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So I'm hoping to get back into playing the game casually with some friends who bounced off of 8th and I'm thinking we should try using PL before we give up on the edition entirely. However, every time I make what is for me a 'standard' marine list for 75 PL (1,500 pts) I keep noticing that I have ~200-300 fewer points than I "should" have which seems like a pretty huge difference that could lead to having a really bad game. Which leads me to a few questions:

Are marines an outlier or do other factions also come in 'under points' when using PL?
If there is a disparity in 'points' do you even notice the difference when playing the game?
If you do end up with a significant gap in points with your opponent do you just pile on a few more PL to roughly even it out or does that defeat the whole point of using PL?
When you play with PL do you play with equal PL on both sides or uneven? If uneven at what point does the extra PL make for a bad experience?

The target is for something comparable to 1500 pt games, which has been our preferred points to play at for several editions.


To clarify, my hope is that PL will give us a 'good enough' level of balance that the game will be fun to play semi-competitively among friends. By semi-competitively I mean that we're playing to win but we're taking forces from our long-existing collections that are a bit more 'traditional/fluffy' (e.g. for space marines that's 10 man tactical squads with a drop pod or a rhino, terminators, assault squads etc.). For some background, I've been able to have consistently fun games in every edition from 2nd through 7th with a semi-competitive approach. Towards the tail end of 7e it was getting kind of hit or miss when people started using formations. But for some reason our games of 8th edition were really lopsided and frankly, just not very fun, even though none of us were actively trying to 'break the game.' We kind of hit pause on 40k and have been playing other games instead where we consistently have close matches. After every CA I've tried to get a game or two in with a friend who stayed active in 8th to test the waters but each time I've had a pretty bad experience--it always feels like someone is bringing a knife to a gunfight. I really want to like playing 8th but so far I haven't had much luck so I'm hoping that using PL might be better for our semi-competitive approach to the game.

Other suggestions for how to make for closer games of 8th edition in a semi-casual environment are welcome as well. I've experimented with a few house rules that ultimately didn't work out but I'm open to trying different ideas. Thanks,

Why would you expect that using a less accurate point system will improve the amount of fun you're having?

FYI, Peregrine hates Power Level and will now try to dominate the thread until it dies an ugly death.

Power Level is fine as long as everyone is on the same page. I play both points and power level and haven't had any real trouble. Even though I'm playing down points compared to other armies. But that said one person can ruin it for everyone if they want to.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why would you expect that using a less accurate point system will improve the amount of fun you're having?

Because fun is subjective, and can be had no matter the imbalance. It really depends on why you are bothering to play the game anyway. After all, 40K has always been imbalanced, and never has been intended to be balanced, no matter what point system is used, so why bother using a point system that takes up more of your time when it is only an illusion of improvement?

If your objective is to put the models you've built on to a board and talk crap with cold drinks and salted snacks, then PL is perfectly fine. If your objective is to have a tightly balanced game that will depend highly on your skills and dice rolls, then you're better off playing another game entirely.

I have someone I regularly play only PL with, just because neither of us have CA2018 and anytime we want to play it's unavailable.

We have fun. No real balance issues or anything like that.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why would you expect that using a less accurate point system will improve the amount of fun you're having?

Mostly because I'm not sure if the increased precision of the points system is actually more accurate or not (where accuracy means 'more likely to have a fun, close game').

For example, say I generate an army list that is 75 PL but 1250 pts -- my opponent generates an army list that is 75 PL but 1600 pts. If we then have a fun, close game then the PL is accurate and the pts are inaccurate. If that happens consistently then my problem would be solved.

