Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Codex? No. But if you want a digital Liber, then they're readily available. I see no reason why they couldn't do the same for 40k as 30k.

As they should be. And at the moment those do not require a sub and are cheaper than physical ate they not?

There's a difference between doing a print run and selling out and doing a smaller print run to get more subs.

If subs were more profitable then why make physical books?

I get GW is a company and it has to make money to stay around. It's these *made up* ideas that just truly drive me nuts.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Codex? No. But if you want a digital Liber, then they're readily available. I see no reason why they couldn't do the same for 40k as 30k.

As they should be. And at the moment those do not require a sub and are cheaper than physical ate they not?

There's a difference between doing a print run and selling out and doing a smaller print run to get more subs.

If subs were more profitable then why make physical books?

I get GW is a company and it has to make money to stay around. It's these *made up* ideas that just truly drive me nuts.

Yeah, they might do digital codexes instead of pushing for subs for the app. Wasn't really arguing that point, just offering some clarity on the subject.

But you're really swallowing the 10th edition hype hook line and sinker, aren't you, Daed? Serious question: Do you have any interest in ocean front property in the Kentucky mountains?

I'm less pro-GW and more anti-bs.

I can easily read words at face value, take them at face value, and criticize things that are mishandled when they come up.

You better hope night lords aren't more interesting in 40K now.

Tyel wrote:
As has been said, Core/Troops units have tended to be a tax because they are too similar to other units which are better - both in absolute terms, and usually (but not always - see a lot of 8th edition 40k armies) in "rules for the point".

I guess I've been the exception. I've always run 4 Troops or 4 Core before I even touch another FOC slot. I've never thought of them as a tax especially since they're typically the most tactically flexible part of your force.

Tyel wrote:
To do WHFB - there's not a lot of reasons to take High Elf Spearmen if you can "get your infantry" from Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard and White Lions. Unless those three units are paying too many points. Dragon Princes and Silver Helms are another example.

Leftover mentality from the days of 5th when you only needed to satisfy the "Regiment" requirement with percentages. Same problem in 2nd Ed. 40K and "Squads". It's interesting that both systems brought back percentages AND that same mentality came back full force. And It was all too common to see High Elf armies where their entire Core requirement was tied up in Silver Helms, so I'm not sure where you got that from.

Also, in 6th and 7th both I wouldn't take to the field without at least 3 blocks of Spearmen. Eliminating 0-1 and the "tacticool" mindset of valuing badass elites over actual function are the only reason you see people swarming Specials and Rares over Core.

Tyel wrote:
If there's no caps and restrictions, things like Sternguard are just Tactical Marines+1. Either that +1 is efficient for the points - or it isn't. If it is, there's no real reason to take Tactical Marines until you've "run out" of Sternguard.

Part of the many reasons I went back to 3rd...

Tyel wrote:
Generally this is why troops have been given some sort of bonus. Obsec for instance. Or the only units that can score at all. But GW never sticks with this - because there are lots of fluffy armies that shouldn't have troops units, and they can't hold back from codex creep anyway. Making troops into "action bots" would compel people to have them in their lists - but that feels a bit contrived.

If people understood tactics and strategy more then they would see the value of Troops. Strats and all the bs added in since 5th have torn any sort of real tactical sense out and turned the game into a M:TG-esque game of buffs and counters.



As far as what would replace points? A poster in the last thread on the subject assured me that anything other than Power Level was ableist and transphobic, so I'd say modern 40K has no choice but to go Power Level.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I'm less pro-GW and more anti-bs.

I can easily read words at face value, take them at face value, and criticize things that are mishandled when they come up.

You better hope night lords aren't more interesting in 40K now.

I have absolutely no doubt that they won't be. The idiotic restrictions imposed by gw's NMNR policy (and the obvious example of them ignoring it in the case of Raptor Aspiring Champions) pretty much guarantee it. I've got two special terminator squads, a special power armour squad, a special jump pack squad, a Primarch, and multiple special characters (including the coolest Astartes to ever surf a starfighter) in 30k. Think 10th edition 40k is going to beat that? Without viable Night Fighting rules? Good luck.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah, this constant hard-on for Dark Angels being "different" is absolutely bonkers. They're not different. They don't need a whole different codex.

Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

Breton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah, this constant hard-on for Dark Angels being "different" is absolutely bonkers. They're not different. They don't need a whole different codex.

Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

I've been for that. What happened to World Eaters, Thousand Sons, and Death Guard was a travesty.

Idea vs execution.

The fact that GW did a bad job with those factions is hardly surprising, but separating them out and (attempting to) expand their rosters was not a bad idea.

Breton wrote:
Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?

They wouldn't bring everything into one book. They'd remove tons of stuff from the game to make it fit in one book. Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

The true Chad move is to remove Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Berserkers as distinct units, and then have Marks turn regular units into cult units by granting special rules and weapon/wargear access - allowing for Berzerker Havoks, Plague Bikes, Noise Terminators etc.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

The true Chad move is to remove Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Berserkers as distinct units, and then have Marks turn regular units into cult units by granting special rules and weapon/wargear access - allowing for Berzerker Havoks, Plague Bikes, Noise Terminators etc.

Perhaps a differentiation of being Marked vs Dedicated, with dedicated going more the "cult" direction.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

The true Chad move is to remove Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Berserkers as distinct units, and then have Marks turn regular units into cult units by granting special rules and weapon/wargear access - allowing for Berzerker Havoks, Plague Bikes, Noise Terminators etc.

Perhaps a differentiation of being Marked vs Dedicated, with dedicated going more the "cult" direction.

Which would bring us right back to the Glorious 3.5

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Do you want Cult representation to just go back to 4 units?

The true Chad move is to remove Noise Marines, Plague Marines, and Berserkers as distinct units, and then have Marks turn regular units into cult units by granting special rules and weapon/wargear access - allowing for Berzerker Havoks, Plague Bikes, Noise Terminators etc.

Perhaps a differentiation of being Marked vs Dedicated, with dedicated going more the "cult" direction.

Just take the Mark, but not the additional weapons/wargear.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Breton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah, this constant hard-on for Dark Angels being "different" is absolutely bonkers. They're not different. They don't need a whole different codex.

Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

I've been for that. What happened to World Eaters, Thousand Sons, and Death Guard was a travesty.

once again , if done competently it would blow out anything.

competently being the caveat.

Personally I think the HH Rites of War system would be the best. You get bonuses to field a very specific tips of list AND drawbacks. The faction stuff could then be an addendum to that. So while every marine chapter could do an "Outrider" detachment and field all bikes/speeders (at the cost of perhaps requiring a transport for anything on foot and not allowing any walkers, for example) white scars get an extra bonus if they use that detachment (but not any others) to represent it being their preferred style.

So a white scars player is encouraged to play the way the chapter does through incentives but are not REQUIRED to, representing exceptions to the norm where the "oops all bikes" approach isn't the correct answer.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I have absolutely no doubt that they won't be. The idiotic restrictions imposed by gw's NMNR policy (and the obvious example of them ignoring it in the case of Raptor Aspiring Champions) pretty much guarantee it. I've got two special terminator squads, a special power armour squad, a special jump pack squad, a Primarch, and multiple special characters (including the coolest Astartes to ever surf a starfighter) in 30k. Think 10th edition 40k is going to beat that? Without viable Night Fighting rules? Good luck.

Well now GW will revive Curze as a daemon!

Not Online!!! wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Breton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah, this constant hard-on for Dark Angels being "different" is absolutely bonkers. They're not different. They don't need a whole different codex.

Bring on the consolidated Chaos codex!

I've been for that. What happened to World Eaters, Thousand Sons, and Death Guard was a travesty.

once again , if done competently it would blow out anything.

competently being the caveat.

Riiiiiight, and I'm sure if done competently an Imperial Fists codex would be amazing.

Guess what, I don't care because it's not needed and it's bloat.

 vipoid wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
I am using a method gleaned from a video game (Age of Wonders Planetfall). This game also has costs for units and upkeep although armies are limited by allowing only a maximum of six unit in a single stack whereas stack is the synonym for army. Furthermore the game rates units (apart from characters) in Tiers of 1 to 4 and battlefield roles like skirmishers (damage dealers) and specialists (support). Characters (Leaders & Heroes) are rated in levels from 1 to 20 or 30.

I know this isn't the point you were making, but it might be interesting to look at some of that game's other mechanics for inspiration.

