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Point values for all WHF scrolls and all AoS releases, in A4 and Letter format: the Scroll of Might, see pdf below. It's complete, ready-to-use, and doesn't any tweaking later on.

Point values, or Might, are weighed according to defensive, offensive and general stats, ranging from 1 to 58. There are 701 entries, the average Might value is 17.
Despite the fancy font (an IPR requirement), the list is fully searchable using known terms (and normal fonts).

Also included are a few simple rules to further help build bigger units, compose armies, and pre-arrange battles (say for 100 points per side).
And to better compare units' effectiveness, new Grit has been added: it shows the expectation for a unit in Melee, Missile, Stamina and the Rest, relative to the average of all WHF and AoS scrolls.

Of course you also want to know the Might values for the recent releases:

Stormcast Eternal
Unit (min size, name) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Might (» per min size extra; ˉ minus 1 if no icon bearer & no musician)
1 . . Celestant-Prime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1 . . Gryph-Hounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 » 2
5 . . Judicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 » 14 . . if Skybolt
5 . . Judicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 » 15 . . if Boltstorm Crossbow
1 . . Knight-Azyros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
1 . . Knight-Heraldor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
1 . . Knight-Venator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
1 . . Knight-Vexillor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5 . . Liberators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 » 12
1 . . Lord-Castellant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
1 . . Lord-Castellant on Dracoth . . . . . . . . . . .21
1 . . Lord-Celestant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1 . . Lord-Relictor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3 . . Paladin Decimators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 » 13
3 . . Paladin Protectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 » 14
3 . . Paladin Retributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 » 16
3 . . Prosecutors with Celestial Hammers . . 9 » 6
3 . . Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins . . .11 » 7

Khorne Bloodbound
Unit (min size, name) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Might (» per min size extra; ˉ minus 1 if no icon bearer & no musician)
10 . Bloodreavers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9ˉ » 6 . . .if Reaver Blade
10 . Bloodreavers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9ˉ » 7 . . .if Meatripper Axe
1 . . Bloodsecrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1 . . Bloodstoker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5 . . Blood Warriors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14ˉ » 12
1 . . Exalted Deathbringer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 . . . . . . . if Bloodbite Axe
1 . . Exalted Deathbringer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 . . . . . . . if Ruinous Axe
1 . . Khorgorath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
1 . . Mighty Lord of Khorne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Enjoy,

Your Sage

[ edit: added latest update (15-09,2) which replaces confusing single-number Grit with new visualized scores for four areas ]

Not really convincing. The range of pt costs is too big.

The azyr comp system is much tighter.

Hi, thanks.

Well, to balance out forces for AoS battles, this Might-math does work and keeps working, including for all the new releases.

You're right that the point cost - or Might - varies from 1 to 60 max. But this range is around 1/10 of that used for 8th, so a much, much tighter range.
Orginally the aim was to have the calculations result in still lower max. point values up to around 25, but then some vital granularity was lost, for example it then doesn't matter if a unit includes musicians or not, or if it has double handed axes or single handed ones. Btw, the same math is used for all scrolls, without any special army/race rules or exceptions, and that includes all the new releases. The fact that it keeps on working with those new releases, without any need for tweaking, shows it's solid.
Another reason to decide on the sightly larger 1-60 range is that otherwise too many different units have the same value, which kind of takes away from the desire to have a different army than others.
Finally by keeping this Might range to 1-60 (and for practical purposes 1-35, bar super-heroes), it's still very easy to add up point values without the need for pen & paper or spreadsheets.

In other words: this Might-math works, it keeps on working, it has enough granularity to differentiate what matters (rule-wise and image-wise), and still is simple enough to allow on-the-fly army calculations and armies of 100 pts.
A big advantage is that right now Might values are available for all WHF scrolls, all Forgeworld scrolls and all the new scrolls (see pdf and list above), and won't (need to) change or be tweaked anymore.

Cheers,

Your Sage

The problem with points systems is that they are much harder to get people to use universally across games.

If I'm playing a pick up game with a guy, it's much easier to say ..

"Hey, lets play 100ish wounds, count your little gaks like goblins and zombies as half wounds."

than it is to get him to go download a pdf, look up point costs, and hammer out a list.

Honestly it looks too complicated and iffy on the balance. Sidenote, that fancy font is really difficult to read.

