So I have read through the Tau codex and noticed that all the models stats are on power and have the power card like it comes in the box. The point values are all listed onto two pages and it got me thinking of how the power rating got more of a center stage and point seems to be the alternative. Is GW planning to make power rating the default, and should they?

 NivNeos wrote:
So I have read through the Tau codex and noticed that all the models stats are on power and have the power card like it comes in the box. The point values are all listed onto two pages and it got me thinking of how the power rating got more of a center stage and point seems to be the alternative. Is GW planning to make power rating the default, and should they?

The rumors I heard awhile back was GW was going to get rid of pts for 8th but then all the back lash to AOS's lack of pts happened. So GW added them back in before release.

I think, at least during 8th's development, the designers wanted Power Level to be the common way to play, but after the disastrous launch of Age of Sigmar were probably reluctant to ditch points entirely.

The problem with Power Level as implemented in 40K, of course, is that it doesn't take any upgrades into account. So it can be a decent way to gauge the general comparative power of two forces, but is very poorly suited to competitive play, and falls apart on certain units (eg- Drukhari Scourges, where a unit of 5 could all be carrying cheap and basic Shardcarbines, or expensive anti-tank Dark Lances, and the PL system makes no differentiation).

Apocalypse uses Power Level, but also has Power Level costs for upgrades, and I've found it works really well and is a lot less fiddly to build lists for. So that might be an example of where things are going in the future.

They way power level is implemented in 40k makes it unusable except in quick pickup games or strictly for fun games.

Take a unit of the aforementioned Drukhari Scourges, (I don't know the actual power levels so bear with me)
They could be pwr lvl 5 and then be given weapons that essentially would have tripled or at least doubled their power level. Now look at a unit like Boyz, no matter how you equip them they are essentially the same, and its arguable that they could be made worse by the addition of Big shootas. Really the only upgrade you would take that is worth anything is a power Klaw on your nob. So those boyz pay a premium in Power level for their basic stuff and maybe gain 25pts worth of upgrades where as the Scourges gain more then 100% of their cost in special weapons.

I don't think GW are making PL the default, and I don't think it needs to be, either. Honestly, I don't think 40k *should* have a default.

Points do fine for matches where people care about if your sergeant has a plasma pistol but only a basic chainsword. PL works fine for "let's throw down models, and play with what you've modelled them with".

I think the reason PL are printed on the in-kit datasheets is because it saves GW having to dedicate more space to the individual cost of weapons, potential equipment, upgrades, etc etc, whereas PL is as simple as "you've got this unit? Cool, they cost X*" It's also a lot more beginner friendly.


*there are some cases where some unit upgrades (like jump packs) alter the cost of the unit's PL, but these are few and far between. It's far easier to do 4+1 than (16x5)+(1x5)+20 or whatever the cost of your unit is in points.

Power Level works really, really, really well as a quick and dirty way to ensure that a fluffy narrative game you're playing isn't disappointingly one-sided, but it's pretty pants at anything else.

IMO, natch.

Lately it's been the opposite. Power hasn't been updated at all while points get updates. I think if they wanted power to work the vocal response to points less AOS killed that. The modern wargamer wants points suitable for pickup games and the illusion of balance, and it's not feasible to not provide that.

There are too many people who see "free" upgrades as carte blanche to min max and powergame rather than the intent.

Wayniac wrote:

There are too many people who see "free" upgrades as carte blanche to min max and powergame rather than the intent.

And just what is the intent?

If you talk to people about it you generally get VERY different answers very fast. To the point where you quickly start to realise that there is very little to no actual common ground between gamers. More astute replies will even start to show that the "intent" isn't even the same game to game. Very quickly you find that basically there's no common default answer, so it comes down to the pre-game agreement.

The problem there is also interpretation. You can see this is also not universally agreed upon. I've seen threads where people have argued head to head and thrown up maths and such - one arguing that an army is overpowered and the other that the army is significantly underpowered. both are convinced that their interpretations of the same statistics and maths proves their point.


So even if two people agree to the same type and intention for a game, they might both interpret the choices they can make with their respective armies very differently.



Point based systems might not be perfect for balance, but they can remove a significant (though not total) layer of interpretation. Army composition restrictions further aid in this matter.


In the end its not beyond people to come to agreement, but it can often take a long time to get there and might take weeks or months if people only get a game a month - longer if their games are against different people.



In the end power-points are a very crude balancing system as they are presented in the codex. Simple, yes, but also a very crude tool that, as noted above, doesn't reflect the myriad of options. Power-points would likely work somewhat better in AoS if only because most units have only one equipment set (with the only variation often being on the leader model or a 1 in every 10 situation). So a units performance is unlikely to change much if at all. Indeed quite a lot of the equipment choices the armies do have don't actually make much difference. The recent Ossiarch Bonereaper army can take swords or spears for their infantry and cavalry. However when you do the maths; the differences are not night and day and they actually perform a very similar role very close together. Indeed the only real difference is the weapon range between the two and the corresponding affect that having more range (this more in close combat) will have on the resulting performance.

Before "those people" show up... I like the idea of Power Levels.

Specifically, if PL were based on a "fully loaded" squad. The vast option-heavy sea of possibilities that an *Infantry Squad* has is ridiculous. In many ways, they're broken without paying for upgraded equipment, as the board control they offer is incredibly valuable on top of their souping power.

But if you made them 4 PL each... Yes, you'd be foolish not to take the upgrades but that would be the point. Instead of a 40 point squad that can be more expensive, you have a (roughly) 80 point squad that you can choose to under-equip if you want.

Same deal with something like Death Company. I want to model each dude with awesome CC weaponry... but I also know that at least half will be killed before they reach combat. So make 10 DC worth... I dunno... 10 dudes with 4 Thunder Hammers. Sure, you can then load them all up with Thunder Hammers... but what will you hit that 4 TH aren't going to kill? And how often will you get even 5 of those duders to CC anyhow? A PL value for those, armed however you want, would be a more realistic and consistent in-game value.

If I consider that, with Points, I only take "good value" upgrades, then that means that all the bonus options I'd take that would otherwise bloat my Point costs really aren't worth their points... right? Otherwise I'd take them.

Like a Vox Caster in an Infantry Squad. It's practically worthless. At MOST worth 1 point, but it's costed at 5, plus another 5 somewhere else to link it to. So in PL, it's accurately assessed at *no value*. Same thing as giving a Bolt Pistol to the Sergeant. Really... it's there to make him stand out / look cool. Or a Bolter, because LP / CCW is stupid for an Infantry Sergeant.

I'm addicted to this argument. I think I post it every time this subject comes up.

What about power points when they include stuff you don't want to take. With GK for example you never wanted to use special weapons, as they were worse option then a normal stormbolter.

That would be the point. If taking an optional weapon is a sideways move, then the PL would reflect that. That said, a Psilencer is surely better than a storm bolter, no? Longer range, higher ROF? It doesn’t seem worse... and if it were you wouldn’t be increasing the PL, it would remain the same.

I’m not familiar with GK outside of Kill Team, so cant speak to the specifics.

PS: there are certain posters that *only* post about how bad their faction has it. It becomes a cliche, and eventually it’s hard to take their opinion on anything seriously. You might want to consider your own posting habits, if you are concerned about how others will perceive your posts.

Meanwhile, if I'm playing PL I'm having all of my Rhinos have two storm bolters instead of just one, because I mean, of course I would, they don't count for PL even if they count for points. Also giving them all hunter-killer missiles because, again, why wouldn't I? They don't increase PL, and the Rhinos are flat out better having them than not having them.

The eight point per rhino difference is enough, over the course of the half-dozen or so Rhinos one needs for a full size force, to make an impact on points planning. But in PL, they're no-brainer takes with no drawbacks at all-- double the firepower, plus a single shot to potentially do some anti-tank damage for no change in cost? Hell yes. There's no depth to the choice. It's either take it and be stronger, or don't take it and be weaker.

And that's the big drawback of how they designed Power Levels. They simplify and remove depth, which is fine for quick pick-up games... but it does leave a lot lacking when it comes to balance.

Power level is sort of how warmachine does its points, Its just a point system in the end.
One of the issues is that two PL10 units could be very different based entirely on what upgrades are available.

40k has had almost no management that would Help make PL anything more than as a throw down on the table and roll some dice for the funnies. If you even take list building and gameplay slightly seriously they begin to show faults in the system.

Its a good idea that i think is more a waste of time that takes away dev time to other things in the end.
I would be perfectly happy to see them go the way of power level if they did it in a competent way.
Until then it will probably just be the worse way to play if you care about the game itself and its outcome.

I don't think GW has any intention of making power the default and removing points. I think that PL is a handy tool for narrative games (as it is intended??) just to get an idea. I realise that points could do the same thing but as I said it is handy in such situations. I suspect that many who are against PL so vehemently are so because they fear that what you suggested will come to pass, i think these people need to chill out, points are clearly what they are looking at for matched play.

Power Level is for pickup games, a very rough aid to matching forces. It’s not designed to be balanced, and isn’t designed to be used vs min-maxing types. You put models on the table, use the wargear that the model is armed with and have a quick game. Falls apart any time you try ‘optimising’ because that isn’t its purpose. Every discussion on PL gets derailed by people either saying 1) it’s useless or 2) “I might as well put the best option on every model”. Both types of response simply miss the point of PL.

Hopefully Peregrine won’t show up and kill the thread by repeatedly telling people who enjoy PL they’re wrong.

PL is less balanced than points so whilst we used it to start with in 8th, we fairly quickly moved to points. I’d totted up a couple of lists and found that PL left me the equivalent of 200pts down vs my opponent one game, based on loadouts. Also we like list building so points is just what we’re used to. But saying it’s pointless, not fun or you’re wrong to play PL is silly... it’s demonstrably useful and fun for some. If it’s not for you, that’s cool, but divert your energies into something useful instead of being the Fun Police.

I'm not opposed against PL per se, but with Battlescribe it's just not necessary for me. If GW wanted to improve it in next editions there could be several ways:
- Apokalypse style: every weapon option is roughly of equal value, or gets removed
- Pre set specialized squads: pay 7PL for cheap Havocs with 4 heavy Bolters, 10Pl for antitank Havocs with 4 Lascannons, or 15PL for "gatlings are awesome" Havocs with 4 chaincannons
Problem: seeing how GW behaves in 8th we could end up with units having only the equipment from the Box, so pay 9Pl for Havocs with 2 Lascannons, 1 Autocannon, 1 chaincannon (I know Havocs have more in the Box, but just to make clear what I mean)

I think it's because GW knew from the start that balance is a weakness of theirs and updating pts on one page is easier than doing it across ten or twenty datasheets. Consider the effort required to change the cost of thunder hammers if you had to change ten datasheets individually.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Power Level is for pickup games, a very rough aid to matching forces. It’s not designed to be balanced, and isn’t designed to be used vs min-maxing types. You put models on the table, use the wargear that the model is armed with and have a quick game. Falls apart any time you try ‘optimising’ because that isn’t its purpose. Every discussion on PL gets derailed by people either saying 1) it’s useless or 2) “I might as well put the best option on every model”. Both types of response simply miss the point of PL.

Hopefully Peregrine won’t show up and kill the thread by repeatedly telling people who enjoy PL they’re wrong.

PL is less balanced than points so whilst we used it to start with in 8th, we fairly quickly moved to points. I’d totted up a couple of lists and found that PL left me the equivalent of 200pts down vs my opponent one game, based on loadouts. Also we like list building so points is just what we’re used to. But saying it’s pointless, not fun or you’re wrong to play PL is silly... it’s demonstrably useful and fun for some. If it’s not for you, that’s cool, but divert your energies into something useful instead of being the Fun Police.

Yepppppp, all of this. Nobody's saying everybody has to like, or use, PL, but I've never seen an argument against it that doesn't entail someone misunderstanding, deliberately or otherwise, the whole point of it as a system.

Pretty sure I've never played a power level based game of 40k in my life.

At the end of the day PL just results in a different meta to points, and this fact seems to be ignored.

I mean... you can always take an extra special weapon on your vehicle? Go ahead then - if everyone does, its not obviously imbalanced. There are plenty of "options" under points that people always or never take, because they are more or less efficient.

