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 John Prins wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
The price of the weapons needs to be adjusted for the BS of the user. Crisis Suits shouldn't be paying the same points as a BS2+ Commander.

Eh, not if the Commander has the cost built in.

I'm not convinced it does.

Not saying it is, I'm just saying that it is better, overall, that the base cost should be within the better units and not variable for the weapons, so its easier to leave the price of the weapons alone or price them on their individual strengths without considering what is carrying it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
The price of the weapons needs to be adjusted for the BS of the user. Crisis Suits shouldn't be paying the same points as a BS2+ Commander.

Once again, this only matters when the two platforms cost the same.

This is not true. See Vet squad vs Infantry squad.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:


I'd make it so that the unit is purchased as one but is able to act independently ala vehicle squadrons, but with some benefits for working in concert.

I don't love that as it makes more units to manage that are easier to get kill points out of. Squads of 1-9 is fine so that suits can fit in easier or use stratagems well, but 9+ individual suits is more time consuming.

He's free to correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was Kan meant that you'd have the option to split them off in the same way as vehicles, but you would gain benefits for keeping them as a unit of multiple models, not that splitting them off would be mandatory.

The splitting off part would be mandatory in my idea--but I'd make it so that they have a rule tied to Bonding Knife Ritual that they get benefits for being within a certain range of each other.

I'd be fine with that idea, perhaps riffing off an earlier suggestion of shared support systems allowing a unit kept together to share each other's systems, whereas independent units would lose that in exchange for more freedom. Limit the shared systems to one per unit per turn or something to stop 3 suits taking 3 different support systems and sharing them between everyone effectively giving them 2 weapons and 3 support systems each, and give it an effective range perhaps less than max coherency distance to force them to stay close to the suit sharing the system, and I wouldn't say that's overdoing it. A unit of 3 might have 2 suits with 2 weapons and the same 1 support system, and 1 suit with 1 weapon, the same support system, and a different support system it leases out to the other two. It sacrifices a weapon to do so, but enhances the weapons of its squadmates as well as its own--if you even allow a suit sharing a system to shoot in the first place

I'm not a fan of shared support systems just because it can kinda ruin the idea of you having to choose things.

Some of the Support Systems should just flatout be added to the Crisis Suits or Broadsides though.

 Charistoph wrote:

Not saying it is, I'm just saying that it is better, overall, that the base cost should be within the better units and not variable for the weapons, so its easier to leave the price of the weapons alone or price them on their individual strengths without considering what is carrying it.

This would leave you with a single choice with regards to weapons on a platform, as taking anything but the most optimal choice would be wasting points.

For example, let's say I wanted a back-field Commander for the Command and Control Node Strategem. Since he won't be shooting much, my best option is to give him a Shield Generator, Drone Controller and 2 Flamers. Now, if the BS of the unit is built into the cost of the Commander, I'm paying a huge point tax for a stat I'll never use.

OTOH, pricing ranged weapons based on the BS of the firing unit is much more points accurate and doesn't penalize choices.

Obviously this would be way more complicated for melee weapons, as you have 3 stats that have a huge impact on effectiveness (WS, S, Attacks). Pricing everything based on the unit it's on is the only good solution for this, and I really don't see any reason why the cost of units and their associated weapons shouldn't be on the unit's data sheet. A Thunderhammer is worth way more on a Jetpack Captain than a Terminator or Tactical Sergeant, but that doesn't mean that a base-line Captain needs to be an extra 20-ish points.

GW made a design decision in favor of clean presentation over balance/fairness and IMO it was a bad decision.

 John Prins wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Not saying it is, I'm just saying that it is better, overall, that the base cost should be within the better units and not variable for the weapons, so its easier to leave the price of the weapons alone or price them on their individual strengths without considering what is carrying it.

This would leave you with a single choice with regards to weapons on a platform, as taking anything but the most optimal choice would be wasting points.

For example, let's say I wanted a back-field Commander for the Command and Control Node Strategem. Since he won't be shooting much, my best option is to give him a Shield Generator, Drone Controller and 2 Flamers. Now, if the BS of the unit is built into the cost of the Commander, I'm paying a huge point tax for a stat I'll never use.

