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Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.

Yeah, no.

I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.

The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.

Tawnis wrote:So obviously points vs PL = big debate, but I think a hybridized system could work just fine.

You get X PL for your army and X Points for all the upgrades across your army.

I've played a lot of both points and PL and both have their issues. Points tend to leave most upgrade options by the wayside in favour of the leanest, most efficient units, while PL games throw every possible upgrade on a model because there is usually no reason not to.

Just saying, it would be nice to have a middle ground where people have some extra room to play around with customizability, without sacrificing unit efficiency; and I don't think that it would make calculating lists any more complex.

That's a system used in a lot of historical wargames, and you can play around with how much equipment each force gets to represent differing levels of eliteness or supply. It's a good way to differentiate forces and streamlines balancing as well.

But I can't see GW using specifically points for that. I would expect them to make some other similarly-coarse metric like requisition points.

nou wrote:

Dai wrote:

It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.

In defence of Karol, I don't think he has any ill intent here, and it is a translation problem. In polish, 'normalny' (normal) and 'dziwny' (weird, odd, baffling) have no pejorative tone and no psychiatric connotation to them. In this context, normal means "default" and weird means "out of ordinary".

Yes, I do work of a dictionary and google translate. I thought that after so many years it was obvious.

Yeah, no.

Well the only other option, then is to claim that if your army or units gets stuff for free it becomes less efficient. And that is illogical. The options would have to make the units worse when taken. And while I can imagine some crazy narrative scenario where the opposing team scores VPs based on how many heavy and special weapons they can steal, in all other games it would just not be true.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dai 804474 11348313 wrote:

It is gatekeeping. Why the hell do you even care? Also stop using words like "weird", "crazy" and "normal" in relation to these things. It is exceptionally rude.

A I don't think GW should invest its time to trying to design the game for two points systems, when they clearly struggle with designing one B I play points, so of course I am interested in points being removed or replaced by PL C As nou said, there is certain language barrier here. neither wierd, crazy or normal are viewed as bad or good here. I don't think in english, and I don't think I ever will. So wierd they are too me. Plus it word is much shorter and easier to remember then something long like non ordinary or something similar.

Honestly I don't see the basis for complaining about which system is being used. It's just a matter of how high you want to count. Fluff players are going to make fluffy lists regardless of optimization of whichever point system you use and the same for power gamers pushing everything to the max. I don't see the game state changing all that much (if any) regardless of which system is adopted/used.

If that is the case, and fluff players can change the way the players no matter what the actual game system or rules are, then why force rules and rules decisions on players who are not fluff players? And why invest work time in to creating rules they may and, from what we see in this thread, will change.

I could imagine GW doing this as a side project. Their regular game system is as perfect as it can be, changes to it can be done on the go,. Then why not make some scenarios to sell some books. A perfectly legit thing to do. But w40k is not, and I don't think it ever was in the state, where the design studio could say that the work is done, and now they have free time. Because it starts too look the way office workers function in here, aka find something and complicate it creating additional problems, just to you can fix them, often creating more problem, just that someone higher up doesn't start thinking what is X doing actually and why aren't we replacing him with a machine.

 catbarf wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.

Yeah, no.

I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.

The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.

Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?

You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?

Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.

Seriously:

Squad size becomes 7 Guardsmen, 1 Heavy Weapons Team, and a Sergeant.
Sergeant comes standard with a Laspistol and Chainsword, pays to upgrade both of those.
Heavy Weapons Team comes with a Missile Launcher as standard, with Mortars as their own squad going forward, and then pays to upgrade or alternate from there.

There is a huge difference between an IG squad armed with a Grenade Launcher and a heavy bolter, and one armed with a melta/plasma and a lascanon.

Same goes for heavy weapon teams on their own. 3 AC, 3hvy bolters, 3 lascanons or 3 mortars are not the same thing, and should not be costed like one.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.

Yeah, no.

I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.

The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.

Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?

You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?

Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.

Seriously:

Squad size becomes 7 Guardsmen, 1 Heavy Weapons Team, and a Sergeant.
Sergeant comes standard with a Laspistol and Chainsword, pays to upgrade both of those.
Heavy Weapons Team comes with a Missile Launcher as standard, with Mortars as their own squad going forward, and then pays to upgrade or alternate from there.

Kanluwen... I....
You know PL doesn't have the concept of "paying" for upgrades, right?

 Eonfuzz wrote:
..
You know PL doesn't have the concept of "paying" for upgrades, right?

Mostly, a few here and there do. Usually these are things like Jump Packs and the like, but can be others as well. It is rare though.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Kanluwen... I....
You know PL doesn't have the concept of "paying" for upgrades, right?

We're overlooking the PL upgrades in basically every 9th edition codex? Chapter masters, chief apothacaries, Kustom Jobs, etc etc?

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Kanluwen... I....
You know PL doesn't have the concept of "paying" for upgrades, right?