Hi Thunderfrog, if we want to balance our battles some work is needed.
And then why not download a single file once to look up all your scrolls for that and future battles?
It's complete, searchable and easy to use.

Hi NinthMusketeer, the fancy font is due to IPR issues. But the list is fully searchable using known terms and normal fonts.
It's as simple as a list with weighed values can be: for each scroll, the list shows an ID, name, unit size, Might value, extra Might for larger sizes, and possibly some equiment variants.
Why do you think it's iffy on the balance? All scrolls have been put through the same calculation.

Cheers.

Yet no matter how good the algorithm is it won't be able to properly factor certain abilities, or things like the varying ability of different units to get all of their attacks in melee. I say its iffy on the balance because I am looking at the points costs, comparing them to what I know from the rules and experience, and finding them to not be balanced. I say its complicated because I can't look at a table and instantly know whats going on or how to get the unit I want; even if I understand this perfectly fine after reading the whole document I will never be able to get it to take off with others because of that. Compare to PPC where I look at the document and it says (very clearly and legibly) X unit is worth Y points, with Z points per additional model/upgrade. And its more balanced to boot.

Overall, and I mean no offense by this, but the posts you have made involving the scrolls of might read more like advertisements for a TV infomercial then explanations of its strengths and how it addresses problems.

Hi, yes, perhaps we should explain a bit more here and there. So thanks for the feedback: it helps when people ask.

We think it's impossible to balance for changing circumstances: balance in one situation will be unbalance in another. So the only thing that can be balanced is what remains the same: the warscrolls themselves. That's what the Scroll of Might does: we present the common denominator. Situational balance is something that players have to find for themselves, but the Scroll makes that a whole lot easier.

The lay-out choice is driven by presenting the minimum info needed. The goal was to use only a single line for each scroll (with, for clarity’s sake, an extra line if equipment alternatives affect its value). The advantage of this approach is that all WHF scrolls are now condensed into a single pdf, of only 17 pages, which stands and won't be changed. Of course, things will be added: new utilities like Grit, or new Forgeworld warscrolls when they get published, but the existing data won’t change. Likewise, every new AoS warscroll only needs a single line, which only needs to be put online once.

We wanted to get a valuation that has enough granularity to show the difference between having a full command or not, but not as much as WHF had. At the same time it should be as easy to use as simply counting wounds. Thus across the 701 entries, Might ranges from 1 to 60, averaging 17. And it works: it's quite easy to pick some scrolls and count up their Might to the agreed army size, all without the need for pen-&-paper or spreadsheets. Most battles will have between 100 and 250 Might per side.

In the Scroll of Might a single line shows the minimum size, name and Might of a unit: everything players need to get organized. A disadvantage might be that – in order to be compact – the Scroll uses two special symbols instead of proper phrases: the ˉ means the unit can be fielded without 'full command' which reduces its Might by 1; and the » shows how much Might should be added per extra 'block' of models added to the unit. Such a 'block' is always of the minimum size mentioned, because that's the number of models in the box it's sold in.

Our aim was to get something out there, a single pdf file that allows you to find valuesof any warscroll fast, which can be used now and next year, to be downloaded from the forum where it’s presented and discussed, without the need to find other files for other armies or to regularly check for required updates. I think we succeeded in that.

Cheers,

Your Sage

I think there are numerous issues with this, the biggest one being that you seem hellbent on not adapting your system according to feedback. Judging by the attitude of your responses, you seem more interested in selling a product than in helping players balance a game, which in itself would deter me from using your system, even if I thought it was a good one.

But on top of this, I don't think the system is a good one. Its granularity is comparable to that of Azyrcomp, but it is significantly harder to use (that annoying font is certainly not helping here). Azyrcomp even has a listbuilder.

In your system there are also a number of obvious pricing issues. Since I'm a high elf player, I'm going to take a few examples from that list.

First off, you say that you are using a purely mathematical formula. Now, I think that's a huge flaw since it doesn't account for army synergies. Looking at the Sea Helm (7-8 Might) and the Prince (10-13 Might), the Prince does have a stronger profile in line with your costs. The problem here is that the Sea Helm has a much stronger Command Ability and a much stronger Totem. Using your system, I would never bother bringing a Prince to the table. I would always just bring 1-2 Sea Helms and use one of them as my general, they just bring infinitely more to the army as a whole.

