Points values

[Zinkala]

Am I correct that there is no points value calculator like for FWC? Looking through the lists there's things that make me wonder how the values are calculated. Does anyone have a list of what points are used? I know I've read some of them like what recce and recce support should add. The specific example I'm looking at right now is a choice between a Stuart V and Humber IV. They have the same stats except the Stuart is faster but also 15 points cheaper (105 to 90). Is there some advantage to the AC over AFV I'm missing?

Years ago I was one of the main people answering questions about points values for a game and I don't really want to dive deep into that again trying to resolve people's questions to small percentages. I'm also not hung up on exact points any more. The way my dice roll a few points out of thousands isn't going to help me. But I kind of like consistency and knowing how things are calculated.

[Big Insect]

Correct there is no BKC or CWC points calculator and ... I'd be very careful abought the FWC calculator, as it is full of bugs.
The FWC app is hard-coded so we cannot get into it to correct it or break it apart to understand why it works the way it does. Pendraken 'inherited' it from the original rules author (who also didn't have the access codes).

Sultanbey has his own carefully crafted view of how the points work, and I am aware he's adjusted some of them in some of his lists - but it is alchemy not science (at present).
The Stuart v Humber is probably an error in that back in BCKIII most of the A/Cs were automatically classified as Recce and that got accidentally carried over into BCKIV lists. Most were picked up as they were screamingly obvious. But it might be that this is one we missed. If all the stats are the same for both vehicles and (other than the movement) there is no difference, it might well be the movement - but I am not convinced that that is the issue or even if the Humber should be slower than the Stuart?

There is an intention to look at new points calculators for all 3 sets of rules - at some point in the future.
However, be warned, that that would probably require a massive adjustment to nearly all the army lists ... and you may not like what is 'thrown up' in the process 

[Zinkala]

I understand the issues having dealt with it myself. I was the newcomer when helping update a ruleset for a new book over 10 years ago. I was willing to tackle points values and list checking. I also inherited a buggy excel file to help checking things.  Became an expert on that system and despite some people thinking it was broken decided that other than a couple things I disagreed with and a few errors (and our reprint added as many errors as we corrected) the original author had done an excellent job. Then spent a couple of years fielding people's questions on why the points were that way and theories on how to fix it. Came to the conclusion that while I like points values as a guide in my games a couple points difference here and there won't make or break a game for me.

I'm new enough to BKC that I probably wouldn't be upset about changes. I barely know how anything is right now and half or more of what I'm using is from Sultanbey's lists.  Just checked and ACs are wheeled so I guess the Humber would be a lot faster than the Stuart on a road but slower cross country. Sounds reasonable but I don't know how that works for points. Recce version of the Humber is 105 and other is 85 so that matches with what I read about values for recce and recce support in another thread. And when I check the Stuart recce version is 90 and non recce 75. I'll just try to not worry about exact points for now. We seem to forget some of the rules every game anyhow. Last game we were so into a nasty flanking manouver he did to me we both forgot to use our off board artillery for 2 turns. Worse for me because I don't get nearly as many shooting attacks as he does with SS troops.

[fred.]

I was will Came to the conclusion that while I like points values as a guide in my games a couple points difference here and there won't make or break a game for me.

Good approach! I too have played around a lot with points, even reverse engineering them in the past for games, and creating calculations myself.

At best I think points systems become a guide. It is examples like this where you have two very closely statted units, that can make you question things. I also find that for things you will only field the odd one of, the points are much less important than ones you might field lots of (like Infantry or Shermans).

[Zinkala]

Good approach! I too have played around a lot with points, even reverse engineering them in the past for games, and creating calculations myself.

At best I think points systems become a guide. It is examples like this where you have two very closely statted units, that can make you question things. I also find that for things you will only field the odd one of, the points are much less important than ones you might field lots of (like Infantry or Shermans).

I agree.  I do like to know the reasoning behind the values picked and have the points applied equally to everybody. And all of it is moot if you have a game like we played today.

