Wh40k 10th Edition Munitorum Field Manual (Points)

[BrainFireBob]

1 hour ago, Bazza said:

 

GW is very clearly prioritizing the see it -> buy it -> use it sequence, and stripping away things that add steps to that process, like looking through a bunch of weapon options, figuring out the best load-out and pricing out your army.  They aren't going to walk this back.  This is pretty clearly the strategy.

I agree with this and also think it will prove a terrible business move by changing a hobby into a disposable commodity.. 

 

GW was tapping into a combo of gambler's fallacy and collector's impulse to snag players- their prior bits-spread-across kits model created an addictive cycle of collection.

 

Now they're turning their out-of-the-box product into a disposable set of 3 month commitment-then-bin toys. You won't get fathers bringing in their sons, people dipping into multiple armies, huge collections- they will ultimately need to drop prices when it stops being the tabletop scene and becomes whatever Warmachine is now. 

[BrainFireBob]

1 hour ago, Sergeant Bastone said:

Ages ago I built my first sentinels and put multilasers on them because that's what an AT-ST has for a weapon.  I should have put plasma cannons on them because it's a much better weapon.  At the time multilasers were 20 points cheaper so I at least got the benefit of them being cheap so I didn't feel like I Built Them Wrong.  Now they are the same points cost and the multilaser is a terrible weapon choice.  I now feel like I Built Them Wrong.

 

I can understand the "It's not the end of the world" people.  It's not the end of the world.  But i can't at all understand the "I welcome this change" people.  Thinking about lists, tinkering with lists, etc was a big part of my engagement with and enjoyment of the game.  I'm trying to build a 1000 point list for Thursday and while I'm still excited to play the list building part is way less fun for me now.  And even kind of frustrating.

 

An example: Player A likes to load his tanks up with multimeltas and hunter killers and all the bells and whistles.  Player B likes to run his tanks barebones and cheap and uncluttered by ugly sponsons.  Up until a couple of days ago both players could build their tanks they way they wanted to but now Player B can't.  What is there to welcome about this?

 

(this player B doesn't even know where his sponsons and hunter killer missiles are anymore)

Functionally, I don't get people who think upgrade costs are gone so they're free to do whatever without optimization. Take your Sentinel example. They cost Y. You're now talking about 2 units- one capable of XQZ and one of just X- that happen to cost the exact same and use the same vase dataset. They're two distinct units, though, in terms of what they can do. 

 

You're the exact same free to not optimize you were before, and the annoying math hammer guys are still going to point it out.

[Bazza]

52 minutes ago, Oxydo said:

 

Liking the PL system is fine, dont get me wrong, but it is not in any way, shape or form more balanced or easier to balance. Nor does it somehow only punish optimisers. It rewards optimisers while actively punishing non-optimisers. So please, for the love of the Emperor, stop trying to claim the opposite.

 

This is all true if you care about having the most optimal loadout, as I've said a few times now.  On my list of priorities, "is this the most efficient way to spend my points" is fairly far down my list of priorities.  I will usually take lists with units that aren't the best use of points because I like them, how is it different to take lists with weapons that aren't the best use of points because I like them?  Everyone has a different threshold of how granular they want a point system to be in balancing a game vs how much looseness they are willing to live with for other considerations (like flexibility, time requirements, math requirements, fiddley-ness, etc).  You might as well say that 40k points costs have been garbage ever since they stopped separately pricing armour and grenades (and I remember people saying exactly that, too).  There's a spectrum here of granularity vs specificity and different people can have different preferences about where they want to be on that range.

 

tldr - Everything you're saying is true for you and for people who share your priorities, and I'm not saying your priorities are wrong.  I'm saying they aren't universal, and I'm saying they aren't really relevant to why (I suspect) GW is making these decisions.

 

In any case, thinking about this in terms of punishment is the wrong way to frame it.  GW doesn't want to punish you, GW doesn't care about you at all.  GW wants to make money.  They think this is how they can better make money.  We'll see if they're right about that.

[crimsondave]

With a little time to reflect, this isn’t going to ruin the hobby for me.  I love the models.  I like the story actually moving along.  I’m just not playing the game.  At least not the way they say.  I have never looked at one page rules.  Maybe that can work.  I’m certainly not going to cut my nose off to spite my face by not buying new models.  Especially when they are as good as they’ve ever been.  To those if you who pIay the game a lot, I certainly understand the disappointment.  I’m old.  I’ve been around 40k since 93.  Things will change.  It may be 11th but things will change.

