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 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
The Imperial Guard index in general is probably a good example of how broken PLs can be if you try, and in a tournament people WILL try.

Take a look at this:

Spoiler:

HWS: PL3, min points: 27 max points: 72

SWT: PL3, min points: 39 max points: 60

Infantry squad: PL3, min points: 40 max points: 86

Command Squad: PL3, min points 24, max points 77

Veterans: PL6, min points: 60 max points: 147

As you can see, not only is there a huge amount of variation within a single unit but some units can milk their PL (or get screwed by it on the low end) much more than others.

Knights were a poor example because they have very few options, and all of those options replace something that is already being paid for. So they don't have a lot of cost variation, of course PLs will seem to approximate them well. Just about any infantry on the other hand, well you can see what that looks like above.

Meanwhile, any Baneblade variant can take 4 lascannons and 8 heavy flamers, or it can take nothing in that slot, making a 216 point spread between their minimum and maximum costs.

Bear in mind that Power Levels are based on the AVERAGE points cost of the unit plus its different possible loadouts for upgrades and weapons choices, and then divided by 20, so a 50 Power Level army will be about 1000 points ish.

I'm well aware of how PLs are set. My point is that on many units they do a poor job of it (how can a SWT's average be 60 when 60 is their absolute maximum loadout?), and the level of abstraction it creates can be easily exploited to break the system if someone goes out of their way to do so. This is a system that can only function if a player is constrained by the models they happen to have on hand at that moment, because in that situation a random collection of over-priced and under-priced models has some hope of roughly balancing out.

This is a situation that does not exist in a tournament setting, unless you want to create a new style of tournament where the host provides a selection of models for you and you have to make a list out of them on the spot. Let someone proxy, or let someone spend a few months painting new models ahead of time, and they can easily break that system over their knee. If you go out of your way to make sure every single unit in your army is getting more than 20pt/PL, guess what? Your 50PL army is going to be more than 1000 points.

This is why I've been saying it's suitable for pick-up games, but not suitable for tournaments. In a pick-up game you're not going to say "Hold on, let's start this game three months from now so I can paint up fifty missile launchers". You're going to throw something together with the models you have and it'll have to be good enough.

But tournaments are scheduled months in advance. You know it's coming, you know you signed up. You have time to paint those fifty missile launchers. You have time to break the system. Points are there to keep you reasonable, because points are more granular they can account for more edge cases. They can be more resistant to breaking, and they can be designed to break in a less dramatic fashion. They're a dampening force to help tone things down and level the playing field.

And the idea that using a looser and significantly more exploitable list-building system will somehow remove or mitigate list-building as a determining factor in the tournament is ludicrous. You're still building a list, and you can still give yourself a huge advantage by maximizing your pt/PL ratio, or shoot yourself in the foot by failing to maximize it. The only way you can really remove list-building is to have the TO provide their own lists that everyone will have to use (because then you don't build a list at all, you're handed a list and have to figure out how to play it). Meanwhile mitigation is actually achieved by a more granular system, because the closer the points get to representing the actual model on the table, the better two different lists will match up against each other.

For example, let's say a typical model's points might be 5% under or 5% over its "real power". If by some coincidence (or a lot of dedicated math) I mange to build a list that exploits that 5% to the maximum, at most my list can only be 5% over-powered in total. If someone else manages to get screwed at every turn they can only be about 5% under, so the difference between us is only 10% of the nominal points value.

But let's say we play power levels, in an extreme example I can intentionally build a squad to be 43% over its nominal power level cost (60x1.43=~86, the cost of a maxed-out PL3 infantry squad). I can also build a unit to be 55% under its nominal cost (a mortar squad at 27 points is 45% of its nominal 60 at PL3). If I'm building consistently over and an opponent consistently under, I could end up with a list that is 98% more powerful, nearly double, for the same cost. Plus or minus 5% for the margin of error in the points it's based on. As you can see, the granular points system does more to keep list building under control than power levels do. Power levels only amplify any imbalance that might already be present in points.

As long as people are buying, painting and bringing their own models, which is generally how 40k is played, list building will be a significant part of playing well no matter how that list gets built. Careful balancing and detailed point-costing can only, at most, keep it from swinging too far. Would you rather have power-gamers exploiting the system to squeeze out a 5% advantage, or a 98% advantage?

plikt wrote:

 durecellrabbit wrote:
Point are not just for penny pinching over a tactical squad's special and heavy weapon. Some units have a large variety of upgrades which power levels doesn't capture.

A 30 strong Termagant brood is PL9 which could be 120 point cannon fodder, 200 point mix of devourers and fleshborers or a 300 point unit with all the expensive upgrades.

