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new user here so please forgive me if it's in the wrong board.
I have a question regarding Battlescribe. As Iv'e said, I am very new to actually building and playing 40k. I want to build an ork army and I am using battlescribe. My friends are going by Power Level. I have noticed a discrepancy between the program and the Index as far as power level score.

Which one is right? Am I missing an update for the program?

Thanks in advance.

Battlescribe generally strives to have up to date points costs and Power Levels. The PL changed for some units from Index to Codex, and if like CSM or Space Marines you've had a second codex released this edition then GW might have sneakily changed the PL on a number of units again.

In your case, the PL in battlescribe will reflect that in the Ork Codex, not in the Index Xenos which is now a little out of date.

 Drakeslayer wrote:
Battlescribe generally strives to have up to date points costs and Power Levels. The PL changed for some units from Index to Codex, and if like CSM or Space Marines you've had a second codex released this edition then GW might have sneakily changed the PL on a number of units again.

In your case, the PL in battlescribe will reflect that in the Ork Codex, not in the Index Xenos which is now a little out of date.

Thanks for quick reply. I've been a fan of the lore for a few years now but I never built an army. Should be fun. Again, thanks

You must always use the latest published points, which usually are in the codex. Every year in december CA is released, which also updates points. The battlescribe guys are pretty quick updating, you can assume they have up to date points.

Btw, dont play PL. Its unbalanced, you cant put the power of a unit in one number. One example. Two SM veterans have PL3, add a third one, and PL goes to 8. By adding 50% more models to the unit, PL goes up by almost 200%. Now ask yourself, is that right ? Does adding one model make a two model unit almost four times as powerful ? No.

 p5freak wrote:
You must always use the latest published points, which usually are in the codex. Every year in december CA is released, which also updates points. The battlescribe guys are pretty quick updating, you can assume they have up to date points.

Wether you're talking Points or Power Level, this is incorrect.
You must use whatever the group/environment you're playing in uses. Usually that's the most current version... And in many cases that's points. But not always.

Btw, dont play PL. Its unbalanced, you cant put the power of a unit in one number. One example. Two SM veterans have PL3, add a third one, and PL goes to 8. By adding 50% more models to the unit, PL goes up by almost 200%. Now ask yourself, is that right ? Does adding one model make a two model unit almost four times as powerful ? No.

ccs wrote:

You must use whatever the group/environment you're playing in uses. Usually that's the most current version... And in many cases that's points. But not always.

PL is points as well, in a way. PL points.

ccs wrote:

Given how often (& poorly) GW changes points can you really argue that pts are any more accurate? Many times it seems they change them in order to sell you more models & another volume of CA.

Yes, its more accurate because weapons cost points. PL ignores weapons. A unit with boltguns has the same PL as the same unit with ML, or LC. Adding one model to a unit doesnt increase its points by 267%, like PL goes from 3 to 8 when you add a third veteran to a two model unit. Two veterans are 28 points, one more model adds 14 points to that. If we use the same way PL does it, the points would be 74, not 42.

PL is fine when you're first learning the game and just want to throw some models at each other.

But you really should try to move over to points as soon as you're feeling comfortable. Yeah, it's not perfect but it's a LOT better than PL.

To understand one of the main problems with PL, take a Space Marine Devastator squad as an example. 5 model, and you give them 4 heavy weapons. Let's say you give them all Heavy Bolters, the squad is 105 points. Now if we change to Lascannons, its 165pts. That's more than 50% higher cost, with good reason because Lascannons are amazing and Heavy Bolters are so-so.

But in PL these two loadouts cost the SAME, because it almost never accounts for wargear. That means two armies could face each other and one could be 50% stronger than the other just from maximising wargear.

Points arent perfectly balanced by any means, but they are a lot closer.

Some PL points are incorrect.

For exa.ple, the Phobos LT comes up as PL 9 not 5.

I have a friend that prefers PL for our Open War narrative scenario games, where the missions are story driven rather than balanced fights, so it's just easier to both say, let's bring 75 PL list for the first mission, 100 PL for the next, and a big 150 PL game for the conclusion and just go all in.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Some PL points are incorrect.

For exa.ple, the Phobos LT comes up as PL 9 not 5.

I have a friend that prefers PL for our Open War narrative scenario games, where the missions are story driven rather than balanced fights, so it's just easier to both say, let's bring 75 PL list for the first mission, 100 PL for the next, and a big 150 PL game for the conclusion and just go all in.

Yeah that's fair, and I think very much the intention GW had with PL.

If you arent bothered about it being balanced (and I appreciate that term is relative here!) because it's a narrative experience then PL is fine.

If you want something vaguely approaching a fair fight, points is far closer to allowing that.

