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I've been working on a chart or some such that lists each individual rule and how much they cost for each classification of unit. (for example, Rage on a Troop Choice as opposed to an Elite Choice.) and it is... VERY hard work, requiring codexes I don't have access to right now and not including Army Specific rules (the Reanimation Protocol comes to mind as the most prominent.) and I was wondering if someone had at least started on this?

Mostly this is going to be for creating custom units/characters for a narrative campaign I'm planning, but I want it to be at least somewhat comprehensive and balanced because my LGS is very varied in the armies they play.

Well, High Druid, the truth is that GW doesn't seem to have any kind of formula for these things. And even if they did, it would be horribly inaccurate.

Each add-on rule generally becomes more valuable, the more valuable the unit you add it to. For example, if you gave twin-linked to every weapon in a Tactical Squad, it would be less valuable than giving the same rule to Sternguard, or Devastator Squads.

If you give Rage to an Imperial Guard infantry unit, that's practically a drawback. If you give it to something like a Bike Squad or something fast that wants to be charging, it's quite valuable.

So, basically, each situation is a special snowflake, and if you want to assign point values to adding "veteran skills" to a unit, the best thing would be to have the most experienced member assign a value to each unit. Assuming the owning player agrees, good times. If the owning player doesn't, argue about it to see if either party will change their mind, or tell them to pick a new skill.

Adding FnP to a big-ass combined squad Platoon? That's worth a solid 10 or 15 points per 10 dudes. 50 man squad? I'd add at least 75 points to the unit, maybe even more. Adding FnP to a Heavy Weapon Squad? Uh... 5 points, I guess. Sorry your crap unit is now more expensive?

There's no magic formula.

First off, thank you for recognizing my User.

Second, you make me sad. I was really hoping I could come up with, if not hard rules, at least soft ones and guidelines...

Well, loosely, you could say that...

A soft bonus [Re-roll to-hit of 1 for a Troop Choice] costs 3% of the unit total, where the same would cost 5% for any other unit type.

A good bonus [Re-roll misses for a Troop Choice] costs 6% of the unit total, and 10% for any other unit type.

A great bonus [Re-roll misses and damage rolls of 1 for Troops] costs 9%, and 15% for any other unit type.

An incredible bonus [Re-roll misses and damage rolls for Troops] costs 12%, and 20% for other unit types.


An "Infantry Squad" of Guardsmen gets a "Good Bonus", and costs 70 pts base. 70 x 1.06 = 74 pts.

A "Death Star of Mega-Doom" gets an Incredible Bonus and costs 700 pts base. As a non-troop, it now costs 700 x 1.20 = 840 pts.


If they get multiple upgrades, results are cumulative. Still kind of requires an arbiter, but at least you've got a rough idea. You could come up with likely examples for your gaming group, before the campaign starts. Ask them what they'd like for some of their units, and prepare for that so everyone agrees before the campaign starts. You'll still get some curve balls, but you know the Ork player wants to run and charge in the same turn as an ability. That's probably a "Great" bonus for that unit. Your buddy has some Sternguard, and a cool Medic model he wants to include. Probably a "Good" bonus to give them FnP.

Your Guardsmen friend wants to roll up some Cadians, with reroll 1's to hit, and some kind of auto-rally if they flee. Probably a Good bonus, combined. The Eldar player wants his Psykers to harness warp charge on a 3+, probably a Great Bonus.

I have a vehicle and monstrous creature design rule set linked in my signature. It has a base for what you're looking for.

What you will see is that units pay points for their stat block and either pay a flat number for a bonus or a percentage based on the stat in question.

For the example above, the guardsmen paid little for their melee ability and speed, so rage helps them little. The bikes already paid more for combat ability, so rage makes more sense for them thematically. They would both pay the same price for the upgrade however because they are both gaining the exact same benefit (an extra chance at a hit on the charge).

This price is paid on a per unit basis, not per model. So a 5 man unit will pay more per model for the bonus than a 10 man unit, but the generic statline they purchased beforehand would be slightly cheaper to begin with (

Your VDR rules seem to suffer from the same problems as the original ones since they deal with upgrades in a vacuum.

For example - bumping the front armour from 10 to 11 is worth way more on a vehicle with 200 points of guns and which transports 20 than it is on a vehicle that's only armed with a storm bolter and has no transport capacity. However, your rules have it as a fixed cost.

To take your example of rage - an extra melee attack is worth WAY more for some units than others so it absolutely shouldn't be a flat cost since it is not a flat benefit.

To get to the OP's question - there's no guidelines and GW aren't consistent in how they do it. Some upgrades vary wildly in cost, some are consistent in cost even though the benefit is very clearly not.

Generally, writing a formula for points costs is not worth the effort it would take. There are too many variables to take into account and it would almost certainly result in everything costing a number of points with a very long string of digits after the decimal point. Then when you add anything new into the game or change the rules, you have to redesign the formula to take the changes into account.

