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I'm building an army for a fun event, using DKoK Combat Engineers (as Arbites, because Guard stats, Shotguns and Carapace!!). We're using Power Level rather than points, but their Power Level seems way off when compared to their point value.

I know it's a rough measure, but PL is usually average unit cost/20, right?

So,

Five Engineers with no upgrades cost 40pts.
Five Engineers with all most-expensive upgrades costs 105pts.
The average of those is 73pts, which is PL4, which is about right.

However...

Ten Engineers with no upgrades cost 80pts.
Ten Engineers with all most-expensive upgrades costs 155pts.
The average of those is 118pts, which usually would result in a PL of 6, but instead they are listed as PL8.

This because the five-man squad can actually take just as many options as the ten-man one - they both get the same number of special & heavy weapons, etc. So, the ten-man option isn't actually twice as effective.

That difference really piles up when you have a few squads of them, and currently means my 100PL army actually only has 1650pts of models in it!

Am I missing a FAQ or something?

It's almost like Power Level is a bad system or something! /s

You haven't missed anything. Stop using Power Level if you want a balanced game. They use points in matched play for a reason.

Ah, who am I kidding, points aren't balanced either, but they are better than PL.

My personal opinion is that no-one should ever use Power Level, and that Power Level has no reason to exist, and that Power Level should never be used under any circumstances.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
It's almost like Power Level is a bad system or something! /s

You haven't missed anything. Stop using Power Level if you want a balanced game. They use points in matched play for a reason.

Ah, who am I kidding, points aren't balanced either, but they are better than PL.

My personal opinion is that no-one should ever use Power Level, and that Power Level has no reason to exist, and that Power Level should never be used under any circumstances.

This. A thousand times.

Oh I agree

But that doesn't help. The event is power level.

Just checking if it had been changed somewhere (or justified in some other way) and I'd missed it.

PL is just another set of rules, there are going to be units that are overcosted in PL and units that are undercosted in PL (see: Tau'nar). Building your list around these restrictions is just part of prepping for a tournament. You've got a 100 PL list that translates to 1650 points, and my casual 100 PL Tau I've got ready to go are 2075 points. We've just built differently for PL. Hell, I'm not even optimizing those Tau, I could easily hit 3000 points at 100 PL if I wanted to.

Although, since you described this as a casual event, you probably don't want to hardcore optimize your list anyway.

You aren't missing a FAQ, obviously, you're just kind of missing the point.

Power level almost always equals points with most expensive upgrades / 20.

So points basically allow you to not pay for upgrades,you don't want.

Mournssquats wrote:
Power level almost always equals points with most expensive upgrades / 20.

So points basically allow you to not pay for upgrades,you don't want.

You mean power level allows you to not pay for upgrades you want.

Possibly FW factored in the ability to take the Hades drill then cocked it up?

It's simple: FW followed the extremely basic rule that doubling a 5-man squad to a 10-man squad doubles the PL. It's good enough for an utterly broken and pointless system like PL, so why bother refining it more than that? The example just adds another reason to the list of why PL is a bad system and you should never use it.

Mournssquats wrote:
Power level almost always equals points with most expensive upgrades / 20.

So points basically allow you to not pay for upgrades,you don't want.

Power Level equals AVERAGE between most and least expensive options / 20

So, yeah, if you take every single most-expensive option you can abuse it, and if you take bare minimum squads with no upgrades you come off worse.

My problem is that my main unit's power level is higher than even their most expensive possible option/20!

 Peregrine wrote:
It's simple: FW followed the extremely basic rule that doubling a 5-man squad to a 10-man squad doubles the PL. It's good enough for an utterly broken and pointless system like PL, so why bother refining it more than that? The example just adds another reason to the list of why PL is a bad system and you should never use it.

Yup, that's exactly what they've done. The five-man squad is costed accurately. They've just doubled it for the ten-man.

TBH, I don't mind using power level for fun games at my gaming club - both players know each other, neither of us is going to abuse it, and even if we do end up with mismatched armies it's only one game. I have issues with it in this setting, even if it is a Narrative event, since we all know that there are always dicks who bring optimised armies to 'fun' events. So, you at least want to know that your fun, narrative army isn't going to get removed from the table by turn 2!

