Unit Balancing

[vadersson]

Oooh, I like that idea. Maybe lasers should have more accuracy over range while heavy bolters fall off quicker. Not sure it is very much in tune with 40K, but it could be useful here. Something to consider...
Thanks,
Duncan

[ThvN]

I'm dropping in to give some impressions from the view of someone unfamiliar with WH40K. I'm not sure what the rules/units should be like compared to with the games, but my ignorance might help to show what kind of impression they make without biased expectations.

In general, I usually get into trouble after my assaulting units take some losses (even with extensive artillery prep) and there are still ranged Ork units firing every turn at them. I reinforce them back up to strength, but then their morale is already in the red and it will take a lot of turns to get it back to decent again, because every turn they lose just as much morale for being shot at as I can add. I often withdraw them when that happens, but if the scenario is short or there is little room (bridges, limited cover) this effectively removes them from the fight, which causes a cascade of fewer frontline units taking more damage.

For example, in mission 8 the massive Ork artillery makes it impossible to get morale up, there are just to many guns firing, causing only very few casualties but crippling my effectiveness. This is not a bad thing, but some scenarios are very close to the 'tipping point' where losing some strength turns it from 'doable without too many casualties' to 'meatgrinder'.

Without decent morale and almost full strength an infantry assault is usually futile, but shooting Orks out of cover with other units without taking more casualties or wasting turns is also virtually impossible. Cover is really strong as well. I can usually make a single effective assault, and then my units will be patched up, but some scenarios become really hard when every 'easy' assault ends in an Ogryn unit deep in the red and at half strength. When they finally get back in the fight it is virtually over already. It would be nice if succesful assaults would add a little morale or simply not cause a unit to lose it. Maybe 'Replacements' could add a little, while 'Rest & Refit' would add more.


Tanks
I end up buying only those Leman Russ versions that have those side sponsons with the 3rd weapon system. So far I get the impression that two versions are better in practice than others: the one with the plasma cannons in the side sponsons 'Leman Russ (weapon upgrade)' and the 'Annihilator (Upgrade A)'.

Some versions seem very bad, like the Conqueror, Demolisher, Eradicator and especially the Exterminator. I had high hopes of the Punisher, it seemed a good version for getting lots of kills on unprotected Ork infantry, but the Annihilator is usually better at that and much more versatile. Maybe it's just my perception, but after having tried all of them, some seem just a waste of Requisition points. So:

- the 'specialist' versions (I'm not sure what some of them are supposed to be used against) are either useful only in very rare circumstances or generally worse.

- version with side sponsons are much more useful.

I also tried the Destroyers and Thunderers, they are badly balanced in beta3. Sometimes the destroyer can be handy, but the lack of secondary weapons and with similar armour as the Leman Russ it is worse except when plinking at Ork tanks at long/medium range.

Infantry
Specialized assault units seem a bit weak (Flamers, Ogryns). I read that they will get a little boost, which seems like a wise decision. Heavy bolter support seems generally better than the other support choices.

Ratling snipers puzzle me: they cannot fire at short range, which limits their effectiveness immensely. My suggestion: make the Sniper rifle full range (0-4) or give them a weak 'secondary' weapon for short range (like an Autopistol).

Transports
Generally, the Gorgon is more effective than the infantry it carries. The Chimeras are decent already, but the Trojan seems like bad joke (yes I tried it): Double the cost, half the spotting, LESS than half the armament and slightly slower as well.

Vehicles
The Salamander scout is nice and is quite strong. The Command version puzzles me, I have no idea why it costs so much or what it does.

I would have expected the Hydra to be effective against infantry in the open, thanks to it quad autocannon and Heavy bolter, but the scout seems to outgun it.

Hellhound/Bane Wolf/Devil Dog: I'm not sure what role these units should have, an infantry unit with Chimera/Gorgon is cheaper and/or better. Bane Wolf seems useless, the Chem cannon does nothing and has little range. Hellhound is better, but my favourite is the Devil Dog because it has 4 spotting! So I'll take a Devil Dog as an upgrade for a scout, but that is all.