For example, each unit has 3 Mod slots (heroes can get a 4th at higher level) that you can use to upgrade them. These slots are completely separate to their weapons and can include all manner of abilities:
- Damage bonuses (usually in addition to other effects).
- Defensive bonuses (usually in addition to other effects).
- Rider effects for their weapons (e.g. a laser might also set a target on fire).
- Healing/Regeneration.
- Movement.
- Resistance/Immunity to certain elements or status effects.
- Special attacks.
- Utility.
- Special abilities/utility.
etc.

These mods all cost resources - based on both the tier of the mod and the tier of the unit being equipped. Some of them are also specific to certain units, usually for thematic reasons (e.g. a regeneration effect might be limited to biological units) or to units with certain weapons (the aforementioned fire effect only works on lasers).

Anyway, different combinations of mods can substantially change how a given unit plays. Basic infantry can become extremely dangerous even to higher-tier units when equipped with multiple damage/weapon-ability mods. Or they can be much more resilient with healing and armour mods. Of course, they'll also be markedly more expensive than regular, un-modded infantry, so you'd have fewer units on the table.

I don't know, maybe it would be too awkward if taken wholesale, but it seems a fun idea to play around with.

True. I am now in the stage of selecting/creating a few units for three or four factions. They also need to play different from each other and to differentiate Space Marines & Imperial Guard will be the most difficult as they both belong to the Imperium thus likely using the same Tactical & Strategic Operations.

Right now Mods, Operations and Secret Tech take a backseat as the core gameplay needs to work first. Game will use a mixed dice set: D100, D20, D12, D10, D8, D6 and D4. Units will at the most fire three times (with repeating attacks) and use a D100 table to calculate hits, grazes, misses, critical hits/fumbles quickly.

 LunarSol wrote:
If two things fill similar roles, even if they are costed appropriately, one will ultimately provide the better value and win out.

By how much? If you like Snickers better than Mars you'll always buy Snickers, but at a high enough price Snickers becomes something you rarely buy over Mars because it is a lot more expensive and at a price you stop buying Snickers entirely even if you like them. GW's job is to make the price close enough to balanced that Timmy doesn't get told to shelve or destroy his missile launcher Devastators. Nobody cares if lascannons are superior by a tiny margin, but when GW removes pts you get into situations where it is self-evident that your Tactical Marine Sergeant should have plasma.

The problem is neither so easy a child could do it, nor so hard GW couldn't do it with the right approach. What we see is GW not even intending to get it right and people defending GW giving up. To be extra charitable I think GW should be allowed to give custodianship of pts to whoever they want, but the current team have neglected the challenge of internal balance.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Riiiiiight, and I'm sure if done competently an Imperial Fists codex would be amazing.

Guess what, I don't care because it's not needed and it's bloat.

I was and still am in favour of consolidating TS, WE and DG back into CSM. I am for a singular mortal chaos books like IA13 and for a singular daemonbook.
But i don't trust GW to do so in a manner that is competent enough that it is worth the endevaour.

 vict0988 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
If two things fill similar roles, even if they are costed appropriately, one will ultimately provide the better value and win out.

By how much? If you like Snickers better than Mars you'll always buy Snickers, but at a high enough price Snickers becomes something you rarely buy over Mars because it is a lot more expensive and at a price you stop buying Snickers entirely even if you like them. GW's job is to make the price close enough to balanced that Timmy doesn't get told to shelve or destroy his missile launcher Devastators. Nobody cares if lascannons are superior by a tiny margin, but when GW removes pts you get into situations where it is self-evident that your Tactical Marine Sergeant should have plasma.

The problem is neither so easy a child could do it, nor so hard GW couldn't do it with the right approach. What we see is GW not even intending to get it right and people defending GW giving up. To be extra charitable I think GW should be allowed to give custodianship of pts to whoever they want, but the current team have neglected the challenge of internal balance.

Yeah, I don't buy the idea that one will always be better than the other if they fulfill the same role, either. You can absolutely find a points balance where different options that have the same role can represent different balances of cost and effectiveness, and people will take to DakkaDakka and Reddit to argue passionately that their preference is the better choice.