OTOH, pricing ranged weapons based on the BS of the firing unit is much more points accurate and doesn't penalize choices.

Obviously this would be way more complicated for melee weapons, as you have 3 stats that have a huge impact on effectiveness (WS, S, Attacks). Pricing everything based on the unit it's on is the only good solution for this, and I really don't see any reason why the cost of units and their associated weapons shouldn't be on the unit's data sheet. A Thunderhammer is worth way more on a Jetpack Captain than a Terminator or Tactical Sergeant, but that doesn't mean that a base-line Captain needs to be an extra 20-ish points.

No, it doesn't. If a weapon is going to be used on platforms with different stats, then having the weapon's price be based on the one platform either penalizes it for one or underprices it for another.

If Flamers are the cheapest weapon, no matter if it is based on the Weapon or just the Weapon itself, you will always see the Flamer picked for models that won't be shooting, but still need to carry a gun.

Why should a Power Armor Captain on foot pay extra points on a Thunderhammer for what a Jump Captain or a Thunderwolf can do with it? Conversely, why shouldn't the base price of a Jump Captain be higher than a Foot Captain, and why shouldn't a Wolf Lord be at a higher price point as well? They are able to get more out of their gear, be it speed, manueverability, or just flat out having better stats overall, they why shouldn't they pay more?

A Crisis Suit Commander who has better stats than a normal Crisis Suit should cost more points than a normal Crisis Suit because it is a better platform. Especially with ranged weapons where the only differences that a platform will give is accuracy, maneuverability, and longevity.

 Charistoph wrote:

A Crisis Suit Commander who has better stats than a normal Crisis Suit should cost more points than a normal Crisis Suit because it is a better platform. Especially with ranged weapons where the only differences that a platform will give is accuracy, maneuverability, and longevity.

Yes a Crisis Suit Commander should cost more for all the things it's better at, absolutely. But my point is it's far too difficult to properly cost out how much extra it should cost without taking into account the specific circumstances of the weapons load. A 'one size fits all' cost for weapons is just going to lead to overcosted platforms, or weapons that are priced for the best platform.

That's why I think Commanders weren't costed with weapon effectiveness included. Rather, they priced weapons according to their value on a Commander platform, leading to Crisis Suits paying way too much for their guns. It's quite possible they under-costed Commanders in the process - they could only price the weapons so high, given how many BS4 platforms were using them, which lead to the Matched Play limit on Commanders.

We'd actually be in a better place if Commanders got a point cost increase to account for the weapon effectiveness and the weapons received a price drop, but then we still have the support Commander problem of being overpriced. Probably be worth it if we could get reasonably priced Crisis Suits, though.

 skchsan wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
The price of the weapons needs to be adjusted for the BS of the user. Crisis Suits shouldn't be paying the same points as a BS2+ Commander.

Once again, this only matters when the two platforms cost the same.

This is not true. See Vet squad vs Infantry squad.

Yeah that proves my point actually.

Before you even buy a Plasma Gun for a Vet, you can get a Plasma Gun and a Mortar for the Infantry squad. Vets start at 60 points and Infantry at 40.

"Once again, this only matters when the two platforms cost the same."

Consider two hypothetical weapons, just to demonstrate the point:

We're adding 'Gatling Lasgun' to the T'au armory! A cost-effective (read: cheap) option for low impact firepower. A6 S3 AP- 18" range.

We're adding 'Gatling Vengence Bolter' to the T'au armory! Extremely costly option for shooting doods. A6 S5 AP-2 18" range.

Obviously, the first weapon costs less than the second.

What points would you assign the first weapon for a Crisis Team? Would that be fair on a Crisis Commander, too?

What points would you assign the second weapon for a Crisis Team? Would that be fair on the Crisis Commander, too?

You can't control for balistic skill purely on the cost of the chasis unless every weapon is equally points-effective across all chasis. So you might have a 25% more expensive chasis with 25% more hits, and that'd be fair assuming that they carry the same weapon. But once you have two or more choices with different effectivenesses, the same choices can't be worth the same points on both chasis.