The Tauros(es) melt away too quickly in combat, and although the Venator is a decent 'sniper' , their low cost and high spotting are their only benefits. And this low cost is usually offset by the many replacements they need to be effective. So a Leman Russ is actually cheaper in the long run.

Artillery
A bit underwhelming, although the heavy bolter on most units is nice. I usually buy either Wyverns (against infantry) or those 'Armageddon pattern' Basilisks (long range), with an occasional Griffon. Medusa and Bombard seem specialized 'niche' units: Bombard feels worse than the Griffon, and the Medusa has the bad combo of short range and poor defense, and its effectiveness during missions drops like a stone.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to some of the changes that have been announced, I hope I'll learn to use the units a bit more as they are intended.

[vadersson]

Any mistakes that were made should be fixed, and pointing out these items is very helpful and important.

Got another one after doing some more research. The Ironclad Assault Launcher. These are melee helpers in 40K. They basically automatically launch assault grenades as the Dreadnought enters melee combat. The stat line in Armageddon is more like a missile launcher with a min range 1, long range 3 and Indirect ability. I would either change this to a range 0 low strength weapon, or just remove it and maybe bump the ironclad dreadnought up a bit in melee.

Thanks,
Duncan

[vadersson]

Ok, more data from the mine...

I found a few more weapons to add to the sheets so I continued the mining. I look forward to reviewing the next build.

First off lets talk AP. This is a bit hard, because in 40K, true armor penetration is based on both weapon S and weapon AP value. In addition vehicles and other units are dealt with differently. That makes developing AP values in this game harder.

Based on this, I do think that anything below an AP of 4 should have no pen value at all, unless the strength is high. Based on that, here are the weapons that I think need to have thier Armor Piercing strength taken to 0.
Shoota (AP 25% vs S4 AP6)
All Bolt Pistols and Bolters (AP 25% vs S4 AP5)

On the other end of the scale, anything with AP 1 or AP 2 should have a very large Armor Piercing value. Here are my worst offenders

Lascannons (AP 0% for now, this has changed I heard, vs S9 AP2)
Plasma Pistol and Skyspear Missile launcher (both 10% vs S7 AP2)
Demolisher Cannon and Medusa Siege Gun (AP 20% vs S10 AP 2!) Yes, both have Siege trait, but still need better AP.
Laser Destroyer (AP 30% vs S9 AP2)
All Melta weapons. (AP 0% vs S8, AP1, and special rules that give them double pentration against vehicles at half range.)
The Kustom Mega Blasta also seems a bit low (AP 30% vs S8 AP2)

These are just units that have a low AP, I did not check above an 35% AP change right now.

Thanks,
Duncan

[vadersson]

Ok, more data mining

Rate of Fire Analysis
63 of 112 weapons match the 40K stated ROF. 99 of 112 match with a deviation of 1 shot. The other 13 will be my focus here.

Punisher Gatling Cannon only 6 shots in game, but 20 in 40K. This is off the most. With it only being attack strength 40 (S4 AP-) it seems like it needs more shots.
GigaShoota only has 10 shots, where in 40K it is 6D6 shots for a range of 6 to 36 shots per turn. Of course I believe it can Jam in 40K and be rendered useless.
Skorchas - These are template weapons in 40K, and get 1 shot. Here they get 10 shots. That may be to cover the template nature of the weapon, but the other template weapons generally only get 3 or 5 shots. (Actually it is 2 Skorchas that get 10 shots while the regular Skorcha only gets 1. However all other 2x weapons in the template category do NOT get double shots. Might need to check that...)
Rattler Cannon - 15 shots vs 2D6 shots in 40K. Seems a bit much especially compared to the GigaShoota.
Vulcan Mega-Bolter - 10 shots vs 15 in 40K.
Base Heavy Bolter and Big Shootas - Both are 7 shots, but only ROF 3 in 40K. Might make them a little less OP.
Whirlwind (4 shots vs 1 shot 40K)
5 Big Shoots (6 shots but should have 15 per 40K unless twin-linked)
6 Heavy Bolters - 6 shots vs 18 40K
12 Hurricane pattern Bolters - This one is tricky. Each full Hurricane bolter is really 3 twin-linked bolters with rate of fire of 1 or 2 each. So an actual hurricane bolter has a RoF of 3-6. So is this 12 Hurricane arrays or just 2 Hurricane bolters which would be 6 Twin-linked botlers?

