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Hey dakka,

My friends dislike the Killpoint rules and as these are the guys I predominantly play with (and like, they are good guys) it is a bit of a democracy. They dislike the 5th edition take on annhilation missions and the use and implimentation of killpoints. Things like a landraider being worth as much as a scout squad, yadda yadda yadda.

Now I have checked on the 'Search' function for a few pages but I cant find anything relavent.

So.. what is the case for killpoints? Why should they be played over Victory points (I understand a rules a rule and that Victory points were suggested as a secondary measure of Sucess not a replacement rule) and were there any abusable situations with VP's? From what I can see, The way VP's work is that they favour Large infantry armies as itll take more effort (especially with prevelant cover) to remove 1/2 the squad, whilst a vehicle merely has to get 'damaged'.

So, dakka, can you give me anything that may convince them to use Killpoints, as written. Besides the fact that its a rule in its own right, ofcourse.

Thanks,

Raz.

This is the older system from 2nd edition and far superior

0-100 1 VP
101 -200 2 VP
201 -300 3VP
and so on.

I think it gave an extra VP per character or something like that but that was basically it.


The Killpoint system is completely slowed and actually gives some armies complete advantages in Killpoint games.

For Instance,

I can have 4 Platoons w/ all 3 heavy weapon teams and 30 man squads etc.. and it be worth 4 VPs but in actuality I spent 1000 points on it.

I can have 3 Leman Russes in a Squadron and i is worth 1 VP.


Its a slow system and you should only use it if you are slowed, so let me ask you are you slowed?

Hollismason wrote:This is the older system from 2nd edition and far superior

0-100 1 VP
101 -200 2 VP
201 -300 3VP
and so on.

I think it gave an extra VP per character or something like that but that was basically it.


The Killpoint system is completely slowed and actually gives some armies complete advantages in Killpoint games.

For Instance,

I can have 4 Platoons w/ all 3 heavy weapon teams and 30 man squads etc.. and it be worth 4 VPs but in actuality I spent 1000 points on it.

I can have 3 Leman Russes in a Squadron and i is worth 1 VP.


Its a slow system and you should only use it if you are slowed, so let me ask you are you slowed?

Read the Victory point rules at the end of the BGB p300. Now compare this to the Kill points rules under the annhilaton game type in the same book.

We use VP's.

The KP system is slowed, totally unfair (For Horde Armies, your all basically screwed) and really just shows how much effort was put into the rules.

Hollismason wrote:This is the older system from 2nd edition and far superior

0-100 1 VP
101 -200 2 VP
201 -300 3VP
and so on.

I think it gave an extra VP per character or something like that but that was basically it.


The Killpoint system is completely slowed and actually gives some armies complete advantages in Killpoint games.

For Instance,

I can have 4 Platoons w/ all 3 heavy weapon teams and 30 man squads etc.. and it be worth 4 VPs but in actuality I spent 1000 points on it.

I can have 3 Leman Russes in a Squadron and i is worth 1 VP.


Its a slow system and you should only use it if you are slowed, so let me ask you are you slowed?

Yeah, but think about this. You shoot at a squad of Leman Russes and you roll well enough you could wipe the entire squad in one sitting. It's going to take a while to kill off the 1000pt IG Platoon to gain their 4 KPs. Yeah a LR is worth the same amount of KPs as a Scout squad, but if you take a large enought Scout Squad it will be harder to kill them. It only takes one Lascannon shot to kill a LR. It takes a few more shots to kill a scout squad. You can kill a "standard" IC with one ID level attack, but it takes multiple attacks to kill a retinue.

Just because an army offers a lot of KPs to you, it in no way gurauntees that you are going to get them all. Remember to get KPs for a squad you have to wipe them out to the man. A little Mathammer should support that nicely.

Why the examples? Because I'm a slow, and I like to give slowed examples, and if you don't like it you're slowed. Get it slow?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Again if you are playing hordes and you know for a fact that you are playing a KP mission then shouldn't you just max unit size your units? If you can do that then you have the advantage.

And just to support that, if you are randomly rolling for scenarios out of the book then aren't Horde players at an advantage 66% of the time?