The counter is then "but theoretically points could be fixed" - sure, it could be, and I think every CA it inches closer - but you are sort of making this a mountain out of a molehill.

The much bigger issue of PL - which never seems to be discussed I think because no one who cares plays with PL - is how accurate Unit X is at a certain PL and Unit Y is at a certain PL. This is I think where the issues arise - but this is also exactly the same with points today. The fact running scourge with splinter carbines is daft when you can take blasters or something doesn't matter except to someone who really, really wants to take splinter carbine scourges and feels a bit hard done by as a result.

Its competitively silly - but there is a sort of freedom in being able to just pick and choose equipment options based on what "looks" good, rather than on a efficiency for points basis. Its sort of going back into the dark ages - but i used to hate that in Warhammer bringing a unit champion, standard bearer and musician was almost always (beyond certain key units) a waste of points. So competitively they often got ditched - even though (IMO) it made the units look much less good.

In 40k that probably corresponds to giving unit champions faction specific combat weapons and pistols, even though this is almost always a waste of points. It just "looks" better.

Something funny though is PL is basically AOS points at a smaller number. It only falls short in 40k because 40k is bogged down in a myriad of upgrades while AOS is not. Which IMHO is a major strength of AOS but people like minutiae in 40k. If things were more abstract (maybe apocalypse does this?) then it would work better.

PL seems intended that you're building everything with a variety of weapons (like say what comes in the kit) rather than get extra bits or convert to field more of a particular item. And it "kinda" works if you assume everyone is building units like they often show on the box with a mishmash of choices rather than a more optimized load out. Just only noobs who.dont know better and collectors who play once in a blue moon so care more about variety would do that.

TBH I love the concept but it is half baked in 40k.

PL is for Casual At All Costs or beginner games. It has no place at all to be used outside of that. So, basically, it isn't even worth the space on the page.

PL gives exactly what points give, but with less granularity and decisions as well as some serious flaws, like no balance and sheer ability to be abused. If you can do 15+17 congratulations, go use points.

If you have absolutely zero time and you want the game to be ruined by the resident space marine player, feel free to use Power Level but I get to say "I told you so"

Wayniac wrote:
Something funny though is PL is basically AOS points at a smaller number. It only falls short in 40k because 40k is bogged down in a myriad of upgrades while AOS is not. Which IMHO is a major strength of AOS but people like minutiae in 40k. If things were more abstract (maybe apocalypse does this?) then it would work better.

PL seems intended that you're building everything with a variety of weapons (like say what comes in the kit) rather than get extra bits or convert to field more of a particular item. And it "kinda" works if you assume everyone is building units like they often show on the box with a mishmash of choices rather than a more optimized load out. Just only noobs who.dont know better and collectors who play once in a blue moon so care more about variety would do that.

TBH I love the concept but it is half baked in 40k.

I enjoy Age of Sigmar a lot, and the point system there (still play to 2k, but everything in the game is multiples of 10).

I think you'd hit the nail on the head regarding options though. It doesnt work in 40k because the same unit can be all bolters or have 4 lascannons. You cannot just have that worth the same amount.

PL is also approximately 1PL = 20pts, so Sigmar still has twice the 'resolution' to use for balancing too.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
PL is for Casual At All Costs

Does that mean that points are for WAAC players?

Just seeing if you're being consistent here.

PL gives exactly what points give

As well as increased speed/simplicity of calculation (3PL is far easier than 16x5+13 points or whatever that squad costs), and encourages people to take the weapons they think are cool, instead of worrying if their plasma pistol on Infantry Squad Sergeant #3 will make their list illegal.

Obviously, you can break PL by only taking the strongest weapons, and always taking upgrades that you've not got modelled, or whatever else, but that's down to your mindset, not the system. My caveat with PL is enforcing strong WYSIWYG. Holstered pistol? Yeah, that can be what you like. Guy carrying a sword? Yeah, that could be a pretty nice power sword/relic blade/chainsword. Guy carrying a chainsword, but you want that to be a thunder hammer? Unless you've told me you're experimenting with your list, I'm probably not going to let that go.

Basically, PL is a quicker way for me to put the models I like down on the table, instead of having to consider if that power fist just messed everything up.

PL is also far easier to set up into "pleasing" numbers. Any kind of multiple of 5 is more ordered than something like 1978 points - it's far easier to reach a nice round number with PL.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
PL is for Casual At All Costs

Does that mean that points are for WAAC players?

Just seeing if you're being consistent here.

PL gives exactly what points give

As well as increased speed/simplicity of calculation (3PL is far easier than 16x5+13 points or whatever that squad costs), and encourages people to take the weapons they think are cool, instead of worrying if their plasma pistol on Infantry Squad Sergeant #3 will make their list illegal.

Obviously, you can break PL by only taking the strongest weapons, and always taking upgrades that you've not got modelled, or whatever else, but that's down to your mindset, not the system. .

No, its the system, not mindset. If you throw on all the power fists and special weapons because they 'look cool' you've also accidentally broken the system. The fundamental problem is people can and do min/max by accident as well as intent.
No limits and no guidelines just fundamentally doesn't work for any kind of system.

Voss wrote:
No, its the system, not mindset. If you throw on all the power fists and special weapons because they 'look cool' you've also accidentally broken the system.

And points can't also be broken in the same way, by taking undercosted units?

The fundamental problem is people can and do min/max by accident as well as intent.

The same can happen in points. However, whenever PL is brought up, we always seem to get a lot of people saying "but I'd just minmax the system, so it's bad" - sure, you *could* do it by accident, but it's not exactly hard to tell who's minmaxing the system, and who's genuinely just taking what they like.

There's a lot of people who just see PL and think "oh, cool, free reign to minmax". That's not the fault of PL for that.

No limits and no guidelines just fundamentally doesn't work for any kind of system.

I disagree. Putting more emphasis on the two players actually talking about what kind of game they want is a win in my book.

If you want a pickup game where you don't want to have to worry about the person on the other side of the table is fine, that's what points are more tailored for. PL is tailored for "I'm open to communicating my intentions and preferences to my opponent, and we can work out what kind of game we want from this". Some people simply don't need the kind of balance points offer - not saying it's bad, but that it's not necessary for others.

Think of it like stabilisers on a bike, or ramps on a bowling alley. Some people want them, others don't.

Points allows for min-maxing but makes you PAY for the min-maxing.

If you max out your landraiders and then take ultracheap marines then you've "paid" for those maxed our landraiders with cheaper infantry that won't perform as well. So you've weighted things into one area and segment of the army. In balance terms this means that you're putting more eggs in one basket of the force - it might mean your two land raiders can roll over anything, but that you can only dominate two points on the board and the whole rest has to be held with weaker marines.

Power level having no fine adjustment of its values means that you can max out the landraiders AND the marines at the same time. So there's basically no "cost" or downside. There's no reason to not take the statistically "best" choices outside of your own themes or attitude or what you own and want to use.


Basically power level relies totally upon the players choice for the game whilst points introduces a cost element which makes you pay for it










Power level could easily do the identical job that points does, just by being smaller numbers. However in practice it doesn't because there's no adjustment based on equipment and in 40K equipment choices can make big differences to model performance.
Therefore points remains a superior system. Plus lets face it its only adding up to a few thousand - its not insanely complicated maths and its not as if calculators are hard to find (computers, phones, tablets all have them as standard and paper and pen still works too)

Basically, both allow for min-maxing, powerlevel just makes min-maxing easier.

I disagree. Putting more emphasis on the two players actually talking about what kind of game they want is a win in my book.

If you want a pickup game where you don't want to have to worry about the person on the other side of the table is fine, that's what points are more tailored for. PL is tailored for "I'm open to communicating my intentions and preferences to my opponent, and we can work out what kind of game we want from this". Some people simply don't need the kind of balance points offer - not saying it's bad, but that it's not necessary for others.

And that's a fine way to approach it. The thing is without points you have to balance your own army based on your own impressions - which by and large you'll likely use points to work with. So you might use power-levels and then discuss your intent with your opponent; however you're both likely going to use points on the side to work out the interpretation of your units performance. If you both agree to a game where you take "The best" then you'll likely use higher pointed options to get the best. Similar for if you choose the "weakest" option.

Basically you might be playing a 100powerlevel game but you'll be using the point system to help you out anyway. Or if you don't you'll be using other maths to try and work out the power-difference of the different options units have.


And if you don't then chances are one of you will turn up with a stronger army and one a weaker one. Which is fine if that was your intent and not as good if it wasn't your intent (or it wasn't the intent of one of the players).

Didn't suspect so many replies

Anyway, 40k wasn't built with PL at the start. I didn't knew the whole AOS thing of replacing points with PL there, but make sense know what AOS is. Well PL is good for Quick play, I think PL could be very good and make it easier to play Apocalypse. Point lists in Apoc I could imagine would be hell to go through considering Apoc is a bit on the casual side, and considering that the role limit is not in Apocalypse, balance is already out of the window. 3 Flashlights squads, 5 baneblades, and 20 Leman Russes? Why not?

I think the biggest harm of PL that I notice is the attempt to casualize the games, considering they life style games. I don't think they are that bad, I do prefer the points, but the PL could be re-purposed or maybe have a mix of PL and points to help with the upgrades.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Voss wrote:
No, its the system, not mindset. If you throw on all the power fists and special weapons because they 'look cool' you've also accidentally broken the system.

And points can't also be broken in the same way, by taking undercosted units?

The fundamental problem is people can and do min/max by accident as well as intent.

The same can happen in points. However, whenever PL is brought up, we always seem to get a lot of people saying "but I'd just minmax the system, so it's bad" - sure, you *could* do it by accident, but it's not exactly hard to tell who's minmaxing the system, and who's genuinely just taking what they like.

There's a lot of people who just see PL and think "oh, cool, free reign to minmax". That's not the fault of PL for that.

No limits and no guidelines just fundamentally doesn't work for any kind of system.

I disagree. Putting more emphasis on the two players actually talking about what kind of game they want is a win in my book.

Except nothing about PL is about two players talking about what kind they game they want. Its 'quick and dirty throw models on the table without talking.'

And yes, 'free reign to minimax' is the fault of PL. That's what happens when you take the reigns off. Its why rules exist and its not just a free form game of Calvinball.

I remember last year, in our regionals, we had a case of one rule was not mentioned, and a school from ukrain fielded a bunch of 20+year olds in a high school tournament.

Overread wrote:Points allows for min-maxing but makes you PAY for the min-maxing.

Minmaxing in points is choosing the things that are deliberately the cheapest. In PL, you minmax for simply the strongest weapons. In points, you minmax for the best value weapon.

You're not really minmaxing in the same way, is what I'm getting at.

If you max out your landraiders and then take ultracheap marines then you've "paid" for those maxed our landraiders with cheaper infantry that won't perform as well. So you've weighted things into one area and segment of the army. In balance terms this means that you're putting more eggs in one basket of the force - it might mean your two land raiders can roll over anything, but that you can only dominate two points on the board and the whole rest has to be held with weaker marines.

I wouldn't call that minmaxing?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression minmaxing was basically just taking the optimal things to an extreme degree - ie, only taking the most points effective weaponry, or the strongest guns.
Your example just sounds like a skew list, not a minmaxed one - but perhaps my definitions are wrong.

Power level having no fine adjustment of its values means that you can max out the landraiders AND the marines at the same time. So there's basically no "cost" or downside. There's no reason to not take the statistically "best" choices outside of your own themes or attitude or what you own and want to use.

So, just like in points, how there's no reason not to take the most cost-efficient wargear?

Minmaxing works in both ways.

Basically power level relies totally upon the players choice for the game whilst points introduces a cost element which makes you pay for it

Yes, but in points, you're being motivated to minmax for the most cost effective weaponry.

Therefore points remains a superior system. Plus lets face it its only adding up to a few thousand - its not insanely complicated maths

No, but 2+2 is certainly easier that (13x5)+(3x4)+15, yes? Not to mention all the flipping backwards and forwards between what the unit has, how much it costs, what is a wargear item or just a special rule, etc etc.

and its not as if calculators are hard to find (computers, phones, tablets all have them as standard and paper and pen still works too)

If I need to have a calculator to build my army, I think that's a flaw, personally.

Overread wrote:The thing is without points you have to balance your own army based on your own impressions - which by and large you'll likely use points to work with.