I need to revise my algorithm to cover the multiple weapon cases. I will fix that and update my analysis later.

Thanks,
Duncan

[Galdred]

I'm dropping in to give some impressions from the view of someone unfamiliar with WH40K. I'm not sure what the rules/units should be like compared to with the games, but my ignorance might help to show what kind of impression they make without biased expectations.

In general, I usually get into trouble after my assaulting units take some losses (even with extensive artillery prep) and there are still ranged Ork units firing every turn at them. I reinforce them back up to strength, but then their morale is already in the red and it will take a lot of turns to get it back to decent again, because every turn they lose just as much morale for being shot at as I can add. I often withdraw them when that happens, but if the scenario is short or there is little room (bridges, limited cover) this effectively removes them from the fight, which causes a cascade of fewer frontline units taking more damage.

For example, in mission 8 the massive Ork artillery makes it impossible to get morale up, there are just to many guns firing, causing only very few casualties but crippling my effectiveness. This is not a bad thing, but some scenarios are very close to the 'tipping point' where losing some strength turns it from 'doable without too many casualties' to 'meatgrinder'.

For mission 8, I passed the current version of it by making sure not to have any of my units withint 2 hex of an ork (3 of nobz and bikers). It is not always possible, but I think there were only 3 turns during which I got shot at.
This way, the AI does nothing during its turn, even though it should know your position from all the range 3 attacks it has taken. It is a problem btw : It feels quite cheesy, so the AI needs to scout more actively after being shot at, or needs more spotters.

Without decent morale and almost full strength an infantry assault is usually futile, but shooting Orks out of cover with other units without taking more casualties or wasting turns is also virtually impossible. Cover is really strong as well. I can usually make a single effective assault, and then my units will be patched up, but some scenarios become really hard when every 'easy' assault ends in an Ogryn unit deep in the red and at half strength. When they finally get back in the fight it is virtually over already. It would be nice if succesful assaults would add a little morale or simply not cause a unit to lose it. Maybe 'Replacements' could add a little, while 'Rest & Refit' would add more.

Tanks
I end up buying only those Leman Russ versions that have those side sponsons with the 3rd weapon system. So far I get the impression that two versions are better in practice than others: the one with the plasma cannons in the side sponsons 'Leman Russ (weapon upgrade)' and the 'Annihilator (Upgrade A)'.

Some versions seem very bad, like the Conqueror, Demolisher, Eradicator and especially the Exterminator. I had high hopes of the Punisher, it seemed a good version for getting lots of kills on unprotected Ork infantry, but the Annihilator is usually better at that and much more versatile. Maybe it's just my perception, but after having tried all of them, some seem just a waste of Requisition points. So:

- the 'specialist' versions (I'm not sure what some of them are supposed to be used against) are either useful only in very rare circumstances or generally worse.

- version with side sponsons are much more useful.

Same there. The Annihilator is much better than the other versions. I have not tried the weapon upgrade, though, as I find range 3 invaluable (as it is greater than ork spotting range).

I also tried the Destroyers and Thunderers, they are badly balanced in beta3. Sometimes the destroyer can be handy, but the lack of secondary weapons and with similar armour as the Leman Russ it is worse except when plinking at Ork tanks at long/medium range.

Indeed, they are plain horrible. Their main gun certainly does not make up for the loss of everything else, unless you only intend to engage at range 4(but as many ork heavy vehicles return fire from range 4, that hardly changes anything).
The destroyer needs to have his fallof range accuracy malus reduced to have some kind of a niche.