As for how that might be possible, I think there's plenty of reasons. For example, if GW got the pts value for a particular piece of wargear 'wrong' but the PL for a unit 'right' then using the PL would give a better result than using pts when that wargear is around a lot. Since the PL is basically an approximation of the average possible cost of a unit it could 'average out' errors in individual point costs. I'm not saying it does do that, because I haven't tried it yet. But if people are consistently having close, fun games using PL even when the points suggest they 'shouldn't be' then I'll take that as being worth trying out myself. But yeah, at first glance, it does seem like it'd make for a bad game so I figured I'd ask around before potentially wasting an evening.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charistoph wrote:


If your objective is to put the models you've built on to a board and talk crap with cold drinks and salted snacks, then PL is perfectly fine. If your objective is to have a tightly balanced game that will depend highly on your skills and dice rolls, then you're better off playing another game entirely.

The tricky thing is that my hope is for something in between the two? When we want to play a tightly balanced game of skill we play Infinity -- which is actually mostly what I've been playing for the past year. But I still have the itch to play 40k because it's 40k and also I dont always want to play something that is as complicated and intensive as Infinity.

nomadimp wrote:
...Since the PL is basically an approximation of the average possible cost of a unit it could 'average out' errors in individual point costs. I'm not saying it does do that, because I haven't tried it yet...

It could, but it could also stack on top of the errors and produce something that's more wrong than the points would be.

In practice I find it doesn't really matter whether you're running on points or PL; any time I build a list with one and then check it against the other without deliberately trying to game the system they come out within about 10% of each other. The major edge cases where this breaks down are units with the option for a large number of expensive upgrades that you don't usually take; a Deathwatch Veteran with a boltgun as of the current Chapter Approved is 15pts, but he's 2PL (~40pts) because he could take a combi-melta and thunderhammer and cost 46pts.

Crimson Devil wrote:FYI, Peregrine hates Power Level and will now try to dominate the thread until it dies an ugly death.

This is just too funny.

Power Level is fine as long as everyone is on the same page. I play both points and power level and haven't had any real trouble. Even though I'm playing down points compared to other armies. But that said one person can ruin it for everyone if they want to.

Prob 50% of my games in 8th have been PL. It is no more a broken system than points is. I've had fun in almost every game I've played under both systems.
Play PL and see what happens.

But unfortunately since fun is subjective, others masquerade it as objective for inane reasons.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

nomadimp wrote:
...Since the PL is basically an approximation of the average possible cost of a unit it could 'average out' errors in individual point costs. I'm not saying it does do that, because I haven't tried it yet...

It could, but it could also stack on top of the errors and produce something that's more wrong than the points would be.

In practice I find it doesn't really matter whether you're running on points or PL; any time I build a list with one and then check it against the other without deliberately trying to game the system they come out within about 10% of each other. The major edge cases where this breaks down are units with the option for a large number of expensive upgrades that you don't usually take; a Deathwatch Veteran with a boltgun as of the current Chapter Approved is 15pts, but he's 2PL (~40pts) because he could take a combi-melta and thunderhammer and cost 46pts.

Definitely good points. So in your experience when you see a deviation greater than 10% or so what do you do? Do you just play it as is, and if so does that still give you a fun, close game? Or do you just add on a few more PL to adjust it a bit? Or do you just not play with that list and use something else?

To be clear, I'm just wondering if what I'm seeing in my lists (a 20% difference) is playable as is, or if I'd need to adjust it somehow to be to have a good game.

Before I can give my thoughts on things, what isn't fun? Why are you not having fun?
When you say lopsided what do you mean?

Is it that one person rolls dice really really well?
Or is someone bringing combat knives on fire warriors to fight knights and land raiders?

If anything PL will make things worse. The real question is what sort of missions are you playing and with how much terrain?

Get ready for lots of hate (which has already started I can see) coming from people who don't, and have never played Power Level...and for some reason still absolutely must comment and rage about it.

Power Level is just a simpler way to calculate the value of your units. It assumes you're taking models in blocks (i.e. 6 models are the same power as 10...so take 5 or 10 etc.) and assumes "most" wargear is taken, so if you run minimized squads with no special or heavy weapons or upgrades you're missing out.

The people who play both systems and meta-game just as hard in either one will not see a difference. You have people who will min-max Power Level just as they will Points levels, etc. Until recently most power level was very close to 20 points per power level. However with subsequent massive changes to points values, this has now changed substantially (since GW has not bothered updating power level because it is indeed aimed at a more casual approach to the game).

