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chaos0xomega wrote:


Except PL is designed under the assumption that you and your opponent will coordinate and self-moderate in order to have a good time rather than trying to min-max the game. If you're the kind of player to try to take every option available in a unit, then yeah PL will never be balanced - but thats a "you" problem rather than a problem with PL - you're not using it the way its meant to be used.

What is the balanced power level loadout for a squad of crisis suits?

The concept of PL is that players who assembled their models in the way they considered the coolest option can now play them exactly as they are without having to buy more or feeling like they assembled them wrong.

Min max and PL are opposite concepts. PL is for those who don't really want to dig much into thinking what loadouts to take for their units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

However, it is not suitable for pickup games that make up 99% of 40k games. I don't know what the guy at the FLGS is bringing, how the hell am I supposed to organised my army to be 'in-line' with his? The answer is we need such a scoring system that is able to get us two armies within close parity of a pre-agreed upon (by convention) points limit.

It really depends on the meta. I've experienced metas in which pick up games were almost reserved to newbies with very little experience from the game and certainly didn't want to expand their collection very frequently to chase the flavour of the month, and for them PL was an awesome choice. And competitive players almost played against each other at their homes.

In another time/place (aka my current situation) pick up games were almost reserved for semi-competitive to tournament players: guys who were spending a lot of time listbuilding and min maxing before playing.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Except PL is designed under the assumption that you and your opponent will coordinate and self-moderate in order to have a good time rather than trying to min-max the game.

When a system designed to regulate the effectiveness of two armies into parity essentially holds up it's hands and says "actually, you're supposed to do the work", it naturally fails at that purpose.

Power level clearly has a niche, that tiny bit easier to organise makes it suitable for people that genuinely can't be arsed to spend 5 minutes making a list.

However, it is not suitable for pickup games that make up 99% of 40k games. I don't know what the guy at the FLGS is bringing, how the hell am I supposed to organised my army to be 'in-line' with his? The answer is we need such a scoring system that is able to get us two armies within close parity of a pre-agreed upon (by convention) points limit.

Its not meant for pickup games, and isn't really advertised as such either. The rules actually explicitly say to discuss with your opponent in advance and coordinate stuff, etc.

GWs perception of how players engage with the game is perhaps different from how it actually works, but I think thats probably always been true.

 Blackie wrote:
The concept of PL is that players who assembled their models in the way they considered the coolest option can now play them exactly as they are without having to buy more or feeling like they assembled them wrong.

Min max and PL are opposite concepts. PL is for those who don't really want to dig much into thinking what loadouts to take for their units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

However, it is not suitable for pickup games that make up 99% of 40k games. I don't know what the guy at the FLGS is bringing, how the hell am I supposed to organised my army to be 'in-line' with his? The answer is we need such a scoring system that is able to get us two armies within close parity of a pre-agreed upon (by convention) points limit.

It really depends on the meta. I've experienced metas in which pick up games were almost reserved to newbies with very little experience from the game and certainly didn't want to expand their collection very frequently to chase the flavour of the month, and for them PL was an awesome choice. And competitive players almost played against each other at their homes.

In another time/place (aka my current situation) pick up games were almost reserved for semi-competitive to tournament players: guys who were spending a lot of time listbuilding and min maxing before playing.

I can't reconcile your 'depends on the meta' and 'time/place' statements with the flat statement that min/max and PL are opposite concepts.
The only times I've encountered PL in the wild (and the reason I'm leery about it), it was entirely used TO min/max. That may not be your meta, but its what I've seen. The points people in the same places were far less cut-throat and unreasonable. The PL people jammed the black company (at the time, that mattered) with every upgrade imaginable and took as much 'flavor of the month' stuff as possible (because their collections had essentially nothing else).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Crusade, and the things that stem form it, are recent endeavours by GW; the first time in, well, ever that they've put some real effort behind the idea of 'narrative play' beyond "Do whatever!" or that "Forge the Narrative!" malarkey from a few years back.

