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You're right, you shouldn't have to tweak anything. Its a big sticking point for a lot of people, and has driven many people on to better written games.

AoS is even more of a joke in that regard, where GW dumped all the responsibility on the players. Fortunately its priced at what's it worth, unlike 40k.

I said it earlier, but a gakky point system is not a good reason to abandon point systems altogether. Plenty of games get it right, or at least more right.

pejota wrote:
The local FLGS runs a lot of escalation leagues.

For 40k, the campaigns usually run for 4 weeks and the battles are 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 points.

In 8th edition WHFB, the battles were typically 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.

My problem with points is that some armies were inherently better at certain point values than other armies. If points are truly a balancing factor then every army should be good at every point value. However, in every campaign, both 40k and WHFB, it was clearly evident that some armies didn't get viable until higher point values.

Add in the problem of certain formations getting valuable upgrades for free (the BA one comes to mind) or the ability to summon extra models to the fight (demons and VC) then you really have to wonder how balancing points are for a game.

This is totally true especially in low point games.. some armies just cant survive and other cant lose. After many many years of playing we found 3k for 40k and 4k for fantasy were balanced and that amongst our group at those points there was never a balance issue and anyone could take whatever theme they wanted and have a chance if they played well.

We have always used alternate rulesets for low points stuff ... in a perfect world you wouldnt have to, but in all honesty i think it would be near impossible to make a game that would work perfectly at 100 points and 10000. That was why i loved the specialist range.

Let's forge the narrative: 2 squads of Tactical Marines against 200 Gaunts, 4 Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant.

Sounds fun, no?

 tenebre wrote:

pejota wrote:
The local FLGS runs a lot of escalation leagues.

For 40k, the campaigns usually run for 4 weeks and the battles are 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 points.

In 8th edition WHFB, the battles were typically 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.

My problem with points is that some armies were inherently better at certain point values than other armies. If points are truly a balancing factor then every army should be good at every point value. However, in every campaign, both 40k and WHFB, it was clearly evident that some armies didn't get viable until higher point values.

Add in the problem of certain formations getting valuable upgrades for free (the BA one comes to mind) or the ability to summon extra models to the fight (demons and VC) then you really have to wonder how balancing points are for a game.

This is totally true especially in low point games.. some armies just cant survive and other cant lose. After many many years of playing we found 3k for 40k and 4k for fantasy were balanced and that amongst our group at those points there was never a balance issue and anyone could take whatever theme they wanted and have a chance if they played well.

We have always used alternate rulesets for low points stuff ... in a perfect world you wouldnt have to, but in all honesty i think it would be near impossible to make a game that would work perfectly at 100 points and 10000. That was why i loved the specialist range.

Its why I exclusive played kill team or apocalypse battles. Because they were always balanced. Everytime I faced someone I slaughtered them in kill team, and then I slaughtered in apocalypse. If I wanted to play a regular game, I would use my eldar.

It is kind of interesting seeing Age of sigmar getting rid of points. As a designer I just think "What? Why would you do that?"

Thats like getting rid of deck restrictions for hearthstone or magic the gathering.

 Blacksails wrote:
You're right, you shouldn't have to tweak anything. Its a big sticking point for a lot of people, and has driven many people on to better written games.

AoS is even more of a joke in that regard, where GW dumped all the responsibility on the players. Fortunately its priced at what's it worth, unlike 40k.

I said it earlier, but a gakky point system is not a good reason to abandon point systems altogether. Plenty of games get it right, or at least more right.

That's the heart of it. The force org chart and points system used to work well in tandem. Even the most powerful units in the game could only be taken a limited number of times. And most of the time the best units were capped at 0-1 in your army, IG could only field a single veteran squad in a whole army! And so most armies could only cram so many points into their favorite FOC slots before they ran out. Even playing 2000 points regularly, my friends and I never ran into situations where we couldn't field a large enough army, rather you had to balance out your army by fielding fast attack or elites once you maxxed out your heavy support. This created more diverse armies since most spam was against the rules. You had to build within the framework.

First they screwed that system by allowing squadrons on everything: carnifex broods, tank squadrons, flyer squadrons, etc. Then they lifted the ceiling on many units, where before you could only field 10 models now you can field biker units of 20 or 30. Which effectively tripled the amount of those models that you could field. Then they removed almost all of the 0-1 restrictions on special units. Now the force org chart is completely optional.

The FOC was so useful because it constrained spam. You could still run a really good unit, but you couldn't spam it. The FOC was an acknowledgement that it's impossible to perfectly balance everything through points. But between the two it was a workable system. But it's been massively degraded by points inflation, relaxed model restrictions, and unbound.