I don't think the termagant example is a good one. The expensive upgrades are from melee specialization or ranged specialization. In the case of termagants with devourers, you almost never take toxin sacks and adrenal glands because you don't want them charging into combat. Yes, you can make the unit super expensive, but the first 100 points of upgrades is worth a lot more than the next 100 points of upgrades and I think powerlevel encompasses that sliding scale of effectiveness for termagant upgrdes very well.

The issue is that at PL 9 there is no reason not to take all the upgrades. Lets say I want to play a Tervigon/gaunt list, looking to drown my opponent in bodies. That's as fluffy as it gets.

If I'm paying points for each model, every time I take a devourer I give up a gaunt somewhere else. Taking a 30 man unit of d-gaunts costs me the ability to have two 30 man units of basic gaunts. Because the d-gaunts cost so much, I am going to want to maximise their utility. I'm going to consider using a pod or a Trygon to deliver them, I'm going to worry about if I can get buffs from the Tervigon on them, I'm going to think about taking extra Venomthropes.

If it is power levels, I just take all d-gaunts. I throw the upgrades on them because why not. All of the tactical and list building decisions I have to make when using points go out the window.

I guess the options are built in to the power cost at some degree. For example chosen are more expensive than possessed, so I would assume that would apply to necrons as well.

Other than that, I don't think it would make so much of difference whether points or power level is used. Of course the army compositions would be different, but as the effectiveness of different weapons (and units) is relative to what is on the other side of the table, even the points will always be approximations and depending where the meta settles, some stuff will eventually be more universally effective than others. So in both cases there will be the best loadout which many players will choose for their troopers. With power levels there just would be some additional equipment included which no one would take with points as they usually aren't worth those points. This also means that Direct comparison between the cost of fully kitted out troopers is not perhaps very fruitful as a lot of those points don't value to anything in many of the cases.

The same thing also speaks for sideboarding. I have played in few infinity tournaments and the two list system is nice. It allows some customization for certain extreme lists and/or scenarios that could make for quite boring games Otherwise.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
The same top players that abused free transports? Find the best combination of abusable units would become the new hotness.

That already happened under a system that used points, muchacho. It will certainly happen again. There will always be imbalances, competitive types will always look for advantages designers never intended. So if you want to balance to meta, it requires dynamic adjustments.

Everything else in this thread looks a lot like OCD hysteria since you're losing the granularity to fine tune your list in 0.05% increments. But the benefit is significant to TOs, who have limited time and can't get into the weeds for every tournament list, or argue about the value of every unit upgrade. Instead you just look at the consensus of "yeah the unit is overcosted" and knock off 1-2 power levels.

Sideboarding is not a problem, it is an opportunity. You either hand in your list with fixed upgrades, or decide how much is open to sideboarding. If Necrons suffer in this environment, knock off 1-2 power levels. Let's try and be open to some creative thinking here instead of just the usual "we fear change".

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
The article in the OP cherry-picks knights as an example because Power Levels work reasonably well when comparing within that faction, but I can create a 50PL Daemons list that's worth 534 points and an also 50PL Tau list that's worth 1540 points. That's a frankly obscene difference between two supposedly 'equally powerful' armies and the idea that a system with that much variation could be the basis for competitive play is laughable.

Don't forget, but GW is going to be continually updating those Points values later on to keep things "balanced" for the Matched Play rule set. So that 534 Point list you mentioned could later be 717 Points, and the 1540 Point army could go down to 1269 Points. I mean, I don't know for certain, but it's possible.

I don't understand how this has any relevance in supporting your argument at all. You're saying that because points are going to be frequently updated to make sure they accurately reflect the value of each unit, that somehow makes them less good as a measure of what a fair army is and isn't?

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Anecdotes of "my group uses PL and we haven't had balance issues" are less than worthless, because you guys aren't cut-throat tournament players looking to squeeze every last drop of imbalance out of the system.

So because some of us are not WAAC and ultra competitive, we don't get a say in how the game might be played? Because we aren't trying to find the imbalanced lists that are available in points means we shouldn't use Power Levels?

Of course you should get a say in how the game is played - you should be the only people with a say in how games are played among yourselves, and I'm sure power levels work great for that if you're all more concerned with fluff and aesthetics than squeezing every last little bit of damage potential out of your list. My point is that you'll never spot all the ways an ultra-competitive tournament player can abuse the power level system unless you are one yourself because you aren't looking for those exploits. That's not a reflection or judgement on you as gamers - it's just logical sense that only the people looking for them are likely to find the flaws in the system.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
I also find the assertion that removing list-building and optimization from the game makes for a more competitive environment ridiculous almost to the point of being insulting. Creating an optimal TAC list while accounting for the cost and performance of different options against the spread of opponents you expect to face is a huge skill factor and eliminating it from the game in name of simplicity (and reducing list-building down to spamming the units with the most expensive and flexible options and then picking which guns you want at the start of each game) would make the game drastically less competitive, not more.

