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Author Topic: Characteristics which ones are most valuable  (Read 1043 times)

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Offline Fenris

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Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« on: February 22, 2017, 10:36:43 PM »
Hi, 40k online.

I'd like to know your opinions on how you value your units/models characteristics, this is due to I think sometimes there are just too many special rules and too many rules discussions, instead of just tactical play. I'd like to try and redo the points value of units using no special rules to speedplay.

To start it of I will provide a list of what my thoughts are, but you may convince me to change it later.

1. Hull points (HP)
This determines how many hitpoints you have and without any hitpoints left, you can't do anything.
2. Wounds (W)
Same as hullpoints, but it's capped at 10.
3. Armour Value (AV)
It makes you immune to things and even when not immune it determines how hard it is to hurt you, it can also be used aggressively with ramming.
4. Toughness (T)
Same reason as AV but you can't use it to hurt others.

5. Armour save (Sv)
This is how you deny losing hitpoints.
6. Attacks (A)
Your number of attacks is more important than the strength of them or the ability to use them, as long as you still have the ability to.
7. Strength (S)
How much damage and how easy you can do the damage, high strength can also cause more Wounds.
8. Ballistic Skill (BS)
Shooting, with out it your ranged weapons are useless and each step always makes it better even if the higher values don't increase the chance to hit by much.
9. Weapon Skill (WS)
You will always need to hit things, a high WS also makes you harder to hit by others, but every step don't always count.
10. Leadership (Ld)
Morale is always important, if you can't stay in the fight you re unreliable and if you are fleeing you are almost useless.
11. Initiative (I)
The ability to strike first is the least important characteristic, it's more important to able to strike at all.

What are your thoughts?
How much better do you thing some abilities are than others, for example are BS 20% more important than WS?
Some skills are of course tied together like WS, S and I. A high WS and high S makes a high I more valuable/useful. But how much?

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Offline Grand Master Lomandalis

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Re: Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2017, 10:46:16 PM »
If you want a definitive answer, I would say that HP / W and AV / T are the most important stats.  Beyond that, it really comes down to what the unit does for the stats to be taken into account.  You can't really give a set number, or even a vague number, to explain the difference. 

Say for instance you rate BS as 20% more important than WS, and use that to work out a point system that would have a unit that has BS5 worth more points.  Is that BS5 worth the points if the unit has no access to shooting weapons.  You list the number of attacks as being more important than St, but 10 St1 attacks are worthless compared to 1 St10.

So like I said, you can't look at one stat individually and say that this is the important one.  You have to look at the entire stat line and the role the unit has on the battlefield and judge whether they stats will be good for that role or not.
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Offline Fenris

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Re: Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2017, 09:27:27 AM »
Well my intension is to multiply the stat with whatever other stats is used, so for example a space marine will have a bolter with BS4, then I'd multiply the bolters value with the BS. With no bolter it would be BS*0 = 0 so the BS wouldn't count, unless it's a psyker with access to witchfires.

10 S 1 hit will cause a wound on T3/4 on a 6+, that's 1.67 wounds
1 S 10 hit will cause a wound on 2+ that's .83 wounds
So attacks are better than strength with a ratio of 2:1 against the most common targets (singlewound models with T3/4). Against T5+ and vehicles though those S1 attacks are useless, but that really depends on what armies are played.

Of course there are a lot of more variables than the statlines, but let's just for simplicities sake leave them out for now. I might start another topic about other variables, like "how common are multiwound characters?" or "how many of the points are invested in AV10 vehicles?" or "How many points is a bolter worth?" etc.
But those variables wouldn't need an estimate in a scenario where the armies are already set, since they'll be constants instead.

I agree that comparring the characteristics A and S is not easy, that's why I wanted your input. :) Maybe T5+ and vehicles have gotten more common than T4-?
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Offline magenb

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Re: Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2017, 07:19:18 AM »
Depends on the roll a bit.

Chance to hit Number of shots/attacks
Chance to Wound so strength or Flesh./Armour bane etc.
Ability to remove saves AP/ignore cover

The stat that was removed but still technically exists (M) Move.