Why do you think the Ard Boyz scenarios are a combo of KP and Objectives, that way you have to find the balance between effectiveness and survivability.

Kill point rules are a shortcut for victory points. As long as everyone involved has planned their army knowing in advance that VP will be used over KP, no one gets shafted. They are not a very well thought out shortcut though.

Don't forget that the 5th edition rules are balanced around each other. If you take KP and isolate it, it looks very bad compared to VP. Used in context with the randomness of getting a two objective or a three to five objective match where only Troops score, and I find it works out fairly equally as far as who could end up with an advantage in a given game.

My answer to people wanting to use VP instead of KP is usually "sure, if we are changing a scoring system you don't like, we are changing one I don't like as well. Elites can now be scoring as well as Troops". My personal opinion is the Troops only being scoring requirement is horrible for the type of army I want to play. No different than someone else saying kill points are horrible for the type of army they want to play.

Be prepared to fully compromise, or just adapt to 5th and build your army in accordance with the scoring systems in use. You might want to consider keeping in practice with the scoring systems most tournaments will use for matches so you are in practice should you decide to play an official tournament.

Razerous wrote:

Hollismason wrote:This is the older system from 2nd edition and far superior

0-100 1 VP
101 -200 2 VP
201 -300 3VP
and so on.

I think it gave an extra VP per character or something like that but that was basically it.


The Killpoint system is completely slowed and actually gives some armies complete advantages in Killpoint games.

For Instance,

I can have 4 Platoons w/ all 3 heavy weapon teams and 30 man squads etc.. and it be worth 4 VPs but in actuality I spent 1000 points on it.

I can have 3 Leman Russes in a Squadron and i is worth 1 VP.


Its a slow system and you should only use it if you are slowed, so let me ask you are you slowed?

Read the Victory point rules at the end of the BGB p300. Now compare this to the Kill points rules under the annhilaton game type in the same book.

That is not the VP system I am talking about its the 2nd edition ruleset for Victory Points.

Cryonicleech wrote:We use VP's.

The KP system is slowed, totally unfair (For Horde Armies, your all basically screwed) and really just shows how much effort was put into the rules.

I agree.. though the people I play with started with 5th edition, so they use KP.
I don't really mind, but I prefer VP.

This is why me and my gaming buddies use something we call true VPs. Whatever is left on your side is your vps and whatever is left on your opponets side is their vps (fleeing units are counted as destroyed). Vehicles is the same way, except if damaged (weapon destroyed, immobilized) you get half. For example, If i have two ork boy squads left, one with 10 and one with 5 I get (15 boyz multiplied by 6 points each) 90 VPs. Theres no you have to kill at least 1/2 nonsense or the KP of a squad of gretchin worth the same as a land raider. Sure it might take more math but its the only real balanced way to determin who did the best at killing your opponets army.

Dug out my 2nd edition stuff from the closet, its in Dark Millenium.

Squads basically are

0-100 is 0 VPs at >50% and 1VP if killed; then it goes up according to the scale of 101 to 200 is 2 VP w/ 1 VP at >50% etc...

Vehicles are done the same way w/ partial VPS for being damaged or immobilized according to their point cost.

Etc...


Its alot more balanced and makes more sense as you obtain extra VPs for achieving your mission goals as well as for lower point cost armies it works out well too.

I don't really like Kill Points becuase with my horde of guardsmen, there are times that even when I utterly annihilate my enemy, I still technically lose becuase the number of squads I lost were more than the whole of thier army put together. That's gotta be messed up right?

Emperors Faithful wrote:I don't really like Kill Points becuase with my horde of guardsmen, there are times that even when I utterly annihilate my enemy, I still technically lose becuase the number of squads I lost were more than the whole of thier army put together. That's gotta be messed up right?

No, its not messed up.

You can combine your Infantry squads into large singular blob squads. You shouldnt really ever be fielding HWS as they are quite inferior & weak.

So, basically, your doing it wrong.