Infantry
Specialized assault units seem a bit weak (Flamers, Ogryns). I read that they will get a little boost, which seems like a wise decision. Heavy bolter support seems generally better than the other support choices.

Ratling snipers puzzle me: they cannot fire at short range, which limits their effectiveness immensely. My suggestion: make the Sniper rifle full range (0-4) or give them a weak 'secondary' weapon for short range (like an Autopistol).

I stopped botherede with guard infantry, except for command squads, heavy bolter support, and anti tank infantry. Command squads are miles ahead flamers and ogryns : They are more versatile, and can fire from range 2, have a higher spotting range.

Transports
Generally, the Gorgon is more effective than the infantry it carries. The Chimeras are decent already, but the Trojan seems like bad joke (yes I tried it): Double the cost, half the spotting, LESS than half the armament and slightly slower as well.

Gorgon and Land Raider make me wish transports were separate units. The gorgon is strong, but it get toasted quickly.

Vehicles
The Salamander scout is nice and is quite strong. The Command version puzzles me, I have no idea why it costs so much or what it does.

I would have expected the Hydra to be effective against infantry in the open, thanks to it quad autocannon and Heavy bolter, but the scout seems to outgun it.

Hellhound/Bane Wolf/Devil Dog: I'm not sure what role these units should have, an infantry unit with Chimera/Gorgon is cheaper and/or better. Bane Wolf seems useless, the Chem cannon does nothing and has little range. Hellhound is better, but my favourite is the Devil Dog because it has 4 spotting! So I'll take a Devil Dog as an upgrade for a scout, but that is all.

The Tauros(es) melt away too quickly in combat, and although the Venator is a decent 'sniper' , their low cost and high spotting are their only benefits. And this low cost is usually offset by the many replacements they need to be effective. So a Leman Russ is actually cheaper in the long run.

I cannot agree more. The lack of splash damage makes the hellhound and bane wolf useless. Infantry does more damage to them than they do to infantry, which is quite a problem for dedicated anti infantry vehicles. Devil Dog is good as spotting vehicle, and its weapon loadout is correct.

Artillery
A bit underwhelming, although the heavy bolter on most units is nice. I usually buy either Wyverns (against infantry) or those 'Armageddon pattern' Basilisks (long range), with an occasional Griffon. Medusa and Bombard seem specialized 'niche' units: Bombard feels worse than the Griffon, and the Medusa has the bad combo of short range and poor defense, and its effectiveness during missions drops like a stone.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to some of the changes that have been announced, I hope I'll learn to use the units a bit more as they are intended.

Completely agreed here. Once again, the lack of splash damage makes artillery useless (not hellhound useless, but as bad as the destroyer tanks) : They have too low AP and Strength to be of much use against vehicles (which was not their purpose in the first place), and the low RoF makes them horrible against infantry.
I would only take deathstrike batteries if I was allowed to purchase them.

Concerning the changes that were just made (beta 4), I have not tested them yet (just downloading), but I think it is a mistake to lower the Vulcan RoF (it is supposed to chew infantry and light vehicles, not to replace 2 heavy bolters). The issue might be that low St units deal damage to higher defence units too often (that also would explain why the Leman Russ versions that do not feature secondary sponson weapons suck, because the main gun cannot make up for the lack of secondary guns in this case).
Giving RoF 2 to the volcano feels "wrong". It should be a waste to use it against regular tanks. I would rather increase its accuracy, and decrease its fallof accuracy to something like 5 or even 2/hex, to make it more unique, and put its RoF back to 1.

[vadersson]

Ok, mining from the new build data.

Here are a couple issues for review.
There is an entry in the weapon table for Big Shoota double and another for 2 Big Shootas. They have exactly the same stats. Perhaps one could be eliminated?
There is a line for Missile Launcher and Missile Launchers that are identical. Another line is for 2 Missile Launchers.
There is both a Power Klaw and a Powerclaw line. I have never heard of a Powerclaw...
There are lines for Rokkit Launcha, Rokkit Launchas, and 2 Rokkits. The Rokkit Launchas and 2 Rokkits lines are identical.
What is a Soopagun? Is is on the Gargant, but don;t think that is right. Would that be a Supa-Kannon or Supa-Lobba?
There is both a Supa-kannon and Supa-Kannon line in the weapons file that are identical except for the K.
There are entries for Power Fist and Powerfist. Same stats.

