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 Lord Damocles wrote:
This thread has now had the claim that everybody took sponsons on their Russes, and any evidence to the contrary is a deepfake AND the claim that nobody took sponsons.

the two I built had magnets for the sponsons, clumsy but it worked nicely, they got used with and without, same as how the weapons loadout varied, the only thing they didn't get a magnet for was the HK missile, because I didn't have any spare as they were magnetised to everything that came with them.

if a HK costs 10 points and its not used that doesn't mean its worth 0 points, it means either its not worth 10 points, or that the 10 points may be worth it situationally but 10 points elsewhere is generally better. maybe its worth 8 points or something

personally I thought one of them is a hiding to nothing but a first turn barrage of them was worth a decent amount

there is perhaps an alternative though for such things, ditto pintle weapon upgrades

have them as a separate thing, literally have another card "Hunter Killer Missile Upgrade", which provides a cost per missile on a BS3 platform and a cost per missile on BS4, maybe BS5 platforms - you buy them as part of your force, however many you want, up to one per vehicle that notes it can carry them - and then distribute them as you see fit. Same with pintle weapons, give them a cost but separate from the vehicle

sponsons could be considered the same though it is likely better to have a profile with and a profile without as the idea of the profile without being faster is good.

its flipping it around a bit, but would fit with the current system reasonably well as a sort of bolt on

 Lord Damocles wrote:
This thread has now had the claim that everybody took sponsons on their Russes, and any evidence to the contrary is a deepfake AND the claim that nobody took sponsons.

I certainly didn't on my Russes.

I had sponsons on about half of my Russes. I went through my bits pile to add them to the ones that didn't have them last week. (The sponson top is a convenient place to put the Hunter-Killer Missile so it doesn't interfere with turret rotation - so I did both upgrades at the same time.)

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dai wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
[They are all things published by GW that are used to play the game, aka rules.

no, some of those are used to build a list and not used to play the game
if you use points to play you are doing something very different while playing the game than most of us

I hate to be the smug "both sides" guy but this disagreement may be the most touch grass thing I've seen...well today but thats still a lot!

Based!

Well my natural response to that is "old school goblin green". I know its something the kids say, synonymous for "cool"?

 alextroy wrote:
So I am free to change the WS, Attacks, and Points values of my units since those are not rules?

Why are people arguing semantics?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
So I am free to change the WS, Attacks, and Points values of my units since those are not rules?

Why are people arguing semantics?

It comes down to which is better game design that which GW did in the past or that which GW could adopt in the future to make PL more workable. Adding rules for no reason is generally bad, so you either have to prove that the rules are thematic, fun or that adding back pts is adding back as many rules as creating new rules for not taking various upgrades like sponsons.

Dudeface wrote:

The last few editions: "omg gw are incompetent and can't point things for balance and there are too many wargear options"

This edition: "omg GW didn't include all those wargear options or include the points they can't balance, I liked it better before"

It's a duality of man situation and ultimately people whined before, they whine now. They didn't like that points weren't correct, they don't like that points aren't there.

It doesn't matter what they did, someone somewhere would be complaining. As is the nature of humanity and the wider Internet.

On second thoughts I now see GW as dealing with a difficult young child, they did their best to get the right mix of food on the plate but it was always wrong, the brand of sauce was wrong, the knive/fork too big or too small, not facing a window etc. and they got bored of trying to placate the noise so just did the "you get what you're given" routine as they've had enough.

?!?

You realise those are not mutually exclusive as premises. Hence your conclusion is illogical but here:
Let's go take a look at the Plas Pistol argument again. There were some editions where it was nearly as expensive or just as expensive as the Plasma gun. The profile being basically equivalent beyond Rapid fire vs pistol and range.

Obviously the gun with more range and the chance of double the firepower should not be costed the same when cost is there to facilitate a parity of arms employed to facilitate a close pitched battle that can swing only by skill, which is the aim for the balance and points agreements beforehand about the maximum forces deployed.