Oldest only has class half a day for the rest of the year and I was done chores in the morning. We were playing pursuit with me as the defender. I thought I was smart and set up a mirror image map, dug in in the center and had trucks ready to run either way. He flanked me all along the edge, rolled a pile of snake eyes and killed most of my trucks in the first turn. I took out a few of his sdkfzs with opportunity fire from my dug in anti tank guns nearest him and choked on most of my command rolls. The only successes were suppressing one panzer IV and 3 of my platoons loaded into their trucks. 2nd turn he again got several snake eyes and managed to kill half my infantry still in the trenches and a small settlement. Highlights of my turn were killing one of his infantry platoons with opportunity fire and most of a company of halftracks with some very lucky artillery. Then 2/3rds off my HQs again failed their command rolls. 3rd turn he shot up my infantry that had been sitting in the village in their trucks for 2 turns. I failed the break roll and it was game over. I'd killed 8 of his units and he killed 16 of mine. Not a single unit of mine had made a move towards the edge like they were supposed to. Being the gracious winner he is, he nearly died laughing at my bad luck and his good. Most of my units didn't even get one action while half of his got 3 or more each turn.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

No points calculator - not stricly true Mark, there is a spread sheet I put together which I sent to Leon some time ago, but it's for CWC. Should be easy enough to add WWII stuf to it.

[Big Insect]

No points calculator - not stricly true Mark, there is a spread sheet I put together which I sent to Leon some time ago, but it's for CWC. Should be easy enough to add WWII stuf to it.

Then I am correct Ian  There is no points calculator for BKC.

We are building a new one for CWC from scratch (work is underway on that ahead of the release of CWCII)

[sultanbev]

"Sultanbey has his own carefully crafted view of how the points work, and I am aware he's adjusted some of them in some of his lists - but it is alchemy not science (at present)."

Au contraire, I try to stick to the points values as show in the book as much as possible, and only overwrite glaringly obvious ones. I'll add 20pts for a unit that can recce, if it's not already in the list as a recce type, or counterwise deduct 20pts if a recce type vehicles is not in a recce unit. It becomes a struggle when I've to add pieces of kit that aren't in the original list, which happens quite often. Crusader AA tanks for example, I've just left as ??. What is surprising is the amount of commonly used weapons that have been left out of the lists, eg 3.7" AA, 203mm B4 off-table, GrB39, Crusader AA tanks assorted, M3A3, M5A1 Stuart, Valentine AVLB, 10cm K18, 17cm K18.

The main issue at the moment are infantry costs, just dropping two stats by one, eg A/T from 4/30 to 3/30 and CA4 to CA3 can half the points almost. It's the subtle variations inbetween - eg a well equipped unit with lots of LMGs but is barely trained and committed to action halfway through it's basic training, or a unit with only rifles and an occasional LMG that is particularly aggressive and motivated. Although having literally twice as many infantry units of poor quality versus reasonable quality isn't in itself wrong.

Engineers - you've lost me there - assuming all German Pioneer units had flamethrowers but only 3 LMG per platoon has made points calculations difficult to say the least.

Having had plenty of experience with points values in the past, I know what a nightmare it can be.
I could sit down and type all the stats into one excel spreadsheet and work out the formula, but it would take a month of Sundays and I do have a will to live.
The only thing we know for sure is Exposed (open-topped armour) is -20pts, and having recce ability adds 20pts, although sometimes only adds 15pts.
Each 10 difference in range of weapons added together, is worth 5pts, judging by Daimler II and Humber IV and "Humber 2pdr" {whatever that is} stats.

As for the British recce, the Stuart V (and Stuart VI) aren't even in the original rule book. The second most common tank in NW Europe is actually missing, the lists only include the Stuart III Honey (M3A1 in US parlance). The M3A3 and M5A1 (Stuart V and VI respectively) should have 3 hits armour save 5, not 6, as they were better armoured than the Staghound, which has 3 hits at 5 to save. I have left the stats the same as the Stuart III in my lists for now, but it is a serious oversight.

One of the things I did change was equipping late war British 2pdr, 6pdr ands 17pdr with HE, as a lot of the in-book stats show only A/I factors for machine guns only. Whilst it is true some 17pdr Firefly's had little HE from June 1944 (one unit reporting only 6 rounds per tank in August 1944), all the rest were quite common. Although it doesn't seem to alter the points value, judging by the Daimler II entry for NW Europe and the Far East.

Comparing the Humber IV to the Daimler II and Stuart III, yes, it's point value is too high.

[Leon]

I'd have liked a points calculator and talked to Pete Jones about it a long time ago, but he never made one originally and adjusted the points roughly to what he thought that they should be. 

We should be able to use the CWC/FWC one in theory but it might end up with quite a lot of changes to the BKC lists that might cause some problems!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

In our large games we tend not to use points but rather follow the TOE for units. The thing I wrote had lists for most NATO front line stuff, including such major forces Portugese. It worked well but was a tad tedious to add to.

On HE there are several myths - 1st the 2pdr didn't have it - absolutely wrong but British tanks didn't have it issued, since the co-axial MG would have more effect. Same applied to the Honeys. Also 1/2 the Damiler armoured cars in NW Europe didnt carry it as they had Little John attatchments and could not fire it.

