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Points adjustments are not unilaterally the ideal solution. However, they are the simplest solution in many cases.

E.g. Most of the models in the Chaos Space Marine army are objectively too expensive. It's easy to spot this as we have another army (or 5) with which to almost directly compare them and see that they simply do not get enough for the little cost differences between them. Most of these units having a more appropriate points cost would make the army more competitive.

On the other hand, some units are so messed up as to be broken no matter their cost.

E.g. Howling Banshees can't have an appropriate point cost. They're all but useless given their difficulties in actually reaching an assault, but then winning or even surviving after they get there. Lowering their cost wouldn't help much as they'd still be limited to 10; they aren't a blob. And how much could you conceivably lower them when they still have power swords and a 4+ save? Wyches or Orks have neither, but are actually much better at the same job by having useful rules and units to help them achieve that job. No points adjustment will fix them.

If a thing can be fixed by giving it the right cost, that's just the simplest way to do it. Simple is better than changing rules; there's already a skrillion rules to know. When something you used to know changes every few months, that's quite trying.

There's other factors to control to ensure balance. Terrain is a big one. That's why online games and board games tend to have standardized and symmetrical maps, which is not something you'd necessarily associate with a tabletop wargame.

Yoyoyo wrote:
There's other factors to control to ensure balance. Terrain is a big one. That's why online games and board games tend to have standardized and symmetrical maps, which is not something you'd necessarily associate with a tabletop wargame.

Which doesn't make using points invalid.

Yoyoyo wrote:
There's other factors to control to ensure balance. Terrain is a big one. That's why online games and board games tend to have standardized and symmetrical maps, which is not something you'd necessarily associate with a tabletop wargame.

More specifically, complexity affects how easily points can be used to create balance.

As you say, the amount and type of terrain on the board affects the way different units function, and so points costs have to work around the sort of terrain that should be expected, and playing on a table set up differently to that is going to skew things.

But the bigger factor is complex army design. If you have fairly structured, limited army lists from which to choose your force, points are much easier to factor in. Once you open up your army list building to the sort of anything-goes system that 40K has currently, points suddenly become much less meaningful... because so much of the time, a unit's worth is not based solely on that individual unit's abilities and stats, but on how effective that unit is in concert with the rest of the force.

GW used to factor this in by altering the points costs for gear available to different units - A lascannon in a Space Marine tactical squad had a different cost to a lascannon in a Space Marine Devastator squad, because they tended to be used differently and had a different impact on the board. Likewise, a lascannon in a marine list and a lascannon in a guard list would not necessarily cost the same amount.

With the more recent army design philosophy, points costs are really nothing more than a vague guideline, rather than any meaningful balancing mechanic.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Im going to have to disagree with the OP here. Points cost is the BEST way to balance the game.

Points work OK when the overall unit power levels are within a relatively narrow range. However, when you have power levels that vary widely, fodder against hyper-mega Elites, points are no longer sufficient. Which is why GW implemented the FOC, and other games place restrictions on what / how many you can take / unlock.

For example, there is no way to balance points of Land Raiders against a Grot Swarm. An infinite number of Grots will never kill a Land Raider, nor can they prevent a Land Raider from advancing on an objective due to Tank Shock. Even if the Grots were effectively FREE, or the Land Raiders doubled or trebled in cost, points wouldn't be a sufficient balance.



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 DarknessEternal wrote:
E.g. Howling Banshees can't have an appropriate point cost. They're all but useless given their difficulties in actually reaching an assault, but then winning or even surviving after they get there. Lowering their cost wouldn't help much as they'd still be limited to 10; they aren't a blob. And how much could you conceivably lower them when they still have power swords and a 4+ save? Wyches or Orks have neither, but are actually much better at the same job by having useful rules and units to help them achieve that job. No points adjustment will fix them.

A single rule correction would fix easily Banshees (along with Storm Guardians and HtH Wraithguard) - simply make the Wave Serpent an Assault Transport so they'd reach combat. Of course, at that point, it's still an issue of winning with S3 and surviving with Sv4+, but at least the unit isn't completely whittled down by small arms coming in...

Point costs are one of several ways to ensure balance, but Game Workshop needs to seriously reconsider how they price Units before I can comfortably state that it is the best way to ensure balance. There are over-priced Units because the Authors have estimated how useful those Units would be on the table top, focusing on the ideal situation before pricing the Unit as if that was the only situation the Unit will face. There are also far to many Units that Marketing wishes to see more sales of, and the fastest way to get people to purchase them is to ensure they become the linchpin for that Army by being 'cost effective' on top of being useful.

Given the complicated nature of Warhammer 40k, I am not even sure if it is possible to find balance... let alone balance it with nothing more then 'correct' point cost.

