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To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient). Often times it would lead to nebulous answers like "yeah, I think that's better, but its not worth downgrading the Watch Master to a Captain" or something. In the new system I play a game, see faults in my list and answer it by adjusting loadouts without needed to throw out the whole thing and start from scratch.

Dudeface wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
To use your example, a 1 shot lascannon with high strength, ap and damage is obviously going to be better into a trukk than a Guardsman. The multi shot heavy bolter with a better rate of fire, adequate strength, ap and damage for infantry will be better into the boyz inside. None of those statements involve points, the design scope for the weapons gives that balance for you.

Lascannons are betters vs Boys than lasguns. That is true until the moment you have points that make lascannons more expensive such that the lascannon becomes less efficient against everything and inefficient enough against Boys that it becomes a downgrade against Boys.

Yes, you've picked an extreme example there because literally the only redeeming trait of a lasgun is the cheapness of the thing holding it.

The point is a weapons ideal target isn't decided by how many points the gun costs.

Whether something is a counter is determined by return on investment (ROI), because every weapon can kill every target in 40k and weapons with bigger numbers kill things quicker. Without taking ROI into account you're left saying lascannons are good at killing Boys, not as good as heavy bolters, but then why get a heavy bolter if you can take a punisher cannon? Why take a punisher when you can take a twin punisher? Because lasguns are meant to be cheap and that cheapness ought to lend them a good ROI against Boys, better than lascannons, not as good as heavy bolters.

 LunarSol wrote:


To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient).

You could have paid for the more expensive option and downgraded without including more things in your list. Sidegrades have nothing to do with PL.

 vict0988 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient).

You could have paid for the more expensive option and downgraded without including more things in your list. Sidegrades have nothing to do with PL.

So your argument for dismissing mine is there's no value in weapons having a different point cost and its fine to pay extra points for the one that is less effective, but cheaper?

Not Online!!! wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
To use your example, a 1 shot lascannon with high strength, ap and damage is obviously going to be better into a trukk than a Guardsman. The multi shot heavy bolter with a better rate of fire, adequate strength, ap and damage for infantry will be better into the boyz inside. None of those statements involve points, the design scope for the weapons gives that balance for you.

Lascannons are betters vs Boys than lasguns. That is true until the moment you have points that make lascannons more expensive such that the lascannon becomes less efficient against everything and inefficient enough against Boys that it becomes a downgrade against Boys.

Yes, you've picked an extreme example there because literally the only redeeming trait of a lasgun is the cheapness of the thing holding it.

The point is a weapons ideal target isn't decided by how many points the gun costs.

I get where you are coming from, what with the ideal target being mostly determined by the profile of the weapon and availability of it in a squad /army.

However, even in militia if i'd price the HB instead of +5 pts for a hwt at say 15 like a lascannon for that squad it would become rather fast obvious that the normal stubber the hwt's come standard with is just far more efficent at the same job. And that is with a squad ignoring saturation due to all members being equipable with it.
The opportunity cost on squads with less options for a heavy / special weapons would with those points become a misnomer.

There is definitely a place for an opportunity cost with some of these things. Ironically the fact that heavy bolters were a waste of space suggests that pointing multiple weapons that all fill the same role is a bit of a waste of time.

One thing I see often brought up is "anti-infantry specials/heavies aren't worth as much because of the small arms in the army", well we exist in a game now where there is no reason to ever take small arms generally, so I wonder if that perception will shift.

When every model can take a heavy bolter or a lascannon I wonder what the end ratio would look like. Return on investment is another valid point of course, but that's a fair but harder to place properly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:

Whether something is a counter is determined by return on investment (ROI), because every weapon can kill every target in 40k and weapons with bigger numbers kill things quicker. Without taking ROI into account you're left saying lascannons are good at killing Boys, not as good as heavy bolters, but then why get a heavy bolter if you can take a punisher cannon? Why take a punisher when you can take a twin punisher? Because lasguns are meant to be cheap and that cheapness ought to lend them a good ROI against Boys, better than lascannons, not as good as heavy bolters.

You have a point to a degree, where you fall over with this argument is you're expanding the scope outside of the weapon. Why ever take a lasgun when you can have a punisher cannon for example. You never need to take a lasgun ever again now, so what is it that's objectively worse about the punisher cannon for mowing down mooks? I imagine you'll say points, but the fact is the punisher cannon is on a different model with an utterly different profile, so you've expanded the scope of "points differentiate weapons purpose" to "points represent the relative toughness, capabilities and rarity of the weapon they're carrying to handle a weapons purpose". I.e. not all about points directly.

