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Kevin Nash wrote:
Even with my assertions that VP's are problematic, and I believe they are, I'm not seeing the more important point: A compelling reason why KP's are bad. We both agree they don't really hurt MSU. They are easy to calculate, far more easy than VP and IMO more newb friendly. So what's the problem here? If they are the default and they aren't broken then why are we fixing it?

KP's are bad because there is no value attached to them. Simply destroying discrete elements of maneuver is meaningless.

To use my example from eariler, if you destroy 4 Rhinos, and I destroy two Land Raiders and a Daemon Prince, by what sane measure should you be declared victorious? I have clearly defeated a much greater proportion of your fighting capability and far more important and powerful units.

Annihilation, as the rulebook defines it, is described as such "Find your enemy, crush him utterly and take away his means to mount further resistance". With KP's, it is *very* possible that the player who does exactly that loses. My 2k mech platoon IG army for instance can fight my 2k mech CSM army, 24 KP's to 15, and leave it with nothing but a single Chaos Space Marine hiding in a corner, and still lose the game with three Chimeras, three 10 man infantry squads, and two Leman Russ tanks left on the board. By no standard should that be an IG loss. If that is the case, the system is *borked*, flat out.

Again, to reiterate my earlier point, you can say you won a game 10 KP's to 6, but nobody really knows what that means. That may mean you had 3/4ths of your army left or it may mean you have 1 unit left, and your opponent may have been nearly tabled or still have more than half their army left. With VP's, if I saw I won 1200 VP's to 800, everyone knows exactly what that means and about what shape each army was in. KP's don't mean anything, they have no intrinsic measure of value.

VP's however tell you exactly what proportion of the enemy force you have destroyed and how much of their fighting strength remains



And honestly, if someone can't whip out a cell phone calculator to figure out victory, I have no sympathy. If the win condition has to be borked in order to make it easier to calculate, something is wrong. A system that grants as much advancement towards victory for destroying a unit of two Tau Gundrons off a devilfish or a Rhino as for killing Abaddon, Eldrad or Logan is borked. When a Leman Russ is worth as much as a sentinel or a Land Raider a Land Speerder, that's a meaningless measure of victory.

KP's are bad because they result in wins that should not be wins, and losses that should not be losses, and do so quite often.

Vaktathi - From your logic an army that brings Astrorath and 6 units of Death Company should win in an objective based game as long as they inflict more damage on the enemy. Forget that the army has no scoring units and could never claim an objective. This sounds like you just want to play shoot 'em up with your opponent and whoever brings the most guns win.

There is another element to tactical tabletop gaming and it is the tactics part of that. An IG army that can't get rid of the last CSM squad, while losing 15 units in the process did lose the game if they can't kill the last guy. That's the objective of that particular game. Likewise in Capture and Control if I have 1 Fire Warrior on my objective and you have 20 Thousand Sons on yours, you don't win the game because your one scoring unit is bigger or has more points assigned to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Janthkin wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:So you're suggesting that an army that literally suicides, completely dying while only knocking a few guys out of their rides, is a good army and should be encouraged? Or that those are good tactics? Or even fun (turbo, roll cover save dice, roll melta dice, wee)? Or even fluffy (marines suiciding to kill a few tanks?)?

The SM force wins by playing the mission (KP), and should win. Similarly, an Eldar grav tank army that tank shocks it's way onto objectives in the bottom of the last turn (often as dictated by time, rather than random game length) wins by playing the mission.

Fun is relative; facing mech IG with Tyranids on a fairly open table is rarely my perfect idea of fun, and it's when you really have to focus on playing the mission. It seems strange to worry about fluff at this late date.

In general, Tyranids, Kan-wall Orks, Horde Orks, Nob Biker orks, Jetbike Council Eldar, and foot BAs/Templar can make better use of fewer, larger units.

