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Now that we have our first 2 codex's of 9th out id like to go over points values again to see if we can get an exact idea of what GW values a specific stat line at.
Note im not trying to post exact point values of weapons and such as that wouldnt be good; just comparing basic statlines and points differences.

Marines being the poster boy vs a humble necron warrior would be a good start. Then we will compare the cheapest 2 models (imperial guardsman and Termagaunt), which havent yet been updated.



The Marine itself has always been the baseline for averages in the game. with a 3+ to hit, a S and T stat of 4, basic movement/initiative, decent LD, Attack of 1, 3+ Sv, and a new boosted W stat of 2.
The warrior has fairly similar statline only having 1 less wound and Sv, but gaining Ld.

Obviously Ld is not as valuable as 16.5% better chance to take no damage and double the health. How do their points compare?

We wont put any value on Ressurection protocols as that is an army-wide trait, and as such is countered by Chapter tactics and Doctrines.

Do these points values seem balanced?



Next we look at the cheapest profiles and see how the current pricing is not in fact fair. This was just a quick stop-gap change to start the edition and we should see changes when the respective 9th edition codex's come out.


The humble guardsman has a WS and BS of 4+, a S and T value of 3, standard movement, 1 W and A, a 5+ Sv, and a Ld of 6.
A hormagaunt meanwhile has only a 6+ Sv, and a Ld of 5, however it can be taken in a much larger unit size of 30 models.

Once again, I wont compare any army-wide rules or weapons (as i feel weapons should be pointed seperately and balanced on their own merit).

Does the ability to take a larger unit size factor into unit costs? Apparently GW believe that to be the case.




Is there anything you feel I have left out of my comparisons and what are your opinions on the current value system at GW?

You left out Comparing the guardsman to grots who are even worse than the gaunt

Dont forget the additional wounds making upgrades on say tac squads far more desirable

SemperMortis wrote:
You left out Comparing the guardsman to grots who are even worse than the gaunt

In a vacuum Guardsmen are better, its just Gaunts has more support via other units, stratagems, traits, etc.. Guardsmen when taking equal points and no support other than base 2 HQ's will destroy the gaunts. Guardsmen are right on the edge of being good other than cheap chaff with just a couple extra rules to support them.

And that is why I brought it up The only useful thing left to grotz right now is "grot shield" which is a CP strat which kills them to save 1 unit per turn on a 2+. Other than that they are WS5+ BS4+, T2, S2, 6+ save and I believe leadership 4. And can only equip a single S3 pistol.

There is an inherent value to "existing" that goes beyond the 1W stat. Things that exist take up space and prevent other models from doing things and can hold objectives. That is easily worth almost the entire value of a grot...because they don't do much else. They cost 5 points.

So essentially the base cost of all models is like 3-4 points and having a str3 trash weapon that hits poorly is worth 1-2 points.

Every additional stat/weapon adds additional points. But additional wounds do not have the same value of "just existing" that is already "paid for" So those wounds have to be evaluated differently.

Points are a complex issue, because in terms of the game, absolutely nothing exists in a vacuum.

For instance? People might look at my preferred Gauss Reapers and think “ooooooh crikey! That’s a bit ‘ard” when comparing to their own basic infantry weapons.

But, it has to be considered on the wider plane. Sure, it may be that my Troops are undercosted, compared to specific units.

Yet, when looked at in the wider vacuum of my own Codex? Maybe not so much, if my other preferred choices are solid point sinks.

I don't think you can do this. Its clear the points are not remotely based on "this is the base, add X for extra WS, Y for extra toughness" etc.

Marines are a meta skew. Unfortunately Intercessors etc make low AP damage 1 weapons awful. The end, full stop. Necron Warriors with RP *lose* about 33% more from damage 1 weapons than Tactical Marines do.

In theory this is kept in check by D2 weapons - against say S5 AP-3 D2 the Marines take just under twice as much damage as a necron warrior with RP - but for many factions D2 has been nerfed because Marines were bad in 2018 sad face and this hasn't shaken out because CA9th edition was a hatchet job.

