Points aren't linear value. Thoughts?

[pierre the shy]

Out here in NZ various forms of WRG rules have been the mainstay of ancient wargaming since the 1970's. Started with 6th and 7th Editions and moved onto DBM and DBMM.

There is a strong ancients contingent locally who play DBMM to the standard points total (400 points?), so using the assigned points values in the rules is a given.

My point is more that here the 4 DBMM army list books seem to have become to some extent peusdo reference books, and woe betide a player who fields anything not in an "official" army list.

I bought "To the Strongest" at the same time as FK&P some years ago now, but I have yet to play a game of TtS, too tied up in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms I guess.     

Army lists are very useful but they should not preclude players from doing a bit of historical research themselves.

[fred.]

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! 

Is the double 1 thing the actual game mechanism? And a 4th level wizard can cast up to 24 spells in a game. Feels that there would be no 4th level wizards left if they have a 2/3 chance of dying just from their own spell casting each game. 

[Last Hussar]

Of course, modern armies are points based.

[Big Insect]

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%...)

Which is the way Hordes of the Things (HoTT] works. You have a total of 24pts to spend, of which only half can be spent on 'special' units (costing 3pt, 4pts or 6pts each).

[Ithoriel]

Of course, modern armies are points based.

Indeed they are.

The points are variously described as Dollars, Yen, Euros, Roubles, Pounds, etc., etc. 

[sultanbev]

Indeed they are.

The points are variously described as Dollars, Yen, Euros, Roubles, Pounds, etc., etc. 

I did run a 1960s imaginations campaign once, and all the budget and kit were priced in US dollars. Turns out there is a direct correlation between missile and aircraft weight and cost, something like $1000 per 1000lb weight or some such. For some tanks I had the actual figures, and did the rest by ratio. I might still have the numbers somewhere

[Last Hussar]

Indeed they are.

The points are variously described as Dollars, Yen, Euros, Roubles, Pounds, etc., etc. 

I was hoping people would get that!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

We got the (decimal) point!

[steve_holmes_11]

Many systems have rules that prevent "free point buy".

Army Lists are the classic example.
Sometimes it's freer, but with stated limits.
Examples:
 * No unit may cost more than 10 points (Dragon Rampant).
 * No more than half your points may be spent on destroyers (Nimitz).