[Doghouse]

Played my first game as someone that skipped 9th, game mechanics were fine and it felt ok. 

 

I like the idea of being able to use what you want up to the rule of three as you have paid for and built all these cool looking models in theory but in practice I wasn't keen on how it played out. It feels like they will pull the rug from under us at a later point, neither of us felt safe putting all the optimised options on our units as models purely because we are concerned that could change later and neither of us are willing to commit this early.

 

Points were all over the place and didn't lenjoy fixed squad sizes, desolators are seriously overpowered for their points and my mate was playing his death guard with the constant look of someone that had just sucked on a lemon. He wasn't angry just disappointed. Vindicares are really good for 80pts and I can't see why every Imperial army wouldn't take one.

 

I still need to play more to be fair and it's possible we missed stuff but so far preferred the release of 8th. Right now this feels like walking on a frozen lake when it comes to the points aspects of things.

 

Like I say for me personally gameplay was fine, points need a rework.

[Bazza]

44 minutes ago, BrainFireBob said:

I agree with this and also think it will prove a terrible business move by changing a hobby into a disposable commodity.. 

 

GW was tapping into a combo of gambler's fallacy and collector's impulse to snag players- their prior bits-spread-across kits model created an addictive cycle of collection.

 

Now they're turning their out-of-the-box product into a disposable set of 3 month commitment-then-bin toys. You won't get fathers bringing in their sons, people dipping into multiple armies, huge collections- they will ultimately need to drop prices when it stops being the tabletop scene and becomes whatever Warmachine is now. 

 

This is an interesting last point but I don't agree with it - I am getting my kids into 40k (and other games) and I had to give up on playing 9th with them because there was too much cognitive load to play the game.  10th, OTOH, will be a lot more accessible for them, and we're looking forward to getting into it.  (And these kids play things like Frostgrave with me, so it's a pretty damning statement about how bad 9th was in terms of the mental load and prep work required to engage with it as written.)

 

I do think you're right that there could be a lot of people who will be less engaged because of the customization factor (maybe I'm one of them) - but for me that's also about how their kits are mostly just an exercise in building something to instructions like Ikea furniture, instead of the lego-like exploratory and creativity exercise that their kits used to be, and that's been true for a while now.  But that's getting off topic.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Bazza

[Petitioner's City]

For people needing a good alternate ruleset, other than one page rules, F28 is really good and on the community Facebook group for it, I've seen people using it for 40k. 

 

[Oxydo]

5 minutes ago, Bazza said:

 

This is all true if you care about having the most optimal loadout, as I've said a few times now.  On my list of priorities, "is this the most efficient way to spend my points" is fairly far down my list of priorities.  I will usually take lists with units that aren't the best use of points because I like them, how is it different to take lists with weapons that aren't the best use of points because I like them?  Everyone has a different threshold of how granular they want a point system to be in balancing a game vs how much looseness they are willing to live with for other considerations (like flexibility, time requirements, math requirements, fiddley-ness, etc).  You might as well say that 40k points costs have been garbage ever since they stopped separately pricing armour and grenades (and I remember people saying exactly that, too).  There's a spectrum here of granularity vs specificity and different people can have different preferences about where they want to be on that range.

 

tldr - Everything you're saying is true for you and for people who share your priorities, and I'm not saying your priorities are wrong.  I'm saying they aren't universal, and I'm saying they aren't really relevant to why (I suspect) GW is making these decisions.

 

In any case, thinking about this in terms of punishment is the wrong way to frame it.  GW doesn't want to punish you, GW doesn't care about you at all.  GW wants to make money.  They think this is how they can better make money.  We'll see if they're right about that.

 

 

My brother in faith, a unit that is 50% tougher and does several times more damage than another unit of the exact same type shouldn't cost same.

People who want to run the fun and fluffy units shouldn't have to pay the price for power gamers abusing optimal loadouts.

 

I'm not worried about people wanting to run the optimal loadouts because that's easier now than ever before. At worst it's kinda boring due to being so easy.

 

I'm worried about the people who want to run their units with whatever they built them with, narrative, fluffy or cool loadouts having a terrible-no-good time because their units ends up being terrible and useless because they are priced according what power gamers are loading them up with.

 

Inb4, this already happens. Yes, yes it does, but it will get worse, oh so much worse.

 

All in all, you should pay for what you bring to the table, not for the quantum ideal version of your army.