You lot can argue about weapons costs all you want but simply put anything short of free won't matter as the base suit is so overcosted it really doesn't matter.

The suit is priced like instant death is still a thing, JSJ is still a thing. untill the basic suit gets way cheaper a commanders is always going to be the better choice as simply being a charictor is worth it.

The issue is the weapon costs.

Increase cost of commander - reduce cost of weapon option for all suits.

Also the base cost of the crisis suit is atrociously high also - it should be about 15 points less base or be BS 3+.

 Xenomancers wrote:
The issue is the weapon costs.

Increase cost of commander - reduce cost of weapon option for all suits.

Also the base cost of the crisis suit is atrociously high also - it should be about 15 points less base or be BS 3+.

But just increased commander points costs and cheaper weapons won't make crisis suits anymore playable really when the basic suit is so overcosted it really doesn't matter.

It's more than a basic custode more than a full infantry squad per model. 1 msu crisis suit team with weapons costs the same as the 32 Astra Millicheese's.

All your doing is taking away one of the few functional suits that Tau have. I get that GW let them get out of hand in 7th but given how little viable anti tank weapons and deliver methods I'd put money on GW leaving us without functional anti tank firepower before we get functional crisis suits.

Another problem is the lack of synergy between Crisis Suit weaponry and Deep Strike ranges. ONLY the Plasma Rifle lands at an advantageous range to the target. Flamers are useless, Fusion Guns are beyond half range. Given the trial rules for Deep Strike, Crisis Suits are probably better off starting on the table behind LOS blocker to pop out and shoot CIBs at 17" than having Deep Strike at all.

Bharring wrote:
"Once again, this only matters when the two platforms cost the same."

Consider two hypothetical weapons, just to demonstrate the point:

We're adding 'Gatling Lasgun' to the T'au armory! A cost-effective (read: cheap) option for low impact firepower. A6 S3 AP- 18" range.

We're adding 'Gatling Vengence Bolter' to the T'au armory! Extremely costly option for shooting doods. A6 S5 AP-2 18" range.

Obviously, the first weapon costs less than the second.

What points would you assign the first weapon for a Crisis Team? Would that be fair on a Crisis Commander, too?

What points would you assign the second weapon for a Crisis Team? Would that be fair on the Crisis Commander, too?

You can't control for balistic skill purely on the cost of the chasis unless every weapon is equally points-effective across all chasis. So you might have a 25% more expensive chasis with 25% more hits, and that'd be fair assuming that they carry the same weapon. But once you have two or more choices with different effectivenesses, the same choices can't be worth the same points on both chasis.

So the first weapon might be a 4 point weapon and the second one 15-20 points. And yes you can use the same pricing on both the Crisis Squad and the Commander because both platforms are of different costs.

That's why the pricing for Imperial Guard weapons needs to be brought in line with everyone else. A Marine with a Plasma Gun is 26 points and an Infantry is maybe 14 points, but you get 4 extra bodies with that. So that's either 1-2 shots at BS3+, or 1-2 shots at BS4+ with an additional 3-6 S3 shots with it. Pretty clear where the winner is on that one, especially when durability of the platforms is accounted for.

Equations time.

Unit a costs base cost $a. Hits $pa of the time.
Unit b costs base cost $b. Hits $pb of the time
Weapon c costs $c.
Weapon d costs $d.

Hitting with all shots with weapon c is worth $nc. A hit rate of $p is worth $p * $nc.

Hitting with all shots with weapon d is worth $nd. A hit rate of $p is worth $p * $nd.

Choice / Cost / Value
a+c / $a + $c / $pa * $nc
a+d / $a + $d / $pa * $nd
b+c / $b + $c / $pb * $nc
b+d / $a + $d / $pb * $nd

The assertion you're making is that, for all {$pa, $pb, $nc, $nd} there exists an {$a, $b, $c, $d} such that all combinations above have the same ratio of Value : Cost.

I could get into the proof for the class of problem, but a counterexample is solid enough.

