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 vipoid wrote:
So, here's an idea, how about we all take some of our recent lists and convert them from points to PL (or vice versa).

Let's assume that 20pts = 1PL. So a 1500pt list would be the equivalent of 75PL, 2000pts would be 100PL etc.

- If you convert your lists directly (not changing any gear), do they end up more or less expensive with the alternate system?

- If you're converting from PL to points, is there a lot of gear you'd choose to remove? Do you think it will make much difference?

- If you're converting from points to PL, is there a lot of gear you'd choose to add? Do you think it will make much difference, or is mostly just stuff you'd add for the sake of it?

I did this in another thread. My 2000 pt Astra MIlitarum list is 128 points. Many of my squads take little or no wargear, or cheap options. For example, I have a Shadowsword with no sponsons, infantry with no weapons, mortar heavy weapons squads instead of Lascannon squads, commanders with bare bones wargear, etc.

Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

Racerguy180 wrote:

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

PL DOES NOT DO THIS.

PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades, but list building and point efficiency still decide games.

 Peregrine wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

PL DOES NOT DO THIS.

PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades, but list building and point efficiency still decide games.

Maybe so. But the critical thing you're missing is that some people don't care about deciding games. That's the crux of it.

Maybe 40k games will always be decided on what units and equipment you took, regardless if those things were paid for in points or power level. That's absolutely superfluous to someone who just plays for the sake of playing, and not to try and win/optimize their lists for the best chances of winning. For them, the fun comes from simply playing with models and units they like, regardless of the granularity of points and the better potential of balance that could provide.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

PL DOES NOT DO THIS.

PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades, but list building and point efficiency still decide games.

Maybe so. But the critical thing you're missing is that some people don't care about deciding games. That's the crux of it.

Maybe 40k games will always be decided on what units and equipment you took, regardless if those things were paid for in points or power level. That's absolutely superfluous to someone who just plays for the sake of playing, and not to try and win/optimize their lists for the best chances of winning. For them, the fun comes from simply playing with models and units they like, regardless of the granularity of points and the better potential of balance that could provide.

Why use points or power level at all then?

 mew28 wrote:
Why use points or power level at all then?

Why indeed.
For some, I can imagine it is to create a "rough" guideline and estimate without needing to micromanage all the minute details.

 Peregrine wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

PL DOES NOT DO THIS.

PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades, but list building and point efficiency still decide games.

No. PL allows you to tailor an army to an opponent while still keeping to the published list. As all load outs are 'free' and included in the PL price, there is no need to state what weapons are used. If I say I'm using a tactical squad of 10 marines (9 PL), that's all you need to know until we get to the table. If you're bringing a Baneblade, I don't need to know the weapons, just that I have 30 PL points to spare finding a way to bring it down.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 mew28 wrote:
Why use points or power level at all then?

Why indeed.
For some, I can imagine it is to create a "rough" guideline and estimate without needing to micromanage all the minute details.

Could you not do the same thing then as just saying bring a 2k list with in 200 points?

Racerguy180 wrote:
This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

I gotta disagree with you. There's a lot of importance on knowing what to tools to bring to the job. I get that dice rolls and randomness are important to some degree, but relying too much on that means that there's no strategy at all and you might as well just be out playing craps.

 Peregrine wrote:
PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades

Is that suggestion based on theory hammer or extensive first hand experience?

Having never played with PL at all I think it's best when used as described by some people here. To make plug and play lists if you didn't bring any real lists. The system itself is hot garbage in my opinion but if you use it to make a list out of squads build with points in mind, so no freebie upgrades, it can work.
I personally greatly enjoy list building so I will always favour points over PL, with points there's actual trade offs to be made with PL it is just slap on whatever's best because why wouldn't you.

Peregrine wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

nareik wrote:
Something I've enjoyed recently with PL is taking a fixed army in terms of units/sizes but being able to plug in different special or heavy weapons and different squad leader/character load outs on the fly without having to balance a change in points values.

It does miss the opposite attraction of points though; treating list building as a resource management mini game trying to build a 'good list'. I.e a weapon option costs the same no matter what model you put it on, so you need to work out which model gets the best value out of that weapon. Likewise, there is the element of working out how many casualties a squad might take before it shoots/fights and using that estimate to guide how many models should bother to take paid upgrades.

I see how people who pride themselves on writing 'good lists' might be disappointed with PL removing these aspects and as such view PL as eroding their 'good list building' advantage.

This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

PL DOES NOT DO THIS.

PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades, but list building and point efficiency still decide games.

