly since 1) tournaments are the only real way that I can justify a full day of wargaming to my family, and 2) I do not have the time to study Codexes (Codices?) anymore and do massive amounts of bookkeeping in trying to figure out what my army should be to the minuscule level.

Now if only the local WAAC gamers would get out of the hobby, then I could enjoy the tournaments again. I don't mind competitive players, but man I cannot stand dealing with shady behavior and condescending attitudes.

Frontling Gaming wrote:The difference in points in terms of the granular, are nearly irrelevant in a 2k list. The decision point between taking one over the other, or “shaving” points to build a specific list isn’t tactical: It’s just list building. Yes, shaving a few points here or there can net you an extra unit or two, which is what creates the idea of “tuned-lists” where you maximize every single point, but this is just playing a game of numbers and efficiency, and again, it creates more of the dichotomy between efficient and inefficient units. If you want a truly competitive game, then it should be the player skill in game that matters, not the ability of a player to be the better accountant and risk management analyst.

^^ This right here. Especially when you consider the "balancing" of different Special and Heavy Weapons for units: Meltaguns are dangerous up close to a single model, while Flamers can do many weaker hits, and a Plasma gun can be fired at a dangerous firemode. Multimeltas are dangerous up close while Lascannons lose the extra potential damage for range, Heavy Bolters are better against multiple weaker enemies while Plasma Cannons can be decent against any target, and Missile Launchers are trading effectiveness for situational adaptability. Heck, we are kind of seeing it with melee weapons, what with Chainswords now getting extra attacks and Power Fists having a To Hit penalty.

Plus, if everyone is maximizing their armies with Power Levels, then is it even a problem? If everyone is overpowered, then no one is, right?

Frontline Gaming wrote:If PL is fully embraced and players are allowed to change their unit(s) wargear/weapons from game to game, the scene not only becomes far more competitive but the amount of worry over cheating via list building goes down dramatically.

I had never thought about that before, and it sounds like a pretty cool idea to me! Rather than having to take entire extra units for "side board" events, you can just take a few different Special/Heavy Weapon models or different Character models instead, or even just the turret options on your tanks. It would really encourage magnetizing models too for that same reason.

There doesn't actually appear to be much of an argument here. The parts that aren't either wildly speculative or simply disingenuous are that PL is easier to calculate and that it provides a natural way to do "sideboarding".

Yes, PLs are easier to calculate, unless you have some sort of program capable of automatically determining the point cost of a unit with particular options. Such programs are common.

PLs provide a natural way to do sideboarding, but it's easy to sideboard with points too. One could even do almost exactly the same thing with points by requiring that the actual units in a list don't change while allowing players to change out wargear and other options while still subject to the point limit. Again this is very easy with a list-building program.

What else of substance is there in here? There's no real reason given to think that PLs will be more balanced than points, that they'll produce more diversity, etc. There's a really embarrassing bit where the author argues that PL lists don't vary too much in their point values because a particular Knight can't vary too much in how many points it costs, apparently forgetting that there are units besides Knights.

Ultimately, whether point values or power levels produce more balanced matches and more varied lists is primarily an empirical question. To the extent that one thinks GW did a good job assigning point values, then presumably points are better, but of course they may have screwed up. I certainly don't see that there's any halfway-persuasive theoretical reason to think that PLs would be better up front. The advantage of PLs is that they're easy to use, but it is hard to see why this is an issue for tournaments with access to the right software.

Sideboarding is just throwing up your arms and admitting your game system favors skew and penalizes attempting to build a take-all-comers system.

The "two army" system of Steamroller is one of the many reasons I could never take WMH seriously as a competitive game.

Me agree math hard

Building lists is 100000000000 times easier and more fun with PL than points.

That is an accurate number. I did the math.

Point are not just for penny pinching over a tactical squad's special and heavy weapon. Some units have a large variety of upgrades which power levels doesn't capture.

A 30 strong Termagant brood is PL9 which could be 120 point cannon fodder, 200 point mix of devourers and fleshborers or a 300 point unit with all the expensive upgrades.

I don't like PLs. I like to go barebones on a lot of stuff to save points for more numbers. That doesn't work with PLs. For instance, I had a 1000 pt Ork army that came out to 60 PL. I had to cut some important stuff and have substandard units (because I didn't have all the upgrades modeled) for a 50 PL game.


Points for me, please.

I love how the same crowd that cried foul about "free points" is now arguing the merits...of making all equipment upgrades free for everybody.

I would posit that many of their points are only relevant with certain units/armies/scales. Sure taking a melta instead of a flamer is a relatively small change that, in the grand scheme of things, probably wont make or break a game at 2000pts.

However, taking 3 battle tanks for say, PL10 and then loading on 60-80pts worth of free upgrades on each will make a huuuuuuuuge difference vs an opponent that doesnt. It's entirely possible for two Power Level armies to have many hundreds of points worth of value difference, and that absolutely will show, skill or no skill. Power Level has many of the same issuss that plagued 7E and Formations.

Likewise, Power Level doesnt account for flexible unit sizes very well, if you want an 8man unit, you're gonna pay for 10. The more flexibility and options a unit has, the less appropriate Power Level is.

GW has come right out and made no bones about Power Level not being for competitive play, why we are attempting to hamfist it in there is...well, silly, especially with all the problems "free" stuff caused in 7E.

They should try it out with their top players and see how it goes over. Nothing replaces direct hands on experience.

Yoyoyo wrote:
They should try it out with their top players and see how it goes over. Nothing replaces direct hands on experience.

An excellent point.

Yoyoyo wrote:
They should try it out with their top players and see how it goes over. Nothing replaces direct hands on experience.

The same top players that abused free transports? Find the best combination of abusable units would become the new hotness.

There is no argument for this. It would rehash older problems. GW moved to a better fine-tuning of points IMHO.
Far from being perfect, I have at least a 3rd edition vibe from the way big stuff and vehicles are priced, and how some equipment price is adjusted for the model carrying it (S, T, W, etc).

I am happy with that and I can subtract and add integer numbers, thank you very much.

I really hate this idea. Power Levels were never designed to and don't capture the nuance of how the options a unit takes can drastically alter how powerful it is.

The article in the OP cherry-picks knights as an example because Power Levels work reasonably well when comparing within that faction, but I can create a 50PL Daemons list that's worth 534 points and an also 50PL Tau list that's worth 1540 points. That's a frankly obscene difference between two supposedly 'equally powerful' armies and the idea that a system with that much variation could be the basis for competitive play is laughable.

It's not a case of PL just being more generous than points - it's that the degree to which it's more generous varies wildly between factions and would result in chronic imbalance. We've seen from 7th edition just how powerful free points are, and make no mistake - using PL in competitive play is effectively identical to giving those factions whose units have expensive options available hundreds of extra points (for free) when compared to factions without those options.

Anecdotes of "my group uses PL and we haven't had balance issues" are less than worthless, because you guys aren't cut-throat tournament players looking to squeeze every last drop of imbalance out of the system.

I also find the assertion that removing list-building and optimization from the game makes for a more competitive environment ridiculous almost to the point of being insulting. Creating an optimal TAC list while accounting for the cost and performance of different options against the spread of opponents you expect to face is a huge skill factor and eliminating it from the game in name of simplicity (and reducing list-building down to spamming the units with the most expensive and flexible options and then picking which guns you want at the start of each game) would make the game drastically less competitive, not more.

There are plenty of other things the article mentions that I vehemently disagree with, but those are the core reasons I think this is an awful idea.

I don't see power levels being a good idea in tournaments. They're too inconsistent, and they're too easy to break. There are units that can more than triple their points based on the upgrades they take. Some units have their PL centered on the high end of their range, others on the low end. Special Weapon Teams for example, have a power level equivalent to their absolute maximum value (which means you're overpaying if you take anything but the most expensive weapons).

Power levels can get away with their fast and loose approach in quick pick-up games as long as you play WISYWYG (proxies would break the system over their knee), because in that situation you'll have a loose collection of models, some over-priced, some under-priced. In a tournament setting you have plenty of time to acquire and paint models specifically for that tournament. It would be far too easy to min-max it. When you have that much time to prepare, points are necessary to keep players in line.

I do find the sentiment of "I would enjoy tournaments a lot more if none of my opponents were playing to win" amusing though. Seems to be missing the point of a tournament...

Even planing to use Power Levels myself...This is a HORRIBLE idea. Points are for tournaments. Don't try to mix things that are obviously not compatible!
I can see with competitive guys could like Power Levels in tournaments. To have free all of their options and stomp those that just don't do that. But that isn't how you get a competitive and balanced game.

Plus, I'm gonna take a seat here, waiting for Peregrine to come down from the sky to smite those blind believers of the virtues of Power Levels

He should predicate the entire article with "For now..." because points will change and PL will not. The second there is a balance pass on points his entire argument is stops being "PL good enough and math is hard" and starts becoming "Math is hard and who cares about balance". I'd rather cowboy up now and deal with the extra math bits, than adopt a system that I know is going to fail eventually.

 durecellrabbit wrote:
Point are not just for penny pinching over a tactical squad's special and heavy weapon. Some units have a large variety of upgrades which power levels doesn't capture.

A 30 strong Termagant brood is PL9 which could be 120 point cannon fodder, 200 point mix of devourers and fleshborers or a 300 point unit with all the expensive upgrades.

I don't think the termagant example is a good one. The expensive upgrades are from melee specialization or ranged specialization. In the case of termagants with devourers, you almost never take toxin sacks and adrenal glands because you don't want them charging into combat. Yes, you can make the unit super expensive, but the first 100 points of upgrades is worth a lot more than the next 100 points of upgrades and I think powerlevel encompasses that sliding scale of effectiveness for termagant upgrdes very well.

It's not an awful idea. The ups and downs kinda cut both ways.

What I'll be doing over the next few weeks is building my lists with points, but making a note of how many PL they come out to, and I'm asking the other folks at my FLGS to do the same. The idea here is to get an idea of how much they differ.

My local group isn't wild about PL (folks call 'em Sigmar Points, because AoS points work pretty much like PL), so I won't likely be playing these, but I'll also be building lists to a given PL limit and seeing how many points they come out to.

I'm very curious just how big the deltas will be, between lists tuned one way versus the other.

I'm skeptical about unit size, and about the edge cases where PL doesn't really work (Deathwatch Veterans, paying 2PL/model even though the full massed heavy weapons loadout makes for a really fragile list).

If you actually wanted to use PL for a tournament you might need a few edge-case tweaks and some kind of mechanism for more granular squad sizes. You'd need some kind of differential cost for upgrades, and possibly fractional PL for inexpensive models.

Though it'd be generally easier to just use points. Or to use the unmodified PL system for some sort of more casual event.

This is mostly just a proposed change to make life easier on tournament organizers and i can sympathize with that but it is a bad idea.

'Sideboarding' in different weapons and wargear is an awful practice that kills the competitive scene, hell the competitive scene largely rose out of people enjoying fighting with and against take all comers lists over tailored lists. Some armies have a huge advantage in their breadth of customization, being able to swap between lascannons and grav amps is a much bigger deal than being able to swap between big shootas and rokkit launchas for example. What optional upgrades do necrons take to tailor their list that they can swap in and out on the fly? Almost nothing in the entire index. For those armies the efficacy is wholly in what units you run in what numbers and not in what options they take.

What you'll see is just a different kind of power gaming where you're incentivized to take something like magnetized crisis suits because they become pseudo obliterators, morphing into whatever weapon profile best meets their needs for that game. And that doesn't just make the game unbalanced on the board, it also makes it more expensive and time consuming to collect different WYSIWYG variants of the same model or needing to carefully magnetize every model you build.

The Imperial Guard index in general is probably a good example of how broken PLs can be if you try, and in a tournament people WILL try.

Take a look at this:

HWS: PL3, min points: 27 max points: 72

SWT: PL3, min points: 39 max points: 60

Infantry squad: PL3, min points: 40 max points: 86

Command Squad: PL3, min points 24, max points 77

Veterans: PL6, min points: 60 max points: 147

As you can see, not only is there a huge amount of variation within a single unit but some units can milk their PL (or get screwed by it on the low end) much more than others.

Knights were a poor example because they have very few options, and all of those options replace something that is already being paid for. So they don't have a lot of cost variation, of course PLs will seem to approximate them well. Just about any infantry on the other hand, well you can see what that looks like above.

Meanwhile, any Baneblade variant can take 4 lascannons and 8 heavy flamers, or it can take nothing in that slot, making a 216 point spread between their minimum and maximum costs.

So their argument is terrible.

Whether you support the use of power level for tournaments (which GW obviously does not) the argument presented here is a bad one.

1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal. Picking one unit as an example is never proof of why something works but it can be a proof of why it doesn't. Lets use the Nob squad as an example. a 10 Nob squad with KillSaws, Kombi-skorchas, 2 cyborks, and 10 Ammo runts is 21 power, the same 21% of your list as the Knight they quote. That squad when you pay points for it is 690 points or 34.5% of your army. A 13.5% difference or 270 points. 13.5% is a 30 boy troop unit (power level 13) fully kitted out. SO in power level I get to bring a fully kitted out Boyz squad and a fully kitted out Nob squad, in Points I only get the Nobs. So while some squads end up close (fully kitted out boyz are 13% of a 2k list), some are super far off, so if we assume points mean anything we will see more powerful units on the table." What this suggests about PL is that it really doesn't take full upgrades into account, because if it did these units become fairly unplayble in a PL game (if nobs were Power 34 I doubt they would see much play) so they make the assumption that people choosing this game mode won't be going super cheesey. Think about say deathwatch (22 power, can be equipped however they want but could easily run 680ish points)

2.) Side boards sound great, until you consider it is just "side boards if your units have options" IF you are a necron player you don't really get to sideboard, but the marine player can swap weapons at will to always take the best option for the situation. SO not all players will be able to do this, only those with customizable armies (read imperium, maybe Tau) so it will create a narrow meta. Look at it this way, say I bring a knight army, every game I get to face full anti-tank options from every opponent, but I don't get many options to change my list.

The easiest event I was ever part of or helped ran was an AoS event. Points are very easy, you don't care what equipment is on what, it's just modeled on the units.

 docdoom77 wrote:
I don't like PLs. I like to go barebones on a lot of stuff to save points for more numbers. That doesn't work with PLs. For instance, I had a 1000 pt Ork army that came out to 60 PL. I had to cut some important stuff and have substandard units (because I didn't have all the upgrades modeled) for a 50 PL game.

Points for me, please.

This is probably the best argument I have seen against the use of Power Levels, and I can completely agree with your sentiment. Perhaps instead of upgrades being included in the Power Level of the unit (or "free" as the critics are calling it), we could instead have upgrades cost an extra Power Level? Like a Tactical Squad may take a Special and Heavy Weapon, and upgrade its unit Leader for 2 Power Level, and a Leman Russ may take sponsons for 1 Power Level. It doesn't have to be exact, but maybe something like that would appeal to everyone?

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
The article in the OP cherry-picks knights as an example because Power Levels work reasonably well when comparing within that faction, but I can create a 50PL Daemons list that's worth 534 points and an also 50PL Tau list that's worth 1540 points. That's a frankly obscene difference between two supposedly 'equally powerful' armies and the idea that a system with that much variation could be the basis for competitive play is laughable.

Don't forget, but GW is going to be continually updating those Points values later on to keep things "balanced" for the Matched Play rule set. So that 534 Point list you mentioned could later be 717 Points, and the 1540 Point army could go down to 1269 Points. I mean, I don't know for certain, but it's possible.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Anecdotes of "my group uses PL and we haven't had balance issues" are less than worthless, because you guys aren't cut-throat tournament players looking to squeeze every last drop of imbalance out of the system.

So because some of us are not WAAC and ultra competitive, we don't get a say in how the game might be played? Because we aren't trying to find the imbalanced lists that are available in points means we shouldn't use Power Levels?

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
I also find the assertion that removing list-building and optimization from the game makes for a more competitive environment ridiculous almost to the point of being insulting. Creating an optimal TAC list while accounting for the cost and performance of different options against the spread of opponents you expect to face is a huge skill factor and eliminating it from the game in name of simplicity (and reducing list-building down to spamming the units with the most expensive and flexible options and then picking which guns you want at the start of each game) would make the game drastically less competitive, not more.

When one focuses on achieving victory in the list building phase, then yes, the proposals in the article could very well threaten the kind of game that one seeks. But coming out of an age where the top competitive lists were almost identical and built around certain gimmicks, that is no longer list building, but list imitating. A TAC list is great and all, but at the tournaments, your TAC list isn't going to help against that 2++ Invulnerable save coming straight for your army, or when facing off against Riptides and Wraithknights that can blow you away without too much effort.

 ross-128 wrote:
The Imperial Guard index in general is probably a good example of how broken PLs can be if you try, and in a tournament people WILL try.

Take a look at this:

Spoiler:

HWS: PL3, min points: 27 max points: 72

SWT: PL3, min points: 39 max points: 60

Infantry squad: PL3, min points: 40 max points: 86

Command Squad: PL3, min points 24, max points 77

Veterans: PL6, min points: 60 max points: 147

As you can see, not only is there a huge amount of variation within a single unit but some units can milk their PL (or get screwed by it on the low end) much more than others.

Knights were a poor example because they have very few options, and all of those options replace something that is already being paid for. So they don't have a lot of cost variation, of course PLs will seem to approximate them well. Just about any infantry on the other hand, well you can see what that looks like above.

Meanwhile, any Baneblade variant can take 4 lascannons and 8 heavy flamers, or it can take nothing in that slot, making a 216 point spread between their minimum and maximum costs.

Bear in mind that Power Levels are based on the AVERAGE points cost of the unit plus its different possible loadouts for upgrades and weapons choices, and then divided by 20, so a 50 Power Level army will be about 1000 points ish.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm skeptical about unit size, and about the edge cases where PL doesn't really work (Deathwatch Veterans, paying 2PL/model even though the full massed heavy weapons loadout makes for a really fragile list).

If you actually wanted to use PL for a tournament you might need a few edge-case tweaks and some kind of mechanism for more granular squad sizes. You'd need some kind of differential cost for upgrades, and possibly fractional PL for inexpensive models.

I'm starting to see a middle ground being formed. Like (I'm copying myself) a Tactical Squad may take a Special and Heavy Weapon, and upgrade its unit Leader for 2 Power Level, and a Leman Russ may take sponsons for 2 Power Level. It might necessitate the decrease in base Power Level though for an un-upgraded unit, which kind of defeats the purpose of distinguishing Power Levels from Points values.

I would be interested to see a large tournament adopt Power Levels for the event, just to see how it would work out.
__________

On another note, I have found that in our local area, the WAAC tournament players are ironically more in favor of Power Level for casual and pickup games, while the more fluffy/casual/hobbying players are more afraid of them being unbalanced. Of course, when the WAAC guys are, you know, interested in winning, and the more casual players are tired of playing against their cheesy and broken lists and don't want to risk being thrashed around on the tabletop again. Which just tells me that it's not an issue of how the army is designed, but the nature of the players and what kind of game they expect to get anymore.

Breng77 wrote:


1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal.

