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chaos0xomega wrote:
Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.

Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.

tneva82 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.

Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.

The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue

Well I folded and ordered one.

With a Techmarine around (I'll never field it without one) for PotO and AtMS and all Volkite my Salamander Kratos will dish out slightly above 4,22 mortal wounds per turn in addition to any other damage (and those 18,33 S5+ D2 hits are bound to do some damage).

Ultimately I'm just glad to get some reinforcements to my Salamanders that are actually tracked and not floating slightly above ground...

 MinscS2 wrote:
Well I folded and ordered one.
(...)

Ultimately I'm just glad to get some reinforcements to my Salamanders that are actually tracked and not floating slightly above ground...

Same, and its a lot more playable than the mastodon (still love it though)

nekooni wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.

Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.

The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue

I don't know. If you give the Kratos a similar loadout to the Achilles it's pretty even regardless if you go the Volkite-path or the Antitank-path:

- Volkite:
Achilles: 16 shots + Quadcannon.
Kratos: 22 shots (8 which deals 2 MW on 6's)

- Antitank:
Achilles: 8 Multimelta shots + Quadcannon (4 ML's essentially)
Kratos: 6 Multimelta shots (4 which have 36" range) and 4 Lascannons.

I'd say the 2 additional wounds makes me favor the Kratos. Of course, the Achilles have some transport capacity.

I don't think neither makes the other redundant.

Edit: Apparently the Kratos comes with an Autocannon that you can't replace with anything as standard as well, but ... who cares honestly.

 MinscS2 wrote:

nekooni wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.

Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.

The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue

I don't know. If you give the Kratos a similar loadout to the Achilles it's pretty even regardless if you go the Volkite-path or the Antitank-path:

- Volkite:
Achilles: 16 shots + Quadcannon.
Kratos: 22 shots (8 which deals 2 MW on 6's)

- Antitank:
Achilles: 8 Multimelta shots + Quadcannon (4 ML's essentially)
Kratos: 6 Multimelta shots (4 which have 36" range) and 4 Lascannons.

I'd say the 2 additional wounds makes me favor the Kratos. Of course, the Achilles have some transport capacity.

I don't think neither makes the other redundant.

For me the Achilles will probably win because melta is worth more due to being Salamanders, and it has transport capacity. 2 more shots from the MM outweight the one extra AP on the lascans, especially t2/3 for me.
And the Achilles doesnt have Martial Legacy

 Dysartes wrote:
So, Gad, what do you think of the Kratos datasheet?

I'd say many others have already covered most of what I think already. It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit "meh".

One thing, however, that I think people are forgetting when comparing the Kratos to an Achilles, or any other HS unit with <18W (other Land Raiders, Kill Rigs, Tyranofexes, etc), is that because of those 18W, the Kratos can not benefit from Obscurring and Dense cover. So it effectively can't hide, which is a problem in 9th. And since it isn't TITANIC, despite being the size of a Spartan, it doesn't even get the benefits that most 18+ wound models get, like being able to fallback + shoot/charge and ignoring Difficult Terrain of less than 3". In effect, you're getting some of the worst parts of a LoW, without any of the benefits. All you're really dodging is the 1CP you'd end up paying for the SHAD.

So yeah "meh".

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.

Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.

Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

One more shovel full of dirt on the grave of points...

The more people complain about the points of stuff, the more GW will just continue on the road to PL only.

Cut off nose to spite face but hilarious if true.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
So, Gad, what do you think of the Kratos datasheet?

I'd say many others have already covered most of what I think already. It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit "meh".

One thing, however, that I think people are forgetting when comparing the Kratos to an Achilles, or any other HS unit with <18W (other Land Raiders, Kill Rigs, Tyranofexes, etc), is that because of those 18W, the Kratos can not benefit from Obscurring and Dense cover. So it effectively can't hide, which is a problem in 9th. And since it isn't TITANIC, despite being the size of a Spartan, it doesn't even get the benefits that most 18+ wound models get, like being able to fallback + shoot/charge and ignoring Difficult Terrain of less than 3". In effect, you're getting some of the worst parts of a LoW, without any of the benefits. All you're really dodging is the 1CP you'd end up paying for the SHAD.

So yeah "meh".

Well here knights were hiding in 8e and are still hiding.

Just because you are 18W doesn't mean you are seen through solid wall.

I don't mind it honestly.

It suffers from all the usual marine tank issues but we knew it was going to.