[MaximusTL]

i haven't been around Warhammer as long as some people on here (started with the Dark Vengeance box, right at the tail end of 6th/beginning of 7th) but i can say two things: GW has improved massively in the last decade, actually listening to feedback, making the game less labyrinithine, and expanding the setting and media. I personally much more enjoy 8-10 more than what came before, even if it wasn't perfect. 

Secondly, one of GW's game design flaws is overcorrection. the most prominent example is how units pay for the sins of the past - dark reapers are still suffering from how good they were in 8th, and now sanguinary guard have had a 35%-ish points cost hike while going down in stats after being the best unit BA had to offer. After the twisted complicated mess that was the last third of 9th edition, I'm honestly not surprised GW went so far in the opposite direction.

 

one of GW's significant improvements is that they are willing to change the game if there are issues, and (relatively) promptly. I'm fully confident the points as they are won't stay the same for very long. wether they bring back equipment points is up in the air. Im in no way arguing they are perfect - GW's design team honestly feels like it needs some more editors/proof-readers/play-testers - but at the very least, the game will change for the better. In the mean time, there's plenty of new minis coming, the new rules look good, and worst case scenario you can always use older edition rules until you're happy with the state of points or whatever. 

[Rain]

31 minutes ago, Bazza said:

 

This is an interesting last point but I don't agree with it - I am getting my kids into 40k (and other games) and I had to give up on playing 9th with them because there was too much cognitive load to play the game.  10th, OTOH, will be a lot more accessible for them, and we're looking forward to getting into it.  (And these kids play things like Frostgrave with me, so it's a pretty damning statement about how bad 9th was in terms of the mental load and prep work required to engage with it as written.)

 

I do think you're right that there could be a lot of people who will be less engaged because of the customization factor (maybe I'm one of them) - but for me that's also about how their kits are mostly just an exercise in building something to instructions like Ikea furniture, instead of the lego-like exploratory and creativity exercise that their kits used to be, and that's been true for a while now.  But that's getting off topic.

I agree that 9th was loaded with too much BS, but the *in game* cognitive load had to do with remembering strats, and army special rules that would change turn over turn, and CP totals, and not list building. You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in my opinion.

 

As for kids playing, I started playing in middle school, I think around 1999. It was early 3rd edition. I never had problems using a pocket calculator to add up points for upgrades. Hell, I enjoyed it. I was a nerd, playing a nerdy game, and it involved some extremely simple math to calculate how much my dudes cost if I gave the champions power fists, and peppered in some melta guns for anti-tank.

 

Now, the game itself in 3rd was relatively simple. No strats, no command phase at all, no army special rules that require book keeping, just abilities like fleet for Eldar, ATSKNF for marines, etc. that kind of simplicity is fine, to a point, as it greatly lowers the cognitive load *of play* but once the list is written and models built, there is no points related mental load, that part is done. And if list building really is that burdensom for some, you could always copy/paste a netlist, or just default to taking every upgrade or running everything naked. That option was and is always there.

 

 

[Moonstalker]

I'm fine with the change - aside from the fixed costs for 5 and 10 model units.  It should be x points for 5, y points for each additional.  I have enjoyed the list-building aspect of the hobby in the past, but from my perspective this functionally changes very little.

 

Tournament players are still going to figure out what the best, most efficient upgrades are and take them.  People will share around their mathhammer and copy meta lists from the internet.  Whether you assign points to the upgrades or not, people will figure out what mathematically produces the best results and spam that.  Anyone who says, "the lack of point costs means that now there's no reason not to take the best upgrade," is, I think, suffering under an illusion of choice.  The best upgrade would have been figured out and you would either take it or be less competitive.  If an upgrade was overcosted, people would simply not take it.

 

Purely casual or hobbyist players will put whatever they want on their units, whatever weapon upgrades they think look good, and will not care about the point cost because it's pure rule of cool for them.  They are no more or less punished than they were previously if they run into someone running the most meta upgrades; the meta player was already more efficient and killy with an optimized use of points, and the casual player was still not-optimized with a flamer and missile launcher in his tac squad because "Well, they're just iconic upgrades, they were what was in the 3rd edition tactical box that was my very first kit and I still like them."

 

Meta players will still optimize, whether that's MSU or full squads, plasma spam or melta spam.  Casual players will still do what they think is cool, regardless of point cost.

