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By my math, 1 power is the equivelent of 20 points. The math generally seems to check out for things like Daemon Princes or rhinos which average out pretty evenly at 8 and 4....But basically anything that got a points change seems to be effed up. Cultists at 40 models cost a power equivelent of 240 (when in points they are 160), and stuff like Guardsman have the opposite effect, getting a discount in the points to power swap because of their nerf.

Now?

/duckandrun

Power level was never super accurate to begin with. Its not meant to be used in games where you are trying to matched play each other and have a competition.

Its a loose framework to quickly create an army list and play the game.

It is suitable for players that don't care about trying to get granular in listbuildiing, and not suiitable for players that are trying to min/max and have a competition with the game.

This also spawns the dozen or so page thread going back and forth about what the game is to people, bringing us full circle back to someone posting a similar thread like this in a couple weeks to begin the journey anew.

I don't believe Power was ever meant to balance things in matched play the same way Points does. The way I see Power is that it's for large-scale Apoc level games, and for narrative or open play games, as a way to roughly judge the fighting effectiveness of each player's army.

It's not meant to be the same as Points.

Power level has always been useless as a redundant method of creating forces.

Power was never meant to be used for real "balance" but approximate guidelines for large-scale games, narrative scenarios where you want a rough idea of force size, pick up games (when you aren't worried your opponent will be a powergamer) and the like. IMO they still serve a purpose.

What I mean is, with indexes and even codexes the power ROUGHLY reflected the points. But now, every time they change the points durastically it basically makes the power profile all but useless to judge a units individual power. Im fine with power being an aprox. Or a median, but its not even REMOTELY close in some cases after CA and FAQ changes.

I mean it was never a perfect 1 to 20 ratio, because options are involved and Power level takes into account the use of some upgrades.

Power level is intended for casual play, not fair play.

 vaklor4 wrote:
By my math, 1 power is the equivelent of 20 points. The math generally seems to check out for things like Daemon Princes or rhinos which average out pretty evenly at 8 and 4....But basically anything that got a points change seems to be effed up. Cultists at 40 models cost a power equivalent of 240 (when in points they are 160), and stuff like Guardsman have the opposite effect, getting a discount in the points to power swap because of their nerf.

It becomes the "ideal" tool for an Apocalypse level game.
When quibbling over a plasma pistol points seems silly.
Yes, a fast and dirty method of trying to get a rough balance between forces.
It is at it's absolute worst for kill-team levels of play.
I find with how prevalent army build programs are, it is not that big a deal to add up the points a bit more accurately.

The absolute "sweet-spot" is when you have a hoard of miniatures and you group them together and you do not want to accurately count all the wargear on each and every model THIS is where I see it's value which fits in the Apocalypse style of play: bring everything in your collection.

So no, it is not "useless" it just has certain conditions where it is optimal and others that it seems very inappropriate.

<edit> Ah! Very good point brought up earlier: when the FAQs come out and make a bunch of changes, some units really could use a power level adjustment. It seems by GW's omission of updates that they are not supporting this points system.

In most units, even with points changes from Codices, the formula still stands for most units.

You take the minimum points cost of a unit with basic wargear, average that of the same minimum unit with its most expensive loadout, THEN divided by 20 and round.
You cannot, however, just multiple the Power level by 20 to "guess" the points value. it doesn't work in reverse.

And as far as I know, Power levels were adjusted with points costs too. For example, Eldar Shining Spears were 7PL in the Index for 3 models. They got cheaper in the Codex and thus they are now 5PL for 3 models.

Having said that, PLs were NEVER intended to create truly balanced armies, but rather ROUGHLY balanced armies for quick pick-up games.
I use them more than points because I don't get to go to the LGS as often and play more at home with my teenage boys, who are still learning.

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Everyone thinks power level is another version of points. Its not. Stop comparing it to points.

My group has switched to 100% power level. We are burned out on tournaments and are just a casual group of garage hammer players now. Our games are typically not competitive. We pull out 100 PL, play, have fun, and that's it. I can equip my models how I want them and rule of cool my whole army.

We havent had a SINGLE issue where powerlevel has come off as cheesey or overpowered.

 Talizvar wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
By my math, 1 power is the equivelent of 20 points. The math generally seems to check out for things like Daemon Princes or rhinos which average out pretty evenly at 8 and 4....But basically anything that got a points change seems to be effed up. Cultists at 40 models cost a power equivalent of 240 (when in points they are 160), and stuff like Guardsman have the opposite effect, getting a discount in the points to power swap because of their nerf.

