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Now, I'm talking from the perspective of Wargames where you pay for everything, even if it comes base with the model.

Strictly speaking, I can't imagine anything is overpowered. Things can be grievously undercosted, but that's not the same statement, is it? So, Heldrakes might be powerful, but if they're too powerful, it's only because you aren't paying enough points to take one.

Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I just being silly? I mean, I hear people complain about how overpowered things are at a constant. Nothing can be overpowered in a wargame, but they most certainly can be undercosted.

Points cost is part of the overall "stats" of the model. If something is undercosted, then it's overpowered.

If something is considered too 'powerful' because its weapon has too high of strength, you can consider it 'overpowered' and the balancing factor could be lowering its strength.

Points-cost just so happens to be one of those stats that makes the unit better the lower it is. Points-cost also just so happens to be the one stat that every single model in 40k has and uses.

That all being said, not everything can be balanced using points-cost alone. How do you assign a cost to game-swinging random luck tables? How much would you need to increase the cost of a Reventant Titan's Destroy-Everything-It-Touches guns? How much would you need to decrease the cost of a Shokk Attack Gun or a Deathstrike before they become competitive? Sometimes, balancing something that is overpowered or underpowered requires a reassessment of the entire package beyond just altering a points value.

You have it about right.

There is no such thing (at least not without going into absurd hypotheticals) that is too strong in the context of the rules, there are only options which don't require sufficient resources spent for the benefit they bring.

For wargaming, to me overpowered and undercosted are interchangeable words that mean exactly the same thing. Personally I prefer the term undercosted, because 'overpowered' feels like a loaded term that is often used in a whiny/complaining way, whereas undercosted feels more like an observation.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Strictly speaking, I can't imagine anything is overpowered. Things can be grievously undercosted, but that's not the same statement, is it? So, Heldrakes might be powerful, but if they're too powerful, it's only because you aren't paying enough points to take one.

You're describing something that's overpowered - you get more worth than what you pay for it - only you're doing it in a glass half full vs glass half full kinda manner. It's the same thing overall.

It is an interesting idea.

Obviously a unit that is good and cheap can be considered as overpowered if you can spam it in your army because of its relative cheapness.

The Force Org Chart is meant to prevent spam, so maybe units that exceed the capability of their slot could be seen as overpowered regardless of points cost. Space Wolves Long Fangs might come into that group.

Let me illustrate my point by flipping the argument to talk about an underpowered unit. In 4th and 5th edtions, Space Pope was widely voted the worst unit in the game, not just because of cost but because he was worse than useless, since his positive powers were more than balanced by serious disadvantages. Also he took up an HQ slot that could have gone to a much cheaper Crisis Commander.

I don't think a rational player would have put Space Pope in his army even if he was free.

Hi all.
It is possible to have units accurately costed.And have 'Overpowered' options in force selection'.

I am talking about multiple units of the same type , that grant a significant synergistic bonus.Where multiples of the same unit increase the effect of the units when put together, far greater in effect than simply adding the point values together.

So there are 2 places where balance in a game are created.
A)Accurate costing of individual units .
B)And negating synergistic bonuses from the possible force structure.

After the introduction of the points system in wargaming, a long time ago admittedly, the points are the base of the units effectiveness, if the unit feels cheap in relation with its cost, its ovepowered, if the unit feels expensive in relation with its cost its underpowered, if the unit feels ok for its cost, but for a similar cost, or slightly more or less, another unit is preferable the unit is balanced, but the army list has internal balance issues.

If something beats you it's overpowered.

If you beat something else it's balanced.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Things can be grievously undercosted, but that's not the same statement, is it?

Of course it's the same, because a unit's attributes include more than just the stat line. Things like "average kills per point spent" are very important, and that's where cost is accounted for. An overpowered unit is one that gives you too much for the point cost, while an underpowered unit doesn't give you enough.

So, Heldrakes might be powerful, but if they're too powerful, it's only because you aren't paying enough points to take one.

