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 Ginjitzu wrote:
Does Power Level not often result in dramatic imbalance? I'm very much a narrative player myself, but I don't think I've ever played a game without points that wasn't a tutorial of some sort.

Not really. At least not more than the point system does.

It makes some units weaker, other stronger. But it's not creating imbalances worse than exist in the base game between, dunno, mono Khorne Daemons and Iron Hands, or internal-balance wise a Kroot-based Tau army vs a Trip-Tide & millions of Drones Tau army, etc..

Mostly it's a wash.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Ginjitzu wrote:
Does Power Level not often result in dramatic imbalance? I'm very much a narrative player myself, but I don't think I've ever played a game without points that wasn't a tutorial of some sort.

Not really. At least not more than the point system does.

It makes some units weaker, other stronger. But it's not creating imbalances worse than exist in the base game between, dunno, mono Khorne Daemons and Iron Hands, or internal-balance wise a Kroot-based Tau army vs a Trip-Tide & millions of Drones Tau army, etc..

Mostly it's a wash.

This. I'd just suggest enforcing WYSIWYG because for our group some people weren't fans of models having "all the gear!" despite being modeled with nothing but bolters.

 EnTyme wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And how can you say the Thunder Hammer is worth the cost of half a character?

He did:

- I can see it is very popular in the meta
- There are numerous relics that improve TH than the PF
- I can do mathhammer to determine the value
- An increase of 166% is not typically severe for a popular tool
- I can ask if people will still use this unit after the point increase (yes they will)

So to determine whether the pts cost for a given unit or option is correct all we have to do is some initial mathematical analysis coupled with feedback from playtesters and also maybe accounting for perceived popularity based on tournament results? What a brilliant idea! Maybe the results of this analysis could even be compiled in a single document for ease of reference. The document could then be updated periodically, like maybe annually? The Chapters of this document would then serve as the Approved source for all the most up-to-date pts cost of every unit and option in the game!

Somebody should really look into doing that.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And how can you say the Thunder Hammer is worth the cost of half a character?

He did:

- I can see it is very popular in the meta
- There are numerous relics that improve TH than the PF
- I can do mathhammer to determine the value
- An increase of 166% is not typically severe for a popular tool
- I can ask if people will still use this unit after the point increase (yes they will)

So to determine whether the pts cost for a given unit or option is correct all we have to do is some initial mathematical analysis coupled with feedback from playtesters and also maybe accounting for perceived popularity based on tournament results? What a brilliant idea! Maybe the results of this analysis could even be compiled in a single document for ease of reference. The document could then be updated periodically, like maybe annually? The Chapters of this document would then serve as the Approved source for all the most up-to-date pts cost of every unit and option in the game!

Somebody should really look into doing that.

I'm unsure what the purpose of this remark is?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Damn, because our techmarine had like a 50% point drop.

Which is entirely inline with other techmarine drops and he's even 10 points more to account for casting ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
So here's a question, if we assume that the CA Neophyte cost is an obvious mistake, how do you determine what the correct cost is?

Do you just use the old one and assume that it wasn't meant to be changed at all? Do you just make one up and claim that it's correct are closer to the mark?

That's a discussion for whomever you're playing with. In my opinion the fair choice with no risk of balance issues is to use the old cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

- An increase of 166% is not typically severe for a popular tool
How can you determine that? Would Wraithknights going 300 to 480 last edition have been "reasonable"? Obviously not...

There is a subjective gradient. You may not feel like a 40 point TH is fair, but then your opinion could be based on the fact that you might like using smash captains. I could otherwise disagree, because I might be sick of getting smacked by multiple smash captains. Neither of those ends are particularly relevant if people are still taking them in lists.

You could say that some people don't have a relic TH so it isn't worth it, but that really doesn't matter either, because not all armies need all tools to be hyper-efficient. Could GW price TH differently for each chapter? Sure, but then you're opening a whole other can of balancing worms. Relics should perhaps cost points, but we're not there yet.

Now, at least, power fists are a (slightly more) viable option in comparison.

Smash w/ PF is 102.

