Many people, myself included, feel that the points costs of units in the War of the Ring book are... inaccurate at best. Let's face it, the rules applied to Arwen and Thrnaduil are hardly equal and yet their points costs are. Anyhow, I was thinking that I may begin working on giving more appropriate seeming points values, even if it's just for us to come to some kind of consensus on what is an appropriate value for them. It'd be nice to then use those costs, but it's getting your opponent to agree and deviate fromt he book extensively then.

Anyhow, do people see any merit in this idea? Also, would anyone be willing to give comment on the points costs that I suggest?

I suppose both have there uses and elves can certainly do with an extra couple of defence, but yeah, Thranduil is the better. You have pretty much zero chance of changing points successfully though as soon as you amend one and compare it with something else, then they will need changing etc etc.

Hashut's Blessing ,

I'd be happy to comment. However, this was tried a couple of months ago, and then again abortively at about the stage I started on the forum. Possible even again before that?

It might actually work with just you steering it.

To start, I'd look at all the 125 pt heroes. When you do, Thranduil doesn't look so crazy any more....

hithero: I agree completely that everything would have to be in relation to everything else and would need to be considered within it's army's context etc, but I was mostly thinking of the things that have drastic problems (100pt unnamed casters alongside 125pt Ringwraiths for example and the cost of the Fortunes and Fates [Bane weapons are +5pts per company, but in the Fortunes and Fates are 100pts. Not even the Gorgoroth Horde can have that many!] and things like the Corsair Arbalesters). Just to try to keep things a little more... moderated and regulated, I guess

Xelee: I was planning to do it by myself and just update here with my current standings and just see if people think that it seems a bit more accurate to the appropriate costs. E.G. Corsair Arbalesters would cost more than Corsairs that are given bows, but if I made them 50pts more (I wouldn't), I'd want people to point out how horribly far off I am, lol

For the record, I think that 40pts is about fair for xbow units, given their decent armour and fight values. At the moment they make a joke of most siege weapons and all bows in terms of lethality vs cost. Isengard is the closest, Corsairs are (as we all know) laughable.

But anyway. I have no doubt that if you came up with something concrete, it would attract comment. I think it would be useful to 'show your working', especially in terms for whatever baselines you settle on for each unit type.

What you are suggesting has advantages in terms of re-costing overpriced units as well. Several armies have baseline troops which are at least 5 pts too expensive. That adds up quickly when you are talking 20-30 coy armies.

Hashut's Blessing ...

Id definatly comment/try out your point costs if they were posted

I have an elf army which at times is just destroyed by people who abuse the fact of cheap! overpowered! models lol(not that i blame them).

My biggest problem alot of the time is Ringwraiths(obv) 125pts...wth! haha

CJ

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Would you like me to describe it to you... Or would you like me to get you a box.

I think its a great idea if your willing to put in the time and effort. Im sure plenty of members would gladly comment and perhaps even playtest some. Id have to pass it by my gaming group but id be willing to playtest it whenever i can get in a game.

I think the allies rule is going to make your job much more complicated though. Things would have to be pointed based on their potential with other armies as well as their own.

Tons of point disparities throughout the game. Some more obvious than others of course.

In the case of thranduil vs. arwen, it is important to consider that these are basically unique Stormcallers. Lots of elven units get storm callers but you only have so many thranduils and arwens.

This is the same way almost across the board throughout the book. Why take an orc shaman when you can take Kardush? Why take a goblin shaman when you can take Druzhag? Why take a captain when you can take Thrydan? etc. etc. etc.

The reason, as far as my limited understanding believes, is that you can only ever have one of those particular personalities.

Is that right or wrong? Its subjective, as will any point re-calculations will ever be, by anyone.