Cool, so I get Veteran Skitarii for free?
It doesn't cost you anything to add more models to a unit?

PL could, 100%, be given a bit more teeth for balancing if necessary. But so could literally everything else.

That said we have seen GW responding to trends in other minis wargames; the push towards increasing characters' support role in 8th came at a time where it could be argued that it was a reaction to Warmachine eating GW's market share (which sounds silly today because it worked so well Warmachine has all but disappeared), and 30k's reaction system looks a lot like 2e Bolt Action's. A suspicious person might suspect that a move to a less granular points system could be a response to Atomic Mass' shift in that direction with Crisis Protocol and X-Wing, and could come with the promise of a mandatory sideboard at 10e events to make sure you need to buy 3,000pts of stuff to play a 2,000pt game.

(Disclaimer: I have no evidence for any of this, it is merely a sort of plausible set of explanations that bear some resemblance to the facts.)

I made the cruchiest list I could for Adepta Sororitas... like explicitly trying to get as many points per power level spent. 98 PL, 2550 points, somewhere between 26-27 points per PL, which is radically higher than the traditional 20:1 ratio.

The list... uh...

I mean, there's way to build 2000 point armies and just not be competitive... and this one is probably squarely in that category, especially against any sort of tuned or coherent list.

The big winners of PL bias are:
Celestians (5 can kit up to a whopping 30 points per PL spent - every upgrade possible)

Dominions (25 points per 1PL with their most expensive loads, 5x each)

Retributors (29.2 points per PL with a full, most expensive load, 5x each)

And funny enough... as I've already pointed them out as being probably a point low in PL as a base: Battle Sisters (33.3 points per PL with most expensive 5-girl options)

So what you end up with is a TON of melta... knights beware. You also have 0 staying power, and pretty bad range (kiss turn 1 goodbye).

Paragons also were in there, but they were VERY close to 20 points per PL. I think a unit of 3 netted you 1 extra pip of PL for their points (11PL vs 240 pts)

I guess if you wanted to cheese the system for as much as you can, you certainly can get some returns... but the second you start trying to make it a fighting force that can play the game... a lot of those imbalances, at least from points per power, start evaporating.

It was a fun little exercise, and I'll admit that a lot of my 100PL armies come close to like 2050-2150 points, but there's a few quantifiers in there:

1) I can trim to 2000 without very little discomfort should the need arise.

2) My opponents can usually break 2000 points too with their options.

3) If we see nasty imbalances, like 2500 points vs 1800 points at 100PL... yeah, laugh about it and adjust.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.

Yeah, no.

I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.

The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.

Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?

You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?

...No? They're options. Ones which add to the power of the squad but previously increased the cost of the squad accordingly.

I'm really not following your logic at all. Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?

Purifying Tempest wrote:
I made the cruchiest list I could for Adepta Sororitas... like explicitly trying to get as many points per power level spent. 98 PL, 2550 points, somewhere between 26-27 points per PL, which is radically higher than the traditional 20:1 ratio.

The list... uh...

My go-to example for a list built to optimize the points/PL ratio rather than being good in 8th involved lots of Deathwatch Veterans, who were 2PL/model but you could take frag cannons and thunderhammers on all of them to produce a list that was technically over 30pts/PL but also trivially easy to wipe in a turn or two.

 catbarf wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

Karol wrote:
Yes in general if you make a faction get stuff for free, and it is real free aka the cost of stuff isn't added to the base cost of units, they do better.

Yeah, no.

I cannot rationalize this exchange as anything other than sheer contrarianism.

The fact that giving Guardsmen sergeant upgrades, heavy weapons, and voxes all for free will make them perform better is obvious. Unless the quibble is that technically their base cost went up by a few points.

Or the quibble is that the stuff should have been baked into the unit cost to begin with?

You want to argue that HWTs, Sergeant upgrades, and Voxes are "must-haves" for an Infantry Squad?

...No? They're options. Ones which add to the power of the squad but previously increased the cost of the squad accordingly.

I'm really not following your logic at all.

Maybe if you had read one line further than what you cut off, you would have?

Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.

Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?

That's not even remotely the argument I made and you know it.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Maybe if you had read one line further than what you cut off, you would have?

Then stop pretending like they're options, and cost them accordingly.

Giving units free stuff doesn't make them better because you would have taken the stuff and paid points for it but now it's free? What?

That's not even remotely the argument I made and you know it.

I stopped there because it's a premise that isn't true, and the subsequent lines follow that untrue premise. Those upgrades are not and never have been mandatory, so we're not 'pretending' they're options, they are/were legitimately options that you had to pay for.

Karol stated a very basic fact, which is that a unit that previously had to pay for upgrades suddenly getting them for free is going to perform better. You said 'yeah, no'. Your justification for this remark is that the upgrades were effectively mandatory before (but they weren't?) so you were taking them either way. But even if that were true, then a pretty hefty points reduction compared to the previous cost with those upgrades is obviously going to be a massive improvement.