5 * .777 * .5 * .5 * 2 = 1.94 ; 102 / 1.94 = 52 points per damage

Smash w/ TH is 133

5 * .777 * .5 * .5 * 3 = 2.91 ; 133 / 2.91 = 45.7 points per damage

See how the TH is STILL more efficient? You might balk at the difference between the TH and PF, but when you take into effect REAL costs the flat 3 damage weights heavily in favor of the TH.

Still more efficient against WHAT though? You completely forgot to make mention of that didn't you?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And how can you say the Thunder Hammer is worth the cost of half a character?

He did:

- I can see it is very popular in the meta
- There are numerous relics that improve TH than the PF
- I can do mathhammer to determine the value
- An increase of 166% is not typically severe for a popular tool
- I can ask if people will still use this unit after the point increase (yes they will)

So to determine whether the pts cost for a given unit or option is correct all we have to do is some initial mathematical analysis coupled with feedback from playtesters and also maybe accounting for perceived popularity based on tournament results? What a brilliant idea! Maybe the results of this analysis could even be compiled in a single document for ease of reference. The document could then be updated periodically, like maybe annually? The Chapters of this document would then serve as the Approved source for all the most up-to-date pts cost of every unit and option in the game!

Somebody should really look into doing that.

I'm unsure what the purpose of this remark is?

The process you describe for ascertaining whether a given pts cost is correct or a typo is basically the process one would follow to determine the pts cost period. So if we need to do this ourselves what's the purpose of GW's gakky book? Is CA a compilation of official pts cost or just a set of suggested pts cost for us to use as a starting point for our own game-balancing exercise?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Still more efficient against WHAT though? You completely forgot to make mention of that didn't you?

You can clearly see they're applied in a like for like scenario. They're literally the same weapon except one is D3 damage and the other is flat 3 damage.

Unless you intend to construct an absurd scenario for a use the TH isn't built for to make a strawman.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

The process you describe for ascertaining whether a given pts cost is correct or a typo is basically the process one would follow to determine the pts cost period. So if we need to do this ourselves what's the purpose of GW's gakky book? Is CA a compilation of official pts cost or just a set of suggested pts cost for us to use as a starting point for our own game-balancing exercise?

You've gone way off in left field.

People here have, in bad faith, made themselves confused about what points are correct, because of some typos. Typos of which there are likely two - Neos and Ogryns. Things like R&H very evidently fall under a scenario where they didn't review FW points, because of new books coming.

Then we have thunderhammers, which people can't get their heads around, because they mentally disagree with the visual of the number, but don't bother to think about it any more than that. They already knew Smash Captains were popular and effective, but for some reason a point increase on the weapon is too much to handle and it gets washed up in a strawman about how to approach the book.

There are more than two typos in the book. The entire space wolf fast attack section is a reprint of the INDEX and the deatwatch section has issues as well.

I want clarity on the SW fast attack because it seems that thunder wolf cavalry need a points reduction that they didn't get and proper SW fast attack points values/unit sizes would clear that up (finally crush my dreams of playing TWC in a competitive army).

bananathug wrote:
There are more than two typos in the book. The entire space wolf fast attack section is a reprint of the INDEX and the deatwatch section has issues as well.

I want clarity on the SW fast attack because it seems that thunder wolf cavalry need a points reduction that they didn't get and proper SW fast attack points values/unit sizes would clear that up (finally crush my dreams of playing TWC in a competitive army).

Ok, fair enough - I forget about SW as most people should (just kidding, but Magnus did nothing wrong). That doesn't prevent us from being objective about the rest. It's also a kind of typo that is... less about decision making or an errant key press.

The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

I somehow doubt it would destroy society to fix a printing error.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

Which ones are wrong? Why are those ones you choose to be wrong are wrong but the ones I choose to be wrong are actually correct?

That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

It's almost like the whole thing was just smoke and mirrors to sucker in bittervets back to 8th, grab their cash then start producing toys instead of miniatures. Now that the shine has worn off they can go back to business as usual by writing overpowered rules to shift models like they did with the introduction of flyers and knights. The difference is now they've taken a page out of Riot's playbook and nerd the op thing after the fact to get people to buy the newest op thing.

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

I agree the radio silence is BS. I have sent weekly emails to them imploring them to release some kind of statement.

