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If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:38:12


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


So, cards on the table. Would anyone actually have a marked decrease in play if 40k went full Power Levels and abandoned points entirely? Because I'll be honest, I don't think it would stop the competitive scene, and frankly, that's the only leg propping up this horse these days. It won't affect the painters, or the modelers, or the fluffers, only the hard-core enthusiasts that still cling to points as the saving balance grace of 40k.

I'm not making a judgment for or against PL, only that GW is showing that it's no longer really relavent to success of a faction, and if that's true, it's not inherently tied to balance. I know I am glossing over a LOT of minutia here, but do you honestly see GW just saying everything is Free, like they appear to be doing with Guard, for EVERY faction? No. It would only work for a very few factions. Factions where there aren't a great deal of options or point flux therein. Custodes could go FULL power level tomorrow and not notice. Guard can as well, if they bake it into the cost of the squads. Space Marines, being the Hyper generalist. ultra customizable bois, would be more difficult. And herein lays what I see as the future:

GW will Legends all non-primaris units that aren't infantry. Infantry will be made to be basically stock standard copies of Primaris, IE Terminators would become Gravis Clones. Scouts would become Infiltrators. Standard squads would become their closest primaris option. And just delete half the weapon options. You get Plasma, HBs, and the varying Bolt rifles. That's basically it. They would have to legends all the old vehicles as well.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:44:44


Post by: Nevelon


The only 9th I’ve played has been PL crusade games.

Sometimes I miss the granularity of points, but overall I’m not fussed either way.

And if they switch to all PL all the time, they are going to have to revist a lot of units for ballance. It’s one thing to use the PL as the average of unit cost options, but if you no for example, that every nid gaunt is going to have adrenal glands and toxin sacks, that should just be baked/priced into the profile.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:53:54


Post by: Tawnis


Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:55:38


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Tawnis wrote:
Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.

The middle ground is that you have to realize any upgrade is worth SOMETHING and it's up to GW to figure out the point cost.

Wait that's not a middle ground.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:56:01


Post by: Racerguy180


Short answer nope, long answer....maybe but not enuff to negatively impact play.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 19:58:35


Post by: Ordana


PL itself is not a problem, balance issues as a result of how PL is used is the problem.

If the unit is roughly the same regardless of what upgrade you pick its fine.
If you get Tyranid warriors its not fine.

The issue people have with GW switching to PL is that we have no reason to assume GW can bring better balance to 40k by getting rid of points.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:14:13


Post by: LunarSol


I really like PL. I think the only thing they really need to do is give each datasheet an upgrade budget to limit what they can take. So like, having a Lascannon in the unit means you probably can't take a Thunder Hammer on the Sgt or something like that. Basically separate out equipment costs into a per unit side currency and greatly simplify them so that there's a reason to take some of the currently cheaper options. Basically, boys and toys shouldn't come out of the same pool.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:18:15


Post by: warhead01


Yes and no. Yes only in that I would have a fair bit less stress when putting together my list and I'd use more cool models with all the gubbinz but also no because I'm not really looking for any games this year so far. I just don't enjoy 9th at all. But being able to just plop in all the cool stuff no worries would be a feels good because they will quickly be back in the box, so who cares.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:19:03


Post by: ccs


Nope.
97%+ of all the games of 9th I've played have been Crusade. In the other 3% or so? I honestly don't care if I'm adding up PL or pts. Neither changes how I play, what I build, or how often I play. I don't expect those things to change for the remainder of 9th.

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:19:08


Post by: Voss


At this point, no. They seemed to be purposely sabotaging the points system now (and doing so inconsistently).

I don't like the way people abuse PL, but their 'two systems' approach isn't working, because they aren't doing the work.

GW will Legends all non-primaris units that aren't infantry. Infantry will be made to be basically stock standard copies of Primaris, IE Terminators would become Gravis Clones. Scouts would become Infiltrators. Standard squads would become their closest primaris option. And just delete half the weapon options. You get Plasma, HBs, and the varying Bolt rifles. That's basically it. They would have to legends all the old vehicles as well.

As usual, though, your conclusion makes no sense at all, and doesn't even seem related to anything else.

They just got slapped with giant wads of cash that say non-primaris stuff is relevant, popular and MAJOR money makers.
They sold out of Rhinos! Rhinos with a sprue of a broad selection of weapons for pintle mounts.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:38:50


Post by: Dudeface


You keep making these weird conspiracy theory power level based posts and they ultimately focus around binning off guard or marines.

No, they won't go purely power level and no midget marines aren't going anywhere.

I honestly think we might see less granular units ala sigmar reinforcements.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 20:45:14


Post by: Kanluwen


I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:
At this point, no. They seemed to be purposely sabotaging the points system now (and doing so inconsistently).

I don't like the way people abuse PL, but their 'two systems' approach isn't working, because they aren't doing the work.

Out of curiosity, where/what abuses are you seeing? Is it mainly Crusade based stuff?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 21:00:41


Post by: Voss


Nope. Just whenever I see people play PL, they max out the good stuff, every time.

Often, people here defending PL claim it doesn't happen, but on real tables its amazingly consistent.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 21:03:27


Post by: Kanluwen


I'd be interested to see what the correlation is between those people playing PL and playing points, as that's where I tend to see the specific issue you're mentioning come up.

I can kinda understand why too. If you're playing the two, you might have the min-max "best" items for points.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 21:04:04


Post by: Racerguy180


Then you play with people that don't get PL in the first place.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 21:54:32


Post by: ERJAK


It's not different, just dumber. Sigmar is even less granular and it works more or less the same way 40k does, you just end up with more useless loadouts.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 22:06:42


Post by: vict0988


No, PL is just a terrible pts format and points are currently terribly balanced. I would play a lot more with less bloat, less fluff-breaking rules and a good pts system.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 22:16:15


Post by: EviscerationPlague


ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 22:33:34


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


I personally want to try and understand PL for various factions. My friend just tells me when they play PL, they get to put more models in their list, whereas with Points, it usually drops by 5-10%. Is that an accurate assessment, you get more models on average on the table?

For instance, I play Custodes and want to make BA my next faction. I know just by simple math my Custodes would get far more models.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 22:34:04


Post by: Tokhuah


No because the point system is not the problem. Getting rid of points but keeping Command Points and Stratagems is a ridiculous exercise in futility. The Codex release method offers printed materials that are dated before you receive them. BUY MORE or we discontinue your list!

I have a great idea, let's hide the broken under some PL and try to make people think everything is awesome by using words such as bespoke while unveiling over the top models that cost twice as much as anywhere else. But it is cool, just chill, we will make sure everything is mono-pose so no need to think; just buy and PL dudes!


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/08 23:48:19


Post by: Voss


Racerguy180 wrote:
Then you play with people that don't get PL in the first place.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd be interested to see what the correlation is between those people playing PL and playing points, as that's where I tend to see the specific issue you're mentioning come up.

I can kinda understand why too. If you're playing the two, you might have the min-max "best" items for points.


Nope and nope. You guys make frankly weird assumptions.

The majority of folks I see using PL are younger and used to systems where they get everything for a flat cost, several started Warhammer with AoS, for example. A couple, WM mk2. They've never used more complex points systems, they assume everything (including the best stuff) comes by default.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 00:12:31


Post by: Kanluwen


I didn't "assume" anything there, Voss. I simply made a statement. One of the things I personally have noticed in observing games while at stores is that there's some folks who play Power and Points...but their lists are clearly intended to have been built using points.

In your instance though, they might assume everything comes by default because that's how Power works.

Back when Stu Black was talking about Power when they first debuted it, he made a comment about a formula the studio uses internally to figure out Power v Points. Some items were mentioned as being considered "free upgrades" or "discounted" for it(ex: a mandatory unit leader or unit attachment ala the Ghostkeel's stealth drones), while others might see a Power cost same as they would a points cost.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 00:27:26


Post by: Gadzilla666


 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 00:28:47


Post by: alextroy


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Tawnis wrote:
Honestly, I think that a hybrid system would work best. PL for the baseline units and you have a certain amount of points to spend on upgrades across the army.

The problem I have with points, is that in order to min/max, everyone just runs basic units with maybe a single very strong upgrade here or there. The problem I have with PL is that every unit is decked out to the 9's with every conceivable upgrade and option, because why not, they're free.

I'd love to have some kind of middle ground to this.

The middle ground is that you have to realize any upgrade is worth SOMETHING and it's up to GW to figure out the point cost.

Wait that's not a middle ground.
Actually the Middle Ground is to bake the points values of some upgrades into the unit and then provide a cost for less upgrades. This can be done with either Power Level or Points.

Let's take the classic Tactical Squad as an example (yes, I know nobody uses Tactical Squads, this is a thought exercise). They are currently 18 points a model (180 points for 10 bare bones models) with every possible upgrade costing points. If we assume you will always take a Special or Heavy Weapon when possible, we can change them to 20 points a model and eliminate the cost for all Special Weapons and for Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, and Grav-Cannon. Reduce the cost of the other special weapons by 10 points each.

The result is a Simpler cost sheet for the Tactical Squad and people will actually put Special and/or Heavy Weapon in the unit.

I'm 110% in a Points that encourages the game on the board to look more like the game in the background.

You can do the same exercise in reverse for Power Level. Reduce the basic PL on the unit and then put some threshold on a unit's upgrades that increases the PL.

Once again, the Tactical Marines are currently base 5 PL and PL 10 if more than 6 Models. That's about right unless you load up on maximum upgrades, so change the rule to say:

Base PL 5. If this unit has 6 or more models add +5 PL. If this unit uses more than 2 Wargear options, add 1 PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 00:35:00


Post by: ccs


EviscerationPlague wrote:
ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?


Since our Crusades have been running smoothly (well as smoothly as 40k 9e does in general), using PL everytime, for almost two years now?
There's nothing you can say that will convince me that PL is any worse than pts


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 00:50:04


Post by: Kanluwen


 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.

Not every single item costs PL. It tends to be based upon things that increase the size of the unit.

Using Broadsides as an example:
A single Broadside is 5 Power and it costs you an additional Power to upgrade each Broadside to have 2 Drones.
As of the initial launch of the Tau Empire codex, a Broadside was 75pts base. Drones ranged from 8 to 15 points per. Seeker Missiles were 5 pts, SMS were 15, HYMP were 10, and twin Plasma Rifles were 10.

Broadsides are 6 Power each with Drones being the only paid for upgrade vs something like 4-5 paid upgrades via points.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 01:11:43


Post by: Gadzilla666


 Kanluwen wrote:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 Kanluwen wrote:
I'd play it more...but I already play PL exclusively.

The only thing, bluntly, that needs to be done is as suggested:
Add a PL cost for upgrades. It doesn't even need to be a wild idea, simply price out the unit then give a Power cost to upgrade basic troopers into Special/Heavy weapon operators as appropriate.

So, the unit costs (X) PL, and the upgrades cost (Y) PL? How exactly is that different from the unit costing (X) points and the upgrades costing (Y) points? I'm, not really seeing the difference.

Not every single item costs PL. It tends to be based upon things that increase the size of the unit.

Using Broadsides as an example:
A single Broadside is 5 Power and it costs you an additional Power to upgrade each Broadside to have 2 Drones.
As of the initial launch of the Tau Empire codex, a Broadside was 75pts base. Drones ranged from 8 to 15 points per. Seeker Missiles were 5 pts, SMS were 15, HYMP were 10, and twin Plasma Rifles were 10.

Broadsides are 6 Power each with Drones being the only paid for upgrade vs something like 4-5 paid upgrades via points.

Yes, that's how it currently works. But I thought that you were suggesting adding a PL cost to all of those various weapons upgrades. My apologies if I misunderstood you.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 01:13:15


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Seems like a lot of extra steps to achieve a less accurate result.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 01:43:45


Post by: Kanluwen


 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Yes, that's how it currently works. But I thought that you were suggesting adding a PL cost to all of those various weapons upgrades. My apologies if I misunderstood you.

I was not suggesting that each of the weapons should have an individual PL cost.

I was suggesting, however, that maybe there should be a PL upgrade to the unit for possessing any special/heavy weapon in general. I see no issue with that.

IE:
A Guard Infantry Squad that just consists of a Sergeant and 9 Riflemen?
Flat cost of Power.
Taking a Special Weapon? +1PL.
Taking a Heavy Weapon? +1 PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 04:56:15


Post by: Hecaton


Maybe. It would change what army I play. Make an army of Orks vs. an army of Harlequins via PL and see what comes out to even points. Different armies aren't treated fairly when it comes to points=>PL conversions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ccs wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
ccs wrote:

As to any balance issues? Eh. There's balance issues with pts anyways. Using PL doesn't change anything.

Why is thus ever a defense for PL? Points are bad, so switch to a WORSE system because bad is bad?


Since our Crusades have been running smoothly (well as smoothly as 40k 9e does in general), using PL everytime, for almost two years now?
There's nothing you can say that will convince me that PL is any worse than pts


How do Ork players handle the fact that they get taxed 1 PL for increasing a characteristic by 1 on their warboss? You say "smoothly" and that's just because everyone is super civil with each other - not that the rules are good.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 05:23:49


Post by: locarno24


 Kanluwen wrote:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Yes, that's how it currently works. But I thought that you were suggesting adding a PL cost to all of those various weapons upgrades. My apologies if I misunderstood you.

I was not suggesting that each of the weapons should have an individual PL cost.

I was suggesting, however, that maybe there should be a PL upgrade to the unit for possessing any special/heavy weapon in general. I see no issue with that.

IE:
A Guard Infantry Squad that just consists of a Sergeant and 9 Riflemen?
Flat cost of Power.
Taking a Special Weapon? +1PL.
Taking a Heavy Weapon? +1 PL.


That's basically how Apocalypse does it.
Well, for heavy weapons, anyway. Assault weapons and sergeants weapons don't 'show up' in the scale and just blend into the stats of 'small arms' and 'melee weapons'.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 05:29:17


Post by: H.B.M.C.


 Kanluwen wrote:
IE:
A Guard Infantry Squad that just consists of a Sergeant and 9 Riflemen?
Flat cost of Power.
Taking a Special Weapon? +1PL.
Taking a Heavy Weapon? +1 PL.
Not all weapons are created equal. Some do a different things to others, whereas others are straight upgrades.

Power Level doesn't account for this in the same way that points do, and if you start re-writing Power Level to account for these types of changes, then you might as well just use points.




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 06:36:38


Post by: Blackie


I managed to keep playing during 7th edition and the index era of 8th edition so I wouldn't quit 40k just for PL being the only way to play. I certainly prefer points though and I fear that some units that can get multiple loadouts would end up with mulitple datasheets to address the issue with PL. So even more massive rosters than what we have now. Which combined to the the massive dice rolling is basically the only thing I don't like about current 40k.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 07:46:20


Post by: Deadnight


EviscerationPlague wrote:

The middle ground is that you have to realize any upgrade is worth SOMETHING and it's up to GW to figure out the point cost.

Wait that's not a middle ground.


I mean, fine, but 'what something is worth' changes constantly based on a whole gamut of contextual variations- having a single universal cost to determine its 'value' is unachievable. And lets not forget, 'the average cost' isn't the same thing (not even close!) as 'the accurate cost'. The greatest minds would struggle with this; gw ain't that.

Nos to op, if gw went all in on pl instead of points would I play? Yes, with caveats. I prefer lower granularity systems like warmachine and felt they costed things better than high granularity systems. The caveat is for this to work in gw games you'd need to radically redesign and restructure unit design/costs to the point that a units setup and loadout is set and unchanged or its options are greatly reduced.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 10:12:17


Post by: jaredb


I'd have no problem playing 40k as power level instead of points. Would certainly make adding up army cost a lot quicker.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 10:18:15


Post by: vipoid


Given the state of the current points system, the difference between it and PL seems negligible at this point.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 10:25:09


Post by: Andykp


The thing that’s stop me playing as much is time not the army building system so it wouldn’t change how often I play, but when I do play I use power levels and have since they were introduced. I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible and just in it to win it at all costs.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 10:40:39


Post by: JohnnyHell


Exactly. PL is great for what it is. Approach from a min max WAAC mindset and no wonder those people don’t get it and write essays dragging PL. Both PL and points have their purpose for different types of games.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 11:18:27


Post by: Karhedron


I don't think points or PLs are really the problem or the solution. GW's balance issues usually stem from a lack of playtesting. GW assume that it is enough to check that 1 of a unit in an army is balanced but never stop to check if spamming 6 of them might cause a problem. Similarly stratagems may be fine in isolation but can be seriously game-breaking when stacked.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 11:21:08


Post by: Eldarsif


I would not quit playing if GW would adopt PL fully. Have used PL in Crusade and don't mind it that much.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 11:40:32


Post by: A.T.


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not all weapons are created equal. Some do a different things to others, whereas others are straight upgrades.
Power Level doesn't account for this in the same way that points do, and if you start re-writing Power Level to account for these types of changes, then you might as well just use points.
The more practical way would probably be for the base power level to include 'any and all items from section A' - and then +1 PL to access section B (i.e. the powerful heavy/special weapons), and another +1 PL to access section C (i.e. veteran or character upgrades).

i.e.
Minimum size tactical squad - X PL, can include your pick of flamers, heavy bolters, power swords, and things of that nature
+X PL - 5 extra models, one extra special/heavy weapon slot
+1 PL - squad may also pick melta, plasma, las, etc
+1 PL - veteran sergeant with full access to the sergeant armoury


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 12:38:28


Post by: H.B.M.C.


A.T. wrote:
The more practical way would probably be for the base power level to include 'any and all items from section A' - and then +1 PL to access section B (i.e. the powerful heavy/special weapons), and another +1 PL to access section C (i.e. veteran or character upgrades).
Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Approach from a min max WAAC mindset...
It has nothing to do with a "WAAC mindset". Where do you even get that? We get enough of that baseless drek from Kan. Don't ape his terrible arguments.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 12:47:24


Post by: JohnnyHell


From about a million threads about PL.

It always comes up that competitive folk come into any PL thread to tell them how they’re wrong.

I wasn’t addressing your comments, it was a general remark.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 13:27:40


Post by: Blackie


If GW went full PL then lists designed on PL WILL be min-maxed. That's why I fear that at that point GW would balance that by splitting units with possible multiple loadouts into multiple datasheets with fixed or semi fixed loadout.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 13:29:14


Post by: catbarf


Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?

I mean, the caveat 'it works as long as you're sensible' is really just offloading the burden of balancing the game from the developer onto the players, and then throwing in a layer of undeserved moral judgment to boot (because the implication is if you can't figure it out on your own, you're not being sensible).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?


Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.

I don't regularly use PL, but given how GW has been approaching upgrades thus far (embracing sidegrades and baking wargear into unit costs), I would be okay with PL becoming the less-granular points system that it could be but for lack of representing wargear.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 13:32:45


Post by: CthuluIsSpy


Imo, PL could work, but only if you cull most options to avoid silly cases like "this gun is 1000x better than this gun, but they are free upgrades!"

Which...seems to be what GW is doing? There's a lot fewer options these days compared to earlier editions. It's just that GW hasn't committed fully yet, resulting in that Kratos tank nonsense.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 13:34:25


Post by: Nevelon


A.T. wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not all weapons are created equal. Some do a different things to others, whereas others are straight upgrades.
Power Level doesn't account for this in the same way that points do, and if you start re-writing Power Level to account for these types of changes, then you might as well just use points.
The more practical way would probably be for the base power level to include 'any and all items from section A' - and then +1 PL to access section B (i.e. the powerful heavy/special weapons), and another +1 PL to access section C (i.e. veteran or character upgrades).

i.e.
Minimum size tactical squad - X PL, can include your pick of flamers, heavy bolters, power swords, and things of that nature
+X PL - 5 extra models, one extra special/heavy weapon slot
+1 PL - squad may also pick melta, plasma, las, etc
+1 PL - veteran sergeant with full access to the sergeant armoury


I’m having flashbacks to playing DoW and upgrading the armory. Not that it’s a bad idea, just found it amusing.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 13:51:32


Post by: A.T.


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?
It has interesting (IMO) implications for take-all-comers style lists, as you would pay for how large / elite your unit is ahead of time but pick the specifics on the day.

And it's easier to balance than the current PL system without losing its core simplicity.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 14:04:55


Post by: G00fySmiley


i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +2, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)

10 points
killsaw str x2 user ap-4 D2
power claw str x2 ap-3 D d3

barring some kind of real need for points nobody is taking anything but a kill saw (yes the platform is bad and ork boyz are bad but with trukk boyz or for manditory troops)

improve the other options in ways to make them unique and maybe people will take them. choppa nob maybe that one gets a nob choppa for 3 extra attacks instead of 1. buff other options from there so they are a mix of varios damages ap damage and bonus attacks. something good vs marines or custodes another better vs tanks, one better vs weaker infantry etc but all the same cost


*edit mistyped +str of big choppa*


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 14:15:23


Post by: catbarf


A.T. wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?
It has interesting (IMO) implications for take-all-comers style lists, as you would pay for how large / elite your unit is ahead of time but pick the specifics on the day.

And it's easier to balance than the current PL system without losing its core simplicity.


Being able to swap around weapon upgrades also functionally sidesteps the issue of assigning appropriate costs to each, because it no longer is a matter of taking whatever's most optimal for the points. Even if a plasma gun is a better pick than a flamer in 80% of matchups, and in a purely points system you would never opt for flamers in a take-all-comers list if they had the same cost, being able to swap in flamers in that 20% of matchups where they're better would give them utility.

The problem then is how to realistically handle that in a game where WYSIWYG is expected and magnets are not commonly used.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 15:20:12


Post by: vipoid


 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +5, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)




Sorry but in what world are those two equal?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 15:22:47


Post by: Toofast


I probably wouldn't play if PL was the only way. Points are unbalanced enough, if the game was any more unbalanced I would stick to other systems. Also I don't feel like building a bunch of new tac squads to model them with every upgrade possible, which is exactly what every army would do if PL became the default. Saying "but points are unbalanced" is like taking a sledgehammer to your headlight housing because a bulb on the other side is burned out.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 15:32:46


Post by: Matt.Kingsley


 vipoid wrote:
 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +5, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)




Sorry but in what world are those two equal?

A world where most models have:
* 1 wound or a -1 Damage ability
* Transhuman or a T value low or high enough that the strength mod doesn't matter
* a 6+ or worse save, or an invulnerable save one worse than their armour save

So not quite the world we live in.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 15:33:32


Post by: warhead01


Yes and no. If I were playing or playing more then it would make playing even more easier for me. But I'm not even playing at all currently, don't enjoy 9th much at all and my other hobby has my energy this year.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 15:47:53


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vipoid wrote:
 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +5, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)




Sorry but in what world are those two equal?

I gotta give GW credit, because not even they would consider those two weapons equal in a point system LOL


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 16:01:07


Post by: A.T.


 catbarf wrote:
Being able to swap around weapon upgrades also functionally sidesteps the issue of assigning appropriate costs to each, because it no longer is a matter of taking whatever's most optimal for the points. Even if a plasma gun is a better pick than a flamer in 80% of matchups, and in a purely points system you would never opt for flamers in a take-all-comers list if they had the same cost, being able to swap in flamers in that 20% of matchups where they're better would give them utility.
The idea behind the extended access cost is that you do need to choose between having or not having access the better guns.

Consider if unit X cost 15 PL with any two weapons from the basic list (similar to how 5e tactical squads came with flamers and heavy bolters baked in). But instead of then paying a unique individual cost for each weapon upgrade there is just a flat '+ 5PL: may replace special/heavy weapons with any option from list B', and '+5 PL: veteran squad leader and gear'

So optimal for points becomes more of an opportunity cost - three squads with access to everything vs five squads with only access to the lesser upgrades.

It's a half way solution and as someone else mentioned kind of computer-gamey, but seems more workable as a PL based system than the current single price for everything.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 16:17:35


Post by: Leo_the_Rat


I can see GW making seperate data sheets for basically the same unit.

Tactical squad X PL the squad may take any of the following options- The Sgt can have a power weapon or a trooper can take either a flamer or greanade launcher.

Tactical squad Y PL (where Y>X) the squad may take any of the following- The Sgt can have a master crafted weapon or a trooper can take either a melta gun or a plasma gun.

In AoS, at least in my army, your units are limitd in their options to things that are relatively equal. So if GW somehow managed to be consistant that's how they would end up doing 40K.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 16:57:01


Post by: G00fySmiley


 vipoid wrote:
 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +5, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)




Sorry but in what world are those two equal?


sorry str +2, used numpad guess a hit a number up


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 17:20:23


Post by: PenitentJake


It always makes me happy to see other Crusade players, and we've heard from a few. That's where I'm at- PL and Crusade is pretty much all I play.

 catbarf wrote:


Being able to swap around weapon upgrades also functionally sidesteps the issue of assigning appropriate costs to each, because it no longer is a matter of taking whatever's most optimal for the points. Even if a plasma gun is a better pick than a flamer in 80% of matchups, and in a purely points system you would never opt for flamers in a take-all-comers list if they had the same cost, being able to swap in flamers in that 20% of matchups where they're better would give them utility.

The problem then is how to realistically handle that in a game where WYSIWYG is expected and magnets are not commonly used.


I really liked this post, because the ease of model swapping when using PL allows like-minded players looking for a fair, fun fight to adjust their armies in order to achieve that goal. If I was playing a game with points, and a player shows up with an army I expect to crush, I can't easily take out my heavy and specials to make it more fair, because if I did, I'd have to rework the whole army. In PL games, I pull heavies and specials to drop in standard issue troopers all the time. This is my favourite part about PL.

As for how to represent it on a WYSIWYG table, the key is to play a game that is smaller than your collection. If I've got 5 BSS squads, but I'm only using 2, I can make any load-out for the two units I am using. Harder to do with vehicles unless you like magnets.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 18:21:26


Post by: vict0988


 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +2, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)

10 points
killsaw str x2 user ap-4 D2
power claw str x2 ap-3 D d3

barring some kind of real need for points nobody is taking anything but a kill saw (yes the platform is bad and ork boyz are bad but with trukk boyz or for manditory troops)

What you're saying is that killsaws should cost 2-5 more points.
improve the other options in ways to make them unique and maybe people will take them. choppa nob maybe that one gets a nob choppa for 3 extra attacks instead of 1. buff other options from there so they are a mix of varios damages ap damage and bonus attacks. something good vs marines or custodes another better vs tanks, one better vs weaker infantry etc but all the same cost

But why should a choppa Nob have 6 attacks? Some weapons are better in the fluff than others, a plasma gun is superior to a boltgun and trying to change that to make up for PL being awful is an awful idea.
Toofast wrote:
I probably wouldn't play if PL was the only way. Points are unbalanced enough, if the game was any more unbalanced I would stick to other systems. Also I don't feel like building a bunch of new tac squads to model them with every upgrade possible, which is exactly what every army would do if PL became the default. Saying "but points are unbalanced" is like taking a sledgehammer to your headlight housing because a bulb on the other side is burned out.

You still have to assign weapons in PL the same way you do with pts. I've read one or two posters that cheat when it comes to this rule and then there are some that are proposing neo-PL that allows this kind of nonsense. Welcome to pay to win.
PenitentJake wrote:
I really liked this post, because the ease of model swapping when using PL allows like-minded players looking for a fair, fun fight to adjust their armies in order to achieve that goal. If I was playing a game with points, and a player shows up with an army I expect to crush, I can't easily take out my heavy and specials to make it more fair, because if I did, I'd have to rework the whole army. In PL games, I pull heavies and specials to drop in standard issue troopers all the time. This is my favourite part about PL.

If you think it's okay to add, subtract or change weapons in a PL game then what makes it not okay in a pts game? You can just play with +50 or -50 pts if you want, tournament players aren't going to chase you down and beat you with the official hammer just because you're fiddling with the game with a pts list instead of a PL list.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 22:05:19


Post by: PenitentJake


 vict0988 wrote:

If you think it's okay to add, subtract or change weapons in a PL game then what makes it not okay in a pts game? You can just play with +50 or -50 pts if you want, tournament players aren't going to chase you down and beat you with the official hammer just because you're fiddling with the game with a pts list instead of a PL list.


You're not wrong- I mean, I was talking about friendly games, and for sure if I met up with a player from my crew for 2k matched, and if we thought either of us was at a disadvantage, neither of us would bat an eye at someone adding heavies/ specials; one or the other of us might volunteer to remove heavies/ specials as well... But the point is that it's cleaner with PL because it doesn't change the cost/value of the army.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 22:40:04


Post by: Racerguy180


catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?


It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 22:50:27


Post by: Backspacehacker


If some how by some voodoo, GW managed to balance them?

No, it would not effect the amount i play because i cant play any less then i already do.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 23:26:57


Post by: JNAProductions


Racerguy180 wrote:
catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?


It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 23:29:47


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Racerguy180 wrote:
catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?


It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...

Why should I have a conversation about what models I'm allowed to use?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/09 23:48:18


Post by: H.B.M.C.


 catbarf wrote:
Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.
Not really the point I was getting at.

I was more making the point that if you're going out of your way to add more detail to the Power Level system, why bother, as we already have points? Trying to make Power Level more details and better representative of relative effectiveness between upgrades and options would essentially be reinventing the wheel.

We have points. Use points. Don't create a sorta-kinda half-way system that uses smaller numbers to add up.





If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 03:18:40


Post by: Hecaton


PenitentJake wrote:
It always makes me happy to see other Crusade players, and we've heard from a few. That's where I'm at- PL and Crusade is pretty much all I play.


Yeah for me it's a big problem in Crusade. For Orks, you have units like the Big Mek that have a PL as if they took a 30 point upgrade, so if you want to run a Big Mek with a Tellyport Blasta, or a Battlewagon without hardcase etc, you're shooting yourself in the foot. And then for the Ork Crusade rules, each increase to your Warlord's stats increases their PL by 1?! That's BS. It's lame as hell. Basically, some factions get better stuff for cheaper. All the problems of points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Racerguy180 wrote:

It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...


"I think spamming Leviathan warriors is overpowered."

"No, it's not, Tyranids need this to compete, and they won't be winning major tournaments."

Actual conversation I heard the week after the new Nids codex came out. A conversation doesn't solve that level of selfishness. If the points/PL system doesn't allow for a framework that allows players with different ideas of how the game is balanced to have a fair game, it's trash. And if you're requiring both players to have a designer's level of understanding of the balance and come to similar conclusions about it in order to play... that's a gak take that makes for a game that's more unplayable.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 04:12:03


Post by: vict0988


PenitentJake wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:

If you think it's okay to add, subtract or change weapons in a PL game then what makes it not okay in a pts game? You can just play with +50 or -50 pts if you want, tournament players aren't going to chase you down and beat you with the official hammer just because you're fiddling with the game with a pts list instead of a PL list.


You're not wrong- I mean, I was talking about friendly games, and for sure if I met up with a player from my crew for 2k matched, and if we thought either of us was at a disadvantage, neither of us would bat an eye at someone adding heavies/ specials; one or the other of us might volunteer to remove heavies/ specials as well... But the point is that it's cleaner with PL because it doesn't change the cost/value of the army.

My point is that it does change the value of the army, let's say you have 10 grenade launchers and you replace them with 10 melta guns or 10 lasguns. You're changing the value whether your list building system acknowledges it or not, because your opponent's list will be more or less vulnerable to melta guns or lasguns compared to grenade launchers, that's the whole point of changing which weapons you have because you want your weapons to be more or less valuable so that the true values of your lists match rather than the superficial value of PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 04:14:32


Post by: alextroy


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.
Not really the point I was getting at.

I was more making the point that if you're going out of your way to add more detail to the Power Level system, why bother, as we already have points? Trying to make Power Level more details and better representative of relative effectiveness between upgrades and options would essentially be reinventing the wheel.

We have points. Use points. Don't create a sorta-kinda half-way system that uses smaller numbers to add up.
I think the point of a "more detailed" Power Level system is that both Power Level and Match Play Points are failing.

Power Level is not granular enough. In far too many units, the difference between a barebones unit and a maximum upgrade unit are too big for PL to effectively handle.

Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.

Maybe landing somewhere in the middle will provide enough balance without small mistakes in points values either condemning things to the trash heap or making them the new flavor of the day?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 04:47:16


Post by: H.B.M.C.


How are points "too granular"?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 06:10:11


Post by: Just Tony


I refuse to play any of the editions of the game that have PL so it wouldn't affect me at all. I'd rather play 3rd and have fun than play modern 40K and be miserable/frustrated.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 06:39:24


Post by: Blackie


 G00fySmiley wrote:
 vipoid wrote:
 G00fySmiley wrote:
i would prefer power level and good balancing so that each weapon or option served a specific purpose but was not definitively better.

as an example with an ork nob in a boyz squad you can take.
free loadout
choppa (str user ap0 D1, +1 attack)and pistol

5 points
big choppa (str +5, ap-1 D2)
power stabba (str user ap-2 D1)




Sorry but in what world are those two equal?


sorry str +2, used numpad guess a hit a number up


You can also give all nobz kombi skorchas. Power klaw + kombi skorcha doubles the cost of the model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Racerguy180 wrote:
catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?


It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...

Why should I have a conversation about what models I'm allowed to use?


Because the game's outcome is more dependant on what people actually have and field rather than players' skills. If you seek to play a reasonably balanced game between two friends this is standard procedure. Has been since decades actually. If you seek to play against strangers and prove yourself (and your army) of couse this doesn't make any sense.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 06:50:04


Post by: Snugiraffe


 vict0988 wrote:

My point is that it does change the value of the army, let's say you have 10 grenade launchers and you replace them with 10 melta guns or 10 lasguns. You're changing the value whether your list building system acknowledges it or not, because your opponent's list will be more or less vulnerable to melta guns or lasguns compared to grenade launchers, that's the whole point of changing which weapons you have because you want your weapons to be more or less valuable so that the true values of your lists match rather than the superficial value of PL.


But isn't this the exact reason why both points and PL can never reflect balance properly anyway? If the value of a meltagun vs a lasgun depends on your opponent's army, then you cannot, by definition, assign a value to these items until your opponent's army has been revealed. Your opponent's army is as much a variable to be considered in an item's or model's value (in PL or points or fluffballs, regardless) as the item's or model's statline, the terrain setup on the table and the mission ultimately being played.
Along those lines, trying to work out whether a meltagun should be 5 or 7 or 11 points is farcical, isn't it? As such, I believe the idea already floated here, and somewhat similar to what the latest iteration of Apocalypse uses, actually does the job pretty well. A squad of bare-bones troops units will almost universally be less tactically flexible than one with a heavy or special weapon - so add +1 fluffballs per extra gun. Remove the option to change unit sizes but allow units that share the same datasheet to be merged into bigger blobs on the table (hang on, wasn't there a system out there that does just that ). Seems at least to provide a sensible baseline.

 alextroy wrote:
Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.


This isn't a failing of matched play points, though. This is option overflow. If it's impossible to distinguish options in terms of value, because they all fill the same niche, then the options are redundant. It's awesome to have a host of different options from a modelling perspective, but once they're on the table, do they really all need to have a different statline for the game to be fun? OK, that's a silly question, because what makes a game fun lies in the eye of the beholder.

In terms of answering the OP's question, I'll play whenever I get the chance, PL or points. For me, the trick is in not expecting the game to be balanced.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 07:53:51


Post by: Slipspace


 alextroy wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.
Not really the point I was getting at.

I was more making the point that if you're going out of your way to add more detail to the Power Level system, why bother, as we already have points? Trying to make Power Level more details and better representative of relative effectiveness between upgrades and options would essentially be reinventing the wheel.

We have points. Use points. Don't create a sorta-kinda half-way system that uses smaller numbers to add up.
I think the point of a "more detailed" Power Level system is that both Power Level and Match Play Points are failing.

Power Level is not granular enough. In far too many units, the difference between a barebones unit and a maximum upgrade unit are too big for PL to effectively handle.

Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.

Maybe landing somewhere in the middle will provide enough balance without small mistakes in points values either condemning things to the trash heap or making them the new flavor of the day?


The problems you're talking about aren't really to do with the granularity of the system. You're simply highlighting the inability of the designers to balance the game. Whether that's because of inadequate playtesting, executive meddling, incompetence or some other problem, doesn't really matter. Tinkering with the points system won't fix a core problem with the design process. The way the issues manifest will be different depending on the system chose, but I don't think you can say one is better or worse than another in terms of how that inability to balance is reflected in the finished product.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 08:22:54


Post by: Deadnight


Slipspace wrote:
 alextroy wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.
Not really the point I was getting at.

