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As for sgt bobs last bit about how narrative is better with points, you are missing the lint entirely.

A few points here and there don’t matter. The game isn’t so finely balanced and the dice may go against you. Why stress over a few points that have zero real impact on play when you can just say that squad costs 3 PL what ever it has rather than saying it costs 115 this way and 121 another. That difference doesn’t matter and has no impact, even when added up over a whole army. A few hundred points either way make no odds really. I don’t care about it.

Andykp wrote:
Strict are words you have added to the narrative rules there. The power level limit is only as strict as you want to enforce it.

The Crusade rules very clearly state that the point limit is a limit for each player, they do not include any of the language about "approximately this" or "closely matched in points" or whatever that Open Play often has. Exceeding the point limit in Crusade is no more permitted than exceeding the point limit in matched play or tournament games.

Why take a las pistol over a plasma pistol, because the model I have has a laspistol, because when I built it I thought it look3d cooler, and narratively why would all my guard sgts have plasma pistols, it doesn’t fit my armies fluff. ( real examples by the way, my guard army most sgts have las pistols and one of the officers, there’s only one plasma pistol out of 6 squads and two characters). The main reason to take las over plasma pistols is that I am building a themed army with a narrative based on models I like. Not trying to build the most optimal list. It’s not hard to understand.

So then why do you support using the point system that penalizes your narrative choice with worse in-game efficiency over the point system that allows you to decide based on rule of cool and then assigns an accurate point cost to your choices?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
A few points here and there don’t matter.

It's not just "a few points". The difference between a 6-man terminator squad with no upgrades (PL 36) and a 10-man terminator squad with two cyclone launchers (PL 36) is 200 points. In a typical 200 point game that's a full 10% of your point limit as an error coming from just one unit.

A few hundred points either way make no odds really. I don’t care about it.

Oh? You'd gladly play a game with 1500 points against 2500 points if it saves you a few seconds of adding up more accurate numbers?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Strict are words you have added to the narrative rules there. The power level limit is only as strict as you want to enforce it.

The Crusade rules very clearly state that the point limit is a limit for each player, they do not include any of the language about "approximately this" or "closely matched in points" or whatever that Open Play often has. Exceeding the point limit in Crusade is no more permitted than exceeding the point limit in matched play or tournament games.

Why take a las pistol over a plasma pistol, because the model I have has a laspistol, because when I built it I thought it look3d cooler, and narratively why would all my guard sgts have plasma pistols, it doesn’t fit my armies fluff. ( real examples by the way, my guard army most sgts have las pistols and one of the officers, there’s only one plasma pistol out of 6 squads and two characters). The main reason to take las over plasma pistols is that I am building a themed army with a narrative based on models I like. Not trying to build the most optimal list. It’s not hard to understand.

So then why do you support using the point system that penalizes your narrative choice with worse in-game efficiency over the point system that allows you to decide based on rule of cool and then assigns an accurate point cost to your choices?

But as grown ups we can agree to enforce that rule as strictly or loosely as we like.

As I said about the points, because I don’t care and I am not foolish enough to believe that 3 or 4 points out of 2000 makes any difference at all. The game is finely balanced for that level of granularity to be needed. I have used points for all the editions for 1st, until PL arrived. Soon as a we tried power level it became abundantly clear that it had zero negative impact on the gaming experience. I didn’t feel penalised at all for taking less than optimum load outs. It became clear that we had been wasting our time working out armies in minute detail adding uk the cost of indivisible weapons and troops. It didn’t matter one bit. Why would we ever go back to wasting our time doing that.

Maybe on the very top tables of big competitions are players and lists so tuned in that 20 or a hundred pints might make a difference, occasionally. But for most people, and certainly me and my mates who often forget rules or forget to Move or fire a unit it makes no difference at all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

nou wrote:
A) because assigning points that „accurately reflect unit’s power” is impossible outside of a very strict and defined context 40k doesn’t have and will never have, because of freeform list building and open scenario structures.

Then why do you defend the existence and use of a point system and points-based list building?

And on top of that, because players actively demand the existence of "list building as a skill", point efficiency discrepancies must exist within the point system. Bad choices must exist for optimal choices to exist.

This is absolutely false. Consider the question of "how many AA guns should I take in my army", which is clearly a question where list building skill is relevant. This involves considerations like "how many aircraft do I expect to encounter?", "do I need to kill the enemy aircraft or just accept some losses to strafing runs and focus elsewhere?", etc. And these questions exist even if tanks and AA guns and infantry all have accurate point costs when measured against the game as a whole. The superficial "list building skill" of "choose to buy the obvious unit with the best dice math" that exists in 40k is not in any way necessary.

B) in a narrative setting you already work in cooperation with your opponent to ensure a fair game at forces composition and scenario preparation stage

That's an interesting claim given the fact that GW's flagship narrative product for the current edition is one where you create a fixed list of units that you use regardless of who you are playing against. Or do you seriously expect people to plan out a whole Crusade in advance, arranging your list choices with each possible opponent before playing your first game?

Exactly the same with points - in a narrative context you do not restrict yourself only to the most optimal choices.