The Necron codex expanded the amount of D2 - and I suspect we'll see that in all future codexes, which may make the meta a bit more hostile to Marines than it is today.

 Xenomancers wrote:
There is an inherent value to "existing" that goes beyond the 1W stat. Things that exist take up space and prevent other models from doing things and can hold objectives. That is easily worth almost the entire value of a grot...because they don't do much else. They cost 5 points.

So essentially the base cost of all models is like 3-4 points and having a str3 trash weapon that hits poorly is worth 1-2 points.

Every additional stat/weapon adds additional points. But additional wounds do not have the same value of "just existing" that is already "paid for" So those wounds have to be evaluated differently.

The problem with this explanation is that if you figure existing with a trash S3 weapon is worth 5pts, then we can only conclude that giving that gun twice the shots and longer range is free, and giving its bearer a better save and combat ability is also free, because somehow Guardsmen are costed the same as Grots.

There are a lot of game systems that include abstract factors like activation economy, objective-holding, and move-blocking into their unit costs, but that just changes the baseline for the scale. 40K's scale at the low end still doesn't make sense.

They definately did not do the low end justice.


If the head design guy said "hey, jack all the trash up to 5pts base" i'd understand.

Thats not all they did though. If your pointing grots at 5pts, its pretty obvious a guardsman is at least 2pts better.

Then if your guardsmen are 7pts, marines probably need to be at least 21pts apiece stock.

They probably felt that was biting into their bottom line too much.....

I mean; I understand the affront of Grots being equal in cost to Gaurdsmen...but people really miss just how much better 10man grot squads are with the new moral rules.

Bitharne wrote:
I mean; I understand the affront of Grots being equal in cost to Gaurdsmen...but people really miss just how much better 10man grot squads are with the new moral rules.

Not really, 10 grots are 50 points. A few months ago 50 points meant 16 gretchins (and 2 spared points) which were way better than 10 grots with the new moral rules. Not to mention that the most important role for grots was to provide CPs and now are completely useless for that.

I would probably have paid 4-5ppm for gretchins in 8th edition, even for loads of them, but I'm not willing to pay more than 3ppm for them in 9th. They really don't worth more than 3ppm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
There is an inherent value to "existing" that goes beyond the 1W stat. Things that exist take up space and prevent other models from doing things and can hold objectives. That is easily worth almost the entire value of a grot...because they don't do much else. They cost 5 points.

So essentially the base cost of all models is like 3-4 points and having a str3 trash weapon that hits poorly is worth 1-2 points.

Every additional stat/weapon adds additional points. But additional wounds do not have the same value of "just existing" that is already "paid for" So those wounds have to be evaluated differently.

By this logic a primaris (T4 2W) should be 25ish base + weapons. 30 points intercessors? Probably even 35 if a S3 pistol is worth 1-2 points.

Gravis dudes could easily be 45ish +weapons. 70-80ppm eradicators?

 Eihnlazer wrote:
They definately did not do the low end justice.


If the head design guy said "hey, jack all the trash up to 5pts base" i'd understand.

Thats not all they did though. If your pointing grots at 5pts, its pretty obvious a guardsman is at least 2pts better.

Then if your guardsmen are 7pts, marines probably need to be at least 21pts apiece stock.

They probably felt that was biting into their bottom line too much.....

Gretchin at 5 pts was not a decision made to properly price the unit's potential, it's an effort to keep a unit that has gotten way more spotlight in 8th that intended off the board. GW doesn't want orks to bring hordes of gretchin to the table, they are supposed to bring boyz and maybe a unit of gretchin or two to compliment them. They don't want a horde of gretchin blocking off half the battlefield with their presence and win by not playing the game - which they could have done even better with the new moral rules.
On the other hand GW actually does want rows of guardsmen standing in front of tanks and artillery and squads hunkering down on objectives.