With AoC T8, 2+ 18W is as hard to kill as it gets for an Imperial vehicle out side of massive stuff.

Firepower wise it has lots of guns and can be kitted to deal with most targets. The Melta cannon isn't very interesting but is a decent option, certainly better than the AP shot of the battlecannon, what a fail.
All Volkite seems fun but its effectiveness will be highly dependant on what you are playing against.

I'm torn on the unevenness of the upgrades/points.

I don't mind them not changing cost for different weapon options when you get to choose between an anti-tank gun, anti-horde gun, anti elite gun (flamer/melta/plasma for example) as you can pick your poison and what you want it to do.
Also it may seem silly but some players I know are put off when they see points for loads of different stuff listed and just want to pay a single cost and then do what they want with it.
The problem is when one of the options does the job of one or more of the other options better than that option, then it need to cost more.

I would also like the option of not taking all the extra guns for a cheaper overall cost but the gamer in me wouldn't let me not take free upgrade options.

I love the model so will be getting one anyway, how effective it is? Time will tell.

Looks better on paper than the similarly priced Repulsor Executioner.

Yes the move away from different points for different options is very concerning. A Nid warrior with Devourer and Scything talon should not be the same cost as one with a Deathspitter and dual boneswords, and based on the points cost it would appear GW is putting the price for both at the cheap end, rather then assuming the most expensive.

I think that all-Volkite is going to be the way forward with the Kratos in 40K. The ability to pump out significant numbers of MWs at range is an ability Marines don't really have outside of of Forgeworld at the moment and that gives it a niche.

Melta on the turret is a bit underwhelming as a pair of MM attack bikes cost only 120 points and give you the same firepower (their speed compensates for the shorter range) and they are CORE. The Battlecannon turret does not seem to pack enough punch IMHO and Heavy Bolters and Autocannons are struggling due to the proliferation of -1 Damage units and AOC.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.

Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter and there are times you want a lascannon. The traditional failure of the 40k points system has often been (in part) the assumption that the demand and utility/applicabiltiy of both weapons is equivalent, and so the lascannon was priced at a higher cost than the heavy bolter, because "better stats = better weapon" - but if I'm shooting a guardsman the heavy bolter is the a better weapon than a lascannon (which is virtually useless for that role), and if I'm shooting a land raider the lascannon is the better weapon than the heavy bolter. The shift in weapon pricing is generally reflective of that, and goes hand-in-hand with the restatting of many weapons in order to differentiate them and give them more niche specialization to justify the idea that they are equal alternatives. The shift also goes hand in hand with the general change in approach to listbuilding and army composition engendered by the freeform DIY detachment system that GW rolled out and the introduction of armies like knights, etc. Another big change was the shift in vehicles to a standard profile away from armor values, etc. Now, the utility/value of a lascannon vs a heavy bolter is essentially directly proportional to the average ratio of "infantry" (generally low toughness low save single wound models) to "tanks" (generally high toughness high save multiwound models) on the other side of the table - but that ratio can change dramatically from one battle to another and attempting to proscribe a cost to these weapons on that basis is a fools errand.

If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.

GW has (rightfully so in my mind) recognized this and done away with the artificial valuation of weapons and instead given players free reign to make strategic listbuilding choices between what are essentially equal alternatives based on the needs of the army and intended role of the unit, relative to what their typical opponent is expected to bring, etc. Unfortunately, where this basically falls apart is the fact that going into a tournament or competitive event you can't change your list between games (and even in a casual environment such behavior is frowned upon as list tailoring), which serves to encourage players to in all instances simply pick the "most optimal" choice that has the widest ranging utility against the most varied set of targets likely to be encountered. Theres an argument to be made that this "most optimal" choice should be the one that has to pay extra for the weapons configuration on the basis that its the "most efficient" or "most used" in order to incentivize the alternative build - but that doesn't really work well for a game that is subject to the idea of local meta. Case in point - in the post Armor of Contempt world people insist weapons like heavy bolters, autocannons, or anything in the range of AP-1 or AP-2 are basically useless because their AP stat is effectively neutered by armies that benefit from AoC, which many presume to be in the majority... but locally AoC armies make up less than a third of my playerbase and those weapons still have a lot of use to me when facing other opponents, so I (and I would wager many others) are not devaluing those weapons the same way that many of you are. And so, trying to price weapons based on the perceived "most optimal" build used by the global meta aggregate is foolish, because its not necessarily reflective of the experience of the average player or even necessarily the majority of players.

