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 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

Skchsan, what you say is right for units that have just one weapon options.

But when units have many weapons options it falls apart. You can't put the cost of how powerfull a model is with X weapon, if it can change that weapon for many other weapons that aren't as good for that model as they are for others.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

the units base points cost covers some of that, not all of it. It doesn't cover all the possible combinations of wargear which have wildly different values depending on what the platform is capable of. The base cost does not encompasse the entire value of the platform, as that value changes depending on what it is equipped with. GW didn't get super granular with this, but acknowledged its a thing on army wide scales.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

To use a real world example, we can look at the much abused AK vs AR comparison. The AR has a nicer trigger, this allows shots taken with care to more accurate. The recoil is directly in line with the bore and the shooters shoulder, whereas on an AK it is not, making follow up shots with the AR easier. The AR has faster and more convenient safety and magazine release mechanisms. As a result, an experienced shooter can run a course of fire a couple of seconds faster with an AR than with an AK, whereas a conscript would probably do about the same with either. The AR has a higher marginal value for the professional soldier, but isnt really any better for the conscript, its value to the professional soldier over the AK is greater than that of the conscript, so if you were making a game where such things mattered, you'd make the points for the AR higher for the professional soldiers than the AK, but both would be about the same for the conscript (and is why professional military forces pay $600-1200 for guns like AR's or CZ Bren805's or SCARs or whatnot over $150-250 Izhmash AK's). Now, in a game at 40k's scale, these details are irrelevant (they'd all just be autoguns), but it paints the picture well enough. It's not just the platform, these things compound each other.


Same reason for several editions that Independent Characters paid more for wargear than unit characters like Sergeants (reference the 3.5E CSM codex), those Independent Characters got significantly more value out of that wargear. This was flattened to reduce complexity of army writing, but was absolutely a valid concept.

To use another non-weapon example, a Rosarius that gives a 4+ invul save would have more value on a W6 model than a W1 model. The Rosarius isn't different, but it's got a whole lot more value and people will be willing to pay more to buy it on the W6 model than on the W1 model.

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
no but its *value* is different, which is what is reflected in points costs.

oF THE PLATFORMS. Not the weapon. Crisis cost 10.5 times more than guardsmen because they have higher UNIT VALUE.

They also have a bit higher mobility, firepower, and more options.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And when armies are looking to equip large numbers of novice shooters, they opt for cheap weapons that provide all the value those novice shooters are capable of, and splurge when equipping professional troops that are capable of getting use out of more expensive weapons.

So conscripts get the salvation army plasmaguns?

Sure...if Conscripts got access to anything but Lasguns...

 skchsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Tau Plasma Rifle, IIRC, is only available on T4 3+sv multiwound Jet suits with an array of abilities and Deep Strike potential, as opposed to being run on T3 single wound 5+sv footslogging infantry. Again, different platforms, different value.

Different platform, different value of weapon, same cost of acquisition.
The same rifle isn't more expensive for an expert shooter than it is for a novice.

In real life money terms that's true, but in a war game for the sake of balance the number of points an upgrade costs needs to depend on how well that model can use it.

Lets take an extreme example of a really really awesome upgrade weapon. The weapon is an upgrade to 3 units that are normally armed with some really crappy weapon.

Unit 1 hits on a 6+ and costs 3pts.

Unit 2 hits on a 4+ and costs 6pts.

Unit 3 hits on a 2+ and costs 12pts.

Lets imagine they're well balanced because their other stats compensate for any discrepancy in points, but they still fill a similar battlefield role as a rank and file troop (ie. none are fancy flankers or anything weird). Using unit 2 as a baseline Unit 1 is 50% the cost and Unit 3 is 200% the cost.

Now, you add the superduper weapon. Because it's so awesome, lets say it costs 100pts.

Unit 1 now costs 103pts.

Unit 2 now costs 106pts.

Unit 3 now costs 112pts.

Unit 1 is now 97% the cost of our baseline unit (unit 2) and unit 3 is 106%.

End result? Balance be crap because Unit 3 is capable of hitting 67% more often than Unit 2 but only costs 6% more. Unit 3 misses 67% of the time that Unit 2 would have otherwise hit, but only costs 3% less.

