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The notion of what needs "baby-sitting" versus what just works on its own is so odd though... Every model is a different platform for receiving buffs, and even those aren't equal. Some armies have access to more, and more varied supports, where-as some individual models keywords make them more or less receptive to buffs/synergy.

Yes, some units, in the purely mathematical sense "work" better" than others, but that is sooooo reductive in the context of a game. It would be like rating the Legendary gear is Diablo 3 without knowing the build, or class you would be equipping it for. Technically the "math" is correct, but its just so meaningless in practice.

I feel like we're all just going in circles every time this raw efficiency discussion comes back up, or someone points to this and says, "see... proof... "x" is too good". The work is commendable, the methodology is valid, but its meaning/usefulness is just sort of "there", and just encourages the game, and units to be considered in the most superficial way.

I don't get it. I appreciate that this was done, but every time I see a newer or less informed player looking at this and making decisions, I just feel obligated to be the counter-point that remind them that the game is so very different in practice. Seeing 90% of my list's units relegated to "F" and "D" ratings, after consistently beating lists of spammed "A" list items, isn't just dice-rolling and math gone awry... its all the variables these stats can't track, in practice.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

I don't get it. I appreciate that this was done, but every time I see a newer or less informed player looking at this and making decisions, I just feel obligated to be the counter-point that remind them that the game is so very different in practice. Seeing 90% of my list's units relegated to "F" and "D" ratings, after consistently beating lists of spammed "A" list items, isn't just dice-rolling and math gone awry... its all the variables these stats can't track, in practice.

I understand, and appreciate, what you're saying. What looking at the ratings allowed me to do, was to look at units I was considering. From there, if they were a unit that needed buffs/synergy, I could look at how many hero, or other units, I would need in addition to that unit. I was able to do a sort of cost/benefit analysis. While I've only been involved with GW games for ~12 years, I've been doing historical since I was in my mid teens, and I'm in my early 50's now. So, I do understand your points about about metrics vs. practical game play. And you're right, IMO. I've played games where I should have won, but I couldn't roll for crap the entire game. It wouldn't have mattered what I fielded, I would have lost because the dice just wouldn't cooperate, lol. I've been on the other side of that, as well. What I took from Auticus' system gave me a way of seeing how hero heavy, or light, my army needed to be with certain units I was considering. It was still up to me to look at the war scrolls and do some figuring. That's fine, I just needed a simpler way of looking at units at a glance. Where I'm going with this army now, I believe will be an army that can win in friendly games (I'm not really into the competitive/tournament scene). The only way to know for sure, will come from putting it on the table and playing some games with it.

I don't get it. I appreciate that this was done, but every time I see a newer or less informed player looking at this and making decisions, I just feel obligated to be the counter-point that remind them that the game is so very different in practice. Seeing 90% of my list's units relegated to "F" and "D" ratings, after consistently beating lists of spammed "A" list items, isn't just dice-rolling and math gone awry... its all the variables these stats can't track, in practice.

There are three pillars of gameplay that I have found.

One is the army list.

Two is the player running the army list.

Three is luck.

Stating that the numbers by themselves are not right because someone's "D" list always seems to beat an "A" list isn't telling the whole story either because we're missing the other two pillars during the game... your skill vs your opponent's skill as well as what luck was involved.

When writing Azyr Comp I was bombarded for a while with how the points were just so off because the last game the person writing me played, he had a stroke of bad luck or his opponent had a stroke of great luck and so the models were not pointed correctly because of that good or bad luck.

That was a fairly common piece of feedback I got.

What this is most definitely *NOT* trying to say is:

My list is "A"... your list is "C"... there's no way you should be able to beat me.

What this does say is that my "A" list is typically in practice much easier to handle than your "C" list. You beating me indicates other things.

And from where I'm sitting, "A" lists *are* much easier to run. That doesn't mean I'm going to win with them all the time or even some of the time, it just means that they are numerically stronger. THe rest is up to me. I see players that run powerlists lose often simply because they aren't very good players. That doesn't mean the list still wasn't an "A" list. Lists that rely on proper use of abilities *are* more difficult to use properly than lists that can run autonomously without buffs, because it relies on the player knowing when and how to use those buffs, whereas units that don't require buffs just do their thing.

YOu can do the same thing in 40k. I can give a tournament powered eldar player to a poor player who will still lose a lot of games. That doesn't mean that the powergamer eldar list is in anyway NOT an "A" powered list. All that really means is that the powergamer eldar list is a lot easier to use. Its not a ticket to saying that you're going to win every game because army lists are only 1/3 of the equation during a game.

