Fan-made points

[Petitioner's City]

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gtaQCaSj2A

[Blurf]

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gtaQCaSj2A

Because that's quite possibly the only way to end up with a worse result than what GW does? Nothing like having thousands of people with radically different outlooks and agendas all shouting at each other. Necromunda gets away with it because like 14 people play it and it's very rarely played competitively.

 

Easy examples: I think the Exorcist tank should be priced at 130-140pts. There are multiple people that play sisters of battle who think the exorcist is fine at 170pts. I personally don't think Zephyrim are very good and have next to no success with them. I would drop them 1-2 ppm. Zephyrim see STRONG tournament representation, so many, many people would argue that they're either good where they are or OP.

 

That's not even getting into pitfalls involving tribalism. Fan points MIGHT end up with a superior result, but only after A LOT of blood has been shed and you'll still have quite a number of people resent it if they didn't get the changes they wanted.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Blurf

[Cheex]

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

Because too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

One way or another, there will need to be an arbitration system in place, and who is to decide how that happens? Should we have democratic representative elections every few years to decide who works out our points?

 

(Actually, that idea might not be so bad...)

[MegaVolt87]

 

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

 

Because too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

One way or another, there will need to be an arbitration system in place, and who is to decide how that happens? Should we have democratic representative elections every few years to decide who works out our points?

 

(Actually, that idea might not be so bad...)

Counter point- multiple cooks who know how to cook are better than the one cook who thinks they can cook perfectly. You could have pts via survey and use an average as the answer for a points drop,then revise or leave in the next review.

[Irate Khornate]

 

 

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

Because too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

One way or another, there will need to be an arbitration system in place, and who is to decide how that happens? Should we have democratic representative elections every few years to decide who works out our points?

 

(Actually, that idea might not be so bad...)

Counter point- multiple cooks who know how to cook are better than the one cook who thinks they can cook perfectly. You could have pts via survey and use an average as the answer for a points drop,then revise or leave in the next review.

Based on statistics, that would wind up giving Marines the biggest points drop due to them having the most players.

[sairence]

 

 

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

Because too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

One way or another, there will need to be an arbitration system in place, and who is to decide how that happens? Should we have democratic representative elections every few years to decide who works out our points?

 

(Actually, that idea might not be so bad...)

Counter point- multiple cooks who know how to cook are better than the one cook who thinks they can cook perfectly. You could have pts via survey and use an average as the answer for a points drop,then revise or leave in the next review.

You must have never worked in a restaurant kitchen. :P

[Petitioner's City]

 

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gtaQCaSj2A

Because that's quite possibly the only way to end up with a worse result than what GW does? Nothing like having thousands of people with radically different outlooks and agendas all shouting at each other. Necromunda gets away with it because like 14 people play it and it's very rarely played competitively.

 

Easy examples: I think the Exorcist tank should be priced at 130-140pts. There are multiple people that play sisters of battle who think the exorcist is fine at 170pts. I personally don't think Zephyrim are very good and have next to no success with them. I would drop them 1-2 ppm. Zephyrim see STRONG tournament representation, so many, many people would argue that they're either good where they are or OP.

 

That's not even getting into pitfalls involving tribalism. Fan points MIGHT end up with a superior result, but only after A LOT of blood has been shed and you'll still have quite a number of people resent it if they didn't get the changes they wanted.

The thing is groups like mournival do it (very) well for Horus heresy, and there doesn't need to just be one group doing this - so people can take their pick. I'm just surprised that with all the negativity there aren't strong fan-led attempts to fix the issues as all these threads and complaints do show a perceived need to begin fixing the game (or at least vehicles and certain factions). Of course it will create other issues, and takes time & playtesting, but why not have a try?

Edited January 21, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[AenarIT]

There are simply too many 40K players and too many new 40K releases for it to work.

Horus Heresy, Necromunda and other similar examples barely have new releases and are played competitively only by a handful of people.