You say this, but in reality it still feels bad for many people when they know the unit they're taking is just a strictly worse version of the alternative. Taking a laspistol instead of a plasma pistol as a reasonable strategic choice feels much better than taking a laspistol instead of a plasma pistol with full knowledge that it's a sub-optimal choice and you're deliberately making your army less effective.

Both with points and PLs I have played both high power and low power games and PLs are simply more convenient to use, because they do not create an illusion of balance points do.

If points create an illusion of balance that you find undesirable then why do you continue to advocate the use of points-based list construction in narrative games?

And believe me, I really wish, that "assigning points that accurately reflect unit’s power” would be magically possible. It would really take a lot of burden from my hands when preparing fair narrative games.

Then you should advocate the use and improvement of the point system which is at least theoretically capable of getting to that level and support the removal of the point system that by design will never get there.

"point system which is at least theoretically capable of getting to that level" - every game designer on this planet knows, that this sentence is 100% false. Points do not work good enough as balancing mechanism.

And re-read my answers - point system of any kind sufficiently provide one information only: game size. Not sufficient balance information, not enough structure information. PLs provide game size information well enough for all practical purposes, anything above this level of granularity only adds to an illusion of balance and creates an expectation of improving it by shifting point values around. Which never works.

That said, I'm out, I don't enjoy going in circles with people that do not have enough game design knowledge to even understand what level I'm writing my posts at.




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CadianSgtBob wrote:


Oh? You'd gladly play a game with 1500 points against 2500 points if it saves you a few seconds of adding up more accurate numbers?

First turn advantage in modern 40K is equal to 500-600 pts. Anything below that is perfectly winnable.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
First of all, if you're needing to rely on a third party product that may or may not be even accurate to build lists, then that's already pretty dire.

You don't need to use third party tools.

But you've fallen back on it every time someone's pointed out that they dislike listbuilding with points. If it's not essential, why mention it?

I'm just pointing out the fact that many people do use those third party tools regardless of which point system is being used.

I'm pointing out that many people use PL and Open, regardless of how essential you feel it is.

Second, just on the sheer size of the numbers, that's another issue. PL unit costs tend to be in the single digits, occasionally sub-50. Contrast to points, where most units are in the low hundreds. 10 is much smaller than 100, is all I'm saying.

Why does this matter? I suppose technically it takes less time to type 5+8+14+3 into your calculator than to type 95+160+290+75 but we're talking about a difference of a few seconds at most. Do we really need an entire second point system so you have to type fewer digits?

Yes. Not even just because of the size of the numbers involved, but also, as mentioned previously in this thread (which I forgot to mention, my apologies for missing out this part of my statement), it isn't even just the size of the numbers, but also how many calculations are made. A unit in PL is (for the most part) always the same (small) number. In points, a unit is not just each model's cost, but also the cost of their base wargear, some which is free, some which isn't, some of their upgrades, and in some cases, various special rule effects, like being the Chapter Champion or Chief Apothecary. That's many more calculations of larger numbers.

So yes, it's definitely more than a few seconds.

As for "if you're 1PL over, its harder to remove stuff" - not really. If you're 501 points over, but you only took barebones units, or the upgrades you too were non-negotiable, then you still need to strip entire units.

Yes, obviously you can be in a situation where you're at 501/500 and can't trim anything without removing entire units but those situations are a lot rarer than with PL. Every time you're over the point limit with PL you have to remove an entire unit (or at least cut a unit's size in half, if your faction has that option), with normal points that only happens a small percentage of the time. So on average, yes, PL is harder to make lists with.

Or, you can use the in-build systems in place that deal with asymmetrically sized armies, or your opponent and yourself can agree that the difference isn't so bad.

Again - the question comes down to alternative solutions and agreements beyond "2k Matched game or GTFO".

You mention on average - I think "on average", the time saved by faster calculations and not micromanaging every little detail of the army make PL easier than points.

Exactly - but you have to actually *choose* to add them, and by choosing to add them, you likely actually know what they are in order to want to include them. It's the same decision, but built off of the notion of explicit choice and player agency. You add what you know, not remove what you're unfamiliar with.

If you don't know what those optional things are then how are you making an informed choice about whether or not to include them?

Because you shouldn't play something if you don't know what it is. You're acting like *not* including something is the choice being made here, which makes sense from YOUR perspective, but from mine, the choice comes down to what you DO include. Try looking at it from my perspective - if you want to include something in the game, then both players should understand how it works. If one of the players doesn't know, or doesn't want to include it for whatever reason, then it wouldn't be a consensual and informed choice to include it.

And if you aren't making an informed choice about whether or not to include them then how do you know that Open Play is in fact your preferred system?

Because Open Play encourages and facilitates those informed decisions better than points does. Points assumes that everyone knows what every rule is. Open assumes that they don't.

And really, do we need an entire separate Way™ To™ Play™ to cover the basic tutorial for new players to learn the game? Why not just have a very simple tutorial mission in the starter box like every other game?

Why does a separate Way™ To™ Play™ hurt you?

You mention this a lot, but I genuinely don't see how someone else's choice of game affects you in any way. Why do you care?

What stops someone else saying the same for points?

You can say it, but unlike PL the normal point system has a reason to exist.

So does PL. The difference is that I respect your reasons. You don't respect ours. End of story.

So, you're ignoring every reason that BIndmage gave about their preference for it, unless you're calling them a gatekeeper?