I like killpoints purely because its a driving factor in the current game design. Victory points have no bearing on the number of squads you field.. infact it favors MSU more annd it also penalises vehicles which can be damaged relatively Easily but with some tanks, removing a weapon doesnt reduce its effectiveness by half yet thats how much the enemy is being rewarded for its efforts, so its skewed there.

Obviously killpoints have issues buts its 5th edition rules. Can anyone tell me why its there and what it way trying to correct from the previous editions? Any pro-killpoint replies, basically?

Razerous wrote:Can anyone tell me why its there and what it way trying to correct from the previous editions? Any pro-killpoint replies, basically?

My opinion is that kill points are a way to determine a winner quicker and easier than victory points. It is far also far easier to determine how many points you earned from killing your opponents units. Even the kill point haters in my local store will be the first to admit that the biggest drawback to victory points was your opponent (inadvertently or not) cheating when tallying at the end.

That and as you pointed out, the design changes the focus of list design.

Emperors Faithful wrote:I don't really like Kill Points becuase with my horde of guardsmen, there are times that even when I utterly annihilate my enemy, I still technically lose becuase the number of squads I lost were more than the whole of thier army put together. That's gotta be messed up right?

Well if you mean utterly annihilate literally then you do win, because if you table your opponent you win no matter what mission type it is.

I think Kill Points add a necessary balancing factor to armies with multiple small units.

(However, I would rather see a mission structure that integrated Kill Points and objectives together more. Currently it's too all-or-nothing.)

For instance, Emperor's Faithful, when my thirty orks charge one of your infantry squads, what happens to the squad behind them? Nothing. If that was one large squad, they'd be dead too.

How about if a squad of lootas decides to blow away 10 guardsmen - but they're from two different squads. Now I can only kill one. This is huge. Guard used to get screwed by Kill Points because of the stupid "retinue" rule for officers, and because they had no flexibility with their platoons. Now they can make 55 guys into 2 Kill Points, which is better than what a lot of armies can do, especially since those squads are usually going to be 6 different squads, which cannot be consolidated into, or shot by one squad (barring special rules), or assaulted by a unit that has killed another via shooting (transports exempt), etc.

I still think there are some problems with the Kill Points system; gun drones and spore mines should not be worth Kill Points, and some Independent Characters are overpriced on account of being an easy Kill Point as well. Overall, though, I think there needs to be some drawbacks to not splitting everything up as much as possible, besides a few small things like simultaneous use of templates and such.

I think that Kill points are only in there element if the sides both have the even number of squads. Otherwise, DeathWing will win. Always. They only have to kill 3 squads to draw with theirs (2 termie squads and a HQ), even if they are utterly anihilated.

A table of your opponent is always a win, no matter how many kill points your opponent has or what ability to claim objectives you have.

Also, look at it from the perspective of the Deathwing player in an objective game; they can only ever capture two objectives with those two troops, and those 400 points of terminators can only engage 50-75 point guard squads or 55 point chimeras in combat. Meanwhile, the guard rarely have to waste fire picking off the last man in a squad to stop them from scoring.

I do think the best compromise would be to allow Kill Points and objectives to be used in the same game; it would split the difference instead of make uneven matchups so largely decided by the roll for mission type.

I would love to see a horde guardsmen army take on a horde guardsmen army. No particlar relevance to this thread appart from the fact that 50models are a single killpoint. MEATGRINDER!!!!

KP need to exist because they work in conjunction with the other objective-based missions, which favour lots of small scoring units in transports. If KP didnt exist then horde armies would be completely screwed because there would be no reason to take a horde over lots of small squads and mech armies would have even more power than they do at the moment because there would be no disadvantage for taking lots of cheap vehicles.

But most people choose either a horde army or a mech army over fluff. Rarely will one do such a thing to get the most out of kill points.

What Regwon and Orkeosaurus said.

Kill Points are not just a simplified (and flawed) replacement for Victory Points.

They are a natural counter balance when compared to the other mission types to ensure that players don't just take the maximum number of small units available in order to give themselves the best chance to have scoring and/or contesting units left alive at the end of the game.


If you simply remove Kill Points from the mix then a whole bunch of army builds become, much, much more sick as you can now reliably win almost every game with them (or at least have a big advantage).


