Dynamic Points – An approach to Change

martin turner

With Battlefronts Christmas video we got the interesting news that they were going to introduce the concept of Dynamic Points. This will be as Peter explained a trial using Forces of War for looking at introducing optional changes in the Mid War period. This went live at Christmas and feedback is being collected during January. Today – Martin provides his take on all this.

Now points are always a tricky topic, and it’s very easy to complain about pointing, but it’s much harder to understand the repercussions making changes will have on the game overall. So, whilst for some the changes won’t be radical enough immediately, a cautious approach with time to assess the impacts feels a thought through approach to this thorny subject and Battlefront should be congratulated on being brave enough to take this step, listening to the community and takInG steps to start this journey.

To avoid repeating all the text the full Battlefront information and feedback link can be found here

The online community has been particularly vocal on the subject of Mid War points balance in particular and we have written about this here on the blog previously, so starting there looks like a sensible idea. It is the most mature theatre in the game currently and all of the material has been in the public arena for some time, we even have the theatre compilation books release in mid 2022. Battlefronts approach looks to be cautious just looking at Tank and Support platoons initially so there is plenty of scope for future adjustments to include the PBI.

Altering points has a number of consequences. not only will it alter the likelihood, or not, of units being chosen but there are the knock on effects on printed books and unit cards. By introducing any changes as optional and through the online platform Battlefront have come up with a novel solution to appease both those who are happy to use the books as they are and those, more often than not playing in a competitive environment, who have been pushing for changes. They have also produced a pdf detailing the changes for those who don’t use Forces of War making this accessible to all. At least for now they have pushed the issues around books and card and the considerable expense changing them brings a long way down the road.

Since the release, not unsurprisingly, there has been a lot of discussion amongst the writers here at BtA about them with assorted degrees of head scratching, shouting, sulking and even some laughter. We’ve spent a bit of time analysing the impact on our existing Mid War Armies and what the changes mean on a general level. I have rather daftly decided to put down what units I see as the winners and losers if you choose to use the Dynamic Points at the end of this article.

I’m going to start with a fairly general remark that the changes won’t make huge differences to the numbers of models and they wont stop some of the more common lists being used. As a general rule of thumb based on my own lists if you are building a medium tank formation focussed force such as Panzer IIIs, T-34’s or Sherman’s (British or American) you will get enough points from the changes to add an extra thjree medium tanks of your chosen nation, enough for an extra tank in each platoon or one extra formation platoon. It’s not a lot but it will make a difference to how your army performs on the table, making your formation just that bit more resilient or filling a capability gap.
If you are used to relying on Tank Hunters such as the Marder supporting your infantry formation then you are likely to lose a platoon’s worth of points and will have a slightly smaller force overall. The other notable change is that Self Propelled Artillery has got a little cheaper and in most nations now is cheaper than the equivalent static gun troop with the same gun, queue howling from the Hobby Hipster!

I’m going to conclude this article with my take on the winners and looser from the Dynamic Points launch

  • Winners
    • German – Easter Front – Flame Panzer Platoons and HS 129 Battle Flight
    • Finnish – BT-42 Assault Gun Platoon
    • Hungarian – Zrinyi Assault Gun Company
    • Romanian – T-4 Tank Platoon
    • Italian – Semovente (Long) SP Battery
    • American – M4 Sherman Tank Company and M7 Priest Artillery Battery
    • British – Sherman Armoured Squadron HQ and Sherman Armoured Troop
    • Soviets – KV-8 Flame Tank platoon and SU-122 Medium SP Battery
  • Losers
    • German – Any Marder Tank-Hunter platoon and Ferdinand (8.8cm) Tank-Hunter Platoon
    • Finnish – All Artillery – 76mm, 105mm and 122mm
    • Hungarian No losers
    • Romanian – Tacam T-60 Anti-Tank Platoon
    • Italian – No significant losers
    • American – No losers
    • British – No losers
    • Soviet – SU-76 Light SP Battery

9 thoughts on “Dynamic Points – An approach to Change”

  1. I disagree about competitors being the only ones concerned about point costs. I never play in tournaments but I always thought there were a lot of problems with the MW points.