In 40K you have major tournaments basically every other week. There is plenty of data from competitive play but how do you intepret it? My position could be that DE at 55% win rate might be fine and yours could be that they deserve to be nerfed a lot, for example.

On top of not being able to come up with a balance pack we collectively agree with, anyone who doesn’t like it could say “it’s trash, I’m not playing with fan based rules” and still use official ones. It would fracture the community again.

 

Unfortunately hoping that GW’s balance updates are done well and in a timely fashion is all we can do.

[Petitioner's City]

There are simply too many 40K players and too many new 40K releases for it to work.

Horus Heresy, Necromunda and other similar examples barely have new releases and are played competitively only by a handful of people.

In 40K you have major tournaments basically every other week. There is plenty of data from competitive play but how do you intepret it? My position could be that DE at 55% win rate might be fine and yours could be that they deserve to be nerfed a lot, for example.

On top of not being able to come up with a balance pack we collectively agree with, anyone who doesn’t like it could say “it’s trash, I’m not playing with fan based rules” and still use official ones. It would fracture the community again.

 

Unfortunately hoping that GW’s balance updates are done well and in a timely fashion is all we can do.

 

Necromunda has basically been revised annually for the four years since its 2017 release and had quarterly supplements that reshape the game with (messy, very creative, intentionally modular but also a bit feckless) rules releases - it certainly isn't "barely [receiving] new releases". Of course it's smaller (although it does seem to be the most popular Specialist Game given the quantity of its releases), and has a much more open community with regards to fan-fixing because of the messy game - but its a game that's as messy as its big 40K brother too. 

 

But on the "what if people don't play my fixes", who cares really - there isn't one "community" to be shattered, there are still thousands of communities across the world, all of whom do (as goonhammer recently argued) play different versions of the game, as everyone has to "houserule" as a basic hermeneutic act of bringing together so many different books and supplements. What will matter if communities play differently - they already do. And more so, it will mean that some people are playing a better game, and whether competitive or narrative or just casual they will be having a better time of it, and have the ability to finesse and improve things on the fly, too.

 

And finally, I'm not a competitive player, but I would want to balance things so my friends have more fun - foremost - and also go over "bad" or "difficult" rules and just try to make them work a bit better and lead to less issues. But for 40K, I'm not the person to do this, I know that, but I read so many smart people here saying "I would do this" and I never know why they don't start, and then submit it to the community as a nice pdf with a fancy "X's House Rules" and then enable people to use them? 

[sairence]

I would imagine that's it a lot of work that most likely will not be picked up by many (or any for that matter) people unless you get some big names with already large followings to endorse your work. And they would probably only do that if your end product is vastly superior to what GW has put out without being fundamentally different. Which the way it currently works can change within 6 months. So the prospective pay off is very unsure while the effort required is pretty substantial.

 

Also, a lot of people who always know better and would do things so much more sensibly are just talk most of the time.

Edited January 21, 2022 by sairence

[AenarIT]

 

But on the "what if people don't play my fixes", who cares really - there isn't one "community" to be shattered, there are still thousands of communities across the world, all of whom do (as goonhammer recently argued) play different versions of the game [...]

 

Imho the community has never been more united than right now. In previous editions there were multiple mission packs and 40K played in Europe was different than 40K played in NA for example (ETC, ITC, GW missions, ...). 

Right now pretty much everyone (at a "competitive level") plays the official GT mission pack and uses the official FAQ/Erratas. Some tournaments add some FAQs of their own, but nothing like comp systems of the past. Even the terrain we play on is similar across the world right now: most tournaments use either the GW perspex area terrain maps, the WTC boards or something that resembles that.

What little Timmy and his friends decide to play is simply hard to put a finger on. If it's not a tournament, it's not tracked and therefore an unknown quantity to the rest of the community, hence why the competitive scene has this influence on casual 40K despite being a small fraction of the playerbase. 

 

As for why smart people don't put out their rulesets, my guess is that because they feel it would be a waste of time. 

