Warhammer: Age of Sigmar point systems

Introduction

This will be a page dedicated to all the different ways of balancing games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

Games Workshop

Don´t be an asshole. Bring whatever you like and make a gentlemans agreement on what you and your opponent will bring.

Pros

You can fairly quickly figure out who among your gaming friends are assholes.

Cons

• It is hard to know if your opponent is a douche if you have never met him before, some wargamers only ever see each other once, so you might spend a lot of games playing against random assholes.

• Some people might just be bad at math and balancing.

Wounds

You agree on a wound limit for a battle and then bring as many wounds as agreed.

Pros

• Simple.

Cons

• Extremely ineffective, a children patch on a head that has been cut off. Still requires heavy "don´t be an asshole", might even be worse because it assumes that balance can be created this way.

Old Warhammer Fantasy Points

Just issue a points limit and make an army as in ye olden days of a couple of weeks ago.

Pros

• All the points are right there
• Units still maintain roughly the same hierarchy of power, the units that are powerful now were most likely also powerful in WHFB.

Cons

• Not actually balanced.

Steve from Miniwargaming

Wounds*attacks*bravery

• 2 if monster or war machine.

Pros

It´s super simple and very fast to calculate.

Cons

The point system does not account for: move, save, range, to hit, to wound, rend, damage, special rules. Making some units which are actually far apart in strength, like Lizardmen Saurus Warriors and Lizardmen Skinks cost the same even though the former is far stronger than the latter.

offense + defense * bravery / 5

The point calculation system I came up with goes like this: [(defense+offense)*bravery]/5 If the unit is a hero, monster or warmachine multiply the result by 2.

Defense is calculated like this: wounds * save value The save value is based on the chance to actually get a save, from 1 to 6.

• Offense is calculated like this:
• [(average + rend) * damage] * attacks
• The average is between to hit and to wound, again based on the chance from 1 to 6.
• Rend is just the rend value, but positive (so -1 is a 1, -2 is a 2, etc.)
• If a value is D3, D6, etc. you take the average result and round it up (so D6 attacks = 4)

---

All right, so now lets take an empire state troop as an example and see how this works in practice:

The state troop has 1 wound and a 5+ save (chance 2/6 to save). The state troop's sword has 1 attack, 4+ to hit and 4+ to wound (average 3/6), 0 rend and 1 damage. The state troop has 5 bravery.

State troop's defense: 2*1 = 2 State troop's offense: [(3+0)*1]*1 = 3 State troop's point cost: [(2+3)*5]/5 = 5

So after all of this calculation we know that the state troop is worth 5pts.

Pros

• We now accomodate for to hit, to wound, rend and damage.

Cons

• Dividing by 5 makes no sense, while anon might have good intentions, his mathematical literacy is doubtful.The final value is divided by 5 to give point values which are roughly equivalent to 8th edition, making it easier to visualize what a 500pts, 1000pts, 1500pts, etc. game looks like.
• Bravery has an argueably huge impact
• With the precision of the system comes also extra time consumption.

The Angry Points System=

Buckle your seat belts because this is quite complicated.

Points cost = toughness * damage * 10 * movement modifier + bravery/10 + special rules

Always use any positive modifier a unit might be able to get, for example dark elf dreadspears can reroll saving throws of 1 against shooting and saving throws of 1 and 2 against close combat attacks. For the purpose of point cost, assume they always get this bonus. Similarly lizardmen temple guard gain +1 save, for a total of 3+ while within 8” of a character, for the purpose of points cost we assume temple guard always get this bonus.This also goes for bonuses units get when their unit numbers a certain amount of models.

Toughness = number of wounds required to destroy the model

Normally toughness = wounds * 6 / (save - 1)

For example skinks have 1 wound and a 6+ save so

toughness (skink) = 1 * 6 / (6 - 1)= 6 / 5 = 1.2

Units with re-rolls should use this following more complicated formula

toughness with rerolls = wounds * 36 / (6 * (save - 1) - (7 - save) * saving throw numbers you can reroll)

for example dreadspears have a 5+ save but can also reroll saving throws of 1 and 2. So there are 2 saving throw numbers you can reroll

toughness (dreadspear) = 1 * 36 / (6 * (5 - 1) - (7 - 5) * 2) = 36 / (6 * (4 - 2 * 2) = 36 / (6 * 4 - 4) = 36 / (24 - 4) = 36 / 20 = 1,8

Damage = total attack damage. Attack damage is the amount of wounds each attack a model has averagely does.

attack damage = attacks * (7-to hit) / 6 * (7-to wound) / 6

• 0,5 if missile weapon with range below 16”

• 1,5 if missile weapon with range above 16”

Ignore the following if the model is in a unit of 1

• 0,5 if melee weapon with range 1” and the model is on a 25mm or larger base

• 1,3 if melee weapon with range 1” and the model is on a 20mm base

• 1,3 if melee weapon with range of 2” or more and the model is on a 25mm or larger base

• 1,5 if melee weapon with range of 2” or more and the model is on a 20mm base

Movement modifier = 0,9 if move under 5

Movement modifier = 1 if move = 5

Movement modifier = 1,1 if move = 6

Movement modifier = 1,3 if move = 7-9

Movement modifier = 1,4 if move = 10

Movement modifier = 1,5 if move = 11+

Special rules: It is impossible to make a generic system for all special rules since they are so varied and do so many different things, you are on your own. Just try to point it as fair as possible, a good pointer would be, how would you feel if someone brought only copies of this unit against you? Once you are at a point level where you wouldn´t mind, you are good.