No, I'm saying those reasons fail as justification.

In what way? Why is personal preference of how someone enjoys to spend their time not enough for you?

Can I turn around and say to anyone on this site and say "prove to me why you like 40k - sorry, your reasons fail as justification, now sell your models" - because that's what you're saying about PL.

They, like you, can claim that PL is "easier" but when you look at the actual process of making a list PL is not meaningfully easier and is often harder to use.

You literally can't prove that statement objectively. From our perspective, PL is meaningfully easier and simpler to use.

The only reason that I've ever seen that holds up to investigation is the rare time when a PL advocate is honest about wanting a gatekeeping tool. PL does in fact accomplish that goal if that's what you want.

In other words, you're being ignorant and have decided that there's only one right answer to suit your biases. Good to know.

CadianSgtBob wrote:PL renders vast amounts of design space irrelevant and reduces your list building choices to identifying the option with the biggest numbers in the stat line.

And why do I care about the bigger numbers? I want to play with what weapons are evocative, or look cool, or what I've got modelled. I don't care what gun does 1% more damage.

The fact that you don't understand or respect that there could be an alternative to this is why points are for you, and PL is for others.

Who exactly are these people that want to change the rules but are so obsessed with the concept of officialness that they can't make any changes without GW telling them it's ok to do it?

Why do you want to strip the concept of officialness away from them? Why does it affect you? Why do you even care about this?

CadianSgtBob wrote:


The Crusade rules very clearly state that the point limit is a limit for each player, they do not include any of the language about "approximately this" or "closely matched in points" or whatever that Open Play often has. Exceeding the point limit in Crusade is no more permitted than exceeding the point limit in matched play or tournament games.

Just wanted to clarify, so there are no misunderstandings:

In Crusade, you have a Supply Limit, which allows you to build an Order of Battle. This Order of Battle is all the units available to you. Once added to an Order of Battle, the load outs and unit sizes cannot be modified without an expenditure of requisition points.

The Crusade rules state a starting Order of Battle is 25PL, but you also get 5 requisition points, and if you spend ALL of them to increase Supply Limit, you could get to 50PL. Beyond that, your Supply Limit can grow as you choose, 5PL at a time, but you burn RP to do it, so it happens according to the needs of the story. Your Order of Battle could start at 25PL, and it could stay there for as long as you want- there are plenty of things you can buy with RP besides Supply Limit.

Game size, however, is a totally separate animal. You build an army by adding units from your Order of Battle. Sometimes using your entire Order of Battle in a game might fit the narrative, but other times it won't. Generally, armies are meant to be matching PL, so the player with the higher Supply Limit will leave units out in order to match the size of their opponent's army.

Some Crusade missions are Asymmetrical, but I don't remember if any of them explicit call for games in which one army is expected to build an army with fewer PL. I think in some of the Planet Strike/ Octarius stuff allows planetary armies to take Fortifications for free, which obviously results in an PL imbalance, but it isn't achieved by raising or lowering an army's PL- it just calls for more or fewer units.

PenitentJake wrote:
Just wanted to clarify, so there are no misunderstandings:

Just want to clarify your clarification: you start with 50 supply, not 25. And this is what the rules for playing a Crusade game say:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The Power Level of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:
{Table with games at 25/50/100/150 points, corresponding exactly to the standard 500/1000/2000/3000 point game sizes in matched play.}

Now let's see what the current tournament pack says in the same place:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The points limit of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:

The point limit in Crusade is explicitly presented as a hard limit, not a rough guideline, just like the normal point system. The statement about the point limit is word for word identical with the exception of referring to "power level" instead of "points".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
"point system which is at least theoretically capable of getting to that level" - every game designer on this planet knows, that this sentence is 100% false. Points do not work good enough as balancing mechanism.

That's a rather narcissistic statement, insisting that you know better than all the game designers currently publishing systems using point costs. You are a clear minority on this subject so it's pretty hilariously arrogant of you to declare that you're done having a discussion with anyone who doesn't agree with your premise.

And re-read my answers - point system of any kind sufficiently provide one information only: game size.

Why do you need points for that? You can just put models on the table and see what looks about right. Player A gets some tanks and infantry, player B gets a similar amount of tanks and infantry, maybe add a couple more infantry squads to B because B is a less-elite army, now play the game. By adding up point costs you are conceding that they work as a system for determining the strength of units/armies.

First turn advantage in modern 40K is equal to 500-600 pts. Anything below that is perfectly winnable.

Cool. So when the player with 2500 points because of PL errors gets first turn they are effectively playing a game of 2500 points vs 1000 points. PL works great!

CadianSgtBob wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Just wanted to clarify, so there are no misunderstandings:

Just want to clarify your clarification: you start with 50 supply, not 25. And this is what the rules for playing a Crusade game say:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The Power Level of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:
{Table with games at 25/50/100/150 points, corresponding exactly to the standard 500/1000/2000/3000 point game sizes in matched play.}

Now let's see what the current tournament pack says in the same place:

Each player must then select a Battle-forged army. The points limit of each player's army, and the number of Command points each player starts with when they begin mustering their army, are shown in the table below:

The point limit in Crusade is explicitly presented as a hard limit, not a rough guideline, just like the normal point system. The statement about the point limit is word for word identical with the exception of referring to "power level" instead of "points".

