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Can we not just rely on the 2019 chapter approved if everyone hates the 2020 version so much?

I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

a fat guy wrote:
I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

The vast majority of changes are not rebalancing - they are a formula that has been run across the entire line which, depending on unit and wargear combination, means anything from a discount to a 100%+ increase. These changes are not in any way connected to the strength of the unit and could very broadly be described as 'rounding errors'.

A.T. wrote:

a fat guy wrote:
I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

The vast majority of changes are not rebalancing - they are a formula that has been run across the entire line which, depending on unit and wargear combination, means anything from a discount to a 100%+ increase. These changes are not in any way connected to the strength of the unit and could very broadly be described as 'rounding errors'.

Yeah, so they rebalanced the game.

Just stupidly.

In a way that has affected primaris less than everyone else.

a fat guy wrote:
Can we not just rely on the 2019 chapter approved if everyone hates the 2020 version so much?

I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

yesn't .

See the issue is, that most players are in agreement, atleast locally over here, that a general increase in pts for all units would be a good thing in order to finally solve low pts and high pts issues with granularity.

What we got instead is this abomination, of as A.T. put it, Rounding errors.

Not Online!!! wrote:

a fat guy wrote:
Can we not just rely on the 2019 chapter approved if everyone hates the 2020 version so much?

I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

yesn't .

See the issue is, that most players are in agreement, atleast locally over here, that a general increase in pts for all units would be a good thing in order to finally solve low pts and high pts issues with granularity.

What we got instead is this abomination, of as A.T. put it, Rounding errors.

Is this literally just because they decided to round up by one on horde units that naturally will cost less, making that "one" a bigger piece of the points pie in an army, overall?

No wonder I've been hearing people say that custodes and primaris got massive boosts, they don't care about the rounding...

Was that your point AT?

How about trying the CA2020 points before going bananas?

For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

a fat guy wrote:
Can we not just rely on the 2019 chapter approved if everyone hates the 2020 version so much?

I got the impression that everything was just going up, but they clearly tried to balance things again and messed it up badly for non-primaris.

CA 2019 is a mess. Aberrants up, but not Riptides. Chaplain Dreads going down. All the indirect vastly undercosted.

CA 2020 might be bad, but it's that nearly as bad as CA 2019.

If cherry picking is on the table, probably CA 2018 was a pretty good year.

 Vector Strike wrote:
How about trying the CA2020 points before going bananas?

The meme style changes if IS 5ppm with grots,brims whike Kabalite, Skitari, FireWarriors, Guardians (I think boys too)all got blanket jumped to 9ppm is really off.

Can't say I've seen anything so far in the games I've seen of 9th that justified such flat values.

Fast jumpack units and transports sort of make sense with the changes to terrain and vehicals with no penelty to move and shoot.

But the infantry and wargear choices just baffle me, if it wasn't as suspected a blanket rounding waste of time change.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

I'll be honest, I haven't looked at the point changes yet but I keep seeing people claim this. Is there any sort of visible pattern in the changes that supports this or is it complete speculation?

Because even with individual units getting that personalized GW touch there should still be some remnant of a pattern if this largely being done formulaically.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Getting tagged in melee is one of their big weaknesses, since they can't fire in melee, unlike tank-mounted AT. The 9 attacks at S4 AP - they get don't begin to compare to a tank's ability to fire into something tagging it.

The fact that they compare well to other infantry AT in combat is just another case of Primaris being better than everything at everybody. But better doesn't mean good.

But it does drop them in capability from Hyperspecialist to Specialist in my rating.

Aye, they're not Dark Reapers (I don't know what they cost now). A 3W T4 3A is a model far more capable at defending itself than a 1W 1A T3 one.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Sergeant has an extra attack, so 10 total in the first round of CC.

A squad of three has a Sergeant? What is he sergeant of, two other people? Is each of them a corporal with his own fireteam of no-one? I guess that's par for the course for GW, I just forgot it.

Bike Squads do the same thing, if it makes you feel any better .

And Suppressors and Eliminators. I hate the God awful setup of "you get three and that's it".

Solution is easy: Don't play Primaris! Bike Squads get up to nine models.

Why would anyone want nine Bikers though? I just want the Aggressor setup for them.

 Jack Flask wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

I'll be honest, I haven't looked at the point changes yet but I keep seeing people claim this. Is there any sort of visible pattern in the changes that supports this or is it complete speculation?

Because even with individual units getting that personalized GW touch there should still be some remnant of a pattern if this largely being done formulaically.

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-9th-edition-munitorum-field-manual-points-review/#The_Big_Winners

Goonhammer did a review of the book and points cost and commented on the almost formulaic changes to the points, although opinions can vary.

 Jack Flask wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

I'll be honest, I haven't looked at the point changes yet but I keep seeing people claim this. Is there any sort of visible pattern in the changes that supports this or is it complete speculation?

