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Hello! I am new to these forums, but I am a long time wargamer and statistician by trade (classification). I have been working on formulas to better balance out each army.

The .xls spreadsheet can be found at this Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1455382844783803/

It can be viewed by anyone
Simply click on "preview" and the spreadsheet will pop up. Each tab, or worksheet on the spreadsheet has a label.

My premise: Imagine you have a basic warrior with 5" Move, 1 Wound, 5 Bravery, and a 5+ save. He gets 1 attack, needs a 4+ to hit, and a 4+ to wound with no rend and 1 damage. He is armed with either a sword and shield, or a spear and shield. That warrior would be worth 10 points.

Every warscroll either adds to those or takes away from them, and my key (the first page of the document) explains what to add or take away in every instance. Then, each page of the .xls has a bolded number on the left. That number is what you pay per model for each unit entry. Everything to the right of that are my calculations of how I got that number.

I played a game last night with my wife with two 1000 point armies (Skaven and Bretonnia) which can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/juravial.quathas/media_set?set=a.1681539542069293.1073741876.100006397897041&type=3

The above example went very well. The game went for 4 turns with nobody getting steamrolled.

Please feel free to comment or point out mistakes if you find them. So far, I have done Skaven, Bretonnia, Dwarves, and Daemons of Chaos. Daemons of Chaos took the longest, with many calculations involved in how to deal with what can only be delicately described as "The Summoning Issue." I will probably playtest the daemons at length to make sure they are fair.

The best thing about this particular points roster is that your opponent really doesn't need to conform to the points structure at all. I tried to keep the options to a minimum for squads, so any time you want to figure out how many points your opponent has brought (and thus how many points you should bring), you just take a look at his army list and do some quick multiplying. If you are off by a few options, it will not be the end of the world, but 5 minutes calculating their points will save the headache of one of you getting stomped by the other by round 2.

Thank you for your time and views, I will be updating this document and thread frequently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One last quick explanation before I get off for the evening: mortal wounds.

I really think that mortal wounds are the most devastating attack this game has, so this is how I calculated the points for one.

To Hit: Mortal wounds do not need to roll to hit. Therefore, to hit needs to be at a 1+. At +2 points for every +1 to hit given (starting value 4+), that comes out to +6 points.
To Wound: Mortal Wounds do not need to roll to wound. Therefore, to wound needs to be at a 1+. At +1 point for every +1 to wound (starting value 4+), that comes out to +3 points.
Armor Save: Mortal Wounds do not allow armor saves. Therefore, you need Rend -5. At +1 point for every -1 rend (starting value rend -), that comes out to +5 points.

Therefore, each Mortal Wound is valued at +14 points. So, if a rule says a model does d3 mortal wounds to a unit (this is extremely common), on average that means 1.5 mortal wounds, or +21 points is the value of that rule.

As always, thank you for your time, and I hope this has been a helpful explanation.

This is well thought out and a good basis to building something around. Nice job.

I like your idea and I actually had a similar one, I have only done 3 units from the tomb kings, but I think that the points system is sound.

Here's a link to what I have so far, I left it open so that you guys can edit it if you like.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8VRXNVC46AiG-rBY5_d0e1T9w3ME_DAaUl0oicreo0/edit?usp=sharing

If you look at the equation for the points value it's pretty self explanatory, it's based off of the probability of dice, I'm more than happy to answer questions about it.

Let me know what you think.

P.S. I used a one wound model with 4 to hit 4 to wound and 1 attack and 1 damage as the average, but you could theoretically use a different baseline unit.

Looks good to me, I'll have a proper read through when I can. The only nitpick I'll pick up on for now is that the average roll on a D3 would be 2, not 1.5, and so your points calculations for things inflicting D3 mortal wounds are a bit off.

Thank you guys for your nice comments!

@The Shadow - I must have been very tired last night when writing that. You are of course correct. d3 being 1.5 is a running joke between my friends and my poor luck with dice rolling skills, and I guess we joked about it one time too many and it stuck! Don't worry, in the actual spreadsheet d3 = 2. Sorry about that once again.

@Crusadergalve - I will take a look at your calculations. Just at a glance, I would probably value the skeleton warriors at 11 base points per (10 base, -1 for move, +2 for Bravery 10, -1 for save, -2 to hit, +1 for Serve In Death, +2 for Skeleton Legion). Musician, champion, and standard bearer would be free, as would shield options, but the unit would have to pay +55 points to give friendly death sorcerers the ability to summon more.