In a similar vein, looking at the lines for multiples of the same gun, it seems that sometimes there are extra RoF and sometime higher attack strength. Is this the difference between Twin-linked and just two separate weapons? If so, the weapons sheet should probably show it.

More to come.
Thanks,
Duncan

[Galdred]

I have tested the volcano with fallof from range =-1 and shot=1 in the simulator and it really makes him perform well against other Titan weapons at range without making the plasma blast gun obsolete.
I don t think cost cutting will make any difference for the destroyer. It will still be 1 unit slot wasted, which is more important than its requisition cost. In order to make it useful, I think it should be made good at sniping too. I would up its accuracy and decrease its fallof malus too, so that it comes on top in a duel at range 3 against all purpose Leman Russ variants. Even if it costed half as much, I would not take it in its current form. I think 80 accuracy and -3 fallof range would be good to give it some prupose(or even -1 fallof).

It is not really a balance concern, but I find it weird that jump pack infantry cannot jump over terrain like river, or get up cliffs.

[Galdred]

With the rate of fire change of artillery(especially the Basilisk earth shaker cannon), it has become useful against infantry, but I fear it is now too good vs armor. A single battery of basilisks now deals about the same damage as an annihilator platoon without taking return fire against a battlewagon formation (armor 65).
My two basilisks batteries on act 2 mission 1 were able to destroy 2 mega dread in 1 turn and 2 other ork super heavy at another time (with unit count = 3).
I think low Strength attacks have a chance to damage which is too high against higher defence units, which contributes to make high shot units too powerful.

Some weapon entries just do not make any sense :
2 Lasers is Strength 75 1 shot
4 lasers is Strength 85 2 shots.
Either make 4 lasers strength 75 2 shots. A land raider with 2*2 lasers loses badly against one with 1*4 (it takes twice as much casualties as it inflicts) which makes little sense (either give it bonus for concentrated impact OR rate of fire, but not both).

Terminators are not supposed to be able to embark in Rhinos. They should only be able to board Land Raiders, but I suppose there is no chance of having Land Raiders as transports.
What is the point of the upgraded rhino? It costs a lot more than a simple rhino and has the exact same stats.
Assault Terminators suffer the same problem as other assault units without ranged weapons : They are mediocre at assault, and have zero versatility. Assault Cannon terminators win against assault terminators when assaulting. They are better at assaulting super heavy and titans, but I cannot say whether they make sense as titan hunters (they do not inflict that much damage considering the risk they have to take).
I don't agree with the vulkan mega bolter nerf at all. It makes Warhound Titan useless :
It will inflict on average 4 kills against ork shoota boyz, when heavy bolter support would inflict 6 and BA devastators 9, and a Reaver Battle Titan 11.
Given the price of the Warhound, that hardly seems like a good deal.
The Warhound scout Titan currently serves no purpose :
It cannot scout better than the Reaver (Sight 3, move 4 for both), comes with a now useless mega bolter, and an OKish plasma gun. I wish it had lower defense, and higher move, damage, and spotting range, to give it his purpose of scout/skirmish titan back.
With the nerf to Mega Bolter, a squadron of StormLords inflicts less damages than a squadron of shadowswords with weapon upgrade at range 3 (and that is after I nerfed the volcano back to single shot).

[Galdred]

the guard tank units are useless in campaigns 2 and 3 : Their low count makes them unable to deal significant damage to the ork super heavies.
I suggest allowing upgrading their size in campaign 2, to 7 or 8 to match Space Marines tanks.