I spent the last 3 years thinking about how I would personally write a new Tau codex, since I hated the 8th ed one. But if the community is having a meltdown over railgun shots and invulnerable piercing weapons, I doubt many non-Tau players would've ever accepted to play with what I had in mind 

Edited January 21, 2022 by AenarIT

[Lord_Ikka]

 

There are simply too many 40K players and too many new 40K releases for it to work.

Horus Heresy, Necromunda and other similar examples barely have new releases and are played competitively only by a handful of people.

In 40K you have major tournaments basically every other week. There is plenty of data from competitive play but how do you intepret it? My position could be that DE at 55% win rate might be fine and yours could be that they deserve to be nerfed a lot, for example.

On top of not being able to come up with a balance pack we collectively agree with, anyone who doesn’t like it could say “it’s trash, I’m not playing with fan based rules” and still use official ones. It would fracture the community again.

 

Unfortunately hoping that GW’s balance updates are done well and in a timely fashion is all we can do.

 

Necromunda has basically been revised annually for the four years since its 2017 release and had quarterly supplements that reshape the game with (messy, very creative, intentionally modular but also a bit feckless) rules releases - it certainly isn't "barely [receiving] new releases". Of course it's smaller (although it does seem to be the most popular Specialist Game given the quantity of its releases), and has a much more open community with regards to fan-fixing because of the messy game - but its a game that's as messy as its big 40K brother too. 

 

But on the "what if people don't play my fixes", who cares really - there isn't one "community" to be shattered, there are still thousands of communities across the world, all of whom do (as goonhammer recently argued) play different versions of the game, as everyone has to "houserule" as a basic hermeneutic act of bringing together so many different books and supplements. What will matter if communities play differently - they already do. And more so, it will mean that some people are playing a better game, and whether competitive or narrative or just casual they will be having a better time of it, and have the ability to finesse and improve things on the fly, too.

 

And finally, I'm not a competitive player, but I would want to balance things so my friends have more fun - foremost - and also go over "bad" or "difficult" rules and just try to make them work a bit better and lead to less issues. But for 40K, I'm not the person to do this, I know that, but I read so many smart people here saying "I would do this" and I never know why they don't start, and then submit it to the community as a nice pdf with a fancy "X's House Rules" and then enable people to use them? 

 

There's nothing stopping someone or some group from creating their own rules- frankly that's what ITC/ETC did with 8th edition and GW in turn took their ideas and made the new Matched Play Secondaries/Grand Tournament Missions. This was done because the tournament scene for years had been ignored by GW so the only people willing to make stuff for the competitive scene were the fans. That has changed, as GW is actively courting the tournament players and writing rules with tournaments in mind- which makes writing your own rules less appealing because a lot of people will just follow along with what GW does because it is the easiest, most consistent way to do things. Currently people on this very board make their own fan-dexes and such, so it is possible and workable to have your own set of rules or homebrew rules. It is not workable in the current tournament meta, which is right now adhering to GW's tournament packs almost exclusively. You will occasionally get tournament-specific mission packs that will deal with certain issues, but they are the minority. 

 

Frankly, it is difficult to write rules in a balanced way and make sure that the writers don't have an unconscious bias baked in. If I've been a SM player for 10+ years, I will naturally look at the game from the perspective of a SM vet and not look at it from the perspective of a horde Tyranid player or T'au gunline player. It is something that you have to consciously make yourself aware of and counteract, which also slows down the writing process as you are constantly double-checking to make sure your work is neutral-biased. GW doesn't do this very well- they very clearly have power creep that goes through every edition, which can sometimes be cynically viewed as rules attempting to boost sales for whatever faction is new/model isn't selling. Regardless of their motive, GW's codices have been caught in a continual surge of "newer is better", which hurts the game and makes it frustrating for players of all sorts, and because of their adherence to physical copies of books they have limited themselves to only making small FAQ fixes (typically for blatant issues) and points updates via Munitorium rather than pushing through comprehensive rules changes (such as changes base unit stats). However, the Grand Tournament packs have actually been fairly well-done in regards to following along with what the majority of the tournament community (ITC, ETC) was doing- there have been some small mistakes like not really updating Missions in 2021, which given the fact that there wasn't much data from tournaments because of lockdown can somewhat be forgiven, but overall the tournament packs have been ok. 

