Okay, so following the discussions that arose in the Titan topic, these are my opinions and ideas behind what Space Marine Veterans could cost.

My ideas make use of the current 40k Space Marine Codex to provide an indication of proportionate costs between the units. The current codex should be more balanced than previous versions as significantly more playtesting will have been done for the current system than what may have been done back in the days of Rouge Trader and 2nd Ed 40k/Space Marine.

First step is a base line figure, we will use a Tactical Detachment for this at 250pts.

In 40k a standard 10 man Tactical Squad is 230pts assuming a standard load out of a Flamer, Missile Launcher, Power Fist for the Sergeant and a Rhino.
This means a detachment would be 690pts.

40k Sternguard Vets are 355 for a 10 man squad assuming a standard load out of a Sergeant with Power Fist, Combi weapons and a Rhino.
Therefore a detachment would be 1065pts.

This means vets are 1065/690 = 1.54 times more expensive than tacticals.
Therefore a veteran detachment in Epic should cost 250 x 1.54 = 385pts.

This could rounded to 400 for the detachment. And a company at 1200 or 1150.
I would add that because veterans are known for carrying a lot of melta weapons and bolt guns that fire armour piercing rounds I could see there ranged attacks having a -1 Armour Save Modifier and would help justify the increase to 400pts. This would also make them a little more different from tacticals, but not quite as good as devastators against armour.

But ... there isn’t just a single veteran option, there is two (well three if you count terminators). We also have Vanguard Veterans.

These vets are different to the Sternguard vets and are more assault orientated with lots of choppy weapons.
From 40k a 10 man squad would be 415 assuming a standard load out of Sergeant Power Fist, Power Weapons on everyone else, Jump Packs and Rhino.
Therefore a detachment would be 1245pts. 1245/690 = 1.8 times a tactical detachment. So an epic detachment would be 250 x 1.8 = 450.

Obviously they don’t have to be included and we don’t have actual rules for them but this is what I would do to integrate the two different Veteran units into the game of NetEpic.

Sternguard Veterans
Move: 10cm
Save: 5+
CAF: +3
Weapons: Combi Bolters
Range: 50cm
Attack Dice: 1
To Hit: 4+
TSM: -1
Notes: Elite

Detachment
6 Sternguard Veteran Stands
3 Rhinos
Cost: 400

Vanguard Veterans
Move: 15cm
Save: 5+
CAF: +4
Weapons: Power Weapons
Range: 25cm
Attack Dice: 1
To Hit: 5+
TSM: 0
Notes: Elite, Jump Packs

Detachment
6 Vanguard Veteran Stands
3 Rhinos
Cost: 450

Veteran Company
Veteran Marine HQ (As Marine HQ with CAF of +4)
Command Rhino
2 Sternguard Detachments
1 Vanguard Detachment
Cost: 1200

I wouldn’t make the Company Card a Special Card as has been previously discussed, but make it Unique and only available in games of 5000pts or greater. Though that may not be needed since at 1200 pts, you aren’t likely to be able to field it in small games.

So what do you guys think? Veterans are now more expensive, there are 2 options which give you slightly better Tactical or Assault marines, but it makes it a tough choice to take a company of them or 5 detachments of tactical marines for the same cost.

Matt

Just to complete the list, this is how Terminators stack up.

40k 10 man Terminator Squad is 710pts with 2 Assault Cannons and Land Raider.
Detachment is 1420pts (only 2 squads). Or 1420/690 = 2.06 times more than tacticals.
So an Epic detachment should be 250 x 2.06 = 515 pts, make them 500 maybe? Or even 525
And the terminator company in the region of 1500pts.
40k 10 man Terminator Assault Squad is 650.
1300 for a detachment. 1300/690 = 1.88
Epic detachment, 250 x 1.88 = 470, maybe make it 450 or 475 to be different from the normal Terminators.

Hi!

I think its a more profound issue than just one card out of one army. As mentioned in the other thread the whole points system as originated by GW in the original version of the rules, is to put it mildly, flawed.

The same recalculation you performed for the veterans company could be applied to many, many other cards.