That however doesn't mean that a squad that get's all it's cost pre-dictated by full pts is the solution. When the problem before was a lack of accurate assessment and therefore some things being too cheap others too expensive to consider fielding, making only a maximal worth assessment and forcing everyone to pay for that maximal worth of a unit then the issue is that we have even less of an accurate assessment unless we all play with maximum equipment.
Further it doesn't actually resolve the issue above, f.e. upgrades that are underpriced in the added up form, will still dominate other equipment and potentially even push units.

Dudeface wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:
@OP I don't like it because GW straight up deleted all weapon options for wulfen and many many other units to make it fit in this system. Unit upgrades worked good for many editions and i don't see a reason to do it like this other then using power levels instead of points.
This system is power level but they call it points.

The unit sizes are another bad design choice but thats a topic for another thread.

The last few editions: "omg gw are incompetent and can't point things for balance and there are too many wargear options"

This edition: "omg GW didn't include all those wargear options or include the points they can't balance, I liked it better before"

It's a duality of man situation and ultimately people whined before, they whine now. They didn't like that points weren't correct, they don't like that points aren't there.

It doesn't matter what they did, someone somewhere would be complaining. As is the nature of humanity and the wider Internet.

On second thoughts I now see GW as dealing with a difficult young child, they did their best to get the right mix of food on the plate but it was always wrong, the brand of sauce was wrong, the knive/fork too big or too small, not facing a window etc. and they got bored of trying to placate the noise so just did the "you get what you're given" routine as they've had enough.

Tell me you're posting in bad faith without telling me you're posting in bad faith. :/

Yes, there will always be complaints. But GW isn't even f***ing trying with the indexes. "GW did their best". . . Yeah, right.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
AoS 0.0 - Release AoS with no points and silly rules.

Leontus should get an extra order if I pretend to ride a horse.

Only if you rhythmically click you tongue to imitate the clopping of hooves.

Two extra orders if you use coconuts


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Which illustrates a point I have probably repeated in the past: If people didn't buy the upgrade/weapon for 9 editions, then it was always worth 0 points.

No, it means it wasn't worth the point cost GW kept giving it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude Plasma Pistols and Power Weapons weren't worth 15 points on Sergeants, and yet GW kept it that way for decades. I think that first change literally came with 7th edition codices.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:
@OP I don't like it because GW straight up deleted all weapon options for wulfen and many many other units to make it fit in this system. Unit upgrades worked good for many editions and i don't see a reason to do it like this other then using power levels instead of points.
This system is power level but they call it points.

The unit sizes are another bad design choice but thats a topic for another thread.

The last few editions: "omg gw are incompetent and can't point things for balance and there are too many wargear options"

This edition: "omg GW didn't include all those wargear options or include the points they can't balance, I liked it better before"

It's a duality of man situation and ultimately people whined before, they whine now. They didn't like that points weren't correct, they don't like that points aren't there.

It doesn't matter what they did, someone somewhere would be complaining. As is the nature of humanity and the wider Internet.

On second thoughts I now see GW as dealing with a difficult young child, they did their best to get the right mix of food on the plate but it was always wrong, the brand of sauce was wrong, the knive/fork too big or too small, not facing a window etc. and they got bored of trying to placate the noise so just did the "you get what you're given" routine as they've had enough.

Tell me you're posting in bad faith without telling me you're posting in bad faith. :/

Yes, there will always be complaints. But GW isn't even f***ing trying with the indexes. "GW did their best". . . Yeah, right.

Tell me you're posting in bad faith, where did I say they tried their best with this rules set?

Sorry with these points* given that they're not rules hence can't be in the rules set.

 Insectum7 wrote:
"GW did their best". . . Yeah, right.

And that's exactly what I mean when I say people always give GW a pass that wouldn't get given to a smaller organization.

Not Online!!! wrote:
?!?