 

I'm perfectly fine with playing with homebrew rules, but I know that I will have to use GW rules for any tournament I go to. So I don't have an incentive to really create my own rules unless I'm doing a fun Narrative game or something, and I assume that is really the feeling for most people who think on the rules a lot. They're not going to spend their time on a set of balanced rules when, if they are tournament players, they have to go to a tournament that is using GT 202X rules. 

[Petitioner's City]

 

I'm perfectly fine with playing with homebrew rules, but I know that I will have to use GW rules for any tournament I go to. So I don't have an incentive to really create my own rules unless I'm doing a fun Narrative game or something, and I assume that is really the feeling for most people who think on the rules a lot. They're not going to spend their time on a set of balanced rules when, if they are tournament players, they have to go to a tournament that is using GT 202X rules. 

 

 

 

 

An entirely fair response, and thank you for taking the time to write it. It is a depressing affair, however, and one that I wish there was more movement on. 

 

I guess Mournival (for Heresy) has succeeded so well due to the less tournament-focused mindset among heresy groups - while there are competitive events, they are closed circuits too, much more akin to the old ITC set you refer to. And that's a strong analysis of why anyone with an eye on a tourney will play in the official form (Nachmund, now, I guess). 

 

But I am also reminded of Anuj Malhotra's response to Cursed City when it was previewed (after he had left GW for Creative Assembly) "Probably going to rewrite big chunks of it and make it a bit larger in scale and more narrative focussed" - of course as a games developer this is his trade (and here he goes narrative too), but it's also I imagine the GW studio is a lot less sacrosanct with their rules in general - I just wish there was more openness to "homebrew" among the wider playerbase (as someone who pigeons homebrew rules, and really loved the Journal growing up, it's a strange response for myself), rather than the usual condescension to others' house rules. But again, your tournament mention really explains why well too.

[TrawlingCleaner]

=][= I've split this topic from the Chapter Approved topic. While it's an interesting discussion, it's largely off-topic in that discussion. =][=

[Redcomet]

A good question is - again - why not have fan points? Like why not collectively fix the game - create a community Chapter Approved? It's soooo worth doing (like what is going on with Necromunda, or has for past games too)? Would be a great thing to create - especially since house rules are something GW does encourage:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gtaQCaSj2A

Good luck getting people to agree and not to buff their favorite faction and punish those they dislike

[Brother Tyler]

I don't think the question is whether or not to do it. Rather, it's whether or not the effort and outcome would be worth it to the individuals/groups that decide to undertake the effort.

Games Workshop has been consistent over the years in encouraging members to make the game their own, implementing additions, deletions, and changes to the rules in order to make it fun for them. Naturally, such efforts only work within the domain of the individuals that agree to follow these amendments. In a neutral context, the official rules have to be expected and accepted as the standard, regardless of how anyone may feel about them. In casual play, such as a pick-up game, with your sibling, or within a controlled group, it's not difficult to implement changes that are (or should be) agreeable to all participants, however.

Creating and using homegrown amendments to tabletop miniature wargames is part and parcel of the hobby. That's why we have the Homegrown Rules forum - to give hobbyists an area by which they might develop and promulgate homegrown changes to the official rules that other hobbyists might decide to use in their own pursuit of the hobby.

For those that desire to pursue such an effort, however, there are many challenges. Most of those challenges have been (or will be) described in replies in this discussion.

