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which one...power ranking or points?


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Power Ranking or Points?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you prefer the Power Ranking system or the Points system for making your 40k armies ... and matching up for playing games.

    • Power Ranking
      10
    • Points Costing
      20


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9 minutes ago, happycamper said:

I've noticed that power levels tend to breakdown at higher points.  I made up two 2k points lists.  One was 114 power the other 152. 

That's interesting. I'd expect some deviation but that's a 25% difference which is no joke. Were both those lists in the same faction?

I wonder how GW calculated the Power Levels...

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Power levels are basically the same as A.O S points system..works very well too...for that game.

 

   I am totally up for power level points events ,though they will have to use a series of scenarios designed for that system..likey using the war zone rules as well.Other than that,points are the designed system for competitive play,as stated by G.W.

 

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I like the Power Level system as long as no one's trying to abuse it. So, friendly games where there's no reason for anyone to abuse it. But it heavily favours Units with lots of Wargear upgrades available over Units that don't really have many options other than adding Models, if you put effort into abusing it. The Matched Play Points System is probably the better choice for competitive environments.

Part of the reason that the AoS system works better than Power Levels do for 40K is that most Units in AoS have fewer options, and fewer still that aren't "standard" option. I don't think there's anything that has the kind of wildly swinging range of power based on upgrades that, say, DeathWatch Marines or Inquisitorial Acolytes or Renegade Knights, have.

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2 hours ago, WestRider said:

I like the Power Level system as long as no one's trying to abuse it. So, friendly games where there's no reason for anyone to abuse it. But it heavily favours Units with lots of Wargear upgrades available over Units that don't really have many options other than adding Models, if you put effort into abusing it. The Matched Play Points System is probably the better choice for competitive environments.

Part of the reason that the AoS system works better than Power Levels do for 40K is that most Units in AoS have fewer options, and fewer still that aren't "standard" option. I don't think there's anything that has the kind of wildly swinging range of power based on upgrades that, say, DeathWatch Marines or Inquisitorial Acolytes or Renegade Knights, have.

 Yeah,the "included equipment" part would actually work well for a sort of sideboarding in between games.This is one thing we allow in AoS though very few people use..example taking a unit of Orruks with SnB ,but having the same size unit in your sidebord with Spears..the army point total doesnt change in between games but players can swap out units for a more specialized approach in this case a more tanky unit vs a more killy one.

 

  For a 40k Power Level event the same idea can be employed with players having the options of switching out a model.units loadout in between rounds perhaps to help even out what otherwise would be a lopsided matchup.

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You can always refactor the power level, if you really wanted to:

Find stock point value of a unit, divide it by its power level to find its points per power (p3) cost.

Find point value for unit with options and divide it by the p3 to get the new power level.

You just need to find the p3 for each size level of the unit. For example, storm boyz get cheaper for p3's the more you get. At only 5 boyz, they are worth 3 power level points with a p3 = 13.3 repeating. But at 30, they are only worth 13 power level, and p3 = 18.461538 repeating.

So that's an inherent issue with power level right from the start. If playing via points, 6 units of storm boyz costs the same as one unit of 30. But if playing power level, those 6 5-ork squads are 18 power level compared to the 13 power level of the 30 boyz. Considering the bonuses that orks get for squad size, that seems very backwards.

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Points for tournaments and building your "standard" list. But Power Level for pick up games or quickly adjusting things on the fly.

Let's assume that the local community settles on a "default" of 2,000 Points. Most people will build and collect with that point value in mind... But then someone new to the area drops by, but they always played 1,850 at her old store; Someone new to the hobby wants a real game but only owns about 1,200 total; or someone has to go get their kid from ballet later and only has time for a quick, small game.

Power Levels let you and an opponent come up with a "good enough" list almost on the fly. It only takes 3-5 minutes to jot one down... and just wait a few months until our collective gamer OCD hive-mind kicks in and we've got the PLs for common units all memorized.

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3 hours ago, Brother Glacius said:

You can always refactor the power level, if you really wanted to:

Find stock point value of a unit, divide it by its power level to find its points per power (p3) cost.

Find point value for unit with options and divide it by the p3 to get the new power level.

