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

 Irbis wrote:
Now, the side argument that with free upgrades some options are obsolete is completely separate one, not linked to points, and it can be solved in many different ways. Limit the amount of upgrades unit can take, with more elite units being able to take more upgrades. Make upgrades binary choice (model X can take A or B, but not both). Make upgrade D be worth two picks on upgrade list, like in 7th edition Deathwatch book. Give unit list of generic enhancing traits like +1 to stat if you skip bits-worthy upgrades altogether. It's not a problem, really, and trying to somehow pin it to worth of points discussion (because one side has zero good arguments besides that straw bolt pistol) is kinda dishonest, IMO.

The fact that my car can't drive anymore is a completely separate issue not related to the fact that I took the wheels off, and it can be solved in many different ways. I can tie a rope to the car and drag it around. I can hire someone else to push the car with me. It's not a problem, really, and trying to somehow pin it to taking the wheels off my car is kinda dishonest, IMO.

The lack of opportunity cost for upgrades is wholly a problem caused by ditching wargear costs. There are valid ways to solve it under the new paradigm but pretending like it's some irrelevant side issue is pretty darn dishonest.

 catbarf wrote:

 Irbis wrote:
Now, the side argument that with free upgrades some options are obsolete is completely separate one, not linked to points, and it can be solved in many different ways. Limit the amount of upgrades unit can take, with more elite units being able to take more upgrades. Make upgrades binary choice (model X can take A or B, but not both). Make upgrade D be worth two picks on upgrade list, like in 7th edition Deathwatch book. Give unit list of generic enhancing traits like +1 to stat if you skip bits-worthy upgrades altogether. It's not a problem, really, and trying to somehow pin it to worth of points discussion (because one side has zero good arguments besides that straw bolt pistol) is kinda dishonest, IMO.

The fact that my car can't drive anymore is a completely separate issue not related to the fact that I took the wheels off, and it can be solved in many different ways. I can tie a rope to the car and drag it around. I can hire someone else to push the car with me. It's not a problem, really, and trying to somehow pin it to taking the wheels off my car is kinda dishonest, IMO.

The lack of opportunity cost for upgrades is wholly a problem caused by ditching wargear costs. There are valid ways to solve it under the new paradigm but pretending like it's some irrelevant side issue is pretty darn dishonest.

I mean, did you really expect a cohesive argument from one of the forum's "FW bad" posters?

PenitentJake wrote:

Dude it ain't about lazy, it's about the story.

A unit has an experience on the battlefield that necessitates a change in its load out out for the next game. None of the other units have an experience that require a change of load out. A costed equipment system does not allow me as a storyteller to deal with this. If I change the equipment of the affected unit as required by the story, I must also change at least one of the other units, even though there's no story based reason to do this.

A PL type system does allow me to change the load of one unit without affecting the load out of the others. If all you ever play is stand-alone pick-up games, you'll never encounter a situation like this, but it's quite common in the campaigns we play, so we prefer a system that lets us deal with it when it happens.

Do you not consider that something of a niche usage for PL, given that games in 40k are generally independent of one another?

Also, what if you want to change the loadout of a unit but GW has arbitrarily decided that this requires a different datasheet and thus a different power level? Seems a bit odd that it's perfectly fine for a unit to "earn" heave/special weapons and get any number of them for free, yet there is no way a Captain can earn a bike, jump pack, terminator armour etc. without paying for it. Maybe it just works for your group, but I'd be more than a little miffed if I found myself on the wrong side of such rules.

Given the nature of your game, it would seem far more logical to just homebrew an advancement system so that players get a number of points at the end of a game to spend on wargear so that they can advance one or more units based on the events of said game (I can't be more specific because I have no idea how such changes are earned/necessitated in your world).

PenitentJake wrote:
Laziness has nothing to do with it. Time has nothing to do with it. We put a fair amount of work into our campaigns... Ain't one of us I'd call lazy, and if time was an issue, I'd just avoid spending as much time as I do feeding trolls on the Internet to make up the difference.