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient). Often times it would lead to nebulous answers like "yeah, I think that's better, but its not worth downgrading the Watch Master to a Captain" or something. In the new system I play a game, see faults in my list and answer it by adjusting loadouts without needed to throw out the whole thing and start from scratch.

My experience with 10th so far is that that points-wrangling has just been shifted to units, because the fixed costs mean that replacing a unit with a marginally more expensive one involves rearranging half my list. I can swap the guns around on my Warriors with ranged weapons, but there's basically just one valid loadout so I don't, and if I want to switch to melee Warriors then I need to free up points elsewhere somehow.

Besides, if those frag cannons and IHBs are actually equivalent in value, then under a points system they'd have the same cost and you could swap them around as you like. There's nothing wrong with balancing out sidegrades to have the same cost in that manner. The question is whether taking a lascannon instead of a bolter should have an associated cost- and since it currently doesn't, there's no real choice or room for experimentation; you just take the lascannon because it's objectively the right choice.

Dudeface wrote:


There is definitely a place for an opportunity cost with some of these things. Ironically the fact that heavy bolters were a waste of space suggests that pointing multiple weapons that all fill the same role is a bit of a waste of time.

One thing I see often brought up is "anti-infantry specials/heavies aren't worth as much because of the small arms in the army", well we exist in a game now where there is no reason to ever take small arms generally, so I wonder if that perception will shift.

When every model can take a heavy bolter or a lascannon I wonder what the end ratio would look like. Return on investment is another valid point of course, but that's a fair but harder to place properly.

No, opportunity cost alone hardly adequatly can cover the difference in ability for HWT f.e. in a militia list for the anti infantry weapon. F.e. I consider the following options as that, Stubber, Heavy bolter, and mortar. Both the mortar and the heavy bolter cost more than the stubber. Understandably so, one is a 3 shot weapon with S4 and Ap 6. The Mortar has indirect fire and pinning for +5 pts from the stubber as baseline. The Heavy bolter in HH is S5, Ap4, 4 shots at 10 pts more. It is arguable if the HB should cost the same as the AC in HH.

But now assume a system in which there are no points instead you pay a flat 30 pts / HWT in a HWT squad. Neither the mortar nor stubber would ever see the light of day. AC and ML could arguably see play because that is wha the squads profile + an upgrade to these weapons would incidentally cost. Except that they then all compete directly on a profile basis with the lascannon. And here we get to the core problem. When i am anyways paying 30pts / HWT so flat 90 instead of the current 60 for a min squad of HWT's , why would i ever consider the Missile launcher ? I wouldn't. And it's not just the now far too cheap lascanon that pressures those weapons out of the game, because even when you want an anti infantry gun, the AC is still priced fine and offers high quality slightly lower RoF with medium antitank capabilities. For a task that any core infantry unit of grunts in your army can do and that remains true.

hence why the perception wont actually shift, but instead people will start loading up on the now potentially discounted antitank weaponry, and if the squad is priced as if it would field antitank weapons anyways, like legionairs in 40k. Why'd you ever consider a HB or an AC or ML in the first place? You won't , you'll see lascannons because the squad is priced as if it had lascannons. You'll see greater melee weapons or whatevs they are called, instead of chainswords. Because you anyways pay for it.

 catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient). Often times it would lead to nebulous answers like "yeah, I think that's better, but its not worth downgrading the Watch Master to a Captain" or something. In the new system I play a game, see faults in my list and answer it by adjusting loadouts without needed to throw out the whole thing and start from scratch.

My experience with 10th so far is that that points-wrangling has just been shifted to units, because the fixed costs mean that replacing a unit with a marginally more expensive one involves rearranging half my list. I can swap the guns around on my Warriors with ranged weapons, but there's basically just one valid loadout so I don't, and if I want to switch to melee Warriors then I need to free up points elsewhere somehow.

Besides, if those frag cannons and IHBs are actually equivalent in value, then under a points system they'd have the same cost and you could swap them around as you like. There's nothing wrong with balancing out sidegrades to have the same cost in that manner. The question is whether taking a lascannon instead of a bolter should have an associated cost- and since it currently doesn't, there's no real choice or room for experimentation; you just take the lascannon because it's objectively the right choice.