It's not like GW has never managed that, either. I can think of a few options off the top of my head across different games that were essentially 'become better with no downsides besides cost' but weren't no-brainers either way.

 catbarf wrote:
It's not like GW has never managed that, either. I can think of a few options off the top of my head across different games that were essentially 'become better with no downsides besides cost' but weren't no-brainers either way.

You know the points are working when discussion threads passionately argue about which equivalent value unit is the better choice.

The problem arises when everyone knows that - though they cost the same - A is always a better value than B.

I cannot stress enough that this is not that difficult. GW is wedded to 6-sided dice, so the probabilities are ludicrously easy to calculate. It's not at all hard to do a matrix showing odds to hit, wound, and penetrate armor. One can then develop a matrix for this, run simulated combats and figure out a points system that reflects relative worth on the battlefield.

Twenty years ago we had former GW employees explaining how points were calculated (for fantasy, IIRC) and people were incredulous because it was self-evident that the numbers didn't add up. That was also when GW began its fateful transition from selling games to selling miniatures.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

I cannot stress enough that this is not that difficult. GW is wedded to 6-sided dice, so the probabilities are ludicrously easy to calculate. It's not at all hard to do a matrix showing odds to hit, wound, and penetrate armor. One can then develop a matrix for this, run simulated combats and figure out a points system that reflects relative worth on the battlefield.

The only problem with your approach is… it doesn’t work. Like - at all. A) your offense calculations will only provide a vague ballpark of efficiency if the system is linear. As soon as there are any modifiers that come from the target unit, it breaks completely. B) it is even worse for durability calculations, which always depend on the shooting unit, but you then try to apply a cost to the target unit. C) you still end up with the need of statistical balance, so why bother? You only need two or three iterations of simulated combats to establish the same rough starting value. D) point costs established in statistical way are only meaningful in large scale statistical context and are inadequate in the scale of single match, especially if mission context is not set in stone and there are too differing list archetypes in the system. Your true relative value of units will change from game to game, and since point systems are static, they can never account for that.

Seriously people - it is not like ALL game designers are incompetent for some cosmic reason and the proper answer to decades long problem of wargame balance is middle school math..

This is the matrix you described, for a system I'm developing right now. Rows represent weapons of various power, columns represent units of various durability, left area is efficiency against multimodel units, right area is efficiency against single model units, expressed as an expected percentage of the unit to be removed by the attack at the maximum ROF/squad of a given weapon. Exact unit/weapon profiles and math behind is irrelevant, as this is not for 40k. What is important, is that while this kind of matrix is great for establishing max damage output, so no unit breaks the game, both on offence and defence side of the coin, it is completely useless for balancing purposes.

Let's take a closer look at the left area. Leftmost units are large model count chaff, rightmost are durable elite and there is a spectrum of model count and durability in between. As you can see, there are weapons in this game with various degree of universality/speciality. You can't assign point costs to any row/column directly, as you don't know proliferation of both weapon and unit profiles in the game - this is where your statistical "simulated combats" or tournament data come to play. Theoretically, after gathering enough statistical data you can then establish weights for each row/column dependent on proliferation of profiles within "the meta" and set points based on such weighted averages. But this is exactly where it fails - as soon as there is any deviation from statistical composition of armies, your point values for a given matchup deviate from point costs calculated based on meta weights. In other words - such points are only a very rough ballpark for purposes of balancing your sunday pickup game. Example - let's assume that "the meta" has uniform coverage, every weapon and every profile gets the same share of the grand scale of things. But individual armies can have any kind of skewed composition. Let's narrow this down to just four archetypes for the sake of clarity: durable units tooled against durable units, durable units tooled against chaff units, chaff units tooled against durable units and chaff units tooled against chaff units. If all lists are equally popular, such meta has an even distribution of win-draw-lose statistics at 1-2-1, but every single game has known outcome, just like rock/paper/scissors, which has 50% winrate of each "faction" but is hardly a game worth playing. But let's go further. We establish our point costs based on this meta and those winrates. But now a piece of lore, that has nothing to do with the math of the system has been released, that skews the popularity of factions. Now not 50% of all armies are durable, but 75% of them. Your point costs are now completely off, only because some players have shifted to different faction and you now have to gather new tournament data and recalculate points.