In this world Unit 1 = Unit 2 = Unit 3 in terms of value in their base setup, but when given their weapon option Unit 3 > Unit 2 > Unit 1 because whatever discrepancies in their base cost (that made them balanced in their base setup) is dwarfed by the cost of the weapon, so their costs when upgraded become proportionally very similar but their effectiveness varies wildly.

In real life you'd just give the better weapon to the person who's better at wielding it, but real life is not balanced and wargames hopefully should be.

That's an extreme example of a very expensive weapon, but it applies to all weapons just to varying amounts.

Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

 skchsan wrote:

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

Hmm... why? Because "reasons"? Or because "Well, someone has to suck"?

If you are gonna give a weapon option to a unit that is totally useless, don't even bother, don't give that unit the option to take that weapon. You should try to balance all options in a unit, for them to be all usefull in its own context and way. If a Terminator can go with a PowerFist+Storm Bolter or two Lighting Claws it should be balanced to use both of them. If for that, the power fist needs to be cheaper for a Terminator than for a Character, etc... so then it should be.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

....why? That would seem to be a good way to ensure you avoid at least a systemic imbalance. An ideal situation would be for every single unit to have their own costs for the weapons they can take, accounting for the quality of the platform and the mileage they're going to get out of the weapon.

A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

It would seem like a step backward to go to where we were before. Your argument is that we should do that because...reasons?

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Unfortunately, there's always a limit to balancing the game, and some units will always be better than others for a particular reason. Some platforms will be garbage for certain weapons, some may not even have a 'below average' load out. Some units are so terrible no matter how you equip it, its better left on the shelf as a decoration - a DAMN shame, but that's the fact. This is a decision that needs to be made when you're building your list.

You can't just simply give out weapons at discount for lesser units just because they get less mileage out of them.

Except they can, have done so in previous editions, and do so now. This is not a complicated concept. In fact, adjusting cost based on value is the fundamental premise of points based game design...

We can argue about where GW drew the line, and do that until the end of time, but the fundamental concept is sound and valid, both in the game and the real world, and we have problems from previous editions that were made manifest when such was not taken into consideration.

Again, basic economic theories of marginal value and utility apply just as validly here as anywhere else.

The issue is that you don't like where they drew the line, but the fundamental and inherent idea that something has different value in different context and should have its reflected value adjusted accordingly is not incorrect or wrong.

Again, nobody would argue that buying a 4+ invul save for a W6 model over a W1 model is more valuable and should.cost more. Why is it such an issue with weapons?

the_scotsman wrote:
A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

I suppose this is why I'm so against this - a system like this is never fully implemented across the board and always just selectively, in however way GW chooses to do so.

Just look at how orks & tau's are priced right now - two bare minimum deffkoptas are only 8 points cheaper than a dakkajet? They're already having so much trouble balancing out the points for units themselves. Just imagine what happens if they try to balance the weapon cost concurrently, but not baked into the units costs.

 skchsan wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
A less ideal situation would be what we have now - some units getting discounts and others not.

The only reason I can think of is that you don't trust GW to balance it and it's better to go with the devil you know and just accept that it's going to be imbalanced across the system. Just price according to stats and a big shoota costs the same as a space marine heavy bolter.

I suppose this is why I'm so against this - a system like this is never fully implemented across the board and always just selectively, in however way GW chooses to do so.

Just look at how orks & tau's are priced right now - two bare minimum deffkoptas are only 8 points cheaper than a dakkajet? They're already having so much trouble balancing out the points for units themselves. Just imagine what happens if they try to balance the weapon cost concurrently, but not baked into the units costs.

What's so funny to me is that the people like you who are so incredibly against increased granularity in the rules system are usually the ones who scoff the loudest at the idea of concepts like Narrative Play and Open Play. If you are so much better at deciding what's balanced than GW, just...take the option to decide that for yourself?

If you view Matched Play as more balanced overall than Narrative Play (and I'm not saying you do, this is a hypothetical) then how would decreasing the granularity through standard weapon costs help and not hurt the level of balance in the game?

