Warhammer 40K: 11th’s Staggered Point Costs Are A Little Rough
Goatboy here with some talk about staggered points costs, 40K’s new balancing method – and why it’s not quite working as intended.
Goatboy here with some talk about the new methods of balance GW introduced in Warhammer 40K. GW couldn’t just put the term Unique on units beyond just the heroes we battle with, and instead looked at adding an increasing point cost on units that go beyond 1 or 2 choices in your army. I love the idea of some balance based on army builds, but the point system seems pretty brutal on some armies.
Let’s all Blame the Defilers
We all know that playing against 3 Defilers was a rough game. The unit was heavily pushed with a pile of rules, a multitude of guns, and a really mean combo of army rules. Not every version was the same, but late 10th Edition became a rough timeframe to deal with so many chaos crabs on the tabletop. There wasn’t enough melted butter to deal with them. This staggered point shift (see above) in how they calculated points just sometimes seems too much for other beloved units.
Infantry Don’t Need Staggered Costs
Right now, I think any of the infantry-based units should never have a “double” unit tax. They are simply infantry models; everything can hurt them, and there is a plethora of rules to deal with them. Every single weapon in the game can shove damage through, and while some are better than others, I think pushing to have more infantry good units on the table is a good thing for the game. It is why some of the poster child units for the armies shouldn’t be a 2+ units cost so much more.
You can’t tell me the Chosen for Chaos Space Marines are a problem. The problem is whatever you join into them, but the units themselves are not the issue. It is the same with Marines Victrix Honor Guard. Yes, these guys are pretty good, but isn’t it the stuff you join into them what’s really the issue? Shouldn’t the points go towards them and not just these little poor glue units?
More Epic Retinue Units Please
Part of me wishes that more of these small, unique unit options were combined into more “Epic Retinue” units like the Maesters of the Maelstrom or the Wardens of Ultramar. These units would get a little more unique in their rules, be a part of something you can make Epic, and help get some balance. Like, what if you had the Chosen of Abbadon as a unit instead of just a flat Chosen unit? Or you could get some unique options for your Succubus to have with your Super Wyches of Bloody Dancing.
I just worry some of these staggered cost dials were pushed too hard in one direction that they make the army almost unusable, as that old glue was really needed to make it work. I do love to see how all the Marine units lost their single point cost, and now each individual Chapter codex (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, etc) gets its own unique point values. It is a pretty daunting task to see all of that, and I hope we see each of those units get a bit more unique set of rules to match the army they are part of. This would be like how the Black Templar have different Repulsors compared to all the other marine options we have out there.
Do you think the point shifts are a good balance? Do you hope we see more changes as everything stays digital? Were you excited when the app updated and our favorite phone game allowed us to build new fancy armies?