As a subjective example, I think ghostly legions (of both good and evil varieties) are overcosted by ten(ish) points per company and spirit hosts are overcosted by 10-20(ish) points per company. The reason why I beleive this is that their special rules they rely on are so dependent on many different dice rolls going their way, so many other points spent on making these units function (wormtongue, nazgul casting dismay spells, etc), that they are hardly ever, if ever, truly effective use of such points in relation with pretty much anything in the book. Ghostly legion get captians and banners but have we stand alone. Spirit hosts do not have we stand alone, but have no access to any command options. There is quite a premium in points spent for them to be so ineffective the vast majority of the time.

But thats just me and isn't a commonly shared sentiment either. Some people see their special rules and think they are undercosted...so I just grin and bear it and continue to use such units while being out numbered by even elves.

I have to also remind myself that it is a very combination oriented type of army to play (the ghotsly variety of both good and evil) and when a proper application of points spent to directed at making it work is done, then it is quite a devastating thing. As well it should be when you are dedicating 800 points to conflict with 200 points worth of enemy.

Lots of stuff to consider and its hard to be unbiased in this approach.

For the most part I think much of the book has a pretty good pointing for everything. It seems to balance out when played against several different types of armies where they seem under and over costed depending on which army is opposite.

Does how the current points as they stand prevent you from having fun? If not, then it may be time spent wasted on the endeavor. But if it does prevent fun then I say go for it and wish good luck to you. With such a subjective task, you're going to need it.

IMO the allies rule both makes re-pointing more necessary and makes the job more straightforward. When you can literally put a model in a different army, it is pretty hard to argue that that model's abilities should only be considered in light of the 'list as a whole' that it was drawn from. To be fair, like then just should be compared to like.

From what I can see, there are a number of 'classes' of units that have been handled fairly consistently across the board and it should be pretty simple to rework the 'outliers' within those classes.

It's going to be more debatable what should be done with classes that GW has probably under-costed as a whole (Spellcasters? Crossbows?) or over-costed (Most of the less mobile 'ghosts'? Short range Artillery? )

Anyway, good luck, it's always interesting to see others' ideas about the game, when they have made the effort to develop them properly.

You have a point but what I was mainly referring to was things like the pinwheel tactic which can only be accomplished through allies. How can you develop a points cost when a unit's ability can be drastically amplified. For example, gandalf the grey and radagast together for a unit that can never be charged and can just pop off 6 spells a turn the entire game. While no one would ever take something so retarded in a fun match it can still be done and is as much a point/rules discrepancy as other units.

Another issue is basically each list has a different need. Elves need cheap heroes with high statlines to stay competitive but when other lists can just ally them it creates imbalance. Take some random hero like Haldir. High courage, high fight, 3 might and epic shot for only 75 pts. In an elf list that's a decent hero but in a rohan/gondor list he's got very high statline with good might and a very rare epic for very cheap. There is obviously much worse but he was just randomly chosen off the top of my head.

This is all in my (not so experienced) opinion of course and would obviously change once some of the points get redone.

So who wants to be brave and post modified points costs?

If no one else wants to jump into the pool I may do it myself.

I am going to start looking at evil heroes including
Ringwraiths
Druzhag
Durburz
Thrydan
Sharkey's Ruffians
Kardush
Mouth of Sauron
Gothmog
Shamans

I play Druzhag a lot, and I have to say that he is likely the most undercosted model in the game.

True, he isnt a close combat god like Durburz is (undercosted a bit as well) but given his summon beasts ability I have to say I would still happily take him if he was twice the cost.

Given how he can potentially get between 60-360 points of 'free' formations that also happen to have a pinpoint strike in deployment and function freely the same turn as summoned, (this doesnt even begin to cover his two spheres of magical control and the 3 mastery he has over them). As someone who actually plays this hero, I believe Druzhag is a lot more fair at 200 points. Possibly more points but haven't playtested any point adjustments for him and is only supposition and figured doubling his cost is a decent place to start given the evidence above.

When played well, he is a demon on the field and is quite hard to dislodge.

Durburz on the other hand... I would say he is undercosted by the same percentage as Druzhag. I would say that 150 points is not too much to ask for what he does. Especially considering that he has 4 might and his original points doesn't even cover the assumed cost of 4might to begin with (at a rate of 25 points per).