[Rain]

I think the two sides are just talking past each other at this point. Mostly around the misunderstanding of the concept of “suboptimal” vs. “strictly worse.”

 

Yes, there has always been suboptimal builds, but they were very rarely strictly worse.

 

Suboptimal means “worse on average”. So, say, 55 out of 100 games, another build would have been better. Or maybe 51 out of 100, or even 90 out of 100.

 

Strictly worse means that in 100 out of 100 games another build would have been better.

 

There are now many builds that are strictly worse than others, whereas before this was rare. Does this make sense? I don’t know how to put this any clearer. There were always suboptimal builds, and no one is disputing that. Comp players always mathed out the best builds, no one is disputing that either. But they have taken away our 45 or even 10 games in 100 when suboptimal builds based on tradeoffs paid off, and that’s annoying.

[Captain Idaho]

It's a myth that there is this great divide between "casual" players and tournament players. Most people who play casually still want a tight and workable ruleset they can use to play fair games. Probably more so than the "competitive" players, as if Burt rocks up with his broken army and nukes Steve's casual army, the feels badsies are probably greater because of the expectations. 

 

And casual players go to tournaments. I myself do. I'm there to meet people, play games against unusual opponents and test myself, not win the whole thing.

 

Anyway, I dug out this from GW:

 

 

And

 

 

2 examples in the same article GW directly references what WE told them and how they've listened.

 

But with the points, who were they listening to? This smacks so strongly of when they were introducing AoS without points and championed it as an innovation that everyone is behind and happy with.

 

GW has an agenda from a board room. An overall strategy that is being realised and shoehorned in. We might not know exactly what it is, but some bright spark up there wasn't done with the lack of points in AoS flop, so decided to try for it again at a different angle.

 

I'm sure it's the same long term strategy. "Get the plebs to accept our changes and then we can squeeze out points again later on."

 

The people who used power level were always free to and they were a minority. GW either is monumentally arrogant in a desire to force something on people "for their own good" or just really out of touch and stupid without market research. 

 

Which is it, GW?

Edited June 18, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[caladancid]

1 hour ago, Doghouse said:

Played my first game as someone that skipped 9th, game mechanics were fine and it felt ok. 

 

I like the idea of being able to use what you want up to the rule of three as you have paid for and built all these cool looking models in theory but in practice I wasn't keen on how it played out. It feels like they will pull the rug from under us at a later point, neither of us felt safe putting all the optimised options on our units as models purely because we are concerned that could change later and neither of us are willing to commit this early.

 

Points were all over the place and didn't lenjoy fixed squad sizes, desolators are seriously overpowered for their points and my mate was playing his death guard with the constant look of someone that had just sucked on a lemon. He wasn't angry just disappointed. Vindicares are really good for 80pts and I can't see why every Imperial army wouldn't take one.

 

I still need to play more to be fair and it's possible we missed stuff but so far preferred the release of 8th. Right now this feels like walking on a frozen lake when it comes to the points aspects of things.

 

Like I say for me personally gameplay was fine, points need a rework.

 

This is an extremely fair and important distinction to make. @phandaal has said it before. The core rules are GOOD. They were in 9th, I think they look good in 10th. Whomever is writing those rules is very good at it.

 

But then on the other side, the team writing the codexes and points and now indexes is extremely not good. If its the same team, I would just be astonished. 

 

Its very unfortunate that as the core rules continue to make for a more fun gaming experience, that process is absolutely undone by the sheer shenanigans and incompetence of the codexes/indexes. 

[Moonstalker]

1 minute ago, Rain said:

I think the two sides are just talking past each other at this point. Mostly around the misunderstanding of the concept of “suboptimal” vs. “strictly worse.”

 

Yes, there has always been suboptimal builds, but they were very rarely strictly worse.

 

Suboptimal means “worse on average”. So, say, 55 out of 100 games, another build would have been better. Or maybe 51 out of 100, or even 90 out of 100.

 

Strictly worse means that in 100 out of 100 games another build would have been better.

 

There are now many builds that are strictly worse than others, whereas before this was rare. Does this make sense? I don’t know how to put this any clearer. There were always suboptimal builds, and no one is disputing that. Comp players always mathed out the best builds, no one is disputing that either. But they have taken away our 45 or even 10 games in 100 when suboptimal builds based on tradeoffs paid off, and that’s annoying.