You realise those are not mutually exclusive as premises. Hence your conclusion is illogical but here:
Let's go take a look at the Plas Pistol argument again. There were some editions where it was nearly as expensive or just as expensive as the Plasma gun. The profile being basically equivalent beyond Rapid fire vs pistol and range.

Obviously the gun with more range and the chance of double the firepower should not be costed the same when cost is there to facilitate a parity of arms employed to facilitate a close pitched battle that can swing only by skill, which is the aim for the balance and points agreements beforehand about the maximum forces deployed.

That however doesn't mean that a squad that get's all it's cost pre-dictated by full pts is the solution. When the problem before was a lack of accurate assessment and therefore some things being too cheap others too expensive to consider fielding, making only a maximal worth assessment and forcing everyone to pay for that maximal worth of a unit then the issue is that we have even less of an accurate assessment unless we all play with maximum equipment.
Further it doesn't actually resolve the issue above, f.e. upgrades that are underpriced in the added up form, will still dominate other equipment and potentially even push units.

The part in red -- so a Plasmagun is not worth 10 points. It could be worth 5 points. What's the cost of a plasma pistol? It's basically useless in the context of a squad of PG users. It should effectively be 0 points. You could be fiddly and make it 1 or 2 points to make people feel like they're making a choice. The only time a plasma pistol is valuable is when you have it on fast moving melee units, which is part of why Death Company went from 115 to 155.

This is just talking costs - not the upgrade selection issues themselves.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The part in red -- so a Plasmagun is not worth 10 points. It could be worth 5 points.

You know your game has serious issues when one of the classic BFGs goes down to nothingburger points because "it is just not good enough for that cost."

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The part in red -- so a Plasmagun is not worth 10 points. It could be worth 5 points.

You know your game has serious issues when one of the classic BFGs goes down to nothingburger points because "it is just not good enough for that cost."

That's kind of the problem with having a plethora of options in a game this scale. And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly ( and then it just winds up worse again ).

 Lord Damocles wrote:
This thread has now had the claim that everybody took sponsons on their Russes, and any evidence to the contrary is a deepfake AND the claim that nobody took sponsons.

To be fair, I just looked at my Russes last night, and the sponsons were in a quantum superposition of all possible sponson states.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

BTW, I still can't believe we spent like a day and several pages on Breton's hilarious points=rules claim. This thread needs to go down in dakka history.

I think in reality there were upgrades that didn't linearly scale. A plasma pistol on one sergeantsis a rounding error, and you could just hand wave that away. A plasma pistol on all your sergeants probably was worth something, but not what it was when added all together. I.E. plasma guns on all my sergeants, or sponsons on a couple of Russes.

So an list wide, add plasma pistols to all my sergeants for X points, where X was fixed. Then you got more value with the more sergeants you took.

Anyway. There should be a cost. The cost doesn't always work on a per model basis. Giving things for free, is just sidestepping the work on figuring out the proper cost.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

BTW, I still can't believe we spent like a day and several pages on Breton's hilarious points=rules claim. This thread needs to go down in dakka history.

I've not said that either.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

Why is striving for perfection bad?

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
A unit statistic
A unit or wargear ability
The unit composition
A unit option
The units points value

They are all things published by GW that are used to play the game, aka rules.

OK if this is a semantic argument, what's the difference you're defining between a game rule, a game mechanic, and the mechanics of a game component?

I'm going to pretend that this whole discussion was in good faith, and bring up something that seems to have only been tangentially referenced. The importance of when cognitive load occurs. Adding a bunch of fiddly list building rules adds to cognitive load when you're at home putting together a list with all of the many, many tools available to help keep track of everything. When the game is actually happening, the type of thinking that needs to be done is different. The more difference there is between otherwise identical models, the more difficult it is to keep things straight. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But points are the easiest kind of cost to quantify. A speed cost is still a cost. A stat cost is still a cost. And it's a lot harder to keep track of all of those while in the middle of the game than it is to balance 5 points plus or minus before you get to the table.