They also got the points for Knights entirely wrong, which helps skew the argument in the way they want it to go. I've kept theirs, and added the ACTUAL cost in red beside it. They only got 1 of the actual points correct;

Knight Errant 23
Thermal+ Sword 426 430
Thermal+Gauntlet 401 435
Thermal+Gauntlet+Meltagun 418 448

Knight Paladin 24
Cannon+Sword 450 458
Cannon+Gauntlet 455 463
Cannon+Gauntlet+Meltagun 472 476

Knight Warden 25
Gatling Cannon+Sword 445 466
Gatling+Gauntlet 450 471
Gatling+Gauntlet+Meltagun 467 484

Knight Gallant 21
Sword+Gauntlet 385 389
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun 402 They actually got one right here
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun+Rocket Pod 464 447

Knight Crusader 27
Gatling+Thermal 491 512
Gatling+Thermal+metlagun 508 525
Gatling+Thermal+Meltagun+Rocket Pod 553 570


They add after they bungle the points

Yes, when fully loaded with a carapace weapon, it is starting to approach the cost of other Knight versions but then this isn’t really a fair comparison as the above calculations do not factor in the most granular points expensive builds for each other variant

Except, the points they left off because it isn't a "fair comparison" are mandatory for the Knights to be legal models.

Then they get to this part, which i'll just edit in the actual quote itself to save time;

Looking at another way, assuming 100 Power Level game versus a 2K granular point game, a Knight Gallant with all the upgrades is going to make up 21% of your overall army in a PL game while a in a granular system, it will make up 23.2% (actually is 22.35% when you get your math correct) of your army.

and

A Crusader is going to account for 27% regardless of configuration in Power Level while a maxed out Crusader is going to still take up about 27% (28.5% in points when you math properly...) of your army in the granular system (Unless you actually max a crusader out with his options and it goes to 598 pts, and 29.9% of your usage).

A bunch of you are assuming that if I take "X" vs "Y" it's "better" or "worse".

In this system the weapons are all changed to be useful against certain types of units, there is not a "all takers" weapon anymore and the PL reflects that. (Just like AoS)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Clay_Puppington wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal.

They also got the points for Knights entirely wrong, which helps skew the argument in the way they want it to go. I've kept theirs, and added the ACTUAL cost in red beside it. They only got 1 of the actual points correct;

Knight Errant 23
Thermal+ Sword 426 430
Thermal+Gauntlet 401 435
Thermal+Gauntlet+Meltagun 418 448

Knight Paladin 24
Cannon+Sword 450 458
Cannon+Gauntlet 455 463
Cannon+Gauntlet+Meltagun 472 476

Knight Warden 25
Gatling Cannon+Sword 445 466
Gatling+Gauntlet 450 471
Gatling+Gauntlet+Meltagun 467 484

Knight Gallant 21
Sword+Gauntlet 385 389
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun 402 They actually got one right here
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun+Rocket Pod 464 447

Knight Crusader 27
Gatling+Thermal 491 512
Gatling+Thermal+metlagun 508 525
Gatling+Thermal+Meltagun+Rocket Pod 553 570


They add after they bungle the points

Yes, when fully loaded with a carapace weapon, it is starting to approach the cost of other Knight versions but then this isn’t really a fair comparison as the above calculations do not factor in the most granular points expensive builds for each other variant

Except, the points they left off because it isn't a "fair comparison" are mandatory for the Knights to be legal models.

Points are based on damage potential not always the usefulness.

You are proving EXACTLY the point of this article, points should not be the focus in tactics. You should equip your units for usefulness in each situation, if you are not prepared for that situation then you die.

 sfshilo wrote:
A bunch of you are assuming that if I take "X" vs "Y" it's "better" or "worse".

In this system the weapons are all changed to be useful against certain types of units, there is not a "all takers" weapon anymore and the PL reflects that. (Just like AoS)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Clay_Puppington wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal.

They also got the points for Knights entirely wrong, which helps skew the argument in the way they want it to go. I've kept theirs, and added the ACTUAL cost in red beside it. They only got 1 of the actual points correct;

Knight Errant 23
Thermal+ Sword 426 430
Thermal+Gauntlet 401 435
Thermal+Gauntlet+Meltagun 418 448

Knight Paladin 24
Cannon+Sword 450 458
Cannon+Gauntlet 455 463
Cannon+Gauntlet+Meltagun 472 476

Knight Warden 25
Gatling Cannon+Sword 445 466
Gatling+Gauntlet 450 471
Gatling+Gauntlet+Meltagun 467 484

Knight Gallant 21
Sword+Gauntlet 385 389
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun 402 They actually got one right here
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun+Rocket Pod 464 447

Knight Crusader 27
Gatling+Thermal 491 512
Gatling+Thermal+metlagun 508 525
Gatling+Thermal+Meltagun+Rocket Pod 553 570


They add after they bungle the points

Yes, when fully loaded with a carapace weapon, it is starting to approach the cost of other Knight versions but then this isn’t really a fair comparison as the above calculations do not factor in the most granular points expensive builds for each other variant

Except, the points they left off because it isn't a "fair comparison" are mandatory for the Knights to be legal models.

Points are based on damage potential not always the usefulness.

You are proving EXACTLY the point of this article, points should not be the focus in tactics. You should equip your units for usefulness in each situation, if you are not prepared for that situation then you die.

Not arguing for or against this.

Just correcting the bad addition.

If your argument is that there's not a big deal between different PL and points cost, and that's why points shouldn't be used, the author should probably get the numbers correct, or they fall into the same line of "points shaving" that they accuse others of doing to make their point / win a game.

If every army could sideboard and minmax I would agree, but it varies.

Necrons for example, get a lot less for power level than say, marines or chaos marines.

Make options good because they are good, not because they are free so you might as well take them.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
The Imperial Guard index in general is probably a good example of how broken PLs can be if you try, and in a tournament people WILL try.

Take a look at this:

Spoiler:

HWS: PL3, min points: 27 max points: 72

SWT: PL3, min points: 39 max points: 60

Infantry squad: PL3, min points: 40 max points: 86

Command Squad: PL3, min points 24, max points 77

Veterans: PL6, min points: 60 max points: 147

As you can see, not only is there a huge amount of variation within a single unit but some units can milk their PL (or get screwed by it on the low end) much more than others.

Knights were a poor example because they have very few options, and all of those options replace something that is already being paid for. So they don't have a lot of cost variation, of course PLs will seem to approximate them well. Just about any infantry on the other hand, well you can see what that looks like above.

Meanwhile, any Baneblade variant can take 4 lascannons and 8 heavy flamers, or it can take nothing in that slot, making a 216 point spread between their minimum and maximum costs.

Bear in mind that Power Levels are based on the AVERAGE points cost of the unit plus its different possible loadouts for upgrades and weapons choices, and then divided by 20, so a 50 Power Level army will be about 1000 points ish.

I'm well aware of how PLs are set. My point is that on many units they do a poor job of it (how can a SWT's average be 60 when 60 is their absolute maximum loadout?), and the level of abstraction it creates can be easily exploited to break the system if someone goes out of their way to do so. This is a system that can only function if a player is constrained by the models they happen to have on hand at that moment, because in that situation a random collection of over-priced and under-priced models has some hope of roughly balancing out.

This is a situation that does not exist in a tournament setting, unless you want to create a new style of tournament where the host provides a selection of models for you and you have to make a list out of them on the spot. Let someone proxy, or let someone spend a few months painting new models ahead of time, and they can easily break that system over their knee. If you go out of your way to make sure every single unit in your army is getting more than 20pt/PL, guess what? Your 50PL army is going to be more than 1000 points.

This is why I've been saying it's suitable for pick-up games, but not suitable for tournaments. In a pick-up game you're not going to say "Hold on, let's start this game three months from now so I can paint up fifty missile launchers". You're going to throw something together with the models you have and it'll have to be good enough.

But tournaments are scheduled months in advance. You know it's coming, you know you signed up. You have time to paint those fifty missile launchers. You have time to break the system. Points are there to keep you reasonable, because points are more granular they can account for more edge cases. They can be more resistant to breaking, and they can be designed to break in a less dramatic fashion. They're a dampening force to help tone things down and level the playing field.

And the idea that using a looser and significantly more exploitable list-building system will somehow remove or mitigate list-building as a determining factor in the tournament is ludicrous. You're still building a list, and you can still give yourself a huge advantage by maximizing your pt/PL ratio, or shoot yourself in the foot by failing to maximize it. The only way you can really remove list-building is to have the TO provide their own lists that everyone will have to use (because then you don't build a list at all, you're handed a list and have to figure out how to play it). Meanwhile mitigation is actually achieved by a more granular system, because the closer the points get to representing the actual model on the table, the better two different lists will match up against each other.

For example, let's say a typical model's points might be 5% under or 5% over its "real power". If by some coincidence (or a lot of dedicated math) I mange to build a list that exploits that 5% to the maximum, at most my list can only be 5% over-powered in total. If someone else manages to get screwed at every turn they can only be about 5% under, so the difference between us is only 10% of the nominal points value.

But let's say we play power levels, in an extreme example I can intentionally build a squad to be 43% over its nominal power level cost (60x1.43=~86, the cost of a maxed-out PL3 infantry squad). I can also build a unit to be 55% under its nominal cost (a mortar squad at 27 points is 45% of its nominal 60 at PL3). If I'm building consistently over and an opponent consistently under, I could end up with a list that is 98% more powerful, nearly double, for the same cost. Plus or minus 5% for the margin of error in the points it's based on. As you can see, the granular points system does more to keep list building under control than power levels do. Power levels only amplify any imbalance that might already be present in points.

As long as people are buying, painting and bringing their own models, which is generally how 40k is played, list building will be a significant part of playing well no matter how that list gets built. Careful balancing and detailed point-costing can only, at most, keep it from swinging too far. Would you rather have power-gamers exploiting the system to squeeze out a 5% advantage, or a 98% advantage?

plikt wrote:

 durecellrabbit wrote:
Point are not just for penny pinching over a tactical squad's special and heavy weapon. Some units have a large variety of upgrades which power levels doesn't capture.

A 30 strong Termagant brood is PL9 which could be 120 point cannon fodder, 200 point mix of devourers and fleshborers or a 300 point unit with all the expensive upgrades.

I don't think the termagant example is a good one. The expensive upgrades are from melee specialization or ranged specialization. In the case of termagants with devourers, you almost never take toxin sacks and adrenal glands because you don't want them charging into combat. Yes, you can make the unit super expensive, but the first 100 points of upgrades is worth a lot more than the next 100 points of upgrades and I think powerlevel encompasses that sliding scale of effectiveness for termagant upgrdes very well.

The issue is that at PL 9 there is no reason not to take all the upgrades. Lets say I want to play a Tervigon/gaunt list, looking to drown my opponent in bodies. That's as fluffy as it gets.

If I'm paying points for each model, every time I take a devourer I give up a gaunt somewhere else. Taking a 30 man unit of d-gaunts costs me the ability to have two 30 man units of basic gaunts. Because the d-gaunts cost so much, I am going to want to maximise their utility. I'm going to consider using a pod or a Trygon to deliver them, I'm going to worry about if I can get buffs from the Tervigon on them, I'm going to think about taking extra Venomthropes.

If it is power levels, I just take all d-gaunts. I throw the upgrades on them because why not. All of the tactical and list building decisions I have to make when using points go out the window.

I guess the options are built in to the power cost at some degree. For example chosen are more expensive than possessed, so I would assume that would apply to necrons as well.

Other than that, I don't think it would make so much of difference whether points or power level is used. Of course the army compositions would be different, but as the effectiveness of different weapons (and units) is relative to what is on the other side of the table, even the points will always be approximations and depending where the meta settles, some stuff will eventually be more universally effective than others. So in both cases there will be the best loadout which many players will choose for their troopers. With power levels there just would be some additional equipment included which no one would take with points as they usually aren't worth those points. This also means that Direct comparison between the cost of fully kitted out troopers is not perhaps very fruitful as a lot of those points don't value to anything in many of the cases.

The same thing also speaks for sideboarding. I have played in few infinity tournaments and the two list system is nice. It allows some customization for certain extreme lists and/or scenarios that could make for quite boring games Otherwise.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
The same top players that abused free transports? Find the best combination of abusable units would become the new hotness.

That already happened under a system that used points, muchacho. It will certainly happen again. There will always be imbalances, competitive types will always look for advantages designers never intended. So if you want to balance to meta, it requires dynamic adjustments.

Everything else in this thread looks a lot like OCD hysteria since you're losing the granularity to fine tune your list in 0.05% increments. But the benefit is significant to TOs, who have limited time and can't get into the weeds for every tournament list, or argue about the value of every unit upgrade. Instead you just look at the consensus of "yeah the unit is overcosted" and knock off 1-2 power levels.

Sideboarding is not a problem, it is an opportunity. You either hand in your list with fixed upgrades, or decide how much is open to sideboarding. If Necrons suffer in this environment, knock off 1-2 power levels. Let's try and be open to some creative thinking here instead of just the usual "we fear change".

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
The article in the OP cherry-picks knights as an example because Power Levels work reasonably well when comparing within that faction, but I can create a 50PL Daemons list that's worth 534 points and an also 50PL Tau list that's worth 1540 points. That's a frankly obscene difference between two supposedly 'equally powerful' armies and the idea that a system with that much variation could be the basis for competitive play is laughable.

Don't forget, but GW is going to be continually updating those Points values later on to keep things "balanced" for the Matched Play rule set. So that 534 Point list you mentioned could later be 717 Points, and the 1540 Point army could go down to 1269 Points. I mean, I don't know for certain, but it's possible.

I don't understand how this has any relevance in supporting your argument at all. You're saying that because points are going to be frequently updated to make sure they accurately reflect the value of each unit, that somehow makes them less good as a measure of what a fair army is and isn't?

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Anecdotes of "my group uses PL and we haven't had balance issues" are less than worthless, because you guys aren't cut-throat tournament players looking to squeeze every last drop of imbalance out of the system.

So because some of us are not WAAC and ultra competitive, we don't get a say in how the game might be played? Because we aren't trying to find the imbalanced lists that are available in points means we shouldn't use Power Levels?

Of course you should get a say in how the game is played - you should be the only people with a say in how games are played among yourselves, and I'm sure power levels work great for that if you're all more concerned with fluff and aesthetics than squeezing every last little bit of damage potential out of your list. My point is that you'll never spot all the ways an ultra-competitive tournament player can abuse the power level system unless you are one yourself because you aren't looking for those exploits. That's not a reflection or judgement on you as gamers - it's just logical sense that only the people looking for them are likely to find the flaws in the system.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
I also find the assertion that removing list-building and optimization from the game makes for a more competitive environment ridiculous almost to the point of being insulting. Creating an optimal TAC list while accounting for the cost and performance of different options against the spread of opponents you expect to face is a huge skill factor and eliminating it from the game in name of simplicity (and reducing list-building down to spamming the units with the most expensive and flexible options and then picking which guns you want at the start of each game) would make the game drastically less competitive, not more.

When one focuses on achieving victory in the list building phase, then yes, the proposals in the article could very well threaten the kind of game that one seeks. But coming out of an age where the top competitive lists were almost identical and built around certain gimmicks, that is no longer list building, but list imitating. A TAC list is great and all, but at the tournaments, your TAC list isn't going to help against that 2++ Invulnerable save coming straight for your army, or when facing off against Riptides and Wraithknights that can blow you away without too much effort.

I'm not say list-building should be the focus of victory, but it should be a significant part of the puzzle rather than an afterthought that's pretty much decided for you by the way armies are measured. It's true that TAC lists hard a hard time in 7th edition, but that speaks more to the many flaws that edition of the game had (the vast majority of which have been addressed by eighth edition, as far as I can tell) than any reflection on points as a list-building system - one which, might I add, has worked pretty dang well in prior editions. Of the specific examples you listed, 2++ re-rollable saves were an abomination that should never have existed in the game (and guess what - in 8th, they don't!) and no amount of tailoring your special weapons before the game would help with that unless you somehow had the option to take a strength D weapon and didn't take it. Wraithknights and Riptides were both issues with an under-costed and excessively points-efficient unit running over everything else - issues that are solved by a continuously updated granular points system and greatly exacerbated by increasing the prevalence of badly costed units and letting them take all the upgrades they want for free and switch them out every game.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
On another note, I have found that in our local area, the WAAC tournament players are ironically more in favor of Power Level for casual and pickup games, while the more fluffy/casual/hobbying players are more afraid of them being unbalanced. Of course, when the WAAC guys are, you know, interested in winning, and the more casual players are tired of playing against their cheesy and broken lists and don't want to risk being thrashed around on the tabletop again. Which just tells me that it's not an issue of how the army is designed, but the nature of the players and what kind of game they expect to get anymore.

I don't see how this is anything but an argument in favour of my own opinion. What you're basically saying is, the players that only care about winning by any means necessary are happy to have a highly broken and abusable system like power level in use, because it's broken and they can abuse it to win more. The players who actually care about having balanced, fun games are in favour of points, because they can see how easy power level is to abuse.

To address a couple of other arguments I've seen:

'Well it works in sigmar' - the level of customizability that units in 40k have is drastically in excess of the level of customizability that units in Sigmar have, in general. Evidently the guys at Games Workshop realise this - that's why the whole granular points system was implemented/retained. Much as a few reactionaries might have made the 'age of 40k' comparison when the details of 8th were first coming out, the two games remain very different and the comparison is of very limited utility for that reason.

'Weapons are the same power, just good against different things' - if this is the case, why do they cost different levels of points? In reality, we pay a premium in 40k for units that are very durable against small-arms fire like heavy infantry or most vehicles. In return, weapons that are able to bypass that additional durability also cost extra, even though they're no more effective against lighter infantry (or in some cases, less effective). Allowing units to take these specialised 'durability-busters' without paying any additional points for them erases this dichotomy and creates a system where there's no benefit to taking models that are highly durable because it doesn't cost the enemy anything to retool his army against them.

While I enjoy power levels and will use them if/when I play 8th ed, I can see many arguments for/against this for use in tournaments.

A) Most tournament goes will be min-maxing and mathhammering the gak out of their lists regardless of power or points. In theory this would actually simply balance out with the exception of a handful of really badly calculated units (I'm assuming there are some in the game)
B) It would 10x easier for a tournament organizer to verify the legality and cost of an army...so checking army lists would be waaaaaay easier. This is a serious advantage for TO's.
C) It's possible the use of Power Levels would actually curb some of the more mathhammery folks from even attending. This could promote more enjoyable games and perhaps a few less ball-kicking lists. This is speculative at best.

However, I agree with the earlier sentiment that if you enjoy bare bones units to max out army size, you're "wasting" power level more or less. It's been pretty well acknowledged that power levels represent a unit taking perhaps 50-75% of its available upgrades.

I personally think the future is splitting or running dual tournaments. One being matched play rules + points and their limited (read: boring) mission objectives etc. The other being power level + narrative scenarios. I don't have any interest in tournaments but I'd actually attend a narrative event (particularly one organized with a good storyline).

As far as narrative campaigns go, one interesting twist I can think of would be to have the rule that everyone has to start with no upgrades at all, stock gear only (or the lowest-cost weapon if it's something like HWS, which has no stock weapon but must take an upgrade).

Then, as the campaign proceeds, they earn a secondary resource (could even just straight up use points as the "secondary resource") that they use to upgrade their units. Because the campaign is using power levels those upgrades are effectively "free" to put on the board, it's just that they have to earn them over the course of the campaign first.

Although that has nothing to do with tournaments I guess, just a random idea how you could use it to give an RPG-like feel to a narrative campaign.

If they had a slightly more granular system for PL I would say maybe try it. Right now there are too many units that stress the math behind assigning power levels.

The weird part is GW randomly has a few PL Add ons like +1 PL for a SM captain with a jump pack. A far cry from the hundreds of points worth of upgrades some units can take and not add anything.

To make it even more confusing the PL assumes you will take some upgrades, so the player who takes none at all is paying extra for units and someone who maxes out is paying less than it's really worth.

PL works just fine for casual games to give an approximate measure of an armies worth; all it would accomplish in a tournament setting is to limit options and needlessly exclude certain units and probably entire factions the way it is now.