When one focuses on achieving victory in the list building phase, then yes, the proposals in the article could very well threaten the kind of game that one seeks. But coming out of an age where the top competitive lists were almost identical and built around certain gimmicks, that is no longer list building, but list imitating. A TAC list is great and all, but at the tournaments, your TAC list isn't going to help against that 2++ Invulnerable save coming straight for your army, or when facing off against Riptides and Wraithknights that can blow you away without too much effort.

I'm not say list-building should be the focus of victory, but it should be a significant part of the puzzle rather than an afterthought that's pretty much decided for you by the way armies are measured. It's true that TAC lists hard a hard time in 7th edition, but that speaks more to the many flaws that edition of the game had (the vast majority of which have been addressed by eighth edition, as far as I can tell) than any reflection on points as a list-building system - one which, might I add, has worked pretty dang well in prior editions. Of the specific examples you listed, 2++ re-rollable saves were an abomination that should never have existed in the game (and guess what - in 8th, they don't!) and no amount of tailoring your special weapons before the game would help with that unless you somehow had the option to take a strength D weapon and didn't take it. Wraithknights and Riptides were both issues with an under-costed and excessively points-efficient unit running over everything else - issues that are solved by a continuously updated granular points system and greatly exacerbated by increasing the prevalence of badly costed units and letting them take all the upgrades they want for free and switch them out every game.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
On another note, I have found that in our local area, the WAAC tournament players are ironically more in favor of Power Level for casual and pickup games, while the more fluffy/casual/hobbying players are more afraid of them being unbalanced. Of course, when the WAAC guys are, you know, interested in winning, and the more casual players are tired of playing against their cheesy and broken lists and don't want to risk being thrashed around on the tabletop again. Which just tells me that it's not an issue of how the army is designed, but the nature of the players and what kind of game they expect to get anymore.

I don't see how this is anything but an argument in favour of my own opinion. What you're basically saying is, the players that only care about winning by any means necessary are happy to have a highly broken and abusable system like power level in use, because it's broken and they can abuse it to win more. The players who actually care about having balanced, fun games are in favour of points, because they can see how easy power level is to abuse.

To address a couple of other arguments I've seen:

'Well it works in sigmar' - the level of customizability that units in 40k have is drastically in excess of the level of customizability that units in Sigmar have, in general. Evidently the guys at Games Workshop realise this - that's why the whole granular points system was implemented/retained. Much as a few reactionaries might have made the 'age of 40k' comparison when the details of 8th were first coming out, the two games remain very different and the comparison is of very limited utility for that reason.

'Weapons are the same power, just good against different things' - if this is the case, why do they cost different levels of points? In reality, we pay a premium in 40k for units that are very durable against small-arms fire like heavy infantry or most vehicles. In return, weapons that are able to bypass that additional durability also cost extra, even though they're no more effective against lighter infantry (or in some cases, less effective). Allowing units to take these specialised 'durability-busters' without paying any additional points for them erases this dichotomy and creates a system where there's no benefit to taking models that are highly durable because it doesn't cost the enemy anything to retool his army against them.

While I enjoy power levels and will use them if/when I play 8th ed, I can see many arguments for/against this for use in tournaments.

A) Most tournament goes will be min-maxing and mathhammering the gak out of their lists regardless of power or points. In theory this would actually simply balance out with the exception of a handful of really badly calculated units (I'm assuming there are some in the game)
B) It would 10x easier for a tournament organizer to verify the legality and cost of an army...so checking army lists would be waaaaaay easier. This is a serious advantage for TO's.
C) It's possible the use of Power Levels would actually curb some of the more mathhammery folks from even attending. This could promote more enjoyable games and perhaps a few less ball-kicking lists. This is speculative at best.

However, I agree with the earlier sentiment that if you enjoy bare bones units to max out army size, you're "wasting" power level more or less. It's been pretty well acknowledged that power levels represent a unit taking perhaps 50-75% of its available upgrades.

I personally think the future is splitting or running dual tournaments. One being matched play rules + points and their limited (read: boring) mission objectives etc. The other being power level + narrative scenarios. I don't have any interest in tournaments but I'd actually attend a narrative event (particularly one organized with a good storyline).