[Galdred]

So to sum it up :
Titan suggestions
Weapons
Mega Bolter Vulcan back to 10 shots. Maybe reduce Macharius unit count to 2?
Gatling Blaster to 65 Strength, so that it is between Laser Blaster and Mega Bolter (the goal is to have MB>Gatling>Laser Blaster against infantry, and MB<Gatling<Laser Blaster against super heavies so that they all have their purpose).
Gatling Blaster range back to 4 (Otherwise, the Reaver can only use all of its weapons at range 3, which makes its utility questionable).
Volcano : back to 1 shot, but accuracy = -1 instead of -10. Increase Base Accuracy ofthe Shadowswords.
Quake cannon Rate of fire = 2 because it shoulve have a small blast

Titans
Warhound Scout Titan :
Defense 100 (was 120)
Move 5 (was 4)
Spot 4 (was 3)
Rationale : So that it is a scouting Titan

Reaver :
Unchanged

Warlord :
add 2 weapon systems (GatlingBlaster or Laser Blaster, or Turbo Laser Destroyers, which is the standard loadout).
move down to 3

[Galdred]

other weapon changes :
4 lasers = same as 2 laser, but 2 shots, that would make 4 laser tanks more reasonable (upgraded Shadowsword, Land Raiders). Currently, 4 lasers is way too good compared to 2*2 lasers.
Make Heavy Bolters more consistent : 4 lasers are much better than 2*2, while 4 heavy bolters are much less efficients than 2*2. This is very confusing for little benefits.
Decreased range accuracy malus on the laser destroyer (so that it serves some purpose), and increased base accuracy on the Destroyer.
Raise the cost of the Shadowsword with upgraded weapons. it's the onlysuper heavy with that many additional weapons, and they make a huge difference. I wish there were a version of the other superheavy variants with 4 lascannons.

LightningClaws up to 3 attacks? Assault Terminators need some help. They are only better than the other termies at assaulting super heavies and titans, but it's not a role they are very efficient at. Assault Cannon terminators perform better against most infantry units.

[Galdred]

I think the nerf to infantry cover is a bit too strong now that most blast weapons had their shot count increased. It is now a bit too easy to dispatch infantry (even without mega bolter : The upgraded Basilisks are good at ruining them, as are massed heavy bolters, or even massed lascannons), except for the mega armored nobs who refuse to die at all.
And on top of that, it still makes anti cover weapons redundant, despite their number of shots (why invest in Hellhounds or demolisher cannons, when you can just pepper entranched infantry with heavy bolter fire and artillery?).
I would give infantry its 75% max cover back, and make anti cover weapons more attractive.
The ork Gargants look like small stompers. I noticed the stompa was a Gargant when it toasted my fresh Reaver in a single turn...
Regardless of weapon balance, I don't like the loadout of the titans at all :
The Vulcan Mega Bolter is an anti inf weapon, while the plasma cannon is mostly anti super heavy. There are very few targets against which both come handy (it is very different from the Annihilator tanks, where the sheer number of laser shots fired make them good at anti infantry).
I'd rather have 2 variants of titans, one geared for anti titan warfare, and the other one for anti infantry.
They currently are poor at both jobs (this is true for the reaver too. It needs to choose between Laser Blasters and Gatlings).

[Galdred]

Melee units are bad. They usually perform worse than generic units even when assaulting, and sacrifice a lot for carrying their assaut weapons in a game where not being able to retaliate turns the unit into a bullet magnet. The nerf to cover made them even less useful
Assault terminators are worse than assault cannon or cyclone terminators, except when attacking super heavies, where they suck a bit less than other terminators (they still are not very good at it).
Same for Ogryns, they may hit a bit harder than Steel Legion Company Command, but that does not make up for their slow move, lack of retaliations from range...
Don't even get me started on flamer guards... They are too flimsy to do anything useful
Space Marines Assault Centurions perform worse than Devastator centurions even when assaulting( vs SKullhamma BattleFortress : melta assault centurins : expected cas = 1(4), expected damage = 0(5), devastator Centurions with grav cannons : expected cas = 1(4), expected damage = 1(13)...
Space Marine Assault also serve little purpose as they lack the punch to engage armored opponents and infantry is not a problem anymore with the cover nerf.
Melee units need more speed , armor or attacks to make up for their lack of versatility. Not having weapons to shoot with before assaulting greatly penalizes them.

