So the ball is rolling and it seems most people are getting ready for Ard Boyz. Looking back at the missions from last year, it seems kill points were either the primary objective or the secondary modifier to victories. How many kill points is you're list going to have?
As a Tyranid player, I know that kill points can be a struggle for some armies. I know I had a game that was something like 28 to 5 in kill points. I was recycling my gaunts with the "with out numbers" rules from last codex. Objectives gave you the win, and kill points made it a major victory instead of a minor. I was fighting for a draw so to me the kill points didn't matter.
Tyranids are not the only codex that have weak infantry and a difficulty in protecting them. That is why I always try and keep KP in mind when I build a list. Now some people will say that KP are only 1/3 of the games so don't worry about it that much. Well that 1/3 I might as well just scoop on if I don't think ahead about my KPs. And that is only normal games, while most tournaments seem to have variations where KP creep in to be more important.
I remember when 5th edition came around I read some where, "Kill points, I wonder who came up with this stupid idea. Oh look, a new Space marine codex." And it was true for the most part. Of course the army with the most survivable troops would do ok in KP games, where armies with purposefully sacrificial units would have a difficult time. It seemed half of the 4th edition codex were glass hammers, and shattered when they hit mech to boot.
The new codex does a better job at handling this, and I'd like to think that the extra wounds many units got were because of this. We still have glass hammers, but now we have better ways of keeping them alive and minimizing the effect of them.
Back to Ard Boyz. So at the 2,500 point level, what is the average number of KP in an army? If you are making a list, what are sitting at KP wise? My core units (ones I know I need/have to take) make up about 12KP. I want to add more units, but I'm wondering how many more I should add.
Thoughts?
My Loganwing I'm taking has 17 KPs (14 if the Lone Wolves die). I don't sweat it too much though, I can play through KPs.
ReplyDeleteYou just have to use TicTacs to minimise the impact having 'too many' causes.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is less how many units you have, but more what you do with them to mitigate poor scenario design. :)
At 2500, most of my lists come in around 24 KP, which isn't bad really.
ReplyDeleteI have put together a IG list with only 19 kill points.
ReplyDeleteThere is a such thing as too few kill points. Too much KP optimization can be just as bad as too little.
ReplyDeleteTournaments that favor kill points,I think, favor 4e armies.
ReplyDeleteThe new codex's tend to lead towards more kill points. Units and transports are cheaper, and troops can be generated or spit apart for more scoring units. Older codex's tend to minimize troops taken, do to their general lack of utility vs the other Force Org options. You can build a troop focused 5e codex army and still have a solid army, but think about an eldar, ork, or tau army that spent 80% of points on troops. Those armies would defiantly be missing some vital anti-tank or long range firepower that the new codexs can manage to put in their troops slots.
So a 4e army built with the troop options needed to win objective games is going to be less efficient than an a 5e army to do the same.
Build a tournament around kill points and you remove a major 4e army disadvantage. This would also apply to any list from a 5e codex that is still built with a 4e mindset.
I think sisters are an exception to this because their codex favors MSU, and end up looking similar to 5e marine list built under that approach.
Besides that any system that counts 35 pts equal to 250 pts in determining victory is inherently broken.
The more I think about it and the more I am able to take out mech, I worry less about KP. KP actually equalizes mech a little bit. But I agree, KP in general is a flawed system. We'll see how things go.
ReplyDeleteMy Chaos comes in at 13KP at 2500pts, sounds like a good number for a crusade....
ReplyDeleteFor harder lists I run all cult troops, fearless is just too important to mess around with. While this makes my overall model count lower what is left is a lot more reliable.