Total Rethink: Unit Design and Balance
By Mephistoned
I don’t know about anyone else, but I frequently find myself scratching my head and (other hard to reach places) over GW's unit design and costing. On the one hand we have the laughably ineffective mutilators, on the other the terrifyingly cost effective nightscythe, and all shades of expensive, broken and mediocrity in between. I’ll forgive codex entries that were not written for 6th such as the vendetta, but now we have the new Eldar codex and I am seeing the same rotten old mistakes being made again. Banshees? Come on! Sigh.
Now it might seem the problems of unit design and cost are connected – just lower the points cost and everything is fixed right? Well, no actually. Frankly, with those rules, even if you were giving mutilators away for 25 points a pop, I still might give them the finger just for the opportunity cost of a lost FOC slot, and the fact that they aren’t likely to do anything.
And this got me thinking about units in a totally different way. You see I don’t think cost is so important. It is nearly impossible to truly balance units perfectly against each other with all their different variables and stats. But what is important – isusefulness. Every unit should have a clear purpose, and more importantly, it should be good at it. That’s why you’re going to include it in your army, because you want what it does. This also implies that it does what it does better and in a different way to everything else in the codex – otherwise there will be some units that are clearly worse. This is what is called internal balance.
So I’m going to go out on a limb here and offer a totally new way of looking at units, in terms of their usefulness, their role, in your army. I’ve formulated a simple way of costing them that is linked to that role, and I believe this may actually solve a lot of our problems. Balance: it doesn’t have to be taxing…
THE THEORY
So what is a unit’s role? Let’s try four simple categories (we’re going to be adding more later).
Objective Holders – In an objective heavy game, troops need to be able to take objectives. Here speed (grabbing) and durability (camping) or both (midfield) will be key in order to get there and hold it. Leadership is also a factor here. NB - costing like this is screwed up by kill point games, or by Big Guns Never Tire, which might be an argument for dropping scenarios which so fundamentally affect unit role. Troops are costed as being valuable if they stay alive on an objective – screw with that then you’re screwing with their cost.
Shoot – units designed to shoot should (duh!) be good at shooting their preferred target. It doesn’t matter too much what that preferred target is, as long as they are good at shooting it. Yes some units can be good at shooting more than one target but since targeting rules don’t make that very practical, they should not pay too greatly (if at all) for that added flexibility. Fire a meltagun and missile launcher at a Battlewagon and those bolters are all wasted.
Melee – again units designed for melee need to be good at it against their preferred target, but also need to be able to reach it. The availability of transports should be costed into the vehicles rather than the troops. However, it is imperative that they do have a realistic way to reach melee (looking at you Howling Banshees, though Scorpions got some love…).
Enhance – these units, be they psykers, commanders or even transports, make other units better. That’s their purpose.
Now many units have at least two roles, some have three, rarely all four (in fact I can’t think of any – possibly Strike Squads who have warpquake – open to debate). Let’s start costing things by saying that a unit with one role that it is good at costs 100 points – the number of models in the unit depends on how many it needs to be good at that role. The base 100 points can be tweaked (usually downwards) but actually this shouldn’t be necessary - EVERY unit should be good at its primary role and so should be scoring a near perfect 100. If it isn’t – change the rules Kelly!
Now we add the secondary or tertiary roles. The problem is (and here is the crux of the problem for GW unit design at the moment) giving a unit more utility doesn’t change the fact that it may only be able to perform one role at full effect: I can’t shoot and melee if I’m stuck in combat; I can’t sit on an objective and melee; I can objective camp and shoot but I’m further away, LOS etc. Furthermore, and here’s the clincher, if it dies just easily it really doesn’t matter how much utility it has (indeed the greater the utility, the greater the bullet magnet). So let’s price the second role at 50 (again can be adjusted depending on effectiveness). In fact, you are more likely to need to adjust this down as many units are not as effective in their secondary purpose.
Let’s say additional roles after the second should be out of 25, again scalable downwards. You can see what I’m trying to do here. By discounting multiple roles I am preventing point inflation on single units that can easily be killed by dint of being a single model. Purchasable upgrades that add more roles or effectiveness to a unit should be costed very cheaply for this same reason. Points inflation of an easy to kill unit creates a bullet magnet that is too easy to kill to fulfill its role – ie. a points sink and likely a waste. Yes I can take flak missiles, but if I’m firing them I can’t fire my normal missiles, I lose a point of strength AND you can kill me just as easily as normal marines – so why the hell am I paying through the nose for it?