[duckEfuzz]

Apologies if this has been mentioned.

Space marine typhoon and tempest same price but tempest has shorter ranged assault cannon.

Thx.

[Galdred]

Apologies if this has been mentioned.

Space marine typhoon and tempest same price but tempest has shorter ranged assault cannon.

Thx.

Actually, the assault cannon has double the rate of fire of the heavy bolter. It just is not shown on unit stat.

Devastator centurions
Devastator centurions with Graviton cannon seem overpowered to me : on average, they remove half the HP of a reaver Titan or half a squadron of Land Raiders while suffering minimal casualties. The rof of the graviton cannon seems to be the main culprit, or its strong Strenghth and AP. They also murder assault centurions or terminators.
I don t know the stats of their graviton cannon in 40k, but I think they need To be nerfed.
Edit: I tested the dev centurions gravcannon and even with the rof reduced to 1, they outperform all other SM infantry units (including assault terminators and assault centurions assaulting at range 1). But at least they don t overshadow them completely anymore(they are more expensive after all...)

[thepuffin]

Re: Grav Centurions: this is one of the areas where they seem to have got the stats correct (at least compared to the tabletop game). Grav weapons are high RoF weapons designed for doing damage to heavily armoured targets. Where they should fail (and perhaps don't in this game) is against low armoured horde armies (like Orks!) as the Grav weaponry is not very effective in that situation.

[Galdred]

I have just read the weapon rules for grav cannon, this one is tricky to get right : it has no problem against hordes of opponents either (it only wounds on armor save in the TT,correct? So it should wound non armored orks on 6+?).
The problem here is that :
They have no problem against light infantry (but it is a waste of their potential)
They can retaliate against each attack(as every unit), so attacking them with 5 bands of gretchins will just result in little damage for them and all 5 bands of gretchins down 15 grots each.
So they murder assault units with ease too.
Another fix would be to make centurions a 6 unit instead of 10, and double the number of attacks of assault drills, make heavy bolter centurions carry 2 single HB instead of a 2 HB, and give them support because otherwise they are useless.
And up the cost/unit too.

[thepuffin]

Yes, Grav weapons wound on the value of the opposing unit's armour save.

So against a unit of orks at salvo range you maybe roll 9 shots, hit on 3's for 6 hits, then wound on a 6 for a total of 1 dead Ork (probably costing next to no points in a unit of 30).

Against a unit of heavily armoured orks with the equivalent of terminator armour (2+) those 6 hits turn into 5 dead Orks (and those are 5 expensive and powerful Orks in a unit of 5, too).

Your example is wrong, btw, the Gretchin are basically immune to the grav weapon while if the Gretchin can put out enough shots, the Centurions will fall to weight of shot as there is so few Centurions.

Incidentally, this is why I asked the devs whether weapons had split profiles because there is such a clear divide on the tabletop between weapons that are good against armour, heavy infantry and light infantry. Let's not even talk about Sternguard or other models with the Poisoned (2+) rule

[zakblood]

game balancing only comes with both sides buying the same type of units.

if the orc's only want a mixed bag of units, with most being light or infantry ones, a all tank set up from the other sides not only makes it a one sided battle, but again totally unfair, i have no objection to limiting myself to how many of one type i can buy, as the engine used didn't eg:

last battle i bought are first selling all unit i could, 3 of the best titans, then all the tank i could, the last one in the list, if memory serves me right that's 35 odd supper heavy tanks, 3 titans and a few other red units i couldn't sell, so no infantry apart from those i couldn't sell that is and i rolled over the orc's as if they wasn't there, anything of mine that got destroyed i just replaced and moved back into the line with, yes you have guessed it, another tank

balanced, no

challenge, no

fun, YES