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 vict0988 wrote:

Now, people might say I am harsh, but I have also been playing since 2nd edition and it's always about the optimal choice in each edition, which usually meant barebone squads with the occasional plasma or whatever the math showed was the next best thing.

It has already been explained previously in the thread that blinging units out can be highly encouraged by making them very points-efficient without spitting long-term collectors such as yourself in the eye when they say your barebones units you have after GW told you that's what you were supposed to have for 7 editions is suddenly complete trash.

Nah, they might be trash right now, but with points they'd still be trash. The difference is that with points you would have the illusion that you are making a choice.
The pendulum of editions is real and no amount of point scraping and adjustment will change that. I have lived too long to still think that there is some magical moment where all options are viable or meaningful. I mean, hope lives eternal and all, but I am too old for that.

However, I do believe in sunsetting(something I have argued for before), so if some old units are underpowered or unusable I will either keep them in a display cabinet or reuse them for something else. I know there are a lot of D&D players that want every unit and option under the sun, but for a wargame that has a company intent on releasing new models every cycle it's just a jenga tower waiting to collapse.

Regarding the jigsaw puzzle statement: It's a meaningful choice. If you don't like it that's fine by me, but I doubt that there are any meaningful choices in the game apart from that. Even if we had every weapon still with points the choices would be meaningless illusions. Also, couldn't you argue that the old FOC was just a different jigsaw puzzle?

There is also the problem that this is a nearly 40 year old game. Over the past 40 years there have been a lot, and I mean a lot, of changes to game design, and how to approach things. To expect that every model, every option, and a lot of other things is still legal after 40 years is just very optimistic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:


GW could implement AOS1.0's 'field as many models as you like' army-building and I bet you'd defend it. 'I can still field my army just like before, so what's the big deal? If it bothers you, go buy more kits'.

Let us not exaggerate things. What you are referring to is AoS 0.0 which was insane. It was also a part of the Kirby era and for those who remember Kirby wanted us to believe that GW models was like buying an iPhone or a Ferrari - a brand. 40k was also a disaster in that era. I mean, instead of free upgrades we got free transports and everything. Fun times.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I mean, instead of free upgrades we got free transports and everything. Fun times.

I mean, War Convocation got free upgrades.

I'm of the opinion that a free wargear system could be fine, as long as you balance every weapon choice and there are no obvious "X weapons will always be better than weapon Y". But that would require a massive overhaul to 40k. Based on the Index and Munitorum Field Manual I get the impression that the free wargear change was something that happened very late in the development process.

With regards to WYSIWYG, that's never been an issue in any of the FLGS I've played at, and only two local tournaments I've been to. I think for the beer & pretzels types this isn't a big deal, but it's a giant gut punch to people who do have an environment that cares about WYSIWYG or likes to compete in tournaments where it's mandatory. It also reeks of greed (along with arbitrary unit sizes of say 3 or 6 for a 5 man box).

As for army building, I don't mind them setting certain units as a minimum of 10 for instance (like troops) but it's bizarre when it doesn't work with transport capacities like a Tac Squad and a Razorback, or requiring some goofy combat squads like Dark Eldar to hop on a Venom.

I think removing the option to add single units (to finalize your points costs) is a big step back. I can see one argument where they've started doing 1/2 points on models, Boyz for instance, but you could just as easily say you must purchase two at a time to resolve that; nearly every other model is a whole number and its easy to figure out what the current PPM is.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Regarding the jigsaw puzzle statement: It's a meaningful choice. If you don't like it that's fine by me, but I doubt that there are any meaningful choices in the game apart from that. Even if we had every weapon still with points the choices would be meaningless illusions. Also, couldn't you argue that the old FOC was just a different jigsaw puzzle?

I have argued the old FOC was a bad idea, battlefield roles were arbitrary and just made it difficult to field healthy armies for unfortunate factions while allowing unhealthy armies without great difficulty because the faction was fortunate to have rules and battlefield roles that let it build the unhealthy armies without going against the FOC. I think anti-secondaries that punish spamming a unit type such as VEHICLES/MONSTERS is a better way to curb unhealthy armies. I suppose you like the old FOC because it created some of the same difficult choices in army building?

I should have added the lack of battlefield roles as something I like and the lack of incentives for balanced armies as something I dislike in the other thread.

 catbarf wrote:
Even if we give the Wracks the weapons that aren't modeled (because it makes a pretty substantial difference), how do we track which model has which weapon? Colored dots on the bases, I guess?