I was more making the point that if you're going out of your way to add more detail to the Power Level system, why bother, as we already have points? Trying to make Power Level more details and better representative of relative effectiveness between upgrades and options would essentially be reinventing the wheel.

We have points. Use points. Don't create a sorta-kinda half-way system that uses smaller numbers to add up.
I think the point of a "more detailed" Power Level system is that both Power Level and Match Play Points are failing.

Power Level is not granular enough. In far too many units, the difference between a barebones unit and a maximum upgrade unit are too big for PL to effectively handle.

Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.

Maybe landing somewhere in the middle will provide enough balance without small mistakes in points values either condemning things to the trash heap or making them the new flavor of the day?


The problems you're talking about aren't really to do with the granularity of the system. You're simply highlighting the inability of the designers to balance the game. Whether that's because of inadequate playtesting, executive meddling, incompetence or some other problem, doesn't really matter. Tinkering with the points system won't fix a core problem with the design process. The way the issues manifest will be different depending on the system chose, but I don't think you can say one is better or worse than another in terms of how that inability to balance is reflected in the finished product.


Slipspace is correct in what he says but its not the full story either..in addition to... shal we say 'design politics' we also have the fundamentally unsolvable issue of assigning a single universal numeric value to each 'thing' to denote its value. The issue is the value is completely changed by context. 'How much should a marine with a meltagun cost' will give you a different answer based on what you're facing, who has it and a while host of other variables.

And until points values are self-mutating to account for these, they will never be 'accurate' - and lets not confuse 'just get the average cost' for accurate cost. Because if you're going into a game and your foundational building blocks are fundamentally inaccurate you will always have a lack of balance stemming from this - changing the numbers and/or increasing/decreasing the granularity wont solve anything, itll.just shift the imbalance around somewhwre else.

this is why a lot of solutions from people involved the 'negotiation phase' or the 'five minute chat' etc. Which isn't ideal but in a real world scenario with someone who is likeminded its an acceptable bodge.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 08:52:08


Post by: Tyel


Deadnight wrote:
Slipspace is correct in what he says but its not the full story either..in addition to... shal we say 'design politics' we also have the fundamentally unsolvable issue of assigning a single universal numeric value to each 'thing' to denote its value. The issue is the value is completely changed by context. 'How much should a marine with a meltagun cost' will give you a different answer based on what you're facing, who has it and a while host of other variables.

And until points values are self-mutating to account for these, they will never be 'accurate' - and lets not confuse 'just get the average cost' for accurate cost. Because if you're going into a game and your foundational building blocks are fundamentally inaccurate you will always have a lack of balance stemming from this - changing the numbers and/or increasing/decreasing the granularity wont solve anything, itll.just shift the imbalance around somewhwre else.

this is why a lot of solutions from people involved the 'negotiation phase' or the 'five minute chat' etc. Which isn't ideal but in a real world scenario with someone who is likeminded its an acceptable bodge.


I don't think this is right. It works on the assumption that you want every possible list to be "balanced" against every other possible list. If I bring an army consisting of nothing but melta guns - and you bring an army of nothing but grots - its not that the melta guns are suddenly overcosted while grots are undercosted. We both made a skewed list - knowing that we'd have good games and bad games. Points are balanced across a certain aggregate of all points - which should, hopefully, (although possibly not practically) encourage a TAC tendency over a skew.

Obviously such skews can be avoided with a 5 minute conversation. You can also avoid "I'm bringing Leviathan Tyranids, yes its a copy of that list which won three majors at the weekend, what of it? Oh you are bringing Guard? Well this is likely to be quite one-sided then."

But you are still in the situation because one faction is overpowered and the other is underpowered.

The concern for PL is that the granularity is too low because balance isn't *that* bad. Generally speaking the issues in the game are caused by a unit which should be 100 points only being 85-90 - or 110-115 - and that if you replicate this across 2k points you can get a clear advantage or disadvantage. Sometimes you get a Voidweaver which needs a near 50% hike - but its not that common. But the difference between 90/100/110 in PL is kind of blurred. Are they all just 5? Or is it 4, 5, 6? In which case the 6 is really going to suck against the 4 - as for 12 PL, I'm getting 270 points compared to your 220?

I don't play PL - and so maybe for those who do this just isn't an issue. But it feels like it would become an issue if GW made it the only way to play.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 09:07:11


Post by: Slipspace


@Deadnight is correct, but in a practical sense, also incorrect. It's not possible to get a fully accurate cost for a given unit, weapon, upgrade etc. The power of any of those will vary depending on scenario, opponent and so on.

However, that doesn't mean you can't have a system that is better than we have now, nor does it mean you can't have a system that is, for practical purposes, close to accurate. One thing you may need to do to achieve that is alter the parameters of the game to reduce things like skew or manage imbalance in scenarios.

To put it another way, Voidweavers were far too cheap at their original cost, regardless of any outside factors, skew etc. They are much less powerful at their new cost and arguably more balanced as a result. Even if we accept that GW may have gone too far with the points increase for Voidweavers, there exists a cost between their original one and new one where they would be more balanced and fair. That's what the designers should be aiming for.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 09:34:25


Post by: Deadnight


Tyel wrote:
I don't think this is right. It works on the assumption that you want every possible list to be "balanced" against every other possible list.


I thought the point was to have balanced lists for fair games?

Tyel wrote:
If I bring an army consisting of nothing but melta guns - and you bring an army of nothing but grots - its not that the melta guns are suddenly overcosted while grots are undercosted. We both made a skewed list - knowing that we'd have good games and bad games.


You've actually proved my point.

An army of models armed with meltaguns will be worth something different against an army of grots as it would be against a tank horde.


Tyel wrote:
Points are balanced across a certain aggregate of all points - which should, hopefully, (although possibly not practically) encourage a TAC tendency over a skew.


Points are balanced very very poorly[/u] when you cost them across an aggregate of scenarios. That's the whole point.

Like I said, the average is absolutely not the same thing as the accurate. And straight away you're going into a scenario where your foundational building blocks are out of whack.

Slipspace wrote:@Deadnight is correct, but in a practical sense, also incorrect. It's not possible to get a fully accurate cost for a given unit, weapon, upgrade etc. The power of any of those will vary depending on scenario, opponent and so on.


How?

Slipspace wrote:

However, that doesn't mean you can't have a system that is better than we have now, nor does it mean you can't have a system that is, for practical purposes, close to accurate. One thing you may need to do to achieve that is alter the parameters of the game to reduce things like skew or manage imbalance in scenarios.

.


I don't disagree on the system could be better, but this often also isn't very rewarding - it often leads to the vagueness of 'how much better is good enough' and the answer of what is 'acceptable' is typically so close to unachievable as to be impractical. I mean, if half a dozen things were tightened up would that be accepted or would people just continue to complain? Honestly, with how toxic some gamers can be, I can understand why at times the writers really can't be bothered - there is no 'winning' to be had.

The other thing you touch on is an interesting area though..ive raised it as a point myself previously and you are not wrong - if you narrow the scale and scope and reduce the variables in scenarios, list construction and faction rosters balance becomes more achievable. Its not a wrong approach but there is a price to be paid.
As an example of scale/scope, Infinity might be easier to balance than 40k for example since in 40k terms its the equivalent of a dozen Guardsmen on each side with autoguns and flak armour. It works because it keeps to this scale and scope. Now expand the scale and scope of infinity to cover everything from bikers armed with chains to city stomping robots and I suspect the 'better balance' will swiftly go out the window.
Other things that help are reducing the roster sizes (a game with 2 factions each of 2 units will be easier to balance) but I don't think you will endear yourself to many people by invalidating swathes of the game. :p and things like reducing choice and army building options - but again you won't endear yourself to a lit of people if they wake up and find their armies can't be fielded anymore.

It's almost better to burn it to the ground and start again with a small game and build organically from there. Not that this is really viable for 40k/gw either...




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 10:15:07


Post by: Unit1126PLL


There is also the problem of "being finished."

GW *has* to add options. They have to add factions. They have to add campaign books, and new models with new data sheets.

How would they make their money otherwise?

I mean, you wouldn't want them like Too Fat Lardies, publishing some damn good rules and living comfortably on the income


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 10:16:51


Post by: Karhedron


 Blackie wrote:

Because the game's outcome is more dependant on what people actually have and field rather than players' skills. If you seek to play a reasonably balanced game between two friends this is standard procedure. Has been since decades actually. If you seek to play against strangers and prove yourself (and your army) of couse this doesn't make any sense.


This is where the issue of balance really comes into play. In a properly balanced system, X points of an army should be equally effective against X points of anything else. Fundamentally, spamming units should not provide an inherent advantage over balanced lists but the game system as it stands does not support this. A balanced list will often struggle as every weapon in the opponent's army will have a viable target. Spamming armoured units is a viable way to overload your opponent's anti-tank weapons and similarly spamming hordes of infantry can achieve the same effect.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 10:23:55


Post by: Tyel


Deadnight wrote:
Points are balanced very very poorly[/u] when you cost them across an aggregate of scenarios. That's the whole point.

Like I said, the average is absolutely not the same thing as the accurate. And straight away you're going into a scenario where your foundational building blocks are out of whack.


I don't think points are poor when you look at an aggregate of scenarios. They are balanced very poorly when GW goes "sure, we think a Tyranid Warrior with T5 and 3 wounds, a 3 shot assault 24" S5 AP-2 gun and 4 S7 AP-2 2 damage attacks should cost 25 points". This isn't because Tyranid Warriors are somehow a skew into something - but because this is clearly bonkers when you compare said warriors to other units in the game. Look at say Heavy Intercessors costing 28 points. Or Intercessors at 20 points. Or Skorpekh Destroyers at 30 points. The overwhelmingly majority of datasheets.

You can always argue it both ways - i.e. "no, Tyranid Warriors are fine - its that everything else is too expensive". But its this gap which is the imbalance. GW may have imagined that lots of 3 damage weapons would keep them in check - but unfortunately they then dolled our Transhuman & invuls to protect them from this. The result is a unit which is too good. (And there are plenty of other examples in the Tyranid book).

There seems this pervasive idea that balance is hard/impossible, because you have complicated interplay between hordes, elites, tanks, flyers etc. But this isn't the case in todays' 40k - and at least from memory, has rarely, if ever been the case in 40k. (You can argue that say Flyers were broken on introduction, because plenty of other armies didn't have them - and also didn't have anything that specifically countered them - but they've kind of been a mess for 10+ years.)
If GW could decide "a horde is X points, an elite is Y points" etc - and keep it consistent, you might get those interaction issues. But they have never done that. You always have good and bad types of every unit - because they can't keep themselves consistent. Hence why the above Tyranid Warriors are considered OP, but no one mentions Heavy Intercessors at all. The balance issue consequently is always that someone is paying 100 points for X - and someone else is paying 100 points for Y. But Y is clearly better than X. And so instead of being 100 points, it should be say 120~ points. The bigger the gap, the bigger the imbalance.

Unsurprisingly, someone playing with "effectively" 2400~ points will tend to have a major advantage over someone with 2000 points. And this will in turn be identified in win% and tournament placings. This is the balance we are concerned about - and what GW could easily fix.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 10:50:55


Post by: Blackie


 Karhedron wrote:
 Blackie wrote:

Because the game's outcome is more dependant on what people actually have and field rather than players' skills. If you seek to play a reasonably balanced game between two friends this is standard procedure. Has been since decades actually. If you seek to play against strangers and prove yourself (and your army) of couse this doesn't make any sense.


This is where the issue of balance really comes into play. In a properly balanced system, X points of an army should be equally effective against X points of anything else. Fundamentally, spamming units should not provide an inherent advantage over balanced lists but the game system as it stands does not support this. A balanced list will often struggle as every weapon in the opponent's army will have a viable target. Spamming armoured units is a viable way to overload your opponent's anti-tank weapons and similarly spamming hordes of infantry can achieve the same effect.


I don't think X points of army should be equally effective against X points of anything else, since deciding to skew is a feature not a bug. Otherwise armies have to be pretty similar to each other or they have to have very few units and options so that only one or two lists archetypes exist for each faction. I think the goal should be based around two different levels of balance: faction X vs faction Y considering all the possible combinations, which is competitive gaming for people who are willing to chase the flavour of the month and update their armies very frequently, and random/average collection of faction X vs random/average collection of faction Y.

If we assume that it's possible (and fun) to field a footslogging ork horde army or a speed freaks ones with all the possible shades, compromises and mixes up between the archetypes then it's flat out impossible to achieve something like "X points of army should be equally effective against X points of anything else". A tank based AM army with 10+ tanks can't possibly perform equally well against any kind of opponents, etc...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There is also the problem of "being finished."

GW *has* to add options. They have to add factions. They have to add campaign books, and new models with new data sheets.

How would they make their money otherwise?



Simply by giving the same amount of love to each faction. I'd buy something like 7-8 complete different faction if I had the money/space, even if GW didn't release anything since 2014. The catalogue would still be pretty massive. To make their money they could encourage people to switch to new factions rather than forcing them to keep up with updated rules or buy models they don't need. What I certainly don't and won't do is continuing to pay a lot of money on collections I already consider complete, just to have all the possible rules I may use and all the units variants.

Take the recent orks releases, most of them were useless. Beastsnaggas are basically just boyz and we already had a psyker, multiple kinds of warbosses, multiple kinds of wagons and a dok, while the other snagga character still doesn't have any role and no one takes him. The only units that could have some purpose were the three squigriders units: warboss, nob and regular dudes. But most of the new datasheets didn't add anything to the ork roster, they're just repetitions of stuff that was already there, maybe just basically improved just to make them more appealing.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 11:56:22


Post by: vict0988


Snugiraffe wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:

My point is that it does change the value of the army, let's say you have 10 grenade launchers and you replace them with 10 melta guns or 10 lasguns. You're changing the value whether your list building system acknowledges it or not, because your opponent's list will be more or less vulnerable to melta guns or lasguns compared to grenade launchers, that's the whole point of changing which weapons you have because you want your weapons to be more or less valuable so that the true values of your lists match rather than the superficial value of PL.


But isn't this the exact reason why both points and PL can never reflect balance properly anyway?

I think there is a difference between properly and perfectly. I don't think PL can reflect balance properly, I do think pts can.
Along those lines, trying to work out whether a meltagun should be 5 or 7 or 11 points is farcical, isn't it?

If it didn't matter every competitive player would always take the weapon that does the most damage on every available model.
 alextroy wrote:
Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.


This isn't a failing of matched play points, though. This is option overflow. If it's impossible to distinguish options in terms of value, because they all fill the same niche, then the options are redundant. It's awesome to have a host of different options from a modelling perspective, but once they're on the table, do they really all need to have a different statline for the game to be fun? OK, that's a silly question, because what makes a game fun lies in the eye of the beholder.

The funny thing is that if you don't have points to distinguish between thunder hammers and chainswords people will always take the thunder hammer, so the problem is magnified in PL games. You can try to give chainswords 5 extra attacks and power swords 2 extra attacks but there will always be a weapon that is best for your army. With points you can just allow a thunder hammer to be more badass than a chainsword and allow people to pay a few more points to upgrade their weapon.

I don't think there is a huge option overflow, whether a unit has gauss or tesla makes a pretty big difference to how I use it on the table and how effective it is against various units. Power weapons should be consolidated for modelling reasons though.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 15:32:45


Post by: catbarf


Racerguy180 wrote:
catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?


It's called a conversation and they're surprisingly easy to have(well not for some people on here, it's just downright morally reprehensible).

Sooooo much stupid bs that people complain about the game is solved with a simple 5min conversation. If you can't come to an amiable compromise, maybe you shouldn't play that person...


'I've taken four special weapons on every Scion squad because they're elite special forces troopers that are heavily equipped for each mission.'
'Well I think that's unreasonable because they couldn't take four weapons in prior editions, and you're not paying extra for them.'
'I don't have any extra models, though.'

Cool, so either one player gets to impose their idea of what's reasonable and the other player resents it, or I guess we just won't play 40K today.

Or maybe it goes like-

'Hey, can you drop the special weapons on your Guardsmen to make it fair?'
'What? Dude, you're playing Drukhari.'
'Yeah, but they suck ever since they got nerfed, and Guard just got a major buff.'

Weird ideas of balance? It's more likely than you think, and tricky to resolve without hurt feelings- it's easy to play rules-as-written and gripe about far-away GW's balance, but when you're negotiating with your opponent about balancing the game, now it's personal.

I swear, half the people who pull the 'just have a conversation' card sound like they have never actually had a conversation before a pick-up game, because they seem to have no idea how much disagreement there can be on what's fair, what's reasonable, what's balanced, or what's OP. Let alone what a minefield it is to resolve in a hobby that, let's face it, isn't entirely composed of socially well-adjusted people to begin with.

You shouldn't need to be on the exact same page as a stranger regarding balance and fluff, or come to some uneasy compromise, just to play the game. No other game I play requires this sort of co-creation.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.
Not really the point I was getting at.

I was more making the point that if you're going out of your way to add more detail to the Power Level system, why bother, as we already have points? Trying to make Power Level more details and better representative of relative effectiveness between upgrades and options would essentially be reinventing the wheel.

We have points. Use points. Don't create a sorta-kinda half-way system that uses smaller numbers to add up.


My point was that granularity is only useful if it's being used effectively. When GW sets rules like making all special weapons costing 5pts, or all special weapons costing no points, that granularity isn't being used and it might as well be a coarser points system to start with.

I don't really care if the end result is a PL system that includes wargear, or a points system that sets appropriate costs for every upgrade, or a revised/hybrid system, just so long as it works well and is maximally usable.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 15:36:49


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 catbarf wrote:


I swear, half the people who pull the 'just have a conversation' card sound like they have never actually had a conversation before a pick-up game, because they seem to have no idea how much disagreement there can be on what's fair, what's reasonable, what's balanced, or what's OP. Let alone what a minefield it is to resolve in a hobby that, let's face it, isn't entirely composed of socially well-adjusted people to begin with.


i guess i've been lucky so far


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 16:10:07


Post by: Togusa


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, cards on the table. Would anyone actually have a marked decrease in play if 40k went full Power Levels and abandoned points entirely? Because I'll be honest, I don't think it would stop the competitive scene, and frankly, that's the only leg propping up this horse these days. It won't affect the painters, or the modelers, or the fluffers, only the hard-core enthusiasts that still cling to points as the saving balance grace of 40k.

I'm not making a judgment for or against PL, only that GW is showing that it's no longer really relavent to success of a faction, and if that's true, it's not inherently tied to balance. I know I am glossing over a LOT of minutia here, but do you honestly see GW just saying everything is Free, like they appear to be doing with Guard, for EVERY faction? No. It would only work for a very few factions. Factions where there aren't a great deal of options or point flux therein. Custodes could go FULL power level tomorrow and not notice. Guard can as well, if they bake it into the cost of the squads. Space Marines, being the Hyper generalist. ultra customizable bois, would be more difficult. And herein lays what I see as the future:

GW will Legends all non-primaris units that aren't infantry. Infantry will be made to be basically stock standard copies of Primaris, IE Terminators would become Gravis Clones. Scouts would become Infiltrators. Standard squads would become their closest primaris option. And just delete half the weapon options. You get Plasma, HBs, and the varying Bolt rifles. That's basically it. They would have to legends all the old vehicles as well.



I haven't tried out the PL in 40K for 9th edition. I also am unsure if I used it in 8th, most of the folks that play in my area are obsessed with the "balance" of points even though I don't think points are all that balanced myself. But I would be very much interested in it. The small group of folks who do use it play by a couple of added house rules, stuff like "Don't be a WAAC dick" and use upgrades sparingly, not spamly (is that a word?).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 16:19:00


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There is also the problem of "being finished."

GW *has* to add options. They have to add factions. They have to add campaign books, and new models with new data sheets.

People that play Marines bought up a lot of the Mk3-4 kits ON TOP of the HH board games. They don't have different rules last I checked.
Alternative models to the default SELL, period. If GW remade Catachan, y'all would buy it up and their Infantry rules aren't necessarily different.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Karhedron wrote:
 Blackie wrote:

Because the game's outcome is more dependant on what people actually have and field rather than players' skills. If you seek to play a reasonably balanced game between two friends this is standard procedure. Has been since decades actually. If you seek to play against strangers and prove yourself (and your army) of couse this doesn't make any sense.


This is where the issue of balance really comes into play. In a properly balanced system, X points of an army should be equally effective against X points of anything else. Fundamentally, spamming units should not provide an inherent advantage over balanced lists but the game system as it stands does not support this. A balanced list will often struggle as every weapon in the opponent's army will have a viable target. Spamming armoured units is a viable way to overload your opponent's anti-tank weapons and similarly spamming hordes of infantry can achieve the same effect.

One army's TAC list should not be, by default, more powerful than another army's TAC list. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 16:25:47


Post by: Hecaton


 Blackie wrote:
Because the game's outcome is more dependant on what people actually have and field rather than players' skills. If you seek to play a reasonably balanced game between two friends this is standard procedure. Has been since decades actually. If you seek to play against strangers and prove yourself (and your army) of couse this doesn't make any sense.


Is it? Because I usually see players who complain constantly about WAAC trying to get the stuff that can beat their army nerfed or disallowed. And say you "balance" a game between two friends, and one player stomps the other. Is that because one player had a better plan and played on the table, or just that, as amateur balancers, the players involved failed to balance things?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 18:35:07


Post by: EightFoldPath


 catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?

I mean, the caveat 'it works as long as you're sensible' is really just offloading the burden of balancing the game from the developer onto the players, and then throwing in a layer of undeserved moral judgment to boot (because the implication is if you can't figure it out on your own, you're not being sensible).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?


Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.

I don't regularly use PL, but given how GW has been approaching upgrades thus far (embracing sidegrades and baking wargear into unit costs), I would be okay with PL becoming the less-granular points system that it could be but for lack of representing wargear.

Wasn't there a bit of a discussion in 8th with Cultists, Guardsmen, and a few others all sitting at around 5 points per model and how it was a shame you couldn't make them 4.5 or 5.5? Going to 4,000 points (doubling everything) would probably give the right amount of granularity to make the game better. The caveat being that the current awful general balance by GW using points or PL means it wouldn't be worth the bother for now.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 19:11:29


Post by: Leo_the_Rat


Honestly, it's hard to see the real difference between PL and points. You have to use math to add to a certain agreed upon level only to find out that GW doesn't understand how to balance their forces with either system.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 19:13:03


Post by: EviscerationPlague


EightFoldPath wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?

I mean, the caveat 'it works as long as you're sensible' is really just offloading the burden of balancing the game from the developer onto the players, and then throwing in a layer of undeserved moral judgment to boot (because the implication is if you can't figure it out on your own, you're not being sensible).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?


Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.

I don't regularly use PL, but given how GW has been approaching upgrades thus far (embracing sidegrades and baking wargear into unit costs), I would be okay with PL becoming the less-granular points system that it could be but for lack of representing wargear.

Wasn't there a bit of a discussion in 8th with Cultists, Guardsmen, and a few others all sitting at around 5 points per model and how it was a shame you couldn't make them 4.5 or 5.5? Going to 4,000 points (doubling everything) would probably give the right amount of granularity to make the game better. The caveat being that the current awful general balance by GW using points or PL means it wouldn't be worth the bother for now.

I mean Infantry was an easy solution: make the Sergeant 5 more points. Bam, whole squad is 45 points.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 22:16:38


Post by: catbarf


EightFoldPath wrote:
Wasn't there a bit of a discussion in 8th with Cultists, Guardsmen, and a few others all sitting at around 5 points per model and how it was a shame you couldn't make them 4.5 or 5.5? Going to 4,000 points (doubling everything) would probably give the right amount of granularity to make the game better. The caveat being that the current awful general balance by GW using points or PL means it wouldn't be worth the bother for now.


If a unit is in a position where its value is right in between two round-number points values, there are a variety of ways to handle it.
-Adjust its capabilities upwards or downwards to match a whole number.
-Set the cost for the whole unit to have a fraction baked in. Note that this is exactly what GW did with Guardsmen.
-Rethink the unit identity, since if it can be summed up as 'Guardsmen, but half a point worse', it really isn't all that distinct. Might as well either just be Guardsmen, or more of its own thing.
-Accept that the unit is, theoretically, very slightly overcosted or undercosted- 25pts across 50 troopers is a drop in the bucket compared to some of the points imbalances currently in the game.
-Just use the fraction.

In any case, as you pointed out, it's moot, because having twice the granularity only matters if the balance is already so good that less than a whole point of increment is needed and there aren't any bigger fish to fry, and we aren't even remotely close to that yet.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/10 23:52:25


Post by: alextroy


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
How are points "too granular"?
I see you didn't read the whole sentence, yet alone paragraph. Here it is again with added emphasis

Match Play Points are too granular for the designers to successfully balance. Too many units with too many upgrades that need to be perfectly balanced or we end up with only "the more efficient" options being taken. They use these units, but not those. They use these upgrades, but not those.


And I mean the current designers, not any possible designer. They have proved to be unable to balance points at the level they are assigning them.

Let's make all the pistol options 5 points because they are equal. Let's make most of the Special Weapons 5 points because they are equal. These may not be true, but would it really matter if the Hand Flamer was 3 points, the Plasma Pistol was 4 points, and the Inferno Pistol was 4 points for your Character or Squad Leader?

Is the right point value for a single model X, X-1, or X+1? I don't know, but if you let people purchase 1 model at a time you need to answer that question.

This is where PL has part of the idea correct. You get a 5 models for X PL. 6-10 Models is PL Y. If this unit had no upgrade options, you can adjust the PL as necessary for both X and Y to achieve the desired play experience. We all know the Points Rules but he cost of 10 models (no upgrades) at twice the cost of 5 models. We also know that isn't actually correct. A 10-model unit is in most ways inferior to two 5-model units. That is really hard to fix in points, but really easy to fix in PL. The Y I noted above doesn't have to be twice X, which would reflect all the disadvantages of having a bigger unit.

And before you complain about wanting less models in the unit than 10, you rarely actually want that. You are mostly shaving points, not models. If 10 models cost the same as 6, you darn well are taking 10 unless there is a very compelling reason.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 06:04:52


Post by: EviscerationPlague


But they're not equal value whatsoever, so pricing them as such is an absurd system.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 09:41:50


Post by: vict0988


Why do Ork Boyz and Gretchin have different PL? Aren't they more or less the same? /sarcasm


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 10:36:25


Post by: Dudeface


EviscerationPlague wrote:
But they're not equal value whatsoever, so pricing them as such is an absurd system.


No, AlexTroy is right, for thr nuance and application between some special weapons, a 5-10 bracket isn't enough to actualy provide the correct level of differentiation without there being a "best choice".


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 11:06:49


Post by: vict0988


Dudeface wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
But they're not equal value whatsoever, so pricing them as such is an absurd system.


No, AlexTroy is right, for thr nuance and application between some special weapons, a 5-10 bracket isn't enough to actualy provide the correct level of differentiation without there being a "best choice".

Show me a 40k GT list with grenade launchers. Nobody takes grenade launchers because they are worth less than plasma guns. Why should Gretchin have lower PL than Boyz? What's the difference?

Maybe we cannot agree whether Gretchin should be 3 or 5 pts or Boyz should be 6 or 10 pts but Gretchin should cost fewer pts/PL than Boyz. Same thing for plasma guns and grenade launchers.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 11:41:48


Post by: Unit1126PLL


The problem with Grenade Launchers is that they are actively worse than lasguns, which they replace, because they can't FRFSRF:

With Hammer, against a T7 or T8, 3+ vehicle, the "antitank grenade" (krak) does just about 0.27 wounds on average. The Krak profile is also affected by AoC

With Hammer, the lasgun does 0.3 under FRFSRF, whilst being unaffected by AoC

Against other targets, the blast grenade does 3.5 shots (random) to the Lasgun's guaranteed FRFSRF 4 shots.

A Guard infantry squad would be cheaper if armed with 100% grenade launchers, and would have to pay to upgrade to lasguns.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 11:54:15


Post by: Leo_the_Rat


That, to me, showcases the problem with GW. Here is a random player who, using simple math, can determine that one weapon is better than another. So, by logic the better weapon should cost more but, IIRC you pay more for the lesser weapon. Why doesn't GW just do some basic homework before assigning points (using whatever system).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 12:00:20


Post by: JNAProductions


To be fair, a Grenade Launcher does do about twice the damage of a Lasgun to an ordinary Marine (even with Armor of Contempt) assuming the Lasgun gets two shots, whether from FRFSRF or Rapid Fire Range.

It's basically never worth taking compared to the other upgrades, but it's not a straight downgrade from a Lasgun against all targets.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 12:04:45


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Halve the number of shots the lasgun usually gets and yeah, the grenade launcher outperforms it.

But (for my army at least, ironically in the lore the regiment that prefers grenade launchers the most) there is only a tiny baby 6" band where that applies...

...at which point you just move closer with your lasguns. Never assume lasguns aren't getting their 4 shots.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 13:36:54


Post by: Tyel


I think you are paying for the potential of a krak grenade. But this is clearly inferior to a plasma gun, so why bother?

Its much like the Missile Launcher. "look you get the flexibility of D6 S4 AP- shots". Okay... so the flexibility I'm never going to use unless literally anything tougher than a guardsman is dead - and even then I'm likely only killing one? Yeah this sucks.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 13:48:07


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 14:13:52


Post by: Racerguy180


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


Some stuff should flat out not be able to damage something like that


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 14:14:20


Post by: Dudeface


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


It's charged due to its flexibility. It should, in theory be better at killing gaunts than plasma but better at killing tanks than a flamer, it's a generalist but people don't see any inherent value when you'll get 0.12 wounds or whatever more through on a plasma gun vs Marines and is at the least comparable vs tanks and other infantry.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 14:38:30


Post by: alextroy


Dudeface wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
But they're not equal value whatsoever, so pricing them as such is an absurd system.


No, AlexTroy is right, for thr nuance and application between some special weapons, a 5-10 bracket isn't enough to actualy provide the correct level of differentiation without there being a "best choice".
Actually, I was talking about the fact that 2-5 Model Squads (no upgrades) cost the same Points at 1-10 Model Squad of any unit in the game. Only when you can combo-combo the 10-model squad to ludicrous effectiveness does anyone in competitive play take a the 10-Model squad. Therefore, a 10-model squad should be cheaper than a 2 5-model squads.

This is one thing that both systems are getting wrong, but it is easier to get right in PL than Points. Still, I suppose GW could change the Match Play Points to A points for the basic unit of B models with +X points per additional model (X< A/B). I'm sure everyone will love doing that math when writing their list.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 14:51:26


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Dudeface wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


It's charged due to its flexibility. It should, in theory be better at killing gaunts than plasma but better at killing tanks than a flamer, it's a generalist but people don't see any inherent value when you'll get 0.12 wounds or whatever more through on a plasma gun vs Marines and is at the least comparable vs tanks and other infantry.


Yeah but with Lasguns able to hurt tanks, then the most flexible gun is the free one.

Flexibility means nothing valuable when every gun is flexible.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 15:27:01


Post by: Karol


Dudeface wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
But they're not equal value whatsoever, so pricing them as such is an absurd system.


No, AlexTroy is right, for thr nuance and application between some special weapons, a 5-10 bracket isn't enough to actualy provide the correct level of differentiation without there being a "best choice".

Until of course the 10pts is 10pts times 6 units and suddenly it is 60pts. And the better the unit the more of a problem it becomes. Try dropping the point cost of NDKs by 15 pts and check what happens. Voids at 95 or 90 doesn't seem to be that much different, until there are 9 of those.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 16:04:31


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


It's charged due to its flexibility. It should, in theory be better at killing gaunts than plasma but better at killing tanks than a flamer, it's a generalist but people don't see any inherent value when you'll get 0.12 wounds or whatever more through on a plasma gun vs Marines and is at the least comparable vs tanks and other infantry.


Yeah but with Lasguns able to hurt tanks, then the most flexible gun is the free one.

Flexibility means nothing valuable when every gun is flexible.

Doesn't the grenade launcher have extra range? Otherwise there has to be some sorta other benefit to it. I mean it IS sorta worth an extra Infantry dude depending how you roll, but that's still random.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 16:11:42


Post by: vict0988


 alextroy wrote:
... 2x5=1x10... it is easier to get right in PL than Points.

It is just as easy to fix in pts, just increase the cost of the Sergeant. It is exactly because of lazy PL designers that they don't charge for things as obvious as a Dire Avenger Exarch with dual catapults over a regular Dire Avenger with one catapult. Necron Overlord and Lord wargear options were really balanced in 8th and got fethed to gak in 9th because everything has to be in multiples of 5.
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Doesn't the grenade launcher have extra range? Otherwise there has to be some sorta other benefit to it. I mean it IS sorta worth an extra Infantry dude depending how you roll, but that's still random.

24" Assault 1 instead of 24" RF 1. HotE, MMM and FRFSRF are just gakky.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 16:12:33


Post by: Jidmah


We've been almost exclusively been playing with PL since about a year.

It has two big weaknesses, one is not allowing single models to be added to units, the other is overcharging for army-based upgrades like pathogens or kustom jobs that are 10 points but then become 1 PL.

The changes to how wargear is upgraded has no impact on balance. In almost all cases there is an obvious best choice when playing with points, the obvious best choice for playing with PL is just a different gun.

The theory is nice and all, but in reality fiddling with 1-10 points differences for upgrades is just a waste of time when the result still doesn't make those options balanced against each other.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 16:20:45


Post by: Unit1126PLL


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Weapons should not be costed "by potential" when a Grot CC weapon has the "potential" to remove a Warlord Titan from play.


It's charged due to its flexibility. It should, in theory be better at killing gaunts than plasma but better at killing tanks than a flamer, it's a generalist but people don't see any inherent value when you'll get 0.12 wounds or whatever more through on a plasma gun vs Marines and is at the least comparable vs tanks and other infantry.


Yeah but with Lasguns able to hurt tanks, then the most flexible gun is the free one.

Flexibility means nothing valuable when every gun is flexible.

Doesn't the grenade launcher have extra range? Otherwise there has to be some sorta other benefit to it. I mean it IS sorta worth an extra Infantry dude depending how you roll, but that's still random.


Grenade launchers are 24" Assault

lasguns are 24" rapid fire (my regiment rapid fires at 18" instead of 12").

In 3rd and 4th edition, when movement affected your shooting more dramatically (and when Armageddon Steel Legion were incepted with Grenade Launchers and Missile Launchers), the Grenade Launcher was a much more mobile weapon, allowing you to spit firepower whilst maneuvering.

For a mechanized regiment like Steep Legion, this gave them the lasgun arrays on the side of the Chimera and the ability to fire the Grenade Launcher out of the hatch on the back while the vehicle was maneuvering. This was more firepower than weapons like plasma guns had at the time (well at least at a longer range).

But with 9th edition's mechanics, everything was gone. All Assault let's you do now is advance and shoot it... which is a bit silly for a regiment that doesn't do it's maneuvering on foot often.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/11 16:25:26


Post by: Karol


Just give people access to more type of grenades. In old GK books, I saw ones that dropped toughness of units, made stuff unable to move or hit themselfs etc. There could be MW grenades, grenades that slow units down, stop them from performing actions or ones that do damage every turn till the end of the game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 06:58:19


Post by: Blackie


EviscerationPlague wrote:

One army's TAC list should not be, by default, more powerful than another army's TAC list. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp.


I don't believe in perfectly TAC lists, I don't think they can exist. My point is: play a game or two with average collections of models, and then if an army appears to be weaker it should have the tools in the codex to fill up the gap next time. If that's possible, and I mean possible enough for a casual player (buying countless boxes of the same unit is out of the question), then that's when I believe armies are balanced.

If army X struggle against army Y and both field TAC list, the game is still very balanced if army X can easily change something and be on par with army Y, even if it doesn't field something that might be considered TAC anymore.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 07:45:50


Post by: Andykp


 catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:I think it’s a brilliant system as long as you and your opponents are all sensible


How many special weapons can I take on a unit of Scions (who can take up to 4) before it stops being sensible, and where can I appeal to if my opponent and I don't see eye-to-eye?

I mean, the caveat 'it works as long as you're sensible' is really just offloading the burden of balancing the game from the developer onto the players, and then throwing in a layer of undeserved moral judgment to boot (because the implication is if you can't figure it out on your own, you're not being sensible).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Again, at which point you're just doing more different-er points, but with less granularity, and less accuracy... so why bother?


Conversely, I don't think points would be even better if we increased the cost of everything by a factor of 10 and started playing 20,000 point games- less granularity doesn't necessarily translate into worse outcomes.