People aren't saying that a D unit is better because it can beat A, they are saying a D unit is better because of its abilities/synergy and it beating A is just an example of that. Going back to the fanatic example, they are an extremely valuable unit even if they die without causing any wounds because of how they can block charges by counter-charging during an opponent's turn. That veers into the realm of subjective, though, and thus is justifiably not included in the calculations. It does mean, however, that fanatics are not an F unit even if the stats say they are.

FWIW I still think this is a great tool for the reasons I described earlier.

Auticus, I absolutely understand what you're saying, which is why I wouldn't ever contest the sort of rational/academic integrity of it. Perhaps its my own fault for infusing the gradings with their connotations from school and such (IE, "F" = failing), and the implications there-of. If so, that is entirely on me.

I just know from experience that power-lists like this, in my experience, just empower the worst kinds of players, and thus my aversion to it. Yes, we can all take context-neutral, useful data away, but the real-world implications I expect to see are at my next tournament, a bunch of our worst gamers trying to math their way to victory. :-p Hell, we've already got two folks that decided to run nothing but Beastclaw because "They read on the internet that they were the best..." These same folks,wouldn't have had the mathematical aptitude to figure that out for themselves, but now I need to tailor my own list-building to answer these mooks. :-p

Definitely don't have anything but respect for your efforts, i'm just salty about anything that empowers some of the clowns I expect to math-hammer our events to death, especially when I have been trying soooo hard to build a fun, diverse, community from the game, from the ground up.

I don't want to be too critical but I don't think the scoring system is at all sophisticated enough to be of any use. Maybe for comparing melee units only, but not for ranged. When Judicators with Crossbows rank higher than Judicators with bows it tells me the system is just wrong in many aspects. (Not that your math is wrong, they do have a higher damage output if they manage to start a turn within 12" of the enemy.) But in any practical sense they couldn't be considered better on the battlefield in isolation.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Auticus, I absolutely understand what you're saying, which is why I wouldn't ever contest the sort of rational/academic integrity of it. Perhaps its my own fault for infusing the gradings with their connotations from school and such (IE, "F" = failing), and the implications there-of. If so, that is entirely on me.

I just know from experience that power-lists like this, in my experience, just empower the worst kinds of players, and thus my aversion to it. Yes, we can all take context-neutral, useful data away, but the real-world implications I expect to see are at my next tournament, a bunch of our worst gamers trying to math their way to victory. :-p Hell, we've already got two folks that decided to run nothing but Beastclaw because "They read on the internet that they were the best..." These same folks,wouldn't have had the mathematical aptitude to figure that out for themselves, but now I need to tailor my own list-building to answer these mooks. :-p

Definitely don't have anything but respect for your efforts, i'm just salty about anything that empowers some of the clowns I expect to math-hammer our events to death, especially when I have been trying soooo hard to build a fun, diverse, community from the game, from the ground up.

The more I game, the more I realize that TFG-types will find a way to do TFG-things regardless of the context. A balanced game helps but the problem will only ever be resolved by addressing the players. And Matched Play is NOT a balanced game.

In other words, might as well help the players who will use this guide correctly because donkey caves will be donkey caves either way.

I don't want to be too critical but I don't think the scoring system is at all sophisticated enough to be of any use. Maybe for comparing melee units only, but not for ranged. When Judicators with Crossbows rank higher than Judicators with bows it tells me the system is just wrong in many aspects. (Not that your math is wrong, they do have a higher damage output if they manage to start a turn within 12" of the enemy.) But in any practical sense they couldn't be considered better on the battlefield in isolation.

Thats fine. I found this system immensely useful during my tournament days from 1999-2005 though. It definitely helped me shore up weak spots in my lists and help me place high in the GW GTs pretty much every time.

I know it was the lists that I was leaning on as well because using the same system I always struggled with C grade or worse lists even though with A lists I could consistently get to the top tables.

If you don't find a use for it, bless your heart. Its not for everyone sure.

Definitely don't have anything but respect for your efforts, i'm just salty about anything that empowers some of the clowns I expect to math-hammer our events to death, especially when I have been trying soooo hard to build a fun, diverse, community from the game, from the ground up.

I understand where you are coming from. I've always known most of the math hammer power gamers that I've been involved with to always have something like this at their disposal anyway.

This gives other applications besides what to powergame with as well. I'm using it to give bonus points for weaker lists that manage wins to incentivize not just going after the obvious "A" lists, as well as finding a better way besides "official unbalanced GW points" to have a balanced game for a video battle report short of "whoops that was a massacre lets restart the game and try to take out some of that stormcast cavalry if you could"