$pa: 0.5
$pb: 1
$nc: 1
$nd: 10

Now, we look at:
($a + $c) / 0.5
($a + $d) / 5
($b + $c) / 1
($b + $d) / 10

Or to normalize them:
2x(a + c) = 0.2x(a + d) = 1x(b + c) = 0.1x(b +d) = $V

If we push from there, we see:
(b + c) = $V => c = $V - b
2(a + c) = $V => c = 0.5$V - a
=> b - $V = a - 0.5$V => b = a + 0.5$V => a = b - 0.5$V

(b + c) = $V => b = $V - c
0.1x(b + d) = $V => b = 10$V - d
=> c - $V = d - 10$V => c = d - $9V => d = c + $9V

Now, lets plug these values into { 0.2(a + d) = $V }:
=> a + d = 5$V
=> (b - 0.5$V) + (c + $9V) = 5$V
=> b + c = 5$V - 9$V + 0.5$V
=> b + c = -3.5$V

Therefore, we get:
b + c = -3.5$V && b+c = $V
-> -3.5$V = $V
That is only true when $V is 0.

Thus, {a, b, c, d} that you claim exists exists *if and only if* the total cost of the unit is 0.

As such, it is shown that, outside trivial cases (such as everything costs 0), there are *not* fair price points for both the base units and weapons assuming the weapons have different effectivenesses on different units.

In other words/TLDR: No. You can't fairly use the same costs and actually balance them. The math is really simple and very clear on the subject.

(I went with a long drawn-out example instead of a proof because the proof is simpler, but you're just dismissing it.)

John Prins wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

A Crisis Suit Commander who has better stats than a normal Crisis Suit should cost more points than a normal Crisis Suit because it is a better platform. Especially with ranged weapons where the only differences that a platform will give is accuracy, maneuverability, and longevity.

Yes a Crisis Suit Commander should cost more for all the things it's better at, absolutely. But my point is it's far too difficult to properly cost out how much extra it should cost without taking into account the specific circumstances of the weapons load. A 'one size fits all' cost for weapons is just going to lead to overcosted platforms, or weapons that are priced for the best platform.

That's why I think Commanders weren't costed with weapon effectiveness included. Rather, they priced weapons according to their value on a Commander platform, leading to Crisis Suits paying way too much for their guns. It's quite possible they under-costed Commanders in the process - they could only price the weapons so high, given how many BS4 platforms were using them, which lead to the Matched Play limit on Commanders.

We'd actually be in a better place if Commanders got a point cost increase to account for the weapon effectiveness and the weapons received a price drop, but then we still have the support Commander problem of being overpriced. Probably be worth it if we could get reasonably priced Crisis Suits, though.

If the Support Commander is overpriced, then the cost of the Support Additions need to be questioned. If they don't do the job for their price, they need to be adjusted. As it is, it may not be the smartest thing to have an effective combat unit sticking to the back with short range weapons, to say nothing of eggs and baskets. But that part comes down to what else you will have in your list and what wiggle room you can manage.

I use suits all the time. A small points decrease is all they need.

Bharring wrote:
Equations time.

Unit a costs base cost $a. Hits $pa of the time.
Unit b costs base cost $b. Hits $pb of the time
Weapon c costs $c.
Weapon d costs $d.

Hitting with all shots with weapon c is worth $nc. A hit rate of $p is worth $p * $nc.

Hitting with all shots with weapon d is worth $nd. A hit rate of $p is worth $p * $nd.

Choice / Cost / Value
a+c / $a + $c / $pa * $nc
a+d / $a + $d / $pa * $nd
b+c / $b + $c / $pb * $nc
b+d / $a + $d / $pb * $nd

The assertion you're making is that, for all {$pa, $pb, $nc, $nd} there exists an {$a, $b, $c, $d} such that all combinations above have the same ratio of Value : Cost.

I could get into the proof for the class of problem, but a counterexample is solid enough.