I don't regularly use PL, but given how GW has been approaching upgrades thus far (embracing sidegrades and baking wargear into unit costs), I would be okay with PL becoming the less-granular points system that it could be but for lack of representing wargear.


I am perfectly happy with balancing the game myself, have been since day one (1989 for me). You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options. I know that there aren’t the same amount of unit choices in sigmar but it seems to work fine.

I think PL works great if you are prepared to play in a casual way, which isn’t for everyone so points and power levels seems to be needed. Ideally in my head they should have a separate tournament version of 40k that’s is balanced and all the dull stuff competitive types like but completely apart form the narrative game.

I will say this though, as a narrative/casual player who enjoys building thematic armies and is happy to take responsibility to balance the game and ensure both me and my opponents enjoy the game, I seem to enjoy 40k more than others who want to win and demand balance be built in. I am not saying they are doing it “wrong”, just that they seem to complain endlessly about how bad the game is each edition for different reasons. Where as I have managed to find the fun each edition and enjoyed them all. Some more than others (looking at you 3rd edition, for shame), but each has been enjoyable and the introduction of power levels has increased my enjoyment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Jidmah wrote:
We've been almost exclusively been playing with PL since about a year.

It has two big weaknesses, one is not allowing single models to be added to units, the other is overcharging for army-based upgrades like pathogens or kustom jobs that are 10 points but then become 1 PL.

The changes to how wargear is upgraded has no impact on balance. In almost all cases there is an obvious best choice when playing with points, the obvious best choice for playing with PL is just a different gun.

The theory is nice and all, but in reality fiddling with 1-10 points differences for upgrades is just a waste of time when the result still doesn't make those options balanced against each other.


For me the first one is a strength of PL as well. Depends on perspective. From a collecting point of view it’s nicer to build units in multiples of what comes in the box, no more fiddling about trying to find two ore boyz to make a unit of 12 and things. Doesn’t sound much, but a huge part of the hobby for me is building and paint thematic armies and you find you very quickly get used to just taking units groups of 10 or 5. (I am not saying I like the “units can only have what comes in the box” rule, I do not)

As for the second point, I think that was introduced because before then you often played a pl or two down if you didn’t get your army to add up to exactly the right amount. Not all armies have 1 or 2 PL cost things to fill out the difference. This allowed you to level up the occasional unit to fill in those gaps you would have left empty anyway. Is it an elegant solution, not really, but you may be paying over the odds but you got nothing for that PL before this, so it’s a kind of win??



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 08:00:50


Post by: vict0988


Andykp wrote:
You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options.

I won't find people complaining about underpowered wargear options if I start touring AOS spaces?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 10:10:46


Post by: Andykp


 vict0988 wrote:
Andykp wrote:
You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options.

I won't find people complaining about underpowered wargear options if I start touring AOS spaces?


You might, there are always some folk who will complain about anything. But the points in AOS are basically power levels, just more granular in that they are bigger numbers. You don’t pay for war gear. No one stresses if a model cost 2 points or 3 like if really matters. You pay the price for the unit. Simple.

There will always be more optimal choices for those that need to win, but like I said it’s a bit different as they aren’t the wide variety of load out options that you see in 40k.

I am in no way advocating GW using only power levels. But for the way I play they are perfect. And it seems people who play the I do enjoy the game more, or certainly complain less about it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 14:09:17


Post by: Ordana


Andykp wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
Andykp wrote:
You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options.

I won't find people complaining about underpowered wargear options if I start touring AOS spaces?


You might, there are always some folk who will complain about anything. But the points in AOS are basically power levels, just more granular in that they are bigger numbers. You don’t pay for war gear. No one stresses if a model cost 2 points or 3 like if really matters. You pay the price for the unit. Simple.

There will always be more optimal choices for those that need to win, but like I said it’s a bit different as they aren’t the wide variety of load out options that you see in 40k.

I am in no way advocating GW using only power levels. But for the way I play they are perfect. And it seems people who play the I do enjoy the game more, or certainly complain less about it.
AoS for the most part doesn't have wargear to pay for.
Without customizable units there really is no difference between points and PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 14:29:22


Post by: Karol


A quick stroll to the AoS faction forums can show that people do not complain any less about stuff, then people do at w40k. And mods are very trigger happy with bans back there.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 16:11:15


Post by: Jidmah


Andykp wrote:
 Jidmah wrote:
We've been almost exclusively been playing with PL since about a year.

It has two big weaknesses, one is not allowing single models to be added to units, the other is overcharging for army-based upgrades like pathogens or kustom jobs that are 10 points but then become 1 PL.

The changes to how wargear is upgraded has no impact on balance. In almost all cases there is an obvious best choice when playing with points, the obvious best choice for playing with PL is just a different gun.

The theory is nice and all, but in reality fiddling with 1-10 points differences for upgrades is just a waste of time when the result still doesn't make those options balanced against each other.


For me the first one is a strength of PL as well. Depends on perspective. From a collecting point of view it’s nicer to build units in multiples of what comes in the box, no more fiddling about trying to find two ore boyz to make a unit of 12 and things. Doesn’t sound much, but a huge part of the hobby for me is building and paint thematic armies and you find you very quickly get used to just taking units groups of 10 or 5. (I am not saying I like the “units can only have what comes in the box” rule, I do not)

I understand that point of view, and it's probably why GW implemented it that way. The issue is that it simply doesn't work that way for many units though - there are a bunch of units that come with 3 models in the box and you often want to run them in 5s, but PL forces you to run a sixth one you don't want. Boyz have 12 models in the box, but you can't just add 2 to fill out your trukk, you need to pay for 20. And then there are chaos cult marines which used to be run in magic numbers, but you suddenly have to bring 5 or 10, even if the plague marine box contains exactly 7 models.
For those units, PL is essentially doing the exact opposite of what you want.

As for the second point, I think that was introduced because before then you often played a pl or two down if you didn’t get your army to add up to exactly the right amount. Not all armies have 1 or 2 PL cost things to fill out the difference. This allowed you to level up the occasional unit to fill in those gaps you would have left empty anyway. Is it an elegant solution, not really, but you may be paying over the odds but you got nothing for that PL before this, so it’s a kind of win??

It's still a net loss compared to points because it means that you will have exactly one of those upgrades in your army and you are usually overpaying for them. Adding a custom job to a squig buggy, a SJD and a snazzwagon für 45 points is a good way to sink points, paying 4 PL for those three jobs is not.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 16:25:48


Post by: PenitentJake


 JNAProductions wrote:
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.


Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 16:29:24


Post by: catbarf


Andykp wrote:

I am perfectly happy with balancing the game myself, have been since day one (1989 for me). You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options. I know that there aren’t the same amount of unit choices in sigmar but it seems to work fine.

I think PL works great if you are prepared to play in a casual way, which isn’t for everyone so points and power levels seems to be needed. Ideally in my head they should have a separate tournament version of 40k that’s is balanced and all the dull stuff competitive types like but completely apart form the narrative game.


AOS's balancing system doesn't have the caveat that you have to be 'reasonable' and come to a gentleman's agreement over whether your wargear choices match the fluff, so... Not really the same at all. It's designed around sidegrades and baking one-off capabilities like command models into the overall cost; not giving you options that can triple your offensive power for free and then expecting you to be 'reasonable' about it.

Most of my gaming is casual and I have no real interest in competitive play, but a robust balancing mechanism makes it easier to set up engaging, fair games, especially when two players may not see eye-to-eye on what a casual list or fair matchup looks like.

I don't have to do a pre-game negotiation to play Chain of Command, I just play it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 16:44:36


Post by: Gadzilla666


PenitentJake wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.


Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.

No, you don't. You're applying the same handicap either way. The net effect on the army is the same. Not needing to change anything else when using PL because the cost is "the same" and needing to when using points because the cost is "different" is entirely in your mind.

PL doesn't stop the overall value of the army from changing, it just provides a convenient way to ignore it. If you need that, it's perfectly fine. But many people who use points don't mind playing with a "handicap" either, if it would lead to a better, more enjoyable game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 18:33:11


Post by: Blackie


PenitentJake wrote:


Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


In the example you've made I see no meaningful difference between PL and points, it's just quicker in the PL case. In both cases one player tailors his list vs the opponent but still plays with the same points/PL budget. It's like you're assuming that switching loadouts in a PL list is legal while doing it in a points one isn't and requires permission.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 19:40:30


Post by: PenitentJake


 Gadzilla666 wrote:

No, you don't. You're applying the same handicap either way. The net effect on the army is the same. Not needing to change anything else when using PL because the cost is "the same" and needing to when using points because the cost is "different" is entirely in your mind.

PL doesn't stop the overall value of the army from changing, it just provides a convenient way to ignore it. If you need that, it's perfectly fine. But many people who use points don't mind playing with a "handicap" either, if it would lead to a better, more enjoyable game.


You are using "value" in the sense of "abiities of the army in question" - and in that sense, you are correct; it doesn't change whether you're using points or PL.

But the word "value" is used by many to mean "what the army costs" in points or PL. And in this context (which is the way I was using the word in my post) the value of the army doesn't change due to equipment swaps alone using PL but it does if you're using points.

If a player says: "Sure, dropping a meltagun into each tac squad will make the game more fun for both of us, so go ahead- just make sure you remove the equivalent points value from somewhere else in the army because that's what the rules say," how is that in my head? The rules DO say that, and it is my opponent's right to insist that I do that.

If we are playing PL, the opponent CANNOT ask you to do this, because the meltaguns in question do not have a PL cost.

And that's not an opinion, it's a fact. Denying it is silly: weapons have point values but not PL values.

 Blackie wrote:


In the example you've made I see no meaningful difference between PL and points, it's just quicker in the PL case. In both cases one player tailors his list vs the opponent but still plays with the same points/PL budget. It's like you're assuming that switching loadouts in a PL list is legal while doing it in a points one isn't and requires permission.


My response to Gadzilla probably clarifies this and could serve as a response to this statement too, but just to be sure, I thought I'd respond to you as well.

Again, if I'm swapping out five lasguns or bolters to swap in five meltaguns, because of the "Mustering in Army" rules in the relevant mission pack, I probably still need permission to do this anyway; even if you want to argue that I don't need permission, it's still polite to do so. But in a Point game, when the player agrees, they can make me go through the additional step of subtracting the points value of five meltaguns from somewhere else in my list because those are the rules of the game.

If we are playing PL, the opponent CANNOT make me go through the additional step as above, because meltaguns have no PL value. Even if he wants to ask me to pay for them, and even if I would agree to do so, neither of us is going to be able to follow through with it, because there is no rules that exists which would even allow us to do it.

Again, it's a fact not an opinion, and denying it is silly.

Now, here's the caveat: I think that BOTH of these posts were written with the idea that I am saying PL is better because the rules function this way. It's the only reason I can think of why you would respond to my post the way you did; we can all clearly open the book and read the points value beside the meltagun entry, and we can all just as clearly see that there isn't a PL value there. I'm not saying this makes PL better, so there's no need to say "Well there's really no actual difference..." because you don't need to prove that PL isn't better than points because I never actually said it was.

So let's be clear: according to observable and objective reality, there is a points cost but not a PL cost for most equipment as written, and this fact does objectively make it easier to swap load out in a PL game than points game when one or both of the players prefer to keep as many of their rule interpretations RAW as possible.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:01:20


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Not sure if "more easily facilitates deliberate list tailoring" is a point in PL's favor though, as list tailoring is generally not a good thing.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:10:29


Post by: Blackie


PenitentJake wrote:


Again, it's a fact not an opinion, and denying it is silly.



The fact is that switching loadout just before playing is quicker with PL. Like you said, it just saves an additional step.

But if you bring a list, you have to specify loadouts for your units. It's not like in a PL game people are allowed to bring extra models or extra bitz so that they can tailor the opponent's list. You still have to ask permission and to discuss that, because in the list you provided you already chose all the wargear for your units. It simpy takes less time to make the corrections if the opponent agrees to such changes.

When using points there are several units that have free upgrades or loadouts that cost the same, but to make those free corrections players still need to ask the opponent, since the list they provided would be altered .

Just to clarify, to me pre-game discussions and possible changes to the lists in order to try to have a more balanced game are standard procedure. And I have nothing against using PL.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:15:05


Post by: vict0988


Just because you have the same PL or pts does not mean your armies are equally matched. That's why we have the pre-game discussion, if we agree that having a close game is more important than playing by the rules why do you keep insisting we must have the same number of pts?
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Not sure if "more easily facilitates deliberate list tailoring" is a point in PL's favor though, as list tailoring is generally not a good thing.

Dig a step deeper, why is list tailoring generally bad? It's because you're fething someone over to have "fun" at their expense. What PenitentJake describes is the opposite of that, adjusting lists so that both players can have fun together.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:25:28


Post by: Gadzilla666


PenitentJake wrote:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:

No, you don't. You're applying the same handicap either way. The net effect on the army is the same. Not needing to change anything else when using PL because the cost is "the same" and needing to when using points because the cost is "different" is entirely in your mind.

PL doesn't stop the overall value of the army from changing, it just provides a convenient way to ignore it. If you need that, it's perfectly fine. But many people who use points don't mind playing with a "handicap" either, if it would lead to a better, more enjoyable game.


You are using "value" in the sense of "abiities of the army in question" - and in that sense, you are correct; it doesn't change whether you're using points or PL.

But the word "value" is used by many to mean "what the army costs" in points or PL. And in this context (which is the way I was using the word in my post) the value of the army doesn't change due to equipment swaps alone using PL but it does if you're using points.

If a player says: "Sure, dropping a meltagun into each tac squad will make the game more fun for both of us, so go ahead- just make sure you remove the equivalent points value from somewhere else in the army because that's what the rules say," how is that in my head? The rules DO say that, and it is my opponent's right to insist that I do that.

If we are playing PL, the opponent CANNOT ask you to do this, because the meltaguns in question do not have a PL cost.

And that's not an opinion, it's a fact. Denying it is silly: weapons have point values but not PL values.

Please, note the parts of both my and your statements that I have highlighted. If you're opponent does as you have described, are they really allowing you a "handicap"? No, they are not, because they are hung up on the idea of "making the numbers match". They could allow you to do the exact same thing, without forcing you to remove anything from your army, just the same when using points as PL. Again, it's in your head, or in your example, your opponents. PL just gets around this mental block of "needing the numbers to match". The same thing is still happening.

I'm not arguing whether points or PL are superior/inferior to each other, either. I'm just explaining that the same thing can be done with points as PL, as long as you and your opponent can get past "making the numbers match" exactly, every time.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:27:15


Post by: PenitentJake


 Blackie wrote:


Spoiler:


The fact is that switching loadout just before playing is quicker with PL. Like you said, it just saves an additional step.

But if you bring a list, you have to specify loadouts for your units. It's not like in a PL game people are allowed to bring extra models or extra bitz so that they can tailor the opponent's list. You still have to ask permission and to discuss that, because in the list you provided you already chose all the wargear for your units. It simpy takes less time to make the corrections if the opponent agrees to such changes.

When using points there are several units that have free upgrades or loadouts that cost the same, but to make those free corrections players still need to ask the opponent, since the list they provided would be altered .

Just to clarify, to me pre-game discussions and possible changes to the lists in order to try to have a more balanced game are standard procedure. And I have nothing against using PL.


Yep- I agree entirely. I also see now why you responded- you're correct- in my original post it wasn't clear that I was aware of this point; thanks for clarifying.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 20:35:12


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 vict0988 wrote:
Just because you have the same PL or pts does not mean your armies are equally matched. That's why we have the pre-game discussion, if we agree that having a close game is more important than playing by the rules why do you keep insisting we must have the same number of pts?
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Not sure if "more easily facilitates deliberate list tailoring" is a point in PL's favor though, as list tailoring is generally not a good thing.

Dig a step deeper, why is list tailoring generally bad? It's because you're fething someone over to have "fun" at their expense. What PenitentJake describes is the opposite of that, adjusting lists so that both players can have fun together.


How much antitank is enough, though. If I bring 10 Russes, are you justified in replacing portions of your list with 18 eradicators? 10? 6? 3?

List tailoring and self-balancing by the players is a very dangerous knife edge. Instead, GW should make their game roughly balanced on its own merits.

All I would say is that the pre-game conversation is well and good, but unless you have a deep, deep understanding of the game I would recommend against someone changing their list to be more effective against someone else's.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 22:27:51


Post by: catbarf


 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Please, note the parts of both my and your statements that I have highlighted. If you're opponent does as you have described, are they really allowing you a "handicap"? No, they are not, because they are hung up on the idea of "making the numbers match". They could allow you to do the exact same thing, without forcing you to remove anything from your army, just the same when using points as PL. Again, it's in your head, or in your example, your opponents. PL just gets around this mental block of "needing the numbers to match". The same thing is still happening.

I'm not arguing whether points or PL are superior/inferior to each other, either. I'm just explaining that the same thing can be done with points as PL, as long as you and your opponent can get past "making the numbers match" exactly, every time.


If you take it to its logical extreme, just make every army worth 1 Army Point and play a 1AP game. Voila, a system where you can do all the rearranging of forces and wargear you want without affecting the AP total of your force.

You can swap out wargear whether you're using a system that accounts for it (points) or not (PL); the only difference is that one is telling you that you haven't changed the overall value of your force, despite the entire purpose of adding or removing wargear being to change the overall value of the force. I think if you can recognize that 'just because you have the same PL or pts does not mean your armies are equally matched' as vict0988 puts it, then you can recognize that appropriately balancing two forces might involve one ending up with a higher points total than the other.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
How much antitank is enough, though. If I bring 10 Russes, are you justified in replacing portions of your list with 18 eradicators? 10? 6? 3?


'Nah dude you don't need any extra anti-tank, these armies are already fair. This is 9th Ed and lasguns can wound Titans, your TAC list will be fine.'
(one curbstomp later)
'Yeah I guess you just didn't play well / rolled badly / took bad units.'

It's a good thing we all have the same understanding of the game and what is needed to appropriately balance two arbitrary forces, right? As DakkaDakka shows us, the community is generally of one mind when it comes to power imbalances.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 22:55:10


Post by: vipoid


 vict0988 wrote:

Dig a step deeper, why is list tailoring generally bad?


First, because it removes the compromises associated with building a list in the first place.

Second, because not all armies (or all units, for that matter) have the same ability to tailor - especially if you're sticking exclusively to modifying the loadouts of existing units. Hence, you'll very quickly end up with a situation wherein one player gets to tailor significant portions of his list, while the other simply doesn't have that option because of the inherent limitations of his faction/army.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/12 23:16:58


Post by: Andykp


 Jidmah wrote:
Andykp wrote:
 Jidmah wrote:
We've been almost exclusively been playing with PL since about a year.

It has two big weaknesses, one is not allowing single models to be added to units, the other is overcharging for army-based upgrades like pathogens or kustom jobs that are 10 points but then become 1 PL.

The changes to how wargear is upgraded has no impact on balance. In almost all cases there is an obvious best choice when playing with points, the obvious best choice for playing with PL is just a different gun.

The theory is nice and all, but in reality fiddling with 1-10 points differences for upgrades is just a waste of time when the result still doesn't make those options balanced against each other.


For me the first one is a strength of PL as well. Depends on perspective. From a collecting point of view it’s nicer to build units in multiples of what comes in the box, no more fiddling about trying to find two ore boyz to make a unit of 12 and things. Doesn’t sound much, but a huge part of the hobby for me is building and paint thematic armies and you find you very quickly get used to just taking units groups of 10 or 5. (I am not saying I like the “units can only have what comes in the box” rule, I do not)

I understand that point of view, and it's probably why GW implemented it that way. The issue is that it simply doesn't work that way for many units though - there are a bunch of units that come with 3 models in the box and you often want to run them in 5s, but PL forces you to run a sixth one you don't want. Boyz have 12 models in the box, but you can't just add 2 to fill out your trukk, you need to pay for 20. And then there are chaos cult marines which used to be run in magic numbers, but you suddenly have to bring 5 or 10, even if the plague marine box contains exactly 7 models.
For those units, PL is essentially doing the exact opposite of what you want.

As for the second point, I think that was introduced because before then you often played a pl or two down if you didn’t get your army to add up to exactly the right amount. Not all armies have 1 or 2 PL cost things to fill out the difference. This allowed you to level up the occasional unit to fill in those gaps you would have left empty anyway. Is it an elegant solution, not really, but you may be paying over the odds but you got nothing for that PL before this, so it’s a kind of win??

It's still a net loss compared to points because it means that you will have exactly one of those upgrades in your army and you are usually overpaying for them. Adding a custom job to a squig buggy, a SJD and a snazzwagon für 45 points is a good way to sink points, paying 4 PL for those three jobs is not.


Yep there are some units where it doesn’t work out so well, plague marines had hose 3 crazily expensive guys who you buy to bulk a unit up to 10 with which was bonkers and then there’s meganobz where if you build the big mek you are stuck with two useless models until you buy another box. But for the most part it works out well enough.

For upgrades, as power levels are meant to be used in games where you aren’t looking to min/max everything that loss of value is less relevant, simply because in that kind of game it matters less. Which is why I like that they have points as a choice as well for those that does matter too. Power levels is an imperfect system, but it’s supposed to be, it’s sacrificed granularity for simplicity. For me the simplicity is more valuable than the complexity of points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 catbarf wrote:
Andykp wrote:

I am perfectly happy with balancing the game myself, have been since day one (1989 for me). You don’t see people complaining about the system used in AOS which is basically power levels, fixed points for units regardless or equipment and options. I know that there aren’t the same amount of unit choices in sigmar but it seems to work fine.

I think PL works great if you are prepared to play in a casual way, which isn’t for everyone so points and power levels seems to be needed. Ideally in my head they should have a separate tournament version of 40k that’s is balanced and all the dull stuff competitive types like but completely apart form the narrative game.


AOS's balancing system doesn't have the caveat that you have to be 'reasonable' and come to a gentleman's agreement over whether your wargear choices match the fluff, so... Not really the same at all. It's designed around sidegrades and baking one-off capabilities like command models into the overall cost; not giving you options that can triple your offensive power for free and then expecting you to be 'reasonable' about it.

Most of my gaming is casual and I have no real interest in competitive play, but a robust balancing mechanism makes it easier to set up engaging, fair games, especially when two players may not see eye-to-eye on what a casual list or fair matchup looks like.

I don't have to do a pre-game negotiation to play Chain of Command, I just play it.


I wouldn’t say I ever have a “pre-game” negotiation, I always have a discussion about what the narrative is and why these two armies are fighting. I normally have a conversation with my mate while we design our armies, and it often is about what we are taking in those armies. Neither of us try and shaft the other, it’s all part of the social experience for us.

My advice to anyone who can’t understand why anyone would want to play with power levels is, they probably aren’t for you, stick to points. That’s not an insult, it’s just that you clearly want something from the game that they cannot or do not provide. I imagine if you mostly play games against strangers then casual or not power levels might not be best.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 00:07:16


Post by: Gadzilla666


 catbarf wrote:
Spoiler:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Please, note the parts of both my and your statements that I have highlighted. If you're opponent does as you have described, are they really allowing you a "handicap"? No, they are not, because they are hung up on the idea of "making the numbers match". They could allow you to do the exact same thing, without forcing you to remove anything from your army, just the same when using points as PL. Again, it's in your head, or in your example, your opponents. PL just gets around this mental block of "needing the numbers to match". The same thing is still happening.

I'm not arguing whether points or PL are superior/inferior to each other, either. I'm just explaining that the same thing can be done with points as PL, as long as you and your opponent can get past "making the numbers match" exactly, every time.


If you take it to its logical extreme, just make every army worth 1 Army Point and play a 1AP game. Voila, a system where you can do all the rearranging of forces and wargear you want without affecting the AP total of your force.

You can swap out wargear whether you're using a system that accounts for it (points) or not (PL); the only difference is that one is telling you that you haven't changed the overall value of your force, despite the entire purpose of adding or removing wargear being to change the overall value of the force. I think if you can recognize that 'just because you have the same PL or pts does not mean your armies are equally matched' as vict0988 puts it, then you can recognize that appropriately balancing two forces might involve one ending up with a higher points total than the other.

As usual, you make the point that I was attempting to make much better than I could. Thanks Catbarf.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 04:42:50


Post by: Hecaton


PenitentJake wrote:

Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


Lolno. It goes more like

Player 1: I want to get a game, but that new Tyranid codex that just came out is really overpowered. I don't think it''ll be fun.

Player 2: You're just biased against Tyranids. Next week when the results come in from tournaments Tyranids aren't going to win any major ones. They're pillow fisted in melee, they can't kill things. GW won't write a good Tyranid codex.

Player 1: You've got a whole lot of Tyranid warriors, those things are incredibly undercosted. Let me guess, you're running Leviathan and everything is double boneswords/deathspitter?

Player 2: You're just mad I finally have a good codex. It's my time! We've been bad for so long and you won't get a game with me?

Player 1: Nah, I'm good. Have a good night.

Paraphrasing an actual conversation that went down at my LGS. Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k - if someone showed up with a Crusher Stampede Tyranid list (previous to the most recent codex), and his opponent was playing Guard, the solution isn't to "take more heavy weapons" - it's to play a different codex. Furthermore, in the actual situation I described above, the codex had only just come out - why should the players have the responsibility of rebalancing the game within a few days of a codex release to get a balanced game or else be blamed? You need to put the fault on the right entity, GW.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 06:10:51


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Andykp wrote:
... I seem to enjoy 40k more than others who want to win and demand balance be built in.
I'm a narrative gamer and I want balance to be built in. We shouldn't have to do the work of the game designers for them.

The notion that narrative gaming doesn't care about balance has to die.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 06:17:19


Post by: kodos


but the narritive guys just always play the same people at home and already take hours to set up the setting for the game
just spending some minutes more to balance things is not a problem

so narritive does not need balance built in because it is easy to adjust it

/s


and this is the strange thing about blaming the players
it is too complicated and too expensive for GW to have build in balance and make the game work
but at the same time it is so easy that any narritive player can solve it within minutes with minor house rules


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 06:33:48


Post by: ccs


 kodos wrote:
but the narritive guys just always play the same people at home and already take hours to set up the setting for the game
just spending some minutes more to balance things is not a problem

so narritive does not need balance built in because it is easy to adjust it

/s


and this is the strange thing about blaming the players
it is too complicated and too expensive for GW to have build in balance and make the game work
but at the same time it is so easy that any narritive player can solve it within minutes with minor house rules


Of course it's easier for narrative focused groups to fix. They know what will work in their group. And those solutions don't need to be the same as what works for another group.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 07:03:34


Post by: Apple fox


A lot of groups that use and enjoy PL use it sort of like a side board, swapping out elements for others to get the best of the game itself.
I think if 40k was to embrace this aspect it would probably be quite good for the game as a whole.
There is a bunch of upgrades that could just be part of a units rules as default, and you can have weapons with more specific designs that players can utilise when needs arise.

With some army’s they could also give units special deployment.
Demons buy a lesser demon unit, elite demon unit. Swap as desired.
Tyranids can deploy ether or for there swarm units.
Elder aspects.
If the design team was dedicated to the design and could stick with it though an edition, even if it wasn’t perfect I think PL would be a awesome change to embrace in 40k.

It would have to come with a design change to 40k but I think they already gone there with all but names of things.
And I think it would be better than shifting so many rules to choices like we have now during the game..


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 07:20:03


Post by: Deadnight


 vict0988 wrote:

Dig a step deeper, why is list tailoring generally bad? It's because you're fething someone over to have "fun" at their expense. What PenitentJake describes is the opposite of that, adjusting lists so that both players can have fun together.


Failure of language really.

'List tailoring' is basicallly list-crafting to ensure your list is a silver bullet to theirs aka its trying to 'gotcha!' them.

Whilr PJ talks about 'list tailoring', he's wrong, but for entirely the right reasons. I've always felt the term 'list matching' is a better term to use for this kind of thing ie making sure your list is capable of taking theirs on whilst also being equally vulnerable to what they can put out.

On the whole 5-minute chat being unworkable with your peers because everyone wants something different, there is always the approach we learned when we were 3 where we take turns. approach 'ok Bob, let's play this game your way this week, and the next game we play I get to craft it?' Always happy here for a bit of variety and if accomodatimg Bob every now and then keeps him on side, a bit of common decency to return the goodwill makes for a far stronger community in the long run. And if he turns our to be a selfish prick unwilling to.accomodate back, well I've learned something else about who not to play.

Also of note we typically either also have an umpire to craft the scenario and we randomly roll to see who plays which side.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 07:40:36


Post by: Blackie


List tailoring is just as bad/good as skewing. If it's possible to spam tanks, bikes or countless cheap dudes it should also be possible to adjust lists to counter those archetypes without getting any blame.

That's why I don't think it's realistic to expect a game in which it doesn't matter what people bring and have a balanced game anyway. Trying to nullify a large chunk of the opponent's list by surprising him with an extreme force has always been a feature. And something most players love, especially when it comes to blind games against random players.

The goal is to give all the factions plenty of tools to deal with any possible archetypes, that makes a balanced game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 08:34:59


Post by: Tyel


I kind of think the conversation is about having a good game.

Because you can say "what if I bring 10 tanks, are you going to spam eradicators, MM attack bikes, are you, huh, are you?" And sure, you'll probably bump into that guy.

But in my experience its more like "hey, this is literally the only 2k points I own, and I don't have very much anti-tank at all. If you bring 10 Leman Russ I'm just going to have to sit on objectives all game while trying to scratch the paint work".

Now you could in turn respond with "well, sucks to be you, hahaha" - but that's kind of lame. Sure, if you go "but I only own 10 Leman Russ and that's it" then there's no solution. But if you can do something else, there is.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 08:51:39


Post by: Hecaton


ccs wrote:


Of course it's easier for narrative focused groups to fix. They know what will work in their group. And those solutions don't need to be the same as what works for another group.


I think the idea that they're fixing a damn thing is a fantasy.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 08:53:41


Post by: kodos


ccs wrote:
Of course it's easier for narrative focused groups to fix. They know what will work in their group. And those solutions don't need to be the same as what works for another group.
it is not as you just need 1 that brings in the idea of "official rules" and everything is gone (as because GW said the game is balanced good enough for narritive)
at that point it is easier to add tournament restrictions for list-building to a narritive group than doing something on your own to fix the game



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:01:14


Post by: nou


 kodos wrote:
but the narritive guys just always play the same people at home and already take hours to set up the setting for the game
just spending some minutes more to balance things is not a problem

so narritive does not need balance built in because it is easy to adjust it

/s


and this is the strange thing about blaming the players
it is too complicated and too expensive for GW to have build in balance and make the game work
but at the same time it is so easy that any narritive player can solve it within minutes with minor house rules


For any given game, narrative players only have to balance two particular lists, consisting of a handful of entries each, in a specific context of a known scenario and terrain layout.

On the other hand, GW is expected to balance thousands of entries for dozens of factions in the context of any blind draw of any two lists, any mission and a whole scope of terrain layouts, from planet bowling ball to a cluttered maze of a multilevel hive or dense jungle.

I see a tiny bit of difference in difficulty here


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:09:03


Post by: Jidmah


 kodos wrote:
ccs wrote:
Of course it's easier for narrative focused groups to fix. They know what will work in their group. And those solutions don't need to be the same as what works for another group.
it is not as you just need 1 that brings in the idea of "official rules" and everything is gone (as because GW said the game is balanced good enough for narritive)
at that point it is easier to add tournament restrictions for list-building to a narritive group than doing something on your own to fix the game



Fixing the rules also isn't easy at all since multiple people (even if they all are narrative players) want different things.

One example from our playing group is that some players feel like crusade is too prohibitive for non-infantry armies and want to implement a rule that obSec units can perform actions no matter their type, while obSec units with the correct type perform actions faster (next command phase => end of turn, end of turn => end of shooting). Other people feel it's perfectly fine for knights, bikers or tanks to not be able to perform actions, full stop.

Since their is no clear consent on this, the rule simply stays at it is.

Another issue is the amount of effort - for example the FW book is a complete clusterfeth right now, with almost every unit missing essential types or army-wide rules. However, writing extensive errata for the whole thing and then referring to that errata in addition to all the other stuff isn't really something people are willing to do.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:14:26


Post by: Andykp


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Andykp wrote:
... I seem to enjoy 40k more than others who want to win and demand balance be built in.
I'm a narrative gamer and I want balance to be built in. We shouldn't have to do the work of the game designers for them.

The notion that narrative gaming doesn't care about balance has to die.



That’s fine for you, for me I am fine with it as is. I also prefer that the costs don’t change all the time. So I don’t need to worry about having the most up to date points and things.

But let me stress. These things are what I want for the game, not what I think everyone should want. I am a narrative gamer but understand some of them may prefer more balance, like yourself. But we shouldn’t all have to want the same thing. No ideas have to “die”.

This quest for balance has only damaged the game in my opinion. It applies restrictions and leads to developer removing character full rules. I prefer not to go that way. But again, this is only my opinion.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:14:56


Post by: nou


Tyel wrote:
I kind of think the conversation is about having a good game.

Because you can say "what if I bring 10 tanks, are you going to spam eradicators, MM attack bikes, are you, huh, are you?" And sure, you'll probably bump into that guy.

But in my experience its more like "hey, this is literally the only 2k points I own, and I don't have very much anti-tank at all. If you bring 10 Leman Russ I'm just going to have to sit on objectives all game while trying to scratch the paint work".

Now you could in turn respond with "well, sucks to be you, hahaha" - but that's kind of lame. Sure, if you go "but I only own 10 Leman Russ and that's it" then there's no solution. But if you can do something else, there is.


Under 7th ed rules we have commonly adjusted for a similar problem in case of flyers. The toolbox here was giving a player without anti-aircraft a couple instances of Skyfire or setting up some objectives as granting Skyfire. It was enough. In some cases we did the same for armour with Haywire, but usually it was not necessary, as you can limit the impact of armour in soooo many interesting ways using terrain or mission, that Haywire always seemed like the most lazy an uninspiring solution.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:15:04


Post by: Jidmah


nou wrote:
For any given game, narrative players only have to balance two particular lists, consisting of a handful of entries each, in a specific context of a known scenario and terrain layout.

On the other hand, GW is expected to balance thousands of entries for dozens of factions in the context of any blind draw of any two lists, any mission and a whole scope of terrain layouts, from planet bowling ball to a cluttered maze of a multilevel hive or dense jungle.

I see a tiny bit of difference in difficulty here


True, it's even easier with crusade, as the campaign master knows exactly what people can field and what they can't.

When you know the strength of players, their faction and have a rough idea of what they can bring, dropping in some vortex missile silos, fortifications, surprise reinforcements or even just an asymmetrical terrain setup are great ways to balance the scales.

You can even do it mid-game. Guard player is getting stomped? Hail the emperor, his angels of death have arrived! Enjoy these two free drop pods with tactical marines in them.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:37:04


Post by: Karol


PenitentJake 805449 11378839 wrote:

Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


It only goes like that with veteran players or people who collect more then 2000pts of an army. For new players what they have is what they have. And even for people who play longer then an edition, the different stuff they have is often models which are illegal or outright bad this edition, and no amount of talking can fix their army being bad, if they were to use them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
nou 805449 11379231 wrote:

For any given game, narrative players only have to balance two particular lists, consisting of a handful of entries each, in a specific context of a known scenario and terrain layout.

On the other hand, GW is expected to balance thousands of entries for dozens of factions in the context of any blind draw of any two lists, any mission and a whole scope of terrain layouts, from planet bowling ball to a cluttered maze of a multilevel hive or dense jungle.

I see a tiny bit of difference in difficulty here

No they aren't. Unless maybe someone is in his first week of playing and collecting. What people would like to have is for each codex to have one build which is competent actualy worth spending money on, and which isn't pushed in the illegality or being bottom tier after 3 months.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 09:40:09


Post by: Not Online!!!


Karol wrote:
PenitentJake 805449 11378839 wrote:

Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


It only goes like that with veteran players or people who collect more then 2000pts of an army. For new players what they have is what they have. And even for people who play longer then an edition, the different stuff they have is often models which are illegal or outright bad this edition, and no amount of talking can fix their army being bad, if they were to use them.