Do you understand now, why point systems always chase the rabbit and never catch it?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Also card games have resource management as a form of balance. In MTG, i can't just play the biggest strongest units because i'll get outraced by aggro decks. 40k doesnt have that kind of balance so that suggestion means everyone would simply bring the biggest units in their armies

Well historicals have a similar problem. Witness how armoured recon units get treated by players and rule sets...

I don't think the recommendation is to use the algorithm, and make no adjustments. Corvus Belli claims to use a calculation, but we know they hand adjust regardless. Though, Corvus Belli's Infinity is definitely way harder to balance than 40k, despite most units being similar in comparison, since they can do much more, and there's a lot of non damaging, and even non direct forms of attack that alter the battlefield.
They do, however, also have a lot of other balancing levers that they pull besides points. I do think points are extremely valuable, regardless. One important thing is that the Guardsmen equivalents are 10 points, and the Space Marine ones are like 30 to 40 points. There's a rough Primarch equivalent (The Avatar) that sits at 126 points, if I remember correctly. In addition, adding and removing some rules is something they do occasionally. Avatar lost Remote Presence recently, so repairing it is much harder.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't think the recommendation is to use the algorithm, and make no adjustments. Corvus Belli claims to use a calculation, but we know they hand adjust regardless. Though, Corvus Belli's Infinity is definitely way harder to balance than 40k, despite most units being similar in comparison, since they can do much more, and there's a lot of non damaging, and even non direct forms of attack that alter the battlefield.
They do, however, also have a lot of other balancing levers that they pull besides points. I do think points are extremely valuable, regardless. One important thing is that the Guardsmen equivalents are 10 points, and the Space Marine ones are like 30 to 40 points. There's a rough Primarch equivalent (The Avatar) that sits at 126 points, if I remember correctly. In addition, adding and removing some rules is something they do occasionally. Avatar lost Remote Presence recently, so repairing it is much harder.

Re-read my post above - even with algorithms way more complex than n*pHit*pWound*(1-pSv) adjustments/weights are mandatory to reflect unit/weapon proliferation, but you still end up with only vaguely useful results.

nou wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

I cannot stress enough that this is not that difficult. GW is wedded to 6-sided dice, so the probabilities are ludicrously easy to calculate. It's not at all hard to do a matrix showing odds to hit, wound, and penetrate armor. One can then develop a matrix for this, run simulated combats and figure out a points system that reflects relative worth on the battlefield.

The only problem with your approach is… it doesn’t work. Like - at all. A) your offense calculations will only provide a vague ballpark of efficiency if the system is linear. As soon as there are any modifiers that come from the target unit, it breaks completely. B) it is even worse for durability calculations, which always depend on the shooting unit, but you then try to apply a cost to the target unit. C) you still end up with the need of statistical balance, so why bother? You only need two or three iterations of simulated combats to establish the same rough starting value. D) point costs established in statistical way are only meaningful in large scale statistical context and are inadequate in the scale of single match, especially if mission context is not set in stone and there are too differing list archetypes in the system. Your true relative value of units will change from game to game, and since point systems are static, they can never account for that.

Seriously people - it is not like ALL game designers are incompetent for some cosmic reason and the proper answer to decades long problem of wargame balance is middle school math..

The system does not need to be linear, you can change the values to make sure that if unit X2+ and X6+ are the same except one has a 2+ Sv and the other has a 6+ Sv then the you can make the values align such that X2+ is more pts-efficient into units with 0AP and X6+ is more efficient into units with 3AP. Units should not provide drastically different values between different missions in a single mission set. If you create a sneaky mission set then you can either change the points costs of the units that are better than the official mission set and vice versa or you can just embrace that sneaky units should be good in the sneaky mission set. Anti-tank lists should be good against tank lists and bad against infantry lists, someone rolling all 6s should beat someone rolling all 1s, perfect balance in every match has never been the goal.

I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the pts calculator for a fan version of 40k posted by someone here on Dakka, but to me it seems like it'd be less work to simply review some numbers in relation to other numbers, like how pts-efficient a unit is vs lascannons, lasguns or plasma and against Guardsmen, Space Marines or Land Raiders because you're never going to get a wrong number out of that, the only question is how to interpret the data, but a pts calculator does not promote interpretation but still requires it when it comes to more unique abilities and traits anyway, whether abilities are additive or multiplicative to the value of unit x or unit y is hard to say. In any case I think there is still a large space left for competitive playtesters to ferret out broken combos and annual pts updates based on casual and competitive feedback from the whole community.