List building has been made easier at the expense of making each unit more complicated. Fast rolling is harder because now every unit has one or two free upgrades. As has been said many times in the thread about different things, once or twice is no big deal, but across an entire army, it adds up.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

Why is striving for perfection bad?

I didn't say that, but that's the strawman and cop out many here use. GW absolutely has room to improve without hitting the some theoretical asymptote. And moving to PL is absolutely a step in the wrong direction, don't get my position wrong.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

Why is striving for perfection bad?

I didn't say that, but that's the strawman and cop out many here use. GW absolutely has room to improve without hitting the some theoretical asymptote. And moving to PL is absolutely a step in the wrong direction, don't get my position wrong.

It was a general reply to the thought, not to you.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

Don't forget the Dudeface "fixing it means making it perfect, and it's obviously impossible to make it perfect".

Why is striving for perfection bad?

I didn't say that, but that's the strawman and cop out many here use. GW absolutely has room to improve without hitting the some theoretical asymptote. And moving to PL is absolutely a step in the wrong direction, don't get my position wrong.

Whilst we're on the tune of misrepresenting people. I voted no on the OP, I prefer points but do see merit in the consolidation/sidegrade choices as well, they just ballsed up both.

To add to that, the points you're seemingly trying to paint me in a bad light with is that people, moaned about granular pointing going away. People (usually the same people) also moaned about them not being good at granular pointing. From GWs perspective people are going to moan either way, so they just put less effort in for same net outcome in their eyes.

They absolutely can and should do better, I just doubt they will.

I also finding it interesting there are a few praises for the state of the game and balance at the tail of 9th. That same meta with multiple units or armies with free upgrades included.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

This is a super lazy argument that tries the to make the dichotomy something that it isn't.

This isn't a problem that has to be solved. You don't actually need to pay points for the plasma pistol. I can't think of any game that has units with model to model weapon options like 40K does ( except OPR ) and also charges points for them.

Infinity? You don't have options.
Warmachine? Nope.
Any fantasy system? Nope.
Model agnostics? Nope.
WW2 systems? None of them cost points.
Starwars? Nope.
Dust? Nope.

One Page Rules? Plasma rifle, 1 shot 24" : 5 points. Plasma pistol, 1 shot 12" : 5 points. You won't find plasma pistols on "Devastators".

The reality is GW spoiled us and now we're facing a contraction, because it's literally not worth the effort to try and make these pistols balanced in all scenarios.

And again I will state this post isn't dealing with modeling issues created as a result or other more crucial upgrades.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
And you can't make it better, because you suddenly have to scale everything else accordingly

Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern here: "this sucks but fixing it would take work and that sucks even more so let's just leave it alone." Free to add some kind of cheap excuse like "it would only turn out worse anyway" and the like.

This is a super lazy argument that tries the to make the dichotomy something that it isn't.

This isn't a problem that has to be solved.

I was referring to the ending point of these arguments rather than the actual problem they are about. Somehow, we always end up with "Sure, GW could do that, but it would take effort and we can't expect that!" and then some faint reasoning for why we can't expect that:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I can't think of any game that has units with model to model weapon options like 40K does

...like this one.

I don't really have much of an issue here (I'm not so delusional to expect people to work when they don't have to), just noticing the pattern.

I guess you don't play a lot of games than?

any Fantasy System? the Mantic ones (Kings of War and Vanguard) you pay points if you take the better weapon option, Warlord of Erehwon as well
WW2? Bolt Action you pay points for upgrades
StarWars? depends which one but those that have options, yes
Model Agnostic?, most of them you pay points for upgrades

I cannot think of any game that as the similar option to upgrade from normal Pistol to something more powerful without paying points for it
Either you don't have the options or you pay for it

so it is actually only 40k that does it that way, not the other way around

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I can't think of any game that has units with model to model weapon options like 40K does ( except OPR ) and also charges points for them.