Honestly pl are for homebrew games. If you feel 8pl is too much for 10 men engineer squads then just pay 6pl for them instead, and tell your opponent why you did so if they care.

Gitdakka wrote:
Honestly pl are for homebrew games. If you feel 8pl is too much for 10 men engineer squads then just pay 6pl for them instead, and tell your opponent why you did so if they care.

What's the point in having army construction rules at all if you're just going to ignore them and bring whatever models you feel like taking, change any point costs you don't like, and assume that your opponent may not even care that you cheated and took an illegal list? I could almost understand if you discussed the issue with them before creating a list and understood that the answer is likely "no", but making the change and presenting it to them as a finished decision that they may or may not care about? that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
TBH, I don't mind using power level for fun games at my gaming club - both players know each other, neither of us is going to abuse it, and even if we do end up with mismatched armies it's only one game. I have issues with it in this setting, even if it is a Narrative event, since we all know that there are always dicks who bring optimised armies to 'fun' events. So, you at least want to know that your fun, narrative army isn't going to get removed from the table by turn 2!

All of what you describe can be done just as well by the conventional point system. Power levels, even when they don't actively make the game terrible, are completely redundant.

 Peregrine wrote:
The example just adds another reason to the list of why PL is a bad system and you should never use it.

Please show us exactly where the evil power level hurt you.

Seriously dude, PL are fine for a majority of people in my LGS, maybe you should accept that many players have a different perspective on the game.

Peregrine 759517 wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
TBH, I don't mind using power level for fun games at my gaming club - both players know each other, neither of us is going to abuse it, and even if we do end up with mismatched armies it's only one game. I have issues with it in this setting, even if it is a Narrative event, since we all know that there are always dicks who bring optimised armies to 'fun' events. So, you at least want to know that your fun, narrative army isn't going to get removed from the table by turn 2!

All of what you describe can be done just as well by the conventional point system. Power levels, even when they don't actively make the game terrible, are completely redundant.

Except the nights where you just bring some armies along, without a Battlescribe-running device in tow, and want to figure out some vaguely balanced forces in your head without trawling through points levels.

They're not as granular and balanced as points are.
They're better than just having a long discussion over what you both reckon is fair and taking that.
That's where they live. They're a good idea for that. Vague balance, easily changed, quick and easy army construction.

They're NOT great in this situation, where you don't know who you're playing and if it doesn't work out well, you're stuck with it for four more games!

Except you just categorically proved PL is broken...

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Except you just categorically proved PL is broken...

Except PL is absolutely fine in many real-life situations...

Look, I can do it too!

The fact that its Forge World is enough to tell you why the PL choices feel off. FW has done a horrrid job of converting their stuff to 8th, and their rules are generally not much better. I feel this is fhe major reason why GW priced most of tbeir models out of usability for matched play.

Ushtarador wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Except you just categorically proved PL is broken...

Except PL is absolutely fine in many real-life situations...

Look, I can do it too!

No it isn't. A squad of 6 Tactical Marines is how many PL from a 10 man squad with a Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon, and Combi-Plasma?

No it isn't. A squad of 6 Tactical Marines is how many PL from a 10 man squad with a Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon, and Combi-Plasma?

For many people this just isn't that important. They vastly prefer playing with an imperfect point system that allows them to throw together a list in 2 minutes than to open up Battlescribe. Their tactical squads will also always have one or two special weapons and an equipped Sergeant, because that's how tactical squads work in the fluff.

Ushtarador wrote:

No it isn't. A squad of 6 Tactical Marines is how many PL from a 10 man squad with a Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon, and Combi-Plasma?

For many people this just isn't that important. They vastly prefer playing with an imperfect point system that allows them to throw together a list in 2 minutes than to open up Battlescribe. Their tactical squads will also always have one or two special weapons and an equipped Sergeant, because that's how tactical squads work in the fluff.

You didn't answer the question.

What's the difference in Power Level for the scenario I just listed?

I don't know and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm sure you can answer the question yourself.

Ushtarador wrote:
For many people this just isn't that important. They vastly prefer playing with an imperfect point system that allows them to throw together a list in 2 minutes than to open up Battlescribe. Their tactical squads will also always have one or two special weapons and an equipped Sergeant, because that's how tactical squads work in the fluff.