In order to completely do away with points we'd have to massively simplify the player options and reinstitute a very strict FOC. You'd play games with 5/10/15 slots, and you'd be limited to 3 elites, fast attack, heavy, etc. Then each unit would basically be taken as is, maybe a couple free options if you want to change their role (autocannon or missile launcher, plasma or melta). But it'd remove almost all of the customization from the game and would massively dumb down army building. And all balancing would have to take the form of buffs or nerfs to the unit directly, you wouldn't be able to make subtle points adjustments any more.

pejota wrote:
The local FLGS runs a lot of escalation leagues.

For 40k, the campaigns usually run for 4 weeks and the battles are 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 points.

In 8th edition WHFB, the battles were typically 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.

My problem with points is that some armies were inherently better at certain point values than other armies. If points are truly a balancing factor then every army should be good at every point value. However, in every campaign, both 40k and WHFB, it was clearly evident that some armies didn't get viable until higher point values.

Add in the problem of certain formations getting valuable upgrades for free (the BA one comes to mind) or the ability to summon extra models to the fight (demons and VC) then you really have to wonder how balancing points are for a game.

If you get outside the GW bubble, points work quite well when some effort is put into them.

 MWHistorian wrote:

pejota wrote:
The local FLGS runs a lot of escalation leagues.

For 40k, the campaigns usually run for 4 weeks and the battles are 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 points.

In 8th edition WHFB, the battles were typically 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.

My problem with points is that some armies were inherently better at certain point values than other armies. If points are truly a balancing factor then every army should be good at every point value. However, in every campaign, both 40k and WHFB, it was clearly evident that some armies didn't get viable until higher point values.

Add in the problem of certain formations getting valuable upgrades for free (the BA one comes to mind) or the ability to summon extra models to the fight (demons and VC) then you really have to wonder how balancing points are for a game.

If you get outside the GW bubble, points work quite well when some effort is put into them.

$80 rulebook should buy a decent points ruleset.

 TheSilo wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You're right, you shouldn't have to tweak anything. Its a big sticking point for a lot of people, and has driven many people on to better written games.

AoS is even more of a joke in that regard, where GW dumped all the responsibility on the players. Fortunately its priced at what's it worth, unlike 40k.

I said it earlier, but a gakky point system is not a good reason to abandon point systems altogether. Plenty of games get it right, or at least more right.

That's the heart of it. The force org chart and points system used to work well in tandem. Even the most powerful units in the game could only be taken a limited number of times. And most of the time the best units were capped at 0-1 in your army, IG could only field a single veteran squad in a whole army! And so most armies could only cram so many points into their favorite FOC slots before they ran out. Even playing 2000 points regularly, my friends and I never ran into situations where we couldn't field a large enough army, rather you had to balance out your army by fielding fast attack or elites once you maxxed out your heavy support. This created more diverse armies since most spam was against the rules. You had to build within the framework.

First they screwed that system by allowing squadrons on everything: carnifex broods, tank squadrons, flyer squadrons, etc. Then they lifted the ceiling on many units, where before you could only field 10 models now you can field biker units of 20 or 30. Which effectively tripled the amount of those models that you could field. Then they removed almost all of the 0-1 restrictions on special units. Now the force org chart is completely optional.

The FOC was so useful because it constrained spam. You could still run a really good unit, but you couldn't spam it. The FOC was an acknowledgement that it's impossible to perfectly balance everything through points. But between the two it was a workable system. But it's been massively degraded by points inflation, relaxed model restrictions, and unbound.

In order to completely do away with points we'd have to massively simplify the player options and reinstitute a very strict FOC. You'd play games with 5/10/15 slots, and you'd be limited to 3 elites, fast attack, heavy, etc. Then each unit would basically be taken as is, maybe a couple free options if you want to change their role (autocannon or missile launcher, plasma or melta). But it'd remove almost all of the customization from the game and would massively dumb down army building. And all balancing would have to take the form of buffs or nerfs to the unit directly, you wouldn't be able to make subtle points adjustments any more.

I get where you're coming from, and the Points + FoC system sort of worked for a while. The problem was, of course, there were still optimal units to take, and this led to vastly monobuild armies. I think unbound is a red herring, as it's not used by anyone except in scenario play or themed lists. I've never seen anyone try to field their Knights, Demons and Warlocks as an army.

My preference as a game design philosophy is to allow someone to take 7 wave serpents if they like, or 40 scatterlaser jetbikes -- but to make it less powerful than a diverse battleforce.