If you were willing to put all that work in, would it really have broken the camel's back to just add in an advancement system?

a_typical_hero wrote:

 kodos wrote:
this just means they had the wrong point costs and not something PL do better

I would like the list to only contain points how "PL as they are" have been implemented compared to "points how they were". In a theoretical better version, some of the cons could be handled by PL. For example by having a baseline unit without any upgrade and then having a fixed cost to unlock upgrade line x. But this is not the rules that people have to put up with, so I leave it out of (or in, if you will) my list.

in this case you would need to add the same point for the cons as well
as you might now take options you did not took before like HK Missiles, but also options you took before because they were cheap are not taken any more

so it just changes which options are taken which is a pro and a con, non of those because it is the same as if points values would change

 Irbis wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Even if you assume the premise that 1 point is too much it's still not an argument against traditional points. Nothing about the system itself requires units or upgrades or typical game sizes to have any particular value. You could very easily multiply everything by 10 and play 20,000 point games instead of 2,000 point games, making the smallest point increment for a bolt pistol 1 point out of a 650 point infantry squad. And I'm pretty sure that's enough resolution to solve the problem.

I like how one side of the argument basically boils down to 'yes we know the system is gak and the attempt to make it right would force both players to spend 10 hours in Excel just to field what used to be 500 pts army, but you're having fun wrong so STFU, Excel it is'

PL, on the other hand, can not solve the problem at all, under any circumstances. The bolt pistol is better than the laspistol but can not have an increased cost, meaning the bolt pistol is automatic correct choice and the laspistol is de facto removed from the game. This makes PL an objectively inferior system.

Wrong. It makes it vastly superior system when it comes to speed, ease of use, and fluff adherence. Which, for a lot of people, is much more important than considering if bolt pistol upgrade is worth √2 points but only if it's Monday and the amount of terrain on table does not exceed 35.7% of coverage, because then you need to multiply this value by π

No, it's not that we know that pts are gak, that was not what was said. It takes 2 extra minutes in excel to calculate your list's pts cost instead of calculating PL. 0 extra minutes if you are using Rosterizer to build your list.

"Brother Sternguard Sergeant?"
"Yes, Chapter Master?"
"I am afraid I have to confine two of your finest warriors to their chambers for the duration of the battle."
"Huh? Why?"
"This dude next to them picked up a meltagun. Sorry, the Codex Astartes dictates this exceeds the deployment budget of usual Demi-Company, and makes the battle unfair to the enemy. Or something. Anyway, the point is, house arrest. On the double!"
"..."

"Brother Captain?"
"Yes, Chapter Master?"
"I see you made a petition to upgrade your mighty Predator from the usual auto-cannon to twin lascannons. All right, approved. Do surrender your power fist and plasma pistol into this box now."
"Huh? Why?"
"Don't you know? The lascannons are apparently powered with spare batteries of both. Brother Techmarine will be along shortly to hotwire them as turret power source, just after he finishes debating if Company Champion's extra training this evening necessitates the removal of storm bolters from the whole complement of your company transport pool. Because all of this makes sense somehow. Don't ask me how, though."
"..."

Gee, that sure sounds like something that happens in-universe a lot

"Look Captain, I found a stash of 30 thunder hammers, let's equip all the Assault Marines with them so we can smash the enemy!"
"YoU fOoL wHaT aBoUt ThE dEvAsTaToR sErGeArNtS?"

"I will wield this power sword I have carried for two campaigns and slay the Xenos scum!"
"YoU fOoL gEt RiD oF tHaT gArBaGe We FoUnD aN uNlImItEd ThUnDeR hAmMeR sTaSh."

Tsagualsa wrote:
It is mathematically true that points is better than powerlevels (at the goal of representing any given force in a single abstract number that measures its relative worth compared to other forces) because points can do everything that powerlevels can do, and then some while the reverse is not true. In a points-based system, nothing prevents you to have specific equipments be free, swapable against each other or be a pick of one out of three etc. Thus, points allow for more options than powerlevels, because the option to have any given upgrade cost points comes in addition to, not as a replacement for, everything that's possible in a power level system.

