Point cost disparity between units

[Crablezworth]

So I thought I'd keep this short, wanted to talk about obvious point cost disparities between units, I wanted to focus mainly on comparing two transports; the triaros for mechanicum and the dracosan for solar auxilia. 

 

A triaros is 15pts

 

A Dracosan is 37-42pts (depending on if u upgrade the lascannon to a demolisher cannon)

 

If we disregard weapon loadout initially, and just look at stat line and transport capacity, they both carry 4 models, the only stat difference is a 2+ save for the dracosan vs a 3+ save for the triaros. 

 

You can see, it's one thing to pay a lot for resilience, and a 2+ save really is that much better than a 3+ save, but one can get almost 3 triaros for the cost of a single dracosan with demolisher cannon(42pts). 

 

Does that make much sense? 

 

Now look at the weapon output, a dracosan is only ever putting out 1 dice, its either a twin linked lascannon (accurate) where one can at least re-roll a miss, or a single dice for demolisher cannon. 

 

The triaros has 2 weapons, one is 1 dice, also accurate but light, the other is 3 dice ap -1 and light AT. So it can put 3 shots on a tank if in range, or 4 shots on another target if light can harm it. For 15pts. For reference. they have the same weapon as castellax do, which cost 35pts a base. 

 

Anyway, the reason I thought I'd highlight and compare those two specific transports is, this is part of the imbalance that is a bit rife for all to see. The only thing that seems to help temper imbalance is the high cost of plastic models but, one factor not considered certainly by the rules team is the effect 3d printing can have. With powerful units like marines with missile launchers or myrmidon destructors with c-beams, perhaps their thought is "it will be difficult to field too many given the ratio of what is on sprue". The army construction might tax the odd unit or make it more difficult to spam without taxing, but transports aren't really one of those things. 

 

The biggest problem with the dracosans is one that they share with all other tanks; their resilience counts for nothing in close combat. I really like my dracosans but every game I have run them I felt like I was at a huge disadvantage because the costs add up. If I was playing mechanicum as an opponent, they could bring almost 6 triaros for every 2 dracosan I field. I'm thinking this is a case of both the triaros being a bit too cheap, and the dracosans perhaps costing a bit too much. 

 

 

 

 

 

Can anyone else think of fairly obvious strange point cost disparities between similar units? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 12 by Crablezworth
point error