Not necessarily. What it does is is ignore the point of trade-offs for an all-comers list. More expensive weapons are not always better. If I'm facing off against Infantry spam, the more expensive Lascannons would actually be of a detriment against the much cheaper Heavy Bolters and Mortars.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
This is exactly why GW introduced PL, you shouldnt be able to win the game in the list building stage. The dice rolling (i.e. RANDOM)should always have more impact on the game than efficiency in lists.

I gotta disagree with you. There's a lot of importance on knowing what to tools to bring to the job. I get that dice rolls and randomness are important to some degree, but relying too much on that means that there's no strategy at all and you might as well just be out playing craps.

PL does that just fine, in fact, it allows you to concentrate on the tools to bring to the job instead of having to worry about trade offs in order to reach an all comers balance.

 Castozor wrote:
with PL it is just slap on whatever's best because why wouldn't you.

Not entirely true; I suggest consideration still needs to be paid to how a unit will be used on the table, i.e whether it is worth swapping out a melee guy for a heavy in a close combat orientated squad. To make objective grabbers area denial, but not to over project their destructive threat as to make them priority targets by equipping them with overly powerful very long ranged weapons. Sure, there is less fine tuning than points, but things are still a little more complicated than just giving everybody a lascannon.

nareik wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades

Is that suggestion based on theory hammer or extensive first hand experience?

It's theoryhammer, She doesn't have any first hand experience with power level.

 Charistoph wrote:
PL does that just fine, in fact, it allows you to concentrate on the tools to bring to the job instead of having to worry about trade offs in order to reach an all comers balance.

Sorry, man- I've never seen any real 'fair and balanced' games using Power Levels. For example, a Deathwatch squad's power level can be very, very misleading- especially with some of the loadouts you can put on there.

Yeah, you can bring 'the right tools for the job'... without worrying about restrictions. That's kind of defeating the purpose of having a balanced game.

In terms of proper balance, points do better than PL.

With the exception of demonstration games, and testing a few things- the only people I've ever seen using PL are maxing out everything to take on some new player and get an insta-win. It's a good learning tool for newbies that's easily exploited by the absolute scum of wargaming.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

nareik wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
PL changes what list is the best, usually to one with all of the most expensive upgrades

Is that suggestion based on theory hammer or extensive first hand experience?

It's theoryhammer, She doesn't have any first hand experience with power level.

well I won't fault Peregrine if that is true because the best I can do is conjecture based off my own limited experience, which is little better.

In the end, just look at the results of the poll. Unless your specific group does power levels, if you want to go and just play a random game with someone new, your gonna use points, so just have some lists ready to go at common points values.

If you want to use power level, do what you want, but the majority do not agree, and we prefer points as the measure of army strength.

Also depends on where you are.

The GW store here is mostly power level. And I'd say only a small handful even pay attention to online polls, which makes polls iffy.

Power Points is a dysfunctional system that encourages both WAAC and CAAC gameplay. Avoid at all costs.

So after playing a lot of AoS, im liking not caring about adding points for wargear, they still use points per unit and model (not PL) if you take a unit of 10, each model is 10 points so the unit is 100pts, but you must upgrade by 10 instead of by 1 model. You get all wargear for 0 points (it has restrictions still, like 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 for a Banner, Horn, Weapon, etc..)

I dont like PL b.c numbers are to low to actually balance the game, if a unit is 4PL its very hard to balance, making it 3PL or 5PL (1 less for a buff, or more for a nerf) could make it either unbalance or unplayable. But when its 100pts, making it 90 or 95 could be just enough to balance it better.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
PL does that just fine, in fact, it allows you to concentrate on the tools to bring to the job instead of having to worry about trade offs in order to reach an all comers balance.

Sorry, man- I've never seen any real 'fair and balanced' games using Power Levels. For example, a Deathwatch squad's power level can be very, very misleading- especially with some of the loadouts you can put on there.

Yeah, you can bring 'the right tools for the job'... without worrying about restrictions. That's kind of defeating the purpose of having a balanced game.

In terms of proper balance, points do better than PL.

With the exception of demonstration games, and testing a few things- the only people I've ever seen using PL are maxing out everything to take on some new player and get an insta-win. It's a good learning tool for newbies that's easily exploited by the absolute scum of wargaming.

Um, I don't think you understood what I meant about an "all comers balance". It was not about balanced games, and if you've been reading my posts you would know that I don't see any balance in any of GW's point balance, nor have I in a long time.

An "all comers balance" is a balance of equipment, the balancing of anti-vehicle/monster with anti-infantry in your army to face whatever you come across instead of focusing completely on one or the other. It has zero relationship with creating a balanced game, just an approach to army building.