The hold back is more than just fixing tiny errors in my estimation - it is possibly an attempt to them to tone down bigger issues like the efficiency of TFCs after having collected LVO results. If that is the case I'd expect them to release something within a week or two from now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darsath wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

I somehow doubt it would destroy society to fix a printing error.

I was being facetious.

Personally, I think a simple post to fix the GSC issue like "use the points printed in the Codex and not in Chapter Approved" would be at least a decent hold-over for the real FAQ. That is assuming that the FAQ has a legitimate and reasonable explanation for its delay and for the radio silence.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

I agree the radio silence is BS. I have sent weekly emails to them imploring them to release some kind of statement.

The hold back is more than just fixing tiny errors in my estimation - it is possibly an attempt to them to tone down bigger issues like the efficiency of TFCs after having collected LVO results. If that is the case I'd expect them to release something within a week or two from now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darsath wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

I somehow doubt it would destroy society to fix a printing error.

I was being facetious.

It's been "in just a week or two " for over two months now. Why can't gw just release a statement saying they know there's problems and that they are working on addressing them? They've been keeping with the normal faq schedule for every other release in this time.

Darsath wrote:
Personally, I think a simple post to fix the GSC issue like "use the points printed in the Codex and not in Chapter Approved" would be at least a decent hold-over for the real FAQ. That is assuming that the FAQ has a legitimate and reasonable explanation for its delay and for the radio silence.

It may just be that they have a hard and fast policy that CA is the vehicle for all pts updates, not FAQs. In which case the pts will all be corrected (hopefully) when CA 2020 is released. Just gotta sit tight til then!

Gadzilla666 wrote:

It's been "in just a week or two " for over two months now. Why can't gw just release a statement saying they know there's problems and that they are working on addressing them? They've been keeping with the normal faq schedule for every other release in this time.

I honestly don't know why they won't. Hubris? Shame? Some notion that the community will take the statement the wrong way?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
The correct points are the ones that Games Workshop printed in Chapter Approved. If they made a mistake, they would have FAQ'd it or commented on it to some capacity.

Yes, sure. And there are "official" points that are clearly wrong that we can address individually without destroying society as we know it.

Which ones are wrong? Why are those ones you choose to be wrong are wrong but the ones I choose to be wrong are actually correct?

Why do you keep repeating the same inane question over and over again? Why do you refuse to accept the explanations people have provided?

You're quite at liberty to insist on the Neophyte cost of 55 points if you want. Everyone else is quite at liberty to refuse to play against you with their GSC armies too. So then you can sit back and bask in your righteous superiority while everyone else gets on with actually playing the game. Seems pretty self-defeating to me but to each their own I guess.

Likewise, someone is free to suggest they think the updated TH points are also a typo. If they can persuade their opponent of that fact they can play with whatever points cost they see fit, otherwise the default is the points in CA19. I'd much prefer GW didn't keep screwing up their releases so this wouldn't even be a topic of discussion but that's not the world we live in. Sitting there and repeating "but how do we know for sure?" over every points change ultimately accomplishes very little. Given that pretty much the entire 40k playing community has decided that the 55-point Neophyte is a typo I'd say GSC players are safe in assuming their opponents wouldn't hold them to that points cost in their games. Moan all you want about officialdom and RAW and trot out your tired slippery slope fallacies and false equivalencies all you want, the reality is nobody is actually playing with 55-point Neophytes and the game doesn't seem to have collapsed in on itself as a result.

Slipspace wrote:

Likewise, someone is free to suggest they think the updated TH points are also a typo. If they can persuade their opponent of that fact they can play with whatever points cost they see fit, otherwise the default is the points in CA19.

So if we were to be about to play each other, neither of us would actually know how many points our lists were, until we had debated (every?) points cost to see if we can agree that they are correct or not?

If I have a unit of Ogryns, how many points is that going to be? I think that the points cost in CA19 is an error on GW's part.

You have a unit of Neophytes. How many points are they? If they're not 55 points each, then how many points are they? If I don't agree with the cost you think they should be.. then..? If you can't convince me that they should be, say, 5 points each, then we default to the cost in CA19 anyway?