There's a thing, called community houserules, of course that requires a community that likes to cooperate.-


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 10:02:26


Post by: Karol


Cooperation is stuff like. We treat all terrain X as Y, or this bases which have forests on them don't actualy have to have actual trees on them but instead are rather treated like buildings or ruins. Being required to do a two army analyz, comparation of their power, then taking in to account scenarios and the models accesible to the players, followed by rewriting of the rules to make the game somehow balanced and funfor both of them is not cooperation. that is like writing a screen play for a movie or writing up rules for your own game.
And all those actions still require stuff like both players always agreing in to end, having enough knowladage of the game, so the changes done actually do work and make the game better.
And the time to do those things is not counted. And it works only on a player per player basis, so any community switch or playing somewhere else would mean it would no longer work.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 11:37:02


Post by: Jidmah


Karol wrote:
that is like writing a screen play for a movie


Congratulations, you have found out what narrative play is


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 13:50:13


Post by: catbarf


Blackie wrote:That's why I don't think it's realistic to expect a game in which it doesn't matter what people bring and have a balanced game anyway. Trying to nullify a large chunk of the opponent's list by surprising him with an extreme force has always been a feature. And something most players love, especially when it comes to blind games against random players.


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is only an issue because of how 40K handles listbuilding. We're seeing more and more games nowadays incorporate force-composition systems that allow some reaction to what your opponent brings, rather than the classic wargame system of writing an army list on paper in secret with no relevance whatsoever to who you're fighting or what terrain you're fighting on. I'm not sure it's fair to characterize surprise-skew as a desirable feature; being on the receiving end certainly sucks.

A lot about 40K's issues with skew, and having to make every choice equally valid in a vacuum (or worse, in a meta), could be at least somewhat alleviated by providing some built-in capability to choose assets that counter your opponent or fit the scenario. Of course that brings us back to not wanting to have to own/bring more than 2000pts of models to play a 2000pt game... but this thread is already talking about balancing the game yourself by swapping around wargear and units, so we're already there anyways.

Andykp wrote:I am a narrative gamer but understand some of them may prefer more balance, like yourself. But we shouldn’t all have to want the same thing. No ideas have to “die”.

This quest for balance has only damaged the game in my opinion. It applies restrictions and leads to developer removing character full rules. I prefer not to go that way. But again, this is only my opinion.


Sure, but the context of this thread is points vs PL. The options are the same, it's the accounting that differs; we're talking about different ways to build a force and the impact it has on balance.

In any case, there are presently ways to improve the balance without stripping options out of the game. I don't think it's going to hurt anyone's enjoyment of characterful rules if grenade launchers were buffed to be a reasonably equal choice to the other special weapons, or just cheaper, for example.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 14:00:54


Post by: CthuluIsSpy


 catbarf wrote:
Blackie wrote:That's why I don't think it's realistic to expect a game in which it doesn't matter what people bring and have a balanced game anyway. Trying to nullify a large chunk of the opponent's list by surprising him with an extreme force has always been a feature. And something most players love, especially when it comes to blind games against random players.


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is only an issue because of how 40K handles listbuilding. We're seeing more and more games nowadays incorporate force-composition systems that allow some reaction to what your opponent brings, rather than the classic wargame system of writing an army list on paper in secret with no relevance whatsoever to who you're fighting or what terrain you're fighting on.

Which systems are those?
Also, wouldn't this end up in a contest of who can bring the most counters, and if a player doesn't have a counter with him at that moment he's screwed?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 14:03:48


Post by: Andykp


 catbarf wrote:
Blackie wrote:That's why I don't think it's realistic to expect a game in which it doesn't matter what people bring and have a balanced game anyway. Trying to nullify a large chunk of the opponent's list by surprising him with an extreme force has always been a feature. And something most players love, especially when it comes to blind games against random players.


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is only an issue because of how 40K handles listbuilding. We're seeing more and more games nowadays incorporate force-composition systems that allow some reaction to what your opponent brings, rather than the classic wargame system of writing an army list on paper in secret with no relevance whatsoever to who you're fighting or what terrain you're fighting on. I'm not sure it's fair to characterize surprise-skew as a desirable feature; being on the receiving end certainly sucks.

A lot about 40K's issues with skew, and having to make every choice equally valid in a vacuum (or worse, in a meta), could be at least somewhat alleviated by providing some built-in capability to choose assets that counter your opponent or fit the scenario. Of course that brings us back to not wanting to have to own/bring more than 2000pts of models to play a 2000pt game... but this thread is already talking about balancing the game yourself by swapping around wargear and units, so we're already there anyways.

Andykp wrote:I am a narrative gamer but understand some of them may prefer more balance, like yourself. But we shouldn’t all have to want the same thing. No ideas have to “die”.

This quest for balance has only damaged the game in my opinion. It applies restrictions and leads to developer removing character full rules. I prefer not to go that way. But again, this is only my opinion.


Sure, but the context of this thread is points vs PL. The options are the same, it's the accounting that differs; we're talking about different ways to build a force and the impact it has on balance.

In any case, there are presently ways to improve the balance without stripping options out of the game. I don't think it's going to hurt anyone's enjoyment of characterful rules if grenade launchers were buffed to be a reasonably equal choice to the other special weapons, or just cheaper, for example.


I have no issues with “reasonable” minor changes like that. I was more thinking of the sweeping balance changes they make like limiting the number of certain units or flyers, removing movement values from the game, you, the big changes they make.

It shouldn’t always be a race to the top, don’t make Grenade launchers better, make each other weapon only good at its special role. Meltaguns fry tanks up close. They should be crap at anything else, flamers likewise with infantry. The Grenade launcher has always been a jack of all trades but as other stuff has gotten tougher it’s stayed the same. Or just leave it be, I still have Grenade launchers on all my guard squads, with las cannons, because that is how a guard squad is armed.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 14:05:53


Post by: CthuluIsSpy


Grenade launchers should really have some sort of disruption rule. It should deal decent damage to light infantry, but it should also apply a debuff to represent infantry ducking for cover.
Like pinning.
In computer games like Dawn of War or the UFO series explosives have a knockdown effect. Something simulating that might be interesting.
That way it can still be weak, but you'll want to have a couple of them for their utility.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 14:12:23


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
Blackie wrote:That's why I don't think it's realistic to expect a game in which it doesn't matter what people bring and have a balanced game anyway. Trying to nullify a large chunk of the opponent's list by surprising him with an extreme force has always been a feature. And something most players love, especially when it comes to blind games against random players.


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is only an issue because of how 40K handles listbuilding. We're seeing more and more games nowadays incorporate force-composition systems that allow some reaction to what your opponent brings, rather than the classic wargame system of writing an army list on paper in secret with no relevance whatsoever to who you're fighting or what terrain you're fighting on.

Which systems are those?
Also, wouldn't this end up in a contest of who can bring the most counters, and if a player doesn't have a counter with him at that moment he's screwed?


Chain of Command comes to mind.

You choose your support (how to spend your "points" since your core platoon is fixed and known to your opponent) AFTER the mission is determined and the map/terrain is seen. You know what most of your opponent's combat power is (core platoons are fixed) and what your role is (attacker/defender) and your plan to execute it based on the map locations that are important.

And yeah, it does end up in a race to bring "the most counters", and since everything counters something or has a counter itself, you end up with a nice, mixed, combined arms list.

There is more nuance to it than "counterpicking" as well, due to unique abilities of different unit types (e.g. armored cars have major advantages and disadvantages relative to tracked tanks in different terrains, but since you see the map before you make your choice, it isn't just a guess).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 17:05:42


Post by: Racerguy180


Jidmah wrote:
Karol wrote:
that is like writing a screen play for a movie


Congratulations, you have found out what narrative play is


I spit out my drink when I read that...have an exalt!



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 17:17:42


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Jidmah wrote:
Karol wrote:
that is like writing a screen play for a movie


Congratulations, you have found out what narrative play is

Aint nothing narrative about the core game though.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 17:25:31


Post by: catbarf


CthuluIsSpy wrote:Which systems are those?
Also, wouldn't this end up in a contest of who can bring the most counters, and if a player doesn't have a counter with him at that moment he's screwed?


Chain of Command like Unit said is a good example. Your starting force is your choice of platoon, which has a certain rating. After the mission is chosen, the scenario combined with the difference in rating between the two platoons determines how many support assets each player has available. Sure, if your opponent decides to bring a tank and you didn't bring any AT choices with you for some reason, you may have a problem. But it's generally okay if you bring panzerschreck teams because you don't have an anti-tank gun, so it isn't strictly necessary to own and bring one of everything, and there are still ways to deal with tanks even if you don't have an ideal counter.

I haven't found that the game turns into a contest where whoever can out-counter the other wins, partly because both players have a mix of assets (maybe you can bring more AT guns than I have tanks, but if my infantry kill the AT guns first, it won't matter) and partly because the choices on the table matter a lot more than force composition.

Another example is Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, where your only fixed starting unit is your warcaster. While you can have a bunch of units in your force, you only start with a few (of your choice) and bring more in as you go. If a unit is destroyed, it can be brought back later the same way.

So imagine a 40K game where you pick a 2000pt list, but you only start with 500pts on the field, and you can bring in some number of points' worth from your reserve- including units that have already been destroyed- each turn. An army that goes all-in on skew is going to be a one trick pony, while one with a more diverse set of units and capabilities can bring in the hard-counters ASAP and even recycle them if they get destroyed, and simply not field the units that are inappropriate to the matchup.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but I think something like that would really take the sting out of skew lists, allow for more variety in terrain and objectives without breaking the game, and give some utility to units and weapons that might have situational uses but currently don't see play.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 17:29:25


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


Grenade launchers might get a new profile in 9th, who knows. But I feel like Grenade launchers should be "free" to a squad, as it's the base weapon. Anything else than that costs points. But who cares.

For the purposes of the game actually being played, what affect would this have on the competitive tournament scene? Would it create diversity, or force people into WAAC lists? Would this promote more Marine Lists at top tables, or would it not even shift the meta?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 18:00:49


Post by: Dysartes


Hecaton wrote:
Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k - if someone showed up with a Crusher Stampede Tyranid list (previous to the most recent codex), and his opponent was playing Guard, the solution isn't to "take more heavy weapons" - it's to play a different codex. Furthermore, in the actual situation I described above, the codex had only just come out - why should the players have the responsibility of rebalancing the game within a few days of a codex release to get a balanced game or else be blamed? You need to put the fault on the right entity, GW.

Your anecdote is as reliable as Jake's is, so I'd pipe down with calling people's positions farcical.

+ + +

When it comes to grenade launchers, the idea of giving them "Ignore Line of Sight" has been an interesting one, but I haven't tested it to see how big a difference it makes, given the ammunition is still pretty weak.

Of course, if this were a game with a functioning morale system, then ILoS & Pinning might be an option for them...


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/13 21:12:10


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


I guess my concern about launchers is moot now with everything being free, however, in order to take the most launchers possible, you would need to take a Command squad, which maxes out at 4, which rule of three makes 12. Thats 12d6 S3 AP0 D1 direct fire only BS3+ shots, or 12 S6 AP1 Dd3 shots, no blast rule. For 30ppm. I would rather they took Missile Launchers, for only 10ppm more, or better yet, for only 50ppmppm, you can have 12d6 shots of S4, AP0 D1, Ignores LoS. What is the point of frag launchers again? Oh, and for 1CP they get +1 to hit and wound if they all target the same unit. Frag Launchers are a silly excuse for an option now with them being free. Has anyone heard any rumors if the HWTs will get free weapons as well?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 08:43:37


Post by: Hecaton


 Dysartes wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k - if someone showed up with a Crusher Stampede Tyranid list (previous to the most recent codex), and his opponent was playing Guard, the solution isn't to "take more heavy weapons" - it's to play a different codex. Furthermore, in the actual situation I described above, the codex had only just come out - why should the players have the responsibility of rebalancing the game within a few days of a codex release to get a balanced game or else be blamed? You need to put the fault on the right entity, GW.

Your anecdote is as reliable as Jake's is, so I'd pipe down with calling people's positions farcical.


No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument.

 Dysartes wrote:
When it comes to grenade launchers, the idea of giving them "Ignore Line of Sight" has been an interesting one, but I haven't tested it to see how big a difference it makes, given the ammunition is still pretty weak.

Of course, if this were a game with a functioning morale system, then ILoS & Pinning might be an option for them...


Nah, they should kill units. Explosives are dangerous, and the game doesn't represent that well enough tbh. Krak grenades in particular are woefully underpowered compared to what they should be.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 09:33:25


Post by: Aelyn


Hecaton wrote:
 Dysartes wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k - if someone showed up with a Crusher Stampede Tyranid list (previous to the most recent codex), and his opponent was playing Guard, the solution isn't to "take more heavy weapons" - it's to play a different codex. Furthermore, in the actual situation I described above, the codex had only just come out - why should the players have the responsibility of rebalancing the game within a few days of a codex release to get a balanced game or else be blamed? You need to put the fault on the right entity, GW.

Your anecdote is as reliable as Jake's is, so I'd pipe down with calling people's positions farcical.


No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument.

The lack of self awareness in this post is staggering. From our perspective, your anecdote is as reliable as Jake's is - we have just as much reason to take his at face value as we have to take yours. Your lived experience is not the same as other people's.

Actually for me personally I'd say his is more reliable - I've experienced conversations just like Jake's multiple times (from the perspective of both players and as a third party observer) and never seen one quite as... adversarial as yours.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 09:59:56


Post by: Tyel


I mean in Hecaton's example, "the talk" is just "can you please not play crusher stampede?"


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 10:17:34


Post by: Jidmah


Tyel wrote:
I mean in Hecaton's example, "the talk" is just "can you please not play crusher stampede?"


There are a fair amount of players who simply wont adhere to those wishes, either because they understand what the issue is, because they have been blasted to smithereens by the same guard player for the last five editions, or because they are playing to win and not for the other person's enjoyment.
Of course, you can just not play, but that might have social repercussions for you.

Any time you play in a store or in a larger group, you will face those issues. Few people are blessed with a stable group of like-minded players.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 10:30:00


Post by: Just Tony


Tyel wrote:
I mean in Hecaton's example, "the talk" is just "can you please not play crusher stampede?"


Man do I miss the days when you didn't have to have a brunch discussion to get a game in. It used to be three things discussed: Game system, points size, any terrain that was potentially abnormal. Once in a while asking permission to use a named character.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 10:33:13


Post by: Jidmah


 Just Tony wrote:
Tyel wrote:
I mean in Hecaton's example, "the talk" is just "can you please not play crusher stampede?"


Man do I miss the days when you didn't have to have a brunch discussion to get a game in. It used to be three things discussed: Game system, points size, any terrain that was potentially abnormal. Once in a while asking permission to use a named character.


Are you talking about 5th edition? Because my 5th edition's ork codex still has the 14 questions I had to ask my opponent before the game penned in it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 11:04:09


Post by: Tyel


 Jidmah wrote:
There are a fair amount of players who simply wont adhere to those wishes, either because they understand what the issue is, because they have been blasted to smithereens by the same guard player for the last five editions, or because they are playing to win and not for the other person's enjoyment.
Of course, you can just not play, but that might have social repercussions for you.

Any time you play in a store or in a larger group, you will face those issues. Few people are blessed with a stable group of like-minded players.


True. Plenty of people may say no for a range of reasons. But I don't think that means you can't ask.

I also don't think this is a new feature of 40k.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 11:57:23


Post by: The_Real_Chris


I don't think the issue is points (tweek for maximum advantage) or PL (load out for maximum advantage), but rather the underlying game being at a low point for fun currently for myself (and others at club). Plus side we are all playing BFG, downside those that aren't have just stopped bothering to come so numbers are down.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 12:43:31


Post by: PenitentJake


Hecaton wrote:


No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument.


Jake doesn't care about winning an argument- he's been playing 40k since '89 quite happily with friends and family outside of stores, and he's trying to tell people that they are free to choose the same thing rather than pissing and moaning on the internet.

If Jake cared about arguments on the internet, he'd probably do stupid things like assuming he understands people's motives better than they do, or assume they are lying about something, when really, he has no way of knowing one way or the other.

Quite frankly, if Bolter and Chainsword had finished it's migration yet, Jake wouldn't be here as often as he has been for the past two weeks, and you wouldn't have to worry about Jake at all... And he'd be pretty happy about that, because his tolerance for whiners is wearing thin.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 12:51:59


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 13:54:05


Post by: vict0988


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.

It's fair to say that if you're not having fun you're hobbying wrong, whining indicates a lack of fun, although it is not always the case. You can have a really good game where you laugh and joke around and still be a little miffed about GW releasing AoC. Whether having fun means dropping the hobby, playing competitive instead of casual or crusade instead of competitive is up to the individual player.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 13:59:07


Post by: Karol


The_Real_Chris wrote:
I don't think the issue is points (tweek for maximum advantage) or PL (load out for maximum advantage), but rather the underlying game being at a low point for fun currently for myself (and others at club). Plus side we are all playing BFG, downside those that aren't have just stopped bothering to come so numbers are down.


But points can be the problem. If PL as a unit cost are created by taking the cost of a unit fully upgraded and not upgraded, and then an avarge is created out of it. Then it is all well and good, when the upgrades are, as some said here, a no brainer and taken anyway. The problems start when the army is build in a such a way, that even if GW did give it options to take things , you never want to take those upgrades. Then you the switch from points to PL inflates the price of your army.

It is also a lot less easy to fix unit or gear options, the way GW fixs them most of the time, aka with point drops.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 14:05:34


Post by: The_Real_Chris


That is just a design issue - in essence GW is bad at points, they will be bad at PL too. There will be no brainer options (witness kill team variable load outs which is the closest to this PL nirvana some talk of). I think they will always be bad at balance, it doesn't really matter which system we are talking about. PL is less fiddly which is mistake, a big part of 40ks attraction is I believe that pouring over lists creating the ultimate army, and min maxing points is part of that.

So if that is making people play less you go onto are there other issues?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 14:31:04


Post by: Dai


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.
id get a bit arsey too if some areogant little **** was calling me a bare faced liar.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 18:34:15


Post by: Hecaton


Dai wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.
id get a bit arsey too if some areogant little **** was calling me a bare faced liar.


If someone's telling everyone else they're playing the game wrong, and then gives an unworkable solution to fix that, it's a reasonable take.

It's funny how people who say "just have a conversation before the game" never have *actual* examples, they just say "this happens all the time."

Almost like they don't play that much or in the way they say they do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PenitentJake wrote:
Jake doesn't care about winning an argument- he's been playing 40k since '89 quite happily with friends and family outside of stores, and he's trying to tell people that they are free to choose the same thing rather than pissing and moaning on the internet.


Some of us have jobs that necessitate moving around a lot. And games where the rules don't suck and the community is less toxic than 40k are better for building communities and meeting people in new towns - where you don't have to negotiate the fething Treaty of Westphalia before having a pickup game. Moreover, your practice of shaming people who do run into trouble is toxic positivity, and you're clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it.

PenitentJake wrote:
If Jake cared about arguments on the internet, he'd probably do stupid things like assuming he understands people's motives better than they do, or assume they are lying about something, when really, he has no way of knowing one way or the other.


Well, you have done those "stupid things," when you assume that people don't try to solve the problems that this presents. The community doesn't allow for it.

PenitentJake wrote:
Quite frankly, if Bolter and Chainsword had finished it's migration yet, Jake wouldn't be here as often as he has been for the past two weeks, and you wouldn't have to worry about Jake at all... And he'd be pretty happy about that, because his tolerance for whiners is wearing thin.


People who think Dakka is full of whiners always crack me up. What, are you mad someone dared to criticize GW's rules writing? It's such a subservient viewpoint I can't have respect for it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 19:25:18


Post by: ccs


Hecaton wrote:


PenitentJake wrote:
If Jake cared about arguments on the internet, he'd probably do stupid things like assuming he understands people's motives better than they do, or assume they are lying about something, when really, he has no way of knowing one way or the other.


Well, you have done those "stupid things," when you assume that people don't try to solve the problems that this presents. The community doesn't allow for it.


No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 19:43:50


Post by: Andykp


ccs wrote:
Hecaton wrote:


PenitentJake wrote:
If Jake cared about arguments on the internet, he'd probably do stupid things like assuming he understands people's motives better than they do, or assume they are lying about something, when really, he has no way of knowing one way or the other.


Well, you have done those "stupid things," when you assume that people don't try to solve the problems that this presents. The community doesn't allow for it.


No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.




Amen. Hecaton falls definitely into the group on here who can’t imagine anything outside their own experience.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 20:00:48


Post by: Hecaton


ccs wrote:

No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.


Neither does the portion of the community other people are in, else they'd have specific examples.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 20:31:54


Post by: Andykp


Hecaton wrote:
ccs wrote:

No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.


Neither does the portion of the community other people are in, else they'd have specific examples.


Here you go then matey,

Playing a game of 9th my necrons vs mates craftworlders. We were making army lists and he said he was making his force a scouting type recon force. Lots of rangers and bikes. I had been making an army of lots of infantry and very much a slow moving relentless type force. I said I liked the idea of two recon types forces meeting in no man’s land so I scrapped my army list and made another with lots of canoptek stuff and scarabs, vanguard of a necron army and told him I was doing it.

Before we had finish getting our models out we had a full back story to the game and a simple mission made up. Deployed our armies had a great game that was fast moving carnage. Nothing tailored to beat the other, just thematic fun. I can’t even remember who won, just that it was fun.

I even “allowed” him to go over the PL so he could squeeze in his new warlock on bike model. Just cos we both liked it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 21:11:43


Post by: Hecaton


Andykp wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
ccs wrote:

No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.


Neither does the portion of the community other people are in, else they'd have specific examples.


Here you go then matey,

Playing a game of 9th my necrons vs mates craftworlders. We were making army lists and he said he was making his force a scouting type recon force. Lots of rangers and bikes. I had been making an army of lots of infantry and very much a slow moving relentless type force. I said I liked the idea of two recon types forces meeting in no man’s land so I scrapped my army list and made another with lots of canoptek stuff and scarabs, vanguard of a necron army and told him I was doing it.

Before we had finish getting our models out we had a full back story to the game and a simple mission made up. Deployed our armies had a great game that was fast moving carnage. Nothing tailored to beat the other, just thematic fun. I can’t even remember who won, just that it was fun.

I even “allowed” him to go over the PL so he could squeeze in his new warlock on bike model. Just cos we both liked it.


So there was absolutely no consideration to balance or correcting for GW's out-of-whack rules writing. Got it. What you're describing isn't relevant to this discussion, really, as PenitentJake was describing a situation in which players are trying to create a *fair* game. And there's no reason you couldn't have done it with points.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 22:14:01


Post by: JNAProductions


Yeah-that sounds cool, but it doesn’t at all sound like an attempt to balance anything. Just adding some theme to a game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 23:31:10


Post by: ccs


Hecaton wrote:
ccs wrote:

No, the portion of the community you're in doesn't allow that.


Neither does the portion of the community other people are in, else they'd have specific examples.


What do you want? A notarized audio file of a conversation between a couple of reasonable people? It's not that exciting. There's not much to tell. We agreed that x needed fixing & fixed it. The take away isn't what we decided though. It's that outside of the tourney environment we can discuss things & reach an agreement that suits those playing.







If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 23:49:17


Post by: Andykp


Oh we’ve done that too, adding extra rules to wyches in 8th because they could kill much, used a rule like shiuriken catapults to have extra Ap on 6s.

Lots of tweaks to ORKS since 3rd edition to stop them being so 1 dimensional. Changing weapon rules to make them fit better with how they should feel, change a D6 shot battle cannon to d3+3 or d6+ something. If surging a game such a change is too much it shows and we won’t do it again or tone it down.

Always messing with mission rules, never really play a stock mission, it’s always tweaked to suit us more. Unbalanced forces make for some great narrative games, the underdog troops making a last stand against overwhelming odds is cool.

For most part balancing changes is just what you do and don’t take in your army. Another mate didn’t have much I the way of anti armour stuff in his new chaos army for a while, so wouldn’t take much in the way of armour to give him a chance and make the games fun. When I started out with my primaris only marines they’re were gals in the range which meant my opponents could’ve easily tailored their armies to exploit these but instead we did the opposite and tailored are armies to to make games closer.

Loads of war and stuff like has to be discussed before. While writing lists we’d ask if they were taking x or y and you’d happily tell them.

The theme stuff is balance too, if you take an army theme and it’s very “weak” or “strong” you will let your opponent know wand agree the kinds of armies so they evenly matched or at least make sense.

We use tons of home brew units and rules too. Stuff we liked from older editions. I make datfaxes for units we convert up.

It doesn’t always work, sometimes you get it wrong and it’s a mess but for the most part, even when we’ve got it wrong it throws great narrative moments.

I don’t think we have played a game where we haven’t altered some rules and adapted our lists to suit each other’s armies better.

I wouldn’t say balance is always the aim, more that everyone involved has fun- and they aren’t the same thing at all. And all done with power levels since they started.

I must admit some of you sound like you would be dull as paint to play against. Just wanting to set up and start rolling dice without a word said by the sound of it.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/14 23:52:25


Post by: Hecaton


ccs wrote:

What do you want? A notarized audio file of a conversation between a couple of reasonable people? It's not that exciting. There's not much to tell. We agreed that x needed fixing & fixed it. The take away isn't what we decided though. It's that outside of the tourney environment we can discuss things & reach an agreement that suits those playing.


I gave my example.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 01:52:54


Post by: PenitentJake


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Jake also does an awful lot of calling people whiners in the same post he asserts that the way they play is wrong.

After all, if you don't play with friends and family outside of stores, you're not doing 40k right.


If suggesting that people try a 25 PL crusade at home with a friend is telling people they're playing wrong, then every time you've suggested someone play Command and Conquer, or 4th ed, or Dust, you're also telling people they're playing wrong.

Now, I will say that perhaps my use of the word "Whiner" was a bit heavy handed. It doesn't happen often, and certainly not "an awful lot" and usually when it does, it's a response to direct provocation- which it was in this case, as others have pointed out. This is my 2130th post, so 1% of that would be 21 posts- I challenge you to find that many where I've called someone a whiner, or been offensive. Then find out how many of those comments I later returned and apologized for, like I'm doing now.

But for what it's worth, to anyone I've offended by using the word "whiner" I apologize, and I'll do my best to avoid in the future for the sake of the Dakka community.

With that in mind, I'm going to try one last time to respond to some of the subsequent discussion posted by Hecaton, and I'll do my best to keep it civil.




Hecaton wrote:


If someone's telling everyone else they're playing the game wrong, and then gives an unworkable solution to fix that, it's a reasonable take.


So first, I'm going to explain the assumptions I'm making.

Given the context, I assume that the "someone" you're referring to is me, and that the "unworkable solution" you're referring to is the swapping IN of troops equipped with specials and heavies when you're faced with an army that is at an obvious advantage, or swapping OUT of troops equipped with specials and heavies when you're faced with an army that is at a disadvantage.

I recognize though, that by generalizing, you are indicating that you've seen similar types of arguments before, possibly even from other people, and that you're kind of responding to those posts too. And that's a fair game- I do it all the time, because after reading 3 pages of posts, even when you're quoting only one person, you're probably also responding to somewhat similar posts by others.

Now clearly my proposed solution won't work for all cases, because sometimes a lack of specials and heavies ISN'T actually what's causing the imbalance. Usually even in cases where it doesn't work, it still moves the game somewhat closer to balance.

I find it encouraging that you yourself said this:

Hecaton wrote:
PenitentJake was describing a situation in which players are trying to create a *fair* game. And there's no reason you couldn't have done it with points.


Because if you're implying that swapping load out and taking a points handicap as result is something that can be done, then it sounds like you're implying that the load out modification has some some potential to bring a game closer to balance. It's hard to say for sure that this is what you're implying though, because you use the pronoun "you" in the second sentence, so you may be implying that Andykyp could have just as easily played his Craftworld Scout vs. Necron Scout game with points.

I won't assume which of those two scenarios is correct- you can clarify if you want, but it's by no means required.


Hecaton wrote:

It's funny how people who say "just have a conversation before the game" never have *actual* examples, they just say "this happens all the time."

Almost like they don't play that much or in the way they say they do.


I will be the first to admit that I don't play as often as many if not most of the people on Dakka- ESPECIALLY the ones who are in leagues, or campaigns run at stores- there's no way I play as often as those dudes, and I've said so on more than one occasion. I've also certainly never claimed anything to the contrary, though I admit that one or two of my posts my have been worded vaguely enough that someone could be forgiven for making that assumption. For example, I frequently state that I've been playing since '89, and I could see how someone might equate that statement with playing often.

So to clarify:

In my entire history with the game, I've played in 2 tournaments back in 2008. I've NEVER played 40k in a store.
I worked at a youth center from 96-98 and ran the center from 98-01. I ran narrative campaigns for both 40k and classic Necromunda 3-5 nights per week, and my entire collection lived at the center at that time so that the kids, many of whom did not have the means, could use my models to play.

The biggest battle I've ever played in was a 6 player 3 on 3 Apocalypse game with 9k points per side - that would have probably been 2008.

In 9th?

I've only ever played Crusade, not yet more than 25PL, though the rosters for each of my Crusades and my collection(s) of models is far larger. I've played Death Watch and Sisters with an without Inquisition allies, and I even once played a pure Inquisition detachment. I've also played GSC, CSM (technically Cultists using some BSF antagonists to create a detachment) and Drukhari. In total, I've played about 8 games. Every single game has been fun for both my opponent and myself.

I've had 3 different opponents: one is my partner, another is a friend I met through work- the husband of a colleague, and the third is one of the kids who used to play at the center I ran- he's all grown up now.

I have never, ever claimed otherwise. If you have assumed something different because the posts that you were responding to did not clearly state my experience, I get that- I have rolled this information out several times in my history as both a Dakkanaught and a Frater, but I don't do it every post because it doesn't always strike me as relevant.

Now that you know EXACTLY how I play, you can see how WILDLY different our experiences of the game are, and it's probably why we disagree as often as we do.

Both of our "ways to play" are equally valid. Mine makes me and my opponent happy... Every time. Your way to play doesn't sound like it makes you happy. Ever.

If I suggest that you try playing the way I play, that is not me telling you you are playing wrong- it is literally me saying "Dude, I've never played a game I didn't enjoy, so if you're having a hard time having fun, you might consider trying it and seeing if it works for you too."

Seriously. If you have a friend who is a nerd, but has never played 40k because they don't want to invest in an army and you have a collection that is big enough to build two, 25 PL forces, teach that friend how to play on your kitchen table or theirs. It might not be your preferred style of play, and in fact it might even be so different from what you think of as 40k that it actually feels like a whole new game that happens to be set in the 40k galaxy.

And I can understand that you want the 2k pick-up game in a store to be fun, and that it currently might not be fun. This is a reasonable expectation, and it is something that GW should work towards. I have never claimed otherwise- because again, suggesting that you try a 25 PL game at home with a friend when you're clearly not having fun playing 2k matched in a store is NOT saying "You're playing wrong", nor is it excusing the state of the 2k Matched game that you are complaining about. If you've already tried it and it didn't work, sorry for assuming you hadn't tried it yet, but since I've never seen you post about trying it and not liking it, I feel that my assumptions is at least understandable, if not forgivable.

Before we move on to my specific stories of swaps, I want to address one more thing: Often when people suggest ways to improve the 2k matched game, their suggestions are valid for improving 2k matched games, but they would completely destroy my way of playing. I've seen people suggest everything from removing ALL strats (common), consolidating factions by removing units (common), eliminating subfaction rules (less common), eliminating ways to play (less common), eliminating entire factions (rare), or completely blowing up the game and starting over (uncommon). Now I fully admit and concede that all of these can be valid solutions for improving the 2k Matched game in stores... But ALL of these suggestions absolutely destroy my way of playing, which I will remind you is currently RAW book legal and just as "valid" as 2k matched.

So when somebody makes one of these suggestions, I do tend to speak up about it, because I would prefer GW fix 2k Matched in a way that DOESN'T destroy 25PL Crusade since I am currently having more fun with 40k than I ever have. And so far, they mostly have, because all the rules changes I have hated (aircraft limit, no mixing subfactions, Ro3, etc) have been restricted to Matched Play.

Okay... so now we are down to the specific PL equipment swaps that have happened in actual 8th edition games I have played:

The most common is removing my Armorium Cherubs from my Retributors when my opponent's army isn't threatening enough that I need those extra shots- that's happened twice: once against Chaos Cultists, once against GSC. I included them, in my list because I was positive my opponent would choose to use the Venomcrawler and they didn't, and once because I thought they'd bring a Ridgerunner and they didn't. I also often swap Simulacra in or out based on need- I tend to pick faith bolstering abilities, so in a 25 PL game when I'm stacked with MD generating subfaction rules, WL traits and Relics, I can really lay the AoF down.

The one game I fielded an Inquisition detachment, I swapped in 2 meltaguns to each Accolyte unit, because my opponent DID choose the Venomcrawler in that game.

And I once switched the Aggressor load out in my DW Indomitor kill team from Boltstorm gauntlets to flamers because he swarmed me with Cultists.


Hecaton wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
PenitentJake wrote:
Jake doesn't care about winning an argument- he's been playing 40k since '89 quite happily with friends and family outside of stores, and he's trying to tell people that they are free to choose the same thing rather than pissing and moaning on the internet.


Some of us have jobs that necessitate moving around a lot. And games where the rules don't suck and the community is less toxic than 40k are better for building communities and meeting people in new towns - where you don't have to negotiate the fething Treaty of Westphalia before having a pickup game. Moreover, your practice of shaming people who do run into trouble is toxic positivity, and you're clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it.


First off: yes, your situation of moving around often will make it harder for you to try my suggestions, and yes, I now understand the reason why you need the 2k Matched game to be improved as much as you do. This is valid- I hear you, and I understand your point of view.

Second, I can see how you would se the "pissing and moaning" as shaming... and it does sound that way. But allow me to remind you that BEFORE the post you quoted, you said these things to me:

"Your conversation above is entirely farcical, and doesn't apply to 40k"
"No. Mine actually happened. Jake's is just what he *wishes* was true because it would allow him to win an argument."

These two statements are the reason I may have come across as a little shamey and a little fed up. If you want me not to say things seem harsh, you might consider being a little friendlier too.

It's worth mentioning that AFTER I made the statement you quoted, you went on to say this:

"It's such a subservient viewpoint I can't have respect for it."

For what it's worth, I am writing this post now to address my tone, and to respond to your request for specific and detailed information about how I play and times when I've used loadout swaps in actual games with actual people. Do you still feel that I am "clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it?"

If you do, then I would humbly ask that you consider whether or not you are "clearly dancing around culpability for that to avoid copping to it" until and unless you address the three statements that you made.

Finally, here is the entire post I made that set this whole ugly chain of escalating anger in motion:

PenitentJake wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
The conversation of “Hey, can I follow the rules as written, or do I need to nerf myself beyond what’s already there?” Shouldn’t need to be had.

Points ain’t perfect-but they’re better than PL.


Nope. It usually goes something like this:

Player 1: Wow, you brought a lot of armour- I'm not sure I've got enough anti-tank to give you an interesting game.

Player 2: Yeah, if I had the rest of my collection here, I'd probably swap a unit or two.

Player 1: I brought a few extra heavy weapons- mind if I substitute them into a few of my TAC squads to give me a fighting chance?

... And then, you have to have discussions about points if that's what you're using- IE whether or not you're going to make the guy adjust his entire army in order to accommodate the extra cost of the heavy weapons. If you happen to be playing PL, you can skip that part of the conversation because swapping the gear doesn't change costs.


Now did you notice that the last lines of this post acknowledge that the same kind of swapping in a points based game IF AN OPPONENT AGREES TO DO SO?

It's okay if you missed it the first time- Gadzilla and Blackie didn't catch it either, but their responses where constructive, helpful and quite frankly awesome, and I think they helped us see each other eye to eye- and in fact all of that respectful dialogue and resolution occurred before your three statements I quoted above.

Anyway, cheers mate- I hope I've explained myself, and addressed my own lack of diplomacy as well as provided you with enough information about how I play, who I play, where I play and when I've swapped which models in, out and the reasons why I did it. If you and Unit don't find this post acceptable, well allow me to apologize in advance for that too- I'm not sure how much further I can go to accommodate and validate you, and my posts are so damn wall-of-text long that I'm not sure you'd want to read another one anyway. But let the record show I tried.

Peace brothers, and may this game, another version of it, or a different game entirely give you the satisfaction you seek.

Penitent out.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 06:12:11


Post by: Dudeface


Whilst that is a long ass post, massive respect for your demeanour and good will there Jake.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 06:13:41


Post by: Just Tony


Jidmah wrote:
 Just Tony wrote:
Tyel wrote:
I mean in Hecaton's example, "the talk" is just "can you please not play crusher stampede?"


Man do I miss the days when you didn't have to have a brunch discussion to get a game in. It used to be three things discussed: Game system, points size, any terrain that was potentially abnormal. Once in a while asking permission to use a named character.


