Building an Argument for Balance Part 3: Exploring the Arbitrary System

So, last time I posted about this topic, I had created a system for arbitrarily assigning point values to units in a Codex in an effort to empirically examine units to discover if balance exists.

To recap, why are we doing this? The answer to this is simple. We can argue till we are blue in the face about our opinions as to why things are or are not balanced, but none of those arguments will have empirical results capable of being reproduced behind them (i.e. actual evidence). So instead of approaching this conversation from a "but I knowz DA IGz da bestest cuz my BFF tablez me every thyme we playez", it should make a lot more sense to spend energy developing a system that we can approach from a measurable stand point. Then, we can expend our energy arguing the system into an acceptable state rather than spinning in circles. If we build our system correctly, eventually, point gaps will exist which show clear distinctions, provided there actually are any which we don't know for a fact, which will hopefully overcome the invariable "nit picking" that will be associated with it.

So, last time I came up with a system which contained very little thought which allows us to make actual measurements and can be reproduced. What we need to do next is start arguing the validity of it (the subjective piece in all this). An boy howdy are there a lot of problems with that system!

Before I get started, I went ahead and used that points system to break down several troop choices across a few codices just to see what the system produced. Here are the results: (note that I am not including all calculations because it would be far to long, just the results)

Space Marines Troops Analysis:

Tactical Squad
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 12 Points
Assaults: 0 Points
Saves: 4 Points
Stats: 3 Points
Special Rules: 8 Points
Total Points: 28

Scout Squad
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 15 Points
Assaults: 0 Points
Armor: 2 Points
Stats: 1 Point
Special Rules: 11 Points
Total: 30 Points

Space Marine Troops Average Score: 29

Space Wolves Troop Analysis:

Grey Hunters:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 37 Points
Assaults: 2 Points
Armor: 4 Points
Stats: 3 Points
Special Rules: 8 Points
Total: 55

Blood Claws
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 32 Points
Assaults: 3 Points
Armor: 3 Points
Stats: 1 Point
Special Rules: 10 Points
Total: 50

Space Wolves Troops Average Score: 50

Necron Troop Analysis:

Warriors:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 9 Points
Assaults: 0 Points
Armor: 4 Points
Stats: 3 Points
Special Rules: 2 Points
Total: 19 Points

Necrons Troop Average Score: 19 Points

Chaos Space Marines Troop Analysis:

Chaos Space Marine:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 37 Points
Assaults: 5 Points
Armor: 4 Points
Stats: 3 Points
Special Rules: 0 Points
Total: 50 Points

Khorne Berserker:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 0 Points
Assaults: 13 Points
Armor: 3 Points
Stats: 5 Points
Special Rules: 4 Points
Total: 26 Points

Noise Marines:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 1 Point
Assaults: 0 Points
Armor: 3 Points
Stats: 5 Points
Special Rules: 1 Point
Total: 11 Points

Plague Marines:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 34 Points
Assaults: 0 Points
Stats: 5 Points
Armor: 3 Points
Special Rules: 4 Points
Total: 47 Points

Thousand Sons:
Movement: 0 Points
Shooting: 0 Points
Assaults: 0 Points
Armor: 6 Points
Stats: 2 Points
Special Rules: 3 Points
Total: 11 Points

Summoned Daemons:
Movement: 1 Point
Shooting: 0 Points
Assaults: 1 Point
Armor: 1 Point
Stats: 2 Points
Special Rules: 5 Points
Total: 10 Points

CSM Troops Average: 26

Average of all Codices: 31 Points
Standard Deviation of All units: 16 Points

This post is long enough as is, but here are some things to chew on while you look at this analysis. Remember, the goal here is to point out areas of glaring error so they can be corrected.

1) Necrons, Space Marines, and Chaos Space Marines are all within 1 Standard Deviation of each other. Space Wolves are not. Will this change if we included troop choices from other Dexs? I think so! Necrons will likely fall outside of 1 standard deviation (maybe even 2) and Space Wolves will likely be 2-3 standard deviations out as well. Standard Deviation is a good way to detect outliers. In our case, analysis of units that fall within a single standard deviation are "close to each other" where those outside of that are likely less balanced.

2) It would appear that, overall, there is a problem in the shooting category as some units get very high scores there and other get very little. The cause of this is their ability to obtain cheap melta guns or combi-meltas in amounts of 2-3, and they are picking up points for killing or damaging vehicles since we have no range restrictions in our calculations. Likewise, it would also appear that we may not be giving enough credit for killing Infantry, as can be evidenced by Thousand Sons getting no points in shooting despite having AP 3 bolters.

3) We may not be assigning enough points for the assault phase. There are many problems here not the least of which is no calculation about sweeping advance potential, causing morale checks, fearless wounds, etc. We all know that the Assault Phase is generally more "killy" than the shooting phase, but this is not necessarily represented well. Only Khorne Berserkers score any significant amount, and the points earned do not balance with shooting potential. Should they balance? I'm not sure on that at the moment considering that most people "prefer" the shooting phase.

4) Noise Marines and 1K Sons are certainly outliers. Our system does not appear to be appealing to any of their strengths. The only other alternative is that they do not have very many significant strengths. Which is it? What is the system missing?

5) Wolves got VERY high scores, but this is because they dominated the shooting category due to multiple meltas + combi-meltas being able to kill vehicles.

There's more, but I will analyze further later!