If that isn't your argument, help me out here by stating it coherently, because from my POV you're not making any sense.

chaos0xomega wrote:
As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.

Imagine that.

yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.

And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.

Imagine that.

yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.

And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.

Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?

Dudeface wrote:


Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?

maybe the vision and intent is that guard is a gak codex so GW slapped changes in hopes of patching them until they get their 9th codex.

Dudeface wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.

Imagine that.

yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.

And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.

Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?

If that's the intent then that's fine, but that's beside the point, which was that a squad with such a loadout just got significantly cheaper with no downsides, as well as getting a significant rules buff for free. So of course it's going to perform better than it did.

Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.

 catbarf wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As of the latest dataslate, guard squads are effectively using PL in matched play - 60 points (3PL) for the unit, all upgrades are free. Early indications are that the unit (and the faction) are now more playable and better balanced than at any time since 9th edition launched.

Imagine that.

yeah, because you get to bring the big guns for free, who wouldve thought.

And now you'll never see a barebone squad anymore.

Maybe you never should? Maybe the vision and intent is that an infantry squad in stock loadout should be a heavy, special and vox?

If that's the intent then that's fine, but that's beside the point, which was that a squad with such a loadout just got significantly cheaper with no downsides, as well as getting a significant rules buff for free. So of course it's going to perform better than it did.

Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.

Don't draw attention to it. That kind of thinking leads to Kan's logic where they just lose heavy weapon teams.

 catbarf wrote:

Also I have to say, in an era of rules being rewritten to fit the kits, it is pretty annoying that the intended loadout (if that's the vision/intent) is not supported by the kit.

Joke's on you, because it's never supported the kit.

Also, they sell the Brood Brothers kit with the HWT. They sell the SC Guard box with the HWT.

They just don't care. There's been enough lasguns in the bloody box for long enough that the Sergeant Lasgun option should have come back ages ago.

Voss wrote:

Don't draw attention to it. That kind of thinking leads to Kan's logic where they just lose heavy weapon teams.

Oi, get it right if you're gonna snipe at me!

They lose heavy weapon teams for Infantry+Veteran Squads, but retain Missile Launchers(which get moved to Special Weapons) and get a complete rework of the Special Weapons list to be comparable to most kits these days!

Its interesting, maybe ironic, that we fight so passionately on the Power Level vs Points things, because Points are more balanced because they have more precision... indicating a strong strong desire for actual balance...

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

 auticus wrote:
Its interesting, maybe ironic, that we fight so passionately on the Power Level vs Points things, because Points are more balanced because they have more precision... indicating a strong strong desire for actual balance...

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

The people here posting do not represent the bulk of GW's customers.
Seriously-there's how many people on this forum? Compare that to how many people play 40k.

And some people here are modelers first-they'll buy cool models because they want to build it, and GW makes cool models. The rules, if good, are a bonus to them.

Moreover, this forum ain't a monolith. If what one person says is contradicted by what another person says, that's because they're different people.

There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.

Thats all true yet the people arguing against Power Level because of balance reasons also still play.

I've seen PL vs Points rage fires on big fb groups as well, so I know its not just limited to dakka. I realize its also not representative of everyone all told that plays, but its interesting to note that on social media and forums in general that this conversation when it comes up gets the same basic results with a wider audience.

 auticus wrote:

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.

I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.

...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.

The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 auticus wrote:

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.

I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.

...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.

The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.

The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 auticus wrote:

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.

I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.

...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.

The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.

The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?

Por que no los dos?

That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.

Arcanis161 wrote:

Spoiler:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 auticus wrote:

Yet the game remains in a horribly unbalanced state for time immemorial ... and still shovel cash at GW.

Which does tell us people are having fun with the game. Because the game tends to be more than just the big tourney circuits where broken skew lists are probably the de facto lists.

I played Crusade and one guy just built a force around his Grot Tanks and Battle fortress. Not a good list, but fun was had by most people and many adjusted accordingly.

...and that is the actual magic behind Warhammer. The game may be broken as a balanced game, but for a beer and pretzel game between friends it is a fun, albeit expensive, hobby. Hell, I participate regularly in RTTs and it's always fun. Sure, a few might be fielding some unbalanced list, but most others are just fielding what they like and have fun with and you get to meet other people excited about the hobby and the armies therein.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
There's a reason why some people mention how a lot of the changes recently are quite mentioned as being very positively received on other places. Dakka has a very different microcosm.

The local scene here is just positive about the new dataslate. People just want to have fun.

The magic of Warhammer is needing to do balance adjustments yourself instead of holding the designers accountable?

Por que no los dos?

That's probably the best thing to do IMO. You can multi-task.

You shouldn't have to do game designer's work for a game where the rules cost a premium. Especially not a competitive game-and yes, by default, 40k is competitive.
Moreover, it's far, FAR easier to unbalance a balanced game than to balance an unbalanced one.