Are you talking about 5th edition? Because my 5th edition's ork codex still has the 14 questions I had to ask my opponent before the game penned in it.


If you're looking for some "gotcha" moment that proves me wrong, try harder. And think back to any edition where pick up games happened repeatedly without a "social contract". I'll check back on you in a bit to see if you need led to it...

JNAProductions wrote:Yeah-that sounds cool, but it doesn’t at all sound like an attempt to balance anything. Just adding some theme to a game.


For the Narrative At All Cost players that IS fixing the balance, usually by eliminating it completely.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 06:25:11


Post by: Hecaton


PenitentJake wrote:
So to clarify:

In my entire history with the game, I've played in 2 tournaments back in 2008. I've NEVER played 40k in a store.
I worked at a youth center from 96-98 and ran the center from 98-01. I ran narrative campaigns for both 40k and classic Necromunda 3-5 nights per week, and my entire collection lived at the center at that time so that the kids, many of whom did not have the means, could use my models to play.

The biggest battle I've ever played in was a 6 player 3 on 3 Apocalypse game with 9k points per side - that would have probably been 2008.

In 9th?

I've only ever played Crusade, not yet more than 25PL, though the rosters for each of my Crusades and my collection(s) of models is far larger. I've played Death Watch and Sisters with an without Inquisition allies, and I even once played a pure Inquisition detachment. I've also played GSC, CSM (technically Cultists using some BSF antagonists to create a detachment) and Drukhari. In total, I've played about 8 games. Every single game has been fun for both my opponent and myself.

I've had 3 different opponents: one is my partner, another is a friend I met through work- the husband of a colleague, and the third is one of the kids who used to play at the center I ran- he's all grown up now.

I have never, ever claimed otherwise. If you have assumed something different because the posts that you were responding to did not clearly state my experience, I get that- I have rolled this information out several times in my history as both a Dakkanaught and a Frater, but I don't do it every post because it doesn't always strike me as relevant.

Now that you know EXACTLY how I play, you can see how WILDLY different our experiences of the game are, and it's probably why we disagree as often as we do.


Ok. So your method of play is entirely inapplicable to basically everyone else, but you're acting like it applies. You are only using a fraction of the rules breadth of 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Just Tony wrote:
For the Narrative At All Cost players that IS fixing the balance, usually by eliminating it completely.


Yup. Most players don't find a game with a predetermined outcome fun.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 06:39:08


Post by: Blackie


 Just Tony wrote:


If you're looking for some "gotcha" moment that proves me wrong, try harder. And think back to any edition where pick up games happened repeatedly without a "social contract". I'll check back on you in a bit to see if you need led to it...



Older editions didn't have many gotcha moments since factions' rules were a tiny fraction of what we have now. But pre-game talks were still necessary to tweak the players' lists and have a fair game. Just like now it was very possible, and easy, that one of the players had a much stronger list that needed to be countered somehow to get a balanced game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 07:07:21


Post by: Deadnight


 Blackie wrote:
 Just Tony wrote:


If you're looking for some "gotcha" moment that proves me wrong, try harder. And think back to any edition where pick up games happened repeatedly without a "social contract". I'll check back on you in a bit to see if you need led to it...



Older editions didn't have many gotcha moments since factions' rules were a tiny fraction of what we have now. But pre-game talks were still necessary to tweak the players' lists and have a fair game. Just like now it was very possible, and easy, that one of the players had a much stronger list that needed to be countered somehow to get a balanced game.


Going back further, the pre-game talk is almost assumed decorum for a lot of historical games and often still is. My friends wargamed back in the 70s and this is simply how it was done.

A further note is the original incarnation of 40k - rogue trader- has scope for a gm and this was kind of the expectation of things as well.

I remember when I got into 3rd Ed 40k and played my first games, we didn't have the 'negotiation phase' in our games. And 3rd was terribly balanced. Looking back, out games probably would have benefitted from that approach rather than the expectations that the game would be fine out of the box.but that's hindsight for you.

The 'pick-up game' is a relatively recent evolution in gaming.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 07:49:14


Post by: Dudeface


Hecaton wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
So to clarify:

In my entire history with the game, I've played in 2 tournaments back in 2008. I've NEVER played 40k in a store.
I worked at a youth center from 96-98 and ran the center from 98-01. I ran narrative campaigns for both 40k and classic Necromunda 3-5 nights per week, and my entire collection lived at the center at that time so that the kids, many of whom did not have the means, could use my models to play.

The biggest battle I've ever played in was a 6 player 3 on 3 Apocalypse game with 9k points per side - that would have probably been 2008.

In 9th?

I've only ever played Crusade, not yet more than 25PL, though the rosters for each of my Crusades and my collection(s) of models is far larger. I've played Death Watch and Sisters with an without Inquisition allies, and I even once played a pure Inquisition detachment. I've also played GSC, CSM (technically Cultists using some BSF antagonists to create a detachment) and Drukhari. In total, I've played about 8 games. Every single game has been fun for both my opponent and myself.

I've had 3 different opponents: one is my partner, another is a friend I met through work- the husband of a colleague, and the third is one of the kids who used to play at the center I ran- he's all grown up now.

I have never, ever claimed otherwise. If you have assumed something different because the posts that you were responding to did not clearly state my experience, I get that- I have rolled this information out several times in my history as both a Dakkanaught and a Frater, but I don't do it every post because it doesn't always strike me as relevant.

Now that you know EXACTLY how I play, you can see how WILDLY different our experiences of the game are, and it's probably why we disagree as often as we do.


Ok. So your method of play is entirely inapplicable to basically everyone else, but you're acting like it applies. You are only using a fraction of the rules breadth of 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Just Tony wrote:
For the Narrative At All Cost players that IS fixing the balance, usually by eliminating it completely.


Yup. Most players don't find a game with a predetermined outcome fun.


I mean ironically your method of play is entirely inapplicable to me too Hecaton, I'm at about 40 games played of 9th, with everything between crusade (25-55PL) and points matched play (500-2k) but I don't play tournament mission packs, I don't play hyper competitive lists, I have a stable group of players and we do talk beforehand if there's any adjustments we need to make for fair games. But you act like your world applies to everyone else as much, if not more, than Jake does.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 08:41:35


Post by: Overread


I feel like we aren't really talking about powerlevels and points but more about different playstyles and approaches to the game.




I think anyone stepping back and objectively looking at the game can agree that having a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models; then using a single value for a range of values is not an improvement on balance over using a more granular points system ot account for variation in mathematical values for each unit.


Simple put Power Levels ARE fundamentally a worse system. The only benefit they have is being simpler and quicker to add up. However I would argue that a big part of that isn't just that they are smaller numbers, but that they are on the unit profiles. GW at some point started writing codex in a very bad way. 3rd edition it was easy to point up a unit because points and upgrade costs were on the unit profile along with their stats and abilities. It was all in one space in the book.

Today a unit might require you to look on multiple pages to find that information. You have to cross reference multiple pages per unit which slows down and makes the process feel more complicated. It makes points less easy to use because you're checking more pages, wasting more time, getting lost. Heck I recall one edition had stats infront and behind the colour photo pages in the middle. Not even keeping rules in one section of the book.



It's no surprise to me that some end up wanting to use powerlevels as its information presented so neatly and easily to use. On the surface, PL is better presented and easier to use. It masks the inherent inbalances that it introduces whereby it then hinges heavily on local pre-game setup to impose some restriction, structure or no structure at all upon how players use PL.
Which is where we fall into the trap of endlessly debating/arguing over how to use them. Because some care and some don't care about balance.










Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 09:15:03


Post by: Tyel


 Overread wrote:
Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


I think the issue is also that you've got two types of imbalance - neither of which are really fixed by swapping points to PL.

I.E. "I'm bringing Tyranid Warriors"/"I'm bringing Heavy Intercessor" - oh look, you seem to get a lot more bang for your buck with the first over the second. You'd expect the Tyranid Player to win as a result. Its not however clear Tyranid Warriors should be better point for point than Heavy Intercessors - so this seems like imbalance.
vs
"I'm running a wall of tanks/knights etc"/"I've not brought enough anti-tank units". Well you'd expect the tank player to have an advantage and win as a result. And in this case its not "imbalance" exactly, just a skew producing a potentially bad/un-fun game.

And really, the former can be resolved by points, the second probably can't. It need to be resolved in how you can select an army. But equally, some people will want to run knights/pure mech armies. Some people might want to run 3 Tervigons+180 termagants. Some people won't be bothered by the challenge of running into such an army while others will be.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 09:19:48


Post by: vict0988


A lot of people care about their unit's cost-effectiveness and PL encourages ripping models apart to an extreme extent because the cost-effectiveness disparity is crystal clear when you have bolter for 0 pts and stormbolter for 0 pts. Even if 2 pts would be more fair and the price is 1 or 5 that's still better than nothing because at least you can feel good about saving that 1 pt or you can feel good about having a better gun even if you overpaid. The only time pts can be worse than PL is when the bad gun costs more than the good gun, which does happen once in an embarrassing while, but for most datasheets pts are a great thing.
 Overread wrote:
GW at some point started writing codex in a very bad way. 3rd edition it was easy to point up a unit because points and upgrade costs were on the unit profile along with their stats and abilities. It was all in one space in the book.

Today a unit might require you to look on multiple pages to find that information. You have to cross reference multiple pages per unit which slows down and makes the process feel more complicated. It makes points less easy to use because you're checking more pages, wasting more time, getting lost. Heck I recall one edition had stats infront and behind the colour photo pages in the middle.

True for 8th, but it's not that bad in 9th. I think moving the wargear and options sections from the datasheet to the points section such instead of:

Canoptek Wraiths {pg 103)
Unit size ........................................................................................................ 3-6 models
Unit cost... ................................................................................................. 35 pts/model
• Particle caster ............................................................................................... +5 pts
• Transdimensional beamer ..................................................................... + 10 pts

It becomes

Canoptek Wraiths {pg 103)
Unit size ........................................................................................................ 3-6 models. Every model is equipped with: vicious claws.
Unit cost... ................................................................................................. 35 pts/model
• Any number of models can each be equipped with one of the following: 1 particle caster +5 pts; 1 transdimensional beamer + 10 pts.
• Any number of models can each have their vicious claws replaced with whip coils.

Would help a little more and the best option is what Wahapedia has, but if you're using an app to make your list it really doesn't matter. Having the special rules mixed between art and lore instead of in an appendix and having stats in 3 places in older editions made them just as bad.
Tyel wrote:
"I'm running a wall of tanks/knights etc"/"I've not brought enough anti-tank units". Well you'd expect the tank player to have an advantage and win as a result. And in this case its not "imbalance" exactly, just a skew producing a potentially bad/un-fun game.

This should be fixed by missions. For tournament missions where you don't want people to win because they skewed in the right direction based on luck you punish skew, if you want a game to feature a lot of tanks pick a mission that encourages tanks, if one player skews the other direction they'll be punished by the mission but might come out ahead because they won't be vulnerable to all the enemy's anti-tank guns.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 09:20:29


Post by: Overread


Tyel wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


I think the issue is also that you've got two types of imbalance - neither of which are really fixed by swapping points to PL.

I.E. "I'm bringing Tyranid Warriors"/"I'm bringing Heavy Intercessor" - oh look, you seem to get a lot more bang for your buck with the first over the second. You'd expect the Tyranid Player to win as a result. Its not however clear Tyranid Warriors should be better point for point than Heavy Intercessors - so this seems like imbalance.
vs
"I'm running a wall of tanks/knights etc"/"I've not brought enough anti-tank units". Well you'd expect the tank player to have an advantage and win as a result. And in this case its not "imbalance" exactly, just a skew producing a potentially bad/un-fun game.

And really, the former can be resolved by points, the second probably can't. It need to be resolved in how you can select an army. But equally, some people will want to run knights/pure mech armies. Some people might want to run 3 Tervigons+180 termagants. Some people won't be bothered by the challenge of running into such an army while others will be.


Agreed and part of the second type of imbalance I think can only be solved by things like unit limits and force organisation charts.

Avoiding skew lists is an issue for wargames because on the one front people like building varied and different lists; getting to use models they feel are cool and fun. No one wants to build a whole mechanised tank force and then have GW say "actually you can only use 2 tanks per army". Similarly someone bringing a whole tank army against a full infantry force that has only a standard amount of anti-tank, presents problems of its own.


It's hard, esp with a mature game where GW doesn't want to turn some people away with too many restrictions and where many armies are now getting quite big and have multiple units covering similar enough roles that they can be spammed as a theme even if you have limits like "rule of 3"


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 09:54:34


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Overread wrote:
Spoiler:
Tyel wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


I think the issue is also that you've got two types of imbalance - neither of which are really fixed by swapping points to PL.

I.E. "I'm bringing Tyranid Warriors"/"I'm bringing Heavy Intercessor" - oh look, you seem to get a lot more bang for your buck with the first over the second. You'd expect the Tyranid Player to win as a result. Its not however clear Tyranid Warriors should be better point for point than Heavy Intercessors - so this seems like imbalance.
vs
"I'm running a wall of tanks/knights etc"/"I've not brought enough anti-tank units". Well you'd expect the tank player to have an advantage and win as a result. And in this case its not "imbalance" exactly, just a skew producing a potentially bad/un-fun game.

And really, the former can be resolved by points, the second probably can't. It need to be resolved in how you can select an army. But equally, some people will want to run knights/pure mech armies. Some people might want to run 3 Tervigons+180 termagants. Some people won't be bothered by the challenge of running into such an army while others will be.


Agreed and part of the second type of imbalance I think can only be solved by things like unit limits and force organisation charts.

Avoiding skew lists is an issue for wargames because on the one front people like building varied and different lists; getting to use models they feel are cool and fun. No one wants to build a whole mechanised tank force and then have GW say "actually you can only use 2 tanks per army". Similarly someone bringing a whole tank army against a full infantry force that has only a standard amount of anti-tank, presents problems of its own.


It's hard, esp with a mature game where GW doesn't want to turn some people away with too many restrictions and where many armies are now getting quite big and have multiple units covering similar enough roles that they can be spammed as a theme even if you have limits like "rule of 3"


The key issue here is though, that there is such a thing as having too much options for a given task, aka skewing gets rewarded through missions and terrain instead of punished.
A good designed wargame especially mechanically in regards to terrain, unittype diversification and mission structure, would force players to bring not nearly as much skew as to become problematic.
I think its relative fair to assume that 40k isn't doing a good job there imo.
Then there is also an issue with certain factions and their design, cue current era knights, that can't work in an wargame above described but are made to fit 40k.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 10:31:55


Post by: Overread


I agree its the same issue as when GW added dedicated air units to the game instead of hovering ones. The issue back then was again that the dedicated air unit needed dedicated anti-air to function and suddenly a layer of choice became mandatory and skewing very broken.

They've changed it up now, but Knights are in a similar spot in that they bring to the table a very specific set of weapons and armours that are unlike anything else.


Personally I think knights could work better, but the way to do it would be to make them more complex as an individual model. So instead of just a flat health bar and high armour; give them varied armours and healthbars over the whole unit. So if you didn't bring loads of anti-heavy armour you could still cripple them by shooting out weaker parts and subsystems and such.


But honestly that starts to become heavy on paper and much more tricky to work when you also have to take knights as attachments in regular armies; and when regular armies can do things like bringing 4 Keepers of Secrets (or indeed any multiple great demon); which are functionally similar to knights.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 10:55:06


Post by: PenitentJake


Hecaton wrote:

You are only using a fraction of the rules breadth of 40k.


As are you.

And thanks for owning up to those three pieces I quoted that where responsible for my ill will.

That was big of you, and certainly helped promote peace going forward.




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 12:18:30


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Overread wrote:
I agree its the same issue as when GW added dedicated air units to the game instead of hovering ones. The issue back then was again that the dedicated air unit needed dedicated anti-air to function and suddenly a layer of choice became mandatory and skewing very broken.

They've changed it up now, but Knights are in a similar spot in that they bring to the table a very specific set of weapons and armours that are unlike anything else.

TBF, GW could've just added the caveat that all missile launchers get AA missiles. Bam done, most armies now have effective AA adn you managed to make a weapon that often wasn't taken an viable choice.


Personally I think knights could work better, but the way to do it would be to make them more complex as an individual model. So instead of just a flat health bar and high armour; give them varied armours and healthbars over the whole unit. So if you didn't bring loads of anti-heavy armour you could still cripple them by shooting out weaker parts and subsystems and such.


But honestly that starts to become heavy on paper and much more tricky to work when you also have to take knights as attachments in regular armies; and when regular armies can do things like bringing 4 Keepers of Secrets (or indeed any multiple great demon); which are functionally similar to knights.

Far too complicated, if they'd instead get a rule that big knights could be Super heavies and warlords, aswell as a full list, with feudal tech levies, even smaller bots as elite and FA and the Heavy support and Super heavy + HQ slot being reserved for knights you'd have still a functional army, with the units to support the knights aswell more adaptable.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 12:21:57


Post by: Andykp


 Overread wrote:
I feel like we aren't really talking about powerlevels and points but more about different playstyles and approaches to the game.




I think anyone stepping back and objectively looking at the game can agree that having a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models; then using a single value for a range of values is not an improvement on balance over using a more granular points system ot account for variation in mathematical values for each unit.


Simple put Power Levels ARE fundamentally a worse system. The only benefit they have is being simpler and quicker to add up. However I would argue that a big part of that isn't just that they are smaller numbers, but that they are on the unit profiles. GW at some point started writing codex in a very bad way. 3rd edition it was easy to point up a unit because points and upgrade costs were on the unit profile along with their stats and abilities. It was all in one space in the book.

Today a unit might require you to look on multiple pages to find that information. You have to cross reference multiple pages per unit which slows down and makes the process feel more complicated. It makes points less easy to use because you're checking more pages, wasting more time, getting lost. Heck I recall one edition had stats infront and behind the colour photo pages in the middle. Not even keeping rules in one section of the book.



It's no surprise to me that some end up wanting to use powerlevels as its information presented so neatly and easily to use. On the surface, PL is better presented and easier to use. It masks the inherent inbalances that it introduces whereby it then hinges heavily on local pre-game setup to impose some restriction, structure or no structure at all upon how players use PL.
Which is where we fall into the trap of endlessly debating/arguing over how to use them. Because some care and some don't care about balance.










Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


This is a big pile of assumptions and misconceptions. Points aren’t better than power levels or visa versa. The game to me and many isn’t about “ a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models” it’s a game about using your models to create stories and history or narrative and characters. The maths and the the other stuff is just a means to an end.

There isn’t a best system, there is a system that suits some people more than others. Tournament types like points that can be tweaked and adjusted to get the maximum efficiency out of each unit, I like power levels as it give a vague approximation of the armies size so you can aim a level of parity on measured disparity but, I don’t care if a certain gun is 2 points more than another or if it dropped by a point could squeeze in another model.

Points to me are just a lot of wasted time adding stuff up that makes little to no difference and then they go and change them again because some bloke I never met won a competition with that unit. Not better but worse, FOR ME. it’s subjective. For some having no costing system at all and just playing what ever models they fancy works great.

And this myth that a game needs to balanced out the box to be fun is so annoying. Keep chasing balance and you end up with chess, but even then someone gets to go first! Chess is a fine game but not what I play 40k for, I play it for a laugh and a story.

I remember the move from the whacky and unbalanced but amazing fun second edition, to the stripped down and streamlined 3rd edition, and balance was a huge driver in those changes and it sucked all the life and character out of the game.

Now they to create balance and character but the game has so many more units and factions so all they end up with complexity. So you cannot say the game would be better for EVERYONE if it was more balanced, because I have seen them do that and it was worse. FOR ME.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 13:05:08


Post by: Overread


Andykp wrote:

This is a big pile of assumptions and misconceptions. Points aren’t better than power levels or visa versa. The game to me and many isn’t about “ a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models” it’s a game about using your models to create stories and history or narrative and characters. The maths and the the other stuff is just a means to an end.



The maths is indeed the means to the end, so having good maths - ergo balance - means a better means to a better potential end.
You can't ignore the maths if you are using or modifying the game rules; its a mathematical game. It runs on maths.

You can use that mathematical structure to play competitive games; narrative games; retell great stories; create new stories; have adventures and it all.



Having better core balance in the game means that when you come to play a narrative game your units still have a style and feel and impact, but now they have a more measured performance. This means you can do funky stuff and have some idea how it will affect things. You can have one player take more models or more models of a certain kind and have a better idea how it might pan out on the tabletop. You can have that last-chance stand where its your army VS an opponent with twice as many models where you fight it out to see how long you can last. Better balance won't spoil that in the least.


Honestly better balance in the game is a net gain for all users as a base line to work from. What you do with it after that is up to you, but the best most common baseline is a balanced game. From there you can add your own imbalances; adjust balance; mess with things. Heck you can ignore latter updates as they will likely only be minor shifts and changes that won't really affect your game if you are totally focused on narrative and don't care that a few units have shifted up and down in points by a bit.



You can't build a game system around not caring about the mechanics and have it work for the majority of people. The only way you can kind of get that to work is though something like DnD where the mechanics run through a human filter - the DM - who interprets the results and uses them to create the game. Even there there are efforts to make the game balanced; to have level ups that aren't broken and the like.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 16:01:52


Post by: Andykp


Whether or not balance is better depends on the changes made for the sake of that balance, for the most part they aren’t good for how I play the game.

Take the 2nd to 3rd edition changes. (Which you ignored in your post). They were the biggest change to the game ever and done for balance. They stripped all character from the game and it’s taken years to come back in and is still no where near close.

So was 3rd more balanced than 2nd, clearly yes. Was it better? That’s subjective, which is my point. But FOR ME, it was much much worse.

On top of that I play ORKS mostly, they were hit hardest by the changes and went from brimming with character to zero in an instant. They were more balanced but dull. Balance, much much much worse for me.

It’s not universal, some changes for balance will be beneficial, more so for some players. I’m sure there is someone out there who loved the changes from 2nd to 3rd. Not me.

Power levels give me the mechanics to easily create my own units and rules. Costing a homemade unit was always the toughest part. PL make it simple.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 16:37:33


Post by: Arschbombe


Andykp wrote:
.
Take the 2nd to 3rd edition changes. (Which you ignored in your post). They were the biggest change to the game ever and done for balance. They stripped all character from the game and it’s taken years to come back in and is still no where near close.


That's a take I hadn't seen before. The transition from 2nd to 3rd, from a skirmish size game to a bigger battle game had previously been explained as a sales move. Supposedly the studio had submitted a slightly revised version of 2nd and management rejected it because it didn't increase the model counts in the armies. So, as GW also produced historical rulesets at that time, they grabbed a ruleset that was developed for WWII and hastily 40kified it. If the resulting game turned out to be more balanced than the previous edition, then it was probably just a byproduct of that era's "index 40k" with all the army lists in the main rulebook and not because they specifically set out to make a more balanced game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 16:42:00


Post by: catbarf


Overread wrote:I think anyone stepping back and objectively looking at the game can agree that having a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models; then using a single value for a range of values is not an improvement on balance over using a more granular points system ot account for variation in mathematical values for each unit.

Simple put Power Levels ARE fundamentally a worse system. The only benefit they have is being simpler and quicker to add up. However I would argue that a big part of that isn't just that they are smaller numbers, but that they are on the unit profiles. GW at some point started writing codex in a very bad way. 3rd edition it was easy to point up a unit because points and upgrade costs were on the unit profile along with their stats and abilities. It was all in one space in the book.

Today a unit might require you to look on multiple pages to find that information. You have to cross reference multiple pages per unit which slows down and makes the process feel more complicated. It makes points less easy to use because you're checking more pages, wasting more time, getting lost. Heck I recall one edition had stats infront and behind the colour photo pages in the middle. Not even keeping rules in one section of the book.

It's no surprise to me that some end up wanting to use powerlevels as its information presented so neatly and easily to use. On the surface, PL is better presented and easier to use. It masks the inherent inbalances that it introduces whereby it then hinges heavily on local pre-game setup to impose some restriction, structure or no structure at all upon how players use PL.
Which is where we fall into the trap of endlessly debating/arguing over how to use them. Because some care and some don't care about balance.


Exalted, because this is spot-on. The advantages of PL as a system aren't about balance, it's all about ease of use and how you approach the game.

Andykp wrote:Take the 2nd to 3rd edition changes. (Which you ignored in your post). They were the biggest change to the game ever and done for balance. They stripped all character from the game and it’s taken years to come back in and is still no where near close.

So was 3rd more balanced than 2nd, clearly yes. Was it better? That’s subjective, which is my point. But FOR ME, it was much much worse.


The points vs PL issue isn't directly related to GW's decision to strip out options for the sake of balance. Those have very little to do with one another. GW could decide that balance is all-important while embracing PL, or they could decide flavor is more important than balance while using points.

The difference is that if balance is a goal, points makes it easier to preserve all those weird flavorful options, because you can set an appropriate cost to them. If balance isn't a priority, GW could just as easily say 'we're not going to try balancing these, go nuts' and assign every upgrade a value of zero points, like they did with Infantry Squads, and presto, you have PL-style options and freedom. Under PL, if you want to balance out options, your only adjustment lever is changing their rules (or those of the unit that can take them). That's going to have more immediate impact on your game experience than changing costs. So even if you personally aren't super invested in competitive play, a points system provides more opportunity to tweak the game for the sake of balance while still supporting the options you find compelling.

More importantly, good balance does extend to all levels of play like Overread said- even if you use it just as a starting point to heuristically balance out two forces, it sure beats having no structure whatsoever and having to feel it out by trial and error. And balance isn't just about setting up your forces; it's about ensuring that units function in the way they should, and that outcomes are what you expect. It's not a good narrative experience if the desperate last stand is actually a one-sided stomp, nor is it good narrative when the melee specialists get butchered in melee by shooting specialists. Having more levers for balancing helps to avoid these situations (and curate a better play experience) without needing to start stripping out rules and losing flavor.

It should be telling that even when 40K was a narrative-focused game and tournaments were a ways off, it still had a points system to establish structure.

Andykp wrote:Power levels give me the mechanics to easily create my own units and rules. Costing a homemade unit was always the toughest part. PL make it simple.


Because the valuation is coarser- simpler, at the cost of precision. Deciding between 4PL or 5PL is no harder than deciding between 80pts or 100pts. The only reason points feel tougher is because you have the opportunity to set a more precise value; but if you want to make units quick-and-dirty there's nothing stopping you from rounding to increments of 20.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 17:33:15


Post by: vict0988


Not Online!!! wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Spoiler:
Tyel wrote:
 Overread wrote:
Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


I think the issue is also that you've got two types of imbalance - neither of which are really fixed by swapping points to PL.

I.E. "I'm bringing Tyranid Warriors"/"I'm bringing Heavy Intercessor" - oh look, you seem to get a lot more bang for your buck with the first over the second. You'd expect the Tyranid Player to win as a result. Its not however clear Tyranid Warriors should be better point for point than Heavy Intercessors - so this seems like imbalance.
vs
"I'm running a wall of tanks/knights etc"/"I've not brought enough anti-tank units". Well you'd expect the tank player to have an advantage and win as a result. And in this case its not "imbalance" exactly, just a skew producing a potentially bad/un-fun game.

And really, the former can be resolved by points, the second probably can't. It need to be resolved in how you can select an army. But equally, some people will want to run knights/pure mech armies. Some people might want to run 3 Tervigons+180 termagants. Some people won't be bothered by the challenge of running into such an army while others will be.


Agreed and part of the second type of imbalance I think can only be solved by things like unit limits and force organisation charts.

Avoiding skew lists is an issue for wargames because on the one front people like building varied and different lists; getting to use models they feel are cool and fun. No one wants to build a whole mechanised tank force and then have GW say "actually you can only use 2 tanks per army". Similarly someone bringing a whole tank army against a full infantry force that has only a standard amount of anti-tank, presents problems of its own.


It's hard, esp with a mature game where GW doesn't want to turn some people away with too many restrictions and where many armies are now getting quite big and have multiple units covering similar enough roles that they can be spammed as a theme even if you have limits like "rule of 3"


The key issue here is though, that there is such a thing as having too much options for a given task, aka skewing gets rewarded through missions and terrain instead of punished.
A good designed wargame especially mechanically in regards to terrain, unittype diversification and mission structure, would force players to bring not nearly as much skew as to become problematic.
I think its relative fair to assume that 40k isn't doing a good job there imo.
Then there is also an issue with certain factions and their design, cue current era knights, that can't work in an wargame above described but are made to fit 40k.

All it requires is that Knights are pretty bad and aren't particularly vulnerable to anti-tank. That way most lists can handle Knights. How do you make a vehicle durable against anti-tank? Give it an invuln and make its brackets meaningful (don't give them a 1CP ignore brackets Stratagem). If you're not playing an army that spams S4 then Knights haven't been an issue in most of 8th and 9th.
Andykp wrote:
I play it for a laugh and a story.

The story of "Iron Hands destroyed the Necrons turn 3 without suffering meaningful losses" becomes a boring story the third time it plays out in a row. PL isn't much better than just allowing each player to bring 100 wounds, you can use that as a starting point and then remove or replace stuff from one army until you find it appropriate to the scenario you want to play. It would also allow people to get to the exact number of wounds so the game is perfectly balanced (sarcasm) by adding one 1-4 extra Tempestus Scions to reach exactly 100 wounds.
Power levels give me the mechanics to easily create my own units and rules. Costing a homemade unit was always the toughest part. PL make it simple.

If you're not BSing me I'd appreciate if you could assign power levels to my fandex, from what I understand GW usually goes the opposite way so I am not sure how you can easily assign a PL to a unit. At first I assigned one of my units 30 pts/model, then I checked things over and had the radical idea that 20 pts/model actually might not be OP. I have no idea whether the unit should be PL 6 or 9.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 19:08:08


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Also 40k's core rules aren't good for storytelling


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 21:55:20


Post by: Deadnight


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Also 40k's core rules aren't good for storytelling


These days I'm primarily what you would call a narrative player. The storytelling aspect of a gane, for me, is its soul.

Youre not wrong, but i think what you've said is a bit backwards. Its not that 40ks core rules 'arent good for storytelling".

They're not good, period. (There's far better and far cleaner rules sets out there) For anything.

At best, 40k's rules provide an adequate foundation that you can build on with some work at the front end. And yes, a bit of care. Knowledge helps. Best you'll get is 'some things match up well against some other things under some circumstances. Ymmv'. And you'll need experience and a good understanding to know what those things are. (But imo that is in itself a worthwhile goal to aim for!)

Now I will add that while they're 'not good' for narrative from an objective pov, they're abjectly terrible for competitive play, blind PUGs etc as well. Gw's rules don't really work well out of the box. They never have. They need adjustments. Now in narrative gaming, where collaborative game-building is a thing, list-matching, as opposed to list-building-for-advantage, 'relative'- balancing, as opposed to 'absolute' balancing, unique home brews, house rules etc are a matter of course, putting in the effort up front is what you do anyway, the rules being 'not good' is less of a thing as it will simply be one more thing to adjust. Theyre foundational. Nothing more. Not absolutes and unquestionable dogma that cannot be deviated from. In my mind narrative gaming is probably the best, or at least, the least-bad approach to take with a rules set that as we all know is rather limited and flawed. Imo it opens up the game far more than competitive/chasing the meta dragon approach does, though this is with the caveat that yes, you absolutely need to have a veey good understanding of thr system (though like i said, this is a worthy aim to be anyway). In my experience this approach is why I still enjoy ttgs after 20 years while I've seen so many competitively focused, and competition-exclusive focused players burn out over far less time.

Now can you use other rules set to narrative-game? Of course! fundamentally it's simply mentally imposing the mechanical resolutions that play out within the theatre of the mind and sometimes saying it out loud. You can do this with any rules out there. Heck, we've done it with every system we have used over the last ten years - from lotr, flames of war, bolt action, Infinity, necromunda etc, various historicals etc. Plenty third party, opr kind of things and online fan-versions too.

Why use 40k's over the others? Familiarity, maybe? Ease of reference? At the end of the day whilst not great, theyre OK. 'They'll do'. At least as a foundational element that we can build on. I've played 40k for 20 years. We also enjoy the 40k-iverse and its sometimes easier to reference 40k things, and what you want 40k things to be in terms of those 40k rules that have been associated with them for so long. Other games I've played like ba and fow in a lot of ways strike me as having very similar dna in some instances to older editions of 40k (loved 2nd ed fow for its vehicle rules) or even being better versions od what 40k could have been. And other games like infinity or wmh just don't draw me in any more. Too much. Too... technical and involved i think. I genuinely have a mental block when it comes to infinity. Just can't get enthused about it. Or else the scope is... different/wrong for what we are after. Not that the rules are necessarily 'bad'.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/15 22:11:14


Post by: Hecaton


Dudeface wrote:

I mean ironically your method of play is entirely inapplicable to me too Hecaton, I'm at about 40 games played of 9th, with everything between crusade (25-55PL) and points matched play (500-2k) but I don't play tournament mission packs, I don't play hyper competitive lists, I have a stable group of players and we do talk beforehand if there's any adjustments we need to make for fair games. But you act like your world applies to everyone else as much, if not more, than Jake does.


I'm unclear as to how a more balanced game would be bad for your method of play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PenitentJake wrote:
Hecaton wrote:

You are only using a fraction of the rules breadth of 40k.


As are you.

And thanks for owning up to those three pieces I quoted that where responsible for my ill will.

That was big of you, and certainly helped promote peace going forward.




Huh? You're not making sense. You said a lot of things in your post that weren't meaningful. I'm not dead-set on 2k matched point games; I just want games to be *games*, rather than exercises where the outcome is pre-determined by talk before the game starts. In my experience that's very boring, and usually the result of a domineering "aggressively casual" personality engineering things so they can win all the time. Nothing about balance changes is going to destroy 25 PL Crusade play; in fact, more balance will only make them better. But some players - including, seemingly, you - hate the idea of the game being tweaked for balance, as it means the salient part of what determines who wins a game is how you play, and not what models you've bought, or who you've managed to bully into accepting what house rules, or whatever.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 01:59:52


Post by: PenitentJake


Hec, you are correct- better balnace Would improve 25 PL Crusade games as much as it would improve 2k matched. I do agree with that.

It's THE WAY people sometimes suggest achieving that balance that has the potential to wreck Crusade. I'm not saying all suggestions would... I've seen some really decent suggestions that I would not object to,

But I've also seen people suggest that for the sake of balance, the game needs to remove subfaction rules. This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me. I've waited since second for there to be a difference between Order of Our Martyred Lady and Sacred Rose... And it blows my mind that people would suggest undoing that to create a slightly better balance.

Certainly, not everyone is advocating for that. But some people are. There are other examples, but I want to keep this post a reasonable length.

Cheers.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 03:08:55


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me.


Honest question: why? If narrative is the goal and the heart of the game is the stories you tell about the events on the table why is it so essential that different sub-factions have different rules? And why by order/chapter/etc, not by squad? Why is each order/chapter/etc one-dimensional around a specific buff instead of having the full range of possibilities? Like, if I play Cadians I re-roll 1s when standing still but what if I want to play a more mobile force? Why do I have to pretend my Cadians are Tallarn, and if I can just use the Tallarn rules why have them faction-locked at all?

Coming from older editions where we still had plenty of narrative in our games I just don't get it. It all seems like complexity creep crossing into rules bloat to get into that level of detail on a game as large and diverse as 40k. Set balance arguments aside, why not remove them for design elegance reasons?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 03:48:23


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Yeah. A good example is 4th edition Imperial Guard, where they had choosable faction traits and then SUGGESTED traits for lore factions.

So Armageddon Steel Legion had Mechanized, Storm Troopers, Ratlings, Conscript Squads, and Xeno-fighters:Orks because of the Armageddon campaign.

But if you wanted to run a drop regiment recruited from Armageddon before the conflict with the Orks erupted? Swap out Mechanized for Drop Troops and Xeno-fighters:Orks for whatever you like. The game suggested the narrative to you, rather than mandating it.

Jake, you know how much I hate the current GW for their "play the army OUR WAY or don't play it at all" rules, including Crusade rules as well as faction rules.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 03:53:45


Post by: vict0988


PenitentJake wrote:
But I've also seen people suggest that for the sake of balance, the game needs to remove subfaction rules. This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me. I've waited since second for there to be a difference between Order of Our Martyred Lady and Sacred Rose... And it blows my mind that people would suggest undoing that to create a slightly better balance.

You can keep it for Crusade.