Difficulty to wound - T/AV value
Save - Armour/invul/cover

I and LD are just about on par, except if it is a shooty unit, in which case LD.

Now Wound and HP I put last because it is rather easy to negate when T and AV is low, just need instant death rule to kick in.. kind of easy to get S6/8. Remove from play attack. HP lots of S8 AP2 weapons floating around, etc, etc.



If you are looking at a formula you then have to account for some of the game mechanics, such as with a high T unit, then multiple wounds becomes better and generally speaking they are small sized units so leadership doesn't matter as much, also the armour save doesn't matter as much unless your facing poison, because your going to be getting shot by high S wespons with good AP values.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2017, 09:03:40 AM »
I think a conversation of "most important stat" needs to involve how often it is used and how often it matters when used.

Toughness/AV I would argue is most important: it is always present and usually relevant. It's hard to get around it, basically. A really high Toughness or AV can make a model nigh invulnerable to whole classes of weaponry.

Wounds/Hull Points are next, losing out to the first two only because of Instant Death and D weapons and so on.

Ballistic Skill ranks next, since just about everything needs to shoot all the time and if you can't hit, nothing else matters. It outranks Weapon Skill by a nose because it is more commonly used and more effective at what it does (hitting on 2s instead of 3s, hard to degrade, etc.)

Strength and Attacks are tied for the next spot, with preference probably being given for Strength (though Orks in Close Combat really make a good argument for the opposite). You need these to do damage and they come up all the time. Being able to apply these to the right spot at the right time basically constitutes the challenge of the game.

Leadership is next, because almost everybody in the game has a great leadership and they pass most Ld tests even without the numerous and wide-spread buffs to almost everybody intended to make this stat pointless. It sucks when a unit runs away, yeah, but it happens with sufficient rarity to make this less of a priority for me.

Initiative is the least important, since it comes up the least often and makes the least difference when it does. It's nice to have, but if you've got the above stats in spades, this one hardly makes much difference. Besides, every damned thing is fast, anyway. I'd guess about 65% of the units in 40K have an I4 or better, and most of those have an I4 exactly.   

Offline Fenris

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Re: Characteristics which ones are most valuable
« Reply #5 on: February 24, 2017, 07:15:26 PM »
Thank you for the inputs.
@magenb: At this time I will not be accounting for flesh/armourbane, nor instant death except for the double S. I intend to apply it later though, where if the medium, and median toughness would be T4 the fleshbane rule would be priced as S6 without instant death or something similar.

Yes move(M) is something I will try to account for at the same time as range, so if you have an assault marine, their CC weapons will be considered to have 6" extra range when pricing them.

The S8 AP2 weapons will be priced accordingly. ;)

Having extreme characteristics or stats like T10 Sv- or T0 Sv2+ would of course be more expensive just like S10 AP- and S1 AP1 weapons. But that is later consideration after the characteristics are set those thing will easier fall into place.

@Wyddr: I think the ID and D weapons should be priced rather that getting a discount on multiple wounds, however each additional wound will probably cost slightly less. So increasing from 8 to 9 wounds would cost less than increasing from 1 to 2 wounds, in general, but of course also modified by the T and Sv values.

I still think T +1 should cost less than W+1, but I will take it into consideration.

You might be right with S and A being equally valuable, I'm thinking 5S5 hits would be most valuable, followed by 4S6 and 6S4, but then S6 has a higher chance of causing multiple wound by instand death, so the even values of S should cost more than the odd ones.

@Every1: I'm thinking I will have to use 2 set profiles with set points to be able to start a point cost curves for every stat, my suggestion is:

WS0 BS0 S0 T0 W1 I0 A0 Ld0 Sv- cost: 1 point. (no gear)
And
WS3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld7 Sv4+ cost: 5 points. (with a laspistol)

So if all stats were equally valuable, they would cost 4/26 (0.15) points for each +1 in any stat, but that's not reasonable. Each stat would have to increase or decrease exponentially, with crotch values like when BS goes above BS5 the curve will have to change.

I'm thinking for each point in S you get a free pistol with the same S, hence the laspistol as default, also for each extra A your "pistol" get one extra shot as default value.
Is that fair?
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