Good point. Is it fun to turbo boost into a mech gunline to kill all the mech on the next turn? Is it fun to sit in your deployment zone with 6 Razorbacks and 3 long fangs and not have a movement phase? We've got a guy with a Bike list in Chicago who won Best General at the Big Waagh in Memphis and he regularly finishes in the top 5 of our monthly tourney.

I think what should be encouraged is anything that increases the variety of armies that can play at the top table. If SM Bikes beats MSU mech, then let them play.

MVBrandt wrote:In a non-confrontational way, which codices are actually helped by taking big large units as a general rule?

Nob squads are pretty ... bad, especially in the "s8 everywhere" metagame of today, and in the world of psyker battle squads.

You know, a Nob biker army took 2nd at the ard boyz finals in the midwest, after sweeping all its opponents in the prior rounds, playing against psyker battle squads and S8 guns. Don't believe everything you read about how bad this army is, nob bikers are still pretty core. Part of me wonders if internet hate against some strategies/archtypes is done in an effort to minimize the chances that you actually have to play them. If you convince everyone that nob bikers suck, maybe no one will bring them, right?

They don't suck, they're actually pretty darn good. They have some weaknesses. Jaws kinda owns them, and lash tricks can muck them up pretty good. But not everyone has that stuff, and even if they do, it takes some skill to play it right.

MVBrandt wrote:So you're suggesting that an army that literally suicides, completely dying while only knocking a few guys out of their rides, is a good army and should be encouraged? Or that those are good tactics? Or even fun (turbo, roll cover save dice, roll melta dice, wee)? Or even fluffy (marines suiciding to kill a few tanks?)?

Yes. We're playing a game. We're not trying to create a military simulation. Geeze, if we were, wouldn't guard players deploy three tables away and bomb you with ordnance? Games have rules, and the rules exist to create balance, not reality. Reality is asking yourself how 180 orks somehow started the game 18" from my basilisk lines. That doesn't make any sense either, but it happens because this is a game, not a military simulation.

The objective isn't to destroy the enemy, it's to win the game. If winning the game means putting a unit of grots in reserve for four turns and then hiding them when they show up, while suiciding 20 nob bikes and 2 warbosses to kill six rhinos, then those are indeed good tactics. Good tactics are those that win games, not those that crush your opponent. And, yes, I think this should be encouraged, they're the natural counter to the MSU tactics that get used everywhere else. And if the MSU armies can still win, good for them, that shows that MSU really is all that.

In chess, if you lose most of your pieces, but checkmate your opponent, you still win, you know.

DarthDiggler wrote:Vaktathi - From your logic an army that brings Astrorath and 6 units of Death Company should win in an objective based game as long as they inflict more damage on the enemy. Forget that the army has no scoring units and could never claim an objective. This sounds like you just want to play shoot 'em up with your opponent and whoever brings the most guns win.

My arguments were within the context of an "annihilation" mission, where the only point is to inflict more damage on an opponent than one takes in return. My most abject and humble apologies if that wasn't rather immediately apparent.

There is another element to tactical tabletop gaming and it is the tactics part of that. An IG army that can't get rid of the last CSM squad, while losing 15 units in the process did lose the game if they can't kill the last guy. That's the objective of that particular game.

Right, but at that point you're talking about a mission that's artificially stilted in favor of small unit count armies and isn't true to how it is presented in the rulebook or what it is meant to represent. It's not really a battle of annihilation. It's a battle of destroying discrete maneuver elements. They are *not* the same thing. Destroying three squads of infantry and destroying a platoon of infantry are identical outcomes, but KP's rewards you triple for destroying the three squads as opposed to destroying the platoon as a whole, which makes no sense.

Using that IGvsCSM example above, and you asked an average person who would have won a pitched battle of roughly equal forces with one side having destroyed 99% of the enemies force (or 98% in terms of model count) while having only lost 66% of their force (or less than 60% in terms of model count), they'll say the force that only lost 66% of their force won. Individual unit count doesn't *mean* anything, especially if not done on at least a comparative basis, but KP's aren't even done on a comparitive basis. If KP's were done as a fraction of the enemies army (e.g. I destroyed 12 of 15 of your KP's, you destroyed 13 of my 24, I win) it would solve some of the problems with KP's, albeit not all.