Pointing up stuff in BKC, and CWC is difficult because it's a top down system, and only uses comparisions rather than actual data. Overall it woerks well as is even if some things are wrongly costed. I would like to see the points value of artillery increased as it's very effective at a low cost.

[Zinkala]

What we've been doing is using historical (at least theoretical) TO&Es with the points values. I don't have the info on exactly what numbers and equipment were used in each battle or care to be limited to only strictly replaying history but like to be plausible. Most of the scenarios have us using different points for our forces as well and I'm not sure how well that balances either. Good positioning definitely helps but being outnumbered by better troops is difficult.  Even though I've expanded my minis to include some of practically everything option the canadians and 12th SS had we tend to play with a core of 2-3 infantry companies and then other stuff to fill out the points.

Like sultanbev says there's a lot of equipment missing from the book. It's completely understandable because of the shear range of equipment used. Time and space is limited. But it'd be nice to have a solid guide to designing your own stats and points for the missing pieces for people like me who like having all the options. God help me when I start expanding my germans beyond one division in one year.  At least the canadians were pretty standardised, relatively small and I'm only doing 1 year of them. Unless I decide to do Italy.

Another thing I was curious about was generating stats for on table artillery compared to it's off table counterpart. That's another can of worms. Most of the German artillery has both somewhere in the lists but a lot of the other countries don't. I suppose some of the big guns wouldn't even be usable at the ranges represented on the table top. Still interesting for something like a battery getting overrun scenario.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I agree it's a lot of things to figure out.

[sultanbev]

"another thing I was curious about was generating stats for on table artillery compared to it's off table counterpart. "

Yes, in the unit specific lists I have been doing over on the Wargames Vault I have put some in, where I've read combat reports of units being forced to use them for direct fire. So M7 Priests, 105mm M2A1, 155mm M1, 75mm pack howitzers, 105mm M3A1, 155mm M2 Long Tom have been done for example, along with some German and Soviet weapons. I'll keep it in mind for future lists though.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Mark any gun can be used in direct fire, but things like Long Tom and the 5.5" generally don't - to valuable to be in the front line.

[sultanbev]

Aye, I know, but they were overrun more often than we realise and thus getting a parting few shots before being wiped out, or brought up to the front line and used to demolish bunkers/strongpoints from very close range, eg 155mm M2 used in leui of M12s on the Siegfried line, and the 5.5" used at pointblank in Burma; and all Russian field pieces were trained as anti-tank guns, if I remember rightly some Soviet statistics fan had done the maths and worked out if the battery fought to the last it would cost the enemy more than if the battery upped sticks and fled to possibly fight another day (aka it's a bit hard to outrun a Panzer III with a horse drawn 122mm howitzer  )
Also the German 10cm K18 was deliberately used as anti-KV gun in 1941, and often appeared in direct fire roles (eg at Arnhem).

T'is true, these are often examples of single guns being deployed, rather than whole batteries, but wargamers being what they are, someone will want to reflect it in some game or other 

[Zinkala]

Aye, I know, but they were overrun more often than we realise and thus getting a parting few shots before being wiped out, or brought up to the front line and used to demolish bunkers/strongpoints from very close range, eg 155mm M2 used in leui of M12s on the Siegfried line, and the 5.5" used at pointblank in Burma; and all Russian field pieces were trained as anti-tank guns, if I remember rightly some Soviet statistics fan had done the maths and worked out if the battery fought to the last it would cost the enemy more than if the battery upped sticks and fled to possibly fight another day (aka it's a bit hard to outrun a Panzer III with a horse drawn 122mm howitzer  )
Also the German 10cm K18 was deliberately used as anti-KV gun in 1941, and often appeared in direct fire roles (eg at Arnhem).

T'is true, these are often examples of single guns being deployed, rather than whole batteries, but wargamers being what they are, someone will want to reflect it in some game or other 

Interesting.  The 155mm Long Tom and 5.5" were both guns I was thinking about as I have them. 25 pdrs already have on table stats.  I like having options even if they were rare as long as it isn't too extreme. The way my canadians have been playing getting the heavy artillery over run is probably the next stage. Maybe it's time to call them Polish or British reinforcements to change my luck.

I have several of your BKC lists already and used them as the basis for my expanded Canadian Army lists (4th Canadian Armoured Division, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and II Canadian Corps and Army support). Pus the majority of the organisational info was from your non BKC  lists for them. I've spent a lot more on your lists than I have on material to 3D print my armies.