Yep, you got me man. PL is 50 to start with no initial RP- it's right there in black and white. I'm not sure how I got 25PL+5RPP stuck in my head- it is how we've built all the Crusades in our campaign. Didn't even realize we were house-ruling the whole time. Many apologies for the misinterpretation.

And yes, Supply Limit is a hard limit to the size of your Order of Battle- but my primary point was that supply limit is not necessarily the same thing as the size of any given game you play. You can never field an army that's bigger than your Supply Limit, but there are plenty of reasons why you might want to use an army that is smaller than your Supply Limit.

PenitentJake wrote:
Yep, you got me man. PL is 50 to start with no initial RP- it's right there in black and white. I'm not sure how I got 25PL + 5RP stuck in my head- it is how we've built all the Crusades in our campaign. Didn't even realize we were house-ruling the whole time. Many apologies for the misinterpretation.

And yes, Supply Limit is a hard limit to the size of your Order of Battle- but my primary point was that supply limit is not necessarily the same thing as the size of any given game you play. You can never field an army that's bigger than your Supply Limit, but you can choose to field an army that is smaller than your Supply Limit, and there are many reasons why you might want to.

Those quotes are not about supply limit, they're from the section on playing a game. They are word for word identical between Crusade and tournament play, with the except that they refer to 25/50/100/150 PL instead of 500/1000/2000/3000 points. In both cases you choose a game size and then build an army up to the specified point limit.

Andykp wrote:
A few hundred points either way make no odds really. I don’t care about it.

There is a gigantic difference between being able to have 4 of the best things and 6, the way fire power gets spread in w40k. Specialy for stuff which are both very powerful on the offensive and hard to take down.

nou wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Open play is the purest form of "my dudes" you can have in a system like 40k, where half the time the rules are able to be misinterpreted numerous ways.

Also, when did CAAC become a thing? Is that really a acronym or did Bob just make that up?

CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

I'm fairly sure CAAC doesn't originate from Peregrine. In essence, it refers to those people who are heavily opposed to any kind of behavior that is even remotely related to making it easer to win games - including little things like making sure your list has anti-tank, having synergy between units or even bringing the same unit twice.

It's that guy at the store who calls people beardy, WAAC and accuses them of "copying lists from the internet" because they were able to beat his "extremely flavorful" homebrew chapter consisting of nothing but tactical marines and rhinos that refuse to use anything but basic bolters because the emperor himself told them so. CAAC often tend to be hypocrites as well, because a lot of them are essentially complaining about losing the game while insisting that no one should put any effort in winning.

Essentially the same kind of toxic behavior as WAAC, just on the other side of the spectrum. Calling someone a CAAC is as much a veiled insult as calling someone a WAAC is. People always seem to forget that "AAC" stands for at all costs - merely asking for toned down lists or wanting your game to be more true to the lore has nothing to be with being a CAAC.

From my point of view, CAAC were much more common in previous editions and doesn't really apply to most people anymore as the nature of 8th and 9th, as well as the embrace of tournament play by GW has kind of taken away their reason to exist.

Lets be fair CSB is either a weird debate bro or a lunatic. This is an in credible thread even for dakka.

Andykp wrote:
Why take a las pistol over a plasma pistol, because the model I have has a laspistol, because when I built it I thought it look3d cooler, and narratively why would all my guard sgts have plasma pistols, it doesn’t fit my armies fluff. ( real examples by the way, my guard army most sgts have las pistols and one of the officers, there’s only one plasma pistol out of 6 squads and two characters). The main reason to take las over plasma pistols is that I am building a themed army with a narrative based on models I like.

All of this is perfectly reasonable. I just don't understand why you want a system that actively discourages this sort of thing by making base weapons cost exactly the same as weapons that are objective upgrades.

This isn't even a flaw exclusive to PL. We see similar issues in points with, for example, Boneswords being costed the same as Rending Claws and Scything Talons, despite outclassing both against near enough every target imaginable.

It's the same reason why I hate relics and warlord traits all costing 1CP, regardless of effectiveness. It means the 'fluffy' traits and relics rarely see play because they're having to compete with ones that are far more effective (and which are themselves a finite resource to begin with), and don't even the advantage of being cheap.

If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

And of course, it's even worse if your army (or the parts of it you want to play) happens to be on the weak side to begin with. Because then you have even less wiggle-room to take suboptimal units and options if you still want a decent shot at winning the game.

Even if it doesn't matter for you and the lists you make, it seems strange to rush to the defence of a system that does all it can to discourage all but the most committed players from following the same path.

nou wrote:
CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

Out of curiosity, is Peregrine still on dakkadakka? I can't recall having seen her post in ages.

vipoid wrote:If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

That's totally fine - play points instead. That's what points is for.

No-one's trying to take away your choice. Don't take ours away.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

vipoid wrote:If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

That's totally fine - play points instead. That's what points is for.

No-one's trying to take away your choice. Don't take ours away.

The premise of the thread is GW taking points away and going full power level only. So its kind of in the title of the thread which is why people are arguing and fighting for their system as the thread is basically assuming a do or die approach to one system surviving and the other being killed off.