$pa: 0.5
$pb: 1
$nc: 1
$nd: 10

Now, we look at:
($a + $c) / 0.5
($a + $d) / 5
($b + $c) / 1
($b + $d) / 10

Or to normalize them:
2x(a + c) = 0.2x(a + d) = 1x(b + c) = 0.1x(b +d) = $V

If we push from there, we see:
(b + c) = $V => c = $V - b
2(a + c) = $V => c = 0.5$V - a
=> b - $V = a - 0.5$V => b = a + 0.5$V => a = b - 0.5$V

(b + c) = $V => b = $V - c
0.1x(b + d) = $V => b = 10$V - d
=> c - $V = d - 10$V => c = d - $9V => d = c + $9V

Now, lets plug these values into { 0.2(a + d) = $V }:
=> a + d = 5$V
=> (b - 0.5$V) + (c + $9V) = 5$V
=> b + c = 5$V - 9$V + 0.5$V
=> b + c = -3.5$V

Therefore, we get:
b + c = -3.5$V && b+c = $V
-> -3.5$V = $V
That is only true when $V is 0.

Thus, {a, b, c, d} that you claim exists exists *if and only if* the total cost of the unit is 0.

As such, it is shown that, outside trivial cases (such as everything costs 0), there are *not* fair price points for both the base units and weapons assuming the weapons have different effectivenesses on different units.

In other words/TLDR: No. You can't fairly use the same costs and actually balance them. The math is really simple and very clear on the subject.

(I went with a long drawn-out example instead of a proof because the proof is simpler, but you're just dismissing it.)

Except the weapons WILL always have the same value because they always have the same stats. It's the platforms that cost different.

So if there are two models that cost the same and have the same exact loadout meant for shooting, except one has BS5+ instead, that one is the only one that can pay less for the weapon.

That's literally why I used the Infantry example. A Plasma Gun is 8 points for them right? So one Infantry model is 12 points compared to a Marine for 26 points. Which means you can get 2 Plasma Shots at 24 points for BS4+ OR a single shot at BS3+. Math can tell you which one is obviously better. Whereas if they pay the same like they SHOULD, that's 34 points if you want 2 shots.

Marines do survive better, though.

So they’re more likely to get more shots off.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Marines do survive better, though.

So they’re more likely to get more shots off.

Perhaps in theory. In practice, they don't.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Marines do survive better, though.

So they’re more likely to get more shots off.

Not for those 26 points.

Okay. What about the fact that Marines are probably rerolling 1s to-hit and rerolling 1s to-wound?

That gives them 7/9 hits at 7/6 the wounding chance, for 49/56 or being 87.5% as effective as two Guardsmen with a Plasma Gun each.

With that in mind, it only takes a single extra turn of shooting to make up the difference and more if the Guardsmen shoot for a couple of turns.

And you can't tell me that T4 3+ is equally durable to T3 5+. That's only true for stuff that is S8 or better, and AP-4 or better. (Has to be AP-5 in cover.)

Edit: I'm not gonna say Marines are better than Guardsmen. But I will say that there's a reason why Marine weapons could be more expensive, and that still be fair.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. What about the fact that Marines are probably rerolling 1s to-hit and rerolling 1s to-wound?

TIL Captains are free.

You're paying points already for the ability to re-roll by taking the character the aura is attached to, that should not be a factor in costing a models weapons.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. What about the fact that Marines are probably rerolling 1s to-hit and rerolling 1s to-wound?

That gives them 7/9 hits at 7/6 the wounding chance, for 49/56 or being 87.5% as effective as two Guardsmen with a Plasma Gun each.

With that in mind, it only takes a single extra turn of shooting to make up the difference and more if the Guardsmen shoot for a couple of turns.

And you can't tell me that T4 3+ is equally durable to T3 5+. That's only true for stuff that is S8 or better, and AP-4 or better. (Has to be AP-5 in cover.)

Edit: I'm not gonna say Marines are better than Guardsmen. But I will say that there's a reason why Marine weapons could be more expensive, and that still be fair.

We can just throw in the orders for free if you wanna go that route. You sure you wanna do that?

The only order that helps Plasma is "Take Aim" or "Get Back In The Fight!"

And considering how often people throw in orders for free, I mean, sure, why not?

 JNAProductions wrote:
The only order that helps Plasma is "Take Aim" or "Get Back In The Fight!"

And considering how often people throw in orders for free, I mean, sure, why not?

Lol. "Only orders"
They're still orders.