Use different kinds of models for each weapon, like a Space Marine, an Ork, etc. Or just say in which order models always get killed off so you know that whenever there are 2 models left they have weapons X and Y. It took me 4 hours which I was supposed to be spending studying for my last final to write out the Necrons points which have options over in the Proposed Rules section. If you're bothered about points just change them and use your own points. If you're not going to try to increase internal balance beyond making naked squads not completely trash and having more fluid unit sizes then you're not going to break anything.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.

Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.

How would you handle a Baneblade with no sponsons (or one sponson set)?

Currently it is required to take 1 set, and has the option (free) for a second set. The set of sponsons nets you 2 Twin Heavy Bolters and 2 Lascannons, so not taking the sponsons is a significant firepower degrade (and if you say otherwise, I encourage you to put 0 heavy weapons on your devastators, and then take 2 heavy weapons of your next devastator squad also).

Should I just bite the bullet and pay 50-100 pts more than my unit's actual effectiveness? Is WYSIWYG gone? What's the deal?

In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.

I can write a 2k pt foot guard list is looking at about 23 heavy bolters and 15 lascannons (including 6 ordnance battery lascannons). Will being short 2 of each make a difference in the game for me? Probably not, realistically I would expect to probably lose more than that number in the first turn of the game.

If you look at the baneblade in terms of its expected damage output (i.e. average damage done to enemies given the likely damage that the baneblade will suffer itself) over the course of the game with those weapons vs without them, I'm guessing its probably only going to come out to a 5% swing at most, which might just be within margin of error. Will you have games where it makes all thedifference? Yes. Will you have games where it makes no difference at all? Also, yes. Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.

Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.

Daedalus81 wrote:If someone doesn't have all the sponsons then I'm totally OK with counts as.

Maybe the top table guys will be grumpy, but I imagine someone going for mid to upper tables still has sponsons they can put on. It's been quite common to take them on and off as points fluctuate so I can't envision many people lack that capacity.

That's just the thing, though:
1) I do lack the capacity for certain units. Many of mine are the old Forge World Resin ones (including all of my Shadowswords, that don't even have the lascannon turrets because they have the Arkurion-pattern targeters); the ones that aren't were purchased well before the current box, when the Shadowsword and Baneblade boxes were split and they only came with one sponson each.

2) I don't want to:
- Spend more money to buy sponson upgrade sprues from GW or eBay or whatever
- Tear apart my beautifully painted and decaled superheavy tanks, each with a storied history, to slap more sponsons on and then fix the paint.

Why didn't I magnetize, you ask? Because consistency. Stormsword 14 Aggressor has all four sponsons, as the Company Commander for 4th Company, but Stormsword 24 Akilla and Stormsword 34 Honorum have one sponson set each. That's the fact of those tanks. Back in the day, this made them cheaper; a "consolation" prize in some editions, or genuinely the best choice in others. Either way, it was fine that Aggressor was XYZ points more expensive than Akilla or Honorum, and it was okay that they were cheaper, because at the very least if it wasn't the best choice, it at least wasn't the worst, either.

But now? Its' just the worst. Period. No reason whatsoever.

Right - and I think you're largely an edge case that I would be happy to accommodate. Really, I'm happy to accommodate everyone ( within reason ). Obviously other people can feel differently and I feel bad if someone was to care enough to enforce such a weakness.

Yes, this problem could be solved by GW going back, but I don't see them doing that. So finding a way to navigate it seems like the next best option.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

chaos0xomega wrote:
In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.

For Guard, it really is not just that one tank. It is several hunter killers, bolter sponsons that all should be melta/plasma, the sergeants from your 90-120 infantry without plasma/powersword, pintle mounts on every vehicle, and probably things I am not thinking of.

These were things that you might take if you had some points left at the end of your list making. Now, it is 100-200 9th edition points of equipment that you have included in the base price of things. A leman russ demolisher is 220 points now. Going off 9th, a rough estimate makes 40pts worth of that optional equipment. Now most peope at least took sponsons, so 30 points. So you are overpaying 30 points on a tank if you don't update its guns to 10th edition.

I've not looked too heavily into other armies, but for Guard this equipment price change can have very significant impacts on your lists.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I wouldn't skip WYSIWYG entirely. Just for vehicle stuff, mostly. The most egregious issues are with Orks, really. There's lots of wagons without deffrollas and trukks without wrecking balls. Those aren't as simple, but I'm personally fine with just agreeing that the ramshackle vehicle has the capability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
And now its even weirder with the combat patrol rules, where it expects an exact load-out, even if its something that you'd rarely (or never) use in the main game. That's an utterly baffling turn.