@ ross-128


@ Eldar Vampire Hunter

If anyone wants to see the silliness of power levels, look no further than the deathwatch kill team. It's also a good place to look if you think deathstars are gone lol.

 sfshilo wrote:
A bunch of you are assuming that if I take "X" vs "Y" it's "better" or "worse".

In this system the weapons are all changed to be useful against certain types of units, there is not a "all takers" weapon anymore and the PL reflects that. (Just like AoS)

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Clay_Puppington wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal.

They also got the points for Knights entirely wrong, which helps skew the argument in the way they want it to go. I've kept theirs, and added the ACTUAL cost in red beside it. They only got 1 of the actual points correct;

Knight Errant 23
Thermal+ Sword 426 430
Thermal+Gauntlet 401 435
Thermal+Gauntlet+Meltagun 418 448

Knight Paladin 24
Cannon+Sword 450 458
Cannon+Gauntlet 455 463
Cannon+Gauntlet+Meltagun 472 476

Knight Warden 25
Gatling Cannon+Sword 445 466
Gatling+Gauntlet 450 471
Gatling+Gauntlet+Meltagun 467 484

Knight Gallant 21
Sword+Gauntlet 385 389
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun 402 They actually got one right here
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun+Rocket Pod 464 447

Knight Crusader 27
Gatling+Thermal 491 512
Gatling+Thermal+metlagun 508 525
Gatling+Thermal+Meltagun+Rocket Pod 553 570


They add after they bungle the points

Yes, when fully loaded with a carapace weapon, it is starting to approach the cost of other Knight versions but then this isn’t really a fair comparison as the above calculations do not factor in the most granular points expensive builds for each other variant

Except, the points they left off because it isn't a "fair comparison" are mandatory for the Knights to be legal models.

Points are based on damage potential not always the usefulness.

You are proving EXACTLY the point of this article, points should not be the focus in tactics. You should equip your units for usefulness in each situation, if you are not prepared for that situation then you die.

Except that many units don't have options, they have upgrades. Hormagants with adrenal glands and toxin sacs have the same role and use as naked Hormagants, and they are better at it. It is a flat improvement. The limiting factor is that taking those upgrades prevents you from taking more gants, so you have to make trade offs. In PL play, those trade offs don't exist.

I don't buy the argument that power levels are invalid because there is huge point discrepancy in similar power levels for two reasons:
1. There is no reason to believe that models point costs are set correctly in 8th edition. This is a false premise.
2. There are units that are undercosted in terms of points, and as a result are overpowered for the cost. This is the same problem with some units getting more upgrades than others in power level.

Basically, I don't accept that either power or points are accurate representations of in game power. They are both flawed abstractions we operate under so we can get close to something that is a fair match. If both systems were used competitively, the only difference you would likely see is in which specific units or factions are overpowered in competitive play, and as a result end up defining that metagame.

IMO, I say run some tournaments with each system. See what the results are. What does each system lead to in terms of model/faction and gameplay diversity. Choose that one. If it is relatively close, then choose points, because it's less bookkeeping and faster.

Elbows wrote:While I enjoy power levels and will use them if/when I play 8th ed, I can see many arguments for/against this for use in tournaments.

A) Most tournament goes will be min-maxing and mathhammering the gak out of their lists regardless of power or points. In theory this would actually simply balance out with the exception of a handful of really badly calculated units (I'm assuming there are some in the game)
B) It would 10x easier for a tournament organizer to verify the legality and cost of an army...so checking army lists would be waaaaaay easier. This is a serious advantage for TO's.
C) It's possible the use of Power Levels would actually curb some of the more mathhammery folks from even attending. This could promote more enjoyable games and perhaps a few less ball-kicking lists. This is speculative at best.

However, I agree with the earlier sentiment that if you enjoy bare bones units to max out army size, you're "wasting" power level more or less. It's been pretty well acknowledged that power levels represent a unit taking perhaps 50-75% of its available upgrades.

I personally think the future is splitting or running dual tournaments. One being matched play rules + points and their limited (read: boring) mission objectives etc. The other being power level + narrative scenarios. I don't have any interest in tournaments but I'd actually attend a narrative event (particularly one organized with a good storyline).

I chose this quote mostly because this quite nicely sums up the article in question and I agree wholeheartedly, that "tournament meta" needs something to counter mathhammering and point-oriented optimisation, not only "better ballance" than 7th ed. But if I had to name a single point from this article, that I find most appealing to me personally is "list tailoring" between games. This is a single, most paradigm shifting idea, that you no longer can "pre plan" and "mathhammer" your way up to the top of the meta by simple netlisting or meticulously calculating every point on the list months before the actual event - you have to actually adapt in real time. And because everyone CAN do so at every point of the event, everyone MUST do so well enough to stay ahead of competition. This would be a true new skill to develop. 7th ed had a "high ROF S6 obsec spam" as a sweet spot, trivial to netlist and pose as an expert player. In a dynamic tournament format, not only allowing but hinging on partial tailoring, even Eternal War events could be an interesting challenge and there would be room for many different "sweet spots" to be found in list building.

That said, current incarnation of PL system would have to be proven or disproven experimentally to check if it works well with such tournament format or needs rework. One interesting conundrum of "who would be top tier" arises even at the very begining of thinking about such format - does "cheap hordes" advantage outweights "free upgrades" advantage? Or "unit plasticisity" advantage? A whole new perspective on "solving" 40K tournaments... I like it

But, as I very much like the idea of PL oriented dynamic tournament format, I most certainly agree, that PL are totally not suitable for "traditional tournament" format - they simply don't fit existing tournament mentality/paradigm of static, predefined, solvable and abusable conditions.

ross-128 wrote:As far as narrative campaigns go, one interesting twist I can think of would be to have the rule that everyone has to start with no upgrades at all, stock gear only (or the lowest-cost weapon if it's something like HWS, which has no stock weapon but must take an upgrade).

Then, as the campaign proceeds, they earn a secondary resource (could even just straight up use points as the "secondary resource") that they use to upgrade their units. Because the campaign is using power levels those upgrades are effectively "free" to put on the board, it's just that they have to earn them over the course of the campaign first.

Although that has nothing to do with tournaments I guess, just a random idea how you could use it to give an RPG-like feel to a narrative campaign.

Secondary resource approach to list building/victory awarding in campaigns was the very first thought I had when going through new rulebook and wondering if it has some usable narrative tools. Especially after spending last two months playing mostly Shadow War, I'll most certainly use it in my games one way or another.

I don't think anyone is saying points are perfect, just that they generally will give you more exact representations of a units power over PL, and also generally allow more variations in list building compared to PL in a tournament setting.

I'm sure some point levels are off, maybe way off, but the same can be said for PL as well. It's just a less granular point system after all - nothing more and nothing less. If they under/cost cost a weapon option by 5 points or a space marine by a point it's still going to be better than missing a PL cost by an entire point.

One more thing: equipment tailoring AFTER exchanging PL lists and seeing table and mission adds a "fog of war" element to the game, bringing another "adapt or perish" variable to the table.

I have to say I am struggling to see what the advantages are.

Both sets will have good units and bad units.
Under PL you will want to go with the most expensive possible upgrades on a unit. With points you will go with the most point efficient.

Different armies will be the best. Neither system is obviously better or worse and it might be interesting to have a bit of variety.


With that said I am really not a fan of the sideboard idea. Maybe this is just fear of change but it seems to be trying to solve a problem that doesn't obviously exist.

As they and others have observed in 7th you saw "3 Riptides, Wraithknight and Jetbikes, Magnus, Pink Horrors, White Scar Centurionstars, in some combination, on almost every table at major tournaments."

The reason for this was because they were good. Versus more or less every match up. This wasn't a skew exactly, there were just better than the competition. If there was a "counter build" that would do really well in such an environment then I am pretty sure it would have come out of the many tournaments held over the last year or so. It didn't because there wasn't one.

Many codexes just had no hope which is why they consistently struggled in tournaments.

Now maybe 8th is going to be far more rock/paper/scissors. Know what your opponent is taking? Well every faction will have counters and you can probably crush them (or at least stack the odds in your favour). Now maybe in that instance you will need something to stop the skews (and presumably boring games of rock vs paper).

My suspicion is however that this won't happen. What will almost certainly come out is that certain armies have multiple builds which can be successful and some do not. If you then allow those with multiple builds to customise their army against those with one build then you are going to really drive that army into the ground.

For instance Tyranids had a hard time in 7th. Imagine if everyone could customise their list with anti-Codex Flyrant units.

Now as said maybe 8th won't be like that. Maybe far more options will be viable, as rock/paper/scissors gives rise to many countering lists and a spontaneously changing meta from one tournament to the next.

If so it would be very different to 7th, and possibly any time in 40k's history. In which case it might be worth seeing how it works for 6-12 months before worrying about sideboards etc.

Will people stop with this Power Level sillyness ?

When GW have had their best go for a long time at creating a balanced game where TAC lists work, people want to go back to 7th ed and free upgrades again ? With sideboards ?! *facepalm*

If it works for you in casual or narrative games, that fine, but please stop trying to bring this sillyness to tournament games. I'm looking forward to going to tournaments again, I don't want to play who can abuse the Power Level system the best.

The more lists I make the more convinced I am about how badly balanced power levels are they just don't watch up I make a 2k points list it ends up 120 power level that's a big discrepancy.

Nothing is free, PL is calculated as a composite of upgrades and models IIRC. In fact, if PL reflects sub-optimal upgrades it may actually be a disadvantage when attempting to juice a list. Look at Rubric Marines, who don't get their rotary cannon until 10x models so MSU isn't ideal. The first 5 models cost 8 PL (reflecting unit upgrades) while the second 5 models only cost 6 PL.

Meanwhile, both PL and Points can be wildly inaccurate. The only real difference is if you look at prepurchased upgrades as a good thing, and if you need the greater granularity (2000 units vs 100-ish). Otherwise if numerical values are wrong, they just need to be recosted as maintenance.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Nothing is free, PL is calculated as a composite of upgrades and models IIRC. In fact, if PL reflects sub-optimal upgrades it may actually be a disadvantage when attempting to juice a list. Look at Rubric Marines, who don't get their rotary cannon until 10x models so MSU isn't ideal. The first 5 models cost 8 PL (reflecting unit upgrades) while the second 5 models only cost 6 PL.

Meanwhile, both PL and Points can be wildly inaccurate. The only real difference is if you look at prepurchased upgrades as a good thing, and if you need the greater granularity (2000 units vs 100-ish). Otherwise if numerical values are wrong, they just need to be recosted as maintenance.

Yet one of them has been specifically designed to be granular to allow for yearly updates to correct inaccuracies.

As people have given examples, PL can't be used for tournaments. As a Tyranid player, I could REALLY screw the numbers.

Adrenal Glands, Toxin sacs everywhere. Everything that can take boneswords, etc would. Not to mention things like Termagunts who can literally explode in points.

It's great for pick up games, "Let's play 75 PL, WYSIWYG" boom, get your units out, done.

I was almost sold until they started talking about changing your unit options between games after looking at your opponent's army.

Firstly: Who gets to look first? do i get to see what options you take to take possible counters or do you get to look first? What i might change up totally resides on what you might change up...etc

Second: Assuming you can get past 1, this will literally add ages onto getting a game going as an opponent spends ages debating in his head what to take, you'd need a strict time limit to do this... which is then unfair on bigger armies. You also have opponents who'll be like meh i'm using what i have and then they stand around for ten minutes as the opponent decides to change every single weapon option.

Third: leading on from that its enough work to build and paint a normal army and often a pain to transport it to an event. Now you need to take 4 of everything for say a unit of devastators whats that 20 heavy weapon models... just to feel like you have the choice because you know that WAAC player will have three cases full of ebay'ed prepainted models

 Latro_ wrote:
I was almost sold until they started talking about changing your unit options between games after looking at your opponent's army.

Firstly: Who gets to look first? do i get to see what options you take to take possible counters or do you get to look first? What i might change up totally resides on what you might change up...etc

Second: Assuming you can get past 1, this will literally add ages onto getting a game going as an opponent spends ages debating in his head what to take, you'd need a strict time limit to do this... which is then unfair on bigger armies. You also have opponents who'll be like meh i'm using what i have and then they stand around for ten minutes as the opponent decides to change every single weapon option.

Third: leading on from that its enough work to build and paint a normal army and often a pain to transport it to an event. Now you need to take 4 of everything for say a unit of devastators whats that 20 heavy weapon models... just to feel like you have the choice because you know that WAAC player will have three cases full of ebay'ed prepainted models

Technical note on first point only: with PL you get to see upfront PL paid Units/options only, because that is what is on "officially submited" tournament list, so you can look simultanously and choose upgrades/weapons simultanously, maintaining a bit of fog of war for both sides up until deployment.

The whole idea and use of power levels seems completely superfluous to me.

Calculating normal points is easy, it consists of multiplication and addition.
Power levels only take out the multiplication part.
That is the stuff that children learn at a very young age...
If someone finds it too hard, maybe a tactical wargame is not a game for them.

Tournament organizers can use battlescribe to check points or just use a freakin calculator.
If a tournament is so large that checking lists takes too much time they can maybe adopt some other system.
In MtG you get a match or game loss if your list has some irregularity, which can be checked at random or by request.
Maybe that is something worth looking at.
It would be far easier to have a software that checks the legality of the list, like the official army builder for Infinity.
Then you can just request that people make lists in that program and there you go, no problems.

This whole article is so illogical that I won't even bother to go into detail about every point.
People have pointed at all the failures of power levels in this very thread in a very thorough manner.

Math hard indeed

Mugaaz wrote:
I don't buy the argument that power levels are invalid because there is huge point discrepancy in similar power levels for two reasons:
1. There is no reason to believe that models point costs are set correctly in 8th edition. This is a false premise.
2. There are units that are undercosted in terms of points, and as a result are overpowered for the cost. This is the same problem with some units getting more upgrades than others in power level.

Basically, I don't accept that either power or points are accurate representations of in game power. They are both flawed abstractions we operate under so we can get close to something that is a fair match. If both systems were used competitively, the only difference you would likely see is in which specific units or factions are overpowered in competitive play, and as a result end up defining that metagame.

IMO, I say run some tournaments with each system. See what the results are. What does each system lead to in terms of model/faction and gameplay diversity. Choose that one. If it is relatively close, then choose points, because it's less bookkeeping and faster.

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.
2.) Yes, but there are more in power level so you are taking a known problem and amking it worse.




As to all the people touting this "side board" mentality, it is a garbage idea using power level because it simply means whichever armies have the most flexible units are best (so largely imperial armies especially space marine armies).
Take this 100 power list for space marines for example.

2 Spearhead detachments
Pedro kantor
3 x Devastators
4 x razorback

techmarine
3 x Devastators
4 x razorback
Apothecary

If this list runs into a vehicle heavy list like Knights, or Dread mob orks, or Tank heavy IG, suddenly it has 40 lascannon shots per turn re-rolling to hit. If it runs into a horde army, suddenly it has 8 Twin assault cannons, and 24 heavy bolters (or Grav cannons). It will also always have 8 hunter killer missiles, and 8 storm bolters. Every sarge will bring a combi-weapon, and close combat upgrade. The techmarine can have a conversion beamer for more shooting. etc. So this list essentially will always have the tools it needs.

Compare this to other armies, where units don't get to adapt to what they fight, those armies need to try to bring answers to everything. (Like necrons) This means that they also give away what they can do up front because they have committed to a specific role.

Sideboards don't work in a game like this. It could only work 2 ways. 1.) like MTG you play multiple games or 2.) like Malifaux, you write your whole list at the table (you could do this with PL), after knowing the mission and opponents faction, but before seeing their list. So if you were playing the above list against Orks, you might decide to go heavy anti-infantry only to face a Kan wall.

The problem is that both of these are unrealistic for 40k. Option 1 needs more time than is available at events and option 2 basically becomes pay to win because there are so many more options in this game (it is also a huge advantage to factions like IMPERIUM).

In the end fixed lists with points is just a simpler better way, and no more difficult to check lists than it was in previous editions (it is easier in fact because all the points are on single page sheets so no need to flip back and forth to figure out points costs.

Nope nope nope. The correct solution to people bringing illegal lists is to randomly give a detailed check to a certain percentage of lists, and disqualify anyone with an illegal list. One point over? Immediate disqualification with no prizes. Go home, no more games for you. None of the idiocy that has happened in the past, where people have won major events with illegal lists and the TOs just shrugged and said "not a big deal". If there are proper consequences for taking an illegal list then people will invest the extra time to double-check their lists and make sure everything is correct. And it's really not that hard to add up the points correctly if you care enough to bother.

Breng77 wrote:

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.

I hardly believe that the latter is actually worth even close that 690 points, even if the points would total to that.

 jamopower wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.

I hardly believe that the latter is actually worth even close that 690 points, even if the points would total to that.

No it probably isn't worth paying 690 points for a squad of 20 models, which is the point. The squad gains all the benefits it would be paying for (That squad is 10 Nobs w/ killsaws, Kombi-skorchas, Ammo runts, and 2 cyborks) You would literally never pay for all that because it won't be effective for the points, but if points were not an issue, why wouldn't you. Now you may decide that the squad is not even worth paying 21 power for (420 points worth if we are looking at 100 power = 2k), but at that point the 170 point Nob squad is definitely not worth it. Essentially the game becomes, is a fully kitted out squad worth its power, if not then no other version of that squad is, there is no ability to say. Well 420 points is too much, A 420 point Nob squad would be something like 10 nobs, 10 ammo runts, 2 Kill saws, 7 Kombi-skorchas. That squad might not be worth it, but in points at least you can go "well maybe I'll only take 5 ammo runts, or 7 Nobz, or 3 skorchas, or big choppas instead of kill saws, now may squad is effective and only 250 points." nope now it is 420 points or 0 points. But that 420 points will always have 700 points worth of upgraded models, because why not. I mean that squad would have 10 D6 S5 Ap -1 auto hits, + 20 6+ to hit, re-rolling to hit shots, have 30 S10 Ap -4 2 damage attacks in close combat. That offense is huge, it just isn't worth it in points because it is not durable enough to justify being 700 points. (or maybe not even 420).

Essentially with power level you end up with a lot more units that are just trash because their durability won't warrant their power level, or absolutely broken, because they will get a ton of free upgrades.

If you look at devastators.at 7 power, if we assume 1 power = 20 points, that is 140 points. Looking at points, the squad is 65 points. If they took lascannons at 25 points then 140 points is a squad with 3 lascannons. SO with power the 4th lascannon and Armorium cherub are free. Further we go back to 7th with super obvious choices. Why take heavy bolters (12" of range maybe) over Grav cannons? or Missiles?. If we throw in the "side board" then there is no choice making at all.

If we are doing 1 Power = 20 points just looking at orks.

Warboss = 80 points fair (Boss with PK is 84 points)
Mega armor Boss = 140 points fair (MA boss is 136)
Bike Boss = 100 fair (bike boss with PK is 111)
Weirdboy = 80 so that is an 18 point increase- he has no upgrades.
Big Mek = 100 - likely over costed - with a KFF he is only 75, but has a lot of upgrades, fully upgraded model might still be worth taking but you cannot keep him cheaper.
MA Mek = 140 - close to right
Snikrot - 80 about 10 points more than he is.
Pain boy - 80 15 point bump
Boyz - 10 boy squad is 100 (way up in points from 60 base, even nob addition with PK would make them 85), 20 = 180, way up on the 145, 30 is 260 - again way above an average squad of around 200 points.
Mega nobs - 200 point vs their current 162 base
Battlewagon - 220 points - can get it for 161

Essentially it seems like squads that have options may quickly become not worth it unless you max out upgrades, and from a durability standpoint they don't match up to the power. You also seem to be getting fewer models. So it seems what happens is squads with better upgrades are worth it, and those without good upgrades are not.

