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Apocalypse "balance":

LRBT: 1 shot at 6+/6+, 72" range

LR Executioner: 1 shot at 6+/6+, 36" range, hurts itself every time you roll a 1.

In a normal point system this is ok, the battle cannon can just be way more expensive. In PL/Apocalypse they cost the same and nobody will ever take the plasma option.

 Peregrine wrote:
Apocalypse "balance":

LRBT: 1 shot at 6+/6+, 72" range

LR Executioner: 1 shot at 6+/6+, 36" range, hurts itself every time you roll a 1.

In a normal point system this is ok, the battle cannon can just be way more expensive. In PL/Apocalypse they cost the same and nobody will ever take the plasma option.

Unless they don't have a LRBT, and only have a LR Executioner.

 Blndmage wrote:

Bharring wrote:
It's doing better in large part because they added Points back into the game, after trying to move away from them.

The game was DOA when it came out without points.

Doesn't that simply boil down to people saying " but it's always been this way! I don't like this change, I'm not going to try it, so I'll complain until they go back to what I'm used to", and is what sounds like happened with the 8th ed playtester, they didn't like the change, caused enough issue that GW had to last minute add in points, hence why points have been off so badly this edition in many cases?

"It's always been that way" is a claim to be rejected, not an argument to reject the premise. I eat food every day. It's always been that way. The fact that it's always been that way doesn't matter; it'll continue to be that way because it's ideal, not because it always has.

Sans-points was bad. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it was unworkable. We want raging orc savages to destroy basic human troops per guy. We want ancient dragons to laugh in the face of an overgrown eagle. But then we want to have fair fights between hordes of Ors and basic human armies. We want to see "Do I want to take an ancient dragon or a great eagle" to be an actual choice. How do you do that without points? GW didn't introduce an alternative to Points with AOS's release. They simply said "Play what you own". So if you buy a box of orcs and I buy a box of peasants, that's not going to be a fun time. If I own a dragon and you own an eagle, that's going to feel like a pointless game.

We don't hate no-points or per-box or even PL because it's different; we hate it because it's inferior. At the extreme (play-whatever), you're abandoning any attempt to help guide players to bring reasonably-balanced forces to the battlefield. And, as you move further across the spectrum from there towards Points, you further help guide players to bring reasonably-balanced forces to the battlefield. The more granular you get, the more fair disperate power between options can get *and still be fair*. This isn't because 7th ed had points; its' because that's the nature of what points are.

Now, you could make a system based on PL where every option is equally powerful (you're going to miss the mark or streamline everything to pointlessness, but it's theoretically possible). Basically, what you've done is flatten the depth of the game up to a level no more granular than PL. So that's not a Points vs PL discussion - that's a "what should options mean" discussion. You can do that with Points or PL, and there's no real difference. Even a perfect execution, though, necessarily discards facets some players like (being able to upgrade, not just sidegrade, as long as you pay for it).

Where are you seeing those rules Peregrine?

The plasma canon on the datasheet is a 7+/7+ with supercharge which we currently don't know what it does in apoc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

Bharring wrote:
It's doing better in large part because they added Points back into the game, after trying to move away from them.

The game was DOA when it came out without points.

Doesn't that simply boil down to people saying " but it's always been this way! I don't like this change, I'm not going to try it, so I'll complain until they go back to what I'm used to", and is what sounds like happened with the 8th ed playtester, they didn't like the change, caused enough issue that GW had to last minute add in points, hence why points have been off so badly this edition in many cases?

"It's always been that way" is a claim to be rejected, not an argument to reject the premise. I eat food every day. It's always been that way. The fact that it's always been that way doesn't matter; it'll continue to be that way because it's ideal, not because it always has.

Sans-points was bad. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because it was unworkable. We want raging orc savages to destroy basic human troops per guy. We want ancient dragons to laugh in the face of an overgrown eagle. But then we want to have fair fights between hordes of Ors and basic human armies. We want to see "Do I want to take an ancient dragon or a great eagle" to be an actual choice. How do you do that without points? GW didn't introduce an alternative to Points with AOS's release. They simply said "Play what you own". So if you buy a box of orcs and I buy a box of peasants, that's not going to be a fun time. If I own a dragon and you own an eagle, that's going to feel like a pointless game.

