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Just a simple points fix to help players who want to take the underpowered units in their codex.

The idea is that if a unit is OK but pales in comparison to other offerings in it's force organization slot : 15% point decrease on base unit cost (not upgrades)
If a unit is just all-round bad: 20% point decrease and does not take a slot on force organization chart.
Troops units can not be modified in this way.

So gamers would just have to come to a conclusion on which units fit these categories.

example:
Eldar Swooping Hawks:15% decrease
shooty terminators: 15% decrease
Tyranid pyrovore: 20% decrease, does not take up an elite slot.

This idea could be extended to raise the points cost of the obviously really good units as well.
What do you guys think?

I think you'd be better off fixing the unit, or at least providing a fixed value for the units in question and play test from there.

If you're going to allow some random amount of points subtracted off a unit, you're probably pretty open to house ruling a new points value, or tweaking the wargear and abilities.

Cures the symptom, but not the problem.

Points alone do not determine whether or not a unit is good. Say the Rhino was AV10 all around with only one hullpoint. No one would ever take this vehicle even if it was free because it's rules are bad. .

For example, Terminators are fine at their current price point. They are an elite unit that shouldn't be taken in great numbers. However, their rules do not reflect this. If they had another wound, for example, that would give them some resiliency.

Swooping hawks are pretty awesome in some situations actually.

On the whole, there are problems that can be fixed by plain points adjustment but it shouldn't be a fixed percent value.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Points alone do not determine whether or not a unit is good. Say the Rhino was AV10 all around with only one hullpoint. No one would ever take this vehicle even if it was free because it's rules are bad. .

For example, Terminators are fine at their current price point. They are an elite unit that shouldn't be taken in great numbers. However, their rules do not reflect this. If they had another wound, for example, that would give them some resiliency.

I have to disagree with you a bit there. As long as the unit does not actually negatively affect your army (think old ethereals), there are very few models that a points adjustment won't fix. Not in this way particular way, but a points adjustment almost always works. If a riptide was a base of 250-300 points it would be no where as over powered. It's main power is not itself, but the ability to take multiple relatively cheaply.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Points alone do not determine whether or not a unit is good. Say the Rhino was AV10 all around with only one hullpoint. No one would ever take this vehicle even if it was free because it's rules are bad. .

For example, Terminators are fine at their current price point. They are an elite unit that shouldn't be taken in great numbers. However, their rules do not reflect this. If they had another wound, for example, that would give them some resiliency.

I have to disagree with you a bit there. As long as the unit does not actually negatively affect your army (think old ethereals), there are very few models that a points adjustment won't fix. Not in this way particular way, but a points adjustment almost always works. If a riptide was a base of 250-300 points it would be no where as over powered. It's main power is not itself, but the ability to take multiple relatively cheaply.

I agree with Kooaei that if the rhino was AV10 all around it would be a liability and not worth taking. That is a transport that has one job to do and if it sucks at it's one job then it is worthless. Units that have one job to do and suck at that job are broken beyond the ability of this system to repair. However, I don't think there are too many units in 40k that are this bad.

As for the shooty Termies, I think a points decrease alone could make them semi-competitively viable--- just not that great against a supercompetitive taudar list full of AP2.

I don't think this points system would be good for competitive play at all. But it might be really fun for players ranging from fluffy to semi-competitive... And I think that anyone who would be interested in the system would be gaming along these lines. It's just the idea of developing this kind of system on forums or something... so that those who want to can play with it. It has the advantage of being very simple, if the classification of 40k units into the 2 classes was actually determined in a way that people felt was more-or-less fair (I know that would be no easy feat).

That said, I should playtest it a bunch before I claim it's such a good idea :S