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I think expecting any rule to "safeguard" play already shows a failure on the social level. Both to find others who want the same thing as well as an acceptance of those who do not.
I don't really need rules that protect me from someone who wants to ruin the game because that is best handled on the social level. Like when there's a disconnect on the level of character optimization in an RPG group.
Sucks for people who can only play strangers, but I would suggest start talking to them and make them into non-strangers you can talk to about what you want out of the game.
PL vs Points are never going to solve social issues.
A valid statement but it does give a reason to divide a group, social issues or not: just by giving a choice.
The question was if "power levels are useless now?" and some have gone the step further in saying it was not all that terribly useful for any given purpose, not quite a redundancy, more like a choice between course vs fine increments of matching up play.
The value of it seems questionable for the benefit/alternative it offers, it really begs the question of what the reasoning was behind it.
I hunted down a few articles and could eat crow on a couple prior statements I have made but they are worth reading.
"This is a rough approximation of a unit’s relative effectiveness on the battlefield. These can be used to very quickly throw together two roughly equal forces to fight a battle. " ...
Power Levels are a great way to very quickly get a roughly balanced game organised and started, but they do not account for the various wargear options and upgrades a unit can have.
For this level of granularity, you have points. These will be just as detailed as they are now, right down to points for individual weapon upgrades on every squad member. ...
The points for units don’t appear on the datasheet but will be elsewhere in the same book. This is because you don’t need them to play if you don’t want, which frees up room to include more rules for weapons on the datasheet.
It also means that, in the future, points for units could change without invalidating existing books – so if one unit or weapon starts to dominate tournaments, or certain units don’t seem to be carrying their weight in competitive games, we can address the balance.
"For a specific example, a 4 Knight army in 7th edition essentially meant that some armies could never beat them as they lacked the ability to hurt the Knights. In 8th, if you can choose which upgrades you have at the start of the game, all of those autocannons become lascannons or Impaler Cannons become Shockcannons, and suddenly, you have a chance to win. In the next game going against a Tyranid swarm, you can swap back to Heavy Bolters and flamers. Again, this may make certain spam armies worse, but that’s what we want. Everyone wants balance, but balance means that skew armies shouldn’t work because they lack too many tools. Power Level rewards list design that has modularity and variety, thus ensuring that in-game decisions matter far more. If you have ever screamed about 40K not being balanced, this is a mechanism to allow for that balance far more than a static army list using granular points where the very nature of its immutability offers avenues for exploitation.
...
What You See is What You Get, or WYSIWYG, would be an absolute necessity in a format like the one outlined above; so players can easily see what each model is armed with for the game. Yes, this would mean TOs would have to be more strict about custom conversions and 3rd party bits. WYSIWYG was once law of the land, and really, moving away from it only opens up more avenues for potential abuse. Also, the benefit of PL and WYSIWYG is that it gives players a greater opportunity to use their collections, not just the best units and weapons. How many times has a newer player been excited and built a box with all the upgrades, and then when he/she is finally ready to hit a tournament, he/she finds out that plasma pistols on sergeants sucked and were an active detriment? Now, any model has a chance to see play because yes, some loadouts are suboptimal in a fixed points system, but they may shine brightly in certain situations, and if you can actually adapt to that situation, you get to use them. In essence, granular, fixed equipment cost systems (like what we’ve had for several decades) encourage the kind of list building metas that most decry, but Power Level is a remedy to this where skew armies are less impactful and player skill is more meaningful."
"Now let me give you a perfect example on why I think Power Levels are broken. The average games are capped at either 100 PL or 2,000 points depending on which one you’re playing. The new Chapter Approved came out and we saw huge jumps in point values for certain models, yet Power Levels stayed the same. The Warhound Scout Titan has a PL of 75, but the points jumped from 1,500 points to 2,000 points. So if you want to take it for you next 2,000 point game it’s going to take up your entire army, but if you’re playing PL you’ll still have 25 PL leftover to spend on additional units. Seems like a tad of an imbalance to me.
Also remember PL does not take into account any points for wargear upgrades either. So option heavy units can quickly outpace balance in regards to points vs power level as well.
When Games Workshop updates the point values for units, especially when it’s a major increase or decrease, they should also update the Power Levels. If they don’t we could eventually see the demise of Power Levels all together. Do I want to see that happen? Absolutely not, I think Power Levels is a great idea for casual play, testing new army ideas, and teaching new players how to play. But, it’s also a system that I don’t think we’ll ever see used in a big tournament.
Granted if you are playing power levels with your buddies, you probably won’t have any issues getting along and working out any imbalances amongst yourselves. However, there may be issues when new players try this in a game store with folks they may not know as well, etc etc.
Figured I would drag in some other well thought out viewpoints outside of our echochamber.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A valid statement but it does give a reason to divide a group, social issues or not: just by giving a choice.
If offering a choice divides a group then not offering it means someone is left out in the cold not being offered the option they would enjoy.