And now the final part to the formula, the only real maths here - which will further reduce the points cost in many cases. After adding up all the points for purpose, we will multiply that score by a factor between 0.1 - 1.0 according to survivability. Now this is not an exact science, but the question to ask is for a unit of that type, facing a likely range of enemy weapons, how well will it survive? If it’s rock-solid, multiply it by 1.0 (ie. no change to the cost). If it’s grot-worthy, multiply it by 0.1. Remember we are looking at the WHOLE unit here, be it 20 orks, 3 paladins or whatever. Leadership is also a factor here as it may just be run off the board if it’s low.
Ok so far this is all high theory and arcane mathematics. It’s more intuitive than a cumulative costing approach where fearless costs 10 points, jump packs cost 35 etc etc etc. However, I believe the focus on having an effective unit vs. survivability is what is going to make the balance tick here. It also forces us to make sure the unit is actually capable of doing something.
So let’s start looking at some units – I think cases will be better illustrations than theory anyway. 10 units should suffice. I’ve drawn on these as well-known and varied examples from different codexes.
Nightscythe
Primary: transport – 100/100 (it’s an amazing transport, fast, no need to hover etc.)
Secondary: shoot – 50/50 (it shoots damn well with S7 and multiple hits)
Tertiary: enhance – 10/25 (I think its protection of its cargo, far better than other transports, deserves an enhance score, not to mention it’s FOC non-presence)
Survivability – 0.8 (it’s a flyer, lowish AV but living metal – pretty good)
Points – 128 – we can round off to 130. Is that reasonable for a nightscythe? Sounds not bad to me, but we need to recost some other units first and see how they compare. Fundamentally I think the nightscythe’s rules are fine, since it is good at something. The only real issue was the undercosting.
Plague Zombies (20)
Primary: objective holders – 100/100 (20 zombies with feel no pain and cover should do alright holding an objective)
Secondary: melee – 20/50 (well, they’re not great but in large numbers…)
Survivability – 0.4 (they’re not terribly survivable but better than some)
Points – 50 (rounded up) – too cheap for 20 zombies? Yes. Probably. Why? Because they can do something else – they can tarpit like nobody’s business – and that is a serious consideration, even in a melee-orientated army. So now we need to go back and add tarpitting as another purpose.
Primary: objective holders – 100/100
Secondary: tarpit – 50/50
Tertiary: melee – 10/25
Survivability – 0.4
Points: 65 rounding up. Remembering you’ll still need to pay the Typhus tax for his enhance ability, I think that’s not too bad, a little cheaper than now, but we still need to do a comparison with other recosted troops. There is still room for tweaking, but we’re getting effective units that are in about the right area regarding cost…
Tactical Marines (10, no upgrades)
Primary: objective holders – 100/100 (yep, 10 marines in power armor and with ATSKNF is not bad at holding an objective)
Secondary: shoot – 30/50 (10 bolters does alright against preferred targets but it’s not an incredible output)
Survivability – 0.7 (yes, they’re reasonably survivable in these numbers and with the 3+)
oints: 90 points rounding off. Notice I didn’t even give them a melee tertiary because it really isn’t their purpose (if they’re doing it, they’re pretty much screwed). This is our first big points difference. I reckon a meltagun AND a missile launcher (all missile types included) should both cost no more than 5 points (what one gains in penetration it loses in range). That’s 100 points for a unit that can score and hurt most targets to some degree. It’s 9 points a marine, and mostly you are paying for the ability to sit on an objective. That looks really about right to me – they are not in practice going to be vastly more effective than the plague zombies in their primary role, but they do add some pew-pew.
I think we are onto something here. Let’s tackle the dragon in the room…
Heldrake
Primary: shoot – 100/100 (hell yes, the baleflamer can shoot - cannon needs BS4 to even begin to put it on an even keel)
Secondary: melee – 50/50 (we will call the vector strikes melee, and they’re pretty damn good, fast, unavoidable, and with no opportunity for the enemy to strike back!)
Survivability – 0.9 (a flyer, demon, it will not die, AV12 – yeah pretty damn good, only the AV10 asspipes prevented 1.0)
Points: 135 on the nail. Slightly over the nightscythe. At first glance I thought this was too cheap, but troops (the Heldrake’s lunch) are now falling greatly in price, lowering the drake’s impact. The heldrake is not a transport, it’s not enhancing anything, it’s just all kill, and it may not even show for several turns. It’s not invincible either, especially once we make our anti-flyer units effective at their purpose (which we will have to factor into survivability later, as right now it’s pretty high). Fair.
Rhino
Primary: transport – 80/100 (yeah, it moves…but we have to leave something for the fast and the skimmers)
Secondary: blocking – 20/50 (arguably quite useful at providing cover and being a pain)
Tertiary: shoot – 5/25 (stormbolter. Yeah.)
Survivability – 0.3 (well it’s not great is it?)