Since you seem to be up to the task, would you like to aid me in doing something, long, long overdue?

Simply put, a ground up design of the points system.

The current one is (basically the GW one) is over 20 years old now. GW isn't great at designing games and its clear they just "came up with" the points cost for the units. There is no unifying formula behind those numbers to "put a value" on certain stats.

I have experience doing this, since I have done such formulas for epic units in Dirtside II and my own designed game Heresy.

This may have been more than you bargained for, but if your game, so am I.

I think it needs to be done.

Primarch

Hi!

The most basic step in formulating a points system is to lay down what are the parameters, stats f you will, that make a unit/model have "worth" in a game.

Most of the time its easy, sometimes it requires some thought.

Lets go with the easy ones.

Most units have a:

1) Move stat
2) Armor save
3) CAF stat
4) weapons, which themselves have an attack dice number a to hit number and armor save modifier.

Basically each unit would be calculated in two parts, its basic stats (move, armor save, CAF) plus weapon (and related stats).

We would then divide each stat in certain brackets and give them a points value. For example movement would be no move- 5cm -10cm- 15cm ans so forth and we assign a points value. Same for all other parameters.

This would give us uniformity since all units would receive the same points value for the same stats. It eliminates the discrepancies we see now.

The harder part are the abilities and characteristics BEYOND stats. Like being a skimmer, or a tunneler, deep strike, etc. Those are harder since we need to assign a value based on their battlefield use and then price all others in comparison. Harder, but not impossible.

This would be a suitable starting point.

Primarch

Applying the proportion system is one way of bringing all the units in the game inline, as long as have an acceptable baseline. It would be a relatively quick and dirty way of doing it. This was just an option of a tweak to the one company that was getting mentioned.

But I agree a ground up design of the points system would be better, if potentially a greater task. It would then allow a more structured way of introducing new units. So if you want a hand I am in.

I myself have been involved with a bit of game design and playtesting over the years. I was one of the main playtesters for the Raw Deal CCG for several years and I was involved in the recent fan update of Dogs of War for WFB a couple of years ago.

Hi,

I do not understand the need to make the veteran company card unique as it´s 'already' unique.

Veteran company is always the first company and the vets can be fielded with the tactical or terminator armor.

According to the space marine army codex, on only have access to a unique card for the first company. If you make the vets comp unique so do the same for the scout comp and dev comp

I suppose with the description of the 10 company system earlier in the codex it tells you, you can only have one vet company. And you would expect most players to be familiar with the marine chapter structure.

Since we are talking about unique formations, why was the guild bike company made unique in the squat list? I am sure you got several copies of the card in the squat/ork expansion.

The unique squat biker company was my idea. According to the NE Rules, Unique is a limit to 1 card per 3000 points.
I militated in the past to increase squat bike detachments cost to 250 points (instead of 200) and company cost to 700 (2*250+200 for the trikes) but this idea was not approved and finally, to limit squat bikers power, the unique attribute was chosen.

Ah yes, forgot "Unique" means one per 3000pts in NE, not one per army. That's cool.

Matt

Hi!

All the "restrictions" on army cards are a direct byproduct of the less than balanced points scheme.

I think we all which units, detachments, companies and special cards are under priced or somewhat too good for cost.

The host of rules and limitations we put in was simply because their was no collective will at the time to redo the who points scheme.

Mind you we aren't replacing the old points scheme and restrictions, but its high time a parallel system that was truly balanced and internally consistent was formulated.

Note we could even try to "recreate" or otherwise be close to the old system (keeping them rounded to the 50 or 100's), it just be more uniform than it is now.

Some more thoughts on separate post.

Primarch

Hi!

I usually use one unit as the baseline then go from there. Since the discussion started with SM tactical and such, I use the space marine tactical unit as the "baseline".

Space marine tactical
Move 10cm
Armor save 5+
CAF +2
Weapon: Bolter, 1 attack dice, 5+ to hit, 0 save modifier.

We also need a baseline vehicle, so lets use the rhino
Move 25cm
Armor save 4+
CAF 0
weapon PD (1)
Tansport 2

For the sake of legacy lets say we what the whole group to be worth 250. So that's approximately 83.33 per rhino and two stands.