As with any game, just have a chat with whoever you're playing. There can be a large difference if both players aren't on the same page.

I really like using PL.
I've play a ton with points, and only a few actual games with PL, but I've spent a lot of time building lists for Narritive Events I wanna run in the future.

I really like the glow of building PL lists. They seem to lead to really different kinds of lists than points based ones. The "6 costs the same as 10" is actually really cool, it makes you look at your models in a different way.

Using PL, and still using detachments and CP, etc, which is totally encouraged in the BRB, again, helps show the different ways to build.

The freedom on wargear is amazing, I can take the models I enjoy, and not worry that it's weapon puts my list 1 point over, which even in a 500 point game is only 0.2% of the total list!

Let alone the fact that there's a growing number of models that only exist with PL and won't get points values.
PL let's you use EVERYTHING, well, just about everything, if it has a datasheet, it have a PL value!

Also, worth noting (as hinted above), with the changes to points coming hard and fast a couple times a year, Power Level and Points Level games will result in totally different armies.

The larger Forgeworld models, for example, mostly received a massive points increase in Chapter Approved 2017. Many large models were intentionally nerfed to remove them from the tournament scene - however all of their power levels remained the same. Some units saw a 100% or more increase in cost, but only in points.

A simple example is the Typhon Heavy Siege tank. It was originally 550+/- points, and was 25 power level. It has since become 750+/- points, yet remains 25 power level. So while it's inefficient and ignored by tournament gamers due to the meta, etc...it's still relatively cheap to run in a power level game, with power levels being more "aimed" at narrative games.

Power Level will let you throw some big models around for fun, far more than you could afford to put on the table using points.

nomadimp wrote:

To clarify, my hope is that PL will give us a 'good enough' level of balance that the game will be fun to play semi-competitively among friends. By semi-competitively I mean that we're playing to win but we're taking forces from our long-existing collections that are a bit more 'traditional/fluffy' (e.g. for space marines that's 10 man tactical squads with a drop pod or a rhino, terminators, assault squads etc.). For some background, I've been able to have consistently fun games in every edition from 2nd through 7th with a semi-competitive approach. Towards the tail end of 7e it was getting kind of hit or miss when people started using formations. But for some reason our games of 8th edition were really lopsided and frankly, just not very fun, even though none of us were actively trying to 'break the game.' We kind of hit pause on 40k and have been playing other games instead where we consistently have close matches. After every CA I've tried to get a game or two in with a friend who stayed active in 8th to test the waters but each time I've had a pretty bad experience--it always feels like someone is bringing a knife to a gunfight. I really want to like playing 8th but so far I haven't had much luck so I'm hoping that using PL might be better for our semi-competitive approach to the game.

That's pretty sad to hear and interesting since my experience with 8th has been very different, I consider it the best balanced 40K I've played so far (came in at the end of 5, played in 6th and 7th).
In the end I think missions are more important than PL or points. Maelstrom can do a lot to balance imbalanced armies but also has the downside of players being dependant on lucky cards.
Narrative missions like you can find in CA or Vigilus also make for a fun experience, additional rules like Cities of death can improve the use of terrain and maneuvering.
The open war card deck is also a nice way to spice up the game.
It can also be helpful to set up some guidelines for armybuilding with your opponent before the game. Like "I'm bringing a fluffy SM list, it would be nice if you don't show up with 2 Knights." 8th doesn't have that extreme gap between armies 7th had, were you basically didn't stand a chance if any of the 5 top codizes brought their formations, but there are still some matchups that lead to one-sided games.
All in all even thought I don't oppose PL in any way I'm not sure it offers what you're looking for, it's just a different kind of balance than points.

As others have said I think you need to tell us what you're finding the problems are during your games.

You say they are one sided, this could be because of forces being used, some armies are just really good verses others.