 Overread wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

vipoid wrote:If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

That's totally fine - play points instead. That's what points is for.

No-one's trying to take away your choice. Don't take ours away.

The premise of the thread is GW taking points away and going full power level only. So its kind of in the title of the thread which is why people are arguing and fighting for their system as the thread is basically assuming a do or die approach to one system surviving and the other being killed off.

The problem is that PL players aren't advocating for the removal of anything, but the fear of points being removed is being used to discredit PL players.

There's nothing wrong with people saying "I don't wanna use PL, but I'm happy with everyone else who wants to use it".

 vipoid wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Why take a las pistol over a plasma pistol, because the model I have has a laspistol, because when I built it I thought it look3d cooler, and narratively why would all my guard sgts have plasma pistols, it doesn’t fit my armies fluff. ( real examples by the way, my guard army most sgts have las pistols and one of the officers, there’s only one plasma pistol out of 6 squads and two characters). The main reason to take las over plasma pistols is that I am building a themed army with a narrative based on models I like.

All of this is perfectly reasonable. I just don't understand why you want a system that actively discourages this sort of thing by making base weapons cost exactly the same as weapons that are objective upgrades.

This isn't even a flaw exclusive to PL. We see similar issues in points with, for example, Boneswords being costed the same as Rending Claws and Scything Talons, despite outclassing both against near enough every target imaginable.

It's the same reason why I hate relics and warlord traits all costing 1CP, regardless of effectiveness. It means the 'fluffy' traits and relics rarely see play because they're having to compete with ones that are far more effective (and which are themselves a finite resource to begin with), and don't even the advantage of being cheap.

If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

And of course, it's even worse if your army (or the parts of it you want to play) happens to be on the weak side to begin with. Because then you have even less wiggle-room to take suboptimal units and options if you still want a decent shot at winning the game.

Even if it doesn't matter for you and the lists you make, it seems strange to rush to the defence of a system that does all it can to discourage all but the most committed players from following the same path.

nou wrote:
CAAC was coined by Peregrine to insult me and couple of other posters. It then gained traction and settled on „people whose way to enjoy the game I utterny do not understand, because I’m a sworn competitive player”.

Out of curiosity, is Peregrine still on dakkadakka? I can't recall having seen her post in ages.

Posts search shows he stopped posting quite long ago. But CSB seems to aim at replacing him, along with Hecaton

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

vipoid wrote:If you don't care about any of that, fine. But it might be worth considering that many other people do care. Many people don't like a system that actively punishes them for taking flavourful-but-weak options. Many people don't like feeling that they are actively hurting their list by trying to build flavourful characters and units with non-optimal options.

That's totally fine - play points instead. That's what points is for.

No-one's trying to take away your choice. Don't take ours away.

The premise of the thread is GW taking points away and going full power level only. So its kind of in the title of the thread which is why people are arguing and fighting for their system as the thread is basically assuming a do or die approach to one system surviving and the other being killed off.

The problem is that PL players aren't advocating for the removal of anything, but the fear of points being removed is being used to discredit PL players.

There's nothing wrong with people saying "I don't wanna use PL, but I'm happy with everyone else who wants to use it".

I think the issue is that GW has been encouraging PL for a while - eg the casual way they put PL on the unit profile but not points.

There's a worry that GW might try it and gamers tend to argue as if talking to GW when on community groups.



Personally I don't see the point of Power-Levels. The only advantage it has is that its easier to mental math add up. Otherwise it brings no actual advantages and places a huge amount of pressure on the pre-game setup and the attitude of both players with regard to the game itself. Sure we get some issues with that with points, but power level goes even more into the extreme. Thus two people with the same intention and attitude can use PL and have a great time; whilst two others with different intentions and attitudes can have a horrible time.

Plus I find the argument of making the maths easier strange in an age where pretty much everyone is carrying a pocket calculator with them now. Tablets and phones are both super common (in fact not having one on you is considered quite abnormal now) and whilst there are some good opposing arguments for mandating game apps for wargames, most phone calculators are quick, simple to use and work well. They are unlikely to crash; place minimal power drain and requirements on the phone and should only be needed in the setup phase which you could even do at home before the game day.

CadianSgtBob 805449 11387965 wrote:

Perhaps a quote from Rick Priestley can make you rethink a bit or two...

