We Should All Be Thankful

[Shankelton]

Its insane honestly. As a brand new person, who was just doing a hobby ork kitbash for fun, I decided to see what a 500 point list would look like.

No one can give me a straight answer lol

[Sleboda]

18 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Just been catching up with this thread am and curious about something.  Do people think that we're making our own lives difficult because we're using a digital tool to create our lists rather than going old school and using a pen and paper?  A huge amount of the issues I've had in the past with writing 40k lists has actually been the tool rather than the process of writing the list.

Perhaps, but oddly enough, the digital tool has now made me question if I've been getting it right on paper. 

In other words, I may have been blissfully unaware of errors I was making -- or at the very least unaware of how many/overwhelming my options were.

I still prefer paper in 99% of cases, even if I'm limiting myself.

[Kramer]

21 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Just been catching up with this thread am and curious about something.  Do people think that we're making our own lives difficult because we're using a digital tool to create our lists rather than going old school and using a pen and paper?  A huge amount of the issues I've had in the past with writing 40k lists has actually been the tool rather than the process of writing the list.

It’s more that GW represents it as a complete product instead of a support tool. 
even with simple stuff like Warcry people argue that things are/aren’t possible because it’s in varanscribe. 

people drop common sense and trust the system over their own understanding. If the systems were foolproof and more structured that would be okay though. 
for example is I choose a subfaction all other subfaction artefacts disappear it would help limit my choices and therefore make it impossible to make a mistake. 

[dekay]

For those suggesting Power Level games instead, as some have mentioned, PL has issues. And the issues go beyond 'you must have similar mindset to your opponent upgrade wise' because of *huge* differences what 'upgrades' really mean for different armies.

Let's compare two troop choices (chosen these particular two as possibly most extreme examples, but as I'm not all up to date with 40k, it's entirely likely there's something even worse hidden in various army lists.)

Player one plays Necrons. He decides to take a unit of 20 Necron Warriors. Necron Warriors have PL 6 per 10, so it's 12. Point wise, it would cost 260 points. Necron warriors have one option: they can all choose between two guns, both free, so regardless of the choice, they'll still be worth 260 per 20.

That player's opponent plays Tyranids. And decides to take some Termagants, also a basic troop choice. Termagants have PL 3 per 10, so for the cost of those 20 Necrons, he's allowed 2 units of 20 Termagants.  Termagants cost 50 points per 10, so the horde of 40 will be 200. Compared to Necrons' 260 they're a bit behind.

But! It so happens that Termagants have options! So let's give them all we possibly can. Now, armed with devourers and equipped with adrenal glands and toxin sacs, the same 40 termagants cost 440 points. Their power level remains at 12.

So, in this particular example... what is the 'similar mindset' the players are supposed to have? If Tyranids don't take upgrades, they're a good chunk of points behind the necrons. If they take all, they're worth almost twice as much. So the reasonable answer would be 'let them take just a little bit, to match the Necrons... point... value... wait, did we just decide to play points instead?' 

And that's the real problem with Power Level. I've heard many times that as long as you're reasonable with your list building it works. But being reasonable boils down to minding the points despite not using them, and the more you mind them, the closer to balance you will be.

Power level feels like AoS points system, only half done. Yeah, in AoS many units have weapon options and upgrades too, but you are *expected* to max out on them and in theory, point value takes it into account. No one will complain that those Arkanauts took all these special weapons, because they're explicitly allowed to and that's just how the game is played. In 40k though, power level sits in a weird limbo between wanting and not wanting people to upgrade things, depending on a unit, opponent and, well, upgrade's point cost. That you're allegedly not using.

I don't really think if power level even should be considered as an option because taken as is, in some matchups it simply doesn't work, and any time it does, it basically boils down to 'let's say we're playing power level and use points, only we don't count them 100% precisely. More like, 95%.'

[Sleboda]

Not to get too far down the Power Level hole, but I'm massively in favor of playing that way. It's incredibly unlikely I'll ever play in a 40K tournament (I'm 30+ years into my tournament gaming experience, and so far not a single 40K tournament played, so I can't see starting now), so playing against @TwiceIfILikeIt, her son, our friends, etc. totally works for me. We're on the same page, and while we do of course try to win when we play each other, we're not butts about it. PL is great.

 

That said, even using PL, the app makes me nervous that I'm building my lists incorrectly.

[NinthMusketeer]

The goal is to have a balanced game (well, as much as it  can be), so the question becomes: do points produce a more balanced games than power levels?

For the group of friends I play with the answer sways pretty far to the "no" side. But it could be different for someone else's meta. Thing is, everyone still has their models assembled for points and thus the equipment options are largely pre-selected. Having above average options on some units and below average options on others tends to even out across a whole army. Much (not all, however) of the concern about Power Levels  comes from situations where individuals would have to specifically build their models are certain way, which is unlikely to be the case.

[Kramer]

6 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

The goal is to have a balanced game

I still doubt this is the primary goal of GW though. 
They even went on record saying they design the models first, then write fluffy rules and finally they playtest and adjust. 
 

how much of that is marketing talk I don’t know. But it fits the end result. 

[Clan's Cynic]

On 12/25/2020 at 10:28 AM, dekay said:

For those suggesting Power Level games instead, as some have mentioned, PL has issues. And the issues go beyond 'you must have similar mindset to your opponent upgrade wise' because of *huge* differences what 'upgrades' really mean for different armies.

[...]

I don't really think if power level even should be considered as an option because taken as is, in some matchups it simply doesn't work, and any time it does, it basically boils down to 'let's say we're playing power level and use points, only we don't count them 100% precisely. More like, 95%.'

I remember when GW ran a Narrative Campaign Weekend using Power Levels for their first event of 8th edition.

Every single one following that used Matched Play points.

That, uh, should really tell you something.

For me Power Level is there for when you and your mate who're going full Beer & Pretzels without much of a damn just want to throw your toys on the table with a 'rough' outline of something resembling balance but ultimately you've no illusions it's going to be 'that' fair, you just want an excuse to do something vaguely resembling wargaming without thinking hard. It's not meant for pick-up-games at stores or anything unplanned,  even if that which you're running IS a narrative game - there's too many substantial upgrades available to too many units.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Clan's Cynic said:

For me Power Level is there for when you and your mate who're going full Beer & Pretzels without much of a damn just want to throw your toys on the table with a 'rough' outline of something resembling balance but ultimately you've no illusions it's going to be 'that' fair, you just want an excuse to do something vaguely resembling wargaming without thinking hard. It's not meant for pick-up-games at stores or anything unplanned,  even if that which you're running IS a narrative game - there's too many substantial upgrades available to too many units.

The question is if you really need a power level for that. It seems to me that you could just put stuff on the table until you both agree it looks about fair for quick casual games.

[NinthMusketeer]

You really can't, though. Even PL is better than eyeballing it for all but the most experienced players, and even then many are surprisingly biased.

[Overread]

Agreed, you can't eyeball things easily unless you're very experienced at the game or unless you and your friend have really limited army rosters that haven't changed in ages. Heck back when AoS launched people were still mostly using the Old World points to make things sort of work. 

[NinthMusketeer]

Hey Overread remember when people were trying to defend *wounds count* as a legitimate balance mechanism? 😅

[amysrevenge]

From my read of it, PL is not meant at all as a balancing mechanism for two folks to meet up and have a game.  It's a balancing mechanism for two friends to quickly put together something to play the sort of game they want to play, without drilling down to a super-fine resolution.

When it fails, it is likely a failure of the expectations of the people involved, in trying to make PL do something it doesn't do well.  If you find that PL provides a poor play experience, it's likely that your game would have been better served by using points.