That's fair certainly. I think there's definitely armies that have less interesting Wargear where GW has leaned on a Grunts/Grunts+ model differentiated by points. Those armies running into the problems I mentioned are why I think its more interesting when you simplify the points and instead focus on making units serve distinct roles. I've been impressed how often I've seen players swap in a unit of Incursors over their second Infiltrator slot as they find the value in their unique roles which is only possible because they cost the same but have important differences in what they do. GW being forced to rework its wargear in a similar way

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

That's not to say that I don't see a purpose to points. They're very useful for giving a list framework and general "this tank is worth X units" kind of big picture structure. Deciding what shares a cost is how you narrow down what needs to be a parallel choice. It's the obsession with whether a power sword should cost 3 points or 5 where I feel like points get in the way of creating interesting list building decisions rather than making those choices more compelling to try.

Not Online!!! wrote:

No, opportunity cost alone hardly adequatly can cover the difference in ability for HWT f.e. in a militia list for the anti infantry weapon. F.e. I consider the following options as that, Stubber, Heavy bolter, and mortar. Both the mortar and the heavy bolter cost more than the stubber. Understandably so, one is a 3 shot weapon with S4 and Ap 6. The Mortar has indirect fire and pinning for +5 pts from the stubber as baseline. The Heavy bolter in HH is S5, Ap4, 4 shots at 10 pts more. It is arguable if the HB should cost the same as the AC in HH.

But now assume a system in which there are no points instead you pay a flat 30 pts / HWT in a HWT squad. Neither the mortar nor stubber would ever see the light of day. AC and ML could arguably see play because that is wha the squads profile + an upgrade to these weapons would incidentally cost. Except that they then all compete directly on a profile basis with the lascannon. And here we get to the core problem. When i am anyways paying 30pts / HWT so flat 90 instead of the current 60 for a min squad of HWT's , why would i ever consider the Missile launcher ? I wouldn't. And it's not just the now far too cheap lascanon that pressures those weapons out of the game, because even when you want an anti infantry gun, the AC is still priced fine and offers high quality slightly lower RoF with medium antitank capabilities. For a task that any core infantry unit of grunts in your army can do and that remains true.

hence why the perception wont actually shift, but instead people will start loading up on the now potentially discounted antitank weaponry, and if the squad is priced as if it would field antitank weapons anyways, like legionairs in 40k. Why'd you ever consider a HB or an AC or ML in the first place? You won't , you'll see lascannons because the squad is priced as if it had lascannons. You'll see greater melee weapons or whatevs they are called, instead of chainswords. Because you anyways pay for it.

Yet here we are where the first "patch" to the game is a nerf for indirect fire as it has been deemed too good, suggesting people still want those mortars.

It's not impossible to see a world where the majority of those weapons on the hwt all viable in different ways and do not require massively different point values, if at all. The game and the weapon profiles simply don't support it at this time though.

Weren't HWT mortars just caught in the crossfire? I thought it was Guard artillery vehicles that were partially overperforming (compared to the rest of the army...).

as much as i find the current point system dumb, i think people overfocus on hitting exactly 2000pts in their lists, being down ~40-50pts isn't that big a deal tbh

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
as much as i find the current point system dumb, i think people overfocus on hitting exactly 2000pts in their lists, being down ~40-50pts isn't that big a deal tbh

If that statement isn't a red flag to a bull lol

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
as much as i find the current point system dumb, i think people overfocus on hitting exactly 2000pts in their lists, being down ~40-50pts isn't that big a deal tbh

There is no reason for a game with two balanced armies to have one side have more or less points than the other. Especially because the solution to "I have some points left now" is just purchasable upgrades or the ability to add a single model here or there to every squad. Things that already were in the game and were removed to make place for... this exact problem, among others.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
as much as i find the current point system dumb, i think people overfocus on hitting exactly 2000pts in their lists, being down ~40-50pts isn't that big a deal tbh

In previous editions 50 points could be 5 HK missiles. Or upgrading a good number of LRBT HB Sponsons to Plasma Cannons. There's all sorts of valuable things one could do with 50 points.

I liked the way AoS did it.

Since they've essentially used PL for list building since the system has had points, there has been benefits or alternate point-sinks available to all armies.

If you're shy 50pts of reaching whatever limit was set, you could Buy an extra command point, in 2nd Edition rules.