Chapter Tactics create unthematic incentives, Ultramarines without Assault Marines and White Scars without Devastators. It's not really fair to keep bringing up Iyanden since it has FINALLY been fixed and it rewards Wraithguard as much as Guardian hordes.

It's a hassle to have so many rules in the game, especially for new players or at the very least for the people teaching those new players.

And yes, the game might be easier to balance, although GW didn't balance the game in previous editions so this is a minor point and I would replace it with an equally unbalanced and equally thematic Stratagems and Relics, they'd just be unbalanced in different ways and the thematic aspects of the army would be expressed less and in different ways.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 04:40:11


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vict0988 wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
But I've also seen people suggest that for the sake of balance, the game needs to remove subfaction rules. This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me. I've waited since second for there to be a difference between Order of Our Martyred Lady and Sacred Rose... And it blows my mind that people would suggest undoing that to create a slightly better balance.

You can keep it for Crusade.

Chapter Tactics create unthematic incentives, Ultramarines without Assault Marines and White Scars without Devastators. It's not really fair to keep bringing up Iyanden since it has FINALLY been fixed and it rewards Wraithguard as much as Guardian hordes.

It's a hassle to have so many rules in the game, especially for new players or at the very least for the people teaching those new players.

And yes, the game might be easier to balance, although GW didn't balance the game in previous editions so this is a minor point and I would replace it with an equally unbalanced and equally thematic Stratagems and Relics, they'd just be unbalanced in different ways and the thematic aspects of the army would be expressed less and in different ways.

Disagree. While certain units don't gain anything period with Chapter Tactics (like Dual Chainsword Vanguard and Assault Terminators in Imperial Fists), the number is absurdly low for units that just gain nothing. Assault Marines leaving an unfavorable combat but still getting potshots with their pistols as Ultramarines is one example of a minor benefit. White Scars Devastators that didn't get totally annihilated on the charge might be able to fall back and then charge something else since they can't shoot anyway, so might as well do SOMETHING even if it's dinky Manlet Marine Melee.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 05:11:29


Post by: vict0988


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
Chapter Tactics create unthematic incentives, Ultramarines without Assault Marines and White Scars without Devastators. It's not really fair to keep bringing up Iyanden since it has FINALLY been fixed and it rewards Wraithguard as much as Guardian hordes.

Disagree. While certain units don't gain anything period with Chapter Tactics (like Dual Chainsword Vanguard and Assault Terminators in Imperial Fists), the number is absurdly low for units that just gain nothing. Assault Marines leaving an unfavorable combat but still getting potshots with their pistols as Ultramarines is one example of a minor benefit. White Scars Devastators that didn't get totally annihilated on the charge might be able to fall back and then charge something else since they can't shoot anyway, so might as well do SOMETHING even if it's dinky Manlet Marine Melee.

Do you think Ultramarines are incentivised to take melee units?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 05:47:25


Post by: Blndmage


 vict0988 wrote:
PL isn't much better than just allowing each player to bring 100 wounds, you can use that as a starting point and then remove or replace stuff from one army until you find it appropriate to the scenario you want to play. It would also allow people to get to the exact number of wounds so the game is perfectly balanced (sarcasm) by adding one 1-4 extra Tempestus Scions to reach exactly 100 wounds.


You say this jokingly, but you do know that the Matched Play section of the rulebook does suggest using Wounds, rather than points or PL, don't you?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 06:08:05


Post by: CadianSgtBob


 Blndmage wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
PL isn't much better than just allowing each player to bring 100 wounds, you can use that as a starting point and then remove or replace stuff from one army until you find it appropriate to the scenario you want to play. It would also allow people to get to the exact number of wounds so the game is perfectly balanced (sarcasm) by adding one 1-4 extra Tempestus Scions to reach exactly 100 wounds.


You say this jokingly, but you do know that the Matched Play section of the rulebook does suggest using Wounds, rather than points or PL, don't you?


I think we can safely put that in the same category of "I can't believe someone thought publishing that was a good idea" as the early AoS stuff about getting +1 to hit if you're taller than your opponent.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 06:17:46


Post by: Matt.Kingsley


Also look at Valorous Heart Sisters before the Balance Dataslate and AoC: Repentia did not benefit from their Conviction at all even though in the lore they have a disproportionately larger number of them compared to the other major orders.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 06:30:16


Post by: Blackie


Hecaton wrote:


I'm not dead-set on 2k matched point games; I just want games to be *games*, rather than exercises where the outcome is pre-determined by talk before the game starts.


The pre-game talk has the opposite goal in mind. It happens to get a more balanced and unpredictable game. If both players know in advance that they're fielding two forces which are comparable in power and no gotcha moments can "ruin" the game due to the players' knowledge, that pre-game talk is usually completely avoided.

Pre-game talk aims to avoid a pre-determined outcome.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 06:35:51


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vict0988 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
Chapter Tactics create unthematic incentives, Ultramarines without Assault Marines and White Scars without Devastators. It's not really fair to keep bringing up Iyanden since it has FINALLY been fixed and it rewards Wraithguard as much as Guardian hordes.

Disagree. While certain units don't gain anything period with Chapter Tactics (like Dual Chainsword Vanguard and Assault Terminators in Imperial Fists), the number is absurdly low for units that just gain nothing. Assault Marines leaving an unfavorable combat but still getting potshots with their pistols as Ultramarines is one example of a minor benefit. White Scars Devastators that didn't get totally annihilated on the charge might be able to fall back and then charge something else since they can't shoot anyway, so might as well do SOMETHING even if it's dinky Manlet Marine Melee.

Do you think Ultramarines are incentivised to take melee units?

Absolutely. Are Aggressors and Tactical Terminators not melee units?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 07:09:43


Post by: Hecaton


 Blackie wrote:

The pre-game talk has the opposite goal in mind. It happens to get a more balanced and unpredictable game. If both players know in advance that they're fielding two forces which are comparable in power and no gotcha moments can "ruin" the game due to the players' knowledge, that pre-game talk is usually completely avoided.

Pre-game talk aims to avoid a pre-determined outcome.


In my experience, that's not the case, and people giving examples of pre-game talks in this thread don't support your assertion imo.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 07:42:09


Post by: Slipspace


Andykp wrote:
Spoiler:
 Overread wrote:
I feel like we aren't really talking about powerlevels and points but more about different playstyles and approaches to the game.

I think anyone stepping back and objectively looking at the game can agree that having a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models; then using a single value for a range of values is not an improvement on balance over using a more granular points system ot account for variation in mathematical values for each unit.


Simple put Power Levels ARE fundamentally a worse system. The only benefit they have is being simpler and quicker to add up. However I would argue that a big part of that isn't just that they are smaller numbers, but that they are on the unit profiles. GW at some point started writing codex in a very bad way. 3rd edition it was easy to point up a unit because points and upgrade costs were on the unit profile along with their stats and abilities. It was all in one space in the book.

Today a unit might require you to look on multiple pages to find that information. You have to cross reference multiple pages per unit which slows down and makes the process feel more complicated. It makes points less easy to use because you're checking more pages, wasting more time, getting lost. Heck I recall one edition had stats infront and behind the colour photo pages in the middle. Not even keeping rules in one section of the book.



It's no surprise to me that some end up wanting to use powerlevels as its information presented so neatly and easily to use. On the surface, PL is better presented and easier to use. It masks the inherent inbalances that it introduces whereby it then hinges heavily on local pre-game setup to impose some restriction, structure or no structure at all upon how players use PL.
Which is where we fall into the trap of endlessly debating/arguing over how to use them. Because some care and some don't care about balance.










Personally I feel that is just a huge red herring. Whether an individual player cares about balance or not shouldn't matter; nor if one club or group cares. The core structure of the game should be balanced however the units are bought to play on the table. A balanced game "out of the box" allows for any kind of playstyle to use it. If you don't care about balance its fine because you don't care; if you care about balance its great; if you want narrative games it gives you a functional local structure whereby you know what will likely happen if you tweak things.


This is a big pile of assumptions and misconceptions. Points aren’t better than power levels or visa versa. The game to me and many isn’t about “ a game which works based on mathematical differences in values for different models” it’s a game about using your models to create stories and history or narrative and characters. The maths and the the other stuff is just a means to an end.

Better balance is better for everyone, whether you're a cut-throat tournament player, or a narrative gamer. For narrative gamers it makes it easier to adjust and tinker with stuff because you have more confidence in the basic balance of the game, so you're not as likely to inadvertently break something by using the points as a guideline.


Andykp wrote:
I remember the move from the whacky and unbalanced but amazing fun second edition, to the stripped down and streamlined 3rd edition, and balance was a huge driver in those changes and it sucked all the life and character out of the game.


That's just wrong. The drive from 2nd to 3rd edition was about streamlining to turn the game into a mass battle system rather than a skirmish system. Balance was not the main driver at all. The Index armies being created all at once may have helped create better balance initially, but the reason for the major shift was to get away form the highly detailed rules that work well for skirmish games but were hellish for anything much more than 750 points in 2nd edition.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
This is an example of a suggestion that would destroy the game for me.


Honest question: why? If narrative is the goal and the heart of the game is the stories you tell about the events on the table why is it so essential that different sub-factions have different rules? And why by order/chapter/etc, not by squad? Why is each order/chapter/etc one-dimensional around a specific buff instead of having the full range of possibilities? Like, if I play Cadians I re-roll 1s when standing still but what if I want to play a more mobile force? Why do I have to pretend my Cadians are Tallarn, and if I can just use the Tallarn rules why have them faction-locked at all?

Coming from older editions where we still had plenty of narrative in our games I just don't get it. It all seems like complexity creep crossing into rules bloat to get into that level of detail on a game as large and diverse as 40k. Set balance arguments aside, why not remove them for design elegance reasons?

Have an exalt!

I never understood the idea that being forced down a specific path by GW was somehow better for narrative and fluffy play. You could absolutely do different Orders in previous editions, and different IG regiments or SM chapters without GW giving you special rules to do so. Want White Scars? Cool, everything's either a bike, a vehicle or has a jump pack or a transport. Bloody Rose? Load up on those assault units. Previous editions even allowed more customisation through things like the IG and SM trait systems.

What we have now is often just a flanderisation based on the whims of the writers. UM will be the "fall back and shoot" Marines, while IF will be the siege guys and never the twain shall meet! So says GW, anyway. What if I want to represent the UM Devastator company? Or a rapid reaction Cadian force? Apparently it's somehow better for narrative gaming if GW tells us what each named sub faction will be and provides specific rules, rather than just telling us how they operate in the background and giving us the tools to represent that in the way we interpret it. And God help you if your favourite sub faction gets lumbered with terrible, unfluffy rules (hi Word Bearers!) because GW couldn't think of anything suitable but just had to come up with something.

This idea that GW telling us exactly how a sub faction should operate seems like it's as far removed from narrative play as I can think of, precisely because it removes player agency and interpretation.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 08:20:15


Post by: Overread


The subfaction rules get even worse when some events suggest that subfaction paint schemes should be official.

Outside of Space Marines, most subfactions are just half a paragraph of rule changes and mostly do account for focusing down a specific tactical angle. You'd get the tank one, the anti tank one; the close combat one; the ranged etc...



It got really silly when you could field several armies at once because people would "min max" putting different subfactions down because who doesn't want to put their ranged units in the subfaction that gives them a range bonus; whilst the closecombat ones go in a different group.

Thankfully the latest edition pushes things back to single armies as standard.




It's more complicated for marines because their subfactions are whole armies and have subfactions of their own.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 13:47:34


Post by: vict0988


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Absolutely. Are Aggressors and Tactical Terminators not melee units?

Tactical Terminators are close, but I wouldn't call Aggressors or Redemptor Dreadnoughts melee units. If Aggressors only get to shoot then that's not so bad and pulling them out of melee doesn't tank their damage as it does for Vanguard Veterans or Assault Terminators.

Follow-up question: Is it a problem if Tactical Terminators are vastly superior for Ultramarines than Assault Terminators? After all, I have seen several GW dioramas with Ultramarine Assault Terminators, has Timmy made a mistake when he bought and painted what he saw in the codex?

I am not saying that Ultramarine Assault Terminators/VanVets/(Primaris) Assault Marines/ should be good in every Ultramarine list, but I do think they should be good in some of them and the combination of Ultramarines having their Chapter Tactic and Super Doctrine and Blood Angels having their Chapter Tactic and Super Doctrine means one of them will be underpowered or overpowered. If you want to run a shooty Ultramarine list I think you should be able to do that and I don't doubt that's what most people are interested in, but to me it makes no sense to make Ultramarine Assault Terminators so inferior to Blood Angels Assault Terminators at no cost. This is why I think Stratagems are the ideal way to show the difference between chapters, it's 2000 pts + 18 CP worth of army instead of 2000 pts multiplied by the free Chapter Tactic bonus that can either multiply the power of your army a lot or a little depending on synergy between the Chapter Tactic and the choices in the list. I also think people should be able to engineer their own Stratagem list such that if you are playing the choppy Ultramarines (they had an Assault Company for thousands of years) then you don't get punished for that.
Hecaton wrote:
 Blackie wrote:

The pre-game talk has the opposite goal in mind. It happens to get a more balanced and unpredictable game. If both players know in advance that they're fielding two forces which are comparable in power and no gotcha moments can "ruin" the game due to the players' knowledge, that pre-game talk is usually completely avoided.

Pre-game talk aims to avoid a pre-determined outcome.


In my experience, that's not the case, and people giving examples of pre-game talks in this thread don't support your assertion imo.

I had a bad list, my opponent suggested we play with less terrain to help out my long-ranged units assert their dominance. I still ended up losing but if my opponent had been able to hide almost his entire army it would have been a crushing experience.

My opponent played Grey Knights in 8th before their PA, I played one of my weaker lists and we had a closer game than we otherwise would have if I had brought one of my stronger lists.

My opponent asked me which of the lists he brought I wanted to face and I selected the one that I thought would be the most interesting.

For 9th I haven't really fixed lists a lot because I went on a wacky mission to test out 16 different lists, so it's only been up to my opponent if they wanted to change something and then agreeing on terrain and a mission that we thought would make for a fun game. I have had a number of bad games, but almost exactly 50% win rate almost never winning or losing more than twice in a row.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 14:25:15


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vict0988 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Absolutely. Are Aggressors and Tactical Terminators not melee units?

Tactical Terminators are close, but I wouldn't call Aggressors or Redemptor Dreadnoughts melee units. If Aggressors only get to shoot then that's not so bad and pulling them out of melee doesn't tank their damage as it does for Vanguard Veterans or Assault Terminators.

Follow-up question: Is it a problem if Tactical Terminators are vastly superior for Ultramarines than Assault Terminators? After all, I have seen several GW dioramas with Ultramarine Assault Terminators, has Timmy made a mistake when he bought and painted what he saw in the codex?

The fact you said Tactical Terminators were close to being a melee unit but not Aggressors is honestly kinda laughable since they're basically the same damn unit in terms of what theyre supposed to do. Also I already stated that it's rare NO unit isn't getting a benefit. Assault Terminators and Dual Chainsword Vanguard both get the +1LD, which only doesn't work because of core rules not making LD matter. That affects all armies though.

Also since Timmy can run successor rules or just go straight to another Chapter, his Assault Terminators are fine. I've been consistent here in saying I don't plan to punish people for choosing the wrong paintjob, which was a problem even BEFORE Chapter Tactics. You forget the problems that arose when Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves had their own special codices? Oh man, the amount of "Counts As Space Wolves" in 5th was utterly hilarious.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 17:52:22


Post by: vict0988


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Absolutely. Are Aggressors and Tactical Terminators not melee units?

Tactical Terminators are close, but I wouldn't call Aggressors or Redemptor Dreadnoughts melee units. If Aggressors only get to shoot then that's not so bad and pulling them out of melee doesn't tank their damage as it does for Vanguard Veterans or Assault Terminators.

Follow-up question: Is it a problem if Tactical Terminators are vastly superior for Ultramarines than Assault Terminators? After all, I have seen several GW dioramas with Ultramarine Assault Terminators, has Timmy made a mistake when he bought and painted what he saw in the codex?

I already stated that it's rare NO unit isn't getting a benefit. Assault Terminators and Dual Chainsword Vanguard both get the +1LD, which only doesn't work because of core rules not making LD matter. That affects all armies though.

I didn't ask whether they benefit from the Ultramarines Chapter Tactic, I asked whether there is a good reason to bring Ultramarine Assault Terminators and I think it's pretty clear that the answer is no.
Also since Timmy can run successor rules or just go straight to another Chapter, his Assault Terminators are fine. I've been consistent here in saying I don't plan to punish people for choosing the wrong paintjob, which was a problem even BEFORE Chapter Tactics. You forget the problems that arose when Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves had their own special codices? Oh man, the amount of "Counts As Space Wolves" in 5th was utterly hilarious.

I am not defending Space Wolves getting free chainswords and split fire, however that could be fixed by a points adjustment to the basic Space Marines to make them more viable relative to their brother chapters. Chapter Tactics do not have any cost associated with it based on whether units benefit or not, that's the problem. The problem could be fixed by making the chapter's fighting method be represented via Stratagems and Relics, that way every army gets to fly the flag and it isn't punished very hard if you bring units that don't synergies with your Stratagems or Relics because each Stratagem can only be used once per phase and you have a limited pool of Stratagems and the relic can only be one place at any one time.

I think having to call your Ultramarines Metamarines to get around the rules highlights badly designed rules.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 18:09:07


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vict0988 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Absolutely. Are Aggressors and Tactical Terminators not melee units?

Tactical Terminators are close, but I wouldn't call Aggressors or Redemptor Dreadnoughts melee units. If Aggressors only get to shoot then that's not so bad and pulling them out of melee doesn't tank their damage as it does for Vanguard Veterans or Assault Terminators.

Follow-up question: Is it a problem if Tactical Terminators are vastly superior for Ultramarines than Assault Terminators? After all, I have seen several GW dioramas with Ultramarine Assault Terminators, has Timmy made a mistake when he bought and painted what he saw in the codex?

I already stated that it's rare NO unit isn't getting a benefit. Assault Terminators and Dual Chainsword Vanguard both get the +1LD, which only doesn't work because of core rules not making LD matter. That affects all armies though.

I didn't ask whether they benefit from the Ultramarines Chapter Tactic, I asked whether there is a good reason to bring Ultramarine Assault Terminators and I think it's pretty clear that the answer is no.
Also since Timmy can run successor rules or just go straight to another Chapter, his Assault Terminators are fine. I've been consistent here in saying I don't plan to punish people for choosing the wrong paintjob, which was a problem even BEFORE Chapter Tactics. You forget the problems that arose when Blood Angels, Dark Angels, and Space Wolves had their own special codices? Oh man, the amount of "Counts As Space Wolves" in 5th was utterly hilarious.

I am not defending Space Wolves getting free chainswords and split fire, however that could be fixed by a points adjustment to the basic Space Marines to make them more viable relative to their brother chapters. Chapter Tactics do not have any cost associated with it based on whether units benefit or not, that's the problem. The problem could be fixed by making the chapter's fighting method be represented via Stratagems and Relics, that way every army gets to fly the flag and it isn't punished very hard if you bring units that don't synergies with your Stratagems or Relics because each Stratagem can only be used once per phase and you have a limited pool of Stratagems and the relic can only be one place at any one time.

I think having to call your Ultramarines Metamarines to get around the rules highlights badly designed rules.

There ARE reasons to bring Ultramarine Assault Terminators, mainly for the Hammers. Just because they don't benefit from ALL RULES ALL THE TIME doesn't mean there isn't a benefit to them. I bring Multi-Melta Bikes in one of my Black Templars lists and I can tell you 100% they're NOT a melee unit. It's about the need for a unit, and they still get a minor benefit with the 5+++ against mortal wounds (similar to Assault Terminators getting a minor benefit from +1LD).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 21:25:17


Post by: PenitentJake


CadianSgtBob wrote:

Honest question: why? If narrative is the goal and the heart of the game is the stories you tell about the events on the table why is it so essential that different sub-factions have different rules?


Because in the stories I want to tell, and in the stories that have already been told in Black Library and rule books since Rogue Trader, and in forty years of White Dwarf, subfactions always have fought differently. There just haven't always been rules to reflect that for factions that aren't Space Marines

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why by order/chapter/etc, not by squad? Why is each order/chapter/etc one-dimensional around a specific buff instead of having the full range of possibilities?


Well, for starters, because Bloody Rose Retributors get their training at the same convent as Bloody Rose Seraphim.

Secondly, because differences between units ARE currently represented in the game via strats, warlord traits, relics and battle honours.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Like, if I play Cadians I re-roll 1s when standing still but what if I want to play a more mobile force? Why do I have to pretend my Cadians are Tallarn, and if I can just use the Tallarn rules why have them faction-locked at all?


If you want to play a mobile force of Cadians, you field them in an outrider detachment instead of a patrol, select as many mobile units as you can and choose warlord traits, relics and battle honours that enhance mobility. You also prioritize the use of strats that enhance mobility.

But a question for you: if GW has been writing fluff for twenty years that suggests that Cadians are known for the ability to hold ground and dig in, and Tallarns are known for mobility and you wanted to play a mobile force of guard, why did you choose to play Cadians? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to ... and I don't think you're currently unable to as I explained above. You just use different tools than subfaction traits to do the job, since there are so many other tools available.

How many LotR players want dwarves with bows?


CadianSgtBob wrote:

Coming from older editions where we still had plenty of narrative in our games I just don't get it. It all seems like complexity creep crossing into rules bloat to get into that level of detail on a game as large and diverse as 40k. Set balance arguments aside, why not remove them for design elegance reasons?


Plenty of options for narrative? Sure. I remember, I was there too. I remember choosing the Order of Our Martyred Lady because I really wanted to tell stories about Martyrdom- it is a concept I've always found fascinating. All orders have martyrs, sure... but the fluff of Martyrdom has always been strongest with OoOML, from changing the name of the order after Katherine's Martyrdom, to changing their livery after the slaughter at Armageddon to the fate of Sanctuary 101...

The point is that it didn't make a lick of difference, because the only difference between OoOML and BR on the table top was a paint job. But these days when I play my OoOML, they behave exactly like they were always supposed to according to well established lore.

If I WANT to tell the story of an Argent Shroud martyr? I still can- there's a generic strat that confers bonuses on an army who has a character martyred.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah. A good example is 4th edition Imperial Guard, where they had choosable faction traits and then SUGGESTED traits for lore factions.

So Armageddon Steel Legion had Mechanized, Storm Troopers, Ratlings, Conscript Squads, and Xeno-fighters:Orks because of the Armageddon campaign.

But if you wanted to run a drop regiment recruited from Armageddon before the conflict with the Orks erupted? Swap out Mechanized for Drop Troops and Xeno-fighters:Orks for whatever you like. The game suggested the narrative to you, rather than mandating it.

Jake, you know how much I hate the current GW for their "play the army OUR WAY or don't play it at all" rules, including Crusade rules as well as faction rules.


I do know how much you hate that, and I feel for you.

I know about your Dark Eldar who are space-based not Commorragh based, and I think they're cool.

Personally, I'd reflect the fluff you described to me by taking lots of Razor Wings and Void Ravens; I'd throw in a few units of Corsairs; I'd choose Raid spoils rather than generate them randomly so that I could max out my Docks territories, and I'd see which of the build-your-own kabal/ cult/ coven traits best suited the idea in my head.

To be clear though, your suggestion of having "recommended" traits for cannon subfactions rather than "set in stone" traits for subfactions would be acceptable to me. And it's great that guard had it in 4th, but sisters and at least a handful of other factions did not. This is the beauty I personally see in 8th/ 9th - EVERY faction is getting consideration of their subfactions, which feels way better than some factions just not being able to meaningfully distinguish.





If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 22:10:17


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
Because in the stories I want to tell, and in the stories that have already been told in Black Library and rule books since Rogue Trader, and in forty years of White Dwarf, subfactions always have fought differently. There just haven't always been rules to reflect that for factions that aren't Space Marines


But why do you need explicit rules for that? Why does your narrative element only exist if the tabletop game explicitly has a rule titled This Is Your Narrative Rule? If you find the concept of martyrdom appealing why do you need an explicit rule called Martyrdom, why can't you just do things like aggressively trade suicide units vs. playing more cautiously in another faction? Or, as you put it:

If you want to play a mobile force of Tallarn, you field them in an outrider detachment instead of a patrol, select as many mobile units as you can and choose warlord traits, relics and battle honours that enhance mobility. You also prioritize the use of strats that enhance mobility.

This is what I don't get, you keep telling me how much you can do through making choices like which units you bring or which WLT you take and how powerful those tools are for representing the kind of force you have in your story but then you also insist that two regiments/orders/etc aren't different unless there's an explicit rule titled They Are Different.

But a question for you: if GW has been writing fluff for twenty years that suggests that Cadians are known for the ability to hold ground and dig in, and Tallarns are known for mobility and you wanted to play a mobile force of guard, why did you choose to play Cadians?


Two things:

1) Regiments aren't one-dimensional like that. There are Tallarn artillery regiments that sit behind the front lines and bombard the enemy all day, there are Cadian scouting forces that rarely stop moving. Even DKoK, presented as being a static cannon fodder siege force to the point of becoming a meme army, had an alternate list that was an elite mechanized force.

2) Because mixing things up is fun. Even if Cadians are usually fairly static sometimes you just want to change it up and charge at the enemy with a bunch of rough riders and hellhounds. Why should I have to play a completely different regiment to do that?


How many LotR players want dwarves with bows?


That's not really comparable, dwarves are a faction equivalent not a sub-faction equivalent. It's like suggesting that LotR should have a sub-faction of dwarves with major buffs to axes (making them the only viable axe faction), a different sub-faction with bows, etc, and that you can only have one of those things at a time.

PS: dwarf bows, been there since the early days of LotR: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dwarf-Warriors-2018



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 23:47:52


Post by: catbarf


PenitentJake wrote:
Secondly, because differences between units ARE currently represented in the game via strats, warlord traits, relics and battle honours.


As a long-time Guard player I don't feel the current subfaction system does a great job of doing this, especially compared to the old Doctrines system.

In particular, I really dislike using WLTs and relics to distinguish regiments, because it gives you two choices: pick generic WLTs and relics from a list, or pick the single stereotypical one associated with that regiment. It's pure flanderisation, and it gets in the way of Your Dudes. Want to fluff your Tallarn commander as an officer who leads from the front? Too bad, that's the Catachan trait. Put a master-crafted bolt pistol on his belt? Too bad, the relic bolt pistol is Valhallan only. Would you instead like the same Dagger of Tu'Sakh that every other Tallarn army also has? You get them in Happy Meals on Tallarn.

Also, I second CadianSgtBob's observation that you're seriously picking-and-choosing here. If you feel that mechanical bonuses are necessary to distinguish a subfaction, you can't turn around and tell someone who wants to play Cadian scouts or Tallarn artillery that they should ignore the irrelevance of their mechanical bonuses and simply make army choices that fit their theme. I could just as easily say that if you want to play as Order of the Bloody Rose, you don't need a bonus to melee; just pick more melee-focused units and pick (generic) WLTs, relics, and battle honors that fit their zealous nature.

At the very least, I'd much prefer if subfaction traits were generic and decoupled from WLTs/relics/etc, so you can just pick an appropriate one to apply. So instead of 'these Cadians are actually Tallarn', it's 'these Cadians have the Scout Regiment trait'.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/16 23:55:59


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Yeah I've never liked that my Cadians are represented by some relic I have no interest in taking, and one singular stratagem.

There were big problems with the Doctrine System (ie. "giving up" units you were never going to take in the first place isn't really a sacrifice), but at least it let you make armies that felt like they were part of the factions you wanted and allowed for variance.

For our meta-plot, my 444th Cadian Mechanised underwent an Inquisitorial review that saw them stripped of their transports and attached to an Inquisitor as a pure infantry company. From a game perspective, I just wanted to try out All Infantry Guard, and the rules supported that change without suddenly turning my Cadians into Catachans or whatever.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 00:07:14


Post by: CadianSgtBob


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah I've never liked that my Cadians are represented by some relic I have no interest in taking, and one singular stratagem.


Oh, but now you have an entire supplement! Because only Cadians know how to fire their guns really fast or have the relic battle cannon that used to be a universal relic. God damn thieving Cadians, stealing the cannons off every other regiment's tanks, are we sure they aren't a regiment of ratlings?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 00:10:24


Post by: H.B.M.C.


They also have a version of transhuman, 'cause that makes sense.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 00:43:20


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They also have a version of transhuman, 'cause that makes sense.

Strats are a great concept that are ruined by silly things like "why did this Aggressor squad remember they can shrug off lasguns but the other squads forgor "


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 01:22:12


Post by: PenitentJake


CadianSgtBob wrote:


But why do you need explicit rules for that?


I don't NEED them. I've been playing since '89. But now that I have them, the game makes me happier, so I don't want to lose them.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Why does your narrative element only exist if the tabletop game explicitly has a rule titled This Is Your Narrative Rule?


Well, maybe it would help you to understand my perspective if I explained to you that I'm a role-player more than I'm a war gamer. So I have been involved in storytelling systems since I played my first game of Dungeons and Dragons when I was 8 years old- back in '81.

In that game, elves got bonuses to dexterity, dwarves got bonuses to constitution and that made sense. People who play roleplaying games are very used to using rules to drive stories. In World of Darkness games, there are traits which are generally restricted to clans. In Shadowrun, the same. In Cyberpunk, the same.

My favourite edition of D&D was 3.5. I LOVED feat trees, prestige classes, racial paragon rules etc, etc. I had all the supplements for classes, and they were awesome to me. 5th edition is what I'm playing now because it's what my GM and my group want to play- for many of them, D&D is the ONLY RPG they've played, and 5th is the only edition they've played. So I do it... But I know how much deeper and more complex my character could be if I was able to use the 3.5 ruleset to express and support it (Specifically the Rokugan supplement that contains the feat tree for the Nezumi martial art, Mochatchikan). Though somebody, somewhere at some point in time decided that was bloat too, and created a streamlined game because that's "Elegant Design" and now I settle for a monk who has exactly the same options as every other monk, despite the fact that my character fights more with teeth and tail than fists and feet.

40k's background and models were amazing to me, and whenever we played 40k, I did whatever I could to make it more like a roleplaying game. Inquisitor and Necromunda where always better games from my perspective than 40k, but neither had the range. So I waited 33 years for GW to make a version of 40k that borrowed the things that I liked about Necromunda and Inquisitor and brought them into 40k.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

If you find the concept of martyrdom appealing why do you need an explicit rule called Martyrdom, why can't you just do things like aggressively trade suicide units vs. playing more cautiously in another faction?


Since an Argent Shroud player can just as easily trade suicide units, what actually makes the OoOML different besides the paint job? When every subfaction chooses from the same list of abilities only, why have subfactions at all?

If 40k wasn't a game, but just a series of novels, videos and art, then the stories alone would be enough for me. But because 40k IS a game, I personally want differences on the table top between my factions and subfactions so that my choice of which to play makes a tangible difference in the game. If my choice about which faction or subfaction I play is meaningless in the game- if a sister is just a sister- then I feel like GW should never have made different Orders in the first place.

And the thing that kicks me in the teeth about that EVERY freaking time is Space Marines.

Because many of the people who advocate for doing away with subfaction traits still want to have Space Marine subfactions with rules differentiation.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Or, as you put it:

If you want to play a mobile force of Tallarn, you field them in an outrider detachment instead of a patrol, select as many mobile units as you can and choose warlord traits, relics and battle honours that enhance mobility. You also prioritize the use of strats that enhance mobility.

This is what I don't get, you keep telling me how much you can do through making choices like which units you bring or which WLT you take and how powerful those tools are for representing the kind of force you have in your story but then you also insist that two regiments/orders/etc aren't different unless there's an explicit rule titled They Are Different.


These layers of diversity exist for those folks who like a sub-faction's background and identity, but also want to bring a unique twist to it. An OoOML force SHOULD be able to martyr better than anyone else, even though everyone should be able to Martyr.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

But a question for you: if GW has been writing fluff for twenty years that suggests that Cadians are known for the ability to hold ground and dig in, and Tallarns are known for mobility and you wanted to play a mobile force of guard, why did you choose to play Cadians?


Two things:

1) Regiments aren't one-dimensional like that.


It isn't about "one dimensional" - it's about creating rules that empower reflection of the stories that form the cannon. The things that ARE subfaction rules reflect the things that the owners and creators of the IP deem to be dominant characteristics of the subfactions they have created. This is done so that all members of the subfaction have something in common beyond geography and livery. I think of subfaction rules as tangible manifestations of culture. There are differences between members of a given culture, but if there weren't also commonalties between them, the culture couldn't actually be said to exist at all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

There are Tallarn artillery regiments that sit behind the front lines and bombard the enemy all day... Even DKoK, presented as being a static cannon fodder siege force to the point of becoming a meme army, had an alternate list that was an elite mechanized force.


Yes, there are, but none of them should be as good at as a subfaction whose identity as designed by the creators of the IP involves a reputation of having the best artillery units in the guard. You can make your Tallarn artillery shine, because there are plenty of non-subfaction traits that allow you to augment them, but if a particular subfaction has a rule that synergizes well with artillery, and your Tallarns don't have access to it, the other guys will always be able to out artillery you, because it is part of their culture.

And having said that, the really interesting thing is that even though they WILL always be able to out artillery you, they might not always choose to do so... Because you might decide to use every generic tool at your disposal to make your artillery shine and the combined effect of those might overwhelm the restricted trait that artillery faction has access to and if you did that, the artillery faction would also have to choose to use those same generic tools in order to benefit from the edge that the subfaction trait gives you... And THAT'S the thing that prevents the subfaction from being a meme-army.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

2) Because mixing things up is fun. Even if Cadians are usually fairly static sometimes you just want to change it up and charge at the enemy with a bunch of rough riders and hellhounds. Why should I have to play a completely different regiment to do that?


Yes, it is... which is why you can as described above. But the subfaction trait is the thing that establishes the fact that "Cadians are usually static" - without it, taking Hellhounds and rough riders wouldn't be mixing it up.

And you don't have to play a different regiment to do it. Go ahead, do it.

But if you come up against the folks that typically do it because it's their culture, you should expect them to have the capacity to be better at it than you are, because for them, behaving that way isn't mixing it up- it's their way of life. And rest assured that they too will like mixing it up, and occasionally they'll behave in a way that they don't typically behave, but if the thing that they are doing differently happens to be the thing that is your subfaction's way of life, you will have the capacity to be better at than they are if you choose to use the same generic tools that they chose to use.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

How many LotR players want dwarves with bows?


That's not really comparable, dwarves are a faction equivalent not a sub-faction equivalent. It's like suggesting that LotR should have a sub-faction of dwarves with major buffs to axes (making them the only viable axe faction), a different sub-faction with bows, etc, and that you can only have one of those things at a time.

PS: dwarf bows, been there since the early days of LotR: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Dwarf-Warriors-2018



Fair enough- it wasn't meant to be a point for point analogy, but I felt it illustrated the point I was trying to make. I stand corrected, but I hope my responses in this post have done enough to explain my point of view that the analogy is no longer as necessary as it was in the post where it was made.

And if not, that's fine- we don't have to agree. I'm as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours.

Another poster said "You can keep them for Crusade" I meant to quote him in the post that set this in motion, but I was being rushed to cook super so I cut my post short. But this is also a solution that ABSOLUTELY works for me. People who are upset about what the game feels like when they play 2k matched can suggest any changes they want to matched play, and I will simply sit that part of the discussion out because it doesn't touch me at all.

But if you suggest a change that is going to impact Crusade, it is likely to make me want to pipe up and politely remind you that people who play like I do exist, whether we are common or not. GW did their best to create an edition that appealed to as many varieties of player as possible. They might have done a better job of satisfying players with my preferences than have of satisfying people with your preferences. If they can make the version of the game that you like to play better at meeting your needs? Awesome. I just don't want that done at the expense of the game I like to play if it can be avoided.

PS: Even if it can't be avoided, it won't matter too much to me, because 9th is likely my last edition. I think it would be incredibly difficult for GW to make Crusade any better at meeting my preferences than it already is- I concede that it's possible of course, but it's unlikely. It sucks that it doesn't look we're not going to get the Emperor's Children dex this edition because I really wanted them to be a fully realized faction within the context of 9th ed Crusade. Hopefully I'll be able to port the 10th ed EC dex back into 9th.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 03:24:21


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Wait until he learns that the latest DND race rules let you shift your racial bonuses around because the designers realized that dwarves could be charismatic, an Orc can be wise, and an Elf can be strong.

