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Don't forget that elite armies rarely get the bonuses for having large numbers of models in the unit. Look at zombies, for example. In a thirty man good they have one attack each, but hit and wound on a 3+ and have a leadership of 13. Multi assaulting doesn't have any real negatives in regards to your own chances of dealing damage, so getting all of those zombies into melee will net you at least 12 wounds scattered around the table.


Look at high elf spearmen versus ogres. 12 spearmen wil get you the same footprint and wound total as the ogres and 1 higher leadership to start due to having 10 models. The ogres have 10 attacks to the spearmen's 13. The ogres win hands down in the damage category there. But add a +1 to attacks from a character. Now the ogres have 13 attacks and the elves are at 25. After all the hits and wounds get tossed around the elves will do 5 wounds to the ogres, the ogres will do 6 to the elves. Meaning that whoever gets the charge is going to be the one with the best chance of winning. And the elven player has to ensure his weapons can be brought to bear or his elves will be hard pressed to win the fight.

In a situation where the units are so equal to one another that their chance of victory is based solely on a tactical decision, there has to be balance at work.

Only why would you take spearman when you can take phoenix guard or sisters. Same 10 models same wounds get you superior troops, and superior stats.

Makumba wrote:
Only why would you take spearman when you can take phoenix guard or sisters. Same 10 models same wounds get you superior troops, and superior stats.

Which is exactly why you don't use number of wounds as a point of comparison or of balancing.

But there is nothing else. Going per number of models is just as bad, because 10 warriors are not the same as 10 phoenix guards or 10 bloodthirsters. And a point system doesn't exist.

There are already tons of fan-made points systems, some of them being playtested by a large number of players. There is no reason not to use one of them if you want a points system for balancing.

Get them because you like the models and it is cheaper to fill out numbers with spearmen?

Why would you use ogres instead of iron guts? Or dwarf warriors instead of long beards?

The statistics are only a part of the game, people want their army to look like an army, not just a pile of the same guys.

If every unit was exactly the same in capability, competitive players would NEVER buy a more expensive kit, they would fill out their roster with giant blobs of basic warriors.

I've played basically my regular WHFB collection of Skaven, around 100+ or so wounds of models on a 6 x 4, plays well, you can counter attack etc pretty well.

Frankly I don't think the game works well as a scaled down skirmish game, you need multiple units of 20 or so wounds on the board to really achieve any tactical depth.