Points: 30 rounding down. Not far off original pricing and fair I think. Rhino’s have utility in being a transport and not much else. Frankly, with first blood they are a liability, but you can hide them I suppose and in any case we can’t cost them much lower without making them free. What you lose in first blood you gain with mobility in linebreaker… What would be interesting now would be to recost drop pods with the new survivability rules (they are VERY survivable in terms of fulfilling their purpose, which makes me think they might end up pricier than rhinos…). But I digress…
Crimson Hunter
Primary: Shoot – 100/100 (four lascannon shots? BS4? Yes please!)
Survivability – 0.6 (well it’s a flyer, it can jink and be useless, but AV10 means even bolters are scary...)
Points: 60. WOW. Major difference from the real thing. Crazy cheap? Well… it might seem so – that’s 15 points a lascannon shot. However, that really is all the CH does – shoots armored stuff. Yes, enemy flyers might fear it if it comes on second. But it’s so easy to kill and so mono-purposed it’s hard to justify a higher point score. Ok the firepower output is exceptional, beating down even the mighty Vendetta. So we could revise it thus:
Primary: Shoot – 120/100 (yes, it’s ok to go over the maximum if we need to!)
Survivability – 0.6
Points: 70 rounded off. I feel more comfortable with this number, but maybe 60 was on the ball. In the end, I would rather make the CH more survivable and thus be able to give it a higher points cost worthy of its output. Cost is no way to fix bad unit design. A simple holofield (4+ cover save) would do it…
1 Broadside (Missileside)
Primary: shoot – 80/100 (awesome output, but of limited range or use against higher AVs)
Survivability – 0.6 (it’s a single model, it has a 2+ save, it sucks in combat but is unlikely to end up in combat)
Points: 50 rounding up. For the output I think this is ok. Skyfire, interceptor (should be able to have both) and other enhancements should all be less than 5 points a piece. We don’t want too much points inflation. Every system added is more points lost when the suit is dead. A shield drone or generator could be more expensive, maybe 10, as they’re upping survivability.
10 BA Vanguard Veterans (jump packs but no other upgrades)
Primary: melee – 100/100 (meaty – 40 attacks on the charge)
Survivability – 0.9 (with jump packs, DoA, heroic intervention, 3+ armor save, it’s not bad! Only overwatch prevents the 1.0)
Points – 90. Holy cow. The same as tacticals? Am I braindead? Am I, in fact, a plague zombie? Well, remember, thinking about purpose. These are not objective holders – they can contest, but they can’t win you the game as tacs can. They do one thing well, hit stuff, and they do it without getting shot up first, but then they may not even turn up early on in the battle. Adding cc weapons (cheap 5), storm shields (more pricey – maybe 10), special weapons etc would up the unit cost. Compare this to their cost now, which is ludicrous despite their usefulness as breaking up castles. Wait – now there’s a point – they do have one more purpose – making the opponent afraid. Let’s recost.
Primary: melee – 100/100 (meaty – 40 attacks on the charge)
Secondary: psychological – 50/50 (these are really going to change the way your opponent deploys)
Survivability – 0.9 (with jump packs, DoA, heroic intervention, 3+ armor save, it’s not bad! Only overwatch prevents the 1.0)
Points 135. Now that seems a little fairer. Whilst it may seem I am simply making up purposes to hike up points costs when I feel something is undercosted, I think that is exactly the right thing to do. Often when I feel something is undercosted, a little more deep thought makes me realize why the unit has more utility than I first realized. However, it’s still not breaking the bank due to the survivability factor and the lower cost of the secondary purpose. 10 vvs without upgrades = 1 heldrake in game value? Yeah, I’ll buy that. They are both highly effective units now at what they do.
Ork boyz (20)
Primary: troops – 100/100 (yeah fine, not super survivable but that comes later)
Secondary: melee – 50/50 (60 attacks on the charge)
Tertiary: shoot – 25/50 (20 shots isn’t insignificant, but BS2…)
4th: tarpit – 20/25 (yes in these numbers…)
Survivability – 0.3 (there’s 20 of them but still…)
Points – 60 rounded up. 3 points a boy. Slightly cheaper than a zombie. That might surprise, but since the primary function of both is as troops, zombies are certainly better just for holding objectives. Boyz win in melee, but with low survivability and no innate way to get there except footslogging, this looks about right to me (and I threw in every possible use for them to bump up the cost). Yes you could max out your troops section for 540 points and buy 180 boyz. A horde. But such a force is so unweildy on the table, so prone to bottlenecks and blasts, would it be viable? 30 boyz is now the same costs as ten tacticals. Standing and shooting a tactical squad is likely to kill about that many boyz as they cross the board unless they get cover - which is as it should be.