Likewise in Capture and Control if I have 1 Fire Warrior on my objective and you have 20 Thousand Sons on yours, you don't win the game because your one scoring unit is bigger or has more points assigned to it.

True, but that's not what the mission is about or how it's portrayed. You're holding the objective, plain and simple. Value isn't necessary there.

In a battle of annihilation, value is everything (or rather, *should be* everything). You want to hurt your opponents army more than they hurt yours. In an objective mission, only the objectives matter, value is taken out of the equation as everything is expendable in order to capture said objectives.

Isn't the image of one small unit of Marines (or whatever) holding off and mowing down hordes of Greenskins, Traitor Guard, Tyranids, etc sort of essential to Warhammer 40K?

To me that is what Kill Points represents in game terms.

Redbeard wrote:Reality is asking yourself how 180 orks somehow started the game 18" from my basilisk lines.

Is it not entirely possible that army of Orks started out with more than 200 bodies, and that the Orks across the tables are the ones that were left?

Matthias wrote:Isn't the image of one small unit of Marines (or whatever) holding off and mowing down hordes of Greenskins, Traitor Guard, Tyranids, etc sort of essential to Warhammer 40K?

To me that is what Kill Points represents in game terms.

That sounds more like an objective game to me. How do KPs represent that?

Matthias wrote:Isn't the image of one small unit of Marines (or whatever) holding off and mowing down hordes of Greenskins, Traitor Guard, Tyranids, etc sort of essential to Warhammer 40K?

To me that is what Kill Points represents in game terms.

If we just want marines to win all the time why don't we just make that a victory condition?

VP's portray that just as well. A 10man marine squad for 170pts stands a good chance of fighting off and destroying 30something guardsmen for about the same number of points. That's the whole point. We have a system of points values to represent the value of units, heroic and supremely capable troops cost a lot of points. Troops that aren't cost very little. They balance out, 10 Space Marines are worth, in points terms, about 30 guardsmen, and thus such "heroic" capabilities and feats are already taken into account.

Vaktathi wrote:If we just want marines to win all the time why don't we just make that a victory condition?

I don't really know why they haven't yet.

Sure - it could represent any army fighting any other force over any of the main objectives...the point being that a unit dealing with vastly superior numbers in the face of certain annihilation is essential to the 40K story. One way to represent that in game terms is KP.

Are units prevented from earning more than their VP value in kills or KP? of course not. I wasn't arguing that one was vastly superior to the other in terms of tournaments, just that they all have their place in telling the same story.

The main rulebook is first and foremost a game. Imposing a tournament system, sports analogies or a true measure of 'fairness' is outside the realm of the basic rules - hence the great division on opinions on measures of this matter, but it all just opinion.

I go for Hybrid.

Matthias wrote:Sure - it could represent any army fighting any other force over any of the main objectives...the point being that a unit dealing with vastly superior numbers in the face of certain annihilation is essential to the 40K story. One way to represent that in game terms is KP.

Except the game already does that through the points system. With KP's, the way you're talking about them, what's the point of playing anything but Marines if we want to make Victory conditions tailored to make Marines win just for cinematics sake? If everything else is just there to make Space Marines look cool, that doesn't sound very fun, and it sounds extremely one dimensional from a storyline standpoint. It certainly cheapens the SM's victory against overwhelming odds when the conditions for victory basically ensure that the attrition based enemy loses.

If you want to hamfist a marine victory by stacking victory conditions, I guess KP's are one way to do that, but it doesn't sound like anything I'd want to play.

Vaktathi wrote:Except the game already does that through the points system. With KP's, the way you're talking about them, what's the point of playing anything but Marines if we want to make Victory conditions tailored to make Marines win just for cinematics sake? If everything else is just there to make Space Marines look cool, that doesn't sound very fun, and it sounds extremely one dimensional from a storyline standpoint. It certainly cheapens the SM's victory against overwhelming odds when the conditions for victory basically ensure that the attrition based enemy loses.