We don't hate no-points or per-box or even PL because it's different; we hate it because it's inferior. At the extreme (play-whatever), you're abandoning any attempt to help guide players to bring reasonably-balanced forces to the battlefield. And, as you move further across the spectrum from there towards Points, you further help guide players to bring reasonably-balanced forces to the battlefield. The more granular you get, the more fair disperate power between options can get *and still be fair*. This isn't because 7th ed had points; its' because that's the nature of what points are.

Now, you could make a system based on PL where every option is equally powerful (you're going to miss the mark or streamline everything to pointlessness, but it's theoretically possible). Basically, what you've done is flatten the depth of the game up to a level no more granular than PL. So that's not a Points vs PL discussion - that's a "what should options mean" discussion. You can do that with Points or PL, and there's no real difference. Even a perfect execution, though, necessarily discards facets some players like (being able to upgrade, not just sidegrade, as long as you pay for it).

The difference between power level and points is costing things on a unit level or a model level. 8th is a fethed up mess from top to bottom and their costing of PL is as messed up as everything else. That doesn't say power level is a bad system. It says GW failed to implement it well. Shock and awe. GW wrote bad rules!? unheard of.

Having used both, I find the that they both provide a different feeling Whalen assembling a list, they work in different ways.

I'm not saying you can't min max Pl, but you can do the same with points, that's not what I'm talking about.

The way the system guides you to list build is different. For armies that have upgrades(I play Necrons, so I don't quite get this part), you CAN min mix wargear, but do you actually have the models for it? If you do, great, if not, why are you taking the wargear/weapon?

I've been running with PL for a bit now, having played with points only until a few months ago, and I'm finding that the lists have a different feel to them with PL. I don't do mathhammet, I try and make thematic lists, and I find that for that purpose, PL has proven to be superior to point, for me.

 Blndmage wrote:
PL has proven to be superior to point, for me.

That's a super important point.

It works for you. And your opponent. That's great. I've played PL games that were better because they were PL games. I find it's mostly about the individuals playing. Those who just want to put their collection on the table and play a game? PL does it faster simpler. Those who want to be choosy about which upgrades they took? Those who want to build an army where they care about the relative effectiveness of Boys vs Toys? Points are going to be better.

PL works so well when it works well because it's not concerned with the finer points of balance. And the current setup allows PL to work great for that, without wrecking the game for those who want points.

The solution to "PL vs Points" should be "Whatchya feel like playing", not "rework the game so Points mean nothing".

Actually, first page of the AM datasheets for apoc says the turret options are...

Vanquisher Battle Canon: 72" 2 attacks 10+/4+
Executioner Plasma Canon: 36" 1 attack 7+/7+ supercharge

 Blndmage wrote:
Unless they don't have a LRBT, and only have a LR Executioner.

Which just demonstrates why PL is such a ing stupid idea.

In a (well designed) conventional point system you're ok. Your LR Executioner's gun is weaker, but it also has a lower point cost to make up for it. You're locked in to the "cheap cannon fodder" option and can't swap for the elite option because you only have one turret for your model, but both of them are valid choices.

In PL/Apocalypse you're screwed, sucks to be you. You have a trash unit that is just strictly worse than the better unit. Guess you'd better make better choices about how to build your model kit next time?

 Lance845 wrote:
Where are you seeing those rules Peregrine?

The plasma canon on the datasheet is a 7+/7+ with supercharge which we currently don't know what it does in apoc.

From one of the battle reports that was posted (check the N&R thread, I forget where exactly). Supercharge is the ability to add +1 to wound but take a blast marker for each 1 you roll. So a supercharged plasma cannon is literally just a shorter-ranged battle cannon that can kill your own unit, and if you don't use the supercharge rule it's even worse.

Peregrine wrote:
From one of the battle reports that was posted (check the N&R thread, I forget where exactly). Supercharge is the ability to add +1 to wound but take a blast marker for each 1 you roll. So a supercharged plasma cannon is literally just a shorter-ranged battle cannon that can kill your own unit, and if you don't use the supercharge rule it's even worse.

Lance845 wrote:Actually, first page of the AM datasheets for apoc says the turret options are...