This is really dumb argument. It's same as saying everyone should code in assembly (for the uninitiated, raw machine code, basically typing nothing but 0s and 1s) because it's faster, uses less memory, and is cleaner than any of the higher level programming languages. Except, while this is 'technically' true, it's also 100x times harder, slower, and vastly more prone to bugs outside of really niche, expensive custom project, so guess what, in real life, virtually every single programmer uses languages that separate them from hardware. With (very popular for some reason, imagine that) really high level ones trading lots of memory and computing speed for ease of use, debugging, and speed of writing. And if this wins in a field where a lot of money is at stake, arguing we should ruin what is supposed to be our entertainment and turn into unpaid Excel drones because some people don't want to accept that 0.001 pts difference in points is really meaningless is rather stupid

It's fourth-grade math... That sure does make this quoted rant seem slightly hysterical.

Make upgrades binary choice (model X can take A or B, but not both). Make upgrade D be worth two picks on upgrade list, like in 7th edition Deathwatch book.

What if A is superior to B?

What if D isn't worth 2*C?

 Irbis wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Even if you assume the premise that 1 point is too much it's still not an argument against traditional points. Nothing about the system itself requires units or upgrades or typical game sizes to have any particular value. You could very easily multiply everything by 10 and play 20,000 point games instead of 2,000 point games, making the smallest point increment for a bolt pistol 1 point out of a 650 point infantry squad. And I'm pretty sure that's enough resolution to solve the problem.

I like how one side of the argument basically boils down to 'yes we know the system is gak and the attempt to make it right would force both players to spend 10 hours in Excel just to field what used to be 500 pts army, but you're having fun wrong so STFU, Excel it is'

What? The hyperbole really isn't helping your argument (though I'm not sure this even qualifies as an argument at tis point). The length of time it takes to build an army under either system is almost the same. Even if it takes 10 minutes more to finalise a list under the granular points system (and I don't even think that's true anyway), that's not a problem since that's not an activity you do at the table.

 Irbis wrote:

PL, on the other hand, can not solve the problem at all, under any circumstances. The bolt pistol is better than the laspistol but can not have an increased cost, meaning the bolt pistol is automatic correct choice and the laspistol is de facto removed from the game. This makes PL an objectively inferior system.

Wrong. It makes it vastly superior system when it comes to speed, ease of use, and fluff adherence. Which, for a lot of people, is much more important than considering if bolt pistol upgrade is worth √2 points but only if it's Monday and the amount of terrain on table does not exceed 35.7% of coverage, because then you need to multiply this value by π

Again...what?

Better in speed and ease of use? I disagree. My experience of using 10th's system is it's actually more time consuming because of the lack of granularity. If I'm building a list and it comes to 2015 points I can't just drop a model or two, or remove an upgrade from a squad to get under the 2k limit. Now I have to drop something worth 100 points or so, then find a replacement worth around 75-85 that I have in my collection. Also, better hope the unit you dropped didn't have an attached character, because now you need to drop them too. It's the same problem if you have to find 45-70ish points to fill out the list. Your army may not have those options so you have to rework your army by removing entire units rather than tinkering with the odd option here or there. It's infuriating.

And fluff adherence? That's just absurd. You can justify or ridicule anything using fluff examples, but I would argue a system that forces you down arbitrary paths is inherently less able to represent the fluff than a more flexible system. Why does 10th's system not properly represent the under-strength remnant squads you'd find in the middle of a hard-fought campaign. Or the stripped-down Leman Russ tanks without sponsons designed for rapid flanking. Or why does it insist that all yuor Death Company should be equipped with only the finest weapons and never the classic BP/CS combination they've used for decades?

 Irbis wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
It is mathematically true that points is better than powerlevels (at the goal of representing any given force in a single abstract number that measures its relative worth compared to other forces) because points can do everything that powerlevels can do, and then some while the reverse is not true. In a points-based system, nothing prevents you to have specific equipments be free, swapable against each other or be a pick of one out of three etc. Thus, points allow for more options than powerlevels, because the option to have any given upgrade cost points comes in addition to, not as a replacement for, everything that's possible in a power level system.