If you want to hamfist a marine victory by stacking victory conditions, I guess KP's are one way to do that, but it doesn't sound like anything I'd want to play.

Not even close to what I am talking about. I only used Marines in my first example because that is iconic image in the history of 40K (the history of 40K being told by Man - so no wonder we don't have examples in reverse). The word 'any' was used a few times and the outnumbered/outflanked scenario can easily apply to any army.

KP and VP are both part of the rules (and VP suggested only a tiebreaker at that). I am a firm believer in a hybrid system - but again, that is my opinion.

100% agree with Kevin and Redbeard. And Mattias.

Mike, please don't marry this idea that KP are bad. Just because you cut out 1/3 of the core rulebook victory conditions this year doesn't mean you have to next year.

One way to represent that in game terms is KP.

Can you please explain how, because I really don't get how KP represents that. In my opinion it's already represented, and in a better fashion, by the fact that Marine armies typically have less models than everyone else. You can tell Orks and Tyranids outnumber them by looking at the average game and seeing 5-10 man squads of Marines dotted here and there with huge groups of Orks or gribblies bearing down on them. The points system itself is supposed to do that, too, as Vak said earlier. 10 Marines are worth about as much as 30 termagants, aren't they? Sometimes they're even more expensive than that.

Mike, please don't marry this idea that KP are bad. Just because you cut out 1/3 of the core rulebook victory conditions this year doesn't mean you have to next year.

So now we're going to browbeat Mike until he turns the NOVA into another Adepticon? Whatever happened to letting people run events their way?

Oh right, Mike's doing it "wrong" and we can't have that. Adepticon gaks all over the core rules with the INAT FAQ and we all praise them for that, the only thing Mike did was swap KP for VP and now he's not "playing by the rules"?

Kill points represent who's winning.

Victory points do it better, and are actually fair.

Sidstyler wrote:

So now we're going to browbeat Mike until he turns the NOVA into another Adepticon? Whatever happened to letting people run events their way?

While I certainly support Mike's decision to run his tournaments however he wishes, swapping out VP's for KP's is does not "turn the NOVA into another Adepticon."

Your comment was good for a laugh though.

Wait doesn't the core rulebook tell us to use VPs to determine who wins in a tie? Didn't NOVA use VPs for secondary and Tertiary objectives? Which essentially are used when primary are tied? Or am I missing something?

So I exaggerated a little bit, crucify me.

Red: I don't think so, it just says "The game is a tactical draw."

While a good discussion, "begging" me not to use VP in the NOVA format is probably not a resolution to use for it.

We've been running KP *AND* VP-based events for years now, and have a lot of data to function off (hundreds - thousands of games). A handful of petitions from the other side of the fence only go so far ... I wasn't aware this was a referendum of a few folks' who didn't attend on how the NOVA should be run. KP vs. VP discussions are as old as 5e.

That said, our narrative track next year will probably use closer to raw book missions (in conjunction of course with the narrative), and our standard tourney may move closer to using VP as purely a tiebreaker.

People who have learned to apply extreme skill to handicapped armies like nob bikers and jetseers to compensate for their difficulties in non-KP missions will continue to succeed regardless of the mission, so I'm not really sure that's at stake. That said, more variety of unsuccessful kp-optimized armies is not ideal, and the NOVA saw even inexperienced players *NOT* doing that across all tables. That's not to say everyone was spamming MSU, and the MSU spammers were generally unsuccessful. Still, you didn't see people running giant expensive blobs of things, and the comments that resulted en masse were a more "competitive" feel even at the lower tables. That's a win. for this style event. The absence of KP as a mission was often cited by these lower table types.