For most of its existence the standard method of playing 40k has been what they now call 'matched play'. As such, I think it's a really bad idea to say that it's the community's fault for playing the game the way they've been playing it for literal decades.

I think it also bears reiterating: Since the launch of 8th, Matched Play has contained a lot of the structure for a fair (or at least less breakable) game. The rules preventing you from DSing your entire army turn 1, or spamming a single stratagem five times in a phase, or spamming Smite, or summoning hordes of reinforcements for free, all came from Matched Play.

So of course it would be the default for pick-up games between two strangers, or even just a casual game between friends. That's not a community perception issue; that's GW having one set of rules that is intended to provide a balanced experience and two others that amount to anything goes.

 Blackie wrote:
The concept of PL is that players who assembled their models in the way they considered the coolest option can now play them exactly as they are without having to buy more or feeling like they assembled them wrong.

Min max and PL are opposite concepts. PL is for those who don't really want to dig much into thinking what loadouts to take for their units.

Unfortunately, that's not the most likely outcome.

Points will have players optimize.

Power Level will have players spam the most powerful / lethal option(s). Even when enforcing WYSIWYG.

So no matter which you choose, the most lackluster options will still be pushed aside.

The point that you're making is about the mindset of the player and is irrespective of Points vs. Power Level. I, or anyone, can still choose to build my models for 'rule of cool' and use Points or Power Level.

The difference is that most of the people who trend towards "spamming the most powerful/lethal options" won't play Power but will trend towards points.

 Kanluwen wrote:
The difference is that most of the people who trend towards "spamming the most powerful/lethal options" won't play Power but will trend towards points.

Got any evidence to back that up?

Also, you've yet to actually say what makes PL desirable over Points.

Less time to make a list which means more time to play and just as a personal observation on my group, when you can take all of the OP stuff in the world with no added cost, so can everyone else. In my experience there is less incentive for people to min/max because there's always someone who can do it better, eye for an eye and all that. So instead people play WYSIWYG and take a lot more casual lists. Of course this isn't true everywhere but MAD ensures that at least my group doesn't go off the rails, unless we choose to.

 Gert wrote:
Less time to make a list which means more time to play and just as a personal observation on my group, when you can take all of the OP stuff in the world with no added cost, so can everyone else. In my experience there is less incentive for people to min/max because there's always someone who can do it better, eye for an eye and all that. So instead people play WYSIWYG and take a lot more casual lists. Of course this isn't true everywhere but MAD ensures that at least my group doesn't go off the rails, unless we choose to.

I run Nurgle Daemons.
How do I min-max their upgrades?

And making a list with points doesn’t take very long. When a game is 2-4 hours, whether it takes one minute or five to make a list won’t impact game time much at all.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The difference is that most of the people who trend towards "spamming the most powerful/lethal options" won't play Power but will trend towards points.

Got any evidence to back that up?

Literally any thread discussing Power v Points good enough for you?

Also, you've yet to actually say what makes PL desirable over Points.

And you have yet to actually say anything that is meaningfully true about PL over Points.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The difference is that most of the people who trend towards "spamming the most powerful/lethal options" won't play Power but will trend towards points.

Got any evidence to back that up?

Literally any thread discussing Power v Points good enough for you?

Also, you've yet to actually say what makes PL desirable over Points.

And you have yet to actually say anything that is meaningfully true about PL over Points.

Granularity.

What’s the difference between 6 bare-bones Tac Marines and 10 Tac Marines with a Lascannon?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
The difference is that most of the people who trend towards "spamming the most powerful/lethal options" won't play Power but will trend towards points.

Got any evidence to back that up?

Literally any thread discussing Power v Points good enough for you?

Also, you've yet to actually say what makes PL desirable over Points.

And you have yet to actually say anything that is meaningfully true about PL over Points.

Granularity.

yeah sure. cause granularity equals balance, right?

What’s the difference between 6 bare-bones Tac Marines and 10 Tac Marines with a Lascannon?

4 models and a lascannon.

Could you miss the point any harder?