"So where do points values come into all that? Well, army lists and points values are a great way of working out forces if you know how the scenario will affect the basic utility of the different elements. To put it another way, if the tabletop is six feet by four, if the deployment is 'line 'em up and go', if the terrain falls within certain narrow limits, and if you know what the victory conditions are - then it's possible to work out points values that have some broad credibilty. You will know how useful or how valuable certain kinds of troops will be within the context of the game. Points values make perfect sense if we are talking about a very limited type of confrontational scenario. However, points values make almost no sense if you take armies into radically different kinds of situations. To give a few obvious examples, if a battlefield is impassable to heavy armoured vehicles then the value of tanks is going to be reduced considerably, if the battlefield is very small or very large, then the value of long range weapons is lessened or enhanced respectively, if the objectives set for the armies require positions to be taken by infantry then this affects the effective utility - and hence the value - of infantry/non-infantry units. Simply put- in different situations the value of units will also be different.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the combination of fixed points values and scenarios designed for points balanced armies creates a kind of circular self-sustaining mind-set. For points to be 'balanced' the scenario must fall within very narrow limits. Once those narrow limits are accepted as a standard, the exact points value of a unit becomes a critical factor in picking an effective army. Thus the structured army lists encourage players to adopt the same narrow parameters for scenarios time after time, and focuses players' minds on the cost/competitiveness of units within those parameters. It is wargaming - it is perhaps one of the most popular and enduring kinds of wargaming - but it isn't the be all and end all of what a wargame can be. For one thing, it has absolutely no reference to history or actual warfare. In real war fairness and balance of outcome are things to positively avoided where possible! It is also an approach strongly focussed on the one-on-one game - a kind of toy soldier equivalent of chess - in which the wargame is seen as a kind of intellectual match between two individuals. That kind of game might suit some players - perhaps a pair of regular opponents of comparable aptitude - but it works less well for games between multiple players, teams or games between experienced players and novices." Rick Priestley, in the pages of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine issue 71 (2013). (courtesy of Archbombe in another thread)

I mean he's not wrong, but that quotation kind of feels like its only half of the argument. He's pointed out some flaws with the points system but doesn't actually present any means to fairly integrate them into a game system.

He's also kind of edging the discussion away from the idea of a competitive wargame and more into a collaborative battle simulation. Ergo where instead of the objective being to win for both players; the objective becomes a simulation of an event for both players.


This is something historical games often achieve, but in that context they are often using real world numbers combined with the game simulation to re-create real world events. 40K/Fantasy wargames don't have any real world numbers to draw from. There just isn't anything to create such a simulation from other than the players own imaginations.

At which point you aren't even re-creating a real war you are trying to make a game simulate one.


I feel like that can "kind" of work, but its always going ot hit the barrier of not having a DM to bridge between the simulation and the players. DM style wargaming could certainly work, but it would require a very different approach, rules system and structure. It would be a very interesting style of gaming to engage with and I suspect some DnD groups already do play games that get large enough to be akin to a big skirmish or wargame experience.




It's a bit like trying to play Monoploy with a Chess set. You could sort of possibly do it with a lot of bits of paper and modifications. However the actual chess rules themselves don't really work well for it at all. So in the end you're not trying to modify chess you're actually after a very different experience entirely that works FAR better with its own rules, its own tokens and counters and its own approach - even if you still used the chess pieces as icons in monopoly.

If other wargames use points, and are mostly fine, then why does Warhammer struggle this hard? It can't be because points are impossible to work with, as if you have to give a random number each time. Points work best when everything else in the system works, but changing the points system or dropping points entirely fixes nothing. But points can lead to a better balanced system, as long as the system works. At some point, you just have to admit that the Warhammer teams just don't know what they're doing balance wise.

By the way, I play an RPG that uses points. It isn't balanced at all. Their whole thing is "Points are a shaping mechanism so you can build what you want as long as it falls into the point limit", but people don't defend the fact that a starting character is 100 points and that you can delete the known universe with 50. But it's an rpg, not a wargame. It can get away with massive balance issues, as the GM can just say no, as the players are supposed to be cooperative, etc..

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
That's totally fine - play points instead. That's what points is for.

No-one's trying to take away your choice. Don't take ours away.

The issue is that GW having PL as a system is actively hurting the point system. e.g.

- The decision to include PL on dataslates instead of points, making the latter more awkward to begin with.

- Using CP for artefacts and warlord traits is very clearly done to facilitate both systems but actively hurts points by removing any cost differences between strong and weak items

- Removing point costs from a lot of items is clearly an attempt to gradually merge points with PL, to the detriment of the former.


I don't mind PL existing alongside points, so long as points don't suffer as a result.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If other wargames use points, and are mostly fine, then why does Warhammer struggle this hard? It can't be because points are impossible to work with, as if you have to give a random number each time. Points work best when everything else in the system works, but changing the points system or dropping points entirely fixes nothing. But points can lead to a better balanced system, as long as the system works. At some point, you just have to admit that the Warhammer teams just don't know what they're doing balance wise.

By the way, I play an RPG that uses points. It isn't balanced at all. Their whole thing is "Points are a shaping mechanism so you can build what you want as long as it falls into the point limit", but people don't defend the fact that a starting character is 100 points and that you can delete the known universe with 50. But it's an rpg, not a wargame. It can get away with massive balance issues, as the GM can just say no, as the players are supposed to be cooperative, etc..

I once wrote an elaborate post about why solving point costs in Warhammer is not doable, but I don't feel like repeating it. So to make a long story short, the reason is that all resolution steps in 40k are non-linear so the math behind the point balance in 40k is therefore chaotic. They made a good step towards linearity and thus better solvability of point balance with switching to flat rolls for WS and initial rarity of AP, but because core rules of 8th/9th are so limited and the scope and 40k is so massive, they then bolted on a huge amount of non-linear or straight up non-quantifiable elements back on. The only way to tackle the balance now is statistical, which doesn't work outside of a very narrow context of "the meta", and a statistical balance has a metric ton of drawbacks. It is enough to say, that in rock/paper/scissors, all "factions" have a perfect 50% win rate but every game is a one way slaughter.