@Barteli, there is a difference between granularity and accuracy. Most imbalances in 40k are not due to not having enough increments of measure, the 7.5ed WK was off by something like 100-200pts.

Experiments without consequences are always worth trying out, there's advantages and disadvantages that sometimes surprise you. Breng77's deep dive was pretty good to show one consequence. Anyways, there is still no replacement for direct experience. All the other chatter is just people being overly opinionated, unless we all think this forum doesn't work that way.

Kudos to FLG for thinking outside the box, hope to see more ideas that push the format of competitive 40k.

I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.

Having played a few games with power levels, the games were fun and just as even as the game with points.

I will continue to use power levels for anything except for min/max powergaming tournaments.

 GreaterGood? wrote:
I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.

But if the 10 point termagants are actually worth 5 points, is it so bad? The power level just changes the metering, there's no point comparing the points costs to the power level in most cases, as they most likely won't match due to the points values, especially on the higher end usually are very off from the actual effectiveness.

Plasma pistols are an example, of an equipment that in many cases is never worth the points (or at least it used to be so), similarly many of the +x point small upgrades to 1 wound infantry models usually just increase the cost with pretty minor buff and usually it's always more beneficient to take extra bodies. If the upgrades are good, they are always taken and they could very well be included in the base cost. Good example could be extra armour and smoke launchers in 3rd edition, you never saw a rhino without those 8 points of upgrades. With many of upgrades you can get to high point costs, but actually you just get models that are overcosted by quite big margins.

So when looking at power level, the comparison should be what you get with that power level, not how many points you get with it. One unit might be worth a lot of points more, but more important thing is if it's worth more than what you get with the same power level.

 jamopower wrote:

 GreaterGood? wrote:
I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.

But if the 10 point termagants are actually worth 5 points, is it so bad? The power level just changes the metering, there's no point comparing the points costs to the power level in most cases, as they most likely won't match due to the points values, especially on the higher end usually are very off from the actual effectiveness.

Plasma pistols are an example, of an equipment that in many cases is never worth the points (or at least it used to be so), similarly many of the +x point small upgrades to 1 wound infantry models usually just increase the cost with pretty minor buff and usually it's always more beneficient to take extra bodies. If the upgrades are good, they are always taken and they could very well be included in the base cost. Good example could be extra armour and smoke launchers in 3rd edition, you never saw a rhino without those 8 points of upgrades. With many of upgrades you can get to high point costs, but actually you just get models that are overcosted by quite big margins.

So when looking at power level, the comparison should be what you get with that power level, not how many points you get with it. One unit might be worth a lot of points more, but more important thing is if it's worth more than what you get with the same power level.

False unless you believe the base models are not worth it at all. It is undeniable that having an upgrade is better than not. So if those upgrades not points efficient and thus not worth it in a regular game, that is because they come with a cost. If they come at no cost, then it is always better to take them than not. Your entire argument hinges on units that come with upgrades never being worth their points unless they take those upgrades, and those upgrades are free. It is undeniable that a Nob with Killsaw and Kombi-skorcha is better than a stock Nob, it is just likely that it is not worth having many (any) of them at 64 PPM. so they would be overcosted, so you might only take one model with those upgrades in a whole squad. Now you can also argue that that squad is still not worth it using power, but if say a squad with no upgrades for cheap is worth it, then power level kills their utility. Or if the sweet spot is 7 models not 10, you have no option to save "points" . In that way power level reduces the number of units that are "worth it" it also allows for units that are "worth it" to be far more powerful than other options.

Power level works great when you are not trying to min-max, it fails hard when you are.

"If we have LESS granularity and LESS balance, things will be BETTER!"

1: 8th edition points is absolutely no more difficult to use than previous editions.

2: Powerlevels are no less easy to use than points, in fact I frankly find them more difficult, they're an obnoxious and poorly balanced mess at best, even compared to points. It's so clunky, with minor changes in your list requiring a massive reshuffling of the entire rest of your list.

3: His argument about the "fallacy of optimal choice" is based on garbage statistics at best and still doesn't properly confront the fact that upgrades are not accounted for at all by the powerlevel system.

Garbage article arguing lazy, half-assed points with a lot of bizarre assumptions.

 Melissia wrote:
"If we have LESS granularity and LESS balance, things will be BETTER!"

1: 8th edition points is absolutely no more difficult to use than previous editions.

2: Powerlevels are no less easy to use than points, in fact I frankly find them more difficult, they're an obnoxious and poorly balanced mess at best, even compared to points. It's so clunky, with minor changes in your list requiring a massive reshuffling of the entire rest of your list.

3: His argument about the "fallacy of optimal choice" is based on garbage statistics at best and still doesn't properly confront the fact that upgrades are not accounted for at all by the powerlevel system.

Garbage article arguing lazy, half-assed points with a lot of bizarre assumptions.

The problem with PL is that upgrades are somewhat accounted for. So this means no cheap bear bones squads to fill points, while at the same time not accounting for the power of a fully upgraded squad.

To say that the Power Levels and Points get you similar units is just plain wrong in many cases. Look at a typical Thousand Sons squad. A 10 man squad with Inferno Bolters and a Reaper is 241 points for Power 14. This set up is what most people probably have from a box set. That same squad can be all warp flamers, with a warp flame pistol for the same Power 14 but is 347 points. That is about a 100 point difference, which is a big deal, especially at 1500 points or lower. Chaos Terminators is even crazier. They are Power 14 and 5 with power axes, combi-bolters and say a reaper is 208 points. However 5 terminators with combi-meltas and power fists is 350 points, which is almost 150 more points!. And that point variance would be even greater at 10 models. Not to mention that both examples are Power 14 and the points are all over the place ranging from 208 points to 350 points. These are not the only examples. A ten man chosen squad is power 13. It can take 4 combi-meltas, a laser cannon, and a champion with a power fist and combi-melta for 275 points. And it is one less than the Power 14 for the cheaper Thousand Son or Terminator option.

The Power level works well for units that don't have wide discrepancies in equipment, but when you have units with options like above, especially when you are talking the difference between a 5 and 20 point weapon like the terminators have, the Power levels don't work. And this is not just a problem because of WAAC players. My collection is older, so my thousand sons squads are 9 man with no special weapons. Under power rules they are the same as a fully kitted out warp flame squad so my model collection is at a disadvantage. I also own some terminators that have power fists. If I show up with them, am I a WAAC player because I bought them 10 years ago with power fists?

My point is the point system is tedious, but I think overall, but better balanced if you are going to play a game where you give a crap if you win, like in a tournament. Power levels are really for when you go to the game store and say, "who wants to play" and you and your opponent just pick some units that are about the same power level and play, without having to craft a list. That is just my two cents.

The big reason the relationship between points and power is important is that they're both trying to measure the same thing: how strong that unit is on the table.

If one says that unit A is twice as strong as unit B, but the other says they're the same, one of them is clearly wrong.

A tournament is too much of a structured, competitive environment for the fast-and-loose, "eh close enough" approach that power levels take.

There's also the fact that, frankly, points are more convenient for a person on a financial budget. You can spend points on upgrades without buying new models, and in some armies this makes the difference between 1000 and 1250 or 1250 and 1500, or even 1500 and 2000! And with a (relative) increase in effectiveness that comes with this increase in points as well. A Points based list can easily change dramatically in points without adding in new models or changing models out at all, allowing a player with limited model count to potentially play multiple types of games just by making different lists, and playing them as upgraded or unupgraded or partially upgraded depending on what their opponent brought pointswise.

Which is a trick I've used quite a lot in the past-- it's not optimal when it comes to competitiveness, but it DOES allow for more flexibility without having to commit to buying, assembling, and painting a large number of new models. Unfortunately, this trick simply doesn't work in powerlevel systems.

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:

 GreaterGood? wrote:
I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.

But if the 10 point termagants are actually worth 5 points, is it so bad? The power level just changes the metering, there's no point comparing the points costs to the power level in most cases, as they most likely won't match due to the points values, especially on the higher end usually are very off from the actual effectiveness.

Plasma pistols are an example, of an equipment that in many cases is never worth the points (or at least it used to be so), similarly many of the +x point small upgrades to 1 wound infantry models usually just increase the cost with pretty minor buff and usually it's always more beneficient to take extra bodies. If the upgrades are good, they are always taken and they could very well be included in the base cost. Good example could be extra armour and smoke launchers in 3rd edition, you never saw a rhino without those 8 points of upgrades. With many of upgrades you can get to high point costs, but actually you just get models that are overcosted by quite big margins.

So when looking at power level, the comparison should be what you get with that power level, not how many points you get with it. One unit might be worth a lot of points more, but more important thing is if it's worth more than what you get with the same power level.

False unless you believe the base models are not worth it at all. It is undeniable that having an upgrade is better than not. So if those upgrades not points efficient and thus not worth it in a regular game, that is because they come with a cost. If they come at no cost, then it is always better to take them than not. Your entire argument hinges on units that come with upgrades never being worth their points unless they take those upgrades, and those upgrades are free. It is undeniable that a Nob with Killsaw and Kombi-skorcha is better than a stock Nob, it is just likely that it is not worth having many (any) of them at 64 PPM. so they would be overcosted, so you might only take one model with those upgrades in a whole squad. Now you can also argue that that squad is still not worth it using power, but if say a squad with no upgrades for cheap is worth it, then power level kills their utility. Or if the sweet spot is 7 models not 10, you have no option to save "points" . In that way power level reduces the number of units that are "worth it" it also allows for units that are "worth it" to be far more powerful than other options.

Power level works great when you are not trying to min-max, it fails hard when you are.

Of course having an upgrade is better, but with power level the unit you are getting is not the one with the minimum gear, but the one with the maximum gear and as said, the points cost of the maximum gear is usually quite far off, because often the upgrades don't make the unit much survivable and also often make it so "killy" that there isn't often any target where all that "killyness" would be useful. So even if you have that 640 point nob squad, the "real" worth can very well be close to the average cost from the upgrades. Of course there will be units where this dosen't apply, and you end up with undercosted units, but that really isn't any different from the situation with any kind of points. You'll have different metrics, but the end result is the same, just with different pieces (i.e. units). So instead of shaving all those points to maximize the effectiveness of your list, you add up stuff to do the same. This of course in an environment where the optimization is important. In different kind of environemnt, it matters even less which kind of points you decide to use, as there is even more variation.

Powerlevels are also way off. Have you not seen the huge amount of threads where people complained about power level discrepancies between units, both between factions and across factions?

I find the argument "points are off, so powerlevels are great!" to be laughably off the mark. Powerlevels sink on their own merits, without giving a single thought to points at all.

 Melissia wrote:
Powerlevels are also way off. Have you not seen the huge amount of threads where people complained about power level discrepancies between units, both between factions and across factions?

I find the argument "points are off, so powerlevels are great!" to be laughably off the mark. Powerlevels sink on their own merits, without giving a single thought to points at all.

By any means, I'm not saying that power levels wouldn't be off. It just is that the outliers might be different units. But the end result would in both systems be the same, there will be the most effective lists that get crunched out. It's however hard to tell, which system gives out more interesting "meta". I have a feeling that elite units would be better with power levels, which I think wouldn't be too bad, but it's of course hard to tell. In any case, I don't care about which system will be used for tournaments, I'm not so interested on those, but just wanted to point out some things that I think were missed by some.

 jamopower wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:

 GreaterGood? wrote:
I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.

But if the 10 point termagants are actually worth 5 points, is it so bad? The power level just changes the metering, there's no point comparing the points costs to the power level in most cases, as they most likely won't match due to the points values, especially on the higher end usually are very off from the actual effectiveness.

Plasma pistols are an example, of an equipment that in many cases is never worth the points (or at least it used to be so), similarly many of the +x point small upgrades to 1 wound infantry models usually just increase the cost with pretty minor buff and usually it's always more beneficient to take extra bodies. If the upgrades are good, they are always taken and they could very well be included in the base cost. Good example could be extra armour and smoke launchers in 3rd edition, you never saw a rhino without those 8 points of upgrades. With many of upgrades you can get to high point costs, but actually you just get models that are overcosted by quite big margins.

So when looking at power level, the comparison should be what you get with that power level, not how many points you get with it. One unit might be worth a lot of points more, but more important thing is if it's worth more than what you get with the same power level.

False unless you believe the base models are not worth it at all. It is undeniable that having an upgrade is better than not. So if those upgrades not points efficient and thus not worth it in a regular game, that is because they come with a cost. If they come at no cost, then it is always better to take them than not. Your entire argument hinges on units that come with upgrades never being worth their points unless they take those upgrades, and those upgrades are free. It is undeniable that a Nob with Killsaw and Kombi-skorcha is better than a stock Nob, it is just likely that it is not worth having many (any) of them at 64 PPM. so they would be overcosted, so you might only take one model with those upgrades in a whole squad. Now you can also argue that that squad is still not worth it using power, but if say a squad with no upgrades for cheap is worth it, then power level kills their utility. Or if the sweet spot is 7 models not 10, you have no option to save "points" . In that way power level reduces the number of units that are "worth it" it also allows for units that are "worth it" to be far more powerful than other options.

Power level works great when you are not trying to min-max, it fails hard when you are.

Of course having an upgrade is better, but with power level the unit you are getting is not the one with the minimum gear, but the one with the maximum gear and as said, the points cost of the maximum gear is usually quite far off, because often the upgrades don't make the unit much survivable and also often make it so "killy" that there isn't often any target where all that "killyness" would be useful. So even if you have that 640 point nob squad, the "real" worth can very well be close to the average cost from the upgrades. Of course there will be units where this dosen't apply, and you end up with undercosted units, but that really isn't any different from the situation with any kind of points. You'll have different metrics, but the end result is the same, just with different pieces (i.e. units). So instead of shaving all those points to maximize the effectiveness of your list, you add up stuff to do the same. This of course in an environment where the optimization is important. In different kind of environemnt, it matters even less which kind of points you decide to use, as there is even more variation.

Except some units get upgrades that don't amount to much of an improvement, but PL forces you to buy them. Essentially what you are saying is that in PL everything will be more killy, and so the game will be a murderfest (in a min max environment) where only a few units are any good. Welcome back to 7th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jamopower wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Powerlevels are also way off. Have you not seen the huge amount of threads where people complained about power level discrepancies between units, both between factions and across factions?

I find the argument "points are off, so powerlevels are great!" to be laughably off the mark. Powerlevels sink on their own merits, without giving a single thought to points at all.

By any means, I'm not saying that power levels wouldn't be off. It just is that the outliers might be different units. But the end result would in both systems be the same, there will be the most effective lists that get crunched out. It's however hard to tell, which system gives out more interesting "meta". I have a feeling that elite units would be better with power levels, which I think wouldn't be too bad, but it's of course hard to tell. In any case, I don't care about which system will be used for tournaments, I'm not so interested on those, but just wanted to point out some things that I think were missed by some.

Given the ability to be more granular I would argue that points will allow more units to be close to optimal, vs Power level.

Breng77 wrote:


Given the ability to be more granular I would argue that points will allow more units to be close to optimal, vs Power level.

Might be, it just is good to remember that you'll have different optimum with different point values as the stuff on the other side of the table has a big impact on the actual value of everything.

Powerlevels are just absurdly unblanced, even for units that have no real wargear options. Like Ork Boyz for example:

30 Ork boyz are PL 13, whereas 30 Stormboyz are also PL 13. Why would anyone take boyz, when you can get jump-infantry with the same exact statline for the same cost?

Then there are things like 5 Lootas being PL 8, while a unit of 6 Big Gunz(with grot crew) being PL 7. That is just broken.

I don't mind powerlevels in principle, but the current system is just not useful for anything.

Wayniac wrote:
Came across this: https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/06/18/making-the-case-for-using-power-level-points-in-tournaments/

What are your thoughts? I think it's an interesting idea, but a tournament environment is going to bring the worst out of people and it will be prone to huge amounts of abuse, worse than what you normally see. I don't mind power level for casual games (or matched points), but I think using them in a tournament is asking for trouble and asking for people to just immediately take the best options just because nothing stops them.

Its outright unfair for tournaments. Some armies have units with tons of options that aren't really reflected in the PL, others have nearly none.

This is pure crazy talk.

Yeah, internally, I find powerlevels less balanced than points. FAR less balanced. Even ignoring external concerns like upgrades not adding to powerlevels.

The article mentions "The Fallacy of Choice", and I think it's a point that has been overlooked in this thread.

PL restrict your choices by opportunity cost, in that if you choose upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot have upgrade Y or Z.

Points further restricts your choices by not only presenting an opportunity cost, but whenever you take upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot take an upgrade (or another unit) elsewhere.

While this seems like a good thing (more impact from choices), the meta strongly favored more units at the expense of gear. The options presented in the unit lists became irrelevant: don't upgrade your sergeant with a CC weapon, because it's better to spend that 10pts elsewhere - better yet, don't pay for a sergeant if you don't have to!

By removing that point cost, you are somewhat forced to take the upgrade for that sergeant, and make the choice between chainsword, power sword, or power fist. Some players will choose the "most expensive" upgrade to maximize the unit's value, but as we've seen, GW has made every attempt to distinguish weapons for different roles. If I had to guess, I would say the meta would initially lean this way and quickly move towards greater unit variety. This is then why I think PL are worth trying out: their use promotes variety over min-maxing, and rewards TAC lists.

strepp wrote:
the meta strongly favored more units at the expense of gear.

That's not at all true.

well if your tourney is using some sort of 'Comp' system, along side pts like in previous editions. You may as well just use power level

pismakron wrote:
Powerlevels are just absurdly unblanced, even for units that have no real wargear options. Like Ork Boyz for example:

30 Ork boyz are PL 13, uwhereas 30 Stormboyz are also PL 13. Why would anyone take boyz, when you can get jump-infantry with the same exact statline for the same cost?

Look at the datasheet, Ork Boyz get a heavy weapon for each 10 models. I don't have the points list handy but now we have an interesting tradeoff... the player is paying for those guns and can't just fall back on min-max principles like "boys before toys". Or they can attempt to max Stormboyz, which are MORE expensive than Boyz under a points model. The Stormboyz aren't getting a discount here from what I see. And isn't there a thread up right now saying "hordes = OP?" Maybe PL is balanced better since you can't optimize a list full of cheap horde models with min upgrades.

These are the unavoidable changes that will affect the game in an interesting way. All the balance inquiry is a boring line of discussion, PL is a derivative of points so both will need to be adjusted regularly.

Quick question that doesn't seem to have been brought up yet that concerns me with power levels (I ask because I haven't seen the codices yet or tried any list building):

Say you had to build an army at a power level of 75. How easy is it to hit this mark whilst still keeping your force synergised and taking the units you actually want?

I am concerned because power levels are always such big chunks. So if you are say 3 PLs under, are you finding that you are having to take out a 7 PL unit and thrust a totally different 10 PL unit in just to make 75 (for example)?

I know you can be under, but 3 PL is a significant chunk. Not a problem with points since you can just take an extra grot or shove a melta bomb on somebody.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Quick question that doesn't seem to have been brought up yet that concerns me with power levels (I ask because I haven't seen the codices yet or tried any list building):

Say you had to build an army at a power level of 75. How easy is it to hit this mark whilst still keeping your force synergised and taking the units you actually want?

I am concerned because power levels are always such big chunks. So if you are say 3 PLs under, are you finding that you are having to take out a 7 PL unit and thrust a totally different 10 PL unit in just to make 75 (for example)?

I know you can be under, but 3 PL is a significant chunk. Not a problem with points since you can just take an extra grot or shove a melta bomb on somebody.