As far as narrative campaigns go, one interesting twist I can think of would be to have the rule that everyone has to start with no upgrades at all, stock gear only (or the lowest-cost weapon if it's something like HWS, which has no stock weapon but must take an upgrade).

Then, as the campaign proceeds, they earn a secondary resource (could even just straight up use points as the "secondary resource") that they use to upgrade their units. Because the campaign is using power levels those upgrades are effectively "free" to put on the board, it's just that they have to earn them over the course of the campaign first.

Although that has nothing to do with tournaments I guess, just a random idea how you could use it to give an RPG-like feel to a narrative campaign.

If they had a slightly more granular system for PL I would say maybe try it. Right now there are too many units that stress the math behind assigning power levels.

The weird part is GW randomly has a few PL Add ons like +1 PL for a SM captain with a jump pack. A far cry from the hundreds of points worth of upgrades some units can take and not add anything.

To make it even more confusing the PL assumes you will take some upgrades, so the player who takes none at all is paying extra for units and someone who maxes out is paying less than it's really worth.

PL works just fine for casual games to give an approximate measure of an armies worth; all it would accomplish in a tournament setting is to limit options and needlessly exclude certain units and probably entire factions the way it is now.

@ ross-128


@ Eldar Vampire Hunter

If anyone wants to see the silliness of power levels, look no further than the deathwatch kill team. It's also a good place to look if you think deathstars are gone lol.

 sfshilo wrote:
A bunch of you are assuming that if I take "X" vs "Y" it's "better" or "worse".

In this system the weapons are all changed to be useful against certain types of units, there is not a "all takers" weapon anymore and the PL reflects that. (Just like AoS)

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Clay_Puppington wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


1.) They use knights for their example of why it isn't a big deal.

They also got the points for Knights entirely wrong, which helps skew the argument in the way they want it to go. I've kept theirs, and added the ACTUAL cost in red beside it. They only got 1 of the actual points correct;

Knight Errant 23
Thermal+ Sword 426 430
Thermal+Gauntlet 401 435
Thermal+Gauntlet+Meltagun 418 448

Knight Paladin 24
Cannon+Sword 450 458
Cannon+Gauntlet 455 463
Cannon+Gauntlet+Meltagun 472 476

Knight Warden 25
Gatling Cannon+Sword 445 466
Gatling+Gauntlet 450 471
Gatling+Gauntlet+Meltagun 467 484

Knight Gallant 21
Sword+Gauntlet 385 389
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun 402 They actually got one right here
Sword+Gauntlet+meltagun+Rocket Pod 464 447

Knight Crusader 27
Gatling+Thermal 491 512
Gatling+Thermal+metlagun 508 525
Gatling+Thermal+Meltagun+Rocket Pod 553 570


They add after they bungle the points

Yes, when fully loaded with a carapace weapon, it is starting to approach the cost of other Knight versions but then this isn’t really a fair comparison as the above calculations do not factor in the most granular points expensive builds for each other variant

Except, the points they left off because it isn't a "fair comparison" are mandatory for the Knights to be legal models.

Points are based on damage potential not always the usefulness.

You are proving EXACTLY the point of this article, points should not be the focus in tactics. You should equip your units for usefulness in each situation, if you are not prepared for that situation then you die.

Except that many units don't have options, they have upgrades. Hormagants with adrenal glands and toxin sacs have the same role and use as naked Hormagants, and they are better at it. It is a flat improvement. The limiting factor is that taking those upgrades prevents you from taking more gants, so you have to make trade offs. In PL play, those trade offs don't exist.

I don't buy the argument that power levels are invalid because there is huge point discrepancy in similar power levels for two reasons:
1. There is no reason to believe that models point costs are set correctly in 8th edition. This is a false premise.
2. There are units that are undercosted in terms of points, and as a result are overpowered for the cost. This is the same problem with some units getting more upgrades than others in power level.

Basically, I don't accept that either power or points are accurate representations of in game power. They are both flawed abstractions we operate under so we can get close to something that is a fair match. If both systems were used competitively, the only difference you would likely see is in which specific units or factions are overpowered in competitive play, and as a result end up defining that metagame.

IMO, I say run some tournaments with each system. See what the results are. What does each system lead to in terms of model/faction and gameplay diversity. Choose that one. If it is relatively close, then choose points, because it's less bookkeeping and faster.

Elbows wrote:While I enjoy power levels and will use them if/when I play 8th ed, I can see many arguments for/against this for use in tournaments.

