cornishlee wrote:This is probably one of the oldest questions in miniatures game playing.
If you had an unlimited amount of gold/points/whatever to make up your army list then yes, the more expensive option would always be the best one.
But you don't.
Ultimately it's a decision best viewed from the point of view of the army as a whole, rather than the individual unit: I can have ten of these guys, who are OK but are pretty vulnerable as such a small unit. Or, I can have twenty of these guys, who aren't as good but if a few of them get killed, then so what? Or maybe even all of them can get killed if they've served their purpose (e.g. a single big attack or keeping the enemy away from more important troops for long enough for them to do whatever it is they have to do).
Sure but there are a lot of factors we can know about in advance of making the decision on where to spend those coins.
For example is a skill of 30/40/50 particularly good compared to the rest of the opponents they may face? Does getting another +10 actually improve their odds of hitting or avoiding being hit frequently enough to be worth it?
So, having a quick skim of another faction (Anglecynn) and, aside from some outliers like powerful characters or particularly low skill stuff like horses most opposition in there have skill in the 30/40/50 range. Gesith have 61 being the only non character in there to be so high.
Skimming the table on skill match ups and buying the +20 skill for 6 gold nets a +1 to the difficulty of scoring a hit only in the case of the attacker having a skill of 30 or worse. And vice versa if the Rhyfelwr were the ones attacking.
From the looks of the table and the range of stats that I'm seeing getting to the skill 40 range is a good idea defensively and offensively as it sits you in a position where the bulk of your opposition is not getting much benefit againt you and you don't suffer much against them, only the rare few particularly high skill models get anything against you there.
So...unless there are other major factors I should be considering I am thinking the +6 gold option is not worth it but taking them unupgraded is probably a waste as they're suffering all the negatives without really helping to keep the cost usefully down.