Not in my experience. My sole impressions of 8th have been with PL, I haven't played points, and have no idea what things are supposed to cost, what's cost-efficient, what's not, etc etc. However, I can obviously tell if someone's just taking things because they're the most powerful options ("oh, all your guardsmen sergeants have power fists, plasma pistols, and every squad has a plasma gun? And you just happened to build them with laspistols, chainswords, and flamers? And you're sure you're not just taking plasmas because they're powerful?").

Honestly speaking, I'm okay with some imbalance, because they're probably not using PL as an excuse to get more power.

And if you don't then chances are one of you will turn up with a stronger army and one a weaker one. Which is fine if that was your intent and not as good if it wasn't your intent (or it wasn't the intent of one of the players).

Well, for me, that's something I'm fine with. I'm not going to ever say that PL is perfect for everyone, in the same way points isn't. I'm just making it clear that PL is faster to calculate, and, in my perception, encourages taking things beyond "how points effective is it".

NivNeos wrote:I think the biggest harm of PL that I notice is the attempt to casualize the games, considering they life style games.

Elaborate? What's wrong with 'casualising' the game?

Voss wrote:And yes, 'free reign to minimax' is the fault of PL. That's what happens when you take the reigns off.

If the first thing someone does when they're shown PL is to minmax and take the strongest weapons, that's on them, and their preferences on how to play.

Sorry, "there was nothing telling me not to take the strongest weapons" is a personal choice, and isn't someone I'd want to play against. And I think that's okay.

My example was basically showing that in order to afford, in points, to take the maximum on some units, you have to pay a cost. The more you spend on one unit the less you've got to spend on others.

Sure you can take every unit at maximum capabilities and you'll pay the cost of having fewer actual units on the table than an army which takes minimum versions or an army which mixes maximums and minimums (accepting that those are extreme examples and people will pick middle ground too).

Basically points makes you PAY to take better things and to take more things. Powerlevel doesn't make you pay to take a more powerful version of the same unit.
Therefor the only part of you that wouldn't take the best of the best in a power-level game is your own choice and your agreement and interpretation of the proposed game with your opponent.


Points are by no means perfect, but they at least have means to introduce finer controls on unit balance than power level currently presents.


I do agree GW could make the codex better- the old ones had upgrades, weapon stats and abilities all on the actual units page. GW in their move toward warscroll cards and twoard having single point tables has made a system that works with cards for longer and which lets them update 1 single document (the points table) more easily. However as a result we've sacrificed some ease of writing lists.

Regardless of the system, there will always be minmax, it's just the nature of competitive.

Tyel wrote:
At the end of the day PL just results in a different meta to points, and this fact seems to be ignored.

I mean... you can always take an extra special weapon on your vehicle? Go ahead then - if everyone does, its not obviously imbalanced. There are plenty of "options" under points that people always or never take, because they are more or less efficient.

The counter is then "but theoretically points could be fixed" - sure, it could be, and I think every CA it inches closer - but you are sort of making this a mountain out of a molehill.

The much bigger issue of PL - which never seems to be discussed I think because no one who cares plays with PL - is how accurate Unit X is at a certain PL and Unit Y is at a certain PL. This is I think where the issues arise - but this is also exactly the same with points today. The fact running scourge with splinter carbines is daft when you can take blasters or something doesn't matter except to someone who really, really wants to take splinter carbine scourges and feels a bit hard done by as a result.

Its competitively silly - but there is a sort of freedom in being able to just pick and choose equipment options based on what "looks" good, rather than on a efficiency for points basis. Its sort of going back into the dark ages - but i used to hate that in Warhammer bringing a unit champion, standard bearer and musician was almost always (beyond certain key units) a waste of points. So competitively they often got ditched - even though (IMO) it made the units look much less good.

In 40k that probably corresponds to giving unit champions faction specific combat weapons and pistols, even though this is almost always a waste of points. It just "looks" better.

Not across different factions.

Necrons have basically no options-giving them maxed-out upgrades is basically the same as no upgrades. Tomb Blades and Wraiths are pretty much the only exceptions, and even they don't get much.

Deathwatch can go absolutely GONZO with upgrades, though. So a Necron vs. Deathwatch PL match, with everyone loaded to the gills with upgrades, is gonna be pretty one-sided in favor of the Deathwatch, generally.

Overread wrote:My example was basically showing that in order to afford, in points, to take the maximum on some units, you have to pay a cost. The more you spend on one unit the less you've got to spend on others.

And that's the thing I don't particularly like - if I want to take that power sword, despite it probably having negligible benefit on my Guard sergeant, I'm putting other entire units at risk.

I think you're missing my point - the "best" option in PL is the strongest in sheer power. The "best" option in points is the strongest for the price. Regardless of if you played PL or points, the same person who says "I'll just take the best option!" in PL is usually the same person who says "I'll take the best option!" in points, because taking the "best" option is how they enjoy the game.

That doesn't mean they'll take the same equipment in PL or points, but that they will seek to find the one that increases their chances of winning.

Therefor the only part of you that wouldn't take the best of the best in a power-level game is your own choice and your agreement and interpretation of the proposed game with your opponent.

So, likewise, the only part of you that won't take the best of the best (the best being the most cost-effective and undercosted) in a points game is your own choice.

It's a personal choice in both PL and points. They might have different "optimal" choices, but they both definitely have them, and if a player's going to go for one, they're likely to go for the other too.

JNAProductions wrote:So a Necron vs. Deathwatch PL match, with everyone loaded to the gills with upgrades, is gonna be pretty one-sided in favor of the Deathwatch, generally.

But that's assuming the Deathwatch player had everyone loaded out to the gills. If the Deathwatch player took barebones Veterans, the match would be one-sided in favour of the Necrons.

This would be one of those situations where you'd have to see what the DW player was doing. Are they just putting frag cannons on every guy because they can? Have they modelled them on? If so, I'd ask if they would be okay adding an extra 1-2 PL to the unit cost - in return, if they took a barebones unit (just bolters and power weapons, for example), I'd be happy to knock some price off that one.

Now, I actually would prefer if there were either two costs to the Deathwatch Vets (one for a more barebones squad, and another for one heavily kitted out ), or even just an increased PL for the Vets.

But that's assuming the Deathwatch player had everyone loaded out to the gills. If the Deathwatch player took barebones Veterans, the match would be one-sided in favour of the Necrons.

no DW player plays bare bones veterans.

Karol wrote:

But that's assuming the Deathwatch player had everyone loaded out to the gills. If the Deathwatch player took barebones Veterans, the match would be one-sided in favour of the Necrons.

no DW player plays bare bones veterans.

You can prove that?

Does Battlescribe include Power Level?

Also, if I may, it is in fact both a problem of mindset and system. The system is not designed to handle a competitive mindset.

Which is not a criticism. Critiquing PL from a competitive POV is very much judging a salmon on its ability to climb trees.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Does Battlescribe include Power Level?

I've not used Battlescribe in a while, but I believe so.

Also, if I may, it is in fact both a problem of mindset and system. The system is not designed to handle a competitive mindset.

Which is not a criticism. Critiquing PL from a competitive POV is very much judging a salmon on its ability to climb trees.

That's how I see it, I guess - if I don't want to play with a competitive mindset, why would I complain that I can't do that? If I cared about competitive play, and PL couldn't deliver on that, that's on me for preferring competitive play.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Does Battlescribe include Power Level?

Also, if I may, it is in fact both a problem of mindset and system. The system is not designed to handle a competitive mindset.

Which is not a criticism. Critiquing PL from a competitive POV is very much judging a salmon on its ability to climb trees.

I'm not of a 'competitive mindset', but I would have no idea how to build an army under PL.

I've got a unit of Termagants. They can stick with their default Fleshborers, or they can swap for Devourers, which are better in every way, but double the points cost per model.

So under points, I can clearly see the trade-off here: Devourers give me credible firepower, but at the cost of a more fragile unit overall (for its points value). I'd take all Fleshborers for screens, all Devourers for deep-striking assassination units, and a mix for main combatants.

Under PL, I... take all Devourers and feel bad about powergaming? Or just use Fleshborers and pretend the upgrade doesn't exist? Or split them 50/50? Or try to find some authoritative Tyranid TO&E that lists how many 'should' have Devourers in a unit? (There is no such TO&E, for what it's worth)

There are tons more examples like this, where the cost of an upgrade helps to shape army composition and inform role. I mentioned Scourges on the first page, and they're another good example. They can be cheap anti-infantry screens, or expensive heavy weapons carriers, but under PL they're identical. So if you want a bunch of Scourges in an army, you're in the same position- is it cheesy powergaming to load them all up with Shredders and Blasters given that 'heavy weapons squad' is a valid role for the unit? How do you know what a good balance is?

 catbarf wrote:
I'm not of a 'competitive mindset', but I would have no idea how to build an army under PL.

I've got a unit of Termagants. They can stick with their default Fleshborers, or they can swap for Devourers, which are better in every way, but double the points cost per model.

So under points, I can clearly see the trade-off here: Devourers give me credible firepower, but at the cost of a more fragile unit overall (for its points value). I'd take all Fleshborers for screens, all Devourers for deep-striking assassination units, and a mix for main combatants.

Under PL, I... take all Devourers and feel bad about powergaming? Or just use Fleshborers and pretend the upgrade doesn't exist? Or split them 50/50? Or try to find some authoritative Tyranid TO&E that lists how many 'should' have Devourers in a unit? (There is no such TO&E, for what it's worth)

There are tons more examples like this, where the cost of an upgrade helps to shape army composition and inform role. I mentioned Scourges on the first page, and they're another good example. They can be cheap anti-infantry screens, or expensive heavy weapons carriers, but under PL they're identical. So if you want a bunch of Scourges in an army, you're in the same position- is it cheesy powergaming to load them all up with Shredders and Blasters given that 'heavy weapons squad' is a valid role for the unit? How do you know what a good balance is?

I'm of the opinion that, if you built it, they're fine in my eyes. If it doesn't work out, and we find out midgame that things are pretty broken, I usually break out one of the Open War cards to give the person who's suffering a bit of a boost.

If I see someone playing PL, and then just taking upgrades that they don't have modelled, I'm not really going to want to play them. So, hunter killer missiles, for example - I actually don't take any HKM when I play PL, because my models don't have them. I don't take pintle weaponry, except on my one Leman Russ that has a stubber. On my heavy bolter Razorback, I don't play it as a lascannon or assault cannon one, because that's not what it is. That's the standard I hold myself, and other people, to.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I'm not of a 'competitive mindset', but I would have no idea how to build an army under PL.

I've got a unit of Termagants. They can stick with their default Fleshborers, or they can swap for Devourers, which are better in every way, but double the points cost per model.

So under points, I can clearly see the trade-off here: Devourers give me credible firepower, but at the cost of a more fragile unit overall (for its points value). I'd take all Fleshborers for screens, all Devourers for deep-striking assassination units, and a mix for main combatants.

Under PL, I... take all Devourers and feel bad about powergaming? Or just use Fleshborers and pretend the upgrade doesn't exist? Or split them 50/50? Or try to find some authoritative Tyranid TO&E that lists how many 'should' have Devourers in a unit? (There is no such TO&E, for what it's worth)

There are tons more examples like this, where the cost of an upgrade helps to shape army composition and inform role. I mentioned Scourges on the first page, and they're another good example. They can be cheap anti-infantry screens, or expensive heavy weapons carriers, but under PL they're identical. So if you want a bunch of Scourges in an army, you're in the same position- is it cheesy powergaming to load them all up with Shredders and Blasters given that 'heavy weapons squad' is a valid role for the unit? How do you know what a good balance is?

I'm of the opinion that, if you built it, they're fine in my eyes. If it doesn't work out, and we find out midgame that things are pretty broken, I usually break out one of the Open War cards to give the person who's suffering a bit of a boost.

If I see someone playing PL, and then just taking upgrades that they don't have modelled, I'm not really going to want to play them. So, hunter killer missiles, for example - I actually don't take any HKM when I play PL, because my models don't have them. I don't take pintle weaponry, except on my one Leman Russ that has a stubber. On my heavy bolter Razorback, I don't play it as a lascannon or assault cannon one, because that's not what it is. That's the standard I hold myself, and other people, to.

