Dear Community,
I've compiled a list of all current Warmaster Revolution units from the armies currently available in the Compendium, plus the developmental Nippon list.
My reason for doing so is to see how unit types compare across different armies, and determine whether some units are under or over costed compared to others. It is entirely my opinion and not based on direct evidence from the game designer, simply an assessment of all data available to form conclusions.
I've based the comparisons around the "pip" system, counting each point of attack, each point of hits and each point of save as one "pip" on the unit profile. So for example Empire halberdiers have 3 attacks, 3 hits and a 6+ save, totalling 7 pips for 45 pts.
Most units are broadly equivalent at each pricing point, so a 30 pt unit (e.g. Skeletons) is usually one pip worse than a 45 point unit (e.g. Halberdiers), and two pips worse than a 60 point unit (e.g. High Elf spears).
At the same pricing point, pips are interchangeable between Attacks, Hits and Save. For example Orc Warriors 4/3/6+ are costed the same as High Elf Spearmen 3/3/5+ and both total 8 pips for 60 pts.
Cavalry appears to be costed as around +30 pts more expensive than the equivalent Infantry. I base this on the increase in cost between 8 pip Infantry (e.g Marauders at 60 pts) and 8 pip Cavalry (e.g Marauder Cavalry at 90 pts).
Shooting attacks added to infantry or cavalry are not counted as pips, but have a positive influence on the pricing.
A standard 30 cm shooting attack appears to be priced at around +20 pts per unit, although this is hard to deduce from Warmaster Fantasy units. For example, 7 pip Infantry cost 45 pts (Halberdiers) , 7 pip missile Infantry cost 75 pts (High Elves - but we don't know how much they pay for the +1 to hit rule. If we assume they pay +10 pts for +1 to hit then the shooting attack costs them +20 pts).
Luckily the Warmaster Ancients units provide more direct comparisons. I base this on the increase in cost between 6 pip Infantry (e.g Warband at 35 pts) and 6 pip Missile Infantry (e.g Crossbowmen at 55 pts).
A 15 cm shooting attack seems to be priced at around +5 pts per unit. I base this on the increase in cost between standard 8 pip cavalry (Marauder Cavalry 90 pts) and Empire Pistoliers (95 pts).
A 30 cm armour piercing shooting attack appears to be priced at around +30 pts. I base this on the increase in cost between 8 pip infantry (High Elves spears 60 pts) and Kislev Red Guard (90 pts), or 7 pip infantry (Clanrats 40 pts) and Jezzails (70 pts).
Special rules also influence the costing, so I've factored in whether or not special rules have a broadly positive, negative or neutral impact upon pricing.
For example, Ogres are the most common heavy infantry troop type at 105 pts for a 10 pip unit. However Ogres have a negative rule which reduces their cost, meaning a 10 pip unit would normally cost 110 pts, like Dwarf warriors, Black orcs, Rat Ogres, and Temple Guard.
The biggest anomaly seems to be the jump between 8 pip units, 9 pip units and 10 pip units. 8 pip units (like High Elf Spearmen or Orc Warriors) cost 60 pts. 10 pip units (like Black orcs or Dwarf warriors) cost 110 points. So this is a difference of +50 pts. So we might expect 9 pip units to fit somewhere in the middle of these two units and cost maybe 80 or 85 pts, which is roughly half way between the two pricing points. Except they don't, because 9 pip units only cost 75 pts (see Saurus Warriors, Bestigor, Daemon horde.) This means the increase from 8 pip to 9 pip is only costed at 15 pts, while the increase from 9 pip to 10 pip units is costed at 35 pts!
I can deduce from this that the correct pricing point for 9 pip units is 80 pts, showing a logical progression and scaling cost increase through the pips.
So I assume that the normal progression would be 7 pips to 8 pips costs +15 pts, 8 pips to 9 pips costs +20 pts, 9 pips to 10 pips costs +30 pts and so on.
The current pricing of 9 pip units breaks this chain so I assume they are slightly under costed.
I find it useful when I want to introduce a new unit to an existing list for a one off friendly game, to have the data available.
As well as the unit types I've summarised the available choices for each army for comparison.
This also takes in to account whether a particular army has to take units that are over or under priced as a compulsory choice.
Using my system, the vast majority of army lists come out as very well balanced, and even when there are extremely under or overpriced units within a list there are usually special army rules which mitigate this - for example the majority of Skaven infantry is intentionally under priced compared to equivalent units as Skaven have limited Command range and no units faster than Infantry!
Having said that, there are some lists that appear to have a lot of unbalanced units in them - Wood Elves especially seem to have a lot of under priced units including all their compulsory choices.
As I said this is just my opinion and should not be taken as hard facts - please use the data I have collected to form your own conclusions and agree, or disagree, with my findings.
