Army sizes and points costs

[ZeroWolf]

44 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

Hey, if you’re successfully running a business that sells luxury goods and consistently maintaining a 70% profit margin year in year out then you’ve probably earned it - and don’t have any moral obligation to keep prices down, unlike food stores, for example.

probably right, still a nice thought though!

[jaxom]

Very relevant. I remember 1250 points being a sweet spot for armies having to make meaningful unit choices, but with enough cushion to have a little redundancy. Looking at your list; I think 1500 points may be the modern equivalent.

[SvenIronhand]

I personally like to keep my games at around 1K. Feels like a good sweet spot for the rules as they are.

[Scribe]

On 1/24/2025 at 11:59 AM, jaxom said:

Very relevant. I remember 1250 points being a sweet spot for armies having to make meaningful unit choices, but with enough cushion to have a little redundancy. Looking at your list; I think 1500 points may be the modern equivalent.

 

This tension was also good for the game from a replay perspective. If you cannot afford all the toys in one list, you are going to have a new experience with a different list.

 

"I want it all right now." is just poor.

[Evil Eye]

6 hours ago, Scribe said:

"I want it all right now." is just poor.

This is my stance; lower points values forces the player to choose his force more carefully, and also allows for smaller units to excel that would otherwise be overshadowed by bigger shinier toys. It also increases the importance of each model- the fewer boots on the ground, the more valuable each one is.

[ThePenitentOne]

I've always been a campaign player, so escalation was always my jam. So I'd run the range of game sizes.

 

I also really like roster-based play, some always looking to player fewer points than I have available, which means lower point games tend to happen more often even when larger armies are an option. 

 

I like compound armies, consisting of multiple battlegroups, where each battle group can fight independently in smaller games for side quests etc.

 

Given all of this, my hope for the rule set is always that it facilitates fun, engaging play at all sizes, because I'm ALWAYS gonna run that gauntlet.

[gideon stargreave]

I sort of hazily remember the change from 2nd to 3rd, and the prevailing wisdom was that the rules and points had changed to support bigger armies because people were taking bigger armies in 2nd anyway, and playing at 3k points was a nightmare in that system.  When 3rd came out though, it became normalized to play at 1-1250 points anyway

[ZeroWolf]

12 minutes ago, gideon stargreave said:

I sort of hazily remember the change from 2nd to 3rd, and the prevailing wisdom was that the rules and points had changed to support bigger armies because people were taking bigger armies in 2nd anyway, and playing at 3k points was a nightmare in that system.  When 3rd came out though, it became normalized to play at 1-1250 points anyway

Yeah, i distinctively remember the White Dwarf showing the new edition talking about that. They also spoke about limiting some of the crazier abuses of the 2nd ruleset. The whole article was framed as Andy Chambers getting interrogated by an Inquisitor.

[TheArtilleryman]

I think looking at the points is an interesting way to see changes in the playstyle of the different armies as well.
 

In the first battle report with the orks vs space marines, the ork army today is a lot more points than the marine army. The marines in this force came down by a whopping -47%, whereas the Orks came down by only -27%. I think this reflects the fact that basic Orks in more recent editions are a lot stronger. They have higher strength weapons and more attacks in close combat than they used to, for example. In 2nd I remember them being basically just chaff and weight of numbers was pretty much all they had in their favour. Nowadays even basic boyz are a very nasty threat when they crash into your lines. Even a basic choppa now has -1 AP, and tactical marines have all AP 0 in their basic kit. Therefore the Orks haven’t come down in points as drastically. Model for model, a tactical marine has gone from 30 ppm to just 16 ppm.an ork boy has gone from 12 points to 8.5, so less drop than a marine.

 

The points difference isn’t as stark for the guard in the second battle report. This is because it’s mostly tanks, and tanks take up a massive portion of the points in a guard army in 10th. A basic 10-man infantry squad was 100 points in 2nd without upgrades. The same squad in the 10th ed index was 60 points, with whatever upgrades you want for free.  That’s more than -40% cheaper. Whereas a Leman Russ has only gone down from 205 to 170 points - about -17%. This suggests their tanks have got stronger while their infantry have got weaker.

 

What seems odd is that apart from the AP on the bolters, marines also actually have a better profile than they had all those years ago. Even basic tactical marines have 2 wounds and 2 attacks, but as an army they’ve undergone a relative weakening in game terms. Despite being biggerer and betterer, they’re actually not …

Edited Sunday at 11:50 AM by TheArtilleryman

[ZeroWolf]

54 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

I think looking at the points is an interesting way to see changes in the playstyle of the different armies as well.
 