A) Most tournament goes will be min-maxing and mathhammering the gak out of their lists regardless of power or points. In theory this would actually simply balance out with the exception of a handful of really badly calculated units (I'm assuming there are some in the game)
B) It would 10x easier for a tournament organizer to verify the legality and cost of an army...so checking army lists would be waaaaaay easier. This is a serious advantage for TO's.
C) It's possible the use of Power Levels would actually curb some of the more mathhammery folks from even attending. This could promote more enjoyable games and perhaps a few less ball-kicking lists. This is speculative at best.

However, I agree with the earlier sentiment that if you enjoy bare bones units to max out army size, you're "wasting" power level more or less. It's been pretty well acknowledged that power levels represent a unit taking perhaps 50-75% of its available upgrades.

I personally think the future is splitting or running dual tournaments. One being matched play rules + points and their limited (read: boring) mission objectives etc. The other being power level + narrative scenarios. I don't have any interest in tournaments but I'd actually attend a narrative event (particularly one organized with a good storyline).

I chose this quote mostly because this quite nicely sums up the article in question and I agree wholeheartedly, that "tournament meta" needs something to counter mathhammering and point-oriented optimisation, not only "better ballance" than 7th ed. But if I had to name a single point from this article, that I find most appealing to me personally is "list tailoring" between games. This is a single, most paradigm shifting idea, that you no longer can "pre plan" and "mathhammer" your way up to the top of the meta by simple netlisting or meticulously calculating every point on the list months before the actual event - you have to actually adapt in real time. And because everyone CAN do so at every point of the event, everyone MUST do so well enough to stay ahead of competition. This would be a true new skill to develop. 7th ed had a "high ROF S6 obsec spam" as a sweet spot, trivial to netlist and pose as an expert player. In a dynamic tournament format, not only allowing but hinging on partial tailoring, even Eternal War events could be an interesting challenge and there would be room for many different "sweet spots" to be found in list building.

That said, current incarnation of PL system would have to be proven or disproven experimentally to check if it works well with such tournament format or needs rework. One interesting conundrum of "who would be top tier" arises even at the very begining of thinking about such format - does "cheap hordes" advantage outweights "free upgrades" advantage? Or "unit plasticisity" advantage? A whole new perspective on "solving" 40K tournaments... I like it

But, as I very much like the idea of PL oriented dynamic tournament format, I most certainly agree, that PL are totally not suitable for "traditional tournament" format - they simply don't fit existing tournament mentality/paradigm of static, predefined, solvable and abusable conditions.

ross-128 wrote:As far as narrative campaigns go, one interesting twist I can think of would be to have the rule that everyone has to start with no upgrades at all, stock gear only (or the lowest-cost weapon if it's something like HWS, which has no stock weapon but must take an upgrade).

Then, as the campaign proceeds, they earn a secondary resource (could even just straight up use points as the "secondary resource") that they use to upgrade their units. Because the campaign is using power levels those upgrades are effectively "free" to put on the board, it's just that they have to earn them over the course of the campaign first.

Although that has nothing to do with tournaments I guess, just a random idea how you could use it to give an RPG-like feel to a narrative campaign.

Secondary resource approach to list building/victory awarding in campaigns was the very first thought I had when going through new rulebook and wondering if it has some usable narrative tools. Especially after spending last two months playing mostly Shadow War, I'll most certainly use it in my games one way or another.

I don't think anyone is saying points are perfect, just that they generally will give you more exact representations of a units power over PL, and also generally allow more variations in list building compared to PL in a tournament setting.

I'm sure some point levels are off, maybe way off, but the same can be said for PL as well. It's just a less granular point system after all - nothing more and nothing less. If they under/cost cost a weapon option by 5 points or a space marine by a point it's still going to be better than missing a PL cost by an entire point.

One more thing: equipment tailoring AFTER exchanging PL lists and seeing table and mission adds a "fog of war" element to the game, bringing another "adapt or perish" variable to the table.

I have to say I am struggling to see what the advantages are.

Both sets will have good units and bad units.
Under PL you will want to go with the most expensive possible upgrades on a unit. With points you will go with the most point efficient.

Different armies will be the best. Neither system is obviously better or worse and it might be interesting to have a bit of variety.


With that said I am really not a fan of the sideboard idea. Maybe this is just fear of change but it seems to be trying to solve a problem that doesn't obviously exist.

As they and others have observed in 7th you saw "3 Riptides, Wraithknight and Jetbikes, Magnus, Pink Horrors, White Scar Centurionstars, in some combination, on almost every table at major tournaments."