It is more likely due to terrain, more specifically a lack of it. You want lots of LOS blocking pieces, differing heights and not so much area terrain. This is due to the terrain rules being less effective than in previous edition so things like forests and craters are far less effective at protecting models than in previous editions. In my experience the more terrain the better.

Lastly missions. These can really affect the type of game your playing, perhaps your just playing "kill each other" which is a really poor way to play, the missions in chapter approved are a vast improvement over those in the main rulebook so picking that up would be a good start. I've had some great casual games using the open war deck which is a way to create a random scenario and is great for narrative and open play so may well suit your group (I recommend allowing each player an option to veto a single card drawn).


Last I'll give my opinion on PL. I've player lots of games with PL, it was our preferred way of playing at the start of the edition but have drifted away from it as more codes have come out and more importantly chapter approved has arrived.

Unfortunately GW has kind of left PL unsupported, they have recognised that they over costed various units when published (mainly in the early codexs of the edition) and have reduced the points costs accordingly but have left PL where it was. If the problem you are having is balance related then I was highly recommend getting chapter approved or finding what the points changes are as they have been made to balance the game and could well be the dix to your problem if you are still using codex points for everything.
PL was a great idea but just doesn't work that well, I think it needed a little more granulation as for every unit it makes more playable it has units that are unplayable. If I play a PL for instance I know I can't take my death company as they are costed as if each model is using twins thunderhammers instead of the pistol chainswordni have modelled on them :(

nomadimp wrote:
So I'm hoping to get back into playing the game casually with some friends who bounced off of 8th and I'm thinking we should try using PL before we give up on the edition entirely. However, every time I make what is for me a 'standard' marine list for 75 PL (1,500 pts) I keep noticing that I have ~200-300 fewer points than I "should" have which seems like a pretty huge difference that could lead to having a really bad game. Which leads me to a few questions:

To clarify, my hope is that PL will give us a 'good enough' level of balance that the game will be fun to play semi-competitively among friends. By semi-competitively I mean that we're playing to win but we're taking forces from our long-existing collections that are a bit more 'traditional/fluffy' (e.g. for space marines that's 10 man tactical squads with a drop pod or a rhino, terminators, assault squads etc.). For some background, I've been able to have consistently fun games in every edition from 2nd through 7th with a semi-competitive approach. .

Other suggestions for how to make for closer games of 8th edition in a semi-casual environment are welcome as well. I've experimented with a few house rules that ultimately didn't work out but I'm open to trying different ideas. Thanks,

Whether power level works or not depends entirely on your attitude and approach to the game. Pl is 'broken', but my view is 40k's points are broken (points can only hold a small amount of the 'weight' of 'balance' anyway, in my view, and a lot less than a lot of people give credit for- point values make a units value 'official', thry don't make A units value 'correct' - that is an ever shifting mirage) anyway, probably the most inaccurate/broken/easy to abuse system out there, so PL being 'more broken than points' swiftly becomes academic.

Which leads back to what's important being the approach. What you need, more than anything, especially if you know your friends. And you say you've been playing since 2nd, is to step back from things like 'individual list-building' and focus more on a collaborative approach to the rosters for your game and the appropriate scenario. Think less on adhering to a 'particular' value, and focus more on what's a fair match up, or interesrting scenario- if a fair game requires one list to effectively be a hundred or two hundred 'official points units' of value more than the other, then do it. Try and step back from 'list-building-for-advantage', and more about 'list-matching'. Let the lists be capable against each other, regardless of their actual power-output, then kick off with the competitition.

Overall, it's a judgement call. It's 'gut' rather than blindly adhering to 'a system' and expecting this to do all the work. With your depth of xperience, this should be more straight forward to you.

My 0.02p

I've never played with PL, but remember that CA only updates points to fix balance issues with the game, not PL.

This is kind of deviating from my original question about PL but to provide more information for those asking:

Terrain was definitely a noticeable issue right out of the gate. Our existing terrain collection (lots of gw ruins, trees, hills etc) which had worked just fine for a long time seemed basically useless. We had a lot of “wait, what do you mean I don’t have cover?” After a few games we decided to just play terrain like we used to with lots of ‘area terrain’ but we haven’t made or bought a bunch of new los-blocking terrain.