People who do narrative (hi, hello) don't want their stories needlessly constrained by rules, if it doesn't make sense.

Sisters of Battle tanks are gak, because "GW said so" - not for any narrative reason I can fathom.

Eldar tankers can't actually embark on any path at all - in fact, they probably aren't real Eldar! Even the people who don't like the Path system and don't obey it get to walk the Path of the Outcast...

... GW's rules used to help you tell the story. Now, they ARE the story. "Oh you brought Eldar tanks? There is no story here." - the Eldar Crusade Rules. Thanks GW.

"Oh you brought BR flamer Retributors? Wow what an idiot, should've played Ebon Chalice. And what's this about Argent Shroud Repentia? Should've just handed them to the bloody rose. Deeds not Words indeed."


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 03:57:42


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
Though somebody, somewhere at some point in time decided that was bloat too, and created a streamlined game because that's "Elegant Design" and now I settle for a monk who has exactly the same options as every other monk, despite the fact that my character fights more with teeth and tail than fists and feet.


Alice, human monk, whips her quarterstaff around and bashes it into the goblin's ribs. The goblin screams in pain and rage as it is staggered by the blow but it continues to fight.

vs.

Bob, nezumi monk, lunges at the goblin and bites down hard. The goblin screams in pain and rage as a chunk of flesh is torn from its arm but it continues to fight.

This is what I really don't get. You claim to be all about the narrative but instead of role playing you're focused completely on roll playing, to the point that the narrative only exists if the 1d4+2 you're rolling is explicitly called Bite instead of Attack. But to me that difference in description works just fine for portraying the difference in how the characters are fighting, even if none of it ever translates to how the dice are resolved. It's still perfectly clear in my imagination what the two scenes look like.

And it's not just you. I see this over and over again, people who say the narrative matters more than anything else but then completely shut down their creativity about anything that isn't explicitly stated in the rules. It's all strict by the book games like a tournament player, and they need these ridiculously complicated games where every single detail and possible action must have its own explicit rules provided. Meanwhile the most fun I've had in narrative games was with rules-light systems where you use the on-table action as a base for the story and it's up to your own creativity to fill in the details of how that die roll translates into story events. And I've never felt like my D&D character can't name his father's sword and value its history unless I can persuade the DM to give it a magic ability.

Since an Argent Shroud player can just as easily trade suicide units, what actually makes the OoOML different besides the paint job?


Because they wouldn't trade like that if you're treating it as a roleplaying game, just like it doesn't matter how good my paladin's odds of successfully stealing something are when he's lawful good and will not make the attempt. I don't need an explicit rule titled No Stealing Or Lose Alignment Points to refrain from stealing, why do you need an explicit Martyrdom Is Less Effective rule to play according to your backstory?

When every subfaction chooses from the same list of abilities only, why have subfactions at all?


You don't. Sub-factions can exist purely in the narrative, they don't need a rules representation.

Because many of the people who advocate for doing away with subfaction traits still want to have Space Marine subfactions with rules differentiation.


I don't. Space marine sub-factions can all use the same rules just like everyone else, no more special snowflakes with a separate supplement for every color scheme. The game worked just fine when most space marines had the exact same rules and which chapter you picked was purely an aesthetic and narrative thing.

There are differences between members of a given culture, but if there weren't also commonalties between them, the culture couldn't actually be said to exist at all.


But those differences are small compared to other factors. For example, an infantry squad attached to an artillery regiment to provide security for the guns will have a very different skill set from one that is part of a mechanized regiment aggressively attacking the enemy. Those differences will be way more significant than anything about which planet they were recruited from originally. A Tallarn mechanized squad and a Cadian mechanized squad will have way more in common in skills/fighting style/etc than a Cadian mechanized squad and a Cadian artillery protection squad. So why is it so important that the planet of origin be given explicit rules?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 05:25:30


Post by: Just Tony


This is why I wish Inquisitor still existed. There is no room in 40k's scale for the granularity of RPG gaming. They are indeed separate and modern 40K suffers from the developers trying to cram 2nd Ed. and Inquisitor into the main game.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 05:33:53


Post by: H.B.M.C.


There are still the many 40k RPGs.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 07:30:21


Post by: PenitentJake


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait until he learns...


I find your tone unnecessarily rude and offensive. I've apologized to you in numerous posts when I thought I went too far. I have yet to see you extend the same courtesy.

I haven't read the new book yet, because it doesn't apply to my character, but since I mentioned D&D in the context of it's impact upon my preferences during my formative years, what came out in a book released less than a year ago hardly invalidates any of the point with D&D.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

People who do narrative (hi, hello) don't want their stories needlessly constrained by rules, if it doesn't make sense.


Yesterday you accused me of telling people they were playing 40k wrong, when the statements made by me which provoked that comment were far less indicative of an "only my way is the right way" attitude than this. Seriously "People who play narrative" as if I'm not one of those even if we don't see eye to eye.

Rules are like writing prompts. They don't constrain me. They are tools I work with- which means they empower me and set me free. I've done 100's of writing projects in my life- some of the ones based on writing prompts have been among my favourites. Which is not to say that I always use prompts, merely that I never saw them as limitations when I chose to use them. My relationship with them, like my relationship with the rules in any of the games I have played, is symbiotic. Do you blame clay for not being wood when you choose clay as a medium for sculpture? No- you recognize the unique opportunities provided by the medium, and you let them influence the art you create, just as you explore pushing the limits of the medium.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Sisters of Battle tanks are gak, because "GW said so" - not for any narrative reason I can fathom.


The static rules for a tank on a datacard are a bit outside the scope of the discussion thus far... though I myself often meander, so I'll indulge you.

You can rest assured that once my Immolator is built and painted I will enjoy the tools at my disposal to grow the tank into what I want it to be- including any availaible equipment upgrades or synergies in game or battle honours. The fact that the tank sucks before any of these synergies are applied will be part of the tank's story... Which will be only one of the stories being told by each battle. If I could just pick the traits I wanted from the dex at list construction, or if it had stats that made it a killer, would that be more or less narrative than starting weak and earning upgrades based on the results of games- you tell me.

And whether it's competitive or not won't matter because I don't care if I win- that's the part of the story that's beyond my control as it should be.

Either way, it sounds like I'm going to have more fun doing that than you're going to have sitting and waiting for GW to wave a magic wand and make it all better or complaing on the internet... But hey, running back to 4th so that it can be exactly what you think it should be at list construction is just as valid as my choice to immerse myself in the ongoing story of the tank's development over time. Just as I wasn't telling people they are playing wrong before, I'm not telling you that you're doing it wrong now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Eldar tankers can't actually embark on any path at all - in fact, they probably aren't real Eldar! Even the people who don't like the Path system and don't obey it get to walk the Path of the Outcast...


Well since a tank is a non-sentient machine, I wouldn't expect it to have a path. The guardian who pilots it is free to walk a path if you want him to get out of the tank and join the battle in the games where the tank isn't on the field, while the tank itself can grow via battle honours without a path. There's also nothing stopping you from writing a "Path of the Pilot" just like you used to write your own rules in 4th ed, the only difference is that now you have the other paths as a guide to how it might be done and you don't have to ALSO write the Path of the Warrior, Seer or or Outcast, which you would have had to do for 4th since those things didn't exist (to my limited knowledge of 4th ed Eldar anyway).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

... GW's rules used to help you tell the story.


No, GW's rules gave you a rough set of guidelines for tree campaigns and map campaigns, which I personally knew how to do with any game system before I played my first game of Rogue Trader in '89 and didn't need GW to teach me. They also contained three tables with six battle honours each which you would have to apply to your units whether they were humans, robots, pain elves or planet killing bugs. You didn't seem to mind modifying those extremely limited materials to fit your needs then, but now somehow you seem to feel like the presence of actual material prevents you from doing the same thing now. It doesn't. I've made rules for a type of GSC kill team that will allow you to tell the story of a GSC's development from a single fire team of purestrains to a full scale apocalypse army. I didn't let the GSC crusade rules or the kill team rules stop me from doing that- I used them as examples, and created my material to work within the excellent framework they provide.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Now, they ARE the story. "Oh you brought Eldar tanks? There is no story here." - the Eldar Crusade Rules. Thanks GW.


As explained above, eldar tanks do have rules that support a story being told about them, just not path rules. They are still eligible for battle honours from multiple sources, equipment upgrades which can be selected narratively (ie. spend the RP for the crystal targetting matrix or whatever after a battle in which the tank plays a pivotal role in securing an objective which IS that crystal targetting matrix rather than just selecting it when you add the tank to the list). I'm not sure if the crystal targetting matrix is currently an upgrade mind you- I'm pulling a name from memory to illustrate the point. You could achieve the same effect with a weapon swap- the point is you pick an objective on the field to represent the weapon you want to sub in, and you try to claim that objective- if you succeed, you apply the swap. That feels more narrative to me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

"Oh you brought BR flamer Retributors? Wow what an idiot, should've played Ebon Chalice.


You should have played Ebon Chalice if you want to min max, for sure. But we're story telling, not min maxing. So if I want my BR flamer rets to distinguish themselves, I'll make them use the ret strat every chance they get, I'll tweak their battle honours as they grow, I'll use a requisition to purchase the sacred burden strat so that I can give the superior a relic, I'll make sure they bring armorium cherbs and a simulacra, though since I'm a narrative player, they'll probably have to earn all of those things as part of the story, rather than be equipped with them out of the gate. It won't take long until they're better than Ebon Chalice flamer rets... Unless the Ebon Chalice Rets have a story that causes them to grow in similar ways, and if they do they SHOULD be better than mind because the synergy their order trait provides is representative of a cultural predisposition toward fire that none of my BR possess.

Or I could just have a 4th ed style dex that lets me pick from a list of traits available to every order and select the one that makes flamers cool cause that's SOOOO MUCH more narrative than the process I described above. I mean, I'm not going to do that because it doesn't appeal to me, but again- you do you because I'm STILL NOT TELLING YOU THAT HOW YOU'RE CHOOSING TO PLAY IS WRONG, just in case you get confused and decide to put your words in my mouth (AGAIN).

Was that heavy handed? Have a second apology, because if you're still reading, you've earned it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

And what's this about Argent Shroud Repentia? Should've just handed them to the bloody rose. Deeds not Words indeed."


Well again, if your intent is to min max. But if your intent is to tell a story, what I'd recommend is wait until a non repentia unit does something in a game that requires them to swear a Penitent Oath at which point they stop being whatever they were and become repentia until they redeem themselves, at which point they can reclaim their former designation or, if the circumstances of the redemption suggest it would be more appropriate to come back with a different designation you can do that too. It's a usually a 4 or 5 game story arc that involves an Agenda and two requisitions. But yeah, you're right... being able to just simply choose the BR trait instead of the AR one when you add them to the list would be SOOO MUCH MORE NARRATIVE.

But again dude, if you honestly believe it's more narrative you do you. Whatever makes you happy is right for you.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Alice, human monk, whips her quarterstaff around and bashes it into the goblin's ribs. The goblin screams in pain and rage as it is staggered by the blow but it continues to fight.

vs.

Bob, nezumi monk, lunges at the goblin and bites down hard. The goblin screams in pain and rage as a chunk of flesh is torn from its arm but it continues to fight.



No... I'm not sure you get it.

It's more like:

T'Chak-tik's fur bristles and he kicks up a dominance pheromone as he sights his foe (intimidation check as a free action in 3.5- racial trait, Nezumi Paragon- no 5th ed eqv), then drops to all fours to increase the speed and diminish his silhouette on the charge. As he reaches his opponent he Leaps into the air, flying over the enemy's left shoulder (jump as part of move action- clearly defined in 3.5, vaguely worded so as to to rely on GM interpretation in 5th) catches his opponent under the chin with a knee for his first attack (for bludgeoning damage); as he begins his descent on the other side of his enemy, he coils his gnarled tail around the enemy's neck as a second attack, pulling the enemy down (trip attack- possible in 5th through the use of ki, but available in 3.5 without it- which better suits T'Chak-tik's personality for reasons you'd understand if you were familiar with L5R Nezumi Chitachikan); as he lands, he reverses his momentum and plunges his teeth toward the eyes of his foe's upturned face (called shot, Mochatchikan feat in 3.5, not possible in 5th) for piecing damage (not possible in 5th).

Now, the best I can do is a flurry of blows for the bludgeoning hits- that's right- you read that correctly... I do bludgeoning damage with my teeth, because that's all the rules of 5th allow me to do. I know, pretty fluffy, right? One of those attacks can be a trip attack (but only because of the spiritual power of KI, which, again does not suit a Chitachikkan). I can tell you where I'm trying to hit, but there are no called shots, so it's just words without effect. I do it anyways, because I like to entertain people... But the rules are literally incapable of making it matter.

Now of course, this sequence is actual a T'Kir (the Nezumi word I invented to replace the Kendo term Waza, which is similar to a kata, but much, much shorter). T'Chak-Tik practiced this exact sequence with the other two Monks in the party during a previous session, which was actually a four hour role play without any combat at all. Because to just do it because it was what occurred to me in the moment is more narrative, right?

CadianSgtBob wrote:


This is what I really don't get. You claim to be all about the narrative but instead of role playing you're focused completely on roll playing, to the point that the narrative only exists if the 1d4+2 you're rolling is explicitly called Bite instead of Attack. But to me that difference in description works just fine for portraying the difference in how the characters are fighting, even if none of it ever translates to how the dice are resolved. It's still perfectly clear in my imagination what the two scenes look like.


Role playing vs. Roll playing?

Yeah, let me tell you some other things about T'Chak-Tik:

He has 42 siblings from 4 litters including his own, and I've named them ALL. There were 3 fathers- the first two were killed. His mother is full blooded Chitachikkan and tough as nails. When he left his village, his family gave him gnawed sticks to remember them by- one is the Sister stick and one is the Brother stick. You see, the place T'Chak-tik comes from is toxic, and many Nezumi don't survive their first year- so many die in fact, that Nezumi do not name their young until they've survived a year. On their name day, they gnaw the symbols that represent their names into a stick. As others are born, they add their names to the stick. When T'Chak-tik left his village, the siblings that were still alive gnawed their names into the opposite end of the stick. So one end of T'Chak-tik's sister stick has 19 names. The other has 8. It took five games for a party member to ask me about my sticks; even though T'Chak-tik is TERRIFYING in a fight, his accent and character voice are adorable, and when I told them the story, I let my voice get shaky like I was crying (I did a double major in English and Drama so I can make myself cry at the drop of a dime if I'm in character deep enough)... By the time my story was over, 3 party members were crying. We took 5 so they could recover from the emotional intensity.

It is stunningly presumptuous of you to assume that because I like the combat sequences I narrate to have the capacity to be reflected with rules that I don't role play.

I've actually drawn all of my sticks (BTW, the other two are the mother stick and the father stick). Because of the gnawing, I decided that I would make T'Chak-tik unable to read or write in common (a handicap which I did not have to take- in 5th, if you know a language it's assumed that you can speak, listen read and write- I chose the handicap for RP reasons). One of the characters in the party is a Cobalt Soul archivist, so she eats, sleeps and breathes books. She inspired T'Chak-tik to learn to read. When most people learn skills through down time, they just track the in-game down time hours until they achieve a target. T'Chak-tik went to a store and bought a childrens book written in common (The Pine Cone Book). Instead of tracking hours, I wrote the children's book, then translated it into Nezumi gnaw marks (a written language I developed specifically for the character).

I'm currently trying to decide whether I'm going to make one of my sticks or a copy of the Pinecone Book for my GM's Christmas present.

I've only played in 2 40k tourneys, but I've been to 20 or so RPG cons. You know how you win a session at an RPG con?

Players vote for the best role player. Of all the cons I've been to, I've come home without a prize twice. I've been roleplaying for 41 years- as I said in a previous post, I started in grade 3. Naming your sword? I was doing that when I was ten. And sure, I know, that was just a convenient example, and I'm sure you have plenty of other cool things that you've done while roleplaying, but if you're going to be rude to me and make assumptions without a scrap of evidence, what's my incentive to leave the kid gloves on when I respond?

With all due respect, if you ever suggest again that I am a roll player and not a role player because I like my combat rules complex enough to reflect the scenes in my head, I will spam you with PAGES of character histories until you're forced to put me on ignore or the mods drop the ban hammer. You literally could not be more wrong about me.

I won't belabour the point by responding to the 40k parts of your post, because I believe that the responses that I gave to Unit above will be sufficient to respond to your further "insights" about the way I choose to play 40k, and I've already punished the other readers of this forum with enough text that they deserve a break. Play 40k your way- it's no less valid than mine.

I made the offer to both of you before that we agree to disagree. Either of you ready to take it yet, or shall the tire fire continue, catching everyone who isn't you, me or Unit in the stink of it? Ball's in your court. Penitent out.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 09:24:55


Post by: Slipspace


PenitentJake wrote:

Rules are like writing prompts. They don't constrain me.

Looking at your replies during this thread, nothing could be further from the truth. There's even a whole bit at the end of your last post (snipped for brevity) about how all the rules that you no longer have in D&D constrain your character choices. For an avowed roleplayer it's absolutely staggering to me how dependent you seem to be on the specifics and minutiae of the rules.

On top of that, you take this frustrating and contradictory stance on rules depending on which argument you're presented with. Either we need specific rules to represent everything for the sake of narrative or, when we don't have them (like with the Eldar Crusade rules and tanks) we need to invent our own, but apparently only when it suits your argument.

Why is it a good thing to have GW decree that all Cadians fight the same way? Why is the best artillery sub-faction the jungle fighters? Why are Imperial Fists the only chapter that excels at siege warfare? You say sub-faction rules are so much better for narrative, but they constrain you more because you either have to not use them if they don't fit your vision, or you get lumbered with rules that don't work for you. That's not even taking into account the number of sub-faction rules that are just bad, or that exist merely to fill space because the army in question never had a large number of sub-factions with fleshed out information in the background.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 10:58:14


Post by: Unit1126PLL


If my tone seems unnecessarily rude, it's because your argument screams "feth you, got mine".

You can't SURVIVE without sub-faction rules for Sisters, but when I want Crusade rules to take Eldar tanks into account, suddenly I am asking to much and should write my own - after all, the generic rulebook traits are good enough for an 8th edition book and they should be good enough for me!

It just strikes me as incredibly self-centered to say "my army, my toys, they got things they didn't have before. And that makes this edition the BEST EVER, despite your army losing things and being less fun." It comes across as blatantly "feth you, got mine" and is incredibly frustrating.

The fact that you apologize makes it worse. Like a billionaire being conciliatory to a pauper. "Look I even gave you $1 that one time!". Deeds, not words. Try to make the game better for everyone, don't just lay back and shrug because "sisters have sub-faction traits and nothing could ever possibly improve this edition at all. Certainly not 10th. Or 4th."


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 11:48:29


Post by: Lord Damocles


I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 12:10:27


Post by: Overread


I think it just highlights that a lot of people don't understand rule mechanics all that well. It is a huge gap in wargaming

talk about building, converting, 3D printing, Army list critique, painting, terrain work, table building. All those topics are super well covered; ask a question and you will likely get an answer - probably several.


Ask about game tactics; ask about how to deploy or move or make tactical choices and suddenly even the crickets are silent. You get generic cover-all terms "go for the objectives" but for actual drilling down into depth its very hard to find and to get. The result is that we have a lot of community knowledge over most of the hobby and then one massive glaring black hole.

This creates a community where there's a big gap in understanding the game side of things at a higher level. Both in terms of understanding it and in terms of having the language and understanding to communicate that understanding to others.



It's what makes balance and mechanic chats hard. It's why people can feel such vast variation in impressions on the rules. How the same rules can be "super fun and great" and "Super trash and not worth it" all in one breath.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 12:14:55


Post by: Unit1126PLL


I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 12:19:38


Post by: Nevelon


 Overread wrote:
I think it just highlights that a lot of people don't understand rule mechanics all that well. It is a huge gap in wargaming

talk about building, converting, 3D printing, Army list critique, painting, terrain work, table building. All those topics are super well covered; ask a question and you will likely get an answer - probably several.


Ask about game tactics; ask about how to deploy or move or make tactical choices and suddenly even the crickets are silent. You get generic cover-all terms "go for the objectives" but for actual drilling down into depth its very hard to find and to get. The result is that we have a lot of community knowledge over most of the hobby and then one massive glaring black hole.

This creates a community where there's a big gap in understanding the game side of things at a higher level. Both in terms of understanding it and in terms of having the language and understanding to communicate that understanding to others.



It's what makes balance and mechanic chats hard. It's why people can feel such vast variation in impressions on the rules. How the same rules can be "super fun and great" and "Super trash and not worth it" all in one breath.


Part of the issue with that is the fact it boils down to “it depends”.

You need to take a look a the big picture, evaluate everything going on, and take a corse of action that has the best odds of victory. You either end up with vague fortune cookie like advice, or some many asterisks and exceptions about why what you are saying could potentially be a bad idea.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 12:25:57


Post by: Karol


Most of the time the good stuff is obvious at a glance. how long does one have to think about what ever warriors for nids are god and what every you should be running void weavers, specialy at the very moment the codex were leaked? 10 min assuming english is a problem, and that is a maybe.


But stuff is often the stuff that requires "research", but if it has a good stand in, then it is mostly an academic thing to do. Someone can try to check what happens if they run termintors and land raiders out of the GK codex. they can tweek and test, all they want, but in the end the conclusion will be that the army is just bad, and there is no way to fix it on your own.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 13:30:36


Post by: Backspacehacker


 Lord Damocles wrote:
I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.


Its more a case of. "THis is basically the only bone GW is throwing us so we defend it with all we got" kinda situation. Like GW has done great things with crusade, they could be better, but they have done good. If we could get an AoS style Path to glory or something in 40k that would be amazing. Its my hopes, and expectations that we will see something like this happen in HH, considering the AoS team wrote the HH rules.

However i have seen other groups do far better nerrative content. Like i have defended before, Herald of Ruin back in 7th was like. probably the best RPG/narrative game for warhammer i ever did, it was like someone remade mordheim but for 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nevelon wrote:

Part of the issue with that is the fact it boils down to “it depends”.

You need to take a look a the big picture, evaluate everything going on, and take a corse of action that has the best odds of victory. You either end up with vague fortune cookie like advice, or some many asterisks and exceptions about why what you are saying could potentially be a bad idea.



True but what he said is also true. The amount of players that dont understand the importance of a lot of base things like proper cohesion, positioning of characters with in a unit and spreading them out, knowing how to position to think about what your oponent is going to do/move, making it so just a specific model is in LoS to give a buff/act as a target.

A lot of players dont do this, Like hell in 40k, i had a few games were people did not understand why i laced 2 units together putting them in a line of unit A and B alternating ABABABABA, it was not until they tried to cahrge me they realized why i did that.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 14:40:02


Post by: Overread




True but what he said is also true. The amount of players that dont understand the importance of a lot of base things like proper cohesion, positioning of characters with in a unit and spreading them out, knowing how to position to think about what your oponent is going to do/move, making it so just a specific model is in LoS to give a buff/act as a target.

A lot of players dont do this, Like hell in 40k, i had a few games were people did not understand why i laced 2 units together putting them in a line of unit A and B alternating ABABABABA, it was not until they tried to cahrge me they realized why i did that.


Yeah. Even though "it depends" is a valid answer its not the whole answer. It relies upon a set of core fundamentals which allow a person to evaluate the "it depends" aspects. These fundamentals can be broken down into stages, identified and taught. The issue is many who know these elements haven't mentally broken them down into a set of concepts which can then be used to teach others.


Backspace also highlights the difference between visual/thematic and game playing. It's something that also impacted games like Warmachine. Eg in 2.0 edition no one used running. Instead they would declare a charge on a target too far off to work. Because the charge would move the model further than the run; it didn't matter that the charge was stupidly out of range that it would never work, the intention was for the charge to fail, but still give you the increased movement over the run.

These tactics are not always obvious to many because they are using the pure game rules and working out ways to gain advantage by using them; rather than playing the game in a more "cinematic" way where you use units in a more narrative style.




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 15:02:53


Post by: vipoid


@PenitentJake

I have a question for you. You talk about the importance of being able to distinguish subfactions with rules and such. However, why should this only apply to the main subfactions for any given army?

To take the example of Dark Eldar, if I play Kabal of the Black Heart, I get a couple of universal bonuses plus a unique warlord trait plus a unique relic plus a unique stratagem. However, what if I want to play a different Kabal? What if I want to play Kabal of the 13th Whisper? Or Kabal of the Wraithkind? Or Kabal of the All-Consuming Darkness (which I just made up)?

If I pick any of those, I either have to choose two custom traits (even if they weren't universally arse, this still means I lose out on a stratagem, a warlord trait and an artefact), or else I just say that it's actually identical to one of the four pre-chosen Kabals (thus invalidating the whole point of having Kabals be functionally different from one another).

Does this not seem almost antithetical to the whole idea of 'your dudes'?

I suppose what I'm asking is whether you'd accept subfaction rules that were more in line with custom traits? As in, you get to pick a couple of traits (or one stronger trait), to help differentiate your army. However, there is no penalty for using a smaller or custom subfaction, nor are any warlord traits, relics or stratagems locked to a specific subfaction. You'd just choose whatever best fits from the full pool.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 17:26:27


Post by: Andykp


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.


Nobody has said that, you don’t need to spend lots of time discussing before hand. They can be very brief discussions, they can be ongoing from game to game. Wargaming, to me is a social thing. The discussions and interactions are all part of the experience. Rolling dice in silence because we all know the rules and don’t need to talk to one and other sounds crap.

Playing with friends is better, doing most anything with friends is better than with strangers.

This typical “your just defending gw” is pointless too, it makes any discussion where you don’t just moan about the usual things pointless. It’s just dismissing opinions you don’t like with out valid counter to them.

PL work for me, the lack of balance doesn’t bother me at all. The layers of complexity are annoying but I am happy to ignore any rules I don’t like. What has kept me playing 40k is the setting and the models, the whole hobby.

It’s clear though that at least on dakka, there is a whole side to the community that just loves to moan and just will not accept that someone else has fun doing things differently to them. So it’s not worth engaging because no discussion can be had in gods faith here.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 17:27:58


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
One of those attacks can be a trip attack (but only because of the spiritual power of KI, which, again does not suit a Chitachikkan).


So don't call it ki? Call it rage, or stamina, or whatever thematic name you want to give to the concept of having a limited reserve of energy before you're exhausted and unable to fight with more than the basic techniques. You're again getting bogged down in strict adherence to the precise details of what the rules say.

And yeah, 5th edition is not 3.5 and some details will change. It sounds like your problem is less the narrative potential of 5th and more that one specific character build didn't translate perfectly between editions. Some things don't go the other way though. In 5th I can step out into a doorway, fire a shot with a bow, and then step back behind the wall. In 3.5 I can't do that without a specific feat (and its prerequisite feats) even though it's a basic thing that any reasonably trained archer should be capable of doing.

I can tell you where I'm trying to hit, but there are no called shots, so it's just words without effect. I do it anyways, because I like to entertain people... But the rules are literally incapable of making it matter.


And this is exactly what I mean about roll playing. Why does something only matter if the rules explicitly tell you that it does? Why is "words without effect" such a bad thing when the only reason any of the rules exist at all is to assist you in coming up with words to tell your story?

It took five games for a party member to ask me about my sticks; even though T'Chak-tik is TERRIFYING in a fight, his accent and character voice are adorable, and when I told them the story, I let my voice get shaky like I was crying (I did a double major in English and Drama so I can make myself cry at the drop of a dime if I'm in character deep enough)... By the time my story was over, 3 party members were crying. We took 5 so they could recover from the emotional intensity.


See, you do get it! You had a cool character element, everyone at the table loved it, and none of this required your character to take the Dramatic Moment feat where everyone must make a DC 25 will save or cry for 1d6+1 minutes.

I won't belabour the point by responding to the 40k parts of your post, because I believe that the responses that I gave to Unit above will be sufficient to respond to your further "insights" about the way I choose to play 40k, and I've already punished the other readers of this forum with enough text that they deserve a break. Play 40k your way- it's no less valid than mine.


Your responses to them have said absolutely nothing about either of my two questions:

1) Why you can't play your faction without a specific rule titled This Is Your Faction, despite pointing out over and over again how other people can just use the existing rules and "don't need" a rule to represent the thing they want to do.

and

2) Why sub-faction rules in particular need an explicit rule to define them, despite in-narrative attributes that would make a bigger difference on a unit's abilities/fighting style/etc than their planet of origin having no mechanical representation at all.

I made the offer to both of you before that we agree to disagree. Either of you ready to take it yet, or shall the tire fire continue, catching everyone who isn't you, me or Unit in the stink of it? Ball's in your court. Penitent out.


I don't think that "let me have the last word or I'll engage in disruptive behavior and make everyone else unhappy" is really the compelling argument that you seem to think it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Lord Damocles wrote:
I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.


I think it's partly that, there's definitely a white knighting element from some people. But it's also a couple of other factors:

1) A lot of people have little or no experience outside the current-edition GW niche. So if something is just a bit more narrative than a game of tournament 40k it's the best narrative experience they've ever had so it must be good. They haven't seen how other narrative games do it better, or how even GW has done other narrative things in the past, and have trouble believing that their own experience isn't necessarily complete. I've seen this before with people refusing to believe things like the fact that GW used to publish narrative scenarios with no points-based list building at all, and/or with "talk with your opponent about who you think did better" as the only victory condition.

2) There's an unfortunate number of people who think that "narrative" is the opposite of "competitive", therefore anything that is bad for competitive play must be great for narrative play. And since GW's version of narrative play is absolutely not a good competitive system it must be good for narrative! The PL thing is the textbook example of this. PL is bad for narrative play, and the best you can say for it is that its flaws can be overlooked as long as nobody tries to exploit them and you house rule away any issues that come up. But because it's bad for competitive play people will insist that PL is somehow enabling and improving narrative play, almost to the point that PL is essential for narrative play. And when you ask for details on why the best anyone will ever be able to give you is appealing to PL as a gatekeeping tool for telling competitive players not to join the group.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 17:42:04


Post by: Backspacehacker


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.


Nah not really an apt comparison, because it costs you nothing to check with your opponent on an issue.
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

Like it costs you literally zero effort to clarify that with your opponent before hand.

We did this all the time in 7th, and TBH i always did this in any game i played because it was just common curtesy to run though our list with our opponent to let them know what everything does before hand so they are not blind sighted.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 17:45:16


Post by: CadianSgtBob


 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?


That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 17:48:49


Post by: EviscerationPlague


CadianSgtBob wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?


That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

Also that's something that can get an errata in a couple of weeks. It shouldn't NEED one but that's a quick fix at least.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 18:01:41


Post by: The_Real_Chris


 Just Tony wrote:
This is why I wish Inquisitor still existed. There is no room in 40k's scale for the granularity of RPG gaming. They are indeed separate and modern 40K suffers from the developers trying to cram 2nd Ed. and Inquisitor into the main game.


The lethality in 40k means it is of little use for RPG style narrative. Most GW games have a high and random death level. The only games they have done in the 40k setting where things have a level of resilience where stories can grow as the unit survives is for me is BFG. It is relatively easy to run before getting dusted. Games like Necro attempt this, but need rules fudges to account for the pile of shot and maimed models sitting next to the board. In BFG I can spend 2 hours playing cat and mouse with two reasonable fleets and not lose a cruiser entirely and feel the scenario has played out well.

In 8th when 40k burned brightly again briefly we had some fun with narrative scenarios, a couple of trip rules thrown in to move to the next phase of the scenario if it was a big game (I remember one where it was CSM joining a cultist rebellion against Guard forces, turns out the cultists in question were mostly GSC and when that was triggered and a bunch started fighting the CSM player who wasn't in on this was amused and surprised to find himself embroiled with Guard in front of him and cultists fighting his cultists behind him...), and a lot of fun 500 point scenarios you could do in an hour. The rules need so many mods now to make that viable most stopped playing or moved to playing other stuff. While we still couldn't do RPG style focuses on individuals it was possible to have a good narrative for the game. Even some of the tourney players did it (shocked, we were, shocked).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 18:58:38


Post by: Andykp


CadianSgtBob wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?


That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.


But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 19:09:08


Post by: JNAProductions


Andykp wrote:
CadianSgtBob wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?


That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.


But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.
Getting two people to agree on rules is a lot more difficult. Especially if you play at a local gaming store and not someone's garage.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 19:10:38


Post by: Backspacehacker


 JNAProductions wrote:
Andykp wrote:
CadianSgtBob wrote:
 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?


That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.


But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.
Getting two people to agree on rules is a lot more difficult. Especially if you play at a local gaming store and not someone's garage.


On completely new rules, yeah i agree, but on an interpretation of a rule its pretty easy to get an agreement.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/17 19:16:34


Post by: CadianSgtBob


Andykp wrote:
But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.


I play 40k because I want a game that is playable out of the box. If I have to make up a bunch of my own rules and convince people to use them I'd rather make a new (and much better) game.

And even if you enjoy making rules the point I was making still stands: clarifying an ambiguous rule is not the same as making up entirely new content.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/18 09:15:02


Post by: Dai


CadianSgtBob wrote:
Andykp wrote:
But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.


I play 40k because I want a game that is playable out of the box.


Then you are playing the wrong game, sorry, not saying it is right but it is and always has been true.

If you want the "full" experiemce at least.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/18 10:22:07


Post by: Karol


 Backspacehacker wrote:

On completely new rules, yeah i agree, but on an interpretation of a rule its pretty easy to get an agreement.


Unless it is a mirror, most rules are new to each of the player. Save for those tournament ones that have to learn rules for all armies to speed up games and avoid getting cheated on. Plus no one likes when the other play is trying to force a rule interpretation that nerfs your army. Sometimes it makes playing not worth the time.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/18 20:29:45


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


So, the answer is no, if GW went full PL, it's not likely to change much here.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/23 12:43:39


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


So the new points changes really reinforce the argument that GW is going full PL soon. Almost all gear is free, plasma pistols are free, etc. The only things that really cost huge points are relics and traits. Which can be easily assigned PL values.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/23 13:05:32


Post by: Blackie


I doubt it.

Free wargear might be common now, but I don't see units that are priced every X models like in the PL system. Each model still has its points cost and I don't think this is going to change.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/23 13:36:26


Post by: PenitentJake


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So the new points changes really reinforce the argument that GW is going full PL soon. Almost all gear is free, plasma pistols are free, etc. The only things that really cost huge points are relics and traits. Which can be easily assigned PL values.


It's possible, of course... But I really doubt it.

I double checked the document- points changes apply to all Matched Play games, not just Nephilim Matched Play games. So it will affect BRB and Tempest of War missions, as well as all of the missions from any of the other Matched Play Mission packs.

But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL. This doesn't stop players within likeminded groups from choosing the format they prefer regardless of mode- I know there are substantial groups of players who use points in their Crusade games for example. But the intent is that points can be a stronger tool for balance, and so changing them up 4 times a year to try and balance the meta makes sense.

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change. For Crusaders, our changes come in the form of campaign resources- a Hardback and two Mission Packs per season. This updates the ongoing story of the 40k universe, gives us new missions and themes to explore- sometimes even customized mechanics like a grudge system or armies of faith... But very rarely changes to the minutiae of PL.

I think PL has been given an overhaul twice since 2016? I mean, obviously, each new dex has the chance to rewrite PL for the faction in question... But PL as a whole are rarely modified across the board. If Matched went PL, those numbers would then be updated more frequently, which wouldn't just destabilize the game for Matched players, many of whom would be disappointed with a lack of granularity- it will also destabilize Open and Crusade by putting us in the position of keeping up with constant change- the lack of which has been a part of our attraction to our chosen game mode.

Again, not saying it's impossible- GW has obviously made some very, very bad decisions before. But I think that as long as we continue to have 3 modes, I think we'll continue to see both PL and points.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/23 18:14:33


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL.


Why? The existence of PL (which is just a poorly balanced point system) adds literally nothing to any format that isn't already covered by the normal point system.

And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules.

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change.


Why not? Crusade has a clear shelf life for a particular army and you're already regularly changing your forces to add reinforcements, retire units that take too many battle scars, etc. Why is it a big deal to have the point costs adjusted to improve balance? Are they afraid of losing access to a particular overpowered unit they rely on?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 04:18:52


Post by: PenitentJake


CadianSgtBob wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL.


Why? The existence of PL (which is just a poorly balanced point system) adds literally nothing to any format that isn't already covered by the normal point system.


