Just a question as to what are the most and least points efficient options in the game.

Overcosted:
Upgrades/Equipment: Anduril, at close to double what it probably should be. In the best case, it's +2 to wound with no second roll, which is worth ~40 points at best. Balin (Gimli relative, not thorin's company), has the option for Durin's Axe at 4 goblins, which gives +1 to wound and the banner reroll effect. Given that in most cases, the additional +1 will be irrelevant, and with no banner re-roll on Anduril, it's hard to justify it at nearly four times the cost. Valuing the +1 to wound at 15 points for a 3 attack model, and the additional +1/no rolls after the first should be at a similar value.

Heroes: the Balrog. There are almost no situations where it will be able to make its points back during a game, and with no might, odds are that it will die vs an equal points value of standard troops (assuming full surround and spears or multiple attacks).

Warriors: Mirkwood Palace Guard are probably the least points efficient.

Undercosted:
Upgrade/Equipment: Mounts/armor for expensive combat heroes; Elven cloaks for expensive, non-combat heroes.

Heroes: The new Thranduil: 4+ attacks, elven cloak, reasonable defense, and fight 7. I can't see him ever not being worth the points. See a lot of hype about the new Legolas, but imo Thranduil is significantly better. The new Legolas is +1 fight, +1 attack, and + Orcrist from the old profile for 6 goblins more, without the option for an elven cloak. You could take Thranduil, +1 defense, Bladelord (value at ~2 goblins), +1 wound (~2 goblins), +1 will and an elven cloak (but no Orcrist or bow/deadly shot) for 1 goblin more. That means the bow + deadly shot, + Orcrist are being valued at ~7 goblins.

Warriors: Watchers of Karna.

Firstly a few "housekeeping points"
Idk where you're getting Durin's axe as costing 4 Goblins, no piece of equipment in the game costs 4 goblins. Durin's axe is only 2 Moria Goblins with shield. And the +1 to wound, is never irrelevant it greatly increases your odds of a wound.



It is the same Balin, the old profile is just the pre-Hobbit take on the character, as opposed to the new being based upon PJ's interpretation of the character.

That all having been said, I very much agree that the Balrog is drastically over-costed and in need of a major profile over-haul, Watchers of Karna are a little under-costed but this only becomes an issue when people spam them.

The model that is the most supremely under-costed is the Ghan-buri-gan's Wildmen, they should be double their points cost because of all their special equipment, elven cloak, woodland creature, hate orc-folk, blow-pipes, spears, all that should make them around 13-14 points. Of course if they were that points heavy no one would use them.

I agree as well that the new Thranduil is OP, but that's more for book-keeping reasons than anything. I don't like the fact that BOTFA heroes are so much more powerful than many of their LOTR counter-parts,when lore-wise (meaning the books) it doesn't fit. I do actually have more of a problem with the new Leggy than Thranduil as you've removed Legolas' weaknesses with the new profile. He still can dominate you at range with his 3 shots per turn and now with Orcrist (an amazing weapon), F7, and 3 Attacks, he'll beat you just as badly in CQC. In-short he's overly dominant at every area of combat now.

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The main issue with such comparisons of profiles is that you first have to know what the 'correct' cost of an upgrade is, which you can only get from, well, looking at those same profiles.

-Various ugprades in stats don't happen in isolation, so an Elf gets +X Fight, +Y Courage and Woodland Creature for +Z points compared to a human, but how many points each extra is worth isn't clarified by that (basic algebra: with just the formula 2X+2Y+Z=2, the values of X, Y or Z cannot be determined).

-It could be argued that the available upgrades (Westfold Redshield, Iron Hills veteran, etc.) are an easy way to find the values, but those are pretty incosistent and not unimportantly, always have to be discrete numbers (even though that +1 Fight should actually be valued at 0.5pt, for example).

-Then there is the issue that some boosts, combined with others, are worth more than either seperately (e.g. a higher Fight is a greater boon to a figure with >1 attack), or the reverse (the aforementioned Woses are still 1 Wound, Defence 3 models, so paying full costs for all upgrades would be madness, as they don't make up for existing weaknesses).

-Finally, and probably the most important problem, is that you risk picking an unbalanced figure to base your 'correct' costs on, which will result in all other figures being considered over- or underpriced by comparison.


The latest (and first, and currently only) magazine of SBG has an article looking at just this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569
It isn't fully explained how certain values were reached, but aforementioned issues quickly arise. Yes, some figures may pay +1 point for +1 Courage, but is that a fair cost? If so, Elves are underpriced. But what if the Elf pays the right cost? Then the first figure, paying a full point for the upgrade, is overpriced. Who is to say the correct cost of an additional attack is 1 point? For house rules or general musings, I never considered an extra attack to be that cheap. Some figures may only effectively pay 1 point, but others spend 4. Which is the right cost?

Can't help but laugh when reading this. The entire point of an, err, points value is to provide a fair value to the figure. If a model is strong, the points cost should represent that. Of course, a figure being 3 points too cheap is less noticable if there are 4 in the army (basically giving 12 extra points to spend) than if there are 30 (a discount of 90 points), that doesn't make the issue less true. In the absence of limits on allies, a percentage of elite troops and other such mechanisms, the points cost is the main balancing aspect in the system, and players should not have to rely on 'kind' opponents to be able to play a nice game. If incorrect costs unbalance the game, that is the game designer's fault, not that of the players. Filling your 500 available points with whatever figures you happen to like or own is not a loophole exploited by some vile player, it is the most basic aspect of many games.