For the very same reason cultists got multiple kicks in the nuts and scouts got moved to elite, while guardsmen remained unchanged.

So there really is no point in comparing these units globally, when the decision - no matter how heavy-handed it was - has been made for internal balance reasons.

Bitharne wrote:
I mean; I understand the affront of Grots being equal in cost to Gaurdsmen...but people really miss just how much better 10man grot squads are with the new moral rules.

Guy with 3000+ points of grot units here, 1000 of which are grots: No, they are not.

The fact that grots are t2 and have no sv means you rarely if ever have to take a morale test with a 10-man of grots.

There's no in-game job that isn't better performed by a squad of boyz (screening, blocking, etc) or a Mek (Actions, objective holding) that grots can do. They're just a whoopsie. Maybe in 2022 when GW is done getting thru the marines GW will finally corrrect them down to 3ppm or 4ppm with stat improvements (maybe just give 'em -1 to hit when you're not using Blast weapons because they're small and cowardly, something like that, or make Grot Shields more of a Tau Drone ability than a stratagem that goes off on a 4+).

GW will not mail marine fans cookies if they defend GW's dumb decision making regarding grots.

I'm not even sure why points needed to change between editions in the first place.

Surely they could have waited for each army to get its book? Or at least have waited a few months to see if anything was over-/under-performing as a result of the new rules?

 vipoid wrote:
I'm not even sure why points needed to change between editions in the first place.

Surely they could have waited for each army to get its book? Or at least have waited a few months to see if anything was over-/under-performing as a result of the new rules?

...Because some things (non-FLY vehicles) were going to be obviously stronger and others (shooty FLY based non-vehicles) that were going to be obviously weaker?

Agree, the only reason to take gretchin is when you are short 30 points to upgrade them to boyz.

the_scotsman wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I'm not even sure why points needed to change between editions in the first place.

Surely they could have waited for each army to get its book? Or at least have waited a few months to see if anything was over-/under-performing as a result of the new rules?

...Because some things (non-FLY vehicles) were going to be obviously stronger and others (shooty FLY based non-vehicles) that were going to be obviously weaker?

Eh?

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I'm not even sure why points needed to change between editions in the first place.

Surely they could have waited for each army to get its book? Or at least have waited a few months to see if anything was over-/under-performing as a result of the new rules?

...Because some things (non-FLY vehicles) were going to be obviously stronger and others (shooty FLY based non-vehicles) that were going to be obviously weaker?

Eh?

The edition change incorporated new rules that changed the value of existing units and weapons. Vehicles got the ability to shoot into combat, Fly units lost the ability to fall back and still shoot, and Blast is now a thing. Leaving points unchanged wouldn't account for those. It also wouldn't account for the general push to reduce the size of the game with that ~20% increase across the board.

I think it was the right call to redo points, but those changes not taking any of the balance resolutions from CA19 into account was... questionable.

 catbarf wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I'm not even sure why points needed to change between editions in the first place.

Surely they could have waited for each army to get its book? Or at least have waited a few months to see if anything was over-/under-performing as a result of the new rules?

...Because some things (non-FLY vehicles) were going to be obviously stronger and others (shooty FLY based non-vehicles) that were going to be obviously weaker?

Eh?

The edition change incorporated new rules that changed the value of existing units and weapons. Vehicles got the ability to shoot into combat, Fly units lost the ability to fall back and still shoot, and Blast is now a thing. Leaving points unchanged wouldn't account for those. It also wouldn't account for the general push to reduce the size of the game with that ~20% increase across the board.

I think it was the right call to redo points, but those changes not taking any of the balance resolutions from CA19 into account was... questionable.

Okay, perhaps I should have phrased things better.

I don't see why *every* unit needed to change in price. Especially with, as you say, absolutely no regard for the most recent CA.

I mean, you say that things needed to go up in points by 20% but there clearly wasn't any such universal increase. Some units were barely changed while others went up by as much as 50%, with apparently no regard for whether they'd gained any meaningful benefit from the change or indeed whether they were even doing well before then.