Granularity doesn't equal balance-you need to actually do work to have them be balanced. But it's possible to achieve greater balance when you have that greater granularity.

So, what's a BENEFIT to PL? You've yet to actually answer that.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Granularity doesn't equal balance-you need to actually do work to have them be balanced. But it's possible to achieve greater balance when you have that greater granularity.

So, what's a BENEFIT to PL? You've yet to actually answer that.

Quick maffs if you need to knock an army list out quickly

Ultimately PL is more abusable and less precise. That however sits with the user to some degree, I've been in PL crusades and not had any problems because nobody runs douchebag lists or units.

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Granularity doesn't equal balance-you need to actually do work to have them be balanced. But it's possible to achieve greater balance when you have that greater granularity.

So, what's a BENEFIT to PL? You've yet to actually answer that.

Quick maffs if you need to knock an army list out quickly

Ultimately PL is more abusable and less precise. That however sits with the user to some degree, I've been in PL crusades and not had any problems because nobody runs douchebag lists or units.

I honestly find the "It's faster," argument pretty weak.

It is true-but again, a game lasts 2-4 hours. Taking one minute to make a list as compared to five will barely impact gameplay time at all. The greater list-time issue, in points or PL, would be "What do I want to take?"

Edit: I'll also say that PL doesn't BREAK the game, if you're playing with like-minded people who are willing to moderate their choices, especially if it's something like a Marines versus Daemons match-up. But it doesn't seem to enhance the game, really.

Greater granularity = greater (potential) balance is a myth that will not die. Balance and point systems don't work the way so many of you seem to think. You don't get to better balance because you priced something at 1/100th of a point vs 1/10th of a point, etc. The differences in value and practical applicability of different weapons, units, etc. are not so large that that level of granularity ever becomes significant enough to truly matter. Balance comes from the combined points cost of an *army*, not the individual points costs of specific models, units, weapons, or wargear.

Points are a shaping mechanism used to limit how many things you can put on the table, "balance" comes from the combined value proposition of all those things on one side of the table being equivalent to the combined value proposition of all the things on the opposite side of the table. An army of 20 pt dudes carrying 30 pt guns is balanced against an army of identical dudes priced at 40 pts carrying identical guns priced at 10 pts - if points worked the way y'all want them to then this couldn't be true, because what so many of you perceive as the way points work is that points costs are tied to some intrinsic property of performance (call it "efficiency" or "value" for lack of a better term) tied to the capabilities of what a given model/weapon, etc. can do - naturally then, comparing two models with identical stats and abilities, one priced at 20ppm and the other at 40ppm would lead you to conclude that the one or both of those two models was priced inappropriately. In both cases you get 20 dudes w/ guns in a 1000pt match, despite the apparent differences in their points relative to their supposed "value", can't get much more balanced than that (well, maybe not once you account for things like first tern advantage, etc. but close enough).

"But chaos" you say, "of course they would be balanced, they still both add up to 50 pts each".

Well - yes, thats kind of the point, balance doesn't care what the "fair value" for a given model or unit is, it just cares that the proportional capability of two opposed sides are evenly matched. For the sake of demonstration, lets look at what happens when two identical units *aren't* equivalently priced (because one has been treated more "granularly" than the other) - lets compare a 22 pt dude carrying a 27 pt gun (i.e. a 49 pt package) to an otherwise identical 20 pt dude carrying an otherwise identical 30 pt gun (i.e. a 50 pt package). In a 1000 pt army you would still be bringing 20 of each dude to the mathch - yes, the 49 pt package leaves you with 20 pts to spare, but as you don't have anything else to spend those 20 pts on (not enough to buy an extra guy or an extra gun, and we don't have any other units or weapons available), you remain locked into equivalent forces.