Other options if you were in the awkward range of 80 or less points left was purchasing Endless Spells for niche use, if it wasn't part if your game plan. Or, eating the fact that you were down on points, and receiving a Triumph. If you have less points than your opponent when the game begins, you receive a Triumph. A once-per-game ability you can use, when the ability is relevant. They've ranged from +1 to Wound rolls for a unit for a phase, auto-passing a Battleshock test, rerolling a charge, etc.

Returning to point-costed wargear would be the ideal for 40k, however.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

The idea that a 100 point unit is equal to a 90 point unit are equal doesn't make them meaningful choices. If they're the same value, one is the one that fits in the list and one either costs too much to fit or costs too little and isn't worth paying 10 points more than its worth. The same thing happens every time you try to fix things with points. Something just no longer fits; its not really an interesting choice.

I get the faith in points, I just don't share it. They have their purpose for sure, but trying to assign everything the perfect cost in an every changing market doesn't ever fix anything; it just changes what the problem looks like.

 LunarSol wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

To me, micromanaging points just made it a game of getting the points right rather than a game of playing models. One of my favorite results of the change is that I have tested out multiple configurations of my army so far without actually changing my list. In the past if I wanted to test out Frag Cannons vs IHBs, I basically had to rebuild the list from scratch, as the difference in cost resulted in huge shifts in what could fit in the list elsewhere (realistically you took neither and found something more boring/efficient).

That's grotgak, you could have paid for the more expensive option and downgraded without including more things in your list. Sidegrades have nothing to do with PL.

So your argument for dismissing mine is there's no value in weapons having a different point cost and its fine to pay extra points for the one that is less effective, but cheaper?

No. You are the one who doesn't care about paying extra points for the one that is less effective, I am telling you that you were always free to do so.

 LunarSol wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

Points aren't meant to be an interesting puzzle for you to solve, it's just a way to balance an adversarial game.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
as much as i find the current point system dumb, i think people overfocus on hitting exactly 2000pts in their lists, being down ~40-50pts isn't that big a deal tbh

What number would be worth focusing on? What does overfocusing mean?

Dudeface wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Whether something is a counter is determined by return on investment (ROI), because every weapon can kill every target in 40k and weapons with bigger numbers kill things quicker. Without taking ROI into account you're left saying lascannons are good at killing Boys, not as good as heavy bolters, but then why get a heavy bolter if you can take a punisher cannon? Why take a punisher when you can take a twin punisher? Because lasguns are meant to be cheap and that cheapness ought to lend them a good ROI against Boys, better than lascannons, not as good as heavy bolters.

You have a point to a degree, where you fall over with this argument is you're expanding the scope outside of the weapon. Why ever take a lasgun when you can have a punisher cannon for example. You never need to take a lasgun ever again now, so what is it that's objectively worse about the punisher cannon for mowing down mooks? I imagine you'll say points, but the fact is the punisher cannon is on a different model with an utterly different profile, so you've expanded the scope of "points differentiate weapons purpose" to "points represent the relative toughness, capabilities and rarity of the weapon they're carrying to handle a weapons purpose". I.e. not all about points directly.

If I am choosing between 50 lasguns and 50 punishers cannons then I choose the latter every time. If every Astra Militarum player brings 50 punisher cannons for anti-horde and 30 deathstrike missiles for anti-tank then the game is going to be stale.

 LunarSol wrote:

Spoiler:

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

The idea that a 100 point unit is equal to a 90 point unit are equal doesn't make them meaningful choices. If they're the same value, one is the one that fits in the list and one either costs too much to fit or costs too little and isn't worth paying 10 points more than its worth. The same thing happens every time you try to fix things with points. Something just no longer fits; its not really an interesting choice.

I get the faith in points, I just don't share it. They have their purpose for sure, but trying to assign everything the perfect cost in an every changing market doesn't ever fix anything; it just changes what the problem looks like.

This appears to be the " They can't be perfect, therefore they're not worth doing" argument again.

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

 Insectum7 wrote:

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'd wager this was the sticking point back at HQ, I suspect they knew they weren't able to get the granularity in and went this way rather than blow the system up by making a marine 110 points each for 10k matches, or whatever.

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'd wager this was the sticking point back at HQ, I suspect they knew they weren't able to get the granularity in and went this way rather than blow the system up by making a marine 110 points each for 10k matches, or whatever.