Another example is White Lions vs Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard. Why are White Lions more expensive? They are weaker the Swordmasters both offensively and defensively (unless they are within 8" of Korhil, in which case they are equally good offensively). The only thing White Lions have over Swordmasters is the fact that they don't flee half of the time. But with a bravery of 8-9, that will only be relevant if you have large units of them, since a small unit taking enough casualties for it to be relevant will be more or less wiped out anyway. Why are they so expensive? In the role of rending hard hitters they are just way worse than Swordmasters. It also doesn't make any sense for them to be more expensive than Phoenix Guard, that are arguably better offensively due to their 2" attack range, and that are miles better defensively due to their 4+ ward save. It simply doesn't make any sense.

Now, you say that the intent was to get something out there that is usable now and next year, without the need to check for updates regularly. In my experience with competitive gaming, every system needs to be constantly reviewed and updated for balance to be maintained. I don't even think your system is balanced now, and I gave you some obvious examples. If you don't want to change and update it, then it will never be balanced.

Hi, thanks for the input.

Just so you know: we’re not selling anything. We’re sharing the result of our labour of love, which took many, many, many (really a lot of) hours (and testing and internal feedback) to finish. Post-publication feedback has been listened to, for example to better explain things and to make the pdf searchable using normal fonts. That ‘annoying’ font is a prerequisite to get the list out there as a document without the spectre of future law suits (a real risk the other lists seem to ignore). But yeah, the font needs a little getting used to.
There have been some comments about the list being hard to use (besides that font that is). However, none of those comments explain why it’s hard to use … but that’s exactly the kind of input needed.

Feedback about perceived balance issues is another thing though: so let’s talk design philosophies. The whole aim of this project was to get something useable out there that doesn’t require regular updates. Just like the old army books really: you get it, you use it, that’s it. The strength of the Scroll of Might is that it remains: the values you use today will be the same as you’ll use next year.
To us that was a major aim. If on the other hand the aim was to get a list that has included all comments and feedback from several picked forums – and realistically then only from some of their active posters – it would have been a completely different project, and – our nightmare – a potentially never ending one. By the time we finally would have agreed on the values of the WHF High Elves for instance, the new Aelf Highborns might have been on the shelves for months already.
Another reason to present it as-is, is that it allows us to immediately present the Might values for all the new AoS releases. If we’d use the group-sourced approach, we first need to wait for the whole army to have been released before we can even start the process of designing the values. That’s just too long for us.

I appreciate your example with the High Elves. A 1 point difference between units (like with White Lions vs Phoenix Guard) can simply be the result of values rounded to integers. Small differences like that aren’t an issue if you use the Scroll’s suggestion on army building (e.g. how much you may exceed the agreed on army total). Your other example shows how our approaches to find balance – our design philosophies – differ. You say if you use the Scroll of Might you’ll never bring a Prince to the table instead of a Sea Helm, because the Sea Helms gives you certain benefits for certain other units. You feel that should be incorporated into those units’ values. To us though, that’s situational balance, and part of (the fun of) designing an army, instead of that army’s points structure. Another player may well design an army in which a Prince is much more valuable than a Sea Helm (and AoS allows players a lot more freedom to combine than WHF). In both cases though, it means a quality must be quantified. Quantified, because that’s what we’re after: numbers to compare. But if we then change the situation, we change those qualities: that means quantifying them is practically impossible. That is why the Scroll only looks at the things that are known and won't change: the individual warscroll only. Each warscroll has been given a value using an algorithm that’s the same for every warscroll. That is where we put the balance: each scroll is weighed the same way.

The Scroll of Might thus provides a tool to organize armies according to set ‘rules’ (such as Might values), which provide a much, much better balance than counting wounds. Each army has been weighed the same way, so players know what to expect. How each player uses his/her army, and tries to disrupt that balance (with tactics and organizations), that is what the actual game is all about, be it in a friendly battle, or in a competition: just the way the previous army books were used. And btw, if you check the recent 1-on-1 battle reports on the forum, you’ll notice every time the winner also was the Mightiest. So, whether one likes it or not, the Scroll of Might does work.

Cheers,

Your Sage

Alright, thanks for that answer. In that case I simply disagree with the design philosophy used here.

To me, a system where all units are worth picking in certain situation is a good system. The old army books failed in this, and I think your system fails in that as well. To me, a system in which unit A is always worth picking over unit B is simply a bad system. Both my examples above are relevant here. With the prices here, I simply cannot imagine an army in which a Prince would be more valuable than a Sea Helm. I'll also look a little bit in detail on the White Lions vs Swordmasters example.