And this is the myth of granularity, the 20 pt dude with a 30 pt gun is effectively a 2 pt dude with a 3 pt gun in a 100 pt system - yet if I price it with "more granularity" in a 1000 pt system at 22 for the dude and 27 for the gun, we still arrive at essentially the same functional place. Yes, again, there are 20 pts free in the one example, but theres nothing to spend it on unless we create something that can be used to fill those points. If we feel obligated to allow the player to use up all those points, then we can throw a 20pt unit upgrade into the mix that lets the unit shoot twice in one turn once/game (for example), but then we no longer have balance because we used "granularity" as an excuse to add something in the game to fill in a points deficit. I.E. - we threw that upgrade in there because we had leftover points, not because we needed it. But we could, in this scenario, give the less granularly pointed models the same ability - for free - and it takes us right back to balance. We can rationalize this as essentially being a 1ppm upgrade in the more granular system, whereas in the less granular system we simply assume that the unit receives it by default to justify its pricing. And this is the flaw in the myth of granularity- it incentivizes designers to essentially "micromanage" unit design by creating spuriously designed additional options (many of which are what have been referred to as "non-options" in the past, due to them being pointless in relation to other options or generally not really adding anything of value to the unit) for players to select for the purposes of incrementing costs in smaller chunks, but in most cases these options can be thought of as essentially being DLC/cut content that would have been otherwise included as part of the baseline in a less granular system.

From experience, less granular point systems generally tend to be better balanced because designers can't use granularity as a crutch - if a unit is priced at 5 points out of 100, then the designer has a higher degree of obligation to justify the units performance relative to the points cost assigned to it, as a 1 pt change in a 100 pt system carries a much more substantial impact than a 1 pt change in a 1000 pt system. In a more granular 1000 pt system, if a unit is price at 50 points and its over or underperforming then the designer arbitrarily adjust the price to 47 pts or 53 pts in an effort to "balance" it as that represents a much smaller % difference than taking something from 5 pts to 4 or 6 in a 100 pt system - but the knock-on effects of doing so in a 1000 pt system is substantial, by dropping the unit to 47 pts, you now get to field 21 models. By increasing it to 53 pts, you actually only get to field 18. The "balance adjustments" given to you by granularity aren't actually changing the parameters or performance of the unit at all, rather its simply altering the quantity you can take (hence "shaping mechanism" as opposed to "balancing mechanism"). Likewise, in a less granular system, there is less room for arbitrary upgrades of dubious utility - if you are pricing something at an additional cost, its because you've determined that it provides a meaningful enough benefit to justify the additional cost. If it doesn't provide a meaningful benefit, then its a free upgrade that you balance within the context of your game design by making it a functional trade-off vs something that its replacing. This is already how 40k is starting to operate, mind you. Theres a reason why newer codecies increasingly have a number of different weapon options included within the price of the unit or otherwise costed as identical upgrades, etc. Its because the weapons have been differentiated further than they were in older editions (e.g. - heavy bolters going to D2) while providing levels of overall utility/efficiency of roughly equivalent value to other options costed comparatively.

In short - increased granularity is essentially a problem more than it is a solution.

It's not necessarily granularity in the exact numbers-it's granularity in options.

Again-a 6 man naked Tac squad costs the same in PL as a 10 man Tac squad with a Lascannon.

In what possible world are those two units equivalent?

Again the individual constructs that GW uses to create rules aren't the problem. It's HOW GW uses them.

Points or Power level could both be super balanced when combined with unit stats and performance. There's no inherent element of any of those constructs that makes them outright more or less balanced. Of course points is more granular which offers up more potential capacity to scale things and have more optional parts (upgrades).

However its how you use them and how the core stats of models are balanced and adjusted. Plus how GW reacts to feedback; what their overall intention is; what resources they have etc...


That's why there's nothing wrong with the constructs they use. The issues are purely how they interpret, use, and thus produce the stats that they use.
Made worse by the fact that every few years they change the enter rules system.





Heck power level would likely work pretty will with Old World and Age of Sigmar as most units in that have a single fixed stat line or only one or two weapon options that are not that different in performance. It's really odd that GW pushes it into 40K which is a much more granular rules set at the unit level and then tries to over-simplify it into a system. Which results in wide variations in individual unit performance.