The reason for this was because they were good. Versus more or less every match up. This wasn't a skew exactly, there were just better than the competition. If there was a "counter build" that would do really well in such an environment then I am pretty sure it would have come out of the many tournaments held over the last year or so. It didn't because there wasn't one.

Many codexes just had no hope which is why they consistently struggled in tournaments.

Now maybe 8th is going to be far more rock/paper/scissors. Know what your opponent is taking? Well every faction will have counters and you can probably crush them (or at least stack the odds in your favour). Now maybe in that instance you will need something to stop the skews (and presumably boring games of rock vs paper).

My suspicion is however that this won't happen. What will almost certainly come out is that certain armies have multiple builds which can be successful and some do not. If you then allow those with multiple builds to customise their army against those with one build then you are going to really drive that army into the ground.

For instance Tyranids had a hard time in 7th. Imagine if everyone could customise their list with anti-Codex Flyrant units.

Now as said maybe 8th won't be like that. Maybe far more options will be viable, as rock/paper/scissors gives rise to many countering lists and a spontaneously changing meta from one tournament to the next.

If so it would be very different to 7th, and possibly any time in 40k's history. In which case it might be worth seeing how it works for 6-12 months before worrying about sideboards etc.

Will people stop with this Power Level sillyness ?

When GW have had their best go for a long time at creating a balanced game where TAC lists work, people want to go back to 7th ed and free upgrades again ? With sideboards ?! *facepalm*

If it works for you in casual or narrative games, that fine, but please stop trying to bring this sillyness to tournament games. I'm looking forward to going to tournaments again, I don't want to play who can abuse the Power Level system the best.

The more lists I make the more convinced I am about how badly balanced power levels are they just don't watch up I make a 2k points list it ends up 120 power level that's a big discrepancy.

Nothing is free, PL is calculated as a composite of upgrades and models IIRC. In fact, if PL reflects sub-optimal upgrades it may actually be a disadvantage when attempting to juice a list. Look at Rubric Marines, who don't get their rotary cannon until 10x models so MSU isn't ideal. The first 5 models cost 8 PL (reflecting unit upgrades) while the second 5 models only cost 6 PL.

Meanwhile, both PL and Points can be wildly inaccurate. The only real difference is if you look at prepurchased upgrades as a good thing, and if you need the greater granularity (2000 units vs 100-ish). Otherwise if numerical values are wrong, they just need to be recosted as maintenance.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Nothing is free, PL is calculated as a composite of upgrades and models IIRC. In fact, if PL reflects sub-optimal upgrades it may actually be a disadvantage when attempting to juice a list. Look at Rubric Marines, who don't get their rotary cannon until 10x models so MSU isn't ideal. The first 5 models cost 8 PL (reflecting unit upgrades) while the second 5 models only cost 6 PL.

Meanwhile, both PL and Points can be wildly inaccurate. The only real difference is if you look at prepurchased upgrades as a good thing, and if you need the greater granularity (2000 units vs 100-ish). Otherwise if numerical values are wrong, they just need to be recosted as maintenance.

Yet one of them has been specifically designed to be granular to allow for yearly updates to correct inaccuracies.

As people have given examples, PL can't be used for tournaments. As a Tyranid player, I could REALLY screw the numbers.

Adrenal Glands, Toxin sacs everywhere. Everything that can take boneswords, etc would. Not to mention things like Termagunts who can literally explode in points.

It's great for pick up games, "Let's play 75 PL, WYSIWYG" boom, get your units out, done.

I was almost sold until they started talking about changing your unit options between games after looking at your opponent's army.

Firstly: Who gets to look first? do i get to see what options you take to take possible counters or do you get to look first? What i might change up totally resides on what you might change up...etc

Second: Assuming you can get past 1, this will literally add ages onto getting a game going as an opponent spends ages debating in his head what to take, you'd need a strict time limit to do this... which is then unfair on bigger armies. You also have opponents who'll be like meh i'm using what i have and then they stand around for ten minutes as the opponent decides to change every single weapon option.

Third: leading on from that its enough work to build and paint a normal army and often a pain to transport it to an event. Now you need to take 4 of everything for say a unit of devastators whats that 20 heavy weapon models... just to feel like you have the choice because you know that WAAC player will have three cases full of ebay'ed prepainted models

 Latro_ wrote:
I was almost sold until they started talking about changing your unit options between games after looking at your opponent's army.

Firstly: Who gets to look first? do i get to see what options you take to take possible counters or do you get to look first? What i might change up totally resides on what you might change up...etc

Second: Assuming you can get past 1, this will literally add ages onto getting a game going as an opponent spends ages debating in his head what to take, you'd need a strict time limit to do this... which is then unfair on bigger armies. You also have opponents who'll be like meh i'm using what i have and then they stand around for ten minutes as the opponent decides to change every single weapon option.