Sure, just play the models as built. But when building the models, how are you supposed to make a decision?

In a historical wargame you can look up the TO&E for a real unit and figure out how it should be equipped. We could play a totally pointsless historical WW2 game and I would have no trouble deciding how to outfit, say, a late-war German infantry squad. If I chose to give every single man an MG42 that would be clear powergaming and not in the spirit of the game.

But 40K doesn't, for the most part, have that. There's no guidance on how Scourges are generally equipped; you can take them with Shardcarbines for cheap anti-infantry harassment or Shredders for expensive anti-infantry destruction, but those are roles defined by the points system, not the lore. If I'm going into the kit knowing that I want to build anti-infantry Scourges, there's no reason under PL to take them with Shardcarbines. It just comes down to in-game effectiveness and/or how the models look, and 'bring whatever looks cool' was the (rightfully) criticized core to AoS's original balancing mechanism.

 catbarf wrote:
There's no guidance on how Scourges are generally equipped; you can take them with Shardcarbines for cheap anti-infantry harassment or Shredders for expensive anti-infantry destruction, but those are roles defined by the points system, not the lore. If I'm going into the kit knowing that I want to build anti-infantry Scourges, there's no reason under PL to take them with Shardcarbines. It just comes down to in-game effectiveness and/or how the models look, and 'bring whatever looks cool' was the (rightfully) criticized core to AoS's original balancing mechanism.

You might want the carbines for the range, or reliable shots, or targeting high toughness non-vehicle/Titanic units. Its' not like there's absolutely no feature they don't have over the shredders.

And again, how they look. I don't actually like putting plasma pistols on my Guard Sergeants because I don't think they should have them, what with being basic guardsmen. I want to encourage people to take what they like the sound of, what looks and sounds cool, rather than "what gives me the best DPS" - if you like the look and sound of Shredders, take Shredders - if you prefer the look of the carbines, take the carbines! But, that's just my preference.

For all those missing the point still: if you even consider min-maxing, then PL is not the system for you. It’s incompatible.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
For all those missing the point still: if you even consider min-maxing, then PL is not the system for you. It’s incompatible.

Not really - its more that power-level, because of its lack of any fine point control over upgrades, is more of a case of chatting with your opponent for longer in the pre-game to try and get an idea what they and you want from the game. Esp when dealing with upgrades that might not be visible on the model. Otherwise there's nothing to stop you going full silly, min, max or whatever you want with power levels.

 Overread wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
For all those missing the point still: if you even consider min-maxing, then PL is not the system for you. It’s incompatible.

Not really - its more that power-level, because of its lack of any fine point control over upgrades, is more of a case of chatting with your opponent for longer in the pre-game to try and get an idea what they and you want from the game. Esp when dealing with upgrades that might not be visible on the model. Otherwise there's nothing to stop you going full silly, min, max or whatever you want with power levels.

Again, you’ve entirely missed the point of PL and it’s not for you if considering min-maxing.

So, I can only really speak for myself, but here's how I build an army using PL;

I put together my Dudespeople/DudesDaemons in a way that fits the story I'm telling with them. Then I look at the Datasheet to see the applicable PL, then I add them all together. The idea that I might be accidentally power-gaming literally never comes into my head and I've never been accused of power-gaming.

I only ever build (built) an army this way to very quickly run a very fluffy game where the story and the cinematics matter(ed) more than performance AND where everyone else involved had the same mindset. IMO, a unit of Termagants armed with the 'best' weapons isn't in any way 'cheating' in a PL game, provided that there's a narrative reason why that everyone's happy with.

If they're taken just to give you a competitive advantage, well... that's not cheating but it's not really in keeping with the spirit.

Anyway, tl:dr PL is for fluff games between fluffmeisters.

I've used PL for quick pickup games and Narrative games. What is interesting is that if you take a mostly Primaris army there is almost no difference in points for each unit regardless of how you equip them. I think GW wanted to go with a streamlined system with 8th. Pandora's Box was opened long ago, however, and there are too many old units out there that can have wildly different load-outs points wise for the concept to thrive in the wilderness outside of the fortress in Nottingham.

In my experience of using PL armies built on points and armies built on PL tend to come out within 5-10% of each other if you're not deliberately trying to game the system. There are instances where PL breaks down (Scourges, Deathwatch Veterans) and you can break it if you're trying to break it but it's a reasonable way to do quick approximations for casual games.

There's plenty more than that. Most vehicles actually don't change in power level no matter how many add-ons you throw on them, but adding all those add-ons can really change the actual power of the vehicle.

You can play PL with a min/max attitude. It just changes the metagame.

Think about it. In points, you use the units that give the best bang for your points. In PL, you (can) use the units that give you the best bang for your PL.

In my experience, if I’m not taking useless upgrades, my PL armies are within 10% of the equivalent points-based list. So all I’m changing by going to PL would be adding a bunch of stupid upgrades... like power swords on my Infantry Sergeants. Or using my Vox Caster models.

In my opinion, the points values that GW has provided are not within 10% of accurate. Some aren’t even within 20% of accurate. The granularity of a 5 point upgrade on a 100 point unit would require a 5% margin of accuracy, to be valid.

In my opinion, a 100 point unit as designed by GW could be worth anywhere from 80 points to 120 points of “true value”.

As such, the argument that PL are not granular enough is irrelevant. Adding a 5 point upgrade to a unit (that could have a true value between -5 and + 15 points) might make the 100 point unit play as though it were a unit of “True Value” of anywhere between 75 and 135 points.

Loosely speaking, points is like measuring in mm instead of inches. (Approx 25 mm per inch is loosely analogous to 20 pts per PL, right?) If your measuring device is inaccurate, you still measure the incorrect number of mm. Same thing with inches. If your measuring device is broken, you won’t measure the right number of inches.

As far as I’m concerned, GW can’t measure the true value of units to within an “inch”, much less a mm. So the use of points is just allowing players to be *precisely* *inaccurate*.

These are technical terms, so feel free to google “what is the difference between precision and accuracy?”

 greatbigtree wrote:
In my experience, if I’m not taking useless upgrades

The difference in firepower that, for example, six rhinos can have between their default, low-points option (one storm bolter each) and their full cost option (two storm bolters and an hk-missile each) is fairly substantial. The difference between a chainsword in every squad vs a power axe, power maul, or power sword in every squad is pretty substantial, too, even if it may not necessarily be the best choice in terms of points. And since it doesn't cost anything, why wouldn't you use a combiweapon in every squad, too? For Orks, Big Choppas are often considered the most efficient points-wise, but if points are no issue, a pair of killsaws can up their damage immensely even if you'd frequently not spend the points on it since it's so expensive (thirty points vs five). And so on and so forth.

You keep saying "in my experience", but my personal anecdotal evidence is that I can easily keep the same 110 powerlevel on my current 2000 point list, but add 500 or so points of upgrades to make the list much, MUCH more versatile with a substantial more firepower-- and without changing any squad weapons (keeping just the cheap stormbolters on the dominions, for example). This is just sergeant upgrades, squad upgrades, and character upgrades. Giving every sister superior a power maul, inferno pistol, and combiplasma adds a ton of points, but oh boy that adds a ton of versatility and firepower to the army-- melta pistols and combiplasma are great, and with my order being Bloody Rose, that power maul is S5 AP-2 +1 attack on the charge. Giving each canoness a combiweapon and a blessed blade is a sizable upgrade. Simulacrums are five points a squad, that adds up when my list has twelve squads, but sure as hell wouldn't be useless. Adding hunter-killer missiles to every one of the ten vehicles adds up as well, but it allows for a massive alpha strike turn one, ten powerful shots against something I absolutely want dead.

 Melissia wrote:
You keep saying "in my experience", but my personal anecdotal evidence is that I can easily keep the same 110 powerlevel on my current 2000 point list, but add 500 or so points of upgrades to make the list much, MUCH more versatile with a substantial more firepower-- and without changing any squad weapons (keeping just the cheap stormbolters on the dominions, for example). This is just sergeant upgrades, squad upgrades, and character upgrades. Giving every sister superior a power maul, inferno pistol, and combiplasma adds a ton of points, but oh boy that adds a ton of versatility and firepower to the army-- melta pistols and combiplasma are great, and with my order being Bloody Rose, that power maul is S5 AP-2 +1 attack on the charge. Giving each canoness a combiweapon and a blessed blade is a sizable upgrade. Simulacrums are five points a squad, that adds up when my list has twelve squads, but sure as hell wouldn't be useless. Adding hunter-killer missiles to every one of the ten vehicles adds up as well, but it allows for a massive alpha strike turn one, ten powerful shots against something I absolutely want dead.

And do you have those modelled? Or are you just saying you have them, because you can? That's the difference I'm talking about - between "yes, I like this weapon, and would be taking it anyway" versus "I have no reason not to take this weapon, so I'm going to".

Again, knowing that this is where your mind goes to when presented with the freedom of PL tells me that we would not be suitable to play eachother, if this was your genuine take on the matter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
You can play PL with a min/max attitude. It just changes the metagame.

Think about it. In points, you use the units that give the best bang for your points. In PL, you (can) use the units that give you the best bang for your PL.

This what I was trying to describe to Overread - the minmax of PL is different to points, because you have different things to consider. In PL, you only need to factor in "how powerful is this weapon". In points, you need to factor in the cost of the weapon, relative to it's strength, and finding the weapon that does good damage for cheap.

In PL, you minmax by going for the strongest gun.
In points, you minmax by finding the most undercosted gun.

Neither of those change if you're a minmaxer - you'll just adapt to the factors around you. Hence my overall point, it's not a fault of the system if the first thing you think of is "let's exploit this!"

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled? Or are you just saying you have them, because you can? That's the difference I'm talking about - between "yes, I like this weapon, and would be taking it anyway" versus "I have no reason not to take this weapon, so I'm going to".

I have nearly all of my options magnetized. How do I navigate not being a tryhard cheesy WAAC exploiter when I'm told to put together a 100PL list? And why is 'I have no reason not to take this weapon' legitimate at the physical model assembly stage, but not at the building-your-list stage?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Neither of those change if you're a minmaxer - you'll just adapt to the factors around you. Hence my overall point, it's not a fault of the system if the first thing you think of is "let's exploit this!"

The points values in 40K are far from perfect, but they allow for some mechanism of choice between 'do I want two bare-bones squads, or one with all the bells and whistles'. PL treats them the same and forces you to do some kind of weird guilt test to decide if what you're taking is too much.

I have a whole crapton of metal Stormtroopers. They were sold back in the day in individual blister packs, so there's no GW-indicated standard of how many special weapons a unit 'should' have. I have enough models that I can assemble whatever squad composition I want- and under points, a unit of 10 with 4 plasma guns costs nearly double what a unit of 10 with nothing extra does. How do I decide what to take for my army under a PL system? Where's a reference for fluffy unit composition?

A real tournament min-maxer wouldn't take ten-man squads at all. They'd be taking four-man Command Squads loaded up with special weapons. I'm not doing that because that doesn't seem thematically appropriate to me; but without a points mechanism to provide a balancing factor for my equipment choices, I'm flying blind as to what my army should look like. And 'use what you have modeled' isn't relevant if what I have available is far in excess of what I can take for the current, hypothetical game.

 Melissia wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
In my experience, if I’m not taking useless upgrades

The difference in firepower that, for example, six rhinos can have between their default, low-points option (one storm bolter each) and their full cost option (two storm bolters and an hk-missile each) is fairly substantial. The difference between a chainsword in every squad vs a power axe, power maul, or power sword in every squad is pretty substantial, too, even if it may not necessarily be the best choice in terms of points. And since it doesn't cost anything, why wouldn't you use a combiweapon in every squad, too? For Orks, Big Choppas are often considered the most efficient points-wise, but if points are no issue, a pair of killsaws can up their damage immensely even if you'd frequently not spend the points on it since it's so expensive (thirty points vs five). And so on and so forth...

Which is another advantage of PL; if you're using points there are options you'll just never take because they're not cost-effective, PL frees you from some of those constraints and lets you use stuff without feeling like you need to sit down and math out the specific details of exactly how cost-effective option A is over option B.

