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Random thought on the upcoming CA and many of the rumours that X is getting a points decrease:
Does a 20% decrease really make much difference?

For example, if enough units get reduced in the Marine codex so that most lists end up being 20% cheaper, what could you get out of that?
On the small scale, if a Tactical Marine goes from 13ppm to 11ppm, you'd only get 1 more Marine per about 5. Is that really that big a difference?

I guess what I am asking is, what would you add to a 2000pt Marine or GK list to take advantage of roughly 200-400pts that was freed up?
How would it help compete against DE, Knights, or some other common opponent that your list struggles against?

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Well, my Space Wolves would add a Predator tank, or two Razorback tanks.

My guardsmen would lose probably a squad of rifles and a heavy weapon or two.

That's enough for another havoc squad, or a basilisk or something (IW Spearhead/RnH Batallion). It'd be pretty nice to be able to field another havoc squad or something like that.

If everything in the Marine book become 20% cheaper, it's like you could add a 10-man Termie squad to your list for free.

Marines might not be doing great, but their best lists with another 400 points of stuff would be good.

Bharring wrote:
If everything in the Marine book become 20% cheaper, it's like you could add a 10-man Termie squad to your list for free.

Marines might not be doing great, but their best lists with another 400 points of stuff would be good.

Where are you hearing marines are getting a 20% price cut, and why on gods green earth would you conclude that would apply to the units people are spamming like Smash Captains, Guilliman, etc?

 Marmatag wrote:
Where are you hearing marines are getting a 20% price cut, and why on gods green earth would you conclude that would apply to the units people are spamming like Smash Captains, Guilliman, etc?

It's a thought experiment...

Well that's kind of a silly exercise, because that would mean that huge expensive forgeworld units would get 20% cheaper, and people would be bringing those.

Is it more or less silly than putting together and painting 50-100 little toy soldiers, then rolling dice, chanting "Pew pew", and admiring imaginary explosions?

Bharring wrote:
...50-100 little toy soldiers...

But what if I want to play over 500 points?

(-:

This is a thought experiment based on RUMOURS that SOME units are getting a 20% discount via Chapter Approved, but not all.
Current rumour is that Marines are getting cheaper and Guard/Cultists are getting more expensive. By how much, we don't know.

It just occurred to me that even a full-on 20% drop on most units wouldn't really get you much more than 1-2 more units of something.
And likewise, if several armies can field more stuff, that's more that can kill the extra stuff you brought.

Kinda seems pointless (pun intended)

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400 free points in a 2000 pts list seemed to work out fine for the Gladius Strike Force.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
400 free points in a 2000 pts list seemed to work out fine for the Gladius Strike Force.

My memory of 7th is getting kinda blurry these day (seems I'm repressing those memories) but didn't Gladius get a lot more than 400 points worth of transports? Still your right, one or two point reductions on troops probably only make a difference in aggregate, because it's not like your going to take more tac marines, instead you'll pay less on troop tax, and spend more on killy bits for your army.

Suppose Tau Crisis suits go to 30 points base, down from 42.

That means you can take 3.6 additional drones per 3 man team. That's a really big deal when it comes to increasing the survivability of Crisis suits.

The same goes for Space Marines. If you get a free 400 points in your current list, you're going to add more guns or more mobility or more something. It's a big deal. it's a free Repulsor and then some, because everything you're adding also get cheaper too.

With 400 more points in a competitive SW list, I could take 10 more Wulfen with 8 TH and SS. That would have a noticeable impact for sure.

I'd bring more marines. Always bring more marines. And when they tell you that marines are useless and uncompetitive you just bring more marines. And when you do lose, and you will lose, you get to lose happy with the knowledge you brought more marines to die for the Emperor.

No but really, for more people they'll just bring more soup... I like my fluffy space marine lists though and hope they never go away.

400 pts in an AdMech list is 40 pts short for 4 Kastelan Robots so that's huge. Or it could be worth it to add more than min Battalion squads of Troops for once, would sure be glad to feel like they're useful. Or even Kataphrons ! Could add 3 Onagers if the Rule of 3 wasn't enforced at my LGS too.

But for AdMech it's a codex problem coupled with some points problems, like GK but much much less worse.

For my DA I could bring another 10 man squad of Hellblasters, although that would make 25 Hellblasters, maybe a bit much. Then my other choices would be 20 Intercessors or 8 Inceptors. These Gravis dudes are the best dakka DA can provide.

 Marmatag wrote:
Well that's kind of a silly exercise, because that would mean that huge expensive forgeworld units would get 20% cheaper, and people would be bringing those.

He said Codex, not Index.