Oh, yea. I looked at the one for TS and it had bp / chainsword on the Tzaangors. Both loadouts are fine, but I definitely prefer blades. I'd hate for the CP to lead someone to build the models a certain way, but most of them seem equivalent so far. They also had the missile rack on a different model from the heavy weapon, which is fine, but that's a competitive optimization thing that I don't think matters in most games.

How would you handle a Baneblade with no sponsons (or one sponson set)?

Currently it is required to take 1 set, and has the option (free) for a second set. The set of sponsons nets you 2 Twin Heavy Bolters and 2 Lascannons, so not taking the sponsons is a significant firepower degrade (and if you say otherwise, I encourage you to put 0 heavy weapons on your devastators, and then take 2 heavy weapons of your next devastator squad also).

Should I just bite the bullet and pay 50-100 pts more than my unit's actual effectiveness? Is WYSIWYG gone? What's the deal?

In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.

I can write a 2k pt foot guard list is looking at about 23 heavy bolters and 15 lascannons (including 6 ordnance battery lascannons). Will being short 2 of each make a difference in the game for me? Probably not, realistically I would expect to probably lose more than that number in the first turn of the game.

If you look at the baneblade in terms of its expected damage output (i.e. average damage done to enemies given the likely damage that the baneblade will suffer itself) over the course of the game with those weapons vs without them, I'm guessing its probably only going to come out to a 5% swing at most, which might just be within margin of error. Will you have games where it makes all thedifference? Yes. Will you have games where it makes no difference at all? Also, yes. Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

This is a bad argument because it works for everything. 'Is getting a free 80pts of rhinos going to win you the game? No probably not. At least not more than 5% of the time. Therefore, all rhinos should be free.'
Is one free Deslation Marine going to win you the game? No, obviously not. That would be silly. Therefore, all Desolations Squads should be free.'

Yeah, I mean when running 3 Baneblades, suddenly 5% cost change is a 15% cost change on 1620 points, or 81 points. That's a whole extra Guard squad plus, or even a Commissar with Kurov's Aquila.

But I guess 10 guardsmen or making an enemy stratagem cost 1 CP more, permanently, aren't very significant buffs...

I mean when does it end?

"All guard squads should be 100 points. That extra 40 pts doesn't get you anything significant - maybe a Commissar - so I think this is fine."

Like what?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, I mean when running 3 Baneblades, suddenly 5% cost change is a 15% cost change on 1620 points, or 81 points.

Going off 9th ed points (because, although obviously flawed, that's the best approximation we can do), 5 sets of sponsons would be 200 points on those baneblades. Quite the thing to give up.

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.

It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.

As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.

Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).

I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.

It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.

As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.

Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).

I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.

A rare case on dakka - someone actually knowing how this whole wargaming works. Exalted!

 Trickstick wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
In a 2000pt game, how much of a difference in the games outcome would result from shorting yourself 2 twin heavy bolters and 2 lascannons? Serious question.

For Guard, it really is not just that one tank. It is several hunter killers, bolter sponsons that all should be melta/plasma, the sergeants from your 90-120 infantry without plasma/powersword, pintle mounts on every vehicle, and probably things I am not thinking of.

These were things that you might take if you had some points left at the end of your list making. Now, it is 100-200 9th edition points of equipment that you have included in the base price of things. A leman russ demolisher is 220 points now. Going off 9th, a rough estimate makes 40pts worth of that optional equipment. Now most peope at least took sponsons, so 30 points. So you are overpaying 30 points on a tank if you don't update its guns to 10th edition.

I've not looked too heavily into other armies, but for Guard this equipment price change can have very significant impacts on your lists.

People are way too down on other weapon options. Melta lost range. Plasma isn't as safe. HB got SH1. You'll have other targets than just tanks and you have innate Lethal Hits.

Two LRBT OC PC kill 1.5 marines and two HB kills 1.8.

nou wrote:

Spoiler:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance. A good portion of them will be removed from the table before they ever fire a single shot, of those that remain, half will miss their targets, of those that hit some percentage will fail to wound, the remainder will do something, that something probably will amount to a statistically insignificant difference in damage dealt to the enemy. Rinse/repeat each turn. Congratulations, at the end of the game spending 30% of your points budget on upgrades netted you a ~5% increase in lethality over baseline.