As for missions we mostly played BRB eternal war. Though I did try the open war cards once or twice. I also tried a game with CA 18 eternal war mission.

For players factions we may just be outliers but we’ve got my imperial fists plus a primaris, death guard, tempestus scions, inquisition, everything chaos, blood angels, grey knights, deathwatch and nids. No one has knights or very much forgeworld. The goal is to get the most out of what we’ve got and we still want to play with units we know aren’t good (like assault marines).

As for what I mean by lopsided: one person or another tends to feel they’ve got no hope of winning the game by the end of turn 2 due to suffering insurmountable casualties and many games resulted in someone getting tabled which never used to happen to us and which just doesn’t feel good for us because it’s not what we’re used to. I will note that I’ve only played one or two games after the CA that made changes to deep striking. Most of my experiences are from early 8th using a mix of codexes and indexes.

Anyway, that’s our situation and I’d prefer to jump through a minimal number of hoops to get 8th to work for us so I was hoping that using PL might give better results than we were getting with points.

I’m not sure if you’re using BattleScribe, but I usually do. When I build armies, I’m usually less than 10% off of a 20 pts / PL conversion.

I don’t find GW’s point system to be within 10% of true value, so for my experience, PL is accurate enough to provide good games. While people can load up on less valuable upgrades they wouldn’t normally take... those upgrades aren’t worth their points. If they were, people would take them in Points games. Vox Casters, for example, are basically worthless but you need 2 @ 5 points each to use them. I’d take them in a PL game because I have the models, but would not use them in Points because they’re worthless, and I try to play WYSIWYG.

In the end, PL changes which units can be abused for maximum power. It’s different, not really better or worse. Better for “modellers” because you can take advantage of all the neat little upgrade bits in the kits. If you prefer the “grind” of calculating each nitty-gritty detail to maximize power, and consider that aspect of the game to be part of the fun and competition of the game, then points would likely be a better fit.

Some people attach “virtue signalling” to this, but I don’t see it that way. Sometimes I’m in the mood for ruthless competition, but these days I’m less interested in that. I find a higher percentage of my games end in blow-outs in 8th. Some games I’m scooping half my models off the table in one turn. Did it matter if one squad had a Bolter Sarge, and the other had a Plasma Pistol and Power Sword?

Is there really a 3% difference in power if I change my Hull Heavy Bolter to a Lascannon? It still died to that Volcano Cannon before my first turn.

I’d say that’s the biggest factors people should consider when deciding between Points and PL. Do you want to play games where you can WYSIWYG all the upgrades on the sprues, whether they’re worth the points or not? Do you enjoy the competition of maximizing upgrades and unit sizes in the list building stage? Is one of these aspects more important to you than the other?

nomadimp wrote:
This is kind of deviating from my original question about PL but to provide more information for those asking:

Terrain was definitely a noticeable issue right out of the gate. Our existing terrain collection (lots of gw ruins, trees, hills etc) which had worked just fine for a long time seemed basically useless. We had a lot of “wait, what do you mean I don’t have cover?” After a few games we decided to just play terrain like we used to with lots of ‘area terrain’ but we haven’t made or bought a bunch of new los-blocking terrain.

As for missions we mostly played BRB eternal war. Though I did try the open war cards once or twice. I also tried a game with CA 18 eternal war mission.

For players factions we may just be outliers but we’ve got my imperial fists plus a primaris, death guard, tempestus scions, inquisition, everything chaos, blood angels, grey knights, deathwatch and nids. No one has knights or very much forgeworld. The goal is to get the most out of what we’ve got and we still want to play with units we know aren’t good (like assault marines).

As for what I mean by lopsided: one person or another tends to feel they’ve got no hope of winning the game by the end of turn 2 due to suffering insurmountable casualties and many games resulted in someone getting tabled which never used to happen to us and which just doesn’t feel good for us because it’s not what we’re used to. I will note that I’ve only played one or two games after the CA that made changes to deep striking. Most of my experiences are from early 8th using a mix of codexes and indexes.