Or they couldn't get unit upgrades working correctly in the app, so they decided to get rid of them and hope no one noticed.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Spoiler:

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

The idea that a 100 point unit is equal to a 90 point unit are equal doesn't make them meaningful choices. If they're the same value, one is the one that fits in the list and one either costs too much to fit or costs too little and isn't worth paying 10 points more than its worth. The same thing happens every time you try to fix things with points. Something just no longer fits; its not really an interesting choice.

I get the faith in points, I just don't share it. They have their purpose for sure, but trying to assign everything the perfect cost in an every changing market doesn't ever fix anything; it just changes what the problem looks like.

This appears to be the " They can't be perfect, therefore they're not worth doing" argument again.

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'm not opposed to them altogether. As I've said many times, they're important for creating categories of units and determining what units fight for the same design space and therefore need to serve different roles. I just find it more interesting to make side grade choice for wargear over trying to find the right cost for it. All pointing wargear has ever accomplished is stopping people from taking it. I get that it removes the prior choice of taking "nothing" but I think the game is way more interesting when sgts are equipped for close combat and units are packing those special weapons that are so iconic to the franchise over more boltgun equivalents.

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'd wager this was the sticking point back at HQ, I suspect they knew they weren't able to get the granularity in and went this way rather than blow the system up by making a marine 110 points each for 10k matches, or whatever.

Or it's just that Cruddace and Jervis are bad at what they do

 LunarSol wrote:


I'm not opposed to them altogether. As I've said many times, they're important for creating categories of units and determining what units fight for the same design space and therefore need to serve different roles. I just find it more interesting to make side grade choice for wargear over trying to find the right cost for it. All pointing wargear has ever accomplished is stopping people from taking it. I get that it removes the prior choice of taking "nothing" but I think the game is way more interesting when sgts are equipped for close combat and units are packing those special weapons that are so iconic to the franchise over more boltgun equivalents.

You're stuck on value. A unit's role and design space is part of it's value. You want units with interesting and diverse values. That's good. I'd like that too. But this is a discussion of cost. How to accurately cost that value. You can loose some granularity in cost and the game would probably be ok. 10th edition lost too much granularity on cost. So now, options of widely different value have the same cost. In which if you don't pick the better value for the cost, you are bad at playing games. Or play games for entirely different reasons than I do.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

You're stuck on value. A unit's role and design space is part of it's value. You want units with interesting and diverse values. That's good. I'd like that too. But this is a discussion of cost. How to accurately cost that value. You can loose some granularity in cost and the game would probably be ok. 10th edition lost too much granularity on cost. So now, options of widely different value have the same cost. In which if you don't pick the better value for the cost, you are bad at playing games. Or play games for entirely different reasons than I do.

That's literally always been how points in 40k work. The loss in granularity hasn't changed that one bit unless you insist on not taking the "optional" wargear because you technically do not have to. Personally I feel like 10th's choices in unit options are more compelling because they are more driven by the purpose they serve than the cost they've been assigned. I feel like I have more interesting choices now than I have under any prior points system.

Note that I did not feel this way about Power Level because Power Level unit configuration was still built on loadouts that were meant to be limited by points. Weapons did not have any sort of parity to avoid one clearly being the best choice. That certainly still exists in the new system, but more than ever before I feel like wargear options are interesting and not just fat to be trimmed.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Or it's just that Cruddace and Jervis are bad at what they do

Their insane ramblings about game/rules design in White Dwarf are extremely illuminating.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Spoiler:

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

The idea that a 100 point unit is equal to a 90 point unit are equal doesn't make them meaningful choices. If they're the same value, one is the one that fits in the list and one either costs too much to fit or costs too little and isn't worth paying 10 points more than its worth. The same thing happens every time you try to fix things with points. Something just no longer fits; its not really an interesting choice.

I get the faith in points, I just don't share it. They have their purpose for sure, but trying to assign everything the perfect cost in an every changing market doesn't ever fix anything; it just changes what the problem looks like.

This appears to be the " They can't be perfect, therefore they're not worth doing" argument again.

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'm not opposed to them altogether. As I've said many times, they're important for creating categories of units and determining what units fight for the same design space and therefore need to serve different roles. I just find it more interesting to make side grade choice for wargear over trying to find the right cost for it. All pointing wargear has ever accomplished is stopping people from taking it. I get that it removes the prior choice of taking "nothing" but I think the game is way more interesting when sgts are equipped for close combat and units are packing those special weapons that are so iconic to the franchise over more boltgun equivalents.