GBHL Tom wrote an article in SBG which looked at the 5 most overcosted & undercosted units. Woses are actually the most undercosted unit by about 7 points.

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Yeah but he did followup that statement by saying you cannot estimate the value of a model just by counting stats. It is alot more complicated than that

My bad. It was 4 goblins in the old Kha'zad'Dum book.
As for the +1 to wound, that was referring to the additional +1 from Anduril on top of the base +1 vs something defense 7-8. It is less valuable than the initial +1 because it is rarely going to come into effect, and when it does, it is the less valuable of the two. Vs something defense 9-10, it is more valuable, but those situations would be so rare that it isn't worth as much. At 4 goblins, Durin's Axe was good. When you could take it, you would. I was comparing the cost of Anduril at that value, because that value was a fair cost for it (and I had forgotten the current book).


That second part is the point. The "on-paper" cost of something doesn't matter if it would never be taken at that cost. The actual value of it in game is what is relevant. Are elven cloaks actually worth 5 points on basic troops? Probably not. I would pay 3, (at most 4 points, but probably not) for them on elf archers, but never 5. For the Woses, the value is even less, probably closer to 2 points.

"So, on paper at least, I was able to determine the most under-pointed models in the game. Whilst some will be obvious to experienced tournament gamers, others may come as a surprise."
I read it, but they used a set value of assigned points/stat, which, by their own admission could be inaccurate in terms of actual performance per points value. The metric that they used does not represent actual in-game performance, and even in the GW metric they use for assigning basic points costs, additional attacks are generally valued at more than 1 point, while they tend to ignore any base courage increase to above 3 and any increase in shoot value on regular troops (they don't ignore them for unit upgrades though).

The Woses were the most undercosted on paper because they have the elven cloak effect, which is not worth the 5 points it was valued at for a model with a 12" range blowpipe and f/s/d 3. An elven cloak on a model with a 24" range is significantly more valuable, but even then is hard to argue at that points cost. Taking this into account, the Woses are only undercosted by ~3-4 points in terms of actual play because of the low stats on their profile, and they are not as effective for the points as something like Watchers of Karna unless they are fighting an Orc/Goblin/Uruk-hai only army. Woses are on-par with Watchers in terms of cost vs effectiveness, but because Watchers of Karna are always effectively under-costed, whereas Woses are not, Watchers of Karna should take it imo.

Watchers of Karna have an additional attack (worth ~3-4 points), Poison, Resistant to Magic, and Steely Nerve over a Gondor Ranger. Valuing the 3 special rules at 2 points total would mean Watchers of Karna are getting an additional attack for free, when it is the most valuable stat to increase.
Even without the special rules, Watchers of Karna would be one of the better profiles for the points in the game. In addition, the bow on a model with a 3+ shoot and poison is more valuable than a bow on a model with a 4+ shoot or no poison. (As opposed to the shoot value itself holding the value, because it doesn't. Fight always holds a value; shoot doesn't, so the weapon that enables the shoot value should be valued based on it.)

Moria is the only force that can effectively take such huge monsters and still be able to keep their numbers. there so cheap and effective i used the balrog many times and my opponents despised me from using it. hell i once got banned in a campaign from using it since no one in my area once killed it. and i haven't lost a match with it yet because how i used it. with its high strength and hurl has the potential of eliminating the most troops in one throw (vsing men str 3 highest 9") either killing them all of them models or knocking them down allowing your goblins getting double the wound die.

From experience......hobbit archers are absolutely under costed. I used them with their 3+ to shoot and they killed massive amounts of Hunter Orcs and also ruined the plans of many knights of Dol Amroth.....all for the cost of a goblin with no gear.

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I think one thing often overlooked in "overcost/undercost" arguments, is what it brings to the factions.
Let's look at two factions that I play often for examples.

Firstly Dwarf Long Bows are 3 points but have the exact stats of a human bow which is only on1 point. Therefore purely by comparison they're 2 points too much. But what do they do? They allow the dwarves to match an opponents range, which was a faction weakness.

In addition "watchers are under-costed" gets old to me lol. I'm sure in tournament abuse they are, but playing the game as it was intended at the time removes much if not all the "problem" as units like the Mahud are over-priced again because of faction strengths and weaknesses

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I get what youre saying but that would take each individual player making a perfectly themed or balanced army on purpose.

For example I take Harad, and I use a lot of elites. Ill for example make an army of Chieftans, a warband of watchers, 1 of half trolls, and all spearmen and bowmen.

Some would not like to play against it. But I do have weak d almost all around and pay for everything Im using.

And yeah the dwarf bows have always seemed insane to me. I prefer to use the dwarves ground and pound mentality anyway.....and the price of bows def makes me never value rangers. The whole scoring system can be weird though.


For another example Gothmog. I think hes absolutely over costed. For a price of like what 30-40 points less you can get shagrat who has less movement and no master of battle rule. In some games, Gothmog can be rendered useless.......in terms of an all hero battle though, hed be worth every point......its just perspective.

I think a topic like this is just like a general idea not super specific.

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