There should be rewards for unit diversity, in the form of force multipliers -- in the same way that a modern battleforce is less effective if it's all infantry, all air, all armor, and more effective if it has a mix of reconnaissance, light infantry, heavy artillery, air, etc. People should take a mix of units not because they HAVE to (ie, the force org slot says I can only take 3 elites, so I will take something crappier that I don't really want) -- they should take a mix of units because it's BETTER.

After all, if SEAL Team 6 were the perfect soldiers and could kill anything of relative value, you'd just take Seal Teams 1-20 and fight the bigger battle -- but that's not the case. They have their role, as do all the other units. I would rather not take 20 units of SEALs not because I'm not allowed to, but because it's more effective to take other stuff in combination.

In this respect, I think the Gladius, Warhost, and Decurion -- plus the constituent formations -- really shine. I love that there are incentives for taking groups of models that are otherwise less strong, and that we are encouraged to at least try models which, on their own, would not be viable jn a points system.

I think that points + FoC was good in its era, but things should change. I'm happy where 40k is today -- I just want superformations for the rest of the factions. On the other hand, I'm a player who is happy to see fundamental sea changes in the game every few years; I think this keeps things fresh. I know lots of people who would rather see things NOT change, at least not for a much, much longer period, because they get comfortable with what they have and how they play and want that to last longer.

The new mega formations have the exact same problems the old FoC system has. There are units that are overpowered, and both systems allow you to bring a ton of them, only now you're forced to take a core (instead of just troops) of units that may or may not be good (and varies between codices) that still forces players into using units they may not like in the pursuit of powerful army wide abilities or upgrades.

The new formations are simply a shift of the old FoC. Where the old FoC just had army wide rules for using that codex and specific unit special rules, the new one adds to that with formation special rules that cost zero points above the unit selections. Some formations can be considered balanced due to the 'dead weight' units you're forced to take, but equally, there exists formations that have no dead weight units and just made already powerful units even more powerful.

It didn't fix anything or make it better, it just changed it. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you wanted to balanced formations, make them cost points to get the benefit, like Apoc formations from back when.

I love that there are incentives for taking groups of models that are otherwise less strong,

What Jetbikes, wrights or WK are somehow less strong and people need an additional incentive to use those ? If we take your view of the game that both people should suppose to have fun, how is something like dual skyhammer list vs IG fun?
Did necron player used so few scyths or lord, that they needed extra rules to run them? Did the same happen to eldar players and their seer stars, did those require extra rules here.

Honestly I suppose you could replace points if you've got another balance system.
For example you could take a FOC where instead of points limits you have strict numbers of each slot that each player gets, and you balance each unit against the other stuff in the same slot. So a Tactical Squad would be as good as an IG Platoon which would be as good as a unit of Fire Warriors and a Riptide would be as good as a Baneblade which would be as good as Azrael.
Simpler to deal with than points but also less flexible, you wouldn't be able to have buyable upgrades, only fixed choices (like the Tactical Squad is 10 dudes with a Special Weapon, Heavy Weapon, fancy stuff on the Sergeant and a Transport. It would just be choosing which fancy weapons, what fancy Sergeant stuff and which Transport. No saying "oh, I'll just have a bare bones one so I can fit in another tank"), plus you wouldn't be able to adjust points values for things (Grav stuff is the best by far and overshadows other options? Well, you can't make it cost more, you just have to buff/nerf stuff or let it be broken).

Points still seem to be the best choice. It's just that GW hasn't been doing them right. Ultimately X points of Unit A should be roughly as good as X points of Unit B. Of course balance will never be QUITE perfect with something like this and they're of course better at different things so sometimes it'll be better to pick one over the other. It's just that GW has oftentimes screwed this up badly such that units are really good or bad choices.
Really points are BETTER for this because it gives an easy solution to the vast majority of balance issues. Too powerful? Raise the points cost. Too weak? Lower the points cost. As long as you "get what you pay for", it'll all be peachy.
FOC restrictions can help too, since that gives you two "tools" to work with rather than just one. But really, points are the most important and you could have one without the other if you're smart.

I'd say Point Values are completely necessary. Even when off the hinge formations they still serve as a means of dictating the overall size of the engagement. Sure some forces can field more bodies for less points but those bodies might not be as sturdy as useful. And yes, it's not a perfect, balanced system. But it's better than measuring off of wounds or model counts.

Yay for points.

Boo to crossover.

 darkcloak wrote:
Yay for points.

Boo to crossover.

What do you mean by "crossover"? Having points AND Formations/FOC?

The only valid reason to include point values in a game is to provide enough balance in game for fun pick up games.

However , point values on their own are not good enough , as they do not cover synergistic bonuses, that can only be found by play testing.