I prefer armies that look "realistic", which means they are functioning on limited resources.

If my Tank Company chooses not to use sponsons because of points limitations, then the narrative is that the company prioritizes it's resources differently (i.e. focuses on fuel or battlecannon ammunition rather than tripling the ammunition requirement for heavy bolters, or prefers the ease of maintenance in the absence of the awkward sponsons so the energy can be put into maintaining the powerful Vanquisher cannons that I spent my points on instead).

A specialized tank hunter team equipped with lascannons has no business giving the sergeant a thunder hammer. If I was a real commander, I would take that thunder hammer away from him and give it to an Assault Squad, so the hammer is more likely to get used. If another hammer teleported into the hands of the Devastator sergeant, I would take that one too and issue it to the other Assault squad members.

Eventually, I would make sure essentially EVERYONE except Devastator squads and tank crews in my Company has a thunder hammer before a Devastator was even allowed to ask nicely for one, sergeant or not.

Currently, my commander just seems like a fething idiot, because the Assault Squad of ten men is going in with one hammer and nine chainswords, while the Devastator sergeant is standing miles away with his own hammer, wondering if there could have been any way to help the assault squad be better at assaulting...

For my previous statement :

playing at 1950 pts is a 3% handicap. Pretty negligible outside the most competitive games.

Should it stay the same? Absolutely not, give us back priced wargear and variable unit sizes 100%. It's not rocket science and GW has shown that even with their "easier to balance system" they can't achieve balance anyway.

Plus, considering they released an armybuilder app, nobody should be doing "weird arithmetic" like they stated people were doing.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Or it's just that Cruddace and Jervis are bad at what they do

Their insane ramblings about game/rules design in White Dwarf are extremely illuminating.

JJ has been exclusively fantasy since the mid 90s hasn't he?

Still think managements "make it accessible for everyone" demands are probably more influential than any individual designers but who knows. I understand it but modern GW products are just something I am not really interested in, i give them a go but hasnt been a core ruleset i have been that interested in since 7th editions of both main games.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Spoiler:

 CaulynDarr wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

The thing about points is that its always perfect hypothetically and I think a lot of faith in points comes from the idea that they can be perfected. I'm personally of the belief that changing points doesn't lead to meaningful decisions. If two things fill a similar role one is always going to supplant the other and you can flip the points back and forth to decide which one you want, but you're never going to make the choice of which one to take interesting. When you make things the same cost, you have to focus on making things serve different roles and makes choosing between them more interesting. I don't feel that points makes this more interesting.

I think you are kind of misunderstanding the point of points. It's really about value versus cost.

Imagine a boiler with two lines going in. Each line has a valve on on it; one valve is marked cost, the other value. The boiler has a gauge on it with a green section on the middle and red sections on each other side. Changing the valves moves the needle in the gauge, and you're trying to keep the needle in the green balanced section. The value valve is kind of wonky. It doesn't move smoothly and makes the needle jump around. The cost valve moves very smoothly, and the needle gives clean and immediate feedback to the change. The two valves work pretty well together. Dial in a value, fine tune with the cost.

Now some guy came in on the night shift and busted off the cost handle, He then jury rigged it by welding on a wrench. Now the cost valve doesn't move as smoothly. It seems to only move in big jumps like the value one now. It makes it really hard to put the needle in the gauge exactly where you want. Not impossible. Just harder and requires a lot more work. But the night shift guy thinks it's more interesting this way, so ::shrug::

I fully understand the point of points; I just don't think they work all that well because they're interconnected with everything else in a list. You might be able to dial the value of a specific unit effectively, but that doesn't mean it works in the context of the army anymore. In my experience, it almost never creates more interesting choices in list building, it just removes the current optimal choice for another.

The idea that a 100 point unit is equal to a 90 point unit are equal doesn't make them meaningful choices. If they're the same value, one is the one that fits in the list and one either costs too much to fit or costs too little and isn't worth paying 10 points more than its worth. The same thing happens every time you try to fix things with points. Something just no longer fits; its not really an interesting choice.

I get the faith in points, I just don't share it. They have their purpose for sure, but trying to assign everything the perfect cost in an every changing market doesn't ever fix anything; it just changes what the problem looks like.