I think its a bigger difference then you think. The points are not really going to be sunk into another crappy unit meant to sit on objectives; you already bought that tax. The points go towards killy stuff. Generally speaking as well lets say ca makes your army 150 points cheaper and you dont get tabled turn 1 ever;thats 150 points that are stixking around extra for most/all of the game potentially you wouldnt have had. Like if your friend brought 2200 points and you brought 2000 points their 200 points from 2000-2200 are more valuable then your 200 points from 1800-2000 because things snowball.

Everything "getting 20% cheaper" is quite different than "some units become 20% cheaper". If termies and tacticals become cheaper while vehicles and HQs remain the same it's like having 60-80 points available to invest at most, probably even less, and certainly not enough to fit one tank, let alone two of them.

I don't think that a tipycal SM list will get more than 50-80 more points to invest thanks to the new costs of some units. Most of the units that will get a discount are probably some among the less competitive ones. If 3 units of tacticals cost -30 points in total and 5 termies cost -20 points are they now a competitive choice? Would you bring them to the table because now the whole combo is 50 points cheaper? I expect competitive SM players keep bringing scouts and guardsmen, even if the little AM soldier become 6ppm.

 Grimgold wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
400 free points in a 2000 pts list seemed to work out fine for the Gladius Strike Force.

My memory of 7th is getting kinda blurry these day (seems I'm repressing those memories) but didn't Gladius get a lot more than 400 points worth of transports? Still your right, one or two point reductions on troops probably only make a difference in aggregate, because it's not like your going to take more tac marines, instead you'll pay less on troop tax, and spend more on killy bits for your army.

400 is actually a little bit high. No one really took razorbacks so it was just naked rhinos and drop pods.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
This is a thought experiment based on RUMOURS that SOME units are getting a 20% discount via Chapter Approved, but not all.
Current rumour is that Marines are getting cheaper and Guard/Cultists are getting more expensive. By how much, we don't know.

It just occurred to me that even a full-on 20% drop on most units wouldn't really get you much more than 1-2 more units of something.
And likewise, if several armies can field more stuff, that's more that can kill the extra stuff you brought.

Kinda seems pointless (pun intended)

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You're thinking about it the wrong way. You're thinking about the unit in a vacuum in terms of 'what else can I bring as a result of these being cheaper' and that's ONLY relevant if they were already the best option available to you and you were cramming your list full of them.

The thing that matters isn't 'how much more stuff can I bring now that these are cheaper' the question is 'Now that these are cheaper, are they better than the thing I was bringing instead?'. If a 20% points drop was enough to make a Stormsurge better than an equivalent points value of Riptides, then yes it's a very big deal.

A 20% drop across all units seems massively unlikely, so I'd probably adjust the thought experiment a little bit to only include the more basic units. In the case of SM that would be any non-character in Power Armour and Terminators. Even dropping 2 points per PA model and 3 per Terminator, most current SM armies would get back maybe 100 points at the most. That doesn't get you much extra, frankly.

I think the most successful lists to take advantage of the points drops will probably have to start from scratch and not just adjust their current armies.

The only people who profit are GW as it means you can buy more models.

Having said that, points increases / decreases are not necessarily the best way to go about bringing balance. If GW had a vast amount of data on how each faction interacts and performs against every other faction, which I am sure they don't, then that would allow for rules amends which make sense.

Failing that, get rid of allies full stop - although that would be a fairly disingenuous solution.

Slipspace wrote:
A 20% drop across all units seems massively unlikely, so I'd probably adjust the thought experiment a little bit to only include the more basic units. In the case of SM that would be any non-character in Power Armour and Terminators. Even dropping 2 points per PA model and 3 per Terminator, most current SM armies would get back maybe 100 points at the most. That doesn't get you much extra, frankly.

I think the most successful lists to take advantage of the points drops will probably have to start from scratch and not just adjust their current armies.

This is like I said earlier, it's not about 'How much more stuff can i bring as a result of these units being cheaper?' it's 'Now that these are cheaper, are they better than the thing I was bringing instead' The important gains made by points changes are in opportunity cost, not raw 'saved x points in y list'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
The only people who profit are GW as it means you can buy more models.

Having said that, points increases / decreases are not necessarily the best way to go about bringing balance. If GW had a vast amount of data on how each faction interacts and performs against every other faction, which I am sure they don't, then that would allow for rules amends which make sense.

Failing that, get rid of allies full stop - although that would be a fairly disingenuous solution.

You railroaded this away from the original post pretty hard here. The question posed was 'what difference does a 20% points change actually make? Is it significant?' not 'Should we have allies in 40k?'. That's a whole different thread.

 Galef wrote:
Random thought on the upcoming CA and many of the rumours that X is getting a points decrease:
Does a 20% decrease really make much difference?

For example, if enough units get reduced in the Marine codex so that most lists end up being 20% cheaper, what could you get out of that?
On the small scale, if a Tactical Marine goes from 13ppm to 11ppm, you'd only get 1 more Marine per about 5. Is that really that big a difference?