Third: leading on from that its enough work to build and paint a normal army and often a pain to transport it to an event. Now you need to take 4 of everything for say a unit of devastators whats that 20 heavy weapon models... just to feel like you have the choice because you know that WAAC player will have three cases full of ebay'ed prepainted models

Technical note on first point only: with PL you get to see upfront PL paid Units/options only, because that is what is on "officially submited" tournament list, so you can look simultanously and choose upgrades/weapons simultanously, maintaining a bit of fog of war for both sides up until deployment.

The whole idea and use of power levels seems completely superfluous to me.

Calculating normal points is easy, it consists of multiplication and addition.
Power levels only take out the multiplication part.
That is the stuff that children learn at a very young age...
If someone finds it too hard, maybe a tactical wargame is not a game for them.

Tournament organizers can use battlescribe to check points or just use a freakin calculator.
If a tournament is so large that checking lists takes too much time they can maybe adopt some other system.
In MtG you get a match or game loss if your list has some irregularity, which can be checked at random or by request.
Maybe that is something worth looking at.
It would be far easier to have a software that checks the legality of the list, like the official army builder for Infinity.
Then you can just request that people make lists in that program and there you go, no problems.

This whole article is so illogical that I won't even bother to go into detail about every point.
People have pointed at all the failures of power levels in this very thread in a very thorough manner.

Math hard indeed

Mugaaz wrote:
I don't buy the argument that power levels are invalid because there is huge point discrepancy in similar power levels for two reasons:
1. There is no reason to believe that models point costs are set correctly in 8th edition. This is a false premise.
2. There are units that are undercosted in terms of points, and as a result are overpowered for the cost. This is the same problem with some units getting more upgrades than others in power level.

Basically, I don't accept that either power or points are accurate representations of in game power. They are both flawed abstractions we operate under so we can get close to something that is a fair match. If both systems were used competitively, the only difference you would likely see is in which specific units or factions are overpowered in competitive play, and as a result end up defining that metagame.

IMO, I say run some tournaments with each system. See what the results are. What does each system lead to in terms of model/faction and gameplay diversity. Choose that one. If it is relatively close, then choose points, because it's less bookkeeping and faster.

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.
2.) Yes, but there are more in power level so you are taking a known problem and amking it worse.




As to all the people touting this "side board" mentality, it is a garbage idea using power level because it simply means whichever armies have the most flexible units are best (so largely imperial armies especially space marine armies).
Take this 100 power list for space marines for example.

2 Spearhead detachments
Pedro kantor
3 x Devastators
4 x razorback

techmarine
3 x Devastators
4 x razorback
Apothecary

If this list runs into a vehicle heavy list like Knights, or Dread mob orks, or Tank heavy IG, suddenly it has 40 lascannon shots per turn re-rolling to hit. If it runs into a horde army, suddenly it has 8 Twin assault cannons, and 24 heavy bolters (or Grav cannons). It will also always have 8 hunter killer missiles, and 8 storm bolters. Every sarge will bring a combi-weapon, and close combat upgrade. The techmarine can have a conversion beamer for more shooting. etc. So this list essentially will always have the tools it needs.

Compare this to other armies, where units don't get to adapt to what they fight, those armies need to try to bring answers to everything. (Like necrons) This means that they also give away what they can do up front because they have committed to a specific role.

Sideboards don't work in a game like this. It could only work 2 ways. 1.) like MTG you play multiple games or 2.) like Malifaux, you write your whole list at the table (you could do this with PL), after knowing the mission and opponents faction, but before seeing their list. So if you were playing the above list against Orks, you might decide to go heavy anti-infantry only to face a Kan wall.

The problem is that both of these are unrealistic for 40k. Option 1 needs more time than is available at events and option 2 basically becomes pay to win because there are so many more options in this game (it is also a huge advantage to factions like IMPERIUM).

In the end fixed lists with points is just a simpler better way, and no more difficult to check lists than it was in previous editions (it is easier in fact because all the points are on single page sheets so no need to flip back and forth to figure out points costs.

Nope nope nope. The correct solution to people bringing illegal lists is to randomly give a detailed check to a certain percentage of lists, and disqualify anyone with an illegal list. One point over? Immediate disqualification with no prizes. Go home, no more games for you. None of the idiocy that has happened in the past, where people have won major events with illegal lists and the TOs just shrugged and said "not a big deal". If there are proper consequences for taking an illegal list then people will invest the extra time to double-check their lists and make sure everything is correct. And it's really not that hard to add up the points correctly if you care enough to bother.

