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I'm curious to see what people in the community think defines overpowered game rules or underpowered game rules. We as a community use these terms a LOT. For some of us it's like breathing, for others it replaces breathing, complaining about rules, models, ect. However, we all have different definitions of what constitutes imbalance. So basically, in your own words define overpowered and define underpowered.

under-powered - For the point cost it can not do its primary job.

over-powered - It does its primary job and many other jobs for way fewer points than it should cost.

The primary factor in OP or UP is price. Anything can be as strong as the writer wants, provided it's cost properly reflects its abilities. In some cases the cost is too high(Lothern Sea Guard) and in other cases it is too low( Dark Elves Hydra).

So to you its not a matter of abilities, but a matter of cost. Do you mean to say that there can be no overpowered ability so long as it's payed for?

Cost reduces the availability of other assets which will either benefit from or exploit a given ability. As such nothing is too powerful if it is costed correctly. My 2 cents.

Overpowered, something which can preform a multitude of functions to an extremley good ability
Underpowered, something that cannont fulfill its primary role or does it for too many points

Surtur wrote:So to you its not a matter of abilities, but a matter of cost. Do you mean to say that there can be no overpowered ability so long as it's payed for?

If some ability is so fantastic that it costs 3k points to bring then your not going to get to use it very often. On the flipside if you made Necron Flayed one's 1 point a piece everyone would be having armies with 60 of them because they would be sorely undercosted. At the price of a necron warrior points wise people are pretty meh about them.

Surtur wrote:So to you its not a matter of abilities, but a matter of cost. Do you mean to say that there can be no overpowered ability so long as it's payed for?

In the realm of tabletop gaming, I don't think you can get away from an "abiility" associated with a cost. It is just the nature of the beast.

I guess there could be another metric to go by...that being the limitation on the numbers of a certain unit for a given battle size, but that is usually pretty rare and I can't think of a unit choice that I would say was OP but would have been about right if the nembers were limited.

Possibly psyfleman GK dread? OP in numbers for the cost, but correctly costed if limited to one?

OP or UP in my gamng circle gets used when a unit either is either too inefficent at the task it needs to fill in a army, or when a unit with lets say a cost 75 points per moddel can win you the enthier battle if you bring a squad of them.

Is it new? If so, it is the most OP thing ever made.

Cost and were it falls into the Force Org chart. (somethings that is only ok as a special choice can be OP as core)

Sometimes I consider something overpowered or generally broken if it guarantees some sort of victory without any sort of negative in place for a player to use to counter that ability.

For example if you play Dark Eldar you have the highest initiative of any base troops in the game. This means any close combat you get into you will for certain gain the first attack.

Now you may say they pay the points for that or that they don't have high strength or a good save and that squares that circle but the fact remains attacking first against an enemy your almost certain to wipe out is a something for nothing.

There are others abilities that give a very larger advantage when used in a particular way without any known weakness.

Some units can have it all and give nothing up in return. That's a broken game IMO.

Overpowered= When something does its job too well when considering its pointcost (Dark elf Hydras, SM grey hunters)
Underpowered= Does its job too poorly when looking at its point cost (Skaven ratling gun weapon teams, SM Devastators)

Its that simple truly. The new Grey Knights are , and many codex'es need a upgrade.

OP just means its more fun to bring the mother down.

UP is when you roll a bucket of dice and when its all over you still have not caused a wound.

I'm going to go with a more generic set of definitions:
Overpowered- something that you find in (almost) every list of an army that is meant for serious competition. Or, in the alternative, something that is considered a "no brainer" when picking units for your army.
Underpowered- something that you would never see in a serious list or it only shows up for a theme's sake (fluff basis). A unit, that ,when deployed makes your opponent openly question your understanding of the rules of the game.

runmymouth wrote:under-powered - For the point cost it can not do its primary job.

over-powered - It does its primary job and many other jobs for way fewer points than it should cost.

Pretty much this, but most of the times at a higher level.

OP is that unit that WAAC types will spam to death.

UP is a unit that the average cookie cutter internaut does not have the intelligence or tactical acumen to use successfully.

To an extent IMO, point cost is a big factor when it comes to something being over/underpowered however I’d like to add that increasing the point cost isn’t necessarily the best balancing factor for making something “not overpowered”.