@Grumble Thanks

I will be putting some more time into this today, and I will try to get 2 more armies done. I should have an updated version uploaded by around 8:00 pm EST. Once I am done with all the calculations for each army and have double checked them, I will begin modifying the .pdfs to add just the points cost so it looks a lot more pretty (and I will always keep the .xls updated for justification and records).

Just now added a post to the above Facebook group to add 2 warscrolls: Tomb Kings and Dark Elves! It has been a long day, so I think I will start fresh tomorrow morning when I wake up. I am trying to decide when to tackle Warriors of Chaos (50 page warscroll! Yikes!)

I have also decided that after finishing up all the warscrolls, I will definitely modify the .pdfs with points and put them up on the FB group. After that, I'll work on configuring Quartermaster files for each army list. The future is exciting!!

This evening's update includes cleanup of the Skaven entries to match the Warscroll exactly. In addition, I modified 4 pdfs of the AoS warscrolls (Skaven, Bretonnia, Dwarfs, and Daemons of Chaos) to add the points and make them look all pretty. I will always keep the justification excel spreadsheet around so that you can look at it if you are wondering how I got a certain number of points for a certain unit.

I am playing in a massive 24,000 point apocalypse 40k game tomorrow and Sunday, so I expect to get very minimal work done on the project during those two days. I may shoot for at least getting updated .pdfs for Tomb Kings and Dark Elves. Monday I will tackle one of the big 50 page warscrolls (probably Chaos Warriors).

Updated as of tonight with 2 more warscrolls: Warriors of Chaos and Wood Elves! 9 Warscrolls are now updated, but I haven't updated the .pdfs on all of them (coming soon though). Sorry for the wait between updates, I had some family stuff to do after my huge apocalypse game and work to catch up on.

Tonight's update includes Orcs and Goblins (including the .pdf updates!). Check it out! I'm on the home stretch now!

Something just feels off about the system.

Treeman: 201
War Hydra: 138

Definitely should be the other way around.

Bloodthirster: 120 points
10 Blood Letters: 170 points

This one is even more surprising. What am I missing?

@halfblood

Thank you for your interest and taking a look at the points spreadsheet. A lot of the additions and calculations gave me pause as well, when I was doing the math.

In the case of the treeman, most of his points come from his ability to cause up to 5 additional mortal wounds, as well as its (very good) abilities. The Bloodthirster of Unfettered Rage's low points comes from him only having a few attacks, low to hit, and no real good (read as high points cost) command abilities.

Fortunately, I have personally played with and against all of the models you referenced. Unfortunately, that particular bloodthirster is a stinker. He got slapped down by almost everything I sent him against. In the case of the treeman, that thing tore through knights and only (eventually) was taken down all three times I played against it with lots of arrows.

In addition, both the bloodletters and the treeman are useful against a variety of threats.

I have found that old stereotypes of powerhouses or things that sucked in 8th or were overpowered in 8th are very different in AOS. I can see how different people were given a set of (loose) guidelines and were told to make units for certain armies. The level of power is very different for every warscroll. I have tried to be as open and consistent as possible with how I assign points, and I have been playtesting 1000 point battles. So far I have not had a crushing defeat or victory (defeat or victory with 50% or more points left on the table for the other side).

I like what you are doing here. I just posted my own spreadsheet on the site. Been trying to get feedback for a few days now on other forums to no avail. I plan to look over your calcs tomorrow. I was running into trouble dealing with some of the special abilities myself. How are you dealing with those? Oh, and Wizards and summoning? So far I've upped Wizard costs by 10 points, same for heroes and monsters. I'm curious about your solutions to these as well.
Please check out my post here on the forums too if you get a chance. We might be able to bounce more ideas off each other. Keep up the good work. The models are beautiful. The rules are fun. All we need are the points and we're ready to play some games. :-)

Stormfiends that cheap?

Nah, I'll pass on this.

Well I can't look at it because I don't have a facebook account, but I agree that points are a good idea. That said, me and my buds have been using Project Points Cost for several weeks now and it's already proven to be very balanced. Granted PPC comes with a small comp system as well, but it already has points for every army (soon to include Forge World ones) and has gone through several iterations of adjustments.