 

I am not sure that the tradeoffs were ever all that meaningful, points-wise, but I think the tradeoffs were meaningful in terms of opportunity-cost.  I think there are decisions you can still make on tuning your list for specific situations, or local meta - knowing there's lots of GEQ players at your FLGS, and bringing more weapons to deal with that and fewer plasma for dealing with TEQ.  You're still making a tradeoff where you will be at a disadvantage vs TEQ, there is an opportunity cost in the weapons you did bring, but the point cost for the upgrades compared to the total cost for the unit, or the total point value of your army, was fairly small and probably inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

 

Some units, ones where they could be kitted out with lots of expensive weapons (VanVets?) or kept cheaper, the choice of how much to spend would have been more meaningful, but 5 points spent or not spent on a plasma pistol on a sergeant was not as important a decision as we might have liked to believe it was.

[BrainFireBob]

47 minutes ago, Rain said:

I agree that 9th was loaded with too much BS, but the *in game* cognitive load had to do with remembering strats, and army special rules that would change turn over turn, and CP totals, and not list building. You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, in my opinion.

 

As for kids playing, I started playing in middle school, I think around 1999. It was early 3rd edition. I never had problems using a pocket calculator to add up points for upgrades. Hell, I enjoyed it. I was a nerd, playing a nerdy game, and it involved some extremely simple math to calculate how much my dudes cost if I gave the champions power fists, and peppered in some melta guns for anti-tank.

 

Now, the game itself in 3rd was relatively simple. No strats, no command phase at all, no army special rules that require book keeping, just abilities like fleet for Eldar, ATSKNF for marines, etc. that kind of simplicity is fine, to a point, as it greatly lowers the cognitive load *of play* but once the list is written and models built, there is no points related mental load, that part is done. And if list building really is that burdensom for some, you could always copy/paste a netlist, or just default to taking every upgrade or running everything naked. That option was and is always there.

 

 

Yes. List building maintained hobby engagement when unable to paint or assemble between playing opportunities. That engagement is gone, now to be filled with competing things. Bad business move in terms of player engagement, smacks of bubble. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by BrainFireBob

[BrainFireBob]

7 minutes ago, kitwulfen said:

 

I am not sure that the tradeoffs were ever all that meaningful, points-wise, but I think the tradeoffs were meaningful in terms of opportunity-cost.  I think there are decisions you can still make on tuning your list for specific situations, or local meta - knowing there's lots of GEQ players at your FLGS, and bringing more weapons to deal with that and fewer plasma for dealing with TEQ.  You're still making a tradeoff where you will be at a disadvantage vs TEQ, there is an opportunity cost in the weapons you did bring, but the point cost for the upgrades compared to the total cost for the unit, or the total point value of your army, was fairly small and probably inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

 

Some units, ones where they could be kitted out with lots of expensive weapons (VanVets?) or kept cheaper, the choice of how much to spend would have been more meaningful, but 5 points spent or not spent on a plasma pistol on a sergeant was not as important a decision as we might have liked to believe it was.

Across five sergeants, it was. Again, cumulative effect

[Scribe]

4 minutes ago, kitwulfen said:

Some units, ones where they could be kitted out with lots of expensive weapons (VanVets?) or kept cheaper, the choice of how much to spend would have been more meaningful, but 5 points spent or not spent on a plasma pistol on a sergeant was not as important a decision as we might have liked to believe it was.

 

No, but what about 3 Plasma x 3 Units, and 5 free Havoc + 5 free Combi weapons?

 

The 5 points is filler. Most would agree. Carry this process over every upgrade, over multiple units, the whole army.

 

It is (was) a game of maximizing the margins. Get as many dice involved, roll em again if you can.

 

There is no world in which an army with all the upgrades vs one that doesn't take them, is on an even, balanced, playing field.

 

Unless the argument is that unit upgrades are not statistically meaningful but I can only imagine that conclusion is an example of how to fail at statistical analysis. 

[Ahzek451]

16 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

 

GW has an agenda from a board room. An overall strategy that is being realised and shoehorned in. We might not know exactly what it is, but some bright spark up there wasn't done with the lack of points in AoS flop, so decided to try for it again at a different angle.

 

I have touched on this here: 

The model is the same practice they refuse to evolve on. New editions means increase in sales, new core concepts that introduce change entices new and old players. Same business model they have been doing all along. The game designers are ham stringed by an upper management that cling to old business models while injecting their ideas where they dont belong. Much like executive producers stepping in on a director's creative freedom to force a movie idea into a film and ruining it 90% of the time because they have control and they think they know better despite not having any real creative experience.  