Thats my meager contribution.

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a fan of point cost systems. The value of units is dependent on the combination of units that are taken, as well as the game size. Few points systems take these factors into account, as it just becomes too cumbersome. This being said here are some ballpark points values for evil heroes.

225 Witch King
450 Khamul
150 Undying
175 Tainted
150 Dark Marshal
175 Shadow Lord
150 Dwimmerlaik
250 Betrayer
175 Knight of Umbar
125 Mouth of Sauron
100 Kardush
240 Saruman
250 Druzhag
125 Queen Beruthiel
100 Mage of Darkness
75 Mage of Dismay
50 Mage of Ruin

250 Gothmog
10 Gollum
75 Thrydan
175 Lurtz
25 Grima
150 Durburz
150 Suladan
175 Dalamyr
200 Amdur
35 Captains

In terms of magic I am mostly concerned with the spells that prevent units from fighting like Pall of Night and Transfix. Thus I think that access to the lores should be more expensive. There may even be a need to prevent spamming of these lores, by adding an additional cost for each extra wizard that is taken.

Heroes add the ability to 'at the double', as well as call heroic actions. One of the better actions, heroic fight, usually does not lead to more than an additional 4 casualties. Considering this, captains may be a bit overpriced. I am tempted to give the captains for each unit their own cost, but can't be bothered at the moment.

There has been much discussion of challenges, and lower level characters getting wrecked. The worst case scenario is that a fight 3 character goes up against a fight 10 character and that the fight 10 hero calls the duel. This creates a difference of 8. I ignore the dice rolls, as they cancel each other out. 8 rolls on the duel chart will likely kill the weaker character and cause approximately 6 hits to the unit. It sounds really bad, but it really is not that many points lost. You also have to consider that most characters with fight 10 cost a whole bunch of points, and ones who do not have fight 10 must use a point of might to call epic strike and another point of might to call a duel. Those two points of might could have been used to call two heroic fights which would likely have caused more casualties. Thus I am not inclined to lower the points costs of captains too drastically.

We should probably discuss each character in turn. Khamul is one of the worst, so I will start off with him. To put his power in perspective, if a unit he has joined fights an enemy that causes three times the number of hits as his unit, they will fight on equal ground because of his power. Further, when his unit is worn down he can jump to another unit. In my opinion he may still be underpriced at 450, it just depends whether or not he is killed in a duel.

Ninjad.

Looks like we were on the same wavelength about Durburz. His real power is his ability to give his leadership to goblin units. His might and his epic strike/cowardice make him hard to kill.

Druzhag is definitely undercosted. Given that he can summon other units, we need to assess the value of those units before properly costing him. Assuming that giant spiders are worth approximately 35 points he should be worth somewhere around 250 points given that he can make 3 d3 units worth of spiders.

Agreed.

But there is a slight snafu involved in costing Druzhag. Its dependent on many factors. Theme, rest of the army,points limit to begin with,etc as you already pointed out in the preface to your post above.

Assuming he is calling only giant spiders (and the choice is dependent on the situation as many times the added defense of wargs is better since the S increase of the spiders is negligible against certain opponents) then I think 250 would be in the ballpark. Though initially I have been thinking for quite sometime I would treble his cost and still take him without hesitation, I am going to try costing him in the200 point region to test the waters.

The same thinking could and should be applied to heros such as Khamul is has a great ability,but depending on where he is placed will show how much worth he is. I only play very thematic and 'friendly' games and when considered in such a light,I would think that 450is way outside of the ballpark.

But I could easily see him being worth that in a list that doesn't take theme into consideration and is WAAC.

Which is another reason why I beleive that recosting these things is difficult to do due to local gaming mentality.

I agree about the problems with recosting. If you make something really expensive because it can be good, it screws over people who use it in more ordinary situations. In my opinion the real reason to consider recosting is to help balance the game when people try to make waac lists. In other situations, you and your opponent may be able to agree on balanced lists to take. So if you take some undercosted stuff, you can also take some overcosted stuff as well.