And this is a good example: the Helldrake is overpowered because its point efficiency in killing MEQs is way too high.

How about the Helldrake against other types of units?

A high efficiency against MEQs might be balanced by low efficiency against hordes.

A model that, when fielded, allows you to roll a dice and, on a 2+ you win is overpowered no matter how many points it costs but that's a stupid analogy.

As a general rule undercoated is the exact same thing as overpowered, overpowered doesn't only mean it's so strong it breaks the game but it also means that something is too powerful for the points you are paying for it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How about the Helldrake against other types of units?

A high efficiency against MEQs might be balanced by low efficiency against hordes.

But in this case it isn't. The Helldrake is overpowered because it's too good for its points in that situation. And killing MEQs is important enough that other competing units are rarely, if ever, going to be chosen over the Helldrake.

I presume the Helldrake is bad against hordes. Contrasting the Helldrake with Long Fangs, Long Fangs are good against hordes as well as MEQs, vehicles and MCs, because they can fire frag or krak missiles.

So the Helldrake may be overpowered because it is under-costed, while Long Fangs are simply overpowered because they are too multi-capable.

If they are properly costed they cannot be overpowered, they can be internally imbalanced though, if other choices in the list are not equally favored or outright dismissed because of them.

Overpowered means a army choice that does too much to buff you army/debuff the enemy army for its price.

Overpowered typically means one of two things.

All wargames have some sort of "resource" - be it points in games like WM and 40k and fantasy, or Soulstone (just points dressed up differently) in malifaux, other games have detachments and formations, etc etc.

They are all a resource pool by any name.


Overpowered tends to mean "given a relative static expenditure of Resource, piece A is significantly and materially "better" than piece B - all things being equal, if victory is the only factor, you have a better shot with A than B".


Put simply, a very good bargain in terms of power for the price in resources you pay for it.



The other meaning of overpowered is "whatever i can't figure out a way to deal with is clearly overpowered, because i'm the tactical love child of Sun Tzu meets Napolean meets Rommel, meets Cromwell.

Generally, yes, if something is far more effective for its points than another model of equal cost, it would be "overpowered." As the Heldrake is the common example in this thread, let's look at a few aspects. You have a weapon that is high strength, low AP, is a template, ignores cover, and has good range. On a model that moves quickly, is hard to hit, and carries its own invulnerable save. Is any one of these elements what makes it overpowered? No. Would doubling the cost of the Heldrake make it more balanced? Maybe. It's all of these elements combined, the weapon's rules, the model's rules, and the points cost, that make it "overpowered." Adjusting one of these three isn't always enough to make something balanced, though.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Strictly speaking, I can't imagine anything is overpowered. Things can be grievously undercosted, but that's not the same statement, is it?.

The two are very closely linked. The common reason something is 'overpowered' is because you get too much for the points cost, thus unbalancing the game in their favour. If they had a fair cost, it doesn't matter how powerful they are in themselves because the cost in the army list reflects it. It's possible for something to have an ability that is game breaking that isn't mitigated by any points cost, in which case it's not 'overpowered' but simply 'broken'. Virus grenades in 2nd edition come to mind as you could wipe out a swarm army in a single turn. That's just not fun.

Usually, overpowered and undercosted are the inverse of each other but mean the same thing.

Undercosted is actually the proper term, because overpowered is usually used to designate something that is horribly balanced for the setting it is being released in, regardless of cost. Something like, as said above, Virus Grenades in 2nd edition were something that even if they were priced appropriately in the game, broke the game mechanics in a way that added nothing positive to the game.

Or for instance with something closer to current, the ability Grey Knights had (do they still have it??) to deny a Chaos Daemon opponent from even deploying at all in the game. The combo of things they had to do might have been appropriately priced, but it literally made the other player have no fun at all playing.

Usually under-costed things are a matter of tweaking their cost to bring them more in line, while Over-powered things should never have made it out of playtesting at all, and should have been scrapped before the rules go into print.