Breng77 wrote:

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.

I hardly believe that the latter is actually worth even close that 690 points, even if the points would total to that.

 jamopower wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

1.) Then why bother with either? We can either assume points more accurately represent the power of a unit (as GW tells us they do) or we throw that out the window, and then it is fair to assume neither are set correctly and thus may as well not be used at all. Also it is not the same as some units getting more upgrades than others in powerlevel as GW has told us the PL represents an average amount of upgrades, if you only have 1 upgrade what is average. A 10 Nob squad can point cost out anywhere between 170 points and 690 both of these units are 21 power.

I hardly believe that the latter is actually worth even close that 690 points, even if the points would total to that.

No it probably isn't worth paying 690 points for a squad of 20 models, which is the point. The squad gains all the benefits it would be paying for (That squad is 10 Nobs w/ killsaws, Kombi-skorchas, Ammo runts, and 2 cyborks) You would literally never pay for all that because it won't be effective for the points, but if points were not an issue, why wouldn't you. Now you may decide that the squad is not even worth paying 21 power for (420 points worth if we are looking at 100 power = 2k), but at that point the 170 point Nob squad is definitely not worth it. Essentially the game becomes, is a fully kitted out squad worth its power, if not then no other version of that squad is, there is no ability to say. Well 420 points is too much, A 420 point Nob squad would be something like 10 nobs, 10 ammo runts, 2 Kill saws, 7 Kombi-skorchas. That squad might not be worth it, but in points at least you can go "well maybe I'll only take 5 ammo runts, or 7 Nobz, or 3 skorchas, or big choppas instead of kill saws, now may squad is effective and only 250 points." nope now it is 420 points or 0 points. But that 420 points will always have 700 points worth of upgraded models, because why not. I mean that squad would have 10 D6 S5 Ap -1 auto hits, + 20 6+ to hit, re-rolling to hit shots, have 30 S10 Ap -4 2 damage attacks in close combat. That offense is huge, it just isn't worth it in points because it is not durable enough to justify being 700 points. (or maybe not even 420).

Essentially with power level you end up with a lot more units that are just trash because their durability won't warrant their power level, or absolutely broken, because they will get a ton of free upgrades.

If you look at devastators.at 7 power, if we assume 1 power = 20 points, that is 140 points. Looking at points, the squad is 65 points. If they took lascannons at 25 points then 140 points is a squad with 3 lascannons. SO with power the 4th lascannon and Armorium cherub are free. Further we go back to 7th with super obvious choices. Why take heavy bolters (12" of range maybe) over Grav cannons? or Missiles?. If we throw in the "side board" then there is no choice making at all.

If we are doing 1 Power = 20 points just looking at orks.

Warboss = 80 points fair (Boss with PK is 84 points)
Mega armor Boss = 140 points fair (MA boss is 136)
Bike Boss = 100 fair (bike boss with PK is 111)
Weirdboy = 80 so that is an 18 point increase- he has no upgrades.
Big Mek = 100 - likely over costed - with a KFF he is only 75, but has a lot of upgrades, fully upgraded model might still be worth taking but you cannot keep him cheaper.
MA Mek = 140 - close to right
Snikrot - 80 about 10 points more than he is.
Pain boy - 80 15 point bump
Boyz - 10 boy squad is 100 (way up in points from 60 base, even nob addition with PK would make them 85), 20 = 180, way up on the 145, 30 is 260 - again way above an average squad of around 200 points.
Mega nobs - 200 point vs their current 162 base
Battlewagon - 220 points - can get it for 161

Essentially it seems like squads that have options may quickly become not worth it unless you max out upgrades, and from a durability standpoint they don't match up to the power. You also seem to be getting fewer models. So it seems what happens is squads with better upgrades are worth it, and those without good upgrades are not.

@Barteli, there is a difference between granularity and accuracy. Most imbalances in 40k are not due to not having enough increments of measure, the 7.5ed WK was off by something like 100-200pts.

Experiments without consequences are always worth trying out, there's advantages and disadvantages that sometimes surprise you. Breng77's deep dive was pretty good to show one consequence. Anyways, there is still no replacement for direct experience. All the other chatter is just people being overly opinionated, unless we all think this forum doesn't work that way.

Kudos to FLG for thinking outside the box, hope to see more ideas that push the format of competitive 40k.

I mean, as a tyranid player I'd love to double or more the cost of all my units and not pay for them. For everyone else though, it's probably unfair.

You can fight 4 point termagaunts, or 10 point termagaunts, all for the cost of 4 point gaunts.