Anyway, that’s our situation and I’d prefer to jump through a minimal number of hoops to get 8th to work for us so I was hoping that using PL might give better results than we were getting with points.

From this brief description you gave here it looks like you are trying to play old game with new rules. 8th ed is not a cosmetic change but a totally different game than 3rd-7th were... New to wound system and hit/save modifiers completely shift offense vs defense equilibrium, hence new strategies, new tactics and new terrain setups are necessary. That is nuot a property that can be changed with mere switching from points to PLs. Basicaly you should approach 8th ed as a completely new and foreign game and learn to play it efficiently from scratch adequatelly to what new system gives. Your problem is not a problem of imbalance of the game but expecting old gameplay experience from new ruleset. And it very well may result in conclusion, that new 40k is not for you - that was my story, I really don’t like the gameplay 8th ed produces and no amount of rebalance changes that.

nomadimp wrote:
This is kind of deviating from my original question about PL but to provide more information for those asking:

Terrain was definitely a noticeable issue right out of the gate. Our existing terrain collection (lots of gw ruins, trees, hills etc) which had worked just fine for a long time seemed basically useless. We had a lot of “wait, what do you mean I don’t have cover?” After a few games we decided to just play terrain like we used to with lots of ‘area terrain’ but we haven’t made or bought a bunch of new los-blocking terrain.

As for missions we mostly played BRB eternal war. Though I did try the open war cards once or twice. I also tried a game with CA 18 eternal war mission.

For players factions we may just be outliers but we’ve got my imperial fists plus a primaris, death guard, tempestus scions, inquisition, everything chaos, blood angels, grey knights, deathwatch and nids. No one has knights or very much forgeworld. The goal is to get the most out of what we’ve got and we still want to play with units we know aren’t good (like assault marines).

As for what I mean by lopsided: one person or another tends to feel they’ve got no hope of winning the game by the end of turn 2 due to suffering insurmountable casualties and many games resulted in someone getting tabled which never used to happen to us and which just doesn’t feel good for us because it’s not what we’re used to. I will note that I’ve only played one or two games after the CA that made changes to deep striking. Most of my experiences are from early 8th using a mix of codexes and indexes.

Anyway, that’s our situation and I’d prefer to jump through a minimal number of hoops to get 8th to work for us so I was hoping that using PL might give better results than we were getting with points.

Thank you for giving more information. Here is my 2 cents.

1) Your original question. Yes, we are deviating from your original question, however we are trying to address the problem, which is you not having fun. In my most humble of opinions, it is 100% irrelevant whether or not you play Power Level, or Points. Using Points isn't going to make the game unfun, and using Power Level isn't going to make the game fun. Ergo, asking about experiences with Power Level or Points isn't going to change anything.

2) Cover is important, and knowing when you have cover, and when you don't is also pretty strong. Well, except for your Imperial Fist due to ignoring it 90% of the time. I would invest in some LoS blocking Terrain. Here is a good video on how a table should be set up for a decently fair game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElCOMDFlaI

3) List building is SUPER important here. Anyone who relies on cover, your imperial fists are going to trounce. If the Death Guard brings lots of High toughness guys against Nids Strength 3 attacks, someone is going to have a bad time. Do you guys discuss your lists before hand? Do you see what each other is bringing before you set a model down? A number of issues can be solved by this conversation.

Final Thoughts: Play some more games using the new deep strike rules. They really do make a difference to keep things more balanced. Don't worry about playing Power Level, it likely won't help you. The primary issues that I think you and your group have is bringing the wrong things, to the wrong fight, and not playing with the right terrain.