As to the question of the costing of Rhinos an extra storm bolter is 2pts. That's a tenth of a percent of a 2,000pt army. I think that might fall well within GW's margin of error when they're costing options or unit upgrades.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
In my experience, if I’m not taking useless upgrades

The difference in firepower that, for example, six rhinos can have between their default, low-points option (one storm bolter each) and their full cost option (two storm bolters and an hk-missile each) is fairly substantial. The difference between a chainsword in every squad vs a power axe, power maul, or power sword in every squad is pretty substantial, too, even if it may not necessarily be the best choice in terms of points. And since it doesn't cost anything, why wouldn't you use a combiweapon in every squad, too? For Orks, Big Choppas are often considered the most efficient points-wise, but if points are no issue, a pair of killsaws can up their damage immensely even if you'd frequently not spend the points on it since it's so expensive (thirty points vs five). And so on and so forth...

Which is another advantage of PL; if you're using points there are options you'll just never take because they're not cost-effective, PL frees you from some of those constraints and lets you use stuff without feeling like you need to sit down and math out the specific details of exactly how cost-effective option A is over option B.

As to the question of the costing of Rhinos an extra storm bolter is 2pts. That's a tenth of a percent of a 2,000pt army. I think that might fall well within GW's margin of error when they're costing options or unit upgrades.

How is that an advantage of Power Level? You're basically saying the game becomes an unbalanced gak of a mess; sounds like a disadvantage to me.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
So, I can only really speak for myself, but here's how I build an army using PL;

I put together my Dudespeople/DudesDaemons in a way that fits the story I'm telling with them. Then I look at the Datasheet to see the applicable PL, then I add them all together. The idea that I might be accidentally power-gaming literally never comes into my head and I've never been accused of power-gaming.

I only ever build (built) an army this way to very quickly run a very fluffy game where the story and the cinematics matter(ed) more than performance AND where everyone else involved had the same mindset. IMO, a unit of Termagants armed with the 'best' weapons isn't in any way 'cheating' in a PL game, provided that there's a narrative reason why that everyone's happy with.

If they're taken just to give you a competitive advantage, well... that's not cheating but it's not really in keeping with the spirit.

Anyway, tl:dr PL is for fluff games between fluffmeisters.

Imagine being so casual at all costs to worry that picking a wargear option is power gaming, and then heavily implying that doing what Power Level does makes you a cheater.
This is why you don't play with Power Levels


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Again, knowing that this is where your mind goes to when presented with the freedom of PL tells me that we would not be suitable to play eachother, if this was your genuine take on the matter.

Freedom from what? Doing highschool maths?
Narrative play etc is just as viable in points as it is in power level.

Clearly you haven't played many table top rpg's that use *actual* character building rules, the good ol' stormwind fallacy.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

In PL, you minmax by going for the strongest gun.
In points, you minmax by finding the most undercosted gun.
...
Neither of those change if you're a minmaxer - you'll just adapt to the factors around you. Hence my overall point, it's not a fault of the system if the first thing you think of is "let's exploit this!"

But it IS the fault of a system if it's so glaringly full of holes you would have a better time reading rules found on a block of swiss cheese.
Dude, just because there's less maths involved doesn't make the system magic. Take a step back and recap.
- Any army NOT spoilt for choices is unplayable in PL
- PL is designed to allow for someone to pick all the cool options
- Picking the cool options is power gaming
- Picking the cool options is cheating

Great stuff guys.

catbarf wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled? Or are you just saying you have them, because you can? That's the difference I'm talking about - between "yes, I like this weapon, and would be taking it anyway" versus "I have no reason not to take this weapon, so I'm going to".

I have nearly all of my options magnetized. How do I navigate not being a tryhard cheesy WAAC exploiter when I'm told to put together a 100PL list?

Congratulations on magnetising your weapons! Take what you like - things that you normally don't, things that you think look cool, anything. It should all balance out, but if it so happens that the majority of your army ends up being "huh, everyone's carrying the strongest possible gun they can", then I'll probably point that out, and ask that we use one of the Open War cards to swing things a bit.
Basically, take what you want, and if your opponent has any issues, sort it out together - just like I would with points.

And why is 'I have no reason not to take this weapon' legitimate at the physical model assembly stage, but not at the building-your-list stage?

Because how you build your model is up to you, and, more often that not, you probably don't play PL exclusively. Therefore, for most folks, they probably have some care about the points all the same when building them.

Again, some people simply don't like the extra "free" options that PL would give them - I don't put HKMs or pintles on every vehicle I own, because I just don't really like the look, and it's extra effort to paint. Therefore, I can't expect to gain rules that I haven't modelled. If someone has modelled everything, more power to them. if things don't work out, I'm sure that we can work things out.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Neither of those change if you're a minmaxer - you'll just adapt to the factors around you. Hence my overall point, it's not a fault of the system if the first thing you think of is "let's exploit this!"

The points values in 40K are far from perfect, but they allow for some mechanism of choice between 'do I want two bare-bones squads, or one with all the bells and whistles'. PL treats them the same and forces you to do some kind of weird guilt test to decide if what you're taking is too much.

What about undercosted units in points though - surely the same "guilt test" is there? Both points and PL have their broken elements, and if someone's just going to try and break either, I feel that's in poor spirit. I don't think it takes much intuition to work out if someone's gaming the PL system, or if they're just genuinely obsessed with plasma and power fists, but in either case, talking about what's going on like adults and being flexible to adding special conditions mid-battle are strong solutions.

I have a whole crapton of metal Stormtroopers. They were sold back in the day in individual blister packs, so there's no GW-indicated standard of how many special weapons a unit 'should' have. I have enough models that I can assemble whatever squad composition I want- and under points, a unit of 10 with 4 plasma guns costs nearly double what a unit of 10 with nothing extra does. How do I decide what to take for my army under a PL system? Where's a reference for fluffy unit composition?

Usually the box art, but an all plasma squad is also completely fluffy, and if you want to take it, go ahead. You've picked up enough models to do it.

And, while I wish more players had the "what does the fluff suggest" mindset like you reference, if someone actually does or does not care about the background is a personal decision/preference, not a game system one. Just re-emphasising that, if you go in with a certain mindset on either points or PL, you'll still get the same result.

A real tournament min-maxer wouldn't take ten-man squads at all. They'd be taking four-man Command Squads loaded up with special weapons. I'm not doing that because that doesn't seem thematically appropriate to me; but without a points mechanism to provide a balancing factor for my equipment choices, I'm flying blind as to what my army should look like. And 'use what you have modeled' isn't relevant if what I have available is far in excess of what I can take for the current, hypothetical game.

Take what you like. Seriously.

I'm sure I can tell if you're just taking all plasma to beat me, or because plasma weapons look awesome.

If things don't work out "fairly", I'd suggest throwing the weaker side a small bonus of some kind.

Eonfuzz wrote:How is that an advantage of Power Level? You're basically saying the game becomes an unbalanced gak of a mess; sounds like a disadvantage to me.

I believe you've missed their point.
They're saying that the game is unbalanced anyways with points, and that taking things that points would normally prohibit has a chance of actually making a more balanced game. I think those are slim odds, personally, but it certainly IS possible - after all, can you say that points aren't rife with undercosted/overcosted units?

Imagine being so casual at all costs to worry that picking a wargear option using is power gaming, and then saying that doing what Power Level does makes you a cheater.
This is why you don't play with Power Levels

I play with PL just fine. Enjoyed it more than points, that's for sure.

And again, no-one has said that picking a wargear option makes you a power gamer. Picking a wargear option to help you win harder, on the other hand, is a strong indicator that you lean that way.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Again, knowing that this is where your mind goes to when presented with the freedom of PL tells me that we would not be suitable to play eachother, if this was your genuine take on the matter.

Freedom from what? Doing highschool maths?

Freedom to not have to worry if that plasma gun will make your list illegal, or from leafing forwards and backwards through your Codex to find out exactly how much a Repulsor is. How many guns does it have again? 8? 9? That's a lot of addition for one model. Alternatively, I can just say "15PL", and we're good to go.

It's not that the maths is difficult, but that it's LONG. Or are you suggesting that (7x10)+(5x0)+5+(2x11)+6+7+5+4 is just as simple as 3+2 for the same unit?

the good ol' stormwind fallacy.

I haven't claimed that someone who minmaxes is incapable of narrative/fluffy play for a second. What I did say was that, if their first instinct when seeing PL is "how can I optimise this", that's not an attitude I think bodes well.

In an RPG where the players work together, an optimised character is less of a destabilising factor than in an opposed wargame.

- Any army NOT spoilt for choices is unplayable in PL

Unplayable is a very loaded term, and simply not true. Played a PL game of Necrons versus Guardsmen and Grey Knight allies, Necrons won handily. My main army right now, Primaris Marines, are exclusively made up of Primaris units, which are regarded as some of the most wargear-inflexible Marines right now. I've been doing fine with them (and, for what it's worth, I have two power fist Sergeants, two power swords, one chainsword, and one with no special weapon - just to dispel the idea that I just went all in on thunder hammers because they're the strongest weapon!).

- PL is designed to allow for someone to pick all the cool options

Yes, cool - not "most powerful".

- Picking the cool options is power gaming
- Picking the cool options is cheating.

Not at all. Take whatever weapons you've got modelled on your dudes, and, odds are over the course of your list, things with balance out (ie, a unit that you've taken with all the bells and whistles might be deployed alongside one that doesn't have quite so much going on). And, if they don't, and you're being genuine about not trying to minmax/win hard against your opponent, you should be open to the underdog getting a potential bonus if the game's going lopsided.

No-one said it was "cheating" either, in the same way that taking swathes of undercosted points units is cheating. It's not that it's illegal, it's that it's done in poor taste.

It's all about intent - taking the cool options isn't powergaming. Taking the cool options because they're the strongest is. This is in the same vein as someone taking an undercosted unit in points - taking the unit isn't a problem. Taking it simply because it's undercosted and imbalanced is.

Does that make sense?

If everyone had the same internalized sense of balance and fair play, power level would be good enough as a balancing mechanic. Of course, if everyone has the same internalized sense of balance and fair play, they wouldn’t need power level at all. :-/

Two 2000 point armies are more likely to be balanced against each other than two X PL forces. Because:
* Almost no option available to a unit changes the PL, and almost every option available to a unit is an improvement
* The number of options available to a unit can vary wildly

Looking at some of the Chaos Daemon models, there are some models that are 21pts per PL and others that are 31pts per PL. And that’s for the “What’s a wargear option?” Chaos Daemon models. And then there’s stuff like the unit sizes: 4PL for a box of 10 daemons, and then 4 more PL to add 1 to 10 models to the unit.

Give both players 16 PL to field. The only reason to field two units of 11 models (two 8 PL units) would be because the rest of the models in the boxes weren’t done yet.

Now take that standard of obvious choices, and look at the units in other books with actual wargear options.

If units were a few PL per model, and wargear options actually had disadvantages that offset their advantages (remove a model for the unit to upgrade weapons or something), then PL might be more effective than just telling people to “Use reason” when putting together a list.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled?

The first of the new Sisters of Battle minis shipped yesterday, and without such units as the Canoness, Exorcist, and other such necessities. I ran games to playtest various builds using proxies.

Using PL lets you build units that are worth more in points than a straight conversion would indicate.

It can also create inefficient units, like a 2 PL character worth 35 points. If one were to play competitive PL (and you can) such units might not be taken. If a person plays competitively, that person will take massive amounts of what look like “free upgrades”.

But that’s the tail wagging the dog. In PL, you’re charged for a fully kitted unit, and can then choose to not use the “optimum” load out if you so choose. That changes the metagame as to which units are “undercosted” compared to true value.

Again, in PL, you don’t get free upgrades. You pay for a unit kitted out in any manner you so choose, and you can choose to “under equip” a unit if you so desire.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Using PL lets you build units that are worth more in points than a straight conversion would indicate.

It can also create inefficient units, like a 2 PL character worth 35 points. If one were to play competitive PL (and you can) such units might not be taken. If a person plays competitively, that person will take massive amounts of what look like “free upgrades”.

But that’s the tail wagging the dog. In PL, you’re charged for a fully kitted unit, and can then choose to not use the “optimum” load out if you so choose. That changes the metagame as to which units are “undercosted” compared to true value.

Again, in PL, you don’t get free upgrades. You pay for a unit kitted out in any manner you so choose, and you can choose to “under equip” a unit if you so desire.

