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I am fiddling around how how point costs are made. I have a rough draft by going over stats. What I have is just basically guess work and looking through the Rouge Trader book. So this is what I came off. I am close but no where near accurate.

This is off because in designing my version of 40K, I have Movement point allocations in. So here is what I came up with as points.

M= 1.25
WS= 2.5
BS= 1.25
S= 1
T= 1
W= 4
I= 1.25
A= 4
Ld= 1.25

After you get your total you divide by 5 and round up. Then add:

Powered Armour =6
Grenades Krack/Frag=3
Bolter 3 (book says bolt gun is 2 points so I changed that a bit)
ATKNF+ ?

So a 6/4/4/4/4/1/4/1/8= 17 points.

So even if we take the Movement stat out and say they get them for free that will then be 15.5 points or 16 points (rounded up). So that would be what, ATKNF is about 1.5 points per mini, which is about what I say the difference between a CSM and a regular SM is.

So this is my take on how the point system my work in 40K. Well least what it use to, now I know a lot of it is arbitrary and I can be totally wrong. But for anyone who wants to try and use this system and see how their unit or troop behaves and see if it's on par or close to it, we can be on to something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For Necrons I got about 14 points. So instead of 6 points for Power armour it's 5 points for their 4+ save. According to the Necron codex I am a few points over.

So I am not perfect and have no idea how Ranimation Protocols would cost. But from what I gather they might be under costed and should be costing more.

What do you think?

Hi Davor.
Are you designing a skirmish game where all the models act independently, or a battle game where models fight in units?

Because if your game is a battle game based on unit interaction, (as 40k has been since 3rd edition.)

The the best way to allocate point values is per unit.As this includes the synergistic anomalies within the unit.

I think this is why 40k is so poorly balanced.
It allocates points at the model/equipment level, and has limited play testing done at the army level.

And completely misses out the unit level where all the in game interaction takes place!

I can discuss this in more detail if you are interested?

Well I am making a squad based game and that got me thinking how on earth did GW do their pricing. After looking at codices and can't think of how they did it, I saw something in Rouge Trader.

Now that I believe was make your minis individual and then put them in a squad.

I didn't care for squad based games before, but now I like it. So I am trying got think on how to point the squads properly. This is what I have gathered from trying to see how GW did it.

If you look at what I did, it's completely different from RT since RT starts at a human stats with 3's for example and then adding or subtracting points from that, while I start mine at 1's and increasing points from the more added.

I think I came close, because I am off by what 2 or 3 points. Seeing this is how 7th edition now and points are cheaper, I think I worked it out good what would have been 4th, or 5th edition. Now it just seems GW is taking what they have and making them cheaper just so we buy more.

I would love to discuss this with you more. I am interested.

This doesn't work. Stats are of different value depending on each other. Additional wounds are so useless as to be effectively free at T1, BS is generally better than WS but the difference between BS5 and BS6 is minor at best, the difference between WS7 and WS8 is minimal, +1 Toughness for a Guardsman might be worth a point or two at best whereas +1 toughness for a Wraithknight is liquid gold, BS is extremely valuable to a model with a good weapon but useless to an unarmed model...

 Ashiraya wrote:
This doesn't work. Stats are of different value depending on each other. Additional wounds are so useless as to be effectively free at T1, BS is generally better than WS but the difference between BS5 and BS6 is minor at best, the difference between WS7 and WS8 is minimal, +1 Toughness for a Guardsman might be worth a point or two at best whereas +1 toughness for a Wraithknight is liquid gold, BS is extremely valuable to a model with a good weapon but useless to an unarmed model...

I am not sure what you mean. "Stats are of different value depending on each other". Are you talking about in general, for any game or what I tried to conclude?

I am not sure what you mean. "Stats are of different value depending on each other". Are you talking about in general, for any game or what I tried to conclude?

unless the game has no stat interact with any other stat, and have no points were the stat is of different value do to quantity... well that would be impressive. You seem to be talking about 40k, were stat's value changes a lot. Hell, all the RPGs I have played had exponential cost increases for stat boosts... so either we can't comment beyond say that it looks like some numbers with some words, or we base it on other games. Those show that stats change value based on magnitude and some critical points. Which this system doesn't seem built to handle.

I think the previous posters have all pointed out, (bad pun,) the problem with linear grading of values in isolation.
Its the next level down from assigning values per model/equipment , in a unit rather than evaluating the unit as a whole.

Direct in game comparison to other elements (models/units depending on the level of interaction,) is the best way to arrive at more accurate point values.

Eg say a basic human with standard weapons = 5 pts.
Then play test (physical or computer simulation) the effectiveness of what every other model/equipment combination is compared to this basic unit.

if the rules of the game are written inclusively to allow easier costing , that makes more accurate PV allocation a lot easier.

Eg 1 resolution method to cover all units , per interaction.

It's not working this way. On the opposite, you first come up with stats - usually going from a template working option (meq, geq, etc) with some changes and only after that try to estimate it's point cost based on how it's gona play.

This approach is good if you can change the point values with time, so that for example you invent warp talons that are daemons, can blind stuff, have dual lightning claws and are overall an interesting concept. So, you make a guess that they should cost 25 ppm and think it's gona be fair for everyone. Than you play a couple games with them and find out that all their fancy stuff is irrelevant cause they're dead before doing anything if they DS cause they can't charge, blind is irrelevant cause it's really hard to blind anything and they have no shooting at all or they just fly across the board and are basically a waste of points for what they can do. So, your next step shouldbe either addingsomething special for them (like DS insurance, or increased durability on the turn they arrive, and so on) or lower their point value to make them at least on par with other stuff.

GW's doing the exact samething but with changes introduced in dataslates or new codexes only which is their main flaw if you ask me. You, on the other hand, can introduce changes emidiately.

...what was i talking about? Yep, stats have different values. Noone would care about increase from t1 to t2 or even t2 to t3 isn't that significant. But increase from t4 to t5 makes the target imune to most ID mechanics and increase from t7 to t8 makes the target immune to most anti-personal weaponry. Or if you take armor values. AV10-11 is almost irrelevant but av13-14 makes HUGE difference. I'm not even talking bout WS. Cause it's no real difference between WS6 and WS8 in most cases. And Every stat is like that.

Moreover, they're dependant on each other. A model with a low armorsave and toughness might have enormous ammount of attacks and huge ws but it's never gona be worth the points cause it's not making it to combat unless fuelled with special rules (that are another even more difficult topic).

The system is just too difficult to have a determined point-costing system.