 JNAProductions wrote:
It's not necessarily granularity in the exact numbers-it's granularity in options.

Again-a 6 man naked Tac squad costs the same in PL as a 10 man Tac squad with a Lascannon.

In what possible world are those two units equivalent?

The same world where 170 points of chosen with power mauls is equivalent to 170 points of chosen with combi-bolters or single lightning claws? Or 165 point Trajann Valoris. Sorry, wait, the Chosen are slightly better than Trajann Valoris, they cost 5 points more, after all. Granularity!

Heck power level would likely work pretty will with Old World and Age of Sigmar as most units in that have a single fixed stat line or only one or two weapon options that are not that different in performance. It's really odd that GW pushes it into 40K which is a much more granular rules set at the unit level and then tries to over-simplify it into a system. Which results in wide variations in individual unit performance.

AoS effectively does use Power Level.

Rihgu wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
It's not necessarily granularity in the exact numbers-it's granularity in options.

Again-a 6 man naked Tac squad costs the same in PL as a 10 man Tac squad with a Lascannon.

In what possible world are those two units equivalent?

The same world where 170 points of chosen with power mauls is equivalent to 170 points of chosen with combi-bolters or single lightning claws? Or 165 point Trajann Valoris. Sorry, wait, the Chosen are slightly better than Trajann Valoris, they cost 5 points more, after all. Granularity!

Heck power level would likely work pretty will with Old World and Age of Sigmar as most units in that have a single fixed stat line or only one or two weapon options that are not that different in performance. It's really odd that GW pushes it into 40K which is a much more granular rules set at the unit level and then tries to over-simplify it into a system. Which results in wide variations in individual unit performance.

AoS effectively does use Power Level.

Granularity doesn't automatically equal better balance. It allows for better balance, but the work needs to be done.

I don't think "Well, points aren't perfectly balanced, better just throw it all out," is a good attitude to have.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
It's not necessarily granularity in the exact numbers-it's granularity in options.

Again-a 6 man naked Tac squad costs the same in PL as a 10 man Tac squad with a Lascannon.

In what possible world are those two units equivalent?

The same world where 170 points of chosen with power mauls is equivalent to 170 points of chosen with combi-bolters or single lightning claws? Or 165 point Trajann Valoris. Sorry, wait, the Chosen are slightly better than Trajann Valoris, they cost 5 points more, after all. Granularity!

Heck power level would likely work pretty will with Old World and Age of Sigmar as most units in that have a single fixed stat line or only one or two weapon options that are not that different in performance. It's really odd that GW pushes it into 40K which is a much more granular rules set at the unit level and then tries to over-simplify it into a system. Which results in wide variations in individual unit performance.

AoS effectively does use Power Level.

Granularity doesn't automatically equal better balance. It allows for better balance, but the work needs to be done.

I don't think "Well, points aren't perfectly balanced, better just throw it all out," is a good attitude to have.

Who's throwing it all out? Power Level isn't throwing it all out, it's using a different system, with different imbalances. People always throw out examples like "why do 6 man tac squads with no equipment cost the same as 10 tacs with a lascannon and a melta!?" as if in some universe there are people taking 6 man tac squads with no equipment in PL games.

News flash: For people that care, they're not taking the bad options in PL just like people playing with points are also not taking the bad options.

PL has more bad options.

A 6-Man Tac Squad is a decent enough addition to a Razorback. Add some ObSec bodies for when it goes kaboom. The current points values makes that not really worth it, but that could be adjusted.

In PL, you'd never take that. You'd take a 10-Man Tac Squad with multiple extra guns and Combat Squad it to fit in the Razorback.

Under what circumstances would a Tactical Squad NOT take a Special or Heavy weapon in PL? Or an Intercessor Squad not take the Aux Grenade Launcher?
Can you name a PL Daemons list that wouldn't take an Instrument and an Icon on every squad?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
What is the balanced power level loadout for a squad of crisis suits?