You just need to find the p3 for each size level of the unit. For example, storm boyz get cheaper for p3's the more you get. At only 5 boyz, they are worth 3 power level points with a p3 = 13.3 repeating. But at 30, they are only worth 13 power level, and p3 = 18.461538 repeating.

So that's an inherent issue with power level right from the start. If playing via points, 6 units of storm boyz costs the same as one unit of 30. But if playing power level, those 6 5-ork squads are 18 power level compared to the 13 power level of the 30 boyz. Considering the bonuses that orks get for squad size, that seems very backwards.

In the case of Stormboyz, that's because the PL is assuming you take an upgraded Nob. You don't get more Nobz as you increase the Unit size, so those increases are cheaper. Some other Units that stop opening up more options for upgrades as they increase past a certain size do something similar.

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Nope, because there are plenty of units out there that come with a leader, and adding more guys keeps the same cost. So in fact, you get less for the same amount of power level. Take any Ad Mech unit. Their main infantry comes with a champion, and the extra guys are the same PL. The fact that the orks get to add a nob as an option means they are paying even less points using Power Level.

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That's because a Skitarii Alpha is way less of an improvement over a regular Skitarius than a Nob is over a regular Boy, and also doesn't have any Weapons options that cost anywhere near what a Power Klaw does. The same thing happens with pretty much any "baseline" Marine Squad, because the Sergeant and base Unit options cost substantially more than the additional options that become available as you add more dudes. Tacs, Assault Marines, Bikes, Grey Hunters, Blood Claws, etc. Devastator Squads are an even more extreme example, PL7 for the first 5 dudes, and then only another PL4 for the next 5, because the 4 Heavy Weapons are also factored into the base cost of the Unit.

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Power Levels are based on the unit's average point cost: take the cheapest un-upgraded configuration of the unit, add that to the most expensive fully blinged out configuration, and divide by two. Round up or down a point or two. Done.

It isn't intended to (nor capable of) giving the same level of precision as a Point System.

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4 hours ago, Ish said:

Power Levels are based on the unit's average point cost: take the cheapest un-upgraded configuration of the unit, add that to the most expensive fully blinged out configuration, and divide by two. Round up or down a point or two. Done.

It isn't intended to (nor capable of) giving the same level of precision as a Point System.

I kind of wish that they had instead weighted it a bit more heavily toward the geared-up end of the possibilities. I think something like hitting the "75%" point* would have reduced the discrepancy between the Units that have few or no upgrades, and those that have a ton. And particularly reduced the benefit that a number of Units have because they have a ton of options AND are essentially never run in the cheapest build (e.g. Tactical Squads. They virtually always at least have a Special Weapon. Some others are even more so).

*(Cheapest+3xMost Expensive)/4

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3 hours ago, WestRider said:

I kind of wish that they had instead weighted it a bit more heavily toward the geared-up end of the possibilities.

It is what it is. As long as we all keep in mind that it's meant to be a "fast and loose" approach to balancing forces and we don't get too hung up on it.

Use the Matched Play system for "serious" games. Tournaments, ladder league campaigns, and that sort of thing. Bust out the PL system for "casual" games or when you need to re-write a list on the fly.

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  Was just reading through the matched play rules..I dont see any provision to use PL for the points system in Matched play,Certainly it could be done but it seems perhaps that the PL system is supposed to be just for narrative and open play.

  I suppose its safe to assume that the Matched play system was not tested using PL and instead only tested using the included points system.

  On the other side of it though,,some of the Open play and Narrative scenarios seem really fun using the PL system to balance the games:)

 

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Power levels are essentially noisy points (i.e., points with additional variance). The recent developers commentary made it clear that power levels represent a unit's average value across all possible wargear combinations. Units that have more wargear options (Inquisitorial acolytes are the extreme here) have higher variance. The more of such units you include, or the larger the army you play with, the greater disparity you get between points and power levels. 

Basically gw used a very common statistical technique called "binning" (see here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_binning). Each power level is thus a bin into which units with similar average values are assigned. That's why, despite the variance in average cost between units like 5 skitarii vanguard, 5 sisters, an eversor, or 4 acolytes, they are all power level four: because they fall within the point limits of the bin assigned to four power levels.

Tl:Dr - use points unless you're lazy or like adding variance to your game. 

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