Vanquisher Battle Canon: 72" 2 attacks 10+/4+
Executioner Plasma Canon: 36" 1 attack 7+/7+ supercharge

That means the EPC is a all around weapon that can be a 6+/6+ vs infantry and vehicles. A near 60% chance to wound on everything.

The VBC is better at anti tank and utter gak against everything else. 25% vs infantry 75% vs tanks.

Hurting itself on a roll of 1 on a d12 is pretty good odds.

Not the Vanquisher. Standard Russ Battlecannon.

Edit REDACTED

I see it all now. Gotcha. Well, thats GW's bloat of options for you.

 Lance845 wrote:
The VBC is better at anti tank and utter gak against everything else. 25% vs infantry 75% vs tanks.

Remember that the vanquisher cannon gets double the shots. It only wounds infantry on a 10+, but that's still a 45% chance to wound at least once. At least it's not a case of one option having literally zero reason to ever appear on the table, like with the plasma cannon vs. battle cannon, but it's still pretty obvious that you trade a slightly worse chance of wounding infantry for a vastly higher chance of wounding tanks in a game type where tanks matter way more than most infantry.

So yeah, Apocalypse stats are a raging dumpster fire of poor balance and math failures. And it's hilarious that anyone would try to use Apocalypse as an example of PL done right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blndmage wrote:
The way the system guides you to list build is different. For armies that have upgrades(I play Necrons, so I don't quite get this part), you CAN min mix wargear, but do you actually have the models for it? If you do, great, if not, why are you taking the wargear/weapon?

Sorry, but that's not how it works at all. PL vs. normal points changes which upgrades are best, but it doesn't in any way encourage you to care more about WYSIWYG or building cool models and then using the appropriate rules or whatever you think you're doing. That's entirely your own invention and has nothing to do with the printed rules. PL may "work" for you, but in any case where PL is working normal points would work even better.

 Peregrine wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blndmage wrote:
The way the system guides you to list build is different. For armies that have upgrades(I play Necrons, so I don't quite get this part), you CAN min mix wargear, but do you actually have the models for it? If you do, great, if not, why are you taking the wargear/weapon?

Sorry, but that's not how it works at all. PL vs. normal points changes which upgrades are best, but it doesn't in any way encourage you to care more about WYSIWYG or building cool models and then using the appropriate rules or whatever you think you're doing. That's entirely your own invention and has nothing to do with the printed rules. PL may "work" for you, but in any case where PL is working normal points would work even better.

For certain definitions of "better". The problem is, though, there are a lot of different definitions of "better".

 Blndmage wrote:
Having used both, I find the that they both provide a different feeling Whalen assembling a list, they work in different ways.

I'm not saying you can't min max Pl, but you can do the same with points, that's not what I'm talking about.

The way the system guides you to list build is different. For armies that have upgrades(I play Necrons, so I don't quite get this part), you CAN min mix wargear, but do you actually have the models for it? If you do, great, if not, why are you taking the wargear/weapon?

I've been running with PL for a bit now, having played with points only until a few months ago, and I'm finding that the lists have a different feel to them with PL. I don't do mathhammet, I try and make thematic lists, and I find that for that purpose, PL has proven to be superior to point, for me.

Not having the model is irrelevant if you're using PL in a competitive environment. If the weapon is a large enough increase in efficiency a competitive player would cobble one together out of sprue bits and stick it to the models forehead if they had to.


I don't actually mind PL in competitive settings simply because 40k's balance is poor enough already that all PL does is make it a zany-er meta.

I dont think you can purely through changes in the point system change the game so that there aren't some options that will always be auto-includes or excluded.
Some units have access to weapons that are just not very useful for them to fulfill their purpose so that any substantial amount of points paid for it is probably better spent elsewhere and only when you reduce the points so drastically that they are basically never missed, does the option become useful. At which point it is so cheap that you just take it automatically.

With the power level system, everything simply becomes auto-include, except for a multiple choice option, in which case there may be one or two choices out of maybe 5 that are always used. You would have to carefully balance each weapon to be equally useful against the majority of possible foes. That's just the nature of games being played competitively.

 Blndmage wrote:
Having used both, I find the that they both provide a different feeling Whalen assembling a list, they work in different ways.