Yes and No

because there is one problem missing, that GW always created a weapon that is good at both, the situation were 99% of the enemies are Infantry and 99% of the enemies are Tanks

and this is the weapon everyone takes because the more universal the weapon is the better

in the past this was usually also the cheap weapon because somehow GW fails at calculating potential damage

a 1 shot Laser with D6 Damage is seen as equal to a D6 shot Laser with 1 Damage as seen as equal to a melee weapon with the same stats

all options being the same amount of points is as stupid as a Lasercannon being more expensive than a Heavy Bolter, because it ignores that there are some weapons who are better than those and should cost more

GW really fail to understand all-round weapons. The fact that Marines pay more points for Missile Launchers than Grav Cannons is hilarious since the Grav Cannon is better than Frag against infantry and better than Krak against vehicles.

chaos0xomega wrote:
<Snip for length>

There is no reality in which a Devourer Scything talon Tyranid warrior costing the same as a Deathspitter Dual Bonesword Warrior makes sense.

I’m just laughing that Space Marines get this thing as day -1 release and meanwhile CSM can just wait. I know creating a pdf is very very exhausting but just change a few words. Maybe Chaos will get to use it in a year or two I guess.

 Ordana wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
<Snip for length>

There is no reality in which a Devourer Scything talon Tyranid warrior costing the same as a Deathspitter Dual Bonesword Warrior makes sense.

Which isn't saying much in and of itself, just because you can take certain weapon loadout combinations doesn't necessarily mean you should - putting a lascannon on a helbrute with a helbrute fist, for example, isn't the best use of a lascannon or a fist. Putting a multimelta on that helbrute with the fist, though, makes it a lot more useful. Likewise pairing the lascannon with a missile launcher makes it more useful (though less points efficient than a quad-las predator, but I digress).

Anyway, there is a reality in which the Devourer + scytal warrior is better than the Deathspitter Dual Bonesword warrior - a reality in which more than 50% of likely opponents have toughness 2, 1 wound, and no armor save (so basically somewhere between a grot and a nurgling). Its just that thats a generally unrealistic expectation of the game and the limited corner case scenarios in which the devourer + scytal warrior works out to being matehmatically superior are extremely extremely rare - rare enough that given the option between the two loadouts you would hedge your bets and go for the deathspitter dual bonesword loadout 100% of the time.

In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this.

Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.

Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

One more shovel full of dirt on the grave of points...

The more people complain about the points of stuff, the more GW will just continue on the road to PL only.

Cut off nose to spite face but hilarious if true.

We have to self-balance anyways, might as well do it with less math.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.

Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter

Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.

chaos0xomega wrote:
If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.

Not sure about this.

For example at the outset of 9th, the new MMs drove vehicles without solid invuls towards extinction. Boards were littered with Eradicators, MM attack bikes, 8th edition codex Retributors and so on. Which unsurprisingly meant the amount of vehicles on competitive tables went down (and, interestingly, armies which didn't go as hard into this started to be more likely to win tournaments - because there are better tools than melta into say infantry). Should GW have made MMs even cheaper because they didn't have a target?

In practice for a balanced game you need a relationship between tanks, infantry, lascannons and heavy bolters. This is a function of their respective probabilities versus each other, not in which a player happens to encounter on the table. Because if one has better probabilities, and hence is more likely to come out on top, it will tend to become more common place.

So yes, you can try to make a heavy bolter the same points as a lascannon. But the maths has to work out that way. And it clearly doesn't in numerous cases GW had put out recently.

When you're handed a Kratos datasheet and told that it costs you 320 points regardless of what options you select (the 5 point HK missile and 10 point multimelta option notwithstanding), how is that different than being told it will cost you 22 Power regardless of what options you select?

Both basically ascribe to the idea that weapon options are all (mostly) equivalent alternatives and any difference in their stats can be handwaved away as a result of performance tradeoffs (i.e. this weapon might hit harder but has fewer shots, etc.).