The key risk that I see in any homegrown rules effort is the influence of bias. Each of us has our biases, though we may not recognize those biases. The key to minimizing/mitigating the effects of bias is basing amendments on valid data; and the key to gathering valid data is to have a systematic playtest methodology. You can't just playtest a unit under a limited set of circumstances - you need to playtest that unit under a broad range of circumstances. Ideally, everything would be playtested against everything else, including as many different combinations as possible. Obviously, the diversity and staggered releases in this game prevents that from happening, so playtesters have to develop a best guess outcome based on the most likely and most common scenarios. In theory, in a perfect world every faction and sub-faction would be roughly equal, leaving the outcome of the game to a combination of hobbyist decision-making and luck of the dice. In the reality of an asymmetrical game with such diverse factions and sub-factions, however, there is always going to be some disparity in relative potency. The best outcome we can hope for, then, is that the relative differences are as minor as possible and that hobbyist decision-making and luck of the dice can have the potential to overcome any innate disparities. As long as hobbyists are working towards achieving a close (if not equal) balance, things shouldn't be too bad.

Ultimately, a player or group endeavoring to improve the game by developing homegrown recommendations doesn't hurt anyone else. At worst, they might develop something that other players don't agree with. At best, however, they might develop some amendments that others might actually enjoy and that Games Workshop might consider in their own ongoing development efforts. After all, every single one of the rules developers at Games Workshop started off as a regular hobbyist, just like the rest of us. Whether or not they look at or consider all of the "good ideas" that the diverse online community develops is anyone's guess, but Games Workshop has definitely considered the input of online hobbyists in the past. We know of at least three instances in which Games Workshop solicited improvements from this site, and I don't doubt that they've done the same with ideas from other sites and hobbyists. For hobbyists to develop homegrown rules amendments doesn't hurt anyone else, so it's really a matter of whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze to those that are considering pursuing such an effort.

[Dudley Nightshade]

I have a wild idea. Unpopular, for sure, given that the main community complaint with 9th appears to be rules bloat. BUT, if one were trying to create a standard, alternate balancing system, what about going all in and balancing for specific matchups?

 

What do I mean? I believe that a large part of the problem with balancing the game is that some factions have rules that make them better against very particular others. The easiest example is with Preferred Enemy for marine armies. The points are (presumably) set for SM units considering an average of all other factions, but the player can choose to make their army more efficient at fighting a particular faction, for some reason. Sucks to be the other faction. If marines are normally well balanced to take all comers, PE gives an unfair advantage against some armies. More generally, though, each faction has matchups where the table is tipped in its direction, and matchups where it's tipped away. Some armies struggle against mechanized lists, and some armies tear through them, for example. 
 

(I’ll pause here to say this at least one more time: I realize I’m suggesting something that would be difficult and unpopular, but hey, we're just spitballing here, right?)

 

What could this look like? It could be a massively complex undertaking where points values for every unit change for each matchup, but maybe it would be better to look at it more like ballast in horse racing. If faction A typically has an advantage over faction B, then when they fight, faction B gets X more points / PL to work with. Or maybe more CP.

 

i've been caught out by bringing a knife to a gun fight in terms of matchup, and it's not fun.

 

There are a lot of practical implications to this that would need to be addressed, like what do you do if you are showing up for a game against an unknown opponent? Probably adopting a roster format would help, where you have your planned army plus a couple extra models or units to choose from.

 

I realize this is out of the original scope for the suggestion, but if some dedicated group were going to put forth a suggested new balancing system that a lot of people won't use anyway, based on the tone of the responses here, why not try something completely different?

 

Edit: Brother Tyler and I were obviously typing at the same time, so I didn’t see that post until after I published mine. However, there is some interesting synergy there.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Brother Yroc

[Noserenda]

Homebrew supplements like the Mournival, or Tempus Fugitives or even BoLS (Before they became a cesspit) tend to thrive in the gaps, covering stuff GW/FW isnt like alternate eras or doing the work they arent by filling in obvious holes. I dont think they are good examples of replacing the work of the studios as people are suggesting. 