In the current 40k, less points WOULD lead to more balance IMO.

Points do not lead to balance.
But we are talking about competitive gaming here i presume?
In that case restricting points will help.

The first years of 40k tournaments were 1500 points.
Point/size went from 1500 to 1600, 1700, 1750 and now 1850. And most units got cheaper.
But the average number of models on the table now with 1850 is less then 15 years ago with 1500.
Most people play elite.

The aspect of restricted time for a battle also comes in.
Mass armies cost too much time, they also NEED time and a longer battle to win, so fewer people play them.

If points would be restricted to 1500, i would applaud that.
You would have to make choices again. In 1850 you can take about anything you like. In 1500 the impact of expensive units is a lot bigger.
Combos is what it is all about and in 1850 people can do whatever they want. In 1500 they would have a problem.

Eldar jetbikes are no problem if they have less support from other units. A knight titan with little support (and no objective secured) has a problem too.
And the elite army with a few expensive characters, monsters of titan does not have the points to have enough bulk to face a horde army.

In this regard the balance of 1500 was a lot better then the balance we have at 1850.
The only problem was that in 1500 we did not have objectives like we have now. The combination would be quite a good balancer.

@ORicK - "Then and Now" comparisons of 40k tournaments and xxxx points is fraught with inflationary dangers.

I started playing around 1988. In the Realm of Chaos book, a Tactical Squad was 260 points with 10 models, including sergeant, 7 marines missile launcher, and flamer. A Devastator Squad was 375 points including sergeant, 5 bolter marines, 2 missile launchers, and 2 heavy bolters.

Now, a 10 man squad with a missile launcher and flamer is 160 points, and a Dev squad like that (10 w/ 2ML, 2HB) is like.. 190 points?

So 1500 points back in 1988 got you almost 5.8 tactical squads. 1500 points in 2015 gets you 9.4 identically equipped tactical squads. 1875 points gets you 11.7 -- almost exactly double the "value".

Therefore, if you wanted to return the game to 1988 levels, you'd have to play games of about 940 points.

... But ...

But back then, you could spend 17 points for a conversion beamer and 25 points for a vortex grenade, too. So an assault squad with jump packs could annihilate a Warlord Titan (since you're screwed if you touch vortex, or vortex randomly moves to you... and it moves every round). Drop 5 vortex grenades, and they will guaranteed float into models that of a size never envisioned in the 1988 game. There were also haywire, virus, rad, stasis grenades...

And the average game had like... 2 vehicles...

And there were squats!

It was just so different a game.


Coming back to 2015 40k, I agree with you that combos is where it's all at, and at 1850, you open up many possibilities. On the other hand, restrict the number of points, and you grossly inflate the power of many hard-to-kill models like Imperial Knights, very powerful solos like Dante, and highly flexible cheap units like scatter bikes. In other words, yeah, you shut down some of the current cheese, but there's plenty of fresh cheddar to take its place.

I think that to really "fix" balance, you need to bland-ify 40k, take out all the really powerful stuff and giant models, and dial it way back in the power level. Or play with severe model restrictions, like Kill Team imposes (even taking away the KT point limit). The problem is, these really powerful models are highly popular...

There's nothing inherently wrong with having the really powerful stuff. It's having the really powerful stuff available in almost unlimited combinations that makes for poor balance.

Sadly, I think the right minds are unlikely to take up the challenge, as most of the right minds are more likely to release their own game than try to fix someone elses product.

Yes, I am saying that the majority of people who attempt to rewrite the rules themselves, or release their own faqs, or propose rules changes, etc. are not the 'right minds'.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Sadly, I think the right minds are unlikely to take up the challenge, as most of the right minds are more likely to release their own game than try to fix someone elses product.

Yes, I am saying that the majority of people who attempt to rewrite the rules themselves, or release their own faqs, or propose rules changes, etc. are not the 'right minds'.

I think that most fandexes, faqs, etc are considerably better than the garbage GW spews forth. It's almost like using a dartboard to assign pts would be better.

I think the scale of the game has gotten out of hand making it nearly impossible to achieve internal and external balance. I wish they had a simple, core game with dialed down scale. This would allow a realistic shot at balance. Perfect balance wouldn't happen, but it could be closer. Then sell expansion rules to allow allies, super heavies, flyers, etc. Balance weakens with each addition, but when you just want to throw a bunch of stuff on the table, so what.

If GW wants to nudge sales of one or more of those rulesets and models to go with them use campaigns and tournaments to do that.

Points by themselves probably will have great difficulty creating balance as the game is currently structured. Formations are a good supplemental balancing idea that seems to be poorly executed too often.