Points aren't linear value. Thoughts?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I always liked the concept of the ill fated Mongoose Games Babylon 5 A Call To Arms points system, each ship had a priority Level (Patrol, Skirmish, Raid, Battle, War, Armageddon)
Each priority level was effectively double the last.
This could slide depending on dates of conflicts, or opponents tech.
So a Mimbari cruiser is a Battle, and bloody hard.
A Vree flying saucer* could be a Patrol, so you could get 8 to a battle.
The Vree would lose, because the rules were pretty broken, In each category some powers were unbeatable. Mimbari, Shadows and Vorlons especially. Mimbari out gunned you, out ranged you, out armoured you, had cloaking and better moral
But you could go 'Vreeeeeeeee' any time you moved a ship!
They even did a WW2 version (it was really bad).


*Called Vree after the sound effects their ships were meant to make!

[Raider4]

I always liked the concept of the ill fated Mongoose Games Babylon 5 A Call To Arms points system, each ship had a priority Level (Patrol, Skirmish, Raid, Battle, War, Armageddon)
Each priority level was effectively double the last.

They even did a WW2 version (it was really bad).

Victory at Sea. I liked it.

[Ithoriel]

As someone who never fights historical battles but who aims for believable, even if ahistorical, forces I use points costs all the time. I don't need them to be exact (just as well!) just close and unbiased.

I remember having a copy of the formula for the points costs for GW's Warmaster and using it to point up home grown units. It needed a slight fudge for some units but it worked really well overall.

So, for me, OOB's are interesting as an indication of what might be available but points costs are essential if I want a reasonably balanced game. 

[Last Hussar]

I'm with Ithoriel.

[Big Insect]

Good to know that the many days/months & probably years I have spent trying to sort out army lists and unit points costs have not been  in vain 

[fred.]

Points values are very helpful in sets of rules.

Players are also really quite good at spotting and then exploiting what they perceive as cheaply pointed units.

I think most of us want a good game as the outcome - if points help setup a game quickly and easily then that is very useful. I think it depends on your gaming background, for some people crafting an historical scenario based on actual troops numbers etc is key, for others building a force that is ultra competitive from a list of units is key. I suspect most of us are somewhere between these extremes.

I like a good historical scenario but these take time to research and setup. Points and army lists can get you to a game pretty quickly, with the expectation that one side isn't going to get rolled over in the first turn, which can be be great most weeks. I've also found that if the players are building their own army lists ahead of the game, they are a bit more involved.

With a scenario setup ahead of time, players rarely spend any time looking at it ahead of the game, then once it's on the table they start picking holes (which can sometimes be quite fair). But would have been good to resolve ahead of time.

[Chris Pringle]

I like a good historical scenario but these take time to research and setup.

There are loads of historical scenarios available for all periods and many different rulesets. Take advantage of those and the time and effort that others have already put into them for you.

As someone who never fights historical battles but who aims for believable, even if ahistorical, forces [...]  OOB's are interesting as an indication of what might be available but points costs are essential if I want a reasonably balanced game.

Surely the situation and victory conditions provide the balance when forces are unbalanced?

[Ithoriel]

Surely the situation and victory conditions provide the balance when forces are unbalanced?

.... and the points values factor in to working out how imbalanced the forces are.

You clearly play very different games with very different players than I do.

Most of our games are knock 'em down, drag 'em out slugfests between balanced forces. Because that's what the group wants to play.

From time to time I managed to coerce them into a fighting retreat/ hold the crossroads/ opposed river crossing or similar game and I get a grudging admission in return that "it wasn't as bad as we expected." I might even get the odd "that was quite good, I suppose." But the next game had better be balanced forces and a straight up fight.

To quote Bruce Forsyth,"What do points make? ...."

[Chris Pringle]

Most of our games are knock 'em down, drag 'em out slugfests between balanced forces. Because that's what the group wants to play.

Can't argue with that - gotta give your public what they want! One of my own comrades of long ago, now sadly departed, far from revelling in his Poles' heroic but doomed stand against the overwhelming Panzers, remains famous for his bleat of "but I couldn't have won anyway!".