Balanced power level loadout for a squad of crisis suits is 4th edition one, when most of the weapons had some sort of drawback to indicate Tau were a technologically inferior race catching up to the great powers, not a pile of completely broken gak better than Eldar and Necron tech put together. That, however, is not a problem with PL, but with incompetent Tau writer.

PL works best with units that have sidegrade loadout, like say three different, viable playstyles of hellblasters or intercessors, instead of options that include something much better than alternatives that can be spammed, like mountains of cheese Tau can deploy now. Alas, fixing it is hard if even one past edition was broken, thanks to saltworks that inevitably erupt when offending option is toned down and shouts that stuff that was clearly OP was 'totes ok and balanced' (see GW putting some limits on rules allowing double shooting, deep striking chaos units with truckloads of mass produced, shiny brand new standard-issue combi-plasmas, or rag tag bands of pirates spamming more leviathans than original legions did, both defended with vigour here despite making negative amounts of sense and being complete opposite of what CSM are supposed to be)...

 JNAProductions wrote:
PL has more bad options.

A 6-Man Tac Squad is a decent enough addition to a Razorback. Add some ObSec bodies for when it goes kaboom. The current points values makes that not really worth it, but that could be adjusted.

In PL, you'd never take that. You'd take a 10-Man Tac Squad with multiple extra guns and Combat Squad it to fit in the Razorback.

Under what circumstances would a Tactical Squad NOT take a Special or Heavy weapon in PL? Or an Intercessor Squad not take the Aux Grenade Launcher?
Can you name a PL Daemons list that wouldn't take an Instrument and an Icon on every squad?

I think you've gotten it! PL-based list building works differently and has different considerations than points-based list building!

 JNAProductions wrote:
I run Nurgle Daemons.
How do I min-max their upgrades?

I don't know because I don't play Nurgle Daemons. There are, however, armies that would benefit from min/maxing in such a scenario. I've found that the threat of MAD making a game incredibly boring for both players is enough to prevent this.

And making a list with points doesn’t take very long. When a game is 2-4 hours, whether it takes one minute or five to make a list won’t impact game time much at all.

And that's cool if you have the 4 hours to spare, which some people don't. Your games might take 2-4 hours, mine usually take 1-2.
It's easier to look at the unit Datasheets I want to take and do some basic maths (i.e not higher than 50-100) than crack out the calculator and flip backward and forward to the points and profiles. People can argue that Battlescribe helps, and sometimes it does but other times I get locked behind an ad or loading times, and it's not worth the wait.
Do I think Power is superior to Points? No. I prefer it for my lifestyle and hobby time but both have issues. I like HH with Points but I like 40k with Power. When I do HH its a much more "formal" affair where we usually spend the whole evening with food and drinks, whereas 40k is "You got some free time?".

Rihgu wrote:
Power Level isn't throwing it all out, it's using a different system, with different imbalances.

Power level has all the imbalances of points (IE, GW chooses bad values) and another imbalance - that you're paying for a rough estimate of options regardless of whether you take more options or fewer.
It is, objectively, less balanced.

Of course, that's not necessarily a problem. You might be lucky enough to have a small group of like-minded players that are willing and able to level their lists against each other.
If you are in that situation - by all means use power.

My point is a real minority of 40k players are in that situation. Which makes power the clearly superior option for most players.

 JNAProductions wrote:
PL has more bad options.

A 6-Man Tac Squad is a decent enough addition to a Razorback. Add some ObSec bodies for when it goes kaboom. The current points values makes that not really worth it, but that could be adjusted.

In PL, you'd never take that. You'd take a 10-Man Tac Squad with multiple extra guns and Combat Squad it to fit in the Razorback.

Under what circumstances would a Tactical Squad NOT take a Special or Heavy weapon in PL? Or an Intercessor Squad not take the Aux Grenade Launcher?
Can you name a PL Daemons list that wouldn't take an Instrument and an Icon on every squad?