It's why gw made upgrades for guard squads free in 9th edition in the first place. Why were guard players being asked to effectively double the cost of their infantry teams to take upgrades, knowing that 1/4 to 1/3 of those upgrades would be removed from the table in the first turn against a competent opponent? Surprise surprise, eliminating the cost of upgrades and making the unit a flat price actually worked and produced a more competitive and better balanced army - and those who took advantage of it didn't entirely standardize on weapon choices as some here insist would happen.

As for your Predator anecdote, adding the lascannons doesn't actually double it firepower due to the strength disparity between weapons as well as the twin linked keyword, but let's call it a 40% increase, but because of how the games mechanics actually work that doesn't actually translate to a 40% increase in lethality (hence in part why in previous editions adding the lascannons was more like a 10-15% cost increase at a time when lascannon lethality was overall much higher than it is today. This is further compounded by the intangible nature of target priority - a Predator with 4 lascannons is a bigger target than a Predator with 2, bigger targets attract more attention, and thus die faster, which shortens the useful life of the unit and the overall lethal value of its weaponry. If a 2 lascannon pred will avg 16 pts of damage out in a typical game, a 4 lascannon pred might only avg 18 for this reason. You can argue that that's a 12.5% increase, but across an entire army that puts out ~300 pts of damage in a game that's actually less than a 1% change in performance... which goes back to the whole margin of error thing I mentioned before, it's insignificant, doesn't actually alter the outcome of a game.

Now across an entire army of upgrades? Sure that might run away from you a bit, 2 extra pts of damage becomes 20 - but both parties have equal access to it, and you don't both need to maximize it in order to maintain parity. If one side does maximize, the other side only actually needs to take some % of the options in order to offset the difference in performance and render the differential insignificant again - provided that the points system is otherwise fairly calculated to generate fairly balanced armies (which currently it is not and has several clear winners and losers).

I will leave you with another thought, the faction currently running away with the game is aeldari, but it isn't because the most powerful emerging builds for that faction are running riot with free upgrades - the majority of the power units are those with few if any upgrade options at all.

A rare case on dakka - someone actually knowing how this whole wargaming works. Exalted!

He’s wrong though. Currently the dual wraithcannon wraith knight is significantly better than the sword and shield.
Plus, all units miss and can die before acting, should everything be free then?

chaos0xomega wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.

Are you high?

A Grav Cannon in a Tactical Squad, for example, does the absolute majority of damage. This is 8th, 9th and 10th still. It made the Tacticals outshoot Intercessors even though the Intercessors had better basic weapons. The Heavy Weapon is a huge asset.

EDIT: The principle is the same for Guard Infantry.

 Insectum7 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.

Are you high?

A Grav Cannon in a Tactical Squad, for example, does the absolute majority of damage. This is 8th, 9th and 10th still. It made the Tacticals outshoot Intercessors even though the Intercessors had better basic weapons. The Heavy Weapon is a huge asset.

Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.

^Thank you!

chaos0xomega wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Does it make sense to charge someone an extra 25 points on the basis that they *might* get a 5% increase in damage output from the unit? I lean towards probably not.

Are you taking the piss? Who is paying for the other lascannons in your list that Timmy doesn't get because he just wants to field infantry without HWT? Why should you get any increase in damage output without paying for it? How much do you think 2 lascannons increases the firepower of a Predator with two lascannons?

But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance.

The thing I'm buying is the weapon. The squad that surrounds it? Those are ablative wounds to keep the thing firing who's secondary mission is to take objectives.

Min-sized, Las-Plas was a common thing for a reason.

Yeah, Chaos's post is basically a combination of factually incorrect takes, New Math, and utter nonsense.

The argument at its core, once you strip out the pseudomathematical bs, is that taking a 1750pt army against a 2000pt army in 9th would still be a fair and balanced game because it's an 'insignificant' difference, and that doesn't pass the sniff test.

Dandelion wrote:
Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.

And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.

A Predator with a Twin Lascannon is worse than a Predator with a Twin Lascannon and two Lascannon sponsons.
How much worse?

In the absolute BEST CASE scenario, one without sponsons does 4/7ths the damage of one with.
That is a T13 target without Oath of Moment applied.
Against a T14 target (no Oath) it does 9/17ths of the damage.
Against a target of ANY OTHER TOUGHNESS, the sponsons double or more the damage.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.

And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.

Are lasguns really doling out Lethal wounds now?