Many other wargames are effective at balance, because they include non-point related balancing mechanisms like sideboards or staggered army selection and point costs are used mostly for structure and rough size measure. Or they are much more linear in design, like early AOS.

It is obviously true, that you can easily establish, that a large vehicle is worth more points than a gretchin, nobody denies that. But as you approach too much granularity, you can no longer adequately establish how much melta is worth relative to a flamer, because the effective value of those will swing more than their point cost, depending on a matchup, terrain and scenario. It is even worse with intentionally situational special rules like poison or out of los targeting. There is a bottom threshold of usable points granularity, below which the points do not improve balance anymore. For the game with the scale of 40k it is somewhere between 10-20 current points per choice - more or less 1PL. Your 1pt upgrade is only meaningful if you take enough of them to impact the game flow anyhow. That GWs implementation of PLs in 40k is a joke is completely different story.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
If other wargames use points, and are mostly fine, then why does Warhammer struggle this hard? It can't be because points are impossible to work with, as if you have to give a random number each time. Points work best when everything else in the system works, but changing the points system or dropping points entirely fixes nothing. But points can lead to a better balanced system, as long as the system works. At some point, you just have to admit that the Warhammer teams just don't know what they're doing balance wise.

By the way, I play an RPG that uses points. It isn't balanced at all. Their whole thing is "Points are a shaping mechanism so you can build what you want as long as it falls into the point limit", but people don't defend the fact that a starting character is 100 points and that you can delete the known universe with 50. But it's an rpg, not a wargame. It can get away with massive balance issues, as the GM can just say no, as the players are supposed to be cooperative, etc..

Sounds suspiciously like you are playing Rogue Trader

And like RT to 9th ed 40K the RPG elements (pts = GP cost, Potentially silly interactions a GM is there to resolve) have been bastardised and baked in without any consideration to the other interactions modern writers shoe horn into a creaking system.

If GW went full PL I would be all on board with it. However I have a suspicion that IF GW go this way it would limit loadouts in both lists and the model range. (Hell its perfect for GW, Variant mini releases FTW££££££)

Sadly, I'm not playing Rogue Trader, though I think it would be fun to try out. I'm playing Infinity as my main Wargame, and GURPS as my main RPG. "Points does not equal balance" is a debate I see often for GURPS, and it's far more understandable for an RPG for me. But it's not like there's no attempt at balance. There are abilities I can recreate using other abilities, and they usually end up with the exact same cost, e.g. Obscure with proper modifiers being the same cost as Invisibility.

I just feel that the opinion that points can never be balanced enough for it to matter is ultimately harmful. Sure, points can never be the main balancing factor for a properly complex game, but that doesn't mean they should be disregarded for balance. They can still make a difference, and you can get closer or farther from balance while just changing point values.

In Infinity, I'd argue that a few models are too expensive on their own, but adding some support makes them shine. Like a lot of hackers. Or most Heavy Infantry and being supported by Smoke. Or the Avatar with models that only give Orders. What's important is that they're balanced by things needing to support each other, how orders work, special weapons cost, order limits, and point costs. I'd be fine with only using Power Level if it wasn't just points but less accurate. But it seems to just broaden the issue, rather than fix it.

Just slightly off topic, one of the reasons I refuse to play the new Kill Team is the lack of points, though mainly due to the fact that it means less customization, and the fact that 10 Guardsmen are supposedly balanced against, what, 4 Custodes? It messes with my sense of lore, but that's not a problem with lacking points. Hell, if it is balanced, I still don't want to touch it.

Sorry for rambling.

nou wrote:

I once wrote an elaborate post about why solving point costs in Warhammer is not doable, but I don't feel like repeating it. So to make a long story short, the reason is that all resolution steps in 40k are non-linear so the math behind the point balance in 40k is therefore chaotic. They made a good step towards linearity and thus better solvability of point balance with switching to flat rolls for WS and initial rarity of AP, but because core rules of 8th/9th are so limited and the scope and 40k is so massive, they then bolted on a huge amount of non-linear or straight up non-quantifiable elements back on. The only way to tackle the balance now is statistical, which doesn't work outside of a very narrow context of "the meta", and a statistical balance has a metric ton of drawbacks. It is enough to say, that in rock/paper/scissors, all "factions" have a perfect 50% win rate but every game is a one way slaughter.

Many other wargames are effective at balance, because they include non-point related balancing mechanisms like sideboards or staggered army selection and point costs are used mostly for structure and rough size measure. Or they are much more linear in design, like early AOS.

It is obviously true, that you can easily establish, that a large vehicle is worth more points than a gretchin, nobody denies that. But as you approach too much granularity, you can no longer adequately establish how much melta is worth relative to a flamer, because the effective value of those will swing more than their point cost, depending on a matchup, terrain and scenario. It is even worse with intentionally situational special rules like poison or out of los targeting. There is a bottom threshold of usable points granularity, below which the points do not improve balance anymore. For the game with the scale of 40k it is somewhere between 10-20 current points per choice - more or less 1PL. Your 1pt upgrade is only meaningful if you take enough of them to impact the game flow anyhow. That GWs implementation of PLs in 40k is a joke is completely different story.

The thing is, while you might not be able to achieve perfect accuracy, you can still obtain a reasonable point value for many weapons.