A few power levels make no difference

Make some sample armies under points you have seen fielded that you think are good. They aren't going to come out to the same PL, but they'll be in the same ballpark and you previously thought they were equal under points.

 Crablezworth wrote:
If anyone wants to see the silliness of power levels, look no further than the deathwatch kill team. It's also a good place to look if you think deathstars are gone lol.

Hmm. Yeah, I don't really agree. There's a reason the DW tactica thread is like 3 pages long - they don't look competitive at the moment. I agree that using PL would change that, but probably not as much as people think. A 10 man DW KIll team with 3 Terminators in it is 24PL, versus 26PL for a 10 man Terminator unit. Even given the available weaponry (and DW have more choices than anyone) it still seems about right. Sure, you can spam combis and whatnot, but it's still 24PL for a 10 man unit that's 7/10 T4 with a 3+. That's not hard to kill at all.

It's one of the defining things about 40K that paying for ungraded weaponry and equipment is often, point for point, less efficient than adding more bodies. Personally, I think that while the actual points variance is high in some cases, I suspect that the actual efficiency isn't as skewed as those points might suggest. Points are already unbalanced (although that was inevitable when you change everything all at once IMO).

That said, I'm not advocating for PL in tournaments. I like points. However, I am in favor of some sort of sideboarding. A lot of the worst WAAC lists are predicated on the unlikelihood of playing a list that contains the hard counter in quantities enough to matter. Mass horde lists look good in 8th right now for this very reason - a lot of lists struggle to deal with either massed vehicles or massed infantry with the same list. Allowing some tweaks based on opponent isn't an awful idea, it just needs to be handled in a way that minimizes abuse. Personally, I rather see it look like multiple pre-written lists than actual math being done between rounds. Even just being able to take an A and B version of a list makes it a lot less likely that you hit a spammed WAAC list that you just can't deal with. My two cents anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Spoiler:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Quick question that doesn't seem to have been brought up yet that concerns me with power levels (I ask because I haven't seen the codices yet or tried any list building):

Say you had to build an army at a power level of 75. How easy is it to hit this mark whilst still keeping your force synergised and taking the units you actually want?

I am concerned because power levels are always such big chunks. So if you are say 3 PLs under, are you finding that you are having to take out a 7 PL unit and thrust a totally different 10 PL unit in just to make 75 (for example)?

I know you can be under, but 3 PL is a significant chunk. Not a problem with points since you can just take an extra grot or shove a melta bomb on somebody.

A few power levels make no difference

Make some sample armies under points you have seen fielded that you think are good. They aren't going to come out to the same PL, but they'll be in the same ballpark and you previously thought they were equal under points.

And the opposite is also already true of points. You can two lists that are balanced in terms of points, but not at all in terms of efficiency for those points. I don't really see how PL is really that different in this regard.

I don't like it.

For the simple reason that it doesn't account for the difference in performance of certain weapon combinations and unit upgrades whereas points actually do.

A squad of 10 CSM, barebones is PL 9.
A squad of 10 CSM, with 2 Lascannons and a Combi-plasma Champion is PL 9.
A squad of 10 CSM with pistols and chainswords and nothing else is PL 9.

See where we're going?

And that's before you factor in units that have VASTLY different performances with different loadouts.

A squad of Havocs with 4 flamers will be far less impactful than a squad of Havocs with 4 lascannons or autocannons. And the points will reflect this.

Power Levels are a great system for quick and easy pick up games - show up somewhere new with your army, have a total PL for your army sat in its case and you can swap out upgrades to try something new. They're great for spur of the moment games where you don't really have time to sit down and work out exact numbers.

But for competitive purposes? Way way too open to abuse. The free stuff approach of 7th ed was cancerous. Gladius and Ad-Mech Convocation had free crap in common. And it was bad.

Why are we trying to actively encourage it? Leave it as it is. A simple system for quick pick up games, spur of the moment games or for casual players who don't want to work things out to exact points.

No place in a competitive environment where individual point costs are generally micromanaged....

 Fenris-77 wrote:

Make some sample armies under points you have seen fielded that you think are good. They aren't going to come out to the same PL, but they'll be in the same ballpark and you previously thought they were equal under points.

And the opposite is also already true of points. You can two lists that are balanced in terms of points, but not at all in terms of efficiency for those points. I don't really see how PL is really that different in this regard.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
I don't like it.

For the simple reason that it doesn't account for the difference in performance of certain weapon combinations and unit upgrades whereas points actually do.

A squad of 10 CSM, barebones is PL 9.
A squad of 10 CSM, with 2 Lascannons and a Combi-plasma Champion is PL 9.
A squad of 10 CSM with pistols and chainswords and nothing else is PL 9.

See where we're going?

Yes, we're going down the road of logical fallacy. No one takes two of those options under points, ever.

It's an example of how three units with a very wide spread of points between them come to the same power level going by the PL system

However double plasma and melta are common things.
And the fact still stands that you are effectively getting those upgrades plus whatever you stick on a champion for free - your power level doesn't vary from a base squad with the same number of models but no upgrades.

And that's before you look at Havocs or Chosen who perform vastly different based on what they are armed with.

Once again, my point still stands.

Great system for casual play or spur of the moment pick ups but pretty terrible for any sort of competitive environment as certain armies can abuse the PL system a lot more effectively than others when it comes to character upgrades, special and heavy weapons.

I think the big stickler is that people are thinking all the options are 'free'

I guess it all comes down to how much Proxying is allowed. I always been a WYSI fanatic, and I spent more time converting wargear than I've ever used them in games.

But some things are no brainers in Power levels. Could I ever get my head around... proxying?

I have a PL match this Sunday, and I am dreading what I'm going to be looking at vs what is actually being played.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:

I have a PL match this Sunday, and I am dreading what I'm going to be looking at vs what is actually being played.

See with PL I generally see not real excuse for proxy models..

The one argument I'd make for it is that, if the PL system was really put through the ringer, hopefully GW would be willing to adjust the PLs based on what is too powerful/not powerful enough (in the same way they plan on adjusting regular points).

I'm not inherently opposed to the idea, but I think that, as the PL system is out the gate, it's not feasible as there are already documented discrepancies.

strepp wrote:
The article mentions "The Fallacy of Choice", and I think it's a point that has been overlooked in this thread.

PL restrict your choices by opportunity cost, in that if you choose upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot have upgrade Y or Z.

Points further restricts your choices by not only presenting an opportunity cost, but whenever you take upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot take an upgrade (or another unit) elsewhere.

While this seems like a good thing (more impact from choices), the meta strongly favored more units at the expense of gear. The options presented in the unit lists became irrelevant: don't upgrade your sergeant with a CC weapon, because it's better to spend that 10pts elsewhere - better yet, don't pay for a sergeant if you don't have to!

By removing that point cost, you are somewhat forced to take the upgrade for that sergeant, and make the choice between chainsword, power sword, or power fist. Some players will choose the "most expensive" upgrade to maximize the unit's value, but as we've seen, GW has made every attempt to distinguish weapons for different roles. If I had to guess, I would say the meta would initially lean this way and quickly move towards greater unit variety. This is then why I think PL are worth trying out: their use promotes variety over min-maxing, and rewards TAC lists.

Yes! This. Also, take notice that a lot of the naysaying and arguments against power levels are done so by making points comparisons. But the comparison can not be fairly made because these are two different systems working with two different sets of assumptions and working towards two different goals.The old system of points no longer applies in a system of power levels. Once you break free from the old assumptions - that the old points system ever actually worked, then you'll be able to see that power levels does work (or at worst, works just as well) but accomplishes something different. It encourages a variety of units with different uses instead of simply 'the Best' units (and here I've used the old language).

If i compere the upgrade options on my Necrons and my Tyranids. I would say it's a terrible idea.

I would assume that it's taken into account in the power level, the units that have less options are "cheaper" on power level. At least when looking at chaos list, you can quite clearly see that you have to pay for the upgrades even with power level. Good example are bikers, first 3 cost 5 power level, the next three cost 3 PL. You get all of the upgrades already for the first 3 bikers. Similar thing if you compare havocs with regular chaos marines, first 5 havocs 7 PL, next five 3. First 5 marines, 5 PL, next five 4 PL (you get additional heavy weapon for 10 marines) and then the next five marines 3 PL.
Of course I'm sure that just as with any points system, there are some undercosted and some overcosted units, but to say you'll get the upgrades for free with powerlevel, it isn't true.

GodDamUser wrote:
I think the big stickler is that people are thinking all the options are 'free'

That's because pl is so Ill defined the devs said its a median value but that's a worthless statement lacking all required context.

Not knowing what the devs think an average load out is we can't do anything other than see upgrades as free.

Pl should of had that median loadout listed so you know what that power level is actually worth.

hobojebus wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:
I think the big stickler is that people are thinking all the options are 'free'

That's because pl is so Ill defined the devs said its a median value but that's a worthless statement lacking all required context.

Not knowing what the devs think an average load out is we can't do anything other than see upgrades as free.

Pl should of had that median loadout listed so you know what that power level is actually worth.

It's hard to see the logic here. If 5 power level gives you 5 marines, with lascannon, plasmapistol and a power fist, then 5 power level is worth exactly that. Then you can compare that to something else that you get with 5 PL and see how it compares. Just like you compare units with points. Or you could as well say something like unit of reavers is worse than unit of skyweavers with similar points cost, one of them clearly gets stuff for free.

strepp wrote:
The article mentions "The Fallacy of Choice", and I think it's a point that has been overlooked in this thread.

PL restrict your choices by opportunity cost, in that if you choose upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot have upgrade Y or Z.

Points further restricts your choices by not only presenting an opportunity cost, but whenever you take upgrade X for a unit, it means you cannot take an upgrade (or another unit) elsewhere.

While this seems like a good thing (more impact from choices), the meta strongly favored more units at the expense of gear. The options presented in the unit lists became irrelevant: don't upgrade your sergeant with a CC weapon, because it's better to spend that 10pts elsewhere - better yet, don't pay for a sergeant if you don't have to!

By removing that point cost, you are somewhat forced to take the upgrade for that sergeant, and make the choice between chainsword, power sword, or power fist. Some players will choose the "most expensive" upgrade to maximize the unit's value, but as we've seen, GW has made every attempt to distinguish weapons for different roles. If I had to guess, I would say the meta would initially lean this way and quickly move towards greater unit variety. This is then why I think PL are worth trying out: their use promotes variety over min-maxing, and rewards TAC lists.

That might be true if they had not then went on to say we should use PL as a way to sideboard. That removes all opportunity cost in list building because if you take flexible units (basically all imperial units) you have no opportunity cost as you can list tailor your upgrades to the best option for the list you are facing. There is no opportunity cost when I have a lascannon against the mech list, and a grav cannon against the horde army.


I think the issue with power levels is as follows.

1.) IF min-maxing they are likely to lead to more army lists that are identical, especially if they allow for sideboarding.
2.) GW has said they are going to adjust points going forward, while they could do this with power level it is much more difficult to do so as each PL is a fairly large bump in points.
3.) Power level as a side board is terribly unbalanced. If you want to go that way, have opponents reveal factions and build lists at the table.

 jamopower wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:
I think the big stickler is that people are thinking all the options are 'free'

That's because pl is so Ill defined the devs said its a median value but that's a worthless statement lacking all required context.

Not knowing what the devs think an average load out is we can't do anything other than see upgrades as free.

Pl should of had that median loadout listed so you know what that power level is actually worth.

It's hard to see the logic here. If 5 power level gives you 5 marines, with lascannon, plasmapistol and a power fist, then 5 power level is worth exactly that. Then you can compare that to something else that you get with 5 PL and see how it compares. Just like you compare units with points. Or you could as well say something like unit of reavers is worse than unit of skyweavers with similar points cost, one of them clearly gets stuff for free.

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

Breng77 wrote:
That might be true if they had not then went on to say we should use PL as a way to sideboard. That removes all opportunity cost in list building because if you take flexible units (basically all imperial units) you have no opportunity cost as you can list tailor your upgrades to the best option for the list you are facing. There is no opportunity cost when I have a lascannon against the mech list, and a grav cannon against the horde army.

Are you sure this is a bad thing? One of the more frustrating aspects of 7th edition was that the inflexibility you are praising encouraged building skew lists. 5x Knights, 14x Rhinos, 200x Zombies, Riptide Wing + WK + Stormsurge, 4x FMCs, etc. You certainly didn't see many balanced lists because it was an advantage to produce a mismatch.

I would rather them use both. 2000 point army cap and a 100 PL cap.

The army has to be both at or under 2000 points and at or under 100 PL.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
That might be true if they had not then went on to say we should use PL as a way to sideboard. That removes all opportunity cost in list building because if you take flexible units (basically all imperial units) you have no opportunity cost as you can list tailor your upgrades to the best option for the list you are facing. There is no opportunity cost when I have a lascannon against the mech list, and a grav cannon against the horde army.

Are you sure this is a bad thing? One of the more frustrating aspects of 7th edition was that the inflexibility you are praising encouraged building skew lists. 5x Knights, 14x Rhinos, 200x Zombies, Riptide Wing + WK + Stormsurge, 4x FMCs, etc. You certainly didn't see many balanced lists because it was an advantage to produce a mismatch.

It's great if you're any of the Imperium armies, or Chaos Marines. They have loads of flexibility within their squads. Tau also get a lot of flexibility in their suits. Then you have an army like Necrons that gets shafted because one of their defining characteristics is a lack of customisability in their squads. The advantages of PL in providing an opportunity to sideboard don't apply equally across all armies, which is just one more reason they're unsuitable for tournament play.

Well then you have to reduce PL for units like Necrons Warriors don't you? It's why they exist as a balance mechanism. Format will always have an effect on how useful a unit is.

And Necrons most assuredly have some customization, maybe you've never seen a Wraith without Whip Coils in a 7th Ed tournament but they do have some options available.

hobojebus wrote:

 jamopower wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

GodDamUser wrote:
I think the big stickler is that people are thinking all the options are 'free'

That's because pl is so Ill defined the devs said its a median value but that's a worthless statement lacking all required context.

Not knowing what the devs think an average load out is we can't do anything other than see upgrades as free.

Pl should of had that median loadout listed so you know what that power level is actually worth.

It's hard to see the logic here. If 5 power level gives you 5 marines, with lascannon, plasmapistol and a power fist, then 5 power level is worth exactly that. Then you can compare that to something else that you get with 5 PL and see how it compares. Just like you compare units with points. Or you could as well say something like unit of reavers is worse than unit of skyweavers with similar points cost, one of them clearly gets stuff for free.

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

Yes, that's what I have tried to say. Both systems have similar flaws. The end result is not very different, but just looks different.

Slipspace wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
That might be true if they had not then went on to say we should use PL as a way to sideboard. That removes all opportunity cost in list building because if you take flexible units (basically all imperial units) you have no opportunity cost as you can list tailor your upgrades to the best option for the list you are facing. There is no opportunity cost when I have a lascannon against the mech list, and a grav cannon against the horde army.

Are you sure this is a bad thing? One of the more frustrating aspects of 7th edition was that the inflexibility you are praising encouraged building skew lists. 5x Knights, 14x Rhinos, 200x Zombies, Riptide Wing + WK + Stormsurge, 4x FMCs, etc. You certainly didn't see many balanced lists because it was an advantage to produce a mismatch.

It's great if you're any of the Imperium armies, or Chaos Marines. They have loads of flexibility within their squads. Tau also get a lot of flexibility in their suits. Then you have an army like Necrons that gets shafted because one of their defining characteristics is a lack of customisability in their squads. The advantages of PL in providing an opportunity to sideboard don't apply equally across all armies, which is just one more reason they're unsuitable for tournament play.

Right it penalizes armies with specialized units. IF I'm orks and I bring Tank bustas to deal with vehicles, and face infantry I have no option to swap their weapons in a way that makes them good. Same with things like eldar fire dragons etc. So it forces all armies to run the most generalist units available in order to benefit from such a side board. Or as mentioned Necrons, bringing Heavy destroyers. Many armies don't have good flexible units so they must specialize their units, which leads to a situation where skew lists cause a mismatch against some armies and not others. I think if you want to go the "side board route" and are using power levels, I would go the Malifaux route for army building. You go to the table knowing the mission, each player reveals their faction(s) which must be fixed, then build lists quickly using Power level. The down side to this is the sheer amount of models needed in 40k would make it obnoxious and packing and unpacking things would get old. But at least then you don't end up in situations where one army can always specialize and the other is stuck. In a Power level side board meta, I just picture armies of Space Marine Devestators and Razorbacks spamming and winning, because you have essentially 6 heavy weapons and you swap them up to counter your opponents army. Facing Tank heavy IG, I've got 42 lascannon shots, and 7 hunter killer missiles., facing hoard orks, I have 112 S5 shots, and 84 S 6 shots. Still have some room for re-rolls from pedro cantor, and an apothecary, and Conversion beamer tech marine. Easily wiping over 100 orks per turn, or against tanks you are looking at 80 + wounds each turn.

But if specialized units are not worth in that kind of environment, how they would be worth in normal system, where one would think that having more generalized units would be even better when you can't tailor your army Against the enemy, thus requiring to have units that are good Against as many opponents as possible?

 jamopower wrote:
But if specialized units are not worth in that kind of environment, how they would be worth in normal system, where one would think that having more generalized units would be even better when you can't tailor your army Against the enemy, thus requiring to have units that are good Against as many opponents as possible?

Nope the opposite is true. A unit having the option to specialize (taking a Grav cannon vs a lascannon) is vastly different when you are locked into that choice. So in the current format with no flexibility, a marine player makes a choice that x unit is going to be used for anti-tank/MC. This is the same choice as the Eldar player taking fire dragons. In a side board format, the marine player isn't making a choice at all, other than that this unit can be whatever I want it to be, whereas the Eldar player needs to lock in his choice prior to the event. Now many times people will opt for units that have no options but can do both jobs, but they are typically worse at each job. So I could just take S 6 shooting and hope to torrent down a knight, but the marine player with his 42 lascannons is at a huge advantage in that regard. The difference with fixed lists is that if that space marine player takes 42 lascannons, he loses to horde armies.

Essentially if everyone is incentivized to take generalist units, that is ok, but what we are talking about is one player being able to specialize their units to match the opponent while the other player has to take generalist units.

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
But if specialized units are not worth in that kind of environment, how they would be worth in normal system, where one would think that having more generalized units would be even better when you can't tailor your army Against the enemy, thus requiring to have units that are good Against as many opponents as possible?

Nope the opposite is true. A unit having the option to specialize (taking a Grav cannon vs a lascannon) is vastly different when you are locked into that choice. So in the current format with no flexibility, a marine player makes a choice that x unit is going to be used for anti-tank/MC. This is the same choice as the Eldar player taking fire dragons. In a side board format, the marine player isn't making a choice at all, other than that this unit can be whatever I want it to be, whereas the Eldar player needs to lock in his choice prior to the event. Now many times people will opt for units that have no options but can do both jobs, but they are typically worse at each job. So I could just take S 6 shooting and hope to torrent down a knight, but the marine player with his 42 lascannons is at a huge advantage in that regard. The difference with fixed lists is that if that space marine player takes 42 lascannons, he loses to horde armies.

Essentially if everyone is incentivized to take generalist units, that is ok, but what we are talking about is one player being able to specialize their units to match the opponent while the other player has to take generalist units.

Well yes, I see your point and it's true in some degree. But still true specialized units like fire dragons will always be better in that role than tectical marines and such. It's just matter if that role is important enough to have in your army, then the unit might be worth it. So when it seems like vehicles are something that you can expect to face, fire dragons (or similar) should be a good choice in both systems, whereas it seems that heavy elite infantry is not so big thing to worry about, thus units like howling banshees have no role in either of the systems. Of course units like havocs would shine in the "equipment sideboarding" as they can specialize against many different kind of enemies.