Their profiles are identical:
6" move, 4+ save, 7 bravery, 1 wound
1" attack range, 2 attacks, 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, -1 rend, 1 damage

The differences lie in their special rules, which are the following:

Offensively:
Swordmasters reroll hit rolls of 1
White Lions reroll hit rolls of 1 IF they are within 8" of Korhil

Defensively:
Swordmasters reroll failed saves in the shooting phase
White Lions reroll failed saves of 1 in the shooting phase
White Lions halve the effect of failed Bravery rolls

With a Bravery of 9 in most cases, the last rule will only ever be relevant when a White Lions unit takes 5 or more casualties (with 5 casualties it is relevant only if you roll a 6 for your Bravery test). With a 5-man unit, the unit is already wiped out when that happens, and the rule doesn't make a difference. With a 10-man unit, the difference is losing 1 extra model after already losing 5 and subsequently rolling a 6 for Bravery. For the rule to be likely to come into play, you'd have to bring a huge unit and take massive casualties.

However, even then I'd argue that the Swordmasters are better, due to them being stronger both offensively and defensively. Even if the cost was the same, I would always bring the Swordmasters over the White Lions, because they are simply better in all feasible scenarios. For the White Lions to be worth bringing, they's have to be cheaper than the Swordmasters.

Now this is what I think is bad design - a pricing that renders a unit useless. The old Army Books did this, which is why every edition went stale with powerpicks after the metagame had been figured out. To keep the gameplay diverse, continuous updating and tweaking is necessary. If your design philosophy is to just throw something out there, and leave it the way it is regardless if it works or not, then there's really not much to say. It's not balanced now, and it's not going to be balanced a year from now.

Thanks. Like you say, we have disagreeing design philosophies. You feel that a single point of difference makes one unit worthless compared to another. To us every unit is worth picking in the right circumstances. A unit's Might is just one of many reasons to pick it.

Finding a system like you want, which somehow manages to encapsulate every possible situation and combination of units, armies, terrain, fatigue level, etc. is a very long – and I believe futile – search. I think if it would be feasible, then our military would always have the best and most cost-effective weapons.

However, such a system is possible, if we drastically reduce the number of parameters and the values they can have, i.e. far fewer units and alternatives, thus far fewer interesting options and realism. That will bring you to games like DBA and HotT, both very successful, especially as competition games (plus both allow for a lot of artistic, but game neutral, creativity).

But with a game like WHF or AoS, the number of possibilities is too big to ever get to a system like you propose. Yet people still want to use their WHF and AoS armies in competitions, so we need some kind of measuring stick to be able to properly compare the armies: that is the Scroll of Might. The Scroll took a lot of thought and work, and because of that it can stay the same for years to come (a benefit), and it really works (see the battle reports).

Cheers,

Your Sage

Solaris wrote:
Alright, thanks for that answer. In that case I simply disagree with the design philosophy used here.

To me, a system where all units are worth picking in certain situation is a good system. The old army books failed in this, and I think your system fails in that as well. To me, a system in which unit A is always worth picking over unit B is simply a bad system.

This is exactly where I am at. As-is, I wouldn't use this personally and even if I did I would never be able to get widespread use out of it. PPC, meanwhile, became the standard comp at my FLGS by three weeks after I first started showing it to people. The latter is successful exactly because of the issues raised - simplicity, ease of access, and ongoing efforts to balance the system. You refer to the latter as a "nightmare" but if you insist on maintaining a static list here then you have already been left behind. At any rate, I'm out because at this point it seems to me like another comp where you aren't actually taking criticism to heart and trying to fix flaws.

Hi, as you can see in this thread, posts do get replied to. And feedback gets plugged into updates.

If I understand you correclty, you seek a crowd-sourced points system, and as you can read, this is not that. That's not a flaw, it's a different design philosophy. On top of that, there's the limited shelf life of the WHF warscrolls, as explained above.

From what I've read, you seem to imply that the Scroll of Might lacks simplicity and ease of access, but apart from the font, you don't explain how, why or where the other two are lacking ... then how can you expect them to be solved?

In the Scroll of Might you have all the WHF warscrolls in a single document of only 17 pages, searchable, with a single line per scroll, valid without later tweaks. To us that's easy to use and easy to access. But we're happy to hear how we can improve that.

