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 Blacksails wrote:
I sincerely question anyone who argues that power levels take mere minutes of list building but points take an hour.

If you're not going to put any effort to discussing in good faith then don't bother at all.

As I explained, the only difference is in the math. In both methods you're sitting down and picking the units you want and trying to fit them under a certain value. One has more numbers to punch in than the other but in no way is the difference a full hour. Seriously.

It's funny, because I was thinking the same thing when you claimed you could make a list in a minute. That's just disingenuous and I am just assuming you're lying.

Not even slightly.

Unless you assume any regular player makes every single list in a vacuum, and doesn't already have a number of lists, units and other pertinent information to hand.

But then, you try and argue a list takes an hour because you like to reread all the rules, which is like saying a five minute walk to the shops takes all afternoon because you like to stop and chat to every person you meet.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Not even slightly.

Unless you assume any regular player makes every single list in a vacuum, and doesn't already have a number of lists, units and other pertinent information to hand.

But then, you try and argue a list takes an hour because you like to reread all the rules, which is like saying a five minute walk to the shops takes all afternoon because you like to stop and chat to every person you meet.

Actually, I was arguing it could take considerably more than an hour for that reason. My hour was more a leisurely stroll as compared to a 10 minute mad sprint down to the store. But you've got the general gist of it, yes.

I should have clarified that the math for my list takes a minute. But given your original scenario of pulling out models on a table and calling it a list, the total time invested would be the time to remove the models, then the minute of punching in numbers.

 Purifier wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Not even slightly.

Unless you assume any regular player makes every single list in a vacuum, and doesn't already have a number of lists, units and other pertinent information to hand.

But then, you try and argue a list takes an hour because you like to reread all the rules, which is like saying a five minute walk to the shops takes all afternoon because you like to stop and chat to every person you meet.

Actually, I was arguing it could take considerably more than an hour for that reason. My hour was more a leisurely stroll as compared to a 10 minute mad sprint down to the store. But you've got the general gist of it, yes.

Which is a totally facile argument. The time you choose to invest in something vs the bear minimum time required is precisely that, your choice, but to then try and argue on the basis that somehow makes a voluntary decision an actual requirement is disengenuous.

Arguing specific over general only works in ymdc.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Not even slightly.

Unless you assume any regular player makes every single list in a vacuum, and doesn't already have a number of lists, units and other pertinent information to hand.

But then, you try and argue a list takes an hour because you like to reread all the rules, which is like saying a five minute walk to the shops takes all afternoon because you like to stop and chat to every person you meet.

Actually, I was arguing it could take considerably more than an hour for that reason. My hour was more a leisurely stroll as compared to a 10 minute mad sprint down to the store. But you've got the general gist of it, yes.

Which is a totally facile argument. The time you choose to invest in something vs the bear minimum time required is precisely that, your choice, but to then try and argue on the basis that somehow makes a voluntary decision an actual requirement is disengenuous.

Arguing specific over general only works in ymdc.

I agree. That wasn't however the argument, so you're barking up the wrong tree. I was asked how long it took me to write a list. I also mentioned how long it would take me (and has taken me when necessary) to really sprint a shoddy list. I guess since it didn't fit whatever you're trying to say, you ignored that. Power levels would be so many times faster because I'd just take what models I pull out, and it wouldn't matter what gear they happened to have. Whatever they happened to have, that's what I'd use later in the game. With points I still have to look it all up, tally it up and since I'm not really able to make a good rough calculation in my head, I'll be stopping to tally everything and replacing as I go. Power levels I could make a rough tally just looking in my box. Maybe you can make a better one even with all the minute costs, but I'm afraid I can't.

I'm not sure anyone but you has mentioned quality either? Seems to be an assumption on your part, not to create a legal list but the need to create some sort of run at winning a GT.

Still, I'm not going to change my mind that your stance is somewhat dumb, and that you're arguing for something utterly irrelevant to the grand scheme of things.

So I guess that's all he wrote.