I can almost understand khamul's original cost considering how overcosted harad and corsair units are. However, when you let any evil army take him, he is just over the top.

Druzhag is probably worth even more points than either of us have mentioned, as his ability to put the new unit anywhere within 12'' is really powerful. He can also be combined with the crown of carn dum to make even more beasts.

I use the crown a lot as well with him or durburz.

Potentially, its nasty but I never seem to make it two turns without frying their brains with the crown. Now that you can take a Stolen Mithril Coat from the Misty Mountains battlehost Fates, it makes the wearer of the crown unstoppable (it makes me wonder if they really thought of this combo).

I am not so certain that the crown is that great, even though it appears fabulous on paper. The 16.6% risk every time might is used to fry the Resilience 3 wearer is a lot bigger than cursory inspection would lead one to beleive. Placed on an R3 epic hero and those increased points really dont look so hot anymore.

That is of course as long as you dont use stolen mithril coat at the same time. Otherwise all bets are off.

I think all ringwraiths should be knocked up to 175 or 200. Magic is just so valuble in WotR, perhaps they should just nerf magic as a lot of the points' complaints are about this. This would be better IMO than just raising every magic-user's cost as they wouldn't be able to be used in many scenarios.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

Yikes. I didn't look at that stolen coat fate before. I hate when games start coming up with killer combos. Assuming you don't just do something stupid with your list, the game should be 75% about how you play (and how the dice treat you) and only 25% building a "killer list".

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Thanks for posting that up guys. I think a lot of those costs are high, Theskinnyhobit, and some much too low. Just IMO etc. I have tried to organise this by bands/tiers. Some things look 'good' in this game, but the opportunity cost is always more troops. Additionally, the more expensive a hero-caster, the more vulnerable to being dueled out by multiples of cheaper heros.

1. The way you have ranked Wraiths appears a little inconsistant to me. I would have said the Witchking's price was right compared to the costs of the various Istari, a standard Ringwraith is good at 150ish (compare to Radagast, Gandalf and Galadriel) and then the nasty (Betrayer, Khamul, Knight of Umbar) Ringwraiths are somewhere in the low-mid 200s. Anymore is just out of the bounds of how Epics are handled in this game and only one might for the ES is a genuine weakness when you are talking multiples of duelers to counter them.

2. Unit casters should not go below 75pts, probably 80-90 is reasonable given the potential. Dismay has transfix and Ruin has either Shatter shields (probably doubles casualties from the front) or something to nail a monster, darkness has wings of terror. 100pts was too much (except, I agree, for darkness, given the spam potential), but if it goes too much lower I'd say these would get taken all the time. They allow you to double, raise courage by one (evil is short on inspiring leader) and give an exceedingly useful spell each.

3. Durburz, just IMO but there is merit I think in a band that is 125points ish, has 4 might, a couple of abilities and Inspiring leader. Faramir would also fit right in there.

4. Druzhag, again he is like the top tier Ringwraiths. He has to be expensive, since his ability allows so much. Only mastery two though, and no 100% 'get out of duel' card. Depends on how you play Epic Cowardice, looks to me like it is "at start of phase", so goes in a queue, and thus is 50%? Would have him at 175 pts -comparable to the Istari.

5. On the minors: IMO Captains are worth it for their points. The only bad thing about them is that they are not good in cav IMO, for reasons of duels/combat resolution. Banners should be 15pt for inf and 25pt for cav. Hornblowers, not below 10pts IMO.

This is suggestive that a Gondor list might be helpful?

I think that Hashut blessing's intention was to post his own list and get feedback though.

(edit) If anything, I think Amdur is currently over-costed btw. He is similar to the heroes I think are in the 125 pt band, but has the excellent and dangerous combination of Epic Duel and Epic Strike. On the other hand, still only three might. That tends to fatally cripple him IME. One big hit in terms of a fight between formations, a duel and then some other modified roll, and he is done. I think 150pts is more like it for him.