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

 jamopower wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
But if specialized units are not worth in that kind of environment, how they would be worth in normal system, where one would think that having more generalized units would be even better when you can't tailor your army Against the enemy, thus requiring to have units that are good Against as many opponents as possible?

Nope the opposite is true. A unit having the option to specialize (taking a Grav cannon vs a lascannon) is vastly different when you are locked into that choice. So in the current format with no flexibility, a marine player makes a choice that x unit is going to be used for anti-tank/MC. This is the same choice as the Eldar player taking fire dragons. In a side board format, the marine player isn't making a choice at all, other than that this unit can be whatever I want it to be, whereas the Eldar player needs to lock in his choice prior to the event. Now many times people will opt for units that have no options but can do both jobs, but they are typically worse at each job. So I could just take S 6 shooting and hope to torrent down a knight, but the marine player with his 42 lascannons is at a huge advantage in that regard. The difference with fixed lists is that if that space marine player takes 42 lascannons, he loses to horde armies.

Essentially if everyone is incentivized to take generalist units, that is ok, but what we are talking about is one player being able to specialize their units to match the opponent while the other player has to take generalist units.

Well yes, I see your point and it's true in some degree. But still true specialized units like fire dragons will always be better in that role than tectical marines and such. It's just matter if that role is important enough to have in your army, then the unit might be worth it. So when it seems like vehicles are something that you can expect to face, fire dragons (or similar) should be a good choice in both systems, whereas it seems that heavy elite infantry is not so big thing to worry about, thus units like howling banshees have no role in either of the systems. Of course units like havocs would shine in the "equipment sideboarding" as they can specialize against many different kind of enemies.

Sure fire dragons are better than Tactical marines at their role, but they are also 6 power and not 5, they will get 3 more melta shots. The problem is you have no idea that you will face vehicles prior to seeing your opponents list. So the tactical squad can be good against either a vehicle or infantry. But why are you taking tactical marines at all in a PL system? You will take Sternguard for 7 PL, or Devestators for 7 PL. So for 1 power more than fire dragons, I am essentially just as good at anti-tank (can take comb-meltas/plasmas, and heavy weapons) and better by far against infantry. So as the elder player do I want to be stuck on having a choice that is single role, or will I only take things like Wraithguard, that can be either, or Dark reapers that are passible at either, and cheaper. My overall point is that you make it so that the only options worth taking are those that have options to be multi-role. So all armies will consist of only those units. Power Level without side board is slightly better, but at that point I'm not sure what the advantage is over just playing points.

I was using the units as examples without knowing the exact point costs, you can substitute the units with whatever you want. The point was just that no matter if you are able to switch your army list before the game, the units that are good against largest variety of opponents and the units that are very good Against units you are most likely facing (so good in the particular meta) will always be best. When talking about tournament environment or random pick up games.

This is a meta question, what units you'll actually wind up facing on the TT depends on player choices.

So will a specialist unit like Fire Dragons be useful? Depends on what the enemy brings. If you are only talking about sideboarding upgrades and not units, they will still have targets.

What about the enemy bringing more anti-infantry weapons in response? Well, then they won't have bigger weapons if you bring a mix of vehicles and bigger targets.

Well how about if we go back to 7th edition. "I'm bringing 5 Wraithknights, by the way you can't exchange your Flamers and Heavy Bolters for Grav". Is this what we think represents what 40K should be? Imagine a RTS like Starcraft as if you had to pick 3 units before the game and couldn't alter your army composition in response to your opponents' choices.

Regarding Sternguard, instead of a one-trick pony like Melta, you have a very adaptable veteran unit. So maybe if you know Sternguard are good, plan ahead and bring some anti-infantry (or a unit that can adjust to handle them). Meta is complicated and this is why you won't be able to see everything in advance. It needs to be playtested.

 jamopower wrote:
I was using the units as examples without knowing the exact point costs, you can substitute the units with whatever you want. The point was just that no matter if you are able to switch your army list before the game, the units that are good against largest variety of opponents and the units that are very good Against units you are most likely facing (so good in the particular meta) will always be best. When talking about tournament environment or random pick up games.

This is only true if you are actually switching your list each game. If you are keeping the same units, but allowed to switch upgrades/wargear, then units that are able to specialize at will are by far the best. So what happens is you bring all units that are flexible and no specialist units get played. Some armies lack these units, so those armies in turn cannot compete well. I would rather have points that will be adjusted for imbalance over time, to flexible lists that result in a stale meta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:
This is a meta question, what units you'll actually wind up facing on the TT depends on player choices.

So will a specialist unit like Fire Dragons be useful? Depends on what the enemy brings. If you are only talking about sideboarding upgrades and not units, they will still have targets.

What about the enemy bringing more anti-infantry weapons in response? Well, then they won't have bigger weapons if you bring a mix of vehicles and bigger targets.

Well how about if we go back to 7th edition. "I'm bringing 5 Wraithknights, by the way you can't exchange your Flamers and Heavy Bolters for Grav". Is this what we think represents what 40K should be? Imagine a RTS like Starcraft as if you had to pick 3 units before the game and couldn't alter your army composition in response to your opponents' choices.

Regarding Sternguard, instead of a one-trick pony like Melta, you have a very adaptable veteran unit. So maybe if you know Sternguard are good, plan ahead and bring some anti-infantry (or a unit that can adjust to handle them). Meta is complicated and this is why you won't be able to see everything in advance. It needs to be playtested.

But unless your units are flexible, you end up stuck with that anti-infantry even if you face 5 Knights. Which is true now, but the PL sideboard is allowing some armies to get around this reality, and not others.

Unless your LIST is flexible.

Specialized units are maybe still worth their points. It will depend on how a Sideboard meta evolves, and those are going to be dynamic as players react to each other.

That's without considering adjusting PL values, and that's also part of any real balance project.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Unless your LIST is flexible.

Specialized units are maybe still worth their points. It will depend on how a Sideboard meta evolves, and those are going to be dynamic as players react to each other.

That's without considering adjusting PL values, and that's also part of any real balance project.

except most flexible lists don't hold up against skew lists, so your list will never be as flexible as one full of flexible units. I don't think it will end up being very dynamic because the number of top units will be very limited. I also think given the lack of granularity adjusting PL values is much more difficult.

Breng77 wrote:
except most flexible lists don't hold up against skew lists, so your list will never be as flexible as one full of flexible units.

First, you need to clarify what you mean by "flexible". It doesn't simply mean "generalist", which skew lists are designed to upset.

Secondly, you're right. But "flexible" is not necessarily synonymous with "effective". Guardians have more weapon flexibility, but can they supersede a specialist unit like Fire Dragons to knock out a tank?

I think you are overestimating the impact of choice a bit. I don't believe ther would be so much difference. Twin assault cannon razorbacks would still be good units, just as basilisks etc. You could take lascannons Against them, but most likely you would take lascannons Anyways most of the time.

 jamopower wrote:
I think you are overestimating the impact of choice a bit. I don't believe ther would be so much difference. Twin assault cannon razorbacks would still be good units, just as basilisks etc. You could take lascannons Against them, but most likely you would take lascannons Anyways most of the time.

Yes those units are still good, but Against say an all knight army the ability to swap them out for Twin lascannon razorbacks is very significant. Choice allows you to never be in a situation where those units are sub-optimal. So take sternguard, without the ability to swap wargear a squad outfitted will all combi-meltas is sub-optimal against horde orks. That same squad with choice suddenly switches to all combi-flamers and heavy flamers. That is a big difference. Similarly if they had the anti-infantry load out and ran into all tank IG, they would be sub-optimal, if they can swap out to meltas, then they are better. The point is that in a TAC army list you are unlikely to take all lascannons, or all flamers. In a list where you can switch out, you will do just that when it suits you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
except most flexible lists don't hold up against skew lists, so your list will never be as flexible as one full of flexible units.

First, you need to clarify what you mean by "flexible". It doesn't simply mean "generalist", which skew lists are designed to upset.

Secondly, you're right. But "flexible" is not necessarily synonymous with "effective". Guardians have more weapon flexibility, but can they supersede a specialist unit like Fire Dragons to knock out a tank?

By flexible in this context I am referring to units possessing options that allow them (in a side board PL meta) to always be a relatively optimal unit choice.


You are right that flexible, doesn't necessarily mean effective, often for Xenos armies it doesn't at all because they lack very flexible units. The guardians are more flexible (slightly) than fire dragons because they have heavy weapons teams, but the fire dragon exarch could have a flamer, so it is not a big difference in flexibility, guardians are mostly anti-infantry, but could pick up a couple anti-tank shot. Storm Guardians are basically in the same boat, they get a couple of weapons. A flexible elder unit would be something Like Wraithguard, because they can go all in on either anti-tank or anti-infantry as the demand warrants. Dark Reapers are more generalist as their guns can address both big units and infantry, though not super great against infantry. War Walkers are probably the most flexible eldar unit, as each one can take 2 heavy weapons, but they are pricey for that output (They are 4 PL more than Marine Devestators for the same number of heavy weapons.)


This is true for most Xenos armies (and daemons) Imperial armies and CSM often have squads that have a lot of weapon options, the same is true for Tau. Most xenos don't have this and would be forced to try to be generalist to compete, or play a TAC list, and potentially get hard countered.

It just gets ugly when you don't have any of the modded upgrades actually modeled anywhere. Now every sergeant has a plasma pistol, power ace, and combi weapon, when he's modeled as bolt pistol chain sword. Or sponsons on a storm raven. These are practically auto include in power levels but you may think twice at Matched points. Adrenal glands and toxin sacks for everyone! I wish there was some middle ground, but I know alot of gamers in my area that had no qualms proxying before that are gonna have a field day now. And I can't blame them either if you're not maxing out your upgrades you're not getting the best value.

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
I think you are overestimating the impact of choice a bit. I don't believe ther would be so much difference. Twin assault cannon razorbacks would still be good units, just as basilisks etc. You could take lascannons Against them, but most likely you would take lascannons Anyways most of the time.

Yes those units are still good, but Against say an all knight army the ability to swap them out for Twin lascannon razorbacks is very significant. Choice allows you to never be in a situation where those units are sub-optimal. So take sternguard, without the ability to swap wargear a squad outfitted will all combi-meltas is sub-optimal against horde orks. That same squad with choice suddenly switches to all combi-flamers and heavy flamers. That is a big difference. Similarly if they had the anti-infantry load out and ran into all tank IG, they would be sub-optimal, if they can swap out to meltas, then they are better. The point is that in a TAC army list you are unlikely to take all lascannons, or all flamers. In a list where you can switch out, you will do just that when it suits you.

But would there be anynore that kind of armies which main strength is that they can surprise opponent that has not suitable weapons to fight back? I would guess that there would not and that might not be a bad thing for the game.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

Except I've said it exactly once....

And 30 of either unit does in fact have the same power level.

 jamopower wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
I think you are overestimating the impact of choice a bit. I don't believe ther would be so much difference. Twin assault cannon razorbacks would still be good units, just as basilisks etc. You could take lascannons Against them, but most likely you would take lascannons Anyways most of the time.

Yes those units are still good, but Against say an all knight army the ability to swap them out for Twin lascannon razorbacks is very significant. Choice allows you to never be in a situation where those units are sub-optimal. So take sternguard, without the ability to swap wargear a squad outfitted will all combi-meltas is sub-optimal against horde orks. That same squad with choice suddenly switches to all combi-flamers and heavy flamers. That is a big difference. Similarly if they had the anti-infantry load out and ran into all tank IG, they would be sub-optimal, if they can swap out to meltas, then they are better. The point is that in a TAC army list you are unlikely to take all lascannons, or all flamers. In a list where you can switch out, you will do just that when it suits you.

But would there be anynore that kind of armies which main strength is that they can surprise opponent that has not suitable weapons to fight back? I would guess that there would not and that might not be a bad thing for the game.

I think it is a bad thing for the game if all armies become the same, because their existence invalidates other armies. I agree armies that are a horrible skew are also bad, but those are much more rare these days (I whish all lord of war armies were not a thing) as everything has a chance to hurt everything else. I just don't look forward to the day that all marine armies are Sterguard/Devestators w/ razorbacks because regardless of build they are an answer to everything. Then against armies with specialists those armies will target the biggest specialist threat first (no target priority really exists in these lists), takes out those few special units and we are back to a problem.

Conversely, could we not design a list that is focused to tackle Sternguard/Devs/Razorbacks?

Is there not a player-side solution? Meta is not a one-sided equation where the opponent adapts and you sit there and cry.

Meanwhile, wouldn't having the option to swap a few meltas for more flamers help tackle some of the hordes some people are struggling with?

hobojebus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

Except I've said it exactly once....

And 30 of either unit does in fact have the same power level.

Sure, and they aren't the same. 30 Boyz have 27 shootas and 4 Rokkit launchas. 30 Stormboyz have sticks.

 jamopower wrote:
I would assume that it's taken into account in the power level

It's not.

Once you start falling back on having to macguyver a hodge-podge of house rules together every time you play, you can no longer claim that power levels are better.

And let's be clear, that line about "players may agree on additional restrictions" only translates to "you can use house rules".

After all, if "we have house rules so it's okay" is your trump card, then that means every single rule in the rulebook is invalid anyway. After all, house rules can replace, tweak, or supplement any of them. However, a ruleset that plays well without house rules is better than one that absolutely requires them to function because the former allows you to play the game without having to write the whole rulebook yourself first.

Power levels have limited applications. They can speed up pick-up games and work well with on-the-spot WYSIWYG play. They are not fit for a competitive setting.

In many cases the "well taking a lascannon means you can't take a heavy bolter" argument doesn't even apply. What about missile launchers, which can fight both infantry and vehicles? What about slots where one of the options is "nothing", such as sponson weapons?

There's also upgrades that have their own dedicated slot, you just take it or you don't and it doesn't replace anything. Vox casters in infantry squads, the heavy flamer in veteran squads, hunter-killer missiles, pintle stubbers, valkyrie/vendetta door guns, camo netting, camo cloaks, carapace armor (even if some of those have vanished for now and we're hoping they come back with the codex), gear that is just "take it or leave it" is remarkably common. While this might be a big reason why Boyz can't take 'Eavy Armor in 8th, might even be why camo cloaks/nets and carapace are gone, there's still plenty of those kinds of upgrades floating around. And if filling a slot like that is free, why would you ever leave it empty?

 Melissia wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
I would assume that it's taken into account in the power level

It's not.

How can you be so sure? For example 5 immortals for 4 PL seem to be quite good value, even if they don't get any upgrades. Compare that to chaos space marines, that cost 3 PL barebones and 5 PL with upgrades for five marines. The costs seem to be as they should. Sure, there might be some unit that would be much better for the same cost, but that's how it usually goes.

Immortals can actually swap out their Gauss weapons for Tesla, or vice versa. So it's a sidegrade, but it's not completely accurate that Necron troops lack flexibility.

ITC has always been a hodgepodge of house rules, they had a 20+ page FAQ for 7th as well as custom missions. Points won't avoid this if that's what you imagine.

And of course, units will always take all the upgrades they paid for. That's one of the interesting features of playing with PLs. When's the last time you saw everyone in a comp fielding upgraded squad leaders with Pistols and Power Weapons?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

Except I've said it exactly once....

And 30 of either unit does in fact have the same power level.

Sure, and they aren't the same. 30 Boyz have 27 shootas and 4 Rokkit launchas. 30 Stormboyz have sticks.

And that's my point from the start they are vastly different units but cost the same PL which they shouldn't.

So far all you've done is prove my point I'm not sure what your objections actually are.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

Except I've said it exactly once....

And 30 of either unit does in fact have the same power level.

Sure, and they aren't the same. 30 Boyz have 27 shootas and 4 Rokkit launchas. 30 Stormboyz have sticks.

Stormboyz are simply boyz with jump-packs. Neither unit has much upgradability of importance outside of the boss nob. And their points cost reflect this but the powerlevels does not. It is simply poor design.

There is nothing fundamentally unsound with the powerlevel-system, but the hap-hazard and inconsistent way that actual powerlevels has been assigned to the various units defeats the purpose of a simpler and more casual system. Certainly, the only use of powerlevels in the ork index seems to make overpowered and broken troll-lists, not exactly something that is helpful to beginners and casual gamers. And a tournament using powerlevels would with certainty be dominated by ridiculous spam-lists.

Balance is a total red herring, it can always be addressed by changing points or PLs.

The only real question is if a sideboard and dynamic/mandatory upgrades are more fun that metagaming before the comp and min-maxing your units in stereotypical OCD gamer fashion.

I think that will mostly boil down to personal preference.

hobojebus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

We are in this situation anyway 30 boyz and 30 stormboyz are the same pl but ones clearly the better choice.

That's never going to be true, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Boyz and Stormboyz have different upgrade options.

Except I've said it exactly once....

And 30 of either unit does in fact have the same power level.

Sure, and they aren't the same. 30 Boyz have 27 shootas and 4 Rokkit launchas. 30 Stormboyz have sticks.

And that's my point from the start they are vastly different units but cost the same PL which they shouldn't.

So far all you've done is prove my point I'm not sure what your objections actually are.

Actually, to be quite honest, those 4 rokkit launchas won't make much difference by themselves. They could be rokkit launchas, they could be big shootas, they could simply be more vanilla sluggas and choppas. The models that carry them are going to do different amounts of work in different situations, and while not all that work will be of equal value, the idea behind power points is that in the grand scheme of things it probably won't matter all that much.

I mean, do some math here. How long would it take those four rokkit launchas to take down a rhino on average? I mean really.

In older editions, sure. One rokkit could pop a rhino in a single shot if you got somewhat lucky with your rolls back before hull points. Just score a penetrating hit and roll high. Vehicles were nearly worthless back then unless they were land-raiders or heavy tanks in the front arc. I didn't play much 7th, but HP made those rokkits a bit less valuable. They could still get the job done, but not in one hit.

Today your average transport has ~10 wounds. Hit 5-6, wound 3+, 4-5+ armor after mods, then deal 3 damage. Repeat.

Those rokkits are so valuable they might be able to kill a basic transport after 4-5 turns of shooting.

Doesn't sound that valuable to me. You'd be better served by picking up an actual anti-vehical/monster squad and counting the rokkits in the boyz squad as simple flexibility.

I've been observing that in-squad flexability through special and heavy weapons isn't as core to an army as it used to be. The value of that individual lascannon isn't as high as it used to be so, literally, those points matter a lot less than they used to.

In most cases, PL seems to be pretty accurate in the grand scheme of things. With or without options. Most of them don't seem to matter. There are exceptions, to be sure, but I'm hoping that player feedback from the games we're playing now will allow GW to add those kind of accuracy modifiers to the codexes.

Take Termagants for example. A gaunt squad with adrenaline glands and toxin sacs is obviously much more powerful than one without, especially if you buy 10-20 extra models for the squad. However, I don't see either option making much of a difference at the 10-model level except in very specific circumstances (charging a small unit of 3-wound models, for example, that not every army can or will have). However, at 20 or 30 models, adrenaline glands are probably worth +1 PL easy. Same with Toxin sacs. So @10 the +1 might get you both options, while at 20 and above each one might cost +1 each. Not per 10 models, just +1 each for the entire squad simply because the difference between 20 and 30 gaunts is primarily staying power. Not hitting power unless you get a perfect charge, at which point it's more your skill as a player that made the difference. Not the options you took.

hobojebus wrote:

Sure, and they aren't the same. 30 Boyz have 27 shootas and 4 Rokkit launchas. 30 Stormboyz have sticks.