Korbee11 wrote:

2) Cover is important, and knowing when you have cover, and when you don't is also pretty strong. Well, except for your Imperial Fist due to ignoring it 90% of the time. I would invest in some LoS blocking Terrain. Here is a good video on how a table should be set up for a decently fair game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElCOMDFlaI

While I completely agree with your general advice on using enough terrain, setup from this video is a lot closer to absolutely bare minimum to even bother roling dice than to good setup that ensures decent or fair game. In most batreps using something similar to this, outer terrain pieces play no role at all in a central slaughterfest.

Thank you for giving more information. Here is my 2 cents.

1) Your original question. Yes, we are deviating from your original question, however we are trying to address the problem, which is you not having fun. In my most humble of opinions, it is 100% irrelevant whether or not you play Power Level, or Points. Using Points isn't going to make the game unfun, and using Power Level isn't going to make the game fun. Ergo, asking about experiences with Power Level or Points isn't going to change anything.

2) Cover is important, and knowing when you have cover, and when you don't is also pretty strong. Well, except for your Imperial Fist due to ignoring it 90% of the time. I would invest in some LoS blocking Terrain. Here is a good video on how a table should be set up for a decently fair game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElCOMDFlaI

3) List building is SUPER important here. Anyone who relies on cover, your imperial fists are going to trounce. If the Death Guard brings lots of High toughness guys against Nids Strength 3 attacks, someone is going to have a bad time. Do you guys discuss your lists before hand? Do you see what each other is bringing before you set a model down? A number of issues can be solved by this conversation.

Final Thoughts: Play some more games using the new deep strike rules. They really do make a difference to keep things more balanced. Don't worry about playing Power Level, it likely won't help you. The primary issues that I think you and your group have is bringing the wrong things, to the wrong fight, and not playing with the right terrain.

Thanks! That video was actually pretty helpful because the problems he's describing with "early 8th edition before we figured this out" sound exactly like what I was experiencing and what caused us to stop playing. Having lots of terrain has always been important for 40k and I think we thought we were fine because we had lots of terrain but it seems like it doesn't matter if it's not LOS blocking terrain - which wasn't an issue in previous editions for the reasons he laid out. I hadn't really connected how much easier it is now to move and shoot heavy weapons to why the entire 'manouever' phase of the game seemed to disappear and the pace of the game felt way off. Fortunately, through playing Infinity we've been building up a lot more LOS blocking terrain so I might actually just try playing 40k with our Infinity terrain.

We don't really discuss lists beforehand, I still like a bit of the element of surprise so we typically try to change things up and bring new stuff each game. When I play with my friend who stayed with the game I will say things like 'i'll be playing space marines and bringing a fairly 'soft' list' just to remind him that I'm not bringing a competitive list unlike the other groups he plays with. As an aisde, when I watch them play it is frankly unrecognizable to me as a game of 40k -- most of the models on the board are fliers, or titans etc. My conception of what an army 'should' look like formed in 3rd edition and didn't really need to change much up through 7th because we just chose to more or less ignore formations and stick to the 'traditional' force org chart - 1-2 HQs, 2+ Troops, 1-3 heavies, elites, etc. In an ideal world I'd like to just continue playing with armies that follow that basic 'shape' with 8th edition rules because there's a lot there I like but that may not be realistic. It's also true that in past editions we had a better feel for what was 'too much' to bring for a fun casual game and it does seem like 8th changed things dramatically enough that we need to re-learn what should be off limits and what shouldn't be. For example, in past editions we never played with named characters because they always seemed to cause problems for us, but that may or may not be accurate now.

The takeaway I'm getting so far is that PL won't likely solve the problems I've been having but it also probably won't make them noticably worse either. Sounds like it's more important for us to change up the board next time.

nomadimp wrote:

We don't really discuss lists beforehand, I still like a bit of the element of surprise so we typically try to change things up and bring new stuff each game.