You're usually charged for a medium kitted out unit, not a fully kitted out unit. If you take the most expensive upgrades you are getting an advantage over points, if you take the cheapest you're at a disadvantage, if you take something in the middle things should be the same assuming no pts updates or pts costs that add up to something other that isn't divisible by 20.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You keep saying "in my experience", but my personal anecdotal evidence is that I can easily keep the same 110 powerlevel on my current 2000 point list, but add 500 or so points of upgrades to make the list much, MUCH more versatile with a substantial more firepower-- and without changing any squad weapons (keeping just the cheap stormbolters on the dominions, for example). This is just sergeant upgrades, squad upgrades, and character upgrades. Giving every sister superior a power maul, inferno pistol, and combiplasma adds a ton of points, but oh boy that adds a ton of versatility and firepower to the army-- melta pistols and combiplasma are great, and with my order being Bloody Rose, that power maul is S5 AP-2 +1 attack on the charge. Giving each canoness a combiweapon and a blessed blade is a sizable upgrade. Simulacrums are five points a squad, that adds up when my list has twelve squads, but sure as hell wouldn't be useless. Adding hunter-killer missiles to every one of the ten vehicles adds up as well, but it allows for a massive alpha strike turn one, ten powerful shots against something I absolutely want dead.

And do you have those modelled? Or are you just saying you have them, because you can? That's the difference I'm talking about - between "yes, I like this weapon, and would be taking it anyway" versus "I have no reason not to take this weapon, so I'm going to".

Again, knowing that this is where your mind goes to when presented with the freedom of PL tells me that we would not be suitable to play eachother, if this was your genuine take on the matter.

Lol, as it turn out, no, they don't have models that came out yesterday or next week or two weeks from now modeled yet. Who'da thunk huh?

Eonfuzz wrote:Imagine being so casual at all costs to worry that picking a wargear option is power gaming, and then heavily implying that doing what Power Level does makes you a cheater.
This is why you don't play with Power Levels

Imagine being so gung-ho about sharing your inane opinion that you don't bother checking what a poster is actually saying and what they're responding to before you unload a whole bunch of strawmen on them.

Again, I use(d) PL for one very specific type of game. It doesn't follow that all of my games used PL, especially so when I explicitly say I use(d) points for all other types of game. I explicitly said that taking all the 'best guns' is not cheating. I said this in response to another poster who raised the spectre of powergaming accusations.

Raise your game.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
What about undercosted units in points though - surely the same "guilt test" is there? Both points and PL have their broken elements, and if someone's just going to try and break either, I feel that's in poor spirit. I don't think it takes much intuition to work out if someone's gaming the PL system, or if they're just genuinely obsessed with plasma and power fists, but in either case, talking about what's going on like adults and being flexible to adding special conditions mid-battle are strong solutions.

I think the core fallacy here is the idea that because points aren't perfect, we might as well throw them out entirely and go with something less accurate and less effective as a balancing mechanism.

Yeah, I know that grenade launchers are a bit overcosted for my Stormtroopers, but I still enjoy taking them in casual games because being 8pts cheaper than a plasma gun can buy me a whole extra guy for the squad. Under PL, why would I bother? I'd just take the plasma gun. There are degrees of competitiveness and optimization; points break down under the most ruthless tournament-oriented optimization, while PL breaks if you optimize at all.

And that's really the thing. You're not arguing in favor of PL as a mechanic, you're arguing in favor of a very casual attitude where we don't optimize at all, and praising PL because by being so easy to break it's obvious when someone is trying to optimize.

AoS's original balancing mechanism of 'bring literally whatever you want; if your enemy has more models you get an easier objective' would probably work for you. I don't mean that as an insult; you're clearly looking for like-minded casual players and are okay with doing the grunt work of deciding whether your forces look balanced to one other. I mean, you can make the same arguments for that system that you are for PL: PL isn't perfectly balanced, just bring whatever you want and we'll eyeball it to make a fair game.

But that's insufficient for a majority of the playerbase; not because we're all WAAC tryhards, but because either we enjoy playing to win (which entails some degree of optimization) or we don't want to have to decide for ourselves whether two armies are balanced (especially when the players have very different views of how powerful the armies are).

Melissia wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled?

The first of the new Sisters of Battle minis shipped yesterday, and without such units as the Canoness, Exorcist, and other such necessities. I ran games to playtest various builds using proxies.

I thought you were talking about pre-existing models, or just being hypothetical.

Going under the assumption that, as you were saying, just playtesting, sure, no problem. But for a more established collection? Sorry, I'd be asking for WYSIWYG here. No vox casters in Infantry Squads unless you have them modelled, no hunter killer missiles unless you have them represented, etc etc.

In the case of "I've literally only just got my hands on these, I want to playtest them", I'm happy to suspend that.

ERJAK wrote:Lol, as it turn out, no, they don't have models that came out yesterday or next week or two weeks from now modeled yet. Who'da thunk huh?

You do know that Sisters did exist prior to this recent plastics?
Hence why I asked for more details on their situation, yes?

catbarf wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
What about undercosted units in points though - surely the same "guilt test" is there? Both points and PL have their broken elements, and if someone's just going to try and break either, I feel that's in poor spirit. I don't think it takes much intuition to work out if someone's gaming the PL system, or if they're just genuinely obsessed with plasma and power fists, but in either case, talking about what's going on like adults and being flexible to adding special conditions mid-battle are strong solutions.

I think the core fallacy here is the idea that because points aren't perfect, we might as well throw them out entirely and go with something less accurate and less effective as a balancing mechanism.

That's not what I claimed.

Points are imbalanced in places, but they shouldn't be thrown out. I'm not advocating for one single army building mechanism - I want points AND PL to exist. Did you think that I only wanted PL?

The advantage of PL, as I've said, is that they're far easier to calculate on the fly, are far more suitable for players who are less interested in winning and prefer less optimisation, and are much more beginner friendly - those are things that points won't be able to do to the same degree.

Yeah, I know that grenade launchers are a bit overcosted for my Stormtroopers, but I still enjoy taking them in casual games because being 8pts cheaper than a plasma gun can buy me a whole extra guy for the squad. Under PL, why would I bother? I'd just take the plasma gun.

That's because of your mindset though - not PL.

Your motivating factor shown above (and I'm only going on that, so it's not at all a true reflection of you personally) is entirely driven by mechanics. You concern yourself with how good it is in regards to what it brings to your odds of winning. That's YOUR mindset though, and that was your choice to focus on that priority.

There are degrees of competitiveness and optimization; points break down under the most ruthless tournament-oriented optimization, while PL breaks if you optimize at all.

So, what have we learned? If you're going to optimise, don't play PL!

Is that a problem? Not for me.

And that's really the thing. You're not arguing in favor of PL as a mechanic

I mean, I have been. But sure, let's ignore that.

you're arguing in favor of a very casual attitude where we don't optimize at all, and praising PL because by being so easy to break it's obvious when someone is trying to optimize.

What's wrong with a very casual attitude where people don't optimise though? I mean, I think most people who are pro-PL have made it very clear - "this isn't for people who want to optimise, so just don't play it if that's how you enjoy it".

Just like how comp tournaments don't exactly meet the wants of more casual, narrative hobbyists, why should we expect PL to meet the wants of players who want more fine-tuned games?

But that's insufficient for a majority of the playerbase; not because we're all WAAC tryhards, but because either we enjoy playing to win (which entails some degree of optimization) or we don't want to have to decide for ourselves whether two armies are balanced (especially when the players have very different views of how powerful the armies are).

And that's fine! The majority of the playerbase can go and play points instead! After all, it's not like PL is the only option available, nor does anyone want it to be.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Melissia wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled?

The first of the new Sisters of Battle minis shipped yesterday, and without such units as the Canoness, Exorcist, and other such necessities. I ran games to playtest various builds using proxies.

I thought you were talking about pre-existing models, or just being hypothetical.

I was talking about Sisters of Battle. An incomplete list of Sisters of Battle new miniatures went on pre-order last week and were shipped yesterday, and we're still waiting on important minis like our basic generic HQ to be released (and it's likely we'll be waiting a few weeks longer). While I did have Sisters minis in the past, I sold much of my collection (from Sisters, to Orks, to Guard) off to pay for college textbooks many years ago.

Ultimately it doesn't actually matter, however. Your point, insofar as you can even call it a point, is irrelevant. Plenty of people just magnetize options they sometimes use. And I am seriously considering it for things like the Exorcist now that it has two weapon options, as well as for Retributors and Dominions. Meaning, they can be swapped out on the fly for more powerful options depending on if it's PL or Points. PL being a poorly balanced mess for competitive play doesn't go away just because of your argument. PL is fine for pick-up games where you don't really have plans on what you intend to play, like someone only brought a certain number of units and you had plans for a bigger game, for example. Or for throwing together a quick narrative game. Points are just as good, to someone like me who is decent at math, but not everyone has the inclination for such things, thus PL.

But points are still better for competitive play, and are definitely more balanced than PL are.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Melissia wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
And do you have those modelled?

The first of the new Sisters of Battle minis shipped yesterday, and without such units as the Canoness, Exorcist, and other such necessities. I ran games to playtest various builds using proxies.

I thought you were talking about pre-existing models, or just being hypothetical.

I was talking about Sisters of Battle. An incomplete list of Sisters of Battle new miniatures went on pre-order last week and were shipped yesterday, and we're still waiting on important minis like our basic generic HQ to be released (and it's likely we'll be waiting a few weeks longer).

Yes, I gathered. However, I didn't know if you had pre-existing Sisters, or were just talking in the hypothetical. Still, that's sorted.

Ultimately it doesn't actually matter, however. Your point, insofar as you can even call it a point, is irrelevant. Plenty of people just magnetize options they sometimes use. And I am seriously considering it for things like the Exorcist now that it has two weapon options, as well as for Retributors and Dominions. Meaning, they can be swapped out on the fly for more powerful options depending on if it's PL or Points.

Well, that's your choice to do that, but as you have said, you're doing it in order to gain power. That's not a failing of PL because you have that set of priorities.*

PL being a poorly balanced mess for competitive play doesn't go away just because of your argument. PL is fine for pick-up games where you don't really have plans on what you intend to play, like someone only brought a certain number of units and you had plans for a bigger game, for example. Or for throwing together a quick narrative game. Points are just as good, to someone like me who is decent at math, but not everyone has the inclination for such things, thus PL.

But points are still better for competitive play, and are definitely more balanced than PL are.

I never claimed otherwise? What's with people thinking that, just because I like PL, I think it's the One True Way of playing 40k, and no other army building systems need to exist? I've outright said PL isn't for competitive play - but that doesn't bother me, since I don't play comp. What I *have* said is that PL does have a place and a use, whether it's suitable for you as an individual depends on your priorities and outlook on the game and what you want from it.

If someone happens to be a hobbyist who prioritises power and the most optimal weapons for the game, that's not a fault of PL. It just means it's not suitable for you, in the same way that baroque music is generally unsuitable for someone who prefers grime - it's not a fault of the music that they have those preferences.

*just to clarify, there is nothing wrong with having those priorities, and everyone is free to enjoy the hobby in their own way!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I never claimed otherwise?

Then stop making unnecessary arguments against people who are saying exactly this. I've been saying PL is fine for pick-up games from the start of this edition, yet here we are.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I never claimed otherwise?

Then stop making unnecessary arguments against people who are saying exactly this. I've been saying PL is fine for pick-up games from the start of this edition, yet here we are.

I've not been. I've been making "unnecessary" arguments against people saying that "it's the game's fault for being unbalanced if I want to minmax", which is very different.

People saying "PL's not for you if you want to optimise"? I've never argued against that at all.

Unless, of course, you can point out where I did that.

Sure. You argued against my posts where my only point this entire thread was that PL was not balanced for competitive play.

I never said PL was overall bad, but I think I showed that it certainly does not fulfill the goal of a strong level of balance compared to points.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

Eonfuzz wrote:Imagine being so casual at all costs to worry that picking a wargear option is power gaming, and then heavily implying that doing what Power Level does makes you a cheater.
This is why you don't play with Power Levels

Again, I use(d) PL for one very specific type of game. It doesn't follow that all of my games used PL, especially so when I explicitly say I use(d) points for all other types of game. I explicitly said that taking all the 'best guns' is not cheating. I said this in response to another poster who raised the spectre of powergaming accusations.