I'm generally with Matthias in that KP should not be an exclusive win condition, and possibly VP should not either. You could include them somewhere in there as a tiebreaking COMPONENT, but the NOVA missions encourage tight, tactically deep games (that's actually their design intent, and proof via extensive global playtest; that playtest by literally people from around the world is in fact WHY they're not the same as their first iteration ... we DO change based upon feedback and playtesting) ... not bean counting and shooting immobilized, weaponless rhinos late.

At the heart of it, KP is too arbitrary a mission; the book has NUMEROUS missions in it (3 with 9 total variations); tying yourself to one that leaves a TON of players feeling as if it's absurd is foolish if you're running a tournament. Tying yourself to anything in particular is.

That doesn't make the good points of others invalid or not useful ... just not something you should be married to.

Some codices flourish in the absence of KP.
VP=MSU=Trukk spam!
VP=MSU=razorback spam!

Of course, the argument is made that some codices are harmed by KP. MvBrandt seems to think MSU builds are the most competitive [period] regardless of the codex or the mission. If everyone brings 17 KP armies on average this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Olympia, from one Italian (by heritage) to another, no, that's not what I'm suggesting.

I really wish you would read what I've written. I've specifically stated that raw MSU DOES NOT WIN, is not the most competitive, etc., but that players who are newer to the game are more encouraged to bring far suboptimal choices as a result of the inclusion of the KP mission.

Our average at NOVA was only 16, and that's not way different from elsewhere. I brought ~18 kp to Adepticon, and had fewer than all of my opponents for the day.

I've also stated, repeatedly, that outside of tournament 40k you should simply play the book missions as written ... pick-up games, casual play, hobby event weekends, etc.

If you care not for discussion or give and take, fine, but don't put words in my mouth please.

warboss wrote:
while hardly scientific, i've tried calculating the KP in the first page of pics on the adepticon 2010 40k championship gallery. the first mission in adepticon this year had KP as the primary objective (but not the only one) and they weren't used in the rest of the missions IIRC; if people didn't tailor their armies, there shouldn't be a significant difference. obviously, i don't have access to the army list so i've had to make assumptions. in general, those assumptions have been made generally IN FAVOR of more killpoints using common army types (if i see 3 razorbacks and 15 marines in front, i assume 6 KP with 3 transports and 3 squads of 5... two IG sentinels as separate killpoints). there's always the chance i'm off by a killpoint but here's what i found.

11, 13, 23, 9,
skip, 12, 11, skip
11, 15, 12, 18
8, 12, 12, 9

skipped 5th pic (repeat of the 1st)
skipped 9th pic (some parts of army off pic)

http://www.adepticon.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=11317

MVBrandt wrote:Our average at NOVA was only 16, and that's not way different from elsewhere. I brought ~18 kp to Adepticon, and had fewer than all of my opponents for the day.

here's page two of the gallery as best (yet again in favor of more killpoints when unclear like two identical leman russ tanks with two HS slots open) i see it...

13, 14, 19, 18,
13, 10, 15, 9
10, 17, 12, 10
10, skip (can't see lots even when using next picture of other army behind it), 16, 10

And the average for the first two pages combined is 12.8 roughly. I'm not sure what types of opponents you faced... but your total of of 18 means that, of the people on the first two pages of the gallery that i could count the KP somewhat reliably and IN FAVOR of more KP, 25/29 had less KP than you. The NOVA average of 16.1 (your stats) so far is easily above what Adepticon seems to have had this year; your deletion of KP as a list building factor DOES have an effect on the army comp of your tourney. Is the problem that you don't see a 25% or more increase in average KP "way different from elsewhere"? because taking off the same percentage from the adepticon average but in the other direction would mean an average of around 9.5 KP. they're both way different. or maybe the inherent problem with the discussion is in the definition various posters have of what a MSU army is. I'd consider an army of 16 kp to be flush with them while you think it's nothing special.

You're counting pictures, and have accounted for 29 of 240.

MSU is by usual definition the spamming of multiple small units. Stelek's list from the NOVA Open was MSU, for example.