The way that Jervis talked about the reasoning behind power levels, it seems to imply that power level is still rooted in points at it's core. Specifically, he said that the power level is "the median" of the least and most expensive loadouts points-wise.

So, if Power Level is just an extrapolation/interface of Matched play points values anyways, then I don't see the appeal in using it - especially since I prefer the granularity of points-play construction. If it was a different system, that measured balance on it's own, then I'd see the merit. Right now it's basically just points-but-i-guess-don't-worry-about-the-specifics, as far as I can see, which may be fine for some but isn't for me personally.

 Blacksails wrote:
I sincerely question anyone who argues that power levels take mere minutes of list building but points take an hour.

If you're not going to put any effort to discussing in good faith then don't bother at all.

As I explained, the only difference is in the math. In both methods you're sitting down and picking the units you want and trying to fit them under a certain value. One has more numbers to punch in than the other but in no way is the difference a full hour. Seriously.

There's a difference: with points, you have options. "This tank is 160, and I can buy a gun upgrade for 5, and this kind of shells for 15 or this kind for 10, and a lascannon for 15, and sponsons with heavy bolters, plasma cannons, multimeltas, or heavy flamers for 20, 40, 30, and 20 points, AA storm bolter or AA stubber for 15 each, co-axial storm bolter or stubber for 10 each, pintle storm bolter or stubber for 10, and these other upgrades for these other costs. What do I want on my tank?"

With power level, it's just "this tank is PL 12".

Points are useful, and PL is useful. It takes an hour to make a good list, fishing through lists of upgrades, totaling them up, realizing you're over budget, considering if you really need 4 meltaguns, or it 3 would do fine, re-totaling them, wondering if you dropped sponsons from all your tanks then you could buy another tank, and if you should, totaling up that idea, adding an upgrade to one unit and deciding which upgrade you have to lose from another unit to make room, etc. PL doesn't account for upgrades, just units, so you drop 6 tanks on the table and you're good to go.


As I said, it depends on the objective. Power Level allows an inexperienced player who hasn't seen the effects of a Meltagun on a Leman Russ Tank to quickly put his own list together without agonizing over the details. Points allows for more experienced players to craft more finely balanced lists against each other.

It also builds in a specific way to sideboard.

Make your list with power. Then, you can sideboard to any legal loadout in between games.

This is great for long running narrative events where you might not want a heavy bolter in one game, but need it the next.

 Marmatag wrote:
It also builds in a specific way to sideboard.

Make your list with power. Then, you can sideboard to any legal loadout in between games.

This is great for long running narrative events where you might not want a heavy bolter in one game, but need it the next.

B..but WYSIWYG...

Its also good for campaign play where you just need a rough estimate of power levels on each size, and where the players are willing to not powergame and abuse that system.

Thats the divide.

 auticus wrote:
Its also good for campaign play where you just need a rough estimate of power levels on each size, and where the players are willing to not powergame and abuse that system.

Thats the divide.

If Power Level is just a rough estimate of points, though - why not just use points and be loose with the limits? You're effectively doing the same thing, but it might actually be more balanced.

If they were balancing Power Level on it's own I'd buy it, but at this stage it's just points where they've handwaved the equipment options. I'm not saying using Power is bad, but why oversimplify when you can just kind of play narratively with regular points values?

 auticus wrote:
Its also good for campaign play where you just need a rough estimate of power levels on each size, and where the players are willing to not powergame and abuse that system.

Thats the divide.

It's easier to power game using power levels because there's no penalty for taking all the expensive awesome upgrades.

Where players are willing to not power game, points work better to provide a more accurate balance between forces.

Again, I think everyone misses the point of PL:

Points are good. They're better balanced in every way, and there's not much of a reason to use PL competitively, and you shouldn't be.

PL is for achieving rough parity without detail. The whole goal of the system is to reduce the detail that goes into list building, so that a new player, or long time player who just wants to get playing, doesn't have to weight to cost v. benefits of having a Meltagun or a Storm Bolter and can instead say "I've got some things, let's play."