This appears to be the " They can't be perfect, therefore they're not worth doing" argument again.

I see that more of an argument that there's a practical limit to the level of granularity for points. But it ain't a good argument against them altogether.

I'm not opposed to them altogether. As I've said many times, they're important for creating categories of units and determining what units fight for the same design space and therefore need to serve different roles. I just find it more interesting to make side grade choice for wargear over trying to find the right cost for it. All pointing wargear has ever accomplished is stopping people from taking it. I get that it removes the prior choice of taking "nothing" but I think the game is way more interesting when sgts are equipped for close combat and units are packing those special weapons that are so iconic to the franchise over more boltgun equivalents.

I prefer armies that look "realistic", which means they are functioning on limited resources.

If my Tank Company chooses not to use sponsons because of points limitations, then the narrative is that the company prioritizes it's resources differently (i.e. focuses on fuel or battlecannon ammunition rather than tripling the ammunition requirement for heavy bolters, or prefers the ease of maintenance in the absence of the awkward sponsons so the energy can be put into maintaining the powerful Vanquisher cannons that I spent my points on instead).

A specialized tank hunter team equipped with lascannons has no business giving the sergeant a thunder hammer. If I was a real commander, I would take that thunder hammer away from him and give it to an Assault Squad, so the hammer is more likely to get used. If another hammer teleported into the hands of the Devastator sergeant, I would take that one too and issue it to the other Assault squad members.

Eventually, I would make sure essentially EVERYONE except Devastator squads and tank crews in my Company has a thunder hammer before a Devastator was even allowed to ask nicely for one, sergeant or not.

Currently, my commander just seems like a fething idiot, because the Assault Squad of ten men is going in with one hammer and nine chainswords, while the Devastator sergeant is standing miles away with his own hammer, wondering if there could have been any way to help the assault squad be better at assaulting...

So type yourself up some fluff as to why your assault squad only has that 1 hammer.
If you can make up stories about your models - that no-one else will ever know or care about - to reflect pts spent/no spent, surely you can still make stuff up in the absence of pts.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Weren't HWT mortars just caught in the crossfire? I thought it was Guard artillery vehicles that were partially overperforming (compared to the rest of the army...).

In 40k it's artillery vehicles.

HH doesn't have that issue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

No, opportunity cost alone hardly adequatly can cover the difference in ability for HWT f.e. in a militia list for the anti infantry weapon. F.e. I consider the following options as that, Stubber, Heavy bolter, and mortar. Both the mortar and the heavy bolter cost more than the stubber. Understandably so, one is a 3 shot weapon with S4 and Ap 6. The Mortar has indirect fire and pinning for +5 pts from the stubber as baseline. The Heavy bolter in HH is S5, Ap4, 4 shots at 10 pts more. It is arguable if the HB should cost the same as the AC in HH.

But now assume a system in which there are no points instead you pay a flat 30 pts / HWT in a HWT squad. Neither the mortar nor stubber would ever see the light of day. AC and ML could arguably see play because that is wha the squads profile + an upgrade to these weapons would incidentally cost. Except that they then all compete directly on a profile basis with the lascannon. And here we get to the core problem. When i am anyways paying 30pts / HWT so flat 90 instead of the current 60 for a min squad of HWT's , why would i ever consider the Missile launcher ? I wouldn't. And it's not just the now far too cheap lascanon that pressures those weapons out of the game, because even when you want an anti infantry gun, the AC is still priced fine and offers high quality slightly lower RoF with medium antitank capabilities. For a task that any core infantry unit of grunts in your army can do and that remains true.

hence why the perception wont actually shift, but instead people will start loading up on the now potentially discounted antitank weaponry, and if the squad is priced as if it would field antitank weapons anyways, like legionairs in 40k. Why'd you ever consider a HB or an AC or ML in the first place? You won't , you'll see lascannons because the squad is priced as if it had lascannons. You'll see greater melee weapons or whatevs they are called, instead of chainswords. Because you anyways pay for it.

Yet here we are where the first "patch" to the game is a nerf for indirect fire as it has been deemed too good, suggesting people still want those mortars.

It's not impossible to see a world where the majority of those weapons on the hwt all viable in different ways and do not require massively different point values, if at all. The game and the weapon profiles simply don't support it at this time though.

That world however is not 40k with the current lack of mechanics and completely moronical wound table