Roughly 28 points unit.

Thus, lets make move worth 1 point per cm of move, so 10cm is 10 points and so on.

Let's say each point of armor save is 5 points, no points for no save, 5 for a save of 6+ and so forth.

Lets do the same for CAF, 5 points per CAF point.

Weapons are broken done in three stats so I'd do range in brackets. 25cm or less 5 points, 25-50cm 10 points, 51-75cm 20 points, 76-100 30 points, 100+ 50 points.

Attack dice 5 points per die.

Save modifier 10 points per minus.

So a tactical would be:
10 points for move + 10 points for armor save + 10 points for CAF + 10 points for range + 5 for 1 attack die + 0 for no save modifier = about 45 point per tactical stand

Rhinos would be

25 points for move + 15 points for armor save + 0 points for CAF + 10 for PD (1) (each PD is worth 10 points so more PD is multiples of 10) + 10 for transport 2 (and an extra ten per each two carried or one vehicle) = 60

Thats about 450 for one detachment of tacticals. Quite higher than 250 but now I can play with the values above, say cut them in half and get closer to 250 for the base unit.

Of course once we "nail down" the exact values for a chosen baseline then its an easy task to apply those values to everything else.

Note this is just an example to express my thoughts. there are many way to assign a points value, but once done in a master list on how much each attribute costs its applications to other things is simple.

Thoughts?

Primarch

Hi,

When computing the cost of a unit, some others parameters than just unit stats should be taken in account:

- Unit size
- Morale: a 2+ morale unit should cost more than a 4+ one
- Break Point (50%, 66%, Ork style...)

There is an old excel file to compute units cost upon stats that works quite well, I've uploaded it there and added few more value modifiers in the extra cost tab.

I don't know who created this file in the past, but if he reads us, this was a great and effective idea.

@Mattman, about the cost of your veteran comp, 100 points discount for the comp is a bit high. 50 points should be enough as you already get an extra CHQ stand included in the comp.

It all comes down to fiddling with the numbers, but as long as you have that baseline unit you are happy with the rest should extrapolate.

Was going to suggest re-engineering the tacticals as a base line as I doubt they are far out. Seems like a good start.

You might need to make the first requirement to be choosing a unit type, infantry, cavalry, vehicle, skimmer etc. You could have each type have a base profile and a base cost which you then build on. You then have the possibility of having different points costs for the increases on different unit types. Would movement on a skimmer cost more than movement on infantry? Armour on a vehicle might cost more than for infantry. Might be something to consider further down the line.

In your baseline example I don't think you can split the 83pts equally across the 3 units, things like rhinos are cheap and cheerful compared to the squads, if anything the squad should be worth about 60 of the total and the rhino the remaining 23. Maybe even 70/13. In the 40k numbers I quoted above, the rhino costs 35 to the squads 195, so the marines are 5.5 times more than the rhino.

You forgot the to hit number as part of the weapon stats, the Marines 5+ is a lot better than the Rhinos PD of 6+. Maybe just a straight up 5pts per PD? 10 seems a lot for an attack that very rarely comes into play. The normal To Hit value could be 5pts per +1 to start with ontop of the range, AD and save mod pts.

I also think we can break away from the 50/100 scheme for points. Hopefully this process will give some more accurate values to units and much like my argument on the rounding of titan costs, making the value up to the nearest 50 undermines the work. I think rounding to 25 would be okay or personally I think rounding to 10 would be better. It would give people better and clearer indications of the value of a unit and it isn't as if the people playing this game can't add up 10's.

Hi there,

Which Vet Company are you referring to?
In the first post I said the repointed Vets could cost a 400 a detachment, so a company could be 1200 (no discount) or 1150 (50pt discount), not counting any value for the HQ (which seems to to be the case for companies.
The other vet company of 2 Sternguard and 1 Vanguard I pointed at 1200 for the company (400 for each Sternguard, 450 for Vanguard, so a 50pt discount).

Regards,

Matt

Sorry Matt, my fault: I inverted the number or Sternguard and Vanguard detachment and my total was 1300, not 1250...