 

They keep doing what they know, and we keep going through the same motions edition after edition. The game never truly evolves, it just changes. And when and if it does finally get to a decent spot, we dont get the time to enjoy it, as it's time for a new edition already.

 

I would like to think they take notes and evolve things, but here we are with another fiddly terrain and cover system. 

[Kallas]

10 minutes ago, kitwulfen said:

Some units, ones where they could be kitted out with lots of expensive weapons (VanVets?) or kept cheaper, the choice of how much to spend would have been more meaningful, but 5 points spent or not spent on a plasma pistol on a sergeant was not as important a decision as we might have liked to believe it was.

The Bolt Pistol/Plasma Pistol comparison is a very small scale one, mostly there to shwocase that wargear options are not all equal: the Plasma Pistol is objectively better than a Bolt Pistol in every way (in game terms) - so it logically should cost more than a Bolt Pistol, because performance-wise it is simply better.

 

In terms of points, yes, it is a small amount but, as I and others have said repeatedly, these have cumulative effects - and then that has a knock on effect for the other upgrades in a list. Another example I gave was my friend who built their Leman Russ tanks without sponsons, because he likes the way they look like that; but now that sponson upgrades are free...his tanks are simply worse than equivalently costed tanks because he built them a certain way - in 9e, he would have roughly 30-90pts (depending on the kind of sponsons) to spend, which is probably enough to bring another Infantry Squad to go take and hold objectives.

 

And as much as "someone will always work out the most optimal thing" - sure, but making weapons granular means you can adjust the specific problem. If you make all Leman Russ tanks cost the same, regardless of upgrades, then the optimal is whichever weapon is straight up mathematically best at killing; if there are different costs, then there are trade offs involved - do you go for the absolutely best killing power, or do you accept a lower amount of killing power and bring more hulls to the table instead? If points are close enough to being balanced, then you can reasonably choose either without being affected as much, even if you might still be technically less prepared than the mix-maxer.

 

Ultimately, we had PL before and many people did not care for it at all. Some did, and that's fine, but it was available for those who wanted to use it, and those who didn't could use points - but now everyone is forced into using PL even when many of us understand that it makes balance worse.

[Moonstalker]

3 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

No, but what about 3 Plasma x 3 Units, and 5 free Havoc + 5 free Combi weapons?

 

The 5 points is filler. Most would agree. Carry this process over every upgrade, over multiple units, the whole army.

 

It is (was) a game of maximizing the margins. Get as many dice involved, roll em again if you can.

 

There is no world in which an army with all the upgrades vs one that doesn't take them, is on an even, balanced, playing field.

 

Unless the argument is that unit upgrades are not statistically meaningful but I can only imagine that conclusion is an example of how to fail at statistical analysis. 

No, I think this just arrives back at the illusion of choice.  Analyzing what upgrade produced the most unsaved wounds was also tied into whether or not that upgrade was worth the cost.  If you're maximizing then it's not just about making your list as fast/durable/killy as possible, but making it as fast/durable/killy as possible for the points.

In previous editions we had always been in a world where an army with the right upgrades vs one that doesn't take them, or takes the wrong ones, were never on an even, balanced playing field.  It has always been punishing to take inefficient upgrades, or leave off must-haves.  I think this system is the same as it always was, just the mask has been ripped off and you see the ugly truth underneath.  Either you were making efficient use of your points, or you weren't.  I am not convinced it is a good change, but I don't think it's a consequential one.  People that want to optimize are still going to optimize.  People that want to play more casually will continue to do so, and continue to be at a disadvantage against people who did optimize.  The choices were never properly balanced, the point costs for the upgrades were never spot-on, there was always a statistically correct choice to make.

[Scribe]

2 minutes ago, kitwulfen said:

The choices were never properly balanced, the point costs for the upgrades were never spot-on, there was always a statistically correct choice to make.

 

I'd agree, but now what was potentially a trade off, is nothing but. There WAS arguments to be made in if more boots on the ground mattered, or if you dumped points into upgrades, or where that personal choice fell in terms of a balanced approach.

 

Now? Its down to the Units. Do I take 2 jakhal squads (with every upgrade of course) or a Daemon Prince? Yes there is still optimization taking place at some level, but its lost a ton of actual nuance that yes many people enjoyed.