The reason being is that with tabletop gaming, there’s always wiggle room when it comes to point cost and thus a player could still purchase said expensive unit and bulk up the rest of their army with cost effective units. Additionally there are other side mechanics that could be used to make said unit cheaper or more effective than it was intended.

A good example of this can be sent through thunder wolf cavalry (as well thunder wolf ICs). Their high point cost makes them “not op” in a vacuum comparison however when you start to take into consideration wound allocation, storm shields, scoring and cheap supporting units like Grey Hunters and Long Fangs, they start to raise balance issues.

Over powered units;
-Have many strengths, lack proper and exploitable weaknesses
-Can be easily spammed or effectively used no matter the situation
-Are cheap in points cost
-Lots of powerful upgrades
Under powered units;
-Have many weaknesses, lack real use and multiple exploitable problems or short comings, main use is poor and is easily replaced by other units
-Cannot be used in high numbers due to high points cost or rule restrictions
-Expenive in points
-Easily replaced

The Epic Chaosdude!!! wrote:Overpowered= When something does its job too well when considering its pointcost (Dark elf Hydras, SM grey hunters)
Underpowered= Does its job too poorly when looking at its point cost (Skaven ratling gun weapon teams, SM Devastators)

Its that simple truly. The new Grey Knights are , and many codex'es need a upgrade.

I find this interesting.

Would you still say SM Devastators were underpowered if BA Devastators and SW Long Fangs weren't around?

I know this is an extremely difficult question to answer because we have seen that GW is willing to price Devastators lower points-wise.
But has SM Devastators become underpowered on their own merits (or lack thereof), or due to the fact that an "identical" unit, in another codex, does the same job better/cheaper?

Very interesting question Steelmage. Not to derail a response, but I have another query to ask.

Many people point to points as a major balancing factor. So if a unit can make double it's points back before being touched, with low risk, does that make it overpowered? Does the probability of being removed outright with nothing to prevent it make something UP? Example:

5 deepstriking stormtroopers w/ 2 melta vs Land Raider

The stormies are a mere 105 points to the land raider's 250+ (depending on extra armor and variant).

Now melta has the built in disadvantage of short range, but in many cases can guarantee a popped tank regardless of cost for a mere 5-10 points. Deepstriking is very risky with a 1/3rd chance of actually landing where you need to be. Stormtroopers though greatly mitigate both disadvantages by having deepstrike and being able to re-roll. The unit has a high probability (~52% immobile, wreck, explode) to stop the tank or destroy it outright (38%).

Stormtroopers are often bashed for being useless or underpowered (usually this set up being an exception), but by many definitions presented by other posters, wouldn't this make them OP and a Land Raider UP? Furthermore, what part is it that makes them OP/UP? Is it the fact that melta can remove a tank with such ease or is it that the tank relies entirely on a table for damage no matter how many times it's hit or what hits it?

Surtur wrote:I'm curious to see what people in the community think defines overpowered game rules or underpowered game rules.

If enough people say it on the internet, well, then it must be true...

It's not that SM devs are UP becuase of the other flavors of Devastators but by looking at the other HS choices. I can spend `240+ for a fullly loaded 10 man squad or get several predators/vindicators or a single land raider. The tanks won't get taken out by low strength weapons on the front or side armor. I can fail a 3+save to a lasgun. It just adds insult to injury when a 5 man squad of Long Fangs can split fire for less points on the weapons and I can hit two targets only by combat squading. More so with BA devastators as they're cheaper and could get FNP. Granted that's an army flavor rule and they suffer from the same problem as vanilla SM of choosing which HS to use as they can get fast vehicles.

Overpowered - A unit/squad/vehicle that can take over a battlefield and is extremely difficult to remove from the game, even when a strategy and tactics are designed specifically for that task.

Points cost does not matter because something can be overpowered in a small game but balanced in a large game.

Underpowered - A unit that has difficulty doing what it's designed to do, regardless of points cost or number of units on the battlefield.

Hi all.
There are 2 places to ensure balance in a gaming system with PV and army composition.

Ensure PV allocation is as acurate as posible , by using a consistant and PROVEN method .

Ensure synergistic anomalies are found (by extensive playtesting, ) and adresses.(Eg 0-1 chioce, or one of unit X for every 2 unit Y.)

Overpowered and underpowered units are more frequent in game systems that use limited playtesting and lots of gestimation to arrive at PV and army composition.