Except you basically did, see below:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I put together my Dudespeople/DudesDaemons in a way that fits the story I'm telling with them. Then I look at the Datasheet to see the applicable PL, then I add them all together. The idea that I might be accidentally power-gaming literally never comes into my head and I've never been accused of power-gaming.

The fact we're even talking about the "thread" of power gaming while building lists for PL is telling.

If they're taken just to give you a competitive advantage, well... that's not cheating but it's not really in keeping with the spirit.

If something is not in the spirit of it, and you directly compare it to *cheating* - what is it?

 Melissia wrote:
Sure. You argued against my posts where my only point this entire thread was that PL was not balanced for competitive play.

I never said PL was overall bad, but I think I showed that it certainly does not fulfill the goal of a strong level of balance compared to points.

But if PL's problems (ie, terrible, sloppy and under maintained balance) are answered by another system - does it not make that other system far superior?
thus, the worse option is worse, a la bad.

I'd be fine if they kept them both. Obviously there's space for both or we wouldn't have them but personally, if it came to a choice between the two, i'd be a point man. I prefer the nuance of points and enjoy using it to make lists.

I can see the benefits and uses in both systems but if you start being able to adjust power levels for different equipment loadouts you might as well just use points as you're effectively already doing it.

Eonfuzz- we don’t need another Peregrine, all CAAC as an insult and telling people they’re wrong or PL is bad... this is just silly fun-policing. Don’t do it. You cannot disprove someone else’s experience, so don’t make yourself look foolish. Different people enjoy different things.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Eonfuzz- we don’t need another Peregrine, all CAAC as an insult and telling people they’re wrong or PL is bad... this is just silly fun-policing. Don’t do it. You cannot disprove someone else’s experience, so don’t make yourself look foolish. Different people enjoy different things.

I never argued it wasn't fun, hell, some people find Shadowrun 6e fun.
I'm arguing it's a worse system that introduces more problems than it fixes.

Point of order: Asserting that Points are more *accurate* than PL is false. Points are more *precise* but are not more accurate.

Also, it was asserted that the PL value is based around an “average load out” in points. This is irrelevant in competitive terms, as you *can* take all the goodies. In points, you could choose to pay 150 points for a unit worth 120. That’s your option. In points, you can play *fewer* points than the limit, you just can’t go over.

PL is generally regarded as being a casual environment, but it doesn’t need to be. If both players approach the game in a cut-throat way, both players will optimize their PL spending to get the best value from their list. Just like people playing points would do.

All it does is change the metagame of which units are most exploitable. As precision does not equal accuracy, it’s simply playing a different costing compared to points.

Neither format can claim to be more *accurate*. If the true value of unit - Marines with guns and special movement rules- is 175 True Value Units, and according to “points” you pay 190 or PL you pay 9 (180 points) then PL is more accurate.

And we can turn that on it’s head and say 175 TVU costs 170 points, or 7 PL (140 points) then Points is more accurate.

Without a measure of True Value Units to compare to, all we can assert is that points are more precise.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Point of order: Asserting that Points are more *accurate* than PL is false. Points are more *precise* but are not more accurate.

Also, it was asserted that the PL value is based around an “average load out” in points. This is irrelevant in competitive terms, as you *can* take all the goodies. In points, you could choose to pay 150 points for a unit worth 120. That’s your option. In points, you can play *fewer* points than the limit, you just can’t go over.

PL is generally regarded as being a casual environment, but it doesn’t need to be. If both players approach the game in a cut-throat way, both players will optimize their PL spending to get the best value from their list. Just like people playing points would do.

All it does is change the metagame of which units are most exploitable. As precision does not equal accuracy, it’s simply playing a different costing compared to points.

Neither format can claim to be more *accurate*. If the true value of unit - Marines with guns and special movement rules- is 175 True Value Units, and according to “points” you pay 190 or PL you pay 9 (180 points) then PL is more accurate.

And we can turn that on it’s head and say 175 TVU costs 170 points, or 7 PL (140 points) then Points is more accurate.

Without a measure of True Value Units to compare to, all we can assert is that points are more precise.

That's totally false, there's a reason why tournaments aren't using Power Levels.
Something being more "precise" is more balanced.

As an anology you have to balance two weights, one is 140-200 kg, the other is 140-200kg how do you balance those two weights?
It'd be easier if you knew one was 140kg and the other was 200kg; just means you need 10 of the first to 7 of the second!

Alternatively I could play Necrons and never be able to hold a candle to insert-army-that-has-wargear-options-here, thanks Power Levels!

 greatbigtree wrote:
If both players approach the game in a cut-throat way, both players will optimize their PL spending to get the best value from their list. Just like people playing points would do.

...Yeah, except that the actual choice available with PL is much more limited, since there is no tactical niche for suboptimal weapons or cheap/lightweight units. You take the best thing you can on every unit.

If we threw out points and PL entirely and went by model count, we could probably finagle our way to balance in a '100 model list', relying on self-imposed limitations on power to get a balanced game, and walk away saying 'and if both players approach it in a cutthroat way, they'll optimize their models to get the best value'. That's technically true, but doesn't mean balancing by model count is just as effective as balancing by points.

@ Eonfuzz: please google the difference between accuracy and precision. What I state is true. Tournaments can use points, and they can use PL, I’ve seen both, though I’m not a tournament player myself.

Precision has nothing to do with balance, at all. “Holistic Accuracy” in the True Value between two armies is what creates mathematical balance between the forces.

When using points, there are (demonstrably) armies that have a higher True Value than the point total. Those armies consistently outperform other armies at the same *points* value, because the True Value of Army A could be 2200 points, while the True Value of Army B could be 1950 points... even though both are precisely measure to 2000 points, the measurement is inaccurate compared to True Value.

Conversely, the armies that top the *Points* metagame may not succeed as well in a PL meta. Army Q has a true value of 110 PL, while Army W has a true value of 98 PL. Both are measured to be 100 PL, but again, this is clearly not accurate.

Optimal upgrades change from the most points efficient, to take whatever seems to do the job best. Yes, adding a Power Sword to every Infantry Sergeant might add... 80 points to a list. But do you get 80 points of true value from that?

No. You certainly do not. So the “accuracy” of points is false. Which is why you wouldn’t see that in a competitive *points* game. Whereas in PL, I can put those Power Swords on my Sergeants because it looks cool, and when they’re shot off the board without seeing close combat? Who cares?

My same reasoning goes into Death Company. You could give them all Thunder Hammers, but you wouldn’t in a points game. Because half of them will be dead before they arrive. That would make them points inefficient. Instead, you play the 2 upgrades per 5 dudes game. A mid-range set of upgrades?

So yes, the Death Company with 10/10 Thunder Hammers has the potential to do tremendous damage, in real experience, you’re unlikely to land with even half of those. So you’re right back to a true value of 4/10 dudes with TH, even through they’re all modeled with them.

Consider how, in points, Meltaguns cost more points than Plasma. Does that seem accurate? If you could, for no increase in PL take a MG or PG, which would you take? Probably the PG, even though you could exploit the points loophole and get the “more valuable” meltagun for the same resource investment?

Precision does not equal accuracy.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Precision does not equal accuracy.

You're misusing that phrase. That's referring to 'precision' in the sense of mathematical consistency, not 'precision' as in the granularity of numerical systems (as used in computer science). Accuracy is unrelated to precision in the first sense, but absolutely requires precision in the second sense, which is what we're talking about here.

So far I haven't seen any reason to think that the lack of granularity in PL combined with the non-representation of upgrades under the PL system leads to a more balanced game.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I can put those Power Swords on my Sergeants because it looks cool, and when they’re shot off the board without seeing close combat? Who cares?

How about seeing close combat with a champion with a measly chainsword? Your freedom is an illusion, what you really like is champs with power swords not being garbo, instead, chainswords are garbo, if you think chainswords are cool you are out of luck. People should be incentivised to rip models apart as little as possible, PL fails in this regard to a larger extent than pts do with the rare exception where a more powerful option costs more instead of the same as in PL or more as is the case with most pts options.

 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Eonfuzz: please google the difference between accuracy and precision. What I state is true. Tournaments can use points, and they can use PL, I’ve seen both, though I’m not a tournament player myself.

Precision has nothing to do with balance, at all. “Holistic Accuracy” in the True Value between two armies is what creates mathematical balance between the forces.

When using points, there are (demonstrably) armies that have a higher True Value than the point total. Those armies consistently outperform other armies at the same *points* value, because the True Value of Army A could be 2200 points, while the True Value of Army B could be 1950 points... even though both are precisely measure to 2000 points, the measurement is inaccurate compared to True Value.

Conversely, the armies that top the *Points* metagame may not succeed as well in a PL meta. Army Q has a true value of 110 PL, while Army W has a true value of 98 PL. Both are measured to be 100 PL, but again, this is clearly not accurate.

Optimal upgrades change from the most points efficient, to take whatever seems to do the job best. Yes, adding a Power Sword to every Infantry Sergeant might add... 80 points to a list. But do you get 80 points of true value from that?

No. You certainly do not. So the “accuracy” of points is false. Which is why you wouldn’t see that in a competitive *points* game. Whereas in PL, I can put those Power Swords on my Sergeants because it looks cool, and when they’re shot off the board without seeing close combat? Who cares?

My same reasoning goes into Death Company. You could give them all Thunder Hammers, but you wouldn’t in a points game. Because half of them will be dead before they arrive. That would make them points inefficient. Instead, you play the 2 upgrades per 5 dudes game. A mid-range set of upgrades?

So yes, the Death Company with 10/10 Thunder Hammers has the potential to do tremendous damage, in real experience, you’re unlikely to land with even half of those. So you’re right back to a true value of 4/10 dudes with TH, even through they’re all modeled with them.

Consider how, in points, Meltaguns cost more points than Plasma. Does that seem accurate? If you could, for no increase in PL take a MG or PG, which would you take? Probably the PG, even though you could exploit the points loophole and get the “more valuable” meltagun for the same resource investment?

Precision does not equal accuracy.

Right, so you're saying anecdotally points are bad because marines got shot off the table.

A guesstimation of points that has flaws in it as pointed out multiple times in the scope of this topic is further away from this "True value" you speak of.
If you wish to truly hit this "True Value" You'd need to take into account matchups, composition and player skill, which neither do. But as a function of accuracy, the revised ruleset that is used in tournaments must be assumed to be more accurate.

Yet again, no tournaments use power level because of obvious problems
Yet again, power level has obvious problems for armies that do not have a plethora of wargear options
Yet again, assuming both players behave how the ruleset expect (ie, 50% wargear in a unit) the system works
Yet again, doing ANYTHING outside of that causes power levels to break down
Yet again, points addresses all the above issues

But, I will give you that there are serious balance and design in the ecosystem of 40k, but that has more to do with greed and design space.
But, I will give you that points are unrealistic for pick up and play games

Power Levels nor points will fix deep strike alpha strike shenanigans, nor bad design in making whole factions obviously more powerful than others.
The short story is that Points *is* a better system than Power Level, but neither of them are totally perfect, and the more concessions you make to a human player base, the less accurate it becomes.
Fun can be found in anything, I personally find DnD 5e to be terribly bland and lazily designed, and yet I can still have fun while playing the roll d20+level game.

Melissia wrote:Sure. You argued against my posts where my only point this entire thread was that PL was not balanced for competitive play.

I never said PL was overall bad, but I think I showed that it certainly does not fulfill the goal of a strong level of balance compared to points.

What you said was

Melissia wrote:There's no depth to the choice. It's either take it and be stronger, or don't take it and be weaker..

I'm not saying for a second that you think PL is overall bad, or that I disagree PL is bad for competitive play. My point is that the attitude of "there's no reason not to take it because it's the strongest option" is to do with the player's mindset, not the game.

Literally, it's as simple as that - if someone wants to use the most powerful weaponry, that's their decision to do so. The game isn't forcing you to take the best gear.

catbarf wrote:...Yeah, except that the actual choice available with PL is much more limited, since there is no tactical niche for suboptimal weapons or cheap/lightweight units. You take the best thing you can on every unit.