Cheers,

Your Sage

I believe you are flat out wrong. Balancing a game is not impossible, in fact there are many games that are both balanced and very complex.

In competitive play, a measuring stick is needed, on that I agree. You say that that measuring stick is your system, but I don't think your system is a good measuring stick. Your measuring stick is sloppy - every inch is a different length to the next one. When someone points this out you say "Hey, this is the way we've done it, and it's not going to be changed - that's the good thing about our measuring stick".

Meanwhile, I see these other measuring sticks around, where the creators say "Hey, I know there are problems here and there, so I would like it very much if you tried it out and reported back to me, and with time we'll work out all the kinks together and have a good measuring stick".

Do you see the difference? You don't intend to improve your system. The creators of some of the other systems do. AoS is too young to have a functioning balancing system worked out already - therefore any attempt to balance it will have to be a long-term project. I don't see any potential in a system where the creators aren't gonna bother with tweaking and updating costs according to in-game performance.

I don't care about the battle-reports, that's circumstantial and doesn't prove a thing. If you really do think your system is balanced, then tell me this: in what competitive army, and under what circumstances, are White Lions ever going to be worth using over Swordmasters with your comp system? I'll be impressed if you can give me even a single scenario.

True, plenty of complex games seem balanced. But none of those games are complex because of a huge and changing number of parameters with many and changing values, as the game you’re trying to find such balance for.

'My' measuring stick is not sloppy (I do shower daily!): it uses a single, fixed measure called Might. And it is meant to measure all AoS units everywhere according to that one fixed measure. Compare it to the many fixed measures we use in daily life: the inch, the second, the ounce. True, that single second just before the car crash is much, much more valuable, than that single second during an afternoon nap, and yet they're both just a single second.
In the system you desire on the other hand, the size of the measure depends on how, when and where the unit is measured. Compare that to the many, many different pounds in use across the world a century ago. You can see the difference and perhaps understand the advantages of a system that is fixed and doesn’t change anymore.

I do understand that you prefer a system that does continually needs tweaking, and luckily enough there are threads on this forum precisely for that. However, I don’t feel the need to go there only to post that such a system is flawed and without potential, that’s counter-productive for everyone involved.

To me those battle reports do matter, because they show that the Scroll of Might is right: every time, the Mightiest army wins.

Cheers,

Your Sage

I think it would be interesting for you to pull down some battle reports using other systems and plug your own Might in there.

If 4 outta 5 times your system shows the winner had the highest points army in your system, there might be something to it.

Thanks.

Might values have been added to the recent reports in this forum's thread, post-report btw (meaning the armies in the report were set up without using the Scroll of Might AFAIK).

It would be a bit awkard though if the same would be done in reports in threads about other systems, a bit too intrusive.

But Might will continue to be added to the Battle Report thread.

Cheers,

Your Sage

Ok, there is no point to this anymore. If you want a metric for balance, it has to be based on what a unit does on the table - if it's not based on that, then it's not a metric for balance. Permanence is good if it's balanced to begin with. You system is not. In a competitive army, using your system, all units are not equally, or even similarly, cost efficient. In fact, using your system, all units are not even worth using situationally. That is a system flaw. I'm still waiting for your example scenario where the White Lions are better than Swordmasters. I can tell you, that with your system that scenario doesn't exist. In your system the White Lions are obsolete - they are strictly worse in every regard, but they are more expensive to bring to the table.

I don't want a system that needs tweaking, but I want a system that is tweaked when it does need it. I want a system that is willing to change and adapt, because no system will get everything right from the beginning. Your system does need tweaking, because it has obvious flaws. If you're not willing to address those flaws, then they will stay.

And yes, there are numerous complex games out there that have a constant influx of new content and new parameters. And at the same time, the hundreds of thousands of people that play them every day discover new ways to play, and new combinations that are too strong, that are imbalanced. Despite this, the developers are constantly vigilant, and constantly fine tuning all parameters to make the gaming experience as balanced and fun as possible. It's without a single doubt both possible and feasible.

I agree, it’s pingpong. Nevertheless …

As I understand it, your ideal game is one where “the developers are constantly vigilant, and constantly fine tuning all parameters to make the gaming experience as balanced and fun as possible. It's without a single doubt both possible and feasible.”