I'm not saying you can't min max Pl, but you can do the same with points, that's not what I'm talking about.

The way the system guides you to list build is different. For armies that have upgrades(I play Necrons, so I don't quite get this part), you CAN min mix wargear, but do you actually have the models for it? If you do, great, if not, why are you taking the wargear/weapon?

I've been running with PL for a bit now, having played with points only until a few months ago, and I'm finding that the lists have a different feel to them with PL. I don't do mathhammet, I try and make thematic lists, and I find that for that purpose, PL has proven to be superior to point, for me.

This is the issue with PL though. You and your opponent(s) agree generally on what kind of game you want. With that agreement almost any system can work baring extreme divergence in army power. PL fails apart even faster than points the minute your not in complete agreement (although 40k with points is far from perfect as well).

It gives armies with a ton of options way to many ways to push the limit of the game and essentially takes away any reason to not max out every unit with all of the best options.

I think the biggest issue there is options bloat. Between grav plasma flamer bolt missile las you have so many ways to do things that things overlap in usefulness.

Apocs system of vs tanks vs vs infantry is a good way to give different weapons different edges until you have too many weapons to give distinct roles to.

Cut down the options and its no longer an issue. Its no surprise that this is mostly a problem for sm, csm and am. 2 of those get option after option until its insanity and the 3rd is mimicing one of the others. Trim the fat.

I guess playing Necrons and Kroot, means I'm missing it on all the fuss around options.

I don't mind PL. The issue with PL is that 40k has way too many options, which people always min-max, so removing the cost of those items just means there are zero drawbacks to min-maxing while with points there is (since you may not have the 15 points for Weapon A, but you have 10 points for Weapon B).

Remember, the AOS point system is essentially PL; you pay a flat, scaling cost and don't pay for individual models or upgrades. The difference is that AOS you have few if any options in a unit. Usually, a choice is unit-wide (the AOS equivalent of "bolters or bolt pistol and chainsword") and there's some 1-in-5 option for one, maybe two choices. If 40k actually consolidated its myriad of options, most of which are usually useless anyway, then PL would work for it. But when you have a bunch of options, not paying for each one just makes it worse.

The *idea* behind PL is that you'll use what your models have, regardless of if it's "good" or "bad". GW does not seem to fathom or understand the concept of extreme min-maxing and *only* taking 1 weapon (often 3d printed/third-party or scouring bitz sites) because "the maths" show it being better (which incidentally, mathhammer is one of the worst and most destructive things to ever hit this game, just like theorycrafting in online games; it completely removes any sense of aesthetic choice and tries to force everyone into min-maxing); they seem to expect that you'll build most kits with a variety of weapons for looks. I often feel they just need to go full into that mindset and only allow you to equip squads with the number of weapons in the box; i.e. if a box has 2 plasma guns but 4 guys in the squad can have a special weapon, it would be limited to only 2 plasma guns, not up to 4. However, they don't have thick enough skin to avoid the whining that would happen from all the min-maxers if they did that.

For people who actually do that (yes, they exist) then PL works fine because you aren't trying to eke out every tiny bit of performance so you don't really care about minutiae like having exactly even points, and there can be a lot of fun in doing that if both players are on the same page and neither wants to treat the game like some sort of cutthroat competition that must be won and has to be as close to perfectly balanced as possible or waaaah it's not fun he has more than me sort of gak.

Remember, discussing this sort of thing online is always a strange situation since online the only common ground is die-hard Matched Play, if not tournament situations since everyone's individual meta is often different and isn't something you can really convey in a discussion with people who aren't also a part of that meta. Thus you see things like online everyone expects you're using Matched Play, that you're min-maxing your list, that you're using all of the Organized Event rules (despite them not being matched play), and often that you're trying to build the most hardcore list available to you so you can compete in a tournament even when this isn't the case.

Also, there seem to be some people here (not naming names but we all know who it is) who seems to be on some sort of holy crusade to prove that nobody ever anywhere should ever use PL and if they even dare to say why they like it, they need to be shown the error of their ways and why PL is garbage, and who cares what they might enjoy...

Why would you consider mathhammer so bad?

