Points vs Power - Things I've Noticed While List-Building

[The Other Dave]

NagoyaHammer going points instead of power has really made me start to rethink my pro-power-level stance. I... think I may have to recant.

The big thing is that Chapter Approved has done a lot to balance points levels, while Power has remained the same since launch, so some things that were poorly costed in Power are now more reasonable in points. I don't know too much about other armies, but for Marines the big glaring change is Inceptors - 10 power for 3 (because you might take them with plasma guns), as much as a full squad of 10 intercessors (180 points), which is so way too much I basically stopped using them, but in points they're 135 if you give them assault bolters, the cost of about 7 intercessors which is a lot more reasonable for how easy they are to kill. Scouts too, have you paying a lot of power for potential - they're 6 power a squad (more than a squad of 5 intercessors, because you might give them sniper rifles and cameleoline), but my squad with knives and a heavy bolter is only like 65 points. And I'm sure other armies are seeing similar things here and there.

So, yeah. Rethinking my Power stance. I'd miss the sheer ease of list building, but I guess it's time to admit points, especially with the rolling fixes CA brings to the table, are probably just more evenly balanced - and much more than a year ago at launch.

[Miguelsan]

I think that for everything save the most laid back games points will always be more useful than power levels. PL do not take into account the variations of a unit so you will end up, as you correctly pointed out, with squads that are undercosted or overpriced depending on the gear. While when using points you can always fine tune the value of the gear.
Average values as cost are never a good idea if you are looking for a certain balance. People will always end up finding the most optimal combos/units and gravitate to them even more than we already do.

M.

[The Other Dave]

Yeah; I think that as we've (or, you know, I've - this is my personal experience and "reading of the room") been doing a lot of learning over the past year or so we've been playing mostly in the "extremely casual, let's just try and remember the dang rules" mode, but as we get a more solid handle on that we'll want things to be a bit more balanced, maybe. (Also, frankly, 85% of the issue for me is that I just want to use Inceptors and not be crippling myself. )

Like, for learning games power is fine - up at the Ichinomiya group, where people are really new to 40K full stop, not just the new edition, there've been a lot of "throw together 50 power, let's see what this warhammer thing is all about" games, and it works great for that, especially since you can just whip up an army list in a couple minutes counting on your fingers.