That's on you for only caring about the power of your army though. That's your personal preferences and priorities in the game there. Your mindset and attitude towards playing would indicate that PL is just not compatible with you - and that's okay! You should just play points instead.

For someone who doesn't have that "gotta take the best thing on every guy" mentality, PL isn't a problem. Again, pick the game system that best suits your needs. Want more precise balance? Play points. Want quicker and less restrictive play? Play PL. Neither is "right" or "wrong" or objectively better than the other - and they both fill different roles.

I don't get why people think that it's one or the other here.

Eonfuzz wrote:Yet again, power level has obvious problems for armies that do not have a plethora of wargear options

That's assuming that someone playing an army with a plethora or wargear options takes all the best gear. That, however, is down to the person playing it.

Yet again, doing ANYTHING outside of that causes power levels to break down

So someone seeking to do that deliberately shouldn't play PL. Simple.

So, anyone who's expressed the "there's no reason I shouldn't take the best weapon!" opinion realistically should stick with points, unless they're playing PL with someone of the same mindset.

Yet again, points addresses all the above issues

However, units may have imbalanced points, wherein all the same problems are repeated (ie, people spamming undercosted units, overcosted factions being imbalanced against undercosted ones, etc etc).

If someone seeks to exploit imbalances, that's down to the player, not the game, IMO.

But, I will give you that points are unrealistic for pick up and play games

In all fairness, pick up and play isn't great regardless of points or PL without first asserting with your opponent what kind of game you're playing. If both players go in with the same mindset, they'll largely be fine with whichever system they choose. If they don't, then PL or points regardless, they'll probably have a bad time.

The short story is that Points *is* a better system than Power Level, but neither of them are totally perfect, and the more concessions you make to a human player base, the less accurate it becomes.

Agreed, but only on the caveat that "better" means "more balanced". Again, to emphasise, some people don't care all that much for balance, and assigning the idea of "less balanced = bad" devalues the playing experience of people who care less about balance.

Fun can be found in anything

Can't argue with that, and just accepting that someone's idea of fun can be very different to someone else's should realistically mean that every style of play should be regarded as equally valid.

I stg this forum could just be distilled down into like five permanent threads going round in the same circles over and over again:

• Mad about GW prices vs not mad about GW prices
• Mad about rules vs not mad about rules
• Mad about PL vs not mad about PL
• Mad about painting vs not mad about painting
• Other (what else are you mad about this week?)

 Nazrak wrote:
I stg this forum could just be distilled down into like five permanent threads going round in the same circles over and over again:

• Mad about GW prices vs not mad about GW prices
• Mad about rules vs not mad about rules
• Mad about PL vs not mad about PL
• Mad about painting vs not mad about painting
• Other (what else are you mad about this week?)

Ooh, and "Mad about Primaris vs not mad about Primaris"!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
That's on you for only caring about the power of your army though. That's your personal preferences and priorities in the game there. Your mindset and attitude towards playing would indicate that PL is just not compatible with you - and that's okay! You should just play points instead.

For someone who doesn't have that "gotta take the best thing on every guy" mentality, PL isn't a problem. Again, pick the game system that best suits your needs. Want more precise balance? Play points. Want quicker and less restrictive play? Play PL. Neither is "right" or "wrong" or objectively better than the other - and they both fill different roles.

I don't get why people think that it's one or the other here.

Read the post I was responding to. They're arguing that PL is equally suited to competitive play as points, and that PL is just as accurate at capturing the value of a unit.

If someone just says that PL is a handy tool to quickly calculate rough parity for casual or narrative games, but breaks down if you try to use it competitively, then I'm 100% in agreement. And I use PL, for exactly that purpose.

I just don't buy that it's equally suited for competitive play, that it produces a different, but comparably deep meta, or that it's just as accurate as points.

Edit: Same for your response to Eonfuzz; you seem to be missing the context that he is responding to someone who is making the claim that PL is just as suited to competitive play as points.

For someone who doesn't have that "gotta take the best thing on every guy" mentality, PL isn't a problem. Again, pick the game system that best suits your needs. Want more precise balance? Play points. Want quicker and less restrictive play? Play PL. Neither is "right" or "wrong" or objectively better than the other - and they both fill different roles.

Up until an army that has options balanced with real points for its army play against an army where GW did not give any squad or unit upgrades, and the balance of options comes from something else. Then playing casualy or not, one person can be double punished.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
But if PL's problems (ie, terrible, sloppy and under maintained balance) are answered by another system - does it not make that other system far superior?
thus, the worse option is worse, a la bad.

That's up to you. PL has the advantage of being simpler to calculate and thus a lot of people who aren't as fast with mental math (and don't have a lot of things memorized) will favor it for quick pick-up games.

The kind of games you use powerlevel for are very different than the kind of games you use points for. But if you feel PL's downsides outweigh its upsides, then yeah, to you PL is outright worse.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
I stg this forum could just be distilled down into like five permanent threads going round in the same circles over and over again:

• Mad about GW prices vs not mad about GW prices
• Mad about rules vs not mad about rules
• Mad about PL vs not mad about PL
• Mad about painting vs not mad about painting
• Other (what else are you mad about this week?)

Ooh, and "Mad about Primaris vs not mad about Primaris"!

Ah, I *knew* there'd be one I forgot!

catbarf wrote:Read the post I was responding to. They're arguing that PL is equally suited to competitive play as points, and that PL is just as accurate at capturing the value of a unit.

If someone just says that PL is a handy tool to quickly calculate rough parity for casual or narrative games, but breaks down if you try to use it competitively, then I'm 100% in agreement. And I use PL, for exactly that purpose.

I just don't buy that it's equally suited for competitive play, that it produces a different, but comparably deep meta, or that it's just as accurate as points.

Edit: Same for your response to Eonfuzz; you seem to be missing the context that he is responding to someone who is making the claim that PL is just as suited to competitive play as points.

It's less the "PL is inappropriate for competitive play" that I'm responding to (because that's a stance I agree with), but rather ones like "PL is completely useless" or "it's not my fault as a player if I want to minmax my army, and PL makes that broken".

Nazrak wrote:Ah, I *knew* there'd be one I forgot!

I'm sure there's plenty more we've both missed!

Also aren't PL not being updated, unlike normal points? That seems like a bit problem for both under and over achivers.

Karol wrote:
Also aren't PL not being updated, unlike normal points? That seems like a bit problem for both under and over achivers.

IMO a huge problem with Power Level. It doesn't get updated to be in line with the point drops when they realise that certain units are overcosted etc.

Take the GUO as an example, still 17 PL which equates to 340 points (it's old cost) - it's now 250 but still costing 17 PL when it should really be 12 or 13

The problem with PL for me is centred around perception as much as it is the weaknesses of the PL system. I agree that, theoretically at least, there's no reason why PL couldn't be just as good as points and also agree that both points and PL can both be inaccurate representations of the relative power of two units.

However, PL really doesn't help itself when you see things like adding a single Sternguard to a 5-man unit doubles the PL of the unit while upgrading every guy with combi-weapons changes nothing. I know people will point out that if you're trying to min-max using PL you're doing it wrong, but I'm talking more about the perception of the system than the reality. Literally anyone I've spoken to about PL, including brand new players who don't even know points exist until you tell them, have mentioned the weird discrepancy that adding 1 model to a unit costs the same as adding 5 or 10 in most cases. This also makes a bit of a mockery of the idea that with PL you don't need to worry so much about unit composition, you just play with what you've got. One of the strengths of PL is that you don't need to track every last little upgrade in a squad, which is fine, but then if you happen to have 6 or 7 Sternguard the opposite is true. Now you need to worry about the size of the unit rather than what upgrades it has.

PL just seems to add far too many arbitrary decision points like that rather than meaningful ones whereas in a points system all decisions regarding army construction have much more similar weight because points tracks changes in a much more granular fashion. I'm "penalised" in more or less the same way for adding a single Sternguard model vs deciding to equip 3 out of 5 with combi-plasma, for example.

Slipspace wrote:
The problem with PL for me is centred around perception as much as it is the weaknesses of the PL system. I agree that, theoretically at least, there's no reason why PL couldn't be just as good as points and also agree that both points and PL can both be inaccurate representations of the relative power of two units.

However, PL really doesn't help itself when you see things like adding a single Sternguard to a 5-man unit doubles the PL of the unit while upgrading every guy with combi-weapons changes nothing. I know people will point out that if you're trying to min-max using PL you're doing it wrong, but I'm talking more about the perception of the system than the reality. Literally anyone I've spoken to about PL, including brand new players who don't even know points exist until you tell them, have mentioned the weird discrepancy that adding 1 model to a unit costs the same as adding 5 or 10 in most cases. This also makes a bit of a mockery of the idea that with PL you don't need to worry so much about unit composition, you just play with what you've got. One of the strengths of PL is that you don't need to track every last little upgrade in a squad, which is fine, but then if you happen to have 6 or 7 Sternguard the opposite is true. Now you need to worry about the size of the unit rather than what upgrades it has.

PL just seems to add far too many arbitrary decision points like that rather than meaningful ones whereas in a points system all decisions regarding army construction have much more similar weight because points tracks changes in a much more granular fashion. I'm "penalised" in more or less the same way for adding a single Sternguard model vs deciding to equip 3 out of 5 with combi-plasma, for example.

I think the thing here though is, for the sort of games you might play using PL, you could have a conversation along the lines of "Oh I've only got seven of my Sternguard painted; is it cool if I go over by a couple of PL?" "Yeah no bother." If, for whatever reason, that's not a conversation you're willing – or able – to have, then you can always uyse points instead.

Karol wrote:Also aren't PL not being updated, unlike normal points? That seems like a bit problem for both under and over achivers.

They do get updated, but not as frequently as points are.

I'm fairly sure that Hellblasters used to be something like 8PL when they were first released, in the current SM Codex they're more like 6PL. I think one of the more egregious times where PL was quite out of place was on Marneus Calgar, back when he had two versions. His artificer armour version was 12PL, and his Armour of Antilochus was something like 13PL in the Index. That's cool, makes sense. Then, the first Space Marines Codex, his artificer armour version was dropped, remaining Index exclusive, and his Armour of Antilochus was made cheaper (matching his lowered price in the points) to something like 11PL. So, the stronger version of Calgar got made cheaper than his weaker one. Now, with Calgar having been made into Primaris in the new Codex, he got a brand new datasheet, and new PL to match. So, the even stronger version of Calgar is.... 11PL - the same cost as his regular Terminator variant.

Now, this isn't really an issue in my eyes, with a bit of logic applied. Want to use the artificer version of Calgar? I'd say drop him to about 9PL, and keep his datasheet the same. Want to use Armour of Antilochus Calgar? Just use the datasheet for Gravis Calgar, or just play him at 10PL instead (the difference between a regular Captain and a Primaris one is about 1PL, from what I can gather).

Slipspace wrote:However, PL really doesn't help itself when you see things like adding a single Sternguard to a 5-man unit doubles the PL of the unit while upgrading every guy with combi-weapons changes nothing.

Yeah, that's one of my only real gripes with PL - it's full unit or nothing. I was having that issue when I was building my Grey Knight Paladins - I have 6 of them, which means that, RAW, if I wanted them all in one unit, I'd have to pay for an extra 4 Paladins which I'd never use! Even more annoying is that some armies actually take this into account for high model price units - nearly all Custodes units pay for their Custodians on a PL by PL basis (like, add an extra Custodian for 3PL), and annoyingly, Paladins should cost around the same, yet don't get that option. For something like an Intercessor Squad, where the squad of 5 is 5PL, an Intercessor should realistically cost 1PL to add to the squad, yet if you did only add one Intercessor, you'd be paying for 5.

However, this is one of those cases where you just realistically explain it to your opponent, and find the "closest" PL cost, rounding up for safety. So, in my case of having 6 Paladins, which roughly cost about 3 or 4PL each, I'd ask "hey, I've only got 6 Paladins, but that puts me in the weird spot between 5 and 10 of them - do you mind if I pay 4PL to the cost of the 5 man squad instead of paying for the 4 Paladins I don't have?". That takes my Paladins from costing 32PL to only costing 23PL.

Basically, if something feels extremely out of whack, just talk about it, and resolve it between yourselves.

However, yes, I do recognise that odd squad numbers are a big issue with PL, and I really want that to change.