What is wrong with you people? The guy asked simple question about a discrepancy between PL in Battlescribe and the Index. He even stated the friends he will be playing with are using PL. Why the dissertations on not using PL? Does his group using PL somehow ruin your fun?

 alextroy wrote:
What is wrong with you people? The guy asked simple question about a discrepancy between PL in Battlescribe and the Index. He even stated the friends he will be playing with are using PL. Why the dissertations on not using PL? Does his group using PL somehow ruin your fun?

This happens any time someone mentions PL. Depressing tbh. It’ll drive people away.

 alextroy wrote:
What is wrong with you people? The guy asked simple question about a discrepancy between PL in Battlescribe and the Index. He even stated the friends he will be playing with are using PL. Why the dissertations on not using PL? Does his group using PL somehow ruin your fun?

Because PL gives you a wrong impression of the game. You end up with a super powerful army, because weapon costs are ignored. No one will ever use basic S3/S4 weapons, only the most powerful weapons, because they are free. You get used to playing like that, and when you switch to points you have to use less powerful weapons, because each strong weapon now costs points.

Or one player has a super strong army, and the other player only has basic weapons. Imagine one player with boltguns only on his marines, and the other player only with ML on his marines. PL is the same. Its an unfair and unbalanced system.

A dreadnought with AC, DCCW, and SB is PL5. Three company veterans with chainswords and boltguns are PL8. Are they really more powerful than the dread ?

alextroy wrote:What is wrong with you people? The guy asked simple question about a discrepancy between PL in Battlescribe and the Index. He even stated the friends he will be playing with are using PL. Why the dissertations on not using PL? Does his group using PL somehow ruin your fun?

I've been saying this for ages - some people just can't accept that PL is a valid way to play the game, and if you're using it, it's "objectively" bad.

OP, I use PL. It's a fine system. If that's what you and your group use, more power to you!

p5freak wrote:Because PL gives you a wrong impression of the game.

What do you mean, "wrong impression"? That implies there's a "right" way to play - which there isn't.

You end up with a super powerful army, because weapon costs are ignored. No one will ever use basic S3/S4 weapons, only the most powerful weapons, because they are free. You get used to playing like that, and when you switch to points you have to use less powerful weapons, because each strong weapon now costs points.

Who says they're going to switch to points? If their group uses PL, who cares what the points cost?
Furthermore, if they DO switch to points, and find their army isn't mathematically "PERFECT and OPTIMIZED" then, more than likely, they won't care, because they're probably a pretty casual player anyways. It'd be no different to a points player switching to PL, and finding out all their scrimping and scrounging of points means nothing - they'll just have to deal with it.

Also, I want to address this "if you play PL, you ALWAYS take the strongest weaponry" mindset - if you do that, that's because YOU'RE playing that way. Not because the game says so. If the first thing you think of when you play PL is "great, I can take the strongest guns without paying!", then that's because you're the kind of person who only cares about the strongest guns.
I play PL, and my Guardsmen Infantry Squads have no upgrades. No power fist/power sword/bolt pistols on the Sergeants, even though I have plenty spare. No special weapons embedded in the squads, even though I easily could. My tanks don't all carry pintle mounts or HKMs. Why? Because I take what I *like* and what I think *looks* good, not endlessly spamming the strongest weapons because I feel a compulsive need to make my army the strongest.

Or one player has a super strong army, and the other player only has basic weapons. Imagine one player with boltguns only on his marines, and the other player only with ML on his marines. PL is the same. Its an unfair and unbalanced system.

And is that any different to points, if one player takes a bunch of <insert overpowered unit here> and the other takes <insert underpowered unit here>? They're apparently the same cost, but one is vastly more capable than the other. It's an unfair and unbalanced system.

This is also no different to 5th edition, where, if I recall correctly, missile launchers and flamers literally WERE free on 10 man Tactical Squads - you could have a 10 man squad with 10 bolters, and a 10 man squads with 8 bolters, a missile, and flamer, and they'd both cost the same.

A dreadnought with AC, DCCW, and SB is PL5. Three company veterans with chainswords and boltguns are PL8. Are they really more powerful than the dread ?

I'm sure I could formulate combinations of points that are wildly imbalanced too.
As for 3 Vets being PL8, that actually *is* one of my issues with PL, unit sizes being an all-or-nothing. However, those same people who play PL are nearly universally more accepting of fudging the numbers and using a little bit of common sense to adjust the PL to accommodate, because it's the mature thing to do, instead of throwing the whole system out because they're unwilling to put a bit of brain action in. In that above situation, I'd probably say that the unit should cost 4PL at most.

Maybe we should see what the OP thinks before this spiral gets totally out of control?