It becomes the "ideal" tool for an Apocalypse level game.
When quibbling over a plasma pistol points seems silly.
Yes, a fast and dirty method of trying to get a rough balance between forces.
It is at it's absolute worst for kill-team levels of play.
I find with how prevalent army build programs are, it is not that big a deal to add up the points a bit more accurately.

The absolute "sweet-spot" is when you have a hoard of miniatures and you group them together and you do not want to accurately count all the wargear on each and every model THIS is where I see it's value which fits in the Apocalypse style of play: bring everything in your collection.

So no, it is not "useless" it just has certain conditions where it is optimal and others that it seems very inappropriate.

<edit> Ah! Very good point brought up earlier: when the FAQs come out and make a bunch of changes, some units really could use a power level adjustment. It seems by GW's omission of updates that they are not supporting this points system.

Thats my main point. I understand power is supposed to be for apoc and entry level gameplay, but it seems like GW has all but abandoned it as a system of army building. And there ARE armies that take power into account with matched play. Daemon Summoning gets real weird when the power youre rolling for doesnt really reflect the points that youre reserving for summoning.

 thekerrick wrote:
Everyone thinks power level is another version of points. Its not. Stop comparing it to points.

You're honestly arguing a system of adding up numbers based on units strength is different and not comparable to another system of adding up numbers based on units strength?

They're points. Just bigger, and they don't care about the plasma pistol your sergeant has, but they're still fundamentally a points based system and should absolutely be compared.

I personally would rather use Power Levels as I am not super into list building and can only be bothered to create one via a program. Warhammer 40K is too unbalanced regardless, so I don't want to waste my time worrying about every last combi-bolter's points in my army. I think Power Levels work fine if you already have a bunch of models built with particular load outs (i.e. typical unit load outs most have already modeled with their figures) and remember to make squads in prescribed blocks (usually 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.).

There is a difference in balance between Power Levels and Points, but I don't think it is nearly as wide of a gap as most players believe.

 vaklor4 wrote:
By my math, 1 power is the equivelent of 20 points. The math generally seems to check out for things like Daemon Princes or rhinos which average out pretty evenly at 8 and 4....But basically anything that got a points change seems to be effed up. Cultists at 40 models cost a power equivelent of 240 (when in points they are 160), and stuff like Guardsman have the opposite effect, getting a discount in the points to power swap because of their nerf.

I played in a 100 power level tourney. While I could play essentially the same list as my 2000 point matched, there were only 2 differences.

Power Levels: gave me more upgrades

Point based Matched: gave me more units

In my case in the tournament the upgrades gave me about 200-300 more points, but I lost 2 units which ended up being about the same cost. Shooting quality went up, while shooting volume went down. I was surprised at how even they seem to be.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Daemon Summoning gets real weird when the power youre rolling for doesnt really reflect the points that youre reserving for summoning.

Indeed it would, however I suspect 99% of the units are within 1PL of their true points level. I actually stopped playing Daemons because true "all flavors" undivided lists became unfeasible, so I don't have the codex, but have you actually tried the formula using the points and PL in the Codex?

For Example: Take a minimum 10 lesser Daemon unit,
points with no upgrade = XXpts
points with all upgrades possible = YYpts
XX + YY divided by 2 (getting an average) = XY
XY divided by 20 = PL

Rounding, you should get within 1PL of the unit's actual listed PL almost every time.
That's only a variance of roughly 20 pts.
If you take a variety of units (like you are SUPPOSED to) instead of spamming specific units, this variance should always even out.
Again, PL are ideal for casual pickup games, not tournaments

Again, PL are ideal for casual pickup games, not tournaments

Which is one of the keystone differences that divide the player base. Casual pick up games vs tournament or tournament prep pick up games.

 thekerrick wrote:
Everyone thinks power level is another version of points. Its not. Stop comparing it to points.

Of course it is another version of points. It's literally a point system where all upgrades (other than adding additional models to a unit) cost zero points. It's used in the exact same way as any other point system, it's just less accurate and therefore an inferior system. The only advantage it offers is virtue signalling about how "casual" you are because you reject balance.

 thekerrick wrote:
Everyone thinks power level is another version of points. Its not. Stop comparing it to points.

My group has switched to 100% power level. We are burned out on tournaments and are just a casual group of garage hammer players now. Our games are typically not competitive. We pull out 100 PL, play, have fun, and that's it. I can equip my models how I want them and rule of cool my whole army.

We havent had a SINGLE issue where powerlevel has come off as cheesey or overpowered.