You keep claiming this isn't another "guard are so op" thread but in reality, that is the reason the subject here has been chosen. Guard is overpowered, and some of their units and weapons choices are almost certainly undercosted. But just like nerfing the Vanquisher cannon or the Banewolf would do absolutely nothing to improve balance or reduce the imbalance (despite the fact that there would be many people crowing about any guard nerfs at all), blindly setting any weapon the guard can take to the same point cost that space marines pay for it would do absolutely nothing at all as well.

All the weapons that fit into that category that are actually a problem (melta guns, plasma guns) are already set to marine points values... and they're STILL a problem. All the other weapons (heavy bolters, multi-meltas, heavy and normal flamers, autocannons, lascannons, missile launchers) are in pretty much no way a balance problem. You'd just be swinging the nerfbat randomly at something guard-shaped and yelling "SURELY THIS WILL HELP! SURELY THE GUARD LISTS COMPOSED OF STORMSWORDS AND NAKED INFANTRY AND MORTAR TEAMS AND BASILISKS WILL BE HINDERED BY THIS EFFORT!"

Really? Is this a thing?

I guess there is a good reason for this.

 skchsan wrote:
Believe me, I am fully aware of the differing "value of the weapon" per platform. But is this not precisely what goes into consideration when you're list building?

Why would you spend 100 pts into a unit that cannot utilize to its potential, instead when, you can invest it into units that can?

Because otherwise you end up with cookie cutter armies where one option is obviously the best and anything else is shooting yourself in the foot. It promotes min-maxing rather than varied builds.

Just because stuff is more balanced doesn't mean you don't have to take things into consideration when you build your army. You might have an option of taking weapon X on a fast flanker or a rank and file, either option might be viable in the right circumstances but in the wrong circumstances picking the wrong one will put you at a disadvantage.

Army building becomes more nuanced instead of "well unit X is obviously better than unit Y because both units can take weapon Z and unit X uses it better for a negligible difference in points".

You also have that the optimal unit may not actually be one in your army, e.g. taking a powerfist in an IG army, if an IG powerfist costs the same as a Space Marine power fist then there is no option in the IG list where a powerfist is actually worth taking. If Ork weapons were priced as if Space Marines were wielding them they'd suck because they'd be overpriced, likewise why should IG have to have their weapons priced as if Space Marines were using them?

IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons. Guard are more than a threag. They are an autotake in any soup list and are autowin vs power armor lists.

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons. Guard are more than a threag. They are an autotake in any soup list and are autowin vs power armor lists.

True story:
You're wrong.

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons.

Choppas?

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

 davou wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
True story: there are no weapons that are cost effective against guardsmen except maybe some nid weapons.

Choppas?

No, you misunderstand, by "no weapons" he means "bolters don't auto-kill them on threes anymore and I am sad" and by "auto win against power armor" he means "has a significant advantage against specifically loyalist marines and particularly melee-focused loyalist marines, which I do not like."

Otherwise he wouldn't be ignoring things like the fairly favorable matchups sisters of battle, khorne CSM, and Death Guard have against the standard guard gunline funline lists.

You really think those lists matchup favorably? Okay....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
IG are paying to little to exist, not too little for their weapons. A guardsmen is a 5 or even 6 pt model, not 4. That's the problem. 5+ armor is non-trivial in 8th. Eventually, GW will fix this after players keep relentlessly spamming guardsmen in tournaments. And everything indirect in IG needs to cost a lot more too. Or have a built-in -1 to hit. That fixes most of the problems. Their direct fire is not so bad.

Of course, Guard are actually a threat now so the logical answer is to nerf them into the ground instead of thinking up ways to fight them.

You've literally said you were happy Guard were broken. Who are YOU to tell anybody to L2P?