What's more, there was no longer any attempt at balancing wargear costs. So whereas before some decent progress was made in making less useful equipment significantly cheaper, now everything just costs the same. Should I equip my Haemonculus with an Agoniser or a weapon with the same stats and ability but better damage? Before, the latter cost twice as much. Now it costs exactly the same. Boy, what a deep and meaningful choice. Previously, I was willing to take Grenade Launchers on IG squads when they cost just 3pts, compared to 7pts for a Plasmagun. Now both are 5pts. Again, I do wonder which one I'll take.

I think a rebalance taking into account the new universal rules - and perhaps some of the rules changes they knew were to come - would have made some sense.

I'm not convinced however the points update did that.

I'm really not convinced I'm enjoying having 100-200 points less on the table, but some people might be.

Tyel wrote:
I think a rebalance taking into account the new universal rules - and perhaps some of the rules changes they knew were to come - would have made some sense.

I'm not convinced however the points update did that.

I'm really not convinced I'm enjoying having 100-200 points less on the table, but some people might be.

Well, they made the table smaller, so...

The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

It seems like a more sensible approach would have been to double the cost of everything and go from there. Even if there's no immediate change in game size (just make 4000pts the new normal), there would be much more design space to work with for cheaper units/wargear.

SecondTime wrote:
Well, they made the table smaller, so...

And without also changing ranges, naturally.

Of course. Did you expect anything less?

 Castozor wrote:
The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

Nope not arbitrary just GW has a perspective how X faction should look and play. respectively the writer for a specific dex and then enforces this via the pts / pl value.
You can see that with Cultists aswell.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

Nope not arbitrary just GW has a perspective how X faction should look and play. respectively the writer for a specific dex and then enforces this via the pts / pl value.
You can see that with Cultists aswell.

Your argument is Gw's rules writers don't want to see Killa Kanz on the table?

GW puts killa kanz in basically every piece of art and ork army photo, they love those ding dang things...

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

Nope not arbitrary just GW has a perspective how X faction should look and play. respectively the writer for a specific dex and then enforces this via the pts / pl value.
You can see that with Cultists aswell.

That would make sense for grots, but not killa kans. It's like the people who did 9th edition points didn't even communicate with the ones who did CA2019. For my DG, Crawlers got a hefty increase, but MBH actually got a small decrease, balance wise this might make some sense but fluffwise, why would a DG army value one Daemon engine over another?

the_scotsman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

Nope not arbitrary just GW has a perspective how X faction should look and play. respectively the writer for a specific dex and then enforces this via the pts / pl value.
You can see that with Cultists aswell.

Your argument is Gw's rules writers don't want to see Killa Kanz on the table?

GW puts killa kanz in basically every piece of art and ork army photo, they love those ding dang things...

No my argument is that GW attempts to enforce that picture and playstyle...
GW just sucks at it.. hence why you will in the fututre still see most CSM armies rellying upon cultists instead of CSM because the later actively gimp your list..

Not Online!!! wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
The points update seems completely arbitrary in many cases. Another Ork example would be Killa Kans who in the latest CA went from Trash to at least usable in normal games if you want to try them. Then in comes 9th and BOOM back to trash status.

Nope not arbitrary just GW has a perspective how X faction should look and play. respectively the writer for a specific dex and then enforces this via the pts / pl value.
You can see that with Cultists aswell.

Your argument is Gw's rules writers don't want to see Killa Kanz on the table?

GW puts killa kanz in basically every piece of art and ork army photo, they love those ding dang things...

No my argument is that GW attempts to enforce that picture and playstyle...
GW just sucks at it.. hence why you will in the fututre still see most CSM armies rellying upon cultists instead of CSM because the later actively gimp your list..

I mean, give them the same points and wound bump that regular astartes got and I do not think they do. 5mans with a reaper or heavy bolter with w2 at 17ppm seem like they would kick ass.