So just be aware that replacing Kill Points with Victory Points most definitely does change the 'texture' of the game, assuming that you're randomly rolling to see what mission types you get.

If you've just decided to play an Annihilation mission and you both go into it knowing you're going to be using VPs instead of KPs, then in that case it is perfectly fine, IMHO.

Victory Points:

Mob of Gretchin = 50-80-ish points.
Big squad of Chaos Terminators = 300+ points.


Kill Points:

Mob of Gretchin = 1 KP.
Big squad of Chaos Terminators = 1 KP.

FAIL!!!!!!

KP is one of the worst aspects of 5th.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Victory Points:

Mob of Gretchin = 50-80-ish points.
Big squad of Chaos Terminators = 300+ points.


Kill Points:

Mob of Gretchin = 1 KP.
Big squad of Chaos Terminators = 1 KP.

FAIL!!!!!!

KP is one of the worst aspects of 5th.

But you know this fact when constructing an army, so you make a conscious choice about it. Lots of small units give you flexibility to capture multiple objectives and contest enemy held objectives but leave you vulnerable in KP missions.

The big giant 300 point terminator unit (assuming it is a troops choice for this argument) can still be contested by a single Gretchin model, so it depends on which mission you end up playing.

But the point is, if you completely remove Kill Points from the game then there is very little incentive to prevent the classic min-max army builds.

So, for example, while all mech armies are pretty darn potent in 5th edition, their one weakness is that they tend to have a whole lot more Kill Points available in Annihilation games and, in most cases, the transports are fairly easy-ish to kill by the end of the game to score those KPs. Take KPs out of the mix and mech armies would just be completely and utterly dominant.

This is why the 2nd edition victory point table in Dark Millenium is best.

Troops under 100 you only get full points if you wipe them out.

Troops over 100 you get partial victory points for 50 percent/ broken and it scales to a maximum allowment of 5 VPs and 2 VPS for partial , it stops at like 500 points.

Its the best system.

Or how about you count out the points worth of every dead dude?

Hollismason wrote:This is why the 2nd edition victory point table in Dark Millenium is best.

Troops under 100 you only get full points if you wipe them out.

Troops over 100 you get partial victory points for 50 percent/ broken and it scales to a maximum allowment of 5 VPs and 2 VPS for partial , it stops at like 500 points.

Its the best system.

I totally disagree with that sentiment. That system had all sorts of little point break margins where adding one or two points to a unit would bump it up to the next 'bracket' of VPs. So, for example, I used to take a bunch of 98 point Guard squads with no upgrades to run as a screen for most of my army and once they got whittled down to one or two men I'd just go hide those last models and deny my opponents full points for that squad.

The current VP system is perfectly fine for determining purely who killed more value of the enemy's army.

But that is different from what KPs do, which is the point I'm trying to make. KPs are dual purpose. They determine who won/lost the game but they also help to reign-in extreme army types that would otherwise dominate if KPs weren't around.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Or how about you count out the points worth of every dead dude?

Try it sometime and see how well that works. Not only would it take forever to calculate, but it is also impossible with many units not specifying exactly how much a model is worth. For example, in the new SM codex, units are worth a certain amount of points base, and you don't know exactly how many points each model is actually worth.

my biggest issues with KP have been partly resolved ie. Guard. The other thing I think is stupid is drones on Tau vehicles. I give my opponent the option to count the drones as destroyed when I kill the vehicle (no extra kp) or leave them alive and they will be a separate KP.

I agree with Yakface on this. My nidzilla list that I run is quite the monster in any objective game, but KP's make it a lot harder for me. Without KP games I would have a lot more wins under my belt (and a lot of them wouldn't be due to my ability, which is sad).

Remember that a lot of codexes haven't been updated to handle KP's that well. Once they are, it should have a more balanced feel to it.

How are 'Nidzillars good in an objective match? Carnies and tyrants can't hold objectives.

@EmperorsFaithful--He holds one objective in his deployment, and contests all the rest. Most people dont push squads into the nid deployment zone.