Correction: I said I honestly didnt care any more. The 40+ whine threads about how OP Guard are broke my will to actually give a damn.
What does piss me off though is the hypocrisy. I notice that in 6th and 7th any time a Guard player made a thread about how weak Guard where it was instantly drowned by Marine, Tau and Eldar (mainly Marine though) players telling the Guard players to stop whining and just get good and learn to play properly, usually accompanied by ludicrous army suggestions like "2 blob platoons with 2 psykers and 2 priests and 2 commissars". Now that the Imperial Guard are actually powerful enough to compete on an even footing with Marines, Eldar and Tau we have thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread [repeat ad infinitum] entitled "IG are OP" OMG, IG are broken" "IG too powerful", etc, all these countless threads devoted to screaming about how the Imperial Guard are too powerful and filled with tales regaling the reader with magic volley blocks of Schrodinger's conscripts deleting entire armies in a single shooting phase whilst also being perfectly positioned to screen the back line units against charges and also being deployed in a way to prevent deepstriking and always having every model within 12" and los of all enemy units on the board. Or gunlines of LRBT that delete anything short of a titan in a single shot, and yet are always too far away to be shot at or charged. Or magical terrain that vanishes in the IG players shooting phase, but always fills the board in the opponents turn, preventing movement or shooting....
In other words, angry threads by angry posters filled with butthurt whining about how they actually have to treat Imperial Guard armies as a threat now, instead of a easy-meat joke to make their e-peen feel good.

On a side note the only Guard army that is worth taking at the moment is the Conscript volley block backed up by Manticore artillery. To players like myselves whom run fluffy armies with other themes (such as my own mobile Grenadiers list) there is nothing. Our armies are still weak and still struggle against the stupidly powerful units out there. But thats okay right? After all why should Guard be able to win?

Martel732 wrote:
You really think those lists matchup favorably? Okay....

I mean...they do. They're a solid counter-meta choice when you know you're going to be facing a ton of guardsmen. They exist at top tourney tables pretty much because of the excellent matchup with a basic guard gunline, especially the 'zerkers. I just did a batrep here (https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/747135.page) which pretty much shows what happens when even a comparatively casual alpha strike list hits a guard gunline. I could have done the exact same thing I did with the GSC acolyte unit with a big 15 man squad of death company and achieved the exact same results, if not even better results because I could have just popped a pile in and attack again stratagem to finish off the tank, second infantry squad, and bracket the basilisks right off the bat. Zerkers would have done it for the low, low price of no CPs.

Just take a read through the top lists cropping up on bloodofkittens, you'll see a good deal of lists that get to the top three off the shoulders of how common the matchup vs the standard guard gunline.

InB4 "what, only 60 infantry? Only three basilisks? only four primaris psykers and company commanders? Why in my meta, guard lists take no less than 300 infantry, sixteen basilisks, fifty-two mortar HWTs and 8 stormswords at 2000 points!"

I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

Martel732 wrote:
I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

I am unsurprised, given that the most commonly infiltrated amech units are either sicarians, which are generally overpriced and have no good way to get into combat, or dragoons, which are an anti-tank weapon primarily. if you had a weapon that was both S8 D2 and points efficient against guardsmen, you'd probably have yourself a broken weapon.

If you luck out and get the infiltrators into combat, they're great, but you're unlikely to because you've only got the 1d reroll from command reroll and to make them worthwhile you have to shoot with them as well, which probably means your opponent gets to remove models that you're trying to charge at and make your 9" roll even harder.

Scotsman, do you play EVERY faction in 40k?

pismakron wrote:
Scotsman, do you play EVERY faction in 40k?

darn close! I've been playing pretty much continuously for 15 years, and I've also inherited a couple of armies from friends and relatives.

I have all the eldar except for the new ynnari guys, guard, Genestealer Cultists (which share a lot of the guard stuff), admech, Thousand Sons with a few tzeentch buddies, and orks.

I know a bunch of people who own like 10,000 points of marines or chaos or whatever, but I have about 14,000 points of everything that I find interesting.

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I just watched a guy infiltrate 5 admech units and still lose to the infantry wall.

60 infantry is actually understandable with that many pskers.

I am unsurprised, given that the most commonly infiltrated amech units are either sicarians, which are generally overpriced and have no good way to get into combat, or dragoons, which are an anti-tank weapon primarily. if you had a weapon that was both S8 D2 and points efficient against guardsmen, you'd probably have yourself a broken weapon.

If you luck out and get the infiltrators into combat, they're great, but you're unlikely to because you've only got the 1d reroll from command reroll and to make them worthwhile you have to shoot with them as well, which probably means your opponent gets to remove models that you're trying to charge at and make your 9" roll even harder.

I think he was using a thing like alpha legion or raven guard. They got to fully act the first turn.