This.

When someone just wants to plop down their collection and fight, yeah, I pull out that many Power POints of my favorite units and fight.

When that one player wants to do Power Points and then proxy all the upgrades because it's insane how awesome his guys are that way, I play Points instead.

"This tank has taken all the upgrades because why not" is not a good use of Power Points.

My group never was opposed to power level, it's just that list builders made it pretty unnecessary to not simply take points. That being said, whenever I make a list with battlescribe I realize that the powerlevel is actually pretty close to the 1:20 ratio despite CA, FAQ etc.

Bharring wrote:
When someone just wants to plop down their collection and fight, yeah, I pull out that many Power POints of my favorite units and fight.

When that one player wants to do Power Points and then proxy all the upgrades because it's insane how awesome his guys are that way, I play Points instead.

"This tank has taken all the upgrades because why not" is not a good use of Power Points.

How did you do this in 7th? Why is it so much harder to add up points in 8th? The only argument I see for PL is "I'm really lazy and don't want to do math to make the game fair."

All I can say to the 1:20 is that it doesn't work for my army. My latest GK list is 2000 pts but 127 PL.

The list has: GMDK, Draigo, 1 Paladin squad (of 6), Ven Dread, Interceptors (5), 5 Strike Squads (5@), Storm Talon.

 Peregrine wrote:

 thekerrick wrote:
Everyone thinks power level is another version of points. Its not. Stop comparing it to points.

Of course it is another version of points. It's literally a point system where all upgrades (other than adding additional models to a unit) cost zero points. It's used in the exact same way as any other point system, it's just less accurate and therefore an inferior system. The only advantage it offers is virtue signalling about how "casual" you are because you reject balance.

I do admit 'thekerrick" took that statement to a new level of illogic.
I agree that power levels is like the GW code-word for casual play, it appears to achieve no better purpose (other than a fast and dirty "rough" balancing and to heck with what the upgrades are... we don't care right?).

Yep, the competitive vs casual play argument, uh, how many are we up to now?
I believe fluff-bunnies should be mercilessly crushed! Does that make my position clearer?

Im not knocking players who prefer power, all the power to them. Im just wishing GW would actually CARE about those players and reflect any changes made to the units in points to Power, since usually the units that get changed are for good reason. You can be casual and not care about wargear costs, but its stupid to think using a stagnent system that doesnt fix OP or underpowered units is better. A tabletop game should be balanced, not just in tournaments.

I wouldn't close the book on power levels or points. They are 2 different systems for costing armies. Sometimes units cost more under one system, sometimes they cost lest.

For Chaos Space Marines, at least, power levels mostly favor tanks / elites more than troops. As someone already pointed out, Cultists are more expensive when playing power levels. A Predator, with a complete weapon load out, costs less relative to the total number of PLs you have to spend.

On the other hand, CSMs themselves get cheaper the more troops you add. The cost of a 20 man CSM squad with 2 lascannons is cheaper under power levels than under points.

I'm not sure how much rhyme or reason there is to this or how it applies to other armies.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
All I can say to the 1:20 is that it doesn't work for my army. My latest GK list is 2000 pts but 127 PL.

The list has: GMDK, Draigo, 1 Paladin squad (of 6), Ven Dread, Interceptors (5), 5 Strike Squads (5@), Storm Talon.

Grey Knights are an example of were Power Level really, really hurts an army. Because the paid options on GK are actually worse than the free ones, and PL takes these into account.

Any Grey Knights player who says "Sure, i'll play PL" is signing up to get even more screwed than they already are.

I liked PL at the start, but some armies are just proper fethed by it.

Harlequins where you didn't take a lot of upgrades are fun in PP games....

Painfully fun.

I wish people would stop saying upgrades are "free" with Power Levels.
They are, in fact, part of what makes up a unit's PL, whether those upgrades are taken or not.

For example, 5 Tac marines are PL5, but are also 65pts with no upgrades at all.
Using the 1PL=20pts, 5 Tacs should only have 3PL, not 5
But since 5 Tacs CAN be upgraded to well over 100+pts, the average between no upgrades and fully upgraded, divided by 20, does actually equal 5.

Upgrades are not "free", but they are assumed to have average upgrades included in the PL.
Obviously if you take full upgrades you gain an advantages....SO DONT DO THAT!

The ability to do this does indeed make PL not well suited for competitive play, because there will be TFG who does it.
But that does not mean PL are "useless" it just means you need to stop thinking like, or being pressured by the "TFG mentality" and just enjoy rolling dice.

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