I'm going to use a historical analogy here, so bear with me...

In the first and second world wars, capital ships had to have a balance of three design elements:

- Firepower
- Speed
- Armour

Generally speaking a battleship had firepower and armour, while a battlecruiser usually had firepower and speed (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were exceptions in having armour and speed). As technology advanced it became possible to have more of each, and some of the most powerful 'fast battleships' had all three.


t's possible to look at 40k units in the same way - everything any 40k unit can do is going to be focussed on one of these three elements:

- Firepower - the ability to cause the enemy damage. These days this usually takes place at range, but melee is also a valid place to cause damage. temporary damage (e.g. pinning, stunning vehicles) also comes into this category. The more damage a unit can do to tougher enemies, the greater its firepower value is.

- Speed - This does include how fast a unit can move, but in 40k perhaps a better term would be reach. A unit with a very long reachcan damage the enemy from the start, although this is also dependent on other factors such as terrain. Conversely, a melee unit, even a fast one, cannot damage the enemy unit it reaches close range. Alternate movement methods would also come into here such as infiltrate, deep-strike, scout and adding transports.

- Armour - The ability to survive enemy damage. Toughness and armour saves count towards this, as well as cover saves (often terrain dependent), Flyers have an advantage here, and mobile units can also benefit when avoiding melee units or enemy fire. Also note that the old saying "Quantity has a quality all of its own" - can apply here - surviving due to numbers is just as valid as due to being inherently tough.


When taking a look as some of the units in 40k that are often described as 'Overpowered', it's worth seeing which of these qualities they possess.

- WS Grav biker command squad - high speed and firepower, medium armour - 2 1/2 out of 3
- Wave serpent - High armour and speed, medium firepower - 2 1/2 out of 3
- Vendetta - High speed and firepower, medium armour - 2 1/2 out of 3
- Screamerstar - High speed and armour, medium firepower
- Riptide - High firepower, armour and speed (reach) - 3 out of 3
- Heldrake - High speed armour and firepower - 3 out of 3
- Jetseer council - High speed, armour and firepower - 3 out of 3


(Apologies if these assessments are not entirely accurate - I don't play in an environment where they are common)

What I think this demonstrates is that while points cost is an important factor, what really makes a unit overpowered is being too tough to easily kill, too dangerous to easily ignore and having too much reach to easily avoid. This invalidates most of the strategies you might like to try against them - the game becomes about these units, with you having to fight uphill to accomplish anything because they're overpowered.

In my ideal 40k edition, there should never be units that possess all three aspects in abundance. Everything should have a weakness - it's a unit's vulnerabilities that encourage tactical thinking. Instead, a deathstar is a no-brainer to play, and takes all the fun out of the game for both the opponent and the user (apart from certain personality types for whom winning is more important than taking part).

Overpowered and undercosted mean the same thing, really, except the former compares the power to the points cost, and the latter compares the points cost to the power.

Yes, you can argue that nothing's overpowered, but, by the same logic, you could argue that nothing's undercosted, just overpowered.

I think it's more accurate to describe something overpowered as needing to be brought nerfed. Overpowered comes from direct use abilities more often than not while 'under costed' tends to come from the swarm capacity. Most over powered units could be fixed by lessening their 'weapon' (whatever that may be) while undercosted units can be fixed by limiting their presence.

At least that's how I see it.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
Now, I'm talking from the perspective of Wargames where you pay for everything, even if it comes base with the model.

Strictly speaking, I can't imagine anything is overpowered. Things can be grievously undercosted, but that's not the same statement, is it? So, Heldrakes might be powerful, but if they're too powerful, it's only because you aren't paying enough points to take one.

Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I just being silly? I mean, I hear people complain about how overpowered things are at a constant. Nothing can be overpowered in a wargame, but they most certainly can be undercosted.

yes youre being silly.

they can be both. undercosted and overpowered.