With points, previously someone may choose to take a Missile Launcher instead of a Lascannon because the price points involved. Oddly enough, the Missile Launcher also tended to be the most flexible Heavy Weapon available to an Infantry model, though less effective in damaging Vehicles and Monster than the Missile Launcher.

 Charistoph wrote:
Um, I don't think you understood what I meant about an "all comers balance". It was not about balanced games, and if you've been reading my posts you would know that I don't see any balance in any of GW's point balance, nor have I in a long time.

An "all comers balance" is a balance of equipment, the balancing of anti-vehicle/monster with anti-infantry in your army to face whatever you come across instead of focusing completely on one or the other. It has zero relationship with creating a balanced game, just an approach to army building.

With points, previously someone may choose to take a Missile Launcher instead of a Lascannon because the price points involved. Oddly enough, the Missile Launcher also tended to be the most flexible Heavy Weapon available to an Infantry model, though less effective in damaging Vehicles and Monster than the Missile Launcher.

So you're saying that PL games are the option for tailoring lists to a specific opponent, and points are for 'all comers'...?

I'm not sure this makes any sense at all. I can use points to make a list for an 'all comers' tournament list, or for a specific scenario. I don't see how PL makes that any different at all.

PL doesnt make you TAC list instantly, many units are built for role, if you make a unit with 1 anti-horde, 1 anti-air, 1 anti-tank, its going to be a mediocre unit, sure you can shoot each 1 weapon at each 1 type of unit, but thats 1 weapon with maybe the wrong buffs, in the wrong spot, might have to preposition into a wrong spot just to get 1 extra shot off, etc..

PL can be just as balanced if the game is design around them, look at AoS, works just fine. But for 40k its not balanced b.c the game isnt balance and they didnt take a good 2nd look at them.

Yes PL doesn't make a lot of sense when you have units with lots of varying upgrades. It would make sense for say Boyz if all you could choose were slugga/choppa or shoota. But with PL, why not throw a rokkit launcha or 2 in there, melee efficiency hardly matters and you might as well try for a few lucky pot shots.

PL makes sense if you assume maximum "abuse" in your pricing. Price units with options under the assumption those options will be taken.

Things like Devestators with a Cherub. Why would you not take the Cherub? So bake it into the price. No abuse of the PL system, just the assumption you'd take one. And Voxes. And Plasma Pistols. And Power Weapons. And Hookers. And Blackjack. Take it all, and have the PL reflect that.

 Charistoph wrote:

PL does that just fine, in fact, it allows you to concentrate on the tools to bring to the job instead of having to worry about trade offs in order to reach an all comers balance.

but for how many armies is this true? plasma does not suddenly stop being the dominant weapon of choice for imperials, castellans are just the same good. All power points do, is to help people with bigger collections or armies with upgrades that don't require actual models, to get one over people who have a normal army and claim moral superiority by claims of Power Levels being more casual and for fun.

And for weaker armies you would worry even more, then what you do under normal points. under normal points the armies and set ups are fixed. If someone was buying a 2000pts army, you know what is in that army. With power points someone with a bigger collection could have an anti orc list one game and an anti meq army in another. It is tailoring taken to the extrem, which punish armies that can't tailor even further. how does it help balance? It only makes the gap wider, because suddenly one army can tailor vs meq or vs horde, depending on the opponent. While the person with the army that can do it is punished at least twice. First by his squads going up in cost by virtue of upgrades being build in to unit costs, then by not being able to tailor and their opponents getting even better at killing them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
PL makes sense if you assume maximum "abuse" in your pricing. Price units with options under the assumption those options will be taken.

Things like Devestators with a Cherub. Why would you not take the Cherub? So bake it into the price. No abuse of the PL system, just the assumption you'd take one. And Voxes. And Plasma Pistols. And Power Weapons. And Hookers. And Blackjack. Take it all, and have the PL reflect that.

Ok and how about armies that don't want to take upgrades, because their upgrades are bad. You don't want to run GK heavy weapons in your strike squads, they make your units worse. Same with termintors or paladins. yet Power level take in to account the fact that you do take those options, just because they are there.

If you price units assuming the upgrades are taken, then those "worsened" units become cheaper.

Or they simply don't cost points... they're a lateral promotion of sorts.

Oki but what if I want to run a horde style list were I purposely don't want upgrades so I can have more bodies? Points allow for this, PL does not.

 Castozor wrote:
Oki but what if I want to run a horde style list were I purposely don't want upgrades so I can have more bodies? Points allow for this, PL does not.

What if I don't want ATSKNF? Can I shave a couple points off all units that have it?