What the Scroll of Might provides is a tool, nothing more, nothing less. It weighs the values from the warscrolls and calculates a value using fixed rules, so we can compare the units we use in AoS and WHF. You seem to confuse that with the power (like those developers have) to rewrite GW warscrolls and change the contents of GW’s boxes. Those scrolls are untouchable for gamers like you and I, we can complain about this or that, but we have to assume they won’t change. Yet we want to find some way to compare the units, some way to weigh their abilities, their weaknesses and strengths. That is what the Scroll of Might offers. And that is the balance it provides, because all units have been weighed according to the same rules. Those rules don’t change, because they don’t need to change. That’s actually a strength, because it allows us to immediately present values for new AoS releases, giving you an immediate idea of how good it will be in battles.

Sure, a unit with high Might might be utterly useless in some scenario. Or some unit might be much stronger if you team it up with another. But as I explained earlier – and especially if you cannot change (or tweak) the actual warscrolls – finding a value system for the units to also provide a balancing tool for situations and interactions is (really) impossible.

Nevertheless you prefer to keep searching for it, which is OK, but your desire to keep looking doesn’t mean other systems taking the widely accepted approach of using an objective calculation of constants to measure (like the inch on your table, or Might in the Scroll) are useless or flawed. Far from it: the Scroll of Might provides you with a system to compare all WHF and AoS units scrolls, now, next year, and immediately with any new release.

Cheers,

Your Sage

But the measure is an arbitrary one, since it does not actually provide balance on the table. You might as well measure the width of the kneecaps of all units - that will also be a measure, and it will also not change. Why not agree to bring armies worth 10 cm of total kneecap width? Or hell, why not just use the metric of wounds that is suggested in the rules? Those two are also unchanging, and will also give immediate values to new releases.

You know why those are not used? Because they are bad metrics for balance. And it is clear enough that your system isn't much better.

The example I provided you with (Swordmasters vs White Lions) is not dependent on scenario, or situation, or interactions. It is derived straight from the warscrolls themselves. Swordmasters are mathematically stronger, which is obvious if you look at the numbers and rules on the warscrolls. It is absolutely evident that your system rates the units incorrectly. If your system has weighed them according to the same rules, it has come to an incorrect conclusion. Thus your system is faulty. Thus your system does not provide balance. It's black on white really.

Now, if your system rated units well and provided balance to begin with, then I would have no problem with it being static and not changing. But that is clearly not the case here. If the values are not representative of how strong a unit is on the tabletop, then being static is a fatal weakness.

There are infinite metrics that can be used for balancing a game. Wound-counting is one, measuring kneecaps is one, and your scroll of might is one. You can try and balance a game with any of them, and they will all provide some sort of balance. But that doesn't mean that they are good. It doesn't mean that they actually provide balance to the game.

And no, I don't confuse anything with the power of changing the rules or the warscrolls. That's not at all what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is taking into account everything that's written on a warscroll, using that to figure out how the unit will perform on the table, and pricing it accordingly. Your system doesn't do that, and therefore does not provide balance. This point is proven by my example of Swordmasters and White Lions. Swordmasters are mathematically better. White Lions are more expensive. If you think that is balanced, then prove it to me.

The Scroll of Might uses all available relevant values of each warscroll. That 1 point difference (on a scale of 1 to 60) that you keep mentioning is too small: it’s expected, and it’s irrelevant using the Scroll, as I’ve tried to explain above. If you read the Scroll’s suggestions about organizing an army, you’ll see. And if you read the reports on this forum, you can see that the Scroll does provide balance.

I have the feeling that you look for balance of (every possible occurrence of) game play. We on the other hand look for balance in organizing armies. You don’t agree with that approach, fine. I don’t agree with yours, fine too, I thought. Luckily there are threads that agree with you. It just seems counter-productive to keep posting in this thread about why the Scroll’s approach should be more like the ones proposed in those other threads … it’s like demanding that coffee should be more like software. Despite all that:

The Scroll of Might shows the result of a single calculation for every warscroll. That calculation uses all items in each warscroll. As I’ve tried to explain, that in itself provides balance: a weighed comparison of all units (unlike merely counting wounds). What you seek is some kind of method to compare each item in each scroll with all possible permutations of all armies, sizes, and battles. That is impossible, at least to normal people like you and I with normal computers and a normal amount of spare time. On top of that, as I’ve also tried to explain, because the system you seek must take into account all (or I assume at least as many as possible) permutations, it requires changes every time a new unit or terrain piece or scenario is released. That means the scores provided by such a system at this moment will be different from next month, next year and so on. That makes such a system useless, because we’ll need to update and change our army lists every week (not to mention the fact that many WHF warscrolls will be replaced by those new releases).