    AFAIK, everyone thought the German Marder was grossly undercosted. As a player of both British and Germans in MW I always thought that medium tanks were all overcosted. I’m glad to see both issues addressed in this update (although I remain puzzled and annoyed that the British Grant was ignored in the general point redution of every other MW medium tank.)

    1. I was actually surprised to see my MW US force get cheaper. We have played a number of events using community created points and under those the force gets more expensive.

      I always felt that the US Lee was priced about right but BF have decided otherwise even if only slightly. Presumably the hit on a 4+ of the British Grants was enough to keep them at their original point value.

      1. Hi Hammy,

        Thanks for the comment.

        Have to say I was equally surprised at the amendment of the Lee, can’t comment on the Grant or the reasoning. I have no more insight than you on the thinking behind all the changes.

  2. Hi Michael,

    I wasn’t intending to implying only competative players are the only ones concerned with points costs but they do seem to have an ability to be disproportionately loud about what they don’t like.

    Thanks for the feedback

    Martin

  3. I’m a 95% Axis infantry player (German/Hungarian/Italian). The whole experiment is based around tanks, the market BF pushes. The group in England, (Bun in Grad), started this rolling. I wish BF would’ve just went with their adjusted points. They cut the core costs of tanks with minimal adjustment to upgrade costs. AT guns were not addressed (Bun in Grad did), Marders were increased ridiculously, (1 point each I could live with, not 2). So now a Marder with FA2 costs more than a Sherman with FA6. That’s nuts. Let’s talk PaK40, PaK38, PaK36 w/stielgranate, PaK97-38 (75mm short), 47/32 Elefetino. Bun in Grad adjusted these; why not BF? All this has done is make me face more tanks with less AT capability. Get back to me BF when you want to do REAL BALANCE.

    1. Hi Lee,

      Thanks reading all this and whilst I understand some of your frustrations on this all I can day is have a little more patients and maybe we might more of what many would like to see happen.

      Martin

    2. I fully agree with you, the german car spam is not “that good” as other says in general and hard to play and need the experience to win, the problem with the game is that list building and points make auto-include units and the result is 2 playable list per fraction, the new BF points just kill 1 german list not given any other options, making points like that just tell players not take this platoons anymore. I don’t feel the need to waste my time on playtesting a game for BF in my free time there are so many other games to play … our community shrank a lot since the V3-V4 transition I don’t see how this can help the game besides making more complicated to new players. The really should make builder better cards should be autogenerated with current points. PPL who plays like 12-13y FoW ask me if the list they made is legal. How is this supposed to be easier than V3 ? I don’t want to sound like I want V3 back, no I like new rules from V4 but bring back 2000 point game cap and old lists-style building. Make some shade on units value.

  4. The whole point scale and point cost change from V3 to V4 has been screwed from the beginning. That, and making things so generic, lacking detail, dropping models from previous versions, all led to our group of 18 dissolving down to 4. Now, I’m last man standing, looking for a place to game. Ask me how many unusable command stand teams for HMG, Mortars, AT guns and Artillery I have.

  5. I think even the approach of BF is very carefull I like the idea. It didn´t adress all problem. Some are also deeper due to list building options that only point changes will never cover those (Armored Cars + Tiger abd similar issues) So as long as you keep it rather casual most points worked before.
    Simply adjudting the points may sound easy but BF messed it by themselve with the new army build.
    But it is a way in a good direction. Anyway better then a solution made by a single community, that is rather hard to commnuicate outside the competitive bubble. A lot of my local casual players don´t even knew BiG points, so why should we try to use those?

    FoW is a game played over the whole world so segrations of any kind a never the best solution.

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