To use your melta/flamer example, both have the same range (so that can be effectively discounted). The flamer is useful only against light infantry with poor armour. And even then, it's not very effective. Killing a single Ork or 1.5 Guardsmen probably isn't going to set the world on fire (no pun intended). In contrast, a meltagun is useful against vehicles, monsters, titanic units, heavy-infantry. Even against basic Marines, it's more effective than the flamer.

To put it another way, any Marine army, regardless of build, automatically invalidates the Flamer (as in, it's detrimental to have it over a melta). In fact, in order to make the meltagun a wasted choice, you'd basically need to be facing an infantry-guard list with no characters.

Now, in and of itself this doesn't give you a defined value for either weapon, but it does tell you that a Flamer should be markedly cheaper than a Melta in order to reflect how much more effective versatile the latter is by comparison.

Overread wrote:
He's also kind of edging the discussion away from the idea of a competitive wargame and more into a collaborative battle simulation. Ergo where instead of the objective being to win for both players; the objective becomes a simulation of an event for both players.

So wait, the dude that wrote the game sees it as a collaborative battle simulation? Huh never woulda guessed it...

nou wrote:
Perhaps a quote from Rick Priestley can make you rethink a bit or two...

Not really, given my low opinion of him and his work. He has a lot of importance from a historical point of view but he's a relic of a time when game design was much less understood and the standards for quality were much lower.

But even in that quote he acknowledges that points are appropriate for the way the majority of 40k games are played: as a two-player matched play game. This is the game type that gets the vast majority of support in the 40k rules, with everything else being given a total of a paragraph or two in the entire rules. So no, I'm not really concerned that points may not be a good idea for a cooperative pseudo-RPG where you regularly play "tanks are not allowed" games.

nou wrote:
I once wrote an elaborate post about why solving point costs in Warhammer is not doable, but I don't feel like repeating it. So to make a long story short, the reason is that all resolution steps in 40k are non-linear so the math behind the point balance in 40k is therefore chaotic. They made a good step towards linearity and thus better solvability of point balance with switching to flat rolls for WS and initial rarity of AP, but because core rules of 8th/9th are so limited and the scope and 40k is so massive, they then bolted on a huge amount of non-linear or straight up non-quantifiable elements back on. The only way to tackle the balance now is statistical, which doesn't work outside of a very narrow context of "the meta", and a statistical balance has a metric ton of drawbacks. It is enough to say, that in rock/paper/scissors, all "factions" have a perfect 50% win rate but every game is a one way slaughter.

Sorry, but that's a ridiculous argument. 40k having non-linear mechanics makes it difficult to create accurate point costs based on a formula and no playtesting or statistical analysis of results. It's not a problem for point costs in general. You can still base point costs on a unit or option's effectiveness against a representative sample of opponents. For example, if you want to balance flamers vs. melta you can calculate their effectiveness against each of a comprehensive set of targets (light infantry, MEQs, vehicles, etc), apply a weighting factor representing their relative frequency, and compare their total weighted firepower. And then once you set costs based on that calculation you collect playtesting data. If one of them is the clear most popular choice then you got the point costs wrong and you adjust appropriately and do further playtesting. If they're being taken in roughly equal amounts and your playtesters disagree on which one is better then you probably have the right cost.

And that's just the obvious basic system. If you want to get really into designing a custom balancing process you can do stuff like having a bidding system where the players have to compete for the right to "buy" a particular unit/upgrade for their list. If you're willing to join the modern era you could even do your playtesting in a digital version of 40k where detailed data is automatically logged for analysis without needing to worry about trusting player feedback.

But as you approach too much granularity, you can no longer adequately establish how much melta is worth relative to a flamer

You claim this but your claim does not match reality. Competitive players regularly make these evaluations with that level of precision.

Racerguy180 wrote:

Overread wrote:
He's also kind of edging the discussion away from the idea of a competitive wargame and more into a collaborative battle simulation. Ergo where instead of the objective being to win for both players; the objective becomes a simulation of an event for both players.

So wait, the dude that wrote the game sees it as a collaborative battle simulation? Huh never woulda guessed it...

Not really. The objective of winning the encounter is very much present in the historical wargaming and designed matches. The only part that is outright removed from the gaming experience in historicals is list building for advantage. In my part of the world, asymmetric scenarios are often played twice with switched roles, so they also do not skew the "who is better at pushing toy soldiers" outcome.

But this kind of approach to wargaming is completely unsuitable for US pickup culture, where any attempt at pre game conversation above "2000pts GT Matched" is perceived as an insult and being a GW apologetist by (too) many players.

nou wrote:
But this kind of approach to wargaming is completely unsuitable for US pickup culture, where any attempt at pre game conversation above "2000pts GT Matched" is perceived as an insult and being a GW apologetist by (too) many players.

It's not being a GW apologist, it's missing the clear message that GW is giving you. Look at the game GW actually publishes, not your nostalgia for 1980s pseudo-RPG games in the 40k setting, and you see a game that is entirely dedicated to matched play pickup games. 60% is straight tournament-style games, 39% is "matched play with a table of upgrades" narrative games, and 1% is an occasional footnote saying something about maybe doing some vague thing with having a less-structured story game without giving any real details or support for the idea.