A big tent approach works. Like in Magic where you don't have players of one formats arguing how useless the deck building system of another format is. Formats can exist side by side and each is seen as an opportunity to use different parts of the available card pool rather than bashed as a wrong way to do things. The new format Brawl was just announced and while some Commander players have expressed disinterest (they already have a multiplayer casual format and don't see the need for another) local magic communities don't seem to be going to war over that sort of thing. When you meet someone at a modern competitive 5k or GP or something and they talk about their kitchen table jank decks, you don't bash their deck building system. You just accept they are doing another fun thing with magic cards.
Maybe the times GW has advised store managers and local gaming store owners to kick out some veterans from the gaming space, they are on to something. Maybe 40k has a toxic element that can't accept that there are different ways to play the game. Maybe the problem is that the polarized WAAC and CAAC players can't see that they both 40k players first and foremost. Concentrating so much on their differences they can't see the similarities. Like how when religious violence is often worse between members of the same faith that only differ in small ways. Maybe 40k has accumulated zealots?
If the group I was playing with used Power Levels, I would prefer it over points. It takes me as long to create a 100 PL list as it does to generate 3 Fallen units in Battlescribe (Fallen are a little clunky in Battlescribe). I don't much care for list building these days and don't want to spend much time on it.
At the same time, I do want some indication to how big of a game I am playing. I don't care if there is say 10 PL or 200 points (about 10% of a list) difference in the list since there are ways to have the scenario/terrain make up the balance if the players know what they are doing and want a chance for a close game. I guess it is no surprise I am fine with point handicaps either which I know some players absolutely hate. I also think it helps the players expectation of scope of game if there is some sort agreed limit as given the choice I would choose 40-50 Pl or 750-1000 points but I imagine most players want double that (and I don't want to be the defender every mission). The math is not hard and it isn't too time consuming. However, this is my hobby I do for fun and, I don't find performing math (simple or not) or list building fun. So, I want it be as easy and brief as possible to get to the part I do enjoy.
I would prefer that weapons be more role specific with the point cost being closer to each other to close the gap between power levels and points and help alleviate weapon spam in both cases. In the case of my CSMs if power levels were based off the Champion having a Power Sword/Plasma Pistol and two Plasmaguns for a ten man squad their would be zero difference between them as that really is the best load given the rules. However, if meltas were the much better choice over plasma for anti-armor at the cost of range and flamers were meaningfully better than plasma at infantry also at the cost of range while heavy bolters are good against infantry and having good range players might actually consider which weapon to give their squads. Heck, I would even try to keep bolters competitive against plasma say taking away plasma's Rapid Fire or shortening its range by 4". Players might consider weapon's role over points or take the best one. As much as I don't like the differentiation of power axes, mauls and swords, at least this idea was better instituted, though; it could be argued there still is a clear winner.
This is neither here nor there, but I also believe the GW given their druthers would have only gone with Power Levels (as shown with the release of Age of Sigmar). I think they only include points because a significant chunk of the player base would riot if they didn't. This leaves me with the impression GW would much rather balance the game around power levels than points (if pushed to continue to balance the game). Given that balancing, play testing, etc. can be rather time consuming and only one audience is vocal about balance issues I imagine only one system is going to see significant reworks to attempt a fairer game. Realistically, either method still requires both players to speak with each other and check over the others list and decide what measures can be done to create the fairest game possible. Unfortunately, too many players like to believe if the they meet a partly arbitrary power or point level and build the significantly better list and give no quarter to the significantly poorly created list they are an excellent player even if they couldn't fight their way out of a paper sack with a mirror match or more evenly power scaled list.
Me, I don't care. I want to play 40K games to create neat little stories in the Warhammer universe in which I don't know the ending. I always play to win when I am at the table, but I don't enjoy doing it through having a better army list just like I don't like blow outs. To enjoy victory, I have to feel like at the beginning of the game it could go either way and even by turn 3 it can still be anyone's game. Anything less and I a least hope a cool story with a pretty table was enjoyed. I don't see the issue and argument of either system or even open play. So players like to worry about every little point and would think increasing the granulation by ten (as in a 2,000 point list becomes a 20,000 point). I am sure there are even players that just want to throw their whole collection against another player's whole collection (mostly talking about players with limited collections and not apocalypse). Where as I want to have just enough of an idea as to get a picture of how big of a game my opponent wants. Which I think power levels work okay for.
iGuy91 wrote: You love the T-Rex. Its both a hero and a Villain in the first two movies. It is the "king" of dinosaurs. Its the best. You love your T-rex.
Then comes along the frakking Spinosaurus who kills the T-rex, and the movie says "LOVE THIS NOW! HE IS BETTER" But...in your heart, you love the T-rex, who shouldn't have lost to no stupid Spinosaurus. So you hate the movie. And refuse to love the Spinosaurus because it is a hamfisted attempt at taking what you loved, making it TREX +++ and trying to sell you it.
Elbows wrote: You know what's better than a psychic phase? A psychic phase which asks customers to buy more miniatures...
the_scotsman wrote: Dae think the company behind such names as deathwatch death guard deathskullz death marks death korps deathleaper death jester might be bad at naming?