This entire argument is predicated on some false assumptions. You wouldn't take a 6-man Tac squad, you would take a 5 man tac squad which costs half as many Power Level. Why? Because it fits in a Razorback and doesn't require you to overpay for another 4 guys that you aren't going to use. That being said, if you are taking a 6-man Tac squad, I would expect you to tool them up with every option possible to make up for the shortfall, whereas if I'm fielding a 10 man Tac squad my preference is for more focused units and I'm probably not going to select a lascannon a plasmagun, a combiflamer, and a powerfist all in the same squad. While combat squadding allows me some more flexibility in the unit structure it doesn't necessarily mean that i want to field so many non-synergistic weapons and upgrades as part of the two halves.

 Irbis wrote:

PL works best with units that have sidegrade loadout, like say three different, viable playstyles of hellblasters or intercessors, instead of options that include something much better than alternatives that can be spammed, like mountains of cheese Tau can deploy now. Alas, fixing it is hard if even one past edition was broken, thanks to saltworks that inevitably erupt when offending option is toned down and shouts that stuff that was clearly OP was 'totes ok and balanced' (see GW putting some limits on rules allowing double shooting, deep striking chaos units with truckloads of mass produced, shiny brand new standard-issue combi-plasmas, or rag tag bands of pirates spamming more leviathans than original legions did, both defended with vigour here despite making negative amounts of sense and being complete opposite of what CSM are supposed to be)...

I don't know that that is entirely accurate, and I suspect a lot of people have never bothered looking at powerlevel to points conversions. If you take a min sized squad of kabalite warriors for example, the power level cost of the unit is higher than the points cost of the unit naked. Why? Because the power level has accounted for an expectation that players would field upgrades with the unit, as such they leveled up the power level cost to account for that. Most (if not all) the other units I've looked at are generally the same. Can I add more than 1PL worth of upgrades (in terms of matched play points) to a 5-man Kabalite unit? Sure, but I probably wouldn't because theres no point loading up a unit with such a bizarre and unfocused mix of weaponry and upgrades, while it may be "optimal" to do so from the perspective that you're getting a lot of capability for no cost, the truth is that its subject to diminishing returns and the non-synergy of so many of those options together will render the unit less capable than if you were more reserved in your selections and didn't max out on everything that you could.

Rihgu wrote:The same world where 170 points of chosen with power mauls is equivalent to 170 points of chosen with combi-bolters or single lightning claws? Or 165 point Trajann Valoris. Sorry, wait, the Chosen are slightly better than Trajann Valoris, they cost 5 points more, after all. Granularity!

Under a points system, those are balance issues that can be rectified through adjusting points.

Under PL, it's unfixable. And you're not only asserting that those units are equivalent, you're also asserting that 170pts of Chosen with power mauls is equivalent to two-thirds their number with combi-bolters or single lightning claws. The balancing is objectively worse, so you do all the balancing yourself. Which, if that approach works for your group, fair enough.

Frankly, what seems ridiculous to me is how many PL proponents refuse to just say this:

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, what's a BENEFIT to PL? You've yet to actually answer that.

Quick maffs if you need to knock an army list out quickly

Ultimately PL is more abusable and less precise. That however sits with the user to some degree, I've been in PL crusades and not had any problems because nobody runs douchebag lists or units.

and instead engage in these contortions about how since points are merely a 'shaping mechanism', it means that a system where six dudes with basic rifles are considered equal value to ten with uber-death-rays is just as good as one where those elements are at least all individually accounted for (but maybe not perfectly).

And inevitably, the fact that it is objectively worse as a balancing mechanism is acknowledged, and the goalposts shift to arguing that because it sucks so bad you have no choice but to balance the game yourself to have a fun time, that actually it results in better balance (because you do the work yourself). Never mind that you actually need a lot of experience and game knowledge to appropriately balance out two forces in this manner, that you can do the same thing with points anyways, and that using points-based lists gets you closer to start with and results in less work needed to close the gap.

Dudeface at least gets it and I use PL for exactly the same purpose, quickly building out lists for casual games with friends or playing Crusade.