So don't open up Battlescribe. Making lists is not that hard, once you've played a few games you'll pretty quickly start to memorize the point costs of your most common units/options without even trying and list building becomes very quick. I honestly have to wonder about the math skills of 40k players, if basic addition, something we expect small children to be able to do quickly and accurately, is such a huge burden for them.

I honestly have to wonder about the math skills of 40k players, if basic addition, something we expect small children to be able to do quickly and accurately, is such a huge burden for them.

You don't like Power Levels that's fine, you stick to points in your games. But you really should accept that there are people out there who prefer PL to points, and that it works fine for them.

 Peregrine wrote:

Ushtarador wrote:
For many people this just isn't that important. They vastly prefer playing with an imperfect point system that allows them to throw together a list in 2 minutes than to open up Battlescribe. Their tactical squads will also always have one or two special weapons and an equipped Sergeant, because that's how tactical squads work in the fluff.

So don't open up Battlescribe. Making lists is not that hard, once you've played a few games you'll pretty quickly start to memorize the point costs of your most common units/options without even trying and list building becomes very quick. I honestly have to wonder about the math skills of 40k players, if basic addition, something we expect small children to be able to do quickly and accurately, is such a huge burden for them.

Exactly. If you have a few different lists at different point levels, you bring the necessary models for those lists as there's probably going to a lot of overlap with the bigger lists. Or, if everyone in the same area plays at the same point level, newcomers can easily adjust to that. For example, in the SF bay area most people are doing 2000 points. You should maybe just have one for 1500 and one for 1750 in case.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ushtarador wrote:
I don't know and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm sure you can answer the question yourself.

It sounds like you're just afraid to answer the question actually.

I don't have premade lists for these types of games, I look at my collection and pick the units I feel like playing this day. And since I rarely take out my tactical terminators and Baal predators in competitive games, I actually have no idea how many points they cost.

And the games we have are still fun and leave both parties satisfied, even if we use a *terrible* system.

It sounds like you're just afraid to answer the question actually.

Or I'm not answering rethorical questions, it's an annoying style of debate you know.

Ushtarador wrote:
And since I rarely take out my tactical terminators and Baal predators in competitive games, I actually have no idea how many points they cost.

Why is this a problem? If you play with a unit so rarely that you have no idea what its point cost is then why are you bothering to bring it with you to a game? You clearly have no interest in using it, and you aren't going to use it regardless of how you add up the points for your list.

And the games we have are still fun and leave both parties satisfied, even if we use a *terrible* system.

I don't see what your point here is. Nobody ever claimed that the game can not be fun if PL was used to generate the lists, the point is that in any situation where PL can be used you can get the same or better results using the conventional point system. PL has no purpose, no reason to exist at all. It is, at best, a 100% redundant option.

It sounds like you're just afraid to answer the question actually.

Or I'm not answering rethorical questions, it's an annoying style of debate you know.

Why is this a problem? If you play with a unit so rarely that you have no idea what its point cost is then why are you bothering to bring it with you to a game? You clearly have no interest in using it, and you aren't going to use it regardless of how you add up the points for your list.

I don't bring them to competitive games - which is pretty much the opposite of a PL game. I love the models, but they are not suitable for tournament games.

I don't see what your point here is. Nobody ever claimed that the game can not be fun if PL was used to generate the lists, the point is that in any situation where PL can be used you can get the same or better results using the conventional point system. PL has no purpose, no reason to exist at all. It is, at best, a 100% redundant option.

It would pretty much result in exactly the same kind of game, but with more hassle during list building.

Ushtarador wrote:
I don't bring them to competitive games - which is pretty much the opposite of a PL game. I love the models, but they are not suitable for tournament games.

So you do bring them to games, and if you played those games with the conventional point system instead of power points you'd quickly memorize their point costs.

It would pretty much result in exactly the same kind of game, but with more hassle during list building.

More hassle by a negligible amount, assuming even basic competence at math.

Yeah, because appreciating a quick list building system means you must be really bad at math.

meleti wrote:
Yeah, because appreciating a quick list building system means you must be really bad at math.

It does when the other list building system, which is more accurate in evaluating the strength of a unit, is effectively just as fast if you are competent at basic math. Adding 5 + 3 + 10 + 3 + 4 + 7 isn't meaningfully faster than adding 50 + 150 + 120 + 45 + 15, especially when you're pulling out your phone and adding up both sets of numbers on the calculator.