I guess what I am asking is, what would you add to a 2000pt Marine or GK list to take advantage of roughly 200-400pts that was freed up?
How would it help compete against DE, Knights, or some other common opponent that your list struggles against?

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Would you want to play 2000 vs my 2400 pts?

I think I could come up with loads of use for extra 400 pts.

Don't play ATM with marines so not sure what I would add but let's say if orks got 20% decrease what could I add with that 400 pts...12 smasha guns? I'm pretty sure that would have quite an impact to the list. Or some more counter attack support like big unit of nobz ready to come out of deep strike. Lots of ways to improve list significantly with 400 pts...

Better question is are marines really such a bad shape that this big price drop would be neccessary...And this would do nothing to solve internal balance issue.

ERJAK wrote:


This is like I said earlier, it's not about 'How much more stuff can i bring as a result of these units being cheaper?' it's 'Now that these are cheaper, are they better than the thing I was bringing instead' The important gains made by points changes are in opportunity cost, not raw 'saved x points in y list'.

It depends. I mean 5pts termies would be taken because why not, but I don't think a 20% points decrease will make a huge difference because it doesn't change the codex profiles and synergies. In other words it doesn't affect SM style of playing, it's just a reduction in some units' costs. To make termies worthy there's no need of a points drop because they're not overcosted or at least significantly overcosted, they just lack synergy with an army that seems to be designed to be AM -1. With SW I get +1 to hit in combat for free, +1 or 2 attacks and re-rolls thanks to solid buffing auras, because SW do have some effective synergies in combat but vanilla marines?

A 20% points drop doesn't make any difference for those units that don't have an impact in a competitive game. I don't expect people taking 11ppm tacticals over 6-7 ppm guardsmen for example, because if their role is to have more cheap wounds and CPs on the table then guardsmen are still more suited than tacticals.

People would take 11 point tacticals over 6-7 guardsmen. Guardsmen would start to be a bit crap at that price. I think 11/5 is about the balancing point. This is a major change from 13/4. Even 12/5 is a good step.

On the question it obviously it depends on what you are taking. As said its unlikely all units would get a 20% reduction.

But in a universal world you would take more storm ravens, aggressors, devastators, hellblasters etc. Right now the Redemptor and Repulsor are very meh for their points - but if you could just bring along an additional 2 on top of everything you currently have it seems weird to say they would have no impact on the game. Same for say 3 Predators or Vindicators.

If all armies get the 20%, then the state of the game will only skew more in favour of already good factions. If only some units get the point drop, well then it depends on which units. 80pts brotherhood champ is still meh as an HQ, but strike costing 16-17 pts would be a lot better.

It shouldn't matter much in the best vs worse match ups, but could shake up the top of the meta. At least as far as what the top units are. With big points drop, and maybe a rule tweek, suddenly warp spiders could be better then s spears and reapers.

My local group plays 1000 points to be able to get more games in, so I'd get an extra 240 points worth of Marines at the current prices.

My current list is a Raven Guard smash captain leading 7 Vanguard Veterans, a other plain Captain buffing three Tac squads and a Scout squad with assorted heavy weapons, an Ancient, and a Stormtalon (mostly for giggles but also because -1 to hit fits with the RG).

With an extra 240 I could take the Lieutenant that the fire-supoort block is missing with enough left over for a couple more Tac squads. From there I could replace the Ancient with another Lieutenant and split the list into two Battalions for the extra 5 CP, that would make a significant difference to how effective the list is.

What is this post? :S

'Is 20% really all that much?'... Yes... It's 20% or 1/5.

If you take 20% away from a 2k list, you can add 400pts worth of goodness. There is a LOT you can do with 400pts.

When people are min:maxing their lists they are considering the implications of wargear that often costs <10pts, never mind 400

Also I'm yet to see a tournament with rules stating: 'Bring around 2000-2400pts worth of units, because what could that extra 20% achieve?'

crzylgs wrote:
What is this post? :S

'Is 20% really all that much?'... Yes... It's 20% or 1/5.

If you take 20% away from a 2k list, you can add 400pts worth of goodness. There is a LOT you can do with 400pts.

When people are min:maxing their lists they are considering the implications of wargear that often costs <10pts, never mind 400

Also I'm yet to see a tournament with rules stating: 'Bring around 2000-2400pts worth of units, because what could that extra 20% achieve?'

Only 400pts is not the same thing for all armies. 400pts of eldar or knights, is not the same thing as taking 400pts of GK. So again the changes to really change stuff would have to be very specific and happen to very specific models and armies the most. If everything gets a 20% drop, or even just hte most used stuff. You will just end up playing games which would be 2400pts right now, only with a 2000pts label. And maybe there are some armies which are middle pack now, but at 2200 or 2300 become broken. But I doubt playing 2400 suddenly fixs most 8th ed problems.