It's people using their brains and math to figure out which weapons or options are best under which circumstances. If you don't like and prefer to just field what looks cool, you're free to ignore it, but for some people, fielding the most competitive list they can is how they have fun.

Now, obviously you shouldn't go seal clubbing and own newbs with your top-tier list, nor should you insist everyone play the same way you do. But I don't see anything wrong with crunching the numbers to figure out how to make your list kick ass, and play against someone else who also wants a competitive game.

You're not gonna avoid people using mathhammer with power levels play anyway, Wayniac, so what's the point of bringing it up?

The mathhammer is simply applied differently with power levels. But it's no less useful.

With points, Mathhammer is "I maximize my board presence, army bonuses, and firepower per point spent". With power levels, Mathhammer is "I maximize my board presence, army bonuses, and firepower per powerlevel accumulated." Ultimately, it's still mathhammer. And when people play competitively, they're going to use it to greater or lesser extent, simply because of the nature of competition.

And why are we pretending that "mathammer" is some weird and unconventional approach to the game? It's just basic math and being able to compare units/options intelligently and there was never a point before it "hit the game".

 Peregrine wrote:
And why are we pretending that "mathammer" is some weird and unconventional approach to the game? It's just basic math and being able to compare units/options intelligently and there was never a point before it "hit the game".

There was and there wasn't though. It was there, but I remember a time when the whole concept was the sole domain of the powergamer and you got many an eye roll when discussions of what things were "more efficient" came about. Because that was simply not what wargaming was about. You were a boring numbercruncher that sucked the fun out of the game (if you have ever seen The Simpsons episode MoneyBART this is exactly how mathhammer people were approached IME) and all you were doing was boring it down to pure numbers.

I forget what thread it is in on here, but there is the post that describes how Tau are good, but not interesting. This is what mathhammer is to me. It removes all of the fun of finding these combos, which I personally love as it feths with these mathhammerers and the thrill of pulling off something that simply does not compute to them. I don't want every army to be cookie cutter and operating at the same efficiency. This, oddly; is where Blood Bowl gets it right. Imagine if you had people telling you not to play Halflings as they were a sub-par choice. That's a feature, not a bug. Some people like to play as the proverbial underdog.

Exactly. There was a time where "mathhammer" got you quirked eyebrows as a powergamer/munchkin/cheesey/beardy etc.person who didn't care about the background or lore, and only played to win; the type of person that WAAC was coined for, and in general the sort of player people wanted to avoid because they knew it wouldn't be a fun game.

It means a different thing now and is more acceptable, but it wasn't always. It was the same vein as people who tried to theorycraft D&D and min/max everything. They got weird looks because they were largely considered to be missing the entire point of the game.

Using math does not make you waac.

Martel732 wrote:
Using math does not make you waac.

I never said it did. I said there was a time when doing it gave you that sort of reputation, which is absolutely true (or at least was in my area for many, many years)

Sounds like a pretty miserable time TBH, if something as basic as "I need 6s to wound this thing, that doesn't seem very effective so I'll shoot at this thing I wound on 2s instead" gets you a bad reputation. Why play a game at all if you get judged and shunned for understanding how the rules work and making intelligent strategic decisions?

I've been playing for over a decade and I don't really agree on the whole mathhammer is new trend. Every edition has had winners and losers based on core rules and how a codex is set up.

Back in 5th I loaded up on meltas and PFs because they were the best options for my line squads. By the time 7th rolled around my special weapons were a bit more varied but I always gave sarge a combi weapon to match and didn't bother with any melee options because they were a waste of points 90% of the time.

Do I crunch the numbers to the nth degree to find the bleeding each most efficient build ? No, but to completely ignore that some units or choices are just flat out better is equally silly in my eye.

Theoryhammer and Mathhammer are just tools to win arguments on the internet. Few people use them correctly in real life.

Martel732 wrote:
Using math does not make you waac.

Care to actually elaborate rather than just posting a single sentence (barely) as per usual? Both Wayne and I have explained why in gaming circles it was seen as something to be abhorred a it was completely anathema to what this hobby is about.

So, why isn't it? Because I can tell you from experience every. Single. Mathhammer person I've met has been a powergamer borderline TFG that is a chore to play against.