Tony's list, although it had 17 kp, was not.

Distributing points into numerous combat effective threats is typically a good idea. Spamming as many min-size units as possible is not always a good idea. Encouraging new players to take large, unwieldy and points-intensive units is a BAD idea.

You'll also want to look into the top finishers at Adepticon, i.e. the guys who lost none of their games, and the KP totals there. The heart of my own thesis, based on a great deal of collected data (not ... pictures), is that KP has little to no influence on top table results, but encourages less experienced players to eschew decisions that would benefit them in 2/3 the book missions for decisions that at most benefit them in 1/3 the book missions.

When a particular component of the rules harms newer players and has no impact on the final top scoring averages, I don't see it as a positive ... more importantly, it's an opinion that is widely shared - I very rarely do ANYTHING based purely off bullish ego and personal belief.

MVBrandt wrote:
1) You're counting pictures, and have accounted for 29 of 240.

*snip*

2) You'll also want to look into the top finishers at Adepticon, i.e. the guys who lost none of their games, and the KP totals there. The heart of my own thesis, based on a great deal of collected data (not ... pictures), is that KP has little to no influence on top table results, but encourages less experienced players to eschew decisions that would benefit them in 2/3 the book missions for decisions that at most benefit them in 1/3 the book missions.

3) When a particular component of the rules harms newer players and has no impact on the final top scoring averages, I don't see it as a positive ... more importantly, it's an opinion that is widely shared - I very rarely do ANYTHING based purely off bullish ego and personal belief.

my numbering scheme above, not MVBrandt's, simply for easy of replying...

1) and you're basing your opinion on the half dozen opponent's you faced. i'm posting my numbers along with a reference to what pics; while it may not be 100% accurate since i don't have the lists, you can at least double check it. we only have your memory that your 18kp army at adepticon was on the low side and it doesn't seem to jive with the little data we actually have. feel free to pic a page and post your findings.

2) sure, got pics of the top finishers armies and their lists? i only have the adepticon gallery of pics without links to the real names of people who placed there. So, if your thesis (based on a "great deal of collected data" from a single large tourney (n=1) and no control sample) is "that KP has little to no influence on top table results"... who are you running the tourny for? the top two tables or the 90% of the other attendees? are effects that change who wins the top prizes the only things you're interested in changing the core game rules for? btw, using your collected data from local game and league play is NOT applicable because people are willing to try different things in leagues that they wouldn't dare to in a major tourny.

3) do you have proof that it harms new players? i didn't see you post any, just your opinions. Other people have opinions that differ from that (including in this thread) that are also widely shared. you're simply assuming that it does.

Your tourney was successful and i'm hopeful that it will continue to be but you're misunderstanding a few things. Taking out KP as a factor does significantly change what armies come as well as affects WHO comes. You said that you have strongly positive feedback for your taking out KP; did you ever stop to think that people that LIKE kp simply used that as one of their deciding factors to not come to the tourney? you've biased your sample by declaring ahead of time that you wouldn't be using them and then asked who attended if they liked it. just like in any discussion, you'll have a majority of people who don't care (but will attend), those who like something (and will attend), and those who don't (who won't). you're effectively running a republican-agenda convention, polling the attendees, and then trying to convince the democrats that didn't attend that your results reflect them too. it doesn't work that way.

1) I don't think my army was on the low side; I simply think that the average KP total was probably closer to 13-15, not 12. Compare to 16 at the Open, and marginal impacts + only one 20+ KP army making it to the finals should help identify that the removal of the mission didn't cause MSU "out the ass."

2) The great deal of collected data is from years of running 40k leagues and one off tourneys (16-32 size) with KP and standard book missions, plus the Open and the ~1100-1200 total test games we had run of it by players around the world. Not n=1/single large tourney. The Open is only a fraction of our total data set.