The game is so complicated that it is both easier and better to simply use intuition to determine an appropriate points cost while also playtesting a unit to see how it operates in a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
To take your example of rage - an extra melee attack is worth WAY more for some units than others so it absolutely shouldn't be a flat cost since it is not a flat benefit.

Also it depends on what target you're facing.

A stormbolter, for example, is worth very much more when you're up against a foot list of Orks than it is when you're up against Imperial Knights, and vice-versa for meltaguns.

 Pouncey wrote:
Generally, writing a formula for points costs is not worth the effort it would take. There are too many variables to take into account and it would almost certainly result in everything costing a number of points with a very long string of digits after the decimal point. Then when you add anything new into the game or change the rules, you have to redesign the formula to take the changes into accoun

This is almost exactly what neural networks are for, if the initial combat values could be calculated consistently. It's entirely possible, but not worth the effort :|

Fixed point systems in complex games are an illusion of ballance really. Unequal benefit and "vs whom" problems were already covered by previous posters, so let me add a somehow more convoluted layer of difficulty of balance achieving ballance:

- just imagine such example: start with two ideally balanced (identical) forces and a "fair" table setup with straightforward scenario. Now switch one choice in each army toward different field roles and playtest it extensively, so that you are sure that the ballance is mantained. Repeat the process few times, creating assymetric but 100% equal armies, just with different playstyles.

And then change the table layout and/or scenario victory conditions to be different but still "fair" from initial, symetrical armies POV. Your modified armies are most probably completely unballanced under new victory conditions.

There is really no workaround for this problem except significantly reducing "degree of freedom" from the system.

 Pouncey wrote:
Generally, writing a formula for points costs is not worth the effort it would take. There are too many variables to take into account and it would almost certainly result in everything costing a number of points with a very long string of digits after the decimal point. Then when you add anything new into the game or change the rules, you have to redesign the formula to take the changes into account.

The game is so complicated that it is both easier and better to simply use intuition to determine an appropriate points cost while also playtesting a unit to see how it operates in a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
To take your example of rage - an extra melee attack is worth WAY more for some units than others so it absolutely shouldn't be a flat cost since it is not a flat benefit.

Also it depends on what target you're facing.

A stormbolter, for example, is worth very much more when you're up against a foot list of Orks than it is when you're up against Imperial Knights, and vice-versa for meltaguns.

I had a half-baked idea to try and make some kind of crawler to trawl the list-advice forums and see if I could get some idea of what the 'normal' distribution of armies and models was, but never got around to it.

In practice the best and easiest way to cost things in 40k is to make a list of things with a similar role and performance and approximate it based off of their costs (e.g. you're trying to make a guess at Demiurg line infantry and you've decided they've got a high-power short-ranged converted mining weapon, a 4+ save, and T4, you might want to look at Tau Breachers, Deathwatch/Sternguard, and laslock Blackshields, among other things).

This doesn't always work, since there are plenty of things that are overcosted or undercosted (e.g. if you're making a guess at a heavy weapon bike and you've got Windriders and Attack Bikes as your points of comparison...), but the more units you compare yours with the better your estimate is going to get.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Walker Boh wrote:
...Mostly this is going to be for creating custom units/characters for a narrative campaign I'm planning, but I want it to be at least somewhat comprehensive and balanced because my LGS is very varied in the armies they play.

The other thing to note is that anything you (or I, or anyone else) make is going to be a wild stab in the dark initially, there is no way to guarantee what you set down on paper is balanced. Toss it up on Proposed Rules or ask your players, get more viewpoints, and test it, the only way to get to balance is through constant tweaking.

 malamis wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Generally, writing a formula for points costs is not worth the effort it would take. There are too many variables to take into account and it would almost certainly result in everything costing a number of points with a very long string of digits after the decimal point. Then when you add anything new into the game or change the rules, you have to redesign the formula to take the changes into accoun

This is almost exactly what neural networks are for, if the initial combat values could be calculated consistently. It's entirely possible, but not worth the effort :|

Yeah, I know you could calculate it.

The point is that it's not worth the effort to do so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
Fixed point systems in complex games are an illusion of ballance really. Unequal benefit and "vs whom" problems were already covered by previous posters, so let me add a somehow more convoluted layer of difficulty of balance achieving ballance:

- just imagine such example: start with two ideally balanced (identical) forces and a "fair" table setup with straightforward scenario. Now switch one choice in each army toward different field roles and playtest it extensively, so that you are sure that the ballance is mantained. Repeat the process few times, creating assymetric but 100% equal armies, just with different playstyles.

And then change the table layout and/or scenario victory conditions to be different but still "fair" from initial, symetrical armies POV. Your modified armies are most probably completely unballanced under new victory conditions.

There is really no workaround for this problem except significantly reducing "degree of freedom" from the system.

Agreed. The value a particular unit or option would have would vary significantly depending on the particulars of each game. They would even be interdependent - each choice you make would alter the value of other choices in your army and even in the same unit.

Hence, not worth calculating it at all, just go with your gut feeling, it's good enough.