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OK, this is intended to be completely different from points vs powers levels. if you wish to debate that that is being discussed on 4-5 threads page 1 here today. if you feel to answer "my club will not be using power levels" that is great for you but not what this is meant to discuss so again i direct you to the many critical threads of the system elsewhere.... now for those of you left reading that are interested in a discussion of power levels.

I am curious what different communities are doing in regards to upgrades taken or if your group is only using power leveling for formatting.

My first thoughts here on power points were in regards to apocalypse games. My club does a ~monthly apocalypse game, people come from as far as 8 hours away to participate. for apocalypse there first 2 hours is always list adjustments to get each other in the same ballpark. I think power levels are going to make this a much easier and streamlined process for larger games.

As for my club. so far we are using power levels in pick up games (not league or tournaments) so far the general rule is throw the kitchen sink at it. take any and all legal upgrades, try to stay mostly wysiwyg, but things that are not modeled and just upgrades the doors are open. I find it really has not changed much it just means both players max out their squads. Now if you had a player not putting on max war gear i could see this being a problem but if you establish a take all the upgrades at the front nobody is caught off guard. I am actually enjoying that some rarely used wargear shows up because it was already figured into the points so may as well. have a kff buig mek... give him a killsaw or kombi skorcha. will it every be used... probably if it does cool! can your captain dual wield thunder hammers somehow (i have no idea if possible anymore) then do it! my battlewagons might have 4 rokkits and a kill cannon that i would never take in an actual list, but my opponent now has a land raider with a multimelta, hunter killer missile and all the fixins too.

Now I know that is some communities worst fears, so any game breaking free wargear discussion might be valuble as well.
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We will be using them for our campaign games. Our club's campaign games are narrative/casual. TFG making powergamer lists for cassual/narrative games are not common, and when they show up we try and get the TFGs that don't want to understand what narrative/casual vs tournament means to play themselves.

Caveat: 3 out of 4 of our 40k players won't touch power levels for their other games. The casual pick up games will all be points and continue to be based off of the regional tournament standards, as has been done since the dawn of time.

Our narrative campaigns are probably the ONLY time power level would be used, and we are going to lose some of our campaign players that are also 100% competitive 100% of the time because of it, but its a decision the remainder of us are ok with as the 100% competitive 100% of the time guys are in a minority when it comes to our public campaign events.

I am going to try and emphasize Power Levels over Points for my games, especially with newer players or those not worried about fine-tuning their lists. I mean, the special, heavy, and melee weapons look to be pretty similar in strength versus abilities, so I am not too worried about it.

Besides, as was mentioned, if everyone brings upgrades on their units, then it's not really as much of a problem, is it?

I will cater to my opponents though if they want to use points, but I am going to encourage Power Levels in our area, and definitely in any events or campaigns I run.

If I were forced into it I'd demand WYSIWYG concerning upgrades so the other guy doesn't look over and Tailor his list.

My group seems to be coming down on the side of a one or the other approach, where a PL (x) army is judged equal to a 20*(x) point army and each player may choose which one they want to use. It gives armies like Grey Knights and Deathwatch with an endless supply of horrifically expensive upgrades (if you take a Deathwatch marine with a bolter in a power-level game you're spending 2PL to get 19pts, since the PL calculation assumes you're buying frag cannons, heavy thunderhammers, and storm shields on literally everyone) a lot more flexibility while allowing people who don't want to batter their way through points math the option to stick with quick lists.


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hobojebus wrote:
If I were forced into it I'd demand WYSIWYG concerning upgrades so the other guy doesn't look over and Tailor his list.

For the record: You're allowed to play power level and still insist the other guy write down what everyone's armed with ahead of time.

Allowed? I play no one without exchanging fixed lists.

I'll use whatever the person i'm playing with wants to use. If it's someone who isn't great at list building i'll suggest power levels.

Our group is going to be keeping it simple.

Most games will be Power Level 100
Everything WYSIWYG <Expeditions: Experimenting and things like Storm Bolters and HK Missiles on vehicles because of how easy they are to break off.>
Pre-Planning before the game: This is a big one for us as we only get together every month or so right now. Everyone normally knows what armies are going to be played, it is the missions that are unknown as we tend to roll up those on the spot.

None of us foresee any real problems with WAAC.

I need to crash your play group. I've got 200+ Ba infantry, 8 dreads, and 30+ tanks. You never know which BA list will show up! And they are legitimate now.

hobojebus wrote:If I were forced into it I'd demand WYSIWYG concerning upgrades so the other guy doesn't look over and Tailor his list.

wysiwyg certainly always applies, at my club/area usually we have premade lists. in 7th I have a 1250, a 1500, a 1750, and 1850 take all comers list all wargear is listed. I will eventually do the same for 8th in both power levels and points. so far my club likes the quickness of 50 points so I am working on that level for my primary 3 armies (orks, eldar, iron hands... err generic space marines now.)

Martel732 wrote:Allowed? I play no one without exchanging fixed lists.

it is always a good idea to have lists before hand it is always suspect to be adding points to a list or writing a scratch list after finding out what you are facing. generally if a person wants a smaller list i subtract tin front of them and do not add except to existing squads and then only normal armed dudes like a few extra dire avenger or ork boys to round out points.

I just write a new list. I usually bring like 5K to the store and play with 2/5 of it.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

hobojebus wrote:If I were forced into it I'd demand WYSIWYG concerning upgrades so the other guy doesn't look over and Tailor his list.

wysiwyg certainly always applies, at my club/area usually we have premade lists. in 7th I have a 1250, a 1500, a 1750, and 1850 take all comers list all wargear is listed. I will eventually do the same for 8th in both power levels and points. so far my club likes the quickness of 50 points so I am working on that level for my primary 3 armies (orks, eldar, iron hands... err generic space marines now.)

Martel732 wrote:Allowed? I play no one without exchanging fixed lists.

it is always a good idea to have lists before hand it is always suspect to be adding points to a list or writing a scratch list after finding out what you are facing. generally if a person wants a smaller list i subtract tin front of them and do not add except to existing squads and then only normal armed dudes like a few extra dire avenger or ork boys to round out points.

Power Level will also make it easier to read some of this hand written list...
With a 2k list it is easy to miss numbers, with Power Levels there are less numbers to read over.

Presumably the best way to use power levels is to just crack down on anything that looks like WAACing, but, yes, the second-best approach is just to say that the norm is you take as many upgrades as you want. This obviously has the disadvantage that some units are just awful, but it at least puts everyone on a roughly even footing, probably. I don't think there are too many units that are significantly undercosted in power.