Because even with individual units getting that personalized GW touch there should still be some remnant of a pattern if this largely being done formulaically.

Goonhammer cover it well, but there's a lot of "round to the nearest 5" or "if it has this sort of profile add 30 and round to the nearest 5" likewise they seem to have a few artificial floors on point costs such as 5 points for disposable mooks across the game, the issue being they aren't all worth the same value, or even 5 points creating obviously disparity.

 Jack Flask wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

I'll be honest, I haven't looked at the point changes yet but I keep seeing people claim this. Is there any sort of visible pattern in the changes that supports this or is it complete speculation?

Because even with individual units getting that personalized GW touch there should still be some remnant of a pattern if this largely being done formulaically.

This article does a pretty good job of breaking down the formula:

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-9th-edition-munitorum-field-manual-points-review/

https://www.warhammer-community.com/downloads/

The WHC Downloads page is showing the Astreaus, Tiger-Shark and a few other units as being new today - but the datasheets linked still seem to be the old ones (with Power of the Machine Spirit and no Blast or Aircraft keyword).

Could be a glitch, or maybe they update the webpage before replacing the PDFs.

Mud Turkey 13 wrote:This article does a pretty good job of breaking down the formula:

https://www.goonhammer.com/the-9th-edition-munitorum-field-manual-points-review/

Dudeface wrote:Goonhammer cover it well, but there's a lot of "round to the nearest 5" or "if it has this sort of profile add 30 and round to the nearest 5" likewise they seem to have a few artificial floors on point costs such as 5 points for disposable mooks across the game, the issue being they aren't all worth the same value, or even 5 points creating obviously disparity.

Tristanleo wrote:https://www.goonhammer.com/the-9th-edition-munitorum-field-manual-points-review/#The_Big_Winners

Goonhammer did a review of the book and points cost and commented on the almost formulaic changes to the points, although opinions can vary.

This is just a wild hunch, but I'm reading the skeins of fate and they seem to be telling me "Go read Goonhammer, you grot!" I'm not quite sure what it means though...

Thanks guys, I'll have a look.

Ice_can wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:
How about trying the CA2020 points before going bananas?

The meme style changes if IS 5ppm with grots,brims whike Kabalite, Skitari, FireWarriors, Guardians (I think boys too)all got blanket jumped to 9ppm is really off.

Can't say I've seen anything so far in the games I've seen of 9th that justified such flat values.

Fast jumpack units and transports sort of make sense with the changes to terrain and vehicals with no penelty to move and shoot.

But the infantry and wargear choices just baffle me, if it wasn't as suspected a blanket rounding waste of time change.

yeah, from my first game testing the new point values...I don't get it. I included pretty minimal DE troops, but they just did diddly, like infantry in general and large units in general performed just fine, but the DE troops are absolutely going to be 3x5 min size units for me until their points are corrected, they're just bonkers. They die INSTANTLY to any kind of firepower, 110 points just poofed into nothing faster than any other unit you have.

Aow40k did an interview with a prominent playtester yesterday, Tony Kopach. He couldn't come up with any balance-based justification for any of the weird-looking point changes, either. On grots and cultists he said "it's probably because GW doesn't want you taking those units because they don't think they're fluffy" on kabalites it was "lol yeah, 9 point warriors is a thing, you'll probably have to look outside your codex for competitive success."

There is no secret genius plan here. It's just adjustments-by-spreadsheet without any regard for whether it produces a balanced game. Aside from that, a tiny minority of units actually got targeted nerfs, and an even smaller amount got targeted buffs. But it's most just spread-sheet based, even if it totally screws some stuff that didn't need to be screwed (striking scorpions, looking at you).

yukishiro1 wrote:
Aow40k did an interview with a prominent playtester yesterday, Tony Kopach. He couldn't come up with any balance-based justification for any of the weird-looking point changes, either. On grots and cultists he said "it's probably because GW doesn't want you taking those units because they don't think they're fluffy" on kabalites it was "lol yeah, 9 point warriors is a thing, you'll probably have to look outside your codex for competitive success."

There is no secret genius plan here. It's just adjustments-by-spreadsheet without any regard for whether it produces a balanced game. Aside from that, a tiny minority of units actually got targeted nerfs, and an even smaller amount got targeted buffs. But it's most just spread-sheet based, even if it totally screws some stuff that didn't need to be screwed (striking scorpions, looking at you).