The way matched play points are trending is towards power level - the same phenomenon can basically be seen in Tyranid Warriors for example. Given enough time and adjustments to statlines GW will bring it to the point that most weapon options will be effectivly "equal alternates" with no cost associated, with the rare option that cost a few schmeckles more (whether thats measured in power level or matched play points is irrelevant). At that point it simply becomes a question of whether or not GW does away with the distinction between the two systems or continues to pretend that matched points are something different. I'm guessing the decision is really out of GWs hands and the playerbase would react unfavorably to a transition of points to power level, even if there is no fundamental difference between how they are being used at that point (cue kvetching about "points granularity" or whatever excuse the pro-points crowd would trot out at that point in time to justify why its okay for a unit of 10 models, for example, to cost 200 points regardless of what weapon and wargear options they select, but its not okay for the same unit to cost 10 Power).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit

It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.

Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter

Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.

Depends on the Volkite weapon, heavy bolter vs volkite caliver? I'd lean towards the heavy bolter. Vs volkite culverin? lean towards the culverin (unless AoC is removed from the meta or becomes dramatically less common, even still I probably would favor the culverin).

Tyel wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.

Not sure about this.

For example at the outset of 9th, the new MMs drove vehicles without solid invuls towards extinction. Boards were littered with Eradicators, MM attack bikes, 8th edition codex Retributors and so on. Which unsurprisingly meant the amount of vehicles on competitive tables went down (and, interestingly, armies which didn't go as hard into this started to be more likely to win tournaments - because there are better tools than melta into say infantry). Should GW have made MMs even cheaper because they didn't have a target?

In practice for a balanced game you need a relationship between tanks, infantry, lascannons and heavy bolters. This is a function of their respective probabilities versus each other, not in which a player happens to encounter on the table. Because if one has better probabilities, and hence is more likely to come out on top, it will tend to become more common place.

So yes, you can try to make a heavy bolter the same points as a lascannon. But the maths has to work out that way. And it clearly doesn't in numerous cases GW had put out recently.

Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.

Do we think they just made a horrible mistake with the power level? I can't see any reason it would be massively inflated above the 20 points = 1 power level standard.

It seems like it should be 16 or 17 power level instead of 22.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this.

Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness.

That's an interesting idea. On first glance I kinda like that.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.

I'm not really sure what you mean by putting points values in front of the problem - because points are intrinsic to the problem.

The issue was that MM probability was too good - and so you were likely to get highly positive exchanges. If I bring a 150~ (or less) point unit of melta and have very good odds to just move across the table and blow up a 150+ point tank then you are going to be in trouble. A few of those and you are losing % of your army - and that's before the rest of my list does anything.

If those tanks were cheaper you'd have more stuff left to fight back with. If those tanks have better stats (or MMs weaker stats - or more expensive) then the probabilities become less reliable. You won't make those exchanges on those terms - and so bringing tanks (or not bringing MMs) becomes more desirable.

I mean in the case of the Kratos - if for its 320 points you mathed out it was likely to only kill 100 points of stuff - and at the same time 500 points of vaguely anti-tank would reliably kill it, you'd quickly conclude its going to be bad as it has a terrible exchange rate. As far as I can see this isn't the case though.

Tyel wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.

I'm not really sure what you mean by putting points values in front of the problem - because points are intrinsic to the problem.

Are they? This is what I mean by saying don't put the points in front of the problem. You're saying that the problem is that vehicles are too expensive or multimeltas are too cheap. I am saying no, the problem is that vehicles are underpowered and overly fragile.

Could that problem be solved by making a 150 point vehicle a 100 point vehicle instead? Theoretically, sure - but it would be better if vehicle rules and stats were adjusted to reflect the idea that a tank is supposed to be a mobile bunker capable of shrugging off repeated blows that would otherwise easily paste softer targets.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Are they? This is what I mean by saying don't put the points in front of the problem. You're saying that the problem is that vehicles are too expensive or multimeltas are too cheap. I am saying no, the problem is that vehicles are underpowered and overly fragile.

Could that problem be solved by making a 150 point vehicle a 100 point vehicle instead? Theoretically, sure - but it would be better if vehicle rules and stats were adjusted to reflect the idea that a tank is supposed to be a mobile bunker capable of shrugging off repeated blows that would otherwise easily paste softer targets.

Well yes. You can change rules. Maybe you should because just making everything cheaper to counter codex creep isn't a great solution.

But you still get back to this idea that a certain amount of power is worth a certain amount of points. If your 150 point tank is only worth 100 in terms other units, then its going to be bad. If on the other hand its worth 200 then its going to be very good.

And this is where we get back to the point. You can write rules where a heavy bolter and lascannon are worth the same. But if the maths doesn't work out that way - then they aren't. And you will have imbalance if you pretend that they are.