The Scroll of Might on the other hand provides a weighed look at values in all warscrolls that doesn’t need such changes and thus provides a practical constant, which we can use now and next year, to compare units and armies according to a fixed set of valid and useful parameters. That’s the balance it offers, that’s the balance needed to figure out army composition. That doesn’t mean it will provide you with a balanced game though, far from it, and it shouldn’t. Because as a player, your main priority is to unbalance the situation on the table asap to your advantage.

Btw, perhaps you’ll find the Scroll’s new Grit feature useful: it looks at the average of all warscrolls, which is more like the system you seem to want. But Grit is scored on a small 1-4 range only, thus minimizing the possibility of changes from new releases (see the Grit thread).

Cheers,

Your Sage

No, my example is the comparison of two single units with identical statlines that your system gives different ratings. And on top of that, it gives the advantage to the unit that already has the best special rules, making it cheaper than the worse unit. That's the definition of imbalance. It's really simple, it's the straight up comparison of two warscrolls. If your system cannot even handle something like that properly, then it cannot handle anything else either.

The purpose of a comp system is to provide a fair and balanced game. The goal of a player is to use his or her army skillfully to disrupt that balance in his or her favor.

You say yourself that your goal is not to provide balanced gameplay. I have showed through an example that you do not provide balance between warscrolls either. So the conclusion then is that the system does not help players work out how to create balanced armies to be able to play a fun and fair game. The might value is just an arbitrary number, and you might as well rely on wound counts for balance.

Either you've made calculation errors with my example units. Or your formula is bad at rating them. Have you looked into why those units are rated the way they are? Have you examined the warscrolls to see which unit you think is stronger? No, you haven't. I have given you a clear example of when your metric is bad at providing balance, and you keep shrugging that off. There might be many more imbalances and errors in your system, but you're not even interested in looking into it.

I'm looking for true balance: gameplay balance. There are a number of steps one has to accomplish to achieve this.

The first step is numbers balance. This is where you're at. You look at the profiles of units, and you derive a cost from that. Here, you are already failing, as proven by my example.

Secondly, you try to put a value on the flexibility given to ranged units by virtue of their range. Then you playtest. Then you reevaluate. Rinse and repeat.

Thirdly, you take into account any special rules of the warscrolls, and try to put a value on them. Then playtest. Then reevaluate. It's a lengthy process.

Then comes the last step, putting everything together. Here you explore synergies of units, how they interact on the table and how they perform in different scenarios, and under certain conditions. To realistically accomplish this, you need an incredible amount of data.

This is the ultimate goal, you are right in that this is what I'm looking for in the end. However, I am fully aware that this is extremely far off, and might be more or less impossible. Despite that, a system that doesn't even accomplish step 1 to a satisfactory degree is just not good. It provides a measure of balance, just as wound counting, or kneecap measuring. But it's not a good measure.

Anyway, I'm out. There is literally no point to this discussion anymore. Good job on the new version of grit, that is actually very handy for army creation. Good luck with your comp system.

Thanks.

That single point of Might (on that scale of 1-60), doesn’t make a difference to the army’s total, if you use the Scroll of Might’s suggestions on how to compose armies. That being said, that 1 point (or half a point, because things get rounded in the end) is the result of those few differences that both warscrolls do have. You feel your system should give that point to the other unit, but that’s just a difference in how we weigh them.

You’re right about the list of steps to be taken to get a system like this. The Scroll of Might went through steps 1, 2 and 3. Step 4 is something that we definitely won’t do, for all the reasons mentioned above, most importantly because it isn’t needed to balance the way we compose armies. If you want to balance battles, then yes, step 4 might be needed. But to us, unbalancing the battle itself is what it’s all about. Besides, the rules themselves are inherently unbalanced, making step 4 even harder.

The Grit system can be tweaked, mainly to move the boundaries between each of the four value-groups. For example, maybe it’s more interesting to have a higher percentage of units in the OH-YEAH! group to give a more even spread … then again, maybe it isn’t.

Cheers,

Your Sage

I would like to join the development team for the Scrolls of Might. I am a longbeard veteran of wargaming, 80% win rate and over 500 battles under my belt. I can see the potential but there are some big changes that need to be made.

Please see pm.