[Last Hussar]

To quote Bruce Forsyth,"What do points make? ...."

To quote Humphrey Lyttleton

A pathetic attempt by an audience to feel part of the show.

[Kiwidave]

Well, for the Napoleonic period red coat > blue coat > white coat.
(This applies to line infantry, before anyone gets clever.)

Works for rugby as well!

Slight amendment: black coat > gold coat > green coat > red coat > blue coat > white coat

[steve_holmes_11]

Thinking about points.
The old WRG ancients touched on this in a very limited manner.

You paid for your troops, their rating, arms and protection.
You also had to pay a command cost for the number of units you grouped them into.

Regular commands were cheaper than irregular commands.
I think the intention was to encourage big unwieldy mobs, but small agile maniples.

[fred.]

Thinking about points.
The old WRG ancients touched on this in a very limited manner.

You paid for your troops, their rating, arms and protection.
You also had to pay a command cost for the number of units you grouped them into.

Regular commands were cheaper than irregular commands.
I think the intention was to encourage big unwieldy mobs, but small agile maniples.

That feels an odd system. And I think shows points need to work with some sort of army list system. 


I suspect Regular commanders were more effective in game terms. So should be more expensive. 

But then you have the different tactical structures used by different armies that should limit the number of (and type) of commander available. 

The more general point about good commanders being a points multiplier is valid. But I don't recall seeing lists where commanders cost a %age cost. 

In one set of home brew rules using Warmaster / BKC style command. Where we offered an option to increase the command value. Pretty much every player would take this every time- and even when we increased the cost significantly it was still felt to be a good choice. 

One way to fine tune points costs is based on usage. Units that turn up all the time are likely too cheap. Those rarely taken likely too expensive. But getting a big enough sample to derive this is hard. But with more online tools for list building this feels more possible. 

Obviously this makes more sense where there is largely free choice in what is picked. If you have to take a large amount of line infantry due to list building rules. Then that isn't an indication of there points being too low. 

[Raider4]

I came across an interesting - to me - post from Warwick Kinrade about the points costs of wizards in Warhammer: The Old World.

http://warwickkinrade.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-old-world-magical-effectiveness-and.html

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

They have nerfed wizards now, so level 1 & 2 only get +1,while 3 & 4 get +2. But still quite a lot mor e powerful. Until you roll a double 1, and your head blows off! 

[Last Hussar]

The blog post calculation reminded me of this TV Tropes page
Linear Warriors,  Quadratic Wizards
A
Rereading it, it points out how Wizards tend not to make it to the higher levels in "real life"; they are very squishy. This leads me to the idea that a wizard can't make up more than a certain % of a force - if it is a 100 point army, you can't have a high level wizard at 65 points. (Dahrlink, I don't get out my tower for less than 10000 goblins...)

We can use this idea in real life, you can only have x amount of this per y amount of basic troops (and it has to be basic types,  no well super unit 1 is 10%, super unit 2 is 10%...)

[hammurabi70]

I always thought highly of Shock of Impact where the army lists used percentages on each of the troop types; it ensured armies that were fielded were fairly representative of the original historic troops.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Burrows and Badgers,when you set up a character as a wizzard, each starting spell cost 5 pennies out of your starting budget of 350. A mouse is 28p, a badger 65ish, so not expensive, when a sword is 8p and light armour 15p.
Makes your character 'weak' (-1 strength) and delicate (+1 for each damage they took).
So, you can start with a massively powerful caster as a mage, but will snap in a strong breeze!
Not that it matters! 

[Ithoriel]

We can use this idea in real life, you can only have x amount of this per y amount of basic troops (and it has to be basic types,  no well super unit 1 is 10%, super unit 2 is 10%...)

That's pretty much how Warmaster and BKC work at the moment. I presume CWC and FWC would be the same but I don't play them.

[Orcs]

.

From time to time I managed to coerce them into a fighting retreat/ hold the crossroads/ opposed river crossing

Some of my most enjoyable games have been these types of games.