Ultimately i think any widescale replacement project is going to either explode in acrimony or be largely ignored because folks cant/wont agree on it, ive yet to see a comp system that wasnt hilariously flawed :D 

[Warhead01]

While I like house rules in spirit I do wonder why not just use the power levels provided on the data sheets in the codex, which are in print, instead of points if points need that much adjustment for balance. Points just seem more meaningless now than ever before to me. Yes we use them but if the numbers are that bad, then why even spend the energy on them. 
 

[Wulf Vengis]

I love working on homebrew rules to attempt to bring things into equality or effective playable use. Even if no one ever sees my efforts I still post them in their faction and the homegrown rules areas. I've also learned over the years that any bias is only perceived when homebrewing, if you work to bring everything together harmoniously.

 

In a good "session" I'll handle one or two units/rules without to much problem. The biggest problem i have when doing homebrew work is burning out on a topic and getting stuck and needing to come back to finish later.

 

I've also always found that the best way to really get around both bias and burnout is to "go back to formula". When recently working on Fire Dragons and Avatar for my home table I went all the back to Rogue Trader and read everything i could find working my way up through second all the way to eighth. I took notes on the way they were described in the fluff and the rules they've had from edition to edition.

 

And finally, when working on homebrew you have to remember that you're not trying to please anyone beyond yourself and maybe a few people in your own group. I still post all my rules on the forums however because it's peer reviewed that way and with what little feedback I get it's enough to let me know if I'm on the right track with a unit/rule. When i see people on here saying they like a unit/rule I worked on or that they would use that at their own table it means I've done something right. You don't have to please the entire community just turn a few heads.

[Azekai]

...

 

The key risk that I see in any homegrown rules effort is the influence of bias. Each of us has our biases, though we may not recognize those biases. The key to minimizing/mitigating the effects of bias is basing amendments on valid data; and the key to gathering valid data is to have a systematic playtest methodology. You can't just playtest a unit under a limited set of circumstances - you need to playtest that unit under a broad range of circumstances. Ideally, everything would be playtested against everything else, including as many different combinations as possible. Obviously, the diversity and staggered releases in this game prevents that from happening, so playtesters have to develop a best guess outcome based on the most likely and most common scenarios. In theory, in a perfect world every faction and sub-faction would be roughly equal, leaving the outcome of the game to a combination of hobbyist decision-making and luck of the dice. In the reality of an asymmetrical game with such diverse factions and sub-factions, however, there is always going to be some disparity in relative potency. The best outcome we can hope for, then, is that the relative differences are as minor as possible and that hobbyist decision-making and luck of the dice can have the potential to overcome any innate disparities. As long as hobbyists are working towards achieving a close (if not equal) balance, things shouldn't be too bad.

 

I agree! I do not think personal bias too major a hazard. I also agree that there is some incentive to make 'my dudes' the best. But there can be easy checks to balance this; you mentioned playtesting, something GW does not do properly, at all. On the other hand, GW is not some benign arbitrator of balance. I would argue they have more perverse incentives already baked into the current release cycle. I think we are all familiar with their current model of an under-costed unit dropping, which is then brought back into a reasonable cost range when Chapter Approved comes out. The fact that GW has us buying a patch to 'fix' their balancing sloppiness is both audacious and hilarious.

 

I prefer grass-roots, hobbyist led rule making. That is closer to what GW used to be, before it became this optimized corporate behemoth.

[Lord_Ikka]

 

I prefer grass-roots, hobbyist led rule making. That is closer to what GW used to be, before it became this optimized corporate behemoth.

 

I would say GW has been a corporate behemoth since 3rd edition, its just with the new CEO and the launch of 8th/9th edition they've really focused on making money from rulebooks. Before that, the Tim Kirby-philosophy was that the company was all about making miniatures and the game was very much secondary, with little to no tournament support or listening to player feedback. Now, they are attempting to do both, making (still high-quality and good) miniatures but also making money off of rules (yearly, or now "seasonally" tournament packs, multiple theater-specific campaign books, multiple supplements, etc...). 