This is really dumb argument. It's same as saying everyone should code in assembly (for the uninitiated, raw machine code, basically typing nothing but 0s and 1s) because it's faster, uses less memory, and is cleaner than any of the higher level programming languages. Except, while this is 'technically' true, it's also 100x times harder, slower, and vastly more prone to bugs outside of really niche, expensive custom project, so guess what, in real life, virtually every single programmer uses languages that separate them from hardware. With (very popular for some reason, imagine that) really high level ones trading lots of memory and computing speed for ease of use, debugging, and speed of writing. And if this wins in a field where a lot of money is at stake, arguing we should ruin what is supposed to be our entertainment and turn into unpaid Excel drones because some people don't want to accept that 0.001 pts difference in points is really meaningless is rather stupid

For the third time: what? Seriously, what the hell are you even talking about here? How is adding short columns of small numbers in any way like writing assembly code. What analogy are you even getting at here? How complex do you think the old points system was? This is so out of touch with reality it's not even possible to engage with it.

 Irbis wrote:

Now, the side argument that with free upgrades some options are obsolete is completely separate one, not linked to points, and it can be solved in many different ways. Limit the amount of upgrades unit can take, with more elite units being able to take more upgrades. Make upgrades binary choice (model X can take A or B, but not both). Make upgrade D be worth two picks on upgrade list, like in 7th edition Deathwatch book. Give unit list of generic enhancing traits like +1 to stat if you skip bits-worthy upgrades altogether. It's not a problem, really, and trying to somehow pin it to worth of points discussion (because one side has zero good arguments besides that straw bolt pistol) is kinda dishonest, IMO.

It can be solved, yes. The problem is twofold.

1. GW haven't actually done any of this in 10th. They've left obvious non-options, obvious upgrades and made stupid choices like the costs of the Deathwatch kill teams.

2. There's enough historical inertia with the way 40k works that I'm not even sure the changes they'd need to make are possible without throwing out big chunks of the fluff. You'd need to find a way to make Heavy Bolters the equal of Lascannons, for example, and that's not easy.

Even after all that, you're still left with the question of why? What's the points? The new PL system gains you nothing over the points system and loses you so many things. If you have to make a bunch of stupid choices to try to make your new system work, and it still has a host of flaws - many of them systemic - at a certain point you need to ask why you're ven attempting it.

How often do people here think that players, especialy new ones, the ones that could have problems with unit costs etc Rewrite their armies between games. For PL to give some sort of "speed" adventage over regular points.

And I assume people have to be, outside from where I play, forced to make their lists on the spot in the 5 min before the match and not before going to the store to play the game. Potentialy months in advance of the game.

Karol wrote:
How often do people here think that players, especialy new ones, the ones that could have problems with unit costs etc Rewrite their armies between games. For PL to give some sort of "speed" adventage over regular points.

And I assume people have to be, outside from where I play, forced to make their lists on the spot in the 5 min before the match and not before going to the store to play the game. Potentialy months in advance of the game.

People that manage the process of acquiring books, models, paints etc. and assembling an army are prefectly capable of adding points, possibly with the help of a sheet of paper and a calculator... it's literally elementary school math at most, it's not a huge problem.

 Irbis wrote:
I like how one side of the argument basically boils down to 'yes we know the system is gak and the attempt to make it right would force both players to spend 10 hours in Excel just to field what used to be 500 pts army, but you're having fun wrong so STFU, Excel it is'

Look, I'm not going to say you're wrong here. Maybe adding 65 + 5 + 10 + 3 + 15 is a highly demanding task that requires hours of labor and an Excel sheet to help you. Maybe this is a genuine statement of your struggles with math and not just hyperbolic nonsense created to support a bad faith argument. It would be rude of me to question your experiences. So I'll just say this:

1) You are an extreme outlier. For most people using the traditional point system instead of PL represents a time difference of a minute or two at most, and often requires less time in list construction because you can adjust your point total by smaller increments instead of only being able to add or remove entire units at once. And when you use list building software, as most people do, the time savings of PL disappears entirely.

2) If you find the traditional point system's math to be that much of a burden you probably can't play 40k in any meaningful way. 40k's dice math, while still fairly simple for most people, requires a level of math far beyond the third grade level addition and subtraction involved in making a list. This makes you an outlier even among outliers, as people with your level of difficulty with math will almost always be driven away by the game itself.