*sigh*

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Just to consider the guard infantry squad: 10 lasguns do about .55 damage to a marine, a single heavy bolter averages 1 damage. That one gun triples the threat of the infantry squad.

And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.

Lethal Hits, you mean.

Standing stationary and with Lethal Hits, an Infantry Squad's heavy bolter actually averages 1.5 wounds against Marines.

The 7 lasguns from the squad + 2 laspistols, rapid firing with Lethal Hits, also average 1.5 damage. So that's 3 wounds total.

If the squad didn't take a heavy bolter, it'd have 9 lasguns and a laspistol, for a total of 1.76 wounds.

So even in 10th, benefitting from an army ability that makes lasguns actually pretty credible, adding a heavy bolter to an Infantry Squad nearly doubles its offensive output. That multiplier goes up further when you start looking at heavier stuff like autocannons or lascannons, against harder targets than basic Marines, or at the early turns where the Infantry won't be rapid firing or potentially able to fire their lasguns at all.

If attaching a heavy weapon was all of a 5% increase in damage then I don't think anyone would care about it becoming free, but turns out that number's actually a total asspull, so...

chaos0xomega wrote:
But that's the point, hwt in infantry teams don't usually add that much to a units performance...

If you want to debate the specifics of how much something should cost, or whether you can do generic upgrade costs for weapons that have different roles (ie. should a melta and a plasma cost the same?), then that's fine. That's an interesting debate on specific roles vs general usefulness of weapons.

But at the end, these are upgrades. They make units better than they were. They should cost points.

This isn't rocket science.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And now your unit actually does something but the lasguns do a bit more now with Lethal Wounds as well.

You're getting lost in the weeds again, Daed. Focus! It's not about Lasguns specifically, or even one specific example, they are just examples of the larger issue.

 catbarf wrote:

If attaching a heavy weapon was all of a 5% increase in damage then I don't think anyone would care about it becoming free, but turns out that number's actually a total asspull, so...

Yea totally meant lethal hits. I believe the 5% was in reference to a superheavies output wasn't it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Still missing the woods for the trees Daed. Focus! It's not about Lasguns specifically, or even one specific example, they are just examples of the larger issue.

Yea I went on a separate tangent and confused the topic.

On topic - it looks like the IS squad can take a 1 per 10 special, so, a proper 10 man can but one with a HW squad cant - same with vox. Nothing but straight lasguns? Not great.

 Eldarsif wrote:

I honestly believe that anyone who does not like the new unit sizes is not a fan of meaningful choices. When you can't snugly fit what you like MSU style everywhere you are more often than not forced to think what you are going for. It's one of the things I love(as well as frustrates me) in AoS. I can't just take exactly what I want and play around the system. I must commit to a choice and deal with the consequences. I was in an autumn league last autumn and my AoS list changed so much more than my 40k lists. Because if I had to change something in AoS it meant I would have to reorganize my entire army instead of snugly fitting something into an open slot.

This is a really strange point of view. Taking what you want is a meaningful choice. Tweaking lists so that you can fit something extra in, or giving up a unit to upgrade a bunch of weapons is a meaningful choice. Deciding that a unit's role does not require paying for a bunch of upgrades is a meaningful choice. With the way that unit sizes work, you can still use smaller units, you just pay the full cost for the next tier up, instead of doing it in a way that's granular. That's not a meaningful choice, that's just making things awkward and inflexible.

As I mentioned in my first post, I like the idea of many model and unit options being baked into the unit. Too many of these options are too hard to get the right points value for individually. Is a Meltagun worth 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 points on Unit X? What about on Unit Y? What is the right points for the Flamer on both those units?

Making them free allows the designers to concentrate on balancing the options against each other (Flamer vs Melta vs Plasma) while deciding one cost for the unit.

However, there are some options that just don't work, like optional sponsons that are free. The designers need to both decide on a baseline set of options while figuring out a value for the truly optional options.

Plus we're also forgetting the fluff/theme of an army.

Most of my 8th/9th Chaos rosters included 8-man Chaos units, as they were Khorne themed. Sometimes they were even 7-man, with an Exalted Champion joining them in the Rhino. My entire (completely invalid) Death Guard army is made up of 7-man units. I routinely take Tyranid units like Gaunts in multiples of 12 because of how they used to be back when I first started playing them, and flat 10's seem too 'human'.

Those choices have been removed in the new "points" system. And before someone says "You can still take a 7-man Plague Marine unit, you just pay for 10 Plague Marines", think about how silly you'll sound actually writing that as a genuine suggestion.