You know, it's funny, after playing my test game it was Striking Scorpions that I thought to myself had just earned a nearly permanent place in my games. Stupid obnoxious to kill tiny infantry keyword unit that has native deep strike is extremely strong in the new missions. 65 points for a squad that gets -1 to hit if it claims any cover and starts at a 3+ save? Love it. They'll never attack anything, they'll just show up whenever I need to keep scoring table quarters and start performing an action. Basically guaranteed 4 points and an extra 5 points if my opponent doesn't turn around and kill the fethers - lol, enjoy. What, do you have light infantry units screening your backfield? in 9th ed?

the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Aow40k did an interview with a prominent playtester yesterday, Tony Kopach. He couldn't come up with any balance-based justification for any of the weird-looking point changes, either. On grots and cultists he said "it's probably because GW doesn't want you taking those units because they don't think they're fluffy" on kabalites it was "lol yeah, 9 point warriors is a thing, you'll probably have to look outside your codex for competitive success."

There is no secret genius plan here. It's just adjustments-by-spreadsheet without any regard for whether it produces a balanced game. Aside from that, a tiny minority of units actually got targeted nerfs, and an even smaller amount got targeted buffs. But it's most just spread-sheet based, even if it totally screws some stuff that didn't need to be screwed (striking scorpions, looking at you).

You know, it's funny, after playing my test game it was Striking Scorpions that I thought to myself had just earned a nearly permanent place in my games. Stupid obnoxious to kill tiny infantry keyword unit that has native deep strike is extremely strong in the new missions. 65 points for a squad that gets -1 to hit if it claims any cover and starts at a 3+ save? Love it. They'll never attack anything, they'll just show up whenever I need to keep scoring table quarters and start performing an action. Basically guaranteed 4 points and an extra 5 points if my opponent doesn't turn around and kill the fethers - lol, enjoy. What, do you have light infantry units screening your backfield? in 9th ed?

Yes. I play foot guard.

 Jack Flask wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
For the most part, the point changes are ... ok. But there are individual point changes for selected units that ,,, irks people. Maybe because they probably didn't look at every single unit, and instead, applied a broad formula across the board and then tweaked selected units specifically.

I'll be honest, I haven't looked at the point changes yet but I keep seeing people claim this. Is there any sort of visible pattern in the changes that supports this or is it complete speculation?

Because even with individual units getting that personalized GW touch there should still be some remnant of a pattern if this largely being done formulaically.

Hand flamers went up from 1pt to 5pts. Most things got rounded off to value of 5 whether or not there was any reason to do so. Vehicle mounted weapons got universal bumps regardless of whether or not that weapon was good(multi-melta) or even if it benefited from move and shoot(heavy flamer) except bafflingly Lascannons which went down for some unfathomable reason.

Combi-flamers, combi-melta, and combi-plasma are all the same price despite one of those things not being like the others.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Aow40k did an interview with a prominent playtester yesterday, Tony Kopach. He couldn't come up with any balance-based justification for any of the weird-looking point changes, either. On grots and cultists he said "it's probably because GW doesn't want you taking those units because they don't think they're fluffy" on kabalites it was "lol yeah, 9 point warriors is a thing, you'll probably have to look outside your codex for competitive success."

There is no secret genius plan here. It's just adjustments-by-spreadsheet without any regard for whether it produces a balanced game. Aside from that, a tiny minority of units actually got targeted nerfs, and an even smaller amount got targeted buffs. But it's most just spread-sheet based, even if it totally screws some stuff that didn't need to be screwed (striking scorpions, looking at you).

You know, it's funny, after playing my test game it was Striking Scorpions that I thought to myself had just earned a nearly permanent place in my games. Stupid obnoxious to kill tiny infantry keyword unit that has native deep strike is extremely strong in the new missions. 65 points for a squad that gets -1 to hit if it claims any cover and starts at a 3+ save? Love it. They'll never attack anything, they'll just show up whenever I need to keep scoring table quarters and start performing an action. Basically guaranteed 4 points and an extra 5 points if my opponent doesn't turn around and kill the fethers - lol, enjoy. What, do you have light infantry units screening your backfield? in 9th ed?

Yeah, I play sisters. All my infantry does is screen.

the_scotsman wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Aow40k did an interview with a prominent playtester yesterday, Tony Kopach. He couldn't come up with any balance-based justification for any of the weird-looking point changes, either. On grots and cultists he said "it's probably because GW doesn't want you taking those units because they don't think they're fluffy" on kabalites it was "lol yeah, 9 point warriors is a thing, you'll probably have to look outside your codex for competitive success."

There is no secret genius plan here. It's just adjustments-by-spreadsheet without any regard for whether it produces a balanced game. Aside from that, a tiny minority of units actually got targeted nerfs, and an even smaller amount got targeted buffs. But it's most just spread-sheet based, even if it totally screws some stuff that didn't need to be screwed (striking scorpions, looking at you).