"Brother Sternguard Sergeant?"
"Yes, Chapter Master?"
"I am afraid I have to confine two of your finest warriors to their chambers for the duration of the battle."
"Huh? Why?"
"This dude next to them picked up a meltagun. Sorry, the Codex Astartes dictates this exceeds the deployment budget of usual Demi-Company, and makes the battle unfair to the enemy. Or something. Anyway, the point is, house arrest. On the double!"
"..."

"Step-Brother Sternguard Sergeant?"
Why are you stuck in the chapter's washing machine?
"Yes, Chapter Master?"
"I'm afraid I have to confine your entire squad to their chambers for the duration of the battle."
"Huh? Why?"
"Including your squad would give us 1 PL more than the enemy force and that would not be fair!"
"..."

Gee, that sure sounds like something that happens in-universe a lot

The reality is that points-based list construction, whether you use the traditional system or PL as your point system, involves these unrealistic scenarios because points-based list construction sacrifices lore accuracy for balance. If you are bothered by the lore explanations you feel you have to create for the use of a point system you shouldn't be using a point system at all, you should be building lore-accurate forces regardless of how many arbitrary points they contain.

It's same as saying everyone should code in assembly (for the uninitiated, raw machine code, basically typing nothing but 0s and 1s) because it's faster, uses less memory, and is cleaner than any of the higher level programming languages.

I really like this analogy.

The traditional point system is a typical programming language. It does the best job of accomplishing its goal (evaluating the strength of units) and the additional resources required to use it are largely theoretical and only matter in online arguments about what programming language is best.

PL is assembly. In theory it has slightly lower execution time than code written in a normal language but the difference is negligible and the vast majority of people using it outside of a school context are doing it for "skilled coder" virtue signalling rather than any practical value.

10 hours in Excel?

Oh boy...

PL is assembly. In theory it has slightly lower execution time than code written in a normal language but the difference is negligible and the vast majority of people using it outside of a school context are doing it for "skilled coder" virtue signalling rather than any practical value.

This analogy is an insult to assembly code, and the second half of the sentence is an insult to software development and software developers.

"Oh, no, I might need a calculator and a piece of paper to add up these numbers."

So in order to maybe save 2-3 min. We are left with a problem that if upgrade X, Y or Z under or over performs GW has no way of fixing it? On top of that anyone who is not using the premium "OP" set up gets punished as if he very much was using the option. A wondereful trade. We call it the ax for a stick type of a trade here.

 solkan wrote:
This analogy is an insult to assembly code, and the second half of the sentence is an insult to software development and software developers.

Good. They should be insulted. Unless you're working with one of the very rare edge cases where you absolutely need the execution time savings assembly offers you (embedded applications on very limited hardware, operations on extremely large data sets where 1% faster execution time means hours/days of time savings) it's a stupid way of making software. The execution time advantages are irrelevant on modern hardware and development costs are much higher. If you're writing code in assembly for any normal application you're either a masochist or you're doing it to virtue signal about "real coders don't use easy languages".

So yeah, it's a great analogy for how irrelevant it is that PL might save you 30 seconds in list building for a 2-4 hour game (as long as you don't use Battlescribe) and the majority of support for PL is because of its symbolic status as "the casual system" and not for its practical value.

With regard to the 'issue' of time, am I the only one who enjoyed spending time list-building?

I always found it quite fun to play around with lists, seeing what combinations I could make, trying to somehow squeeze in one final unit, playing around with what upgrades I want and which ones I'm willing to sacrifice.

Granted, I'm a bit weird, but I generally ended up making far more lists than I ever got to actually use.

 vipoid wrote:
With regard to the 'issue' of time, am I the only one who enjoyed spending time list-building?

You're not. I loved building lists.

There was a period in my life - back in the days of 3rd/4th - where I never shut Army Builder down. It was always open in my taskbar as whenever I found myself with a free moment I'd throw together a new list. Had tons of them saved that I never used. They were a fun exercise in coming up with something new, or trying to solve a problem, or having a "What if I took three of X?" and what I could work around that, or for making specific themed lists, or even just trying out lists for armies I didn't have. Even into the days of 8th and especially 9th, I'd do the same thing with Battlescribe, opening it up just to make a few lists to see what would be fun, or using a new Codex, or a new model I had just put together, or whatever. Like you I've got far more lists that I'll never use, but making them was fun.