So unless you are playing a historical re enactment, or have lots of time and the skill required to sort out balance levels.

Well devised point values and army composition lists are needed .

The fact GW devs struggled to get enough play testing results in to fine tune their point value allocation.

Does not mean that point values and F.O.Cs can not work.

Just that GW plc can not see the value in investing the time and effort to do the job properly.

I'm going to put a yes vote in there, as I think it is the only remaining balance thing that is relatively fair. Sure, there are some stuff that are not. But this is near inevitable with any sort of system like points. Because of this, I feel it is necessary.

 techsoldaten wrote:

With AoS, GW is giving out the rules for free as part of an adoption strategy that encourages people to try the game. The barrier to entry with this game has been massively reduced, so much so that someone can get into the game for a few hundred dollars and still have a satisfying experience.

The plan has to be to make up for lost book sales by selling more models. The margins they see on the sale of a popular miniature boxed set probably averages to around 90% in all regions, and they are more likely to move because it's new. The margins on books is probably significantly less, and they probably don't move off the shelf as fast.

I am sure AOS results in a net positive for GW even without the books. Over time, they will probably move into narrative campaigns and other things AOS seems well suited for.

With regards to 40k moving to this model, I am sure GW is using AOS as a market test to see what happens when they reboot a product. WHFB sales have been slipping for years, a reboot was not only necessary to generate more interest but will also prove to be popular amongst fans. The same imbalance issues existed for WHFB as do with 40k.

I guess if you really like points for your armies you should not go and buy AOS.

I won't be buying AoS primarily because the majority of the fantasy models I have left were long ago converted for 40k usage. Really not interested in it from its lack of balance either, without a lot of work. I've already got to work on pre-game BS with 40k, so not in the mood to add any more of that into the gaming mix when there are many better options out there to play instead.

I'm at not sure why free rules suddenly equates to selling more minis. Yeah I can see it removing the barrier to some who refused to buy into 8th edition because it just got expensive to come in fresh and buy a 3000 point army and all the rules needed, but for those who see the barricade removed and an opportunity, many others will have already moved on to other options already and won't need to look back. Still further those who have been loyally following WHFB for a long time, many feel stabbed in the back by this change in the game and they will likely not buy much of anymore minis either. So on the mini side I see more of a wash than some sudden influx of cash. Their biggest impediment to reaching that 'bigger market' is the near complete lack of advertising outside of their own controlled areas. They announce their new stuff only a week ahead of time, and then only in their house magazine and they have ruined many of their relationships with independent retailers who could have easily opened up that access for them. Yeah their margin on minis is definitely higher than it was on the books, but my real point is how will they actually generate a serious increase in mini sales? It just reminds me a lot of the underpants gnomes from South Park, where their first step is collect underpants, then they have an undefined 2nd step, and the 3rd step is profit. The sudden generation of a ton of new mini sales is the 2nd step here. First step is release AoS and complete gut and change WHFB. 3rd step is profit, but there just seems to be a lot of wishful thinking making up the 2nd step.

AoS could have been a positive shift towards a better concept and a better game that pulled people like myself back towards fantasy again after so many years, but instead its lack of points or any kind of balancing factors at all means that many of us who could have been brought back into the fold won't be because we just are left shaking out heads.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
Let's forge the narrative: 2 squads of Tactical Marines against 200 Gaunts, 4 Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant.

Sounds fun, no?

Well it could be, if the goal is a true narrative scenario to see how long the marines can hold out with 'nid victory conditions being better the faster they wipe out the marines and marine victory levels being better the longer they can hold out. If you do this and still still stick to the usual 40k victory conditions then yeah it would suck.

Back when the Daemonhunters book was out a few editions ago, inspired by the picture of the inquisitor and grey knight termies surrounded by daemons in the book, we did a narrative scenario that pitted an inquisitor lord and a unit of 5 grey knight terminators against a massive horde of daemons with lesser daemons and beasts from all 4 gods and lead by a greater daemon and daemon price from each of the 4 gods as well. This was before any flying mostrous creatures so there were no worries on that front. The daemonhunters codex, for those who don't know, allowed for lesser daemons and chaos best units to recycling back onto the edge of the table when wiped out because grey knights and daemonhunters had so many bonus abilities vs daemons. It was great fun and all setup to see how long they could last. They killed a LOT of daemons, but in the end finally got worn down by sheer numbers. 1 daemon prince and 1 greater daemon survived the mess and there was a lot of lesser daemon/beast recycling going on throughout. So such scenarios can be a lot of fun, but again the victory conditions need to change to not keep it fun.