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Hi all

Just seeing if anyone knows what benefits what army better, points or power level. So I know what to create my army with so we'll both be on equal footing when it comes to these levels.

Use whatever your friends/store/group tend to use mostly.

If you're running random pick up games, I'd recommend always using points for the added granularity which more often than not results in better balance.

Well the store generally says 50 power level for a game in the store but with the armies I'm working to play at some point just makes me worried if using power level for them would make underpowered if I used power level. Since I keep hearing people saying some armies work best for power while others don't and they never say what armies those are.

Then these me trying to figure out what of my armies will work best for that, since I've been building up Astra Militarium, Adapteus Mechcanicus, Dark Eldar, Death Guard and Primaris.

The armies that work best for Power Level are those that frequently take upgrades on their units, or those that have no upgrades available. The way power level is priced is

Take the cheapest possible loadout for the squad (so, no special equipment/upgrades)

Plus the most expensive possible loadout for the squad

Divide by 2 to take the average

then round to the nearest 20 points.

For certain squads that fall in the middle (10x Gretchin for example are exactly 30 points) they'll try to average it out by making additional members of the squad less. So for Gretchin, 10 is 2 Power Levels, which is a good deal over priced, but if you want to add 10 additional it's only 1 power level, so you end up at 3PL = 60 points for 20 gretchin which is exactly right.

What this means is the worst units for power levels are stuff like Ork Nobz, who are often best without any upgrades, or very cheap upgrades, but who if they want to can all take souped-up melee weapons and expensive gun and armor upgrades.

The biggest pitfalls for your armies will be in the Astra Militarum, where you have stuff like a Leman Russ, which can take a main cannon, hull lascannon, sponson multi-meltas, track guards hunter killer dozer blade etc etc etc........oooooor they can take none of that stuff. That's going to have a very highly variable power level because the cheapest and most expensive option are very far apart.

The other three generally have few crazy upgrades, so they will work well with power. Dark Eldar almost always want to max out on upgrades anyway, so they actually work better with power than points.

So I would aim to do points if I plan to bring my Astra Militarum I should focus on points to max them out then power level and if I remember right from what the guys in the store said 50 power is 1000 points.

And the other armies mainly Dark Eldar can be used with power or would it just be best to do everything in points then power?

 angelrei wrote:
Well the store generally says 50 power level for a game in the store but with the armies I'm working to play at some point just makes me worried if using power level for them would make underpowered if I used power level. Since I keep hearing people saying some armies work best for power while others don't and they never say what armies those are.

Then these me trying to figure out what of my armies will work best for that, since I've been building up Astra Militarium, Adapteus Mechcanicus, Dark Eldar, Death Guard and Primaris.

If your store runs games off PL, build your lists off PL.

If you're that worried about being underpowered, the silly thing about PL is that upgrades don't cost everything, so take the best weapons/loadouts because they don't cost any additional points. All your Russes can get hull lascannons or heavy flamers with heavy flamer or plasma cannon sponsons. Stuff like that.

Okay will do that then, thanks for all the help

We play power level. But we also have a cap on upgrades. So you can't just take the best things on every unit. You only get X number of upgrades in your entire list so you have to spend them wisely.

 auticus wrote:
We play power level. But we also have a cap on upgrades. So you can't just take the best things on every unit. You only get X number of upgrades in your entire list so you have to spend them wisely.

Seems like points would suit that better then.

We're good.

We're not hyper concerned about points or "balance" because the game is not balanced with points either.

 auticus wrote:
We're good.

We're not hyper concerned about points or "balance" because the game is not balanced with points either.

Sounds like you're concerned enough to place additional restrictions.

You can make some hilarious troll-builds with Orks when using powerlevels. 15 tankbustas + 6 bombquigs for 10 Powerlevels. Yes please.

Sure. It takes no time at all to limit upgrades. That doesn't make points superior, because the points are busted as it is. We get the same type of game with power level or points. The difference is I can make a list with power level in about 30 seconds and granular points annoy me and we have an option to not have to worry about them, so thats what I use.

We prefer power level for anything other than the powergaming meta. The powergaming meta is all about breaking the game, so busted points don't matter at that point.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. There are a ton of people that use power level. There are a ton of people that use points. Use what you want.

You get the same basic game regardless of either method. IE Broken and unbalanced if you are trying to break the game, and a fun game if not.

 auticus wrote:
Sure. It takes no time at all to limit upgrades. That doesn't make points superior, because the points are busted as it is. We get the same type of game with power level or points. The difference is I can make a list with power level in about 30 seconds and granular points annoy me and we have an option to not have to worry about them, so thats what I use.

We prefer power level for anything other than the powergaming meta. The powergaming meta is all about breaking the game, so busted points don't matter at that point.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. There are a ton of people that use power level. There are a ton of people that use points. Use what you want.

You get the same basic game regardless of either method. IE Broken and unbalanced if you are trying to break the game, and a fun game if not.

Oh I'm just remarking that I find it odd is all. Never heard of someone adding in a restriction to PL.

For my own curiosity, as a Guard player would I be allowed to upgrade all my infantry squads with special and heavy weapons? Would I be limited in which weapons I could take? What about vehicle hull weapons? Strictly heavy bolters or could I take heavy flamers? Would I be limited in number of heavy flamers? What about Russ sponsons? What about officer and sergeant melee weapons?

Just curious how strict/heavy handed or not your restrictions are.

Anything that costs points is an upgrade.

We have about an 80% approval rating with the system and have around 40 people that have used it so for my money I consider it a success.

We're running a narrative event "tournament" early 2018 that uses the system as well, and an alternate command point structure that encourages narrative over powergaming play. Also with a high approval rating. So if it works for our community thats all I care about. I'm just sharing with others that there are people out there that do these types of things.

Considering our events pull close to what moderate sized regional events can pull, I know that the community is open to both styles of play.