I've not had any fun making lists in 10th, and I tried to do what I used to do, picking quirky themes or weird combos and trying to see if I could make them work. Now I just find myself going "What costs 55 points?" or "What can I get for 135 points?". I'm not taking the units I want, and making choices within those units that allow me to slot in other units. Now I'm looking for what shape fits into what hole, and I left that kind of "play" back in pre-school.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
10 hours in Excel?

Oh boy...

And to think, so many of us used to get by with just a pen and paper with "old fashioned" points (and many still do). Why, we must all be super geniuses!

/s

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
With regard to the 'issue' of time, am I the only one who enjoyed spending time list-building?

You're not. I loved building lists.

Likewise. Building lists is a major engagement point for me, and I suspect many others. It's another hobby activity to really get into, and it's baffling that GW would move to so severely curtail it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
10 hours in Excel?

Oh boy...

And to think, so many of us used to get by with just a pen and paper with "old fashioned" points (and many still do). Why, we must all be super geniuses!

/s

Yeah, I'll still pencil-and-paper it from time to time. It gets my eyes off a screen and everybody knows graphite is the superior medium.

I found listbuilding to be extremely boring in my later years. When I was young and fresh-faced I found them entertaining, but the older I got I found it a tiring exercise in math. You would pick x that would always be greater than y in utility and then multiply that by z. Voila, une armée. If you were bad at math then you'd have a few games and slowly brute force yourself to the "optimal" build with the army you were going for. Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

If it were a bit more engaging like matrix multiplication and discrete mathematics I would maybe find it more interesting.

Only if you were trying to find the "optimal" build.

Not all of us are doing that.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

Tell that to the gak designers at GW that throw four different weapons in their Havoc/Devastator squads.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Only if you were trying to find the "optimal" build.

Not all of us are doing that.

I'd agree with a slight caveat: We all do it but what we deem optimal is different. My optimal army is comprised of the units I like most and whatever support I can bring to somehow bake them into a coherent force, both thematically and (hopefully) in terms of synergies and roles. My puzzle will always be how to reconcile my vision of the army with the given rule set.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I found listbuilding to be extremely boring in my later years. When I was young and fresh-faced I found them entertaining, but the older I got I found it a tiring exercise in math. You would pick x that would always be greater than y in utility and then multiply that by z. Voila, une armée. If you were bad at math then you'd have a few games and slowly brute force yourself to the "optimal" build with the army you were going for. Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

If it were a bit more engaging like matrix multiplication and discrete mathematics I would maybe find it more interesting.

Bull . I've always stuck to the lists that "make me happy". Whether that was massed Raptors in 3rd/4th, or using my Fellblade despite its ridiculous price in 8th, or just switching between "more Raptors or more Atrementar" in HH. Or, just bringing more autocannons than is deemed "good" (by the typical mathhammer types), simply because autocannons are cool. And my Chaos Lord has been sporting paired lightning claws the entire time (including since it's been revealed that he sported the same setup even when he was a Delagatus 10,000 years ago) since I started in late 3rd edition.

You're take is entirely personal, subjective, and specific to your own playgroup. The end.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

You're not. I loved building lists.

There was a period in my life - back in the days of 3rd/4th - where I never shut Army Builder down. It was always open in my taskbar as whenever I found myself with a free moment I'd throw together a new list. Had tons of them saved that I never used. They were a fun exercise in coming up with something new, or trying to solve a problem, or having a "What if I took three of X?" and what I could work around that, or for making specific themed lists, or even just trying out lists for armies I didn't have.

I spent a lot of time in Army Builder too. I actually spent a lot more time building lists than playing games. Games would happen on game nights or on the weekends, but list building/tweaking was daily. The file maintainers are coming back to do a datafile for 10th so you can fire up AB again if you want. Although I don't think it will help much with your next point.