This is hugely problematic. Blind match-ups in 40k have a huge potential of one list being a silver bullet to the other. This doesn't work. Change things up, by all means, being new stuff in - that's all great, but really, everyone needs to know the lay of the land, so to speak. It's not about building a 'gotcha!' list to hard-counter them, but rather, list-matching. And frankly, you need to know what you're facing, or intending to bring, in order to field a 'fair' match up.

nomadimp wrote:

My conception of what an army 'should' look like formed in 3rd edition and didn't really need to change much up through 7th because we just chose to more or less ignore formations and stick to the 'traditional' force org chart - 1-2 HQs, 2+ Troops, 1-3 heavies, elites, etc. In an ideal world I'd like to just continue playing with armies that follow that basic 'shape' with 8th edition rules because there's a lot there I like but that may not be realistic.

You all need to sit down and decide what kind of lists you want to bring to the table, whether 6 flyers and a primarch is cool, or if you want to bring more 'traditional' or 'fluff-friendly' builds.

nomadimp wrote:

The takeaway I'm getting so far is that PL won't likely solve the problems I've been having but it also probably won't make them noticably worse either. Sounds like it's more important for us to change up the board next time.

Partially. I'd argue what's more important is changing what you bring to the board. 'How' you play, and 'what' you bring to the table are hugely important. And if the game isn't working for you, maybe you need to change up 'how' you all are playing.

Korbee11 wrote:
Cover is important, and knowing when you have cover, and when you don't is also pretty strong. Well, except for your Imperial Fist due to ignoring it 90% of the time. I would invest in some LoS blocking Terrain. Here is a good video on how a table should be set up for a decently fair game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElCOMDFlaI

Interesting video. Thanks

My guard units tend to come up less efficient, my Sisters and Wolves units tend to come in more efficient [Meltaguns are expensive!]. Technically, your PL list should almost always be worth more than PL*20 points, because units should be fully upgraded. That said, I wouldn't have taken that Lascannon and Plasmagun and Power Fist and Vox and Plasma Pistol if I had to pay points for them while part of their cost is baked into the PL cost of Guardsmen, so I'm paying more than the minimum required to have the unit perform the envisioned role on the battlefield.

The appearance of Sergant power weapons and more otherwise ignored upgrades like H-K missiles is the most obvious difference in PL lists.

That said, if you're heart is set on bringing "fluffy" lists that consist of 10x Tacs in Rhinos [which I contend aren't actually fluffy, after all, the Marine Codex has all these other units in them, so marine chapters own and deploy these other units, such as Razorbacks and Combat Squads, or something], you're going to have a bad day.

I have found PL useful in three pretty common situations.

1) new player. Much easier to throw together a list and get a game going, and none of us will be playing an optimized list anyway.

2) Larger games, where adding up the wargear would be a huge pain. Anything 3k or above I tend to prefer PL.

3) quick pickup games, where I'm playing an oppnent or points value I didn't anticipate playing. Saves about 30-45 minutes of calculating which is nice.

it's a fun tool to have. I don't recommend it if you're playing smaller games and they're "premeditated".

nomadimp wrote:
As for how that might be possible, I think there's plenty of reasons. For example, if GW got the pts value for a particular piece of wargear 'wrong' but the PL for a unit 'right' then using the PL would give a better result than using pts when that wargear is around a lot. Since the PL is basically an approximation of the average possible cost of a unit it could 'average out' errors in individual point costs. I'm not saying it does do that, because I haven't tried it yet. But if people are consistently having close, fun games using PL even when the points suggest they 'shouldn't be' then I'll take that as being worth trying out myself. But yeah, at first glance, it does seem like it'd make for a bad game so I figured I'd ask around before potentially wasting an evening.

In my experience, PL is completely fine unless you play 'that guy' who takes minimum sized squads full of lascannons (or equivalent), but that is real fringe of a fringe as who has time and money to make second army full of expensive bits to tailor for PL. The only problems I encountered were units that were even more bonkers under 'standard' point system so that doesn't really count as an argument against PL. In fact, I find PL is better in a sense that you don't need to worry about reshuffling your whole list because you're 1 pt over and have no easy way of taking it out, you just take fluffy squads and off you go.

There are two camps in the debate;

1) power level is obviously inferior and as such I will never play it

2) I've played PL a few times and it didn't seem to make that much of a difference.