[Lord_Ikka]

While I like house rules in spirit I do wonder why not just use the power levels provided on the data sheets in the codex, which are in print, instead of points if points need that much adjustment for balance. Points just seem more meaningless now than ever before to me. Yes we use them but if the numbers are that bad, then why even spend the energy on them. 

 

I would say that PL done right can work as well as points, but the problem with PL is that it doesn't account for a lot of the possible upgrades you can give a unit. A 3-man, 6PL Inceptor squad is quite different when armed with assault bolters (120 points) vs plasma exterminators (180 points). There is a level of nuance that points can deliver that PL just can't, and it can make quite a big difference on the tabletop. Points needing adjustment is a thing, but a lot of the issues that come up with certain armies can't be fixed with simple points changes:

 

For example (because I play them) Necrons have major issues right now because their heavy weaponry damage is based around variable die rolls (dd3 or dd6) rather than having the now more common stable damage values (dd3s turning into straight d2 or dd6 becoming 3+d3). This can't be fixed simply by points changes, it is a core mechanic that needs to have more though put into it, but that is what GW is doing. So you get issues with factions that have problems and all you see are a continual series of points adjustments out of GW- its not that the points really need that much adjustment, it is just that instead of basically saying they messed up and redoing rules GW compensates the problematic factions by lowering the points cost of units with issues. It is an "easy" fix, one that doesn't require them to spend much time or change anything other than the very minimum to hopefully get the problematic factions players to back off their complaints. 

 

PL is great for Narrative and Crusade play- it makes sense and the games aren't supposed to be super-tight, competitive events. I prefer using PL for those games, and those are the systems that I think work best for homebrew, fan made rules. 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I think the issue fan made point changes would run into is that a lot of players may prefer other fixes. For example, instead of making a land raider 50 pts cheaper they'd rather give it some sort of transhuman effect. It's really hard to get us to agree on topics as community in general, and I think that's healthy. That said if you and play group agree just go wild with it, have fun.

[OldWherewolf]

I think the issue fan made point changes would run into is that a lot of players may prefer other fixes. For example, instead of making a land raider 50 pts cheaper they'd rather give it some sort of transhuman effect. It's really hard to get us to agree on topics as community in general, and I think that's healthy. That said if you and play group agree just go wild with it, have fun.

I agree with you and Brother Tyler.  However, I think the point of the playtesting is to drive out subjectivity and get to objectivity.  A person may prefer Transhuman, but then you ask them to give you the results of the last 10 games they used a land raider with Transhuman and they usually shut up, or avoid the question. 

 

The other part of it is some kind of formula for determining baseline points, again going to objectivity.  GW does this, but then adjusts points based on perceived strength and how much of the model they want to sell (and as we can see, the latter wins 100% of the time, how else can you justify 90 point squad of incubi punching 40% above it's weight class).

 

Part of the keys to this is determining baseline points for M, (T/W/Sv), (WS+Melee Weapon), (BS+Ranged Weapon) and Ld.  You can either balance this around a 20-point intercessor (but intercessors aren't worth 20 points nowadays), or throw most of the units in the game into a solver (which are hard to find).

 

Funny thing is, a lot of abilities special abilities are a simple points multiplier.  Advance and charge/shoot is really just a +Movement (e.g. going from 6" to 9."), most of the +1 Sv/Ap/BS/WS/RR1s are really just 16% bonuses.  This is where I think the 'weird' abilities should cost CP.  It's tough to put a points value on Transhuman on a Land Raider (for example, strictly used as an extreme example), as it's not available 100% of the time.  Its useless against S1-8, 16% S9-15, and 32% S16 and so on.  So it's useless against Eradicators/Attack Bikes, which you'll see most of the time, and OP against Anti-Titan weapons which you'll rarely see (assuming Railguns aren't the new meta... )