It does though- especially in the context of crusade. Because of the tracking that Crusade entails, players don't need values for both troops and equipment and individual upgrades that change every 3 months IN ADDITION to tracking experience, battle honours and scars for every unit in the game, as well as crusade points and long term goal achievements. The improved balance that points provide in matched disintegrates the second one of my units that has achieved its first battle honour comes up against your first squad that hasn't.

In Crusade, the combat efficiency of every unit in your army can change from game to game, and the army as a whole can also grow in such a way as to impact balance. The buy in cost of a Crusade unit has almost nothing to do with how effective it is on the table from game 4 onward, so it is utterly pointless to waste the time costing out wargear.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules.


Open serves some very important purposes: being the simplest, most accessible form of the game, it is absolutely the best learning tool available. If you're a parent and your kid is a nerd, open is probably the most amazing thing you could hope for. Ever notice how many WD letters to the ed are from parents? You can come for Open Play when you pry it from their cold, dead hands.

And look, I enjoyed all previous attempts at Narrative. At the time the original Kill Team and Combat Patrol Mini-games were included in the BRB? I loved that at the time. And it is still a ton of fun if you play it even today. There are even some elements, like equipment options, that I like better about those old prototype systems. But what is available now far exceeds the capacity provided by previous iterations of the game. There is far more product support for Crusade than there is for Matched- our Mission Packs outnumber Matched 2:1, and when you drop White Dwarf content into the equation? I think we've had a Flashpoint article every month since the Codex dropped, Torchbearer Fleets and Index Astartes chapter specific Crusade content on top of that.

I'm not saying Crusade could not be improved, nor


CadianSgtBob wrote:

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change.


Why not... and you're already regularly changing your forces to add reinforcements, retire units that take too many battle scars, etc. Why is it a big deal to have the point costs adjusted to improve balance? Are they afraid of losing access to a particular overpowered unit they rely on?


As explained above, it' precisely because of all that constant change and tracking that points are impractical. And because the application if RP and XP have far more impact on balance than points, they're not just inconvenient, they're ineffective.

That being said, I have seen posts by quite a few players who prefer to use points in Crusade, and if that's what they prefer, that's fine too. To each their own... Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 12:52:43


Post by: Slipspace


PenitentJake wrote:


Open serves some very important purposes: being the simplest, most accessible form of the game, it is absolutely the best learning tool available. If you're a parent and your kid is a nerd, open is probably the most amazing thing you could hope for. Ever notice how many WD letters to the ed are from parents? You can come for Open Play when you pry it from their cold, dead hands.

That's just swallowing GW's marketing BS. Open Play absolutely doesn't need to exist because it's only purpose is to codify a rule that says you don't have to follow the rules. That's pointless. Other wargames manage to introduce new players to the game just fine without using every single rule and also without an explicit acknowledgement by the designers that you can ignore any or all rules.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 12:58:35


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


Can I ask, who here has seen "open" games being played in a brick and mortar? I've never seen anyone setup to play an open narrative game. People, maybe just in the US, feel they HAVE to play by the competitive standard, so they bring 1k or 2k lists. Never seen someone walk in and plop down 5 Stormsurges and be like, here's my list.

I feel like it's this way with all competitive "games". No one shows up to a basketball court and says, "I play by different rules. If you foul me it's 3 points for me." Everyone learns the rules of the "Game" first, and no one learns it's ok to change the rules for more fun, ala "Calvinball". Perhaps GW should be more open to promoting this style of play?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 13:01:52


Post by: Voss



That being said, I have seen posts by quite a few players who prefer to use points in Crusade, and if that's what they prefer, that's fine too. To each their own...

Too each their own, but... you just spent a lot of time waxing about how wrong and hard it was to do that. So it doesn't seem quite so accommodating

Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.

Since its neither 'laser balanced' nor has it ever catered to 'exactly one demographic' this seems like no reason at all. People were (and still are, despite attempts to infantilize them) capable of doing narrative or 'open' play without specific Forge Your Narrative scrawls in the margins of the rules.

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 13:47:04


Post by: ccs


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can I ask, who here has seen "open" games being played in a brick and mortar?


Raises hand.
It depends upon who's actually playing the game in question, but there's been plenty of technically "Open" games played at the local shop(s). Because as soon as you add a house-rule? Or drop some fething stupid rule GW just shat out (like that new auto-destructing Dedicated Transports)? Guess what? You're not playing "Matched" any more. So is it Narrative or is it Open?
The most common examples?
*Almost every 9e game I've played against our CSM players that wasn't Crusade. At our tables, in general play, they've been enjoying their 2nd wound for about a month less than the Loyalists have. If they want it that is. (There's one guy who declines. Said he'd wait for errata/new Codex - he's had a long wait....)
*Or when we simply ignore the impractical placement restrictions concerning Fortifications.
*And if you look closely? You'd notice that we're pretty lax on larger squads keeping members within coherency of 2 other models.
*Anytime you see one of us old dogs playing with our Las/Plas Razorbacks - they aren't in the Codex, they aren't in the FW book, & they aren't even in Legends....
None of these things are done with any sort of story or scenario in mind, so I guess Open applies.
"Open" isn't just for throwing a mishmash of models on the table. (though I've seen a couple of players who were definitely doing that)

Now were you to pass by & see one of these games in progress? You may well mistake it for Matched. After all, it's "Open" - using about 98% of Matched as it's default....


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 14:07:26


Post by: Argive


No.. Coz every single unit would be tooled up to the max...


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 14:09:10


Post by: PenitentJake


Voss wrote:

Too each their own, but... you just spent a lot of time waxing about how wrong and hard it was to do that. So it doesn't seem quite so accommodating


This is the problem with paraphrasing. Inconvenient =/= wrong. Ineffective =/= wrong.

Keep your words out of my mouth. I choose mine for a reason- they have meaning.

Voss wrote:

Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.

Since its neither 'laser balanced' nor has it ever catered to 'exactly one demographic' this seems like no reason at all. People were (and still are, despite attempts to infantilize them) capable of doing narrative or 'open' play without specific Forge Your Narrative scrawls in the margins of the rules.

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.


Did you ever try to invent Commorrite territories with in game effects to capture in 4th or 5th ed and then try to find a group to play them with?

Did you ever have a unit of sisters, who had previously accumulated a battle honour fail a break test and decide they should take a penitent oath and become repentia, except you couldn't convince the group you were playing with to let you replace them with a unit of repentia who had the same battle honour since they represented the same group of soldiers?

Did you ever smash a bunch of enemy vehicles with the admech and think to yourself: "Yay, spare parts- now I can build a cool piece of new tech" only to be told by your group that you couldn't just Invent a piece of war gear?

Did you ever convince an entire planet to join the Greater good only to be told that this doesn't or shouldn't confer a tangible benefit to your army thereafter?

These and other problems no longer exist, because the rules for them are printed in black and white, so you don't have to convince anyone that these are all things that make sense in a narrative context and then come up with rules and systems on your own to reflect these scenarios. This is a huge advantage for people who have been looking for a way to make this stuff happen in a game since 1989.

Why not just "polish" the rules as they are and keep the three ways to play and core support for other game sizes? I'm not saying there aren't core rules that couldn't be improved, which would impact all three modes- of course there are improvements that could be made. But eliminating support for Crusade or Open isn't going to make it any easier or harder for GW to make these changes, nor will it improve the likelihood of these changes occuring.

I just have zero idea why anyone wants a rule that neither they, nor anyone else they play with uses to be eliminated. If you and your opponents don't use the rule, I have a very difficult time understanding how your game experience is improved by the rule not being there. For you and your group, it effectively ISN'T there already, because you don't use it. Someone does. I guarantee you, someone somewhere uses all of the rules that you ignore because you feel like they're useless bloat... And while removing it wouldn't affect you at all since you're already not using it, it will affect the person who does.

I play Crusade exclusively, and so far, it's all been PL. If someone wanted to play matched with me, I'd find something else to do. If someone wanted me to use points to play a Crusade game, I could be talked into that. But you won't see me suggest eliminating matched play to make Crusade better, because I know that a) lots of people like matched, and they'd be choked to lose it B) eliminating matched would have no tangible impact on whether or not Crusade did end up being improved and C) the continuing existence of Matched will not affect me in anyway because I don't play it.

I suppose I should add D) I'm not an Edgelord/ Troll who has heard all of the above before and either understands it but chooses to shitpost for the Lulz anyway, or paraphrase into an argument that was never being made in order to justify a negative response, or prefers not to engage with this perspective because that would mean admitting that the discussion is more nuanced than they want it to be.

And before anyone goes making another one of those assumptions that I'm implying something I didn't explicitly write: I'm not saying YOU are the edgelord/ troll... Nor am I even saying anyone is an edgelord/ troll all of the time. Even the trolliest troll will occasionally engage and meaningfully contribute constructive feedback that indicates they have taken the points of view of other players seriously.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 14:21:46


Post by: catbarf


PenitentJake wrote:
Did you ever try to invent Commorrite territories with in game effects to capture in 4th or 5th ed and then try to find a group to play them with?

Did you ever have a unit of sisters, who had previously accumulated a battle honour fail a break test and decide they should take a penitent oath and become repentia, except you couldn't convince the group you were playing with to let you replace them with a unit of repentia who had the same battle honour since they represented the same group of soldiers?

Did you ever smash a bunch of enemy vehicles with the admech and think to yourself: "Yay, spare parts- now I can build a cool piece of new tech" only to be told by your group that you couldn't just Invent a piece of war gear?

Did you ever convince an entire planet to join the Greater good only to be told that this doesn't or shouldn't confer a tangible benefit to your army thereafter?


The existence of Open and Narrative sections in the rules doesn't allow you to do any of these things. You're praising Crusade, which could still be around even if the game dispensed with the 'three ways to play' that amounts to 'here are the rules, also you're allowed to ignore them if you want'.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 15:12:01


Post by: Voss


PenitentJake wrote:
Voss wrote:

Too each their own, but... you just spent a lot of time waxing about how wrong and hard it was to do that. So it doesn't seem quite so accommodating


This is the problem with paraphrasing. Inconvenient =/= wrong. Ineffective =/= wrong.

Keep your words out of my mouth. I choose mine for a reason- they have meaning.

Not to me, but then I feel meaning has to be conveyed to the reader. Intent is nebulous.
And given that this whole post reads as 'How dare you not agree!' I'm sticking with the meaning I got out of your words, because you just reinforced it.

Voss wrote:

Which of course, is precisely why not only Points + PL as well as 3 ways to play and 4 game sizes provides far more capacity to suit a wider variety of players and therefore a broader audience (and a greater market share) than any laser balanced game that caters to exactly one demographic.

Since its neither 'laser balanced' nor has it ever catered to 'exactly one demographic' this seems like no reason at all. People were (and still are, despite attempts to infantilize them) capable of doing narrative or 'open' play without specific Forge Your Narrative scrawls in the margins of the rules.

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.


Why not just "polish" the rules as they are and keep the three ways to play and core support for other game sizes? I'm not saying there aren't core rules that couldn't be improved, which would impact all three modes- of course there are improvements that could be made. But eliminating support for Crusade or Open isn't going to make it any easier or harder for GW to make these changes, nor will it improve the likelihood of these changes occuring.
Because three sets is more work. If it doesn't make it easier or harder, or improve the likelihood of changes (your words), its completely wasted time and effort that could be put to something that matters.

For me, rules quality took a noticeable dip when they randomly started the 'Forge Your Narrative' meme. The time they waste not fixing obvious problems is getting absurd. The extra workload isn't necessary, and even disrupts the layout and usability of the rulebooks.

I just have zero idea why anyone wants a rule that neither they, nor anyone else they play with uses to be eliminated. If you and your opponents don't use the rule, I have a very difficult time understanding how your game experience is improved by the rule not being there. For you and your group, it effectively ISN'T there already, because you don't use it.

No, it is there. Its taking up book space, rules space and development time. If it isn't used, its a negative effect.

I play Crusade exclusively, and so far, it's all been PL. If someone wanted to play matched with me, I'd find something else to do. If someone wanted me to use points to play a Crusade game, I could be talked into that. But you won't see me suggest eliminating matched play to make Crusade better, because I know that a) lots of people like matched, and they'd be choked to lose it B) eliminating matched would have no tangible impact on whether or not Crusade did end up being improved and C) the continuing existence of Matched will not affect me in anyway because I don't play it.

The stuff that spills over does effect you, whether you want to admit it or not.
Got any chaos players in your crusade group? Want to ask them how 'unaffected' they are by the stuff that's just vanishing?

I suppose I should add D) I'm not an Edgelord/ Troll who has heard all of the above before and either understands it but chooses to shitpost for the Lulz anyway, or paraphrase into an argument that was never being made in order to justify a negative response, or prefers not to engage with this perspective because that would mean admitting that the discussion is more nuanced than they want it to be.

And before anyone goes making another one of those assumptions that I'm implying something I didn't explicitly write: I'm not saying YOU are the edgelord/ troll... Nor am I even saying anyone is an edgelord/ troll all of the time. Even the trolliest troll will occasionally engage and meaningfully contribute constructive feedback that indicates they have taken the points of view of other players seriously.

Yep. That's definitely convincing.
You'd have been better of leaving that out.

Edit: and catbarf is correct. You're hyperfocused on Crusade rules, but having wasted space on Open and Narrative doesn't matter to that. Crusade is more rules bloat than even matched (which you yourself seem to recognize given that you reject points on the basis its too much work on top of all the accounting for Crusade).


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 15:34:42


Post by: PenitentJake


 catbarf wrote:


The existence of Open and Narrative sections in the rules doesn't allow you to do any of these things. You're praising Crusade, which could still be around even if the game dispensed with the 'three ways to play' that amounts to 'here are the rules, also you're allowed to ignore them if you want'.


You're certainly correct about Open. It's a bit squishier when we talk about Narrative: I certainly agree with you and Unit and others that not all "Narrative" games have to be, or even should be crusade games. But GW doesn't distinguish between Narrative and Crusade. From their perspective, the three modes of play are Open, Crusade and Matched.

Still, solid and debatable point.

But the selection you quote comes within the context of:


CadianSgtBob wrote:

And why does GW even need multiple play modes? Open Play doesn't need to exist at all, and narrative play worked just fine when you had narrative scenarios and campaigns using the matched play rules.


And:


Voss wrote:

One rules set (more polished, because they don't have to burn extra development time on the other ruleset or the non-rules ruleset) and a 'play your way' acknowledgement and NO set game sizes seems far more accepting of multiple demographics.


These two comments, which are the things I've been responding to, clearly do not represent a vision of the game which continues to make Crusade rules available.

If GW dropped the "three ways to play" but kept all of the Crusade content, I don't think that they would actually be dropping three ways to play. It seems like this would imply dropping ONE of the ways to play, and keeping the other two. It's theoretically possible to frame all the Crusade content in the same way as the prototype Kill Team/ Combat Patrol rules in previous editions, where it's included as an appendix rather than being acknowledged as alternative mode of play...

But given the fact that there have been more resources printed this edition that include Crusade content than resources that don't, I think it's fair to say that calling Crusade an appendix would be a tad disingenuous, unless a lot of the content was dropped.

One of the approaches Unit and I had discussed AGES ago involved releasing a Big Book of Crusade- which included not only the existing bespoke codex content for every faction, but also guidelines for creating campaigns of various types. This could have been a better way to go because it would have allowed EVERYONE to start Crusading right away... But even that's not so simple, because bespoke Crusade content does reference Codex rules that aren't Crusade specific.... So for example, the Master Archon/ Haemonculus/ Succubus rules aren't Crusade rules per se... but there are Requisitions in Crusade that allow you to grow into a Master, and it would have been problematic to print the requisitions that allow you to become a Master before the rules for BEING a Master had been printed.

In any case, thank you for envisioning a version of the game that continues to include Crusade and the players who prefer it. Your post strikes me as very reasonable in both tone and content because it suggests ways of improving the game that don't exclude folks with a preference for a particular mode of play that is fully supported by the current rules.




If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 16:47:12


Post by: Unit1126PLL


So yo reference my reply to you that you just jumped past:

It's all well and good to like Crusade if it serves your needs, but you need to recognize that Crusade doesn't serve everyone's needs (even if they are a narrative player. It doesn't serve mine for example).

Saying 40k is the best ever right now and could never change for the better does nothing for the folks for whom Crusade (or the whole ruleset) does nothing. So instead of a "feth you, got mine" approach where you vociferously protest any proposed change, take an approach where you say "Yes, GW is wrong and probably should change that" unless you have a VERY GOOD REASON why they shouldn't change it.

So, for example, Eldar Crusade rules. They should include tanks and tankers, and GW is wrong and Crusade is less fun for some people when it doesn't. Yes?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 16:48:34


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


People say "it'd mean everyone would just take the best options" as if that isn't what is already happening. How much actual variation goes on in 40k. Very little in my opinion. You're either playing netlisters with just last week repainted minis to whatever the stock standard hotness is that week, or you have completely new players who just bought their first set of Ork Nobs, and wants to play a "fun" game to try out their investment.

You all act like there are droves of people using Reivers and Land Raiders, or Custodes Wardens. Or Company Commanders with Laspistols instead of command rods. No one is playing this game or investing in it to lose constantly. Everyone in some fashion is trying to win at least. No one is purposefully being a Low Tier God and maining the weakest units for pride. Everyone is using their best units, because they want to win.

When did it become bad to want to win?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 16:52:43


Post by: EviscerationPlague


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

When did it become bad to want to win?

Ever since we had people virtue signaling with "only toy soldiers" and "beer and pretzels"


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 16:54:22


Post by: Dai


EviscerationPlague wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

When did it become bad to want to win?

Ever since we had people virtue signaling with "only toy soldiers" and "beer and pretzels"


So before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye then.

Btw anyone who complains about virtue sigalling is nearly always, in that act, virtue signalling themselves. Stop being such an abrasive poster.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 16:58:25


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Dai wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

When did it become bad to want to win?

Ever since we had people virtue signaling with "only toy soldiers" and "beer and pretzels"


So before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye then.

Btw anyone who complains about virtue sigalling is nearly always, in that act, virtue signalling themselves. Stop being such an abrasive poster.

Well feel free to point out where I did that then. Also just because it's been going on a long time doesn't make it any less of virtue signaling, and it's quite a laughable attitude to be honest.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 18:43:52


Post by: Deadnight


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


When did it become bad to want to win?


When 'wanting to win' becomes 'competitive-at-all-cost' or even worse, win-at-all-cost,and when this attitude creates and fosters toxic communities and toxic players that skews the game and ruins peoples enjoyments of a hobby that is supposed to be fun. Players 'wanting to win' drove me out of 40k for years.

Lets be clear - Saying 'I want to win' is fine in principle. Even as a narrative player I don't set out to lose.
A lot of things get sacrificed on that altar of 'trying to win' for you and for everyone else and frankly, lets not pretend that there isnt a point where that price paid for 'trying to win' starts to negatively affect aspects of the hobby, and the greater community, including other people's enjoyment. Or yours.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:13:38


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
It does though- especially in the context of crusade. Because of the tracking that Crusade entails, players don't need values for both troops and equipment and individual upgrades that change every 3 months IN ADDITION to tracking experience, battle honours and scars for every unit in the game, as well as crusade points and long term goal achievements. The improved balance that points provide in matched disintegrates the second one of my units that has achieved its first battle honour comes up against your first squad that hasn't.


Why does it matter if your unit costs 5 points out of 25 or 110 points out of 500? It's not like you're changing equipment in Crusade. Once a unit's point cost is set, whether by the fixed point value on the datasheet or by adding up the point costs from the latest matched play table, that's it and you play the game exactly the same way from there. You're talking about a few minutes of work, max. So yeah, you can argue that the extra balance factor of normal points is not necessary in Crusade but it's absolutely ridiculous to claim that PL is somehow necessary for Crusade to function. Crusade would work just fine if PL had never been invented.

As for changing mid-Crusade, it's not like there isn't precedent already in competitive leagues having rules that new codices and rule changes that are released during a season do not apply until the end of the season. Waiting until the end of the current season of Crusade would be perfectly in line with that.

Open serves some very important purposes: being the simplest, most accessible form of the game, it is absolutely the best learning tool available. If you're a parent and your kid is a nerd, open is probably the most amazing thing you could hope for. Ever notice how many WD letters to the ed are from parents? You can come for Open Play when you pry it from their cold, dead hands.


But why does that require explicitly naming Open Play as an official Way™ To™ Play™ The™ Game™? You don't need to create an entire game mode that consists of "all rules are optional" or tell a parent they're playing Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ Rules™ when they set up a game with a single infantry squad on each side to teach their kid the basic rules. People were doing all that stuff long before GW made Open Play a thing.

The real reason Open Play exists is that it's a relic of a failed attempt to get people to buy stuff for other armies. GW tried promoting Open Play as a valid game type so they'd have a reason to tell Tyranid players to buy the latest space marine release, since you can take that cool primaris tank in your Tyranid army in Open Play. Nobody wanted that nonsense and GW quietly dropped their promotion of it but they haven't yet admitted defeat and taken it out of the book yet.

And look, I enjoyed all previous attempts at Narrative. At the time the original Kill Team and Combat Patrol Mini-games were included in the BRB? I loved that at the time. And it is still a ton of fun if you play it even today. There are even some elements, like equipment options, that I like better about those old prototype systems. But what is available now far exceeds the capacity provided by previous iterations of the game. There is far more product support for Crusade than there is for Matched- our Mission Packs outnumber Matched 2:1, and when you drop White Dwarf content into the equation? I think we've had a Flashpoint article every month since the Codex dropped, Torchbearer Fleets and Index Astartes chapter specific Crusade content on top of that.


Yes, there is support. But that doesn't change the fact that Crusade is just matched play with points-based list construction and generic scenarios that would be right at home in a matched play mission pack. It doesn't need PL as a separate point system to function. It doesn't need to ignore the matched play rules like AoC, rule of three, etc.

Where Crusade diverges from competitive play and previous narrative efforts is only in the between games stuff. Crusade had the excellent design decision to decouple the between games stuff from any particular player group. So instead of having your campaign die every time it encounters scheduling issues or people drop you have a between-games path that is attached entirely to your own army. And that made Crusade far more resilient to the kind of campaign-ending disruptions that made every other narrative system a "great in theory, bad in practice" failure. But none of it has anything to do with the on-table gameplay of Crusade.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:16:55


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


You're putting words in my mouth. I think you phrased it better, "don't set out to lose..." Yes, WAAC is a gross over reach of Trying to Win, just as it's a gross characterization of simply not wanting to lose. This is a competition. You CAN breed enjoyment through success, but even that is an amorphous term. Success can be measured in victory or in just plain being able to compete with a friend.

All I am trying to say is automatically demonizing the PL+ crowd as permission to WAAC is obtuse and silly.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:18:46


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
Did you ever convince an entire planet to join the Greater good only to be told that this doesn't or shouldn't confer a tangible benefit to your army thereafter?


Did you ever enjoy the narrative purely for the sake of the story, not because it gives you a direct on-table buff to your units? I thought the goal of narrative play is roleplaying, not roll playing?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:20:25


Post by: Deadnight


CadianSgtBob wrote:

But why does that require explicitly naming Open Play as an official Way™ To™ Play™ The™ Game™? You don't need to create an entire game mode that consists of "all rules are optional" or tell a parent they're playing Official™ Warhammer™ 40k™ Rules™ when they set up a game with a single infantry squad on each side to teach their kid the basic rules. People were doing all that stuff long before GW made Open Play a thing.



Probably because 'Official-at-all-cost' dogma is a thing.

Youre right on the money bob, but for the wrong reasons.

People have always been doing this - for sure, and a large element of the community has always been hostile and vitriolic towards anyone that steps out of the bounds of 'the default game' and 'the official rules' aka the right and proper (and only!) way the game should be played (and you are a badwrongperson if you don't conform).

Open play gives a legitimacy towards playing that way. Honestly it's never a thing I'll do but I understand the need to allow it and to say this in writing.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You're putting words in my mouth. I think you phrased it better, "don't set out to lose..." Yes, WAAC is a gross over reach of Trying to Win, just as it's a gross characterization of simply not wanting to lose. This is a competition. You CAN breed enjoyment through success, but even that is an amorphous term. Success can be measured in victory or in just plain being able to compete with a friend.

All I am trying to say is automatically demonizing the PL+ crowd as permission to WAAC is obtuse and silly.


No.

You asked a precise question.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


When did it become bad to want to win?


I answered it.

There is a point 'wanting to win' becomes bad.

Simples.

Success can breed enjoyment. Sure! Success at the expense of someone else's enjoyment? Different story. You dont have to be a bad person to be the villain in someone elses atoey. That can put you on the road to toxicity and being a bully.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:30:49


Post by: CadianSgtBob


Deadnight wrote:
People have always been doing this - for sure, and a large element of the community has always been hostile and vitriolic towards anyone that steps out of the bounds of 'the default game' and 'the official rules' aka the right and proper (and only!) way the game should be played (and you are a badwrongperson if you don't conform).


But the example given didn't involve any kind of community, it was a parent teaching their kids the game. And have never seen anyone raging about HOW DARE YOU NOT PLAY A FULL OFFICIAL GAME OF WARHAMMER 40K when a parent puts a couple of basic infantry squads on the table and ignores stratagems/chapter rules/etc. Maybe it happened but there's no way it was anything more than an occasional idiot that nobody likes.

Success can breed enjoyment. Sure! Success at the expense of someone else's enjoyment? Different story. That can put you on the road to toxicity and being a bully.


So, just to clarify here: are we talking about WAAC as in "making good choices in the list-building part of the game with the intent to win" or WAAC as in "rules lawyering, moving an extra inch because you can get away with it, etc"?


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:44:32


Post by: ERJAK


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Dai wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

When did it become bad to want to win?

Ever since we had people virtue signaling with "only toy soldiers" and "beer and pretzels"


So before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye then.

Btw anyone who complains about virtue sigalling is nearly always, in that act, virtue signalling themselves. Stop being such an abrasive poster.

Well feel free to point out where I did that then. Also just because it's been going on a long time doesn't make it any less of virtue signaling, and it's quite a laughable attitude to be honest.


You have a point: 40k has a decent contingent of players that have a virulent 'anti-competitive' mindset where, should you attempt to try and win the game or be good at it in any way that doesn't match some invisible standard of 'real wargaming', they get quite angry.

But that phrasing is incredibly obnoxious. This isn't 4chan and you don't get reddit Klan Karma for using buzzwords like 'virtue signaling'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
CadianSgtBob wrote:
Deadnight wrote:
People have always been doing this - for sure, and a large element of the community has always been hostile and vitriolic towards anyone that steps out of the bounds of 'the default game' and 'the official rules' aka the right and proper (and only!) way the game should be played (and you are a badwrongperson if you don't conform).


But the example given didn't involve any kind of community, it was a parent teaching their kids the game. And have never seen anyone raging about HOW DARE YOU NOT PLAY A FULL OFFICIAL GAME OF WARHAMMER 40K when a parent puts a couple of basic infantry squads on the table and ignores stratagems/chapter rules/etc. Maybe it happened but there's no way it was anything more than an occasional idiot that nobody likes.

Success can breed enjoyment. Sure! Success at the expense of someone else's enjoyment? Different story. That can put you on the road to toxicity and being a bully.


So, just to clarify here: are we talking about WAAC as in "making good choices in the list-building part of the game with the intent to win" or WAAC as in "rules lawyering, moving an extra inch because you can get away with it, etc"?


A certain subset of players considers any genuine attempt to win the game, ANY at all, WAAC.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:51:38


Post by: PenitentJake


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So yo reference my reply to you that you just jumped past:

It's all well and good to like Crusade if it serves your needs, but you need to recognize that Crusade doesn't serve everyone's needs (even if they are a narrative player. It doesn't serve mine for example).


When you make good points, and you frequently do, I do tend to back them up. I supported your idea of having suggested sub-faction traits rather than mandated ones. I continue to support the idea of a Big Book of Crusade, even as I point out that there are some nuances and difficulties with doing so. I support HBMC's AWESOME idea of gathering all of the Crusade content in a campaign season into a single book and all the Matched content for a campaign season. Thank you for recognizing that I absolutely do understand that Crusade doesn't fit everyone's needs, including folks like you who identify as narrative players. There absolutely IS room for improvement to Crusade.

There probably have been specific ideas proposed for the improvement of Crusade that I have objected to for specific reasons, but I have never believed or advocated that Crusade couldn't or shouldn't be improved. I fully acknowledge that there have likely been posts where I could have ben more clear about that- especially since I rely on people to respond to my posts in context... Like the fact that today, I am responding to CadianSgtBob and Voss who are both advocating not for improvements to Crusade, but for it's complete removal.

I have had to respond to both Cartbarf and you, precisely because you responded to comments I made to CadianSgt and Voss WITHOUT acknowledging the context that they don't want to improve Crusade, they want it gone. And to be fair to both of them, they didn't explicitly say they wanted Crusade gone, so I am paraphrasing them, and many apologies to both of them if they weren't in fact suggesting that Crusade should be cancelled.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Saying 40k is the best ever right now and could never change for the better


I may have said something some time ago that you interpreted as this, but I don't think I've ever said this.

I tend to say things like "The game feels better for my particular play style and preferences than it ever has before" or "The decoupling of Agendas from victory points allows for wider variety of Narrative choices to be made during the game." I almost never use vague terms like "better" or "best" preferring instead to speak about the specific elements of the game that support the type of gameplay I prefer.

I've listed two examples above were YOU proposed suggestions to improve both Crusade and 40k in general where I have enthusiastically and consistently agreed with you, and we're about to discuss a third suggestion for an improvement to Crusade which I support...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

So instead of a "feth you, got mine" approach where you vociferously protest any proposed change,


Again, the changes I vociferously protest tend to be the ones that suggest the full scale removal of Crusade. Suggestions to improve it are addressed case by case- some of them are definite improvements, and I support those. Others may have unintended side effects that the person proposing the rule may not have considered. In those cases, I usually attempt to ask clarifying questions.

I think the posts that have given you the idea I have a "feth you, I got mine" attitude are posts that are responses to someone suggesting an improvement intended to deal with a Matched play issue when the suggestion is worded in such a way that it would also impact Crusade. I do also point out that some super unpopular rules decisions don't affect Crusade- this is my attempt to help the folks who hate the rule soooo much that it makes them want to rage quit, because they might actually not know that a given rule doesn't apply to Crusade.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

take an approach where you say "Yes, GW is wrong and probably should change that" unless you have a VERY GOOD REASON why they shouldn't change it.

So, for example, Eldar Crusade rules. They should include tanks and tankers, and GW is wrong and Crusade is less fun for some people when it doesn't. Yes?


Yes.

I went back and reread my responses- I thought I had explicitly said that I thought adding a "Way of the Pilot" was a good idea, but apparently I did not. I should have, because it IS a good idea and I would support it. I'm not sure why I didn't say that in response.

Instead, I pointed out a bunch of ways that the current rules might help you create the desired effect, and I can see how that might have come across as resistance to your suggestion... Perhaps the context of the discussion at the time somehow lead me to believe that you were implying that Crusade shouldn't exist because it doesn't have Path rules for Eldar tanks... Probably an unsubstantiated belief in hindsight, but when you using a single response to reply to multiple posts and posters, some of which include "End Crusade!" others which include legitimate constructive suggestion for the improvement of either Crusade specifically or the game as a whole and still others that came across as outright personal attacks, errors are likely to occur.

So for the record, YES, a path of the Pilot IS a decent suggestion for improving Crusade. The creation of additional Drukhari Territories that exist outside of Commorragh and better support the idea of Drukhari pirates would also be a welcome addition to Crusade that would probably move the ruleset closer to supporting another of your narrative concepts.



If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:55:50


Post by: CadianSgtBob


ERJAK wrote:
You have a point: 40k has a decent contingent of players that have a virulent 'anti-competitive' mindset where, should you attempt to try and win the game or be good at it in any way that doesn't match some invisible standard of 'real wargaming', they get quite angry.


And the hilarious irony of it is that the only reason they're upset is because they lost. If winning genuinely wasn't important they'd have no reason to care if their opponent brought a stronger list.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:56:07


Post by: EviscerationPlague


ERJAK wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Dai wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

When did it become bad to want to win?

Ever since we had people virtue signaling with "only toy soldiers" and "beer and pretzels"


So before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye then.

Btw anyone who complains about virtue sigalling is nearly always, in that act, virtue signalling themselves. Stop being such an abrasive poster.

Well feel free to point out where I did that then. Also just because it's been going on a long time doesn't make it any less of virtue signaling, and it's quite a laughable attitude to be honest.


You have a point: 40k has a decent contingent of players that have a virulent 'anti-competitive' mindset where, should you attempt to try and win the game or be good at it in any way that doesn't match some invisible standard of 'real wargaming', they get quite angry.

But that phrasing is incredibly obnoxious. This isn't 4chan and you don't get reddit Klan Karma for using buzzwords like 'virtue signaling'.

Unfortunately CAAC hasn't caught on as a term, so if you have something catchy or more memorable I'm all ears.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:57:42


Post by: CadianSgtBob


PenitentJake wrote:
I have had to respond to both Cartbarf and you, precisely because you responded to comments I made to CadianSgt and Voss WITHOUT acknowledging the context that they don't want to improve Crusade, they want it gone. And to be fair to both of them, they didn't explicitly say they wanted Crusade gone, so I am paraphrasing them, and many apologies to both of them if they weren't in fact suggesting that Crusade should be cancelled.


You aren't paraphrasing anything, you're lying and building a straw man argument. Crusade with the normal point system and normal matched play rules is still Crusade. It does not need a separate point system to function and removing PL is in no way the same as removing Crusade.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 19:58:12


Post by: EviscerationPlague


CadianSgtBob wrote:
ERJAK wrote:
You have a point: 40k has a decent contingent of players that have a virulent 'anti-competitive' mindset where, should you attempt to try and win the game or be good at it in any way that doesn't match some invisible standard of 'real wargaming', they get quite angry.


And the hilarious irony of it is that the only reason they're upset is because they lost. If winning genuinely wasn't important they'd have no reason to care if their opponent brought a stronger list.

You're not following fluff if your Devastators match any weapons after all LOL


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 20:00:03


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


Wow, you are doing a great deal of conflating bob. I'm not nearly the E-Jock you are, what with your quote mining but I'll just respond in a boring block of text.

Wanting to win is not WAAC. There are lines you cross to get to that point. You cannot conflate desire for success with desire to ruin another person's experience. Your argument is pressuming that everyone at the table is a child with zero coping skills or the ability to rationally react to negatives. Just because I lose a game doesn't make me a butt hurt grouch, I learn what I did wrong, and try to do better the next time. It makes me a better player. We learn from our failures, how to build successes.

To say that I can only find success "at the expense of someone else's enjoyment" shows me that you are incapable of understanding the finer point of this, and are clearly unwilling to listen to other viewpoints.

Again:
There are two nay arguments to making PL the dominant system;

1. I like the crafting of lists with points. FINE, No ISSUES HERE.
2. It will make everyone ONLY pick the best options to win, and we'll never see anything but the best models. - And to this I ask again, when was the last time you took non-standard BiS wargear on you lists? When did you take Launchers instead of Plasma? When did you choose Chainswords and Laspistols over Powerswords and Plasma Pistols?

There are two answers:

1. You never took suboptimal options, because toy wanted to win

or

2. You took them to free up the points to take a more optimal model/unit later in the list, in which case the point was still to win.

Ergo - You cannot say PL is WAAC, because all systems built around paying a cost for options is about optimizing your lists. The only way it wouldn't be is to remove options entirely, or force everyone to take the same models (Chess), which would be the same thing.

PL isn't WAAC, it's the evolution of a broken an unbalanced system brought about in the olden days of 40k, which like all things from back then, is broken, and no longer worth the effort of fixing every 3 months, to appease the WAAC Chuds.


If GW actually went full in on PL would it actually change the ammount of 40k you play? @ 2022/06/24 20:02:59


Post by: EviscerationPlague


CadianSgtBob wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
I have had to respond to both Cartbarf and you, precisely because you responded to comments I made to CadianSgt and Voss WITHOUT acknowledging the context that they don't want to improve Crusade, they want it gone. And to be fair to both of them, they didn't explicitly say they wanted Crusade gone, so I am paraphrasing them, and many apologies to both of them if they weren't in fact suggesting that Crusade should be cancelled.


You aren't paraphrasing anything, you're lying and building a straw man argument. Crusade with the normal point system and normal matched play rules is still Crusade. It does not need a separate point system to function and removing PL is in no way the same as removing Crusade.

I would just like to say I'd be all for doing a Crusade campaign if it weren't for the fact it's based on PL