Ork Truk (with a big shoota)
Primary: transport – 100/100 (not great on numbers but its fast and open-topped enabling assault)
Secondary: shoot – 20/50 (a bit)
Tertiary: blocking – 15/25 (doesn’t have the size of a rhino…)
Survivability – 0.2 (poo)
Points – 30 rounding up. A bit cheaper than the rhino. Probably about right but again this may be a unit that is so useless as to hardly be worth the points. A seriously good kustom force field system for a mech (who pays for it heavily through enhance) might make this work. Note that this means 20 boyz in 2 truks would about equal 10 tacs with weapons and a rhino. Who will win? My money is just about on the orks but it’s not clear to me – and that’s the way it should be. We can still tweak points costs remember… Let’s cover those most mistreated of wailing women…
10 Banshees 10
Primary: melee – 100/100 (yep they do alright at what they do and cut up power armor, they are fast, we'll ignore the stupid grenades omission)
Secondary: shoot – 20/50 (a bit)
Survivability – 0.5 (considering both their armor and speed)
Points – 60 rounding up. Wow. Cheapo. Less than a tactical, about double that of an ork boy. Whilst this seems fair, it isn’t fluffy since it would force you to use Eldar, the dying race, their elite special forces, their very women for godsake, in a khorne cultistesque war of attrition. Er, no. I would personally fix them with the following changes: I would make their masks remove overwatch (as I think they did in 2nd edition) as well as lowering initiative to 1 (Jain Zar’s could additionally affect WS, or even more usefully remove all overwatch in an area of effect – goodbye clumped together Tau); also we need a wave serpent more akin to the old EPIC one – where units can actually hide behind its shield and gain a save. I would actually give the serpent shield a 3+ invulnerable (front only) and the rule that any unit that has all models touching the hull gains this save as well. Now your banshees can either run up with the serpent or disembark and expect to survive until they can assault. The serpent here is doing an awesome enhance job so needs to be well costed appropriately…
There is one more unit type we perhaps should look at… the big boys.
Wraightknight
Primary: shoot – 100/100 (yep it shoots tanks fine though one might argue the output is a bit low. It really should be pushing over 100 for such an impressive model…)
Secondary: melee – 50/50 (yep, it can hammer tanks which seems to be its purpose)
Tertiary: psychological – 25/25 (it’s a bullet magnet, and will change the way your opponent behaves on the board, especially if deep striking)
4th: Linebreaker – 25/25 (with this speed and this durability, this deserves a special mention)
Survivability – 0.9 (it can still be taken down by certain weapons – poison, snipers – but it’s not bad!)
Points – 180 rounding up. Quite a big discount, even after I threw every role and the kitchen sink at it. I would prefer it was more expensive actually, and to justify that it needed a more impressive damage output from shooting. Given that the shield dents the firepower, I think it should hardly cost much at all (arguably it switches primary role from shooting to melee).
CONCLUSION
I’m sure many of us have tried recosting our units and I hate to think what kind of mathematical monsters have been created in the process. My method above is quite quick and easy (and FUN) to do. In fact I’d love to continue on and so more units. Maybe another time. You could easily use this method yourselves to get an idea of true value.
We ended up with eight basic roles:
Shoot
Melee
Objectives/ Linebreaker
Transport
Enhance
Psychological
Tarpitting
Blocking
But there may be more. I hope if this reaches the eyes of anyone involved in design at GW, then they will take away the point that units are only as good as their ability to do something useful (and every unit should do that one thing well) and this needs to be cross-referenced directly with their ability to survive to do that thing. All extra rules/ upgrades/ etc. are only to be found in support of that key purpose, so beware price inflation.
What I love about this system here is that it really is quite intuitive. There is still room for tweaking through playtesting and similar unit comparisons (which is now MUCH easier). However, even these rough and ready scores laid out here seem much more reasonable to me than what we have seen recently.
The other key takeaway is unit cost does not compensate for unit obsolescence (mutilators). Make the unit useful and we’ll take it in our lists. Cost-effectiveness will always be an issue, and some units will always be a bit better value, but it should be a matter of a few points, not in the dozens. Gamers wouldn't argue so much over a few points. I think a lot of the cries of broken and under/overcosting recently have been sadly valid.
With flyers in particularly, GW design has gone badly off the rails (just look at the Nephilim that is expensive, fragile, and can't even fulfil its stated primary role of interceptor), and I can only imagine they are using some kind of costing process that is additive (X ability = X points, + Y ability = Y points and so on) with a little margin for playtesting tweaks, resulting in these vastly overinflated prices in units that are not even going to last a single turn.
These problems need to be fixed and can be with a little careful thought.
Maybe for 7th edition? Banshees, Phil Kelly? A little more thought? Please?
Mephistoned