And that's my point from the start they are vastly different units but cost the same PL which they shouldn't.

So far all you've done is prove my point I'm not sure what your objections actually are.

You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Random thoughts (since we are on page 5):

Are you a new player reading this? Try your first game with PL and limit upgrades to the basics then play a real game with points.

Duplo or Lego?

It strikes me as odd that 40K players can spend 1,000's of hours painting miniatures but would not want to spend 30 minutes making a fully fleshed out list...

Did someone use the argument, "math is hard?" What are you, a Barbie doll?

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge. While we are at it we should introduce sideboards. Who would not like free upgrade meta?

Battlescribe, free version, go!

One really interesting case is Conscripts. They start out at 3PL for 20 Conscripts, 60 points. Okay, fine.

But then each 10 models after that is only 1PL, so 50 Conscripts is 6PL, you get 150 points of Conscripts for 120 points for no apparent reason.

Now, granted 50 Conscripts can never be entirely represented by PL because it can only be 140 or 160 (7 or 8). But they're 120 if you blob them up, no idea why.

That's also a good example of why PL is inherently not a good balancing system: you can only swing things in increments of 20 points. Think something is undercosted at 2PL? You can raise it by 50% or not at all. While this situation can technically crop up in the GEQ tier (see: conscripts vs gaunts vs guardsmen vs cultists), it's still less pronounced at 4-6 points and there's a lot more stuff in the 2-3PL range than in the 4-6 point range.

Plus, with points, if one particular gun is OP you can adjust just that one gun. With PL, you have to nerf the whole unit even if they don't take the OP gun, as well as every other unit that has that gun as an option.

Honestly, from a purely self-interest perspective it probably would be good for me to argue for PLs. I play Imperial Guard. I'd be able to take advantage of conscripts for an effective 2.4ppm. My infantry squads have tons of loadout options, I'd be able to exploit sideboarding ruthlessly. Almost all of my units can be built ~30%-40% above their nominal PL value, so I could probably bring nearly 1400 points to a 1000 point game. I have tons of options that don't replace anything, they're pure bonus with no drawback, and that can add hundreds of points to my list. Sure, my mortar teams would be relegated to collecting dust because they're never going to be remotely worth it, but over all I arguably play one of the best factions to abuse this system.

But that's exactly why I don't think it's fit for a competitive environment. If I can take advantage of it that easily, then it just wouldn't be fair to hang a tournament on it. Close enough is good enough for a beer and pretzels game, but in a tournament, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The Stormboyz/Ork Boyz example. If they both go into a 2000pt list about 8.3x times, you would lose about 32pts (1.6%).

So yes there's a small penalty for the lack of granularity. What's more meaningful is the 448pts Boyz have to take in upgrades (22.4%).

Not sure why people think that upgrades are free. Clearly this is not the case.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ross-128 wrote:
Sure, my mortar teams would be relegated to collecting dust because they're never going to be remotely worth it, but over all I arguably play one of the best factions to abuse this system.

Then it's definitely worth looking at Guard to see just how badly we can break it.

 Tokhuah wrote:
Random thoughts (since we are on page 5):

Are you a new player reading this? Try your first game with PL and limit upgrades to the basics then play a real game with points.

Duplo or Lego?

It strikes me as odd that 40K players can spend 1,000's of hours painting miniatures but would not want to spend 30 minutes making a fully fleshed out list...

Did someone use the argument, "math is hard?" What are you, a Barbie doll?

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge. While we are at it we should introduce sideboards. Who would not like free upgrade meta?

Battlescribe, free version, go!

Its people who are militant casuals pushing pl hard as if everyone using would create some gaming nirvana, and woe betide you should you disagree because you'll be labeled WAAC or a power gamer.

Thing is just like antifa they have to be vocally opposed lest they get their way and ruin it for everyone.

Gw can't get the impression the loose balance of pl is the norm or we'll be right where we were with 7th, a balanced game benefits every single gamer out there no matter their play style.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Well then you have to reduce PL for units like Necrons Warriors don't you? It's why they exist as a balance mechanism. Format will always have an effect on how useful a unit is.

And Necrons most assuredly have some customization, maybe you've never seen a Wraith without Whip Coils in a 7th Ed tournament but they do have some options available.

If we're to start messing about with PL values why not go the whole hog and do the same with points values? As a nice bonus, you get better granularity. Your argument basically amounts to "if things were more balanced balance would be improved".

If you can't see the tactical difference between being able to swap out an entire squad's worth of heavy weapons or combi-weapons and choosing between no upgrade and Whip Coils I'm not really sure you're grasping the point of the argument.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Conversely, could we not design a list that is focused to tackle Sternguard/Devs/Razorbacks?

Is there not a player-side solution? Meta is not a one-sided equation where the opponent adapts and you sit there and cry.

Meanwhile, wouldn't having the option to swap a few meltas for more flamers help tackle some of the hordes some people are struggling with?

Yes you can design a list to try to counter that (it is very hard for many armies though), but then that list may struggle against something else because it lacks the option to adjust to face other armies (because it uses specialized units). The point is the PL as a side board is exactly one side adapts and the other might just have to sit there and cry. So either, all lists basically end up the same because there is one good list in each faction (if that, it might be that many factions lack even that in a PL as sideboard meta).

As for swapping meltas for flamers help against hordes sure, but most hordes are incapable of similarly adjusting to deal with things that are the largest threats to them. So again it is one sided. It is why I said the only way to handle a side board meta is to allow sideboarding only prior to seeing lists, and basically allow people to write their list on the spot knowing their opponents faction. Otherwise you just pick units/factions that allow you to list tailor and the game becomes, who gets the first shot at the opponent, because their list will be so tuned to killing them the game will be over.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Well then you have to reduce PL for units like Necrons Warriors don't you? It's why they exist as a balance mechanism. Format will always have an effect on how useful a unit is.

And Necrons most assuredly have some customization, maybe you've never seen a Wraith without Whip Coils in a 7th Ed tournament but they do have some options available.

If we're to start messing about with PL values why not go the whole hog and do the same with points values? As a nice bonus, you get better granularity. Your argument basically amounts to "if things were more balanced balance would be improved".

If you can't see the tactical difference between being able to swap out an entire squad's worth of heavy weapons or combi-weapons and choosing between no upgrade and Whip Coils I'm not really sure you're grasping the point of the argument.

Absolutely what I have been saying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The problem with the Ork Boyz vs Stormboys comparison is it assumes the upgrades on boyz are worth taking over just having more boyz.

For the cost of those 3 Rokkits and a Kombi- Rokkit you can have almost 10 more boyz, so if you take 3 units of 30 with those upgrades, is it better to have 12 Rokkits, or 28 additional boyz?

The boyz being 13 power, means that if we are doing 100 power games they are 13% of your list. IF we translate that to a 2k game, that would be 260 points per squad. So essentially Nob with Power klaw and Komb-rokkit, and 3 Rokkits are paid for in this scenario. No option to just take the Power klaw and no special weapons and be at 205. No option To take say 25 boyz etc.

So if that is all you want in your squad you will always take storm boyz in a PL game.

This is the problem with PL in general it assumes taking the upgrades is desirable in all units, vs having cheaper units.

PL is not a balancing system; it's a means to determine who should be the Underdog and how many extra command points he should get in casual games with WYSIWYG models, which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

Alcibiades wrote:
PL is not a balancing system; it's a means to determine who should be the Underdog and how many extra command points he should get in casual games with WYSIWYG models, which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

It is a rough balance system, if people are not min-maxing similar power level armies should be ball park. It just runs into problems if people start building to break it.

Breng77 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
PL is not a balancing system; it's a means to determine who should be the Underdog and how many extra command points he should get in casual games with WYSIWYG models, which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

It is a rough balance system, if people are not min-maxing similar power level armies should be ball park. It just runs into problems if people start building to break it.

Well, it's a rough way to determine which of two armies is more powerful and by how much, but it's not really an attempt to make "armies of equal power" -- in the scenarios in the book, it seems to be used mostly to determine who is the Underdog and should take the defender's position and so on, and in those scenarios being of equal power defeats the purpose.

Alcibiades wrote:
which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

Then it's a broken system and should not be used. People can play 100% WYSIWYG armies with the most overpowered units/upgrades, and any assumption that WYSIWYG models will not be equipped properly is not justifiable.

 Peregrine wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

Then it's a broken system and should not be used. People can play 100% WYSIWYG armies with the most overpowered units/upgrades, and any assumption that WYSIWYG models will not be equipped properly is not justifiable.

It is in my group, because we play both power and points, which means that we don't buy every upgrade available.

Now, I fully agree that using this system in any kind of competitive or power-gaming environment would be raving madness. It's perfectly fine for Bob, Bob's wife, and Bob's buddies, though.

Have played about a dozen games now with power level and close to that with points.

In a non waac environment.

The two sets of games were very close in their results.

I will still continue to use power level for most everything that does not include WAAC play.

If my opponent is the type of person to utter "but why would I never take all the free upgrades everytime" then we aren't playing 40k in campaigns anyway... he's a tournament player likely and I'll only ever see him in the waac environment.

Have played both in a waac environment as well. They were predictably one sided games whether you used power level or points.

Alcibiades wrote:
casual games with WYSIWYG models

You keep using the term WYSIWYG as if it has any relation to balance.

I don't think you actually know what WYSIWYG means.

Alcibiades wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
which is why it is based on average upgrades and not maximum, because it is assumed that these WYSIWYG models will not have every available upgrade.

Then it's a broken system and should not be used. People can play 100% WYSIWYG armies with the most overpowered units/upgrades, and any assumption that WYSIWYG models will not be equipped properly is not justifiable.

It is in my group, because we play both power and points, which means that we don't buy every upgrade available.

Now, I fully agree that using this system in any kind of competitive or power-gaming environment would be raving madness. It's perfectly fine for Bob, Bob's wife, and Bob's buddies, though.

Yup, it is great for quick pick-ups that are casual, playing with kids, playing huge apocalypse level games. It gives rough balance if power is equal, at least enough for these purposes. Anything competitive it starts to fall down.

Slipspace wrote:
If you can't see the tactical difference between being able to swap out an entire squad's worth of heavy weapons or combi-weapons and choosing between no upgrade and Whip Coils I'm not really sure you're grasping the point of the argument.

Cantopek Wraiths have 4 upgrade choices in 8th. Transdimensional Beamer, Particle Casters, Whip Coils and Claws. Not sure where you got Whip Coils or nothing from.

Is a unit that can swap out it's loadout more flexible? Yes, but remember we also had units with multiple primary weapon profiles in 7th (like a Thunderfire or a Whirlwind). Is a flexible unit better? Depends entirely on costing.

Breng77 wrote:
Yes you can design a list to try to counter that (it is very hard for many armies though), but then that list may struggle against something else because it lacks the option to adjust to face other armies (because it uses specialized units).

Exact same issue exists in points, they can't adjust to everything. This is why skew lists were so effective and so common in the 7th tournament scene. This criticism is 100% valid but it's not unique to PLs.

Breng77 wrote:
The problem with the Ork Boyz vs Stormboys comparison is it assumes the upgrades on boyz are worth taking over just having more boyz.

The effect of being forced to max out on upgrades is it will detune certain units like Boyz. Powergamers will simply adjust by using more optimal units, including skimping in their troops slot if it's not optimal. So again, this is exactly like points in 7th. Where certain units were also never taken because min squads without upgrades were the most efficienct. You are again making valid points but they apply to both systems!

--------------

I think we can all agree competitive players will act exactly the same under PLs as under points, they will look for advantages and exploit them. Whether a list has flexible or inflexible upgrades, smart players build towards what the format favours. Either choosing flexible units that can tailor their upgrades to opponents, or building min-maxed skew lists that punish generalist TAC armies.

So the real question -- do transparent draft-style formats encourage balance, player interaction and player agency? I think so, which is why they exist in a lot of competitive online games. Players get another opportunity to adjust to the opponent's choices. And this might be more effective as a balance mechanism than granularity, because players will attempt to auto-balance their upgrades towards target types. Look outside 40k. It can work.

Points and static lists are far from a perfect model, we are glossing over a LOT of issues from 7th. Once again, balance is about costing. If you don't adjust it, any system will fall down. Could you make a balanced list in a 7th casual environment? Sure. But competitive gamers try to break balance in order to win. They aren't going to be any more altruistic under a points model. Mismatches don't happen just because of "granularity" error. If you look at 7th the costing of superstar and dud units was wildly imbalanced to the point of laughable. Granularity was the least of your worries.

 Melissia wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
casual games with WYSIWYG models

You keep using the term WYSIWYG as if it has any relation to balance.

I don't think you actually know what WYSIWYG means.

The main reason I've been using it as a qualifier for casual games (and probably the same reason she is) is that WYSIWYG means if you don't have a model on-hand, you can't put it on the table. In a pick-up game, that is being thrown together on the spot, it does make a difference: only have four lascannons on hand? That's all you can bring, even if you have enough open slots for twenty of them. The point here being that you can use PLs in a casual pick-up game as long as you don't allow proxies (because proxies can utterly break it). This is pretty widely agreed on.

It definitely doesn't do anything to help balance a tournament though, because in a tournament you have months of prep-time to paint new models. Which turns WYSIWYG into a speed bump at best.

 Melissia wrote:
You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Incorrect, I included all upgrades Stormboyz are allowed to take that are different from Boyz. Read the book.

That's why they're power level is the same.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
If you can't see the tactical difference between being able to swap out an entire squad's worth of heavy weapons or combi-weapons and choosing between no upgrade and Whip Coils I'm not really sure you're grasping the point of the argument.

Cantopek Wraiths have 4 upgrade choices in 8th. Transdimensional Beamer, Particle Casters, Whip Coils and Claws. Not sure where you got Whip Coils or nothing from.

Is a unit that can swap out it's loadout more flexible? Yes, but remember we also had units with multiple primary weapon profiles in 7th (like a Thunderfire or a Whirlwind). Is a flexible unit better? Depends entirely on costing.

Breng77 wrote:
Yes you can design a list to try to counter that (it is very hard for many armies though), but then that list may struggle against something else because it lacks the option to adjust to face other armies (because it uses specialized units).

Exact same issue exists in points, they can't adjust to everything. This is why skew lists were so effective and so common in the 7th tournament scene. This criticism is 100% valid but it's not unique to PLs.

Breng77 wrote:
The problem with the Ork Boyz vs Stormboys comparison is it assumes the upgrades on boyz are worth taking over just having more boyz.

The effect of being forced to max out on upgrades is it will detune certain units like Boyz. Powergamers will simply adjust by using more optimal units, including skimping in their troops slot if it's not optimal. So again, this is exactly like points in 7th. Where certain units were also never taken because min squads without upgrades were the most efficienct. You are again making valid points but they apply to both systems!

--------------

I think we can all agree competitive players will act exactly the same under PLs as under points, they will look for advantages and exploit them. Whether a list has flexible or inflexible upgrades, smart players build towards what the format favours. Either choosing flexible units that can tailor their upgrades to opponents, or building min-maxed skew lists that punish generalist TAC armies.

So the real question -- do transparent draft-style formats encourage balance, player interaction and player agency? I think so, which is why they exist in a lot of competitive online games. Players get another opportunity to adjust to the opponent's choices. And this might be more effective as a balance mechanism than granularity, because players will attempt to auto-balance their upgrades towards target types. Look outside 40k. It can work.

Points and static lists are far from a perfect model, we are glossing over a LOT of issues from 7th. Once again, balance is about costing. If you don't adjust it, any system will fall down. Could you make a balanced list in a 7th casual environment? Sure. But competitive gamers try to break balance in order to win. They aren't going to be any more altruistic under a points model. Mismatches don't happen just because of "granularity" error. If you look at 7th the costing of superstar and dud units was wildly imbalanced to the point of laughable. Granularity was the least of your worries.

Yes 7th had tons of issues with skew lists, The difference is allowing some armies to have effective side boards and others not. I'm not against the idea of a sideboard concept. I'm against using PL as the sideboard concept because it penalizes a great number of units that lack options/effective options.

Re-costing will be necessary for balance in either scenario, and if it is going to be done it can be done more effectively in a granular system because you have more wiggle room in the cost. Essentially if we buy the concept that 100 PL ~ 2000 points. Then re-recosting with power level can only occur in 20 point increments, So if something is OP at 4 PL and goes up to 5 PL that is a 25% cost increase on the unit. This might make it balanced or it might make it useless, the balance point might be 10%, but you are incapable of making that adjustment, unless you re-cost everything so that PL are doubled, and now that unit is 8 PL going to 9, even then this is 12.5% but at least we are getting close. By doing this you are increasing granularity. Do it enough to make slight adjustments and you might as well be playing points. The issue is that at some point you end up hurting PL as a way for casual players to play because you will need to account for the optimal value of the unit rather than a basic average.

Granularity wasn't a worry in 7th because it existed, the problem was there were plenty of things that threw points out the window (summoning, free transports), they also have never really updated points without also making rules changes, so balance never happened. At some level it is just easier to use points. Unless you limit unit options. Then if you want to go side board, the way to do it was as I suggested, make lists at game time (easy with PL) after knowing the mission and opponents faction. So you are not building a hard counter, but you have some idea about the types of units you might see and can bring an answer.

 Tokhuah wrote:

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge.

There's nothing to abuse. There's a reason Power levels are what they are.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Incorrect

Oh look another person making the absurd argument that a unit with upgrades is equal to a unit without them, or that all upgrades are equal. Powerlevels make people do funny things!

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Tokhuah wrote:

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge.

There's nothing to abuse. There's a reason Power levels are what they are.

There are absolutely things you can abuse. There are reasons why points are what they are, you cannot tell me that it is not abusive that a space marine player can essentially get a free heavy weapon (assuming more expensive ones) in every Devestator squad. If you look at points I can take six 4 lascannon dev squads at 1k points, for 50 PL (which is supposed to be similar) I can take 7. So I get enough points for another squad. On the flip side Necrons get the exact same number of warriors (eight 10 man squads) Orks get fewer boyz (can take 150 easily at 1k points only take 100 at 50 PL)

 Melissia wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Incorrect

Oh look another person making the absurd argument that a unit with upgrades is equal to a unit without them, or that all upgrades are equal. Powerlevels make people do funny things!

What point are you trying to make here? I objectively illustrated why Boyz and Stormboyz have the same power level. That's a fact that is inarguable

What are you trying to get here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Tokhuah wrote:

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge.

There's nothing to abuse. There's a reason Power levels are what they are.

There are absolutely things you can abuse. There are reasons why points are what they are, you cannot tell me that it is not abusive that a space marine player can essentially get a free heavy weapon (assuming more expensive ones) in every Devestator squad. If you look at points I can take six 4 lascannon dev squads at 1k points, for 50 PL (which is supposed to be similar) I can take 7. So I get enough points for another squad. On the flip side Necrons get the exact same number of warriors (eight 10 man squads) Orks get fewer boyz (can take 150 easily at 1k points only take 100 at 50 PL)

They aren't going to take only the most expensive options. Unless they want to lose that is. Are you upset that some people might intentionally create bad armies because Power Levels will let them think that expensive is synonymous with best?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Incorrect

Oh look another person making the absurd argument that a unit with upgrades is equal to a unit without them, or that all upgrades are equal. Powerlevels make people do funny things!

What point are you trying to make here?

My point is simple: in spite of your attempt to math away the objections, your argument doesn't by any means actually make the case that powerlevels given to the units balanced properly. Like I said before; not all upgrades are equal.