Infinity? You don't have options.
Warmachine? Nope.
Any fantasy system? Nope.
Model agnostics? Nope.
WW2 systems? None of them cost points.
Starwars? Nope.
Dust? Nope.

Battletech.
There are preconfigured units, and there's an entire unit building system (technically more than one, as every basic unit category has their own construction rules, but they share most equipment / weapon rules) that is way more complicated.

Dropfleet Commander
Only for one faction but there's still a unit building process available that uses points for weapon and wargear options.

Horus Heresy
7th edition 40k on steroids when it comes to wargear / weapon options

Black Seas
has wargear options for points

X-Wing / Armada
both have wargear and weapon upgrades / bolt on weapons (not sure if i am remembering this correctly) for points

Bolt Action 2.0
has wargear and weapon upgrades for points

Flames of War
has wargear and weapon upgrades / swaps for points

Just because you can't think of any of these games does not mean they don't exist.
And honestly, I can't think of a game where choices that increase a units power are NOT paid for, outside of 40k 10th and AoS - but I am certainly biased by prefering games that allow customization of units, so that's probably not saying too much.

nekooni wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I can't think of any game that has units with model to model weapon options like 40K does ( except OPR ) and also charges points for them.

Infinity? You don't have options.
Warmachine? Nope.
Any fantasy system? Nope.
Model agnostics? Nope.
WW2 systems? None of them cost points.
Starwars? Nope.
Dust? Nope.

Battletech.
There are preconfigured units, and there's an entire unit building system (technically more than one, as every basic unit category has their own construction rules, but they share most equipment / weapon rules) that is way more complicated.

Dropfleet Commander
Only for one faction but there's still a unit building process available that uses points for weapon and wargear options.

Horus Heresy
7th edition 40k on steroids when it comes to wargear / weapon options

Black Seas
has wargear options for points

X-Wing / Armada
both have wargear and weapon upgrades / bolt on weapons (not sure if i am remembering this correctly) for points

Bolt Action 2.0
has wargear and weapon upgrades for points

Flames of War
has wargear and weapon upgrades / swaps for points

Just because you can't think of any of these games does not mean they don't exist.
And honestly, I can't think of a game where choices that increase a units power are NOT paid for, outside of 40k 10th and AoS - but I am certainly biased by prefering games that allow customization of units, so that's probably not saying too much.

Marvel Crisis Protocol has team tactics cards that can make individual models absurdly powerful. You're only allowed 5 total cards per game and they're only usable once per game; but they don't cost anything.

 Paimon wrote:

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
A unit statistic
A unit or wargear ability
The unit composition
A unit option
The units points value

They are all things published by GW that are used to play the game, aka rules.

OK if this is a semantic argument, what's the difference you're defining between a game rule, a game mechanic, and the mechanics of a game component?

I'm going to pretend that this whole discussion was in good faith, and bring up something that seems to have only been tangentially referenced. The importance of when cognitive load occurs. Adding a bunch of fiddly list building rules adds to cognitive load when you're at home putting together a list with all of the many, many tools available to help keep track of everything. When the game is actually happening, the type of thinking that needs to be done is different. The more difference there is between otherwise identical models, the more difficult it is to keep things straight. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But points are the easiest kind of cost to quantify. A speed cost is still a cost. A stat cost is still a cost. And it's a lot harder to keep track of all of those while in the middle of the game than it is to balance 5 points plus or minus before you get to the table.

List building has been made easier at the expense of making each unit more complicated. Fast rolling is harder because now every unit has one or two free upgrades. As has been said many times in the thread about different things, once or twice is no big deal, but across an entire army, it adds up.

It was 100% a good faith statement on my side. And I don’t disagree with you. There are parts of the No Upgrade cost paradigm that have fallen flat because GW failed to implement. If you go back far enough in this thread you will see my D grade to the Design Studio for their implementation of this.

But I also stand by unit statistics and points cost being rules. If it isn’t a physical thing you need to play the game, it is almost certainly rules.