Kind of think 40k at least does work off "middle school math" - which is why people can see a codex and almost instantly go "this is too good", or "this will be bad" by just doing a 1:1 comparison with 40k as it is.

I continue to think this idea that a lascannon is worth X in this meta and Y in that meta misses the wood for the trees.

In 40k imbalance is usually more obvious. Lets say faction A can get a unit with 4 lascannons for 150 points. And now a new codex comes out for faction B. They have a unit with effectively 4 lascannons...and its just 100 points. Whether lascannons are good or bad doesn't matter - faction B's unit is just going to be better than the unit in faction A. If faction A brings 2 of its 150 point units, faction B can bring 3 of its similar units (or 2 and something else). And unsurprisingly 3 will tend to beat 2 barring an unusual outcome in the dice.

It doesn't matter whether lascannons are good or lascannons are bad. We know faction A's lascannons are overcosted. If we got to the point where everyone's "4 Lascannon unit" was say 100 points, you may find that the meta evolves so lascannons are good or bad relatively to everyone's tanks.

We don't get that though. Because there are imbalances throughout the game. As a result everyone takes their respective "good stuff". That could be their lascannons, their assault units, their monsters or tanks. Whatever they have that is points efficient relative to the rest of 40k. If you don't have any units that have that "power for point" your faction is not going to do very well.

We see the idea that you can have "bad units" that you take to compensate "good units" - but by and large that just doesn't happen. You don't take bad units. If your faction has incredibly inefficient lascannons, you just hope you won't need them. And if you do well, you'll lose that game. But if you take them you'll lose to even more armies, because its inefficient and now bad against even more stuff.

GW are seemingly aware of this and their internal-codex balancing for 9th has been much better than previous editions. But external balancing continues to be a bit more random because they can't stop making stuff just a bit more powerful for the points.

nou wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I don't think the recommendation is to use the algorithm, and make no adjustments. Corvus Belli claims to use a calculation, but we know they hand adjust regardless. Though, Corvus Belli's Infinity is definitely way harder to balance than 40k, despite most units being similar in comparison, since they can do much more, and there's a lot of non damaging, and even non direct forms of attack that alter the battlefield.
They do, however, also have a lot of other balancing levers that they pull besides points. I do think points are extremely valuable, regardless. One important thing is that the Guardsmen equivalents are 10 points, and the Space Marine ones are like 30 to 40 points. There's a rough Primarch equivalent (The Avatar) that sits at 126 points, if I remember correctly. In addition, adding and removing some rules is something they do occasionally. Avatar lost Remote Presence recently, so repairing it is much harder.

Re-read my post above - even with algorithms way more complex than n*pHit*pWound*(1-pSv) adjustments/weights are mandatory to reflect unit/weapon proliferation, but you still end up with only vaguely useful results.

It's not vaguely useful if you actually use them, which is not what GW does. It's also still not a reason to not attempt at all.

If it were as difficult as you proclaim it to be, other games would be just as bad about it. Why is 40k always the one where it's a common occurrence compared to other games making a mistake here and there?

Tyel wrote:
Kind of think 40k at least does work off "middle school math" - which is why people can see a codex and almost instantly go "this is too good", or "this will be bad" by just doing a 1:1 comparison with 40k as it is.

I continue to think this idea that a lascannon is worth X in this meta and Y in that meta misses the wood for the trees.

In 40k imbalance is usually more obvious. Lets say faction A can get a unit with 4 lascannons for 150 points. And now a new codex comes out for faction B. They have a unit with effectively 4 lascannons...and its just 100 points. Whether lascannons are good or bad doesn't matter - faction B's unit is just going to be better than the unit in faction A. If faction A brings 2 of its 150 point units, faction B can bring 3 of its similar units (or 2 and something else). And unsurprisingly 3 will tend to beat 2 barring an unusual outcome in the dice.

Really? You really think if right now you handed a BS3 marine squad (A) 4 Lacannons @150pts & a Bs5 Ork squad (B) 4 Lascannons @100 pts that the Ork version would be better? And all we're doing is discussing the LCs, not # of models in squad, their saves, LD etc.