Warhammer Community posted about the new power level and points system today. Except that the point system hasn't changed, so what's new is probably the power level!
What happens is that, instead of spending so much time calculating, adding up points, struggling to stay within, say, 2,000 points and weighing which upgrades, weapons or whatever to take, we can now put together roughly equal forces to fight. Not like, "oi! You have 1,999 points, I have 2,000 points exactly!" because of wargear and upgrade options, and no more "rawr! Free wargear and upgrades because of your stupid overpowered Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation!" issues. But "hey, we roughly have about 500 power levels each! Yay!" kind of thing. Doesn't matter if we have 501 or 499, I think. If they're reoughly equal then it shouldn't make much of a difference.
If it does make a difference, then you can go for the new mission objectives in open play or narrative! For example, we have a new ambush mission which allows the attacker to bring more forces than the defender's! This will allow people like me, who essentially has 3 armies (Imperial Guard, Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus) to field all my armies against my opponent who has a smaller army. I can basically field, say, a 1,500-power level army with all my dudes, against a 500-power level army of, maybe Space Marines, whose objective is not to present an equal fight, but to escape. Of course, to make it balance, my objective would be to table my opponent, and if he has even one model surviving by the end of, maybe turn 3 (or 5, depending), he wins. No matter what. Or he has to fall back to within 12" of the table by turn 3 for evacuation dropships and stuff to arrive. It all depends on how you want to play, and allows people with big armies like me to play against people with small armies without worrying over "what should I include, what should I not include?"
I mean, I'm always troubled over having such a big army - I want to field all my tanks and Imperial Knights, and even a few Skitarii forces, but my opponents simply don't have as many miniatures and forces as I do. This new open play or narrative matchups will allow both of us to have fun - I can field my much bigger army without worrying over who to exclude. I can finally bring all my Knights into play! YAY!
On the other hand, Games Workshop brings up a good point. Points are here to stay for matched play, basically the competitive aspect of the game. While power levels can't be bothered with wargear and upgrade options (all the more power to them!), matched play makes it a point to have points. Each wargear and upgrade option will cost extra points, and it seems very similar to the current point system we have now. Apparently, a tactical squad of Space Marines will still cost similiar in point total to what they would cost today.
Games Workshop promises faster play times for games in 8th Edition, so 2,000-point games will only take a couple of hours now instead of the usual 3 or 4 hours I spend. Yay, I guess?
Warhammer Community also brings up a good point about summoning. It seems that the summoning mechanic has changed now. Thanks to our points being capped in matched play, we can no longer summon an infinite number of Horrors or whatever it is that you summon (I'm sorry, I don't play Daemons and I haven't played against Daemons before either so I have no idea what's with this). You need to set aside a set number of points for summoning, apparently, so no more ad infinitum Horrors coming onboard the table and summoning even more Horrors. On the other hand, you can keep summoning flexible, so if you need to summon say, Exalted Flamers instead of Horrors, you can certainly do so. Basically, you don't have to stipulate what summoning units you will be using those set-aside points for, you can just say, I've set aside 500 points for summoning, then you can summon whatever you want as long as the total points cost of your summoned units are within that 500 points.
Warhammer Community also mentions that summoning will be an alternative deployment type, like Deep Strike or Outflank, so I'll look forward to seeing what they will bring to the table someday. Hmm. This seems pretty cool. I can't wait! I can see fielding a Thousand Sons army now, with Sorcerers dominating it, and then putting aside 25% of my points for Daemons. Cool.
Points will not be inlcuded in the datasheet, which will instead focus on wargear options and weapons. Instead, you can find points elsewhere in the book! Apparently the reasoning is for balance. If there are balance issues, points problems and so on in future, Games Workshop can address those issues and adjust the points total accordingly without needing to invalidate the whole book. So we can refer to a new couple of pages of points (I'm guessing something similar to the General's Handbook) instead of needing to buy an entirely new book (I'm looking at you, Codex).
That's all for today, and apparently Warhammer Community promises to give us new background tomorrow, so I can't wait! For the Emperor!
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