Ork Boyz unit upgrades are something of a joke. A lot of Ork players don't ever bother to even take them simply because they're kinda useless. There's very little difference between 30 ork boyz with 2 rokkits and 30 ork boyz without any special weapons at all. which basically means the increase in powerlevels are caused by what is essentially dead weight to the squad. Yeah, you might as well take them, since they're free, along with every other free upgrade. But it still overcosts the unit in terms of powerlevels, where it doesn't in terms of points (because you can choose not to take the relatively worthless upgrade and spend your points elsewhere).

Which is a problem a lot of armies face right now, while some armies gain a ton of advantage because their upgrades are both plentiful and powerful. Powerlevels exacerbate the already substantial differences between armies that have plenty of toys and more limited armies.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You compared an unupgraded squad to one with six upgrades. Stop being disingenuous.

Incorrect

Oh look another person making the absurd argument that a unit with upgrades is equal to a unit without them, or that all upgrades are equal. Powerlevels make people do funny things!

What point are you trying to make here? I objectively illustrated why Boyz and Stormboyz have the same power level. That's a fact that is inarguable

What are you trying to get here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Tokhuah wrote:

Locally, it is the SM players who are trying to convince everyone that PL is a good thing, with those who would abuse it leading the charge.

There's nothing to abuse. There's a reason Power levels are what they are.

There are absolutely things you can abuse. There are reasons why points are what they are, you cannot tell me that it is not abusive that a space marine player can essentially get a free heavy weapon (assuming more expensive ones) in every Devestator squad. If you look at points I can take six 4 lascannon dev squads at 1k points, for 50 PL (which is supposed to be similar) I can take 7. So I get enough points for another squad. On the flip side Necrons get the exact same number of warriors (eight 10 man squads) Orks get fewer boyz (can take 150 easily at 1k points only take 100 at 50 PL)

They aren't going to take only the most expensive options. Unless they want to lose that is. Are you upset that some people might intentionally create bad armies because Power Levels will let them think that expensive is synonymous with best?

What are you even talking about? What options? If I take a devastator squad it costs what it costs. Are you arguing that they are too expensive in PL when they are cheaper than in points? Or are you saying Orks should choose different options because boyz are more expensive? Warriors are exactly the same. So in PL Marines get an advantage in this scenario because their unit is actually cheaper for the same (not uncommon) loadout. Whereas ork boyz for their common load out are significantly more expensive.

Is your argument that orks should make more elite armies of not so durable models (which are also more expensive?) Unless you do that basically every unit runs significantly more expensive in PL than you would typically run that model otherwise. So you end up with fewer models (which are typically not durable) with more expensive upgrades.

For instance my current 2k ork list runs ~120 power. So to get down to 100 power I would need to cut 2-3 units. My dark angels list (which is a more tuned list for points) runs 104. So I could easily just exchange one HQ choice for another almost equally good choice (maybe an even better choice actually) and I would be under. So one list needs to Cut 3 units, the other needs to swap one HQ, and that is the better list.

Christ internet. I just don't understand you sometimes.

You said 2+2=5. I showed you it was 4, and your response is "facts schmatcs."

I give up here.

Breng77 wrote:
I'm against using PL as the sideboard concept because it penalizes a great number of units that lack options/effective options.

This is a valid point, dynamic upgrades would be a different format. It's inevitable it will aid some units and penalize others, irrespective of balance. Same deal with mission types.

If you want static upgrades, they are less complicated to understand but unfortunately tend to lean towards fielding the same cookie-cutter solutions. Defeating players before the game starts by gaming the competitive meta or bringing compositions of units that players don't or can't anticipate is unfortunately common. Tldr = skew lists and min-maxing.

40k is usually better when players create lists that balance each other, which competitive players don't want -- they want to leverage advantage. So some kind of PL draft or "I go U go" upgrade sideboard has potential. It's essentially a way to formalize cooperative list building in a competive environment. But as always implementation and inertia will be significant sticking points, you'd want to experiment at a small scale first.

For reals guys, can we stop pretending like power levels are anything more than a less granular point system? We can go back and forth all day comparing the totals of certain builds in each system and get nowhere. They're just two flavors of the same fething thing. Pick one, or both, and use whichever makes more sense for the game you're playing that day.

Breng77 wrote:
I'm against using PL as the sideboard concept because it penalizes a great number of units that lack options/effective options.

This.

There is a tourney this Saturday at Sarge's Comics and Games that has a PL of 75 points and a sideboard.

I play daemons. My units are getting an average of 13-17 points per PL. Marines are getting around 25.
This means at a 75 point tourney, I'm taking 1200 points to the game, and my opponent is bringing 1950.

Sure, in a casual friendly game this does not matter. When I'm throwing down money in a tourney, then I just won't go.

Just No.

This is up there with 'no pre-measuring' as the most backwards thought process for a competitive environment.

 labmouse42 wrote:
I play daemons. My units are getting an average of 13-17 points per PL. Marines are getting around 25.

Just looked at this quickly.

----> 10 Daemonettes + Icon + Instrument = 125pts.
----> 125pts/5x PL = 25pts per PL.

----> 5 Tacticals + Flamer + Combi-Flamer + PF = 105pts.
----> 105pts/5x PL = 21pts per PL.

Now you could definitely attempt to increase the points of the SM squad using more expensive ranged weapons, but it might not be to the SM player's best interest.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
I play daemons. My units are getting an average of 13-17 points per PL. Marines are getting around 25.

Just looked at this quickly.

----> 10 Daemonettes + Icon + Instrument = 125pts.
----> 125pts/5x PL = 25pts per PL.

----> 5 Tacticals + Flamer + Combi-Flamer + PF = 105pts.
----> 105pts/5x PL = 21pts per PL.

Now you could definitely attempt to increase the points of the SM squad using more expensive ranged weapons, but it might not be to the SM player's best interest.

It is almost always to the space marine players best interest to take more expensive upgrades (that is why they are more expensive). Also if we assume min-maxing, why are you taking tacticals at all?

Why not 5 devastators with lascannons, and a combi-flamer, and PF, cherub? that would be 201 pts for 7 PL 28 points per power level.
of 5 sternguard with 2 heavy flamers and 3 combi-flamers and a PF at 7 PL, so that is 23 points per if I want a flamer squad.

Then if you take Max Daemonettes to gain their advantage for large squad you are 15 Pl for 305 points and getting ~21 Points per power level.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
I play daemons. My units are getting an average of 13-17 points per PL. Marines are getting around 25.

Just looked at this quickly.

----> 10 Daemonettes + Icon + Instrument = 125pts.
----> 125pts/5x PL = 25pts per PL.

----> 5 Tacticals + Flamer + Combi-Flamer + PF = 105pts.
----> 105pts/5x PL = 21pts per PL.

Now you could definitely attempt to increase the points of the SM squad using more expensive ranged weapons, but it might not be to the SM player's best interest.

Look at what 20 plague bearers. They get a ratio of 18.33.
You will never run units of 10 daemonettes, you should be taking them in units of 20+. Daemonettes have a slightly better ratio than plague bearers, but not by much.

You also compared them to tacticals. How about you compare them to a unit like sternguard? That's what people are going to be taking to tourneys with free upgrades.
----> 5 sternguard w/5 combi-meltas PF = 195pts.
----> 195pts/7x PL = 27pts per PL.

----> 3 bikes w/2 metlaguns PF = 153pts.
----> 153pts/6x PL = 25.5pts per PL.

The problem is when units have lots of upgrades, like Breng77 mentioned -- you get skewed ratios. If we're just playing for beer and pretzels, it does not matter. When were throwing down money to play for prize support, it does.

Edit : Another problem is that the daemon player does not have the options for sideboarding like the other armies do. The marine player can bring 20 different stermguard and just plop down whichever he needs to fit the situation. Facing hordes, here come 5 combi-flamers. Knights? Here come 5 combi-meltas. Daemons (and I'm guessing other armies) can't change to that degree. A screamer is a screamer.

I'm starting to come around to power level and in some ways think it may lead to less annoying tournament cheesing. For example right now one of the aspects that decides which spammy net-list is going to be used is points levels of equipment. if something is point costed .000001% more points efficient than you're going to see everyone spam only that. With power level you can take less used weapons, or take weapons that might fit a specific purpose while not necessarily being the cheapest, without being tied down to how much it costs compared to the other equipment.

Now this would probably work best in units that can take 1-2 special weapons per unit. Where it get's out of hand is in units where everyone model can take a special weapon and points are the limiting factor.

Danny slag wrote:
I'm starting to come around to power level and in some ways think it may lead to less annoying tournament cheesing. For example right now one of the aspects that decides which spammy net-list is going to be used is points levels of equipment. if something is point costed .000001% more points efficient than you're going to see everyone spam only that. With power level you can take less used weapons, or take weapons that might fit a specific purpose while not necessarily being the cheapest, without being tied down to how much it costs compared to the other equipment.

My guess would be probably not, rather, you're just going to get people taking whatever the most powerful option is, every time, by default in any sort of competitive environment.

Cost efficiency is still a factor, it's just far less granular and controlled. Power Level is not going to be the excuse people are looking for to break out Ye Old IG Grenade Launchers for instance, but it's going to make plasma spam wonderfully easy.

Danny slag wrote:
I'm starting to come around to power level and in some ways think it may lead to less annoying tournament cheesing. For example right now one of the aspects that decides which spammy net-list is going to be used is points levels of equipment. if something is point costed .000001% more points efficient than you're going to see everyone spam only that. With power level you can take less used weapons, or take weapons that might fit a specific purpose while not necessarily being the cheapest, without being tied down to how much it costs compared to the other equipment.

Now this would probably work best in units that can take 1-2 special weapons per unit. Where it get's out of hand is in units where everyone model can take a special weapon and points are the limiting factor.

As Vaktathi says if people are spamming due to 0.00000001% more points efficient options, why wouldn't they do it when somethings are far more points efficient, and the options are far more obvious?

power levels are only appropriate for casual and unbalanced games, leave them out of everything else.

Points vs Power is like "six in one, half a dozen in the other" IMHO...

Power levels are not the most upgraded unit divided by 20. it's the AVERAGE between minimum and most upgraded divided by 20.

----> 10 Daemonettes + Icon + Instrument = 125pts.
----> 10 Daemonette with zero upgrades = 90pts
---> Average between those is 107.5. NOW you Divided by 20 = 5.375, or 5 rounded down
Ergo, PL5 is appropriate and this formula works 95% of the time, just try it.

Using PLs to swap upgrades form game to game is dumb, though. You make your list fixed whether using PLS or Points. I'm not sure where this idea came from

The REAL reason you do not want to use PLs for Tourneys is because Summoning new units is free.
Using Reinforcement points is meant as a way to use POINTS in Match Play.
Narrative play uses Power levels and thus new units are free.

A simple fix, of course, is to house rule "Reinforcement Power levels", but at that point, you can just house rule anything.

 labmouse42 wrote:
The marine player can bring 20 different stermguard and just plop down whichever he needs to fit the situation. Facing hordes, here come 5 combi-flamers. Knights? Here come 5 combi-meltas.

I imagine you want to field them in a detachment with transport, so calculated out :

---> 2x HQs : Captain, Librarian (11 PL)
---> 3x Tacticals (15 PL)
---> 4x Sternguard (28 PL)
---> 4x Rhinos (16 PL)

Total is 70 PL, that's not exactly chump change. And this list looks by no means unbeatable.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I imagine you want to field them in a detachment with transport, so calculated out :

---> 2x HQs : Captain, Librarian (11 PL)
---> 3x Tacticals (15 PL)
---> 4x Sternguard (28 PL)
---> 4x Rhinos (16 PL)

Total is 70 PL, that's not exactly chump change. And this list looks by no means unbeatable.

If you are using PL, why use you use tacticals? Take one of the detachments that lets you bring another choice in it's place.
Go with more dreads or some predators. This is what I would take for marines at 75 PL. It has 7 drops, giving it a good chance of going first. It has extremely solid firepower and a well rounded army.
---> 1 : Captain (5PL)
---> 1 : Scout Squad (6PL)
---> 2 : Venerable Dreads (16PL)
---> 4 x Sternguard (28 PL)
---> 4x Razorbacks (20 PL)

With daemons, this is what I would have for 75 PL. I have these models today, and this is a solid list.
---> 1 : GUO (12PL)
---> 1 : Herald of Nurgle (4PL)
---> 3 : Nurgling squads (18PL)
---> 3 : Exalted Flamers (12PL)
---> 1 : 30 Plaguebearers (15PL)
---> 1 : 6 Plague Drones (14PL)

The difference is that the first list is just flat out better. Run the points on both, and see how the points match up. If the second list is as expensive -points wise- as the first, I'll eat my hat.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Christ internet. I just don't understand you sometimes.

You said 2+2=5

Actually it's more like "DarknessEternal said 2+2=7, and everyone is telling him he's wrong while he's confused about it".

You don't understand how points OR power levels actually work, you just keep trying to push how you WANT them to work.

Points are flawed. The points costs are unbalanced. No one is denying that. What the argument is being made is that, in spite of their flaws, points at the very least attempt to provide some balance between units with different upgrade choices. The more powerful an upgrade, usually, the more points it costs. This is a very rational and logical system.

Unlike points, however, power levels do not even bother. They've given up even trying to balance upgrades. All upgrade choices are costed the same. It doesn't matter how powerful they are. They're all the same cost. And yet you act like because they're costed the same, they magically now ARE the same balance-wise.

Because of course you are. You work from the assumption that power levels are better, rather than looking at each of them for their merits and flaws individually.

Well, to be more accurate, what happens is that because power levels are based on points, any errors made in points will also be reflected in power levels. So, like thermodynamics, you can't get ahead and you can't break even.

However, power levels also have a much lower resolution than points and allow you to change a lot of variables for zero cost. This means errors in points are not just reflected in power levels, they are amplified and compounded with errors in the power levels themselves. For any problems you may have with points, by going to power levels those problems can only get worse.

The biggest problem with powerlevels is that some armies just have better upgrades than others. And they now basically get them for free. While armies with crap upgrades now pay for them even if they would never actually use them.

If GW would go and fix the upgrades so all upgrades are equally viable, powerlevels might be a good system. This will never happen, and powerlevels will never be a good system.

 labmouse42 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
I imagine you want to field them in a detachment with transport, so calculated out :

---> 2x HQs : Captain, Librarian (11 PL)
---> 3x Tacticals (15 PL)
---> 4x Sternguard (28 PL)
---> 4x Rhinos (16 PL)

Total is 70 PL, that's not exactly chump change. And this list looks by no means unbeatable.

If you are using PL, why use you use tacticals? Take one of the detachments that lets you bring another choice in it's place.
Go with more dreads or some predators. This is what I would take for marines at 75 PL. It has 7 drops, giving it a good chance of going first. It has extremely solid firepower and a well rounded army.
---> 1 : Captain (5PL)
---> 1 : Scout Squad (6PL)
---> 2 : Venerable Dreads (16PL)
---> 4 x Sternguard (28 PL)
---> 4x Razorbacks (20 PL)

With daemons, this is what I would have for 75 PL. I have these models today, and this is a solid list.
---> 1 : GUO (12PL)
---> 1 : Herald of Nurgle (4PL)
---> 3 : Nurgling squads (18PL)
---> 3 : Exalted Flamers (12PL)
---> 1 : 30 Plaguebearers (15PL)
---> 1 : 6 Plague Drones (14PL)

The difference is that the first list is just flat out better. Run the points on both, and see how the points match up. If the second list is as expensive -points wise- as the first, I'll eat my hat.

I mean it depends on upgrades to these units.


If I go with combi-plasma on all sterngaurd, assault cannon Razorbacks, and Twin Autocannon Dreads, scouts with sniper rifles and cammo cloaks, powerfists on sarges, captain with TH and Storm shield. I get that list 1636

The Daemons if the Plaguebearers and drones have an icon and instrument I get 1462.

 labmouse42 wrote:
The difference is that the first list is just flat out better. Run the points on both, and see how the points match up. If the second list is as expensive -points wise- as the first, I'll eat my hat.

Of course that assumes points are some holy bible of unit efficiency which they aren't.

tneva82 wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
The difference is that the first list is just flat out better. Run the points on both, and see how the points match up. If the second list is as expensive -points wise- as the first, I'll eat my hat.

Of course that assumes points are some holy bible of unit efficiency which they aren't.

No ones assuming they're the holy bible of efficiency. They are, however, assuming correctly that most upgrades are priced within a reasonable margin of error for their efficiency.

Points not being perfect is not a good argument for a different system that cares even less about accuracy, and is derived from the points people are decrying as being inaccurate.

tneva82 wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
The difference is that the first list is just flat out better. Run the points on both, and see how the points match up. If the second list is as expensive -points wise- as the first, I'll eat my hat.

Of course that assumes points are some holy bible of unit efficiency which they aren't.

No it assumes points have some value, and that typically speaking something that costs more is better if cost is not an issue. Look at it this way, can you objectively tell me that A sternguard squad with 5 combi-meltas is not better than one without those upgrades? In a points system that might not be true because of the added cost, but if both cost the same, the 5 combi-meltas are obviously better.

Similarly we can assume that infantry costed at say 10 points per model is relatively equal to other infantry costed at 10 PPM. Now it isn't exact, and errors happen, but in general we must accept this notion. If we say, no points are super wrong across the board and provide no information on unit performance, then the same is true for power level, only the gap is bigger.

In a points system you run into the issue of things being too expensive for their durability. So you might not load down a unit of say Ork nobs with power klaws, cybork bodies, ammo-runts, Kombi-rokkits, because they become too expensive for their durability. In Power level you with either, always do this because they are durable enough for their power and so take as many upgrades as you can because the upgrades make them straight better (no upgrade exists to my knowledge that makes a squad worse), or you never take them because they are not worth the power given their durability ever. Power level largely makes units a binary choice, either the unit is good and always worth taking, or it is bad and never worth taking, there is no real middle ground, In points there can be a middle ground where say a tactical squad is worth it but only if you take a 5 man unit with plasma and combi-plasma, a power fist sarge makes them too expensive to be worth it.

Breng77 wrote:
Look at it this way, can you objectively tell me that A sternguard squad with 5 combi-meltas is not better than one without those upgrades?

Versus 30x Plaguebearers at 6". Assume multi-wound simply removes DR.


Given the numbers above, a 144pt squad with Combi-Flamers and a Claw (20.6) puts out objectively much better damage than a 195pt squad with Combi-Meltas and a Fist (27.8). Appropriate upgrades win, even if it levels out the min-maxing.

 labmouse42 wrote:
If you are using PL, why use you use tacticals?

I wanted to see if 4 Sternguard can break balance in a relatively conventional list. So I decided to keep other factors to a minimum, like skimping on troops and HQs.

Summoned Plaguebearers with +1" and a command reroll on the charge can probably make it past Flamer overwatch, some MSU might not be unwise. You're gaining a lot of benefits from the Instrument, Icon, and CP for strategems, probably moreso than from the -1 to hit in bigger squads.

28 PL (3x Combi-Flamer, 2x HF, Claw Sternguard) = 624pts, 22.3 ratio
30 PL (6x MSU Plaguebearers) = 690pts, 23.0 ratio

Here is the general calculus in a more complete list at 60 PL.

SM: 1x Captain w/JP, SS, TH (22.2), 1x Camo/Sniper/Fist Scouts (18.3), 4x Flamer Sternguard (22.3), 4x TL Lascannon Razorbacks (23.0) = 1327pts
CD: 2x Heralds (17.5), 6x Plaguebearers (23.0), 2x Soul Grinder (21.4) = 1300pts

So, no need to eat your hat after all, but difference is equal to about 1x PF on a sniper squad. Adjust the lists as you deem fit, but if the Sternguard are tackling the Plaguebearers, they aren't going to be more efficient by outfitting the squad with more expensive Fists and Combi-meltas. And don't forget there's a 5CP disadvantage for SM.