You know, it's funny, after playing my test game it was Striking Scorpions that I thought to myself had just earned a nearly permanent place in my games. Stupid obnoxious to kill tiny infantry keyword unit that has native deep strike is extremely strong in the new missions. 65 points for a squad that gets -1 to hit if it claims any cover and starts at a 3+ save? Love it. They'll never attack anything, they'll just show up whenever I need to keep scoring table quarters and start performing an action. Basically guaranteed 4 points and an extra 5 points if my opponent doesn't turn around and kill the fethers - lol, enjoy. What, do you have light infantry units screening your backfield? in 9th ed?

As Guard, yeah, I have Infantry Squads and Mortars as backfield screens. As Tyranids, I have Hive Guard in one corner and Biovores in another, and minimum-sized broods of Termagants to cover gaps and hold objectives as needed. With terrain blocking LOS and imposing to-hit penalties a lot more, it's easier to keep those small squads alive way in the back.

I've found that with the reduced board size, screening is easier than ever. In my last game, my Imperial Fists opponent accidentally screened out his entire deployment zone with a Vindicator, a Rapier, and a squad of Devastators. I like this change- it makes Deep Strike feel less like a 'gotcha', and something even elite armies can screen against- but it does somewhat reduce the utility of units that exist solely to DS onto an objective or to charge an unprotected artillery unit.

These threads can get a bit heated, so I figured we could do with a laugh.

This is from GW's description of the new Munitorum Field Manual:

GW wrote:In addition, you'll also find a separate 56-page book – the Munitorum Field Manual – containing all the latest matched play points updates, painstakingly balanced and tuned in conjunction with major tournament organisers and our playtesters.

‘That word you keep using - I do not think it means what you think it means.’

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
These threads can get a bit heated, so I figured we could do with a laugh.

This is from GW's description of the new Munitorum Field Manual:

GW wrote:In addition, you'll also find a separate 56-page book – the Munitorum Field Manual – containing all the latest matched play points updates, painstakingly balanced and tuned in conjunction with major tournament organisers and our playtesters.

I guess if you really don't know how to use excel spreadsheets, what they did might have been painstaking...

Tabletop Tactics just released a video on the points, where the very first thing they said was they had no input on the point values at all; they were fixed by GW long ago, before Tabletop Tactics was even involved in the playtesting, and no changes were made in response to feedback after they got involved (which was more than 6 months ago). Just another data point suggesting that these points values were done on a spreadsheet and then not really revised based on playtester feedback, at least not in 2020.

Probably also explains why so many of the values seem like they were derived from pre-CA 2019 values - it's possible they literally were. These points were done in 2019 and haven't been modified since.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Tabletop Tactics just released a video on the points, where the very first thing they said was they had no input on the point values at all; they were fixed by GW long ago, before Tabletop Tactics was even involved in the playtesting, and no changes were made in response to feedback after they got involved (which was more than 6 months ago). Just another data point suggesting that these points values were done on a spreadsheet and then not really revised based on playtester feedback, at least not in 2020.

Probably also explains why so many of the values seem like they were derived from pre-CA 2019 values - it's possible they literally were. These points were done in 2019 and haven't been modified since.

The faq dates are from the end of last year/January I saw someone observe from the links. Again it suggests that 9th was started on very early into 8th, what we're seeing now is probably less what we had at the end of 8th but more what existed after the first CA.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Tabletop Tactics just released a video on the points, where the very first thing they said was they had no input on the point values at all; they were fixed by GW long ago, before Tabletop Tactics was even involved in the playtesting, and no changes were made in response to feedback after they got involved (which was more than 6 months ago). Just another data point suggesting that these points values were done on a spreadsheet and then not really revised based on playtester feedback, at least not in 2020.

Probably also explains why so many of the values seem like they were derived from pre-CA 2019 values - it's possible they literally were. These points were done in 2019 and haven't been modified since.

I mentioned in another thread that I suspected this was the case- so many of the units showing pre-CA19 points, including hard reversals like Scions, Killa Kans and Deff Dreads, suggested less of a deliberate hike and more of a reversion.

Hey, what are the chances GW will release a points update soon? Surely they wouldn't just release an already-out-of-date product and leave it to languish for months? They'd never do that, right?

yukishiro1 wrote:
Tabletop Tactics just released a video on the points, where the very first thing they said was they had no input on the point values at all; they were fixed by GW long ago, before Tabletop Tactics was even involved in the playtesting, and no changes were made in response to feedback after they got involved (which was more than 6 months ago). Just another data point suggesting that these points values were done on a spreadsheet and then not really revised based on playtester feedback, at least not in 2020.

Probably also explains why so many of the values seem like they were derived from pre-CA 2019 values - it's possible they literally were. These points were done in 2019 and haven't been modified since.

You talking the Iron Warriors v Eldar video?

yukishiro1 wrote:
Probably also explains why so many of the values seem like they were derived from pre-CA 2019 values - it's possible they literally were. These points were done in 2019 and haven't been modified since.

It would make some sense. 2020 has been a fethed-up year.