You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Detail is removed. Instead of buying Veterans with 3x Plasma, Sentries, and Grenadiers for 60+15+15+15+10+15=130 points, I just brought Veterans. What do they have? Whatever they're modeled with.

Especially because squads can split fire now, I can see spending a lot of time puzzling about which weapon selection to take, and weighing the competitive costs and drawbacks of any given weapon.

As I said earlier, if I took my codex and dropped it in front of my friend, who doesn't play 40k, and had them make a list, they'd get lost, end up with a bad list, and not have fun. If I told them "pick from these guys the ones you think are cool", then picked an army that was also cool and roughly equal from one of my other armies, we get playing faster, they don't have to worry about being competitive and what is best and what they need, and they're more likely to eventually have their own army.

I can see a number of occasions where power levels would be preferential...but honestly, I'll be playing power levels now solely because of how many people vehemently dislike them (just in this thread).

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Sure, to which my argument would be that its a fundamentally trivial issue to be concerned with. It wasn't a barrier to play in every other edition, and it certainly isn't in other games.

As soon as as army builders become a thing, I see no reason not to use points.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Detail is removed. Instead of buying Veterans with 3x Plasma, Sentries, and Grenadiers for 60+15+15+15+10+15=130 points, I just brought Veterans. What do they have? Whatever they're modeled with.

Right, I understand how they work, I'm just not seeing how that is in any way preferential or better than doing some basic math. Plus, the veterans in points would also have whatever they're modeled with, only they're actually paying for them.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Sure, to which my argument would be that its a fundamentally trivial issue to be concerned with. It wasn't a barrier to play in every other edition, and it certainly isn't in other games.

I beg to differ. There is a casual section of the playerbase that really will appreciate having this detail removed.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Sure, to which my argument would be that its a fundamentally trivial issue to be concerned with. It wasn't a barrier to play in every other edition, and it certainly isn't in other games.

I beg to differ. There is a casual section of the playerbase that really will appreciate having this detail removed.

Which I suppose brings another question for me. It seems like the argument is that there's a group of people who don't want to deal with too many numbers, but care enough to deal with enough numbers. The truly casual wouldn't care at all, which is what Open play is for, and the majority of players will play with points seeing as its the industry standard, so then who and how large is the group that power levels are for? It seems like a such a small, particular, specific group of people who don't want to either deal with a program to do the math for them or otherwise spend some extra time adding some stuff up, but still care enough to do some math.

Lolwut? Are people honestly saying that building a list with points takes an hour or more? Maybe the very first time you play an army, but once you get a bit of experience you learn the points for your most common units. You aren't spending a bunch of time looking up every possible combination, you just add 115 points for a plasma vet squad.

And no, power levels don't make it easier to find fine tune a list, because the minimum increment is larger. You can't jus add or remove a power weapon or whatever, you have to deal with full-unit blocks. That probably takes longer than points, unless you allow unequal power levels, in which case you can do the same with points and skip the fine tuning.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Detail is removed. Instead of buying Veterans with 3x Plasma, Sentries, and Grenadiers for 60+15+15+15+10+15=130 points, I just brought Veterans. What do they have? Whatever they're modeled with.

Right, I understand how they work, I'm just not seeing how that is in any way preferential or better than doing some basic math. Plus, the veterans in points would also have whatever they're modeled with, only they're actually paying for them.

Because if you don't play 40k, and I dropped Codex: Imperial Guard in front of you and told you to make a list, you'd get lost. You don't know what's good, you don't know what's bad, you don't even know what things do.

But if I set a tray of models in front of you, and told you to pick the ones you liked and wanted to have in your army today, it's easy. That tank looks cool, it's in your army now.


You don't set a power level limit, and buy units until you reach the power level with the goal of having the optimum force. You pick what's cool, then add the PL together to have a general idea of how good your "what's cool" is compared to the other guy's.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Sure, to which my argument would be that its a fundamentally trivial issue to be concerned with. It wasn't a barrier to play in every other edition, and it certainly isn't in other games.