 

This system is indefensible, I couldnt even be bothered with 9th but I have to wonder if I took a list I made up in 15 minutes for World Eaters, converted it to 9th and then added up how much 'free' stuff I get, what it would amount to a full unit? 2? 

[BrainFireBob]

9 minutes ago, kitwulfen said:

No, I think this just arrives back at the illusion of choice.  Analyzing what upgrade produced the most unsaved wounds was also tied into whether or not that upgrade was worth the cost.  If you're maximizing then it's not just about making your list as fast/durable/killy as possible, but making it as fast/durable/killy as possible for the points.

In previous editions we had always been in a world where an army with the right upgrades vs one that doesn't take them, or takes the wrong ones, were never on an even, balanced playing field.  It has always been punishing to take inefficient upgrades, or leave off must-haves.  I think this system is the same as it always was, just the mask has been ripped off and you see the ugly truth underneath.  Either you were making efficient use of your points, or you weren't.  I am not convinced it is a good change, but I don't think it's a consequential one.  People that want to optimize are still going to optimize.  People that want to play more casually will continue to do so, and continue to be at a disadvantage against people who did optimize.  The choices were never properly balanced, the point costs for the upgrades were never spot-on, there was always a statistically correct choice to make.

So one of the topics of interest to me in online discussions is form.

 

You agree with most of us who are responding to posters saying you are now "free" to take suboptimal choices instead of confronting a Feels Bad from Building Wrong. That situation is unchanged due to it being unaffected here.

 

There is a separate parallel discussion as to whether the small updates mean anything that keeps intersecting

[Rain]

7 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

I'd agree, but now what was potentially a trade off, is nothing but. There WAS arguments to be made in if more boots on the ground mattered, or if you dumped points into upgrades, or where that personal choice fell in terms of a balanced approach.

 

Now? Its down to the Units. Do I take 2 jakhal squads (with every upgrade of course) or a Daemon Prince? Yes there is still optimization taking place at some level, but its lost a ton of actual nuance that yes many people enjoyed.

 

This system is indefensible, I couldnt even be bothered with 9th but I have to wonder if I took a list I made up in 15 minutes for World Eaters, converted it to 9th and then added up how much 'free' stuff I get, what it would amount to a full unit? 2? 

 

In practice, I would often have a random straggler unit of like 7 guys with 1 special weapon, or something like that which would be cobbled together from spare points at a given points level. Was it optimal? No, but it was fun trying to see if that unit could make an impact, and it was nice having it as compensation for not cluttering all of my vehicles with pintles and havoc launchers, taking the most expensive weapon choice on my dread, etc. Did that unit oftentimes get blown away without doing a thing? Sure, but sometimes my opponent would ignore it long enough for it to do something annoying, which was fun when it happened. It was especially fun to compose it of the models that "didn't quite turn out" painting wise. Kind of a "dirty half dozen" sort of deal. Give them a chance to redeem themselves.

 

That's what this is really about. Nobody (I think) cares about how this affects competitive play, we all understand that competitive lists might not even change that much, or that tourney lists would always stomp on casual lists. That's not the point. We liked to have little tradeoffs for our aesthetic choices, even if they were not "competitively relevant." It made the army feel more like your army, and the quirks feel more like quirks than pure mistakes. Anyway, I think I've said all that there is to say here. I need to take a break from talking about 40k on the internet and look forward to steak and my...father's day present 

 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

37 minutes ago, Oxydo said:

 

 

My brother in faith, a unit that is 50% tougher and does several times more damage than another unit of the exact same type shouldn't cost same.

People who want to run the fun and fluffy units shouldn't have to pay the price for power gamers abusing optimal loadouts.

 

I'm not worried about people wanting to run the optimal loadouts because that's easier now than ever before. At worst it's kinda boring due to being so easy.

 

I'm worried about the people who want to run their units with whatever they built them with, narrative, fluffy or cool loadouts having a terrible-no-good time because their units ends up being terrible and useless because they are priced according what power gamers are loading them up with.

 

Inb4, this already happens. Yes, yes it does, but it will get worse, oh so much worse.

 

All in all, you should pay for what you bring to the table, not for the quantum ideal version of your army.

 

Its always been miserable to run an army of non-optimal units. I don't think power level makes it worse because it's never been a good experience. Most players who approach that game that way either find a good play group or quit.

 

To be clear I prefer points, but I actually think the lack of list building restrictions is going to have more of a negative impact than that change. Skew lists are going to be very popular unless something reigns vehicles and monsters in.