2b) Remember that we don't change any of the game RULES. We use the OBJECTIVES component of the missions, and the VP from the tiebreaker section in the back (optional), with the addition of quarters. While those may change, they are the missions in which you play ... a portion of the rulebook, but not the rules by which we play - simply the framework of a mission within which those rules are applied to determine a winner, loser, or draw. While certainly integral to the game (and not something I advocate abandoning in average play), they aren't the core rules themselves ... it's hyperbolic exaggeration by intent to claim it. I don't disagree that they're part and parcel of the whole shebang, but let's not exaggerate eh?

3) There's no assumption here. I can actually point to players and stats that argue for their army being "optimized" for KP and getting slaughtered at every event they attend. Honestly I don't want to throw names under the bus.

4) Hulksmash is the perfect example of someone who came and enjoyed it more than *any* event since 07 GW GT's, despite being a much bigger advocate of KP than VP. We advertised the missions and invited feedback from a global community of players for the past half a year+ ... and received enormous feedback from everywhere around the globe; Russia, Australia, mainstream Europe, and of course America. Don't think there weren't plenty of people asking about KP in there, and plenty of people who would have preferred them. I can promise you I don't live in a world of myopia on this subject; controversial, interesting, fascinating, and something we should never get angsty about ... but certainly not cut and dry.

I'm glad hulksmash said he (as well as plenty of others) enjoyed the tourney; it sounded like it was a well run fun event and I (as a supporter of KP) probably would have enjoyed it too. You've obviously got a strong already cemented opinion as to KP and their role in tourney play. As a tourney organizer, it's 100% your right to be able to set whatever nonstandard victory condition you want. Just keep in mind that it DOES significantly change the gameplay and comp of armies compared to other tournies.

p.s. how did you arrive at 16.1 KP for the nova open? i didn't see anything about turing in a max KP total or army lists in the 40k rules packet. Did you require people to give you a copy of their army list?

Yes, everyone gave me a copy of their army lists.

Please note that my opinion is never cemented, I just need hard facts to easily refute it on a lot of occasions. All of the arguments for and against kill points are just that ... arguments; opinion is opinion, none of them are "wrong."

MVBrandt wrote:
Distributing points into numerous combat effective threats is typically a good idea.

Agreed.

Spamming as many min-size units as possible is not always a good idea.

Agreed

Encouraging new players to take large, unwieldy and points-intensive units is a BAD idea.

Not sure I agree here. If a new player wants to play orks, why should you encourage them to take small, easily manageable units when the ork codex is stronger when playing larger, sometimes unwieldy units. The only way you learn to wield such units with skill is by playing them, and as you have stated, players with skill will do just fine with their big units.

...but encourages less experienced players to eschew decisions that would benefit them in 2/3 the book missions for decisions that at most benefit them in 1/3 the book missions.

Shouldn't we allow players, (all players, new, old, good, bad, etc) to make their own decisions. I have no doubt that your data is correct, and that you're absolutely right, making a choice that benefits you more in 2/3rds of the games is smarter than making a decision that benefits you in 1/3rd of missions. But it's not all "22 KP or 8 KP", and the varying in-between choices are a factor in list design. All other things being equal, a player gets to choose, do they want their two landspeeders in a single unit or as two distinct units. That's a one-KP at the expense of one extra threat. You're saying that because you believe the correct choice is always to take the two units, that the consideration that would lead one to take one unit should be dropped. That's taking a skill-test out of the hands of the player.

I think that the more things players get to decide on for themselves, they better the competitive state of the event. Let the player decide whether they think the KP consideration is worth changing their list over, don't make that choice for them.

I'm not sure if I agree on the last point. To wit, I encourage all veteran players to develop lists on their own and work out what they function best with on their own ... but when someone comes up to me asking for advice on how to build their first list, I generally suggest min-maxing off the bat .... bring a hard a list as you can at first, as you're learning the game, and tune it to your preferences as you gain experience.

As for the Ork comment ... not sure I agree; I don't think the dex works better with large unwieldy units. But that's a discussion for another forum altogether, no?