Lizardmen Skink w. meteoric javelin (missile and melee) and star bucklers (special rule)

toughness = 1 * 6 / (6 - 1) = 6 / 5 = 1.2

attack damage (javelin - range 8 missile) = 1 * (7-3) / 6 * (7-4) / 6 * 0,5 = 0,166

attack damage (javelin - range 1 melee 20mm base) = 1 * (7-6) / 6 * (7-5) / 6 * 1,3 = 0,0722

damage = 0,166 + 0,072 = 0,238

movement modifier (move 8) = 1,3

Points cost = 1.2 * 0,238 * 10 * 1,3 + 10/10 = 4,7128

skinks have a three special rules

celestial cohort which gives them +2 to hit with their missile weapons when they number 30 or more models or +1 if they are between 20 and 30, this has been included in the attack damage for (javelin - range 8 missile)

Star-buckler which makes them ignore rend -1, rend -2 works as normal. This is a rather small rule since their save is only a 6+ anyways.

Wary fighters which allows them to withdraw 8 inches instead of attacking in close combat. This will usually serve very little purpose, the game is all about grinding out the opponent anyways. It allows you to focus one enemy unit and leave another one behind.

The final price for a skink is 5 points. You could argue that since celestial cohort will come into play very little the unit should be priced at 4,5. This is where math falls short and you have to use your reasoning to achieve a fair price. Would you mind playing against an army of 4,5 point skinks?

Pros

• Features in everything on the warscroll.

Cons

• Takes a lot longer to figure out

Random anon's Wounds and potential damage (WAP'd) system

Points of a model = wounds + (attacks * damage for each weapon). For calculating this D3 counts as 2, D6 counts as 4, monsters count as having full starter wounds. Heroes, priests and wizards all get their points costs doubled.

Pros

• Simple, slightly more effective than base wounds but still very quick to calculate. Takes account of the total damage stuff can throw out which looks to be an important metric in AoS, and as a result also means ranged units and monsters will cost more due to their extra weapons.

Cons

• Doesn't fully account for resilience (no consideration of saves or bravery) or different special rules, including varying effectiveness of magic. Will still require some amount of "don't be a dick".

Another Random anon's Points system

Points = trunc (Wounds x [Expected Damage + Toughness]) + Bravery + Move + (25 x [Wizard Spells])

Basically the idea here is to try and capture the overall effectiveness of a unit in terms of doing damage, staying alive, staying on the board, and generally doing stuff on the board.

Wounds are a model's REAL wounds, not Warscroll Wounds. Tyrion, for example, gets to dust himself up off the ground when slain the first time on a 2+, and come back with full health 6 wounds. Thus he has 11 real wounds, not 6 (6 + 6(0.83) = 11).

Damage is simply the mathematical average of all expected damage for every weapon (ranged and melee). Each point of Rend increases expected wounds done by 16.67%, and vice versa, each point of Rend ignored increases wounds avoided by 16.67%. This could be proven with math but I think it is pretty obvious why this is true.

The model's "Toughness" is 7 - True Save Value (model's with no save at all just count as 0). A model's true save value starts with its Save, but takes into account its ability to avoid Wounds, including mortal wounds. So a 4+ save that rerolls all failed saves, for example, is mathematically as good as a 2.5+ save, so that model's Save Value would be 7 - 2.5 = 4.5.

Add flat modifiers for bravery, move distance.

A Wizard that can cast/unbind two spells costs 50 points base before anything else. A model that could cast/unbind three spells would be 75 points base before anything else. This is because spells can have enormous impacts on the game. If the model can't cast/unbind anything, ignore this modifier.

Pros

• Takes into account most statistics/elements of the model, seems reasonably accurate

Cons

• Takes a lot longer to figure out
• A lot of math involving taking a close look at each model's rules, paying attention to things that increase damage out/reduce damage in
• Cannot account for dealing with mortal wounds. Mortal wounds are treated the same as any regular wounds but are worth, comparatively, much more against better saves (you'd have to do 3x as many normal wounds against a 3+ save to equal 1 mortal wound). Thus models that can inflict mortal wounds would be undervalued, perhaps significantly so, depending on the armor values of the opponent that model is attacking (a mortal wound against a - save or 6+ save is basically identical to a regular wound).
• Why 25 points per spell level? Totally arbitrary, chosen because that's what going from ML1 to ML2 costs for a Space Marine Librarian. Just playing around with numbers, it "feels" right, but there's no logic to it.