I beg to differ. There is a casual section of the playerbase that really will appreciate having this detail removed.

I would argue that if they're fine not caring about weapons and upgrade costs, things that can swing unit capability quite dramatically, they probably dont need a "Power Level" system in the first place.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Detail is removed. Instead of buying Veterans with 3x Plasma, Sentries, and Grenadiers for 60+15+15+15+10+15=130 points, I just brought Veterans. What do they have? Whatever they're modeled with.

Right, I understand how they work, I'm just not seeing how that is in any way preferential or better than doing some basic math. Plus, the veterans in points would also have whatever they're modeled with, only they're actually paying for them.

Because if you don't play 40k, and I dropped Codex: Imperial Guard in front of you and told you to make a list, you'd get lost.

I'd be lost anyways because I don't play the game. I'd probably be asking you why you dropped a random book in front of me and told me to make a lit. I'd then probably question why we were friends and then get drunk or something.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Detail is removed. Instead of buying Veterans with 3x Plasma, Sentries, and Grenadiers for 60+15+15+15+10+15=130 points, I just brought Veterans. What do they have? Whatever they're modeled with.

Right, I understand how they work, I'm just not seeing how that is in any way preferential or better than doing some basic math. Plus, the veterans in points would also have whatever they're modeled with, only they're actually paying for them.

Because if you don't play 40k, and I dropped Codex: Imperial Guard in front of you and told you to make a list, you'd get lost.

I'd be lost anyways because I don't play the game. I'd probably be asking you why you dropped a random book in front of me and told me to make a lit. I'd then probably question why we were friends and then get drunk or something.

Well, there's the problem. I play a lot of "demo" games with people who have never played before, just started playing, haven't played in a long time and only have a few models, or play only with me borrowing my models. Power Level is absolutely ideal for this purpose. It allows them to make their own Order of Battle with things they like and play and feel good about it.

With my friends who have their own armies and have a lot of models and have been playing for a long while, we use points. I have prepped and ready 1000, 1500, 1850, 2000, and 2500 point lists I revise periodically that really did take hours to put together, considering options, weighing trade-offs, running montecarlo simulations, etc.

Besides, exactly how much more complicated is "these models cost points, and some of them can choose other options to do different things for extra points" over "these models cost power, give them what the feth you want, they'll cost the same."

I'd argue to most right thinking people, allowing stuff that obviously boosts a piece's in game ability for no cost is the more counter intuitive.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
You still have to pick the weapon in power level though, you're just not paying for it.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to worry about whether or not the meltagun is worth the 10 points, or if you want a plasmagun for 15, or a flamer would do the job for 5.

Sure, to which my argument would be that its a fundamentally trivial issue to be concerned with. It wasn't a barrier to play in every other edition, and it certainly isn't in other games.

I beg to differ. There is a casual section of the playerbase that really will appreciate having this detail removed.

Which I suppose brings another question for me. It seems like the argument is that there's a group of people who don't want to deal with too many numbers, but care enough to deal with enough numbers. The truly casual wouldn't care at all, which is what Open play is for, and the majority of players will play with points seeing as its the industry standard, so then who and how large is the group that power levels are for? It seems like a such a small, particular, specific group of people who don't want to either deal with a program to do the math for them or otherwise spend some extra time adding some stuff up, but still care enough to do some math.

It's the girlfriends of the gaming group. They want to play & be included, they have fun when they play, but the setup time and the "agonizing" over how to optimally spend those last 15 points is a huge turn off for them.

For me personally, it takes about 15 minutes to build a list. That's deciding what i want to play, grabbing the models, doing the math, and then the last 10+ minutes are me trying to spend those last 100 points effectively.

I'm looking forward to power.

We were going to run an 8th ed tournament, but have decided that a narrative conquest campaign in a subset of the galaxy that was previously hidden by the warp, will be more relaxed and fun.