In the first battle report with the orks vs space marines, the ork army today is a lot more points than the marine army. The marines in this force came down by a whopping -47%, whereas the Orks came down by only -27%. I think this reflects the fact that basic Orks in more recent editions are a lot stronger. They have higher strength weapons and more attacks in close combat than they used to, for example. In 2nd I remember them being basically just chaff and weight of numbers was pretty much all they had in their favour. Nowadays even basic boyz are a very nasty threat when they crash into your lines. Even a basic choppa now has -1 AP, and tactical marines have all AP 0 in their basic kit. Therefore the Orks haven’t come down in points as drastically. Model for model, a tactical marine has gone from 30 ppm to just 16 ppm.an ork boy has gone from 12 points to 8.5, so less drop than a marine.

 

The points difference isn’t as stark for the guard in the second battle report. This is because it’s mostly tanks, and tanks take up a massive portion of the points in a guard army in 10th. A basic 10-man infantry squad was 100 points in 2nd without upgrades. The same squad in the 10th ed index was 60 points, with whatever upgrades you want for free.  That’s more than -40% cheaper. Whereas a Leman Russ has only gone down from 205 to 170 points - about -17%. This suggests their tanks have got stronger while their infantry have got weaker.

 

What seems odd is that apart from the AP on the bolters, marines also actually have a better profile than they had all those years ago. Even basic tactical marines have 2 wounds and 2 attacks, but as an army they’ve undergone a relative weakening in game terms. Despite being biggerer and betterer, they’re actually not …

I think the last part is because they're used as the base line everything else is measured against (instead of how it probably should be, a guardsman)

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

On 1/26/2025 at 12:42 PM, TheArtilleryman said:

I think looking at the points is an interesting way to see changes in the playstyle of the different armies as well.
 

In the first battle report with the orks vs space marines, the ork army today is a lot more points than the marine army. The marines in this force came down by a whopping -47%, whereas the Orks came down by only -27%. I think this reflects the fact that basic Orks in more recent editions are a lot stronger. They have higher strength weapons and more attacks in close combat than they used to, for example. In 2nd I remember them being basically just chaff and weight of numbers was pretty much all they had in their favour. Nowadays even basic boyz are a very nasty threat when they crash into your lines. Even a basic choppa now has -1 AP, and tactical marines have all AP 0 in their basic kit. Therefore the Orks haven’t come down in points as drastically. Model for model, a tactical marine has gone from 30 ppm to just 16 ppm.an ork boy has gone from 12 points to 8.5, so less drop than a marine.

 

The points difference isn’t as stark for the guard in the second battle report. This is because it’s mostly tanks, and tanks take up a massive portion of the points in a guard army in 10th. A basic 10-man infantry squad was 100 points in 2nd without upgrades. The same squad in the 10th ed index was 60 points, with whatever upgrades you want for free.  That’s more than -40% cheaper. Whereas a Leman Russ has only gone down from 205 to 170 points - about -17%. This suggests their tanks have got stronger while their infantry have got weaker.

 

What seems odd is that apart from the AP on the bolters, marines also actually have a better profile than they had all those years ago. Even basic tactical marines have 2 wounds and 2 attacks, but as an army they’ve undergone a relative weakening in game terms. Despite being biggerer and betterer, they’re actually not …

The Orks weren´t just such a pushover in 2nd 40K. They still had BS3 and access to Imperial weaponry. In fact modern orkish weapons with the few exceptions of exotic gear like the shokk attack gun didn´t exist. And there were to-hit-modifiers. So Orks equipped with bolt pistols would hit at short range on a 2+. 

[Tawnis]

On 1/26/2025 at 4:42 AM, TheArtilleryman said:

I think looking at the points is an interesting way to see changes in the playstyle of the different armies as well.
 

In the first battle report with the orks vs space marines, the ork army today is a lot more points than the marine army. The marines in this force came down by a whopping -47%, whereas the Orks came down by only -27%. I think this reflects the fact that basic Orks in more recent editions are a lot stronger. They have higher strength weapons and more attacks in close combat than they used to, for example. In 2nd I remember them being basically just chaff and weight of numbers was pretty much all they had in their favour. Nowadays even basic boyz are a very nasty threat when they crash into your lines. Even a basic choppa now has -1 AP, and tactical marines have all AP 0 in their basic kit. Therefore the Orks haven’t come down in points as drastically. Model for model, a tactical marine has gone from 30 ppm to just 16 ppm.an ork boy has gone from 12 points to 8.5, so less drop than a marine.

 

What seems odd is that apart from the AP on the bolters, marines also actually have a better profile than they had all those years ago. Even basic tactical marines have 2 wounds and 2 attacks, but as an army they’ve undergone a relative weakening in game terms. Despite being biggerer and betterer, they’re actually not …

While I do agree with a lot of what you've said in this thread overall, you'll want to consider exactly WHEN a lot of these changes happened when making your comparisons. 

 

For instance, Tactical Marines went down to 15 PPM in 3rd edition and were generally just kinda okay as they (along with Scouts) we're the army's "Troop Tax". Since then, edition to edition, they've stayed around the 15 PPM mark as a kind of baseline. They were 14 PPM by 7th Edition and while bouncing around a little in recent years, they have again settled at 14 PPM.