I've not had any fun making lists in 10th, and I tried to do what I used to do, picking quirky themes or weird combos and trying to see if I could make them work. Now I just find myself going "What costs 55 points?" or "What can I get for 135 points?". I'm not taking the units I want, and making choices within those units that allow me to slot in other units. Now I'm looking for what shape fits into what hole, and I left that kind of "play" back in pre-school.

There's that and then there's head scratcher decisions in the app. For example, if I select a Howling Banshee squad and increase it to 10 members, I have to manually increment the banshee blade and shuriken pistol counts to 9. They have no options so why do I have to manually add the only weapons they can have? It does against the whole "keep it simple" mantra.

 Eldarsif wrote:
You would pick x that would always be greater than y in utility

Once again that this is a failure of pricing- but also not so universal that listbuilding was a quick-and-easy affair of picking the obviously right stuff and calling it a day, even if you were pushing for an optimized list.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

I think this is saying more about you and/or your local group than it is about the game.

solkan wrote:
"Oh, no, I might need a calculator and a piece of paper to add up these numbers."

funny thin is, you need that anyway as someone who cannot add 65+5 won't also be able to add 70+70
and you need to write down the units and sum them up for a total of 2000 the same way as before

time saving is not there, that argument is made up by people who never wrote their own list but just copy net-lists and now claim that it must be faster because "less math" while "math" was never the time consuming part

EviscerationPlague wrote:Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

but with PL were everything is free and you cannot cut single models to fit units into 2k, it is much more time consuming to find the optimised build than before

so if you want to play optimised lists only, points are much much faster than PL

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
10 hours in Excel?

Oh boy...

And to think, so many of us used to get by with just a pen and paper with "old fashioned" points (and many still do). Why, we must all be super geniuses!

/s

Listbuilding in *every single previous edition of the game* must have been hell, poor irbis

 Eldarsif wrote:
I found listbuilding to be extremely boring in my later years. When I was young and fresh-faced I found them entertaining, but the older I got I found it a tiring exercise in math. You would pick x that would always be greater than y in utility and then multiply that by z. Voila, une armée. If you were bad at math then you'd have a few games and slowly brute force yourself to the "optimal" build with the army you were going for. Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

If it were a bit more engaging like matrix multiplication and discrete mathematics I would maybe find it more interesting.

Yeah, no.

It's a hobby. Not a fething job. Not everyone wants to take "optimised" lists. If you get no joy out of this hobby beyond taking the bestest things then that is a you problem.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I found listbuilding to be extremely boring in my later years. When I was young and fresh-faced I found them entertaining, but the older I got I found it a tiring exercise in math. You would pick x that would always be greater than y in utility and then multiply that by z. Voila, une armée. If you were bad at math then you'd have a few games and slowly brute force yourself to the "optimal" build with the army you were going for. Because no one, not even the casuals, tolerate unoptimized armies.

If it were a bit more engaging like matrix multiplication and discrete mathematics I would maybe find it more interesting.

Yeah, no.

It's a hobby. Not a fething job. Not everyone wants to take "optimised" lists. If you get no joy out of this hobby beyond taking the bestest things then that is a you problem.

Also, in the editions that had FOCs, your optimization was very constrained anyway, and if you did as much as reading a couple of battle reports in WD or watching some on the Internet, you'd have at least a workable idea how a functional (let's not talk about optimal for WD reports, lol) force would look like.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Bull . I've always stuck to the lists that "make me happy".

Indeed. There is a fair contingent of us that intentionally take unoptimised lists, even to tournaments - whether it is to be contrary (!) or to set a personal challenge (taking a woeful army and getting it into the top 10% seems to be a common aim). I am trying to wrack my brain as to when I have ever taken an 'optimised' list to a tournament.

Open things up to 'casual' or narrative play, and optimisation rapidly disappears into the rear view mirror.

It might be worth bearing in mind, before we start slinging too many personal insults about one another's mathematical ability, that the majority of players on these forums do not come close to representing the majority of players overall for 40k. The things you take as 'obvious' and 'essential' in play may just not be so.

One more vote for the current system. It is so much smoother and, I think, fulfils GW's 90/10 rule nicely.

Please elaborate what you mean with "the current system is smoother" and what the "90/10" rule is.