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Likewise, someone is free to suggest they think the updated TH points are also a typo. If they can persuade their opponent of that fact they can play with whatever points cost they see fit, otherwise the default is the points in CA19.

So if we were to be about to play each other, neither of us would actually know how many points our lists were, until we had debated (every?) points cost to see if we can agree that they are correct or not?

If I have a unit of Ogryns, how many points is that going to be? I think that the points cost in CA19 is an error on GW's part.

You have a unit of Neophytes. How many points are they? If they're not 55 points each, then how many points are they? If I don't agree with the cost you think they should be.. then..? If you can't convince me that they should be, say, 5 points each, then we default to the cost in CA19 anyway?

In practice, in a real life game (so, the only thing that actually matters rather than pointless online posturing) in the overwhelming majority of cases people are going to use the CA19 costs for everything bar Neophytes. If we can't agree on the cost of Neophytes we don't play. If I were to suggest 5 and you demanded 55, or 10, or 15 we wouldn't play. That's not an opponent I'm interested in spending any time with frankly.

It's telling that these "problems" only seem to exist online. I know dozens of 40k players, either directly or indirectly, and I know of precisely zero situations where anyone has demanded people play with Neophytes at 55 points, or to adjust the cost of Ogryns from CA19. That's not to say the Ogryns won't be adjusted if GW ever bother to release an errata for the book, it's simply the case that literally everyone I've ever encountered or heard about in real life doesn't find this to be an unsolvable problem.

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

I did ask earlier if anyone had emailed the faq team any of this list of errors. Also radio silence. It’s kind of funny if we are all sat here at our keyboards complaining to each other instead of feeding back into the system.

40KFAQ@gwplc.com is the one I remember. Don’t forget to ask if it was a typo that stompa was lowered by 50 points instead of 500

I emailed them about a week ago, specifically calling out the Neophytes and the Deathwatch unit sizes, and pointing out that there were units such as Ogryns whose points costs had yo-yo'd around between CA18 and CA19.

nareik wrote:

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

I did ask earlier if anyone had emailed the faq team any of this list of errors. Also radio silence. It’s kind of funny if we are all sat here at our keyboards complaining to each other instead of feeding back into the system.

40KFAQ@gwplc.com is the one I remember. Don’t forget to ask if it was a typo that stompa was lowered by 50 points instead of 500

I have. And I asked about the stompa as well as the hellforged/relic super heavys. I got the standard response. (And yes I was being a smart with them about the stompa. It's good for them to have such moronic decisions pointed out imo).

Slipspace wrote:
Why do you refuse to accept the explanations people have provided?

Because "Because I say so" isn't a valid explanation and no one has provided anything other than that.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
Why do you refuse to accept the explanations people have provided?

Because "Because I say so" isn't a valid explanation and no one has provided anything other than that.

That isn't true at all.

But since we're here - please provide the rationale as to why 40 points for a Thunderhammer is questionable.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
It may just be that they have a hard and fast policy that CA is the vehicle for all pts updates, not FAQs. In which case the pts will all be corrected (hopefully) when CA 2020 is released. Just gotta sit tight til then!

We know that's not the case. GW has made points changes in both Errata and the Big FAQ when necessary. My guess is there were a lot of changes needed, and by the time the document was ready, LVO was coming up, and they decided to wait and see what changes needed to be made based on the results. Their biggest mistake is not communicating. I'm not sure why gaming companies still haven't figured out that radio silence is almost always bad.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

bananathug wrote:
That's the part that gets me.

If it just a couple of tiny typos then why the heck haven't they released a quick fix PDF that fixes those two "tiny" errors?

Not addressing it and just leaving it is either a big feth you to SW players and other people that bought the book or a sign that something else is going on.

The radio silence is frankly B.S. and goes so much against the new more communicative GW that the PR department has been pushing I can't really understand the tactic.

It's almost like the whole thing was just smoke and mirrors to sucker in bittervets back to 8th, grab their cash then start producing toys instead of miniatures. Now that the shine has worn off they can go back to business as usual by writing overpowered rules to shift models like they did with the introduction of flyers and knights. The difference is now they've taken a page out of Riot's playbook and nerd the op thing after the fact to get people to buy the newest op thing.

There's so much wrong with this post its hard to know where to start.